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Torso Miletus, marble sculpture circa 480 B.C. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen (France). 2006. Archaic Torso of Apollo   He’s got no nipples. He’s the perfect man minus that leg and the arms and head (and the man-bits snapped clean off)—but what’s he been missing for millennia? When that young Greek sat down one morning and said, “Today I’m going to make the perfect man,” he decided: “My love will have no nipples.”   My perfect man’s got nipples, & a handlebar mustache, & a great big overcoat he drapes across my shoulders as we wait for the next train downtown, & two eyes cut from clouds, & two soft lips pulsing warm on my cheek.   In a hundred years, the nipple-less body of our great god of Art will gleam hard under pale museum light. My love will have no lips. But he will exist as the smoothness of this page, the blackness of this ink, the warmth you still feel from his great big overcoat.   On Trees:   I.   If trees grew upside down you'd need a shovel to climb them. Children would not be allowed to climb trees. Their parents would say, “You’re too young. Leave tree climbing to the experts. You can try again when you’re older.” They’d dig in their backyards near a tangle of roots hoping to find a tree and plod back inside, shovels dragging behind them, upon unearthing a bush.   The redwoods of California would need teams of expert engineers to drill through the earth and the rock winding down for days through tunnels with only spelunking lights to guide them before they’d reach the leafy tops perfectly preserved in bedrock glowing green the only color for miles.   It would be a holy experience to see something no human should. They’d thank their own wit and ambition and take a leaf for themselves to press between some wax paper and frame for their living rooms so they could brag with a wave to whoever came along:   I was there. I climbed a tree.   II.   I love this space on the water: the space between the hanging branch of a young willow and the surface of the pond. The branch sprouts low and arcs, twisted and rambling, before wood gives way to fresh summer leaves, tips dipping low to caress the surface.   I’ve been here before, watching the ducks with Lucy, asking her to name the flowers. Sometimes she knows; sometimes she doesn’t. Her mother has a garden, so she’s picked up some things, but not everything.   My mother has a thirty-year-old pothos and an affinity for violets, but most flowers make her sneeze. The plants growing in her yard arrived through other means—a previous owner (we’ve moved many times), or the natural flowering and seeding of things. I don’t think my mother has purposely put a plant in the ground in her life. She prefers to see what springs up on its own—uncared for, but beautiful.   Today I walked by myself around the university lawn to stretch my legs in the wet warmth of early summer. I saw a slender woman in a black sundress, hair cropped above her ears, cheekbones sharp, shoulders sharper, much the way I look when I’m thin. Probably the way I look right now. I thought, “How beautiful.”   I saw her stop on the path and look to her right, smiling. When she left, I followed her gaze and found a gray-haired woman kneeling on the concrete edge of the pond. I followed the tilt of her camera and saw a young family of ducks: a mother and six or so ducklings.   The group was swimming, quacking, bobbing beneath the willow branch in the curve of the shelter, in the space before the leaves brush the water.   As I watched, the ducks swam to another part of the pond. The photographer left. The slender woman in the black sundress left. Lucy is not here, nor her mother, nor my mother.   I photographed the shaded area, even though the ducks are gone. I sat where the photographer sat. I am here.   III.   I’ve never climbed a tree. I wanted to climb one by the Mennonite church when I was six, like the big kids, the tall kids, the ones whose hearts did not keep them small. I wanted to climb the pine in the field and I would have— I told myself I would have— but the next Sunday some adult had shaved off every branch I could have reached. My mother said, “To keep you safe.”   I wanted to climb one when I was ten, and I did try while Millicent sat in the highest branches with her cropped hair and cargo pants, she who taught me what a lesbian was— a whispered word, a shame— and I tried to follow her, but the bark scraped my hands, and my arms never really were that strong and I was afraid—of splinters, of falling, of feeling so much air— so I remained with the roots while the leaves brushed her hair, her face arched toward the sun.   There is a tree by the window of the apartment I share with my husband, the man I met ten days after I turned twenty. Owned by the city, branches kept pruned (enough to provide shade without attracting the ambitions of children and small women). I rest my head in the divot of his chest, dogs sleeping at our side, and he tells me that he has never climbed a tree.   And I think—if I had asked my mother, that Sunday at church— She would have lifted me into the tree And stood below. I can see her as she was then, or maybe as I am now, or will be, her face my face our face melding. I see her favorite blue-speckled dress. I see my mother hoisting me with an oof and hovering below with the look she always gets when we break the rules: eyebrows up, a glance over a shoulder, a grin. And the vision pauses, and that is all I see: my mother, her eyebrows, her smile. Gwen Lemley is a Chicago-based writer of fiction and poetry. You can find her on Twitter at @gwendolyn_lem  and on Bluesky at @ gwen1.bsky.social .

For their fifth anniversary, Melinda suggests she and her husband, Martin, spice things up by parking in a secluded lane by the lake. The couple’s heating up in the back seat when a light shines through the window, and the door is yanked open. Someone in a ski mask and holding a pistol demands Martin’s wallet. Martin fumbles it out of his pants pocket, which is down around his ankles.  The thief snatches the billfold from Martin’s hand. “Take the cash and leave my credit cards,” Martin says. “I’ll cancel them before you can—” “Shut up. What’s that sparkling on your finger, honey?” the thief says. Melinda shields her diamond ring with her right hand. “You’ve got my husband’s wallet. Leave us alone.” “Don’t make me get rough.” Melinda hands the ring to the man. “You,” he says waving the gun toward Martin. “Out of the car.” “What? Why? You—”  “I said out.” Melinda whimpers as Martin pulls up his pants and gets out. The two men walk to a picnic area by the lake.  “How was that?” the man says when they’re hidden from Melinda’s sight. He puts the toy gun in his pocket and gives back the wallet and the ring. “So far, so good.” Martin hands the other man the agreed payment. “Tell me again.” The phony thief shoves the money in his pocket. “Follow this trail to the other side of the lake. Parking lot BB. He’ll be waiting.” The two leave in opposite directions, Martin holding a small flashlight to show his way. When he gets to the parking lot, Martin goes to a small, flickering flame. “You got the rock?” a man says.  The moon emerges from behind clouds, and Martin, seeing the man has a crooked goatee, wonders if he himself should have worn a mask or something. He decides to scrunch up his face as a makeshift disguise. “You got the dough?”  The man removes a wad of bills from his pocket. After the two men complete the exchange, Martin starts to turn heel then stops. “Wait.” He puts the small flashlight in his mouth and counts the cash. He says “OK,” forgetting about the flashlight, and it falls to the asphalt and breaks. “Crap.” He leaves. The man with the goatee stays put.  After a few minutes, the tall, slender man who pretended to be a thief approaches. “All according to plan?” The man with the goatee gives the other guy the ring. “No problem. He took the counterfeit cash and scurried off like a rat. He holds out his hand.  The taller man pays him, and the two walk off in opposite directions.  Meanwhile, while Martin is walking back around the lake, clouds hide the moon, and he nearly steps on a sleeping goose. The honking and flapping nearly give him a heart attack. As he approaches his car, he rips his shirt, musses up his hair and rubs dirt on his face.  … Melinda whimpers when Martin gets back in the car. “Thank goodness you’re safe. What did he want?” “No idea. I kicked him in the groin and ran off. Let’s get out of here and report this.” … At the police station, they meet with Detective Spencer. Martin says the thief was short and heavy set. Melinda agrees.  The next day, Martin files a loss claim with his insurance agent. He tells himself he should have enough money left over after paying off his gambling debt to buy his girlfriend a necklace.  That same day, goatee man meets Melinda in the alley behind the non-profit where she works as a project manager. They go to a secluded area. The man smiles and points to his fake beard.  “Nice touch. From our play,” Melinda says … “Well?” “Just like you said. By the way, does Martin have some kind of tic?” He scrunches his face.  “Come with me. Now we go to the police.” Melinda grabs Jamison’s arm. “You’re forgetting something. I’m not doing this because I like you.” He strokes Melinda’s hair. “But you know I do.” Melinda pushes his hand away. “Here’s half.” She gives the man $100. … Melinda and Jamison meet with a Detective Spencer. After they leave the station, Melinda gives Jamison another $100 for agreeing to tell the detective that the tall, slender man was short and heavy.   Later in the day, Detective Spencer arrests Martin.  That evening, the tall, slender man and Melinda meet at the picnic grounds by the lake. The man smiles and holds up a wad of cash he says he got from selling the diamond ring to a real fence.  “The main thing is that I got my cheating bastard husband.” Melinda holds out her hand. “I’ll count out your share.” “My plan worked perfectly,” the man says.   “ Your  plan? You tipped me off to what Martin was scheming, but everything else was my  doing.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Detective Spencer steps from behind a tree and arrests her. He pockets the wad of counterfeit cash.   That evening, after Melinda is locked up, the detective and the tall, slender man splurge on dinner at a fancy restaurant where they toast the success of their scheme and their one-month anniversary of being together. The tall, slender man removes the diamond ring from his pocket. “Ought to fetch a tidy sum.” When the detective excuses himself, as he usually does at least once during dinner, and goes to the bathroom, the tall, slender man nods to a woman sitting alone at a nearby table, and the two walk out. “Your plan was brilliant,” he says.  “As a diamond,” she replies.  David Henson and his wife have lived in Brussels and Hong Kong and now reside in Illinois. His work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Net and two Best Small Fictions and has appeared in various journals including Maudlin House, Gastropoda, Literally Stories, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, and Moonpark Review. His website is  http://writings217.wordpress.com . His Twitter is @annalou8 .

