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ghosted “You all live once,” the app screamed, like Munch. Filled bodies, slick and brickly on the outside, hardened by days of burbled swiping that scorched fingers with every ocular rotation around the sun. “His inside flamed out soft, his eternities now irrevocably cooled,” she said, unmatching, in bed, freedom falling from her fingers doused in ghost pepper hot. Here’s How Gods Die Apocalypse tapped his fingers on the broken floating table, and wondered why people looked at him as if studying stained glass. He gave them books, and viruses, drugs, poetry and song, even stems that stung. He treasured beyond measure the cost of those, and the loss they masqueraded. The requirements he absolved them of, gluttons for his generational success. Mad people regaled their children, eating their stories and spilling them out. As his chair drifted away from the table, he wondered if the years had been lengthier, and the sky brighter, if they all hadn’t died, his life would have gone on any longer. Vicky MacDonald Harris’ work resides in The Lincoln Underground, The Flat Water Stirs: An Anthology of Emerging Nebraska Poets, Tiny Poems, Two Cities Review, and Hobble Creek Review. Recent work in Fiery Scribe Review, Janus Literary, Strange Horizons, Ellipsis Zine, Great Lakes Review, Whale Road Review, Mantis, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and Paragraph Planet. Forthcoming in Persephone’s Fruit, and Eunoia Review.

We moved on Tuesday but didn’t unpack right away. Mom said the boxes made it look like we had more furniture so we left them taped up and I went for a walk. I announced my departure and I’m sure she responded but I had no way of knowing what she said. Reading lips only works if you can see them. I made my way out the building and merged onto a crowded sidewalk, but it wasn’t crowded with people. The transformation had begun, as it happens when I’m lonely, and turned everyone into trees. I found myself in the woods, the only boy around except I wasn’t a boy, I was a tree, just like everyone else. I ducked into a bodega to buy some gum, my limbs less leafy, my fingers again fingers, and grabbed the first pack I saw. I paid and put the change in my pocket, left and let the transformation continue until an intersection forced me to stop, me and some others, and I could feel myself feeling less like a tree. We were on our way to grapes, all of us, and grapes are much better than trees. When the light changed, I crossed with the bunch. Dusk became dark and traffic jammed the streets. Headlights shot the car in front and I imagined the beams were a single beam, like long light-skewers piercing g through a car-kebob. I chewed gum and popped it rapid-fire, an annoying habit according to my mom, but I can’t comprehend sound being bothersome. A man collecting money shook a shiny bell, throwing rings at people who passed, an invasive tactic but no one seemed to mind, so I concluded no one minded my gum, either, and gave him the coins from my pocket. Back in my building, my mom asked how I found the city. “Loud,” I joked. The boxes were gone and our apartment looked empty. “Does the bell matter?” I watched her mouth. Reading lips was easy; minds were a bit more difficult. “Bell?” “A man collecting money rang a bell.” She asked if I gave him anything and I nodded, then realized that by answering her question, I’d also answered mine. She suggested tea. “Sounds good,” I said, and we both laughed. She returned with two mugs and we blew ripples on the surface. “I felt like a grape.” “When?” “When I crossed the street.” She smiled because she knew what I knew, that grapes are better than trees. The tea was hot and we blew more ripples. Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Halfway Down the Stairs, Flash Boulevard, and Club Plum. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.

Conception Things got too hot, you couldn’t stop your dams from breaking. Your swollen rivers, thick and thawed washed over me in white water tides. Then, those frozen tears you hold back out of hard habit melted, at last, and dripped down your round cheekbones to mix and mingle with our sweat that condensed on my chest until we collapsed together sobbing but safe now with nothing left. It really could be like that: Tension, friction, and life-giving release. Tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, pain, passion, volcanic eruption. A seed settling into shuddering stillness, the moment of a new world’s conception. Jade and Other Jewels Back behind an abandoned brothel, half-way between Mina, nowhere, and Tonopah, Nevada, ghosts chase magpies through the mist. Ghosts don’t like the colors of magpie feathers because they reflect the history of this land. Black and blue are the beatings they took. White, the blank space they wish would replace all the green feathers that remind them of the age-old quest for jade and other jewels that killed them. That’s why if you watch magpies eat the dead, they’ll haunt you until you become a hollow bone instead of a soft circle of skin. Skin doesn’t shatter. But life, like water, flows through bones better and flesh, in the end, always rots if it isn’t eaten by magpies before the ghosts in the mist chase them all away. Stillborn Yolk The mockingbird cannot read other people’s poetry. She mimics their songs. But only to prove she can, indeed, sing. It does not matter, she thinks, who sings it better: the poet or her or the wind through the tree she perches in. When her speckled babies crack and stillborn yolk spills out, any sound is better than true silence, empty and dead, or the incessant gnaw of insatiable chainsaws with scrambled egg on their face. Taking Coyotes Seriously I was so lost I found myself out there in the sagebrush taking coyotes seriously. Their instructions involved smoothing the sand out, sifting through the dirt with my fine-toothed hands, searching for bones shattered by cavalry carbine bullets, unspeakable tragedies still unspoken, and stories no one would tell me. I blew on the earth, trying to rekindle the sparks of the desert’s memories. Nothing happened. You cannot get blood from stone, but I hoped desert soil was different. Turns out, when spilled blood soaks into soil, it doesn’t give it back. And why wouldn’t desert soil be a lot like us? Somethings no one ever wants to remember. Silver Spoons Stabbed in the back by silver spoons wielded by those who care more about table manners than the famine. They spoon-feed themselves on what they find in my heart. They take more than that, finally scraping my ribs clean of my last inclination to resist. Flashfloods toss my skeleton like whale bones in a hurricane into slot canyons where the long conversations of tectonic plates grind me into salt to spice the soil. It's only when I sink into earth that I learn betrayal is nothing new under the sun. I feel the knife in each skyscraper, oil well, and open pit mine. I hear each degree Celsius climb the thermometer's mercury ladder to the tune of clinking silver pieces. But the worst pain of all is the way some of her children sell her out to declare her pain, pleasure and her pleasure, pain. They think smog makes the sunset more beautiful. They cut off mountains they decide shouldn't be there. They tell rivers where to go. They capture freely given sunshine, yoke the wind, and divide what should have always been indivisible. They say they are color blind while seeing only in black and white. Their treachery began when they forgot that clean water always quenches your thirst. Now, they hallucinate the queerest of theories: that which can be transgressed must be transgressed. Will Falk is an activist, author, and attorney. The natural world speaks and poetry is how Will listens. His law practice is devoted to helping Native American communities protect their sacred sites and cultural resources. His first full-length collection of poetry When I Set the Sweetgrass Down was published by Homebound Publications' Wayfarer Books in April 2023. You can follow his work at willfalk.org.

When Chloe came home from school she spotted another pile of romance novels by the side of her mother’s chair. She picked one up from the top of the pile. ‘So…  has Nurse Goody-Two-Shoes married Dr Truelove, yet?’ she grinned. Her mother rolled her eyeballs, and continued basting the roast. At dinner time Chloe’s father’s plate resembled Mount Vesuvius. The Yorkshire pudding on top of his pile of mashed potatoes looked ready to explode. After dinner he lay on the sofa, snoring and farting while, against this familiar cacophony, Chloe tried to do her maths homework and her mother tried to read her book. ‘Tell him to go to bed to sleep,’ Chloe whispered. Her mother sighed and turned a page. The next evening as her father pushed away his cleared plate, stood up, belched, farted, loosened his belt and wandered into the living room, preparing to lie down on the sofa, Chloe’s mother called after him, suggesting he go to bed. He’d be so much more comfortable in bed, she said. To Chloe’s surprise, he complied without arguing for once. When he was out of the room Chloe asked her mother what on earth had attracted her to him in the first place. Her mother closed her book and smoothed her hand over the front cover which showed a young doctor and nurse in uniform gazing at each other. ‘He was very slim back then,’ she said. ‘Athletic. Tall. Blond hair and lovely blue eyes. Nice manners.’ ‘So… what happened?’ ‘Not long after we met he left to join his ship to fight in the war.’ She opened her book. ‘I saw him off at the docks. He looked so handsome in his naval uniform. While he was away he wrote the most beautiful love letters. Really romantic. Five years later, when the war ended, he came home and we got married.’ A long pause.  ‘But he was different. Well, that was quite a common occurrence back in those days. The war you know.’ She turned a page. ‘And he found it hard to hold down a job.’ Chloe sat at the table and opened her maths book. She closed her eyes and thought of Sean, Captain of the school rugby team. His flaxen hair. His periwinkle eyes. His square jaw and muscular body. She thought of how he’d asked her this morning to help him with his maths homework and how she’d ended up doing it all for him because he couldn’t understand any of it and she thought of the way he’d winked at her and how it had made her melt all the way down to her toes and she thought of how he’d joked that she could do all his maths homework from now on if she liked and she thought of how the other girls in her class stared at her, jealousy written all over their usually smug faces. She wondered what Sean would look like in a couple of decades. Not that he was likely to go away to war. Would there even be a war in the future? She thought again of his flirty smile. His twinkling eyes. She wondered what kind of job he’d get when he couldn’t even do basic maths. She heard her mother sigh and turn another page. Chloe opened her eyes. She opened them wide. Sandra Arnold’s work includes her two 2023 published books The Bones of the Story, Impspired Books, UK and Where the Wind Blows, Truth Serum Press, Australia and her 2019 books The Ash, the Well and the Bluebell, Mākaro Press, NZ; Soul Etchings, Retreat West Books, UK. Her short fiction has been published internationally and received nominations for The Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions and The Pushcart Prize. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Central Queensland University, Australia. www.sandraarnold.co.nz

had this addiction, was shooting pure gold into washed-out veins while i kissed his wife in the back seat, and he kept driving down the same dead-end streets, past the same barren factories kept saying he’d know the truth when he saw it words wrapped in blinding flame and each letter laid down as big as the fist of god John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in compassionate nihilism which, as luck would have it, has all the best bands. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023).

