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Dance shoes awaken to jolts and pounding, shaken alive on the factory floor. In our case, we were also enveloped in a strange mist that seeped into our flesh, smelling of rotten meat. Like all things, I believe we were intended for good, but the factory was overrun by something that was not, and it got into our soles, the pores, the spaces in between the faux leather. From the breakroom, a haze hovered just over the smell of someone’s cooked entrée: a microwaved lasagna, a chicken pot pie—the only comfort pouring through. Then, it was quickly erased by a presence that stepped into us with rotten toes, invisible but squirming like worms. It left quickly, most likely hoping to leave an impression—one meant, I suppose, to turn us out—to cause us to infect the next one to step into us. But something else happened instead. We became more aware, awake, began to learn a language not quite spoken, one that feeds the soles of the people who wear us to dance. # We heard the rhythm of her feet first—a fast step, step, step, slide—and his: shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, step—and we knew they were together, but slowly drifting apart. And here we were, on the second shelf of the walk-in closet, bought for one purpose, but forgotten. At the first quick, step, step, slide, we made our move, willing ourselves to lean and tip over the edge, to make the impact we knew we had inside us since our first jostling awake—and we tumbled to the floor. We felt ourselves lifted into the air and set on the shelf, but in those fingers—her fingers—we felt the vibration, the first pulse. But it was empty, fed only on celery or water or tomato juice, mixed perhaps with too much wine. Then, we heard him: shuffle, shuffle, step, step, and we tumbled to the floor again. But this time, when he lifted us, we stayed mid-air, and in the pulse of his fingers, we felt an unnerving energy, fed with too much salt, butter, and flour. We dropped down at her feet, and she stepped into us, and we closed in, expanding the lining, pushing up under the arches. She moved back with the right foot, and he moved forward with the left. The pause in between was the silence where the music should have been. His feet shifted to the left, and she shifted right with an extra step that shouldn’t have been—vibrations traveling along the floor, our interior lining swelling. We pushed back, but the rhythm changed and stopped. She took us off and threw us at the wall. His feet shuffled off, unsteady. She moved in staccato steps that burst forward, ending in profound weeping. And we heard his “hush,” and his awkward gait, and we felt him picking us up and placing us at her feet again. She stepped in. We tasted the salt tears and expanded, and as her left foot moved forward, we pushed her toes closer to his, until the two of them formed a firm line, toe-to-toe, the pulsing of her heart matching his, at rest, in each other’s arms. The salt dried, with each new step, matched by a breath, the music where the silence once lived. Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) taught English composition/literature and Spanish language/literature in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family, which includes a very demanding cat. Since 2017, she has published her stories in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and England. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Coffin Bell, Idle Ink, Tiny Molecules, Streetcake Magazine, Wrongdoing Magazine, Rejection Letters, Open Minds Quarterly, Headway Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, Kandisha Press, Ghost Orchid Press, and others. The Places We Haunt (2020) is her first short story collection. Additionally, she thoroughly enjoys being a volunteer adult beverages columnist for The Daily Drunk, a proofreader for Flash Fiction Magazine, and a concept editor for Running Wild Press. Twitter: @ckennedyhola