“It’s perfect!” Johnny Hurley and Robbie Decker stood in front of a small, rundown house that was surrounded by overgrown weeds and enough rusty junk to warrant a healthy fear of tetanus. Johnny stood with one hand on his hip and held a cardboard cup holder with two coffees in the other. He looked like he was offering the hot beverages to the house rather than Robbie.  “That’s…one way to put it,” Robbie said. He stared at the broken shutters and missing shingles, preparing himself for both the amount of work ahead and Johnny’s exhausting exuberance.  “Oh come on,” Johnny thrust the cup holder into Robbie’s hand. He mounted the front steps and posed, a grin of practiced perfection now plastered on his face. “Take a picture. We need some great before shots.” Robbie sighed, pulled out his phone, and snapped some photos.  He swiped through the images. They looked more like stock photos from a D-list horror movie than anything worthy of a press release. He lingered on the last photo, bringing the phone closer to his face. In the image, Johnny’s head was haloed in hazy shadow.  “You coming?” Johnny called, his voice now distant. Robbie looked up to see the front door wide open and Johnny nowhere to be seen.  “Damn it,” Robbie muttered. He crammed his phone into his pocket and hurried to find Johnny.  Robbie needed this campaign manager job if he was ever going to make it in the larger political arena. He doubted his budding career would survive if he let his first candidate kill himself by falling through the floor of a rotten house.   Robbie found Johnny in the front living room. He was busy trying to scrub a spray-painted pentagram from the wall with a dirty rag but had only managed to smear dirt and paint into an out-of-focus smudge.  “You really think this is a good idea?” Robbie asked.  “Stop worrying,” Johnny left the pentagram and placed his hands on Robbie’s shoulders. “It’ll be great. I’ll turn the town’s biggest eyesore into my campaign headquarters. What better way to make a local impression?”  Robbie eyed Johnny’s dirt-covered hands. He sighed and shrugged them off.  “I guess you do need a way to recover from the senior center incident…” “Hey, it’s not my fault for thinking ‘senior’ meant high school students,” Johnny said.  “Yeah…your TikTok dance to ‘I’m just a Bill’ didn’t quite land with the 65+ crowd,” Robbie smirked. Johnny ignored him and headed deeper into the house.  “Come on,” he called. “Let’s see what else this place is hiding.”   Johnny ran off to explore the upper floor, while Robbie photographed the first floor. Eventually, Robbie found his boss in a small bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall.  “Do you want your coffee?” Robbie asked as he entered the room. He was still carrying the tray with now lukewarm cups. Johnny ignored the question.  “What’s with all the pentagrams?” he said, stepping back from another rust-colored demonic symbol. “This is the fifth one I’ve found.” “And is this the fifth one you’ve tried to scrub off with nothing but a dirty rag?” Johnny looked at Robbie and then down at the rag in his hand. He dropped the cloth to the floor.  “New plan! Let’s-”  Robbie never heard Johnny’s new plan. Instead, a low rumbling sound cascaded through the house as the pentagram turned from rusty red to glowing orange. Johnny wheeled around.  “What the-” Johnny was cut off for the second time as thick black smoke oozed from the symbol and pooled at his feet. The two men watched as the roiling shadow materialized into the undulating outline of a human.  Robbie was glued to where he stood, while Johnny regarded the new arrival with seemingly oblivious curiosity. Johnny raised his hand and watched as the shadow mirrored his movement. Johnny cocked his head and his living shadow did the same. A grin snaked across his face, the expression hungrier than in the posed pictures on Robbie’s phone.  “Well this is interesting…” Johnny stared at the smoky figure. “How might we use you ?” “Johnny, what the hell are you doing?” Robbie’s voice was a harsh whisper.  “Oh come on, Robbie,” Johnny turned. “Don’t look so dismissive. What did I tell you when we first met?” Robbie’s mouth gaped, more due to Johnny’s idiocy than the supernatural figure before them. “We must consider every opportunity that comes our way. After all, politics are all about who you know.”  The shadow behind Johnny was growing, but he didn’t seem to notice. Robbie raised a hand to stop him, but Johnny turned and the shadow lunged. His head tilted back as thick smoke poured into his eyes, nose, and mouth. He barely made a sound.  As it turns out, being possessed by a demonic force is a relatively quick procedure. After only a few seconds, the shadow was gone. Johnny remained, head still tilted backwards. He heaved a long wet breath, then righted himself. Johnny met Robbie’s gaze, his eyes blinking methodically.  “Hello,” the voice emanating from Johnny’s lips was deep and raspy. Robbie stared, considering his options. He caught sight of the cardboard tray in his hands.  “Uh…coffee?” Robbie asked, holding the tray out in front of him.  “No thanks,” the demon growled from Johnny’s body. “I only drink iced.” Robbie nodded and placed the coffees on a nearby nightstand.  “Well,” Robbie brushed off his shirt and regarded his new boss. “How do you feel about politics?”  Quote from the front page of the Political Post, November 5, 2036:  “The White House is Hurley’s House! Lauded for his silver tongue and no-nonsense diplomacy, Hurley’s victory speech was the capstone to a nearly flawless campaign. Many attribute Hurley’s win to his trusted campaign manager, Robbie Decker, a relatively unknown who turned out to be a political mastermind. It’s safe to say the Hurley-Decker team is a force to be reckoned with.”  M. Rose Seaboldt (she/her) is a writer and fire protection engineer in eastern Massachusetts. She was a finalist in NYC Midnight’s 2023 microfiction competition and has been published previously by Roi Fainéant Press. Find her on twitter @boldtsea.

