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CN: substance abuse; in-community use of a reclaimed slur (d*ke) I came to town thirsty for all that it had to offer. 2007 Portland electrified me: 3 am seagull screams, cobblestone streets, exquisite graffiti, DIY culture. Pictures of my new neighborhood, the Old Port, filled travel brochures as commodified Maine at its finest: quaintness, lobster and lighthouse souvenirs galore; but street kids with facial tattoos intermingled with the clean-cut tourists, who watched punks spin fire and play music in Tommy’s Park. Those were the pictures that didn’t make it into the guidebooks. I loved it all. Meandering along brick sidewalks, I took everything in: glittering Casco Bay, the historic New England port buildings, unique local businesses. With branding and signage strictly legislated, there were no billboards or big box stores to obscure the view. As I walked up Munjoy Hill, past Victorian houses, roasting coffee’s burnt cinnamon raisin toast scent traveled on the breeze with Nag Champa, salt, seaweed, marijuana, cigarettes and hops from the breweries, plus intermittent bursts of sulfur on the East End. The summer ocean air caressed my skin, lulling me into staying awhile, but my mind drifted to accumulated cautionary tales: Maine summers reeled you in, leaving you wholly unprepared for the brutal winters. So glorious was the June weather to which I’d arrived, though, that I dismissed any sense of foreboding. Portland’s motto was Resurgam, its mascot the Phoenix, suggesting struggle but also regeneration. Our dilapidated loft was better suited to one person or a couple with porous boundaries, but for $175 a month, I, along with Portland natives Ben and Wren, set out to make it work. The crown jewel of the space was a built-in stage doubling as a living room, a perfect set for many scenes, rehearsed and not, to play out: in a few weeks, I would bring home a cavalcade of afterpartying booze cruise revelers who blew lines off Ben’s collectible Tony the Tiger plate. Someone happened upon his beloved Devil Duckies, also collectible, and thought it would be funny to float the horned rubber ducks in sudsy water in the plugged bathroom sink. When Ben returned he was not amused, but would later find it within himself to forgive me, much like how I’d forgive him after he polished off my hummus and tortilla chips on a day when I was particularly hungry. Portland was the friendliest New England locale I’d been to, a party town. And town is what most people called it, as opposed to the city it technically was. “Oh, it’s a small town, alright,” said Ben. “You’ll see.” *** Wren coined the term “dudebro dyke” at Styxx, the gay dance club, when a middle-aged butch who emanated a cloud of cologne exaggeratedly hit on every young, femme-passing person in sight. When they turned her down, she put up a fight instead of gracefully taking no for an answer. She reminded Wren of the drunken dudebros in popped collar Polos and white baseball caps who lurched out of Wharf Street sports bars, yelling misogynist slurs. This woman seemed determined to embody several stereotypes at once. With much effort, I successfully rebuffed her—“I don’t dance!” I insisted, the ink on my Dance B.A. still practically drying. Later, I mentioned this dudebro dyke to Ben and found out her coke addiction had spiraled her into trouble so serious she may have lost her house because of it. When I returned to Styxx that weekend we of course ended up hanging out, magnetized together as cokeheads are. It was when she procured our party supplies (that we then snorted off construction equipment outside the club) that I first encountered her dealer, Sally, better known as Sal. *** Within a week of my arrival, I found myself at Platinum Plus, the local strip joint, with Sal and her best friend Steph. I rolled my eyes at their more dudebroish behavior, like declaring their “bros before hos” life philosophy on repeat, but felt drawn to their swagger and older-than-me confidence. I wanted to somehow be both a bro and a ho. Everything about Sal was rough around the edges: scratchy voice, pockmarked skin, jerky movements. Her smile was a half-smile with only the left side fully moving, which I assumed was due to a drug-induced stroke. Her permanent coke jaw activated as soon as she got fucked up on any substance. She and Steph worked at an SUV dealership and dipped into the drugs Sal sold, bragging about going on “coke diets” where they suppressed their appetites with the stuff. They had triumphantly spiky hair and wore matching leather jackets. Steph and I admitted that upon first seeing each other’s MySpace pages we’d declared to whichever friend was within earshot that we would fuck. I gravitated towards the citrus-mint of her scent, how she blushed when she saw me, her orderly-yet-bad-boy persona. I went home with her that night and had rough sex on her red sheets, which matched the bandana she sported in her back left pocket. We began up against the wall: I pulled her hair, she bit my face, I bit her lip. We left a trail of clothes to the bedroom. While Steph was the one I had the hots for, I ended up spending more time with Sal, who lived around the corner from me. “Well howdy, neighbor!” she said, smiling her half-smile when I first mentioned the loft’s location. Since she hated patchouli, I brought up liking it to get a rise out of her. It worked every time—she went on comedic tirades. She would sniff me and pretend to fall down dead, yelling, “Ugh, pee-yew, ya stinky old hippie!” We shared a love of Amy Winehouse and sang along to “Rehab” while cutting lines on Back to Black’s CD case, leaving scratch marks with the straight razor. *** Billie, better known as B, and I met through Sal, who introduced us one night during a transaction when I tagged along. In my perusal of the town’s queers on MySpace I’d seen photos of B and her wife, Callie, two little peas in a pod, with identical profile pictures of them at their wedding (technically a commitment ceremony due to same-sex marriage’s illegality). B was cute: tattoos, baggy clothes, baseball cap pulled over her shag of hair. Callie was beautiful, a fairy-like femme. They’d been together for seven years—an interminable amount of time for a relationship, in my opinion. We all hung out on a triple date excursion to a Boston nightclub, with Steph driving us in her new SUV. Sal brought Tierney, a femme with an ice blonde pixie cut, and B and Callie rounded out the crew. After shotgunning a beer, B grew increasingly talkative and lit into Steph about the evils of not only driving but also selling gas-guzzling SUVs. Sal and Steph barely suppressed their laughter at B’s soapbox ascent, which I’d learn was her m.o. whenever she got drunk. Callie stayed out of it, linking her arm through B’s and kissing her cheek, a placid expression on her face. We got fucked up on the way down, on the lookout for cops but drinking beers and doing key bumps and laughing about the Gold Star Memorial Highway. I imagine this is a Maine dyke rite-of-passage and icebreaker: “So, who here is a gold star?” (For the uninitiated, that’s a dyke who’s never had sex with a man before. Turned out Callie was the only one). Speaking of sex, the tangled hookup web of passengers in the vehicle cracked me up: while Sal was with Tierney, I was with Steph, and B was with Callie, back in the day Sal and Steph had banged a few times, and Sal and Callie had dated as teenagers, claiming to be one another’s first loves. *** A week since Boston, the night after the booze cruise, I tossed and turned on my mattress, wondering if I should go to the hospital, sensing the spirits of junkies who’d died in the building, not wanting to become one more. I’d consumed massive amounts of alcohol and cocaine, day to night. The euphoria and then numbness had worn off and now the poison gripped my insides. After Ben had returned to find his collectibles defiled, the