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When Lonny Morton walked into a bar, folks noticed. He was big and handsome. He was six foot five, two hundred and seventy pounds. He had short blonde hair, young looking smile, and biceps the size of most men’s chests. His hands, closed, looked like sixteen-pound sledgehammer heads and opened could grasp a man’s head like a softball. He took care of himself, worked out regularly. He was bronzed from working outside all the time and his steel blue eyes reminded some women of a twenty-seven-year-old Paul Newman. Annette was sitting at a table watching as Lonny moved to the bar, smiling at the easy way he spoke. She noticed his body, of course, the way his arms were carved and taut without flexing. She imagined how easy it would be for him to pick her up and lift her high above him, his strong hands on her hips. “Who the fuck is that?” Annette’s husband Mark had seen her looking at Lonny, had seen that look last a beat longer than he felt necessary. Mark was slight and grey, a wisp of hair combed over and matted to a scalp perpetually covered by a ball cap, which also covered a brow that seemed frozen into a scowl. Mark was a man who still brought up his three years in the Navy thirty years ago because for the thirty years since he had been a yard jockey at a furniture warehouse and the only thing that bored people more than his stories of banging girls in Australia was his stories of moving shipping containers from one part of the parking lot to another. Annette rolled her eyes. “For god’s sake, Mark.” “Well, the whole goddamn bar seen you drool over him. So who is it?” Mark sat back down beside her and spoke loud enough that the table next to them turned. Annette let out a little exasperated sigh. “Mark, please keep your voice down.” She smiled at him. “You know damn good and well who that is. That’s Clay and Velda Morton’s boy, Lonny. I taught him for two years and just hadn’t seen him since. Alright?” Mark looked at her. “Uh huh.” It was true, Annette had been a substitute teacher after the carpet factory moved overseas and she lost her job. Mark tried to do the math in his head, as to whether she might have been working when Lonny was still in school but couldn’t be sure. He took a slow draw on his beer, looked over at Lonny, now standing with a group of young men at the bar. He then stood and started making his way to them. “Mark!” Annette started to stand, sat back, started again. “Mark!” By then Mark had walked up to the bar, patted Lonny and another young man, Will Dawson, on the back and started a conversation. It was hard enough for Annette to see them through the Friday night crowd, and no way to know what they were saying. Mark was leaning against the bar now, facing Lonny, away from her. She watched, horrified, as Mark threw his thumb back over his shoulder and Lonny, a head taller than her husband, looked at her and grinned. Annette felt her eyes widen uncontrollably, before she gathered enough composure to smile as she brought up her hand to wave. By then Lonny had turned his eyes back down to her husband, and as she lowered her hand she saw him shake his head and shrug. Annette was almost shaking when Mark patted the young man again and started back. Mark sat back down at their table, grinning, and took a long pull of his beer. “What the hell was that about?” Annette demanded. Mark leaned back in his chair, directed his bottle towards the young men he had been speaking to. “Nice kids,” he said. “Especially your boy Lonny.” He turned towards her. “Did you know he failed his army physical?” He took another drink. “What?” “Yeah. We was just talking.” “Mark.” He turned to her. “He doesn’t remember you at all, honey.” Mark smiled and held his gaze. “No idea who you are.” Annette felt her cheeks redden, her eyes well with tears. “Excuse me.” She grabbed her hand bag and started towards the bathroom. Mark grinned and didn’t watch her leave. Moments later she was in the back parking lot, having used the perpetually broken emergency exit. Annette felt the breeze on her face and began crying more freely. She felt a sob coming and fought it back. She whispered, “asshole” to the thin air as she pulled a cigarette from her bag. “Asshole,” she said again. She sat on a little bench under a cottonwood tree out of the parking lot light and smoked. Five minutes passed and Annette was on her second cigarette when the back exit burst open. Will Dawson came backing out, drunk, laughing and yelling at someone just inside. He put a hand to the back wall and unzipped his pants. Annette rolled her eyes as she heard his stream of piss hit. While he was zipping up, the door swung open again. Lonny walked out and relieved himself as well. While he was zipping up he saw the cherry from Annette’s menthol brighten in the darkness. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I’m sorry; didn’t see you there.” Dawson looked at her and giggled. “Oops.” Annette smiled, though they didn’t know that. “Boys will be boys, I suppose,” she said. “Y’all know the door doesn’t open from this side, don’t you? You’ll have to go around the building. Dawson looked at the door. “Fuck.” Lonny began walking towards her. “What are you doing out here?” He walked over. “Oh,” he said. “I was just talking to your husband.” “I saw.” “So what are you doing out here?” “Just some fresh air. I’m headed back now.” The three of them walked carefully along the back wall and then a side fence, laughing and grabbing each other’s hands trying not to fall. When they reached the lit front of the building, Lonny held the door for Annette. Will Dawson saw someone in the lot and stumbled off towards them, so Lonny came in after her, careful not to bump his head on the door frame. Annette turned to him, gave a smile and a wave, and walked towards her table. She sat down, drank the last swig of beer, and said to a waitress passing by, “Hon, can you get me another?” Mark was animated in his anger. “What the fuck is going on?” Annette turned to him, feigning confusion. “What’s that?” “I saw you come in with him, goddamnit. Where the hell have you been?” “Who? Oh, Lonny? We were just out back.” Mark’s hands curled into fists as Annette continued. “I’m going to stay at Momma’s house tonight. Well, at least tonight.” “What the hell were you doing back there with him?” Annette smiled, leaned over to him, kissed his cheek. “I fucked him, honey. I fucked Lonny out back against the wall.” Travis Cravey is a maintenance man in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

CW: death/suicide. A bird of flame. A beast of heat. Mythical and magical with a dash of elegance. The Phoenix soars the open skies on a plane of fire, scorching his way through the night like a comet— But, frankly, he has had enough. The economy is in tatters. Bills are never ending. His back hurts when he wakes up. And things aren’t great at home with Mrs. Phoenix. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. The others have all faded into legend; the Griffin, a symbol of bravery and courage, adorned on shields and flags throughout the isles; the Minotaur went down in glorious battle, though he didn’t account for Theseus and that damn ball of string; the Sirens stuck around a while, but they couldn’t compete with the internet and instant gratification. The Hydra lasted the longest of them all, the many-headed and venomous serpentine who slithered and poisoned his way through history, ended up in a job with the Republican Party where he campaigned for the NRA and the pro-life crowd. Scurvy ultimately defeated the Hydra, withered and hollow from depositing all his poison into the entire branch of government until eventually it was a pointless exercise in futility. And yet, the Phoenix remains. A passenger in life, his flame down its embers and barely a spark. Bereft and despondent, the Phoenix turns to the bottle. Vodka, whiskey, even that damn ouzo that’s been sitting in the back of his cupboard since his last trip to Greece that he can’t stand the smell of… In one wild evening, he downs it all. The Phoenix staggers through the night, the moonlight his only companion, crying and singing in equal measure, until he comes to a solitary train track. The distant sound of thunder and metal can be heard, and he’s already made up his mind. The collision is sudden. There’s an explosion of feathers and fire, then there’s nothing at all. Nothing, besides a small collection of ashes by the side of the train tracks. Morning comes, and as the sun rises, so too do the ashes begin to spark and ignite. Suddenly, there’s a storm of fire, as flames swirl and leap, the ground is scorched with an intense heat, the very air itself burns to a crisp as from the ashes rise the Phoenix, magnificent and regal, reborn and given new life, and he looks to the sky, to the dawning of a new day, he cries out, “For God’s Sake, not again!” Samuel Edwards writes silly words and foolish stories, all in a vain attempt to be respected and adored. Please don't hold it against him. He has a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree from the University of Leeds, and is studying for a Masters in Creative Writing. Samuel writes primarily to impress his pet cat, a feat he will never accomplish. Previously published in Vestal Review, The Birdseed and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. Tweets at @Sam_Edwards1990.

Colder Playing Hot and Cold we hid a silver dollar and, being young, we heard no warning in the splutter hotter; we thought nothing of exhorting each other: You’re burning up, you’re burning up. Sometimes, I saw the coin resting perplexingly on the turntable’s dial and leaned away just to hear the syllable in slow motion: cold, the vowel gelid, a molecule made sluggish. Now imagine that coin to be a feeling–rage or grief or love, anything that might burn you up. I want to be colder. Hammer and Tongs Sing in me the brash effort: percussionists mid-melee– timpani mallets swung wide and wild, the gallop loosed on a boardwalk xylophone. Sing in me the crowded key, the dribble-drive, the pick-and-roll rodeo, the Musketeer, the Volunteer, Spartan and Trojan, Crimson Tide. Sing, O Muse, the smith forging horseshoes, magma omegas. Sing the smith drumming armor, cymbal on anvil. Sing in me, Muse, and I, too, will go at you hammer and tongs. Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, and TriQuarterly, as well as other journals and magazines.

