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The washing machine made noises as it spun its cycles. This added life to the quiet house. Any guitarist with a soft shell case does not tour much. The luggage carousels at airports eat guitars. Choi Seung-ja gave little room to sentiment; she was all business. The prom committee broke down over the color of ribbons. Rainbows, they decided, were not appropriate. David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Maze Poems (Arteidolia) and the chapbooks Pete Hoffman Days (Pinball) and BeiHai (Nanjing Poetry). He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW. davidharrisonhorton.com

“...like when you ask a dream to give you more light...” ~David Allen Sullivan Borges put us in time's labyrinths, spoke to us about the immortals and histories of infamy. Today, we should ask, what have we become, what have we made of ourselves? We surrender our dreams, ask for more light in the darkness parading inside. I wake up some mornings, observing how dead I am and have been, chasing all evidence of untamed ceaselessness. Infinity. It's built on light. You only know it's there when your soul blocks its path, throws a shadow. But is it yours? Out there, do they see us as cephalopods, as curious suspicions fighting good with folly and plunder? I am charged with belief, with admiration for some great character to come unseen, sparking between the lines of newspaper ink and ballets of truth swollen on TV on streaming media in full doses. Something may happen. I won't look to Congress for that. I dream of light, a safe country, we-ness working here. The animals are hushed listening to us. They are more interesting, so we bring them closer for common sense, love. We deconstruct the fragment, take ourselves so close to ruin's edge for a quick selfie, ask AI to explain it. The distortions of great writers made labyrinths for us. My quit reality's still searching for a way out. Twice Pushcart nominated, Ignatius Valentine Aloysius earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University and is the author of the novel Fishhead. Republic of Want (Tortoise Books). His poetry and prose appear in or are forthcoming in Tofu Ink Arts Press, Trampset, Cold Mountain Review, and the Coalition for Digital Narratives. He is host of Sunday Salon Chicago and lives in Evanston, IL.

The Witch I’m trying to tell you that I love your aerobic dance class but jazzercise is isn’t cool anymore, right? It’s so bad for the knees with all of that high impact and jumping up and down. The body shaming aspect is terrible as well. I don’t know how you get past that on a political level. None of what you say to us seems body positive to me. I mean, why do you tell us to go for the burn? My kind is sensitive about the burning bit anyway. You would understand if I asked you not to tell us to go for the burn. At least offer a trigger warning before class begins. I notice that you tuck in your thumbs like a ballerina when you do the arm swings like you wish you were a real dancer. Your formal training shows in your turnout. I guess you never outgrow the ballerina’s duck walk. You never outgrow tucking in your thumbs and going for the long lean line between the middle finger and the shoulder, the hip to the knee, the ribcage down the stomach. My wrists are as thin as sticks. My hands are triangular as the heads of vipers. The waistband of my leggings is a bridge across my hipbones. They stick out like handles. Can you see my pretty bones? I am always hungry. I can tell you had dinner last night. Is it weird if I say I want your body? You have the expensive leggings that are powerful fat compressors. Where does your fat go when you squish it so? Would the fat pop out of your neck like a balloon animal body part if I squeezed? How your head would explode if I squeezed your neck. How pretty would be your bones. # The Teacher The class started out fine. She played “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters to get them started because she considered that song to be a real pick-me-up. Old school. She started doing a little jumping herself, on her toes, side to side. Elbows up. Her job was to show everyone that exercise was fun. Everything was possible with exercise. Anyone could have the body they wanted as long as they were willing to work for it. # The Lady Taking The Aerobic Dance Class On Her Lunch Break The women at the school where I teach sit around the lunch table in the break room and say terrible things about people. They took the Spanish teacher Ms. Mendez who was on yard duty in the cafeteria and shredded her between them with their filthy claws, talking about her gray roots, her too easy laugh, her shoes from Target. When the bell rang Ms. Mendez might as well lay bleeding on the table, her flesh torn from her bones. I vowed never to eat with those women again. I have a prep period after lunch so I thought I would get some exercise instead. I thought I could dance to the music and forget that in my absence two English teachers were ripping out my entrails and feasting on my blood. The dance teacher started playing a tune from the 80’s and I thought, oh this will be fun. And then my skin started burning as if someone turned on a heat lamp. As if someone in the room were on fire. # The Man At The Front Desk I couldn’t tell at first if it was just woo-hoos from ladies excited to take the class or actual screaming. I thought at first, woah those chicks are really into that old school jazzercise. I was thinking we should add a few more to the schedule, get enrollment up. Then I was like, I better call 911. # A Child Of One Of The Dance Class Student In The Gym Daycare Room My mom ran in all sweaty and crying just when I got my turn to play with the Barbie car. She grabbed me and ran with me out the door. She squeezed me too hard. She hurt my ribs. She smelled like smoke. She smelled like bacon. # The Police Report Officers responded to a report of a fire in the dance studio at In Shape Health Club on the 1900 Block of Broadway. Upon arrival the officers located the victim, an adult female, with life-threatening burns and a missing arm. The victim was transported to an area hospital and died at the scene. Several dance class members claimed to witness an adult female set the victim on fire. No incendiary materials were located. The suspect was not located and is considered at large. Officers conducted an investigation and generated a crime report. # The Woman Who Cleans The Bathrooms After Hours The witch jumped down from where she was hiding behind a panel in the ceiling. These old buildings and their hidey-holes, I swear to God. You’re not getting the best of me, I said. I know what you are already. You ruined the dance studio floor with your tricks. You killed a nice lady. But she didn’t care about anyone but herself. She checked her teeth in the mirror, picked out the meat. She wanted to know: Are you going to snitch on me? She smelled like a barbeque and that made me kind of hungry even though I knew where that stink came from. I never had enough at the end of the pay period to eat so I always had to go a couple of days every month on peanut butter and crackers. I am no rat, I said. She looked at me in the mirror where I stood behind her and she put her head to the side a little in a way that made me think of a viper. Snakes eat rats as well I know, but I said to her, I am not afraid of you. And she said, why not join me? Become one like me? And I thought about that offer for a good hot minute before I said, no way, mean lady. Now be on your way. Maureen O'Leary is a graduate of Ashland MFA.