bacchanal broke up. The most committed party animals among us relocated to Sal’s for a few more hours. B was there and gave me a massage with clammy hands when I mentioned I was stressed about Steph, who’d been evasive lately. Back in the loft with only my jittery thoughts as company, I didn’t feel right. Maybe this is it—maybe I’m dying—maybe I’m panicking—oh shit! My body temperature climbed as I sweated through the sheets. I went to the bathroom a few times, system sped up, abdominal muscles clenching. Nothing came out except weak streams of pee. I didn’t puke, but probably should’ve. In the mirror, my skin had the tint of an overcast sky, which alarmed me. Back on my mattress, my heart pounded, chest tightened with pain, arms tingled. I breathed as slowly as I could, trying to will myself back to normal. Ben, a heavy sleeper, didn’t wake up through any of this, although I considered whether or not I should rouse him. Wren wasn’t home. I fast-forwarded to what would happen if I didn’t die but started feeling worse: hospital, family finding out, forced reckoning, a new 100% clean and sober life. Finally, rock bottom. A part of me was ready to feel relieved if I lived through this. Tears burned the backs of my eyes as I silently bargained with whatever forces might spare me. I tried for measured breaths to control my body’s shaking, afraid I’d start seizing, afraid to go to sleep. Outside, seagulls circled and screamed. It took a few anguished hours, but the vice-like doom in my body dissipated, leaving a hollow fatigue: wrecked, thankful. Afforded a second chance. *** Later that morning I texted Sal, and headed over to bring her back the hoodie she’d lent me last night since the temperature had dropped and I’d been underdressed, as usual. She emerged from the bathroom, looking like maybe she’d slept there. Her apartment smelled sour. The opioid pills she’d upped her consumption of recently had caught up with her, and the withdrawals were kicking her ass. I tossed her the sweatshirt. She smiled a weak half-smile. “Better not fucking smell like patchouli!” I told her about how I thought I was going to O.D., and for a second dizzy panic surged again, sweat beading my palms. She let out a laugh. “My little drama queen. You’re okay…” and I did feel okay, in that moment, because Sal had said so. Then she lurched forward, fist pressed to mouth, and rushed back into the bathroom. I let myself out. B texted that she was in the neighborhood, and we took a walk to the East End Beach with its No Swimming sign. The water sparkled too brightly. Even under her baseball cap and sunglasses B’s face looked ragged, paler than usual. She recounted how awful she’d felt all night, also wondering if she would need to seek medical attention. “Dude, that stuff was bad. At one point I couldn’t even see. Callie was seriously worried. She wanted to call 911.” We had a talk then, the first of many, about how we needed to steer clear of that type of partying, how we wanted to clean up our acts. *** A week after our brush with death, B became my girlfriend (or boifriend, as I’d more often refer to her) after she told me she liked me and said it would be okay if we kissed. After downing a few Purple Geezers, a drink she introduced me to at Styxx, we walked up to the Eastern Prom, where we sat on the grass and watched the blurry lights reflected in Casco Bay. That’s when it happened. I said I liked her too, she asked if she could kiss me, I objected because what about Callie? She assured me they were in an open relationship and it would be fine. I thought kissing her would be fun, and enjoyed her lips’ surprising softness, she trembled in a way that let me know she felt more than that. Turned out it was anything but okay. B told Callie immediately, but we may as well have been fucking behind Callie’s back for how she reacted. They’d been exploring the possibility of opening things up in addition to other remedies for the long-term problems their twin flame veneer belied, but it wasn’t a done deal. It would remain a mystery whether B’s conviction that the kiss would be fine was more wishful thinking or willful ignorance. Sal, Tierney and Steph rushed to Callie’s side. At Styxx, they turned away from me, freezing me out. They chided B, but seemed open to her redemption during the brief “trying to work things out” phase that followed. When I ran into Steph on Wharf Street a few nights later and approached her apologetically, she said, “Dude, I can’t have any of that drama in my life. You need to be humble, give it time before you try and talk to anyone.” The cobblestone street only heightened this exchange’s provincial feel. They cast me out as a pariah, a whippersnapper out-of-towner destroying a pillar of the queer community for shits and giggles. No one stopped to question the deep dysfunction of B and Callie’s relationship, the ease with which it had crumbled. I felt resentful of losing this whole new crew over such an ignorant misstep. How could these adults—and debaucherous party adults, at that—think a kiss was such a huge deal? After all the contempt, the cold shoulders, and B moving out of their shared apartment to keep the peace, Callie ran immediately into the arms of Sal. They rekindled their love within a week. Sally and Callie. Ben was right: this was a small town. My thirst for it had slaked; the seagull screams began to cloy. As a performer and art model, Goldie Peacock spent over a decade bouncing between frenetic movement and absolute stillness before chilling out and becoming a writer. Their stories, essays, and poems appear or are forthcoming in HuffPost, Wild Roof Journal, Sundog Lit, (mac)ro(mic), Powders Press, MIDLVLMAG, Bullshit Lit, beestung, and DRAGS, a book showcasing NYC's drag superstars. They live in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY, USA). You can find them online @goldiepeacock.

Fish Supper so much has been lost along with our Sunday best / we now have different types of Christ tricks / and 60 second flicks filling the hole of us / all the new revivals / prequels and sequels / are stories we stopped caring about long ago / tiny images of insurrection / like all small things / pull on the heartstrings / for a techno second / yet we are more harpy than harp / and can treat the drownings as a conversational starter / served with salmon / and the old white man sauce / give a man a fish / blah, blah, blah / better the sweet words of a woman / instead of letting them swim with the fishes / give any one who needs it / a fish / and then a rod / so they can eat first / and fish later Watching Dr, Zhivago With My Daughter How you loved Dr. Zhivago / but I told you there was no poetry in snow / and you said it was a space to fill with other things / angels / and men whose reasons to leave you understood / You told me I played tragedy like a balalaika / the same three strings over and over / a haunting melody of loss / so you went / dancing with the snowflake people / babbling they were made up of everything that was not here / not me / yet when the rent was due you nailed the stars / fixing them as a slipped cross / so I could find you / I put your bloody fingers to my mouth / a gesture that tasted oh so old / Now the cold scolds my bones / and I choke from the ground up / like a snowflake I am made up of what is not there / and you are spinning rings far away / beyond the illusion / of stars / or redemption / still I always look for you / in the chaos of shapes leaving a bus / in every doorway / and at every special showing of Dr. Zhivago Adele Evershed was born in Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her poetry and prose have been published in several online journals and print anthologies. She has been recently nominated for The Pushcart Prize for poetry, shortlisted for the Staunch Prize for flash fiction, and her novella-in-flash, The History of Hand Thrown Walls was shortlisted in the Reflex Press Novella Award.

