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Every so often – such a vague beginning I know but stick with me – every so often Marty calls me on the telephone, always the same wet hollow voice like the phone’s in his mouth he says something about coming home. I have an ear for him you see it’s similar to how we used to wade through our old neighbour Yelti’s thick accent when we were kids, Yelti always seemed mad, his words harsh, but we finally caught their quick, that he was offering us cookies like ugly clay but at the bite they crumbled into our mouths so terribly/terrifically sweet I am convinced now that they were only fistfuls of brown sugar. Anyway Marty called this morning and I got that feeling again like butterflies but bats. I tried to not say what? because Marty is easily discouraged so I let him speak all the way and some words rise like how a pulse shows up on those monitors so I catch ones like train and October and others that prove invalid like soiree and Jupiter I reluctantly let them go these superfluous words that are beautiful to me. His phone call like a two-word telegram I know he’ll be home soon. He’ll be carrying that same suitcase so much a part of him now it’s an organ and wearing those baggy beige pants that are in style now they’re called paper bag pants I saw some just the other day at Banana Republic. There will be more geography on his face; he’ll be wearing a floral shirt. Just like when on the telephone I have to be careful not to say what? when he’s here I try not to say stay. Sherry is  from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. feelingfunny.ca litbit.ca

At that time, I was eating pretty poorly. I’d go down to the stand on the corner and get a hot dog once every couple of days and I’d eat  and then I’d go to the store and buy bread and then I’d see if I could scam any of the restaurants on the block out of some of their spare meat so I could make sandwiches. On the weekends I’d go out and spend what little I had on booze and cheap fried food. I was also bored. Horace was the one with the steady job, and sometimes he’d invite me out, sometimes he’d even buy my drinks, but most of the time I’d just go down to the rocky beach out past the docks and throw rocks into the water, or just walk around, looking at the city. It’s nice to do that, sometimes, especially in the winter. It’s so much quieter, but you can hear the hibernation happening, almost, like a heartbeat. It comes in through your pores, the cold and the sweat under the layers of wool and leather, the thrum of the heat under the streets. I got a motorcycle in the spring, which Horace told me was the worst time to get one, since that’s when they cost the most because all the yuppies buy one in the spring so they can tool around on it all summer. “Buy one in the fall, when they get bored of them and you can get one for half off,” he said, but I wanted one now, so I bought one when I got a big feature in one of the local papers. An all-black Triumph. I’ve still got it somewhere, I think, maybe out back under a tarp or something. When it was new, it was a real thing of beauty. I drove around all summer looking at the sky. Got out of the city and all, and found some great backroads. That’s how I found the barn in the first place. I was out, wind in my face, no helmet because back then I thought I was some kind of daredevil, but to be honest it always scared me, distracted me from that full sensation of flight a motorcycle can sometimes give you—but the barn I found because I stopped to take a piss, and I’m looking out at this beautiful forest and suddenly I notice through the trees that there’s this building, and it’s huge, I mean it’s like an airplane hanger, and there’s a road leading up to it from the outside. Like I said, I’m bored, so I walk up to it, and the whole thing is just sort of this empty shell, it had been cleared out, looked like it had been swept, too, not a speck on the ground,  so I turn back to get back on my bike (why did I go down to the barn in the first place?) and ride away. But something pulls on me, I mean physically, like gravity tilts a little bit, I guess it’s more of a push than a pull, and I find myself walking around a tree, turning back to the barn again, and I look closer, and there’s a hole in the ground in the middle of that clean floor that I didn’t notice before. It’s blacker than anything I’ve ever seen, blacker than new-moon night with the lights off and the blinds closed, and I’m being pulled toward it, or maybe I just think I am, or maybe I wasn’t at all, but no matter what I start walking back to the barn, I go further in this time, the first time I stopped at the doorway and just looked in, but now I’m crossing the floor, looking up at these ancient beams that are barely holding the place up, thinking this isn’t safe, I shouldn’t be in here, this thing’s liable to collapse, but I’m at the hole now, and I stop myself and look down into it, and it just keeps going on and on. I find a rock somewhere on the floor and I drop it in, because I figure this thing has got to be a well or something, though I can’t make out any water at the bottom and there’s no bucket, and when I drop the rock it makes a sound like a bone cracking and this feeling comes over me like I’m sneaking past the mouth of a cave with a horrible beast inside, so I run out of there and I’ve got the fear on me and there’s something hot on my trail, I can feel it breathing down my boots, the moisture of it, a rabid dog or a wolf, a sabertooth tiger, and I jump on the bike and slam the kickstart and peel out of there like Steve McQueen. *** I went back some time later, and the barn was still there, but I didn’t want to check on the hole. Horace said he thought I was nuts, that’s why I went back, so I could show him the place, but when we pulled up in his car, (he didn’t have a motorcycle, thought I was crazy for that, too, I don’t know how he knew so much about when to buy one. He always knew about stuff like that though, some wisdom, I guess they call it street smarts, and he was usually right) I didn’t want to get out of the car, so he called me a pussy and went in himself. He came out shrugging his shoulders like I was a kid who thought there was a monster under the bed and he was my dad, annoyed that he still had to check on these things for me, telling me to go back to sleep. I had a few nights like that, afterwards, just like when I was a kid, where things in the apartment looked like faces and peered at me through the darkness, and I was too scared to move so I didn’t turn on the light and just pulled the covers over my head. Horace confirmed it though, so even though I had been planning on calling the cops, I changed my mind after that and forgot about it for a while, but something about it has been on my mind lately, so I thought I’d write it down. I’m going to go out there this weekend, maybe, see if the hole’s still there. For some reason, I have a feeling it is, that it’s been there this whole time, waiting for me to fall in. Maybe it’s just for me, maybe I’m crazy. Maybe this is the thing I’ve been waiting for, this hole in the world, the unpredictable thing I haven’t been able to find. Maybe it’s a cure for boredom. ***** When I got out there it was raining, usual for November in the coast range, and the water hissed and pinged off the hot bike as I set it down on the kickstand and turned toward the barn. It looked pretty much the same as it had the first time; big, black, intimidating, extra now that I was here alone knowing what was inside. I had looked around for a farmhouse, or the remnants of one, but the only thing for a mile in either direction was a shambles of old granite that could have once been a foundation, or something else. No farmers, ghostly or otherwise, to explain the barn’s presence. I was convinced now that there was something off about the hole, and accordingly, I’d brought some equipment like I’d seen on those ghost hunter TV shows, an infrared camera and a tape recorder, to see if I could catch anything that my eyes might miss. But when I mustered my courage and got everything ready to go and went down there, the inside of the barn was clean, still, there was no wind, and the hole was gone. Horace had been telling the truth. It took a lot to cross the threshold but once I was in I scanned every corner—maybe it had shrunk or moved—and found nothing at all. The place in the center of the room where it had been looked just the same as anywhere else. When I turned to leave, though, as I looked out into the rain, I felt a cold trickle, almost wet, or maybe I didn’t feel it, just thought it was there, and my spine froze up, and I knew if I turned and looked I’d see it, maybe it would jump on me anyway, even if I didn’t turn, and who was I, to come meddling around here with my instruments and my motorcycle, to be in here with this thing that I knew then to be older than the barn and older than the trees and the earth and the sky, some primordial thing, to which I was my life was a thin flicker? Fear is strange. Before, I had run as fast as I could. Now, something was telling me that this was like a bear and that I shouldn’t try to challenge it, or intrude on it, and should just walk away slowly, so that’s what I did, taking the quietest steps I could and feeling the breath tightening my lungs, Orpheus leaving Hades, not looking back and at the same time wanting to do so with all my being, but I’d read that story in high school or since in some girl’s apartment, again out of boredom, maybe, and I knew that if I looked back I would be trapped forever, and so I kept walking, slow and deliberate, my boots squishing the mud and snapping twigs in the forest until I could see my bike, and I climbed on, kicked down, and now that I was on the road the fear had mostly passed, and I couldn’t feel that tendril of cold anymore, and like a fool I looked, and black fire was consuming the forest, and it rushed forward until it was nearly upon me, and I leaned down over the handlebars, closed my eyes, and fled. S. Z. James is an author residing in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in Lurch Zine and Deep Overstock.

