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

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

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

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

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

Trixie had been writing for 10 years before she finally got published. It was a long slog, with dozens and dozens of bad short stories, a handful of good ones, and what felt like millions of rejections from journals, residencies, and MFA programs. It was brutal. Eventually, she stopped trying to write Lorrie Moore stories and just wrote what came naturally — auto-fiction with absurdist embellishments. Then she started getting published and it was magical. As she hit a publishing stride, she did what another writer friend suggested — use her Instagram for silly non-writing related stuff. Create a brand that says I don’t care about promoting my work, but get this, you actually do. She changed her handle to @highfashiongabagool and photoshopped Italian cured meats onto models’ faces at high-end fashion shows. Within a year she had 15k followers. She used this attention to help get an agent, who then got her a publishing deal for her first novel. Two books later and she’d finally arrived at the writing life she’d been working toward, but there was still a void of some kind. A nagging absence. This led to the next logical step in her life — an ayahuasca trip in Peru. She’d been on that track for a while. Trixie didn’t believe in God, as such, but in the last year or so had started to wonder if this might be less an issue of faith and more an issue of definition. After her girlfriend Veronica died of an overdose two years ago, she’d been shattered. In the years since, she’d cobbled herself back into some kind of recognizable form, though she still felt moments of cavernous loss — a little helpless balloon floating up-up-up into the sky. Lately, these moments were followed by a grounding warmth and an urgent need to express gratitude to something for not having to feel like the little balloon anymore. She had to put this gratitude somewhere, but she couldn’t say God with a capital “G” yet. Not some man in the sky, but something bigger. Something our 3-dimensional brains could never really understand. 4th dimension or greater. Who knows. The only thing that she did know was she didn’t have the ability to wrap her mind around whatever this God was. Not without some help. Her agent Tino did it last Spring, the ayahuasca ceremony. He cried for three days straight and swore he felt the presence of God in his blood. He hadn’t been quite the same since he returned, in a good way. The only annoying thing was he kept talking about the ayahuasca ceremony all the time, but he’d successfully convinced Trixie that it was the thing to do. She booked the flight and made all the arrangements with Tino’s connection. Peru was beautiful. She spent the first two days in a rainforest treehouse and didn’t even turn on her phone. Monkeys would come to her window and grab plantain chips right out of her hand. It was expensive, but she could already feel the warmth of the divine before the ceremony even happened. This is going to change her life, she thought. The shaman was an elderly woman named Yeimi. There were nine Americans taking part in the ceremony. The sun had gone down, and Yeimi blew tobacco smoke into all of their faces and sang the Icaros songs. She brought Trixie to a table and on that table was a hollowed gourd that contained the ayahuasca tea. A little nervous, Trixie brought the gourd to her lips and sipped it gradually, as Yeimi had instructed. The tea was thick and bitter, almost like a coffee syrup of some kind. Trixie finished the tea and then went back to her bamboo mat as the next person went up to drink theirs. Trixie had been given a bucket to puke, and if necessary, shit into. She only did the former. Half the Americans puked as well. Yeimi walked around as everyone lay back on their bamboo mats and she sang more Icaros songs. It was the most beautiful experience of Trixie’s life. As the trip came on, she closed her eyes and tears started to stream down her face. She saw herself standing naked in the jungle and within her body, she could also see herself as a little girl, and also an old woman. All at once, but visible in only her current form. All thought became like that image — layered in a way that it wasn’t before the ayahuasca had kicked in. Like the world was made up of single letters before, and now it made whole sentences. Her body sank into the rainforest floor as she wept and laughed at the same time. Veronica came to her vision and it was very scary for a little while. Trixie felt like the balloon again, but instead of the sky, she floated up into deep-deep space. As Yeimi had advised, she tried to let it pass over her, like a rain shower on a summer afternoon. It felt a bit like trying to meditate through a category four hurricane, but it did eventually pass. When the next wave came, Veronica was not a part of it, though the residue of her presence in this form would linger, Trixie felt. Maybe forever. The strangest part of her trip occurred near the end. A familiar face appeared. A man. The man’s mouth was moving but no sound came out. At first, he was mouthing the Icaros song Yeimi was chanting nearby. Then it started to change. He was saying something to Trixie. She tried to read his lips, but it was as if the man were speaking another language. His lips and tongue were doing unfamiliar things with one another. Trixie tried to understand but couldn’t. The man’s face got nearer and nearer and nearer until it was all she could see. Then it slowly started receding. Just before the face vanished into oblivion, she recognized the man. Teddy Rousseau from Townsend Pizza House — a small pizza shop in her hometown. This man, whom she’d never spoken to outside of ordering subs, was trying to send her a message. To tell her something about God. And she needed to receive that message. /// Trixie visited her father’s house in Townsend a week after the ceremony. She lay in her old bed, remembering the first time she brought Veronica to her hometown just after they started getting serious. They just drove through on their way to Maine for the weekend. How many shitty teenage hand jobs did you give in this place? Veronica asked. 