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I knew my father was in the hospital for a long time, and I knew we visited, but I didn’t remember any of it. I didn’t remember the transplant, or how long the new kidney worked. I didn’t remember my father going back into the hospital when his immune system rejected the kidney. I’d been told all of this. I knew it happened. But the memory was like a lost balloon. I let go of the string and it flew away.       What I did remember from that time was that we went to Sea World a lot. This was back in the days when tickets were cheap, and no one worried about a couple of kids wandering around an amusement park unattended.   I’d pack lunch for me and my brother, Andy. Sometimes cheese sandwiches, sometimes peanut butter and jelly. Grapes were a must. There was a grassy area next to a pond, where we’d eat our lunches and feed grapes to the swans. They swallowed them whole, and we’d watch the lumps make their slow way down the swans’ long necks.      I remember Shamu the Whale splashing the crowd. The dolphin trainer accidentally-on-purpose falling into the water to be “rescued.” Seymour the sea lion sliding across the stage to blow a party horn. It makes me sad now to think of those animals, taken from their ocean home to perform in corny shows. But I didn’t see it that way until later.      My favorite thing at Sea World was watching the pearl divers. They were the main attraction in a section of the park called the Japanese Village. Tourists bought tokens and leaned out over the water to hand them to the divers, who placed the tokens into floating wooden buckets. Then, the divers would glide across the water, bend at the waist, and, kicking their legs into the air, swim straight down. When they surfaced, they had oysters for the people who had paid for them. Afterwards, a man shucked the oysters and announced the size and color of each pearl, and the crowd applauded.      I never had money to buy a token, but I could have watched the pearl divers all day. I’d imagine myself in a white diving suit like theirs. I’d glide across the water and then swim down, my pointed toes a last salute as I dove down and down, into the silence, into the dim rippling light, searching, searching for the most-prized oyster, the one that contained the rare blue pearl.       Andy thought the pearl divers were boring. But we had a deal: he’d wait in the gift shop while I watched the pearl divers. After that, we’d do whatever he wanted.       In the gift shop, there were delicate fans, origami paper, miniature tea sets. But what I liked most were the earrings. Looking back, they were cheap souvenir earrings, but they were beautiful to me. Little shells, seahorses, tiny dolphins. I used to linger in front of the earring rack, trying to decide which I would choose if I had the money. Even though my mother had told me I couldn’t get my ears pierced until I was sixteen.        It’s funny, the things you remember. Once, I was looking at the earrings and a girl about my age came to look at them, too. Her ears were pierced with simple gold studs.       The girl was standing next to me, and her father came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. He was tall and wore a light blue polo shirt. He looked like the kind of father you’d see on a TV show.      “See anything you like?” he asked his daughter.      The girl picked out a pair of silver earrings shaped like little shells. Nestled inside each shell was a tiny pearl.      I watched them walk to the cashier, and I can still see the girl’s face, the way she beamed at her father as he paid for the earrings. I remember watching the father hand the money to the cashier, and noticing his arms. How muscled they looked. How strong.       I don’t remember reaching for the earrings, just that when I looked down, they were in my hand. Little silver shells with tiny pearls. The same as the ones the girl had chosen.      I remember, too, the moment I slipped the earrings into my pocket and saw Andy standing there. His mouth frozen open, his eyes wide.      “Let’s go ,” I said, and my voice seemed like it belonged to someone else.       We walked past the tourists. Past the man who sliced the oysters open. Past the pearl divers, who kept diving and offering up their treasures to smiling families.      I remember how the earrings burned in my pocket. How my eyes burned and my face burned and my ears — my unpierced ears — burned.      I forgot about those earrings a long time ago. Then, we were packing up my mother’s house to move her into assisted living. In the back of the closet of my old room, there was an old shoebox filled with photos of my father before he got sick. And at the bottom of the box I found the little shell earrings, now tarnished. And then, I remembered everything. Melissa Fitzpatrick lives in the Los Angeles area. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as  Five South, Milk Candy Review, MoonPark Review, Flash Fiction Online, Atlas + Alice, HAD, Lunch Ticket,  and  Flash Fiction Magazine.  Find more of her work at  melissa-fitzpatrick.com .

I was bullied in fifth grade, but not by other students: My teacher was the culprit, and she seemed to take special delight in tormenting me. Today I wonder if she knew I was gay decades before I did, given my obvious crush on our dazzling class president, and it revolted her. Thanks to the alphabet and our last names, I sat right across Michael who was lithe, tall, curly-haired and muscular, with blue eyes and brilliant white teeth. I was nothing like him.  Sitting in the row furthest from the door, he seemed to always live in a penumbra of light from the giant windows piercing the nearby wall of our neo-Gothic elementary school. I longed to be his friend without being able to articulate that to myself or understand it could mean something vital about who I was. Mrs. Zir must have observed me fawn over him—when I could—like the time he dropped a pencil and I stooped faster than he did so I could grab the precious yellow cylinder and hand it to him, hungry for a smile. He was kind in an off-hand way. Mrs. Zir herself was scarier than Cruella de Vil though she lacked the sharp angles and swirling robes. Muscular and six feet tall with a large, oval, sneering face and thinning gray hair trapped in a forbidding bun, she loomed above us kids like an adamantine, implacable god.  Her clothes were almost always some shade of gray that matched her hair and her derisive eyes. In a horror movie today, I think that CGI would be used to make her an alien storm cloud roiling with nauseating thunder and lightning, disguised now and then as a human being. This woman with the harsh last name stalked our classroom in big-ass sneakers you felt could crush you as easily as one of her savage, nonverbal put-downs. When she shook her head at your wrong answer to some question, that gesture said you  were hopeless and she was disgusted. Mrs. Zir seemed to especially enjoy humiliating anyone who couldn't think fast when she swept up and down the five rows of six desks each, jamming a cruel index finger your way and demanding an instant answer to a multiplication problem. "Six times six! Five times seven!"  It was a tsunami, and if you hesitated, she abandoned you to your ignorance and shame, turning instantly away to torture someone else. Just seeing her start this inquisition left me sweating and breathless because I was so anxious to begin with in her class. Arithmetic was like a black hole to me and written quizzes were my doom no matter how much I studied beforehand: hard-core proof of my inadequacy. The classroom with its scarred wooden desks--so old that they had inkwells--felt like a prison that whole year of fifth grade. Zir bullied me and anyone else whenever she got the chance. She was the queen and we were her lowly subjects, or most of us were. She had her favorites, the pretty girls and handsome boys (like Michael) whose parents apparently flattered her at parent/teacher conferences.  Mrs. Zir knew that my parents had lived in Belgium, and when she said something to my mother in French at their first parent/teacher conference, my mother acted puzzled: "What language are you speaking? It's not familiar to me."  That reply apparently left my teacher speechless. My mother relished this anecdote when she reported it to me at home because she thought Mrs. Zir was pretentious and a snob—on top of having an atrocious accent. As much as I enjoyed hearing an adult mock my teacher, I quailed inside when I heard what took place at the conference because I knew there would be revenge. It followed swiftly.  In auditions for our class's production of The HMS Pinafore , I was cast as Ralph Rackstraw, the lowly seaman in love with the captain's daughter, but Mrs. Zir barely heard a note before silencing me: "You can't sing!"  I was crushed. I could have been relegated to the chorus even if I wasn't a great singer, but instead, she gave me a prominent role and undermined it by keeping me mute onstage. Five years later, on a dirty, noisy, rattling subway heading downtown, I saw Mrs. Zir in a corner seat, as mute and grim as an Easter Island statue. She was still wearing gray and looked almost like some kind of guard the way she sat so upright. I didn't panic, and briefly thought of telling her about my good grades and how highly my teachers thought of me—and that I was in my junior high school's choir—but I just moved to another car and left her behind without catching my breath even once. Lev Raphael is the son of immigrants and is living his childhood dream of being an author.  His work has appeared in 15 languages and he has taught creative writing at Michigan State University and Regents College in London.

Peri glared at her husband before answering my question. “I always hated that dog. He loves that stupid dog more than me.” Hades returned the glare. “I’ve had Cerberus since he was a puppy. Like I was expected to give him up?” He paused for a minute and before continuing. “And as always, whenever you return from above, you act like a spoiled brat. That got tiresome centuries ago.” Peri let out an exasperated sigh. “I am NOT a brat. My parents just miss me when I’m gone, that’s all. You know how they don’t like visiting down there. You’re rude, abrasive and lord about like your shit doesn’t stink and the lesser demons treat them like trash.” I’ve been a marriage counselor for many years and have seen my share of odd couples, the normal on the surface couples, celebrity couples and everything in between. I never thought I’d be helping the gods and goddesses of ancient lore. The couple sitting across from me reminded me of that Paula Abdul song, “Opposites Attract”. She was young, beautiful, full of life, and vibrant. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. He was older, and while he treated his wife like the Queen she was, he often came across as gruff to his minions. He still had his good looks about him, and his wife adored him. Their centuries-long marriage was rock solid when they got along. Currently, they were not. I sat across the room from them. This was the second time they had agreed to meet with me together. It was not going well. Both stubborn, each firm in their belief of being correct. I held up my hand before speaking. They knew they were being annoying. It seemed like they behaved like this because of their identity or their confidence in escaping consequences. “Let’s try something else.   You have expressed your love for one another to me. Tell your partner why you love them.” Hades and Peri glanced at me and then shared a look. “I love you because you treat me as an equal.” Said Peri. “As much as I love and miss my mother, she can be overprotective. When I’m in Hell, you value my opinions and don’t laugh at my questions. Your devils come to me for advice and respect my answers.” Hades was quiet for a bit. It had been a while since he last heard that. “I’m sorry I made you eat those damned pomegranates. I was just obsessed. I had to have you. And I’m happy that you have found happiness with me. I know this sounds silly, given where we live, but everyone down there adores you. Even the worst of the worst of my devils. You possess a wicked sense of moral judgment. I’ve seen the justice you have doled out when I’ve been away. I don’t say this often enough, but I’m impressed.” When Peri smiled at him, I understood why he fell in love with her. Her smile and her feelings came from inside, from her heart. She looked at me and admitted, “I was a brat at first. Yelling, temper tantrums, the works.” Hades nodded in agreement. He gave me that winning devil’s grin and said, “She was. I didn't help much with her adjustment down there. I was bossy. I yelled back. It took us a while to reach compromises on various things.” Grabbing on an idea, I asked, “What were the hardest things either of you had to compromise on? Who did the dishes at night after dinner (that got a laugh from both), or who was going to decide which in-law’s home to eat at for the holidays (more laughter)?” Hades spoke up, “We had to learn how to respect each other’s boundaries. Even after all these centuries, there are lines neither of us will cross. We had to learn that the hard way.” He poured more water into the glass he was drinking from and continued, “And I can’t cook for shit, so I will always do the dishes.” Peri nodded. “I hate cleaning. And I love to cook, so we got that down pat. Hades had to learn how to behave in front of my parents. He can have a temper, and yes, as I’ve said, I do as well, but he has a temper when he’s mad. But being up here is not the best place to show off that temper. It took a while for my parents to come around.” I glanced at the clock behind them on the wall. “Well, this has been a most productive hour. I am delighted at the ground we have covered. Do you have any more questions before your time is up?” Peri smiled at her husband. “Can we get a cat?”

