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Part I ~1~ Something in his backpack jabbed at his spine, as if seeking purchase between the vertebrae. The duffle bag across his shoulder made the feeling worse with a lopsided tension that felt like it would shear him apart like the lines of fat in a cut of lean beef. Everything was heavy. Clothes, toiletries, shoes, a few books, a box of keepsakes, and his beat-up PS4, snatched at the last minute, composed his entire life now, and that entire life was composed of standing in this line, waiting for his fate to be determined. Sweat soaked his back and underwear. He wanted desperately to slough off the damp hoodie and the two coats overtop it, to bask in the artificial relief of recycled air, but the thought of the customer service agent calling his name at the exact moment his pale, bruised midriff was accidently exposed in the process of piling up loose clothes on the floor kept him standing perfectly still, saddled with bags, staring blankly ahead out the bay windows as the final light of the long day danced on the wings of the airplane he was supposed to be seated on, now long past it’s departure time, never to take off. “Ashton Trombley,” the customer service agent called. Ash flinched at his full name. He stepped up to counter. The sallow-skinned woman with a slop of graying hair, who had spent forty-five minutes ahead of him in line, and the last ten minutes engaged in a less than cordial conversation with the agent, threw her hands up in frustration. She gestured to a man – husband? brother? – who hastily scooped up their jackets, extended the handles of wheeling suitcases, and scrambled to follow her as she departed the concourse.  “Good luck, kid,” she said to Ash as she passed him. “They’re just gonna send you back home.” Something black and slimy slurried around in the pit of Ash’s gut. He simply nodded. “Identification, please,” asked the agent. She was a short woman with neat, thick hair and an equally thick accent that clocked her as a native Minnesotan – Ash recognized the cartoonish accent from the movies. “And your ticket as well. Then I can pull up your itinerary in our database.” Ash handed over his passport and ticket and waited. The agent frowned, checking the passport against Ash’s face. It had been the same game with the TSA agent twelve hours earlier. “I grew my hair out,” he said. “And I’ve lost… a lot of weight.” “Oh, that’s fine,” she said. “I can tell it’s your face.” That’s too bad, Ash thought. A silence fell while the agent – Tracy, she/her pronouns, as proclaimed by her name tag – tapped away at a keyboard behind the kiosk. The last few people in line behind Ash grunted and grumbled. Everyone was tired of being in an airport. But Ash’s exhaustion went deeper than standing around carrying bags and dealing with a canceled flight. He hadn’t rested during the layover, as he dealt with the onslaught of texts saying the plane was delayed, delayed, delayed, and finally canceled. Earlier, he hadn’t slept on the connecting flight: turbulence and an angry toddler had seen to that. Had he napped in the cab ride to the first airport? He couldn’t remember; it felt like weeks ago.  His stomach ached, hungry to the point of feeling ill. He’d gone too long without eating, to the point that the thought of food was now nauseating. It wasn’t unfamiliar. Sometimes that feeling was nice. You could believe that you might never have to eat again, never have to put some foreign substance in your body to keep yourself going. But then you had to wake up the next day, dizzy and disoriented and even more nauseous, and chug Gatorade and go back to sleep for three hours before you could feel like a human being again.  The agent was speaking to him, and Ash had to make a conscious effort to refocus his eyes on her face.  “I’m sorry? What was that?” “I said your flight on the B733 has been canceled, so we will have to either reschedule your flight or redirect you to a different airport.” “Can you tell me why the flight was canceled?” “A scheduling error.” The agent looked too exhausted to be sheepish. Ash shook his head. “I just bought my tickets two days ago. No one figured out there was an error by then?” “I’m sorry, sir,” said the agent. The pronoun sounded like a slur. “These things happen from time to time, especially with these smaller flights. But we can get you to a different airport for your connecting flight.” “My connecting flight brought me here.” “Oh, I apologize.” The agent looked at the screen. “Ok, so we’ll get you on the earliest flight possible to your destination.” “And when is that?” The agent clicked around on her computer. “It looks like the air traffic controllers rescheduled the J623 to take off from Gate A20 at 3:45.” Ash gaped. “Wha… Tomorrow afternoon?”  “Ah, no, sorry, 3:45 am.” Ash sighed. Things could always be worse. “I guess I’ll take that.” “Ok, excellent!” the agent said. “We’ll get you set up right away. The flight won’t have too many passengers, so you can have your choice of seating, but all the same, would you prefer an aisle or window seat?” “I really don’t care at this point.” Ash swiped at sweat hiding in his hairline. “Aisle, I guess.” Minutes dragged by as the agent typed at her console. Ash decided to risk taking off their duffle bag at the very least, setting it on a ledge on the front of the kiosk. He sighed at the respite from its weight. The agent glanced up to see what he was doing. “Oh, please don’t set anything on there, sir.” “Fuck.” Ash set the bag on the ground. He felt sweatier than ever. A voice proclaimed something over the airport loudspeakers, completely unintelligible. Because they hadn’t been replaced since the early 80s, or because Ash’s was growing more delirious by second? Impossible to say. A clock on the wall read 4:30 pm, yet the February sunlight was already draining away into twilight. Where the fuck was he that the sun set so early? Time had loosed its hold on reality. Just millimeters eked out by a finger on a clock face, minutes tapping by to the rhythm of fingers on a keyboard. No meaningful indicators of event or circumstance. Space, too, felt abstracted. Ash had abandoned the familiar architecture of suburban houses and intersections, passed through the sterile threshold of TSA, and entered a world of faceless urbanity. Every view from the flight here was an impressionist painting backdrop, beautiful and nondescript. The liminality imposed by long stretches of travel felt intimately manifest here, between hordes of carpeted chairs and stretches of tiled walls. Brushed steel pillars reflected everything and nothing as they marched down hallways leading everywhere and nowhere. Every gate a dead end, every window an eye opening on black voids of tarmac, and every ticket, labeled with departure and destination, the only purchase upon reality remaining in a world utterly removed from human experience. Presently, Ash realized the agent was speaking again. “I’m sorry?” “I asked if you had anywhere to stay tonight?” “No,” Ash said, irritation sneaking into his voice. “No, I don’t know anyone here. I don’t even know what city this is. I thought that in circumstances like this, the airline could put you up in a hotel overnight or something.” The agent shifted uncomfortably, and when she spoke again there was an edge of steel in her voice. “No, I’m sorry, sir, but the circumstances surrounding this flight cancellation don’t permit us to offer temporary lodgings. However, there are some hotels that I can recommend–” “I don’t have money for that. This international flight was already really expensive.” “Ok, well you could also look into getting an Air B&B, I know there’s some in the town just half an hour away. But I suppose without a car it would be a challenge to get there, and the cab service we usually use is not running at this time of night.” Ash didn’t even bother asking how expensive an Uber would be. “Forget it. I’ll just… crash until my flight.” It was only… nine hours away? Ugh. Well, he had all his unread books with him. And if he could find a corner of the airport with lights a bit dimmer than these glaring fluorescents, perhaps he could even sneak in a few hours of sleep. “Thanks,” Ash said. “Of course, sir, and again, I apologize for the inconvenience.” Had she even apologized a first time? Whatever. Ash started to turn away when he noticed a cart behind the kiosk, the kind flight attendants would wheel down the aisles.  “Can I get a snack from that cart?” he asked. “Some cookies or chips or whatever?” The agent glanced back at the cart. “I’m sorry, sir, we’re not supposed to–” she cut herself off as she took in the tired eyes, the tangled hair, and maybe the red line on his neck where a cut was still healing. “No problem,” she said. She pulled a bag of Sun Chips out of a drawer on the cart and handed it to Ash. “Thank you.” Ash’s smile felt as tired as the customer service agent’s. At least he'd get to take a nap now. The man in line behind Ash stepped to the kiosk and started to snarl out expletives, Ash couldn’t make them out over the sound of crunching chips.  Ash settled into a corner of Concourse D about as comfortably as the chips settling into his empty stomach. They had taken the edge off his hunger but replaced it with nausea almost as sharp. Whatever. That could soon be escaped by sleep. A jacket over his legs, another over his chest, the hood flipped up to cover his face, and a fluorescent light burned out for a little more darkness: that was about as cozy as one could get in an airport. He considered putting in earbuds, but the idea of someone catching him unawares seemed terrible. The day had been filled with enough anxiety. Fuck, the last six months, practically at war with his family. He looked at his nails, the dark green polish just starting to chip. How much of a problem had just that one little detail caused? Everything needed to go right from this point forward, having already gone all wrong so far.  I just have to get out of this airport, he thought. Just get on the next flight, and then I'll be free. Free of it all.  He screwed his eyes closed. The backwards hood of the jacket formed a safe little capsule over his face, and Ash felt it slowly fill with the warm, moist air of his own breath.  ~2~ Something in her backpack was digging into her spine. For a time, she tried to ignore the discomfort, but wriggling only dragged her further from drowsiness and did nothing to help the pain. Eventually it was too much, and with a grunt of stiffness, Ash dragged the hood of the jacket off her face. She leaned forward to make space to shove a hand between her back and the backpack. But her backpack was not on her back. Of course not; it was one half of the support under her legs, along with her satchel, the pair forming a lumpy ottoman as she fell asleep to the sound of the world’s worst TV show: the drone of airport announcements and the innervated rush of people in transit. Now the airport was quiet, the passengers having all found their way to their destinations. Lucky for them.  The pain in her back was fading now, an artifact of poor posture or memory of standing in line. It was probably time to head to her flight. Ash scanned the terminal for a clock, or a screen with any useful information, and finding nothing, she pulled out her phone. Dead. Of course – she’d been in transit for nearly 24 hours now. Should have charged it while sleeping. Might as well just get to her terminal now. She saddled herself once more with backpack and satchel and marched off .  The airport echoed with a faint, ambient melody. Exposed HVAC systems rattled with cool, recycled air that smelled faintly of fryer oil. But there was no hum of conversation that she could make out from here at… which gate was this? It took her an inordinately long time to find the sign, placed high above normal sight-lines and stenciled in a color two tones off the slate blue of the wall. G4. Hadn’t her canceled flight been at gate B17? She dug in her pockets for her old ticket, but it was gone. The customer service agent must have kept it, having traded her for a new one that listed her 3:23 am boarding time, as well as the gate: A20.  Ash groaned. How had she wandered so far? Indeed, how could this nowhere town require an airport with so many gates? Ash imagined a town filled with houses that were all Air B&Bs, no resorts but three dozen motels, no grocery stores or upscale restaurants, but with a McDonald’s or Hardee’s around every corner. No library or gyms or specialist health clinics, but a World’s Largest Wicker Basket just outside the corporate limit. A town that was only a node, no destination in itself, existing solely to keep people trapped there overnight alive until the next dawn, when they’d drag themselves back through TSA and catch their red-eye to the place they actually wanted to be. Because who would want to be here? The G’s counted down three, two, one, and Ash came to a junction. Looking left, Ash spotted another sign the same color as the wall stating this direction led to Concourses D and F, as well as some food courts and bathrooms, the latter denoted by the standard stick figure. The figure had a triangle of a dress on only one side of the body. Did this airport have gender-neutral bathrooms? That would be something. Ash felt the last vestige of food in her body had descended to a point where it would probably be wise to spend some time on a toilet before boarding an airplane. She looked for the sign on the right corridor, hoping to spot another bathroom sign in the direction of her gate, but there wasn’t one, just another cartoon burger and a label for concourses B, C, and D.  Wait, what? Ash looked back and forth between the labels, walking closer. She knew she needed glasses, but her eyes weren’t deceiving her: both directions were labeled with concourse B. And A was missing altogether. Was A such a long haul down the terminal that they hadn’t even bothered to label it on the signs?  Her satchel was feeling heavy again, and she swapped it to the other side of her body. A sort of rug burn had formed on both sides of her neck now. Would have been nice to have had time to buy a roller suitcase before leaving. Would have been nice to have planned a lot of things differently. She looked at her green nail polish again. At least that still looked good. This tone of green really was her color.  Ash sighed and turned left down the wide corridor. Her nap hadn’t been THAT refreshing; it couldn’t be even 3 am yet. There had to be time for a bathroom break. But where were all the freaking clocks? A place so detached from the outside world ought to have the current time at every corner and on every high-definition screen, yet all was random signage. LCDs poured out swirls of foam on fancy lattes instead of useful information about flight schedules, and there were no more arrows pointing toward destinations, only plaques of abstract stick figure cartoons captioned with things like “DON’T LEAVE BAGS UNATTENDED” and “NO FIREARMS PERMITTED IN CARRY-ON LUGGAGE” and “WATCH YOUR BACK”. Was the mosaic in the floor a giant arrow with a capital A? Or was it just a mountain vista? Before she could figure it out, Ash stumbled onto a moving walkway and was carried away. She rested her arm on the support railing, picked it back up as something squenlched underneath. Black lubricant or engine oil had smeared there. Ash didn’t have napkins, so she just stood there, holding her hand at arm's length in disgust, rolling along with the walkway and taking in the airport. Mostly looking for a damn clock.  An Olive Garden. A bar with steel chairs called Dandy’s. A colorful snack kiosk named Pop and Go. All were dark, slatted grating imprisoning rows of tables stacked with chairs. Wasn’t there anywhere to get a midnight snack? Well, why should there be, with no one around to want one? After drifting for several minutes, watching the F gates counting up, the wide corridor was partitioned in half by a wide wall. There was more signage for a bathroom, and Ash breathed a sigh of relief, made deeper when she saw the gender-neutral stick figure again. The moving walkway reached its terminus and Ash hopped off, heading toward the bathroom. She was startled to find that, despite being gender-neutral, there was no door to the entrance. Was it a multi-person bathroom? Ash walked in.  The bathroom smelled freshly cleaned, and indeed, the floor gleamed as if it were still drying from being mopped, though she hadn’t seen any janitorial staff during the long ride down the hall. Her sneakers tapped and squeaked in time to her steps as she entered. Big blue, yellow, and green tiles did little to reduce the cramped feeling as Ash entered and turned left, right at a dispenser for feminine hygiene products, left again at a fork that optioned urinals in the other direction, and then left once more before finally entering a big chamber lined with toilets. But no sinks? She turned right again. Here they were, rows of sinks on either side of a long, strangely cramped chamber. Even as slender as she was, no one could have squeezed past Ash while she washed the engine oil off her hands. Whatever, it wasn’t the worst designed thing in this airport, to be sure.  Ash had to spend three minutes and a dozen pumps of soap to wash off the sticky oil. It had somehow got into her nail beds, and she had to scrub until it was almost painful to get it all off. By the time she was done, her nail polish was looking far worse for wear.  The exhaustion of the day hit abruptly. Ash felt hot tears welling in her eyes. For a moment, she considered swallowing them back, a task familiar enough, having made an art form of it after numerous performances for her family and cousins. But you know what? Fuck it. There was no one in this damn bathroom to see, no one to perform for but herself, and in this moment, she was the damsel in distress. Her sobs echoed down the maze of halls in the bathroom. Something like footsteps echoed back. Ash froze and straightened, looking down both ends of the rows of sinks, but there was no one there. “Hello?” she said, and immediately regretted it. The sound of her own voice coming back to her was raspy, sardonic, folded over and hollowed out by the maze of a bathroom. There was no one here. She would have heard the squeaking shoes and bustling of bags. She sniffed and looked in the mirror to compose herself.  The mirrors in the bathroom ran the length of the sink, but because of the separate row of sinks directly behind her, Ash found herself caught in that infinite hallway illusion caused by a set of mirrors facing one another. Deeper and deeper into the corridor, an infinity of Ashs stared back, wading out from distant glassy depths to peer back at her own face. The reflections echoed back to her the sunken brown eyes, the tight lips, the dirty blonde hair that needed a trim and some serious conditioning splayed out over the blocky hunch of her shoulders and her flat chest. She turned a cheek slightly and watched her myriad reflections do the same, catching the stark light of their own bathrooms in such a way that lent a kind of wan, waifish beauty to her otherwise unremarkable features. Well, let no one claim her cheekbones weren’t snatched for the gods. She smiled at that. The Ashs smiled back. She had a nice smile; it made her look younger than twenty-five.  Something was off about the hallway of reflections, but she couldn’t tell what. The glass wasn’t warped, or damaged, or even particularly discolored, although at a great enough remove the tiny versions of herself descended into a sea-green haze. The light, the perspective, the seams in the glass, nothing there was amiss. Ash moved her eyes from the primary reflection to the next one deeper, leaning forward over the sink. It was identical, of course. Or was it? Was the hairline a little further back? Were the contours in her throat a little sharper? The nose too large, the jaw too wide, the sparkle in her eyes somehow wrong? But the face was the same. She turned around to look at the endless row peering over their shoulders in the opposite mirror, then turned back. Ash looked at the third face down the row of reflection, and then the next, but they were all the same. And they were all different. This one had a nose that didn’t fit, and this one did. This one had eyes too wide, this one eyes too narrow. This one was too angular and angry, this one too soft and weak. The faces of all the Ashs peered deeply into each other’s eyes, an endless chain of scrutiny, diving deeper and deeper into the aquamarine shadows of the twin mirrors, splitting and splitting until there was no single progenitor of the reflection, just a mirror looking back on itself, looking for something it could never find: a certainty of feature, a fixed state, an identity that did not, could not, exist in this world of imperfections and shifting feelings and aging faces. Peering deep enough, something black coalesced together and obscured the infinite point where eyes reflected shining stars shone and a moon illuminated its every phase at once, the point where the dichotomy of individuality and unity collapsed into an endless quagmire of perception created by too many eyes judging too many faces. Society was a collective of people become one hand taking up the scalpel to inscribe between every wrinkle of every brow the names of destiny and perfection alike, a circumcision demanded of each frail, singular human. As if in body alone the two could be mated! As if, with a surgeon’s precision, any identity could be coronated and converted to queen or king in a bloodless assignment at birth into a vehicle for a narrative writ long before the umbilical was severed. Sometimes was carved a face to launch a thousand ships, or a body built flawlessly apart from a hitch in the heel, but for most, the wounds healed falsely and blood seeped into eyes from the text imposed in gorey grooves there above. Perhaps, if they could gaze upon the unfettered sky, the mind behind those eyes might render itself free from context and script, and rise through gentle waters of the heavens to swim languidly to the moon, beloved for their capricious moods. Between the singing spheres, might not there be a place for all modes of mind to render themselves in whatever sex they please? For those unending stars cannot not see, cannot judge, cannot think, only feel, and all they feel is beauty.  Ash realized what was wrong with the reflections. At least half of them should have reflected the back of her head. But in every mirror, all she saw was that face, looking back. Part II ~3~ Airport toilet stalls were always a gamble. Sometimes the designers considered questions faced by the lone, weary traveler: where to hang multiple bags? How to make space for a purse, backpack, suitcase, and still leave room for knees as one sits? And how to position the sizable toilet paper rack? Those blessed with wisdom and empathy made sure the stall doors went to the floor, reserved space for hooks and handles a plenty, created the narrowest yet longest water closet for getting in and out with ease. However, in Ash’s experience, most airports had been designed by a class of architects uniquely loathing of the human condition, and unfortunately, this bathroom was designed by one such Marquis de Sade. The toilet, uncomfortably high off the ground, was also nearly abutting the stall door. Ash was only six feet tall, hardly a giant, yet her knees rubbed the stainless steel of the door as she sat on the toilet, which flushed automatically not once but twice in the process of hanging her satchel on the single hook of the door, setting the backpack atop the system of pipes entering the toilet, and contorting between the two as she shucked jackets and pants and more than a couple farts to at last sit down and relieve herself. It was immediately clear she’d be here for a while. She pulled out her phone only to be met with the worst angle of her face reflected in its empty, black screen. Still dead, of course. She held the power button nonetheless, hoping to catch a glimpse of the time – she still didn’t know what time it was! – but to no avail. Pooping in the still silence of the bathroom it would be. Not that silent, she noticed. Ventilation fans whirred. Piping gurgled behind walls. From somewhere else in the bathroom, several sets of footsteps squelched on the slick tile floors. An automatic sink started up, then another, and another. They ran for what seemed like an unnecessarily long time, all these people washing their hands together, probably a family with little kids messing around in the water. Then the sinks all shut off at once. The squelching moved on through the weird corridors of the bathroom, seemingly heading towards this room with all the toilet stalls. How many people were there? If they were a family, why weren’t they speaking to one another? Ash expected the muddled squeaks to distinguish themselves into separate sets of footfalls, but that wasn’t happening. Instead, the squelching sound just grew louder. Now sounded less like footfalls and more like something large and moist being dragged through the hall until the bathroom stalls echoed with the sound of it. Peering through the uncomfortably wide crack in the stall door, Ash couldn’t see anything, but the sound continued to progress slowly into the room. Something dark caught the corner of Ash’s eye, and she glanced down. The movement of her body made her realize she’d been holding as still as possible. She exhaled stiffly – she’d been holding her breath? – and leaned forward to inspect the floor.  