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1 I’m trying to remember the last time I actually spoke to Craig. I’ve got a text on my phone which reads: Mate! At a wedding and I think we’ve got a real-life jilting on our hands, no shit! Followed by another, ten minutes later saying: Oh no wait, she’s turned up :-( That was five years ago. I never replied, probably preoccupied with some other thing of great importance which I’ve long-since forgotten and, looking at it now, I feel a sharp pang of guilt for my old friend, sitting on his pew, ignored and doubly disappointed. “Are you ever going to indicate?” I ask my wife, ex-wife, Helen as she swerves her Volkswagen Tiguan off the M40 without so much as a passing courtesy towards other road users. She’s a terrible driver but a nervous passenger and so insisted we take her car. “I don’t need to indicate, David, I know where I’m going,” she replies. This is the sort of thing that makes sense in her mind, so I let it slide. “Now look,” I say, “when we get there, you ought to know there may be some…awkwardness.” “When is there not awkwardness with Craig? I still don’t really understand why we’re going.” “Legal matters. He’s our solicitor.” “He’s your solicitor, your friend.” “Our friend. Used to be anyway, and I know he’s a tad unconventional at times but he’s never steered us wrong through…everything. And unless you want our children’s entire estate to consist of your beloved Doug Hyde paintings and your grandmother’s cursed ruby necklace then we need to go and see Craig.” “You’re not dying are you?” “We’re all dying. And death does seem increasingly imminent the longer I spend in this car. You know this is a forty limit don’t you?” “Do you ever stop complaining?” “Look, it’s the will, my next of kin, power of attorney now that my brother’s dead, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. I explained all this in my email.” “Yes, yes. What I mean is, why do we actually have to go and see him? Couldn’t this all have been sorted out online?” “He insisted. Said it was his fee. I think he’s lonely, to be honest with you. I haven’t been a very good friend over the years, truth be told.” “You don’t owe him anything, David. And I’m sure a man of Craig’s means can find plenty of ways to amuse himself.” “I think he probably gets bored of amusing himself, hence the invite.” “Why the awkwardness then?” “What’s that now?” “You just said there may be some awkwardness when we see him.” “Ah, yes, well. Last time I saw Craig, if memory serves, it was at one of his parties, I’d had rather a lot to drink and…” “Yes?” “I was sick on his dog.” “Brilliant.” 2 By some act of divine benevolence, we arrive at Craig’s house unscathed. The satisfying crunch of golden gravel welcomes us, and the Tiguan’s overtaxed drivetrain sighs its relief after completing another perilous journey against all odds. We’re balls-deep in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside. Surrounded by wildly overpriced greengrocers calling themselves ‘lifestyle emporiums’ for tory-funding, Brexit-loving disaster capitalists and media luvvies in tweed jackets peddling craft gin, organic condiments and artisanal, scented homeware products, building their own disposable empires on the backs of underpaid labourers and disenfranchised bees. The sight of Craig’s magnificent Georgian residence, lavishly draped in wisteria, never fails to hit me like a cricket ball in the nuts. I don’t possess the gene, the specific DNA coding or neuro-pathway, or whatever it is, that allows one to be happy for other people. “Darlings!” Craig throws open the door theatrically and I am incensed to see that he has aged well. The pale complexion of the habitual substance abuser subtly masked by a golden tan. The jet-black hair has turned silver but maintained its thickness and lustre. The fine stubble on the cheeks like twinkling morning frost. The eyes bluer, more piercing, the physique noticeably toned, even beneath a chunky-knit cardigan. Being rich really is good for your health. One hundred percent of doctors recommend it. “Helen, my God you look stunning!” Craig gushes, kissing her on each cheek in that irritating, luvvie way. “You haven’t aged, why haven’t you aged? Never mind, come in, please come in.” Helen hasn’t yet had a chance to utter a word in reply but steps in anyway and I follow. “Ah-ah.” Craig wags a finger and stops me in my tracks. “Not you, young man. You owe someone an apology first.” “What for?” “You know very well.” “Look, I said sorry at the time, didn’t I?” “It’s not me to whom you must apologise.” Craig places two fingers under his tongue and whistles. The sound is closely followed by the skittering of tiny claws on hardwood floors. A fluffy Pomeranian runs up to Craig, who scoops it into his arms, cradling it like a baby. The little gremlin-dog licks Craig’s face with its slimy tongue while regarding me with its black, marble eyes. “Apologise to Mr Pickles.” “Really, come on Craig for goodness’ sake just let me in.” “Apologise to Mr Pickles. He was traumatised, yes he was, he was traumatised.” He speaks to the dog in that weird, childlike voice dog owners use. “And do you know how difficult it is, both logistically and emotionally, to clean red wine vomit out of a Pomeranian’s coat? Look how fluffy it is! I had to cut the chunks out with nail scissors, while we both wept.” Helen is standing behind Craig, clearly loving every second of my humiliation. It’s the most I’ve seen her smile in years. “Fine,” I sigh. “I apologise.” “No, no, no, no, no. That won’t do at all. Apologise properly.” Craig places Mr Pickles down on the floor and says, “Sit.” For a second I think he’s talking to me, but the dog obliges and Craig produces a treat from his pocket which the dog munches like a rabid gerbil. “You get down to his level, on your knees please.” I know this could go on indefinitely, and I do need to make amends. So I play along. I drop down to my knees and stare directly into the miniature bear-face of the Pomeranian. “I’m sorry.” “Mr Pickles,” says Helen, joining in. “I’m sorry, Mr Pickles. I wholeheartedly apologise for any trauma and pain I may have inflicted upon you. I deeply regret my actions and although I can in no way make up for the hurt I have caused, I hope you will allow me to enter your home and try to prove I am no longer the same man who violated you in such a heinous manner.” Craig bursts into a fit of laughter. “Oh my God that was amazing! Get up you stupid arsehole, this isn’t even the same dog. Christ, what was that, ten years ago? That was Sebastian Krug, my old dog, he’s been dead for ages. It wasn’t Mr Pickles, was it? No it wasn’t, it wasn’t Mr Pickles was it?” The dog is back in Craig’s arms, furiously licking his face with a renewed fervour. “Come and give your old buddy a hug! God it’s good to see you man.” Craig wraps me in an embrace. He smells fantastic and I must admit, it really is good to see him. 3 True to form, Craig has allowed himself to become overexcited. After we arrived, he immediately proclaimed he was making us some martinis and dragged us into the kitchen where a bottle of Pol Roger was already opened, on ice, for us to drink while we waited for Craig to mix the martinis. We told him about our eldest getting engaged and he launched into the usual, nostalgia-drenched reminiscence, “My God it barely seems like two minutes since Amelia was born, do you remember when you first brought her to the pub?” “Yes,” Helen replied. “You were carrying her round in one hand, with a pint and a fag in the other.” “To be fair, it was a different time,” I interjected on Craig’s behalf (I would’ve undoubtedly been doing the same so needed to deflect). “And you were quite partial