Hugh and Floyd sat in the dive bar, drinking. "Hey Hugh! Remember that botched bank robbery years ago that you did? Man, when I heard about that madness, I laughed for days." Floyd laughed as he drank the remainder of his beer and beckoned the bartender for another. "Man, looking back, it was not funny , but now that we're older. . . I can see how amusing it must have been when I shot myself in the foot, the getaway driver leaving me, the dye packs exploding as I walked out of the bank.”." Hugh tapped the counter acerbically before the bartender walked away. The bartender filled Hugh's empty mug and left the pitcher. “Yeah, real funny.” "Hey, Floyd, whatever happened to that drug you made...?" Hugh gulped his beer. "The drug I made? HNFP: Hugh and Floyd Productions? Even when you were locked up, I thought of you." Hugh turned to Floyd and jokingly pointed a finger in his face. "Those were the days of making some of the best stuff ever. Now, this crap they're making these days has nothing on my stuff." "All right," Hugh leveled his hands and turned back to the bar, "Come off the soapbox, man. They make what they can with what's available." "I guess." Floyd sighed, " I was making insane loot. It was inevitable-some chem grad would figure it out. When they did, their stuff was flooding the market! My stuff became obsolete, so I switched and ran drugs for the new guys. And even after being a drug runner for those shits, they still set me up." "Sucks, man," Hugh shook his head. "Really sucks." Technicalities got me out. Then, I was put in this shithole 'Quad'. I had no clue what a Quad was." "Tell me about it. I got only a little bit of info in the joint. They gave me credits, a letter and a map before I was released. I am an ‘undesirable’." Hugh laughed and Floyd joined him. “You’d think they woulda had flying jet cars by now. Right, man?” Hugh stated. “Heh, now everything is ‘holograms’ or whatever. My last doctor visit was on a tv screen!” “Holoscreen.” Hugh corrected. “I don’t get it. Society…ugh.” They nursed their watered-down beers at the booze stained bar. The bartender flung a towel over his shoulder, walked over to the television and turned up the volume. "Hey, check this out!" he said. "Good news for the residents of Quad Three! Edward "The Sphinx" Maccoli made a successful run through 'The Gauntlet' and is now an Official Police Officer. He made it through Quad Three with Christina Vasquez of Quad Four and . . ." the voice continued as pictures of the new recruits flashed across the screen. "Sphinx! That's Joey Maccoli's kid! Is he a cop now? Damn, I taught him everything. It looks like somebody smashed his face into a brick wall!" They both paused and looked at the TV. "Well, with a man 'inside', maybe we won't get jacked as much. You know, things could get easier." Hugh grinned and pumped his fist in the air. "Things will be easier!" A voice yelled from across the room. " Shoulda thought of that before you tried to kill him. 'Sphinx' don't forget a face." Another voice yelled. # Floyd and Hugh looked at each other, paid their tab and left. They walked out of the basement bar, in the building covered with vines, and up the trash covered stairs. They walked halfway down the block. The building where they lived was a nondescript-brownish brick with a few windows scattered like playing cards and no higher than ten stories-as all the others. When Floyd reached to open the door, Hugh checked to make sure the address was correct. “Still smells like piss. Must be the right spot.” Hugh joked. They made their way up several flights of toy cluttered steps, and Hugh opened the door to his place and flipped on the light. Floyd's apartment was right across the hall. "I can't believe it," Hugh lamented, "I taught that kid, ‘Sphinx’, all my tricks and gave him my secrets." He switched on a lamp. He'd managed to procure some subdued artwork and a plant for his apartment. He also had a small table and two chairs next to the window he'd made in prison, the only things he kept when released. "Hey bud, you look lower than a bowlegged toad, what gives?" Floyd asked as he sat across from him. "Maybe that kid will come to town and remember to help you out or something." "To the 'Quad'." Hugh corrected. "Yeah, Quad." Floyd cleared his throat. Hugh wiped his brown, "Doubt it. Who comes to the 'Lowers'? What we need is a piece of good luck, like a four-leaf clover or something." "What we gonna do with a piece of good luck? We are two old guys from a past that doesn't exist. We lucky to have these crap shacks the 'benevolent government' has given us." "No, man, we get us some good luck and maybe we can leave and move into one of the nicer Quads." Hugh strolled over to the sink and turned on the tap, "Water?" Floyd shook his head. "Hey, all I'm saying is things are bound to change for us. We are due." Hugh chugged his water. Floyd scratched at his graying stubble, "Like a genie's lamp or somethin'?" "No, think bigger!" "Two four leaf clovers?" "Don't be a dick, Floyd. The bigger, the better-- and the more luck! Okay, so imagine something with a lot of good luck symbols on it." Hugh held his hands up for emphasis. "We can pull it out, rub it and ba-boom, we got good luck! I'm telling you, I'm so sure we are gonna get lucky that I put in an application to move Quads. I checked in with my parole officer and I did some community work with delinquents here. All I need to do is get this one piece of good luck and I'm moving on up!" Hugh's eyes twinkled. Floyd sat back and rubbed his stubble, "Sounds like a plan and it seems you've been working it." He pushed back from the table. "We can talk about it tomorrow. I gotta go to bed; work in the morning. . I'll meet you at the bar at six? We can talk about luck." "Uh, I may be a little late , I'm gonna check out that piece of luck. After I have it in my hands, things will change for me, you’ll see. Man, I'm going places." Hugh clapped his hands and stood, "Things are about to change for this old man." "Yeah, 'night, 'Lucky'." Floyd walked to the door, "Just remember me when ya luck changes and don't be disappointed if it don't." "Yeah, yeah." Hugh locked the door behind his friend as he left. # Floyd worked the assembly line in one of the nondescript warehouses in the Quad. Sorting circuit boards or bolts was an easy enough job. Other days, he drilled. He did not worry about where the things he worked on went; he was glad to have work. He met Hugh for lunch. They both carried the same standard issue metal lunch boxes. They could eat the standard lunch from the cafeteria: cold cut wraps, an apple, milk, and a bag of chips. They always opted out. They joked the warehouse food was probably from the same prison kitchens. Floyd looked around, "You ever wonder where that meat comes from?" "Oh no, not the 'Soylent Green' business again!" Hugh chuckled. "We eat the same every day. It's a population control technique." Floyd swirled his ramen in his thermos he brought from home. "So, Hugh, I've been thinking about this luck. What's the deal?" "Lean in," Hugh whispered, "I am gonna blow your mind." "Dude, as long as no one gets hurt, I got your back. You know this, right?" Floyd slurped some of his ramen broth from his thermos. "Look at where we live, man. Felons, thugs, rapists; do you think any life is worth anything in this Quad? As soon as one of us 'passes on' , their apartment is emptied, scrubbed clean and set up for the next person. "I feel like I'm still in prison and you can't tell me you don't. We get up, work, eat, go home and sleep. Do it again the next day." Floyd interjected, "But we are not in prison. We're free." "Are we though? Are we really free?" Hugh sat back in his chair and nodded at Floyd. "Do what you think is right. Just -- no one should get hurt in your quest, Lancelot." Floyd reluctantly stood and patted him on the back. They announced an extra four-hour shift. Hugh and Floyd glanced at each other. "Okay, see you at the bar in four hours," Floyd saluted. Hugh gave him two thumbs up and walked away. # If he had not promised to meet Hugh later, Floyd would have gone home and passed out. His body was too old to work twelve-hour shifts, but he enjoyed the bonuses. He punched out and joined the other old man drones as they left the warehouse, each headed down their separate paths. It was particularly loud that evening: street workers soliciting at every intersection, robbers casing out alleys and random