It had been a month since Carol sent her friend Leona an email telling her about Brute, the dog Carol had recently rescued. She thought maybe they could go hiking together along with Peggy, Leona’s partner. Carol had never been included on their hikes and she’d always hoped to join them. Maybe Brute would be a draw. Leona and Peggy were lesbians, but Carol never for a moment thought that should make any difference. She could be dead wrong, but still, it didn’t make sense for Leona not to answer her. They’d been friends. And Carol missed Leona. Carol had heard about ghosting and wondered if that’s what had happened to her and Leona had simply disappeared. But why? What had Carol done? If there was something she should apologize for, she would. She had a hard time understanding anyone so afraid of confrontation they preferred to go silent. She spread out on the sofa and thought about the situation. Dan, her ex-husband, hadn’t died from his recent heart attack, but now he was in rehab so she still had his dog Big Black at her house. Dan had left her fifteen years ago for his secretary and Carol had no interest in doing him any favors, but she’d never say no to a dog. Meanwhile, their son across the country still hadn’t bothered to get off his ass and onto a flight to see his father. Or better yet, to take his dog off her hands. Brute was on the sofa with her and since there wasn’t enough room, Big Black rested his chin on the edge with a forlorn look in his eyes, then stretched out below like a furry farting rug. When she got to her office the next day with Brute and Big Black dragging her through the door, she told Troy about the Leona dilemma. Troy was Carol’s assistant and her friend. He was also gay, so maybe he had some gay wisdom to impart, although she knew it was dumb to think such a thing. “Fuck her,” he said. “She was never really your friend.” “But we’ve known each other for years, even before she found out she was a lesbian.” Troy rubbed all four dog ears and gave Carol one of his most withering looks. “She found out? You mean, like she got a notice in the mail: we are pleased to inform you, you’re queer?” “She said she’d been engaged to a man, but couldn’t go through with it. So maybe not everyone knows they’re gay at three years old?” “Forget her, doll. She’s part of a club you’re never getting into.” But Carol didn’t want to forget it. She wanted Leona to acknowledge her, she wanted resolution. So she sent her flowers and a picture of Brute. By four o’clock, Troy had finished the specs for the bridesmaid dresses Carol had designed, and after sending it to the cutting room, they decided to duck out early for a drink. They did this every couple of weeks. Carol, older than Troy, and hopelessly in love with him, relished these times. It was a warm evening and they found a table on the patio at El Coyote, a favorite. The two dogs rested nearby with a water bowl between them. Margaritas were served. “You think when Danny-boy gets out of rehab he’s going to be up to walking Big Black?” Troy asked. Carol hadn’t thought about it and pictured herself driving over to Dan’s house three times a day to walk his dog. “Might be I’ll have to keep Big Black a bit longer.” “Like maybe forever.” Troy scooped guacamole with a giant chip. “You poor dearie.” Carol checked her phone. Leona should have received the flowers by now. She scrolled through her few messages. She knew people complained about having too many emails, but it wasn’t one of Carol’s problems. And, there it was. Leona: “Thank you for the flowers, your dog looks nice. But I think we should stop bothering each other…” Carol read it out loud to Troy. “Stop bothering each other? What the fuck? I guess that means I’m bothering her. Because she wasn’t bothering me.” “She’s just a bitch, forget her.” “She’d never been a bitch before. Maybe she has a brain tumor. You think that’s possible, that she’s not in her right mind?” “Entirely.” Troy touched Carol’s elbow resting on the table and looked around for the waiter. “Let’s have another margarita.” Carol brightened. “And drink to bitches who’ve lost their minds.” They sat for a while, then took the dogs for a short walk. Troy gave her a hug and told her to keep her chin up. As always, he made her feel so much better. When she got home, she gave the dogs dinner and fixed herself a bowl of cold cereal. When the phone rang, her first thought was Leona, but it was Caleb, or Cal, as he preferred. Carol had gone on a date-and-a-half with Cal that included afternoon sex under the steady gaze of two dogs at his Venice apartment with a view of the ocean two blocks away. Some women would never have sex on the first date, but Carol wasn’t one of them. Life was short. And she wasn’t young. Why wait? She was also pleasantly surprised by how much she liked Cal. “How about dinner tomorrow?” he said. “No dogs. Seven o’clock, I’ll pick you up.” Third date, if she counted a walk they’d taken. Three dates was getting serious. She gladly accepted and they hung up. No cereal tomorrow night. At work the next day she didn’t complain to Troy about Leona. Whining was unattractive, and now she was looking forward to seeing Cal. She decided she would make an effort and dress up a bit. When she got home, she took the dogs for a long walk, changed into a simple gray wool dress with high black boots, and put on mascara and red lipstick. Her dark hair shined. She thought she looked pretty okay. When the doorbell rang at 6:50, she didn’t bother to ask who it was. She liked people who were on time, even early, and opened the door wide with a welcoming smile. Leona stood on the porch beside Peggy holding a frosted cake the size of Pittsburgh perched on top of an ornate silver cake platter. “Oh!” “I know,” Leona said. “I was wrong. I apologize for disappearing on you.” “I had a talk with her,” Peggy said. “Can we come in? This cake weighs a ton.” “Peggy bakes wonderful cakes,” Leona said. “Yes, of course.” Carol looked around outside, then stepped back and let them in. “Your place is adorable,” Leona said. “I don’t remember the last time I was here.” “Never,” Carol said. “You were never here.” They all stood awkwardly in the middle of the room until Peggy walked over and put the cake on the dining room table. “I only moved here six months ago.” “Oh, right, I forgot. Well, it’s charming. I love the colors.” Leona had a way of paying a compliment that was utterly convincing. A quality Carol admired and made her wonder if we choose our friends in part because of how they make us feel about ourselves. She believed we did. Brute licked Leona’s hand. Carol was concerned she might be annoyed, but Leona kneeled down and scratched Brute’s big ears and told him he was a good dog and his tongue hung out pink and moist in appreciation. Big Black, seemingly unsure of his position in the house, stood back waiting his turn. “I didn’t know you had two dogs,” Leona said. “It’s a long story,” Carol said. She tried acting cool though she felt awkward with Cal due anytime. The doorbell rang again. Carol turned. “Please, have a seat. Hopefully the dogs won’t crawl all over you.” She opened the door. Cal stood in the porchlight looking like a shiny penny, as her mother would say. All spiffed out with a fresh haircut, clean shaven, and wearing a leather bomber jacket over a blue shirt. He handed her a small bunch of daisies mixed with eucalyptus. The scent was like the park where they’d walked in the wind. “Hey.” Carol opened the door wider and Cal entered the room. He looked from her to the two neatly dressed women seated on the edge of the narrow green sofa with two large dogs sprawled across their laps, eight dog legs dangling among four human legs. “Cal, this is Leona and Peggy. They just stopped by.” “With a cake,” Peggy said. “Yes, with a big cake,” Carol said. Cal took a step closer. “That’s a whole lotta dog on top of you ladies. Happy to shake hands, but I’m afraid you might lose your balance.” Brute’s wagging tail slapped Peggy’s thigh. “Wait, it looks like you and Cal here have plans,” Leona said, shifting her weight under the dogs. “We’ll be on our way, you weren’t expecting us.…” “No, don’t leave.” Carol put her hands out as if she was going to physically keep them from getting up. As if the dogs weren’t already restraining them. She wondered if somehow Cal could possibly just leave, come back another time, but was that what she wanted? He looked really good to her at the moment. Cal, cracker-jack private investigator that he was, got it. “No, of course, you shouldn’t leave. Plans are made to be changed, right? Anybody hungry? How about some dinner? Happy to have something delivered or would you all like to go out?” “Pizza!” Carol said and whipped out her phone. “And, I’ll make a salad, I’m good at salad.” “I’ll order,” Cal said. “It’s on me, I insist.” Meanwhile, Leona and Peggy tried to extricate themselves from under the dogs who were having none of it, instead rolling their big heads back in pure doggy contentment. “We’re going, really. You two carry on.” Leona attempted to move the dogs and stand up, but failing, she started to laugh as Peggy tried the same maneuver that ended in another round of laughter. Finally, Cal and Carol each took a dog and slowly shoved them to the carpet, the sofa cushions moving along with them and Leona and Peggy ending up on the floor with the dogs licking tears of laughter from their faces. Leona caught her breath, then started laughing harder. “We’re going to need some wine,” Peggy said, crawling onto all fours in order to right herself. “Fortunately, I have two good bottles of red in the car.” “You do?” Leona asked. “I didn’t know that.” “Ah, little known fact about yours truly,” Peggy said. “Some people carry flares or extra water. We all have a different idea of what constitutes an emergency.” Carol was on the floor scratching both dogs to keep them calm as Cal phoned in the order and suddenly it was a party. “Stay where you are, Carol,” Peggy said. “I’ll make the salad.” “But you made the cake.” “Don’t try to argue with Peg about anything having to do with food,” Leona said. “You’ll never win.” Peggy, already in the kitchen, stuck her head out. “And, you don’t have to tell me where anything is. I have a sixth sense.” Cabinets were opened and slammed shut, bowls and silverware rattled on the countertop. “She’s good, but noisy,” Leona said. “The food will be here in twenty minutes,” Cal said, “Got some lasagna, too. You never know.” He relaxed into Carol’s old leather chair like he belonged there and the dogs turned their attention to him, freeing Leona and Carol to brush dog hair from their clothes and wash their hands. “I have dog slime on my face,” Leona said. “La crème de puppi, the new anti-aging sensation,” Carol said. “It’s all the rage.” Leona stopped to look at her. “I really missed you.” Carol nodded. They were back.