There were worms in Trajuni’s eyes, but she ignored them for a few weeks because she had too much laundry busying her arms. She had too much half-rotten food in the fridge and too little sleep to consider that she might have cause for concern. About a month in, the worms began to dance and she began to count them. Eleven. She picked her eyelashes bald as she combed them clean again and again. “It’s probably just dust or old make-up stuck in there and catching the sun in an unlucky way. Allergies or something.” She rubbed her eyelids until they started to bruise. While buying new sheets Trajuni watched one body split in two, the sight of the shapes swimming apart made all the clearer by the bright white of the plastic-wrapped linen. Twenty-four. “I’ve gotta go see a nurse.” The nurse wasn’t in, but a doctor informed Trajuni that she had floaters—microscopic broken or dead or concentrated spots casting shadows in her vision that only she could see. “They come with age.” Not worth repairing. Showing mercy through medicine, the doctor tapped out a prescription to kill Trajuni’s butterflies. “This should help to level your moods.” Worms in the eyes remind you that time is running out. The unaffected worms began to chew away at the fantasy-vision Trajuni had so lovingly assembled. Doing the laundry became impossible as squirming spots of dirt never washed clean. “Why bother?” Trajuni left the clothes to mold in the machine, hoping that time would force them down the drain. The meals she prepared churned with maggots that vanished when she picked at them with her fingers. The worms bred in the morning and spent the afternoon eating away at the ceramic dinner sets Trajuni no longer had the energy to scrub. The white walls of the house became mirrors for the colony of invaders; the ceiling a stage for the entrancement of their captive audience. Fifty-five. It became too much and Trajuni moved towards the sun. Maybe the air and more medication and the earth would heal her spirit. Flat on her back, Trajuni watched the clouds pass by. “There’s a bear, and there’s a baby smiling as she watches it. A dove and a fish.” A whistle in the dandelion patch beside her turned her head. A robin hopped and sang and reminded her that maybe it’s not so bad, to be here growing slowly older. A few downy feathers stuck out from the brown bird’s neck, its red heart pulsing against Trajuni’s stinging eyes. It came closer. “You can see what’s pure and true in me, what I am, worms and all.” Its beady, black stare reflected the sunlight back to her, revealing nothing of the robin’s own soul. Letting out its soft too-da-loo it plunged its beak into her left eye. The robin dug out the worms, pulling away the iris and the stems before flying off to spit the mush down the throats of its nearly-naked offspring. Trajuni layin shocked stillness, her hazy world with all of its pestilence suddenly swallowed by light and the hungry mouths of ugly, flightless things. Eyes licked clean as dinner plates, she rolled over and up and crawled on all fours in the direction she imagined would lead her home. One-by-one six little birds choked up their guts, their sick full of worms and veins and prescription pills. They quit their crying out and died while Trajuni wandered into the street. Mar Ovsheid is a spoilsport who doesn't like to run or drive. She's had poetry and fiction published on-and-offline under a variety of names (real and made-up) since 2013 in publications such as DoveTales/Writing for Peace, Midway Journal, and Spark: A Creative Anthology. So you might've met before, but it's alright if you both forget. Mar works as a housekeeper and has her high school diploma.

We don’t hear the door or his footsteps over the music and our laughter. “Oh, for fucks sake,” Mitchell says after walking through the door and looking into the living room. “Mitchell!” I exclaim, jumping up from the couch, knocking over my full glass of red wine onto the new carpet. Shirtless, I run into the kitchen, grabbing salt, carpet cleaner, and paper towels. I almost forgot that less than two minutes ago, my husband of sixteen years discovered me half-dressed, drinking cabernet on the couch with our younger daughter’s basketball coach. But I knew if I let the stain set on the rug, Mitchell would be pissed. “Get out of my house,” Mitchell says. Kevin remains silent and doesn’t move for several seconds, watching me on my hands and knees tending to the rug. “Abby,” Kevin begins. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!” Mitchell bellows. “Please Kevin, just go,” I say, vigorously rubbing at the stain. But the maroon blotch is winking back at me, taunting and accusing me with its hue and size. And no matter how hard I press and rub, I understand this wine’s splatter will remain on this rug. I hold my breath a little as Kevin moves past Mitchell to reach the door, half-expecting or maybe even hoping Mitchell will punch Kevin in the face out of jealousy or latent affection. But he won’t, of course; Mitchell doesn’t like a mess. ~~~~~~~~~ Almost a year later, I can barely see anything but a graying kidney-shaped stain on the living room carpet. The rest of my furniture fades into the background as I sit on the floor, considering my life. I try and think back to the earliest happy memory I have in this room, but my thoughts always come back to the rug and the sadness from a stain I know too well. The girls are still angry with me. They say they can't trust me anymore, sounding more like their father than themselves. But they couldn't know the excruciating details—the whispered criticism, silent treatment, or behind-the-scenes arguments because Mitchell insisted the girls never see or hear our marriage in disarray. So, I stifled unhappy feelings and memories until a deep resentment grew, and eventually, I began to drink—a lot. The girls say they can barely recall a time when I didn't drink. They claim they don't remember the crafts we made together, the giggles and stories at bedtime, or the many field trips I chaperoned. And, as the months went on, every time I thought the carpet's stain might finally begin to fade, I would find myself entrenched in its chaotic story again. Mitchell won’t let me replace the stained rug; he says it’s because it’s too expensive. But really, it’s his way of reminding me of the mess I had made. And Mitchell doesn’t like a mess. Margo covers her stains with laughter. She has worked in urban education for over thirty years and is the mother of two amazing daughters and to the love of her life and best rescue dog ever, Harley. Besides the always amazing Roi Fainéant Press, some of Margo's stories have appeared or will soon appear in interesting places such as Twin Pies Literary, Bullshit Lit, Bending Genres, A Thin Slice of Anxiety and Bear Creek Gazette.

