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In the Limen, You In the limen you kept me between land and a wormy sea, What’s App green, always poised on the horizon of creamy notes, the heart sing(e) of dreamy cell blips, the G-Majors of long-distance, lesbian longing. In the limen you found me, between flesh and word. Digital synapses fire a queer mind. There are no accidents in algorithms despite what you said. There are Americans to be had or just fucked in ways unimagined. The Internet has its own “book of life.” You, magician, witchy healer of dreamtime, the imagined leavening of wounds.           Smoke. Acid. Relentless ache. The silent falls spent by ponds’ hollows. In the limen you undid me, the dismantling invited. I’m a cornucopia of human failing, I admit. What could top a sawed-apart smiling lady, out-tricked Portia                   floating in a box suspended by hope’s spindly webs? In the limen you kept me, ghost passports, aborted stuff, sudden (ex)husband, sins by omission, the familiar flicked switch… Always between things, the truth. We were neo-Catholic for sure, but I was the inept reader of your script. I admit I am always a problem. But you were and are the end of language. The end of hope. In the limen you held me close as a knife, later, at the ocean’s heel where things decay, transmute, and release their uncarings. And you, an air story, your intentions streaming, arabesque and horn like, rising from heaven’s moat, your suspect smile, seducing, then busting/open some god. Apropos or No (Ekphrastic on Deborah Remington’s Apropos or Untitled, 1953) note: I don’t own rights to photo, but here it is at this link: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/deborah-remington-apropos-or-untitled there was no Christmas in the red and green an amazing feat by itself as any painter would know and the pink-haired punk cowboy with the yellow-smoking erection did not pet the speckled donkey’s head nor flicker yellow sun rays into a bloody sky you only saw that through your blinking strobe while sipping the rum and coke of your teens and the clear blue patches aren’t menstruating on the whole damned show or even the crops as they might have in Karen’s anthropology dream because this painting was just a pitstop before you moved onto black and red and geo clean this was your beautiful dirty moment there was no Christmas in your red and green what’s apropos is what the painting is wet and raw and thick and skinned resisting a certain destiny while submitting to the urge of its moment If the Phone is Off, Do the Fingers Exist? Love me in a text With only one or two fingers. Make it real, give me the best you’ve got in thirty characters or less. I’m busy, so are you, so let’s just get to it. Spare us both the tangled mess you fashioned after an Anais novelette. I can’t stand her, and while that might make me guilty, it was never a secret Condense it, shrink it, get it right for that screen that suits my hand. Shoot  your blazing blessed-Verizon love, yes give it to me, your flaming, scorching, wireless, Lost in Space poetica. Emoji-laden, blinking heart, smiley-faced, sweet single-digit nothing(s), there’s one for every single emotion, including some you’ve never had. Tell me what you ate for lunch, are having for dinner, saw on the street, and every random thought you have in real time. Yes, I want it all. I need it bad, in fact. Without It, I probably don’t exist. Yesterday was yesterday and today is today. Can you hear me now, as you plunk your now-bored fingers, tired from the wired-less mania of your dopamine-driven love execution? Wait! I think I hear silence? The stillness of the phone and lack of green blinkings is almost unbearable. Please, Pavlov’s dog is starving. Be so kind to animals as to lend a helping finger... Unplugged, uncharged, lost in the car seat, fell out of the pocket, forgotten in the restaurant bathroom? The Love Box. Replace it with a new model or not at all. Does the love exist when the phone is off? The person, when the app Is removed? I scarcely remember the sound of your voice anymore. Two fingers are best used for pleasing oneself, as you conveyed in your freely-shared, lonely, narcissistic, (and embarrassing) masturbation poem, portent of your latest double-digit adventure. Are all feelings precious? Be the fingers. Colleen Does the Detroit Institute of Arts—Rivera - Kahlo Show not beautiful or sexy—wrong words she does the DIA in Colleen style with no last name playfully licks the marble without saliva or arrests body-defying Mexican breasts hang at odd angles and some statues’ penises go missing never to be found flirting with a bodiless woman as someone tests the energy fields of ancient mummies in the adjacent display their souls are trapped in geometric precision forever her mane it hangs carefree over shoulders swaying to imagined rhythms of frozen bronze women she sashays through them arms extended boat shoes on point onto the next exhibit of mechanized people lost babies panning Frida’s wasted papered strands of black hair and awkward parts delightfully boyish equivocally womanly (not beautiful or sexy - wrong words) the dead art museum springs to life as the delphic Colleen does the DIA Items Found in Her Red Flowered Hippie Bag Two bottles essential oil blend, ¾ used, myrrh and hyssop Lip gloss, grapefruit flavored in small tin Black wraparound sunglasses Her mother’s lace-lined handkerchief, wadded and stained Her son’s baby photo, elevated above her ex’s head like a trophy Beige telephone, landline, the cord wound around it Notebook, faux yellow leather in wrapper Embroidery needle and brown thread in frosted plastic case Bent-nose surgical scissors, one pair Pliers with red handle Hair clippers with 1/8-inch head installed Glyburide, multiple tabbed sheets, half used Xanax, 10mg. bottle, empty Bupropion, 300 mg. dosage, bottle empty Pashmina, red, gray, and black silk from Pakistan Legal documents, bound by an alligator clip Brown bi-fold wallet emptied of its contents Kay Ryan paperback, The Best of It Foot Loose and Fancy Free: Cliché Messages from My Dead Lover You’d been dead four days and I lay back-smack in your bed, as if the ceiling could make sense of it. Your ghost showed up a second time, stroked my head as you frequently did when alive. You spoke clearly, yet in code: “Footloose and fancy free,” you said (on being dead)? “I’m not in the mood for jokes, Max,” I answered, as I needed something more, a synopsis of heaven or hint of remorse. “Divorce is divorce,” you added, and “Remember me as I was.” Then you slipped out through a crack in the window pane and I stayed still for hours, your laconic message pimpling my brain. Soon I’d write, then later delete, as editor said it was cliché. For months after, I’d scour the web for hints. Resurrect it. Again and again. Dictionaries said, an unmarried, unattached woman or man, one who does as he pleases, a divorced man who comes and goes freely . . . I thought of you on holidays smoking cigars outside with the men as placid women prepared food then later cleaned up the mess. Jerome Robbins choreographed a ballet, Fancy Free, coupled with Bernstein’s score. For hours I watched, searching for you on YouTube as gay sailors with thrusting bulbous crotches cartwheeled and air-humped in their white bells along a lonely bar prop. Might there be clues to your ghost death quip in their hips? Or could something holy or whitely-glowing emerge from pneumatic wagging man-ass? Is that what you meant? You had promised to dance for me . . . White was never your color, though you did mention a fondness for sailor suits. Then I found Rod Stewart used your cliché in an album: Footloose and Fancy Free: Side One Hot Legs, You’re insane, You’re in My Heart Born Loose Side Two You Keep Me Hanging On If Loving You Is Wrong You Got A Nerve I Was Only Joking You always loved to communicate in songs. Max, oh the breadcrumbs you left me. And more covers of your song—Camera Obscura, and Rare Earth, and others. I listened ‘til my ears blew Dorseys, and my country ‘tis of thee liberty. Some sang it before we were born, as many knew, like you, freedom might shake from a body’s tethers or slip from its throat in a joke. What Was Is Not Gone is the iris the stars on the arms the witch’s fingers her Kant’s cunt hum Gone is the voice the nail in the foot the child’s teeth her tainted cheek Gone. Gone. Ash to the sun. a mother’s breast the thrum of the womb the churr of the pigeon the kettle’s heat Gone (D Deficiency) More than a half-life spent dreaming phantom orange juice. The sun never stunned me with even a passing D. Reptilian, I crawled along on my own embers, ash-glow in my blackened pit as life wheezed by. Love did not capture me, it has its escape hatch. Such convenience in these fleeting things, this life, these loves, these tickings that quicken, then lose their grip. The night sprawls and shrouds Earth in its tepid wings. Scattered stars announce their failed intentions as Orion blinks in heaven’s vellum hinting at what’s left of the ephemeral hunt. Koss is a queer writer and artist with over 220 publications in journals such as San Pedro River Review, Beaver Mag, Sage Cigarettes, diode poetry, Bending Genres, Five Points, Chiron, Prelude, Anti-Heroin Chic, Petrichor, Cincinnati Review (miCro), Gone Lawn, Outlook Springs, Spillway, and many others. They had work in Best Small Fictions 2020, Bending Genre's Get Bent, and diode's Beyond the Frame. They've received numerous Pushcart and BoTN nominations in poetry, CNF, fiction, and art. Koss's chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, is due out in '24 from Diode Editions. Find out more about them at https://koss-works.com.

I Hate Dreams A synaptic celluloid that burns after every frame. Vivid realities inhabited/ experienced Constructed curiosities unwanted/ uncovered Leaving a waking mind to ponder And pretend …to not linger… [in that empty unmade space] Stolen from time Full lives unlived– Vain visions Of rapid-eyed sleep or whispered shadows of the soul Green Found in the four-color box of crayons. The secondary. Out of what was I drawn? This broken RYB that created me. Honorary of the primaries Latchkey to the Trinity I envy Orange- the paint of petals. And Purple the Red/Blue beautiful- blush of clouds to be truly blended to be unboxed to blush… The Last Miracle of St. Nicholas I learned the truth about Santa Clause in a car, inferred in the exhaustion of my mother. Her tired sigh replacing words for why a neighborhood friend got a foosball table and I got a book. Here my mom found a breaking point. My passing thought was left undefended and allowed to sink in. We rolled up the street. past the house with the new table On a hill where the mighty myth fell— with fairies and bunnies as well. Body and Sol You are the stuff of stars. Is that the silver whisker that is shining forth from my thirty-three-year-old face or the heat in my chest from fuel gone gaseous causing solar plexus pain with no gain? or maybe it’s that flare-up that nearly knocked my knee out of commission. What constellation of symptoms shall seal my fate as the light leaves my eyes fading in the background of the dead of night and I am dropped into a black hole? Is this the stuff of stars? If that is the case, the star can stuff it. A word from the author: The poem "I Hate Dreams" is a spiritual sequel to a poem I wrote titled "A Waking Thought". I experience vivid or lucid dreams almost nightly and these poems have come out of that frustration. "Green" grew out of an observation that my child's toys tended to favor the primary colors and green. This led me to look a bit into color theory and learn not only is there the RYB color model for pigments, but also the RGB color model based more on light perception and our eyes. Beyond these observations, there is a hidden exploration of a person's psyche when they feel the push-pull between societal norms and a more free expression of the individual. The other two are just for fun I guess. Aaron G. H. is a pastor who serves a congregation in Minnesota and the producer/co-host of the podcast My Bad Poetry. Outside of this submission he has a poem in The Daily Drunk's "It Was Never a Phase: A Pop Punk Anthology" and a few others in Roi Fainéant Press.

