Search Results

when i was in the eighth grade, i dressed up as a phoenix on the 31st of october, feathers saturated with marigold, tangerine, scarlet weaved through my light brown hair and plastered on an orange dress, with a pair of wings on my back, all worn with pride. it made carrying a backpack impossible, so i stuffed it in my locker and carried a pile of books that was taller than my torso back and forth across the courtyard from eight to three. there has to be a metaphor hidden in there somewhere, one apt, and astute, and obvious, but whenever i remember that day, i think of the foreshadowing instead: foreshadowing each touch that would set me on fire, every word that would set me ablaze, and the tears that would drench me in kerosene. it turns out, i was always a phoenix. i was never the kind to get knocked down, never the kind to dust myself off – no – i would burn, burn, burn like a raging wildfire until nothing remained but the ashes of a soul. it made me dramatic and loud, it made me seen as i suffered, but it also made me resilient and different from the rest – in a way, still fiercer than the flames that devoured me. remember me when you’re famous, my history teacher remarked that day, subtle and in passing but as sincere and simple as a message of love traced in fresh fallen snow — and with each reincarnation, every moment of that holiday, each bewildered stare, and the rare compliments are once again soldered into the walls of my mind. the years ahead would be increasingly difficult with the fires more common and the damage more acute, with the occasional casualty caught in the crosshairs of my fireball, but like anyone, i learn, i rebuild, i rise until again i fly, soaring high above toward a new future — wings outstretched, still as strong and bright as the day i first grew them in the eighth grade. Anna Kolczynska is a phoenix trapped in a human's body who loves to write poetry. She wrote this piece to illustrate how she discovered as a teenager that our experiences don't always just shape us, but destroy us to the point of rebirth. When she is not writing, Anna can be found exploring theme parks and city streets, making music, coding, and - of course - flying.

The man’s name was Ray; and he struggled, alone, through the drifting waves of coarse white sand. The desert was anonymous—the rocks and sand and scrub and occasional twisted naked tree had taken on the look and feel of everything else... distance fooled his eye, and before long he realized that he was right back where he’d started. He was walking over his own footprints. He sank to his knees—exhausted, fevered. Hopeless. But now, he noticed something new: Another set of prints. Small, barefoot ones; walking just to the left of his own tracks... always a few feet to the left. There was no other soul in sight, but the footprints were real enough. Get up, his inner self told him. Follow them. Hurry. There's someone else here. Maybe someone who knows the way out of this godforsaken featureless hell. So he followed them, racing the setting sun, until: They ended. Suddenly, they just stopped. Impossible. Ray knew whose prints they were: The great ball of fire burned the air as it sank below the sand to the west, and he found himself on his knees again. Exhausted. Unable to move. More tired than he’d ever been in fifty-some odd years. Slowly, blissful oblivion crawled over him. He could feel it seducing him as it came. He knew if he lay down he would never get up—and he didn't care. He could hear Kaylee calling to him out of the blackness. Her image danced in the periphery of his mind. She was tiny, her hair all in ponytails and the rhinestones on her sundress sparkling in the sunlight. She was smiling, waving. Happy to see her dad's buddy Ray. She was happy to see him. Then the blackness washed over him again. Just flashes now: The truck. Kaylee's sweet smile as he drove her home. Highway signs flashing by. Kaylee 's face, all gone pale now, not happy anymore, knowing that something was wrong. The desert road stretching on and on. The flat tire. Kaylee running from him. She was fast for such a little thing, but his legs were still longer. One more look on her tiny face—a scared look—and then blackness again. The shink of the shovel blade in the earth, the skrill sound of tumbling sand. More blackness. Ray thought at first that he’d woken up; but he could see Kaylee leaning over him as he lay there, so he knew he was still asleep because Kaylee was dead and buried. Yet here she was dead, buried, and smiling at him again. But it was a different kind of smile now, than before: void of anything resembling joy. A dark smile full of malice and vengeful glee. Ray had taken her good smile away from her, and now this horrid grimace was what was left. Her laughter tickled his ears, fading away as he woke up for real this time. Nothing. Not a sound. The desert should have sounds, even at night. Ray looked around. Little naked footprints. All around him. The sun was gone, now. He called her name. He screamed her name. He pleaded with her; he lied to her. Anything. He needed her. She came and went as she pleased here. This was her place now, this wasteland. Ray lay in the dark and listened to her bone china laughter echo all across the moonlit dunes, and he knew as certain as anything that they would find his bleached bones here one day, half-buried in the sand—but they would never find hers, because she was part of all this now. Jim Towns is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and artist. He lives in San Pedro CA with his wife and several mysterious cats.

Dead Man’s Quintet i. there’s pasta water / boiling on the stove / “your poems are mush” / my darker angel murmurs / you’d think that wisdom / came with age / but I have only tropes / to slide around / dream lover’s scalp / of hissing snakes / a pot of noodles / simmering ii. snow-salted branches like the gray in Dad’s / hair while he lived this winter is a shaggy / spruce I’m shaggy too and we are sprucing / up the house by sorting winter clothes / and making piles of giveaways my wife’s / got turtlenecks and sweaters stacked I offer / up four flowered shirts their brightness faded / styling out of date so much like me / a gauze-gray sky and every Friday black / my bedside-table catafalque of unread / books is gathering dust and casting shadow / listening to Brahms I miss Beethoven’s edge / which makes me think I sharpen worn-down wisdom / wear the pearls or else they lose their luster iii. Trey trotting with me / now he squats two turds / lie steaming in the snow / a metaphor I fear exploring / I look up away instead / gray sky Midwestern winter / age has taught me / how to love each change / yes even my imagined final one / no hurry it will come / a string quartet is humming / through my headphones / the cello like a low-voiced / woman in my bed / I’m only here to dream iv. sunshine and snowflakes come / and go awareness makes it so / and I am laboring / to make my strangled mind sky-sized / the book I’m reading now’s / high modernism footnotes fragments / and allusions like a person / traumatized / reminds me of a horror / film I saw last May called Men / and this reminds me of / a supermarket shooting / of another at a church / and yes the cellist / in that playlist string quartet is sawing / pine-boards for my coffin v. she’s cutting cookies trees and Santas / playlist rollicking snow blowing / like the ash of Armageddon / there’s still a cup of coffee left / to bend my mind stop worrying / what day this is such drifting hard / to know how much has fallen sideways / flakes or floaters in my eyes / our thoughts aren’t real remember this / mid-middle age its worry and / complacency complicity / in others’ suffering as well / I’m hardly tragic actually / already dead I wonder just / how long it’s been right all my life Family Matters Trauma, drama, dream. These family matters more familiar to me from movies or TV. What did I miss? A plane flying over the Mediterranean, the cabin losing pressure, the paper cup covering my nose and mouth, funneling oxygen. The airport in Athens, Mom buying me a keychain with a miniature harmonica attached. Earlier, in Frankfurt, Jean-Marie and I running the bases, round and round, at Dad’s army-post softball field, she afraid a plane would land on her head. Later, Ankara, me entering the house of Turkish friends, rose water sprinkled on me gets in my eyes, I cry. And later still, it’s Christine in an oxygen tent, her baby teeth bared, rotten brown from all the medicines. Why does my mind leap, hurt animal? Last night I dreamed I met a coyote in the woods, I thought it would fear me, run away, but no, it came on, bristling, grimacing, fanged, and fierce. My waking saved my life. Thomas Zimmerman (he/him) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review https://thebigwindowsreview.com/ at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His poems have appeared recently in dadakuku, Sage Cigarettes, and The Unconventional Courier. His latest book is the poetry chapbook The House of Cerberus (Alien Buddha Press, 2022).

