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after Mathew Daniel In this journey the devil wears mascara in the small hours, you pledge allegiance to her who talks with a scintilla on riddles about you wrapped in intricate enigmas and also lies of your non existent chimera, a mirage in the sand on a pilgrimage of the spirit. In the morning before your bus leaves she asks if her tears can make an ocean, to drown herself in one quicksilver dream, to forget of her son : a will-o’-the-wisp that disappeared in a flick but you tell of limericks from bards you have heard on your way, on nebulous concepts for healing disguised as rumours. And when you are long gone they retell in small whispers of a lone man who speaks the language of the gods, and showed a possible metamorphosis; if he ever shows up again they will thank him by rejecting his coin.... Frank Njugi (He/Him) is a twenty-three-year-old writer and poet living in Nairobi, Kenya. He currently serves as a poetry editor for Writers space Africa, a reader for Salamander Ink Magazine and his work has appeared or is forthcoming on platforms such as Kikwetu Journal , 20.35 Africa , Kalahari Review , Olney Magazine , Ibua Journal and others. He tweets as @franknjugi.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve been single for way too long. Well, not like way too long, but definitely a long time, depending on how you count. A serious relationship? Half a decade. A short-term fling with a tourist I met at the hotel bar near my apartment? A month ago. “You gotta settle down,” people tell me. Forty is just around the corner. I’m getting up there. If I want to have a family – and I do – I need to hurry up and get it going. Nobody wants to be the geriatric at their kid’s Little League games. My friend Salome says she’s throwing a party. She just got out of a relationship. “It’ll be great,” she says. “You invite all of your single friends and I invite all of mine and we see who connects!” Brilliant. I love it. I find two single guys to invite through a networking group I joined to meet women. I only found dudes to watch sports with. One of them can’t make it, so it’s just me and Antoine. Antione is the kind of guy you can’t really take anywhere because he’s too handsome. Salome met him once and her eyes fell out of her head like a cartoon. I am nervous about bringing him to the party because he will draw all the female attention, but he’s very picky so I tell myself it will be fine. Antione is a good hang regardless. When I arrive, Salome says she has a friend she wants me to meet. “You’ll love her!” she declares with the confidence of Cupid launching his arrows into a crowd. It’s a cool, rainy evening. I arrive soaking wet. She asked me to get ice so I stop at a place near my apartment and then walk thirty minutes up a hill carrying a ten-pound bag plus a bottle of champagne. She is amused. “Did you come from a pool?” “Sorry.” I hand over the ice and follow her down an eerily quiet hallway to her one-bedroom apartment. “I shouldn’t have walked.” She shakes her head and laughs. “It’s fine. Just dry off in the bathroom.” I walk into her apartment and freeze. Blue Dress. My face turns bright red. I finally understand Romeo’s question: “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the east and Blue Dress is the sun. I am Mercury, tidally locked and trapped by her light. A knockout in the truest sense of the word. I am floored. I am on my knees cradling my heart because it has leapt out of my chest and declared that it would rather be with her than me. “Hi,” I stutter. Her eyes are tiny blue Earths and her smile is pure ivory. She tells me her name and I instantly forget it, so blinded I am by her beauty. Her lips move, but all I hear is my own longing. She is inflicting pain and I am a masochist using small talk to beg for more. More people show up to the party. I ignore them to ask Salome about her. “She is my best friend and she lives very far away.” “I’ll move.” “She teaches a very difficult subject at a very prestigious university.” “I will read every book ever written about it.” Her poor university must be lined with the bodies of the men whose hearts she breaks on a daily basis without even trying. A sideways glance at a barista? His heart is in her coffee. A smile at a colleague? He is ready to leave his wife and burn his own house down. A friendly chat with a student? He mentally prepares to jump in front of a train for her. “She has a boyfriend.” Of course, she does. There is no universe where someone like this stays single for very long, if at all. It would stun me if there were ever a day she left the house without a stranger telling her that she has changed their lives by her very existence. The thought makes me feel bad for her. It must be exhausting to have such power. Maybe she needs someone to talk to about it. “Besides, that’s not who I wanted you to meet,” Salome says and points. Freckles. A smile so sweet it will give you a cavity. I had recently dreamt of a freckled girl. Deep-set brown eyes. Thick black curls. Looked like a lesbian I knew in high school. I look again at Blue Dress and wonder why all my dream girls are unattainable. Freckles is nice. She asks me about myself and listens to my answers. There is real interest here. As we count down to midnight, I move closer to her. She’s brought some friends, a couple who can’t keep their hands off each other. I am jealous. We count down. I look at Freckles. She looks at me. We are surrounded by people, many of whom are kissing before the clock strikes twelve. I wonder if I should lean forward, just go for it, but decide to hold back. We are surrounded. If I lean in and she turns away from my face, I will be humiliated. I look over at Blue Dress. She’s laughing at something some guy said. I wish I were him. I look at Salome and she is with Antione. When he walked in, she was like a tick on a ten-point buck. At midnight their two faces become one. “Want to dance?” Freckles asks me. It’s past midnight and everyone has got that good buzz going. I don’t see Blue Dress anymore. I barely see Freckles. Soon it’s 1, 2, 3 in the morning. At 4, those of us who remain, finish the champagne by using it to chase tequila shots. Blue Dress and Salome sit on one corner of the sectional. I sit with Freckles on the other. She has changed into big flannel pants and a spaghetti-strap top. “I figured this would happen so I brought my PJs.” It’s very cute. She is trying. I should give this a shot. I look over at Blue Dress, and there’s a gnawing. She lives far away. “Where do you live?” I ask Freckles. “Not far. Just a few blocks away.” That settles it. Five years later and we’re back at Salome’s. She’s married and they just bought a row house in the NE. It’s a beautiful, narrow, three-story brick building. I am there with Freckles. We married two years after we met. Now we have a little girl who looks just like her mother and a boy on the way. I hope he looks like his mother, too. Blue Dress is there, in a different blue dress – more Navy than Royal this time. She has a perfectly round pot belly that looks about ready to burst. Her husband is the same guy she was dating all those years ago. It worked out. Good for them. I introduce her to my daughter. She is happy to meet her and says she has her own daughter on the way. Maybe they could be friends. I meet her husband, another college professor. He is older. He wears a jacket with leather elbow patches. He doesn’t seem to like me. The party is different from the last one. We are all in our 40s now, most of us married with children. At midnight, we all kiss. At 1 a.m., we all head home. A year later, work calls me to an event in the town where Blue Dress teaches. I find her email on the university website and ask if she is free for lunch. She suggests dinner. She’s wearing a summer dress this time, looser and more of sky blue this time. “How are you?” she asks with genuine enthusiasm. She looks tired but still glows just as I remember her the first time we met. She seems happy to see me in the way people get when they have a lot on their minds and