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Glorianne stared into Gavin’s vacant eyes. “Don’t go, my love,” she whispered, willing her words to bring him back to her. She felt the air stir around her, as he left on the wings of an angel. JoJo popped her earbuds out. If she transcribed one more word of this nonsense, she might jump out her front window. And given her luck, she’d only crush some bones. A stay in the hospital in traction had its appeal, but she knew her boss, Cameron, would expect her to keep typing from her hospital bed. JoJo needed to ask for a raise. She’d been putting it off for at least two years. She should work on her resume. Instead, she’d brew a cup of tea. Her cushy slippers swish-swashed her down the hallway. But at the kitchen counter, with her beloved teaware in front of her, she moved with the precision of a surgeon. She set the kettle to exactly 99 degrees and measured precisely four grams of rolled oolong leaves into her little gaiwan, a traditional Chinese pot made of fine red clay. When the kettle beeped, she poured hot water over her cup to warm it. Then she rinsed the leaves. Finally, she filled the gaiwan, covered the pot and sang the Happy Birthday song, as she did every day because it took exactly the right amount of time for the first steeping. Today she was careful to sing at her normal pace. She didn’t want the fact that it was actually her birthday to throw her off and ruin her tea. “Happy birthday to me,” she finished, and then she poured her tea. JoJo smiled, lifted the cup to her nose, and inhaled. Closing her eyes, she sipped and allowed herself to dissolve into this space of ancient trees. She floated through air perfumed with ripe fruit, honey fresh from the hive, mulch and tree bark wet from the rain. JoJo wanted to sit on her favorite floor cushion, the magenta faux silk with the elephant appliqué on the front, and practice her tea meditation. But she needed to pay rent. Anyway, it would probably be difficult to meditate with the not-surprise party looming. Plunging into the adventures of Glorianne would at least keep her occupied. She poured another cup and shuffled back to her desk. Glorianne refused to let the loss of her true love get her down. She wasn’t the kind of lady who’d let a tragedy break her. So she took a deep breath, threw her lavender shawl around her shoulders, and went out into the summer evening. The promise of adventure tugged at her. JoJo sipped her tea. The only thing worse than this novel was the last one. And the only thing more stressful than birthday parties were surprise parties, especially those that weren’t surprises. Now on top of the usual anxiety she felt at the very thought of an evening of conversation, she had to worry about delivering a perfect performance so her friends could feel good about pulling off such a coup. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me. She drank the last of her tea without tasting it. * * * When Samantha had phoned a couple of weeks before her birthday, JoJo’d suspected that something was up. If it hadn’t been for shared friends, JoJo guessed they would have drifted apart after graduating from college. Still, when Samantha suggested meeting at an upscale British-style tea house on the west side, JoJo thought it might be an early birthday outing. She couldn’t think of any other reason since Samantha referred to tea traditions as “snooty and pretentious.” They’d sat at a little table covered with a cloth the color of mint ice cream. The Bramble and Rose served a touristy version of high tea and had trunks filled with feather boas, gloves, and all kinds of outlandish hats for customers to wear. Samantha told JoJo to order, since it all tasted like Lipton anyway, and she rushed over to try on the feathered finery. When the tea arrived, JoJo poured it for them both and watched Samantha stir three spoonfuls of sugar into hers, taste it, and wrinkle her nose. She pushed the cup aside and took a drink from her water glass. “Nika’s planning a surprise birthday party,” Samantha said, plopping a pillbox hat on her head and swishing the ends of her pink boa. “I mean, it only seems right to tell you. I know how much you hate parties. I can’t imagine what Nika’s thinking.” JoJo sipped, trying to collect her thoughts. She couldn’t argue exactly. She did hate parties. But it wasn’t Samantha’s place to blow it for Nika. Still, she couldn’t be sure she’d find the exact right way to express what she needed to say, and as always, the time for speaking passed by. Samantha peeled white lace gloves off her hands and placed two cucumber sandwiches and a pink square of cake on her flowered china plate. JoJo spooned clotted cream and a lemon curd dab onto a scone and took a bite, following the tangy sweetness with a drink of the black tea. The gentle bitterness of the beverage blended with the lingering sweetness in her mouth but didn’t lessen her annoyance. * * * “Happy Birthday,” JoJo said to her reflection in the mirror. In black yoga pants, sea-blue tunic, and a whiskey-colored scarf circling her throat, she decided she looked okay. Not amazing. Not Wow! But maybe not forty either. She fluffed her shoulder-length hair that was neither curly nor straight and considered that she might need a style update. How mid-life, she thought, grabbing her keys and sunglasses. She needed to pick up her dry cleaning so she’d be properly dressed for the party she knew nothing about. And after that, she’d drive downtown and take herself to The Owl and Tortoise, her favorite tearoom. That at least would make her birthday afternoon perfect. After cruising the packed lot of the strip mall where her one and only semi-nice dress was being held hostage, she parked at a curb marked for passenger loading. She got out and glanced up and down the street. No cop car to be seen. Over an hour later, finally sitting at her favorite table with a cup and teapot, and a small hourglass to time the steeping in front of her, JoJo glared at the ticket sticking out of her open purse. One hundred and fifty dollars for a loading zone! It would take an entire day of transcribing to pay the ticket, and she felt irrationally angry at her handbag and at the sand flowing much too slowly through the hourglass. Finally, she jostled the timer and poured her tea. She brought the cup close to her lips and paused to breathe. Closing her eyes, she pictured the ancient trees these leaves had come from. Her fantasy of walking through old-growth forests was interrupted when Tati, the owner, arrived at the table with a bowl of boiled peanuts and a small plate of rice cakes and dried fruit. “For you, Miss Jo” she said, making a slight bow, as her mentor had taught her to do. Tati’s strawberry curls and throat adorned with gardenia tattoos never seemed more out of place than when she bowed. She looked like she should be in an art studio, splashing colors onto a huge canvas, or perhaps sitting in a downtown bar writing poetry. But