(advice from my 96-year-old father - in - law) Live simply. Eat plain food; porridge made with water, banana sandwiches, soup (tinned is fine); leave that last slice of cake for someone else. Read books borrowed from the library or bought for pennies in a charity shop, return them when you’re finished. Walk every day, come rain or shine; keep an eye on the sky so you know when to hang out your washing or if you’ll need a brolly. Talk to strangers in queues. Listen. Listen to the sea and the chatter of sparrows; they’re reliable and the gossip is harmless. Try and avoid the news; it will only make you cry. Kiss and make up, grudges are malignant Sing. Dance. Laugh. Feed the birds in the garden and chase the cat when it comes hunting the blackbird who lives under the bush. Leave the weeds for the bees and don’t dust away cobwebs. Spiders are good company in the cold winter months. Place flowers on the graves of loved ones, and tell their stories to your children. Good manners cost nothing so always say thank you. Note from author: My father-in-law turns 97 this year and is a remarkable man. I asked him recently what he thinks the secret to his good health is and he gave me some advice.

I remember my ninth birthday like it was yesterday, because I woke up that morning, and I started to wonder when my mom and dad would come in with a huge breakfast in tow, the kind of breakfast that could easily feed two or three of my brothers and sisters, but for some reason they expected me to eat all by myself that morning, even if I’d rather stuck to a cup of juice and eat more cake later when it’s time, and as soon as the sleep started to drain from my eyes I noticed the corner of my door creak open, and my thirteen year old sister Leyla walked in, camping herself at the foot of my bed, and slapped me right on my left calf, left out from under the blanket, which I had pulled up high toward my face in the night, and as I cried out, Leyla said, “Shh. It isn’t like you want everyone to know you’re awake yet. I just wanted to come in and wish you a happy birthday, dude. I remember turning nine like it was yesterday. It’s a big deal. You’re big now,” before stopping at the sound of Mom and Dad singing a birthday song I didn’t recognize, and when I tried to tell her not to slap me so hard next time, my thirteen year old sister just shushed me again, before finding a way to sneak back out of the bedroom, leaving my door open wide enough to see her play off to Mom and Dad being on this side of the house as just coming back from using the bathroom, which would have been a good enough story if anyone had heard a flush, but Mom and Dad were too distracted to question her further about it, being single-minded in their attempts to make me have what they saw as a good birthday, and as they entered my room I quickly scanned the tray Dad was carrying, seeing the expected omelet, pile of bacon, toast, fruit, and a glass of orange juice, but there was also something I wouldn’t have expected, a steaming mug, unusual since Mom and Dad never let any of us have any cocoa or anything of the like during the summertime, but all the same, Mom pulled the legs down on the bedtop tray as Dad unfolded the napkin, and they started singing, “Happy Birthday to You…Happy Birthday to You…” and when they were done, Dad asked me, “so, Justin, how does it feel to be nine? Last year of single digits!” and turned to Mom, and then the two just looked at each other and started giggling, but they didn’t tell me what the joke was, and I bet if I had asked they wouldn’t have told me anyways, because they probably just would have kept chuckling and said I’ll understand in a few years, but when I finally worked up the courage to ask, “What’s with the mug?” they managed to pull themselves out of it long enough for Dad to tell me, “Well, Justin, since you’re getting a little older, we figure today is as good of a day as any to give you a chance to try a real, grown up kind of drink,” and I asked, “So why is the beer steaming?” which just caused Mom and Dad to start howling in laughter all over again, until Mom managed to catch herself, and say, “Now, come on Justin. What kind of parents do you think we are? We’re not giving you alcohol. For Pete’s sake, you’re nine. This is just a little coffee. You always seemed so jealous when your older siblings join us for coffee on Sunday mornings, and your father and I decided you and your sister are old enough to give it a try. But whether or not you like it, you’ll be free to come sit with us during the coffee hour,” which got me wondering whether or not Jessica enjoyed the coffee, and whether or not Mom and Dad had even gone to visit her in her room yet, so I asked them, and Mom said, “Well, sweetie, your sister actually did like it quite a bit. Your dad and I are a little worried about how much she liked it—she was already asking for more before we left the room—but I think she’s going to be fine with what we’ve already given her, right honey? Right honey?” but Dad was distracted, looking at something on his phone before answering with a “Hoowha?” and apologizing for checking his fantasy baseball lineup while talking to me about my birthday, at which Mom looked kind of upset, but in that way where she was clearly trying to hide it from me, because I’m her kid, and if I’m not completely happy on my birthday she thinks my head is going to explode, whether or not it actually would, and as I tell them thank you for breakfast, I casually mention that I have not yet had the chance to get out of bed and use the restroom or brush my teeth or wash my face, to which Mom and Dad thankfully got the message and left me be to go bother Jessica some more, or else get my other siblings in line, or worse yet, start getting ready for the massive birthday blowout they were throwing for us later that day, a party where basically everyone we know was invited, which is not something I’ve ever asked for, or particularly enjoyed, but had put up a brave face about for the last few years, because I knew it was something Mom and Dad really liked, and in that moment I wondered what Jessica thought of the massive parties, whether or not all the effort that Mom and Dad went through for what essentially amounts to an afternoon of talking to people we didn’t know super well and eating a bunch of cheap catered food and waiting for people to go home bugged her, so I decided now was as good as anytime to go ask her, and on the way back from the bathroom, I decided to knock on her door, but she just yelled she was busy and she couldn’t talk to me right now and to go away, so I went back to my room to get some of the giant meal Mom and/or Dad cooked for me (since you could never quite tell which one of them did the cooking, unless you asked, and I didn’t really want to try that morning) and bring it downstairs to the kitchen, but as I crunched down on the toast, my older brothers Jimmy and Timmy came in, Jimmy the Junior Varsity QB, and Timmy his number crunching hype man, even though Timmy