My name is Butch Kissimmee IV and I’m going to die soon. Soon is the operative word, as I have only just turned the big 8-0-0-0, well below expectation of others in my family. For example, my great great grandfather proper lost his battle with life at the ripe age of fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty. My great grandfather proper is still alive, at a robust twelve thousand, two hundred and forty-eight. My father proper, Butch Kissimmee III, just celebrated his ten thousandth birthday. By the time I was to reach ten thousand, I may have been immortal or so close I could never tell the difference. My grandfather proper you see is noticeably absent. I won’t reach eight thousand because I am going to be executed. # I should start by saying my death is justified, and when I am gone there will be much said, likely true, likely exaggerated. One such truism is my death will finally bring an end to Galactic War II, as I’ve been told several hundred times. One such exaggeration is I am a monster. # My grandfather proper is noticeably absent because he has been dead these past six thousand years, though I brought him back to life and sparked the war for which I am now held prisoner. In life and death, my grandfather proper had been my favorite person in the universe. # My grandparents proper lived in a cozy home on Palixan, a planet eighteen thousand light years from the galactic center. Their house floated seven thousand feet above the surface, just beyond the once-toxic mist that made Palixan unlivable to early human explorers, before the advent of Palixanian neck respirators. The rhythm of my arrival had always been the same—my grandmother would get up from the kitchen table, stroll through the dining and living rooms to the tiny foyer where I wiped my feet, kiss me on the cheek, and say, “He was just talking about you, Butchie.” She’d then disappear in the backroom. When their house was bombed, she was fortunately very far away. Her MBF died in the explosions. I always sat opposite my grandfather in the kitchen. Every day he’d listened to a radio tuned to a frequency that only made sense to his cybernetic neurons. He’d wave his hand back and forth, belting out notes as if he wrote the song himself. I admit back then I was more curious than wise and vastly interested in the way things worked. “Pop Pop, why do we have to die?” He turned the radio up, as he was one to do. He never liked these types of questions. “How the hell should I know, Butchie?” I leaned closer to yell. “You’ve been around a long time.” He shook his head, flipped the radio switch, leaving an eerie silence. “Too long if you ask me.” I understood his flippantness with death. He had been a veteran of Galactic War I, when machines fought to destroy the natural order by usurping humanity six thousand years before I was born. He spotted my staring. “What do you want from me, Butchie? A secret?” I smiled. “Just some guidance. You know so much.” He considered, shook his head. As young as I was, I understood death’s role in life, though I’d argue it hadn’t borne its full weight until the 280th century. J.U.B. Raliont—the oldest human in history at twenty-one thousand, five hundred and two years galactic standard—once said her death should be considered the most tragic in human history, as she had survived the worst of the human experience.(1) I envy I won’t ever get the chance. (1) Raliont has been dead almost a thousand years. She had been drafted into the war. The guards said, Funny enough the old hag was snuffed out by her MBF. My grandfather shook his head again. He chose his appearance to be about forty years galactic standard, rugged, with a stubble that was literal steel so as to look the same forever. The giant bolts on his neck had once been crucial for humans to breathe on Palixan—now they were for show, mere symbols of where you came from. My grandmother, who received her respirators shortly after marrying my grandfather, said the bolts made her feel so Palixanian. The only change was to my grandfather’s eyes, which held the weight of his many thousands of years. Or so he said. To me, they were just brown. “Here’s a secret, Butchie. Your ass and your mouth spew the same shit.” “But you have so much to teach me.” He smiled, or grimaced. “Christ, Butchie. Maybe it’s so we can enjoy it here. Maybe not think about what’s not important. Maybe so we can love. How should I know?” “But you know something Pop Pop.” He waved me away. “All I know about death is when it’s all said and done, there’s an order. I go first then your dad then y—” He fiddled with a drink on the table. “Well maybe that’s where it’ll end and you won’t have to think about it anymore.” I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not something you know.” “Well, I know I’d prefer it that way.” I wondered. “What if I die first?” He balled a cybernetic fist and slammed it through the table. “Oh hell no, Butchie. There’s no way that’s happening.” “Why not? It would be as natural as your going first wouldn’t it? People perish all the time in and out of order.” He jabbed a finger at me. “I’ve been in this galaxy so long that just my very existence is more than that little pea brain of yours can handle. Acts of God, sure. I’ll deal with them, hard as I might curse God. But you asked me what I know about dying and I know I’m dying first.” “But why Pop Pop?” “Butchie, if you think I’m going to hold this grief, then you have another thing coming. I mourn my folks, you mourn me. I’ve done my mourning.” “But your father is still alive. My parents are still alive. If I went first you’d have them.” “Butchie here’s a real secret: Enjoy the ignorance of your youth. You’ll be happy and healthy for so long after I’m gone I’ll be as large as a speck of dust in the expanse of the galaxy.” “That’s impossible, Pop Pop. You’re my favorite person in the universe.” He leapt from the table and yanked me by my shirt. This, believe it or not, was normal. He shoved me out the door, back out to my ship, only, I turned just in time to see the gleaning whites of his teeth and the shiny reflection of tears welling in his eyes. In the blink of an eye, five hundred years later, my grandfather was dead. # Perhaps clarity is better off through perspective—prisoner though I am, I live in what previous generations would consider a paradise. Imagine living in the Era Before Expansion, when seventy years pre-galactic standard was considered a long time. Even with my cybernetic mind, I struggle to fathom it. At the time of my capture humans hadn’t needed to eat in eleven thousand years. They hadn’t needed to drink in ten thousand. The galaxy isn’t low on resources because the physical and ambitious needs of humanity have dwindled in the face of thousands of years of living. Even with hundreds of trillions of people in the galaxy, there is much to go around. The uber-rich have enough room to be uber-rich, while the rest of us have enough room to live as our own versions of uber-rich. Which is to say without the need to do anything we don’t want to do. In fact, the possibilities of humanity have become so near-boundless that the only sense of progress comes from direct combat against the human condition, such as when Maya P. Schallnock invented Human Only.(2) (2) Existential Crisis(8125-9871): For millennia humans combatted the animalistic bits of their minds, centered around war, sex, and dopamine. Schallnock believed humans could be beyond that. As such, she created Human Only, which squelched those feelings. Unfortunately, without animalistic distractions humans became acutely aware of their only unique trait: the crushing knowledge of mortality. Billions subsequently committed suicide, driven to insanity by an unhideable truth. Existential Crisis ended when Loa P. Moran invented Human And, so humans could once again feel animalistic, which returned the defensive walls against the knowledge of dying through phrases such as, “At least my death is would be for a good cause” and “Please slow down or I’m going to come.” For her part in contributing to an incredibly large amount of deaths, Schallnock was imprisoned but ultimately forgiven by humanity. She had a wife and three kids and died of natural causes at seventeen thousand years galactic standard. That is, all to say, except dying. And, along that same line, dying in a supposed order of fairness. I imagine many people believe my death should happen out of order, so no one will have to die before knowing I’m dead, too. # My cell is four walls with a bed, table, light, and no windows. My only visitors are guards who appear to update me on my war on humanity. I’ve started to breathe, two sets of ten times, as a way to keep my mind off things. It’s tough to stick with considering I’ve never done it before. Time inside my cell doesn’t exist in the realm I am used to. I know time passes because I exist. I know the exact amount of time passing because over ninety-nine percent of my brain is cybernetic—it’s been seven hundred and fifty-one years since I was captured. # I am writing with pen and paper, a low-maintenance form of record as technology (outside of my being) is forbidden. I have to admit that writing in this archaic way fills me with the nostalgia of simpler times such as the Weeping Laughter. # Seliipp is the guard who speaks during visits. He just told me the death toll reached one trillion on each side. He sneered. “Soon enough Butchie, you’ll be part of those trillions.” The other guard laughed. “Oh and one more thing. You can also count on dying right next to that grandfather of yours.” Seliipp told me the MBFs continue producing machines despite not having my leadership and guidance, thanks to their new leader, My BF. He is their most wanted being in the galaxy. # I can see after recounting the story how uncomfortable the situation may have been for my grandfather proper. Of all the things a grandson would ask, why was death so close to my mind? I had let the curiosity of the one thing humans hadn’t conquered consume my thoughts and many of our conversations. But that conversation would become my inspiration. I had been born during a time of action, when ideas could be made whole. Ideas that fundamentally changed humanity, such as Urum A. Buxoite’s invention to eliminate grief from the human psyche. They called it a dam to dam that damn sad button. (3) (3) Great Silence (10264-10800): Humans lived for so long that the subsequent grief became too much to handle. As Buxoite once said,To live alone for thirty, even forty years is doable. To live alone for twenty thousand is asking too much. As such, Buxoite removed grief entirely. Unfortunately, humanity became unable to pinpoint the cause of the gaping emptiness inside them. To make matters worse, humans couldn’t mask the emptiness with dopamine and other feel-goods, such as war and sex, until Pierpont Malacion determined the best way to avoid emptiness was to maximize the feel-goods by providing every square inch of the human body with pleasure nerves. Now, a graze on the elbow from a shirt sleeve would create seismic orgasm, leading to an era known as Euphoria (10900-11900). My grandfather proper said he saw “the gods themselves” for a thousand years. Unfortunately, Euphoria led to what became known as the Flatline (11900-13000) because humanity had been so strung out on pleasure that they couldn’t function. Flatline ended when Murrys A. Alimen realized it was better if humans had pleasure centers, which she split into separate sets of genitals she called penis and vagina. For their crimes, Buxoite was awarded the Galactic Prize in Science for their attempts to “tackle the human condition.” So it should be no wonder that after my grandfather died I wanted to do something similar, to create a new era of humanity. # I joined the rest of my family in orbit above Earth proper. While the ansible allowed for instantaneous transmission—I found out not even ten seconds after my grandfather died—it still took us a hundred years galactic standard to reach the Wormhole Highways. The Highways saved humanity’s expansion in the early 4000s after humans had occupied all the habitable planets best suited for non-cybernetic bodies. Eventually, they ran out of room, and humanity needed more humans to increase the population, keep the workforce strong, and justify the need to continue expanding. Ultimately, they supplemented expansion with machines, which led to Galactic War I. As historian Milder T. Asiioiiva once said, Humanity has shown through its incredible grit and determination that it is wildly dedicated, teetering the line of insanity and admirability, to ensuring not a single piece of the universe can overcome them, lest they have to accept the universe wasn’t made with them in mind. As thanks for his service during Galactic War I, my grandfather had a suite aboard the Primordial Soup, the first ship built in orbit, eventually repurposed into a galactic funeral home. We fit his casket into the rails so that his husk could look down into the big, blue marble. Viewings lasted three hundred years on the Primordial Soup and required family to be available for mourners. My grandfather had plenty—war buddies, past lovers, and even members of the Neutron Stars arrived to offer condolences. One woman arrived clad in black and had long, mechanical legs bent like a minotaur. She walked up to my great-grandfather and patted him on his large stomach. “Big Butch, I’m so sorry to hear about Butch.” My great-grandfather dropped his head. “Thanks Miriamol. You know how tough it can be to lose a child.” Miriamol dotted her eyes and sprang away. I never saw her again, but I did build her MBF. My great-grandfather tilted his head as Miriamol walked away. He told me her legs had been shaped that way due to a mountainous planet called Elemon. The legs allowed her to scale mountains without any need for a hold and without losing speed. Like the neck respirators on Palixan, Miriamol’s legs had long been unnecessary. My great-grandfather grinned after Miriamol turned the corner. “You should see Miriamol balance on a—.” He shook