After the precondition A history of seedless planning resolved itself      in purple sheets for local consul swaddling; the council tenants stand around the drying public grass; after curdling, the milk is tasted, spoiled. A nursing mother sways on one standing leg, then hops quietly fretting over little archangel in his sackcloth, and round the ruined towers, the nettles appear to twist themselves in broken shapes that nestle curds. The air that's left to breathe is of an old museum. In the customary fashion Back then, the shadows of the individual leaves swaddle the limbs of tired flats. There are whispers in the walls about swaddling. There’s a story burning and in it, a young face is pushed into apple pie to laughter. The invasion does not come in the shape of French troops – there are none. I’ve been drinking, which you can tell by how my jacket falls. I’ll hang you up at a key moment, right as you say something nice. You might fear me more if you knew about the pie. At the party blockade, the first sound is not music. I’ll beg mercies for someone I’ll never know, someone I’ll wear a hat and coat for, who drops crystals in my kidneys, his fear bloating out my waistband, though I’d ask how many guys like me out there are bilious, with a few loose leaves in the bottom of the bag. When you smile, the rusted balconies creak and threaten to crush the passing residents. I’m brave only when the eyes are averted. There is no history round here after regeneration. You could clean out the fat from the valves. Since I hung you up there could I ever be clean? I’ll hand you a limb before the cinder blocks crumble. Townes-Thomas lives a quiet life in London, England. He spends his time struggling to make sense of the things he reads and the world in general. His poems are available in Shoreline of Infinity, Scifaikuest, and Graphic Violence Lit.

Lost in the Forest Corsage curated for your chest, I am wearing emerald to match your eyes as we go in the forest for a walk. I point to the river flowing away and I tell you about the philosophy of time and how the universe is always growing outwards. You’re already bored of my stupid voice, you pick a daisy off the ground next to a fallen trunk, you hold it to my face and tell me to appreciate its beauty. I tuck the daisy in your black hair, I hold your hand and give it a kiss, then look away to hold back tears for how unfair everything becomes. Volition So long as you don’t understand what retrospective means, sitting on the shore is a meditation on cleansing the self if only you are brave enough to let go. Living retrospectively is the ontology of a man with little to no future. When the days feel too long and the years pass by in a heartbeat, that is your cue that you are way past due. Taking a stroll in the same old meadow just past the half-broken backyard fence is a rumination about volition, like when you raise your hand to volunteer, like when you take off your shoes filled to the brim with sand, like when you break your wall of shame and swim in the lake fully naked, like when you feel as if the days are too short and the years are unfathomably long, like when you are a child and the whole world is kneeling before you. Where did it go, all those day-packed years? I choose to be in pain since it’s the only proof I have for being alive in the present. I pray to all the non-existent Gods that I don’t believe in for some courage.

Home Feeling I woke up to rain and pain in my stomach eagles chittering and a barge blare staring outside at the devouring grey bleeding the line between waves and sky This place is a far cry from anywhere I ever intended to be dropped like salmon bones between mountains and sea There’s a garbage truck idling between window and beach But the rotten stink reaching in through the cracks isn’t our tipped bin of tin foil laundry lint, dented plastics bound for Oregon on a thousand mile journey but the ocean (whose smell I now know.) I’m drowsily watching and sniffing the air while just there I think the driver is hesitating looking out, yearning seeing the wash of fog, tasting the salt hearing the birds of prey cruising the fault hunting for house cats He sits, not smoking a cigarette not realizing that he’s a part of a picture; that someone has placed the rig and its man in the same unfurling, worshipful hand as the water the eagles the marine layer blur a gloomy, wonderful, consuming wet these feelings of surprise of home (and yet.) House of Green Chairs It became a house of green chairs very naturally The first was a celebration We are moving into our new home Let’s find something special for it The special chair and its special green proved so vibrant that it needed balance It needs a companion When the third appeared nobody thought of it It’s free on the sidewalk comfortable perfect for a reading nook Then came the fourth a miscommunication between them that was funny in hindsight Have you noticed all of the green chairs, babe Are we the green chair house now So that when a friend needed to sell a set of matching green chairs there was no other possibility We are the people who collect green chairs and so it must always be The two of them and their neighbors and all of their closest friends now see green chairs everywhere in the world A phone chimes and on the screen is a spotlit victorian chaise in a history museum a storybook illustration Someone is watching a film on a first date and behold, a hanging lime of a chair they gasp and chuckle, raising eyebrows Explanations are made later I have these friends— Hold on, I’ll show you That’s how things start That’s how things catch What Survives What survives? Stinging nettle plains stretching treacherous across the suffocated asphalt Blackberry brambles to catch what moves and feed it; bleed it Algae corrugating the silver and gold; unblueing the water; crowding the beach sprawling soft fungus like pools of vomit where floodwaters gobbled up farms and spat them out At least, that’s what I hope. English ivy will be there, if we’re lucky; Spanish moss; Scotch broom; Canada thistle The future will have some color at least (Not so bleak as the movies, yet more so.) Something will gasp and creak beyond our mouths and ears It will crack like a seed at our reckoning and send its tendrils helixing around everything we’ve built dragging down our behemoths and finding shelter under our ruin With luck, our taxes and overpasses Will protect a noxious weed a skittering roach or that bristling horsetail through inferno or through flood til the next age What survives? A little thread between, oh please just a little, ferocious life. A. Jenson is a trans, non-binary writer, artist, and farmer whose most recent work appears in 2023/2024 issues of Door Is A Jar, The Bitchin Kitsch, the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, Pile Press, and others. They are revising a fiction manuscript by night, and turning compost heaps by day.

It was completely wrong to be riding in the front seat next to Raúl. It was inappropriate. Perhaps improper was a better term due to their statuary differences. Surely, Marty had not had the slightest opportunity to sit anywhere else. Amil had opened the back door for Elena, and she had graciously entered and slid sideways to the opposite window as elegantly as she could. Amil did not even give Raúl the chance to step out of the car to open the left door for Elena, the only door that should have been opened for her. After Elena entered the car, it was obvious that Amil would sit next to her. Despite the dimensions of the Audi, it was indisputable that the three of them could sit together. Amil did not know anything about good manners or, most probably, did not care. How could it be that with a soul modeled in the best private English academies, he was able to oversee such an unambiguous rule of courtesy? When a gentleman opens the car door for a lady and plans to sit next to her, he is the one who should enter first to spare her pristine garments the shame of sweeping the whole length of the back seat. Amil may have been born in the heart of Knightsbridge, but some particle in his ancestral Indian blood was maneuvering his bad memory. Raúl instead, as the gentleman in uniform he was, with his unobtrusive wisdom, had let Amil play the role of the efficient knight and take care of their only damsel, who was not in distress but exuberantly delighted at the prospect of the luxury shopping center inauguration, a project that Marty had supervised and financed, Amil was still promoting and of which Elena had taken possession as the executive director of commercial real estate management. Raúl dove into the traffic and Marty looked straight into the magma of lights and noise that this contradictory city in the southern hemisphere was able to amass every late afternoon. Even when the building they were about to see in all its majesty was barely five miles away, Marty was sure that it would take Raúl almost forty-five minutes to reach their destination. Marty was not supposed to look at their chauffeur for the whole duration of the trip. Raúl was a serious employee used to the eccentricities and secrets of all these high-rank ex-pats who came to the developing country chasing a good chunk of money and an inflated reputation. Two blocks and five irresponsible pedestrians later, Marty decided to turn his