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A woman with the ability to shoot milk from her nipples was arrested for assault Tuesday after temporarily blinding Congressman Roger Mashpee while he was enroute to a meeting with representatives from the dairy industry. Irene O'Meara, 31, was seen being ushered inside a police vehicle following her arrest. The three-year-old and infant with O’Meara at the time of her arrest were placed into the custody of O’Meara’s sister. The incident is believed to be part of a larger protest against Initiative 461, which would relabel all white potable beverages other than cow’s milk as mylk. This is said to include the liquid produced within human mammalian glands (the liquid formerly known as breastmilk). Candice Barnes is a congressional staffer who passed O’Meara earlier in the day. "She was pushing one of those double-seat red strollers up Capitol Hill. I thought she was a homeschool mom on a field trip. She looked tired. She certainly didn’t look like she was about to commit a crime," Barnes said. Others reported similar sentiments. Several remember seeing O’Meara open a single-serving box of soymilk and hand it to her preschool age child, who attempted to consume it but spilled most on his infant sibling while his mother, behind him, unbuttoned her shirt in order to deploy her nipple guns. “Yes, she’s had the milk-shooters her entire life, at least since she [developed]. No, there was never an issue growing up. My sister is extremely trustworthy and peaceful. She won’t use her nips unless she feels she has absolutely no other choice,” said Colleen Kampke, 34. Kampke added that her sister is “an awesome mama and an extremely informed consumer.” Women with the ability to shoot milk from their nipples is a rare but documented trait with recorded incidents dating back to at least 1566. Attempts to isolate and reproduce the ability had been a longtime focus of biologists and geneticists throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1929, an international team was assembled and assigned to the study. The end goal would have been an army of milk-shooting warriors. Progress on a lacto-army stalled when sufficient numbers of research subjects could not be located for study. Researchers followed up on countless“friend-of-a-friend” stories. Funding was cut when many of these turned out to be pornography. Mashpee’s wife, Brenda Miller-Mashpee, appeared at the family residence later in the day to give a statement to reporters. “I don’t understand why people are so upset. Milk is good for you. Drink your milk, kids,” Miller-Mashpee said. Members of the anti-dairy industry protest organization known as Milk-It report that O’Meara’s name was not listed as one of their contacts, but add that they allow members to enroll anonymously. According to Graham Stader, a representative with Milk-It, “We are against Initiative 461 as it seeks to lower the status of alternative milk products and preserve the role of cow’s milk as the only acceptable form of the beverage.” The story spread quickly on social media. Dozens of lookie-loos, apparently hoping for a repeat performance, gathered on the site Tuesday evening holding empty milk jugs and wearing swim goggles. Police cleared the area by nightfall and it has remained clear as of press time. Mashpee was treated at Slattering Memorial Hospital and released. No other injuries were reported. When Alice Kinerk is not writing fiction, she loves to play Scrabble. She recently memorized the two-word list, now she’s working on the three-letter words. She’s been published or has work forthcoming in Oyster River Pages, South Dakota Review, Rock Salt Journal, and elsewhere.

jumping spiders how to begin the story of that house, that house of never too much heady wine and hard cheese, house that thumped earth, wind & fire on repeat, its dappled chamois walls eternally itching to be disco lit, lava lamps swerving in purple counterpoint, house of sweat soaked bitter enders and stragglers, stray cats and terriers, house that saw more than its share of annual italian family melodrama at the holidays, its door slams as expected as nonna’s gnocchi or ma’s pizzaiola, house of the falling porch and squirrels in the crawlspace, always something lurking in the crevices, always something on the edge of broken, that house of love and lies, oh, how i loved and hated that house, that house of living breathing ghosts that knew a secret history, that house of no apologies, that house full of quiet dread and creeping, i kept a jelly jar by the bedroom window to catch and release all the frequent fliers and crawlers, those six-and eight-leggers who traveled through the cracks to set up shop in that house, how they filled the emptiness, those ladybugs by the dozens sunning on the sill all summer long, the bark beetles taking a break from devouring the giant beech tree, the occasional bumblebee losing its way from the daisies in the garden, once that house hosted a family of jumping spiders emerging behind the turbo toilet whose flush could wake our city block, it’s said that jumping spiders can see the moon, i scooped them up with the lid and set them free out back, thinking all they wanted was in and all i wanted was out of there. full malibu in my dreamhouse playtime with barbies always started with swimsuits & splits they pressed pink lips against lips against necks then full malibu striptease their hands stirred every part of their bodies fingers brushed wisps of blond hair pressed blonde hips legs interlaced rubbing tribbing breasts to breasts crotch to crotch lite brite threw primary colors on curves ken watched from the teal fashion closet on occasion barbie let g.i. joe take her from behind while her friends took turns pleasing her from the front then forgot about joe when it was naked girl time on pillows road trip ma & i are on the road to virginia beach got up at 5 a.m. to beat the traffic out of chicago packed the cooler with ice & tab & grabbed our bags with bikinis & cutoffs slipped into flipflops left a note for dad & marco & packed the corolla we take this trip every summer just us girls when we hit the skyway i load my yellow cassette deck cue freebird our theme song roll down the windows thick industrial air blows in our hair & ma smiling i see her soften flying far from our quiet home purple beech tree mourning doves sing perch-coo. b movie foreshadows crawl on anemone. grey nimbostratus shroud. the strong female lead lets her imagination run rampant in the blue hour. wears her cat eye thick & expertly winged. smokes only for glamour & atmosphere. excessive wardrobe changes dripping in zirconia & chameleon. the moon in a star turn all simmer & slink. gratuitous dark alley liaison a jump cut away. plot convoluted variation on a theme— girl sees impending doom but the patriarchy wears the white lab coats. she removes all sharp objects from the house in an overabundance of dream wringing. there will be a crime. the ocean will take the fall. it’s déjà vu all over again— the moon is the obvious suspect & no one ever sees it coming. Elle Cantwell is a graduate of the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco. Her poems have appeared in Ponder Review, December, Welter, HAD, and Barrelhouse, among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is a winner of the Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize. A freelance theatre director and educator, she lives in Santa Monica, California.

The first time I meet your baby, it spits up milk on my shirt. We might as well call it what it is. Vomit. Baby vomit. A spray of who knows what because it’s only on liquids right now, right? Regurgitated breast milk seeping through my shirt and bralette. Haha. Full circle. You laugh. I pull a towel I don’t think is clean from behind the couch cushion myself. You won’t take back the baby. I asked for this kind of treatment, coming over here now like this. With my nine hours of sleep and washed hair. With my button-up shirt that came off a hanger in the closet and not a pile of laundry on the bed. I came over with my man and somehow both the men have drifted away, nowhere to be seen. And they left the baby. To be closer to the breast, I’m sure — the breast with milk, not my dry breasts. My breasts that have nothing nourishing to offer. And maybe that’s why the baby threw up on me. Trying to ignite some unholy change in my cells. You won’t take back the baby no matter how much meaningful eye contact I make. You’re leaning your head on the back of your chair, shutting your eyes. I see the sleep come over you like a receding wave pulling the water out of grains of sand on the beach. The baby, now that its stomach is settled, is slowing down too. It becomes a still warm thing in my arms like it wants me to know it’s not just an it. It’s trying to lull me into love with its harmlessness, its little fingers, translucent eyelids, wisps of hair, and nostrils that move with each breath. The baby and you sleep. The vomit dries on my shirt. Thao Votang is a writer. Her work has been published in Salon, Hyperallergic, Sightlines, Southwest Contemporary, and Lucky Jefferson. Her first novel will be published July 2024 from Alcove Press.