Some dark fluid was seeping under the stall door. It followed the neat, square lines of the grout, reminding her of videos she’d seen of dry river beds flooding with water during a rainy season, water slowly rolling up piles of sticks and dirt and debris, inhibiting the initial flow so that it moved at a snail’s pace. She edged her shoe away from the oncoming stream, but, as in many of those videos, the black fluid began to overtake its tiny banks. A sheet of slow, black liquid oozed into sight from beyond the stall door. It was the same ugly black lubricant she’d put her hand in on the moving stairway. From where was it spilling? Or from what? A shadow blotted out the light in the crack of the stall door. Ash had stopped breathing again. This time she did not let it out. The shadow passed. The squelching receded. Ash looked down at her shoes, sticky with the black ooze. When packing yesterday, she’d noticed the left shoe had developed a hole from her dragging her feet. She prayed the slime would not find its way inside that hole. The squelching had faded to a whisper. Ash finished up quickly, saddled up her bags, and cautiously opened the stall door. The floor was slick with the black ooze in a wide trail. There were no footprints, no distinguishing markers at all, but the way it leached out at the edges and trickled away while the center was a solid, dark smear confirmed the vision in her mind of something black, heavy, sticky being dragged across the floor, leaving the way she’d come in. “I need to get the fuck out of this airport,” Ash murmured to herself, and at that moment, the automatic toilet decided to flush again. The sound swooped through the bathroom like a fighter jet, echoing as if every toilet in the entire room had flushed at once. That was more than enough for Ash. In quick, careful steps, determined to move as fast as possible without slipping, Ash tip toed through the trail of slime and made for the exit on the opposite side of the bathrooms. The sound of some wretched, squelching mass echoed behind her.  She hesitated only to use the hand sanitizer before leaving and striding in a random direction down the concourse. Very quickly. ~4~ Her shoes squeaked, leaving little black smears on the clean tiles, a haunting echo of the sound and shape of the thing that she felt certain was now following invisibly behind her. She stepped onto another moving walkway, and this time, made sure not to touch the railings as she stepped up her pace. All around the airport hall, there were traces of the slime now. Black smears streaked the tile in every direction, ahead, behind, even dripping from the towering grids of windows that composed a wall of the airport. The windows leaned inward, looming empty squares that betrayed nothing of the outside world but the endless tarmac and starless sky. The windows broke up into the ceiling, shattered and scattered between pipes and pillars and pylons at obtuse angles that lead nowhere, contained nothing, serving only to break up the monotony of a room in which no one wanted to live, a building in which no purpose was served except to connect one purpose to another. And now she was trapped here, malingering for god only knew how many hours, in this place that answered no questions, offered no respite, and opened no door, save one, and she could not for the life of her figure out where it was. And all the while, something black as tar seemed to be lurking around every corner. There was nowhere to hide in a place like this. Indeed, there wasn’t anywhere to run, either. But run she did She passed a Dandy’s Bar. The glasses stood in perfect rows. Liquor bottles were capped tight, as if they’d never been used.  She ran past a security kiosk, and even that looked closed. Where the hell were the guards? For the first time in her life, Ash felt like seeing a policeman would make her feel more comfortable. How could an airport be this empty? Had everyone else left? Perhaps she should do the same. The idea horrified her: she had never used an emergency exit in her life. And doing so in an airport? That would set off every conceivable alarm, probably draw in the local authorities, a fire engine or two, most likely ending in her detainment if not arrest, and missing her flight for sure. Dealing with that fall-out felt more stressful than running from a mysterious ooze. Still, even as she considered it, she spotted the faint glow of an exit sign on her left, where the moving walkway ended. She stumbled slightly  as she stepped off and paused to get her bearings. Sweat was soaking into the necklines of her jackets, and she could hear her heart pounding against her eardrums, as if trying to burst out and flee through that door. But even if she left now, the best-case scenario meant missing her flight, if indeed she hadn’t missed it already. She’d be stuck here even longer, who knows how long, in this godforsaken little town that was just three meaningless letters on a ticket, interrupting those that stated where she was from and where she wanted to be. An obstacle to be overcome, now a wall she lay slumped against in exhaustion, only halfway to the finish line. Was she going to stop halfway? Fuck that.  Ash stepped back onto the moving walkway, a new sense of resolve in her step. That resolve was undermined as she noticed the gate numbers, still counting up. Somehow she was now on F42. How could there be so many gates along this side of the airport? She turned around to see if they were somehow counting down on the opposite side of the hall – they weren’t, – but the real shock was seeing the Olive Garden again. It was the same one she’d passed coming toward the bathrooms, she was sure of it. The same number of tables, the same iron bars locking it up, the same fake ivy on the same fake brick. What clinched it was the same sign to the left of the restaurant facade, that weird “WATCH YOUR BACK” sign with just a pair of big, black graphic art eyes that seemed to follow her as she drifted past on the walkway. Ash moaned and squinted down the length of corridor ahead of her. She forced her astigmatic eyes to try and make out where it ended, or turned, or at the very least had another sign telling something of the airport layout. But everything mushed together in a slurry of creams and cast shadows and fluorescent lights. Some of the shadows seemed to be drawing nearer. A trick of perspective as she was moved by the platform? From far ahead, a sickly sucking squelched echoed forth. Ash turned and ran.  The moving walkway was heading against her now, so she had to sprint just to move at walking speed. Fatigue swamped her quickly. She looked about aimlessly. Something to help. Someone to help her. Nothing moved. She caught sight of herself in the darkened windows: pale, sweaty face, bouncing backpack and satchel, heaps of clothing hiding her entire body. Just some stupid, overgrown kid, running alone through an airport. The movement of the walkway created an illusion as if she was just running in place, with everything motionless behind her flailing reflection. She was going nowhere, being pulled in two directions at once. She tried to speed up, found no extra strength in her thin legs, tried to match her original pace, failed, stumbled, cried out, tripped off the end of the platform, fell to hands and knees.  The red light of that exit sign fell upon her head like a spotlight. Ash gasped for breath. She reached toward the bar to press the door open.  And then she stopped. Sweat ran into her eye and she wiped it away. She stood up, settled her satchel on her opposite shoulder, and started to run down the hall once more. The F’s counted down. When she reached F1, she looked back for that exit sign, but it was lost in a false darkness  ~5~ Ash stood in shock at the top of concourse F. She had been certain she was now back where she’d started, but perhaps she’d gotten turned around again? Leaving the bathroom through the other side, turning back down the concourse, she no longer felt confident which end of the airport she was on. Indeed, the whole thing was starting to feel endless. Before her were two sets of escalators, and between them on a pillar with arrows pointing left and right, “1” and “3” respectively. When she had come to be on floor two, she couldn’t say. She remembered going up an escalator at some point, but whether it was at this airport or the first one, she had no idea. She no longer had the energy to care, either. She just wanted to get to her gate. She checked her new ticket again: A20. At least that hadn’t gotten confused in her mind like everything else. The sign below the “1” was again labeled with F and G, and below the “3” with B, C, and E. Well, that made about as much sense as anything else. She stepped onto the ascending escalator. The pressure of the unnaturally dark hall was heavy behind her. Was that the sound of something squelching across the tile floor behind the drone of the escalator machinery? Ash couldn’t be sure. She stepped off the escalator into a nearly identical corridor. No signage. Of course. She turned back to the escalators in case there was a clue there. Instead she saw that the down escalator had a “1” by it, and the other had a “3”. Except she’d just ascended to “3” so it had to be some kind of mistake. For her own sanity, she checked the gates on this floor: G. So that made no sense, but at least it wasn’t F. She looked at the floor labels again. Down: D, E, F. Up: A, B, C.  A! But she didn’t feel particularly relieved. If these signs were wrong, as they had to be, then Concourse A could still be anywhere. Still, she took the escalator up one more time.  Floors 1 and 3. Great. But this time, down was labeled with “TO ALL GATES”. Up was labeled with… nothing. There was no indication of what was upstairs. A small part of Ash, still more curious than exhausted, made her peer up the escalator to the narrow gap where the low ceiling sloped upward with the stairs. It wasn’t moving, and police tape guarded the entrance. She almost felt grateful for that police tape, the first sign of something imperfect, something out-of-place. And being out-of-place in a place between all places was somehow deeply comforting.  At the top of the escalator, below the edge of the ceiling, Ash saw a set of boots. “Hey!” she cried, stumbling forward. The words choked out of her parched throat like a sob, and Ash cringed at the sound. No wonder the boots had stepped away as she darted closer. She probably looked and sounded insane. Suddenly she was glad the person had ignored her.  She looked around the concourse she was on now and blinked as she saw that this was just an exit to the airport. There were a few more generic airport info signs, but the main one just said “baggage claim”. Wasn’t that usually on the bottom floor?  Who gives a fuck? She had already made up her mind not to leave. But then where was Concourse A? Had she missed something on the previous floor? The sign said “TO ALL GATES”...  Ash descended the escalator. She immediately felt silly. Concourse G was indeed in front of her here, but to the left it split off in two directions. Left B, and to the right… just C. Ash nearly screamed in frustration. She considered going back up the escalator to find that person and beg them for help, but it was too late for that. So, B or C? Tired of trying to reason anything out, Ash turned down C. She tried to remember if she’d come in this direction when her first plane had landed. Nothing seemed familiar. She started walking. The C’s were counting up. At some point, a hallway split off onto concourse D – hadn’t D been downstairs from here? – but Ash continued until she spotted gate C8. That looked familiar, at last. This was where her original connecting flight had been scheduled. And there, perched in the chair, was the customer service agent. Ash felt her face break out in a gleeful smile. She wasn’t where she needed to be yet, but at least here was someone to… Drawing closer, she saw her error. A mauve flight attendant jacket had been left on the chair. Ash stared at it blankly. It seemed there was not a single living soul in the airport. So who had left this, and why? She looked for the nametag to see if it was Tracy’s, turning a pleat of the jacket over and tilting the nametag to catch the light.  The print of the name had smeared. Had she rubbed it with her finger? Indeed, something black smudged her thumb. But weren’t the letters on these things usually made of vinyl, or beveled plastic? Ash tried to clean up the smudge, but it only smeared further, obstructing the pronouns beneath it. What she had thought said “she/her” started to look like “see/here”, and that dissolved into “heeheehee”.  She rubbed it again, but all she succeeded in doing was getting her own hand soiled with more oily ink. It felt so important that she see what pronouns had been printed there, even more important than the name. And wasn’t that just the way things went, anyway? Whoever this was, or had been, was less important than their gender, that piece of data people always seemed to evaluate before anything else. Names hid a whole secret identity behind them. Gender offered a much more readily available value judgment. In sudden frustration, Ash ripped the nametag off the jacket and threw it across the floor. It skittered up to the edge of the closed door of gate C8. Something was moving along the edge of that door. Ash peered closer and watched as something oozed out and slowly drowned the nametag in black slime. With a loud slam, the door exploded open, and there was suddenly a lot more. Part III ~6~ Ash screamed. The sound ripping out of her came with a perverse sense of relief. She’d been wanting to scream for a while now, perhaps even since that first trickle of glistening oil-black slime had crept under her door in the bathroom, and voicing it now felt like a confession to a dear friend in the privacy of a bedroom. The echo of it hollowing out her lungs left her both empty and energized at the same time. With her next breath, Ash used that energy to begin to sprint.  A thick gurgling like a polluted stream pursued her down the concourse. Panes of darkened glass reflected her, a bundle of coats and bags, and behind her, a bundle of sludge and grease. It lurched forward in bursts, sickening, sputtering, bubbling gasps echoing behind her as it poured over itself, trying to catch up to her. Gate numbers flashed in her peripherals: C52, C53, C54. No airport could possibly be so long. And yet the corridor stretched on ahead, an abyss of useless doorways, void of place or time, void of even identity. Towers of glass and steel loomed aimlessly as they were washed in the black tide behind her. Empty seats and rows of queuing stanchions were flooded with gobs of pitch. Darkness swallowed the airport at Ash’s back. She had never run like this before in her life. Her left ankle was starting to complain and bow inwards as it slipped around in a loosening shoe. Sweat soaked her shirt and underwear, and something angular and hard in her backpack chaffed on her spine. But there was no stopping. It would go on like this forever, endlessly counting up the gates, no place to hide, no time to catch her breath, no peace from the inexorable tide of muck that for no reason on this green earth wanted her swallowed in its darkness. It was a punishment devoid of a crime, a hatred devoid of an injustice, a collective devoid of identity except one: to absorb, to reduce, to annihilate. To separate her from her destination, from any destination. Unless she gave up and left the airport completely, unless she wandered off to be lost in a night just as dark as that blob of nothingness, she would never find rest again.  C78, C79, C80. This was absurd. Her breath felt like shards of glass in her chest. Another exit sign tantalized from across the hall. No. She would not give up. But there, what was that next to it? Small red box: a fire alarm. The idea of setting off an alarm that would alert every person in the airport, every head turning to face her and scrutinize her, made her feel sick. But there was no other damn person here! Why should she care? Ash turned, ran to the fire alarm, and pulled it down. It was a satisfying sensation, getting to pull this forbidden lever. There was no child who hadn’t stared with eyes wide in morbid curiosity as they pondered doing this thing they had been warned against since before even their most formative memories. Feeling the comfortable, sturdy click of plastic in her grip as mechanisms and connectors slipped into place, that little kid in Ash jumped up and down with excitement. The moment was made more gratifying by the spray of water that immediately showered from tiny spigots in the ceiling, water that cooled her own face while seeming to burn the black blob. It hissed, choking on itself as it rolled over in place, slumping down, pulling back, the waves along the floor receding. An alarm began to blare, and red and white lights flashed, but the clamoring of her senses was somehow comforting in contrast with the terrible silence and emptiness of the airport before. The cacophony brought it to life, somehow.  As Ash turned and started to run again, she became aware of a gravelly grumble. It was a voice, coming over the PA. The klaxons of the fire alarm drowned it out, but Ash could tell even if they were silenced, the poor quality of the speaker system would render the speaker unintelligible. It was just garbled static behind the alarms, the gushing sprinklers, the sputtering oil blob. But it was the first voice Ash had heard for a long time. Ahead was another minibar, and beyond that the hallway widened and split down the center, like the bathrooms earlier. She saw a door with a tall glass pane in it; it seemed to lead into a small office of some kind, TSA or customer service or something. Glancing back to verify the blob was falling behind, Ash feinted to the right, if it was watching, if it could even see, then crouched and doubled back behind benches and chairs and partitions until she made it inside the bar. From there, it was easy to sneak up to the door. She tried the handle: it opened without resistance. She slipped inside and closed it, slumping to the floor. No rain fell in this small, white room. The alarms were quiet as well. But there was a PA speaker overhead. Ash held her breath, praying the voice would come again. Water made salty by her sweat crept into her open mouth, spraying as she panted. The seconds crept by. The muted alarm blasted in the hallway. Water trickled in under the door. It was clear and clean.  When the voice came, Ash half screamed again. “This is the final call for flight J623. Passenger Trombley, Ashley, please make your way to Gate A20. The doors to your flight are closing in five minutes. Again, Passenger Trombley, Ashley, please come to Gate A20, doors close in five minutes.” ~7~ Hearing her name spoken by a stranger after so long of neither seeing nor hearing a trace of human life was almost a shock to Ash. Hearing her full name was almost even more so. Nobody called her Ashley. She didn’t even call herself that. Hearing someone call it out now was a deep relief, yes, but somehow also disconcerting. It felt like someone else was being called, like a mistake had been made. That couldn’t be her . They had to mean another girl named Ashely Trombley.  But that was her gate, that was her flight. For just a moment, Ash hesitated at the door. Was she really going to answer to this name? She had wanted to hear it called for so long, yet it didn’t feel quite right. She had to. She had a plane to catch. Ash threw the door open and nearly face-planted on the slippery floor. Down the corridor, the lights had gone out, and all was filled with a moist darkness from which emanated that terrible, echoing slurping noise of the blob. There was no time to deal with that; hopefully the rainfall would keep it weakened. Ash turned away and started down the concourse, slower this time to avoid slipping.  Almost immediately, at Gate C99 the hallway turned right, sloped upward, and split at a T intersection. Left: Concourse B. Right: Concourse A. At fucking last. Ash turned right again. She didn’t bother to question how planes could fit in between Concourses A and C. She didn’t question why, from either concourse, the light of the parallel one was not visible beyond the windows, or indeed, any sign that there was a structure. She didn’t think about anything except for the fact that there, twenty gates down the hall, was a woman in a mauve jacket and hat, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, looking curious as this sweaty mess of a person sprinted towards her.  “Hello, are you-” “I’m Ash Trombley, is this flight J623?” The travel agent smiled, her host of white teeth shining in the bright lights of the airport, and Ash couldn’t help but smile back. “Yes, you’re just in time. In the future, to avoid delays, we recommend arriving at TSA at least–” “Yes, I know, I’m sorry.” Ash fumbled her passport and ticket out of a pants pocket. Both were damp, with sweat or water, perhaps even a little pee from fright. But the flight attendant took them with a calm professionalism, scanned them, and held up the passport to check it against Ash’s face.  “I grew my hair out,” said Ash. “And I lost weight. I know it doesn’t look like me…” “No, it looks just like you,” said the flight attendant, passing it back to Ash. Ash started to shove the papers back into her pocket, then paused. She looked at the passport ID page. There was a girl that looked just like her, a little younger. Shorter hair. A little chubbier. Was the jawline too narrow? Was the hairline too sharp? The faint lines on the forehead just slightly off? A name was written there: “Ashley Trombley”. That was her. That had always been her. And yet, it wasn’t her. It wasn’t him, either… “Is something wrong?” the flight attendant asked. “We really need to get going.” “I…” Ash looked at the flight attendant and her polite smile.  From somewhere down the concourse, there was an audible squelch. “Thank you,” Ash said, hurrying through the gate.  “Have a good flight,” said the attendant, turning back to her post.  The sepia corridor stretched down to a narrow rectangle of darkness, from which the low roar of jet engines breathed. Ash felt a little sob swelling up and strode forward to board the plane. Just before the doorway, Ash felt a prickle on the back of their neck, a stab in the back of their spine. They turned to look back down the hall. The flight attendant who had checked them in was standing there, in the same position, hands clasped in front of her, smiling kindly down to Ash. Was the hallway beyond her somehow darker? The plane door was pulled closed, and the answer to that was left in mystery. ~8~ The flight was completely booked, and everyone was eager to leave. Men and women jostled for elbow room down the aisles of the plane, the calm maintained only by the artificial breeze of the plane cabin and the placid voice of the flight attendant already dictating emergency procedures over the PA. People turned and frowned as Ash stumbled down the narrow central aisle toward their seat. The squeeze of humanity was jarring after the hours spent wandering the empty halls of the airport, like coming into an air-conditioned house after a blistering hot day, or a dry, toasty one after hours wandering snowy streets. The two extremes juxtaposed themselves over Ash, the air somehow both boiling and freezing, moist and dry, and which was real and which was caused by their own confused state of anxiety and relief was impossible to say. Drips of cold sweat threatened Ash’s eyes as they scanned for their seat number. A man in a business suit made a point of clearing his throat as Ash bumped his cell phone out of his hand. A woman, trying to keep her baby in a pink jumpsuit from crying any louder, threw Ash a roll of her eyes. Voices whispered in an irritated buzz. Everyone was waiting for Ash to sit down. Everyone was waiting for them to make a choice.  Ash found their seat halfway down the aisleway, next to a person so old the stony facade of any distinguishing facial features had been destroyed by time. For a moment, Ash thought they might be dead, but a faint snore escaped their mouth.  Ash chucked their bag in the overhead bin, stuffed their backpack under the seat, and buckled in for the flight. Relief tried to sneak into their muscles, but lingering panic was having none of that. Maybe once the flight took off, the horrors could be put behind them at last. As it was, the plane was still pulling away from the gate. “Thank you for flying with us,” the flight attendant said. She started to ramble off details about the flight. Six hours until their west coast destination. Thank god. As the cabin lights dimmed and the plane began to taxi down the runway, Ash dug in their backpack for their phone charger. They felt around for an outlet on the seat: it was there. at the base of the armrest, and disconcertingly slick. In fear, Ash looked at their fingers for traces of the black sludge, but there was none. It took several tries for Ash to jiggle the prongs on the power brick into just the right position for the aged outlet to work, but at last a little lightning bolt “charging” animation popped up on the black screen.  