head back to say some triviality about the traffic. He did not do it. Amil had started his incoherent chants about how Anika, his Swedish girlfriend for the last three years, had left their apartment two weeks ago never to return. Amil had found out through the inebriated indiscretion of a friend that the whitish blond he thought he would marry had hopped on a last-minute flight back to Oslo grabbing by the elbow a tall French instructor who for the last six months had offered to teach her Spanish for free. Amil had recounted the story endlessly for ten days, at the office, at the bars, and at the golf tournament. It was getting very difficult to swallow anymore. Marty was convinced that his younger coworker was doing it to impress Elena with his manly sorrows. His seductive reasoning being that if Don Quixote had almost cried in the presence of Dulcinea, why not poor, gentle Amil, in an intimate car ride, for the entertainment and possibly the compassion of the tempting woman sitting so strategically next to him? Raúl braked inches away–centimeters here, Marty thought–from a car that was miraculously still able to move. He finally turned and looked directly at Elena, her eyes lost beyond the havoc of the insane avenue, her ironic smile respectfully hidden from Amil, her thick Spanish accent about to come out at any moment from her poorly sealed lips. Marty was carelessly admiring her unavoidable, perfect knees when she turned her gaze to him. “Marty, do you think we will get to see the President?” “That would be interesting,” Amil intercepted. “I wonder if he is as ugly and short in real life as he looks on TV.” “Dr. Sacerdote told me the other day that the President assured him in person that he would be there. I cannot believe he would miss such a chance to blab about how the country is improving thanks to his brave policies.” Marty stated. “The head of your bank talks directly to the President?” asked Amil incredulously. “Of course!” Elena laughed. “Who do you think is the guy who really runs this country? It’s not us, for sure, nor the presidential monkey! Mr. Head of the Bank is! Isn’t it true, Marty?” Marty did not like it when Elena replied for him, giving away his theories as if they belonged to her. Marty’s wife did the same the very few times she expressed any interesting opinions and when he complained she shielded her appropriations with the excuse that women only repeat the words of men they admire. “I am not going to wait for the President. It’s Erich’s fifth birthday tomorrow and we have early plans,” said Marty in a defensive way. “Your son is already five?” Amil gasped. Marty did not reply. Elena went back to stare at the insurmountable traffic and did not pay any more attention to the men until they arrived. This time Amil recovered his British composure and went around the car to open the left door for Elena and to protect her from the upcoming vehicles that were trying to find a safe spot to deliver their sophisticated occupants. The building was an imposing palace from the beginning of the twentieth century that had served as the city’s central market for seventy years and had been abandoned to its corrosive luck when the economy and the mores of the citizens had drowned in the throat of extreme socialism. Marty’s deed had been to awaken this brick-and-mortar cyclops with the tender milk of political change propelled by the inelegant President. The exterior looked again as regal as it had in its origins, when a mythical singer from the times of Rudolph Valentino used to sell his mother’s vegetables and dreamt of becoming the star he got to be. Inside, the shopping center was a hymn to capitalism and the fresh hopes of becoming a first-world country again. Bathed by the creamy radiance of light and music, Elena entered through the cast-iron portico holding the arm of Amil, while Marty made sure that he would be able to find Raúl and the car in the next thirty minutes or whenever he decided that his mandatory presence was enough. Elena and Amil walked ahead, greeting people, accepting champagne glasses, and choosing between caviar canapés or obscene chocolate strawberries served in almond praline replicas of the dome over their heads. Marty observed the couple from behind, nodding to the puppetry aristocracy of the poor country and wondering if Elena could really surrender to Amil’s dandy arts. The three of them reunited at the doors of the unfinished multi-theater space on the third level that had been Marty’s shrewd idea. Amil was telling the story of his spiteful heart to one of the bank’s senior investors. Marty whispered in Elena’s ear: “Come with me. I don’t think we are allowed in the theaters but I know how to get in from the side. You won’t believe the new technology.” Elena beamed with the sudden possibility of mischief and stepped ceremonially into the carpeted space declaring with her broken accent that she was the very first and most beautiful person to enter the cinema from that moment until the end of time. Marty looked toward the dead screen and knew it was time to go. Amil had finished his lamentation when he saw them exiting the theater through the velvet doors. “They say the President is visiting the stores before his speech. Shall we go and hunt for him? I need to check the Hermès suits and maybe a pair of Pradas anyway.” “I will see you tomorrow. Try to behave, Amil. Remember that you are the one selling this shit.” Elena looked up at Marty, disoriented. He was not going to wait to see the President. He moved away from her and Amil as smoothly as the crowd allowed him and turned in front of the descending escalator to send Elena a mocking salute that she could not interpret. “Back home, Mr. Carman?” asked Raúl when Marty settled in the back seat as it should be. “Just give me some minutes, Raúl. Let’s wait. My plans for the evening are more open. They are not waiting for me at home until much later. I need to rest my eyes. Raúl did not reply. Deep respect is better expressed with silence. The calmer traffic set a suspended mood. Raúl continued reading a mystery novel that had more romance than murder, just as he liked them. “Raúl, open the door!” Elena was yelling from the other side of the locked door where Marty was leaning his head. Raúl reacted immediately, unlocked the door, closed his book, and turned the car on. Marty started dragging himself sideways helped by the firm pressure of Elena’s hip. “Raúl, look what I brought you. Dripping chocolate strawberries in a praline cup! I ate four of them already. Aren’t they perfect for an evening of eternal love and desire?” “To your apartment, Señorita?” Raúl stated more than asked. “To our secret nest, Raúl. And you can go home after leaving us. I have very serious business matters to discuss with Mr. Carman. Isn’t that right, Marty?” Marty smiled while kissing her. He liked this country, with its blasts of dust, Raúl’s discretion, almond praline cups, and Elena’s broken accent ready to assault him through her poorly sealed lips.

Grief of Hands Burned to Dust I just thought about how I won’t hold your hand again the wrinkles all over each knuckle you’ve been using them since you pulled the taro out of the ground as a child back in Samoa And when you first came here with my father the first thing you did was cleaning cleaning the offices of higher ups and those who flew and sometimes you would talk of the private jets being cleaned if I could look at your hands again I would be able to find Tom Cruise in your hands or that is the story you always told me cleaned his private jet the difference between you and him will always be your oily hands whenever I grabbed them because you always had to put hand lotion on you’d get so upset with yourself every time your long nails would accidentally scratch me though it was a complete accident I still remember your touch nine months later And it doesn’t feel any better that I won’t feel the individual wrinkles across your middle finger or the curved that almost always made a ‘c’ on every fingernail and when my fingernails were long enough you’d try taking out the dirt from underneath them like I didn’t know how and you know I am a nail biter The look of disappointment every time I came home from college cause my nails were behind my fingertips the sun behind the hills not even the morning sun to peek through I don’t know how to use my hands with long nails I use my fingertips for everything Typing this poem out for the first time First on my phone then computer I love the sound the computer makes every time a letter Comes through, a new thought, new pain—                the juxtaposition of that comfort typing is I miss my mom more Boroughs Often unaware are they for fortune is on their side whole animals burrow inside looking to make a home where no one has “to the left of the belly fat” “just south of the scapular, if you’ve made it to the ass you’ve gone too far” a burrow is a burrow is a burrow a burrow of pain to bring all of me to the tables sat at, forgotten pillows only bring regret new homes to burrow in old neighborhoods Mirm Hurula is a Samoan American writer creating and publishing pieces of stories they needed growing up. They write of heartbreak without the ability to make it succinct, of heart just opening at the fluttering brought on by another, of wisdom that a 26 year-old should not know.