It’s cold on your cheek as you wake up, unsure of where you are and hungover, vomit crusted on your shirt and an HK MP5 a few feet from your face. You slowly realize that what woke you up—a series of firm, but not quite painful, kicks—has stopped, and the man with the submachine gun is speaking to you. You try to concentrate, but his words just blend in with all the other sounds slowly materializing—polished steps on polished floors; a kiosk gate lifting, one side askew and scraping against its tracks; dull tones followed by duller departure announcements; a creaky rotisserie spinning a doner kebab. Despite the gun and the kicks, you move slowly, peeling your face from the floor, then putting your head in your hands and groaning before you try to get up, part of you wanting to let the groan get louder and louder until it becomes a roar that overwhelms everything else before suddenly stopping and finally leaving you in silence. You wish you could have even one more second with the cool stone soothing your matted forehead before you have to get to your feet and again add to the commotion. It can still be seen where the frayed edges of the red carpet pull back. These stairs were always the centerpiece of your grandmother’s stories about how grand this building once was. They were “marvelous” and “stunning” and “oh, you should have seen them.” Your memories will center around entering the once-palatial theater to see Jurassic Park as a dinosaur-obsessed nine-year-old. Your grandmother’s words echo in your head as you search along the edges of the old staircase, looking for places where the stone below, the stone she described in such detail, is uncovered. Years later, just before she moves to the dementia ward, you’ll inherit a print from her apartment that once hung on the theater’s walls. As a child, you always just called it the “clown picture”—a clown in front of a mirror, despair pulling his face toward the floor you looked up from; you trying to make eye contact with him as your grandmother noticed you staring. You desperately wanted to ask the clown why he was so sad while your grandmother started describing the grandiosity of the place the picture came from, images of her as a child and her shiny, black-buckled shoes echoing up the same once-polished stairs that your LA Gears would one day climb.  It’s the nicest piece of furniture you’ve ever had. The table used to be in your roommate’s family house on a lake in suburban Michigan, but now it’s here in a smoke-filled alleyway apartment. For the longest time, you’ll feel uncomfortable about how casually food wrappers, dirty socks, liquor bottles, cigarette butts, weed shake, nitrous canisters, and assortments of pills and powders build up on it. It’s hard to be casual about nice things when you’re not used to them. You’ll have gotten over that discomfort by the time you’re raging about something at 4 in the morning and smashing a wine bottle on the corner of the table. The bottle will shatter and chunks of mosaiced stone will fly from the table and into your shins. A tiny piece of glass will get stuck in your foot so that when you step just right, you’ll feel pain for months . It will become a part of you, a reminder of a fury you’re still years from overcoming. One day your skin will finally push the glass out—a shard hardly larger than a grain of sand—but you’ll still step gingerly for weeks afterward, your body expecting pain even with nothing there to hurt it anymore. It's handed to you with two neatly cut lines on it. Nobody really knows where the slab of polished rock came from anymore. It’s been passed from person to person, shitty apartment to shitty apartment to slightly nicer apartment, and so on. This will be the last time you’ll be in this one. A few weeks earlier the guy handing you the lines shared a story he wrote and asked you to edit it and you got too high and went too far, covering it with notes. You’ll later realize that you probably made him feel like shit and you’ll feel guilty about it for years. When he stops answering texts, you’ll tell yourself that sometimes people you could have sworn you cared about, and you could have sworn cared about you, were really just drug buddies destined to move on to other drugs and other buddies. You’ll convince yourself that’s okay. It’ll be another year before you hear about how deep things got for him. You’ll wonder if you’ll be there if he manages to dig himself out. You’ll wonder how much of you was really there in the first place. It's what you think of when you think of change. Not antiquities or great halls or symbols of holiness or power pushing into the sky. None of them mean as much as the echoes of this train station down the street from where you grew up. You’re 10, seeing it in disrepair before the renovation, listening to stories of how important your struggling city once was; or you’re 15, taking a train to hang out with the punk kids and smoke all day; or you’re 19, returning for the holidays, home not feeling quite like home for the first time; or you’re 33, freshly separated and on the road to divorce, your friends stalking the mezzanine half-drunk as your train pulls in; or you’re 39, driving by the façade, unable to remember the last time you stepped inside. The transitionary space will become another wistful landmark in an increasingly unknown skyline. All the steps you’ve taken through it still repeat in your head but grow more and more unfamiliar, your own echoes becoming indistinguishable from all the others. Brenden Layte is a writer, linguist, and editor of educational materials. His work has previously appeared in places like X-R-A-Y, Lost Balloon, and Pithead Chapel.  He also won the Forge Literary Magazine’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and tweets at @b_layted .

It’s Monday mornin’ ‘an yer in ’t wash ’ouse dippin’ an’ wringin’ linen when I come to find you. You ignore me e’en though I’m standin’ at door plain as a pikestaff. I tug me apron down. “Master says.” I mek me voice loud as cook’s. “Master says yer to put extra starch in ’is cuffs. Cos ’e weren’t ’appy las’ time.” You look to study ’t pillowcase in yer ’ands, actin’ like I’m not ’ere, so I says it again. ”Master says yer to put extra starch in ’is cuffs.” I wait, then I says, “Master told me to tell ya.”  You look down at pillowcase an’ yer neck pinkens up. “Tart,” you say, quiet but loud enough for me to ’ear. “Whatchoo say?” I come ’tother side of you. “Who’s a tart?”  “Thee.” You look at me square, yer face bruff with the heat and sweat. “Tha’s a tart, and ’es a meathead for preferrin’ thee. Tha tart.” I fold me arms. “Tart is it,” I says.  “Know what you are? A vinegar valentine. ’Cos he’s been sweet on me fer months an’ I ain’t given ’im no comeon.”  You stand up straight. You wipe yer blashy arms wi’ a pillowcase. “’Aint gi’en ’im no comeon? I seen thee doing the big eyes. Tha’s not as green as tha’s cabbage lookin’.”   You throw the pillowcase aside.  “’An oo’s tellin’ me what to do anyways? Tha’s nobbut a kitchen maid.” “Is that right?” I point at me cap. “Under-cook, not kitchen maid, is what I am. Master says ’e’s gonna promote me, says me pies make ’im swoon.” That gets to you.  “I’ll gi’ thee swoon.” You grab yer wooden dolly from washtub and swing it wi’ both ’ands like to come sticklebutt at me. I step back quick. Then I spy bucket o’ borax reekin’ to high heaven. Just the job. I grab it, heft it to me shoulder. I gi’ it a swing an’ chuck it. Quicklicketysplit you’ve ducked. There’s a shout be’ind you and there’s Master. Afore we can say owt ’e goes down, heavy as a ham, flat on ’t floor. Bastes 'isself in a pool o' grey slime.  Laugh? You an’ me, we near piss oursels. We’re ’oldin’ each other’s arms like two lovers as the laughter peels out of us. Master’s writhin’ aroun’ an’ I know ’e’s not gonna mek me under-cook no more, but I don’t care. You ‘an me, we’ve allas been mates, allas will be. You point at Master’s claggy sleeves, an’ yer can ’ardly get words out. “’E’s got starch in ’is cuffs now.”  Sarah is a southerner living in Yorkshire who loves getting her head around Yorkshire dialect.