fights -- everywhere. Floyd held his lunchbox handle and strolled past the women, down the streets with crumbling signs that promised new apartments or places of employment. Floyd laughed to himself at the rusting signs. He heard kids playing among the rubble of the bombed out warehouses, sounding like ghosts of the past. He walked by the enclosed gardens that said: "keep out" and "will shoot on sight ". There was always someone living in a shack on the land with a shotgun leveled at anyone that tried to climb over the gate. . Surprisingly, some street lights shone down as he neared the central area of town where most of the shops and bars were, and the Quad felt alive. He checked his watch. He thought he could rush home and take a quick shower. As he strolled inside the building, the old mailboxes along the wall grasped at the plaster, full of flyers and magazines spilling onto the floor. He ascended the steps, hearing a few televisions blasting, babies screaming, and a few kids playing in the hall. He never recalled seeing any kids outside the apartment building. He'd spoken to one of the mothers once, and she'd told him it was simply not safe for them to go out. "Evenin' Mr. Floyd." A little snaggle-toothed girl with two pigtails walked up to him and sang as he put his key in the lock. "Cindy Lou, don't try to rip me off today. I'll give you a piece if you leave me alone. Next time your ma wants money, have her come see it to me." He flicked a silver coin in the air. "My name's not Cindy Lou. My name is Becky." She yelled over her shoulder as she caught the coin. He made it inside as the little girl's footsteps raced down the hall and another door slammed shut. He needed to stop giving his coins away. "They will all think of me as some idiot donor." He took his clothes off and jumped in the shower. He bounded down the stairs and headed to the bar to wait for Hugh. He held his finger up for one beer. The bartender limped over with a glass, "Evening sir, where's your friend?" "Late, I guess." Floyd checked around and didn't see Hugh. "Just one tonight, Damon. I think he should be here any minute." "Sure, Mr. Floyd." Damon wore a white apron and had a heavy Irish accent. He also had a pronounced limp. When he returned with the beer, Floyd asked him how he ended up here in the Quads. "Well," he leaned back and wiped his hands with a towel, "Everything was fine with me wife and such. Kids were grown and off to school, ya know. The wife asked if her mum could stay in the extra room we had. I wanted wifey happy, so I agreed. But I'll tell ya', damned if her mum didn't ride my ass everyday about any and everything. 'Dayyy-mon' is how she said me name, 'Oye need. . .' and it just went on." He paused and refilled a beer for someone at the bar. He walked back over to Floyd and continued, "I mean, I tried to talk to her but I may as well ha been whistlin jigs to a milestone. So, one day, the wife goes ta work and I'm alone with this old bag. She asked me for one simple thing; I can't remember and I walks out to the yard, gets me favorite axe, come in and chop her up. I had her buried and the house cleaned before the wife came home and oh was she a mess when I told her. But let me tell ya' boy, she looked relieved, she did. There was a twinkle in her eye and she smiled a little before she called the coppers. Visited me ev'ry day in prison too until she died some years later. Rest her soul." "Is there any person with a decent soul living here?" Floyd mumbled. "Why d'ya think we're here? No one is decent." Damon joked. Hugh whipped in like a hurricane and pulled up a stool next to Floyd, "Aye, one for me Damon. How's it goin'?" "Slow and steady, sir. Was just chatting with yer bud here. I'll grab that beer for ya'." Damon hobbled away as Floyd whispered, "I like Damon and his Irish accent. The other bartender, I don't like as much." Floyd took a huge gulp of his beer. "So, I found it." Hugh nodded. "And I wanna show it to you." Hugh took a swig of beer from the glass Damon had placed in front of him. "What'd ya find? This piece of luck?" Floyd finished his beer and took out a black card, preloaded with credits, to pay for it. "Yep, and we're going to see it tonight. Right now." Hugh turned up his glass and poured the beer down his throat. "After I finish my beer, of course." He put the glass on the bar and left a few bills, "Let's go." “Drinks on me. Card’s prepaid with credits. Those bills are relics, man.” Floyd swept the bills up and passed them to Hugh When they left, "Sphinx" was on television talking about how rewarding it was being a police officer after his rough childhood and hard work. Everyone in the bar applauded except Hugh. He headed straight for the door. Floyd moved slower than Hugh and tried to keep up as Hugh led them down a street and around the complex maze of warehouses to a tattoo shop. The shop was above ground and well lit, occupying one of the nicer warehouses. Hugh opened the doors and a friendly girl with a high black Mohawk and golden-brown skin walked over; her arms covered in tattoos. "What's up, Hugh?" She smiled behind the counter. She wore black leather pants, biker boots and a black shirt that stopped above her pierced navel. She had perfect white teeth and a happy demeanor for a girl living working in such a bad place. "Hey, Terra! This is my friend, Floyd. We’ve been buds forever." Hugh took off his green baseball cap and rubbed his hair with his dirty tanned hand. "Are we still talking about 'luck'?" She beamed, put her elbows on the counter and cupped her face in her hands. Floyd noticed the tattoos covering her body, all except for her face. "What's all them tattoos stand for?" Floyd asked. "Well, my left arm," she held her arm out, "is like all the evil and bad I've done. Here's a gun--held up a liquor store, some dudes I beat up -- those are the 'Day of the Dead' faces with their mouths stitched--Snitches." She snorted, "Some chick I didn't like, so I took care of her: the doll with the sewed up mouth. But this, this one is my favorite: my spider web on my elbow. If you know what that means, well, you wouldn't want to mess with me outside these walls, you know?" She winked. "Well, you got me. What does it mean?" Floyd asked as he leaned in closer to inspect it. Hugh elbowed him in the side. "Mmmm," she hummed. "I killed someone in prison. Don't tell them that, I could lose my job." She laughed. Floyd pulled back, intrigued, "But the other arm, what's that all about?" "Everything is like yin yang, you know? These tattoos on my right arm are my good luck symbols. For every bad tattoo representing my past, I got one representing my future. Like the Buddha, his hands, some Tibetan script, koi swimming upstream and a favorite that my boy just finished, a hamsa on my inner arm with the warning eye. It's for protection and whatnot." She held her arm out and outlined it for them. "So all this good luck negates the bad luck and bad things?" Floyd asked as he tilted his head to examine her tattoos. "You could say. I mean, I'm trying to bank some karma as well--good deeds and all that. Hey, Hugh, decide on some ink yet? I'm always ready to start." A tall white guy lumbered up behind her and smacked her on the butt. His face, a series of ridges and tattoos. His thick, ink covered arms swung like baseball bats, and he had the same spider web on his elbow. He shot a quick glance at Floyd and Hugh. He grunted and stood next to Terra, "You gents lookin fer something particular?" "I think we found it. Terra, have a great night." Hugh smiled and backed out the door, followed by Floyd. They walked along in silence until they got to Floyd's apartment. "Well," Floyd began, "We are getting all sleeved up for luck? This is your idea of good luck? I think I'll take my chances with a rabbit's foot or something. Besides, I tried to get some tattoos in prison and almost had my arm amputated because they got infected. India ink and a needle, my ass." "You just don't see it, do you?" Hugh held his head down and snickered, "We ain't gettin' tattoos. We takin' 'em." Floyd's eyes widened. "Wait, what?" He thought for a moment, "No, not what I think. We could. . . we could. . . man I just. . ." "Pal, let me show you something, over here in my place. I finished it today, worked on it for a while." They walked across the hall to Hugh's place. Hugh flipped the light switch, "Bathroom." He pointed. Floyd walked into the bathroom. It was covered