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One downward sweeping stroke, barely kissed by two concave, backwards curls. Not quite a letter, a character unrecognizable, even to me.  Not my name and nowhere close to my initial. Yet it seems to be my signature just the same.  A pattern, a shape, a symbol that, defying definition, is written with compulsion, without choice or understanding. Simply to be repeated throughout my life.  By two shaking, pudgy fists that pull gnarled sticks through wet sand and cloying mud. By adolescent hands that scrawl on toilet walls and bus shelters, illicit cider dulling their sharpness, but instinct rising just the same. Scored with a compass, dragged through tender, flinching skin; later overwritten with vivid, violet ink.   Doodled on lecture notes and the margins of essays, on messages taken and messages lost. Traced on the backs of menus, receipts, bus tickets. Sketched inside books, some borrowed, some mine.  And always, it seems both familiar and distant, comforting and unsettling.  Question and answer. With no explanation, no recognition and no resolution, this symbol, my symbol, stands alone.  Each day on the early train, armed with a blunted pencil, I repeat the marks time and time again.  As the other passengers avoid my eye, repelled by my vacant intensity.  Until she arrives.  Her. The girl with autumn-burnished hair. That smells of bonfires and pungent leaves. Who sits close to me; waiting, watching. Undeterred. Who reaches out and without speaking stills my hand. Who rolls up her sleeve and lays her forearm next to mine.  Whose patterned skin is the mirror that tells me finally I am home.  Rachel Canwell is a writer and teacher living in Cumbria. Her debut flash collection ‘Oh I do like to be’ was published by Alien Buddha in July 2022 and her Novella in Flash ‘Magpie Moon’ by Kith Books in November 2023. She is currently working on her first novel.

We went on a family ski trip to Australia once. It’s was strange skiing through gum trees in the rain. The terrain flat the snow thin the queues long. But the strangest thing of all was the roadkill - from Canberra to Cooma through sweeping farmland kangaroos sculpture the highway. Roo after roo - a Mad Max cull. Once we started to climb towards Jindabyne up through the national park, rounder more solid marsupials appeared. It took me a few kilometres to work out what these neon-tagged creatures were. I could barely bring myself to tell the kids they were wombats. Dark hairy motionless barrels. My son was free-skiing at the Australian Junior Nationals. He won two gold medals that day. The ski company rep made him refuse his second first prize set of skis on the podium to the second placegetter. The kid’s eyes popped out of his head as he swapped his goggles and poles. Travelling back through the wombat dead, my son said he’d felt happier winning a hundred bucks in a local comp the weekend before. Sweat turned to tears. The Lucky Country  is home to a lot of odd decisions. Take the bloke who invented y-fronts with a special scrotum pouch. Separate your balls from your legs, the ad claims. An internal kangaroo pouch in your duds for your crown jewels. Keep em cool. Keep em safe. You’d need big nutz to carry that off, I suspect, much like flipping upside down on skis or taking a prize off a fourteen year old. I found out later the spraypainted letters on the dead marsupials meant Animal Rescue volunteers had checked their pouches for babies. They weren’t best-before codes, at all. My son gave up competitive skiing the following season. Queenstown, New Zealand based writer, Jane Bloomfield, is the author of the Lily Max children’s novels. Her poetry and CNF are published and forthcoming in Tarot, Turbine |Kapohau, Does It Have Pockets, a fine line  - NZ Poetry Society, MEMEZINE, The Spinoff, Sunday Magazine and more. Find her at Jane Bloomfield: truth is stranger than fiction - janebloomfield.blogspot.com

