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When the dead comedian does his bit, I always laugh too hard. Secretly I’m welling up, thinking of his wife and kids; thinking of myself. I start doing the maths: this much off for the decades of binge drinking, this much for saturated fats, scrounged rolls-ups, unprocessed trauma, sedentary days. If I can just make it till my son turns forty, he’ll be fine without me. If I can outmanoeuvre the cruel diseases that lick their lips, waiting to pounce. If I can close my eyes to the spiralling climate crisis. The dead comedian beams drollery from the great beyond, moon pale under the studio lights. Knowing his fate has not faded his sparkle – he just shines differently now. The dead comedian delivers his sweet peach of a punchline. My boy is giggling, hard, and I find myself guffawing for real. We can travel through time: the dead comedian, my boy and I. Taken altogether, it’s a funny kind of heaven.

It always smelled like there was oil bubbling in the frying pan at the lake cabin. In the mornings, the smell of eggs and bacon mingled with a persistent odor of fried perch from the previous night. We’d wake early when the sun just began to illuminate the sky because that’s when the fish were biting. All of the women would stay behind tidying up, baking pecan pies, gossiping, and watching All My Children. I got to go out fishing with the men instead of having to scrub the breakfast dishes because my grandpa said I was a good fisherwoman. Sometimes I’d even win the quarter for catching the first walleye. I’d bait my own lure, pressing each of the three barbed hooks into a slippery earthworm, gripping tight as it wiggled between my fingers. If a speck of red or dirt oozed out of the punctures, I didn’t flinch. When it was time for dinner we’d troll through the water back to the dock and I’d watch fish flopping around in water-filled buckets. I’d run up the dock past the little fish house at the edge of the bank. Occasionally my dad or uncle would pose for a picture with a northern pike, smiling with their fingers in its jaw. After that, they’d head into the fish house with the buckets to clean the fish. The rank, muddy stench that wafted into the air when the door creaked open smelled the opposite of clean to me. I was a good fisherwoman, but I wasn’t allowed in the fish house. My cousin punched me in the arm and said it wasn’t for girls. The summer I snuck and peeked in the single window of the dark little shack, I learned what they did in there was bloody. Bones and guts in buckets instead of swirling fish. After I won the quarter that year, I sprinted ahead before anyone could stop me and flung open the door to the fish house. Inside I watched as my grandpa stuck his knife into the belly of my fish, sliced it open, scraped out its innards, and finally used a larger knife to chop off its head. Afterward, I gave a nod and a wink at the discarded fish head on the way out. I was a good fisherwoman and I was going to be good at cleaning too. Suzanne Hicks is a disabled writer living with multiple sclerosis. Her stories have appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, MicroLit Almanac, Sledgehammer Lit, and elsewhere. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband and their animals. Find her at suzannehickswrites.com and on Twitter @iamsuzannehicks.

Please forget about my name. It’s Constance Bytheway. I always felt like I stole it from an old lady when I was born. Perhaps, in time, I will learn to grow into it. I used to spend my days in my room mostly, trying to write beautiful stories about ugly people. Not always getting it right. Until Finn came to help us. Dad knew when they signed the papers they had a fixer-upper on their hands. The house had been abandoned for years and had now reached the stage where everything he touched turned to crumbles and flakes in his hands. Every handle broke at the slightest brush and each fix created three new problems. Some guys possess that inherent ability to turn their hand to any manual task or challenge. I am sorry to say that my dear father was never one of those fellows. God knows he tried though. I attribute my formative training in the use of profanity to his continued disasters on the do it yourself frontier. I would regularly overhear his outbursts of cursing through the unnaturally jagged gaps between my bedroom door and the frame, another of his disastrous attempts. I would write the phrases down at the back of my diary. Two columns, one for the words I understood and those which as yet had no meaning for me. I knew they were curses, just not how bad they were. After a while, I added a third column with a brief description of the injury sustained by my father. Thus I was able to draw a correlation between levels of pain inflicted and the likely scale of the obscenity he uttered to go along with it. I have yet to determine whether he knows I can hear these things but expect, having now learned them all by heart they will slip out in conversation some ways down the line. This was just one of the ways I chose to entertain myself from my little hidey-hole at the end of the upstairs corridor. It was this ongoing and exhausting cascade of failures that eventually led him down the path to Finn. It was all down to Finn. The master craftsman as mum and dad called him. This guy could turn his hand to anything. There really wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix. He wasn’t local to us, maybe Polish, Ukrainian. Dad said it wasn't really polite to ask where someone is