I can’t remember a time I didn’t keep Aunt Rose from killing someone. Me first memory happened when I was still a moppet. Me mum left Aunt Rose home alone one cold winter morning. I was tight about leaving her, but I had to get to school, or the nuns would clip me ears. It took me an hour to get to that bloody school. I trekked a half mile across rocky terrain and unpaved roads, stumbling over pebbles and cursing me way into potholes. The nuns cared a fig’s fart what happened to me; the old bitches smashed me hands with a ruler if I was even a minute late. Fuckin’ school!  Aunt Rose wrapped herself in a stained, beige quilt stinking of dog piss. Her High and Mighty Madness wore it as if it was the Queen’s robe, and with the airs she put on you might think so. She rifled through a kitchen drawer like hell’s three hounds were chasing her hind end. I sat and watched, eating me brekkie.  She didn’t find her fool’s gold; she snarled and ripped the drawer out, hurling it across the kitchen. It almost took me damned head off. I ducked hard and cursed at her, then I sat up and kept eating. Aunt Rose found her stinking treasure, a bottle cap, a girl’s plastic ring, or some worthless bit.  Stepping over the carnage, she stomped outside in her bare feet, making her way to the shed. I got up from the table and stood at the door, watching her through a windowpane. Open-mouthed I breathed on the windowpane, drew little bits and bobs in the fog, then wiped it away with me hand. I watched as Aunt Rose squatted in the frost like an old toad and held out a bloody book of matches. I rushed outside wearing only t-shirt and shorts. It was fuckin brass monkeys. “Stay back Billy!” her dark eyes flashed as she lit a match.  “Auntie, what are you doing?” I cupped me hands and blew into them. “I’m burning meself alive, Billy.” She might have been planting petunias. “Why Auntie?”  “I hate your mother and father and uncle. I hate you, Billy.” “Give me the matches Auntie. Come back in and watch telly.”  “Let me go, Billy.” “No, Auntie.” I jumped from one skinny foot to the other. Aunt Rose watched me and giggled. She put her hands on either side of her head and held up her second fingers like a bloody rabbit. “Hop! Hop! Little Billy bunny!” “Give me the matches Auntie.” I shivered so hard me teeth clattered in me head.  I held out a  shaking hand for the matches and got ready to jump back. Last time I reached at her, the dumb eijit nearly bit me small finger off and the doctor had to patch me up.  Aunt Rose dropped the matches into me hand and curled into herself, rocking back and forth. She mumbled, “deliver me Lord. Deliver me.” “Come on Auntie.” Me fingertips were blue.  Aunt Rose raised her arm as if it held a thousand years of grief. Her hand was bony and brittle with skin like a spider’s web. I could see every vein. I led her back inside the house and settled her into a red plaid chesterfield that sagged in the middle from years of fucking and farting.  “I’ll get you elevenses then I’ll be off, Auntie,” I said, hugging the radiator. Aunt Rose stared at the television in a fog. I could turn it off and the eijit wouldn’t know better. * A week later I stirred in  bed, thinking I farted meself awake but there was no stink. I stepped into the hallway and heard Aunt Rose’s ragged breathing. She’d gone peculiar again. She pushed open the door to me uncle’s bedroom. There as a flash of silver from a butcher’s knife as Aunt Rose rushed him. I jumped on her, tightening me toothpick arms around her neck.  She twisted backward braying like a donkey and threw me onto the floor, a miserable pile of shit rags. Her eyes blazed with her demons. “Burn in hell you scrawny boor!”   She kicked me full-on in me sandbag. I howled and puked me guts onto the floor. Me uncle bolted up and grabbed her with arms the size of bloody tree trunks.  “Leave the lad be Rosie!”  “I’m riding an ass to prayer meeting tonight!’ Aunt Rose screamed and dug her teeth into one of me uncle’s arms. He didn’t flinch. Me old man and mum came running. The old man smashed on the light, and there stood a madwoman laughing and drooling, clawing out clumps of her hair. Aunt Rose saw us. She quieted.  “Let go of me, you crazy bastard!” She shoved me uncle off her. “I’ve a mind to lock you up!” Me uncle sat on his bed, his shoulders sinking. “Come to bed Rosie,” he stared at the floor, his voice barely a whisper.  Aunt Rose smoothed her frizzed, gnarled hair. “Out of bed this fucking hour, Billy. Who needs a daftie like you? Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs!” I pulled meself off the floor, shards of lightning shooting from me pouch.  Mum kissed me on me head, her eyes glistening. I knew she’d curl up in me father’s arms later and bawl.   Come the morning, it would be Saturday and there’d be peace and grub. The noise of footsteps, and the smell of bangers and mash would wake me. I wouldn’t have to walk the bloody mile to school. Lisa Lahey is an Associate Acquisitions Editor for After Dinner Conversation Magazine. She is a reader for Short Edition Magazine. She has been published in 34th Parallel Magazine, Spaceports and Spidersilk, Why Vandalism?, Suddenly, Without Warning, and she will soon be published in upcoming issues of  Literally Stories, Spadina Literary Review, Five on the Fifth, and Epater Magazine.

chlorine blonde walking on the edges of my feet along the edges of pools filled with welcomed bodies my way is dappled with splashes from the games I’ll never play  their performance of pity makes a mocking echo following as I edge forward my feet are cracked with desperation treading cold concrete for years until I’m left standing alone in my own pool of blood a receipt found under the wardrobe plastic bags bound for the bin containing a person who so offended she threw herself away Rachel B Velebny is a writer and poet currently living in Barcelona. She has been published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and you can find her on socials @hot_mushrooms.

After listening to a speech on injustice, Cannon Fodder decided to petition the Council to turn him back into young people. He went to see Pacifism and Literature, friends and natural allies, to find out how to pull it off. “No sweat,” said Pacifism, “we will present it as a proposal at tomorrow’s Council meeting. All it takes is a simple vote, and if the majority supports it you’re going to be turned back into young people. Contemporary Society has veto power but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. I’ve heard it myself and also from several other members that Contemporary Society keeps bitching to anyone who’d listen that there’s labor shortage. We don’t have enough skilled workers, teachers, scientists and health-care professionals.” The next day, when Pacifism and Literature returned with somber faces, Cannon Fodder knew the case was kaput. What happened? Pacifism, his face purple-red, was still so angry he could only wave indicating he didn’t want to talk. Literature explained instead, “Almost the entire Council was supportive of your case, and  Contemporary Society was especially enthusiastic. But then Proper Thinking and Finance managed to persuade Contemporary Society to veto, because after the experience of being Cannon Fodder, there’s no telling how those young people would fit back in. High risk, questionable benefit.” After looking around carefully, Literature added, “Frankly, I am kind of worried about my own position too. Call me paranoid but I believe Proper Thinking repeatedly gave me the evil eye yesterday.” John Szamosi is a wordsmith and peace activist who has published over one hundred short stories, satires and poems.

