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How would they know? in the moments before freezing to death warmth overcomes you like a blanket of acceptance like an embrace of forgiveness like a reminder of what life used to be or so say most of the survivors Test for echo voices bounce off hard snow through black trees across grey lakes into white skies we wait for the signal to return to report with a message of any kind it never does Slowakening white is the colour of hibernation (not black) because it is waiting for warmth to arrive with sleepy eyes heavy limbs and a heart full of hope Penny Sarmada is from Ontario. Recent and upcoming: Versification, Sledgehammer, Selcouth Station, Pink Plastic House, Bullshit Lit, Tiny Wren

The hunter is haunted by images of a home he once knew, destroyed — a deconstructed fox hole, a pile of sticks and stones patiently waiting for the howl of a broken, desperate man to revive and rebuild something not as revolting as it once was Somewhere in the distance, an owl or mourning dove practices cutting the space with its melancholy melody, the refrain at once familiar and strange, echoing a time between time, nestled in the crook of calamity I calmly take it all in, content to watch the slow unraveling of a life that isn't mine, one or two worlds apart yet close enough for me to realize how it, too, yearns for another realm, for a chance to burn the old parts, to be revived by the only song desperate enough to crawl back to the very place that had destroyed it I had hoped you were hiding I waited alone in the sterile room for the surgery, too stunned to even consider goodbye. Instead, my legs shivering against the stirrups, I prayed hard for a miracle, for a giant "aha! Just kidding!" moment from the expanding universe that would never be large enough to hold space for you. Pity I received from the ones closest to me, words murmured to soothe, and I was grateful — still, in the cloying silence that crept in months later, I realized: I alone was left to somehow trudge through the thick muck of this loss. They expected me to swim and not sink, and I did, all the while hoping the currents would pull me under. How could anyone else truly know what it's like when your very own body becomes a thief who turns hateful against you, prolific cells with cold fury driving your demise, to snatch up the very thing you wanted more than life itself? Lamentations These days, I am bound by a tightness in my throat only offset by forced deep breaths that inflate my sense of belonging, at least for a moment. These days, I feel at once overabundant and lacking in time: those delicate matchbox moments that swirl in a never-ending masquerade of murky glasses and coffee mugs to clearly show just how not alone you are. Yet, if I somehow disappeared from the next afternoon matinee, if my wide beaming, familiar face no longer appeared immediately at your front stoop whenever you rung me to tell me you felt lonely, would you realize that I was no longer among the living? See, that’s the funny thing about the grandiosity of life and its chess moves: those who coldly push ahead eventually still end up falling off the board anyway in blessed descent: arms outstretched, bloodshot eyes bulging at the basest seams that swell and threaten to burst in the most gallant manner atop a carousel while peering down at those below who are still most eager to ingest the same candy- coated curses that no longer consume you Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut collection of poetry "Night-blooming Cereus" is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press.

Handyman Special Handyman Special: it’s just right for someone with a few skills, some time on their hands and some elbow grease. That bowling ball size dent in the drywall just needs a small piece from the box store and a quick patch, hasn’t even spiderwebbed across the wall yet. The discolored carpet just needs to be pulled up and I’m sure a good sanding or a quick patch of some of the boards will get rid of any seepage or lingering smell and if it leaked down into the basement the dirt floor surely covered it up like nothing. The flecks of metal that shine with the light, the ones imbedded in the frames of the windows and doors really add a unique touch, something I think most would agree adds value and if you still want to replace them prying off a trim board or replacing a door is a quick job. The property is secluded and has a private lot; someone could scream for joy and wouldn’t wake the neighbors. I’m sure anyone with a green thumb can get grass to grow over those patches and they are already rectangular, so why not use them as garden beds? The previous owner has left many useful tools: the axe would be great for cutting your own firewood, the shovel is a needed tool for anyone who works outside and a length of rope that sturdy would be good if you got stuck on that long dirt driveway. I’m sure you’ll love the place; people say old houses have personalities, the walls whisper, you just have to listen! Cracking Eggs I once heard the pleats in a chef’s hat represent the number of ways he can cook an egg, 10 pleats for 10 different ways and 100 pleats for 100 ways! Really though, I wonder which way that chef prefers his eggs because that’s really what matters, right? I know some people like sunny side up, but that’s a little messy. Some prefer poached, but that takes too many steps. Some love hard boiled, the cooking is easy enough, but I don’t have the patience for peeling. I wonder what it says about me and my love for scrambled eggs and no milk right in the frying pan. Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his family in New Hampshire. BOTN 2021 nominee with words in various lit mags and a debut collection with Alien Buddha Press called Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities available on Amazon and linked on his website. Website: http://linktr.ee/McGuirkMatthew Twitter: @McguirkMatthew Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew.