“Loveen, sit down. We need to talk.” The old woman sits uninvited at your kitchen table in a torn grey pinafore and filthy shirt, her ratty white hair hanging down her curved back. You didn’t hear her come in. “Terrible things happened in there.” She points her bony finger at the Non-Offence Hibernian Official Psychiatric Establishment (NO HOPE), on whose grounds your house sits. She’s been coming a while now, ever since the baby was born. “Twas different in those days. It was an asylum to keep folks safe from lunatics, but there were more sane people in there than out here. People with depression, or fights over land, or even women going through the change. Nothing wrong with them, that was until they got at them with the electric shocks and the drug trials.” She touches her lined brow. “Wasn’t right what I saw in there. ’Twas cruel. Evil even.” You raise an eyebrow and she catches you with her bloodshot eyes. “All’s I did wrong was get pregnant at 16, wasn’t my fault. It was old Jack Flood’s. I wanted nothing to do with him but he forced himself on me. Daddy told Father Michael and they signed me in there. I had the baby with no help and no stitches, but they let me feed him. Oh, he was a gorgeous little fella, full of smiles. Adam, I called him. I fell in love and hope but a day short of his first birthday, I went to the nursery to feed him and his metal cot was empty. They’d sent him to America. I can still smell his warm, milky head. Nobody ever came to let me out. You had to be signed out you see. They left me in there to rot.” Cradling your hot mug, you wipe a tear as the November rain bashes the window panes. It’s only three o’clock but daylight deserts the small kitchen, replaced by a nuclear yellow glare from the lights in the six-storey, grey-bricked Victorian hospital over your garden wall. Your tummy cries out for the hot chocolate and you can’t recall when you last ate. Or slept. The baby cries out from upstairs and the only part of you still alive wants to die. She never stops crying. Colic, the doctors say. It will pass. “They’re here,” she says. The doorbell rings and you drop your mug. It smashes and boiling brown liquid splashes all over the filthy floor. You can’t recall when you last washed the floor tiles. Or the dishes. Or yourself. She reaches for your scalded hand. “Pet, listen to me. It’s the ambulance and they’re here to help you. You’re not well. Let them in like a good girl.” You dash out to the hallway where the baby’s screams fight for attention with the blue flashing lights of an ambulance. “I can’t leave the baby.” She’s behind you now. “The baby will be fine. Your mother will look after her.” When you turn to object, to say your mother couldn’t be on her way because she is dead over ten years, the old woman has vanished. That’s two years ago. Life is so much better since that day thanks to a combination of therapy, medication and plenty of fresh air. All was great until baby David arrived last month. He’s not sleeping, the doctors say it’s colic. Coming into the kitchen, you don’t have to look to know she’s there, even though you locked the door. She sits at your kitchen table in the same pinafore and shirt, her ratty white hair still hanging down her crooked back. “Loveen, sit down. We need to talk.” Wife to Brendan and mother to three taller people ranging in ages from 12 to 20; Working with a publisher on a psychological thriller, currently named Listen, about a deaf child who goes missing. Published in Roi Faineant Press, Paragraph Planet, Friday Flash Fiction, Voidskrawl and Boats against the current. Winner of Winners Flash Fiction 2022 – Fiction Factory (fiction-factory.biz) Serious fiction: Twitterature winner 2022 Joint 2nd place: Andrew Siderius Memorial Writing Poetry Contest 2022 Editor’s choice https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/jan-and-all-her-kids-by-lorraine-murphy Mostly trying to overcome the fear and do it anyway.

