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CW: violence She’s fuzzy. She might shatter into her pieces—a Lego spaceship bouncing down every stair. She’s buzzing like something bad something so very wrong is forever about to happen. The skin on her neck and under her hair and down the backs of her arms and across her shoulders will keep prickling and pimpling until it tears right off of her. Her light-ups are pounding stomping pounding through crispy crackly leaves, Her legs are pumping aching pumping, Her eyes are searching watching for that monster. That skinless pale beast creaking shrieking after her. That ghoul. She can’t see it, but the everywhere tastes like too many sour gummy worms and cherry cough medicine, tastes like that monster. That ghoul. Wind scratches at her eyes—claws at her face—chafes her mind and spirit, wishing she could collapse and cry. Frantic thoughts lead her in chaotic circles, only driving her away from the sounds of whatever-it-is charging toward her to eat her, pull her to bits, drag her to its cave to be its playtoy. Tumbling behind a naked big tree she shakes; her souring lungs are tattered newspapers. Smoothing her skin back into place, pressing firm, choking back snot tears, her throat is crackly, and she wonders whispers if she is transforming into that monstrous thing. Is that her werewolf shape? She won’t howl at the moon and run free through the woods, wind whipping through her fur. She’ll scratch and scramble after children. She’ll terrify her friends until their own skins peel off and they become her too. Hiccupping now, her ribs rotten teeth, trying to tumble out of her and scatter away. Mom would be able to dry her tearstains—whisper a lullaby song and feed her peanut butter cookies to settle her. But Mom’s somewhere else if she still exists. If she hasn’t peeled apart layer by layer—skin and muscles and bones and guts until she isn’t any more. Through the buzzing she can almost feel the scratching dead dying leaves blanketing the ground harder and colder than their staircase. Colder and harder than each stair she’s bouncing down, tearing her Legos from each other, scattering down and down and down. Heart is flashing flickering flipping trying to keep pace with her shredding breaths, falling further farther further behind. Are her eyes pounding or her heart? her breath? her feet still running even off the ground even without moving even lying there racing. When her legs might have reformed solid enough, she trembles to her feet. Those scraggly fingers flash in her eyes and she runs, not waiting for the monster’s ragged cry to crackle in between the sour. The trees uproot and dance around her, claw at her like it had. Grasping, gruff fingers catch at her windtossed hair and yank. And she screams. But her lungs are in too many pieces to make much sound. Her legs tell her they have to stop, they’ll be a doll’s, pop off if she doesn’t lie down—doesn’t take a nap. Just a little nap. The sound of Mom dropping something in the disposal is right behind her. Those light-ups twirl her around and it’s right there. Shattered, jagged ribs flex in and out and in and out and her ribs gasp too. Jaw dangling off to one side and her jaw aches, a sharp line through that side. Long greasy greywhite hairs, Clawhands grasping reaching grasping and she grasps for it—a humming warm eye in the storm howling around them. And she reaches for it, gasping, gropes for it. Every part of her, every Lego brick in her body yanks her backward, warns against touching. But fingers slide through thick sour air and buzz as they get closer. They want to fly back, but they’re drawn pulled sucked forward. She has to touch it. And she does. And her skin peels off her, tearing a really stuck band-aid off her whole body. & everything, everywhere, everywhen, neverywhere pops. A quick loud flash blinds her ears & then nothing. Not blackness, but Nothing. When she can’t wake up from a dream, but she hasn’t fallen asleep yet. Knowing how to spell a word but forgetting how to draw the letters. Being glued motionless under her blankets when too many teeth shine from the shadowy corner of her room Her skin tastes like fire but smells like the giant organ at church. When it plays & fills her up with music. Her hair sounds cold, that crisp first step out the door on a snow day. Her rib’s remnants were arriving home after a long trip. Teeth have crumbled into gummy emptiness, but all she wants to do is bite something—chew until the world rebuilds & rights itself. She’s dissolving—when Mom stirs the powder into their drink, but she’s that gritty bit left on the bottom. Clinging to the pitcher, the glass. She’s those couple Legos that won’t fall apart, will hold tight to each other after bouncing on each step. Her fingers graze the idea that she is. Her dissolving tongue dances with lilacs, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate chips. Deafening tangy sweet drowns her, replaces that thick sour. After the scratchy sweater of Nothing, she’s warm & cold & stretching stretching stretching—across the world, universe, forever, eternity, nowhere. Nayt Rundquist (they/them) is an award-winning anthologist; writer of weird things; editor of best-selling books; and professor of creative writing, literature, and publishing courses. Their odd scribblings can be found in Inverted Syntax, Digging Through the Fat, X-R-A-YLit Mag, Fast Flesh Literary, The Citron Review, and anthologized in Unbound: Composing Home (New Rivers Press 2022). They live just outside space and time with their artist-jeweler wife and their fifth-dimensional dogs.

March 13, 1990: Elba, AL Seven old men formed a straight-back chair semicircle around the wood stove in the store front of Bill’s Hardware on the square. None of them could have told you how long they’d been coming there, or how long their Daddies had done it before them, but the chair veneers bore the imprints of several generations of overall-clad backsides. Almost every weekday, they converged on the storefront to pass the time swapping stories and playing checkers. This rainy season, they’d already dodged a February flood event that inundated several counties in north Alabama. Shortly before 7 p.m., Haywood Robinson worked the conversation around to how living in this town, in the bowl formed by an earth levee snugged up against the Pea River, was like playing Russian roulette with God. Most springs, the rains came and went, dropping the hammer on an empty riverbed, swelling the creeks and river that converged north of town, but otherwise passing harmlessly south, toward the Gulf of Mexico. “But every oncet in a while,” Haywood said, “She’ll pick up a heavy load from the Gulf, and BAM! Full-on volley into the heart of town, like back in ‘29, when we flooded so bad, Frank Roosevelt sent the feds in to build the levee. I worked on that levee as a young buck, you know,” he said, referring to the Works Progress Administration project that established an earthen wall around the town. The other old-timers nodded along as if it was the first time they’d heard. March 14, 1990: Dothan, AL Blink McMahon wheeled his convertible Camaro into his reserved parking spot outside the WDHN studio, unfolded his 6’2” frame onto the pavement, and fussed over his hair in the tinted car window. Satisfied, he walked around the car, stooping for a moment to flick a clod of clay off his WTHRMAN personalized tag. Damn dirt roads, he thought and let his mind wander to the super-highways surrounding Atlanta, where the V-8 could stretch its legs. The station had run a spot last night on the city’s long-term transportation projects. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings, traffic to weave in and out of on the way to work, and not the four-legged kind. As a teen, Blink had designs on riding his athletic prowess to a bigger destiny than rural south Alabama, before a knee injury relegated him to a career in another field. In college, he’d discovered a knack for broadcast journalism where his good looks made him a magnetic presence. His co-anchor called his smile a flash bulb. “You just turn it on when you need it,” she’d said one night in bed, “and whoever happens to be in front of it, has to stop and pay attention.” After school, the flash bulb had ended up within an hour of where he started, working his way up from weekend forecasting to take over as chief meteorologist four years ago after his predecessor went down in a hunting accident. He grabbed his overnight bag from the passenger seat and walked into the station, stopping by the news desk to see what Laura was wearing today. Laura entered this world as Thelma Griggs, via a single-wide trailer just up the road. Better known as her on-air name, Laura Stevens, she was the currently-platinum blonde who anchored the 5 and 10 p.m. broadcasts. “Uh oh,” Laura said, looking up from her pre-read material to greet him with a smile. “We expecting weather? I see you got your bag.” His eyes lingered on the low cut of her sweater before he raised them to meet hers. “I’m just being careful. There’s a system coming in, and it could stall, or spit out a couple tornados.” He lay his hand on the counter next to hers, stroking her pinky with his, and flaring a flirty smile. “Might get lucky, and get us an overnighter.” Laura set her papers on top of his hand and stroked his hand under them. “Lower your voice, Blink,” she said, looking around, but still smiling. “It’s a small town, honey.” She shimmied in her seat and arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. Laura’s husband was a dentist in Dothan. Perfect dullard of a little man, Reginald, Blink thought when he met him at the station Christmas party two years ago. He was shorter than Laura! Then again, little Reggie couldn’t help it if he was no Blink McMahon. There could be only one. Laura went back to pre-reading her afternoon stories, and Blink strutted on. He dropped his bag in the little bunkroom off the main studio and went to his desk, pulling the latest National Weather Service report off the teletype as he went, then plopping down in the hard little chair to read it. Routine, he thought, except for that little footnote about the upper level steering currents dropping off. That could make for an interesting few days. He dropped the report. But it’s still nothing to write home about. Home was the little bowl-shaped town of Elba, AL. He had grown up in the shadow of Elba’s earthen levee, and it was the police chief, Haywood Robinson, who nicknamed Blink when he outran all 11 would-be tacklers from arch-rival Enterprise to preserve his team’s perfect season in the waning seconds of the final game of 1971. Haywood had clapped the assistant principal on the shoulder, “Wasn’t that something? I blinked, and that boy was gone! Just call him old Blink McMahon.” The nickname had been with Blink so long now, he’d almost forgotten his given name. In fact, the only person who called him by it was Laura, and then only behind closed doors. The five o’clock report was in full swing when Blink finished his prep. He looked up from his graphics just in time to hear Laura deliver the tagline he’d come up with, “We’ll be back in a blink with the weather. Don’t y’all go anywhere, now.” Game time, he thought. I’ll miss that woman when I get the call to Atlanta. March 14: Elba At the First Baptist Church downtown, Martha Spanner checked the clock over her desk in the church office. Her husband, Jimmy, had brought them to town a few months ago, his first job as a preacher after getting “the call” later in life. After 23 years of marriage, she doubted his direction sometimes, but never his commitment. So when he told her they were moving from Virginia to south Alabama to take over a church, she didn’t argue, just gave her poker chips to her sister, and started packing. Now that she doubled as preacher’s wife and church secretary, Martha was watching for anything that might interfere with their first ever camp meeting revival. Spiritual Spring Cleaning, as Jimmy had dubbed it, was scheduled to run Friday night through Sunday. It had just started raining, great splattering drops pecking the concrete outside the office, and she jumped when a blast of thunder cracked. Damn the weather extremes in this backwards-ass place, she thought. Sorry, Jesus. She crossed herself. I sure hope Jimmy knows what he’s doing. She turned on the small television she kept in the office and adjusted the rabbit ears to bring Blink McMahon into focus. He was talking about a front coming in that was likely to stall, with the potential for up to 14 inches of rain. “Jimmy,” she called to her husband. “I think you’re gonna want to see this.” Jimmy came to the doorway and frowned, “Please remember to call me ‘Pastor’ in the church, Martha.” He glanced at the television and waved a dismissal. “He’s fully clothed. It’s fine.” They’d learned to read Blink’s continuum of dishevelment over the seasons they’d been in town. Fully put together was normal. If Blink appeared with no tie, an unbuttoned shirt, and sleeves rolled up, they knew they were in for a rough time. “Besides, if we play this right,” Jimmy went on, “It could mean more souls saved. We’re gonna pray the rain away Friday night, and God will provide!” He pumped his fist. “God always wins, Martha!” Martha sighed. Jimmy hadn’t always been this way, acting like he had a stick up his butt for Jesus. There was a time when he was as regular a man as any, drinking and gambling for hours in the casinos on the Jersey shore. When he lost $5,000 at the Golden Nugget two years ago, it seemed to change him overnight. He started talking about getting right with the Lord, and getting the call. He took a course in religious studies at the local community college and set up a VCR in the basement to spend hours poring over Jimmy Swaggart footage. A couple of times, Martha had walked in on him stopping the tape and rewinding it, mimicking the televangelist’s mannerisms until he had a routine. He’d started combing his hair to match Swaggart’s just before he came in one afternoon and told her he’d gotten them a pastorship in Elba, AL. Martha had located the little town in her atlas by first finding the nearest city, Dothan, and tracing a route west for 50 miles. Pastor Spanner stopped in the doorway and walked back to survey the open ledger on Martha’s desk. He read a couple of lines and pursed his lips. “Now, don’t forget what we talked about with the charitable donation.” Her shoulders tensed, and he patted her. “It’s okay if we go in the red today; we’ll make up for it over the weekend.” March 15: Dothan Blink wheeled into the studio parking lot with minutes to spare before the afternoon news report. He had slept at home the night before, but the drive down the dirt road that led from his home had been one continuous slip and slide. His head throbbed from the concentration the drive required, so he ducked in the back door to bypass the news desk, stopping under the awning for a minute to watch the runoff accumulate in the parking lot’s low point drain. “Blink?” he heard Laura call as he stopped by the teletype. “Is that you?” She hurried around the corner to find him sitting at his desk. “Oh, good. I was worried about you.” She caressed his cheek. He finished reading the contents of the wire and said, “Looks like we’ll get our overnighter. NWS is now saying Pea River will crest over flood stage, probably sometime early Saturday.” Laura nodded and headed off to call Reginald to tell him she’d need to stay at the station that night. Blink loosened his tie for the 5 o’clock broadcast, conscious of the need to signal a mild amount of urgency. “Now, there’s no need to panic, but there is cause for concern here. The National Weather Service has revised its crest estimate to 32 feet for the Pea River at Elba. That’s two feet above flood stage. We encourage all residents to make preparations, in case the situation deteriorates further. Stay tuned to Floodwatch ’90 here at WDHN, and we’ll keep you informed.” The report wrapped with the new background content he’d worked with Laura and the production crew to create. The team had put together a graphics and audio package for continuing coverage. Blink flashed his usual smile as the audio faded, then concentrated on looking professionally somber as the camera panned back. The next morning, they’d start staffing a crew on-site around the clock until the crisis was over. In the meantime, Blink volunteered to keep watch overnight. After the late report, Laura waited on a hilltop ½ mile away and slipped back into the studio once everyone else was gone. “If I play my cards right, there may be an Emmy in this,” Blink whispered in her ear in the bunkroom bed. She kissed his palm and turned his hand over, pressing it to her bare stomach and inching closer to him. He continued, his voice taut with hope. “After that, those Atlanta stations will be beating down my door.” Laura yanked the cover away with her, springing from the bed. “What about me, Blink? I helped make you what you are. I went to bat for you when Tom Jarrett took a load of buckshot to the chest.” Laura had pushed for Blink as Tom’s replacement, in spite of his relatively young age, and it had proven a good decision, as the station’s market share rose considerably with Blink’s promotion. “You gonna just throw me away like a piece of country trash?” She stood in the middle of the floor, lip quivering, sheet covering her torso. Blink sprawled in the center of the bed, one bare leg draped over the side. At 38, he was still slim and mostly muscular. Only in the last few months had he noticed a little paunch creeping onto his belly. He motioned Laura toward him and flashed his quick smile. “Aw, honey. You know we’re a package deal. I’ll tell those big-shot producers they can’t have one of us without the other. Come on back to old Harry.” March 16: Elba Police Chief Tanner Davis stopped his big diesel response vehicle outside Bill’s Hardware and replayed what he’d just seen. The Expedition had over a foot of ground clearance, but the water in the low spots north of town was already approaching the running boards, and it was raining harder than ever. Am I overreacting? he wondered. Everybody in town seemed to be going about their daily routines. First Baptist Church, with its newish preacher, was carrying on with its revival over the weekend. Whitewater Creek, Beaverdam Creek, and Pea River all converged on the town’s north edge, merging to form one churning, brownish-red mass during spring rains. Everyone who lived there knew it; you could calibrate your calendar by it. But this time, the air was loaded with tropical moisture, squalls coming in waves. Early forecasts called for a lower crest than the flood he’d worked as a young officer 15 years ago, but Tanner had a bad feeling. He’d learned over almost 20 years in law enforcement to trust his gut, and he felt a stone wedged there now. He shut off the motor and sat in the truck a couple more minutes, watching clay-colored water accumulate in the storm drains on the curb, before gurgling down and starting the process again. It was mesmerizing, how everything seemed to be going through a scouring process. But there was something sinister in the way the water was piling up too. He shook himself out of his trance, pulled his jacket hood over his head, and waded through the latest squall to enter the circle of older men gathered around the potbelly stove. “Hey, Chief,” Haywood greeted him. “It’s pretty nasty out, wanna sit a spell with us?” He motioned toward an extra chair over to the side. Tanner remained standing but nodded a greeting to each man before turning back to Haywood. These were the previous generation’s police chiefs, school principals, and business owners, so he made it a point to be deferential. “No, Mr. Haywood, I was hoping you’d ride out and look at the levee with me.” Haywood looked directly at him. He’d trained Tanner