Under a dayglow sun, you crawl along Witham Way, windows down, glad of the roadworks that slow the traffic as you imagine the Capri gleaming diamond white in the queue of regular Fords. The faux-leather seat burns your still-slim thighs as you flip down the sun visor to check yourself out in the vanity mirror, your shutter shades neon-pink and fringe Sun In-streaked and stiff with spray. You push in the tape you mixed the night before for Steve who rests his hand on your lap, fingering the hem of your denim mini, and you turn up the volume as if pop will transform the poverty-paved street with the promise of summer. Of being Sweet Sixteen. And that’s when you see her. On the corner, outside the newsagents. The shine of bomber jacket and Docs. Baby-blonde hair feathering her otherwise shaven head. You hide behind the plastic slats of your glasses. But she hears Madonna blaring from a cut and shut. And when she gives you the finger, all you will remember is her smile.  Kerry Byrne lives and writes in the Cambridgeshire Fens, UK, with a backdrop of sky-filled water and an endless horizon. Her writing has been published by Ellipsis Zine, Lucy Writers, Pidgeonholes, streetcake magazine and Bandit Fiction, among others. In 2022, Kerry received an MLitt in Creative Writing with Distinction from Glasgow University. She is currently working on a collection of short fiction and poetry inspired by the Fens.

The window shut as the door creaked open, silencing the feral fogs barking in the woods. I turned around.  “How do I look?” It was my first time wearing my grandmother’s dress – a unique piece she made herself out of fifteen thousand little spoons. After all, tonight was supposed to be an extraordinary ball.  “Turn around,” the cat ordered, adjusting two of the spoons. “Alright, let’s go.” I followed the cat, descending the moss-draped spiral staircase, always keeping my eyes on her ears, which helped with the dizziness. “And I don’t have to do anything else?” I asked upon our arrival in the basement. “Only what I told you to do,” replied the cat, who was using one of my spoons to fiddle with the keyhole in the door. “Come on now,” the cat urged, “and don’t get the dress dirty.” I cautiously followed her through the exit and out into the foresty fog that barked harshly. “Cat, where are you?” “Hold on to my tail, I’ll guide you to the lake.”  Holding the tail with one hand and the dress with the other, I moved through the fog until it gradually cleared. The bright lights of the professor’s castle already greeted us in the distance. “Get in the boat,” the cat said, and I was startled when I realized that it wasn’t the cat’s tail I was holding in my hand but a twiggy branch.  “Let’s move,” said the cat or the branch as I carefully climbed over the skulls on the bank, into the boat and started rowing. “Be careful not to wake them,” warned the branch that rode on the cat alongside my boat, but it was too late. I had already hit two of the skulls. “Quack!”  “Please excuse me,” I said, “but I didn’t see you in all that fog.” After a little more than a little while and three damaged skullducks later, the castle sat enthroned on the cliff before us. The fog lifted and the professor’s horse helped me out of the boat.  “The cat and the branch must stay outside.”  I bid farewell to the cat and the branch and mounted the horse. We galloped along the cliff until the horse leapt through a hole half the size of us. Ever faster we raced through the tunnel, which was covered in green velvet on all sides and lit only by a few candles held in the claws of bats. At the end of the tunnel, we came to an abrupt halt. “Please dismount, I cannot proceed any further.” When I went to say thank you, the horse had already vanished into the tunnel. “Good evening, young lady,” a beak protruding from the rock peeped at me. “If you could be so kind as to pull.” So I pulled, carefully at first, then more forcefully until I had broken the stone bird out of the wall. Then I climbed through. The light from the chandelier dazzled my eyes, the melodies of the nightingales rang in my ears and so it was only after a short period of orientation that I realised I was already in the ballroom. There they all sat at the lavishly laid tables towards the walls of the room: thrushes, finches, blackbirds, and all sorts of beautiful birds whose names I did not yet know. A lone couple, green at the neck and otherwise rather inconspicuous, danced intimately in the centre.  I took a step into the hall. The clinking of the spoons on my dress caused a great stir among the birds. A silvery voice demanded silence. “Please come closer,” called the old heron at the head of the table. Hesitant, I waded through the sea of feathers, that the panic had torn from the birds, until I stood in front of him. “Dear Professor,” I started, bowing my head humbly like the pheasants sitting to his left, “I sincerely apologise for the damage I caused your ducks in the course of writing.” “Ashes to ashes, ducks to ducks,” replied the learned heron, flicking his beak at the valets.  “It's about time you arrived. Now we can commence.” The tallest of the valets ascended and circled the chandelier two or three times – the light was too bright to see it clearly – before alighting and letting off a roar. “Caw, caw, cawstard!” With those words, golden gates swung open on all sides of the room and in came small woodcocks, always in groups of eight, bearing stone bowls on their backs, peenting under the weight with every step. “Dessert is served,” proclaimed the heron and a brief silence was followed by the fluttering and waving and shaking of thousands of wings – a deafening noise. They all descended upon me, tearing and tugging and pulling, until only one spoon remained on my dress. Now, I could complete the task the cat had given me. I adjusted my dress – or what was left of it – and started climbing the neck of a large swan, who was preoccupied with his custard. Always keeping my eyes on his ears, which helped with the dizziness. Having reached his head, I lowered myself down his beak, waiting for his next bite. Then I leapt inside.  The interior of the beak was covered in white velvet. There was a bed in the centre with eggs on top. How would I open them? I tossed one against the wall, but the velvet prevented it from breaking. I carefully removed the last spoon from my dress and tapped the egg that I had just thrown. Its shell immediately cracked, and the cat emerged. “Well done,” she said, politely for once, and added in her usual rude manner, “Now the others.” Swiftly, I tapped all the other eggs on the bed – there must have been about a hundred – and out of each came a different cat. Then, my cat took the floor. “Dear sisters, let's eat.” And with that, they disappeared out of the swan’s beak into the ballroom. Felix Anker, born and raised and based in Germany, used to be a linguist, now collects stories at a hotel's reception. Humour, Science-Fiction, and other weird stuff in German and English lit mags (A Thin Slice of Anxiety, State of Matter, Don't Submit!, Maudlin House, Johnny, UND). Twitter: @bananentupper  Instagram: @schundundsyntax

