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“We can call this a ‘Literary Documentary’.” “But, this has to be a Horror tale. It's in our contract. It's in our rules and regulations.” “Yes, we will give the audience the most bloodcurdling images imaginable through our dialogue. These images should prove more satisfying than the usual blood and guts and stalk and slash that come from a Horror story told in a more conventional manner.” “If you say so. If the audience ends up falling asleep, that’s on you.” “Trust me. People want something different. Once we get to the main details of our story, the minds of the audience will run off in directions that are far more personal and horrific to them than we could ever conjure.” “So, about this story. We have men, all of whom are healthy fathers with no known health issues, dropping dead suddenly from a heart attack.” “Yes. We put in our dialogue that this has happened recently to people around the author, who is an extension of the yet unnamed main character, and is a way for him to express his fears of mortality.” “Since, he too, is a family man who is in his 40s?” “Exactly. I mean, he just entered his 40s. But these heart attacks don’t seem to care about age. The victim just have to be a healthy male in those 10-years.” “But, you also want to connect it to current social issues?” “Yes, as the best Horror tales are apt to do.” “You’re thinking along the lines of a classic George A. Romero story?” “Yes. The best Romero genre pictures, like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead , were able to articulate the fears of the time without being preachy or sacrificing entertainment value. And since we are supposed to be united here to work on a Horror script in the form of a dialogue-driven prose tale, Romero would be a great comparative point.” “Ok. But, what’s the connective tissue?” “The recent fear of Covid-19 and the shots that many of us, especially those who worked in the healthcare field at the time, were mandated to keep their jobs.” “So, the heart attacks were caused by the shot?” “Yes, or we could flip it and make the culprit the lack of a shot from the Covid-19-like disease in the story. We will have to create a similar, but fictional, disease to avoid sensationalism and not seem insensitive to those who passed away from Covid during its years- long, and still ongoing, reign. My only thought here is that having the heart attacks caused by a lack of a shot for our fictional disease is a little too political.” “So is the reverse end. But, the reverse end, the shot itself and the mystery of not knowing what was in it and the long- term effects of what it would do to an individual, especially one who had it forced on him or her to keep their job during the height of our fictional disease, adds infinite layers of intrigue to the project. It also helps pad the piece and make it more substantial. We can even add a subplot where our lead breaks into the place where they make these shots or kidnaps someone who knows what is in the shot, possibly an agent of the government, who is sworn to secrecy to never disclose what is in the shot. In so doing, our lead scares the information out of him or her. The options are endless with the corrupt government angle.” “Isn’t that option also sensationalism?” “It most certainly is. But, it makes for a more intriguing story.” “Intriguing in a conventional manner. For example, extended scenes of paranoia-infused suspense and governmental corruption and conspiracy. I thought we were trying to avoid these routine genre gimmicks. What do you want to happen? Have those heart attack victims come back as zombies? Maybe as part of something that was put in the shot?” “The governmental aspects are forever relevant. It has been overused, yes. But, it is still true. We saw how certain American citizens reacted when the Covid shots were administered. The governmental and the zombie angle are still very Romero, too. So it could work as well in keeping in that vein.” “Very is also a very unnecessary word. Writing 101.” “As long as it never hits the page it has never happened. Right?” “Writer’s Code 101.” “So, what do we want the film to look like?” “A blank page. Two people talking. A ton of brackets.” “It’s an arbitrary detail.” “What happens to our lead? Does he drop dead from a heart attack? Does he spend the rest of his 40’s in fear of the heart attack happening to find out nothing will happen? Does he find a cure?” “All arbitrary details.” “Life isn’t an arbitrary detail. Fate isn’t an arbitrary detail.” “An open ending seems to be the only option.” “Let’s just see where the story takes us.” “Maybe once our lead thinks he has an answer on how to stop the men from dying, the women in his life who are in their 40s find themselves in a similar situation. Is a twist like that too conventional?” “Let’s see where the story takes us. The beauty in telling a tale is becoming both audience and author and letting our unhinged imagination guide and surprise us as the plot moves forward.” “How will we develop our lead so that he is relatable?” “Don’t. Make him an enigma. The audience can come up with the backstory.” “Isn’t that also too conventional?” “Man has been telling tales since the dawn of time. There is nothing wholly new.” “The author is now the critic.” “My greatest one.” “The author now has a headache.” “My greatest one.” “Talk about a conventional ending.” “My greatest and also my most honest one.”                          END Andrew Buckner is a multi award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter. A noted poet, critic, author, actor, and experimental musician, he runs and writes for the review site AWordofDreams.com .

We Were Twisted Ladders DNA Stores memory; I wonder what my body thinks of me. A molecular blueprint– Find me where the veins meet prairie, And you’ll find the way I held my fingers, intertwined With the dying. The way I held my sister’s lap and sang to her  A Bushel & A Peck, a hug around the neck, As my ribs concave– And I knew I’d have to leave her, eventually. We are double helixes, a spiral curve, Like the vertebrae that hurt  Before the storms cross from your state to mine, across highways Mowed down by water. The water that made us, I suppose. Or, I suppose, the order doesn’t matter. The spiral curves of fingerprints Remind me of ice skaters twisting with their frozen bodies Around the archways of the pond On a winter day, learning how to do a triple Axle. Learning how to fall to fly, Learning how to hold their ankle way up high– learning that They bend And do not break. I pass down my heritage Even if my heritage forgets me. A string, a shape that molds Before we understood the meaning behind our names. Before we understood That the way my body was formed Came from my Mom But not what she gave me. We are twisted ladders Of cells we cannot see, name from a lens Of looking that we don’t fully understand. The microscope tells us we’re all the same, yet unique. So, when I cry Do you hear me? When I change, do you feel that I lost What made me? If I could, I’d go in & pluck Out weary, violin strings Of meaning. Make me more compassionate here, Make the brain forget that day she told me I didn’t matter, There. I close my eyes and I almost feel the way she whispered me into existence, And then forgot to hold the rest in her hand, forgot the path to find What makes me, me. Telling me to stop writing Stop dreaming And to stand with two feet The feet she made And I should, I should, Be grateful for that . The Hollows for the [Motherless] Stars I would pop popcorn, even though it wasn’t a safe food. I’d say the word mother and hear all the vowels. “Why do you watch that filth?” She’d say from the corner. But for an hour, it didn’t matter where I was. For an hour, she would braid my hair and tell me that boys don’t matter – shopping does – and that when we fight we look cute after, and make up. Sure there’s that season where they go adrift too – but everything repairs itself again – with a burger and a coffee. I can repair myself, in only a man – if someone – asks me to coffee. If someone – anyone – makes me a Santa burger. If someone – anyone – tells me I look like Rory, but act like her in season one. And I pop my poptarts and laugh in strawberry– And I braid my own hair, the crumbles falling on the floor. I don’t pick them up right away, and laugh about sugar toes and dreams aplenty. Pretend it’s lint instead of moms on screens, pretend I’m made of air and eat carbs and no one will make fun of me – Pretend there are worlds where women are strong, And mothers wrap their arms around them, and only miss a beat for a season, And swing around again. (And, yes, I’m not a Dean). A Note from the Author: I enjoy writing about random pop/medical culture, and trying to extrapolate on those ideas into feelings.

