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Chapter 20 I think Mrs. Ferraro wants to be by herself right now, and anyway there’s something really important that I have to do. I go across the street to the park, back to my tree and when I get to it, I count off twenty paces. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty and then I kneel down in the cool grass and start digging up with my fingers. I dig a hole and I kiss Mommy’s postcard and put in way at the bottom of the hole. Then, I pat all the dirt and grass back into place. I stand there thinking that if I wish hard enough this will grow into something else. If I really am Jeannie with wishes, maybe Mommy could grow up out of the ground. I stand there for a long, long time. I think about Mrs. Ferraro upstairs and her daughter and how maybe I should have brought her daughter’s picture down and planted it, too. Maybe, we could all be together, Me and Mommy, Mrs. Ferraro and Deena. We could be like those people who eat in restaurants and they have cups and glasses and napkins made out of cloth and everything is very quiet. Mommy told me once that they let you sit there for as long as you like because you’re paying them to let you do that and there isn’t even peanut butter anywhere on the menu. The four of us would become very good friends and we would all like each other and just laugh about all the time we took to get here. Maybe I should tell Mrs. Ferraro about the picture and how putting Deena’s picture into the ground might grow her right there in the park. You’ll see, I will tell Mrs. Ferraro. And that’s just what I am going to do as soon as I cross the street and climb back up the four flights. Except that as soon as I get in the front door of the building and about to climb the stairs, the landlady is standing there, like a witch with a broom in her hands. Chapter 21 “What are you doing here?”  she stops sweeping the floor and leans on the broom. Her hair is damp and sticking to her neck. Her arms are flappy like birds. “I – I’m staying with Mrs. Ferraro.” “Where’s your mother?”  she says the word “mother” like it’s a bad word. “She’s not here,” I say. “Leavin’ in the middle of the night like that. Was up to me, the two of ya’s woulda been on the street long ago.” She puts down her broom and grabs onto my arm. “C’mon. We’ll see what Mrs. Ferraro knows about this. Maybe she don’t need to live here neither.” I get scared then because this is the only place Mommy knows to find me. If Mrs. Ferraro can’t live here anymore, if she has to move, I don’t know what I will do. We get to the top of the stairs, the landlady pushing me along. She is huffing and breathing really loud. Maybe I will turn around and she’ll decide she has something more important to do, like go check on a broken pipe or something like that. Maybe she’ll explode and leave us all alone. But I feel her bony fingers on my arm as we get to the door of Mrs. Ferraro’s apartment. The landlady knocks on the door. She knocks and calls out “Hey Mrs. Ferraro, it’s Julia.” We wait for a minute. My thoughts are banging the inside of my head. When Mrs. Ferraro doesn’t answer, the landlady knocks again, even louder. The heat in the hallway is in my hair, my ears, my nose. I start to wonder if Mrs. Ferraro went out. But where would she go? It’s not her market or laundry day. The landlady keeps knocking and knocking and still no answer. I tell her the door is open, but she says it’s a law she has to knock. After a minute, she turns the doorknob and slowly opens the door. “Stay here.” she tells me. There is something in the air besides heat and dust.  Something I can’t explain.  Like that sick feeling I had every time Mommy went out. Like that feeling I had on the bus when I waved good-bye to her. “What a pigsty this is” the landlady says, looking at the newspapers piled up and the boxes of pictures opened and sheets and lunch plates still on the table. “Hey, Mrs. Ferraro, you here?” I walk inside, and the landlady lets out a scream and her bird fist flies to her mouth.  I look to see what is wrong and there in the corner is Mrs. Ferraro slumped over in her chair, her arm like a loose sausage, her daughter’s picture next to her heart. Chapter 22 The funeral home is an ugly place they try to make pretty with flowers and nice music but it doesn't matter. Some places are ugly because of what happens there. They found out everything when Mrs. Ferraro died. The landlady told the police about Mommy. The police came and took me with them and asked me lots of questions. They knew all about the Giant Man and that they know Mommy did it.  Do I remember what happened? They were asking. Were the Giant Man and Mommy arguing? I wanted to tell them. I wanted to tell them so badly. I wanted to say that my mother loves me and that the Giant Man was hurting me. But if I broke my promise to Mommy, then maybe she would break her promise to me, and maybe she would never, ever come back. And so I told them I didn’t remember. Then a lady came to get me. Her name was Lillian. She was dressed like a teacher, with a pearl necklace and pink lipstick. Her voice was nice and soft. When I told her I liked to be called Girl, all she said was “If that's what you like, dear”       She took me to a place called a group home. She said I could stay until I could be placed in something called foster care. I started to cry when she told me that. “My mother,” I finally said. “She won’t know where to find me.” “But Girl” she said “your mother is far away and the police are looking for her. She did something really, really bad” Lillian took a deep breath and said, “your mother is going to have to go to jail.” Again, I don’t say anything. Besides, Mommy isn’t going to jail because when she comes back, we will run so far the police won’t ever ever find us, and even if they do, Mommy will explain everything and the police will have to understand. We walked upstairs and there was a roomful of bony little beds pushed up next to each other and sitting of one of them was a group of girls who pointed at me and giggled. Lillian told them my name was Girl. I liked her so much for that. The girls each said their names, Sandra, Barbara, and Eileen. Lillian said, okay, this is nice, and said she wanted us to get to know each other. After Lillian left, Sandra, who was the biggest of the three, looked right at me and said that Girl is a dopey name. Then she leaned over, got right next to my face and said that Mommy is a killer and that when they find her, they're gonna put her right in the electric chair. Then she and the other two started to giggle again. I walked away and sat down on a bed that was way on the other side of the room, and I waited for them to start talking about something other than me. Chapter 23 There are just a few grownups at the funeral home. Lillian gave me a dress left behind by one of the girls who was there before. She also gave me some of her other clothes to wear. “We try to move girls who come with us into foster homes quickly,” Lillian told me. Something about it being a better place for their well-being. “And when girls leave so quickly,” Lillian said “they sometimes leave their things behind.” I thought about all the things Mommy and I have left behind, but how it never was to go to a place we felt better. Mrs. Ferraro is in a long closed up box at the front. I ask Lillian why more people aren't there and she whispers “People are busy, dear.” I hope when I die, people can stop being busy, just for that one day. Some of the people I remember from the building. A man who lived on the first floor and sometimes said hello to me and Mommy when we went out. Then a lady I would see when I went to get the mail. But the landlady isn’t there, and I think Mrs. Ferraro would be glad about that.. I see someone way in the back. Someone I know from all the photographs Mrs. Ferraro showed me. Someone whose old pajamas I can still feel on my skin. It’s Deena, standing there in real life. When the minister is finished, I ask Lillian if I can go talk to Deena. I tell Lillian that it’s Mrs. Ferraro’s daughter and I really want to meet her. Lillian sighs and says, “okay, dear, but be quick.” Deena is almost out the door, when I get to her. Wait, I tell her. I tell her how I knew her mother, and how we used to watch Fred Astaire and how I even wore her pajamas, and I am saying everything so fast and all at once and Deena looks at me like she doesn’t know what I am talking about. And anyway, how would she? That’s when Lillian comes over and apologizes and says I’m sorry, she’s just upset and we didn’t mean to bother you. Deena leaves and we follow her outside. There is a line of big black cars. Lillian tells me the first car is called a hearse and they will put Mrs. Ferraro in there and they will take her to the cemetery. I ask Lillian why we aren’t going and she says well, that’s for people who knew Mrs. Ferraro better, and I don’t know who could know Mrs. Ferraro better than me. Before I can even say anything, Lillian is telling me how it’s lucky we even came to this and it’s time to get back to the other girls, which is just about the last place I want to go. I watch as Deena gets into the hearse. She is wearing her hair tied up in a kerchief and she has sunglasses on and it’s okay that I didn’t talk to her because maybe Deena isn’t going right back to Boston. Maybe she is going to Mrs. Ferraro’s. Someone has to take care of all the pictures and books Mrs. Ferraro left behind. And I will have to find a way to see her there. Chapter 24 Later, when we are back at the group home and eating supper, I remember there is a phone in Lillian’s office. I say I have a stomach ache and can I go to the bathroom but instead I sneak into Lillian’s office and call Mrs. Ferraro’s number. I was right. Deena is there. She says hello, hello? But I don’t say anything. I just hang up. I go back to eat supper and Lillian is saying she has a special surprise for us tomorrow and we should all get a good night’s sleep. Later in bed, I try and try to fall asleep and the blanket is scratchy and Sandra, comes over and has her arms stretched out in front of her and she says she’s the ghost of the man my mother killed and that ghost will haunt me for the rest of my life. And it doesn’t matter that I call myself Girl which is just a hiding name, because ghosts know where to find you no matter what. The other girls get up and they all act like ghosts, booing and saying things like killer, killer, your mother’s a killer, and it gets so loud that Lillian comes in, her hair all frazzled, and she flips on the light and yells everyone go back to bed. I try again to sleep but I can’t and, anyway, I’m thinking of what I will say to Deena when I see her again. Chapter 25 When I get up the next morning, no one is talking to me. Everyone keeps staring at me when we eat breakfast, scrambled eggs and toast. Sandra and her two friends keep mouthing the word “boo” at me when Lillian isn’t looking. When breakfast is over, I just want to go think of how I’m going to get to see Deena. I think about asking Lillian again, or even just running away. But I don’t know how far it is from here to Mrs. Ferraro’s. While I’m thinking about all this and trying not to look at Sandra, Lillian says “okay, girls, remember I promised a surprise?” The surprise turns out to be a trip to the downtown museum so we can see the whales. I remember one of my teachers telling us about that, how seeing the whales was a wonderful experience that every child should have, but I