Search Results

My name is Gavin. My claim to fame is that I am reusable. I can be filled with shopping, time and time again. Multiple use is my raison d’être, my nous, as it were. This makes me environmentally friendly. I’m a hard worker, with strong edges. I’m just waiting for someone to pick me up and use me. I’ve been waiting a long time. I was born (or made) in a sweatshop on the edges of Mumbai, India. In the sweatshop, they make plastic bags, amongst other things. There is a Tesco factory here, where several million workers are promised corrupted employment. They work in the factory for twenty-seven hours, every day. Reusable plastic bags are made by the workers, who squeeze liquid plastic into a machine with a firm pressure, as though they are oozing white cake icing out of a nozzle. The machine then flattens the liquid plastic into the shape of a bag. There is a short moment for the newly born bag to dry, before it is cast aside onto an endless pile of perfectly identical, blank bag brethren. I came out the other side of this rather uncomfortable process as a clean plastic bag – neat and durable. Then I was printed with the Tesco logo and label informing my recipients that I am recyclable, reusable and, I believe, very friendly for the environment. Well worth my 20 pence price. Finished and complete, I was plonked on another pile of identical reusable bags, chucked into a humongous container and transported to Slough, a dense town somewhere in southern England. The other bags and I are identical siblings. We are stuck in a dark, brown cardboard box. I sit in between Glenda, on my right, and Geraldine on my left. We are the ‘G’ box. We stay closed and silent in this box for a long time. I talk a lot, to no one in particular; I am practising how to sell myself. I read all the terms, conditions and warnings about using plastic bags, which are printed on the inside of the box. I know exactly how environmentally friendly I am (and am not). I realise there is a fault in my ingredients: I am made of non-biodegradable plastic. I should never be thrown away! I must be reused, again and again and again. I learn that humans should be wary of placing me over their heads, since there is the potential for asphyxiation. I realise that I have more power (both good and bad) than anyone ever knew. I have the whole world at my plastic parameters. If only someone would open the box and use me. I mumble a lot, although Glenda, Geraldine and the other bags are silent. I know she does not say much, but I feel particularly close to Glenda. I feel we are part of the same substance; I feel compassion for her silence. I know I can read her thoughts. I reckon we have conversations – silent ones – through the plastic veneer that separates and joins us together. I could be making this up, but my instinct tells me that Glenda and I are intimately twined. One day, a young-ish human comes over to the storage capacity at Tesco’s, Slough. He picks up our box and throws it (us) haphazardly over to the self-checkout tills. “’Ere we are,” he says. “Use these.” The young lad is called Dave. He is 17 years old. Working at Tesco’s is his fourth job. He has been here for approximately two months. He is working his way up the ladder of promotions (currently at the bottom, but ever hopeful). Today, his task is to refill the reusable bags in the shop. I am very excited about this happening, and so is Glenda (I am sure of this). This is our time to shine. Geraldine and the other bags are silent; it’s almost as if they aren’t alive, which is ridiculous. Everything is alive. All of us are thrown out of the box and plonked in a pile next to the self-checkout tills. The air around the supermarket is stinky and close. I am reminded of the factory where I was made. I flap my handles to generate some breeze. As I lift up, I immediately notice that the middle of my bag form, my heart, is still attached to Glenda’s heart. We are conjoined, we are Siamese twins, as close as can be. A fault yet an asset. I am deeply moved; I will never be alone. “Glenda,” I say. “I knew it – we are together forever; our hearts are one. You are my Siamese twin!” Glenda replies, “I was wondering why I had an itchy chest. You realise that when they find out that we are conjoined, they will tear us apart. One of us will have their heart removed, and be discarded thrown away as rubbish, and the other will have a double beating heart, but remain alone, overwhelmed by grief.” “Or,” I venture, “we will be upheld as unique and brilliant, always reusable Tesco bags.” Whilst Glenda and I consider our fate, we do not notice that we are taken up (together) and used by a random shopper. The random shopper is a middle-aged woman named Smokey, on account of the grey-purple eyeshadow and eyeliner she applies to her vision organs’ exterior, every morning at 6 am. Smokey is a dark, mysterious Gothic woman. She knows all there is to know about death and destruction. She writes lyrics about these things. Smokey is in Tesco’s for her weekly shop. She has, on this occasion, unfortunately forgotten her shopping trolley, so she has to purchase a new bag to hold the items she wishes to buy. She’s not very happy about this because she thinks it is a waste of money. She could buy a packet of dry pasta or a tin of baked beans for 20 pence, rather than wasting it on a plastic bag. But this is the situation. Smokey picks up the nearest reusable bag in the pile next to the self-checkout till. She notices that this is no ordinary bag; it is extraordinarily good-looking, shiny and shimmering in the glistening light of the electric bulbs above her. Yes, she has picked me up. Smokey immediately notices that I am attached to another bag. “What is this?” she wonders. “Two for one? Excellent value for money.” I peer at this human. She has long dregs of coarse, matted, black hair. She wears knee-high leather boots with 6-inch heels, a tartan kilt, and a hot pink crop top (in the middle of winter). Glenda and I, we love this human. She gives us meaning. We leave the pile of bags who shriek at us, “Good luck! Have a lovely life, be used and be happy!” This is my chance to make it in life, with my Siamese twin. We are still attached. I hope we are attached forever. Smokey is buying some interesting items, I notice. Two boxes of matches, a toothbrush, a packet of forget me not seeds, three tea towels, baked beans, sourdough bagels, mayonnaise, a shoe cleaning kit, a travel hairbrush, and some dog biscuits. I can see all this because although Glenda is full of these items, my role currently seems to be as a bystander and observer. I am currently empty. “Are you okay, Glenda?” I murmur. “I must say,” she replies. “It’s simply marvellous to have a role in life. To be filled with items, to be needed in society. What about you, empty hang-er on-er? What are you going to do with your life?” “I am protecting you,” I say. “This weird human must know that. Here I am – I will protect the human, but most of all I will protect you.” “How on earth will you do that?” asks Glenda. “You’re just a…” At this moment, Smokey grabs hold of Glenda’s handles and hauls us both out of the shop. I blink in the bright Indian summer sunlight. My heart, still attached and beating with Glenda’s, rushes on faster. ‘Welcome to Slough’ I read on a sign we pass. I am full of wonder. I look over to Glenda. She is waning and drowning with all her contents. She has never carried anything before. It’s too much. “Take care, Glenda. Don’t drop