I find little to be hopeful about, and yet, I tire of writing stories that suggest everything is just as bad as I think it is. Billy-Ray Belcourt tells me, “The creative drive, the artistic impulse, is above all a thunderous yes to life.”(1) It’s hard to believe. I drift closer to Clarice Lispector’s narrator in The Hour of the Star, whom I imagine chewing his fingernails off in an empty room. He tells me, “Let those who read me get punched in the stomach to see if it’s good.”(2) It’s satisfying, in a world that beats up queers in back alleys, to punch a reader in the stomach. Violence begets violence, and I am not immune to it. I have written a novel, and it ends without hope. I finished the first draft a year ago, and in every iteration it’s been through, the ending remains the same, a deep loneliness and cliff’s edge uncertainty defining the last scenes. I wanted my reader to feel   like the ending is hard on everyone. I wanted to punch my reader in the stomach. I’m tempted to say that this is what the story demands. This ending came to me, a carving of pain, and I can’t change it just because I want to. Well, says who? Am I not in charge here? A novel isn’t a beast to tame, it doesn’t claw at my door. I create it, and the arc of it is in my hands. So if the tragedy is not inevitable, not an immutable feature of the story, I get to decide what happens. To make that decision, I need to know what questions I want my reader to wrestle, what emotion I hope to paint behind their eyelids. I made of my ending a void. Is that the best I can do?  Clarice Lispector again: “What can you do with the truth that everyone’s a little sad and a little alone?”(3) Amitava Kumar: “What is the truth but the story we tell about it?”(4) I write fiction to create truth. Hold a question in your heart and it scalds you. Thread the question through a needle and embroider words on paper, and it transforms. Questions like what do we owe each other? and what does love look like, really? are ones that I can consider in fiction in a way I can’t elsewhere, because fiction is an experiment. I control some variables—plot, character, language—but the final result will be an explosion of the questions I choose to ask. And when the smoke clears, there is a truth. My novel is about the limits of love, and the result of my experiment was that those limits are hard and unkind. You won’t end up with everyone you want in your arms. And it was so satisfying, a confirmation that the cruelties I see all around me are real and that the pain I feel seeing them is just as sharp as I know it is. But if I say that I create truth with this book, then I have to reckon with that tremendous responsibility. Do I choose to put into the world a truth that asserts hopelessness, despair, and loneliness? I don’t think I should write happy endings for their own sake, but I do think cruelty for its own sake is worse. I used to be an optimist battling against pessimism, and now I’m a pessimist battling against pessimism. I sink my heels into the sand and the tide rises: pain is incalculable in this world.  The 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health tells me that half of trans youth have considered suicide. A girl I almost dated tells me, “I like going places where people died and I like going places where people think about dying.” I write about gender and I look all around me. Is the graveyard real or created by endless narrative loops, the same story repeated and transmuted until it manifests in granite headstones? If I shut my eyes, I can imagine another world, the world I dream about, the world I don’t really hope for anymore. Give me an instruction manual and I will build that world. Show me what to nail together. Please, tell me there’s a way. Enough abstraction. If someone reads my novel, they are giving me their time and attention, and I am using that time and attention to make them feel empty. Hank Green tells me, “I feel as if my life is about constructing the right sort of armor, the right sort of strength, that lets the light through.”(5) Why can’t I change that ending to let the light through?  I seldom hope, but I am often joyful. Finding a future on this dying planet is impossible, but right now, I live. Hope asks me to ignore certain realities, but joy lets me stand in the moment and hold contradictions. Contradictions like: the world is cruel and people are cruel in it, and: I encounter care in every corner I take the time to dust. Contradictions like: I think we are all doomed, and: I am in love with almost everyone I meet. I am in love with everything that prolongs queer life. I want my art to prolong queer life. My novel ends without hope. Would it kill me to infuse it with a little joy? Sasha Fletcher tells me, “What do I do about being in love, he asks, and Sam says, only cowards do something about being in love, buddy. Everyone else, they’re just in love.”(6) Sick of death, I will write life. I will not write hope, but I will write joy, because it is as close as I can get. Let the world know that I am in love with it, and let it respond how it will. Seas still rise, cops still kill, and I am at heart a nihilist. If nothing matters, then nothing matters, and I am free to dance at midnight with a room full of queers. Death hangs over us, and we live anyway. It’s all we can do, really.  (1)  Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of my Brief Body, 2020. (2) Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star, trans. Benjamin Moser, 2011. (3)  Ibid. (4)  Amitava Kumar, A Time Outside This Time, 2021. (5)   Dear Hank and John, 2020. (6)  Sasha Fletcher, Be Here to Love me at the End of the World, 2022. C.M. Green is a Boston-based writer with a focus on history, memory, gender, and religion. Their work has been published by Barren Magazine, Full House Literary, and elsewhere, and their debut chapbook, I Am Never Leaving Williamsburg , is forthcoming in 2025 with fifth wheel press. You can find their work at cmgreenwrites.com .

It’s the morning after—she and I cry on the couch, cuddled, sobbing silently, save for shuddered breaths and hitching sniffles.   Your little ghost is in every corner of every room of the house. Your spirit now occupies all the negative space:   The green cushion by the fireplace; the empty bowl by the back door; the lack of weight on my right thigh;   The cold spot this morning in bed; the circle inside a vacant collar resting on a pine box.   White hairs stick to every piece of dark fabric like pollen. I wish I could plant a few and grow you again and again.   Sympathy flora wilts away, but you are forever His Mama’s Good Baby — the sweet ectoplasm falling from her eyes.   Letting you go is the first bitter taste of loss for my boys, but leaving you in love was the right lesson for them to learn.   You are the standard every future dog will fail to meet and a jab of thought that makes me misty-eyed every now and then.   Goodbye, Huck. You were a good boy. Jess Levens is a poet and photographer who lives with his wife, sons and dogs in New England, where he draws inspiration from the region’s landscapes and history. His poetry has been published in The Dillydoun Review and Prometheus Dreaming. Jess is a Marine Corps veteran and Northeastern University alum.

Making music He hated losing her. Like his clarinet, she’d felt good in his hands. But when he learned she’d hid his invitation to apprentice with a European master, he wet his lips and blew her out the door until the musical score of his heart no longer heard her melody. Out of breath, he wiped down the flared bell of his single-reed woodwind and readied himself to wait out the inevitable echo of her once wide-swinging vibrato. He knew that over time, with practice, it would flatten. Harp in the corner Jack’s retelling of his triumphant climb-up-and-down a spindly bean stalk is the tale she wants to tell. In her version, boy-sells-cow-gets-magic-beans then kidnaps her from the giant and brings her to a pitiful village where refined beauty – angel hair strings, smooth hand-carved wood – and the ability to make music when plucked, are unnoticed. She will say it’s her—not the goose with golden eggs no one can afford—who is the mammoth sky man’s most prized possession. “Wait until the eggs are cracked open, they’ll be empty, just like Jack’s words.” At just the thought, she will quiver with delight and strum herself silly, even if no one is listening. An award-winning writer and artist, Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s poetry and prose have  appeared in numerous publications. Her chapbooks: Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs  (Kelsay Books), True North, Sightings from a Star Wheel  (Origami Poems Project). Forthcoming: Down River with Li Po  (Black Cat Poetry Press), and Moon kissed, Earth wrought, Vision drunk  (North American publisher).

