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The license plate on the garage wall once belonged to a farmer named Harold who suffered from hemorrhoids and didn’t love his wife. Every morning, early, he drove his truck, considering the road ahead and the color of the sky, past the store that had been the Five and Dime and then the Sugar Bowl Ice Cream Parlor. She’d ordered a banana split, looking a thousand miles away as she ate, and Harold longed to go a thousand miles away with her but she complained of brain freeze so he took her home, haunted for the rest of his life by the possibility that he’d bored her. Then Marge came along. Julie of the distant eyes had moved away and that boat had sailed anyway. Every night he slept with Marge beneath a quilt that made him sweat: roses and polka-dots, peonies and pinstripes. When he tossed it aside, itchy and smothered, Marge would tenderly cover him again, and Harold would close his eyes as she laid him to rest. Their kids grew up; Ray ran a tattoo parlor. He married a girl named Darlene Marge always said wasn’t right in the head. Tina started drinking after her husband left her for a woman named Dawn who wrote bad poetry. One night serving up pork chops in the bile green kitchen, Marge said, remember Julie Warnick? The mushroom soup was congealing around the chop on the yellow plate as Harold recalled the swoop of Julie’s pale hair before she secured it behind her ears and took up her spoon. A little, he said. She died; it was cancer apparently. He did not taste the pork chops. But then Marge had prepared this dish each Wednesday night for forty-three years; it has been decades since he tasted pork chops. After he died (heart congestion) Harold’s pickup sat in the garage for fifteen years. Marge clung hard to her routine of church and get-togethers with the girls and a crochet club started up at the community center, but then she had a fall and the routine that glued her minutes and hours and days together melted away and she remembered the boredom she’d tried so hard not to see on Harold’s face every day of their marriage. Ray and Tina visited her in the nursing home and she smiled and nodded at the chocolates and crossword puzzles but it was so late and she needed to say the words in her head. Of course Daddy loved you, Tina looked out across the parking lot, bored and resentful, fifty-five and hoping a man named Greg who collected Meerschaum pipes would marry her. When their Mom died Ray and Tina held an estate sale to get rid of all the household items accumulated over a span of almost fifty years, then put the house on the market. Ray sold his dad’s old pickup. Years later the license plate ended up in a cardboard box In the back of an antique store named Years Gone By that sold collector’s items. Tina had drunk herself to death by this time but Ray and Darlene were welcoming grandchild number six. A man who lived alone bought the license plate that was once fixed to Harold’s pickup as he drove to the farm wondering What would have happened if he’d called her after the brain freeze incident? Of course the man who bought the license plate knew none of this. He took it home and hung it on his garage wall. Stepped back. Carefully straightened it. It looked really cool. A word from the author: Collector's Item is a poem about loss, regret, and boredom.

1. When Madee and I split, all I thought about was the language we lost. Words that I was no longer allowed to speak because they were part of a lexicon we developed together. Inside jokes, the particular way we made eye-contact across the room; specific sounds and dialects that existed only in our relationship. All I could think about were the silly farting noises we exchanged under the covers when thunder woke us at 3 a.m.; the faint curling of her lip when we played truth or dare but we were already down to our underwear; the patterns I traced in the tiny hairs on her neck while we watched Ghost Hunters. Intimacies only we could decipher. Lost, never to be spoken again. 2. That language exists only in accidental fragments now. The words I utter when I forget myself; in the lies I tell the dark when my mind wakes me with thoughts of everything I wasn’t to her – or worse, everything I was. Like twins who feel each other’s pain, we shared a unique bond. A bond that was perhaps always haunted by the inevitability of the dialogue ending. Does she feel the same? Does she speak to the walls thinking I’m still there, in syllables only we can understand that now roll into the void? I say her name and know how lonely it is to speak a word no one else understands. 3. I’m rereading a study Madee worked on years ago. It examined how multi-lingual dementia patients revert to their native language as their conditions progress. I realise I’m doing the same. I blow the occasional raspberry as I thumb through her Instagram; shoot an inveigling look to the empty bed as I undress; trace the same chaotic diagrams in the dent she left in the couch cushion. I slap it and her perfume puffs and, for a fleeting moment, she’s there again. The dust particles describe elegant hieroglyphs as they flutter down and settle in the shape of my memory of her. 4. The language we shared remains with us. I tie my heart in knots, thinking someone might find it, excavate it, and attempt to translate it. One day, Madee will screw up her nose and he won’t know it’s because she can’t stand the smell of unseasoned rice. She will purse her lips and heave a long sigh and look at him from hooded eyes, and he won’t place a cushion on his lap so she may lie down. He won’t know why she slams the cupboards, why she leaves the room when pet food adverts come on TV, how to respond when she’s working late and texts a picture of her ankles. But after a time, they’ll form their own vernacular inscribed in the ashes of past tongues. Each of them carrying remnants of languages they once spoke – once shared – whose embers form the foundation of their own. The etymology Madee and I constructed will become a relic memory. Extinct. Lost. Just one more language strangled by passing time. Geoffrey Bunting is a writer, journalist, and book designer. He has written for The Washington Post, WIRED, Rolling Stone, and more. He hates moths and can tie his shoelaces really well.

