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Amy talks to the space behind the refrigerator now.  And she only wears blue. When her mother dresses her in the morning, any unblue clothes she fights free from, squirms and kicks away. Today, I see her leaving for school in blue shorts, blue flip flops, and a puffy blue coat, under which, I imagine, hides either her Bluey or Grover t-shirt.  I sit at the kitchen table and eat my English muffin, spread with strawberry jam, studying the latest blue-on-blue drawings that Amy’s brought home from kindergarten, a series of blues done in Crayola on construction paper, which we’ve taped to the cabinets, walls and fridge, which Amy grows distraught if we adjust or displace. “They’re like the alphabet,” she says, and we’re supposed to learn them.  Today, her class finger paints, but Amy refuses to touch white paper and tantrums so severely over the shortage of blue paint that I have to come pick her up.  Ms. Richards, her teacher, stares at me blankly when I say this must be Amy’s “Blue Period,” which I think is low-hanging fruit, just a dad joke, but Ms. Richards, who looks seventeen and always stands torn threadbare, like a cat’s scratching post, coated in children, overcome and loathing her life choices. On the way home from the tantrum, I deny Amy ice cream because we’ve resolved not to reward bad behavior, her mother and I.  My wife, Amy’s mother, works with grown children as a college advisor, and most days comes home with that same look that haunts Ms. Richards, saying her students were rewarded for bad behavior and it shows. After snide comments from her father about my drawing unemployment, my wife insisted I find work. In her parents’ minds, a “stay at home dad” is a concept we invented. Compromise:  I work from home, taking orders for Pizza Hut all over the planet. I had to learn, “Take out or delivery?” and “Our drivers carry twenty dollars for change,” in dozens of languages.  People think Picasso painted blue because he was depressed by his poverty, but he was poor because he painted blue and no one wanted blue paintings, which depressed him.  Once home, Amy goes to sit by the fridge. I catch her there daily. On days it’s just us, I try not to leave her alone often, but I pace on the phone. My voice rises when I speak certain languages and I don’t want Amy to think I dislike my work, or I’m angry, that all grown ups are miserable.  I ask Amy if she’s made an imaginary friend back there. She says, “No. It’s blue all the way up,” and shoots me a look like I’m interrupting.  All the way up, behind the refrigerator, she means, though it’s just dusty and rusty and dark, like most apartment refrigerators. Sometimes she’ll cram her arm in there, and I tell her that’s a good way to get spiderbit, or electrocuted, not to do that and to come out and play with her toys.  She says that toys are for boys, implying intellectually, and asks the dark crease if it’s time yet?  I feel in over my head and want her mother, my wife, who Amy eventually abides, and ask her to come watch a movie in the living room. This game has gotten old and weird and is freaking me out.  I take a call from Acapulco, a large with pepperoni, which I upsell to extra large with a brownie and a two-liter of Dr. Pepper.  Amy’s gone when I peek back in the kitchen. No trace. Believe me, I look everywhere. Behind the wall and the fridge I search with a flashlight, which is stupid—we’re talking, like, three inches of space.  When I squint, like a Magic Eye poster, I finally see the blue. The faintest whisper of blue, like a pilot light. But, it’s no blue I’ve ever known, like a ripe blueberry, but bluer, or a bluejay but a little less blue. Forget the sky, that’s not really blue. That’s an illusion. I can’t describe it to my wife or the police, who all say they can’t see it when they look—only glance—behind the fridge.  Amy’s pictures wallpapering our kitchen are close, but they all contradict each other.  In a folder in Amy’s backpack, I find a drawing by blue marker on orange construction paper, a drawing of a blue rectangle with a blue arm creeping out from behind.  “That’s it,” I shout. “That’s the blue you’re looking for.”  I want them to understand how Amy’s all blue now, how her blue is the blue we’d be lucky to be.  When the cops take my wife out in the hall to ask her about my on and off unemployment again, my frequent terminations, I sit and study the blue paintings along the wall, that New Blue ghost light burning behind my eyes as a cipher code.  Thanks to my job, I’ve developed a tongue for languages. Ironic, since I failed high school Spanish. I rush to the fridge, press my face into the crease and whisper in blues how I’m ready to come back there now, how I’ve been searching for years, but now everything’s perfectly blue. Travis Flatt (he/him) is a teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear in Fractured Lit, New Flash Fiction Review, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, Does It Have Pockets, MacQueen's Quinterly, HAD, Bull, Maudlin House and other places.

END 6 An unfamiliar woman waves at him from across the park. She sidesits on the ground with her baby. The child is lying prone on a downy blanket, soft as baking flour, in the prickly grass, arching its back and wobbling its new head. She wears an A-line dress with a green hem and a red body, spotted with upturned black teardrop shapes, because it is summer, and she is a fun summer watermelon. He is sitting on a bench, watching kids play. He doesn’t recognize her, but she seems to know him, so he waves back. She looks at him strangely then. A woman just behind him emerges and calls back to her, and he realizes the wave was not for him. He was just in the middle of someone else’s thing. He was “It” in their game of keepaway. 5 He stands over the trash can looking at a hunter green Father’s Day card that says “Reel good dad,” with a picture of a fishing pole. He accidentally smirks but then suppresses it. He is not a dad, so the card is not for him, so he throws it away. 4 Flowers arrive for her, white roses and lilies elbowing each other for space in the over-packed vase. Green spears of Bells of Ireland protrude from the phalanx. The card is not addressed to both of them, only to her. He grimaces. Where are his flowers? But then he isn’t particularly fond of flowers. She is, so it’s nice that they were sent for her by a concerned friend. 3 He is in the store returning gifts. Matching brown baseball gloves, one hand-sized and one a miniature. The little one is the size of a baby’s hand, too small for real use, only a novelty to go on a white dresser next to a crib. “How adorable!” says the red-vested Target clerk, awakening from her programmed regimen. “Are these yours?” He hesitates and then tells her they were for a friend, but he got them something else instead. 2 He is told to stay in the waiting room. The appointment is not for him. His wife is escorted off by a nurse who smiles flatly to mask her hurry. His wife does not return her smile, but looks at the floor as she passes. The doctor’s office smells like someone spilled mouthwash a while ago and didn’t clean it up well. There is a humming fish tank with one yellow fish. The humming is a merciful alternative to silence. The fish is a merciful alternative to making eye contact. The visitors sit in chairs that are too close together, so they try to stagger themselves apart like the black squares on a checkerboard. He reads the news on his phone. His wife emerges later, walking too fast towards him, and falls into his embrace. She shakes quietly in his arms and covers her face with her hand. By osmosis, he comes to understand. He has never heard of these feelings, nor been notified that they would be out there waiting for him. He doesn't have words for it, this thing that has been thrust upon him, into him. 1 He is not invited to the baby shower. She and her girlfriends are going to get together, just them. He’s happy for her, though. They only have one car, so he drops her off at the friend’s house. As he drives away, he does something that he has been doing lately, something that only he knows about. It’s only for him to know. He turns on his music stream and chooses Can’t Help Falling In Love.  Elvis sings them out loud in his warm, silky baritone. He doesn’t sing, but he sings the words in his heart and smiles at what is in store for him. BEGINNING James W. Miller is a professor and writer in the Los Angeles area. He has previously published in Adelaide Literary Magazine.

No Coming Back Turn around, don’t drown.  There are signs all over the Houston area saying this. You watch the news, and there is someone in Manhattan or Los Angeles, a prerecorded skyline behind them, saying, “Why would anyone stay in the path of a hurricane?” They’ve sent the greenest reporter out with a crew; he’s knee-deep in brown water, his face continually lashed by the downpour. “What are people there telling you?” Does it matter? They saw the signs coming in, and they even saw a couple of cars trapped in the underpass, said a prayer for the poor suckers who didn’t turn around. Maybe they missed the signs. The thing is, you see the signs clear enough. The dark sky, the rising tide, coming home late, then not coming home at all, sudden weekend work trips. Soon enough, you stop asking. You just go about your day like normal, walk the dog, water the plants, watch the news, laugh at the reporter in the water asking if the folks in New York know about alligators actually getting into the flood water. They laugh with you. You think about getting eaten by an alligator. There’s this made-for-television movie you watched with your mom, who loved a soapy drama. The star, this woeful woman clearly on her way to a divorce, gets in a boat with her husband, and he proceeds to drop her into a lake filled with alligators. Your mom says, “Puta! Why the fuck would you get into the boat? Stupid, stupid.” And you both laugh. Your mother’s marriages were all disasters. People came for the dinner parties, of course, and they offered the requisite single comforting visit after the divorce. On the way home, they’d discuss all the signs, “When is she going to learn?” And they laughed. People never cease to amaze you. They assume, for example, that surviving  is what any rational person would want to do. It’s the kind of thing you believe when you’ve never really had to survive  shit. But when you’re a real survivor, when you’ve lost jobs and babies, husbands and hope, survival loses its shine. The woman survives the alligator attack. She gets 1980s plastic surgery—that is, a total makeover—and comes back rich (for some reason) and proceeds to have her revenge on the ex and the mistress and everyone else. She has the last laugh. That’s what anyone wants, of course, but it doesn’t usually work out that way. You climb out missing a limb or two, worse for wear. At some point, you tire of telling the stories, explaining the scars, carrying what is left to the next shelter. At some point, you’re exhausted. You run out into the water. You’re hoping for an alligator. A whole bunch of them. A last laugh. Billows & Waves Jonah 2:3 “That bastard didn’t want to let go,” Robyn tells me about riding a whale. I’m not sure where the struggle takes place, what body of water he’s talking about. His stories start in Fiji but always end up somewhere else—Mai Khao in Phuket, or a boarding school outside Melbourne, or a flight to the States. Sandy, in the kitchen, hands me a mug of tea for her husband and says, “Don’t believe everything he tells you, but that story,” the one about the whale, “that one is true.” They met on that flight. He played rugby. She served drinks to him and a dozen other players, living off their good looks, a little charm, promise. I ask Robyn about his surgery, the third in two years. He smiles, “There’s this big goddamn robot thing,” this is also true, “and I asked the doctor if I could come and see it,” he starts scrolling through pictures on his phone, their granddaughter on a horse, his sister in a wheelchair, an old black and white, “Look at this!” It's Robyn, maybe 18 or 19, shirtless skinny body, that 70s hair, he’s holding these enormous fish by their jaws, one in each hand, he’s smiling like he’s in a beer commercial. I picture Sandy, a navy blue number with white hemming, laughing at the boys in first class (on someone else’s dime) trying to get her number. “The whale?” Sean, their son, guesses the story I’m interested in, “I tell my dad maybe he shouldn’t tell it anymore, people will get mad you killed a whale, even if it was a long time ago.” He’s right, of course. People never let you finish the story. Which is why you have to keep trying to tell it the right way before all the billows and waves take over. "Billows & Waves" is included in J.D.'s full-length collection, Reluctant Prophets (Moon Tide Press, 2025), which can be purchased here: https://www.moontidepress.com/books Life on the Jawa Transport We are scraps. We are refuse. Half of us are half of us, missing gears and gadgets so long we’ve forgotten our function— and this bolt, it hurt so much going in, a pain to keep us in place, to remind us not to wander or explore— to stay in this desert place, as merchandise, broken parts barely worth what they offer, our motivators bad, silenced in sand. J.D. Isip’s collections include Reluctant Prophets  (Moon Tide Press, 2025), Kissing the Wound  (Moon Tide Press, 2023), and Pocketing Feathers  (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). J.D. teaches in South Texas where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.