Central Park Right below the Central Park Reservoir on a hot summer night, and the sex wasn’t even that great. We are dressed in our finest, our downtown-NYC, age-early-30s finest. You–jacket, cotton button-down, jeans. Me–plum-colored thrift shop dress, wrap around with a flared skirt, violet stockings, and those shoes!, royal blue, bright bright blue, with heels, my favorites. We walk out of a Museum del Barrio exhibition opening, between 104th and 105th Streets on Fifth Avenue, stepping into the warm night. There is wine drinking and a crowd behind us, Central Park in front of us, sparse traffic on Fifth. We’re expectant, quiet, rolling across Fifth and down the broad sidewalk next to the Park. We head for the Reservoir. Too much to think about whose home we might end up at or even whether we’re going to spend the night together. We’re not a couple, although we’ve been friends a long time and this now is a date. Very much a date. It’s charged. We enter the Park below 96th and make it as far as the bushes below the Reservoir path. My memory is hazy here. I don’t remember discussing it much. But somehow we decide we want to fuck under the bushes. Like a dare. Cutting through the what are we to each other. I’m exhilarated. I love sex outdoors. I peel up my dress and take off my pantyhose and shoes. You’re fast with your shoes and your jeans. You take a condom out of your wallet. I like the readiness about you. We’re surprisingly hidden under the bush. Anyone could see us who tried to. But from the sidewalk, no. Not from the Reservoir, either. They’d have to be cutting through the bushes like we did. We grope and we kiss and we fondle. We finger. Stroke. It doesn’t take much. We’re each already turned on. And then I’m lying on my back and you’re on top. We do it straight up. But the sex, the sex isn’t all that. I’m distracted by the twigs, small stones, and dirt on the back of my legs and butt. Your movements, they seem studied to me, like you’re dancing. Controlled. Your skin is white and cold. Clammy, even. You come, I don’t, you offer to go down on me. But I’m fine with the adventure and want to get my shoes back on. The shoes now are more clear to me in the memory than the sex. That royal blue. I find them, leave the stockings, put the shoes back on. I have a warm glow, but I want to go home now, alone. We share a cab. I love the air. Flagstaff Reservoir All water on skin and bright, clear light and Arizona heat. Ten years earlier. I have a summer job at the Museum of Northern Arizona and am living with other staff on the grounds. I’ve turned down an underpaid summer internship at the Met for this. With the Flagstaff salary plus the living space, I’d come out ahead. The MNA does field biology and archaeology more than cultural heritage, so most of the summer staff count birds or work on digs, and the grounds, outside Flagstaff, stretch for 200 acres on the Colorado Plateau. The Flagstaff Reservoir sits on the grounds. We summer staffers are in our twenties, and it doesn’t occur to us that our bodies could be unclean. Someone has furrowed under one part of the Reservoir fence, and at dusk or later at night we belly through in groups to skinny dip in the Reservoir. Dusk is the best, with enough light out to look up at the mountains, the San Francisco Peaks, while we swim. The water is so clean. The air sharp. I love to swim. The release. The full feelings of the skin all over, while letting go of some of the body’s encumbrances. The grace of back stroke while looking up at the sky, the ease of breast stroke. Looking out at the woods and the peaks with the cool water flowing over me. Feeling strong in the water, unlike my clumsy self on land. I couldn’t go in alone because the drop off was steep getting in and out of the Reservoir, and we couldn’t leave anyone in alone in case they were too tired to get out. So, naked and swimming, we were together. The Michigan Shore I want to go skinny dipping now with Bruce. We’re old and no longer have our youthful arrogance to cover us when we strip our clothes. I have less modesty and more than when I was young. Less because this is my body, and I like it, and I feel lucky to be alive. More because I know if we were caught, there could be derision: what are these old people doing naked in the water? We’re living in Holland, MI, I imagine. Still getting back often to Chicago to do the READINGS series—and stretching those wine-soaked readings events to Grand Rapids, Holland, and Saugatuck as well. I’m writing up a storm. Bruce is doing his tap. And teaching a tap class for beginners, one that folds in history of tap with blues and swing, racial conflicts and triumphs. We’re relieved to like it up here. It’s summer and it’s HOT. The beach at Holland State Park is full of tourists. Nice, too, though. But so hot during the day. We wait ’til the evening, and head to a lesser-known beach, the North Ottawa Dunes, on the way north to Grand Haven. There’ll be beach patrol, but maybe they’ll ignore us old people. We get there, park, no patrol that we can see. The air is thick but clean. Not much wind. We take off our shoes, I put my walking sticks with them. We leave our pants too, and our towel. Maybe in the dark Bruce’s shorts can look like a bathing suit, my underwear like a bathing suit bottom. I take off my t-shirt too. I have a sports bra underneath, with material enough to look like a bathing suit top, if we get stopped. We walk to the water, wade in. Bruce is happy to let the wavelets wash over his feet and calves, just the massage he needs with his dancing and running. I look around, really—no one. I hand him my sports bra. Ah, it feels good to be naked on top. Like when I was a kid and my family lived in the sticks. It was so empty I could run around without a shirt like my brothers until I was 5. I love to swim. I dive in. Bruce keeps an eye out. No big undertow here, I don’t think. I stay close in any case. Lake Michigan is a sea, a huge one with tides and undercurrents. Near the shore, welcoming water, no fear. Water cooler than the air. Soothing water. And I’m weightless, my breasts bobbing, my legs frog kicking, my arms reaching up and out. The water holds me up, frees my joints. My body. I swim back, he fingers me in the shallows. The sex, the cool water, our bodies, the hot night air. Maud Lavin runs the READINGS series of creative nonfiction and poetry at Chicago's Printers Row Wine, edits, and writes. Her work has appeared in the Nation, Chicago Artist Writers, Portable Gray, Artforum, and other venues, and is forthcoming in Harpy Hybrid Review and Rejection Letters. Her most recent book, Boys' Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols, was nominated for a Lambda, and an earlier one, Cut with the Kitchen Knife, was named a New York Times Notable Book. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a person with disabilities.