True or False: Because of the Time You Spend Caring for Your Mother, You Don’t Have Time for Yourself The time you planned to meet your one friend who still lives in town for one drink and your mother’s tears trickled down her face like snowmelt. The time you didn’t take a shower because the sound of running water made her think of drowning. The time you bought fresh greens and sauteéd them to garlicky unctuousness and because they were not Stouffer’s chipped beef, she knocked over the dinner tray and swiss chard transformed the carpet into a Jackson Pollock. The time you went for a bike ride and as you coasted under maples oozing with sap, shifted gears under the fee bee call of chickadees, you didn’t feel guilty and the time right after that when guilt held its sharpened blade against your neck. The time the home health aide quit because he didn’t do crazy. The time she had a nightmare that you tied her up with ropes and threw her into the sea. The time the new meds made her vomit in the footwell of your car. The time you looked at her and saw her as the mother she was, joy and summer, handing you a popsicle made of frozen strawberries and orange juice, telling your friends to call her Susan, thus bestowing a respect on them that teachers, priests, store clerks, didn’t. The time you looked at her and knew she was seeing you as the little girl you were, knock-kneed and sure, talking to yourself while bouncing a ball against the garage door, the same garage door that is now opened at a broken angle so that the house and its defects smirk at anyone masochistic enough to visit. The time you told her you were driving out to Whiteface for the panoramic view and she heard you say that you were thinking of jumping from it, letting the wind tangle in your hair, letting gravity and granite dissolve you like an easy-to-swallow gelcap, and she heaved herself up from her chair and said she’d tag along if you wouldn’t mind the company, said she’d like to be reminded that there are such things as mountains, beyond the rose-papered walls of the house, beyond the way time, like shale sliding from bedrock, has diminished her, and the way time will continue on as if she never was. Joanna Theiss (she/her) is a writer living in Washington, DC. Her short stories and flash fiction have appeared in publications such as Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fictive Dream, and Best Microfiction 2022. In a previous life, Joanna worked as a lawyer, practicing criminal defense and international trade law. Links to her work are available at www.joannatheiss.com

I want to know more about the moon. It never occurred to me that I would see it today - in the morning - or that I would be up before the sun. Wearing only my favorite t-shirt – yellow with neon pink writing: “Welcome to Palm Springs,” bright like a billboard - I feel a slight chill coming off the ocean. It’s quiet and dark and I let my eyes roam. I’m drawn to an apartment where I see red flashes of light and I wonder if a toddler is up playing with a fire truck or a laser of some kind. I feel thankful this is not something I have ever had to attend to at this hour. Or any hour. But when the hum of freeway traffic turns on as if operated by a switch, I realize the red is a reflection of headlights whizzing by. It’s Monday and people are eager to start their week, go wherever it is they need to go. From the perch of my patio I consider the moon above me as clouds of fog hide it then reveal it, moving swiftly. Hiding, revealing, hiding, revealing. Why is the moon still out, or up? What’s the right phrase? Does the moon go somewhere once the sun appears, or does light just overwhelm it, pushing it out of the way? I feel foolish not knowing and stare up into the round white mystery as if asking it to answer me. Show me, my silent command, where you vanish to; or are you with us all day? I could Google this later, but I choose instead to wonder. It’s an exquisite scene, one shown in Halloween movies, missing only the sound of a creature howling to the rhythm of the fog’s movement over the black and navy curtains of sky; the kind of night painted by artists and captured in photographs. I think about grabbing my iPhone that I left sitting near the brewing pot of coffee but I don’t. I need no evidence of this moment. I am here, now, paying witness to a phenomenon. I won’t forget it, but I will look for it again. Aimee Truchan is a (mostly) fiction writer who moonlights as a healthcare marketing executive. She is an instructor at San Diego Writers INK. Her work has been published in volumes 13, 14, and 15 of the San Diego Writers Anthology, in the Decameron Project and in #38 of Roi Fainéant. Aimee is an avid reader, woolgather, beach bum, and aspiring Parisienne. Her book reviews can be found on Goodreads and her snarky opinions on Twitter @AimeeTruchan.

A writing program would’ve whipped me into shape. I wouldn’t be so damn flabby. My stories wouldn’t start in the wrong place, right at the beginning. They’d start later, once everything’s over: the end—that’s where a story starts. Mine just roll in like they’re getting off the bus, they rush down the street, heavy luggage trundling behind them, they check in at the hotel: the room’s not like Expedia said, it’s barely a room, more a bathroom with a bed tucked in the closet—then there’s the question of dinner, it’s 11 o’fuckin’clock, nothing’s gonna be open, there’s room service, after 10 it’s sandwiches, these sandwiches are tuna and a vegetable sandwich, anything might be on it, a cucumber, a potato, in fact it could be a cheese sandwich, vegetarian options aren’t ever specific, what they call a vegetable could be anything at all, it could be a fish, these people might be Catholics, and when you call the front desk to find out what a vegetable means to them, what happens? The person who answers telephones, it transpires, is a robot, for whom questions about vegetable or vegetarian sandwiches (in fact it says “veg.”) are just meaningless sounds: all it can do is monotonically advise you to press a button that corresponds to the digit of the sandwich on the menu card. If you prefer, you can demand human assistance, if you really want to engage with the desk again—the bleary-eyed desk who slipped the key in almost perfect silence to you, a key that for its modesty of mass (it’s a card key in an envelope little bigger than itself) seemed to thump metallically in your shirt pocket with every step you took to or away from the elevator (an elevator that, hearing the voice of the android desk clerk, you recall spoke in an almost lascivious tone as it informed you, upon going down to grab your forgotten luggage, that you were again in the lobby: a word that sounded, as it was pronounced, all-too suspiciously like labia)—and you decide, reluctantly, to do so, and it is as you wait in the space between the voice of the recording and the voice of the human being at the desk, a long wait, that the story continues to begin. Addison Zeller’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in 3:AM, Epiphany, Ligeia, Hex, Olney, and elsewhere. He lives in Wooster, Ohio.

