The Swift: Volume Two

Welcome to Volume II of Clark College’s literary journal: The Swift. This journal is the makings of a team of first time student editors and most importantly student and alumni writers.

We say “most importantly” because this journal is the culmination of months of work, for not only us as editors, but the authors and poets who contributed and made this possible. Putting pen to paper is difficult: to write as well as these contributors takes a certain level of patience, persistence, and practice. Sharing the finished product, then, requires comfort with vulnerability and no small amount of courage. We are incredibly grateful that these authors allowed us to share their pieces with all of you.

This is the work of new beginnings by writers young and old: normal people just like you on life’s winding road.

Much like Washington weather, many of the works compiled here have themes that are dark and cold. Yet the clouds must part and the sun must shine on the resilient green trees that never let go of their leaves as we reach for bittersweet and even brighter endings.

Tales of grief, bigotry, abuse and losing those we value in one way or another. Yet also of love, finding yourself and family in its different forms.

This journal celebrates not only these stories, but literature in general, and we want to encourage any and all aspiring authors in the Clark community to continue practicing. Creative writing is incredibly valuable. It allows readers to connect with people and characters who have vastly different lives than their own. Reading deepens our empathy and our understanding of the world, allowing us to experience things that we may otherwise be unable to in real life. Continue writing, continue practicing, because it is an invaluable skill. This journal is a celebration, and we’re excited to invite you to celebrate this with us.

Emma Mady, Madilyn McKenzie, and Regan Richards,

Editors for The Swift

WHEN YOU GIVE A CHILD A POINTY STICK

Maria Nehnevaj

I am two years old. The pencil gripped carefully between my small fingers, the paper pressed onto the coffee table, I scribble a line across—my best impression of writing.

“Want me to show you how to really do it?” Asks my older brother. He spells out my name: M-a-r-i-a. I copy it over and over and over until I know how to print my name—the beginning of my writing career.

I am seven years old.

“Okay class, it’s free time!” I beeline for the stack of paper on the bookshelf. The dashed lines guide my words as the graphite glides across the page. A space above provides the perfect spot to illustrate my story. Today’s tale is about a frog who can’t find his friend. He looks everywhere but he can’t find him. He is sad. Until one day, when his friend returns. He was just on vacation! I love writing stories, and the ideas keep coming: dolphins, princesses, hiccups, anything, so I write them down. My parents are thrilled. They make photocopies of my stories, put them in sheet protectors, and collect them all in a big binder. They send one of the binders out to my Aunt Annie all the way in Illinois. I dream of being an author and illustrator when I grow up.

I am eight years old. I’m holding up the final draft of my essay, the blue-lined paper crisp, the handwriting neatly printed. I have finally finished my personal essay, five whole paragraphs. It began with a brainstorm, a mind map—bubbles and lines connecting ideas about me. Then, the rough draft. My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. D., had taught us how to structure an essay with an introduction, a three-part thesis, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. After editing my rough draft with highlighters, my essay was ready for the final draft. Carefully and meticulously, I had copied my edited writing onto blank notebook paper, with neat lettering. I proudly hold it out to my dad to read.

I am fourteen years old.

“Beep! Beep! Beep!” I sigh with a mix of relief, a little exasperation, and a healthy portion of dread. With my aching hand, I set the pen down and come back to reality. I have just finished my first timed, analytical essay based on a passage from To Kill a Mockingbird. I shakily hand in my essay to my eccentric, and slightly terrifying, freshman English teacher. I hope I did okay. I thought I was good at writing, but that was downright stressful with the time pressure and difficult rubric. I guess there are always ways to improve when writing.

I am seventeen years old, immersed in my junior year. It’s intense, busy, and overwhelming. One fateful day during English, my teacher briefly mentions a writing contest. I consider it for a moment, before delving back into my current task, prepping for the seminar tomorrow. I don’t have time, and it probably wouldn’t be good anyway, I think. Still, it lingers in the back of my mind.

A few weeks later, a pen finds its way to my hand, and I am writing a story. It just forms. I type up the narrative from the initial outline. I read it over and over and over. Hesitantly, I hand it to my mom to read, nervous about what she will think. She loves it. I make edits, read it a half dozen times, and firmly press the submit button to the Imagined Ink contest at my library. I get an honorable mention for pacing, and my short story is published in a collection with other contest winners. Even though writing is now associated with anxiety and grades, my little story gives me a boost of confidence and satisfaction, reminding me of ten years ago.

“Pens down, please,” calls the exam supervisor. I calmly gather my papers together and breathe. The final, the last exam. The exam I have been preparing for the past four years is over! A sigh of relief escapes my lips as they form a smile because I am free of these timed essays and because of the work I have accomplished. I have come a long way as a writer, but do I still enjoy it?

I am eighteen years old. The clicking of keys begins, as I write a personal narrative for my English 101 class. I am two years old. . . .

STAR ANISE, CINNAMON, OXTAIL, FISH SAUCE, RICE NOODLES

Annabelle Lee

Early in the morning, I wake up to hear my mom and my aunt laughing away as the unfamiliar room greets my eyes. Jet lag grips my body and I linger in bed longer than I should. I eventually force myself to make my way downstairs. An array of grocery bags are piled up on my aunt’s kitchen counter in anticipation of the bustling gathering tonight. Tonight is the Hmong New Year, and many of my relatives are coming over to my aunt’s house to embrace and catch up with one another. This is the first time in many years that I’m celebrating the New Year here in my hometown in snowy, icy Minnesota. Anxiety fills my throat as my mom motions me to take a seat at the dinner table. She’s rinsing off dirt from the greens, peeling all of the individual dead leaves from the basil and cilantro. I slump into the chair as my mom hurriedly places a cutting board in front of me like a child. She speaks to me in Hmong, the language slipping off her tongue like water. It enters my ears and swishes around, only to dribble incoherently out again.

“Ntxhais,” she says, calling me the Hmong word for daughter, “cut the onions for me.” Then she quickly gets back to work tending to the boiling meat brewing on the stove. Big white bubbles form right by the cusp of the pot as the hair inside my nose tenses up. The scent is almost repulsive in its intensity. Despite its familiarity, I haven’t gotten used to it.

“What are we making?” I ask, placing the smelly onions back onto the board.

“Pho,” my mother says before turning back to the conversation with my aunt. I attempt to listen in on their gossiping but I can only pick up so many words. I feel claustrophobic as I awkwardly sit there, sliding the brooding knife through the greens.

The day passes quickly in cooking and preparing. Star anise, cinnamon, and other herbs are now brewing in the kitchen as the evening creeps up on us. On the dinner table, slabs of pulsating raw beef lie on the massive metal tray along with the many veggies I’ve diced. I sit in the kitchen, tapping away on my phone, waiting for the rest of my family to crawl in through the front door. Finally, the sound of a slamming door echoes through the house. My uncle’s loud voice booms through the hallway.

“Nyob Zoob Ohs!” He calls out his hello as his beer belly waves first through the doorway of the kitchen. He huffs a laugh as he greets me before carrying a large case of alcohol to the backyard, ready to drink his night away with the rest of the men. My cousin Leo arrives right behind my uncle as his small frame steps into the kitchen and takes a seat next to me. He slides his coat off his shoulders and sniffles.

“Where’s Julissa?” His voice cracks as he peeks at my phone. I tell him my younger sister is finishing her makeup, so we go upstairs. We find her in the guest room my sister and her are sharing, sitting on the floor with makeup scattered around her.

“Leo’s here,” I say. I can see the edges of her mouth grow into a small warm smile as she turns to us. He immediately runs past me, fascinated by all the makeup lying around. I sit on my bed watching her apply her false eyelashes. Leo joins her on the floor, curiously picking up and examining different items of makeup.

With some lip gloss in hand, he turns to me excitedly. “Did you hear?”

I furrow my brows at the tone of his voice. “What?” My sister says with her mouth agape while attempting to apply powder beneath her eyes.

“Fifi has a new boyfriend.”

Julissa and I roll our eyes in unison, unsurprised at his comment. Julissa sighs. “Wasn’t she just dating—oh, what’s his face . . .”

“Shion?” I interrupt her mid-thought and then laugh, throwing my head back. My sister sighs at me and starts complaining about how boy crazy Fifi is.

“She is so dumb!” Julissa whips her makeup brush around at Leo. “I can’t ever catch a break with her.”

“You mean so naive?” I giggle. “She’s twelve.”

“Twelve my ass. I was twelve, Belle. Like—c’mooon now.”

Leo and I roll back in laughter while my sister huffs at us, carefully lining her lip gloss. I whip my phone out, ready to message Fifi about when she’ll be here, but just then I hear the door beside us creak wide open. Fifi and her older sister, Nana, waltz in, glancing around to see how we’ve made ourselves at home.

“Girl,” my sister begins.

“You told her!” Betrayed, Fifi stomps next to Leo and hits him on the shoulder. He pretends to wince in pain as a giggle trails out from his throat.

“I couldn’t help it!” He’s crumpled over now, getting a beating from Fifi.

“You seriously suck, Leo!”

He laughs and rolls over beside my bed, pretending to lie like an old corpse as I laugh along with him.

My cousins are the easiest amongst my family to understand. We haven’t hung out with each other in years, but our common ages, interests, and senses of humor quickly melt the ice. We continue to banter with no care in the world as all the party preparations are mostly done and now we have hours to waste away as we wait for family to arrive.

Later that night, we’re all downstairs as the whole house is warming up with people. The living room and kitchen are crowded with my younger cousins and the women, and I can hear all of my uncles laughing and telling stories outside. My mom and my aunts are reminiscing about their childhood, reminding us kids about how young they were in high school an discussing what kind of troublemakers they were. My aunt throws her head back as she fills the room with laughter, a Bud Light sitting in her hands. “Do you remember the time when—” and then she says something in Hmong that I don’t really understand. Hearing everyone else laugh at her, though, I join in and laugh with them. I fiddle with my fingernails, running the pad of my thumb across my nail beds in order to ward off this feeling of awkwardness.

“Did you even know what I said, Belle?” My aunt looks at me. Everyone’s eyes are on me now, and I can feel my face flurry with many shades of red as I dart my eyes away.

“Only a little. . . .” I lie, then cover my face with a laugh. My aunt also joins in with warm laughter. She doesn’t press me, but her question still lingers on my mind.

Soon enough, it is nearly midnight. My eyes have begun to droop and the blanket of slumber is starting to cover my thoughts completely. My uncles’ laughter can still be heard through the backyard, and my younger cousins are sleeping away on the couch, counting sheep, I hope. My mom and my many aunts are sitting in the kitchen, packing food away for the night as they continue to chirp away telling stories. Bored, I trail off to the front porch. I count four steps that lead to the concrete sidewalk. The porch light flickers on and off. Bugs buzz past my ears as they surround the warm bulb like a deity. Somehow the annoying bugs soothe me, as though they’re a friend by my side. I smell the lingering incense that’s been burnt over the course of the day, the used sticks now lying on a bed of uncooked rice in a bowl beside the steps. I spot some grains spilt over on the concrete steps as if they were poured in a hurry. I plop down beside the spilled rice, taking a grain and fidgeting with it between my fingers to pass the time. I lift my gaze. The street is packed with cars that line the block like little ants trailing towards a peeled sweet nectarine. The house itself feels like it’s breathing, watching my every movement as I throw the grain of rice as far as I can. I stare at the small blue house across the street and feel a slight flicker of guilt for the neighbors there who must be trying to sleep. I bet the only thing they’ll hear tonight are the loud cries of my uncles’ laughter and yelling. They might even mistake it for the cackling of hyenas, maybe even dreaming about being eaten alive in the savannah.

I stare at the bowl of rice beside me now as boredom seeps through my eyes, my ears, and even my hands. I can’t help but poke holes into the rice as grains pour straight out of the white ceramic bowl, begging to be swished around and released from the confined space. The incense stick is burrowing into the rice now as I’ve clearly created a crime scene. I hope my aunt isn’t too upset with the mess I’ve made out of her porch. I’m jolted by the loud thud of the door opening behind me.

“Your mom’s looking for you.” My older cousin, Bruce, peeks his head through the door. I smile at him as he steps out, taking a seat next to me. The silent and awkward tension is hugging us both tight, squeezing the air in my lungs. I haven’t seen him in almost ten years and can’t even remember the last time we visited him. He’s moved around with his dad and his two younger brothers throughout teenhood, and I wonder if he, too, feels out of touch with my mom’s family.

He slips a cigarette out of his pocket, then a lighter. A small breeze rushes past us, making my shoulders shiver from the cold. He notices my reluctance to go back inside the house and while puffing some smoke my way, he sighs with a small smile, “I think she wants you to pack some food for your cousins before they leave. You should go say bye to them.”

I continue to sit tight. I feel nervous to get up and go back inside. As awkward as I may feel out here, I feel even more so back inside with my family. I silently attempt to muster up some kind of courage by myself, but my body feels like it’s shrinking into nothing on the steps. My legs are squished together as I hold them tightly close to my chest.

“I don’t speak that much Hmong either, Belle,” Bruce says gently. My throat feels like it is closing in on itself from the embarrassing tears that I suddenly realize I’ve been holding in all day. I choke back a small cry. “It’s okay to feel out of place.”

Bruce rubs my back and I turn my head to him, managing to get a good look at his face. The wrinkles beneath his eyes are growing bit by bit. I try to think back to the last time I saw him, but I don’t truly remember his younger face. I remember his lame swayed haircut and his graphic Hot Wheels T-shirt, but I can’t trace back to what his face looked like.

“It doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you,” he continues. “We’re all here to see you.” He points at me with a laugh, “We’re all here to see each other.”

I think about what he said. I think about how the strong scent of pho is roaming around this house as everyone of different ages and lives are all around me. How we’re all in the same room, eating the same food, and sharing the same moments. Every gathering is like this, regardless of how seldom they occur. We get together and remind each other that we’re in each other’s lives for the long run, no matter how different we are.

I manage to smile back at Bruce. Then I get up while wiping up the tears off my face and go back inside. The house is still warm from all the people inside, but it’s no longer oppressive. The air feels lighter as the cloud of doubt that’s hung over me all night begins to fade away.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (AND MAILBOXES)

Kyle Rouse

The winter night sky was above me, painted black, without a star or cloud to be seen. I was walking through a maze consisting of neighborhood streets and forestry. On one end was my workplace and on the other, my home. The windows of nearby houses showed no sign of activity. The streetlamps beamed down on nearby trash cans like the floodlights of a stage play. The porch lights acted like ghost lights. Aside from these havens from the dark, the streets themselves were almost as pitch black as the open ceiling of nature above. I didn’t mind. These late-night walks were therapeutic for me after a long day of work. By car, I would only need to commute for fifteen to twenty minutes. However, these walks that took three times as long gave me the opportunity to rid my mind of whatever was plaguing it. I could zone out and follow the streetlights like a trail on a treasure map.

I took a turn as I reached the end of one road and began my path down another. I had walked these roads so many nights that I could practically close my eyes and navigate myself home through the visualization of memory alone. However, there was an anomaly this evening. Ahead of me by several paces was a woman. Dark hair, a white shirt over a slender frame, and the delicate contour of a face illuminated by the fluorescent blue light of her cell phone. She stood behind a waist-high bush, looking intently at her mobile device. I normally didn’t see anyone at this hour of the night—let alone an attractive woman.

Coming out of my usual trance-like state, I became more aware of my surroundings and the situation I was in. I’m usually an awkward person, inept at interacting with people, and this woman was between me and where I needed to go. How could I walk past her without making the situation weird? Do I start walking to the opposite side of the road and avoid her entirely? Do I keep my eyes and my feet forward and just nod my head and say “hi” to be polite and courteous? Time was running out and the distance between us was shortening. I decided my plan of action was to maintain the course I was on.

As we began to enter each other’s airspace, I noticed something was off about the woman. She wasn’t standing behind a bush—she was in the bush. Why? My pace began to slow. My mind was telling me to abort the current mission and find refuge and safety on the other side of the street. However, my body resisted the signals my brain was sending and continued moving forward. No matter what I thought, it seemed like every deity of fate foretold of me interacting with the woman. As I got closer and closer to her, I finally regained control of my body. I diverted my eyes to the ground for comfort. When I was within casual conversation distance of the woman, I was finally ready to lift my head to say “hi.” However, before I could utter the word, I stopped dead in my tracks. The woman was no longer there. In the space she had formerly occupied stood a white mailbox, with a lawn lamp beside it sending a beam of fluorescent blue light towards the bush. I stood there dumbfounded. I had mistaken a mailbox for a woman.

Not knowing what else to do, I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. I had to tell someone what just happened. After typing out a text message and sending it to my friend Braden, I continued my journey home. Upon reaching my destination and preparing myself for bed, I received a reply. It was the emoji of someone laughing with tears in their eyes. Shortly after, Braden sent me a Photoshopped image of a Sports Illustrated bikini model with a mailbox for a head. After replying “Lol,” I closed my eyes and went to sleep, expecting this to be the last time I would have a conversation about a female mailbox.

Several days later, my friends and I were in Braden’s car. Braden was driving, I was sitting shotgun, and in the backseat was our friend Jordan. Jordan was sporting a backward hat and denim shorts. I don’t think I ever saw him wear any other style of clothing. He was also our resident one-line joke expert whose voice was only capable of producing a certain level of sound—loud. We were en route to a nearby grocery store to buy snacks for a weekly hang-out. It was rare for there to be a moment of silence between the three of us because we always had something to talk about. I was beginning to find the silence deafening and needed a conversation to be started. I looked out the window at the houses passing by and noticed a girl on the sidewalk.

“Huh, she’s cute,” I said to my car companions.

“Kyle, that’s a mailbox,” the voice beside me said.

My eyes began to widen like a cartoon character. I whipped my head to the side to get a better look at the girl. Her legs moved forward while her hair blew in the wind. I released a sigh of relief, reassuring myself that I wasn’t losing my mind. By the time I had collected myself, a swirl of confusion came over me again. That wasn’t Braden who made that comment. I looked at Jordan through the rear-view mirror and saw a wide grin with a look of self-satisfaction on his face.

“Dude, Braden told you?” I said.

“Yeah. When was the last time you saw an eye doctor?” Jordan said. “Hey, do you ever get jealous when you see a mailman around your mailbox?”