just want to share. “Wonderful,” I tell her. It’s true. We talk about our children. Her daughter was born in late January, my son late May. We talk about sleep and how much we miss it when we can’t get it, how our bodies beg for it and torment us when they know that sleep is unattainable. “I think I’m getting a divorce,” she lets slip in-between bites of her fennel salad. “My wife has cancer.” We both stop eating and look at each other. She goes off first. Her husband is a fellow professor who was married to another professor at a different university when they first met all those years ago. He claimed to be separated but Blue Dress believes the separation did not begin until they began dating. She has always felt guilty about that but set it aside because he was the most interesting person she had ever met. The attraction was illogical and all-powerful. I know the feeling. Since the baby was born, he had begun to spend a lot of time “mentoring” one of the new young professors in the department, someone who reminds Blue Dress a lot of herself when she first arrived on campus. “We haven’t touched each other in months. I thought it was the baby, and maybe it really is the baby, but I just don’t want to touch him anymore. I never want to touch him again.” I begin. Freckles has a tumor and there’s not much that can be done. They found it when she gave birth to our son. Doctors can’t believe they missed it. I can’t believe how much they miss. I want to kill them all. If she dies, they should die for failing to prevent her death. I tell Blue Dress this and she reaches across the table and touches my hand. We order a bottle of wine. We order a second bottle of wine. She’s tipsy and leans into me when we walk out of the restaurant. My hotel is across the street. I ask her if she wants to come in. She doesn’t say yes and she doesn’t say no. She just walks. A few months later, Freckles is gone. Her dad, who I always liked and always liked me, asks me how I feel. “Like I’m going to be sad forever.” He nods and puts his arm around me. He knows the feeling, but doesn’t know that it’s not true for me. I know for a fact I am not going to be sad forever. I know I have already started healing. I feel guilty, but I’m not going to do anything to stop it. My mother tells me I should sell my house and move back home with her and the kids. She’s almost retired. I will need the help. A 4year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy are a lot for a single person working full-time. I tell her I work from home and my boss is a very understanding, flexible person. Everything will work. Besides, I have a better plan. Blue Dress is there. It is the first time I see her in a black dress. It feels like seeing her again for the first time. I wince. “Hello,” we say. She looks at me and I know she wants to take my hand and comfort me and hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. She won’t, though, not in front of all these people. As soon as this is over, however, I will drop the kids off at the in-laws and immediately rush to her hotel room. I will cry in her arms and she will tell me that everything is going to be alright. I will believe her. She will say for the first time that she loves me. I will say it back, out loud, for the first time, though I have always loved her. I think I always will. Later that night, she asks me to tell her again what I thought the first time I saw her. “My life is going to be pure agony in pursuit of this woman.” She laughs and kisses my face. Ten years later and we’re back at Salome’s, this time in a smaller apartment. She is divorced. They sold the rowhouse. Now she owns a penthouse on top of a building with a beautiful view of the Capitol. We left the kids behind with my folks so we could cut loose. At 4 a.m.. I ask Blue Dress if she remembers the first time we met. “Of course,” she says. We have discussed it a thousand times. It’s our little game now, one of those extraordinary secret things couples develop as they merge into a single unit over time. “You were sweaty and weird, but also interesting and handsome. I spent the whole night wondering why you wouldn’t talk to me. Then Salome told me she was setting you up with Freckles and it all made sense.” “How do you think things would have ended up if I spent all night trying to talk to you instead of her?” She throws her arms around my neck. “The same.” Midnight arrives. We kiss. We hear fireworks. I wonder if they are real or if it’s just the sound of my heart whenever our lips touch. Alex J. Barrio is a political consultant and progressive advocate living in Washington, DC. He is a Cuban-American who grew up in New Jersey and spent most of his adult life in Florida. He has a short story in an upcoming collection from Four Palaces Press and links to his other published works can be found at www.AlexJBarrioWrites.Blogspot.com.

GUILT Three times today I’ve gone to the window to see what’s happening outside. I know I’m to blame but I hope there might be someone else who’ll look out at the same time, searching for another who accepts their share of the fault. No one’s there and I feel like an astronomer hunting a dim, misty star with an out of focus telescope that he swivels around endlessly while the star grows steadily fainter. I know I’m to blame, but I want somebody to blot out my guilt for just a moment, a cloud drifting across a mountain top and then moving on. My heart’s been stolen and replaced by a stone; I want to give it, but the chunky block’s too heavy to lift. I’ve hung a curtain over my bookshelves; all those words have given us nothing and rules and ethics drift away even if we’ve ever read them. I’ve unplugged the laptop and shoved it far back under the sofa, but I can’t lock out what’s already inside: the guilt pours out from everything, overflowing the table and making my limbs into sodden branches. Many times I’ve seen us falling through the floor, tumbling and spinning over and over while we try to hold on and save ourselves from the gaping drop. It’s not too late, I know, we have to make a start, now it’s time to head back to the window. TYRANT I thought I would be safe inside, but an anxious mind cannot be shut out when you cross the deep trench and draw in the bridge. I construct my circle of objects to keep out the rest of the world, investing them with all the power I can, but sitting at the centre, always, is me. All who loved me or whom I loved I have pushed far away, never to return, while those from whom I hide grow stronger and more numerous every day. At the moment, they can only peek through the cracks in my defences, but one day soon they will end this siege and send me where I sent so many. Till then, my conscience and I uneasily share this space. DESTINATIONS You wake and turn to look at where I lie, both of us propped on musing elbows; it’s one of those many moments when it seems right to say nothing. I push away the tumbling hair that shadows your face and wonder where and who you’ve been in your dreams. I want to go back with you next time across the swaying bridge but you turn away, nuzzling the sheets, and just when I have the courage to ask, you sleep, closing the perfect door behind you, the one without a lock or key. I lightly stroke your fleeing neck and watch as you leave me once again, flying past the endless things on the way to where you were before. You drift like a flight of geese arrowed at the moon, far above the earthbound watcher who would like more than anything to follow but stands below muffled against the cold and, kicking away the chance of flying as he would a loose pebble, turns slowly for home. Love can give space to the captive and tightly bind the one who thinks he is free; you have your worlds to roam in and I have mine, and perhaps we just have to live in them. I make to close my questing eyes and go my own way when you stir and then you wake. S.C. Flynn was born in a small town in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. Their poetry has been published (or soon will be) in many magazines, including The Honest Ulsterman, Cyphers, Orbis and Rattle.