The gaunt blonde at the end of the bar moved her head from side to side while staring at Vivian, suggesting don’t. Vivian, a pretty brunette, lifted her glass of red wine toward the blonde, signifying mind your own beeswax. The blonde snapped her eyes toward the door, implying go. Vivian figured she’d stumbled into someone else’s territory, then turned back to the man who’d bought her the wine. He claimed to be an assistant director at Paramount. She might get fifteen out of him. La Boheme, a glitzy guzzle-crib on Sunset, harbored studio types and foreign men with cash. The lifeless economy sat hard on regular folks. But this was Hollywood. They printed money here. New in town, Vivian stayed out of trouble by working no more than three nights a week. She usually operated in hotel bars, agreeing to ten and even five-dollar tricks. Every square job was already filled with a disillusioned ingenue. The city drew them in fresh and spit them out like chewed cartilage. Men fed on the desperation in a pair of lost eyes. If the blonde left her alone, Vivian could score big in a joint like this. Pay the rent on her small room for another month. Get her shoes repaired. Older than Vivian, the blonde displayed a dark blemish around her left eye that hadn’t been well-buried by makeup. Vivian had a fresh face, and wore nothing but lipstick. Men never missed her. The blonde stared at the door, rising off her stool, then back at Vivian, before closing her eyes, indicating I warned you. Vivian understood. She eased off her stool, a little jump in her heartbeat. As she turned to find the door, pushing the assistant director’s restraining hand off her wrist, she felt another one grip her shoulder, rotating her on her broken shoes so she stared into the dark eyes of a tough little thug with greasy hair swept back off his forehead. A large goon stood behind him, blocking most of the natural light that made streaks in the mahogany bar shine like treasure at the bottom of a mountain stream. “The fuck you doin’ in here?” The little man spoke around a toothpick. “On my way home from the office,” said Vivian. “Stopped in for a drink.” “You was just gettin’ to work. Only you don’t work here.” “Fine. I’ll go someplace else.” The man took Vivian’s arm, pulling her along the bar to a swinging wooden door, then through a busy kitchen to a steel door. An alley door. He thrust her outside, but she remained on her feet. She wasn’t afraid. He’d just give her a talking to. A warning. The goon held her arms behind her back as the little man grabbed her by the throat. “I catch you in here again, you work for me, see? First in a boogie house, doped up and on your back twenty times a day. For nuthin’. Then I put you to work in the clubs because you’re a classy, good-lookin’ dame. Only you won’t remember that. You’ll just know you’re mine.” “Stop it!” said the blonde as she burst through the door. “Let her go.” There was a tremor in her voice, and Vivian could tell it was hard for her to be brave like that. The pimp turned and swung at her. Vivian expected a slap to ring out, but he pounded the blonde’s nose with a closed fist, driving her backwards until her head thumped against the wall. She slid to the ground, knees bent, her nose crooked, blood dripping off her chin. The goon moved, frowning, and grabbed at the short, livid man. “Come on, boss. Let’s go. They got the message.” The men scurried away down the alley, the pimp waggling his sore hand in the air because a blonde’s head had to be so hard. A pimple-faced busboy came out in his white jacket to strike a match against the rough stucco. A cigarette hung from his lips. Stopping mid-ignition when he saw the women, he tossed a dishrag to Vivian, then turned back to the bustle of the kitchen. Vivian wiped at the blood before it completely ruined the blonde’s blouse. A dark-skinned cook in a greasy apron appeared at her side, squatting on the concrete next to her. He took the woman’s broken nose in his hands, straightening it with a sickening crackle before lifting one eyelid to look at the pupil. It had rolled toward the heavens. He lifted a limp wrist to check her pulse. The sleeve of her threadbare white blouse slid to her elbow. Vivian could see bruises in the crook. Needles. “Are you a doctor?” she asked the greasy apron. “Worked in a hospital once. She’s dead.” “Oh, no,” said Vivian, her sweaty skin chilling in the alley shadows. “The man she works for slugged her on my account. He just walked away.” “A pimp gonna do that if he gets mad at a grouse,” said the cook, wiping his palms on his apron. “You get outta here, if you know what’s good. You’re a witness. I’ll call the cops in an hour. Be gone.” He looked down the alley before returning to the kitchen. The door closed with a heavy clunk. The blonde had no identifying papers in her purse. She’d probably thrown away her past so her family could never find her. Vivian removed three dollars and a tube of lipstick, then held the blonde’s hands for a moment, absorbing their lingering warmth, telling her I’m sorry. Russell Thayer’s work has appeared in Brushfire, The Phoenix, Evening Street Review, Cirque, Close to the Bone, Bristol Noir, Apocalypse Confidential, Outcast Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, Pulp Modern, and Tough. He received his BA in English from the University of Washington, worked for decades at large printing companies, and currently lives in Missoula, Montana.

Same Old Story She hadn’t been looking for love. That’s what everyone says, she knows. But really, she hadn’t. She had side-stepped love. Walked around it. Spent years with binoculars in close observation of the loves of others. Procured repellent. She had learned the art of rappel and always carried her own sturdy rope, telling herself the only way to approach love was to descend carefully, slowly. But only if she had to. Only if love were unavoidable. Then she’d tumbled. Irrevocably. Terrifyingly. All the way down. So much could happen. Not happen. Did happen. Long story short: He loved her back. Why You Should Never Read Women’s Magazines to Find Love (Or a Prom Date) Girls don’t want dates with you. (Trust me. I’ve been pondering it since third grade.) Decent jobs don’t make you attractive. (Server at Den’s Burger Joint. She turned vegan.) Shared history doesn’t bring you closer. (I was eight, okay? I pushed the merry-go-round to make it spin faster because rockets are supposed to be fast and yelled, “Blast Off!” and she tried to jump while riding the rocket and tripped on her stupid astronaut costume with the too-big boots and fell off and I was running so fast and clinging to the bars that I ran over her. Literally. It’s been nine whole years and she still raises one eyebrow whenever anyone uses that word: literally. I think it’s the most traumatic thing to ever happen to her. I wonder if it’ll be the theme of her college essay? Literally run over.) Time doesn’t make love go away. (She was my best friend. Still is, even though we don’t really talk anymore. I wish we talked.) Daydreams don’t really come true. (I stopped walking past the merry-go-round in the playground on my way home from school, because I drive now and it’s an awkward detour and because I’m old enough to know she’ll never be there waiting for my apology.) Addendum: Daydreams come true. My car was in the shop (she works there). I walked home. She said her dress would be Milky-Way-colored and did I want to join her for prom?