There is the grind of grief and there is also the rising. Yes he had a mother too, as everyone does. What can it mean to have a mother, to lose a mother, to arrive in probate court with a mustache. When I stand beside a river’s wet bank do I leap in or do I slither. My mother would have asked me to lower my voice, or that’s how I think of her. Really the last thing she asked was through gritted teeth: end it quickly. As always I was helpless and for once I followed the rules. In my dreams she visits I never remember the context only that she was here. Ms. Sultani earned her MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She currently resides in the metro Atlanta area, where she does her best to avoid the freeways. Her poems are included or forthcoming in CERASUS, Delta Poetry Review and Doubly Mad, among others.

He came to in an instant, like someone flipped a breaker. Sitting up, he looked around wondering where he was. This thought led him to question who he was and what he had been doing. He couldn’t remember anything. Upon standing, he realized he was a part of an assembly line within a warehouse or maybe a distribution center. Thousands of square feet spread before him filled with conveyors, sorters, and storage racking. Massive ceiling fans spread the scent of gun oil and raw metal. A cacophony of constant motion filled the space and he could hear the click-clack sounds of parts being snapped together. The pick rack behind him held coffin boxes of rifles. To his left a baker’s rack stored pre-filled ammunition clips. This was a munitions factory. His role, apparently, entailed picking a gun, inserting a clip, and sending it down the conveyor for pack in a palletized wooden box. Further down, forklifts ran, picking up full pallets and delivering empties. His lack of productivity slowed the line but didn’t stop it thanks to others sharing the line. Taking action, he instinctively picked a gun, swiveled, loaded a clip, and dropped it on the conveyor. It felt right. In his disorientation, anything that felt normal relieved him. He grabbed another. Metallic tapping drew his attention above. An armed woman strolled along a catwalk. “Hey, who am I?” No reaction. Catwalk-woman wore orange noise protectors. He moved to the worker next to him. “Hey, who am I?” His line partner did not respond, just continued working without acknowledgement. “WHO AM I?” he screamed surprisingly loud, over the clamoring machinery. No one noticed. Everyone along the line ignored his cry. He used the butt of his gun to tap his counterpart on the shoulder. “Seriously, I’m scared. Was it exhaustion? Did I pass out?” Nothing. He tapped harder, interrupting the picker. “I can’t remember anything. Is there a medical station? Come on. Who am I?” The stranger remained silent, then resettled and went back to work. “Who am I?” he screamed again and swung the gun full force at the picker’s head. With a crunch the head caved in and he toppled backward pulling a rack of clips down in the process. The body remained still as clips covered it and hit the floor with a CLANG. Some released their loads and brass casings rolled across the floor. “I just want to know who I am.” On auto-pilot, he picked up a full clip and slid it home into the gun. He was about to place it on the conveyor when the click-click of catwalk footfalls distracted him. He shouted up, “Who am I?” and shook the gun at the woman above to get her attention. Still wearing noise protection, she hadn’t heard the call, but she saw the figure shaking a gun like an extremist, she ran toward a grey box on a pole further down the catwalk. Seeing her run, he jerked his gun up and fired two three-round bursts. Two rounds found their target. One ripped through her knee tearing patella and bone fragments out the front as it exited in a ragged hole. The other round pierced her back, the impact rupturing a kidney. She fell on her good knee, but reached the box. She reached and pressed a red button in the center of the console. Speakers began blaring “Killer! Killer! Killer!” Sirens wailed. The alarm shrieked over the noise of the warehouse, but the workers did not look up. Each of them remained focused on their assigned task. No reaction at all. Seized by fear he froze for a moment until he saw four more people—guards called by the alarm—running toward him from the far side of the catwalk with weapons drawn. He looked down the aisle of picking racks and spied a door at the end.  He bolted for the door, fleeing like a rabbit. As he reached for the handle it burst open knocking him backward. His legs tangled and he went ass over teakettle landing on his back facing the door, where four guards crowded through at once. He could see fear on their faces mirroring his own. “Wait!” he yelled scrabbling backward. Two guards fired their weapons. He held his arms up, holding out the gun to ward off the shots. They missed wide. He noticed they weren’t bullets—like his gun—but rather odd blue balls of energy that left black marks on the floor and a scent of ozone in the air. He reversed his gun and fired. The bodies were so bunched in the doorway he hit the guards by pure accident. He didn’t want to hurt anyone just wanted to scare them off to escape. In that spirit, he turned and ran down a hall to his left. He passed rows of shelves and pallets of more guns. As he reached a ladder leading up to another catwalk, he saw a far door swing open and more guards pour into the hallway. Trapped. He climbed. Higher and higher toward the raised platform. But he saw more of them up there. “No,” he whispered and fired up toward the opening to clear a path. Bullets whizzed off the metalwork hitting no one. The gun clicked empty. He dropped it. Watching it fall he saw guards ascending after him now. He started climbing again and saw heads poke through the opening above. Then, the heads were replaced by guns. “Please! Don’t shoot.” He looked up and down pleading. “I just want to know who I am.” They fired. Energy from the weapons racked his body with shocking pain. His vision dimmed and he felt himself release the ladder. # Roberto Gonzales—Bobby G—watched the doors slam on the maintenance van. After being an on-site guard for two years he felt like an old pro. “One of ‘em turns killer every now and again,” Bobby said. “I don’t get it man,” Jasmine replied, brow furrowed. “Did you hear what it said? Askin’ who it was, right?” “Yeah, think so.” “Right see. It almost seemed human, talkin’ like that. I’m thinkin’ they’re makin’ these ‘bots too good.” After the repair truck left, they headed back to finish their shift. Brandon Doughty is a writer of lists, notes and fiction. His stories have been seen in publications like Punk Noir, Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Aethlon: Journal of Sports Literature, and the new crime anthology Crimeucopia: Totally Psycho Logical. Brandon lives in Austin, TX with his wife, two children and their dog Ripley.