anything!” Smokey fastens Glenda’s handles through the handlebars of her motorised broomstick. I’m still attached to Glenda, so not left out. Smokey mounts the broomstick like a horse, and revs up its motorised engine. “Vroom vroom…” I did not know that motorised broomsticks existed before this enlightening moment. I did not know I could fly. This is an epiphany. As Smokey powers up her broomstick, we soar and cruise through the sky. Glenda’s handles are stretched to their limits because she is holding so much weight with Smokey’s shopping. I inflate, as air rushes into my volume and fills me up. I have a weightless but inflated mass – full of air, dancing like a balloon in the wind. I feel like I’m at the silent disco, held – my heart beating with Glenda’s heart, but lifted, elated, free. “I feel very queasy,” says Glenda, quietly. “I have closed my eyes, so I don’t have to see where we are going. If I open my eyes, I think I will be sick. I was not built for this. The weight I am holding is dangerous, I am about to break…” “No,” I reply, ignoring my sister’s warning cry. “This is the best day ever. We are flying in the air on a broomstick. Has any reusable Tesco bag ever done that before? We are unique, we are perfect. Conjoined Siamese twins, flying on a broomstick. Together forever…” As I say these powerful touching words, Smokey drives her motorised broomstick through a huge gust of wind. This wind vent blows very hard. The broomstick, laden with its challenging load, can hardly move through this turbulent section of powerful air. “Vroom vroom, come on, broomstick!” shouts Smokey, revving the engine. “We’ve got to get home so I can have my tea. We are running approximately four minutes behind schedule. Come on!” But the broomstick is not coming on. The wind is winning. “Hahaha!” bellows the wind, who has never felt so strong in their long, arduous life. “I will demolish you.” Glenda is bouncing around, pulled down by gravity, yanked this way and that by the wind’s rough embrace. “I can’t take this much longer at all,” she says. Her voice is becoming quieter; she is whispering. I can hardly hear her, but I feel what her heart—our heart—is saying, all of a flutter. “Hang on my dearest sister Glenda,” I say to my beloved. “We just need to get through this rough patch. Look – Smokey is trying her best to keep us balanced and secure. We are nearly there!” In an instant, the rough, angry wind gives one enormous belch of hot air, growling and hissing. Smokey’s broomstick gives up entirely. It rears up and shudders, blown away by this aggressive windy air. Smokey grabs hold of Glenda and leans down low on the handlebars, to secure both her shopping and her balance. But I am left to fend for myself. Only my - our - beating heart connects me to safety. I find myself suddenly, completely overwhelmed. The wind enters my flapping bag-ness and fills me up. I am a taut balloon, growing so tight. I’m at the edges. I can’t scream, I can’t shout, I’m completely taken over by this totalitarian air. This can’t go on. Soon enough, there is a small “pop” sound, followed by a “fizzzzz”, as I break off from my Siamese twin and fizzle out. I fall to the ground, somewhere completely unknown. There is a hole in my centre, where I was once attached to Glenda. She has all of our heart. I am left alone, flapping lamely in the breeze. I mope. The days go by. I do not find out what happens to Glenda or her shopping. I never see her again. I try to retain some sort of hope about my future, but it is not up to me. Nature takes her course. I remain wounded, open, and dreadfully sad. There is no conceivable ending. It will take over one hundred years for me to eventually break down, and even then, I will continue to tarnish the environment. Nothing good will ever happen again. ~ Oh dear. Gavin the plastic shopping bag is now heartless piece of rubbish. He has become what he was made to prevent. But one day, drifting across a polluted piece of sludge, Gavin meets Stacy. Stacy is a discarded brown paper bag. She is biodegradable – Gavin’s dream substance. As the clouds empty themselves, Stacy becomes moist. Her clammy brown paper sticks to the hole in Gavin’s middle, filling the place where Glenda once was. They may be litter, but Gavin and Stacy are wedged together now. Clasped in an unlikely but deeply passionate embrace, a whole new world has opened. The two bags have never known anything quite like this before. Gavin is for the first time glad that he is made of plastic. When Stacy’s brown paper starts to dissolve, as it inevitably does, Gavin squashes her into the far bottom corner of his plastic cavity. She is safe and dry here; she will not erode. They squeeze together and are conjoined for a very, very long time. Lorna Collins is an artist, filmmaker, writer, journalist and arts educator. Amongst other books, she is the author of 'Squawk: A Book of Bird Adventures' (Pegasus: Vanguard Press), a curious, hilarious, illustrated collection of short stories for children. Lorna has written articles about mental health, the NHS, creativity and art in 'The Independent', 'The Guardian' and 'The British Medical Journal'. In her TEDx Talk, “How Creativity Revived Me", she talks about how art helped her recover from a severe traumatic brain injury and many years of mental illness. @sensinglorna https://lornacollins.com

The Piedmont Interstate Fair didn’t look like much to an outsider. It was a half-mile dirt track, but it represented a long line of winners. NASCAR greats had taken victory laps here, and Tilly would be no different. Tilly was the reigning queen of the Best in Baked Goods category and Best Overall. Her lemon pound cake, complete with blueberry glaze, had earned her a decade of accolades. Folks shoved orders at Tilly faster than she could make pound cakes. But today was all about winning. She was on her way to the fairgrounds to admire her blue ribbons. Tilly made her way to the agricultural building. As she entered, hands patted her back and greeted her. Tilly felt electric. Her eyes found her lemon pound cake. Only one small blue ribbon draped across her cake. Where was her Best Overall ribbon? Her eyes frantically searched the table and rested on a mason jar full of whole figs and cinnamon sticks. There was her grand prize ribbon. Tilly struggled for air. The chatter intensified. Judgment rolled off the others and pushed up against her. Who had stolen her grand prize? She went straight to that fig jar. The card said pickled figs. Who had ever heard of such nonsense? A neighbor approached. “Pickled figs. Can you believe it, Tilly? I had a small taste when Mr. Ross was experimenting. Pure genius, I tell you.” Tilly forced a smile. Mr. Ross was new to the area. A widow who wanted a fresh start. His fresh start had spilled over into Tilly’s life. As Tilly exited, she spotted the fair director. She cast her eyes down to avoid conversation. “Tilly!” Tilly! Congratulations on your baked goods win. I can’t wait to get a sample of that lemon pound cake at tomorrow’s celebration of winners.” Tilly nodded and kept moving. Her nails ripped into her palms. Opening her hands, she saw that she had drawn blood. In a flash, Tilly knew what she would do. The celebration of winners’ ceremony was tradition. The judges and the winners visited and sampled the prized goods, while the press snapped photos and interviewed the attendees. If new experiences were what they wanted, then Tilly was going to give it to them. As Tilly prepared the batter