Elaine knew that her keys were trying to tell her something when she dropped them on the floor in front of her bed. They landed in such a way that the deadbolt key with the green topper formed a perfect 90- degree angle with the silver dumpster key, and the Betty Boop key to the front gate fell beside a turquoise ring she’d lost months ago. The possibilities of coincidence or serendipity didn’t even cross her mind. Since her mother’s death, she’d sensed that the entire order of the universe was inches from her comprehension. Elaine knew that all she needed was a cipher, and she believed that once she found that cipher she could use it to guide her decisions and align them with the master plan. Elaine’s mother wasn’t lucky enough to find a cipher in her lifetime. Elaine had watched her fumble for decades, and ultimately arrive at the end of her life in confusion and deep regret. Elaine pitied her mother for dying before she could understand her place in the universe, and resented her for not even trying to help Elaine understand hers. She picked the keys up off the floor, squeezed them between her palms, and asked: “Where should I hang the O’Keefe print?” Then she threw them at the wall. And when the keys landed behind the ottoman, she crawled hungrily across her studio apartment to assess.  The green key and Betty Boop pointed towards the kitchenette, while the dumpster key was tangled with a souvenir bottle opener from Clearwater Beach. Elaine inferred that the keys had a hierarchy, that Green and Betty competed for dominance and Dumpster stayed out of the way unless its voice was needed to balance the vote. On the question of where to hang Sky Above Clouds IV , the keys seemed to agree that it belonged in the breakfast nook.    Elaine did as she was instructed. And every morning thereafter, as she blinked awake and the pale, orange horizon on the other side of the room came into focus, she felt an immense tranquility knowing she’d never face indecision again.  *** The following weekend, Elaine went to a bar, ordered vodka and cranberry juice, and dropped the keys on the floor. She told herself she’d go home with the first man who picked them up for her. But when her suitor reared himself, handing the keys to her with a yellow, threatening grin, she noticed that Green and Betty’s teeth were caught on each other, and they were nearly crossed to form an “X.” Elaine took that as a warning, an instruction to skip this man and look for another.  Relieved, she squeezed the keys between her palms to thank them, and 20 minutes later she dropped them again.  This time, the man who retrieved them was handsome and aloof in the ways that Elaine had been hoping for. She charmed him, brought him home, and after many consultations with the keys over the course of the next week, made him her boyfriend. *** Before long, Elaine was using the keys to make decisions at her job. She worked in data entry at a local importer of grocery products from Poland, Romania, and a few other Eastern European countries. Invoices from suppliers and distributors arrived in various formats, and Elaine’s task was to ensure that every total that entered the accounting system was accurate down to the decimal. It was work that didn’t actually require her to make any decisions. In fact, if she was making decisions, it meant that she was probably cooking the books.  That was never her intention, but sometimes the order of the numbers in the totals unsettled her. When threes preceded fours on either side of a decimal point, or when sixes appeared more than once in a single line, she’d become paralyzed, unable to enter them into the spreadsheet. Elaine developed a particular motion of fondling the keys to probe them for an answer, which was much more discreet than her previous method of throwing them at surfaces and assessing how they landed. When she encountered a number that felt wrong, she’d pick the keys up from her lap, close her eyes, and dangle them just above her fingertips. She’d rotate them once, very slowly, and count the number of times she felt a key graze her middle finger. Then she’d repeat, rotating in the other direction. She’d add the first result to all numbers on the left of the decimal point, and the second to all numbers on the right. Usually, this produced a total that put Elaine at ease. If it didn’t, she’d subtract from whichever side of the decimal point was still giving her trouble. Elaine maintained this system through her remaining eight months at the company. No one ever detected the errors, but her boss recorded a significant dip in profit. He attributed it to inflation among his European suppliers, and offset the loss by laying off several administrative staff, including Elaine.  *** Papers arrived in the mail regarding Elaine’s mother’s will. Elaine learned she was inheriting a small house in Santa Fe. Her mother’s second husband had inherited it from his brother and left it in his own will when he passed, five years before his widow. Elaine’s mother lacked the ambition to make something out of the house, so it had been sitting, empty and neglected, ever since.  