to a menthol ciggie and a G&T if I remember correctly.” Helen bristled of course, but then seemed to soften. Whether it was the warmth of the memory, or just the quality of Craig's champagne, I’m not sure. “Yes, well,” she said, “I only smoked when we were outside in the beer garden. As you say, it was a different time.” It felt to good to catch up, sitting on stools at the breakfast bar, beneath the glass-domed ceiling of Craig’s orangery-style kitchen, the stars beginning to twinkle in the lavender dusk. Like old friends, old times. I did ask about legal matters but Craig just waved his hand and went ‘Pfffttt, we’ll get to that…’ And now he’s absolutely hammered. He’s been attempting to make Beef Wellington since about eight-thirty and it’s now nearly ten. As usual he’s a victim of his own ego — Wellington is an impressive dish if you get it right but it’s a heck of a lot of faff and can easily go wrong, and Craig is in the long grass. I’ve kept a close eye on him, and exactly as I predicted, he’s deemed the addition of a crêpe to be unnecessary and therefore, even if he does get it in the oven before midnight, I’m confident it will be a disaster. He’s coked off his nut as well. Keeps nipping off to the bathroom every fifteen minutes, his jaw flapping around like a Great Dane chasing a tennis ball. “A lot of people are intimidated cooking a whole fillet of beef,” he says, at a volume well above that which normal conversation requires, “BUT I’VE GOT A MEAT THERMOMETER AND I KNOW MY OVEN!” I’m not offering to help, Craig is exactly the sort of prick who’ll say oh yes, could you be an absolute superstar and just knock up a quick salad? which he’ll then forget to serve. He’s elbow-deep in mushroom duxelles, splurging out of his pastry as he attempts to roll the whole thing up like a bad joint. He gives up, exasperated and says, “red wine!” like he’s just arrived at the answer to the universe and then fucks off again, ostensibly to the cellar but most probably, the bathroom. 4 “Why do all men think they’re professional chefs?” Helen asks. The question is directed towards the heavens above us, rather than me, but I answer nevertheless. “Because we are.” “He’s doing exactly what you used to do, getting all his ingredients out into little bowls before he starts. He’s spent an hour just faffing about arranging everything.” “It’s what the French call Mise en Place, meaning ‘establishment’ or ‘putting in place.’ You have to prepare before you cook.” “You used to do it on purpose, take forever to cook dinner to avoid putting the kids to bed.” “That is an outrageous accusation. Besides, you were better at bath and bedtime, they never wanted me. I strived for perfection, so that you might have a delicious and nutritionally-balanced meal at the end of the day. That’s not nothing, you know.” “Sure, when you eventually got it ready. I’d come downstairs completely frazzled from wrestling the children into bed and you’d be there quaffing Chablis and massaging the starch out of your fucking risotto. Then you’d plate yours before mine!” “No I didn’t.” “Yes you did! You’d spend about five minutes making yours look all pretty and then just chuck mine on as an afterthought.” “Well, if I did, it was only so yours wouldn’t get cold.” “What?” “I liked to plate mine true to my vision, sure. But I always left yours in the pan until the last possible second because of your weird obsession with incredibly hot food.” “My obsession with hot food?” “Yes, your asbestos mouth. If anything dipped below the core temperature of the sun you were whacking it in the microwave, ruining it.” “No one likes cold risotto. And maybe I would’ve liked some mise en place every once in a while.” “Well, all of life’s a compromise isn’t it? You can either have mise en place or boiling hot potatoes. Of course, as a man, you are expected to provide both, at all times. Who does the cooking in your house now? Surely not you?” “Yes. As a matter of fact, I’m quite good. Last night I cooked sea bass with gunpowder potatoes and a lentil daal.” “A lentil daal, eh? You know daal literally means lentils in Hindi don’t you? That’s like saying you made a chicken coq-au-vin.” “Really? How fascinating. I didn’t realise you’d studied the language, please teach me some other Hindi phrases…” I don’t know, after all this time, whether we’re bantering or arguing. Somehow, these jocular inquiries into the wreckage of our marriage have become our default means of communication. And it…kind of works? It’s like therapy, in many ways. Because marriage, and especially raising children, inflicts a trauma on two people that is impossible to survive. You lose so many parts of yourself along the way, and eventually you lose the parts which once fit together. Intimacy, true intimacy, is like youth: once it’s gone, it’s gone. But once you break free of the ridiculously unrealistic expectations of marriage, there begins a rebuilding process. You find an alternative way to co-exist. If you give it enough time, you end up as two completely new people and it’s as if none of that awful suff ever happened. In this light, on this evening, holding her champagne flute delicately between her long, manicured fingers, Helen looks more like a French actress than the woman who used to stand at the top of the stairs in a tatty, stained dressing gown, screaming at me for no apparent reason. “David,” she says, interrupting my profitless reverie. “Yes?” “Stop leering at me.” “Sorry.” “Why aren’t you drinking your drink?” “I am.” “No you’re not. I’ve been watching you, you haven’t drunk a thing all night. You’ve been pretending to.” “Nonsense.” “David. What is going on, why are we here? Tell me right now, or I swear to God…” “I’ve got cancer.” “What? No you haven’t. You can’t. Have you even seen a proper doctor?” “No. I checked my horoscope, Helen, that’s how I know I’ve got cancer.” “David…” “Adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, stage three, they think.” “So all of this, Craig, the legal matters…” “Got to put everything in place before you cook.” “You selfish, arrogant little shit! We finally reach a point where we can be civil to one another and you’re just going to, just…HOW DARE YOU!” Just as Helen is about to unleash the mother of all bollockings upon me for having the temerity to die without her permission, Craig comes staggering back into the room and shouts, “forgot the fucking wine!” He stops abruptly, as if he’s about to turn and leave the room, but he seems rooted to the spot. He’s trying to move his upper body but his legs are going nowhere, then his hand goes up to his chest. Then he falls, face-first onto the kitchen floor. He crashes into two stools as he goes down. Helen screams, “Oh my God!” and knocks over her champagne flute as she jumps up. It falls to the floor and smashes into a million little diamonds, scattered around Craig’s prone body on the mahogany floorboards. Mr Pickles runs in and starts yapping his head off, jumping up and down, trying to lick Craig’s face as he writhes and crunches in the broken glass. “Don’t just fucking sit there David, call an ambulance, he’s having a heart attack!” Helen starts chasing the dog around the room, trying to get the little fucker to safety. “Oh Christ. Jesus. Wait, I haven’t got my phone…” Craig is clutching at his chest, his face is turning bright purple but he manages to speak, “no…ambulaaarrgghhh….” “You’re right,” I say. “It’ll take too long, we’ll have to drive you.” “NO!” Craig cries out through the pain. “It’s ok mate, I’ll be driving, not Helen.” “NO HOSPITAL. CALL MY ASS…ARRGGHHH…” “Call your ass…?” “ASS…IS….TANT…” He struggles with his pockets and pulls out his phone. I hold the screen to his gurning, tear-stained face