April was wearing a polka-dot scarf at the picnic where she fell in love. She untied the scarf and swirled it in the air to announce her joy to the world but the linen got entangled in a tree, the loose end soaring like a balloon tied to a mailbox. She turned to call her new love for help—an excuse to talk—but found him gazing away, wistfully at another girl. To rescue her scarf, April stood on a plastic chair and yanked at the cloth. A rip left some polka dots quivering on the tree, others flattening like misshapen hearts in her palm. Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. Born to a middle-class family in India, she later migrated to the USA. Her work has appeared in Reflex Press, Flash Fiction Online, Kahini, and elsewhere. She has been highly commended in National Flash Microfiction Competition, shortlisted in SmokeLong Quarterly Micro Contest, shortlisted in Bath Flash Fiction Festival. She is currently an editor at Janus Literary and a Submissions Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her debut flash fiction collection “Morsels of Purple” is available for purchase on Amazon and in local bookstores. More at https://saraspunyfingers.com. Reach her @PunyFingers

Two Returns to Water I’m so tired. I should be writing but instead I scan the room for spiders, the Adderall waxing off as the images wane in. The blue screen of my computer is too bright, highlighting the tips of my fingers, creating bony silhouettes that create bony words. No flesh. No life. Two returns to mark a new point. I can’t get angry in this space. I can’t be fired up, because igniting dry limbs will only turn me to ash. I need to be of water. I need to return to the water. The Fire This is what happens when we resist the destruction. When we build dams and construct reservoirs instead. When we block the flow of life and think we know better than the cycles that made us. The foolish attempts to control our mother when we are still in our infancy. Come, my petulant child. Rest quietly in my embrace and let’s watch the fire burn. The Other Sun I think about you every day as the sun rests on the horizon. Memories float in, uninvited— until they are. Lauren Theresa (she/her) is a queer neurodivergent writer, chthonic poet, botanical sorceress, and Jungian trauma therapist. She lives in NJ with her husband, two daughters, and myriad of plants, and her publications crawl the pages of laurentheresa.com.

magnolia’s cream-mottled cheek marking yet another bygone era plunked into the abyss as sorrow burrows into our roots, unfurling our prisons / our refuge, the delirious journey into what we've come to recognize as our shadow selves' last fragments of a fallen season that last slanted sunset reflected off the lake hinting with its brilliance at what we simply could not admit to ourselves. The expanding distance between us we hide in and seek thereafter Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut collection of poetry "Night-blooming Cereus" is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press.