“Well, Maurice, sunlight is canceled.” “I’ll add it to the list, Mr. Crush.” Craig Crush cast aside the tablet he had been reading from and said, “The range of ultraviolet exposure between a sunny and an overcast day — It’s just too unpredictable. Have the R&D bros make an artificial exposure room on thirty-seven with a UV index of 6.2. Get me an omni-directional treadmill, and the Kalalau Trail on the Napali Coast of Kauai on the VR. I’ll be in there fourteen minutes per day, and I want it 72 degrees with a breeze of — are you writing this down?” “Of course, sir.” Maurice mimed tapping on his tablet. “Good.” Craig stood from his Yves Saint Laurent chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. His legs wide and solid under him, fists on hips, elbows pointed out and chin pointed high, taking up the maximum amount of space, he surveyed the city below. He inhaled a deep and noisy breath through his nose. “Goddamn, I love the view from up here.” Maurice slouched behind Craig’s side, “There is no better view than the penthouse of Crush Tower, sir,” he said with hardly any cynicism. The news-anchor on the TV said, “For the fifth time in five years, we are looking at record high temperatures contributing to raging forest fires, devastating droughts, and now—” “Jesus, isn’t there ever any good news? Maurice, silence all that negative energy. I don’t want it getting into my pores.” Maurice shuffled over and turned off the TV. Craig’s biosensor implant chimed and a group of men came into the room. With the efficiency of a NASCAR pit-crew they set up a massage table and a serving tray with a buffet of supplements and injections. Maurice turned to leave. “Ah ah, Maurice, I need you here to actualize all my fantastic ideas,” said Craig, wagging his finger. Maurice slouched harder. Craig addressed the team. “Kevins, how are you all?” The Kevins muttered a few words simultaneously. “Wonderful. What do you have for me today?” The lead Kevin stepped forward with printouts. “Shall I read the reports from your cardiologist, dermatologist, ophthalmologist—” Craig interrupted. “I know the drill.” Lead Kevin nodded, picking up a syringe. “Your GABA and serotonin are down, and your norepinephrine is a little high.” He motioned for Craig to roll up his sleeve, then jabbed him. He continued, holding up a capsule. “Pulverized banana peel for fiber.” Craig picked up the glass of water from the tray and took the pill. “Hormone balancer, testosterone boost, EGCG, curcumin, CoQ10…” The capsules and syringes emptied from the tray as Lead Kevin rattled them off. “What’s this one?” Craig picked up a small, white pill and squinted at it. “That’s a wintergreen tic-tac.” Craig eyed it suspiciously. “You requested it.” “Don’t remember that.” He popped it in his mouth. Lead Kevin picked up a blood bag of the deepest red-wine color. “And finally, your young-blood transfusion.” Craig rubbed his hands together. A secondary Kevin indicated the massage table, and Craig laid down. Two Kevins immediately got to work on Craig’s quads while Lead Kevin found a vein and began the transfusion. Craig closed his eyes and smiled. “Maurice? Where are you?” Maurice sighed. “As I was saying, 14 minutes of UV exposure daily—” A nervous man entered the room. “Mr. Crush, Dr. Banks is here to see you.” “She isn’t scheduled,” Craig said in irritation. The nervous man said, “Yes, but… she is in between receiving her Nobel Prize and presenting to the global climate summit… I mean, she’s very busy.” Craig sat up abruptly, tugging on the IV line. He winced. “Is her time more valuable than mine?” The nervous man swallowed hard. “No, sir.” Maurice smirked. Craig sighed. “Did you screen her?” “Yes, sir.” “She’s been swabbed?” “Lots. She’s not sick, sir.” “Fine, send her in. Kevins, get lost.” The nervous man left. The Kevins followed, abandoning their IV drip and table where Craig sat, legs dangling. Maurice shuffled behind the Kevins. “Not you.” Maurice groaned. “Can I sit?” “What? No, of course not.” Dr. Banks passed by the departing Kevins as she entered the room. She looked at Craig with barely concealed disdain. Folding her arms, and coming to a stop much closer than he was comfortable with, she said, “Christ, Dad, don’t you have any women that work for you?” Craig rolled his eyes. “Hi, Emily. What are you doing here?” She looked over at Maurice, who withered. “Does he have to be here?” Maurice started to leave. “Yes,” said Craig. Maurice folded in on himself. “Fine. Listen, I won’t be long. This isn’t a social call.” Craig relaxed. “I want you to come with me to the global climate summit tomorrow.” Craig tensed. “Why would I do that?” “Because you said you would.” “Well yeah, but, you know, I do that a lot.” “You also said if atmospheric carbon dioxide removal could be brought to scale for under fifty billion dollars you’d pay for it.” “But that was just a Tweet,” he whined. She locked eyes on him and he squirmed, shuffling his legs below. “Dad. You could save the world.” “I mean… I guess.” “I’m not even being hyperbolic.” She gestured around, “Besides, what do you think happens to your little empire when you die?” “I’m not dying.” “I don’t mean tomorrow, I mean when you die.” He folded his arms, tugging again at the IV, and again wincing. “That’s not happening.” “What are you talking about? You’re getting more and more delusional every year.” To his horror, she leaned in. “When wasthe last time you left this building?” He opened his mouth, trying to remember. Maurice offered, “Dave Chapelle at Madison Square Gardens.” “That long ago?” Craig scratched his chin. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Banks turned to Maurice and said, “You shut your whole stupid face.” Maurice promptly died. She turned back to her father. “Please, we have our differences, but you made a promise. Consider it an investment; other corporations would follow. Stand on that stage with me and you could turn the tide.” She arched an eyebrow and added, “People would love you.” He sighed. “I’ll think about it.” ### The next morning Craig sat in his Yves Saint Laurent chair and gazed at the city below, hardly even enjoying himself. Behind him, the news-anchor said, “Wide-spread flooding in the Middle East is causing a new wave of refugees from areas already war-torn—” Craig sighed heavily and picked up his phone, tapping it a few times. “Fine. I’ll do it,” he said. “You will?” said Emily. “Really?” “For realsies. I’ll come with you to the thing.” “And the pledge to fund global CO2 removal?” “Yes, and the forty billion.” “Fifty billion, Dad.” “Jesus. Fine, fifty. But people have to love me.” “What is wrong with your brain? I can’t promise that.” “Well then, what’s the point?!” Emily sighed. “I promise you that if you fund this project, you will definitely be loved by a lot of people. I mean, I don’t know if they’ll make a statue or anything—” “Great! So I’ll be in and out and I don’t want to touch anyone.” “I know, Dad.” Craig hung up the phone. “Maurice. Maurice!” “I’m right here,” Maurice shuffled out from the corner. “Oh good. Make sure there’s hand sanitizer in the chopper. Let’s bounce.” Maurice groaned. ### From the dais, the woman spoke. “Our guest of honor today is a leading climate scientist, and, as of yesterday for her pioneering work on CO2 removal…” the woman looked around giddily, “can I say it now?” she asked no one in particular, “…is also a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics!” The crowd applauded. “Please join me in welcoming Dr. Emily Banks!” The crowd applauded harder. Emily shook the woman’s hand as she took the stage. The applause died down. She adjusted the lectern mic and inhaled. “As you know, we in the scientific community have been sounding the alarm for decades that an average global temperature increase of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius would bring catastrophic harm to our home. We are already seeing longer and more destructive hurricane seasons, rising oceans, longer and more severe droughts, crop failures, and endless forest fires. We’ve been warning for a long time, and what has changed in those years? Not much. But now, thanks to the tireless