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My smartwatch says ‘unknown number,’ but I know who it is. ‘Good afternoon, Lydia Charles,’ I say, reciting the manual. ‘Tracey, Pete here, time for a quickie?’ I look around the train carriage. It’s silent. There are eyes in books, eyes out the window, and, now, eyes on me. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Sure?’ Pete says. The manual outlaws ambiguity. ‘Of course, Pete,’ I say. ‘What you wearing?’ He says. ‘Office clothes,’ I whisper. The bespectacled old man in front of me looks up from his newspaper. ‘Office clothes?’ I look down at my jeans and hoodie. ‘Blouse, skirt, tights. You know, what I usually wear to the office.’ ‘I do know what you usually wear to the office, Tracey, but you’re working from home today, aren't you? Just wanted to check you’re sticking to the manual.’ His caustic breath corrodes my ear. I picture his gnarled smile, his expensive teeth. ‘Of course, Pete,’ I say. The train screeches. I jam my phone into my hoodie, suffocating the microphone. The old man points to the no-speaking sign. All carriages are silent now - better for on-the-go productivity. ‘What did you have for lunch today, Tracey?’ Pete says. ‘Salad with chicken breasts,’ I say. A young woman from across the aisle catches my attention. She taps her smartwatch. She holds up four fingers - which I take to mean it’s 6.56pm (four mins to go) - and then raises her fist in solidarity. I wonder if she’s going to the protest too. ‘Grilled?’ Pete asks. ‘Yes,’ I say. Pete hates unhealthy food. Bad for the body. Bad for the mind. Bad for Lydia Charles. That’s what it says in the employment manual. ‘Made extra last night,’ I say, knowing Pete also knows how long it takes to grill chicken breasts and we only have 30 minutes allotted for lunch break. ‘Thinking ahead,’ Pete says. ‘Very Lydia Charles.’ ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘So you knew you were going to be feeling ill today?’ Pete says. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I just always make extra to save time.’ ‘Of course,’ Pete says. I shove my phone into my front hoodie pocket as deep as my belly button. The train doors beep open. The young woman holds up three fingers. ‘Well, thanks for pushing through today Tracey,’ Pete says. ‘It’s very appreciated, what with Maya and Gilbert off too. Although Gilbert still sent in a report from the hospital, which I have to say, is very Lydia Charles.’ ‘Very,’ I say. ‘Maya, on the other hand. Well, who am I to say when you should stop grieving, but it’s not very Lydia Charles to mope forever, now is it?’ Hmm, I murmur vaguely. I don’t want to say ‘No’ and put Maya in it, but I can’t disagree with Pete. I’m already on one strike for the time I picked up my daughter during work hours. The manual only allows time off if a dependent is ‘unwell,’ not if they’re ‘upset.’ ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite hear you there, Tracey?’ I think of Maya. I think of my daughter. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m glad you agree, Tracey,’ Pete says. ‘It can’t go on, can it?’ His breath rolls out of my phone like chlorine gas, silently choking my humanity. The new passengers are staring at me. Two workers and a woman in her 70s. Likely a Super Spender given the way she vigorously points to the no-speaking sign. I hold my index finger up, pleading for one minute. The young woman across the aisle holds up two. It’s then I see him: grey-haired, brow-beaten, paper in hand. It’s less common since the Directive, but I used to always wonder about begging on the train. Is it worth the cost of the fare? Is it better in cold weather? Do you target certain lines or parts of a line? ‘Tracey?’ ‘Yes, sorry’. ‘I said, do you think I should give her one last chance?’ I look at the unemployed man shuffling up the carriage. I picture Maya in the same outfit. I wonder if she’d follow in her husband’s footsteps and commit suicide rather than face joblessness. ‘That would be very Lydia Charles of you,’ I say. ‘Yes, you’re right’, Pete says, cheerily. I exhale slowly. The young woman holds up one finger. The old man shakes his head, but I point to my watch. Even the over 70s - the retired Super Spenders - know the 7pm cut-off. But so does Pete. He’ll wrap up on time like he always does. ‘Any plans for the evening?’ Pete asks. ‘I’m ill,’ I say. ‘Ah yes, silly question. Well, I’m off to the theatre. Got tickets to the monthly advertising forum. I imagine you’ll be tuning in, what with being stuck at home and all.’ ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Also my daughter is 15, so she’ll be watching it as it’s…’ ‘Excellent, very Lydia Charles,’ Pete interrupts before I can say ‘compulsory’. ‘Have a good evening, and see you in the office tomorrow. Bonne nuit.’ I sigh, my mouth so dry it tumbles into a cough. The old man shakes his head. The young woman raises her fist. The unemployed offers me his resumé. Beetle is a UK-based copywriter with a weird name. When he’s not writing words for other people, he likes to write weird, funny and dark short stories - mostly about everyday people in unusual situations or unusual people in everyday situations.