for her lemon pound cake, she peered out the window over the sink. Her potted plant arrangement was gorgeous, all fall mums, marigolds, and chrysanthemums. Nestled between all the oranges, reds, and golds was a plant with shiny dark berries. Her belladonna plant that she had grown from seed. The juice from those almost black berries would blend right in with her blueberry glaze. Days later, Tilly was ready for the celebration of winners’ event. Judges, friends and family, and the press gathered to sample the prize-capturing treats. As the 4-H youth members ferried her cakes from the car to the building, Tilly supervised. The table groaned under the weight. It looked like the Lord’s Supper but the Southern edition. Everyone’s plate was weighed down with slivers of cakes, dabs of preserves, and those damn pickled figs. Tilly spied her lemon pound cake with its special glaze on most everyone’s plate. A panic ran through her like a sprinkler system, soaking her in sweat. What if a sliver of lemon pound cake wasn’t enough? Tilly stared at her plate and a pickled fig stared back like a wet slug. She plucked the whole fig from the plate, dropping it into her mouth. Her mouth filled with a mix of vinegar, sugar, and spices in a perfect layer. Exquisite. One week later, Tilly had three fewer neighbors. Most had recovered from the poisoning, but not the unlucky handful that indulged in more than their fair share. Of course, the majority were still battling some aftereffects. Tilly cut two large slices of lemon pound cake complete with special glaze. The doorbell rang. Mr. Ross had arrived. “Tilly. So nice of you to invite me over.” She led Mr. Ross to the cheery yellow kitchen and seated him in front of the largest slice of cake. Next year, the Best Overall category would be with its rightful owner again. Katy is a writer and editor for a national engineering and surveying organization and a fiction editor for Identity Theory. Her writing has appeared or will appear in The Dead Mule School, Reckon Review, Cowboy Jamboree, Salvation South, and elsewhere. Her first job was being the Easter bunny at her local mall. She peaked early. She was born and raised in South Carolina and lives with her spouse and two pups, Finn and Betty Anne. You can find her on Twitter at MarchingFourth and katygoforth.com

a frantic species she walks so slowly you can see the wicker becoming a basket and then she bends over to pick up a penny but, it’s simply to reshuffle flesh; to pull gravity from the sky and throw it down. the night is a vibration full of calm and the candle remains solid though you breathe on it in spasms. she wants you so badly you can hear it in her crackling hair. her brain is full of gargling sounds and her hands offer you a cup of smiles: a bowl of tadpoles pulling each other like lashes closing an eye. she waits for you where elephants shake their heads at memories of mastodons; where letters form words at the edge of a silence spongier than language. and you lift her dress because her pockets are empty as a waterfall and she begs you not to weigh her down. water in the sahel in the vernacular of hegemony there are mountains spanked to white dwarfs; cutlasses dulled to butter and the button that sealed my lips was a toothless curse. i made a promise to forestall witlessness, to ingratiate a species not convinced of extinction. it was thought that a consequence of stupidity was to winnow blood pressure so a heart had no reason and laid flat. but i can’t ship darkness to you with its heavy feet; in air, it is simply a hindenburg that refuses to burn. and all day long, the consolation of a slow heaven sails out to a sea looking for handouts freer than horse- weight on the old plains. consciousness is what i promise you; where confection finds a suitcase to spill alcohol; where tiny legs of crickets are so quiet in their truth. at the door, listening and sun comes in sprinkling its lungs in river fire; crusts baked in wallpaper, screamed in disease. and i wait for you, myriad in what i want to say: cascades thrown as if they weren’t waterfalls. one impenetrable rock formation; one army of silhouettes yawning without fatigue or outlines. and i’m still a disembodied ear at a gravesite sniffing cut roses through rain. circled by wind, an alp is a small hill. a movement is an orchestral arrangement. a dry riverbed scraped by a harsh word or two is really a thready cloud offering its wrinkled skin. and i can still wait for you as a redwood finding the first foot of morning in a desert wiping sweat from its face. even if a crocodile is hungry as a blizzard it can never take down a wildebeest in penny lane. anna waits it was the end of an hour. untimed. echoes of no particular ethnicity running out of caves speaking promises, articulating gestures they had never bothered with before. it was emptiness and capacity; bone and water. if you’d seen the day of the triffids it was blacker and whiter and less real than the plants. there were cowbells without mooing; milk without cows. and chandeliers of broken cobwebs tinkling out of tune. i wanted to talk to you even though listening was archaic in that fog, and flames crumbled in a watered hiss. you wouldn’t have appreciated my voice anyway, as long as it dragged in the air and no one laid down a carpet for a picnic. trees popped open like baskets dropped from threes storeys. there wasn’t a smell or a pastry for the wind to linger on. no xylem and phloem to carry water, and i still wanted to talk to you. i still thought butterflies were free. “a-han-a…. i want you know now…….” that sundays will never come home. they won’t have to as long as days have names and the sky threatens us with sagging eyes. “go with him.” the sun will only make a desert of you and when sand flies, the flames are deafening. “girl before you go now……..” passing motion detectors to enter a beanfield, measuring acreage with lipstick – a ship’s galley spills more love than beans. a minister argues more catholicism than the lightbulb above his head. “just one more thing, girl……” ireland has its sword of light wrenched from a bog; fairy tales falling not too far away. one man pulled in a donkey cart, hands chained behind his back. don’t listen to me. “go with him.” they’ll tell you the fanfare of midnight is a sound squeezed from the sky where streets are wide and no one screams. they’ll tell you cranes lift nothing without a loss of gravity. cranes won’t even fly. and if i listened with every sensory organ i might hear deserts pleading to the sun. they’ll tell you that dusk baking into dark is just a memory struck with cement, or a shovel turning over soil. but i know my heart makes more noise than all the picture windows on the horizon and each bullfrog adds a dollop to the thunder. they’ll tell you persons named smith can’t explain night and day and a seal’s bark is more precious than both. so when you see a bush bleeding leaves in summer, you would have to think disease. you would have to breathe without purpose to feel the weight of your lungs and swear to only pick ripe fruit. they’ll tell you, you can’t really sleep on a beach with all that sun and crabs that move like moles under your back. those umbrellas are really so many mushrooms. ever hear of the death cap? Livio Farallo is co-editor of Slipstream and Professor of Biology at Niagara County Community College. His stuff has appeared or, is forthcoming, in Helix, Rabid Oak, Ginosko, Otoliths, Panoplyzine, Brief Wilderness, Triggerfish and elsewhere.