in plastic drop cloths, "We're taking that chick's arm and we're gonna skin it. See, I've read about how these Japanese people sold their fully tattooed skin after they died; like willed it to someone. It was treated like a prized possession. So, when they died, it was part of the will for them to be skinned and the skin was sold and preserved. It's a black market thing now, but it got so popular they -- the Japanese -- made offers to bikers, here in the US. Or what was the US. Now, we steal that chick's arm and skin it. How else are we gonna get that much good luck?" "You can't be for real." Hugh pulled a chainsaw from behind the curtain in the bathtub, "Do you think I am joking? I told you, man, one way or another, I'm getting out of here." He laughed and started the chainsaw. "Purrs like a kitten." "Are you serious? You are going to take some girl's arm? That has to be the stupidest thing ever! Think about it. I mean, what are you going to do, whip out her arm when you're buying a lottery ticket and start rubbing it? This is some serious shit, man! I do not want to have someone looking to exact justice on me in this Quad. Lives here are worth nothing. If you do that, your life will be worth less than nothing. You may even be moved into a worse Quad, and I don't think you'd survive there at all." "Oh and now you don't support me in my endeavor?" "Why would I support murder? Sure, her tatts looked cool. Sure, she was a nice looking girl who wouldn't give an old man like me the time of day, but this is wrong. Besides, did you see ol' boy standing behind her? He looks like he eats guys like us for breakfast, lunch and dinner!" "Meh, I'm not worried about him. I just need to get her alone and I can handle it, understand? Again, I'm asking if you are going to support me in my endeavor of acquiring, ah, something to help me change our current circumstances." Hugh straightened, up nodded his head and crossed his arms. They stood face to face. Hugh’s stance was defiant. Floyd signed and shook his head. He stepped out of the bathroom, "You have fun." He only saw Hugh one more time. # Floyd sat in the bar after another shift at the factory, days after he tried to convince Hugh he was wrong. The idea was ludicrous, but every time he knocked on his door to talk about it, Hugh didn't answer. He couldn't find him at work. Eventually, he gave up. After a few hours of television and small talk with Damon and the other patrons, he settled his tab and walked home. He went inside, flopped on his tattered couch, and turned on his new, very small, black market, black and white television to watch the news. He watched until he fell asleep. At the sight of Hugh's face, Floyd sat up and leaned forward to turn up the volume. He heard the word "murder". He wiped his eyes and focused on the screen. Even though they lived in one of the worst Quads, reporters from the wealthier Quads would sneak in and film footage, just to show the world how awful the people in the poorer and dangerous Quads were. There was hope for genocide in the poorer Quads because the rich were running out of space in their Quads. Hugh's face was on the screen. A voiceover spoke about the murder. Some reporters managed to sneak into the apartment the night of the murder and capture the gruesome scene. There was blood all over the bathroom. Terra’s body hung from the shower rod, her arm cuffed to the shower rod. Her legs were spread and cuffed to something unseen. She had on her leather pants and black shirt. The only odd thing, excluding the blood all over the walls and the floor, was her missing right arm. There was a bone and some muscle in the bathtub and Floyd heard the word, "Skinned". He shook his head and mumbled beneath his breath. He couldn't believe his friend actually went through with a plan so macabre. He sat up and put his head in his hands, "I can't believe he was that desperate. He actually did it. Damn, Hugh." He thought back to the last night he saw his friend. It began with an urgent banging on his door. He looked through the peephole to see Hugh grinning. He peeled the door open and began to speak before Hugh cut him off. "I did it! I bought something for you, too!" Hugh spoke fast as he pushed his way into Floyd's apartment. "Man, is this why you didn't come to work today? You didn't do it, did you?" Floyd closed the door as Hugh giddily paced around with a small-folded item in his hand. He looked at Hugh's blood covered shoes and felt his stomach drop. He felt a tingling in his chest. It felt as though he could hardly breathe while he swallowed around the sour taste in his mouth. "I can't believe you did it." He moved in slow motion, while Hugh was a hive of energy. He pressed the door closed behind him. Hugh had the eyes of a mad man. "This is for you." Hugh held the small-folded item out and motioned to Floyd. Floyd felt a chill run through him from head to toe. "Come closer." Hugh beckoned, hunched over the item. Floyd stepped back. Hugh lumbered over to him and pushed it in his hands. Floyd peeled back the layers of plastic and tissue paper. Inside was something small and very oily. Hugh nodded with approval, like a mad scientist, "Luck will change tomorrow! I promise you! I told you I would do it!" Hugh ran in circles, tapping his fingers together, "I gotta finish, and everything is so fresh. Gotta start saving it, preserving it. Not a lot of books on preserving this type of thing, but I think I got it figured." Just like that, Hugh was out the door. Floyd knew about justice. He didn't realize justice in such a dangerous Quad would be so swift. Justice kicked in Hugh's door in the form of two fully tatted guys with baseball bats. The sound scared Floyd from awake. He scrambled over and looked out the peephole. One of the guys was the bald guy from the tattoo studio. He saw a huge brown skinned guy, covered in tattoos, bald and stocky, wearing sunglasses and standing in front of Hugh's door. The big guy had to sense something because he held his finger up and shook it very slowly from side to side, saying, "No" towards Floyd's peephole. Floyd stumbled back, his heart pounded in his chest, as fresh beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He walked to his sink and grabbed a bottle of water. He ripped it open and drank it. Part of the problem with these old buildings was that some of the apartments were sound proof and some weren't. Hugh lived in an apartment covered with brick walls, so any sound coming from within was muffled. Floyd dropped the empty bottle when he heard noises in the hallway. He ran over and peeked out the peephole and saw Hugh trying to flee. Someone grabbed Hugh from behind. Hugh held onto Floyd's door frame with all his strength as someone yanked him away. The door to Hugh's apartment closed. There were a few thumps. Then, silence. The guy at the door pulled out a bottle of cleaning solution and a hand towel. He walked over to Floyd's door and cleaned the blood handprints on the doorframe. He resumed his position across the hall as he placed the bottle on the floor, folded the bloody towel and slipped it into his pocket. Floyd stumbled and sat on the couch in a daze. Floyd knew things had not gone in Hugh's favor. Petrified, he crawled to the door and looked out the peephole to see women standing outside the door. Once the other guys left, the big guy at the door nodded and they rushed inside with their elbow length gloves and plastic suits to clean the apartment. The next day, the local news reporters asked Floyd's neighbors if they knew what had happened in the apartment. Later, they broadcast the footage, "We have obtained exclusive footage from inside the killer's apartment. We believe he was practicing some type of voodoo ritual. . ." # A knock at his door snapped him out of his thoughts. Floyd walked over and looked out the peephole. A man in a suit looked around and patted his forehead with a handkerchief as two very armed police officers stepped back and blocked the hall with their stature. The knock was persistent. Where was his good for nothing lawyer to defend him now? "Yes?" He cleared his throat. "Sir, would you please open up? I need to speak to you about a matter.." "What kinda matter?" Floyd asked. "One of a monetary nature. Now, please, open the door or these two officers will kick it in. Trust me, sir, I don't want to be out here as much as you want me out here, broadcasting your news to your neighbors." Floyd undid