84, Trixie answered, as quickly as possible. This made Veronica laugh with that sudden and goofy snort. She used to live for that snort. Trixie smiled at the memory and closed her eyes. It was a great trip. Since the ceremony, she’d had an easy time generating some light hallucinatory experiences in her mind. It was as if the ayahuasca had opened a door in her brain that made the images come more freely. An enduring gift of the experience. As she lay, she saw in her mind a giant dark wall. And high up on the wall, way-way over her head was a small hole. Through that hole shone the most beautiful light. Gold and amber and silver. That hole was the God-Hole, through which you could catch a glimpse of the divine. But it was so high up and so small. Trixie believed everyone had a God-hole in their mind. She also believed that Teddy Rousseau’s was bigger and closer to the ground. She believed that Teddy could see through his God-hole. And she needed to find out what it was he saw. Every day after high school in her Senior year, Trixie and her friends would go to Townsend Pizza House and order subs. Trixie always got a small Italian, extra pickles/extra hots. She’d wash it down with a Cherry Coke, belch loudly, then blow her burpy-sub-breath into peoples’ faces to the delight and disgust of her friends. Teddy Rousseau worked there and always made her the small Italian extra pickles/extra hots. He was older, maybe in his late twenties, and had gone to Townsend High school himself. Though she couldn’t remember how it came up, Mrs. Torres once talked about how Teddy was a student of hers that did poorly in her Spanish class. The story concluded with her raising her eyebrows insinuating that if you failed Spanish you would probably have to go work in a sub shop too. The next day, Trixie stood in Townsend Pizza House for the first time in fifteen years looking at a middle-aged Teddy Rousseau. He was bald now and wore an old Patriots jersey covered in flour. Trixie was dumbstruck when she walked through the door. It seemed impossible that he’d still be there after all those years. Unable to speak, she spent a few moments pretending to stare at the menu. Teddy didn’t seem to recognize her. His eyes seemed fixed in a “what do you want” type gaze. She stepped closer to the register. “Hi,” she said. “Can I get a small Italian, extra pickles/extra hots?” Teddy punched some numbers in the register. She was hoping the order might jog his memory. Then they could get down to the business of the divine message he was trying to relay in her trip. But it was important not to spook him, she thought. “Drink?” Teddy asked. Trixie turned and looked at the cooler. All Pepsi products now. She opened the cooler door and grabbed an Aquafina. Teddy rang her up and she handed him her card. She rifled around in her purse for a cash tip. “Sorry no Cherry Coke,” he said, as he pressed a few more buttons on the machine. “You remember me?” she asked, looking up at him enthusiastically. “Yep,” Teddy said. “Wow, I’m so glad you remember. I missed this place,” she said. “Really?” Trixie nodded. Teddy leaned against the counter and waited for her to say something. She’d thought carefully on the drive up about how she might get him to talk. “I’m a writer now,” she said after a few moments. “I was wondering if I might interview you for a book I’m working on?” Teddy frowned and stood up straight. “I’m going across the country writing about small-town pizza shops. Like this one,” she said. Teddy slowly shook his head. “It’ll be easy. Do you have a few minutes?” Teddy stood still and didn’t reply for a moment. He waited for her to continue. “It’s not shitty, I swear. I’m interested in finding out about the lives of people. And I want to start with you, Teddy.” Teddy looked back towards the ovens. “Alright, but only for a few minutes. I got a dozen cheeses cooking for the middle school.” Teddy stepped down from behind the counter and walked into the seating area. Trixie didn’t know that the counter was elevated and had always thought that Teddy was five inches taller than he actually was. They sat at the nearest booth. She pulled out her laptop and opened up a Pages file. “Tell me about how you got started working here?” she asked. Teddy told her about getting the job in high school. And that he’d worked there since then. He told her about Richard Caparelli who owned the pizza shop and how he bought the business from Richard after he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He’d owned the place for the last ten years and now lives just over the border in New Hampshire with his family. He told her all of these things in a few brief sentences, each containing no more than 6 or 7 words. Trixie felt closer to him now. She loved that he owned the pizza shop and had a family. It felt good to have him humanized after all these years of Teddy being some kind of low-wage neanderthal in her memory. She felt ashamed of how she’d held him there for all those years. From that point onward, Trixie decided that she would always try to find everyone’s full humanity instead of truncating them into stunted caricatures. At least she would try to. They’d been talking for five minutes or so when Trixie noticed Teddy starting to get fidgety. He would have to finish the pizzas for the middle school soon. Her window of opportunity was closing. “What do you think happens after you die?” she asked. Teddy sat up straight. He looked at Trixie’s computer and then back at her. “Serious?” he asked. She nodded and leaned in. Teddy relaxed and looked directly into her eyes, which he’d been largely avoiding since the start of the interview. It was coming, she thought. “Nothing,” he said. Trixie cocked her head and backed away slightly. “What do you mean ‘nothing?’ Like, Nothing?” Teddy nodded and remained silent. “Really?” He continued to nod and folded his arms over his chest. “Can you elaborate on that a little?” He took a deep breath and looked over Trixie’s shoulder to the store windows. “This is all a big mistake,” he said, waving his hand across the restaurant. The lighting seemed to increase a half a lumen as he spoke. She waited for him to continue. “Humans are a fuck-up. A wrong turn in evolution. We’re not special and when we die, that’s it. The end.” Trixie shook her head a little, trying to process what was being said. It didn’t compute. Not with the vision, not with her beliefs, not with any of it. “You don’t think there’s anything more to this? You think we’re just scrambling along for 80 or 90 years then boom — lights out?” “If we’re lucky.” Teddy let the slightest smile come across his face. It seemed like a betrayal of her vision of him. A cruel trick of some kind. And this enraged Trixie. “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that at all. It seems so… so egotistical if I’m being honest. Like our human experience is the apex of all consciousness. There has to be something more. Something bigger.” “You believe what you gotta believe. I made my peace with it.” Teddy leaned back and folded his arms – a gesture of finality. Trixie leaned in towards him a little. “You don’t see any light at all?” she asked. A tinge of desperation laced her voice. Teddy got up from the booth and stood at the end of the table. “If you’re asking me, then you probably don’t either,” he said. Trixie felt flushed. Her skin prickled and the little hairs on her arms flared out. “Dude, don’t tell me what I believe,” she said, getting up from the booth herself. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve seen or what I’ve been through.” Teddy laughed and raised his hands. “Okay, okay. There’s a nice little cloud up in the sky, and when we’re all done here, we get to go up and be happy forever and ever,” he said, his voice adopting a fairytale cadence. “Oh, fuck you, man,” Trixie said. Teddy laughed as if she were a silly child and she felt a hot rage take her. She looked over his shoulder and into the prep area for Townsend Pizza House. In an instant, she darted past Teddy, beneath the flip-top counter, and made her way into the kitchen area. “What the fuck are you doing?” Teddy asked, flipping up the countertop and following her. Trixie looked to the right and saw the sandwich prep table. All of the meats and cheeses were wrapped up in cellophane. She grabbed a package of mortadella and ripped open the plastic. “This is it, right Teddy? Little pieces of meat?” She started to lob slices of the mortadella at Teddy, who deflected as best he could. The meat slices landed against his raised forearm, slapping against his skin. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” Teddy said, trying to move towards her. Trixie grabbed fistfuls of turkey and bologna and salami, hurling all of it at Teddy as he made his way closer. “What do you know, anyway? Meat slinger… Meat man,” said Trixie. She reached down into a vat of hot pepper relish and started pitching handfuls at Teddy and all over his restaurant. A glob exploded against his cheek, and some got into his left eye. He winced then lunged forward, grabbing Trixie with both of his arms. He restrained her in a bear hug and lifted her up off the floor. Trixie screamed and laughed as he carried her out of his kitchen area and out to the sidewalk. He dropped her on the ground outside and slammed the door shut. “Psycho-bitch,” he shouted from behind the glass windows, rubbing the hot pepper relish from his eye with the collar of his Patriots jersey. Trixie sat on the sidewalk and laughed until she started to cry a little. She still felt the little hairs on her arm standing up. Eventually, she calmed down. Five minutes later a minivan pulled up out front. A middle-aged man wearing a turquoise windbreaker got out and stopped in front of her. His face scrunched in helpless confusion. “From the middle school?” Trixie asked, still sitting on the sidewalk where she’d been dropped — her hand sticky from the hot pepper relish. The man nodded. “It’ll be right up,” she said. Teddy opened the door and looked down at Trixie. He reached his arm out and dropped her laptop bag next to her on the sidewalk. “Just another couple minutes,” Teddy said to the man from the middle school. He opened the door and motioned for him to come inside. She heard Teddy explain to the man from the middle school what had just happened in his restaurant. He sounded small and angry. Trixie closed her eyes and in her mind saw the God-Hole again. She saw the beautiful light coming from the other side of the giant dark wall. She imagined floating up-up-up and looking into her God-Hole. Going through it. She imagined the other side of the wall and it looked a lot like that beautiful summer day in Maine with Veronica. Riding around trying to find the next beautiful place to stop and take some Polaroids. On this side of the wall, the God-Hole was just a black dot in the sky. A point of Darkness, distant and unremarkable. Some people look up at the wall, and this was what they see, she thought. “That is not what I see,” she told herself. Dave McNamara is a writer and community college staff member living in coastal North Carolina. His fiction has been published in Maudlin House, Whiskey Tit Journal, Nonconformist Magazine, and elsewhere. His satire has appeared in the Hard Times and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Prior to his work in higher education, he spent over 15 years as a live sound engineer for concert venues and touring punk bands.