The airplane constantly stopped and started as it taxied. Ash tried to spot what was hindering its progress out the window, but all was as veiled by night as it had been in the airport. Their phone buzzed: it was ready to power on once more. Ash did so eagerly. There were only a few minutes before takeoff, when they'd have to switch to airplane mode. It was 3:26 am, because of course it was. Everything was fine. Ash was right on time. Behind the large numbers of the time was the background photo. Ash had taken it a year ago. It was Sheana, Hyperios, and Leo seated around a picnic bench, with the forepaws and snout of Leo’s boxer-pitty mix just barely in camera as it begged for strawberries off Hyperios’s paper plate. The lighting was bad and everyone looked hungover. Sheana said she hated the photo because she looked too posed. Hyperios said he hated it because he looked sweaty and his necklaces were tangled. And Leo said he hated it because Ash wasn’t in it.  “Just take a selfie?” he’d suggested. But Ash had wanted a photo of just the three of them. Ash would have looked worst of all, sickly and pale, especially in contrast to Sheana’s flawless midnight skin. Their eyes would have looked sunken and their smile forced and tired. Hiding from the camera’s eye the hollows of their cheekbones from undereating, or the blood on their nose from another altercation with their dad, would have been impossible. Maybe Leo was right, and perhaps Ash had been texted enough photos of their trio of online friends at the park, at the club, at a kickback with a bong and a horde of snacks. But Ash had taken this photo, and that made it extra special. It wasn’t meant to look good. It was meant to remind Ash of what was real. Of what was worth living for. The plane had been stopped for a long time. Ash looked at their messages. A few from their family – fuck that, deleted – and of course a slew from the airline regarding the rescheduled flight. One from their old boss, wishing them the best in a move everyone at work assumed had been long planned and kept secret. And a handful from Sheana. Ash opened these so eagerly that they jumped to the top of the text conversation. It took a full minute of scrolling through semi-ironic boudoir photos, essays and rants exchanged at innumerable witching hours, and endless memes to get to the bottom. Ash didn’t want to review those last few days of scrambling to coordinate flight times, transport, and worst of all finding emergency housing. Sheana said they could crash on the couch, but that was only temporary. In the end, a friend of a friend had a furnished attic space waiting for a tenant. Of course Hyperios had found that. Hyperios knew everyone.  The unread texts: Girl, what’s the tea? You were supposed to text me when you got on your flight! Fuck. In their exhaustion and disappointment, Ash had totally forgotten to respond. Half an hour later: Bitch ur lucky I made you put my email on that ticket. I guess ur flight was delayed that fucking sucks. So r u dropping in at like 9am now? I can still pick up, np. Try to stay sane at the airport! love u So much for that.  After midnight: WE LOVE YOU! <3 Leo said to say that isnt’ he sweet. BTW they found that estro connect you asked about! get ready for the t-girly energy to HIT Fuck. Around 2 am, clearly after some drinks: ok kinda worrid that tyou havnt text me back bitch but imma drag my hungover ass to the aiprort and yuou better b there or im gonna have hyperios bleach ur hair again It had looked horrible the first time, and with Ash’s hair even more damaged now, they might as well just go bald. Something wet dripped onto their phone. Ash wiped it away. It typed out a string of random characters as it triggered the touch screen capacitors. Ash deleted them and typed: omw, taking off now. Sorry I didn’t respond sooner. A lot has happened. They sent it, then paused and added: But I’m ok now I think Ash deleted the last two words and hit send again. Another tear hit the screen as Ash typed more:  TYSM for finding estro! I really can’t wait! But again, the hot tears smeared across the screen and triggered the keyboard capacitors. Now the text read: TYSM for finding estro, but I need to think. Ash stared blankly at the phone. The water blurring both eyes and the screen was creating a strange doubling effect, as if they were looking at two of the same phone with two different lines of unsent text. They looked at their hands, the fingernails short, the polish chipping, the fingers long and uncertain, the tiny blond hairs on the knuckles. Was it their hands trembling or the hairs moving in some breeze? A horrible, echoing BANG reverberated through the cabin. ~9~ Ash started and dropped the phone. They looked around to see if anyone had noticed their overreaction, but no one had. Indeed, it seemed as if no one had noticed the sound, either. People looked at their books and watches, nodded off with eye masks covering their faces, or stared blankly into space.  Another bang, like something striking the outside of the airplane. Ash leaned past the old person next to them and scrambled with a sliding panel covering the window, but it was stuck fast. They leaned out of their seat, hoping the flight attendant would say something. Another bang, this time from the side of the plane. Another, and another, and Ash could feel the vibration in the exoskeleton of the plane.  No one reacted.  Ash started to stand, and was tugged back into their seat by their seatbelt. It would have been disruptive to get up during take-off anyway.  BAM! The plane rocked slightly. A phone slipped off someone’s lap and into the aisleway. “Excuse me!” Ash’s voice cracked out almost against their will. “I’m sorry, excuse–” They were cut off as another bang jostled the plane. The sound was terribly loud, yet somehow muted, as if it wasn’t something solid that was slamming against the hull. Ash felt terror rising in their throat. A hissing whine cut in, and Ash saw another flight attendant, a light-skinned black man with hooded eyes, raise a mic to his mouth. “Attention passengers, we’re having some trouble with takeoff, and unless the issue is resolved, we’ll have to wait on the tarmac. For now, everybody please leave your seatbelts fastened, and hopefully we’ll choose a direction soon.” Interrupted by slams, Ash wasn’t sure they’d heard the flight attendant correctly. “Choose a direction?” they asked. They glanced briefly at the dozing senior by the window, as if they would have any further information, and then looked to the front of the plane with a gasp as another bang hit the plane.  “Excuse me,” Ash said, trying to control the pitch of their voice while making sure the attendant heard. “What does that mean, choose a direction?” The flight attendant looked at Ash and spoke into the mic again. “It’s a bit technical but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” What the hell? Ash looked around to see if any of the other passengers were as confused.  Ordinarily, when Ash thought “everyone” was staring at them, it was perhaps one or two passersby who glanced up for a fraction of a second before moving on. Ash knew the whispers or unreadable facial expressions were rarely intended for them. Believing that in the moment was the real challenge.  However, in this instance, it took Ash several seconds for it to sink in that every person in the plane had turned to stare at them. A deep chill ran up Ash’s spine. It ached and made them feel dizzy. “You see,” the flight attendant continued. “All airplanes have basically the same construction. In the front of the plane is the cockpit, the glass-covered window from which the plane is controlled by the pilot. The back of the plane is called the tail, and acts as a kind of rudder to stabilize the aircraft. Finally, to either side are the wings, which are designed to only move in one direction, creating lift and eventually picking it off the ground, as the engines, also oriented in only one direction, accelerate the craft forward.” Even through the anxiety of the moment, Ash felt irritated. “Yes, everyone knows that.” “Ok, good. Then you’ll understand our issue. Behind me is the front of the airplane. But unfortunately, behind you is also the front of the airplane.” What could that possibly mean? Ash started to turn in their seat. But there was no need. They were already facing the back of the airplane, which was also the front. Row after row of seated people faced the back of the airplane, and row after row faced the front, and whichever way Ash looked, everyone was facing them.  Ash felt a nauseating sense of doubling as they realized the “front” of the plane they were facing was also the identical back part of the plane. There was no tail section, no single swept-back pair of wings. Instead, two sets of wings opposed each other, engines roaring as the plane tried to pull itself apart, being forced in two directions by two different operators in two different cockpits, each facing the right direction, each in total opposition to each other. And Ash was somehow seeing in both directions at once. As a kid, Ash had taken an interest, or perhaps morbid curiosity, in a large illustrated volume of Greek and Roman mythology in the school library. Tales of people and gods being disemboweled, beheaded, merged, and mutilated were the kind of lurid stories you normally had to perform a risky Google search on the school computer to find, but here it all was, in easily checked-out storybook form. Apollo and Artemis, Hephestus and Nike, Salamacis, Teiresius, Medusa. Gods, demigods, and monsters with strange appetites and appearances populated the stories, but ever captivating to Ash was the god Janus. A god of dichotomies, of opposing forces, united in one head with two visages facing opposite directions. Ash had spent ages studying the depictions of the two-faced god. How could one exist in that state? It would be torture. Always facing forward, yet forward was also always backward. Any movement would become impossible as the two faces warred over which would decide where they were going. That kind of paralysis, that tension of mind, was unsustainable. It would break any person. Ash felt that paralysis now as they reached up to touch the back of their head and felt their own eyes, their own nose, the corner of their trembling lips. They felt a scream of horror simmering in their throat, and looked again with two sets of eyes at the flight attendants at the fronts of the airplane. “It’s time to decide which direction we’re going,” said the two identical men. “You’re the last one to get on board.” In eerie, silent unison, the other passengers began to rise from their seats and move toward Ash. Part IV ~10~ United States air law prohibited firearms, knives, and other sharp or explosive weapons from being brought into an airport. TSA had done its job in making sure the passengers of flight J623 had not secreted any of those things onto the flight. Still, things like beard trimmers, scissors under four inches in length, sharpened pencils, pocket lighters, baseball bats, metal water bottles, nail clippers, curling irons, knitting needles, these were permitted, and as the passengers rose from their seats, they took up these things now, emptying bags and plugging in cords, each waiting their turn to stand, enter the aisle, and move slowly toward Ash.  Ash wanted to scream, but they gagged on the sound, paralyzed by the jarring sensation of having two faces and no back, somehow sitting forward in two directions at once. But even worse than this realization was that which came from watching everyone else stand. Every person on the flight was afflicted with the same condition. But it wasn’t the sight of myriads of people with two faces that made bile rise in Ash’s throat, no, it was the sight of the mutilation. Bloody, broken faces rose from suffocation against the backs of chairs. Some had their eyes stitched shut, or poked out, teeth broken or removed completely, hollow sockets and toothless mouths trying to take in the world between lid and lip. Noses had been smashed flat so the front faces could rest easily against headrests. Breasts had been bloodily sliced off, genitals carved out, and collar bones shattered, all so that the other body, the body that had been determined to be the true front, could recline comfortably back and flatten the reverse side completely. Limbs popped horribly as people stood and took up their improvised weapons. From the perspective of the gored faces, arms twisted backward at terrible angles. Leg joints popped out of place in service of shambling steps. Skin around ankles and wrists stretched to the point of tearing and bleeding as hands flailed, feet stumbled, and the horde of Janus people turned their front-facing mouths and emotionless eyes toward the Ashs. The moans of the tortured, no longer muffled by headrests and cushions, began to fill the cabin. And all the while, they were underscored by the strengthening smash of something huge and liquid against the hull of the plane. Ash fumbled with their seatbelt, but which side did it unbuckle from? Somehow both sides, and somehow neither, and with only one set of awkward arms to share between themself, Ash could not manage to get it off. A Janus person, a man with a buzzing beard trimmer, took a swipe at one of Ash’s foreheads, and Ash tilted to the side just before he swept a gouge through it that would have scalped them. An old woman closed in with a cane. She was hunched, and the forward angle of her head allowed the blood seeping from her double’s eyes to trickle down into her own as she smashed the cane down into one of Ash’s cheeks. The elbows of a boy with big, angry eyes crunched, tendons snapping and bone popped through the flesh as he angled a blow with a tennis racket at Ash’s teeth. The crowd assaulted Ash even as they assaulted themselves, and the Ashs screamed in pain and horror as they struggled to protect the most vital points of both sides of their body against the onslaught. “Why are you doing this?” they screamed. To their surprise, the flight attendant actually responded. “To get from one place to another, we must move forward. That means we have to choose just one direction, Ash. All of us. Everyone here has chosen a side. Everyone except you has given up this entitled capriciousness and resolved to a single, meaningful identity. Ordinarily, we don’t let you choose, but since you’ve made it this far, we’ll let you decide which one to keep. Decide now, or lose both.” And at last, Ash understood. Against the hail of blows, cuts, and burns, against all reasonable possibility of spatial orientation, he at last managed to turn around and face herself, and she turned to face him. It was that same face from the bathroom mirror, the same in the reflections running down the hall in an endless string. Identical, yet different. Or was it? Was the hairline a little further down? The throat contours a little softer? The nose too flared, the jaw too clenched, the sparkle in each pair of eyes somehow both reflecting pain, reflecting joy, or perhaps neither? But the face was the same. This was Ash’s face, and that was Ash’s face, and one had to go. This was her chance to change forever. She was leaving her fucked up family, her fucked up life, her fucked up identity, and Sheana would help her become Ashley completely. She was about to take flight and transform forever from a caterpillar into a butterfly, from an egg into a bird. There was nothing else left to question, right?  Ashton smiled sadly. The pain was distant but complete, chattering all through his body like frostbite setting in. He was dying. And that was alright. Let his larynx be crushed, his jaw broken, his chest ripped open and the frail heart removed. That was all right. The world wanted it that way. Let Ashton be writ upon a stone, and that stone thrown into the sea, to be scrubbed clean by the waves. He would offer himself up, knowing that Ashley would be safe in the arms of her friends. Except… He still wanted to help. And she wanted him to stay. His life wasn’t only fuck-ups and tragedy. He’d taught herself to ride a bike, if slowly, taught herself to speak Spanish, if poorly. He’d been the protector when her friend was pushed down during recess, he’d been the anger when her teacher failed her for solving the math question differently, he’d been the strength in the final hour of an overtime shift. He’d been the logical voice when her father had confronted her about the dresses in her closet, and he’d been the silence when her father had beat her afterward.  But she was still going to change, because she was the pride and the joy and the peace in his heart when he put on that dress and looked in the mirror and saw… and saw… “Just try cutting yourself out of it,” a frail, old voice whispered in their ear. Ash shot their arms out. A pair of nail scissors, clutched in the hands of a man who looked like their father, tried to pull away. Ash held on with all their strength, squeezing until their fingernails dug into his skin, until his index finger gave way with a slight pop, and scissors slid into Ash’s palm. Ash jerked the scissors to one side of the belt holding them both in place and cut and sawed. It was as effective as using a butter knife. A pencil stabbed just below Ash’s eye. A set of keys scraped at their arm. A lighter set fire to their damaged hair. And then they were standing, and then they were elbowing people away, flailing wildly, throwing up the hood of their jacket that somehow didn’t cover either of their faces but protected them from attack, and barreling through the crowd. They moved toward the cockpits, both cockpits, at the same time. They moved in perfect unison, their heartbeats a rhythm to help them keep time, the rhythm a song to drown the clamoring people and the pounding of the aircraft hull, starting to dent in places. They dragged themselves forward through the crowd, forward past the flight attendant and their own destroyed face – she might have been beautiful if she’d been allowed to live – and reached for the doors of the cockpits on the fronts of the plane and pulled the handles and– ~11~ Outside the curved window of the cockpit, an ocean of blackness swept across the horizon. It smashed against the windows of the airport, glass shattering silently as the ooze flooded every corridor and stairwell. It lashed at the random structures on the tarmac, toppling them one by one, swallowing up the tiny lights of signal towers and airstrips until all was swathed in the empty void of substance. A person sat in the cockpits. It was the same person in each, just as Ash was the same person, attached to themself yet each acting freely. The person’s faces regarded the two different angles of the sea of ooze, not startling as a pseudopod swept up to slam against the glass, but only sighing faintly.  They turned to face Ash. They looked familiar, muscular and lithe with olive skin, long, black hair in a billowing quaff that contrasted with their tight pilot’s uniform. A figure from a long-forgotten dream, or long-abandoned future. Ash looked into their faces and felt known, intimately. “Where would you like to go, Ash?” asked Janus. “Home,” Ash said. They took the seats next to Janus. Janus’s mouths curled, one to the left, the other to right, in a wry little smile. “I thought you’d say that,” they said.  All of them turned to face the consoles. Impossibly, two sets of turbines started up in opposite rotations. Impossibly, two sets of wheels trundled the same plane forward in opposite directions. Impossibly, two sets of wings lifted the plane off the ground. Impossibly, the plane rose, and as wind scraped the last drips of sludge off the hull to rejoin the seething mass below, the plane headed in two opposite directions for the same destination. ~12~ Cumulonimbus clouds rolled out to the horizons in peach highlights over a plum sky. Far below, in the veins between more clouds, the blackened earth churned with the ooze. Everything was very quiet, apart from the rumble of turbines. “Would you like to sleep?” Janus asked. “We’ve still got a few hours in the air.” Ash didn’t respond. Despite the beauty of the sky that cradled the plane in featherweight arms, they couldn't take their eyes off the darkness far below. “Sometimes,” they said, “it feels as if the entire world is demanding that I have to be just one thing.”  “Most things are,” said Janus. “Just one thing, that is.” Ash frowned and looked at them. “But that’s just like… human conceptualization. That a bird is only a bird, or… a cloud is a cloud.” “You don’t think that’s true?” Ash looked out the window again. “I mean… A bird is also a collection of cells. And a cloud is also a collection of water droplets. And that’s just looking at it with science. You can also think about it like… is a cloud really a cloud without light reflecting off it? Without all kinds of air pressure changes or whatever to give it shape? And a bird needs to eat, sleep, fly, probably. It depends on so much of the world around it to keep it alive. It can’t exist without those things, not for long.” “So most things are really a whole bunch of things put together.” “Exactly.” “And a whole bunch of things can come together to be one thing.” “Sure.” “So,” said Janus, “I guess that would mean, if you took everything, and put it all together, then you’d just have one thing.” Ash blinked. “I mean… I don’t know how you’d refer to that one thing.” “Neither do I,” said Janus. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” “Ok…” “You say a bird can’t be without food and water. Then a bird is also the stream from which it drinks, the worms it pulls from the ground. And that stream is also the rocks of the riverbed on which it runs, and the worm is also the soil through which it digs. The earth is in all things, and all things are in the earth. And the earth is defined by its context in the solar system. And so on and so forth, and eventually, in trying to define any one thing completely, we find ourselves defining all things.” Ash scoffed. “But then that just… renders all distinction meaningless. How can we discuss anything if we’re going to act like the solar system has some importance on a bird getting a drink of water?” “It depends. Who’s involved in the discussion? Who’s asking the questions?” “What? I don’t know, just random people?” “Well, wonderful! That makes things a lot easier, when we don’t have to involve animals or plants or stars or gods. Now that its just random people, we can take for granted the fact that nothing is separate, and no one is identical, and rely on that universal context of human identity to construct all kinds of biased conclusions and opinions about ourselves.” “Well, that’s not fair,” said Ash, watching a lumpy cloud change shape before their eyes. “That context of human identity is the only one we’ll ever have. We don’t have a choice but to try to make sense of the world through that framework.” “That’s true. But it doesn’t change the fact that all things are really just one thing, in the end.” “And that doesn’t change the fact that humans don’t experience the world like that!” “So you’d begrudge those who’d like for themselves to be only one thing?” “I mean… no.” Ash sighed. “But… look how they’ve hurt themselves. Look how they’ve hurt the world. Pushing everything into a comfortable box, into a position where it can’t function properly. Maybe it’s one thing for people to choose a singular identity. It’s another when other people are forcing them into it.” “So,” said Janus, “don’t let yourself be forced.” “It’s not that simple,” said Ash. “Because… because then I get hurt, too.” “I once knew a man,” Janus said. “He was an archer of great skill. With his gifted eyes, he could spot a fawn under a weeping willow a thousand feet away. One day, by mistake, the archer went hunting in the king's personal hunting grounds, and slew a boar reserved for the king. When the king heard of this, he was enraged and had the archer arrested.  "‘Your sentence for your transgression,’ he declared, ‘is to have your right hand cut off. You will never draw back a bowstring again.’ “‘Very well,’ said the archer. ‘I will accept this fate, as my right hand is not my dominant hand.’ “‘Oh, is that so?’ said the king. ‘Then instead, we shall have your left hand cut off. You will never knock an arrow again’ “‘Very well,’ said the archer. ‘I will accept this fate, for neither is my left hand my dominant hand. You see, I am ambidextrous.’ “‘The king, growing frustrated, cried out, ‘Well, you must be punished, but since I am a fair king, I cannot cut off both your hands.’ “‘If I may suggest,’ said the archer, ‘instead of cutting full through either of my hands, cut only halfway on each arm, such that both hands will be punished.’ “‘The king agreed to this, and the archer’s wrists were both severed halfway through. “‘Now go,’ said the king, ‘and may you never fire a bow again.’ “‘The archer went into the woods and found a great healer who he had caught game for many times in the past. The healer took one look at the archer’s wrists and knew just what to do. She composed her strongest politice, her most finely crafted splints, and her cleanest bandages, and wrapped the archer's wrists so tightly and so gently that within days they had already begun to heal. Within weeks, the archer could move both hands again, and within months they had picked up the bow and begun to recover their lost skill. “‘One day towards the end of his recovery, the healer was watching the archer eat. ‘You claimed to be ambidextrous,’ she said, ‘yet I only ever see you hold your spoon with your right hand.’ “‘Indeed,’ said the archer, ‘that was a lie. My right hand is my dominant hand.’ “‘Why tell such a lie? Surely the pain in one hand would have been lesser than to suffer the pain in both.’ “‘True,’ said the archer. ‘But to lose my ability to fire a bow would have been greater than the pain of losing my head. Given time, friendship, and the knowledge of a healer, see how I have recovered completely from my pain?’ “‘Very well,’ said the healer. ‘But you’re a smart man. You could have found a way to fire your bow with just your right hand, with the help of a tool, or a friend, or even your teeth or foot.’ “‘True,’ said the archer. ‘But I still use my left hand for some things.’ “‘And with his left hand, he cupped the head of the healer and leaned in to kiss her.” Ash was quiet for a long time. Then they said, “he didn’t ask to kiss her first?” “It was implied by the story context she was into it.” “I don’t know, seems a little weird to me.” “You’re just not a romantic.” Ash was quiet again, then said, “The archer should have shot the king.” “Another king would have stepped right up to replace him.” “Then the archer should have rallied all the other archers together and shot all the potential kings. Or just shot down the whole castle.” Janus smiled. “Maybe he should have. But for now, you’re just one archer.” “And one healer, too, I think.” Janus’s smile broke into a grin. Sunlight was breaking over the horizon. Ash closed their eyes against the blistering light and found they didn’t feel like opening them again for a long time. ~13~ Ash undid the final tangle in their hair and stared at their reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was, of course, identical to the person who left their childhood house yesterday. Or was it? Was the hairline off? The contours in the face a little different? The nose too large, the jaw too wide, the sparkle in the eyes a little brighter? The raccoon circles around them were gone, at least. But the face was the same. For now. The concourses at this smaller airport had much clearer labels. Ash hustled toward the ‘baggage claim’ sign and turned down the hallway. A large sign read: “ATTENTION: You are now leaving TSA security area. You will need to pass through TSA in order for reentry”.  Fine by me, Ash thought. They strode down the hall. A security guard smiled at them as they passed, and Ash nodded back. “Did you have a nice flight, ma’am?” asked the guard. The pronoun sounded like a slur, but Ash forced themself to smile. “It was fine.” At the sound of their voice, confusion creased the security guard's face for a moment, and then the smile returned. “Well, you have a lovely day, friend.” Ash smiled back. “Thanks. You too.” Outside the airport, a short, chubby, dark-skinned woman in a silky, blue blouse and stretch jeans leaned against a 2008 Lexus with a custom matte yellow paint job. She screamed as she saw the bag-laden Ash approaching, and Ash felt a huge smile breaking upon their lips. “Oh my god, you’re here!” Sheana cried, sweeping Ash into a hug hard enough to slip a disk in their aching spine. “Baby girl is here to stay! Fuck, is that really all you packed?” “Yah,” said Ash, “but fuck it, right? Fresh start, no baggage, no bullshit.” “No baggage, no bullshit,” said Sheana. “Tweet that right now and every queer in America is gonna follow you.” Sheana took Ash’s bags and put them in the back seat, then opened the passenger door. The interior of the car was filled with random stickers and fuzzy accouterments, including a leopard print steering wheel cover. “Your car is so tacky, I love it,” Ash said. “She’s kept me safe for over one hundred and fifty thousand miles,” Sheana said. “She deserves to dress up a little. Also, tacky? Let’s talk about those three jackets you’re wearing, get those the fuck off. It’s like 78 degrees here.” Ash laughed and ditched the coats into the back seat. As they pulled off the hoodie, it tugged up their tee-shirt, exposing their midriff. Ash saw a darkness pass over Sheana’s face as she saw the terrible bruise there, but she only said, “let’s get the fuck out of here.” They rolled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. From this distance, the airport looked small and solid, a little toy surrounded by toy planes and toy people. And then it was lost in the mesh of traffic congesting the highway. Tarmac and windshields glinted in the sunlight, and the dry heat of the day pricked up beads of sweat on Ash’s forehead. Sheana flicked the AC on and started to roll up the windows. “Can we leave them down?” said Ash, “I’ve been inside for long enough.” “Whatever you need, babe,” said Sheana. She rolled the windows back down. “How are the boys?” Ash said over the rush of wind. “Leo and Hype? They’re good. Hype’s on probation at work again–” “Aw, fuck, what did he do this time?” Sheana waved her hand. “We can talk about it later. I want to hear about you. How are you? For real?” Ash sighed. It turned into shudders that turned their legs into jelly and eyes into water. “I’m ok,” they said. A sob escaped. Sheana rubbed a hand on their leg. “I’m so sorry, Ash– wait, you’re not bruised there, right? I can’t remember if it was the right or left leg in the photos you sent…” “It was the right,” Ash sniffed, “but it’s not that bad anymore.” Sheana shook her head. “I still think we should take you to a hospital. Or call the cops. You could have a broken rib.” “With all the running through the airports I’ve had to do,” Ash sniffed, “I think I’d know.” The highway rose above the suburbs, and in the distance, Ash could see a river winding down from the north. It felt like they were in an airplane again. “Well, we’re all here to help you get settled in,” said Sheana. “The GoFundMe is doing pretty well, and I think we’ll be able to help you cover the first two month’s rent– aw, if you need to cry, it’s ok.” “It’s just… Thank you so much.” “Hey, look at me,” Sheana said. Her big, warm eyes met Ash’s. “I’m here for you, for anything. We love you so much, Ashley. We’re gonna find you a job, we’re gonna make sure your housing works out, and we’re gonna stop you from being found by anyone you don’t want. If you want to find a doctor to discuss transitioning, Leo can hook you up. Or he can hook you up with that black market shit, and we’ll get it tested.” “Thank you,” Ash said, trying not to break down completely. “It ain’t a thing. This is life, Ashley.” Ash took a deep breath. “Shea, can you just call me Ash?” Sheana glanced at their young friend. “Sure. But I thought you wanted to start going by Ashley once you were here?” “I know, I…” Ash squinted through tears at the point where the river turned a corner and was obscured by trees and apartment buildings. “I guess I just… I don't know if I want to start hormones.” Sheana nodded slowly. “That’s fine. It can be scary at first…” “No, I mean, I’m not sure if I’d ever want to.” “Yah?” Sheana switched lanes and began to drive up a steep slope onto a bridge. “Well, you know what? That’s your choice.” “I just don’t know if I’m a girl.” “You ain’t gotta explain it all to me! You’re not a boy, that’s for sure.” Ash laughed. “Yah, and that’s what everyone is so upset about.” “I ain’t upset about it.” Haltingly, Ash asked. “Are you upset if I don’t want to be a girl either?” “Bitch, shut the fuck up. If you’re not a girl, all that means I got less competition for baddest bitch at the club.” “Oh, we’ll see about that,” Ash laughed. Sheana gasped. “Mmm, you’d better watch who you’re challenging like that, I clocked your crusty-ass nails when you pulled up.” “Ok, you shut up, you don’t know how hard I’ve tried to make them look good. I’m hardly at the top of my game right now.” “That’s fair,” said Sheana. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” “And I’ve seen how you do your foundation–” “Ok, that’s enough!” Sheana said. “Damn, this kid is supposed to be sleepy as hell after a red-eye and they’ve got enough energy to read my mug? Watch it or you can spend the night at Brianna’s place again.” “Oh, my god no, her place is so dirty And her weird ass dog...” The pair broke into laugher. The sky and river rolled past between the steel cables of a bridge. “I just…” Ash felt tears trying to return. “I don’t know how to do it.” “What’s that?” “Being non-binary. Everything in this world wants us to just be one thing. I’m not a man, but I can’t just be a woman, either. How can I be at peace with… that tension?” “The tension of being two things?” “Yah. It seems impossible.” Sheana was quiet for a long time. Then she smiled. “You know, I can think of something under a lot of tension that’s holding up just fine.” “What?” She pointed at the beams of the bridge. “They built this thing like sixty years ago. It carries a hundred thousand cars back and forth every day, but all it needs is some regular maintenance and it holds up just fine. It’s the tension that makes it strong. It’s gonna be here for a long time.” The car climbed the bridge and Ash could see the sprawling city, so familiar after just one visit, clambering up over the hills to the sea. Cool, dark shadows, cast by the warm, early morning sun, offered shade to the pedestrians on the streets, in the parks, under the awnings of restaurants and bars. People cried and laughed inside and out. Life went on and passed away. A few minutes more of travel, and Ash would find themself in a familiar yet totally new home, with familiar yet totally new friends, and a familiar yet totally new life.  “Right,” said Ash. “They’re gonna be here a long time.” D.J. Bodnar (he/they) is a life-long writer and artist with a B.S. in Theoretical Physics. With a brain as full of math equations as magic spells, Bodnar seeks to render the mundane and mystical side-by-side, equally at home beyond space and time as beside a cozy fireside. In their free time, they enjoy weightlifting, playing D&D, crafting handmade rugs, and communing with eldritch horrors.

The concept was brilliant, a stroke of pure genius. There’s no way, other than sabotage, an idea of such brilliance could’ve flopped. That’s what Hector Fofana told himself when his culinary brainchild, Tortilla Tape, became the laughingstock of the Mexican Food industry.  Tortilla Tape was a long thin strip of flour tortilla, packaged in a tape dispenser. It was designed to repair rips and tears caused by the overzealous burrito rollers, enabling burrito lovers to stuff more of their favourite filling into ordinary tortillas. It worked like a patch. You applied a pre-moistened strip of Tortilla Tape to a punctured tortilla, known as a blowout, and left it to cure for thirty seconds. After that, your damaged burrito was as good as new.   Ortega Mexican Foods CEO Javier de la Quintana proclaimed that Tortilla Tape would revolutionise the art of burrito making. The company went all-in on its success. Despite the multimillion-dollar marketing campaign and fanfare surrounding the product launch, Tortilla Tape was a colossal flop. Something about the scale of its failure captured the zeitgeist. Late-night talk show hosts eviscerated Tortilla Tape in bombastic monologues. Magazine editors scrambled to commission think pieces directly linking Tortilla Tape with corporate hubris and apathetic consumerism. Tortilla Tape became shorthand for disaster. Javier de la Quintana was whisked away into the sunset on the wings of a golden parachute, but Hector Fofana’s reputation was destroyed. He was left to wring his hands, wondering what went wrong, what to do next.  Until the Tortilla Tape fiasco, Hector had been the golden boy of the Mexican Food industry. He graduated from the esteemed Buena Vista Institute of Culinary Sciences and went to work in the test kitchen of a then-obscure Mexican fast-food chain called Taco Johns. His team engineered the Potato Olé, a groundbreaking side item that helped Taco Johns take a bite out of Taco Bell’s market share. He followed that success with the original Double Decker Taco, a staple of the menu even today.  Taco Bell was rattled by Hector’s innovative creations. They hired him away from Taco Johns, doubling his salary and making him chief culinary scientist at its top-secret food lab in Menlo Park. But as he reached this professional pinnacle, his personal life went into a tailspin. His wife left him for a young hotshot from the Whataburger test kitchen who invented chicken rings. An abomination. Hector responded to the darkness and inner turmoil by creating his masterpiece, the Taco Bell Gordita. Having conquered the world of fast food, Hector set his sights on bigger and better things. ConAgra Foods brought him on board when they acquired the Ortega Mexican Foods portfolio. He floundered at first, reformulating Mexican classics like Pozolé and Menudo for the less-sophisticated gringo palate. It wasn’t long before he again struck culinary gold with the Tastee-Mex line of bake-at-home products. New advances in flash freezing enabled him to reinvent the tamale as a quick and healthy after-school snack. Ortega Mexican Foods leapfrogged Old El Paso to become the juggernaut of the supermarket’s Mexican food aisle.  By this point, Hector Fofana had become the biggest name in the field of culinary science. He had become restless, plagued by an almost delusional compulsion to outdo his past triumphs. This quest would represent his white whale, his moonshot, the drive to create a product so innovative, so wildly imaginative, so relevant and alive, so absolutely vital that it would eclipse the mighty Gordita as the capstone of his resumé. The idea for Tortilla Tape came to him, fully formed. The prototype impressed the boardroom, but some in the marketing department had qualms over the name. An alternate, Burrito Bandages, was suggested, but Hector Fofana dug in his heels. He fought hard for his vision of Tortilla Tape, cleverly packaged in a plastic tape dispenser. Who could argue with Hector's record of culinary success? After all, he was the man who invented the Potato Olé, the man who introduced the chocolatey decadence of Oxacan Molé to middle American dinner tables, the man who earned the name Mr. Gordita, a true luminary of culinary science.   Hector never experienced such a failure, never expected to fail. The Tortilla Tape fiasco ushered in a prolonged period of reflection and self-examination. Hector retreated from day-to-day involvement at Ortega Mexican Foods and allowed the five stages of grief to play out at their own pace. Motives and priorities were dissected and analysed, and from this chrysalis emerged a rejuvenated Hector Fofana, with a newfound wisdom and maturity. No longer content to chase the fleeting highs of corporate success, he vowed to harness his talent to create foods that brought him happiness. Lesser men may have distanced themselves from past failures. Not Hector Fofana. He looked at Tortilla Tape as a puzzle that needed to be solved. Clearly, the potential was there, he was driven to reimagine and repurpose it.  The Eureka moment came about by accident. He placed a few strips of Tortilla Tape into a hot cast-iron skillet and was overtaken by a magical sensation as they sizzled to a golden brown. He dusted the chips with salt and white pepper and tried one. It was absolutely divine. Hector Fofana knew it was time to get back to work.  The tortilla chip market had grown stagnant. It was ripe for disruption. Hector’s unique tortilla strips, fried in coconut oil and sprinkled with gourmet seasonings, offered an upmarket alternative to the Fritos and Doritos that dominated supermarket shelves. The sturdy strips were ideal for dipping, a fact not lost on the Ortega Mexican Foods board, who introduced a line of upmarket Tastee-Mex companion salsas.  While Tastee-Mex Big Dipper tortilla strips never overtook Doritos as market leader, they ushered in a new era in snacking. Hector Fofana’s redemption arc was finally complete. Once again, Mr Gordita was back on top. From the ashes of spectacular failure, a snack is born. J. ARCHER AVARY (he/him) was born in the USA but now calls the Northeast of England home. He’s a former TV weatherman, champion lionfish hunter, and now a boat captain on the River Tyne. Has he mentioned his Pushcart Prize nomination lately? Twitter: @j_archer_avary

Il Trucchetto ⭐⭐⭐    Italian * $$ First time guests at Il Trucchetto could be forgiven for passing right by the restaurant without even realizing it’s there. They will observe the corrugated metal sheets, the ripped tarpaulin, the dented mini refrigerator lying on its side and mistake it all for just another pile of refuse abandoned by wayward travelers wandering through this scarred wasteland in search of some semblance of civilization. But as I have learned from many delightful visits to the eatery, whose menu skirts the line between Southern Italian and dystopian fusion fare, appearances can be deceiving. When I first caught wind of the two young chefs who had decided to open a restaurant in these, shall we say, challenging times, my heart leapt as it had not had occasion to do since before the Great Deadening. I envisioned crisp white tablecloths. The smell of a rich Bordeaux as it swirled in my glass. Course after course of culinary artistry. The moment I learned the location of this establishment, I did not waste a single moment. I buried my latrine pit, told my companions they could have my ration of the kibble we’d scavenged and set out in search of epicurean delights unknown! My only reservation (and by this, I mean a concern rather than the other kind as Il Trucchetto is, sadly, walk-in only) was that the eatery happened to be located smack dab in the middle of Chomper Country.  As much as I wanted a good meal, I had no desire to become one myself. This apprehension became acute when halfway through my journey I spotted two figures coming straight towards me from down the dusty road. For a few terrifying moments, I was certain I’d be rotating on a spit with an apple in my mouth by day’s end.  Thankfully, the pair turned out to be travelers like myself. A rickety, white-haired fellow leaned on his younger companion of perhaps fifteen or so as they shuffled past me with a wary nod. Though the threat had been an imagined one, it left me rattled. Briefly, I considered turning back. But in the manner of a true hedonist, I decided the pleasure would be worth the risk. In addition to my physical appetite, I hungered for the chance to extol the fruits of another’s labor, or better yet, to excoriate them with cutting witticisms.  Which brings me to the moment I found myself standing barefoot in the middle of nowhere, studying my hand-drawn map, trying to find what could be the hottest new restaurant of the season. When I finally looked up, I observed a pale face peering out from behind a billowing sheet of tarpaulin. “Hiya! Are you lost?” asked the pale-faced person. Before I could reply, the face disappeared, and I could faintly hear urgent, hissed whispers. A moment later, two women emerged dressed in immaculate chef's whites.  “Please,” said the older, burlier woman in the tone of one issuing a command. “Forgive my sous chef. She has very little front-of-house experience. Welcome to Il Trucchetto. Please,” she commanded again. “Come in. Have a seat.” I gathered that by “in” she meant underneath one of the corrugated metal sheets, which was precariously propped up by two wooden stakes. I obliged, hoping there were no strong breezes in the forecast as surely the rickety structure could come crashing down at any second. The younger chef picked up a plastic chair and placed it at one of the small tables, pushing it in for me as I sat.  “Can we offer you some water?” she asked. “Still or sparkling?” “Sparkling,” I replied reflexively. The young chef disappeared behind the tarpaulin, returning a moment later with a bottle of brown liquid, which she proceeded to shake violently for several minutes, presumably to mimic the effect of carbonation. I was about to feign gratitude, but when I took the cup she offered, I gasped.  “It’s cold!” I could not fathom how this miracle had been achieved. I estimated the ambient temperature to be a balmy one hundred and fifteen degrees.  The older chef smiled wryly. “We have our ways.” She straightened her back and smoothed her chef’s coat. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Chef Maggie Harper. I have trained in Italian kitchens in Calabria, Sicily and Abruzzo. Il Trucchetto is my third restaurant, but my first after… well you know.” She waved a hand, casually indicating the rubble-strewn devastation that surrounded us. “And this is my sous chef, Julia.”  “Hiya!” said Julia. “She’s very green,” Chef Maggie murmured apologetically. I introduced myself using one of my aliases, slightly disappointed that they hadn’t already recognized me. “Il Trucchetto offers modern Italian fare with recipes and techniques inspired by my travels,” Chef Maggie continued. “I like to say we offer a fine dining experience with all the comforts of Nonna’s kitchen table.”  “Lovely,” I said. Looking around, my eyes caught on something partly buried in the dirt by my feet. I realized it was the skull of some large animal, cracked and bleached by the sun. A dog’s skull, I told myself. Only no, the shape of it was much too round. “Now,” she clapped her hands together. “Do you have any dietary restrictions? Any special requests?”  I responded in the negative and smiled. “I am in your capable hands, chef.” They both turned on their heels and disappeared behind the tarpaulin. A moment later, Chef Maggie emerged wielding a very large knife, followed by Julia, who carried a cornucopia of produce. Half-starved as I was, I could not help but stare at the bounty.  “This land is one of the few places that wasn’t contaminated by chemical fallout during the Blonde/Brunette Wars,” Chef Maggie explained. “We have a small garden where we grow some herbs and vegetables. The rest of our ingredients are…” she let her gaze travel down the dusty road. “Locally sourced.”  “If you dig deep enough, the ground stays cool all day, which is how we chill our beverages,” said Julia. “I’m in charge of the beverage program!”  I nodded, wondering how they had convinced the notoriously disobliging Chompers to let them set up shop on such valuable land. Owing to the arrangement of the corrugated metal sheets, I was able to watch the chefs at work, but only from the shoulders up while the activities of their hands were hidden from view. Julia stared down in concentration while Chef Maggie peered over her shoulder and shouted.  “I said julienne, not batons! Come on, Julia, where’s the sense of urgency? Andiamo!”  After a while, Julia once again disappeared behind the tarpaulin. I was startled by several loud thuds and feared we might be in for a hail tornado, seeing as how the acid hurricane season had recently passed. But soon the thudding ceased, and Julia presented me with my first course.  “House-cured carpaccio with sorrel, cactus and pickled white mustard seeds.”  For a long moment, I stared in bafflement. Her words did not match the image before me. It was a single rose resting delicately on the plate, its crimson petals wrapped around one another in a perfect Fibonaccian spiral, dotted with glimmering dew drops. I inhaled deeply, delighting in the sweet smell that wafted towards me.  “How?” I asked in wonderment. I had not seen a rose since they were all harvested in that massive air freshening campaign to mask the stench of rotting corpses during the last plague.  “It’s meat!” Julia proclaimed proudly. “Pounded petal-thin and lightly cured to enhance the color,” explained Chef Maggie. “The dew drops are mustard seeds, which turn translucent when pickled.” “Remarkable,” I said as I picked up my spoon (this being the only utensil with which I’d been provided). “But the smell. It is rose, I am sure of it.” “Rosewater,” said Chef Maggie. “It’s impossible to get now, but I still have a few drops saved from before.” There it was again, that wry smile of hers. “Every good lie needs a little truth to it.” I removed a slice of meat from the plate. It dissolved on my tongue almost instantly, leaving behind a subtle unctuousness, which was satisfyingly cut by the brightness of the pickle and the cleansing bitterness of the cactus. I tried my best to savor the dish and fully appreciate its brilliance. But having eaten nothing but dog food for the past fortnight, I fear only moments passed before my plate was clean. I was effusive in my compliments, marveling at the cleverness of the dish. “And the buttery texture! What sort of meat was it?” Julia opened her mouth to respond, but she was quickly drowned out by a thunderous roar. All three of us began to cough as a cloud of dust filled the air. When it finally cleared and the roaring ceased, three Chompers stood before us. On the few occasions I have encountered Chompers, my fear has always been somewhat abated by their beguiling devil-may-care aesthetic. The motorcycles, presumably powered by testosterone alone. The waves of sun-bleached hair. The bulging muscles. The leather — my god, the leather! One must remind oneself that they are, in fact, cannibals, so as not to become unduly excited.  