originally from, especially these days. Not long after they had moved into the property and the previously mentioned disasters they received the folded blue flyer neatly posted through the letterbox. ‘Finn, I fix for you’ it said simply with a telephone number on the bottom. I picked it up from the mat and stuck it to the empty fridge with one of the souvenir sombrero magnets. His rates were reasonable, not the cheapest, which was the sensible approach when accepting a quote apparently. The quality of his work was by all accounts outstanding, it seemed he could make things like new again. They had first employed him just to fix the front door. It was sticking in the frame and the constant rain had ingressed to rot the wood at the bottom and around the letterbox. It was the kind of neighbourhood where you needed a solid front door at the very least. That was the first time I saw him, lumbering up the path, eyes skyward, assessing the whole house. “Wood is bad,” he said. “Frame is too. I fix for you, no problem.” Ever since then, I noticed that each time he came to the house he would check the swing of the door, run his bony fingers around the frame, checking for imperfections. It didn’t even squeak. He was reliable, always exactly on time, his work was great, the house even started to feel passably safe to live in. He never smiled like a person who enjoyed his work would. When we thanked him he would just give a very deliberate nod in our direction, pack his things, take the money and go. It was as if he didn’t enjoy or not enjoy his work, he was just indifferent to it. As if it was just like breathing in and out - something you just had to do. Always in his blue overalls, white t-shirt underneath. I suspected he was a smoker as there was always a smell of it around him, a non specific tobacco type smell maybe. Every time he took out a new tool to use he would examine it closely, turning it over in his hands and shaking his head, as if the quality of the tools wasn’t up to his standard. And yet he was able to produce these amazing results with even this disadvantage. He became like part of the furniture. It was not unusual to see him wandering in the yard in the morning, staring up at the roof brackets, or pulling gently at a downspout to see how secure it was. The care and attention he took in getting this property into shape was not something I had ever seen in another craftsman. Usually, you would need to hire at least twenty different guys who were all experts in plumbing, electrics or stonemasonry. Finn didn’t even look like those guys never mind work like they did. The house felt like it was slowly coming back to life. In the Summer months when Dad's job began paying better, he could put more money over to Finn to continue the renovations and that made the place start to feel like somewhere I wanted to belong. Jenny thought he was wonderful. He would tease her and say things if she got under his feet. “I fix you too.” She would run away giggling to herself. At least I think he was teasing. It was hard to tell. He was always very respectful around me and my personal space, knocking on the door and so on. Things were moving forward but I wondered about him often. Sure he was just a builder in the house doing the work that my dad should have been doing but couldn't. There were just some aspects of domesticity that he did not seem to have mastered. He looked at Nanny the way he used to look at the door frame every morning. Nanny Chackles was Mum’s mum, she moved in when old Pops died. Mum didn’t want her to be lonely, except she only ever seemed to want her own company. Mum said that was because she was slightly deaf and couldn’t join in the conversation without embarrassing herself by mishearing. Dad said she could hear very well when she wanted but that she didn’t care for his opinions much and that was just fine with him. They co-existed along these parallel lines in a forced tolerable silence. She had moved in after a bad fall in July. She was well into her nineties, and spent most of her day occupying the same chair she had brought with her from her own house. Mum and Dad had decided it was best if she moved in with us because she was so infirm now. We had Finn convert the front parlour into a small bedroom with an ensuite so she didn’t have to climb the stairs every day. The only thing that wasn’t new in this part of the house was the old chair she had brought with her. “I fix for you.” he had said, nodding towards the chair that Nanny was sitting in. “I don’t know, it’s very old,” Dad had said, “you mean fix the chair?” “Yes, he said again, nodding towards where Nanny was sitting. Fix the.. Chair.” Often I found that as good a worker as he was this personal interest he took in the house and his sullen face could be a distraction from keeping the day positive. So I would leave him to it. Everything he had produced so far had been perfect. Except for the incident with the rabbit. Jenny had brought Pebbles with her from the old house, a black and tan coloured dwarf lop with a sweet face and affectionate demeanour. I was never sure about the idea of bringing a pet home as ultimately these things never live that long. Pebbles had done well I thought, seven years was a good innings as they say, but then the inevitable happened. Jenny came back from feeding Pebbles one morning just as Finn was coming through the front door, as usual checking the frame for movement or whatever it was he was doing. “Pebbles won’t wake up,” said Jenny, she won't wake up.” Mum and Dad grimaced at each other.”It’s