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I wince at the alien sound of my own voice. We’re bickering playfully in the clip. I’m awkward, pedantic. She’s adorably careless, as ever. Her laughter is like birdsong. We’re grinning care-free on Perranporth beach under cloudless sapphire skies – sea-tousled hair and skin sparkling with salt and sandy grains. “You’re doing it again. It’s a crime against nature. Every time you record a vertical video, an angel dies – you know that, don’t you?” “Why? What’s wrong with vertical video?” She glints with a gleeful mischief, knowing we’ve had this conversation a dozen times, knowing that a sliver of genuine annoyance hides beneath my jokes. She wheels the camera in selfie mode, turning the world around our fixed point in a joyful looping blur of cool seas, rugged cliffs, and golden sands. I stop the whirling with an arm around her waist. We are about to kiss, but the video ends abruptly before our lips meet. Sitting alone in the strangely quiet house, I stare at this final image, frozen on the widescreen TV we chose together. The vivid picture of us lives in a thin strip, sandwiched between blocks of empty black. Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is a fledgling writer, in Birmingham, UK. His strange tales have been published by Lucent Dreaming, Ghastling, Ellipsis, Stanchion, Cutbow, and others. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022 and has won prizes from Bag of Bones, Bear Creek Gazette, and Beagle North. @MatGost

The summer before my senior year of high school, I was in a youth production of Measure for Measure (one of the Shakespeare plays that scholars have collectively packed up into a little box and hidden in the attic behind some old snowshoes). I played Duke Vincentio—one of the leads—which I was excited about at first, until I realized that I needed to memorize 194 lines, or just about a third of the entire text in the play. This meant I spent a good deal of July pacing around my basement, squatting and kicking and dancing along to iambic pentameter in a desperate effort to memorize all my lines. Because I was speaking so much (and because I kept straining my throat), I ended up needing to go on vocal rest for the two weeks leading up to the show—first as a casual measure, and later because I could only get through all my lines if I was on constant vocal rest. I could also only say all my lines once every day. During rehearsal, I would have one run-through where I actually said the damn words. All other times we worked scenes, one of the adults would read them off-stage and I’d mouth along. To run lines, I would lip-sync along to a voice recording of myself saying all my lines. I talked to my family and friends by typing everything through a text-to-speech app. Beyond the app’s absolute lack of comedic timing, it took so long for me to type out what I wanted to say that by the time I was ready to press “play,” the conversation had already moved light years ahead, leaving me with endless drafts of robot monologues. Backstage, I used an electric kettle to brew up to five cups of tea every show, and I was popping cough drops left and right. The adults—from the director to the stage manager to all of the fantastic teaching artists—were endlessly patient and accommodating. We only had five performances, and boy, oh boy, was that enough for me. On the fourth and last day of shows, we had a matinee in addition to our regular evening show. That night, we had barely made it to the end of the first half of the show when my voice started giving out. I could hear myself barely mustering a talk-whisper until the lights finally went out and the first half was over. Backstage at intermission, I went to Lindsay and Anneke, two of the teaching artists for the show, and told them that my voice was getting really weak, that I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the end of the show. They said that I hadn’t sounded half as quiet as I’d thought I had, that they knew I could do it, and that if I needed extra time to chug a half gallon of honey lemon tea, they’d make it work. Because they believed I could do it (and because of exactly two cough drops and one and a half cups of tea), I was able to pull through. Later, when the second half of the show was over, Lindsay confessed, “I actually was really scared—I was frantically like, ‘Oh God, do I need to go on and read their part?’ But I knew that saying that would just psych you out, so yeah, I definitely lied about how confident I was.” The next morning—the day we were going to strike the set and say our last goodbyes to our fellow cast members—I woke up with absolutely no voice as well as a nasty head cold. I went to strike, of course, because I’m a good little theatre kid, and because I wanted to see everyone one last time. In addition to playing the lead, I had also decided for some reason to take on the role of a costume designer. So on strike, I went upstairs to help organize costumes, sorting out which pieces had come from storage and which had been brought in by actors. “Hey Noah, where should this one go?” one kid, Jeff, said, holding up a grey military jacket. I gestured to the rack in the corner of the room. “What?” Jeff said. I pointed more forcefully and mouthed ‘Over there.’ “Where?” “On the rack!” I said in a barely-audible croak. “Oh, okay,” he said, a little taken aback by the state of my voice. Downstairs, I ran into Mike the director while organizing a pile of clothes to get dry-cleaned. “So you really can’t talk, huh?” he said. I shook my head. “What does it sound like if you try?” he said. He’s not a cruel man so I was surprised by this question. “Like this,” I wheezed, annoyed. “Oh geez,” he said. “You’ve really lost it.” After strike, Lindsay was kind enough to give me a ride home. “So what are you doing for the rest of the summer?” she asked as we headed onto the highway. We sat in silence except for the sound of me tapping frantically. Then: “I don’t — have — any — big — plans. — Probably — just — hanging — out — and — getting — my — driver’s license,” my app’s robot voice said. “Oh, okay,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. “Is your mom going back to work on that project with Sarah?” More tapping. “Yes, — she — is.” “Nice, nice,” she said. She started to speak again before she noticed that I had started typing. “What — are — you — doing — the — rest of — the summer,” my robot said. It never quite got the hang of question marks or exclamation points so every sentence sounded the same. “I’ll be spending a lot of it working on writing up grant proposals,” she said before pausing. “Man, this is weird.” “Yeah — I know. — I’m sorry — you — have to — talk — to — a robot.” “I’m more sorry for you, having to type everything out,” she said. “You’re not mad at us, right, for making this happen? Giving you such a big part?” “No. — It’s — more — my fault — for — not — being able to — take — supported — breaths.” “Well, I guess it’s a little of both. You know, we were like, ‘Noah will be the Duke because they’re the only one who can learn all those lines.’ And if it took you down this hard, I really doubt another kid could’ve handled it.” “Yeah, — it — was — a pain — in the ass. — But — I’m not — mad — at you — guys.” “Good, good,” she said. We pulled into my driveway soon after, and I waved as she drove away. I went upstairs and crawled into bed, immediately zonking out. I spent the next two weeks under the covers sleeping, watching old episodes of Scooby Doo, and stockpiling tissues. I hurt for two entire weeks because of Shakespeare, and of course, all I wanted to do afterward was jump back into another show and dig into some more iambic pentameter. A word from the author: A personal essay about how I lost my voice during a high school Shakespeare production, or, an exploration of the absurd lengths I will go to out of devotion to the bard.