There were plans for a party at Ava’s place to celebrate the moment when the continents would converge, when land would finally touch land again after billions of years of separation. Midnight was set to mark the Day of Connection, which is what the news channels were calling it, though it had lately been feeling more nefarious, like an impending crash, an earthy headbutt. There would be champagne and fireworks at the party—according to Ava’s invite—viewed from her apartment’s rooftop. Arthur had been forwarded the email invite from Florence. She and Ava were roommates who lived on the other side of the water fault zone, which, by then, had thinned out to barely the width of a creek. On the invite, she included a note that there would be dancing at the party, dancing for the end of the world. Arthur immediately RSVPed “yes,” but her end-of-the-world comment did not sit right with him. He had been filled with anxiety and dread regarding the convergence, akin to waiting in his small beach town for a hurricane to hit. Sure, he understood that all the scientists and engineers of past generations gave this shifting process the utmost, enthusiastic support. They called it a solution to climate change, a rebirth of the world, allowing the oceans to reorganize and heal. But it still felt wrong, attempting to reposition the earth like that, set it back to an earlier stage of Pangaea. Continents pressed into place against other continents like puzzle pieces. For some reason, Arthur had been waking up two or three times a night for the last few months due to car accident nightmares. Head-on collisions. Hit-and-runs. Rear-endings.  Arthur had not seen Florence in a number of years. They grew up together, lived down the street, and graduated from the same high school. Then, after college, she took a job on the other side of the Atlantic—which had been reduced by then to the size of Lake Michigan—where she measured recurring earthquakes that were caused by the underwater mechanisms tasked with drawing the continents together. By then, she had fallen out of touch with all of her old friends, so Arthur never received updates about her life: where she lived, what she did for fun, who she was dating. More recently, however, she showed up, out of the blue, at the funeral of a mutual friend of hers and Arthur’s. She looked nice in her lacy black dress and curly hair. It was there that she and Arthur briefly reconnected, and he learned that she regretted ever leaving town because she was so lonely where she now lived. “I wish we were all close by again, like the old days,” she said. “Or, like we’ll be again soon after the Day of Connection finally happens.” Arthur was distracted by how much he had, just there, fallen in love with her. He had always found her attractive, when they were in high school, but never came to loving her. Not in that way, at least. So this came as a surprise to him.  In truth, he doubted that the Day of Connection would really change anything. Here, there. Across the pond or nearby. In their little coastal hometown—everyone was still lonely. Stuck in loneliness. Just going through each day hoping for something different, which was likely the main appeal of the convergence. A new world. Still, the idea of Florence living nearby sparked something like hope in him. “That will be nice,” he said. Her expression brightened. “By the way, your number hasn’t changed, has it?” Arthur shook his head, feeling his heart throb slightly. “Let’s keep in touch then,” Florence said. “I need more friends again, now that I’ll be close by.”  Then she left, back home to her own continent on the other side of the shrinking Atlantic. A few days later, however, Arthur got a phone call, and immediately upon answering, he heard Florence say, “Arthur. Are you awake?” “I am,” he replied, having just finished cleaning up after dinner. “I need you to play along with me for a second. I have an idea.” And she proceeded to give Arthur a series of instructions, the first of which was to find something bright, like a flashlight or a lamp, and bring it to the beach, which was only a few blocks from Arthur’s duplex rental. She would be on the other side of the water, she said. So he grabbed a glowing lawn ornament of a giant mushroom and walked to what once, long ago, was the ocean. The water fault zone had been then reduced to merely a wide river. Incoming, like a slow car crash. “Turn your light on,” she said when Arthur told her he arrived. He did so, clicking on the glowing blue mushroom and waiving it overhead. He heard her quiet, airy laugh on the other end of the phone. Then, she turned on the flashlight on her phone and waved that, causing the microphone to pick up crisp, wrinkled gurgle of wind. “You can see some stars tonight,” Florence said. “Big dipper, maybe. That’s nice.” “It is,” Arthur said. He felt like she was fishing for conversation topics, felt ashamed of that. But for the life of him, he could not think of a second thing to ask that would be meaningful in the way he wanted it to be. So instead, they both sat across from each other on their own beaches, quietly commenting on the breeze and the shape of the sand, until weariness overcame them, and they returned to their respective homes, feeling like they somehow missed each other. For the party, Arthur put on a crimson suit, but he quickly reassessed, remembering on the invitation that the apartment rooftop would have a pool. So he lost the tie. Tried to find the balance between party and casual attire. On the other end of the water fault zone, Arthur was surprised to find how European the town looked. The trees were different, housing styles and shapes as well. Cars drove on the other side of the street. Even the people spoke in accents entirely unlike his own. He wondered, briefly, if there would be anyone from his continent at the party that he could connect with, but realized he didn’t care much even if there were. He was there to see Florence and only Florence. Unfortunately, when he arrived, Florence was busy helping Ava fix a large, inflatable movie screen they had set up next to the pool, upon which they hoped to project the TV countdown to midnight. So Arthur found a seat on an Adirondack chair next to skinny man in flipflops, who told him that it’s rare, but not impossible, for someone to live their entire life flipping coins that only land on heads. Statistically speaking, the man reassured him, that it would be rare, but not impossible. The conversation was not particularly interesting, so Arthur nodded, said, “Yeah,” and “Mmhmm,” until another partygoer took the seat across from them, thereby sharing the burden of this man’s monologue. More people joined the party, and more conversations formed across the poolside. He looked around but no longer saw where Florence had gone, but he guessed she was around, meeting new people, enjoying herself. He wondered if she had anticipated this moment like he had, if she had invited him for any reason more than just as a friendly gesture, a sign of goodwill.  Eventually, Arthur abandoned his own group to stand near the rooftop ledge and look down at the city. Having never seen it before from this perspective, he tried to find the water fault zone, but it was too skinny to see, so he looked for signs of his own neighborhood on the other end, even his house. It was all different, so vastly different, the landscape before him. Different how? He could not say. But the air felt strongly of change, of anticipation, of people on the street looking over their shoulders, feeling as if the ground was still shifting and their bodies could not find stillness no matter how hard they tried. Arthur tried to feel hope, that all this chiropractic effort humanity went through to change the spine of the earth would do some good, would save them from flooding, from extreme temperatures and earthquakes and hurricanes as it had been intended to do, but he simply did not understand how that would happen. It felt simply like a distraction. Instead, he watched the faint combustion of fireworks in the distance until the sky turned dark and loudspeakers started playing music next to the pool that nobody was swimming in. Florence was right; there was dancing, though only by a small handful of individuals. The rest of the party simply stood to the side and watched, as if it were a show. Eventually, Florence found Arthur and tugged on his sleeve. “C’mon,” she said. “I want to show you something.” So Arthur followed her to the other side of the rooftop, where a small metal staircase led down to the top of a fire escape. The view was not necessarily better or worse than the spot Arthur had just been standing, but they were suddenly alone, unseen by anyone else, sharing in the quietness of solitude.  “The coast,” Florence said, sitting down and letting her feet dangle over the edge, “is that way, next to that line of street lamps. Do you see it?” Arthur looked. “Oh, there it is. I couldn’t before.” “I thought we would want to watch it happen.” “Yes,” Arthur said. “I always wondered what it would look like or if we would actually be able to see anything change. Like if the land shakes or if something actually happens differently. Like the land shifting into . . .” Just then, Florence kissed him. So he kissed her back. They drew closer to each other. And so on and so on. They continued as the ground gradually shifted onward, and in the faint, humid air, they could hear the partygoers count down along with the clock, down, down, eagerly waiting for the world to become something else entirely. Joey Hedger is author of the novel Deliver Thy Pigs (Malarkey Books) and other bits and stories that can be found at his website: www.joeyhedger.com . He currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

