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Longing  She wants a mother. Her brother’s.  Caveman  Two stones. Fire make. Hot, hot!  Sonography  Two hands. Two feet. Two horns.  Hiccups  Inhibitions walk out of a bar.  Paralysis  Her toes on his. Still nothing. Cheryl Rebello (she/her) is a writer and poet from India. She found writing one day and has been all the better for it. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Hooghly Review, Kitaab, Tiny Wren Lit, Coffee & Conversation and others. She occasionally posts at @cheruwritesalot

5 pm. Flight canceled, a fourteen-hour layover. Ernest sits in a vinyl seat, a little girl wriggling on the seat behind him, and calls his sister.  Lydia answers on the third ring, voice bleary over the speaker. “Hi. You at the airport?” “Yes, but my flight got canceled. Storm over the Atlantic.” In the black spiral- bound notebook in Ernest’s messenger bag, beneath the flight information and his assigned seat (18D), he has written in red pen and underlined twice that one in one hundred flights on this airline get canceled. He has also written that 71% of flight cancellations are due to adverse weather. “We’re flying out at seven tomorrow.” A pause. A rustling sound comes through the phone, as if Lydia is sitting up, or turning over. “I can’t pick you up, then. I’ll be at brunch with Kyoko and Jiro. You’ll have to take the train on your own.” Ernest props the phone between his ear and shoulder to pull out the notebook, and retrieve a black pen from his shirt pocket. In the notebook, on the same page as the flight information, he writes the new flight number, and the new arrival time: 10 am.  “Ernest?” Lydia repeats. “You’ll have to take the train to Nagoya by yourself.” “I won’t be able to read any of the signs.” Below the arrival time, he writes that Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world, and therefore the easiest to get lost in, without a guide. Lydia sighs over the phone. “Don’t you have the Japanese dictionary I sent you last March?” He has it in his bag, in front of the laptop and next to the exclusive hundredth anniversary edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles . “Yes, but there are forty-three letters in Hiragana, and over one-thousand common  symbols in Kanji. I can’t just stand in front of every sign looking up all the words.” “Most of the signs will be written in English too.” “What if I get lost?” “Ask someone for help.”  Ernest presses his lips together. “Lydia. I can’t just go up to someone I don’t know and ask them for help.” Another sigh. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Look, Ernest, it’s seven in the morning over here.” “That’s a normal time to be up,” says Ernest. “It’s a normal time for you to be up,” says Lydia. “ I  was at a nightclub with Sumi and Arisa until two, and I’d rather be asleep. Text me when your flight lands.” “I will,” says Ernest, but Lydia has hung up before he finishes.  6 pm. Ernest eats minestrone soup and caramelized mushroom ravioli, and reads The Hound of the Baskerville s for the thirteenth time. In an earlier page of his notebook, he has written that there is no statistical evidence to prove that the number thirteen is actually unlucky. As soon as he finishes this reread, he will flip back to the beginning and start over.  “Can I get you anything else?” asks the waitress, which means that either he’ll need to order something else, or get out of there so another customer can sit down. But this padded chair is more comfortable than the airport seats, so he orders an American mule and reads chapter eleven.  In front of him on the table are six felt-tip pens, and a set of sticky tabs with colors corresponding to the pens: cherry for well-written prose, rust for quotes he appreciates, dandelion for foreshadowing, and so on. He takes a sip of the mule and uncaps a pen (green, for thought-provoking passages), writes a notes, with the date beneath it. He adds a tab above it, perfectly aligned with the printed text.  “Ernest Carter?” The voice above him is sharp, not quite nasal, and Ernest looks up, then squints in slight disbelief.  The woman who stands in front of him has artificially red hair, and although he hasn’t seen her in what feels like forever, he still recognizes the thin lips and perpetually cocked eyebrows. “Tessa Rowe?” She wrinkles her nose a little. “It’s Tessa Gellway now,” she tells him, “but yeah.” Tessa had been Lydia’s best friend for all of middle school and most of high school. They’d been inseparable, almost sisters, and Tessa had spent more time at their house than she had her own, although she never talked about her family. She has always regarded Ernest with a kind of removed disdain, as if it was a coincidence he lived in the same house as Lydia, as if she were more a member of Ernest’s family than he was. “Funny,” says Ernest, “I’d never have thought I’d run into anyone here.” He’d moved away for college when Lydia was thirteen, and hadn’t witnessed the falling out, but he remembers vividly the phone call from Lydia at one in the morning in her junior year of high school. She’d been crying already, voice hoarse and broken over the phone. Tessa had turned all her friends against her somehow, and now no one would speak to her. At the time Lydia had a boyfriend whom Tessa had taken for herself, but she wasn’t upset about the guy. She was upset about Tessa. “I didn’t realize you lived in Chicago,” says Tessa.  “I don’t,” says Ernest. In his notebook, he would like to calculate the probability of running into someone you know at the airport, which probably decreases as the length of time since you’ve seen them increases, and your lives gradually diverge overtime. “I’m on a layover.” Lydia hadn’t really made any more close friends until she’d moved to Japan halfway through her undergrad. By that time Ernest had finished college and moved back to Indiana, close enough to see their parents a few times a month, but not more than that. He and Lydia had been best friends the summer before she moved, haunting museums and board game cafes. She brought her easel and paints to his apartment and worked on her landscapes while he watches architecture documentaries on weekends. He’d helped her pack stuff into suitcases to bring overseas. Tessa glances at her phone and takes a step back, but lingers, looking just to the side of him. He runs a fingertip around the rim of his glass. “How’s Lydia?” He’d been surprised when, on one of their scheduled phone calls, Lydia had told him she’d met someone. Ichiro was sweet, and when he’d come home with Lydia that Christmas he’d shown Ernest photos of his indoor seedling experiments, and watched Agatha Christie film adaptations with him and analyzed all the evidence. Lydia had been thrilled they got along so well, but the odds hadn’t been against her. There weren’t many people Ernest didn’t get along with.  “Good,” says Ernest, surprising himself with the smile that creeps over his face. “Really good. She lives in Japan.” Tessa frowns, but doesn’t say anything else. Ernest runs a hand on the edge of the table. He would like to call Lydia now, just to hear her voice again, but she would groan at him for calling while she’s at work, and anyway, he doesn’t know what he would say. Instead, he gives Tessa a placid smile, and opens up his notebook, clicking open his pen. “Well. I’m sure you have a flight to get to. It was nice seeing you.” 7 pm. Back in the vinyl airport seats.  “Have I seen you before?” asks a woman in a green dress with honey hair twisted back from her face. Her narrow nose and wide-set eyes are unfamiliar. “I don’t think so,” says Ernest. In his notebook, he writes that the odds of running into someone you know at the airport is approximately one in fifty-thousand. 9 pm. He’s migrated to a high table and stool where he can charge his laptop as he works. He hasn’t quite gotten to the point where exhaustion trumps the discomfort of the seating, so he might as well be productive, earbuds playing a quiet combination of rain and white noise he combined himself for optimal calm and focus. As a bonus, it drowns out the baby across the gate whimpering into its mother’s shoulder. He is running two fingers up and down the cord of the earbuds, when a voice somewhere above him says, “Ern!” Ernest has not been called Ern for at least twelve years, but automatically, he looks up. “Henry?” Henry Bryant looks much the same as he did in his undergrad years, except for a premature graying around the temples, and a deepening of the crow’s feet around his eyes. He has an army green backpack slung over one shoulder, which he slides to the floor as he pulls out the chair across from Ernest and sits. “God, it’s been years. What are you doing in Chicago?” “I’ve got a layover,” says Ernest, “but I’m going to Japan for my sister’s wedding.” Henry was his first roommate, and they’d stayed friends all through college, although they were so different, none of their other friends had understood why. Somehow it had worked. Henry could talk all he wanted and Ernest could listen and not say anything without feeling awkward. He’d gone on Henry’s hikes and weekend camping trips whenever Henry urged him to get outside more, and Henry had accompanied him to libraries and jazz bars where Ernest could take in information and organize it in his mind all he wanted.  “Great. That’s great. Tell Lydia I said hi.” “I will. Funny, you’re the second person I’ve run into today.” It was Henry who’d first started calling him Ern, and soon everyone, even their professors, were doing it. Ernest just sounded so damn pretentious, Henry had said, and maybe that was true, but Ernest had thought that ‘Ern’, if anything, sounded a little morbid. He hadn’t really cared what people called him, though. He’d been happy to have friends who liked him enough to give him nicknames. “Have you seen Jess, or Tony? Or Martin?” “No,” says Ernest. “No, I haven’t seen anyone in years.” He digs his fingertips into his knees under the table, feeling the corduroy over the jut of bone. He thinks about the probability of running into someone you know, written neatly in his notebook, in sharp black pen. “Aw, that’s too bad.” Henry’s face crinkles in a half-smile, all eyes and no mouth. “We should do some kind of a reunion, get the gang back together again.” “Yes,” says Ernest. “That would be enlightening.” He runs a thumb over the bend of his knee, and corrects himself. “That would be great.” They hadn’t talked much, after Henry had moved to Seattle to work a fancy office job and cross hiking trails off the bucket list. Ernest had considered moving overseas to study in England, but ended up floating from one job to another, data analyst, library assistant, and finally risk management, which at least paid the bills. Years ago he had talked about flying over to Seattle to give Henry a visit, but hadn’t been able to get the time off. They were friends on Facebook—but Ernest spent very little time on social media. “Great,” Henry echoes. He slings his backpack back over his shoulder and stands up just a little, hands braced against the edge of the table. “Well, listen, I gotta go, but it was great to see you. Tell Lydia I said hi.” “I will,” says Ernest. Once Henry is gone, he pulls out his spiral bound notebook, and clicks open his pen. 11 pm. Ernest sits on the floor, leaning against the wall, with his legs stretched in front of him and jacket draped over himself like a blanket. He snores softly. 1 am. Still on the floor, he eats the salted peanuts he bought earlier. He can’t sleep anymore, so he opens his notebook. He writes a list of the next ten books he would like to read, and another list of the most common words and phrases in Japanese, which he has memorized from Lydia’s dictionary, and then he calculates the probability running into two people you know at the airport, two people who have never met before and are completely unrelated to each other.  Then, on a whim, he calculates the probability of running into three people you know. The odds are one in a million. “Ernest?” His breath catches. After all these years, he’d recognize her voice anywhere. For half a second he doesn’t look up, wondering if he’s just imagining her. He’s been awake for so long that everything feels like a dream. The odds that she’s just in his head are greater than the odds that she’s actually here. When he lifts his head she is standing over him, and she looks the same as she always had, a dark halo of curls around a freckled face, deep eyes, beautiful lips. She looks like an angel, just as he always thought she had.  “Ivy.” Her lips purse in a small smile and she steps closer, kneels and then sits against the wall, leather bag in her lap, shoulder and hip brushing his. If it were anyone else, he’d bristle, but it’s her, and it means she is real. He can smell her perfume, lavender and something else he can’t identify.  “Ernest,” she says again, and when she says his name it sounds soft and exquisite, “how are you?” Ernest closes his eyes, feeling the warm shape of her beside him, and exhales. “Lonely,” he says. Ivy says nothing for a moment, and then she says, “I’m sorry.”  They weren’t exes, not really. They’d never actually dated.  They’d met at a party, one that Henry had dragged him to, all purple lighting and music with too much bass and alcohol perfumed breath. He saw her before she saw him, red shoes and a white silk dress that rippled like the ocean in a storm as she danced. He had watched her, entranced, until drunk hands had shoved him to the side and he got lost in a throat of shoulders and knees, and the only escape was the porch steps and the cold night air. She joined him only a minute later, as if she’d been watching him the whole time. Out here all by yourself, handsome?  she’d asked, and they’d laughed as if they’d known each other their whole lives. “What are you doing now?” she asks. Her right hand rests on her knee, so close it’s nearly touching his, but not. “Risk management.” Ivy laughs, and though it’s quiet it sounds just the same as when she used to laugh as loud and strong as the wind. He’s missed it. “That’s just like you,” she says. She doesn’t tell him what she’s doing, or where she’s been. Instead she asks, “Do you remember that weekend in the field?” He does. They had known each other a year by then, and they had become binary stars, infinitely circling each other. On the first warm night of the year they had driven out to the middle of nowhere and not told anyone where they were, relishing the spontaneity like wild birds. He had read poetry aloud while she watched, openly staring, and she had taught him how to dance and showed him how to find Saturn with her telescope.  He hadn’t brought his notebook. For once, he hadn’t needed it.  “I remember,” he says. She left before they graduated, and she didn’t tell him why, or where she was going. She hadn’t answered his calls, and none of her friends had known where she was either. He can’t explain her leaving even now, only that it was like having the thread between his heart and his lungs snap. Like having his ribs ripped apart and hands grasp the wreckage inside to tear it out. In all these years the pain has faded to a dull thrum, but still sometimes when he thinks about her his sternum screams like it’s burning from the inside out.  “I still dream of you,” he says, quiet. They are not looking at each other. “I dream of you too.” Between them, their hands intertwine. They are silent for a long time. Then, like breaking crystal, he asks, “When’s your flight?” Ivy shifts, takes a breath. “Two. I should probably go.” She stands, leather bag back over her shoulder, and he stands too, still so close, fitting together. They don’t exchange information. He doesn’t ask where she’s going. After all, their lives have diverged so much, what would be the point? Meeting here was just a failing of probability, a tiny chink in the equation.  The moment is almost over.  Ivy holds his face in her hand, soft palm against an angular jaw, and he leans into it. “Ernest,” she says, one last time, and it sounds like a prayer. She presses a kiss to his temple, dark curls caressing his cheek, a whisper of breath against his jaw. And then she is gone.  3 am. He does not sleep, and he does not write. He watches the moon disappear over the horizon. 4 am. He’s standing in line waiting to board so he can pretend to sleep for the next fourteen hours. His mouth tastes bitter, and his jacket is creased across the sleeves. There’s a text on his phone, from Lydia. Just had dinner. You boarding soon?  He types out a reply, and a second later gets back, See you in 14 hours :) “Have a good flight,” says the attendant scanning his boarding pass. He’s too exhausted to smile, but he nods. His seat (18D) is an aisle seat, and when he gets there the rest of the row is full. The person by the window is fast asleep, eyes covered by an orange sleep mask, and the middle seat is a familiar face. It’s the woman with the green dress and narrow nose. She’s reading The Hound of the Baskervilles.  When he sits down, she looks up, and her face changes. “Hey, I recognize you.” He smiles, just barely. “I guess you were onto something there.” It’s a statistical improbability, but it’s not impossible. The woman slides a bookmark into the book, closes it, and holds out her hand. “I’m Meg,” she says. He takes it. “I’m Ernest.” Lyra Cupala studies Theatre and English at Whitworth University. She currently runs her school’s student lit mag, and is working on the second draft of a novel.