I could hear Braden chuckling. The two began a philosophical debate about the attractiveness of mailboxes. The right side of my face began to tighten as I formed a lopsided smile. However, the muscles in my face weren’t tensing to express my amusement at the conversation. I was trying to mask the waves of embarrassment flooding me as my friends continued to crack jokes at my expense. It was a favorite pastime of ours to throw each other under the bus and pick each other back up. Except this time, it felt like they didn’t pick me up before the next series of cars found me on the road. I had to do the best I could to get my emotions under control. If I showed any sign of weakness from the embarrassment, I would be giving them more motivation to tease me.

A month flew by, and spring finally came. The coldness of winter still lingered, but not enough to keep the birds away and the sun and flowers from revealing themselves. The outside world was wet from late-night rain and steam faintly rose from the sewer drainage entrances on the pavement. Braden and I were on our way to class. In our usual manner, he was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. In our group of friends, Braden was the charismatic one. He was built like a bear with all fat and muscle. Long-sleeve shirts, khaki cargo pants, and leather dress shoes were his preferred clothing. He had a love for theater and always tried out for a role in the plays at the local community college. This season, the theater department was putting together a production of The Addams Family, and he was determined to get the role of Gomez Addams. We spent almost every carpool session to and from school talking about the play.

“Hey, Kyle. Can I ask you something?” Braden said.

He had the look of someone who was on the verge of melting down. His eyes were glistening, almost on the verge of tears. There was a hint of shadow underneath them. The air began to feel stiff. I looked closely, trying to find signs of how serious of a question I would need to brace myself for. Car rides are a dangerous activity. You’re locked in a tight space with others with no feasible way to eject yourself when things get messy.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I said.

“Well, I’m auditioning for that role later today and I’ve asked a bunch of people if they could come watch. None of them can make it,” Braden said. “Would you be able to?”

“Sure, why not? I got nothing going on.”

“Cool, man. I appreciate it.”

I’ve always known Braden as someone who did not lack confidence in himself. To see him show signs of self-doubt or need emotional support was a foreign experience. Despite how much our group of friends picked on each other, I’ve always felt like it was important to show support when it was needed. After a moment of silence, I spent the rest of the car ride presenting to him an informal dissertation on why he was more suited to shaving his head and playing Uncle Fester.

A couple of hours later, I made my way to the school auditorium. The auditorium always reminded me of the countryside homes of the hobbits from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films. Constructed from stone and wood and succumbed in greenery, the building was snuggled into the side of a hill like it was a secret hideout. Perhaps the architect designed the auditorium this way to add to the feeling of entering another world. Once inside, I claimed a seat farthest from the stage. I sat watching aspiring actors gather in the front seats, waiting for their names to be called to perform for the director of the Addams Family play. From people who made it their life’s dream to make it big on Broadway, to those who simply wanted to try out new things, they each took turns going up and receiving the same response of, “Thank you for your time. We will be sure to contact you in the next few days if you receive a part in the play.” There was no way for me to know who was auditioning for the role of Gomez Addams as the applicants had to fill out a sheet on what roles they wanted. The director saw this paper, but the audience did not. I was beginning to grow restless partly due to anticipation for Braden’s audition, but also due to my legs aching from constantly hitting the back of the seats in front of me.

Braden sat in the front row and to the right of the stage. I scanned the side of his face to determine if the butterflies were kicking in. His eyes were focused on the auditionee on stage. His posture looked relaxed as he slouched in his seat with his right arm raised behind his head to act as a cushion and support. I don’t know what transpired between the car ride and now, but the signs of anxiety and worry were no longer on his face. The Braden I knew was there and not the imposter from before. Eventually, he took center stage.

“Hello, I’m Braden King and I’ll be performing a monologue,” Braden said.

Underneath the bright lights, Braden took a moment to center himself. The line of sight of every pair of eyes in the room merged onto him. He had the gravity of the sun and everyone in the audience orbited around him. He locked eyes with me in the back of the room and began his performance. His right arm swung from the left side of his waist and up diagonally to his right side as he took the position of Hamlet speaking to the skull of Yorick. However, Braden didn’t mutter the lines from Hamlet. Instead, in his best imitation of Raul Julia’s Spanish accent from his role of Gomez Addams in the nineties films, he began to tell the story of a man who was lonely and lost in depression. The man was traveling a dark road late at night before he saw a bright light emitting from down the road. He continued narrating how the man found the love of his life in the light and how the man desperately rushed forward. He reached out his arms for the object of his love—a mailbox.

I began to sink into my chair. This is what I get for being deceived by an amateur actor. However, instead of the embarrassment I usually felt about the mailbox situation, I experienced a feeling of mirth. Although Braden had planned the longest con in our friendship to embarrass me in front of a group of strangers on purpose, I couldn’t help but offer him respect for taking the joke this far. After Braden finished his audition, there was a prolonged moment of silence with quiet bursts of anxious laughter caused by confusion sprinkled throughout. Eventually, the director spoke out.

“I need to know. . . . Is this a true story?” The director asked.

“Yep. His story,” Braden said.

He extended his right arm out again and pointed in my direction. All the heads in the room turned to stare at me. Half of them had the look of surprise and worry that children often get when they are caught watching TV or eating sweets when they shouldn’t. The other half performed drive-by maneuvers to get a glance and looked away to hide their smiles. I raised my hand and waved at the director. Despite being the one who lived the story, they looked more embarrassed than how I felt about the experience. It was as if we were playing a game of emotional tag and I was no longer it. After coming to grips with himself, the director returned his attention to Braden.

“Well, thank you for your performance,” the director said. “We’ll contact you in the next few days if you get the role.”

***

Several years later, I found myself standing in a room filled with strangers who were working through the symptoms of a food coma. Everyone had a look of drowsiness in their eyes. Men had to adjust their belts to accommodate the expansion of their stomachs. Women were fanning themselves with any paper they could find to rid themselves of the summer heat. With the microphone in my hand, I would have to bring everyone’s attention back to the front of the room for the best man and maid of honor speeches. I had written the best man speech months in advance and spent the time between then and now ignoring the voices of anxiety telling me not to wait until the last minute to practice it. I didn’t. I waited until the night before.

I spoke into the microphone with the confidence of a child who was given a word in a spelling bee that they didn’t know how to spell. My fingers gripped the pages of paper filled with words describing how great of a guy the groom was and how honored I was for being chosen as his best man. There was no way I was going to recite this entire speech without messing it up. I looked over at the bride and groom. The bride gave me a smile of encouragement while the groom gave one anticipating a NASCAR-level car crash. I returned a smile to him. If telepathy was real, he knew I just said, “Okay, bro. Watch this.”

I ripped up the speech and placed the remains down beside me. I brought my attention back to the crowd with the suave confidence of a man capable of selling flood insurance to the residents of the Sahara Desert. I spent the next ten-to-twenty minutes telling every ridiculous experience I had with the groom. How he is the worst wingman in the world. How we drove across multiple state lines to rescue his dog from his crazy ex-girlfriend. How he was so much of a slob that he was convinced that the Slurpee stains on his car’s dashboard weren’t mine. How he always found the time to check in with me daily regarding how I was doing despite living two hundred miles apart.

While the crowd was full of strangers, I recognized the looks on their faces as their attention alternated between myself and the groom. It was the same look of intrigue and second-hand embarrassment that the people in the auditorium had on their faces years prior. There were even some who expressed disapproval of my attempts to embarrass the groom at his own wedding. However, they didn’t know the type of friendship the groom and I had. We knew where the line was drawn between us, and we gleefully crossed it. If we remained friends in the aftermath of whatever chaos ensued, we knew the other person was a friend worth cherishing. And we had cherished each other for years now, through ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, real laughter, and fake tears. Before the groom’s parents yanked the microphone from my hands because it was now their turn to roast him, I delivered my final story of how the groom got the part of Gomez Addams by monologuing my misfortunes.

HER EYES

Brandon Alvarade

Somewhere
Between the ocean and the sky
My mind lives there
Trying to fathom their existence
But the wind whisks me away

Somewhere
Between the ocean and the sky
My body lives there
Wading in waves of blue
Mesmerized by just a glance

Somewhere
Between the ocean and the sky
My heart lives there
Playing hopscotch
Dancing at the thought of them

Somewhere
Between the ocean and the sky
My soul loves it there
It smiles at the sight of them
Optimistic of what was, is,
And will be tomorrow

CONTROL

Brandon Alvarade

All my life I’ve been told,
Men don’t lose control.
They seize it from others,
And claim it as their own.

All my life I’ve been told,
Men don’t lose control.
They hide their true self,
And are meant to be alone.

All my life I’ve been told,
Men don’t lose control.
They bear all the weight.
More than they can hold.

But I can’t hold it all.
I can’t hide it all.
I can’t seize it all.
Yet, I must stay composed.

What if I gave it away?
Just a little each day.
To someone I trust,
With shoulders for the weight.

All my life I’ve been told,
Men don’t lose control.
But if I surrender mine
Am I no longer a man?

ANOTHER PATH

Lanie Smith

Her legs stung as she careened through the sharp beach grass, barely dodging the shore pines that grabbed at her hair and clothes. Waves crashed somewhere just beyond her sight. As she pushed up the last hill she lurched, her foot slid over the soft sand, and the ground rushed up to meet her. The hard earth knocked the wind from her, but she was already moving again, scrabbling for clumps of grass and branches to pull herself, half crawling, through the last trees and over the crest of the dune.

She skidded on her back to the bottom of the dune and falling sand piled around her. Laying there she could see the sky, the dark hues that seemed to dispel the claustrophobia of the tangle she had just escaped, the sharp points of stars that pierced through the pain and exhaustion, leaving a path for the brisk salt air to fill her with new breath. Gasping, she felt for the first time all the forest had inflicted on her body.

She lay there, listening to the waves until her breathing calmed and the fresh pain of her forest flight settled in as just another among all the myriad aches of her journey: the seemingly permanent bruises from four hundred miles of sleeping on the ground and scrapes on her knees and elbows from where she dove into a ditch to avoid the inquisitors riding onto the road. She had grown accustomed to aches and pains through all of this.

Her mind drifted back along her journey to her home, such as it was. It had seemed so dismal when she had first decided to leave. Squat, stone tenements, for the unmarried women, and the constant fear of not getting enough work to afford food. By comparison, even the workhouse of her childhood seemed better, more stable at least. Now, she saw the comfort of it. At home, there was a bed, and as long as she had work she didn’t need to search for food. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple. This journey, however, was a constant struggle, to keep going, to find food and shelter. Despite all of that, it offered a freedom she had not known in years.

Mom.

Her mind retreated from the word like a coiling snake. Now was not the time for sad recollections. Her exhaustion had lessened and her legs were no longer trembling. It was time to get up and move forward. She repeated this to herself several times as if by repetition she would summon the energy to make it possible, but there was hesitation. She was reluctant to look towards the sea. Throughout this journey, every sure thing, every safe bet had failed her. Every time she thought she knew what was going on, fate reached out to remind her that she knew nothing. She had no confidence left, no belief that there were such things as surety and safety. Struggling to sit up she knocked the sand off of her hands and clothes, only so much time can be wasted on fear, and the only way was onward.

She looked.

Her cry of mingled joy and relief was swallowed by the sounds of the ocean. Just ahead, rising like a spear of green and gray in defiance of the sea stood a tidal island just beyond the breaking surf. Sheer faces of stone jutted out of the water for a few dozen feet before the dense canopy of trees obscured the rest. From here, in the fading light, she could just make out the small footpaths worn into the rock that peeked through the boughs. She scrambled towards the surf.

Finally, she was here. She was as thankful as she was spiteful. She had done this in defiance of fate itself. It seemed as if at every turn all the powers of the world had conspired, had set their skillful hands to the task of making her journey as difficult as possible, her goals nigh unachievable. Yet here she was on the doorstep of the tidal shrine. The entire Imperial Inquisition hadn’t been able to stop her.

The water was high and she knew there would be no getting to the island until a lower tide when the sea would fall away and leave the sandy causeway, a safe path to the base of the trees. Searching out a break in the dunes, she hunkered down below the wind and pulled her rough wool blanket from her pack. Sand is not as comfortable to sleep on as one might think, but it is a far sight better than rocks and roots, and she had grown accustomed to those in the months she spent on the road.

As she wrapped herself up and laid her haversack out for a pillow, her thoughts drifted again to her childhood on the shore, before they had moved inland. Back to the summer days she, eight or nine years old, would spend with her mother in the broad grasslands that rolled down to the sea. They would watch their neighbors thrash the flax, then she and Mom would help them break and scrape it. Back to the summer sunsets, when Mom would pack a meager picnic and they would eat down on the beach and watch for Dad. When his small boat would heave into view, oars working like dragonfly wings to bring the crew safely to shore, she would hear Mom give a whispered prayer, thanking the Jackal God for another day. Eventually, they would haul their dory up on the sand and stow the oars. The others would visit for a bit, and then Dad would tell Mom and her about his day as he laid out his oilskin and sweater to dry. These memories kept her warm, as they had in her years of struggling to live with the workhouse and tenements. Memories of a time when life was lived as opposed to survived.

The tears came slowly, not the frantic sobs of relief or the wild crying of fear and desperation, but the gentle sniffling sound of yearning for that which is gone. She would never see them or those grasslands again. Even the little things were denied her. Her picnic tonight was a piece of hard biscuit she had been nibbling on for two days. The chill of this April evening made her wish for one of those cheerful little driftwood fires, but that would draw attention. She could not think of anything worse than someone finding her while she was asleep out here.

Just as softly as sleep came, it went. The soft dapple of sunlight stirred consciousness in her, she lifted her head to the sound of the surf and distant voices. Exhaustion had calcified into stiffness and she groaned against the pain of trying to teach her arms and legs to move again. She pulled back the blanket, squinting against the sun, moving to brush off the ever-present sand but suddenly froze.

Distant voices.

She pulled herself up into the dunes, closer to the trees, and spotted movement immediately. Three horses and on them, men in gleaming breastplates. They rode casually, dogs trotting just behind, wicked-looking halberds resting on their stirrups. She couldn’t see clearly but she knew their black tabards were emblazoned with the white star of the Inquisition.

She cursed under her breath. There was more water between her and the island now, and she didn’t have time to wait for the safe path. The thought of swimming for it briefly took her as she searched the opposite shore to see a safe spot to land. But to call it shore was a mistake. The waves crashed around those sheer faces like the cymbals of some tremendous natural symphony. Every person from a seaside town knew what waves and rocks could do. If she swam too close or the surf pulled her in she would be battered to pieces. From here it wasn’t clear where the rocky path reached the sea, but she thought she could see where it should be.

Should.

She had traveled an awful long way to risk it all on should. Anxiety seized her heart and her breathing came shallow. There was almost no chance of making the swim. What about hiding? Climbing a tree? No. . . . Sooner or later the dogs would find her, and then the halberds. She grabbed her bag and squeezed it, eyes firmly shut, trying hard to pace her breathing.

She could fight, she could run, or she could swim.

If she fought them, she would die quickly. If she ran, she would die tired. If she swam, she would likely be pulped against those rocks. The truth came like the end of a hard fall, as it usually did. Given the choice of dead, dead, or maybe dead, she would take maybe dead every time. There wasn’t time to agonize over the options.

As she hurriedly took off her surcoat and boots, the futility of the situation boiled up, building into a hard rage. She fanned that flame, hoping for enough anger to overwhelm the anxiety. She had done everything right: planned and prepared, waited patiently, and traveled carefully. When you work hard things are supposed to work out. That’s the way it goes, right?

Well, obviously not.

As she tied up her hair scarf she held her building fury tight. The fire of it burnt away all doubt and fear. This was how it was going to go. She was the daughter of fishers, of sailors. Her people were born to the water. She hadn’t come all this way to drown on the doorstep of salvation. And if she did then why not? She had been fed by the sea, taught by the sea, raised by the sea, if the sea wanted to take her it had earned the right. Certainly more than some pockmarked, bootlicking, soldiers.

As she left the shadow of the dunes and onto the exposed strand of beach she reached for her mom’s necklace. It was the one piece of wealth she had preserved over all the hard years: a small silver coin stamped with the stylized image of a jackal. She raised it to her lips and gave it a simple parting prayer. A prayer she had said so many times, but never enough to matter. A two-word hymn sung silently in times of desperation.

“Sorry, Mom.”

Off she went at a dead sprint. Little pulses of sand shot up behind her as she tore toward the water. As she crossed the wet sand she could hear the distant hoofbeats behind her. Leaping over the low waves she fought to get as deep as possible before going under.

She hadn’t thought of her injuries. Scrapes and cuts from her forest run burned like little lines of cold fire in the heavy wash of salt water. It slowed her down. The soldiers were shouting but the surf drowned out any coherent words. She pushed through the breakers coming in and let the retreating waves carry her out. The sound of hooves splashing told that the horses were close. When it was too deep to touch she settled into a frantic rhythm. Struggling forward between waves, stealing precious breaths before the next one broke. Waiting to the last moment and diving under the breaker then coming up to do it again. Always pushing onward.

Time meant nothing in this string of moments; how long she struggled she could not say, but all at once she was clear of the breakers and into the more peaceful swells. Stopping to tread water, she looked back to the shore. The inquisitors were trotting back and forth along the water line, still dripping from their chase into the surf, calling their stubborn dogs back before they were lost at sea.

Her attention returned to the island. For a few moments at the top of each swell she could see the narrow draw where the island trail met the sea. The water rushed turbulent and swift in and out of the gap. She couldn’t swim through that current. She would have to let a wave carry her in and try to reach shore, depending far more on luck than skill. She took a few precious seconds to tread water, summon her courage, and catch her breath. Just long enough to find a strong wave and time her entrance as she pushed forward into the breach.

The walls closed in and the sea slammed onward with growing ferocity. It was impossible to see through the white churning water, yet she drove forward with everything she had, fighting the eddies and swirls trying to pull her to either side. A rocky pillar seemed to grow from the churning foam. Panic engulfed her and she tried to change course but tons of rushing water would not be overcome. The rock caught her right across the stomach, knocking the air out of her. Water rushed in to replace it. She flailed like a storm-blown kite caught in a tree, one hand instinctively struggling up to her chest to hold down her necklace. Draped over this outcropping with the waves pinning her down, her arms and legs were being pulled out to either side. She tried desperately to cough water out of her airless lungs.

With a titanic effort, she managed to roll herself up and off the rock, slipping backward into the current. She needed air but didn’t know which way was up. Tumbling head over foot, panic overwhelmed all thought.