left that school before we ever got to go. We pack lunches of bologna with mustard and oranges. We get into a bus that Lillian got special for this trip and it makes me think of Mommy. How the last time I saw her I was getting on a bus. I try to find a seat far away from Sandra but the only one left is a window seat right behind her. I won’t look, I tell myself. I’ll just become a zero. The bus starts and I hear Lillian trying to get us to sing a song. A song about lots of bottles of beer on a wall, and nobody wants to sing. I hear two girls, who I don’t know, fighting in the back and I’m folded over now in my seat. No one can see me. No one can see me. The bus is rumbling and I feel a little sick all bent over like that, but I’m a zero and it will be okay. Then Lillian is tapping me on the shoulder, quick sit up. The girls in the back keep fighting and Lillian tells us we better stop acting like this because people will think we are a bunch of “lost causes.” “I mean,” Lillian says, “we will just go back and we can spend the afternoon thinking about how we should behave in public.” The girls in the back stop fighting and I sit up. I am lost and I am a zero but I don’t want to make Lillian mad. And then, I look out the window and there it is. We are passing the park with my special tree. Across the street from Mrs. Ferraro’s apartment. Chapter 26 I count the streets and it’s one, two, three, six blocks from the museum. The bus has pulled into a parking lot and before we can get off the bus, Lillian tells us again that we have to be good. We get into two lines like we did when I was in first grade, and we walk around to the front. Up a hundred steps, and through the big glass doors. Lillian says we all have to have a buddy to stay with in case we get separated. My buddy is Gail. She is quiet and doesn’t even say hello to me. Not even when Lillian tells her to. The inside of the museum is cool and it feels good to be out of the summer air. When we get to the whales, they aren’t swimming around, like I thought they would be, but big, fake whales that are posed with their mouths open. Lillian tells us to stand back to see it because if you stand too close, you don’t see the “whole effect.” Then Lillian says that next we are going to see the cavemen that doesn’t sound any more interesting than the whales and so I ask if I could go to the bathroom. She tells Gail to go with me, but Gail just shakes her head and says she doesn’t want to get murdered. Lillian tells her that’s a terrible thing to say and that Gail should apologize, but the two girls who were fighting on the bus start pushing each other and Lillian goes over to them. “Just go by yourself,” she says to me. “Go quick.” I walk away and no one is watching. I walk past the bathroom, past the people looking at fishbones, and arrows, and rocks. I walk through the glass doors and down the hundred steps. Outside, I start to run. Only six blocks, five blocks, four blocks, and then there it is--the old building, The landlady is sitting on the steps and I hide in the park until she goes inside. I go to the spot where I buried Mommy's postcard to see if it has grown into anything, but it hasn't. I look again to see if the landlady has gone inside, and she has, so I cross the street, go through the door and up the steps. The hallway is still peeling paint but there is the nice smell of cookies. When I finally get to Mrs. Ferraro's apartment, I knock and knock till finally Deena opens the door. Chapter 27 “You’re that girl from my mother’s funeral” she says. “What are you doing here?” I want to tell her a million things, about Mommy, about how I have to stay here so she can find me, but instead I can’t say anything, like the words froze up in my mouth like ice cubes. “Where’s your mother?” she asks and again I start talking too fast. I tell her all in one big jumble that it wasn’t my mother, that’s Lillian and I’m staying at a group home where everyone hates me and I’m not going back there even if I have to sleep in the park. “You better come in,” she finally says. I tell her my name is Girl and Deena says that isn’t a name and what’s my real name and I tell her okay, it’s Jeannie, just like Mrs. Ferraro called me. She gives me a glass of milk and a couple of the cookies I could smell all the way from the hall. They are chocolate chip, big gooey drops inside the soft dough. All snuggly and warm. “After you finish, you are going to tell me where Lillian is, and then I’m taking you back.” No please, I tell her. I tell her about Sandra and those other girls and all the things they were saying. Then Deena says I know. I know how mean kids can be. But that’s where you belong right now. And besides, Lillian must be worried sick. “She doesn’t care,” I tell her. “I’m just another lost cause to her.” “A lost cause?” Deena says. “Do you even know what that means?” I swallow my cookie, and say, “a lost cause is someone who can’t behave in public. Someone who has to live at a group home.” “What happened to your parents?” “I don’t know.” I tell her. And really, I’m not lying. I don’t know my father, and I don’t know where Mommy is. I ask if I can stay here. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I won’t make any noise.” “Out of the question,” Deena says. “First of all, if I don’t let Lillian know where you are, it’s like kidnapping. You know what that is, right?” I tell her I know, that the teachers in school told us about that, and that’s why we have to watch out for people we don’t know, but really no one is going to steal me. Then Deena says she has to go back to Boston because that’s where she lives, and that’s when I tell her I know because I was here when Mrs. Ferraro tried to call her that time. “What do you know about my mother?” she sits down at the table. I tell her how I used to come over and watch Fred Astaire and that I knew how Mrs. Ferraro would fall asleep holding her picture and Deena starts to get tears in her eyes. “I could stay here and help you,” I say. I know where everything goes. “I have to get rid of all of it,” Deena says. “She had so much stuff.” “Oh, no,” I tell her. “She loved her pictures of you and her books that she read to you when you were little. And your pajamas.” “She kept all that?” Deena asks. She straightens herself up and says, “C’mon, I’m taking you back to Lillian right now,” she says. “And if you won’t tell me where Lillian is, I’ll take you down to the police station.” “No, please,” I say, I want so bad to tell Deena about everything--about Mommy. About the Giant Man. About all of it. Most of all how Mommy won’t know where to find me if I don’t stay here. I start to cry, I am crying so hard, I start to shake and shake and then I bend down to zero. Deena says what are you doing? What are you doing? And she sounds so upset, and I think I better tell her. I set back up and tell her about how I’m turning myself into a zero. “Is that what you think you are?” she says. “Sweetie, those girls were being mean. But look, I never want you to do that again.” She stands me straight up, she says no, you are straight up and down. You are a number one. And then she says she will call the group home and see if it’s okay for me to stay with her for just a little while. Is that okay? When I say yes, she pulls me close for a hug, the smell of cookies in her hair. Chapter 28 Later that night, I dream that I'm not here staying here at Mrs. Ferraro’s and Deena might have to take me back to Lillian. Maybe I go outside and Mommy is waiting for me in the park. Mommy will hug me and tell me it's all right. It was all a mistake. The Giant Man didn't die or maybe he was just a man the cops were looking and looking for and weren't they happy when Mommy found them. So happy that they gave her a house and a job where she sits all day and tells people things on the telephone. Then Mommy will come home and stay with me at night. We will have a beautiful house with my own bedroom. And I will have a best friend, two best friends They will fight over who's the best of all the friends I have. And they will fight so loud Mommy comes in and says “Girls stop fighting, and I have chocolate cake who wants some?” And who doesn't want chocolate cake? But that's just a dream and Deena shakes me awake. It all floats back at once. “I called Lillian ' she says, “You were right about the girls there being mean to you, and that you would probably just runaway again.” Then Deena says how Lillian told her how the police are looking for Mommy and how I don’t have any family that could take me in, so being that this is an emergency, I could stay here. “You’ve been through hell” Deena says. “So, if you would like me to call you Girl, I will.” Later that morning, Deena and I go to a big supermarket two blocks over and I have never seen so much food all in one place. There is nice music in the air and people talking on loudspeakers, I wonder if Mommy knew this place was here all that time. When we go to pay for the food, there is a long line of people. When it's our turn, Deena doesn't have to talk to the lady behind the cash register. She doesn't have to promise to pay her on Friday or Tuesday or smile at her or write down an address on a piece of paper or anything like that. She just gives the lady the money and they never say more than thank you and you’re welcome, ma’am and please come again and I wonder if Mommy knows you can do that, too. Chapter 29 Three weeks have gone by now. Deena and I have fixed up Mrs. Ferraro's apartment and I even have a space for a mattress. It's not a real mattress, just some old clothes of Mrs. Ferraro's, but it's okay because Deena said they're too old for the Goodwill and she is not ready to throw them away. I like sleeping on the clothes. I like to have my own place to sleep. It's the beginning of August and it's been a month since Mommy went away. At night, I try to remember her scent of roses and her long, dark hair. Some nights, I hear Deena crying though I know she is trying very hard not to let me hear. Deena bought a fan from the hardware store down the street. It's a big square box and Deena has it halfway between my bed and hers. There is not air to blow anyway. The weatherman said it was in the high 90's and that's almost as hot as when I was sick that time. I lie in the dark thinking about Mommy and where she is. I hear Deena crying and I want to tell her I know how she feels. We are two girls whose mothers have gone away. Chapter 30 In the morning, Deena wakes me up and we eat cold cereal, with bananas sliced up and small glasses of orange juice. We sit at the table. Deena tells me that she called into work back in Boston and they are getting along fine without her. I ask her if she is going back there. “I told them I need to stay a little longer” she says.  “I still got a million things here. My mother saved everything.” I ask Deena if it's all right for me to go across the street to the park like I do every day. I take a plum or a peach and walk to the tree where I buried Mommy's postcard. Deena tells me that she was thinking today would be a good day to register me for school. I remember all the times Mommy registering me for school. They would ask her all kinds of questions, like where I went to school before and how come they don’t see me in their system. Mommy would tell them we move so much that it’s been a strain on our family. And how Mommy’s mother has problems with her health and no one else to take care of her. Mommy would get tears in her eyes. She’d look down at the floor and say how hard it is to take care of her mother and a little girl and they’d stop asking so many questions. Then Mommy would show them a made-up birth certificate with whatever my name is, whatever name Mommy was calling me, and they would just be too busy like everyone else and the next thing I knew I was in the class. I wonder what Deena would tell them at school. I know Deena doesn’t have a made-up birth certificate. I know Deena wouldn’t even know what to say about me. So I tell her that’s okay, I’ll be back at the group home before school starts. You’ll have to go back to Boston and Lillian can register me for school. Deena nods and says okay, you’re right, you’re right. I think how much Mommy will like Deena when she comes back and meets her. Thank you for taking care of my little girl, Mommy will say. She'll come back and we'll go live in our new place and I will write letters to Deena that she can show to the people in Boston that she works with and maybe Mommy will let me go visit her sometimes. Chapter 31 Later that day, Deena finds all the clothes she wore herself as a little girl. They are kind of old-looking but they are so pretty I don’t even care. Deena tells me here, try on this dress. I loved it so much when I was your age. It's a pink dress with white flowers and no sleeves. The skirt swirls around me when I twirl in it. Deena says come look at yourself in the mirror and I do and I am not like me, but someone I never saw before, a pretty girl, a girl you would want to invite to your party, a girl you would sit next to in school and she could lend you a pencil from her pencil box with silvery stars on it. Deena stands behind me, pulling my hair back into a ponytail and puts a rubber band with a flower on it. “You look beautiful” she says and kisses me on the cheek. I feel beautiful for the first time in my whole life. Deena says, c’mon let’s go get some ice cream. A pretty girl should have ice cream. When we pass by the park, I look at the tree that I have been visiting every day for a month. The tree whose shade is going to make Mommy's post card grow into Mommy. And I think that Mommy will understand and I'll go twice tomorrow. Chapter 32 I can’t explain it, but I start to think about Mommy less and less. Her face is fading each day a little in my mind. She hasn’t sent me any more postcards. I am getting to like my life with Deena and I’m not sure I will be able to tell Mommy that this is how we ought to live. Dinner every night and Deena not going anywhere. It’s like those times with Mrs. Ferraro, which is not a surprise when you think about it, Deena being her daughter. Sometimes when we talk, Deena tells me about Mrs. Ferraro and that they didn’t always get along, which is hard to imagine. Deena says that Mrs. Ferraro didn’t like a boy Deena was dating and that this is why she moved to Boston and they never really made up after that. She says that time has a funny way of pulling people apart even when you don’t mean it to. And I wonder if that’s what’s happening with me and Mommy, and that’s why I’m thinking about her a little less each day. And if I’m thinking less about Mommy, maybe she is thinking less about me. Chapter 33 One night I am watching TV and I just know Mommy is there. She is waiting for me across the street and in the park. Deena is washing dishes and the water is running. I slip out quietly, down the stairs and across the street and right to the spot near the tree where I planted her. There she is, wilder than I remember. Her hair going every which way like branches. She is a grown up out of the ground from a postcard. Her dress is torn. I look at her like she never left, her scent of roses pulling me towards her. All my thoughts of how much I wanted her to come back are rushing back. She holds me and I never want to let her go. “Let's get out of here” is all she says. “I have to tell Deena.” She doesn’t know who Deena is, but she doesn’t ask. “You mean Mrs. Ferraro?” That’s when I realize how little Mommy knows about anything and how long it’s been since she left. “We’ll call her,” she says, “come on.” Chapter 34 We go to a motel that night. I don't have my own bed or clothes but I don't mind. The little refrigerator hums and hums. The toilet drips. At 2 o'clock, I wake up and Mommy is gone. I sit up straight in bed. There is no phone in the room and I’m still thinking about Deena and how she doesn't know that I meant to come right back. I think of Deena and her eyes, and how they get teary when she is sad, and how now I will be doing that to her. Mommy comes back ten minutes later. She has a bag with bread and slices of ham wrapped in white paper. We eat like dogs, tearing at the food that tastes so good and Mommy drinks beer and gives me a can of soda. “Baby,” she says, “I have to go out again.” “Don't go.” I say. Mommy looks at me with surprise. “You never said this to me before.” I start to cry. Mommy gets angry. “Don't pull this on me,” she says. “I came back for you, didn't I? “You took so long,” I tell her. “Deena even told me you might not come back.” “Who is this Deena?” I want to say Deena took care of me, and stroked my hair like you used to. But instead, I take a sip of the soda, the soda that Deena said was no good for little girls and that I should drink milk. I tell Mommy about Deena, but all Mommy cares about is the part with the landlady and what did I tell the police. Mommy grabs my wrist. “Tell me the truth,” she says. “Did you tell the police anything?” “No,” I tell her. “I didn’t tell them anything.” I tell her how I promised and she tightens her hands around my wrist even harder. “You sure?” And I start to slump down, to go into zero, which I thought I would never do again, but I can’t help it. Mommy pulls me up and says, “stop it! stop it!” and I try to pull away from her and I feel like I did in that closet with the Giant Man and I start to cry. Mommy puts her hand over my mouth, shush people will hear you. I am scared, so scared right now of my own mother. This woman who isn’t Mommy anymore, and she must hear inside my head because she lets go and pulls me close and starts to cry herself. “I’m sorry, baby.” She says “I’m sorry.” She pulls me into her arms. The smell of roses in her hair so strong I can hardly breathe. Chapter 35 To say what happened the next morning is to tell a dream. Knocking, knocking, knocking and the door flying open and everywhere arms and blue uniforms. The refrigerator still humming, the toilet still dripping. Mommy screaming and the police knocking over the tiny motel table with its lonely plastic roses. And then, the horrible. Mommy pulling out the gun from the policeman's holster before they have the handcuffs on her. How the gun goes off right into Mommy's heart. I hold my breath. I want it all to be a dream but it isn’t and I will never, ever wake up.       I am quiet and still the whole way to the police station even though the lady in the backseat with me keeps stroking my hair. I tell her I want to go back there. That was my mother, that was my mother, but the policewoman tells me over and over that everything is going to be all right. But I know it won't. Not now. Not ever. When we get to the police station, Deena is waiting for me. I never planted her, but still she is there, as tall and strong as an oak. Chapter 36 September now. We buried Mommy under a beautiful shade tree. Only Deena and I were there. Deena said to me, “We have to be strong together.” She asked me if I would like her to adopt me. “I know I will never be your real mother,” she said. And together we cried. We cried like two lost girls. We cried for all the time we never had to tell things to our mothers and that maybe together we could find it. We moved to another apartment, a bigger place with lots of space, a bedroom for each of us and an extra room just to think or listen to music. Deena got a job, and we have dinner at night. And she never goes out by herself.      When I have bad dreams or when I miss Mommy, I just tell Deena. We talk about Mrs. Ferraro, and I tell her all about the things Mrs. Ferraro loved and how Deena was the most important one. Then I went to school with a notebook and learned how to read so much better. I learned about books and numbers and all the things you don't learn when you are always leaving a place. I learned how to not feel lost all the time. And then, one  day I was walking up the stairs to school, I saw a girl who sat behind me, the one who gave an apple that time because I forgot my lunch. How she said maybe we could hang out sometime. How I told her that would be nice. I thought that this is what it's like to have a friend and just be a person who goes to school and does homework and eats dinner with her mother and watches TV and goes to movies and buys dresses and how all of that is the most excitement in the whole world that anyone could ever want. When she asked me what my name is, I said my name is Miranda And then I told her “Miranda means wonderful.”

FRUIT MEAL blue curtains   watery fields night falling    entire meal of fruit somewhere in The Netherlands    my mother said cut boiled baked roasted broiled    peaches pears plums bananas    poached stewed    pureed flambéed whipped maybe one course    tart and sweet   one dish exquisitely cooked    yielding to teeth juice on tongue    willing it to stay    escaping down the throat    nothing for it but to eat more cherries apples strawberries grapes raspberries blueberries    apples pineapples oranges tangerines mandarins    memory embroidered grapefruit    enticing us to eat    spread seeds THIS WAS CALIFORNIA My grandmother’s house had two half-doors, Dutch doors, they called them. The top unlatched from the bottom, swung open, you could stick your head out. Indoors mixing with sun burning through fog, eucalyptus, damp bricks of the patio. Redwood boxes of fuchsias, little explosions of red, pink, purple. Unable to survive a freeze, I knew, or being brought indoors, I learned when I hung a basket on our porch for a summer back east. They die without the movement of air across the skin. TO ALICE MUNRO I read you in my forties. Christmas at my in-laws’, my four-month-old knocked out with fever. You wrote “Thanks for the Ride” in your twenties, newborn in a crib. Lives of Girls and Women didn’t work until you put it in story form. You knew you’d never write a real novel. 1973: teaching a class of men doing what was fashionable, a woman’s story brought tears to your eyes, you said, you hadn’t read a good piece of student writing in so long. 1986: the professor declared a scene Not Believable, Period. The men shifted in their seats, assenting. The one other woman and I huddled in the bathroom afterward. I turned to poetry because I couldn’t write stories like yours, mini-novels, unfolding forward and backward in time. You told the woman not to take your class, to keep bringing you her stories. She was the one, the only one, you said, from that year to become a writer. Alison Hicks was awarded the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Press for Knowing Is a Branching Trail. Previous collections are You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook Falling Dreams, and a novella Love: A Story of Images. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore. She was named a finalist for the 2021 Beullah Rose prize from Smartish Pace, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills Literary Lantern, Quartet Journal, and Nude Bruce Review. She is founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.