If you decide this story is incoherent, I want the world to know I have a constellation of three freckles under my wrist from when I had anorexia. Are three stars even a constellation? I want to say so. All of the daily shots made a discoloration, where it used to be calm, fragile, and new under there. Maybe it’s incorrect that the freckles came from illness, which changed my body forensically, but when I look back, I want someone to know I find it true. & so, it is a tale as old as time, the looks I used to judge others with. A saccharine kind of arsenic, the way I teased and whispered down the subway trains in NYC: that could never be me. My love would never leave, I’d spit like a candle flame, not realizing I was holding a candle. Flames catching. My sister’s hair caught on fire on her birthday, the happiest day of the year for her. Her 21 extra chromosome not mattering, the smattering of green icing because she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, blending in with smoke and flame. Everyone was okay, but my friend and I just screamed. And at least I had her that day, arm in arm, knuckles white, to let it all out, in the falling apart– we reacted the same way. Even on a birthday on St. Patrick’s day, luck evades– Even the happiest of things/days/moments/loves blows away. You told me I was beautiful the day my grandma died from dementia, the act of losing herself. The rain pelting on my face, my hair in a messy braid I needed to sever- I loved you at that moment, but I knew it was one-sided. A dice that will not roll right–but I loved you anyway. Clunking, jolting, moving back and forth from where I’m standing to daydreaming, to wondering, to gravity bringing me down, holding that leash, watching you walk away, wondering if we were going to be something. Now we have a son, and we’re falling apart, and was it worth the weaving? Your ribs near my stare. The haphazard streaks of pitting us together, peeling apart our cores, creating the best son in the world, then watching us fracture? You know, my grandma, she used to know how to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch. She didn’t need a recipe, and they would turn out fluffy, perfectly made. I knew love kept her recipes in her head. She remembered all the ways she baked for others, maybe not remembering their names, but remembering how it felt to knead something. In the end, I couldn’t visit her, wanting to preserve our conversations that were already memories. She told me how to use conditioner right when she saw clumps in my hair, she told me about puberty, she said she would never leave. We all fold into two truths and a lie, eventually. And so I learned, love makes cowards of all of us. I did the wrong thing. I should have gone and recited the recipe. Flour, mix in with the wet ingredients (tears are okay), and add in extra sugar. We used to sneak brown sugar like fiends– I’d whisper to her, if I could go over reality again with a fine-tooth comb. Rake my hands down her face for days. Wanting her to stay, withering. I cup my hands to your face one more time and already miss your voice. The gravelly husk, the way you smoked and paced outside on cheap balconies and saved your paycheck for rainy days that never came. Tell me lies, I say. One truth. I love you. I’m leaving. I’m staying. But I know love doesn’t stay in when penned. I cocked my brows when you said you had to go, pen digging into my knees, ready to scribble the words I want to remember, thinking not again. My mom kicked me out when I was 21. I lived in ten places in two years, which changed me. This was before I met you. I told myself: never again will I go place to place. Memorizing countertops that didn’t matter in the end. Trying to do the dishes the way each family liked, but each family did it differently. I still don’t know if knives are up or downward facing because it was different everywhere I stayed– Even silverware makes no sense anymore. Other things that confuse me include love that’s begging to be lost. I say, I love you. You dwindling, favorite-way-to-be-taunted type of ghost– Get going. Even if you haunt me. Leslie Cairns is a writer from Denver, CO. She grew up near Buffalo, NY. She was a former Pushcart Prize nominee ('23, '24). She has two chapbooks out with Bottlecap Press. She enjoys writing about mental health.