JoJo had attended Tati’s formal tea ceremonies and didn’t question her rightness in this place. “Thank you, Tati.” Tati remained still. JoJo looked at her, not knowing what to say. Tati never intruded on customers’ time with their tea. She had been trained better than that. “May I ask how you like the puerh?” JoJo glanced at her cup. She almost said something like “It’s fine, really lovely,” but those were not the right words. She brought the cup under her nose letting the fragrance drift into her mind. She sipped, breathing out through her nose to get the full experience. She opened her eyes to find Tati examining her face. “It’s different,” JoJo said, then added, “more floral but not exactly.” She sipped again. “Like roses but not. More like a breeze blew rose petals across the leaves.” JoJo quickly looked into her cup, feeling her cheeks warm. “You give words to the heart of the leaves,” Tati said. “This tea is from a tiny family farm in Yunnan province. It’s rumored that the old grandfather places batches of tea leaves near flowers or other aromatics. They say he does this to expose his son-in-law’s inability to produce the highest quality tea, but each time the result is so special that the old grandfather is forced to swallow his criticisms.” Tati smiled her nun’s smile. “Most people don’t appreciate what they’re drinking. They want this tea because it’s famous, but they don’t taste its spirit.” “I don’t see how they could miss it.” “It’s simple, really.” Tati nodded for emphasis. “Most people are not in love with the tea. They don’t share its soul.” Before JoJo could reply, Tati repeated her small bow and walked toward the kitchen. * * * At home, JoJo stood at her front window, watching the gulls glide on invisible currents. The guy in the apartment directly across from hers worked on a laptop at his kitchen table, as he did every day. Now and then, one of them would catch the other looking and raise their cup in greeting. Today, he appeared to be absorbed in whatever filled his screen. He’d moved in just over a year ago, yet they had crossed paths on the street only a handful of times, each time awkward, as if they hadn’t agreed to breech their territory lines. The conversation at the tea room had left JoJo unsettled. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt she’d been told a secret or like Tati’s words had been code for something deeper. But JoJo couldn’t get a hold of it. Like trying to remember a dream that’s already faded. She glanced at her watch, not even four o’clock. She wished it were time to get ready. Then she remembered the parking ticket that wasn’t going to pay itself and figured she could kill some time and make some money. Walking quickly past the mouth of a dark ally, Glorianne heard soft movements coming from the shadows. She paused. What if someone needed her help? “Hello,” she called out, brave and unafraid. A small tabby kitten wobbled toward her. Glorianne looked into the sky and felt Gavin looking down at her. “Thank you,” she said, scooping up her bundle of love. JoJo stopped typing and threw her earbuds on her desk. If her 33-year-old self could have pictured sitting here on her fortieth birthday still listening to the adventures of the glamorous, gregarious and sometimes gritty Glorianne, she would have jumped into the ocean and swum for the horizon. She’d accepted this gig thinking it would keep her afloat until she figured out what to do with an English degree. The answer to that question continued to evade her. She could work in a bookstore somewhere. But Cameron paid double what she’d get in retail. Anyway, the idea of talking to people all day didn’t appeal. In theory, JoJo loved language and fantasized about writing. But she had a hard enough time finding her voice in day-to-day conversations. When she tried to write anything, she’d work on a simple sentence for hours. Now and then during a tea meditation, she believed she remembered a time, back before her mother died, when words flowed between them, sometimes like the stream behind their house, other times more like the waves of the ocean. But perhaps those images came from the tea more than from her past. She couldn’t know. JoJo pushed herself away from her desk. Between her growing birthday not-surprise-party anxiety and a kind of funk she blamed on turning forty, she couldn’t face more Glorianne. She needed a long soak in a hot tub. * * * JoJo sank back and closed her eyes. The thought of faking sick crossed her mind. But even though they didn’t see each other as much since Nika had opened her marketing agency, JoJo still considered Nika her closest friend. They had bonded in college, both new to the big city, both trying to figure out where they fit. Eventually, Nika recognized how difficult it was for JoJo to speak up in class, especially when put on the spot. Nika started jumping in with some random comment, distracting the professor and giving JoJo time to come up with something to say or ditch the whole thing with a trip to the bathroom. The two just fit together like that. Nika spoke up when JoJo couldn’t, and JoJo accepted Nika for who she was. Back then our women still faced a lot of ugliness, and Nika seemed to get it that JoJo accepted her fully. JoJo breathed in the scent of sandalwood bath oil, willing the tension out of her neck and shoulders. As she relaxed, her mind drifted to the tea-room and Tati. She wondered how old Tati was. In her harem pants and wrinkled linen tops, she looked like an original hippie chick, but her perfect skin and strawberry curls that danced down her back put her closer to thirty. Her manner spoke of someone beyond age. The tea master who trained Tati had been like that too, not ageless but outside time somehow. What was Tati like when she’d started working at the tea room? She must have been special for the old man to take her in the way he had, especially since she was an outsider, an American. “Most people are not in love with the tea,” JoJo whispered Tati’s words and then tasted her own lips as if she would find a breath of rose petals. She’d loved tea since she went to live with her grandma after her mother died, just a few months before her sixth birthday. JoJo would sit right next to her grandma on the porch swing on Saturday afternoons, listening to the wind chimes making fairy sounds in the breeze. They drank sweet tea with mint leaves from the garden. “The sugar protects from sour feelings,” her grandma would say. “Letting those feelings out helps too.” Using the tips of her toes, her grandma kept the swing swaying lightly, like a cradle. JoJo drank the syrupy tea and watched the bees flit around the marigolds that lined the path to the street. She knew her grandma wanted her to talk about how sad she felt, but her mouth didn’t make the words. “Remember when your papaw shook that can of root beer and then pulled the tab? That’s what happens when stuff gets bottled inside us,” her grandma explained. But JoJo didn’t speak. She