was the older of the two and would be going off to college next year, and while I was chewing, Jimmy started, “Hey bud. Happy Birthday. You know, I remember the day I turned nine like it was yesterday. Did I ever tell you about the way…”but as he dug into the story of how he scared off the neighbor’s dog for the umpteenth time, which is the kind of thing that only Jimmy finds impressive or funny or whatever it is that compels him to tell that story all the time, Timmy caught a look of how bored I was getting, and said, “Hey Jim. Why don’t you and I split this bacon and let Justin here sit in peace a while before the relatives start showing up in numbers?” all while handing him my bacon, the best part of the breakfast, and maybe the only part I actually wanted to eat besides the toast, so instead I just decided to down the orange juice and go to the living room to play some video games while I could still have free reign on the TV for a little bit, since I got Ultra Mega Shootastic Mania XIV as an early birthday present from Grandpa, which I convinced him was ok because the game was set in the Vietnam War, and hey, weren’t you in that war Grandpa, because I haven’t learned anything about it yet at school and I need something to start teaching me about it sooner or later, or else how are we going to be able to relate to one another, after all, and Grandpa was so angry at what those damn commies are teaching me in school nowadays anyways that he bought me the game right there on the spot, but I wasn’t allowed to open it until my actual birthday, which, was close enough to today, since today was the birthday party after all, or at least I thought it was ok until Grandpa came downstairs and saw me playing before launching into a speech about the lack of respect people my age have for our elders and the way it’s sending our country down the tube and that sooner or later we’ll be a bunch of words I’m not allowed to say, even just around Grandpa by himself, but as he was really getting blue in the face, Mom and Dad came downstairs, and I thought they were going to rescue me, but before long I was being sent back upstairs to put on proper clothes and wait quietly in my room until the party started, because I was grounded, even if that meant I still had to go to the party and see everyone, because after all, they were here to see me, and I needed to be a good host, even though, as I remind you, I was not the host of this party, because my parents were, and I was really not much more than a prop to show off how Mom and Dad really are the perfect model parents after all, and that things never went wrong here at the Collinson house, oh no, not even once, not even when I noticed my twin sister Jessica sneaking up the stairs with a big bundle of cotton candy in her hand, and another in her mouth, trying to act like it was no big deal and that she would be able to escape up the stairs unnoticed, even though half the bedroom doors were open and she would have to cross all of them to make it back to her bedroom unscathed, and just as I started to wonder how she was going to get away with this, she threw one of the bundles up over the banister and into my room, right where I had to dive onto the bean bag chair in order to catch it, but as I landed I made a big crash on the floor, which was right above the ceiling in the living room, in the same spot where I just got busted for playing Ultra Mega Shootastic Mania XIV a few minutes ago, which made my mom so angry she came to the staircase and shouted up to my room, “Now listen here, BUSTER, I won’t be putting up with any kind of attitude from here on out, because even though it is your birthday and your party, I’m putting in all this work, and so is your father (I guess), and our nice friends and relatives are taking precious time out of their Saturdays to come and see you. So, you know what? You’re going to behave yourself, or you’ll be grounded from now until you’re next birthday. How do you like that?” but before I could even shout down to apologize/make up some kind of excuse for the noise, I heard one of my mom’s friends ask, “Maura, do you really talk to your boy that way?” and my mom started to try to play it off like we were running lines for the school play I was being forced by her into trying out for (even though I’ve never had a dramatic bone in my body, and had never yet showed any interest in the theatre), but before I knew it I was being called downstairs by my mother to talk to some lady whose name I’d forgotten half a dozen times by then about a school play that didn’t exist while my mom ran back to the kitchen to fetch the trays of unpacked Lunchables, which my dad told me not to call unpacked Lunchables, even though, yes, that’s basically what they are, because grown-ups like to pretend they’re fancy even when they’re not, and that by calling attention to the fact they were Lunchables, I would be shattering the illusion for them, which would make them really sad at my birthday party, and that isn’t something I wanted to have happen, now was it, and I found myself having a hard time arguing with him, but this lady friend of my mom’s was so boring and I really just wanted to get back to my video game, but just as I managed to slip away to go back to the TV, I noticed Jimmy and Timmy wrapping up the wires on the controllers, and I shouted, “Hey! What are you doing?” which kind of startled Jimmy, who dropped my favorite controller, chipping the plastic on the corner where the heel of your left hand goes, while Timmy came and took me to the side, and started telling me, “Hey, I get it Justin. These parties kinda suck. But you gotta just put in the time to deal with Mom and Dad’s friends long enough for them to get kind of drunk in the backyard, and eventually, someone will fall in the pool—” “—and that’ll be super funny—” “—Hell yeah, it will. But anyways, you gotta just wait until one of them falls in the pool, because at that point, the grown ups are going to get really sad about being so drunk at a kid’s birthday party that they’ll all want to leave. And then you’ll have the house, and more importantly the TV, all to yourself,” he said, and when I asked him how he knew all that was going to happen, he told me that he remembers his ninth birthday like it was yesterday, and as soon as I started to gag at hearing that line again, he said, “I know. I know. Everyone’s telling you that today. It’s like there’s something in the air or whatever. But the point still stands. I’ve been to enough of these birthday parties for all of us now to know how they work. It’s time you knew, too,” and just then he stopped in front of me, and patted his hand on my chest three times, three little pats that let me know everything was going to be ok, the same way he used to pat me when I was little and stayed up too late watching a scary movie with Mom and Dad, and then I started to cry a little, so Timmy started to hug me and laugh a little, telling me, “it’s alright buddy. There, there. This is a party after all, not