I selected a table as if I were buying it, cleared a lipsticked memento of a previous meeting, held onto my phone. Stared through a window made foggy by rain. Was a café the right choice? She was often holding wine glasses in her profile photos, in which she pouted unsmilingly, arms around friends and family. I knew those photos as if they weremy tattoos, as if they were my scars. In mine, I was alone. I smoothed my hair, blonde like hers. The doors cleaved open. Without the glass divide, shelooked like me. Like me, without the scars. I stood up. Sam Szanto lives in Durham, UK. Her debut short story collection ‘If No One Speaks’ was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. Her collaborative poetry pamphlet, ‘Splashing Pink’, was published by Hedgehog Press in July 2023. Over 80 of her stories and poems have been published/ listed in competitions. In 2023, her novel ‘My Daughter’ was longlisted for both the Yeovil Prize and the Louise Walters Page 11 Competition. She won second prize in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition 18 and wrote one of the winning entries to the Southport Writer’s Circle Competition. In 2022, she won the Mum Life Stories Microfiction Contest and the Shooter Flash Fiction Contest and was placed second in the Writer’s Mastermind Short Story Contest. Her short story collection "Courage" was a finalist in the 2021 St Lawrence Book Awards. As a poet, she has won the 2020 Charroux Prize for Poetry and the First Writers International Poetry Prize, and her poetry has appeared in a number of international literary journals including 'The North'.

BOB’S “VARSITY” BARBER SHOP was located on the corner of Barton Avenue And Tulare Street, in a small shopping center Next door to the Post Office, and across The street from Roosevelt High School. There were three barber-chairs, and eight seats For waiting customers.. A wall-length mirror hung behind the eight chairs, And a similar one in back of the barbers; Bob, and his brother-in-law, Hank, Both graduates of Moler Barber College. On the counter behind them were hair clippers, Brushes and combs, brilliantine, And Barbicide, hair crème, pomade, scissors, A shaving cup, and brush, a straight razor, And a hand-held barber mirror. Bob had a picture hanging By the mirror, so it could be seen From anywhere inside the shop, Of an aborigine from Borneo Showing his teeth, a bone in his nose, Under the picture it said, with a species Of blatant racism that those times Blindly excused: “Willie McCovey.” Near the bathroom, a box of men’s magazines Full of stories of fearless males, bloody murders, And mindless females with sleek and shapely bodies: Argosy, King, Sylk, and Buck magazines, The National Police Gazette. In those days, men got haircuts regularly. The chair by the door was reserved For Bob’s customers. Anyone else Went to Hank for a trim and straight-razor neck shave. Bob’s special customers talked in a secret code While they were getting their hair cut. Language of the cock-fighting operation Bob organized and ran every Sunday afternoon Out behind the large chicken coop, On his secluded five-acre place In the old winery district of rural Fresno. There were cash bets, whiskey drinking, A boisterous display that went on for hours, While roosters armed with sharpened spurs Fought a bloody fight until one was dead. The raucous disregard for life continued Until it was too dark to see. Varsity players from the teams At Roosevelt High School across the street Rarely patronized Bob’s Barber Shop. Occasionally, the DeVeaux brothers Might come in for a trim on Saturdays, But mostly there were neighborhood working men Who knew each other’s names. After Bob finished with a haircut, Dusting a clean-shaven neck with talc, He went to a glass jar on the counter And removed a long black comb From the disinfecting liquid, Shook the comb, and used it to rake back Both sides of his greased pompadour Then pulled the front outward and down So the long protrusion of lubricated hair Took on the shape of a cock’s sharpened spur. Stephen Barile, a Fresno native and poet, was educated in public schools. He attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. Stephen Barile taught writing at Madera Community College, and CSU Fresno. His poems have been published extensively. He lives and writes in Fresno.

Procrastination can sometimes pay off. I had on my list of things to do, to read the book of poetry “Apprenticed to the Night” by LindaAnn LoSchiavo for months. Due to life events that brought me to my knees, I was unable to sit down to fully devote my attention to it, until after my grandmother Maria Alessandra’s funeral. Much to my surprise, what awaited me was poetry with a vulnerable look at grief, trauma, and connection to Italian roots, in a way that walked me through my very similar life experience. Crossing continents and years, the reader is left searching their memories after each piece. As we try to find the significance of life, through our own understanding, through our past and those who came before, LoSchiavo is guiding us to the essence of meaning through her words in this collection. “Cassandra’s Curse” reads like a fable brought to you through the lens of a life lived. So universal, so common you can reach back and add to the poem with your own stories of being discounted or silenced in the face of real terror and the feeling of being unable to let go of the feeling of culpability. The sentiment of accepted reality vs. doom, about the message vs. the messenger fuels something in the experience of the poem. Or maybe I just love a poem with an air of inevitability. “Grampa Umberto’s Fig Trees” is another that connected with me on a personal level. My grandfather, Guiseppi Turchetti came over to the U.S. from Naples in 1924. He moved to an overpopulated city neighborhood in Western New York, yet he grew fig trees in his yard. The description of the attachment and pride, the care and the utter worship of these mythological trees that harken back to the homeland was exactly my experience watching my grandfather try to conquer nature. Umberto’s acknowledgment that despite all of this, it is eventually out of his control was profound for me. Similarly, my grandfather’s response to any setback in his life was “Eh, what are ya gonna do?” So real, so exquisitely accurate was LoShiavos’ language, that I found myself reading it aloud to anyone in my family who would listen. All of which said the same thing. “This is someone who knows.” Later in the collection, the theme continues, with sensuous “Sticky Figs”. This poem reads like the first taste of something seductive. Food and sex being cousins in the pleasure principle, LoSchiavo teases out the words, coercing recollection of your budding desire. The appetite, craving, ripeness, and fascination as we come into our bodies and beings exist throughout this piece. I felt it connected in very few words with my memory of coming to physical maturity earlier than my brain and emotions were ready. As a child reared in a Roman Catholic extended family, “Stained Lass” was one that made me think of all my years being raised by atheists in the traditions of my ancestors. All of the questions I had regarding dogma and patriarchy further alienated me from my roots. Especially the lack of control over one's autonomy given one must submit to power unseen and masculine. LoSchiavo’s line “Swore death would be “the best day” of your life sums up the disconnection with reality and with the now that, so elusive, escapes us all. This poem illuminates the tragedy of unchecked dogma and its effect on how we view ourselves from the wreckage. It is often said that life is a dance, but death? “My Mother’s Ghost Dancing” was published by The Roi Faineant Press, originally. I chose this poem as it felt so personal, as my grandmother was reaching the end of life, and my mother began her journey with careful navigation to reconcile who her mother once was, and who lay in the bed in hospice. The release of the shackles of the body that decays, and frankly, lets us down, to the free and floating spirit that is the very essence of who we are is a celebration in this piece. LoShiavo ‘waltzes’ right into the hard stuff, with that silver lining that there is freedom in death, and there is life after it. “Apprenticed to the Night” is a collection that holds no borders sacred. It flows gracefully and explores key and universal life experiences. As we all take our paths through loss and reflect on those who have shaped us, we can sometimes encounter feelings of disembodied grief. This collection brings you closer to the fire of what you know to be true, but that we sometimes must push out of our minds to survive; it is inevitable and out of our control that we all come from somewhere and we all leave for something else, but what happens in between is where we find the significance. The timing of this exploration and celebration of life, death, and everything in between is uncanny, and I am sure, LindaAnn LoSchiavo’s collection will be one that came in the nick of time for you as well. Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, Best of the Net, and Dwarf Stars nominee, is a member of SFPA, The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. Elgin Award winner "A Route Obscure and Lonely," "Concupiscent Consumption," "Women Who Were Warned," Firecracker Award, Balcones Poetry Prize, Quill and Ink, and IPPY Award nominee "Messengers of the Macabre" [co-written with David Davies], "Apprenticed to the Night" [Beacon Books, 2023], and "Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide" [Ukiyoto Publishing, 2023] are her latest poetry titles. Kellie Scott-Reed is AEIC of this here press, and host of “A Word?”. She has been. published in many cool places.