Nothing quenches the fire in my blood: the way your body moves fans the embers of desire, and your whispered sweetnesses are an irresistible accelerant. For you - or to have you - or if I lost you - I would burn the world to ashes, then watch you rise above, sweet phoenix. Alastair Millar enjoys good books, bad puns, coffee and travelling. Links to his social media and published writing can be found at https://linktr.ee/alastairmillar

Mackinac Island - Week Four - 2004 Sunday The staff dining room walls were the color of cooked egg yolk, the floors a hospital white. Sterile, bland, and unimagined, it was a stark contrast to the parts of the hotel visible to guests with lavender walls, emerald carpets, and floral wallpaper. The building came alive for our customers; admittedly, so did we. Chef stood at the banquet table arranging platters of food. He always prepared the specials for family dinner. If we didn’t eat them, we’d be pulled from the shift. It was partly about control, partly about making sure we could sell the most expensive dishes. I didn’t mind. It was my way of staying well-fed. I reached for a plate just as his dry, calloused hand wrapped around my wrist. I recoiled and yanked my arm back, but he didn’t let go. My skin pulled between his fingers. “Enjoy,” he growled. His lips, pink and chapped, glistened with either sweat or spit beneath his charcoal mustache. He leaned in. He lingered. “Thank you,” I whispered, wriggling free. He returned to the kitchen, and I looked at the group with a shrug. “The fuck?” said Peter. I stared at my wrist. He hadn’t left a mark, but I could still feel his skin on mine. * We savored the coffee until the last of it was poured, then dripped into the dining room for side work. Chef called to me from the bulletin board. “What’d you think of the food?” “Yeah, it was good,” I replied, stopping just beyond his reach. His mustache was freshly trimmed, his teeth polished white, but when he smiled, I could see they were crooked and chipped in the front. He pointed at the schedule on the corkboard, “we’ll continue to see a lot of each other next week.” “Oh yeah?” “Extra shifts. I thought you might like the money. It’ll go up in a couple of days.” “Oh.” I hadn’t realized he made the server schedules. “Right. Thank you for that.” He looked me over with a smirk as he returned to the line, shouting at the cooks to finish prepping the asparagus. I scurried past him to join Peter at the side station. “Chef is so strange,” I moaned. “Bonafide whackjob, but don’t screw this up. Befriend the chef and you’ll have the easiest summer of your life, and so will I…by extension.” He nudged me and giggled before handing me a handful of forks to polish. * Ted’s Place was the only bar off Main Street that didn’t require a reservation, so it filled up quickly and hummed until last call. Small and dimly lit by scattered neon signs, Glam Metal pulsed from the jukebox in the corner, even though we could barely hear it, and intermingling bodies ushered waves of flowery perfume and sandalwood and Coppertone. Rich people never smell like sweat. Ted was pouring us a line of tequila shots when we walked in, and by the time the last person had a glass in hand, Peter had already had at least two. I obliged with the first, but the warmth of my bed summoned, so I waved at Peter as he raised another shot into the air and howled. Outside, the heaviest rain from the day’s storm had ended, but mist continued to spray like the wake of a distant boat, spitting from every direction. I draped the hood of my raincoat over my ponytail, though it did little to keep me dry, and looked down as I hurried my steps. I wasn’t paying attention when I collided with him. “I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, lifting my head. “Leaving so soon?” It was Chef. I stepped back, widening the breadth between us. My heartbeat quickened. “I’m lunch shift tomorrow, so I want to rest up.” “Lunch isn’t breakfast. I was hoping we could talk a little tonight. Get to know each other.” He seemed unbothered by the water pellets forming in his hairline, and he stepped closer. His breath, sour and warm, mingled with the thick, heavy air and wafted against my skin. “I appreciate that. Maybe another night.” “Maybe we need to take you off doubles so you can have more fun at night.” I shivered even though I wasn’t cold. “That’s not necessary. I’m glad to do it. I need the money.” He stepped closer, even as I moved further away, and he leveled his eyes with mine. “With a face like yours, you aren’t going to have any trouble making money.” I pulled the hood over my forehead, almost covering my eyes, and stepped around him. My breathing quickened, and I worried I might vomit. “I really should get going. See you tomorrow,” I said as I started to jog. “Looking forward to it!” My feet moved faster and faster until I was running. I ran as fast as I could up that wet hill, splashing and sliding over the pavement, wondering if I should tell someone. But what was there to tell? Monday Chef shouted my name as I passed through the kitchen. I tightened my grip around my pen, and my fingernails carved into my palm. “You know the specials?” He leaned on his heels like a schoolgirl with a secret, his hands clasped behind his back. “I do.” They were the same as last shift. “Can you describe them?” I tilted my head and pursed my lips. “Of course I can.” He chuckled and removed one hand from behind his back, taking my wrist and holding my hand open. I wondered which one of us was sweating as my palm dampened, and I shifted on my feet. His grip tightened, holding me still before handing me a plum-like object. “That’s a fig. It’s one of the rarest known figs in the world and more expensive than anything you’ve had to eat all day. All week, probably.” I turned it over in my hand, wondering what he wanted me to do with it. “Try it,” he whispered. I knew others were watching us now. I needed to indulge him to end the moment and get into the dining room, to be anywhere but near him. “Just take a bite? Right into it?” He nodded and grabbed my wrist to guide the fig to my lips, but I jerked back and shook his hand away. Clear from his grasp, I bit into its flesh. He stepped forward and placed his hand on my elbow. “These were special ordered, and that one was ordered just for you.” He rubbed my arm and continued, “There’s so much I have to teach you. There’s so much for us to experience together.” I felt sick. The fig tasted bitter as I pulled it from my lips, and he held out his hand to take it from me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want anyone to get jealous, but I’ll have more treats for you tomorrow.” He turned to the line and shouted something about the crab, and I was left standing in the middle of the kitchen. Alone. * “The hell was that about?” Peter asked. He leaned against the side station pinching a white linen cloth around the rim of a wine glass. “You saw that?” “Honey. Everyone saw that. You were in the middle of the kitchen.” “Peter, I don’t know. Something isn’t right.” “Tell me you’re not into him.” “You’re kidding.” “I hope so! But I don’t know! You two, all huddled up, whispering sweet nothings…” Bile rose in my throat. “It’s not like that.” “Baby, with that little show you just put on, everyone is talking. And you better get your shit together ‘cause that’s how you make enemies in a place like this. And believe me, you do not want enemies here.” He smacked the cloth against my thigh and left to check the reservations. I jumped, startled to be touched again. * I tried to explain the situation at Ted’s. I told the other servers I wasn’t encouraging it, that I wanted it to stop, but I knew they were skeptical. Chef leered at the rest of them, shouting insults at how they stacked their trays, but he’d offer to load mine. Peter wrapped his arm around me and called me his little hussy before leaving to flirt with a handsome blonde. I hoped that as long as I had him the rest of the staff would come around, but I worried that because Peter and I were so close, they might think his pet name was true. Epithets become titles so effortlessly. Tuesday It was another double shift. The back room and patio had been booked for an all-day reception, and I was assigned to it with Jessica, a tall brunette with plump lips and ice-blue eyes. She didn’t smile much, but she was so beautiful that the guests were grateful to accept their plates from her. We shared every table, all responsibilities, and Chef was on his best behavior. When the last guest had left, Jessica and I observed the dining room. Crayon and chimichurri sauce and some sort of vinaigrette were swirled over the top of the white linen tablecloths like an edible homage to Van Gogh. Wine glasses lay on their sides, and soda glasses were packed with soggy bread, limp French fries and torn pieces of paper. Fragments of food crunched beneath our feet as we surveyed the damage. People can be disgusting. “Salvage what you can,” the manager said. So that’s what we did. We stacked the dishes onto the trays, piling the silverware against the outer rims, and shook the napkins over the plates. The napkins could be saved, but only two of the twelve tablecloths had survived. We created a mound on the laundry room floor and left it to housekeeping to determine how to discard anything unusable. Jessica and I didn’t speak. Speaking required energy, and we were too tired to expend what we had left on conversation; our weary glances and sighs said more than words could, anyway. When we finally finished, we entered the kitchen to gather our things, and Chef stood next to the island with a bowl of pasta in his hands. “Hungry?” I was ravenous. I took it and thanked him, not pausing to think about what he, or Jessica, or anyone would think. “You worked hard today,” he said, following me into the staff dining room. “You should be proud of yourself. What do you have left to do? Why don’t you relax and I’ll finish up.” I smiled and grabbed two forks from the service station. “I’m all finished, but thank you. And thank you for this.” I kicked my shoes onto the floor and folded my legs beneath me, sinking into a chair with a sigh. Jessica passed the doorway, and I shouted for her to join me. Chef appeared just as she sat down. “I made that for