I remember birdsong so loud, maybe the starlings thought I had crusts from another hastily made breakfast, Just to say to myself I had eaten. The sounds vibrated through the sparse empty room. Maybe it was my phone breaking my peaceful overindulgence. Alarming me to a reluctant routine. There are too many missed calls on that dull blue glowing screen. I looked around the room as if expecting a visitor. Anxiety became the trespasser. Dread knew me well, Conversed and made confessions, when the stillness of night came with the slow breaths before dreams. The walls seemed thinner, Ready to be pushed back into new exits, more hideouts. I remember fumbling with the phone. The digital screen imitating the sound of pushed buttons. Clicks,clacks, they beat, pop and pulsate, like my ears acclimatising through a rapid ascension. It was a low voice, familiar. But it was too serious, It was too early. Too many hesitations my mom's voice. then mine,frustrated with the lack of sleep, rudely asks for the point to be made. The bird’s trill rose again, Began a new impatient morning plea among the refuge of the oak trees. Fumbling a rebellious arm into a blue coat, It wasn't even cold. Stumbling, I went zig zagging across a cracked road. With a hangover, sweating out the impurities. I remember silence upon entering.. Usually, I would call upstairs for a familiar voice, For guides to beckon me to the sitting room. I still wonder why I didn’t. My parents stood either side of me. Guardians of my innocence, Sitting down seemed out of question. "Nanna passed away last night, Ian" "Why didn't you wake me? I remember those last words along with her fears of being forgotten, But I'd told her, She knew that first thing tomorrow, I’d be out to get her a birthday present. Older now, and well worn. Now, I don't sleep so soundly. Worried I’ll miss something. Ian Anthony Lawless is a 33-year-old writer and director from Dublin, Ireland. A full-time carer to his twin daughters. Finding time in the mornings to write poetry, fiction and scripts for stage and screen. Co-founder of The Collective productions. You can find his personal writing on his substack @IanAnthony or provokthem@wordpress.com

Ann presents with tenderness in the mandibular and a new spring haircut. The clinical exam and radiographs reveal no decay or obvious pathology. The fractured tooth (#14) examined before Christmas remains asymptomatic. Ann again declines treatment but approves when I tell Janice to keep it on watch. Four quadrants of scaling and prophylaxis are performed, and Ann appreciates the margarita joke. Routine orofacial screening is scheduled. * Ann presents with no complaints and “no sensitivity whatsoever” in the mandibular. Praise for my “magic touch” is duly received. The orofacial is within normal limits and #14 is still asymptomatic. Ann looks comfortable chairside and taps along to my new bossa nova playlist when Janice leaves the room. Four quadrants of flossing are performed on the house. Ann needs little persuading for a follow-up and seems sincere about the promise to floss. * Ann presents with moderate remorse for rescheduling. She claims the lack of pain made her “forget” about her teeth. Interproximal food is indeed noted in all quadrants and Janice cuts the music. Periodontal probing depths are astonishingly less than 3 mm but Ann blushes when probed about her new billing address. I gently inquire about #14 and list the risks of sustained mesio-palatal fracture. She finally confesses that she has been reluctant to “stir up trouble” and make a more serious commitment. I send Janice out to schedule the next consultation and remove her soiled bib with care. * Ann presents with a cold formality that Janice validates with side eye. Home care is poor, new playlist ignored. Radiographs of #14 still reveal no sign of decay or pathology, but one day, I tell her, they will. One day she’ll be begging me for that crown, I want to shout, but the closed eyes and tilt of the jaw tell me she wishes she were anywhere else. D.B. Miller’s short fiction, creative nonfiction and offbeat profiles appear in FlashFlood 2023, Ellipsis Zine, Bending Genres, Idle Ink, Litro, Reflex Fiction, Split Lip Magazine, Offshoots, NBHAP and Stanchion Zine (2024). Please visit dbmillerwriter.com or follow her on Twitter (@DBMillerWriter) and Instagram (@dbmwr).

Whenever we were bored, which was all the time, we got in the car. In the car, my friends and I cussed, drank, smoked, and outraced those who tried to tail us. We ate fried onion rings from the KoKoMo Drive-in, drove by to honk at each other’s houses and headed out on Highway 1 on Sunday afternoons. The two-lane road connected Shreveport in the northwest corner of Louisiana – more akin to East Texas in culture and practice -- to the roughneck and romantic oil and gas fields of the Gulf Coast, 360 miles south. Briefly unencumbered by rules or manners, the car served as a haven, every one of us able to drive a stick. Driving a stick is a lost art (just 2 percent of new U.S. cars had manual transmissions in 2020), and “art” doesn’t overstate how we practiced it. It’s like we were on an elite team in an obscure sport only we understood. Sherry liked speed, teasing second gear until it screamed while dodging parked cars on narrow residential streets, her peripheral vision and motor response bionic. “I love that blue-green shade of eyeshadow you’re wearing. Where’d you get it?” she asked one day, peering over at me from the driver’s seat while her long blonde hair swirled around her shoulders from the open windows. One hand rested on the bottom of the wheel like a monkey bar and the other dangled casually outside while speeding side mirrors threatened to behead me on the right. Caroline was the safe, reliable one and Mary served as the team captain, fostering a sense of unity and camaraderie when she, for example, engineered an undercover pot drop at a neighborhood mailbox and arranged for us to sunbathe at a hotel pool despite being forbidden non-paying “guests.” Her steady hand at the stick made me feel safe enough to flout rules and break laws. But nobody could baby a clutch like Danielle. Sometimes she picked me up in her father’s lumbering Chevy Biscayne. It had “three on the tree,” meaning you shifted from the steering column and looked like a one-armed orchestra conductor while getting from first to third and back. We made fun of its fuddy duddy bench seats that sent you sliding, especially if you didn’t feel like downshifting to make a corner, which Danielle never did. (The first seat belt law went into effect in the U.S. in 1968 but was largely ignored.) The Biscayne may have been a brute, but Danielle’s long, slender limbs moving effortlessly at the controls meant it glided through the neighborhood, down the new Interstate 20 and through life more elegantly than it deserved to, a rumpled middle-class salesman transformed into Don Draper at cocktail hour. It was her brother’s 1960 vintage VW, though, that really allowed Danielle to shine. The bohemian Beetle, with its pared down dignity, fit her like the perfect Indian-print halter dress. Sitting in the passenger seat, I watched admiringly one day while she drew on a Marlboro, drank a Coke through a straw, effortlessly shifted into second and flung her leg over to my side to release the reserve fuel tank with her foot. (The Beetle didn’t get a gas gauge until 1962.) “You’re a badass,” I told her. “Why?” she asked, not realizing her feat – the car sputtered for a second from lack of fuel but never lost a rotation -- which made her even more of a badass. That was the difference with a stick shift; it wasn’t about the car so much as about the talent, grace and humble self-possession of the driver – virtually non-existent variables in an automatic where what counts are the make and model, cost and miles to the gallon or kilowatt hour. Automatics were the muscle cars my high school boyfriends spit-shined and vacuumed before we went out on Friday and Saturday nights. The insides were clean and close, our domain for the night’s drinking, socializing and making out – clothes on, mostly. Firebirds, Chargers, Mustangs, Chevelles, Camaros and Javelins – “gear selector” on the floor, between the bucket seats -- me, the passenger, my body forever ferried through space and time in a sleek metal box. But as a driver, the car provided a room of my own in which to live my own narrative. Even in the sexist South, there were no restrictions against women getting driver’s licenses like there were for obtaining credit or an abortion, or winning an argument with my father. I, myself, took pride in my ability to make a ride as smooth as an automatic despite the need to let off the gas to push in the clutch and shift into gear. Give me a hill with a stop light at the top, and if you were a passenger, you never found yourself rolling into the car behind you. I was taught one summer on a classic Triumph owned by my aunt’s boyfriend. Just a little older than me, she balked and played helpless, but I was determined and wanted to learn. In the complex symphony of gears and cogs, the clutch, located to the left of the brake, disengages the engine from the transmission, creating a pause in which the operator finds the “H” path of the gear shift and taps into the surge. Finding that sweet spot put me at the helm of a machine I could tame into submission, engaging in conversation with the car and showing it what I needed. Like getting up on water skis at Cross Lake in summer, once you do it, you know you’ve got it. The stick wasn’t about showing off but about potency and control. It was something long haulers, James Bond in his Aston Martin, and I had in common. I didn’t brag about it. I held my ability until it was needed like the torque from second to third gear. I wasn’t a symbol on a mud flap but a disruptor of male domination, and sometimes men took notice. Once in college, I ferried a guy to his friend’s house in a complicated switching of vehicles and rides to a party or football game. I drove out of necessity because his friend’s car needed to relocate somewhere, and it was a standard transmission. As he sat in the passenger seat, I could feel his eyes watching my body move with the car, gripping the gear shift with confidence but a gentle ease, my legs pumping expertly between the clutch, brake and gas. Mid-trip, I heard him clear his throat. “Sorry I’m not saying much,” he said, his voice husky. “I’m watching you drive. You’re good at it.” If being in the driver’s seat, literally, lent us a certain level of female power at a time before the pill, Roe v Wade (may it be restored, someday) and Title IX, my friends and I didn’t talk much about it. It was a place where we could excel, perhaps be admired. We might not have had muscle cars of our own, but we had skill. We could direct our cars to behave badly or well. Our stick-shift sisterhood lent us a level of agency and general bad-ass-ery before we knew much consciously about systemic discrimination, sexual harassment or any of the other challenges ahead. It helped us feel for a moment that the way we saw the world had merit and by sticking together we might have a chance against its dings, dents and downright defeats. That became clear when I attended the funeral of the mother of our friend, Lynn. Norma Jean had the best Mary Tyler Moore bouffant, but bright blonde that she often wore up in a French twist. Gazing into her coffin, I knew Norma Jean wouldn’t be happy with her outfit that day. Morticians had made the only one of our friends’ mothers who talked to us about not being stupid with boys and the importance of our friendships into a frumpy matron with pin curled hair and garish red lips. As Mary drove to the cemetery afterward, the stick shift seemed to rock us in a soothing cradle, as we talked about our love for Norma Jean, her style and her womanly honesty and advice. We parked and sat in the car in silence, wondering how Lynn would survive and how any of us would, at least in the same way we had before. “Look, isn’t that the woman from the funeral?” Sherry asked, pointing to that woman, the one who shrieked upon meeting family members, yelled hellos and how-are-you’s across the room and generally made the event about herself, as we all mourned. She was walking alone in heels across the damp grass at the gravesite, arm waving high in its black sleeve, voice raised to get a far-off person’s attention. I watched her from about 50 feet out. I hated her. I wanted her to die instead of Norma Jean. And then she fell. Flat on her face, in the mud. I didn’t know if anyone else saw it. But suddenly the laughter inside the car seemed to strain the molecular structure of the glass in the windows. The woman looked up for a second, but we glanced away, pretending to be straight-faced while bathed in redemption. I continued to drive a manual transmission even after most everyone I knew gave it up. Even though it was a small prize I had earned, I didn’t want to let it go. However, I admit now that it’s been a while since I’ve driven a stick. I gave up my last one, a Honda Accord, in the early 2000s when city traffic far from Shreveport made it no longer romantic, fun or requiring of much finesse. I forced my kids in the passenger seat to do the shifting for me and I sometimes wonder if I’ve still got the muscle memory. I need to practice because to this day I have a recurring dream in which the emergency is upon us, and the only way out is in a car with a manual transmission. “Can anyone drive a standard?” someone yells. “I can!” I respond, jumping in and grabbing the stick. Danna Walker has published pieces in The Washington Post, Months to Years,  American Journalism Review, Sixty and Me, and other publications, and been featured on NPR’s “Tell Me More” and in other venues. She has studied with memoirists Amanda Montei and Stacy Pershall, poet Marcelo Hernandez Castillo and author Beth Kanter through The Writer’s Center, Gotham Writers Workshop and Electric Literature. She teaches at the university level after having graduated 24th grade. She also writes a semi-regular personal development column for older women inspired by her Vietnam-vet friend’s philosophy that “if you live long enough you come to realize you’ve been a total ass.” She lives in Kensington, MD, with her partner and schnoodle and has two adult children and a son-in-law. Find additional writing at https://rustedcadillac.substack.com/.