Hidden within the Austrian and Germanic borders, the palace of the last king stands still, only ever brushed by the wind. To reach the main building, you must traverse the valley dirt road downhill to a rocky beach. A crystal blue lake sits beside Bergen waiting for you. If you turn from the water and look up the road, it will change into a multi-colored cobblestone. And beyond, another hill will arch upwards into a cluster of green-leafed trees blowing delicately in the wind. Above them, you can catch a glimpse of gold and marble. # It was hot, and German summer heat is drier than what I am used to, back home in Minnesota. The sun baked my shoulders and even through my sunglasses, I squinted my eyes. Looking wildly at all the tourists and their traps, carts and stands decked in German, Bavarian and Austrian flags, watercolors of the palace beyond and commemorative shot glasses for the trip. I stopped to catch my breath from the climb, and gazed up at the mountains through the sunlight, then down at the kinden spielen in die Wasser. “Komm gleich!” my godmother called, marching ahead, her blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight and flip-flops slapping the rocky sand. I followed the rest of my family beside and behind. We continued up the road. I could already tell that this was a strange, remembered place. We approached the palace, and looked above the other tourists in the crowd. I saw the blue and white German signs through twisting willow trees. The hot breeze blew about their wicker branches concealed in the courtyard ahead, but I peeled through the damp crowd to the shadowed stone archway to get out of the heat. The smell of water and pollen surrounded me and blurred my senses as we broke into the cobblestoned courtyard. No wonder the King went mad here. Golden statues stood at either side of a deep, clear pool, fountains blew down a light mist to help us escape the heat. Peacocks with bright blue and gleaming green tail feathers stalked about the square. At the north side of the pool, was the palace itself, dressed fittingly in gold and otherwise marble. It was small compared to the grounds in which it stayed, flanked by Bergen on all sides. The residence carefully hidden away and entombed within our unser Wesen, Deutschenvolk refused to speak of madness, despite their relationship to Freud, they rather hid it in the land. The old King had done just the same. I turned to gaze at the southern side of the pool that led up to a dual staircase, to lion statues upon another, smaller courtyard and then trestles, flanked royally by flowers and vines, and then a small gazebo that allowed any wandering tourist a doorway to venture the grounds. I gasped and my godmother smiled at me. # Linderhof Palace is the smallest and most unknown, but one of the most elaborate of der Märchenkӧnig, or our last Bavarian King, or King Ludwig II’s palaces. You will probably know him for his much overrated and famous castle, Neuschwanstein, or as many more Americans know it, the castle at Disney parks. If you ask me about Neuschwanstein, there were way too many stairs, after a much grueling uphill mountain hike that wrapped in circles about the river-soaked mountain like swirling stairs. Needless to say, Neuschwanstein is not for the faint of heart. Now, Linderhof, was much smaller, with keiner grӧßen erklettern oder treppenhäusern. Nein, it was decked with a mahogany staircase and red velvet rugs. Just a quiet place for a gay king to die… # We stood in a line, still in the baking sun, linked off by a velvet rope just outside the palace. Every twenty minutes, without fail, the fountain exploded again. We gripped papery brochures in our sweaty hands. We were waiting for the indoor tour. One of the peacocks stalked about and pecked at my skirt briefly, before my godmother and I shooed it away with our brochures. She was practically bouncing like a young girl with excitement, her sundress flowing behind her. She leaned into me, “A few mehrere minuten, aren’t you excited?” I nodded and smiled at her. She had this lovingly awful habit of switching languages mid-sentence. She, being American but having had my god-siblings in Germany and having lived here for more than 20 years, spoke with a miniscule accent, but it was still better than mine. She grabbed my wrists and hooked arms with me still excitedly bouncing. Our attention was drawn to the tour guide in black and white and as she spoke into an earpiece, she also undid the velvet boundary and gestured to us to enter. Another tour guide met us therein. He introduced himself, and began to discuss the marble foyer we were in. My godmother, giddy as ever, asked me if she needed to translate. I shook my head. I turned from her, in fact, I am barely listening to the quick German that flashed by my ears since I was only staring up at the crystalline glass walls, holding a multitude of ornate artistic objects within and above, a crystal chandelier the size of a large pond. I turned about myself, my sandals steps echoing on spotless floor, so clean, that as I looked down at my feet I could see my own face gazing back at me. My eyes were wide. When I looked back up, they passed the tour guide in his little black waistcoat to the glass walls with their teasures inside. I wondered, while peering at them if I flicked the glass with my nail, would it radiate like a great gong? I shook my head at the notion and tried to listen to the tour guide. The peacocks, den Pfauen, which was a new word for me, were explained by the tour guide to be not only King Ludwig's favorite animal, reminiscent of his favorite royal blue color, were also used to announce die Kӧnige presence when he stayed at the palace. I looked back at the door we entered from, its golden frame still as einen Schlagschatten, a vision of what is left behind here. With squinted eyes and swallowing, I wondered if that meant he was still here, somehow, waiting...I blinked, melancholy for him, knowing that even with three palaces he must’ve been the most lonely man in the world. The tour guide led us up a large mahogany staircase that parted into two swirling directions. My feet sank into the velvet rug of the second floor, my toes just edging out of my sandals to truly feel it. And it wasn’t the cheap crushed, dusty velvet I was used to. Nein, es ist Echt und it's like if honey were a fabric, it was just as sweet. The tour guide led us up into a room that I can only describe as decked in gold. Its walls were divided in halves. The top was a pinkish but graying mural of Wagner’s opera, we’d see more of these throughout das haus, the guide explained. Haus was the word he used, like home but also like building. I didn’t know what to call this place. It felt too small to be a castle, too lavish to be a home. How could it have ever been a home, how could anyone ever be comfortable here? Unless he was comforted by the sentinel Berge, his extravagance barely exceeded that of French or Austro-Prussian royals at that time, but was it the Wagner Opera and the golden walls that comforted him, that soothed his sleepless nights. No, because the Mad-King, the Mythic King did not sleep. The tour guide directed our attention to a white but gold extravagant piano, made specifically for Wagner who never visited. I gazed at it, imagining a ghostly place for a composer built there for him, and never filled. Did the King sit across from that spot and gaze longingly at it? An empty, golden and pink piano, never touched, dusted and haunted with the memory of his Zeitgeist moving beyond itself, beyond where it belonged and where it ought to remain. The loneliest man in the world, indeed. There is an echo of a chandelier in this room and my eyes cross it as I glanced out the gold-paned window into the mountainous yard, wondering how anyone could live here in such a opulatent place. What was he trying to prove? # But he did live here, a lot in his final years of life. In the wake of the Wars of