I almost jumped when I saw the thing but had enough decency not to. It was small and whimpering, and for a second, I thought it was a matted dog, except it didn’t have any fur. Or skin, for that matter. Instead, it was this black, writhing amorphous mound whose eyes looked like they’d been pasted on with Elmer’s glue. I tried to tell Mr. Steely, tapping his foot on my porch, that he was mistaken, that it wasn’t mine, but he and his greyhound were already walking down the driveway. And besides, as it nestled into my arms, I really didn’t want to hurt its feelings. So I took it inside and set it down on the couch beside my laundry and watched as it writhed and whined—a sound somewhere between a baby’s wail and a cat’s hiss.  “Where did you come from?” I asked. Despite its lack of shoulders, it shrugged.  Maybe it was a science experiment gone wrong. Or maybe some sort of time traveler: its eyes possessed that old, weathered look I imagined a time traveler might have. Maybe it was a puddle of oil that had come to life. From what I could tell, it didn’t have teeth or a nose. It moved in this perpetual motion sort of way, without using legs.  Anyhow, I decided to call my brother to see if he had any insights. He was a chemist in San Jose and knew about these things. After three rings, his face materialized on my phone: his screen was fuzzy, but I could make out the bushy eyebrows and tousled hair. (How he got girls—or so he claimed). He was walking briskly down a hallway while chewing a sandwich.  “Got a question for you,” I said and turned my screen to face the thing. It blinked its Elmer-glued eyes as if to reaffirm my words. “What is this?” Michael’s screen shook with his stride as he squinted at the camera. “The hell is that?” “I don’t know. I’m asking you, Mr. Genius.” Michael wrinkled his nose and told me that he’d have to take a closer look at it—which unfortunately wasn’t possible, with him being all the way over there and me being all the way over here. He asked me where I got it and what material I thought it might be made of.  “I don’t know. It’s a blob. Like just a black squirming blob.” I turned to the thing. “Right?” It nodded its head. “It’s probably not carbon-based, by the looks of it. Too liquidated to be obsidian, though it’s got obsidian’s sheen. Can you touch it and tell me how it feels?” “How it feels ?” I glanced at the blob, feeling like I should ask it for consent before sticking my fingers all over it. It didn’t give me a reaction, instead watching my hand as I drew closer to its form. I could sort of see my finger when I stuck it inside, which weirded me out a bit. It felt like I was touching liquid metal. The blob allowed me to continue probing around inside its body for a few moments, and then it hissed and stung me. I recoiled.  “I’m sorry!” I said. Michael said he could make a few guesses—some sort of gas- or plasma-based material, maybe—but he really needed to be in person to see this thing, and that wouldn’t happen until the Christmas holidays.  Nodding in resignation, I switched subjects and asked him how he’d been. He told me about work, how they were developing some new flu vaccine, and about how his toddler was in this phase where she tugged everything off the counters, which had caused the loss of three lamps and an antique clock. We talked for twenty minutes before all of the pleasant subjects were exhausted and he said he should get back to work. It’s the sort of thing that happens, I suppose when distance gets in the way of all the closeness you used to have as kids. The blob, meanwhile, seemed to have calmed down after the touch fiasco and started cuddling up to my thigh. I told Michael we should call again soon, said goodbye, and got back to my ironing.  That evening, it came to mind that the thing might need to be fed. I wasn’t sure if I should treat it like a dog, a baby, or something else entirely. I decided to try all courses of action. To preserve it some dignity in case it really was of some higher intellect, I first dished out some of my pasta onto a clean plate and set it on the table across from me, beckoning for the blob to take a seat. It looked at the plate and hissed. It did the same with the leftover fried rice. So it wasn’t fond of carbs.  Next, I tried vegetables. And then chicken tenders. And finally the leftover kibble I had from that one time I babysat my ex’s dog. It hissed and hissed and looked especially disdainful when I tried to serve it the kibble. I sighed and went upstairs to get ready for bed, hoping to think of something else to feed it while I was in the shower. I returned to the kitchen in pajamas with the idea to try non-human or -animal foods—maybe it was one of those things that ate metal—and was moderately mortified to find it sucking on one of the electrical sockets, pulses of energy garbling around its translucent insides. In slight desperation, I called up the one electrician I knew. Nick picked up on the first ring.  “It’s Meg. I think I need some electrical help.” “Shoot,” Nick chuckled, “I never thought I’d hear from you.” I had met Nick at a record store a few months ago when I had dropped a Beatles album on the ground, and we both reached to pick it up—your typical meet-cute kind of thing—and then he asked, “Haven’t I seen you around before?”  And because I would’ve remembered meeting a guy with a good haircut and Paul Rudd eyes, I said, “Is that supposed to be a pickup line?” He grinned and nodded and then explained to me that he was an electrician and his building was just down the street, and gave me his card, and said I should ring him up if I ever wanted an electrical rewiring or a dinner date—or both. I tried to explain to him about the blob eating my electricity, but obviously, that didn’t sound very sane over the phone, so I told him he had better come take a look.  “But you can wait until tomorrow,” I said. “It’s late.” He told me not to worry about it, said that he was a night owl anyway, and was at my doorstep in thirty minutes, his bomber jacket slung over one shoulder. I ushered him into the kitchen, where the blob was still slogging away at my power socket. Nick squatted down by the socket and opened his toolbox. He procured a set of pliers and an insulated screwdriver and set to work prying the thing off my wall. Despite the apparent difficulty of the job, he worked with surprising grace. When he finally succeeded in the task, he remarked, “You got yourself a pretty spirited friend here.”  The blob nestled into his arms and whistled happily, its insides still crackling. And then it belched and threw up on the floor and all over Nick’s shirt. Nick laughed as I insisted on cleaning it up, trying to rub napkins over the mess. He said it was alright, that he would just go home and change, and packed up his tools and left.  ____ The next day, I cleared the morning’s dishes and helped the blob onto the electrical socket before heading out for work.  “Be good, okay? You can eat all the electricity you’d like. Just don’t chew through the TV cord.” The next-door neighbor’s kid was vaping out on the driveway. I remembered when we were younger—and my house belonged to my parents instead of me—how he used to have droves of his friends over. I used to sit on the curb, watching them play basketball and skateboard over homemade ramps. The sudden nostalgia propelled me towards him, slouching against his parents’ old Honda. A waft of artificial watermelon enveloped my senses as I greeted him. He nodded his head at me. He had grown a beard since I last remembered seeing him.  “Well, how’ve you been?” I asked. My gaze settled awkwardly on his left eyelet piercing. He grunted, jutting his chin at my house. “That a new pet or something you got in there?” “Huh?” “The thing I saw in the window last night, kind of shifty looking. New pet?” “Uh. Something like that.” I wanted to say more. I had hoped to connect with him, though I wasn’t sure how. Maybe I could recount the time he spent an afternoon teaching me to skateboard. My brother was gone to university by then, and I must’ve looked extra forlorn sitting on the curb that day because he called me to join him and his buddies. We’d sort of been friends then, hadn’t we? But he was already looking away, and besides, I didn’t know how to properly segue into the story. I wasn’t sure he remembered, anyway. He didn’t have his friends over much anymore. So I nodded my head awkwardly and went on my way. I decided to pay Nick a visit before going to work to apologize for last night’s mess. I realized I hadn’t even paid him for his services, and to be honest, I was kind of afraid that he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me after last night. And I guess I wanted him to want to have something to do with me. An elderly man led me through the sparse halls of the electrician building to an office in the back. Nick looked up from the files on his desk. He seemed more rigid here than in my house or at the record shop.  But then he smiled and spun his chair to hop out of it, and the relaxed demeanor sunk back into his body. “Well, look who it is. How’s your friend doing?”  “That’s just why I wanted to come see you,” I said and handed him a fifty-dollar bill. I didn’t know how much an electrician usually cost, let alone for a job like last night’s.  Nick shook his head, folding the bill back into my palm. I looked at his hand over mine and spouted abruptly, “I’d like to go to dinner with you. That is if the offer still stands.” Nick grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.” We made plans for Tuesday night and exchanged a few extra pleasantries before I said I needed to get to work. I left feeling fairly satisfied with the interaction.  ____ The blob and I lived in relative harmony for the next two months. It seemed content to writhe around, hiss every so often, and suck the electricity out of my house. When I came home, we’d watch TV. It was especially intrigued by the evening news.  One Friday night, the blob started churning—and not its usual, electrified churn—but a sort of violent shaking overtook it. Nick and I—we were seeing each other regularly by now, since we’d hit it off that Tuesday evening—were making dinner, and Nick saw it first. “It’s having a seizure!” he yelped.  “What do we do?” I said, panic rising in my voice. I hadn’t seen it shake like this before and thought it looked horrifically in pain.  “Get a humidifier! You can suck static out with a humidifier.” “I don’t have a humidifier!”  “We need to neutralize him somehow! It’s all that electricity!” I looked around wildly for anything that might neutralize electricity and, in one madcap effort, ended up throwing my living room rug on the blob. It fizzled, its body writhing under the heavy material, until finally, it stopped seizing. It slipped out from under the rug like black, electric blood, its eyes sliding out last. When it finally re-formed, it wheezed.  “Crickets,” it said. “Crickets! Crickets!” Nick and I looked at each other and gasped.  It didn’t say anything other than “crickets,” and very soon, it was completely back to normal—save for the fact that it repeated the word all through dinner and all through our movie.  ____ It was church the next day. The stage’s blue lights glowed reverently, and the AC was on full blast. I sat in the back pew and listened to the sermon: today, the preacher had decided to bare his soul to us about his recent divorce. He talked about the loneliness he felt, about how God had gotten him through it, how God was greater than all our obstacles. I hadn’t been seriously religious in quite some time (I went to church so I could tell my parents I went to church), but I watched as he paced back and forth on the stage, and I listened to the occasional “Amen” from the crowd and sometimes an “Amen, hallelujah.”  And then suddenly I was crying. Something just opened up inside me like a cavern, this big gaping hole in my body, and everything collapsed into it.  It was the same feeling I got when there was nothing to do on Friday nights when I usually ended up taking a long walk or putting on a movie I didn’t really want to watch. Maybe this was how the blob felt, and this was why it had to suck in all that power all the time: to keep it full. It must be a miserable existence, if that was the case. The elderly lady sitting in front of me turned around and handed me a tissue. I wiped my eyes and left the church, feeling vacant.  I was eating sushi takeout, and the blob was siphoning its electricity, much less distressed than the previous night. I paused for a moment, my chopsticks midway to my mouth. The blob sensed this and paused, too, and glanced at me.  The thought flashed before me for a second that the blob must be a metaphor for my loneliness, and it had come to fill the cavern of emptiness inside me. But that was bullshit. The creature had been with me for over two months, and the only thing it had changed in my life was the obscene cost of my electric bill. It kept on looking at me but didn’t make any sounds. In fact, it remained completely still. It didn’t go back to the electricity; it didn’t hiss; it didn’t even belch out “crickets.” I wondered if it could read my thoughts.  ____ Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks. And then on Thursday, I was squeezing into my work shoes when I looked across the hall and noticed that the blob wasn’t at its preferred socket by the kitchen table.  “Hey, buddy?” I called. I had taken to calling it buddy, like it was a kid or a dog, although I’m not really sure it liked that. Still, it had become habitual. I checked all the sockets downstairs and then checked upstairs, too, even though the blob had never climbed the stairs. I checked under the couches and in the cupboards and underneath the rugs. It had shown no interest in going outside before, but just in case, I checked the front porch. And then I saw it.  It was latched onto the fence I shared with my next-door neighbor, chewing on the ivy. Half the vines were devoured by the time I got to it, and the other half were turning brown and decaying on the ground.  “What do you think you’re doing?” I scolded, incredulous. I tried to pull it off, but it hissed louder than I’d ever heard it hiss before. Its insides glowed with electricity and leaves. “You can’t touch that. The neighbors will kill me.” But it kept on doing its thing, churning and eating and churning and eating. I pulled and pulled, and it kept on hissing at me and even stung me—something it hadn’t done since our first encounter. Defeated, I jumped back and said, “You’d better be back in the house by the time I get back, or else.” I didn’t really know what would happen “or else,” but it felt like the appropriate thing to say. I got in my car and drove to work, stopping by Nick’s office to drop off lunch. He asked me how the blob was doing, and I admitted that it was eating the neighbor’s plants. I couldn’t stop thinking about the blob chewing off my neighbor’s whole garden and screwed up my lines at the monthly corporate meeting. By the time I drove home, I had resolved to knock on the neighbor’s door and ask as bravely as I could for forgiveness on the blob’s behalf. I peeked at the wreckage. All the ivy, which had once covered most of the fence, was either chewed off or dead. The begonias in the front had experienced some damage, too. I steeled myself before getting out of my car and crossing the lawn. But standing on the porch, I heard shouts inside and quickly realized I had come at a bad time. I was about to turn away and come back later when the door flew open to reveal the neighbor kid, his face red and angry. His mother—the one I had come to apologize to—followed him outside. “Honey, please. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you. You don’t have time. Come on, honey, don’t be like this. Where are you going?” “I’m getting out of your hellhole,” he said, vape stick dangling from his mouth, hands clenched into fists. He jammed the car door open and revved up the engine. I stood in my place, startled and uncomfortable. He skidded out of the driveway and into the street, around the bend. His mother was left standing on the porch, her eyes brimming with tears.  She turned to me. “He doesn’t have time,” she said. “He’s got no time.” I glanced at the fence, which now looked naked without all the ivy leaves, and then back to her. “What do you mean, he doesn’t have time? Doesn’t have time to do what?” “Everything,” she sobbed. “It’s all wasting away.” I sidled towards her, hesitantly placing a hand around her shoulder. She didn’t move, so I left it there. “It’s not wasting away. I mean, he’s still young. He’s still got a lot ahead of him.” She shook her head and wiped her tears with the heel of her palm. “That’s not what I mean.” “What do you mean, then?” She looked at me with new eyes, then, and seemed to finally register that she was speaking to a vague acquaintance. She took a breath. “I’m sorry. What did you need, sweetheart?” I glanced at her, a little confused. And then I remembered what I had come for. “The vines. Your ivy. It’s gone. My...pet ate it. And I just wanted to apologize. I feel really bad about it.” She wiped her nose again and looked over at the fence, and then suddenly, she laughed. The sound bubbled out of her gut, which must’ve held a dozen laughs of a similar brand. “All this, and you’re worried about a little ivy?” “I feel really bad,” I repeated. “I can buy you a new plant if you want. I’m not really a green thumb, but I can probably buy some ivy from a—from a plant dealer or whatnot, and I’ll be careful to make sure that the blob—the pet—doesn’t get to it again, and—” “Sweetheart,” she interrupted, “calm down.” The tears were still running down her cheeks. I thought about her son who had just sped away in a rusty Honda, her son who used to skateboard in the street with his friends, who taught me tricks and teased me about the shape of my nose. “Please don’t worry about the plant,” she said. And then she wrapped her arms around me in a big hug, sinking into my shoulders. Please don’t worry about your son , I wanted to say. But of course I didn’t. And of course, she would. I wandered back into the house, sort of dazed from the interaction, to find the blob completely spazzing out. It glitched from one socket to the next, a bundle of shock and blob and leaf. It turned blue, then red, then purple and then went back to black and lept all over the house like it was teleporting its body through the electrical sockets. “Crickets, crickets,” it screeched.  I tried to pull it out of the sockets, but it was moving too fast, its blob form whizzing through the walls and the air. Its stomach kept glitching. In a moment of relative calm, when it was stuck to just one socket, I glimpsed something flickering in its eyes, something playing like a movie. A movie of the future. I quickly realized it wasn’t my future, but the neighbor kid’s.  I saw the neighbor’s house and then a convenience store. Then I saw the neighbor kid working at the store, getting married, having three mini neighbor kids, and teaching the mini kids how to skateboard. And then, the three mini neighbor kids grew up and had mini mini neighbor kids in a new house somewhere in the city. And on and on like that until there was one great- great- great- grand-neighbor kid running out of a futuristic flying house.  I was only shaken out of my trance when the montage flickered. And then the blob squirmed and blinked—and with one last “crickets” cry, disappeared into the electrical socket by the kitchen table.  Months passed, and then a year, and then some. I hoped the blob would return, but it never did. So I went on with my job and kept on dating Nick. Michael came home for Christmas. Nick and I had an amicable break-up. I started dating Cindy. I broke up with Cindy and moved to a different city for work.  One summer evening, years later, I walked past a scrawny, tired-looking guy leaning against the rails of a skatepark. He was cheering on his kid, this little girl making her wobbly descent down a skate ramp. I thought about the neighbor kid. I thought about the blob. And I decided, fondly, that the blob must’ve been a time traveler. I waved at the guy standing by the skatepark, who gave me a sheepish smile. In the hot breeze, the cicadas chirped. Alannah Tjhatra is a student and writer currently based in California. Her short stories have previously been published in The Roadrunner Review and Glass Mountain Magazine.

I saw the true face of humanity– Masses gathering, phones alight, Recording, photographing the scene, Loudly, excitedly chattering about The tragedy that erupted around 10:30 p.m. that dreadful Wednesday Night, but my ears nor eyes caught A single person asking if everyone Involved was okay, if they had survived On that dreadful Wednesday Night when I stepped into the living room, Saw my wife with her ear to the open Window, curtain trembling with the late- -August breeze, summoning me to come, Listen to the popping, a sound that fell to Our ears as indistinguishable between Fireworks and the gunshots someone In the neighborhood sent crackling Into the sky on random nights such as these, And as we opened our front door to witness The whoosh of flame from several doors Down, popping turning to explosions, A fire raging from a neighbor’s home, A question of why the police, fire department Hasn’t yet shown-up, if anyone has called them, And shadowy visions of my wife immediately On her phone to Report the grisly scene, police, the local Fire department showing up minutes later, The face of humanity beginning to morph From ghoulish to promising and back again As hopelessness sets in, rises, wafts Like the all-consuming flames, the reminder Of how swiftly all we have and all we have Worked our lives for could be taken from us By a terrible accident, an act from the Undiscerning hand of fate as I, too, Stop, stare, horrified, wordless, sickness Twisting in my gut, feeling the anxiety that Would captivate my fleeting slumber that night, I recognize that, I too, carry the alternately Sad, hideous, and occasionally uplifting Mask of our collective actions— I, too, am the face of humanity. Andrew Buckner is a multi award-winning poet, filmmaker, and screenwriter. His short dark comedy/horror script Dead Air!  won Best Original Screenwriter at the fourth edition of The Hitchcock Awards. Also a noted critic, author, actor, and experimental musician, Buckner runs and writes for the review site AWordofDreams.com .

I just learned more about this composer, Schubert, yesterday.  I was trying a new song in my lesson, and my cello teacher filled me in about the guy, (he does that all the time).  At first, I thought he was showing off or trying to gain clout with my mom, who often flits through the lesson, trying to be unobserved, but that wasn’t it.   After multiple lessons, I got it.  Mister B constantly lives all this music stuff, the composers, the instruments, all the crazy theory, it all.  He’s kind of obsessed that way and I get it.  It’s like me with Minecraft.  So, about this Schubert, whose song I was learning, “He’s kind of a savant,” Mr. B said. I guess he should have said he was a savant because Schubert was born like two hundred twenty-five years ago, in 1797.  He died in 1828, when he was 31 years old, and my teacher said “He was so young.”  I guess to him he was, since Mr. B is like over 50, but to me 31 is more than twice my age, and that sounds like another lifetime to me.  So not that young, maybe. Mr. B calling this Schubert a “savant” confused me.  Of course, I didn’t ask about it, but then Mr. B said he rarely left his house, lived with his father, but he wrote seven effing symphonies.  Do you know how long a symphony is?  Because I do, as mom made me sit through an entire one for extra cred in my cultural appreciation class.  (Sometimes it sucks to have your mom as one of your teachers). Seven symphonies.  I guess he didn’t often go out to hear them played.  Then my cello teacher said he also wrote 600 vocal works, 2 operas, and lots and lots of sacred music which I can’t really get the weight of, but it sounds like a lot of work and a lot of time. We worked on the song “An die Musik”, and the name is pretty self-explanatory, German to English, “To Music”.  Maybe I should have picked German to learn instead of stupid Hindi, just because dad comes from Jaipur. “To the Music” was pretty simple on the cello.  I got to work on my second and third positions a bit, but Mr. B penciled fingerings also in first and fourth, my faves, so yay.  It was actually kinda cool, the way it sounded.  I went over it a few times and I tried to get it pretty fixed in my head since I hadn’t heard it before.  I like to know where the notes are going and how they should sound before I play them so I don’t make stupid mistakes. I make enough mistakes in life just from being on this “spectrum.”  You put your fingers up to make quote marks here.  So.  Autism is the word people think but don’t say as much as “spectrum”, with the quotes, which doesn’t really clarify anything, in my opinion. And I’m thinking this Schubert was maybe on this “spectrum” but maybe they didn’t call it that back then.  They maybe used words like savant or I don’t know, but I’m sure they had them.  I think a lot of us passionate people end up in some category that folks come up with to lump us all together so they can describe us with words that aren’t so judgey, like weirdo and all. The more I thought about this Schubert, as I played along with those notes that had come out of his brain, the more I felt akin to him.  Do  you like that word akin?  Means I’m almost like related to him.  After the lesson I went to play Minecraft because I have a big session with Kirby and Colin coming up and Minecraft is one of my biggest passions.  I think my mom hoped the cello would replace Minecraft, but that’ll never happen.  Even though I like cello a lot. In my room, in my game cave, I googled that Schubert.  I thought I might like to hear his song, “to music” again, but I just kept running into other works by him.  Mr. B was right, he wrote a ton.  I did take note of his other names besides Schubert though.  Names are important to me.  I remember  the names of everyone I ever met, including like, waiters at restaurants, and all the teachers and staff at school, which sometimes drives my mom crazy, because my dad’s always asking me everybody’s name on the few times he meets us at school functions, like plays and concerts and sporting events that my sister, Kiara, is all about.  Not me, not a sporty kind of guy.  Then my dad, says “Hello  good to see you” to this and that person, saying their name and smiling.  I guess mom thinks I make it too easy for my dad to look like he’s paying attention when he’s really just kinda an iPad dad. So, Schubert’s whole name string is Franz Peter Schubert.  He’s basically from Austria, well to be specific, between 1867 and 1918 Austria was allied with Hungary and they called it the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which collapsed 10 years before our Franz Peter Schubert died of disputable causes, which I’m not going to go into here. Because I want to get to the nut of all this before 4:15 pm PST where I have to be ready and geared up for Minecraft with my friend Kirby, which happens at 4:30, exactly. Back to the Music, and Franz, and me, and the nut of this story.  Not to digress, again, but the nut of a cello is a raised piece of wood where the fingerboard meets the pegbox, which the strings rest on.  It matters a lot, in cello playing, because if it’s too high, it makes the cello much harder to play.  That’s why I care about the nut.  Also, because I care about words, a lot.  Nut, and nutty is what I’ve heard about me, when I’m stimming a bit, and people don’t know I hear them, but I do, in a piece of my brain that is set on record for later. Tic, tic, tic, I know, time’s fleeting, keep moving forward. An die Musik-- to Music.  After my lesson, I kept trying to capture that tune, like I told you, but it kept flying away from me because it wasn’t predictable, like a pop jam, a rock song, or a folk tune would be.  There are these 16 measures where nothing’s related, but somehow it all fits together.  I don’t know, it kept flying away from me and I wanted to pin it down before I went to sleep yesterday night.   I noticed Mischa Maisky, (my fave cellist, along with Shaku, naturally) plays it on YouTube and then pops the repeat up an octave, which surprised me in a good way.   