Palmetto Girl golden summer baby with blue sky in your eyes and butterscotch lipgloss put on to be kissed off. there’s saltwater in your blood and storm clouds on your shoulders that evaporate beneath the touch of raindrop fingertips. you’re a beautiful idea created to be kept and used and adored. so long as man can hold you in the palm of his hand and high tide’s teeth can sink below your skin let it be known that you will be loved. Losing Touch golden summer baby the kid i used to be if only you’d wear your prettiest face and come back here to me. they don’t want me anymore, not like they did before i was touched- by rage and remorse. so i let them slip away. i don’t know how to make them stay. if only i could be gentle - maybe i’m just losing touch. Katie Cisar (they/them) is a new writer from Appalachia. A selection of their poetry and nonfiction work has been published in West Virginia University's undergraduate literary journal, "Calliope." Their work focuses on themes of gender, sexuality, and power.

lucid linen words like sugared twine twice pilfered filtered words flit filleted hung out to dry with the angels beneath my skin liminal words coil barely formed oven ready unmeasured spoiling for a fight did you get what you came for? your open throat chasing scars good to go inside flat 7 when all the people were gone (operation chimera) pared citrus sunshine synthetic rose-hinged dawns kindred rendered shimmering paper stories simmer (untethered) to share & tell tear & sell the porous heart weeps kissing seared space needle-planting cut-throat candy the melting canvas a moment not a life ablaze deviant vellum (other flammable narrative wrappings are also available) meet my narrator smart & strange smouldering (yet blood-spattered) he kindles nightmares (firestarter) sits himself inside a pocket ink on torched bone (where are his eyes?) (where are his eyes?) volcanic rage turns to snow (as) you lie all broken up inside spliced offcuts (it’s only weird if you make it weird) ravenous for the midnight feast he eats you alive the lilac edit ignites UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize and in 2021, she was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Longlisted for the Kari Flickinger Memorial Prize for Chapbooks in 2023, she has also been nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 and 2023, and a Pushcart Prize in 2022. Her first collection edible was published by Beir Bua Press (July 2022) and her micro-chapbook my lost womb still sings to me was published by Porkbelly Press (October 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications and can be heard on Eat the Storms, Upload, Blue Door to the Cosmos, O Bhéal and Medway River Lit. Website: janeayreswriter.wordpress.com      Twitter: @workingwords50 https://www.youtube.com/@slowgallop451/videos

I recently spent a week in a rented apartment in Rhode Island. The place had the requisite smattering of nautical décor, but mostly the walls were decorated with encouraging, if contradictory, advice. The dining room admonished, “The purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference.” But the mudroom advised you to “Take chances. Abandon all the rules. Ditch the recipe. Color outside the lines.” The kitchen gently scolded, “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” Even the hand towel got in on the action, inviting us through turquoise embroidery to “Wash your worries away.” I don’t actually disagree with any of these statements. Well, except the hand towel, whose message appears to encourage OCD and anyway, should read “dry your worries away” since it is, after all, a towel. Still, they rub me the wrong way. I don’t go on vacation to be bossed around by a wall. Nor do I particularly want to deputize my décor as my life coach. Plus, maybe it’s just me, but I rarely look at one of those things and say, “Oh, yeah, nailed it.” Instead, I start to wonder: Does my existence matter? Do I take enough chances? Have I made a good life? I don’t need to agonize about these things while getting a glass of water. And even when they get it right, I don’t want to consider that my life philosophy has been drafted by a low-level corporate creative, then stamped onto a piece of pine by a machine in China and offered back to me for $50. I am, however, possibly in the minority in this sentiment. Open a home catalogue and you’re likely to see quotes from Rilke and Rumi, Dickinson and Emerson. There are magnets advising you to “Live, Laugh, Love,” or to “Do what is right, not what is easy,” rocks emblazoned with “Fearless” or “Dream” or “Create.” You can tell how important something is to a culture by counting the words used to describe it. The Nunavik Inuit dialect has over fifty words for snow, Sussex thirty words for mud. The English-speaking world must embrace generalized advice because there sure are a lot of terms for it. Proverb, adage, maxim, rule of thumb, axiom, saying, saw, epigram, apothegm, dictum, brocard, byword, shibboleth, gnome, bromide, platitude, aphorism—the list goes on. There appears to be comfort in receiving wisdom in digestible quantities from authoritative strangers. Advice columnists have been telling us what to do for a hundred years or more. Girls from the 1600s to the Victorian era cross-stitched morally improving sentiments into muslin, then hung them in bedrooms and parlors all over the English-speaking world. In the 1730s, Benjamin Franklin began making good money off an almanac that combined weather and other predictions with admonitions like “Make haste slowly,” and “Speak little, do much.” Shakespeare’s Polonius sent his son off to school with enough warnings to create a raft of proverbs we still quote. Aesop punctuated his tales with morals. Even the ancient Sumerians had a tradition of so-called “wisdom literature,” which passed on tips like “You should not vouch for someone; that man will have a hold on you,” and “You should not boast; then your words will be trusted.” If I’m being honest, aphorisms have helped me, too. When I was in elementary school and struggling, my family went to Sun Valley, Idaho to look for a horse. I still remember the interiors of the boutiques, brightly targeted at the kind of money that wouldn’t reach my part of Montana for another couple of decades. High on one wall hung a T-shirt with a colored zebra standing apart from its monochromatic herd, hooves resting on the slogan, “Dare to be different.” I was transfixed. A leftist, atheistic kid in a sea of religious conservatives, I’d grown used to the way my stomach bottomed out when heads turned toward me, used to the violence of a sidelong glance. For reading too much, wearing weird, unstylish clothes, liking the wrong things and not believing in the right ones, I was taunted, exiled, told daily I was going to hell. Others fared worse: Crow and Shoshones, kids from the south side, anyone non-cis. The city, mostly white, mostly straight, punished difference. Standing out from the crowd invited brutal correction. But here was a T-shirt proving that someone somewhere thought it was okay to be unusual. Not just okay; admirable. Thought it strongly enough to illustrate the idea and print it on clothing. To sell it in a fancy store. It felt like your teacher telling you that “F” was really an “A.” Like a nod of approval from the parent who never smiles. Like the first unlocked door in a maze of dead ends. It felt like hope. It didn’t matter that the T-shirt was mass-produced. In fact, its very anonymity invested it with authority. Just look at health information prefaced with, “studies show…” or advice starting, “they say that….” For all our purported free thinking, most Americans still love to defer to experts, and nothing confers expertise like a lack of attribution. Back home, I asked my artist sister to draw a version of the zebra for me. I held onto that picture all through high school and into college. I didn’t let go of it until I no longer needed someone else’s words to justify what I couldn’t help to be.