It’s Midnight and Cinderella’s still dancing. The Prince missed a couple of steps in surprise. But so what if she’s no longer in formal wear? She’s still smart, beautiful and funny, if anything more interesting. The long gown replaced by a ragged dress, the tiara now a Hardup Spartans cap, and those amazing shoes transformed into battered sneakers, she still moves like silk, dances as though she’s practiced to this exact tune for months. It's 1 AM and Cinderella and the Prince are still dancing. Some of the other suitors tried to cut in. There was a dance off between Cinderella and two sisters. They were good but one tottered on too-tall heels, the other held up too stiffly by corsetry. Neither could match her best moves. Now she’s invited some of the others to the floor, the ones who held back, knowing they had no chance with the Prince. All the younger sons and daughters, in their hand-me-down finery and self-sewn outfits, getting to show off on the dancefloor. Turning this into a proper party. It's 2 AM and the Prince has had to take a break. Cinderella’s got some of the staff to join her. The buffet table stands neglected, guests helping themselves at the bar. The candle boys are dancing frantically, throwing each other about, ignoring the declining light, half gone already, the dance floor becoming more intimate, more mysterious in the shadows. The announcer has abandoned his post by the door, moving slightly out of time with the music. If a mysterious and beautiful stranger arrived now there would be no one to greet them. They’d be welcome anyway. It's 3 AM and some of the early arrivals are back on the dance floor, having a second wind. Some of them are there to congratulate Cinderella, others curious to see this stranger whose quick change and dance moves have dominated the party. More are here to find her flaws, to see if they can break off this relationship, or to sound out where she stands politically. She’s stronger than them though, enduring it like a marathon, outlasting them, showing off with flair that make her partners look good when they falter from exhaustion. It's 6 AM and the DJ’s worn out, he’s asleep in the corner, pillowed on the set list requested by the Queen and screwed up before half the guests had arrived. Cinderella’s at the decks now, she’s dug deep into the unopened record boxes, letting some smooth Soul ease the hardy dancers still on the floor, lining up some higher energy grooves for when the sun rises to replace the light of the last few guttering candles. It's 12 Noon and the Fairy Godmother has come to the palace, to find out why her girl isn’t home. Has she short cut the happy ending or has something gone wrong? She weaves her way past the pest control vans, giving a cheery wave at the men standing around eating pumpkin pie. Follows her instinct, follows her nose. Follows her ears. At the side all the doors and windows are open and Cinderella has led the partygoers out onto the lawn. The Prince has got changed into his oldest jeans, and the others back for a second or third shift are casual too. Cinderella’s still in her ragged old dress, her scuffed shoes, her worn cap. Cinderella looks fresher than anyone, even those who might have had a nap, had a shower, had breakfast. The Fairy Godmother looks closely at her. Cinderella looks like she can dance anyone else there into the floor. Cinderella looks like she’s just getting started.

In the fading evening light of summer, 1961, Frank rests his palms on the rough wooden kitchen table. Through the window, just beyond the dangerously tilted boards and beams of a half collapsed clapboard barn, Tatel-1’s steel girder toe extends into the meadow grass. Frank smiles, and in a half-whisper says, “Come out come out wherever you are.” Mary sits bolt upright on a black starless night in the summer of 1816. She thinks she’s heard a voice, but it’s only the sound of heavy snoring from the man who lies beside her. Mary seems an assemblage of parts. Her mother, the feminist, philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft, stitched to her father, the philosopher William Godwin, grafted onto her sleeping lover, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She seems their bone and flesh, if not the milk of her mother, who died eleven days after giving birth. When Mary awoke and began life, she found herself alone. Frank adjusts his glasses and thinks about the austere kitchen in his childhood home on the South Shore of Chicago where his parents demanded strict observance of Baptist fundamentalism. His father, a chemical engineer and amateur astronomer, once told him there were, “Other worlds in space.” He meant other planets in the solar system, but eight-year-old Frank imagined Earth-like worlds strewn throughout the galaxy. Habitable planets with beings driving cars on streets just like his hometown. Sitting in the last row of Sunday Bible school, Frank wondered if he could contact them. After class, he rode his bike to the Museum of Science along a winding bikeway by the edge of a lake that stretched into the infinite distance. There he came upon a photo of Nikola Tesla. Dark hair and sharp mustache, shoulders back, head tilted forward like some popinjay daring Frank to join him. A plaque below the photo recounted that in 1899, Tesla built a laboratory in the mountains of Colorado to search for high-frequency electricity and wireless transmissions and reported receiving signals from Mars that, “world spoke to the world in language strange at first, but sure to be clearer.” The signal originated with Marconi, not Mars, but that did not quench Tesla’s desire to reach out to the stars, and Frank now remembers how in that moment, that same wave of desire first broke over him. Now the table wobbles, and Frank, a Harvard educated physicist, sits upright, looks about, reflexively reproduces the motion, hypothesizes a short leg, imagines placing a matchbook beneath as a confirming test. Frank’s here at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, to create a new research program for the radio telescope Tatel-1 which has, till now, been mapping the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It squats on four massive concrete pilings, indifferent to the barn, the farmhouse, and the scientist. Its 85-foot wide white parabolic dish is tilted upward, watching the evening sky. Electromagnetic energy radiates from the stars onto the dish, surges through a low pass amplifier and a superheterodyne receiver and emerges as an ear splitting cry for attention. Mapping places he can’t reach is of no interest to Frank. But what if he can bring the aliens here? So, he’s convinced the laboratory director to let Tatel-1 hunt for alien radio transmissions. He’s named the new research program Ozma, after the princess of Oz, a land both fantastical, faraway, and much like our own. Frank Drake has turned Tatel-1 towards the star systems Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, a dozen light years away. He keeps the project secret for fear of ridicule, but one of his colleagues, Carl Sagan, has convinced the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences of the importance of Ozma. The Board has asked Frank to organize a conference at Green Bank to encourage the search for life on other planets. Mary lights a candle by her bedside. Her eyes roam over the brown tangled mass of hair, large round eyes, soft, delicate nose and lips of the man beside her. Mary was 16 when she met Percy, who was 21, and married with a pregnant wife. He’d just been thrown out of Oxford for his atheism, disowned by his father, and had sought out Mary’s father, his intellectual hero. Mary and Percy had an illicit courtship, as much Romanticism as romance, reading the works of Mary’s parents while reclining beside her mother’s grave in the St. Pancras churchyard. Sublime and rapturous, Mary fell in love with Percy’s looks and intellect, and the two ran off to Paris along with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who was willing to be ruined as well. From there they traveled by donkey, mule, carriage, and foot through war torn France where Mary wrote, "The distress of the inhabitants, whose houses had been burned, their cattle killed and all their wealth destroyed, has given a sting to my detestation of war..." Returning to England, pregnant, Mary learned Percy was bereft of money and friends, the two having been shunned by society. She also learned Percy’s conception of romance was staggeringly different than hers when he pressured 17-year-old Mary to sleep with his best friend in pursuit of free love, while his own long-running romantic involvement with Mary’s stepsister had continued since the time the three of them had left England. Mary’s baby was born prematurely and died. She wrote, “It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions.” The couple’s fortunes improved after Percy inherited from his grandfather, and Mary gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she named Percy, although she was forever haunted by visions of her first born, a contorted baby girl lying lifeless and alone in the center of the bassinet. Mary, Percy, and Claire have now just recently rented a small cottage, the Maison Chapuis, on Lake Geneva. It’s proved a wet ungenial summer, and incessant rain has confined them for days to a log fire and German ghost stories in Lord Byron’s villa. Byron is mad, bad, and dangerous to know. His many affairs have included his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Byron is married and has a daughter, Ada, who in 1843 will write a theoretical description of a general-purpose computer a century before one is built. But now his wife has left him, and Byron has been barred from seeing wife or daughter ever again. Fleeing scandal, Byron left England for Geneva, and meet up with Percy, Mary, Claire, and several others, known to gentile society as the League of Incest. Claire has become pregnant by Byron, Byron is bored of the dalliance and the weather, so earlier this evening he announced, “We will each write a ghost story.” Frank stares at the yellow legal pad on the table before him as he considers how to organize his conference. He pulls a ballpoint pen from the pocket protector of his rayon shirt and writes the title, “Do Detectable Civilizations Exist?” He continues with the agenda topics. What is the rate of new star formation? How many stars have planets? How many planets have life? How often do life forms create civilizations? What proportion of civilizations acquire the appropriate communication technology? He stops, sets the pen down, having recognized each topic as the probability of an event. He hypothesizes the fractional values. Rate of star formation in the Milky Way, four per year. Number of stars with planets, one in five. He realizes these fractions multiplied together will tell him exactly how many are out