ABOUT THE ONE WHO ONCE HELD MY HAND..... Now that our story is heretofore done and dusted May I wangle my way into finding the courage to tell it as it was ..../ Our audience might groove or not at our misfortunes But for the purpose of goodwill let's not hold anything against them..../ This is an all too common saga so if any expects something unheard before then the disappointment that is coming to them I do not envy......../ It begins with how I was once a tender amorous individual Like a crazed besotted nincompoop I aspired to be with a forbidden one........./ He was an aesthetic one to say the least so my spooky fixation was not unfounded at any one point...../ The god of a Man collared my flimsy heart And hid it in the cavernous confines of his....../ Like yarned libel our love account seemed unreal Like a spiel our recital of endearment sounded scarcely Improbable ........../ Our travels to the unknown was always beers and skittles Our search for the unseen a kaleidoscope for a future we did not have..../ Maybe this is why it eluded us The signs all laid bear In plain sight we remained blind to..../ The prepossessing bubble of infatuation...a misdirect The promise of forevermore when our lips came together....a delusion...../ Our partiality to each other was an interdicted tale....... Our inclination to one another an amnesic action.... Because we forgot where we came from two geezers can never hold hands......../ TO THE ONE I LOST Nowadays, My soul is nothing but a sight of pule Like my eyes were when They saw you for the last time. Me and you, a leman and her rib Once floating through our blessed entity Like the Himalayan winds unconscious Of the trammels ahead.... All while caressing in our tiny crib in The city under the sun....Nairobi. My memories follow our peregrination Our ill-fated sail How we held on to each other Like a promise, like a gist. Our hands always together In a fist of romance. Our lips touching Your smile of pleasure Your eyes a picture Of fulfillment, of joy. I played blind Love and the future Are always held In the same guise. Frank Njugi (He /Him) is a Writer, Poet and Screenwriter based in Nairobi Kenya. His work has been featured on platforms such as KalahariReview, AfroRep, FieryScribe review, Writers space Africa (PoeticAfrica), Zeitgeistpulse of culture, Mental Rhythm Magazine and is forthcoming in others. He goes as @franknjugi on all platforms....

Tide ebbs, exposes the rocky shore and the stranded detritus of the voyage. The smell of the sea lingers, like the memory of an evening enjoyed with friends in a room just out of reach until the eyes close and summoning voices are left to lead the way. Lungs forget their deepness, breath becomes an intermittent breeze that gentles, gathers itself before it breathes again. Hands, cool to the touch, tug and clutch but cannot stop the retreat of water that once carried them, a bloom on amniotic seas, from the place of their beginning. The mouth softens to a closing sigh so quiet, the watchers do not hear it go. Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. She lives in Dorset. Her debut collection, A Landscape With Birds will be published by Hedgehog Press later this year.

The sun beat down on my dangling corpse. With visitors long since gone, I’m left in isolation, suffocating on a cross. Don’t call me a messiah. Will my followers construct religions in my name? Erect buildings in my honor? Will they misunderstand what I’ve said? My father promised to look after me when aborted me from his kingdom. He promises a lot of things, and he’s not so different from Zeus or Jupiter. But when you’re a god, you make up the rules as you go, especially if you’re an omniscient tyrant. It must be hard to be a god. Who would want to be such a creature anyway? To never want for anything, to know everything, and while everything changes, you remain a freak disjointed from existence. An ontological schizoid. “Father, have you forsaken me?” I sat back when he tortured Job, and for what? To win a bet he knew he’d win? What lesson should Job have learned other than the being he worshipped was a monster? And is there anything more heinous than asking someone—just as a test—to prove loyalty by killing your own child? I think back to the Garden of Eden. Back to when my Father exiled Adam and Eve, and for what? Eating an apple? Disobeying an order? The story goes Adam and Eve had no concept of good and evil, so punishing them is a reflection of my Father’s ineptitude. One doesn’t blame a table if it breaks, one blames the craftsman for poor work. I’m the symbol of a metaphysical criminal. The land is baren upon this hill. Rome carries on without me. My mother is gone. My disciples absent. “Father, have you forsaken me?” The wind whispers nothing. But as I hang dying, what am I dying for? A people who don’t care? A political cause? Original sin? Why would anyone have to die for these? Why do I bleed for these people? I think of Judas. Is he eaten up by guilt? I suspect people will blame him for my condition, or worse, the Jewish people, but it’s not their fault. Aren’t most people cowards? Wouldn’t you do much the same in his position? If blame is to be placed, again, it’s at my father’s own castrated notion of morality. “Father, have you forsaken me?” The wind whispers nothing. Night comes and washes over me. My death should be insignificant. Countless people die on crosses, nothing makes me special? A woman approaches and informs me I’ll forever be remembered I cry. They will lie. They will say my death is significant. They will tell tales of how heroic I was. A part of me thinks they’ll let me slip into oblivion, sands washing through my skull holes, lost in the recesses of history. But deep down, in places I don’t want to admit, I know this is a lie. They’ll construct religions, idols, and wage wars in my name. I’m the sacrificial lamb for cosmic nonsense. The woman kneels down and looks up starryeyed. My tears pour like rain from a cracked sky. “Father, why have you forsaken me?” I take three last breaths. Sebastian Vice is the Founder of Outcast Press devoted to transgressive fiction and dirty realism. He has short fiction and poetry has been published in Punk Noir Magazine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Outcast Press, Terror House Magazine, Bristol Noir, and Misery Tourism. He contributed a chapter to Red Sun Magazine's forthcoming book The Hell Bound Kids (May 1st, 2022) and writes a regular column called "Notes of A Degenerate Dreamer" over at A Thin Slice of Anxiety. His flash piece "One Last Good Day" was nominated for Best of The Net 2021. His debut poetry book Homo Mortalis: Meditations on Memento Mori was released April 4th, 2022 through Anxiety Press.