Unification perpetrated by Barvaria’s ultimate enemy and nӧrdisch bruder Prussia, King Ludwig, our King of Myth, had succumbed to madness or exhaustion and would not be, could not have been the man to lead der neuen Vaterland into the next century. Many don’t know this but the German nation is about a century younger than America. Its final proclamation was made by the Prussian military Commander Bismarck only ten-some years before the death of the Bavarian King in 1870. Before Germany was Germany it was 200 or so principalities, some of the biggest already previously mentioned. Before the King died, he had fought the Austrian Habsburgs in the Seven Weeks War and with his defeat was forced into an alliance with the Prussians and Bismarck, bringing four more wars down upon his head. These being the Wars of Unification, which left the newborn Deustchland similarly scrabbling and divided. # Before we entered the next room, I glanced at my godmother, sie ist bayerisch, through and through. Yet here we stand at the border of her, his, our land, not knowing what our ancestors called themselves or what we should call ourselves. Bayerisch oder österreichisch, but it certainly wasn’t German. She squeezed my hand tightly in hers, soft and warm, but still as comforting. She smiled at me. “Können Sie es glauben?”. I shook my head, awed and equally appalled at the temptatious golden walls. We stood together in the reminiscence of an old nation. Her eyes gleamed as she held my hand, as if she was trying to tell me something. I’m not sure what, yet the words of some old song echoed in my head, Du gehörst heirher, Du gehörst heirher. As we were guided into the next room, I felt melancholy engulf me, like die Berge hug the vallies. At the moment I didn’t really know why but now it was not only for my godmother and I, but also der König. He was the one trying to save our names, our place, our country and he lost. Prove us to be worthy as any other nation. His palace was not exactly what one may call homey. If the previous room was decked in gold, this one was leaking it. Wall to wall, ceiling to ceiling, encased in it like der Kӧnig was attempting to recreate a more elegant mine for the metal. Ja, the tour guide assured us it was real gold. This room is called das Spiegelsaal oder the Hall of Mirrors, as each gold plate upon the wall resembles such. Even gold paint, made from real gold, was used for the decorations. The room also featured a magnificent view of the mountains from massive windows and a small seating area across from it. Although to me it was a blue velvet throne trimmed in gold. All while the tour guide spoke, and others looked around in awe, I drew my eyes nearer to the immaculate details of the walls. I wanted to dig my nails into the gold and steal it away. What the hell was this all about? I wanted to touch it, feel its tired memory on my fingertips, peel it up to hear his words and wishes therein. For if I turned back I could see his cordial throne, his Victorian ghost sitting there, where he took tea perhaps, spoke to his doctor and advisors about his ills and that of his nation. I would bring the gold paint home and put it under a microscope, investigate it, discover its historical purpose, and find his echoed conversions within. Then I would use it to pay for college. # King Ludwig never married and lost his title, throne and kingdom to the expanding Prussians. He was declared insane before he turned 40 and died. He loved art, architecture, and music with a passion. His queerness has little real basis and is only contingent on the facts given above. He built three castles yet only lived to see the completion of one, Linderhof, named ever-affectionately for the linden tree upon its grounds. He built castles to save Bavaria, believing his love and conserving of culture could preserve his dying state. He paid more and more zeit und geld to his Wagner murals and gold rooms, and less and less to the encroaching Prussians. He did that until he only remained in his gold-trimmed palace alone, except for his doctors. # His bedroom resembled that of das Spiegelsaal, all gold, except for the sitting place now was a massive fluffy blue velvet bed, looking as any other royal bed, canopied and caged away from the world. This room also lacked golden mirrors. I stood apart from my godmother, and wandered freely throughout the room. How could anyone sleep in such a place? was it for lack and therefore need of comfort? All his life he was rejected and perhaps unloved. Handsome and charming, so they tell us, ja. Doch der Man war Kӧnich erst, a failed one at that. Yet he was not mad, having failed against Austria and now failing against the Prussians, his advisors began plotting against him, to remove him from his throne. He, being a constitutional monarch, could not simply be removed, but had to be proven unfit to rule. Two separate psychologists diagnosed him with insanity. It must have been easy to get away with, too, as he retreated into the safe space of art and music as well as away from the public eye. Although he might have been relieved to give up on his dream of preserving his kingdom. Could castles save a nation? No. Could castles preserve the memory of the land? Ja, remarking upon its beauty. I had seen all die Märchenkӧnigen palaces. He’s the one king I knew the name of...national pride, national awareness trickled from the golden walls and velvet sheets, it ran in rivers down der Deustchen mountainsides. My godmother helds me, clinging to my side, and all the while I felt frozen in time, the quick German rushing by my ears and my mind morphing with memories of then and now. Blinking I looked over at her as she squeezed my shoulders, her sweetness emerging from her and into me. She smilied and nodded. She had seen this place a thousand times, she brought me here, because I wanted to come. She whispered translations to me and I finally met her eyes saying, “Danke schön,” “Alles für dich,” she responded calmly. I took her hand again, tightly, realizing that she was my comfort, and I might be luckier than our last King. # The next two rooms that captured my attention were firstly, a room smaller than the two previous, one with little more than elegant walls and a table that underneath had an specially-made dumbwaiter to conceal the king’ss food if he was ever interrupted while eating. He was exceptionally private and embarrassed, as with extremely poor teeth he could not endure to eat the elegant meals of his royal counterparts. So, if a servant or his doctor ever stumbled in, he had a way to ensure his comfort. The table itself, one made of iron, partly wooden and marble was extraordinary. I bent over to inspect the mechanism at a distance. It also has dark wood constructed of odd pieces and spindles. Head cocked, I looked up at the tour guide who smiled with an odd pride and began to talk with the group about how der Kӧnich commissioned the piece himself. The last room, simply referred to as das Telefonzimmer, held only that. A very old-fashioned telephone that sat upright in the middle of the room with the familiar talking piece and the face-like sound receivers and nose for which to hang the mouthpiece. Beside those features, it had a dialer for a mouth. This, within the King’s lifetime, was the first phone in Germany. Why’d he have it? Who the hell did he call? The Prussians? His doctor? Its box was bronze and brown in color, but we could not inspect this piece up close, only peer into the room. Perhaps the phone itself was too delicate and too worn with time. As we ended our tour and descended the other side of the red-carpeted staircase, and re-entered the courtyard, the fountains exploded again. We wandered past them back to the gorgeous blue, rocky shores lake where we had hiked to and I bent to dip my hand in the water and cool off. I gazed up slowly at the reflection of the green mountain that straddled the Austrian border within the water and waited. Was this