his head. “Nevermind, Butchie. Forget I said anything.” # When the three-hundred-year window ended, we Kissimmees took turns saying goodbye. When I stepped to my grandfather’s casket, I merely glanced at his husk. I was unable to offer more, lest I had to accept he was gone. I hugged my great-grandmother and managed to get my arms around my great-grandfather’s belly. He carried the heft of a human born on a hostile planet known as Firheim. He donned a fireproof red beard and had fireproof skin and organs and, due to the mountainous regions and excess amount of rock, stood almost nine feet tall to properly distribute the size and strength of his hands. Were this a Firheimen funeral, my great-grandfather could’ve grabbed my grandfather’s casket and crushed it into powder. When you grow up around fire Butchie, he once said, you don’t see the spirituality of burning things. “Hey Pop, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Pop Pop’s my favorite person in the universe.” His giant hands wrapped around me. “He never stopped talking about you, Butchie.” I felt a lump the size of Firheim grow in my throat. “I’m sorry.” “That’s quite alright.” He smiled, or grimaced. “Never thought I’d live to see the day I outlived my boy.” I tried to swallow. “I imagine he’d prefer it this way. I once asked him what he thought if I went before him and he wasn’t too pleased. I imagine living with the loss of even one person he cared about was too much.” My great-grandfather put one slab of his hand on my shoulder. Even with my cybernetics the weight nearly buckled my knees. “You should enjoy the ignorance of your youth, Butchie. That’s not the way this is supposed to work.” “That’s what Pop Pop said. He mourns his folks and then I mourn him.” “That’s how it always should be. You live first, you enjoy life first, you die first.” “But then that leaves everyone after you alone.” “That’s why you build your own life. That’s what you don’t get.” “I don’t get much of anything. Pop Pop explained that to me.” My great-grandfather sighed. “That’s certainly true, Butchie. You don’t have that guide anymore.” My father tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find his face so close to mine our noses touched. He lived on Qiliam, a planet famous for its mile-thick ice sheets. To combat the frigid temperatures and the potential freezing of their internal organs, inhabitants had elongated necks described as the best air warmers in the galaxy. These days they were fashion statements. His head slithered in front of me to see everything. “Go on now, son.” I scooted down the line and heard my father’s cries the moment he thumped against my great-grandfather. I swallowed the lump in my normal-sized throat and disappeared into the backroom. My fingers itched. They sought work or anything to do. I closed my eyes, miming while in my mind I built something as memorable as Pruma Falintinax’s Happy Grief. (4) (4) Weeping Laughter (13000-14250; 15100-15800): After Flatline humanity again had to deal with grief. That is until Falintinax invented Happy Grief. He argued after people lost a loved one, they deserved a burst of feel-goods when thinking of them. Unfortunately, humanity soon discovered the euphoric juice of familicide, as children murdered parents, sisters murdered brothers, lovers murdered lovers, and on down the line, eventually leading to what became known as Blood Bath I (14480-14988).In the early 15000s Weeping Laughter returned, only this time as a switch, which allowed happy grief to exist but only at the behest of the bereaved. Naturally, no one wanted to feel bad, which led to Blood Bath II (15801-16250). Falintinax rotted in a prison cell until the end of Blood Bath II and was ultimately exonerated after the galaxy determined his “intentions were good.” Sometime later my father knocked at the door. His head floated about four feet past the threshold, while his body braced against the door to counter the weight. He slunk his long neck down to me, resting it on my shoulder, face mere inches from mine. “Son, I know it’s hard but if Pop Pop had his choice, it was this. He couldn’t imagine a universe without you in it.” I didn’t turn to face him or our noses would collide again. “I can’t imagine one without him in it.” But I did try. Please believe I did. # The custom for Earth proper cremation went like this: The body would be harvested for parts for those who would be born later. I have a cybernetic kidney given to me for my eighth birthday. Inscribed on the kidney had been a message that said, May this kidney last until the Big Freeze. I cried because I wanted eyeballs that shot lasers. However, humanity still had soft spots for the idea of human—which I’d learn the hard way—meaning the husk had been all-natural tissue with only a sprinkle of cybernetics. My grandfather’s husk, devoid of all its major organs and bones and muscle, was filled with a solution that allowed him to remain three-dimensional. Inside the solution was a mixture of fertilizer that seeded Earth proper and kept it lush and vibrant. (5) (5) I’ve learned the solution in the husks clogged the atmosphere and created mile-thick ice sheets, forcing Earth proper into another Ice Age. Casualties of Galactic War II have been filled with a solution of nickel and iron to bombard the poles. My family and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder as a voice in the suite counted down to when grandfather’s chute would cast him into the atmosphere. When the countdown passed five minutes my father mentioned the time the Neutron Stars fumbled on the doorstep of making the playoffs for the first time since interstellar space travel. Crushed by the loss, my grandfather threw his Gameday Set out of the window. It tumbled thousands of feet to the surface and miraculously crashed into the field of play. The players and fans alike dashed out of the stadium from the subsequent meteor shower of other fans doing the same. It had been a tried and true story over the years. That day no one laughed. A bell rang, the rails raised, and my grandfather’s casket slid down the chute. I watched it catch fire in the atmosphere. All told, my grandfather had been dead eight hundred years. I was just about to turn one thousand. I tried to not think how much time had passed since we last spoke, or how that paled in comparison to the eternity of our never speaking again. # Seillipp told me the war has consumed eleven of the Seventeen Corners. One more corner and it will be the longest, largest, costliest, and bloodiest war in human history. The way he said made it seem as if I enjoyed all of it. “Looks like your head gets to stay on that neck of yours a little longer.” He and his partner wore the navy blue of the Galactic Army. “Plenty more time to think on your demise, Kissimmee.” The other guard shook his head and spit at the bottom of the door to my cell. I sunk. “Believe me it’s all I think about.” # As my grandfather’s husk seeded Earth proper, I drifted inside his home on Palixan. My grandmother had sifted back to live with my Aunt Janees on their home planet Wixken, twenty-thousand light-years from the galactic center. Wixken has been famous for its being entirely under water, so prior to leaving my grandmother had her gills returned, hands and feet remade webs, and fin reattached to the top of her head. She said they made her feel so Wixkenien. For a hundred years galactic standard I laid on the kitchen floor and stared straight through the hole my grandfather punched in the table. I sought the ceiling in hopes of any sign my grandfather still existed. I didn’t hear a noise or see a single thing. For seventy years, I tried to reason through my emotions and move on. Here’s what I came up with—I am incapable of broaching such a subject. Why hadn’t I called my grandfather more or visited more often? Why did I insist on digging into his knowledge of life and time instead of enjoying his company? Why hadn’t I watched the Galactic Football League? I could’ve participated better by saying something other than, The GFL? Sure, I’ve heard of it! As the list of whys grew, I longed for the days of the MV Travelers—a group from the year 10,785,210, in possession of a device called B#$RTE @$%\>G. The device opened the gateway to the multiverse and offered anyone the ability to reach a specific point in time and redo any moment. As an added bonus nothing happened to your own continuum. (6) But I couldn’t could come up with a moment because I couldn’t find the moment that would allow me to have all the moments.(6) (6) Immorto Dynasty (17000-18060): Humanity grew to enjoy the multiverse, constantly coming and going. As such, the universe was ripe for the taking, which it was, by a man named Immorto J. Monir, hellbent on conquering the multiverse. That was until a woman named Immoro J. Monir returned to our universe. So enamored by the beauty of himself as a woman, Immorto attempted to woo Immoro, who in turn slit Immorto’s throat, as she herself had conquered much of the multiverse. Immoro was then executed by another Immorto, who hated women, who was executed by another Immoro, who hated men, who was executed by android Immorto, who hated humans, who was executed by Immoro, who hated androids, who was executed by Immorto, who blamed Immoro for the death of his love Immoro, who was executed Immoro, who blamed Immorto for the death of her love Immorto, who was executed by Immorto, who didn’t travel back far enough to end the cycle, who was executed by Immoro, who didn’t travel back far enough to end the cycle, until a gang of rebels murdered both Immorto and Immoro simultaneously. The rebels then murdered the Travelers in this universe and destroyed their machines. Even if I did have the exact starting moment, how could I relive them in another universe, when I’d have to return alone, back to my empty void? Or, how could I exist alongside a version of my grandfather if he were one degree different? What if his steel stubble were clean shaven? Or worse, what if I stumbled upon a universe where I was a much better grandson, one who loves Galactic League football and whose grandfather would be in no rush to die? I would learn I could live without my grandfather proper, but I couldn’t live with seeing the possibilities of what might have been. There was a universe where my grandfather lived and cherished life and wanted to be around for my entirety of it. And there was a universe where I was the ultimate grandson, a reason why my grandfather proper wanted to be around for all of it. Why did I exist in the one where he embraced his inevitable death instead of fighting against it every day? And that’s when the idea hit me. I had just finished a century of watching every Galactic League game, from the Eagles’ run of six thousand straight championships to the Neutron Stars’ famed oh-for-twelve thousand from 14000 to 14880. I still understood nothing about galactic football, namely why teams didn’t use hyperspace to score a touchdown every play instead of utilizing it for first downs. Charged by the idea, I put it into action a moment later and set myself on a path toward my execution. # My grandfather once said he mourned his folks and I mourned mine. It made sense at the time because he said it. Butlooking back, it was incredibly dumb. Why should humanity continue to live in such natural order? Why does living first mean having to die first? Why can’t we have it both ways—the zest of seemingly everlasting life, coupled with the wisdom of years and time, tucked into the body of someone you could exist alongside and take comfort they’ll outlive you and, best of all, want to outlive you? So that’s what I did. I set out to create a companion of everlasting comfort and wisdom, destined to live longer than anyone ever before, without the knowledge of a natural order and without the desire to follow it. # Seliipp said humanity captured me as an MBF. MBF Me had been executed and dismembered. Each limb was divvied up to the four remaining corners of the galaxy. I hid my excitement. I despised MBF Me. “How’d the Corners take it?” Seliipp smiled his now-famous sardonic smile. “It only made everyone want the real thing. Morale skyrocketed at the thought of receiving a piece of you.” My excitement vanished. I swallowed hard. “And where did they take the head?” “It’s in the warden’s office as we speak. They are throwing lawn darts at it.” I turned away from the door, but Seliipp stopped me. “The best part was when we told the remaining corners you proper would be vaporized instead.” “How’d they take it?” “Not so good.” # When I think of great change in the past, I think most often of the fanfare, the blazing trails as someone put their stamp on humanity. In the 280th century, that type of recognition no longer existed, unless you were to introduce immortality proper or cause unimaginable loss. Even then, you are never in control of what you feel you did. For example, instead of being known for naturally attempting to break the natural order, I am best known as the greatest mass extinction event in human history—Seliipp told me the war surpassed ten trillion dead, human and machine. With all that said, there is nothing special about how I built Man’s Best Friend. To take an idea and build it in this day and age requires only time, of which I had entirely too much and not enough at all. The only question I was never asked during my interrogations is why Man’s Best Friend? The original title had been My Best Friend, but after the MBFs broke away from the Kissimmee family, I knew very few of them. # The real challenge with My BF, and the questions I’d been asked a million times, had been building My BF in the image of my grandfather proper. Teaching it to walk and function was a mere download of my grandfather’s cybernetics from the Primordial Soup. However, humanity still believed in the spirit of a human and as such humans remained endowed with the unpredictability of function like self-preservation—even if dying was what you had always wanted. My BF needed that human unpredictability, to know what would be said or done but