OK, she’s probably just tired.” Dad said. I knew she wasn’t tired, I don’t know why he said that. It was obvious without even going out there what had happened but I just couldn’t bring myself to say it straight to her face, Dad was the same. He obviously just needed time to think. Suddenly I heard Finn’s voice right behind me. “What is?” he said. Often he would start a sentence without really finishing it and conclude with a gesture. He said “What is?” And pointed with a flat palm to Jenny. “Oh it's Pebbles” I said. “She is tired today.” I tried to hold his gaze as if to insinuate what the truth was. He simply looked back at me with a quizzical stare. I knew his English wasn’t great. “She is quite old.” I added as if to get the point across a little further. Finn simply nodded, and said, “I fix for you, fix Pebbles.” “See, Finn will sort it - now to school, come on.” Mum said as she rushed Jenny out of the front door. I saw him saunter down the back steps into the garden. He never seemed to rush anywhere, even in a life or death situation. It was as if time didn’t really hold the same regard to him as it did to the rest of us, and yet he was never late. When I returned home the Pebbles situation was on my mind, I wanted to know what he had done with her, how he had fixed the situation. At first I presumed that he must have been able to get to a pet shop and exchange the rabbit for a similar one. “How much do we owe you for the rabbit?” I asked. Finn looked confused, “I tell you I fix the Pebbles,” he repeated, “not new Pebbles, I fix Pebbles.” “But how did you do this?” I asked. I was sure there was no way to fix a dead rabbit. Finn pushed the air out of his nostrils and fixed me in his sullen gaze. He looked as if he was trying to find the language to explain, maybe for him those words just did not exist. “It is good now, I fix for you.” he said finally. He began packing his tools and I concluded that this meant the end of the conversation. In the garden I could see Jenny playing with the little black and tan like she had so many other days. The afternoon sun dappled between the leaves and her laughter. The rabbit looked exactly as it had before. He had cleaned and repaired the hutch as well. Jenny saw me watching her. “I can’t believe Pebbles is all better,” she said. “All better again.” When I saw Mum and Dad I tried to talk to them about Finn and the rabbit. Sometimes when I had these conversations it started to feel like I was the adult.The way they were so dismissive of me and accepting of the situation. As if it was normal when it really wasn’t. I started to see their flaws. It irritated and upset me in equal measure. There was nothing in Mum’s head but making things nice and running away from anything that might upset anyone.She had always been proud of her appearance but some days it felt like she existed only for the large vanity mirror in her bedroom. As if it detached her from the world and its dark side. I could not get her to see that what was happening was unexplainable. “It’s just a rabbit, Constance,”she said. “Why are you making such a fuss?” Dad was even worse. He was constantly distracted and never seemed to be around, present but absent. He worked away a lot and the time on the road had started to take its toll. He was heavy set now, wheezed and sweated as he walked and had no energy for my questions. As I left the house that morning I remember seeing two phones in his open briefcase.The regular one and a new cheap one. I wondered what he needed it for. I wished he wouldn’t leave us so often. As time progressed it was like the house improved but the family fell into disrepair. Dad was even more absent and Mum spent hours each day preening herself in the mirror, as if the stuff she painted on her face would hide her sadness, but I saw it. I had to take Jenny to school most days. She was oblivious to the absence of her parents. She was often in trouble at school. I had to pick her up one day because she had stabbed a compass into the hand of the boy next to her. She told me he had been very mean. She would sometimes get angry and throw her toys at the wall in a temper. She could be really frightening when she got into these rages. I wished I could have helped her more than I did. It was too easy to just shut myself in my room and leave them to their own devices. They all did the same, as if we were just lodgers in the same building. I was the only one who really noticed what was happening with Nanny Shackles. Finn had promised to fix the rocking chair she had brought with her. I remember the slight confusion in the conversation between him and my Dad. Over the past few weeks he had been busy in the parlour, and you could hear the normal sounds of a workman using his tools, sawing, hammering, that kind of thing. I thought at times I could hear some murmur of conversation, but it may have been the radio, or Finn perhaps talking to himself. I could not remember the last time I had heard Nanny speak. Honestly, it was easy to forget she was there sometimes. She was just part of the furniture, rocking back and forth. Sometimes Jenny would sit on her knee and give her a little cuddle, she was warm and cosy, you could feel the love emanating from her, even though she would not talk anymore. She was soft cushions and velour florals. It really was just like her. One day it was no longer Nanny rocking in her chair, they were one thing, the same thing. She was the rocking chair and the rocking chair was Nanny. Maybe the others didn’t see it but Finn had crafted this piece so beautifully, so