I read Patrick Nevins’ Man in a Cage in one sitting on an airplane. My real movement through time and space in an engineering marvel was an apt location to take in Nevins’ work. The novel moves deftly us through time, space, and the science, or, to be more accurate, the pseudo-science of its day, the late 19th century. Man in a Cage fictionalizes the experience of the real Richard Garner, a man who fancied himself one of the leading naturalists of the day and who set out to expand Darwin’s theory of evolution through the study of primates. Nevins’ work is fiction but it is clear he sourced his material carefully and he does not shy away from the pervasive racism of the epoch. At the novel’s outset, Gardner shares his belief that primates make use of language, albeit in a primitive manner. He first developed this theory through the observation of primates in captivity and becomes convinced that he can prove it with the use of the phonograph as a recording machine. Garner cites a scientist who recorded the songs of Maine’s Indians. “If a scientist could use the phonograph to study the primitive speech of America’s savages, then it followed that an intrepid thinker could use the same technology to capture the speech of monkeys and apes –”. As a reader, it was tempting to put the book down at that moment. Why would I want to read about an individual with such repugnant thoughts, even in fiction? But Nevins is too good of a writer to let go. He nimbly walks us through Garner’s quest, giving us brief history lessons in the process. Gardner, himself, despite displaying these bold-faced prejudices is drawn as a complex character. He questions slavery, frowns upon the institutions of religion, and appears to hold a deep affection and caring for his simian companions. He’s a sworn man of science but can only get published in a popular magazine and struggles to fund his research. Finally, he’s also an unreliable narrator. The novel’s core revolves around Gardner’s eventual trip to Gabon where he intends to study chimpanzees in the wild and ultimately prove his theory. Gardner’s journey is never smooth. He fails to secure his vaunted phonograph and finds himself ridiculed rather than hailed in London. In Africa, he becomes beholden to Father Buleon, a Catholic Priest who oversees the mission of St. Anne’s which will become the base for Gardner’s foray into the deep jungle. Buleon also sees himself as a naturalist having been employed by the France’s National Museum to study primates. The two men meet and Nevins gives us a perfect window into Gardner’s mindset. “I nearly choked on claret so surprised was I by Buleon’s declaration, for I never would have guessed that an esteemed museum would trust scientific work to a missionary.” As the novel continues, and we see the conflict between the two men escalate, we’re never quite sure of whom to trust. Nevins also begin to weave in African characters. On his first foray into the jungle, Gardner falls sick, hallucinates a speaking gorilla, and is rescued by a native translator, Odanga, who quickly shows himself to be Gardner’s intellectual superior. In discussing slavery, an institution that greatly benefitted Gardner’s family, Odanga says, “I have learned enough to know that American slaves were machines whose backs and families were broken to build up that nation.” This statement, from an African in the late 19th century resonates across the ages and causes Gardner to reflect that he “could no longer come to his country’s defense.” Unfortunately, Gardner is not enough of a thinker to extend this epiphany to an understanding of racial equality, maintaining his view of the African as a savage. Eventually Gardner installs himself in a cage in a jungle, derisively named Fort Gorilla. Despite the hardship and detractors, Gardner does not let himself be deterred from his mission. Once settled, he writes his neglected wife that he fully expects his phonograph to arrive and that his trip will be a “major contribution to natural history.” The ensuing pages contain hilarity, tragedy, and pathos, but it is not giving away too much to say that Gardner, though firm in his beliefs to the end, doesn’t make that contribution. He does find an orphaned chimpanzee, befriends and possibly lusts after a young nun named Sister Marie, and alternates between the comfort of the mission and his cage in the deep jungle. Late in the novel, we learn that Fort Gorilla sits but a mile from the mission and that it’s unclear how many nights Gardner actually spent there. His reliability varies with his scientific acumen. Nevins gives us hints of Kurtz’ descent in Heart of Darkness but never let Gardner go that far. Man in a Cage also provides a nod to Conrad’s great critic, Achebe, in its portrayal of the humanity of the African characters, a humanity Gardner does begin to greater appreciate over time. Unlike Kurtz, Gardner does manage to leave Africa and his return to Europe and America is marked both in comedy – he’s amazed by people commuting on rubber wheeled bicycles, as well as introspection – he finds himself, for the first time, looking squarely in the eye of a free Black man in America. Ultimately, Gardner never finds scientific fame but cannot resist returning to the African continent where he continues to evolve in his views of the native