you,” he barked. “No, I know,” I said slowly, handing Jessica a fork. “But there’s so much here and we’re both so hungry.” My voice cracked at the end, a betrayal of my nerves. His arms were tense at his sides, and his mouth pulled down in the corners. His eyes were almost impossible to see beneath his caterpillar brow, and he said nothing as he watched Jessica twirl forkfuls of pasta. She oscillated glances between us. “This is really good, Chef,” she offered, breaking the silence. He didn’t reply. He wasn’t looking at her anymore because he was locked on me, and I stared into the food in front of me until he walked away. * Peter was eager to inquire about the pasta when I got to Ted’s. I didn’t bother asking what he’d been told. I already knew. His grin was too wide. His eyes were too delighted. It was too scandalous. “It’s not ideal,” I admitted, “this whole thing. I don’t even know how it started. It’s not like I’m doing anything.” “Just wait until you do,” he laughed. I groaned and pretended to vomit as his eyes turned toward the door. “Heads up,” he said, standing to join a group at the jukebox. Chef was walking toward me. I wanted to ask Peter to stay, but I hadn’t told him how scared I was. I worried he wouldn’t understand. Chef favored me, that much was clear, but he hadn’t threatened me. He hadn’t hurt me. I wondered if I was overreacting. So I let him leave, straightened my back, and stared at the bar top as Chef sat down next to me. “You know, if I wanted to make Jessica dinner, I would have made her a plate.” I nodded. A conversation was unavoidable. “You have next Wednesday off.” “Do I?” I hadn’t checked to see if the new schedule was up. “You do. I made sure of it because I do, too. I thought we’d get off the island for the day and go to the Farmer’s Market. I was there last week, and it’s got some really great stuff. It’s a nice drive, too. A ways out into nothing.” I ran my fingers over the fibers of the coaster. One side was wet and blistered, the other flat and soft like fabric. I turned it to the lumpy side and pressed on the bubbles, keeping my hands busy to hide how intensely they were shaking. It didn’t work. “I think I might be picking up a shift for Toni,” I lied. “She can find someone else. As your boss, I can say when I want you working–and when I don’t. Blame it on me.” “Oh no, I couldn’t do that to her. We already agreed to it.” His stare burned into me, then through me. My heart thumped in my throat. “She won’t mind. I already made the arrangements and told them.” “You told who?! What arrangements?” My voice was shrill. “Everyone at the restaurant. I told them I would be going away on Wednesday night.” I didn’t understand. “Night?” His mouth curled into a crooked, broken-toothed smile. “See…now you get it. It’ll be so nice. Let Toni find someone else.” He leaned in, and I stood and stepped behind my stool. “I can’t do that.” “You can, and you will,” he growled. “Stop being such a pussy and have some fun.” I blinked and steadied myself against the stool. The cells of my skin crawled over and slid around each other. “We seem awfully serious over here,” sang Peter as he stepped up behind me. My throat constricted, and my eyes welled with tears. I wrapped my fingers around his forearm and asked him to pull up a chair. He studied my face as he placed a stool between Chef and me. We were a tight triangle, and I sat back down. I didn’t want to stay. But I was terrified to leave. “How’s it go–.” “We’re in the middle of something,” Chef spat. Peter smiled, continuing to search my face. “There’s always room for one more, right? You were crazy busy today, huh?” Before I could answer, Chef leaned in and snarled, “What don’t you understand? We’re having a conversation that doesn’t concern you. If you don’t get outta here you’re gonna have a real problem.” Peter looked at me. He understood. “You want to come sit with the rest of the group?” “We’re not done here,” Chef said. His elbow was on the bar. The edges of a napkin stuck out from between his fingers. “You know what, I’m really tired,” I said, standing. “I think I’m just gonna go.” Chef pounded his fist on the bar top. “I said we’re not done!” I looked down and saw the napkin he’d been holding crumpled next to his glass. His fingers now wrapped around my arm. My skin between them was white. “Oh, but I think we are, right? Done here?” Peter stood and put his hand beneath my arm. When Chef’s grip broke, we left. Outside, my knees trembled, and sweat matted the hair to the back of my neck. “Maybe he’s just having a bad night,” Peter said. I looked at my feet and kicked the pebbles beneath them. Maybe I was inflating everything in my mind. Peter had just witnessed it but didn’t seem overly concerned. “Yeah, maybe.” “Can I walk you home?” I didn’t want to give Chef a reason to retaliate against him, so I told him I was fine. Peter went back into the bar, and I went home alone. Even the crickets made me jump. Wednesday Early in the afternoon, the sun beckoned eager children to the shore with their parents in tow, and the streets hummed with shoppers. The restaurant was quiet, so I cleaned anything I could find, knowing the guests would arrive when their skin was sufficiently baked and their bellies were sufficiently empty. I stood at the service sink when his hand wrapped around my forearm. His skin was rough like sandpaper. I hadn’t heard him come in. “Come with me.” He knocked the cloth from my hand and pulled me into the pantry, shoving me against the wall behind the industrial fan. The blades created a loud, persistent whir that echoed off the cement walls and the metal shelving. All other sounds were erased. He stood in front of me and curled his hands over my shoulders. I lifted my arms to push him off, but he took my wrists and forced them to my sides. I pressed the back of my head against the cinder blocks behind me, praying they’d soften and pull me in, but the wall remained upright, coarse and cold. He leaned in, his chest rose and fell against mine. “Look at me.” His eyes were black and incensed, frenzied with adrenaline, and beads of sweat were forming in the creases of his forehead. I knew he felt my heart pounding against him as his mouth curled into a wicked smile. I wanted to yell, to shriek for help, but my tongue was too heavy. I was paralyzed with fear. “It’s been arranged,” he hissed. “What’s--,” he brought his finger to my lips and shook his head to silence me. “Not until I’m finished.” His breath poured over my skin in putrid waves of onions and sweat. I held my breath. “You’re coming off this island with me next Wednesday. I don’t know if we’re staying overnight. Pack a bag just in case.” “But I–.” “Do I look finished?” He shook my wrists and pressed his body harder against mine, almost as if he wanted to make sure I felt the weight of him. He looked at the open door and then back to me. Bristly ends of his mustache rubbed against my cheek, and his hands tightened around my wrists. My hands tingled. “No one will know about this,” he leveled his eyes with mine. “Do you understand?” I nodded. “Do…you…understand?” “I understand.” I could barely whisper. He smacked his lips and brought his mouth to my ear. “I’m going to treat you like no one’s treated you. And if you tell anyone about this,” he paused and sucked in my scent, “I’ll know. You understand? I’ll know.” Releasing me, he grinned and strode to the door. “Wait to come out until I’ve been out there a while. I don’t want anyone to think we’ve been inappropriate in here.” He whistled as he walked away. I placed my hand over my mouth to stifle any sounds, but I knew, even if I wailed, no one could hear me. I slid down the wall and hugged my legs to my chest. My mind was blank with panic as tears dripped to my knees. After a few minutes, I stood and gathered myself, brushing the dust from my pants and the wetness from my face and worked quickly and quietly for the rest of the night. I was in the kitchen only when absolutely necessary and went back to the apartment when the shift was over, vowing to handle it in the morning. I slept poorly, tossing and turning as I tried to forget the feeling of Chef’s hot breath on my skin, his fingers around my wrists, his body pressed against mine. Thursday I rose with the sun and went to the cafe, but it was closed for another hour. Sitting on the dock, I dangled my feet over the water and stared at my phone. I wanted to call Mom, but I didn’t want to worry her. She’d been through enough and was seven hundred miles away piecing her life back together. It felt selfish to interfere with that. Dad was a four-hour drive. Even if he and I didn’t like one another very much, I was still his daughter. I assumed that meant he’d have to help. The phone rang twice before he sang a happy and familiar hello on the other end. “Dad?” My voice trembled. “Hi, munchkin.” My shoulders relaxed. He sounded pleased to hear my voice. “I...I think I’m in trouble.” “What do you mean, ‘trouble?’” I told him about the advances, the touches, the meals, and the demands. “I don’t know what he wants from me, but I’m afraid of what’s going to happen if I go off this island with him. I’m also afraid of what’s going to happen if I don’t.” There was a long pause before Dad replied, “well, Pumpkin, I don’t really know what it is you want me to do here. You need to be firm, hold your position, and tell him you aren’t going anywhere with him.” His voice was flat, direct. “I tried that, Dad. It didn’t do anything.” He sighed, sounding exhausted and bored. “Well, dear, there comes a time when you need to be an adult and handle your own situations. Don’t be ambiguous about your response. Just tell him no.” “He attacked me in the pantry! It doesn’t feel like I have much of a choice here, Dad…I’m scared.” “Are you sure you’ve been as clear as you think you’ve been? Maybe there’s a chance that you’ve behaved in a way that…well…that made him think he had the go-ahead. You do that, you know. You have a way.” A way. I felt sick. He thought I’d somehow asked for Chef’s behavior. That somehow I had welcomed it. My own father believed me to be naturally wrong, and innately inappropriate. “I’m not some whore.” “Don’t be dramatic. I’m just saying that sometimes you act in ways that project a message I don’t think you intend to send.” I closed my eyes to keep the tears from falling. They snuck out anyway. “I shouldn’t have called.” We didn’t speak again for four months. I felt worthless, like a napkin to be used, crumpled, and discarded, and I hated myself and him and all the Hims who had come before, each one chipping away, molding me into this pathetic thing that couldn’t protect herself. * I met Toni at the bulletin board, and she was happy to swap shifts. I offered her my Friday; a wedding reception was scheduled. “You sure?” she asked. “Yeah. I’d just rather Wednesday.” When I entered the kitchen, Chef stepped in front of me, proud to announce that the new schedule was up. “I know. I saw. I switched with Toni for Wednesday. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go.” My breath was slow, my voice strong, and my fists were in my apron pocket, my nails carving half moons into my skin. His eyes narrowed and he straightened his back. “Switch back.” “I can’t do that.” “I’m not canceling our plans. Find someone to fill in.” “I’m not going to do that. Maybe you can find someone else to go with.” I felt sweat in my hairline. His face reddened, and he stepped closer, challenging me to look away. I didn’t, and after a while, he returned to the line. I wondered if maybe Dad had been right. Maybe I just needed to stand my ground. * The shift was unremarkable. The tables were steady; the food was quick, and no one complained. I was in the kitchen sometime in the middle of service when a metallic bang rang out behind me. It reverberated off the hard kitchen walls in swells until there was only silence. The room was stunned and electrified all at once. I spun around to find Chef at the line with a butcher’s knife clenched in his fist and his eyes locked on me. The blade had gone through the center of a butcher block, piercing the steel table beneath it, and his knuckles were white. “If it wasn’t okay…” he heaved, “you shouldn’t have fucking said it was okay!” His voice echoed around the room. The staff stared at me, then at him, then back at me, and the fluorescent light shone down on me like a spotlight. I stood dumbfounded in the center of the kitchen, my mouth drifting open, my body shaking. “Hey, you alright?” Peter touched my arm. I jumped and caught the dessert I was holding just before it toppled. Chef glared at me, his chest rising and falling quickly, and Peter took my hand. “Come on.” I nodded and walked with him, and as we left, Chef yelled at the cooks for being too slow. Peter wrapped his arms around me once we were in the dining room. “What the fuck happened?” “It’s too much. It’s just gone too far,” was all I could say. Everyone was quiet for the rest of the night. No one was unaffected. After clocking out, I went back to my apartment and called Mom. I didn’t want to bother her with it, but I was afraid that if I stayed, I might not make it to her at the end of the summer. “I’m coming,” was all she said. I slept with the lights on. Friday I went to the cafe in the morning and sat at the corner table, tracing my fingers along the sailboat carved into its worn oak top. The grooves of the mast above and the waves below had dulled, their edges smoothed by time and people and things. Fragments of paint hinted at the color that once filled their indentations, and I wondered how long it had taken to wipe the gold from the sun and the blue from the sea. What had it taken to erase the beautiful thing it had been? My phone rang. I splashed my coffee over the carving, and I swore at my clumsiness and my nervousness. And me. “I have a flight. I’ll be there tomorrow morning at eleven. Meet me at the airport,” Mom said. “Okay.” “There’s a lot to do, so I have to run, but be safe. I’ll be there soon.” Maybe I wasn’t overreacting. If she was flying from Connecticut, maybe I was right. Maybe I was in danger. There was one thing left to do. * The receptionist took me into a small room in the back. It was intimate and bright and away from the noise of the comings and goings in the lobby. Four mocha, leather chairs sat around a glass coffee table, and a white vase embraced white roses at its center. Egg white walls were untarnished by pictures or paintings. The room was pure. The three owners glided in shortly after me. Long, delicate, and lean, they looked like they’d been picked straight from the garden; silky, pastel suits draped over their dewy skin. I tugged at a string from a hole in my jeans and tucked the stained edge of my t-shirt into my waistband, acutely aware that I was a smudge, a blemish, on the room. “What can we do for you this morning, Sarah?” I took a deep breath. “I want to say how much I’ve enjoyed it here. What you have is something really special, but some things have happened, some big things, and I need to leave. I’ll have my shifts covered for today, but I leave tomorrow.” “Why do you need to leave?” the youngest asked. She was direct, not unfeeling but not unbothered, either. “I can’t stay. It’s not possible,” I paused, waiting to see if maybe they already knew what I was about to say, but if they did, they offered nothing. They were stoic. “It started out fine, I guess…”. I explained the events of the prior three weeks, and as I spoke, my words got faster and my sentences got longer; I tried to stop and take a breath but couldn’t, and my hands swatted at the air, acting out the words. I accidentally knocked my water bottle off the coffee table, jarring them into movement, but I didn’t slow down. When I finished, I sat back in the chair and took a sip of the water, grateful the lid had been on tight. My hands trembled. I knew they noticed. “Why are you bringing this to us now?” I didn’t have a good response. “I guess I thought I could handle it, or I was worried that you might not believe me. He’s my boss.” They shook their heads and responded in unison, “he is not.” “I’m sorry. I thought he was. He makes the schedule and orders us around. It felt like he was in charge. He even told me he was my boss, that he controlled when we worked and what we did…all of it.” “He is not. And besides, we instructed all of you to come to us with anything on the very first day.” I wanted to tell them I hadn’t seen them in weeks. I wanted to tell them that this conversation was the first we’d had since that very first day, twenty-seven days ago. I wanted to tell them they had no presence at the restaurant, that they didn’t know me, that they knew my name merely because I’d made the appointment. But I didn’t say any of that because I didn’t want to be inappropriate anymore. Instead, I looked down and pulled at a string on my jeans, expanding the hole even further. The youngest leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands over the coffee table. “I’ll tell you what I’m hearing: it seems the situation has thwarted itself. If you want to leave, that’s one thing, but what you’ve described certainly does not sound like it gives rise to quitting,” she paused. “Please don’t misunderstand. This sounds like it was very upsetting for you, but that’s why we’re here, and that’s what I hope you’ve learned this morning. If something happens, you come to us. You tell us. Not only do you work for us, but the chef does, too. Everyone reports to someone.” The mother placed her hand on her daughter’s arm, adding, “As it is, if you leave now, don’t you think that would send the message that he’d won? People like that, who act that way, who do those things, those people are the kind who feed on intimidation. They pick on the weaker prey only because they can. But if you don’t run out of town, if you stay, well, you could show him just how strong you are. Do you like working here?” I nodded and spun my ring around my finger, studying the lines of my knuckles. “Well then, you should never let anyone, a man of all people, run you out of town and away from what you want. You have the right to do whatever you feel is best, but if you ask me, you need to show him that you are stronger than him, that you are better than him. He can’t win. I think you should stay.” “I don’t think this is a matter of win or lose,” I replied hesitantly. “I think this is a matter of feeling threatened, of being threatened. I’m afraid of this man. I’m afraid of what he might do when no one’s watching. Look at what he did when everyone was.” “What can we do to keep you?” I knew they knew the answer. I also knew it didn’t matter. “There’s nothing you can do. I can’t stay while he’s here.” As I stood to leave, I wasn’t upset with them. I knew they didn’t understand, and I don’t condemn them for that. I envy them. It was clear that they had never experienced the kind of fear that wraps around your throat and roots your feet to the floor, the kind that pollutes the air you breathe and terrorizes your sleep. They had never been haunted by the shadow of someone else, that much was clear because once you have, you’ll recognize it anywhere, in anyone. And you’d do anything to stop it. Two Weeks Later - Connecticut I ran my fingers over the embossed flowers adorning a card from Peter. It had just arrived. Inside it read: I wish you’d left your phone number. I didn’t even realize until you’d left that I didn’t have a way to contact you. Thankfully the owners gave me your address. God I miss you. Things got a little out of control after you left. Chef started bothering Sera - you know, from Ted’s - and things got so bad so fast. Two nights ago he went behind the bar and grabbed her by the throat - right in front of us! It was a packed bar! I swear he went crazy. He was screaming he’d kill her if she didn’t leave with him, and I think he probably would have if they’d been alone. It was something about going off the island and staying overnight somewhere. God, Sarah, it was really bad. Ted had to rip him off of her. Anyway, the owners asked me to send you this letter. They fired him yesterday and want you to know your job is waiting. They’d love to have you back. Please come back. I miss you. ~P Sarah DiSilvestro is a writer from Connecticut. She loves the smell of the ocean and the sound of her son's laughter, and you can usually find her overanalyzing whatever human interaction she just awkwardly concluded. Feel free to read her works in Club Plum Literary Journal, Lavender Bones Magazine, Scary Mommy, and nothingisfine.com.