a funeral. There’s going to be cake later. Although, I guess we did have cake at Uncle Mort’s funeral three years ago…” but as he trailed off I centered myself, trying to march back upstairs to Jessica’s room to ask her what’s taking so long and when she was going to come downstairs and save me from all of these boring grown-ups, but when I knocked on the door, out came Leyla instead, which was weird, because Leyla and Jessica never got along, mostly on account of how Leyla always liked to pull on Jessica’s pigtails and Jessica always would make fun of Leyla for not having a boyfriend even though she’s a teenager and every teenager Jessica knew (which, at that time, was admittedly not many) had boyfriends, even the boy ones, but when Leyla came out of Jessica’s room, she looked kind of serious and confused as to why I would even be coming up to Jessica’s room to try to talk to her, like I was some kind of otherworldly species, but when I tried to tell her that I always come to Jessica’s room and talk to her, Leyla just told me, “Nope. Not today you don’t. Today, you go back downstairs and you be a good little host puppy for Mom and Dad [who, at that time, were showing off Jimmy’s latest football trophy to the friends of theirs who thought that kind of thing was cool]. Now, run along. Scram!” and as I confusedly walked back to the staircase caught a glimpse of the inside of Jessica’s room out of the corner of my eye, with Leyla walking in and closing the door softly behind her, but just beyond my field of view I saw a pair of hands, too small to be anyone but Jessica’s, cradling her favorite denim skirt, which had a big dark spot on it that I couldn’t remember having ever seen before, but just as Leyla finished closing the door I heard my Dad downstairs calling for me, “Justin! Justin? Where are you bud? Come say hi to Mr. Igmonius Wolfbane!” and just as I wondered what kind of name was Igmonius Wolfbane I saw my cousin Art dressed in what was clearly a rented clown’s outfit and a cheap-looking werewolf Halloween mask, but before I could even ask my Dad what was going on, Art chimed in, “Look, Peter, I’m sorry, but look at the kid. He doesn’t like this. I don’t know why I thought anyone would like this on their birthday. Hey, Justin, bud, I’m sorry I don’t have a better gift for you, I lost my job at the restaurant, and this was all I could put together for some birthday entertainment for you last minute. I was really hoping it would be more fun, and that you and your sis would actually like it,” to which, of course, I told him that I did, even though I’ve never been more acutely scared for my life than I was in that moment, and as he went to the bathroom in back of the house to get changed and go in the pool, he turned back around to tell me, “you know, I was just thinking that I ought to tell you about my ninth birthday, because it sure wasn’t as nice as this. You know, I remember my ninth birthday like it was yesterday…” and as he started to get into the story, my mom’s friend from earlier tapped cousin Art on the shoulder, which made him spin completely around suddenly, causing the werewolf mask to fall back on over his face, startling the woman, and making her creep backwards toward the pool, slowly at first, then faster as Art moved toward her to try to guide her away from crashing in the pool, until eventually Art bumped her in the chin trying to raise up his hands and help her, and she fell backlong in, making maybe the biggest splash I’ve ever seen a grown-up in the pool make in one fell swoop like that, causing a Jimmy and Timmy who were now doing their best to hide on the balcony overlooking the pool, to simultaneously yell, “BOOM, headshot!” and start howling with laughter, only to be caught in that moment by Dad, who shouted, “What the hell are you two doing up there anyways?” to which Jimmy and Timmy tried really hard to pretend like it was nothing, even as wisps of smoke left their hands and little bits of ash started to fall down on Art’s wolf mask and catching it on fire just a little causing him to misjudge the distance between the pool and fall in as well, all of which was especially weird because the burning mask smelled just awful, like a skunk had gotten loose in the backyard or something, and I guess Dad must have noticed because in an instant he was shouting about how Jimmy and Timmy were going to wish that they were doing nothing, because they would have plenty to do for him for a long time, every Saturday from now until the end of time, and as Art was putting out his wolf mask, Mom came out to the backyard carrying a tray of not-Lunchables, and asked, “What is going on here?” but instead of trying to explain it all to her, I just looked up and asked her if it would be alright if I could have some of her grown-up Lunchables, but she dropped the tray on the ground and all the good stuff got wet from the poolwater. All in all, a fun birthday, I guess! Ben Shahon is a writer whose work can be found across the web, the Simpsons columnist for The Daily Drunk, and EIC of JAKE. He learned to write at ASU, and holds an MFA from Emerson College. Ben lives and teaches in the Boston area.

“What’s more American than tax evasion?” I half-joke, drinking AriZona out of a chipped teacup. Upstairs, Uncle Sam’s third cousins mow through my man’s papers. They think he’s more Clyde than Carlton, but I know he’s simpler— or I wouldn’t be unsticking spaghetti from starter pots night after night. My dress would be longer and less scratchy. He would have more friends and reflavored fears. For one, I wouldn’t be confined downstairs like low-rent Rapunzel while the suits talk coin. He’d be smarter from the jump. He’d consider a girl in a Britney Spears bra and tennis skirt too flashy, like Pop Rock(ette)s: fun but not (ful)filling. For the two of us, things would go smoother. The stucco wouldn’t be the rock-splattered, grotto blue of your soul, this suffocating shade. My pace wouldn’t be splintered by buckling floorboards, scored by prom songs and praise for destruction self-made. I thought audits were only for entrepreneurs and idiots. He only pitches tent in one of those boxes. So what’s he selling, a story to who? He’s no Goodfella with a know-nothing wife. I only got rings under my eyes, no hired help to bankroll my sighs. Distractions come in silicone and ray(the)on commercials that clutter the TV screen. Keeping Up with the Kardashians drones in the background since the last tenant buried the remote along Ocean Drive. A dozen doppelgängers strut beyond the gold window film. Maybe they know what it’s like to moll for the long haul, count red-bottom blessings instead of stressing one slip. Paige Johnson is editor-in-chief of Outcast Press, collaborator w/ Roi Faineant and Anxiety Press for the upcoming story collection: Mirrors Reflecting Shadows. She is also the curator of Slut Vomit: An Anthology of Sex Work, and the author of Percocet Summer: Poetry For Distancing Dates and Doses. Find her at @OutcastPress1 on Twitter and Facebook.