where he died? # This is the last story they tell us of The Fairytale King. He and his doctor, von Gudden had taken supper, separately and after der Kӧnig felt the need for some air. His doctor insisted on attending him, but der Kӧnig wished specifically for no other attendants to come. Which was customary for his safety, in 1886, he wished otherwise. It was a windy evening, and the men left through the courtyard and walked together back to the mountain lake and the rocky shoreline toward the east side of the park. All that the servants and attendants knew from then on was that a rainstorm blew in and lasted until the morning. When it passed they found der Kӧnig and his doctor’s bodies bloody and water-logged. Some say der Kӧnig jumped in and his doctor tried to save him. Others say it's the other way around. Der Arzt hat der Kӧnig ermordet. Or it was some jealous artist or cleric from the bushes with a gun or a club. Nein, they may say, it was the storm itself that blew them in and drowned them both. Nobody really knows what happened to the last King of Bavaria. Und wenn wir kennenlernen, was passiert mit der Kӧnig? What if he didn’t die? What if his Königreich lived beyond him? Und Bayern remained Bayern. Nein. The Prussians were too close, Austrians were too angry. War is always inevitable, perhaps his death was the beginning of it. I pause a moment with pursed lips, looking at my reflection overlaying the reflection of die Berge in the crystalline water. I lost my breath, my chest tight and hand still. For a moment I was transported and I knew him, I knew why. We cannot always go on. Sometimes grief and time catch up to us like water in a rainstorm and we become lost to die Geschichte. I blinked. My godmother called me, I rushed back to her and embraced her, resting my head on her chest and my nose in her blonde hair. She brought me here to show me a bit of das Vaterland, aber sie ist meine Mutterland, my home. “Danke schön,” I whispered again. “Du bist Bayerish jetzt.” she joked, breaking from me. I laughed, looking back at the palace and think if he lived, we would have had a proper title. A.J.M. Aldrian is a graduate of Hamline University with a BFA in Creative Writing. She has publications in both Sharkreef, Apocalypse Confidential Magazine, and many other journals. She loves many genres including fiction; horror, sci-fi, literary, fantasy, and poetry, and non-fiction, historical, nature, and memoir. She collects books and loves spending time with her partner and cat.

CW: Reference to indecent exposure/sexual harassment Before the thing with the man on the street, she picks the blue cotton dress because it complements the veins on her neck, and the perfume of violets because she read somewhere once that Marie Antoinette wore a perfume of violets and she’s wondered since if the guillotine caught the queen where she once dabbed the scent, if her death smelt of the flowers. She is given to these kinds of thoughts. She chooses the long walk instead of the train and is rewarded with dry weather and a whippy breeze that twirls the skirt of her dress around her, the hem of it tickles the backs of her calves. Inside the Natural History Museum, the bones of the museum’s prized blue whale curl down from the ceiling, threatening to scoop up tourists like stuffed bears in a claw machine, and tour guides direct schools of kids to lie on the floor head-to-foot to measure the breadth of that blue whale, to understand the depth of the ocean. Just outside of it, he blocks her path—unzipping his pants, rubbing his crotch. “Hey! Hey, you in the dress!” He stands the distance of three kindergartners from her, about 17 short of a blue whale—she remembers that exercise, stretching her neck, pointing her toes to fill the space left void by absent classmates. It’s a shame really. He isn’t terrible looking. In a different world, if they’d met, actually, maybe they could’ve shared a bottle of wine. She would ask which of his parents he looks like the most and he would probably say his mother, that they share the same, sweet, round cow-like eyes and, maybe, on a second date, he’d take her to a nice restaurant, and he would wear Sunday clothes, even gold cufflinks, and she would flirt by fingering them, teasing, threatening to undo them (and he wouldn’t say anything about her pointer and middle fingers being the same length, already intuiting how she feels about that) and she would ask if the cufflinks were vintage and maybe they were, maybe they were the nicest things his dad’s dad, the war hero, owned, and they would share a chocolate lava cake, or a melty cookie, and when they finally had sex, she would stare into his eyes like his mother’s and think of grass and sunshine and butter. But. They were in this world, the one where he crouches, squashed down a little like a toad about to jump, knees splayed so one points uptown and, the other, downtown, pelvis open, better to thrust himself deep into nothing. His penis, fish-belly pale, hangs from the unclenched teeth of his Levi’s, and he cups his hands below imaginary breasts, cradles them gently, bringing one to his mouth. He sucks the air through his lips, slurps through his teeth. He nurses from a ghostly teat. She looks to the people passing, can you believe this? They can, they’ve seen it before. What if she bared her breast on the street, what would the people do then? And what if she gave him what he wanted? What if she shoved her breast, the slightly bigger one, the whole thing, in his mouth – yanking his head back by the hair, to better poke, push herself down like punching over-proofed dough in a too-small bowl and what if her nipple pressed past the little wiggly thing in the back of his throat, reaching towards something primordial, unknitting his brains, taking him all the way back to before his mother and his dad’s dad, the war hero, all the way to the moment that distant ancestor of his chose to leave the water and the mud, and grow legs? The people on the street would look at her then– they would stop and stare and tell her just how beastly she is. She’s sure of it. But if she is a beast, what of it? Her go-to order at Waffle House, smelling every tube of deodorant at the store before making a decision, the Mitski show last summer, the patch of eczema on her left elbow, her high school boyfriend at the movies tunneling his way in through the leg of her jean shorts with popcorn-butter slicked fingers, the dark humor she honed in middle school, the hairline she inherited from her paternal grandmother along with a predisposition to heart and kidney issues, the molecules that build up a world dedicated only to the creation of her unruly cuticles, even the smell of her violet perfume—it all fades away, far, with the breeze and the clouds, out to the sea. Sometimes, all it takes is recognition. The man, too curious, steps toward her, his penis almost forgotten now, turning pink in the sun. He says something but she can’t quite hear it and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to understand him, her heart beats too close to the surface of her salt. There are krill caught in her teeth and she likes to feel them wiggle before sucking them down her briny tongue. From three kindergartners away, her skin is glossy and wet even here on the street, but up close there are wrinkles thin as a cat-scratch where algae have started to grow. She smells of rot because the tiny organisms living in her crevices are feeding on even smaller organisms who are attracted to her very fine bacteria. It’s ok though – she is an ecosystem, what are you, anyway? Still she is smooth and slick and if you try to grab hold, she will simply slip away. Janice Leadingham is a Portland, OR based writer and tarot reader originally from somewhere-near-Dollywood, Tennessee. You can find her work in HAD, The Bureau Dispatch, The Northwest Review, Bullshit Lit, Diet Milk Magazine, and Janus Literary, among others. She is @TheHagSoup and hagsoup.com.