(TW - Sexual Misconduct) Amma narrates the legend of Honamma for the millionth time as you make your way to the temple. Last week, a sharp ringing of a bicycle bell interrupted the tale as a man in a tattered turban ran his rusty vehicle into a mould of freshly laid dung. “Chi!” Amma pointed to the slush on her feet. The man flashed dirty dung between his legs. Your hands froze, your heart sank to your pit, you even forgot the Sanskrit mantras. You looked for gorges, rocks, waterfalls to disappear. Cracks didn’t open, mountains, rocks, streams, weren’t in sight. At home, you chastised Honamma, for not helping, for making you feel dirty even though there was no muck on your feet, and you practised swinging the three-pronged Trishul like Goddess Honamma. On sunny afternoons, when shadows moved on the floor, you turned into her, wearing a beautiful saree, and you used your pretend weapon to strike the Rakshasa, just as your mother told you. But on moonlit nights, when shadows on the windows looked like scary faces, you shrank under your pillow and repeated, “There’s no Rakshasa” over and over, like a prayer. You continue to wield the Trishul, chant mantras in your head until you reach the market where Amma stops to buy flowers for the temple. No turbans or cycle bells have alarmed you so far, and you almost heave a sigh of relief when a bolt of lightning stings from down below and courses through your entire being. Dread catches at your throat, while the intense pain and overwhelming shame surge towards your eyes. “Sorry.” A man in a well-ironed checked shirt stands next to a woman with a sparkling nose stud. She and Amma greet, smile, exchange words while the checked-shirt man smirks. As you head into the temple, the hymns have jumbled in your thoughts, you seek comfort in Amma’s saree, unable to find the armament, unable to find the will to fight, unable to look the man in the eye and burn him into ashes. A gigantic Rakshasa sculpture stares at the entrance. Its bushy moustache and sharp teeth stained in red send a chill down your spine. You drag Amma away from the Rakshasa, but her devotion to Goddess Honamma is beyond the grime. She mutters fervent prayers as bells chime in chorus, you see the checked shirt, menacing beyond the silhouette of the demon. Heat rises on your cheeks as you lace your fingers together, you pray to Honamma for a Trishul one final time, because the Rakshasas have escaped the temple. You refuse to join Amma the following Friday on the pretext of exams. She waves, warns you to lock up, stay in, and marches ahead. You wait until she disappears around the corner when Srini, the boy next door, jumps in front. You hold your chest, laugh. His eyes graze the road as he takes a step forward. “Did you watch the film on TV last night?” His lips twitch. A familiar alarm spreads across your chest, but Srini is the one with whom you played hopscotch, shared comics. “A great film,” Srini says as he places one foot in. A voice urges you to force close the door, turn in the latch. “Let me in.” Srini’s hand pushes the door open. A sinister tinge of red spreads in his eyes. His dirt-encrusted nails dig into your shoulder, and his incisors glisten in the afternoon sun. Is Srini a Rakshasa? You open your mouth, but no sound escapes your throat. Your feet can’t move. The trident, the mantras, wither into grainy nothingness. Tears pool, anger swells because Honamma has failed you. Again. You look here, there, everywhere, for something. Anything. And you see it. A glint of light. She is bright, in a brilliant green saree, holding a Trishul adorned with flowers. Honamma. Amma had pasted a picture on the door last week. Srini’s shirt flutters in the wind, and his breath scorches your neck. Your hands shake, images move, cycle bells ring, and through the haze, you feel the clasp of cold metal in your palm. Honamma had pierced the Trishul through the Rakshasa’s chest, killing him and slurping every last drop of blood from the floor so there could never be a Rakshasa. A volcano erupts in your pit. Rakshasas have to be tamed, beaten, and killed. You tighten the grip, steel your knuckles, raise your arm, land it in his gut. His eyes skitter, and he doubles over in pain. You stand your ground. Gasping. Shaking. Srini holds his stomach, droops his head. You grit your teeth, shove him. He bows, walks away. You thank Honamma with a nod. She smiles. You unclench your fingers, and retire to your room. Sudha Subramanian lives in Dubai with her husband. Her work appears in JMWW, Milk Candy Review, Centaur Lit among other journals. Her debut novel, The Invisible Lines, is due for release in 2026. Sudha is a tree hugger and an amateur birder. Connect with her on IG @sudha_subraman or on X @sudhasubraman or on Bluesky @sudha.bsky.social

Everything changed in a microscopic moment. It was between when the anesthesiologist began the trickly drip-plop-drop of propofol from the IV into my bloodstream, and waking up, I believe. I came to, on a gurney behind a curtain like a bedsheet. The world sounded different. Everything looked the same, but there was an ineffaceable ring tone sound. It was dull and distant, an unbroken bloop—like the noise electric stovetops make when you set the pan down wrong on a burner. The discharge nurse brought me my papers, and everything seemed as usual. Except, the last page said: DO YOU AGREE THAT FAILURE TO PAY YOUR BILL MAY RESULT IN DEBTORS’ PRISON AND/OR SERVICE IN A WORK COLONY? I wasn’t even able to choose. There was only a box, with the reply already Xed out: YES ⌧ I left the hospital and saw a man begging for change right on the corner. This man didn’t have a typical beggar’s look of grizzled prophecy; his clothes were