With a sudden shock, her world collapsed into a moment of pain. Numbness shot down her cheeks. Everything seemed to slow as focus escaped her, she thought about how beautiful the bubbles looked as the water surged. The numbness crept into her limbs as darkness closed around her.

***

They sat on a log beside the road that ran along the flax fields, dappled with warm sunlight and gently waving in the sea breeze, quietly eating their lunch. She leaned against her mom as she munched away at the sandwich the neighbors had made her.

Her munching was interrupted by a small group of travelers on the road. A young couple was escorting an elderly man into town, heading towards the temple. He walked slowly, unsteady despite his cane. They followed closely, obviously nervous that he might fall, almost jumping at every irregularity in his slow amble.

Strangers came into town frequently, making pilgrimages to the temple in the village. She knew from her lessons that they came here to die. The priests explained that other places are not very nice to people who are very sick or very old and they often sought peace in the presence of the Jackal God. The death pilgrimages were a respected tradition among the adherents of the Jackal God, a kind of prolonged meditation, a celebration of living, and a tactful punctuation to the story of life. The journey was so important to them that the people of her village would eventually make their own trips to one of the other shrines that dotted the arid coast. Almost no one would be so rude as to die in their own temple.

She thought for a second about what it would be like when she had to escort one of her parents on their pilgrimage but quickly shook that thought away. She nestled closer to her mom and returned her attention to the sandwich she had been neglecting. That was all very far off.

***

Pain came before sight. Pain ran through so much of her she couldn’t tell which parts were injured. Her hands and legs seemed to move without too much trouble, but her stomach, chest, and head were sore beyond belief.

As her eyes eased open she took stock of her surroundings. She was lying on her side in the sand, washed ashore in the narrow sandy crevasse where the ocean met the path. The water had retreated some, but it was still a couple of hours before the island would be connected to the shore. Silhouettes were visible on the mainland. Soldiers.

They would no doubt come for her as soon as they could. Time was limited and she was so close. Despite the protestations of her body, she braced against the rock wall and staggered to her feet. Pain shot through her stomach again. This wasn’t the familiar soreness of aching muscles and weary bones. This was something deeper.

The path rose out of the narrow draw into the thick growth of evergreens. It followed the cliff up until it spiraled around, climbing the hill towards the shrine at the peak. The branches muffled the waves to a pulsing hiss that mixed with the sound of wind and birds into a gentle, calming, chorus. While she trudged along, the sounds and smells of the place seemed to take some weight from her shoulders.

There was a peace here that was difficult to explain and pondering it distracted her. She struggled onward for a while but her exhaustion was mounting. A raised clump of root caught her eye and she stopped to sit and catch her breath. Gingerly she touched the back of her head and winced at the sharp pain. Checking her fingers she saw blood, but not much: just a scrape. Lifting her shirt she saw a magnificent bruise forming where the stone pillar had caught her across the stomach. She sighed and settled back for a moment, trying to find a part of her head uninjured enough to tolerate resting against the tree.

As exhaustion began to creep up on her, she looked at the soldiers down on the beach, moving about like ants in sable and silver. They had built a fire and were sharing food. As they talked one of them threw his head back in a laugh and passed a jug to the other. It was so surreal to see them act like regular people. These men who laughed and drank like friendly neighbors were hunting her, hunting her to kill her. Soldiers in the same uniform sacked her village and forced her family and friends to march across half a country. The march that had killed her mother and driven her father beyond sense. What power was in a uniform? What power could change a man like that? A man could be laughing and sharing with his neighbor one day, as kind as the sun on a spring day, and with nothing but a change of clothes, make desperate refugees march a thousand miles at spearpoint.

The scream of a seagull pulled her from her reverie. It took effort to clear her head and focus on what she was seeing. Down the rocky slope, a small fox had its jaws around the seagull’s neck. They were thrashing and screaming in a fight for their lives. The little melee tumbled out of sight behind some rocks and shortly the sounds stopped. She stared for a few moments, her mind wandering. A gull that had flown through hundreds of miles, facing who knows what hardships, just to become fox food. What was the point?

Pressing her hands to her face she took a slow deep breath. Get to the shrine, that’s what she had to do. She stumbled up through the groggy haze and carried on up the hill. The pain in her body was fading, but she felt heavy, sluggish. Only a little further to go. She focused on each step, one at a time. Sometimes so intently she didn’t notice the trail curving until she started to run into the bushes. Leaning against a tree she would center the path, take a few deep unsatisfying breaths, and start on again.

Small marker stones dotted the edges of the path with bas-reliefs depicting people making the journey to the shrine. In each of them, she only saw the gull. Hundreds of miles just to die, what was the point? Why leave the nest? The people were solemn but smiling, against all odds. They were in shambles. A patchwork of injuries, disease marks, and ancient wrinkled skin. Walking with other pilgrims, drinking in roadside taverns, singing around campfires, seemingly unaware of their suffering. She was irritated at their quiet contentedness, their surety of purpose. Gulls, just gulls.

She stopped twice more to catch her breath before she reached the clearing at the top of the island. On her right, over the cliff, she could see the soldiers, her little foxes, on their horses wading through the low tide towards the island. She turned her back to the cliff and shuffled unsteadily toward the shrine.

The midday sun trickled down through the canopy to cover the soft grass in a vitiligo of light. At the center of the small clearing was a stone slab laying flat, bigger than a person, almost level with the ground, covered in the most intricate reliefs she had seen so far. The pilgrims from the carvings of the inn and campfire were all carved in there, standing on the edge of a vast sea of fog, but near the middle of the image the fog rolled back to show a glimpse of what was behind it: a great green field with the sun setting over far hills. A small jackal stood in the gap of the fog. It was walking away but looking back at them over its shoulder. It seemed to beckon, promising a safe path through to reach the sunset.

She knelt on the stone. Her hands felt the faces of the carved people through the numbness that was creeping across her body. Reaching to her neck she struggled to pull her necklace over her head. Pressing the small bit of stamped silver to the carving, she found tears of happiness creeping into her blurred vision.

“We’re here, Mom.”

She suddenly found nothing to combat her growing exhaustion, nothing to push through the pain in her stomach. She gently laid down on her side, feeling the cool stone on her cheek. Her hand still held the necklace to the carving. Keeping her eyes open was a struggle as her focus drifted.

A sudden yip pulled her back to the world. Laying on the ground she could see, across the grass, under the brush at the base of a tree, four fox pups tearing into what had once been a seagull. Beside them sat their mother, the fur around her eyes and muzzle was graying. Her soft and aged look contrasted by the splash of blood and feathers from her recent hunt. While the pups were consumed entirely with their meal the parent stared, unblinking, at this human who had stumbled into their clearing.

The woman was so tired, it overwhelmed everything. The sore muscles, the cold in spite of the sunlight, the pain in her body, they all faded in comparison to her exhaustion. As her eyes closed she thought she saw the elder fox give a small nod of recognition.

***

“What a waste of time,” he said, looking over the cold body of the girl on the heathen shrine.

“There’s been worse assignments, but still,” his partner shook his head. “I can’t believe the Tribune sent us on a three-day chase for this.”

“Do you ever wonder why they do it?” He asked, turning to look out over the water, “Why they keep risking their lives to come to these forbidden places?”

“Beats me.” The other man shrugged, tapping the body with the toe of his boot. “The report said this’n ran away from the capital. They gave her work with the weavers and a place to live and she still ran. I don’t know what else they could want. It’s as much as I’d ever need. My old da says they just can’t take living like civilized folk, their souls ain’t made for it.”

“Maybe,” he said, only half listening, his attention swallowed by the wild and rhythmic crashing of the sea against the rocks, by the gulls swooping and diving on the updrafts of the cliff. Somewhere in that dark wash of salt water, the sound of the rolling sea beckoned.

“Maybe,” he said.

YOU MAKE ME SO LOST

Shylee Greene

i watch your moods fly by
changing faster than the wind
and i watch you
shouting and bawling and screeching
i watch you
laugh and cringe and cry

Bitter, bitter

some time will go by and i dare wonder i dare hope you might get better

and i pause and i ask
could it really be different now?

how different could it really be?

when the night crashes in and your strangled cries reach outside yourself and grab me
beg for help and push me away
gripping my fingers and pulling me in
let me drown with you

will you be better now?

INTO THE DARK

Fenyx Quinn

His lifeless body adorned a dusty stone slab. The air around him was on fire. A dead rat that had succumbed to the heat, murdered by fervor, lay atop a sand-covered floor a few centimeters from his right shoulder. One mangy paw outstretched toward an empty water bowl.

A volley of volcanic fireworks were erupting and fighting for real estate in his aching brain. The heat from the phantom blasts singed the hair follicles on his neck. Sharp pains marked his body like leopard spots. He was inside a prison forming in his own head, a prison from which there was no escape.

***

Why is everything on fire? He was searching for something inside of himself. Small explosions rattled him deep in his core; he felt compelled to find cloth. Any fabric not burning or soiled would do. But why? Dammit! Everything is on fire. And why is there such loud music?!

Wait, pillowcases. In the linen locker.

Ripped up pillowcases appeared in his hands, and he applied them to a wound on . . . on Macy?! Oh God. My love, what have I done? Why are you bleeding? What is going on?

Love

There’s a huge-ass hole in the ship? What the fuck happened to the ship? He opened his mouth to yell, but the only thing he heard was a piercing metal-on-metal shriek mixed with the steady beat of AWOLNATION’s song “Sail.” He looked outside to identify the sound, but it was coming from below and from within.

Wait, how am I able to see outside?

Because

He saw the ocean, gray and smoky with fire everywhere trailing toward aft. His wide-eyed gaze floated back down to Macy, the one he thought would never abandon him. He shook his head and cried invisible tears. He stood to go towards the aft of the ship to get help. It was the only section of the ship, from his viewpoint, that still looked somewhat familiar, not engulfed in flames, or missing decks. An explosion to his right side catapulted him through the newly formed steel window to the ocean outside. He flew with shards of metal the size of coffins and landed within the blackout abyss of the Indian Ocean just past the melting water.

***

United States Navy Aviation Ordnanceman Petty Officer Third Class Brian Allen Vincent, AO3 Vincent for short, gasped, choked, and gurgled out imaginary water from his lungs. He turned to his right side to expel any fluid that, moments ago, was drowning his bronchi in fire. Nothing, save for a few bubbles of saliva, came out of his mouth though. When the anguish of the coughing spell subsided, he saw through hazy eyes, two little beady pupils staring back at him, only centimeters from his face.

Baby

Whaaat tha shidamn?! He jumped back as far from the tiny corpse as he could in such a cramped cell. The rocks clung to the sailor, poking at his sides to ensure his conscious mind was still in control. Vincent’s hand slipped on fresh paint that was smeared on the rock-face wall. Wait one. Is that blood? He looked down at the slow drip of sanguine life force trickling out of his crooked elbow. The blood pooled on the protruding stone slab that graced his new home. He stared at the pooling for his reflection but saw none. His head reeled and spun cyclically around his shoulders. He crouched into the corner of the tiny cell and bumped the gash on his forearm as he sat down. Strobe lights went off behind his eyes. He jumped up and let out a primal howl that was oddly in sync with a lead guitar. Vincent rushed his hand to his mouth to catch the flow of vomit trying to escape, but was too late; it covered the opposing wall and door like a 1970s wallpaper that did not stand up well to the test of time. The instant jump back to reality conjured words he’d never heard before to fling about his head against a backdrop of rock music. He slid blindly toward the wall behind him, a chain rattling on the ground following his heel across the dirt-strewn floor. Where am I? The shackle wrapped around his left ankle stared back at him in quiet abandon, providing no answers.

SAIL

Am I wearing a dress? A white fucking night gown? What is this?

Help

And why do they keep playing this song over and over again at full blast?

“Hello?! Can anybody hear me? Can you turn this shit down?” He felt an urge—a tug. I have to get back to Macy. “Where am I? Where am I?!”

Kill

Oh . . . I think I know this song.

“A. Mmm. Mmm. Ba—bay,” he croaked what little he could remember of the song with the voice echoing through his cell. As if singing with it might somehow vanquish the repeating strain. AO3 attempted to regain some type of bearing, military or not. He was grasping at understanding, losing his way in the lyrics of the song.

There were no windows in the small dusty chamber he was occupying, just a steel door with four small slits to let in slivers of light. The holes in the door were just out of AO3 Vincent’s reach. The ankle bracelet had him on a six-foot tether just shy of the door. The stone slab that was awkwardly jutting out from the wall and a bucket were the only other things of note in his new digs besides his lamented rat companion. He guessed the slab was for sleeping and the bucket for shitting. He hoped the rat wasn’t for eating. He could taste salty sand in the air reminding him how hungry his stomach was and swore he had a few broken ribs aching in sympathetic tones with his hunger pains.

SAIL

Vincent mounted the slab with his knees then his feet and became woozy at the higher elevation. The room started to spin, and he braced himself on the wall. Pain shot up his arm from the newly formed gash in his forearm. Shortly, his senses regained their strength, and he was just able to stand up with his head pressed sideways against the low rocky ceiling to try to catch a glimpse of what lurked beyond the door.

“IYAOYAS!” He dug deep into his Navy training steeling himself through clenched teeth with the Aviation Ordies’ mantra that was a rallying cry for all AOs and a warning to all other rate-centric groups, enemies, foreign or domestic, or biker gangs not to fuck with them.

He saw well-lit stone walls continuing endlessly into the dark background. Great, more rock, he thought. The song seemed to be playing through the craggy ceiling making him lightheaded again. Wait, shadows. Hey, people! “Somebody! Hey! Get me outta here! And stop this damn song! Hey—” He followed the trail of his fading echoes onto the wall, gripping it tightly, as the strain on his neck caused the light to go out in his head again.

He fell to the dirt covered floor under the slab; the same song still blaring in his head as his eyes seared shut into a forced slumber.

SAIL

***

AO3 Vincent was floating on his back in the water again, caught in a current pulling him away from the smoking wreckage that once was his home. Through blinking eyes he could see the Navy ship smoldering against the oncoming morning, the debris from the massive holes in the side of the ship floating all around him toward an unknown destination. He was in and out of loose consciousness, the taste of blood and saltwater slid down his tongue. The mast of another ship was sinking into the fathoms below the aircraft carrier that he had just departed.

There was a stream of oil burning atop the water coming from the once mighty ship. It was flowing fast, right towards him. Panic welled up in his gut as he felt pressure mounting on his waist. He couldn’t move. Why won’t my arms move?! Help!

It felt like chains wrapping around him. He felt a tug and he bobbed under water for a second. The fire on the water was closer, about to overtake him. Another tug and bob. His lungs tasted the water, he could feel the fire gripping his throat. Another tug and he was submerged, pulled into the deep dark sea. He was unable to free himself from the chain pulling him down. He was trying to breathe in oxygen that wasn’t there. It felt like he was caught in a wave tossing him about and shouting waterfalls down his windpipe.

Dark

***

The song was still playing as a backing track to his death-dream. Turn off. He inhaled sharply in preparation for the next inaudible words. That fucking. He exhaled a slight whistle through clenched teeth. Song! The cries in his head were drowned out by the waves. But, as quickly as the monsoon in his mouth began, the waves slowed to a trickle then ceased. The towel was ripped from his face, and he saw two figures standing above him dressed in all black and outfitted with hoods. The jolt back to reality shocked him.

Vincent’s eyes went wide with terror. He felt like he was reclining in a La-Z-Boy, but this chair was not as comfortable. He saw the same craggy stone ceiling from before above the two figures, but the ceiling was much brighter, and it looked more like a cave. He couldn’t move his hands or feet; he tried to look down to see if they were restrained but discovered that his forehead was also tied down to the back of the metal chair he was occupying. He tried to take a deep breath but the strap circumnavigating his gut cut into the bottom of his ribcage when he inhaled. The chair was cold. He could smell . . . urine. Is that . . . my pee?

Through his cloudy vision, it looked to him like he was seeing a negative image of clansmen standing above him. Their heads were moving angrily, or jokingly, he couldn’t tell, but he heard nothing from them over that blaring song.

“How am I supposed to hear anything with that damn song playing so kraken loud?!”

He figured his shouts fell on deaf ears since their heads kept moving in that mocking movement. The figure on the left leaned in close and flicked a lever under the chair catapulting him to an upright position.

Dark

He saw more figures in the room. It was a cell like his, but more circular from what he could see. The two figures from before blocked much of his view. The one on his right hit him on the sternum with a closed fist, the first of many. Or, was it the one on his left? He was stunned and lost track of which dark figure was hitting him.

The song was still blaring as he was being pummeled. It seemed like they were hitting him, coinciding with the beat of the song. It hurt him more when they took rests or got off tempo. When they resumed hitting him on the hardest beats of the song, he felt a chuckle escape his lips. It was like they were painting by numbers, and he felt they were pathetic for needing a song to tell them when to hit him. He coughed up blood, causing them to delay their work on his torso. The pain was intense, his breathing labored. He felt his eyes rolling up like a window shade. His pulse was jumping up and down the scale, missing beats. Get on tempo dammit, he screamed at himself.

Into

That fucking song, heh. It won’t stop.

The

“IYAO”, he coughed up a little blood in the middle of his battle cry, “YAS!”

Dark

He faded into the dark. The song faded into him.

***

BZZZTTT

He gasped for air like a newborn baby exiting the womb. He was unstrapped from the chair and laying on the stone floor. He saw a table above him and a dark figure with a defibrillator kneeling over him. No music. The fact that he was dead a few moments ago was miniscule compared to the absence of the music being blared from God knows where. A smile crept onto his face.

SAIL

Fuuuucccckkkk!

Two dark figures picked up his limp body under each shoulder and dragged him out of the circular torture cell and down a long hallway, bare toes scraping against the sharp pebbles littering the floor. A trail of blood followed him into his cell where the men had thrown him. He tried to steady himself on one hand and rise to the protruding stone slab above him, but his exhausted body failed him, and he collapsed to the floor. Eyes closed and gone.

SAIL

His whole body twitched; his soul vomited. Well, almost gone.

***

He felt his limp body being plucked out of the water like a baby kitten who fell into a well. He was unable to lift his head or see where he was going, only where he was coming from. Under him a few bits of debris floated by, but when he looked around, he could see no other signs of the devastation he had come from save a faint dark cloud on the horizon. There was a crude rope fashioned under his arms and around his chest lifting him toward the heavens. Am I dead? He reached towards the embattled ships and muttered a plea. Macy, please be OK. Please forgive me.