Sometimes I’m a fire you say, distant stare you’re thinking of oil slick, flame lit, tossing black clouds upward to an unreachable sun Sometimes you’re a fire I say, loving gaze I’m thinking of hearth warm when I’m day worn your embers crackling sending fireflies to the stars Sometimes we’re a fire we say, heated daze we’re thinking of dripping sweat, cool sheets wet with the window open so the moon can look on Sometimes we were a fire we say, wistful glance we’re remembering hot nights, cooled fights, not little moments spreading like fading ripples in a pond L.M. Cole is an emerging poet from the American Midwest. She has had work published in Strukturris Magazine, Substantially Unlimited, and once won 1st place in a fan-fiction writing contest at a North Dakota anime convention. She is a mother of three, owned by a cat, and is in the midst of moving across the country to heed the call of the sea. Twitter is @_scoops__

I kissed a girl here, our first lips were sour and tight; our tongues dead weight. (where to breathe?) (How to hold my head?) She bit me. I laughed and we continued. Long walks led to longer looks. Soundtracks echoed around us, as eventually we become fragrant and loose, lived in. We became dances we didn’t know we knew. We were sighs. On buses, sandy blankets, stolen sofas, and the neighbors sprinkled lawns. We were unaware that sun was going down around us until, unable to feel the heat we folded into night. Tim Moder is an Indigenous poet living in northern Wisconsin. He is a member of Lake Superior Writers. His poems have appeared in Penumbra Online, Paddler Press, Tigermoth Review, Sisyphus, and others.

I try to wrestle Your naked body Out of my mind Hold the door Open wide And tell you Firmly yet Eyes lingering That you should go (Looks at chest) That it’s a bad idea (Looks at cock) That someone will get hurt (Looks at mouth) That it’s madness (Looks at cock again) But you hang around And I let you I shut the door And I let you Inside.