Violoncello In a Wednesday subway train, undulating, the fresh boyfriend tucks his girl in the U his hands make supported against the handle rail. They are music, and then a man with a violoncello comes aboard. For a jiffy I imagine him playing out a bollywood scene. He mops his sweat, looks at the couple. The crowd allows room for the musician the way water accepts water. That Scary Feeling Of The Being A Freed Balloon Yeah, the balloon I let loose has become a lone-star, recluse, floating, art, two-way sadness and a stoic in search for my fingers still curled, but when a breeze brings it down to the tree we named a name now unremembered in our childhood, yeah, freedom has made it ascetic as if the fright of its solo flight has filled an immortal but wrong soul into its rubber skin. At night it is my moon, the south side of it, asking 'why'. "I was scared too." I murmur. Crickets form a vast meadow around us. The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of 'Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

At the tender age of 6 The pastor I saw every Sunday- The one with a booming voice And a blinding Cheshire grin- Spoke from a leather-bound book that seemed far too heavy for his hands. The honey-soaked iron Of his words were more than enough To breathe fealty into a girl Who did not yet know death Or fear Or shame. The sweetness that veiled his rotten claims Hooded my young heart in the same false stickiness That coated the heart of my mother And her mother before her. Women are the rib of man! Designed to complete him In all his divine essence— A helper, the pastor said!— A gift from God And a blessing to Eden. By age nine, I only spoke when spoken to And learned to cross my legs At the knee To honor the body which would one day Belong to my husband. I learned the temple that housed The holy spirit of God And the nuance of my personhood was chewed gum no one would desire after use. I decided to press my school uniform And wear lace hair bows To decorate the body I had grown to know as an object— A piece of gum not yet chewed. My mother believed herself to be gum already chewed. A broken thing only a merciful God could love. And I understood her. At twelve, I was a broken thing too. Lost, hurt, and desperate to hear God The way the pastor’s wife claimed To hear Him. I prayed as if my clasped hands Could save me from the inferno If I just pressed them together hard enough. In my prayers, I begged God to show me How to want a man And the picket-fence existence our pastor told me Was the only path to purpose. But God never told me How to recover from the chronic shrinking Of my body (USED GUM, USED GUM, USED GUM!) Or the desire to share love With a woman. When a man hurt me for the first time, God did not hold his strike. Am I not the rib of man? No, I am NOT the rib of man. I am woman. In the mirror, I see the face of every woman Ever born before me. Who were tested, Worn as thin as stretched tapestry By the church and the patriarchy. I see the beauty, Not the brokenness, Of my mother And her mother And her mother. Until Eve: The first woman to abandon tradition. Ahorita, the unity of all souls Is God to me. I am just as much God as the meager ant Or the mighty lion; I AM NOT CHEWED GUM! I am a fraction of the Universe Experiencing Itself for the first time, Crying out like a baby for its bottle. My God cannot fit inside the tight walls Of a church with stained-glass murals Or the fragile pages of pew hymnals; And most certainly, my God Cannot fit inside the perfect picket fence I once begged for. I no longer press my clothing And force bows into my hair, Ignoring el dolor de cabeza. I am more than the rib Ellos me obligaron a ser. A word from the author: I have been writing poetry for as long as I can remember—focusing primarily on my experiences as a woman, a member of the eating disorder recovery community, and a trauma survivor. “I am Not Chewed Gum!” is a semi-biographical piece that recounts my divergence from the protestant religion I was born from in an abstract and free-flowing manner. In this piece, I dive deeply into the interconnectedness of my identity and the meaning of divinity in my own eyes.