SAIL

His soul sank at the sound of the music again. He could see as he was lifted higher, that he was being pulled into some kind of large ship. She had a crescent moon painted in red on the side of the black hull and what appeared to be the name of the ship in white block lettering: SHEKARCHI. There was some kind of fancy writing underneath it, but he couldn’t make it out. He was lifted over the railing and slowly lowered to the deck where people in hospital scrubs and white masks helped him to his back.

LA la LA la la, LA la LA la la

He turned to his side and coughed up blood that had more of a burnt kelp texture than anything else. As he was coughing, he saw at least a dozen other sailors and civilians in various uniforms and torn clothes sprawled about the deck like he was. Well, some were fully covered by a white sheet, some were bleeding heavily, and others thrashing in pain, but mostly like him. A man with a surgical mask and tiny fingers blinded each eye with a flashlight and randomly poked at his body. He had kind, narrow eyes. He marked Vincent’s forehead, turned to a nurse to give some kind of instruction, then turned back to the sailor, tapped his chest and vacated the area. A short nurse behind a soiled mask replaced the doctor, with a long needle attached to a syringe held in her massive hands. Her eyes foamed with anticipation of the coming torment; the mask hid a touch of maniacal laughter. Hey, what is she doing with that turkey baster? She pressed on his rib cage and jabbed the needle into his chest. For a moment, his whole world stopped.

***

SAIL

When he came to, he was back in the chair in the big circular room again. This time only his wrists and lap were tied down. He was upright sitting at a table with a plate containing two small red apple slices. There was a door with the same slits from his cell behind a dark figure sitting across the table from him. He looked slightly different from the rest, but familiar to him. Smaller, thinner fingers, straighter in stature. He was wearing a surgical mask, but Vincent could see the unhidden kind, narrow eyes of the doctor from the ship. Or did I dream that? Of course, I didn’t. It must be real. This all has to be real. Even that stupid song. It looked to AO3 like he was trying to communicate as he continued to slice the apple. Does he want me to eat that? There was a momentary break in the cacophony tormenting his head.

“Hey, are those red delirious? Wait, I mean delicious. Are they Red Delicious?”

No answer.

AO3 looked around. “Hey, you in the hood. Yeah, you . . . Dick-jama, hold your tongue and say ‘I’m an apple.’ No really, it’s fun, try it.” Vincent flashed a blood-stained smile, tongue fully tucked between teeth.

AO3 Vincent saw the kind-eyed doctor nod at a camera out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey, Doc, what does that me—”

SAIL

“Fuck!” His eyes detonated into an eruption of frustration. The frustration of not being able to hear anything other than the song playing over and over in his head was wearing on him. He shook his head as if he was shaking off a parasite embedded deep in his brain.

He paused for a moment and felt another smile coming on, with a giggle close behind it. He was starting to crack. This looked like it upset the man sitting across from him. He flicked the stem off the apple with the curved carving knife and stood up, eyeing a command to a black sheet waiting behind AO3 Vincent.

The sailor’s eyes followed the stem in slow motion to the ground with increasing giggles. The smile planted on his face but the sound from his lips ceased the moment he spied a pair of feet, an arm without a body, and a head tossed about on the floor beside a smoldering fire not ten feet to his left. He looked on in awkward amazement as blood still trickled off the glistening marrow from the sheared bone of one of the feet. Is that a left foot? No, a right. It’s gonna be hard for him to play hokey-pokey without that. . . . He started to turn his head back to his captor when the hooded black sheet behind him slammed his right cheek down to the cold steel table.

SA—L

AO3 Vincent was helpless against him.

SAIL

He struggled, but he only managed to raise his head a few inches before it was slammed down a second time to the table.

—S—AIL

Still struggling, he managed to work his right hand free and grabbed the bicep of the man above him. The surprise attack from the prisoner momentarily stunned the man in black just long enough for the sailor to raise his head and gnaw a chunk out of the jailer’s left breast. The sailor felt cloth and skin in his mouth as the jailor fought with himself to wrangle control. The man in the surgical mask ambled toward him with a glowing orange blade bright enough to distract a moth from an inferno. The man in black forced the sailor’s thrashing head, left cheek first, hard into the metallic surface, but this time with a direct blow to the right temple.

SAI—

Silence. A moment of silence. Screaming. He could hear screaming, yelling. Was that from the ship? A steady ringing in his ears. Macy?! Where did you go, my love? Did you put me here? Is this your doing? Is this my punishment? I’ve had enough. Are you going to free me? Or do I have to bite my way out and find you?

Two distinct languages that were not English bled into his new reality, but he heard something other than music. The red smile formed back on his face, upturned on the corners, and blood ran through the teeth. He began to shriek a hysterical laugh that, in and of itself, stunned all his captors. The echoes reverberated through the chamber fighting a battle of the bands through the caged arena and it stopped them in their tracks. The more his laughter reverberated through the chamber, the more his continued hysterics struck a nerve with his captors. The echoes comforted him. Any sound that was absent melodious effort was a gift to him at this point. Anything but that damn song.

“IYAOYAS!”

The kind-eyed man with the surgical mask wore a look of momentary confusion in his eyes.

“IF . . . You Ain’t . . . Ordinance!”

The doctor in the surgical mask turned a rage-filled red and continued toward Vincent putting one hand on the arm that was pinning him down and with the other, he moved the glowing hot carving knife closer to the prisoner’s right eye.

“You Ain’t . . . Shit.” A maniacal grin followed.

The surgical mask and the black sheet shared a brief glance. The black sheet tightened his grip on Vincent’s head. AO3 Vincent’s eyes went uncontrollably wide with frenzied jubilation, still laughing with every part of his tortured soul. The man’s small hand pressed the back of the carving knife deep and at a slight angle into the sailor’s eye socket so that it singed a crescent moon from just above the eyebrow, through the unprotected pupil and onto the top of his cheek. Deeper yet with each cachinnation from the victim who still laughed uncontrollably.

This time, though, blended in were screams of pain. The captor released him, but the sailor did not raise his head. The man in the surgical mask staggered back dropping the hot knife to the dusty floor below. The sailor’s vision was completely blocked in his right eye from the immediate swelling. The ringing in his ears was like a thousand phone calls with only more ringing telephones on the other side of the line. But, he did not need to see anything as long as he couldn’t hear that damn song again. Ever. Except for . . . the one that put me here. He demanded an audience with her. She will get what’s coming to her.

More laughter ensued. “Ah-ha-ha. SAIL!” He mused between hysterics. However, it had turned into an earworm that weaved in and out of the ringing. The captors shared looks of disbelief behind their shrouds, they all took a few paces back and watched him explode with searing glee. A phone call was received by the man in the surgical mask. More ringing?! Answer, answer, answer. Nobody’s home. Sail! The doctor turned his back to the audience in the chamber. AO3 Vincent could almost swear he heard an Asian language between the outbursts and writhes of pain, but what did he know? He had cracked just a few moments ago.

“IYAOYAS!”

The man looked up at the camera just above the door and shook his head up and down ever so slightly. He hung up the phone, fastened his hand around the grip of the QSW-06 pistol found in its holster under the back of his black shirt.

“Ha-ha-ha. Sail! Sail! SAIL!”

The doctor walked fast to the hysterical prisoner and brandished the firearm above his head. “Shut. Up!” He said in broken English as he raised the pistol above the sailor’s skull and lowered it with a forceful—

***

SLAM. AO3 Vincent’s lunch tray hit the table in the ship’s mess with a deafening slap.

“Why, Macy? Why?” Aviation Structural Mechanic Airman Macy Rowe sat across the table from AO3 Vincent in the aft galley of the aircraft carrier, USS Stargazer.

AMAN Macy Rowe pushed her tray away. “I don’t know why you followed me up here. I told you I need space.”

“Because I need answers.”

Macy looked up at the television playing the ship-wide news that told of the upcoming Morale, Welfare, & Recreation sponsored shipboard concert of AWOLNATION as a reward for a “job well done.”

“Are you listening to me? Can you hear me?”

“You, you, you. It’s always about what you need, Vince.” Only Macy called him that.

She’s trying to soften me up. “You cheated, didn’t you? You wanna be with her, don’t you.” It’s not going to work this time . . . Mace.

“All you ever do since we got back from Liberty Call in Jebel Ali is hide with your little work friend from Damage Control.”

“I don’t need to explain anyth—”

“You’re lovers, aren’t y—”

Macy snapped to her accuser wearing a look of fiery resolute. “I’m pregnant.”

The news behind Vincent played a preview of things to come.

“P . . .” He couldn’t get the word out.

“Pregnant, and I can’t have this baby anywhere near a controlling psychopath like you.”

“Psycopa . . .” A question mark hung between his eyes.

“You raped me!” The revelation was louder than she intended and reverberated through the galley. It was silent save for a few dropped forks.

“We were drunk. Both of us,” he said in a whisper trying to hush the silent calamity.

“Me more than you. Then you tried to control me and make me think that it was OK, that ‘it was the sandbox, it’s just what happens,’” she mocked him.

Macy stood with a newfound indignation. The galley’s eyes fixated on her. Vince’s eyes trained on her as she rose. “And it’s not OK!” Macy slammed her fists into the middle of the galley table, sending a triumphant period echoing throughout the cavernous mess deck and ending with an explosion that crippled all the sailors at once.

AO3 Vincent hesitated then stood and looked over Macy’s shoulder where other sailors were jumping out of their seats in astonishment. Was that a missile? Was that an accidental misfire? Another explosion rang out, louder this time. He stood up as he saw sailors starting to disappear from his view. All motion in his visual field slowed to a crawl. The deck of the aft galley started contorting like an accordion throwing tables and chairs in all directions.

He looked down at Macy into her soft, brown, incredulous eyes. Then he looked down at her stomach and thought about the new life that was beating inside of her. He felt ashamed, proud, and scared all at the same time. He reached across the table just as she was hurtled from his view. A shock wave knocked him against the bulkhead just as the opposite bulkhead was ripped right off the hull. The scene didn’t look real. The General Quarters alarm was blaring intermixed with the TV overhead that was hanging by its coax cable, but miraculously still playing.

Vincent looked down and saw a piece of metal protruding from his chest pinning him to the bulkhead. The darkness started to overtake him as more explosions sounded from outside. His head fell to the right and his eyes gained focus again on the body of his once lover lying on the riddled deck. She was bleeding from her side and not moving, but he could see she was barely breathing. He lifted his head in one last attempt to look for help.

He saw a chief stumbling about trying to get his bearings. Vincent tried to call out, but only blood boiled around the corners of his lips. Then he saw it. As the aircraft carrier listed to the side of the broken hull, he spied the other ship, mast on fire and barreling right for him.

The metal-on-metal screeching started slow and then rang louder. It drowned out the General Quarters alarm, the TV, and the death rattle of the sailors at his feet and the two decks below him that he could now see that shouldn’t be possible. The Stargazer had a cross-section cut out like a kid’s show-and-tell science project. Vincent saw the mast of what he presumed was the refueler from a couple of hours prior, slam into the hull right below where the hole had formed, and it suddenly dragged the whole aircraft carrier toward the water like a buoy in a storm. AO3 fell off his perch on the bulkhead and onto a broken table just above Macy. He stretched his arm out to her and was just able to touch her blood-stained hair before the darkness completely overtook him.

***

AO3 Vincent awoke to a skeleton with a familiar pair of beady eyes staring deeply into his singular eye; a boney finger still outstretched to a now full water bowl. The sailor’s leg chained to the wall as he was draped over the stone slab in his now dark, cold cell; his long beard the only warmth he’d known for over a year. At least, he sighed, it’s quiet.

The cell door opened. Just like clockwork. Same time, every day. At least, he imagined it was since there was no way to tell time.

“Are you ready to honor your new family?”

Vincent stared at the long-decomposed mouse and wondered if Macy, or his child for that matter, were out there somewhere.

He didn’t even notice the cell door slam shut.

SAIL

“Oh, what the fu—”

PAINTINGS OF HEAVEN

Gabriel Kirsch

A painter stood somewhere
In Shoreditch
With wine-stained teeth
And a painting
Hanging from her wall
Pondering on the meaning
In all honesty
She had no idea what it meant
She just painted whatever came to her
After all
Inspiration struck at the oddest of times
Her last idea came to her
When she was wine tasting somewhere in
London city, keeping record of
The snobs and rich bastards
She didn’t belong anywhere near
All she wanted
Was to go home
And paint
Someone, or something
Needed to extricate her from this
Ugly place
That reeked of riches
Fame
And cruelty hidden in the greedy smiles
Of men sipping wine
That tasted like the dirt
Their secrets were buried under
So she stood
Staring at her painting
Red,
Dripping from her brush
Like blood
Sin
A warning
It was then
Like sparks of recognition that she saw it
She stared
Agape at her own creation
A depiction
Of holy matrimony
But something was
Twisted
Ugly
Wrong
Semi-naked women
Danced in the crowd
Like witches
Or prisoners
Screaming at the bride
Whose eyes gazed
Longingly
At something behind the groom
The bride’s eyes were wide
Loving
Yet distant
The painter stepped back
Her knees wobbling
As if she knew what the painting depicted, now
She had been lost in the creation of it
But to her
This was a memory
Or
A twisted version of one
Metaphors upon metaphors
Twirled with the crowd
She put her hand on the painting
It was painful to the touch
Maybe this is what Heaven looked like
A gaze behind what you thought was an angel
But was merely human
She didn’t know quite what it meant
But she was sure
That her painting had to mean something
Even if it looked like some
Depiction of a beautiful wedding
To her
It was something else
The reframing of a dream
Only she had
The dream of something behind, love
Not in front of it

CLOSING TWO DOORS

Gabriel Kirsch

It had been three weeks since the funeral, and in all honesty, Jaxon didn’t feel much like a father anymore. His daughter, Fayla, had been killed in a car crash. His son Max was driving, likely high off of heroin or coke—or whatever the hell his son had been hooked on the last few years. It had been a father’s worst nightmare, but worse yet a firefighter’s most dreaded call. A crash on the interstate with both your kids in the wreckage. Nothing could’ve prepared him for watching Max limp to the ambulance, tears in his eyes. But worse yet nothing would have ever prepared him for pulling his own daughter out of the burning car. The car he and his wife Rae had bought her for her seventeenth birthday. She’d been so excited. Told her friends she’d drive them all to Wendy’s or something to celebrate. But now she was gone, and it was all Max’s fault. Fayla’s boyfriend had cheated on her and Max had wanted to confront him. He only lived ten minutes away. Fayla had wanted to wait until she was less emotional, but Max had gotten her to go anyway. He’d gotten her all pissed at her ex with his own anger, or as he’d say, “pumped up.”

Max didn’t get angry often, but Jaxon knew that when his sister got hurt, there was hell to pay. From bullies to cheating boyfriends, Max made sure they knew how much they’d hurt his sister.

The crash, as Jaxon had heard, was quick. Some truck driver swerved out of control because Max was swerving between lanes. He swore it was because Fayla was trying to get out of the moving car. Jaxon didn’t believe him. It was just some sorry excuse to pass the blame to someone else.

Jaxon pushed himself out of his leather chair and wandered to the kitchen. He expected that he had the whole house to himself for the afternoon. Rae had been pulled out of the house by some friends to stop her from cooping up in her bedroom all day. . . . They didn’t even try to get Jaxon out of the house. After all, he was stubborn and didn’t need anyone telling him how to grieve his daughter. So he poured himself a cup of old coffee. He couldn’t be bothered to make a new pot. He looked at his world’s best dad cup and swallowed the lump in his throat and downed half the coffee, his lip curling up at the bitter taste. He wandered back to the living room, sitting down on the leather chair. His gaze fell to the newspaper. An obituary for his daughter on the front page. After all, it was a tight-knit community and everyone had heard about the death of their most respected battalion chief’s daughter. She was well-loved in the community and didn’t get in much trouble. She was president of her school’s FFA and was always doing community service out of the goodness of her heart. Not a lot of people could be angry with her, if they were, she always found a way to calm them down. She always said “kill ’em with kindness.” It was her whole life’s motto. Way Jaxon saw it, the whole damn world would miss that kid. For the community, it was just a star dying, but for Jaxon, it was like the sun imploding.

He sighed as he set his coffee cup down on the newspaper. He pulled a dusty old photo album out from the drawer at the bottom of the coffee table, thumbing through it, tears swelling in his eyes. There Fayla was, holding the old garden hose with a plastic firefighter cap on her head, and right by her side was Max, a teenager by the time she was just seven. He had his own firefighter outfit on, cheering his little sister on. If only it was as simple as it was back then. When Max wasn’t on drugs. When Fayla was still alive. When he didn’t push everything down so far, not even he could reach it. Rae always told him to talk to her, but he swallowed his tears, and like vodka, he let it burn. He turned the page, a tear rolling down his cheek as a smiling Fayla greeted him, blowing out candles on a birthday cake. His daughter’s smiling face . . . something he couldn’t stand to look at anymore. Not now that he knew she’d never smile again. Her second birthday had been a doozy. There were dozens of children running about like wild animals. Max played tag with them, back when he wasn’t such a parasite. Back when he was a good kid. The doorbell rang, pulling Jaxon away from his spiral down memory lane. With a groan he stood up, knee popping as he walked to the door, wiping his eye with his sleeve before opening it. “We don’t need more sympathy lasagna—”

Max stood, breath slightly shaky, hands in his pockets, eyes puffy and red, from a lack of sleep or drug abuse Jaxon couldn’t tell, “Can we talk?”

Jaxon pinched the bridge of his nose, “I don’t see why not.”

Max walked in, closing the door behind him, “It’s just, we haven’t talked since the funeral. . . . I was wondering if you or Mom needed anything.”

Jaxon sat back down with a short breath as he grabbed his old coffee, taking a sip. “Yeah, Max,” he rubbed his thumb against a coffee stain on the cup. “We could use our daughter back.”

Max leaned against the wall, “C’mon Dad, don’t go there.”

“Oh so you just wanna ignore it, isn’t that right, Max?” Jaxon’s grip on his coffee cup got tighter. “Just like your drug addiction, just like everything else?”

Max huffed, “I don’t get why we can’t talk about things like adults instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game when you know that’s not what Fayla would want.”

Jaxon shot up, shoving a finger at Max. “You don’t know shit about what she would want,” he got right up in Max’s face. “‘Cause you’re such an ignorant asshole that you can’t see other’s needs or wants when they’re yellin’ ’em in your goddamn ear.”