Lori Martin was careful never to mix up her textbooks with her client book, which by the end of term was almost full. It was hard to expect a young student to juggle so many obligations; friends, family, even the nascent allure of love which consumed one’s time at a rate all of its own, but this modern world was ideal for one as amenable to stress as Lori Martin. And as Lori cleaned out her dorm before the final exams, looking over those names in her rococo handwriting, it became evident that something had changed in her. It seemed a long time ago when she said the purpose of holistic therapy was to use the body as an instrument for healing others, when their body could not do it for themselves. ‘That’s how we evolved as a species, we learned to live together by healing. Loneliness and isolation kill.’ It so transpired over the final year that Lori learned something else about the body, how it feels things the mind cannot understand, and while she was paying her way through college using all her tenderness and generosity of care, something more indelible was flourishing in her, something that brooked no casual exchange of caresses or transactional glances. Now as she flicked through the pages of her journal, she was afraid it was too late to make those changes mean something more than a bit of money. Busyness was the self-evident fact of student life and all the proof one needed that every penny of the tuition fee was accounted for. And if maintaining the challenges of studying holistic therapy were not hard enough, Lori also had friendships to keep up, friendships that required an ability to embellish details. These skills were tested when her friends questioned where all that money in her wallet came from when she didn’t appear to have a job. When the questions became persistent, Lori lied, stating that she came from a wealthy family, and when her family asked the same questions, she lied again, stating that waitressing was finally a well-paying job where the tips were tax-free. It was disquieting how easily lies from one area of life migrated into another area, and soon you had to remember who was told what lie, and when. But Lori assured herself that a long scroll of lies would hardly matter when she was out in the professional world bearing the responsibility of adulthood with wit and enthusiasm. No one would ask difficult questions then. But still, the penultimate duties of college life were not enough to inspire any studious inclination in Lori, not when things were finally coming to an end. She had done enough practical study throughout the previous three years, and there was plenty of time in the future for further application. The final weeks of university could hardly be spent fretting over exams that posed no threat to her plans, not when there was a litany of job offers in her inbox. Her friends were probably out on the town now, drinking spritzers and gossiping about those who couldn’t make it. But they could afford to go out, whereas Lori had to save her money, and disposable income was difficult to come by, despite her devoted clientele. But she did what she could, and she had reached the end of a long journey, finally earning the right to embrace the future that awaited her. Her parents showed up earlier that day, calling an hour ahead of arrival, giving her little chance to clean up and remove all traces of strange young men. Diane, her mother, padded around the room caressing one item while looking at another, and remarking on yet a third, namely the dreamcatcher and lampshades. ‘It’s lovely, dear, really.’ she said, as though such things had never been lovely before. Lori stayed one step ahead, kicking socks and soft drink bottles under the bed before her mother stumbled upon them. Peter, her father, kept craning his neck to look at the ceiling, as though the corners of such betrayed the real essence of a dorm. ‘Mmh…’ he remarked. ‘You have a lot of throwovers, dear. It’s not too cold in here, I hope.’ Diane said. ‘No, no. It’s just fine.’ Lori said. How many times had she told her clients to take the throwovers away when the sessions were finished? Do men ever listen, she wondered. They went out for dinner that night. Lori told her parents it was one of the most expensive restaurants in town, another habitual lie. ‘We’ll only have the finest.’ Peter said. In fact, it was an average spot, a modest trattoria Lori visited just for the cinnamon buns. Together they sat enjoying a meal, little of which was consumed in favour of the red wine. ‘Not too much, ‘Diane said. ‘We’re celebrating.’ Peter answered. ‘Finals aren’t for another two weeks, Dad.’ Lori said. ‘They might as well send you on your way now.’ Everything Lori had stressed over during the previous three years was going to be settled on these exams, after which the time for waiting would be over and life could finally begin. Uncertainty surrounding the next two weeks was preferable to the uncertainty of a job she did not yet have and clients she did not yet know. And with her parents already assuming the best, and her friends raising a drink, waving goodbye to the past, Lori knew then it was time to wrap up her things, phase out her clients, and begin the search for a place to start her entry into the adult world. ‘Goodnight, dear,’ Diane said. ‘See you soon, love you.’ ‘We love you, sweetie, we’ll see you soon.’ Peter said. They parted, Diane taking the wheel from her tipsy husband, who had more trouble than usual putting on his coat. Lori watched from her dorm window as her parents steered into the night through a miasma of neon lights and steaming buses, eventually turning back to her room. A dozen piles had appeared like intruders; old wrappers, notebooks, posters and surrealist art prints. How she managed to disguise these from her parents was impossible to say. With graduation on the way and the next batch of would-be students coming along, it was a good time to begin the clean-up operation. Lori sighed, crouching over a few months’ worth of haphazard scheduling and failed attempts at establishing a respectable order about the place. Now cleaning up her room she was reminded of previous clients; Alex, who brought his own camomile teabags, and Thomas, who smelled like cheese potato crisps, and left the crumbs behind. Also, there was Andre who lost a plaster from the heel of his left foot from his oversized basketball shoes, and Jerome, who Lori believed only showed up to inquire about Andre. Client/professional privilege prevented her from disclosing any confidential information. There were others too, each one with a story. But why couldn’t she understand the feeling of loss, that throb which grew inside her at the oddest moments? Something was happening, a sensation she had just now come to realise was more than a quirk of the body. This feeling came with a thought, one which for so long had been blurry and was now trying to become distinct. Looking through her client book she went back to the first appointment. She remembered it well, making up the rules as she went along with David, the pale guy who worked at the deli counter and gave her extra ketchup sachets. ‘Okay, you remember everything I said?’ Lori asked. ‘Yeah, alright.’ David said. ‘We keep our clothes on at all times, hands above the waist and outside the covers, and strictly no talking.’ ‘Wait, why no talking?’ ‘Okay, you can ask me a question if you need to.’ ‘Cool. So just-‘ ‘Just hugging, and nothing more.’ Lori said. ‘Hugging, right, I get it.’ ‘Oh, and you have to pay me up front.’ ‘So, like, now?’ ‘Yeah, now.’ *** Lori was getting ready to go for lunch with Claire when she received an email. Clair was still hungover from the previous night out, and when she showed up at Lori’s dorm in a sullen mood and a look of helplessness in her eye, Lori took her in. ‘Oh my god, what happened?’ Lori asked. ‘Pinot Grigio.’ Claire mumbled. Lori gave Claire a spare towel and use of the shower. By now she had been living out of a luggage bag with the drawers and wardrobes cleaned out. She could leave at any minute if she wanted. Claire, meanwhile, hadn’t even noticed, but it’s not like she ever took inventory. She lingered in the shower humming the lyrics to a half-remembered song from the night before. Lori was skimming through exam notes when the email came through. It gave her a jolt, and again she remembered how she should have disabled the email account before more appointments came in. Most evenings she couldn’t study for ten minutes without the disruption. The email was from Freddy. The small photo of the avatar showed a blond-haired blue-eyed young man with a sandy complexion and a shy smile. It was as though he was posing for her, trying to win her affection, knowing she could walk away at any moment. Lori did not recognise him at once, but continued to read the email, with the motor of the shower drumming through the room. In the email, Freddy wrote that he needed to see Lori as soon as possible, and wondered if she would be willing to meet him for coffee. Lori searched around her for her notebook where she kept reviews of every session. In the beginning she wanted only the most suitable clients and decided to rate and review them after each meeting. She thought that after a time she could have her own exclusive clientele, opting to work only with those who were hygienic, out-going, and sincere. She found the report on Freddy, reading her remarks and slowly remembering how he was one of the gentlest and most reticent guys she had met with. She wrote how he fell asleep in her arms, and she too almost drifted off. Lori looked up from her notebook and into that memory which was now returning clearly in her mind. In fact, she had fallen asleep, that much was true. This never happened before – or since – and she wrote how she was satisfied to see him again. But that was three months ago, however, and there had been no word from him since. Now this email arrived, forcing Lori to make a decision that could undermine all her future plans. She sat at the computer trying to remember more about Freddy and the intimacy they shared. That was just it, the intimacy. All her previous appointments were professional and thorough, tender but always with a barrier between the service and the sentiment. Lori even wondered if maybe this was all a joke, and soon it would transpire that all her clients were in on it together. But the pay was good and practical work would prove useful come final exams. After all, she was preparing to be a holistic therapist. Getting in touch with people and helping them accept the difficulties of life and navigate a new path forward seemed the most important thing to her. It was all about understanding yourself and knowing how to interpret your feelings. And this is what Lori excelled at, helping people come to a realisation about themselves and beginning the rest of their lives with that knowledge. Her parents were intrigued at first. ‘Holistic therapy?’ Diane said. ‘It’s not one of those pinprick things is it?’ Peter asked. ‘It’s like psychiatry but for the body.’ Lori answered. Lori remembered how the session with Freddy was different from others. She recalled how he was neat, almost afraid to spread himself out, folding up his jacket like a newspaper. She attuned her tone to settle him, and soon he came out of himself, laughing about his clumsiness and poking fun at hers. ‘Sorry, my room is a mess.’ She said. ‘It sure is,’ he smiled, ‘but you should see mine.’ This was one of her special skills, the ability to transmute her personality, tailor it for the client, so they could approach the session on level terms, and become like the same person inhabiting two bodies. But never had Lori felt like the other body was becoming her own. Only the client was supposed to feel this. Cuddling into Freddy, she heard his breathing slowly sink deeper into silence, one which became her silence too. She could ask him about the form he filled out, discuss things he mentioned in it, things that were bothering him. Many of the clients liked to talk about the issues in their lives while wrapped up in Lori’s arms. She hoped they would come to associate their problems with her embrace, and that soon the spiky and irksome affairs of everyday life would become at once more palatable and edifying. And this was often true. Looking over her notes again, Lori noticed how most of her clients appeared transformed after the session, fresh and rejuvenated. And it was also true that they never returned. They had come for a reset of mind and body after months of unending stress and onerous duties, and once they got what they needed, her job was done. Lori remembered how when she looked down at Freddy sleeping it was clear that whatever he might need to talk about could wait, at least until he woke up. Lori pulled him closer to her chest, his hair tickling her chin. She felt his warm breath against her neck. It took a special dexterity to move with a sleeping body in your arms, but Lori managed it with finesse. None of her clients ever stirred from rest. A brief analysis of her performance would have shown how every gesture, unconscious or not, was expert and appropriate, perfectly suited to the occasion. Her comportment was a still, measured breath in a world of twitches and sighs. But what was it about Freddy that touched her, and why had he not returned for another session? And why, in fact, was it now apparent that Lori was able to make her clients feel the kind of emotions that were sorely lacking from her own life? It was then that another throb rebounded inside her. Lori looked around her room. Just when she had cleaned everything up and was ready to move on, it appeared as though something snagged on her and would not let go. She began typing a response to Freddy. She agreed to meet him for coffee the following day. That should be enough time to figure out how and why, more than the others, he should occupy a deeper place in her mind. Lori breathed out a sigh. The motor from the shower had slowed down to a rumble and soon stopped. Lori looked around. Claire stood dripping wet with a towel around her body and the look of one who has survived that dreaded hangover. *** Lori waited at the café for Freddy to arrive. Looking out on the busy street she saw numerous faces, each disappearing into the fragmented din of the crowd. When she was a little girl, Lori often approached strangers to ask them who they were and what their life was like. Diane, her mother, constantly reminded her that a child must not talk to strangers, even if one just wanted to make friends. ‘Should we get one of those child doggy leashes?’ Peter asked. Lori ordered a coffee for herself with a cinnamon bun, picking it apart and nibbling on the crumbs. She thought if she ate it in tiny pieces then weight gain would be impossible. Making that coffee last until Freddy’s arrival and the extent of the meeting would prove to be difficult also, and she always denied herself a second cup, especially in the afternoon, just eight or so hours before bedtime. And sleep had not come the previous night without disruption. Lori lay on her back looking at the peeling paint in one corner of the ceiling. From a certain angle, it looked like a large cobweb. A sheet of dark blue light hung from the walls where the calendar kept falling down. It reminded Lori of the aquatic centre where they practised water aerobics. The water was always warm and inviting, one never wanted to leave it. But the throbbing sensation continued within her, presenting new challenges to sleep. She could not stop thinking about Freddy. She understood that in the three months since she met him something unusual began to occur; a feeling of loneliness breached by a presence she could not distinguish from anything around her. How was it that one could be lonely while surrounded by others, and especially in her case, when human contact was not in short supply? Freddy must have felt the same thing, Lori mused. And now after some contemplation, much like what she was doing now, lying awake at three o’clock in the morning, he reached out for something more. Lori was preparing to leave when Freddy finally showed up. She recognised him at once but was surprised to see him appear so suddenly. He emerged from the crowd with a denim jacket, black jeans and a grey satchel. His sandy hair became clumped to one side as the wind blew. He could have disappeared as quickly as he arrived, such was the fractious crowd. ‘Hi, Freddy? Hey, I’m Lori. Do you want to sit down?’ ‘Yeah, thanks. Sorry, I’m late, I-‘ ‘No, it’s fine. I just got here.’ Lori remembered him just as he was, and he hadn’t changed. Talking with Claire the previous day at lunch, she imagined all the ways the meeting could fail. And discussing him without alluding to their connection was nearly impossible too. ‘Whoever he is,’ Claire said,’ he obviously likes you.’ ‘I know, and I like him too. Well, I think I like him. I don’t know what I like.’ ‘He’s taken you away from us,’ Claire continued, ‘we haven’t seen you in ages.’ ‘I know, I’m sorry. Things have just been a little crazy recently, study and everything.’ ‘Sure. We’re all feeling it. Emma got sick the other day at lunch, couldn’t keep a falafel down. She said she’d been up all night studying. Can you believe it?’ Lori wondered if maybe she was just inviting these feelings into her life. It didn’t appear to make sense that you could be in love and not realise the fact at once. But love was no more understandable with ease of use. ‘I just don’t get it; how can you not know how you feel?’ Lori said. ‘The heart is the strangest and most stubborn of organs, Lori. We all learn it sooner or later.’ ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m thinking feelings into existence, and so it’s like they’re not really sincere, they’re just thoughts. And you can think anything.’ ‘That happened with me and Kyle, remember? He said he didn’t love me like he thought he did, and that I was a crutch to help him through his parents’ divorce. Said he got his feelings all mixed up. That’s why he broke up with me, he thought I deserved better, and he didn’t want to hurt me…asshole.’ Lori smiled, and finished her lunch. But this quandary with Freddy was something else altogether. She only met him once, forgot him, and yet carried a memory of him with her, one which only became apparent when he reappeared months later. Whatever had happened during that time was now coalescing with this frantic period in her life. ‘How do you know if what you’re feeling is true if you’ve never felt it before?’ She asked. But Claire had no answer. Sitting with Freddy now at the café that same question irked Lori. She looked at him as he stumbled and hesitated over each word, clumsily trying to outline his position. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t touch bases or anything, I just needed to, I don’t know, get my head straight.’ He said. ‘Was there something that upset you, or something I said?’ Lori asked. ‘No, no. You didn’t do anything, I mean you did something, obviously. I guess I just didn’t know what it was, and…it’s not something I’ve experienced before.’ ‘I understand, I do. Actually when you contacted me again I was surprised because I hadn’t forgotten you. Well, I kinda did, but it was like I knew I would see you again.’ ‘And here we are.’ Freddy smiled. ‘Yeah, here we are.’ Later, they returned to her dorm. Lori explained how she was getting ready to finish her studies and move out. Freddy carried with him that same shyness that needed to be teased out. He remained quiet, feeling his way into the dark, refusing to speak least he say the wrong thing. Lori flipped the light switch, and was surprised to find the room illuminated. ‘That’s strange, this light’s been broken for weeks. I normally light the candles.’ ‘The candles? Yeah, I remember the candles. Sandalwood, right?’ He said. ‘Yes, I can light them if you want.’ There was one purple lilac flower left on the desk in a pot. Freddy blew on the petals, one of which fell away onto the floor. A slew of brown boxes surrounded the bed and window with the calendar resting on the sill. ‘The place is a little drab. I had to clean up.’ Lori said. ‘Do you know where you’re going to stay next?’ Freddy asked. ‘Oh, no. Not yet. I have some job applications to sort through, so I’ll have to wait and see. Fingers crossed.’ Lori smoothed out the bed covers and helped Freddy remove his coat. His arms were cold and prickly. The room was dark but for the scorched hue of the melting candles beside the bed. Lori watched the shadows of their bodies move along the wall. ‘Do you want to lie down?’ She asked.                                                                                                  Freddy hesitated, but slowly laid himself out on the bed. ‘Wait, shoes.’ Lori said. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t-‘ Lori smiled, and removed his shoes, before lying beside him on the bed. He looked at her and raised his hand to her cheek. A smile appeared on her face. ‘I have that same feeling I had before.’ Freddy said. ‘Me too.’ Lori responded. ‘What do you think it is?’ ‘I don’t know.’ Lori said. *** When Lori woke up the next morning, Freddy was gone.  She rose from the bed, looking around the room. It was quiet and grey, with the echo of a voice long silenced. The candles had burned down to the steel cap, but the aroma remained in the corners where the thin cobwebs began to flutter. Lori emerged from the bed and put her socks back on. Her feet were cold, and her naked shoulders hummed with the aftertouch of an embrace. The morning erupted in the distance across the front lawn with cars and buses, while outside in the corridor voices emerged from the other dorms. The large shard of paint from the ceiling appeared to have detached itself further from the corner and dangled like a leaf down the wall. Lori assured herself that what happened was not a dream and that Freddy really had spent the night in her room. But what it all meant still remained uncertain. And if she had to search back into her mind for understanding, she didn’t know where to begin, because none of it made sense. She wondered how this enterprise even began. It must have been a mistake; inviting strangers into your dorm, prescribing your body as a curative solution to problems not your own. Only now did it sound as absurd as all that. She had to see it for herself, and hearing from anyone else, not least her friends, would only have emboldened her. She stood up from bed and got dressed in yesterday’s clothes. There were no messages from Freddy, and he didn’t leave a note behind. His clothes and bag were gone, and all that remained of him was the faint smell of denim. Lori looked outside into the corridor, people were flitting past in every direction. Some of the final exams had already started, and the risible tension lingered in the air as students expended nervous energy on jokes and gestures. In light of the scene, and the ever approaching end of Lori’s matriculation, she decided it was best to leave Freddy, and focus on her final week before exams. But that was not as simple as she imagined. Her friends did plenty of talking too, and it amounted to nothing more than hypocrisy. Lori took a shower in water that was less than warm, thinking all the time of Freddy and trying to remember the finer details of their session together. She remembered leaning in to kiss him, reaching forward as he fell back on the bed. Soon she was on top of him, holding his face in her hands as he gripped her warm body. They rolled together on the bed, at once gently and with passion. Something in the way he held her body suggested reluctance. Lori remembered pulling him closer to her body, but he would not be moved. She opened her eyes, but the memory was not there, and she stood in the shower watching the water course down her body, steam clouding her eyes. The days passed, and Lori was no more assured of her connection with Freddy. The feeling precipitated by their first meeting which she sought to recapture in the second meeting, was now a deeper mystery, harder to access. She looked at her phone more often than not and waited for emails to come through. Each time her phone buzzed she seized upon it, only to see a new job application or a notification for yet another year-end party. But Lori could not celebrate, and the thought of doing anything before coming to an understanding with Freddy was impossible. And when it seemed like she was getting ready to move on; studying, doing yoga, phoning home to her parents, that same throb beat against her chest, and she was right back in that faded memory with Freddy shutting his eyes and kissing her. Soon the very thought of him made Lori fret. He was out there somewhere, carrying a piece of her, the details of a memory that she needed before she could be certain if the feeling they talked about was true, or just a mere thought. Later, she gathered the boxes together and piled everything into a corner behind the door. Her father, Peter, had phoned, promising to collect her. Lori didn’t want to see her parents just yet. Diane, like all mothers, had a way of knowing that something was wrong. And Lori didn’t yet know what exactly the problem was and had no obvious explanation. Everything was abstracted in the form of obscured memories and nebulous feelings too strange to clearly identify. Despite her feelings, Lori decided to go to a party with friends. ‘This is your last chance to get drunk as a student, you can’t seriously say no,’ Claire said. ‘I know, but I just…’ ‘Come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll make the night last forever.’ But alcohol only improved things for those who were already happy, it even seemed like her friends were the sensible ones all along. Life was easier when drunk. Thoughts didn’t last long enough to pose problems, and if they did, you could just have another one. But looking around and seeing everyone having fun, delighting in the free-flowing excess, made Lori feel sick. Had these people never felt pain before, was everything just a passing sensation, did nothing matter more than the next party? Lori realised she had been wrong the whole time, giving herself up to strangers and leaving nothing for herself to live on. Her emotions were a deflated balloon and she was now deprived of the air required to inflate them. With that thought, she left the party and returned to the dorm, falling asleep on top of the covers with her shoes on the duvet. The next day, Freddy contacted Lori and asked to meet her again. At first, she didn’t know how to respond, although it was obvious that she would agree to see him. She did not want to appear too concerned or excited, but in truth a meeting was the only thing that could elucidate the feeling between them. Lori spent the morning preparing herself, but when it seemed clear to her what to say, she realised that she had no idea what Freddy wanted to say. And he was the last person whose intentions she could intuit. ‘Hey, I’m sorry I left the other day,’ Freddy said when they met at the café, ‘I didn’t want to disturb you. I was still unsure, and…’ ‘It’s okay, I’m not angry. I didn’t know either what to do, or…I-‘ ‘I was thinking over the last few days, and I think I made a mistake. I mean, that feeling, it wasn’t what I thought it was. I’m sorry, you probably get this all the time from guys. I thought it was love, you know. But I don’t think it was real, and I can’t assume that what was strange for me was the same for you.’ Lori was struck by a sudden pang of grief. Something stiffened inside her, and soon her face turned red and hot. ‘I don’t know what you mean, I…I thought it was love too. I still do. This isn’t common for me, I didn’t think this would happen either. I…I want to explore this more. I think we should –‘ ‘But you do this thing,’ Freddy gestured, ‘you’re close to guys all the time, and…I can’t, I mean I just want you for you, not as…I can’t be with you when it's like this. I’m sorry…like I said, I made a mistake.’ Lori was silent. Freddy looked around, the café was more crowded than usual. A throng of cars beeped outside in the clamorous street. Lori couldn’t hear herself think. But before she knew it, she was speaking. ‘I thought…You’re the one person I have genuine feelings for, and...’ Freddy tried to hold his gaze on her, but the earnest return of her face was more truth than he could handle. He stood up, throwing his satchel over his shoulder and brushed his hair. Lori looked up. She could not make herself rise to meet him. ‘I’m sorry, I better go. Goodbye.’ He said. Lori waited at her table, watching her tea go cold. The café emptied before long, and it was time to get back to the dorm before dark. When she arrived there, her friends were hanging out near the canteen, joking and jesting. Lori took the long route behind the library, through the courtyard, and up the stairs, collapsing onto her bed in a stream of tears. *** The next morning Lori stood outside the main dormitory with boxes stacked neatly by. Her father, Peter, was on the way to collect her belongings, as other students gathered their things too before final exams. Lori did not sleep well that night. The only thing that remained in her room was the lilac plant on the desk, denuded of petals. Also, the calendar from the wall she dumped in the bin, and the melted candles too were no longer useful. When she moved in a few years earlier it seemed as though she carried her whole life with her, it was crazy to think you could fit something so unwieldy into a few boxes. But now there was much less to carry. When Lori arrived at college, her upbeat demeanour presented itself as a skill, a felicity at once mysterious and inviting. Most who met her came away with a new belief, if not in total purity, at least in kindness as a casual and obvious mode of comportment, one you might try out yourself. That was three years ago. Lori was not the same person she was then. This was a place and time where the full ambit of youth should be experienced, but Lori had been content to remain in the routine her appointments required, slowly becoming an adult without knowing it. Now she carried a feeling that could not be regained. It was a feeling that promised so much, one if not carefully managed could bring the kind of loss she could not reconcile with herself. Lori stood by the front lawn, holding firmly the boxes which swayed as the wind blew past. She looked out on the street to the high buildings, the numerous lanes of traffic, the strange faces that appeared from every corner. There was so much in the world, too much for one person to even countenance. Lori knew that now, and it was clear that this feeling of loss was present in everyone. It would not last forever, but while it remained in her, she would grow with it. However long it might last, this pain signified the truth of her place in the world, and though it sounded cruel, it was best experienced at this time, and learned as a lesson, one that she would not forget, and that all the love she might experience in the future would be made stronger for having felt it now. Justin Aylward is a writer from Co. Dublin, Ireland. He has published short stories for Fly on the Wall Press, Fairlight Books, The Write Launch, Route 7 Review and East of the Web. He has also published a novel entitled The Daisy Resurrected, a detective romantic-comedy available on Amazon. When he is not reading and writing, he can be found on park benches drinking coffee and philosophizing with anyone who will listen.

I’ll Be There for You When the Rain Starts to Pour A few days before Halloween we’re getting high in an Ellicottville Airbnb when the Internet tells me Matthew Perry was found dead in a hot tub. I need to clear my head so I leap up from the couch grab a blueberry sour from the fridge and step outside to the back deck where our hot tub for the weekend has been covered up against the rain. Down the road there’s a farm full of alpacas. I saw them on the drive here grazing in a field. They looked so happy being together like that. Until Lust Comes Around Again Back in 2005, Regina is behind the wheel of her mom’s blue Kia Spectra and Charlie is holding his harmonica out the window letting the wind play something sweet when we hit a skunk on the 190 and the mouth organ goes flying into the dark seemingly gone forever. Years later I’m driving way over the speed limit along that same stretch of road with all four windows rolled down and the snow blowing into my face. Because going through a divorce while sick with COVID makes you a little desperate for any kind of physical affection. Suddenly I recall the lost harmonica and the music of happier times. So I slow down adhere to the speed limit and imagine a skunk full of life burrowing in its den. It’s going to be a long winter. Slumlords a Thousand Miles Away Out on the snowy street Sean shuffles up to me and shows me a strange-looking bag of weed. He found it at the end of a gasoline rainbow in the parking lot of the Jim’s Steakout. “It’s magical,” he tells me. Later in the night we’re high out of our minds knocking on doors of abandoned apartment buildings. Our friends used to live here. New Shit When someone reads a poem for the first time at an open mic it sounds like a pair of scissors cutting a fresh piece of construction paper. This is our operating room where we send more love out into the world. You have to start with yourself and hope the sound carries. Justin Karcher (Twitter: @justin_karcher, Bluesky: justinkarcher.bsky.social) is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, NY. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). Recent playwriting credits include The Birth of Santa (American Repertory Theater of WNY) and “The Trick Is to Spill Your Guts Faster Than the Snow Falls” (Alleyway Theatre).

And so I lay. Off lively path. Driftin' in et out of day, Last and lonely sound, my laugh, Come the Raven, blackest of wings Claws cave, dig through cornea Flags of lost kings Rip, rip, rip the retina Claws cave, dig through cornea Cut away the colours, Rip, rip, rip the retina Embrace new cold, dark Mother Cut away the colours, Come the Raven, blackest of wings Embrace new cold, dark Mother Flags of lost kings And so I lay. Off lively path. Driftin' in et out of day, Last and lonely sound, my laugh, Ah a guest, royal beetle, Travel across the skin, In et out the leg quickly needle Lay the ground for its kin, Travel across the skin, Map the strach and wound Lay the ground for its kin, Awake the haunted tune Map the strach and wound Ah a guest, royal beetle, Awake the haunted tune In et out the leg quickly needle Last and lonely sound, my laugh, Driftin' in et out of day, Off lively path. And so I lay. Degrade, degrade, degrade Consciousness gone, Deepest sea of which to fade, Now the restless song, Degrade, degrade, degrade, Consciousness leaving, mind gone, Deepest sea of which to fade, Now the restless song, Consciousness leaving, mind gone, The dirt the only warmth, Now the restless song, Fall, fall, fall The dirt my only warmth, Degrade, degrade, degrade, Fall, fall, fall Deepest sea of which to fade Last and lonely sound, my laugh, Driftin' in et out of day, Off lively path. And so I lay. David Henderson is a young poet, currently a junior in high school. Born in Santa Fe, NM, and raised in Flint, MI, David has been published in the Paramanu Pentaquark VII and the Quilted Voices collection. His work often draws from a passion for folklore, film, and fantasies of nature.

Things You Have To Do Throw rocks in the river, even if you don’t have kids along. Not the small, flat stones meant for skipping: find a fist-sized rock and chuck it hard. Hear the hollow gulp as it hits. Whenever you arrive anywhere, open the car door, stretch your arms, and sample the air. Touch the keys of pianos you do not own. Touch velvet. Touch silk. Close your eyes and turn toward the sun. Sniff the crumbling bindings of old books: paper or leather. Run the tap as cold as it gets. Splash water in your face. Do it again. (Imagine changing nothing about yourself but having to run away from a war. Hold yourself hostage with that thought. Who would come with you and what five things would you bring?) Taste all the toothpick- speared cheese samples in the fancy shop. Don’t buy any. Find twenty bucks in last year’s overcoat pocket. Drive home past your neighbor’s house. His whole living room wall has become a TV screen full of one newscaster’s impassive face. No one is watching it. Sit at your kitchen table. Cry. Opposite, The Same The way a sunset grabs your attention when it’s still a sober grey dam with yellow light spilling over it, but then something amps up the neon, so you have to sift through your too-big purse for your phone and try to crop out the car window after you grab a picture of a thing that’s like an argument—more and more intense by the second. Except there’s no disagreement here. Someone else is even standing, holding her phone sideways and just over her head (now you’ve both parked your cars and gotten out). Cloud banks—ruby, purple, a whole tide of molten gold. I have read about the exact amount of shaking in earthquakes that makes people flee buildings inside which they’re ducking under tables and into doorways. This is the opposite, but it’s also the same. We’re all outside singing Whoa, fixed on an event we can’t control or stop watching. Some of us are even using our phones to call people we love: Go outside— right now! Today’s last words, writ in harmless flame.