A freshly cut rose stood between the smiling couple, droplets of water clinging to its rigid stem. They reached across the corner table and held hands under candlelight. Jazz floated through the restaurant as if blown by a breeze. Windows yawned open. Curtains billowed. Smiles filled the room.  The host looked on. How long this couple had been together was unclear. He and colleagues had grown fond of gauging patrons’ affection – imagining the relationships of diners as they gazed, smiled, talked, and chewed. It was a romantic scene, and this couple fit right in. As the date progressed from stuffed grape leaves to risottos and wine, their affection grew. Eye contact, made. Gazes, caught. Smiles, shared. Kisses, given – more than once. The host watched all this closely, closer than he ever had before.  The couple wore clothes that suggested uncertainty around what the other would end up wearing. Formal yet fun. Sexy yet safe. A giddy, carefree romance surrounded them – the kind the host felt was common early in relationships. That puppy love. That thrill. He sighed, smiling then frowning, ashamed of having written off their affection as new. Could it simply be mature? Thriving? Enduring? True? The host couldn’t say but believed one thing: these two were eager to find love and were not yet sure they had done so.  They were the perfect target.  The date progressed to after-dinner drinks. For her, an espresso martini. For him, a negroni. Watching them, the host saw excitement, passion, ritual, hope. He saw the never-ending journey of courtship and the insurmountable cliff of desire. His judgment had by now, four kisses into this date, been made. He nodded to a colleague nearby who was already moving into position. On the couple’s way out, the host and colleague made their moves; him to the man, his colleague to the woman.  “Sorry, sir? Yes, can I pull you aside? I will just be a minute of your time.” The host smiled with an upturned palm that glided across his body – a perfectly executed gentle beckon.  The two men moved to a hanging pair of velvet curtains while the woman followed the colleague to a seating area near the bar. “Thanks. I know you’re just leaving,” said the host. “We appreciate you joining us tonight. Did you enjoy your time?”  “Yes, yes, a nice evening. Thanks.” said the man.  “That’s fantastic. It seemed that way. I want to let you know about a new, confidential service we’re offering to a select group of customers. After seeing your date tonight, I knew you had to hear about it.”  “I appreciate it, but we really do need to g-“ “Kissing, sir. Kissing.” The host spoke in a tone both matter of fact and firm. “It is kissing that triggers the system.”  The man had begun to turn away and stopped mid-turn. This left him in an awkward stance like an action figure with its upper body twisted to the side. “Sorry, what about…what system?” The host smiled and leaned forward. His eyes darted slyly from left to right.  “This room is equipped with a state-of-the-art camera system,” whispered the host. “The highest tech out there. Ostensibly for security purposes, our cameras kick on whenever two unique pairs of human lips touch. We have nine cameras strategically positioned around the dining area to ensure all context is captured.”  The man glanced over his shoulder and turned back, looking hard into the eyes of the host. “Sir, I…is this a joke? I really should be go-“    “Instant replay. Post-date analysis. For a modest fee, we can provide access to all…” the host checked the iPad on the lectern “Four kisses from your date tonight.” He grinned. The jazz continued, surrounding them. “Our recordings include the 10 seconds before and after. How did you get there, and where did it take you? Our footage can tell you. Think of it like a rollercoaster cam.”  “I…um. You recorded us? I don’t know,” said the man. He looked across the room at his date, who seemed in deep concentration as another staff member spoke, gesturing at something unseen.  “And how could you?” said the host. “You haven’t seen the footage. That’s the point. Once you see, you’ll know.” The host clasped his hands in front of his belly. The man looked ready to leave.  “You’re in a hurry,” said the host. “How about this: think on it. Take this card and enjoy your evening. If the mood strikes you, call the number. We can talk details.” A wide smile. A raised set of eyebrows. “And one more thing; let’s keep this conversation between us.” *** The host’s phone rang at around 3 p.m. the following afternoon.  “Hi, yes, I believe you gave me a card last night on the way out of dinner?”  The host leaned back and smiled. “Say no more. I’m glad you called.” “I just…oh, sorry.”  “What?”  “You said say no more.”  “Oh. That was figurative. Say more.”   “…More” “What?”  “…What?”  “Oh… I mean, speak freely.”  “Oh, sorry. Well, I don’t understand exactly what it is you’re offering me. I actually don’t know why I called,” the man trailed off.  “I know exactly why you called. To know. To analyze . The opportunity to see your past moments of desire, examine them, celebrate them, and improve upon them? It doesn’t come around every day. Think of pro athletes watching game tape. This is exactly the same.”  “I see...”   “I can tell that you do. Analysis of past performance is the foundation on which excellence stands! We’re extending that strategy toward relationships and romance. It’s a logical step towards being sure. Will you take it with us?”  The man agreed to come by the restaurant and have a look – no commitment required. When he arrived, the host led him down a dark set of stairs into an office with very bright lighting and a wall of nine screens. “Thanks for coming,” said the host. “Let me begin with our pricing.” The host pulled a rose and a red folder from a drawer. He placed the rose in a small vase on an otherwise empty desk.  “A one-date Kiss Review Base Package runs $30 per kiss, $150 max. A Three-Date Package, redeemable over two years, comes in at a discounted $20 per kiss. These both include 30 minutes of video analysis with a staff member per date. And for the add-on Rendezvous Recap option, add $100 total.”  “Rendezvous Recap?”  “That’s right.” The host nodded over his shoulder as he arranged camera angles. “An add-on to the Kiss Review Base Package, the Rendezvous Recap includes analysis by staff currently in loving, romance-filled  relationships who watch date after date after date. Recaps include notes on inflection points, objective reads of body language, and forward-looking advice on things like eating politely, eye contact and flirtatious smiling. These are folks in love  right now, who have an understanding of how to not only build it but retain it.”  “You said the footage covers before and after?” The man’s tone had shifted. Business-like.  “10-seconds on each side,” said the host. “We find that to be more than enough time to understand context; think leans, words, tones of voice, facial expressions… let’s pull up what we have.” He swiveled and pressed a few keys.  The TVs lit up with a black and white video of early in the date on pause. The frozen scene showed the man reaching his hand out to hers and leaning in suggestively. Her eyebrows were raised in a playful manner. The faintest of smiles hid on the edges of her lips.  The man squinted. He looked at the screen deeply. The host gestured with an open hand and spoke in a low, almost revered tone. “Your first kiss.”  The man spoke firmly. “Press play.”  Garrett Berberich is a writer from Schenectady, New York living in Baltimore, Maryland. His work has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine and Idle Ink (forthcoming). Reach him at  https://www.garrettberberich.com/  or on Twitter at @gberberich .

EXSANGUINATE Well Hell, I didn't even know  that sacrifice was expected until my sacrifice was made when it sprang monstrous  and bikini clad from my giant  rebirthday cake with a bunch  of dark barbed wire balloons and shouted, 'SURPRISE!' that made something sharp  and immediate grow pointed inside me like a new tooth  in the mouth of a shark all ready to roll for the  next splash in the water like you know… that cute heart,  the little red one, with the arrow through it? So sweet,  but really you know… there’s gonna be blood. ZODIACAL I'm gonna  go with the  forecast for Leo  because it rings truer  to me than the fish something about  a long tall journey  and a dark handsome  death which sounds ‘round about right  for a Monday. WHODUNNIT A love affair is like a chicken. Neither die from natural causes. And this time it wasn't  the butler. Oh no, this time this time it was you. Lindsay McLeod is an Australian writer who lives quietly on the coast of the great southern penal colony with (yet another ferocious Aussie animal) his adored blue heeler, Mary.