At 39,000 he turns to say the moon always falls to Earth and  instead of words I web my fingers to the darkness  and fill so wide with light to say we are always touching Requiem   Another blue  screen slices  the night with  ice skates and gelid currents,  how empty river arms fling to  a frozen sheet— those flapping goose wings and sharp  twists of blade, those rows of bare trees quivering in stark light, waiting for children with red gloves to hang ornaments and tinsel from their gentle,  tired, fingertips, how quietly a door  creaks with bad  news like even  the hinges hold  grief for the noise  to follow Schoolbus  Girls stand by nine, morning sweet with snap- open lunch boxes and pale shoes  scuffed with doll  dust, with their open lashed eyes  In her quilts  the wind on  the top floor  sounds like wolves,  white lacing  night as needle  threads seam or ear lobe with shine— how I adorn my  cheeks with a shade called plum or  loveliness or  watch my legs spread in  wonder When did this brisk air turn so bodied, our arms magnets to  scoop long limbs from the concrete,  did this wide mouth  turn vessel to  surprise or my voice mistaken for a cry  in the flat lands? A wild, sharp  beg for the  cracked window  Icebox Intimacy  Sometimes silence is a doorway  and your bare body presses gold against the frame. Jutting hips pale to your closed lips, the freezer  door open and the  whole room  ice-kissed.  My hands rich  with blackberries, purple gums, knuckles stained from scrubs. I have primed fingers to pick frozen bodies from the shelf and watch fruit fall to  softness in my palms. A birth in reverse— small, ripe, things,  destined to thaw  Sofia Bagdade is a poet from New York City. Her work appears in One Art, The Shore, Red Weather, and The Basilisk Tree. She finds joy in smooth ink, orange light, and French Bulldogs.

you are entitled to one carry-on My heart swells in a way I can’t pin down–and Don’t care to–when I watch ferries pass in the Sound, Crane my neck backwards, Delayed because I am no longer there, And you, no longer here. When I bit into the jacked-up frozen  QFC chocolate buttercream chocolate whateveritwas, I'll treasure it because of the way it Shattered in my mouth, because you were there, Because we all were, in your apartment, Crisscross sprawl on your floor,  Shirley Temples at Cuff later–we never did want To blend in– Because you only have one chair, and you don't Know what you want out of such a big city, but you Looked at me when I came out of the bathroom, When we played the Dreamcast on the Air mattress, all shifting our bodies to Replicate a coveted double bounce,  Alchemize a drop in the stomach,  The most innocent high we could Conjure, and the soft glow of the TV was A temporary limelight, and I guess I took  The idea of myself for granted, or at least The very physical way I thought we could All look past if I never stopped being funny, But I guess I went quiet for a few seconds Longer than I'd intended, and don't look at me In that way that I can't let you take with you,  And I told you you could Borrow the shoes, the eyeliner, The dozen things I didn't think I'd need for The trip, but they might do something for you, As I wear the heaviest things on my body, Because I hold love in the potential, Because my suitcase was swollen with it. everyone loves catgirls!! When I saw the tenderness was still Stuck in your throat–a blaze more than a thaw– I wanted to claw it out, the way cats nuzzle and purr But you can't breed out the evisceration, the way kids can't  Share, the way I still remember your family landline, The way you let me. i don't care if you took too much, come look at the snow Fragments of angels in hail, The best we can do, squinting Until we see Orion, forgoing stasis For ecstasy–for chattering teeth that Speak glimpses of intimacy, when the Real deal is on omnipresent, enough For us to reach out and hold like moths in The cup of a palm, enough to swallow us  Whole, flapping our wings  As youth flickers, then glows. Romy Rhoads Ewing is a writer and photographer from Sacramento, California. Her work has appeared in HAD, Bullshit Lit, fifth wheel press, BRAWL, Querencia Press, Nowhere Girl Collective, Major 7th Magazine, Y2K Quarterly, and more. Her debut chapbook, please stay, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. She is a poetry and nonfiction editor for JAKE and also runs the archival site SACRAMENTO DIRTBAG ARCHIVES. Romy and her work can be found at romyrhoadsewing.xyz

He sat next to the elderly pilot’s hospital bed, hand raised in absolution as he read from the approved script: “Benevolent spirit, please understand, the Captain was only following orders.” A little girl materialized at the foot of the hospital bed and threw her hands in the air. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? We were dancing at a wedding when we burned alive, but I guess that basically makes him innocent, right?” He nodded solemnly as she gathered up her loose skin and jumped into the puddle of piss and tears that had accumulated in the pilot’s bedpan. H. A. Eugene is an O. Henry-nominated writer of strange stories about food, work, and death. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y Lit, Radon Journal, HAD, and Flash Fiction Online, among others. Witness him talking to himself on Bluesky @autobono.bsky.social  and Threads @h_a_eugene.

The naked woman in the glass stall slathers on liquid soap, a bridal train of foam swirling at her feet. At the adjacent sink, I swipe my pits and crotch with a washcloth. A bird bath , we called it when I was little. I’m grateful for my friend at the front desk who sneaks me into the Malibu Equinox twice a week. A lady behind me sucks in her breath and steps gingerly onto a scale. Amid the mirror’s reflections’ reflections’ reflections, I realize I am staring at the naked woman. She catches my eye, and I look away. I hate getting caught. I can feel her staring at me as I towel off. It’s a soft stare, not threatening like the ones I sometimes get when people suspect I don’t belong wherever I am.  Pipes groan as she shuts off the water. “I’ve seen you here before.” Her silky voice echoes against the tiled walls and floor. “Are you homeless?”  I pretend not to hear. Coil my braids atop my head like a crown and dress quickly. Drag denim across my damp skin, wrestle with a thermal shirt, fold into an oversized Army jacket, slap on a watch cap.  “I don’t mean to pry. I asked if you’re homeless.” She emerges from the shower in snowy towels that she’s wrapped and tucked into a toga and turban. Her eyes are clear, with light purple shadows beneath. Chiseled cheeks, like most club members. From the rich diet or the skinny pills or some plastic surgeon’s signature slice. “Oh, I thought you said ‘Are you hungry? ’” I crouch down, lace my boots. There’s a discarded scrunchie on a bench. I don’t like it, so I leave it. I stash a handful of soaps, then another, into my duffel. This gym goes all-out on soap. Robust foam, mild scent. There are also soft-bristled toothbrushes, mint ribbon floss, designer hand lotion. The lighting in this place is to die for. Not like the fluorescents in the Hollywood gyms, which flicker and buzz. Everyone there is cranky, and they don’t realize it’s because the illumination is in-fucking-humane. The woman, now dressed in a blouse, slacks, and flats, stops on her way out, combing her hair. “ Are  you hungry?”  I tighten drawstrings, buckle straps. Try to assess if she’s a turn-the-outsider-in type. My intuition says she’s not. I get cocky. “No, honestly, I had a big lunch.” She hands me a folded bill. “Here’s a little something.” Her smile is like a frosted strawberry Pop-Tart: overly processed and sweet yet comforting, nonetheless. I unfold the bill. A twenty. “Oh. Wow. Thank you. I’m really OK, though.”  “You’re welcome. I’m glad to help.” She’s walking again. “I didn’t ask.” I have certain rules.  “My pleasure.” I treat myself to fish tacos and beer at a cantina with twinkle lights, then head to the shore. The song of the waves is primal. Like my own blood, cresting and surging. There’s a teenage couple ahead of me. She holds a fistful of daisies and wears a long dress, its open-weave fabric like a fishnet. His jacket is silkscreened with waves. They laugh, tear apart, then come back together to kiss every now and again. I wouldn’t mind something like that. It’s been a while since I’ve auditioned a new sidekick. A while since I’ve wanted to. I ramble the length of the beach and back, cross the Pacific Coast Highway, and return to Spindrift Lane. That’s what I call the spot where my #vanlife van resides in the parking lot of the Smile Center mall. I strip to my undies, smoke half a joint and mess around on my phone. Thank you, Smile Center Wi-Fi password “BrightWhite123.” The sunset is reasonably spectacular, so I throw open the back doors for a portrait sesh. My selfies are amazing. My single goal in their composition: surrender no personal details.  No brown eyes like my dad’s, wherever he is or isn’t. No “flaxen” hair like my mom’s; her word, not mine. No beauty spot in the crook of my left nostril, like my aunt’s. I am a stark silhouette against slate ocean and tangerine sky, a dark shadow of my physical self. I download a fresh dating app and create a new profile. I like this part best: creating a new character for the next entertainment. I imagine actors feel like this when they research a new role.  On the first app, I was Sandy Johanson. Sandy was finishing her dental assistant certification (that part was true) when she met Riverside Danny, who taught her a few things about credit cards and kissed like he meant it. Shortly after she completed her cert, Danny was convicted of fraud (dull story). Selena Johnson used the card tricks to make her way to Los Angeles, where, after a few days on a new app, she moved in with Brentwood Bart, a nepo baby with a healthy habit. Selena became his live-in housekeeper slash personal assistant slash drug caddie slash mixologist. When that blew up, luckily without jail time, Sylvette Jonas dropped her savings on a pre-loved #vanlife van, whipped out her dental assistant credentials, and signed on at the Smile Center. It’s a fine job as bullshit jobs go. Handing sterile instruments to Dr. Fish, soothing youngsters afraid of the drill, preaching the floss manifesto. I’ll do anything as long as I’m near the ocean.  Cut to six months later, to now.  I wave my fingers over the phone’s tiny keyboard, conjuring my next incarnation. I look for a signal, a sign. The sky is just dim enough for the tritest of lucky things to appear. Starlight Jackson . SWF, doing fine . Don’t want much, just a good time. Walks on the beach, Coca-Cola on ice. Daisy bouquet and tuna sandwich nice.  