An Address Bleeds On The Door Once more I've come to the door, scored a photo, asked the mystery behind- "What is it that keeps pulling me in?" The numbers on the woodwork, hand-painted, bleed a lot, and I wait as if its wound would heal, the address would instill a jiffy etched in the air like a capricious feather. Knock on the skull; if I have ever lived here as a resident, as the one behind, that I had been unlocked into infinity. My father, all gone, whispers to my mother, all gone, that I have grown to be nothing they imagine, but it matters no longer. The Short Life of The Spring In its kingdom of shadows sits the cat. When the car will start and roll away it will be a pauper. This moment is sacred. This moment is rich with all its quiet. In the sugarcane juice spilled from the cup of an old man runs the youth of the Spring, its alysm and inbetweenness. An author, journalist, and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of 'Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being 'Postmarked Quarantine'. His works have been translated into eleven languages. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

The ground trembled when the trains came by, vibrating the bones in their ankles and knees as the countless boxcars barreled on, clanking like warring titans beating steel fists. The neighborhood children loved to lay pennies and quarters on the tracks to see them flatten under the thunderous wheels, erasing their faces and elongating their bodies. Elias got off the bus with his cousins, Celine and Greta, even though he was from the next neighborhood over, because that’s where almost all of the kids got off. A gaggle of them from up and down the block and surrounding streets, their numbers changing every afternoon and every minute. Every day they all poured out of the bus, ran to dump their backpacks at home or in the hedges and grab their bikes and scooters. The wild lots, brambles, and disintegrating buildings around their neighborhood a wide open world to dominate and survey until their parents got home after five. Two and a half hours of sovereignty, a brief eternity. They kicked empty beer cans around the corpse-soot of a dead bonfire that was hidden behind the half decayed house among waist high grass, or they played in the creek filled with storm water coming from the six-foot-wide concrete culvert in the thin outcropping arms of the woods. A wild field with long shaggy hides of brown grass and weeds with an interminable gouge of train track that split the expanse. A sagging rusty playground with limp chains and seat-less swings, a rough metal slide textured with orange rust like snake skin. Sequestered backyards, cloisters of cul-de-sacs, barren streets and boundless woods. Elias’ brother, Stewart, went off with his high school friends, shooting Elias threatening glares and promises of Indian burns later when he tried to follow, so he stayed behind with his cousins and their friends. He trailed around the outskirts of the group, just like he did at school. At school he could read quietly at his desk, or play in the dirt alone behind the tree on the playground for the dragging thirty minutes. But here, after the bus ride, while his dad was still down at the motor shop covered in pungent oil and his mom sweating ink from her fingertips and jotting down final messages, he could and wanted to do anything, everything. Here there was movement, there was freedom from rules and regulations and homework and silent lunch, there were the last warm rays of a cooling summer sun that still brought his blood to boil with exuberance. So he tried to find his way in to the circle of friends as they cavorted, but there was always another back that slid in front of him, cutting him out, a voice that rose over his, a ball that was caught before his outstretched hands. After two hours of sweating and running and laughing, hunting honeysuckles and drinking from hoses, it was Celine who suggested visiting the train tracks. She had seen a movie with her sister last night where the getaway car had just narrowly missed instant death by collision, and the chasing cops were flattened and blown into the air like twisted metal confetti. She described the destruction with sweeping arms that whipped her braids, wide eyes and spit flying from the percussive sound effects. Ever eager for her lead, and for chaos and violence, the children imagined, gasped in awe, and agreed to go, Elias puffing along behind. The train came everyday around four-fifteen. Teens and kids alike would sit on the bank in groups, sometimes alone, and watch them go by. Dozens, occasionally hundreds of cars of all shapes, sizes, colors, textures, designs, and unknown origins and destinations rolled by until they were no longer discernible beyond the first moment of catching the eye, memory blending them together into aggregated harsh-edged blurs. Most were corrugated and ribbed, black, brown and red. Matted dirt and weather-worn graffiti fading like temporary tattoos from the fair. Beautiful, bizarre, bold, and brief. Some carts were skeletal and opened to the air, some merely an empty platform baked by the sky as if a beaten desert were hitchhiking to gentler climes. The group liked to race along and try the impossible task of keeping up with the train, or making up stories of what would be inside. Zoo animals, criminals, alien salvage, werewolves and dragons; they imagined action sequences on the top of the cars, gun fights, wild chases, swords and ninjas, and cowboys with horses running along on the ground. Elias once even described the train engine spewing gold clouds and lifting off the tracks, soaring into the air in spiraling loops and curls like a grimy, boxy dragon. It was Amar that came up with the idea. He, like Greta and Celine, and most of the kids in their exploits, derived inspiration from the warm fuzzy static screens of televisions. He had seen an old black and white silent movie where a guy in funny clothes performed stunts like leaping across the gaps between skyscrapers, or jumping out of a moving car and rolling down a big hill, or laying underneath a train deathly still until it rolled past, standing up unharmed and strolling along as if nothing happened. It was Byron that dared to do it. He was a friend of Stewart’s, depending on who you asked. If you asked Elias, he would have called him Stewart’s acquaintance. Byron and a group of boys in high school were responsible for some of the beer cans throughout the neighborhood, and the strange skunk smell that made them sluggish and red-eyed, which led the kids to believe a poison gas exuded from a crack in the earth’s core just below the abandoned house. The kids tried to steer clear of the older boys, as they could be mean. They would pinch Greta, Celine, and Keisha, pulling their ponytails, while the younger boys often evaded barrages of airborne sticks and rocks, onslaughts of wedgies, noogies, and indian burns. But Byron had overheard their conversation, sitting at the edge of his group, and the older boys picked at the wild story with derision, bravado, and fear soaked in the smell of sweat, adrenaline, and contagious swings of budding testosterone. The sun was shifting into its