You see the four of them on the deck near the hotel’s main pool, already drinking. Aaron is wearing a blue and purple checked shirt, his sleeves rolled up just high enough to show the Rolex watch his dad gave him when he finished his MBA. He hasn’t shaved in a week, his brownish beard uneven and patchy, and the white fedora with the black ribbon looks ridiculous on him. But you can’t judge him because he’s the groom. In two days, the beard will be neatly trimmed, the too-loud shirt replaced with a white tux, and the hat tossed into the back of his suitcase if he doesn’t lose it first. And he will be the center of attention at a posh wedding at the most upscale resort in Half Moon Bay. Your eyes move to Les and Paul, both wearing crinkled short-sleeved white shirts and sporting facial hair in various stages of evolution. You think they’re imitating Aaron, which they probably are, because they always have, from the first day they were suite mates at Yale. Even ten years later, they laugh at the same time and in the same way, a high-pitched, throaty giggle that sounds so bizarre, even now when you hear it as you walk toward the deck. You, too, are wearing a white shirt, so you have no reason to make fun of the others, except that yours is a repurposed dress shirt missing its second button from the top, something you noticed only after boarding the plane. The only one not wearing white is Dirk, who right now is laughing at the same thing as Les and Paul. But his laughter is different, deep and penetrating, the kind that opens up a room and fills it, drowning out everything else. Dirk is wearing a plum-colored T-shirt, as only Dirk can, its stitched sleeves stretched over his ample biceps. His beard is almost stubble but carefully sculpted, as it’s always been. His brown skin seems golden under the mid-afternoon sun, as it always does. And you fall in love with him all over again, like you always have. It’s been four years since you’ve seen any of them. Blame two years on the pandemic and the rest on inertia and indecision. There are no good excuses because none of you ended up in jobs that consume eighty hours of your week, even MBA-minted Aaron, who turns down promotions if there is the slightest risk of interfering with his weekend tennis matches or trips to the wine country. Plus, he’s marrying a doctor and will probably never have to worry about money again. Even if things between him and Kimberly don’t work out, he still has his Rolex-buying father as a backup plan. Unlike you, who has no wife, no Rolex, and no father. You haven’t seriously considered marrying a woman since your high school junior prom when you spent the night ignoring your date and salivating over all the hot guys in tuxes. Buying a Rolex would mean twelve months of your Yale student loan payments would go unpaid. And you don’t want to talk about the father who left you and your mother behind when you were only five years old. Not ever. And you don’t want to be here, but you have to be. It seems that the five of you believe you’re obligated to perpetuate the brotherly bonds you felt during your four years in New Haven. Except that back then,  you really needed each other because you were all so clueless and insecure and often too drunk to walk back to your rooms alone. You were all terrified of flunking out and looking like losers after all the bragging you did to your high school friends after you were admitted. During your senior year, you awaited arbitrary decisions from grad schools/law schools/B-schools. You couldn’t imagine anything worse than having a Yale diploma but no future, that you had failed even while ostensibly succeeding. You let yourselves cry beneath the elm trees on the New Haven Green, the entrance to Yale’s Old Campus in full view, your rejection letters in hand, a mound of dog shit dangerously close to your feet, the locals thinking – correctly -- you were probably high.  Then you moved on—all of you. MBA Aaron became a regional sales director for a computer parts distributor, not a dream job and not one he wrote about in the Wharton Class Notes, but enough to justify an expensive business degree. Ph.D. Les is a tenured professor at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest, one so little known that you can’t ever remember the name. Still, he’s happy, married to a woman who looks just enough like him to be his cousin, has no kids (probably a wise thing, given the above), and still trying to get his dissertation published somewhere. You think Les has aged the most, his once moppy hair now thinning, his head resembling a partially peeled onion. And Paul is, well, just like Les, as he has always been. Also, a Ph.D. (Philosophy instead of English), also teaching at a liberal arts college (Havisham, which you remember because you’ve read Great Expectations  seven times), not losing any of his sandy brown hair yet, but sporting a paunch that seems to have become more prominent since the last time you saw him. And then there’s Dirk. At thirty-two, still looking fresh out of an ad in  GQ, his black hair short and temple-faded, a diamond stud in his right ear, his chiseled face warmed by the faux-five o’clock shadow. His teeth are even and Colgate-white, his neck and chest thickened from hours spent with dumbbells and Hammer Strength machines, his wrist adorned with a deep blue Lapis lazuli beaded bracelet you once fantasized about buying yourself for Christmas. You know he doesn’t need more than a T and jeans to look like a million bucks, which is how he’s looking right now. “Carzzzzz!” Les calls out like he’s back in a fraternity, very unprofessorial.  “You made it.” You hate the nickname Cars almost as much as your proper name, Carlson. Carlson Deats. A suitable name for someone who runs a small literary press, as you do, but not the kind of name you want to show up with at a swank wedding because it just sounds so damn uncool. “Join us,” Aaron says, the silver band of his Rolex catching the sun and flashing a short burst of light into your eyes. You remember you forgot your Maui Jim sunglasses along with the button on your shirt. “You’ve got to catch up with us,” he adds, raising his glass. Les lifts his beer bottle as if on cue. And Paul just smiles at you like you’re the baby brother who ran away from home years ago and finally returned. Paul always looks at you that way,  his pupils frozen to yours.   You give Aaron, Les, and Paul their bro-hugs and tell them it’s been too long. Then you turn toward Dirk, all smiles as he waits his turn. You are almost afraid to touch him, embarrassed by what might happen if you hold him too close. But you press your lips together as you raise your arms and put your hands on his square back, thankful he isn’t wearing cologne because you just might breathe him in too obviously. “So wonderful to see you,” he says in that beautiful low voice you remember so well. So wonderful. You accept a Corona from the bucket and lie about being a day late because of a meeting you couldn’t reschedule. In fact, the red-eye fare from Chicago was $270 cheaper, and after landing, to avoid surge pricing on Uber, you catnapped at an empty gate at the airport until rush hour was over. You still don’t understand why you feel you can’t be truthful with the four closest friends you’ve ever had, and then another blast of sunlight from Aaron’s watch slaps you in the face, and you remember why. You’ve always been The Poor Kid, the one who never had money and passed on Saturday football games because you needed the extra hours washing dishes in the University dining hall. The one who didn’t go anywhere for winter break and wore the same three-for-the-price-of-two pairs of Levi jeans for four years. The nice thing about Yale was that you could always beg off an expensive outing by saying you needed to study for an exam or had a paper due, and no one questioned it. Luckily no one was counting the number of tests and papers you supposedly had. Or if they did, they never threw it in your face. And you made up your mind not to be The Poor Kid at Aaron’s big-ass wedding, the old college buddy everyone felt sorry for. You would hide it well like you always had. You would play the part of Equal for the next three days. But before you start your performance, you need some more sleep, badly, and wish you hadn’t stumbled into this bachelor party as soon as you arrived. “C’mon, Cars,” Les says.  “The party’s just starting.” Then Dirk chimes in with, “We have so much catching up to do.” And you think to yourself that he hasn’t called you in a year and that there wouldn’t be so much catching up to do if he bothered to pick up his phone once in a while. But you smile at him and stare at the thin silver chain of the tag pendant dangling beneath his plum T. “I’ll be fresh for dinner tonight,” you say. Then you put down your barely-touched beer, pat Aaron on the back, and scramble to your room before there is any further discussion that will make you even more uncomfortable. # You almost sleep through dinner, and by the time you make it downstairs to the private dining room at the back of the restaurant, all the tables are full. The room seems too stiff for celebration, its rows of brass chandeliers decorated with strings of white glass beads, the walls hidden by the thick magenta drapes. You see Aaron standing at the head of the front table, a glass of red wine in his left hand, Kimberly’s shoulder in his right. She is more stunning than in the pics Aaron posted on his Facebook, and you wonder what she sees in a guy like him.  