I. Quest Before what happened to Christine, before arriving in Iraq, before even leaving Nebraska, all we knew for sure was  that there would be violence and sand. We began by trying to solve the wrong problem. Although wearing our gas masks in sandstorms was almost certainly the most sensible way to avoid breathing difficulty and probably eye damage, the memory of her exiting a port-a-potty in one, sand swirling around her, still chills me. So much can hide in the sand when it’s like that—some things you want to conceal and some you later try desperately to uncover. And I guess some that you’re just not sure about.  I remember lying and sweating on my cot, mask in place outside our tent, my head hanging over the edge so that she was upside down in the haze walking toward me, her uniform covered in the white ragged circles of salt from her sweat. It was only Christine, but with the fog creeping inward on my mask’s lenses, she seemed like an astronaut on Mars. And in the mask, she looked like the rest of us. Like nothing special at all. * She came from another unit, somewhere far away like Maine. I don’t know why she was transferred, but someone said she’d been a stripper there. Her unit wasn’t deploying, and ours was—and in need of military police—so I guess that was it; it didn’t have anything to do with stripping if that was even true. She didn’t seem like the type.  The rest of us girls weren’t MPs. I was an admin clerk, but the others were medics and food service. Four of us altogether. Well, five if you counted Christine, but we never did. She slept in the female tent, but she rarely talked, and, yes, I have to say it, even though no one else did, she was startling. I mean that in the literal sense, that her beauty was so strange it startled you. I won’t describe her; it wouldn’t do her justice. Just picture what you will.  I always thought of her as a bird I’d seen on the cover of National Geographic from one of the donation boxes that came in every week: a grey crowned crane; it has a halo. And dignity, like her. Her face made her less welcome in our tent, where we sat around, breathing in burn-pit fumes, sweating with IVs in, courtesy of the medics, and watching Sex and the City  on scratched and skipping DVDs. And being less welcome in our tent meant being vulnerable. We weren’t the only ones bored, and we were far outnumbered.  We had a plan, and in our defense, we did try to tell her. It was when we were washing our uniforms. We only had two because this was the beginning of the war, what we all later called the Wild  West , when units of untrained reservists were handed M16s and sent to do infantry work, regardless of their actual job. All that meant, when it came to uniforms, was that we had to wear one and wash the other in buckets with grey water every so often.  When it came to everything else, it meant innumerable things. Like, we took the plates out of our vests on patrol because it was so hot, they were heavy, and it made more sense to us to carry snacks in there. Like, we didn’t have armored vehicles, so we put sandbags under our feet to slow rolling over if we hit IEDs, and we actually thought it would work. Like, we took pictures with ammo we found in the desert and explored old bunkers as if this was summer camp.  Nonetheless, uniform washing provided a good opportunity to talk. And Christine, perfect as she was, still had to wash her uniform. So, pastel wash buckets in a line next to the water truck, we orchestrated a casual intervention, like hyenas luring our crowned crane to the watering hole. “May I join you ladies?” Peterson asked, but we were prepared for this.  “Hey, we need to chat about something. Would you mind coming back in twenty?” I said, walking him away. “And tell your friends.”  Christine looked up at this. “What’s going on?”  Monica, the only sergeant among us, but still just Monica to us, said “Let’s take our buckets over there.” She pointed to sand far enough from the water truck to avoid overhearing.  “Look,” I said when we’d started washing, water warmed by the sun battling ineffectually against salt stains and dust. “You have to choose someone.” “What are you talking about?” she asked, but I knew she had to understand. “You have to pick a guy,” Nikita said. “Anyone want an IV?” She hooked Jen up, and I said, “I can’t believe we have to explain this, but the reason you are constantly fending off guys is because you haven’t chosen one yet. And it’s not just about you, you know. We don’t want random MPs creeping around the tent all the time.” “You mean like the dudes you guys are fucking?” she asked. “I’m not into them  creeping around either.” Monica, perhaps due to the emotional escalation, jumped in. However , the truth was that even though Monica outranked us, she wasn’t really into leadership. “Look, having a boyfriend at home isn’t enough. You need to have someone here who they respect enough to leave you alone,” she said, kind of too quietly, I thought. “Christine, they will keep hounding you until you pick one of them,” I clarified. “Simple as that.” My hands were getting pruney, but submergence in water was a luxury, and I didn’t want to be done. I watched the bubbles spread to the edges of the bucket and slowly dissipate, and I wanted to put my face in the water and stay there forever. “I don’t have a boyfriend at home, and I don’t want one here. I’m not going to have sex with someone so that you guys feel better. None of this is your business.” Christine wrung out her uniform, dumped her bucket, and walked away. “Hey, we tried,” Monica said. “Right? Cara?” It was shocking how quickly the moisture left your body here. My hands were dry, not a wrinkle on them now. I nodded. “There’s only so much you can do,” I said.  “And you know she was a stripper in Michigan, right? Maybe she knows what she’s getting into,” Jen said. “Maine,” Nikita said.  “Right. Well, I’m sure they have strippers there, too.” Jen said. Nikita looked at me, waiting, and I said, “Tell the guys to keep an eye out for her anyway.” She nodded, satisfied, I guess, and we got up to leave. The trouble was that our guys were not MPs, so our guys were never close enough to keep anyone safe but us. II. Love I had a secret. I was happy on that deployment, really happy. I loved being part of a team and being valued. I hadn’t fit in in high school, mostly because I was too smart for the normal classes and too poor for the gifted ones. But here, my poverty was an asset. I used tenacity and ingenuity to solve problems, the way only someone with a lifetime of training could. I was used to dirt and hard work,sleeping on the ground,  eating terrible food or going hungry. I didn’t have to waste time becoming adjusted to our situation or wishing I was somewhere else. When we couldn’t get enough water shipped in, some of the girls wasted what we had washing their hair, but I cut mine off. In Iraq, the guys called me Sunshine. For the first time, I flourished. I pretended I hated it, but secretly, it felt like home. Christine had a secret, too. III. Knowledge I spent the day Christine was raped with the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran—the MEK, eating biscuits made from chickpeas called nan-e nokhodchi and drinking dark orange tea heated with their samovar. I was the only female w ho worked in the command tent, mostly filling out forms and fending off the Major’s childlike advances, so I got to drive them to the meeting. The MEK was still a terrorist group then, but borderline, in possession of things we needed, and, importantly for me, mostly matriarchal. So, I joined the officers in the Humvee on an adventure outside the wire to represent all American women, though I’m not sure that including one who was so inferior that she was driver, note-taker, and photographer all in one sent the message they thought it did. They were certainly annoyed when the female generals addressed their questions to me and served my tea first.  But that story is always tainted in my memory by the worst sandstorm we saw on that year-long deployment and what happened to Christine when it kept the officers away from camp for so long. It rolled in like waves of a waterless ocean. The tent shook, and the MEK covered their mouths with their hijabs. Less prepared, we pulled our shirts up over our mouths and noses as professionally as we could. But the wind was too strong, and sand stung our faces through and around the tent walls, so one of the MEK soldiers shoved blankets in our direction. I helped cover the officer nearest me, but we’d run out of blankets by then. The youngest general came to me and covered us both. Our faces were side by side, and we smelled like sweat and dirt and tea under the blanket.  I suppose it was obvious I was terrified from my shaking, so she told me a story muffled by the roaring wind, by sand simultaneously pounding and peppering the tent, by her accent, and by her hijab. But I clung to the words like they were all that was real.  It was about birds. The birds didn’t have a leader, so the wise hoopoe thought they should find the most righteous and courageous bird to lead them—the simorgh. She lived in the middle of a sea in a tree that held all the seeds of the world. When she flew away, a thousand branches grew, and when she came back, a thousand branches broke, and the seeds fell into the sea.  To get to her, they had to cross seven valleys, each with its own peril. Along the way some of the birds died from fright or thirst or violence, until only thirty were left. When they reached the tree in the sea, they learned that the simorgh was their reflection, their shadow: si : thirty, and morgh : birds. But not all along; the simorgh was the thirty birds who crossed the seven valleys, not the untested ones that began the journey. It was dark under the blanket so I couldn’t see much of her face while she told the story, but suddenly, the tent, which had been flapping wildly, partially dislodged, and we were exposed to the storm. The wind beat us down, and my young MEK general—I didn’t remember her name—pushed me to the ground and covered my body with hers. Sand cut into our skin through the blanket, and then I saw something I never expected. Lightning. So bright, I couldn’t mistake it even through tightly woven wool. Lightning without rain, breaking up billowing clouds of sand in brilliant, ragged lines. Although dwarfed in significance by what followed, it is still the most magnificent event I’ve personally witnessed. * It was night by the time we could leave. We picked ourselves up along with what was left of our military bearingless gracefully than our hosts who were presumably used to such intrusive acts of God, and drove dazed and shaking back to camp. But before we left, they agreed to provide us water and internet, so the Major said all in all, it was a successful journey. IV. Detachment A farmer from a family of Quakers, the Major maintained that attaining water rendered the mission a success, “because, Sunshine, we can’t live without water.” But he didn’t sound as convincing when the doc visited the command tent with news from Christine’s examination. Of course, the other officers thought I couldn’t hear or wouldn’t understand or didn’t care, but the Major sent me outside. The thing is that a tent only blocks eyes, not ears.  “There’s considerable damage,” the doc said.  “Definitely forced? Or borderline? What’s she saying?” one of the officers asked. “I mean, I can’t say for sure, but it looks bad. She’s saying forced.” “Who was it?” the Major asked. “That’s not really my department. I think you should ask her.” I didn’t finish listening because I decided to ask her for him. And for her. Our camp was in shambles from the storm, so almost everyone was helping rebuild it. Returning personal items to their owners that scattered across the sand and re-erecting tents in groups of four or so. If I didn’t know better, this could have been the scene from any missionary trip—college kids setting up an area to feed refugees or provide medical aid. Because we were  college kids; almost all of us joined the reserves to pay for school and left it to play soldier. Though, I guess, some took it more seriously than the rest of us, testing the line between machismo and misogyny.  I couldn’t find Christine, but the other girls were gathered in our tent, setting it all back up again. “Is it true?” Nikita asked me when I stepped inside. “I think they’re trying to find out,” I said. “Where is she?” “Not helping us,” Jen muttered.  I ignored her. “So you guys weren’t around? What happened?” Monica said, “We were here, trying to keep from blowing away with the tent. She was supposed to be on patrol, I think.” “So it was an MP,” I said. “We don’t even know it was rape. She might be just saying that because those guys have all that booze, and she didn’t want to get into trouble,” Jen said, and right then I knew the officers were working out that narrative for themselves.  “Well, who assisted the doc?” I asked Nikita and Monica, the medics.  “Neither of us,” Monica said. “She didn’t want us there.” I took a deep breath. How much she must hate us to go to the doc alone, to feel safer without the only other females in camp. I knew there was something wrong with us, something damaged. Why else would we have abandoned her? It was the only explanation. We were broken.  V. Unity Before I even found Christine, everyone was unified in the narrative. Nothing else we did was particularly efficient or organized, but in the face of a threat, suddenly we were the dream team. She was a voice shattering what we wanted to believe in. That we were the good guys, the civilized ones, doing something worthwhile. It was a lie, I could see then, that made it bearable for them. I didn’t need that lie; I just wanted to belong to something, and I didn’t care too much if it was something good.  Christine was behind our tent, on top of a shipping container, staring out into the world beyond the concertina wire. I climbed up, sat down next to her, and handed her my water. From the container to as far as I could see there was nothing but sand. Nothing. “So everyone knows?” she asked. “No. Only you know.”  I was watching the nothingness, not her, so her sob surprised me. She crumpled next to me, and I wrapped my arm around her and pushed her head onto my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be a cop,” she said through tears. “I can’t even protect myself.” “No. He’s  supposed to be a cop. It was an MP, right? You’re supposed to depend on your battle buddy to watch your back, not assault  you. What a piece of shit.” “I can’t go down there.” I nodded. “Then I’ll bring you food up here. I mean, the only enemy here is us.” She hugged me and drank the rest of my water.  “Are you scared?” I wanted to ask, but I didn’t, and I didn’t say: “You have to turn him in. He can’t be allowed to go around hurting people. Was it Martin? DeMazzo?” I just hugged her back.  