the locks and chains and opened the door. The man fixed his tie and walked in. One officer stood at the door and another came inside and closed the door. The man in the suit walked over to the table in Floyd's apartment and sat. He was sweating profusely and sporting a nasty comb over. His suit was a work of art: brown and polyester. Floyd thought the suit looked like something his father would have worn. The man smoothed his hair down, took a deep breath and pulled out a folder. He opened it, placing a pen on the papers. He motioned for Floyd to sit down. "Sir, Mister. . .ah. . ." The man shuffled the papers, looking for a name. "Floyd. Just Floyd." "Yes, then. . . Ah Mr. Floyd. I'm not sure if you knew, but you were the prime beneficiary of a Mr. Hughefort Neville. Please sign these documents and I will have the credits transferred to your account immediately. You exhibit exemplary behavior and a high work ethic, which merits you a..." Floyd interrupted, "Credits? Not prepaid card credits, but real monetary credits?" The man cleared his throat, "Yes, monetary credits. We are currently phasing out green money with credits. Even now, we are offering two credits for every dollar as an incentive to embrace the new system." "Am I getting 'two for one' on Hugh's money?" "There's more than enough that you don't have to worry about the 'two for one' deal. We are willing to convert any cash you have on hand or in the bank." The man fidgeted as he spoke. "Finish ." Floyd smiled, "Sorry to interrupt." The man adjusted his tie, "Well, as I was saying. . . You exhibit exemplary behavior and a high work ethic, which merits you a one-time transfer to the outer edges of Quad Five. It's a lower middle-class place, but there is a small house on the edge, near the perimeter fence that needs to be fixed up. A person like you doesn't deserve to be here. You paid your debt to society. To be frank, you're old. Who are you legitimately going to harm?" The officer by the door chuckled. "What about work?" Floyd eyed the paperwork. "I'm not sure you saw the insurance amount." The man's tone changed, lowering his voice. "You don't need to work anymore. You can spend your last years in peace, living on that small plot of land, fixing up the shithouse in a halfway decent Quad or you can stay here with your credits and get robbed. The choice is yours. News like this travels fast in these parts. You know, with you not opening the door promptly and all." Floyd looked at the paper. He hadn't seen that many zeros in a while. He laughed a bit and signed as the man pointed to certain spots on the papers. He also had to initial here and here and here. When he was done, he put the pen down and asked, "How soon can I move?" "The officer will be stationed outside your door tonight. There will be two more downstairs, so we can move you whenever you are ready." The man looked over the paperwork, stacked the pages together neatly and put them in a briefcase. He pulled out a device and clicked a few buttons, "Money is in your account. I'd like to thank you for your time, Mister. . . Floyd. I imagine you don't have a lot of belongings. Hopefully, you can leave tonight. Remember, word travels fast around here. Have a great day." He stood and extended his hand. Floyd shook it and the man was out the door. The officer stood outside and asked Floyd if he knew when he would be ready to leave. "I need about a half hour, is that okay?" The officer nodded. Floyd closed the door. # Floyd exhaled. For the first time, he smiled. What luck! He was getting out! He walked into his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He opened the nightstand and pulled out his Bible. Inside was a package wrapped in plastic. He pulled it out and peeled the plastic open. It was the hamsa from Terra's arm, "I don’t know if this works, if Hugh was onto something or maybe it was just my time. Either way, thanks for the luck, baby. Tomorrow's gonna be a better day." He wrapped the tattoo and put it back in the Bible, grabbed his bag from beneath his bed and packed his few belongings.

Late afternoon heat makes a jungle of the canal. Curtained by purple Himalayan balsam, carpeted with sulphur yellow water lilies. The handle of a child’s bicycle reaches out in supplication. She stands on the edge of the railway bridge under a gun metal sky, looking down at the tracks. In the distance, the train rumbles like thunder. She counts, working out how long she has. One finger gently strokes her silver nose ring, the raw skin around the piercing, over and over. The thunder gets louder. She pulls herself up, onto the parapet, and becomes weightless, sitting on thick, water scented air like the buzzard above her head. It lets out a lonely, cat like cry that sends tiny, furred creatures scrabbling into the undergrowth, seeking the shelter of discarded beer cans and cardboard. The thunder gets louder, fills her heart, her head, her stomach. All the empty spaces. Sunlight glints on the sculptures running alongside the train tracks. Iron Horses, manes streaming in an imaginary wind, caught in a race against time, rust already eating at hooves and manes. Air pressure builds around her as the oncoming train pushes the air before it, pushing her to the edge. She closes her eyes and tightens her fingers around the nose ring, the one he had given her before everything exploded. The thunder roars beneath her feet. In the space between heartbeats, she rips out the nose ring and hurls it onto the track. Opens her eyes. Breathes. Karen Arnold can be found on Twitter @aroomofonensown

The itchy dress and the rented colonial manor are ill-suited. Which is to say, they are not the right fit. Still, she stands obedient on the raised wooden platform of an I Do day; its Norman Rockwell threshold propped open at her feet. But those aren’t her toes. The baseless white is everywhere: ribbon-wrapped chairs, wedding cake, guestbook. They form a muted horizon, wash away everything except her mother’s tight red velvet dress. With a black jacket, it dazzles. The bride waits for the groom at the altar; an arbor of well-intended, but not-meant vows cascading over her - a trellis. A note from the author: Forthcoming chapbooks: True North (Origami Poetry Project), Coyote in the basket of my ribs (Alabaster Leaves).

Swimming as Allegory for Living When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly. That they tried to teach me when I was eleven but gave up when I couldn’t figure how to turn my head just enough to breathe, yet not sink. I mean if I accidentally fell into a pool but forced myself to stay really calm, I could probably remain afloat, but it would be obvious to anyone that I was in a precarious situation. I mean I can do some half-assed version of the front crawl in which my face stays submerged for as long as I can hold my breath, while my arms slice through water in unintended tandem, and my feet paddle relentlessly like a runner duck’s, propelling my body forward in small bursts, until it feels like my lungs will explode if I don’t allow my head to break through the surface that very instant to take in as much air as I possibly can, even if the lost momentum causes me to immediately sink like a stone. When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly. Painlessly. Scar Instead of speaking your mind late that afternoon, you offer up pointless pleasantries in exchange for his polite platitudes. Just as he ignores how the heels of your brogues catch uneven cobblestone as you approach, you ignore the way his voice catches as you leave. Because it is summer, you don’t notice how late it is until youths in clubwear fill your still- bright carriage and one in a soft leather jacket jostles the Tesco roses wilting in your arms. Instinctively, you pull them closer to you, as if they were meant for better than two days in a stained coffee mug and one at the bottom of a bin ripping holes in the liner. Grief distracts, so when you exit the DART station, you miss a step, promptly slicing open the papery skin of your malleolus. And as you note the same ruby that marks your bouquet now trickles down your ankle, you wonder if this day will leave you with a scar, or just a poem. Allison Thung is a poet and project manager from Singapore. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in ANMLY, Emerge Literary Journal, Brave Voices Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @poetrybyallison or at www.allisonthung.com.