“They’re here again. Alfred! Can you bloody believe it?” I twitch open the curtains, “The girl is licking the walls, does nobody teach their kids manners these days?” Alfred looks at me and then settles himself to carry on watching the TV. I wouldn’t mind, but this sustainable house was his idea. We’d only been married a few months and were living in a small flat in London when he brought home the brochure: Secluded Sustainable Living. “I’ve been thinking,” I mean, I should have known then there’d be trouble. And now here I am with those bloody kids picking off bits of my house and eating it without a second thought about us. “We’re like prisoners in our own home, Alfred, it’s beyond a joke.” I can hear them laughing, “They won’t be laughing when I’ve done with them, I can tell you,” I say. Alfred looks like he’s going to try and talk me out of it, but he knows better. “Hey,” I shout, leaning out of the window, “what do you think you’re doing?” “Get back inside, you old bag,” the boy shouts and then runs off. “Did you bloody well hear that, Alfred? Well, enough is enough,” I pick up the small shiny phone, all the rage apparently, and ring the only number programmed into it. “It’s those kids again, Margaret, they’re eating the bloody house. Come winter, me and Alfred will be freezing our bits off.” “Hmmmm.” “Oh, I mean I don’t know about that…” “I see what you’re saying but…” “Tit for tat and that, yes, well ok, I’ll think about it.” “Bye, then. Yes, I’ll let you know what I decide.” Once upon a time, I’d have talked this through with Alfred rather than Margaret, she is a little on the harsh side. But Alfred started forgetting. It’s getting dark outside, so I’m hopeful there’ll be no more attacks tonight. I pull the curtains closed and add some logs to the fire, sneaking a look at our wedding picture on the mantle piece. A young me and Alfred smile from the frame, standing outside the church. Yes, we can go to church, don’t be so judgemental. The TV is still playing, the nature channel as always. Alfred started watching it not long after the diagnosis, he couldn’t keep up with the crime dramas we used to enjoy. “You have got to be bloody kidding me,” I shout, hearing the familiar crunch of my windowsill, there’ll be nothing left of it soon. “It’s dark outside. Don’t kids have a bedtime anymore?” I ask, looking at Alfred for the answers. He doesn’t give any. I sprint to the front door, pleased I can still move so quickly in this old sack of bones body, and fling it open. “Get away from my house!” “Or what?” shouts the girl, her face smeared in the chocolate paint. Don’t they tell kids about sugar rotting their teeth anymore? “Or else,” I say, the fury burning in my throat and Margaret’s words echoing around my head. I slam the door closed and look at Alfred. He’s peering out of his glass case at me. He doesn’t have the same fire in his belly since I turned him into a tortoise. Don’t judge me. I couldn’t face the day he wouldn’t know who I was. And as a tortoise, he’ll outlive me. It’s better this way. Shrieking from outside permeates through the walls, “Ha, Han, I’m through. I am actually through the wall.” This is the final straw. This is my home. Just me and Alfred – we’re supposed to be safe in here. I wipe away a tear, “Well Alfred, it’s going to have to be Margaret’s suggestion. There’s nothing else for it. The bloody oven it is!” Lucy is a Barnsley-based writer (between Sheffield and Leeds before you pull the map out). She teaches and writes and has ridiculous conversations with her naughty dog, Loki.

She’s out here again, head bowed, trying to scrape up our dead skin cells. Or maybe not skin, but hair or coughed-up fragments of lung. Pissing in the wind, she is! The wind that’s about to dishevel and disrobe us even further while her back is turned, while she stoops small over a rounded belly in our stretching shadows. We writhe ecstatically, rooted to rise tall. We are bemused as she comes back barefoot in dimming light to rearrange our crisp golden debris into pyres for a smaller version of herself to leap upon and sift themselves under. She breathes hard and cries to herself. It was a field here, before. A field and a thicket. A copse. A wood. A grove. A coppice. There were small, furred heart thrums then, cosying in our nooks. Now the hum of a vibration purrs from yellow, biting, crashing machines. This buzz crackles through tendrils of mycelium and travels along each branch, through our sap, our tree senses. It bounces across the gaps we modestly leave for each other. It’s a stress memory, shuddering through our limbs on still nights when we are slacker and less watchful. Looking up, rake in hand, she thinks she’s performing a rite for us, a vigil as we slip naked into a winter death. A laying out. She looks up again, wants us to see, wants us to know. But we are already budding, our tips tinged with tiny promise. We are ready to let go for now and rest into dampness, still watching over her amber orange squares of light. A word from the author: In my writing I hope to explore the crushing expectations placed on mothers, the mythologising of pregnancy and also to explore the ambivalent sensations created by push-pull mothering in a patriarchal society.

