Portsmouth’s first beat coffee house
1964 small dark cramped
black long-sleeves sweaters with turtlenecks
blue jeans
I own no blue jeans mother would not permit it
work clothes are civilian copies of Army khakis
I cannot afford to dress like a beatnik
hell I can’t even afford a Winter insulated coat
for months at a time I live on bread and milk
a small stage for poetry reading
a girl sings folk songs plays acoustic guitar
coffee cocoa soft drinks
a friend tries Mescaline not me
Roger and my fiancée and I sit at a small table
This is before all the sadness
leaving the University Roger works in a knitting mill
then New Hampshire’s textile industry flees south
he supports his brother and sisters
he coaches a fellow worker how to study
in dawn’s dim light reads Waste Land
baseball in New Hampshire is the big sport
post-high school town leagues are the center of the game
even after the arrival of television
eventually he becomes a sports writer
he regales us with stories of baseball
recites endless baseball statistics.
He is so poor he makes me feel middle class
invites me to visit his home up north
a short road into the woods up a mountain
a small log and plank cabin
a low roof and ceiling few windows
bedrooms for parents and for his two sisters
mills shut down lumber textiles shoes gone
you don’t move up you grab at seasonal jobs to slow the fall
a packed dirt floor level and clean
cold in winter on bare feet I imagine
no paintings on walls only scattered books
we are roommates our second year
before we know we don’t see what we look at
he reads everything, remembers everything
I don’t read, I re-read, I don’t live, I relive.


Ron Tobey grew up in north New Hampshire, USA, and attended the University of New Hampshire, Durham. He farms in West Virginia. He writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. As an imagist poet, he expresses experiences and moods in concrete descriptions in haiku, free verse storytelling, audio poetry, and in filmic interpretation. He was a finalist in Cleaver Magazine 40th Anniversary Flash Fiction Contest. Ron is active on X @Turin54024117

Watching the weightlifting contest
and nibbling on cotton candy,
she was oblivious to the goat chewing
on the back hem of her yellow skirt
and the nearby snickering boys.
When she paused munching,
so did the goat, and when she resumed,
it followed suit. She had no inkling
until she felt its fearless tug, and heard
the boys in stitches. She turned around
and was in a state of consternation
at the sight of a yellow bearded goat
before recognizing the strip of fabric
hanging from its mouth. Her hand,
still gripping the cone of cotton candy,
dropped to her side. The goat snatched
a chunk. Alarmed, she let it fall
and rushed toward the exit gate.
The goat bounded over the fluff
and trailed her, weaving through
the crowds. She stopped momentarily,
unzipped her skirt and flung it down,
hoping this would distract the goat,
but it was smitten and would not be
deterred. Soon she heard a painful bleat
and looked over her shoulder.
It was on its side next to a miniature trolley,
upright but derailed. Still in her slip,
she crouched down and stroked its head.
She extended the back of her other hand
to its snout and let the goat lick
her fingers still sticky from cotton candy
while she pleaded with her eyes
for anyone to help.


Philip Wexler has some 220 magazine poem credits.  His full-length poetry collections include The Sad Parade, The Burning Moustache, The Lesser Light, With Something Like Hope and I Would be the Purple. Bozo’s Obstacle will be released later this year.  He also hosts Words out Loud, a poetry reading series.

Losing sight of myself,
              losing my way,
covering up
         even as I come in

the door. Hi, sweetie,
I’m home, but
I’m elsewhere.
How could she ever

understand? I didn’t plan,
            or mean for it
to work out this way.
             She is self-assured

bright eyed, optimistic,
           mistaken
about nothing except me,
           her rock.

How’s my honey? I want
            to know, and she’s all
over me before my hat is off.
             That’s worth something,

wouldn’t you say?
            You’re a feast
for sore eyes, babe.
With her spatula

and the smell of meatloaf
              filling the house,
she rubs her bare leg
against me.

There are worse things,
                  I tell myself
than to be misplaced, mistook
                 for what I’m not.

One can compensate, cope
                survive,
and even carry on.
Ain’t that so, pumpkin?

It’s terrifying. That is poetry.
I write between two doors, all
all of a sudden, like that woman
who started to scream.
Joyce Mansour

     You go to a performance art event at a gallery, and there’s
your ex-girlfriend standing in a small room, alone,
     against a white wall, screaming.

     The sign tacked to the door says SCREAMING, so you figure
that’s the name of the piece or maybe just a description
     of what’s happening, or they’re the same thing.

     She fills the gallery with gut-piercing, soul-destroying screaming
at a Nobel Prize-winning level of decibels.You had no idea she was
     so talented; even your most flamboyant

      lamp-smashing, guns-cocked arguments were nothing like this.
She affords you not a glance, but seems beyond perception,
     screaming in a state of trance, like a dervish

     or a man hanging from a pole by metal points through his chest,
in a realm deep in the transcendent side of normal endurance.
     A note says “Don’t touch the screamer,”

     but you open your ex-girlfriend like a door and step inside her as a martyr
into a singing blade, and you’re screaming together,
     and this is your poem.


Fredric Koeppel lives in Memphis, stays at home, tries to manage a pack of rescued dogs, cooks and writes the wine review website biggerthanyourhead.substack.com. He has had poems, stories and novel excerpts published in Painted Bride Quarterly, Iowa Review, Many Mountains Moving, New World Writing, Moving Force Journal, Bare Knuckle Poet, Right Hand Pointing and other print and online journals. 

because Pete the Tramp lived there and we didn’t want to get into his clutches,
     but we did! yes, we did!, we wanted to wrap our belongings

in an old bandanna and hang the bundle from a long stick and go over
      to the railroad tracks and hunker with Pete the Tramp

around his fire and eat beans out of a tin can. Maybe have a smoke.
      The tracks ran alongside an area of large warehouses,

and since we never found Pete the Tramp – because parents lie – we created
      this game: We shinnied up the drain pipes

to the long sloping roofs and ran around and danced around, whooping
     like a pack of heathens. I was nine, bookish, cloud-struck,

enamored of heroics from reading Classics Illustrated comics my mother
      brought home every payday. Our most reckless feat

was to get a running start and jump across the alleys from one warehouse
      roof to the next. We would fling ourselves into the sky,

flail in mid-air, feel the throne of gravity tremble for a helpless second
      and land with a thud that took our breath away,

as if at the end of a long journey. We did this on weekends, my friends
      and I, until, on a Sunday afternoon, a kid named Jimmy

missed his footing, fell to the cobblestones, broke both legs,
      and that was the end of that.

The day I discovered I had a panic button
right in me, but what? where? In the rib-waist section
but funnily it eludes the exact pin-
point my pressing fingers unlock to the logical conclusion,
either that this is a useless panic button
or it’s abstract; in any case unreachable, too sudden
in case of a shudder. Who needs a panic button
anyway but me? No one will come to my rescue but my own
resilience to panic. Test your strength! horns
in panic, see what you can do with war or a run-in
with your boyfriend. See if you can swoop on
the butter to restore a feeling of dispassion
around your belly button.
Maybe try serene
cooperation with your breath, in out and down.
Heed what you were told at jiu jitsu, run
instead of applying some deadly grip; implement
a harai goshi takedown and the police walks in.
That’s what happened with the boyfriend, only persuasion
and deep breaths dissuaded them of their resolution
to force out the bully. Yes, I was the one.
See, being strong in mind and body doesn’t help with pain
but it sure does help with angst, when survival is in question.
Kant’s categorical imperative might save my Zen:
if I don’t allow my panic to vanquish me, or if I feign,
I won’t infect others in my circle and so we stay immune.
It might have worked that way in the shelter earlier on
this week, chatting with the neighbors. On our run
there, the sky lit up with explosions of missiles coming in.
I didn’t know the reason for my calmness then.

Jacqueline Schaalje has published poetry and short fiction, most recently in Five South, Wildfire Words, and The Ocotillo Review. She won the 2022 Florida Review Editor's Prize and has been a finalist in a few other competitions.

I first caught sight of you
down at the river’s edge,
you with your tousled
hair and crooked grin;
you had a paper boat,
and it was sailing along
as if it were made
of much sterner stuff,
and I looked at you in awe,
looked at the boat in awe;
I’d never seen paper
survive in water before;
so, perhaps that’s how
we ended up, you and I,
engaged,
married,
having a child—
because I thought
you could make paper
float; thought you could take
something of little substance
and make it sail a pirate’s sea,
but you didn’t know how
to take the paper of us,
shape it,
waterproof it,
set it upon water;
so, we shredded
into a million soggy pieces
and stuck to the sides
of the muddy bank.


Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio, teaches English for Clark State College, and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

I thought I’d scrubbed
every piece of you,
all returned to its place
of origin—
and so, I dusted my hands,
glad to be rid of the residue,
swept the floors,
polished the glass,
lived in a new way
between darkness and sunlight,
keeping the pain at bay,
until I found the set of pink cups
you bought—those cheap plastic ones
that we drank from a thousand times,
the ones that held not just drinks
but memories of your hands curved
around the edges as we read,
watched shows, existed in peace;
I had forgotten about them,
forgotten about their place
on the top shelf,
until I opened the cabinet door
and wished like hell
I could un-find them.

I stretched my lips tight,
because that’s what the clerk did
when I bought Powerade.
I threw it away when my friends said
Gatorade was better.

Their words spill out
in a single breath,
but I always stutter,
choking on the air
that fills my lungs.
I don’t know how to cough it out,
so I laugh instead.

I learned how to cry
from watching a girl
get dumped in a park
but I don’t know when
I’m supposed to do it.

Most emotions I feel,
I borrowed from movies.
The rest are from books,
but I don’t know how they look,
so I can’t release them.

I don’t think I’m good at this.
People must know how alien I am,
but that’s okay.
I’ll keep watching,
and maybe, if I try long enough,
I can be like them.


Ethan McKnight is a young poet currently based in San Diego, California. He is pursuing a degree in Business at San Diego Christian College. He draws inspiration from his diverse range of interests, including music, comic books, and other poets. His work has been published in The Maudlin Press. You can find more of his work on Instagram: @Gunnerman27.

Dropping this pen, 
is like locking my casket. 
I’ll choke on a misplaced period, 
instead of gagging up the comma, 
that would’ve continued my story. 
My limbs will bloat, 
filling with unwritten words 
that couldn’t escape.

The foul stench of a half-lived life 
will disappear into the air.

Demons will try 
to push their way out,  
leaving an array of colors 
on my once succulent skin. 

Once they fail, 
they’ll slowly suck out: 
the hyperbole, 
metaphors, 
and allegories, 
that were meant to be 
their exorcisms. 

They’ll laugh and swallow
until there’s nothing left
but bones, 
which they’ll use 
to pick my lifeline from their teeth. 

And this is why
I’d rather be cremated.
With my body, 
welcoming the flames 
and my demons—trapped;
choking on endless line breaks, 
and exorcising themselves
through the smoke. 

Then you can scatter me 
in the ocean. 
Unspoken words 
will leave my ashes 
and tell stories 
within the waves.

So please, 
never let me stop writing 
because the life 
that could be saved, 
might just be mine.

Jasmine Gonzalez is from New York City and graduated with her bachelor’s degree with Highest Honors from Lehman College in 2022. Writing poetry is how she reclaims the power over the aspects of her mental health that can spin out of control. Her poetry has been published in Lehman’s literary magazine, La Libreta and in Spanglish Voces. Moreover, she has shared her work at open mics at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, has been featured at Inspired Word NYC at East Village’s Parkside Lounge and off-Broadway at the Triad Theatre. Currently, she works as a part-time Programs and Operations Assistant at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She published her debut poetry book Petals of the Red Dahlia in October 2023. In the future, she hopes to publish more of her own writing to further help the agenda of giving voices to marginalized writers, especially those who struggle with mental health.

She’s such a good person,
helping her able-bodied stubborn
younger sister clean her room.
A mess she didn’t make,
just to keep peace.

On the bench seat of a conversion van
when I was a newborn
my older sister tightly held me.
Child safety seats didn’t exist back then,
today we barely speak.


Striving to make each day count, Roy N. Mason documents his experiences, observations and lessons—learned in personal essays and poetry. In his free time, Roy can be found trying to synchronize the clocks in his kitchen. Roy’s work has been curated in several journals.

There’s a fight outside my kitchen window and I’m shamelessly gawking.
Coffee cooling in my blue chipped mug, steam curling around my nose, my face practically
pressed to the glass.
It’s getting violent now; I’m fairly certain this will end in devastation.

She’s so loud, is all I can think.
I can hear her through the glass.
I don’t wonder why I’ve decided she’s a she. It’s obvious to me for some reason.
Maybe it’s the drive, maybe it’s the fight,
Maybe it’s something in her beady black eyes.

Her caws are shredding the stillness of the morning, her talons scrambling to stay on the
birdfeeder.
Her competition—a small, gray mourning dove—is no match for her.
His pale feathers are no comparison to her striking blue slashes,
His round, lazy body is no real threat to her stately broad chest.

She’s angry, this blue jay. Full of rage.
Territorial of my—her—bird feeder, the one she snacks at every morning,
Feeds her babies at night.
I recognize her now, her indignant call, her warning screams.

When I was little, my dad used to call me jaybird.
I’m sure it was because my name started with a “J,”
An easy nickname rolling off the tongue like silk.

But the jaybird rips the head off the mourning dove so smoothly,
So precisely.
She drops the head onto the ground, foe dispatched, and the body slumps to the earth beneath the
feeder, dripping carmine blood on the grass.
When she looks up, right at me, the rage is gone,
Only replaced with a sense of calm, a sort of peace.
And she continues eating her breakfast.

When I was little, my dad used to call me jaybird.
I’m sure it was because my name started with a “J,”
An easy nickname rolling off the tongue like silk.

But perhaps it was something else.


Juliana Jones-Beaton is currently a PhD candidate in literature at the University of Delaware, studying fungal networks in post-2001 speculative fiction. She has previously published in Moss Puppy Magazine, Ampersand, Public Seminar, and Failed Architecture. She loves being outside, baking cupcakes, and her grumpy orange cat, Soup.

Her earliest memories:
The smell of sawdust, inhaled deeply, fragments sticking to the inside of her throat.
Splinters slid under the skin of her stubby fingers, just visible through her pale skin.
Hammers, drills, saws, but sometimes, blissfully, complete and utter silence.

It was the job site, her dad called it;
she liked those words, that term.
Job site.
Liked the idea that her dad didn’t work in an office, that his job was ephemeral, different
every time.

She begged to go with him,
please, daddy, her barbie pink fingernails pressing together in a prayer,
take me to the job site.

She loved trailing behind him, dragging the star imprints of her tiny work boots through
The dust.
Him with his clipboard, pencil tucked behind his ear.
Her, holding a coloring book, a stuffed bunny by its tattered ear.

Sometimes she would sit in an incomplete room,
A kitchen, a bedroom, a hall.
The beams visible, the blueprint undone.
Crazy to think someday this will be a house, she’d think
That her daddy could
Turn this mess into a home,
Like a fairy godmother.

But sometimes, she found herself wishing that all houses could be this way,
Transparent,
See-through,
Guts right on the outside.
Beautiful in their coarseness,
All scribbled numbers on the lumber,
Pink clouds of insulation on the floors.

She’s twenty-six now, all grown up.
But still, when she passes a job site,
When she catches the smell of sawdust,
She has the irrational, violent, visceral desire
To duck her head under the beams,
To wander the empty halls that aren’t halls
The bedrooms that aren’t bedrooms.

She has the feeling that he’s there somehow,
Trapped in the sawdust like the woman in the wallpaper,
Waiting for her to set him free, to let him out.

After all, shouldn’t she be able to see him?
In the beams with no walls,
Across the kitchen, across the dining hall

Shouldn’t she be able to find him?
She should, shouldn’t she?
Shouldn’t she?

“Do you believe in god?” I asked my three year-old brother.
“Yes, I think so. What about you?”
“No. I don’t think I do.”
He was the cathedral and I, the unbeliever.
His small hands built altars from lego blocks
moving in wordless prayer. I watched like a stranger
staring out to sea, not searching for justification
but the faint edges of something vaster.
He didn’t care if I knelt beside him. He’s already a congregation,
face like a sunflower seeking the sun.
I didn’t care for the old man in the clouds. Just the boy
who believed in tending his own heaven.


Kayleigh Chapman writes all day and all night. She lives in a crooked house in Vancouver, Canada with her partner Josh and a tiny panther named Jimmy. Connect with her on Instagram: @kayleigh.jane.chapman

I am burning the roof shingle by shingle.
The cedar crackles, eager to give itself over.			Over to what? I am not

                                                                         chemist or priest.

I am a prodding thing.			 I hold a forked stick & ask
                                                    too many questions.

Last night I dreamed I met your children.
Last night I dreamed us an aquarium.

         I think its sad that we only meet tuna, those buttery sea-princes,
         fat and gleaming, in watery gray chunks in a can, small enough for a cat’s

dinner.

     Think. How men must love in parallel,
                            like bulls behind rodeo gates.

I am burning a copy of The Law of Search and Seizure because its full
of hantavirus.

                                 I am burning the can because we ate all the fish.
                                 Because this is how men talk, low, looking into the embers.

Because it doesn’t rain anymore. Because we have seized all we can.
I am burning the roof so we can see the stars.