without knowing exactly how and when it would come out. Especially with my grandfather proper, who had been unpredictable and crass, but in the best ways. After I built My BF, I sat it down at my grandfather’s table on Palixan, about five hundred years after his husk burned up in the atmosphere. I sat at the head of the table, believing My BF worthy when it eventually succeeded in becoming my grandfather. “Now you’re kind of a hard ass, but you have that oomph of spirit and jadedness from ten thousand years of existence.” MBF stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “You’re on the right track, but a little more, I don’t know, aggressive.” “WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!” Its voice rattled the apartment. It curled its upper lip, clamped down on its teeth. It leapt, raked its nails deep into the table. Bits of metal splintered in the path of its fingers. “No, no, the grimace is right, but the rest is all wrong. He was more sarcastic and snarky than violent. He couldn’t be bothered with certain things.” “That does compute.” My BF drooped as it settled into the chair to analyze. # A hundred years later, I decided to test My BF on my father. My parents’ house on Qiliam had been built inside the ice, and it tore at early humans’ skin when touched. My father was home alone as my mother visited her parents on Neneal, a planet cast in total darkness. She had had her eyes removed and sockets filled in with magnets so she could always know where the magnetic north was, her ears made the size of plates, and her body stretched to over eight feet tall to account for holding all the cybernetic blubber from lack of warmth. I had never been so nervous, and longed for the days of Uyli P. Laxer’s Have No Fear. (7) (7) Irrational Confidence (6122-8060): Shame had always hindered progress. What would humanity look like if they were no longer scared,if the most intelligent had no fear of judgment? said Laxer. As such, Have No Fear made it so people didn’t fear their own ideas. And they didn’t, as men had no problem flashing women on first dates or ordering their meals for them. Pedophiles had no issue approaching children, serial killers could feel the high of dismemberment without questioning if something was wrong with them and, perhaps worst of all, incredibly dumb humans confidently presented bad ideas. Intelligent, aware people soon abandoned all hope because, as it turned out, without shame, they could more clearly see the quality of their ideas and as responsible people held back more often to tinker. For her contribution, Laxer was awarded the Keys to the Galaxy, as an incredibly dumb segment of humans felt strongly the whole thing was a good idea. My father scowled. “Butch, you must’ve cracked.” He lost vigor since my grandfather proper died and by choice decided to show it in his slumped neck, baggy eyes, and sallow skin. “You expect me to believe this is my father?” My BF, as my grandfather, grabbed my father’s shoulders. “Put your shoulders back and act like you’re happy to see your old man.” My father melted into a puddle of tears, as he had throughout his childhood when my grandfather proper scolded him. “Dad, it’s so good to see you again.” My father lunged for my grandfather, who accepted his hug with the love of all fathers. “Ah Christ, Little Butch, you’re going to ruin my shirt.” My father laughed. He slithered his head to his shirt sleeves and wiped his eyes. He went off, describing anything and everything he had done these past fourteen hundred years. My grandfather listened as he usually did—with a half-hearted series of nods and sighs. “Dad, I’m supposed to be at Pop’s house for the galactic holiday. We’ll go together.” “What do I look, helpless?” My grandfather strolled out of the house without a word and without direction, for I hadn’t downloaded the location to my great grandfather’s house on Firheim. “Some things never change, eh Butchie?” My father put an arm around my shoulder, raised his neck to full height. “You and me we’ll go to Pop’s together.” I hadn’t felt such happiness in a long time. # Firheim glowed red hot upon fire and brimstone. My great-grandparents lived inside a cave warmed to death by both the red giant and the planet’s geothermal energy. Outside, the surface temperature reached over a thousand degrees galactic standard. Inside was a cool eight hundred. Both my great grandfather and grandfather proper grew up in the cave, but the latter couldn’t wait to leave—as he once told me, Christ, Butchie, life is hard enough to not have to live in literal fire. My great-grandfather normally greeted visitors at the door, but no one answered when we knocked. Instead, I heard a commotion from the kitchen. “Butch, how many times do I have to tell you the Asteroids can’t win with that defense?” My great grandfather’s voice rumbled as if he were one of the chronic earthquakes in the Firheim Valleys. “Is it any wonder the Eagles continue to win every year? Look at their defense!” “Dad, the Eagles are old news.” My grandfather proper may have been impassioned when dealing with people like my father and me, but with his dad, he always remained calm. My BF was no different. “Their defense relies on gravity and the Newtonian laws of physics. These days if you can’t win with hyperspace then you can’t keep up scoring. Look at what happened when the Eagles played the Neutron Stars. That vaunted defense gave up 648 points in the first phase!” “Oh, pray tell, what happened at the end of the game?” “It doesn’t matter. The Neutron Stars are the worst team in the Galactic League, and they scored almost fifteen hundred points.” “But it wasn’t fifteen hundred, you know why? Because the Eagles' defense stood tall at the one-inch line. Defense wins championships, son, or did you forget?” My great-grandfather beamed when he spotted my father and me at the entrance to the cave. “Butchie, tell your Pop Pop how wrong he is about the Eagles.” My grandfather waved a hand. “Ah, leave the kid alone. He doesn’t care about this stuff. He’s beyond sports. Little Butch, tell your Pop about the third forward pass executed through the fifth dimension.” He pointed to the empty chair across from him, signaling a holy trinity of Kissimmees at the table, something that hadn’t happened since my grandfather proper’s death. My father’s long neck quivered. His knees buckled, his body unable to handle the eloquence of the voice that invited him to sit among gods. I turned to leave, as had been my custom when it came to these moments. “Butchie, you sit right there and learn something.” My grandfather pointed to a fourth chair, at the opposite head of the table from my great-grandfather. “Kid’s smarter than all of us put together. Listen for a bit Butchie, and you tell your Pop he’s crazy.” In all my centuries visiting Firheim, I had never known my great-grandfather’s table had more than three seats. “Are you sure?” The gods had never done this before. “Christ, Butchie, you think I ask for my health?” I dashed to the table. The chair was smooth stone with not a hint of padding. It blistered heat from the roiling fires below. I fought to hide my smile. For the first time in history, the four Kissimmees occupied the Firheim table. I folded my hands on top while the heat tried to singe my unburnable flesh. I told myself I wouldn’t talk for decades if it meant remaining here. My grandfather pointed at me. “Now listen because when I’m no longer here, I’m going to need you to stand up to my old man and keep your old man in line.” The energy vanished. My grandfather’s presence carried the fervor we had all loved and missed, but at that moment, when my grandfather spoke, my father and great grandfather held back, I imagine from the gravity of what was said. My grandfather proper had not returned from the dead with renewed vigor or determination to enjoy life to the fullest. His life had been paused and restarted as he had been. And as he had been, my grandfather proper accepted he wasn’t immortal. He believed in the rest the long sleep brought. He believed it because he hadn’t had to live without his presence. Or to live without mine. That this moment, for all its greatness, was fleeting because it had already happened. We had already seen the end of my grandfather proper’s life. We had lived for hundreds of years without him. He never had to deal with that sadness. # Seliipp stopped by my cell with the other guard in tow. He flashed that famous sardonic smile. “You won’t believe what we heard from the front today, Butchie.” I perked up. “Peace had been declared and I’ll be free to go?” The other guard spit at the bottom of my cell door. Seliipp darkened. “No, there’s a new leader of the human army, fighting against you and your MBFs.” “I’m not fighting, Seliipp. I never fought. I was captured at the start of the war.” I’d say my relationship with Seliipp was cordial, though today I wasn’t in any mood to talk about my impending death. That must’ve been apparent on my face because Seliipp brightened. “The leader of the human army is—” “Let me guess, my father.” I shooed them away, uninterested in hearing anything new about the war. Seliipp turned with a snarl to the guard, whose eyes widened. Seliipp pointed a finger. “Who told him?” # When we arrived back on Palixan, I sat My BF down. “You have to stop mentioning your impending death, My BF.” “What’s the problem, Butchie?” My BF shed the humanity of my grandfather and settled into its diagnostics mode. Its shoulders drooped. Its blue eyes darkened into pits. “You can continue to sit like Pop Pop. Just stay as My BF.” “That doesn’t compute, Butch. I either am or I’m not. I can’t be both.” I sighed. “Yeah, that’s true. Just don’t mind me.” I turned to face the back wall where my grandfather proper sat de facto guard all these years. The panes had special filters that pierced the toxic cloud, exposing the surface of the planet below. The Neutron Stars’ stadium loomed like a Firheim mountain. The stadium, I had learned from my time as a Galactic League researcher, seated over two million people. At that moment, the stadium had been empty because the Neutron Stars had been eliminated from the playoffs two centuries earlier. “You can’t mention your death around my family. It stirs up a bit of bad feelings.” “Of the time Butch Kissimmee Jr. died.” My BF’s voice lost the whiny raspy of my grandfather proper and settled into the monotone softness of cold-hearted logic. “That doesn’t compute. Butch Kissimmee Jr. is most noted for his callousness with death and his actually looking forward to it.” “He didn’t really look forward to it. He just didn’t want to go through life without anyone from his family.” “Correct. Butch Kissimee Jr. believed he should go first, as he had mourned enough people in his life. He believed the time with the people you love is never enough and continuing on alone is too difficult.” Anger rose to my throat. “Right, but that’s where you’re different. You are only three hundred years old. You are acting as if you’re Pop Pop’s age, but you aren’t. You’re younger than I am, and when I’m gone you will still be incredibly young.” “That doesn’t compute. I am to live as a human who is thousands of years old. How could I be younger than you?” “Because I built you only a few hundred years ago, and you’re built to last. You are here so we all have Pop Pop as long as we live.” “That doesn’t compute. I take comfort in knowing I will go first, Butchie. You have taught me so much about the galaxy, have given me a life to live, and a family. How could I even think of living in a galaxy without you here?” “Because that’s how this works. You are younger than I am, meaning you will live on longer than I will.” “I am nine thousand years older than you. I am not long for this galaxy and hope you will carry on my legacy in your heart when the time comes.” “My BF, if you think I’m going to hold this grief, then you have another thing coming. I mourn my folks, you mourn me. I’ve done my mourning.” “But your father and great-grandfather are still alive. If I go first, you’ll have them.” I shook my head. “My BF, listen to me when I say you should enjoy the ignorance of youth. You’ll be happy and healthy for so long after I’m gone, I’ll be as large as a speck of dust in the expanse that’s the galaxy.” “That’s impossible, Butch. You’re my favorite person in the universe.” I leapt from the table, stepped out through the backdoor, and tumbled deep into the poison clouds. # My BF had a point. In my fit to avoid facing the death of my grandfather, I forced another to enter my place, without wondering if that’s what it would have wanted. It was only fair to reward My BF’s efforts, especially since I knew what it was like to exist alone in the universe. So a hundred and fifty years later, I returned to Palixan. “My BF, I have a surprise for you.” My BF hadn’t left my grandfather proper’s table or diagnostics mode. “Surprises for My Best Friend doesn’t compute, as there is only one surprise requested.” “Yes of course. I thought about what you said and, well, you were right.” I turned to the front door. “Come on in!” In walked my great-grandfather, though as a machine, diagnostics name Man’s BF. My BF stiffened. “This does compute. I am happy to see you, father.” “And I am happy to see you, son. Now I can espouse to you the importance of defensive positioning in Galactic League Football.” “Logic dictates you understand the power of hyperspace first, of which you understand nothing.” Man’s BF laughed. “I have a lot to learn from you. I am excited to spend my remaining lifespan with you to ensure I have all I need to exist at my highest potential.” My BF tried to throw an arm around its much larger compatriot. Its arm made it halfway around Man’s BF’s lower back. “Believe me, by the time I’m gone, you’ll have everything you need and then some.” Man’s BF reeled. “You mean by the time I’m gone? I’m an older version of you, meaning I will enjoy the fruits of your company and never have to exist without them.” “That doesn’t compute. You are younger, despite the age you were instilled with. Therefore, you