moth-bitten, but clean. “Please,” the beggar said, “I need money to buy back my daughter. They keep her in the Basement. But they don’t let me work!” I was about to ask the beggar what the “Basement” was, but he was interdicted by two flatfoots—cops dressed not in their perennial navy blue, but attired all in black, their glossy boots better suited to goosestepping than patrol. Both the black-clad beatcops grabbed the beggar, one cop at each elbow, and started carrying him off. “You can’t do this to me!” the beggar screamed. “How can I get the money to get her out if I can’t even work?” One of the cops took out a black aluminum tire thumper and walloped the beggar over the head. I heard the sick crack and gush of a split skull. The cop who’d swatted the beggar didn’t smile, didn’t even appear to be able to emote, but the other one grinned as he squatted down next to the beggar: “You ain’t supposed to get her out. You ain’t supposed to earn money. You’re supposed to listen.” I don’t think the beggar was physically capable of listening any longer; the metal tire thumper had rendered that faculty obsolete. The black-clad beatcops saw me and I ran. They laughed and laughed, and in between their hooligan guffawing, they took wild, swinging kicks at the ribs of the beggar, whose head was pink and red and who didn’t move other than when he was kicked. I passed several intersections, and at every one I saw black-clad beatcops listening to their two-way radios, all of them staring at me, smiling. They began to yell, “The Basement!”, or, “No payment, send him to the basement!” I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t want to know. And then I saw a door hidden behind an alleyway dumpster. I opened it and ran inside. But my feet didn’t find the floor. Instead, I fell—and I kept falling—down, down, down, into the deep, deep dark. Alex Grass was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three kids. His recent work has appeared in Flash Phantoms, Maudlin House, and Trembling With Fear. His last novel, A Boy's Hammer, was selected for inclusion in Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2022.

We returned to our house on a dreary Wednesday morning. Gossamer wings were on the porch, scattering now and then with the wind. The house hummed a low tune, a mournful lullaby, almost as if it remembered everything. And if it remembers, it must be grieving too. I was a lost child. Invisible. Lonely. The Icarus who never touched the sun. I screamed at the world to carve a place for myself. I trashed rooms and spoke vicious words. My thoughts often morphed into a parasite that took my will to live. I hated mirrors. Every reflection is a childhood I grieve, where sadness and loss were masked as a sacrifice. I wanted to be loved. The mirrors haunted me at night. When I got too close, I saw a small child darting across, its laugh bouncing off the trashed room. I lingered closer only to see myself, smaller with unblinking eyes. Her shoulders weren’t curved inwards like I remembered. Her lips were soft, innocent to sharp words. I looked at her with both pity and longing. The mornings would wander on, and when the sky bled orange, I would crawl back into the cursed room to find myself. When daylight broke, I would find myself on the floor surrounded by dead moth wings. Yesterday, she questioned me. I said this feeling I have is inexplicable. A dull ache where my heart should be. I have once again gone out of my way to feel pain and not this perpetual state of numbness that follows me. Each night, the mirror beckoned me, and I saw my past displayed like a bruise on glass. The moth wings grew in number, and past and present moulded together. She smiled when I frowned, moved when I was still, her eyes were innocent while mine were clouded with anguish. I reach towards her to be swallowed whole. I feel the cold and dirty ghostly veil that separates us. I drift from mirror to mirror. My wings aching for the light I’ll never have. Every mirror, every shard of glass, every polished surface lured me into hoping for a self I could never have. I stayed for a flicker, and my wings grew heavier, dulled by the pull of what I can never hold. The floor below me is scattered with moth wings, pale and brittle. Fragments of myself that I gave up for every longing, every desperate attempt to be better. The house hums a low tune with the wind. I drift through the hallways, today, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that. Every day, I keep looking for my lost self. Stephaniya Elizabeth George is an 18-year-old university student who enjoys writing sad prose and poetry. She often explores themes of emotion and self-reflection in her work. Some of her poetry has been published in Zoetic Press. In her free time, she’s usually taking a walk to the beach or doing funky drawings.

She guides a party of four across the room to her last open booth and offers menus, before weaving back—table to table to counter—never empty-handed. Delivering a check. Clearing food-stained plates. Depositing empty wine glasses into a grey bin behind the bar. Not one wasted step. Setting down a steaming platter. Replenishing water. Whisking away tablecloth crumbs. Her eyes scanning for needs until all is settled just long enough for her to pirouette. Shimmy past the discreet powder room arrow. Prance down the hallway. Toe a wedge of wood to prop open the backdoor. She slips a cigarette out of her pocket. Lights it. Drags deep. Exhales one long breath of smoke up to cavort, like mist, with the full moon. Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press 2021), contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing/photos appear in variety of journals.