Elizabeth Wing is a writer and trail worker, and rumored puppeteer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in venues such as 7x7, Up North Lit, The West Marin Review, and Hanging Loose Magazine.

for Patti Smith

we’ve been there: nineteen years old, on myrtle avenue
what a haircut can do
our new yorks, fifty years apart:
you throw it all in- the gulls wheeling above with their scrappy longing
the banter from the hotdog stand, the fat sunbathing russians
the plainest angels, the hours between doing and undoing
in the aisles of the bookstores, in the golden ribcage of light
sufi, trying: drunk on either god or a centripetal force
particulate warmth, like pollen, like sandgrains settles into the fingertips
girl not as sentimental but as potential
and america? experiment.
art, angelic, spread-eagled on the table: no shame
wings aloft, legs splayed
dissect, crucify; it’s the same instinct
pin, slice, wisdom weeps from the side wound
smoldering against blank white walls
wait for the sun to strike
so we can make & make & make & make.

The paramedics dance
in backwards motion
up the stairs in morning light
by two children taking
water from puddles and into their eyes
look in the windows as police escape into static radios
speaking tongues burst like sparklers
television weatherman announces
              be on the lookout for sunshine
              we’re going to get a few days of that terribleness
Pots and pans sprout
hot oil, a plate jumps up
in one unbroken pirouette, the wife shouts
in reverse NO EMERGENCY!
The man lying in bed sucks life into his evacuated lungs.
An ambulance
backs out from their lives, into
fading light as sirens
decrescendo
down the street,
a dying symphony
the sun retreats behind the stars,
taking with it
the light.


Ian Parker is a poet and musician living in Portland, Oregon. His work has been previously published by orangepeel literary magazine, infinite scroll, and in upcoming issues of The Literary Forest Poetry Magazine and wildscape. literary journal.

The trajectory of his voice hits me
from the lines of my black book.
His unanswered texts splinter
into specks of ash

under my Tinder trigger fingertips.
He smolders beneath the sheets
from my phone screen.
How do I explain the cycle

of my touch thirsty shoulders
to closed fist rejection.
I hit delete over and over
until hands create a door

of rewind cautionary farewells.
Why bother explaining the smashed edges
of love note eulogies,
and handprint ghosts along my thighs.

Break apart timeline of monsters
who grip my body, and teach him
the way to travel through the bends
of sagging shoulders and aching back.

I’d rather pull back seduction from gloss covered smiles
and teeth teased lips to reveal
a mouthful of predator intent.
Roll nimble boy cigarettes and

smoke them down to friend zone emptiness.
Tell them the story of one girl and the wolf
paid to babysit the girl.
How he tethered her

between his thumb and metal buckle.
Traveling wolves hunt in packs and I found
each one in my youth.

He clicks and chirps beneath my fingers,

and I don’t explain lifestyles and choices
to a text shattered heart, it doesn’t matter
that each howl with each of their names
I am more wolf than woman.


Amanda Hawk is Best of the Net-nominated and Pushcart Prize-nominated Poet.  She lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and the city’s neon lights.  Amanda has been featured in multiple journals including Eye to the Telescope, Rogue Agent, and the winnow magazine.  She released her first chapbook in 2023 called Rain Stained City.  Recently, she placed second in the Seattle Crypticon Horror Short Story contest.

She places their cold shoulder china on the table,
while he sets the hang-up silverware.

The wine bottle prepares for mediation
during the evening prewar line up.

They twists its cork back and forth
and it squeaks out contempt with each turn.

Their pain is the quiet weighing down on shoulders,
and the silence could be served in a three course meal

of flailing arm appetizers, mascara-dripped
entrees, and clenched-teeth dessert.

The wine bottle rests in the middle of the table
and the couple listens while wedding photos

and picket fences pop and hiss on the stove
until it smokes out smeared lipstick futures.

The couple sit across from each other
not speaking their language

of cozy nights together and long car rides to the beach.
They forget the map of gentle caresses

and swooning compliments.
A relationship has to be fostered with open hands

and supportive shoulders.
It crumbles the moment the first person’s heart breaks

and the other sways off balance.
They sit with smoldering tongues and fumbling hands,

and eat silence to stomp the disappointment
rumbling in their stomachs.

Neither reaches for the wine bottle,
they know once the cork was pulled

they couldn’t stop the emotions
from spilling out.

TW: Child Abuse

People love teas and the soothing effect they have on them.
When the dried leaves stained its surroundings brown as they scream together in boiling
water.
When the familiar scent surged and travelled around the area, their sweet fragrance swirled
into your lungs.

Hot cup upon the table.
Vague mist rising along with the rate of my heartbeat.

They said teas are sweet.
But to me it tasted different.

To me it tasted like tears.
Like the pain on your skin as it burns red.
Like the heat of water as it splashed onto you.
Like the cries of a child and the glares of adults.

They said teas are sweet.
Oh it was anything but.


MG is a writer, reader, freelance book cover designer, small business owner, content creator, social media manager, and eternal knowledge seeker. Her poems have been published in over 50 magazines and she is currently trying to get her novels published too. Find out more about her at https://linktr.ee/melifluousgelatoo

“It must be nice,”
they say.
“You don’t understand what we feel,”

“It must be nice,”
they say.
“You’re not messed up in the head like we do,”

“It must be nice,”
they say.
“You’re not crushed by burdens as heavy as ours,”

This isn’t a competition, so what are you trying to win?

When they took offence
that I tried to see the bright side of a tragedy,
when they cornered me
and twisted all my words into vices they announced to the world,
when they tried everything in their power
to bring me down and turn me into a vile being,

Does it ever cross their mind how perhaps,
I am just another broken mirror
trying to paint a normal reflection with all the pieces?

Does it ever cross their mind how perhaps,
I am just another messed up soul
trying to be happy with myself despite all the wounds?

Does it ever cross their mind how perhaps,
I am just another suffering mind,
trying to ease the pain by brushing it off as something bearable?

What gives them the right to say
that if I were as broken as them I wouldn’t be able to smile as I did?
What gives them the right?
They don’t know a thing about me.

Don’t you dare say what kind of person I am.
Don’t you dare say I cannot be happy.

So what if I choose to smile either way
instead of wailing miserably, drowning in tears?
So what if I choose to think little of my problems so I can live with them instead of trying
desperately to push them away knowing I never would?
So what if I choose to dance along with my demons instead of fighting against them even if
every move lets the knife deeper into my heart?

I’m tired of being sad.
Just let me be happy, why don’t you?

You know nothing about me,
stop assuming.

                                                  For boys who grew up in North Philly

Is still a smile, nonetheless.
Although, it reminds me to
Keep my resting bitch face
Handy. Unbeknownst to
The crook in my hand when
I walk, I didn’t have no
Flowery upbringing. I had
To hide my emotions in
My drawls and pray I will
Be able to fuck them away.
Them boys out east don’t
Cry. I’ve seen my father
Cry only once in my whole
life. It was right after his
Mother’s death. He is an ugly
Crier. He moans when he
Sobs and hiccups when he
Tries to catch his breath. This
Black boy don’t cry. Or
At least I’m not supposed
To. When I think of my
Father, I sometimes see
His face as a reflection in
My grandmother’s urn. Is it
So foreign for this Black
Boy who don’t cry to
Wonder what life could
Have been like if my
Father cried a little more
In front of the world.


D.S Holmes is the recipient of the 2023 Hurston/Wright College Award in Fiction and is nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. You can find their other published work on Short Story Break, SONKU magazine, Allium Literary Journal, Contextos, and Marginalia, Columbia College Chicago’s graduate blog site.  

My poems are full of guns these days. I tell myself, stop being ashamed of who you love. The poet with a voice soft as her hair. The rebel with a forest in his eyes. And if they make you feel alive, if aliveness is the current of their bodies and you feel as if, by bathing in it, you could be baptized again, why are you afraid? What are you afraid of, if not everything? Go back in time. The last time something mattered. Respect the man who prays in a gas station parking lot, even if that man is you. Pick up the can that keeps on falling over. Believing in yourself is just as easy. A choice. As easy as the choice to run four hundred miles from the pressure in your chest, as if the drone of highways could dislodge it, only to find four hundred miles later you’re crying behind a fire station with a stranger who, like you, found God in fields of rubble.


Ari Leigh is a poet from Atlanta, Georgia. They received their creative writing degree from Georgia College in 2021. As a student, they contributed to and served as poetry editor for The Peacock’s Feet, Georgia College’s undergraduate literary magazine. They are now rekindling their passion for art, language, and creation as tools for healing, discovery, and meaning-making. Currently, they live on a horse farm outside of Atlanta. They drink copious amounts of tea, read constantly, and are learning to garden

I walk into the bedroom where my grandmother died—in the bed is a body; it is covered—I think it is mine, but I refuse to look—I can’t, I won’t.

The rain is still falling when I wake up. There is no point in dreaming anything else—somewhere summer turns to winter and I stuff the leaves in my overflowing pockets; when you ask me where I go, I don’t have an answer.

I know by the look in your tired eyes you think the world has left my aching brain—and maybe, but what good would it do to be a part of something that never wanted me in the first place—

I make you dinner—I try to feed you the moon—you just taste the dirt in my name; God forgive me—I’d like to make you open up and take me into your holy chest—where does the separation end? When do I become you—when does my body become my body in name only—where do I live?


B.A. O’Connell lives in Nowhere. They have two beautiful cats—and those cats are essential to the writing process—B.A. spends most of their time reading or writing while pursuing their MFA. They have an impressive vinyl collection and spend too much time in coffeehouses. Find more of their work on amazon and follow their twitter (@OnceIateataco). 

          My father hates mushrooms.
He’s sitting at the dinner table waiting
for my mother to pick them off his plate and
feed them to the dog—for him.

           He has, perhaps, been sitting
at that dinner table for two decades now,
dead since he built this house with two fruit-bearing
hands as he wed my mother
     and birthed me from the rot of their love.

          From his corpse-knuckles burst forth
fungi that bloomed from the cracks in my door
     where his fist met wood and the wood turned to

          shooting stars. Where I marked my height in pencil.
He isn’t fond of cannibalism; it’s an act of tenderness
under the guise of survival-means.

          But I don’t think he likes being alive, either.
So he sits at the dinner table, already dead,
decomp-matter shaped into a throne built of fractured forest,

          his hands sprouting mushrooms
that I will pick off his grave and eat—for him.


Taylor Moore (she/her) in Orlando, Florida still loves her Louisiana hometown, much to the dismay of the less-than-queer population. She processes the survival racism her Korean immigrant mother instilled in her via League of Legends and writing Korean girls kissing. Taylor has been published in Discretionary Love, The Lunar Journal, Ghost Girls Zine, & more. Follow her on twitter @trmoore_.

(Oh, look!)
a perfect mold —
clipped from the same sheet,
oh
repetitive,
with its curves so sharply uniform,
as if the world crumbled into neat,
predictable bites.

We are the shaped dough,
spooned, sliced,
pushed through the press of love:
a factory of "How-to-Live" pamphlets,
each fold tucked into a corner
where no one dares bend.

"Here, dear,
use this —"
(shhh)
they whisper with
a sugar-sweet veneer of a smile
the size of an Instagram filter.
Cookie-cutter standards:
pre-formed, well-worn,
a circle you can’t escape,
not even when the icing melts.

Inside those perfect parentheses —
"I love you,"
the phrase again and again —
almost something real,
until you step outside the borders,
and oh,
how you shift,
how your shape never fits.

(sigh)

Tell me,
does the shape of
a hug still mean anything
when it’s crafted in such
costumed affection?


Avanti is a poet based in India and an emerging writer currently working on their debut novel, The Hidden Witness: Secrets That Bind, a story that explores themes of identity, secrets, and the complex nature of human connections. Her poetry, still emerging, draws inspiration from the intersections of personal experience, cultural heritage, and universal human emotions. Avanti's work seeks to explore the quiet yet profound moments of everyday life, capturing the subtle tensions between memory, loss, and hope.

While The Hidden Witness marks her entry into the world of fiction, Avanti’s poetry delves into similar themes of introspection and transformation. Through her writing, she hopes to illuminate the nuances of both the external world and the inner landscapes of the heart and mind.

Avanti is passionate about promoting underrepresented voices in literature and seeks to create narratives that resonate with readers on a deeply personal level. She is currently working to expand her literary presence both as a poet and a novelist, believing in the power of words to change perspectives and foster connection.

I keep the quiet things—
the scrape of the chair across the kitchen tile,
the way sunlight pools in forgotten corners
at 3:47 p.m. in mid-September.
The same September you stopped calling.

I keep the echo of my name
said by a voice who no longer whispers it in the softness of night,
your heartbeat fossilized in the hollow of my chest.
I keep the scent of the sea
that clung to my hair one summer spent in your grasp,
salt pressed into the waves
as if it, too, knew to hold on.
If only the ocean could teach you how to stay.

I keep the ache of wanting,
the kind that turns ribs to rust,
each breath scraping against the memory
of something I almost had.
Something you never fought for.

I keep myself in pieces,
pressed between the pages of books
I’ll never finish.

Each word a bandage,
each story a promise
that one day I’ll learn
to keep nothing at all.

           —  Not even the memory of your touch.


May Garner is a young writer and poet based in Ohio. She has been crafting and sharing her work online for over a decade, beginning on Wattpad and expanding to various platforms. Her debut poetry collection, Withered Rising, was published in 2023 and is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Her poetry has also been featured in six anthologies, including the recent Musing Around at Midnight by Cozy Ink Press. You can find more of her work on her Instagram (@crimson.hands).

My brain is a forest I can’t play hide and seek in.
I know all of my best hiding spots,
delved through every nook and cranny
a hundred times over. I play marbles by the water,
the creek bed of tears, and watch each aquamarine glass
float to the bottom; they sink into my tear ducts.

I poke at soft spots that never healed, scraped knees that
are still bleeding. My life is condensed down into oak wood,
and where fallen trees lay, melancholy seeping out in thick
pools of velvet. It soaks into the moss on the floor of my brain,
fuzzy from years of ache.

I lift at memory-logs, just to remind myself that the axe never won.
I watch old critters crawl out from under my skin, confused why I’m
back, each one a villain from the past.

Soil of my own kind broken back into the beds of my nails, my hands
still lay clean, sinless.

Who buried these lies in my flower beds? Who allowed them to grow?

I’d like to think that the
teeth clenching isn’t

forever, that my anger is so
seldom, my wrath so
righteous, that the

dichotomy makes memes
of kittens feigning
ferociousness.

am I peaceful when I
sleep? I’d like to think that
the nightmares are unreal,

that the flickering edges
hardened by emptiness and
fear are made soft

when touched by the hand
that finds my hip in the
darkness.

am I beautiful when I cry?
I’d like to think my
suffering is lovely,

that my tears plant seeds of
something hidden,
something akin to the
glittering edges painting
the broken glass into a
rainbow.

Dane Lyn (they-them) is a neurospicy, disabled, educator, poet, and glitter-enthusiast in a dysfunctional relationship with LA, where they reside. Dane has an MFA from Lindenwood University, a ridiculous collection of succulents, and four scavenger hunt runner-up ribbons. Their debut chapbook by bottlecap press, “bubblegum black,” was released in 2023 to rave reviews from their mom. Dane is the poetry editor for Ink and Marrow. Find them @punkhippypoet, and read their work at danelyn.net. 

I watched you ironing the knickers
and sun-bleached sheets
your cup of tea always cooling
in the late afternoon hush
a half-eaten Welsh cake
crumbing on the counter
and I never thought to ask
why you bothered
to press out the creases
of all those under cover things
as your curls rioted in the steam

now of course I realize
it was an act of self-protection—
knowing you’d made your own bed
and had to lie in it
you made sure the sheets smelt of daylight
and were as smooth as the old lie
when you tossed and turned in the dark


Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the valleys for the American East Coast. You can find some of her poetry and prose in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit, among others. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). She has published two novellas in flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a forthcoming novella, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, with Unsolicited Press. Her short story collection, Suffer/Rage, has recently been published by Dark Myth Publications.

Autumn. My poetry - voiceless and slowly dying at the tips of my fingers.
Words, like white chrysanthemums, rotting in the pool of my open hands.
Wanting, but not enough to be changed by the seasons. Just enough to
survive. Autumn. Craving a piece of your stillness. Trying to forget the frigid
smell of dried lavender. Trying to remember your warm fingers caressing my
face. Failing. Begging you, please to forgive me: I was made to run. Time and
time again; is all I have ever known. Autumn. Sitting in with my nakedness,
patiently waiting for it to stop hurting. Convincing myself - like a mantra,
repeating, affirming: I’m perfectly fine. Autumn. Flooding my lungs with
charcoal and chalk. Little by little, drowning in gunpowder - my arms too weak to fight it. In my burning cocoon, dreaming I am a swan, dancing in grand elegant arabesques, so beautiful and ethereal; in hungry gulps, succumbing to the whiskey sky. Then misfortune, as usual - I’m drunk and discovering filthy clouds; tasting only my cigarette smoke. Autumn. An endless illusion.


Joana Figueiredo (she/her) is a poet and writer, currently living in Portugal. Her work appeared in The Bamboo Hut, Five Fleas, Subliminal Surgery, Microliths, and elsewhere.

 Devoted, my curious fingers softly exploring your salivating mouth. At first,
poking at your gums with tenderness, surprised with how fragile the pink
slippery skin is, how quickly the redness bleeds, how it coats my nails with
colour; then, tracing your crooked teeth, one by one, testing for sharpness.
For a brief second, feeling, closing around me, circling the tip of my finger, a
serpent’s tongue, a lover’s tongue, your tongue, just as carefully, just as
scared.

Shallow is the man
who believes things
would never change,

who insists that truths
would never be revealed,

ideals never be frustrated,
constitutions never be broken,

daydreams never be killed,
words never be spoken,

lies never be uttered,
stages never be set,

fates never cross,
or that honesty
is ever possible.

Angeli Arellano is a multimedia designer and unpublished writer from the Philippines who wrote and directed a one-act musical at a theater festival during their freshman year in arts college, and though they didn't win significant awards, they do not regret it to this day. 

My knuckles hurt as
My head relaxes & it
Just goes to show that
Punching something
Can sometimes work
Better than thinking
Too much about the
Problem.


Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on England’s south-coast having been born in London in 1971. Recent poems have appeared in The Blotter Rag, Beatnik Cowboy, the Acid Bath anthology Night Terrors, Horror Sleaze Trash’s quarterly, and in the Good Press’ The Paper. He’s currently touting his first collection of poems around the small press so if interested get in touch.

I thought that the worst thing
about our marriage falling apart
would be the falling apart;
the whole marble edifice
crumbling into a sad little pile of stones.
A ruin of a lost civilization.
But I was wrong.

It turns out the worst thing
about our marriage falling apart
is realizing years later
that I have forgotten
what your voice sounds like
and I have forgotten
your favorite food
and I think that if we met
for coffee
that we wouldn’t have
anything to talk about.

Wind, water and time
have worn away the faces
from all
of our broken statues.


Malachy Moran is an American expat currently residing in Norway. A PTSD survivor and recovering drug addict, Malachy's best work is about how we recover from trauma (or maybe not). Malachy can be found hosting and performing at poetry open mics in Oslo. You can find his work in the forthcoming winter edition of Anti-Heroin Chic and follow his journey on Instagram @malformed_poetry.

“Jill’s mother died.”

The bleak news doused their shouting match better than an extinguisher. “She texted earlier.” The words wormed themselves from his throat laboriously, like jagged eels.

“W-what?” Mari’s hand was an arachnid of flesh and bone over her gaping mouth. “Are you serious?” Porter nodded. “Why did she tell you, and not me?” If only he could answer, instead of shrugging nonchalantly. The disappointment caused Mari’s eyes to bulge and, eventually, redden. Once the first whimper sounded, rogue tears followed.

“I’m sorry.” He placed his arm on her shoulder, and she soon forgot their previous argument. The embrace was as warm as any they’ve shared in a while. When she buried her head against his chest, he knew disaster had been averted, at least for now.

What could he do? Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he refused the slightest graze with either. When faced with insurmountable odds, the smart play was to fall back, and concede to untruths. At least then his personal failures and disappointments were not front and center. It was now time for the latest fiction, for the band-aid he’d employed was merely temporary.

“Jill said she wants to be alone,” Porter whispered. “No calls or texts.”

“R-really?” Mari’s body quivered, and she stared without blinking. “Huh.” Porter, however, was a step ahead. “I have to go. Doctor is waiting.”

“Doctor?”

“Just a check-up. Haven’t been in a while.”

And there it was. A seed. Just what he needed to say, and what she needed to hear. For the effect to be complete, he’d disappear for a while, and return with slumped shoulders. He could picture it: pouting his way to the fridge, cracking a beer, then placing it down, unable to drink, his hand over his face, the prince of melancholy. Sensing his sorrow, Mari will approach with mixed emotions. On one hand, she’ll be fuming about the earlier lie, for by then she’ll have gotten the truth from her friend. On the other, she’ll be doubtful about his possible prognosis, for it may, just this once, be authentic.

“Hey,” she said when he’d returned. The aftermath of laborious sobbing was discernible in her shaky voice. “How’d it go?” His shrug was apathetic and distant. From a corner of his eye, he tested the temperature without looking at her directly. Maybe she still doesn’t know, he Thought.

“I talked to Jill,” Mari’s intonation rose as her body stormed at him. “I can not believe you’d lie about th—”

“He found a tumor,” Porter said, his sight never leaving the floor. “Prostate.” Of the few talents he possessed, acting was not among them. Yet he gave it his all, for nothing less would suffice. Hiding his face, he wept like an unfaithful worshiper on judgment day. He held this semblance extensively, without a false note. Endurance was gonna get him through, if only he could stretch the act. Feel it, believe it, BE IT!

And he did. When Mari wrapped her thin arms around him, their grasp lingered between a passive hug and a passionate caress. She suspected little, and their intimacy felt righter than rain. If Porter could’ve stopped time, and stretched the stillness of this moment into eternity, he would have. The endlessness would be burdensome only in the beginning, but with the onset of years, the passage of time would speed up; himself and Mari would ultimately perish, her never being the wiser. Yet the uncomfortable reality required new periodic fallacies, as the morning needs the sun.

***

Several weeks later Porter rose with noticeable gunk in his eyes. Not even his toxic breath could have masked the awkwardness he faced while standing over the toilet. His urine flow was interrupted multiple times, and he struggled mightily to empty his bladder. When he caught sight of Mari’s reflection in the mirror, eyeballing him like a skeptic in hiding, Porter was Spooked.

Why does she look at me so?

He squeezed, he pulled, he twisted; he did all he could to milk the slightest drop, and by the time the burning sensation dissipated, he was already dreading his next toilet visit.

Mari’s calmness was as palpable as a frosty peak in wintertime. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said. Her newfound benevolence caught Porter off guard. He was used to her bickering cries, her screaming, her disapproval of most everything he did; but not this. The weirdness was palpable, and it stung like a rogue hornet. Such an unexplainable oddity called for a new untruth. He had to bail himself out – but all he drew was a sea of blanks. It was Mari who spoke first.

“I talked to Jill. Her mother died last night. This time for real.”

“R-really?” Porter asked.

She nodded. “You’ve become quite the prophet. Who knew.”

Porter opened his mouth, but could utter nothing. The unsaid words retreated back into his throat, where they lingered extensively. His hand, in a defensive reflex, enveloped his privates. Porter wanted to speak and mask the awkwardness, but the lump in his throat was nearly as big as the one on his left testicle.

Armand Diab (pseudonym: Barlow Crassmont) has lived in the USA, Eastern Europe, Middle East and China. When not teaching or writing, he dabbles in juggling, solving the Rubik’s Cube, and learning other languages. He has been published by British Science Fiction Association, The Chamber Magazine, and Wilderness House Literary Review.

The diversely wealthy group sits in a circle, announcing their intentions: getting over a divorce, battling benzo addiction, finding meaning in C-suite capitalism, whatever.

Little candles flicker. 

Drink the bitter ayahuasca, chased with mint.

Listen to the imported sounds of the jungle.

Then: survive in the dark.

Some lie shivering, wrapped in blankets, waiting for something to arrive.

Others dance groovily.

One woman begins shrieking.

Everybody vomits. Everybody pukes until nothing’s left hidden inside.

Everyone stares in wonder at the fractally unfolding shimmer of the vast snake’s scales. Bowels loosen comfortably beneath the gaze of conscious gloom, brought forth by a great spiritual presence.

Following the ceremony, participants maintain positivity in the group chat for weeks. Their lives are brightened, purpose newly discovered. So rejuvenating!

In unspoken agreement, they never again mention the undignified fate of their shit-stained pants and underwear, hazily buried somewhere on the resort, deep beneath the earth.

Chris Clemens lives and teaches in Toronto, surrounded by raccoons. His stories have appeared in Invisible City, JAKE, The Dribble Drabble Review, Apex Magazine, and elsewhere.

She was there again at the window-shaped cutout of the barn. Austin saw her when he was making his lone cup of coffee in the chilly morning. Fall was coming on fast, and it would freeze any day now, but she was still wearing that white summer dress that floated around her like a cloud. Hardly the type of clothing that should be worn in a barn, but he was used to seeing her like that by now, her long hair lost in the first rays of the sun, her feet bare. He looked away when his toast popped out of the toaster, and by the time he looked back at her, she was gone.

Indian summer, they called it. The nights were cold and the days hot, but not overpowering like the deep summer months when you couldn’t even go outside after noon. After the surprises of his first few years living out on the land, Austin knew what this time of year meant.

The trucks wouldn’t start rolling into his driveway until dusk was almost upon them. Then, the sharp knocks on the door would sound, followed by the obligatory banal conversations before permission was granted. The shots might start to ring out that very same night.

He enjoyed the meat the hunters would leave him at the end of the season. As his neighbors told him, the land knew the patterns of hunting. Not so far from there were the same plains where the white bones of the buffalo had been piled into grim mountains like some kind of warning.

He tried to stay indoors when someone was out there, but the backfire of the guns still startled him. Mercifully, it was always too dark for him to make out the bodies with their dark, shining eyes being dragged back to the parking lot.

It was all just part of how things were done. Even he would shoot at the squirrels that dug up his garden or the occasional pheasant for dinner. She had never liked it, but Austin had never paid much mind to her unhappy sighs when he brought out his gun. Just as he had ignored so many of her other complaints about their new life on the farm.

He went out to the barn after breakfast to feed the chickens, but she was gone by them, and he was only greeted by the hum of the wasps and the expectant pecking of beaks on the ground. Everything was quiet that day, the way he liked it. This is what he had been looking for when he had brought the land and they moved here from the city. This was the calm that she said she had wanted, too.

But then the blue monster of a car rolled into the driveway long before the usual time. Still, he had already said they could come by whenever they wanted, so he just tried to stay out of the way. They were out behind the barn, but the first shots sounded close, almost too close for comfort. And then a scream cut the air, a human or animal, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t help but turn his head and watch as the doe struggled to run across the fields.

The flutter of her white dress in the barn caught his eye, and Austin wanted to cry out to her, to protect her from what he knew was coming, but his scream was overpowered by the next shot, the kill shot. He watched as she crumbled to her knees, but was helpless to do anything for her or the doe on the ground.

He was just as helpless as he had been that day that she had woken up, put on her dress, and walked out of his life, leaving him alone there in the emptiness of fertile earth with only the shadow of her memory keep him company. The endless passing of days only a reminder of everything he should have done to make her stay. The words he had never been able to day ringing in his head as though born there by the wind.

There would be no more hunting there after this, he decided. She wouldn’t like it when she came back. And she would be coming back soon. He had to believe she would be back soon.

Calla Smith lives and writes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She enjoys continuing to discover all the forgotten corners of the city she has come to call home.  She has published a collection of flash fiction “What Doesn’t Kill You”, and her work can also be found in several literary journals.

Up ahead, Emily could make out the gentle sloping of the dark, abandoned city street. All the lights in the blocks around her were turned off, and it felt like midnight, even though it was only late afternoon. No one else haunted the sidewalks, at least as far as she could see. You could never really tell in that part of town, though. The shadows could always surprise you. For a brief moment, she felt she was the only one left alive there, and the echoes of her feet on the pavement were the only sound that could be heard by human ears for miles.

But as she walked past the abandoned parking lot with weeds reaching desperately for the sky, the sharp beam of heads came into view, and a lone car tore down the hill as though something invisible was in pursuit. The light flickered on in an apartment above her, and the profound peace of the moment was shattered. She trudged up the final blocks to her apartment and rode the elevator up to her floor as she did every day, knowing the still air on the other side of the door was waiting for her. The silence that wrapped itself around her like a grave every night would only be broken by the echoes of life from the street below.

But when Emily inserted her key into the lock and turned, the door didn’t budge. She tried again and again with all the other keys on the keychain. By the time she accepted that she simply would not be getting into her organized kitchen and tried to turn back to the elevator, it was long gone and didn’t respond to the increasingly urgent fingers pressing on the button to call it. Even the fire escape seemed jammed, and she found herself alone in the utter darkness of the small landing outside her apartment. The building around her was silent and seemed to sway as though she was in the belly of some prehistoric beast.

She suddenly felt that there was no point in trying to scream because no one would hear her. Something in the air today seemed to whisper to her that nothing was as it had been only that morning. There had been hints of it before, and as she sat down on the tile floor, she closed her eyes and wished she had taken a wrong turn somewhere and not gone home.

She longed to feel the chilly autumn air on her skin again and breathe in the freedom of the open sky above her. She ached for the cold familiarity of her sheets as she slid into bed alone at night. Anywhere was better than there in the hallway, so close to the comfort of her home.

She had installed heavy doors, almost like bank vaults, when she moved in, and she knew trying to knock them down was useless. Emily pressed her hand into the wood and wondered for a moment if she had been trying to keep something else out or keeping herself in. The beast that was the building sighed slowly with her as she had in the dark, waiting for whatever would come next without even bothering to reach for her phone.

She was thinking about trying the elevator again, or the stairs, when a gentle scratching came from the other side of the door. She stood up as the handle turned and the door swung open, and she found herself face to face with her downstairs neighbor. In the floor of light that came from his apartment, she clearly saw the sign marking this as the 10th floor, not the 11th, and when he stood there with surprise splashed all over his face, she stammered an apology. She pressed the elevator button again, and this time, she was relieved to hear it grumbling its way up. The spell was broken, and the building was only a building.

“Wrong floor,” she told him as they stepped inside, and he nodded. But once they reached the ground floor, Emily didn’t go back up; instead, she headed out to somewhere unknown. For that night, she thought, anywhere was better than home.

Jim felt his phone vibrating in the pocket of his work shirt, a sensation he had learned to dread. He sighed into his respirator, shut off the orbital sander, and stepped away from the dust cloud. He peeled the respirator from his face, wiped his face on his sleeve, and reached for his phone. One glance at the number on the screen confirmed that his day now teetered on the brink, and the fall would be into a sea of shit. He muttered a curse and thumbed the phone. A tinny voice shrieked from the speaker.

“Jimmy, are you there? Jesus-fucking-Christ on a pogo stick, it burns like hell. You gotta save me, Jimmy. Wait! Take that, you little bastard!”

The speaker exploded with the smacking sound of a dying fish flopping on linoleum. Jim yanked the phone from his ear. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, drew a huge breath, exhaled, and tried to calm his voice.

“Trish? Tricia? Can you hear me?”

The smacking died away, replaced by the screeching voice.

“Jimmy, goddammit, you gotta save me. I think I’m dying.”

He palmed the phone and stared at the open door. Every fiber of his being said wind up and throw, pitch that damn phone as far as you can. His brain and heart fought a momentary battle, during which he almost squeezed the phone to pieces.

“Trish, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you, Jimmy. Please, for the love of God, listen…”

“No, Trish, you listen. I’m at work. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. You can’t keep calling every time you get drunk.”

“There’s scorpions, Jimmy, you hear me? Goddamn scorpions. The little fuckers are attacking. They keep stinging me in the ass and I can’t get off the kitchen floor.”

“Then call the fire department. Call 911 right now.”

“I can’t call those bastards. They got caller ID. They said they won’t come no more. They told me.”

Jim’s arm went slack. The phone dangled from his fingertips. He scanned the half-finished kitchen and tallied up his promises to the client. He’d make up the time this evening, work late, as long as it took. He needed this client, needed another good review.

“Jimmy? Are you there? Jimmy?”

The pleading voice grated on his last nerve. His brain cast a quick vote in favor of letting her die. An easy out for everyone concerned. Just as quickly, his heart betrayed him. It always did. Stupid heart.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. But this is the last time, you hear me?”

Jim thumbed the phone dead before she could reply. He looked around the room. No time to pack everything. But the client might stop by.

He grabbed a notebook and penned a message in careful block letters. Family emergency, sorry, he’d work late to make up the time, no extra charge. He cut two pieces of masking tape nice and straight, then taped the note to the kitchen door. The door clicked shut behind him and the deadbolt snicked into place. He mumbled a silent prayer for his tools and headed for his truck.

The truck rolled up Swan Road, past the interminable grid of Tucson, and then across the dry Rillito River. On the north side of the river, the road climbed into the posh neighborhoods that dotted the Catalina foothills. 

Jim turned off Swan, wiggled up twisty streets with picturesque names, and pulled into Tricia’s driveway. Her BMW convertible sat at an angle in front of the garage. One front tire had plowed a furrow into the desert landscaping. The driver’s door gaped wide. 

He killed the ignition and sat behind the wheel. Sunlight baked the side of his face. The hot engine clicked as it cooled. He checked his watch. Twenty-two minutes. He stared at the house, the abandoned BMW, then raised his eyes to the cloudless sky.

What are you doing here, you idiot? A year ago, you were in Portland. Remember Portland? Happy times, my deluded friend. A full client list, money rolling in, hitting the town with Tricia. Then she gets restless, wants to move to Tucson. And what do you do? You follow her like a lovesick puppy. 

Jim dropped his eyes and stared at the house. A faux adobe pile of hateful memories. The voice in his head would not shut up.

The big move didn’t change a thing, did it? Tricia’s battle with the vodka came along for the ride. It wasn’t long before push came to shove. Tricia had to choose between you and the bottle. Turned out to be an easy choice. Bang, you’re out on your ass. Tricia’s money, Tricia’s house. You should have got your name on the paperwork, buddy boy.   

Jim pounded the steering wheel. Words flew from his mouth, filling the hot cab.

“Shut up, already! You think I don’t know this shit? I thought it was our house. Stupid me. I’ve had seven months to dwell on it, all right? Enough!”

His fingers found the door latch. The desert heat hit him like a club. Skirting the BMW, he followed a flagstone walkway around the side of the house. The path threaded past bulging barrel cactus and gray-green agave. It led to a walled patio and a pair of French doors. One of the doors stood open to the heat. Inside the door, on a floor of Mexican tile, lay a body. 

Jim paused at the threshold, took a deep breath, then stepped into the shadows. Tricia, the former and still love of his life, sprawled like a dead thing. She’d passed out on her back, bare arms thrown wide. A cell phone lay beside one lifeless hand and an empty fifth of Stolichnaya near the other. 

Wherever the party had started, it ended with Trish wearing nothing more than a pair of pink panties and a tight tank top. The skimpy top rose and fell, along with her ample attributes. She was still breathing. He scanned the tiles for any sign of scorpions. Seeing none, he crouched beside her. 

Trish looked as if she had been making snow angels on the tile floor. He gazed at her body and ran a shaky hand across his forehead. Tricia might be closing in on fifty, but she still had the curves that drove him nuts. The tank top pulled taught against her breasts, emblazoned with a Waffle House logo. Then he remembered she’d been eighty-sixed from that very same establishment. Been there, done that, still wearing the shirt.