exactly, it didn’t seem to stand out at all. It fitted perfectly with the room. I wanted to speak to them about it but every time I did it seemed that Finn was there. I plucked up the courage to talk to him about Nanny, it didn’t seem right to say nothing. Finn frightened me more and more each day. It wasn’t just a language barrier. It was as if there was something else, something unearthly about the way he saw us, experienced us. “Finn, what did you do to Nanny?” I started as bluntly and as straightforward as I could. I did not want any confusion in what I meant. We were in the parlour room, the rocking chair was between us, I could feel that Nanny was there somehow, somewhere in the ether. Finn looked at me and then looked at the chair. He laid his bony fingers across the velour and stroked it gently. He looked slightly confused and let out one of those heavy breaths. “Is better now, no hurt now, useful. I fix for you.” “It’s not fixed, Finn,”I said. “She is not a person now, she is just, well just a chair.” He fixed me with his stare again, trying to understand my words. “It hurt all the time,” he said. “Does not hurt now, fixed.” He stroked the chair again. It was the first time I had seen a hint of what you might class as affection, perhaps even love. “You want I fix you too?” he said suddenly. “What do you mean?” I said. I was becoming a little fearful of what he had planned. He pointed his digit right up to my left eyeball. Almost close enough to touch it. “This, need fix.” “No, no it’s okay I have these.” I said. I fished into my jacket pocket and pulled out my spectacles to show him. He took them off me between finger and thumb, turning them over in his hand the same way he did with his tools. He held them up to the light but didn’t squint. He shook his head and then shrugged as if disappointed at how inferior they were and handed them back to me. “I must work now.” He said and sloped from the room. I looked round the parlour, the sunlight flitting through the blinds and dancing over the rocking chair. There was no sadness in this room anymore, the way I had felt it every time I came to talk to Nanny before. Finn was right. It was fixed. When I thought about the last years of her life, threadbare, overstuffed, a worn fabric of skin, a little wobbly on the legs. Things were better for her now. Over the next few weeks and months the changes to the house continued. It felt that Finn was in control of the pace and decisions around what got done, what changed, who changed. Everyone was so wrapped up in themselves it would not be something they would notice. I spent a lot of time in my hidey hole bedroom and Finn let me be. There would be times when I would come downstairs to find a new door had been added, or a piece of furniture repaired and restored. It was as if a beautiful nest was being built around me. I would go and sit with Nanny sometimes and found her to be a good listener. When Dad arrived home for the last time I was sitting in the parlour. I could hear the conversation over money. “You must pay now.” I heard Finn say. It was not in anger, more matter of fact. I could hear my Dad, flustered and sweaty trying to find words to explain why he didn’t have the money. Finn said something that didn’t make sense then. He said “Not money, you pay.” I had concluded some weeks ago that the other phone was to contact someone he didn’t want us to know about. I presumed it must be another woman. Perhaps he had been spending all the money on her. I heard more murmurs, I heard Finn say he would fix, then the door to the kitchen was closed. Shortly afterwards I heard the familiar sounds of work. Sawing, hammering, drilling. They must have sorted out the issues as Finn was back to the task again. I went back to my room. The one room Finn had not touched since he had been there. I tried to write but it just wouldn’t work out like it used to. I tried to invent different ugly characters for my beautiful worlds, but they all began to look and sound like Finn. A few days later I was in the kitchen eating breakfast. It was then that I noticed the new sideboard. It was strange how such a large piece of furniture could go unnoticed in a room. Hidden in plain sight you might say. It was a useful type of arrangement. A place for everything, heavy set and solid, built into the recess of the wall so that it could never leave without being ripped apart. There was a lock on the second drawer, a place for secrets perhaps. It was dark wood and the salty grey paintwork still looked wet, a glistening sheen that as time went on I realised would always look that way. It took me a few minutes to see it for what it was. My Dad would always be there for me now, even though I would never see him again in the same way, a real way. He would never leave. I didn’t ask Finn about this, I felt we now had a mutual understanding. If I am being honest, I felt sorry that I was not more sad about it. But I just didn’t. I was stuck in a family that wouldn’t or couldn’t care for me. Finn had found a use for them. For the next two days the phone in my Dad’s old briefcase rang intermittently. Then it stopped. I slid the briefcase into the gap underneath the sideboard. It fitted exactly. It was kind of the same with Mum. She had already been spending most of her days preening and preparing, I was not sure what for. One day I went to ask her if she wanted me to take Jenny to school again. I knocked on her door but there was no answer. I could not bring myself to look at that vanity mirror for long after that. It was some of Finn’s best