didn’t want to disappoint her grandma, but she wouldn’t betray her mother, like the people at the funeral did. JoJo hated their words — beautiful, kind, loving. Words for any mother, but not JoJo’s. Her mother was bigger than the dead mother everyone talked about. Her mother wrinkled her eyebrows when she read JoJo’s homework, even when she liked it. “That’s my concentrating face, honey,” she would say. “You did great!” she’d add, even when she meant that JoJo had more work to do. And JoJo’s mother made really yucky spaghetti every single Friday. And she on purpose steered her bike down the middle of the road and once yelled at the neighbor who shot a raccoon. But at the funeral all the words talked about her sick mother or the mother living in heaven. JoJo hated those funeral words, and she hated that mother who wasn’t hers. JoJo wanted to scream at them to stop talking, but without her mother by her side, she couldn’t find her words. As time passed, JoJo grew to treasure the afternoons with her grandmother on the swing drinking sweet tea. Her grandma told stories about when her mother was little, real stories about a girl who was sometimes naughty and sometimes funny and sometimes sad. And she quit pressing her to talk about her feelings. Many years after her grandma’s sweet tea, JoJo stumbled into the little teahouse on the northern edge of downtown. Back then Tati apprenticed to the old man who owned the shop. On that first day, JoJo entered the dimly lit main room and sat on a cushion at a low, wooden table. Being there felt like being in a museum or a church. The other customers spoke softly, their hushed voices combining with the tinkling of water flowing over the metal fountain in the corner. The tea master arrived with a tray holding a cup and a gaiwan. He knelt across from her and set everything in place. His gray hair, knotted at the nape of his neck, and his lined face seemed out of keeping with his perfect posture. The combination made him look outside of age, like that mortal concept did not apply to him. Without words, the tea master served JoJo. Through gesture, he taught her to hold the gaiwan in one hand, positioning the lid so it blocked the leaves from escaping as the tea flowed into the tiny cup. Tati stood respectfully behind him, watching, learning. He waited as JoJo took her first sip of oolong. She swallowed too quickly, but even so, the bouquet of flavors enthralled her. With a smile in his eyes, the old man rose, made a small bow with his head, and he left her to her tea. JoJo went to the tearoom as often as she could afford. She tasted every kind of tea, rock oolong, aged white, old-growth purple. She loved them all, and she treasured the quiet of the space. Over time, Tati or the old tea master helped her learn to drink the tea in a way that brought out even more complexity. Eventually, when the old man passed away, Tati inherited the space and subtly made it her own, bringing in some Western herbal teas and even providing sugar if customers insisted. Sometimes it seemed Tati had accepted responsibility for the teahouse so the spirit of the old master would have a home. You give words to the heart of the leaves. JoJo jerked up, as if she’d been on the verge of sleep and dreamt of falling off a cliff. Now tepid water sloshed over the edge of the tub. Had she been asleep? She wasn’t sure. But she didn’t have time to ponder. She had to go be surprised. * * * Standing outside Nika’s apartment, JoJo fluffed her hair and smoothed the skirt of her dress to be sure it wasn’t clinging to her tights. She heard movement from inside. She didn’t want to knock too early in case they were still hiding. She pulled her phone out to check the time and saw she had a message from Samantha. They know you know. Shrug-shoulders emoji. JoJo stared at the screen, rereading the text. She couldn’t move, not to knock, not to turn and leave, not to text back a middle finger emoji. Samantha had single-handedly ruined her surprise party and destroyed the fun for Nika and the others. JoJo looked back to her phone and noticed her hand shaking. She’d call from the car and tell Nika she had a migraine. Nika would understand and forgive. JoJo didn’t want to see Samantha, but she realized it was more than that. She didn’t trust what she might say, or worse, what she might not be able to say. Better to skip the party, she thought as the door to the apartment swung open. “JoJo!” Nika said. “Birthday girl! I thought I heard something out here. Come in. Everyone’s waiting for you.” JoJo looked from Nika’s smiling eyes to the room beyond. Their handful of shared friends and a smattering of partners and a couple of unknown plus-ones stood clustered around the dining table which seemed to be piled with food. She didn’t see Samantha. Nika glanced back into the room, following JoJo’s stare. “What’s the matter, J? You don’t have to pretend to be surprised. Samantha came clean,” Nika said, reaching for her arm. JoJo allowed herself to be led into the room where “Happy Birthday” calls went up accompanied by raised glasses. “Sorry, I don’t have tea,” Nika said. “But I’ve got a very nice pinot grigio with your name on it.” Nika held out the bottle, her raised eyebrows waiting for the go-ahead to pour. Glass in hand, JoJo made her way to the table. Her smile felt stiff, and she worked to smooth the furrow between her brows. “So Birthday Girl, how’s mid-life?” Nika’s partner, Luz, said before chomping into a celery stalk filled with something pasty. “So far, so good,” JoJo lied. A couple of people chuckled. “JoJo’s been middle-aged her whole life,” Samantha chimed in as she entered from the hallway. “Romance novels and tea, all she needs is a cat.” JoJo felt her jaw tighten. She wanted to scream and throw food in Samantha’s face. But she couldn’t move. “Oh stop, Sam,” Luz said. “We can’t all haunt the clubs every night like you do. The rest of us aren’t kids anymore.” A few laughs circled the table, and conversations started back up. Samantha didn’t respond. To escape small talk and Samantha, JoJo migrated to the front window. Nika’s apartment overlooked a tiny community park that had been abandoned by everyone except occasional construction workers and a few people drifting between a nearby homeless encampment and a little diner that set out leftover food. Tonight, under the halo from the streetlamp, a man sat cross-legged on top of the picnic table. Waves of gray hair fell to his shoulders, making him appear elderly, but his straight back suggested vitality. JoJo strained to see what he was doing. From this distance, he appeared to be looking right at her. “So I guess I’m not good at secrets,” Samantha said, hip-bumping a greeting. JoJo held her glass out in an effort to protect her dress from the sloshing wine. “No, I guess not,” JoJo said, returning to the man across the street. She knew it was an illusion created by the lamplight and distance, but she would have sworn he hovered just above the