Down and Out with Lady Luck in a Casino Last chip She is both faithful And unfaithful Until proven otherwise. Which risk do you take? Trust her and be wrong, Or doubt her and lose something real? In the end, the gamble, Winning—Keeping, Is about what happens if you lose... What loss can you bear; Everything, Or everything? In My Backyard When a frog realises there’s a world outside the well, it instantly separates itself from the crowd. The crowd only starts looking at it weird when it croaks about what it has seen. And here you are, not only croaking but attempting the climb. Of course nobody relates. But fuck it. The point is getting out, not making them believe you can. Blunt A rational empiricist with an anti-dogmatic orientation. Values logic over sentiment, observation over ideology. Challenges collective delusion and pursues structural truth beneath social fashion. Don’t ask for my opinion if you’ve already chosen your answer— Because I will give mine. Just saying The worst kind of sin is Machiavellianism—not for the harm it does to others, but for the desolate truth it reveals about the one who harbour’s it. To cultivate the will to manipulate and control, to plot with cold precision, and yet fail at it—does not make you less of a sinner. It makes you worse. A failure even in the realm of the damned, A Penumbra of a shadow who can’t even execute the exploitation they’ve so carefully woven. A Joke in the darkness. A loser, not absolved by mercy, but undone by their own incompetence. Not cleansed of sin, Just rendered incapable of it. Still life, a random day There is a crack on my screen. It has been there for days, maybe weeks. I cannot remember when it arrived. I look up from my phone. From the chair near the door To the bed across the room. The Starry Night, a cheap Amazon print, Rests against the carved wooden headboard. It sinks into a scatter of pillows and folded linens. A plush toy lies on its side. A metal bottle leans against an ashtray. The bed carries all of it without complaint. The power cuts out. My battery blinks a warning. This room is not connected to the inverter. I stay upstairs anyway. The electrician rewired something the wrong way. Still, I keep writing. If the words matter, maybe the lights will return. They do. Softly. The room shifts. The water bottle on the bed means I have been thirsty. The old aftertaste is familiar From nights I slept dry and did not bother to fix it. It feels like a small measure of progress That I drink now. The plush octopus I bought for my Lady Sits with its face folded. She loved it because it could show both moods. Happy or sad, depending on how it was turned. Now it is flat and unreadable. I cannot tell which side it wants to be. She is still with me. Only distance keeps her away. She would scold me if she saw it looking like this. I am not sure how it happened. Maybe I pressed it in my sleep. Maybe I never noticed. I could think about the crack on my screen, Trace its beginning, But the truth is simple. I probably tripped. The mundane collects itself. The room continues breathing. Life moves, quietly, whether I do or not. I Learned It From a Song Shoot me down, then soothe me with that soft little “sorry, honey” and expect me to wake up. But I did wake up. I woke up hard. Reality stung clean through. Lies tasted sweet for a while, but sweetness spoils. It wears off. It shows its rot. We fight, we make up, and I pretend it is repair. But underneath it sits this sly stack of stored poisons, all those quiet insults and hidden intentions you think I do not see. Trust is fragile. Once it cracks, it never sets right again. Fix what? The issue? Not the issue. The pattern. You are dependent on it. An addict of your own loosened values, a slattern for the chaos you create. Mayhem. A loose cannon. A bruised woman who drifts emotionally, selfish and crude. A broken clock pretending it still keeps time. All talk, no movement. A rude truth choking me until I cannot even pretend to reason with it. You can only delude. “Sorry for messing up.” Messing up? No. These are not accidents. This is choice. Shoot me down and whisper sorry again, and ask if I will wake up. Do you really need clues? Make up what? The ugly? It lives in the marrow. Ingrained. We can fight, and we can make up, but you snapped the link in the chain. That link was everything. I have never been unhappier. Thank you for showing me the peak of what I never want again. I am not even sad. It was expected. I think I smelled the truth a long time ago. It reeked. Creativity, practice, identity. Fuck. P.S. Art, I am over you. Yours, Artist Doge Kamki is a writer from Arunachal Pradesh, India. Drawn to the strange intersections between humor, doubt, and quiet revelation, he writes about the absurdities that shape everyday life. His work has appeared in Metapsychosis Journal, Redrosethrone, and Poetry Potion.