Tears swelled in Max’s eyes, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’m trying to change.”

Jaxon shook his head. “It’s too goddamn late for that,” he snatched his coffee cup off the table, opening the sliding glass door as a fresh breeze cut his face. “You should’ve changed before you got your sister killed.”

Max followed him outside, slamming the sliding glass door, tears rolling down his cheeks, “I already told you what happened damn it!” He sat down on the hard wooden bench on the deck with a thud. “Why can’t you just believe me?”

Jaxon turned to face him. “Because you’re a goddamn rat, Max.” Jaxon leaned against the railing. “You swear up and down you’ll get clean for years, and years, and then you get high off of whatever the fuck you can find and hurt my god damn family, Max,” Jaxon pointed at himself, tears rolling down his cheeks. “My, family.”

“What about me?” Max murmured

“Far as I’m concerned,” Jaxon pushed himself off the railing, sitting down on the coffee table, leaning to Max’s level. “You’re not family anymore.”

“Don’t say that,” Max sighed. “We have to get through this together. There’s no other way.”

“Is it so wrong not to wanna stare your daughter’s killer in the face every day?” Jaxon said. “Is that too much to ask?”

“I didn’t kill my sister.”

“Whatever the hell you have to say to get some sleep at night,” Jaxon said, standing up as he paced back and forth on the deck.

Max stood up. “Maybe you should’ve gotten to the crash quicker, ever think of that?”

Jaxon thrust a finger into Max’s chest. “Don’t you dare place blame on me.”

“Why not?” Max asked, “You’re a firefighter, aren’t you? You’re supposed to save people? So why the hell could you save everyone but your own daughter? Why weren’t you there when we needed you most?”

Jaxon’s heart beat rapidly in his chest, sweat trickling down his forehead. “Why can’t you just take some goddamn responsibility?”

“‘Cause I can’t look myself in the eye if I accept that I got my own sister killed.”

“Neither can I.” Jaxon said.

Max chewed on his lip, meeting Jaxon’s gaze, “Why can’t we just bury the hatchet? For Fayla.”

“Because, Max,” Jaxon sighed, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m not burying a hatchet, I’m burying my goddamn daughter.”

Max stood there in silence, hands shoved deep in his pockets, tears swelling in his eyes but not falling down his cheek.

Jaxon scoffed, pushing Max, “C’mon, say something!” He pushed him again. “Get whatever sorry-ass apology you got out of the way so I can move on with my goddamn life.”

“I’m sorry,” Max murmured.

“What was that?” Jaxon cupped a hand around his ear.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Jaxon repeated. “Really?”

Max gave a small shrug, “What else do you want me to say?”

“You know sorry won’t bring her back, right?” Jaxon asked.

“Neither will this,” Max said.

Jaxon snatched his coffee, glugging it all down before setting it back on the railing. “Maybe it won’t, but you know what?” He looked at Max with eyes that dragged his face down into a sad, downtrodden look. “I’m tired of trying to pretend I can forgive you.”

Max sunk into the chair, sighing, as he ran a hand through his hair. Tears stinging the corners of his eyes, murmuring, “Stubborn asshole.”

Jaxon swallowed the lump in his throat. The silence between them was almost deafening.

Max buried his head in his hands to hide his tears, but his sobs would be heard anyway. Jaxon knew he was holding back his own tears . . . part of him wished he’d never followed all that bullshit advice his father had given. Be a man, don’t cry, push it all down until not even God can reach it.

Max slowly looked up, “Please,” his voice cracked, “If you forgive me, maybe I can forgive myself.”

Jaxon chewed down on his chapped lips. “Truth is I hate you, Max. Every time I look at you I think about how if you hadn’t been born my daughter would have a future ahead of her.” Max sighed as he stood up. “I don’t even know why I came here,” he said as he pushed himself up. “Should’ve known it would end like this.”

Jaxon sighed, “Shoulda known.”

Max opened the sliding glass door.

Jaxon gave a small shake of the head. “Don’t come ’round here no more Max . . . not for a long time.”

Max’s gaze fell down to his boots. “I’ll—I’ll just leave. . . .” He looked to the front door, “Let you bury two kids,” he murmured.

With that Max closed the sliding glass door and Jaxon watched him leave out the front door. His heart caught in his chest as he sat back down, staring at his number one dad cup. Nothing was right. His daughter was gone, and now his son might as well be gone, and he was the one to walk him right out the door. Truth was he couldn’t stand the idea of keeping his son in his life. Not with a history like that. Not with his addictions and his self-destructive tendencies. Life would be simpler if he just fought fires and mourned his daughter. It wouldn’t be a good life, but Jaxon would settle for okay. Even if it would never be beautiful again.

GRAVE

Rowan Martin

my head hit the ground,
my bully’s foot upon my chin.
he pushed and pushed,
begging for my tortured body
to break the earth.

i scooped the dirt into my mouth
and carried it to his feet,
where i had dug just days before.

i watched as the six-foot hole
my hands had blessed
became a gaping maw,
the grass above like the beard of a hungry man,
shards of gravel mimicking rows and rows
of a shark’s enamel.

my steel crown was responsible
for the monsters feast,
as i watched the younger reflection
of my tormentor’s feet,
hips, shoulders
and then head
dip into the chasm—
his pale face seemingly twice as old
as he was.

the very iron i proudly wore,
was washed clean
with the weepings of the tyrant
who owned me.

i wish to be that boy—
to wither.
but alas,
i am the one thing
who sees every person
this family offers
to the rocks.

FROM “DAISY CHAINED”

Schai Villa

They had been told that his accident was severe. Lucas was one of only two who survived after the land mine had been triggered, but he was alive. In the months leading up to his discharge from the American hospital in Da Nang, Emily had tried to mentally prepare herself the best that she could for how different he would be. It was only later she would come to understand how naïve this was. Nothing could have prepared her for the man who returned home that spring. Emily and her mother had stood inconspicuously behind the sheer curtains of their bay window, chain-smoking Virginia Slims in silence until his father’s station wagon slowly climbed up Virginia Street.

Lucas Wilkes emerged from the passenger side door with his father’s assistance, materializing as a phantom from the vernal-painted landscape. Adorned with a Purple Heart and a shroud of abject darkness, he was void of his right leg below the femur and all but two fingers on the same hand. Of the blue eyes that had previously been so warm, only the left remained. His face, sallow and pocked with deep-set keloid scars from the explosion, was a portrait of a soul who had been irrevocably robbed. Her mother uttered a muffled cry and gripped Emily’s shoulder, bracing herself so as not to fall over.

“Oh Emily,” she whispered. “He’s—he’s like Samson from the Bible.”

Lucas, the man who returned with his once beautiful hair clipped tightly to his scalp, was destined for darker fates reflected in the basin of the sacrificial altar.

At five thirty Emily began to walk downtown from Capitol Hill, walking slowly and smoking Parliaments in an attempt to pacify her anxiety. She had brushed her dark hair which was now to the small of her back, done a cut crease, and changed twice before stopping to think about what she was doing. Why was she so nervous?

She asked herself this again at five after six, when a feeling of dread began to overcome her. What if she wasn’t going to show up? No sooner than she had this thought she heard a familiar voice emerge from behind her.

“There she is!” Adeline exclaimed, and before Emily could even respond, Adeline had wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug, rocking their combined weight gently from side to side. Her hair was like silk and smelled of her postcard. Only now Emily could detect top notes of stone fruit and spring rain.

“Hey, you!” Emily said through a face full of ginger hair. “How was Los Angeles?”

“It was filthy and wildly impersonal!” Adeline exclaimed, as a seemingly complete thought with no additional details offered.

Emily laughed with ease, realizing how often Adeline made her laugh and how long it had been since she felt this light. Adeline seemed only interested in being herself, something Emily envied as much as she was enchanted by.

They took the monorail to the Seattle Center, something Adeline insisted on when Emily revealed she had yet to ride it since moving to the Pacific Northwest. She pulled Emily by the hand onto the train, pointing with urgent enthusiasm at the blurred and glittering world below. It was a world that seemed to breathe new promise and ignited in Emily a low flame of something that she had felt until now had been extinguished. It was a kindling of hope. A sensation of optimism as Emily realized for the first time in longer than she could remember that she felt young.

They walked beneath the arches of the Science Pavilion and strolled down the midway, stopping for candy floss and carnival games. Emily proved to be a regular deadeye at the shooting gallery, promptly kicking Adeline’s ass and not missing a single opportunity to gloat about it.

“Jeeeesus cripes!” Adeline exclaimed, shaking her head woefully. “Maybe I would have rethought my invitation had I known I was about to be swindled by Annie-freaking-Oakley over here.”

Emily’s mouth curled into a playful smirk. “I’ll have you know it’s one of the only advantages of being a recovered country bumpkin! Now you know, I can blow you away if I want to.”

At this Emily winked at Adeline (much to her own surprise), blowing imaginary smoke from the barrel of the toy gun. She could not be certain, but she could have sworn Adeline blushed before quickly turning her face away.

Eventually, they came to the edge of the fountain, laying out in the grass and chain smoking while they shared a bottle of cheap Merlot. Adeline propped herself onto her elbow and faced Emily.

“So, any particular reason why you came to Seattle? Do you like it better than Colorado so far?”

Emily chuckled and gave pause to her question.

“Well, considering my hometown is nothing more than a booger on a map, yeah I’d definitely say I like it here more. One can only tip so many cows before you start to long for greener pastures.” At this, she gave Adeline a playful nudge. “See what I did there?”

Adeline giggled and took a drag off her cigarette.

“Okay, punny girl, so we’re a step up from the cartographical boogers of the Midwest. Thank God, honestly. But why did you come here? What’s your deal, Man?”

Emily thought for a moment. “I saw an advertisement for the World’s Fair in a National Geographic and figured I had nothing better to do. Seattle is the world of tomorrow, didn’t you know?”

Adeline rolled her eyes and reciprocated her playful shove back, “Oh, you’re so full of it. Baloney, that’s what you’re made of, Ms. Emily Flores. Baloney.”

Why should she lie? Lucas and her former life seemed like it no longer belonged to her, even though it very much did. The silence stretched and frayed around its edges. Adeline had only ever shown up unapologetically as herself. Emily admired this about her but found herself too reluctant to reciprocate. Too unwilling to release the entirety of her desperate bid for freedom.

“To be fair, I really didn’t have anything better to do. But. . . I did move here kind of on impulse. . . . My boyfriend, he was drafted and it . . . didn’t work out between us. After that, I just felt like I had to go somewhere else. Be someone else, maybe. So, I drove here with three hundred dollars in a coffee can.” Emily took a long drag off her cigarette and kept her gaze fixed on the fountain. “I think it can be a beautiful thing to go someplace where no one knows your name. You know?”

Adeline had sat up and was now peering down at Emily. Her honey-jeweled eyes, flickering in the lights of the carnival rides and neon signs, regarded her so tenderly that Emily suddenly felt completely naked. The silence between them did not feel heavy; it felt warm and comfortable, like a bath that had just been run. In that moment Emily realized it was a silence that understood.

Adeline pressed her index fingers into a church steeple against her pursed lips, seeming deep in thought before putting her hand on Emily’s shoulder.

“You sound like you could use a friend.”

Emily thought about this for a moment before answering. “You’re right. I do need a friend.”

Adeline gave her a wry smile and her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “We have good timing then, because I do too.”

Adeline moved closer and nestled down in the crook of Emily’s outstretched arm, laying her head down on her shoulder as they said nothing and gazed up at the night sky. Emily felt the enormity of the realization that, before tonight, she had not been touched in nearly two years. Had she really been that anesthetized? All at once she felt herself begin to feel sensation again. She had been hungry for so long that she became numb to the pangs of bodily need, only to realize how badly she had been starving when presented with the long-awaited offerings of sustenance. She did not want Adeline to know she was starving. She was not ready to talk about Lucas. All she could do, all that she longed to do, was close her eyes. Savoring the nourishment of touch, of Adeline’s touch. Breathing her in, feeling the weight of her body against hers and the softness of her hair on her cheek. The air was cool and smelled of cherry blossoms, as was so common of Seattle in early June.

The silence was suddenly shattered by the splintered voice of an elderly man waddling past them.

“Have some decency ya damn hippies!”

Adeline bolted upright and without skipping a beat hurled back at the old man,

“Fuck off, you fascist! We’re not hurting anybody!”

She nestled her head back on Emily’s shoulder as though nothing had happened. Emily heard a tinny, carnival ride rendition of “Oh My Darlin’, Clementine” playing in the distance. . . .

Oh my darlin’

Oh my darlin’, Clementine.

You were lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine.

They both began to hum in unison before lapsing back into comfortable silence.

After returning home Lucas seldom spoke or left the house. Which was just as well because Emily had no idea what to say. What could she possibly say? In the great silence that came after his return, only then did Emily begin to realize how superficial so much of their relationship was. She thought back to his birthday constantly, their snickerings of schoolyard rumors and legends all seemed so childish now in comparison to the enormity of this situation. How well she knew Lucas was a byproduct of living across the street from him his entire life, but presently, she was at a complete loss. This heaviness, the anguish that clung to the air of the Wilkes’s household was so crushing Emily could hardly stand it. For days after he arrived he did not speak at all, nor did he face Emily when she tried to visit him. When he was awake, he drank Southern Comfort until he fell asleep. As the distance between them grew more evident by the day, Emily began to take books to read to him. Jack London, Hemingway—anything she knew he liked. Then one afternoon, she decided not to visit him. The relief she felt was quickly overcome by guilt, so she returned the following day. Eventually, he began speaking in clipped sentences that became slurred and unintelligible as his drinking worsened. Eventually, Emily would go days without seeing him at all.

After their night spent on the midway, Emily and Adeline became inseparable. Those were the beginnings of the summer of 1969, a haven of time that would become the most transformative summer of Emily’s life. Later, with the added wisdom that only experience can bring, she would regard that summer as mythic in its essence: possessing the stolen and unadulterated beauty that can only be experienced by the very young. Their proximity aided in this, as they would regularly walk to one another’s respective apartments and became familiar in the home of the other. Early on, Emily asked Adeline to play her cello for her and was nothing if not persistent. Adeline’s reluctance came as a surprise.

It was the first time Emily had seen her allude to any hint of being self-conscious. The day she first asked, they were sipping sun tea on Adeline’s balcony, happily watching the circus of people on their boats and paddle boards on Lake Washington. At her request, Adeline leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers in a church steeple against her lips, something Emily now recognized as a sign of her being deep in thought, but not yet allowing those feelings to leave the sanctity of their chapel.

Adeline shifted her weight uncomfortably from one side to the other. “What if . . . it’s not ready yet?”

Emily was unsure what to make of this. “What do you mean?”

“My music. What if it’s not ready?”

Emily recognized her expression as one she had seen on her own face many times. It was the familiar, cold shadow of self-doubt.

Adeline shifted her gaze to her thong sandals. “How about this? I’ll let you know when I have a piece that I am ready to play for you. Let me come to you.”

Emily couldn’t help but feel a twinge of rejection. Had she really asked something so invasive? The unwelcomed shadow was beginning to creep over her as well when Adeline told her in a soft, genial tone, “You know, you should wear that more often.”

Emily was wearing her red, button-down romper with the cinched waist, her long, dark hair up in a high ponytail.

The next day when she arrived home from the airport, there was a postcard waiting for her with no return address. It had only one sentence.

You look amazing in red.

Emily felt her face flush as a wash of foreign electricity ran through her body. She cradled the card against her chest, closing her eyes and being aware of only her smell and the curve of her handwriting.

It was approaching the second anniversary of Lucas’s death. Emily had refused to buy a telephone not because it was an issue of whether or not she could afford it, but because it would serve as an access point between her and the life she had left behind. For weeks now letters from Colorado had been collecting in her mailbox, each one eliciting heartburn and all of which remained unopened. She wasn’t ready yet for her old world to collide with her new one. She would reach out when she was ready and could only hope her family would forgive her for the radio silence. But for now, the music wasn’t ready yet. And that was okay.

Thunderstorms rolled through Clear Creek County that year, something that brought the added danger of lightning strikes to be cautious of. Idaho Springs sat between the Rocky Mountain foothills and the Eastern Plains, but the arid, desert canyon that gave way to grasslands made the risk of forest fires very real. Lucas had started to speak, sparingly and seldomly, but spent the majority of his day drinking and sleeping. Emily had stopped coming every day but continued to make the effort to join the Wilkes for dinner once a week.

The sky had been a dingy, dishwater gray all day. As they sat down to dinner, a clap of thunder shook the windows of the house. Lucas’s younger brother, Tommy, had a swim meet that evening and ate only a small helping of potatoes. Lucas, as he often did now, pushed the meatloaf around his plate and ate barely anything. The stench of whiskey and self-neglect was palpable, but no one dared to voice their concern. He had been rapidly losing weight, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes exchanged pained glances with each other over the dinner rolls. Emily thought they had aged twenty years that summer, easily. Shortly after four thirty, Tommy and his parents made motions to clean up and drive east to Central City for his away meet with Giplin High. Emily winced as she watched Mrs. Wilkes begin to clear the table, her hands looking like gnarled claws from the progression of her arthritis. She gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I can take care of this, Mrs. Wilkes. You wouldn’t want to get caught in the rain before his game.”

Mrs. Wilkes knew this was an act of pity more than consideration, but that hardly mattered. She accepted it and within minutes Emily and Lucas were alone.

It was still painfully awkward, but Emily was beginning to grow used to it. He had grown more comfortable using his crutches and was more mobile now. He picked up his plate and brought it over to the stack she had piled up by the kitchen sink.

She scraped off the remaining food into the garbage as the sink filled with hot water. It was eerily quiet. There was only the clinking of dishes and the sounds of their breathing. The thunder had subsided temporarily, but the air felt as electrified as high voltage wire. Emily jumped when Lucas suddenly pushed his chair back, its wooden legs creaking against the floor as the thud of his crutches came towards her. He was right behind her now and Emily felt as though she had stopped breathing. The smell of alcohol coming off his skin nearly took her breath away. He placed his hand on her shoulder and pressed his body against hers. Emily immediately felt his erection against the small of her back.

Emily shuddered violently, pulling her cardigan tightly shut with wet, soap-covered hands as she pulled away from him. The reaction had been reflexive, instantaneous to what felt so sudden and violating. They had not had sex since before he left for Vietnam, and in that moment Emily knew they never would again. She tried to keep her voice level.