And the guilt sticks, like oily black mud on the soles of your shoes Walked through the house, ugly stains imprinted, reminders of your failings Lingering mockingly, faded but visible Stop and stare as the guilt chillingly engulfs All sound and sense drowned in the silent suffocation of that moment

I wake and hear birds calling the day into being. It drifts like steam from my morning coffee, into my mouth. Summer is a lump in my throat. A word from the author: A small poem about the chronic I experience from endometriosis.

Beautiful birds that brighten dull and gloomy British winters With weird and wonderful names Were those who named them drunk or starving? How many types of finches and tits? Makes me chuckle when I hear, read, say those names But leave those crazy humans aside for a moment Does a tit know that we call it a tit? Does it care? Is a tit known by any other name diminished in any way? My favourite tit surely is the blue tit Just look at those brilliant colours And that stare! She has the look of a professional boxer About to knock you out What a stunner! Can there be a better day than one spent in silence Watching these lovelies Going about their daily business? Pramod Subbaraman is a poet from India who lives and works in the UK. He started writing during the first COVID19 lockdown and has since been published in the UK, the USA, the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of South Africa.

CASTAWAY skies bristle to midnight to sleep in the shadow of the barn with homesick dreams and pourquoi tales lost among the furious trees to settle for the shelter of the velvet owl to live in the land of castaway lamps and the bare moon rustle of the windy barn DUST an uncommon day of light and air a poet with swallowtail eyes a lonely rabbit with bigger dreams we clamor for boulders in the dry dust wind a mooring, a strand a shimmer in the roaming shade but the lonely rabbit with the dry dust eyes will sleep by the brambled grave IRONCLAD a crackling train night indigo lurches along mudshack outposts wrestling the cargo of the lonely blacksmith the emptiness of the last trampled plain time’s merciful silhouette with nothing more to lose burns its love letters in the coal fires of a treeless dusk and vanishes into the dusty threads of history’s folktale Regine is a teacher and writer in the American Southwest. Her work has been published in numerous magazines including Black Bough Poems, Consilience, Loft Books, Cerasus Magazine, Spellbinder and others. She writes about the great Sonoran Desert, love and loss.