which it recognises immediately and unlocks. “First…number…Natalia…helicopter…” “We are not getting a helicopter for God’s sake!” says Helen. “He could die!” I yell back, realising that saying the words out loud doesn’t sound very reassuring to Craig, but I am quite excited at the prospect of having him airlifted out of here. He probably has his own paramedics on standby. I open up his recent calls and the first on the list is Natalia. In fact, every call on the list is Natalia. I scroll down, there must be at least twenty entries, at every time of day or night. I hope he’s paying her well. He really doesn’t have any friends, and now his heart is about to explode from all the beak he’s been shovelling up his hooter for decades. I picture a funeral with only Natalia present, her one final task before collecting her P45. Just as I’m about to call, I notice Helen, holding a frantic and thrashing Mr. Pickles under her arm and a brown paper bag from Long Bumlington Farm Shop & Lifestyle Emporium in her hand. “Breathe into this.” She shoves the bag over Craig’s mouth and he starts sucking in the air —  ragged and shallow breaths at first but then fuller, deeper. The bag expanding and contracting like an artisanal lung. Gradually he’s able to gain control over his breathing, and then sit up. “Leave it for a minute,” says Helen. “You’re having a panic attack. But you’re going to be fine, Craig.” Tears stream down Craig’s face as he huffs into the bag. Helen’s eyes are welling up too as she steadies herself on the kitchen counter. I’m still holding Craig’s phone when an alarm pings up on the screen. He’s obviously set it for the wrong day because it says: David and Helen coming for dinner tomorrow!!! [smiley face emoji] Tell Natalia to buy beef fillet and baking powder [winky face emoji]. In for a penny, in for a pound I think, as I open up Craig’s notes app out of morbid curiosity. Sure enough, the first thing I see: Get David to apologise to Mr. Pickles! (icebreaker = funny!). Poor bastard. “Right,” I say. “I’m ordering a fucking pizza. Helen, do you still like Hawaiian?” Truthfully I’ve no idea if she likes it or not. Once you reach my age you forget who’s who and which pizza is which. Maybe I’m remembering everything wrong, or imagining a completely different person altogether. Either way, I reckon I’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance. Rick White is a fiction writer whose work has been nominated for Best British and Irish Flash Fictions, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize. Rick’s debut collection, ‘Talking to Ghosts at Parties’ was released in 2022, he is currently working on his first novel. Rick lives in Cheshire with his wife and daughter.

1.) Wake up. It is important to first wake up. Set your alarm for 4:59 a.m., but wake up at 4:58 a.m. This will establish your dominance vis-a-vis your alarm, and so you will wake up feeling like a strong, independent individual right off the bat. When you wake up, open your eyes. After you open your eyes, shout, "I'm awake bitches!" as loud as you can. Then twist your body violently so you fall out of bed and land on the floor in a push-up position. Do seven to eight push-ups. Stand up and say, "I'm an independent and dominant individual." Brush your teeth using toothpaste with fluoride in it. Put water on your body and then put soap on your body and then put water on your body and then wipe off the water with a material of your choice. Put on clothes, look in the mirror, and say, "I'm an independent and dominant individual." If you have a dog, pick up its food bowl and say, "I'm an independent and dominant individual," and then put its food bowl back down. If you have a cat, throw it out. Cats will never consider you a dominant individual and so they will just lower your self-esteem over time. If you have a cat, place it lightly in the trash. 2.) Now that you’ve established dominance, it's time to attend to your body's needs. Go to Trader Joe's. Grab a cart. Push the cart and put things into it. Put only brown or green things into the cart. Brown or green things such as broccoli, such as peas, such as potatoes. This will keep your body slender and strong. Put about fifteen brown or green things into the cart. Do NOT put in any tomatoes (regardless of whether they still have some green). We will be buying our tomatoes elsewhere, for reasons that will become evident in time. I’m holding back the information on the tomatoes for now for tension-building purposes. Who knows what’s up with this tomato situation? Keep this as a lesson: Add mystery and intrigue to your life wherever possible by withholding minor details of it from your friends and family. If your parents ask how your weekend was, tell them you will let them know in one year. Push your cart to the checkout person. Now that you’re interacting with another human being, it's time to shift from an independent mindset to a loving-kindness mindset. When the checkout person asks how you are, say, "I am a loving person." While they put your food into bags, compliment them in various ways. Say things like, "Wonderful form!" and "Great bagging!" and “Oh yeah, oh wow, oh yes, that’s right on!” For even better results, you could adjust your comments for gender. If the bag-person is a man, you could say, “Looks like you’ve been working out!” If the bag-person is a woman, you could say, “Thatta girl!” If the bag person is non-binary, you could say, “Go get 'em, tiger!” This will make the bag-person experience feelings of Gratefulness and Warmth. They may even thank you directly. If they do, it is important to stay humble. Humbleness is essential for living a properly fulfilled life. To be humble, reply to their thank you with something like, “Oh no, oh no, I’m just a normal person, haha, oh no, I’m nothing special like you say, not an angel, haha, just a normal being.” 3.) Back at home, grab a packet of sugar substitute. Pour a few grains of sugar substitute into your palm. Lick your palm. Note how it tastes. Then look at your phone and get mad at something on your phone. This can be a news event, a text from an estranged family member, or a social media post from a stranger you disagree with; you’re even free to get mad at the phone itself for opening up applications too slowly. Just get angry at something on your phone. It’s important to feel the full spectrum of emotion in this life. You cannot understand the good without the bad. This exercise will allow you to experience the bad in a controlled and productive manner. Once you’re nice and angry, turn off your phone and put it in a corner. Spit at your phone until it's covered in a thick mound of saliva and call it names. For example, “Silicon bitch.” Flick your phone with your finger; this, considering its size, will be a pretty devastating blow. Tell your phone to think about what it's done. Now that you've experienced a bad emotion like anger, grab the packet of sugar substitute again. Pour another few grains of sugar substitute into your palm. Lick your palm. The sugar substitute will now taste approximately 250% better. 