people. The final paragraph and final line of the novel are beautiful and haunting. Man in a Cage highlights the blatant racism of colonialism, ponders on the scientific method, and gives a portrait of a complicated man exposed to both, but not fully aware of either. The writing is fluid with precise historical details and subtle humor. But this novel does not strictly belong in the realm of historical fiction. We live in a time when basic scientific facts are disputed by charlatans with power. In a time when some of those same powerbrokers are mandating that books about folks who look different than they do, be removed from school shelves. Nevins’ novel aptly illustrates Faulkner’s famous quote about the past and gives us a view of our current realities. This debut novel is remarkable and this reader is left to wonder where Nevins’ interests and talents will next lead. A word from the publisher: you can purchase Man in a Cage by @Patrick_Nevins from @MalarkeyBooks here: http://malarkeybooks.com/man-in-a-cage

Da died suddenly, leaving Maggie no time to plan or properly pack. She’d thrown a handful of underwear, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and sweater in her suitcase. None of it was black. She’d called Weston Gallery to inform them she’d be gone a day or two. Death in the family. There was no one else to tell since Ginny left her last year. Ginny never met Da anyway. Maggie retreated into Da’s study after the funeral, avoiding as many people as possible. She sat in his brown leather chair and ran her hands down the armrests. As a child, Da would read to her as she snuggled half on his lap, half on the billowy cowhide. Maggie tried to breathe in the scent of well-worn leather, but only the faint smell of old books lingered. Maggie made her way to the doorway. As she glanced across a crowded room of people who felt like ghosts to her, something took hold. A faint longing to have them envelope her and carry her back to childhood—back before she escaped the never-ending green pastures to attend college in Dublin. Before she’d become what Da called “my city girl.” Since then, her yearly visits for Christmas ended with the eggnog toast. Maggie always found herself snug in her flat by the wee hours of Boxing Day. Maggie watched as Mrs. McFarland, the church organist, stood at the punch bowl, cup in one hand, flask in the other. Mr. Watkins, the piano teacher who’d called her playing “charming,” sat on the couch chatting with Mr. O’Reilly, the owner of the local pub and Da’s best friend. Neither seemed to have aged in twenty years. Father Murphy was in the far doorway consoling her Ma. His face full-on Irish blush, Ma’s full-on sorrow. Maggie seemed to be floating in a bubble, as if she wasn’t there at all. She wondered if anyone noticed her multiple piercings or that she wore the black dress from high school graduation she found in her closet, slightly tight in all the wrong places. Maggie was in a time warp, but she was still the one out of place. “I can’t believe you stayed after the funeral,” a familiar voice echoed behind her. Maggie turned. It was Harriet, her first crush from middle school, all bouncy brunette curls and piercing blue eyes. “Daughterly duty.” Maggie straightened out her dress. “Nice dress by the way. Looks familiar.” Harriet offered her a glass. “You need this.” Maggie took it and drew it toward her lips. The distinct smell of Jameson’s reminded her of Da. “He was a good man.” Harriet took a step closer and leaned against the wall. Her Da was a good man. Maggie admired him as a child, and they were close until she reached puberty and withdrew the way teenage daughters do. She knew better than to discuss her fondness for girls with the man who said grace at dinner and tried to set her up with every farm boy for miles. Da went to his grave thinking she was too picky to say yes to marriage. “That he was,” Maggie said, before draining the glass. Harriet laughed. “You learn to drink like that in the big city?” Maggie wasn’t sure if Harriet was teasing or flirting. “An Irish lass doesn't have to learn.” Harriet took the glass, letting her hand linger a moment on Maggie’s. “I didn’t realize it then,” she said with a smile, “things are different now.” Piano music erupted from the living room. It wouldn’t be long before the walls would rattle from a cacophony of voices crooning Irish ballads. Someone would come looking for Maggie to ask her to play, surely she could still play. Harriet read her mind. “You’re going to have to play, you know.” “I didn’t think you remembered—” “I remember everything about you, Mags. Another?” Maggie nodded. Harriet started for the kitchen, but turned around, “It’d be nice if you stayed around longer.” Mr. Watkins spied Maggie from across the room and motioned her to join them. Mrs. MacFarland was pounding out My Wild Irish Rose when Harriet returned and handed her the glass. Without saying a word, together they took two steps forward. Sally Simon (ze/hir) lives in the Catskills of New York State. Hir writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Emerge Lit, Truffles Literary Magazine, (mac)ro(mic), HerStry, and elsewhere. Sally is a reader for Fractured Lit. When not writing, ze’s either traveling the world or stabbing people with hir epee. Read more at www.sallysimonwriter.com.