Magic Theatre Poetry Reading I wanted to eat you. I did not understand your power, the slick sleaze of it. Your legs uncrossed, offered but not mentioned – what was it you wanted? You said: friendship, to repent and a chance to right the wrong – yours, which you tossed around like oriflammes, flares of orange. Are you fireworks? A chimney? What is it that makes red, the birdlike heart of you tick? You seemed careless, oblivious, or scared – you must have been running, running away from it awhile. Who told the younger you that she had to say yes, find ways to make others say yes, no matter the pricelist of cars, tickets, broken teacups, reputation. We could have been Siamese sisters, friends, or mere acquaintances, but desire, but lust: you wanted to be me, wanted to drink, to fill your cup, gorge on the sap, but found no anchor, no strip pole around which to tie that tether. You said you needed to cut it, took out the butter knife in tears – honey, honey, put it down, please: there was never a string. Springtime (Ada by the Shore) Pretty pile of white wooden cubes, red roofs: village we’ve left behind – elongating their shadows in the morning sun, the pine trees took us here. (The church bells ring, ding, dong.) The sun already high and white when we sit by the lake. Boatmen – they have gone out for lunch. In silence, we observe: large strokes of green, purple, on the opposite shore. (She leaned and told me a secret which I cannot write here.) Song of the daffodil, crocus, primrose, the pennyworth. Her eyes: the same blue as the lake, tranquil. Around, a line of purple, deep, seized from the crest of the hilltops ablaze. A gentle breeze. The pine trees stand silent. Time: obliterated. (The clock of my heart skips a step.) Lorelei Bacht (she/they) is currently running out of ways to define herself, and would like to reside in a tranquil, quiet form of uncertainty for a while. Their recent work has appeared and/or are forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Abridged, Odd Magazine, Postscript, PROEM, SWWIM, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review, Hecate, and others. They are also on Instagram @lorelei.bacht.writer and on Twitter @bachtlorelei

I sit, You sit, We sit. You’re talking, I’m listening. I can clearly see your lips moving and I can hear the individual words you’re saying and my brain is processing them but much slower than normal, it feels like what you see when you turn the handle of a Victorian fairground zoetrope. My brain absorbs, the words flicker, in and out. Out. Out. The naked lady undresses again and again but I can only imagine her shape. Say it again. You’re talking, I’m listening. Once it sinks in and I’ve held my head in my hands again all I can say is, “I don’t know” Which is a lie, I do know. I know exactly. But we’ve just entered that part of the poem where the stillness occurs. The stillness where decisions are made. Once you decide, it’s usually over. No comeback. So it needs to be good. So here we are. There. At that point. I feel like I’m still wearing my coat, which makes me laugh. Because I’m not and you are. So, in the stillness where decisions are made. There is a choice. Choose your own Adventure is it? The books of youth didn’t cover this. Who did? Who does? Help! One more time. You’re talking, I’m listening, We’re still sitting. You’re saying the same thing. Again. With that sultry doleful look in your eye and I cannot… But you’re over there and I’m here. Maybe proximity is the answer. If I’m here and you’re here then maybe the words will come. Maybe the thing that I don’t know, I’ll admit I do know. And there it is. Step A. A minor decision, but a decision. And it turns out that we don’t need words. Everything we need to say is in our mouths, but we’re not speaking. Our hands are also talking, voraciously. The naked lady is undressed. So I’m here and you’re here and now we’re not sitting. You’re not talking but I am still listening. If listening is feeling and my heart is all I can hear in my ears. And I find that I can’t breathe, but that’s ok because I’m definitely alive. Alive. Later. I’m talking and you’re listening and then you’re talking and I’m listening and it’s easier than it’s ever been. The unsaid thing that was never spoken has itself spoken and while I’m still unclear exactly how. It exactly doesn’t matter. I sit, You sit, We sit. There. A word from the author: A poem about the distance between us, closing the gap and the space in time where the thick pause occurs. The space where decisions are made.

My twin brother Clem had a club foot but could climb like you wouldn’t believe. He’d swoop up trees like we were on the moon and if a ball went on the roof, any roof, he’d bound up the side of the building like a soccer field and next thing you know an entire galaxy of balls, one or two of them the superball kind, and he’d holler scrambles! which I was already doing like a cartoon. We were born before we were done if you know what I mean. I was the opposite of Clem and could fold myself into nothing and get completely flattened by gravity like I had a double helping and sideways bones. Clem would unfurl me sometimes and take me with him and off we’d go decades before parkour and about the same time as the Superman comics came out which our sister Sketchy Sam collected let’s just say, although Denny down the street who was in love with her in a desperate kind of way would later, when he came out of it, swear she stole from him. Sam liked to draw. She’d start by drawing a magic marker frame on the page, cells she called them, and she’d fill them with sketches of me and Clem mostly. She used cheap Woolworth’sscrapbooks at first until all the babysitting money, when she insisted my mother take her to the mall in the city, the proper art store, where she bought thick white paper pads and superior pencils, pale erasers that didn’t leave a wake, metal sharpeners with two holes, all of which she carefully placed into a new pencil case with a roll-up lid like the desk in the den and she started drawing for real then, mostly me and Clem like I said, Clem scraping the ceiling and me flat except for two eyes on the floor is how she drew us and I don’t know how she did it but those squiggles were portraits, true as life, exactly us. We called her Sketch and she was the most sought-after babysitter ever. Parents booked her months in advance, gigs for which she asked double pay at first until she rounded it all the way up to twenty dollars a night when her friends were making three dollars fifty cents with tip. She got pizza out of the deal, too, and called me and Clem when it arrived so we’d fly over for a piece which the parents knew about and the kids seemed to like. There was a no-piggy-backing policy in effect so the kids would have to stand on Clem’s shoulders for the tree-climb and keep it secret. At the end of the night Sketch would leave cells on the refrigerator, one for each kid, beautiful things indeed, the children transformed into superheroes with names like Mary Muscle, Suzy Smartly, Danny Divine, Mighty Mike, and the kids could hardly wait for a sequel which parents were known to cough up big money for as birthday presents and high-mark incentives. Sketch ended up going to art school in the city and me and Clem moved into a government-funded housing project when our parents had enough of us which we totally understood and were mutual about. In her third year Sketch got so much money for her work she was able to buy a beautiful old three-storey apartment building on Gladstone Avenue in downtown Toronto. She rented most of it out but me and Clem helped her turn the entire upstairs into a big studio apartment just for her. We opened the whole thing up except for two rooms side by side along the back wall and the next time we came to visit, on one of the doors was a cell with my weird portrait, and on the second door was a cell with Clem, or at least his flying essence. Inside it was just one room so the doors were a sort of trick and there were two matching beds side by side, two dressers, two desks and a big leather couch in front of a TV on the wall. The rest of the walls, all of them, were covered in cells Sketch had done from when we were all little to now, eyeballs and squiggles mostly but not all, and that was when it started me and Clem every Saturday morning we’d hop on the train to meet Sketch at Union Station, a four-hour ride. I used to wonder what we looked like to the cars stopped at the crossings, our excited faces through the window just like Sketch drew us. Sherry is from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. thestoryparade.ca

When I think about the day we met our daughter, I can only recall how much my stomach hurt. I had spent a better part of that morning squatting in front of the toilet, legs akimbo, bile dripping from my mouth in threads. The water was too cold to shower in, so I used a whole packet of wet wipes to cleanse myself, and the overwhelming scent of spearmint on my red plastic toothbrush made me hunch over the washbasin three times before I walked out of the bathroom. Meanwhile, you had already left our home. You were standing at the corner of the third street waiting for the bus, your stomach calm, and your ankles holding your calves steady. You knew that after six stops, a baby was waiting for you at the end of the bus ride. You were anticipating the cab ride home – awkwardly bundling her into the navy-blue car seat your sister loaned us, arguing with the cab driver about the air conditioning, hunching in the front seat with your slender fingers braided through one another. Meanwhile, I would sit up straight in the backseat, breathing in the scent of the driver’s packed lunch, and I would try to get her to wrap her chubby left hand around my ring finger, the one that is still bare after a decade together. Mira’s mother is beautiful, spent. Time blurs, and suddenly, we have a baby. You are seemingly in shock, and I am left sitting outside the recovery room gently holding a soft, sleeping infant, a child who carries an inheritance that we did not give her, a combination of genes that will never be fully ours. We don’t know it yet, but when we get home, we will discover that the universe quietly interceded as we attempted to make sense of something we weren’t sure we needed. We don’t know it yet, but in fifteen years, she will ask us about family heirlooms. You want to give her the keys to a kingdom, a first-edition copy of Jekyll and Hyde, and I want her to have the curves of our nailbeds, the stuffed cat you lost when you were eight. Instead, I will give her the plain silver band you slid over my finger at midnight on our eleventh anniversary. I will frame the faded Polaroid of her mother, grinning, six months pregnant, the carved wooden box with all the notes my mother slipped in my lunchbox at school, the first pair of booties I bought for the boy we buried under the mango tree in our backyard. Inheritance is sometimes shaped by loss, but a legacy of love is shaped by memory. Amelia David is an avid reader of fiction, a former student of English literature, and an individual who hopes to break away from writing personal essays. Her work has been published on Mag 20/20 and Esthesia. She drinks too much green tea, and blogs occasionally at https://pretendedconfusion.wordpress.com/.