The rhymes are pure Seuss but that’s the point. They’re meant to attract the kind of guy who doesn’t realize Starlight is the hook, not the worm. I change Coca-Cola  to Champagne  and hit Send. Stoned and satisfied, I lock up, draw the blackout curtains, and turn down the futon. The waves sing me to sleep. I am quasi-ocean adjacent, quasi-living my dream.   * * * Two weeks later, on a Storm Watch Wednesday, Crash makes his entrance from a matte black Charger in ironic seventies prom: velvet suit with a ruffled shirt and flared slacks. Shoulder-length dirty blond hair combed back. He is blandly handsome. Like Val Kilmer’s before days.  “Nice look,” I say. Riverside and Brentwood had muscle cars, too. “Not bad yourself.”  I’d purchased one of those fishnet dresses at the surf shop and tucked in the tag to return later, then artfully posed near the Smile Center door. His sky-blue eyes caress my body in a way that suggests an internal licking of chops. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a white girl in cornrows, but on you they look good.” I laugh at the sideways compliment. The gym shower was closed for re-grouting, so I’d plaited my salt-air hair and smoked my scalp with incense to mask the funk.  We head north toward the gathering clouds. He parks at the far end of Paradise Cove, near the bluffs. From the Charger’s trunk emerges a small bistro table and folding chairs, a fringed umbrella, tuna sandwiches and chips, plus a silver stand and bucket filled with Champagne on ice. “A glass of champs, a tuna sam and thou,” he says, bowing with a flourish. He thrusts a daisy bouquet in my direction. “That’s the closest I get to Shakespeare.” Crash is no William S. but he gets points for reading comprehension. He makes no fatal errors while we dine. Nothing spills, no food collects at the corners of his lips, he doesn’t laugh or talk too loudly, which isn’t easy surrounded by bombastic waves and scavenging seagulls. Afterward, he wraps a wool blanket around our shoulders and, champagne in hand, we stroll along the surging tide. Decorum quickly disappears as our limbs wheel and wing in the sucking sand, champagne splashing, the blanket cast aside. Soon we’re laughing and panting like kids. “Up for a swim?” He lifts me under my arms and swings me around as if to toss me in. “Don’t!” I scream. Too shrieky. Too panicked. Too loud. Too much. “Sorry, I’m sorry.” His tone shifts and he plants me on the ground. “I was just fooling around. I would never do anything you didn’t want me to. I promise.” I wrest away, shaking my head. How did I lose my composure so quickly?  The clouds have swirled into dramatic pillars rising from a threatening gloom. Suddenly serious, he grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him. His sky-blues are dark gray. “I swear to God. You’re safe with me.” “You can die at the beach, too, you know,” I blurt, breaking another of my rules: Never show your fear. “The beach is the best place to talk about your dreams.” “Maybe some other time.” My teeth are chattering. The rope dress hangs heavy. “Listen.” He puts his arm around me and reels me in. “The sound of the waves makes you have to yell, and by yelling, you’re closer to making them come true. I’ll go first.” He squeezes me tighter. “I dream of making money by managing talent and content and manifesting other people’s dreams,” he yells.  A guy jogs past. “Good luck with that.”  Crash gives a goofy grin. “See? Easy!” “Take me home!” I dramatically twist away and plunk into a knee-high wave. I lose my balance for a long second, teetering on the edge of a face-plant, until he stabilizes me. “You really don’t like the ocean, do you? And yet you love the beach.” I realize my fingers are clamped on his biceps, and quickly let go. “Starlight Jackson, you are beautiful and strange.” He turns my head left to right, kissing the corner of each eye where my signature liner wings up. My knees buckle. “Whoa!” He catches and holds me. “Now you. Yell it out. You’ll feel better.”  “Raincheck.” I stumble away.  And then the stupidest thing happens. Rain splatters our faces and hands, the flutes, the already wet blanket. “Ha!” he shouts. “Nature has spoken.” He kisses me on the mouth this time and I break another rule: I kiss back. “Now you.” I imagine yelling about how I’d do anything to have my own place on any beach. The thought of it leaves me terrified, breathless. The rain stops. The clouds part. The sun is low, and the sky is crazy spectacular, deep purples and reds, like bruises and blood. “That’s not how rainchecks work,” my strangled voice says.    * * * Sobs resound from the waiting room, where my next patient—hysterically uninterested in Highlights  or comic books or crayon drawings of smiles and teeth done by other girls and boys who are quiet and don’t cry—waits with her mother.  I straighten the Sylvette Jonas nametag and smooth my hands on my dancing teddy bear smock. My head pounds. Aftereffects of last night. I chug water, then open the door to the waiting room. “Hi, honey,” I say to the still-crying girl, “How are we today?” She continues to cry down the corridor, then in the padded chair. When I snap the paper bib’s chain around her neck. When I ask if she likes her teacher at school. When I flick on the overhead lamp and swing it close to her face. “Yell it out,” I say. “You’ll feel better.” I flush when I realize I’m parroting Crash. She whimpers, as though tears-time might be ending, then howls with renewed energy. I leave the big light shining in her eyes and straighten the instruments on the tray. I absentmindedly reach for my phone to see if he’s texted, then jam it back into my pocket.   I’d invited Crash into the van last night. For that, I blame my dead mother.  The rain was slanting sideways as we drove south on the P.C.H. Visibility was crap. I told Crash he was driving like an old lady, and he agreed, said he wanted to be safe. Said to do that, we needed old lady music. Real golden oldies. “The Great Pretender” came on. The first “oh-OH-oh, yeh-hes” opened the floodgates. Mom nursing morning coffee in a yellow kitchen. Reading me fairy tales at night in her bed. Planting kisses on my fingertips.  Through more “ooh-wee” tunes and “la-la-la” melodies, the memory tsunami continued. Holding my hand as we galloped through waves at the beach. Crying to old movies in the blue TV glow, an empty bottle of wine at her feet. Smoking on the front stoop. I thought of the last time I saw her, that day at the ocean. The Charger roared into the Smile Center lot. I pointed to Spindrift. His eyebrows lifted as he parked alongside my van. “You got so quiet,” he said. “Is everything okay?”  The only way I knew to shut down the memory channel was to disengage my brain and disappear my body into someone else’s. Once our clothes were off, Crash was animal, vegetable, and mineral. An all-you-can-fuck buffet of sexual comfort in one unironic bikini brief. He kept asking what I wanted, so I kept demanding. Here, not there. Softer. Faster. Harder. Tongue . He earned additional points for following instructions. Dr. Fish enters the exam room, bringing his signature wave of cologne, mouthwash, and antiseptic. This is my favorite part of the appointment: right before the grand oral opening. What bizarre grind patterns, chips, and anomalies had DNA, night terrors, and sports wrought since the last check-up? Most of Fish’s patients subscribe to the family package. The father who refuses to let Fish touch his baby teeth. The mother who whitens diabolically. Fish tells her again and again her enamel will be destroyed. But it looks so good , she says, returning monthly on the day he plays golf. The son whose teeth slant top-left/bottom-right, the mirror opposite of his sister’s—today’s crying girl—whose teeth slant top-right/bottom-left. Her crying has become soft whining. I give in and check my phone. Nada. I pat the girl’s hand. “There, there, honey. Everything will be fine.” Sometimes this bullshit job makes me a liar. Three cavities, big and deep. Oh well. As I’m locking the deadbolt on the Smile Center, my phone rings. It’s Crash. “What?”  “Hi! I waited until you were done with work so I wouldn’t interrupt. Am I bothering you?”  Bothering me? The very silence of him listening makes me wet.  This is not protocol. Not okay. I don’t entertain memories of my mother. I don’t allow sidekicks in the van. I don’t fuck on first nights. Feelings are verboten. “You could have texted like a normal person. In like a week.” “Fuck normal.” He laughs. “I can’t stop thinking of you. Can we get together?” I blink hard. The beach is there, across the highway. The sky, the waves. Nothing and everything has changed. “I’m busy.” “Tomorrow?” The hope in his voice is total torture. “Ditto.” “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you don’t want to see me.” “Maybe you don’t know better.” I lock myself in the van. I want to drive, to find another dental office, another parking lot. Instead, I light a joint and hit my tunes. Give myself the talk, review the rules. Tell myself to play him like Riverside and Brentwood. Stay cool, keep him hanging, remain focused. Find his weak point and yank off the scab. For some reason, when Crash swung me around, I panicked. And he called me out. And he stayed. Spent the night. Honest truth, I am wet again.   I remove my ear buds so I can hear the song of the waves and put one hand on the traitor between the V of my legs.   * * * One thing I love about #vanlife is living my #life #outdoors. Early weekend mornings at Spindrift, beach world is my oyster. I feel like “Little House on the Prairie” as I rinse my braids with lavender oil and water straight from a bucket. Seabirds cackle and scream while I scour my teeth. So, I’m caught off-guard when the Charger roars up and Crash climbs out rocking sweats and a T with a spectacular fit. “Good morning, Starlight,” he says.   I suddenly feel naked in my oversized T. Idiotically, I try to wriggle into sweatpants and brush my teeth at the same time. He reaches toward my face. I pull back and spit into a hedge. “Chill out.” He touches a finger to a blob of paste on my upper lip and puts it in his mouth. “Peppermint. How are you?”  I grab my phone and start making up shit. I don’t talk before coffee, I text. He sets a white bakery bag and a tray of to-go cups on the roof of the car and texts back. Chocolate croissants and double-shot lattes, no talk.  Dammit.  The beach is empty save a few joggers with their dogs. I’ve never eaten a croissant so slowly or let a latte go cold, but he says nothing, shows no signs of impatience, seems to actually savor the slow-mo show. After an hour of convincing myself I know what I’m doing, I slap flaky crumbs from my hands, drain the dregs of my cup, and stand. My phone dings.  He’s texted. Talk now?   