SABLE You step into this city & Everything tells you they know Of dying, of burning. They paint You war-red, paint a wedding dress Black, with a cascade of embers. Here, we’re all ghost cosplaying As humans— Waiting to be untethered from Our bodies by the next gunshots. Every day, we’re promised Armistice, by the guns empurpling Our evenings. Which is why I bear A scar above my thigh for when this City pulled me back, so I know Of my amateurish art of escapism. Now, we all drown into dreams Of living things, to escape this city, To watch the fire dancing on the Mountains of the nation below. SANS SABLE And now, the bullets have granted our Bodies armistice, but to what end? The grounds are now impregnated With the weight of a city, and they Do not groan. Ashes of ruins now Taint the wind, and the relics of what Grief leaves behind permeates The morning adhan—including Memories of fire, gunshots, blood & exit wounds. Today, I traverse A street and I’m not the next meal Of bullets, except that something Is marathoning inside me, meaning, My body is a burning house Of broken records. Everything Left in our mouths from these wa(te)rs Are the sordid aftertaste of gloom, & The drowning that accompanies the Heaviness of silence. Today, we close Our eyes and we’re not spooked by Burning mountains, but the memories Of what they burnt. Today, The oneirocritic translates a dream, And it does not end in chaos.

It’s been raining since Christmas yet the water is lower than ever before and there’s a newly revealed rock looks like the hood of a car and all sorts of imaginary accidents play consecutively in my head before I finally agree with Maggie that it’s a rock, although I don’t entirely agree, mostly because I can’t believe such a gigantic thing has kept its secret for so long. We were born in this house and thought we knew everything. And then around the curve, another. What else goes on that I don’t know about? I keep losing them in the fog until I get them again with a crash like chewing tinfoil and then three more around the next bend and although I do not feel quite as betrayed by these, this time I say it out loud. What else goes on that I don’t know about? And that’s when she told me Claire was coming. But first, our beach. It’s mostly rocks but before you picture it, before you let rocks similar in size and greyness roll into your head, let me tell you, our beach is an exuberation of rocks. How can I say it? Imagine you’re in audience at the OG explosion and you’re like I’ll take that one, that one, that one, that one over there, yes, that one, and that entire galaxy on your left, that one, that one, those three there, that one, that one, all of those, that one. I mean our beach was mind-blowing rocks some big as trains I bet but we only saw what poked out like the way icebergs are, their colours you’d have to make up names for like Spriken or Youtza or Lomury, and some so black your definition of black changed, some with stripes like flashes of light and you could see the similarities between them like family, you knew they hurtled eons (also a good colour name!) in one mass might have been their own planet even. And it was only our stretch of beach they populated so generously like the playground of a giant blessed child they were strewn and tucked and any other adjective you can think of. I just want you to understand the celestialness of it you see. When? When what? When’s Claire coming? Now. She’s coming now. Today. We had already turned back, all five of the new rocks were visible, the fog was ebbing or maybe it was me not minding so much I mean if you’re talking about being blindsided, the new rocks had nothing on Claire. Sherry is from the wilds of Ontario. She writes the kind of stories she longs for and can rarely find. thestoryparade.ca

Across fields of languid wet grass dotted with grazing cattle we walked, a weary band of silent souls. Carefully picking our way across a gently meandering stream, our minds embellished by the smells and sounds that enveloped us. We gazed at the grey clouds high above, floating in their sombre procession, disrupted by noisy crows careering through the dimming light of the wounded sky. Our tired legs stung as we carefully picked our way through hedgerows of thorns and nettles. Glancing behind us to see how far we had come, and in the distance the Lough and ancient woodlands watched on as we left them behind. Our trembling hands cupped in a spring of fresh cool water, no one talked, we just stole furtive looks at each other, afraid to speak. Our journey continued without another backward look, on we walked to the mountain, now cloaked in the veil of night. A single word was spoken…. And at that we struggled up the pebble strewn slope. At the crest we drew breath, a wretchedly timid light shone from the broken moon. And we gathered, to watch the world we had known begin to fall. Gareth Greer is a short story writer and poet from Northern Ireland.

My boss, Who’s worked In our district Through nine presidencies, Refers to The students As children. Yesterday, During second period, One student Attacked another In the boy’s room, Which is located Across the hall From my room. A passing teacher Glanced into the restroom, Screamed— I called security And returned To teaching My B-level Sophomores. I later learned that The assailant had Banged the victim’s Head against the floor And, For good measure, Bit a chunk of Flesh Out of his Forehead. Some teachers Said that it Could’ve been worse: He’d need stitches, Maybe even plastic surgery— But at least he hadn’t Lost an eye. My boss’s Office is two Floors below; Unless she asks, I’ll not mention The incident: There’s something about Letting her think What she does, Yet there’s something Else— Greater, More difficult— That tells me That there’d be No point. S.F. Wright lives and teaches in New Jersey. His work has appeared in Hobart, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and Elm Leaves Journal, among other places. His short story collection, The English Teacher, is forthcoming from Cerasus Poetry, and his website is sfwrightwriter.com.