Elaine went to the cemetery and dropped the keys on her mother’s grave marker. They landed in such a way that they were equidistant from each other, making a nearly symmetrical star shape. Elaine stood over them for a few minutes, squinting intensely in an attempt to deepen her connection to them. Her goal was not to communicate with her mother’s spirit but to ask the keys questions that only her mother would know the answer to. She believed that with her mother’s death, those answers now lived with the universal force that the keys transmitted to her. Elaine’s method of eliciting a yes or no answer from the keys involved slapping them against the back of her hand. If any of the keys swung up and grazed her wrist, or briefly slipped between her fingers, she’d read that as a “yes.” If the keys only made contact with the back of her hand, the answer was “no.” She asked: “Did mother spend a significant amount of time in the house?” No. “Did her husband spend a significant amount of time in the house?” Yes. “Does his energy remain on the premises?” No. “Will visiting the house bring me good fortune?” Yes. “Will selling the house bring me good fortune?” No. “Am I meant to live in the house?” Yes. *** Elaine had a downright transcendent experience at the Dido concert. At times she felt she had astrally projected herself far away from the crowd to some sort of spiritual observation tower beyond time. And even though all of Elaine’s favorite Dido songs were about great romantic love, she arrived back at her apartment overwhelmed with the urge to break up with her boyfriend. She realized he’d never made her feel like Dido’s performance had that night. She stepped over the boxes he’d helped her pack and slumped onto the mattress he’d promised to help her load into a U-Haul later that week. He couldn’t make the drive with her because he had to finish up a gig, but he said he would join her in Santa Fe as soon as he’d completed the job and collected his pay. He’d been displaying a lot of excitement for this next chapter of their relationship. Elaine believed her boyfriend was good on his word, but she was suspicious of his reasons for following through at all. She had constructed a prediction for their future in which he joined her in her house only to have a place to stay while he infiltrated the local artist colony, chasing women who were more beautiful and more creative than she was, ultimately abandoning her.  But Elaine knew better than to dwell on unknowns. She asked the keys. “Does my lover truly care for me?” Yes. “Will he love me forever?” No. That was all the certainty Elaine felt she needed. She asked one more question: “Do I have to act immediately?” No. Elaine interpreted this to mean that she could wait to cut things off until her mattress was in the U-Haul. *** Elaine’s landlord sent her a text that read: “you can leave the keys in the mailbox.”  She considered her options. Maybe the keys had guided her as far as they could. Elaine was confident that every detail of her life was now exactly as it should be. She trusted the keys enough to believe that they wouldn’t abandon her in a time of need, but maybe she no longer needed them. Besides, she’d be picking up a whole new set of keys upon her arrival in Santa Fe.  Elaine stepped out onto the sidewalk and stood in front of the mailbox, pressing the keys to her lips. She figured she should let them weigh in. “Is there more than this?” Yes . She nearly sprained her ankle in a frantic sprint to the hardware store before it closed. She made copies of each key and kept the originals for herself.     The house in Santa Fe had a brass key to the front door, two silver keys to the back gate and sliding glass door, a rounder silver key to the basement, and a tiny square key to the shed. Elaine bought them each a unique topper and added them to the keychain with Green, Betty, Dumpster, and the Clearwater Beach bottle opener. Then she sat on the patio for hours, watching the sun push a large succulent’s shadows along the stucco of her new home, gently massaging all of the keys between her palms. *** The keys told Elaine to paint the living room a pale green and hang the O’Keefe print behind the couch. They told her to put up a wooden fence and gate, for which she needed another key of course, but she anticipated this would only elevate their power. When a home inspector mentioned that the basement could be converted into a separate rental unit, the keys coached Elaine through the renovation. They helped her pick out appliances, tiles, and lighting fixtures. They even decided on the amount that she charged for rent.  She used the keys to make trivial decisions, walking around the grocery store slapping them against her hand to make sure she purchased the right brand of chickpeas, the right width of parchment paper, the right fat content of yogurt. They advised her on big decisions, too. When a book she’d read left her with an intense compulsion to travel to India, the keys suggested she open a new credit card to pay for the trip. When she had a tenant whose lifestyle she disapproved of, the keys instructed her to evict him. When her doctor diagnosed her with aggressive cancer, the keys confirmed that going through treatment wasn’t worth the hassle she suspected it would be, and she’d be better off letting the disease determine her fate. As she lay on her deathbed, morphine coursing through her veins while her consciousness slipped away, Elaine was satisfied. There was nothing she could have done differently because none of it was up to her. And when the keys finally slipped out of her limp fingers and onto the floor, Elaine’s eyes had already rolled too far back to see how they landed. Olivia is based in Chicago.