The Westwood Crochet Club had been running in the town of Newbattle Hove for decades. The three founding members had done no more than drink wine and made that one semi-naked calendar for charity. Over the years, two by two, they left, choosing Hardy’s wine bar instead. New people took their place and made the club their own.  One such member was Dr Brenda Martin a woman who knew her crochet-square coasters from her tea cosies. In Brenda’s opinion, most of the other members didn’t know their rooibos from their elbow, and that was a fact. But she did love to crochet and was happy to leave the sermons of home. So every week, she mothered the youth, provided scones, gave them no excuse to leave and made sure, once they were in, they stayed in. She held the keys and sub payments were sub payments, after all. Brenda was excited, tonight, they were getting their first new member in ages, a man by the name of Thor. When the swing doors creaked Brenda’s mouth hung open.  “Hello dear, you must be Thor?” she said, over her heartbeat. “Eh, yeah, hi,” he said, Diet Coke seeping off him. Before he could say more, Brenda interjected; “What’s the hammer for, Son?” drawing as youthful a smile as possible around her 70-year-old eyes. “It’s not a hammer, it’s a—” and then, suddenly, Thor realized his mistake. This here was not Westwood Croquet Club after all, but something else. Before he could leave he found himself on a chair, scone in hand, the most detailed coaster under his cup of scalding hot tea. Three elderly ladies perched by his side. And before him, Brenda slid, holding out a needle, which, clearly, he was expected to take.  Laura Cooney is a writer from Edinburgh with work published in print and online. She is seeking representation. Her second chapbook; No Trauma/No Drama is due August 24, courtesy of Backroom Poetry. When she's not writing, she'll be found with her daughters, as close to the sea as possible, seeking shells. There will be ice-cream!

Are you going to ignore my advice? Then, do so at your peril. As a matron, I will dispense some anyway. You might have already known the disappointment of your parents at your birth. You saw it sneaking out and pouncing on you in their unguarded moments. Or you might have been openly told how unwanted you were. Either way, you floated in that amniotic fluid of rejection for some time. If you let it seep into your heart, it will tear you apart. So, swim out of it as soon as you can.   You will get some education. Either at school or home or wherever you set your foot in; constantly overseen by someone, likely capable of pulling, deflecting, and nullifying the molecules around you. While you receive education under such able custodians, the tales of others who are not so lucky shall be made known to you--just in case you are planning to rebel. Don’t believe every such tale, though some of them might be true. More importantly, don’t let that template take root in your mind. Instead, trust your senses. Train them to grab the truth before the molecules are made chaotic.  As your hips start widening and you start receiving admiring gazes, you might want to discard your mind. After all, it was never deemed to be of much value, anyway. It’s okay to enjoy the attention, dear. But don’t hurry posthaste to live. The sweetness that you feel is great, but you recognise it for what it is; it is a flower that needs to be nurtured and not a tool to be wielded for the business of living. Those tools: you need to develop with the education you got or didn’t. That life: you need to work with those tools to build it. You work with all your tools, your mind, your heart. And fail. Then you hear the thunderous reverberations of all those tales crashing around you; reiterating all the things you shouldn’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t be able to do because of your chromosome condition. As I said before, some of them are true. But most of them are not. The tale that tells you get only one chance to fail at doing things you love but are not yet good enough at, is not. Another tale that makes you believe it's unfeminine to keep sharpening your tools and keep working to manifest your destiny, most certainly not. If you make it up to this point in your journey, I have good reason to hope you ferried a few fellow travellers along with you. In doing so, you have made this guide a little less relevant to many who will come after you.  What more can I ask for? Suma Jayachandar: Wanderer. Seeker. Teacher. Writer

I’d felt its eyes on me again— that slight prickle at the nape of the neck. Surely it was still wet (I’d only used it an hour ago). It must have sat glittering beside the sink, watching me when I hung up the phone. I could feel it. Similar to when a man sees you across the room— you don’t see him necessarily, but you feel him: natural prey and predator instincts.  Unknowingly sealing my fate, I’d ordered it online three months ago. Fate, like the Sonicare toothbrush, (and certain kinds of men), can be very controlling. So then, there I was, headed on a trajectory I may never escape. (A harsh truism that I feel I must accept). My mother has mentioned a time or two my terrible taste in men. Now we can add “toothbrushes” to the list of my blind spots, too.  The first time it happened I didn’t think anything of it. I opened my eyes one night to see the toothbrush on the pillow beside me. It had been laying bristles up. Its gaze was steadily fixed towards the ceiling, motionless. It wasn’t my first thought that the brush had moved itself, or even the second. Truthfully, I was uneasy that someone had been in my home. It was placed so gingerly and centered.  By the second time I found that ghoul on my pillow, feeling skittish, I circulated my house, checking all the locks and windows. Locked—everything. Certainly, my mind was playing tricks on itself.  It should have been enough to pacify me, like a frog in a cool creek, but I still felt strange. There was a presence in the air that I couldn’t place. By the third instance, I was made aware of the culprit. I was awoken by a tickle in my nose. I opened my eyes slowly, fearful of what I might see. The brush was front and center so that my eyes crossed. I screamed as it switched on and began buzzing against my face. My arms flailed frantically as I grappled with the very strong toothbrush. Finally, I gained leverage. I grabbed the plastic freak and chucked it across the room where it hit the wall. It stopped buzzing.  The late-night cars had stopped zooming by my window. I could hear the cold trickle of a creek down the street. I set the phone in place and hit record. I switched the lights out. I heard frogs croak in broken unison. To this, I fell asleep. The following morning I woke alone. I had slept still in the darkness, never tossing even once.  The footage showed a Frankenstein Brush. It threw itself from the sink (it was expensive!) landing with a loud clang, and rolling across the tile. Down it brought two poorly screwed-shut medications, scattering across the floor. My hands shook as I watched the macabre Toy Story in horror: The toothbrush slowly, loudly, clanged over the small white doses of reality, somehow putting enough force on them to turn them to dust as it went. I watched my toothbrush’s hair tickle the floor as it rolled across the white tile. I thought of my lips wrapped around its base and wasn’t sure who I was more embarrassed for: it or me.  I paused the footage where the toothbrush had stopped to see, in real-time, it was no longer there. I rose to the bathroom to find it sitting on the sink, dry, ready. Mortified with myself, I turned the sink on and held the brush beneath the running water. I applied mint toothpaste and put it into my mouth. I began to gag. In turn, the brush clicked on, buzzing. The next night, I lay witness and awake to the toothbrush’s journey to find me. This time, it dove off the counter head-first. It rolled across the tile over what was left of the crushed pills. Unlike the night before, it made it to the carpet in my room. It angled itself against the wall and began to knock itself, over and over again. Revving itself up it clanged and smashed. Finally, it hit hard enough against the crown molding to gain correct leverage. It smacked itself upright, glistening in the darkness. I sat up in bed, shaking. It was unrelenting. The toothbrush loomed in my silent and dark room before beginning to buzz, its bristles shivering at me. I started to cry. I may have even pleaded. The buzzing sound increased. It reached a shrill timber that resembled a drilling. It made me think of a strange man’s hand in my mouth. The dentist’s maybe.   