Something was off about the woman from the start. Danielle knew it, even though she pushed the feeling down. Something in the way she stepped up to the booth with her passport. She didn’t move like the others, the regular passengers who submitted to the ritual with practised indifference. This woman, this traveller had a purpose written on her face. A tingle ran through Danielle’s spine, an uneasy throwback to fairytale pacts. As though her booth at Gate Nine was a crossroads. It was Danielle’s first shift after a car accident, colliding with a tree. Now she didn’t have a husband. Not at home, at least. Instead, she had a million husbands everywhere she looked. Her mind was still searching for him, anticipating him, predicting his moves. It was a skill she’d perfected over six years of marriage. It was useful once. Now it was like a car wheel still spinning in the air while the wreckage burned. “We’re on Gate Nine this morning,” said Alyssa, her supervisor, when she arrived that morning. “The scanner’s new. If it glitches, whack the lid.” She spun around and gave Danielle a long hug.“How does it feel to be back?” “Too much time home alone drove me mad,” Danielle said, with a brisk laugh. “Now I’m spooked by the crowds. I see the faces, and—” “You know this place plays tricks on the senses,” Alyssa replied. “Take it easy. You’ll have your mojo back by midday.” Danielle didn’t tell Alyssa that she felt queasy since she woke up. She wanted her boss to be right: it was just the announcements, the fake light, the crowds that made her light-headed. The terminal was both a borderland and its own country. Like hospitals, thought Danielle. Everyone rushes around and you lie still, yet you’re the one in transit, moving through pain to somewhere new. You are the one who’s breaking free. She took another look at the woman behind the plexiglass: familiar, without being remarkable. Danielle never forgot a face. She had a knack for ignoring distractions and spotting the “tells”. Not that she needed it these days, with scanners and algorithms doing most of the work. Boarding card, passport, face, picture. All checked out. Was she a doctor? Perhaps that was it. Danielle might have seen her at the hospital. One of the doctors who’d told her it wasn’t her fault. She could be going away on a break. Except she knew in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t. The woman was fleeing, running away. “Help me.” Danielle leaned forward. Blanchette Monfort, as was written on her passport, seemed barely more than a girl now, wearing a dress that was brand new and centuries old. Wasn’t she old just a minute ago? Wasn’t he alive a minute ago, next to me in the car, yelling— “Need a hand?” Alyssa called over. Danielle exhaled, clutching the desk. She thought Blanchette Monfort had mentioned a daughter, but she must’ve misunderstood. The accent was hard to place, just like everything else about the woman. But there was no daughter. Blanchette was travelling alone. She positioned the passport in the scanner with care. The machine hummed. Blanchette Monfort stood still. This was, at last, something familiar, Danielle thought, this minute on which the future hinged. Like waiting for a line on a pregnancy test to make six years of marriage be worth it. Or counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, guessing how close it would strike. One— his footsteps approaching. Two—a key turning. Three— She knew. Danielle knew where she had met the woman before, not once but twice. The first time was in a museum. Blanchette Monfort stood in a forest, holding a lantern that threw a golden light on her face against the woods. In front of her stood the devil — an ominous, winged creature, as tall as the trees. But Blanchett wasn’t looking at the devil. She was looking at the light of the lantern, mesmerised. It was a small painting, centuries old, dark and quietly brilliant. Danielle read about it in a magazine later, at the hospital. That was the second time she saw her. Blanchette, a French peasant’s daughter, bought a lantern from the devil, so she could study and become a surgeon. She traded her soul for that light. That was the legend behind the painting. The article showed a close-up on the girl’s face. It was triumphant. Danielle remembered thinking the soul was an old lie. And now that peasant from the painting, Blanchette Monfort from the middle ages, waited for her passport at gate nine. Her face, once aglow with excitement, now radiated urgency, like a doctor looking at something grave. “I studied by the light of that lantern for years, every night, until my eyes ached and my very soul was consumed by the flame. Naught left for the devil to drag to hell. The lantern, I passed it on before I died. Girl by girl, they’ve kept the light, if only just." The scanner hummed. "But now the devil claims I’ve cheated. He wants the lantern back. He’s after me, and he’s near, he’s here, he’s—” “He’s dead,” Danielle said. “I killed him.” The scanner beeped. A Yes/No question flashed up on the screen. A glitch, Alyssa said. A crossroads, Danielle thought. She hit the key, holding her breath. Then she handed the passport back to Blanchette, wanting to ask if she was meant to feel something. Instead, she glanced at Alyssa, and when she turned back, Blanchette was gone, and the sea of people that swallowed her up closed again. Danielle saw only strangers, waiting behind the painted line. Girl by girl, Blanchette had said. Did she say something about a daughter too? By midday you’ll have your mojo back, Alyssa had promised. On her break, Danielle thought, she’d stop by the pharmacy. Then she’d buy that magazine, with the painting of a girl, holding a lantern. She already knew there would be no devil on the painting. Just a girl in the forest, shining a light. A word from the author: I am a video games writer living in France. I write short fiction for fun.

Despite the burns on his face and forearms, his ruptured eardrums, Tsutomu Yamaguchi navigated shattered buildings, melted flesh, smoldering bone, forded through floating bodies, and returned to work the next morning, where, while describing the flash bright as a magnesium flare—silent as the empty frames at the start of a film—and torrents of ash he’d seen the day before to his supervisor, he looked out of the office window to see a single airplane cut through the clear Nagasaki sky. WA Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans.

In Singapore, exiting the subway, alone, After 11 at night, transferring to the bus, waiting in line at the stop, grabbing a seat, next to an unknown man, on for four stops, climbing off, street dark, walking alone. The air thick around me, also soft and active like a runny egg. I’m sweating, even this late at night. The only one on the long ped-crossing over the highway, climbing down the steps, in front of a school, now dimmed except for a security light or two. I see the highrises up ahead but no one on this side of the street. Vegetation glints in the dark, tropically large, thick, scented. Sounds I can’t identify, animal, wind, coming from the density. Yet, I feel so safe. I walk and glide, wrapped in the dark, Thinking, in the equatorial dark, of swimming tomorrow. My love Chicago, not so safe. We’re going to Jazz Showcase, three blocks from our house, Walking out together, my husband and me. Maybe 30 degrees out, 7:30, winter dark. Holiday lights, strings of them, Still on trees, around the yards, not a cloud, the lights bright, glitter and shine. Crisp air, crisp lights. Haven’t been for a night walk in ages. Here, I stroll alone only during the day. We live a few blocks from a subway stop, and in the nearby alleys, drug deals, and guns to go with the sales. As we walk, I remember Singapore, the unrelenting heat, the generous nights, when I went around the city alone, sweating as if bathing, unafraid. How welcoming, a city without guns. A city that hugged me in the dark. Pushcart nominee Maud Lavin has published recently in JAKE, Roi Faineant, Heimat Review, and Red Ogre Review, and earlier in the Nation, Harper's Bazaar, and elsewhere. One of her books, CUT WITH THE KITCHEN KNIFE, was named a New York Times Notable Book. A Guggenheim Fellow, she lives in Chicago where she writes, edits, and runs the READINGS series at Printers Row Wine.