But she was  scared so we stayed on top of the container where she could see anyone who approached. And I could feel the unit holding its breath to see what damage Christine was going to do. What she did was tell me her secret. “Did you drink with him or was that just something else they made up?” I asked, still not knowing who him  referred to. She shook her head.  “Do you want me to tell them that?” She stared at the desert. “No. It doesn’t matter.” “It might help—”  “It doesn’t matter, Cara. People have consensual sex without alcohol every day.” “I’m just saying that it might make it more likely—” “Cara,” she interrupted quietly. “Can I trust you?”  “Of course,” I said. “Look, if you tell me that you made the whole thing up, I will take it to my grave.” “What? No. The reason it couldn’t have possibly been consensual is because,” she breathed out. “I’m gay.” So, I finally understood. “And he knows.” She nodded. She didn’t have to tell me that was probably why he did it. She didn’t have to tell me that it was worse to be gay than raped in the Army in 2003, when don’t ask, don’t tell was still enforced. And she didn’t have to tell me that she could be kicked out and unable to pay for college. “I am so sorry,” I told her. She looked at me, and I think she understood what I meant. She handed me the hot sauce from her MRE. She hated it, and I loved it, so it worked out well. I looked at the little glass bottle. It seemed so out of place in an MRE. “You know, I’ve never met a gay person before,” I said naively, the way only an eighteen-year-old from Nebraska two decades ago could. She laughed. “I bet you fifty bucks that’s not true.” I looked up at her, and I understood a bit more. After a day or so, the rest of the girls started taking shifts watching while she tried to sleep, stockpiling MREs, taking her to the latrines. And slowly we all moved up there with her, our cots in a row with her in the middle, and she slept again. Through the whole night.  VI. Wonder The other girls still had to do their jobs, so they left during the day, but the Major strongly implied that my mission was to watch Christine, whether to keep her safe or to keep them safe, I never asked. So, I brought up binoculars to make her feel like she was contributing to security, and when I returned with more MREs and some magazines from care packages, she said, “Come here.” She handed me the binoculars and pointed in the direction of the MEK camp. It was still beyond sight, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to see. “Are you at the horizon?” she asked. “Mmhmm.” “Okay, down three inches and two to the right.” She waited. “Do you see it?” “The rock thing?” “Yes! It’s a fulgurite! From the lightening the day of the storm.” The thing I was looking at was like a weird coral rock, ragged and crooked and thin. But it was strange because there was nothing else out there at all. “How do you know that? Are you sure?” “I was a meteorology major. And I guess I’m not completely sure; it’s pretty far away, but I am damn close. It’s glass . Glass formed by lightning hitting the sand. Isn’t that amazing?” “Like a sculpture,” I said. “Out there, in the middle of nothing.” “People used to call them fingers of God,” she said. I looked through the binoculars again. It was pointing toward us. “Let’s go see it,” I said, and she smiled. Borrowing a Humvee was easy at that point because the officers were terrified of her. When the Major gave me the keys, extra ammo, and a walkie talkie, he just said, “It’s a four-seater, so fill all four seats. And be careful, Sunshine.” He knew that she would never leave the wire with a man, and I like to think he also knew that she needed this. Still, I had to say, “Walters, Sir. Or Cara.” He nodded and looked tired. “Be safe, Walters.” VII. Death We all went. There were four seats and five of us. Jen said, “I can’t believe this is happening” from the back between the medics. I drove, and Christine directed. The cool thing about nothingness and an off-road vehicle is that you can drive in a straight line, and it was actually safer than roads there because no one plants IEDs in the open desert. All you had to worry about were landmines from the Gulf War, and most of those were probably too old to blow up. The fulgurite was about twelve feet long, curved like an elderly finger toward our camp. It felt like hollow rock, and when we were finished touching it and gaping at it, we sat down under its crook. Christine started laughing and couldn’t stop. We exchanged looks that were somewhere between worried and hopeful and waited. When she caught her breath, she looked at us and wiped her eyes. “I told him I wanted to see the lightning, so he came with, and we had to hide in the shipping container when the storm got bad.” “The container we’ve been living on?” I asked, shocked. I could not believe we moved onto the place she was raped, that she had wanted to stay there. But she didn’t seem to hear me and said, “And here it is. A fulgurite is petrified lightning . It would have waited for me forever.” I looked up at the glass suspended by a force I hadn’t even known about and saw a tiny clear spot that reflected my eye and nose and some of Christine’s face, too, and her halo. Still there. Still dignified. “Yeah,” I said. “But you’d never have known if you weren’t sitting on top of that container with a pair of binoculars.” She looked at me for a second and then ran her index finger over God’s. Michelle's fiction is included in Umbrella Factory Magazine, Hair Trigger Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, The Maudlin House, The Big Ugly Review, and Fine Lines Journal. It has been awarded a Gold Circle Award for fiction from the CSPA. She holds a BFA in fiction writing and a JD. Find her at www.michellereneebrady.com .

I don’t exactly know where my dreams end and my memories begin, but I’m pretty sure that most of this is true.  The summer I turned five. Ma and Pop are not up yet. I walk to the big thing in the parlor. I twist the knob. Click. The screen makes a crackly sound. Out of the dark, a man’s face appears. He says, “American authorities in Saigon today report the loss of six more American aircraft…” I don’t know what that means. I twist a different knob. Another man’s face. “The mystery is over. Those flashing lights in the sky…” I twist the knob one more time.  A cartoon monkey wearing a pilot’s cap and scarf climbs into the cockpit of a cartoon propeller airplane. As the plane taxis, picks up speed, leaves the ground, and rises, rises into the morning sky, a voice — not a mope like those other TV voices, this guy sounds like he knows what it means to be alive — says, “… and remember, young friends, unlike most breakfast cereals, delicious, nutritious Miracle Missiles are made with real cane sugar.” Music swells, and our little parlor throbs with song. Miracle Missiles Tumble and fall Into you cereal bowl The cartoon monkey, whose name is Captain Bananas, pulls a lever that opens a hatch. Box after box after box of delicious, nutritious Miracle Missiles drop from the sky. Spoon after spoonful Shovel them all Into your cereal hole  Now cartoon girls and boys are shoveling up their Miracle Missiles. Every bite is a miracle  Like sugar raining from the sky Every mouthful’s a miracle  So tell your mommy Tell your daddy The miracle cereal  They better buy They better buy They better buy Now all those cartoon girls and boys are pouring into the supermarket, nabbing box after box after box of delicious, nutritious… Miracle Missiles Tumble and fall Into you cereal booooowl From your cereal bowl Into your cereal hole From your cereal bowl Into your cereal hole Into your cereal hole Miracle Missiles! I have just learned something is missing from my life.  *** I’m at the supermarket. Box after box after box of delicious, nutritious Miracle Missiles. “Ma! Ma! Ma!” I’m honking like I got bitten by a radioactive goose. “Ma! Can I have Miracle Missiles?” Ma says maybe. Maybe . Maybe  if I finally remember to feed my pet turtle, Doctor Smith. Yes, I named my pet turtle after a character on Lost in Space. But as Ma pays for our groceries, I spy with my little eye Katie Daugherty’s grandma buying not one… not two… Mrs. Daugherty is buying three  family size boxes of Miracle Missiles. *** Back home. “Ma! Ma! Am I allowed to cross the street to Katie Daugherty’s house?” Ma says… Yes. If  I remember to feed my pet turtle,  Doctor Smith. I grab my bag of little green army men. I take a whiff of that plastic army men smell that will probably someday give me a tumor the size of a Spaldeen. Then I cross the street to Katie Daugherty’s house, where I happen to know there are not one, not two, but three  family size boxes of Miracle Missiles.  I’m pretty sure my tinkle  just moved all by itself. ***  Katie Daugherty’s grandma is rocking in the parlor, deep in conversation with a painting on the wall. Blessed Saint Anthony holding a shiny little baby Jesus. I go, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Daugherty. Would you happen to have any Miracle Missiles?” Katie Daugherty’s grandma says, “Hush now, Robert. Blessed Saint Anthony’s giving me the weather.” This is perfectly normal. I stomp up the stairs to Katie’s room. Katie’s still in her jammies, fuzzy pink slippers, setting up her dollhouse.  I go, “Katie? Have you had your bowl of delicious, nutritious Miracle Missiles?” Katie goes, “I am not hungry . I am playing .” My little green army men line up along the carpet next to her dollhouse.   Tiny little tables and chairs, tiny little lamps. Tiny little plastic mommy and daddy and baby. And here comes Bobby’s invincible green army. Katie goes, “No! No! Nooooo! You are a hineyhead !” Like all great military strategists, Colonel Hineyhead displays tenacity. My paratroopers take to the sky. But in an unexpected maneuver, Katie takes off one of her fuzzy pink slippers and launches it. The slipper rises in the air, descends in a fuzzy pink arc. My army men scatter to every corner of her room. Katie goes, “ You  are a cockyface !” I go, “ You!  Do not. Have . A . TINKLE!” As if to punctuate this assertion, Commander Cockyface removes one of his black-and-white saddle shoes and launches it at her dollhouse. My shoe hits the tiny little supper table like a runaway subway car. Tiny little plastic daddy flies out of his chair and out the dollhouse window.  Now Katie is screaming out of her room and I am extremely uninvited.  Katie’s grandma drags me down the stairs, drags down the front stoop. Something comes whizzing out the front door, smacks me on the back of the head. My recently weaponized black-and-white saddle shoe. Ow. Old Mrs. Daugherty drags me across the street, drags me up our front stoop and sits me down on our milk box. She says, “Listen, Robert. Listen to me good.” I’m listening. “There’s three  rules in our house you’ve got to obey. I’m going to tell you the three rules, and rule number three is the most important. Rule number one. Don’t be attacking young ladies’ dollhouses.” “I know.” “Don’t be telling me you know. You just attacked a young lady’s dollhouse.” “What’s rule number two?” “Rule number two. Don’t be throwing shoes at young ladies.” “I didn’t.” “Don’t be telling me you didn’t. You just did.” “No. I threw my shoe at a young lady’s dollhouse. That’s really just rule number one all over again.” “Well be off with you, then. if you’re gonna be arguing rules.” “You said there were three  rules.” “Never mind.” “But you said rule number three was the most important.” “Well. If you must know. Rule number three. When you’re talking to young ladies don’t be mentioning tinkles .” “I know !” “You don’t  know.” “I do !” “I just heard you talking to a young lady.  And you were mentioning tinkles !” Katie’s Grandma gives me a look. I know that look. She’s disappointed. She says, “Now be off with you. And tell your mother  what you’ve done.” *** Only it’s not Ma. It’s Pop. Back from downtown. Wearing his suit and tie. The shame of looking Pop in the face and confessing that, yes, I threw my shoe at a girl’s dollhouse and, much worse, Pop says I refused to take no  for an answer.  I refused to take no  for an answer.  Pop looks sad. Tired.  Pop says that’s not how a man  behaves. Pop says also I forgot to feed Doctor Smith again. Pop says also Doctor Smith is dead. Pop says no TV.  Pop says sit on the landing and do not say a word. I sit on the landing. Hands folded in my lap. I sit there for at least a minute before the fidgeting begins. “Pop?” No response. “Pop!” No response. “Pop!! I’m hungry. Can I have Miracle Missiles?” Pop gives me a look just like old Mrs. Daugherty.  Pop says, “Bobby, I come home from work and what do I find? Shoe throwing? Turtle killing?” I could throw in tinkle  mentioning, but I don’t. “Bobby, what can you do to make things right?” What can  I do to make things right? I have an idea.  Ma and Pop say yes. *** I’m holding the phone receiver to my ear. My palm is sweaty. “Katie? I’m sorry I broke rule number one?” “What are you talking about?”  “I threw a shoe at your dollhouse?” “Yeah. My grandma says you’re an ass.” “I just said I was sorry. Are you allowed to help me bury Doctor Smith in the backyard?” Silence. After a while, she says, “Bobby, I think burying turtles in the backyard is mean.” “No, no, no… Doctor Smith is dead .” Long silence. “Why is he dead?” “I think it was old age.” “But you just got him.” “How am I supposed to know how long turtles live? You wanna help me bury him or not?” She’s allowed. She actually sounds surprisingly enthusiastic.  She shows up with a pink shoebox. We go around back. Katie Daugherty opens the shoebox. It’s filled with plastic Easter basket grass. She says, “Can I put him in the box?” I let her. I figure it’s the least I can do. She lifts Doctor Smith into the shoebox. She tries him on his back but Doctor Smith looks uncomfortable upside down in all that plastic Easter basket grass. She turns him rightside up.  We take one last look at him. We close the shoebox. Then it’s shovel, hole. Years later, standing in the principal’s office at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows, I will remember this afternoon and Katie Daugherty saying a prayer for my dead turtle. She crosses herself and says, “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy towards us, and after this exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Then I cross myself and say, “Goodbye, Doctor Smith. You were a good turtle, and always very quiet. I still remember the day I got you. And believe me I had a hard time talking Ma and Pop into walking me to the pet store on Bruckner Boulevard to buy you. And I hope you can understand that it’s easier than you might think for a person to forget they even have  a turtle living in their house.” *** At the kitchen sink, we wash our hands.  Ma and Pop say they got a surprise for us. Ma sits us down at the kitchen table. And there it is…  … a family size box of Miracle Missiles. Ma opens the box.  Miracle Missiles tumble and fall into my cereal bowl. Pop is about to pour the milk into my bowl of delicious, nutritious Miracle Missiles when he sees I got a funny look on my face. “Bobby, what’s the matter?” I look at Ma. I look at Katie. “Pop, my Miracle Missiles look a little like…” I look at Ma. I look at Katie. “My Miracle Missiles look a little like…” Pop says, “Bobby what do your Miracle Missiles look like?” I go, “Miracle Missiles look like… tinkles ?” *** From your cereal bowl Into your cereal hole From your cereal bowl Into your cereal hole Into your cereal hole Miracle missiles! Robert Firpo-Cappiello (@RobFirpCapp) is a two-time Emmy nominee (for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series) and a Folio-award-winning magazine editor focusing on travel, hospitality, and health. His creative writing has appeared in Roi Fainéant and Cowboy Jamboree Press, and he has performed his short stories, novels, and songs at Rockwood Music Hall, St Lou Fringe, Dixon Place, Irvington Theater, Spark Theatre Festival NYC, Urban Stages, and Bad Theater Fest. Robert holds a Master of Music degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory, a BA in English from Colgate University (where his mentor was novelist Frederick Busch), and he made his show-business debut at the age of five on WOR-TV’s Romper Room. Robert is represented by Jill Marr, at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