After the night I took the video, the toothbrush became emboldened. Some mornings, it would position itself an inch from my face so I’d awaken to the now putrid smell of mint. I’d go cross-eyed to its bleach-white bristles when I opened my eyes. Other times it’d scrape its wet whiskers against my cheeks until I began to bleed. My face was red and blistering. I dreamt of beheading it and throwing it out the window. But every morning and every night I’d wet it, lube it with mint toothpaste, and put it back into my mouth. I tried locking the bathroom door. It seemed unlikely it could finagle itself from that with any finesse/success. I drifted to sleep feeling pleased until I came into consciousness to the sound of frogs belching, cool in the creek nearby. And something else constant and nearer. It was the buzzing. It was coming from under the covers. I lifted my comforter and felt the toothbrush’s control thicken alongside my fear. I leaped from my bed and ran down the two stories of my apartment, out the back door, straight to the dumpster. Slightly wet and resolute, I trashed it.  When the toothbrush painstakingly re-entered my apartment a week later, it smelled god-awful. I’d opened my door to a light knocking and found it at my feet. We both were a sight for sore eyes. In the week it had been gone, I hadn’t replaced it. The fear I had! A toothbrush had always just been a toothbrush until one came along and tried to own me. Now, there was no predicting what a toothbrush was capable of. I spent the week destitute with the breath of a walrus. There was an honest and small relief at the toothbrush’s return.  But it looked disgusting. The dumpster I’d discarded it in must have had someone else’s scrapped dinner. No matter how much I soaked and scrubbed it, the toothbrush’s head was now a washed-out ketchup red. It had banged itself so many times up the two flights of stairs that its battery case had been broken. It no longer took a charge or buzzed against me. There was a small part of me that felt bad for the brush. Initially, I’d wanted us to work as well.  But the brush’s disposition towards me had grown to match its reddened face. It no longer trusted me. It would sooner break off its own head and leave it jammed down my throat than let me go. The toothbrush said I had chosen it, citing its barcode number. ‘And why do you want me?’ I often pleaded. It told me if it was going to own someone, it might as well be me. I supposed that was true.  I carried it to its pillow beside my head each night. The haggard and uncharged brush no longer shined my teeth so I tried not to smile so often. It left markings on my face that my makeup began to infect and I began to get fevers here and there. My coworkers began to comment on my appearance. The sight of my face was upsetting to people. I told them I had a nervous condition that made me do this to myself. I told them I used my toothbrush.  After my long conversation with HR, I decided I’d try to escape its wrath once more. I would create my own fate and then let its beastly nature commit itself to the rest. Old, decrepit, and lacking any battery, I settled on a duel. I armed myself with a new Sonicare toothbrush to protect me. I charged the new brush in the bathroom while my old one sat dead beneath the sink. I cracked the cabinet to ensure the old brush could get out; I was certain it would enact violence against the new threat. I fell asleep to the sound of frogs, sure I’d reset my fate.  I awoke the next morning to find the new Sonicare brush drowned in the toilet. Water covered the floor and spattered against the toilet seat. The old battered brush glistened on the ground, its faded red bristles giving it the look of a soldier after battle. I, the wartime nurse, fetched it and ran some hot water. I massaged my thumb lovingly along its bristles under the warmth as it began to get hotter.  There was a softness in its savagery that suddenly felt familiar. Its ownership felt less like a cage and more like a home. I turned off the running water and smeared mint toothpaste against its face before gently placing it in my mouth.  My mother called on the home phone to tell me my ex-husband had been released from jail. Her voice was quivering and she asked why I was so calm. She scolded me to take myself more seriously. She’d always called me a frog in a pot of boiling water when I was with him.  “You’re making bad choices,” she’d said when we first were married. “He’ll kill you.”  Today on the phone she said, “You’ll probably have to move again. You know if you stay there he’ll find you.” I tried to quell her but she had worked herself up. “You’re a sitting duck! No, no what you are — you know what they say about frogs in boiling water–” I cut her off but she kept talking over me until I stopped talking.  She continued: “...They let themselves die. They don’t jump out of the water and it gets hotter until it's boiling. They just adjust to the water.” I didn’t say anything in return. “It’s not your fault,” she quickly followed. “You just have to trust yourself." I wasn’t sure if it was myself, fate, or a certain kind of man, but it felt beside the point. It was exactly what it was, anyway.    “You should get a new phone number. Just in case.” She urged me. “It’s so frustrating that you won’t get a cell phone,” she said. “Anyways, how has your mental health been—”  “Then how did I get that footage?” I interrupted her. She wasn’t making any sense. I had a cellphone. Didn’t I? She seemed confused “Darling, which footage?”   “The footage. Of the toothbrush—,” I heard her begin shuffling and her breath quickened. “Honey, are you alright? Is someone there with you?” I looked at my toothbrush, which sat proudly next to the sink. Glittering. I heard a frog croak nearby and hung up.

Holding On No one wants to go there’s never a right time A single leaf alone holds on Friends  sons daughters  parents disappear  discover what forever means A single leaf holds on alone A quiet embrace a midnight kiss a robin’s chirp a young boy’s giggle A single leaf torpid alone A breeze caresses a summer face freedom blows across a barren dome of sky A single leaf holds on stubborn to its stem Gentle gesture  of hand in hand wrinkled withered turned to ash A single leaf holds on blanched trembling Moments of mercy and misery a cardiac monitor sings an unvarying song that never resolves A single leaf alone holds on lets go begins its silent flight towards the soft landing that is no landing at all Ruth There were no flashing lights, no guard rail or ringing bells, only the cruel sun mocking the blue sky and the dissonant clang of tires over a cattle guard— tires that crushed granite-pocked earth along the two-track. This was rural Wyoming in the 70s. Ruth left their ranch near Bufford and waited in her car while a train blocked her way. Some galoot from Laramie in a rusted-out pickup behind her laid hard on his horn. Couldn’t he see the train, she must have thought. Rushed by the young jerk, Ruth gunned her caddy as soon as the train passed. She didn’t see the other train barreling down the  second set of tracks. The engine cut her in half. Joe, her son and my best childhood friend, was summoned from their ranch house. There’s been an accident, someone told him. When he got to the railroad crossing he stood in wind that sliced through late fall— cold, sharp, sere—wind that slapped  him into a savage world of severed hope. The Eyes of Texas Sun invaded my half-sister’s living room like unwanted enlightenment. She sits  in an overstuffed holding her Pekinese telling me what an asshole my father had been when he abandoned her and her mother  eighty-nine years ago. I sit across from her in a room with seventeen relatives I never  knew I had (compliments of my father’s errant  youth). My half-sister’s grandson politely asks  if he can play with her BB gun. The gun case is  the centerpiece of my half-sister’s living room.  She nods and I take it that this is something the boy looks forward to when he visits his grandma. After an afternoon of shooting in her backyard, this Lubbock boy announces that he killed one squirrel and blinded another. My newfound relatives either smile with admiration or ignore him.  I’m in Texas where cruelty is served-up  on the nightly news while my half-sister, dressed in her Hobby Lobby t-shirt, eats barbecue from Chick-Fil-A. I’m in Texas where what it means to  be a man is measured by how much booze one can   drink and still shoot straight, where the wildly  popular governor delights in sending unsuspecting  immigrants to cities in the north that can’t provide  for them and orders razor wire to shred their hopes of finding a place to give their children a future. No wonder my great-nephew loves to kill and maim.  