Cosimo was looking distractingly handsome. We were celebrating his 75th birthday that day, at the Party Palazzo, and I know he likes that phrase, so I said it aloud. His tanned face—highlighted with bronzer—lit up. I licked his grey stubble. “My sexy demon.” He smiled with Vaselined lips, squaring his shoulders in his lush grape-colored birthday shirt. We’d nearly canceled, due to three local school shootings that week. We keep up with news—we aren’t heartless. But we are celebratory!  Besides, the Palazzo employed two security guards, wearing stormtrooper boots and automatic rifles. The weapons gave our guests pause. I wolf-whistled at the guards, then my party of twenty strutted inside, arm in arm—gays, straights, non-binaries, and singles. At first, we wore face masks, disturbing my cheek blush. I fingered Cosimo’s N-95 strap, reminding him, “There are four pesky new Covid variants around.” One variant, resembling a green French poodle, trotted right past the Palazzo’s downtown-facing window. “We dodged a bullet,” Cosimo chuckled. “And a virus.” Inside the venue, nurses of all genders, sporting optic-white short-shorts, lured us to the Covid testing booth. We slingshotted our masks like thongs across the room, staring at people’s face holes—so naked, so free! Nurses lovingly deep-dived our nostrils with swabs. Soon they cleared us of the virus, and handed out lime-colored virus-dolls. Before us lay the famed venue trampoline. I tugged Cosimo’s large hand, before somersaulting onto the fleshy jumping pad. There we were, two married men (me, decades younger, Cosimo, quite limber!), leaping, trying not to knee or elbow tender spots. The oiled Brazilian couple wearing Speedos—show-offs!—hopped in on sculpted legs, bouncing on and off each other’s bottoms. My niece filmed and posted the entire jump sequence, including our tangled collapse into belly laughs. You see, the Palazzo was the only venue remaining open over these long, opioid-infused, war-ravaged, Pandemic-ed, homicidal years. Outside the venue, the battle raged on, punctuated by explosions and screams. The war was going badly—young people, drafted, grocery shelves, nearly bare, primo foods pulled for troops. Rumor was, the enemy had changed. Meanwhile, no muddy-booted soldiers clomped through the Palazzo, guards barring entrance without invitations. War refugees pressed soiled faces against the thick glass walls. There’s never a perfect time for a party! Always, homeless in tents, reactionaries storming the capital, rebels live-streaming beheadings. And now, workers in hazmat suits, wheeling virus-succumbed bodies into freezer trucks. “Be here now!” Cosimo intoned. Cosimo’s co-workers clapped, including the lithe yogi-architect Sylvie. She entertained us with moving tattoos on her bare arms—parrots traversing the screen of her skin. Sylvie lifted her spiked juice pack, garnished with a cock-shaped celery, toasting Cosimo. “To an artist, a lover,” (she winked at Cos), “a one-man party. Here’s to another near-century!” Our friends kissed Cosimo, tongues darting into his mouth.Next, our guests took turns bowling the neon lanes, bordered by a flowing human-made stream inhabited by graceful dolphins. Cosimo, that clown, grasped me lovingly by my ankles, slinging my body down the bowling lane on my belly—Stimulating! Strike!  I stood, bowing in those cute leather bowling shoes. “That’s nothing, compared to our bedtime ritual!” A small missile burst through the supposedly unbreakable Pyrex wall. Party Palazzo waiters rushed, cleaning shattered glass and debris. Such well-trained young employees! Apparently, they’d avoided fentanyl, extremism, and suicide, to work the party. And they were working it! These young people engender hope—and a well-deserved five-star Yelp review tomorrow. Meanwhile, the DJ cranked up his turntable, grinding with his orangutan assistant, blasting Donna Summers. I leaped across the parked missile, strutting to, “Last Dance”. When the DJ played that husky Pit Bull, Cosimo led us in a conga. Soon, it was time for the Eiffel Tower-shaped birthday cake. Cosimo’s friend Fernando sprang from the cake! Tossing bomboloni pastries at us, the delicacies exploding with cherry jam when they struck. I pressed two treats like breasts against my shirt. “Delicious!” Cosimo chortled, licking the jam. Lightning and rain deluged the glass ceiling as we danced and raged, gulping tequila shots. We expected a freeze later that night. Knew our state electric grid was as flimsy as an old porch screen; our infrastructure, disintegrating. Trees would fall, roads would ice over; asphalt, blister, crack, and likely swallow us up. Still, downtown forest fires blazed dazzling orange behind the Palazzo. But dammit, it was forever since we’d cut loose! Cosimo, that bon vivant, murmured in my ear, “You’ve always been my favorite houseboy.” How his musky scent drugged me! My orifices tightened with pleasure. I lead him by the belt toward the “NUDIES” room. Alas, before we could enter the private room, we were called to a candlelit dinner, to slurp blood-colored spaghetti. A pesky homeless man groaned—somehow, at my elbow—staring at our loaded plates. Liberal guilt wafted off some guests, as two guards lifted and carried him out by the arms. Cosimo sang out like Pavarotti, “We donate leftovers to the indigent!” Through marinara mouths, we cheered, a peaceful carb coma descending like smog. For dessert, Chef Luigi—a shirtless confection, himself—marched out holding a tray of winsome dancing cannoli. Cosimo clambered onto the table, waving cannolis like pistols. “King of the Mountain!” We danced, we played roulettes, till midnight. Behind a velvet curtain, I ushered Cosimo into a patent leather suit, affixing a dismembered monkey tail to his pants seat. Cosimo was now a human projectile clothed in animal skin. He clutched me. “I hate to leave you here, in this world as it is now.” “I shall meet you later,” I answered. “Among the stars.” You see, I had sprung for la piece de resistance! At midnight, I would shoot Cosimo out of a cannon through a mechanical opening in the Palazzo’s magical roof. Yes, there were holes in the ozone layer. Yes, fossil fuel, dwindling. Why blame one individual for every environmental slap? I recycle! Cosimo, that Apollo, couldn’t bear turning ancient, irrelevant, or flabby, on this hostile planet. He would leave tonight. “No live streaming, please!” I announced. While our guests sipped glowing aperitifs, the roof—Cosimo’s design!—opened like lips. I gave my husband one last probing kiss, aquiline noses, touching. “I see you, Cosimo.” He coughed—no more virus tests—mounting the stainless steel cannon, waving, descending. Sylvie climbed the cannon, wrapping her tattooed body around it. “I’ll send him off in a blaze!” She kicked her bare legs, revealing the tangerine slices of her crotch. “Sylvie. Time and place!” I pushed her. “I’ll light his fuse, this last time.” A drum roll. The hostess struck a giant match against the cannon, handing me the flaming stick. Guests waved sparklers, smoke filled the air. Strangers, inside and outside, peered like creatures. Gasping, I lit the fuse, propelling my greatest Love, up up up, into the dark sky. There flew my flaming Italian Love, master of dramatic exits. Combusting, like our world. “He burns at both ends, he will not last the night,” I recited. “Armistice!” a megaphone announced. “The war is over!” Surely not. I focused on Cosimo, shooting like a comet across the wretched sky—for a long time, my neck cramping. I had to turn away soon and close down the party. But “Oh, my friends, he gives a lovely light.” Nicole Brogdon is an Austin TX trauma therapist interested in strugglers and stories, with fiction in Vestal Review, Cleaver, Flash Frontier, Bending Genres, Bright Flash, SoFloPoJo, Cafe Irreal, 101Words, Centifictionist, etc. 2024 Best Microfiction, and Smokelong Microfiction Finalist. Twitter NBrogdonWrites!