The title of Joni Karen Caggiano’s powerful poetry collection,  One Petal at a Time , makes me recall what I used to say as a child while plucking petals off a flower, “He loves me; he loves me not.” Ironically, we would destroy a beautiful bloom petal by petal while seeking clarification on a value of utmost beauty: Love. In  this garden of verses, Caggiano explores her life at its worst and its best. The crux of her journey is love. How it is misunderstood and abused. How it is held in passion. How it blooms in fidelity. The love she describes is painful, lush, and ultimately trusting. Her start in life is unpropitious, yet she thrives because the love of God cradles her throughout her life, fostering her deep faith. An Overview of Caggiano’s Tormented Life One Petal at a Time  has three parts. The book is a memoir in chronological order covering three stages of her life: childhood, adolescence (first love), and adulthood (mature love). Each section of the book and the cover design display stunning abstract line drawings of Francisco Bravo Cabrera. These images outline the petals of a woman’s soul as it emerges from chaos into wholeness. The images contain the shadow of despair peeking from behind an aspect of self. We can’t rid ourselves of this darkness. Caggiano’s poems show how a woman who faced terror daily as a child survives and forgives. Love is loss and regeneration, petal by petal. Part One: Beginning In childhood, Caggiano faces fear in a dysfunctional family. Like many children with dysfunctional parents, Caggiano must act as an adult. In “Primrose in Winter”, the prologue poem, she empathizes with abused and emotionally abandoned children. She writes, “…we exist to fail // take care of parents at age six / jumbled, frightened, a defective mix / worn away and far-flung, / we ARE the angry bricks.” Caggiano’s family dynamic surpasses what many may think is dysfunctional; it’s terrifying. Some poems allude to unwelcome visits to her room at night, alcoholism, beatings, neglect, and suicide. These horrific experiences are expressed in sharp imagery as these selections form the prose poems from the Prologue and Part One reveal. Fear, an unwelcome bedfellow, slithers beside her at age five, making peaceful slumber impossible (Prologue). Within are monsters, wounds, and violations incarcerated….I am the watcher of monsters slumbering with lit cigarettes, abandoning hot iron, stove, and oven….   The Red Brick House is frightening with monsters and notes of the dead who skulk. Like an embracing vine covering my tiny body, I am the voice of fear enclosed in nature’s dress (“The Beginning”). She is misled to think her uncles’ abuse is love, but the men act like “vipers striking at innocence” and “secrets like hairy figs grow wild” Caggiano must be the “great pretender”, wearing “Smiles, make-believe faces” (“The Beginning”). Caggiano reveals these events through the eyes of her inner child, who finds comfort in nature and communes with fairies, mermaids, and angels. These poems reveal magical escapes which may have saved her. In “Reflection-Prose”, she realizes a stranger with gifts who has been visiting for years is an angel. I perceive the wonder of the gift and grasp the stranger’s identity. Such a beautiful thing I had never seen. Her face was an alluring light, blazing like the sun, for she was an angel. Caggiano is transformed. “My slip is now a glowing covering of layer upon layer of silk worthy of a queen.” Her visions are interrupted by her mother’s physical abuse. In “Silent Cry”, she must be vigilant in “the house of horrors”, where she always fears “drunken monsters who linger here / lightning cracks, a lariat bellows / God hears silent cries of innocents”. Despite the unspeakable abuse, Caggiano shows compassion and love for her mother, whom she cooked with. In “Southern Rising”, she writes, “aromas dance in air like magic / dough rising in twin wood bowls / along with smiles of my expectations / beams of love given as a meal”. Throughout her childhood, Caggiano prays for God’s help. In “Where Are You God”, she writes that her parents were “swapped as robots” who failed to care for her. “I ball up in a fetal position, I can feel God / yet I also feel my anger and wonder why / must you leave me here, JUST let me die”. During the beatings and other forms of abuse, she says, “God spoke to me often / during these times” (“Painful”). In “March Day”, “God nourishes, all creatures fed”. Nature is a sanctuary for Caggiano. In “Waiting Still”, “moonflower open at dusk to heat my plea / the face of God while holding me”. Part Two: Seeding In this part of the book, Caggiano is becoming a young woman using whatever tools she was taught to attract love: Low self-esteem grew like weeds in an unkempt garden. The desire to compete with every woman in a room became the norm. Any stranger her loved one stared at extensively brought out the lioness in her. She would don brass armor to shine like an army of soldiers or wear a skimpy dress that grasped her slight curves firmly, like bark from an iron oak. Exhaustion was the enemy as there were not enough hours to make her lists (of what she must do) to make her life calculable. Her needs were unimportant. The only thing that mattered was that everyone approved of her and that the boat never got lost at sea. She must always steer the ship to perfection. The problem was she wasn’t a sailor, and she knew she needed a lifeline! (Prologue). She is at the age when young women are attracted to love. She writes, “I realize I need a river of love with which to link”. God brings her “Valiant, prince of my dreams”, and “Love felt like a wonderment, and my shield melting like chocolate in my youthful mouth in front of your gazing eyes” (“Prologue Poem-Seedling”). However, … Even love, Mom made into something foul, letting me know she inspected my panties now, … a warning of such harsh sorrow, one to let me know she was watching me and my first boyfriend….She is the snake…. Existence was a gift for the first time…until it wasn’t. Despite the sorrow, the language in this section lifts. The imagery is romantic, yet metaphors of past trauma are braided in. This is a transitional period. A young woman seeks love and agency, power, and autonomy. To do that she must, like all adolescents, separate from her parents. In “Forks of Ivy”, … the ivy threads enlace through patterned, worn, and tattered pieces of my youth its blood a mixture of punctures that weave circles of skin and bone into forgotten stories tucked in corners where candy corn and ice cream drips dried, like ink on memoirs now drawn into dust devils “Counting Clouds” has stunning imagery depicting young passion with phrases like “I lay my head upon new tulips / once worth the same as a diamond” and “honey that leaves a path / of lover’s unwritten prose / past my chin’s quiver.” Trauma still haunts her. In “Woods and Beasts” she relives her parents’ past abuse and the fear that stalked her. …. how I yearn to die fear swells like a black prickly thorn monsters lurk close where I lie their diet, liquid, one calling forth beasts fear howls…. Some poems are disturbing. In “Our Pond”, she is tied with a belt to a bed. She feels like a spider caught up in a web and prays that her father doesn’t do the same thing to her. However, God is with her: “God smiles within a brow of a bright star / this will not always be my sad tale; “only those that won sight will see my scar” (“Woods and Beasts”). In “Lady of Strength”, she writes, “…my chariot flies to the echo / of prayers going skyward”. In adolescence, young love is often betrayed. In “Us My Love”, love Is “not forever / God never did / forsake me / when you left me / for another.” In “Silence”, she warns, “…don’t touch me without a note or invitation” and … You think I do not feel your betrayal, my winter’s cold silence slices pieces of me, an icicle, the lies you told. The betrayal resounds with the abandonment by her parents she endures in her house of horrors: “…betrayal, love for years gone without a trace / my heart stops, a gust pulls me to an abandoned place” (“What If”). Grief arises in many poems in this section. Caggiano still endures trauma at home and additional loss of grace in her first love. In “No Longer Two”, at seventeen glorious he was earthly salvation, my safe place but now I hang cocooning wrapping me in silk the spider always gets his prey not lovable, my tombstone will say Caggiano can still find strength in suffering. In “Waiting”, she writes, “Agony is a reminder of our existence, / not unlike the cavity that cannot be / filled so it lays in wait, until it dawns a / purpose.” Until her “ancient soul is finally free” (“Memories Buried in a Box”). Part Three: Blooming The prologue in this part summarizes the abuse and betrayal explored in Parts One and Two and reaffirms God’s protection and grace. Caggiano is in touch with her inner child: Legacies come with God’s Holy Grace. An old-wise soul at twenty-two, I spent six glorious months getting to know this child, while she swam without her floaties on her arms. She took my nourishment and grew into a gift of breezes floating gently with the smells of magnolia, gardenia, and jasmine. Like seasons in a rushing hourglass, she grew and flourished. Beautiful were her ways of watching out for those who spent a whiff of sadness or pain. Aligned with her answered prayers is finding her new love: Her husband. With mature love, she feels whole and protected. In “Growth” she feels safe, “I feel love / my heart blooms / in all directions / safety settles…making tender peace / with myself at last / white doves / sing”. In this part of the book, she explores her feelings about her parents’ suicides. Witnessing her pain is a way to recover from her parents’ ultimate form of abandonment of her. Imagine the release of pain and power of forgiveness in “Open Casket”: …my heart can see your soul as it gracefully flies meeting God in His fluffy home in the skies we will hold each other, and I will love you you will tell me you’re sorry, and I will smile I know, mommy, we found Grace, I am sorry too She is free to open to a new love. In Melding into You”, she writes, we are one as our heartbeat is a blue velvet petal which floats into moments that are giving birth to that which has no name my morning, evening, and in between may your love for me never cease my beautiful, green-eyed husband without you, I could never breathe For Caggiano, love is kind, faithful, trusting, and lasting. Her love for her daughter is not abusive. She guides and supports her daughter. In “Dips of Life”, she advises her daughter that a man who deserts her on prom night is not a good choice. one of many challenges in the life of a daughter tiny dips that will make her a strong woman someday, the pansies come back too just like she does when she’s feeling blue Ultimately, Caggiano’s faith in God kept her alive throughout her life. “...rocking to the rhythm of my beating heart’s joyful song / God didn’t take me then…I am exactly where I / belong”. One Petal at a Time  by Joni Karen Caggiano is a profound collection of poems. The poems and prose poems are masterful in content and design. I highly recommend this book, but you should have a box of tissues handy. You will weep and pray with the suffering soul that prevails in a journey of strength, hope, love, and faith. This book is endorsed by  Claudia Black Ph.D.  and other mental health professionals. One Petal at a Time  (Prolific Pulse Press, 2024) is available in Kindle and paperback formats on Amazon . Joni Karen Caggiano is an Amazon best-selling author for, One Petal At A Time. She is an internationally published author, poet, and photographer.  She is a 2022 Pushcart Nominee for her poem, “Old News is Not Old News,” published by “The Short of It Publishing.”  She was privileged to write the Forward for the Best Seller, “I Am in Itself Poetry In The Dark,” by the five-time Amazon Best Selling Author Michelle Ayon Navajas.  On Spillwords Press NYC, Joni won Publication of the Month in November 2022 and Co-Winner of Socialite of the Year 2023 and 2024.   Joni was a Co-Author of both # 1 Amazon Bestselling books, Hidden In Childhood and Wounds I Healed.  She is also in six additional Poetry Anthologies.  Her first book of poetry, “One Petal at a Time,” will be released by Prolific Pulse Press, LLC in 2024, featuring Valencian artist Francisco Bravo Cabrera.  Joni is also proud to be included in the upcoming Poetry Anthology, “A Safe and Brave Space,” published by, “Garden of Neuro Publishing, to be released in the Spring of 2024.  She is currently a writer for Hotel Masticadores.  Joni formerly contributed four combined pieces a month for one year to Masticadores India and Masticadores USA.  You can find a complete list of Joni’s works here . Joni’s website is here . You can find her on Twitter @theinnerchild1  and Instagram @jonicaggiano .  Joni is a retired nurse, ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) survivor, and environmental advocate. Barbara Harris Leonhard is an internationally-known prize-winning poet and Pushcart nominee (2022, 2023). She is especially indebted to Well Versed 2021: A Collection of Poetry and Prose  and Spillwords Press for past honors. Her debut poetry collection, Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir  (Experiments in Fiction, 2022), which is about her relationship with her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, is a best seller on Amazon. Barbara is also the Editor for MasticadoresUSA . You can follow her at https://extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog/ .