She pushes her hip against his. Slender teenage hips, denim-clad and barely there. She can feel a burn beneath the fabric, chafing on her knicker line. She imagines the new ink spreading; bleeding and vivid, leeching and settling into her skin before becoming permanent. Becoming part of her, another new part, a part she can’t erase. Becoming part of them. The last thought makes her smile, makes her lean further and press deeper into the pain. She is trying to angle herself so her throbbing, clingfilm-covered spot is touching his exactly. She is trying to track the identical place that has made them one. Made them whole. It’s hot here under the pier, hidden from the tourists and the brightest part of the day. And as she clings a bit harder, nudges a bit closer, she thinks she feels him shift. Feels him start to pull away. She chooses to ignore it just like she ignores the pull and tingle of her skin. And his slight impatient sigh, as he fumbles for a fag. Instead, she closes her eyes and makes herself retrace their steps along the pier. Drifts back to the neon lights and thudding bass, back to the pierced, bearded man who flashed his surprisingly white teeth and asked, ‘You ready then?’ And then looked away with a wink when she handed over his sister’s ID. It makes her glow to know they’ve done it together, on the same day, in the same space. Same design. Even if was a choice made by money, by time. By him. She shakes that thought away. He has pulled away now, his arm hanging loose on her shoulders, as he blows curls of blue smoke up to the boardwalk above them. She turns away and tries not to breathe. Instead she looks at the rubbish collected by the breakwater. Things washed up, things abandoned and thrown away. Suddenly that thing she read is in her head again; about how pathologists use tattoo ink to identify bodies with missing limbs. How the ink tracks through the skin and pools in the lymph nodes, creating a rainbow that runs through your body forever. And something in her shifts. And she thinks whatever happens now, they are joined. These colours in their flesh. Forever. Tomorrow then, tomorrow she will tell him about the other two inky straight lines. Parallel and blue. Their other creation. And that butterfly stamped on his shoulder. Maybe that will fly away. Rachel Canwell is a reader, writer, teacher and blogger but not necessarily in that order. She is currently working on her first novel and falling in love with flash fiction a little bit more each day. You can find her on Twitter @bookbound2019

Chemical Pregnancies Dear Diary, I was late for my period so I took a home pregnancy test. Could I just be imagining the second line on the test kit because I want it so badly? It’s never as dark as the first line, in fact, it’s light, but it’s there. I saw it. It was real. It was a positive result. Two lines equal pregnant. There were two lines. I was pregnant. The test said so. The same thing happened last month. Have you heard of a chemical pregnancy? It’s apparently a thing that’s happening to me now. Chemical sounds so fake and manufactured, like plastic. Like some sort of pseudo version of pregnancy that doesn’t actually count because it’s not real. When I went to the doctor to confirm, the pregnancy test they gave me was negative. I told the nurse that can’t be right, it must be a mistake because I’m late for my period and I got a positive home test. The nurse said the sperm met the egg but the pair of them could not implant in my uterus. Why would my uterus reject a pregnancy? She told me it sounded to her like my pregnancies are only chemical. A pregnancy that starts, but doesn’t take. A fake. I don’t have what it takes. It’s not the first time, I told her. How many of these do I have to have? How much do I have to go through to get one to take? She said I could go to a fertility specialist and have tests done to find out why it’s happening. She said it’s good that at least I know I can get pregnant. The problem is that I just can’t stay that way. I don’t get to carry it, because it’s only chemical. It’s there and then it’s gone. Why is my body rejecting pregnancy? Didn’t it get the memo? All these years I have spent trying not to get pregnant and now that I want to, I can’t. When I left the doctor, I hoped the nurse was wrong. Yesterday I was pregnant. Yesterday I was finally going to be a mother. Yesterday I was going to have a baby. When I got home, I started to bleed. It feels like my body is failing me. Like I have lost control of everything. Nurse Marge On a last resort phone call, I’m pacing the sidewalk in front of my house in my rural Ohio subdivision. It’s summer, I’m barefoot, and the concrete is as hot as the forgotten cookies burning in my oven. No longer able to be positive and professional, I’m crying into my phone. I have reached a pediatric neurology nurse named Marge. Her starch stern but patient voice makes me picture her in a crisp white nurse cap, holding a clipboard. I can feel her listening to me. Nurse Marge wants the facts and through my sobs, I’m trying to