It’s only fair. “Okay. That was delicious, thanks.” “You’re welcome.” He extracts an oblong leather box from the paper bag. Inside is a gold necklace with “Starlight” spelled in rhinestones. “Just like mine,” he says, hooking his thumb on a chain that spells his  name in rhinestones.  He doesn’t know Starlight’s not my real name. Like his mother named him Crash. “That’s so Pretty Woman  of you,” I say, hooking it around my neck. “I knew you’d get it.” He tosses our trash into a nearby can and takes my hand.  When we reach the water, my shoulders relax. The lines in my forehead erase themselves. The chilly salt air makes me feel alive in a way that’s better than almost all other ways of feeling alive. My wet braids slap at my cheeks. He laughs and sweeps my hair from my face “Do you want to be happy?”  It smells like a trick. “Doesn’t everyone?” “What does happy mean to you?” “You’re being a dick.” “I’m not. I sincerely want to know. Why can’t you answer?” “I am  happy,” I insist. My shoulders hike up. “No judgement, but living in a van makes you happy?” I stare hard into his eyes and notice spots dotting his cheekbones that could be freckles, could be sun exposure. Maybe he knows more about #vanlife than he’s letting on. “Living in a van makes me ecstatic. In Mali-freaking-bu Beach . I come and go as I please. I meet interesting people on my own terms.” “Is that your dream come true?” This dream bullshit again. “My dream is to live near the ocean. I’m living it.” “What if there were a better option? Also, near the ocean. With an easy way to earn income, lots of fun people around, plenty of freedom. Plus, me.” The damp has made his hair stick out in crazy angles and he’s so effing cute, his marketing tagline almost sounds like an earnest invitation.  I manufacture my best unimpressed face. B.F.D. Still, I wonder who I might meet. The potential is exponential. “We have indoor plumbing. And outdoor, if you prefer.” I’ll let the beach decide. If the next three waves in a row reach my feet, then with Crash I will go.                       * * * We drive deep into the Santa Monica mountains to a gated promontory, then to a modern bunker, all concrete and glass. There’s a DJ playing music and people my age milling on the front lawn and around the pool. As though they’ve been placed there by an art director. You, tall boy with no shirt and white jeans, lean against the wicker chair and suck on that straw from a fruity cocktail while you gaze out at the blue horizon. Tall girl in floral gown with cleavage to your navel, yes, you! put your finger in your mouth and twirl your hair. Look at me! Now look away! Look back! Crash detours down a side yard to a place he calls the chalet. It’s filled with clothes, racks and racks. Tops, jeans, dresses. Swimsuits. Shoes. Sunhats and visors. “Pick something. Anything,” he says. “Do I have to?” Defiant in my T and sweats. He points to toothpaste stains on my T and wet sand on the ass of my sweats. I find a simple silk dress with ties at the top and slits on the skirt to the tops of my thighs. I bun my braids at the back of my neck. This and flip flops feel right. I do look kind of amazing. We enter the big house together, and the atmosphere palpably shifts. “Why do I feel like fresh meat?” I ask without moving my lips. “Because you’re paranoid,” he whispers into my neck. “We’re all friends.” To the room at large he says, “Everyone, meet Starlight. Starlight, meet everyone. Mingle, eat, drink.” I am quickly corralled toward the bar by a group of smiling women with fluorescent teeth. My expert guess is Crest 3D White Strips. An older man turns his face away from me and leans into Crash’s ear. “Back in fifteen,” Crash mouths to me, and follows the man up a clear plexiglass staircase.  I make small talk while I study the hell out of the place. Everyone wears those rhinestone necklaces. With names like Butterfly, Kitten, and Sparkle. The men, too: Maverick, Bronco, Malibu. So original. The talk is loud because the music is loud. Everyone is chill and smiling, laughing, draping themselves nonchalantly across the furniture and each other, taking photos. Sometimes dancing or lounging but always drinking. And eating. The buffet is constantly refilled. I dance. I drink. Visit the buffet a few times. Snort a short line or two. Turns out everyone at the party lives in the house to save rent while they work on the business. “What business?” I ask. “Rhinestone necklaces?” They all laugh again with their white teeth. That’s just a side-hustle, an inside joke. Their main income comes from commissions for leasing the extravagant house for extravagant events at extravagant prices for the owner, the older man. Everyone who lives here works the events: music, food, light displays, fireworks, talent, team building. Today’s party is just for them. Everyone is so happy I’m here. What do I do? How did I meet Crash? I excuse myself to look for a restroom. What I thought could be a viable con sounds more like an opportunistic game plan for ambitious dreamers. Not my style. I’m disappointed but not dissatisfied. You don’t know until you know. The restroom has a line, and someone mentions there’s another upstairs. I ascend the invisible staircase, hoping it doesn’t shatter. There’s a long corridor on the second floor, doors on both sides. I flash on a story called The Lady or The Tiger  but can’t recall how it goes.  Behind the first door on my right is the bathroom, as promised. The walls are stripped to the studs, mid-reno. Thankfully, the plumbing plumbs. Back in the corridor, I peer over the plexiglass banister to scan the big room. Still no Crash. I’m starting to come down. I need a place to be alone. Behind door number two I find glossy black furniture. Mirrors veined with gold. A white leather dish with five rings bearing one flashy initial each: H.R.A.S.C. The guy gets props for commitment. Without a twinge of guilt, I survey inside dresser drawers, rifle the closet. Athleisure, jeans, neutral basics, white athletic socks. I stretch across the bed, punching the pillows beneath me for support. Someone turns up the music downstairs, and I move to the muffled beat, snapping pics of myself lounging in that silly dress on black satin. Maybe I’ll use it for my next profile. Drop a sunset background behind me so it looks like I’m at the beach... “Hey, there you are.” Crash leans against the doorway. His hand is tucked under his rolled T-shirt the way guys do accidentally on purpose to show off their abs.   “Hey you.” I stand and move toward him. “I was looking for the toilet.” “You picked the wrong door.” “Actually, I picked the right door and then I felt like I needed some quiet, so I picked the other door. But now that you’re here, maybe this door is the right door.”  He kisses me backwards onto the bed. His lips brush my ear. His breath is the roar of waves. “Right, left, right, wrong. Age-old questions too boring for a Saturday afternoon on my bed.” His hands slip inside my skirt.  My nerve endings spark and snap as the full length of him presses against me, his weight a delicious blanket. I wrap my legs around his back. “Do you know the story about the lady or the tiger?” “ The Lady or The Tiger ?” he muses. “If I remember eighth-grade English, I think that’s a question of reward and punishment marked by chance.” He lifts my hips. “Not destiny?” I giggle at the sound of my voice, all breath and no tone. “Destiny, schmestiny.” The smallest of grinds. “Can we stop talking now?” “I thought you’d never shut up.” Another grind. Then another, then the sensation like cresting waves. “ Oh-OH-oh, yeh-hes, I’m the great pretender . Oo-WOO.”  Crash likes to sing in the shower. I wrap myself in the duvet; I’ll have a bird bath when he’s done. I smile at my mom’s turn of phrase. I’ve been allowing memories of her more often now. Back to when we two pulled off what she called “petty flimflams.” Shoplifting, but only things we needed. Nail polish, jewelry. A 100% real human hair postiche à cheveux chignon, couleur marron.  I’d wait at the motel and promise not to unlock the door for anyone. She’d slink across the parking lot like a movie star, that bird’s nest of cinnamon hair tumbling down her back, in a black sequined sheath and high-heeled sandals, red nails flashing. She’d return late at night, tipsy and giggling. She’d tuck some cash into my pajama sleeve. I pretended to be asleep.  “ Pretending that I’m doing well .” Malibu Crash has a nice singing voice. There. He has a nickname now. Does that make him part of my history or my future? I touch the handle on the nightstand drawer with my toe. It glides open.  Passport. Score. Charles Rayhill Ash. Brown military crewcut. The exact opposite of the way he looks now. From Orange, California. Tablet. Score again. I type “lady or tiger” into the search. Apparently, that’s too much for Safari to handle. The crashed browser disappears into the lower right corner of the device. An open email remains. To: Mr. Charles R. Ash, Esquire Thank you for your kind note. I have been searching for my niece for the past five years in hopes of enticing her to reunite with the family. I appreciate your understanding regarding the delicacy of the situation and agree to pay the amount of $25,000.00 for you to escort her to the location below at the proposed date and time, after which I will arrange for the release of funds to your banking account.  Sincerely,  Miss Lucinda Traveler-Jones There’s an address for the Travel Inn Motel at Traveler Beach in Laguna above a high-school yearbook photo of a beach girl. Tank top. Tanned skin. Long hair with blond streaks. Fairy-dust freckles, mascara-tipped lashes, and liner that wings up from her eyes like punctuation. Beneath the photo is her name: Samaritan Jones.  That girl is me. “Well.” Crash stands nude in the doorway, dripping onto the shag, rubbing a towel over his head, looking at me looking at what I’m looking at. “This is awkward.”  Dots connect like mad in my head. “Is twenty-five grand, like, a lot or a little?” “Ask me, it’s a bargain.” He dresses efficiently. “Walk on the beach? “I think not.” I stab at my phone for an Uber. Crash sits on the bed. Wraps his hand around my dagger finger. “Don’t bother. They never find this place. No service.” I jerk my hand away. “Fuck!” We sit for what might a long time or a moment. The atmosphere in the room shifts, as though the lights have dimmed, or a cloud passed under the sun. My feet are suddenly freezing, and I feel the way I did on our first date, like I’m about to face plant in a cold wave. I can’t stop the idiotic question that’s coming out of my mouth. “Did you know who I was when you tagged me on the dating app?”  “Of course not. How could I? Your photo was a shadow.” “If my photo was a shadow, then why did you pick me?” “I picked you because your photo was a shadow. I love a good mystery.” “When did you know she was me? Or I was her. Whatever.” “The day we met. The first second I saw you.” He snaps his fingers. Off my look of disbelief, he says, “Your wings,” tucking his fingers under my chin and kissing the corners of my eyelids.  I pull my head away. “So, you were already looking for that girl when you accidentally found me?” “Guilty as charged.” “You’ve done this before? Found people?” He nods. “I have.” “Why?” He shrugs. “It’s just something I do. There’s a Facebook page. You can help if you want. I think you’d be good at it.” I’m shivering now, as though frigid water is rising up my legs to my thighs.  “It doesn’t have to be like...” “Like what? Like you’re a fucking bounty hunter?” I’m shrieking and I don’t give a shit. The light in the room darkens more. The sound of the undertow swirls in my ears. He presses a warm hand on my back. “I was going to say, it doesn’t have to be like Brentwood or Riverside.” Shit. He’s done his homework. “Meaning?” “ Meaning  we can arrange this so both—so all —of us benefit. Profit. Thrive.” His lips are on my neck. The light fades a few more degrees.                       * * * The hardened cracked vinyl in the booth jabs my legs through my jeans, and there are dead flies on the windowsill. The diner at the Traveler Inn hasn’t changed a jot from the way it was when I was a kid, down to the pink and blue neon wall clock stuck at a quarter after one. In true SoCal spirit, Crash and I drove separately. We’re an hour early. He rubs his hands together briskly. “Lunch?” One of the flies is not completely dead. It buzzes wildly in fits and starts, trapped in a frantic bardo. I know how it feels. I never had any desire to reunite with Lucinda, but now that doing so is my destiny, I’m having so many emotions that I’m entirely numb. “I should probably have something to eat.”  He scans the menu. “What would you like?”  I cannot tear my eyes away from the break-dancing fly. “You pick.” Crash claps his hands on the Formica top to get the attention of the teenager behind the counter. “What’s your specialty?”  “Kobe tomahawk and caviar,” she says, not looking up from her phone. Beachy, blond, tan. Me 2.0. My yearbook photo updated with eyebrow piercings and neck ink. I wonder what she knows about life, loss, leaving home. “Two tuna sandwiches...” Crash says. I interrupt, suddenly ravished. “Melts. Rye bread...” “Melts with rye bread, side of fries. No, side of chips. And do you have any champagne? We’re celebrating.” She gives him a dead-eye deadpan. “Let me run right down to the wine cellar.”  I’m starting to like her. “Two Cokes.” Crash slaps his hand on the table again. She tacks our order to the spinner, brings our sodas, and returns to her phone. I clear my throat. “Anything I should read into that food order, Charles ?” He reaches inside his fleece jacket and presents me with a handful of bedraggled daisies. “Nothing in particular. Samaritan .” I slit a flower stem with my fingernail and insert the stem of another, then repeat. Our plan, such as it is, consists of him presenting me to Lucinda, at which time she calls her bank to release funds into his account. Fuzzy family reunion ensues. Auntie and I make nice, Crash and prodigal niece return to Malibu, split the cash. Horizon T.B.D. Beach girl brings our tuna melts and fries. “I ordered chips.” Crash says. “Oopsie.” She turns and leaves. “Oopsie.” I loop the daisy chain around my neck.  “Oopsie.” He dips a fry in ketchup.  We eat in anxiously agreeable silence. “How’d you get named Samaritan anyway?” he asks. “It’s kind of unusual.” “It’s ridiculous! The story I was told, and I don’t know if it’s true...” “Her parents named her that to piss off their parents and it worked,” says a familiar voice at my back. Miss Lucinda Traveler-Jones herself whirls a chair from one of the tables and sits at ours. She wears a burgundy crocheted hat, burgundy puffer. “Hello, Samaritan dear.” She extends a burgundy-veined hand. “Hello, Aunt Lucinda.” I put my greasy tuna-melted hand in her cool one. She looks the same, only older. An alternate version of my mother, an alternate-universe version of me. Something about the line of her jaw. That beauty mark larger now, faded.  About a year after that high school photo was taken—the one she shared on Facebook, the one Crash recognized after meeting me—Lucinda and I were with my mom at the beach. I always picture that day with capital letters, like an episode of “Friends:” The One with the Last Day . Or: The One Where Evelyn Says Glug. The One Where I Never See My Mother Again. The One Where I Leave Childhood In The Sand. “Classic denial,” my ex-therapist said. We both knew I was deep into obfuscation, but she also said you can’t get past it until you get into it. Years of ramshackle detours later, there are still unanswered questions. Did she willingly disappear into the sea? Or was there an accident, a struggle, the water won? Was there something Lucinda knew that I didn’t? I’d often imagine she might have had a fling with my good-for-nothing father. Or maybe my mother was pregnant and didn’t know what to do. Maybe she just couldn’t swim. Maybe she didn’t want... “Earth to Samaritan.” Crash stares with his concerned Botox brow.  “There’s no need to worry. She’s just in shock, Mr. Ash,” says Lucinda, her eyes locked on mine. Eyes so very much like my mothers’, maybe like my own. Her eyes make me feel suddenly, totally me. As I was before Sandy, Selena, Sylvette and Starlight.  She keeps staring, and I realize she’s seeing her sister, just I see my mother. “I saw you both here earlier. I’ve arranged for the transfer. You should be receiving a...” Crash’s phone pings. He reads the text and smiles. “Thank you.” He pockets his phone and leans his arms on the table. As if he’s actually excited for us, proud of consummating our family reunion, anticipating reconciliation or redemption. Or maybe it’s just the money. How am I going to get rid of him? Lucinda lays her hand on his arm. “Mind giving us some privacy, Mr. Ash?” “Oh! I’m sorry! Of course.” He pats Lucinda’s hand, swipes his napkin across his face, and stands. Tucks in his shirt and kisses the top of my head. Runs his finger along my daisy chain. Leaves some cash on the counter. He stands in the parking lot and stares at the ocean for a long time before the Charger screeches away. She stands up from the table. “Come on, honey. Let’s get some air.” The shoulder across the P.C.H. above Traveler Beach is rocky, the hillside steep. Rusted metal rope lines the path. We hold hands as we make our way down the crooked steps. Trash litters the spiky brush. It’s the kind of beach where, once you risk your life to reach the shore, danger only increases. There’s hardly any sand, just piles of kelp under buzzing flies. Rocks occasionally leer up from haphazard waves, the coastline too treacherous for tidepools. I imagine the drop-off to the Mariana Trench begins right here. One step too far, and down you go, straight to the fishes that have no bones or color, no need for eyes.  “Did you really just shell out $25,000 to find me?”  “I did and I didn’t,” she laughs. The corners of her blue eyes branch into beautiful wrinkles. “I got a guy at the bank. We have an agreement.”                        * * * Most days I wake early enough to watch the sun rise. Lucinda likes me to move the van across the highway on days the motel is full up but lets me park in the lot at night. I get along fine with Darcy, the teenager at the diner, and on my days off, I take coffee and my phone to the water. To that rocky beach with its fly swarms and glass shards and one-legged seagulls. I swear, it’s like they reach a certain bird-age, and one leg just falls off. Every now and then, I think about Crash. Was he back on Facebook looking for another post like the one Lucinda deleted while we ate our tuna melts? Does he wonder where I am? Will he show up someday? I haven’t heard a peep since I blocked him. One exceptionally cold afternoon, Lucinda and I cross the P.C.H. and pick our way down the death stairs. We huddle behind a dune and tear into sack lunches. She pulls a flask from her pocket. We both take sips, and whatever it is burns like hell. We cough until we laugh.  She offers to read my hand. “What with the glaucoma, it’s mostly by touch anyway.” She traces a bony finger inside my palm along the half-moon curve that grows straight up like a tree from the middle of my wrist then forks near my thumb pad and splits into two, three, no, four lines. “This is your past and this is your future,” she says. “I don’t know about the other two. Your Mount of Mercury indicates you are quite eloquent, but your Mount of Venus, that’s your love life, is flabby. In general, your palm is schizophrenic.” She looks out at the waves. “Long ago, you were a beloved oracle on the island of Atlantis. You were half god and half human, and the island people brought you gifts and sang your praises. They asked you for advice: when to plant their crops, whom to marry.”  “Great. The last thing I need in my karmic backstory is to be blamed for a lost civilization. What did I tell them?” “I don’t know. You’re the oracle.” I snort.  “This other line is your future. Do you want to know what I see?” “Not really.” I’ve gotten used to this life for now, but it won’t last forever. Something will fall apart. It always does.  “Fine, then. I won’t tell you.” She tightens the puffer around her.  “Fine.”  We empty the flask and watch the reflection of sky in the vast bowl of sea. “Crash said the beach is the best place to talk about your dreams, because the sounds of the waves make you have to yell them and by yelling them, you’re closer to making them come true.”  “He’s cute but that’s hogwash,” she says. “Shall we give it a go?” We fall back onto the sand. On the count of three, we open our mouths as if to yell, but neither of us says anything. Which makes us laugh and then cry. The waves sing their song and inch closer to our feet. We hold hands as we hike the steep trail to the highway, lifting each other up and up, crooked stair by crooked stair.  Tracy DeBrincat’s short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of literary journals from Another Chicago Magazine  to Zyzzyva . Her most recent short story, Rise , was published in Lit Angels #15  in December 2023. Her first work of non-fiction, Letters to Myself the Younger , appeared in Vol. VIII of The New Guard  and received a Pushcart nomination. Her first novel, Hollywood Buckaroo , received the 2011 Big Moose Fiction Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press. Her award-winning short story collections, Troglodyte  and Moon Is Cotton & She Laugh All Night , were published by Elixir Press and Subito Press, respectively. Tracy lives in Los Angeles where she is working on a new novel, Once Upon a Coyote .