The largest of the Chompers dismounted his motorcycle and adjusted his chaps. It was then that I noticed the gangly figure who had been riding in the sidecar. The last time I had seen the boy propping up the old man as they passed me on the road, he had looked wary. Now, his eyes were filled with abject terror. I looked around for the elderly man but did not see him. As the Chomper, whom I took to be the leader, stepped forward, I spotted a lock of white hair hanging from his belt, still attached to a patch of pink, bloody scalp. I allowed myself a brief moment of pity for the old man, for I knew his end had not been a quick one. “Please,” croaked the boy, tears streaming down his dusty cheeks. “Don’t let them eat me!” Chef Maggie put her hand on his shoulder in what at first seemed to be a gesture of comfort. She then proceeded to squeeze his bicep between her thumb and forefinger. “He’s skinnier than the last one you brought me,” she said. “I’ll have to cook the meat low and slow to get it tender.” The Chomper licked his lips and twirled a finger around the lock of white hair that hung from his belt. “Take your time. We had a snack on the way over.” She glanced down at the lock of hair, unphased. “Do you have what I asked for?”  He removed a heavy sack from the back of his motorcycle and handed it to her. A bouquet of carrot tops poked out, and I detected the earthy aroma of thyme and marjoram.  She examined the contents, and for the first time, I saw the hint of a smile brighten her face. “Remarkable. Where did you find all this?” The Chomper bristled. “Enough questions, cheffie. Are you going to cook or not?” Chef Maggie straightened, nodding once. “Julia,” she said, holding up the sack. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Julia's eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together. “Tasting menu!” “Three courses.” “With beverage pairings?” “Certo.” Without another word, they grabbed the boy by the arms and escorted him through the tarpaulin. I shall never forget the blood-curdling screams that followed, which were punctuated by a series of dull, wet thuds. With a chill down my spine and a sick feeling in my gut, I realized the deal that had been struck between Chef Maggie and the Chompers: She could run her restaurant on their land provided she cook whatever, or whoever, they wanted.  As I listened to the boy’s dismemberment, I began to wonder why the evening's menu did not also include one devilishly handsome virtuoso of the written word. Indeed, the Chompers seemed to take no notice of me at all. I suppose they may have found my sickly, emaciated appearance less than appetizing. But I realized there was a much more likely explanation. My cover had been blown. They knew exactly who I was and that, with the stroke of a pen (or in this case, a partially melted crayon I found in a burned out car), I could make or break this establishment. I decided not to squander my obvious notoriety. Without having uttered a single word, these connoisseurs of human flesh were clearly entreating me to judge whether their cuisine — albeit macabre — was truly elevated. I have always considered it a duty to inform those less cultured than myself of what does and does not taste good. And while I found it a shame that the young boy had been brutally murdered, I have never been one to let good meat go to waste. As a gesture of bonhomie, I attempted to engage my leather-clad dining companions in conversation. This was met with a few grunts and the bearing of teeth which had, of course, been filed into sharp pointed spikes. I surmised that there would be no clever repartee. Thankfully, Julia quickly brought out our beverages. “This is our signature cocktail,” she explained. “It’s called ‘The Trucchetto.’ It’s made with orange flower liqueur, celery bitters, aquafaba and mint extract.”  I examined the glass of brown liquid, which looked suspiciously similar to the ‘sparkling water’ I’d been given earlier. Once the flecks of black sediment settled to the bottom, I chanced a taste. There may have been a few floral and herbaceous notes, but sadly, they were overpowered by the pungent flavor of raw sewage. (Observant readers may have noticed that I bestowed three rather than four stars on Il Trucchetto. While the restaurant has many strong points, I highly recommend guests to BYOB.) An hour or so later, Chef Maggie emerged from behind the tarpaulin with our antipasto.  “Terrina di viso, with celery seeds, fennel and chilies.”  I peered down at the slice of terrine before me. Apart from the lower lip on the corner, the tip of the nose in the middle and what appeared to be the cross section of an eyeball off to one side, it looked like any other well-cooked terrine.  For a moment, I paused to reflect on my gratitude to the young boy who, just a short while before, had begged for his life, only to have his face chopped off and stewed with herbs, spices and aromatics until fork tender. When the moment had passed, I took a bite.  The flavors hit me in waves. First, there was the subtle licorice taste of the fennel. Then, the umami of the tender yet toothsome meat, which had a gentle sweetness to it. Finally, the heat from the chilies, which lingered on my tongue for some minutes after I’d swallowed my last mouthful. It left me ravenous for more. As I waited for the next course, I occupied myself by observing the chefs at work. Julia appeared to be strenuously grinding something in an enormous mortar and pestle while Chef Maggie stood back and shouted, which seemed to be her preferred modus operandi. “Dammit, Julia, I said powder! Does that look like powder to you? I can still see granules!”  Finally, Chef Maggie mixed the contents of the mortar with eggs, kneading and rolling out the dough in powerful, efficient movements.  Although I was irritated that the rest of the preparation was hidden from my view by those cursed metal sheets, it only added to my surprise when she brought out the finished product.  “Gentlemen, your primo: chitarra di osso,” she said, placing a perfect nest of pasta before each of the Chompers, then myself. “Made from freshly ground bone meal and finished with twenty-two month Grana Padano.” “I’m also in charge of the cheese program!” announced Julia. While this final bit of information gave me pause, the nutty, slightly pungent scent of the dish was intoxicating. It was, unquestionably, a revelation. The pasta was perfectly al dente, married seamlessly with its decadent sauce. I was so intent on finishing every last bite that for some time, I did not notice I was the only one eating. “And how are we all enjoying our pasta?” Julia cheerfully asked the cannibals. “No meat?” growled the leader. “Where’s the meat?!” He threw his plate to the ground.  Chef Maggie stepped forward, clenching her fists behind her back. “I’m sorry it wasn’t to your liking. The secondo will be out in just a few minutes.” The fellow sat back in his chair, pacifying himself by scratching his crotch. “You know the deal, cheffie. Either you cook the meat, or you are the meat.” His comrades grunted and scowled menacingly. “Understood,” she said flatly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to put the finishing touches on the final course. I think you will all find it quite satisfying.” What followed was a flurry of activity. The two chefs maneuvered their bodies in a rapid pas de deux, passing ingredients to one another without a word. They seemed to be moving faster and faster. Then Chef Maggie whispered something into Julia’s ear, and they both froze. Intrigued, I strained to hear them.  “No, chef. Please. I can’t do it.” Julia’s face was even paler than before.  “Come on, Julia,” said Chef Maggie in an uncharacteristically low voice. “A great chef must make sacrifices. You do want to be a great chef, don’t you?” “Si, chef. Certo. But I can’t do that .” “You can!” Chef Maggie slammed her fist down against the corrugated metal. She picked up her knife, holding it by the blade so that Julia could grasp its handle. “This is the final push, Julia. Andiamo. Finish strong!” Slowly, Julia wrapped her slender fingers around the handle of the knife. With a grimace, she held it high above her head and brought it down with a loud crack. Chef Maggie nodded once, then disappeared behind the tarpaulin. A moment later, she emerged with the final course. “Gamba di ragazzino,” she said, placing the enormous hunk of glistening meat in the center of the Chompers’ table. She carved it tableside, slapping a generous portion onto each plate. “And for you,” she said to the head Chomper. “A palate cleanser.” She dropped a severed finger, still bleeding, onto the table. He grinned, bearing all of his brown pointed teeth. In a surprisingly delicate gesture, he held the finger between two of his own, put the bloody end in his mouth and crunched through the bone like a carrot stick.  In case it isn’t already evident, I have quite a strong stomach. But even for me, this was a bit much. I decided to focus my attention on the dish before me. The meat was so tender it succumbed to my spoon without resistance. Its aroma harkened back to Sunday roasts of yore, but the flavor was infinitely more complex. There were notes of cinnamon, bay and allspice. And something else that I (forgive the pun) couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something vegetal. When I realized what it was, I very nearly fell off my chair.  I looked around to see if the Chompers had realized the same thing I had. But no, they were enthusiastically devouring their meals. Chef Maggie and I locked eyes and a flash of understanding passed between us.  Silently, I watched as the Chompers finished eating and lazily climbed back onto their motorcycles.  “Here,” said Chef Maggie, handing them a slip of paper. “My list for next week. And remember, I only cook the freshest meat. Whoever you bring must be alive and unharmed. Understand? Too much bruising spoils the flavor.” As ever, she was standing straight backed with her hands clasped behind her back, but her hair was disheveled and sweat speckled her forehead, despite the rapidly dropping temperature as evening descended. The three of us watched as the motorcycles roared to life and carried their riders into the gloaming void. It was not until the cloud of dust left in their wake began to settle that I let my guard down. “How did you do it? The celeriac tasted so strongly of meat. If it hadn’t been for the slightest hint of bitterness, I would have thought I was eating…” “A boy,” said Chef Maggie, walking over to the dented mini refrigerator which still lay on its side. “This boy, in fact.” She swung open the door and out clambered the young fellow I thought I had devoured thrice over.  “My neck!” he said, shaking out his gangly limbs. “What took you so long? I could hardly breathe in there.” “Julia said the flavor of celeriac was too strong,” said Chef Maggie. “I should have listened to her. Thankfully, the other guests didn’t seem to notice.” “Another successful service!” chirped Julia. “We crushed it, chef!” Suddenly, everything seemed to click into place. “The terrine base, was it lentils?” “A blend of legumes,” replied Chef Maggie. “Mushrooms for the nose and lips. Tapioca pearls for the eyes.” “And the pasta was just…” “Pasta.” “It was spectacular.” “Grazie.” I was so excited that I nearly forgot where I was. Already I was beginning to mentally compose this very review. But then something occurred to me. A piece of the puzzle that didn’t quite fit. “The finger,” I said. “It looked so real.” Chef Maggie held out her hands. The right was rough and calloused, mottled by scars and old burns. The left was in a similar state, except it had an incomplete appearance due to the absence of its index finger, the stump having been hastily bandaged in gauze. I suddenly recalled what she had said about every good lie needing a little truth. I have visited Il Trucchetto many times since that day, occasionally sharing a meal with the Chompers, who are quite a jolly bunch once you get to know them. But more often, I dined alone, so as to better appreciate the ingenuity of Chefs Maggie and Julia, who was recently promoted to Chef de Cuisine. The astute reader may be wondering whether I might have experienced some sort of existential crisis as a result of my first meal at the restaurant. After all, I was willing (one could even say eager) to consume human flesh. Whether this lapse in morality was due to my own state of starvation or an innate malevolence within me, I cannot say. But such reflections have no place here. After all, this is a restaurant review! One must endeavor to keep things light. Despite evidence to the contrary, I do possess a modicum of realism. I know that no one will ever read this review. If the Chompers discovered the deception behind Il Trucchetto, the chefs would be finished. Granted, I wouldn't necessarily peg the cannibals as avid readers, but it wouldn’t do to underestimate the breadth of my literary appeal. In a few moments, I will toss these pages into the meager fire I built to warm my Meow Mix to a palatable temperature. But not quite yet. I shall read it over one last time, searching for spelling mistakes or passages that are perhaps a bit too wordy, though I very much doubt I shall find either as I have always prided myself not only on my impeccable attention to detail, but also on my ecomony of language.  You may be wondering what the point of such labors could be. Why prepare an exquisite menu for a dinner rush that will never come? Or write a brilliantly evocative restaurant review for a readership of none? Why save one boy from brutality when so many others are already doomed? But if I have learned anything from these trying times of ours, it is this: the point of doing a thing isn’t always to get it done. Whether one labors to cook or to write or to lend a hand (or a finger) to a friend in need, sometimes, my dear imagined readers, the point is in the doing. Note from the Author: Post-Apocalypse Prix Fixe is a post-apocalyptic restaurant review written by a pompous, self-aggrandizing narrator who refuses to let a little thing like the end of the world stop him from practicing his craft. Some of the characters are based on people I met and worked with during my time as a line cook and sous chef in restaurants around New York City.

The dog settles herself in the front seat, her head on the armrest, dozing. You flick through the radio stations until you find something you like - Bob Dylan’s ‘A Simple Twist of Fate.’ From Blood on the Tracks.  You love that album. As hard as nails. And then you’re off on one of your little Mastermind runs. ‘Dylan’s breakup album. His first wife, Sara Noznisky.’  No wonder you had no friends in school. ‘Sir, Sir, Sir, I know.’ And you haven’t improved with age. Telling that young barista the other day how to make a macchiato. The look she gave you. Mansplainer.      You didn’t say where you were going beyond bringing the dog out for a walk. What was that about? You were glad Ellen, your wife, was reading her book and didn’t press you. You don’t want her thinking you’ve developed a new obsession.  The roads are quiet. Not surprising, given it’s nine o’clock on a Sunday night. What kind of time is that? An interstitial time? A betwixt and between. ‘Interstitial!’  You love your big words, don’t you?  You turn down the road that bisects the golf course, deep now in the leafy suburbs. You say ‘leafy suburbs’ out loud, as if quoting from a property brochure. It amuses you.  You lean forward. The turn should be coming up soon. The dog bestirs herself. How does she sense when you’ve nearly arrived? Look at her! She puts her front paws on the dashboard and looks ahead and then at you and then ahead again, her tail going nineteen to the dozen.  All she is short of saying is, ‘What’s up?’ She whimpers with impatience and strangles a bark.   ‘Settle down, Rum,’ you say, rubbing the top of her head, settle down.’  Does she sense your excitement? Is that it?  ‘Are you excited?’ you ask and shake your head in wonderment at yourself. You turn into the cul-de-sac and pull up.   ‘Come on,’ you coax as Rum hesitates about jumping down onto the footpath. And then she does, and is off, pulling on the lead, her ears back as if she senses a fox or a cat. You trot to keep up, checking the road as she races across to the trees planted behind the stone wall. They form an urban woodland. You let her explore and she stops to pee on the grass. Ahead, parked up, is what looks like a campervan, with GARDA on the side.  ‘On their holidays,’ you say aloud to the dog.  You pass the van. There are lights on, but the windows are high and you cannot make out if there is anyone inside.  Beyond the van, the wall and the trees end, and you step onto the footpath. The embassy is on the far side of the road, no more than fifty yards away. There are barricades outside it. A Garda car, with its distinctive blue and yellow markings, is parked across the entrance. You take out your flag and tie it around your neck like a scarf.  On the footpath, facing the embassy, a solitary gentleman wearing a Fedora is standing still, holding a night light. You walk towards him and he turns and acknowledges you with a nod.  ‘May I join you,’ you ask. ‘By all means.’ You settle the dog, and she sits down and looks across the road.  A Garda appears. To you, she seems improbably young. You wonder if she was in the camper van. She stands next to you. ‘Lovely night,’ she says, and you agree. You ask if there was much of a crowd earlier at the rally, but she has only come on duty, so cannot tell you.  The young Garda compliments the gentleman on the nightlight he is holding. She thinks it’s very moving and dignified. You agree.   The gentleman explains that it was his granddaughter who suggested he bring one of the nightlights from her Granny’s grave with him.  ‘It burns steadily for a hundred and eighty hours,’ he says and shows you the battery compartment.  ‘It’s a perpetual light’.  You stop yourself asking for more details. You’ve heard too many pandemic stories, pandemic deaths, with their lonely goodbyes and miserable funerals.  ‘Well, the candle is a lovely idea,’ the young Garda says. And the three of you fall into companionable silence.  After a while, the young Garda steps towards you to pet the dog.  ‘She’s lovely, so she is, and so good.’ You smile. And the dog looks up, pleased with herself.  ‘What’s her name?’  ‘Rumpelstiltskin’.  The Garda laughs. ‘Are you having me on?’ ‘Well, Rum, for short,’ you say. ‘She was a rum little creature when we got her.’  The Garda smiles, though the joke seems lost on her.   ‘What kind of dog is she?’ ‘A rogue,’ you say, rehearsing one of your dad jokes. ‘We got her from the pound. We have no idea, really - a bit of this and a bit of that.’ Rumpelstiltskin is content to be the centre of attention.   The young Garda seems so innocent. Everything about her seems to say, ‘I am on your side.’ You feel paternal towards her, in her yellow, high-vis jacket that looks three sizes too big on her, as she pets your dog.   And here you are, on a Sunday night, outside the embassy. Keeping vigil.  You think back to the time before. Before the maps started appearing on the TV, showing the infected regions in red. Before it became an obsession with you, checking the progress of the virus every day, wondering how long before it would take hold in Ireland. You were anxious about Ellen, about her underlying condition, about your underlying mortality. And then the virus and the restrictions came. You checked the numbers infected every day, twice and three times a day. Checked the hospital admissions. The numbers in ICU. The number of people your age suffering and dying.  And you could not convince yourself that enough was being done; that the health system could cope; that your body would hold up. Try as you might, you could not shift the weight that pressed on your chest, or the feeling in the pit of your stomach. And you knew the coloured image of the pathogen was make-believe, that green planet with its corona of red spikes. That alien invader. For god’s sake. But it haunted you all the same, didn’t it?  The way that visit to the plague island in Venice had haunted you for years afterwards.  And then the virologists began to say we were winning, the vaccines were working, the strains were weakening. You wanted to believe them, wanted to convince yourself that the fire had been extinguished and the house stood yet -   ‘Do you come here often?’ The young Garda interrupts your thoughts.    You smile in response to her smile. ‘When I can, but only for a few minutes at a time. Me and Rumpelstiltskin.’ ‘She’s a protest dog, so.’ You look down at her. ‘Yeah. My little protest dog,’ you say, proud as can be.  A car goes by. The driver slows and looks at you and honks the horn.  ‘Drives the residents mad all the cars sounding their horns,’ the young Garda says.  The old gentleman laughs quietly. He stamps his feet and moves around. ‘We have friends in Kyiv,’ he tells you. ‘That’s why I am here.’ He looks at you, his face open and sympathetic. ‘And you?’  ‘Because it seems so close, I suppose,’ you answer.  Once you would have thought, this couldn’t happen here, to us. But now, after the pandemic, anything seems possible. And this is happening in Europe, not in some unknown elsewhere. This war is here.  You think these things but don’t say them out loud. You don’t admit how much the war weighs on you. Ellen says you tell her nothing. She says you’ll burst one day with all that’s bottled up inside you. You try sometimes, you do. You don’t want to be silent. But you can never find the words. You open and close your mouth, but nothing comes out, the words churning around and around in your head. You sigh and bite your lip.  You’ve taken to going for a dip in the sea on mornings when the sun shines. And if you go in, Rum goes with you. The water is icy, and you’re not impervious to it, like the seasoned swimmers. It does help calm the nerves. Though, in all honesty, you’re turning into a nervous wreck.  You turn from your thoughts and stand still. And, in the lambency of the night light, it is almost beautiful, and you almost forget why you are here.  ‘You know they’re watching us,’ the gentleman says, ‘probably listening, too.’  And he nods to the buildings across the street, with their invisible eyes and ears.   ‘Let them look, and let them listen,’ you say, with theatrical bravado, and the dog looks up at you.   ‘There are spies working there,’ the gentleman says. ‘It’s well known. Underground bunkers, no less. Russian contractors over to build it.’    You look across at the compound and consider the possibility.   ‘What do you think is happening now, at this very moment, in Mariupol and Kyiv,’ the gentleman asks.  Neither you nor the young Garda have an answer. You think of the interview you read with a young woman, a Kyiv resident. ‘Where will I go?’ she said. ‘Where will my father go? I do not want our roots torn out forever.’ It got to you, didn’t it? ‘Our roots torn out forever.’ And here you are. And you wonder if it’s possible for three strangers to send a message across a continent? Is it possible for a night light in Dublin to shine hope in Kyiv or Mariupol?  ‘Jesus,’ you say to yourself, ‘what kind of sentimental drivel is that? Get a grip.’  You look up at the sky. Up there, there are orbiting satellites taking photographs of the bombs aimed at Kyiv and Mariupol. That’s what is possible.  A second Garda appears, talking on a radio. He goes to the Garda car and moves it from the entrance. Behind it there is a barrier. And behind that what looks like a wedge-shaped cheval de frise . You shake your head. It bothers you, these barricades on a suburban street in Dublin. The Garda gets out of the car and opens the first barrier. The second retracts into the ground. A car approaches from inside the compound.       You untie the flag from your neck and hold it square. You advance to the edge of the footpath. You position yourself so you’re in the eyeline of the driver.    ‘Shame, shame, shame,’ you shout, as the car exits from the compound. You are filled with a rage that rises from God knows where. You continue shouting. And the dog takes her cue from you and starts to bark.  And she looks from you to the car, your little protest dog. And then, the car swings left and accelerates away. And Rumpelstiltskin growls and leaps forward. And the lead slips from your hand. And she chases the car, barking.  And then you sense more than see what happens next: the car coming from the opposite direction. The screech of brakes. The sickening thud that reverberates in your body; Rumpelstiltskin’s astonished howl; her pitiful whimper.  You run to her. Fall to your knees. You cradle her head in the crook of your arm. You make soothing sounds. She looks at you with frightened eyes.  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ you repeat over and over. Her coat is soft to the touch. Time slows to an impossible slowness. You stroke Rumpelstiltskin, the faintest breath coming out of her nostrils, her soft belly rising and falling, faintly. You double over with pain until your cheek touches hers. The young garda is standing over you now. She touches your shoulder. She speaks softly but you cannot make sense of her words.  You raise your head and look at her pleadingly. ‘I never told my wife where I was going,’ you say. ‘I never told her.’  And the old gentleman is rooted to the spot, holding the perpetual light. Kevin Mc Dermott is a Wicklow-based writer. He is the author of six novels for young adults. His writing for radio includes plays, feature-length documentaries, essays and short stories. His poems and stories have been published in journals in Ireland, the UK, and the United States, and broadcast on RTE. He is an Arts Council Literature Bursary awardee, a Fulbright-Creative Ireland Professional Fellowship Scholar. He is a Pushcart 2024 nominee. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD. @SingMeCreation