A month ago, I was in Los Angeles and my husband was in New York on his way home from Madrid and Paris. He’s a writer, fancied himself a poet, though he’d been working on a film. Or so he said. It wasn’t long before I discovered he hadn’t been traveling alone. His companion was a young, married Italian woman. Sooner or later, often without any research, we find whatever we need to know. Whether we want to or not. He wasn’t supposed to return when he did and the surprise weekend erupted in a marriage-ending war of words during which he deftly quoted Hemingway. He should have known I’d recognize his habit of often quoting without credit. Upon the breakup of their marriage, Hemingway said to his first wife, Hadley: “I wish I had died before I loved another….” My ex paraphrased, but only slightly. It should be noted that Hadley, bless her heart, went on to another life and lived to be 90-something. Hemingway, as we know, eventually blew his brains out. My husband ran the quote by me and I reacted by throwing things across the room. Dramatic? Damn straight. The things I tossed were mostly unbreakable, and nothing I really liked. But during my controlled frenzy, and in a moment of startling awareness, I realized that life was more complicated than the word love. It turns out love really isn’t all you need. Certainly not all I needed. There were those other words— respect and kindness—that got lost in the years. Words impossible to live without. While my husband was busy fucking up our lives, I’d been working hard at my business. Which he resented, and which, by the way, supported us. So listening to him giggling over his new love and quoting dead writers just put me off ever-so-slightly. He would always love me, he repeated, then left again for Europe to be confused. Confusion was his métier. I changed the locks on the doors and my life and thought about getting out of town. I didn’t have a lot of time or money, but Cabo San Lucas wasn’t far from Los Angeles. I’d bring books and wallow in aloneness. I didn’t want to go anywhere I’d been with my husband. Don’t go back. Go different. Out on the edge of the world, the view was spectacular. Cabo San Lucas sits on the southern point of Baja California where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez. Blue ocean smacks up on a barren desert landscape with stark serenity. Three hours in I met Shirley and Ray. They’re also Americans and talk about the land they’ve bought in Washington state and their plan to build and retire. Shirley is 45. So am I. Retire? Who thinks about retiring at 45? It sounded almost obscene. They’ve noticed I’m here alone, but don’t ask questions and I soon discover I’m the only lone woman in the entire resort. I didn’t care. Determined as I was to maintain my death-defying optimism. With the sea as background music, I write every morning on hotel notepads. Ramblings. I wasn’t a writer, never kept a journal. Maybe that would change. I eat breakfast on the terrace where waiters smile politely at my limited Spanish. In school I’d studied French, never considering that I lived in a city where over fifty-percent of the population spoke Spanish. Ray and Shirley at the next table. Shirley leaves for a swim and Ray brings his coffee to join me. He's a nice man. I could survive about twenty minutes with a nice man like Ray. I load film in my camera. A real camera. It was the ‘90’s. I want proof I was here. I even snap a picture of myself on the beach. Now, with the proliferation of selfies, perhaps not as pathetic as I thought. In my hotel room, the overhead fan soothes. Like the waves and the stirring of the palms, everything moves in a mesmerizing rhythm, slowing the heartbeat and bringing peace. My life waits for me and these few days are a way to help me get on with it. But what if I just stayed? Thoughts of every city person visiting paradise. My husband ran away and left the door open. He was incapable of closing it. So I would have to do it. Meanwhile, the sun glowed and my skin slowly turns brown. Traveling alone had sharpened my senses, forcing me to notice everything. There is no backup. No one to say, look, over there, see that. One evening after dinner, Benji the headwaiter stands near my table speaking halting English. A handsome face with startling white teeth he tells me about the weather at different times of the year. He says he will bring me coffee at 6:30 in the morning. Because I was up early and he’s kind. The next day, Roberto from the hotel drives me into town. He talks about his young daughter and I tell him I have a son in college. The child of my first marriage. Roberto is surprised, thinks I’m too young to have a grown son. I have no trouble understanding his compliments in Spanish. In a hurry to get back to the sea, I don’t stay long in the small town of San Cabo. The following afternoon I head to a nearby cove and snorkel in crystal clear water. Remarkable for me, because, though I’m a good pool swimmer, I have a healthy respect for the ocean. Knee-deep in the water, equipment in hand, I try to figure out the best way to get the clumsy fins on and the mask adjusted. A plump woman, expertly navigating the waves, swims over and shows me what to do and, amazingly, I do it and stare at the glistening fish at my feet, imagining the magic beyond the small circle of the cove. I have a new confidence as I put one webbed foot in front of the other. From the balcony of my room on my last night, I watch the phosphorescent laced waves aglow in the light of the moon. Tomorrow I will go to the airport and go home. This side trip isn’t a wild adventure, neither far away, nor dangerous. But a journey nonetheless. And a beginning. Janet Clare has had short fiction and essays published online at Literary Hub, Assignment, Manifest Station, Red Fez, First Stop Fiction, among others, and anthologized in New World Writing, Elm Leaves Journal, The Truth of Memoir, and Spent. Her first novel was published in 2018 out of Australia. She lives in Los Angeles.

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner has a little secret that only those who’ve been scanned know about. The time spent waiting for my name to be called was less than calming as I overheard more than one person being told they’d have to come back another day and be sedated for the scan. It made me wonder if it was a good idea to have an MRI even though I’d been waiting over a year for the appointment. Eventually a woman in a technician’s white tunic called my name and escorted me down a corridor, through a set of double doors and into a room that held the MRI. It looked huge and yet the bed she pointed at was incredibly narrow. As I lay down, the technician started warning me about how important it was to stay still. She gave me ear plugs and then pieces of foam were tucked behind and beside my head. She looked down at me, holding up what she called a panic button and I felt her putting it in my right hand. She told me to use it if I felt I was going to move suddenly or cough or couldn’t cope with the confinement. Then a cage was pulled over my face and I felt suddenly imprisoned. She gave me one last smile, pressed something on the machine and the bed began to move inside the narrow tube. It was almost impossible to suppress the sense of panic at being so confined with no way out and no idea what to expect. The beginning of the scan sounds like a metal ping pong ball is being bounced around every part of the machine and then it starts to make a noise that I can only compare to a pneumatic drill. The earplugs were completely useless. The noise scared the absolute shit out of me and I closed my eyes tight focusing on what felt like the mammoth task of staying still. All of a sudden the thunderous roar stopped and I heard a speaker crackle in the vicinity of my head. A reassuring voice told me that I was doing well and that the scan would begin again in thirty seconds and last for two and a half more minutes. I rolled my eyes back, trying to see the speaker and spotted the MRI’s little secret, a mirror that showed the booth with the technicians coming and going, clutching files. I also saw a woman sitting near a microphone and assumed it was her speaking. Her voice would come through the speaker during every quiet interval. I took each one as an opportunity to roll my eyes back and glance at the mirror to see what was happening in the booth. Back in 1998, MRI’s were a rarity in Ireland and I had turned eighteen and completed my first year of university waiting for the appointment day to arrive. I was put on the waiting list after an epilepsy diagnosis, but lying in the tube, I doubted whether it was necessary as my seizures were well controlled with medication. When the reassuring voice said the test was halfway through, I rolled my eyes back and saw a very different looking booth. It was filled with people, some in uniforms, some in scrubs and some in suits. They all had one thing in common, each was staring at a screen that had an image of my brain on it. As the scan went on, I kept looking in the mirror, hoping that the booth would suddenly empty, that all those people had gathered for a few minutes for some other reason, but each time I looked, there they all stood, focused on the problem of my brain. After what felt like an eternity the scan finished and I emerged from the tube. I knew from the way the technician looked at me that something was wrong. She walked me to a different waiting area to my parents. A doctor appeared and said that there was something of concern on the scan. I was put in a wheelchair and told that I needed skull x-rays. The doctor remained with my parents while a porter whisked me away. I found this incredibly frustrating because I knew an explanation was being given to my parents and not to me, despite the fact that I was eighteen. When the porter brought me back, I knew from one look at my parents that it was serious. A brain tumour, my mother said. I was to be admitted as an emergency through Accident & Emergency and the neurosurgical team would see me later in the day. I remember walking ahead of my parents through the main foyer of Beaumont Hospital with tears streaming down my face. I found it almost incredulous that I had something growing inside my head. Something so dangerous that I couldn’t go home. It was a beautiful summer’s day, the heat was high and the sun shone in a cloudless sky. Being able to stand outside in the summer sun was a vital reprieve. Waiting in A&E was the same then as it is now, long, boring and overcrowded. The simple truth is that not enough has changed in the health service. Late in the evening, a bed was found for me in the hospital’s renal ward and I would wait there until a bed became available on the neurosurgery floor. It was terrifying and I recall feeling terribly alone once my parents left for the night. A woman in the bed opposite me came over and asked how I was and why I had none of my things. When I explained the emergency, she offered me a pair of pyjamas and something to read. She also introduced me to something that is now long gone from any hospital, the smoking room. To this day, I can remember telling a fellow smoker that something had been found in my head, but nobody was sure what it was. With hindsight, I doubt that was the case, it was just that it hadn’t been explained to me. After a few days, I was moved to the neurosurgery floor where I met different members of the team looking after me, but no serious conversations were had with me. They spoke with my mother in the corridor in hushed tones and I will never know how much or how little information was passed on to me. My mother did what any mother would do in such a situation, she erred on the side of protecting me. I’m no longer able to ask her what she remembers about those days because she passed away a number of years ago. I didn’t understand the delay at the time, but I know now that the surgery had to be planned very carefully due to the location of the tumour in the skull base. The exact medical term is intracranial epidermoid cyst, but tumour is less of a mouthful. This type of tumour is benign and congenital meaning it was there before I was born. As I grew, it grew. The bigger it got, the more problems I faced. I had my first seizure aged ten, but I didn’t know it was a seizure and told nobody. I would be sixteen before I spoke to a doctor about episodes that were different types of seizure. Epilepsy is a complex disorder that takes many different forms. The types of seizure I have don’t involve me falling to the ground and shaking. I enter a trance-like state and become unresponsive. I’m unable to remember the seizure and experience confusion and tiredness afterwards. To a stranger, I would look absolutely fine and that is the most difficult part of an invisible disability. If people cannot see that you are unwell, the illness is often treated as less serious or even non-existent. As someone once said to me ‘you don’t have real seizures.’ My epilepsy is very real and has put limits on my life for more years than I care to count. Cognitive impairment began in my mid-teens. I took a swan dive from the top of the class to close to the bottom. It was a miracle I made it to university at all. I also endured severe depression and personality changes. Nobody added all these symptoms up and thought brain tumour, but I was lucky in that one doctor recognised signs of epilepsy, which led to the discovery of the tumour. I can look back now and know that I didn’t become stupid at the age of fifteen, it was that the little monster inside my head was growing. I picked up scraps of information about the tumour from eavesdropping when my mother spoke to doctors and the occasional straight answer from a medic. I learned that if I didn’t have surgery I would be terminally ill within a year. It would be a slow death, preceded by paralysis on the right side, protrusion of the tumour through the forehead, coma and then death by the age of twenty-three at best. My life was very much in the hands of my neurosurgeon who looked quite like Rod Stewart. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I began to tell myself that the tumour wasn’t really in my brain, but rather just beside it. I was young, frightened and didn’t fully understand what was happening to me. Truth be told, nobody informed me that my brain was already damaged and that the act of surgery would leave extensive damage behind. It was explained that part of my skull would be removed to access my brain and remove the tumour. Gluing the bone back in place created a step in my skull and every time I touch it, I’m reminded of what happened. I was also told that half my head would be shaved which hit me like a ton of bricks. I walked into the hospital with long, auburn curls and found it hard to imagine that they’d be taken away while I was under anaesthetic. A few months prior, I’d read an article about a woman who documented her brain tumour and I asked my neurosurgeon if I could have my surgery photographed and he agreed. I wanted to see what the tumour looked like and what my brain looked like. I still have the photos, but it’s quite rare that I sit and look at them. If I do look at them, I feel grateful for surviving, but also saddened by the amount of damage that's been done. On August 4th 1998, I was woken early by a nurse and told to wash my hair. I wondered then and I wonder now why it needed to be clean to be shaved off. I was sitting on the bed drying it when my parents appeared. I didn’t know why they were there as I hadn’t been given the impression that it was a gravely serious surgery. What I know now allows me to see it in a different light. They were present because there was a risk of death, serious complications and damage to things we all take for granted such as seeing, hearing, walking and talking. I remember being put to sleep in an ante-room and the next thing I knew, my neurosurgeon was asking me if I could see with my left eye in recovery. Thankfully, I could. I would learn later that part of the tumour had been attached to the left optic nerve. The worst part of the hospital stay was the swelling pain after the drain was removed. It was excruciating. I remember clasping both hands against my head and curling in and out of a fetal position until tears were running down my face. All I wanted to do was scream from agony until the swelling stopped. Another patient politely told me that one side of my head had doubled in size. It reduced to normal proportions over a few days. The second worst was looking in the mirror and seeing half my hair gone and the other half matted with blood. After discharge, a lot of that had to be cut off too. I spent two weeks in hospital and even appeared at a neurosurgery conference feeling like a bit of a curiosity, but apparently what was in my head is exceedingly rare. It was also rather large, my neurosurgeon said the tumour was the size of a satsuma. I haven’t eaten one since. Years later, I read an MRI report and learned that the tumour had a diameter of 7cm. It’s hard to imagine something that big fitting inside my head. All my life when I opened my eyes, I could see my nose and I thought this was perfectly normal. As it had never been any other way, I naturally assumed that everyone could see their nose. You can imagine my surprise when I learned that the opposite is true. I found it hard to believe that other people can’t see their noses without a mirror. That small difference in my eyesight was the first sign of the presence of the tumour. An eye specialist called it a nasal deficit and told me I had decreased peripheral vision on the left. That was less of a surprise as I knew that I didn’t see as well on that side and if anybody wants to give me a fright all they have to do is approach me from the left. On the day of discharge, I was given instructions about wound care and using baby shampoo for a few weeks. There were no warnings about the consequences of a tumour and neurosurgery in the long term. I walked out considering myself fixed because the operation had been successful. The term ‘acquired brain injury’ or ABI for short was never uttered in my presence and it would be another twenty-five years before I came to understand how it applies to me. A small part of me was hoping that the removal of the tumour would mean my seizures would also disappear, but that wasn’t to be the case. The tumour’s biggest gift to me is epilepsy that remains difficult to control and during bad patches, limits what I can do. Within six weeks of the surgery, I returned to university and tried to get on with things as best I could. It was difficult always being in a hat to hide the fact that half my hair was just starting to regrow. News of my surgery had spread like wildfire through the university and I heard whispers wherever I went. It would take many months to shake off the feeling of being stared at and labelled as someone who had a brain tumour. Gradually I noticed that some things were different and that I couldn’t do things in the way I had before. I became highly sensitive to noise, allergic to busy areas and parties, sensitive to bright lights, more prone to stress and feeling overwhelmed by things that had never bothered me before. I had a part-time job in a pub, but found it unbearable and was forced to quit. I know now the issues are neuro-fatigue and sensory overload, but that language was unavailable to me at the time so I told nobody what I was experiencing. I told myself that it must be linked to my epilepsy even when my seizures were well controlled. I thought it couldn’t be anything to do with the tumour because the hospital fixed me. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was going mad. Despite those obstacles, I completed my primary degree and went on to complete a Master’s degree for which I was awarded a fellowship. While the left side of my brain is damaged, my core intelligence remains unchanged and that’s a blessing I remain grateful for every day. Last Summer, twenty-five years after neurosurgery, I began a program of rehabilitation for ABI and years of confusion about physical, cognitive, social and emotional problems are starting to make sense. There’s a huge relief in knowing for certain that I was never going mad. ABI is a bit like an iceberg, most of the problems are hidden beneath the surface and when you look fine, as I did and do, most people assume you’re fine. My mindset was always geared toward fixing the problems I have. I wanted to fix my epilepsy and the other issues related to having an ABI so that I would then be able to have a normal life, just like everybody else. I wanted to be fine, instead of just pretending I was. I have read MRI reports that detail extensive scarring and white matter abnormality in my left frontal lobe and left temporal lobe. This is the presumed cause of my epilepsy. This damage will always be with me and there is no repairing it. It is difficult to accept that these problems cannot be fixed. The solution lies in learning how to live with them and utilise strategies to make life easier and achieve my priorities. There’s also great comfort and support in friendships made with other people who live with an ABI. It would be easy to spend a lifetime grieving for all that I’ve lost due to neurological conditions, but I’ve spent enough time in mourning. I’m choosing to believe that while the tumour left me with obstacles, I can build a life with those obstacles in mind, rather than being a prisoner to them. Much of who I am as a person is linked to my experience of epilepsy and ABI as I have lived longer with them than I have without them. I have no doubt that I’d be different if neither of those things had befallen me. I believe that the combination of these two things grants me a perspective that is unique. A perspective that influences my writing whether it be fiction or nonfiction. Down through the years, writing has always been my saviour and it’s a cornerstone of my identity. When times get tough, writing is my safety rope. My ABI is an open wound that has never wanted to heal, but if life has taught me anything, it’s that I am a survivor. I possess the determination necessary to discover the best means of putting the little monster that once lay inside my head to rest permanently. Karen Browne lives in Galway, Ireland and enjoys exploring the darker side of life in short stories and novels. She also writes select creative nonfiction. Her work features in Issue 8 of Feels Blind Literary www.feelsblindliterary.com/karen-browne. She is currently working on her debut novel.