as a young officer, and he’d never known him to overreact. His coolness under fire was one of the reasons Haywood had backed his hiring over a more experienced man from outside the county a year ago when Haywood retired. “Blink McMahon said the river was gonna crest around 32 feet,” Dee Bailey sang out. “Surely you ain’t worried about that, are you?” “Hell, I got more water than that in my backyard when my granddaughter broke up with her boyfriend,” Mutt Jefferson chimed in. The older men laughed. Tanner flushed but held his ground. “Yes, and he’s been steady revising his estimate. Last night, he was saying 24 feet. It’s coming up fast, and the way this front is stalled, it just keeps on coming. I’d feel better if I had our town expert look at it with me.” Haywood had served 26 years as police chief before Tanner. “I’ll ride out there with you, if it’ll ease your mind. Haywood winked at Tanner. “Do me good to get out from this nest of old buzzards.” He nodded at the circle and walked out with Tanner. March 16: Dothan Blink slouched at his desk in the newsroom, waiting for his next Floodwatch ‘90 spot. A full crew now camped out on cots at the station. Laura occupied the bunkroom and ran updates a couple of times an hour from 6 am until 10 pm. He was starting to rue the day he’d come up with the Floodwatch jingle and graphics, because he hovered on the edge of saturation. He stubbed out the latest in a string of cigarettes and reached for the most recent NWS report emerging from the teletype. Holy shit, this might get some national coverage, he thought as he sat up and read the bulletin. This really could be my ticket to Atlanta. The latest prediction now indicated a 38 foot crest on Saturday morning, and a 100-year flood event for Elba. The phone on his desk jangled just as he heard Laura say, “We’ll be back in a blink with more Floodwatch ‘90 coverage.” Only a handful of people had his direct number, so he answered it, “Blink, I need your help” came a tired voice on the other end. “I need you to help me get the word out.” Blink searched his memory and finally came up with a fuzzy match. “Tanner?” Blink shook his head. “How long has it been, 18, 19 years?” Tanner was Blink’s back-up on the undefeated team in 1971. The producer walked over and jerked his head toward the green screen, holding up his index finger. “One minute to air,” he mouthed. Blink nodded and waved him away. Tanner said again, more forcefully, “I need your help, Blink. I’ve got to get folks inside the bowl to evacuate. Haywood Robinson and I both think we may lose the levee.” Blink stood up and paced, stretching and rolling the phone cord over in his hand. “Christ, Tanner, are you sure? That hasn’t happened in our lifetimes.” “Pretty sure.” Tanner sighed. “Haywood says it looks worse now than it did back in ’29. It’s already lapping near the top in heavier squalls.” “He’s an old man, Tanner. How can he even remember what it looked like then? The NWS isn’t predicting nearly that level. I’m not sure we need to hit the panic button just yet.” He sat back down and shuddered as he thought about his parents, who lived just outside the downtown bowl. “Some things you don’t forget, Blink. I’m telling you, it’s bad.” Tanner sounded desperate. “Help me, please. People trust you. We can’t get to them all, and I feel like we only have a few hours.” The producer came back and raised his eyebrows at Blink. “I’ve gotta go, Tanner. Send somebody to check on Mama, and I’ll do what I can,” he promised. Blink yanked his tie off and lurched breathlessly to his mark in front of the green screen, rolling his sleeves up as he went. “I’m sorry I’m late, folks, but I’ve got breaking news from the National Weather Service. We’re now predicting a 100-year flood event on the Pea River in Elba. Again, a 100 year flood event for Elba. Let’s go to the Doppler.” Blink gestured toward a spot on the map where the heaviest rain concentrated, “As you view our Super Doppler-18 imagery of this intense downpour, particularly over Coffee and Dale Counties, we’ve had upwards of 12 inches of rain over the past 18 hours. We’ve heard from the local response chief in Elba, and they’re asking everyone within the bowl, within the levee’s footprint, to evacuate. At the moment, this is a precaution, because the National Weather Service is only predicting 38 feet there in Elba, which should not push the levee to its breaking point. Our next Floodwatch ‘90 update will be at 5:45 p.m.” March 16: Elba Martha had one eye on the television, and one on the sky for the 5:45 update. Blink said the National Weather Service was now predicting a crest of 40 feet. He had shown a graphic showing the recommended evacuation areas, and another with the shelter locations in neighboring counties. First Baptist was squarely in the evacuation area. In 1969, a 22-year-old Martha had watched as the remnants of Hurricane Camille brought 27 inches of rain to Nelson County, Virginia, within a 24-hour period, swelling the Tye and James Rivers to monstrous proportions, and killing 124 people overnight. The experience had stalked her actions since, driving her insistence that they buy a house on high ground and install a house-wide generator upon their move to Elba. The unease she felt now was primal. “Jimmy, these waves of rain are like the bands we went through in Camille; do you remember?” she called, but he was rocking back and forth and talking to himself, working into the fervor he reserved for preaching. She tamped the concern down inside herself, but edges of it kept poking out. The church doors opened at 6:30, and the faithful piled in through the latest bout of heavy rain. “Brethren,” Jimmy began a few minutes later from the pulpit, “I’m thankful to see so many have their priorities in the right place.” He looked out over a full sanctuary. Apparently, people had decided to cast their cares about the weather on the Lord; Jimmy found faces he’d never seen in nearly every pew. “It may look bad, but no weapon formed against us shall prosper. God always wins, amen?” He got a few tentative amens, in response. Jimmy dialed up his intensity, bouncing slightly in the pulpit, rocking forward and back on the balls of his feet and banging the microphone. “SATAN is trying to bring the forces of NATURE against us, but I am here to TELL you, no weapon formed against US shall prosper. GOD will provide.” He marched out, goose-stepping a little, tone and volume rising, even though he had left the microphone behind. Martha watched, fascinated, from her customary spot in the front row, as a dot of spit clung to the corner of his mouth. She always made a little game out of trying to predict whether it would fall harmlessly to the ground or launch onto some poor believer. “The same God that parted the Red Sea for the Israelites can turn the waters of Whitewater Creek and Pea River. Can I get an amen, now?” “Amen,” the congregation answered, louder and more enthusiastically than before. They were getting warmed up now. The spit swayed, but held on. Good, Jimmy thought. Take it easy now, boy. Get ‘em good and whipped up before you bring out that offering plate. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Let’s open our hymnals to page 220 and we’ll carry the first, second, and fourth stanzas.” Jimmy waited a couple of beats, then raised his hand and nodded at Nancy, the pianist. Nancy banged through the reprise, and the congregation sang with gusto: “We shall meet beyond the flood/In robes made white through Jesus’ blood/And hold sweet converse, free from pain/Beyond the swelling flood!” As they sang, Jimmy strode up and down the center aisle, singing loudly, clapping the men on the pew ends on their shoulders. When the last note faded, Jimmy launched into his sermon about the faithfulness of Noah, periodically reading from Genesis. He was drawing a comparison between Noah’s deliverance and that of the town when Tanner eased the back door open and walked in to sit in the back pew, water dripping from his Elba Police Department raincoat. He had precious little time to spare, but he waited a respectful 10 minutes before standing up. Right in the middle of my dadgum sermon. Jimmy pulled his handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and pretended to wipe his brow, to hide his irritation. “We’re stealing souls for Jesus, but we didn’t expect to see you here tonight, Chief.” He chuckled drily at his joke. “What can we do for you?” he thundered. All eyes followed his to the back of the church. Tanner looked down at his hat in his hands before raising his eyes and voice. “Preacher, I hate to interrupt the word of God, but this water won’t wait.” He gestured to the north. “We’re evacuating the downtown, and we need to get you all out of here and to a shelter.” Mutt Jefferson chimed in from the third pew: “Blink McMahon said she’s gonna crest at 40 in the morning, Chief.” Tanner nodded, “I know. But Haywood and me both believe it’ll be worse than that. We’ve been spray-painting marks on the levee bank and watching the rise since yesterday, and it’s just accelerating. Haywood said it’s rising faster than he’s ever seen.” Mutt snorted, “Well, send Haywood over to tell us. We’ve rode out 40 before. Barely puts two feet of water in the streets north of town, much less down here. Me and my wife are gonna sit tight and listen to the preacher.” A wave of concern passed through the congregation, but they stayed glued to their pews. Jimmy knew his hold on the flock was tenuous. Beads of sweat collected on his lip as he watched uncertainty ripple across the rows. He pulled the microphone out of the holder and came down to stand in front of the altar, his eyes holding Tanner’s across the sea of heads. “Chief, do you believe in the power of prayer? Do you believe Jesus parted the Red Sea?” Several heads nodded, and most turned to see what Tanner had to say to that. “Well, yes, preacher,” Tanner shifted from foot to foot, his voice somewhat muffled by all the motion in the sanctuary. He locked eyes with Jimmy. “But God also gave us the power of discernment, don’t you think?” Jimmy drew himself up to his full height. “I don’t know about you, Chief, but I’m not putting my faith in man. I’m keeping my eyes on the Lord. Amen, church?” They offered up a few halfhearted amens. Three women got up to stand in the back with Tanner. Some 150 heads swiveled back and forth between Jimmy and Tanner. Jimmy stomped his foot. “God always wins, folks, let’s not forget that! The Bible is FULL of examples and evidence,” he said, punctuating each phrase with little punches of the microphone. “Now, if you believe in the power of prayer, you’ll stay right here and let’s finish what God started, amen?” He didn’t pause for the response. “We’ve got the protection of a federal levee and God’s sheltering arms, amen?” This time, the response was strong. Jimmy went back behind the pulpit and called out another hymn, signaling the interruption was over. Tanner tried to reason with a few people in the back pews, but they turned toward the front and lifted their voices. He rounded up the dissenters and walked out the back of the church. After the hymn, Jimmy nodded to the ushers in charge of collecting the offering. They positioned themselves at the head of the first pews. Jimmy called the church to prayer and bowed his head, starting low, and swelling in volume and energy as he went. “Lord, just like Noah, we have a chance to be faithful tonight to you and your promises. You promised you’ll bring us through not just this flood, but every flood of life, be they physical, emotional, financial, or otherwise. We don’t downplay that the situation is serious, but we know you will provide. I pray that you open this church’s hearts and minds. We will donate half this offering to organizations assisting with flood response, in the event this community or the surrounding communities need it. It may look dire now, but you can use these generous spirits to cancel out this natural phenomenon.” He opened his eyes and looked around to see how people were receiving his message. Every head was bowed, and several hands were raised. “Bolster this flock the way you’re holding that levee up. We may be weak right now, but you always win. Bless these believers and their giving spirits that will take us beyond the swelling flood.” The ushers passed the plates around while the pianist played and Jimmy sang. “We’ll meet to part no more. We’ll meet to part no more, beyond the swelling flood!” Martha peered out the window into the darkness, where the rain had stopped for the moment. She wished she had Jimmy’s faith, but she couldn’t shake the feeling trouble was coiled up like a rattlesnake out there in the dark. March 17: Dothan Blink picked up the teletype print-out as he rousted himself from his cot, bleary-eyed from having lay down only four hours before. He’d spent most of the night watching the wire for updates, and periodically going on camera, tag-team with Laura, to exhort his former neighbors to leave their homes and shelter in a neighboring county. Yesterday afternoon, the national networks had picked up on the magnitude of the rains and run a few short segments on the event, incorporating a couple of snippets from their Floodwatch ’90 coverage. “A rain event of Biblical proportions,” Dan Rather said. Blink snatched up his desk phone as he read the first line, dropping the print-out to frantically sift through his Rolodex for Tanner’s patrol car phone number. The phone rang and rang, but no answer. “Get up!” Blink rousted the production crew from their cots on the studio floor. “We’ve got to go on the air, NOW!” He thrust the print-out into the producer’s face. Ten minutes later, the Floodwatch ‘90 graphics and jingle ushered in his first appearance of the morning. His hair was rumpled, shirt half unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, and his five o’clock shadow led the way. “Folks, I’ll get right to the point. This is an emergency. The National Weather Service is now saying a crest of at least 46 feet for downtown Elba, AL. That’s 16 feet over flood stage. The levee is in imminent danger. Please take this seriously and evacuate. Follow all guidance from local authorities. If the levee breaks, it has the potential to unleash millions of gallons of water into downtown Elba in a very short period of time. There is unprecedented danger to life and limb.” Blink looked at his watch as he walked out from in front of the green screen: 4:05 a.m. March 17: Elba At 4:13 a.m., Tanner took the first report of the levee top crumbling and pulled his men out of the flood zone and back to the command center. A team of deputies and firefighters had gone door to door, finally evacuating the north section of town around 3:45 that morning. The western sky was starting to clear, but that was small consolation. We’re along for the ride now, he thought. At 6:30, a large oak tree propelled by millions of gallons of water scored a direct hit on the wall, piercing the already weakened top section. The cumulative effect was a gaping hole. A frothing, earth-colored wall rushed into the town, inundating the Dairy Queen, and the elementary and middle schools. Around 7 a.m., Tanner and Mickey Bennett, one of his lieutenants, took a boat from the command center to get a status. Tanner let out a long, slow whistle when he saw how much water was rushing through what looked to be about a 150 yard hole. Mickey pointed to where the middle school should have been. The top of the flagpole and a single row of ball field lights dotted the water like navigation buoys. Mickey steered the boat around town, while Tanner noted water levels and helped Mickey dodge debris. They stopped at the sight of a Ford Ranger, nearly submerged, wipers still beating a futile path across its windshield. Mickey steered the boat over the hood until they could see the truck was unoccupied. Tanner pointed to the south where water continued to rise. “Is that a man hanging onto a street sign?” he asked. Mickey said, “Yeah, I think it’s Mutt Jefferson.” Tanner shook his head. “Let’s pick him up. I’m not sure he’ll hold on until an actual rescue boat comes around.” “Mr. Mutt,” Tanner nodded as they approached. “Get me out of this damn water, Chief.” Tanner reached out and grabbed the older man under his arms, lifting him into the boat. He’d lost his shoes, and one overall strap was undone. “Where’s your wife; she still at home, sir?” “No, the hell she is not. What kind of man do you think I am?” He shivered. “I sent her to her sister’s in Bullock County last night after church.” He took the blanket Mickey offered him and wrapped it around his shoulders. Tanner smiled to himself at the old man’s pluck. March 17: Dothan Laura and Blink now occupied the news desk, tag-teaming coverage. Blink was explaining how levees worked, and what had happened to the north levee in Elba. “You see,” Blink said, pointing to an aerial picture of the town. “This is what’s so dangerous at this point. There’s nowhere for the water to go. It will find low ground and just sit there unless something gives on the south side of town, giving it a path to exit the downtown area.” Laura took over, “That’s right, Blink. A horrible, catastrophic event affecting our neighbors down the road in Elba. WDHN has a Floodwatch ‘90 team en route to cover the scene.” Joe, the producer, had dispatched a crew as soon as the NWS wire alerted Blink to the breach. After the spot was over, Joe took his reporter’s call on speaker phone with Blink and Laura huddled around. “I’m calling from the command center,” the reporter said. “We’re stuck here. The incident commander isn’t letting anybody downtown right now.” Blink and Joe exchanged looks. Tanner, Blink thought. The reporter continued. “The water has hit the south levee and is now pushing back to the north. I’m reaching you via satellite phone. All the local lines are down. The water took out a switch downtown.” “Okay, stay there,” Joe said. “We’ll take a report by phone during the next Floodwatch ’90 spot.” “Let me borrow your truck, Laura.” Blink held out his hand. “I’m about to go on location.” Laura’s Ford Bronco was much better suited for challenging road conditions than Blink’s Camaro. “What?” Laura shook her head. “No! Who’s going to cover the flood here in the studio?” “You know you can carry those updates by yourself,” Joe said. Laura crossed her arms and looked at Blink, tapping her foot. “Our viewers deserve to know what’s happening in the town, Laura.” Blink picked up Joe’s thread and smiled. “The command post won’t let our regular crew into the downtown.” She frowned, “Maybe there’s a reason for that, Blink. Did you ever consider that?” He turned up the wattage on his smile. “This is our chance, Laura! I can use my local connections and get a ride in for exclusive coverage.” She sighed and dug in her purse. “Just think. We’re gonna scoop the big boys!” March 17: Elba Jimmy slogged through thigh-high water at the head of his driveway, congratulating himself for his foresight in tying his john boat to a street sign ahead of the levee break. Their house sat on high ground, but water of unknown depth surrounded it now on all sides. Martha yelled from the window, “Where you going, Jimmy?” “I’m going to the church,” he yelled back. “The people at the revival gave their money, and it’s up to me to see it gets used to fulfill the needs of God’s children.” Martha pulled on her hip boots and started toward him. “Why can’t you wait until the water goes down, Jimmy? Nobody would expect you to put yourself in danger. Folks are sheltered up for the time being.” She gestured toward the house where the generator was keeping their refrigerator cold. “I was thinking we need to put together a drive to take food to the shelters. Don’t you think the money will keep a few days? It’s locked up.” By now, she’d waded over to the boat’s stern, where Jimmy was pumping the priming bulb. He yanked on the motor