Unlock my body and move myself to dance Into warm liquid, flowing, blowing glass (Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer) “Listen. This is the best sound in the world…” Anticipation for the glug of wine against an apple glass - Assured as a magician’s click, click, click Blacksmith-red; bending solids into shapes Of sunlight on kitchen tiles Half diamond, loosely hanging under the sink Your crisp white trainers nip between Day and night; May’s open-windowed fever to sighing fridge As basil, chilli, cherry tomatoes Rise from their slumber; settle on surfaces - Coiling around your jug of flowers, sculpting butter in the bell jar - Nothing here escapes their incense You take the volume up; Wilco gig to your quiet Belfast street Singing of your dinner-time Charleston; our sympathetic drink; These apple glasses it poured itself into; all a river, generating electricity - Flashing into this intangible moment of freedom You tell me about driving home over hills today, How the sun drubbed through the sky; gloriously smacked your screen - Germinating a whispered thankfulness for your life When you share this short story, stirring the rich sauce, I think: Yes, this is the best sound in the world Jessica Berry grew up beside the seaside of Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. She is an English teacher at the Belfast Model School for Girls. In 2021, Jessica was placed in Bangor’s annual poetry contest hosted by the Aspects Literary Festival. Her work has also been included in publications such as Drawn to the Light and A New Ulster. She is working on her first poetry collection; inspired by Irish myths and fables.

I sit at my desk, a nice one – yellow wood, not in the best condition but well-made – and think, “I’m a fraud.” This has nothing to do with passing bad checks, lying on my resume, etc. though I’m not above, and may have performed, any of those things. It’s more essential, to say it’s more essential is to appropriate – what? – more dignity, grandeur even to my craven endeavors. “No!” I want to shout, “I’m a fraud pure and simple.” But I can’t shout, the kids might hear. They’re out of the house now, back-to-school shopping with their mother. “Well,” the wife said at breakfast, “do you have office work again this weekend?” I mumbled something, the kids laughed, one spilled jelly on her shirt. “I’ll get it,” I half-rose but of course, the wife beat me to it. These anecdotes, always distorted, the lies I tell to gain the freedom to confront. I mean to confront the world, to get at its essentials by understanding its particulars, but always something keeps me back. This isn’t Eddington’s desk nor Husserl’s that I’m sitting at, it’s something we picked up at a tag sale along with its matching chair. The project, the only one worth executing, is to face the world, that is, whatever is before my eyes, honestly, without abstractions, to see But always I back away. It’s not as if I don’t have the time. I can make the time. Driving to work, working, driving back, spending so-called quality time – it’s all there. It’s more there – here – on Saturdays. On the Sabbath, the daylight witching hour, we confront Outside my window, over the lid of my trusty, deceptive laptop: the outside of the sill, paint peeling off it, beyond that the man-made natural world: lawns, hedges, not topiary, the neighbor mowing his lawn, a nuthatch singing on a nearby bough, that’s not a nuthatch, it’s a titmouse, a nuthatch is something that I digress. Of course. I digress, anything to avoid The neighbor, parading back and forth behind his gas-powered mower, paunch hanging over belt, no cigar, he gave those up, looks my way, notices me, doesn’t let on that he sees. I should go out, my grass needs cutting, I should let it go, turn it to hay, this town was a meadow once, has it in its name, Menacing Meadow, that’s not the name of course, the menace is invented, part of my deception, I should go out, we’ll talk about the big game, last night’s, today’s, tomorrow’s, there’s always something on. The games aren’t an evasion, they’re part of being human, the Aztecs, for example Because those others lived in the distant past, I consign them to the state of nature, as if I don’t live in a state of nature, however denatured. And my purpose I look at my computer, notice I’m signed in to my work account, then I didn’t lie, I do have work to do, I even have an email I could read. My cursor hovers over it, I click, get up from my desk, refresh my coffee, venture out. “Sure is a scorcher,” the neighbor says, wiping his protruding brow, it parallels his stomach though it’s harder, stop seeing correspondences, I tell myself, see the particular, that’s where “Sure is,” I say, reviving the flagging conversation. Grass covers my sandals. The neighbor glances at my feet as if to accuse. “I’ll mow my lawn tomorrow”, I say, “I have office work today. Sunday’s my chore day.” I don’t want the neighborhood association – what association? – running us out of town for improper home maintenance. “It’s going to rain tomorrow,” he says. Ah the charming simplicity of these suburban folk, so sure of what can’t be known for certain! “I’ll take my chances,” I say sauntering off. A few blocks later I’m in a street, I locked the house with something on my key fob, unless I pressed it wrong, not sure if I should go back and check, I know how this ends, that’s part of my scam, how does that fit in? Something’s sniffing at my toes, I made it to the curb somehow. “Why hello, I haven’t seen you in a while,” the old woman says looking up at me. We’re both on the sidewalk now, it’s not that I’m tall, she’s short, the archetypal little old lady, it hasn’t been that long, I saw her last weekend. “I’ve been working,” I say as if to put her in her place, the retiree, she worked all her life, unpaid unsung work tending to her husband, a stalled locomotive, dead now, raising kids, occasional grandkids, now her dog, a toy version of some pedigree, I know the breed, I forget which, can’t ask her, she told me months ago, she’ll think I wasn’t listening, I wasn’t. “And how are things at?” I can’t believe she knows the name of my firm, we were just acquired a few months ago, I don’t recall telling her, it’s not the sort of thing that makes the papers. “Oh you know,” I say, reaching down to pet her pooch. It snarls at me. “Alfreda!” she snaps. “Well, we’d best be going. Alfreda wants her din-din.” She pats my stomach with her free hand, ambles off. As she goes, I see the clear plastic bag holding Alfreda’s poop that she carries in lieu of a purse. I go too, angry at myself for this diversion. Head down I notice my fly is open. I can’t zip it up, the neighbors will think I’m doing something obscene, one of the perils of the meadows. I untuck my shirt, it covers half the offending gap, nothing to see here, ladies, keep it moving as the cops say. Instead of observing the well or ill-trimmed lawns about me, I ruminate upon my encounter with my lady friend: was that a twinkle in her eye? Was it because of my unzipped fly? I wonder about her platonic, lascivious, materteral interest in me, I should be observing nature, nature isn’t natural here, even the hawks are shaped by people, people are natural, nothing to confront, too much to confront, focus: focus is always focus on I make it home, the driveway half empty, I’ve the house to myself, no telling how long. I skirt the fridge, no I drink juice straight out of the bottle, cover my tracks that way, I have to keep my belly taut as I can manage for the ladies. I sit at the laptop just as the car pulls in, I refresh the screen, “Don’t bother Daddy, he’s working!” my wife says, she opens the door a crack, I press a key, I was timed off my account, no telling what the wife sees, the kids rush through the crack, I stand, they embrace my midsection, my fly’s closed now, the youngest looks up, “Look what I got!” she says waving something before my eyes, and I’m there for her though absent.