So, I’m plugged in, got my earbuds in, and I keep listening to Maisky’s version, (An die Musik, D. 547 (Op.88/4), listening over and over again, whenever I can. Not at dinner—family rule, no earbuds at the table, no devices in fact, which is so unfair, but I guess I get it, the only time we’re together (except for dad), to talk and stuff, “bond” I guess.  I don’t know, without dad, it’s so different. But back to the nut of things.  On and off during the day I guess I listened to the song seven or eight, maybe ten times, and I still didn’t have it.  Then, as I was brushing my teeth before bed, I put it on for one more time, then my earbuds went out of power.  So, I held the phone up to my ear.  My sister, Kiara, was already in bed, close enough to yell out, ”Alok, turn down that music.”  She’s getting ready for some kind of hurdling meet or, thing.  So, I turned “An die Musik” down to a quiet buzz and pressed the phone against my ear with my left hand, while brushing with my right hand, and the vibrations swept through my skull as I brushed along with the piano accompaniment, beat, beat, beat, and the melody of the cello took flight and soared all over the galaxy of my brain, around the shooting stars, swirling in and out of planets and meteors and everything.  I was in a space trance and the music took me into “An die Musik” until I got lost in it.  Thank you, Maestro Schubert, thank you Mr. B.  Sometimes I wish you were my dad, but then I banish those thoughts, because, well, it’s not right, not okay, not fair.  But sometimes I can’t help it.  My dad told me life’s not fair, and I guess he’s right, but I wish I could share some little things with him like I share music with Mr. B, like Kiara shares sports with him. And now the song ends and my teeth are way too clean, so I’m off to bed.  Putting the phone away but it’s still vibrating.  Did I not get out of YouTube?  Yes, it looks like I did, but then why do I still hear it?  Lifting it to my ear, I hear it faintly, quietly, rhythm not stopping, melody flying.  Wait a minute.  Now I’m turning the actual phone off.  I do this but I still feel  the buzz, like a car pumping a bass line, driving by.  But this is different, like that, but not.    This is the music in me, in my head, in my cells, not a memory but a continuance.  Not a device, but my neurodivergent brain singing along with what, Franz Peter Schubert?  Or did the music take over the authorship of whatever is still singing in my head? It wasn’t scary, at least not yet.  Not like alien radio signals in your tooth fillings, but like an integral part of the ongoing inner workings of my body.  Because it drifted now, from my ears into my cosmic brain, down my spine, and mingling into my arms and legs and feet and hands.  Could I sleep with all this going on? I wondered, and  I tucked into my lower bunk, turned off the light, and settled into sleep.  Three deep breaths, ins and outs, and I remember nothing else until this morning when I heard Kiara doing her squats and burpees in her bedroom next to mine. And I heard the music.  Low level, yes, but still moving through me.  It felt like it had been playing all night, and I wondered what it might feel like to hear this and play it on the cello.  Would it change depending on what I was playing, or would it tune out and disappear?  I didn’t want it to disappear. Since I can remember I have owned multiple pairs of noise canceling head phones.  From when I was a baby, random noises were always a problem for me.  The Roomba was the first monster I remembered.  It came chewing into my room one day when I was still in my crib and it felt like the noise was beating up my head.  Mom said I was two years old, and I don’t remember anything before that, but I remember the Roomba monster. After that, they got me puffy head phones and any time they took me out they kept them close, in case of loud repeating noise.  Like if I was in the stroller and we passed a street fair with loud music, the headphones brought me peace and quiet.  I always felt like they were safety marshmallows against the monster chewing noises that randomly happen in the world. But weirdly, maybe, now, this ongoing “Musik” is nothing like that at all.  It stays with me, but quietly, like I turned the volume way down, unless I pay attention to it, and then like holding my phone to my ear, I feel the vibration and it gets as loud as I want. I’m enduring school now, but I can’t wait to get home to play.  Not Minecraft this time, but cello, especially this song from Franz Peter Schubert’s head to my head.  School is as normal as it ever gets for me, but better today because I have this secret power that only I know about, and it makes me smile.  Smile inside, not all over my face like a clown.  And I think it helps calm me down when stuff happens, like it always does, with bells ringing, and people bellowing, and cheerleaders cheering, like they always do.  It’s not muffled, like my headphones, it’s bright and singing, that same song, “An Die Musik” but I’m not getting sick of it, rolling on and on, like a river that keeps flowing beneath  my thoughts.. When we get home Kiara goes directly to her room to study so she can meet up later with friends at tennis practice.  She’s on the school team, and she’s either #1 or #2 out of 12 contenders, depending on a lot of things she is not afraid to share with us. I get my cello, and start the B major scale, just to get the notes in order before I start up, just to feel my fingers feel the right place on the fingerboard, to get the slide of the strings.  They make my fingers tingle today, those notes running non-stop in my head and my fingers perfectly follow them through the scale, like walking up the stairs behind them, at first, but then after working my way up and down three octaves, my bow picks up the rhythm and the melody of Franz Peter Schubert’s song, and I follow along without reading any notes on the page.  I follow along, even when his song “To the Music”, swirls into measures from his other songs, like “The Wanderer,” or “Ave Maria”, and others I never heard before.  At least I assumed they were his songs.  Who’s playing these I wonder, Schubert or me?  Because I feel propelled, like I was seven years old, dancing with my mother, when she’d spin me around, and my feet were dancing the steps, but her force was moving me.  It was so fun with my mom, but when dad tried to do it, it didn’t work so well.  I stumbled over my feet and he ended up swinging me in the air like a ball on a string and it scared me.  We never got our steps together, dad and me, and now he’s not just separated by work trips, but he lives separately too.  Mom is calling it a “trial separation”, but I don’t see anyone trying anything.  Kiara and I go visit on weekends and they play tennis for hours, sweating and whacking balls interminably. You like that word?  I just added it to my word collection.  It means they don’t stop; they just keep going at it, while I just play Minecraft on my own. Nothing against Minecraft, you know, my biggest obsession, I play it any time I can, but dad has no interest, and I might as well be home in my game cave, and a lot more comfy, because there’s zero interaction with dad here.  I mean, he and Kiara may have been interacting in a tennis game, but dad just asks me questions about school and I can never say much, because I don’t think he’s listening.  Dad and I don’t sync.  Suddenly the notes in my head take a deep diminuendo, and it feels like time for a cello break.  I look at my timer and it dings.  I’ve been playing nonstop for fifty-five minutes.  I guess I should say, we’ve been playing, Franz Peter Schubert and I have been playing “An die Musik” and more.  I loosen my bow and pack it into my case, then my cello, snapping all 8 silver snaps.  We have a recital this evening at one of Mr. B’s other student’s houses that has a big room they call a salon and devote only to music.  They have a nice Steinway and a little platform and music stands, so groups of Mr. B’s students can play, trios or duets, and such.  Mr. B plays the piano parts sometimes.  He’s pretty good at a lot of instruments, along with his super cello powers. So tonight, after school, I took my cello to dad’s place, which I never do, but since the recital was in his neighborhood it made sense.  For the first time he was coming with me instead of mom, and for the first time that didn’t even bother me.  Normally I don’t like to play with him anywhere nearby, cause it makes me think about messing up, and then I do mess up, majorly.  See, dad used to play guitar, back in Boston, when he was in college, but now his guitar just hangs on the wall at his place and he never touches it.  He always looks like he’s in pain when he hears bad music, and when I was first starting out with the cello, he had to leave the room when I practiced.  You can see why I don’t like to play around him. But today, with Franz Peter Schubert singing away in my head, letting me play along with him, I am just into the music and no fear.  It’s not like I can’t concentrate on other things, like homework and dinner, and talking and stuff, the thing is I have this background loop, rolling around in a quite relaxing fashion.  I have to say, it doesn’t scare me at all.  In the very beginning, when it didn’t go away, it felt a little weird, like something in my brain was stuck on repeat, but now it keeps changing and it makes me calm like my puffy headphones but much better.  Dad and I get to the “salon” where they’re having the recital and I’m calm and buzzy at the same time.  I go and sit with the other students on the benches in front and dad slips into the comfy chairs with random other parents. Mr. B. goes over the performance order with us and makes sure we’re all cool with it.  I usually hide somewhere in the middle of it all, but tonight I ask Mr. B. if I can go last, because I don’t want my dad tapping his foot and looking impatient while all the “not his kid” students play after I’ve already played.  Not that he’s done that at a recital before, since this is his first, but I know how nervous he makes me feel when he’s impatient, and I want to enjoy this, and only think about the music. Mr. B looks surprised, but says sure, and I settle in for the duration.  Funny thing though, as Shaniqua plays “The Swan” and then Angelo plays “Arioso”, I hear them with my ears, while at the same time, “An die Musik” twirls around their notes, in a kind of wispy way that’s interesting to me and reassuring, even when the players make mistakes, which of course they do.  No biggie.  Six more students present their work, a couple of duets by the twins, and finally we come to me.  Mr. B. sits down at the piano with the accompaniment music, but I don’t even put my music on the stand.  I know all of this by now, up and down, and all around.  I plan to play it through once, and then go up an octave for the repeat.   Mr. B will be proud, he nods and we begin.  It’s like playing, for sure, but again more like dancing to that music that’s swelling up in my head.  I sway a bit with the cello, I close my eyes and feel my way along with the song.  It’s  pure happy.  I looked up the lyrics but they were all in German so I found a translation of the poem that Franz Peter Schubert based the music on.  I don’t remember it all, but it talked about how during the gray hours, when life’s wild circle entangles him, music transports him to a better world.  And at the end, he talks directly to music and he says, “You, beautiful art, thank you for that.”  And as I’m playing, I’m singing it out in my heart, thank you, music, you beautiful art. Mr B. has stopped playing the piano, and he’s looking at me but I can’t stop myself from playing, and I’m playing my thanks too, for this new gift of music in me, and I’m crying a bit, so when I notice that, I do a few arpeggios, still in the key of B major where I started, and then I taper off on a long, long, note. The clapping is very, very, loud.  Normally I might put my hands over my ears, but tonight it doesn’t even matter, with the quiet music still flowing inside me. I look over at my dad to see if he’s clapping and he is, but he’s crying too and I don’t know what to think about that.  We head out; Mr. B gives me a big high five on the way out and says, “You’ve reached a new level in the game.”  I laugh, because I feel happy. We drive home to dad’s and on the way, we don’t say much, but it still feels good.  Dad says, “I didn’t know you could scat like that.”  I don’t really know what he means by that, but it sounds good so I plan to look it up later. When we get back home dad asks if I’m tired or if I want to play a little more.  Strange as it is, I’m not tired at all and yes, I do want to play more.  We go into the living room, and for the first time since he’s been there, I watch dad take his guitar off the wall.  I’m unsnapping my cello case, but I hear him blow some dust off the strings and he strums a chord.  It’s all out of tune, no surprise there, and he sits down and begins tuning it all up. Dad’s good at tuning; he used to do it for me when I was nine and new to cello.  Then, of course, he’d leave the room.  But now, he’s tuning his guitar to my cello, and he says “go ahead, I’ll follow you.”  So, I go ahead, it’s as if I never stopped and somehow it just feels natural and nice to have dad finger-picking along.  He’s doing a bit of what the piano played, but he’s doing his own kind of playing along too, and I feel like the music is taking over the two of us and making us one song. We go on and on, and we don’t stop, until my phone rings and it’s mom, wondering how it all went.  I talk to her a little and she asks about all the other students and their pieces.  Dad goes to the kitchen and comes back with ice tea for him and that coconut drink I like mixed with ginger ale.  I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.  Mom says, “Okay, I’ll let you go.”  Dad reaches for the phone but I’ve already hung up.  Somehow, for once, it feels good being just us.  He lifts his glass of tea and makes a toast.  “To the music,” he says.   I raise up my glass, clink his, and to the music, I say, “Thank you.”  Meredith England-Markun was born in Panama where she grew up in a temporary clearing now being reclaimed by the jungle. She lives in Seattle and co-founded the School of Alliance Program at the Richard Hugo House, an urban writing center. She is a winner of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference Poetry Contest.