CW: Suicide To Shiksha: Thank you for your guidance with the plot. This would've been a lesser story without your help. Look at that skyscraper, see how the sun gleams on its vast silver facades like the whole structure’s winking at us: an invitation to draw in for a closer look. Float up to the eighteenth floor where, behind mirror-windows the size of tennis courts, lies the canteen of Boyd Frazier Capital. Keep going: closer to the massive glass screens, drifting towards our reflection, the street far below us, until we come face to face with ourselves. A word of warning: once we pass through the glass, all’s not quite as it seems. Ready then? There. Painless enough. And how nice to be out of the wind that howls ominously at this height, and into the hubbub of lunchtime chatter. And now – wait for it. Here she comes. The willowy Salma, negotiating the Formica tables arranged like drifting islands on the Atlantic blue floor tiles. See how careful she is to steer a wide berth around the team from Direct Marketing, as ever engaged heads-down in a working lunch, lest they should snag her for a document or contact. Deftly she circumvents one threat – only to be faced with another! There at a table directly in Salma’s path is Lee from Procurement, gazing up at her from his floppy sandwich. Quite what Lee procures Salma has no idea, but she presses her lips into a smile, contriving to look both hurried and regretful, and whether she’s pulled it off is anyone’s guess but by acknowledging Lee’s existence she makes his day. On she goes, to the far corner of the canteen where she sets up camp at an empty table, sitting with her back to the wall and opening her laptop to ward off unsolicited approaches. There is but one person she will engage with for the next thirty minutes and it is Faye, best friend in the whole universe (and also, since yesterday, harbinger of doom) and who, God willing, will be along any minute now. Faye is sweet and direct and honest. Faye makes the blood surge beneath Salma’s skin but today Faye represents a pivotal moment in history, really a matter of life or death. There are critical matters at hand and together the two of them must probe dark corners and determine if they are really, truly going to deal with Poppy the way they alluded to. So when Faye arrives not quite out of the blue and says, ‘What’s the plan girl?’ Salma experiences a tightening of the skin across her shoulders and a tingle in her abdomen that’s beyond the usual lighting up routine her body goes through in Faye’s presence. ‘Hey,’ Salma offers, not at all ready for The Plan. ‘Are we lunching?’ ‘I have to. It’s what lunchtime’s for. Joining me?’ ‘No, I already ate,’ Faye says. ‘Apparently it’s what desks are for. Don’t mind me though.’ ‘Okay, two secs.’ Salma extricates herself from behind the table and with a cautious glance at her laptop weaves her way to the staff fridge with the sticker reminding her that Fridays the fridge is cleaned out and any items left within will be DISPOSED OF. She locates her lunchbox among the twenty or so others and returns with it to her table, her laptop, and her Faye. And also, to yesterday evening and the source of the implosion/explosion/meltdown, or any number of suitable descriptors. * * * Salma’s battered sofa: old but squashy. Gives a hug like it’s standing in for a romantic partner, which for too long now, it has. Glass of Aussie shiraz which Salma likes because it’s both fruity and at 14%, delivers a proper kick. Laptop open as always. Faye arrived first, followed by Poppy – she of the pretty name and cataclysmic revelations – five minutes later. It wasn’t unusual for the three of them to get together in the evenings as well as during the day. In fact Salma couldn’t recall an evening in recent weeks when they hadn’t. Three friends who followed each other everywhere, in the nicest possible way. Or that was the status of their relationship at the start of the evening. By the time they went their separate ways a little before midnight there was a lot of bad blood. ‘You didn’t like what I said,’ Poppy had announced at some point near the beginning of the evening, to no one in particular and therefore to both of them. Faye, as always, was first to respond. ‘How do you know we didn’t?’ – happy to speak for both of them, Salma for the time being happy to let her. ‘You just didn’t. Neither of you did.’ But Salma knew she had to say something because if she didn’t Poppy would round on her. And Salma was insistent but gentle, the southerly breeze to Faye’s northern gale. ‘It doesn’t matter if we liked it outwardly. How’s that important? Maybe we both just needed to reflect on it.’ ‘You normally like what I say. Anyway I don’t care. You thought it was controversial and I’m fine with that. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be said. I’m allowed an opinion you know. And my opinion counts even if you don’t agree with it. Hell even if it turns out to be wrong, it –’ And here Poppy ran out of steam, which was common. She always seemed to have more words than there was space available. Anyway she would’ve gone on to say One person’s question is another’s brutal attack – or maybe she said it the other way round – and why’s everyone so sensitive about it? ‘You could get reported for that kind of speech,’ Faye had suggested. ‘Who’s gonna report me? One of you? No one else is listening!’ ‘Well you don’t know that do you? Anyone could be. In theory.’ ‘You’re being ridiculous and anyway: I haven’t said anything wrong!’ Which in fact, Salma reflected, she really hadn’t. But it had gone on nevertheless, arguments detonating like fireworks set off in a warehouse, until Poppy had taken her leave – stormed off really – no doubt well-oiled by that point, leaving Faye and Salma to reflect on the carnage. ‘You were uncharacteristically quiet,’ Salma told her immediately, not entirely sure Poppy was out of earshot yet and not caring because the bottle at her feet was empty. ‘What can you say?’ Faye said. ‘She’s racist and she can deny it all she wants but it’s a fact.’ Salma nearly choked on the dregs of wine in her glass. ‘Really? I mean I don’t know what she actually said wrong, if I’m honest. She didn’t offend me. I don’t think she’s out to cause offence to anyone.’ ‘Not tonight she wasn’t.’ ‘Meaning?’ ‘Meaning: last night she started on about it. She was using racial slurs, you name it.’ Salma blinked. ‘When? Where?! How did I miss this?’ ‘She has friends other than us, Salma. Obviously.’ ‘So? We all do. What does that mean?’ ‘She’s in a nasty little group and they have nothing good to say about anyone other than themselves. She thinks her conversations with them are their-ears-only, but after we left each other last night she carried on elsewhere. I kinda followed and wished I hadn’t.’ Salma was still blinking as she set her glass down with a clang. ‘Followed? You stalked her!’ ‘Maybe a little bit. Only because I had my suspicions.’ Salma didn’t need to ask where this not-so-covert conversation had taken place and how Faye and contrived to earwig it. And we, too, shall find out in due course. ‘What are we gonna do?’ Salma stared ahead, suddenly clear-headed. ‘We have to ditch her, right? I don’t think I wanna know what else she was saying.’ ‘It was. And I think we should do more than ditch her from our group.’ ‘Right – I mean I don’t know what you’re saying. Like, what else can we do?’ And Faye, being Faye, hadn’t even paused. The answer was already formed, packaged up and ready to go: ‘I can’t forgive what I heard. I’ve never felt so much hatred for someone. She has to be dealt with. Permanently.’ Which was the bombshell end to the evening. * * * Now Faye is back, in the cold and sober light of day. At any moment Poppy might turn up at this table and catch their every word – their little meeting is hardly sub-rosa. But even in the cold light of day and out from under the influence of Aussie shiraz, Salma isn’t sure she cares. If suddenly you don’t like a person, what does it matter if they know you don’t? Except: if you’re going to deal with someone permanently it’s best not to warn them in advance. Salma chews her lip. ‘Let’s talk discreetly.’ Which means moving to a place where no one can listen, away from prying ears. Because even if Poppy doesn’t turn up – which given their present setting she might – to catch them in the midst of their clandestine machinations, anyone else who cares to listen could do so with only a modicum of application. * * * ‘It’s actually not difficult,’ Faye says, the two of them now safely ensconced in a quiet corner – never mind where for now – where they can speak freely and covertly, and at length. And she’s right. To get rid of someone or wipe them out or whatever terminology we’re using really isn’t complicated. All those thorny ethics and morals: yes, rocky ground. But the mechanics? A walk in the park. And so they come up with a plan that really doesn’t take much strategising. There are only so many options available after all, the real question is one of commitment. But the intricacies, if you can call them that and frankly you can’t, they thrash out in minutes. ‘Stop saying hatch,’ is Faye’s only complaint. ‘Why? That’s what we’re doing – what we’ve done.’ ‘Because it makes us sound like cartoon villains. If we’re gonna go through with this, if this is something we want to do for the best – not just for us but for society – then we owe it to ourselves not to melodramatise it.’ ‘How do you melodramatise it? It can’t be exaggerated.’ ‘I don’t know just – don’t say hatch a plan.’ ‘Okay, whatever.’ But there’s a clutching sensation in her gut because she doesn’t like criticism. Their plan for Poppy’s permanent demise has been born, or at least conceived, but most definitely not hatched, and all that remains is for it to be carried out so that Poppy can trouble the world no longer. And that’s it. Done and dusted. End of Poppy. * * * Of course that’s not it. Did you think you’d be left hanging? That the story of Poppy and her used-to-be friends would simply plunge headlong into a wall and – end? In the sphere in which you think Faye and Salma are operating, there’d be a lot more to it. We can’t just half-witness our star players plotting a murder, and then walk out. But the fact is: we’re not in the world you think we’re in. Not that it makes the situation any less tragic, as it happens. Time to draw the veil aside. * * * Within three days of Faye and Salma’s nefarious deed, Poppy West was reported missing, which was very strange. News of Poppy’s disappearance spread in the usual fashion, rising like water in the shallow pool of the local village paper, where it grew until it overflowed into the tributaries that led to the county press. From there it surged onwards, and in less than a week had run all the way to the nationals and the TV news. Why’s that strange? After all, when someone is removed, dealt with in such a permanent fashion, surely the only thing for them to do is disappear. Or else wash limply ashore on some beach or turn up grey and waxy at the bottom of a ditch somewhere. But Poppy West’s disappearance, as reported in the media , makes for a most unexpected twist to this story. Because, as has been established, all is not as it seems. What did you think of Faye when you met her? What colour hair and eyes does she have? How tall is she? You don’t know. She might be anything mightn’t she because in truth, we never really met her. Don’t blame yourself. You took our invitation, ascending the gleaming flanks of a city skyscraper, and through a solid glass window. You came willingly on that flight of near fantasy so why shouldn’t you have taken everything that followed as gospel? You were warned before we entered that canteen (which was quite real) all would not be as it seemed. Salma was real. You really did see her making her navigating the tables and avoiding those undesirables whom she had neither the time nor the inclination to engage. You watched her find a spot, open her laptop and then – – Faye arrived. She arrived from – and remained on – Salma’s laptop screen. Salma has never met Faye in person. She doesn’t know the colour of her hair or how tall she is, although, perhaps like us, she has surmised both, and other things besides. Their conversation took place online. You noticed, perhaps, Salma’s wary glance as she left her laptop alone and unguarded on the table while she darted across to the staff fridge? She’d have left it quite happily in the company of her beloved Faye, but as we’ve established, Faye wasn’t there. Not beyond her digital presence. And what about being overheard and moving to somewhere private to continue their discussion? Simply this: social media is most assuredly public, and the not-so-beloved Poppy might have barged in (digitally speaking) at any moment. In the interests of confidentiality, Faye and Salma repaired to the secure environment of their DMs. And those meetings every evening at Salma’s house, on Salma’s comfy old sofa? Like every evening: online. On the same well-known digital platform that hosted all of their meetings. The platform where Poppy had reputedly strayed from the path of the righteous. Perhaps, if Salma had pressed Faye to reveal more of her surveillance, she may have surmised that, desperate, Poppy may have fallen into the wrong hands. Ones that promised her an equanimity so wanting in her relationship with Faye and Salma for they, as Faye might have gone on to suggest, were the alpha couple in the threesome. And remember when Poppy ran out of steam? When her words expanded beyond the available space? Yes: the dreaded character limit. Perhaps you’re there now? Perhaps we’ve arrived at the last twist? That Faye and Salma aren’t wanton murderers prepared to slay their friend in cold blood.. It makes sense: their interpretation of removing Poppy, permanently, meant reporting her account to the platform’s administrators so that her username could be barred from ever posting again. But here is the real tragedy: not a word of prejudice had escaped Poppy’s digital lips. But what was written, was taken out of context, and was enough to set the trap. It was the moment Faye had been waiting for, an opportunity to draw the blade and stab Poppy in the back. Faye had learned years ago, perhaps in the school playground, that cruelty could be declawed simply by diversion. Redirect its venomous barbs towards another victim and like magic, it is rendered harmless. When the bullied becomes the bully, a most powerful inoculation is administered. But really, was Faye a victim here? If she was, of what? The truth is, Faye was attacked by nothing more – and perhaps we should say, nothing less – than the demons in her mind. She adored Salma every bit and more than the vice versa. And three was, most assuredly, a crowd. Which meant Poppy, funny, popular, and that sickeningly appealing combination of feisty and laid back that Faye desperately contrived to be, had to go. The irony was stinging indeed, because Poppy had many people of colour among her friends. Her sister, whom she loved, was gay. She was the last person to exhibit prejudice in any of its guises. She loved everyone but sadly people who love everyone make soft targets. Poppy had been a target more than once, and swore she would never be again. * * * So here is the twist. Here’s where things take a much darker turn and where digital layers become entwined with the tattered fabric of reality. Because when Poppy logged in one evening, alone in her bedroom, door shut firmly against the violence both physical and emotional that was hurled back and forth between her mum and her mum’s boyfriend, which occasionally exploded to catch Poppy in the crossfire, she had been greeted with a stark and devastating message informing her that YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED. Pending appeal of course, because very little in the digital world is final. But it was terminal enough for Poppy, who at 25 felt she was too old not to have a place of her own but who couldn’t afford to do anything about that, who’d had as much of the real world as she could take because for caring people, the real world can be cruel and violent. Poppy’s digital friends had become her lifeblood and her oxygen, as