Let me tell you how I got the scar on my left knee. Three o’clock Friday afternoon. I’m eleven. It’s all promise. None of it’s happened yet. I’m on parole till Monday morning from Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. Up the front stoop, up to my room, swap my school uniform for shorts and a T-shirt, demolish two Hostess Sno-Balls, gulp a glass of milk, back down the stoop into the violet afternoon to clobber the other boys at handball till the streetlights come on. To avenge what happened last time. We swarm the playground like an army of little Caucasian ants. We start with cutthroat. My buddy Hickey serves to three guys at a time, his bony fist smacking the Spaldeen against our handball wall. Hickey goes, “Not for pussies only, boys. Not for pussies only.” He knocks out the younger boys, the shitty players scrambling after that scuffed pink ball. You can hear their mothers calling. Hickey is actually not all that good, but he’s a loudmouth and a ball hog and his insults will wear a person down. Which is probably what I allowed to happen to me last time. Now that the shitty players are knocked out, we’re ready for one-on-ones. Me, Hickey, Bartlett. I go, “Yo, Hickey, your handball nickname shall be Doctor Doom.” Hickey goes, “No way, Bobby, I’m Galactus.” “What’re you talking about Galactus? Galactus is the destroyer of worlds.” “I am the destroyer of worlds! Alls Doctor Doom does is stand around making speeches.” “Hickey, also known as Doctor Doom, alls you do is stand around making speeches.” Hickey goes, “Bobby, what shall your handball nickname be?” He’s looking at me funny. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking about last time. I go, “I’m the Silver Surfer.” “After what happened last time?” Bartlett goes, “Why? What happened last time?” I go, “Nevermind what happened last time.” Hickey goes, “The Silver Surfer is the last thing you are.” Bartlett goes, “What happened last time?” I go, “Nevermind what happened last time.” Hickey goes, “Last time, I serve and it’s right on the line. You know, one of my Hickey serves? And Bobby dives for it. You know, one of his Bobby dives? But this time Bobby misses the ball by about a thousand miles—” I go, “By about a fraction of an inch.” “—and Bobby hits the pavement and rolls. And I mean he rolls. I mean he don’t stop rolling. He rolls into the trashcans and the trashcans tip over and then some sick orange shit from the lunchroom—” I go, “It was Spaghettios.” “—this sick orange shit, what I’m trying to say, spills out the trashcans on top of Bobby’s head. In his hair. And he eats it.” I go, “I did not eat it.” Hickey goes, “How else would you know it was Spaghettios?” I go, “Hickey, are you ready for a rematch?” But Hickey won’t let it go. “Did it taste good, Bobby? Was it still warm?” I take a deep breath. I go, “It tasted better than your mother.” Bartlett goes, “Buuuurn.” But Hickey just stands there with this sad, stupid look on his puss. I go, “What’s the matter with you?” Hickey goes, “A line was crossed. You brought mothers into it.” “I know a line was crossed.I wanted to bring mothers into it.” “Bobby, you know what I must do now, don’t you?” “I know what you must do, Hickey.” Hickey goes, “Your handball nickname shall not be the Silver Surfer. Your handball nickname shall be… Garbage-Ass Shithead McGillicuddy.” I go, “I do not accept. That’s too long for a handball nickname.” Bartlett goes, “Too long is your number-one objection to Garbage-Ass Shithead McGillicuddy?” I go, “It’s ten syllables!” Hickey gets in my face. He goes, “Ten syllables is what you get for bringing mothers into it!” We’re chest-to-chest now. I go, “I call a rematch!” Hickey goes, “So shut up and serve!” I serve. We volley. I’ve got Hickey jumping all over the place. Hickey goes, “Whoa, Garbage-Ass Shithead McGillicuddy has been practicing.” I go, “No, Doctor Doom just sucks like he always does.” But Hickey’s right. I have been practicing. Every afternoon, against the back of our house. My Spaldeen banging against the aluminum siding till the sun goes down, till it’s too dark to see. My serve. My returns. My Bobby dives. Because my handball nickname will never be at the mercy of a moron who comes up with ten-syllable nonsense. While I’m busy volleying with Hickey, I can feel Bartlett staring at my face. You know how sometimes you can just feel somebody staring? After a while Bartlett goes, “Bobby, what are you anyways?” What are you? Cause apparently we’re little trash-talking existentialists. It feels like a pile-on, to be honest, so I hit back with, “Bartlett, your handball nickname shall be Dogshit cause that one time you stepped in dogshit and tracked it up and down the hallways and it was hilarious.” Bartlett goes, “I’m being serious, Bobby. What are you?” Hickey goes, “Cause it would make no difference to us, Bobby.” Bartlett goes, “Yeah. We’ll still hate you for being a Mets fan.” But Bartlett’s waiting for something. What am 1? “I’m half-Irish, half-Italian.” “You’re Italian?” Hickey smacks the ball and dances in place like all of a sudden I’m Pavarotti or something. Or maybe he’s gotta take a piss. “Half.” “Bobby’s Eye-talian?” Bartlett’s staring. “Half.” Our neighborhood in Throggs Neck is full of Irish families and Italian families. We’re not exactly the Capulets and the Montagues, but Irish-Italian is still an exotic breed around here. Hickey goes, “Bobby, I change my mind. Your handball nickname shall not be Garbage-Ass Shithead McGillicuddy.” I go, “Because you’re in awe of the Silver Surfer’s superpowers?” Hickey goes, “No. Because your handball nickname shall be… Spaghettio!” I deliver one more slam. I think Hickey’s gonna blow it but he gets there. He slams it back. The ball is right on the line. I will not lose to him today. I will not lose to him today. It bounces off the line and I dive for it. I dive for it. The Bobby dive I’ve been