Running his eyes lower, he saw angry red welts on the curve of her ass. 

Maybe she wasn’t lying. That’s a hell of a thing, attacked by scorpions and too drunk to get away. Booze and scorpion venom. Not a good combination. 

He stroked her cheek.

“Trish, can you hear me?”

The comatose woman gave a short moan and rolled her head away from his hand. A moment later, she began to snore.

Jim duck-walked until he crouched behind her head, got both hands under her armpits, and heaved. Tricia wasn’t a big woman, but she was dead weight. It took all his strength to pull her upright. He held her close, back to belly, and dragged her into the living room. Her heels dug furrows in the carpeting.

By the time he got her to the couch, his lungs were gasping. He laid Trish on her side, head tilted so she wouldn’t swallow her vomit. After straightening the kinks out of his back, he walked to the bathroom. Across the mirror ran a scrawl of red lipstick.  

Look how squiggly my eyes are.

He shook his head, found the aspirin, and knocked two tablets out of the bottle. Then he pulled a toothbrush from a glass, rinsed it, and filled it with water. 

Back in the living room, Jim set the water and aspirin on the coffee table near Trish’s head. He pulled a faux Navaho blanket from the back of the couch. After one long look at her half-naked body, he draped the blanket over her and turned away.

He retreated through the kitchen, snatched up the empty Stoli bottle on the way, and exited via the French doors. The locks clicked. Coming around the garage, he flipped open the recycle and hurled the empty bottle into the bin. The bottle shattered against a pile of dead soldiers. A piece of glass ricocheted out of the bin and embedded itself in his chin.

Jim kept his temper on a short leash. In the span of a heartbeat, he lost his grip. Rage shot through him, as red as the blood just beginning to run.

He grabbed the recycle bin between his meaty hands, meaning to hurl it onto the manicured landscaping. As he leaned forward to heft the thing, a single drop of blood dripped from his chin and splashed onto an empty bottle. He froze in mid-lunge. Another droplet plinked against the shadowed glass, rebounding into a mist of tiny droplets. He stared as his own blood baptized the dead soldiers. Then he pushed himself upright and walked away.

Passing the abandoned BMW, Jim fought the urge to kick the open door. Instead, he nudged it closed with his knee. Holding one bloody hand to his wounded chin, he climbed into his truck, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway.

*  *  * 

The sun had dipped below Starr Pass before Jim quit work. His belly grumbled and his back ached. Blood crusted the makeshift bandage stuck to his chin. He paused to double-check the worksite. His tools were packed, and everything looked professional. Satisfied, he closed and locked the door.  

He drove east on Broadway, stopping long enough to grab a takeout burrito and a six-pack. At the edge of town, he headed south across the Pantano Wash and turned into the quiet enclave where he hoped to forget the day.

 It was fully dark when Jim crunched over the gravel into the friendly patio. Strings of lights hung from the block walls, offering an inviting glow. The boys were already assembled. He heard laughter and then a deep-voiced challenge.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

Jim rounded the corner and took in the welcome scene. A trio of smiling faces, the smell of cigars, and an open chair waiting for him. Good friends and sanctuary. A chorus of greetings rose to meet him.

“Jim, you’re late.”

“Grab a seat.”

Then another voice.

“Damn, son, you look like shit.”

Jim smiled and waved his free hand.

“Yeah, tough day.” 

Jim lowered himself into an Adirondack chair. He fished the burrito from its paper sack, balanced it on the wide chair arm, then pulled out a beer. 

“Give me a minute, fellas. My belly’s bumping backbone.”

He peeled the foil from the burrito and took a huge bite. Conversation flowed around him as the boys gave him space. Jim chowed his way down to the messy end.

Steve, the host, was the first to comment.

“A man could lose a finger eating like that.”

A ripple of laughter passed through the group. Jim wadded up the gooey foil and tossed it into a trashcan. He took a long pull of his beer.

“You look like you’ve been in the wars. Are you going to tell us, or do we have to pry it out of you?” 

Steve leaned forward, holding a cigar between his fingers.

“Here’s a little incentive.”

Jim took the cigar and forced a smile.

“Thanks, brother. You don’t know how bad I need this.”

“Well, get to smoking then. You’ve got some catching up to do.”

The others watched while he clipped and lit the cigar. He blew out a long stream of smoke and looked at their expectant faces.

“I’m late because I had to leave the job and rush over to Tricia’s place.”

A collective groan swept over the dark patio.

“Holy shit, Jim. Not again? What was it this time?”

“Scorpions.”

The three men sat forward in their chairs, ready to hear another tale of misery. Jim did not disappoint them. Much head shaking and cursing punctuated his story. When he finished, there came a moment of silence. Larry was the first to break it.

“Not trying to be an asshole, Jim, but this bitch dumped you. The way I see it, you don’t owe her a thing.”

“I know it, Larry. I mean, I know it in my head, right? But I still care about her.”

“You think she still cares about you, other than when she’s shit-faced?”

Jim drank off a third of his beer before he answered.

“As I left her place, I saw a photo on the wall. Me and Trish with some of the Portland crowd. Except I wasn’t in the photo anymore. She’d taken the photo from the frame, sliced my face out, then put the damn thing back on the wall. It was like looking at a post-Stalinist history book.”

“Damn, that’s harsh.”

“I got a text while I was driving over here. Check it out.”

He held up his phone and read from the screen.

“I found a giant black hair on my boob.”

Jim spread his hands in supplication. The men contemplated their cigars. Then Hal spoke.

“You can’t keep doing this. It’s not right. You’re not even married, for chrissakes. You gotta understand something. Tricia is spiraling the drain. She’s going down, and she aims to take you with her. I know you still love her, but love’s one thing, and survival is another. You’ve got a good life here, except for Tricia. She made her choice. Now you have to make yours. Sorry for being blunt, but that’s how I see it.”

“I appreciate your honesty, Hal. And you’re right. My brain says hell no, then my goddamn heart sells me down the river. Most days, I’m fine, you know? But when I see her, I feel split down the middle.”

Larry held up an exonerating hand.

“Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger, Jim. Most of us are skating on ice so thin and clear we can see the neon signs of hell way down below our feet.”

Laughter rang all around. Steve clapped his hands to bring the boys to heel.

“All right, enough of this sad shit. Who’s up for some cribbage?”

*  *  *

That evening might have been a turning point for Jim. As the days passed, he got on with his work, made his clients happy, and tried to enjoy life. Mercifully, his phone did not light up with Tricia’s number. The interlude lasted all of two weeks.

“What is it this time, Trish?”

“That’s how you start a conversation? I sliced my goddamn arm wide open. There’s blood all over me, you asshole. That’s what the fuck it is this time. And you come on all sarcastic and shit. Get your ass over here. You gotta drive me to the ER.”

“All right, Trish, I’m sorry. I’m on my way, okay?”

Fifteen minutes later, Jim roared into Trish’s driveway and killed the engine. He leaped out of the truck, ran up the drive, and found Tricia standing in the open front door. She leaned against the doorjamb, a highball glass in her hand. She wore a white blouse and shorts, and not a trace of blood anywhere. She raised her glass in a mock toast.

“Took you long enough.”

Jim stared dumbfounded. He waved a hand in the air as if trying to catch his words.

“What the… I thought… You made it sound like you were bleeding to death.”

She smirked, hard and mean.

“Had to make sure you’d come, Jimmy. And you took the bait like a big stupid fish. Good to know I can still reel you in.”

Her words landed like a punch in the face. The blow hit all the harder for being true. Without another word, Jim swung around and stalked back to his truck. As he slammed the truck into gear, Jim took one last look at the house. From her perch in the doorway, Trish smiled and waved. He backed out of the driveway and squealed away.

*  *  *

After he blocked her number, Tricia’s calls went straight to voicemail. He deleted the voicemails without listening to her screeching voice. Days passed, the calls grew less frequent, and Jim regained some of his sanity.

Two weeks slipped past, and then two more.

A Friday evening came to pass, and the boys gathered on Steve’s patio. Jim and Steve admired the gloaming of the day while Hal and Larry talked trash over the cribbage board. 

Steve’s cell phone rang. He excused himself, held the phone to his ear, then cocked a sidelong look at Jim.

“Just a second, I can’t hear.”

Steve held a hand over the phone.

“Pipe down, you guys.”

The men went silent, all eyes on Steve.

“I’ll tell him. Yes. I said I’d tell him, okay?”

He thumbed the phone dead.

“That was Tricia. She’s in the Pima County Jail. DUI. She wants you to go bail her out.”

Jim stared at Steve while everyone else stared at him.

“How did she get your number?”

“Hell if I know. She probably had it from before. You know.”

Jim pushed himself out of his chair. His bootsoles crunched against the gravel as he headed for the gate. Behind him, he heard the boys muttering.

When he returned thirty minutes later, the boys were still muttering. Their voices fell silent when the gate clanged shut. Jim stepped into the light and stood there smiling. A half-rack of top-shelf beer dangled from his right hand. His left hand cradled a wooden cigar box. 

Steve was the first to break the silence.

“You care to enlighten us?”

Jim looked at their expressions and broke out laughing. It was a good laugh, from deep in his guts. Then he stepped forward, set the beer on a table, and plopped the cigar box on top of the beer.

“Yes, Brother Steve, I will enlighten you. This is what we call a celebration. We are the celebrants, and here are the means.”

“I take it you didn’t drive down to the jailhouse.”

Jim shook his head, picked up the cigar box, and broke the seal with his thumbnail. He held the box out to Hal.

“Would you do the honors and pass these around?”

Hal looked at the box, whistled, then pried open the lid.

“Don’t mind if I do, good sir.”

Hal grabbed a stick and passed the box on. Steve waved his hands in the air.

“C’mon, fess up.”

“To answer your question, no, I did not go to the jailhouse.”

“Did you talk to Tricia?”

“I did not talk to Tricia. However, if I had spoken to Tricia, I would have told her to fuck off, girl up, and call her bondsman. I’m sure the sheriff will be sick of her by morning. She’s got money. They’ll let her go eventually.”

“And that’s it?”

“No. When I left you guys, I walked out to my truck. Just stood there with the key in my hand. Something fell away inside me, and I couldn’t figure out what. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Then I understood. My heart was breaking. I guess it’s about time. My thick skull figured it out the day Trish dumped me out on my ass.”

“And then what? Retail therapy?”

“Not therapy, per se. I needed something to bribe you guys with, plus, a broken heart requires the proper medicine. Trish is not my problem anymore. But she is a huge pain in the ass, and she probably won’t change. I don’t want her bugging you guys, but she might. The beer and cigars are a thank you and a bribe. Thank you for sticking by me, even when I acted like a fool. And I’m bribing you guys to block her number and never tell me if she calls. Deal?”

Steve laughed and picked up his phone. A few seconds later he tossed it down. 

“Done. Now, hand over the goods.”

Larry held up a cigar.

“Tricia never had my number in the first place. Can I still smoke this bad boy?”

“All yours, Larry.”

Hal smiled as he reached for a beer.

“Good on you, Jim.”

Jim grinned and raised his bottle.

“To happy days, Gentlemen! Feel free to slap me if I slip up.”

“Happy days!”

“And to slapping Jim.”

“I’ll drink to both.”

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. “Power Tools” is Marco’s latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch.

Author website:  https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/

“Hi ho!” Glenn shouted, standing naked in the morning sun, gleefully loosing a stream of urine through the gaps in his balcony railing. 

“Hi ho!” Richard, Glenn’s neighbor to the left, responded with his own morning shower. “Hi ho!” There was Bruce, always a few minutes late to the party. Bruce was older than the rest—slow to get out of bed in the mornings—but Glenn admired the vigor of the old man’s stream, watching as it arced out from Bruce’s balcony and fell to the sea below in a single, steady current.

By a happy quirk of placement, the balconies of Glenn’s building faced perpetually windward. In the brochure, Glenn recalled something about a system of carefully-calibrated rudders and ballast tanks beneath their feet, holding their floating paradise in position against the roiling currents of the Gulf Stream. But Glenn cared little for the “how,” so long as he didn’t have to worry about his piss making a return trip. 

“Hi ho! Hi ho!” The call travelled like a stadium wave, the smell of urine carrying on the salty air as the men of Isla Hermosa’s Tahiti Tower #4 unburdened their bladders. The tradition had started long before Glenn arrived, but he was happy now to carry it into the future—a mutual salute to his band of brothers who’d earned their place in Eden.

—

It was his mother’s long march towards death that set Glenn on the path to that piss-soaked paradise. After taking conservatorship over their ailing mother, Glenn and his brothers sold the home she’d raised them in. Her jewels were distributed amongst granddaughters and daughters-in-law. What no one claimed was thrown into trash bags and pawned off by a company that specialized in such things. The money left over would pay for their mother’s stay in an exclusive memory care unit—not for the sake of the living mummies entombed within, but rather, a balm for the guilt of the little Pharaohs who’d put them there. 

What the brothers hoped would be the final year of their mother’s life turned into seven—hooked into life support like a laptop whose battery had sputtered out long ago—and finally, Grace Wolverton choked to death on her own spittle. Glenn wasn’t so much ashamed to admit that he was relieved, but relieved to admit it. There would be no looming inheritance battle. He and his brothers had dutifully squabbled over their mother’s belongings while she was still living, and now, a mere pittance remained of the windfall they’d all hoped for upon her death. 

As Glenn reviewed the final accounting of his mother’s life—eight decades of aggravation reduced to a bank statement—the determined right then and there to make better use of his final years. 

—

Glenn crossed the pebbled knoll at the center of the four identical Tahiti Towers, with its faux-thatch cabanas and unmanned grill pits, and continued on across a shaded path, lined on either side by tall palms that swayed with the breeze. He paused at a fork, fishing around in his swim trunks for the lucky coin that he’d carried with him since he was a boy. 

“What’dya say, JFK?” Glenn flipped the coin into the air and caught it in his right hand, slamming it down on the back of his left with practiced ease. “Beach or breakfast?” Glenn lifted his right hand, smiling at the handsome profile on the face of the Kennedy half-dollar. “Breakfast it is,” Glenn told the president as he followed the coin flip down the chosen path. 

“On your left!” Someone shouted at Glenn from behind. He turned to find Mrs. Koppel bearing down on him, power-walking at a ferocious clip. “Oh, Glenn…” Nancy Koppel stopped, high-stepping in place to keep her heart-rate up. 

“Morning, Nance…” Glenn had a boyish grin on his face. Nancy Koppel was a breakfast sausage stuffed in purple Lycra. “You’re looking like a snack this morning.” Glenn licked the sweat from his upper lip, squinting at the light reflected off the diamond dew drops hanging from Nancy’s ears.  

“Why don’t you—” Nancy struggled for breath, pumping her arms and legs between each syllable. “Why don’t you come over later and have a taste?” Nancy smiled, a rictus grin opening between her cheeks. There was so much Botox in her face that she couldn’t sweat, and now, she was turning red—like an over-ripe plum, left too long in the sun.

Before Glenn could respond, Nancy was huffing down the path. Glenn leered after her and adjusted his waistband, trying to conceal the stiff kid swimming in his trunks. “God bless you, Dr. Zohrabi,” Glenn muttered under his breath, offering a silent prayer to the in-house surgeon who’d sculpted Nancy’s plastic ass.

—

Before his retirement, Glenn lived in a gloomy three-bedroom split-level on a half-acre of sunken meadow. They’d been there for a decade, forced to downsize from an airy California contemporary. It was a disappointment that Glenn had never gotten over. 

His youngest son, Christian, had moved back home after his mother got sick. They’d called it a wasting disease. The doctor had explained why, but Glenn knew the disease for what it really was. Waste of time. Waste of money. In the end, a waste of the decades they’d spent barely tolerating one another, looking forward to some ineffable bliss that they’d share together in retirement. In the end, she went quickly. But Christian still lived in the basement—one disappointment inhabiting another. 

Each night, Glenn and Christian watched Jeopardy while eating dinner—a diversion from one another that both were grateful for. “I’m leaving,” Glenn told him. Christian didn’t respond, trying to recall the title of the 1976 film about a dystopian world where adults are killed upon turning 30.   

“I said, I’m leaving!” Glenn barked. 

Christian just shook his head, confused. 

Glenn slid a pamphlet across the table. 

“YOU DESERVE A BREAK,” it read in bold letters across the top. Beneath the banner, there was an idyllic photograph of two grinning septuagenerians. Their bronze-leather skin and bleached-white teeth popped against the blue sky, the ocean stretching turquoise in the background. 

Christian raised an eyebrow. “You’re going on a cruise?”

Glenn scoffed at this. “It’s not a cruise. It’s an all-inclusive, lifetime early retirement package.” Glenn smiled, opening the pamphlet for Christian to see. There was a bird’s eye view of a small island. Its green interior was fenced in by clusters of honeycomb condominium towers — like a ring of pitted teeth rising from the sea. “It’s called a ‘seastead.’” Glenn beamed, describing the thing as if he’d designed it himself. “It’s an artificial island—self-sustaining, completely off-the-grid. Totally high-tech. And get this…it’s in international waters…” 

Christian just stared, failing to understand his father’s implication. 

“No inheritance tax!” Glenn was practically salivating. “No fucking Fed taking half of my hard-earned cash when I’m gone.” Glenn turned the pamphlet over. “Here, read this. That last section…” 

Christian squinted, reading aloud. “Upon death or termination of contract, whichever occurs first, the entirety of the guest’s remaining assets will be distributed to the designee(s) of the guest’s choice.” 

Glenn smiled, self-impressed. “I’m leaving everything to you. Tax-free!” 

Christian didn’t hear him, focused on the fine print. “What does this mean by termination?” 

“It’s a five-year contract,” Glenn explained.