At fifteen, he’s growing into manhood. He decides,  like a god, what will live and what will die,  what will see and what goes blind. The eyes of Texas are upon him. Wine and Roaches With apologies to Ernest Dowson The first of the month our ships came in: Thirty bucks from my mother, whatever  Bill could squeeze out of his father, a paltry sum from the State Department  for our Somali roommate, Omar. Student-rich, we opened our doors to friends  from the University and anyone else who’d heard there was a party on Twelfth Street.  This was the sixties—free love, free sex,   and free dope if you could score it. We kept our hash in Omar’s hair— a real afro since he was a real African. Jugs of hearty burgundy, blotters of acid, reams  of rolled joints, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, bongs, the Beatles, the Stones, Ginger Baker,  Eric Clapton—the Cream of our rockin’ crop. As the night wore on, our basement apartment took on the sheen of a fumarole, so dense were the clouds of cigarette smoke mixed with lofty vapors of grass and hash. At its crescendo someone I didn’t know, had never seen, asked if he could borrow my ‘65 Mustang. I handed him the keys and passed out. What a miracle when he brought my car back two days later! They were not long, those days of wine  and roaches. After the cleanup (who needed  ashtrays when the floor was so broad and  inviting?), we realized that we were broke,  penniless, poverty-stricken. Still, we dined  like kings: spaghetti and ketchup during  the week, canned tuna, and Fritos on the weekends. We got back to the garden. We were golden. Unfinished As a young man I finished every book I began, which got me through some heady stuff: Plato’s Republic , Nietzsche’s Zarathustra , Sartre’s Being and Nothingness . How many times I thought, I can’t go on; I’ve had enough. I’ve got to put this book away. Youthful idealism kept me going. Now, at 73, where every breath is a blessing, every sunrise a gift of light, and time a tyrant  who may run out at the drop of a blood pressure,  I get a few hundred pages in and assess: Is this book worth a chunk of my life? I completed Ulysses , but wanted those precious  hours back. As for Don Quixot e, let’s just say that I don’t suffer fools past page 200. Throughout Swann’s Way , I fought off self-destructive impulses (revolver or rat poison?) until I left the cork-lined room, Marzipan, and the other six volumes to the murky shadows  of someone else’s dusty library. And with Vanity Fair —just how many mean girls and boys did Thackery think I’d put up with? Abandoning these great works of literature amounts to sticking out my tongue at the brandy drinking,  cigar smoking, pooh-bahs who feel compelled  to tell me what I should enjoy. Hey, did you hear that the new Michael Connelly thriller is out? Harry Bosch is still hunting down the bad guys and living up to his motto: either everybody counts, or nobody counts. Benediction Thank you for the goddam birds singing.         Thomas Lux Thanks for any novel in which snow or tea  or preferably both, play at least a minor role. Thanks for late afternoon light in Pittsburgh—how it shadow-calms our journey toward night. Thanks for the cosmos that celebrates chaos in the Northern Michigan winter sky—the ringed moon and heavenly blur of the Milky Way.  Thank you for the chirpy voices of Gus and Grayson,  my neighbor’s kids, as they kick ball and yell at each other: You pushed me, That’s a foul —ancient melodies  of brotherly love/hate that fills my heart with hope. Thanks for a chicken, rubbed with salt, pepper, lemon, olive oil, thyme and butter and roasted to a blessed brown, hot out of the oven. Thanks also for its fragrance that causes tongues to lick happy lips. Thanks to Jack Ridl who teaches me, on his YouTube broadcasts, to sanctify the quotidian and slurp  my tea with unabashed abandon. Thanks to Otis, our neighbor’s dog, who hates  to go outside and gets revenge by rolling happily in his own shit for half an hour. Thank you for the quiet gleam on wet Hawthorn  needles when the sun comes out after days of rain. Thanks for the friendship of the many poets who inspire me, who make every day a benediction in stanzas and lines. Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Miracles That Keep Me Going  (WordTech Editions, 2023). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine,  and elsewhere.

Artemis  asks me if I ever noticed she is a mirage of weeping willows, thorns hiding under ditches,  and deer in headlights. asks me what I’ve taken from grassy pockets on hillsides and if it felt good in the back of my teeth. asks me if roadkill is a slipper for sin or a bucket for the sick. asks if I’ll ever stop making homes in holes as fresh as graves. Her foxes and coyotes are growing huffy. asks me if the hunt is always screeching or never screeching.My  throat holds life’s pursuits. Artemis asks if I have a child, will I scrub nature from their feet or follow their nosedive into rushing water. Backside Hymn A stitch of clouds on my exposed back to keep me a being above grass. As a teenager, the doctor told me my spine curved toward my heart. It wouldn’t affect- Yet even when sun barks at me to open my eyes, swollen shut with dew, I lean toward what’s left behind. The results come back again and again and again instruct to pound my right foot forcefully into the dirt, like I’m not scared of it and ask my body to know this life is right. From the Mouths of Great Aunts It seems like life is just repaving driveways. But the way she tells it, if it’s with someone you love that’s enough. She paints the white house through her tongue and teeth. Kneels sunlight, that is always already breaking through. It seems like life is just getting parts  for the broken-down mower. But that’s enough for me, to hop in his truck on a weeknight, and feel like we’re following the wind, even though I know he knows the way.But we both believe in the magic of gravel roads and evenings of orange and pink pouring themselves  over it.It  seems like life is just waiting for the other. But that’s enough, because in my waiting I can  stretch out. Wind is the flapping flag of memory. You don’t remember living until you’ve done it long enough. And one twenty-year-old day I became aware I was living. My movements are closer to now than on time . I burn when I look at my dog and realize this moment is already memory.The same burning when I look at photographs. I can hold her but by the time I meet myself her fur is no longer sanctifying my palms. I have no answer for this, no answer for the wind that feels  as if it’s already passed through.The only thing one can do is continue to feel it. TW: Mention of Death. On a Sparse Summer Tuesday Trying to coax out a spiritual experience, mirage of a miracle, as I brace blurred homecoming. Arrival can be profound. Guilt that it’s her I came for, Grandpa is a faded knick  in my memory. I never get out of my car because I’m too scared the grass is holy because I’m too scared the grass is unholy. But on a sparse summer Tuesday, I can’t thwart the call to flip the plastic bird on her birth year, right side up. I hold off the piercing ring of my stomach. The panic of fresh pavement. Acorns outline corners of her. I want to swipe ‘em,  shove ‘em into my pocket’s craters. As if she had grown them. As if a present living thing had touched her and waited for me to feel. Time Time hightails the weight of memories leaving me with the sagging hold of moss-coated sores. is threaded  between swatches of freedom. is ill, reminding me the sweetness of a fever cannot be revived. sits in the back of teeth  like an abiding tombstone. The more I chew, the more it spits on rain-drowned ground.   cackles when I try to form it into a flight of butterflies, specs of dust, or dying hair follicles. Forming We can sit on ledges that exhibit what has been birthed, shed our bathing suites, We can transform into any being. Cicadas on the hunt for prairies, that one good song everyone stands  and sways in unison for  at a folk concert. We can share a patch of earth, alive or wanted dead, braided by flocks of phlox. We can barrel into the world,  be the wind that knocks lovers out. We can read homegrown stories, paste their clippings on tongues of all awkward and open mouths. We can both lay on your side of the bed and become one person who always leans toward the cool side of life.