I Think I Could She asked, “What could I have done That would have made you stay?” She saw your error and crime and implicated herself in your own devices. She sought not for an apology but had sewn a reconciliation from patches of guilt and heartbreak. Stained, but unacknowledged. She heard that you cheated and wondered what she did wrong. And you wondered nothing at all. A Former Friend Said “You must be fun at parties. You can hold my discomfort for me like a purse as I go take a piss. Parties are not the time to think or remember. I can’t block out the past with your presence here. Be more fun. More cool; Less aware. Please wrap up your wound. Your blood is dripping on the floor. This is such a nice Oriental rug that is being stained by you. I can’t hear the music as well with the sound of your cries. Please consider how your pain affects me. For once.”

“Can you believe TikToks have become homework assignments now? No, for real, my roommate at school, she’s a business major right, and her final assignment for her marketing class is to make a Tik Tok representing the university. Now what kind of bullshit is that?! I take more stock in philosophy majors and all their assignments are just to think thoughts or regurgitate someone else’s. Academia is dead! Colleges treat their professors like Walmart employees dropping them at whim when the semester ends. Fuck, if I taught there I’d probably assign a Tik Tok too - it’s not like anyone cares anymore…” Venting to coworkers is great because well, you’re bored, they’re bored, and it's not like they have anything else to do or anywhere to escape to. “They told me I can’t wear my black scrubs anymore, can you believe that?” “And I mean I know being a comp lit major, creative writing minor isn’t gonna save the world or anything but at least it doesn't try to be anything more than it is- I mean, I like to read and write and that’s it. Now THAT'S some real Academia!” “You’re a narcissist, you know that right Astrid?” “Well you’re a skinny emo fuck with shitty tattoos Devon.” It is 11pm. They both think that they are smarter than the other but perhaps a close match intellectually. The self-described darkly dressed arcane finds her absurd and amusing. They are both caricatures of identities they maximize their daily effort into assuming. Writing on the PeterPan bus makes her feel like Jim Carrey journaling on the train in the beginning of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. One day she will feel like the Jim Carrey today who denies his acting career instead desiring only to paint mangos. How tropical and romantic! He enjoys taking public transportation to random destinations pursuing an eternally unidentified muse. How does photography require a muse? Is it not simply capturing the present? He writes some poems too though, to accompany his photographs. Or should I say, “film”; the expired film produces odd shapes and colors which, in spite of its deterioration, has managed to outlast Devon’s grandfather whom he ceaselessly reminds all who are willing to listen that he was “a wildlife photographer for National Geographic.” This was their first shift together in quite some time so they both had a lot to fill one another in on… or rather talk at each other about. Once one of them assumes the dominant speaker role in the conversation, the other is forced to listen, doing their actual job. Here, a one person task must always require two. Devon had moved to Brooklyn but returned a brief three months later, tail between his legs, begging for his job back to their scummy corporate hospital manager. And he did get it back, with the condition that his black scrubs (which he had worn without fail at every single shift prior) be put to rest for good. Begrudgingly, he sacrificed his emo-boy garb for a paycheck. “I’m such a sell out,” he whined to himself from under his black KN-95 mask, the sole survivor of the identity which has been stripped from him at the workplace. The irony of it all is that he most definitely could have declined this condition and still have his job back. With a turn-over rate that high, the hospital couldn’t really deny any help they were offered. His stick and pokes of genderless creatures with pointy breasts and sad faces look more ridiculous than ever before in contrast to the navy blue paper-like scrubs which seem to float a half-centimeter above his close hanger shaped body. That body which promised him success as a model boy in Brooklyn secured only a few jobs with niche jewelry brands whose necklaces hung daintily above his chest tattoo which branded himself as “Free”, referencing the luminous variety of songs under this title including but not limited to: Mazzy Star, Angel Olsen, Lana Del Rey among other angelic, ethereal voices. Financially and socially he decided himself more suited to living in suburbia for now. He thought being in the city would make him feel at home among people who were likewise unconventional and alternative. What he did not realize from his initial visits, he realized a short few weeks later; he was not as unique as he had imagined . The city is a big pond full of lots of small, pale, tatted fish with minor addiction problems just like him. The battle to assert one’s individuality there is far greater a feat than the area he and Astrid had grown up in. His individuality complex damaged and his pride swallowed, he embraced his poverty as an aesthetic and a decision to live with less rather than the consequences of trying to be someone he was not and chasing a dream that could only come to fruition with the generational wealth assumed by the Brooklyn boys who he was surrounded by. Astrid envies his ability to have such a decisive and defined sense of self. Her identity requires a more careful fine-tuning that comes with the simultaneously languid and vigorous selection of language through which she expresses herself. The kind of expression that goes unchallenged from a young man but is flagged as hysterical and overly self-important when regarding women. Recently, while eavesdropping, she heard someone describe someone else as “estrogenical”; surely an insult, yet she actually found it quite endearing and has decided to reclaim it, incorporating it into her tweets and daily vernacular with her friends. Other words she has created