work, it was beautiful but I could see the sadness inside. Sometimes fixing someone's flaws was more than the construction over the surface. Mum’s self obsession ran through her like the grains of wood in the frame, deep as the reflection in the polished glass. I wish we could have been closer. It was as if she didn’t really see me at all. I had been the only person looking after Jenny for a good while. The routine of school, homework and preparing meals was just something I had slipped into. Not that she had appreciated it. She had become sullen, angry and cruel with her friends. I don’t think she noticed this missing family in the sense that they had always been missing for her. That is what happens when you are the centre of your own universe. I had a feeling she had started to see me as the Mum figure even though I really wasn’t. It was too much responsibility for me. I remembered the days when she used to play in the garden with the rabbit, she was happier then. I wished we could go back. Finn came to see me about a week later. His expression seemed brighter than usual, almost as if he felt relieved. He said “All is fixed now, I can go.” Just the way he said it, as if he had been released from a prison sentence was truly awful. He had been there so long, he felt like he belonged with us, with me. As he turned to leave I felt this was my last chance to try and make myself understood. “I don’t know what to do now,” I said. “How will I survive, how can I look after Jenny? How can I be?” I had wanted to say something more, but actually the way I ended the sentence was what I meant, unintentional as it was. Finn continued to pack up his tools and said “I was wrong. You fixed. This your house now. Fixed house, fixed you.” It was the first time it had been expressed to me that way. All those changes that had been going on in the house, what happened to my parents and Nanny, I had not thought about how I had changed. I had been running the house single handed for months. I was taking myself to college and I had a job lined up at the library. I could occupy the whole place and I didn’t need to hide away. There was no one left to hide from now. Finn had done this without me realising. He fixed the things around me to show me I wasn’t really broken at all. “But what about Jenny, I can’t look after her?” Finn let out one of those long nostril breaths again. “I have fixed for you.” he said. “But why?” I said. “She is just a child. Why did you do that?” Finn took hold of my hand in his bony fingers. They felt cold, as if there was no blood in them at all. “She is dark inside. She kill Pebbles. I fix. She hurt things, maybe she hurt you. So I fix for you.” He put both our hands up in the air. They blocked the path of light from the small window above the door frame casting long dark shadows across my face. “She is this to you.” he said. I nodded. I saw what he meant, how she could be. I don’t think anyone has explained something to me so well in so few words since. “I go now.” He said, finally, resting his hand on the doorframe for one last time as he disappeared down the gravel path. As he closed the new gate at the end of the path, I saw the intricate and beautiful carvings he had inlaid in its design. A little girl, playing in the grass with her rabbit. I stood in the doorway for a long time. As this strange phase of my life came to an end and I contemplated the next one. I wondered how people would feel about visiting my house and being surrounded by my family, but never meeting them. I didn’t think I would ever tell anyone. I wondered where Finn would go next. I was full of stories again. Beautiful stories about ugly people. The ones I used to love. The more I thought about how wrapped up in ourselves we are, the more it made sense for him to be there. We were not special, or important. I guess as Finn saw it, the concept of people was slightly alien to him. We were just objects to fix or leave as they are. Not just on a physical level. It was as if he could see the flaws in the chemical arrangements, the tainted bonds between atoms. He would reshape them and mould them into something of use, of purpose. Somehow, he managed to do this even with our primitive and inferior tools. He had fixed the rabbit in this way. It didn’t seem odd to him. Finn was just trying to make his way in a world that he found very unsatisfactory with its fixed views about what was living and dead. Things could be improved that he saw and we could not. I would never have asked him about his strange accent or simplistic language. It was not polite to ask someone where they were from. He had been shown a glimpse of a perspective on the world that I didn’t fully understand.I hoped that one day he would be able to leave this place, so that he could find a purpose. That perhaps there was a way to fix himself. I am happier now, lonely sometimes, but I feel the family around me and despite their faults, this gives me comfort. I hope to be a writer one day. I am no longer lost and I definitely don’t need fixing anymore. But I don’t think I am capable of seeing the world any differently now. I don’t think I would want to. If I was able to see the world as Finn did, to change it in the way that he could, then I expect there could be no trace of a human being about me at all. Gavin Turner is a writer from Wigan, England. He has published pieces with Punk Noir magazine, JAKE, Voidspace and Roi Faineant Press. He has released two poetry collections, The Round Journey published in 2022 and A mouthful of Space dust released in June 2023.