there in the Milky Way with cars and streets just like his childhood hometown. The ball of his pen rolls smoothly across the page as he writes a mathematical equation that will calculate the number. N = R* · fp· ne · fl · fi · fc The number of galactic stars, times the fraction of stars with planets, times the fraction of planets supporting life, times the fraction of life forms that create civilization, times the fraction of civilizations with communication technology. Exotic worlds of imagination collapse into a sublime set of symbols. A group of unknowns begging to be known. The ecstasy of creation. When Byron had announced his literary challenge, the men in the room busied themselves with serious talk about “the principles of life.” Mary sat tactfully silent. She already knew more about such principles than anyone present. She already had her story in her head and now busied herself working on the answer to the humiliating question she knew would eventually be asked, “How she, a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?” She decides the idea came to her in a dream and that writing it consists of “making only a transcript.” Now, as she rises from bed, steps onto the cool cottage floor, the vision she has carefully assembled from the pieces of her own life is clear. There is a ghost of course, a pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside a hideous phantasm of a man-creature stretched out. The ghost works some powerful engine, and the creature stretched out stirs with an uneasy, half vital motion, mocking the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. A thunderstorm rumbles in the distance. Lightning bolts rip inorganic molecules from the sky, forging them into the building blocks of life. The creature raises its re-animated head on limbs in proportion, with hair lustrous black and flowing, in horrid contrast with its shriveled complexion and watery eyes. Mary sits at a table, lights a candle, opens her oversized writing journal, dips a quill in the inkwell, and in cramped script begins to write a novel where myth powers technology. She does not focus on the twists and turns of plot, the visceral and alienating subject matter, but rather on the mental and moral struggles of the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein. Who is he? Her husband snuffles and snorts in the bed behind her while she feels the ecstasy of creation. She skewers the individualism and egotism of the men still talking in the other room, and these Romantic times. Her Victor Frankenstein is like Prometheus, or Satan in Paradise Lost, rebelling against tradition, creating life, shaping his own destiny. His aspiration and progress are indistinguishable from hubris – until something goes wrong, and we see all too clearly what is reasonable endeavor and what is a self-delusion clothed as a quest for truth. The fire is fading. The room’s grown cold. Mary rises and pulls her wrap more tightly around herself. There’s no more wood by the fire and so she shuffles to the back door. She leans against it, it gives too easily, and she stumbles across 144 years into the harsh light of Frank’s kitchen. They should both be surprised but they are not, for in the ecstasy of creation, anything is possible. Frank pours Mary some coffee from a shiny electric percolator. She takes a sip, scowls at the bitter taste, presses the warm white mug against her chest, and follows him out the door and down the steps into the cool darkness of the night. They circle behind the barn. Mary places her hand on one of Tatel-1’s concrete pillars as she looks up through the dark steel girders that slice the starry sky into rectangles, triangles, and trapezoids, and asks, “Why?” “Sublime destiny,” Drake replies. “To uncover the meaning of existence. No one person can in one lifetime, of course. We all chip away at it bit by bit. The more we see, the more there is to see. Enough meaning for an entire civilization.” Frank waves his hands about his head as he speaks to the stars. “At this very minute, with almost absolute certainty, the chatter of other intelligent civilizations is falling on the earth as radio waves. A radio telescope, pointed in the right place, tuned to the right frequency, can discover them. We can send our own radio waves in response. Begin a dialogue so that someday, from somewhere afar out amongst the stars, will come the answer to our questions.” Mary’s deadpan look is directed at the man. “And how far is too far?” “How can there be such a thing?” He exclaims. Mary recounts our collective history. Describes first encounters, clashes of cultures. Columbus, Cortez, the Little Corporal and the smoldering French countryside, the men back in the Lake Geneva cottage, pillars of literature, free thinkers who blather on about the principles of life. She describes the horrors that will come with the progress of another century. She’ll never see them but she doesn’t have to. She already understands. She tries to explain, quietly, how progress is not inevitable. That advancement lies close by chaos. Frank doesn’t hear her, for Mary’s voice is drowned out by the turning of Tatel-1’s gears as it slowly moves against the Earth’s axis of rotation, following its master’s command. When silence returns, Mary is gone. Frank’s conference launches the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Drake’s equation becomes the embodiment of the cosmic optimism of the early sixties, a time when terrestrial intelligence races to the moon, then turns away, consumed by terrestrial events. It’s a time when anything is possible, and when humankind is almost destroyed, several times, by its own creations. In a quest to look further and further, Drake moves to a hilly cave-filled jungle on the north shore of Puerto Rico. There, abandoned in a giant sinkhole sits Arecibo, a 1,000-foot-wide parabolic dish. Frank uses Arecibo to transmit a three-minute message to star clusters more than 22,000 light years away. The message is filled with the double-helix structure of DNA, the dimensions of the human form, and the location of Earth and the solar system. Arecibo eventually collapses from neglect, but its message travels ceaselessly to the stars. To civilizations with towns and streets just like Drake’s hometown, or whatever else lurks out there. Mary publishes Frankenstein in 1818, anonymously, out of a concern that its hideous truth might cause the authorities to take custody of a mad woman’s child. The book contains an unsigned preface by Percy Shelley. It becomes an immediate sensation. Sir Walter Scott writes, in an early review, “The author seems to us to disclose uncommon powers of poetic imagination.” Scott, like many readers, assumes that the author is Percy Shelley. Conservatives are not enamored and damn the book’s radicalism and its Byronic impieties. They miss the point. The novel is a revolutionary story wrapped in a counter-revolutionary point of view. Mary continues writing. 23 short stories, two travel narratives, and eight novels. One, The Last Man, is an apocalyptic story of tragic love set in 2072, when humanity is gradually exterminated by a pandemic. The Last Man is the lone survivor, having failed, for all his imagination and knowledge, to save the life of anyone. Mary Shelley remains generally regarded as a result. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter who became Shelley's Pygmalion. Her intelligence is questioned, as is her authorship of Frankenstein. But as the crickets’ chirp in the summer evening of 1961, Frank sits at the kitchen table, places the pen back in his pocket, looks upon his formula, and notices a new term in his equation. An “L”, not in ballpoint pen, but in large looping quill and ink script has been added. N = R* · fp· ne· fl · fi · fc  * L In the bottom right-hand corner of the page there’s a note. Consider adding “L,” the fraction of civilizations, once born, that now exist, for every civilization must have a beginning, and an end. Mary Shelley Rob Rosen has spent the better part of a life as a technologist and applied mathematician with a front row seat to the technology revolutions of our time -- and the resulting social convulsions. He’s a member of the Historical Novel Society, The Burlington (VT) Writers Workshop, Grub Street, Writers Digest, has written essays and fiction for our local newspaper here in central Vermont, and had several short stories published in other speculative fiction magazines and music literary journals.

Marriage Counseling Over a Game of Go There are 391 points on this Go board for us to position where we feel our most confident. Where we think we can gain the most if we block the points on the hundreds of compass roses before us. When you move the black stones into each cross section the way one builds the foundation for a cairn, I think about how each gap you leave makes me feel when I look into your eyes after you make your play. Smooth, obsidian, with my reflection within them curling like a wave on the shore. I rub a white stone between my fingertips the way you may rub that amethyst in your pocket before each interview. You asked me to play Go with you because you didn’t want your mind to become stagnant. You wanted to see if you could build territories that snaked and bent across the earthen board. Every second of silence before you let the black stone pathway expand is a moment for you to become more assured in your growth and power. I want to help you continue this growth, to ensure that you can cover the world in shadows. However, you’ve asked me to lay pearls down and encroach upon your new world. You ask me to threaten you, to challenge you, to make you fearful. Once we put the stones away and share a warm mug of plum wine after we play, I hope you can still see me as the person who supported you, even as I forced you into resignation by taking away your liberties. Video Games On a small street off DuPont Circle, two figures hidden in the evening are huddled close together. Their forms merge into a stoop, their shadows blend with the ones cast by the apartment complex across from them. One of them exposes himself with the light of his smartphone, his glasses reflecting back the album art on screen. I hear the voice of Lana spill out into that February evening air. She claims that Heaven is a place on Earth with you. I wonder if these two, lost in the space where the street lamps were torn out to widen the road, could call this their own personal paradise, or just a place to wait for their rideshare. People could walk by without even knowing they were there in the world built for two. Well, at least now I do. Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, Virginia. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), Stories About Penises (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more. For more information, visit carriganak.wordpress.com or on Twitter @carriganak.