But you know he is charming and funny and wouldn’t embarrass her at the hospital holiday parties, so she probably likes having him around. You see Les with Grace at the next table over, and beside him, Paul without Anne, and wonder if there’s a story there. Your eyes scan the room for an empty place, deciding you will have to be The Stranger, the odd guy out, at the Family and Close Friends Only dinner. Just then, Dirk’s head pops up from the middle of the crowded room, and he waves at you. “I saved you a spot,” he calls out.   So you make your way between the tightly squeezed tables, your eyes drawn to the royal blue shirt that hugs Dirk’s frame. The silver buckle of his stitched belt catches your attention next, and you wonder whether he bought them together and how much he paid. You’re wearing a white shirt, a different one from this afternoon’s (no missing buttons), because you didn’t know what else to put on. Only now do you realize you made a mistake because no one is wearing white, and no one is wearing shit from Gap, either. You decide to put it out of your mind and try to enjoy the evening. Then you see her. She has rich brown hair with just a couple of highlights. Her face is a tad thin but well-proportioned like she ordered it from a catalog, her blue eyes piercing and icy, her lips this side of pink, her neck smooth and slender. Her smile is even more radiant than Kimberly’s, which she probably enjoys, there being so few opportunities to upstage a bride. And her hands … Her fingers are long and delicate; she taps their tips together before brushing a strand of stray hair from the side of her face. Then, as you sit down, you suddenly realize that she and Dirk are together. Dirk confirms as much by introducing her as his “plus-one, Monica,” which makes her giggle. You feel annoyed by the tinny sound coming from her mouth, so poorly matched with the rest of her, like a Miss America contestant who suddenly talks like a parrot.  You shake her hand and realize her fingers are shorter than they originally appeared, and you feel bad that not fifteen seconds after meeting the woman, you are already finding fault with her. But why? You're not even sure how  he is with her. Yes, they are together, and yes, she is his plus one . But are they a couple? Friends? Or is she someone he needed to invite to a wedding so he wouldn't show up alone because Dirk never shows up alone? Then you remember why you care. You remember the night of senior week at Yale when you were both falling-down drunk and clutching each other as you stumbled back to the dorm, him laughing with that deep laugh and you laughing the same way, imitating him and making him laugh some more. You held onto him like you had wanted to do for four years of college and never did. When you got to your room, you felt dizzy and sat on the bed. He sat next to you. He put his arm around you. Then it happened. What you had wanted to happen for four years and never did. And you pulled him close to you, not saying a word. He took off his shirt, and you felt his beautiful skin. And you surprised him by kissing him good night right on those full lips. And though he just stared at you for a moment and said nothing, you felt like he was all yours. Blacked out, but yours. But tonight, he was all hers . You try telling yourself you’re all grown up, and those feelings don’t exist anymore, and even if they did, they don’t matter anymore. So you converse politely with Monica, and with every bit of new information, you judge her more. Sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. Has never read a fucking book in her life. Twelve hundred Instagram pics of herself, half of them with designer beverages from Starbucks. BOR-ing. Nothing better to do with her time. Met Dirk in an airport lounge. Tramp. And you answer her polite questions with as few words as possible, thinking she’s probably judging you as much as you’re judging her. No, I’m single. Loser. Yes, the steak seems a bit overdone. Carnivorous snob. I run a small literary press. Small? And he went to Yale? Then Dirk starts working the room like he always does. Though Dirk only knows Aaron through college, he seems to know everyone else connected to Aaron’s life. Or is he pretending, like he often does, to be someone he’s not? Yet you can’t begrudge him the opportunity to socialize, because you love to sit back and admire how he is comfortable with strangers in a way you can never be. But he’s left you with her, and you’re pissed at him for it. You can’t think of a single damn thing more to say to her, and she seems to have the same problem. Okay, maybe you can think of things you’d like to ask her. Like, is Dirk fucking her? Are they serious? Or did she come with him just for the free booze? Thankfully Aaron stands up and starts to ramble, breaking the uncomfortable silence between you and Monica. You look around and don’t see Dirk, wondering why he hasn’t returned to your table and is ignoring his plus-one.   Now you want to leave. You wait for a convenient pause in Aaron’s speech, one of those moments where the laughter has started to die down from his last joke, and you tell Monica you have a headache because you avoid red wine and shouldn’t have taken any tonight. You squeeze between the tables as inconspicuously as you can, feeling embarrassed because now Aaron has started a toast, one that you will miss. Finally, you slip out the door and head for the elevator, and as you wait, you see Dirk coming out of the men’s room. He doesn’t see you, and you don’t call out to him because you have no reason to anymore. You change out of your white Gap shirt and J. Crew charcoal gray trousers and sit in your room with the TV on. A woman named Lindsay is reciting the local news. You suddenly want more wine, because wine doesn’t really give you a headache, and you want to be numb enough not to feel bad about how poorly the evening went. But the half-bottle in the mini-bar costs $27, so you settle for the complimentary bottle of water on the desk.  It is lukewarm and unrefreshing, so you grab your room key and scamper down the hall to the ice machine, forgetting you have nothing on but your shorts and a T. You hear the ding of the elevator bell and walk quickly back to your room before anyone sees you. “Carson.” You turn and look at Dirk.  He is near the elevator bank, the sleeves of his royal blue shirt rolled up over his forearms, the silver buckle catching the overhead light like Aaron’s Rolex watch reflected the sun.  He grins, obviously amused by your standing in the hallway in your underwear with a bucket of ice cubes. You might grin, too, except it isn’t funny. And you feel trapped because there’s nowhere to go but your room. And you can’t let him in your room. So you unlock the door and slip inside, waiting for him to follow. You hide your body behind the door and keep it a foot ajar. He stands outside, still grinning, but his black eyes are far more serious than his face. “What the fuck was that about?” he says. “I was – just getting some ice –” “I mean at dinner. You just got up and left without saying a word, right in the middle of Aaron’s toast.” “I didn’t feel well,” you say, and immediately you realize he knows you’re lying. “But –”  He stops. “Look, can I come in?” “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” “Why, you with somebody?” “No, I just –” You stop, unable to look directly at him. “I want to be alone.” “Carson, stop being a fucking baby. Give me five minutes, and then you can be alone.” So you open the door, and he walks inside. He glances around the room, and you know it’s probably half the size of his upgraded suite, and you feel like The Poor Kid again. Then Dirk faces you, the grin erased. “Man, you missed a great speech. Aaron just bared his goddam soul, saying how grateful he was for his family and friends. He gave us, his college buddies, a shout-out, saying how much we meant to him. He called each of us out by name. Only Carson wasn’t there.  