4.) No life can be completely fulfilled without a friend and/or lover. But how to find one? Simple. Go to a medium to large-sized park. Look around for a person you would like to be friends and/or lovers with. Take a look at their attributes. These can be things like cool hats, or rockin’ sneaks. Or even, how their face looks. Once you spot someone you like, pick up a stick and throw it at them. Make sure to throw it at their back. Then run up and say you saw who threw the stick at them, but that you chased the assailant away. The victim will be profuse in their gratitude. If you want to be their friend, respond, “It was nothing. Just a friendly little act.” The use of “friendly” in your statement will subconsciously plant the idea in their mind that you will become great friends. If you want to be their lover, respond, “It was nothing. Just wanted to help someone out on such a lovely day.” Subconsciously, the person will now be brimming with sexual desire. Tell them you’d love to get their number, but unfortunately you’ve left your cell in a corner of your home, drenched in spittle. Invite them over to see it. 5.) On the way, approach a fruit and vegetable vendor with your potential friend or lover. Yes, it’s tomato time! Shake the hand of the fruit and vegetable vendor. Say something completely random to the fruit and vegetable vendor, something like, “Two lakes don’t make a brick, saw them today, no cap,” and laugh. To your potential friend or lover watching, this will make it seem like you are a super sociable person who has inside jokes with all the local fruit and vegetable vendors. Then say, “I would like to buy a tomato.” Buy one firm, plump, red tomato. Turn to your potential friend or lover and show them your prize. Even if they don’t externalize it, inside they will be extremely impressed. 6.) Enter your kitchen with your potential friend or lover. For a potential friend, make a delicious tomato salad with the tomato. While making the salad, recite some movie quotes. For example, you could say, “You're gonna need a bigger boat,” or “Open the pod bay doors, HAL." People love it when someone can recite movie quotes. It shows the quoter to be a fun-loving and cultured person. Bonus points if you can say the line in the same accent or inflection as the actor! Eat the tomato salad with your potential friend and play different board games based on their likes and dislikes. For example, if your potential friend is a money-hoarding psychopath, play Monopoly. Or, if they really like ladders—steel ladders, plastic ladders, all types of ladders—play Chutes and Ladders! By the end of the fourth or fifth game, you will find that your potential friend is now just a friend. Turn on your phone and make them punch numbers and letters into it. For a potential lover, do NOT make tomato salad. Instead, on entering the kitchen, ask your potential lover if they would be more comfortable with their clothes off. Explain that your home is a clothes-free—no judgment—zone, and it is totally fine with you if they'd prefer to go clothesless. If they’re shy, explain that it’s really no big thing, and take off your shirt to make them feel welcome to do the same. Your potential lover will now feel Supported and Secure. Once you're both naked, say, “Well, since our clothes are already off, any chance you’d want to make love?” Your potential lover will respond “Yes” before you can even finish the sentence. After you receive their consent (remember, consent is sexy!), tell them to lie down on the floor. Cut the tomato into bite-sized chunks and place the chunks at diverse points on their body. Enter a sexual/romantic mindset. Stand above your potential lover and concentrate. If they ask what you’re doing, say, “I am trying to enter a sexual/romantic mindset.” You will know you’ve entered the mindset once your groin area develops a thin film of perspiration. When this happens, begin to slurp the tomato chunks off your potential lover's body. Save the last slurp for the tomato chunk(s) you placed on their genitalia. Then slurp their genitalia itself. Rub your genitalia—with proper protection!!!!!!!!!!!!!—against/in/around their genitalia in traditional and novel ways. In this matter, it’s important to be well-read in both the latest issues of Cosmopolitan and Hustler, as well as to have an ear to the streets. Your potential lover will now just be your lover! Give them a little kiss on the cheek and say a movie quote. “It's alive! It's alive!" *** To read the remaining steps, you need to sign up for my newsletter. The “How to Live a Fulfilled Life Newsletter.” What? Did you think I’d give out all the secrets of fulfillment for free? You dumb stupid idiot? You miserably unfulfilled toad? Become a platinum-tier member on my website, HowToLiveAFufilledLife.com, for only $299.99 a month(1), and get not only the newsletter but also free admission to one Fulfillment Seminar™ a year, where I will personally read these steps to you while standing on a stage. You will be sitting on a gray metal folding chair many feet below me. You cretinous, grotesque worm. Buy within the next twenty-four hours and receive your membership half off!(2) Until then: so long! _______________________ 1 $24.99 processing, $14.99 wellness, and $789.99 maintenance fee not included in figure. 2 Price reduction applies only to wellness fee.† _______________________________________ † Wellness fee discount applies only to first month of membership. Tyler Plofker is a writer in NYC. In his free time, he likes drinking water. He tweets badly @TylerPlofker.

Among the many striking elements of Jane Ayres’ rich, multi-faceted poetry, none is more apparent than her use of imagery, the intricate dance that effortlessly changes lead from description to personification and back again. In her latest collection, my lost womb still sings to me, this back-and-forth exchange moves slowly and fluidly through her retelling of a major surgery and subsequent life change, and it lands not softly but defiantly. It is a blistering ode to the art of life, whether that comes singing or screaming, and does not shy away from its seasons and their constant, inherent shifts. From hidden in plain sight: she wears the cloak of invisibility well a woman of her age if the cap fits they say perhaps that’s why you favour rougerage/vividpinkneon/viole(n)t disguise over silver ash made volcanic to be noticed seen not lost in a feathered tangle of word-holes spilling suns & daughters From another hot flush: & despite my debt to the suffragette sisterhood despite the feminist fight despite myself I capitulate comply & simply wait for the blistering heat to subside let it pass (again) one day this volcano will erupt On the surface, each piece is a chapter in verse, the story of the sometimes-hell that is womanhood. In truth, it’s a reflection of everyone who has examined themselves and been surprised to see someone they didn’t recognize; or, equally as likely, someone else that they do. From eggs: when I look in the mirror I see your face me become you become me splinters of maternal love jagged beneath my skin the comfort & fear of inevitability the future foreshadowed no more eggs for me While teetering between acceptance (because what choice do we have?) and raging against the cruelty of aging, implied or inescapable (or both), this work is meant to resonate. Beyond that, it serves as a reminder that we don’t have to lose ourselves fully along the way. From care taker / private property: lacerations  /  the memory of a thing more real than the thing itself sniffing at the way the light still shines / stringing the lines watching your cadence drawing a veil i am empty but my hunger grows my lost womb still sings to me is available now through Porkbelly Press: https://porkbellypress.com/poetry/lostwomb UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize. In 2021, she was nominated for Best of the Net, shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Her first collection edible was published by Beir Bua Press (July 2022) and her work has appeared in over 100 publications that include Lighthouse, Streetcake, Magma, Ink Sweat & Tears and can be heard on Eat the Storms, Upload and Blue Door to the Cosmos. She has been guest poet at O Bhéal and Medway River Lit and recently started combining her words and images on her YouTube channel because it’s fun! Website: janeayreswriter.wordpress.com Twitter: @workingwords50 https://www.youtube.com/@slowgallop451