30th Street Station - Dunkin’ Todd approached the register clutching his guitar bag. He ordered an iced latte and small hash browns, paid, and slunk to the side with his receipt. An older cashier with stringy hair streaked with gray leaned her elbow over the counter. “They’re doing a shit job,” said a customer, who was younger than the cashier, though much older than Todd’s 17 years. “You should see the men’s room. I’ll spare you the details.” “To some of them,” the cashier said in a North Carolina accent, “work is a four-letter word.” And she nose-motioned over to the payphones where three janitors, two men and one woman, stood in blue uniforms. Todd felt a gleaming inside his eyes as if he were watching a sad scene in a movie. Then a sheen tinted his vision. The muscles in his legs tensed. He was shaking. “Earthquake!” said the woman. “Here?” said the man. Plaster bits snowed around the counter as a rumbling shook the station. Jags of wall fell and sizzled into the fryer. Todd clutched his receipt and, while the ceiling boomed, a black void in the roof formed and then shrank. Todd’s knees and neck wobbled as if on a subway car. Then a yellow comet dropped from the ceiling. The impact of the object striking the floor jolted his knees. The tiles against the coffee stand rocked and the Chinese food sneeze-guard glass shattered into the lo mein pit. Sky and clouds passed through the new hole. Smoke cleared. “Miss, miss! You ok?” The goatee’d customer coughed and then leaped up to bend over the counter. “You alright?” “Leave me alone,” she barked and then grappled around to stand. A choking feeling pushed his throat as Todd turned to examine the object. It had a shiny, elongated, steam shovel-like front. Was it a piece of a crane? Todd crept around the thing with two more customers. His ears rang and he toed away rubble as he walked, trying to swerve around a tall guy to read the writing. It had a plaque cast in gold. Voices murmured behind the payphones. One of the janitors said, “It’s a mop bucket. It’s a big model of our mop bucket.” Todd fled - he didn’t want the cashier to find her name on the structure and know that he’d made it happen with his eyes. Thirteen Months Later Small’s Hardware Store The UPS driver carried a package inside the store, hurrying, since he was double-parked on Walnut Street and blocking a lane; his lower back relaxed as he eased the box down. “Hey,” a man at the counter - Todd’s father, Leon Smalls - shouted. “Dropoff’s in the back.” Leon thrust a finger past an aisle of paint, drills and lightbulbs toward a white door near the breakroom. “Told you guys already,” he said. The driver peered back out the window at his truck. Yesterday, he had gotten a note from the head disciplinarian at Penn Charter: his daughter had been caught smoking again in the parking lot with two boys from the rugby team. He grunted as a green ticketing van slid behind his truck. “Guy on Monday said I could just leave it here - damn,” he groaned as the ticketing van parked. Todd had been watching from the break room doorway - yesterday he’d seen the scene to which the driver was referring. “Well,” said Leon, “he’s not the owner. Hey - move it back there.” And the driver again hoisted the box, jostling it slightly, and stomped to the store’s end. “What’s that sound?” said Leon. “Package just shook a bit,” said the driver. The rumbling amplified. Todd gasped and, from the door, a metallic clang rang out. A smell of burning and black ash hung in the air. A bronze sheet filled the hardware store’s front window, then clanked over. A woman in a violet blouse had been parked in front of Small’s Hardware in her Subaru, and she exited her car once she saw it. Leon and Todd Smalls and now the woman, Dr. Danielle, all stood on one side of the fallen metal mass as it flamed and smoked around its edges. Leon craned his neck to read the embossed lettering. “Is that another damn Civil Rights sign? It’s about us!” Leon shouted to Todd, who paled, peered away, and rubbed his sweaty palms against his shorts. Leon toed the monument with his worn work boot but it wouldn’t budge. “Get Berling out here!” Berling ambled out, grinning and stroking his beard and trying to hide his laughter. “Help me with this goddamn piece,” said Leon. A woman in sunglasses tugged a pomeranian away from the monument. The two men hooked their arms under the hot metal pole, scraped it up off the sidewalk, and dumped it into the street. The top of the sign was a UPS package replica on top of an alloy pole. Leon craned over the sign to read, then twisted to face Todd; sweat rolled down his forehead. “You,” he straightened toward his son. “You’re doing this to me?” Dr. Danielle grabbed Todd’s arm. “Let’s go,” she said. Omar’s Halal The foil crinkled as Todd unwrapped his falafel. Dr. Danielle was already chewing her lamb gyro, dabbing a dot of Tzatziki off her lip. “These past few months. One young man who started a cottage industry of,” she exhaled, “guerrilla memorials.” Todd dropped his sandwich on his tray. “I didn’t mean to start anything. These…things.” He scanned the restaurant. “They just fall from the sky when I’m there.” Todd dug his pita through a hummus container. “It could’ve crushed you. Why didn’t you run away?” “I wanted - I needed to see what happens. What this is all about. It’s a talent you’ve got, especially from a diversity and inclusion perspective. But it’s. I want you to recognize there’s two sides to every story.” Todd asked her what she meant. Dr. Danielle scratched her ankle. “So let’s think about this. You’ve got the one when someone got called a” - she spied around then whispered - “a Black bee on the 21, right?” Todd nodded. That bus had had to pull over; the memorial had exploded its right front wheel and smashed the sliding door. When the offender crawled from out the emergency exit, he’d heaved it into the Schuylkill. “Then - what was it…a bronze statue of a computer to that fight in the library tech lab? That wasn’t the library’s fault. Two fighting, private citizens, right?” She counted on her saucy fingers and stared at one of the ceiling fans. “The giant shaving razor in the firm on Market, dedicated to the guy who almost sued your father? Said he couldn’t keep wasting eighty bucks a week on shape-ups if your dad wasn’t going to promote him?” “That’s Berling.” Berling was Todd’s closest friend at work. Todd could talk to him about his father’s habits, and Todd’s own plans for his future - things he could never tell his dad. “Look - I’m not here to censor you. But, are white people the cause of every oppression? Every statue?” She shrugged. “Black women can be…chauvinists too you know. I’m asking you to use this power of yours more diplomatically. Any more of those statues still standing?” “I think the Library  - their HR installed the big computer in their lobby.” Dr. Danielle leaned forward. “I’m amazed no one’s died yet.” Todd said, “I don’t know what you want me to say. You’ve done your homework. You want me to say I’m sorry?” Todd knew he was special - there were times when, as a kid, living with his mother in suburban Philadelphia, he felt the television used to broadcast to him alone, which is when the gleam in his eye made its debut. But the gleam had never caused this. “You know, if you’re trying to change your dad you can’t confront him like this. People get defensive.” “I know.” “But those signs are forever here. How many have been about your dad?” “This’s the second.” “That must be hard for him. I know he wants you to take over the store.” “How do you know that?” “And I imagine today was quite a surprise for him. Or, for the commuter just trying to get to work.” Todd crushed a napkin. “You’re acting like I know how they get there. I don’t!” He flung it and it biffed against her blouse. She pushed it into a pile on his side. Todd disappeared down Walnut. The loss of the air conditioning relaxed her. Todd had felt bad about lashing out and got the bill. That had been kind of him, she thought. Some women in burkas and hijab walked across 45th Street to the AICP mosque. Cars veered around and honking horns cavalcaded. The monument’s pole had dented. Leon crossed his arms, smirking, while engines screamed around him. “You talk to him?” he said. “I think he’ll go for it,” yeah.” “Good.” Drivers veered around the mangled sign. “It’s just disgusting. What’s he doing this for?” “I know what you mean. Sometimes young people - we act in a way that’s too far left.” He nodded. “See what you’re up against?” She nodded back and asked him for a cash advance - her student loans were still due at the month’s end. NW Corner of Market and 11th Street Dr. Danielle was walking with Todd on the wide concrete sidewalk. Leon had told her to take Todd to one of Berling’s ‘hate-white-people’ rallies. She thought she could catch a gotcha in the logic of whatever was happening with Todd. But, when she thought about it, she wasn’t sure it was Todd’s logic at all. “Why are you doing all this? Taking time with me?” he asked. “Book research,” she said. Figures farther down the sidewalk mulled; six guys with big beards and black bandanas wore leather vests and talitos studded with pyramids and gold gems. They resembled a construction crew, occupying half the space. Yellow signs leaned against their legs, propped in a row against the bank. Todd squinted. Berling stood against the brick. He wore dark sunglasses and shook a sign. Todd listened as the man who appeared to be the leader shouted on about ‘the so-called white race.’ “Oh,” said Todd. “This is what you wanted me to see?” “This is as offensive and ahistorical as anything white people do,” said Dr. Danielle. “How do you know?” “Well, number one, I’m Black. Number two, I’m a woman. I want to make sure we understand each other. That you know where I’m coming from.” The other men in dark leather skirts stood in company formation and stared. A bald demonstrator thrust a poster above the leader’s head. The four or five scattered onlookers in earshot stepped into the streets to get away. Dr. Danielle would usually leave too when she encountered them  - but for the next three months she was under contract. A man in a bright red bandana pointed at Dr. Danielle and Todd and spoke into the microphone: “Why is this Black woman diluting the bloodline?” “Black people can be racist too,” said Dr. Danielle to Todd, though she wanted to say, ‘You think he’s my boyfriend?’ Then the sky turned wet-tissue gray; the shaded concrete enveloped the sidewalk. “It’s happening!” said Todd. “Well, good!” “What if one of those things falls and squishes them? What then?” Dr. Danielle thrust her arm out and Todd’s stomach dented into it. Sweat ran down Todd’s back and his heart throbbed. Then rain pricked the sidewalk. A blotch smelling of cellar broke on Dr. Danielle’s shoulder and then her jacket. In the downpour, the group rubber-banded their signs and folded up the table. Dr. Danielle called, “He’s not my boyfriend!” as they disappeared. Forty Feet Beneath Broad Street, near South Philadelphia Todd sat in the first subway car riding south toward Ellsworth/Federal. He was meeting Berling at Le Tin Can, a bar and cafe on Point Breeze Avenue. Sometimes Todd wished Berling was his dad. Berling had wanted to confess to Todd the day before at work that he’d left the group; he’d just wanted a listening ear against Todd’s father. Two young guys chattered next to Todd. One had amber hair and a baggy, blue Fred Perry shirt. The other wore a denim baseball hat and khaki shorts. He was close enough for Todd to smell his sport deodorant. “What a stereotype,” one said. Todd peered down the subway’s metal chamber. A seated, bald, older man raised a can of grape soda; his lips touched the rim. The boy in front of Todd cackled. Heat pumped into Todd’s chest. Todd’s eyes widened. Todd gripped the railing and heaved himself up, wobbling in front of the two as the train zoomed on. Bronze shot through the front window before Todd could even shout, ‘Stop!’. — He’d been at the Dapas Rec Center, relaxing on a swimming pool’s edge with his legs dangling in. But then the water was bubbling and boiling. Todd came to with a plastic pillow of ice numbing his lower right leg. The monolith had smashed the left headlight and melted the ventilation grill. Two medics in yellow vests clamped an oxygen mask onto an elderly woman - in his state, Todd feared the woman was the Dunkin cashier. Other passengers, cradling their arms or legs, shouted how they were suing the subway agency, how they might never walk again, and how they were calling an accident lawyer. Todd’s leg ached, a hot pain surging to his toes. Looking up, he saw a hole where the memorial had blasted through forty feet of pavement, pipes, and ground soil. Orange safety cones shone and yellow police tape wormed in the wind. Todd limped to where the train expelled acrid, rubber-smelling smoke. The monument hulked past the smoke crimps. It was a massive replica of the can - Crush grape soda - nearly as tall as the train’s front windows. Over his right shoulder, Todd heard a “What the fuck.” The one in the Fred Perry shirt and his friend stood nearby. They squinted to read a bronze plaque fastened to the can. “ Christ!” cried James. “Fuck. What do we do?” His face gleamed with sweat. “ I’m a minor.” 30th Street Station - Food Court Dr. Danielle watched Todd from the oily payphones as he hobbled on crutches with his dad. It was a Sunday afternoon. “Stop!” said Todd, brushing away his dad’s hand every time Leon tried to lay it on his son’s shoulder. Todd was catching the train to band practice in Lancaster. The band rarely let themselves joke anymore in the two years after the emergence of Todd’s talent. Dr. Danielle walked from the shadows. “Leon,” she said. “We need to talk.” “Talk about what?” said Todd. Leon glared away and pointed up at the taped-over hole in the ceiling, the plaster of which was still being fabricated after the blast two years ago. Two men were working around it in hard hats. Leon said, “They’re gonna take over, one day, Todd, if we don’t do nothing.” Todd looked at Dr. Danielle and then at his Father. “What?” A windstorm dashed through the Grand Hallway. The caution tape around the mop bucket slipped off and snapped around. “Jesus!” said Dr. Danielle. “Get back!” Todd said. His eyes gleamed. Lightning boomed outside. The window flashed. Inside the station a crack resounded, knocking over three travelers and a display of sunglasses. Brochure spilled into a corner. Hot grease leapt out of the fryers, splashing, and permeating even the florist’s stand with burger odor. A gold, miniature ranch house, a type local to the borough of Clifton Heights, PA - the kind Leon used to work on before he bought the store in the early ‘90s - appeared in Todd’s father’s place. Tufts of smoke and dust wisped where it met the floor. “My God,” cried Dr. Danielle. Rain sheeted through a new station ceiling gash and down the house’s roof, pattering onto the floor. Embossed paragraphs gleamed over the front door. Rain seeped into the engraved letters. “I tried—” shouted Todd. His ears rang. He tore at his collar and tears stung his eyes. The gleam faded. “I told you no!” Todd shouted first at the monument and then up to the ceiling, where a strawberry sun was pushing through. His knuckles bruised; his fists clanged the structure. Then the etching of the year gave way under Todd’s blows. The statue paled until only his father’s body remained. Rain poured and turned his dad’s flannel collar to dark blue. Rain veined the blood on the floor like a watercolor. Epilogue His Dad’s will named Todd as the inheritor of Small’s Hardware. After three weeks of mourning, Todd promoted Berling to first level supervisor and then to the store's helm. With the last of his inheritance, Todd paid off Dr. Danielle’s student loan debt. As for the doctor’s remaining fourteen years as a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant, she’d never again see a stranger case.

Tell everyone you're fine. Pick yourself up from the bottom of the stairs, climb back up to the kitchen and take the phone from your mom to talk to the 911 operator. Hold your daughter close. Repeat that you are fine. Hold your breath as he brushes past you to leave the house and return to the guest cabin. Lock the door. Too late. It should have been locked before. But too late is still better than leaving it open. It's a way of pretending. Pretending is important. Repeat to the 911 operator that you are fine. Tell her again that you don't need an ambulance. Go to the bathroom and swallow some Advil. Call your friends. Tell them everything’s fine. You just need company. It's Christmas Day after all, and company is a good thing. When your friends come over, tell them that you’re fine. Tell them your daughter needs distraction. When he broke into the house and pushed you down the stairs - she screamed. Now you can’t get that sound out of your head. Be grateful your son was still sleeping. Stay busy in the kitchen. Keep your arm pressed tightly to your side so no one notices that it doesn't seem to be working. Plus holding it still relieves the pressure on your ribs. When the police arrive, tell them that you are fine. The RCMP constable takes one look at you and calls for an ambulance. Tell the paramedics that you are fine. Try not to breathe deeply, it hurts too much. Smile. Ask them about their Christmas dinners in an attempt to distract yourself when they take photos of your body and recommend you go to the hospital. DO NOT GO to the hospital. It's Christmas Day. That would be a huge mistake. Take the turkey from the fridge, brush it with oil, season it, and then, awkwardly, slide it into the oven. It's hard to peel potatoes with one hand pressed against your body. When the police constable gives you a copy of the restraining order, try not to cry, try not to let anyone see how scared you are. When they escort your husband off the property, don't stand in the window and watch. It will only make everything worse. When the police come to tell you they are leaving, tell them you will be fine now. When your friends have to go home to their own Christmas dinners, reassure them that you will be okay. Go to the bathroom and swallow more Advil. When your mom leaves, close the door to your bedroom, lie down and let silent tears fall. Don't let the kids hear you. The day is almost over. You made it. You are going to be fine. Alison Colwell graduated from the BFA program at UVIC and is now the Executive Director of the Galiano Community Food Program, a charity focused on increasing food security on Galiano Island. She is a single working mother of two children with mental health challenges and a survivor of domestic abuse, all of which inform her creative writing. Alison was recently awarded a Canada Council for the Arts Grant to work on a series of interconnected essays that weave fairy tales with memoir. Her creative non-fiction work can be found in the climate-fiction anthology Rising Tides, Folklife Magazine, The Fieldstone Review, the NonBinary Review, The Fourth River, The Humber Literary Review, The Ocotillo Review and is forthcoming in Two Hawks Quarterly and Hippocampus Magazine, and her fiction in Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Crow & Cross Keys, Carmina Magazine and Tangled Locks Journal. Website: www.alisoncolwell.com