will live out your days when I am long gone and but a speck of dust in the expanse of the galaxy.” Both My BF and Man’s BF turned to face me. I left without a word, this time through the front door. # I rebuilt the entire line of Kissimmee fathers all the way back to the first homo sapien. A thousand generations in all, each MBF ultimately requested the return of someone valuable to them, as not every Kissimmee father had had a father, great or grand, as their favorite person in the universe. To account for the growth, MBFs, while waiting for more MBFs, rebuilt the Palixan house in orbit as a manufacturing fortress. All told, three thousand years galactic standard after my grandfather proper died, the entire Kissimmee family tree had been rebuilt, with a near-even split of fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, friends, and even animals. Each MBF entered the world happier than the last because they believed they would enjoy the fruits of life and none of the grief, only to realize they were younger and would be forced to live longer than any MBF built previously. In short, the fruits of life and all of the grief. The first homo sapien complained the most, using its grunts and hoots to tell me it’d have to live to be millions of years old. It had no leg to stand on—after resting for almost three hundred thousand years the least it could do was live that time for the rest of us. Soon, the other MBFs became restless. The longer they lived the more they became like humans in their unpredictability, insofar as to how predictable they became. Now that their legacies and loneliness in the universe had been avoided, they had taken a liking to living and not thinking about death, which meant that’s all they thought about. For example, My BF, my grandfather, cornered me in the basement factory. “Butch, this doesn’t compute. I am happy to have Man’s BF and other members of the Kissimmee family to comfort me, but I am now thinking of my own demise too often, as that’s all we talk about.” “Isn’t that what you wanted? To die first?” “Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to think about it or to have it happen so soon. You are young and healthy. I’d like to die before you. Not die right now.” I sighed. “That’s normal, but that’s why Man’s BF is there to let you forget it most often.” “This doesn’t compute. I can only see Man’s BF in small doses or else we begin to clash, which makes me upset and makes me think about how hard life is which makes me think about dying.” I nodded. “It’s true. Pop and Pop Pop did avoid each other most of the year. But that’s why you have the Galactic Football League. The Neutron Stars are playing the Gamma Bursts tonight.” I pointed to the surface where a century later two million in attendance and five hundred trillion around the galaxy would tune in to see which team would advance to play the Eagles in the Galactic Championship. It had been the best season in Neutron Stars’ history, or so I was told—I spent all my time in the basement factory, working to the soothing sounds of My BF as he lived and died with each play like my grandfather proper. “It’s only a few hours galactic standard each week. What am I supposed to do when the game ends?” I slumped. “You have a good point. I suppose you can only spend so much time with your father and football before you need to do more.” “What do humans do when they are forced to avoid thinking about death?” “Well, we tend to find others like us that are marked for death.” “Who did Pop Pop have besides you and Butch I?” “My grandfather really loved my grandmother.” My BF stared at me. I had spent enough time around it to know that that particular type of look meant I was going to be asked to do something. However, My BF had spent the past two thousand years galactic standard existing as a human, so it had honed passive aggression. “I suppose I could, I don’t know, build her, too.” My BF perked up. “You would do that for me?” I shrugged. “You’re my Pop Pop. I would do anything for you.” # When My BF introduced my grandmother to the rest of the MBFs, the floodgates reopened. They wanted their own partners back, as they couldn’t take an entire life of having just their families. As such, I rebuilt entire lineages, reconnecting familial lines that had been extinct for thousands of years or solidifying ones still around. Long-dead children who had longer-dead parents were both reunited to pick up where they left off. Lovers who had to wonder what happened to their lost loves no longer had to wonder—their loves were dead and now brought back. On and on it went and, truth be told, I don’t know when I started rebuilding humans who were not only alive but not even close to death. And still, sure enough, even after the completion of the entirety of their family trees, the MBFs came back to me for me. My BF found me in the back office of the factory proper. Its eyes no longer appeared brown, even around me. Instead, it opted for the deep black of its diagnostics mode. “Butchie, this doesn’t compute. I have my wife and father and grandfather and son and grandson. I have my Galactic Football League, and yet I still struggle to avoid thinking about death when I am alone. What am I missing?” By then I’d come to expect it. In fact, at that moment I had been planning on building the rest of my grandfather proper’s network of friends and associates. “You are missing your friends, specifically your wartime buddies. Pop Pop had an extensive list of friends he kept up with from after the war. It’s where he learned how, to use his own words, stupid life could be.” # By the end of the 33000s, Man’s Best Friend rivaled the population of humanity, in a near fifty-five-forty-five split by way of the humans. Once, after a grueling shift in the Manufacturing Wing, I entered my grandparents’ living room proper, to find My BF watching Galactic League Football with… me. “Christ, Butchie, you see what I mean? The Neutron Stars always have to be the dumbest team in the league.” MBF Me shook a fist. “If they just decided to use hyperspace instead of the laws of Newtonian physics, maybe they wouldn’t be so dumb!” My BF wrapped an arm around MBF Me. “Butchie, this is what I mean. You are wise beyond your years.” I watched the smile form on MBF Me’s lips. “You’re my favorite person in the universe, Pop Pop.” I watched the look My BF returned—he didn’t hide the smile, didn’t grab MBF Me by the collar because he couldn’t handle such niceties in front of his grandson. “You’re my favorite person in the universe, too, Butchie.” I had feared I was a better grandson in another universe, that my grandfather proper, with the right iteration of me, would have been more open, more loving. And I would’ve been someone he felt more comfortably loving. Here I was, in my universe, watching what I had dreamed my life was like. In an instant, I hated MBF Me, though I hated My BF more. I missed my grandfather proper so much. # I learned war had been declared when a squadron of humans bombed the fortress, then swooped in to capture me, bringing me to where I am now, fifteen hundred years galactic standard after the start of what’s now known as Galactic War II. I watched from the ship’s brig as the pieces of the fortress shattered and crashed to the surface. When I arrived at my cell, the guards said the fortress bombarded the Neutron Stars’ stadium with the team inside. During the press conference, team owner Gwuge L. Ressinert said, when asked if he had any feelings on such a tragic accident, “Sure, I have plenty of thoughts, but I can accept Acts of God, as much as I might curse God for them.” # It has been a thousand years since my last entry. The war still rages. Time flies when you have nothing to do, except grieve, which I did. The gravity of what I’ve done has begun to seep into my being, and I realize my grandfather proper would be wildly disappointed in me. # My BF has been captured. He is in the cell across from me. Seliipp guffawed as they ushered My BF to its cell. “War’s all but over, Butchie. Soon you and your Pop Pop here will be dust together.” # My BF kept the spitting image of my grandfather proper, except with the deep, dark recesses of his eyes. I’d come to realize what my grandfather proper meant when he said his eyes held his thousands of years of living. A report had been released I would be the last to die. The death knell of the rebellion on humanity. “At least I will get to die before you like we planned, eh Butchie?” My BF smiled at me, as our cells were across from each other. We communicated by crouching to the middle slot of the door and pressing our lips to the opening so our voices would project out. “I suppose that’s all you ever wanted, eh My BF?” I had been imprisoned for almost two thousand years. My BF had just finished three hundred. The last we heard, Man’s Best Friend had almost been exterminated. “And then a day or so later, you’ll die and neither of us will have to live without the other.” I leaned my forehead against my cell door. “I suppose that’s all I ever wanted.” # My BF and I received word the war has ended. My BF put a hand on its heart and said a prayer for all the MBFs who died. “I will be the last of my kind to die, but we had a helluva run.” I cried. # I will be executed five hundred years from now. I am due to be confronted by over ninety thousand mourners affected by Galactic War II. The tribunal said the ninety thousand were selected from a group of over three hundred million people most heavily affected by the tragedy I wrought on the galaxy. I pleaded guilty to all charges. I have been held solely responsible for seventeen trillion, two-hundred and thirty-six billion, nine hundred and eighty-four million, seven hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and fifty human casualties in Galactic War II, shattering every known record in the universe. I have been held solely responsible for twelve trillion, five hundred and eleven billion, one hundred and twenty-five million, nine hundred and eighty-two thousand, six hundred and forty-three MBF casualties in the war, shattering every known record in the universe. The machines had been added to the charges as aggravating, due to many in the war having to kill people they loved and had already seen die and those who had to kill themselves or still-living people as machines. # My execution will be broadcast throughout the galaxy. It is expected to shatter every known record for witnesses of a single death in the known universe. # They’ve given me access to technology, as I was provided one final request. I want to be sure I have the information correct, the attribution proper. Soon, I imagine I will etch my name in the long list of inventors killed for trying to change the human condition. # Seliipp told me the viewing would happen tomorrow. “Another first for humanity, eh Butchie? You get to be the first dead man alive for his own galactic viewing.” The procession fast established its own custom—a mourner would step in front of my door, spit at the bottom, and demand answers for why I would perform such a cruel act on humanity. All ninety thousand mentioned killing or watching their loved ones or themselves be killed. They told me about the satisfaction of watching themselves as machine get murdered, then having to live with the conflict of seeing the joy of their own demise. One mourner told me of watching their mother disemboweled by a Galactic Army laser. I always said she was gutless but I didn’t really ever want to see it. But when I did, I couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t do it. Another said, Seeing my husband obliterated by a galactic mortar has sapped me of my will to live because I won’t get the chance to do it in real life! My entire family showed up, though none of them spoke to me. My great-grandfather proper spotted My BF in the cell across from me. It stared at him with the dark pits of his eyes. My great-grandfather proper, in a fit of rage, punched the wall and collapsed half the building, killing hundreds of people and prisoners alike. Many understood his frustration. He was escorted out to a hero’s welcome and taken home to Firheim. Perhaps the most tragic account was of an infant MBF who became known as the Cherub of Destruction, as it single-handedly led an MBF squadron into taking five of the Seventeen Corners. That was my child as an infant, the mourner said. My real child it was based off of amounted to being a private who cleaned bathrooms all day. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see your child’s wasted potential played out in front of you? # I had promised myself I wouldn’t do anything other than apologize, as the tribunal offered me a seven-word limit, which I always used on: I am really, really sorry for everything. But that changed when my father proper arrived. He had replaced his left eye with a cybernetic patch, deep gashes in the shape of claws on his cheek, and scars like barbed wire spiraling his long neck. “Son, I just wanted to come say goodbye.” I fell against the door. “Dad, I am really, really sorry for everything.” Normally, he’d slither his neck, fight to keep it upright as he was about to cry. But he had become battle-hardened. With his neck at full length, he had to kneel about five feet from the door. He didn’t speak, only loomed. “Dad, please believe all I wanted to do was to help. I saw how happy everyone was with Pop Pop back. I thought the rest of the galaxy would like it, too.” He held up a hand. “I thought it could be different. I enjoyed having him around again, but then I came around.” I meaning his MBF. His MBF was funny, decisive, and didn’t melt at the feet of My BF. This time his neck did quiver. “I didn’t cry when my father scolded me. I actually knew what the Galactic Football League was like.” My BF pounded on the door. “Christ, Butch, put your shoulders up. My son would never have acted like that.” My father proper stood tall, though his lips began to quiver. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in the same universe alongside a better version of yourself?”