They stand below the rim in a group and reach their fingertips to bump the ball toward the rim or away from it, toward another rim. Gispelli dribbles the ball short but back and forth. He bounces it on the zeniths of an ovicular orbit. Toward Carlton; away from Carlton. Teasing toward the hoop; feigning away from it. His sweat, by inertia, gives away his direction, falling slanted toward the backboard, like it was blown by a wind.  The sweat on the backboard is only cleaned after the game. Sasson, lean and lithe, blocks a close jumper. He wraps his arm around Gispelli to knock the ball out and draws a foul. Gispelli’s crotch, knocked in the foul, aches as he bounces the ball at the free throw line and crouches, coiling his body like a spring, before releasing the ball at the top of his extension. The ball floats and the stadium is suspended while the ball’s destination is calculated and recalculated every second by every watching mind. Gispelli misses the knee-length basketball shorts that went out of style not long ago that compressed less but also revealed less. As the ball passes precisely within the orange metal circle, Gispelli watches a bead of sweat drip from the backboard onto the court. The ball caresses the soft net, enveloped, and follows the drip to the floor. He bricks the second free throw and notices a flashed look of disappointment from Sasson. Why would an enemy root for an opponent? Moore, his teammate, rebounds a gift and kicks it back outside the three-point line in front court territory. Gispelli rubs the ball’s bumps seductively while holding it off to the side at his hip, with eye contact. Sasson is distracted. Gispelli bluffs left, then slides right around Sasson, straight to the basket through an open avenue and launches off his right foot with the ball perched high above his head on his fingertips. The ball kisses the backboard, knocks loose a few drops of sweat, and batters the rim before falling through. Was Michael Jordan the first to hold his palms up in disbelief? Gispelli knows how to distract Sasson. He hikes his shorts up to reveal more thigh, bunching the polyester. He bends over, wide-stanced, hands out and at the ready at the top of the three-line. As Sasson catches a pass from the corner, holding five fingers up high, Gispelli mirrors him, holding out five to the right, then five to the left, before Sasson decides on a drive or a pass, or just to waver, take his time, and play in the mirror.  The sweat on Gispelli’s quads shines. They all stand under the basket and raise their hands as if in deep reverence. Will the holy hoop deliver? The net jangles and snaps up as the ball passes through. Half the crowd boils over and sprays up. Three for Sasson. He holds his follow-through arm in the air as he skips backward down the court. Gispelli looks away after noticing Sasson’s carpeted armpit.  Moore, at the top of the paint, dribbles, looks up, dribbles again. Sasson readies for the rebound by resting a hand on Gispelli’s thigh. Gispelli doesn't look down. Instead, he hovers his left hand in front of Sasson’s crotch. As the shot goes up they collapse together, shuffling jerseys and sweat.  Wrighte punches the air. The sweat stains start to show. Gispelli’s family cheers him on; cheers led by his father thick in proportions, making it difficult to decipher how the pedigree could turn out such athleticism. Their all-star plays hard enough to make his father forget. Great game, he’ll say, and later, where’s the girl? Sometimes, alone in the garage, he wonders if his line is ending.  With Sasson on his heels, Gispelli receives a bounce-pass as if it were a thumb in the soft the way it shocks him, then springs and dunks, and hangs from the rim, swinging his legs. Sasson jumps to block, stuck between giving up and showing effort, and ends up with a mouthful of crotch to the face – points he doesn't mind losing. But the game? Give a team the advantage in atmospheric energy and the momentum shifts on a cosmic scale. Sasson comes in rough at Gispelli. What professional future did either of them have, beyond this moment? They’d decide it for one another, tonight. Sasson would have to win a championship, or at least make it there, to have a chance. Gispelli might only have to beat him. As he nears the rim, Sasson calculates his chances of a basket at 50/50 and kicks it back out to Chavey.  Chavey shoots, mid-range, and it ricochets out to Sasson who double-palms the ball and sends it home. He swings from the orange, just as Gispelli had, but Gispelli, instead of eating it, stands by the side and snaps his own waistband. Sasson strikes a power pose when he drops, grabs his crotch, and wags it in Gispelli’s face. Gispelli turns as if he hadn’t seen it. Sasson’s coach pulls him off.  The decibels coming from Gispelli’s family are drowned out only by the double pair of powerhouse lungs owned by Sasson’s mom and sister standing, and often jumping, on the side opposite the Gispelli’s. Mamma Sasson treats the boys as her own. She knows her son finds his own place among them. Is it an adjacent place? She knows he protects himself. Sasson doesn’t remember his handiness in the junior league, as a toddler. Kids play. His mother remembers.  Sasson, against his best efforts, follows only Gispelli with his eyes as he watches from the bench: Gispelli for a deep three; Gispelli with a quick spin into a layup. Fouled. And one. Nails it. He won’t miss another.  Sasson looks for the pendulum in the pants, the slow circles. The male metronome that comes from a rhythmic dribble between the legs: a gambling club for members only, tossing their dicks on a roulette wheel.  Houston is down by eight with a minute-thirty left. Sasson goes back in while Moore lines up for a pair of free throws. The hole is next to Gispelli where Sasson steps in. Their forearms press together. Sasson says, bet you like that. Moore gets both points and backpedals after the second, trying to speed up the game. Gispelli won’t fall for it. He walks down the court. Sasson throws his arms up to get a reaction from the crowd. They answer. A steady foot stomp, faster than Gispelli’s dribble, builds from the very foundation. The crowd – Gispelli can’t tell which, doesn’t think about it – begins counting down the shot clock. Sasson’s mother and sister are shouting five, four, three… Gispelli fakes a pass right which opens a small window for him to drive left – not his favored side – to the hoop. He’s stopped by a tall wall so he pulls up for a jumper and misses. Sasson whispers as he brushes by Gispelli, you still had three seconds, beautiful. Wrighte yells at him from the side: What are you listening to the crowd for? You still had three seconds.  Gispelli’s father shouts at his son to “put the spell on ‘em.” His wife is screaming her face red. Her wish is for him to have a family one day. The Sasson family celebrates their clock trick – their jewelry and clothes flail around in a cyclone. Sasson’s sister’s hat is knocked off. They laugh and almost miss their kid on the court driving it down. Gispelli is in his way. Sasson is putting it home. His stride becomes a long hop, a declaration of pace, a ritual, a dance. A setup knock before breaking the punchline door down. Gispelli can’t get his feet set, so can’t draw a foul. Sasson springs up and slams mid air into Gispelli. Gispelli is thrown on his back and slides into a cheerleader. Sasson hammers the ball through the hoop – a pop and a swish. The crowd explodes. His hand bounces off the rim. Both ring. As he lands, his momentum carries him forward to stand above Gispelli. Gispelli is between his legs, looking up. Sasson looks down into Gispelli’s face and pounds his own chest. His teammates pull him away. The crowd is still exploding. Gispelli is helped up and ignores the taunting.  Houston’s fans make sound physical. They’re leading for the first time all game. Gispelli receives a pass like a hail mary halfway down the court. Sasson catches up. Gispelli takes Sasson to the basket. They are stride for stride. The stadium is dribbled by feet. Each synchronized step is an imitation of scale’s derangement, a dubious and yet exponential trajectory toward the unavoidable: the extramundane. Eternity resets, and resets again. The stadium, for the most part, quiets. Sasson feels Gispelli. They jump at the same time. Both arms outstretched, one with a ball. They are aligned at the fingertip if they are a foot apart. Sasson, his ego boosted by getting the out on Gispelli moments ago, instead of carrying this marriage to a draw, which would work to his favor, slaps the ball out of Gispelli’s hand. Foul. Gispelli to shoot for two.  