evidenced now by the paling of her features and the silver sparkles suddenly flooding her vision. Distantly she knew what had happened and distantly she decided it was just. She should be condemned. She didn’t know what for, but it was appropriate because she had been condemned her entire life, and everybody else couldn’t be wrong. She deserved no place in the digital world any more than she did in the real one. And so, blinking away tears, Poppy West slowly folded her laptop, abandoning it forever, carried herself downstairs past her screaming mum and her screaming mum’s screaming boyfriend, and out the front door. They didn’t notice that she was dressed only in her pyjama shorts and a vest top. They didn’t notice her at all. It was a five-minute walk to the bleak stretch of sand that looked out over the angry North Sea, frothing in the moonlight. She was a good swimmer. Or had been. She wasn’t in shape anymore. But that had been her one redeeming feature. There were trophies and certificates in the bedroom she’d left behind to prove it. These days she ate too many ready meals and got too little exercise to be competitive. Competitive was a lifetime ago. Still, she surprised herself, beating out into the waves with strong, swift strokes. By the time she tired and stopped to look back she had covered almost quarter of a mile. Her legs hung below her in the blackness. The cold water was biting her flesh and already the muscle cramps were setting in. She panicked, knowing there was no team coach to yank her out of the water. The lights of her town looked close and warm. She thought above the wind and the fizzing waves that she could hear cars and perhaps the odd snatch of shouted greeting. Somewhere up that dark rise, among the row of lights along the hilltop, was her house. Behind one of those sets of windows her mum and her mum’s boyfriend were still going at it. Suddenly the sights and the noises of the town were another world. She didn’t belong among those voices or behind those lit windows. She didn’t belong anywhere. Say it, she urged herself as saltwater flooded her nose and mouth again. You. Don’t. Belong. Shivering, crying, gasping, Poppy pulled herself onwards through the dark water, up and down over the undulant waves, until the cold seeped into her muscles which were simultaneously burning and freezing, and they ceased to respond to the commands from her brain. * * * Poppy West was never found. Perhaps she made it out to an offshore current and her lifeless form was carried far out to sea where, full of water, it sank. Perhaps it was struck by an ocean liner and butchered by the screws. We’ll never know. But of this one thing, this singular, irrefutable fact among the swirl of illusion we’ve conjured, you may be assured: Poppy West’s existence, while conducted principally on digital platforms, ended very much irl. A word from the author: irl explores the blurred lines between the real and virtual worlds and how they can be crossed, sometimes with tragic consequences. It's a dark story that holds a mirror to our society and reflects a world that while existing only digitally, nevertheless has very literal consequences. That's where the mirror theme fits in. Matt Kruze is an occasional fiction author who writes stories that cross several genres. Normally a crime has been committed, but whether that's part of a thriller, mystery, fantasy or sci-fi, is often open to interpretation.

“There’s hardly anything left. It won’t be long before it’s just your eyes,” Belle said, holding the sides of my head and examining my face. I swatted her hands away. “Are you kidding? The face takes the longest to disappear. It could take years before everything but my eyes are gone, and I’ll be old and wasted away by then anyway. Nobody will care.” I said. I turned to the mirror to examine my fully solid and visible face. My head would continue to float around above an invisible body for ages, and would perhaps only disappear by the time I was gray and hideous. The thought of this made me nauseous. I turned away from the mirror. Belle sighed and plopped onto my bed. “Knowing you, the rest of your face will be gone in a few months. I wish it would be years; I’m still hardly used to the sight of you as a floating head.” I tried not to roll my eyes at this. Belle was always making comments like this–how terrifying, how unsettling I looked each time I achieved something significant and a new part of me disappeared. Her jealousy was evident. The only part of her that had turned invisible was her pinky finger, and I hadn’t an idea what she could have possibly achieved to gain even this small feat of invisibility. I never asked. “What are you in such a rush for, anyway? You’re really young, Lola. Most people don’t even get close to being only their eyes until they’re in their eighties or nineties, if they get to do it in their lifetime. Most people don’t even get to be only their heads, which you are, at twenty.” She stared at me with this false, overdone look of pity. Still, my organs seemed to contract at her words. Most people. I bit down hard on my upper lip, willing myself not to snap at her. But something seemed to be expanding inside of me, pushing against my thighs, my skin, and my ribs, an unidentifiable feeling that caused spots of color to bleed out on the surface of my eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you, Belle? I have zero interest in being most people,” I said. Belle blinked a few times and looked away, the look of pity still stamped on her face. “I have zero interest in being like you.” She stared blankly for a moment, then she lay down on the bed and turned away from me so I could no longer see her expression. But I knew what it was without having to see–I knew it was filled with hurt. Belle was simple, predictable in that way. . . . Eight years old is the youngest a person can be before they start disappearing. This was when the first body parts of mine turned invisible, three fingers for extraordinary achievements and impeccable underage advancement on the piano. I was sickened by the invisibility, at first. I could still feel my fingers attached to my body–I could still touch. Blood still flowed, joints still bent, in the three that had disappeared. But they just weren’t there, and I couldn’t understand why, and I couldn’t understand what could possibly be appealing about uncontrollable invisibility. I wanted to abandon the piano in hopes that my fingers would show up again. I sat on my bed for ages, staring at my hand, pinching it, hitting it against the wall, in hopes of drawing blood. Instead, I would feel a sort of numb, dull pain. . . . The first time Belle and I met, our parents sat talking downstairs while Belle dragged me to her bedroom. I didn’t feel any sort of interest towards her at first–she insisted on grabbing my hand and intertwining her fingers with my invisible ones, marveling and gaping and talking incessantly about how cool it was. I ripped my hand away from her and ran downstairs to retrieve my parents, only to overhear their conversation with Belle’s parents from outside the door. “She wants to quit piano,” My mother said. “I think she just feels too much pressure.” “I don’t think so,” My father said. “She’s too young to feel pressure. I think she’s just scared. She doesn’t understand that having invisibility at such a young age is extremely impressive.” “It certainly is,” Belle’s mother said. “We wish Belle was more like Lola. She doesn’t seem to be good at anything.” I stepped away from the door. We wish Belle was more like Lola. I had heard all I needed to hear. I was much more willing to be around Belle after that. . . . “Would you please stop studying for ten minutes?” Belle whined as I prepared for my translation studies exams. Most of my body had turned invisible from accomplishments in school. I ignored Belle and continued staring at my computer. “Can’t we watch a movie or something for a bit? I’ve just been sitting here for an hour.” “I’m not studying anymore,” I said, still not turning to look at her. “I’m reading this article. About this twenty-one-year-old in England