“I mean, it’s a strange request.” “Is it?” she asked. She was fiddling with the pineapple garnish on her drink. He watched, almost hypnotized, as she slid it along the rim of her glass, immaculate purple nails starkly contrasting against its nearly neon yellow liquid. Peter often spent his nights at this bar. Its location and ample parking were a plus, and it got in a varied crowd. Blue collar workers, the broke college kids, and next to three motels. Best of all, the cameras didn’t work. That much he’d figured out after he watched a man beat a regular nearly to death before bolting, the bartender lamented that they had no footage to give the police. He had no idea how long she had been watching him. He couldn’t imagine it’d been long. Peter had noticed her once or twice. She wasn’t his type. Not that she was ugly per se, but she was bigger than his ideal. Dressed too nicely—too put together. She looked like she could handle herself, that she was large and in charge. Like a woman who prided herself on never crying. When she approached him, offered to buy him a drink, he hadn’t said no. After all, free booze didn’t fall from the sky every day. When she’d asked him to follow her to a booth in the back, he wondered if maybe she was his type after all. Maybe he could make this work. Then she had made her intentions clear. “I guess I just don’t get why,” he said after a few minutes of charged silence. She nodded, humming as if she was agreeing with him. “What if I told you I had some inoperable brain tumor?” “Do you?” “Sure do.” She flashed him a big, bright smile. He leaned back in his seat, looking her over again. “I don’t think I believe you.” She tsked, the smile fading fast from her face, replaced with the beginnings of a pout. She leaned back as well, mirroring his posture. He wondered if it was accidental or intentional. “Why do you care?” “I mean, I don’t.” Even before he finished that sentence, he knew that wasn’t true. “Do you think it’s the fact that I want it?” she asked. “Maybe what’s missing for you is the thrill of the chase. The hunt.” She perked up, leaning in with her elbows resting on the table, “Did me buying you a drink emasculate you?” Peter felt his face grow hot. “God, no, jeez,” he said. He realized he sounded a little like a petulant child. Stop whining Petey! He could hear his mother chastising. He tried not to grit his teeth—yet another bad habit. “It’s not…that’s not the point.” “What is it then?” she asked. He could feel her eyes studying him, looking him over, like she could somehow find the answer stitched into his clothes. “Power?” She stopped to look down at his hands; when he followed her gaze, he noticed he was white-knuckling the edge of the table. He should leave. He should just get up and walk away and deny everything. She didn’t have any proof. “I can pretend,” she said. “I can scream and beg and do whatever else revs the engine.” She took a sip of her drink, his eyes glued to the way her tongue peeked out to guide the straw into her mouth. He scoffed. “I’d know you were faking it,” he said. She smiled, the straw still clenched between her teeth. “Well then, you’d be one of the few, eh tiger?” “Listen, I appreciate the offer, but I’m just not feeling it.” Peter moved to stand, but she grabbed his wrist. Her grip was strong. Stronger than he would have assumed. When he turned to look at her, the flirtation was gone, leaving behind a serious expression, eyes narrowed. There was something sinister in that look, it was trying to dig under his flesh. “I am giving you the gift of a lifetime,” she said. “I won’t fight, I won’t run. There is a zero percent chance of failure here.” She nodded her head to the left, her eyes never leaving his. “Can you say the same for that blonde you’ve been eyeing?” Had he been so easy to spot? Maybe he wasn’t being as careful as he thought. He could hear the girl’s tinkling laugh across the room, surrounded by boys, swarming to her like moths to a flame. They were always swarming. Maybe that’s how she knew. He had a bad habit of watching. His mother always told him not to stare. Keep your eyes to yourself, Petey. “I promise,” she said, standing up slowly. “It’s going to feel just like the real thing. Think of it like a game you can’t lose. And it’s your turn.” They’d gotten into his car and driven off into the night. She made idle chitchat, which he loathed, going on about the weather and the road and stores they passed. It was certainly helping him get in the mood. Once he parked at the edge of the forest, she’d followed him on foot, deeper amongst the