The hatch in back my house leads to a crawl space. This crawl space, made of mud, winds wormlike, creeps, full of centipedes, and delves downward to a lake. The lake beneath my house wets everything above. The wet warps my floorboards, bows them hunchbacked. Upward from the ruined floors drift spores. The air within my house is poison, smells like sour cantaloupe. On the lake beneath my house drifts a canoe. The canoe is built of boards ripped from my bedroom. The boards were nailed together by a man who lives in my garage. He oars with a rake handle. The lake he knows by heart and glides in dark. ### I invite friends over to drink beer and swim in summertime. My text reads: “Let’s go down to the lake.” I don’t say what lake. Sitting on a cooler in my dead yellow yard, I greet my friends. They pull up, find me daydrunk, beer cans crunched beneath my flip flops, and semi-circle around, grin. I grin. Grinning. “Where are we going?” they ask. I stand, open the cooler like a treasure chest, and they take cold cans. We listen to each other drink. Someone thinks to ask after my wife. I tell the truth: my wife left me for an older man. They check their phones, glance at their trucks. We drink. They ask about the smell. It clouds my yard, wax thick like an early August dumpster. “My house is sick,” I say, tender and hushed. Someone recommends a good handyman. When I Iead them around back, open the crawl space–the maw–and beckon with a flashlight to show the curious my lake underneath, they grow upset.. “This isn’t funny,” they call down to me. “It isn’t funny,” I call up to them. It’s hot. It stinks. No one wants to swim. ### Before I texted my friends, I dug a firepit out back. I can still dig because I’m not disabled. It was years ago when I got sick. I’m better now. I can drink cheap beer with friends; I can swim; I can dig a firepit; I can row a canoe. The last friendly conversation I had with my wife, before I moved into the garage, she suggested I go on disability. “I’m not disabled,” I tell the firepit. I’ve done many things a disabled person doesn’t do. And this firepit–I thought my friends would dry themselves after swimming. Anger is a side effect of the pills. The pills make me well. Do you see how this rows circles in the dark? Now I’m alone, poking embers with my rake. I set the house aflame and climb down to the lake to drift along in my canoe as rotten ashes snow down. Invisible things are beautiful. Invisible things devour us. I dive beneath the ash flecked surface to wait. Come back. I’m better now. When the house collapses and lets in the sun, we’ll have our own lake. A lake to ourselves. Travis Flatt (he/him) is a teacher and actor living in rural Tennessee with his wife and son. He earned his English BA at U.T. Knoxville and his education MA at TTU. His work appears or is upcoming in Dollar Tree Magazine, BOMBFIRE LIT, Many Nice Donkeys, Drunk Monkeys, and other publications. For more info and writings, check out www.travisflattblog.com, and tweet him @WriterLeeFlatt

When Gran-Gran’s Pearl Necklace Goes Missing she narrows her eyes at my brother, Dusty. He’s forever misplacing stuff: LEGOs, socks, mouth guards. “What would I—” He stabs at his chest with his forefinger. “Do with your pearl necklace?” Throwing his chin in the air, he points to Gran-Gran. Arms folded, Gran-Gran stares at Dusty over her tortoiseshell glasses. Then at me. Then at Dusty again, and harrumphs. “Maybe you misplaced it,” I offer. Gran-Gran sucks in her lips, then peers at her mint-green parakeet, Jo Jo. She runs her wooden cane across his cage. Rat-a-tat-tat. “Damn bird eats anything. Ain’t that right, Jo Jo?” “Ain’t that right, Jo Jo?” her parakeet says. “No way,” I say. “Jose,” Dusty adds. Jo Jo flaps his wings and squawks. Moments later, Gran-Gran stabs her gnarled finger into the front window. “Now there’s the thief!” Dusty and I turn to see a doe trot onto the front lawn. It stops, lifts its head, then looks our way as if it knows we’re staring. “Let’s go,” Gran-Gran says, ushering Dusty toward the front door. “Get a wiggle on.” It’s wet out from last night’s downpour, so I want to argue, but something in her voice stirs up memories of when Pa-Pa used to take me geocaching as a kid—memories that’d lodged themselves deep in the back of my brain after he passed away. So instead, I help Dusty with his Superman rain boots and we head outside where we find ourselves trudging through the mud, brown muck flecking the backs of our legs. Gran-Gran shields her eyes from the sun and scans the area. “Use your x-ray vision, Dusty-boy. My pearls are here somewhere.” Dusty grabs my hand, and we roam the yard. Before long, he points to a bulge in the ground and bounces his legs up and down. “Here! Here! Here!” With our hands, we rake the mud and unearth a pile of LEGOs, ping-pong balls, and mouth guards. I clear my throat loudly as he stuffs as many of the items as he can into his pockets, flashing me a dimpled grin. “Ah-ha!” Gran-Gran exclaims from a few feet away. Arriving by her side, we find a collection of brown pellets on a small patch of grass. “It’s scat,” I say. “Yeah, scat,” Dusty says. She hunches for a closer look. “But they’re so round. Why are they so round? Deer scat isn’t round. Are they round?” Dusty and I bend over and place our hands on our thighs. Gran-Gran’s right. The pellets are unnaturally round. Their unusual shape reminds me of square Wombat poop, something I learned in class last semester. I’m in the middle of telling Dusty this when I hear Gran-Gran squelching through the mud. Garden hose in hand, she offers me the spray nozzle then raises her eyebrows. “Seriously?” I say. “Seriously?” Dusty says. She gives me a laser look that says I-am-so-so-serious. As the water washes off the mud, shiny spherical objects appear. I hmm. Dusty hmms. “Ah-ha!” Gran-Gran laughs hysterically. I shake my head, bending to gather the objects. “Uh-uh, Gran-Gran. They’re marbles.” “Marbles?” Gran-Gran grabs one and studies it like a jeweler, peering at the white cat’s eye design inside. A few seconds pass before her lips creep into a smile. Wrinkles emerge from the corners of her mouth like a dry lakebed and tears gather in her eyes. “Your Pa-Pa gave me these before he died. He used to collect them as a boy. I thought I lost them.” I let out a sigh. “Me, too.” Dusty wipes imaginary sweat off his forehead. “Phew! Me, too.” Gran-Gran gives me a once over, then beckons me with her hand. I raise an eyebrow as she wraps her bony arms around my waist. Dusty grabs the back of my thighs. My arms lift, ready to embrace, when I feel her tug at the waistband of my denim shorts. “You need to wear a belt,” she says. “I can see your underwear.” She shoves me away with the strength of a superhero, and Dusty and I fall onto our haunches. Marbles and LEGOs spill into the mud. I side-eye Dusty, who’s side-eyeing me. I shrug. He shrugs. Gran-Gran stands akimbo in her purple flowered muumuu and looks off into the distance. “Now, where are my pearls?” Jennifer Lai writes mainly micro and flash fiction. She has work in Bureau of Complaint, Flashflood Journal, hex, and elsewhere.