Spent Sunday morning fucking a hot guy and we were exhausted by sex and uppers and all-night drinking, and he said, ‘what’ll we do?’ so we mooched to the ABC to see Groundhog Day, just released, and what I recall is not the film, but a guy called Dan from work, sitting alone on the front row and me thinking, awww, poor Dan, all alone like that, not knowing that within days I’d be a curled furry ball in a tree stump of, it’s not you, it’s me and all that schtick I’ve heard a gazillion times, again and again, like time-looping Bill Murray looming huge and ass-holey in front of Dan’s blue-lit face, right there on the first row – I mean, why sit so close to the screen? Basic premise is that dead-pan Bill, beyond the initial confusion, sardonicises his way into a reckless hedonism of one-night stands and eat-drink to excess, because time’s standing still with no consequence, so you can take a shot at banging Andi MacDowell night after night, you can take that slap in the face again and again and then some, because even if at first you don’t succeed, you’ve got forever for her to think you a through and through jerk, until you spiral into a depression whereby you know all the answers on Double Jeopardy, but repeatedly fail at ending your static, meaningless life. You always wake up. And it’s always the same. I discuss this with Dan over curly fries in the work canteen. He’s a film buff, bookish too, and really, okay; kind of wry, despite splinter-bitten nails and a glancing away when I meet his eyes. Brown eyes. We go on a date but Dan’s tee-total. His pockets rattle pills but he doesn’t share, and he claims he can’t dance, so we walk through the snow of our own Punxatawnie, and I teach him some steps to a faraway sax as the slow stars waltz overhead. I lean in to kiss, but Dan pulls back. He doesn’t have long. Months, a few years. He can’t say. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s journey out of fuckwittedness manifests itself in carving angels from ice and playing bluesy piano in a late-night bar. He can catch an ingrate kid falling from a tree, but learns that no amount of hot soup and CPR can save a man destined to die. I taught Dan that if you sit further back from the screen, you don’t have to feel so small. We went back to the future, busted ghosts, got ourselves a bigger boat over popcorn, and he learned how to tango, but no amount of hot soup and CPR… We only ever had today. It seems a while to the thaw. I’m frozen in my burrow and there’s a chutzpah of small-town folk at my door, saying Are you okay? Not yet. I need to recall brown eyes, a wry smile, and when I’m done watching reruns of Groundhog, I might go outside. Might meet myself moving forward. Tomorrow, maybe. Mairead Robinson writes and teaches in the South West, UK. Her recent work has been placed in the Bath FFA and Shortlisted for Bridport, and other stories can be found in The Molotov Cocktail, Voidspace, Ellipsis Zine, Free Flash Fiction, Crow and Cross Keys, and other groovy places. When not writing, she is talking about writing to her dog, and anyone else who'll listen.