You're trying to keep a smile on your face. Marie had tied two giant balloons onto your chair and now the bloated, gold helium-filled numbers '3' and '4' are bumping into the back of your head, buffeted by the ocean breeze that's rising as the sun sets. You look around the table at the figures silhouetted in the magic hour light and take stock: Marie and Pham have flown in to San Francisco for the night and are talking about their luxe hotel suite, a welcome respite from the kids whereas Julie-- sleeping on your couch -- is posting the dinner party, minute by minute, onto instagram. She taps "Nicole turns the big 34!!! #girlsnightout #happybdaygirl" into her phone while telling you all about why her lips look fuller. "Fillers, bitches!" she grins. You take a deep breath and realize how much things have changed since you all met in college. Between the four of you there are one husband, one wife, one cross-fit-obsessed boyfriend (Julie calls him Tyler, the love of her life; Marie and Pham just refer to him as “that motherfucker right there’), two adorable kids, and one betta fish. The fish is yours. “Sweetie, are you okay? Was it the chicken? Do you want tums, I have tums—” Marie starts digging through her purse while tears start to roll down your face. Pham asks if your ex dared to call you. “No, no, it’s okay,” you insist. “I’m just so glad to see you—” your three friends huddle around your chair. “But this morning the supermarket clerk called me ma’am,” you wail. Later that night Julie is braiding your hair like she used to during sleepovers while you watch reality tv. "Tyler says if you don't like something, change it," Julie breathes as she watches the reveal of the woman onscreen, glimmering from a makeover as she runs to a gazebo to get engaged. "I mean, Tyler’s cut his body fat to 15 percent. You just have to decide you want something bad enough, you know?” Earlier you told Julie what you were too embarrassed to say during dinner: that the breakup wasn't mutual, that one day you were living with your boyfriend and looking forward to the future and the next day it was over. You felt like a dog that woke up and realized its family had moved and left it behind. So, you found a short-term rental while you figured things out. You thought about getting a new job but you weren’t sure. You looked into taking a vacation, but you didn’t know where and none of your friends could go. You got the betta fish, and you got back out there, but things had changed. Dating felt more like being on the stock market, like you had a value and it had unaccountably dropped. The worst was the date where the guy coolly looked you up and down outside the movie theater, said, "okay," and then didn't speak to you again until after the movie when his taxi pulled up to the curb. And the strangest thing was, you don’t feel like you’ve changed so much. You didn’t magically turn into a crone when you hit your 30s, you’ve always been smart and kind and a go-getter, and yet somehow everything feels difficult. Gray and cold and no fun. Meanwhile Julie has extended her eyelashes, her nails, and soon, she tells you, her breasts. "What? Why? Your boobs are great. And isn't that expensive?" You know she can't really afford them. "I’ve always wanted bigger boobs, so why not?” Julie takes another sip of wine. "Besides, I don't think it's anti-feminist or whatever. I'm happier now that I like the way I look. Manifest the things you want, and even more will come to you." “But is it what you want? Or what Tyler wants?" you ask. Julie shrugs, her eyes on the television. "Why can't it be both?” That night, you look at yourself in the harsh fluorescent bathroom lighting. You look sad, and tired. You think about needing a new plan, a fresh start. You pull your hair back and think, “Why not?” Two weeks later, Julie seems astonished when she sees your new look. She's frowning, but you tell yourself that Julie's had a hard time. She went through with the breast implants and while she said she was happy it was harder to breathe. "But the doctor says that will go away soon," she said with forced cheerfulness. You smile and toss your hair extensions-- beautiful, wavy real hair that glints gold and honey and oak-- feeling like Cinderella. "Damn, girl, you look like you could be on tv. It’s like you're a whole new person," she says. She sounds worried, but you admire your gleaming acrylic nails and think to yourself that she's just in a bad mood, maybe even jealous. Luscious new eyelashes have been gently glued to your own, individual eyelashes by a tiny woman named Mia who has the dexterity of a surgeon. Your skin glows a soft, buttery gold thanks to Anna, who strips you down to your underwear in a small tent and sprays you with ice-cold tanning solution while you pose like a bodybuilder. You cannot wear white, use mascara, or sleep on your stomach, but your lashes flutter like a Disney princesses' and everyone at work compliments your tan. At every appointment you’re greeted with glasses of wine, delicate, fluttering hugs, and girl talk, like you’re just visiting a new friend instead of buying something. But the hair extensions-- stiff, two-inch long tapes with paper-thin layers of human hair-- are layered around your head like scales. When your scalp itches, you have to gently reach between the tapes and scratch with one manicured nail. The weight of the hair is immense. You call Marie and start to feel defensive as she asks about how you’re feeling, how much everything costs. “Don’t get me wrong, you look…great,” she says too carefully. “But you looked great before too. And what about your other plans?  You were talking about taking a trip out of the country, that would be fun.” You shrug. “I’m having fun now,” you say. “Besides, I changed my mind about moving. What if I meet someone amazing tomorrow and then we move in together?  I just want to leave my options open.” Marie rolls her eyes and you tamp down the spark of anger that kindles inside you. “Nic, listen to yourself—” she says as you hang up. She doesn’t get it. Maybe you two are just too different now to understand each other. You check your makeup on your camera phone and scowl at the faint lines on your forehead. Your phone chimes as an ad for botox pops up, like magic. You go back to Johanna, the Valkyrie hairdresser who did your extensions. Her salon glitters like a tiny Aladdin's cave as she hands you another glass of wine, asks how your mom is doing. She runs her hands through your hair and you close your eyes and sigh. It’s been a while since anyone touched you. Flipping a handful of swatches around in her hand as though she were shaking a tiny dog, she frowns. "Honey, it's just the weight of the tapes. It's like getting braces, you'll get used to it after a while." You take another sip of wine and see a book lying on the table: The Rules. "Are you really reading that?" you ask. "Oh girl, yes. I know it seems retro, but I'm telling you, I've been using it on this guy who I'm really into and, you know, making him be the hunter? And it's totally working. I swear. He's texting me constantly now." You both laugh as you down the last of your chardonnay, and for a moment you feel like part of a secret club. Then you hand over your credit card for the last of the $2000 it cost to get your mermaid hair. You've never looked or felt better, you think. There’s a reason for everything, which is something you saw embroidered on one of Julie’s pillows. You just have to have faith in the universe, you think. But now you can't sleep. At night you dream of chrysalises, delicate legs breaking out of even more delicate shells. An acrylic nail catches on a snag at work and it rips off, scattering droplets of blood across your desk. You suck your finger and taste the coppery, bitter tang of blood and plastic. You miss one spray tan appointment and are appalled when you get out of the shower and see your skin mottled a dozen different shades, peeling. You're molting, you think. The first time you wash your hair, it bristles and puffs up as if an angry cat is tied to your head. The next night you massage handfuls of rose-scented oil into your hair and braid it. After that it looks beautiful, but you wake up with your hands clawing at your hair, trying to peel away the scales. You swipe on an app until the faces start to blur. You go on a date. He's a lawyer. His name is Josh and you've always liked that name. You have a good time. You're grinning as he walks away, and you catch a glimpse of your reflection. Your hair looks good but now your teeth look a little...dingy. Crooked. One tooth is chipped, you notice. You find a dentist and at his office, he shows you a photo album of gleaming smiles. They look like they could be porcelain, you say. "Oh no, we stopped using that a long time ago," he says cheerfully. The procedure is long and surprisingly painful. Your front teeth are sanded down and a veneer is placed over each tooth like a press-on nail. You are sent home with extra-strength painkillers. You fall into a deep sleep. When you wake up, your mouth feels awkward. You smile in the mirror. Your teeth are gleaming, all right. And they look large, so large. You bite down gently and wince with pain. They'll settle in, you tell yourself. You meet Josh at a steakhouse where you both get salads, and you talk for an hour about favorite restaurants like two alcoholics reminiscing about their favorite drinks. He kisses you in the moonlight, and you flinch away as he caresses your hair, afraid he'll tell it's not yours. You laugh at all his jokes, just like it says in The Rules, even when they aren't funny. He suggests you meet again. You go online and find