pull cord. “You know as well as I do there’s $4,800 sitting in the church safe.” She reached into the boat to grip his arm. “Are you worried about looting? Can’t we get in touch with the local authorities and let them handle it?” “Do I have to spell it out for you, woman? This is our big break.” She looked at him, brow crinkling in confusion. “It’s our ticket to paying off the gambling debt and starting over,” he continued. “Now come on and let’s go get it, so we can get out of town before anybody is any wiser.” “What?” Martha jerked her hand off his arm. “What happened to the call, Jimmy?” She made quotation marks with two fingers of each hand. “What happened to God providing, Jimmy?” Jimmy yanked the crank cord again and the motor sputtered to life. “God did provide,” he said. He beckoned to her to get in the boat. “No,” she said, backing away. “I never signed on to take advantage of poor folks that lost everything.” Jimmy raised his voice to make himself heard over the motor, “Have it your way. I’ve got the safe combination.” He sat down and steered off through the muddy water, growing smaller and smaller until he turned a corner and disappeared. Blink counted 12 news trucks when he pulled into the parking lot of the highway department building serving as the command center. He spotted his counterpart from the Montgomery NBC affiliate smoking a cigarette on the loading dock and nodded in his direction. Ignoring the cardboard sign that steered him toward the press area, he lifted a police cordon tape over his head and strode directly to the command table. “Boy, you look rough, Tan,” he said, grabbing the smaller man by the arm and giving him a half bear-hug. He’s still large and in charge, Tanner thought. All the locals knew Blink from television, and he had a presence, even off-screen. Tanner had to admit Blink being there lifted people’s spirits, his own included. “Tan, we go way back,” Blink began. “I need your help now. I want to ride out to some of the harder hit areas and take some live footage there, maybe set up and do some coverage here, afterward.” He gestured around him. “These stories have to be told, and who better to tell them than a hometown boy?” Tanner thought, Good old Blink. Been hustling since high school. He nodded, “I’ll take you myself,” he said. “We’re at a standstill right now anyway. Rescue operations are complete, and we’re waiting on water to subside to do a full damage assessment. “Here.” He walked over to a metal locker and pulled out a set of waders. “Better put these on, just in case.” He waited a beat. “Your parents are fine, by the way. They’re in the shelter over in Bullock County,” he said. “Oh, right,” Blink said as he struggled to pull the wader boots over his feet. “Thanks for looking in on them.” They headed into the flood waters, first touring the hard hit north side of town, then winding into the downtown area where the bulk of the water still sat. Tanner provided commentary on how the town looked now, some 12 hours after the levee break, compared to the minutes afterward. The wall of water had acted like a giant, muddy pendulum, rushing to the south with the initial break, then swinging back north when it hit the south levee. “Some low spots are sitting under 15-20 feet of water,” Tanner said as they passed the courthouse square. “I can’t even get my mind around it,” Blink answered. “It’s like something out of a movie.” He pointed. “Wow, there’s Bill’s hardware.” The windows were all broken, and a door floated by. “I’m surprised some of the locals with boats aren’t out and about,” Blink said. Tanner nodded, “Yeah, we’ve had some looky-loos, as well as locals wanting to guard against looters. Mayor put a sunset curfew on, so most of them should be off the streets.” He veered to avoid a floating propane tank. As they picked their way south of the square and motored by First Baptist Church, Blink did a double-take. “Didn’t you say the response crew had cleared all these buildings?” Tanner nodded. “I swear I saw movement in the main floor of the church there.” Tanner eased back on the throttle and wheeled the boat around, circling the church. “Good eye,” Tanner pointed. “It looks like somebody’s got a boat tucked around the back side.” He reached for his radio. “Could be a looter, but what would they want with the church?” He backed the boat around to the north side windows, “Hello the church!” he yelled. After a minute, Jimmy opened a window within the sanctuary and stuck his head out. “Hey Chief.” He gave a little wave. “I’m up here because my wife forgot some of her medication. I’ll be heading out again in a few minutes.” Tanner squinted toward the church and shook his head, “It’s Preacher Spanner. Can you believe that nut held a revival last night? I had to send Haywood over to his house afterwards to talk him into encouraging folks to evacuate. He was adamant they could pray the rain away, but his wife activated the phone tree and got several families to go.” Blink felt a flicker of inspiration. Here it is, a tailor-made human-interest element, he thought. He’d seen national news choppers overhead during his tour with Tanner, but none of them had accessed the town from the water and, certainly, it would be hours before they’d be able to weave a local’s story through the broader scope of the disaster. I’ll get that Emmy yet, he thought. “Tanner, I’ve got an idea. Put me in at the window. It’s a perfect height, and I can squeeze in over the sill.” Tanner shook his head. “That’s not a good idea at all. It’s almost dark.” “Come on, now, Tan. You’d be doing me a huge favor.” Blink beamed his quick smile. “I’ll put you on TV. Hell, you might even get a new cruiser out of it.” Tanner held firm. “I’m responsible for your safety. There’s no telling what’s in that water.” “Don’t be a Granny. I’ve got waders on. I’m going to talk to the preacher, in the Lord’s house. I just want to go in for a few minutes and get some footage.” Blink could sense Tanner was wavering. “Just make a quick round to check water levels one more time before dark, and come back to get me.” The sun was low in the sky to their left side when Tanner shrugged, “If anybody can take care of himself, it’s you.” He put the boat’s bow directly online with the window threshold, and Blink hoisted himself onto the windowsill, his camera attached via a dry bag backpack. He eased his legs over the sill and lowered himself gingerly into a sanctuary that was a mess of floating hymnals and underwater pews. Dodging a water snake, he sloshed up the stairs to the administrative spaces in the mezzanine above the sanctuary. “Hello,” he called, “Anybody home? Preacher? This is Blink McMahon from WDHN, wanting to talk to you for a minute.” He pulled the camera out and flipped the switch that started it rolling. “Hello, Blink, I never expected to see you today,” Jimmy smiled. “You can see we’re a little under the weather here, but God will provide. What can I do for you?” Blink noticed the open safe behind Jimmy and frowned, “Does your wife normally keep her medicine in the church safe, Preacher?” Jimmy brushed by Blink and shut the safe. “Well, I didn’t want to get into the particulars out the open window, with who knows who hanging around, but I came up here because I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the Lord’s money unsecured.” Blink squinted hard and waved his free hand for Jimmy to go on. “Even though God always wins, he also gives us some discernment.” Jimmy was talking fast, his eyes darting around. “The folks at the revival wanted that money to go to the flood victims, should there be any. It looks like God was watching over their offering. I found the safe intact and I’ll be making sure the good folks of the town see that money back in the community.” “What an inspiration, Reverend,” Blink zoomed the camera in on his face, fascinated by the drop of saliva in the corner of his mouth. “You say you intend to rebuild here?” “I think that’s what the Lord would want us to do, don’t you? So much work left to be done.” At that moment, the church buckled sideways on its foundation. “What the hell was that?” Blink yelled. He lurched against the railing, dropping the camera into the murky water around the altar below, and ran down the steps to fish it out. His hand closed around it, and he grabbed a pew with his other hand, clawing himself upright against the church’s list. He could see Tanner in the distance, pushing the little boat hard back toward him. The church lurched again, and now the structure leaned further to the south, boards creaking, water entering new cracks on the north side. “Tanner!” he yelled out the open window. He looked below to see a massive tongue of water sucking from the town, toward what he couldn’t see, a newly opened hole on the south side of the levee. “Stay back! Save yourself,” he yelled as the church took a dive into the again-roiling waters. “Tell Laura I…” The rest was lost in the creaking and snapping of boards coming apart. Later, when Tanner delivered the news to Martha, he’d recount that he’d also heard Jimmy cry out to God, but he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t made that part up. March 17: Dothan The Floodwatch ‘90 graphics signaled the beginning of another report. “Viewers, we have breaking news from Elba,” Laura began, her voice shaking. “We’ve been waiting and praying along with you, as city leaders tried to figure out how to de-water some 20 feet of standing water in the downtown area. Now, we have it from Police Chief Tanner Davis that the south levee has given way, allowing drainage of most of the water from the city center.” She dabbed her eyes and paused a moment to collect herself. “Tragically, the resulting vacuum took down two structures near the south levee, including First Baptist Church, where our own Blink McMahon had gone in to film the devastation and speak with the preacher, Jimmy Spanner. Chief Davis reports they are missing and presumed drowned. If confirmed, they would be the first fatalities of the entire flooding event. More to follow as we learn the details.” The camera stayed on her as a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Cue the Floodwatch ‘90 music,” Joe Adams whispered, and the shot slowly panned out. Kristy Bell is a poet and fiction writer who lives in rural south Georgia. She has published in Press Roi, Livina Press, and Snake Nation Press Review. She also has work forthcoming in Bull Literary Magazine and Rivanna Review. Find her on Twitter at red_dirt_poet.

Each dab of the cotton ball diffused eye-watering powder into Nina’s face. Within minutes, pink makeup clouded the wall’s oval mirror. Her beauty tools, previously arranged by use and size, lay in jumbled heaps across her desk. There was one spot on her cheek that needed a dab, but she just couldn’t keep her hand steady. She kept missing, double-dapping her chin, her forehead, her temples. “Nina, hurry the fuck up. Stage in five.” Greg, the manager, closed the door to the makeup room with a slam. The rest of the cast had left long ago to rehearse, to smoke, to check the ratings. Nina didn’t want to see the ratings, she’d quit smoking a few seasons ago, and she already knew her lines like the back of her hand. She always did. The others didn’t; they stumbled and ad-libbed their way through the script every episode. Nina finally dabbed the correct spot. She looked the part now. The grown-up girl next door who worked the ice cream stand and was obviously hiding something. She was a decent pick as the season’s culprit, but deciphering Skipping Rope’s plot was like solving a Rubik’s Cube that reset itself every five seconds. The door swung open, Greg’s face a red balloon fit to burst. He opened his mouth to curse a storm, but Nina's slender frame was already sliding past him toward the stage. * * * “One scoop of mint chocolate chip, one scoop of rocky road, and a million vanilla sprinkles.” “Wonderful!” Nina wiped her hands on her apron and got to work. The lights, both from the shopping mall set and the auditorium beyond, blazed in her face. As she completed her task, she took extra care to avoid looking at the dozens of cameras around them. “Will that be all?” Wendell pressed his knuckles onto the counter as he leaned forward, his chin parallel to the register. “Listen, Nina, I’m worried. The cops have been circling the mall more and more. I think they’re going to find out.” “Find out what?” Nina stood stock still, the ice cream in her hand already melting. Wendell looked over his shoulder. There was no one in line behind him, but a couple of families were hurrying into a Macy’s to catch the Black Friday sale. That was the episode’s title this week, ‘Black Friday.’ Of course, viewers saved fifty percent on their subscriptions when watching this week, and tickets for the auditorium were on sale, too. All the way down to $3,500 per pop. Nina avoided Wendell’s gaze as he leaned even further over the counter. It seemed like he might reach out and grab her collar. Hopefully, he would slip and crash into the register. Fake coins would tumble all over the set; maybe a few quarters would even roll to the edge of the stage and fall into the front rows. Anything to get the fans voting for someone else. Nina peeked at a clock near one of the stage lights, out of the audience’s line of sight. Just three hours left until the votes were tallied. “Don’t play dumb you stupid bitch.” Wendell’s pale features reddened. He was exceptionally good at that, making his skin tone change on command. Was there a ball he was squeezing or something he was biting down on? Nina hadn’t learned that technique in her school back in Mérida. Wendell snatched the ice cream and gave it a gargantuan bite. Midway through his next tirade and a brain freeze took hold. He shuddered and backed away across the hall, into the Macy’s — crashing through some fake plants and startling the shop-happy family. Nina giggled along with the viewers as the stage lights darkened to signal an intermission. Once it was pitch black, Nina threw off her apron and headed for the backstage lounge. Greg tried to grab her by the arm as she exited down a hall. “Hold on Nina. You’ve got to turn it up a notch. You know you have no chance anymore with that puppy dog look. Hike up your dress. Show off those olive legs!” Nina’s manager yelled as she turned a corner and headed for the stairwell. The lounge was quiet, a stark contrast to the calamitous storm outside Chicago’s Royal Theater Tower. Nina took a seat on a plush couch and stared out the reinforced windows. Wind and hail battered the nigh-indestructible walls before descending to the city streets. It would be Hell for people on the surface today. “Hey, Nina.” A fellow actor walked up to her, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. The fans had done well last offseason, giving Freckly his new nickname. Names were important. They had connotations. ‘Nina’ just made Nina sound like an immigrant. “Want a light?” Freckly extended a freckled hand with a zebra-spotted lighter in it. Nina looked down to find a cigarette in her fingers. Strange, she didn’t even remember getting it out of her pocket. Freckly lit Nina’s cigarette and took a seat beside her. They stared out into the swirling, sandy winds, wondering how lush the planet looked fifty years earlier. The peace they shared was ruined when the rest of the cast entered the lounge. The actors poured themselves drinks at the silver bar and chatted under glass chandeliers. Many had their phones out, the ratings visible in blocky numbers. Nina peeked at her freckled, fair-headed friend. “Congrats. In two seasons you’ve gone from bottom to top. Literally flipped the script.” Freckly shook his head. “I don’t know about that. There’s a few more popular than me.” Nina closed her eyes. She wished she was back in the Yucatan. One more year in school wouldn’t have hurt. She wanted to attend one hundred more seminars on PR because fans didn’t care about raw ability anymore. “Less than one percent of applicants make it, Nina.” Freckly squeezed her hand. “We should be proud of ourselves.” Nina whipped her head back and glared at Freckly. “Why are you saying that?” Freckly raised his hands in submission. “I’m… I’m just saying. In case you were worried.” “What would I need to be worried about? Huh?” Nina flicked her cigarette into a potted plastic plant before storming out of the lounge. * * * The techies for Skipping Rope were almost as accomplished as the actors. They’d gone through an equally cutthroat application process, but it didn’t take guts to pull pulleys and shift lights around. The fans never talked about them. The fans never rated them. All the techies had to do was show up and follow orders and everything would be fine. It was a job robots would take in the next few years. Not actors. A robot didn’t have the soulful imagination required to act. Nina reflected on this as she ran away from the season’s murderer, and tried to convince herself that she’d made the right choice in following her dreams. Like whack a mole, black stones sprung from the parking lot set to trip her. Nina sidestepped a few, but the techies were on their game. One stone caught her in the shin and she fell and knocked her chin on the gravel. She didn’t need to act anymore. This was really happening — every method actor’s wet dream. She turned to face him, her palms pressed into the flooded, craggy ground. Her dress kept getting caught on some conveniently placed barbed wire — a trap that had been established in a previous episode. Greg’s hopes were coming true. Nina’s olive legs were now on full display, cut and bloody, but sure to arouse nonetheless. Nina pulled an ice cream cone out of her purse and pointed it at her assailant. Two thoughts occurred to her as she did this. One: was her character such a manic pixie girl that she’d literally carry ice cream cones on her person as self-defense weapons? And two: who scouted Jason? Because they did a great job. Jason was the perfect perpetrator. He hid in plain sight the whole season, even with a name like Jason. It was such a good ruse that most of the cast hadn’t even figured it out. “Stay back, you murderer!” Nina squealed as she waved the pointy side of her cone in the air. Jason crouched and grabbed strands of the barbed wire with his calloused hands. He grinned at the pricking pain. “Oh, I’m no murderer, Nina. Ask the Coolidge Bugle tomorrow, or the Valley Journal. Oh wait, you won't be around to.” On cue, a streak of light flashed across the ceiling and sprinklers poured down bucketfuls. As Jason lunged, Nina stabbed him in the bicep with her ice cream cone. The murderer cackled in tune with the simulated lightning strikes. Actual blood oozed from his wound, though. No more ketchup, no more corn syrup. “I’ve waited a long time for this.” Jason pulled the cone out and chowed down, his own blood streaming down his chin. He raised the barbed wire, a season’s worth of pent-up frustration in his blue eyes. Nina dropped to her back in submission, realizing all at once how horrible and lucky she was. She really was following in Daniel Day Lewis’ footsteps — the God of method acting and showbiz, the foundation of the Skipping Rope troupe. Memories of raising her hand in school, of deep-dish pizza, of open calls, of signatures on colorful pieces of paper, all flooded Nina’s mind as the false rain pounded her body. “Wha… what?” Jason whimpered as the sounds of thunder increased in volume. Only Nina could hear him now. Only she could see the subtle electric shocks in his legs; the techies used currents in the ground to keep him frozen in place. Jason’s soaked black hair covered his eyes, but Nina could still see the fear smitten across his face — in his twitching mouth, in his sunken cheeks. Wendell rushed from the darkness backstage, onto the set, and stabbed Jason through the chest with a flagpole. The season’s culprit died instantly, and Nina, covered in