give them to her. No one will give me an appointment for three months but my son needs help now. He’s in trouble now. We can’t live like this for one more day, let alone three more months! The words that tumble out of me next are the words I have not wanted to say out loud because I do not want them to be true. My little boy isn’t eating. He’s not sleeping. He’s miserable. We’re scared. Nurse Marge waits a beat to make sure I’m done. Ok, she says, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll have to call you back. I whisper thank you into the phone and collapse, criss-cross applesauce, onto my front lawn. I stare at my phone balanced on my knee and wonder if she will call back. So many of the schedulers, social workers, and receptionists I have tried have not called back. Being ineligible for pediatric psychiatric help until it is too late for it to actually be helpful seems to be the status quo where I live. I guess no pediatric psychiatrists want to live in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. I guess I can’t blame them. There are no appointments until October, is all anyone I can get through to, will tell me. What I hear - there is no help for your child who is falling apart until he has already fallen beyond repair. I realize that these thoughts are actually coming out of my mouth as audible words while I search the long-neglected grass around me, out of habit, for a four-leaf clover. I have never needed the luck of the Irish the way I do now. It doesn’t occur to me to wonder what I might look like at this moment to my neighbors. I’m desperate like in the dream where all your teeth are inexplicably falling out and you can’t stop it or get them to go back in. And I look like it. I haven’t showered, changed out of the clothes I slept in, or brushed my hair today. I’m wearing hole filled yoga pants and a stained t-shirt, sans bra. My fair Celtic complexion means red blotches from crying cover my face. My phone vibrates on my knee, interrupting my conversation with myself, and I jump up to resume my sidewalk pace. Nurse Marge is not one for small talk. She asks me, can you be in downtown Cleveland tomorrow morning at 8:30? Yes! I can do that. I feel like I have just found my four leaf clover. The impossible is now possible because Nurse Marge has pulled magic Nurse Marge strings for me. This is only the beginning, she warns me. She has felt my climb from desperation to elation and she’s trying to bring me down a rung. They won’t do anything but get background information, but then you’ll be in the system. I know this but I also know that starting now and not three months from now could make all the difference. I can go back in the house now to face the rest of the day, clean myself up, make a plan for getting us to Cleveland bright and early, and start on a new batch of cookies. Nurse Marge told me to call her again if I ever needed anything else. I’ve kept her number in my phone - First Name: Nurse, Last Name: Marge and I did call on her for help again. So many years, ups and downs, appointments and specialists later, I still think about her. She may have thought what she did that day was a small thing that was part of her job, but it changed our lives forever. Beth Mulcahy (she/her), a Gen X-er from Michigan, lives in Ohio with her husband, two kids and loyal Havanese dog sidekick. Beth works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. She writes poetry, fiction, memoir, and dreams about visiting Scotland. Her work has appeared in various journals and she has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Check out her latest publications at https://linktr.ee/mulcahea

Lucky Reincarnation or the blue hope of heaven carry no promise. Maybe I will lay in my shell, and drift away slowly or be suddenly ripped from the story on my way to the grocery store a mere two blocks from home. Will I close my eyes or keep them open? It doesn’t matter to the dark that comes either way, with or without express written consent. Maybe the line between my body and mind, that I worked so hard in my mediation practices to erase, will. No need for these feet and hands or the doing and undoing of knots real and perceived. will the long last exhale where the colors and shapes that I recognize as reality will be just that, before they are forgotten completely? But sure as shit, my last electric thought will be how lucky I am to have had this one chance, this one life, with my one beating heart, and you. Postponed All those times you prayed for cancellation. All those paragraphs you read halfway through, life being too short For bad poetry. The forwards, the afterwords skipped in patiently Are all penciled into your day planner. Goddamn the year of the wild lies and the terrified other. Goddamn the bloodline so disappointing you deny them, Like Jesus understood, alone and trembling in the garden, with the truth surrounding you like a sickness. The contents of your china cabinet are in the basement on a card table waiting to be sorted out into the wanted and unnecessary. Those things