“Jesus, Lucas. We’ve hardly talked at all since you came home. I promised your mom I would take care of this. . . . You’re wasted, please. Just go sit down.”

Emily felt her body become an invulnerable fortress. He moved in once more to try and kiss her, only this time she pushed him back. Lucas began to fall backward, catching himself on the counter but not before his arm caught the stack of dirty plates and they came crashing to the ground.

Startled, Emily began to profusely apologize and attempted to pick up the shattered plates.

The noise that came from Lucas’s mouth was animalistic. Not a scream, not yet a yelp, but a guttural howl of anguish and rage. He began to take the drinking glasses they had just been using and hurled them at the wall, a spray of glass erupting into the air.

Emily screamed.

“Fuck you, God DAMN you!” Lucas howled, now opening the cupboards and violently sweeping all of their china to the floor. With his good hand, he ripped the cabinet door off its hinges.

Emily had never been so aware as she was in that moment just how small she was compared to him. Her hands instinctively covered her head. But then, there was silence. She could only hear his heavy, labored breaths.

She looked at him. His chest heaved up and down as he stared at her with an expression that Emily had never seen on the face of another person. It was one of complete and utter devastation.

His face, red and trembling with rage, gave way to something else. He began to weep, tears streaming from his remaining eye.

“Stop looking at me!” He cried. His body shook with sobs, and he spoke in barely a whisper now.

“You don’t care about my mom’s kitchen. You don’t care about coming here for dinner. You never did.”

Her head was spinning, what could she do? What could she say? All she could think at that moment was how, in his breaking voice, Lucas sounded exactly as he had when he was a little boy.

“Lucas! Lucas, please—”

“JUST SHUT UP, YOU FUCKING BITCH. GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, EMILY.”

Saliva flew from his mouth, his face a twisted mess of rage and his ropey, purple scars. The last time she would ever see his face was right before running out the door. It was an expression of sheer agony. A deafening roar of thunder broke, followed by a lightning strike in the distance.

The following day, the gunshot had been heard around the neighborhood. It could be attributed to nothing else that late afternoon, the singular, baritone crack with the unmistakable decrescendo of electrified static clinging to shocked and wavering air. It carried a reverberation: the enormity of what this singular noise meant holding swiftly to an echo, followed only by silence. The stillness was then broken by frenzied screams. A woman’s voice, his mother’s, asking the repeated, unanswered question of her child’s name.

“Lucas? Lucas?”

A sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun, Emily would later find out. To Lucas’s credit, he had every intention of seeing his final task through to completion. There would be no coming back from that. The day Lucas died, all the windows were open because the lilac trees were in early bloom. The gunshot. The screaming. The scent of spring . . . all carried through the open and exposed house on an effortless breeze.

MINE, ALL MINE

Trâm-Khanh Nguyễn

I’ve never been at eye level with a street lamp’s light before.

I’m scared of heights—climbing onto the roof of my best friend’s two-story house should be a terrifying ordeal. It should be stealing my breath away. I should grasp the sleeve of her hoodie—my hoodie, actually—with shaking hands and tell her so, tell her that it’s a bad idea to take me up to the roof and that I want to leave. I should tell her I’m scared.

Because I am scared. Not of her, exactly, but of the things she makes me feel and the thoughts she makes me think. If those feelings and thoughts are what she is, then she’s terrifying.

I tell her none of that because she glances over her shoulder and back to me before I can get a word out. The two tangerines in her left hand perfume the space between us. I can’t stop staring at her, and it’s so goddamn embarrassing.

Then, as if she knows what I’m thinking, she smiles. Her cheeks are flushed with the cool November air and her dark hair glows under the golden haze of the street lamps—it steals my breath away instead. It’s a smile I would die to earn again. My smile, I think, even though she isn’t actually mine.

“You coming?”

Just two words, so painfully simple, a casual question. She just wants to know if I will follow her up onto the roof. I have no idea how she can climb up here so effortlessly when she constantly complains about her bad leg. She has no idea I would have followed her to wherever her whims took her if she asked me to. It means nothing to her. It means everything to me.

“Yeah,” I manage to reply. My mouth feels like baked clay. All of a sudden, the fear I’m feeling has nothing to do with heights. That one word takes all of my effort to say, and all she does is nod and squeeze herself fully through the window before helping me through.

It takes all of my strength and willpower not to let my cheeks burn when she grasps my hand. Her palms are soft, the calluses on her fingertips as smooth as river pebbles. She plays violin. One of the most romantic instruments, if you ask me. Her hand smells like tangerines. Briefly, I recall the name of the perfume she uses, note that I can’t smell it right now, and mull over how weird that sounds as soon as I’m tugged onto the rooftop and pulled towards her.

“Isn’t the view nice?” She asks, gesturing to where the entire neighborhood is at our feet. Up here, I think this must be what the stars feel like—so high above it all, watching but unable to touch.

It’s scary. I nod.

“Yeah.” I don’t know what else to say. If I’d been someone else, maybe I would have responded more eloquently. Maybe I would have been smoother with my words, in a way that she might have even been impressed by. I doubt it, though—out of all the boys that have asked her out at school, there’s yet to be one that’s impressed her.

Well, besides one. But I know all about how impressive he is already.

Still, she beams at me like she’s just been given a gift and hands me one earbud before getting to work on peeling the tangerines. She prefers using her headphones, but she’s started using the earbuds she picked up the last time we went to Target together because she likes getting to listen to music with me.

She’s the one listening to “My Love, Mine All Mine.” It’s on loop. She says it’s a recent release. I’ve never heard the song before—it’s slow and kind of sad, but the pace is nice so I don’t complain. She’s humming along to it, her shoulder less than an inch from mine. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until she pulls back and I exhale, my breath fogging up between us.

There’s silence for a while. I don’t dare say a word—if I say anything now, I don’t know what’ll happen. But she’s there, smiling as she separates the tangerine slices, and she presses one half into my hand. It’s flawless, clean cut, so unlike how it was when I’d tried it weeks ago—the juice had gotten all over my hands and dripped down onto my lap.

It had been so embarrassing, but she took the pulpy mess and ate it anyway, cleaning my hands with her napkin. She likes— no, she’s endeared by how timid I get when I’m nervous. She says it’s cute. But she talks like that to all of her friends, so I doubt it means anything.

Now she eats her own slice, her warmth ghosting over the bare skin of my arm, the scent of tangerine juice sticky and sweet and in my face. I want to lean into it, to press my cheek against the curve of her neck, and spend the night memorizing what her perfume is supposed to smell like.

I say nothing and eat my half of the tangerine.

“Do you like these ones?” she asks over the mellow vocals humming through the earbuds. “Mama and I went to a different market this time around since it was on the way from where she works. I think they’re just fine, but they don’t taste like the tangerines we usually get. They’re a little more tart, aren’t they?”

To me, they taste like I’ve just poured honey into my mouth—it clings to the sides of my throat in a way that makes me crave more. But I like what she likes, and I want to agree with what she says so she doesn’t think I want to make a habit of opposing her.

Say you want her to stay, that traitorous part of my mind murmurs. Say you’d peel the tangerines for her. Say she’s prettier than any sad love song in the world. Say her smile is like the street lights. Say you want her to tell you all of that. Say you want her.

“Yeah,” I repeat instead. “They’re good though.”

She nods in agreement, and something in me swells—almost triumphant—like her validation was the goal all along. But that’s silly. I know I’m my own person—I shouldn’t be relying on the opinion of my friend to define myself just because she’s pretty and has dark eyes and sometimes stars in my dreams.

“Fio?”

I blink. “Hm?”

“Have you?”

Oh, gods. I hadn’t been listening. I clear my throat and reply, “Sorry, I, uh—zoned out for a second. What did you say?”

She looks at me in some unfamiliar, direct way—eyes widened just a fraction, lips pressed into a thin, soft line. I can’t tell what she’s thinking—nobody can. Still, I meet her eyes as steadily as I can, and it must be working because she glances down briefly before looking out to the driveway spread out below us.

“I asked,” she starts, her voice filled with this unreadable tautness, “if you’ve ever kissed anyone besides Faye before.”

Oh.

Oh.

“No,” I choke, pushing down the sudden lurch of guilt that staggers its way through my gut. The tangerine juice clinging to my throat feels like it’s strangling me from the inside. I don’t say anything about how her shoulders have squared.

“Would you want to?” She asks. I realize with startling clarity that she sounds just like how I feel when she’s around—shoulders bunched, limbs unable to move in the fluid way they usually do, tight like a string pulled taut. She’s nervous, like I am.

“Yeah,” I say, one more time. Only this time, it means something.

Another taut, unreadable expression flickers across her face—only this time, I know what she wants to ask. I know before she even opens her mouth, before her eyes flicker to the side, before the slow swell of her chest makes the gold-rubbed-silver cross necklace around her neck catch the light of the street lamps.

“Would you want to kiss,” she starts, voice dangerously close to trembling, “me?”

And I know the answer before the question even finishes. I know what I want to say. I’ve known for two years and eight months. I’ve dreamed of this moment for even longer.

But somehow, it’s as hard to say as if I’d never been asked at all. There’s definitely an explanation for that, but for some strange reason, it’s not coming to mind.

“Yeah,” I say. There’s too much hesitation at first, and my voice cracks halfway, and I can feel hot shame seeping through my pores and beading at the back of my neck.

But her smile is like she’s touched the sun, lighting her face up with more warmth than any incandescent street light could hope to offer. She doesn’t lean close, doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t initiate anything just yet.

Then I hear the music rise in volume by two notches, melancholy vocals floating through my periphery, and I know what she wants me to do. My love, I think.

It takes me all of five seconds to lean in, limp-limbed and waiting—and then her mouth is on mine, and it’s like all of that anticipation and silent pining was worth something. She tastes like tangerines and sweet tea and a dizzying height, and her hand is impossibly soft against my cheek. Her skin is smooth, coddled to delicacy, and smells like her lotion. The press of her mouth against mine makes me melt, and I chase her lips when she pulls away for air.

She takes one breath, then two, and then she’s against me again, and the night is whittled away with the slide of her lips and the grasp of her hands, and the taste of tangerines.

My love, mine all mine.

***

Now, listen. What I do after is very, very stupid. Stupid on a level that would no doubt chase her away for good if she knew. But in my defense—which I have none of—what am I supposed to do after something like that? After a kiss that feels like coming back to life at the end of the world?

For starters, I go home about an hour afterwards. The day’s bled into night. I’m no longer as tall as the street lamps. I finally notice how the sky is mottled with strips of blue-gray cloud against a gauzy pink backdrop. It’s a pretty sight, objectively.

Until I leave, she keeps talking, filling the silence for the both of us. That’s something I’ve always liked about her—she always has so much to say, and her energy is in such a constant state of brilliance that whenever she gets to talking, it’s like she’s the only light in a room of dim, faceless names. She never leaves me in her shadow, but I’m still always content to just watch her exist—to watch her just being, as beautifully as she always does.

Again, I say nothing about this. If I were brave enough to say something, I’m sure it would have spooked her. But her mouth was just on mine in a way I’m not sure was completely platonic, so now I feel like I could say anything to anyone and not feel regret ever, at all.

And then I leave and go home, and that’s that. Nothing more is said about that kiss. She doesn’t say anything, so I don’t either. It’s fine.

It’s fine when I go to sleep, and it’s fine when I wake up in the morning. It’s fine when I go outside and see Uni, the stray cat that lurks near my house when I walk to school. It’s fine when I make it to school and slip into the classroom, and it is definitely fine when I sit down and am immediately greeted by my boyfriend.

“Morning, love,” Faye murmurs, kissing my cheek. I return the kiss with a smile, feeling that usual flutter nestled just between my ribs that seems to make an appearance whenever he shows me affection so easily. His hair is a deep shade of blue today—I remember him telling me about how he re-dyed it. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” I reply, and some of that early-morning dizziness from the night I’d had must still be weighing down my voice, because he raises a brow.

“Are you sure? You sound tired.”

“I’m fine,” I repeat with a kiss to the crease between his brows, and he finally takes that answer and goes back to his seat as that little divot finally smooths out. I sigh and slump back in my seat, feeling that flutter in my chest dissolving into dust.

Then I wonder where she is. She’s usually early to class, if not the first one in the room.

She’s probably fine. That’s the rational thing to think. There could be a million and one reasons why she isn’t here. Still, I wonder if she’s not here because of me. It’s a stupid thought, but a thought nonetheless—and I can never let these kinds of thoughts go anyway.

I glance over to Faye. He’s watching me. Briefly, the thought crosses my mind that he somehow knows what I’m thinking of, knows what happened, and a hot coil of shame curdles in my stomach like milk gone sour. I look away, the sight of his smile fading making me nauseous.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make him smile in a way that lingers. I try not to think too hard about what that means.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I think I know. I can still remember the moment I fell in love with him—we were the barest scrap of children, both just barely past single digits. Flashes come back to me when I think of it—of my feet nestled in the wooden swing over the creek a few paces from his house, of my small hands gripping onto fraying rope, of belly laughter bubbling up from some secret little place in our bodies. What a memory.

His hair had been wet—I hadn’t wanted to jump in, too scared of catching my death of a cold, but he had grinned up at me with a saltwater-stained smile and I hadn’t been able to resist his pull. Like the moon tugging the sea, he had drawn me into unsafe waters, but they’d felt like home because he had been there—and when you’re eleven and you have a best friend and you’re in love, you think it’s all you’ll ever need.

I miss that. I miss the better days.

I suppose they weren’t really ‘better days’ any more than they were just days when I didn’t know any better than to live in childlike bliss, but I can’t help but mourn who we once were—how we once were. It had all been easier when I hadn’t known anything but the joys of being a child.

And now that we’re older, now that the swing’s been recycled, now that we’ve lost our sweet teeth and our belly laughter—he’s out of reach, in some terrible, heartbreaking way. Out of reach in a way that makes me loathe the way I can’t stretch both of my hands out with my white-knuckled grip, so unsuited for peeling delicate fruits, and seize those fond memories that have become just that—memories.

That little stretch of time left a wound in me that healed, but in a way that left some part of me permanently damaged. Like I’ll never really be able to patch that part of me up. Like the belly laughter left a hole in my heart.

He’s out of reach in a way that feels like it’s going to ruin me forever.

The bell rings. I still say nothing to him, and my bag feels a little heavier as I leave.

She doesn’t show up today. That’s unfortunate. I’d made sure to pack a small bag of those wrapped hard candies she likes so much. They’re guava flavored and make my jaw ache when I eat them, but they’re nostalgic to her so I get them for her when I can.

At lunch, I sit with Faye. He usually sits to my left while she’s to my right, and he asks if I know where she is today. I met her because of him—they’re close, I suppose, in a way that reminds me of the two of us but in a way that’s startlingly intimate in its own way. When I see them together, alone, I feel like I’m intruding when I watch him fix the loose sleeve of her shirt or when she adjusts his glasses for him.

We’ve had our moments as three, but those always felt more like friendship-moments than anything else. I suppose it dodges the question of third-wheeling, but those vignettes are some of my fondest memories.

I can picture it, the three years that followed me meeting her and all of us being stupid teenage wrecks. These memories are bright, pulsing like strobe lights—memories of sticky summers spent with cheap glitter in our hair, of smudged eyeliner and shoddily applied eyeshadow in a dimly lit bathroom, of giggling in the backseat of an older cousin’s car.

She would tilt her head out of the window and laugh, dollar store stars falling from her long hair, and he would laugh along over the chorus of whatever overplayed pop song was blaring from the busted radio. And I would clutch my stomach and laugh too, unable to stop myself when the sun and the moon were pulling me into their orbits with the belly laughter I thought I’d lost so long ago.

Those summer nights seem so long ago, only coming back in short flashes like the night before. And yet it feels like they’re still there, like they’re still so much more than tangible—like I could sink my teeth into them and feel a too-sweet tangerine explode in my mouth all over again.

I tell him I don’t know where she is. He shrugs and puts his arm back around my shoulders, and I let myself drown in the contentment that follows, sticky sweet and honey-like against my back. I say nothing about how I feel like I’m at war against my world, betraying both of them when he presses a kiss to my cheekbone. Unforgivable.

I don’t call her that night. I don’t want to hear what she might have to say to me, nineteen hours after a kiss that shifted my world on its axis by two degrees. I don’t deserve to call her, to hear the beautiful crackle of her voice through my phone’s speakers. It would make me feel sick to my stomach, to be allowed to fall back into a safe routine after kissing her and my boyfriend the same way in the span of less than twelve hours.

So I turn my phone off, place it on my mom’s nightstand so I can’t get it back until the morning, and pretend to fall asleep.

It’s fine.

And I’m fine.

At least these thoughts are mine. At least, for now, Faye is mine. At least, maybe, she’s mine. At least my love is still mine.

Mine, all mine.

***

One thing I’ve always liked about her is that, try as she might, she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. She’s tried hiding things from me, tried covering up the fact that she ate the last mango or that she didn’t, in fact, keep the copy of my novel for longer than she said she would. You know, trivial things like that.

I always found it cute when she would crack, when she would finally double down and spill. She could never hold eye contact in times like that. Pretty girl, honest to a fault.

It’s the same with this. I walk into class about a week later, long after she and I have finally built up a tentative talking routine once more. Apparently, she’d caught her own death of a cold from staying on that roof long after I left that night, and that was why she had stayed home. It had nothing to do with me. Of course it didn’t. She would never do that. Not the sweet girl who peeled me tangerines on her roof and kissed me to the tune of a sad love song.

Our string of hi’s and good morning’s and I’m good, how are you’s pulls me into that room, if only to have a chance at seeing her face. We haven’t talked much in person since it happened, but it’s enough for me to just be able to see her there.

Instead, I find Faye waiting at my desk. The look on his face is shuttered, features closed off like blinds being drawn. When I approach, he looks at me in a way that sends a pool of acid rolling down the lining of my stomach.

“Last week,” he starts, never one to beat around the bush, “did you and her . . . do something?”

Faye doesn’t have to specify who. We’ve always been able to silently communicate like this, and there’s only one girl he would talk about with such seriousness.

I say nothing back, studying his face for as long as I can until he repeats himself. His eyes bore into mine, lips thinned and jaw set. Faye, just like her, is unreadable as ever.

He inhales slowly, shifting his position on my seat, and I brace myself for the well? that usually follows. However, the four words that come out of that perfect mouth aren’t what I was expecting.

“She told me everything.”

Oh.

. . . oh.