Josh's Facebook page, his professional website, his instagram. He's so handsome. You look at a picture of him and an ex-girlfriend, standing golden and happy on a beach. If you stare long enough, her face morphs into your own. You start waking up with a gasp in the middle of the night, imagining a snake is wrapped around your neck. It’s just the extensions, you tell yourself. You develop dark circles under your eyes. You still aren’t sleeping, so you go to a very expensive doctor with a perfectly oval face who injects fillers into the shadows under your eyes. She numbs the skin with ice and then a cream, but you can hear the pop the needle makes as it pierces the skin over and over. The deep bruises take a week to fade, or maybe it's two weeks. Your boss calls you into her office to talk about an improvement plan, she believes in you, she knows you’ve had a hard time, but it’s time to show initiative. You nod and try to listen but your scalp keeps aching. People keep complimenting you, except your friends. But they can’t understand your life, what you’re going through, you think. You’re taking control of your life and making positive changes. If feelings were colors you had been blue and drab, endless gray. But now you’re surrounded by gleaming hair, sparkling nails, flattering, and swishy dresses that are delivered every day as if by magic. You tell the mailman that he’s like the helpful mice in a fairy tale but he just rolls his eyes. You go out with Josh two times, or maybe three. "You look beautiful," he says. He kisses you by your car. His lips are soft and sweet. You nearly bite them. He asked if he could come over. You almost say yes, but then stop yourself. You haven’t had time to get ready. He's so handsome, so nice, you think. You want everything to be perfect. That night you run screaming out of a dream where you were chasing someone--or something-- on all fours. Your scalp hurts, your mouth hurts, your muscles hurt, your very bones are throbbing. You hobble to the bathroom and gulp water straight from the faucet, like an animal. You breathe deep and look in the mirror. Your brain stutters in confusion for a second before you recognize yourself. "Oh," you say. "That’s me." You grimace in the mirror, inspecting your new teeth, and for no reason you growl at your reflection. Marie and Pham call you. You see their shocked faces and are proud of how far you've come. "Glow-up!" you trill. When they don't start smiling, you drop the phone on the ground and walk outside and stare at the trees, mesmerized by the way the branches thrash in the rising wind. That night you dream that you're chasing something again, and you wake up teeth bared and hands clawed, triumphant. You caught it that time. When you go to feed the betta fish, who you never got around to naming, you see that the tank is empty. You look around and can’t find a trace of it. Your cards are all declined at the next week's appointments. You panic, shouting that you have to look good, you have to look perfect, you have a date. Johanna pulls her boss from the back of the jeweled cave and you are escorted out. You hiss at the closed door and walk away. You walk all the way back home, crossing a highway and dodging cars. You tell yourself you’ll freshen up at home, but you end up falling asleep, exhausted, outside your front door curled up on the welcome mat. When you wake up, it’s time for your date with Josh. Your fingers scrabble to pick up the bottles and brushes. You impatiently pull off some of the nails so your hands are free as you ignore the blood coursing down your hands. You pull on a dress and notice with satisfaction that it's even looser than it was when you bought it. "John will love this," you say as you twirl in the mirror. "Or Josh, that's right, his name is Josh." Josh has made reservations at the same restaurant you had your birthday at, months ago. He even reserves the best table-- the same one you had before. It's perfect. You're both perfect, you think as he takes your arm. "Why are your fingers bandaged?" He asks. "Oh, just a little accident!" You laugh, maybe for too long. You sit down and toss your beautiful mermaid hair and feel tension snap like a string. Several lengths of hair fall and you hastily kick them under the table. You fix your eyes on Josh-- John-- Josh and ask him about his day. One of your acrylic nails drops off into your soup with a plop, followed by the patter of eyelashes, falling like snowflakes. Josh's voice halts. "Nicole, are you alright? You don't seem like... yourself." You sniff and swipe a hand across your face, smearing your makeup and he hands you a napkin. He's so nice. "I think I'm just tired," you say, and you take a bite of your steak. As you put your fork down Josh gasps. "Nicole, your teeth! What is wrong with your teeth?" Your head whips around to your reflection in the giant glass window. Your veneers are coming off, leaving pointed fangs and nubs. Your mouth is red with meat and blood. You gasp, and as your hands touch your face, you stare and stare and suddenly grin. You turn around and Josh is backing away with his hands up. "Look, let me call an ambulance or something. You're not yourself, you need help, Nicole." You howl with laughter-- he's so funny! You rip hanks of hair from your head and drop them to the ground, relieved as your headache finally, finally fades. You feel that spark of anger again but this time, you let it rise up, up, up until you feel like you’re burning from the inside. "How do you know I'm not myself, Josh? How do you know this isn't the real me?" You look at your figure in the glass, silhouetted in the twilight. You feel your head beginning to clear, finally, now that the pain is gone. As you leave, you walk by a glowing young couple. They could be on a dating show, you think. You lock eyes with the girl, and take in her glowing deeply tanned skin, her shiny, plump lips and long lashes, and wince as you remember how it all felt. She stops in her tracks nervously, eyes darting towards her date. You lean in close, until your hair tangles with hers. “Boo,” you say.

Joan’s face goes blank, but not fast enough to conceal a sour, fleeting look of… scorn? Boredom? Disappointment? All of the above? I sip my lemonade. It’s sour too, and different from the concentrated frozen sugar water I grew up drinking. The menu listed the ingredients: soda water, lemon syrup, dash of violet syrup, sprig of fresh thyme. Purple swirls at the bottom of the glass. So that’s what violets taste like. Most nuances are new to me. Joan’s a blasé New Yorker in her late forties, twice my age. We met through work. Her husband’s a banker; she’s semi-retired and volunteers two days a week at a local nonprofit to get out of the house. You don’t know anyone here, do you, she asked the first day we met. Not really, I said. Couple of friends from high school. On hearing this, Joan arranged a phone call with one of her gay friends, Chet. I didn’t know men were still named that. We did not hit it off. He told me all about his workout routine. It’s been years since I last set foot in a gym and I own no athletic gear. He told me all about his wardrobe, purchased at a discount from the department store where he sells shoes. I wear button-down shirts and my glasses slide down my nose every ten seconds. I asked which authors he liked. You read? he asked. That’s… so interesting. With that, the Chet chat was over. Joan has already heard this, of course, and been told that I’m weird. She keeps her face blank but a sourness lingers. My mouth tastes like violets. I switch to plain water. There will be no more introductions. * I’m climbing the stairs, visiting my new friend Alexandra’s apartment for the first time. It’s in a nicer part of town than where I live. The houses here date from the early 1900s and exude a dusty genteel Southern charm. There are smiles on the painted exteriors; the savagery stays in the basement. About half of these old beauties have been divided into flats. Alexandra’s place is at the top of this outdoor staircase. It’s sunset now, humid. Cicadas drone. Winston-Salem is big enough for there to be a dim rumble of traffic in the distance, but the nearest main road is far enough away that noise doesn’t intrude. A votive candle flickers on every step. It’s been rainy lately, so the wood is damp but still creaks underfoot. For a second, I’m thinking of fires because of course I am. I set my high school dorm room on fire and got kicked out for it. It was an accident. They kicked me out anyway. Five years have passed since then but the memory smolders. I am troublesome, unwelcome. Somehow I am here now; I was invited. I continue my ascent. * From inside comes a shriek: Mark or Matthew. It’s like being back in high school again but with less arson and more screaming. A few months ago, I bumped into those two and my friend Lucy at a laundromat. Lucy is a goth lesbian who favors pale pancake foundation, crushed velvet dresses, and chunky silver rings on every finger. What are you doing here, she asked. What are you doing here? I replied. She works for a bank now. She does things with loans. Matthew and Mark were with her that evening. We’ve hung out a couple of times. Matthew has the cheekbones of a Hollywood leading man and the acne scars and self-esteem deficit of a drama-school dropout. When he’s drunk, which is often, his hands go roaming. Truth be told, I don’t mind, provided Mark doesn’t see. Mark tends to look as if he didn’t quite understand what you just said. He doesn’t talk much. I wonder how tonight will go. It’s Alexandra’s birthday. We’re starting the evening with drinks. She’s booked a limo to take us to a club