Charlie only liked it when it was easy. Lukewarm bourbon whiskey out of a water bottle in the backseat of a Chevy easy. Pink panties around his throat like a badge of honor easy. Slow-motion, one-step-forward-and-two-back, meaningless kind of easy. Becky used to feel easy. She sat beside him now in the backseat of an ’‘85 Impala, waist-down naked and skin burned from seat fabric in the weighted heat of early August. Dusk was no reprieve from the stale-air static. When he’d pulled the car over and put his hand on her thigh, he felt her warmth pulling him in, blending with the relentless sun sinking behind the cornfield hills of home. She looked damn good too; plaid shirt still undone because he’d torn one of the buttons in the heat of the moment, still hadn’t had time to apologize (he wasn’t big on apologies anyway). She was a tousled wave of blonde atop a soft frame, lips smeared and sullen, clamped now around a cigarette while she toyed with her lighter. “Get that shit off your neck!” Charlie had been pretending to search for her missing button awash in the beige sea of the car’s interior, watching her closely out of the corner of his eye. He flicked the lace waistband of her panties her direction. “Why? Not my color?” Becky blew a smoke ring out the window and smiled. “Out of your price range.” She used her free hand to pull them from his neck and tossed them on the seat. “You look like a damn fool.” Charlie had grown up along the interstate in a town dotted with heifer farms and trailer parks. His dad had run a walk-through lane out their back door selling whatever substance the neighborhood demanded, but if you asked him, he’d tell you he was in the business of freedom. No one asked though; he was a loud man with a quick temper. Charlie’s mom was gone before he knew her, waist-length blonde braid and an old-school apron, backing down the driveway silent and wide-eyed, a child herself running from a monster. He didn’t remember much about her, but he liked her, liked knowing what he could expect from her. She kept it easy. Charlie uncapped the water-bottle bourbon he was still a year too young to buy. He had stolen it from his job at Jaycee’s Diner in hopes of impressing Becky, forgetting she was never impressed. A swig went down hot and fierce; he grimaced, offering the bottle to her. She waved him off. “I’m good. I’ve got stuff to do later.” A second swig burned worse than the first. “Yeah? What do fancy college girls do in their hometown after dark?” Becky narrowed her eyes but didn’t look at him. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll climb some trees.” They had climbed trees together in their neighborhood until they were about 9. She was sweet and simple then, two pigtails and a voice rarely raised above a whisper, asking no questions and offering no answers. A knotted, gnarled pine was always their favorite, covered in knuckles like a punch frozen in time, cocked and ready but more bluster than bite. He’d race her up the trunk, beat her every time, and use his position above the rest of the world to coax her up a few branches higher than she was comfortable with. He’d extend his hand; she’d take it reverently. But pine is weak and prone to splinter, and one day the branch broke underneath her, sending two pigtails to a bed of needles nearly fifteen feet below. A couple that lived nearby came to clean up the mess, a busted shoulder and some bloodied knees. It wasn’t easy. Charlie looked away and it took years for him to look her direction again. He leaned his head back on the seat, watching the road for cops with nothing better to do than harass them. There was hardly any traffic on this old road, and he’d see it coming if there was. “Well, you should know they took that old pine down a couple years back.” “Did they? Good. It was cursed.” Becky exhaled and a puff of smoke filled the cab, lingering in the stillness like a whitewashed swarm of bees. “So what does that leave you to do with all of your time now?” Charlie raised his hands as if some evidence were on display. “Little of this, little of that. You’d know if you came back from the city more often. Sorority girl, right?” The words tasted a little bitter, so he followed them up with a smile, resting the plastic bottle on his bare knee. Becky fixed her eyes on him before rolling them. They were almond-shaped and large enough to show Charlie his reflection, even in the dimming light. She was a beautiful, somber ghost in the hollow hallways of his past—the places he still lived in secret, the rooms he almost felt her pulling him from. “What’s that got to do with anything?” “Everything. It took you away from this shithole where you should be.” “And away from you.” Her voice was hard, wise, pouring from a place he’d only wondered if she had in her. “I’m guessing that’s also where you think I should be.” The bitter taste was now shared between them like the sickly sweet flavor of her lipgloss circling the rim of his mouth; still sticky, unconcealed. He caught the jarring pale of his nudity and adjusted his boxer shorts. “You really wanna talk about all of that now?” “I want to talk about something now!” There it was: some fire burned inside of her that he both sensed and ignored, wanted and loathed. The night after they graduated from high school, Charlie’s dad split his lip. Something about missing money escalated into something about a missing childhood, and he paid the price for observation with a closed-fisted punch to the mouth. His dad told him to take it like a man and passed out in his recliner. Charlie found Becky under the still-standing pine, all of its fists useless in the blackness, and she pressed her fingers to his lip to stop the bleeding. She had asked no questions and offered no answers, and he let his hand run up her thigh then too. Then pink lace, then his half-swollen mouth on her neck, then the thunderbolt reality that he probably loved her a little bit. It wasn’t easy. Charlie