evening palette as the two groups mingled, half with juice boxes and soda cans pilfered from home fridges, half with beers and joints smuggled through secret but well-known channels. Byron lay down on the track. The sun glazed his burned neck and dirty hair in ochre, the dead brown grass eating at the gravel track ballast with lustful razor teeth. The muddy brown rails simmered in the afternoon warmth as he lowered his back and head onto the wooden crossbars, checking his waterproof digital watch: four-twelve. Despite the dissent of reason in a few weak squeaking voices, Keisha’s and Elias’ mostly, begging him to stop, saying what a stupid and dangerous idea it was, every one of them fell silent to the crackle of dead grass in the wind, the wispy whines of gnats in thin smoke clouds overhead, and the space between them all hollowing for the anticipation. The ground was already beginning to gurgle. The train was early. It hailed loudly as it came around the corner fast. Very, very fast. Byron sucked his arms into his trunk, scrunching his face tight, holding his breath and closing his eyes, his body shivering. To Amar, he looked the way an egg does when it’s frying on a pan, like his Baba would make on Saturday mornings, bubbling and rippling while staying as flat as possible. Amar thought about how the yolks sometimes broke, and the gold bled out. The thought of food, the phantom memory-smell of it, made him nauseous now. Elias was struck by a series of thoughts, moments before the front of the engine swallowed Byron whole. Elias had seen him in his home with his older brother and friends playing Nintendo 64, watching MTV and eating popcorn, throwing the football in the backyard, yelling at Elias to go away and play with the other babies. But more often than not, Elias had seen the boy sitting by himself on the hill of brittle grass watching the trains come and go, sulking in shadows outside the herds as they drank and laughed, walking home by himself. Byron had always been quiet, and always been sad. Last choice for all teams, picked on the most and the hardest for his unwashed clothes, his dirty hair, how skinny he was, how he wore sweaters in the scorching throttle of summer. It saddened him, but in a way it made him feel something else, like when he read a book and felt like the brave knight, the courageous orphan, the chosen one in the story had feelings exactly like he did. Like there was someone else just like him. In a strange, quiet way, it made him happy, to see that there were others just outside the circles. Elias wondered if that had anything to do with this death-defying stunt. It also occurred to Elias that the stuntman Amar had seen had probably planned ahead. He probably knew how to lay underneath a train. He probably knew the exact height of the train’s undercarriage, the thickness of the rails, the depth and width of the slats beneath the track. He probably knew the cameraman, the director, the train conductor. He probably had inspected the undercarriage of the train before laying down in its path. Byron had no such planning or knowledge. None of them did. And they did not know. The bones in their ankles and knees buzzed and their chests trembled, mouths dry at the first taste of true, tangible danger in their lives. They did not know that the train had departed behind schedule, and the conductor was breaking regulation by increasing the speed well above allowance for city limits, ticking up over forty-five miles an hour. The train engulfed Byron. It ran on without hitch or pause, smooth sailing, full steam ahead. They did not know that in a train yard four hundred and eighty-two miles north of their homes and school and playgrounds, that a man in Pennsylvania was newly divorced, and drinking at eight in the morning, stumbling toward the end of his shift in the train yard inspecting the locomotive before it left, rushing through trying to make up for delays. They did not know that he was one strike for drinking away from being fired. They did not know that as the sun rose he pulled a flask from his overalls as if scratching an itch absently on his nose, that he did not clear all the chassis and carriage connections properly. They did not know that this man would lose his job days later, solely for the fact that he drank and clocked in late, and that his anguish would have nothing to do with what his actions were about to cause. That of all the things that bloated and corroded his conscience, the lamentable things that pushed his wife and kids and friends away and excommunicated him outside the circle he had built for himself where he could only see their back and hear their voice he had loved dimly directed anywhere else, that this was one terrible thing he would never know that he did. The train plowed on. The wheels beat in heavy revolutions, tearing away at the two long lines that carried them. The group of young spectators ran back and forth in fear, trying to catch a glimpse of Byron, trying to see movement, hear a scream. There was a small space of light between the wheels, but they passed so quickly that it was hard to see. Keisha shouted, pointed, voice raw with terror and exultation. There was Byron, under there, blinking and immobile like a corpse, but then he turned his head and looked at them, eyes wide and panicked, chest heaving, but smiling. They all cheered, clapping, jumping, the shaking ground shooting them skyward as they released all their pride, excitement, concern, relief. They had never seen the train move so fast, they had never seen something so exciting in person, they had never been so proud or in awe of one of their own. They all knew a hero, and felt elevated themselves by it, as if they too had shared in the glory and gumption in the act of watching it happen. The train trumpeted in fury, the pistons, axles, hooks, bolts, belts rattled their fists, and the children cheered back and egged them on. It was all so loud that none of them, especially not Byron, would have been able to see or hear it before it came. Even if they had, there was nothing that could be done about it. Tragedy had set its course, and it would run to the end. The disheveled man in the Pennsylvania train yard had neglected to unwrap a chain from a bogie. But the whiskey in the metal flask had still been cold and burned just the way he liked it, and the condensation soaked red bandana he wrapped around it for concealment still smelled like his ex-wife, apricots and menthol, and so the chain went unheeded as he stumbled on. It had rattled suspended in the claustrophobic compartment of air all the way down to Rowan County, North Carolina. Two intruders in this pocket of air that smelled of oil, chafed metal, and the char of friction, both of them in places they had no right to be, not ever, especially at the same time, on the same day. The only times either of them would ever be there. The children on the outside never saw the chain, and neither did Byron. He died immediately when it split his skull open, and it clutched at him with a grip instant and irresistible. To the children outside, it just looked as if he sat up. Not for any good reason. Maybe he thought the last car had already gone by. It seemed as