blood, fainted as Wendell rushed to her side. * * * What an episode! I never saw that coming. I didn’t realize so many people were polling for Jason. It was in the last hour or so. Blinked and you missed it. My money was on Nina… I wish it was her. That bitch acts way too hard. It’s so obvious she’s just repeating the script. No flair at all. Fucking accent too is distracting as fuck. Why on Earth did people pick Jason? Was it because he dropped the fruit bowl in episode 6? It was awkward, but I guess it could have been staged. Fuck that, dropping that fruit bowl ruined episode 6, maybe the whole fucking season if you ask me. The fruit looked so plastic and fake and come on, would a serial killer really waste time helping waiters pick shit off the ground? Jason beat out Nina by 5% and I know the reason. Casual fans were too confused when Jason turned out to be the killer instead of Freckly, so they all switched off Nina at the last second. This show has really dropped off man… * * * Greg closed his laptop and lit up a cigarette. He was conflicted about the day’s events. On one hand, the hardest work was behind him. There would be a simple finale next week, to sum up the season’s events and give everyone their proper send-offs. With any luck, the last stinger kill would be someone like Nina or Stacey. Stacey, in particular, was really getting on Greg’s nerves with all that incessant praying. The manager closed his eyes, smoke filling his office as he huffed and puffed. On the other hand, ratings were at an all-time low. He’d done a good job keeping the cast in the dark; if word got out, it could ruin Skipping Rope for good. Applications only came in because people believed this was the be-all and end-all of showbiz, of acting, of stage and television performance. As far as the showrunners were concerned, it was, but Greg was less sure. Virtual reality was really growing in strength, and those clunky helmets were increasingly a thing of the past. Now, VR was as easy as sticking sensory buds to your temples. Greg even had a pair in his desk drawer. A knock on the door soured the manager’s mood. He wanted to take a nap. “Come.” The sight of Wendell entering the room evoked fond memories for the manager. The tall, stone-faced twenty-five-year-old wasn’t like those other rich kids Greg had interviewed in Toronto. He’d grown up on the streets; this life was real to him. The fictional town of Coolidge, dark and full of secrets, was a circus compared to his upbringing. Wendell fit the part of the suave but off-putting rat so well that Greg himself had the kid furtively running errands backstage. “Everything cleaned up?” Greg slid a pack of smokes across his desk. Wendell seated himself and lit up before answering. “Yeah, but the techies are complaining about wages again. There’s talk of strikes.” Greg scowled. Reagan’s union-busting work was almost a hundred years old but in serious need of a reboot. “I’ll have a word with the showrunners. It’s all too delicate. If the techies walk out again, we’ll have to postpone.” “We aren’t that useless.” Wendell crossed his arms. “If you give us some pointers, we might manage. You can just scrap the funeral scenes and make the finale more personal. Some scenes at a cafe or something.” Greg cursed to the moon and back. “What, and just repeat season eighteen’s ending? We’re about evolution here, kid. You’ve seen the forums. They comb over every frame. It all has to be new.” Wendell shrugged. “I’m just making suggestions. Is everything alright? You wouldn’t be like this unless there was a problem.” “A problem? Yes, there’s a fucking problem. The problem is I hired a bunch of losers. Take you, for example. Have you ever seen an episode of Breaking Bad? Survivor? Oh wait, you’ve never had a TV. One you didn’t steal, anyway. What’s your highest level of education? It’s as tall as my boot, which is about to be jutting out of your asshole.” Greg smushed the bud of his cigarette into a glass ashtray and took a deep breath. “Did you grab the evaluations?” “Yes.” Wendell pulled a manilla folder out from the inside of his green coat and tossed it to Greg’s side of the desk. “The doc went on about how unethical it is for you to be looking at them, but a few bills silenced that talk.” “Well done.” Greg opened the folder and combed over the evals one by one. Freckly had been a statistician in college who’d joined the theater program later than most. He believed he could out-think Skipping Rope’s system and stay alive long enough to retire richer than rich. Nina’s report was her usual jargon. The Doc noted that her mood swings were a problem, and that medication was advised to keep her comfortable. “Special care should be taken with Madison, Stacey and Erik,” Greg read out loud. “These three scored far below acceptable numbers and are psychologically unstable. They may become scared or dangerous enough to sabotage Skipping Rope. Medication or further incentives are advised.” Wendell nodded. “They all seemed pretty upset when Jason was cremated. I looked through their fan mail. Erik and Madison are getting letters from their parents saying the money and fame aren’t worth it.” Wendell procured a comb from his coat and got to work on his bangs. “Why don’t you fire them? I’m sure there are plenty of good actors you could find.” Greg didn’t respond. He was too busy reading the last eval — an absolute bashing of Wendell’s psyche. The Doc went into detail on how Wendell had expressed narcissistic tendencies and a lack of remorse for others in their meeting. Wendell thinks of others as cattle in a slaughterhouse. He doesn’t believe he’s destined for greatness, but that he is greatness personified. The trials and tribulations of his youth were nothing but a test to see if he was ready to claim the world. In a live show that follows madmen and madwomen every season, Wendell has shown that he, in reality, is the maddest of all. “Huh, new actors?” Greg cleared his throat and stacked the evals. “No Wendell, it’s not as simple as just hiring new actors. I made the process easy for you, but for most people, it takes months or even years to prep for the show. We have to be absolutely sure that it’s what they want — that they’re willing to gamble their lives for the ultimate glory in showbiz. There’s no room in the world anymore for ten minutes of fame. You can’t make a video and go viral anymore. No one cares about the small stuff. You have to give people nightmares. With VR, everyone can do whatever anyone else does. Everyone can cross light sabers with Darth Vader or climb Mount Everest, all from the comfort of their living room. But you know what they can’t do? They can’t die. That’s why we’re real. It’s not just acting, it’s cold reality. We blur the line to near incomprehensibility. So no, Wendell, I can’t just hire new actors. We filtered Stacey and Madison through ten thousand applicants. I need to make them work at all costs.” Greg felt his heart skip a beat. It was subtle at first, just a skip of the rope, but then panic started to take hold. His body felt like it was on fire. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. “Wendell. Get the evals faxed to the showrunners right away.” “You sure you’re alright?” Wendell stood up and grabbed the manilla folder. “Just fuck off and fax these, will ya?” When Wendell was gone, Greg popped a handful of pills into his mouth and washed them down with a glass of scotch. His much-needed nap came moments later as he laid his head down on his hardwood desk. * * * So pumped for the finale! Should be an absolute blast. Still shaking a bit from Jason’s death, though. I thought he was going to kill Nina and make a getaway. Maybe come back for another season or retire. Poll results are in! 36.7% of fans appreciate that the characters share their actors’ names. It adds to the whole aesthetic of the show. 15.9% of fans said they dislike it since it can make differentiating the twenty-six seasons more tricky for returning actors… Enough of that. Everyone agrees the actors should cycle through names more often and use their last names or middle names or nicknames on occasion. That way it’s less confusing from season to season. Let’s get to the good stuff. I have here with me Mrs. Balanko, the late Jason’s mother. She hails all the way from the Oceanic Republic. We’re glad to have you on the show Mrs. Balanko! Thanks for having me. I think we’ll start by asking the most obvious question… how are you holding up? Every episode’s death is equal parts tragedy and beauty. Jason’s will go down in history for being such a blindside to the audience and for his awesomely gory finish. Is your family doing alright? Yes, we’re doing fine, thank you. Although Jason’s passing saddens me, as the death of any son will sadden any mother, I must thank him for his contribution to his family. Growing up in pre-republic Burma was hard, and Jason always dedicated himself to caring for his brothers and sisters. He’s doing that even in death, and we can’t wait to see him in the afterlife one day and thank him. It is a great service to the world that the brilliant and daring actors of Skipping Rope provide. How has your family benefited from Jason’s deeds? Everywhere we go, people want our autographs. It’s like we’re extensions of Jason ourselves. My husband has had the easiest of times getting his glass-making business up and going, and all the kids are having a wonderful time in school. Best of all, fans send us stuff every day. Flowers and presents… it makes me tear up every time. Well, that is just wonderful, Mrs. Balanko. Tell me, do any of your other children have similar aspirations to their late brother? Yes! My youngest, Celine, has already started acting lessons… * * * Freckly checked to see if anyone was watching before he switched the channel. There was a NASCAR race he’d bet his last paycheck on. Everyone else in the lounge was minding their own business anyway, tending to their phones, their nails, their scripts. It had been five days since episode nine and there was a certain level of serenity in the air. Just one episode to go until vacation. A few side characters were in the corner by the vending machines. They acted out their scenes in hushed voices, oblivious to the danger they were in. They were too fresh-faced to understand. Surely it wouldn’t be them. It would be literally anyone but them. That’s what their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, teachers, friends and priests had told them. Just stick it out as a meager side character for a few seasons. Wait for your moment, and then improvise — turn a disregarded scene into an emotional masterpiece. They were right. It wouldn’t be them in the finale. Side characters always died at the beginning of the season. But what they didn’t understand was the odds. There were seventy named characters this season. One named character died every episode, so that was a six out of seven chance of surviving the season. But if they returned, they’d have the same odds, if not higher, for being a more important member of the cast. Freckly shifted himself on the couch and looked over his shoulder. The only actor who’d survived and stayed on Skipping Rope since the first season was playing pool with a few other veterans. Despite his age, Marcus Higgins had to be the physically strongest cast member. Last training camp, Freckly had watched the man run one hundred meters in twelve seconds and bench press two hundred and fifty pounds. “I see you scoping the scene, Freckly.” Higgins chuckled and waved over to the couches. “If you’ve been practicing, then I’m sure the odds have gone up. Wanna give it a go?” Freckly flipped off Higgins and the other pool players. It was tempting, but every dime counted these days. He had it all planned out. Mess up too many bets and his house of cards would come tumbling down. Higgins hit a ricochet shot to sink the striped four-ball. His hair was a dusty white, but still full and attractive. Freckly bit his lip. People didn’t understand this game any more than they did pool. Joining Skipping Rope wasn’t about making history, it was about getting filthy rich. People wanted to be like Higgins, and they’d all die trying. Wendell entered the lounge, walked right up to Higgins and whispered something into the veteran’s ear. A crashing sound from the television snatched Freckly’s attention before he could investigate the situation at the pool table further. He turned to find that his racing car had smashed through a metal fence. Commentators gasped as first responders rushed in to hose down the wreckage, and Freckly groaned as the driver’s limp body was carried off on a stretcher. This shrunk his margin of error even further. He muted the TV before recoiling at the touch of hands on his shoulders. “Trouble in paradise?” Madison climbed over the couch and sat herself down beside him. Freckly checked to make sure no one was ogling before leaning in for a kiss. “You look so good. You seemed pretty beat up after last episode. Are you worried about tonight?” Madison wasn’t looking at Freckly, she was looking through him. Her eyes had a hazy quality to them, like the winds that battered the tower day and night. “I’m doing just fine, Freckly.” Madison turned her head to the TV. “What a shame about your driver. I’m sure you’ll get them next time.” Freckly grabbed Madison’s hand. It was ice cold. He pressed his fingers to her wrist — her pulse was barely perceptible. “Gosh Maddy, you’re not…?” Madison turned back to him with a big smile. “What’s the matter?” She retrieved a small calculator from her purse. “Hey, I’ve been doing some calculations.” A globule of drool dripped from her mouth. “Are you sure your math is right? I think you need to stick around one more season for it to work out. I don’t think you’ll have enough to get that penthouse in Paris.” Freckly looked over the equation in Madison’s calculator. He pointed to the figure representing his wages. “You missed a zero, Maddy. I’m sorry, but even with this,” he gestured to the television, “I’ll still have enough to make ends meet after Friday. I’ll be able to buy my dad a new place as well.” Madison shook her head. “But… but you’re always in the Vegas towers. You might slip up and lose big. Remember what happened at Berkeley? You might start betting things you don’t have again.” “Shh.” Freckly squeezed Madison’s hands. “How much did the Doc give you?” He shook her a bit. “How much, dammit!?” Madison was drooling like a dog now. “Come to bed with me, right here. It’s only two days till the episode. What are we waiting for, Benjamin? What have we been hiding for?” Her smile faded as she got on top of Freckly and pushed him down into the couch. “Ask me to marry you, Ben. Ask me. Why haven’t you? You never have. I’m the one who told you to give acting a go. I knew you had the stuff. And now I’m going to die. We both know it. Ask me already.” Freckly tossed Madison off and ran out of the lounge, his hands shaking. Madison lay on the couch, staring up at the swaying chandeliers. One of them could descend and cut the torment short. The glass would pierce through her open mouth, into the cushions. The dangling crystals would adorn her body like treasures in a pharaoh's tomb. * * * Lieutenant Higgins rapped his knuckles on the metal table. The interrogation room was frigid. So frigid that his quarry was shivering like she had hypothermia. It was a tactic Higgins had learned firsthand at a police seminar in the offseason. He grinned. Chicago PD loves me so much, I might as well have a badge. “Do you know why he did it?” Nina shook her head. “Good, because I do. I’ll tell you all about it.” Lieutenant Higgins stood up and folded his hands behind his back. He stared through the room’s one-way glass at the audience. It was an excellent trick. The audience really felt like they were on the other side of the glass, in the observation room. They really felt like they were a part of the investigation. The glass wasn’t actually one way, of course, but the audience didn’t need to know that. Higgins snapped his fingers at a cadet leaning on the wall. “What the fuck are you doing, standing there? Get us some coffee.” He peered up at a camera in the interrogation room. To the audience, it would appear like he was communicating with whoever was on the other side of the cameras with his facial expressions. In reality, his lines were in that camera lens, and he was having a damned time remembering them. His head was still splitting after his little celebration fiesta with Wendell and Greg the previous night. They’d managed to convince the techies to stick around for the last episode, and some of the dough was coming out of Higgins’ own bank account. He smiled and turned back to Nina. The techies could have charged him double. Just drops in the bucket, as far as he was concerned. They didn’t realize what this troupe meant to him. What it meant to the people of Mother Earth. “Jason liked to fuck dead bodies, Nina. It fascinated him. It perplexed him.” Nina buried her head in her arms. “Your skin, dusty and bloodied,” Higgins continued. “Wet, still, from laying in the rain for hours while he moved and undressed you.” He banged his fist on the table, eliciting a yelp from his subject. “You might not have known why he was doing it, Nina, but you knew he was up to something. You impeded my investigation again and again. Why?” The cadet walked in, placed the coffee down and immediately fucked off when he received even the briefest glance from Higgins. “You covered the cameras in the mall with ice cream. Who the Hell does that?” Higgins took off his coat. Even at fifty-five years of age, he was no one to fuck with. Fans of Skipping Rope saw that every season, and in his offseason workout videos as well. He was making almost as much money from that endeavor these days. The opposite trajectory of Schwarzenegger. “You stuck brooms in the doors to lock them. You left the cash register unlocked for him. You’re an accomplice, Nina. An accomplice to murder and necrophilia.” “No no no,” Nina mumbled between sobs. Higgins loomed over her now, his pectorals almost bursting through his collared shirt. He nudged Nina’s coffee over to her and sipped at his own. “You can tell so much about someone’s character based on how they take their coffee.” Higgins opened the lid on his styrofoam cup and showed it to Nina, the audience, and the cameras. Gotta improvise a bit before the fans start calling me senile. “Black. No milk, no sugar, no added bullshit. Nothing to contaminate my duty to this town. He tried to murder you, Nina. You knew each other for years. Probably gave each other handies under the school balconies, huh?” Nina raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘Higgins, the fuck?’ But she got back into character immediately and continued sobbing. The cadet bolted through the door. “Sir, the court’s been vandalized.” Higgins shrugged. “Then grab someone and go check it out. I’m busy here.” The cadet shook his head. “The perps spray painted ‘Skipping Rope’ all over the walls.” Before the cadet could say more, Higgins already had Nina by the arm and was barrelling his way out of the interrogation room. As the audience held their breath, the stage lights dimmed until the metal table was the only object illuminated. Then, after a few more moments, everything was black. * * * Stacey finished lighting two candles and placed them down by her knees. A stained glass depiction of Mary and baby Jesus watched over her bowed head. After a few moments, Stacey sighed and rubbed the crust out of her eyes. It was difficult to concentrate in this blasphemous space. The worshiping chamber was tiny, and several floors away from the stage. Every religion, old and new, seemed to be represented here. Stacey wondered if the show-running cretins had been sent by Beelzebub himself to mess with her. Lord have mercy, there was even a fucking painting of Zeus holding a lightning bolt next to Mary and Jesus! God had nothing to say. He looked down upon his subject with blank eyes. He trusted her to make the right choice. That’s why he maintained his silence. One candle blew out and Stacey gasped. Was this God finally speaking to her, or was it simply a draft of wind that had passed through cracks in the unbreakable walls? Coincidences didn’t exist in the mind of the devout. Stacey nodded to herself. She’d endure this show for one more season. Since she’d been hired, thirty new churches had been built in lower-income towers in America. Depending on the need, these places held food runs, medical clinics, even magic shows to attract younger converts. Stacey’s face, creased from years of humbled frowns, allowed itself a grin. Only six months until martyrdom, then. Perhaps she’d even be rewarded with sainthood upon her death. She envisioned white-clad choirs on balconies chanting her name with new hymns. Glass portraits of her visage in Vatican halls. Mothers would make an offering to her before bed. Fathers would donate to charities, hoping the new saint would bless them with everlasting vitality. Stacey scowled and bowed her head all the way to the floor so that her forehead was touching the polished wood. I can’t be vain. This is for the people. The chamber’s mahogany doors opened with loud creaks and we’re followed by a squeaky voice. “I’ve told you already, it’s not real.” Stacey whipped her head around and stared daggers at Erik. The yellow-haired actor was even more twitchy than usual today. “Did you actually take the stuff the doc gave you? I know you’re dumb, Erik, but I never thought you were that dumb.” Erik shook his head. His malnourished frame stumbled past incense and statuettes. He played the part of the vagrant well. So well, in fact, that Stacey had long since condemned him as an extreme sinner. He was a glutton, but not in the way people traditionally defined the word. Gluttony didn’t mean being fat, it just referred to overconsumption and a lack of inhibition. Erik had to be a glutton for drugs, there was no other explanation for his appearance and no faster way to the bowels of Hell. “Please, Erik,” Stacey pleaded. “It’s not too late to save your soul. Kneel beside me.” She brushed a strand of auburn hair from her eyes and patted a spot beside her. Erik shook his head. “Jesus is thousands of years old, Stacey. He can’t help you. The way I think of it, if someone’s worth worshiping, it’s someone who’s walked in our shoes.” Stacey sighed. Here we go again. “Daniel Day-Lewis is God, Stacey. Thomas the Train can be God for train conductors. Michael Jordan can be God for basketball players, but our God should be the greatest actor who’s ever lived. The first actor to give their life for our troupe.” Stacey rolled her eyes and turned back to Mary and Jesus. “I’m not having this conversation with you again, Erik.” “Listen to me, dammit!” Erik wasn’t empty-handed. He’d brought a picture and some tools. As Stacey recited biblical text to stay composed, Erik hammered a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis onto the wall right beside Zeus and Jesus. “There, that’s more like it.” Erik stared at the picture and then turned to Stacey, unsure of how he should commence his worship. Eventually, he cleared his throat and started reenacting some of Daniel Day Lewis' greatest hits. “What’s the nature of my game?” He said as Stacey murmured passage Romans 12:2 from the Bible. “You’re just… afterbirth, Stacey. Slithered out of Jesus’ filth. They should have put you in a glass jar, on a mantlepiece.” Erik jumped up in glee. “Maybe that’s how you can die today! Common Stacey, I know you’ve been itching to go to Heaven. Step up for the rest of us.” “Ok, that’s enough.” Stacey stood up and shoved Erik against the wall. “You know what? I hope it’s you today, Erik. You and your kind… what are you guys called again?” “Daywalkers and Jesus, Stacey, no need to get physical.” Stacey pointed a shrewd finger at Erik. “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.” Erik’s phone lit up in his pocket and Stacey’s blood boiled over. It was one thing to praise false deities but to interrupt the chamber’s sacred energy with sophisticated technology, that was going too far. Just as Stacey clenched her hands into fists, praying to God for forgiveness as she reared back to uppercut Erik, he held his phone screen right up to her face. She gasped, whipped out her own phone to confirm the news, and then ran out of the chamber, hand in hand with the Daywalker. * * * Wendell watched his lucky coin fall back into his palm. He was playing a game, trying to flip the coin as high as he could without having it touch the ceiling. Each time, he’d close his eyes and count the seconds until the coin returned to his palm. A crowd of about thirty had gathered in the lounge to watch Madison’s breakdown. They looked on with bloodshot, unsympathetic eyes, hopeful that this explosion of emotion would spell the end for the young actress. “I can’t do it anymore… I can’t look at this shit anymore.” Madison held up her phone for Greg to see. “They’re not even making sense. I haven’t messed up any cues. My lines are always on time and… what’s this? I’m too stiff?” A pool of sweat had gathered at the manager’s feet. Of all the times something could go wrong, this was the worst. Few in the room knew how dire the situation was. If they didn’t nail the ending scenes of this season, the curtains might close forever on Skipping Rope. Wendell narrowed his eyes. Greg didn’t have the stuff to fix this. Wendell wanted that managerial position, and he’d have it. He just needed to stick it out a few more years until one of two outcomes occurred: Greg retired and handed him the keys, or Wendell found enough dirt on the manager to upend him. Greg pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “Do you remember signing this, Madison?” The skinny platinum blonde backpedaled towards the lounge’s main door. “No.” Greg unfolded the paper and pointed to Madison’s wavy signature. “Well, you did. You agreed to the terms of this page, and that means you’re a member of this cast until the end of this season or until your character has been eliminated. We can discuss resignation tonight, after the episode’s conclusion.” Madison dashed from actor to actor in the lounge, grabbing hands, shaking shoulders. “It’s not our characters who die, it’s us. Can’t you all see that? It’s insane what we’re doing!” “Insane?” The crowd parted as Higgins placed his martini down on the pool table and approached Madison. He ran a hand through his hair and analyzed the actress with the eyes of a true cop. Wendell snickered. Life imitating art imitating life. “Just because your ratings are tanking doesn’t mean you get to sabotage this troupe. We’ve given people something to look forward to every night for thirteen years. We’ve mastered the art of showbiz. Don’t you think that’s worth dying for? Don’t you want your name to go down in history?” Higgins squeezed Greg’s shoulder in an effort to calm the pudgy manager’s nerves. Then he turned his eyes back to the trembling actress. “What will you do if you leave here, Maddy? What awaits you out there? Are you going to sell your body on the streets or, better yet, to some VR cam show? You’re an actress, Madison. We’re a team, a cohesive unit.” Higgins lunged forward with incredible speed and caught Madison’s arms. “Long story short, don’t be a cunt! Fix your hair and get your ass on stage!” “I… I can’t!” Madison was wiry enough to squirm her way out of Higgins’ iron grip. A look of bewilderment crossed his features as Madison barrelled through actors twice her size towards the exit. Wendell waited until he received a scowl from Greg and then leaped into action. Just as Madison reached the door, Wendell wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back into the center of the lounge. Deserters failed to realize how contractual this job was. Back in Toronto, all it took was a handshake to signify that a task would be completed, no questions asked. Pussying out meant death. Of course it did. The people running the show couldn’t let deserters go scot-free. What kind of message would that send to the rest of the flock? Amazing. Wendell thought as he wrestled Madison to the couches. It’s really like Greg’s grooming me for command. I bet the bastard doesn’t even realize it. Higgins came to Wendell’s aid and held down Madison’s bone-skinny legs. “It’s not over till it’s over Madison,” the veteran whispered softly. “Look at me. You don’t think I’ve been down in the dumps before? I’ve been doing this for twenty-six seasons. We didn’t even know what would happen the first episode. We all laughed at the contract, but when it happened. When Daniel…” Higgins shuddered and smiled at the same time. “I knew then and there that I was a part of something special. Whatever happens tonight, Maddy, you’re a special girl. You’re special to the fans, you’re special to your family. Goddammit, you’re special to me.” Wendell heard the door burst open and spotted Stacey and Erik hovering above the couch a moment later. Greg flanked them as well, waving his hands around at the crowd like he was directing traffic. “Fetch the doc,” the manager told Erik. “We’re going to need something serious.” He checked his silver watch. “We’re on stage in eight minutes. Everybody, make sure you’re ready. There’s no time to rehearse anymore, so just check yourself in a mirror before going out there to make sure you look the part.” Stacey crept up beside Higgins. She mouthed prayers, tears streaming down her face to slaughter her make-up. Madison locked eyes with her fellow actress. “Help me.” But when her friend was unresponsive, Madison resumed her struggle. Wendell grit his teeth as she spit in his face. She kicked her legs out, she heaved her chest, she bit at any limb that came within reach of her mouth. The crowd disregarded their manager and craned their necks over the couches to watch the proceedings. Stacey hurried out of the way as the Doc came up beside Wendell. “Oh, dear. Yes, this is going to take something new. Evidently, she’s built up a tolerance to my usual material.” The Doc procured a syringe and tapped its tip. “The strongest inhibitor I’ve made yet. She won’t feel fear anymore.” “Side effects?” Greg asked solemnly as he stared down at Madison’s writhing body. The Doc pushed his spectacles up his nose. “I’m not certain, but if she lives through the night, she might wake up tomorrow to find the effect permanent.” Greg sighed as the Doc stuck the needle deep into Madison’s leg. “Let’s hope for her sake then that the ratings don’t change.” * * * Excited for the season to be over honestly. Might be my least favorite. Really? The sets weren’t great this time around, but I liked the acting. Everyone seems so on edge! I’m going to be on that stage one day, just you wait… Bringing up the polls now. Looks like Madison is leading the charge with 41% of the current vote. I think she polls really badly in East Asia too after her kimono get-up last season. Should be bedtime for a lot of them now I reckon, so they’ll watch the recording in the morning. If that’s the case, she might just survive the night. * * * Wendell was still panting from his scuffle with Madison when he stepped into the courtroom. He kept to the shadows, waiting for his cue. The auditorium quieted down as the scene began and some extras playing cops analyzed the scene. Someone had vandalized the courtroom in epic fashion. The benches looked like a wrecking ball had barrelled through them. On the walls, stick-figure girls with pigtails danced over ropes in dripping graffiti. A giant smiley face was plastered on the judge’s podium. Madison, caked in make-up Wendell had smudged on her face last second, was playing the part of the valley’s veteran judge. She looked half asleep in her chair, gavel in hand, the smiley face under her. Higgins pulled Nina by the arm as he entered the scene from stage left. He pointed to the walls and cursed at the ice cream shop employee in his grip. “What aren’t you telling me, Nina? If the Sons of The Rope are back, then this is bigger than Jason’s killing spree. Time to choose. You can stay silent and condemn this valley to more bloodshed, or you can tell me what you know. You can help end this decade of madness.” Wendell took his lucky coin out and flipped it. He closed his eyes and slunk further into his corner as the courtroom’s windows shattered from a hail of stones. The doors burst open, and a dozen hooligans in hoodies barged in. They had Stacey and Freckly as hostages, baseball bats pressed to their throats, ropes tying their hands behind their backs. At the front of the group, Erik removed his hood. “You fucking idiots. We got you all right where we want you.” He pointed his baseball bat at Higgins. “Throw your guns out the windows.” Higgins nodded to his fellow cops and they did as they were told. Madison descended from her podium and opened her mouth. Instead of lines, however, drool came out. Higgins elbowed the actress in the gut. A few murmurs echoed through the auditorium until Higgins stepped forward and took on Madison’s lines as his own. “We should have guessed it was you, Erik. I’m sorry, but what happened to those girls was a lifetime ago. You and your crew should have stayed defunct.” “Maybe a lifetime for you, but not for me.” Erik spat on the ground and motioned to his colleagues. They stepped over broken pieces of wood, canisters in hand, dousing everything in gasoline. “It was your fault, Higgins. You let unimaginable things happen to those girls.” Erik smashed one of the few intact benches with his bat. He screamed as he utterly destroyed the inanimate prop until it was nothing but dust wafting into the wide-eyed crowd. “They were our sisters! They were just children, and your partner killed them and fucked them right in Coolidge Central Park! He put it on the internet! Do you have any idea what that did to my family? What that did to the people of this valley?” “That was ten years ago!” Higgins’ chest heaved as he spat out his lines. He reached for the Heavens. “I’ve asked for forgiveness every day for letting that man into the force. But it wasn’t our fault. Lewis was a true sociopath. He faked his way through all the screenings. There was no way to know.” Higgins ran a trembling hand through his hair and pointed at Freckly and Stacey. “What are you doing with them? They’ve been through enough already.” “Use that world-famous intuition of yours, lieutenant. Just like you used it to suss out your partner.” Erik cracked his neck and bounced on his toes like a boxer. “These two valedictorians? We’re going to use them to send a message. Tell them, ice cream girl. There’s nothing to hide anymore.” Nina winced. “Those two…” she pointed to Freckly and Stacey. “They falsified Jason’s grades, wrote up fake parking tickets. They’re the reason he had to come to this court… they stopped him from getting into Harvard. I knew there was something wrong with him, deep down, but it may have never come up if they let him be their equal.” Erik turned and spat in Freckly and Stacey’s faces. “The poor and unworthy have no place in your world, huh? The people need to rise up, no matter the cost. That’s why Jason did what he did. The greater good. If people can feel what I have felt, what we have felt,” Erik gestured to his comrades, all of them the siblings of murdered victims from the show’s twenty-six season-long history, “then they’ll rise up against our true oppressors. Against the people who created a world for us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off, while the gluttons and rich laugh and watch.” Erik pointed at Higgins. “While your PD laugh and watch!” Higgins unhooked his baton from his belt and tapped it against the ground. His fellow cops followed his lead. “Jason did what he did because he liked it. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re right. The Skipping Rope murders were my fault. But after tonight, no one will ever call the Coolidge PD incompetent again.” Wendell rolled his coin along the floor. The cast watched with confused eyes as the coin reached Higgins’ feet and fell to one side, face up. “So be it.” Wendell tossed a cigarette onto the gasoline, and the whole courtroom went up in flames. While the police battled the Sons of The Rope, Wendell raced forward to free Stacey and Freckly from their restraints. He succeeded just as Higgins bested Erik and used his baton to choke him to death. The techies kept Erik’s feet frozen to the ground, his eyes bulging and his tongue slumped out of his mouth. The officers rounded up the remaining Sons and put them in handcuffs. The camera was zooming in on Higgins’ war-torn face, signaling the end of the season and the series arc, when a gunshot rang throughout the venue. There was a moment of silence until the auditorium erupted into chaos. Hundreds of fans cheered, and hundreds lept from their seats and dashed for the exits. The techies shouted at each other in confusion, unsure if the scene was over, unsure if they should put the fire out. Higgins' jaw dropped, and he pushed Erik’s limp body into the fire. The rest of the cast froze in place and stared at Wendell with horrified eyes. The flames lapped closer and closer to their feet, but they just kept staring. Wendell blew the smoke off his gun’s barrel and pocketed the firearm. Directly in front of him, Freckly’s knees buckled, and then the actor dropped like a sack of thick potatoes. He lay on top of the ropes he’d just been freed from, blood oozing out of his cranium and sizzling in the flames. Wendell winked at the cops. This improv stuff was fun. Maybe he’d try it again next season. And then he was off, sprinting through the flames and jumping out of a courtroom window. * * * “We did it, guys! We saved the show!” Wendell smiled as Greg waved his phone in the air. “The ratings are higher than ever,” the manager stated as he live-streamed to fans. He ran around, showing the confused and distraught expressions of his cast, then turned to the shrugging and laughing techies. “My God, we set a new record! Lewis, Jesus, they’re all proud, guys. They’re sharing drinks in Heaven, looking down on us.” He turned the phone to highlight his tearful face. “I couldn’t be more proud. And to you, the fans, thank you so much. We couldn’t do it without you.” Propped up against a storage crate, Nina wailed as she held Freckly’s burnt body in her arms. Her own hands had been scoured beyond repair when she dove into the flames to retrieve the body. “That wasn’t a part of the script.” She peered at Wendell, avoiding his eyes. “What did you do, Wendell? What have you done?” Wendell winked at the camera as Greg shoved his phone in his face. “Evolution,” Wendell told the fans, before bowing his head for global applause. “They’ve already raised ten thousand dollars…” Stacey said as she looked at her phone. “It hasn’t even been five minutes yet.” Wendell knelt beside Nina and admired his handiwork. He peeked into the awesome hole in Freckly’s head. Two onstage kills in two episodes, just one short of Higgins’ record. I’ll beat him next season. Madison shambled by until Nina called for her attention. “Look, Maddy. Look what they’ve done to Freckly.” Madison turned and studied Nina and Freckly with glossy eyes. She was humming a song to herself. After a moment, she turned away to continue her ambling and started humming a new tune. Higgins snatched Greg’s phone and smashed it against the wall. “What did you do? What did the showrunners do?” Greg snickered. “Oh, they had no part. Wendell and I took a gamble and it saved the show. Two deaths for the price of one episode. We’ll have to double the size of the auditorium for next season.” He addressed his employees with open arms. “We’re still the face of entertainment, everyone! I can’t wait to see you all back for Skipping Rope’s twenty-seventh season!”