outside of her abrasive academic animation include but are not limited to: “skibble-dibble”, “squapple-dock”, “hagger-daggers”, “boobacha” and so on. Many of these phrases are plagiarized from her father’s impassioned, unrefined story-telling slang. But can you even plagiarize your parents? She considers these colloquialisms to be inherited. She wants to be taken seriously but has a hard time removing the emotions which accompany having your own opinions in an apathetic world. For this reason her writing is almost entirely crap. Writing, while undeniably an artistic outlet, is for her mostly an emotional outlet. She has been therapizing herself in her diaries since elementary school in order to be able to refine her expression so that feelings are removed in her communication with the public world. The transition from teenaged adolescence to young adulthood has been challenging for Astrid however as her feelings have inevitably bred with her world-view and she finds herself drawing associations and deeper meaning between concepts which do not require such analysis. Academica has absorbed her and she struggles to differentiate her reality from that of the characters in the books she reads. The psychedelics and stimulants only further muddle this life transition as you can surely imagine. Devon, a few years older than she, entertains this existentialism which carries through every conversation the two have. He relays his firm, defined conclusions about life which have likewise been molded by psychoactive molecules years prior and minimally pondered. These conclusions come easier to those raised as boys; they’re not used to being told no, or accused of being too assertive. Gender, when determined by genitalia, discourages self-doubt in men and boys. Astrid believes that by asserting masculinity through being abrasive she too may not be met with doubt; her inner-monolog says otherwise however and “faking it till you make it” as her father always said is often met with hostility or the assumption of immaturity from girls with freckles and glaring eyes. She often finds herself wondering “Am I really a bitch? Or am I just acting like a man?” For Devon however, asserting femininity invites others to be vulnerable with him. Even if that assertion is only evident through his frail frame and singular dangly swan earring hanging in the crooked hole of his earlobe firmly attached to the side of his neck. While it is wonderful how society is beginning to embrace less socially rigid tropes, celebrating a boy for being ‘secure in his masculinity’, in spheres of indie wannabees this often translates into the harnessing of feminine expression as a mechanism of accumulating social capital, facilitating a facade to garner the trust of alt-girls. Between existentializing or dissecting one another’s lives, Devon and Astrid analyze the daily doings of the clinic, occasionally participating in them when necessary. The title of “Care Assistant'' makes their job sound admirable and important to the veterinary community, and while these assumptions are not untrue, in reality the job is far less glamorous. While they were often called in by the doctors when the hospital was short staffed to do things they were utterly unqualified for that surely only someone with a license should be doing, their only official duties aside from cleaning the hospital and doing laundry is to handle the bodies. To put them in body bags, take their paw print in clay post-mortem as a souvenir for the owners, and carefully (or not, depending on the awkwardness which the body asked to be handled or the strength of the assistant) place the cadaver in the freezer among the rest of the week’s dead. Bodies get picked up like clock-work, every Tuesday morning to be sent to the crematorium for private or general cremation, depending on the family’s wishes Most of the time the job required two assistants, asserting this for the late night shift is nearly laughable and considered among staff to be flushing hospital money down the toilet; especially since working past midnight means time and a half pay! No one minds watching them throw away money though , no one gives a fuck about their corporate bullshit. Astrid and Devon do not mind staying there until dawn. There is always more black coffee to make and drink into the night. The intercom pings and the care assistants are once again called upon interrupting their conversation. Begrudgingly, they make their way to the ER side of the hospital away from the enclosed privacy of their dingy laundry room. Astrid tries to mask her exhaustion , standing straight and tall while he slumps ahead looking as exhausted as the moment he arrived, eyes with bags as black as those they put the bodies in. She strides ahead of Devon eager to impress and addresses the head tech, Melanie, to direct her to their task. She imagined something interesting, something that could simply not wait till morning. She was, of course, disappointed. Devon and Astrid must receive “Baby Muffin” from their grieving owner at the front door. Yes, the cat’s name is actually “Baby Muffin” and no, unfortunately she did not pass in-clinic. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring her in sooner, it was just so hard to say good-bye and I wanted her siblings to be able to know she was gone, smell that she was gone, if you know what I mean.” And with this parting explanation of the need for a lengthy bereavement period for her other cats, she walked slowly out of the smudged lobby double glass doors. Baby Muffin passed away two days ago at home, peacefully in her sleep. She was twenty years old, and suffered from kidney failure. She is cold and stiff in her hair-caked faux-fur white bed which exemplifies the impression of her day-old corpse so deeply it appears as though its material has consumed her, her one and a half kilogram body grew out of the object of rest portraying more vivacity in its materiality than surely she had in months. Her mother is Margaret, a sweet, regular client with three other cats who has been ceaselessly haggling at the hospital for a senior discount for months. It is difficult to describe the feeling of putting the corpse of a feline into a plastic bag without actually placing the corpse of a feline into a plastic bag. Margaret had one thing right for sure, Baby Muffin definitely smells dead. While loosening up her riger-morphosized wrist with the hair dryer, Devon and Astrid flip a coin to decide who would have the unfortunate task of placing her body in the bag and who shall have the slightly more favorable task of pressing her stiff paw into clay and scribing “Baby Muffin” under it. Like morbid arts and crafts. Devon was always heads, Astrid tails. Flicking it off of his gloved finger, Devon bent down to see what fate had chosen for them both. It was heads. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath through the KN-95 which still did not block out the smell of rot, Devon placed Baby Muffin with her bed in the black plastic body bag leaving only her front right paw exposed. Rapidly ripping off the gloves as one could never get accustomed to the sensation of lifting the limp and warm or in this case cold and rigid shell of a once beloved, innocent soul, he threw them in the garbage and began grabbing his belongings. “Where the fuck are you going? Our shift doesn't end yet.” “Ummm yeah sorry the bus doesn't run late today so I’m hitching a ride with a friend… Unless you could drive me? Oh? No? That’s what I thought. Peace bro, see you.” He leaves early to catch a ride home with his friend who works at the Subway next door. He instructed Astrid, in his usual amiable au-devoir, to clock him out two hours from now, when their shift was meant to end. She checked the doctor schedule for tomorrow to see what appointments would be coming in on the General Care side. “Oh, great,” she thought, exotic small mammals, “time to get punctured by feral, angry little teeth.” Before she read or doodled, or did any potential side work to prove she was not entirely lazy (the bar is pretty low to be honest), she wrote a bit: It is difficult to step off of the hamster wheel sometimes; to resist stepping into the bird cage and becoming a cartoon. Food isn’t a necessity when coffee makes you faster when you drink it until your stomach aches and by the time you get around to eating again, it’s utterly repulsive. Fingers and toenails are never too long or in need of a file until they are jagged, tearing holes in your socks or rubbing raw the neighboring appendage’s flesh. Ingrown. “You should be sure to come in at least once a month to have your pet's nails trimmed, or if you’d like you can learn to do it yourself at home!” *fake, toothy smile under the mask* Writing comes when thoughts repeat in the mind for too long and I want to move onto the next already. Sometimes the thoughts sit so long they blend into the pink matter imprinting, imprisoned in indistinguishable patterns like Baby Muffin’s dirty white fur in her dirty white bed. It is so unfortunate that more often than not that manifests in to-do lists which I take more satisfaction in creating than completing. To-do: bring Baby Muffin’s body to the vet; but maybe, perhaps we should let it sit for a while, we shan’t be brash or alarm the other babies (Baby Cakes, Baby Baby). Sometimes the very act of not writing or keeping it in my head is humbling; Being humble prevents disappointment, even if I am the only one ever reading. It is always more beautiful to imagine how I’d write, the medium through which I might transcribe it than to actually articulate it myself. Like I said, stepping off of the hamster wheel is hard. Tomorrow, I will hold one such hamster down on the table while he receives his treatment for urine scald, neglected for too long, without a wheel at all. By this time of night there was nothing going on anyhow, besides, she enjoyed the privacy, a real time to be with her thoughts with no distractions, to pitch prose to the paperback pages of her little book but likewise was annoyed by Devon’s disregard for any responsibility at all. She wondered why she cared so much anyhow, would it not be easier to live as he did? The friends in the freezer beside her were good at listening anyhow and the broken dryer lulled her thoughts in rhythm. Woosh-woosh-woosh and so on… Like a lullaby…Sleep begins to call her urgently, with a veracity, without the nagging yet stimulating presence of her co-worker. This has happened before but never with a body on the table. Astrid… snap out of it… The minute her eyelids pull themselves shut she peels them back equally as rapidly. Everything is the same. But where is the body on the table? “Jeez, I must be really tired,” she thinks to herself, figuring that Devon must have just taken care of it before leaving just a half an hour prior. It’s warm. The right side of Astrid’s seated body is pressed against the dryer. Warm towels on the table and on her lap. “Right, I was just folding the laundry…” she decides. She puts her face in the warm towels again and feels something underneath. Out from under the warm, bleach scented towels crawls out Baby Muffin with bright blue, vivacious eyes rather than fermented cold marbles. “Oh my god, oh my god,” Astrid mumbles to herself as she snaps her body up from its previously slouched position trying to believe her eyes. All of the sudden Baby Muffin crawls into her lap and begins purring, as warmly and rhythmically as the dryer. Astrid, too enveloped by the warmth surrounding her and the soothing sensorial script of the white dryer, white, towels, and white cat all warm, all surrounding her does not fight nor question what is happening to her. With a suave, slow swing upwards of her neck, Baby Muffin’s eyes met Astrid’s. “We aren’t so different, you and I. You humans, worry yourselves so much with your silly fake little titles, trying to figure out your ‘identity’ or ‘aesthetic’ instead of just existing.’Who am I?’ Get a grip, who the hell cares? I mean hey, look at me, I just exist as I am and you all scoop up my shit, brush me, treat me like a queen. And now, here you are about to immortalize my print in some oven bake clay and send me off neatly, in a sleek black bag cradling me in my fluffy, beloved bed-abode to transform my flesh into dust. And please, don’t look so scared, you and I both know you haven’t put me in the freezer yet, Devon is far too lazy to do you that favor before leaving.” “Wow,” Astrid was in mild shock and amazement at the beautiful specimen. With the speaking voice of what one imagines a siren would sound like, “the mushrooms have really cracked something in my brain for real.” Unsure of what to ask what is surely a descendent of the Cheshire cat, she simply poses the question: “So, what does it all mean then?” “It means that life is long and you need not do more than exist to have your shit scooped and be adorned and adored like me. Chill the fuck out! Write something beautiful that isn’t so damn sad, pencil in permanent impermanence, manipulate the mirage, and be belligerent with your boldness. Daily glimpses into momentary bliss are surely more satisfying than swimming in the abyss searching for meaning where it doesn't exist, live a little, kid.” With these potent parting words, the smell of rot returns, filling Astrid’s nostrils as Baby Muffin crawls back onto the table and lies down into her near fossilized white bed. Astrid’s head shoots up with a start and she gasps for breath inhaling a tumbleweed of white cat hair. She begins hacking. Baby Muffin’s paw is still reaching out of the plastic bag waiting to be autographed. Astrid feverishly grabs her styrofoam office coffee cup and greedily takes a sip of the lukewarm liquid which washes down the dead hairs. She wipes the sleep out of her eyes and sits bewildered, in utter shock, not thinking of anything or moving a muscle, staying as still as Baby Muffin’s enchanted corpse. Eventually, she peers behind her at the clock which reads: 5:50am. “Fuck! How long was I asleep for? Fuck! Ten minutes left of my shift,” she realizes with a start and begins tending to the task at hand, deciding she can think about her experience with this other-worldly entity once she can finally leave. Alone with Baby Muffin’s once again lifeless shell she takes the water-less soap and sprays it on her cold little beans slowly massaging out the cemented litter and varied collected layers of grime with a washcloth. After rolling out the gray clay, with more compassion and less disgust for her preliminary remains, she presses the once pink, little beans firmly into the substance. She would wait to inscribe her namesake gifted to her by Margaret into the clay under her imprint until tomorrow. Life is long, Astrid decided, such a thing could wait for her next shift but now, she must go home to return to dreamland. Astrid places Baby Muffin’s soft clay signature above the oven. She places her paw delicately back into the bag without looking at her body, only wishing to remember her with the vibrant crystal like ocean eyes which had come to her this evening. With the crisp snap of a zip tie, securing her, and her bed into their plastic hammock which will carry them on their journey to dust, Astrid gently carries Baby Muffin to the freezer and gingerly places her on the right shelf next to a sweet little puppy who had passed from Parvo days prior. “Goodbye, Baby Muffin,” Astrid imparted longingly out loud before shutting the heavy insulated door. Before leaving, after gathering up all of her things and finally, at long-last clocking out, she receives her notebook once more from her tote bag. Opening it to the page where a short few hours before she had wrote her rather negative, ill-inspired “prose”, in a fat red sharpie from the desk she proclaims in bold print: I AM NOT A HAMSTER Cass, a South Florida native is currently a rising senior at Clark University pursuing a double major in English and Spanish. This is her first (and hopefully not last) published short story. Find her on: Twitter: @cassiefras15 Instagram: @fromcass4u @cassiefras15

I can say now that maybe I shouldn’t have pestered the chef and irritated the hungry folks lined up and shuffling behind me in a queue like the one that snaked across the London Bridge to see The Queen in a quarter-tonne box, God knows how much embalming fluid plunged into her wizened purple veins to keep her from melting for, say, 10 requisite days. Had I been a monarchist and anywhere near the UK at the time of her demise, I’d’ve paid my respects at the very start of her lying-in-state so as not to face leaks from Her Majesty’s lead-lined casket. I’m a sensitive soul, fussy about substances, the kind of person who likes to know where my food comes from and what else is in it, which is how I know what a hammer looks like when it’s hurling toward my face, thrown like an Olympian wannabe by the pissed-off cook at Bob’s Best Byrgers and Fysh who probably keeps brass knuckles under his counter and mascaras his pubic hair: it’s a comet with a cold steel head, a hard hickory tail. And I can say now it’s not the greatest idea to question an underpaid, exhausted worker wearing a faux chef’s hat about the ingredients in the patties he’s flipping and what percentage of sodium and protein do they have per serving, because what does he know and besides his twirling hammer is speeding its way to my forehead, a cool whoosh of air heralding its imminent arrival and I can say right now I don’t really give a rat’s what’s in the goddamn burger, I duck. I’ve got dogs at home to feed. Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. She has received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.

I’m always so much smarter when I talk to you in my head a cinema smile, stars leaping off my tongue like kamikazes we never needed those seas foam between tables my hair down my shoulders again and frontiers fold in the sweet impairment of memory glinting between my lashes nights snatched from fate and dipped in chrome—a promise a picture of what might still be. In my head I am not afraid to touch your hand you touch me back your finger smoothing the creases of my agonies so I can barely speak. I can barely speak the damning syllable lodged in my throat deviant aigus ellipsing like gnats towards the lamp you swat one, standing, scanning figures, let’s go— and I empty before I remember you will be with me when I am alone Aishwarya Jha is a writer, designer and entrepreneur from New Delhi, India. Her work recently appeared in a digital anthology by Oxford University and is forthcoming in multiple literary journals, including Livina Press, Boats Against the Current and Isele Magazine. In another life, her award-winning one-act plays were performed around the world, in addition to being taught at workshops. Her debut novel will be published in 2024 and she is drafting her second as part of the Asian Women Writers programme.