“…and then?”
“Five-star experience, right until the end. It’s like floating away on a cloud, they said. Pump you so full’a drugs you’re practically in heaven, whether you believe in it or not!” Glenn chuckled at his own quip.  

Christian’s eyes widened. “They kill you!?” 

Glenn just shrugged. “Unless I die first…” 

“Are you fucking crazy?!” 

“It’s a great deal, actually. Five years of paradise, for just 10% of my net worth upon death, less incidentals of course.’

“So you’re going to kill yourself?” 

Glenn was growing impatient. Why was this so hard for him to understand? “I’m not going to end up like my mother, rotting away in some waiting room for vegetables!” 

Christian sneered, incredulous. “You’re a fucking idiot.” 

“You ungrateful little—” Glenn was steaming now. “I’m leaving you everything! Tax-fucking-free! A little ‘thank you’ might be nice?” 

“Thank you? You’re checking out and leaving me to clean up the mess! ‘Got mine, now fuck off!‘ Typical. Your whole generation, self-obsessed babies.” Christian was already storming off, shouting as he descended into the basement. “Have fun on your fucking cruise!”  

“It’s not a cruise!” Glenn shouted. “Last dollar you’ll ever see from me! I’ll give it to your brother! He’ll appreciate how hard I’ve worked to do this for him!” 

Glenn braced for Christian’s response, but nothing came. His eyes moved to the open pamphlet on the table. A woman in a yellow swimsuit stared at him over the rim of an over-sized margarita. She could have been forty or seventy—Glenn couldn’t tell, he didn’t care—her collagen lips hugging the rim of the glass. All Glenn knew was that she stared at him in a way no one had in a very long time.

—

Yoona perked up as soon as Glenn walked through the doors. “Ah, good morning Mr. Wolverton! We’re so honored to have you with us today.” The hostess smiled as she led Glenn though the dining room and onto a balcony that overlooked the Japanese garden, where a withered Cherry Blossom struggled gnarled and naked in the tropical heat. “Best seat in the house.” 

“Arigato, Yoona-san!” Glenn offered a theatrical bow, raising prayer hands to his forehead. “I’ll take the usual.” 

Yoona offered an impenetrable smile in return. “Oh, not today, Mr. Wolverton.” She winked, relishing the moment. “Chef’s menu,” she announced, setting the waitstaff to work with a glance.  

Glenn sneered at the first course—a dollop of Greek yogurt with home-made granola and fresh-picked berries. He’d managed to scoop all of the fruit out of the yogurt by the time the second course arrived. Now this was Glenn’s style. He devoured the custard brioche French toast in three bites, offering a triumphant belch that signaled the waitstaff to deliver round three. A juicy haunch of New York strip bled onto the white porcelain, mixing with three sage-poached eggs that sat in a pool of creamy hollandaise. Before Glenn could ask for dessert, a chocolate soufflé was sitting on the table. 

Glenn left the restaurant, full to bursting. Whether thirty minutes had passed or three hours since he’d spooned the last of the chocolate sauce into his mouth, Glenn couldn’t tell. His sense of time was lost in the sloshing contents of his gut. He’d definitely need to take a nap before his rendezvous with Mrs. Koppel.

But when Glenn arrived back at Tahiti Tower #4, he found an attendant standing dutifully by the entrance.  

“Good morning, Mr. Wolverton. We hope you enjoyed your breakfast.” Glenn just nodded, still dazed. He tried to walk past, but the attendant stepped into his way. “It’s time, Mr. Wolverton.” 

“Time?” Glenn asked, confused.  

The attendant looked at his watch. “Actually, we’re a few minutes early.” Glenn waited for a moment, awkwardly, as the attendant watched the second-hand advance.  

“…and, now, your contract has officially expired. If you’ll please follow me, we can have you checked out within the hour.” 

Glenn thought back for a moment. Had it already been five years? “That can’t be right,” Glenn said. “Are you sure—”

“We’re quite sure, Mr. Wolverton.” At this, the attendant nodded to his side, where an overweight Goliath in pink scrubs emerged from the shadows. “Now,” the attendant continued, “will you please come with us?” 

—

1:13PM Elliot. It’s your father. Call me. -Dad

5:52PM Hello? 

9:14PM Elliot, I’m leaving. 

9:35PM FOREVER. 

11:42PM earth 2 ELLIOOTTTTTT. phone homee ELLIOTTTTTT

12:04AM HELLOOOOOOOO

2:14AM fifteen years payingyour student loans this is THANKS I GET. do you knoww how hard we work we workedd like DOGS. your kids gonna be PSUSIES without theirgranpa PUSSIEs withouta rel man to showhow world works not bitch woke Cali lib lk u 

2:15AM ANWER ME

2:15AM ANSWR ME U FKN PUSSY

2:15AM ANSWRRRRzeeee

—

When the elevator opened, the attendant stepped out, but Glenn just stared past him. A long, windowless corridor stretched endlessly into the distance, segmented every ten meters by a steel bulkhead. Standing behind him, the orderly nudged Glenn forward with his belly. If Glenn had ever possessed the will to resist, he couldn’t find it now. In fact, he could barely find his legs. They’d turned to jelly, and now, he felt like he was floating on along a pre-determined track. 

Glenn’s field of vision narrowed.

It was all going black— 

Suddenly, the orderly grabbed Glenn’s shoulder, stopping him in front of a thick steel door.  

“Bon voyage, Mr. Wolverton.” The attendant’s voice was strangely distant, reaching Glenn’s ears as a whisper despite the man’s proximity. Finally, the door opened, and Glenn was pushed across the threshold.  

—

Glenn found himself lying in turquoise water, warm as a bath-tub. The water was shallow, but he floated effortlessly above the bed of sand. Somehow, Glenn knew that the water was the entirety of this world, stretching from horizon to horizon. It felt good. It felt right. The world was bathed in silver moonlight. But the sky was dark and empty, save for a single pin of light from a distant star. But soon, that pin of light grew larger. It grew brighter and brighter. A dam had broken and light was flooding in through a hole in the celestial sphere, and soon, Glenn was surrounded by a milky white so thick that he couldn’t see his hands before him. His feet in front of him. He couldn’t see his fingers inches from his face—”This is the end,” Glenn thought, with no head—and then, Glenn was gone completely. 

—

Christian received a certified envelope in the mail. He signed for it begrudgingly and placed it atop a tower of unpaid bills—a fitting memorial to the responsibilities his father had shirked. He ignored it for a week, but as the end of the month approached and the time to settle came due, Christian opened the envelope. 

Inside, there was a printed statement—several pages of itemized expenditures that wrote a history of Glenn’s retirement. Everything was there. Every meal he ate. Every bison burger and coconut shrimp and stack of pancakes. Every Mimosa and Piña Colada he slurped down. Every beach chair he rented and towel he soiled. The nightly rate for his room and the fees incurred for the water and electricity he’d used beyond his daily allowance. The laundry service and cleaning fees. The on-demand porn he’d used to get in the mood and the antibiotics he’d needed to treat the repercussions. There was something called a “Fluids and Discharge Fee” that Christian didn’t want to think about. They’d even billed Glenn for his own execution.

In the end, there was nothing left. 

But as Christian moved to toss the folder into the trash, something fell out and onto the floor. Christian picked up the half-dollar and held it up to the light. He’d seen his father toy with it before, but had never actually taken the time to look at it himself. What his father had seen in the 35th President, Christian didn’t know. The promises made in 1960 had been squandered by the generation who’d made them; Christian’s present reality was a cruel parody of the bold future that they’d prophesied. Holding the coin, Christian heard the gunshot and saw the President’s head snap back and the blood spatter across Jackie’s face and her frantic efforts to keep Jack’s bold vision for the future from spilling out the back of his skull.    

—

Glenn came to, shivering in a cold sweat. He was naked. He could feel the rivets in the steel floor pressing into his back. He could hear the roiling waves. The smell of salt and shit and sea. And then, when Glenn opened his eyes, he saw the reaper standing before him. 

The janitor was standing on a wide service scaffolding that circled the entire seastead. He was spraying the steel hull with a hose, washing a slick of urine and bird shit down onto the deck. The janitor was a thin man, ropy muscles and long limbs swimming in threadbare coveralls. His skin was creased and weather-beaten. Unlike those above who’d made every effort to preserve their youth, labor and life had aged this man far beyond his years. 

Glenn thought to scream for help but could only muster a garbled croak. The janitor turned, his thin smile framing a mouth of brown and crooked teeth. Glenn urged his legs to kick free, but the only muscles that responded were his bowels, which emptied his four-course breakfast onto the floor.  

The janitor laughed and moved towards a small locker. 

He returned with a machete, nicked and blunted from use. 

He straddled Glenn, standing over his waist so that the only thing Glenn would see in his final moments was the agent of his annihilation. 

“Hi ho, mother fucker!” The janitor aped Glenn’s morning salute, miming a cheerful American accent. And then, he opened a bloody chasm in Glenn’s skull.  

The janitor quickly dismembered Glenn’s corpse. Like a cook who’d spent years on the line breaking down chickens, he knew precisely where to bring the blade down, separating each limb in the small gap of ligament between hard bone. Shoulder. Elbow. Knee. Hip. Neck. Once the corpse was processed, the janitor carried each piece towards an open hatch in the scaffolding and dropped it over the edge and into the sea. The sharks were quick—they’d grown accustomed to these daily offerings—and circled in the water below. The janitor returned to his mop, gathering up the bits of Glenn that remained—brain and blood and shit and shards of bone—and fed the sharks another serving. 

Josh Lee Gordon is a multi-disciplinary writer, working predominantly in film and television. He’s currently developing a body-horror crime thriller with Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor, Infinity Pool) and Topic Studios, and has worked with Warner Brothers, NBCUniversal, and Sony Pictures Television, among others. Previously, Josh wrote a comic book continuation of the cult space opera “Firefly” for BOOM! Studios. His short fiction was most recently published in Idle Ink Magazine. Josh lives in Los Angeles with his partner and their miniature poodle, Jupiter.

I knew Samantha Tiel back in high school. We didn’t go to the same school, but met through a mutual friend in the youth group of the church our parents attended. It’s not often in life that you meet someone you immediately click perfectly with, but that’s what happened with Samantha and I—even when we first met, we were close friends. It wasn’t long before we were hanging out at the mall together, going to the movies, and whatever else our teenage selves decided to get up to. We became more-or-less inseparable and got a lot of questions about whether-or-not we were dating. It was a ridiculous idea—neither one had any of those thoughts about the other—but looking back I can see how the outside looking in might give off that impression. Neither of us were on the “outside,” we had a much better understanding of things than anyone else. 

Samantha spent the year after graduation traveling. She had always wanted to go to Italy, so she went to Italy and even made plans to go back the following year. She went on a road trip across the States, too, and once-or-twice even went to Romania. When Samantha started taking classes to become a nurse, she still squeezed in whatever trips she could. “Do it while you’re young,” her mother said. 

The years went by and work got in the way of life. I was working at a factory and we were perpetually short-handed. Our visits and hangouts became texts and calls, and then the space between texts and calls began to stretch. Before we knew it, we hadn’t really spoken to or seen each other in eons. Samantha moved out of town, got married, had two kids. I couldn’t make it to the wedding, but I did make a trip to see the kids. 

Still, it seemed like not that much time had passed, but it also felt like even more time had gone by than was really the case. No matter how long it had been, no matter how little we had talked in the meantime, we were not and never could be strangers. It was always good to see each other. 

Then Samantha’s mother had called me to tell me what had happened: she had drowned on a trip to the lake. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it—hell, maybe a part of me flat out refused to believe it. She was gone. I should have called more, done more—whatever it was, it should have been more. “Not my baby,” Mrs. Tiel was in tears, her voice scraped its way out of her throat and mouth. “My baby shouldn’t look like that—that blue in the face. My god…” The rest of what she said was just noise—sad, sad noise—until she hung up the phone. I got the funeral details from my parents. We bought an arrangement of sunflowers—they were always Samantha’s favorite. 

The day of the funeral came and I decided I would walk to the funeral home. It might sound like a strange thing to do, but I decided to grieve however I grieved. I parked at a gas station about a mile away and began my hike. I hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but it was a trek Samantha and I had made many, many times when we had nothing else to do. We’d walk past the supermarket, beneath the overpass, by the hospital, and sure enough past that exact funeral home too, usually on our way to kill time downtown. Some days we would just walk until we didn’t feel like walking anymore, and then one of us would call our parents to come pick us up. 

Being young and having nothing better to do was nice. Those days were long gone though—there were always things to do now, responsibilities, time to be burned up in black smoke. Those days are all I thought about as I walked, and it was nice to remember it all so clearly. 

I got up to the overpass and had to stop. There she was, just up ahead. Samantha stood with her face in her hand—she looked like she had been crying. When she looked up and noticed me I saw how pale she was, but she went paler as our eyes locked. Pure terror washed over her face. Death must be a very sad and horrible affair, I thought. 

I waited for Samantha to vanish, like ghosts are supposed to do, but she didn’t go anywhere. We just stood there, our eyes wide on each other. I was staring at some ghost, or specter, or wraith—whatever the difference between them was—or just losing my mind, and a part of it felt oddly nice because it meant I got to see her one more time. “What are you doing here?” I said at last. 

Samantha flinched when I spoke, but she didn’t respond. Her lips twitched like she was looking for a word, or trying to make one come out, but nothing happened. 

“Samantha…” I said as I took a step forward. She jumped when I did that. 

“No!” she screamed the way you scream at a clown-faced killer. “Stay back!”

“Samantha! What’s wrong?” The words felt absurd even as they came out of my mouth, but that didn’t stop me from saying them. She was dead, that’s what was wrong. 

She was shaking and looked ready to bolt. I just wanted her to stay, to talk to me, just for a bit longer; we had a lot of catching up to do. I stood there, though—I didn’t take another step. She wanted me to stay back, so I stayed back. 

“Talk to me, Sam,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s you,” she said, her eyes were glassy with tears, her eyes red, her sockets raw. She looked so real, not ethereal at all. She was still shaking but didn’t look so ready to run now. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she told me. “I’m on my way to your funeral.” 

II

It took me a minute to formulate a thought, to make a word. What Samantha told me hit me like a slap in the face. “What are you talking about?” I asked. Samantha had never been a prankster, so I thought it was incredibly odd that her ghost would try to pull something on me. “I’m not dead, Sam. I was—”

“Not dead?” she shook her head at me. Her voice cracked as it came out, and she seemed to be caught in that space people sometimes get trapped in while they’re talking much louder than normal but not quite yelling—that place where either all hell breaks out from or they clam up entirely the next moment, unable to speak. “How the fuck can’t you be dead?” She wasn’t looking at me now, she was looking at the ground. “I’ve been crying since I heard about you dying, and now you’re going to tell me you’re not dead? Is this a joke to you?” Samantha’s voice kept rising—the decibels grew and grew—it would be a hell breaking situation. “How the fuck could you do this to me?” she screamed. “When you’re dead, you’re not supposed to come back! And here you are! And you’re telling me you’re not dead!”

Samantha was roaring now. I felt something well up inside me. I didn’t understand what it was at first, but then it came to me: it was my own hell breaking out. 

“What about you?” I yelled. “Your mother called and said you drowned in a lake!” Samantha jumped when I said this. “You’re gone! You’ve been gone since—”

“What are you talking about, Andrew?”

“You’re dead!” I shouted. I felt my face getting wet. “I’m heading to your funeral! You died, Samantha! And you’re going to—” I couldn’t finish what I was going to say. I turned into a blubbering fool instead. I put my face in my hands, wept and snotted all over them. I felt Samantha put her arms around me. She squeezed me tight. I could feel the side of her head against mine, and I could hear that she was crying, too. 

We actually fought over it. As strange as it sounds, we fought over who was the dead one. Maybe it was lost in the moment, but looking back it’s easy to see that the funeral, the “dead one,” had nothing to do with it at all. We were angry about losing touch, about time going by, about having this conversation too late, and there’s nothing worse than “too late.” We went back-and-forth saying who should have called, who should have reached out, who should have done this-or-that. We were the guiltiest people on earth. 

“I should have checked in. I shouldn’t have let things go…” Samantha said. 

“No,” I told her. “You’re married. You’ve got kids. I should have picked up the phone more.” 

We should have gone out for coffee, at least. 

We stopped yelling and screaming when our throats started to hurt. We hadn’t moved out from under the overpass, and cars kept passing by. It’s a wonder nobody called the cops. 

“So what are we going to do?” Samantha asked. 

That was a good question. I had no idea what we should do next. Part of me just wanted to stay under the overpass with Samantha all day, because I knew once I reached the funeral home I would see her in the casket, I would see what the mortician did for her “big day,” and it made me sick to my stomach. Samantha was right here, after all. Why would I want to go anywhere else? My chest felt tight. I reigned in my breathing but it didn’t help. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so there was nothing in my stomach but a sad rage. 

“Let’s go,” said Samantha as she tugged my arm. 

We started walking. 

“Where to?” I asked. 

“The funeral home, I fucking guess…” 

III

“I hope it’s me,” Samantha said after a few minutes of silence. We were walking slow, side-by-side. The hospital was on our left. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“I hope it’s my funeral,” she smiled at me. “I hope you’re still alive.” 

I didn’t know what to think of that. Something got caught in my throat and I sounded like a distressed frog as I tried to swallow it down. “No,” I said at last. “Don’t say that.” 

“Andrew,” Samantha sighed, “I’d cut off my thumb right now if it meant I’m the one in the casket when we get there. I mean it. I really hope you’re not dead.” 

I couldn’t believe it. Samantha had a husband and two kids. I had heard her mother on the phone that evening. It wouldn’t be fair. I had all the memories leading up to the moment I met Samantha under the overpass, but she had her own memories too, so the fact of the matter was still very much up in the air. It was me—it had to be me. 