Diana parked in front of the abandoned house and made her way inside. She carefully opened the loose-hanging door and walked over creaky floorboards. The dust was so thick it made the wood a shade lighter, and shoes left prints in it like snow. She made her way to the old living room, where a mauve couch was still there. She checked the seat with her hand, then sat down, placing the backpack on her right. She took out a spirit box and her notebook, placing them on the stained coffee table. She turned the spirit box on. It blared a screeching sound, then a rhythmic static-y clicking as it switched through radio channels. The ghost could choose whatever words he or she wanted. “Hello!” Diana said out loud, opening her notebook and taking out a pen. “Is anybody there?” The static grew louder, scratchier, then a clear “leave” rang out. “I just want to talk.” She said. “It’s for a class project. I have to do a case study.” There was a pause for a few seconds. “Why” came out of the spirit box. “I’m a psychology student.” She explained. “I have an assignment to pick a random person - with mental problems, of course - and do a profile of what’s wrong, root causes, and possible treatment plans. I heard about you supposedly haunting this place and refusing to leave because of unfinished business, and I like the supernatural, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone! Help you out and get a good grade while at it. I don’t have to mention that you’re dead, it’s all anonymous.” “You…re a psychia…trist?” “Oh, no, no, no. I’m studying to be a psychologist. Psychologists and psychiatrists are very different. The latter deal with very complex and sometimes more difficult conditions.” I’m not doing all that, she thought to herself..” Fuck that. The spirit box went quiet. “What do… you want?” It eventually said. “Well… your story. What happened? Why are you still here?” “I was… killed… betrayed… I want revenge…” “Who killed you?” “My hus…band…” “Do you know… why he did it? If he had a reason behind it?” “Yes… my money… run off… with my sister…” “Oh, gosh!” “They left… I’m still here… It’s not fair…” “Can’t you go to the other side?” “I… don’t want to… I want… revenge…” “Well, there’s not much we can do now... Your husband and sister are probably long dead too. What’s done is done. The best you could do is to move on.” “It’s not fair…” “Would you rather stay in this house forever, then?” “It’s… my house…” Diana sighed. How was she supposed to help someone like this? So annoying. She put on her gentle voice again. “Even if you got revenge on them, I don’t think it would make you feel better. It might, for a few seconds, but you’d still be…well, dead. It wouldn’t erase what happened to you.” “Neither is… talking to you…” “I want to help you.” Diana furrowed her brows. “You’re… not…Get… out…” Diana flushed. Stupid ghost! Sulking for decades and being rude. Who did she think she was? Would Diana have to deal with living people like this too? She groaned in advance. “If you refuse all help that comes your way and stick to being so stubborn, you’ll never find peace, you know.” She said. “It’s worse for you to stay here instead of moving on and resting on the other side. You’re stalling, basically.” “What… do you… care? You said… it… It’s just… for a grade…” “I have to care! It’s my future job!” “Pick… a different job…” Diana hopped to her feet. “What, you want me to go search your husband and sister and assassinate them for you?!” “It’d be… more useful…” “I’m not going to jail just to make you feel better!” “Then… leave…” “Ugh! You’re awful!” “Do… you help… only good people?” “My future clients won’t be hellbent on revenge! They’ll be anxious, depressed, maybe autistic and with ADHD, and I’ll just have to prescribe them some pills!” “So you’ll… just… drug them?” “Medicine exists for a reason! It makes you function properly!” “If someone… walks into your office… hurt… wants revenge… will you tell them to… just get over it?” “What else am I supposed to tell them?! ‘Yeah, Timmy! Go ahead! Kill that jerk! Great idea!’ Everybody has to get over what happened to them eventually!” “Why… are you yelling?” “I’m not yelling!!” Diana pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jesus Christ… I should have chosen a different person.” “Will you… pick and choose… who you’ll help?” “Yes! That’s a thing, actually! If I feel a patient is above my capabilities, I should send them to someone else.” “Send someone… to help me, then…” “No! For all I know, you’ll get someone to kill for you!” “Why… do you even want… to be a psychiatrist?” “It’s psychologist, not psychiatrist! Get it right! You think we just do whatever you want?” “Then what… do you do?” “Talk! Figure out what’s wrong with you! Find solutions!” “I already know… what’s wrong with me…” “Good for you!” Diana shoved her notebook back in her backpack. “You’re not… good at the talking part…” “Now you can’t talk at all!” She shut down the spirit box. “Have fun being a ghost forever!” She stormed out of the house and got back in her car. What a waste of time. No wonder her husband got rid of her and left. Diana wondered how many of her future clients would be this unpleasant. She sighed and turned on the engine. She should just look for a living person to interview, someone with daddy issues or something. Why did she complicate herself? She thought psychology was better, and easier, than other branches of medicine. Just be a common sense filter. At least she didn’t have to babysit sick and dying people. A. R. Tivadar is a hobby writer from Romania and a graduate of the University of Oradea. Lately she's been into writing silly spooky stories.

W.C. Perry (they/them) is a writer from Chillicothe, Ohio. Their work has appeared in Meat for Tea, GRIFFEL, Taco Bell Quarterly, Night Picnic, the first BULLSHIT anthology, and elsewhere. To contact this author, burn a candle on a starless night and scream into the nearest cornfield — they’ll get back to you eventually — or if that’s too much work, on Instagram @remotecatalyst.

命運 (mìngyùn) — the chinese translation of the english word “fate” The moon melted in my arms so I took her place in the sky. And soon my essence transformed, an exhausted subsidiary swelling within my breasts, perpetually bound in service to the vast explorers of the earth. Oh, how my lusting eyes watch as his warm body, replete with the fragrance of promise and prospect, wanders under my cool brilliance while I sit there, still, languishing in my lithic divots, where my pools of tears lay to slumber. My pools will remain full and my presence ceaseless and my radiance abetting, frozen in the realm of time among the callous landscape of the night while the zealous wanderer runs free, painted, under the nurture of the maternal moon. Sophia Lekeufack is a first-generation high school junior based in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. Through the mediums of poetry and prose, she amplifies not only her stories but the stories of those who came before her. If she is not lying in her bed reading a Patti Smith memoir, you can find her at the local Thai restaurant devouring some drunken noodles.

Affliction An echo chamber of endless voices– feeding delusions–you say–I live in–live with. Of what kind–I am not certain. Only you can make clarity feel like psychosis. Years I spent in a chamber–filled with only your voice. The pedestal you perched upon– I rested beneath happily. Hoping–one day–to build one of my own. You assured–yours would be the only one we would ever need. That sitting with you– Near you was more than enough. Is that not delusion? Not of grandeur but of love–of possession. To believe I would never need to grow. That wanting was merely–a symptom of my afflictions. My only affliction was my blind belief–in the nature– of your heart. How Vicious, How Cruel Such cruelty / you say / I reek of / That evil / rests / in my bones / I have / never known / myself to be / this way / is it cruelty / to simply / want more? / From the dirt / we clawed / our way / to something / meaningful / Bonded / through strife / I only wanted / You to heal / with me / How vicious / I must be / to want you / Whole // Stinging Nettle Such venom from lips, that once spoke my name so sweetly. Thick–putrid drips–at the utterance of every syllable. A voice that once soothed, now stinging nettle against my skin. A punch to the gut–filling my heart with hornets. I am frightened. This vitriol–wrapped in a man–has altered the person I knew. How have you forgotten, that you loved me? I could never forget– how much I loved you. Sadee Bee (They/Sher) is a queer artist and writer inspired by magic, strange dreams, and creepy vibes. Sadee is the Visual Arts Editor for Sage Cigarettes Magazine and the author of Pupa: Growth & Metamorphosis (Alien Buddha Press) and Magic Lives In Girls (kith books). Her visual artwork will also be exhibited by Influx Gallery. Bee can be found on Twitter @SadeeBee, on Instagram @sadee__bee, and on the web at linktr.ee/SadeeBee.

Prayer Mahfuza, your body is my rosary I observe you and my prayer is done In any prayer other than yours My body is not cowed in such attention I am exhausted in your fire So that you can be happy At your closeness arises vigorous God Then being a shield you check His slanting rays By getting your touch my pangs come down by seventy times I every day practice the exact spelling of your name Somewhere Tasdid Zazam seems to be read Man listens to my overflowed recitations With your name is sacrificed my offspring Keeping head in immolation frame modern-Ismail will not tremble Mahfuza your body is my rosary I observe you and my prayer is done. Apocalypse An old angel wakes me up Placed me on your two shoulders You cannot see me, I could not either Yet with both hands I continue writing your ruling orders At times I intend to inform you What a lot you have In the same body we dwell Alas! Such a misfortune how we never see each other So to let you know the manuscript of my writing life I will wait till the resurrection. Auspicious Evening On an auspicious evening we went out along with you On the ancient path of the world Standing for a while at the estuary of Trideba we went to the west In that deep forest we sensed- the awakening of life Do you remember the life killing stories of setting sun at Tribeny Then the lioness cubs were drawing water from mother’s breasts Walking by the river side we built up human habitation Do you remember in excellent description those penetrable memories Not of Magadh nor of Maithily I was the prince of Shakya You were the well- bred young girl Though today is the time of Nirvana, I do not differentiate between Sujata and Chunda. Mozid Mahmud is an author and poet based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has previously worked in academia as well as in journalism, before branching off into social work. Originally a writer of Bengali fiction, this is is first foray into English language literature. Some of Mozid Mahmud’s previous works in Bangla dealt with Rabindranath, Jibanananda Das, and of course, Nazrul. Recently, his essay "The Literary Capitals of Bengal '' came out from Commonwealth Writers' Adda forum.

After a year at Alliance Northeast, I'd buy a car. Become like everyone else at AN who takes the subway though they could drive to work. I'd buy used. Very. High mileage, rust, a clunking engine. When I'd see everyone getting on the train, I'd wave and yell, "Hiya!" Dress code at the office would be business professional. I'd nod. Of course, professional. Smile. Of course, suitable for business on the twenty-first floor of a shiny downtown tower. But in the elevator, I'd free fall. I've nothing left: jeans I sleep in, a sweater with a bloodstain, a too-tight too-leopard blouse, and skanky leather skirt from that other life. Just before the elevator would hit rock bottom, I'd finally say, Stefanie, for fuck's sake, stop. And stop swearing, too. Breathe. The woman in the cot next to mine has a pretty dress. I'd borrow it, maybe buy it with my first pay. Shit, I could live in the cubicle where I'd work. It'd be quieter, even with phones ringing, and safer with the street many floors below. It'd have carpet. Down the hall, there'd be free hand cream and tampons in a clean washroom, muffins in the break room. Cake on my birthday! I'd eat a lot better. On my first day, the sun would come out. On my desk, a card: "Welcome to Alliance Northeast, Stefanie." There'd be maps — I've been lost before — to the cafeteria on the fifteenth floor, the company daycare on the second. I'd meet someone gorgeous at lunch. We'd have a baby. Until they come along, I'd frame pics of random people and call them family, and buy a little plant to love. All if, tomorrow, I get the job. Karen writes in a low Canadian basement. Her work is in or forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bullshit Lit, Janus Literary, JAKE, L'Esprit Literary Review, Moon Cola Zine, boats against the current, and others. She/her.

Your wings so fast you blur across my yard. Your body no more than an inch long, a blend of bee and moth, though neither bee nor moth. You flit from day lilies to roses, hyacinth and marigolds, then to our service berry bush and up to the neighbor’s locust tree—so fast that speed itself gets jealous. At 73 I am dismayed. I can’t remember your name! But then I recall that a name is not your business, not your concern— a matter of indifference to the nectar you gather, the flowers you befriend, and the merry hues that guide your flight. Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Pinnacles of Hope (Impspired Books, 2022). His poetry has been nominated three times for both the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere.

murmuration i drew a bead, wings of carnival glass plumage, he summoned a cloudburst of starlings for his eulogy where to find the sweetest mango in mumbai beg your pardon nay, manila i heard her say or perhaps that fabled garden that ruined us, either way J. R. Wilkerson is not Dr. Hurst's prized pupil, but he's working on it.