Stories I Cannot Tell Here’s the story I want to tell—each morning I got up before dawn to make the fire and cook rice, and while the water boiled, I hung on a strong branch of the pomelo tree because I thought it would make me taller I’ll explain the way I fastened on a headlamp at four am to cut and drain the rubber trees before class; it’s how I paid for college because after my parents paid my sister’s ransom there wasn’t any money left for me But I cannot tell those stories; they belong to my neighbor My stories are bland and white like milk As for heritage? My father’s Dutch last name, and my mother’s Irish hair, no other language spoken but English, unless you count the way we used words like laceration and dehiscence when describing our wounds Once, my family left a Halloween party and noticed police cars and an ambulance racing into the parking lot of a bar, and although he was dressed like a farmer, my dad followed the sirens and rushed in to find a man with a gun- shot to the chest; he started compressions, rode with him to the hospital and came home later with blood spattered on his straw hat and overalls My mother was frightened of water and held her breath when we drove over bridges When I was older, I found out that when she was six, her brother drowned and she couldn’t forget the way my grandmother fell to the ground when given the news I screamed in fourth grade when a boy named Andrew pushed me against the school’s brick wall and kicked me in the groin he pinched my arms and thighs I did not know that my cousin Andrew forced my younger sister to do shameful things; I thought the hidden bruises on my thighs were the worst thing a boy named Andrew could do As I write them down, these stories seem too meager to compose a childhood so you’ll forgive me if I mention the time I left the rice unattended, which allowed the dog to steal my family’s breakfast and fearing my mother’s wrath, I ran away into the woods, and when I became hungry, I ate the fruit that grows along the forest floor The Complication The baby is still feeding when I’m rushed back to the operating room. My legs are numb so I do not feel the clots which soak the sheets. He scrubs my abdomen and prepares to open the incision so recently closed. I need some help he shouts as I plunge into brilliant darkness. Here, there is nothing but time. My oldest son sprints ahead of me on a beach in Malibu. I round the bend and do not see him, and now the waves turn violent. I fall to my knees and scream his name—Nathan! He laughs. I look up and see him conducting the ocean as he stands atop a small bluff. The sons who haven’t arrived hover in the shadows and whisper. It is dark and I cannot see the color of their eyes. But I already know their names. Unexpectedly, the sky lightens. My fussy newborn is placed upon my chest and quiets. Oh Luke— you of copper hair and warrior eyes. So new I cannot bring myself to say your given name aloud. Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. She is the author of A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press). Her recent work can be found or forthcoming in Haunted Waters Press, Nelle, Entropy, Tribes, Dialogist, Rattle and elsewhere.

A word from the author: As a trauma therapist I was invited to Harlem Hospital to talk to the ER staff, ambulance crews, and doctors and nurses from the Pediatric Surgical departments, and staff from the Injury Prevention Program. What transpired there still haunts me. I looked up into the fifty or so faces of medical personnel in the old amphitheater who were looking back at me, waiting. I had been called to Harlem Hospital to address the effects of working closely with all that the streets could bring in, the pointless deaths, the suffering. How they couldn’t help taking home the daily anguish. I was to tell them how they could reach inside for strength to help them hurt less and deliver more. Yet what could I—privileged, white and cocooned—give them that they would find of any use? double street sign Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X locals still call it Lenox It was time for me to begin. I told them about how this outer mess could trigger their morass within, how they could reach inside for strength to help them hurt less and deliver more. And they told me a few things as well. About needless deaths, children sold, babies baked in ovens by their drug-addled parents, of street corner executions by burning tire necklacing. You couldn’t work at Harlem Hospital without living the images, sights and smells. seats stretched upward thousand-yard stares look back By noon we had explored the realities of their work, and in the afternoon we would practice new skills. This would be draining. I was already depleted. I picked up my lunch and withdrew to a private office to eat alone and try to find the energy I needed. I forced down a sandwich, ate half an apple, then pushed aside the plate and laid my head on the table. Falling into a half-sleep I watched the images swirl. Feeling despair at the task ahead, I longed for direction. I fell even deeper asleep. thick walls and doors street smells and sounds still carry inside Visions circled as I slept. I remember the psychic telling me that if she gave me details about my coming work, I’d lose my nerve to do it. I recall my visions of a fountain, a donkey carrying a brace, a race to a well with my father, an oil well geyser, meeting a stranger, being welcomed to battle, being given a black onyx spear with a golden tip. I remembered times in my clinic using the spear to heal, how energy flowed down the spear into pain. light tingles passing through into darkness In my mind, I find myself back in the amphitheater, looking up. The medics and therapists of Harlem Hospital wait expectantly. This time I reach up with the onyx spear, left to right, top row to bottom, gently touching each on the shoulder. I serve as a conduit, an instrument carrying a current I can feel but need not understand. As I come to each, I sense their need and feel each of them grow warm. As I finish touching the very last person, there is a knock at the office door. “It is time.” Kendall Johnson’s writing has appeared in such venues as Cultural Daily, Litro, Shark Reef, Ekphrastic Review, and Tears in the Fence. He is an artist as well as writer, and his books include Dear Vincent: A Psychologist and Artist Writes Back to Van Gogh (2019, Sasse Museum of Art), Chaos & Ash (2020, Pelekinesis), Black Box Poetics (2021, Bamboo Dart Press), Fireflies Against Darkness (2021, Arroyo Seco Press), and More Fireflies (forthcoming). A former trauma therapist and on-scene disaster consultant, Dr. Johnson writes and paints in Upland, California.