I can just imagine what she must have looked like. Her brows knitted in worry, fingers twisting together in nervousness. Her shaky breaths calming when he gathers her in his arms and tells her not to cry. The tears she cries anyway.

She must have been so worried about what he would say. And she told him anyway. And now he knows that I kissed her.

Oh.

Suddenly, it’s like the room has halved in size and is caging me in, the four white walls covered in posters closing in on my chest and suffocating all rationality from me. I open my mouth numbly, trying to say something, but nothing comes out. My mouth feels less like baked clay and more like sandpaper, and the sudden need to run is immediately countered by the fact that I can’t get my legs to move or my lungs to heave in air.

A choked noise leaves me as my throat seals itself shut, and the slight crescent between Faye’s eyes loosens. He says something, but the gradual crescendo of ringing in my ears drowns out his lovely voice. Cold sweat beads between each follicle on my head, seeping into my scalp and washing me in dry, excruciating anxiety.

What am I supposed to say? What can I say? What excuse could I possibly conjure to explain why I kissed my own boyfriend’s best friend? Hell, given how close they are, could calling them “best friends” even work? Why is the room tilting on its axis? Why is he looking at me like I’m some rabid animal? Why can’t I remember how to inhale?

“Fio,” Faye mumbles, which is new because Faye usually holds himself with too much pride to mumble, but now he’s made himself small for my sake, and there’s no room in tiny beings for so much arrogance. Even so, the clench of my jaw seems to lock my voice in my throat, and I can’t say a word. The brush of his hand against my wrist feels like it’s cutting through my bones, and I yank myself away like I’ve been burned.

The tremor of my hands doesn’t still, even after his touch is gone, and it feels like I can count every hair on the back of my neck that’s being drenched in a cold sweat. Faye is looking at me like I’m a rabid animal, the fluorescent lights casting his face in haunting shadows.

“Fio?”

I see Faye look up before I even register the sound of her voice. I can finally smell her perfume, no tangerines or crisp evening air to interfere. The cinch in my chest makes my heart feel like a tangerine itself, being juiced with every second she stands behind me.

But I can’t say anything. My throat is still closed off—sticky with something much less pleasant than tangerine juice or the remnants of hard candy. I want to turn around, to tell her . . . what?

What could I tell her? That she’s so honest it hurts? That her honesty hurt me? That she’s brave and beautiful and more than I deserve, and it would have been better for her and I if she had never kissed me at all and left me to pine forever? That it was a mistake for me to kiss her back, to let her smile and laugh and talk her way into my heart?

It’s going to grow into a habit at this point—the way I don’t say any of that. I turn around to look at her, too afraid of what she might think if I don’t, and it almost kills me to see her standing there, all flushed cheeks and nervous staring. Her eyes are wide, glancing between me and Faye, and her fingers don’t stop twisting each other.

“Did you—” she starts, looking at Faye. I catch his nod in my periphery, and she seems to relax. “Oh, good. I was worried he wouldn’t take it well.”

She turns to me then, lips pulled into a small smile that makes my heart ache. Her fingers pleat the fabric of her long skirt as she steps closer and says, “Are you okay? I know it’s not exactly the best way to ask about this kind of thing, but I’ve never really, uh—”

“Hun,” Faye says, in a voice I’ve never heard before, “you’ll need to give him a second. I think he’s still processing.”

“Oh! Right, sorry. Sorry,” she replies quickly, her smile dimming into something more apologetic. “So, uh—is it okay? That I like the two of you?”

And for a brief, horrible moment, it’s like the world’s yanked itself back upright and taken me with it. I stumble to an empty seat near me, lowering myself into a position resembling sitting in what I hope is a natural way.

She, worried as ever, hurries to help me sit, glancing back over to Faye with a concerned little crease between her brows. “Fio? What’s wrong? Is everything alright?”

Before I can even try to think of a response—that won’t even get to be spoken, at this rate—the two of them lean close, her hands cold on my cheeks and his hair brushing my temple as he leans close. Her perfume, thick and heady like flowers dipped in rum, floods my nose and spills into my lungs, and I can finally feel the imaginary roots furled around my feet beginning to recede. With each staggering inhale I heave in, more of her bleeds into me, and soon the feeling of Faye’s ultra-blue hair tickling my cheek brings me back to the present. The feeling of sweet oxygen pouring itself into my lungs finally returns, and the numbness on the sides of my thighs pulls away from me as I draw in one final gulp of air. It feels like the first real breath I’ve taken in years, in eternities.

“Fio?” She asks again, the pads of her thumbs pressed just so underneath my eyes in a way that keeps them from wanting to close. “Are you there?”

And when I open my mouth, my voice is waiting—hoarse, hushed, bubbling in the back of my mouth, begging for permission to spill out and say something. It’s finally come back to me, and now I can tell the both of them everything.

But when I finally speak, I’m fairly convinced they both might hate me a little bit for what I say.

“Yeah.”

Surprisingly, no hate comes from either of them. She breathes out a relieved laugh and wraps her arms around my shoulders, her head tucked into my neck, while Faye’s lips press against the crown of my head and I can feel it, I can take in the moment without feeling like the entire room is actively trying to pull my consciousness out of my body.

It feels so nice. I never want it to end. I could stay in this brightly lit classroom forever, surrounded by faceless names that don’t care amidst the two forces of nature that do.

“So?”

And all at once, I’m blinked back into reality as she peers up at me.

“What?”

“Faye told you, didn’t he?” she says, sitting up slightly. Her poor knees are going to bruise if she stays kneeling on the floor like that. Bad leg, and all. I blink, and she continues, “Well, he’s always had a funny way with words.”

At Faye’s blank stare, she laughs. It’s a laugh I wish I could catch in a bottle and swallow every night. “What? It’s true!”

Turning to me, she sits back and folds her arms on my leg. “Yunno how you guys are dating? And Faye and I are kinda. . . close? Well, we talked things out a little while ago and, uh—I told him I liked him. And you. And that I wanted to be closer to him in that romantic way, but I didn’t know how to bring it up to you, and so he suggested—”

“I suggested you talk to them,” Faye interrupts, arms crossed as bemused exasperation flickers over his features. “Not to kiss them out of the blue without even a little bit of pretense.”

“That is not what happened!” She snaps back, but the smile threatening her lips betrays her mock frustration. I can’t help the small smile that crosses my own—watching them interact makes me feel a way I can’t put words to.

“But anyways,” she quickly says as she turns back to me, “I wanted to tell you properly after, but there never really seemed to be a right time for it, so I ended up just telling Faye instead and hoping he’d have a solution. He told me to stop being a pussy and just tell you, and I know a stuffy old classroom definitely isn’t the place to do it, but—”

“Hey,” I say, cutting her off short. It’s almost funny, watching her expression falter as she closes her mouth. She looks so bewildered—I’ve never seen anyone make her look like that. “It’s fine. I like you too. And if you really do like me back, well . . . I’d like to be a bit more than just . . . this with you.”

From the way her jaw goes a little slack to the slow grin creeping onto Faye’s face, I almost regret not bringing my phone to class today. I’m almost sure my memory won’t be enough to set this moment in stone.

“You—” she starts, and I get the acute sense that for the first time since I’ve known her, she’s stunned into silence. “You do?”

And I manage a smile. A real one, this time. I look from her to Faye, who returns my smile and offers a small nod, and back to her. My two forces of nature—my sun and my moon. My loves, mine, all mine.

“Yeah.”

ROCK AND STONE

Colin Sandberg

“A ‘rock’ is not a ‘stone.’ But, why is a rock not a stone?”

-Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook

The Rock is a wild obstinate thing,
An obstructive, inhospitable constant,
Fraught with jewels and darkness,
Taut with treasures and combustible dust.
A lot has been lost traversing
across earth’s chief construct;
Nature’s jagged edge, a symbol
of her immutable Violence. Yet
We doggedly contest,
Undaunted though precious resources
Exhaust: the damage, the time
Loss, the dents, the dashes, the lives
Lost, the memory-haunts of dreams turned
Dark, journeys for naught, of body parts
Caught, heads concussed, psyches
Claustroshocked, skulls caved in by falls and
Thrusts, cliffs that bombard
From all directions, serving us the draughts
Of her immutable Violence. Yeah,
The mountains and caverns mock,
Make prostrate the proud to seek
The favor of their gods. A traumatic
Shock awaits at the end of the phonetics.
Take precaution, lest you pay the cost.

But the Stone is a rock tamed, smoothed
By centuries of torrents and streams.
History’s abode, entombed in sediments
Trodden, compacted, compressed—stored;
the groans of events born millenniums ago.
Their bones overlaid by tectonic plates and sudden
Volcano flow piques the ears of anthropologists
Roaming through nature’s capsule whose hallows
reverberate in frequencies low.
If rocks growl, the stones moan the epochs
Of stories epically told. It makes sense that we’d
Hold them as memorabilia, as landmarks,
As ancient tools, as altars for atonement.
For remembrance. For reverence.
For grinding oats and building homes,
Sites for odes, dirges, and anthems.
Etching stones as civilization grows
As to inscribe into nature’s memory.
Reveries for the forgetful, to present to those
Who wish to know what their descendants know,
To preserve the history that slowly decays.
Its phonetics unfold, careening towards eternity.
When a kid side-throws one toward a lake,
Hear close: As it skips—it drones.

THINGS I WILL NEVER FORGET

Camille McClafferty

I sit on the edge of my bed, balanced between the sheets and the floor, staring at my hands. They are the same hands I was born with, but the molecules are not the same. The self I was this morning I no longer am. Tomorrow I will have shifted, just a little to the left. Next week I will have different eyes in the same body.

Is that terrifying? Or beautiful?

***

Age 5

I stopped eating because I choked on a strawberry. It was in a grocery store, in the checkout line. I took too big of a bite, or perhaps I was distracted by some brightly colored trinket, and the whole of it went into my mouth. I suffocated on what had been delicious. Shortly after that, I stopped eating, until my ribs began to show. I refused everything but chocolate milk and milkshakes, my tiny eyes not understanding the worry written on the faces around me as my body still attempted to grow just the same. Even at five years old, I was afraid of my anxiety more than the pain.

***

How much do we lose to fear? What percentage of ourselves is buried beneath the shaking in our hands to cover our ears? The truth is we are more animals than we like to believe we are. Something primal is laced into our bones, locked beneath the bars of our ribs. We are two steps removed from the creatures we’ve domesticated, and the echoes still breathe down our necks. We have monsters in us, and they will do what it takes to survive.

But not even monsters can keep the world from spinning.

***

Age 9

I’ve lived in three different houses.

We used to play hide and seek in my first house. To be honest, there wasn’t much place to hide. But I was small—smaller than I should be so I found places that only I could fit. I would empty the clothes hamper, then slip my body in the basket, folding over and over until my nose brushed against the plastic. Then I would pull the garments back over me so that any eyes that passed would see nothing more than a common household item. They never found me. When they gave up, I burst from the clothes, a smile fighting a knot in my chest.

As I had hidden in the basket, I had heard them, laughing and talking. Listening quietly, I had sat tucked alone with my hands curled together, hemmed in by walls I had chosen. So good at hiding, but perhaps I never learned anything else.

***

I wonder if we are houses ourselves. If we pack parts of ourselves into boxes, shove them in closets until we feel safe enough to open them again. If we tuck parts of ourselves away into corners, hoping no one notices. How many times a day have I rearranged the furniture in my head, stripped everything bare to throw a new color of paint on the walls? People move in and out of my life and I watch their things pile up in my rooms. Sometimes I realize too late I gave them too much space, or not enough. I think there are dusty boxes I still need to clean out somewhere, left by someone who was supposed to be a father. It is easier, I suppose, to pretend they are not there at all.

I think our body would be the walls, our bones the frames, stretched over with skin. I still recall the footsteps of the people who have walked through the chambers of my heart, footprints left by bare feet, if they cared to take their shoes off. Not everyone did.

***

Age 14

I never fully unpacked at the second house. It was temporary, one not meant for more than a year or two. A transitory home just until the housing market calmed down. In my new room, I stared at the grand window that covered half the span of a wall. I had always wanted a giant window. But the excitement was stalled; this room did not belong to me. Anything I placed on the walls would be torn down. Boxes unpacked and put away would return in a matter of months. I took out my clothes, the books I still wanted to read, the notebooks I needed. I left for school every day, four boxes sitting unpacked in my room. They did not move until we left again.

***

It gets telling, packing your life into cardboard boxes. Everything you’ve ever connected yourself to, every concrete item, laid out in front of you to make a panoramic view of all the moments you’ve lived. As the room you once loved is laid bare, you realize your world can be shut away, contained. It does not amount to anything more than six boxes. You register you’ve lived in a canvas, painted the walls with everything you are. But as you depart it is blank once again, and the only thing you leave are the dents in the wall.

You get the urge to paint your name from floor to ceiling, to scream at the world, I was here, I existed. You understand now, why those people from so long ago left their handprints on stone. No matter how it claws at the walls of your throat, you leave nonetheless.

***

Age 16

I change my room when I get bored. Now on my third house, I tear down the pictures from the walls and rearrange them, and I forget the way they looked before. I moved my bed from one side of the room to the other when my first relationship ended. There is a bouquet of flowers that has been on my desk for a month, that is no doubt long dead but still looks alive. I took down the photographs of someone I used to be friends with. This is temporary. So am I.

***

I wish I could hold memories like photographs. I am so young, but even now I understand the hourglass, moments slipping through my fingers as I try to block the sand. I can recall only some of today what happened to the rest? I think too long about it and now there is a snake in my rib cage. But I suppose even if I could hold my memories, they would not stay the same. Each time I remember I am altering the past in how I feel in the present. I am still breathing out the echoes of the hopeless romantic I was four months ago. Remade and remade and remade, tumbling like stones in a river until I can’t recall the edges. Nothing is forever. This storm will pass, and in the calm seas I will barely remember the rain.

***

Age 17

My best friend came home from college. We are laughing and hugging and now I am made of nostalgia. As the stars twirl over our heads, they take me to a store where they buy a giant cupcake and I buy eclairs. They do not start eating until they have picked off each of the chocolate flakes on top. My face ends up covered in crème even when their dessert has far more frosting. We laugh at that. I am terrified here, that this is something that I cannot keep.

***

I will be leaving my home behind at some point. Around my friends I talk, and I laugh, but now I feel two notches removed from the world around me. I’ve always felt older, but now it seems like my age has caught up with me. I can leave, and they will continue existing without me, and I without them. There is a tragedy in that, I think, that you can do such a thing.

The strongest things in our lives end with a whisper. I have lost friends and forgotten names. I am trying so damn hard to keep the important people in my life, but fate is pulling me in all different directions. But I will make more friends, I will forget more names, and I will fail to recall I even cried last week.

***

Age unknown

It was on a plane, five thousand feet in the air, that I found myself. I don’t remember where we were going, but I remember falling in love with life again. Something about my soul hovering thousands of feet above the ground sets it itching. In the moments where I am stuck between one place and the next my blood thickens with words and now my brain is on a carousel. I glimpsed the horizon and for just a second, I saw the meaning of life. My lungs expanded with air until they pressed against the confines of my skin. My heart was somewhere outside the window, dancing in the clouds. Bubbling in my chest, liquid gold laughter I kept inside. The only thing anyone would have seen was a girl smiling against the window.

***

I am falling in love again, with the universe, and again, with my friends, and again, with myself. When everything is remade and remade and remade that means we can fall in love again with every pass of the stars. I have not laughed at the top of my lungs in a while. But I might next week. I have not stayed up talking until the morning light. But that could be my next month. I have not been in love. But I could be next year.

Our universe is still growing. In a trillion years, the night sky will be filled from edge to edge with stars, until you can practically hook constellations on your fingers. Only time will bring it to us.

***

I am not what I used to be. My selves press behind my eyes, both dead and alive. I am made because of them, and from them, and none of them anymore. Next week I will have different eyes in the same body.

The world is spinning as we rewrite ourselves, erasing entire paragraphs to make space. We are the same matter built and broken a billion times over from the cores of dying stars, reused and remade to a being that will only exist once in the expanding of the universe.

Is that terrifying? Or beautiful?

The answer may be, after all, a little of both.

DEARLY DEPARTED

Maree Seibel

As he walked into the house, he was humming a tune. From this, she could tell it had been a good day at work. She wasn’t supposed to be home, but today was a strange day. The kind of day that Savannah and Danny would remember for the rest of their lives. Danny didn’t know that anyone was home, so he continued about his routine. It was a Friday, 6:33 p.m., and he began crafting himself something from the fridge. Danny couldn’t see Savannah as she mournfully whispered, “He doesn’t know yet,” as a tear ran down her cheek. Though it wasn’t her fault. She let out a sigh of sorts—if that is what the woosh of a sudden breeze that rattled their living room rocking chair would amount to for a ghost to breathe. She was a new ghost, figuring out that the feeling of emptiness allowed her to feel more invisible than despair. Savannah couldn’t help but see her husband as soon as she could. However, Danny, still clueless, pulled out leftover meatloaf from the fridge and began crafting himself a meatloaf burrito.

Danny’s whole body was covered head to toe with soot. His face covered in ash and hands painted black with charcoal. He always took the coal mines home with him; in fact, he took everything with him. Danny was the type of person who was like a magnet or sponge: he absorbed everything around him and took in all the information that he could. Danny was very smart and people liked him for how positive he was. He attracted others like a magnet. Danny considered himself a pretty lucky guy: he had a beautiful wife, friends who knew how to have a good time, and a simple property with a little house in Butte, Montana. Danny was lucky up until today.

Danny walked up the dark oak stairs to the bathroom to shower off the dirt and grime from his body. The shower floor turned to a blackened puddle underneath his body. Savannah’s mind wandered as she did away from the bathroom and started to hear him sing again. It was 7:23 p.m. now, and it was 7:23 a.m. when the wooden planks broke underneath her on the bridge over the creek by her and Danny’s home. It was early spring, and the weather had just begun to warm. Snow melt caused the water levels to rise, and the rush of the stream swept her away and put her body into shock—making her heart stop. Savannah had gone to the bridge because it brought her peace to hear the rushing of the water from the constant oppression she and many women faced day after day. She always had big dreams of being a surgeon, or a doctor, but instead worked as a nurse. It was 1962 and she was deceased. Her aspirations, her body, and her family all could think what they wanted of her.