Residual feelings The day before Eden ended, she spent mostly staring out of windows, observing stretch marks scar the sky, trees hunker down in dusky, unconvinced gravel, a litter of leaves grow in the stubble of their shade. You had to delve deep for moisture here, or hope to extract it from the damp. Other Eves paraded their Adams in tow, perfecting obliviousness to termites working just under the bark. She would wish them better luck, leave them furniture that couldn’t fit: chewed chairs, wardrobes, their doors hanging slack, shrugging even against that memory-testing, first spurt of Ikea enthusiasm; kitchen units contriving to belong better in a holiday flat in Benidorm than her best attempt at a proper home—background to arguments played out before imaginary juries, children yawning from sheer discomfort. Little to divide, a lot to abandon, this Eden was an empty tube of toothpaste, disconcerting only because, through the habit of squeezing, there had always seemed to be that little bit more, something residual. A terrier in his Eden Workmen came. He watched them measure out grass with abstract, hairy curiosity. Their leader stretched his body around imaginary trunks to demonstrate how six, maybe seven could fit, parked sensibly. The others sloped, semi-convinced. This was a job to do so that other jobs could get done — covering contingencies. Then they bedded the lawn with a carpet of tar. He waited for the last ribbed wheel to labour away for a first, formal sniff. Caustic, simian trickery, this — he nosed out quickly where corners curled, revealing suppressed life: offered it a preliminary scratch. Not easy, but with that canine certainty that the surface is something to be worked through, mere clusters of matter clinging together, desperate bonds begging to be simplified: specific, obdurate, volatile, he sensed tiny spaces cede into gaps, snuffed turgid fibres relaxing, webbing the fabric of a wound; he would worry at its scab, scent where its ridges peeled away from flesh, tenuous tissues unravelling into reluctant filaments, blending nails into hair. By the time the police arrived, unhitched themselves from official upholstery with uniformed parsimony, the prophet was up to his wrists in truth.