if an invisible hand had grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked him upward. Celine and Greta dreamed about it every night for years, and even when they were grown and married it still came to mind once every strange feverish night, but they never talked about it with each other, or their husbands, or therapists. They always remembered in detail but never described how Byron’s body seemed to roll in on itself like a chameleon’s tongue. As if he secretly had been walking around all this time with putty in his frame instead of bones. In fact, they hardly talked at all for a long time, no longer offering the lead, content to reticence. Amar threw up, and could never look at another train for the rest of his life without feeling nauseous, and seeing Bryon in that condensed trench folding in half, then half again, then tumbling into a flailing formless shadow that ricocheted up and down, in and out, the outlines becoming looser and abstract. He grew up to buy a house in the suburbs, his office never more than a mile away, and a silent, air-tight Prius to get him there. He nestled himself into the silence, where nothing rattled, trumpeted, or quaked under his feet, and ever after preferred cereal with his morning tea. Keisha moved away that summer. She had a stack of love poems that Byron had stuffed in her backpack, and kept hidden away because she had been twelve and Byron sixteen, and she knew her parents would have killed him. When she grew and went to college, her first apartment, her first house, she kept them in a box of old junk from her bedroom that she pulled out once every few years. Each time she put it away, she felt his image and memory were receiving more of a burial than the strewn debris that had been wrung out in the field. Elias always thought about how it never stopped, not the rumbling, not the sound of metal, not the stench. Even after the train was long gone out of sight, and they saw Byron’s body strewn out and elongated like pennies and quarters, faceless and stretched in thin pieces and ribbons. He thought about how nothing seemed to ever stop. How so much of life turned into a bittersweet blur, yet a chance moment of visceral carnage, random, cruel, pointless, could linger and stain so vividly even until the last day that the pearly gates themselves clanged together like crude, dirty steel. Their parents came home after five, the police were there shortly after. The blood trail dripped on past the horizon for miles. Byron’s mother cried for months and forever grieved. The city held a vigil, and began building chicken wire fences along the track with warning signs. Both the endeavor and the memorial were quickly forgotten. The high school put a special page in the yearbook and honored him at homecoming. They remembered him with varying degrees of misremembered fondness, depending on who you asked. If you asked Elias, he would have told you that Byron had finally gotten inside the circle. The Pennsylvania man no longer worked in the train yard, but drank at the bar every night after work as a janitor, returning home to an empty, dirty apartment, wondering why he had the worst luck in the world, why did life or God hate him so much, pacing within his own lonely circle of loathing. He did not have to clean the blood, or the bits of flesh that were stuck to the undercarriage discovered at the next train stop. He did not untangle the pendulum of gore that he had hung. A sin unknown, never stirred into the brew that rotted him from the inside out every night. Elias came back to visit years later, while his kids were napping at their grandparents, walking outside the circle he had built for himself for just a moment, thinking less about the now and to be and trading it in the hallowed wild fields that quiet evening for what was. He sat down on the hill, sweating in the heat that lingered steadfast in the beginning of fall, wondering if he should have invited his brother. If he would have come. The ground no longer trembled, its shuddering calmed and lapsed into a stillness that was thick and sticky. The grass around the train tracks grew ever taller, as fewer feet tread in that field until even the trains stopped coming by, saddened by the memory. Heavy feet and lingering tears wandered away as far as they could, but the place had no choice but to stay and grow, until the yearning woods reclaimed it all under the omnipotent circle of the cooling sun. A word from the author: "Stuntman" explores the interplay of fairness and social dynamics as a nostalgic latchkey afternoon suddenly shifts, and the ripples of shock and loss reverberate throughout the lives of those present. Daniel Mowery lives in Greensboro, NC with his wife, daughter, and dog. He works in residential construction. He received a BA in Literature & Creative Writing from Catawba College. He has been published in The Chamber Magazine and has upcoming poetry in Spurned Zine by Gnashing Teeth Publishing, and Suburban Witchcraft.

Lisle Donker (back row, second from the right) with daughters Anne, Freda, Dagmar, Maud, and grandchildren circa 1901 Long dresses still make us look short and unhappy. I'll admit what Mum won't: we're not hat people. The red cheeks in the painting? All that hiking and the fresh Alpine air. According to Mum, our Donker ancestors were robust and hardy. Times change. Mum and I live in a basement apartment in a flat town. She goes outside to smoke, gasping as she climbs the stairs. Those red cheeks are not, by the way, rosacea. Mum doesn't believe her condition came from Great-grandma Lisle, but does think I'm responsible for her flare-ups. I'm stress-producing. Like when I stare at the picture, blurt, "What weird skin." "You're being too literal." She argues the painter was making an artistic statement about their—our—blue blood. But they look more green than blue. She shouts me down. "It's the majestic woodland background!" Whatever. Thank God I don't have the Donker complexion, being sun-kissed like my father. He was from Italy and left us to go back. At holiday time, Mum recreates the painting. She sorts my aunts and girl cousins from tall to short then fiddles with the arrangement to cover up indecently short skirts, gravy and wine stains. Traditional black Tyrolean blouses would disguise such sloppiness. Old ways, she preaches, are the best ways. To show off my wide child-birthing Donker hips, Mum pulls hard on the belt of my school uniform. I slap her hand. "Scheiße, hör auf" is the only German I know. She smacks me back. "How else are you to attract a nice boy and continue our line?" Hopes for four granddaughters and a grandson, like in the picture. Wait. What? The littlest child—name unknown; everyone else's is in fancy loopy handwriting on the back—in the black overall-type thing is a boy? Whoa. Great-grandma Lisle apparently told Mum so during their midnight chats and that the boy's name was Maximilian. "Now, wouldn't that be cute for a future Donker?" Me, "No." Karen writes in a low Canadian basement. Her work is in or forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bullshit Lit, Janus Literary, JAKE, L'Esprit Literary Review, Moon Cola Zine, boats against the current, and others. She/her.