picnic table. The hairs on her arms prickled. He did seem to look back at her, as if trying to find and hold her gaze. “I had to tell them. They were so excited. Strategizing about where to hide. It was getting very complicated.” Was he holding something? JoJo leaned toward the glass, as if those inches brought her closer to understanding. “Are you listening,” Samantha said. He continued to look in her direction, and with both hands, he raised something to his mouth. A small bowl or a cup? He sipped and then held out the drink like a salutation. “JoJo,” Samantha demanded. When JoJo finally turned, Samantha stood with hand on hip, glaring. JoJo glanced back toward the man. He seemed so familiar. Samantha clicked her fingers in front of JoJo’s face. JoJo turned slowly, a pressure drumming in her ears, her face hot. She registered the hand poised in air, ready to click again, the haughty expression melting as Samantha seemed to read her mood. “Hey, J, just having some birthday fun,” Samantha said. “Are you having fun?” JoJo asked. Samantha smiled and opened her mouth, then quickly clamped it shut. JoJo glanced out the window. The old man slowly bowed his head and then raised his sparkling eyes to hers. JoJo felt as if she knew him, as if she had always known him. She turned back to Samantha, who wouldn’t meet her eyes, glancing out the window then looking toward the hall like she might bolt for the bathroom. “Why’d you work so hard to ruin this party?” JoJo felt the tightness in her jaw and eyes. Samantha shot a look toward the others still standing around the table. “I did it for you,” she finally said, flashing her Hollywood smile. “You hate parties.” “I didn’t ask for your help,” JoJo said, the floodgate now open. “And does Nika hate them too? Because you seemed Hell bent on ruining it for her as well.” “I can’t believe you,” Samantha said, shoving her fists on her hips. “I’ve been trying to be a good friend. That’s all.” She paused and added “You’re welcome.” “I didn’t thank you,” JoJo said. “You’ve been petty and mean for as long as I’ve known you, Samantha. Your whole rebel routine might have been edgy and interesting back in college. But we only tolerate you now out of habit. Grow up.” JoJo took a slow breath and looked to the old man. He hovered over the table, raised his cup in her direction, an offering, a toast. JoJo smiled and responded with a small bow. Ignoring Samantha, she joined the others at the table. Nika came from the kitchen, holding a cake with matcha dusted on the white frosting. Golden candles blazed on top. Everyone sang. JoJo took a moment to get her wish just right, and with as much gusto as she had, she blew out every single flame. * * * The next morning, JoJo woke before the sun had fully risen and started the kettle. From the very top shelf of her little pantry, she selected a pressed cake of aged white tea. A gift from the old tea master before he passed away. She’d been saving it for the perfect occasion. Now she held the disc up to her nose and breathed in the scent of apricot brandy and marshmallow fluff and wet river rocks. With her tea knife, she broke leaves from the cake and added them to her gaiwan. “Happy birthday to me,” she sang out loud, giving the leaves time to release their subtle flavors. She poured the tea into a porcelain lotus cup and went to sit on her meditation cushion. She sipped slowly, the complexity of tastes to interacting with all parts of her mouth. She closed her eyes, letting herself wander through the experience. In her stillness, she saw her true mother, not the one preparing to die. She tasted the sugar sweetness of afternoons on her grandmother’s porch. She remembered her awe the first time she watched the tea master prepare tea. And she saw the old man levitating above the table in a halo of light offering her his cup. When she opened her eyes, she remained still, as the present moment formed around her. She cleared her tea set and stood at the window. Fluffy white clouds hung in the bluing sky. It would be a lovely day. A movement from across the street caught her eye. Her neighbor held his coffee cup up in a morning toast. JoJo smiled and finger waved. He laughed. Even from this distance, JoJo could see that his whole face lit up with his laughter. She’d never noticed that before. He pointed to his computer and shrugged. JoJo responded in kind. At her desk, she composed an email to Cameron. She needed that long overdue raise. JoJo had anticipated that it might be hard to send the email, but it wasn’t. She checked the clock. Barely seven. The tearoom wouldn’t be open yet. Perfect. She dialed Tati’s number. “I have an idea to update your webpage and add a blog,” JoJo said. “I don’t have a portfolio but if you let me write the first post, I’ll show what I can do.” She held her breath. Tati’s laugh transported JoJo back to a time when crystal wind chimes played the background music to afternoons drinking sweet tea. Kait Leonard's fiction has been published in Inlandia, Six Sentences, Every Day Fiction, and Flash Fiction Magazine. She is a staff writer for The Canyon Chronicle newspaper and also contributes articles on aging, psychology, and homelessness to online publications. Kait is currently in the MFA program at Antioch University and shares her Los Angeles home with five parrots and her gigantic American bulldog.

There were prickly pears everywhere. They nested in baskets and bowls were tucked into bureau drawers, in the glove compartments of cars, and hidden in clothes dryers. I knew of one woman, who could only speak on the Day of the Dead and had several rolled inside of her stained, terry cloth apron, right next to the paring knife that she needed for various purposes. There was nothing else to eat. Everyone loved the ruby fruit, except for me. I would have eaten anything—a cucumber with skin, an unshelled shrimp, a scrap of hard bread saved from the breakfast zuppa. A grandfatherly type came towards me in long strides I didn’t think he was capable of. His eyes were protected against the sun by his fedora which sat high up on his head and his cigarette was persistent, glowing in his shaking, thick fingers. He was persuasive, but I had my mother, a true Taurus’s stubborn streak. And I had a growling stomach to think about. He held out the prickly pear to me, and I sunk my teeth into the cactus-like flesh. I kept biting like an animal and spitting the skin on the ground. The smile drained from his face. Later, he would warn others about me, that I was impulsive and ungrateful, that I failed to abide by the local and time-tested ways. Wasted a perfectly good goddamn piece of fruit, he’d mumble, ambling up and down the sun soaked village. O Dio, the women would cry in response, peeling the fruit into handmade ceramic bowls which they’d offer to the children who played in the courtyard, every day without fail, until dusk. Michelle Reale is the editor of two literary magazines and several collections of poetry.