RIVER RIPE For Linda Hogan, for Ai I swim in a river ripe, a ringlet wheel though It is a bad place after hours. Wild, unpredictable, yanked around. I fell sleepy to traffic sounds, warm pangs for a car, not a river. Like a barn sparrow after cream, not a bud. To dream of not a wheel, but a chain Dragging me out of the river. ICONOGRAPHY: FASHION IN THE MILLENNIAL IMAGINATION What kind of luck dangles from a chain? Angels and four-leaf clovers, crosses, found coins. A gold-patina prophet is $3 from SHEIN, and mass is held at the Met, and who is the martyr now? Me or you? Isn’t it holy to find yourself divine? To see your likeness in the heavens, where everything is eternity and so soft — lit with a camera flash, fluffy filter strobes, and a film that softens me to you. Was this chapel saved by donations dropped in a clear Lucite box? Candles lit for a dollar a piece, long matches. If mercy is a merchant, then I am not without fountains, offerings, saints or symbols to purchase or ancient superstitions, brooms and beads to inherit. What fortune grows in a garden? Lavender, red roses, mint, maybe. Where is grace found there, or is the luck in these long acrylics, magic in my fingertips? I choose nude, now and forever. And the only garden I know now is lucky desktop bamboo, leaves tickling my screen. Where is the water in little dishes? Or golden kittens, waving me hello from a salon’s tiny temple. We are golden kittens without milk, orange peels and no monkeys, chickens without heads, temple steps and no traffic, birds with no eaves to build within. No harvest to burn, without smoke or grace or snakes crackling, chanting, chirping prayers. What comes of mass, messages, or missed trains when I have no ticket to buy. Jessica Willingham is a Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project graduate and editor at Five South. She lives and writes in Oklahoma.

Aurelia was explaining problem sets to three undergraduates who sat in the Teaching Assistants’ office. It was the same three who’d come before the last quiz. Their scores had improved by an average of five points each, and they had returned, hoping to continue the trend.  “So in a Boolean model, this would be ...” Aurelia began. “True!” they cried. “Yes!” Aurelia was energized by their responsiveness. Not only were they listening to her, but they were processing what she said.  “And in this instance – ” Aurelia continued, but the rest of her words were engulfed by a crash as the half-open door swung into the beige corridor, and one of her twelve office mates, whom she had dubbed Angry Pit Bull, barged in. The students’ heads swivelled toward her, taking in the bulky sweater and book bag, along with the glare over square glasses with dark rims.  Aurelia cleared her throat, “In this instance ...” she paused. The three students turned toward her. “Which instance?” asked one, lost. Aurelia felt so heated that she was sure steam poured out of her ears.  “Why are you here?” demanded Angry Pit Bull. “These are my office hours.” Aurelia steadied her voice as much as possible.  “No, they’re mine!” Angry Pit Bull slammed a cup of water she had been drinking on the table near the door. Water sloshed onto the undergraduates’ bags piled near the table’s legs. One student jumped up out of concern for his papers, which were peeping out from his satchel, and he found in dismay that droplets had fallen on them. “Oh – oh!” He wailed. Holding them up. “I need to dry these,” he said, looking lamely at Aurelia. Angry Pit Bull stood by, unmoved. “There’s a washroom down the corridor,” said another student, and they turned toward the door.  Angry Pit Bull said nothing. No apology. No acknowledgement. Crushed, Aurelia watched as her students struggled with their wet items.  “Here, let me – ” she picked up a wet computer tablet, attempting to dry it with a single tissue. It dissolved in the rivulets of water coursing over it. She hurried down the corridor to find paper towels in the washroom. When she returned to the office, Angry Pit Bull had moved Aurelia’s belongings to a side table near the door.  “What are you doing? Don’t touch my things!” Aurelia was incensed. Other than her student’s wet computer tablet, she had never handled anyone else’s belongings in the office. Besides, her bag contained vials of an extremely acidic substance from the lab where she worked that could result in acute illness or even –  “I need to be here for my office hours.” “There are three desks in this room. And you interrupted me, my students, and my office hours!” “These are my  office hours!” They eyed each other like boxers in a ring. “No one is here to see you, ” Aurelia flung at her. Angry Pit Bull seethed at this jab against her popularity. “My office hours begin at 1 p.m. and end at 2 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays. I signed up on the front door!” Aurelia distinctly remembered signing up for those hours to make room for her lab work, which was part of her natural science degree. As a double-major, she needed to juggle her schedule like a unicyclist on a tightrope. “My office hours begin at 1:30 p.m. on Thursdays,” growled Angry Pit Bull, “to accommodate my weekly lecture.” “What lecture?” Aurelia challenged. “A lecture on the significance of sandals during the Later Roman Empire!” Sandals, indeed. Aurelia marched to the outside of the front door, which had a piece of paper tacked onto it. The paper had columns labelled Monday through Friday, with horizontal lines underneath them, demarcating half-hour increments of the day. She had written her name underneath the 1 p.m. line of the Tuesday and Thursday columns, and had drawn an arrow extending from the 1 to 2 p.m. line, using a pen that swung from the