later. This feels adult, sophisticated, alien. I sort of drone when I talk, and I’m clumsy. I forget most people’s names as soon as I hear them. I’m often told I’m an acquired taste. Is this an acquisition? An audition? * I’m in the big Kroger supermarket now, the newer one across town from where I live. On payday, I shop here instead of the Food Lion closer to home. It’s vast and the linoleum is still white. There’s a loneliness in being mostly broke. Tonight I’ve got an extra fifty dollars. Joan’s friend Cherie wants to throw a party. Joan suggested I help with the decor—a second chance of sorts. Fifty bucks is nothing to them but it’s about the same as my food budget for the last ten days of each month, which means I have to spend two bags of groceries on unspecified festive things for Cherie’s party. I’ve never been to her house, though. I searched the Yellow Pages for a craft store. The one in Winston went bust several months ago. There’s another an hour away, on the west side of Greensboro, too far. Like most grocery stores, Kroger’s sells party supplies. I look for streamers and bunting and find them—in primary colors. I also find birthday candles and cupcake tins. Coloring books and greeting cards. Tubs and tubes of icing and sprinkles in the baking section. They sell art supplies too: I find markers and crayons, packs of construction paper. I pick up a ruler, and it tells me my measure: you don’t know what you’re doing. Nothing goes into my cart that I don’t plan to eat. * Alexandra’s apartment overflows with dark antiques. Bookcases totter—her library’s even bigger than mine. The burgundy walls and crystal stemware give the place the feel of a bordello or a boudoir. I wonder how she affords this on a cashier’s salary. But it’s time to leave for the club. Ahead of me, Mark limps down the stairs to the limo. At first, I think he’s drunk. He acted a little subdued tonight, mostly staying on the sofa nursing his beer. They got in a fight earlier, Lucy tells me later in the club. Matthew threw Mark against the bathroom sink and knocked it clean off the wall. Water went everywhere. Then he fell against the commode, which was backed up and full of turds. His arm went in up to the elbow. Can you imagine? Now I’m watching them dance: Matthew limber and sloshing, Mark stiff and trying to keep his face blank and wincing anyway. Music hammers at us; cigarette smoke hangs thick in the air. I’m going outside, Lucy says. Alexandra and her girlfriend are off in a quiet corner arguing about something. They’re the only people here that I know. Can I join you? I ask. She says yes, and we stand outside in the late-summer damp talking about the mortgage applications she declined this week. It makes her happy, stomping on dreams with her Doc Martens. * Every night at a club has that moment when the lights lose their sparkle, your ears can no longer withstand the pounding music, you notice how sweaty and smelly you are, and you feel dehydrated and just want a shower and a big glass of water. We troop out to the waiting limousine andthe driver opens the door for us. Not wanting the night to be over yet, Alexandra directs him to take the long way home. I can’t tell if Alexandra’s outfit tonight—vintage 1920s flapper dress, shellacked platinum Marilyn Monroe hair—is a costume or whether she always dresses like this. Matthew, ruinously drunk, buzzes open the moonroof, stands up, and screams WE’RE RICH AND YOU SUCK! at pedestrians. Why anyone is on the street at half past one, I have no idea. Mark sucks in his breath through his teeth, stands up, and does it too. So does Alexandra’s tomboy girlfriend whose name I keep forgetting. WE’RE RICH AND YOU SUCK! Except for Lucy and me, everyone else in the car works retail. With the last of the champagne, we raise a toast to being broke. * The chauffeur pulls into a McDonald’s parking lot. Winston isn’t a large city but we’re still about 45 minutes from Alexandra’s place and everyone is drunk and has to pee. I walk in carrying my glass of champagne in its plastic flute. Mark follows me into the men’s room, positions himself at the next urinal, unzips, and makes sure I can see. I’m surprised. Not all of him is average. A second later, Matthew stumbles in, mumbles something about the smell, pulls his shirt up to cover his face, and announces he’s going to use the ladies’. While I’m washing my hands, I hear screams. At the counter, an argument seems to be brewing. The McDonald’s employee doesn’t want to serve Alexandra’s girlfriend because, as he puts it, except for the titties she looks like a boy. Alexandra snaps, she was a woman last night when her legs were wrapped around my face. Matthew tumbles out of the women’s room, joins us at the counter, and helps himself to a sip of my champagne. You can’t drink that in here! the McDonald’s guy exclaims. I tell him it’s ginger ale and he can tell I’m lying. You should all get out of here, he warns. Just get out of here before I call the manager. Or the cops. Or the manager and the cops. Go. And we do. I’m the only one who notices the flashing blue lights in the distance as the chauffeur speeds away from the restaurant, no doubt keen to be done with work, with us, with this whole night. * Chocolate cupcakes are festive, aren’t they? I’ve cashed the check and the extra bills are painful in my wallet, even more so when I stop off at the bakery in the nearby mall. I’m running low on coffee and breakfast cereal, two items I’ve vowed I must never run out of (toilet paper is the other). I’ll survive—I’ve got pasta and sauce, cans of soup, ramen, and a package of chicken breasts—but it’s the grim end of the month. It’s getting dark. I’m taken aback when I pull up the driveway at Cherie’s house in the suburbs. It’s bigger than I was expecting, if not as mansion-like as Joan’s. The azaleas are a tumbling riot of purple and pink but everything else about the place is tidy, suburban, and white. Cherie has just gotten divorced. She thinks a party will reset her social life. She hasn’t turned the porch light on yet. Shadows surround the front door. For a second, I wonder if I’m in the right place. Often I’m not. I knock anyway. A moment later, she lets me in. Sees the flat box of cupcakes. Asks where the decorations are. Almost masks her disappointment when I tell her this was all I could think of, all I could find, but not quite. * Cherie is tipsy, maudlin, and struggling with buyer’s remorse. There’s nothing at all wrong with her decor—tasteful objets d’art and furniture I doubt she bought locally, a couple of tall white candles burning on the mantel, no dust on the blinds or the parquet—but she had her heart set on glitter and confetti. Not just the literal sparkly stuff but also the human kind: a pack of young gay boys to liven things up. Dance music, cocaine, and merry shrieking. We could paint each other’s nails and die of the giggles. Joan glowers. She asks, have you met him? Guests begin to arrive. That was my other job, curating guests. Matthew and Mark, both hammered, rode with Lucy, who tells us not to expect Alexandra. She’s fighting with her girlfriend again. They break up every couple of months. Is that the Marilyn Monroe one? Cherie asks. I was hoping to meet her. She sounded… effervescent. I’m sorry, is all I can think of to say. I’m so sorry. Would you like a cupcake? Would you like a refund? * Months ago, over a different lunch with Joan and Cherie, I told them about our night with the limousine. I left a lot out, made it more madcap. Oops. Now two more guests—the last ones I’ve invited—have arrived: my other high school friend, and a mutual friend I dated briefly and still have a crush on. The high school friend is a straight woman, fun and vibrant and smart. Joan and Cherie take one look at her and are civil. For all her charm, she isn’t going to sneeze glitter, fart sparks, or pull a disco ball out of her purse. The guy I dated comes the closest to the gay-boy fantasy I’m only now realizing was the intended but unmentioned theme of the evening: he’s borrowed a little black dress from my high school friend and is drunk. Before long, Mark and Matthew are arguing. Lucy and Joan are glaring at each other, a case of instant mutual loathing. Matthew goes into the bathroom and can be heard throwing up. Aren’t any more of your gay friends coming? Cherie asks. Hope dies behind her eyes. I don’t know anyone else, though. I thought she knew that. I ask, you didn’t invite anyone? Neither of you did? They did not. My high school friend is the first to bail, sensibly reading the room and closing the book. The toilet flushes. Matthew emerges and says chocolate cupcakes and vodka don’t mix, but don’t worry, it’s not diarrhea. But this isn’t festive at all! Cherie wails. I look at her, then at Joan: one in tears now, the other glowering. I don’t know whether it’s more polite to leave or offer to stay and help clean up their mess. This is the last time I will see either of them outside of work. Being gay incorrectly: this isn’t a problem I thought you could have. There will be no more introductions. Marshall Moore is an American author, publisher, and academic based in Cornwall, England. He is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which is a short-story collection titled Love Is a Poisonous Color (Rebel Satori Press, 2023). His short fiction and essays have been published in The Southern Review, Eclectica, Pithead Chapel, Trampset, Asia Literary Review, and many other magazines and journals. He holds a PhD in creative writing from Aberystwyth University, and he teaches at Falmouth University. For more information or to stalk him online, please visit linktr.ee/marshallsmoore.