practicing every afternoon till it’s too dark to see. I get to it, on my knees, and slap the holy hell out of it. It bashes against the wall. And Hickey blows it. Now he’s on the asphalt on his knees next to me, gasping like he needs his inhaler. I go, “Say ‘Uh-oh Spaghettio,’ Doctor Doom. You are out.” I stand up, look Bartlett in the eye. “Now it’s your turn, Dogshit.” “It’s my turn.” A voice behind me. High, chirpy. I turn around. It’s skinny little Katie Daugherty. I cannot possibly exaggerate how, in this time and place, skinny little Katie Daugherty’s presence on the handball court, in high-tops and a denim jumper, is as shocking as if the asphalt under our feet just cracked open and the mole people crawled up out of the ground. Katie Daugherty, hair pulled back in a ponytail, clutching a brand-new pink Spaldeen. She goes, “It’s my turn.” I go, “No way.” I’m not even looking at her. Hickey goes, “Beat it.” He’s dancing in place like he’s possessed. Bartlett goes, “Shoo.” Katie goes, “Bobby’s a-scared of me.” “I’m a-scared of you?” “Cause my big Cousin Jimmy taught me everything. You should be a-scared.” Hickey goes, “Beat it.” But he’s no longer dancing. Now he’s looking at me. Bartlett goes, “Shoo.” He’s looking at me too. Well. I go, “Yo, Katie, why don’t you disappear?” I look at my boys and the corners of my mouth curl. “Or just turn sideways?” High-fives all around. Buuuurn. Now Katie Daugherty is not saying anything. Her nose twitches. Like on Bewitched. I’ve known Katie Daugherty since before kindergarten. I’ve never noticed her freckles. The way her freckles dance around her nose when she’s really, really pissed. She stomps home, ponytail bouncing back and forth. *** And now Katie Daugherty’s freckles are with me at all times. Long division. Boy Scouts. I’m taking out the garbage and the sun falls golden on the lid of the trashcan and I’m thinking about Katie Daugherty’s freckles. I stay after school to take guitar lessons from Sister Augustine. We’re practicing for folk Mass. “Yahweh I Know You Are Near,” but the way I play it, it’s more like “Yahweh You Know I’m a Fuck-Up.” Sister takes the guitar, shows me how, her crooked little fingers dancing over the neck, transfiguring my cheap nylon guitar strings into a hymn. To Katie Daugherty’s freckles. I’m watching King Kong vs. Godzilla on Channel 11 with my little sister Maggie, but for the first time in my life I want to switch to Channel 9 to watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. “Since when do you all of a sudden give a shit about dancing?” Maggie cannot believe what she is witnessing. “They are tap dancing on roller skates. You know anybody in this lousy neighborhood who can tap dance on roller skates?” “Godzilla can spew flames.” “When Godzilla can tap dance on roller skates then you talk to me about spewing flames.” That night, in bed, I’m roller skating with Katie Daugherty. The constellations of her freckles circle my head. Friday afternoon, Sister Augustine tells us to close our eyes and fold our hands and practice a silent prayer. Only don’t pray for something you want. Pray for somebody else. Because God is not Santa Claus. God is not Santa Claus. I close my eyes, fold my hands. Yo, Yahweh. You think you could let Katie Daugherty have such a good day that she does that funny little thing with the corners of her mouth so everyone can see the joy that’s always been inside her? Then I’m up out of my seat, walking two rows back. Katie Daugherty sits with her eyes closed, hands folded in her lap. Her lips are moving. Her lips are moving. Katie Daugherty’s freckles do to me what Sister Augustine’s crooked little fingers do to my cheap nylon guitar strings. I lean over and plant one on her. “Bobby, what the hell?” wiping her mouth on her plaid jumper. The swish of religious garments. A hand on the back of my neck. Sister Augustine is going to drag me—and Katie Daugherty—to Sister Jerome’s office. “No, Sister, please!” Down the hall. Katie Daugherty’s got her eyes closed. Like this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. Then we’re bursting through the door of the office. Sister Jerome says, “Bobby, am I going to have to call your parents?” Her voice is like a foghorn. “I hope not, Sister Jerome.” “Bobby?” I’ve never been to the office before. I’m eyeing the big wooden paddle hanging on the wall, which Hickey claims Sister Jerome hasn’t used to whip ass since before we were born. I tell Sister Jerome, “I expressed affection.” “And how did you express affection?” Sister Jerome’s got a mirror on the wall, where she measures the older boy’s hair when it gets too rock-n-roll. Katie Daugherty looks at me in the mirror. Katie Daugherty puckers her lips, blows me a hate kiss, then looks down at the big black-and-white checkerboard tiles on the floor of the office. I bust out laughing. Sister Jerome says, “Bobby? What is funny about this? Robert?” “I expressed affection. I couldn’t control myself.” “Does Our Lord control himself when he overturns the tables in the temple?” This is an unexpected angle. “Um, no?” “Does Our Lord control himself when he calls out to his father in heaven, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’” “Um, no?” “Does a man know what is right?” “Yes?” “Does a man do what is right?” “Was I wrong to show affection?” “Do you talk to your parents—?” “Are you gonna call my parents?” “—about your urges?” Well. “Robert?” “I will talk to my parents about my urges.” To this day, I have never talked to my parents about my urges. Sister Jerome says, “Katie?” Silence. Katie Daugherty stares at the floor. “Katherine?” “It’s fine.” Katie’s eyes on those black-and-white tiles on the floor. “I’m fine.” She won’t look at me. I think about how this is the same Katie Daugherty who helped me bury my dead turtle in the backyard when we were little. Who said a “Hail, Holy Queen” for my dead turtle. This person. I