work of my team at Forward Future Environmental Alliance, not only can we strip harmful CO2 from the air and safely put it in the ground, we have shown that we can do it globally at scale. Folks, we can reverse the doomsday clock!” The crowd thundered in applause. “It is, however, an expensive endeavor, and the accountants with their calculators are going to want to know how we’ll pay for it.” The crowd laughed. As they quieted, Emily leaned in. “I’m thrilled to announce that I can answer that question today.” Silence filled the hall. Emily waited a beat as her father had instructed her to do. “I’ve secured a generous pledge. From a… generous man.” She coughed and took a sip of water. “A pledge of fifty billion dollars,” the crowd gasped. “Offered by the richest man in the world, who happens to be my father, Craig Crush!” The doors in the back of the hall flew open. Loud rock music played. The crowd craned their necks. Craig stepped through, fists on hips, chin pointed up, an entourage of security behind him. And Maurice. The crowd went fucking nuts. Emily rolled her eyes. ### The next morning Craig sat in his Yves Saint Laurent chair by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He gazed at the city below, imagining worshipful crowds in undulating applause, calling his name. Begging for him. He was enjoying himself very much. “Maurice. Maurice!” “Right here, sir.” “Get me a cup of Kopi Luwak coffee with yak butter.” “Caffeine? And dairy? Are you sure, Mr. Crush?” “Life is short, right, my man?” Maurice shuffled off in bewilderment to fulfill the request. Craig returned to his reverie, smiling like a fool. He didn’t even hear the news-anchor from the TV say, “Further desperation over food scarcity has caused NATO to collapse, meanwhile Russia invades China—” Suddenly Craig paused and sat up straight. An overwhelming panic washed over him. “What is that? Maurice! What am I feeling? Maurice!!” He clutched his throat. Maurice shuffled back into the room. “You’re feeling your throat, sir.” Craig looked at Maurice with wild eyes. “I don’t mean what am I feeling with my hands, I mean what is this feeling in my throat? It’s… scratchy.” He swallowed. “It’s ten percent harder to swallow.” He took another test swallow. “I think maybe you’re getting a cold.” “No! That’s impossible. How?” Maurice grinned, “Maybe that was the plan.” “The plan? What plan?” Craig’s jaw fell open. “Oh my God, she… infected me!” He picked up the phone and tapped it. Emily answered. “You made me sick!” “What are you talking about?” Craig stood and paced. “I. Am. Never. Sick. What have you done to me?” Emily laughed. “You should get sick more often, I bet your immune system is like a wee little baby’s.” Craig roared, “Nothing about me is like a wee little baby!” Maurice smirked. “I am bulletproof. I am a god!” “Dad, I don’t have time for this. Take an aspirin and a nap. Maybe get some therapy.” She hung up. Craig threw the phone across the room. “Should I still get your coffee, sir?” “Get me the Kevins!” A moment later the Kevins burst in, all in scrubs. Lead Kevin sat Craig on the table and looked in his ears and mouth. He felt his neck and listened to his heart, then pulled up Craig’s biometrics on his tablet. “You have a cold.” “Nope.” Craig shook his head. “You do.” “You’re all fired. Get out.” “Sir?” “Get out!” The Kevins filed out, heads hung low. Craig flopped down in his Yves Saint Laurent chair overlooking the city. “God, what is even the point?” Maurice shuffled into Craig’s proximity. “Maybe there is no point, Mr. Crush.” Craig shook his head. “No, there’s definitely a point. There has to be a point. Why else would I have all this money?” he hung his head. Suddenly Craig’s eyes lit up. “I am the point.” He stood and paced again, testing out the new thought. “I am the point. I am the point.” He pointed to himself. “I am the point.” He stopped pacing and smiled. “That’s it, Maurice, I can’t be sick. I can’t age. I was chosen and I must never die.” He shuddered at the word. “Sir, what is happening?” “Maurice, where are we with anti-aging science?” “You mean our chronological spot in a continuum as a species with evolving scientific knowledge?” “Yeah.” “Um. I don’t know, Mr. Crush. I think, maybe… mice.” Craig rolled his eyes in exasperation and scooped up his tablet. He flopped back down in his Yves Saint Laurent chair and began to research. Maurice backed away, “Shall I leave you, sir?” “No, stay right there in case I need something.” Maurice whimpered. ### From the video monitor in Craig Crush’s office, the executives and board of Longevity Biosciences crowded on one side of a conference table. Craig sat at his desk surrounded by lawyers. “Wonderful to see you today. Please, allow me to introduce my legal team. Say hello, Tims.” The Tims muttered greetings simultaneously. Maurice stood against the back wall. “Mr. Crush,” said the woman in the center of the video. “Melissa Rembrandt, founder of Longevity Biosciences. With all due respect, we are on the cusp of a major breakthrough here.” “So freaking cool. What is it?” said Craig. She cleared her throat. “What I mean to say is, we’re very busy. What is the nature of this meeting, and please, be brief.” Craig sat up straight. “Oh. I’d like to live forever.” Everyone in the video laughed. The Tims seriously folded their arms. Maurice slouched. “Yeah,” said Craig. “How much would that cost?” They stopped laughing. Melissa said, “You… want to pay us for immortality?” “I mean, or buy you.” The board and executives of Longevity Biosciences began to murmur. Melissa held up her hand to quiet them. “Listen to me, Mr. Crush.” She stood and placed her palms flat on the table, leaning in. Craig flinched. “Longevity Biosciences will not be some billionaire’s vanity project. And we don’t deal in immortality. Our mission is to bring cutting-edge cellular therapies to the world, and to do it equitably.” Craig rolled his eyes and muttered, “Woke.” “We will usher in a better life, where people live to 150, free of heart disease and cancer, mentally and physically as strong as if they were fifty.” “Yeah. That’s what I want. But, ugh, thirty, not fifty. So, how much?” The man next to Melissa spoke. “Gerald Longbottom here, Chairman—” “I’m not chairman, I’m CEO,” said Craig, folding his arms. “Yes, I know. I’m the chairman.” “Oh, I see.” “If I could, Mr. Crush, it seems we are on wildly different pages here. Yes, we’ve had major age-reversal success in the cells of mice, but we are years away from a viable human trial—” Melissa turned to Gerald, “Don’t tell him anything.” “I was just—” She pointed at Gerald and he shut up. She turned back to Craig and said, “You could apply to offer investment funding through the normal channels, but this meeting is over.” She reached out to end the call. “One hundred billion dollars,” said Craig. Gerald placed his hand on Melissa’s arm. She glared at him. The Lead Tim leaned in and whispered into Craig’s ear. Craig nodded and continued, “We’ve seen your valuation; we know you’ve had other offers, but none of them have been even a quarter of what I’m offering. I am prepared to buy Longevity Biosciences, and all your patents and research, for one hundred billion dollars. That’s eleven zeroes, bros.” Craig leaned back, smugly. “We’ll be in touch,” said Gerald. “No, we won’t,” said Melissa as the video feed cut out. ### Craig Crush walked into the offices of Longevity Biosciences in a hazmat suit. Everyone bustling around stopped and stared. “Hello and welcome, all you beautiful people!” When no one responded he became flustered, tearing off his hazmat helmet. “All of you, keep back at least twenty feet. I’m not getting sick again. Maurice.” He looked left and right. “Maurice, take this.” Maurice sighed as he took the helmet from Craig. “As I was saying, welcome all you beautiful people! Or should I say, all you beautiful people welcome me!” He held up his hazmatted arms victoriously, to more silence. In agitation, he added, “That doesn’t even make any goddamn sense. Anyway, you’re all fired. Clear out.” The crowd of people emitted gasps and cries as security and legal teams poured in to escort them from