“It’s me,” I told her. “It has to be. We’ll get there and it’ll be my funeral, and it’ll be fine.” 

“Don’t say that,” she shook her head. 

“So you’re allowed to say it?”

“Well yea…” 

We kept walking for a minute in silence and I touched her arm as I stopped walking. She looked back at me. 

“I’m serious,” I told her. “It’s me. It’s got to be me.” 

“Andrew…” 

“You’ve done so much. I’ve done nothing. It’s only fair…” 

“The universe isn’t fair.” 

“It should be!” I was crying again. “I want it to be me more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I want you to sit down next to your husband when you get there. I want you to hold his hand as I’m lowered into the ground. Then I want you to be sad for a while, and then eventually be okay. I want you to cry your guts out for the next week, or the next month, if that means you’re alive…” 

“I’ve cried enough already,” she smiled. 

“I’m serious.” 

“So am I.” 

We each said what we would do, what we would endure, if it meant the other survived. I had the better case—I was right about my having done absolutely nothing with my life, after all. We were at an impasse, though. There was only one way to settle things:

“I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” Samantha smiled at me. 

We continued walking. 

IV

The funeral home was getting closer. I know we were walking there, but it really did feel like the place was inching closer to us, closing in, creeping up, coming in for the kill. There was a perfect dread covering us, and we did our best to brush it aside, to ignore it. No matter how hard you fight, though, the thing you’re fighting can always win. 

We kept our eyes forward. We had been silent for a few minutes. I thought about what else there was to say, and since I didn’t come up with anything I kept my mouth shut. I wondered what Samantha was thinking. Our walking slowed even more, and eventually we stopped—we just stood there on the sidewalk. 

“We’re almost there,” Samantha said at last. 

“Yea.” 

“What do you think happens when you die?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to that.” 

“Take a guess.” 

We looked at each other and I could see that Samantha was waiting, or searching, for an answer, or for me to give her an answer—anything at all. I didn’t think she wanted the right answer, just an answer. She wanted to say something, or me to say something—just mindless talk, most likely. We were running out of time for normalcy, or what passed for normalcy between the two of us. It wouldn’t be much longer before we would get our answer—the last thing either of us really wanted—and that was terrifying. 

“I don’t think anything happens,” I said. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” I scratched my head. “I think we’re just gone when we die. I don’t mean like we go to sleep, but we just disappear, pass into nothingness…that sort of thing. It’s all over. We just cease to be.” 

“That sounds terrible,” she crossed her arms. “I don’t know if I like that.” 

“I don’t think it’s all that bad. I just mean we’re out of here, kind of like how we were before we were born. There’s just nothing, and there’s nothing of us to even realize it. It’s not scary. It’s not restful or peaceful or distressing or anything at all. It’s just not there…if that makes sense.” 

Samantha thought it over. 

“I still think it’s sad,” she said. “I never bought into the church’s mumbo-jumbo, but I like the idea of Heaven.” 

“I think everyone does,” I sighed, “but it’s only sad before you leave. Once you’re gone, there’s nothing left to feel about anything.” 

She laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” I asked. 

“I think I’d rather feel sad about it,” she said. “I think I’d rather miss everything.” 

Samantha was smiling at me but I could tell it was a halfhearted smile. She was trying to be strong, or trying to ignore the inevitable—something like that. I thought about what she said and realized exactly how much I wished I was right, not about the nothingness but rather about which of us was dead. I don’t know if I really believed it or not, but I had thought things over and convinced myself—or tried to convince myself—that I was the dead one, that it was my funeral we were heading to. Samantha just had so much to live for, so much worth living for. I didn’t want her to lose that, and if she lost it I would feel like I had taken it from her. 

She deserved so much better than that. 

I had a job that could easily replace me, and that was about it. I spent hours and days there so I could earn my paycheck that did nothing but pay bills. Samantha had her two kids, and her husband—she had made a family—and I didn’t want any part of the Cosmic Order that declared her dead instead of me. My chest went tight again, and that frog came back to lodge itself in my throat. 

“You okay?” Samantha asked. 

“I’m fine,” I said. 

“You don’t look like you’re fine.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” I gave her my best smile. “You’re not supposed to feel okay when you’re dead, are you?”

Samantha slapped me on the arm. “Don’t say that!” Her eyes glassed up again. “Don’t talk about being dead! Don’t say you being dead doesn’t mean anything!” I put my arm around her and she started crying into my shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. 

“I get what you’re saying though,” she wiped her eyes and looked up at me. “You hope it’s you because I have a family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, and I want to see them tomorrow more than anything in the world. I guess I can’t explain it, but I just don’t want you to die. Even if that means I have to die. I just don’t want you to die.” 

“Sam…” 

“Your life means something, you know,” she stepped away from me and started walking again. “My life means something, too. Our lives mean things. We’re here, and that’s important.” 

We didn’t have a say in the matter, and I think Samantha had a better understanding of that than I did. I had been wishing death upon myself as if it were some sort of magical thinking that might come true, and she just wished I could have a life. She didn’t know what kind of life she was wishing, though, but I’m not sure if facts would change her mind. I’d be forgotten about in no time—she would be leaving behind people who would remember her for the rest of their lives. I knew she realized that, but I wished she would just see it the way I did. Then I realized everything I had been thinking was just an attempt at making myself feel better, and that made me feel like shit. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. 

“I’m gonna miss them so much if it’s me…” 

“I’ll be there. Don’t you worry.” 

“And I’ll make your mom a big casserole tomorrow,” Samantha smiled at me again, but her eyes were still dripping and her cheeks were soaked. It was the saddest smile I had ever seen. “Enough that she can eat for at least a few days and not worry about cooking. I’ll do it again, too, just to make sure she doesn’t have to do it herself.” 

“Yea,” I said. “That’s a good idea.” 

We kept walking, and the funeral home drew near. 

V

We stood outside the front door and that feeling of dread we had felt on the way was now suffocating. It was terrifying, staring into the mouth of that building, thinking about what would come next. The parking lot was full, and we saw the hearse that had been readied for the procession parked and ready-to-go. One of us would end up inside. One of us would watch a box get dropped into the earth. One of us would become a great explorer, going into the greatest unknown. One of us would bring flowers periodically to a stone carved with words and numbers. 

“We got you sunflowers,” I said. We weren’t making any indications of going inside, so I thought I might as well say something. 

“Mom got you roses,” Samantha told me. “You never seemed to care too much about flowers, so I let her pick.” 

“Roses are good.” 

“Sunflowers are my favorite.” 

We just stood there. We had walked the entire way to the funeral home and now that we had arrived, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go inside. We knew we had to—one of us had to attend the funeral for the other—but something was holding us back. 

“This is it,” I said, but I didn’t take a step forward. 

“Yea, it is…” Samantha didn’t move either. 

The finality was setting in. The absolute value seemed horrible. We both wanted to see each other the next day, but that just wasn’t in the cards. “You go first,” I wanted to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it…it wasn’t fair. I also didn’t want to be the first one to step inside. We wouldn’t see each other tomorrow, but we were together for the time being, so maybe we could stretch it out a little bit longer. 

I was fine with being dead. I was not okay with being alive, with finding out that I would be the one mourning and living on. I would say and do anything at all for Samantha’s sake. 

“Would you feel bad if I didn’t make it to your funeral?” Samantha asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she shrugged, “I think everyone will understand if I didn’t make it. It’s a lot to process, and maybe I just couldn’t handle it. The only reason people feel compelled to go to funerals is out of respect for the dead… I’ll go in if you want me to.” 

I didn’t know what to think of that. Did I want Samantha at my funeral? My mind started racing, but then I understood what she was getting at. 

“Would you feel bad if I didn’t go to yours?” I asked. 

“Not in the slightest,” she said. “Go see a movie instead. Stay home and cry. What do I care about my own funeral?”

“You know,” I said, “I was thinking the same thing.” 

We turned and started walking away from the funeral home. 

“Let’s go get some coffee,” Samantha said. “Maybe lunch, too.” 

“That sounds nice.” 

We walked out of the parking lot and back to the sidewalk and then turned to continue walking toward downtown. We were going out for coffee instead. We were getting lunch instead. 

“What’s a funeral anyway?” Samantha asked. “Just a formality, right?”

“Yea.” 

We made for our favorite coffee place—it was still open after all these years. It would be nice to catch up, to spend some time together. We had missed out on so much of each other, and I think we both felt it eating away at us. we had a little more time at least, and that was nice. We could just wake up tomorrow and deal with reality. 

We got to the coffee place and ordered our usuals. That much hadn’t changed in years. We sat by the window and looked out on the walking mall. The service was probably ending by now. Everything was good, and that’s all that mattered. We reminisced. We filled in the blanks about our missing years. We talked about nothing in particular. It was nice. 

“Tomorrow at 11 o’clock,” Samantha told me. 

“What?”

“You go see my grave. I go see yours. Tomorrow at 11 o’clock. Let’s see if we bump into each other.” 

“Oh…” I couldn’t help but laugh at her suggestion. “That sounds like a plan.” 

I hadn’t thought about it before, but there was a good chance we would have ended up buried in the same cemetery. We very well might see each other the next day—in one way or another. 

We sat and drank our coffee. We talked about things big and small that had happened over the years. Samantha showed me pictures of her kids. We made our plans to see if we would meet the next day, and if anything we would get our answer. That was done and we had time to kill. It was a good day. 

“You know,” Samantha said, “I’m kind of surprised you’re not tied down by now.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve always been a pretty decent catch. I guess to each their own, though—if you’re going to lone wolf it, then so be it.” 

We both laughed. 

“I’m hungry,” she said next. “Let’s go get something fast, cheap, and greasy.” 

“Sounds good.” 

She was right: as far as either of us could tell, it might be our last meal. We weren’t thinking about that, though. Besides, if you’re going to go out for your last meal, you might as well eat like there’s no tomorrow. 

So that’s what we did.

Allen Seward is a poet from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. His work has appeared in The Charleston Anvil, Bizzarrchitecture, and The Jersey Devil Press, among others. He currently resides in WV with his partner and four cats. @AllenSeward1 on Twitter, @allenseward0 on Instagram 

ONE.

She’s just off the red carpet when Carrie Elwood comes over. 

“Brenna, hi!” she says. “So nice to finally meet you in person.” 

“Nice to meet you, too,” Brenna says, even though it isn’t. Whenever she meets her husband’s on-screen romances, she prepares for the worst. The likelihood that Mark will get too into the role and have an affair is higher than zero. Just look at Dirk Morrison, who went method not once, but twice, for his co-stars in Militant and Hunter’s Lodge. 

“I have to say, Mark has been so wonderful to work with. Absolutely professional.” She tosses her golden hair. “Even the intimacy coordinator was impressed.” 

Brenna could have done without that harbinger of what’s to come. She’ll have to sit through her husband moaning and sighing against Carrie’s professionally-trained body and act like it’s not the stuff of her nightmares. 

Carrie must have sensed this discomfort, because she says, “Mark tells me you have a book coming out.” 

“Yes, a collection of poetry.” She’s grateful for the change in subject. 

“I’m a big fan of Mary Oliver’s work.” 

“Really?” This changes everything. If Carrie likes Mary Oliver, she can’t be so bad. “Mary Oliver is a significant influence on my work.” 

“Then I can’t wait to read your book. Any chance you can get me an advance copy?” 

“I’ll see what I can do.” Brenna smiles. Maybe Carrie really is that good of an actress, but her interest seems genuine. 

Carrie looks behind her. “They want me back, looks like.” She signals to the photographers that she’s coming. “So wonderful to get to know you. We’ll chat more at the wrap party, okay?” 

“Yes!” Brenna says as Carrie steps back into the spotlight. 

* 

“I hear you’re getting Carrie an advanced copy?” Mark asks once they’re in the car. 

“Did you know she likes poetry?” 

“She was reading Ocean Vuong on set, and I mentioned you.” 

Then she really does like poetry. Now Brenna worries. Will Carrie detect the weaknesses in her writing? Even after the scouring edits? Don’t think about it. 

“I also mentioned you to EW and Variety.” 

“You’re too sweet.” There’s a pang—if he promotes it, it’ll sell, but people will say it’s only because she’s his wife. Then again, they’ll say that regardless. 

“What did you think of the movie?” 

Brenna has to compose her response. How to put it in a way that doesn’t wound? 

Mark relieves her. “Of my performance, I mean. The movie was a B.” 

“Your performance was great.” 

“So you agree the movie was a B?” 

She shrugs. 

“Do you think it’s too soon after the murders?” 

“Who’s to say?” she asks, even though she does think it’s too soon. Wait another year and no one would remember the case, but the victims’ families weren’t happy. Some had protested the premiere, even if Mark managed not to see their signs. 

The driver climbs the hills, lets them off at home, and finally Brenna can get out of the vice grip of her dress. Mark says he’s too jazzed to go to bed, but Brenna can barely keep her eyes open. She’s happy to be under the covers and away from it all. 

* 

The Portuguese man o’ war may look like a jellyfish, but it’s really a colonial organism made up of multiple animals called zooids. While genetically identical, the members of the colony have different shapes, sizes, purposes. Each organ, though part of a whole, is a unique animal unto itself. 

Does the zooid know it’s part of the zoon? Does it have any sense of individualism? These animals don’t have brains, but still—do they know they’re not like other animals? 

Or do they suspect nothing? 

TWO.

She’s on the phone with her agent when it happens. Margot has just made her day—she’ll have an interview on Good Morning with Michelle Luna—when she gets a text from her sister. 

Have you read the news? Serena writes. 

On the phone, Brenna types back. 

You need to look up the most recent episode of Off Carpet, Serena writes. 

So, while Margot goes over the book tour logistics, Brenna searches that phrase and stops breathing. 

The first headline reads: Livy Koubek alleges underage relationship with Mark Avery. 

The second headline: Livy Koubek claims statutory rape by Hollywood’s leading man. 

The third: Livy Koubek opens up about alleged sexual abuse by Mark Avery. 

She checks the timestamps. They’ve all come out in the last half hour. And Serena, Mark’s PR manager, has search alerts for his name. 

She fabricates some excuse and hangs up on Margot. She reads through the headlines. For a good minute she resolves not to click on the actual articles, not even wanting the metadata to prove she was there, but then she relents and reads every word. 

It goes like this: on the latest episode of Off Carpet, Livy Koubek—you’d know her from My Daughter or maybe the film she did where Dirk Morrison got fired for showing up crossfaded every shoot day, or from the fact that all of Hollywood wants to be her or be on her. 

Livy Koubek has alleged that during the shooting of The House on the Hill, where she and Mark played siblings, the two had a brief sexual relationship. The problem was, she was seventeen and mark was twenty-four. Thereby making it a crime. The statute of limitations is long past, reassures one article, but the damage this will have on Mark’s career, well, anyone can imagine. Especially since he wore a TIME’S UP pin to the 2018 Oscars, and now every outlet running the story is using pictures from that night. 

2018. The year he had hired Serena, who convinced Brenna to stop thinking about her MFA for one minute and attend an industry party. The year she’d met Mark, who despite all the white-hot talent in the room had spoken to her, listened to her, called her beautiful. And if Livy Koubek’s timeline is correct—not that Brenna’s questioning it—three years after the alleged statutory rape. The year he donated $20,000 to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which he’d tried to keep under wraps, but of course his generous donation had been leaked to the press, and he spent weeks saying Yes, I donated, but I didn’t want the publicity. This is the bare minimum of how I can use my privilege to do good. It’s not about me. 

Except, like everything else, it was about him. 

* 

When Mark comes home, she’s forgotten he was at the dentist, and the blue-white of his freshly bleached teeth throws her off. The prepared response deserts her, and Mark gets in the first word. 

“I know,” he says, seeing her face. “I saw. I’m sorry.” 

Of course he’s prepared. Serena would have told him first. 

“Why?” Is all she can get out. 

“I don’t know, Brenna. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s not something I thought about. It’s not something men thought about then.” 

“In 2015? You didn’t think about the fact that having sex with a seventeen-year-old is statutory rape?” 

“Listen, I’m not all educated like you. My whole life has been in the industry, since I was four years old. They didn’t teach me that kind of thing.” Of course, this excuse, it’s always this excuse, if he doesn’t want to deal with the insurance company or set the dishwasher. 

“That’s not what they teach in school. They don’t have to teach it in school—” 

“I don’t want to get into the weeds about it. The fact is, it happened, and now we have to deal with it.” 

We. Of course. 

“What do you want me to do?” she says, but the emphasis comes out wrong, and he takes it as her requesting orders. 

“Right now, nothing. Serena and I are drafting an apology I can put on Instagram. I have to go work on that.” He throws his jacket on the couch. “We’ll talk later.” 

They do not talk later. He spends the rest of the day in his office, on the phone or Zoom, his voice occasionally rising in indignation. She sits in the living room, trying to listen in, doing her own damage control with Margot. Michelle Luna will have to be moved back at least a week—“Not cancelled, you understand, it’s not your fault,” Margot says. Just pushes out so they can get a handle on this whole thing. 

* 

When you have a body part removed, be it tumor, diseased organ, rogue endometrial tissue, the cells don’t immediately die. Instead, they slow down, starved for oxygen, lacking the nutrients required to keep them running. Depending on the facility, the waste may be processed—usually incinerated—thereby killing the cells before they can languish for too long. 

Do those cells know they’ve been cut away from the body that made them? Do they wonder at the sudden lack of resources? One some level, using whatever basic impulses remain from the single-cell days, are they afraid of what’s to come? 

THREE.

Mark’s movie bombs. Carrie does the interviews without him, but even her charisma only goes so far. The victims’ families jump on the irony of it all: you claim to tell the story of these women’s murders, as if you’re doing them a favor, yet the investigator is played by a predator. 