While reading through A.R. Williams’ debut collection A Funeral in the Wild: Poems, I became haunted by the concept of a sense of place: of roots, where they attach, and what happens when those things change. Human nature dictates a need for some semblance of structure, of routine — we adapt to people and places, adjust to circumstances, find comfort in everything from reliable seasons to building structures to curtain colors. We acclimate, “bloom where we’re planted” to quote a cliché, for better or worse. A harsher truth dictates that nothing in life is static. Williams reflects tenderly on life’s impermanence in this work, chronicling painful absences ranging from human presence to former homes to love lost in the tide and the remnants we reckon with in their wake. From The Newlywed: As I stare at another feeble attempt to delay the inevitable, I am reminded of my early years of marriage. I was young, broken, hurting, and confused, trying to love another, while lacking love for myself. Self-help books, prayer, empty promises— bungy cords, ropes, zip ties. From On My Porch: A breeze wafts its earthy, chemical breath on my porch. Here, I taste your nebulizer drug just as I did those many winter eves. From Dog Tag Necklace: A blissful boy, I wore your pride around my neck, until the chain disappeared from the pool that summer. Today, I saw a cadet at the pharmacy and recalled the pool, wondering whether your approval was still there. If nothing in life is permanent, that also extends to despair. Constant shifting of circumstances means you find what is good and beautiful again even in the wake of loss. A Funeral in the Wild: Poems is not merely a documentation of destruction but an observation of that shifting, like the changes in a beach’s appearance at high and low tide. From What Gives Me Hope: But that was before the pizza became cold, the ballpark expensive, and this house, too small. Now, we long to bud where we were first planted. But today our neighbor— the gardener—said that of all weeds, dandelions can withstand the harshest growing conditions. A Funeral in the Wild: Poems by A.R. Williams is scheduled for release in February 2024 through Kelsay Books. A.R. Williams (PhD, Bangor University, Wales) lives with his family in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He has been widely published in poetry journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is also the editor of East Ridge Review. A Funeral in the Wild: Poems is his first poetry collection. Twitter @andrewraywill

We sell popcorn. It’s our job, even if it’s not a sufficient economic provider. We abide by rules and maintain standards and report to an employer that doesn’t care about us, but something brings us back every day. We load the machine. We scoop out the popcorn. We fill the variously sized boxes. We speak to customers, naughty and nice. We tidy shelves. We sweep floors. We do toilet checks. We change and take out bins. We scour the showtimes for typos. We count the money. But we also sneak into films. Sometimes, we’re given permission to sit in on screenings. Other times, we go in anyway. For those pockets of 90, 120, or 150 minutes, we’re defibrillated. We’re on stilts, watching from high above ground, untouchable by the miserable shift manager or overqualified duty manager who otherwise have the power to relegate us to floor level. To popcorn machine level. To cash register level. We sneak into commercial blockbusters and arthouse gems. Films that make us smile and films that make us shout. Films we disappear into the crowd for, glad to not be responsible for people’s experience. Films that less successfully distract our terms of employment – that we discretely scoop up popcorn during, wipe down a seat with an anti-bac cloth during. Those films repel us. Others invite us in. The doors to screen 5 are unguarded by a ticket checker. This is a weekday matinee commonplace, for anything higher than screen 2. 20 minutes after the advertised start, I’m in screen 5, seated on the back row, momentarily pretending to dustpan and brush spilled pick ‘n’ mix. 10 minutes later, after the post-advert trailers have turned back into adverts, I stop pretending to dustpan and brush. Mick – the team favourite – is shift manager today, meaning we could gut a patron, move the body, and clean up the mess (negating the possibility of a crime scene) and he wouldn’t notice. His head would be in a crossword or his attention on a YouTube tutorial for sushi making. His feet up on his “desk.” The door to his “office” closed. 5 minutes later, I escape with Scarlett Johansson to Glasgow. She’s an alien taking human form; I’m an idle spectator, at the mercy of whatever instructions or advice or warnings her character and the film wish to give me. Johannsson’s alien seduces Scottish men and traps them in an all-black void, where they become submerged in a liquid abyss. I only sink into the fabrics of my uncomfortable red seat. I think of my Dad leaving my Mum a year ago. I wonder where he is. I think of the deferred university place I’m soon scheduled to take up, a year later. I think about whether the transportation from one world to another and the permanent closure of my comfort zone are worth it. I think of the corn kernel which expands and puffs when heated. I think about whether sales of sweet will outdo sales of salted today – and about who will bother to record this information for Mick. Sweet or salted… salted or sweet. George Oliver has just finished a PhD on contemporary transatlantic literature at King's College London, where he also taught American literature for three years. He is both a short fiction and culture writer. His short stories have recently appeared in The Bookends Review, BRUISER, Clackamas Literary Review, Eunoia Review, and Querencia Press.

My nana used to have a patio at her apartment that was full of lush, green potted plants.  I remember her taking such pride in opening the sliding glass door to take her full watering can to her little suburban jungle.  She quenched each of them until the water spilled over the sides of their pots or through the hole in the bottom.  Her concrete jackrabbits guarded the big pots on the ground and the hanging plants swung slightly with the North County San Diego breeze and visiting hummingbirds.  Nana’s apartment was a magical place with a warm, clean scent like vanilla and dryer sheets.  Her bedroom closet floor was coated in a couple of layers of shoes she always let me try on.  Her hall closet was full of Mary Kay products.  Lots of formula 1 skin care and night cream.  Nana used to make me peanut butter and banana sandwiches, sometimes with honey drizzled on the bananas. We watched the 1970s version of Romeo and Juliet when I spent the night one time, after we watered her thriving plants.  Memories of Nana, now that she is gone, hit me at unexpected times.  One of these times, I thought it would be a good idea to grow some plants.   Evelyn and I decided to plant some seeds.  I thought we were doing well with our plants.  They were growing.  Then, we went on a long weekend out of town.  Now, the plants are withering as fast as I am. CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes.  She has presented over 50 times at communication conferences, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections: God Bless Paul, Soup Stories: A Reconstructed Memoir, and Writing Our Love Story, and three chapbooks: The Way We Were, Tumbleweed:  Against All Odds, and The Villain Wore a Hero’s Face.  She is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA.