Your father passed into thin air two years ago today, left you treading in salt water and frost. It was before the fuses detonated on pumpkins strewn like melancholy babies in a rutted field. I saw the lump in your throat, on your chest, coached you into swallowing some solid food. Your father never left important places. Waits for you to ask him what you need. He will give it up. John Dorroh still plays in the dirt. When he travels, he examines the soil for evidence of life. "Buttons, chunks of colored glass, bones, bows, bones.....all quality," he says. Three of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Hundreds of others have appeared in fine journals such as Feral, River Heron, Pif, Pinyon, and Loch Raven Review. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

Timir likes being the little spoon and I like burying my face in his thick tousled curls; jet black like the darkness in his name. Tonight, they smell of almond and sweat. His soft snores remind me of the cross-country road trips I spent with my feet up in the backseat of my father's Chevy. I wonder which star his soul resides in to be sleeping so snugly in my arms; the arms of a shameless woman who has angled away from his torso so that he remains anchored in his dreams. I have to be cautious for I cannot allow him to feel my racing heart. The once tenacious daisies on the nightstand have lost their vigor; they lean on the crystal vase, limp and withered. It was a wedding gift, that crystal vase ribbed with crystal columns; a gift from Paul. To feel guilt and shame or to crush the moral compass of mute longings is the grandest question of all as it scoops out my innards and leaves me writhing. The hollow pit inside me grows, threatening to cave in and swallow me whole, and the only escape lies in what makes me so sinfully pained. Upstairs, Paul starts to play the piano, but the upbeat melancholia in his music opens a memory I had tucked away many nights ago… Timir was trying to pirouette to the rise and fall of a violin-piano romanza playing on a loop. His technique was off and he resembled the human skeleton of a slow-motion spinning top that kept toppling over. I watched him from the shadows; all six of him in the mirrored walls. When the music faded away for the seventh time, I showed myself. He was surprised to learn that he had an audience all night. We sat on the floor, face to face while I explained where he was going wrong. “Perhaps, you need a partner,” I said. “Perhaps, I need a teacher,” he laughed. I brought him home that night and made love to him. Paul finishes playing, but I do not hear the claps and the clicking of heels on hardwood floors. It is date night, is it not? Every Saturday night, like clockwork; I keep track of my neighbors, which I can only imagine is not a very nice thing to do but there is no time for petty squabbles between the halo and the horns. My mouth is dry, and my heart is racing faster. One of those hell-bred motorcycles races down the street, driving a dent into the tense night. Timir groans and turns on his back, but he does not wake up. “That was beautiful!” There she is. Paul calls her Evona. I have only ever heard her voice, and I love how she just dragged the E in ‘beautiful’. I imagine that if her voice was something tangible, it would be satin; heavy satin enamored with rich thread work by weavers from a long-lost village in France. I also imagine she enjoys a glass of Merlot while listening to Paul play, or perhaps in a lilac-scented bath; but then again, who doesn’t? She is tall, I believe, and she wears pant-suits, I am certain. I know she is a lawyer; I have often heard her complain about the ‘pricks’ at the law firm. Both Paul and I have come to despise someone named Harris for being a ‘ginormous douchebag’. I think it amuses her, Paul’s prince-charming-like reaction to her complaining; it is in her voice and she does nothing to hide it. She parades around in a cheap costume of a damsel in high distress, teasing us, taunting us, and haunting us before ripping apart the costume and revealing the scaled dragon-hide underneath whilst cracking her whips and stomping her foot upon our bruised and dog-collared necks. I can hear them and I envy Paul. I long to kneel before Evona as he does; feel her leather threaten to cut into my flesh as he feels; choke on her fingers coiling around my throat as he chokes. But on a blue December afternoon, I have stood under pink bougainvillea blossoms growing behind a forgotten chapel in front of friends, family, and Paul; and I have vowed to be with Timir in sickness and in health till death did us part. Shameless as I am, I still intend to keep that promise. So, I do what any guilt-ridden loyal wife does; I plant a nibbly kiss on his warm neck. His lips curl into a smirk I know all too well and I take that as an approval to whisper in his clueless ears, “Darling, I need you to fuck me now.” Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is a Pushcart-nominated writer and poet from West Bengal, India. Her prose has been/is scheduled to be published in Muse India, Taco Bell Quarterly, San Antonio Review, Misery Tourism, Twin Pies, and more. Tejaswinee is the Founding Editor of The Hooghly Review and a lawyer. Twitter: @TejaswineeRC “Secrets I Keep From My Husband” was first published by Alphabet Box in December 2021.

The Dairy Queen pumps her cows’ teats like she milks the truth and mines for lies, plies her subjects with the who-what-why-where-when-&-how of a journalist hot on the trail of a breaking story. Be prepared for a raised eyebrow when you respond to her interrogations. She does not trust easily. Should you gush ohwhataBEAUTIFULsunnyday, she will crack open her black umbrella, its ribs splayed in all directions, and hold it over your briefcase. That leather came from a COW, she’ll remind you, shedding a tear for Flossie’s last practical use here on Earth. On the other hand, she’s normal as pie. Like any queen, she has her demands. But gloves off and scepter in the closet, she enjoys (1) a dip in the pool, (2) the pool boy, and (3) time away from The King. When you turn your head, she’ll splash a dash of mash whiskey into your Earl Grey; she knows who loves the kick of a mule. Give her the nod, and the Queen will Schottische with you in her ermine-trimmed cape. She will bray at your startle as the fur’s beady eyes jiggle and sway to her skips and twirls. It is then you will notice how very long her teeth are. It is then you might consult your watch. Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, 100 word story, The Citron Review, Atlas and Alice, Roi Fainéant Literary Press, trampset, jmww, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.

Mary, Mother of God, All she wanted from Man, her second husband, was honesty, “hot coal white lies burn faster than gasoline.” Without money to feed her children, she had nothing, running to Laocoon, telling his children, “be honest,” loquacious until he leaves. In the end, justice only leads to love on pavement pillows, and dragging sleepless teddy bears through sex caves. I would know. Call me Odysseus. I may never leave this place at the edge of the water, sunbathing with mermaids wearing snakes over their shoulders, slithering into West Hollywood bathrooms, promising fellatio friendships: transactional lips cashing fraudulent checks: another name defiled on graffiti walls; shattered teeth until he falls. Comatosed in liquored conversation and ketamine, weightless words float over Palatine Hill-side Emperor penguins, sleep waddling over the city; my vision blurry, beanie babies smoke cigarettes on pool-top balconies, celebrating an American birthday; they barely know the Speaker of the House; they drop acid under starry blanket skies; liquid lubricants fill blurry eyed men intent on pounding bare-chested banana hammock boys, professionally dressed in bow ties, comrades of cock shooting bittersweet blue-collar-chit-chat. Spur the horse to greener hormone pastures where compliments shower from crumpled paper-headed presidents, bowed in prayer, hands squeezing rosary-bead-G-strings. Great Buddha bellies bounce on the sand, howling into washed-up Siddhartha panting voraciously, spent seed dripping, glistening, forever studious at the courtesan’s feet, truest lover, he’ll never leave this place. I just wander around blind, wings made of wax, soaring over balding romantics in Camus t-shirts, chatting politics in bathtub mortuaries but the doors are closing, crowd thinning: milk mustache nose rings kiss glossy Sephora lips. Moist finish. Exhale: blowing hot creamy yacht money. Set sail. Subconscious climbing, hand over hand, up the Great Wall of Garbage. Fresh cement wildflowers, and Jack’s beanstalk sprouting up the gate. The only way out is past the security guard smoking; I’m scrambling higher, to the clouds, where the air is thinner, and the giant sleeps beside his golden harp playing Chris Brown, serenading sweaty lumberjacks while they cut the tree down, in montage; I fall on my face, the Camus bros walk by, laughing. Pour me some tea while I'm down here, English Breakfast please, the ants want some too, just a sippy-sip while I radar the next arthropod, tip the driver. “Be a good man and drop me at the nearest scooter.” Vroom-Vroom under white powder telephone lines with no signal; somewhere in Hollywood, I hit a K-Hole. Painless. Guiltless. Everybody skips the toll booth on their way to you. Push the scooter down, traffic lights flashing, I present to you! The narcoleptic trapezist, flying into...pothole contusions. For a moment, seaweed lovers dance in storefront reflections with different colors, but the same gentle smile. Every window passing is a new set of eyes tempting memories. Get up. Honeycomb hair, baby curls, the one that broke your heart, the one that stole your heart, the one you did the same to, the one and only, yours truly. She’s not there, just a smile missing, my silver streak phantom dancing, illusive, just out of reach in recent memory. Her rose petal lips, Athena’s aegis, shields me from love’s shadows. Lost in high tide hips, I’m rolling outside Calypso’s cave, not yet trapped behind the glass with the old mannequin models, stripped bare of flesh. Zipping by, I’m chasing heavenly quarry, to her apartment in the sky: the last great hideout at the edge of the universe. Her bare legs’ embrace is waiting for me. One breath away, two hundred and fifty feet, the STOP sign flashes red at the corner of Easy Street. When I get there, I may never leave. Austin Treat's fiction appears, or is forthcoming in, Flash Fiction Magazine, Everyday Fiction, Storm Cellar Magazine, UCLA's Westwind, and others. If you like his work, you can find more at www.austintreat.com. He lives, works, and plays pickup basketball in southern Maine. Go Celtics.