Red said yesterday he wanted to get down and do some real talk. I said okay but I was nervous as hell. “Let me ask you,” he went. “Are you losing your hearing or is it that you just can’t pay attention?” I sadly had to admit that I couldn’t pay attention.   This morning it looked like no one was around so I took a chance and took my Diet Dr Pepper to the front of Parkview Place to smoke and listen to the Cure. First someone came digging through the ashtrays. I had to think, ask and it shall be given unto you. When they left someone else came right out and asked me to roll one. It wasn’t such a big deal. What lyric was that?   But how long will this voice last? And how long will the Cure last? Matthew Freeman has been writing about his recovery from a dual diagnosis and his time spent at Parkview Place for longer than he would care to remember. His eighth book, Dopamine and the Devil , is soon to be published by Coffeetown Press. He holds an MFA from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

As the first tentacle rose out of the murky brown water of the bay and wrapped itself around the stage of the Jones Beach Amphitheater, Angie DelVecchio was vividly imagining the death of her boyfriend, Alan, by way of strangulation. Her eyes twinkled, both from the nuclear glow of the creature’s throbbing flesh and from her delight in the image of Alan’s windpipe collapsing under her perfectly manicured hands. Coincidentally, her cousin Bobby was also imagining the death of his boyfriend (he had just decided that he was, really, his boyfriend) Paul, but a gentle, sentimental, dying in his sleep after a long life together kind of death. Paul was wondering what Bobby would do if he reached over and held Bobby’s hand. Alan was imagining someone breaking into his car in the stadium parking lot. All of them, and most of the rest of the audience at the Rowdi Krowd “Greatest Hits Toür 1999” concert, figured the monster was another elaborate element of the stage show, a fitting follow-up  to the fireworks. It wasn’t until the third tentacle snapped the spine of drummer Dru Blud that the cheers turned to screams. # No one would ever say that Angie didn’t work hard, just that she didn’t work hard at the right things. She a woman who everyone still thought of as a girl - a woman who didn’t just have perfect hair and makeup, but who knew the subtle difference between makeup for the club, for the office, and for mass; and a girl who knew what she shouldn’t wear to the office or to mass but wore it anyway and got away with it. She was a woman who was well-liked, professional, and efficient as the weekday secretary at the Clean Teeth Club Dentistry office, but she was also a girl who was so efficient at her job that she could spend seemingly half the day flipping through all the gossip rags and lifestyle magazines delivered to the waiting room and the other half on her elaborate schemes to win every and any radio call-in contest in the tri-state area. What Angie loved most, more than she loved any of her romantic conquests, maybe even more than she loved her favorite cousin Bobby, was winning things she didn’t need and didn’t  want. About a year before she met Alan, a year before Rowdi Krowd announced on TRL that they would be making one last North American tour (they had no idea how final it would be), she had called into one of those radio contests on a whim and won two VIP tickets to see the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff Live at Madison Square Garden. Some wire crossed in her brain that day, and there was no going back. While Angie’s boss, Dr. Baumgartner, regularly encouraged her to sign up for this professional development class or that at the local branch of Nassau Community College (he really saw the potential in her), Angie blew a few months of savings that might have gone towards tuition on filling one of the drawers of the reception desk at the Clean Teeth Club with ten little phones, the ones the cops and drug dealers called burners, the ones you could top up with calling cards from the 7-11 without even registering an account. Each one was loaded up with all the local stations on speed dial and just enough prepaid minutes to do her business. When she settled in every morning with her coffee, she would arrange them out on her desk and begin the routine. She knew when every talk show had its call-ins, and she would rotate around the radio dial all morning. She could call in on all ten phones at once by devoting one finger to each phone. She began to win often enough to become a bit of a local celebrity and to inspire several of the radio hosts to consult with their legal departments about whether there was some way they could block her from entering every damn contest. There wasn’t, and Angie racked up a prize list of makeovers, appliances, and shopping sprees. More than anything she enjoyed the concert tickets. She had seen Yes, The Spice Girls, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, and even the New York Philharmonic with her winnings. The latter had been a real red letter affair - she used one of her shopping spree prizes to buy herself a little black dress as well as a beautiful silk shirt for Bobby, and they had made a whole day of trekking into the city  to Carnegie Hall. They drank martinis at a wood-paneled bar on Park Avenue after the show, and Angie told Bobby she felt like Audrey Hepburn. He told her he felt like George Michael in his red silk shirt, and while she knew what that meant, she didn’t say anything about it. Angie was also a girl (or woman) who made all her ex-boyfriends miserable in a tangible, hormonal way that made them want to punch a wall or kick a door (and many did). She was a girl who laughed over one-dollar margaritas with her girlfriends when one of them told her how Al Maggio came into the Broadway Diner looking like shit after she had dumped him for his cousin. And there had been an endless leapfrog from this cousin to that friend to that old teammate from the varsity days until she had run through most of the eligible bachelors off the Hicksville stop of the Long Island Railroad. Angie’s mother, a devout Catholic, breathed a sigh of relief when things had  seemed to stick with Alan, despite him being older, in spite of him being Irish, in spite of him being a divorcé, in spite of him robbing her of that long-held fantasy of the white wedding officiated by Father Bart, who had also baptized Angie, heard her first confession, placed that first Eucharist on her tongue, and confirmed her with the saint’s name of Catherine only a decade before. Even the way that Angie met Alan, or rather the way she told the story, twisted him right into her well-cultivated smokescreen of misguided achievement and emotional terrorism. In Angie’s telling, she had gone with the margarita girlfriends into the city just to dance, just for a girl’s night, and she couldn’t help but lock eyes with Alan across the smokey crowd. In truth, the whole thing had been as calculated as Babe Ruth calling out his home run against the Cubs in 1932. She knew that her latest ex, Mike, would be there for his cousin Moe’s birthday, and she bought a brand new red leather miniskirt to stick a finger in his wound. She didn’t even take out  money from the ATM  for the train fare and that first drink. She was so determined to have another man pay her way in front of sad, boring Mike that she didn’t want to jinx it by carrying too much cash. She would later tell everyone that she knew that it was meant to be because Billy Joel’s “I Don’t Want to Be Alone Anymore” was playing as Alan crossed the room to speak to her. In fact, it was “Are You Jimmy Ray?”  “Are you dangerous?” asked the chorus  of the soon-to-be-forgotten song. Angie always felt dangerous. Anyone with a pulse would have been enough to make Mike jealous, but to her delight, Alan was something special. He was a solid six feet, dressed in the uniform of a Wall Street day trader: a limp, sweat-stained Winchester shirt, black pants that were half a size too small from too many rushed lunches of dollar slices, and that rose to reveal the cheap leather shoes he’d paid a man a dollar to shine on his lunch break, the real gold cufflinks he had saved for two months to buy, his blonde hair slicked back with half a bottle of LA Looks, the alcoholic sting of Aqua Velva on the nape of his neck. To a Manhattan girl, he looked like any other schmuck walking into the club off of Spring Street, imitating men with more money and less sense. To Angie (and more importantly, to Mike) he looked like a man of means. He bought her a vodka cranberry, and then another, and he even paid for the top shelf. To the surprise of all her girlfriends, she was too captivated by this new conquest to notice a bouncer ousting Mike after he threw an empty Heineken bottle at a wall. She gave Alan her number, her real number, the one for the phone she actually carried, the one with the phone bill that came to her parent’s house on Boblee Lane. He called her the next morning. It was love. Or something. With the arrival of Alan in Angie’s life, Bobby was ousted from the concert-going roster, which he resented but understood. Bobby had his own shit going on, anyway. He was finally making some headway as a heel in the Long Island wrestling circuit as Bubba Bash. He was bringing home enough cash from his fights to think about quitting his day job at the body shop, and a promoter in the city had called him up to some fights in Brooklyn and the Bronx, where he could fill in for an old-timer who wanted more time with his family and his remaining vertebrae. It was at one of these shows that he met Paul. Six months later, Bobby was still having trouble saying what Paul was. At the wrestling matches, Paul was a fan. At the dive bar downstairs from Paul’s Chelsea apartment, he was a friend. Upstairs in that apartment, Paul was his lover. Paul understood the rules of the kayfabe as well as he understood that some people weren’t lucky enough to have parents who had seen Philadelphia  and thought it was about time that people talked about these things. Paul could be all these people at once in the same way that Bobby could be the brute in the ring who broke Chet Beef’s nose, the Yankees fan who couldn’t stop complaining about Steinbrenner over their beers, and the great kisser on Paul’s lumpy, curb alert couch all in one night. But as accommodating as Paul could be, Bobby knew that he needed to figure it out soon. Missing out on tickets to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers was the least of his worries. # The only Rowdi Krowd song that Angie could name was their iconic hit, “Grind On Ur Love,” but she called into the 8 AM morning zoo show on Hot 97 and then again to the 9 AM show on Z100 all the same until she won not two but four VIP seats to their tour blow out at Jones Beach. She liked Jones Beach, with or without a concert. She had fond memories of sneaking out of the house in a cocktail napkin of a bikini that would have made her mother scream and crisping herself golden on the sand every summer. She fantasized about what she would wear and how she would do her hair all morning, and she called up Bobby on her lunch break to offer him two of the tickets. “You should bring someone,” she said. “I never see you with anyone.” “You know how it is,” he replied. She told him he should at least call up a friend, maybe one of the guys from the wrestling circuit. Bobby said he’d think of someone. There had been a time when Angie would have invited one of the margarita girlfriends - all of them were a little bit in love with Bobby, who was polite and handsome and strong and never drank too much unless the Yankees were down, but while Angie was self-obsessed, she wasn’t oblivious. They made plans to meet in the parking lot of the amphitheater with enough time to tailgate before the show. She called Alan and told her to pick her up at five. Bobby met Paul at the Freeport station of the Long Island Railroad, and together they picked up a six-pack and rode the N88 bus to the last stop along the line. As they walked around the curve of the bay to the amphitheater, Bobby felt like the whole world was glowing around him, like there was some cosmic hum in his chest that he couldn’t deny. He would realize later as an EMT handed out doses of iodine to the survivors huddled around the police barracks that only some of this feeling was his love for Paul - the rest was the radiation vibrating off of the mutant thing that had crawled up from the sea floor and into the bay after a long-lost Cold War submarine had finally rusted out its hull and disturbed everything within a twenty-mile radius with the ooze of human ingenuity.  The creature wanted to die in peace, and the shielded waters of the bay were warmer and calmer than its home in the deep ocean. It felt - as much as it could feel or understand anything with its gelatinous nervous system - a sense of awe at seeing the glow of the sun through the shallow water for the first time in its hundreds, maybe thousand years of life. The light sparkled along the surface of the water, and Bobby was awestruck too. He felt like his intestines might burst out of his body and wrap themselves around every inch of Paul. He knew that even if they hadn’t said it, Paul was his boyfriend. Paul felt the same. They met Angie and Alan at Alan’s Porsche. Alan could barely afford the monthly payments, and he winced as Angie hopped onto the hood and posed like the girl in the video for “Grind On Ur Luv” as a group of nearby tailgaters blasted the song. He winced again as she launched herself from the hood and swung her arms over Bobby’s shoulder, smearing his right cheek with cherry red lipstick.  “This is Bobby, you know how I talk about Bobby,” she said as she fished a beer can out of the plastic bag hanging off of Bobby’s wrist and sprayed foam all over the car. “And who’s this?” she asked as she noticed Paul. “I’m Paul,” he said and held out his hand to shake. Instead, Angie handed him the open can and smeared her lips across his right cheek too, planting her waxy, indirect kiss between his body and Bobby’s. All three men blushed.  “Oh, don’t be like that,” she said. She passed another can to Alan before opening a third for herself.  She relished in the men’s painful silence while they all drank their warm beers. While Bobby looked like every boy she knew in Hicksville and Alan was a known archetype of capitalism, Paul was an interesting unknown. His hair was tidy, his face clean-shaven, his clothes were well-fitted but bland. He smelled like Vetiver. His black Converse sneakers were somehow both entirely appropriate for a hair metal show at the beach and yet slightly off in some indescribable way. She couldn’t put her finger on any of it, which she took to mean that Paul was doing his best to be inscrutable. He told her he had heard a lot about her. She said she hoped he’d heard good things, and he laughed. She liked him, and she could tell that Alan didn’t from the way his whole body seemed to go rigid like a fresh corpse. She could tell that Alan didn’t like Bobby either. They split the last two beers, one between Angie and Alan, and one between Bobby and Paul. Bobby had shared many beers before with friends in their parents’ garages and behind convenience stores, but in front of Angie and Alan, he found himself blushing again as he watched Paul’s lips curl around the same spot on the can that he had just touched with his own.  “You’re such a pain in the ass,” said Angie as Alan pulled a lock out from under the driver’s seat and attached it to the Porsche’s steering wheel. “Who do you think is going to mess with your car tonight? The seagulls? Just finish this beer so we can go inside.” She took one last swig and handed him the can. He drank it dutifully. Angie flashed her tickets as they approached the amphitheater, and an usher escorted them to a side entrance that led directly to the VIP box seats. They sat down in the dead center of the auditorium, only a dozen or so rows back from the stage. She dug her elbow into Alan’s side as a vendor walked by. He pulled out his wallet and paid a small fortune for four more beers, only slightly more chilled than the ones in the parking lot. Angie whistled between two fingers as a shirtless roadie walked across the stage. Bobby rolled his eyes, and Paul laughed. Alan said nothing, which somehow made Angie more annoyed than if he had complained or said anything at all. After an opening act who would have faded into the detritus of rock history had they not survived the event and given an exclusive interview to Wolf Blitzer a week later, Rowdi Krowd burst onto the stage between columns of real flames. Dru Blud pranced along the edge of the stage, beckoning women to lift their shirts and reveal their breasts like some satyr who had traveled through time and space from the ancient forests of Crete to the shores of Long Island. The women obliged and screamed, and threw their bras. He held one between his teeth as he skipped to his drum kit and began to beat out their first song. Anyone who had been near a radio in the past ten years knew the chorus to “Grind On Ur Love,” and the very walls of the amphitheater began to sway to the beat as the band launched into their biggest hit. The thud and thump of thousands of stomping feet radiated out through the cement and steel, across the sand, and sent vibrations across the water. The creature, already suffering from the unfathomable pain of every cell in its body tearing itself apart from radiation, just wanting to die quietly in the warm, calm waters of the bay, felt the music like sand rubbed across a sunburn. It stirred from its resting place. “Jesus, Angie,” said Alan as she screamed with delight. She elbowed him again. Every man but Bobby had to ruin everything, eventually. Paul caught her eye and shrugged. The band surged through the chorus.  After the final verse, Dru Blud let out a primal howl and launched into a drum solo, the kind of solo that had made him a sex icon a decade ago, the kind of solo that still led women to throw themselves at him, even after years of partying and drugs had chewed his body up like an old stick of gum. The whole crowd went wild with the spell of it, even Paul, who only came because he wanted more time with Bobby, even Alan, who just wanted to go home. It was the kind of solo that made you think about your life, think about what you were  going to do with your time on earth. It made Angie realize she didn’t want to date anyone, and maybe she would sign up for those professional development classes, and she should  just invite Bobby to these things because he always made her happy and what else did she care if she had a nice time and a few beers? It made Bobby realize he wanted Paul, really wanted him, not just wanted him hidden on the couch in the Chelsea apartment, and he would deal with whatever that meant. It made the creature want the whole thing to end, everything to do with these people who did nothing but make noise and filth and pain in the world. # There’s a kind of story where the monster attacks the stadium, and Paul dies in Bobby’s meaty arms, and Bobby regrets that he never said I love you, and Alan is redeemed by saving Angie even though his only sin was being mediocre and dating someone as insatiable as her to begin with. Everyone cries at the end, and we all feel sorry for Bobby, and we wonder if Angie will marry Alan in the end or if she will go off to other adventures. We all feel bad about how we are killing the earth with our wars and our pollution, and we remember our favorite rock hits from the nineties. This is not what happened. Angie Delvecchio didn’t need anyone to save her, and Bobby didn’t need to try and save Paul, and even though Alan was useless it didn’t matter. As Dru Blud’s intestines sprayed out across the pit and all the braless women cried and shoved each other to the ground, the four of them slipped out the separate VIP entrance in moments. They all ran with pure adrenaline to Alan’s car, where he fought with the damn steering wheel lock for an eternity because his hands were shaking too much from the shock.  Bobby and Paul smashed into the near-vestigial back seats of the stupid Porsche, and Angie leaped  into the passenger side and screamed at Alan to drive the fucking car, and he did until he spun into a ditch on the edge of the traffic circle around the water tower as police vehicles swarmed the highway. They watched with gaping mouths as a helicopter flew overhead and another throbbing tentacle plucked it from the air and dunked it in the water over and over like a baby with a bath toy.  Angie screamed, “Jesus Christ Jesus Fucking Christ,” over and over until Bobby put his hands on her shoulders, and she stopped screaming, but they could still hear all the screaming from the amphitheater, and Angie pounded her fist on the dashboard. Paul put both hands on either side of Bobby’s head, and kissed him, and they both jumped out of the back seat while Alan kept trying to reverse out of the ditch, and Alan yelled, “Come The Fuck On,” and thought of all the payments he still had to make on the damn car. Bobby and Paul both pushed on the front bumper until the wheels stopped spinning and the car hopped back onto the road. They got back in, and they all sped off down the parkway and stopped when they got to the police barracks along the beach because Alan was shaking too much to drive anymore and he didn’t know what else to do. The barracks were strong and made to withstand hurricanes, and they ran inside as everyone inside was running out. They found a corner to sit and sat and cried.  Angie paid twenty cents to text her mother to say, “I am safe” and then her Aunt Teresa to say that Bobby was safe too, and then Paul called his parents in Cincinnati because people still remembered phone numbers in those days, and then Alan called his ex-wife. They heard an explosion, and they cried some more, and there was a blur of ambulances and EMTs and the little pen lights in their eyes to check for concussions and the interviews on the ten o’clock news. # Angie and Alan dated for another three months, just up to Thanksgiving. They had a final, petty fight over where they would share the holiday dinner, and Angie decided she just couldn’t handle it anymore, even if they had been through so much together. She went out for a drink with Bobby, and Bobby admitted that he always thought that Alan was a prick. Alan married his assistant, and they had two children. Bobby brought Paul to the DelVecchio Thanksgiving on Long Island, and his father wasn’t too much of an asshole about it. They dated for another year until Bobby got the chance to tour with the World Wrestling Federation, and the traveling and distance was too much for them both. They stayed in touch, and when Bobby decided to retire from wrestling and use his savings to open his own body shop, they reconnected.  Angie did take those professional classes after all. She wrote a book about that day at Jones Beach, and then she wrote another book about all the people who came to her with all their tales of all the horrible things they had survived. She had a radio show and then a podcast, and when she talked to these survivors most people said she did it with grace and kindness albeit crudely. She clipped out the edition of the New York Magazine  “Approval Matrix” that described her show as maximum lowbrow and exactly halfway between despicable and brilliant. They all got cancer, of course, but who doesn’t these days if you live long enough.  The creature was put out of its misery, and military scientists studied it, and they didn’t learn anything that changed anything about the world. Martha Hipley is a writer, artist. and filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland who lives and works in Mexico City. Her stories have been published in 45th Parallel, Maudlin House, and New Limestone review. When not working, she enjoys training as a boxer and triathlete and exploring flea markets.