you purposely kept because “who knows”. That was your tenuous grasp on the unexpected. Your backward way of ‘letting go’ of control. But the changes came in the form of subtraction, not addition. Now those extra things, they need to go. Self-improvement is the order of the day and we are ashamed. You will get to know yourself better in the dirt in the corners of your home. Another update Another reason to cry How in the world? What the FUCK! You don’t know anything or anyone, you can’t. Searching your soul with a magnifying glass For a pinprick of a silver lining. Could you forget where you are? Could you laugh with a stranger? Relish the color of the leaves? Count your blessings? Roll a joint? Through your dirty windshield As you wait for the groceries to be delivered to your trunk You see a red hat. You can’t read it through the swaths of grime But it makes you sick all the same. You image yourself tearing out the throat of the person wearing it with your teeth. But look, here come your groceries. You push the thought aside, put on your mask And pencil that in too. Maybe next year. Canidae Had I noticed the dark gray of the heavily trafficked floor as I stepped off the elevator? Winter inside, winter out. I had left work and headed straight to the hospital. He was waiting for me. I remember his voice choking as he said, “Yeah, yeah…” when I tried to console him over the phone. You have been gone for about an hour, they were letting the family say their goodbyes. They waited for the granddaughters to arrive. They waited for me. I didn’t stop very far into that doorway. I skulked around the edges. That tiny crumb of panic in my condolences. I remember that my son did this after his baby brother was born. He stopped dead coming into the hospital room and had to be ushered in with a stiff hand by his grandmother. Tears hanging on the sills of his eyes. So terrified to disrupt the order, To hear the cries and not understand why. Terrified to feel too deeply. Trying to disappear like a fox and a den. Eyes gleaming and frightened and selfish. A different sort of birth now, but a similar terror. I could see your shell on the bed. You were gone into the ether. Absorbed was your last breath, Into the lungs of your children as they stepped all over each other recounting your last minutes on earth, overly detailed as your children tend to be when telling a story. No one quite had the timeline right Even though only moments had passed. It was fortunate no one was paying attention to the other so they all kept their truth. I drifted, unable to hold my attention still. I inverted my eyes checked my phone. A comically huge clock hung on the wall, showing me time left; times up. More stories about you, some laughter. There is something so funny about someone who thinks it isn’t. The ritual of looking back at where you once were took half an hour. Finally we hoisted our purses and wrapped our necks with scarves. Like yesterday, like tomorrow. I took a deep breath, relieved to be standing So close to the door. Outside the snow fell hard. Our conversation turned blessedly back to the weather as it always does in the place you were born We have to drive home in it. We have to go on living and thinking and doing. We have children to raise and deadlines to meet. And I have a cold den in my heart to return to, before it’s too late.

I laid it out very carefully this time. I didn’t want to lose any pieces, just in case everyone turned up. Last time, there was only me and Benny, and Benny started eating the board. Before he could devour the fungus or goose, I snatched them from him. I told him he was welcome to the stone, knowing he wouldn’t want it. ‘I can’t abide stones in my tummy,’ he said, slinking off with a corner of the board and a pair of trousers. I’m pretty sure I saw some crumbs fall out of the pocket as he threw them over his shoulder, eating a whole sponge cake I’d inadvertently left on the side. Anyway, Benny didn’t turn up. This time it was Georgette and her pal Maisy. I’d never met Maisy and she got a bit uppity when she didn’t understand the rules I’d carefully typed out in font size 6. I can’t be responsible for other people’s myopia so I told her she’d get the hang of it eventually. I lied. It’s a bloody impossible game if you play it right. I pounced on the goose because I knew, being pescatarian, I wouldn’t eat it, and besides, it’s frisky and needs a firm hand, but it can run around the board. Admittedly it tends to knock into the other pieces, squash the fungus, trip over the stone – and the poor fireflies don’t stand a chance. But all’s fair in love and games. I threw a six straight away. A word from the author: I am based in Greater Manchester, where I write all sorts of things from shopping lists and emails to textbooks through novels and memoirs. But I absolutely love the flash form. It helps me feel contained, having a small space to play in. This quirky piece was originally drafted in a hermit crab flash fiction workshop run by Jude Higgins (@judewriter), to whom I am eternally grateful.