The phone rang. A shrill, uncanny sound chiming from the tiny depths of the dusty machine. It had been so long since he'd heard the noise it took him a moment to remember where the thing was. Warm morning light stretched across the floor as Arthur lumbered over to answer. The voice on the other side said something to the effect of "hello" and then delivered the news that Theodore had died, overnight. The funeral would be in three weeks, in the Central Place. "Thank you for telling me," Arthur responded. "I will see you all there." His hand just a little shaky as it returned the phone to its base, less gently than he had meant to. He received the news feeling flush, vacant, and hot. Like an empty tea kettle. A numb tingle in his fingers and the tips of his wings. Theodore had gone out of his way to be polite to Arthur a number of times, a few moments he hadn’t needed to show that kindness. Arthur had never been to a funeral. Only one other person had ever died during his lifetime, 80-something years ago, he had only been maybe 15 years out of the academy and was working so remotely that no one could even get a hold of him to tell him about it. There hadn't been phones yet at the time. Possibly that's the project he had been working on – building the telecom infrastructure that zigzagged across the continent, but he couldn't remember specifically. No funerals had taken place since then. A strange feeling in his chest. Dread? Something very dim, but lurking deep in him. It would be nice to get back to the Central Place, he told himself, be a good chance to talk to some people he’d been wanting to talk to. Everyone would be there. But the prospect of flying over for this occasion brought with it an unpleasantness he couldn’t articulate. As he packed the phone rang again, no less startling this second time. It was Leeza. They’d been friends for so long he didn’t have a distinct recollection of having met her. Just a long jumble of memories – talking about music and books over coffee and beers for almost a century. “I assume you’ve heard?” was how she started the conversation. “Hello, Leeza. Yes, I just got off the phone with… whoever it is makes these calls now.” “James makes the calls, Arty.” “I can’t imagine having to make that phone call over and over.” “Brutal,” she agreed. “Did you know Theodore well?” “I did. I think I’d say I did. There are others who were closer with him. Worked with him and such. He’s only about 40 years older than me, I can’t believe it. Got sick, and it ended up going pretty fast. Some virus.” “Weird.” “You’re coming to the ceremony?” “I am, yes. Just started packing.” While he talked, Arthur filled a kettle and put it on the stove. “Ok, well. I guess I’ll see you there. It will be nice to catch up. Feels like you’ve been off in the middle of nowhere for ages.” “I’m not isolated out here. There are seven others on this side of the mountains, never more than a day to see any of them. We get together fairly often.” “Hmm,” she sounded distracted. “Well, you said you were packing. I’ll let you get back to it, I guess. See you in a bit. Let me know when you’re in the Central Place, we can get a coffee or something.” “I’d like that. I’ll be in touch.” She hung up the phone, probably to immediately place another call. His wings twitched a bit. Arthur had just been waking up when the first call came in, and hadn’t been outside yet since the day before. So he went out on the wide deck that surrounded most of his house, felt the cool air on his skin, and yawning, stretched his feathered wings; broad and strong. Arthur was about thirteen feet tall, his wings nearly that across. He had ash brown hair, just long enough to be tied behind his head. For 50 years this had been his view, and occasionally he remembered to find it beautiful. Nestled into the foothills on the west side of the Third Mountain Range, the last ridge before the ocean started. The land rippled, like the ocean it hugged. Trees blanketed the terrain in all directions, the forest was thick, green, and teeming with tiny life. In the fall the landscape blazed like ember, and in the winter snow rested on the oranges and yellows until spring when the green returned. The kettle whistled so Arthur went inside to pour it over some tea. His home was simple and comfortable. Mostly a single large space to accommodate tall bodies and a wide wingspan. A dome, smooth and broad, open but filled with smartly designed furniture, and the occasional artwork where space and taste decided. It was likely that at least one of the others who lived on this side of the mountains would come by before it was time to leave for the Central Place, and Arthur looked around to see how much tidying would need to be done before he wasn’t embarrassed to receive guests. A large drafting desk took residence on one side of the living space, along with imposing and overstuffed shelves. For work, Arthur was currently planning and designing a dock for the region’s coast. Paperwork and plans for the project were stacked everywhere. A decade prior, one of the Engineers had invented a sort of boat that used their wings to sail great distances across the water without the fatigue of flying. Since then there has been a slowly increasing need for places to find and store these boats. These coasts were rich with wildlife, the region was home to a vast and beautiful underwater reef. As such, great care was needed in any new construction near the water to ensure negligible damage to the precious ecosystem. For over a year he had been observing and measuring the coast. Soon, was the plan, he would be expected to begin construction. Arthur was one of the five Builders, currently. It’s what he had been taught in the academy as a young man, and he had shown himself to have an impressive level of competency though perhaps not the excellence of some of the other Builders. He had been doing this work for 98 years. Sipping tea he looked out at the garden he had cultivated outside his house. He was proud of some of what he’d accomplished there, messy as it all looked. This was a difficult region to grow things on purpose, things quickly became overtaken by native foliage. It felt like the ferns grew faster than it took for tea to cool. The ferns here were beautiful, Arthur didn’t resent them their will to spread. But they had the habit of choking out everything he was trying to grow. And when the ferns swept in, it only took a day or two before the mushrooms sprung up underneath. Not mushrooms you could do anything with, as far as he or any of the Horticulturalists had found. His vegetables, the medicinal herbs and tea plants, none of it stood a chance. Each season he’d harvest the pittance he’d managed to grow but year after year it remained meager. Some years better than others, but the trajectory was flat. More than anything, what had grown was his desire for cultivation of plants to replace his work as Builder, though he hadn’t brought himself to tell anyone that he felt that way seriously. At the end of the week, with no announcement beyond approaching above the horizon, Charlton appeared. He was much older than Arthur and had never once used the phone that was installed in his home eight decades ago. “Never saw the need for it” he’d usually say. Someone must have delivered the news about Theodore in person. One morning Arthur looked out to see his distinctive, grey shape gliding casually toward the house. Arthur recognized the wing shapes of everyone who lived on this side of the continent, but Charlton’s he knew best. As soon as Arthur saw the speck moving toward him on the horizon he put on water for tea. Charlton flew a healthy distance above the treeline in a way that made it easier to cut through the air, took less effort to stay up. It was colder, but for Charlton easier was more important than comfortable. “Hey Carl, just finishing some tea,” Arthur said as Charlton landed. “That’d be nice, thanks Arty.” He was out of breath, his endurance wasn’t what it had been in his youth. “Good to see you. Glad I didn’t clean up for nobody.” Arthur placed the ceramic mug with tea he’d grown in front of the guest. “Thank you,” he said, blowing gently on the tea to take a sip. “How’s your work been going?” “It’s been fine. Moving along.” Charlton made a slight face at the taste of the tea. He did a good job of hiding it, but Arthur saw. “Arty, I might need something with a stronger punch after the trip. Do you have coffee?” “Sure thing, no worries,” he took the mug back and dumped the tea down the drain, putting the kettle back on to boil. “I was probably going to head east in the next day or two.” “You mind if I tag along?” “I’d be happy to have someone to fly with. I may need you to show me the way.” Charlton chuckled his deep, raspy laugh. “Sure, just follow me, son. Is that one of mine?” he pointed to Arthur’s mug. “It is, I think you made almost all the dishware I own. Makes everything taste better. When was the last time you went over the mountains?” “I don’t think I’ve been since the last funeral. Almost a hundred years I guess, then.” The kettle sang, so Arthur went back over to pour it into the coffee press. He leaned against the counter waiting for it to brew. “What have you been working on?” “Nobody out here has needed anything specific. I’ve done a lot of sculptures these last years, but it’s been a long time since anyone has taken any so I’m just populating the valley in front of my house. It looks ridiculous.” “After all this is done I’ll come take a look and get one off your hands.” “I don’t need your consolation.” “Just a visit from an old friend.” “A young friend.” “Call it want you want.” It was quiet, Arthur brought the coffee in the same mug the tea had been in. “Did you know Theodore?” he asked. “I did,” Charlton said. “Very well.” Again the air hung quiet, thick as mud. Conversation reluctantly continued, but the talk at that point remained quite small. Arthur prepped the guest space for Charlton to sleep and shortly after sundown, Charlton retired there. Arthur stayed up with a glass of whisky and a single lamp, the edges of the room swallowed by thick, jagged shadows. Cool night air crept from the open windows. He listened to the forest come alive as night critters began their business. Dutifully, the moon was flying high and bright by the time he fell asleep on the rugged, old couch. It was about a two day’s flight from his home far on the western side of the continent, to the Central Place. A few decent spots to rest in between, pavilions marked by incandescent lamps with bunks and washrooms inside. He’d built a few of them. Charlton packed light, brought almost nothing with him; simply the clothes on his back and a satchel strapped between his wings. Two large bags weighed Arthur down, but not as much as the extra years Charlton carried with him so their paces were essentially equal. They stopped three times each day for a refreshment and to catch their breath. At each Resting Place were new companions who joined them for the duration – everyone heading the same way. Adeline, Wynton, Frederich, Bernard, Regina and Abella had all become part of the group by the final night, resting at the feet of the Second Mountain Range. There was plenty to talk about among the travelers who all knew each other quite well, but there was not much talk that evening. The sky filled with more and more traffic as they drew nearer to the Central Place. Almost everyone in the world was gathering for the ceremony. Even when nothing was happening, the Central Place was still one of the largest communities in the world. There were around 20 people who lived here full-time. It was home to the only library as well as almost all of the museums and most of the restaurants they had room for. If anybody wanted any of those things they simply had to come here. The town was built surrounding three immense towers: the Staying Towers, looming in front of them as they flew in. Usually, they stood mostly vacant, but these permanent hotels needed space for their entire population for occasions such as this. Each tower was 10 stories tall, with three rooms on each floor, a large balcony and window in each room for access. No doubt since the news about Theodore, Central Place’s residents had been hard at work to prepare for the visitors: cleaning each room and calling for the extra food that would be needed. Arthur helped Charlton to his room and then found his own, dropping off the bags and collapsing onto the mattress, his wings screaming with exhaustion. Arthur slept for the evening, the night, and some more. The sun was bright when Arthur woke up but it wasn’t hot, not this time of year. Blinking, he squinted out the window. Central Place was a collection of squat, rugged buildings that the town had been accumulating for a few thousand years. Each showed the architectural influence of its era, making for a collage of styles throughout the valley. Some buildings had come and gone, but in general, things were built with the intention that they would last and they were maintained so that they did. At certain times, Builders had also worked to make structures beautiful. Each of the buildings was beautiful, Arthur found, but he did admire those that made decorations of themselves. People were making themselves busy throughout the valley. Central Place was buzzing with activity in all directions. Arthur pushed both of his hands across his face to try and press the grogginess away. He reached for the phone near the bed and waited for the operator. “Morning,” he said. “Is this James?” Arthur asked. “No, it’s been a very busy few weeks and James took some time off. I’m an apprentice. Mitchell.” “Nice to speak with you Mitchell, my name’s Arthur. I’m a Builder from out west.” “Hello, Arthur,” he said, sounding harried but there was courtesy intended in his voice and Arthur detected it. Mitchell must have been quite young. Arthur had never met him. “Can I help direct a call?” “Yes, I am looking for Leeza. Could you get me in touch with her room?” “Of course, one moment. There’s a lot of people here now and I’m very new at this.” “Take your time, Mitchell. I understand.” The phone clicked and started to play the same ambient, drone instrumental that had been used as hold music for the last 60 years everywhere on this continent. The same piece that had been composed in an afternoon by Claire, one of the Musicians, an old friend of Arthur’s. She’d had a little phase where everything she wrote were these drifting, mutating drone compositions. Different structures and instruments, but always the same relentless sound. Even though she had long since moved on from the ideas of it, that era of her work lived on as the hold music any time an operator needed to find a phone connection. The last concert of hers he had attended was a performance of the jaunty, chamber music she had been interested in lately, but that was years ago and possibly she’d since moved on from that, too. When everyone was at their regular homes, and when the main operators weren’t delegating to apprentices, only a tiny snippet of the hold music was ever heard because connections were made without much delay. This time, it took much longer. It was sort of nice to listen to the piece, give it some time to breathe. It reminded Arthur of hearing Claire’s work from that time. It did sort of wash over him, like she used to talk about. Wrap around his head and squeeze his body. Fill his ears and then his lungs. Until