Pickle Tub I’ve got a heart like a pickle tub you can turn it over and drum on it for change it’s full of living things, it’s good for you even if the smell isn’t for everyone buckets, I say, for the big ideas for my fears like they’re koi for sale on the sidewalk curving against white plastic or blue ten whole gallons for your large scale projects it means business, and it sloshes if you try to carry it too far too fast road salt and ice water will burn your hands with cold but zipped into plastic pouches chambers like a fist-sized organ they’ll make ice cream just shake ‘em up what I mean is I can make sweetness from contract-grade materials I’ve got a heart like a pickle tub widely available, sure, but industrial strength it won’t cost you much to take it home but it matters what you can do with it Moussaka I’ve started to suspect that I speak in fish and you speak in nets that we’re hydroelectric, only generating drone that you are cynical like a Warhol Brillo box and like the West Village you’ve made your own dark and intelligent past irrelevant Your tongue for all I know tastes like Staten Island maybe I should bag the entire enterprise You are slippery as the class bully, self-inflated like the prices of after school snacks. I speak in sugar, you sawdust a reply When you agree to meet you show up like a bucket of used antifreeze and later your caress is a cold floor You made me think my touch turned you to stone that kiss on the bridge my interborough crime I want to pull your hair, find out if my nails down your back make you hard I want the thing itself and not the commentary I secretly hope I hate the book you asked me to read and I dream of taking you baffled to a poetry reading and being brave enough to know your confusion is your fault and not mine but it’s a mistake to bring you to my havens where you toss down your scorn like a hat and pick it up only when you leave To make you wince, show me throat and shy belly and knock-knees – this, I suspect, is what I want from you not your castor oil consciousness and not your nets I want your tallow soap, the parts of you that smear I want your unpatchable shirt your defensiveness like soured tea I want your six year-old self to comfort because I refuse to give your current one the same O angel, o boy philosopher. I understand so little of what I am trying to be, and you do not help You don’t identify with the animals I associate you with you are as borderline beautiful as the Gowanus Canal You take me to the certified best diner in Queens and this is what wins my heart, hands it to you baked into the moussaka while you sink into your self-loathing like it’s a high buttoned collar holding close your razor-bumped neck I’ll call you back, but only the version of you sneaking out of the office late morning to take a train with me to Brooklyn when I kiss you for half a second you are as peaceful as an alley cat even though you tremble the whole way through If I could get you out of city limits, I swear you’d be that much nicer or you’d fall to pieces but your hand is the live wire of Times Square, I wouldn’t grab it for love nor money nor your adored Kurt Cobain Sea-Witch: Coney Island She could have said no—not coy, I know what I’m about, she could have thrown the nib of fishbone back to stick in my craw It's all revocable while in negotiation, can't help it if the limpet took my terms, speak up, girl, be vocal knocking down my carnival door to get her carnal delights Stunned by the lights, the clangor and above us the dock strewn with cracked clams, Brighton bait and purple-brown guts, delicious, but it unnerves I'm sure, when you’re daddy's precious spawn After the split, her fresh-hewn stilts will pick their way down that slimy length to boardwalk slats beer-blessed sand and a maelstrom of smells One street down, shuffling wide-eyed she’ll leave a salty trail past my painted sign: THE OCTO-WOMAN, WITCH FROM THE DEEP HALF LADY, HALF SQUID : COME SEE THE TENTACLED HAG until it’s MTA brights not freakshow flash dripping cold through her hair to goosefleshed skin Her three days begin at the end of the line take any train, I told her he’ll find you wherever you wash up in midtown's foaming shoals She could have refused—wisps like her have left with something different than they bargained for altogether wetter, better. There’s more than one way to get them in my tentacles, to tempt a one-tail off the brighter path and into my trenches She will have what she's after sure as ink and bone, but she is not alone in that: there’s plenty left for me and mine. Chiara Di Lello is a writer and educator. She delights in public art, public libraries, and getting improbable places by bicycle. For a city kid, she has a surprisingly strong interest in beekeeping. Find her poems in Rust + Moth, Parentheses Journal, Whale Road Review, and Best New Poets, among others.

CW: Self-harm They bought tickets for India over the summer and the first thing she did was weigh herself. She looked at the number on the scale and didn’t write it down anywhere. She didn’t tell her family. Didn’t tell her friends. Didn’t even tell herself. But she did the quick math. She needed to lose a trillion point two pounds. Fast. Within three months. She poked at her belly fat, but it didn’t recoil in shame like it used to. It glared back at her like a disheveled bulbous creature from the deepest depths of the ocean. “Try me you bitch,” it said. So, she did. She really did. She went on the Mediterranean diet she was supposed to go on three years ago. She joined CrossFit and immediately quit. She tried rock-climbing but forgot she was afraid of heights. A fit judgey stranger had to help her down. She even tried intermittent fasting, but her belly dragged her out of bed at 3am and forced ice cream down her throat at gunpoint. Then that gave her the shits. And so, she found herself, a week before the flight to India, having lost only 2 pounds. Which still left her at around a trillion pounds to lose. She poked at her belly, and it puffed itself out further. “I win you lose,” it told her. It wasn’t until the day before the flight that she found the GET RID OF FAT FAST NOT A FAD DIET on the far corners of the Internet. And she decided to give it a whirl. It promised fast results. She grabbed the largest knife in the kitchen and started working away at her body. She cut the arm flabs first. Then the thighs. And her ass. She thought about holding on to the boobs, but they were useless, so she let them go too. She saved belly for last. She wanted it to watch the others. Its friends. Rivers of thick blood flowed freely over it as it looked at her in shock and awe. “WHAT THE FUCK! THESE AREN’T THE RULES!” it told her. And then she cackled and sliced belly right off. Except it kept dangling because of her intestines. And those were slippery. So, she just chopped herself in half. And wriggled her top half on the scale. But the number still wasn’t quite right. So, she chopped off her left hand. Popped out an eyeball. Sliced off her chipmunk cheeks. Almost there. Almost there. As a last-ditch effort, she cracked open her skull with the back end of the knife. Scooped out her brain and placed it on the scale. 0 pounds. 0 pounds. 0 pounds. The scale blinked. Achi Mishra currently lives in San Diego and is obsessed with writing and reading anything odd.

I told her not to run, that it wouldn’t hurt. It’s just a tooth and, also, it’s for science. I told her we’d put it under the pillow, then tonight we would find out if the tooth fairy really did exist. I told her it would produce results. She just screamed and ran. I yelled after her that it had to be her tooth because I’d lost all mine (except for the big ones at the back, but I didn’t tell her that). Her teeth would be easier to get anyway, since the front ones were loose. And also, since they were in her face, they’d be easier to get. Easier for me, anyway. So, I chased her out from behind the sofa and from under the bed. I crept slowly towards the closet but as soon as I opened the door she slipped under my arm and shot down into the basement. We both hate it down there because it smells like mould and it’s dark and creepy but I thought actually it’s the right sort of place to capture a sister. Where no one could hear her. She wriggled and punched at my ribs, and she even tried to bite me, which was smart. But I got the tooth, which was pretty loose anyway. Once she stops howling, we can sort out night shifts to see whether there really is a tooth fairy. I doubt it. I think it’s an ogre. Because what else would make a habit of collecting little kids’ body parts? Emma Burnett is a recovering academic. She’s big into cats, sports, and being introverted. You can find her @slashnburnett.

RIVER RIPE For Linda Hogan, for Ai I swim in a river ripe, a ringlet wheel though It is a bad place after hours. Wild, unpredictable, yanked around. I fell sleepy to traffic sounds, warm pangs for a car, not a river. Like a barn sparrow after cream, not a bud. To dream of not a wheel, but a chain Dragging me out of the river. ICONOGRAPHY: FASHION IN THE MILLENNIAL IMAGINATION What kind of luck dangles from a chain? Angles and four-leaf clovers, crosses, found coins. A gold-patina prophet is $3 from SHEIN, and mass is held at the Met, and who is the martyr now? Me or you? Isn’t it holy to find yourself divine? To see your likeness in the heavens, where everything is eternity and so soft — lit with a camera flash, fluffy filter strobes, and a film that softens me to you. Was this chapel saved by donations dropped in a clear Lucite box? Candles lit for a dollar a piece, long matches. If mercy is a merchant, then I am not without fountains, offerings, saints or symbols to purchase or ancient superstitions, brooms and beads to inherit. What fortune grows in a garden? Lavender, red roses, mint, maybe. Where is grace found there, or is the luck in these long acrylics, magic in my fingertips? I choose nude, now and forever. And the only garden I know now is lucky desktop bamboo, leaves tickling my screen. Where is the water in little dishes? Or golden kittens, waving me hello from a salon’s tiny temple. We are golden kittens without milk, orange peels and no monkeys, chickens without heads, temple steps and no traffic, birds with no eaves to build within. No harvest to burn, without smoke or grace or snakes crackling, chanting, chirping prayers. What comes of mass, messages, or missed trains when I have no ticket to buy. Jessica Willingham is a Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project graduate and editor at Five South. She lives and writes in Oklahoma.

CW: Sexual relationship between adult and minor I. Two nights ago, I dreamt of hot cocoa. The kind that’s a little too sweet because it’s made with cheap drinking chocolate. The kind that has one too many marshmallows in it but not enough whipped cream. My molars groan a little as they alternate between crashing into each other and breaking away (for only seconds at a time) because they haven’t fully perfected the art of letting go just yet. The mouth cannot let go because a bag of marshmallows is cheaper than a can of D’Lecta. Like dead waves floating on top of some sluggish ocean, the whipped cream settles on top of my drink. It is as still as a rock, only moving when I blow at it, hoping that my nicotine-stained breath will break through its foamy barrier and cool my cocoa down. Patience is a virtue that I do not possess, but fear has made me cautious. I do not wish to burn my tongue again so I will hold it until someone tells me that it is safe to drink out of this cup. Steam is deceptive and porcelain can heat up too quickly sometimes. II. My grandmother used to tell me that eating too many sweets would make my teeth rot. When she’d go to bed at night and fall asleep almost immediately, breathing heavily with her mouth open, sometimes I would imagine roses growing out of her throat. I’d imagine a thorny stalk shooting up from her lungs and making its way through her ribcage until it finally saw light through her open mouth. I used to wonder if my grandmother liked the taste of roses. I used to hope that the thorns weren’t the reason she’d spit out mucus that was tinted red on some nights when the roses growing out of her made her cough the way I do now. A year later, I worked up the courage to ask her if she liked the way the roses felt in her throat. I asked her if she liked roses because she’d always told me her favourite flowers were tulips. I didn’t know what tulips looked like but I knew she was lying to me. I’d never seen her coughing up petals that didn’t look like they came from a rose. I asked her if she liked the roses I’d brought for her, but she stayed quiet. We buried her deep in the woods, far away from the tulips, with only roses left in her throat. III. The first man I ever loved never told me he loved me. When I think of him now, sometimes I find myself terrified at the fact that I don’t remember what his voice sounded like at all. When he’d get off of me, he’d offer me coffee and I’d drink it greedily because he drank it too. Drinking coffee felt like communion. Our bodies may have come together physically just moments ago but sharing shitty and overly sweet coffee made me feel like less of a secret and more like a lover he kept hidden. Mother cried out in terror when she heard of my love. Mother forbade me from ever seeing him again. Mother spent hundreds of nights awake, screaming at the sky hoping that some God would hide their face in shame and give her the answers she deserved. Mother knows no God is present, but it doesn’t hurt to try. “You are a child, he was supposed to be taking care of you.” I don’t drink much coffee anymore. IV. Last night, I dreamt of solace. I dreamt of my hot cocoa being cool enough to drink. I dreamt of rose petals falling from the sky. I dreamt of tulips growing out of my throat so that I could cough them up on her grave. I dreamt of my teeth being able to bite through flesh. I dreamt of whipped cream that comes cheap. I dreamt of coffee without sugar. Last night, I dreamt of my mother talking to God. I saw her spit on the ground and make clay with her saliva. I heard God tell her that the blind would see only if they wanted to. I woke up this morning and sealed my eyes shut. Denzel Joyson A J is a writer, student and problem child in chief living in the city of Bangalore in India. Sometimes he strings together random words and people who read these words call them poetry.