who just became only his eyes.” Belle stayed quiet for a moment. I turned around to face her and observed her in all her solidity and clarity. I stared at her for a long moment, neither of us speaking. “You’ll get there at twenty-one too,” She finally said. Her voice was practically a whisper. You never will, I wanted to say. You will never get there. A headache bloomed in my forehead almost immediately and sweat started to gather on my upper lip. I bounced my leg up and down. “Can’t you just take a break for ten minutes? I don’t understand why you even invited me here, if you just wanted me to sit quietly so you could look at me every once in a while.” “Don’t leave,” I said quickly. “Please. I’ll be done in half an hour. You can sleep over here.” She rolled her eyes. “We both know you won’t be done in half an hour. You’re never going to be done. Even if you were only your eyes, you would want to keep going and be the first person to disappear forever.” I opened my mouth to tell her it was impossible to disappear past only your eyes, but she had already left the room. . . . Two hours had passed by the time I finished studying. I ventured to the guest bedroom, searching for Belle, and I found her buried underneath the bed covers, sleeping with her mouth wide open. I sat down on the bed next to her and watched her chest rising and falling evenly. I had the sudden urge to reach out and stroke her hair, and so I did. I tucked it behind her ears. Then I reached out and stroked her invisible pinky finger. An intense feeling of nausea and embarrassment overcame me and I abruptly stood from the bed. This movement caused the sheet I had used to cover the mirror (as I had done for every mirror in the house) to come away and reveal me in its reflective surface. I winced at the sight of my floating face, which now had gaping invisible holes where my eyebrows, mouth, and nose used to be. I quickly covered it, as quietly as I could, so as not to wake Belle. Then I ran to the bathroom and puked in the sink, the image of my half-invisible face still poignant at the front of my mind. . . . Six months later, after intensive art classes and daily painting, I entered an art competition at the university in hopes of disappearing my ears by placing first. Belle and I sat in the living room, awaiting the results. They would be posted at midnight. “Would you stop bouncing your leg?” Belle said, smiling. “You’re going to get first. I know you will. And then you’ll finally be only your eyes. Maybe then you’ll finally stop stressing out so much.” She tucked her hands underneath her thighs to stop them trembling. I refreshed the page three times. On the third, the results showed up. My name was nowhere on the shortlist. I refreshed the page again. I hadn’t been on the longlist, either. An email popped up in my inbox. It was from the head of the department of arts at the university and director of the competition. He suggested that since I was so accomplished, I should drop any art class I was taking immediately, so as to avoid a ‘stain on my record’. He said that though my painting was proficiently neat, every artwork was empty. Belle’s hand reached out for my shoulder. She felt out the air for a few moments before her hand landed on my skin. I winced. “I’m really sorry, Lola. He’s a pretentious asshole.” She said. I was cold for a moment, then blood seemed to rush everywhere into my body at once. It was all gathering, pressing directly underneath the surface of my skin, as if at any moment my body would no longer contain me. I could feel it bubbling in my throat. I could feel it in my nose. My skin began to burn, and I was certain I was bleeding from everywhere, I just couldn’t see it. I grabbed hold of my arms and pressed my lips together in an attempt to shrink and tighten myself to stop whatever was inside of me from bursting out. “How would you know that, Belle? You don’t know anything. You can’t do anything.” I said. I felt as if something was leaking from my mouth, the blood, probably. The blood was everywhere. I reached up and wiped my face. Belle only stared at me for a long while, her expression entirely blank. Then she just stood and left. . . . Another six months had passed and I was finally only my eyes. What had done it was a piano concert. I hadn’t gained any invisibility from piano in years, since I was a child, but something about this concert was different. It was applauded for being emotionally charged, for having some effect on the audience. It was as if something was pouring out of you, onto the keys, the concert director had said. When the award was placed in my hands, I felt the familiar tingle of disappearance in my ears. And it had finally happened. Pictures were taken. Autographs were signed. Articles were written. I went to the doctor’s office quickly after it had happened, because I felt an aching, dull pain in my entire body. I figured it was some side effect of near-full invisibility. The doctor said it was most likely just all the excitement, a buildup of pressure, and that it would go away soon. I decided to stop by Belle’s house after. She hadn’t contacted me, nor congratulated me, nor answered any of my calls. She opened the door as soon as I knocked and smiled at me as usual. “Congratulations,” She said, after a moment of quiet. “You’ve finally done it. I knew you would.” I nodded. “Yes, thank you.” “Do you feel less stressed out now?” “Yes,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t feel the blood pressing against my skin anymore. It seemed to just be lapping, sloshing around inside of me now. Not rushing or anything, just existing, purposelessly. “Good,” She said. She stared at me expectantly. “I’m sorry for how I treated you, Belle. I really didn’t mean to act that way. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I’m sorry.” “Oh, that’s okay, I know you didn’t mean to.” “So can I come in?” I asked, stepping forward. She remained still in her position. “No,” She said, shutting the door. “No, you can’t.” “Belle, wait!” I said at the closed door. My voice sounded oddly quiet. I began to knock, but the sound seemed incredibly muted for the force I was putting on the door. I frowned. I began to feel a light static in my body, as if I was a carbonated pill dissolving in water. I knocked again, but this time, no noise at all resonated from the door. “Belle? Can you hear me?” I shouted. My voice was almost indistinguishable from dust floating in the wind. “Hello?” My voice was silent. I walked to the front of the house and stared into the window, but I couldn’t see myself at all. I walked closer and squinted, still seeing nothing in the reflection. Not even my eyes. I pressed my fingers against the glass. They left no mark, but instead, passed straight through to the other side. I stepped forward, and I passed right through the wall, into Belle’s house. I ran up the steps to her bedroom and rested my hand on her door handle, preparing to open the door, but instead propelled myself directly into the room. She sat reading on her bed, something I had never known she liked doing. “Belle,” I shouted soundlessly. “Belle, can you hear me?” She made no reaction. I tried to knock over objects in the room, to indicate that I was there, as if I were a ghost haunting her. But nothing was affected. I went up close to her, trying and failing to grab her shoulders, her hair, her invisible pinky finger. “Help me, Belle,” I screamed, again without sound. “There is nothing to me. There is nothing to me at all.” Danica Popovic is a 16 year old (aspiring) writer. ‘Self Loathing’ is her first published work.

Every night Mother leaves a bath-towel by the kitchen fire, in case Oliver finds his way home. ‘He must be chilled to the marrow,’ she says. The rest of us lie in the dark of our double bed, top-to-tail-to-top, and wait for the thrum of the rain and the thrash of the trees and the crunch of his boots on the gravel path. Every morning, Mother buries her face in the still-warm, still-dry towel. ‘I can smell him,’ she whispers. No one wants to tell her: it’s the stench of the river, seeping up through the floorboards.