Walter's Eighth Hypothesis Although it may be true that one may avoid some nagging when one's mother leaves, it would be disingenuous to pretend that these benefits outweigh the costs of her absence. "Walter, are you kidding? 'Disingenuous? Benefits outweigh the costs ...?' What kind of weirdo writes this way? Or even thinks this way? Mom doesn't live here. You see her every other Sunday. Get over it. And you want me to 'set you up' with one of my friends? You're crazy. No junior friend of mine wants to go out with a freshman who, when he's not masturbating - yeah, I can hear you in there - spends his time composing a book of absurd hypotheses. I love you, but, Jesus, can't you just be a little more normal?" Claire has a point. Maybe I should slow down on the masturbation and the book of hypotheses. But it does suck that all the girls at school are snobs, that Mom left, and that my best friend is my sister. Well, okay, that last part doesn't suck. Claire is awesome. Walter's Tenth Hypothesis What we complain about the most is what we are drawn to the most. Claire, you must secretly like this book. If not, then why are you reading it now? I left it out for a week and Dad never even picked it up, but you are always railing at me concerning its weirdness. Ergo, you are reading it. "Look, Claire, we've had this conversation more than once, but would you please go see your mother. I know you think you're supporting me but let it go. It's for us to figure out. She's your mother. Please take Walter this weekend. You can have the car for the whole day." Unbelievable. My father is trying to bribe me with the car to see my mother. I don't want to see her. I'm not going to see her. He is fucking pathetic. Walter sure gets it honest. Walter's First Hypothesis Your parents always say that you can talk to them about anything, but that is not the case. For example, I would like to talk to my dad about sex. Not the technical stuff, but what it really feels like. But then he would have to talk about him and mom, and that would be too weird. QED. (I love writing that). I hear Claire and Dad arguing again. I know he wants her to take me to see Mom tomorrow. It's ironic that they're fighting over her taking his side. I am not sure if I want Claire to go. I think it would stress Mom out and she seems to be getting better. We have fun. "Walter, for a guy who loves to write 'QED', you could at least have the decency to be a math nerd. I can't believe you still haven't figured out how to factor polynomials. Shit, I have homework too you know." Walter has to be the strangest creature ever. He thinks like a complete nerd, yet he's good-looking and inept at math. I actually had to imply to Brianna that he might be gay so she wouldn't force the issue of me getting them together. If she were to find out how he really is, I'd never hear the end of it. Of course, she's kind of a bitch so it might serve her right. Walter's Fourth Hypothesis If 50% of marriages end in divorce, then there really is no point in wedding vows unless they're predicated with a disclaimer. Something like: "We say these vows in the hopes that our marriage will be in the half that make it. If it's not, then you can ignore what we're about to say." "Mom, I thought about lying to you and telling you that Claire wanted to come this week but she had too much homework. That's not true. She is still very mad at you." These every-other-Sundays with Walter are both sweet and torturous. Jesus, I miss my family, but I have to stay away. Michael can't understand, blames himself. Claire is sure there is someone else and thinks I'm a slut. And Walter. Sweet Walter. I'm sure he has several hypotheses on the subject, but I told him I'm not ready to read that book yet. Walter's Eleventh Hypothesis Football cannot be a sport that requires much skill. Yesterday Coach Kelly asked me if I wanted to go out for the team next fall. I told him that other than throwing a ball around with my Dad years ago I'd never played, but he said that any kid my size (6' 1 3/4" and 178 lbs) can learn to play. I told him I'd think about it, which I meant, but the thinking didn't take long. I'm going to stick to cross country. Coach Warren says I've improved and maybe will place next season. I’m a cliché. An accountant whose wife up and left, and I have no idea why. There's nothing about it in any of my spreadsheets. I know what Claire thinks, but I don't think that's it. If it was, how? Since my episode a few years ago, I don't like to drive and I've been mostly working from home. Could Grace have been that sneaky? Johann says I should join his men's group. What would I do there? I'm exhausted all the time. Meaghan says I have a low form of PTSD because of everything I've had to deal with since Mom left. I told her that she might as well open her MD practice right away if she can already come up with bullshit diagnoses. I should probably drop the yearbook committee, but I know my presence is the only thing that guarantees some artistic flavor to the final product. Freshman year I spent $80 on a book filled with pictures of cheerleaders and the football team. Walter's Third Hypothesis (Part I) Sex with a partner is probably great, but a solo endeavor (ie masturbation) presents distinct advantages in the areas of access and communication. (Part II) Masturbation must be a male biological