the building. Craig called over the din, “Get me Gerald Longbottom!” “Right here, Mr. Crush,” Gerald stepped forward. “Is the skeleton crew of loyals in place?” “Yes, sir.” “Good. And they’ve pledged fealty?” “Uh…” Craig turned to the team of men in scrubs behind him. “Swab him, Ethans.” The Ethans led Gerald Longbottom away to be swabbed. “Security, assemble around me. Let’s go!” A group of security guards broke off and surrounded Craig. They went further into the building. In the hallway they passed Melissa, her arms held by two guards. She lunged toward Craig and hissed, “I hope you die.” “Won’t,” he taunted. She spat at him and the mist hit his face. The guards pushed her along. “Ew, ew, ew, ew! Maurice! Maurice!!” “I’m right here, sir.” “Get it off me!” he shrieked. Maurice set down the hazmat helmet and produced a wet wipe. He sponged the spit off of his boss’s face, grimacing. “Why would she even do that? I just do not understand people.” Craig was near tears. “I can’t imagine, sir,” said Maurice. Lead Ethan returned. “Mr. Crush, we’ve swabbed the chairman.” “Really? That was fast. You Ethans are on it.” Lead Ethan said, “We are awaiting the test results, but we will let you know when the chairman can be in your vicinity.” “Duh. That’s the whole point. My vicinity must be kept pure. Speaking of, can you run some tests on that?” Craig indicated the wet wipe that Maurice held at arm’s length. “I don’t think so, sir,” said Lead Ethan. “Great, do it. Maurice, hand it over.” Maurice held the wet wipe toward Craig. “Not to me, to Ethan!” Maurice handed the wet wipe to Lead Ethan, who crumpled it in his fist and left. Craig regained some composure and inhaled noisily. “Ok. Where to?” The guards all looked at each other. “Anyone have any input?” asked Craig. “You, there? The scientist.” Two more security guards passed, holding a man in a lab coat. “Where’s Melissa’s office, Nerd?” The man in the lab coat sighed heavily and said, “Right behind you.” Craig turned and looked behind him. There was a door, labeled, Melissa Rembrandt, Founder. “Wonderful. Security disperse.” The security guards left. Craig pointed his chin up and entered the office. His hazmat suit crinkled and folded as he sat behind the desk. Maurice shuffled in with the hazmat helmet and began to sit. Craig looked at him severely, shaking his head. Maurice sighed and shuffled to the corner. Craig yawned loudly and looked around the office, his eyes landing on a framed photo on the desk. In the picture, Melissa, a man, and a girl were all smiling. Craig frowned and placed the frame face down. They waited. Craig rifled through the drawers. “I’m bored, Maurice.” Maurice opened his mouth to speak, and the Ethans came in with Gerald and a dozen other men. “These men are all healthy,” said Lead Ethan. “Righteous,” said Craig. “Ok, Geralds. What needs to happen to make me immortal?” The Geralds all looked at each other. Lead Gerald said, “Well, Mr. Crush, that’s a complicated question.” Craig’s hazmat suit crinkled more as he leaned back and placed his hands behind his head. “That’s ok, I’ve only got forever.” He smiled wide as he kicked his feet up onto the desk. The photo frame fell to the floor followed by the tinkling of broken glass. ### Craig sat with his feet up on his desk in his office of his newly renamed Crush Biosciences awaiting his Geralds. His phone vibrated. “What the hell is going on, Dad?” Emily said. “Hostile takeover 101, honey. You should have studied business.” “You didn’t study business.” A secondary Gerald popped his head in. “We’re ready for you, Mr. Crush.” Craig held up a finger. Emily said, “You look like a clown. I mean your investors are fleeing left and right.” “Don’t need ‘em.” “What?” “Yeah, they’re all stupid anyway.” Secondary Gerald said, “Sir?” Emily said, “Dad, you look like you’re crazy.” Craig covered his phone with his hand and said to secondary Gerald, “I’ll forgive you once for not knowing how this works, but I let you know when I am ready.” Secondary Gerald disappeared. Craig spoke into the phone, “Oh, that reminds me, I can’t do your little carbon thing.” There was a long pause. “No. You are not doing this.” “That’s what I just said, I’m not doing it. I’m spread too thin now. But next time you’re in town, come over and I’ll have my chef whip up some A5 Japanese Kobe Ribeyes.” “I’m vegan, Dad.” Craig rolled his eyes. “Of course you are. Well, you can have some lettuce then.” “Don’t ever call me again. You are dead to me.” She hung up. “Not dead,” sang Craig. “Not now; not ever.” He took his feet off his desk and put them on his floor, walking out of his office, down his hallway. Maurice shuffled out of the corner and followed him. Craig walked into the lab. The Geralds all stood at attention. Lead Gerald stepped forward. “Have a seat, Mr. Crush.” Craig sat, while two Geralds took his vitals. Lead Gerald said, “Ok, this is not FDA approved, nor remotely ready for human trial, but we are going to do some gene editing and cellular therapy to reverse your biological clock back twenty years.” “So what, we just do this every twenty years?” The Geralds looked at each other. Lead Gerald said, “Let’s just take this one step at a time, ok?” ### Craig sat in his Yves Saint Laurent chair overlooking the city, feeling fantastic. At no point in his field of awareness did he hear or observe the news-anchor from the TV say, “yes, we are journalists, but first, we are humans, and with the news of millions dead from North Korea’s devastating nuclear strike on Tokyo, we will observe a moment of silence—” “Maurice. Maurice!” “Here, sir, where I always am.” Maurice shuffled forward. “Oh, my god. I’ve done Native American sweat lodges, Nordic Ice baths, ayahuasca, cocaine benders, happy endings, and, wow… I’ve never felt better. This cell stuff is amazing, you should try it.” Craig laughed. “Too bad you don’t have a hundred billion dollars.” Maurice hung his head. ### Craig sat in his bunker below the basement of Crush Towers in his Yves Saint Laurent chair that Maurice had moved for him, watching the penthouse video feed of storm-surge waves washing into the streets amid falling snowflakes of nuclear ash. There was a smoky haze on the horizon from the wreckage of the city below. “Maurice. Maurice!” “Sir, this bunker is maybe 300 square feet. I am literally right here.” “Do you think it’s over?” “I don’t know, sir.” “Well, turn on the TV.” Maurice shuffled over and turned on the TV to channel after channel of static. ### Craig Crush opened the safe and picked up a syringe labeled, Crush Biosciences, from a bountiful pile of similar syringes and injected it into his arm. He closed the safe. Craig took a brash, heaping, and entitled breath through his nose and flopped down into his ancient and cracked Yves Saint Laurent chair in front of dirty floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the sea below that covered the wreckage of a once great city. “Maurice. Maurice!” Craig startled at the silence. “Maurice!!” A wheezing and weak voice called out, “Here, Mr. Crush.” Maurice shuffled so very slowly from the darkened corner, stooped and gray. Craig eyed the syringe in his hand. “Can you believe I’ve only used four of these goddamn things? It’s ridiculous how many are left. You really should try one.” Maurice watched Craig as he placed the empty syringe on the table beside his chair. “Could I, sir?” Maurice said painfully, his tired eyes welling with tears. “Ha! Now, that’s rich.” Craig stood and gazed out the window. “No, I’m rich. Like, the richest. I am the chosen one.” He placed his fists on his hips, pointed up his chin, and smiled. Christian Fitzgerald writes mostly science-fiction stories from the coast of North Carolina. He graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston with a degree in Film Scoring, and has written music for an iPad app version of Jamie Lee Curtis’s children’s book, Where Do Balloons Go?, as well as the sitcom pilot Brooklyn Shakara, starring Gbenga Akkinagbe of The Wire. When he is not writing stories, he’s using his film scoring degree to write songs on his acoustic guitar for his wife and three sons. They mostly love it.