The metal door slams behind me, shutting out the last bit of the day’s light, leaving the fluorescent bulb to its dreary work. My shoes scrape against the concrete steps as I make the long climb. Trudy is nearly at the top, the pink ribbon dangling from her bun bobs up and down with every step. “You’re so slow, Dad.” “Getting old,” I mutter. But the longer I stay in the stairwell, the less time I spend trapped in Miss Natasha’s dance studio.  She needs your support.  My wife, Lorraine, likes to say this often.But how does sitting outside Trudy’s dance class ease her fears that our family is breaking apart? Trudy glances over her shoulder and waves at me before tugging open the door to what I call Hell’s waiting room – where hovering dance moms gather, competing even though they are no longer in the running for anything. I imagine them eyeballing my daughter as she flits past them, blissfully unaware of their scrutiny. Once she disappears into the changing room, the silent communication of lifted eyebrows and tilting heads will start as they assess whether my daughter is still as graceful and lithe as she was last week. I blame Miss Natasha – who decided to publicly score and rank the girls weekly to avoid drama when she assigns solos. Being consistently among the top three, (and first in her age category) Trudy is an easy target.  The mothers’ mouths snap shut when I enter. I don’t make eye contact with any of them. I nod my chin, slide into a seat, and pray these forty-five minutes pass quickly. My earbuds have lost their charge, but that doesn’t stop me from shoving them in place. Swallowed up in a sea of black leotards, powder pink tights and high buns, Trudy is indistinguishable from the rest of her classmates. They move like a graceful militia – uniform stride, arms swinging by the same measure, chins jut forward like the Degas ballerina statue knock-off on the office desk.  While the moms jostle for space by the observatory window, watching the barre exercises, I ponder getting Trudy to consider lacrosse, soccer, or field hockey as an extracurricular activity. While sports parents may not be less annoying than these mothers, at least I can guide Trudy on the art of being on a team. But the trouble is eleven is already too old to study a new sport. Parents have been priming their kids since kindergarten. She needs your support, too. When I said that to Lorraine, her eyes narrowed.  Lorraine doesn’t appreciate my dispassion for the dance school making Trudy obsess about things she can’t control – like whether her bones are developed enough to let her start dancing on pointe. When I tell Lorraine that only we know what’s best for Trudy, she waves me off as if my vote counts for nothing. And so began our passive-aggressive routine that only intensified when I stayed out with the guys from work on my birthday.  My promise of just one drink  turned into an Uber ride home at 2 a.m. Greeting me were drooping balloons, and a sagging cake heaved onto the center of the table. Lorraine sat in the recliner, her feet crossed at the ankles.  Things have to change around here. They had changed. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Mother and daughter in their own secret sorority while the goofy, laughable klutz of a dad whose only usefulness is serving as a chauffeur.  The same loop of Tchaikovsky plays over and over to the whack of Miss Natasha’s pointer stick against the floor. She calls out instructions in her affected Russian accent, which I suspect is put on. Maybe she’s really Nancy from Levittown. Besides, if she really studied at the Bolshoi, why teach on Long Island when she could travel 30 minutes into New York City?  Suddenly, the music stops. “Lily, that was sloppy. Watch Trudy. She is in front of you for a reason. Follow her.”I stare at my phone, pretending I can’t hear what’s going on around me. I don’t look up and acknowledge the exasperated sigh from Lily’s mother or the heads that briefly turn in my direction. I suppose I have Lorraine to thank for helping me hone my ability to disappear in plain sight. “No, no, no! Do it again.” Miss Natasha bangs the stick for emphasis. “Again.” Bang. “Again.” Bang. “Yes, finally. Thank you, God!” “She’s been breaking out in hives,” Lily’s mother hisses. “We thought it was an allergic reaction, but I think it’s stress.” “Kyra is worried about her weight. She talks about it non-stop, especially after Natasha told them she noticed who ate too much over the holidays and that heavy girls aren’t going on pointe.”  Another mother mimics Natasha. “That fat will turn to big, ugly muscle!” They all share humorless laughter. My gut tightens. Is this what’s in store for Trudy? Up until now, her weight has never been an issue. Her metabolism burns everything up before she even swallows her food. But she is a late-bloomer. No telling what might happen when puberty hits.  Another mother rasps, “The small ones think they’re immune to her criticism. But no one is safe around Natasha. It’s just a matter of time before they fall out of favor.”  The grumbling continues, back and forth, but I notice no one threatening to stop the madness. Not even me, as I delete my junk email. “Remember poor Isabella! Star pupil two years in a row and bulimic the next.” The mothers nod their heads in agreement. “They had to send her away. I still don’t think she’s right. She was down to 68 pounds at one point.” “That’s terrible!” A chorus of agreement swells until there are no more adjectives to throw around.  I’m not sure who Isabella is and I’ve never seen anyone remotely overweight at the school, which turns my stomach. What is considered a healthy weight with this crowd? “Not to change the subject, but did you see the new sweatshirts Natasha ordered? They’re adorable.” Soon the conversation shifts to whether they should have their own sweatshirt made proclaiming Natasha Academy Dance Mom . I barely survived Natasha’s waiting room  would get my vote. “Let’s take the girls to Talon Salon for mani-pedis this weekend. Their pink paradise shade is a perfect match to the academy color.” “That would be fun!” When the girls finally finish their lesson, they file out precisely as they had marched in. Trudy looks straight ahead, focused on the head in front of her as if she is leaving the stage and must remain professional until she is completely out of sight. The mothers flock around Miss Natasha as she emerges, still holding her pointer stick. Shoulders back, feet turned out, she walks as if taking center stage, waiting for the spotlight to close in and the music to queue up. All the complaints and whisperings from earlier have been abandoned in favor of availing themselves to help Miss Natasha get a better deal on the new HVAC system the studio desperately needs. Lily’s father has a contact and Kyra’s mother offers to start a fundraising campaign.  I stand, hoping my daughter will somehow be ready to leave any second. But all I accomplish is catching the eye of Miss Natasha, who raises her index finger to the women before walking over to me. “Trudy is progressing very nicely. She is a hard worker.” “Yes, she is.” My eyes shift to the changing room door. Open. Come on Trudy, hurry up.   But willing it doesn’t make it so. “She is ready for private pointe lessons. We can start next week, after this class.” Her bony hand rests on her wisp of a waist. “We have to meet with her pediatrician.” Natasha scoffs, “Pediatricians know nothing about ballet.” “But he does know about bone development.” I glance to the mothers, who look back wide-eyed and gape-mouthed. No one challenges Miss Natasha, apparently. Or maybe they think I’m crazy for turning her down. “Your wife never mentioned the pediatrician. She calls every week asking when Trudy will be ready. Perhaps you are confused.” Things have to change around here. Lorraine’s condescension crawls up my back. “My wife and I are in agreement.” But are we? Heat rises from my collar when Miss Natasha tilts her head, as if to say we’ll see . I grind my teeth together to hold back the curses building in my head, leaving me grimacing when Trudy approaches. “I was just telling your father the good news.” Miss Natasha holds eye contact with me for a beat too long, and I roll my shoulder, wishing that would get her to step off. Trudy beams. “Isn’t it great, Dad?”   The best I can give her is a tight smile. “Honey, we’ll discuss this with your mother. We have to run now. I have an important call.” I nod to dismiss myself, but I suppose Miss Natasha has already done that for me.   I head for the door, aware that the mothers are staring past me, their mouths twisting with envy. And when I look back, I find Miss Natasha lovingly cupping Trudy’s chin, anointing her the chosen one. *** I sit in the driveway and watch the house light up as Trudy moves from the kitchen to the living room and finally to her bedroom. Lorraine doesn’t see me when she pulls in nor when she steps out of the car. I pop my door and motion for her to join me. “Why are you sitting here? You scared me!”  I step out and lean against the car. “Trudy texted you the news?”  “She’s thrilled!” Lorraine’s wide smile is there to coax me into forgetting our agreement. “I’m not,” I say. “I spoke with the pediatrician.” She waves her hand as if that settles the matter. “She hasn’t been to the doctor once this year.” I smirk, pleased that I thought to ask Trudy this on the way home. “He should examine her, that’s what we agreed to.” “You’re making too much of this.” “When something is important to you, you never think you’re making too much of it. But when I have an issue, I’m overreacting?” “Just leave this to me. What do you know about eleven-year-old girls and ballet?” “Enough to know that place is toxic. You tell me to be there for her but dismiss me when I look out for her. You say things have to change, but you get to do whatever the hell you want, while you pick me apart every chance you get.” “That’s not fair.” “No, Lorraine. You’re not fair. And you lied to me.” “You lie, too. You lost track of time on your birthday? Liar!”  “You want the truth? I’m invisible in my own house. At least when I was out with friends, they were happy to be with me. I never feel that way here. And unless we’re prepared to  live, not as roommates, but as partners and parents making decisions together, then there is no point to being married.”  “You want to divorce me over a dance class? Unbelievable!”  When her eyes fill, something cracks in me. This isn’t our usual stand-off of who will get the last word. This isn’t about pointe shoes or a missed birthday dinner but the great disconnect that grows wider with each passing day.  When did she stop looking at me with soft eyes? When was the last time I confided in her? I don’t know how we got here; I only know that this coldness cuts us both. As long as we feel this loss, apathy hasn’t won. Not yet.   “I don’t want a divorce. I want a better life for all of us. Aren’t we worth a shot?” My voice cracks. Does she even notice? She stares at her feet, sniffling. The longer we remain in silence, the more I fear she is giving up on us.  Finally, she whispers, “Okay.” I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.  She straightens herself and brushes away the traces of her tears. “We can call the pediatrician tomorrow.” I slide my arm around her shoulder and when she doesn’t stiffen, I pull her close. We lean into one another; slowly the warmth of our bodies fills the gap. And perhaps, like me, she offers a silent wish that this is enough to pull us back from the edge. Dinamarie Isola is actively engaged in exploring the craft of storytelling. Through poetry and prose, she strives to tear down the isolation that comes from silently bearing internal struggles. She received her BA in English/Writing and Communications from Fairfield University. In addition to her work as an investment advisor, Dinamarie has a blog, “RealSmartica,” to help others better understand personal finance. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in  A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Appalachian Review, Across the Margin, Apricity Magazine, Avalon Literary Review, borrowed solace, Coachella Review, Courtship of Winds, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Evening Street Review, FictionWeek Literary Review, Five on the Fifth, Mixed Mag, MORIA Literary Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, No Distance Between Us, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Perceptions Magazine, Potato Soup Journal, Remington Review, Summerset Review, and Tulsa Review. Visit  www.DinamarieIsola.com  to view her portfolio. prose, she strives to tear down the isolation that comes from silently bearing internal struggles. She received her BA in English/Writing and Communications from Fairfield University. In addition to her work as an investment advisor, Dinamarie has a blog, “RealSmartica,” to help others better understand personal finance. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Appalachian Review, Across the Margin, Apricity Magazine, Avalon Literary Review, borrowed solace, Coachella Review, Courtship of Winds, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Evening Street Review, FictionWeek Literary Review, Five on the Fifth, Mixed Mag, MORIA Literary Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, No Distance Between Us, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Perceptions Magazine, Potato Soup Journal, Remington Review, Summerset Review,  and  Tulsa Review . Visit  www.DinamarieIsola.com  to view her portfolio.