abruptly it clicked away and Mitchell’s voice returned. “Arthur?” “Yessir.” “Alright, I’ve got Leeza’s room. I’ll transfer you over. I don’t think she’s there now but you’ll be able to leave a message.” There were a few rings before he was, indeed, sent to a message machine. He told Leeza which tower and which room he was in, and that he’d be heading out to the bookshop now that he was in town. She could call the room back and try to make a plan or catch him out and about. He tried to leave a simple message and hung up, hoping he had said everything that made enough sense for her to find him without being too much bother. There was a peculiar feeling in the city. It was bustling, crowded, crackling with energy. People were eager to meet and reconnect with old friends and acquaintances. It was only for deaths and births that the entire population gathered like this, and it had been a long time since either had happened. Decades. The excitement of greetings and conversations floated through the air. Still, it felt burdened by the purpose of the gathering. The death of someone almost everyone here had known at least a little. The weight of the death floated through Central Place like fog. The bookstore had enough open space to accommodate their large bodies, but still, if there were ever more than a few people at a time it felt cozy at best and cramped at worst. One corner had a population of tattered old furniture each with people sitting, looking at a book or just looking. He picked up and leafed through the same horticulture books he’d already read at home. There was nothing new on the subject since he’d bought everything he could find. A new edition maybe, but it was hard to see what was different. Arthur wanted to be seen looking at the books, though he was embarrassed when he realized that. He put the books back on their pile and paced over to the new releases table. A sign for the table had been assembled, by the looks of it in some haste, with which a black marker that shouted simply: “NEW”. It had everything that had been published in the last three to four years by every writer in the world. Chances were decent that the table would be empty by the end of the month, with so many people looking to refresh their shelves while they were in town. There were a few bookshops dotted here and there, but this was certainly the most robust. “Have you read ‘Walking a Vine-Bitten Trail’ yet?” came Leeza’s familiar voice from behind him. “I did, yeah. Really good work. Parker is still doing stuff worth doing.” “Exciting that there can still be such compelling storytelling, even after all these centuries. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll live to see the end of that.” Leeza was a little taller than him, her arms were lean and muscular and her black hair was kept short. “I don’t think we will,” Arthur answered. “We’ve got at least one more generation's worth of stuff to read.” “You want to go see Malcolm and get a cuppa?” Arthur was happy to see her, but couldn’t decipher her current feeling. “Yes, let’s.” Malcolm’s coffee shop was almost on the other side of town. Leaving the bookstore Arthur and Leeza scanned the sky overhead for clearance before hopping up into it. Three or four gentle flaps basically got them where they needed to go. The day was temperate and sunny, so there were many tables outside the shop and most of them were full. Arthur saw a crowd full of faces he knew, though it had been a long time and many challenged him to find their names. People were catching up on their lives and exploits. He heard some talking about Theodore; telling stories and laughing or ending in a sigh and a heavy quiet. “Leeza!” Malcolm said when they walked in. “Nice to see you.” “You too Malcolm. Arthur and I have been looking forward to a cup from you.” Arthur noticed she’d used his name to let Malcolm off the hook if he didn’t remember. She was in the Central Place a lot more often than he was for her work fixing machines. Though she didn’t live here she was closer than he was with the people who did. “Nice of you to say. What’ll you be getting?” “I’ll just take it black,” she answered. “You, Arthur?” “Same,” he said. “Dark and hot, please.” “Two connoisseurs.” He ground the coffee beans by hand and poured fresh, filtered water for each individual cup. Arthur wondered who made these mugs, they were definitely not Carl’s, that’s for sure. He’d left this region a long time ago. Before he and Arthur had met. With their coffees in hand Leeza and Arthur navigated the crowded landscape to an empty table. “How’s your work been?” he asked as they sat down. Leeza blew on the coffee and attempted a sip but stopped short of her lips. “It’s been steady. There’s always something broken that needs to be looked at. Flying out to fix appliances or whatever. Repair power stations. I was here to look at Malcolm’s coffee roaster earlier this year. That was a fun thing to figure out how to fix. How about you? How’re the docks coming?” “They are definitely coming,” he took a sip of his coffee and it was incredible. Truly shocking how much better it was than what he made at home. “I’m done with the locational observation, the Biologists I’d been working with are satisfied and they headed back over the mountains. Finishing the details on blueprints and then I guess it’s on to building, and that’ll be my thing for a while.” “That’s exciting, right? Getting to the fun part!” “I guess so, yeah. I guess building will be the fun part. I haven’t done it in a while and honestly, I’m not super looking forward to it.” “What part of it?” “The building part of it.” “The whole thing, then.” “Yeah.” “How long have you been feeling like that?” “Last couple projects. More and more each time.” “You’ve got a lot of building ahead of you still, young guy like you.” “Mhmm,” he nodded. “Hm,” she sipped her coffee. “I’ve been working on my garden. Around the house.” “That’s good, find a constructive thing like that to do in your free time.” “Constructive.” She chuckled, “I didn’t mean it that literally.” “No I get it,” he smiled as he sipped his coffee. “This garden, you want to tell me about it.” “Yeah, I’ve really liked working out there. I like seeing things grow, and I’m trying to get good at it.” “What are you growing?” “I’m trying vegetables, some tea herbs. Stuff like that.” “And you’ve seen some success with that,” Leeza said with a tone that was flat but not rude. “Sure, some.” “Would the vegetables agree?” “Depends on the year.” “Depends on the year,” she repeated. “Look, I want to get good at it. I like doing it, I want to be good at it.” “You are a good Builder.” “Sure. I know.” “You think you could be a good… gardener?” “Maybe.” “What do you want to do with it?” “I’ve thought about figuring out how to preserve some of the vegetables. In jars, with seasonings I could also grow. With vinegar. Provide some food for others who live past the Third Mountain Range.” “So you want to make pickles.” “Yeah, make pickles. People like pickles.” “Some people do,” she paused. “This is a tough thing. I’m sure you’re not the first person to feel this way. Or even the only person here today that does. But I dunno, Arthur, it’s a hard thing to think about.” “Mhmm.” He looked into the half-drunk coffee. Dark as he’d asked for it. “Are there any apprentice Builders coming up?” “Not that I know of. It’s only a matter of time, though.” “You know a lot of people would love to be able to have such an obviously productive job. Something you can really point to and say ‘That’s what I did, I built some damn thing and now it’s there and we all use it.’ You know what I mean?” “I’ll teach ‘em.” “Who? There’s no one sitting around.” “I know.” “We’re all needed. Everyone’s pretty much doing something.” “I know.” “If Malcolm left and went to be a Builder out by the seaside, in the verdant hills of the Third Mountain Range there’d be nobody here making coffee and roasting beans for you to take home.” “I know! It’s just a drag, that’s all. I’ve just been thinking about these plants and everything. Learning more about how to do that.” “Well,” she drank the rest of her coffee. “I dunno. You can definitely keep working on the garden. Work on learning how to grow things and whatever. I don’t think this is the time for this. I don’t think you can do anything about it this week. You wanted to talk about it, and I’m glad we did. But we did talk about it.” She was right, Arthur knew it. Or at least he knew that would be what everyone thought about it. A feeling of resignation in his gut conflicted with the jitter of strong coffee. But, she was right. “These beans are great. Obviously, Malcolm can make a good cup, but there’s something to the fresh beans. Any other good Central Place stuff I should get while I’m here?” he asked. “You like whiskey right?” “That I do, Leeza.” “They just bottled a new batch that’s done aging. It’s supposed to be really lovely. It’s a long flight to carry a case of liquor, but see what you can do.” “Thanks, yeah. I’ll start with a bottle.” Finishing the coffee, Arthur felt a bit slumped. Many around him also did by the look of it – at a funeral, he wasn’t totally out of place looking slumped. He made an effort not to let himself feel disappointed about the garden talk, because he couldn’t expect anything else. It was a few more days until the ceremony, and after that, his life would continue, his job would continue, and he’d continue not to enjoy it probably, but it would continue. Shrugging he told himself that his garden could also continue. Arthur and Leeza hugged, made plans to see each other again before too long – there was a show coming up that he should definitely come see, she said. And he returned to his room in the tower, with a stop to get a bottle of the beer Brewmaster Holly made. He sat by himself with the drink, reading a comic that had been provided in the room. It felt half-assed. The sun went down and Arthur decided to go to sleep along with it. The days brought opportunities to visit what Central Place had to offer – see people, acquire the recommended whisky – then they passed. A pink sky welcomed the day of Theodore’s funeral. At the ceremony, Arthur found a seat and saved a spot for Charlton. A ring of stone benches surrounded a broad platform on which sat a great kiln, already heated and smoking, and a workbench, positioned like an altar. People gathered over the course of the morning until the benches were almost full. Charlton was one of the last people to arrive, Arthur waved him over, gesturing to the open seat. With lethargy, he drew toward the opening, and sat down slowly. “Every time I come to one of these I hate them more and more,” Charlton said, almost in a whisper. “I know.” “Here we are.” “I’ve never been to one.” “You are lucky. I couldn’t handle being the Potter. Making the urns, after…however long it was, 400 years. It’s why I left the Central Place.” “That’s why you went out west?” Charlton nodded. “Has it been easier out there? Easier to do your work?” “Most of the time. Sometimes I feel the weight of the clay. There is beauty in the possibility of a new thing it makes. Most of the time that is what I feel. But sometimes the terror, the weight of our ancestors in it. It does become a lot on occasion.” The Central Place Potter, Dion, flew to the kiln at the center of the circle and the ceremony began. Taking a deep, deliberate breath, he began to speak, each word clinging to the solemnity of the moment: “In this kiln is the vessel of the departed Theodore. His body, already passed into ash, has been rendered in its glaze.” Dion opened the kiln, which exhaled a pillow of smoke, and retrieved the urn. It was an empty jar. Empty and sealed shut. Theodore had been cremated in the same kiln, and his remains had been used to craft a glaze for the urn. Theodore’s glaze was a vibrant, shimmering green. Placing the still-hot vessel on a tray, the potter held it high and walked around the platform for all in attendance to witness it. They did so with a great, expansive quiet. Charlton looked at it and then down at the ground. Arthur rested his hand on Charlton’s knee for comfort, Charlton took the hand into his own. The population was quiet. The breeze gently pushed through the air. Birds chattered. Dion continued, “Theodore is returned to the clay that has borne us all. His body and his name will now return to the earth that bore the clay.” A wide wooden bowl was placed on the altar, and the urn was placed inside the bowl. Dion took hold of the hammer from the ceremonial tools. In the silence of the morning, he brought the hammer above his head, and gracefully down onto the urn. The crack echoed in the stillness as the urn shattered. He swung again, and a third time, and then returned the hammer to its place among the tools. Dion gently lifted one of the broken pieces from the bowl, holding it delicately between his fingers. “Each piece will be taken, and placed in the old dirt of our homes. Scattered. Permanent. Anonymous. A final journey, in a hundred directions. A hundred partners. And we all say: farewell.” Every voice in the circle repeated: “Farewell.” Dion holding the first piece, bowed his head, saying nothing more, and then looked up to fly away. One by one, in no order, everyone stood to do the same: reach into the bowl for a piece of broken clay and depart. Leeza a piece, James a piece, Charlton a piece, Adeline a piece, Wynton a piece, Frederich a piece, Bernard a piece, Regina a piece, Abella a piece, Malcolm a piece, Claire a piece, Parker a piece, Mitchell a piece, Holly a piece, Arthur a piece. At the end the bowl was empty, but for some dust that would be taken by the wind somewhere to rest – fulfilling its own part of the process in a way. Once every fragment had been flown back to its carrier’s home, all over the world, and buried in the ground the ceremony would be complete. By the time Arthur got back to his room at the Staying Tower, many others were already vacant. He packed his bags, carefully placing his piece of the urn into a pocket he had planned for it, wrapped in thick, rough cloth. It was customary for this part of the journey to be taken alone. Alone with what was left of the departed. Standing on the balcony of his room, Arthur watched as people flew in every direction to their homes. The sky was cluttered. After checking the room one last time for anything forgotten, he entered the cluttered sky and began the journey home. It was long after dark before he stopped for the first night, finding the light of a rest area where others were already asleep in bunks. He flew at a quick, steady pace the second day to reach home before noon, and found he’d left a light on. Embarrassing. Though he was tired and very hungry, he attended first to completing his portion of the rite. With the small chunk of clay in his hand, Arthur leapt and descended from the deck of his home to the garden, looking quite shaggy today. He walked among the plants he’d grown, touching them, greeting them. Looking at their leaves. Smelling their aromas. There was a tea plant that seemed to be struggling this year. It had given him the first tea he had ever grown himself and brewed. He knelt beside it and pushed the shard from the urn down into the soft soil. Patting the dirt he said out loud again: “Farewell.” Charlie DeMott Wildey is a writer based in upstate NY. His book Lightning Bolt is available from NFB Publishing, and his work can also be found in The Rialto Books Review.