Mark makes a public apology. The post on Instagram has all the right phrases, but he’s still ripped to shreds. How could he not know better? So he releases a video statement, polished and clean, and that makes things even worse. Mark Avery, Hollywood’s leading man, doesn’t pull off the performance. 

He digs in. He donates to Planned Parenthood. That backfires—does that mean he got Livy Koubek pregnant? Speaking of, Livy Koubek declines to comment on the issue. Only cryptic posts from her family home in Wisconsin confirm that she’s alive. 

The media feasts. YouTubers make three-hour long video essays. A certain far-right podcast defends Mark’s actions as proof that every man lusts after teenagers, and anyone claiming otherwise is deluded. 

Mark sulks around the house, unshaven, sweatpanted, eating too much or not at all. He scrolls on his phone for hours. He doesn’t meet her eyes. Interviews, meetings, personal trainer sessions, all cancelled. 

Brenna, on the other hand, is busier than ever. The book launch will go ahead as planned; there’s too much money already invested, too many non-refundables to change anything. A few venues cancel readings, claiming security concerns, but Brenna knows the truth. They want to wash their hands of Mark Avery, of anything attached to him, but they know that punishing a woman for her husband’s crimes is unfeminist. So they offer her the noble lie and she accepts. 

While awake, she and Mark occupy opposite ends of the house. Their dog, Benny, appears to be splitting custody between them, sometimes parking his weight on her lap for one hour exactly before ambling off towards wherever Mark is. They don’t speak much, mostly communicating over food deliveries. Even then, one of them usually eats first so the other can be alone. Brenna orders too much, aluminum trays of birria and Zancou and Holy Basil that sit in the fridge until she throws them out. 

They still sleep in the same bed. She would like to take the guest bedroom, even have him take it, but suggesting it means crossing a line she can’t face. Instead, she goes to bed early, slumbering under the mantle of melatonin before he retires. Sometimes the gummies don’t take and she feels him climb into bed next to her. Sometimes, touches her shoulder to see if she’s awake. Mostly she pretends to be asleep, but once she really is drifting off and the unexpected contact makes her flinch. He jerks his hand back like a man electrocuted. 

* 

Intestinal parasites travel to new hosts as eggs. They hatch in the bowels of their victims, take up residence in the coils of flesh, eat and eat until they’re mature enough to lay eggs. And so the cycle continues. 

Does an intestinal parasite know it lives within another? Does it understand that it’s unwanted? Does it comprehend that its very existence is built on stealing from the thing that gives it life? 

FOUR.

“My next guest needs no introduction. She’s the author of Four Mountains, a book of poetry coming out next Tuesday. Brenna Avery, good morning.” 

“Good morning, Michelle.” Brenna’s face itches under the screen makeup. 

“Now, Brenna, I’m not usually one for poetry.” Michelle handles the book, turning and showing the camera the slim hardcover volume. “But I found it very moving. What would you say to our viewers who may find the idea of poetry intimidating?” 

“Well, Michelle,” she manages not to look into her camera. “I don’t blame those viewers. Like many people, my experience with poetry was being tortured by it in high school English.” 

Michelle chuckles. It looks natural on TV, but in person not so much. 

“So what changed your mind?” 

“What changed was, I was in college and I signed up for the wrong class. I thought I was taking Shakespeare’s plays and I ended up in a whole class on the sonnet. And, ten years later, here I am.” 

“Isn’t life funny?” Michelle asks. “Now, I have to bring this up, because I think most of our viewers want to know.” 

Brenna prepares herself. Michelle promised beforehand she wouldn’t dwell on the topic. Let’s see if she meant it. 

“Your husband, Mark Avery. He was recently accused of having a relationship with Livy Koubek when she was underage. What do you have to say about that?” 

“I believe it’s important for women to share their experiences. Silence is never the answer.” 

“Do you believe her?” Michelle asks. 

“If any woman told me her experiences, I would believe her.” Brenna’s back prickles with sweat. “That’s all I can say at this time.” 

“That’s not really what I was asking.” 

“I’m sure you can understand, Michelle, I don’t feel comfortable commenting on this complicated subject.” 

“I understand. It’s not like you’ve done anything wrong.” 

Michelle looks off camera. “We have some live responses coming in. Let’s see what our audience thinks. Here’s one: ‘How could you stay married to a man like that? You’re a disgrace to all women. Shame on you.’ That’s a bit harsh, but do you have a response?” 

“I think—” 

“Actually,” Michelle says, “Are you going to stay married? No one would blame you for leaving after this.” 

“I don’t have any plans to leave him.” 

“So you’ll stand by him?” 

Brenna composes herself. Her back is damp, but her mind is cold and clear. 

“We scheduled this interview before anything came out. We were supposed to talk about my book. And that’s what I’d like to talk about today.” 

* 

The interview pulls focus back to her, for better and for worse. Some praise her for setting the boundary with Michelle. Others deride her as an example of white feminism, only focused on her own career at the expense of other women’s suffering. At least preorders skyrocket, even if she suspects that people will only read it to scan the meter for obscure references to Mark. To his crime. Because try as she might, she can’t seem to convince people she didn’t know. She can explain the timeline, that she met him years after it happened, but that doesn’t change anything. 

She takes to walking Benny four, five times a day, even though he’s getting old and would rather sleep by the pool. The changing planes of the hills gives her something to fight. She marches up and down until she’s lightheaded. Still the cold waves of adrenaline flow up from her heart, up into her head, bringing an uncomfortable throb in her brain that must be a harbinger of some horrible medical event. Wouldn’t that top it all off? Brenna Avery, wife of disgraced actor Mark Avery, dead of a brain aneurysm in the Hollywood Hills. It might put his career back on track if she were found, pints of blood flowing from her ears, Benny sitting loyal by the corpse. 

One day, she rounds a corner and sees Carrie Elwood coming down the hill. She’s incognito, in athleisure and big sunglasses, but Brenna has an eye for faces. Carrie walks her own dog, a hound mix just like Benny. The two dogs take interest in each other from across the street. 

“Carrie! Hi!” Brenna calls. “I have your advance copy!” 

But Carrie pretends not to hear her. They’re the only two people around, and Carrie pretends not to hear her. Instead she makes an abrupt turn and urges her dog into a run. They vanish around a corner before Brenna can say anything else. 

* 

Several species of anglerfish undergo sexual symbiosis. The male locates the much larger female and attaches to her body. He fuses entirely, down to the blood vessels, and two become one. Eventually he becomes little more than a set of gonads attached to another fish. 

Imagine the fusion of these beings. Wouldn’t they know each other entirely? Whatever minds these basic creatures possess, wouldn’t they meld? What would happen if, during this fusion, the male decided he’d made a mistake? What if he came to know the female fully and didn’t like what he saw? What if he wanted to escape, only to find that fleeing was an impossibility? 

FIVE.

She’s in bed when Mark comes in. It’s early for him, and she doesn’t have time to put down her book and turn off the light. Instead, she looks at her husband. 

It’s been days since they made eye contact. She sees things long forgotten: the freckle under one pupil. The tiny broken vein under one eye. The way he looks at her. 

Mark climbs into bed and turns away from her. 

“I talked to Livy Koubek.” 

“What did you talk about?” 

“I apologized.” 

“Good,” she says. “That’s good.” 

“She didn’t say sorry for blowing it up.” 

“Did you expect her to apologize?” 

“Maybe to you,” he says. “For ruining your book launch.” 

 “For ruining my book launch?” She can’t help but smile. “There’s something really wrong with you, Mark, you know that?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You ruined my book launch. You statutory raped a seventeen-year-old. And I don’t believe for a second that you didn’t know it was wrong, but you married me anyway without saying a word about it.” 

“If I told you, you wouldn’t have married me.” 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” she says. 

“Yeah, you made a big mistake. Maybe it’s really hard for you, living in a house in the hills and going to Cannes every year. Maybe you would have been happier with six roommates in the Valley.” 

She exhales slowly. 

“Babe, I’m sorry,” Mark says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was ashamed.” 

She says nothing. 

“I know this book was important to you.” 

The first warm tear falls.  

“This was my life’s work, and you ruined it. Not directly, but you did. And the worst part is, I’m angrier about that than I am about the actual crime. Isn’t that horrible?” 

She wipes her eyes with the duvet. 

“I got my MFA. I wrote the book. I got an agent. And still, it’s about you, just like everything is. All my hard work for nothing.” She sets her book on the nightstand. “So that’s the problem.” 

She rolls over and turns off the light. 

“You wouldn’t have the book without me.” The words themselves aren’t surprising, but hearing them in his voice stings. 

“I used my maiden name in the submission.” 

“Louise got you the agent.” 

“And how did your screen manager at CAA get me a lit agent at WME?” 

“Your agent was on Louise’s desk for five years, that’s how.” 

“Then, how’d we get the publisher?” 

“Louise knew the head of publishing. It took one call.” 

Her mouth is dry. 

“I’m not saying this to hurt you, Brenna. I did it because I love you.” 

He turns off his light. 

It would be easy to leave now. She could be in a hotel room within the hour. She could arrive at a friend’s house, the pitiable refugee. 

Instead, she closes her eyes. 

* 

Most zoo animals are born in captivity. Their enclosed world has plenty of food and water, no predators, and medical care better than what many humans receive. They outlive their wild counterparts significantly. They have birthday parties. 

Does a captive-born animal know its world isn’t real? Does it eat the food, drink the clean water, get vaccines and teeth cleanings without suspecting that it lives in a carefully curated lie? What is the price of its comfort? 

If you gave a captive-born animal the choice to return to the wild, what would it do? 

THE END

Phoebe Danaher is an award-winning screenwriter whose work often combines queer and religious themes with an emphasis on historical fiction. Their screenplays have been compared to the work of Ingmar Bergman and Robert Eggers. Danaher lives in Los Angeles, where along with writing they work as a ceramicist making fine porcelain wares. 

You never get used to confronting the sight of death up close, Detective Ray Messina grimly noted, as the woman in the suit before him knelt amidst the bodies, covering her mouth with her scarf, hyperventilating.

He rehearsed a condescending lecture in his mind to deliver when she had recovered, but thought the better of it, a “WWJD” moment overtaking that original plan. 

“Miss, can I help…”

“It’s Agent Morgan,” she corrected, taking his outstretched hand. “I just need to find the shooter, quickly.”

“Don’t we all, Mis-Agent Morgan,” the detective replied. “He’s at the back of the supermarket, or what’s left of him, looked over by the uniforms and guys who outrank me.”

They stepped around the three corpses on the dairy aisle. 

“The wound was self-inflicted,” the uniformed officer was telling that FBI Agent as she approached the killer. “He was surrounded by cops…”

The color returned to the lady’s cheeks. “I need to see his identification.”

“That call comes from above,” the officer replied. “We’re waiting to release…”

“Mike…” Detective Messina interrupted. “Agent Morgan needs the name for the investigation. She won’t leak it to the press.”

“I won’t,” the FBI agent concurred. “Can get to a laptop ASAP?”

Detective Messina stepped into the Command Center they had set up in one of the vans. Agent Morgan clicked away on the keys of a hand-held generic rental while news blared. 

“Online sources reveal the perpetrator of the Rubyfruit Foods massacre was Jared Danielson, a junior from nearby Campbell High School….”

“No!” Agent Morgan frantically attacked the keyboard with her fingers. Within five minutes, whatever she was looking for must have disappeared from the screen, along with her early zeal for whatever she was hunting online. “Damn!” she sighed. “Maybe next time.”

Messina started to put a hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it. “I’m sorry.”

“Why couldn’t they have held off naming him for a couple of minutes? I might have….” She stopped, trying not to hurl the laptop across the cramped van compartment.

“Want to get a cup of coffee next door? You can tell me about what you’re looking for,” Detective Messina offered. “I promise to try to help.”

She looked at him, scrutinizing him for the first time. 

He hoped she’d look past the old-school outcome, and see an ally in law enforcement.

“Okay,” she said.

“Feeling better?” Detective Messina began inside the small trendy café after he had brought over her latte and his Americano.

She nodded. “I haven’t seen many…crime scenes…like that. I’m usually at a computer. We cover a lot of crimes, of course, but seeing that blood, and the disfigured bodies…”

The silence in the nearly empty shop was awkward…nearly as quiet as Rubyfruit Foods 30 minutes ago. “Yeah,” he added. “I guess you’re more of an analyst type then.”

She stayed quiet.

“We haven’t seen many of these types of crimes until recently,” he continued. “Back when I was in the army, I was deployed as a ‘peacekeeper’ to Eastern Europe. Saw a few mass burial sites, something you’ll never forget.”

“Bosnia? Kosovo?”

“Both.” Okay, she knows something. “They prepared me for this work. When I started, you’d see one of these a decade. Now we’re getting more of these ‘spree’ killers.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Detective Messina,” the FBI agent explained. “I’m trying to stop these mass shootings before…”

Over the television, the news anchor added, “Politicians have already converged upon the supermarket. Maryland’s governor says that all Americans should offer their thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families…”

“Thoughts and prayers,” Agent Morgan snapped. “That’s all we get. Do they care?”

Detective Messina stared intently into her eyes. “You’re doing this because you lost someone, right?”

She almost dropped her coffee mug. “How did you know? Did you check up on me?”

He shook his head, trying to offer the kindest expression he could. “You just seemed…like this was personal.”

She closed her eyes. “Madeleine was my college roommate. We were in the same sorority. While I was off training for the FBI, she began teaching K-5 at a public school…”

Detective Messina tuned out the newscaster, ears laser-focused on her story.

“The jerk made her and the kids lie on the floor. Then the gunman executed all of them.”

Her sobs lasted several minutes. The detective hadn’t realized he was holding her hands on the table until she squeezed them. He withdrew them reflexively.

“I’m sorry…”

“Erin,” she smiled slightly.

“So what are you looking for….Erin?” he began. “Think the shooter’s got an ally? Are they part of some group?”

Agent Morgan shook her head. “After Madeleine was killed, I looked for a pattern in the Delmarva area.”

The trench-coat-wearing detective replied, “Let me guess…white, male, teenager, single, one-parent household, abusive upbringing, bullied at school, misogynist, family trauma…”

“There’s no profile!” Agent Morgan groaned, clearly frustrated. “These cases have whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. One was a female shooter. Two shooters were middle-aged. They cover the ideological spectrum. Several reportedly had loving parents…”

Now it was Detective Messina who had to wrestle with being annoyed. “Then how do you know they might be connected?”

Agent Morgan looked to see if anyone was still listening, before whispering. “You got the misogynist part right. Most victims are women. All of the shooters were on QuarterStaff.”

The detective looked puzzled. “What’s that?”

“An online social media site,” the FBI agent explained. “It’s got everything from chatrooms to gaming, to discussion boards. It’s more for a younger generation.”

Messina frowned. “Don’t a lot of tech companies do that?”

“Yeah, but not like QuarterStaff,” Erin Morgan sounded like an advertisement for the company. “It’s not only got the cool factor, but the company also jealously guarantees their privacy. ‘What happens in QS stays in QS.’”

“Until it doesn’t,” the detective grimly noted.

The next day the two met at the QuarterStaff Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. CEO Patricia Helms agreed to meet after Ray navigated the forest of administrative assistants. 

In her office, the CEO brushed back a strand of her pageboy style haircut while her attorney stood to her right; a thin man with a toupee, mustache. Walls were adorned with paintings of the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. Her gaze upon them never wavered since they entered the room. Messina wasn’t even sure she blinked.

“Thanks for agreeing to see us on short-noti…”

“It wasn’t a favor to you, G-men,” Patricia cut off Agent Morgan. “I want you to make sure you knew the score before you started blabbing to the press or recommending your agencies launch some sort of investigation into our company.”

The lawyer handed them a lengthy “brief,” which seemed like a contradiction in terms. The summary indicated how much peril they’d be in if they poked around the company.

Erin Morgan gasped. “Don’t you want to find out who is behind the shootings, and how they’re using your company…”

“Nobody runs this company but me!” Patricia snarled. “Millions of QuarterStaff players don’t go on killing sprees. More people die driving around the beltway than in all of these shootings. Get guns out of the hands of gang-bangers or something.”

“Do you have any…‘evidence’…or so that any of these ‘regrettable incidents’ are in any way connected to us?” said the lawyer. His business card read “Abercrombie Dillingham, Chief Counsel, Quarter-Staff Company.” 

Messina and Morgan looked at each other. The FBI agent slid over a manila folder. Dillingham sniffed indignantly as he read through it.

“You have a list of shooters who may or may not have been players. And yesterday’s shooting suspect who briefly visited our site,” the attorney dourly noted. “Anything else?”

Patricia cackled. “Even the most anti-First Amendment judge you could find in D.C. wouldn’t sign a request for more information, much less a warrant to invade the privacy of our clients. Maybe next time.”

She pushed a button. Ray Messina was surprised that a trapdoor didn’t open below them.

“Our competitors want us to fail,” Patricia said. “They’re using these events to do it. You better have a warrant or court order to get anything more from us.”

“Looks like we’re going to have to wait until the next massacre to get anything from here, unless we find more evidence somewhere else,” Erin noted sadly to her fellow crimefighter as they departed. “I hate to say it, but maybe next time.”

A week later, Detective Messina received a text with an offer to go running along the Potomac with Agent Morgan that afternoon.

“You’ve probably completed FBI training a lot more recently than I’ve run the academy mile,” the detective gasped.

“Don’t you have to still qualify?”

“Yeah, but not for the Olympics,” he laughed. “Find anything about our psycho killers?”

Erin frowned at his term. “The S.A.C.’s office let me look at the suicide notes.”

Ray gritted his teeth with an effort to keep up. “Did your fancy computer word searches uncover anything useful?”