If only you could pretend you don’t care about the superficially courteous relationship with your in-laws who also pretend to have risen above the meddling games yet manage to shove their friendly opinions right back in your face— you ought to teach them better , they didn’t say thank you again …what does it even mean sufficiently polite, how many times is ample amount of time— you keep asking yourself , and as your head spins with the criticism how it’s unreasonable to allow them to explore their limits , be their own people  as if giving them a voice at such a young age would turn them into less-er (people)—being blunt is a luxury they didn’t have in their childhood, everything seems to come down to— what will the neighbours say .  If only you could pretend that being Daughter-In-Law is something more—the name says it yet it’s the in-law part that they focus on when they use you as a vessel for all the grievances they’re uncomfortable airing to their own children. Still, you can’t bring yourself to blame them (no matter how appealing that sounds) because you understand the need to vent and be heard even when methods used are not endorsed, you can certainly relate—having a distant relationship with your own family. At least, hers are close enough so you experience in-flesh disapprovals (thinking how refreshing that is) as opposed to FaceTime/ Zoom/ Skype ones. At least hers don’t invoke the Bible every time she mentions her wife, and it makes you wonder how in hell you survived your zealot family. If only you could pretend this doesn’t affect your mental health—all the spurious findings your family throws at you (despite being ten thousand miles away) as you catch yourself – again and again - in trying to be perfect, so bloody perfect that no one can utter a word against your spouse and the way you raise your children. And you know, deep down you know it’s unrealistic - an erroneous fallacy because no one is THAT perfect, and this is what you keep drilling into your children’s heads. You truly believe that imperfections make us perfect(ly) unique, and if others don’t like it… well… they can get fu…. The word gets out to everyone’s shock. The silence fills the room, almost palpable, and with the speed of light, the atmosphere transforms into giggles as Mum has said the F word (what a relief you think to yourself as you look at your wife apologetically knowing you broke the rule though deep down you profess the happiness you feel—there’s something elating about swear words).  If only you could pretend you are one of those families without complex relationships (how hard can it be) so you allow yourself these little fabrications. It seems as easy as pulling the blinds down, just like Wile E. Coyote, over and over again when you were a kid, sitting on the soft woolly rug in the middle of the living room, squared eyes intently glued to the big screen, mouth half gaping, posture tense, completely and utterly in awe of Coyote’s stupidity. Now, decades later, you understand the blissful allure of oblivion. As you snap back to reality, you avow that you are not the worst Daughter-In-Law, certainly not the worst Daughter, or even a human for that matter, and with this in mind, you continue with courteous smiles and polite nods, you embrace the conduit role bestowed upon your persona, not as a sign of weakness, quite the opposite. At this age, you know the strength required not to burst into pieces. You are knowledgeable enough to recognise the forest from the trees. As for the what will the neighbours say — who the fuck cares ! Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She wears many hats as her daughter likes to remind her. Aside from being a mum, Andrea is also an artist and a writer. Her education is opposite to artistic expression—she's an accountant with a master's degree in Economics. Being a non-native English speaker makes every publication worth the struggle. She believes there's something cathartic about seeing your words and art out in the world. Andrea is also a contributing editor of a newly founded Pictura Journal. Her literary art appears or is forthcoming in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets, JMWW, Ghost Parachute, Roi Fainéant Press, Alien Buddha Press, and elsewhere. During her imaginary free time, you can find her fiddling with her website https://damicandrea.wordpress.com/ .

It began with the smallest itch, almost able to be ignored, but I know that’s impossible. I reached up and drew my well-manicured fingernails across the skin on the back of my neck. The tickle passed immediately, but deeper down, I knew the feeling would only continue to build. Flattening my hand, I massaged the area, feeling the muscle yield under the pressure.  Was the skin already thicker? So soon? No, it doesn’t happen that quickly. I still had time. The days carried on, and I made arrangements to be away from work and the few acquaintances I maintained, mostly neighbors who would notice my absence. It never hurt to have a consistent story among those who I had to interact with. Beyond that, I wouldn’t be missed. The rest of the world rushed by around me, and no one noticed. I went to great lengths to make sure that was the case, it just made life that much simpler. The itch, of course, had returned and was no longer chased away with any amount of scratching. A harbinger of my immediate future, it rippled and crawled along my body, foretelling the biology that forged ahead just under the surface. I sought respite with long soaks in the bathtub, the water as cold as possible, submerged with only my mouth and nose cresting the surface, but there was no stopping my march toward the inevitable.  I awoke on the day of my scheduled departure, and the transformation was almost complete. I had timed it well as it was becoming nearly impossible to hold myself back from the compulsion. I loaded my small bag of belongings into my car, mostly for show, I would have no need for any of it once I reached my destination. Heading out of the city, I followed the route I had taken hundreds of times before when the calling had set upon me.   The cities and towns passed by and grew less and less frequent. My task was best accomplished in a place as isolated from people as possible. This had become harder and harder to do each time, but with a little forethought and planning it could still be done. Pulling over at one of the rare stops I made on my trip, I was inside of the gas station paying for a final fill up of fuel when I sensed another. They must have had similar plans to myself and saw this station as conveniently placed along their path. Stepping outside, I was drawn immediately to the dark gray vehicle that had taken a position one row over from mine. As I approached the car, the other pumping gas turned in my direction and our eyes locked. They appeared as a slim, athletic female of approximately thirty years of age. She had light brown hair laced into a tight braid that trailed down her neck and rested on the shoulder of what appeared to be a rain jacket. Jeans and light boots finished the outfit and matched her intention to play the part of a hiker heading into the wilds. Nondescript and average, like any of us, she would pass without notice, fading from memory as quickly as any stranger on the street.       I continued to approach her, never breaking the connection with her eyes. Reaching out, our fingertips met and the link was made. In an instant, our lives flooded each other’s bodies, and our hierarchy was established. I was the elder, thus she would accompany me to my chosen site, and we would complete our task together. This was the way it had always been done. Breaking the connection, I turned away, walked to my car, got in and pulled away from the station. She still had to refuel and pay, but our link would carry across long distances and she would find her way to me wherever I went.   Having left the last piece of civilization back at the station, I drove deeper and deeper into the forest. I turned off the paved road and bounced along a rough access road that I knew would get little to no activity this late in the season. Another hour on this trail, and I reached the spot where the path widened and a makeshift clearing served as a place for a handful of cars to be left near a trailhead leading into the mountains.   Rather than carry on ahead, I stayed in the car, hands on the steering wheel, slowly clenching and relaxing. Closing my eyes, I felt the tension in my hands spread up my arms, then across my torso and finally down my legs. My muscles rippled under the now thickened skin - the itch had been replaced with a buzzing anxiety, a physical manifestation of the transformation and the anticipation of what came next. It roared in my ears like a storm raging outside of the car,  lashing across the trees, tearing off limbs and slamming them onto the ground. As the tempest raged toward its crescendo, my eyes shot open, my hands flew up off the wheel and everything was dead calm. The surrounding trees were still and intact, the bright sun trickled through the leaves and painted the forest floor with shining gems. Turning to the right, I saw her pull up next to my car and park. Stepping out, I walked to the back of my car, opened the hatch and removed a small bundle, then strode toward the markers designating the beginning of the mountain trail.   She caught up quickly, and soon we both walked side-by-side along the well-maintained trail. We neither looked at each other nor spoke, for the most part ignoring each other, caught up in our own internal worlds. Once I heard her begin to breathe heavier and I could feel the tension building in her much like it had for me in the car. It continued to build, her exhalations verging on barking growls. She made to surge forward, to break into a run, but my hand on her shoulder pulled her back. I kept the grip firm until I could feel her come down from the burgeoning impulse that was just beneath the surface.           An hour in,we had made good progress. We left behind the main trail with its scattered markers posting the location of views or attractions that held no interest for us. The trail was now much narrower, and we trekked single-file, hearing no sounds from the road or any other human activities. The way soon rose quickly and we scrambled up steep sections interrupted by large rocks and tangled roots. Cresting a small hill, we eventually arrived at my intended destination. At the top of the hill, a massive oak tree towered over the landscape. Its heavy canopy shaded the floor beneath it. The light had been fading quickly for the last part of our trek, and now the darkness deepened in the shelter of the tree. Our eyes easily adjusted, the transformation having provided us with the enhanced night vision we would need. As we approached the trunk, we easily avoided the few random plants and scattered piles of bone that dotted the area.   At the base of the tree, I swept the leaves out of a deep section where the roots met the trunk. Unraveling the bundle I had carried with me from the car, I set the dry bag on the roots, laid my coat on the bag and began to unbutton my shirt. My companion did the same, shedding her clothes until she stood naked under the tree. I carefully folded and stowed my clothing in the dry bag, took the other bag of clothing that she handed me and tucked it far back in the recesses of the tree. Our belongings would remain safe here until tomorrow. Standing up, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the smells carried along by the light breeze. Life was dense here, plenty for us to harvest and ensure that our task was accomplished.   