suppose it’s the first time I’ve had a thought like that. Or maybe I’d call it a feeling. I don’t remember the walk back to class. I don’t remember packing my book bag. I don’t remember meeting Katie Daugherty’s eyes. The walk home. The windows of old Mrs. Pisser’s house silently judge the condition of my school uniform. The windows of my buddy Hickey’s house, the venetian blinds always a little out of whack. The windows of my house gaze across the street, without hope, at the lace curtain windows of Katie Daugherty’s house. *** Three o’clock Friday afternoon. I’m the first guy on the playground. I’m the only guy on the playground. Two older boys are coming. “You’ve never touched it,” one of the older boys says. He doesn’t even notice me. “You’ve never seen it,” the other boy says. I recognize him as the one who’s always the first one picked for stickball. “You don’t even know what we’re talking about.” The first boy notices me. Now the other one, the stickball one, is looking at me, looming. He goes, “Yo, what are you?” What am I? I’m pretty sure my cheeks are burning. The older boys keep walking. It’s drizzling. And I’m only eleven, studying the brand-new obscenity spray-painted on our handball wall. A voice behind me goes, “It’s my turn.” Katie Daugherty. She holds out her brand-new pink Spaldeen. I nod. “Serve.” Katie Daugherty serves, her vicious little fist, her brand-new pink Spaldeen scorching our handball wall, sending me scrambling, stumbling. I go, “Whoa.” She goes, “Do I get a handball nickname?” “Yeah. Your handball nickname shall be Chump.” “Today of all days you’re gonna trash-talk me?” “That’s how the game is played.” “Well then, pucker up, Bobby.” Slam. Whoa. I go, “I’m sorry for what happened.” “You’re sorry?” Slam. Whoa. “I mean about what happened after.” “You think that’s the first time I’ve ever been—” Slam. “—to the office? Chump?” We stand there. The smell of the pavement in the drizzling rain. Katie Daugherty raises that pink Spakdeen. Katie Daugherty serves. Slam. The ball is right on the line. I will not lose to her today. I will not lose to her today. It bounces off the line and I dive for it. I dive for it. I am going to lose to her today. I am going to lose to her today. And now my knee hits the asphalt and the skin busts open. “Bobby, are you bleeding?” “It’s fine. I’m fine.” “Your knee looks like shit.” My stupid blood all over the place. “You think you could run home and get me a band-aid?” She’s looking at me. “You think you could give me a handball nickname that isn’t Chump?” “Maybe.” “Maybe’ is not going to get you a band-aid.” “Your handball nickname shall be…” I study her face. She studies mine. I go, “Your handball nickname shall be… Freckles.” “Freckles? I am a monster on the handball court and you’re gonna name me Freckles?” “You’re a strange person, Katherine.” “I’m not the one who’s gonna bleed to death, Robert.” Katie Daugherty’s nose is twitching. “Your handball nickname shall be... Godzilla.” She does that funny little thing with the corners of her mouth. “The band-aid will probably have a Barbie on it. You okay with that? Spaghettio?” “I’m okay with that. Godzilla.” “Back in a sec.” Katie Daugherty’s ponytail bounces back and forth as she runs across the schoolyard. Back in a sec. *** Years later, I see that scar on my left knee and an eleven-year-old boy is back on the asphalt, blood dripping down his leg. An eleven-year-old girl is standing on a step-stool, ransacking the medicine chest. He waits under the streetlights in the rain. She comes back to him, always, bearing a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a bag of cotton balls, and a Barbie band-aid. Robert Firpo-Cappiello is a two-time Emmy nominee (for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series) and a Folio-award-winning magazine editor. His short fiction has appeared in Roi Fainéant and and has performed his stories and songs at St Lou Fringe, Dixon Place, Irvington Theater, Spark Theatre Festival NYC, and Bad Theater Fest. He holds a Master of Music degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory, a BA in English from Colgate University (where his mentor was novelist Frederick Busch), and he made his show-business debut at the age of five on WOR-TV’s Romper Room. He’s represented (as a novelist) by Jill Marr, at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

“In the produce department, everything is dying, but there are two things still living— can you name those two things?” The district manager, hair slicked back like a minister, stood in front of the young recruits, stitched into their button-downs and dress skirts. On the wall rack next to them, the wet nozzles turned on, spritzing the cucumbers, autumn-colored peppers, the floral hemming of the green leaf lettuce. Someone said, “the living greens,” that plastic box of dirt and growing herbs. They were stumped on the second and, pushing my rattling cart, I wanted to yell, “the associates!” As they, nearly invisibly, busied around the department like fruit flies in polo shirts. Someone said something else, though, and the manager reacted enthusiastically, then continued with his sermon. As they left, I thought maybe I was wrong, picturing us all lying on well-lit tables, insects drawn to the sweet nectar of our aging eyes, black sores borrowing into our wrinkling skin until it became rough and brittle like avocados. Maybe we aren’t shuffling in wet soil, living, growing, reaching for the sun; rather, we’re drying out on our displays, stalks broken, desperate for a drink. Devon Neal (he/him) is a Bardstown, KY resident who received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University and an MBA from The University of the Cumberlands. He currently works as a Human Resources Manager in Louisville, KY. His work has been featured in Moss Puppy Magazine, Dead Peasant, Paddler Press, MIDLVLMAG, and others.