The inside of The Armory usually exuded a red glow from every surface. Tonight, this was technically the truth—the recessed ceiling lights certainly strained to emit their various shades of crimson into the atmosphere. But as for surfaces, Chris could find none when he scanned the room. He’d bumped his way through three rows of wobbly shoulders to order the Jack and ginger in his hand, making him the first of the crew to succeed at grabbing a drink and therefore, the one responsible for finding everyone else a place to sit.  “It looks like those people are about to leave.” Traci appeared right next to Chris, yelling to be heard over the din (about half-successfully). She gestured—open hand, so as not to appear rude by pointing—at a couple in the corner, taking up a whole booth just to sit on the same side. Chris rolled his eyes. “Okay, word,” he called back to Traci, who was in the process of being squeezed even closer to him by a jostle of the crowd. The two lingered, anticipation in their eyes, while everyone else slowly elbowed their way to the bartop. The room was usually hot on a Saturday night, but tonight, it swayed back and forth as vigorously as the Cocteau Twins wafting out of the jukebox. It was, as Aaron was often saying, electric . He’d seemed like a bit of a bro when he was first hired, but Aaron had come to grow on Chris, so much so that he’d picked up a few of his mannerisms. Jason was the next to emerge from the throng of bar patrons, nearly spilling his beer and chaser shot as he broke through the wall of people. By then, the couple in the booth had slowly started to get up and put their coats on. “Where the fuck are we gonna sit?” Jason panted. Chris gestured gently—open hand, still—to the booth. “Oh.” Vanessa and Amy joined the group together, each drinking a Malibu and pineapple. Even though new bartender Amy was a senior and Vanessa a freshman, they’d bonded fast over being students at the nearby, teeny-tiny art college, so much so that Vanessa had started going out with the group. At first she skated by on her coworkers knowing the doorman, but when that didn’t work, she presented a Florida ID, despite hailing from one neighborhood over. “She’s my other half,” she’d told Chris the first time he watched her shove it back into her wallet behind her actual ID. “Victoria.” Couple now gone, Traci staked her claim by tossing her purse the distance between the bench seat and where the group was standing. It bounced twice but remained on the seat’s leather surface. “Yeah!” Traci cheered as she brushed and elbowed her way to the booth. Jason followed suit, leading the rest of the crew through the writhing crowd. The eight of them filled into both sides of the booth, Chris landing on the aisle next to Traci, then Eliot, then Aaron. “Here’s to restaurant week finally being over!” Eliot toasted. “And here’s to Little Joe finally getting the fuck out of my bar!” Traci followed up as the glasses were clinking. Amy let out a guffaw. Indeed, the crew’s last guest of the night had been none other than half-owner Giuseppe “Little Joe” Esposito himself, date nearly half his age in tow. They’d grown used to the ways Little Joe treated the world like his own personal playground, but tonight had been a new low even for him—after Little Joe walked in the door with Caroline or Carolyn or maybe Catherine at ten minutes to ten, cold side had unwrapped all of their freshly-packed stuff to make him a cheese board, and Traci mixed negroni after negroni while the rest of the crew stood at attention, terrified to start their closing procedures in front of him lest he learn that they regularly hurried lingering customers out by stacking chairs. By the time they’d gotten out of there, it was after midnight. “Hear, fucking, hear,” Renee said, clinking glasses with just Amy a second time. Renee had started as a server after Simone put in their two weeks. She claimed to be an asexual lesbian, but it was hard to ignore the way she hung on Amy’s every word, and even if she didn’t, Chris had been there the night a few folks went back to Traci’s and Renee drunkenly said her staff crush was Amy. He made knowing eye contact with her across the table and smiled. “Oh, shut up,” Renee whispered. Chris chuckled and held out his glass; Renee reached across to clink. “Thank god we’re here!” Vanessa yelled like she was on a reality show. Renee shot Chris a knowing look—that same night she’d admitted to crushing on Amy, someone had asked her about Vanessa and she burst out laughing. She’s just so….eighteen , Renee had finally conceded when asked. She’ll grow out of it. 🍸🍸 “Adam Sandler,” Eliot said, then took a sip of his PBR. “Sheryl Crow,” Traci followed. “Christina Hendricks.” Aaron couldn’t see who was speaking without craning his neck, but it sounded like Chris. Hilary Clinton. Harry Houdini. Helen Mirren, Aaron thought, anticipating the next name in the sequence. It didn’t come. “Oh, wait, is it me?” Vanessa asked, giggling. Traci started to laugh, too; Renee rolled her eyes and started furiously typing on her phone. “I forgot the rules.” Traci started laughing even harder as a scowl affixed itself tighter to Renee’s face. The decorum quickly left the building after that, with Traci collapsed into Chris’ shoulder and Vanessa giggling with Amy, all while Renee’s thumbs assaulted her keyboard.  Despite having worked at La Fratellanza for the better part of six months, Aaron barely knew any of his front-of-house counterparts. He’d played Smash Ultimate with Jason and Eliot one time, but Jason had Irish-goodbyed after the first round, and Eliot loved to be at the center of everything—a desire Aaron didn’t share. “Now, now, ladies and gents,” Eliot joked. “The game is Famous. One person starts by saying the name of a celebrity. Then the next person has to say a celebrity whose first name begins with the same letter as the previous celebrity’s last name.” Vanessa was still giggling a little, but Amy’s gaze was fixed on Eliot as he spoke. “So like, say I say Jason Bateman,” he continued. “Then Traci would say…Bob Barker? Except that’s a double letter, so it would stay the same for the next person, and  the order would switch, so I’d have to go again. And maybe then I’d say Betty White.” “Didn’t she just die?” Chris interjected. The group laughed again, even Renee—then realized what they were laughing at and let out a chorus of awww s. “You get the point,” Eliot replied with a laugh. “So…Britney Spears.” “Sarah McLachlan,” Traci continued. “Macy Gray.” “Grace Jones.” “Jhené Aiko.” “Ariana Grande.” Everyone looked at Aaron. “Gary Payton,” he offered. “She’s not a songstress!” Traci cried out in jest. That time, it seemed like the group’s laughter was actually enough to penetrate the million layers of noise in the tiny bar, surrounding the seven of them with each other’s joy. Aaron scanned the circle, landing on Chris for just a second longer. They’d only ever talked across the window, and for seconds at a time. Aaron watched as Chris took off his glasses, polishing the lenses with his fisherman sweater as he chatted idly with Traci about something.  The next thing Aaron knew, Chris was looking straight at him, and Aaron snapped his eyes down to his beer in seconds. He let out an imperceptible sigh, went back to the well of his Tecate tall boy, and drank deep, stopping the spike of his heartbeat. “Okay, okay.” Eliot summoned the group’s collective attention. “So that’s my turn. Paul Walker.” He pretended to pour out the empty PBR can in front of him, earning an enthusiastic laugh from Amy. “Winona Ryder.” “Ryan Gosling.” “Giuseppe Esposito.” The last one came from Vanessa, and Chris and Traci burst out laughing. “Oh my gooooooood ,” Traci trilled. “Not Little Joe. He’s not even famous!” “He’s kind of locally famous,” Vanessa justified. “Everyone knows La Fratellanza—it’s been open forever.” “Okay, but the name of the game is Famous,” Eliot said. “Not Kind of Locally Famous.” “Okay, fine.” Vanessa crossed her arms. “George Takei.” “Tom Selleck.” “Susan Sarandon.” “Suzanne Somers.” “Sammy Sosa.” Amy and Renee passed it back and forth a few times before devolving into more laughter. Eliot tried to restore order, but they had Traci giggling along with them now, and it wasn't long before even he relented and dropped the pretense of the game. Aaron found his gaze drawn to Chris even more as Vanessa stood up to leave and the seating order shuffled; rather than at the end of a sardine-tight line of people, Chris now sat catty-corner from Aaron, groping for his straw with his tongue before finding it. He looked over right as Aaron smiled—completely busted. But instead of making it awkward, Chris flashed a quick grin back before turning his attention back to Traci and Eliot. Aaron smiled to himself again. 🍸🍸🍸 Traci dug through her cavernous coat pockets like she’d lost something precious, depositing handfuls of lint, receipts, and balled-up hair on the wooden table each time she dipped her hand back into their fleece-lined crevices. “What are you looking for?” Eliot slurred. “Quarters,” Traci replied, a newly-found BIC pen between her teeth. “For the jukebox.” “I thought it took dollars.” “For the millionth time, that’s the one at 30th Street.” Traci upended her glittery purple purse onto the tabletop, change and keys and makeup clattering a cacophonous soundscape each time she shook the bag. Now emptied, she flipped it back into her lap and started to put things away again—a travel pack of tissues. Hand sanitizer. Wine key. Chris was the kind of drunk where he was starting to notice things, and the contents of Traci’s bottomless bag mesmerized him. Everything was a different shade of purple, a shiny, deep aubergine under The Armory’s vermillion lighting concept. “Do you have any quarters?” Eliot asked him while Traci used her pointer fingers to sort through the loose change she’d dumped on the table.  “I might?” Chris patted his own pockets—jeans were a bust, but his flannel pocket produced two twenty-five-cent pieces. He was reaching for his coat when Aaron, Renee, and Amy came back with their drinks. “What are you doing?” Amy asked Traci. “Jukebox,” Eliot replied. Traci was too focused. “How much is one play?” Renee asked. “Fifty for one, dollar for three.” “What have we got?” “You have a lot of questions,” Amy cut in, slurring her words gently. “...three seventy-five, four, four twenty-five…” Traci counted to herself. “Like, $4.50?” “ Ooooooh , you should put on ‘Go Your Own Way,’” Renee suggested. “No, if we’re gonna do Fleetwood Mac, put on ‘Songbird,’” Amy countered. “What is the weakest track on Rumours  and why is it ‘Songbird?’” Chris replied. “ Stoooooooooooooop .” Amy was almost melancholy in her sincerity. “Christine McVie deserved a moment!” “Whatever you say.” Chris held up his hands. “If you little shitbirds think I’m going to spend my money on your music, you’ve got another thing coming,” Traci warned. “Hey, fifty of those cents came out of my frocket!” Chris protested, patting his left chest. “Okay, so you get one,” Traci conceded. “Not ‘Songbird.’” The whole table erupted in laughter as Traci got up to feed the jukebox. “Nah, Fleetwood Mac is crazy, though,” Chris continued. “ Rumours  is crazy. You ever see that tweet that’s like, Stevie Nicks goes okay this one is called eat shit and die you fucking fuck  and Lindsey Buckingham is like ok let’s call it Silver Springs and leave it off the album ?” “ YES! ” Renee yelled. “Which is crazy! Because every other song on that album is like eat shit and die you fucking fuck !” “Except for ‘Songbird!’” Amy insisted. Eliot hadn’t really stopped laughing, but Renee and Chris started back up again. Chris looked over at Aaron, who looked nonplussed. “Are you a ‘Songbird’ fan too, Aaron?” Chris asked. “Oh, no,” Aaron replied. “I mean, not oh no, I don’t like it. Oh no, I haven’t heard the album. I don’t really know Fleetwood Mac.” “Oh, word!” Chris was surprised, but took it in stride. Right,  he thought. He’s straight. Traci strode back over as the opening chords of “You Make Loving Fun” thrummed their way through the bar. Chris couldn’t help but tap his feet and drum along on the table. It didn’t take the group long to catch up, with even Aaron bopping his head to the bass. “I couldn’t abide by ‘Songbird,’ sorry, Amy,” Traci said. “But I had to give you your Christine McVie moment.” Warmth snaked through Chris’ torso as the vocals came in and his coworkers started to sing along in their deepest, most dramatic Christine McVie impersonation. It wasn’t much sometimes as far as work went, but he always told himself he could be surrounded by worse people. 🍸🍸🍸🍸 Eliot was making his way towards the door when Aaron stood up to get his next beer, an act that surprised him in and of itself. Aaron didn’t customarily socialize with coworkers, the occasional hangout with Eliot being the main exception. Now that he was gone, what did Aaron really have to stay out for? Chris stood next to the only empty patch of bartop Aaron could find. He leaned his elbows on the linoleum countertop and glanced Aaron’s way, smiling once he recognized the familiar face. “Whatcha drinking?” Chris asked. “Tecate tall boy. With a lime.” Dean, the joint’s mainstay weekend bartender, slid Chris his drink and opened the cooler to dig for Aaron’s beer. As Dean reached into his pocket for his churchkey, Chris tried to grab his attention. “Hey, Dean, can you put that tall boy on my tab?” he asked. Dean looked up and nodded as he cracked the can, fished a lime out of his garnish tray, and handed it to Aaron. “Thanks, bro,” Aaron said. “You didn't have to do that.” “Eh, I wanted to,” Chris mused. He pinched the two black cocktail straws in his drink together and took a big sip. “What are you drinking?” Aaron asked after a beat of silence. “Jack and ginger.” Chris sucked the straws again, quickly draining the drink to half-full. “I mean, I will broadly drink a whiskey ginger if a spot doesn't have Jack,” he clarified. “But my dad drank Jack. And I like it.” “You and your dad close?” “We were. He passed last winter.” Chris was nonchalant, but hung his head a little. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Aaron meant it, despite barely knowing him. “Eh. You know,” Chris started. “It’s not like it was sudden or anything. I mean, we all saw that  happening.” Aaron wondered what that  was, but it felt far from his place to ask. “And you?” Chris asked. Aaron gestured to himself; Chris nodded. “Like, do I have a dad?” Aaron asked. “No, like, why do you drink Tecate?” Chris chuckled. “Oh, oh. Word.” The truth was, Aaron had been drinking Tecate since he was a teenager and started sneaking into 21+ shows at The Jewel Room. “I dunno. Always have, I guess.” “Ha, yeah,” Chris playfully nudged him on the shoulder with no real force, but Aaron felt its impact through his entire body. “I know how that is.” The two laughed for a minute before Chris reached for his pocket. “Ah, shit. Hang on.” He pulled out his phone and answered it. “Yo. Oh, shit, it’s been that long?” Chris pulled the phone away from his mouth, held a hand over the speaker, and mouthed Traci ; Aaron nodded.  “Yes, I can order you a High Life pony and a shot of Fernet.  JEE-sus Christ .” Chris emphasized the first syllable of the Lord’s name in his hyperbole, laughing as he hung up the phone. He leaned back over the bartop to try and get Dean to look his way. “It’s for Traci,” he said after ordering. “She doesn’t feel like getting up.” 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 Amy signed her credit card slip and waved goodbye to Chris as the bartender slid him another Jack and ginger, this time a double. The Armory served their doubles in a pint glass, and all their this-and-that drinks packed more liquor than mixer. As far as Chris was usually concerned, you only ordered a double at The Armory if you were in the mood to get roaring drunk. He may not have been feeling quite that fancy, but the last round had certainly angled his gaze toward Aaron, and he needed the liquid courage to see that through. “No, because oh my GOD , what the fuck was that tonight?” Renee was in the middle of a passionate rant when Chris returned to the table. “I’ve worked for plenty of small business owners in this city and none of them— none of them —treat their employees the way Little Joe treats us here.” “I had my entire station broken down when they ordered that cheese plate,” Aaron piped up. “Oof,” Traci said with a laugh. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but they only ate the gouda. I threw the rest in a box for myself.” She pulled a takeaway container out of her giant purse and opened the lid to reveal, in fact, an entire cheese board minus the gouda. “If I don’t laugh, I’m going to cry,” Aaron replied between sips of Tecate. Chris reached for a chunk of Humboldt fog. “No but really, what is Little Joe’s deal?” Renee continued. “It’s not like Big Joe is even remotely that rude, so it can’t be a family thing.” The elder of the two Esposito brothers, Giovanni, was almost a foil to his younger brother. It wasn’t just in age that they were Big Joe and Little Joe. “Yeah, Christ, Kristen loved Big Joe so much, she married him,” Traci joked, giving Chris a playful nudge with her elbow. The two had both been working at La Fratellanza back when their former GM, Kristen, had started to date Big Joe, with Traci and Chris even helping him keep their impending engagement a secret from her. “Besides, I say we’ll see what happens with Little Joe,” Traci went on. “Wait, what does that mean?” Chris asked. “Ah, fuck. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Traci was sheepish. “You can’t just drop that and then leave us hanging,” Aaron insisted. “Yeah, for real. We’re among friends,” Renee chimed in. “Okay, well, you didn’t hear it from me. No, really, you did not.” Traci looked each person at the table in the eye. “But Simone quit because Little Joe is lowkey so fucking ableist and he basically pushed them out of here, and they’re now thinking about suing him personally.” Renee’s jaw dropped across the table. “So like, they may not do anything, but if that goes anywhere , I feel like Big Joe has no choice but to buy him out of the business to save the restaurant’s reputation.” “Simone told you that?” Aaron asked. Traci nodded. “How poetic would it be if our Little Joe problem solved itself?” Renee slurred. “I’ll drink to that,” Traci said, and the foursome raised their glasses again. 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 Outside the bar, Aaron pulled a second cigarette from the pack out of habit—when he was drinking like this, he was usually at home and able to chain smoke on the back porch. Now, as the alcohol sank deeper into his bloodstream, he was fiending for a smoke or seven. “Damn, a second already?” Chris asked, hovering closer to him and then further away in an instant. Aaron still couldn’t tell if Chris was drunk or if he really did keep finding excuses to be close to him. In the dim, cramped bar, it was easy to blame it on spatial constraints, but now that they had migrated outside, it was harder to ignore, and even harder for Aaron to stop himself from looking at Chris. “I’m gonna take off, I think. It’s late.” Renee stood up from the curb and shoved her Camels into her quilted pink handbag, then dug her hand deeper to fish around for her keys. Traci raised her eyebrows. “Relax, I’m gonna walk.” “Be safe. Text me when you get home.” The trio was silent as Renee grew smaller and smaller down the block, then turned the corner. Chris looked around. “Aaron, you smoke?” Aaron knit his brow in confusion; he looked down at his cigarette. “Like, weed,” Chris clarified. It wasn’t often that Aaron smoked weed, in all honesty—maybe the last time had been his ex-girlfriend’s birthday over a year ago. But for some reason, he nodded, and Chris pulled out a joint, holding it between his lips as he flicked the lighter with one hand, then threw the other up for a wind shield. It was impossible for Aaron not to stare at him as he sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, curling it around his lips for just a second before tilting his head up and blowing it into the sky. This time, it was Traci who made eye contact with Aaron, knowing grin on her face as Chris passed him the joint. “Man, I fuckin’ love The Armory,” Chris said as Aaron took his first puff. “You know I got kicked out of 30th Street for smoking a spliff across the street?” “What ever , dude,” Traci shot back. Aaron wasn’t sure how long to inhale for, so he kept holding his breath. “You know that place is owned by Trumpers.” Chris shrugged as Aaron finally exhaled, bringing a cough from the darkest recesses of his lungs with his breath. Chris and Traci giggled for a few seconds until they realized Aaron was still coughing. “You good, dude?” Traci asked. Aaron managed to slow his coughing and hawked a loogie into the street. “Yeah.” His eyes were pinkeye red. “Yeah, I’m good.” He let out one more gentle cough, then cleared his throat. “Just haven’t smoked in a little while.” 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 “I’ve never really looked at it like this before,” Chris admitted.  “I’m not gonna lie, I did not know this ceiling looked like this,” Aaron added. “ Shhhhhhhhhhh ,” Traci shushed softly, audible as the room emptied out. The trio had made their way back inside and were all leaning back in their seats, looking at the ceiling. It was hard to pinpoint just one central quirk of The Armory, but perhaps one of the core facets of its existence was the ceiling, which was painted from edge to edge to look like The Creation of Adam. They’d all heard of more famous dive bars with the full Sistine ceiling, but The Armory was the size of a postage stamp, so the famous finger-touch was all that fit. “See that part right there?” Traci gestured to something Chris could barely even see. “I know one of the artists who worked on this. He said that part of the ceiling fell out when they were painting it, and they had to re-plaster and then paint that part again. You can kind of see where the plaster is if you look hard enough.” Chris wasn’t looking anywhere near hard enough, instead acutely aware of Aaron’s proximity to him on the bench seat. “I’m not really into art, but this is so beautiful,” Aaron continued. His pupils were dime-sized, his body fully relaxed into the cheap leather banquette. Chris didn’t look down from the ceiling, but he heard Traci gather her coat and slide out of the booth. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” she lied. Both boys mmmm ed, eyes on the ceiling and legs touching under the table. By the time she was out the door, Chris’ courage had extended to reaching a hand out for Aaron’s thigh. The pair stayed enveloped in the beauty of the ceiling, even as The Armory staff flipped every light switch in the joint and shouted “LAST CALL” at the top of their lungs. At some point, the beauty of the ceiling became fused with the beauty of each other, and Chris pulled Aaron’s face towards him, consequences be damned. It wasn’t often Chris got really, truly lucky—so shock and delight flooded him when Aaron kissed him back, the boys an oasis in the clank and clatter of the bar’s closing rituals. 🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸 Aaron was the type of hookup veteran for whom any casual game of Never Have I Ever was a certain loss. As a point of fact, the last time someone took one of his firsts was the year he dropped out of high school, barely sixteen. But here he lay, stark naked in Chris’ bed and stripped of a series of firsts. The first time he had kissed anyone other than a woman was back at The Armory under the last call lights, and it hadn’t taken him long to connect the dots between the kiss and its inevitable, subsequent acts of affection—Chris called a car and they spent all twenty minutes of the ride tangled in each other, far more desperate for touch than air. When they arrived at his apartment, it was straight to bed. It wasn't as if Aaron ever imagined this happening, but he previously considered himself straight enough that it surprised him how little he hesitated, how easy it was to fall into a moment and tumble back out of it completely upended for the better. In the light of the morning, maybe there would be some sort of disbelief, but for now, he gazed over at Chris’ sleeping form through sinking eyelids, content. No fallout could ruin this. nat raum is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. They’re the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press. Their writing is published or forthcoming with Split Lip Magazine, BRUISER, beestung, Gone Lawn , and others. Find them online at natraum.com .