Savannah knew she was lucky to have married Danny as he dressed himself in his evening pinstripe pajamas, with the holes at the hemmed bottoms, that were just a little small for him now. He worked in the coal mines while she brought home the more respectable pay, working as a nurse, but now that she was dead how could Danny support himself? Danny made himself comfortable on the edge of a rocking chair in the front room of the house and picked up his guitar. This is what she came home to every night. Danny wasn’t the type of person to smoke a cigarette and watch the latest news on ABC or NBC. Danny had strong morals and always said, “Savannah, life is better simple.” Nothing seemed to hurt Savannah’s husband. He was loving, generous, hardworking, and happy. How could Savannah possibly be able to watch him mourn once he found out? Savannah’s parents would always tell her, “Savannah, you can never do things the normal way, can you?” That’s why she married her beloved husband and steered to be a nurse and went for walks by the river to calm her negative thoughts. Savannah adored living in small-town Butte and adored gazing into the mountains that surrounded her. The landscape empowered her, but now she was nothing but a spirit watching over her husband. She knew if there was a way a ghost wife could tell her living husband she was dead, it would be her way.

Danny was strumming away on the guitar replicating the tune he had been humming since he got home that day. The sun was falling as it approached 8:00 p.m. The sun rays were beaming through the window by the front door and Savannah knew she had to get him out of the house to find out what had happened to her. Danny needed to know today she thought, it’s only fair. She floated towards the curtains trying to reflect the sun to draw his attention from the song he was trying to play. She thought that telepathy would work, so she thought hard and pointed her vision to stare directly at him. Danny stopped playing. She swayed between the window that guarded the entrance of the doorway. The wind chimes were on the back porch that had a pathway leading to the river with the bridge. Savannah quickly floated over to them, still invisible, and on her way, she made sure to brush her hand over the guitar strings. Danny was confused because he didn’t touch them. She went through the back door and played the chimes as best as she could. She moved her ghostly hand around them and was successful. She led half her body through the door to find Danny walking towards the back door. In her excitement, she exclaimed, “This way! Follow me,” and rushed toward the tree that marked the beginning of the path. She found him only to be staring and admiring the sunset on the back porch. Thinking fast, she flew through the tree brushing up against the branches and leaves. Danny picked up on her signs which she had least expected but hoped for. Danny walked down the path in a lackadaisical way, as if he had the idea to go on an evening stroll. She was filled with an indescribable emotion of successful craziness with fear of what he was going to find out. She thought back for a moment, imagining how her friends would react that she is about to surprise her husband except the surprise is that she is dead. It was approaching 8:13 p.m. and the sun was almost hidden in the sunset. The days were getting longer in late April, so she knew she had time.

Danny wasn’t far from the bridge. They had built the bridge together the day they bought their home. It was 1958 then, and they both were feeling like the luckiest people in the world. Montana was known for mining and every town needed a nurse. They couldn’t have moved to a better place. The last four years were so easy and simple. They grew to know each other very well. Of course, she thought, he would know and understand what had happened. Danny was close to the deafening sound of rushing water. Around the bend, the trees would open to reveal the bridge that had planks missing from which she set foot earlier that morning. Savannah was reimagining her morning when she fell through the bridge. It was around twelve hours ago when the river had carried her away in its currents and she drifted away. She had gone there to read her new book: Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. It struck her deeply and she left it on the edge of the bridge before she sat to think about women’s financial instability and creativity in her time. Danny was about to see it laying there. He wasn’t a big reader but a great listener. Any time she read a book he was so attentive in listening and asking questions about the characters or the author’s intentions.

Danny approached the book laying there. It was lying spread open to the page she left off on with the binding facing the sky. He picked up the book. She watched his gaze reach the pit in the bridge that she had fallen through. His eyes sank and his body bent down in his pajamas as he slowly got to his knees clenching the open book to his heart. A teary and silent face looked up to a darkened sky. Danny’s pain was let out by a scream as he started to hysterically weep. Savannah started to cry with him. Her invisibility made her even more empty knowing that she couldn’t comfort him. She kneeled in front of him as if to show that she was there. His hands were now in between his thighs and her book had dropped open onto the dirt. She put her hand on top of his and they went right through them as he wiped tears from his face.

Danny grabbed the book and tried to run back to the house, but the tears that filled his eyes blurred his vision, making him trip every few strides. Savannah remained in her position in the dark for a few more minutes. The sounds of distant screaming got her attention. She floated her way back home as fast as she could. Savannah stopped as she saw her husband through the dimly lit house pacing the living room with hands on his head. She didn’t have the courage to go inside quite yet. She valued privacy, even as a ghost.

Suddenly, she heard the sounds of his cries, and the backdoor flung open, “Savannah, Savannah. Come home!” She rushed herself inside their house to find him circling the kitchen in crazed grief.

She cried, “Danny, I am here,” with all her might. At that moment, the back door swung shut and the old wooden kitchen cabinets rattled. Stopping in his tracks and wiping his head in the direction of the living room where she was, he shouted, “Savannah, is that you?” Searching around he said, “Savannah, say something.” But her words only caused more cabinets to open and batter about. “Savannah, I believe in you, and I believe in us. I know you’re here! Please come back to me.” Savannah found her footing and somehow in her own hysteria reached her husband, trying to wrap her arms around him. Danny shuttered and smiled.

“It takes two to make home,” she said, his distress disappearing as if he could feel her. “I am here,” Savannah said.

It was like his physical being had been returned and his eyes were opened. Standing in front of her husband, Danny’s hands rubbed his eyes and dragged over his face touching his mouth that hung open and then throwing them around his wife. Savannah could feel him again but not in a tangible way, Danny felt the same. They were together, but Danny’s wife was a ghost. With laughter and tears, they clung to each other, dearly departed.

If you go to Butte, Montana, and stumble upon a quaint house that rattles in the sounds of a guitar. This house is haunted and full of love, but most people think that old Danny is crazy.

THE ACCIDENTAL MEMBER

Starlena Belle

The first day of senior year just started and I already don’t like the new student.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Carter?” The newbie asks, his brow furrowed. “Could you make sure our section is playing in tune?” It takes everything in me not to chuck my violin at his head. Does he really think I’d be playing if I wasn’t in tune?

“Of course, Ayden,” our conductor says, rolling her baton between her fingers. From the front of the bigaroom, Mrs. Carter turns to the rest of the orchestra. “We’ve got about twenty minutes of practice left, so let’s try playing measures sixteen through twenty-seven again.” All thirty of us high school students collectively sigh at the thought of playing the same few measures for the fifth time. Last year, our orchestra classroom always got extremely hot after playing for long periods of time and it seems today is no exception.

I watch as Mrs. Carter ties her long blond hair in a ponytail before flipping through her sheet music, trying to get to measure sixteen. She stands upon a small platform that allows her to see players even in the far back of the room. As for me, I can be seen easily. The seating arrangement has always been a semicircle split into four sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, and the cellos. From the audience’s point of view, the left side is where I and all the violins reside. The center of the semicircle usually contains the best players. However, it seems this year I’ve been demoted.

I pick up my violin and rest it between my shoulder and my neck. I place my bow on the A string right as Mrs. Carter signals the violins to start. I enter late, but I catch up fast. My fingers dance across the strings as Mrs. Carter’s mannerisms get more and more dramatic. She often does this to let us know we need to play louder, but sometimes I wonder if she’s just pretending to be a conductor in the world’s most famous symphony rather than just a high school orchestra class. Once we reach measure twenty-seven, she forcibly brings her arms down to signal us to stop playing.

“Well done class!” She says. “That was much better, however, cellos . . .” She turns to where my friend Amelia and the rest of the cellos are sitting and starts talking to them in a quieter voice. They’re on the opposite side of the semicircle from me so it’s hard for me to hear what she’s saying to them. However, I don’t get much time to try and listen because I’m quickly interrupted by the new kid who pokes my shoulder.

“Hey, are you Racheal Sharp?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yes,” I say dryly.

“Why didn’t you tell me your name in the parking lot?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

I can’t believe I used to think he was cute.

“I knew we’d meet eventually. Why bother?” I answer coldly. I watch as his brow furrows in confusion. Good, I think. Maybe that will make you half as confused as I was. However, instead of lingering on the topic, he takes a glance at Mrs. Carter finishing up her conversation with the cellos and shakes his head.

“Well, whatever. I noticed you were a little late coming into the piece so just make sure you’re ready to play next time we start.”

“Sure thing,” I say. He takes another quizzed look at me before finally standing up in front of our violin section of ten students.

“I forgot to introduce myself,” he says with a tone I can’t quite identify. “I’m Ayden Major. I’ll be this year’s section leader.”

Ten pairs of eyes quickly land on me. I can feel my face grow hot with embarrassment. God, could this guy rub it in any more? I attempt to quietly practice the section we were just playing on my violin, but it does nothing to drown out the people whispering behind my back.

“Hasn’t she been first chair since freshman year?”

“Is a new student really our section leader now?”

I can feel my eyes start to burn, but I keep playing. What makes matters worse is Ayden doesn’t seem like a bad person. From the corner of my eye, I watch him as he noisily turns his sheet music to various pages. His eyes are narrowed, probably searching for the part Mrs. Carter was referring to with the cellos. I try to ignore him, but his stupid face only brings me back to the moment two hours ago when I first met him for myself.

***

I was on my way to school at 7:00 a.m. when my friend Amelia FaceTimed me with the most baffling news I had ever heard.

“Look, sure, you got replaced by a new student,” Amelia had said hurriedly through the phone. “But it’s okay, I mean, you’re still second chair. This doesn’t mean you’re not still good.”

“It just means someone else is better,” I finished. “I’ve been first chair in Orchestra for three years and this is how Mrs. Carter repays me?” I was about five minutes away from Crossroad High School, but my car couldn’t seem to drive any faster. I watched Amelia roll her eyes through the phone.

“Here we go again with your constant obsession with being the best,” Amelia sighed. “At least you’re not still in second row for your senior year.”

“Come on Amelia, that’s great progress for you. I mean, you’re not in third row anymore,” I said as I narrowly avoided merging with a Honda Civic. A particular finger flies out the window.

“I guess, but sometimes it feels like everyone expects me to be as great as you cause I’m best friends with you, but I just know that’s not—hey!” Amelia suddenly shouted. “Are you even paying attention?” I had quickly turned my head back to the camera instead of the backseat of my car where my violin case was. It had almost toppled over during the Honda Civic fiasco.

“Yes, you were just talking about, uh . . .” I racked my brain trying to remember, but I knew she saw it on my face.

“Whatever,” Amelia said. “I can see your car pulling into the parking lot so let’s walk to Algebra together, okay?” She immediately hung up. It looked like I wasn’t the only one in a bad mood today.

The parking lot was already packed which meant I got the parking spot furthest from the school. A decent four-minute walk. If I hurried, I could make it to class on time. Across the parking lot I watched as Amelia waved at me from our Math and Science Building. Although, despite the Math and Science Building being where my first period was, I couldn’t help but look at the Orchestra Building to the left of it instead. However, like most of the Art Buildings, this one didn’t have much of a budget. The blue paint on the doors had been fading to a gray for years while the air conditioning blew one puff of air every two hours. But despite its flaws, it was always the one place at school I liked being.

I waved back and grabbed my violin case before looking at my reflection in the window. My thick brown hair was pushed back with a neat headband while the hair behind my ears tried to escape their prison. My face had slight circles under my brown eyes, but other than that I was perfectly presentable. I flashed a confident smile and locked my car, but just as I was starting to round the edge of my vehicle someone spoke from behind me.

“Excuse me, do you know where the Humanities Building is?” I quickly spun around, almost knocking them with my instrument case in the process. However, at the time, I was glad I didn’t because this mysterious voice belonged to a very cute stranger. Even though his black hair kept getting into his eyes I could tell he had an attractive face that fit well with the rest of his tall body. If I’m being honest, it was hard to look anywhere else.

“Oh hi, I—uh—didn’t know anyone was standing there,” I said, stumbling through my words. He really was cute.

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have even asked but the whole school seems to have no directions for newcomers,” he said and I noticed his eyes crinkled slightly when he smiled.

“Oh, are you a new student?”

“Yeah, it’s my first day so I can’t be late.” He shifted the instrument case he was holding behind his back between his hands.

“I could show you the way if you’d like,” I said and then pointed to where Amelia was still waiting. “See that girl there? The Humanities Building is to the right of her.”

“Oh perfect, thank you!” he said with a sigh of relief and then began to walk towards the Math and Science Building.

“Um, actually it’s the other way,” I called to him, barely hiding back a laugh. “I meant our right, not her right.”

“Well, since you’re so good with directions,” he chuckled. “Why don’t you lead us?”

“Fine by me,” I said back, catching up to where he was in the parking lot. “But you’ll have to find your actual class on your own ’cause I have Algebra first period.”

“What grade are you?”

“I’m a senior.”

“Me too,” he said. “Although, I just moved here from Arizona, so I probably wouldn’t know as many people as you would.”

“Arizona to Michigan is a big move,” I replied with a smile. “But I’m sure you’ll make friends in no time.”

“Yeah, let’s both hope this time is different,” he said and then looked over at me and smiled back. We were almost to the Humanities Building, but I really wished this parking lot was bigger.

“We’re here,” I said, gesturing to the gigantic Humanities Building with no spot of fading paint to be seen. “If there’s anything else you need help with, I’d be glad to show you the way.”

“Actually, now that you mention it, I did have a question.” He brushed the hair out of his eyes. “I couldn’t help but notice that you have a violin case with you, so I was wondering if you knew someone in Orchestra named Racheal Sharp? Since I have Orchestra second period I wanted to try and talk to her before it started.” I abruptly stopped walking at these words. He cocked his head at my reaction.

“Was she first chair?” I asked, hoping there was somehow another girl named Racheal Sharp that I was unaware of.

“I think so,” he said back. “I’ve never been first chair before, so my teacher wanted me to ask her for some tips.”

I finally looked more closely at the case he was holding to find it identical to mine. How could I have been so stupid? Immediately a sense of betrayal fought its way into my veins.

“Never heard of her,” I said back sharply. “I guess you’ll just have to find her for yourself.” I could barely contain my anger as I picked up my pace to walk ahead of him. If Mrs. Carter wants a newbie for first chair, then a newbie is what she’ll get. When I finally reached Amelia, my face was practically burning hot.

“Who was that?” Amelia asked, puzzled, but her face gradually became even more confused at mine.

“Come on, let’s just go to class,” I said fuming as I grabbed her hand and marched into the Math and Science Building.

I knew I wanted to play violin my whole life, but without my dad’s passion for it I would have never imagined my life as a violinist. Ever since I was four years old, I’ve grown up hearing my dad play. He was a fantastic player. He conquered first chair with ease and won awards all the way until his senior year at Juilliard. Of course, he’d always remember those days as having “just a bit of luck.” But I’ve seen him play, and no amount of luck could convey the talent that he has. He was incredibly expressive with how he played and knew exactly how to play any piece from start to finish almost perfectly, just by hearing it once. But right as he was asked to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he gave it all up for his husband, my second dad.

“Your other dad was leaving the country to study Psychology abroad in Switzerland, Rae Rae,” my dad had told me as he helped me tie my little shoes. “I knew that if I followed my old dream of becoming a famous violin player, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve my new dream of marrying the love of my life.”

“But Daddy, don’t you wish you still played in a big fancy orkestri?” my six-year-old self had asked him. But his response was interrupted by my other dad coming in to kiss us both on the cheek as he left for work. Looking back, I can’t remember if he’d ever answered my question, but all I know now is that, if it were me, it would have been my biggest regret.

***

“All right class, that’s all for today,” Mrs. Carter announces. “Make sure to practice Wiren’s “Serenade for Strings” when you get home. The next few pages are a lot harder than what we did today.” As soon as she steps away from the platform, people begin packing up their instruments. The room quickly becomes filled with chatter amongst friends. Once I’ve put my violin away, I start to make my way towards Amelia before Ayden calls my name.

“Hey, Racheal.” I turn around to face him. He’s made no effort to brush the hair out of his eyes since we met in the parking lot and his sheet music is spilling off his chair and onto the floor. I roll my eyes.

“What, Ayden?”

“Since I’m first chair now, I should probably practice the pieces that we learned today so that I can lead the section,” he says matter-of-factly and I almost gag, but then he surprises me. “But you can join me if you’d like. It might be good to practice together.” Meanwhile, the Orchestra room is almost empty except for Amelia and a couple of stragglers.

“Sorry, first chair, I prefer to practice alone.” I try to go around him, but he moves too.

“Do you have a problem with me?” He asks and for a moment I actually feel bad for being so rude to him, but in the end, he has no idea how much it took for me to be here. “Nope,” I say as I finally manage to shove past him. Leaving him standing there, bewildered, all alone next to his perfectly placed first chair.

STREET SCENTS

Aurora Peake

Sixteen years, waiting
on the same block, waiting
baking soda and a mason jar
Feather blade razor and a dream
Waiting

A cycle that held my father down
And his father before him
Gold watches and chains
Girls and money
I want to be better than this
I need to be better
Than this

So I’m waiting
To be more than white lines
More than dirty pipes
More than where America
Wants me to stay
War on drugs became
A war on dreams
Seventeen years, waiting

AFTER DANEZ SMITH

Aurora Peake

Let life start here

Let us dance
Where we once mourned

Let these graves
Turn into gardens

Let us bring knowledge
Where ignorance once reigned strong

Let us close the last chapter
And start anew

The Swift: Volume Two

Table of Contents

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

WHEN YOU GIVE A CHILD A POINTY STICK

Maria Nehnevaj

STAR ANISE, CINNAMON, OXTAIL, FISH SAUCE, RICE NOODLES

Annabelle Lee

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (AND MAILBOXES)

Kyle Rouse

HER EYES

Brandon Alvarade

CONTROL

Brandon Alvarade

ANOTHER PATH

Lanie Smith

YOU MAKE ME SO LOST

Shylee Greene

INTO THE DARK

Fenyx Quinn

PAINTINGS OF HEAVEN

Gabriel Kirsch

CLOSING TWO DOORS

Gabriel Kirsch

GRAVE

Rowan Martin

FROM “DAISY CHAINED”

Schai Villa

MINE, ALL MINE

Trâm-Khanh Nguyễn

ROCK AND STONE

Colin Sandberg

THINGS I WILL NEVER FORGET

Camille McClafferty

DEARLY DEPARTED

Maree Seibel

THE ACCIDENTAL MEMBER

Starlena Belle

STREET SCENTS

Aurora Peake

AFTER DANEZ SMITH

Aurora Peake