I am a rational human, he says, tapping his chest. My eyes follow his fingers. I think, what does it mean then, that I am not? I had spent the hours before cleaning my fountain pens, dismantling tiny perfect pieces of machinery, dislodging intricate nibs. Quiet hours of a spring afternoon filled abundantly reveling in the ink bursting forth from metal washed in warm water, curtains of colors staining my sink, shadows blooming in the webs between my fingers. Sometimes, if I rush after and whir the pieces back together too fast, the shades seep out muted, watered-down versions of what they want to be. Something temporary and timid where there is space for something real. But if I leave them enough time to dry, to get the air they need, when they write again the hue emerges true, and strong, and they are themselves. You need to settle down, people tell me, even the ones who love me. What does it mean then, if I have yet to go to bed with a man who has not in some way, even not on purpose, taken his own measure against me and then chipped away to see if I could be made into a more comfortable size. Do you want to end up alone? What does it mean, then, to submit to his fingers but to be thinking of cages opened, a flurry of wings, ink blooming through the water in a thousand beautiful complexions. Flavia lives in Rome, Italy, where she writes microfiction and novels and works for an international humanitarian organization. She grew up bouncing back and forth between Rome and San Francisco and has lived between Italy, Tunisia, Libya, Palestine, and Niger, so her writing often revolves around time and belonging and is usually written on a plane where she inevitably apologizes to the person sitting next to her for bumping their elbow. She is the author of the novel All the Way to Italy. You can find her work published in Bending Genres, The Simple Things, Open Doors Review, The New Humanitarian, Pigeon Review, Writer’s Digest, and others. You can keep up with Flavia’s work and travels on Instagram at @whichwaytorome and flaviinrome.com.

This is not like the other times, of initial refusal, eventual acceptance, inevitable treatment. Unlike the times of womb, throat, and chest, this return bears no greeting of cautious optimism, no strategy of modern science and primordial hubris. Exposed in the illuminated void of hope and plan, left only with the deafening sound of cries, expressed, restrained, where are the perennial offers of assistance? What good is this silent acceptance? Fleeing, stomachs knotted below heavy hearts, mulling the lone roads of inaction and aggression, foggy allusions of dream demeaned by familiar trees, why mourn the meager vestiges that remained, knowing the only path is one of loss regained? Deron Eckert is a writer and attorney who lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Door is a Jar, Ghost City Review, Fahmidan Journal, Boats Against the Current, Sky Island Journal, Swim Press, Querencia Press' Winter 2023 Anthology, Treehouse Literary, and Rue Scribe. He was a flash fiction finalist in New Millennium Writing’s 54th Writing Awards. He is currently seeking representation for his Southern Gothic, coming-of-age novel while working on collections of poetry and prose.

Could you forgive me if I told you the air was warm as my skin, that there is no sound in the desert but your own shaking breath, that the mountains slouch like lurid black beasts against the night sky, that I had enough tequila to make my heart raucous, that I found myself on the roof under galaxies spread gossamer and glittering, that I traced your laugh lines from Castor and Pollux, that I curled my toes at the edge of the world and honoured a promise to a past self Could you forgive me If I thought of you And hit send Kirsti MacKenzie has published in Maudlin House, Autofocus, and Rejection Letters. She lives in Ottawa and can be found perpetually on her bullshit @KeersteeMack.

wraparound maybe it’s in the breath of It, how even menthol-wrapped, He can put life to it with a well-placed sigh, our arc a paper-thin thing under His hands, His tears forming an ocean mingled with the liquor, and the blood, and the sweat, and a semblance of a prayer, poured into His Being(s) He still doesn’t get it, being born to die in a way you don’t get to write, how He could decide when you kick it, and you would never see it coming, the smoky taste something too much, His breath in a bit too quick– did you anger Him? when you question, how His son’s blood could bear to be wine, to be consumed, when He seemed to lap every drop, hangover in their home, the bread and butter of it And He’ll sacrifice cigarettes on the wraparound porch, suburbia, butts between the slats, He’d much prefer this, the dinginess of it, what He built for us, because motel beds don’t need broken in They don’t need to be explained to, They’ll live with it. mothering you have not been “yourself”, been eaten by the passing of something– time, maybe fickle mistress you asked for a sign, or a vision you didn’t see the fissures a shared dream an omen for i picked your casket, lined plum plush and you thought it washed you out so you sacrificed your nails, dug through, to something that could be considered earth do you dream, still? when nothing lights that mind, no sun to seep in, do sepia-tinted minutes slip past, coherence no concern, slide on your sunday shoes, when i grew, did you wish that i bore you? could i teach you gentleness? To care for your body as a home, not a house, to breath life to your love, to raise a daughter? Zoe Gianfrancesco (she/her) is just a little guy. She runs Spillover Magazine and does a whole lot of writing when she feels like it. When she doesn't feel like it, she's usually watching aquarium build videos or thinking about bears. You can read her work in Stone of Madness, PULP: A Literary Journal, and LEVITATE.