Today I met a man who calls himself a pediatric surgeon; his area of expertise is decapitations. He assured me he does not do decapitations. He fixes them. Intrigued, I visited his office – more of a warehouse space on the outskirts of town. A woman escorted me to the back, where the heads of children were submerged in see-through vats of yellow-green goo. There were rows upon rows of them, neatly aligned from wall to wall. They looked to be arranged by age: infant, toddler, tween, and so on. The pediatric surgeon welcomed me from across the expanse with a wide, veneer smile. He spread out his arms and took a spin, telling me to take it all in. I spread my arms and spun too, but slower than him, looking around again to indicate I had indeed seen it all.   “I can reattach your child’s head!” he called out. His voice echoed, and I worried it would disturb the floating faces. “My child still has her head!” I called back. He sauntered down the aisle of vats; his voice approached a normal tone as he came closer. “But you’re worried that, one day, she may not, am I right? From a grisly accident or an axe attack, like the one in the news yesterday?” I nodded, stepping closer to one of the vats, tapping on it for a reaction. The heads had their eyes closed, their lips slightly parted. A few strands of stringy matter hung from the stumps of their necks. He told me their faces reanimate once attached, and showed me a video on his phone to prove it. “If I am contacted in time, I can reattach her own head,” he explained. “But if it is mutilated in some way during the decapitation, you can choose from any of these.” I nodded. “Can I take one home with me? Just in case.” “Of course, of course! But please understand that your insurance will not cover this service.” I went up and down the aisles, browsing the submerged faces in the toddler section for one that best resembled my daughter. It was difficult to tell the color of their skin and hair, on account of the regenerative goo. But this information was listed on a placard at the bottom of each vat, along with their eye color, presumed gender, race and ethnicity. Eventually, I settled on one with brown hair and brown eyes whose skin swatch on display looked the same as my daughter’s. “I fathered that one myself,” he said with a wink. I did not bother to ask how or why, or where the rest of her was.  * I place the large jar containing the inanimate toddler head on the mantle above the fireplace. My daughter gives it the name Floaty. She wants to feed Floaty and give Floaty one of her old pacifiers or a popsicle. We read to Floaty and carry her with us to the grocery store and the bowling alley. Sometimes, I remind my daughter Floaty is not alive yet, and she is sad to hear it. I won’t tell her that in order for Floaty to live she will have to suffer a horrible accident, maybe even die for a bit. The thought of having a replacement lined up might not comfort her the way it comforts me.  Yve Chairez is a Chicana writer of mainly speculative fiction, and a scholar in the studies of writing, rhetoric, and Latinx literature and art, with a focus on the subversive and the uncanny. Her research and work has recently been featured in VoidSpace, The Brazos River Review, and The Society of Ink Slingers' Writing the Occult: The Fae series. Her travel column for Horror Tree will debut in late summer 2024. Chairez lives in the Hill Country with her family and their Sphynx, and teaches English at Texas A&M University - San Antonio.

(June 27) P angry with me. Says all I want do is hang around with scummy  friends. Play video games. Not make something of self. Like Charlie. Hotshot lawyer. Brother of hers. Dickwad, I say. And friends = good. And fun! Except Ralph. Who likes take out willy and balls. Place them on head. Often mine! While playing Donkey Kong. Asteroids. Jet Set Willy. ☺.  Or Eric. Who last week stabbed man. Due to drug debt. And now man in hospital. Possibly going to lose arm. Or leg! Eric sketchy on details. Thanks to drug. And debt. Which can’t pay. Having no job. Like rest of us. Deadbeats.      P & I argue. Then make ❤️ after muggins (me) promise be better person. Man! Get job. Shower. Change pants. Whole kit + caboodle. Love P. So awesome. Won’t fuck up no more.  (June 29) Oh man. Fucked up.      Last night messed around  with Ralph. Again. Back in college Ralph and I had thing. P knows. Says like man who has feminine side. Ha! Anyways. Last night during all night Galaxian binge started with him – Ralph - putting willy on head (mine). One thing led to another and Ralph willy ended up bum (mine).      😳     Nice while lasted [3 hours!] but. You know? Guilty conscience + feelings of worthlessness + sore bum.      Fretted all day then told P. If can’t be honest what can be? Goddam liar. Like mum. Like dad. Promised self not be like them. Ever.     P angry. Threw plate which narrowly missed head (mine). Spaghetti on plate didn’t. We better than this I said P, violence, us? And she called me scumbag which accepted although thought low especially when last year found out her and Susan from make up counter had thing. Did I throw plate? Or spaghetti!? I did not.      P and I long heart to heart. Do want be together? Yes do. Do love each other? Yes do. Then go bed. Although can’t sleep. Thanks to still sore bum. Ralph is DOM TOP / BDSM. Fucked me bent over kitchen table. Smelly pants (his) shoved in mouth (mine). While called me dirty little whore.     This diary private. No need P know intimate details. But important to record for personal well-being. Look back years to come. This is man was. This is man now. Look how far come! Pat self on back. Well done.  (June 30) Not well done. Left diary open on kitchen table. P read diary. Has given yours truly ultimatum. Get job. Stop fucking around with Ralph. Make her proud of me. Make me proud of me! Have 48 hrs. Etc. Etc. Slammed door. Left.      Dear diary. So have 48hrs. Or one week. Two weeks tops! P is woman of word but sometimes word easy to get around.      After P gone take long hard look at self in mirror.      Do want to lose P? ask self.      Answer is not, says self. P = awesome2.      Therefore don best jacket/shirt. Pants! Walk Job Centre. Great intentions! Am go-getter in making! Watch go! Watch get! But find JC (Job Centre) has notice on door – CLOSED . Fire? Outbreak of dysentery amongst staff? Staff attend work party, get shit-faced, fuck each other senseless and too sore to come to work?     Must sort out potty mind!     On way home go get lock for diary.  (June 30. Part 2.) Dear diary. At Job Centre! Different JC. Hold horses! Explain.      While writing above entry P came back through slammed door. With brother. Dickwad lawyer. Charlie. Asshole.      P, like, aren’t looking for job? Me, like, look best pants, trudge to JC, sign. Charlie. Dickwad. Smarmy look on face pipes up. Why not bring to alternative Job Centre? In next town. In fast sports car.      Show off. Dickwad. Asshole.      Upon arrival at JC say need shit. Not caring uncouth nature of verbiage. Who do Charlie think is? Who I am? Chattel? Cattle? Object to be carted around. Like goods. Told what to do. Brought to alternative JCs on whim.      Better be with Ralph. At least consensual. Although still catch a whiff of Ralph dick / ass / balls. Where Ralph rubbed dirty pants on moustache (mine).      But am doing this for P. Who I love. Because awesome. So take a deep breath.      Act.  (July 2) Today = interview. Was second card found in JC. New museum. Security staff & exhibitors x 25. No experience needed. Full training given. Uniform included.      Could see self doing that. Arse sat all day on chair. Minding exhibits. Go for wank in toilet when quiet. Think of P. Whilst wanking. Breasts, long thighs, soft wavy hair etc. Not Ralph. Toned butt cheeks, tiny pink nipples, tattoo across pecs. DIRTY BUGGER-FUCKER .     P excited. About job. About future money from job. Talked about moving in together. Plants on windowsill. Curtains. Getting cat. Car one day. Had car once. Some scumbag poured petrol on. Set fire. Insurance money, when came, P blew with Susan from make up counter. Took trip to Paris. Ate in fancy restaurant. Went up Eiffel Tower. I said hope worth it. She said car heap of shit anyway. Best get something good out of it. That’s it with P. Defends by attacking. Then sweet. Like now. Talking of life together. Getting cat.      Bloke who interviewed, museum boss, was big, like side of shed. Like ex-forces in Action Movie. What kind of museum is this thought. But must have spoke loud. Because ex-forces guy says, Numbnuts, it’s body part museum. Then tells me go through door. Get naked. It’s audition, he says. If pass audition, I’m in.      Naked? WTF! Throw hands in air. Naked!?      Then big man makes speech. If don’t want get naked. Plenty other young schmucks waiting for opportunity.      What can say? Through door go – huge space – many people already naked, getting naked. And think whoa, outta here. Then think hourly rate for 40 hour week + overtime available. Then think of P wanting cat, little flat above store, flowers in window, and bed in flat where P and I have just made love, which is meeting of 2 bodies in perfect unison, not drunken degrading buggering over table due to lack of self-worth / esteem etc. And so in room – huge – full of naked people – remove Adidas battered trainers, sole coming off left one - remove jeans with left knee worn through - remove Top Gun t-shirt - remove pants. Hole in crotch where shouldn’t be hole. P joking when sees these pants, That so you can get fucked up ass more easily big boy. P is potty-mouth sometimes. And maybe not joking.      As stand in queue of naked people ponder what body part museum is. Think of own body parts. Look down. Give score.      Toes 8/10.      Calves 9/10 (no car = cycling / walking / running for f-ing bus.)     Belly 5/10. (Note to self. Cut down on McDonalds. Beer. Chocolate biscuits. Pizza. Etc.)         Chest 9/10. (Have big chest thanks to Summer worked ice factory. Lugging big blocks ice around. 8 hours day. 5 days week. So result = big chest. Also result. Aversion to ice. Cold rooms. P screaming where’s the fucking cubes in my gin?)     Face 4/10. (Father called me ugly son-of-a-bitch. Turned pictures of me to wall. Said why couldn’t I look like brother? Brother is handsome. Like big-shot actor Telly Savalas. Me not so handsome. Nickname at school. Big nose. Ralph says nose perfect wedge for butt cheeks. When reverse up to me with ass. Park self. Mime putting coin in meter. 50p an hour!)     Finally. Saving best til last. Ha! Willy / penis cock.     Would like to give willy/penis/cock 10/10, 11/10 (haha!) but in reality more like 3/10.      Always hated school showers. Taunts of big nose + little dick. Jesus. Boys are cruel. Hate self. Which is why go with Ralph. Internalised hated made physical.      When reach front of naked queue asked to stand under bright light. In front of panel of four people. Am asked turn ¼. Turn ¼. Turn ¼. Turn ¼. At each quarter take picture. Then told get dressed. Will let know. By letter. Jeez. Who sends letters these days? (July 3) No letter.  (July 4) No letter.  (July 7) No letter.  (July 8) No letter. Hate self. Feel failure + worthless shit. So have relapse. Tell Ralph sit on wedge. i.e. my nose. i.e. with butt crack. Afterwards, feeling guilt buy present for P. Box of chocolates and movie from Videorama . Legend . Which makes P hot. Seeing Tom Cruise with long hair + scales outfit. After, still hot, make love and P calls me Jack O’ The Green - Cruise character in film - and I tell her have good feeling. That in morning letter will arrive. That it will be yes. That we will have flat. Future etc. with cat.  (July 9) Letter arrives! Good news. But…      So much for chest 9/10. Calves 9/10. Toes 8/10. Willy 11/10. (Ha! Only dreaming!)     8 hours a day will wear special trousers. No arse. Stick bum through slot in wall so only arse visible. To punters. With card under it. Anatomical description of posterior. Place in history. Purpose. Development from pre-Neolithic man. Etc etc.      Put down letter. Consider telling to shove it. Up proverbial. But then remember ultimatum. From P. They have me pants down. Literally! So ring P. Tell her have job. But when asks what doing tell her museum office. Boring admin. Money good. Chance to go up ladder. Etc. Etc.     We talk about future. Cat. Flat. Little car. Etc. Etc. (July 20) Sorry about absence. Work tiring. But good news. Re job. Love it. Each day place bum in slot, sit eight hours, go home. Easy money. And while sitting, face not audience-fronting, can read.     Reading = self-improvement = not being degrading sex object (with Ralph).      So far. Have read, 20,000 Leagues Under Sea, White Fang, Riddle of Sands. Next up is Man in Iron Mask . Which is huge. Person who write that, Alexandre Dumas, must have plenty of time on hands. Maybe Alexandre Dumas worked as ass in museum too!       Sometimes when too tired read, having spent all night on phone talk P re future, listen punters on other side of slot.      My favourite kids. When faced via-à-vis my ass. Dare each other to touch despite sign: DO NOT TOUCH.       Kids are cool. Want one of own. One day. With P. To take to museums. Look at bums. Laugh.     The worst punters are those that DO touch. Despite sign. One guy tried to force finger right up butthole. Security guard, Dan [hero], on him like shot. In canteen later, ‘I’ll give him asshole.’      And have made work friends. Breast Brenda used to have mascara shop. Lost all when customer poked eye out with mascara. Went to press – sued. ‘20 years of my life down the Swanee. Now shove breast through slot. Could be worse.’      Carl the Calf was former professional cyclist. Then lost all in drug scandal. Except huge calves. Still has huge calves. Therefore job. As calf.      Not everyone perfect. Charles and Caroline Feet, wearing no shoes & socks, go on + on about not leaving stuff on floor. Get it but blah blah blah et-fucking-cetera. One day George the Cock brought in piece of Lego. Dropped casually in Feets’ path. He funny guy. George the Cock. And could be arrogant having huge cock but is not. Actually quite humble. Like regular small-cock person.      Stars of show = Hugo and Lisa Face. You’d think they’d both be beautiful but isn’t that. It’s aura. When come in canteen we all go quiet. In presence body part royalty.  (August 18) P and I moved in together today. And turning over leaf text Ralph ass no longer available . He respond text ass is on view whole world at museum so don’t be asshole.  Wtf! In panic text don’t tell P. P doesn’t know . Still thinks work office admin. Then text Ralph, how know my ass?  and he text recognise that ass mile off.  Then he text, seen that gr8 cute ass bent over kitchen table nuff times.  Didn’t know whether to take as insult or compliment. But took as  compliment. Happy days.  (August 25) More happy days. Today cat arrived. P so excited. Like child. Said should give it name and then said Jean. Hello Jean I said and went to stroke and Jean grabbed onto finger and wouldn’t let go. Hurt like hell but because man didn’t show. Hard sometimes being man. Starting not sleep at night. Like insomnia. Thinking vis-à-vis bum in slot. Am I becoming sex object? Like Bridget Bardo? Marilyn Monroe? Like bent over table with Ralph? Don’t want be sex object but then think of money from bum in slot + all it buys. Little flat with P. New underpants with zero hole in crotch. Scented candles. Cat. 😬 (September 1) Oh shit, shit , shit .      