Rochester  We walked across the bridge to Genesee    but didn’t walk into the brewery.     Then we walked further, a little later, a mile down the endless dock above   the lake. We ate the same breakfast two days in a row. I needed a break       from work and another dull birth   day. It was selfish, I know. That four     hour drive into a simpler time               across the hungry sea. The Mass Marketing Email Says We Will Miss You After I Smash That Unsubscribe Link Bye-bye blue beaches underneath a copywriter’s fingertips! I am feeling filthy enough typing my own contributions to the downfall of everything. The keyboard sounds juicy if you just listen. Zesty. Squishing lemons. Releasing shift ’s a loud clicker. A double jump for a healthier life, somersaulting upwards, get jacked!  I wish there were a supplement to supplant my depression. They will keep trying. I am alive enough  to receive burnt-out transmissions. Home I whistle in the neighborhood shade where pennies shimmer on the sidewalk, stars. I could call this home forever–  or as long as anything lasts. Nothing  thrills me more than you, I know,  wherever we go. To speak of my dream of leaving for a state of bluegrass and bourbon– a place to start anew and air is sweet with a little kick– I want to come home  to another home where trumpets blare  and the cabinets are full of angel hair,  where I can open the window at night. James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In  (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me  (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022). Recent poems are in The Garlic Press, Glint,  and Triggerfish.  He edits The Mantle Poetry  from Nashville, Tennessee. ( jamescroaljackson.com )

The phone rang, Rory’s pencil hesitated above a page of fractions dividing fractions. Came his mother’s expected voice, “Rory! Phone!” “Someone else!” Rory pleaded. “No, you, now.” He left pencil and homework on the folding TV tray table in the nook between refrigerator and kitchen corner where he studied. His mother waited near the phone. He took up the receiver. “Hello,” he said in his firmest treble. “Mrs. Leary?” Rory knew the script from prior performances. “No, this is Rory,” he said. “May I ask who’s calling?” “Tell her it’s Mr. Ghilardi.” The voice held gravel that was none of the phone’s doing. Mr. Ghilardi rented the house to them. Rory had seen him more than once but only by parts when his mother placed herself across the front doorway to block his entry, and from this the sum: A man shorter than her, gray hair slicked imperfectly back, front panels of a short-sleeved plaid shirt untucked by his belly from his belt, rheumy brown eyes under lushly untamed brows in a dried-apple face a range of odd folds and excrescences. “I’ll look for her, Mr. Ghilardi,” Rory said and looked at her. She shook her head. Rory counted slowly in one-eighth fractions – one eighth, one quarter, three eighths, one half, to one – then in their inverses, then uncovered the mouthpiece. “She’s not available.” “When will she be?” said the rough voice. The unwritten script said, and so did Rory, “I don’t know.” His mother made wringing gestures with fists side by side. Thus reminded, Rory added, “You can’t get blood from a turnip. Thank you. Goodbye.” and hung up. His mother kissed his forehead. “Why am I the one for this?” he said. He was in fact one of seven, with an eighth coming. “Because you’re best at it.” Her big rosy cheeks bloomed in a smile and she passed her long fingers, once a pianist’s, across the dark buzzcut she had given him that week. He returned to the nook and the sheet of fractions. His mother remained in the kitchen to put away dishes he and his older sister Maurie had washed and dried but been too short to replace on their high shelves. She hummed something and it was a distraction. He had no other place to study. A room away his father presided before the television in sweatsuit and laborworn sprawl on a recliner, the day’s grit and smear and sweat freshly showered from him, while on the carpet at his sides clustered faces wore the screen’s glow. The bunks and dressers in the small room Rory and his brothers shared left nowhere to sit, one bunk too tight above the other, the floor too narrowed for chair and tray table. He was in any case too eaten by questions to continue homework. He left it for his mother’s side. “How is it,” he said, “that what you have me say is not a lie, and so a sin?” She turned to him and stiffened. “Think carefully,” she said. “What I’ve taught you to say is no lie.” “But how is it true?” He was in reach of her right hand, but he was growing and so feared it less. He believed he saw her weigh its use. She said at last, “The Jesuits called it ‘mental reservation.’ They told enough truth to keep an evil from doing them harm, but no untruth. They had no obligation to tell the whole truth.” What here, Rory wondered, was the evil? He had seen the writing of checks to Mr. Ghilardi. He knew that the last months had not been ordinary. His father had left the house less regularly for work. Rory had heard arguments that had no sense for him, the name of a woman he didn’t know snarled from his mother’s lips, and from his father’s, “I give you enough. Where does it go?” and then the right hand caught and held an instant from his father’s cheek, dark with the day’s grime and hard now from his fury. To this he could add, as some fractions of the whole, cost of heat and light in this chill season of rain and wind and the growls of seven bellies. “Will Mr. Ghilardi make us leave?” he asked. His mother eased a moment and swayed as though she thought to bend and embrace him. “Mr. Ghilardi is a good Catholic,” she said soft-voiced. “He’d be very slow to put a Catholic family out. He might never.” “Then what is the threat I keep away by … by not committing the sin of lying?” Rory said this as it came to him and only then considered the hand. He closed eyes to await it. It didn’t come. “You have your homework, don’t you?” said his mother, and she left the kitchen. He returned to the nook and tried to resume his work. In his mathematics each single-digit whole number had a character, a near-human personality – the four, for example, stolid and hard-working, the three wild and undisciplined except in music, and the seven that combined them clever and adept in navigating the stark world. He had been puzzling how the dramas of their interactions would play on the stage of fractions and delighting in the puzzle, but the numbers now lay inert on the page. He was turned from them to imagining the blood of a turnip, if blood it had. This would not be like his own when it dripped red from cut or scrape. It would, he supposed, run clear, with a heat and sharpness in its taste. He asked himself where – if he were of the family of the turnip-blooded – it might in reservation flow in him. * Father Sánchez faced the class. Rory’s row was seventh of the class’s front-to-back rows and rightmost of its seven across. Seven by seven: The class was an array of cleverness, and outside in its San Francisco neighborhood, where men cut adrift by fading shipyards and industries rode the day’s tide, and where the crisp hard rhythms of gunshot some nights supplanted the dithyrambs of firecrackers, any adeptness from seven-by-seven was – even Rory knew, unversed in adult realities as he understood himself to be – a thing to be sought and, once gained, prized. Father Sánchez looked back and forth, up and down the multihued faces above forty-nine forest green wool cardigans, twenty-six above the white Peter Pan collars of girls, twenty-three surmounting the white point collars of boys, while Sister Athanasius introduced him, whom they all knew. She wore still the long black habit that the younger nuns, given recent opportunity, had abandoned. “Father,” she said, “wishes to speak to you today of vocation.” The priest had removed his jacket and was in short black sleeves. His forearms were much more slender than Rory’s father’s, which Rory assumed his own would someday resemble. After a “Good morning” and bright-toothed smile in the dark olive face that told Rory this visit would be friendly, not admonitory, Father Sánchez said, “My children, a ‘vocation’ is a calling of God to the kind of life any one of us is to live.” He went on to list by example many occupations, some of which Rory didn’t recognize, but most known to him from his neighborhood’s daily sweat and one, Carpenter, from his father’s. “Like Saint Joseph,” said the priest, his accent charming the “J” into a “Ch.” “And for some of you boys, the vocation may be to the priesthood, like mine, and for some of you girls, it may be to serve the Lord in a community of sisters, as does Sister Athanasius. I pray this will be so. You have time, all of you, to come to know your calling, but even now you can ask in your prayers what it is. Do this, and someday you will know, whether by a sign or by a feeling. I felt mine when I was not much older than you, as I knelt one day in the Catedral de Santa María in my birthplace of Trujillo, Perú. Please join me now in prayer. O Lord Jesus, o Holy Mother Mary….” Rory listened past the melody and trilled R’s of the priest’s continuing tenor for some first rustle of response to what it asked. He heard the fidgets of the class’s boys in their deskbound constraint. This seemed too ordinary to speak for God. He heard beyond the classroom windows the skirl of gulls contesting on the play yard the remnants of lunches not long ago finished. This, too, was ordinary, but did inspire in him a question: Did stronger gulls always prevail, or was there sometimes a gull, a seventh maybe, who took the contest by cleverness? * Arturo’s brother and brother’s friends ruled their block, which Rory walked going to and from school. Some few of them were always there, on or near the sidewalk, except on rainier winter days, and even then Rory would meet from within his raincoat hood the eyes of one or another posted at a window. Arturo had another brother whom Rory had known from walking the block while he was yet smaller, but who now had to be away. Rory had asked “Away where?” only once. Arturo’s pinched lips and turn told him not to ask again. Arturo was Rory’s friend. After school they walked together as far as the block. In some of these walks Arturo professed his love for Diana Rinaldi. Whatever his feelings for girls, Rory qualified none as love, which seemed reserved for when his treble broke; but friendship committed him to acknowledging the reality of Arturo’s love for Diana Rinaldi. In class she sat directly in front of Rory and to Arturo’s right. Every day confronted Rory with Diana Rinaldi’s blond hair, which she wore always in single thick French braid at the back of her head. He had asked her once how she could be Italian and so blond. This departed from the norm he had known in the parish. “We’re Po River Italian” had been her reply, quick and sure enough to tell him it was family habit, as was in his own “Granda was out a back door in Cahirciveen as the Black and Tans came through the front.” Several times daily the braid took more of Rory’s eye than Sister Athanasius’s chalk marks or the letters and numbers splayed on his desk. The hair’s rich wave swelled the braid, and the braid’s volume in deepening the plaits and their internal shadows combined dusky tones with the blond in a spectacle that changed with each movement of her head and with each gradient of daylight through the near windows. One afternoon as his eyes wandered the braid’s landscape of hillock and ravine Rory glimpsed Arturo’s hand extending a folded paper across the aisle to Diana Rinaldi. Sister Athanasius, whose face had been to the board, turned at that moment just enough to see the paper offered. “Arturo Sandoval,” she said, turning now completely to him, “bring that here.” The green wool of his cardigan hunched, he obeyed. She did not take the paper from him. “Anything to be shared in class,” she said, “is to be shared with the class. Read.” He unfolded the paper and stared at it in silence. “Read.” “You are so beautiful. I love you so much. When can I kiss you?” The voice was smaller than Rory had ever known