smirked at her now, his mouth twisted into something ugly. “I don’t.” Becky stubbed out her cigarette and reached into the pack for another, a habit he thought she’d picked up lounging around the university green with the intellectual types. He pictured writers and painters packing her bedroom, a constant rotation of bare chests and arched backs that felt like something, meant something, would mean more to her than him. “That’s not a surprise, but I do. You barely spoke after-” “Stop.” Charlie was startled by his own seriousness. The whiskey had burned a tunnel straight to his belly, and he felt like he was overheating. He wanted to do something, anything to break the tension, so he grabbed his tee shirt and threw it on over his head. Becky sighed and he knew she knew him but it didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, mattered too much to matter. “You do what you want, but you’re not going to be cruel to me.” Charlie buried his father two weeks before. It was a small memorial service played out in a cold, fluorescent-lit room, a too-tight rented suit and a sick stomach. They’d asked him to speak and he declined, said he didn’t know the man that well, hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. It wasn’t true, but the truth was irrelevant. Becky’s folks offered gentle platitudes - “He was just Dave, man, he did everything his own way!” - but she watched him, almond-eyed and silent, asking no questions and offering no answers. He made it easy, the casket closed just like his mouth. But pine is weak and prone to splinter, and maybe it wasn’t all buried away, dirt-caked and devoured by worms. Two more silent swigs. He felt low now, knowing he’d hurt her, knowing he would probably do it again. He softened his tone, reaching for a glimmering button just under the right shoe he still had on. He tossed it to her. “Found it. Sorry about that.” Becky ignored him for a while and traced the path of a lightning bug in the weeds with her forefinger. “You’ll figure it out someday. Probably when it’s too late.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” She swung the rear door open, the antique handle clicking on release, and emerged from the car bare-assed and barefoot on the gravel. Every curve of her body was ignited by the sun’s last stand, having dropped just low enough in the sky to meet her. She leaned in, left her panties but grabbed her jeans, and slipped them over her legs in the comfort of a brazen upright. Her cigarette still clamped firm and burning, she avoided his gaze and fought with her zipper. When she spoke, her voice was muffled and edgy, like a live wire in plastic casing. “That you’re an actor in your own life.” Tiffany M Storrs is the editor in chief of Roi Fainéant Press. She is a writer above most other things, but there are so many other things, and she is properly qualified for none of those titles. She loves a lot of stuff but we're not going to get into all of that now. You can find her on Twitter @msladybrute, on Instagram @lady.brute, and out back honing her wit.

These colors don’t run, which is to say this criss-crossed flag, this faux heritage, this emblem of pride, white superiority seems to mean something to your grandfather, the man who refused to spare the rod nor spoil your father, who in turn sold you the bill of inherited trauma, high cholesterol, misogyny. All these emotional debts and miseries shared, revered, all in the name of some form of twisted tradition. These colors don’t run except for the lives of my partners, my beautiful sons, my beloved brown cousins as we run from you, your stepdaddy, and fathers. Because familial ties bound and conscripted you to stay watching, and stay conditioned to be something–anything as long as it was the same as they are. History wound deep through this hate, this tree built on pain, stolen lands, genetic memories. Noose slug low enough to rub raw our necks, I can feel your blood ebb as you see me, forever edging closer. You hoist the flag and party line in haste. Fires travel across California, history books, family folklore from Grandmama too dotted with white crosses, the flames lick the sky, I see you, I see you, I see you. These colors don’t run except when the blood of my loved ones is visible. That is to say, their colors— insides turned out, red in the streets of your blue-blooded, white-hooded, All Lives Matter, thin blue line, strange Southern flag waving in the polluted winds of backwards racial rhetoric. No darlin, it seeps. These colors don’t run, you say, but to me, these colors, these stripes of indignity, simply cannot further stay. Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra (She/Her) is a writer based out of central Texas who enjoys a great tall tale and a medium iced coffee. Her work centers around identity, cultural phenomena, and embracing the past. Her photography and writing can be found on twitter (mel_the_puma) and in Blood Orange Review, You Might Need to Hear This, Oklahoma Today, Emerson Review, Hobart and many other obscure publications scattered throughout the globe.

In his transcendental state, what must he have felt, did he retreat to his hermitage in the lonely mountains? As the glowing flames licked his blistering skin, did memories of the cool mountain mists ease the pain? The billowing acrid black smoke from his burning flesh, slowly snaked in the air and entwined with the fetid heat of noisy Saigon. As the world watched the grainy images flickering on screen, his stoic reverence jarringly juxtaposed the rampant chaos of his surroundings. His orange robes falling away like embers in a forest fire, and there he sat, a majestic oak, lost in the flames. Not flinching as the heat greedily stole the air from his burning lungs, impassive and serene like the mountains he had returned too. Unaware of the sirens and the horrified screams, as he now walked peacefully in the cloud-filled valleys of the mountain near Ninh Hoa.