Erin ducked away from the river path and back toward the downtown area. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing actionable except….”

“What?” the detective spat, narrowly avoiding tripping over a curb. 

She continued to set a faster pace, as if the earlier mile meant nothing. “They’re so…generic. Ordinary. Vanilla….”

“What do you mean?”

Agent Morgan looked back briefly at her running partner. “They’re simple…full of cliches. Without a shred of human emotion.” Her pace slowed.

The two pounded the pavement until they got close to a sprawling campus. “What could it be?” she wondered aloud.

A bray of static erupted from the detective’s cellphone. He picked it up. “Wayne?”

“Where are you?”

“With a Fed near…National University…” Wayne’s voice trailed off.

Messina heard sounds of an automatic rifle from far off. “Be there in a sec.”

Both bounded toward the rifle fire, guns drawn. Erin held her pistol with one hand and raised a badge with the other. Ray had both hands on his firearm, guessing the direction of the shots and their origin. 

While Agent Morgan yelled at the scared college kids to get down, Ray sprinted toward a black-clad, masked figure with a long gun. 

As the shooter pointed his weapon down to pump a second shot into a prone figure, the detective planted his feet and fired twice. The all-black figure with the assault rifle pitched forward, and remained motionless on the ground. 

As Detective Messina came out of his shooter’s crouch, Erin Morgan sprinted past him, to the body. “Hey!” he yelled. “He might be…”

“You got him alright,” she called back. “I have his wallet!”

“Wait! We have to…”

“I’m going to find a computer inside…join me after you sort this out!”

He sighed, shoulders slumped as sirens approached. 

Then the shakes began. His military and police training had kicked in once the shooting started, but now that it was quiet, the emotional side retook control of his brain. He braced himself, hoping to avoid tears before the other cops arrived.

Later, Ray navigated the student center until he found Agent Erin Morgan, seated at a computer, cursing. 

“QuarterStaff just cut Tim Poydras’ account,” she groaned.

“So we can’t track the shooter’s online activity anymore,” Detective Messina asked.

“Of course.” Erin Morgan focused on the contents of the screen.

“Get anything good?”

“Not enough to crack the case, but maybe something that would help us get a warrant.” She beamed, pointing at the printer. It was overflowing with pages from a chat room.

While the police detective gathered up the papers full of screenshots, the FBI agent explained. “National University student Timothy Poydras has been chatting with some numbered account. That ‘friend’ was goading him step-by-step into today’s campus tragedy.” Her excited expression darkened. “How many casualties?”

Ray sighed. “Two dead, and several in critical condition. He also killed his mother and sister whom he lived with before today’s rampage. I told the boys in blue to keep a lid on his name, but someone blabbed to the press. I hate saying this, but ‘maybe next time.’”

She noted grimly. “That’s why QuarterStaff cut everything before I got more details. Still, I have enough for Judge Powell to approve that might get more answers from Ms. Helms.”

Then the FBI agent fixed her new partner with an admiring expression. “Thanks for stopping the shooter and helping me get answers. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

The Detective paused, managing a smile even with the day’s carnage. “You’re welcome, Erin, but save any thanks for when we stop this string of murders.”

A television across the common room featured a pair of news anchors commenting on the latest shooting. “Police seem baffled by what caused Mr. Poydras to fire on his classmates and teachers. On Capitol Hill, there were calls for thoughts and prayers for the victims of this attack.”

Messina stalked over to the console and switched it off.

The next morning, QuarterStaff CEO Patricia Helms and Attorney Abercrombie Dillingham were waiting across the conference table in the company headquarters, with surprisingly smug expressions on their faces. 

Why do they appear so confident, Ray wondered.

“Detective Messina, Agent Morgan, let me offer you my congratulations for your success in convincing Judge Powell to sign off on your ‘court order’ to peruse our company files,” droned the corporate attorney.

Patricia crowed, “But when the ruling was made last night, I had dear ‘Abby’ here file an appeal with the 13^th District Appeals Court. They just emailed over their injunction against your fishing expedition ten minutes ago. Maybe next time, you two.”

Both investigators’ faces fell at the news. “And just so you know, I fund the vacations of a majority of Supreme Court justices, so I can tell you how this is going to turn out.”

While Ray Messina fiddled with his email app on his cell phone, Erin Morgan pleaded “We’re trying to stop someone who’s using your company site to kill women and children, and not just men, and we need…”

“Abusive husbands kill their wives with knives,” Patricia snapped. Gang members shoot each other on street corners. None of it has anything to do with me, or my company.”

On the drive home from the QuarterStaff Headquarters, Detective Ray Messina’s patrolman instincts kicked in. The car that had merged between him and the FBI partner’s vehicle a few miles back was still shadowing her. It only took a few seconds to dial her number.

“Erin.”

“Not now,” she muttered between stifled sobs. “I need some time to…”

“There’s a car tailing you,” Detective Messina broke in. “It has been since we left QS.”

It was quiet now, with only the sound of Erin’s windshield wipers. He remembered she was primarily a desk jockey and not an experienced field agent. “W-what should I do?”

Ray thought quickly. “Where do you live?”

“Manassas.”

“Get off at Centreville. The town home community in London Town is a maze of winding roads. We can trap your tracker there.”

He was glad to see her car movements were casual and wouldn’t tip off her pursuer. At his direction, she pulled into a cul-de-sac. His vehicle blocked any exit by the pursuing car.

The detective jumped out and sprinted over, knocking down the figure who approached Agent Morgan’s car. 

The tackled man yelped as the detective yanked him to his feet, wrenched open Erin’s backseat door, and hurled him in.

“You still got a piece?” he barked.

“Of course,” she shot back.

“Cover him until I get back.”

The detective sprinted to his car, thankfully finding a parking spot within a block. Upon his return, he was surprised to see her comforting the bearded man with glasses in the back seat.

“What the hell?”

“He’s not here to abduct me,” Agent Morgan explained. “He came to help us.”

“Neal Grayson, QuarterStaff programmer,” the scrawny guy responded to the two. “I’ve worked at QS for twelve years, but I’m not sure how for how much longer.”

“Is Patricia Helms, behind all of this?” Detective Messina snarled.

“It’s n-not h-h-her,” Neal stammered. “She just wants to get rich. She deletes files and profiles so she won’t get sued. That’s all.”

“Then who is behind all of this?” the police detective demanded.

“I-it’s… hard to explain,” the programmer stammered. “Let me tell you about an incident that happened several weeks ago, one of many that went on at QS.”

“Hey Neal,” the muscular man with white-ish hair began in the halls of QuarterStaff.

The worried programmer looked for an escape. The elevator was closed, and the bathroom might provide too much privacy. “Uh, hey…” he stammered.

“What were you doing in that meeting, questioning my chatroom policies? I thought we were drinking buddies. Now you make me look bad in front of the QS Directors.”

Drinking buddies? Adam drank as much as he wanted, and Neal was forced to pay the tab. Ingram seemed able to force anyone not named Patricia Helms to do anything he wanted. And he never stopped giving the CEO flowers or chocolates once a week, giving him carte blanche at the company.

“I meant no offense, Mr. Ingram. I just wanted….”

“Well, consider what happens when we meet again,” Adam Ingram hissed through clenched teeth. “I know where you park your car.”

“Leave him alone!” a female voice interrupted.

Adam let go of Neal’s tie and shoved him down. He whirled around to gawk at Leah. “Well, if it isn’t one of my harem girls playing the tough chick today. I like it rough, you know.”

“I’m not part of your ‘harem’…and we’re never going out again,” she shuddered.

A flash of anger changed Adam’s expression. “I know where you live. And you have to sleep sometime.”

As Adam strutted away, Leah helped her co-worker to his feet. “Somebody has to stop him. He’s getting more dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Neal managed after thanking her. “But what can we do? He’s way too strong, comes from a rich family, and he bragged about getting a gun.”

Leah’s eyes narrowed as her tormentor left the building far ahead of them. “My uncle’s a judge. I’ll see if I can put some kind of ‘red flag’ on Adam.”

“Adam sounds like the kind of guy who’d make a good suspect for a spree shooting influencer,” Agent Morgan mused. “Misogynist, bully, threatens others…could be deadly.”

“Where can we talk to him?” Detective Messina asked.

“You can’t,” Neal said.

“How did he die?” Messina asked as their headlights shone on a cemetery.

Neal passed them a news article that was several weeks old. Adam Ingram had tried to buy a firearm, but was denied. In a rage, he killed the elderly gun store proprietor, and then fled home, where police surrounded the house. Hours later, flames erupted from the dwelling. Firefighters later found the remains of a body after a search of the premises.

“We’re at a dead end,” Erin groaned.

“Sort of.” Neal looked around nervously.

“What do you mean?” both investigators asked at once.

“It’s like he’s gone…but maybe not,” the programmer said in a halting tone. “You can still feel his presence at QuarterStaff, like he didn’t really die. And it’s not just me who thinks that way. Leah quit a few weeks ago and fled the area.”

Erin reread the article. “Maybe he’s not really dead. He might have killed someone else and let the local cops think that’s what happened. The coroner may have focused more on establishing cause of death, and not his identity.”

Neal looked pale. “No one’s actually seen him, but…”

“But what?”

“…Can I go back to my c-car?” he gasped. “I g-g-gotta leave.”

“He sounds like he’s convinced Adam is still alive,” observed Ray as the programmer’s vehicle sped away. “He might join Leah on the run.”

“I’m contacting my boss…maybe we can get a court order to exhume the body and see if it’s really Adam,” Agent Morgan announced.

“Neal did leave pretty fast,” Ray noted. “He didn’t ask us, two well-armed law enforcement officials, for help. I don’t think he’s telling us everything.”

There was quiet in the car for a minute, with both minds churning.

“What’s our next move?” 

Erin held out a business card. “On the back of this card in Tim Poydras’ wallet was a series of words, mixed with numbers and symbols. I bet they’re passwords.”

Detective Messina nodded. “Let’s get into QuarterStaff, log in, and spoof a would-be shooter. We can then set a trap for him.”

“Bad news.” Erin sighed as a text came through. “The FBI lab finished their analysis. Adam Ingram remains deceased.” She took another look at Ray’s computer screen.

“Wow…you’re really good at making this stuff up.” 

Ray’s eyes were locked on the screen. “I’m not faking it,” he said in a dull monotone.

Erin froze, glancing nervously at the detective, who typed away, interacting smoothly online with other would-be shooters. She slowly got up from her chair, and began to back away.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” He barely glanced up at her.

“Yeah.” She moved toward her jacket. He had seen her put her gun in one of her deceptively large pockets. He could hear the fear in her voice in that response. 

“I get it,” he said in reply to her actions. “Sometimes this side of me scares me too.”

Now she had the pistol out. 

He sighed. “I interact so well with them because I was like that in high school. Dad had it bad in Vietnam, and he took it out on me as I grew up. It wasn’t his fault…wasn’t in his right mind. It was hard for him to tell the difference between his nightmares and reality.”

Ray ignored his partner adopting a defensive shooter’s position. “Mom was too afraid to stop him. Dad sometimes took it out on us. Bullies could spot a victim like me a block away. Middle school was rough, and high school was hell.”

In response to her cocking the gun, he simply shrugged. “Then I found Alicia. Captain of the speech and debate team. I nearly fainted when she said yes to prom. I got my confidence back, listened to her when she advised me to get therapy, and turned my life around. Grades came back too. I started working out…got strong enough to fend off the bullies. We got married. She’s a speech therapist now. Dad and I reconciled, and I joined the military.”

Erin lowered the gun, though she still held it in her hands. “And that’s when you served…in Eastern Europe?”

After he described with a trembling voice what it was like coming across a mass grave, she set down her sidearm. “Those were horrible war crimes….”

“It’s not that. It’s just pretending to be one of these kids…brought back bad memories of when I was in high school, how close I probably came to being one of these spree shooters. It’s why I’ll never rest until we nail the guy who has been putting them up to these…massacres!”

All was quiet in the computer lab. “Sorry I mistrusted you there,” she mumbled.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” 

“Did you find the account that chatted with the other shooter…Poydras?”

He shook his head.

“He must be changing account names, or aliases. Let’s look at the chats and find this suspect,” she insisted.

After nearly an hour, both seemed ready to quit.

“There are a lot of young people in need of help these days,” said Agent Morgan.

Detective Messina stood up to stretch his legs. He threw several papers in the trash can.

“What’re those?” she asked.

“Junk,” he claimed. “Probably not even a real person. So cliched.”

Erin stopped reading her pages from the chatroom. No…it couldn’t be. It was almost too crazy to contemplate. She pushed off from her chair, headed for the bin, and pulled out the papers he had just tossed away.

“I told you that chat was worthless,” he stated.

Pencil at her mouth, she read intently.

“You’re wasting your time, Agent Morgan.”

Her lips parted, as if in shock. “How did Neal describe Adam?”

“Big and physically strong.”

“And intelligence?”

“He said Adam always bragged about his IQ test.”

The FBI agent paused. “Account 65220200 is Adam.”

Detective Messina dropped his stack. “But your lab confirmed he’s dead.”

“This isn’t him in human form,” she deduced. “It’s him online.”

“I don’t get…”

“Don’t you see?” Erin threw out her hands. “He created an artificial intelligence personality, which lurks in chatrooms, starts out with generic conversation, then steers the unsuspecting would-be shooter where to get a gun, where to do the shooting, and when. Message him back and keep up the conversation.”

After several minutes, Ray looked back at his partner. “He won’t meet in person, but is directing me to a gun shop in West Virginia, and telling me to target a female entrepreneur mixer at the Belmont Conference Center in Elkridge, Maryland, in three weeks.”

“Print it,” Erin commanded. “We’ve got enough for a full investigation of QuarterStaff. Looks like we’ll stop hearing that phrase ‘maybe next time.’”

Ray shook his head. “Patricia Helms has the courts in her pocket. I can’t go to my superiors and serve out a warrant for the arrest of a computer program.”

“True,” she crossed her legs while sitting in the chair. “But I’ve been giving this some thought, in case we did find something. House Judiciary Chair Frances Palmer hates guns and has vowed to eliminate mass shootings. And Bud Willard of Idaho, the Senate Judiciary Chair, hates tech companies and would love to regulate the heck out of them.”

“Then contact them right away!”

“Thanks for agreeing to meet us out here on the National Mall,” Detective Ray Messina began at their meeting the next day.

“You said it was about stopping some gun massacres,” Representative Palmer began. “That’s good enough for me.”

“And you mentioned secrecy,” Senator Willard added. “Those walls…” he pointed back to the Capitol Dome, “have ears.”

Erin Morgan stepped forward. “Senator, Congresswoman, what we have to say will shock you. You’ll probably never believe us. But if you want to stop this recent trend in mass shootings, you will want to hear us out.”

Five minutes later, the Democrat and the Republican looked at the law enforcement officials. “I assume you’ve got proof of this,” Palmer said.

“We have this transcript of our chat with the computer program. It directs us to carry out one of these spree killings at a meeting of women between here and Baltimore,” Erin explained.

“And we’ll have the testimony of a computer programmer who works for QuarterStaff,” Ray added.

To their surprise, Representative Palmer nodded. “My nephew and several churchgoers were slaughtered by a white supremacist with an assault rifle. If I can stop at least one of these massacres, it will be worth it. Patricia Helms can’t buy my South Carolina safe district.”

Senator Willard spat on the grass. “I’ve been fixin’ for a fight with that ‘Witch of the Worldwide Web.’ Idahoans will back me. Let’s stop this…thing…and take QuarterStaff down.”

“What did you say?” she asked. “I couldn’t hear that last part.”

“I know,” he groaned. “The women at this pro-choice rally are just too damn loud.”

Erin and Ray looked around. They were, indeed, surrounded by marching women, some in costumes, some with signs, some chanting.

Bang! Representative Palmer clutched her chest and fell backwards. 

Bud knelt before her on the ground, then grabbed his head and pitched forward next to her, remaining prone.

Screams followed along with women running in all directions. One grabbed her leg and fell on the lawn, while another landed on her stomach, blood covering the back of her tank-top. Ray swiveled around, then looked up at the roof of a nearby building where a solitary figure in all black aimed a rifle. “Oh no…” He raised his pistol in an almost hopeless gesture. Erin screamed. His chest seemed to catch fire, then all went black.

“The death toll comes to nine, including South Carolina Representative Frances Palmer, a Democrat, and Idaho Senator Bud Willard, as well as a local detective,” the female news anchor continued. “Another dozen victims were wounded, with several in critical condition, along with an FBI agent. She’s in a coma, and her chances of survival are unknown at this time.”

The male anchor took over. “Law enforcement said that terrorism did not appear to be a motive for the killing. The suspect, Reese Simpson, a high schooler, left a suicide note that claimed he had been abused as a child and bullied as a teenager. The victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time, an unfortunate coincidence.”

“The shooting took place at the National Mall, during a pro-choice rally. None of the victims had any connection with Simpson, who dropped out of school several weeks ago and purchased his firearms in West Virginia,” the woman in the broadcast booth said.

“Democrats used today’s tragedy to call for more gun control measures, but the Republicans in Congress announced that it was ‘too soon’ for that sort of legislation,” the female newscaster claimed. “But we here at News Focus One wish to convey our thoughts and prayers to the victims….”

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and raised in El Paso, Texas, John A. Tures began writing sports for the El Paso Hearld-Post. In college, he worked for a radio station. He worked his way through graduate school in education outreach for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He earned his doctorate in political science at Florida State University, analyzed data on international politics in Washington DC, and is now a professor at LaGrange College in Georgia. He writes columns for a number of newspapers and magazines and has published more than a dozen short stories in various genres, from thrillers and mysteries to nonfiction and flash fiction.