Lord Eadgar stepped through the grass with sudden caution, careful not to crush under his gait delicate white and purple lilies, nor bend under his long tunic clusters of yellow tansies and spider-petalled pennyroyals. His eyes circled the garden, the variety of specimens grown there, in the shadow of the château’s keep. Eadgar had never given much thought to plants. Not beyond their function to feed and heal and to provide shade from glaring heat. Too common, too trivial, always there and ready to be taken for granted. Animals were meant to be eaten or employed in chores, rivers to carry ships and lakes to be fished, and mountains to be crossed, for God had gifted Man the power to use nature. But on this morning, the gentle breeze was bearing scents of late spring that reminded him of something long gone, something undefined. An unfamiliar tremor of anticipation. The path that opened ahead was shaded by wooden arches, arbours with white and rose flowers opened in full bloom. And there, in the verdant shelter, a woman was tending to the blossoms, guiding the vines along the arches with her gloved hands, gently as if caressing a child. She was humming a song to herself. Gowned in a dress of dark emerald, she seemed to be one with the verdure surrounding her. Sunlight shivered through the dense foliage of the arbour, its tiny reflections shimmering like golden flowers in the woman's hair and rosy skin. Though he had expected to find her there, Eadgar’s feet stopped as if unprepared. He smoothed out the collar of his tunic and the cloak pinned on one shoulder, making sure the leather band that held his hair was still in place, then assumed his usual statuesque bearing. “Good morning, Lady Agnes,” he uttered in Norman. “I hope you’ll forgive my intrusion.” Startled, the woman turned. At the sight of the visitor, her visage lit up. “Lord Eadgar!” she exclaimed in flawless Northumbrian. “I did not expect you at this early hour. I imagined you’d sleep longer after your late night arrival.” Dawn had found him awake, reading The Good Book by candlelight. “A soldier’s sleeping habits, my lady.” Her gardening gloves were dirty but she must have forgotten, in her surprise, running her hands on her dishevelled headdress to make it neat again. Dirt now blemished the translucent embroidered linen, matching the smudges on her long sleeves and wrinkled white underskirt. Agnes caught his gaze and dusted it off in vain, awkward smile and rosy cheeks, like a little girl who finally shows up for dinner when the food is already cold, soiled, sweaty, and out of breath, trying to hide stolen fruits from orchards where hunger has won her over, tattered dress from trees she’s conquered, fur and dirt from pets she’s pampered. She put her gloves away to greet him, and Eadgar might have smiled, had he found it proper; but, instead, he took her hand for a formal kiss. There was something childish in Agnes’s compulsion to delve into nature – whenever it needed tending to or whenever it had something out of the ordinary to show – and lose herself there, and it felt so familiar to him; and there it was again, that something warm and heavy that had kept him awake. What was it? He hadn’t felt it once in the war against the Danes where resolution and faith had driven him, nor in his years of loyal service to King Æþelræd where commitments as thegn had kept him away from home for weeks on end, nor for his family whose memory sparked but feelings of duty. He had come to Ivry to speak to its lord with whom Northumbria had sealed an alliance fourteen years ago, but it wasn’t the prospect of their meeting that gave him the heaviness. “Goodness,” Agnes wondered, “have you even had breakfast yet? I told the maids to set the table outside – it’s much more pleasant in the sun than in those stone halls this time of the year - but I made them wait, lest it gets cold before your arrival. You must be famished.” “I’m not hungry in the morning, lady, so I thought I’d take a little walk through your garden.” “Parts of the château are still under construction, as you can see, but Rodulf and I had planned for us to give you a tour of the grounds after breakfast. But… now the garden isn't a mystery to you any longer.” Her smile betrayed a touch of disappointment, and offending his host would have made him an ungrateful guest, so he answered: “Nature is always mysterious to me because I know so very little about it, I’m afraid. It’s beautiful. Your hand was in all this, I can tell.” The smile waxed again. “It is the garden I’ve always dreamed of – my own Eden before the Fall, a God-shaped shelter from the wickedness of man! I think God loves flowers. Otherwise, why would He have made such enchantment spring from the ground, with giddying scents, with such intricately-woven patterns – like a labyrinth – and so unfathomably diverse!” She walked towards a rose bush and cupped one of the flowers in her hands. Its petals wound round and round the pistil, and her finger traced them, barely touching. “Look. Do you see? Each plant has its uses, but the fruits and roots and leaves are often more beneficial than the flower itself. And yet, it’s the flower that arrests the eyes with its shapes and colour and scent. I think God made them because He wanted our hearts to leap in admiration of nature's beauty.” She used the small knife hanging from her belt to cut off a stem. “Does your heart leap at the sight?” She held out the flower to Eadgar’s lips for him to smell. The perfume flooded his nostrils, and the blue of her eyes stared into his, zestful and expectant and carefree. But, instead of an answer, he swallowed, the corner of his lips pulling into a faint smile. She laughed: “Of course it doesn't. What a silly question! You have more useful passions than flowers and gardens.” “A passion that makes one admire God's creation is the best kind of passion, lady.” “So grave and serious you still are,” she exclaimed, “just like when we were children – as if the weight of the world pressed upon your brow!” She pinned the rose into the gold brooch decorated with garnets that held his cloak on one shoulder. “Can you imagine – fourteen years have passed since I left England! Goodness! You were almost the same age as my son is now!” “Truly?” Eadgar exclaimed, a greater surprise in his words than in his mien, which remained unchanged. In truth, he knew it well. “Yes, my little angels have grown up. My daughter is six and – ” she whispered, “I’ll let you in on a little secret, one that Rodulf will soon spoil, anyway: I am with child again.” Eadgar’s glance briefly slipped from her smiling face down to her midriff. Behind the loose dress, one could not tell that she was pregnant. But, then, her frame had always been svelte. “The Lord keep them. How time flies...” “And yours?” “Oh?” “Your children.” “Ah, yes. My girls are four and six.” “How wonderful! They’d make perfect playmates for my little Maud, she’d befriend them right away to show them all the nooks and crannies of her house and garden. I hope Godgifu is well, too – I haven’t seen her since your wedding day, and how lovely she was then! You must all come and stay with us when the château is finished!” Hands pressed together, she looked at him intently. “I don’t know what matters bring you here to discuss with my husband but, I hope you know, you’ll always find safety here, should you need it.” He did not want her concerned, so he thanked her only. She went on to ask about his father, the Earldorman, about his brother Edmund who had fought at London by his side, about young Aidan – such a sweet tiny thing when she’d seen him last! – who was now taking the path of the Lord in the newly-erected monastery on the island of Dun Holm, about the deceased Lady Merwyn, Eadgar’s stepmother – what a