Have you noticed how the skin on your elbows changes as you get older? You haven’t until just the other day. You have penciled this in your diary as an unpleasant encounter with an elevator’s mirror or even rather your elbow’s unforeseen rendezvous with the relentlessness of time. Are you really this old already (rhetorical!)? It begs the question why on Earth should we have mirrors in elevators? If you haven’t done your morning toiletries, such as brushing your hair and by the same token acquiring a decent look in the privacy of your own home, having mirrors in elevators that scream back at your saggy skin, dark circles under eyes, unironed shirts, smudged makeup, a hole in your stocking or sweaty puddles under armpits…well, you ain’t gonna fix it in the seconds it takes you to get from one floor to another. All you’ll do is get yourself more miserable and no one wants to start their day with a glum. And it’s not just about elbows. After you pass the big forty, everything seems to run downhill. Your palms are so dry they’ve developed craters and those craters house craters. No matter how much hand cream you use, it’s never enough. It gets sucked right in like a baby imbibing a nipple, with no end in sight. An endless well in a desert of aridness. Let’s not even start with the rest of you, a kilo here and there, and unwanted loose-fittings that can fortunately be hidden for the most part. Mirrors make you feel exposed; to yourself, the people around you and the ones observing from the elevators’ cameras, positioned in that special way that captures every bad angle, even the ones you didn’t know you had. Of course, there’s always an option of using twenty flights of exit stairs, otherwise until they are banned from public spaces, you simply have to endure your own reflection gawking back at you from all directions. So after the other day, you made a conscious decision to stop wearing short sleeves, for a while at least. Occasionally you utilize the option of the twenty flights of exit stairs, knowing full well you can’t escape time. Andrea Damic's work appears or is forthcoming in Roi Fainéant Press, The Elpis Letters, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine, The Dribble Drabble Review, 50 Give or Take (Vine Leaves Press) Anthologies, Spillwords, Your Impossible Voice and elsewhere. You can find her on https://linktr.ee/damicandrea, @DamicAndrea and https://www.instagram.com/damicandrea.

Greg Morris drove into a Lumber and Plumbing Supply Company's parking lot fast and halted abruptly in the nearest assigned loading spot. He sat there in his Dodge Ram pick-up truck, engine still running, with Blues music playing, waiting for his best friend to get off from work. Earlier, he made a pit stop at the Stop-N-Go to buy gas, then beer and ice for his large blue cooler, so they could go straight to their favorite hangout. A clearing with a duck-off not far off from the Indianola River. Sliding glass doors soon parted and out walked Omar, a short but stocky black man. He approached the truck with a bounce in his stride and the company's red work vest thrown across his shoulder. In his left hand, he held a brand new oak handle ax. He got into the passenger's seat then placed the chopping tool in the back cab, and then shut the door. Both men shared fist-dabs before they departed the lot. "What's up with you?" said Omar. "Nothing. Excited, that's all." Greg said, "Tonight it's finally coming down." "Damn right it is," said Omar. "Is that thing sharp?" Greg said. "It better be," said Omar. "It's brand new." "Why not a chainsaw?" Greg said. "Too loud and expensive," said Omar. "She ain't worth that much." "True." Greg said, "Ready?" So off they went. They drove less than a mile to get to their destination's entrance. Down the service road, pass three stop signs, and then a left turn at the fourth one which led onto a pothole-laden blacktop. A paved road that traveled by the dam lock before it changed into a gravel then dirt road and continued along the levee. A short time later, boyhood friends arrived at their favorite location and soon sat their butts on the back of a lowered tailgate. They applied insect repellant and put the large blue ice cooler—full of 40-ounce bottles—between them. Twisted beer caps followed and soon alcohol met the grass and became foam before vanishing. A liquid offering for the dead. Not for a deity, or an ancestor, but an old lady – a real pain in the ass – whose reputation left a permanent mark on them, on others, and the town in general. The departed, Ms. Sipala Redclay, died last Saturday morning, on a warm, beautiful, and springtime day. Many remember the day well. The sun and clouds radiated against a powder blue sky and attracted people outside, to walk around, barbeque, sit lazily on front porches, or to do nothing at all. And with so many people being out and about, a little girl discovered her body in the backyard, lying prone underneath a big peach tree, clenching a half-eaten nectarine. "She's gone, alright," said Greg. "Obeah got her." "I know," Omar replied. "Although we all wish to live so long." "Ain't that truth," Greg said. "How old was she?" "105, I think." Omar said, "And still walking around." "Not anymore." The men chatted for hours. By then the blue sky became a beautiful twilight of purple and a bad habit fulfilled. It involved running across the dirt road and up to the levee to toss their first empty beer bottles as far as possible, listen for the splashdown, followed by celebratory howls and skyward kisses, before returning to their tailgate seats to continue drinking. "Say, you ain't done yet?" Omar said, working on his third 40-ounce. "Drink up!" "Chill out, already," said Greg. "I'm almost done. I'm not an alcoholic like you are." "Whatever? I know you." Now consumed, he threw it into a large metal wash tub kept in the truck bed, where other empties rested. Greg twisted the cap off another 40-ounce, threw back his head, and began guzzling. Pretty soon the moon slowly secured its place in the starry night. Even so, the insects continued to find them both distasteful despite being full of alcohol. Crickets and cicadas serenaded the night. It soon encouraged "Hi, Ho, The Witch is Dead." Neither man could remember the last time they sat around and sang so joyously about someone so disliked. **** To them, Ms. Redclay, the mean and old Choctaw woman, chased and scolded them. She chastised kids for acting up. A day didn't end without a child going home in tears and talking about what she did. Some parents took offense and derided her. Others understood. They felt children should respect their elders and appreciate how she looked after them. Not Greg and Omar. They simply disliked her brand of advocacy. Along with her village-style of parenting and accountability. They truly resented her oversight, discipline, and moral clarity. Ms. Redclay epitomized everything bad. "That damn woman was something else," said Omar. "She was too heavy with the rod, often punishing the innocent." "I know, right," said Greg. "Mean doesn't describe her, not properly," said Omar. "Every day that damn woman sat on her front porch, eyeing us, holding that switch in her hand, like some overseer or something, ready and waiting to strike us for any petty offense." "Let her tell it," said Greg, "it made up for the ones we got away with. They all were for our own good—a deterrent of some kind. That somehow whooping ass early often produced less liars, thieves, and murderers. What nonsense! I mean, who have I killed?" “Nobody I know of. I've come close a few times,” Omar said. "Yeah you have," Greg said. "I wonder? Who came up with that anyway?" “What? The village thing," said Omar. "It's an African proverb, ain't it? Maybe Native American?" “No, not that," Greg replied. "The other thing." "The other thing?" "The switch, fool; like, who in hell figured out you could braid willow tree vines into a whip?" "C'mon, now. You know who?" Omar replied. "Some white dude." "There you go." "No. I'm serious." "You might be right," said Greg. "It got passed down. It's his fault I have these marks." "You!" Omar replied. "I got them too." "She got us all one way or another," Greg said. "Even my wife fell victim." "Well, she did get caught in Ms. Redclay's garden," Omar recalled, "Ernestine tried to steal the biggest watermelon out there. Not a small one mind you." "Still though, Ms. Redclay didn’t have to do what she did. Made her eat the entire thing, down to the rind," said Greg. "Ernestine puked and pleaded. That old hag didn’t care, talking about how she needed to be taught a lesson." "A travesty is what it is," said Omar. "A black woman afraid of watermelon." "I know, right," Greg said. "I don't eat peaches." "Same here," Omar replied. "And we know why." "Yeah, yeah. That old woman really fucked us up, you know that, right?" Greg replied. Omar looked at him and said: "No shit!" Children, mostly black and brown, from all over the neighborhood experienced similar trauma. Ms. Redclay made sure of it. She punished disrespectful kids routinely. The main reason why so many kids got it on the backside centered around their attraction to her botanical paradise. It provided them a thrill and savory satisfaction. Every year, her garden thrived. This included the chain link fence in front of her house, lined with blackberries, a wide variety of edible plants, and pretty flowers. Some suggested her Native American heritage made her a natural gardener. Nonetheless, over the years, it became a healthy stopover for children on their way to school. They often showed up in class with blue, red, orange, and purple-colored lips and tongues. A select few, those she liked most, actually knocked on her front door. And for their consideration, they received slices of peaches as a morning treat from her most prized possession, a peach tree she planted in her backyard decades ago. Now when abundant, whether with blossoms or nectarines, it looked from afar in the sunlight like a burning bush. The garden and peach tree supplemented Ms. Redclay's groceries. At times, she didn't mind sharing. She knew the kids picked her cucumbers, tomatoes, peanuts, and fruit for snacks. And over the years, she tried to plant enough to satisfy both thieves and wildlife alike, but it didn't work. Blame Omar and Greg, they took liberties with her garden and peach tree from their constant intrusions, damaging rows and branches. So she decided to take matters into her own hands and put forth some obstacles to keep them two out. Since it became apparent they wouldn't stop. They required something far more severe. A taller fence wouldn't thwart them. So, for them, she resorted to an air rifle to get their minds right and keep them off her property. Ms. Redclay used it to shoot fat red squirrels to make them into stew because they too loved the peanuts she planted. Her aim, even at her age, remained swift and sharp. Such accuracy and lethality came naturally, a byproduct of Indian ancestry. It also enabled her to survive a massacre early in life when numerous blacks died at the hands of whites for seeking better pay and work conditions at the local mill. Back then, many whites resented working so closely with blacks so when the opportunity came to put them back into their place they enforced their prejudices. Her home and several others survived; and somehow, in all the mayhem and destruction, three white men lay dead amongst the black bodies in the streets. They all shot through the eye just like fat red squirrels. Pretty soon Greg and Omar found this out. Ms. Redclay kept the air rifle nearby and when she saw them through the back window out the screened back porch door she bolted firing at them. Neither one lost an eye. Nothing deadly. But they cried out in pain as the pellets left tiny circular bruises and punctured fatty flesh as they jumped back across the fence, scurrying off, cursing loudly, vowing to return, while dodging repeated shots. Nothing thwarted them. They kept at it, but didn't realize how much ammunition she possessed. But it all changed after one early morning. Ms. Redclay's home emanated a sweetly foul fragrance, a strong and inviting odor, which penetrated homes and affected nostrils. She spent time in the kitchen concocting some kind of brew using the herbs and plants grown around the house. The bluish-green brew got strained, left to cool, and then poured into an old tin metal sprayer. Then at sunrise, she went outdoors carrying a broomstick, the tin sprayer, and two large plastic bowls. She set the sprayer and bowls at her feet and proceeded to use the broomstick to knock to the ground as many high-up peaches as possible. All of the low-hanging fruit remained and after a short rest, she gathered and put all the fallen peaches into both bowls. Now done she lifted the tin sprayer and began hand-pumping fine mist all over the tree. By daybreak, caterpillars fell off and the birds and insects avoided it altogether. Before the week ended, several students missed school. They all suffered from diarrhea and every sick child admitted they consumed peaches straight off Ms. Redclay's tree. Then, one day, the town's arborist arrived at Ms. Redclay's house. He wanted to inspect her peach tree as poisonous, it being the common denominator, because of the rash of bubble guts occurring at elementary school. But after a lengthy stay, he didn't find anything. No signs of brown leaves; no signs of discolored bark; soil not toxic and lots of positive bird and insect activity. He soon left and eventually ruled it out as the cause for all the diarrhea. His conclusions disappointed Greg, Omar, and others. They all believed differently, but couldn't prove it. Some, including them, wanted it cut down and tried but failed. Nonetheless, families forbade all their children from going onto and eating anything off her property, making it harder for them to exact their revenge. Yet the incident forever marked her property as jinxed and nobody except for the mail lady entered it for many years Not until Putney, the 9-year-old girl next door, saw Ms. Redclay's body lying in the backyard, underneath the peach tree, motionless. She called out, but the old lady didn’t respond. So she ran for her mother, Edna Mae, who came out to immediately give aid. Edna Mae didn't find a lifeless body with its eyes sunken back into her skull. Instead, a slowly dying one, still clutching onto a chewed peach. Ms. Redclay's sparkling eyes seemed distant, as if looking back on a long life lived as well as into the next place. Before they darkened, a smile formed, and then she departed. Suddenly, peaches fell which frightened Putney's mother. She ran home and called 9-1-1, informing them of the situation, of her next-door neighbor's death. And yet, she held her tongue about what else she witnessed in the deceased's backyard. **** "Man, I had the runs for a week," Omar said. "Who're you telling?" Greg replied. Now thoroughly drunk, and tired of talking, Omar and Greg could barely stand. Both looked up at the night sky and then each other. They both knew it was time to go do it, to go do what they didn't do when they were kids. Nobody could stop them. Not this time. So off they went, headed back into town, straight to Ms. Redclay’s house. They parked on the side street, got out, and staggered across stealthily. Omar carried the ax. They both leapt over a well-worn section of the fence where a permanent bend existed from their constant climbing. So far, the surrounding homes remained unlit and the streets dark and traffic-free. As soon as they reached the peach tree, both glanced at the backdoor. Omar readied himself and then reared back to swing. Suddenly, he fell onto his knees in pain. Greg, too. They looked around in utter confusion wondering who shot them. Nobody. The backdoor hadn't opened. Both stood up when the moon descended upon them, full and bright. And it somehow detached itself from the dark sky to shine its bright moonbeams directly onto them and within it, a recognizable face and figure appeared, a short woman with two lengthy ponytails, in traditional tribal attire, and holding a rifle. “How many times have I told you two?" She said, "Stay out of my yard and away from my peach tree.” She drifted forward, raising her rifle. Omar chunked the ax directly at her, piercing the phantom without any effect. They ran as fast as they could, zig-zagging drunkenly, but unable to dodge her pinpoint accuracy. Greg hurdled and Omar dove over the fence, both landing hard on the earth. They soon reached the safety of the truck, but it too got pelted, both the windshield and driver's side window suffered cracks. Greg started the truck and sped off, turning the corner so recklessly, he nearly hit a row of parked cars. Suddenly, a police unit on patrol saw this and blared its siren. The officer soon found two men acting weird, both wide-eyed and talking nonsense about seeing the recently deceased Ms. Redclay. Greg cried about losing his ax. Whereas, Omar claimed a ghost shot at them. The officer simply listened, but the smell of alcohol spoke loudest. It prompted him to look closely into the back of the truck. And there he found a washtub full of empty beer bottles. He then lifted open the blue cooler to find a few 40-ounces floating in melted ice. Moments later, he arrested both men for public intoxication. At daybreak, the police responded to another call from the Putney residence. Edna Mae explained while taking out the trash, a shiny object captured her attention, and after looking at it more intently saw something lodged into the deceased's back porch wall. Spooked by this and it being another strange thing occurring at a home many already consider bad luck, she felt it needed investigation. Once the officer arrived, he indeed found a brand new ax. And upon closer inspection, the officer realized it came from the Lumber and Plumbing Supply Company, based on the logo etched into the oak handle. He pulled it out, thinking about how it got there. Perhaps those two guys locked up in the drunk tank know something about this—and they did. They wanted to cut down the peach tree for making them ill as kids and hurt Ms. Redclay even in death. They couldn't let it go. Wayne McCray is a Susurrus 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee. His short stories have appeared in Afro Literary Magazine, Bandit Fiction, The Bookends Review, Chitro Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, Drunk Monkeys, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, Ilinix Magazine, Malarkey Books, The Ocotillo Review, Ogma Magazine, Pigeon Review, Roi Faineant, The Rush Magazine, Sangam Literary Magazine, Swim Press, and Wingless Dreamer. He works diligently at becoming a Minimalist from his book-laden junk room.