I dreamed I was washing my hands and the skin started coming off my fingers until my finger-bones were exposed. I cried for my mother, who was in another room in the house. I thought, please don’t let this be real. My mother heard me crying in the hallway where I stood leaning against the wall, staring at my hands. When she saw me, she threw a towel over my hands and dried them. When she took the towel away, they were normal again, only a little red. See, she said, you healed yourself. Is it a dream, mom? I said. She didn’t say anything. The dead novelist Henry Miller came out of another room and said, “That’s the way stars are, they just hang there.” Then he asked me for a dollar. I drive Natalia to physical therapy this morning. We go every day now. She worked at McDonald’s for 15 years in Tucson. Then she got deported after she called in sick for a week because she couldn’t walk. Someone turned her in. All those years at McDonald’s fucked up her legs. Immigration didn’t drag her away, they told her to go voluntarily. I quit my job as a cab driver. That was the easy part. We bought some crutches, packed our bags and left to come live with Natalia’s parents here in Hermosillo. Natalia does exercises in a small pool. The pool room is something out of the 1960’s, with old tile and a domed roof with semi-clear panels to the sky. It’s like walking into a tropical rain forest or an old greenhouse, your breath catches in the humidity mixed with chlorine. The man in charge of the physical therapy is always bitching about how they don’t pay him enough and how they also make him clean the bathrooms and sweep up the parking lot. He was working with another woman in the pool when we walked in around 10 in the morning. “…and then the next guy I picked up, I got him halfway home and he started masturbating…” the woman was saying. She is an Uber driver here in Hermosillo. The physical therapist kept dunking her head backwards into the water like a baptism. I don’t know why she was taking physical therapy, she looked perfectly healthy. But you can’t always tell just from looking. Every time she came up out of the water she continued talking. “…I stopped the car and told him to get out but he wouldn’t get out. I took out my taser and nailed him. But he had on a big coat. The next time I got him in the neck and that got his attention!” “Natalia, como estas?” “Bien, Martin. Hola, Sylvia.” “I’ll be right with you.” “…anyway, he kind of rolled out and fell on the ground and I got the hell out of there…later I noticed he vomited on the side of my car…” Her story reminds me of my cab driving days, may they never come again. Natalia slips into the warm womb-waters of the pool and grips the sides with her little black swim cap on. Her sister Sofia told her if she keeps doing this pool therapy she’s gonna turn into a mermaid. I want to jump in there with her and splash around in that fountain of youth. It feels good with the weight taken off. The other day our niece Emma was telling us about some secret hot springs east of town in the mountains. They have magical healing properties. This is the same Emma who thinks taking a hot bath in your house is bad for you and goes against nature. Natalia starts doing her leg exercises in the water. I bend down and give her a kiss. “I’m gonna take a walk, I’ll be back in an hour.” “Don’t be flirting with any viejas!” I wander out into the breezy autumn day and head to the walled-in cemetery a few blocks away. I like to walk around there. Nobody bothers me, no traffic, no eyes look at me, no noise. I feel safe. The cemetery is a chaotic grid of blinding white crosses and Catholic statues and crypt-houses. It is surrounded by a 10-feet high block wall painted blue with a 30-foot-high arched gate at the entrance and one long wide road down the middle paved with smooth old stones. Little dirt paths lead off from the main road. I walk around letting time pass. Death keeps life in a box, not the other way around. Anybody with any sense knows who’s master. I imagine all those skeletons down there, mum in the substratum. Many of the graves are broken, dug-out, ransacked. A miracle there is no smell, besides the hot dust. The hierarchy of human economic status is on full display, from the tremendous marble mausoleums and shrines complete with pillars and towers to the tiny cairns of dirt with rotten wooden crosses tied with rusty wire. And of course, the many anonymous mounds, humble as mole-hills. The fact that others have suffered too does not comfort much. But the peace and quiet do, and the trees and the birds. The sad-eyed stone angels perch, folded in their pinions of melancholy, silly sleeping guards over the meaningless tombs. Inner infinity and outer infinity meet in me, this flesh mysterious to itself, this biological fear, this shrinking dilation. I see an open crypt and I look down into it. Someone has flung the huge iron door wide open. A stairway to nothingness. The calacas dance and kick and grin with their flowered halos and colored necklaces. The worms lick their way through the absolute. Markers stand hammered into the source, an irrational poetry fingernailed into the concrete, the countless tears of countless mothers and fathers gathered in an iron water-tank covered in algae and grime, the surface still as the eye of a butchered steer. This is our solution. To be awake for a while and then to sleep. To crawl, to walk, to run, to sit, and then to lie down. I sit down at the far end of the cemetery. It is probably disrespectful to sit on a stranger’s grave as if it was my own. But I mean no harm. I check our bank account on my phone: 732 dollars. That’s 13,000 pesos, which sounds better. How are we going to make it? “How did you all make it?” I ask. But there’s no answer. One foot in front of the other, something dumb like that, until you can’t anymore. I walk back to Natalia. She is waiting for me on a bench in the sun. She takes my hand and I help her to the car. “Where did you walk to?” “Just around,” I say. “Do you want to get some tacos?” she says. “Chicharrones?” “That stuff goes straight to your veins. It’s bad for you.” “Yep.” I turn the radio up and drive over to El Diputado. It’s not far from the cemetery gates. It’s cheap, and they always have a table open.

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.