Because Carson left.” “Like I said, I didn’t feel well.” “Yeah, that’s what Monica said. Something about red wine. But you were just looking for an excuse to leave, right?” You feel bad now but can’t let it show. So you say nothing and let him finish. “And why were you so rude to her all night?” he asks you. “I wasn’t rude,” you insist, but Dirk shakes his head. He knows you didn’t want her there, but does he know it was because you wanted him for yourself? You are afraid to find out because you don’t know where that conversation will go. The lack of closure hovers over the room as you stand there in your underwear with your bucket of ice, staring at him. “Why were you rude?” he repeats. And there are a dozen reasons you could give him. That she seemed fake; that she talked past you, not to you; that her giggle was annoying; that her nose turned up slightly when you said small press. You could tell him any of those things, and he wouldn’t believe you. “Was it something I did?” he says. His face is no longer full and inviting. His lips are pinched as if those five words left a bad taste on his tongue. You’ve waited ten years to tell him the truth because the few times you’ve seen him in person since graduation were never the  right times. Never just the two of you, never long enough. But now, you have your moment. You have a choice. You can tell him nothing’s wrong, and you’re just tired and depressed, and he will leave you alone tonight, and tomorrow at breakfast, ask if you’re okay and offer you some of his scrambled eggs. Or you can tell him the truth. That you’ve loved him and wanted him for fourteen years and never forgot the night when you held him close and fell asleep in each other’s arms. “Why did you bring her here?” He looks at you, surprised, and cocks his head the way he did in Anthropology 201 during their junior year when Professor Lawrence called on him unexpectedly and asked him about sex role socialization among the !Kung Bushmen. “Monica?  I told you, she’s my plus-one for the wedding.” “Is that all she is?” His eyes widen more, and he shakes his head. “What exactly are you asking me, Carson?” “Is that all she is? Your date for the wedding? Or is she your girlfriend, or your fiancée, or something else?” Dirk shrugs. “I’m not getting this, Carson. She’s my date, and kind of my girlfriend, and no, I’m not planning to marry her anytime soon, but you never know –” “Fucking stop it!” you shout, your voice cracking, and you can’t believe it’s really you saying these words. But you let yourself go on. “Stop it now!” “What the fuck’s gotten into you?” He tries to put his hand on your shoulder. But you withdraw from him, and suddenly your face is burning, making your eyes tear up. You hate him now and wish he would leave, but it’s too late. It’s too late not to say the things you need to tell him. “Ten years,” you say. “The last ten years have gotten into me. Ten goddam years of you pretending I don’t exist.” Dirk looks dumbfounded, a look that does not become him. “Don’t exist? Carson, how many times have we talked on the phone, or e-mailed, or texted? Hundreds? We’re friends, for Christ’s sake.” But he doesn’t see you, does he? Not really. Not as you want him to see you. He’s blocked that night out of his mind. You and he never discussed it, and you never forced the issue. Now, you want to talk about it. You want to remind him that the two of you were that close , if only once.   “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” He looks at you as if meeting you for the first time. Trying to figure you out. Trying to understand why you and he are having this conversation, with you standing in your underwear with a bucket of ice in your hand. “What have I forgotten about, Carson?” “Us.”   “Us?” “Senior week? The night we slept together.” Dirk’s eyes widen, his lantern jaw growing slack. “Senior week,” he repeats. “Is that what this is all about?” You hate how he’s so matter-of-fact, his imperious tone trivializing what sometimes seems like one of the few moments in your life that ever mattered. Fighting back the hot tears,  you look away from him and anchor your eyes on the first thing that comes into view. It’s just a hideous lamp on the end table by the queen-sized bed. But you can’t move your eyes away from it because you don’t want to look at him.  Its round base, the color of steamed milk, looks like an albino bowling ball, and you wonder if it’s heavy enough to smash Dirk’s skull and kill him instantly.   “Dude, nothing happened.” The most enduring memory of your adult life is summarized in two words. Nothing happened.   You can’t speak, but he can. And as he continues, you stare at the bowling ball, and your right hand aches as if you’ve already smashed the lamp over his head. Then you realize it’s the ice bucket. You’re squeezing it so hard that the plastic liner has split apart and is pressing into your fingers. “We were just a couple of wasted college students,” he finishes. “Just getting a little too guy-chummy. That’s all.” “That’s all,” you repeat, still unable to raise your eyes. “I can’t believe –” He pauses and turns away just as you summon the courage to look at him. “You’ve carried this around with you all this time. That’s why you were so rude to Monica tonight. You’re jealous of her, aren’t you?” You don’t want to answer the question. He’s made you feel ashamed of yourself, and you hate him for it. So you say nothing and let your silence do the work.   Finally, Dirk looks at you and shakes his head. “I just don’t get you,” he says, and he walks toward the door. Part of you wants to run to him and make him hear you out. But most of you has already conceded defeat. You watch him go and just stand there. The door didn’t shut completely, and you hear the elevator bell. You imagine him stepping inside, punching the button hard to blow off steam. Imagine him walking back to his room, still shaking his head. Imagine him with her. # You stand outside the front of the hotel, your rollaway bag beside you, glancing at your phone every minute to see how far away your Uber is. It feels warm for nine in the morning, and you almost regret deciding to leave today. You didn’t sleep more than a few hours last night, so you feel like shit, but you hope there’s an empty seat next to you on the plane so you can catch some shuteye.   “Cars!” someone calls out. You look up and see Paul. He’s wearing his running shorts and an orange tank top, his white skin drenched in sweat. “You’re leaving?” You nod and don’t feel like you owe him an explanation, though it’s evident from the confused look that he wants one. “I need to go home,” you say, sounding like a two-year-old.   “Home? You just got here!” Paul says. “The wedding isn’t until tomorrow.” “I’m sorry. I need to – go.” Paul shakes his head. “Man, Aaron will be disappointed.” “I know.” “I am, too,” Paul continues. “I mean, I really looked forward to seeing you, Cars. We haven’t had a chance to catch up at all.” “Sorry. We will. I can call you.” “The only one of us you’ve hung out with is Dirk,” Paul says.    Hanging out  wasn’t how you would describe it, but you let the comment pass. “Fucking Dirk,” Paul continues, and looks at you. For a minute, you are afraid that Dirk told him what happened last night, your humiliation served for breakfast along with the bagels and fresh fruit. “Well, I guess I’ll be the only single one left at the wedding.” “I noticed Anne wasn’t with you,” you say. “We’re finished, Anne and me. I haven’t made a big deal of it.” “I’m sorry,” you say. And you are. You liked Anne, at least from the few times you met her. “She’s in love with someone else,” Paul says. “And it’s okay. I am, too.” You feel like this should be part of a more extended conversation, not a short chat while one of you is waiting for an Uber. “I hope you’re happy, then.” Paul nods. Then he looks at you that way,  the way he always has. “Not as happy as I’d be if you stayed.” Now you’re confused, thinking Paul is just being Paul being nice. The Nice Kid propping up The Poor Kid. But there’s something else there—something about the way he said happy. “I wish I could,” you say. Paul shakes his head. “I’ve always noticed how you look at Dirk, and I wonder sometimes. Why him?” Now you know that what has been your best-kept secret hasn’t been a secret at all. They’ve known all along. They’ve probably even talked about it among themselves for the last ten years and never said anything to you. There you were, believing that you’d been so clever about covering it up, that it was something to be resolved between you and Dirk, and that it would be resolved one day, maybe this week. You think about how foolish you feel now. “Why him?” Paul says again. “Why not me?” Then you can’t speak. You can’t move. You can’t do anything but stare at Paul and hate him. Because suddenly he looks so much like you, his body slumping, his green puppy dog eyes just like you’ve pictured your own, pining away for something that never happened. You can’t look at him anymore without seeing … yourself. “I planned to have this awkward conversation this week, but –" Paul stops. Then the Uber pulls into the circle, and a squatty fellow in a Hawaiian shirt steps out and pops the trunk. “I’m sorry,” you say to Paul.   He nods. “I am, too.”   You check your phone five minutes before the Uber arrives at the terminal, but there are no messages. Not from Dirk. Not from Paul. Not from Aaron, who by now has found out that you’ve ditched his wedding and will probably never speak to you again. It should make you feel sad, but strangely, it doesn’t.   It just makes you feel poor.