CW Violence Heavy boots on the stairs and a stranger’s voice, then hearing my Mummy say ‘Harry, wake the boys’. Blinking from our sleep as the big light is turned on, ‘Get up boys, quickly now, downstairs and put your shoes and coat on’. A policeman stands at the front door, it’s raining outside, a fine mizzle, the night sky looks cold as it looms through the open door and the moonlight reflects on the policeman’s pistol. There is fear in the voices of the adults and their agitated movements, and then we are outside running across the wet slippery pavements. Beams of light cast their gaze from high above down toward the ground, voices shouting, orders barked, a turbulent, frightening cacophony of sounds. We blindly bundle into a friend’s house just down the way, us children are gathered on the settee and told to get on and play. The only thing on TV is the cue card with the girl and the clown, adults are talking in hushed tones in the kitchen, occasionally shouting, ‘Would you wains settle down’. A muffled bang sounds outside, dogs howl and bark, everyone stops and listens and outside the daylight seeps through the dark. Walking home there is shattered glass and twisted metal on the ground cloaked in acrid black smoke, We are hurried past to the safety of our house and not a word is spoke.

“So go to your damn party,” Jill said. Sam gazed at Jill across the bed. Her words weren’t exactly a free pass, but Sam would take them. Jill was straightening the bedsheets, tight and angry. They would fuck on those sheets when Sam got home. Jill said, “Just go. I never know anyone at your work parties. All those slick suits. All those pretty dresses.” “They have names, you know.” “Ah-ha.” “Jill—” He wanted to see her in one of those pretty dresses. But he couldn’t say it that way. Jill had drifted over to the mirror. She zipped up her pale blue tracksuit, then zipped it down far enough to expose her white camisole. She checked her face in the mirror, especially around the eyes. She said, “In case you forgot, we have to tidy up for book club tomorrow. But if you want to go to your party, fine. If you really want to go.” She gathered her hair in a ponytail. “If you’d rather.” Sam spoke to her back. “You don’t even read the books. Neither do I. Nobody does.” Sam bent down, retrieving this month’s book where it had slid off the nightstand. He hefted its weight miserably. He said, “Last month, Monica Paré made a pass at me.” “You lucky dog.” Sam said, “Come on Jill. The party will be fun. A little break. A chance to dress up. Cocktails.” “It’s all a bunch of pretend.” She let down her hair and started her ponytail again. “So let’s pretend.” “Pretend what?” “Well, for starters, let’s pretend we’re happy.” He wished he hadn’t said that. Let’s pretend something. Shadows and light. Music. Sweet taste on his tongue. His palms pressing against her hips. Her dress. Her perfume. Damn. Jill paused, her hair in her hands, an elastic tie in her mouth. She found Sam’s eyes in the mirror. “We are happy.” “Sure we are.” Jill turned around to face him. “I’m not stopping you.” She shoved past him and went downstairs. She made a clatter in the kitchen. What was he supposed to do? He knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to want. Want Jill. Want all of this. Sam looked helplessly at his reflection in the mirror. How did you want what you already had? * * * It took forever to find the place. All these developments looked the same. The streets wound beneath lamps bright as day, and the fresh pavement was sticky beneath the car’s tires. No street signs had been installed, not yet. No house numbers. No families. The houses waited, bored and empty, sparkling from spotlights at the corners of lawns too green for Colorado. Who the hell bought these pretty places? Were they happy people? Sam was lost. He took a guess and stopped at the lone house with cars along the curb. Inside, he found the guys from sales, trolling the snack platters and talking about—what else?—sales. From the patio came the click of heels on tile: wives hiding out, cigarettes cupped in their fingers so you couldn’t see the glow. A pitcher of sangria on the bar was nearly drained, and Sam had to tip it on end to get anything. Where was the hostess anyway? He knew where she was. Cramming for the goddamned book club. Sure. After downing one drink, Sam left the party. Jill was sure to gloat about this. Probably she had cleaned the whole house while he was gone. Sam would lie next to her in bed, prop up his pillow, read a little from this month’s book, cross his arms, and expel a sour sigh. He and Jill would fuck on those fresh sheets and change them again before the party. Sam was walking down the front steps when he spotted Sparrow Petrosyan coming up the pink sandstone walkway. She smiled at Sam as he passed. Sam smiled too. They stopped. Sparrow wore a little black dress. She was putting her keys in a little black purse. Sam said, “Sparrow, you’re here.” “And you’re—” He said, “You look lovely.” Sparrow said with a sunny voice, “My way to get even.” She reached to touch her hair. A chignon. “I’d say you’re more than even.” Sam smelled that old perfume, the one he could taste when his lips skimmed her skin, when Sparrow cried, and her tears were warm and wet on her cheek, and he kissed her there. “Well, Sam. Too bad you’re leaving.” Sparrow had the prettiest voice. She stepped closer. Her heels scraped lightly against the sandstone path. The fabric of her dress crinkled. Sam remembered how unhappy they had been. He said, “I guess I could stay a little longer.” “Sure.” “I mean, I never see you.” They had been miserable. “I know. The new project keeps me on the road.” She was sweet and beautiful, and they had been a disaster together. “Come on. I’ll show you what they have. Sangria.” Sam put his arm on her back and guided her in. He said, “So, did you find the place all right?” “Fuck no!” “Those developers. I swear, they must—” “Shut up, Sam. Don’t chit-chat me.” “I should warn you, it’s all sales.” “God, I hate sales.” “Stick with me.” * * * Sam gave Sparrow a heavy glass. She tipped it up, her eyes observing him over the rim. “You look handsome, Sam.” “Gee, Sparrow.” “I can say that, can’t I?” “As long as I can say you’re totally stunning.” “Well, of course, you can.” The corners of her eyes wrinkled with a smile. “Anyway, you are.” Sparrow took his hand. Sam said, “Yeah, you’re stunning, and I have book club tomorrow.” “Bingo!” “Yeah.” He looked at his empty glass. “Sam, are you ever going to talk to me when you’re actually happy?” Sparrow’s hand had not left his hand. “I mean, I don’t even remember the name of the book. I do remember there’re bricks on the cover and—” “So spill it, Sam. Where’s Jill?” “Where’s Tony?” Their grip became tighter. They discussed work for five seconds. Sparrow finished her glass, and they sneaked into the kitchen and found a fresh carafe of sangria in the fridge. They slipped the carafe past the sales guys and into the den. Sam set their glasses on the coffee table and poured. He set the carafe on a book with an Oprah sticker on its cover. “Are you in a book club, Sparrow?” “No.” “Come on. It gives you something to talk about. It gives you a lot to talk about.” “Reading the same books only makes you more the same. It actually gives you nothing to talk about at all. Reading different books is having secrets. Now there’s something to talk about.” “I don’t read anything. Nothing the same, nothing different. What does that make me?” “Shallow.” “But no secrets.” “You have a secret, Sam. And you need to tell it to me right now.” Sam refilled their glasses.. A little sangria seeped over the rim and puddled on the Oprah book. Sam leaned forward, stooping over his drink, careful not to spill, and took a sip. H held the dripping glass away from his body. Small sips. He said, “Let’s go for a walk.” He looked at his watch. Sparrow set down her glass and wiped her fingertips on the couch cushion. Sam leaned close and kissed Sparrow. The memory of her sweet taste came back to him, but he knew there had already been a last kiss, and this new kiss didn’t mean anything. Sparrow said, “Oh my.” Sam stood up. He took her hand and helped her sidestep the coffee table. Sparrow held her drink away from her crinkly dress. “Sam, why is this a good idea? What are we doing?” There had already been a last time. Sam said, “There is no this. We’re not doing anything.” * * * Sam led Sparrow out the front door and down the walk. Beneath those bright streetlights, he couldn’t see the stars. He couldn’t even see the Rockies, he couldn’t see the dark hard edge of the Front Range, he couldn’t see anything but here and now. The night was getting cold, and Sparrow did not have a coat, so Sam pulled her close. They got in Sam’s car. They fit their sticky sangria glasses in the cupholders. The car was silent and cold, and they sat. “People are going to talk.” “Nobody’s going to talk because nobody cares. They’re scripting their own—what do you call them—assignations. ‘Sam and Sparrow went for a walk, ooh.’ They don’t know what this is about. They don’t care about—” “About what? About us?” “They just don’t care.” Sam and Sparrow sipped their sangria and drove around the development, gazing at empty identical houses until they became good and lost. And drunk. Neither spoke. The car took the wide winding streets slow and easy, which was fine with Sam. The sticky asphalt hummed. The houses were all for sale. They stopped the car at a beige house with a porch swing. A flat green lawn had been unrolled to meet wild grass and knobby rocks and prickly pear. In the center of the grass was a stand of aspen, which never should have been planted this far out on the prairie. A sticker on the sign said Model Home. Sam and Sparrow got out. The walkway was exposed aggregate, and the shiny lacquered pebbles made it hard for Sparrow in her heels. She leaned close. Sam felt her weight. She was drunk, too. Sam led her to the porch swing and sat beside her. He put his arms around her bare shoulders. Sparrow sipped the last of her sangria. Sam had finished his long ago. The porch was small. When they pushed back the swing, it abruptly hit the house. When they swung forward, their knees bumped the wooden rail. “That’s fucked,” said Sam. “It’s a faux porch. A faux swing. Bet the grass is faux too. Everything is fauxed up.” “Come on.” Sam stood and took Sparrow’s hand. “No.” “Come on. Let’s go inside.” “We’re not supposed to be here.” They walked through the house. They took a brochure. “Look, darling,” she said. “It has one of those bonus rooms.” “Remember the apartment by City Park? We could have used a bonus room.” Sparrow held her empty glass by the tips of her fingers. She kneeled and set the glass on the pergo floor. She rubbed her fingers. “They’d sell more homes if they put in furniture. Make it look real. Curtains would be nice. Paintings would be nice. Charming little children running around. Anything real would be nice.” Sam took her arms, and they danced. Sparrow’s heels clicked. Sam had to imagine the music, the pretty colors, the light. It was hard. He had to imagine that it was Jill wearing that crinkly black dress. They would be at a party. She would be talking to a group of women, and he would be talking to the guys, and he would spot his girl and lead her away. He remembered something, a party long ago, the light a little different, a different scent on Jill’s skin. He had kissed her then. But now he kissed Sparrow. Sparrow let her lips slide to his cheek. Her voice whispered. “What about Jill? Sam, tell me.” The book club was tomorrow. Jill and Sam would serve croissant sandwiches. Jill would wear a blue silk blouse, and Sam would volunteer to do the greasy dishes so she wouldn’t have to. Jill would do all the talking, which was fine because Sam had nothing to say. “Jesus, Sam. What about Jill?” Sparrow kissed Sam again. “Please.” Sam held Sparrow tight and whispered. “This is what Jill likes. See, I bring her close like this.” His hand tugged through Sparrow’s thick black hair. Her chignon spun loose. “I kiss her, and I fuck her.” He lifted Sparrow’s leg over his hip and pressed his pelvis to hers. “Like this. Just—like—this.” Sparrow began to cry. Her face turned away. Sam could smell her perfume and her warm tears. He heard the crinkling of her dress as she let her leg down. He said, “This is just pretend.” “What the fuck is pretend about it?” “We were never happy, Sparrow.” “We are happy now, Sam.” Sam slowed down his words. “We are only happy because we know how this ends. It’s perfectly happy. But only because it doesn’t mean anything and it has an ending.” Sparrow pulled away. Sam said, “I’m going back. Jill and I are going to fuck like nobody’s business. You and Tony, too. You know you will.” Sparrow cried, and she didn’t hide it anymore by turning her head away. She kicked her sangria glass into a corner of the Pergo floor, and it spun around. Sam said, “I’m very sorry. I’m very very sorry. Damn, I’m sorry. You can be mad if you want to.” “Don’t tell me when to be mad.” “But it doesn’t mean anything, so don’t be mad.” “Don’t tell me it doesn’t mean anything. Damn you if you say anything else. Sometimes a girl wants a good fuck. And sometimes a fuck is anger and unhappiness as much as anything else. Sometimes a girl just wants to say ‘Fuck me,’ and don’t you dare tell me it doesn’t mean anything.” * * * Sam and Sparrow pushed the porch swing back. Thump. They let it slide forward, and Sparrow notched her high heels against the porch rail. They pushed the swing back again. Thump. “Do you think we could have been happy, Sam? A place like this. We could have forged ahead. Worked it out. We wanted it. You know we wanted it, Sam.” “That’s the problem, though. We were always wanting. Jill and I don’t want anything. I really don’t want anything.” “So you’re saying that you have everything you want? Right.” He put his arm around her. She was warm, and her perfume was pressed into his shirt. But he didn’t care. He said, “No. I didn’t say that. You’re a lovely woman, Sparrow, and I said that I don’t want anything.” * * * Sam smelled lemon cleaner and furniture oil. The windows were open, and the fan was humming. Jill lay in bed, reading the book and making notes in the back. Sam sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her cheek. He wondered if Jill knew what that kiss meant, or maybe it was just another thing he did without meaning anything. He said, “The party was a dud.” “I know about your party.” He wanted to say, ‘No you don’t,’ but she probably did. She didn’t possibly know everything, but she knew something. She said, “So are you done? Can we talk about this book now?” Sam closed Jill’s book and took it away. He took her pencil away. Jill kept her eyes open when they made love. She found Sam’s eyes. It was love. But it was love and pain and it ought to be only love. Sam lifted her legs over his waist, just like he’d said. Pressed hard just like he’d said. Sam and Jill held each other’s gaze a long time after. Jill broke it off and sat up. She switched on the light and found the book. She found her notes in the back. Her hair had slipped out of its ponytail. Her hair was smooth and straight and pretend blond, with angled bangs that covered one eye. Sam said, “The book’s no good. It’s all made up.” “No, Sam.” Jill wrote something in the margin and bit her lip. She said, “By the way, you’re changing the sheets tomorrow. First thing. Hospital corners.” Sam looked at the ceiling. “Sparrow Petrosyan was there.” “Did you fuck her?” Jill turned a page. “What?” “Did you ever fuck her?” “Of course I fucked her.” Sam was staring at the blank ceiling. “And?” “Do you want a comparison? Do you want to be relieved by what you hear? What do you want me to say?” “I don’t really care. You’re the one who fucked her. What do you want to say?” “Do you want to know what it was like?” His eyes found the crack in the ceiling plaster. “Were you happy? Did you two love each other?” Sam sighed. Jill said, “Well? You’re not even looking at me.” Sam closed his eyes. “One thing.” “Yes?” “Open your eyes and listen to me.” “I’m listening.” “I want you to look at me.” “Fine.” Sam looked at her. Jill tucked back her long, slanted bangs. “There’s only one reason we’re having this conversation. Because nothing else matters anymore, because we totally see through each other’s bullshit, each other’s scripts and lines and ploys. We have that together. That’s something we have.” “Um, yeah.” “And you’re not just fucking me anymore. You’re not, Sam. Don’t fuck me just because we’re married. No. Only fuck me when you can’t stand holding back anymore. Fuck me when you want to come inside me more than anything in the world. Fuck me when it hurts just to think about it. But don’t you dare pretend it’s anything more than fucking.” “It’s always more.” Sam looked around the room, the armoire, the lighting, the mirror, everything. “Look at me, honey. There’s no playing house anymore. There’s no bullshit. Someday, I might decide I like you again.” “I like you, enough.” “Shut up.” “Like you enough to do this.” He crossed his leg over hers. He slid his hand over her thigh and between her legs. It was warm, but it wasn’t enough, and for the first time maybe that was a good thing. He would wait until he wanted it more. Jill pulled away. “Just listen to the book, Sam. You need to know what happens. I’ll read it to you.” # # # Evan Morgan Williams has published over fifty short stories in literary magazines famous and obscure, including Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Witness. Williams has published three collections of stories: Thorn (BkMk Press), Canyons (self-published), and Stories of the New West (Main Street Rag Press). Williams bears an MFA, tattered and faded, from the University of Montana. After 29 years of public-school teaching, he has retired.