CW: unplanned pregnancy, termination, gaslighting/emotional manipulation, acute manic episode There’s a clamour, a buzzing like a hive. No, a swarm. Discordant glasses clink, people chatter. A woman’s laugh rings out. It’s hers, I know it is. I look over. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but not the understated elegance of the lace bodice and gentle swell of the chiffon skirt. She has a tiny lace and rhinestone horseshoe dangling from her waist. So trite. If that were me, I’d be in a sari, blazing red, gold embroidery weighing me down, hair engorged with jasmine. I’d be cloying, I’d get in your nose. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Pei Yin asks. I pooch my lips like I’m considering, like I haven’t been wondering the exact same thing. Is she gorgeous, or isn’t she? “Let’s get a drink,” I say, dragging her to the bar. “Gin and tonic,” I waggle two fingers at the bartender. “The church service was good,” says Pei Yin. She says it like a statement, but really she’s asking – what kind of scene are you going to make? Something fizzes inside me – I decide it is excitement. Excitement at our erstwhile housemate’s wedding to a wonderful girl. Just wonderful. She’s a vet nurse. What’s not to like? Mife -PRIS- tone. I waggle another two fingers at the bartender. Pei Yin hasn’t finished her first one, so I shrug and down them both. “Let’s dance!” I say. “But they haven’t opened the dance floor yet!” she says, her voice dopplering after me. I move into the centre of the room, tables and chairs are strewn about the space. Purple-orange light from the setting sun streams through the glass walls. I bump a couple of chairs out of the way and begin moving my hips, arms up in the air. They’re playing some kind of nineties shit. “Maybe she chose the music!” I say to Pei Yin. “Why aren’t you dancing?” I bump her on the hip. “That’s my seat,” a woman in a black cocktail number says. “Do you want to dance?” I yell at her. The chatter in the room is deafening. “This fuddy-duddy over here doesn’t want to, can you believe it?” “Could you dance somewhere else please? That’s my seat.” “Okay, geez,” I say, grabbing Pei Yin. “What is wrong with people?” “You need to take it down a notch, Sana, okay? I said we shouldn’t come. This was a bad idea.” Miso-PROS-tol. “Relax, Yin! It’s all good! I’m so fucking happy for Daniel and his wife Leanne.” “You know her name is Leigh, Sana. Stop it, you’re being obnoxious.” “You’re being obnoxious, Yin. Always telling me what to do.” My arrows always hit home with Yin - I’ve known her since we were twelve. “Shit, sorry Sana, it’s just…well, I’m worried about you.” Ma had called, also trying to talk me out of going to the wedding. “What dose has Dr. Rehman got you on?” she had asked. Everyone is so worried about me having any feelings. Mife-PRIS-tone. Miso-PROS-tol. I give Yin a hug. “I’m okay – see?” I flash a bright grin at her. We head back to our table, in the far reaches of the Daniel-Leigh galaxy. I think he’s seated us with his old football buddies. I grab the champagne flute, bubbles tickling my nose. “How do you know them?” a lanky man in an ill-fitting blue suit asks me. “Yin and I used to live with Daniel,” I shout over the din, pointing at Yin. “I used to play basketball with him,” he shouts back. “I really don’t care,” I say. “What?” he says. “Isn’t Leigh wonderful?” I say. The man smiles and gives me two thumbs up. “Get me a refill?” I give him my flute, empty now. “Back in a tick,” he says, getting up. Yin is looking at me. “You good, Sana? Are we going to be okay today?” “Such a worrywart, Yin! I’m having a fabulous time!” She has always been a buzzkill. My body fizzes again, the velvet cover on the chair feels really itchy. I don’t know why I chose this satin dress. I wanted to wear a sari. I am Durga on a tiger. “Stop fidgeting so much!” Yin says as I knock her drink over. I put my napkin on the spill to stop it staining her dress. “There’s Daniel’s mum!” I stand, pointing at the tall woman in purple. Yin rushes after me as I walk towards her. “How are you girls? I hardly see you anymore!” she says. “We’re well, Mrs. McDade, thank you! How are you?” Yin, like a horse out of the gates. “I’m so happy today – don’t they look wonderful together?” ‘Just wonderful,” I say. Mife-PRIS-tone. “Yes, it was a great ceremony,” Yin says, dragging me away. “Enjoy your night!” “What was that about?” I hiss at her. “Why didn’t you let me speak to her?” “I was worried you might say something -” “Something what, Yin? Something true? Something real? You are fucking afraid. That’s what you are. Just afraid. And that makes you dishonest. It makes you say she’s wonderful. When you know damn well we’ve spent hours bitching about her!” “Keep your voice down, Sana!” Yin is looking around us. She has always wanted to please everyone else. She continues, with that look on her face – the ‘I love you, but – ‘ look. “You’ve been obsessing about him a bit, Sana.” The fizzing is making my skin itch now. This dress is too tight. I mean that’s why I picked it, but I feel like I can’t breathe. Yin has never approved of me and Daniel. I remember the look she gave me that time when she woke up and saw us kissing. We had collapsed on the couch after one of our parties, Daniel in between, an arm around each of us. I tucked right into his armpit, snuggled my head on his chest. He was lazily twirling my hair in his fingers. I looked up, and he was looking down at me. He smiled, said hey, then kissed me. There was a split second when I might have stopped him, but I didn’t. Miso-PROS-tol. There’s a plate on the table in front of us. I am starving, so I grab it. It’s a flaky onion and feta tart. Delicious, but I have crumbs all over me. A bewildered man comes to me and says “I think that’s my -” A set to my jaw, I say, “your…what? Your what? Speak up man!” “Never mind,” he backs away, looking at Yin who is mouthing sorry at him. “Why is it so hard for people to just speak the truth, Yin?” There’s a waitress passing with a plate of canapes. It’s a scallop on one of those stand-up spoons, with a little hillock of orange roe on top of it. The orange reminds me. “Have you seen my tiger?” I ask her. Quite solemnly she shakes her head. At the next table there is a kid, about ten. She’s reading a book. “I loved Judy Blume too,” I say, sitting next to her. She glances up then back at her book. “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret was my favourite,” I try again. She shrugs, “it was okay”. Mife-PRIS-tone. I had read that book in the window seat in my room. The cushion on the seat had a pink and purple checked cover. It felt soft and hard at the same time, like I could sit there for hours, and it would hold me up as long as I wanted it to. I would sleep there sometimes, looking out at the luminous sky, stars winking that they’d keep the secret. “Anyway, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a goddess now. It’s just that I might have misplaced my tiger, so be careful, okay?” I say to the girl who finally looks at me properly. “Come on Sana. Let’s go sit down,” Yin butts in. I don’t want to sit! I want to fly! “Let’s get another drink.” I run to the bar, and she can’t keep up with me. She’s too slow, weighted down by all the lies and half-truths she tells. Like how she’s my best friend. That second time, she was in the kitchen when I came out of Daniel’s room. She’d raised her eyebrows at me. When I had finished in the shower, they were having breakfast. Munching their toast like it was a normal day. She’d poured me a coffee and he’d left without even looking at me. What had she said to him? The bartender is ignoring me on purpose. I know he is. “Hey! I asked for two gin and tonics!” I call out. “He’ll get to us soon, Sana.” Yin says. She has the exact same exasperated look on her face she did when I went into her room that morning a few years ago. I had wanted her to explain the two blue lines on the pee stick to me, to tell me what to do. But I’d said the wrong thing. I’d said “Yin, it’s about Daniel and me,” and she’d rolled her eyes. “Will you just let go of it, Sana?” she’d said. “He’s with someone else now.” I spin around to her, suddenly realising the truth “it was you all along, wasn’t it?” “What?’ “You fed him that poison. You told him to break it off with me, didn’t you?” Yin is about to cry. I knew it! Fucking lying bitch. “You have never loved me. You are a taker, Yin. At school you were at my place every fucking weekend because your family wouldn’t have you!” She’s proper crying now. Good, the truth always hurts, but you have to hear it. You have to hear it to set yourself free. I am so encumbered. By my hair all tied up in a stupid knot. I pull the hairpins out, and they scatter like the confetti we threw into the air earlier that day. People are saying something. What? At the table next to me there’s a woman, and she has a baby in a pram. He’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. His skin is the exact colour of a toy chest I had once. It was from China, with a carving of a junk on it. Gold and caramel and coffee and pepper. “Oh my God,” I say to his mother. She’s more latte. “Is Daniel the father of this baby too?” I ask. “Mine is littler. Much littler. Just an embryo really. Might have only been an idea in my mind. I would have called him Sachin. Means truth.” She looks alarmed. I’ve frightened her. My tears are running in mascara rivulets down my cheeks. “Are you okay?” she says, half standing. I wave her back down and nod, “I’m fine,” then I shake my head, and I am wailing. “All you have to do, to turn a real baby back into an idea, is to take mife-PRIS-tone, then twenty-four hours later, take miso-PROS-tol. That’s it! And if you’re really careful and you tell no one, you can even trick yourself that it was one of your little delusions.” I look down at the baby, and it is wailing too. The baby knows. “This is not your baby,” I hiss to the woman. Her eyes widen and she looks around wildly. “This baby belongs to the Universe.” “Ma’am?” a voice says at my elbow. “I’m only called Ma’am when I go shopping, and everyone can tell I have pots of money, just pots! It’s just me on my corporate salary. No husband! No kid!” Alarmed, I look around, where is it? “Have you seen my tiger?” I ask the waitperson. She looks to the mum, like the truth might be in her eyes. “Don’t ask the mum! Ask the baby! The pepper baby!” This is the truest idea I’ve ever had. I lunge towards the table and the mum makes a little scream. She is not one who sees the truth. I grab the salt and pepper shakers and stand over the baby. Or I try to, but the waitperson gets in my way. Suddenly – it is his face. His beautiful face – grey-green-brown eyes, the hint of brown stubble. “Sana, come with me.” With you, Daniel, anywhere. He takes me to the bathroom, and hands me a drink. Ugh. Water. “Have you been taking your meds?” “They’re a cage, Daniel. A cage for the mind. You wouldn’t understand. You just entered a cage voluntarily. One called marriage. To a wonderful girl. So happy for you.” He sighs. He says my name, voice all husky, and it breaks me. “Oh fuck, sorry. I’m sorry.” My cat eye is ruined. I think there’s snot all over my face too. He gets some toilet paper for me. “Why can’t you let it go, Sana?” But I did let it go. I let it all go down the toilet. Mife-PRIS-tone. Miso-PROS-tol. I stand up and move closer to him, I must show him the truth. I reach for his waistband, pulling down his zip. He grabs my hand. “Stop it.” I titter. “You don’t really want me to.” I am down on my knees. “Stop it, Sana!” He turns away from me, doing up his zip. “I am married to Leigh. I love her. Please stop this. I knew I shouldn’t have invited you.” “Why did you then?” I say from my place curled up on the floor. It’s so comfortable here. “Leigh wanted me to.” That stops me. “She thought it was right. She said I shouldn’t ignore the fact that we had something.” He looks at me, and I think he is saying sorry. Why does everyone speak in riddles? Daniel turns to leave. When he opens the bathroom door, there is a balloon of sound – chatter, cutlery, laughter. The door shuts and abruptly cuts it off. I stay on the cold floor, completely alone, like I have always been. There’s an orange light on the ceiling, buzzing at a frequency that hums in my bones. I am five, out in the moonlight for a stroll with my dolly Gina in her pram. My pink plastic heels with the bow clack-clacking as I walked along the pavement all the way to the park. I spoke to Gina the whole way “it’s okay baby, I know you’re scared, but it’s okay, Mama’s here”. The sodium lights at the park buzzed orange as I walked right round the track. I didn’t know what else to do so I went back home. The front door was wide open, just like I’d left it. Ma never knew. It was a dream, I think. The door opens again. “Hey,” a voice says. The dearest voice in the world. The voice of the person who is always there. Always. No matter what. “I’m sorry,” I say to Yin. My tears are falling through their own ponderous gravity. The lies I have been telling myself are pouring out of me. She says, “I’ve called Dr Rehman. We’re going to see him tomorrow.” “Okay,” I say. She has our bags and coats already. Of course. I gather myself, and wash as best I can in the shitty sink. My cat eye has run all over my face, and my hair is a rumpled mess. We head out, slinking past the mess of people and tables and happiness, to the exit. “Sana,” someone calls. I turn. And it is her. “Are you okay?” she asks. I can’t speak. “I get it,” she says. “I love him too.” She looks straight at me. “But he’s married now, Sana, okay? To me.” Isn’t this what I have been waiting for? The truth, for once? So why does it hurt so much? I lift my chin and nod at her, just once, then Yin and I leave. Sumitra writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces, both beautiful and traumatic to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). She works in mental health. You can find her and her other publication credits on twitter: @pleomorphic2

People in unstable situations I know a girl who moved from finglas in her 20s to athy. has a longterm boyfriend a little younger lately talks a lot about people she knows getting pregnant. she's into and he's into computer games. a house in athy was the only place they could afford outright, but lately it's been costing them much more than they expected to pay. and most of her friends are still renting, as well – have been having kids with people in unstable situations but she has to get windows in and has also an ant problem and her dad has an ex-wife problem and she has a mother -in-law problem and a mother problem too, since she's close to her dad. it's amazing what you can learn sitting across from someone Every sound could be a drama the wind has been moving the leaves of the plants on our windowsills like tips on the fingers of a loose cotton glove. the window's half open. out from the world this sliver is letting in snippets. sirens call: emergencies are rushed up the quaysides. a woman screams somewhere and somewhere a bottle breaks – somewhere else or close-by – I don't know. the thing about apartments in the middle of the city is that every sound could be a drama or just be things happening. in the kitchen I knock over a glass full of ashes and wine. in the bedroom my wife snores a brass band and no-one else hears. DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize, and has been released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)