I see her in my bed, her body a few inches away from mine. Almost as tall as me, but not quite yet. She is fast asleep. Hands clasped under her face, turned towards me, tucked under a two-layered cocoon of warm brown flannel. A pause. A beat. And a rush of relief. Not a toddler that kept me on my toes the whole day. A battery-operated machine that went amma amma all day. A tween who can get her own water. Eyes closed, lips slightly apart, breathing rhythmically, A little warm, and deep in sleep. I see her in my bed, Where I can reach out and touch her left eyelid which twitches ever so slightly under the weight of childhood dreams. I see her in my bed, where I know her exact coordinates in this world. If there was to be a fire or a gunman or a pandemic, she would be right next to me for me to protect. I see her in my bed. A stillness and silence fills the room. Only the shield of our shared breaths, far away from chaos. I see her in my bed. I don’t have to worry about fires and floods and lightning and choking and intruders and perverts and aliens and earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes and bombs and roofs caving in. I see her in my bed. I can be less vigilant. I can sleep soundly, — at least for tonight. Shikha Valsalan grew up in Dubai and India and currently lives in Atlanta, USA. She works as a digital product manager in her day job and writes in her free time.

Inspired by the painting Beklemek (meaning: to wait), by Müfide Kadri (Turkey), 1890-1912 we feel it on our skin / the silvery powder beneath our bare feet / we sit across a tiny secluded strip of beach, further afield from prying eyes / the tall coniferous canopy offering much-needed shade / it’s like walking on silky blankets of spongy moss / the rock formation protruding through the iridescent dunes of sand / we breathe the poignant air enriched with the smell of salt as the tide kisses the shore / observing the rollers of aquamarine showing off their force / enjoying the quiet in our favourite sequestered nook / Remember when I first caught glimpses of you!? / all kitted out in a SCUBA gear unit / emerging from the depths of this Neptunian world you admire so much / our eyes briefly met and you smiled / the mystical smile of contentment with life / you taught me to love the sea / the terrifying power of it / even when it took you away from me / and how do I not / it’s where I feel closest to you / Nautilus you bequeathed to me, ohh… the beautiful pearly shell you found half buried in this sheltered alcove I call by your name now / it helps me on the days like these / on the days when memories of you are too overwhelming to bear / when sounds of the ocean grow too familiar to tolerate / the weight of their reign too heavy to carry / when saline air burns cilia at the back of my nose… and once silky sand grains wedge themselves in the creases of my skin / an aide-mémoire to the love once lived / when all my senses scream for you / I put Nautilus up to my ear and the world gets quiet… shhh…. just the gentle hum of your breath caressing my soul / and I feel at peace / if only for a minuscule moment in time Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She’s an amateur photographer and author of prose and poetry. She writes at night when everyone is asleep; when she lacks words to express herself, she uses photography to speak for her. Her literary art appears or is forthcoming in Roi Fainéant Press, The Ekphrastic Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Sky Island Journal, The Dribble Drabble Review, Five on the Fifth, and elsewhere. She spends many an hour fiddling around with her website damicandrea.wordpress.com. You can also find her on X @DamicAndrea, Instagram @damicandrea and FB @AndreaDamic

Decades later they’re still coming. Disaster tourists, la-di-da. Please, sir, may I have your gloves? Trade you for a picture with my crystallized sister. They love it when you shiver and beg. Makes them feel like they’re winning. I’ve been on the hunt since I turned twelve. That was ninety-eight days ago. It’s taking so long because they’re too well-fed. Don’t forget I have to carry my tourist all the way home myself. Can’t exactly become a man if someone’s holding my hand. The sky’s a smudge of melancholy. The cold’s a bowl of revenge. That hasn’t stopped the tourists, though, who roam through the market, louder than ever. God forbid a second elapses where nobody says or buys a thing. Suddenly, I see him: The One That I’ve Been Looking For. He’s sipping on a slushie at a neighboring kiosk, a middle-aged guy with gunmetal hair, studying trinkets fashioned from bone. His gloves are off and his coat’s undone, as if to say the weather’s no biggie, what is all the fuss about? The ignorance. The disrespect. That unzipped fucking coat. I bet he laughed when the blizzards hit, when half the world froze over. Now he’s here on holiday, watching us starve at favorable rates. A pale young girl, about my age, shuffles into view. You can tell she was pretty once, before the frostbite claimed her ears. The Unzipped Prick looks up from his slushie and offers the girl a wink. Not money or food or a sense of worth. A brazen wink. A flutter of lashes. Flirting like a dirty old butterfly. I make for him like chaos theory, daddy’s knife hot in my hand, ready to plunge into manhood. Sonny Rane lives in Prague. You can find him at the corner of Lightness and Unbearable, or leave him a message at sonnyrane.com.

If I ever have a wife, there’s no way I’ll buy another hunting jacket over fixing the leaky toilet and the broken backdoor lock and if I have a family, I won’t drag them from one dirty rental in Jacksonville to another when the rent is late because I spent my paycheck at the dog track and on handles of Jim Beam and if I have kids, I’ll go to their band concerts, Cub Scout derbies, and high school graduations, not just football games and the annual Rod ‘n Reel competition and I’ll make sure my kids have more than one dirty pair of jeans to wear to school instead of buying another fishing rod and I’ll never criticize my kids for getting a “C” in Biology when they tried their best and if I have a kid who says he wants to be an accountant, I won’t tell him to talk to Archie the CPA nextdoor while never looking up from the Jacksonville Independent and if I have a son who says he is moving to California for a different life, I won’t tell him that’s a stupid idea and to be happy with a job at the local aluminum foil factory and if I am suffering from PTSD, I’ll remain at the hospital and attend every group therapy session and try every treatment because my family loves me despite my flaws and today here I am sitting in this room drinking shitty coffee in rehab for the fifth time because I have no self-control and when I make a promise I find a way to sabotage myself and I wonder where I learned this, but I will kick this beast because I know it’s what I gotta do. Jeff Harvey lives in San Diego and grows avocados and lemons.