need as every boy I know does it. It's a skewed sample being only the cross-country team, but a unanimous vote is always impressive. (Part III) Are men and women so different that masturbation is not a biological need for girls? Assuming not, why haven't I heard Claire do it? She's heard me. Maybe I should listen at her door. Even in the name of science, that would make me a creep. "Walter, how was your visit with Mom? Is she still staying in that awful hotel? There's no way to cook there. Did she eat? How does she seem to you?" It's sad how much Dad misses Mom. He seems so lost. I never know what to tell him. I know I can't lie, but it's hard to tell him she's smiling more and finished a whole plate of spaghetti. I probably shouldn't ask Walter these questions. Claire has made clear that I'm pathetic, but Grace still won't take my calls. How can you live with someone for almost 20 years and just stop talking to them? Walter's Seventh Hypothesis (Part I) I don't believe that there is "one special person" for everyone. If that were true, and my person was in Sri Lanka, how would we meet? This can't be the case since we only come into contact with a tiny fraction of the overall population. The odds of that person being in our contact sphere would be very small. (Part II) People mistake convenience for love. It's easier to fall in love with the girl next door than someone who you have to make an effort just to find. (Part III) Internet dating may be a means of nullifying the preceding two hypotheses. With the internet, we can cast our net much wider in hopes of finding that special person. Still what if my special person chooses not to go online? Further reflection needed. I can't believe the shit I get for being a virgin. I'm not a prude, but I don't feel like putting out or going down on a guy just because he treats me to the movies. I think I'm ready, but I have to at least care about and be turned on by the guy, even if it's not Walter's version of true love. I hate it when I hear guys talking about sluts, but if what I hear in the locker room is true, then that word describes half the team. "Move your feet, Claire, keep them moving. Great steal! Look for the outlet. Nice pass! Yes, that's my daughter. Thanks, but no, I have two left feet. She gets it from her mom." Walter's Fourteenth Hypothesis It is hardest to see what's right in front of us. I should have known what was going on with Mom. Everyone complimented her on the weight loss, but it was because she stopped eating. And she had stopped working out. How could I have missed it? Maybe I'm not a good son. "Walter, this is bullshit. You were not responsible for their marriage or telling the future. You visit her every other week. She left us - remember. She's lucky to have you. Stop writing this crap. You have too much talent to waste on this. Write something real.” My family is really too much. An absent, cheating mother (I've stopped using the word slut), a father who walks around like a bride who got ditched at the altar, and a brother who talks to dead playwrights. Walter's Twentieth Hypothesis It's not true that someone is either a "math person" or "not a math person". I still can't add rational expressions but think it's amazing that the irrational numbers are uncountable. I'm going to write a play. It's about a famous mathematician who gets knocked unconscious by a petty thief while standing in line waiting to buy a bag of potato chips at a 7-11. The thief was running away after having stolen three packs of Marlboro Lights. Anyway, when the mathematician comes to, he discovers that he has dyscalculia which is like dyslexia except with numbers. He goes to several brain specialists and finds out that there is no way to reverse it, so he spends the rest of the play talking to complete strangers about what to do with his life. Dad thinks it has potential, and Claire is just glad I'm writing something other than the book of hypotheses. My therapist says that my condition, which she claims involves losing myself amidst the lives of others, is quite common for women who play the central role in their families. She supports the notion that I need time away to rediscover myself. I want it to make sense, and I know I can't see Michael right now, but there's still this voice in my head saying "Bullshit Chen, Bullshit Chen". And it sounds just like Coach Abrams. I can still hear his voice. "Toughen up, Chen. Run harder. You think it's easy being an All-American?" Walter's Ninth Hypothesis It is impossible to know if you have any friends in high school. Everyone is friends with everyone on Facebook, but in person, it’s a different story. Status trumps friendship every time. “Claire, I'd like to go away this weekend to a men’s meditation retreat. I know I’ve been struggling since your Mom left and I need to try and get it together. It'll be better for all of us. I can get a ride with Johann so you can have the car. I hope you and Walter will be able to coordinate schedules. I'll be back late Sunday." Meditation? Is he kidding? He does the tax return for some new-age yogi type, starts meditating thirty minutes each morning, and now he's signed up for the program? I can’t see Dad meditating. Shit, and this weekend, I have a million things to do. Maybe Walter will just stay home and write. Walter's Second Hypothesis There must be a human need to