beauty she was, inside and out! Agnes spoke about them all with such familiarity and fondness as if she were part of the family herself. Before he could elaborate an answer, she gripped his arm and cried out: “Heavens, Eadgar, how blessed we are! I thank God for it every single day, for keeping us safe during these troubled times, for gifting us… this,” she pointed through thin air, arms open as if to embrace the garden, the château. “As much as I miss Bamburgh, Normandy is my home now. And you... you must be so happy, too, Eadgar, with your perfect little family!” He stared at the hawthorns shedding pale petals in the light wind. “Of course,” he nodded. “Of course.” Still leaning on his arm, Agnes led him on the path shaded from place to place by trees forming arches above them. She would tell him a little something about plants they met along the way and how she had acquired them, about gardens she had encountered during her travels and of her ambition to set up her own, about Rodulf’s estate before the garden had enriched it so wonderfully, about how he had endorsed her passion, having rare plants brought from abroad for her to nurture, about their children who would play there. Eadgar would nod and every now and then, his free hand reaching a few times under his copper cloak to something hidden in his bad – something meant for Agnes – but then, whenever she mentioned her husband with such delight, he would decide to wait. So, instead, he would sense her hand wrapped around his arm, the corners of his eyes catching the play of light and shadows on her face. They reached the pond and stopped by its surface reflecting the May light like a mirror. “Eadgar, do you remember the day I left? We went into the orchard and the linden trees were in bloom. They used to spread such a wonderful smell, I can feel it even now. And then...” she chuckled, “I can't believe you climbed all the way up in that high tree to carve your name on the bark! Those were our trees – our lindens – planted in the year of our births. We had built that little bridge between them, remember? We used to climb there and hide.” She frowned at him in jest, as if looking at a child: “You silly boy, why would you try to drag me up there with you? Treating me like a child when I was about to travel to meet my future husband. I was wearing a new dress and I only met you to say goodbye!” “It used to cheer you up. You were sad to leave, and I didn't want a teary farewell.” “I was, wasn’t I? How foolish we are to doubt His choices.” She smiled again. “Well, you made me climb with you and I watched you carve your name. And you carved mine in the linden beside it... in runes, so that it would be our secret. And then you said... you said those linden trees were you and I, and they would stand side by side forever, no matter where our paths may take us...” She let go of his arm and they were now standing further apart under the shade of hawthorn trees in bloom that quivered in the breeze, staring along the bright surface of the small lake. The wind had begun to blow stronger and pale petals of hawthorn fell thicker and thicker off the branches, swirling and soaring like scented rain. Agnes arranged the shawl that covered her shoulders and hair, pulling it tighter around her, and Eadgar shook some fallen petals off the sleeves of his tunic; but their eyes did not meet. “Well met, Lord Eadgar!” a voice sounded behind them, in Norman. They turned to the sight of a robust auburn-haired man, moustache twisting in a smile as he gave Eadgar a hefty embrace. “Forgive my delay, a little errand kept me away longer than I had intended. Thank God you were in good company, at least,” he beamed. “My Agnes is always gladdened by Northumbrian guests, and I know you were close as children. Like siblings, am I right? But you haven't given her any bad news, I trust?” he glanced now at Eadgar, now at Agnes. “Not at all, I hope. In case I have, the gift I brought may bring some cheer.” “Don’t tell me you kept the lady waiting for my sake!” the man wondered amused. “Come, I’m sure it’s nothing unfit for a husband's eye, now, is it?” Eadgar produced a leather-bound book. “On plants,” Agnes read the title, running her fingers over the smooth decorated leather. “With excerpts of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia and Bede’s De Rerum Natura,” Eadgar added. “Decorative plants... rosa alba, rosa gallica, honeysuckle, rue, iris, ivy,” she leafed through the illustrated pages, her smile wider and wider as she did so, “spices, medicinal plants, horsemint, sage, fennel, cumin, rosemary...” “A book! And a book on gardening too! Such fuss for a bundle of words about plants – as if a garden full of them wasn't too much already. Women!” Rodulf gestured in feigned exasperation. At this, Agnes elbowed him, so Rodulf took her by the shoulder in a half-embrace which she leaned into, both chuckling as they glanced into each other’s eyes, looking, for a moment there, like happy youths teasing each other to mask feelings they are too sheepish to express. Hearing Agnes speaking of Rodulf with such fondness during their tête-à-tête moments before, a part of Eadgar had hoped it was something like a façade. Not a mask for some dark secret – no, nothing of the sort, he wished no darkness on her – but simply a way to say It’s not perfect, but it is what it is. Because that would mean that, in the course of those fourteen years, she had asked herself What would it have been like…? A garden path dotted with forget-me-nots, what-ifs, and might-have-beens that may never be discovered, but the simple knowledge that it was there brought some comfort. But, seeing them together like this, Eadgar felt a pang of guilt for having hoped for such a thing. Perhaps Agnes had asked herself that question, but nothing more. The path not taken, forever overgrown and unfindable in the garden. She was happy; and he was happy to see her so. Then she turned to Eadgar and bowed her head shortly: “It shall be a pleasure to read it, and in my mother-tongue too. Thank you, Eadgar.” She excused herself to go see to the preparations for the meal then went away, book in hand. “This shall keep her happy and occupied for the foreseeable future,” commented Rodulf, but his amused tone turned serious. “This was thoughtful of you. Thank you.” As Rodulf told of the costs of stone and mortar and of his architect from Paris, Eadgar glanced aside. Leafing through the book as she walked the path towards the house, she stopped at a certain page: a tiny branch of linden was inside it, pressed, with two yellow flowers sheltered by leaves. Her feet slowed their pace for a moment as she took the leaf to her lips to smell it. She looked back and her eyes met Eadgar's, face lit up by a bright smile, and nodded with friendly gratitude. R. N. Roveleh is a Transylvanian writer and an artist, a doctor in medieval literature, an explorer of thoughts, emotions and experiences. Though the settings of her stories are often historical, the workings of the human mind are always at the centre of her tales.

So then, you take a toothpick, some tweezers of course you don’t want to clean your teeth, you just want to tear yourself apart. Building this small little heart made out of consolidated dust, come on, now, you can do better you can build yourself from scratch from the blood that has built up in clots, every place where you’ve been touched. I was a boy who thought he could taste colors, smell his dreams— vanilla and flowers. I was a boy who put his blood in music— playing his piano during the night. I was a boy who crashed like a tornado— bit the hand that fed him, the hand bit him back. Lachie Kairo is a poet in parenthesis. And a queer, middle eastern guy, just trying to make the best out of his life.