trees. Muscle memory took over then, though it was strange without the struggling and crying. He knew where the others were buried, knew it better than the way home. The oak with the notch in its side was number one. The fir that was split from last year’s hurricane, 20 feet to the left, was the marker for number two—how he had loved her. And deeper still, by an old spruce, he’d dug the hole for number six, ready and waiting to be filled. When they stopped at her final resting place, he looked her over, planning it all, the hammer heavy in his hands. She peered down into the grave with arms crossed like she was surveying a mattress, impassive and mildly judgmental. It made something ache in his molars, and he tried not to grind his teeth. There was something off about her. It could have been the lack of fear, or some foliage displacing the moonlight, but she seemed to glow, her figure stark against the darkness. There was something in the back of his mind that called for him to be afraid. It was probably just the adrenaline coursing through him. In these moments, everything was brighter, sharper, better. That must have been it. He was overthinking again. “Will you finally tell me why?” he asked. “Honestly?” she said, letting out a low huff of air. “I’m just so fucking bored.” That was when he swung the hammer down, down, down. She had done as she promised. She let out a scream that sent a chill up his spine, going down like a pile of bricks. The sound of her body hitting the soft forest undergrowth did something to him, and he couldn’t help but indulge. It hadn’t felt like the others, not quite, but Peter felt that thrum of peace in his chest that let him sleep soundly. She had promised him real, and she’d gotten pretty close, close enough to collapse into bed and quiet the voice he could never drown out on his own. The high did not last. He was back at the bar three nights later, the itch in the back of his mind driving him mad. He knew he should wait at least another week for number seven, a month to be safe, but he couldn’t stay away. All day at work, it had thrummed in him like the bass of a song, the siren call to play again. The last girl just wasn’t it, wasn’t the real deal. But he’d been good, finished her like he should. And he was careful enough, right? It wouldn’t hurt to go, just to look. Just one little look. The moment he walked into the bar, his eyes locked onto a brunette, chubby but sweet, surrounded by a cadre of friends all pressed close, enraptured by whatever she was saying. Counting to ten and back again, he made sure to keep his eyes on his beer. He would just look tonight, hold off until the time was right, throw off suspicions, find her again when the time was right. He would be alone, but he could at least watch. That would be enough, he told himself. It was going to have to be enough. He startled when he felt a hand on his back, solid but cold. “I’m real sorry, Petey.” Peter choked on his spit, chest seizing violently. He whipped around to look at the new arrival. The room seemed to shrink in an instant, the chatter of the bar fading into the background. It wasn’t possible. “Looks like we’re going to have to try this again.” Her smile was bright, her teeth perfect. His stomach dropped as he watched her fingers, decorated in chipped purple nail polish, grab his drink. She took a sip, her eyes never leaving his, boring into him. How had he not noticed it before? He’d been so entranced, he never bothered to look at her eyes. Even in the dim light of the bar, the pupils were so small, her gaze fixed and unblinking. Watching him carefully, so carefully he never even noticed. When she leaned in close, he could smell it on her breath, the rot, the earth. She was too put together, large and in charge. He had seen her, but not all of her, not really. “And guess what, big boy?” It hurt to look at her face, all predator, all perfect camouflage. He had made a terrible mistake. He should have known, should have listened to his mother. She put the drink down and grabbed his chin hard. Her nails dug into the soft flesh, and he had no doubt then she could rip his jaw off without breaking a sweat. “It’s my turn now.” Sara Roncero-Menendez (she/her) is a writer based in Queens, NY, and has published stories and essays in several outlets, including Points in Case and miniskirt magazine, as well as a poetry chapbook, Graveyard Heart. She is also a journalist and PR professional, writing about movies, television and books. Follow her on Twitter @sararomenen

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.