The photos sparkle as they fall, the birthday candles and wedding cakes and fireworks and nightclubs and rainbows. I scoop a baby shower from a bench and it breaks apart in my fingers, a puff of glitter, fluttering to the ground like autumn. I catch memories in my palm, a child blowing out ten candles, a skydiver stepping from a plane, an old man napping in a chair by a fireplace, a cat nestled next to him in a cardboard box lined with a red sweater. I poke the cat and it pops like a cartoon balloon, a calico explosion of color. I find footballers and skiers and gymnasts; people walking and running and standing still in front of gardens and cathedrals and beaches, where waves break on the sand and they surf and swim and build sandcastles; selfies of eyeballs and nose hairs and smiles in front of the Eiffel Tower at dawn, at sunset, lit up in the middle of the night; families with dogs and cats and horses in stables and at racing tracks and in the mountains of Montana, with trophy elk and cutthroat trout, and glaciers in full retreat. A burst of 500 photos from a rodeo stampedes me, ending with a cowboy in the dirt and a bull in the air, but when I touch it, the horns collapse. Darker images fall, too, things hidden in the Cloud’s blackest linings. Abuse, shame, beatings, body parts, betrayals–these moan when touched. People swarm from office buildings, looking skyward like they did on 9/11. No one speaks as the Cloud bursts. Children kick at them, giggling at the tiny snap as each one disappears. Tom Walsh writes and edits these days from Cambridge, MA. His flash fiction can be found in Janus Literary, Hobart Pulp, HAD, Lost Balloons, and elsewhere. He is an assistant editor at Flash Fiction Online.

instead of allowing myself to be happy I keep trying to find you exploring the tight curves of bell peppers, your laugh echoing within the crunch of sourdoughs, a smile lingering as the sharpness of sheep’s cheese, hiding melancholia inside green olives’ salty brines, ghosts tucked so tightly in the shadows of fig leaves, hesitantly pacing between the honeys and the jams, lavender bunches chosen to mask a grey loneliness. I used to love you on Saturday mornings – now I go to the farmers’ market and pretend you’re still around. Luís Costa (he/they) is an anxious queer poet, whose debut book Two Dying Lovers Holding a Cat is forthcoming with Fourteen Poems in November 2023. His poems have featured in Visual Verse, Stone of Madness, Queerlings, Inksounds, Farside Review and FEED, and are forthcoming in Anthropocene and Passengers Journal. Long-listed for the Out-Spoken Poetry Prize in 2022, he holds a PhD from Goldsmiths and lives in London with his cat Pierożek. You can find him on Twitter @captainiberia

It began with a subtle tightening in my throat. The middle-aged man in the grocery store queue placed his hand on my midsection with reverence, large palm and splayed fingers spanning the swell of my abdomen. “Do you plan to breastfeed? Breastfed children have IQs that are as much as eight points higher. My wife breastfed our twins, tandem. It’s the most natural thing, you know.” It was the dry, recirculated air. It was always so damn dry in the supermarket. Swiping a sweaty bottle of Evian water from the little fridge beside the cash register, I downed half the cool liquid in a single swallow. But the sensation persisted. The tightening increased during a visit with my friend Genevieve. “Are you still having sex?” She’d asked as she tugged at the roomy waistband of her pre-pregnancy jeans. The jeans hung too low on her diminished frame: old skin, ready to be shed and expose the new, improved Genevieve underneath. Determined not to become one of those mothers, she’d been putting in two hours a day on her Peloton bike since popping out The Kid three months prior. “Ted and I had sex right up until a few hours before delivery. If you don’t keep them happy, they’ll just go find it elsewhere. Honestly, who can blame them. They put up with all our mood swings. And you know, just because you can’t screw for six weeks after, doesn’t mean you can’t still satisfy him. You wouldn’t believe how many divorces coincide with the arrival of a new baby.” It was acid reflux. I’d heard that reflux was common in pregnancy. I popped one of the chalky little pastel antacids from the roll I’d stashed in the change pocket of my purse for just such an occasion. But the sensation persisted. The tightening intensified during our big gender reveal dinner with my in-laws. “You’ll of course circumcise the baby.” My mother in-law had said, while dishing me up a hearty portion of something white and nebulous, with flecks of pink that might have been crab salad. “We circumcised Ethan so his would look like his dad’s. The uncircumcised ones look a