All staff called to meeting after work. Big boss there. Face grim. Made speech. Punters down. Novelty factor of living body parts wearing thin. Radical plan needed. Luckily, says, am big boss. With big bollocks. (Put them through slot for punters, wanted to say. But didn’t. Ass already being on line. Literally.) Didn’t successfully launch hair bunches with solar panels to recharge mobile phones? Didn’t get backing from Kuwaiti royal family for sweat-free under-crackers? So have come up with plan. Museum will go on tour. And in each new place museum will be new novelty. Talk of town. What’s this? Body Part Museum? That sounds fab! Must go! Etc etc. Punters come flooding in. Cash registers ring! Beep of contactless payments ring. Etc etc. One week only. Then move on again. To new town. Repeat. Ad infinitum.      What about home? someone called out.      Home will be road, said big boss. Home equals road only. To save asses. This is plan. You have one week to decide in or out. In or out. You choose.      End of speech.      And so. Big choice. Do want to haul ass around planet? Do want to leave P, only to see her on designated holidays from BPM (Body Part Museum)? Do want to abandon Jean? [Every cloud!]     So have decided.      I’m out.  (September 2) I’m in.      P hit roof when said about giving up BPM. What about flat? said. Cannot pay rent on own. Or other bills. Gas. Water. Electric. Food. And Jean. She needs things. Food too. And little toy mice to play with. Litter for poops + wees. And what is wrong with being on tour? Chance to see world. Experience new things.      My ass will be in slot, I said. Will see fuck all. Then realised put foot in it. Never told P about ass being in slot. Thinks works in office. Doing boring admin. So then have no choice but to spill all beans. Actually feels good to get off chest. Hated being like superhero living double life.       Sorry, I said. Should have told. About ass.      Thought P would hit roof. Again. For all lies. But instead tear came to eye, said, I’m sorry too. That I’m kind of gf can’t tell about ass. Come here. And came here and we made love on kitchen table. Only wasn’t like kitchen table incident with DOM TOP / BDSM Ralph. This loving and beautiful + bum not sore. P tells me best lover ever had. So good with hands. And tongue. What lack in penis make up in tongue. Which could have gone either way as compliment. But confident with penis today. P moaning etc. And Jean looking on all jealous. Like I don’t like what you’re doing with that huge penis. Well. Not huge. But to cat guess looks huge. Because they small. So. Huge penis. And after come I tell P will take tour offer. If she happy. I happy.  (September 10) On tour! Amsterdam!     After work went with Breast Brenda, Carl the Calf and George the Cock to Sex Museum. Charles and Caroline Feet stayed in hotel. As did Hugo and Lisa Face. Saying needed beauty sleep. Which understand for face. But not feet. No amount of sleep going to make feet beautiful. Except P has beautiful feet. Miss P. My love.  (September 17) Brussels!     After work Rang P. Someone answered. Not P. Another woman. Said, is P there? Woman laughed. Then hung up. Rang back and this time P answered. Told her about woman. And laugh. Said must’ve got wrong number. We talked for 5 minutes before P said had to go. Jean need feeding. Bye. Love you. Etc.  (September 24) Oslo!     Bum in slot.  (October 1) Copenhagen!     Bum in slot. (October 8) Helsinki!     Bum in slot. (October 15) Rostock!     Bum in slot.      Life on road not all cracked up to be.      Haha! Bum. Crack. Funny guy.      Thinking of writing metaphysical novel. Will call Bum in Slot . Will be hit initially in UK then translated into many languages. At author events will be asked how thought of such novel. So deep and profound. Many intellectual woman with glasses will throw themselves at me. I will say, whoa there, watch with the throwing. Might break glasses. And I am taken. With P.      Although P being weird on phone. Which doesn’t always answer. Here’s me working ass off, sending money home for bills etc and she barely has time to speak to me.      Perhaps missing me too much?      Painful to talk? Etc.  (October 17) Rostock!     Surprise letter from Ralph. He got hotel list and itinerary from Big Boss. Wants to meet up in Berlin. He there for big DOM / TOP & SUB BDSM SEXATHON PARTY / ANYTHING GOES. Got something to tell me. VERY IMPORTANT. NEED TO TELL IN PERSON. NOT ON PHONE.      Why all the capitals, Ralph?     Intrigued.  (October 18) Rostock! And two smoking barrels!     Fuck. Lots to tell.      Night before last out with George the Cock and Breast Brenda. Breast Brenda told long story about Oregon childhood. Kept in cage by father. Fed scraps of food from floor. Only let out for work in field. Picking potatoes 14 hours every goddam day. Etc. George took out huge cock and helicoptered it. To lighten mood. Could have gone either way but Breast Brenda laughed said so happy to have met you guys. Said we would grow old together. Live in Old Folks Home. Or pool resources and get cranky old bus. Travel around like Cliff Richard in film  Summer Holiday . We drank to that. Too much. So woke up head in toilet + pants on head. Because of massive hangover feeling rough when put bum in slot. Why drink so much? Tell self never again. Then fall asleep. When wake up. See time. Shit. Should have finished hours ago. Why no one wake me, let me sleep here like baby? Then hear voices behind me. In BPM (Body Part Museum). Shouldn’t be closed? Then recognise one voice. It Big Boss – what he doing here? - and someone don’t recognise. French. They are talking about something going down. In Paris. How Paris BPM is to set up for business in Louvre. This is chance they waiting for.      Biggest heist in history.      Holy shit.  (October 25) Berlin Tonight met Ralph in leather / naked bar, CRANK. Like says on tin, in CRANK men = either leather / naked. Except yours truly. Got AC/DC Back in Black  t-shirt on. P bought me. For bday. My P. Whose little face I see when close eyes each night. Say, night P, love you little face. Not that face is  little. Is normal sized face. Say little as endearment. Only no more. Ralph big news / must be told in person = P and Susan from make up counter now live together. In our flat. Except no longer our flat. Flat now = lesbian love nest. Oh P. My P. Fall to knees heartbroken + still crying in utter anguish of jilted lover when bouncer from CRANK come over. Says must be leather / naked or get out. So, get naked. Relapse. Relapse. Relapse.  (October 26) Berlin Goodbye to Ralph. Tells me should consider DOM/TOP BDSM life. But tell him want moonlight walks along beach. Rose petals on bed. Violins playing at wedding. While cat comes up aisle. Rings attached to little collar. Ralph says conflicted. I say we all conflicted. That human nature. To love but to have dark side. Like moon.     Put bum in slot.  (October 27) Berlin Brest Brenda / George the Cock ask where was last night. Tell about P. About Ralph. About relapse. Then about other night. Which haven’t said yet. About Big Boss. And Frenchman. And heist! Jesus, says Breast Brenda. You’ve been busy. And dark horse, says George the Cock. Nudges me. Grimaces. Can person swallow gallon of cum in one night?     After work go Checkpoint Charlie. It Tourist Trap now but once gateway to life & death situations. George the Cock says father in army. Died in Battle of Khafji. Brought up by mum in trailer park. Has to share bed with three brothers. All older than him. Who beat him if didn’t do all chores. Mom kind but pulling hair out having to manage 4 boys on own and job in fish gutting factory which barely puts food on table.      So. Another shit life.      Feel bereft over P but life not so bad when have friends.  (November 1) Paris Have no friends.      Ha! Just trick. Defo have friends. Yesterday BB & GtC (Breast Brenda and George the Cock) pulled me from bed which = pit of despair & said we going out to paint town red. And so we drank wine from bottle like hobos while visit famous sites like Eiffel Tower, Champs-Élysées, Père Lachaise cemetery. So many dead people! Puts life in perspective. i.e. life only once! Going to die! So use time wisely!     BB GtC & I have big ❤️ to ❤️ and decide will foil Big Boss and Frenchman’s plan. Become National French Heroes . Live in Paris sharing attic apartment + drinking French wine and eating French cheese every day. Read complete works of Marcel Proust. Watch complete works of Jean Luc Godard. Etc. Etc.      Ring P and she answers & not Lesbian Love-Nest Lover (LLNL). Tell her know everything vis-à-vis her & LLNL & she replies knows everything about me. Ralph sent video made – WITHOUT CONSENT - in CRANK. So we are both living best lives, she said and I thought of BB and GtC and our plan to foil heist and become  National French Heroes  and thought she might be right and didn’t hate her.     Truly.    (November 2) First night Paris Body Part Museum. After ushers usher out last visitors for night Breast Brenda, George the Cock + I only pretend to pack up & leave. Instead stay hidden in handy large cupboard. Wait for heist so can foil it.       No heist.  (November 3) No heist.  (November 4) No heist.  (November 5) No heist.      But tired after so many nights in large handy cupboard. Which no longer seems so large. Or handy.      And why are we going spend another night in cupboard?     If heist. So what?      What the heist anyway?      Then heist happens.  (December 2) So what about heist? Ha! Hang on.      And who are you anyway? Reading diary. Diary private thing. Like putting thumb up bum in bath.      Are you putter up of thumb in bath?     Ha! (December 5)      Christmas in Paris! Well, not Christmas because December 5 but yesterday heavy snowfall and BB GtC and I descended many stairs from our attic apartment in Montmartre and had snowball fight until got told to stop by gendarme. Asshole. Paris is full of asshole but also many nice people like Gillette who runs small bar near apartment / gives 10% off wine because saw our picture in  Le Figaro  and always say to us, You save Mona Lisa, you save Mona Lisa. Heroes!     Well, not quite.      It happened 5th November. While sat bum in slot heard fireworks outside and felt sad because even though forgive P for LLNL, [[[ and self for all DOM TOP / BDSM carryings-on! ]]] still imagine me and P together, holding hands, watching big fireworks explode above heads, eat jacket potato from bonfire. Then think. Hang on. This France and therefore no firework night so took bum out of slot and put head in slot and this is what see.      Chaos in Body Part Museum.      Charles and Caroline Feet slot turned to ash, feet gone, & Carl the Calf lying on ground, blood pouring from calf.      Then another explosion. Then Breast Brenda & George the Cock rush up. In rush still have breast & cock out. Respectively. Likewise bum (mine).      Think this is heist, say. No shit, says GtC. Then Torso Trev runs past. He screaming Brian Back is dead, head blown off, and we better get fuck out.     We had talked of this. Similar this. Night before. In cupboard. November 4. Three of us. BB GtC and yours truly. How sad life is. How chance to become hero happens rarely. But even if hero would it make difference to daily life? Even shit happens to heroes. Divorce. Death. Cancer. Just last week man who discovered wonder drug, saved million plus lives found out had bum cancer. Said in interview wished had not spent so much time in lab. Looking at slides. While kids grew up without him. And wife left him. Went off with bodybuilder, Choose Life tattooed on penis. If had time again, said, would treat wife Italian restaurant once week, read books, take kids Disneyland Florida and not comment on capitalism indoctrinating bullshit.      So if Big Boss wanted to do Heist why should we stop him? Might get killed. Or injured. Spend rest of life with no legs. Or bum.      And would stop heist = happy.      No.      Had revelation.      Root of all pain = suppressing innermost desire.      BB wanted volunteer in sanctuary for disabled animals, three-legged donkeys, cats with no eyes, dogs with no noses (how do they smell?!). GtC wanted to explore his childhood obsession of stamp collecting. Loved smell of stamps. Stamp shops. Wanted to do book. Where travelled world. Interviewed owners of stamp shops and then write biographies. Not just in relation to stamps but whole lives. A collection of biographies of all these people with a single obsession. And I wanted to have DOM/TOP BDSM life but also romantic love. Find way of marrying two.      So when explosions happened had already decided not flummox heist. Leave to professionals. Men & women with guns. Training in advanced martial arts.     But life has funny ways.      Rushing to exit, escape, when there is another explosion, rubble flies through air, hitting me on head which = me out like light.      When come around lying on floor. Head on Breast Brenda’s lap. Can you walk? says BB. I think so, I say although wasn’t sure. This way, says George the Cock.      Difficult to see. Dust everywhere. Like in Carry On  movie Carry On Up The Kyber .      Go through one room + another + then GtC says wtf, trips, and when is standing again has something in hands which is none other than Mona Lisa. Wtf GtC says again and dust clearing we see two bodies. One is Big Boss. One is someone else. Probably mysterious Frenchman. Both covered in rubble and obviously in some distress. Even dead.      That is how we saved Mona Lisa. The very next day our picture was in all papers. Brenda’s naked breasts and George’s cock covered by concealing square. No square needed for bum (mine) as picture taken from front and bum not hanging out. Which led to lots of questions from journalists. And what did you do in Body Part Museum?     I turned around. I turned around.  (December 7) Sad day. Went train station with GtC. He going Nice then Peru. Those first two stops on his tour of stamp shops around world. GtC mentioned dream in interview in French newspaper Le Figaro and then next day was contacted by old rich French guy who said loved idea of stamp book and would fund it.      After seeing off GtC went with Brenda (has dropped Breast now) to new job at animal sanctuary. Wanted to introduce me to Horace. Horace is duck with no feet. Instead has these little rollerblades. Brenda said it is cutest thing and it is. I watch Horace rollerblade until I have to go to work and then I go to work.      I have job in French Gay Sex Club. As speak very little French job is just cleaning. But suits in DOM/TOP BDSM fantasy way. I wear leather puppy mask and Speedos arse cut out. (Ha!) Spend working hours picking up used condoms, crumpled tissues, wiping cum splatter off walls. Some regulars know me and have nice words to say. Although difficult to speak back. Wearing puppy mask. And not speaking lingo. i.e. French.      Ha!     Writing this entry late night. Candle flickers. Out window are lights of Paris. Happy.      On table next to me I have letter from P. It was in slot when come home from Paris Gay Sex Club. Not bum slot! Letter slot.      P is coming Paris. To see me. She misses me and wants see if can work things out. If I can accept her LLNL then she can accept my DOM/TOP BDSM side. There are new ways of thinking these days, she said. New ways of being. And we have to adapt. Find new ways around. Or will grow old alone.      And so I imagine P here in Paris avec moi . We walk hand in hand along Champs-Elysées, under Eiffel Tower, along quaint cobbled streets of Montmartre. We drink cheap French wine, read to each other the works of Marcel Proust. Make love in a fleapit hotel. It will be beautiful beautiful beautiful. Drew Gummerson is a Lambda Award Finalist. He is the author of The Lodger, Me and Mickie James, Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel. Saltburn will be published Spring 2025.