Mama’s strides back and forth make sun and shadow fall in rhythm: dark light dark light. A drumbeat or a heart. Benita glances up from the kitchen table and watches Mama press her mobile phone to her ear. Benita is working on her project for school. She needs to draw something that means home. Though she knows her classmates will fill pages with tile-roofed houses, she’s chosen to draw a zunzuncito, the tiny bee hummingbird. To create an extra vivid emerald, she licks the tip of a green pencil to layer on top of blue. It tasted like a pebble on her tongue. Beside the zunzuncito, she draws the zunzun, a regular-sized hummingbird, which is still smaller than many of Cuba’s butterflies. Mama’s pacing slows and she begins to speak into the phone, explaining the letting agent’s email. There’s a pause and she squawks: “Reasonable! That much more rent every month?” Benita knows what comes next. Their few belongings in boxes, with half abandoned where they stand. Nights on the sofas of friends from Mama’s English Language classes. And, eventually, a new place with stale cigarette smoke hanging in thin curtains and fist-sized dents in the walls. Another fresh start, in this country so far from Benita’s fire-headed papi and home. She adds a dot of red to the fierce zunzuncito’s eyes to match that fire that burns inside her sometimes too. Her school shoes already squeeze tight again. Everything here feels too small. Scuffing her toes against the bumpy linoleum floor, she remembers her abuela’s balcony, the hot scent of lime trees growing in blue glazed pots, and the glitter of battling hummingbirds defending territory. From the kitchen she heard the chatter clatter of talk radio and Abuela laying out plates. “Benitacita, lunch is ready!” She felt those sounds and smells like water lifting her body. The lowland forest hummed, its treetops hiding the ocean beyond. Judy Darley lives in southwest England. She is the author of short fiction collections The Stairs are a Snowcapped Mountain (Reflex Press), Sky Light Rain (Valley Press) and Remember Me to the Bees (Tangent Books). Her words have been published and performed on BBC radio and aboard boats, in museums, caves, a disused church and an artist’s studio. Find Judy at http://www.skylightrain.com; https://twitter.com/JudyDarley.

Why such an intelligent-looking physically strong young guy is behind the counter selling sandwiches at the airport? When I ask him to make me a tuna sandwich he points at his ear indicating he can’t hear well. “Tuna on one of those big Parisian rolls, sil vous plait,” I shout. He nods. “American?” I shout, “Canadian. From Quebec.” He nods again and asks my name. “Victor Hugo,” I shout. He frowns. “Yeah, and I am Quasimodo.” I want to explain to him my father’s last name was Hugo and my mother was a voracious reader, and the two of them had decided early on if the baby was going to be a boy they would name him Victor. Back in Montreal my French speaking buddies think it’s a cool name, otherwise no big deal. This guy here at CDG is different; he seems quite pissy about it. Hello, it’s my name! When I insist that I want the sandwich, he flips the bird and turns to the next in line. I see the manager is at the other end of the store. I go complain to him; he waves it away. “Don’t mind him, he is cranky today, he’s got some girlfriend problem. And it doesn’t help he sometimes works nightshift in the Notre-Dame. Apparently not a cakewalk, a real back-breaking job. Let me make you that sandwich. It’s on the house.” He makes the tuna sandwich and he hands it to me with a friendly smile. I am inclined to ask him the crazy assistant’s name but decide against it. That would be too much information. John O’Keefe is a scientist, trilingual translator and fiction/prosimetrum writer. His short stories and prosimetra have been published in Every Day Fiction, Microfiction Monday, Six Sentences, 50WS, Paragraph Planet, FFF, New North, Irreproducible Results, etc.

Elixir He took the pills dutifully. She thought they were cyanide. Turned out to be Cialis. She decided to give the old bastard a second chance. Tightly Wound Greta whispered to George as they arrived, “I’ll distract them. You snag Sam’s Rolex off his dresser.” That’s when she realized she’d butt-dialed Sam’s wife. Old Flame Where his heart should have been was sawdust and straw. He never told me why, only that he wanted to love. He just didn’t know how. Kathryn Silver-Hajo is a 2023 Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing nominee. Her flash collection Wolfsong was published in May 2023. Her novel, Roots of the Banyan Tree is forthcoming this Fall. For more, visit: kathrynsilverhajo.com

1: The Pigeon and the city Sure, let’s stand on the corner. Grow, Your beak demands bread, So grow. Whoever told you, lies, An architect of you IS implied. You are in this city how I was once in a womb. 2: Rooster This is my Rooster. Sit on the bench Here, he’s ancient. I find it an honor He’s so aware That I am here. If I could read his tail It’d be a Dinosaur novella. 3: Getting to know Ame Gentle Ame on the sidewalk, Let’s talk. I carry sheep fur. Should it be A cumulonimbus coat Or my beard for now? Cup my chin and See how well we fit. Regardless, I am not the best porridge in the house, Little bear. 4: The unreliability of memory Flying saucer; Land here, Next to the dark Beside the car. My fingerprints do Cover you. As though I grew You in my garden. Pruned until proper And I saw my face. 5: My dying Egyptian cat You’re a good cat. Can I be honest? For your next win Death will breathe you in. Pyramids and kings All need skins Just like yours. I must ask, “What do you think of your newest free son, King Tut?”

"This has gone far enough,” snapped Maurice Sterling, head editor of The Story Quarterly (TSQ). He paced back and forth in the editors’ room, which was little more than a storage closet. Emily, one of his first readers, sat on an overturned egg crate. Unfortunately she hadn’t bothered to check whether the eggs were still inside, and right now she could feel raw yolk and whites oozing into the bottoms of her brand-new ergonomic heels. But she didn’t want to move and risk disrupting her boss’s rant. “This Lorna Ergot—this unrelenting, indefatigable so-called writer—this spot of fungus—is ruining our journal! I can’t take it anymore. This is her sixth submission this week. And it’s only Wednesday! Where on earth does she keep coming up with this drivel?” Despite its cramped quarters, TSQ was one of the most respected literary journals in circulation. Many of its authors had not only been submitted for but actually won Pushcart Prizes, and several had gone on to become bestselling novelists. The journal prided itself on its free submissions policy, which made sure that writers of every economic background had an equal shot, as well as not ever having implemented one of those very annoying “You can submit only once every three/six/seventeen months” policies. Maurice continued: “And it can’t be AI, either. I’ve checked. Every tech bro from here to Silicon Valley is trying to seize a spot in our journal by getting Chat GPT or some other godforsaken software to write their corny so-called fiction about lost college sweethearts and brothers who died while playing water polo and all that, but Miss Fungus’s writing, on a pure line level, is both too unique and somehow too foul to have begun as code. It’s so bad that there’s something almost…unholy about it.” He ran a hand across his brow, which was the color and texture of old cheese. “I fear that we’re not only taking time and attention away from more deserving writers, but also overwhelming our slush readers. As well as our first and second readers! Emily and Johnny, how do you feel about the amount of work that you’ve been facing lately? Don’t bother answering, I can tell by the expressions on your faces. And your peers, Chelsea and Dylan—” (they weren’t there; there wasn’t enough room in the storage closet for five people) “—I’m sure they’re close to breakdowns themselves.” “Why don’t you simply tell her she’s no good and to stop submitting?” inquired Emily, a little stung at the implication that she was visibly close to a breakdown. Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting. She hoped that it wasn’t also making her skin look like old cheese. “I’ve taken the Hypocritical Oath!” Maurice roared. “Don’t you mean the Hippocratic Oath?” she asked, wondering if she had missed her boss’s becoming a doctor. “No. I mean the Hypo-critical Oath. The oath that all head editors of top-tier literary magazines take—and I invented it. You see, hypo means less than, and critical means….critical. The very formulation of the word is an homage to my passion for linguistics. It’s an oath that requires us to find something to admire in every submission, no matter how small—something, in other words, not to criticize. And let me tell you, with Lorna’s work, sometimes it takes a good two hours to dig something like that out of one of her stories!” “But doesn’t hypocritical also mean—” began Johnny, a second reader, but Emily stomped on his foot. Johnny looked down in dismay at the raw egg goop covering his wingtip shoe. “What about banning her from submitting?” Emily suggested. “No. We can never do that. Remember the guy who submitted to the New Yorker fifty-odd times and finally got in, and his story was the darling of writing critics everywhere for months? It was a Hypocritical Jubilee—nobody had the slightest bit of criticism to give! So who knows…this Lorna Ergot might be the next William Faulkner.” He sighed. “Probably not. But she’d surely find a way to get around a ban. A new email…a new IP address…we can’t lower ourselves to playing games with this woman.” Emily and Johnny looked at each other. Surely he wasn’t going to expect them to come up with a solution. They were egg-encrusted unpaid readers, for god’s sake. “So the only course of action remains clear.” Maurice marched over to a section of the wall that appeared blank, reached up and wrestled with something at the top, and finally, with a great clanking and puffing of dust, a small blackboard rattled down. He searched in vain for chalk; not finding it, he turned to Emily. “Emily,” he said in the most courteous voice she’d ever heard him use, “might I make use of your concealer?” A minute later, he had used Emily’s bright white concealer (she was already very pale) to draw a dic—a mushroom–on the blackboard. It really looked like a dick, but Maurice insisted that it was a mushroom, for “Miss Fungus.” As he continued drawing, Emily tried experimentally to raise her feet from the ground. The eggs were already drying and her shoes were well on their way to being stuck there. So, slowly, trying not to make too much noise, she wiggled first one foot, then the other, attempting to loosen the egg but only managing to create soft squelching noises. Maurice painted an arrow pointing from the dick/mushroom to the right side of the chalkboard, and then began to draw something else. But he was running out of concealer, and managed only a semicircle before the line faded thinner and thinner into nothing. “What’s that supposed to be?” asked Johnny. “Death,” Maurice declared grandly. “Just—pretend this is a skull.” “Shame he used up so much of the concealer when he was drawing the dick,” Johnny whispered to Emily. “Like, did he really need to add a cock ring?” “That is the ring of the mushroom!” Maurice snapped. “The annulus, in other words!” “What do you mean by death?” Emily asked. She felt like she should be shocked, but she’d read so many fucked-up stories over the last few months that she felt like she simply had no more shocks to give. “It’s simple. We cannot ban Lorna Ergot from submitting. We cannot add yet more slush pile readers to deal with her, we cannot impose a prohibitory submissions fee, we cannot change the journal’s name and move across the country. There is only one option left to us. We need to meet the problem at its source—and eradicate it.” “Like stomping on a mushroom,” Johnny said, nodding wisely, trying to redeem himself from the cock ring comment. “Like stomping on an egg.” Emily sighed. She tried, gingerly, to raise her foot again. Another squelch. Another sigh. ___ Lorna Ergot prided herself on her tenacity. Not just her tenacity but her creativity, her ability to not only accept all the lemons life had thrown at her but to seize them with open arms, squeeze them into the brightest-tasting lemonade you’d ever seen, throw away the desiccated rinds, and then yell, IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? Today she was on her way to the grocery store. She supplemented her full-time-writer’s diet with fruit, cheese, and an ungodly amount of meat. Upon entering the store, she found herself facing a table with a few cups on it. It looked like one of those promotional setups that brands did sometimes. She attempted to breeze by, but was blocked by a dark-haired man with a knowing glint in his eye. He nodded to the table. “Won’t you try our special Honey-Nectar drink? It’s free.” “I hope it would be,” she said. “Except I don’t eat sugar. Or drink it,” she added. “Clogs the writing gears.” He nodded like he understood. “I totally get that. I’m something of a writer myself! What about our, uh, brand-new Focus drink? It’s got cucumber, celery, lettuce, and…spinach. It’s about the healthiest drink you could ever have.” Lorna actually got excited as he began to list the ingredients, but then her heart dropped at the mention of spinach. “I’m terribly sorry, but spinach has histamines, and I have MCAS. I can’t eat spinach, mushrooms, citrus, tomatoes…” “No mushrooms?” the man gasped in what appeared to be genuine surprise, and then clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes darting from side to side. “Why is that such a surprise? I hate mushrooms anyway.” “No—nothing—I just think that everyone should enjoy mushrooms—” he choked out.  “Perhaps you’d like to try our tea? Everyone likes tea—” “Thanks very much, but I’ll pass,” she said, edging away. What a strange fellow. And who wore wingtip shoes to work at a supermarket? It looked like he’d already gotten some gross stuff on them—dried egg whites, by the looks of it. But at least she had some new material for a story now. Odd brand ambassadors who attempted to ensnare passers-by with the queerest concoctions. Yes, she’d start work on that one right away, as soon as she reached home. She wrote parts of it in her head as she progressed down the aisle to the meat department. Time to get some fresh, juicy slabs of steak. But just as she reached the butcher’s station, she felt a tap on her shoulder. A blonde woman asked her if she wouldn’t possibly like to sample some better cuts of meat. “This is just the mediocre stuff,” she said in an undertone. “We keep the real fresh stuff in the back.” “In the back?” Lorna peered over the woman’s shoulder. There didn’t seem to be much of a “back” to the store, other than a dimly-lit passageway that led deeper into the bowels of the building. “Why wouldn’t you keep the freshest meat out here, where there are more customers?” “Because it’s colder in the back,” the woman said quickly. “Much colder. It’s the way the store is designed. It’s so cold that the meat is as fresh as it was when it was sliced directly off the cow—or the lamb—or whatever kind of animal you like.” “It sounds tempting, definitely—” And then the realization hit her like a blast of frigid air. The price. Of course. Meat that was so fresh, and kept so carefully preserved, must be at least twice the cost of the normal stuff. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but I’m on a budget. There’s no way I could afford your fancy meat in the back. So I guess I’ll have to make do with the, ah, mediocre stuff right here.” She gave an apologetic smile. “Mediocre stuff?” The butcher, who had been at the other end of the section up until now, came storming up to them from behind the display case. “What’s going on? There’s nothing wrong with our meat! I’ll have you know it’s premium, Certified Humane, USDA Prime and Choice! And who are you?” He directed this last bit at the woman beside Lorna, but when Lorna turned, all she saw was the back of the woman’s head disappearing into a swarm of customers. Funny. They weren’t as organized over here as they usually were. Lorna considered asking the butcher about this mysterious back section where they kept the super-frozen carcasses. But something about his expression pushed the words back into her throat, and she was only able to smile meekly and ask for her usual twelve pounds of steak. All throughout Lorna’s walk home, the last words the saleswoman had used—or whatever kind of animal you like—kept ringing in her ears. There might be a story there too, yes. Humans were animals, were they not? She hadn’t written a story about cannibalism for a while—it had been at least two weeks—and so her mind began to swim with ideas, ideas that began to shape themselves into words and then into sentences. She was so busy thinking about all the stories she was soon to write that she didn’t even notice the man racing towards her—at least not until it was too late. “OOF!” Their bodies connected with a thud. Lorna wavered a bit but didn’t fall, as the two bags she carried—six pounds of meat in one hand, six in the other—held her steady. The man, on the other hand, fell heavily backward onto the pavement, all the wind knocked out of him. “Oh my gosh. Are you all right?” Lorna peered down at the man, who was writhing on the ground like an insect that had gotten all its limbs plucked off. The image was starkly terrifying—a butterfly with its wings peeled away, a spider without any legs—and she took a step backwards. The mental image was so vivid that it began to overtake her, and she had a thought—the same thought she had at least six but sometimes as many as twenty times a day—I must write. Forgetting the stranger, she hurried inside her house. When she deposited the grocery bags onto the counter, she found yet another surprise—a huge knife was buried in one of the bags of steak, almost to the hilt. “Well, I do have my own knives, you know,” she muttered crossly. “What must they think of me at that store? Do I really look like someone who buys twelve pounds of meat a week to just gnaw on it?” These words immediately gave rise to another mental image, one mixed with her earlier idea—cannibalism without knives or forks, just people chewing on each other’s leg bones. And that could tie into the image of the man writhing on the pavement—oh, the man on the pavement! She should check if he was okay. Lorna opened her door and peered out into the street, but to her relief, the man seemed all right: he had already gotten up and was walking into the distance. His steps were hard and fast and he was punching one fist into the other hand over and over—even from here she could hear the meaty slap of it. As well a furious string of curses. “Sorry!” she called, but she wasn’t sure if he even heard her. Bemused, she watched him disappear. But then she began to smile. It had been an unexpectedly interesting day, and she had so much to write about. She could sense at least four or five stories tugging at her right now, clamoring in her brain, demanding that she write them down. And maybe one of these stories would finally get her accepted into TSQ—into her dream journal. Maybe. Amy DeBellis is a writer from New York. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications including Flash Frog, HAD, Pithead Chapel, Maudlin House, Monkeybicycle, Atticus Review, and JMWW. Her debut novel is forthcoming from CLASH Books (2024).

It’s September and I’m ten years old and eating a Sabrett hot dog at Shea as the Mets lose to the Expos. The 1992 Mets may have gone down as one of the worst teams money could buy, but to me they’re blue and gray and orange Gods of the diamond, supernatural creatures doing superhuman feats on my very own field of dreams and nothing will stop me from root, root, rooting for them. This is another Uncle Jim outing since my parents spend their weekends negotiating their divorce. My little sister Stephanie was forced to come along too. But that’s fine because Steady Eddie Murray is up and though he’s not playing well and we all know the umpires have it in for him, everyone is up in their seats and the Sabrett onions are running red and slimy down my arm and Stephanie says “my tummy hurts” and I say “shut up, Eddie Murray is up,” pronouncing Murray like Mur-ray like a stingray or ray of sunshine instead of the correct Mur-ree like furry because I don’t know, it sounds fancier and what could be fancier than eating a genuine Sabrett at Shea? But William A. Shea is dead and the Mets are on life support and my uncle, even drunker than usual, spills just a tiny drop or two—accidentally of course, he’s not mean, he’s just a sloppy drunk and boisterous fan—of his Bud on the old lady in front of him. Uh-oh, this Bud’s for you. The old lady, enjoying getting taken out to the ballgame, doesn’t even notice. But her grandsons do. Both of them. And they’re huge and they stand up from either side of her like monsters from an orange-blue sea and one says, “Did you spill beer on my gramma, motherfucker?” Uncle Jim is drunk but sober enough to assess his odds, admit his mistake, and make amends. He says, “Fellas, an accident. An honest accident. Let me buy you a round. A couple of Buds and Sabretts, huh, and we can all enjoy the game.” He eyes my sister and I nervously, the dutiful uncle. In response, the other brother throws his beer in my uncle’s face—I see it still, the froth across his shirt, in his graying mustache, his eyes—and my uncle, middle-aged but spry ConEd electrician and Air Cav Vietnam War vet, forgets his niece and nephew, forgets his odds, even, incredibly, forgets the Mets, and launches himself at the man in front of him like a mustachioed missile, punching and kicking and teaching me a whole textbook of novel curses in the thirty seconds or so it takes for the brothers to break his nose and blacken both his eyes and knock him two rows down where he’s restrained by some fellow Mets fans who appreciate the excitement. More signs of life in the stands than on the field. Security comes and we’re swept up like so much stadium trash and brought to a room in the bowels of Shea. One guard sits us on a bench outside the room while my uncle tries to sweet talk the security higher-ups inside to avoid getting the cops involved. I ask the guard how Murray did. “Struck out,” he says. Stephanie takes my hand and says, “I want to go home.” The guard disappears into the room for a minute and returns, handing me a box of Cracker Jacks and a Mr. Met bobblehead doll before disappearing again. I open the box for Stephanie and she inhales a handful and promptly throws up on my shoes. The vomit is thin, reddish on the concrete floor and watery as the Sabrett onion sauce, with half-chewed Cracker Jacks floating in it like little popcorn icebergs. We sit like that for a while, the vomit soaking into my shoes, Mr. Met’s dumb grinning baseball head bobbling at us. My uncle emerges from the room holding his blood-soaked t-shirt and wearing a new one with the Tasmanian Devil in a Mets uniform. “Good folks here cleared me of all charges,” he says. “The head of security is a fellow veteran and Mets fan. But we’ve got to clear out for today.” Stephanie starts crying. I stand and I want to cry too. The floor feels mushy in my vomit-soggy shoes, wobbly, just as my world feels wobbly as my parents and their lawyers decide where we’ll live and who will raise us. Jim picks up Stephanie and says “Don’t worry, darling, we can catch the rest of the game on the radio.” Then he taps Mr. Met’s head making it bobble and asks me, “How did Steady Eddie do?” Jon Doughboy is languishing in right field. Take a gander at his errors from the nosebleed section over @doughboywrites