CW: self-harm, abuse I didn't know it then, but my friend Susan stole the five-dollar bill she gave me for my birthday right out of the card while we ate cake, but my mother assumed my cousin Deanna had taken the money and called her mother, informing her of the theft. "I told you about her," my aunt said. I didn't know it then, but when Deanna's father fell on hard times last year, Deanna stole Wrigley's spearmint gum and a Hershey bar from the corner store, and her mother told my mother that Deanna couldn't be trusted anymore and was nothing more than a thief. I didn't know it then, but later, when Deanna's father heard about my missing birthday money, he gave Deanna a beating, and then she cried herself asleep. "I warned you what would happen," my uncle told her. I didn't know it then, but the following morning, Deanna made tiny cuts on the inside of her arms to forget about the money, the strawberry-colored welt on her arm from the belt buckle, and the bruises peppering the back of her thin legs like tiny purple plums. "Please God, let me die," Deanna prayed. I didn't know it then, but my friend Susan's conscience had gotten the best of her during the party, and she tried putting the money back into the envelope. But my mom walked back into the room, and Susan got spooked, so she crammed the money into a nearby seat cushion where Deanna later sat. "Now what do I do?" Susan wondered. I didn't know it then, but Deanna saw the corner of a five-dollar bill peeking out from between the cushions and pulled it out. But my mom came in to clear our plates, and Deanna panicked, so she shoved the money into her pocket. "I hope Auntie didn't notice," Deanna worried. I didn't know it then, but I don't even want that five-dollar bill and wish I had the chance to give it back.

“Nous sommes La triste opacité de nos spectres futurs.”1 -Stéphane Mallarmé In autumn, I sit and drink coffee or tea or hot cocoa and watch the traffic on the street, the people walking dogs or rushing to office buildings or late for class. In autumn, the coffee or tea cools quicker with the nip of winter on the horizon. Those future flakes, just around the next corner, will fill the sky replacing leafy hues of amber and orange. One time, after pumpkin carving and the tears of another lost year, the coffee cup warmed my fingers and I saw a young woman run for a bus. Her collar turned to the winds and her eyes shaded behind the last vestiges of summer days: her beach-worn sunglasses. She paid her fare and was gone. The bus too, gone like the wild, youthful days loafing in Nirvanic diner bliss. One time, after the final yard clean-up with the fears of tomorrow taking hold, I watched a pair of opaque ghosts discuss tropical adventures with beer and women. These ghosts sat transparent in my peripheral dreams. “When you go,” one said, “they let you do anything; the women are up for whatever.” In autumn, the tears of lost years bathe us in predictable futures. They dampen the hems on our dungarees, our corduroys, our perfectly tailored slacks. We roll up cuffs, but the sea of tears keeps rising. Our shoes full, we return to coffee or tea or humble hot cocoa and breath deep the still, sad music, the sad opacity of long days yet to come. 1 from “Toast Funèbre” by Stéphane Mallarmé. Andre F. Peltier (he/him) is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet and a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he teaches literature and writing. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI, with his wife and children. His poetry has recently appeared in various publications like CP Quarterly, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Provenance Journal, Lavender and Lime Review, About Place, Novus Review, Fiery Scribe, and Fahmidan Journal, and most recently in Menacing Hedge, The Brazos Review, and Idle Ink. His debut poetry collection, Poplandia, is available from Alien Buddha. He has three collections forthcoming in 2023, Trouble on the escarpment from Back Room Books, Petoskey Stones from Finishing Line Press, and Ambassador Bridge: Poems from Alien Buddha Press. In his free time, he obsesses over soccer and comic books. Website: www.andrefpeltier.com

Losing Face Don’t look in the mirror. Tilt ten degrees down: the phone, not the face. Tilt face to one side. Smile. Not a real smile. No teeth. Click. Look at the face on the screen. Edit the jawline and the nose. Remove awkward freckles. Add smattering of cute freckles. Erase fatigue under eyes. Look at the new face on the screen. Smile. A real smile. Post. Don’t look in the mirror. Remove eyelashes. Pull hair back with a scrunchie. Silk. Dry. Wet cotton pad with cleanser. One pad at a time, wipe eyelids, forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, neck. Repeat until last wet cotton pad shows no color. Wash face with astringent soap and cold water. Pat skin dry. Don’t look in the mirror. Pull on sweats Braid hair. Make cup of honey lemon water (without the honey). Catch an accidental glimpse of reflection in the window. Wince. Wish you looked like the face in the screen. Papaya Summers The night before you ate your first papaya, I cried myself to sleep. The next day, eyes still swollen, I made you giggle as I danced you into the kitchen, sing-songing a monologue on the delights of tropical fruit. I sliced a papaya open while you supervised from your highchair, your baby forehead barely wrinkling despite your intense concentration. You cooed when I scooped out the gleaming black seeds, then went silent, watchful, as the tender fruit flesh was scraped and piled onto a spoon that airplaned its way into your mouth. You didn’t know what to do. Not then. Not yet. You dug little fingers into the mound of papaya and licked your fists, then missed your mouth and spread fruit on your cheeks, your head, your nose. We laughed together as orangish blobs dribbled down your cheek and you looked at me, eyes as shiny and black as papaya seeds, as if to say: Do you see this, Mommy?! Did you know this about this already? Crying had been ridiculous. I knew that. Of course children grow, and one cannot breastfeed forever. I was happy for you. It was time. You were ready. Crying had been essential. In the first months of your life, I had grown accustomed to the heady power of being someone’s everything. When I walked into a room, your face lit up. When I held you, your whole body melted into my arms, legs curled in, fist wrapped around a lock of my hair, face relaxed in contentment. When I nursed you, you were replete. Feeding you anything other than my own milk would be evidence of the obvious: I was not, would not, could not ever be all you needed. The papaya was glorious. It was time. You were ready. But the night before you ate your first papaya, I needed to cry myself to sleep. It was the pause before the step. In the decade and a half since that first papaya, you were introduced to so many other firsts. You gorged on mangoes and cherry-picked berries. You tried pastries that looked delectable and turned out to be tasteless. Sometimes you hesitated, wary, only to be surprised with bursts of flavor. You tried to eat wooden blocks or plastic Legos. Sometimes you refused to try at all. Eventually you learned that with food, as with life, you can play it safe or you can choose to explore and savor. I will not cry myself to sleep tonight, the last of your childhood summers. I understand that joy plays tug-of-war with the certainty that nothing will ever be the same again. Amy Marques grew up between languages and cultures and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She penned three children’s books, barely read medical papers, and numerous letters before turning to short fiction and visual poetry. She is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee and has work published most recently in Streetcake Magazine, MoonPark Review, Jellyfish Review, Gone Lawn, and Parenthesis Journal. You can find more of her work at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.