pigeonhole other humans. An Irish-Chinese American kid, I find that everyone wants to put a label on me. I’m supposed to be good at math, tell funny jokes, and grow up to drink lots of whiskey. “I can take you to the park but we need to leave now. I've got practice from 8-10 and right after I've got to go over yearbook proofs with Kelly. I need to pick you up at noon sharp. I'm spending the whole afternoon at Meaghan’s house; we've got to work on our junior year partner exhibition. Why are you wearing a nice shirt? And you combed your hair? Is that girl going? Yeah, her, the one you probably think is interesting because she has greasy hair and only wears black.” I admire Claire but I could never be like her. Her schedule is crazy. How does she get by without time to think about things? Is this why she gave up wanting to direct movies? Walter's Sixteenth Hypothesis Daydreaming is extremely undervalued. I don’t understand why teachers say, “Stop daydreaming, pay attention.” I do my best thinking while daydreaming. Where is he? And what’s with the cop cars? I can’t believe he’s not here. I told him noon sharp. He’s such a flake. Shit, I have to park and get out. These weekends by myself are hard. Walter’s visits really keep me going. I know Michael can’t understand my desertion. He must think I’m a heartless bitch. And Claire … . There was the time when she was nine and we bought matching dresses and shoes. That seems like several lifetimes ago. Fuck. Stop thinking, Chen. Stop thinking. Walter's Fifth Hypothesis If you are able to help someone, you should. Holy shit, what’s going on? A jumper? Why are there so many cops? Where’s Walter? The Falls. A jumper. Oh God. “Excuse me, excuse me. Move, I have to get through. My brother …” Walter's Eighteenth Hypothesis In literature, orgasm has been equated with mini-death. If this is true, then our whole lives must just be foreplay leading up to the ultimate climax. Pick up. Pick up. Fuck Dad. Please Pick up. Please. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Mom. I’m at the park. Get here now. Walter is at the top of the Falls with that girl I think he likes. Yes, some strange girl from school. There are cops everywhere. They say he’s going to jump, and they won’t let me through. Those Falls. I don’t know. Some stupid community service project. Who the fuck cares? Do you hear me? Dad? He’s meditating. Yes, meditating. At a retreat two hours away. Fuck Mom, just get here.” I wonder what the kids are doing. Stop, stop. Back to meditation. Here I am in the woods with only the sounds of the birds and wind whooshing through the pines, yet clearing my mind seems so hard. Claire is probably out and Walter must be in his room writing. Let go, let go … . “That’s my brother. On the ledge. I need to talk to him. Professionals? He’s not going to talk to a fucking professional. He needs his sister. Me, I’m his sister. Let me through dammit!” Where are the keys? Walter at the top of the Falls? That’s impossible. He seemed fine last week. God, that's a long way up. Shit, the keys, the keys. I can’t believe this is happening. I knew something was wrong with that girl. Letting herself go wasn’t a fashion statement. How did he hook up with her? What is this, some sort of demented suicide pact? I wouldn’t put it past him. How did they get up there anyway? Why was I so hard on him about that fucking book? Dammit. And Mom, fucking Mom. Walter's Sixth Hypothesis "Be your own man" is highly overrated. I've been given that advice, but in reality, conformity is valued far above individuality. “Mom, are you here? You won’t believe it. He’s coming down. He’s leading that girl by the hand. Yes, coming down I said. The girl. The one he's been talking about; I think he's got a crush on her. He’s leading her down. That’s it. The rescuers have them. They’re safe. People are saying he’s a hero. A hero. Walter’s a hero.” A word from the author: This story turned into a book which my late father, a literature professor, read. When he finished, he looked at me and said, "So, you've had these characters in your head for years now?" "Yup." Miss and love you Dad.

At first, He was charming and kind. Then things started to happen, That made me think, He’s not right in the head. He was becoming obsessive. Mum was hiding inside. I was at the gate. It was one of those metal barricades, Bars like a prison door. I said mum didn’t want to see him. My kitten walked through the bars Onto the footpath. He grabbed the cat like this! See! Like this! Snapped its neck. Testosterone is a strange energy, hey? I was completely infatuated with her. I’d never felt that way about anyone. I went to hundreds of psychics and mystics, They all told me the same thing, She’d been my mother in a past life. I’ve been dreaming about her a bit. I think she’s passed. I gifted her some pottery years ago, Wrapped it in a scarf. I dreamt she sent me a parcel. Inside was the scarf. Just the scarf. I felt almost nothing, Which was a relief to me. He dragged me by the hair one night. I had never been scared of him physically. It was the emotional stuff that got to me. He pulled me down the hall. I let out this roar, from deep inside me. Guttural. The sound was completely primal. There was a hammer on the table. I thought I might bash his head in. He looked at me, Looked at the hammer, Took it off the table, And left.