All the Single Women were invited to the pilot program of HappilyEverAfter where the newly invented HomoSapiens module would spit out genetic codes to assemble their perfect partner. The single women presented their mile-long list: thick finger-losing never-thinning hair, good teeth, perfect toilet aim, fart-less butt, diamond-gifter etc. They shriek with joy at the sight of their handsome man, but soon their men shrugged away to flirt with younger and more beautiful women. Outraged women ripped each other’s mane before turning away from their foolishness, hair flying like freedom flags. Left to their own device, men melted back into a puddle of primordial soup. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Madagascar before settling in Boston, Christine H. Chen’s fiction work has been published in CRAFT Literary, SmokeLong Quarterly, trampset, The Citron Review, and other journals. She is a grateful recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and the co-translator from French of the hybrid poem-memoir My Lemon Tree forthcoming in 2023 by Spuyten Duyvil. Her publications can be found at www.christinehchen.com

Wake Up, Sheeple! We bring you RICE IN SPACE, the greatest conspiracy of all time. Space itself, of course, is a giant cover-up but don’t sweat it. Forget the dark side of the moon. Instead, think ‘dark matter.’ What a joke. It’s actually BLACK RICE. South of the equator you’ll find it in specialty shops. In the past, only the rich could afford it. In space, it’s, like, totally invisible against all that inky nothingness. Newsflash! We’ve identified a bumper crop of black rice in and around space debris, aka JUNK. You get the connection between black rice and space debris, don’t you? Ultimate Supremacy. Black rice traditionally feeds the good folk of the warm, water-logged tropics. Due to all-weather issues they now run a cross-border Embassy for Ruined Farmers. Ruined, you say? Why? Because the Powers That Be have outsourced rice growing. Incredible, right? This particular rice is now grown in mini-orbit round all the junk orbiting Earth where, naturally, it’s invisible. Black on black, right? When the time’s right, those (name deleted) will send a Metal Salvage Team, and pay Ruined Farmers to harvest rice. Here’s where it gets interesting. Back on Earth, they’ll hand over the rice to one of the Anti-Famine Groups, which then make food drops on all the war-torn, starving parts of the globe. The grateful army of the starved will snatch the food parcels and rush off to cook said rice, and why not? It’s nutty, wholesome, delicious, a complete meal. Except the same irradiation that’s permitted said rice to grow in a vacuum environment in space will also turn the Grateful near-Dead into willing tools of (name deleted). The Starving will crave more and more. They’ll besiege everyone else’s Embassies and demand citizenship. They’ll do anything to get that rice. Think mayhem. Bosch. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a’ comin’ at ya. Remember, the third Horse is Black, and represents FAMINE. Do you feel the hot breath of that Horse? Do you see the immensity of this vile conspiracy? We suggest the following ACTION PLAN: Donate to your favourite Abolish World Poverty charity. (Anything but rice.) Check the colour of your food. Is it natural? Does it contain additives you don’t understand/need/want? Those numbers in brackets? Do they add up to 999? Here’s the recommended course of action: Run! (signed) Armageddon Outta Here Brenda Anderson's fiction has appeared in various places, including Daily Science Fiction and Wyngraf. She lives in Adelaide, South Australia and tweets irregularly @CinnamonShops

My previous expectations regarding the hereafter were closer to worms than to bareass comrades. Amazingly enough, Death was not it, and Her elevator didn´t serve all floors, hence I went straight down. Though I find it useless to dwell on the fact that I´d never been a man of beliefs, such unexpected displacement rendered me a bit resentful indeed, as integrity is not a synonym for faith, but truth be told, I´ve always had a preference for warm weather. While I have to admit it gets awfully hot in here, there´s not much to worry about – apart from the no-wiggling rule. I call it simple living, amigos, quite different from life above. And while on the subject, I suspect my ticket to hell was not only bought last minute but also by accident; so, apropos my fate, be a good listener in order to be a good judge: Upon my mandatory retirement I yielded to public life, becoming – among a handful of others – Lord Assistant of a town very dear to me. Politics, you see. Was I acquainted back then with its heavy burdens? No, and if I were given a chance to go back in time, what I´d do I cannot tell. Bottom line, it all came down to choosing my battles. That a day would come when illiterate men no longer inhabited this planet I could only dream of; though with powers so limited, the south village – five villages lazily named after their location formed our cross-shaped city – known for growing bananas by men unable to spell ‘bananas’, was where I was aiming. As you might expect, one has no enemies among those provided with rice, gods, and potatoes, still decades can go by without much change, and a rock remains a rock. By no means did I intend to reinvent the wheel; I simply wanted to take education beyond classroom walls. Throughout my career I can assure you, Gentlemen, it barely reached the gates. I was aware of resistance to my plans, but the day I took office I made my point crystal clear: ‘Then – mark my words! – whether or not we find means, we will send those villagers books. If not food and books, nor medicine and books, then books and books.’ That such ambition had its fair share of compromising came as no surprise, as it often required a blind hand to sign here and there, and though my motto had never been ‘the end justifies the means’, I was duty-bound to stick to my ideals. Within a year my rather modest project had drawn a lot of attention to itself, slightly putting us on the map nationwide. Though winning approval had never been on the agenda, only when the clapping was over I realized I had no objections to it; still, knowing such pioneering endeavors would definitely make history I kept on signing, managing, and delegating. Such was the simplicity of life I wondered whether happiness lay somehow in planning itself, but regardless, at that point there was no stopping me, no. From time to time, lovely counselors urged me to reallocate part of the books budget to this and that; on such occasions, a framed article on the wall headlined ‘Third World Unbendable Man’ would reassure me, and once alone, however silly I felt, I must confess I´d always wink back at my picture. With each passing month, increasing knocking on my door along with some quite alarmed faces tried to keep me from focusing, at times begging ‘Sir, please’, at times admonishing ‘Sir, I insist.’ Insist! That very word gave new momentum to my plans: if not threats nor violence – modern times had particular setbacks to heroism – then interruption, goddamn interruption, was this soldier up against. Sophisticated as my mind was, yet discretely prone to comedy, on the door of my office a note read: ‘Knock, knock. Who´s there? Your former boss’. Oh, wit. Some got it, some didn´t; I equally despised all, as ludicrous reports on banana crop losses were now slipping under my door, never to an end! Intimidation had never been my modus operandi, yet unable to control my state of anger, I was on the verge of yelling at every single person who crossed my path had not a thud on the door made me swallow my distress. Opposition, you see. By then I´d become so inured to political shenanigans I was actually curious to see what those conniving pigs had come up with, since rumors about forceful measures had been going around the office. What was my surprise, Gentlemen, to find out that my office was no longer cozy enough, therefore I was taken to the police station – and while the whole situation made me feel acutely embarrassed, the real shock was yet to come. I´ll spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say, piles of bodies – ranging in age from newborns to the elderly – had been recently found all over the south village. As for me, upon being accused of their murder, I could but reply ‘Let me remind you, gentlemen, that never in the village have I set foot.' Having a hard time to disguise their state of agitation, my accusers left me to my own conjectures. At that point my best guess was the riots have erupted, rioters have been violently suppressed, and the police needed a scapegoat... but me? Well, I´d never expected I´d live to witness revolution, still one is capable of changing the world under the influence of great fiction. Lack of evidence did not prevent them – pigs – from holding me accountable, so I was told to publicly beg the Lord for forgiveness or else, to which I replied ‘Which Lord? I beg of you more,’, to which they replied ‘Give them something to believe’, to which I replied ‘I have.’ Making history more often than not meant going to hell, yet on their leaving my cell I entreated ‘Let not my death be closure!’ But it wasn´t until later that my fate was sealed, as a tiny note left under my pillow read: ‘They´ve been eating it, sir. The books.’ Jane Camoleze is a fiction writer. Her work has appeared in trampset. She lives in São Paulo.