A sound broke through my thoughts, I recognized it as the grunting the other had made earlier, but this time I did nothing to stop her. The sound progressed to a harsh, keening whine that triggered a wave of sensation across my skin. I gave in myself and soon sang along with her as the final stage of the transformation took hold. Clenching my hands into fists, I felt the claws poised on the ends of my fingers. I dragged them across more forearm, leaving furrows in their wake. The pain was sharp and stimulating, but no blood welled forth as the skin responded to the injury and quickly tightened, weaving back together stronger and tougher than before. I hissed loudly as fiery pain traced across my back. She had swiped her own claws from my shoulders to the small of my back, accelerating the hardening process. I spun around and swiftly intercepted her wrist as she came in for another strike. Pulling her arm up, I lashed out across her stomach, and she cried out sharply from the pain, then bared her teeth in a cruel smile. The bright white points, adapted like her fingernails, glistened in the moonlight that now filtered into the clearing. She twisted her hand free and thrust both hands forward, connecting with my chest. The blow was immense and would have crushed any other creature, but we were complete now, toughened and stronger. I flipped backwards, landing on all fours and then rushed forward, throwing my arms around her hips and lifting her onto my shoulders. I raced forward out of the clearing carrying her along as she pounded mercilessly on my back. Reaching up, I threw her off and she sailed through the air twisting cat-like to land gracefully on the trunk of a fallen tree. We were ready.   We slid through the forest like wraiths, faster than any other animal could manage. Our senses bathed in the overload – the hunt, the chase, the swift death, the rending of flesh and bone, the return. Nothing escaped our fury - large, small, clawed, horned - it all was our prey. Again and again we repeated the cycle, ranging out from the oak tree further and further, but always returning with the spoils of our conquest. At times we hunted alone, so overtaken by the lust that we completely ignored the other, but mostly we stalked together and revelled as one in the thrill of the moment. The emotion and feelings that we push down and control in that other part of our lives was now released and free to do what it will. It poured out of us in a frenzy, and we did nothing to stem the flow.   The sun rose, and our efforts slowed. At the height of the day, we returned to the oak tree. We tended to the steadily growing pile of torn bodies that had accumulated there. Rending apart larger pieces and arranging them neatly across the forest floor. As we finished, a light rain began to fall. It grew heavier and soon made it past the umbrella of leaves held by the branches above. The water beaded up, our skin shed it easily and as the storm outside the shelter of the oak continued to grow, so did our lust to return to the hunt. Slowly, we ranged out among the trees unfocussed, lightly sparring and swiping at each other. Suddenly, a rabbit shot out from under a pile of brush and the chase was irresistible. Pushing the last bit of sleep from our bodies, we loped gracefully behind as the small creature ran for its life. My companion keened loudly, spurring the prey and its predators onward. Now fully heated and once again surging with the power of our kind, we ended the chase and rent the body in half. Blood splashed across our arms, painting our bodies until the rain washed it thinner and thinner. I screamed to the sky, a long and powerful wail, we were once again our true selves. The storm intensified as night fell, but that only drove us further into our violent catharsis. Prey fell before us just as it had the previous night, nothing escaped. We lashed through the trees like the lightning in the sky above and struck anything that moved. Our spree was relentless, the cycle repeated over and over - hunt, kill, return. The storm peaked along with our frenzy, thunder pounding, trees thrashing in the wind, breaking branches echoing the snapping of joints and bone. We dragged our final kill back to the tree and threw the remains onto our horde. Dragging ourselves back toward the base of the tree, we finally gave in and collapsed in a tangle of red-stained limbs. The cold rain poured down on us, but we slept like the dead, unmoving and silent.          I woke on the morning of that second day to bright light filtering through the branches of the oak tree towering above. Sitting up I looked around and saw no sign of the other in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps she had wandered off into a denser part of the forest. As I scanned further about the clearing, I looked over at the piles of flesh and limbs we had carefully arranged and saw her final contribution to our purpose. Having completed her function, I guess she felt there was little reason to remain and thus had returned to her car and her alternate life. The parting was inevitable, and I felt neither gain nor loss from the interaction we had shared. We simply did what we had been compelled to do.   After standing up, I felt the familiar loosening of my skin that signaled the final part of my task. I stretched and pulled, feeling the interface between the layers shifting, letting go. Once I had sufficiently worked free the connections across my entire body, I reached up, grabbing the protruding folds on the back of my neck and pulled. The skin split easily and smoothly parted from the layer underneath. It slid readily down my body, and as it pooled down onto the ground, I stepped out of it, reborn into the form I would remain in until the next transformation took hold. I gathered the slippery skin in my hands and carried it over to the collection we had made. Laying it gently on the largest pile next to my companion’s similarly shed covering, I now completed the reason for coming here. The mass of flesh, organs and bones would nourish our offspring as they grew from our skins and carried on the next generation. Perhaps someday they too would return to this very place and perform the same ritual we had just completed.  I turned to make my way back toward the tree and noticed an object reflecting the morning sunlight. Bending down, I wiped the blood and muck away to reveal a watch still strapped in place around a wrist. Tracing my fingers along the hand, I noted the feminine shape and painted nails. Further discovery revealed a lower leg, clearly a man’s this time, given the muscle structure and abundant hair. Apparently our hunt ranged far enough to encounter a couple getting in a final, late-season hike. As much as I made efforts to avoid this, it made little difference. The bodies would never be found and the disappearance would be blamed on any number of rational explanations. I wiped my hands on the wet leaves surrounding my feet and thought nothing more of them.          Returning to the base of the tree, I reached into the recess between the roots and pulled out my dry bag. I reached in to pull out my belongings, and I felt something hard among the clothes. Extracting the item, I saw that it was a small bone stripped clean of flesh. On one end, a thin vine with bright green leaves had been woven tightly in place. I looked at it curiously for a moment, knowing it could only have been my companion who had crafted it and left it where she knew I would find it. It was strange to think of her again, but not uncomfortably so. I set it on the nearby roots as I dressed and stashed it in my coat pocket as I walked from the clearing. The day was clear and bright, and would make the trip back an easy hike.                As I walked to my car, I held the small token in my hand, absently rubbing against the smooth bone. It was cold and damp, still fresh from the harvest. I arrived back at the trailhead in good time. As expected, mine was the only car there. I stowed my bag in the trunk and took a long drink from a water jug I had placed on the back seat. As I pulled away, I looked at the token that I had left on a nearby fencepost. Would it still be there next time I returned? It didn’t really matter to me, I was now just biding time. This task was over, and the next would come again, and the cycle would repeat. My kind would live on to hunt, to kill, to return again and again.     Jack Madsen is a variety fiction writer for genres including science fiction, fantasy, horror and even children’s stories.

Whenever I think of Appalachian fiction, I think of Sheldon Lee Compton. Not just because I consider him a friend or a mentor. Nor is it because I have read his stuff fairly religiously for years now. It's because I can only think of very few writers who truly write about the Appalachia I know. The Appalachia that I've lived. Yes, there's poverty and crime and addiction and violence. But there are also times of true beauty and heart. Lewis Nordan wrote once that, “there were happy days, with watermelon, and sad days, of whiskey”.  Sheldon is the only author I've read who captures that dichotomy in these mountains.  His latest, Oblivion Angels, is a tragedy. It's an exploration of small wounds and large holes and the hurt that times just won't heal or stop. It spans time and people, but I feel like that's true to life. That there are small tragedies that hit some families harder than most, and those hits linger for years.  While this story is a tragedy and contains all of the things that come with such tales, there's also an overarching thread of grace. Hope. Not sentimental and not easy won. It's the hope of making it one more day. Of finding a shred of yourself wanting the day to go by so that you can see tomorrow. It's the hope of fighting the dark one more time.  JUSTIN: In 2022, I stumbled across a list of Appalachian authors that had your name on it. I hadn't read a word of yours yet back then, but I knew you had a reputation as a big deal for the region. David Joy, Donald Ray Pollock, Steph Post, the list goes long with supporters of yours. Do you feel like it is a blessing or a curse to be considered a regional writer? SHELDON: I’m sure glad we got connected up and you were able to read some of my writing, because you’ve been a big supporter of mine ever since. I’m really grateful for that, and thank you for those kind words now. I’m also glad we connected because I’ve had the pleasure of reading your work, which is just outstanding, Justin.  I surely don’t find it to be a curse or anything at all negative. More of a blessing, for sure. I’ve come to understand that whether I consider myself a regional writer or not – meaning whether or not I think about it when writing –  people will tend to see me as one, and that’s fine by me. It’s the same with folks seeing me as a writer of noir or crime fiction and so on. I don’t mind it a bit. As far as that kind of thing, I figure readers and other writers are better judges of that than I am. I do refer to myself as an Appalachian novelist and short story writer and I didn’t always do that. I’m fairly certain I’m never going to write a book set anywhere except in Kentucky, so I figure that’s a fair categorization. JUSTIN: How did Oblivion Angels come about? I believe I read somewhere that it sprouted from your memoir, The Orchard Is Full Of Sound. Is that accurate, or am I crazy? SHELDON: Not a bit crazy…I have mentioned something about that at some point. It might have been a form thing instead of an idea thing, like that Orchard Is Full of Sound helped me get more comfortable with longform fiction, the novel essentially, which made Oblivion Angels more manageable and, honestly, more enjoyable. Novels before this one were a struggle for me and left me really questioning if I’d done as well as I could. But after Orchard, longform was less daunting.  The key moment that Oblivion Angels came to mind for me happened while driving on Mud Creek in Floyd County.  I passed a house of one of my high school friends, Dee. The place was run down and looked, well, exactly as I described Teddy’s house in the opening of the novel. There was Dee, his sister, Tamala, and his parents, Danny Ray and Denise. These four people, this family, fell into tragedy in a short time. Dee died drunk in the back of a truck that wrecked into a guardrail, Tamala overdosed on pain killers shortly after, Denise died of cancer some time later, and that left Danny Ray, one piece of a family that used to go to softball games with my family. I imagined Danny Ray. That was it, just imagining Danny Ray after all that hurt and loss on that broken porch. I thought I’d like to write about him and change a few things and see if I could get to the living, eternal heart of that family. Maybe it’s melodramatic. But I’m with Jim Harrison on that point. He said and said beautifully: “I like grit, I like love and death, I'm tired of irony. A lot of good fiction is sentimental. I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.”  