it. “I’ll have that now,” Sister Athanasius said. “Back to your desk.” Rory’s friend came hunched still down the aisle. Just before his desk he lifted his eyes to Diana Rinaldi. Rory saw not the least stir of her head Arturo’s way. The instant they reached the street after class Rory put himself at Arturo’s side. As they walked nothing that came to Rory’s thoughts seemed fit to pass his lips. He matched Arturo’s pace wordlessly, then, in hope of shouldering some of his hurt. Along Mission Street, just after they passed an old woman sweeping the sidewalk, they arrived at a cluster of empty beer bottles at the foot of stairs to a house recently vacant, like others in the neighborhood. Most of the bottles stood upright, but some had toppled. A few had broken. They were just one side of Arturo’s line of travel. “Watch out,” said Rory. But Arturo veered slightly and aimed a foot through them. Bottles flew and shattered loudly. The force and reach of his sweep having unbalanced him a little, Arturo stumbled but did not fall, and immediately his shoulder was in silence again by Rory’s. Turning his head to note this, Rory side-glimpsed that the woman had paused her broom and stared. A half-block on he glanced back. A police Ford had stopped by her. She spoke through its open passenger-side window and gestured toward him and Arturo. As Rory continued with Arturo he listened to the distinctive roar of the Ford as it sped toward them. It stopped just ahead of them. Arturo’s cardigan hunched. “Hey,” said the policeman in the passenger seat. He and his partner, who looked younger, came from the car to block the path of Rory’s brown-skinned friend, but not Rory’s. Rory stopped anyway. Both policemen hooked thumbs into black belts with cross-hatched tooling so that one hand was by holstered pistol, the other by can of mace. “What do you think you’re doing, breaking glass?” the younger policeman said to Arturo. The older gestured with chin at Arturo’s uniform sweater and salt-and-pepper corduroy trousers. “What would the Sisters do if they knew you were breaking glass?” Rory watched the small twist of the body beside his and felt its misery. “Breaking glass on a City sidewalk is vandalism,” the younger policeman said to Arturo. “That could get you Juvie.” Rory and all his acquaintances knew this to mean Juvenile Hall, jail for boys. Rory had never contemplated the distinction between a policeman in blue with seven-pointed star and a policeman in black and tan. He wondered if the latter’s reputation for abundant violence, in his family’s telling, applied to the former. He felt in this moment they might at least be kin. Heat rose in him, but no red took his eyes. They saw clear, hot, sharp. It came to him: Turnip-blooded. “It wasn’t his fault,” he said loudly. The policemen looked at him for the first time. “I was talking to him. He looked at me. He tripped over a bottle. It broke. So did a bunch of others. He’s lucky he didn’t fall and get cut up.” Rory spoke with a vehemence that did not seem to himself uncalculated, but surprised him nonetheless. He accompanied his statement with an acting-out of Arturo’s near-fall. “Who is it leaves this stuff on the sidewalk for us to trip over?” he concluded. “Why aren’t they in trouble, not us?” It was all truth, so far as he told it. The younger policeman regarded him impassively, but the older let go of his belt and crossed his arms. After a moment he said, “Be more careful.” He started toward the car. He stopped and turned again to Arturo. “What’s your name?” he said. “Arturo Sandoval,” said Rory’s friend. With a glance at Rory, the policeman asked Arturo, “The Sandovals up there?” He flicked his head toward the block. Arturo’s nod was small. Looking still at Arturo, the policeman held an index finger to his own eye. Then he and his partner were in the car. The roar carried it away. Rory and Arturo took the last steps to the block in silence. At his door, Arturo caught Rory’s cardigan and, turning Rory toward him, touched right shoulders. From across the street, Arturo’s brother and the rulers of the block watched. Arturo’s and Diana Rinaldi’s eyes didn’t once cross the aisle in the next day’s class. Although he told himself his friend’s pain was no fault of hers, Rory’s inevitable regard of her blond braid putrefied through the day into revulsion. At recess, across the play yard and away from Rory’s ear, her friends knotted around her and glanced singly or in bunches at Arturo, and Rory saw but did not hear gusts of laughter blow through them. He kept to Arturo’s side. He wished Arturo had a crew beside him, as Diana Rinaldi did. Arturo needed one. He was by Arturo again on the walk home. When they reached the block, before arriving at Arturo’s door, Rory saw Arturo’s brother stand from the window of a BMW, where he and the young white driver had just touched hands, and start from the street toward them. Two of the brother’s companions crossed the street in something both of saunter and swagger to join him. The three stood athwart Rory’s path. “Little man,” Arturo’s brother said to him. Rory did not believe this attention a threat, but belief was not certainty and did not preclude fear. They were all three bigger than him and likely faster. If they meant to hurt him, he had no hope in either fight or escape. “Little man,” Arturo’s brother said, “little bro told us what you did yesterday. You have skills. We admire skills. They can be useful. We talked. We talked to people. We all think you should come hang with us, so we get to know you.” Something in the voice, a voice broken within Rory’s memory out of a boyhood very like his own among meager cabinets and freighted men, a voice now richening into baritone, this something seemed to Rory a calling. A boy in a large and struggling family seeks and perhaps finds his vocation. And on me: Michael Thériault has been an Ironworker, union organizer, and union representative at various levels. He published fiction in his twenties, half a dozen stories in literary magazines, but abandoned it for decades to support first a family, then a movement. In his recent return, since 2022 his stories have been accepted by numerous publications, among them  Pacifica Literary Review, Overheard,  and  Sky Island Journal.   Popula.com  has published his brief memoir of Ironworker organizing. He is a graduate of St. John’s College, Santa Fe and San Francisco native and resident.

Rick Slickman ached from his neck to his toes, his joints creaking louder than a rusty door. At 72, every  trip to the shared bathroom down the hall in the old house on Bewildered Street felt like an Olympic event.  “Hey Ron, how’s the warehouse job?” They talked while taking care of business. “Nice seeing to you. Be good to your girlfriend and be safe at work.”  Rick made it back to the tiny room and dropped into his recliner.  His wrecked knee had ruined his life, but he stubbornly refused to have it replaced. “Life is tough and the tough keep going.” 1968. Cedaredge High School. He and Robyn had ridden across the brilliantly lit football field in a red convertible Corvette as Homecoming King and Queen. Gorgeous with long brown hair and hazel eyes, she was his first, and he hoped his only . With time running out in the fourth quarter, so had his luck. A linebacker from Hotchkiss High took out his knee. As a result, he nearly missed the homecoming dance where she had waited patiently, refusing to dance with any other man. Rick gulped from a cheap gallon of red wine and sang, “I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth’s. You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth. She’s got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine, selling little bottles of Love Potion Number 9.” He remembered his past mistakes, the unfortunate events, and most importantly, his lifelong love – a girl with a beautiful smile and a talent for baking chocolate chip cookies. He declared, “I would have kept my jeans and her dress zipped.”  Back then, he was determined to dance despite being badly injured. He limped into the gym towards Robyn with the grace of a waddling duck. He’d envisioned sweeping her off her feet with a romantic spin, but his messed-up knee had other plans. He stepped on her right toe which made his swollen knee buckle – causing him to stumble into a group of innocent girls who fell against the snack table, scattering fruit punch, salsa, and chips through the air like confetti.  Dancing couples stared and laughter broke out. He stood with his face dripping fruit punch.  Robyn doubled over, mirth spilling from her lips.  Rick realized he didn't have to be perfect to win her over. With a goofy grin, he limp-waddled back to her, chips and red sauce stuck to his face. “At least we’re having fun, right?” He said with a smile that could light up a black hole. She wiped away tears of laughter and took his hand. “ You are a disaster… but you’re my  disaster.” As the music resumed, he took Robyn’s hand and led her out to his car since he couldn’t dance. The warm night had an atmosphere of glorious adolescent romance, and he popped the question, “Will you marry me?”  She accepted the small marquise diamond ring, saying, “I love you with all my heart and soul.” But love sometimes has a wretched sense of humor. Six weeks later, Robyn learned she was pregnant. She shook her head. “We only made love one time. I can’t believe it.”  They agreed to name it after popular tunes: Michelle, Sweet Caroline, or Sherry if it was a girl. If it was a boy, Jude or Billie Jo. He promised, “We’ll make it somehow. I’m not afraid of hard work.” Her strict Mormon parents promptly shipped her off to live with relatives somewhere in Utah. Despite pleading and promising to join their church, they slammed the door in Rick’s face. He never saw her again despite thousands of periodic efforts to find her over the years. He constantly wondered what their baby looked like. Was it a blonde with blue eyes like him or a brunette with hazel eyes like her? She was the love of his life. His heart ached more than his joints. God, how he wished. Back in those days, he thought he was destined to be a brilliant attorney who helped the poor. Failing to get a football scholarship, he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. He stayed in the Army as a non-commissioned officer, volunteering for the most dangerous missions, hoping to be killed since he had lost Robyn. After fifteen years, they booted him out for drinking too much. Rick stumbled through two half-hearted marriages like other lonely men. None stuck because he was in love with Robyn, but he took solace in the fact there were no kids to inherit his terrible dance moves or the permanent  stains on his reputation. Days turned into decades. After the Army, he did carpentry jobs here and there. The fucking knee kept giving out and causing more injuries. Now on a pittance of social security, he suffered from more aches and pains than he cared to count and was invisible to the world. As the sun set on his life, the ghost of his knee nibbled at his sanity, and he sank into a deeper depression, perpetually marinated in his Love Potion Number 9 since it numbed his burning knee. He mumbled to himself, sad about the dumpster fire of his life. After a particularly grueling day of greeting people at Walmart, every joint ached with arthritis. He sank into his faded recliner with a sigh loud enough to wake the ghosts of his past. They stomped past as he sipped from a gallon jug of Love Potion Number 9 and popped another pain pill.  Staring out the window of his bare room at the bustling youths playing soccer in a Grand Junction neighborhood park, he fantasized about being back in 1968 when everything was fresh. He imagined how he would change things, especially what happened with Robyn after the homecoming dance. He took another pain pill with a gulp of wine. A guy couldn’t change the choices made in the past. One night after working at Walmart, he took an existential leap off the deep end, mixing his Love Potion Number 9 with pain pills and the nostalgia of lost dreams. This was the ticket to his one-way adventure to the land of regret-free football fields and sweet kisses from Robyn. He was ready for the ultimate escape and guzzled the gallon of cheap red wine like it was grape juice, sucked cigarettes although he hadn’t smoked since Nixon was president, and washed down a large handful of pain pills meant for his sciatica. The potion soothed the burning in his knee, the terrible ache in his back, and numbed his empty heart. That’s what he needed: a pain-free death. With a contented sigh, he crushed out the last of the Camel filters, and slumped into his lumpy recliner, lost to the embrace of potion-induced dreams filled with visions of being with Robyn. He drooped, slobbering wine onto his chest.  