The boxed baby was just over nine inches long. Pink-skinned. Pert. In the sunlight streaming through the high cedar branches, the woman could see the baby’s ringlet of hair, flaxen, and its irises ringed with indigo. It waved its little arms at her. It coo-ed. “My goodness,” she exclaimed, wiggling her fingers in the baby’s plump face. “And what have we here?”  The baby babbled. The baby clacked. The baby disarticulated its bones into a flesh puddle and slithered to the side of the box, folding like a paper accordion fan to reach the edge of the box and flow over it like oily soup.  “That’s a trick, sure enough,” said the woman in delight. “Follow me.”  She left the box with its sodden, mildew-speckled blanket still inside, and pushed her door open to enter the cottage, the puddle-baby gurgling and burbling behind. It slid and glided, wet and wide, right up to her heels as if it meant to wrap itself around them, but the woman skipped lightly whenever the baby seemed on the verge of taking hold and in this way avoided being seized in the baby’s liquified limbs.  The puddle-baby raised itself off the cottage floor and slapped two parts of its puddle together. The bones inside clacked against one another. An altogether unpleasant sound that demanded attention, but the woman only laughed and said, “Oh, be quiet, you little monster.”  The baby lowered its gelatinous self back to the floor and hurried after. A rocking chair stood before an open hearth, and into this, the woman lowered herself, the puddle-baby quivering at her feet.  “Well, come on, then,” she said, lifting her skirt to expose her bare legs. The puddle-baby drew near and slid over her foot. It wrapped its jelly-self around her pale ankle and began to climb her calf, up over her knee and under her skirt where it got tangled in the bunches of fabric there and could go no further. The woman laughed again as the puddle-baby punched at the fabric, trying to get free.  She began to rock. She rocked and sang a tune gentle and dark as she helped free the glutinous baby from her skirts. From under the fabric, the clicking and clacking of bones kept time to the lullaby.  Elizabeth Rosen is a native New Orleanian, and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses gulf oysters and etouffee, but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves. Color-wise, she’s an autumn. Music-wise, she’s an MTV-baby. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Atticus Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ascent, and others. Learn more at  www.thewritelifeliz.com .

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

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

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

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

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

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