Ghost Apples Gothically sublime as Frankenstein’s monster, they hang as fruitful impostors, bending boughs under icy loads: ghostly, phantasmagoric pretenders like poltergeists in new homes built upon disused graveyard soil. Blasts of frozen winds thrash once glossy skins, scorching internal fleshy cores as medieval witches burning fast with charred hearts upon patriarchal wooden stakes. Globular worlds drain hollow, morphing to echoey spheres where abstraction overpowers; concrete nouns slip, frozen-apple elusive: unsteady upon slippery surfaces. Fairytale poisoned, spectral apples dangle in eager expectation; awaiting an outstretching princess hand - to enshroud internal, melting madness. A fair maiden approaches entranced by watery planets, spinning as malevolent underworlds. A slender, frost-kissed arm reaches out, eager to pick, hold, bite… She melts away as Eve (Eden: a mere figment). * Time passes… Ghostly apples refreeze, primed as villains for new victims… Rubik’s Cube You’re plastic pieces in my hand, rotating to form handsome faces; eyelashes sweep as ballgowns where eyeshadow, satin-soft, dapples your chiselled cheek from near kisses that excite your mind: you’re transfixed and under my spell… I’m your Sugar Plum Fairy. I turn your sliding sides aiming for precision seeing you in each triangular wall; smoothing edges like sandpaper, tapering off spiky sinews; erasing imperfections: striving to form perfect portraits (you always had too many faces). Yet, my efforts fail. After tunnels of time, your surfaces are plained clean, ubiquitously characterless: formatted like streamlined autobahns of monotonous, predictable grey; dissolving are your colours as paint globules in water-pots, crumbling to sticky residue wallowing soundlessly upon the glass jar bottom. You’re an unseen, but once beautiful palette adorned with numerous tonal shades: each mountain peak of paint is a former vivacious planet - spinning, rotating in an artist’s mind’s eye; eager to dispel creative potential - forming works of grandeur: wall-proud pieces, invaluably worthy. Now… You’re a forgotten sea urchin, buried under layers of mundanity; a gloom of grungy green blankets you, disguising prior plastic-fantastic faces (always duplicitous). Blackening with antiquity where seaweed bedecks your skin reminding you of salient touch. You cower further, forgetting your soul: his needed nourishment. Instead, you shutter your eyes, forging a self-induced prison so I can forget you. Moon-bow Hardly known as historic women in science, I flounder on edges of existence: profoundly elusive, barely seen, mostly smudged at edges as charred, spent charcoal; I blur, lost in tears of forgetfulness like firewood within wintertime hearths, blazing fiercely, full of heated flames. My counterpart: a diurnal rainbow beacon - the splendour of solar skies; her fair hand paints artic pale heavens as awaiting canvases, thick with need, upon which she impresses chatty, dashing, obsequious hues: resplendent, fully seen in bright beaming sunshine; she’s even majestic when smouldering in rainfall ruin like a toppled queen. Me: I’m an erased memory or nightmare best tucked away in a hidden, hushed drawer: too intrepid is its owner to claim ownership of me. I too, like infant bad dreams, (am the frayed, forgotten one). My reign is transitory in gloomy midnight climes where my painter fingers are ghosts, merging with nocturnal nightshade as translucency itself, hidden in water, dwindling to nothingness as infinite Russian dolls where oblivion’s hand erases with bold, effacing brushstrokes: muddling who I am, what I could be. As Dracula’s existence, I’m shuffled sideways, barely documented, in need of a hopeful lover to photograph my unravelling as Kardashians on red carpet runways: Snap. Snap. Snap. Golden. Glamour. Glitz. Yet my beauty is nature-made, stamped, ordained my Mother Nature’s hand; I need no filters, no retouches of foundation; no flicks of flattering mascara to enliven my allure. I just need a nighttime viewer… Two eyes searching for me piercing through cloudy blankets of dark, camera click ready and perfectly poised to timelessly steal my invaluable autograph. * Signed and yours, Moonbow Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry published with various literary journals and magazines. She enjoys writing flash fiction and short stories also. Her debut novel, Shelley’s Sisterhood, is due to be published in 2023.