Mr. Sharples surveyed the wreck of his once immaculate science classroom. He rubbed his blackened fingers against each other, but this just spread the soiling around. Today had been horrendous, worst in his career. He wandered outside and sat on the grassy verge, replaying the events in his mind. Even now, after the fire alarm had long been shut down, he could still hear its echoes ringing. Perhaps in some ways, he always would. The children stood messily in threes and fours. They kicked the gravel on the all-weather pitch, laughing, joking, taking pictures. He couldn’t tell if this was bravado or just their natural immaturity, handling the situation in the way they saw best. They seemed oblivious to the risks that he took being last out of the building. As soon as the alarm sounded, he had been ready to walk them out under his guidance to the marshalling point. Once they were all at a safe and measured distance, he was able to regain his composure a little. He knew there would be people watching him in this moment of crisis, knowing his past, wondering if he would cope. Still shaking slightly, Miss Fey, the school administrator had handed him a green plastic student list folder with the smallest nod. As she handed it over their fingers touched briefly. He knew what that meant. He worried she would not have seen the black dust that had transferred from his hands to hers in that brief touch. He wondered if she still loved him. Taking the register was like a weary roll call after a gun battle. He knew all the children were safe, but the nagging doubt still teased him. He completed the task twice over to make sure. Later, he waited in the car park to see that all the children were collected, that there were no cars left waiting for a missing person. Just his car remained. The journey home that evening seemed to be a film on fast forward. His clothes were acrid and would need to be thrown out, he may as well have burned them too. He made some dinner but was unable to force it down. The choking dryness in his throat kept pushing his mind back to that morning. He kept imagining himself reading out the register to find that Marsha or Emily didn’t respond, or John Bairstow had been late again and had unknowingly walked straight into a searing wall of flames. If anything had happened to those children. It didn’t bear thinking about. There was a regular gas supply to the science block. He enjoyed the experiments using Bunsen burners, base metals. Energy transfer. As soon as those gas tanks were hit, he knew there would be nothing left. If any child had been left in there it would be as if they had been wiped off the face of the earth. All the love, care and attention held tight in a young life simply vanished away. Mr. Sharples lifted his head from his lolled back position on the sofa. He knew he needed to distract himself. He wondered how they would manage the end of year exams now, and whether the children would be able to study. He took himself to the garage and spent the next couple of hours cleaning the car. There was something soothing about the familiar smell of wax and chamois. He even got the vacuum cleaner out and gave it a full valet and became irritated at those carpets in the boot and seat wells. It was as if dirt and hair was part of the material itself. If you had asked him, he couldn’t have told you what time he finished that evening, or what time he went to bed. He felt outside of himself, as if coming round from a feint. In some ways this was a helpful distraction from the shock of the afternoon. Exhausted after the cleaning and scrubbing, he burned some whisky down, and collapsed into bed. Next morning, the alarm triggered two hours early so he could start the day's ablutions. He showered much longer than normal and found fresh clothes ready and waiting in the wardrobe. He was refreshed and determined to hold it together for the sake of the kids. He had to be that rock, steady, dependable. The choking throat feeling had abated, his breakfast of bacon was good. He straightened his tie in the mirror and headed back to the school. Perhaps a new temporary classroom could be found to continue his teaching. The car radio was playing his wife’s favourite song. In fact, as he recalled it had been played for their first dance at the wedding. He had been in a state of bliss then. The years after had felt like being stuck in a burning building, a melting and diminishing of his very self, down to its base metals, the extinguished spark. He wondered if Miss Fey would be in school today. He remembered the way she had nodded at him when she handed over the register, how it gave him hope. He glanced round the immaculate interior of the car with pride, smoothing down his pristine new shirt and tie. He allowed himself a half smile. He felt signs of the mental scars and wounds of the last few years ebbing. He would tell them in the staff room how his wife had left him and moved away. He would be hopeful the fire investigator wasn’t overly thorough. On his anniversary, he would allow himself to reminisce. How he rose from the ashes of his marriage. At night, he would make love to Miss Fey and feel light-headed. In his dreams, he would catch the faintest scent of burning flesh from within the science cupboard as he escorted the precious children out of the classroom. Gavin Turner is a writer and poet from Wigan, England. Gavin has been published in several journals. His chapbook, 'The Round Journey' was published in April 2022.