Gispelli’s father bites his nails. Sasson’s sister and mother hold their hands pressed flat together in front of their mouths. Gispelli breaths out. Sasson is standing beside him on the lane line. Houston’s fans drown out jumbo jets – not a decibel from Nova’s. Gispelli misses the first. He only needs one to tie the game. He low fives his teammates and heaves his shoulders with a big breath to settle the nerves. He sees the hoop in his mind’s eye. Gispelli remembers only himself and the simplicity of that circle. The one that comes back around. The circle he finds in his teammates – then why wasn’t that circle complete? Gispelli lets it go. The ball seems to be going in, then jounces directly off the back of the rim to shoot out into the court again. Sasson grabs it and protects it. Gispelli rolls on him and bear hugs him for a foul. If Sasson makes both, Nova can still answer with a three. Two and a half seconds on the clock.  Sasson turns Gispelli’s trick back on him and looks him in the eye as he shoots. It’s a swish. Houston’s crowd howls. Sasson smiles as he hammers the ball into the hardwood. He won’t play around on this one. But he considers whether Gispelli will go for the three no matter what. Why go for a tie when the win is right there? He bends down, hovers there, then stands as if going to water a hanging plant, and, just, nudges the ball toward the hoop. It hits low on the backboard and bounces off the far edge of the rim which sends it straight up into the air, where it revolves. Its black lines shutter. It comes down heavy on the front of the rim and the sound of a diving board reverberates. It drops back to the court – without falling through the net – and is sent out of bounds by Chavey.  Two seconds is enough. Who else but Gispelli? No one even near the stadium speaks. Sasson, Gispelli’s magnet, follows him skirting about the court. The inbound pass, one-handed and thrown by Moore, leads Gispelli by a long way. Gispelli runs into the pass, grabs it, and turns. The clock starts. He steps deep with his left, testing the joints – which Sasson falls for, desperate as he is – then crosses Sasson over, and circles the ball back over his front-facing hip to turn it in the opposite direction. Sasson slides away onto the hardwood and dies. Gispelli is wide open at the three-point line. Eternity rests. He feels the shot through his toes and his bones through his skull. He feels Sasson’s touch again as he remits the ball to the authority of the hoop. The buzzer, louder than ever, yells operatic chills. Gispelli, in this moment, wonders if his throw determines anything. Does it matter how he does it? The ball sails according to the wind, the wind that blows his sweat. It’s off, he tells himself. He lost the tournament. Is it the nerves? Or is his best done?  The ball catches the edge of the rim to Gispelli’s surprise. It rolls from there. It rolls a circle around the rim and falls in, pushes through the netting, a portal to the extramundane, and returns to its love, the shiny floor, and the love it cannot have. The ping of rubber on wood, for once in the game, becomes the signal. Ballistic, the announcer says, ballistic.  Gispelli stands still, muscles gone lame, eyes fixed to the hoop. His teammates swarm him, handle him, push him around, rub his skin, punch him, wiggle him, tickle him, grip him. Pillars of people bounce around him. He rocks around but one piece in his field of vision stays still. Sasson is there, standing, stealing one last good look at Gispelli. Their eyes lock. Sasson turns, shoulders above his surroundings. Gispelli breaks from the admiration gripping him like a stone rolling upriver. He pushes people aside to get to Sasson and puts an arm to his shoulder to turn him around. They hug, then hug again. Gispelli whispers into Sasson’s ear: Sheridan’s.  Then Sasson’s gone. Gispelli falls into his victory. He interviews, hugs his family, his teammates, and Coach Wrighte. He laughs at Moore and Chavey doing a little dance for a camera. Someone puts a final-four cap on his head – he adjusts it and pulls it down then stands tall. All the lights and graffiti belong to him. How can someone just disappear? The peace and praise disorients him. He wants disrespect. Not accolades. His smile widens.  The lights and the excitement fade. Fans, after taking in one last look, turn to leave. Gispelli rides the bus back to the hotel with his teammates, singing their fight song over, and over, and over.  Sasson walks down a dark tunnel. He hears his teammates sob around him, sees their silhouettes consoling each other. What is the other chance at a late night win? He’ll take the proximity. The locker room is all tears and the coach’s echoed voice mumbles from the grave. Sasson is busy on his phone looking up Sheridan’s. He showers alone and hides an erection against the wall. Outside the stadium, a small cohort of diehard fans pity clap. Sasson nods to them, hugs his mother and sister, and outlines a midnight therapy. No one speaks on the bus.  At the hotel, Coach Wrighte tells the boys to get some sleep for the long drive back tomorrow, and not to forget about a week of school ahead. He’s used to dealing with the fallout, the occasional arrest, and the rare pregnancy.  What about numbing the pain with a vice? Was it worth the risk of toxic renegade? Chavey says he’ll go out when Sasson tells his roommates he’s going out anyway. Atlanta’s air opens its legs to an improved mood. Sasson says he just wants to drink. On their way to Sheridan’s, out of a ride share and onto the street, Chavey asks Sasson what’s up with him and chicks. Sasson stares at the little world of lights ahead. He says he has a girl back home. Chavey says, man, we all have a girl back home. Sassoon says, yea, but you don’t have my girl back home.  Gispelli orders water. The bar’s frequency suggests tuning out. He sees Moore at the far end of the bar eyeing a shot glass in front of him as if it were a cobra poised to strike. Sasson walks in with Chavey by his side. Moore takes the shot, grimaces, coughs, hacks, and moans in pain. Sasson, walking by at that moment, stops to help. Moore is letting out long grunts that rattle his throat. What was he doing, smoking a vodka-soaked blunt? Gispelli explains this is how Moore takes all his shots.  “He’s fine,” Gispelli says. “He hates the taste.” “Then why does he drink?” “For the payoff.” Gispelli pats a recovering Moore on the back. “Did you really beat that buzzer?” Chavey says. Gispelli shrugs. “I got lucky.” “Of course he beat it, Chavey,” Sasson says. “We don’t lose to punks.” He and Gispelli share a glance.  “A drink for the winner, then,” Chavey says, wedging himself to a place at the bar.  Gispelli leans into Sasson’s ear. “My dick still hurts,” he says. Sasson doesn’t lean. He just says loudly, “Then you’re in the right place.” “For what?” Now he does lean. “For your dick not to hurt.” Chavey turns with three shot glasses. “You better beat Kansas’ ass,” he says.  “I’ll drink to that.” They cheers and drink. Sasson wipes his mouth. Gispelli woofs. Chavey turns back to the bar, grabs a gin and tonic, just one, and says, “I’m broke. Dancefloor.” “Warm it up for me,” Sasson says. He and Gispelli step away from the bar to a less crowded spot.  “You played great,” Gispelli says. “I just wish I had longer shorts. Those short shorts beat me up.” “I’ve been saying that ever since they went out of style,” Gispelli says. Sasson twists a pinch of Gispelli’s shirt near his waist. “My dick looks better in them,” he says. “Hard to imagine.” Sasson is choked. Gispelli says, “You see that dark alley outside?” Gispelli leads Sasson to a side door hidden in a shadow of the club and slips out into the alley next to dumpsters and puddles. The court can be so bright. The line to the club is not far off at the end of the alley. Moonlight from the alley forms a silhouette around Gispelli as Sasson follows him that reminds Sasson – no, creates new reason for – why he came out. What he’d been touching all day, all his life, finally coming to him. Gispelli’s outline is complete. A circle. As Gispelli steps into the alley and turns, Sasson grabs him and, instead of pinning him against a wall, holds him gently and their lips meet. A warmth of release from a lifetime of agonizing restraint passes between them. Their bodies come tight together. Sasson wants to fall into the alley’s puddles. They hear a whistle directed at them from the end of the alley. Gispelli cuts off the kiss and turns his head. Sasson doesn’t. He grabs Gispelli and forces his face back.  "What are you listening to the crowd for?" Sasson says.  They return to the circle. Parker Wilson is a writer and editor living in Manhattan who exercises more than he writes. He is a recent MFA graduate and spends his free time running in Central Park and losing pickleball games. He has work published or soon to be published in The Cincinnati Review, Bruiser, Robot Butt, MiniMag, Defenestration,  and MIDLVLMAG , among others. Instagram: @parkerreviewsbooks