door. It had no cap, and its ink was drying out. Aurelia remembered pressing it into the paper, and there was even a nick on the Thursday column, toward the end of the hour, where she’d eked out a faint arrow head. She looked in horror at a line pencilled over half of her Thursday slot, beginning at 1:30 p.m.. “You drew over my slot!” Aurelia cried. Angry Pit Bull thudded over. “There’s no pen mark there. Mine’s in pencil,” she said, taking a pencil out of her sweater pocket, and darkening the line she had drawn. Furious, Aurelia went back into the office to wait for more students during office hours that were surely hers. As she made her way to her seat, she saw the paper cup of water left there by Angry Pit Bull. Her eyes travelled to her bag, stuffed with the books and papers necessary for her long day. Some lab equipment bulged under its zippered top, stretching the seam. Seized with an idea, she unzipped her bag, a vial almost tumbling out. She snatched it up, opened its lid, and tapped its contents into Angry Pit Bull’s water. There was a slight fizz from the acidic substance. The door to the office swung wider, and Aurelia froze. What would happen now that she’d been caught? She braced herself for Angry Pit Bull’s rage, but only saw the wall on the other side of the corridor. Stubby fingers appeared around the side of the door, becoming paler as they braced it against something – apparently the pencil that was in Angry Pit Bull’s other hand, crushing its lead into the timetable on the door while thickening the line she had drawn.  Angry Pit Bull then appeared in the doorway, her face resolved into smugness that enraged Aurelia to her core. “It’s my turn now.” Aurelia’s eyes went to the clock on the wall, then drifted to the water on the table, which had settled into its clear, insipid state.  “That’s mine,” said Angry Pit Bull, picking up the cup, taking a couple of gulps, and grimacing as its contents coursed down her throat. Aurelia stared. “Ok.” She picked up her bags and hastily departed. Erica W. Weems writes technical documents, miscellaneous articles, and fiction. She is also on staff at a theatre. She volunteers at a museum, enjoys dancing and explores botanic gardens. Her fiction has appeared in BlazeVOX, abducted cow, Superpresent , and  The Razor .

how does it look, from a distance as i flail at this nuisance of mosquitos from my car to the clinic, as they wave me on at the front desk to the jungle room you see, they know me here but this ain’t graceland there’s pictures of monkeys and macaws a plastic palm tree, canned-in 80s pop anthems in spite of, not having the time of my life still i shuffle across vinyl tile, inspecting cabinets plenty of bandages, rubber gloves peeping the rubbish bin when dirty dancing fades to dancing in the dark and like a boss i’m at the mirror, checking my look comparing faces with the pain scale poster looking a four, but hey baby feeling an eight a quick knock,  the door swings wide our nurse, brandishing a spectrum of colored vials in mid-conversation, i’m catching the tail-end she’s hissing at some barbara  behind her something about date night when wham starts in carelessly whispering nurse lowers her voice babs has a thing for boxers even lower third one this year takes out a tourniquet wraps it tight, says  just a lil pinch a whiff of isopropyl somewhere an ambulance wails i say to myself, right it’s just polka dots only jellyfish floating in the air, on the walls lost in a saxophone riff, i’m several bars deep before the stinging slap, a crimson rorschach she says whoa sir please steady on stay with me  sir you were fading  on me oh, surely i reply why not partake of ankles, elbows why not indulge a little longer J. R. Wilkerson is a DC-area poet by way of the Ozarks. His scribblins have been featured in Roi Fainéant Press, Voidspace, Memezine, The Broken Spine, dadakuku, and elsewhere.

lava everything spins in the squid ink  having meant a caress      swimming now downward with blinded eyes  once I slowed a loved one’s ascent toward air      once I tripped another who scraped her knees      these were breaches      with a long pole from two decades out  I might call them cruelties      and continue shrinking  from apologies  that present themselves for inspection as landslides  resentful of consequence      held tight through a titan’s eon—       lava splits earth irrepeatably each rift is exceptional  while what issues forth     is not      the aftermath impacts a bell curve      peaked with heedlessness ending in a dreary refusal  and beginning  with a not-so-consensual yes after being at the heart          of an earthquake I ask myself if things are shaking      and I cannot be sure     a woodpile  settles lower     spilling into damp grass      our retaining walls aren’t ready      cascade failures unroll endlessly     if you count the echoes     ripples  in water picked up by wind     implicated  in urgent violation of permanence      shake while present     then dim below  tentative flickers     I ask you  are things shaking     or were things  shaking moments ago     and again  things are not shaking and they weren’t  shaking moments ago     a flat stone  sways side to side     sinking     as a river  inaudibly rises     boundaries that should be  mason tough     convulse to smithereens      are we mad at each other     I’m trying  not to be on guard be patient  the water flowing from our spring was contaminated so we caught what the sky offered    she was a windblown shallow patch of south pacific sea      cold layers of tropical blue      a false berry that rural children know not to eat    I was a small kauri in full shade      outliving more ambitious trees when the drought came or the storms  