My goodness, Jim Harrison was unbelievable. JUSTIN: I'm going to be totally honest here: I feel like this is your masterpiece. It is a prime example of Appalachian literature, but I would categorize it as more of a treatise on compassion and grace and forgiveness. It's a tragedy, and we see the ramifications of it reverberate over a long stretch of time through various characters. However, no matter the grimness, there's a glimmer of hope for some form of redemption, or at the very least some resolution. Was that a theme you were hoping to tackle, or am I reading into it a little too much? SHELDON: Wow I greatly appreciate you considering Oblivion Angels my masterpiece. To even be included in a statement alongside that word feels good. And with the glimmer of hope, you’re right on the mark there, man. I’ve had a lot of other writers and a few readers offer similar insights about my books. I believe it’s categorically a way of thinking for my people in my part of Appalachia. We’ve always had to hang onto some hope through pure grit and determination to survive. With life for centuries that consistently hard, hope and the idea of some redemption or success gives us the motivation to keep going. So that is to say even without trying to infuse my characters with that mindset, the underlying compassion, grace and forgiveness will always exist within the grimmest of circumstances in my books. JUSTIN: This story is not only told through multiple POVs, but the timeline is non-chronological. How did you decide to go that route? SHELDON: I had to think about this one for a bit. And I’m just going to be straight about it: I don’t have an idea how I’m going to go with any of that. With this novel, I sat in the recliner in the living room where I write 90 percent of my books and thought about Teddy on the porch at this broken family’s broken house and opened a Google Drive document and starting writing. I don’t consciously make craft decisions. If it feels right while I’m doing it then I keep going. But if I’m rolling along and suddenly find I’m not having fun, I know something’s off. I will say that I do a ton ton ton of thinking about what the story is before I start writing anything, a book, a short story, an email, letter of recommendation, doesn’t matter. JUSTIN: What would you like to see more of in the Grit-Lit genre?  SHELDON: What a fantastic question, bub. Calling back to an earlier answer of mine, I’d like to see more unabashed sentiment, more real explorations of love and honor and loyalty that haven’t been filtered through irony or genre consideration.  I’d also love to see – and am always looking for this regardless – gorgeous language in grit lit books. Just hellfire gorgeous writing. We don’t have to write the way many of our grit characters see the world, this stripped down, muscular prose. I’m not saying this ain’t being done, I’m just saying it’d be interesting to see more of it. JUSTIN: Who have you been reading lately? Any recommendations?  SHELDON: Shoot this is my favorite question you’ve asked. I love talking about reading. I’m a reader first and an author second, seriously. I’ve started reading a guy named Michael Wehunt who is an exceptional writer. Beautiful style and language and creepy stories and novels. Man, I mean creepy as dark places in a windstorm. Check him out if you don’t any of the others. And these are just new writers I came across this past year. Another is Hob Broun. This guy who wrote a fine novel and then became paralyzed and had to write by blowing air through a special watchamagig. The books are solid and well written. And a third I came across is David Nickles, another horror writer. Amazing stuff. Instead of linking to these I’m just going to link to my reading log on my blog Bent Country I’ve kept for 11 years. Reading Log at Bent Country. JUSTIN: Is there anything I missed here?  SHELDON: You’ve not missed it at all but just that I would be stunned from gratitude if folks would get a hold of Oblivion Angels and let me know what you think. Truly, let me know. If you think it’s overhyped or badly written, I want to know and thanks in advance for that. So what are you writing on these days? Got into a novel yet?  Thanks, man. You’re a shining champion knight of all tables. JUSTIN: I've been working on a novella titled, Out There In The Dark. I've completed rough drafts, deleted every word, and wrote it again about three times total now. I feel like I have a handle on it this time though. Hopefully it will be ready soon! Oblivion Angels is available now. Just click right here ! Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of a dozen books, including the novel Alice, named one of the 25 best books of 2023 by the Independent Fiction Alliance, along with four other novels, four short story collections, a memoir, and a two collections of poetry. His work has been a finalist for the Chaffin Award, the Gertrude Stein Fiction Award, the Still Fiction Award, and the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Pike County, Eastern Kentucky with his wife and the literary requisite four cats. He believes baseball to be our purest form of truth. Justin Lee’s work has appeared in Punk Noir Magazine, The Airgonaut, Reckon Review, Poverty House, and Cowboy Jamboree among others. His story, Underneath The Same Skies, was nominated for a Pushcart Award. He is currently at work on a novella titled, Out There In The Dark.

The detainees in the large holding cell appear rather harmless, probably students, laborers, middle-aged professionals. If anything, I must look like the only bum, with my cutoff jeans, torn t-shirt and unshaven face.  Three cops appear on the happy side of the bars; one of them unfolds a list. He yells, “Broady!”  Broady seems to be dressed for the office or theatre, definitely not for revolution. The cops take him away. “They’re going in the interrogation room,” whispers an older man. “Heard about it? No desk, no chairs, walls made of concrete blocks. The works!” Ten minutes later Broady is out, accompanied by the chief of police. The latter could not be more apologetic. “Sorry about the misunderstanding, Mr. Broady. It’s all good. Here’s a note to your supervisor. It says the reason for being late today, you had to attend an urgent community related meeting. Other than that, please don’t mention any of this to anyone. It’s in your best interest, sir, believe me.” Broady looks at the paper, grimaces and hands it back to the chief. Then without saying a word, he walks out of the building. The next guy taken to interrogation doesn’t return. Neither does the third one.  The cop sitting at the desk across from the cell has a familiar face. He notices me. “What are you staring at?!” I step to the bars. “We know each other, don’t we? Unless I’m mistaken, last year we met at a birthday party or Thanksgiving. I believe you are my second cousin on my father’s side. My name is Kende, and I bet yours too.” He gets up from his chair and walks closer to me. “So what? It’s a common name.” “Well, not in these parts.” He whispers, “Enough bullshitting. If you get through the day in one piece, we can talk. Till then, let’s remain strangers, okay? Believe me, it’s in your best interest, and also in mine.” Johannes Springenseiss is a world citizen and raconteur. He mostly writes speculative fiction and creative essays that he has published in various literary magazines.

After “The Five Stages of Grief” by Linda Pastan It’s easy, like learning to climb the stairs after the amputation. Five stages of grief, ten circles of Hell, How Would You Rate your Pain, but no one believes you when you say it is unbearable. Virginia Woolfe went to the river laden with stones, but hands in my pockets, all my fingers find is a hundred fine hairs plucked from your head. On my walk to Denial, I enter an elevator that only goes up, each identical floor it opens to gleaming fluorescent as yearning and populated by the nightstands of everyone I’ve ever known, pill bottles rattling with blue capsules of sleep, or aspirin, it’s hard to say—water glasses and reading glasses and wilting flowers, all things The Living acquire. No one is here, in Denial, except all of us, rummaging through drawers of darkness for some kind of cure. I find a sachet of want, tied tight in two knots at the top, filled with the pressed purple blossoms of breath.  I call out every name I can think of, but no one comes near me until I reach the entrance to Anger, down a spiral staircase made of hair and bone, into our old apartment, every surface covered in pictures of you, and me, and me and you. You are watching me through the window. I call out to you over and over, but you appear not to hear me, not even when I scream and thrash and look for something to break the glass with. You look right through me, waving my arms and sobbing and pressing my face against the cool glass. I wonder if the moment will come when you walk through the door, carrying my sorrow limp in your arms like a cat, self-domesticated. Rattling the doorknob, I know that living or dead, even if I see you again, I will never see you again.  I pace the floor of Anger until a trap door opens underneath my scuffed shoes and I collapse into Bargaining, a circular room without windows or a roof, just high red walls. What could I exchange for you? The back garden of the house I grew up in, all four lobes of my liver, every single summer day? Before I decide the lump in my throat flies out through my teeth and snatches all I can offer with its talons. I try to follow its migration wave, but I end up back where I began, an empty building, neither warehouse nor factory nor hospital nor hotel nor home.  Depression doesn’t have its own place, just newspapers piling up in the foyer. I flip through them, every headline detailing your doom, every page dated the same day. Every day since you left is the same day.  Your face is a color I have forgotten. Hope was my mother’s maiden name. She kept it out of everyone’s reach, on top of the China cabinet. I saw her wear it maybe once, Hope, a tight string of pearls glinting around her neck like two hands, white-knuckled, choking her. When she dies, it will continue to gather dust where she left it. Her Hope does not belong to me; rather, my grandmother’s name is my name. You were the only thing that has ever been my own, and I have lost you.  I feel my way through the sudden pitch dark as an invisible clock chimes an unknown hour to an iron-wrought balcony, overlooking every landscape of my life, a meadow brown and brittle from first frost, fallen leaves forming a footpath and I see it now, the sign I have searched for, its defective neon flickering, Acceptance, hand-lettered like a vacancy marquee outside of a run-down roadside motel with bedbugs and hard water and little porcelain lambs in the lobby. I watch the bright word falter, come to terms with the irrefutable fact that anything that matters is a little tacky. Love is kitsch. The iron railings I am clinging to dissolve into dampness, and I tumble down into the cold ground of memory. I weep, finally, gather my skirt and come closer, no, closer, to Acceptance. There is no lock on the door—I always could have come in—just a circle of empty, mismatched armchairs like a waiting room. I sink into the chintz. Behind me, another steep staircase rises up out of the air. Grief is a circular staircase. No matter how high I climb, I have lost you. I begin again.  Laura Ingram is a poet and author who lives and writes in rural Virginia. Her poetry and prose have published in over one-hundred literary magazines and journals, among them Juked and Five on the Fifth. Laura is the author of six collections; Animal Sentinel, The Solitude of the Female Preying Mantis, Mirabilis, The Taffeta Parable, Junior Citizen's Discount, and The Ghost Gospels.