With a cacophony of muffled sounds, Rick felt the strange sensation of being pulled through a tunnel before crashing into a familiar yet fuzzy place. When he arrived at the other side, he didn’t find paradise or a cramped room filled with regrets. Instead, he sprawled on the stadium-lit football field of Cedaredge High School in the middle of a game, wearing a tight jersey that accentuated muscles he hadn’t possessed in decades. “What in the name of fried donuts?” He exclaimed, popping up like organic rye bread from a toaster. “Who are you talking to, Rick?” It was Charlie, the quarterback, and his cousin. They were seniors at Cedaredge High School in Western Colorado. Their number one goal was to get scholarships to a small college and avoid the raging Vietnam War the US was losing. Even Walter Cronkite, the trusted CBS newscaster, said it was unwinnable. “I’m talking to a relative I’m trying to forget.”  Charlie rolled his eyes. “As you okay? I thought you were knocked out when you caught that pass since that Hotchkiss player speared you.” He patted his shoulder pads. “Nice first down catch. You’re the best tight end in the conference, and you make me look good with those impossible catches.” “I’m alright.” He staggered to the huddle, holding his head. He was back in high school as a senior! He looked down at himself and nearly fainted. No more skinny, sagging, age-spotted arms—he was a hawk-eyed teenager again. A thrill of youthful energy surged through him. The next play was between him and the right tackle. He knocked the Hotchkiss linebacker down, and their fullback made another first down. He helped the opponent up, but there was anger in the kid’s dark eyes. “I’ll get you.” The next play, the linebacker tried to take his right knee out, but Rick anticipated it this time. Instead of having the cartilage in his knee torn to shreds, he shoved the boy’s head down onto the turf.  The young man glared at him. “I’ll get you on the next play.” It was a reverse to Rick. The pulling guard opened a hole and seeing daylight, he turned on the afterburner. The defensive backs had followed the offensive movement to the right. He was the fastest man on the team. Putting everything he had into it, he sped for the goal line with the defense chasing him. Touchdown! It was an accident because he tripped over his own feet while showing off as he trotted backwards.  The final horn sounded.  “We won!” The Cedaredge fans tumbled from the stands onto the field. Instead of having the coach tell him, “Your knee is badly swollen. I’ll wrap it, but you should see a doctor on Monday,” he blinked against the bright field lights, and before him stood bell-bottom jeans, psychedelic shirt patterns, and the aroma of patchouli oil in the air.  And there was Robyn, running to him across the field, stunning with flowing brown hair, her hazel eyes filled with pride. “You did it, you scored the winning touchdown!” She threw her arms around him and leaped up with her muscular cheerleader legs straddling his grass-stained uniform pants.  This time would be different, he promised himself. Armed with the wisdom of an old man, he would woo her without fail. He felt the shock of paddles on his chest. His drunken eyes flickered.  “Good!” The EMT turned. “Guys, he’s alive; let’s get him into the ambulance. They need to pump his stomach.” Days later, his eyes fluttered open in a hospital room, tubes in his arms and clear bags of some shit above him—this was not the heaven he envisioned. He looked around in confusion. Pissed him off. He’d rather be playing football and kissing Robyn. He moaned, “God, please, if you care, take me home.” The hospital social worker came in and talked with him, asking about his life and why he wanted to end it. After three interviews, she said, “According to your medical records, you need two rotator cuff repairs, a right knee replacement, and your spine fused at L 4-5.” She caught his pained blue eyes. “If you agreed to the surgeries, you might find life a lot more tolerable.” Seeing the doubt in his eyes, she added, “Medicare will pay for it.” “No, I’m ready to go to the other side. I don’t have any friends or family, and I’ve lived with pain since I was a senior in high school.” He shook his head quickly. “It would be a waste of medical resources.” The nice social worker shook her head. “You are a stubborn man, aren’t you?” “Yep. Once I make my mind up, I make it happen.” Mary Sue stared at him. “Rick, I’ve seen you greeting people at Walmart. You make us feel warm and welcome. I hope you’ll change your mind.” Somewhat upset, she left.  Closing his eyes, he didn’t give a thought to having the surgeries. He was done. He heard a noise and this beautiful woman in her fifties with long brown hair and hazel eyes quietly walked in. Behind her stood two adult children who looked somewhat like him—the muscular man was adorned with blonde hair and the brunette female held a baby in her arms. He stared at the lady. She looked just like Robyn. Am I dreaming? “They said you’re well enough to have visitors.” She gently took his weathered, spotted, and blue-veined hand. “Thank God, I’ve finally found you.” Moisture rose in her eyes. “W..who are you?” “I’m your daughter, Sweet Caroline.   I paid for an internet search to get your phone number, and I kept calling you that night. Your buddy across the hall told me about the EMT’s saving your life.” She smiled, oddly mystified. “Ron wondered why you didn’t answer your phone so he went over to check on you.” She introduced the kids, “These are your grandchildren – Jude and his sister, Michelle, and the baby is Sherry.” His Love Potion Number 9-free brain was clear. “Where are you from?”  “We drove over from Salt Lake City. I’ve been trying to find you since I was fourteen.” A tear ran down her pink cheek. “Well, it’s sure  nice to finally meet you. You’re lovely. I’ve always wished things had turned out the way your mom and I wanted.” “May I call you Dad?” “Well, of course !” Something in his chest broke loose. He fought the tears welling up. A tough man doesn’t cry, but he couldn’t avoid her eyes. She looked exactly like Robyn.  She leaned to him, softly wrapping her arms around him. They kissed as tears ran down their cheeks. The two grandchildren moved to the other side of the bed, their hands reaching out. Sweet Caroline sat on the bed, and everyone held hands. No one could speak. Michelle placed her baby on his chest.  He wrapped his arms around the baby, holding it gently, looking at its familiar face. He caught his breath. “Where’s your mother?” He stubbornly forced the tears to stop. “She’s at the motel. Mom is afraid you might not love her after how her parents treated you. Her husband died ten years ago.” There was something in her hazel eyes. “They never had children, and Mom refused to marry him in the Mormon Temple for time and eternity because you  belong together.” A lump rose in his throat. He gritted his teeth. They talked for over an hour, and Sweet Caroline realized the old man was tired because his eyes kept closing. She stood. “We’ll come back tomorrow.” “I’d love to see Robyn.” Those darned tears started up again. “She’s the only woman I ever loved.” Sweet Caroline and her children smiled brightly. He slept soundly for who knows how long.  The social worker came in. “I heard you had some visitors. How do you feel?” “Wonderful.” He shook his head with disbelief. “I haven’t felt like this since Robyn was sent away.” They had a delightful talk. At the end of her visit, Mary Sue asked, “Would you consider talking to one of the surgeons? Your medical records say you have been suffering for many years.” “Sure.” A smile rose on his lips. “Maybe send the knee replacement doctor.” The food service cart arrived. Rick couldn’t believe how good the hospital food smelled and tasted. Slept like a rock. No football nightmares. In the morning after coffee and a great breakfast, he pulled himself up and raised the back of the bed as he worked to control his excitement. Unable to, he managed to move the IV lines so he could make it to the restroom without using the plastic jug. There, he got cleaned up, using water to smooth his thin blonde hair. “Oh well, she’s got to look old too.” He flashed his famous smile that out shined any weakness.. To his surprise, the pain wasn’t as bad, so he walked up the hall and back, pushing the IV rack in front of him, using it like a cane. He asked for his clothes, but a doctor had to order the IVs removed first. With steely determination, he sat on the hard leather couch, waiting, the IV rack to his left side. His heart pounded each time he heard footsteps approaching his room, hoping it was Robyn. He hadn’t felt anything in his empty heart for years. This was both exciting and confusing. The hours passed.  Disappointed and afraid Robyn might not come, he ate lunch alone. The tasteless food in his stomach made him sleepy, so he crawled back into the bed and slept, dreaming of her, of them – of having a family. A light touch on his right arm startled him awake. It was Sweet Caroline. He looked around. She was alone. He stared into her eyes. “Mom is outside. She’s too nervous to come in.” A wide grin on his face, he said softly, “Tell her I won’t bite.”   She turned and called, “Mom, come in. Dad is awake and he wants to see you.” With long silver hair, Robyn walked in with a shy smile, her hazel eyes down, wearing his small marquise engagement ring and a plain white dress as if she was going to the Temple. Their anxious eyes met.  Suddenly, he was happy to be alive. Danyl A. Doyle is a former resident of New Zealand, now living in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He is a professional speaker of mixed race. Despite learning disabilities and mild autism, he became an English teacher, a Ph.D. psychologist, and a businessman. He has five Facebook profiles with 5000 followers each, along with Twitter, LinkedIn, and an author blog. He enjoys traveling worldwide as a professional speaker. His stories and poems have been published in The Southern Quill, The Milkbarn, Anaconda Magazine, The Wilderness House Literary Review, and The Winged Penny Review. He has two novels accepted for publication in 2024-25: “The End Of Hardship” and “For A Woman’s Love.”

O Lord of burning pain O Giver of aching head I have wronged thee   I have in my foolishness Mistaken thy rays For a curse to oppress   As I lay in a daze Filmed in dank sweat I see thy blessing outside And begin to count inside With each tree espied My gratitude is multiplied But when I raise my head To glory in thy stead -   Why doth it stink so?!   But nay! I go off-track With drenched palm I smack Sense into greasy face My sweat is but vital water Thy gift to feed bacteria.   So I lay there in a senseless swoon Bursting with the bounty of thy boon When I realise what you grant Is not just trees and bees Sweaty pits and knees   No, what you grant to me Is the most cherished of all For in my utter misery In my abject downfall I care nothing of trivial urges  That my paunch bulges That my shoulders are round That my teeth are unsound That I walk like a 10 beer drunk That my thoughts are mostly bunk That I may never reach that goal Never give back what I stole   I care nothing but for Thy shining orb’s daily rise Its pure burning lancing fire Glows when I close my eyes I have no thought but thee Thy glorious fury with its touch Sets me utterly free. H. Talichi is a writer of speculative fiction, satire and poetry. He's awaiting publication of one short story in the Sci-Fi Lampoon but has otherwise only been posting out on his substack.