but not growing I swept the sand her feet brought home      but not if she was looking  not when she’d feel accused    barrels full of gore lighting fires indoors     making sure they breathe     relighting smoke stale logs     letting ash loose     we chose a brittle bridge to walk across     a rotting log astride a rivulet     a deadened drying beetle’s back   |   music shifts     and the room goes rueful       wrestling past shackles      keys lost in beach sand     scorning consolations     soothing recast as stockades     sullied with kitchen scraps   |   flood waters chomp fine roads like a cookie   |   a lazy hand’s soft weight snaps boughs free     pilfered from within     now we’re rubbing fragments from our eyes   |   I want to       want to     be someone who     if smashed by a truck       would be barrels full of gore     drenching storefronts     maybe a bin of tennis balls     instantly everywhere undamaged     not just moth dust     odorless and already gone   |   decades can knock you out     cold     just slipping by on schedule     that moment you poke a burning log     and with ceramic sound     it becomes a uniform profusion     of murderous briquettes illness and receiving care bone broth vapor overlays an outdoors  crisp with oxygen     grease blankets  settle     bogged with eye ache     banks  burst by the salty raw     carry clutter  towards downpour-wounded valves  an oven opens and cake falls     puddle  fever or rock fever     false rest of being  inwardly ridden     one horse collapsing  after another     none of them rising the earth below you     downhill of you  is slipping     the sea is rising     the water  warm and frothy     bread kept soft  in thick towels     comes with new candles  care swaps bandages before they sour I try to earn my keep     with laughter  and warnings ill-prepared yet formidable hard lives join hands     round randomness      the secular idol who     owes no explanation      for smudging smaller lives     out    a stacked deck     demands too much from us      spawns a horde     of not just moments but  overburdened ones     that ruin whole afternoons      that send us bustling    to the cannery where  we have attempted     to preserve good things    things we have sorted     into two categories      what fell into our lap     and all other things    compulsion devotion     same coin no chasm     we set our coin in lacquer     danger side down    maybe there were bullets     but we never  caught them     or the guns hung from people  we could relate to     adversaries swarm closer      trusting us not to shoot     wagering our frenzy      our disarray    isn’t sham and won’t coalesce  into targeted hostile beams Nathaniel Calhoun works on biodiversity, board governance and systems change. His projects focus mostly on the Amazon basin or Aotearoa New Zealand. His poems have featured or will soon feature in the London Magazine, the Iowa Review, Oxford Poetry, Diagram, Landfall and many others. He sometimes tweets @calhounpoems

She is doing the Subathon. Only a little cleavage when the timer gets low. And if that donator asks for those pictures, she shares them just for him. But the timer is getting low very often now. The V-necks become deep V cuts. The push-up bra, already doubled. She hates the ones who watch. Not earlier, when she played video games instead of staring at a camera, watching videos on YouTube she actually liked, instead of following her community. Growing dumber by the year, she thinks. Car crashes and bikinis and cursed meme compilations. She hates them all. The timer is getting low. The rent is almost due. The jobs never pay as well. She’s looked, more than once. You can make $500 in five seconds here and $500 in a week there. So what if the camera has been on for several weeks now. So what if the sexualization is becoming more blatant. It’s still better than that. Here, at least, she’s worshipped. Here, at least, she calls the shots. Always that other door, calling. What could actually make her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. A very small thing, really. No videos, just tasteful, giving them what they want. Charging them for what they want, but directly. A small thing, and as the timer hits zero, she makes her decision. In fact, she had been taking pictures for some time now. Accumulating a backlog while her body looks like this. While they still care about it. The womb, a flat tummy; the chest erect. When she announces it, the community splits. Half love her for it. She makes $10,000 in ten minutes. The other half calls her a whore. They say they always knew she was that way. They say it was only a matter of time. For the most part, she ignores them. The money is still good. But then, the next week, she only makes $2,000 on a set, even more risqué. No matter—plenty to pay her rent with. Years pass. $2,000 becomes $200 becomes $20. There are other women now, playing video games, whom they watch instead. She doesn’t even stream anymore. Just posts the videos. Doesn’t talk to family anymore. Can’t. Doesn’t look for jobs anymore. Can’t. And she asks herself when that happened. It wasn’t so long ago that her mother suggested she stream, as a way to make some extra money. She was always playing those games, anyway. Always alone on the computer. And there was a time when she could convince herself that it would last. That she could make the small sacrifices without making the big ones. But there were no small sacrifices left. Only those that were worse than any job she could find. Outside, she logs off. The sun embraces her entirely. Observed online, 2020s. Kellan Jansen's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Expat Press, BULL, and Frazzled Lit.