HIGH DESERT Dusk, and the moon is three-quarters full and bright as a harpsichord note in the sky. And lightning flashes on both horizons and the sagebrush is high and the yarrow is like a mirror for the moon, and a bird sings, and then a human voice rises singing from the hilltop, and I don’t know whose voice it is and also I do: it’s my voice and the bird’s and the lightning’s and the yarrow’s. It grows darker. Clouds float over the moon, glowing. The human voice stops, and also it keeps going. LOVE POEM ON A GLACIER It’s how your hair is a river in the wind, or it’s how the cold air freezes us starkly into this moment and only this moment; no other moments are possible in this kind of cold, just here, just now. It’s how your eyes see like mine, open wide, moved by streaks of color in a pale sky; it’s how we both hear the same something in the wind and turn to look at each other, wide-eyed. Today we will stand in the spray of a waterfall, awake, thrilled, and later we will  dip our bodies into cold water then hot water, skin prickling in the heat, and then later, steamed, relaxed, freshened, we will discover each other like it’s the first time. Every time the first time. Your eyes the color of this glacier. Your hair the shape of water. FIFTH WATER In October, when the leaves were flames and the sky burned brightest blue, I climbed a trail with my children—teenagers, now, and much faster at climbing than me— to mountain hot springs. Neon blue creek water, steam hovering. hot clouds in cold air. Stones rust-slick, trees, grasping. At the top of the boiling creek, a cold waterfall. My son went straight to it, hid behind the curtain of water. He jumped from cold to hot to cold to hot, his face bright, his skin pinkening. Two little-big hearts, flush and happy in the pools,  both neither child nor adult, both adult and child, balanced on the edges of the rocks and on the cusp of the rest of their lives. These liminal spaces between the extremes, I tell them, are, ecologically,  where new things most love to flare into existence. Hot and cold. Dry and wet. Red and blue and orange and yellow spilling into and over each other, colors running like water and becoming,  always, who they are. The air crisp, the pine needles sharp. Buckets of golden light. Melissa Jean is a mindfulness studies professor, forest bathing guide, and creative writing teacher. She currently lives in Nashville.

supermoon aubade   before the iron sky turns amaranth & the morning star peeks through the blinds  i watch you sleep/follow the fall and rise of your breath’s cymbal jazz crash to the drip  of the corroded faucet/trace the rift in the sheet falling between our bodies/  touch your cheek the path from bottom lip  to scar to cleft/this wine bed pleasure dome  simulacrum of us/you are my blind spot & i free fall for you at will & will this dirty weekend habit hail the decrescendo of tonic interludes/ hear birdsong blue notes of thrushes/ their dawn chorus of woe  unraveling   this morning a coyote appeared out of nowhere or in the middle of somewhere between a rock hard place and the deep blue sea over the hill as the crows fly not far but a stone’s throw thataway from it all buff and no bite of the cherry with sugar on top dog in the knock down drag out fight tooth and claw against the nick of time to run like  the wind blows the hand that rocks the cradle to the grave rules  the world on fire where there’s smoke blowing rings running on empty in vicious circles around the bend over backwards and forwards and one step up to the plates spinning out of control freak of nature of the beast of burden of proof is in  the pudding is in the pie eating grin and bear by the tail end of the tunnel vision of love to the moon and the lucky star in the wee small hours of the red sky and isn’t it my night to howl  eucalyptus   after the storms subside i feel a mad urge to shed excess baggage with reckless  abandon. it has rained for three days straight & i’m about to shake my puddled roots to the core. how memory can build you up for the breaking, grind you ragged— leave you weakened & shaggy, your limbs thrown  akimbo, layers peeling slow & perilous, sloughed  snakeskin dangling in the wreckage. how long can you nurture a viper in your wearied heartwood  before you call it a snake in the grass. i’m rough & ready to break the bough, to bare my better  wilder version, an incendiary girl, all the rage, my bark every bit as fierce as my bite. Elle Cantwell is a graduate of the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco. Her poems have appeared in Ponder Review, December, Welter, Barrelhouse  and Roi Fainéant , among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is a winner of the Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize. A freelance theatre director and educator, she lives in Santa Monica, California.

The first night we met,  we lay under your freshly laundered bed sheets,  and you showed me your yearbook, named all the strangers  for me by first and last name;  when you met my four-year-old son,  he cut your throat  with an invisible cutlass:  you fell—clutched at your throat,  and let the laugh spill;  for your birthday,  I drew my right ear and framed it; remember?;  how when we made dinner, our mouths?; how there could be no seam found  in the flesh of them, how you said, I know one day I won’t want to do this constantly,  but I’m not there yet ,  how the Brussels Sprouts  you drenched with honey burned, how we ate them anyway  knowing the inside meat was good?; Terri Linn Davis is the co-editor of Icebreakers Lit, a chaotic, loving home featuring collaborative writing. You can find some of her work in Taco Bell Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, The Penn Review, Cultural Daily, Five South, and elsewhere. She lives in Connecticut in a 190-year-old haunted farmhouse with her co-habby and their three children. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @TerriLinnDavis and on her website www.terrilinndavis.com

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” My daughter Rogan was standing in our kitchen carrying a Size 8 sneaker full of Rachael Ray Chicken and Veggie kibble for small dogs. She’d found it in her bedroom closet. Her understandable reaction was provoked by my bombshell revelation: “Sorry to break it to you, but this was the work of a rodent. A mouse probably stole the kibble piece by piece from Winnie's bowl in the middle of the night, and stashed it in your sneaker.” “While I was sleeping in my bed four feet away?” she demanded. “I’m afraid so, kiddo.”  Our home is a suburban architectural mutt on a few acres of rocky, treed property. It was built in 1927 on a long-gone dairy farm, and has been added onto in every possible direction by weekend carpenters ever since. I figure that 4 generations of people and 600 generations of mice have called it home.   “Well, it’s gross!” said Rogan. “It’s nowhere near the grossest mouse offense that’s happened in this place,” I point out. “Did I ever tell you about the time I discovered poop pellets and a shredded oven mitt in that drawer beside the stove?”  Rogan glanced suspiciously at the drawer.  I continued: “Another time, I put my hand into a humongous box of Costco microwave popcorn in the basement and pulled out a nasty clump of shredded foil, pulverized kernels, and more poop.” “Stop!” begged Rogan.  My position on mice has always been PCWR (Peaceful Coexistence Within Reason).  I believe that complete control is unattainable.  But when the mouse community crosses the threshold and becomes complete assholes, action is justified and necessary, and the sneaker/kibble incident fits squarely into that category.  During the kitchen drawer and popcorn episodes, I was commuting by car to work, so I used enlightened, hippy dippy, “humane” traps - the ones that catch the mice unharmed. Then I’d drive the captives a few miles away and release them in a wooded park.  But these days I’m working from home, and daily trips to the rodent penal colony in the woods are unrealistic. So I opted for some old-fashioned snap traps - the kind that break their necks with one merciful thwack. This decision marked the beginning of a week-long journey through a tangled web of decency, civility, and the moral gray area that is modern pest control. A journal of the highlights: Sunday. I set eight traps using peanut butter as bait. Two are near the scene of the incident (Rogan’s closet), two are in the kitchen, two in the hall bathroom, and two in the basement. Monday.  No action. Tuesday.  One trap in the kitchen has snapped. No mouse.  Wednesday.  No action. Thursday.  No action.  Friday.  Significant action! One basement trap has snapped. It’s empty, but a mouse is lying about six inches from the trap in the shadows next to the water tank. Grabbing a flashlight, I study the mouse from above. There are no noticeable signs of life. Then comes the shocker. The tiny critter erupts in a single shuddering spasm. He/she is alive. I sprint upstairs and turn out the basement lights. I consider the options. I could kill the mouse. A fast boot-stomp would be fast and painless, but I’m emotionally incapable of administering that kind of justice. Plus, what if he/she is just in shock or a mouse coma? I decide to let nature take its course. Besides, I don’t even know if the mouse downstairs is the actual kibble culprit. Friday Night. At first, I sense closure. The mouse is gone.  A moment later, I’m back to square one. He/she is lying motionless about a foot from where it was this morning, but further behind the water tank. It’s covered in little dust bunnies from its arduous crawl. I tiptoe back upstairs, telling nobody. I’m starting to feel like Hannibal Lechter, with a potentially dying creature in the basement of my family's home.  Saturday Morning.   Before the coffee’s even done dripping, I’m down in the basement hovering over the mouse. It’s in the exact same spot. At least twenty seconds go by. Just as I’m about to declare him/her dead, it takes a single breath. I retreat. Saturday Afternoon. I slowly descend the stairs and gaze at the tiny and motionless being on the floor. I take a small stick and give him/her a little poke. No response. I turn the little body over. No visible injuries from head to toe. (And for the life of me, I still can’t settle the he/she question.) Confident that the end has come, I transfer the corpse to a piece of cardboard with the stick. Outside, I dig a little grave one shovel deep, and bury the mouse. I pause. I ask forgiveness.   I hope you were unaware of what was happening and not in pain. I hope you weren’t pregnant or nursing babies. I stop myself, go inside, and wash my hands .  I’m not a religious guy, but I do know that in the Book of Genesis, God grants humanity dominion over “every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” And so started the hunting, killing, cooking, eating, and enslaving of every animal within our sacred grasp. I don’t even  want  that kind of power, and if the Almighty is out there listening, I hope You consider rescinding it.  At best, we’re poor stewards. At worst, we’re perpetual and hypocritical fuckups. I’m not at peace with what happened in my basement, but in the end, I was just trying to keep my family safe and healthy. On the other hand, that’s all the little gray kibble thief was trying to do that fateful night in Rogan’s closet.  John McCally is an Emmy and Grammy nominated TV Producer and Director living in Connecticut.  He’s always wanted to explore writing in more depth, and this is one of his first accepted submissions.   He really hopes you enjoy it!