monday and then tuesday whole milk french style yogurt at noon the departure of moldy raspberries   my lawyer is calling, i’m napping, do not disturb my nails match my matcha, my mug, my morning i almost reached heaven in a sidecar  riding alongside candlelit prayers  my dad says they pray for me every night i wear sweatpants to sweat beneath the heat the lines on my arms mean i slept well pink vibrator on my yellow nightstand revisionist revising one night stands  pleasure pulsating air to briefly feel alive  dear trazodone, the damage has already been done leftover thai chicken soup but the rice is hard like opening a jagged can of sweet justice  in absence of cruelty in fucked up fantasy  the trash needs taking out  the bed is not yet made unemployment  dark chocolate tahini with sea salt on a perfectly ripe banana my cat’s green bandana her watermelon litter box microwaved coffee that’s too hot the photo of my grandma holding her hand to her cheek on my fridge when i got reiki i was told my ancestors are with me even when i am being unserious gabapentin 3x a day like candy yummmm got plymouth gin delivered & that tree outside my window is finally showing signs of life  i’m looking for split ends in my hair bc i’m bored maybe i’ll cook some leftover spinach & get strong like popeye maybe i’ll listen to brazilian folk jazz to feel cultured this couple i met last night told me they waited to see i love you until two & a half years in now they're getting married i had a dream abt my parent’s garage clutter & wow how beautiful it is to sleep in again and be a romantic again and go on picnics again and appreciate pink tulips again ode to stupid boys my trauma begins in first grade recess; i’m hanging on the monkey bars and a boy named Michael pulls my skirt down like an impulsive thought come to life; and leaves me exposed; i want to be invisibile; bare legs hanging in my days of the week underwear; i think it was the wednesday one; that was the day we had chapel at school; i’m still praying because i’ve never lived that down; i swear i’ve hated boys since then; in fourth grade i left my white training bra inside my open front desk; you know the kind you crammed crumpled papers and books; i used to stuff my training bras in there like hidden treasure; one day Ricardo went digging in my desk and found them and showed the whole class; he struck gold; the irony is not lost on me that my training bra never trained me for that moment; then there was the time i asked Zack to the fifth grade banquet and the teacher intercepted the note; the teacher laughed; the boy said no; i can’t catch a break; in seventh grade science class and i’m walking up to the front of the classroom to turn in an assignment; brand new silver and pink nikes my mom   just bought me at the orlando outlet mall; Leonardo asks if those are grandpa shoes; now grandpa shoes are cool! i never wore them to school again; girls were never mean to me; boys were; stupid boys made me like girls; [unrelenting]  i am a rapid forming hurricane / rising inside you / the way we collided / was accidental / like two destructive storms / addicted to the spin / begging to be restrained / someday you’ll bleed gay / refusing to sink desire / beneath your leather boots / digging / holding / craving / burying / wavering / promising / tasting / yearning / averting / panicking / brimming / with something / hallucinogenic / fighting to love and grieve / and grieve and love / conspiring to take form / like our saturn returns / challenging what we are / mourning every part of you / i never explored / what made me your home / that sunday / we spent all day sharing stories / you told me about that week in vietnam / your crazy roommate / agent orange / you let me / see you / but only at a glance / you hated / when i called you aloof / rearranged your inconsistencies / for me / the failures of our own shame / memories that feel faceless / voicenotes that live in perpetuity / your voice / tucked away in my ears / etched on train rides / first thing in the morning / before sleep / on walks home / after work / when i cooked / as i got ready / and cleaned / you listened / i memorized / the way you spoke / in exalt / experimenting with / the fragility of / distant / hyphen / emotionally / hyphen / unlovable / hyphen / desperately seeking / the way / we fell apart / at the end of july / tiptoeing to conclusions / hiding behind the camouflage / of your pigmented cheeks  Michy Woodward (she/her) is a queer, mixed-race Asian-American Brooklyn based writer and artist. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Queerlings, Lavender Review  and The Amazine . You can find her on instagram @michywoodward .

Rush hour morning traffic on a weekday with the freeway resembling a parking lot. On the passenger seat of a car: a work bag, a lunch bag with a sandwich and half a chocolate cookie (cravings carried over from pregnancy), a bag containing a breast pump, a hands-free pumping bra that doesn’t quite fit but does its job, breast milk storage bags and a photo of a baby who must spend the day away from its mother, just six weeks after entering this world.  In the driver’s seat, the sleepy-eyed mother, her nipples sore and leaking milk, sits in traffic ahead of a long workday, knowing that even a newborn puppy isn’t separated from its mother before eight weeks. She digs her nails into the rubber covering the steering wheel and lets it all out with a scream, imagining her cry against inadequate maternity leave in the USA rippling down the lines of cars, joining other postpartum voices across state borders, entering every lawmaker’s office and corporate headquarters in the nation, only to land on deaf ears.  Trying to shake off her despair, she takes a deep breath. Regaining her composure, she sneaks an awkward look around to check if anyone saw her outburst. The woman in the car to her right is leaning to one side, swiping at her cell phone mounted on the dashboard. The man in the car to her left, who perhaps witnessed her muted outrage behind rolled-up windows, glances away, avoiding eye contact, and looks steadfastly ahead. She sighs, takes a sip of decaffeinated coffee from her travel mug, and inches forward in traffic that’s still crawling at a snail’s pace in the direction of an exit that’s not in sight yet. Deepti Nalavade Mahule is a writer of color living in California with her husband and children. Her website, with links to her selected published work, is: ' https://deeptiwriting.wordpress.com '. A piece in *82 Review was nominated for Best of the Net 2024 and another was shortlisted in Flash Fiction Magazine’s contest in July 2022.

Cinderella left the ball early and snuck into Sleeping Beauty’s chamber. Leaning over, Cinderella kissed Sleeping Beauty on the mouth. At the same moment, Sleeping Beauty was dreaming of how she learned to kiss by moving her lips against pieces of fruit. They kissed again after she woke up. They spent the morning conjuring magic but also acknowledging how satisfying it is to sweep the floor by hand. Neither was wearing shoes. Only socks. Then more kissing. On Friday the kings were laid to rest. On Saturday the queens took over after lunch. Peasant kids played in the sprinkler on the lawn. Royal kids shed their stiff sweaters. Everyone took a drink from the hose. A decree was issued which forbade lives of toil and misery so all the horses ran away across the field. Princes kissed their forbidden loves. Rats kissed mice. Talking dogs kissed talking pigs. A young woman sick with a wasting disease drank an elixir given to her by an apparition in a mirror. Transformed, the young woman set off on a hero’s journey. She returned the next day riding a gray mare and bringing wonderful news–just beyond the hills, apples everywhere. Jeffrey Hermann's poetry and prose has appeared in Okay Donkey, Heavy Feather, Electric Lit, trampset, HAD, and other publications. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.