In child terms: share candy. Step in front of no one. When a whine or sob bubbles up in the throat, swallow hard . Do not call attention. Do not ask for special favors, treats, a push-back of the bedtime hour. Fight not with others, even if one of those others snatches your favorite doll and starts to chop off her un-grow-backable hair. Whatever is asked (or isn’t), avoid any statement or response that frontloads “I.” Let it be known to one and all (without bragging! without fanfare!) that you are a willing and brilliant listener and will go on brilliantly listening for however long anyone cares to take over your time and wee ears. Before owning a full set of permanent teeth, become the very model of conciliatory patience, preternatural stillness, while those around you kick and scream and wail at a volume that scatters birds from trees. Give up your seat on the school bus to anyone (friend or foe) who demands it. If you have been awarded a dollar, resist thinking that the whole dollar belongs to you and can be spent entirely on yourself, as you wish, and for your pleasure. If your favorite pie in the world is lemon meringue and there is but a single slice left, before taking the tiniest taste of that heaven, offer it to anyone in the vicinity who displays passing interest. It will take effort, the un-selfish-ing. It well may take a lifetime. Kat Meads's recent flash has appeared in Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, Does It Have Pockets, Your Impossible Voice, FEED  and elsewhere. Her novelette, While Visiting Babette , is forthcoming in 2025. ( katmeads.com )

Sometimes, Morgan thinks about the movie American Beauty . Not necessarily about the movie, and definitely not Kevin Spacey, but about that plastic bag caught in the wind. The infamous one, the one That Guy in the writers’ workshop somehow finds ways to mention, usually before or after he says he's almost halfway through Infinite Jest . He smiles at Morgan as he does, too much of his gums, and she just stares ahead—is there something impressive about a community college student not quite reaching the midpoint of a book that may have inadvertently boosted sales of Depend diapers? That Guy, who probably has a name like other That Guys do, he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that plastic bag. He's hunched forward in his chair, thumb and fingertips pressed together like his monologue is divine spice, analyzing art and symbols and how only pretentious people complain the bag is pretentious. The bag isn't art, Morgan wants to say and never does. It's just blowing around, like trash, like debris, like, well, a discarded plastic bag. Morgan thinks about that plastic bag because it's so ordinary, it's nothing; the art, the transgression, is American Beauty , or rather the film within the film another That Guy made of the bag—not because it’s good, not because American Beauty  is good either, but because it made a piece of garbage unforgettable. That Guy in the writers’ workshop doesn't even own a camera, can't look at anything through a lens, and he's performing, dancing, every single day he's trying so fucking hard to explain that plastic bag as if it contains the meaning of life. Morgan shakes her head, and That Guy is still rambling, still spraying spit at her, reaching for immortality inside her acknowledgment. The others like That Guy will always be searching. They'll always lick their lips and pick Morgan, crave the ingénue, the receptacle, the monosyllabic response, the what do you mean I'm talking at  you? This is a conversation . They love finding a plastic bag and filling it with their important ideas. That Guy doesn't realize he can't weigh it down, catch it, claim it, keep it from floating away—hey, Morgan, babe, are you listening? Buy a camera, Morgan thinks. And stop smiling at me. Robin is a non-binary graphic designer, illustrator, and writer based in Missouri. Previously unpublished. Two cats. They get to hear the work read aloud, but unfortunately aren't great at providing feedback.

A little bear crawls across the road, straightens itself on small hind legs. From a distance, huddled as one, we watch in parkas that hug us like fur. Where there’s a cub, mama’s never too far away.​ So, too, yours. She’ll be here soon. Like she gripped mine when we were young, take my hand, don’t let go. From your crib, you’d paw at me. Remember that? Who could forget? I watched you crawl. I watched you stand.   Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.  His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests.  A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body , published in 2025.  Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Here I Am without warning. Without a coat.  I risk getting taken to task over  meaning. This makes me feel nervous. Porous like a sponge.  The work is almost over. The work is nearly done. Practice can’t make perfect but it does make a poor man a rich man. Which goes without saying. Meaning is a mystery. The  work is here. I am listening. Triangle Sum Theorem Accidents happen less than you think.  Numbers don’t lie is why I write down  every word. I encourage friends to do  the same. Some comply. Some compare  notes. Some provide stock tips and other  economic ephemera. Numbers tell stories.  Bodies tell lies. Anne Sexton declares  “there is no point to being half a poet.”  Intentionality must be thrust out front  where accidents happen to the most  miserable of people. In other words— the tetris effect. So much depends  on that doggy in the window. Living on the Edge of Seen Once upon a time a girl  loved me for the freckle  in my eye. She left me  for some other guy.  I’m sure there’s a word  for that feeling but  meaning I don’t care  to know. I imagine  living in a palace jamming all day  with the brothers  Marsalis. Laughter  comes but not  in a way people  think is funny.  Once upon a time  feeling is mutual. Seriously. People felt connected. Safety nets on every corner. Shelter in Place Heat and humidity make my skin crawl  and curl like pages of a book burning  to be read again. Nothing changes. The story like the song remains  the same. Art hardens. People  think it’s okay to believe  the earth is flat. On top  of that birds aren’t  real. But you are.  Real as real gets— pretty hairy  out there. When I Get Home a Package is waiting for me outside my door. My name is written in a fine point purple Sharpie script. Naturally I’m perplexed by this gesture so astonishing. I don’t remember placing any orders online. The package professionally wrapped but that’s to be expected if you want to get my attention. It’s not my birthday or anything that calendar-specific. I don’t know how I should feel about such largesse. Should I open it? Who do you think it’s from? The Unabomber died so it can’t be him. He was locked up for a long time so it can’t be that.

One morning I noticed something strange about my girlfriend. She put sugar in her coffee. As far as I remembered, she liked her coffee without sugar, very strong and very bitter. So I walked up to her and asked her, “Hey, how come you put sugar in your coffee?” She looked at me with scrunched eyebrows as if trying to recognize me. Then she said, “But babe…I’ve always put sugar in my coffee.” We stared at each other for a long time, both quite confused, then she awkwardly turned away from me and did not say more. You know what? I thought then. Maybe she did put sugar in her coffee. Maybe I remembered wrong. Or maybe her habits had changed. Either way, it didn’t really matter. It was a minor detail anyway. That night something stranger happened. While in the throes of passionate lovemaking, she said she wanted to try something new. She wanted me to lift her, while she wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. For a moment I looked at her. Then I said, “But we have tried that. Remember? You said your arms hurt.” Those scrunched eyebrows again. Then a mystified look as she slowly said, “I…don’t remember.” I nodded and said, “No issue, let’s try,” as I lifted her. And what do you know? Not only did her arms not hurt, but after we had finished and lay side by side, I courteously thanked her for the best sex I had had in my entire life. “You’re welcome,” she said and turned away from me and went to sleep. If these two developments were strange, I let it be. People changed, times changed. And I will admit, change was welcome. You see I and my girlfriend had been together for too long now—I don’t remember exactly how long, but far too long. And with change had set in that old sense of familiarity, of dullness.  So a sense of newness, of freshness, was welcome.  In fact, our whole relationship felt fresh. Our sex was so much better all of a sudden, whereas previously it had become perfunctory. Often now we lay in bed with glasses of wine and talked into the night, whereas previously we had often gone days like indifferent flatmates. And I noticed things anew about her—the way she clutched her stomach and laughed with her entire body, the way she twirled her hair around her index finger and listened intently, the way she got excited over small things like cat videos, a new dress, or a catchy song she discovered on Spotify. It was like falling in love all over again! Lying against my chest in bed, running her hand across my cheek, she told me as well, “You’ve changed.” “Have I?” I responded. “Yes.” “For the better, I hope?” She laughed a little and bit my shoulder. But alas, good things never last. For one day, early in the morning, when I was working on my laptop, she walked up to my desk with a coffee in hand and said, “So when are your holidays ending?” I stopped working, looked at her and said I didn’t understand. She repeated the question. I said, “What holidays?” “The holidays from work.” “What holidays from what work?” “The break you took? From work? That’s why you’re sitting around the house aren’t you?” I told her that I was sitting around the house because I worked from home. That I was a freelance writer. I showed her my laptop, the article I was writing about flesh-eating bacteria for a science website. For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then slowly, she turned around and walked into her room. I shrugged and went back to writing my article, thinking this was just one more example of her newly acquired strangeness. That afternoon, while I was lying in bed, she came and lay down beside me and said she had a few questions.  “Ask away,” I said. “What is your height?” “5’9.” “What is your favourite beer?” “Bira White.” “What is your favourite quote?” “Live. Laugh. Love.” For a moment she contemplated my responses and then said they were all wrong. That my height should be 5’10, my favourite beer should be Budweiser, and my favourite quote should be ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ I laughed heartily and told her that the heart wants what it wants. “Very true,” she replied and turned away from me. I stared at the back of her head, perturbed. When I woke up in the evening, her side was empty. She was gone. I called her again and again, but she didn’t answer my phone.  Oh dear, I thought then.  Am I but a feather in the wind? The vicissitudes of love being the wind; I being the feather? I could have gone on and on pondering these strange vicissitudes, but decided not to mope around and, as hard as it would be, to move on. I put all my energies into my thriving career. I took on more work, more projects and drowned myself in my writing. The article I wrote on flesh-eating bacteria had been aptly terrifying and hence very popular and the science website loved how much online traffic there was on the piece. So I suggested that for my next piece, I would focus on rabies. They agreed and as part of my research, I decided to go out on the streets in search of a rabid animal. I picked the lanes of the Green Park market for this endeavor but unfortunately, my labour was fruitless since I did not encounter a single animal with rabies anywhere—so much for being the rabies capital of the world I guess… But I did encounter something else. Something infinitely sadder. I encountered her.  The abandoner. The heartbreaker.  And, to my dismay, she was sitting on a bench with another man, holding his hand. I watched them from a distance. They were staring straight ahead, not saying much to each other. Then she turned to him and murmured something and got up and went into a café to use the bathroom. While she was gone, I watched him. He was rather plain-faced, like a shaved potato with eyes and mouth. I try hard and yet can no longer remember his face. But as I watched him, a thought struck me. I went and sat down beside him and said, “Can I ask you a few questions?” “Yes surely,” he replied. “What’s your height?”  “5’10,” he said. “What’s your favourite beer?” “Budweiser.” “What’s your favourite quote?” “Everything happens for a reason.” And while I sat there, confused, this man held my hand and said, “Let’s go babe.”  “I’m sorry, you’ve confused me for someone else,” I said and got up. He looked at me for a long time, then shook his head and apologized for the mix-up. When I got home that evening I was a little confused. Something strange had happened, I could tell. ying in bed and contemplating what had occurred and also the strange vicissitudes of life, I realised that I really liked this word— vicissitudes. I liked its sibilant sound, its way of seeming so epic and grand.  So I started listing other words that I really liked. I liked stratagem, guacamole, trounce, hullabaloo, brouhaha, vermicular, maelstrom, kumquats, pachyde- The doorbell rang. I went and opened the door to see a girl standing on the steps with a travel bag, grinning at me. She stepped in and kissed me on the cheek and said, “Aren’t you going to ask me how my trip was?” “…how was your trip?” “So fun!” she said as she tossed her jacket on the table and crashed on the sofa. “Can you make me a coffee?” she asked. “I’m sooooooo tired.” “Uhh…how do you take it?” She looked at me in confusion. “You know this babe. Remember? Without sugar?” That night the sex was also unremarkable. It all felt very milquetoast now since her arms hurt from doing that position I enjoyed. Later when she fell asleep, there was a small smile on her face, while I looked out the window at the night sky and thought deep thoughts. The next morning, she was very talkative. She made me sit down on the sofa with her and told me about her trip to Landore or Lahore or one of those places, god knows, it was all rather dull. It was something about the first time she’d been on a solo trip and how it had been so liberating and what not. I didn’t know why her hands moved so animatedly, why her speech was so fast, why she seemed so excited to tell me all this stuff.  She even asked me how my article was going. I told her about its success. I told her that for my next article, I was focusing on rabies and she nodded and said, “Good idea.” I informed her of my responsibility as a journalist to tell people about the dangers of the outside world. She nodded, did oohs and aahs to show me she was listening.  But really I just wanted to finish this conversation and go back to writing my article.  The next few days passed crawlingly. For everything she did—the way she sipped her coffee noisily, the way she sang songs out of tune while bathing, the way she overcooked her scrambled eggs in the morning, folded the bedsheet, listened to those Taylor Swift songs on Spotify, leant forward and nodded when I spoke at length—irked me. For, in truth, I missed the one who had broken my heart. With her, every day had unraveled like a mystery, a wonderful surprise, like breakfast in bed! She seemed completely unaware of this of course. Instead, she clung to me every day with the same excitement, the same vigour. Somehow, that made things worse. And so one day, without knowing where I was going, where I would rest, I just stepped out.  I walked the earth. I walked through apartment complexes, city streets, shopping malls, and restaurants. The whole world seemed but a parade of couples—in love, in anger, in bitterness, in misery. I saw an old couple holding hands and walking down the road with sweet smiles on their faces. I saw a young couple making out in a park after dark. I saw a couple sitting in a restaurant staring at their meal, not talking to each other. I saw a man get down on his knees and present another man with a diamond ring in a library. I saw a couple dancing softly to music through their apartment window. And I thought of this thing that either my father had told me or I had read somewhere or watched in a film: God has made someone for everyone. Except for me of course, I sighed When would my turn come, I wondered, lost in thought, as I entered another apartment complex. Would I feel the jitterbugs of love again? Would I ever settle? Or would I keep floating about from person to person? I heard a voice then. A woman, shouting, “Babe! Honey! Sweetheart!” continuously from inside her house. I walked up to her flat and saw the front door open. I entered to the sight of her standing in the kitchen with hands on her waist. She looked at me and said, “Where have you been?!” “I…” “Did you bring the groceries?” For a moment I was quiet. Then I said, “No, sorry babe.” She sighed. “You never bring the groceries.” I walked up to her, held her in my arms and said, “I’m so sorry. Next time I’ll definitely bring the groceries.” “Promise?” she said. “Promise.”  And then I hugged her. Through the window I saw a man walking up to the front door with a packet of bread and fruits in hand. I quickly broke away from her and walked up to the door.  “Can I help you?” I asked as he was entering. The man looked at me for a while and then said, “I…uhh…live here?” I gave him my warmest smile and said, “I’m sorry, there must be some confusion, you see I live here.”  He looked at me for a long time.  He looked at the flat for a long time.  Then he shook his head and turned around and wandered away in confusion. *** Things are going so well with her.  We wake up in the morning and make a delicious and homely breakfast of eggs and coffee and pancakes. In the afternoon we fall asleep in each other’s arms and in the evening we cook dinner while her wonderful collection of old ghazals—she loves ghazals! —plays in the background. We eat dinner on the couch, watching a film, our shoulders touching. And after dinner, as we continue watching the film, she will rest her head on my shoulder and doze off. Sitting there, smelling her coconutty hair, her hand in mine, sometimes I feel that this is all I want from life. Isn’t it wonderful? The newness of that intimacy, of another person whom you desire, that wondrous time of getting to know each other? Sometimes when we go on walks in the colony we will see her ex, wandering about with groceries in hand, still looking for his home. There is a lost look on his face. Poor guy. I wish I could help him. But thankfully she doesn’t even notice him and we walk past him every time. She likes to take me to the garden in the colony. There, amidst children playing and old couples on their evening walks, we will open our picnic basket and sit on the grass and have cucumber sandwiches and discuss which couple we’ll look like when we’re older. She says I’ll look like one of those aging professors, those austere and solemn types. I tell her she’ll look like one of those older celebrities, the ones who carry themselves with poise and grace. We laugh as we imagine ourselves coming to the same park for our evening walks. Probably be like that couple strolling and meandering at their own leisurely pace. And then we will get up and walk back, holding hands.  We will cross her ex again. But to her, he remains a stranger. One night while asleep in bed with her I have a strange dream. In it, I see a feather swirling and twirling in the air. I stand and watch it while the wind pushes against my body. I then feel the wind subside and the feather make its slow, undulating way towards me. I cup my palms to catch it.  How long do we go on? Months?  Weeks? It feels like this is the longest I have ever been in a relationship and yet we seem to be going strong. One day, while sitting with her on the sofa and staring out the window, I have this strange feeling that I don’t want to get up from here ever. That I want to stay here, with her, all my life. I realize that I have had it, floating from one person to another, that this is my permanent resting place. I don’t know where this feeling comes from, why it arrives, and whether it will stay. But I think it will stay. I feel it will stay. I feel too within me a strange churning. And I don’t know why I say it, what makes me say it, but I get down on one knee and with outstretched arms ask her: “Will you marry me?” She looks at me with raised eyebrows. I am as surprised as she isthat I have said what I said. When she realizes I am serious, I see a sudden nervousness fall upon her face. She gets up and begins pacing the room frantically and says, “I…don’t know…I think…” I get up and say that she doesn’t have to decide now, that she can think about it, that any answer is okay, that she shouldn’t feel pressured to make a decision and so on. She sits down again and nods. For a moment we are silent as I await her response.  Then, with an air so much calmer, so much more measured, and with an unwavering coolness, she says, “Yes, I will marry you.” I jump up and dance around in joy. She smiles at me and asks me to sit down again and in excitement I tell her that we should tell all our friends and we should start planning already and we should call our parents and- She raises her hand to stop me. She says, “What do you want for breakfast?” “Breakfast?” “Yes. I don’t know, I feel hungry all of a sudden.” I shrug. “I feel like pancakes!” she says. “Okay!” “Pancakes it is!” she says and gets up from the sofa and makes her way to the kitchen. I hear the sound of utensils, of a stove being lit, and I ease into the sofa and make myself comfortable. I feel a soft current running through my body. A strange nervous excitement that makes me float above everything. I feel like- “Babe,” she says from the kitchen. “Yes?” I hear a large sigh. “I think we’re out of milk and eggs.”  “Oh.” “Will you go out and get some?” “Of course I will!” I say and get up.  “Cool.”  “Be back in five minutes.”  As I make my way out of the house with a bag in hand, I try to return to my chain of thoughts. What was I thinking? For the life of me I can’t remember, my mind’s all over the place. It also doesn’t help that I am distracted. First by the ex—still holding on to his groceries, still adrift on the road, mouth open in a daze—and then, as I step out of the colony, as I make my way towards the grocery store, by the others.  How did I not notice them while entering the complex? For I am confronted by them. By so many of them. By hordes of them. Men and women on the road, with groceries in hand, lumbering about. They moan and they groan and I watch them, perturbed.  Suddenly, I feel a hand grab my shoulder. A woman, gaunt, toothless, ragged. “Good sir…can you help me find my home…” she croaks into my face. I walk away. “Good sir…pleeeeeease…” I ignore her and keep moving, keep watching. I watch the dazed look on their faces. The upwards stare, the entreaty in their eyes, the shuffling of their feet. They are so thin, so malnourished. Who knows how long they’ve been carrying these groceries? Who knows how heavy they must feel?  Dammit! What a bummer to stumble upon them on such a happy occasion! I need to distract myself. So I think of the warm pancakes that await me. Her smiling face. Our wedding. And as I reach the store, I start to feel better. So I turn and look at them once more, these sad little people, this little zombie herd. And I feel so thankful I am not like one of them, that unlike this swarm I have a home, a resting place that—after I get milk and eggs for my one little love—I will immediately be marching back to! Abhishek Basak is a writer and theatre actor based in Delhi, India. His short stories have been longlisted twice for the Toto Creative Writing Award and have been featured in the Fountain Ink Magazine, Gulmohar Quarterly, and MeanPepperVine.