I’ve looked up at this building many times, from a cardboard city. It might as well be a different planet, made for those whose lives have been marked out from day one, sparkling with privilege. Born with a silver spoon in their mouths, whereas I was born with a rusty nail in mine. Silver spoons, though gleaming, Are useless on display. I’d rather have some nails to hold the world in place. Occasionally, I walk through their world, but it makes me dizzy to see buildings overhanging, perched at odd angles, minimalist pretensions where possessions are hidden, not carried around, ever visible as mine are. I can count my belongings on one hand, unless someone decides to give me a new pair of boots to see out the winter. How do I walk in a straight line when all the world is curved? And so, I slope off away from their sloping roofs into the dark, where I know every crevice as if it were mine. She looked out this window once to watch the world go by. The salt-air wind a magic hand to brush the drapes aside. Seagull cries bounced off the walls, the sun danced through the slats. The marks are still there under my abuela’s window, where I shimmied up, age ten, determined to join her for the night after Mama took away my best metal train because I refused to let her plait my hair. Why should I? I wanted to roam free, climb trees and bake polvorones, not dance to her tune. Abuelita sent me back through her battered window. But now she’s gone to warmer climes, the shutters droop and sigh, the wind and salt rip off the paint, while shadows watch the sky. The window’s one-side-shut reminds me of her lazy eye, and of the cuts and bruises and broken-off pieces she bore without comment, inked into her skin, never to be washed out, despite all the rubbing and wringing and cursing and singing on God’s earth. She hid her pain inside her songs. Make-up covered bruises. She blamed clumsiness for cuts. When parts of fingers disappeared, she shoved hands in her pockets. Finally, she packed her bags and disappeared one night. I miss her polvorones and her warm, soft body enveloping mine. It took us weeks to find her husband buried under leaves. As the sun slid behind the mountain we filed along the rocks. The men, full of bravado, never held the rope, but my sisters and I gripped with all our might. We would do it this time. If you want to find my heart, dive into a pastel-sweet cake of sun-kissed buildings blush and peach, champagne cliffs and gem-blue ocean. Our father told us gravely of Alfredo, who flirted with the girls, flexing his biceps and inviting them to feel his steel-hard stomach. As he ran across the concrete pathway full of beer, he sang a fisherman’s song, boasting of fish that could fill village bellies for a month. He tossed his cap in the air and caught it in his left hand. Alfredo threw himself off the highest point. A freak wind threw him backwards so he landed, head first, onto a sea-carved sword. His friends rushed, too late, to his aid. The doctor found him cold on his mother’s kitchen floor. The rest of me is in this chair. Before holding hands, we crossed ourselves. As we fell, we prayed. Only one of us felt the depths hit our young bodies. The other two sisters met rock. The men told us later, there is only room for one child in this mother’s womb. Bonnie is a British writer who mainly writes flash fiction, with the occasional short story or poem. She also has book-length publications in non-fiction, fiction, and memoir. Her flash fictions are published by several literary magazines and anthologies, including Roi Fainéant, Reflex Press, Ad Hoc Fiction, Briefly Zine and The Dribble Drabble Review, she has been listed in various competitions, and her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. Bonnie lives with two hearts; one, she keeps safe in Greater Manchester, UK, where she shares a house with an unpredictable number of family members. The other rests with her whānau in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Twitter: @bonniemeekums Facebook: Bonnie Meekums Website and newsletter sign-up: bonniemeekums.weebly.com Bonnie’s debut novel: A Kind of Family Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer/reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY “How to Get Me Up in the Morning: https://amzn.to/3RLDaKc 2023 Best of The Net nomination: https://bit.ly/3Rppg1K Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolcha.fox/

At breakfast, everybody’s eyes were bloodshot. Baba's eyes were flu-like in the sense that they would turn cold or hot in a split second, but we knew not to talk to him at all in the morning, especially now. Mama’s were absent minded as she poured Alwazah Tea into her glass mug; we could talk to her. It was the first time we had breakfast together in a while since at the camps in Syria and in Europe. There, we took turns walking to the resource tents to get food for everyone while all but one of us was still asleep. Everyone then woke up at different times and ate their breakfast while looking out at the rows of tents that resembled the uniformity of 1950s tract housing neighborhoods. Instead of going to a butcher, we were escaping the butcher. “Yusuf,” said Baba. “Eh?” I replied. “Come help me after I eat and lie down. We need the internet. I’m going to go walk around and see if we can find any cheap plans.” “Okay, Baba.” Samer, my brother, my friend, my enemy, stuffed a piece of pita filled with labneh and oil into his mouth then looked at me and pointed with his oily finger. “Don’t get lost again! HAHAHAHAHA!” he shouted. I was going to slap him but decided against it. After Baba had his after meal lie-down, we got dressed and walked out onto the street and scoped out the stores in search of internet. I thought I remembered seeing a couple of signs mentioning the internet on my walk last night when I did in fact get lost trying to find a store to buy milk. I saw a gazillion cell phone stores, and even though my English wasn’t quite there yet, I still could recognize ethnic run electronic stores since they all looked the same from the outside. Luckily, all we needed was the internet because my Baba was able to get a line for his phone from the social worker we saw on the second day we were here. You would have thought that it was me or my brother who was screaming for WiFi, but it was really my Mama. The first thing she wanted when we landed was the password for the WiFi in the Tim Hortons where we were having our first North American meal. She kept pestering my Baba so she could watch her soap operas. I couldn’t imagine getting off a ten plus hour flight and wanting to watch people scream at each other. Samer eats sweets, my Baba smokes and swears, I watch porn, and for my Mama it’s soap operas that release whatever it is she needs in her head to be able to make it through the day . Baba and I walked up a couple of streets until we found ourselves at this giant opening in the middle of so many huge buildings. Above us, advertisements towered over everyone like giant TVs. It was then that I realised that we were not in our area anymore and the people on the street started to look a bit better. I saw a small Gucci store that had someone in dirty clothes sleeping on the ground in the front by the doors. I had never seen anything like it. “Yusuf,” said my Baba. “What, Baba?” “Forget the internet for a little bit. I want to walk around and explore a little bit. I wanna see more. I miss walking. When we go home, tell mama we couldn’t find anything. We search tomorrow. Is that okay?” My Baba really needed to go through a day without crying so I agreed. After we explored this big square, we went inside this mall. I couldn’t believe how large it was. I found out later it was called the “Eaton Centre”. It completely gobsmacked us. My Baba and I must have gone into every single store, even the ones meant for women. It was weird but I know for a fact my Baba had a blast inside the Victoria’s Secret, even though we got a lot of looks as we looked at the thongs and bras. It was until the second, after we walked out I understood why we were getting so many looks, so I told him we really can’t go into another store like that. Another highlight was when we went into one of those stores that sold “As Seen On TV” products, and my Dad and I kept taking turns until the store clerk said we had to stop. We both were in awe of everything and anything. The food, the smells, the toys, the laughs, the lights, and the colors. We got tired of walking around, and my Baba wanted a coffee. We looked for a Tim Horton’s in the mall and we found it. My Baba, after trying their coffee at the airport, fell in love with their coffee along with their donuts. He didn’t know what he wanted, and all he did was tell the worker he wanted a coffee and something sweet to eat along with it. After he got his order, he loved them so much he had the person working at counter write down the name of the items he got: Medium Double Double Honey Cruller Donut From then on, he carried that piece of paper so he would know what to get if he ever came across those giant red letters. And we eventually found it, and I had forgotten he had that paper until we were standing in line when he pulled it out of his wallet, the paper still in front of him as he slurped at his coffee and devoured his donut, part of the glaze sticking to his thick, black moustache. After an hour or so of people-watching, and as he finished the last of his coffee, he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize. He picked it up and it was my Mama, telling him to get home as fast as he could. We walked through the door and Mama was the first person I saw. I noticed a strange tall figure to my left, but I was too focused on my Mama’s face, and how tired she looked. I never really noticed the bags under her eyes until then. I heard dripping then I felt my feet getting wet as I took off my shoes – there was water all over the floor. I looked at the figure to my left and saw that he had a tool belt around his waist and the logo of the community housing organisation on his upper left chest. My Baba walked over to my Mama. “What happened?” asked Baba. “That pipe started leaking and hot water started coming out,” she whispered. My Baba looked at the pipe. I could understand why Mama hated it, and I understood why she brought it up in the meeting with our caseworker. Safety reasons aside, the thing was such an eyesore. It ran down one part of the ceiling and, in a U shape, went up into the ceiling again a little further away. I know for sure my Mama would refuse to have guests over in the future because of it. It was a big, ugly cylinder covered in brown rust. My Baba walked over to the maintenance man. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “No problem?” “There was a small crack in the pipe. It’s good your wife was home. Would have been real bad I tell ya.” I looked at my Mama and she was staring out the window at another building that looked exactly like ours – copy and paste. “I sealed it up and put some protection on the outside. You shouldn’t have any more problems,” said the maintenance man. My Baba said goodbye to him as he packed his tools and left. My Mama walked away from the window when he left and got paper towels from the kitchen and started to wipe up the water. I felt awful. “How did you call me?” my Baba asked. “The neighbour let me use her phone,” she replied. My Baba looked around the apartment. “Where’s Samer?” “He’s with the neighbour. She said she would watch him while I sorted all of this out.” “You let him stay there? What’s the matter with you?” “What do you want me to do?” “You let our son stay with a stranger. I ask again, what is the matter with you? Who is she?” “She was the one that gave us dinner the second night we were here. The blonde one.” “What’s wrong then?” “Nothing’s wrong.” “There is something wrong.” This whole conversation happened while my Mama continued to wipe the floor – the paper towel breaking and ripping towards everything good. Life is a wet paper towel - slowly as we become saturated with the inequities of others, we stain in an attempt to clean them and everything around us; we start to break off and to break away. I felt something coming on. I felt a fight happening soon as some back and forth started to happen, and volumes were being raised. I left the room and started to walk towards where Samer and I slept. I didn’t want to go, but in my Mama's dark eyes told me to go away. The paper in her hand peeled away and finally vanished and ripped to nothing when I heard her stand up. When I got into the room, that’s when it started. It was about ten years that sat between the first fight I remember to the one going on right now. I thought they were play-fighting the first time because my Baba laughed randomly in between his cursing and screaming. Then I overheard him say to a friend that it was so “he didn’t kill her”. I learned that he has to laugh when he’s angry so he doesn’t destroy anything that breathes around him. Throughout that day and into the night, the day went without any noise. It was a less than ordinary day. Samer came back from the neighbour. He told me how her house smelt like absolute garbage, but she had a son that was at his Baba’s for a little bit so he got to play his gaming console. Even though he never played one before, he knew exactly what to do since all he really did was watch the gaming YouTubers all day and all night. I admired that about him. I always tended to get jealous of others and if I didn’t have what they had, then I would have such an awful time that I didn’t even want to listen to others talk about what I didn’t have. I wanted to go for a walk to get fresh air, but felt I wasn’t even deserving of anything fresh at this point. I woke up in the morning to Fairuz’s voice booming from the living room. I got up in nothing but boxers and walked over to the sound and found my Baba standing, staring at his cracked phone that was sitting on the ground. “What’s going on?” I asked him “I got internet. Cheap plan. We only have so many gigs per month but we make it work until me or you find work and we can get more.” “Why didn’t you wait until I got up?” “I wanted to surprise everyone.” I heard the doors opening behind me. My Mama walked into the living room. Followed by Samer. She stood smiling at the phone on the ground. Then she saw the small black router sitting in the corner of the room and I thought I saw her dark eyes shine a little bit, just a little bit. My Baba sat down by his phone, then my Mama, then my brother, then me. We sat in our pajamas, with nothing to do but sit in this apartment on the ground, and listen to Fairuz while another day started. A word from the author: Although I have lived in Canada for all my life, my family and I are friends with fellow Syrians who came to Canada as refugees. Speaking to them and some of the troubles they face here, I got the idea to write this story about a fictional Syrian refugee family.

The Sounds & the Hiker Down in the valley, you hear a Whole plethora of noises - loudest are Croaking & barking; halfway Uphill, you hear only the whistling Of winds & murmuring of mists Until you come upon the mountaintop Where you hear, with all your inner & Outer ears, nothing but a call from The unheard, the loudest echo of Dao in your cloudy mind Irony. Paradox. [English Media for Thought Pattern] There’s neither egg in an eggplant Nor ham in a hamburger Much less any pine or apple in a pineapple Just as English muffins were not invented In England, so French fries did not originate in France Likewise, a guineapig is neither From Guinea nor is it really a pig While boxing rings are actually square Quicksand always takes you down slowly All writers do write, but fingers never fing A teacher must have taught, while a preacher could never Have prought; a vegetarian eats vegetables only And a humanitarian eats nothing but humans? Yuan Changming hails with Allen Yuan from poetrypacific.blogspot.ca. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations & 15 chapbooks, most recently Sinosaure (Redhawk Publications). Besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline, Poetry Daily and nearly 2,000 others, across 49 countries, Yuan served on the jury, and was nominated, for Canada's National Magazine Awards (poetry category).

The wood was so dry that it ignited almost as though it were paper. Paul stood up from the fireplace and grabbed the keys from the bowl. He also grabbed the thick hat. It took him only a few seconds to get to the car, but his fingers were already cold. Thankfully the engine had caught on the first try. He sat, waiting for it to warm up. The weather folks loved this. Apparently, Minnesota was going to hit a new low temp record later tonight. Currently, it was minus 20. Paul grinned as he thought about it and even his teeth felt cold. He finally threw the car in gear and inched onto the icy street. Mornings were considerably easier sober. There was no shaking. No fog. A few months ago a morning like this one would have been unthinkable. At the post office he collected several bills and was about to close the box when he saw a smaller letter wedged in the back corner. He tugged it free and saw that it was dated from last week. He saw the return address, too. He didn’t open it. Instead he walked back to the car slowly, and laid the envelope on the seat next to him. Even though the car was already cold again, he didn’t turn the key. He remembered the last thing Dave had said to him. Paul still had three more weeks to go in the clinic…but Dave was done that day. When his ride came into the parking lot Dave had turned to Paul and he said, “Call me when you get out.” Then he left. Paul had called. But Dave never picked up. Sometime later Dave’s mom had called him. She called him several more times, each time more fraught. He sat in the cold car, staring at the envelop next to him. He didn’t open it. He didn’t need to. Zary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia. She currently lives and works as a writer in Minnesota. Some places she has been published are Goats Milk Mag, JMWW Journal, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, and Zoetic Press. She enjoys reading, podcasts, and long, slow films. Twitter: @ZaryFekete

She reeked of debt, despair, and a litter box that hadn’t been cleaned for a week. She bulged in all the wrong places. He reeked of sweat, cheap cigars, and bad decisions. Jowls hid his neck, a hat hid his bald spot. He was wider than tall. They both needed glasses and antihistamines. They both wanted a bad drink and a good lay. Or maybe it was the other way around. Squinting through the smoky haze of a sleazy bar, They saw in each other the answer to their prayers. Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer/reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: Nolcha Fox

the way that she looks in both directions as she boards the c train, as she focuses her eyes on the people around her, hoping to see the girl she met in elementary school on the same subway car two young women who live in separate boroughs with separate schedules who will meet on the train they planned the times of the c train schedule and practiced the places their feet would step in order to be on the same car and see the same images out of the window the subway car became reserved for stale croissants which were half off at the closest deli and the words those women said were written in their journals shared pens instead of phones and images from their words instead of photos solitude together. converge. Ilana Drake is nineteen years old and is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University. She is a student activist and writer, and she was appointed to be a 2022-2023 Global Goals Ambassador by the United Nations. Ilana's work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, PBS NewsHour, and The Tennessean. Her poetry has been seen in multiple magazines including Bright Lite, Flare Journal, and Same Faces Collective among others (https://ilanadrake.wixsite.com/mysite/projects). When she is not writing, she can be found listening to '90s country songs, researching used book shops, and promoting inclusion.