bit… Well, I just think it could be confusing to a little boy to have different-looking parts.” It was an allergy: I had developed a sudden and intense allergy to shellfish. My face felt numb. Like the time I’d mistaken a tube of Lidocaine for my overpriced BB cream. I raced to the medicine cabinet and frantically downed a few cloying-sweet tablespoons of grape-flavoured Benadryl. But the sensation persisted. The tightening worsened as my husband watched the anesthesiologist prepare the epidural. He’d been researching the safety profile for epidurals and had fallen down some dank neo-naturalist rabbit hole. He’d even started insisting the baby forgo diapers altogether and we hold him over a toilet to do his business right from birth—because that’s what people in cultures that don’t have access to diapers do. As if given a choice they wouldn’t trade being covered in piss for a pack of pampers. “The Militant Naturalist says epidurals prolong labour. It can put the mother and baby at risk. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, just that maybe it’s not too late to at least consider a natural birth.” It was low blood pressure. The doctor explained that blood pressure often dropped during an epidural. He administered IV fluids to increase my blood pressure. But the sensation persisted. The tightening became unbearable as the nurse placed the squalling, beet-faced bundle in my arms. The nurse inspected the poor latch with a critical eye. “It’s hospital policy to hold out on giving formula for as long as possible.” Instead of suctioning to my nipple like he was supposed to, the baby chewed and gummed it, turning tender flesh into bloody hamburger. “Just keep trying, he’ll eventually get the hang of nursing.” The walls of the room contracted, along with the walls of my throat. As I lay prostrate a faint echo reached through the cotton batting web of my insensibility. “So, what you’re telling me is that her womb has migrated through her body and is now in her throat?” “Indeed. It’s called the suffocation of the mother, a fairly common feature of hysteria.” “Is there something we can do? There must be some sort of medical treatment for this kind of thing?” “Unfortunately, there aren’t really any effective medical treatments for the condition. Not to worry though, hysteria is mostly benign, a nuisance—it’s only very occasionally fatal. I suggest she walk more and try regular masturbation.” “But can’t you just remove the uterus?” “I’m sorry, we simply don’t do removals on women under 30 unless they’ve had at least two children. I’m afraid she’ll just have to learn to live with it.” Jennifer is an artist who lives on the frozen plains of Canada with her family and five pets. Her short stories have appeared in Hobart Pulp, L’Esprit Literary Review, Expat Press, and others.

Maybe this is not a good day to write you but I will write you anyway. My son, you are a boy. Your heart is made like cheese, it goes with everything. When you try to connect dots, there will always be a man undoing the knots and another making a zigzag with your thing rope. It’s a cruel world my child. Bananas taste great but the peels can get you new dentition. Some doors will never open to the strength of your push, some doors require six hands and three hearts to yank open. Treat you superiors with honor and hand your juniors cans full of kindness. Reach for you breast pocket and see a painting your dad left you. In your box, I packed water paints and papers, paint your memories. The world is not yours to bear, keep yourself. If a dear chases you in a dream again, stand, it may just be passing. If you come home and find my remains, merry with friends. Death took away your burden but if you meet a heap of sand they call grave, cry yourself to sleep. When you wake up, pour me a jar of my favorite liquor, my mouth will be open to receive it. You are a good boy, my child. This dark world will test your light, still shine. Ifunanya Georgia Ezeano is an Igbo, Nigerian writer, poet, and editor. She holds a BSc in Psychology. She has her works published in journals and lit mags in many places. She is the head editor for Writers Space Africa Virtual/Video Poetry. She was the pioneer leader of Poets in Nigeria, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She is the author of the poetry collection; Naked and Thorns & Petals (on Amazon and other places) and she has other unpublished works. She has a Gazelle (Droplets)on the Konya Shamsrumi Review Gazelle series. She was nominated this year for British Loft Prize for flash fiction. She recently received the Sparks Poetry Award honorary mention from Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada. She is interested in human experiences, the psychology of life, femininity, and Africanism.