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The man and woman hiked a yellow trace, barely a road, through the countryside, bound for another town. He walked in front of her. She was pregnant and whenever some passerby in a rattle-trap pickup truck—for they were not entirely unavoidable—stopped and offered a ride, he would answer for them both. “Mind your business, friend,” or “If we wanted to ride, ain’t you think we’d be riding by now?” They climbed a long hill and the dust from the road coated their mouths and mixed with their saliva and made a paste in their throats and every several steps, they spat globs into the tall grass on the road’s shoulder. At the top of the hill, they came to a cherry orchard. The boughs of the trees hung laden with ripe fruit and spearheads of leaves guarded the cherries and the shade fell through the leaves and onto the ground so that each tree seemed to wear a skirt of shadow. “I’m tired,” she said. “It ain’t been but an hour since we last stopped,” he said. “Still,” she said, “Just for a couple minutes?” He looked up the road and looked back at the woman. He sat his hands on his boney hips and, finally, jerked his head toward the cherry trees. “Not long. We got a ways to go.” “I know it,” she said. He followed her through the grass shoulder and down into the ditch but she could hardly climb the bank on the other side, up and into the orchard, and he had to shove her up the last few steps. In the orchard, she put her back to the nearest trunk and slid slowly down until she was seated. Her clothes were all tight and sweat dripped from her hairline. “What if it comes now?” she said. “Then it comes.” He stood over her and scanned the orchard. There was a farmhouse far away, where the fields changed abruptly and uniformly into sparse, hardwood forest. “See anything?” she said. “Acres of nothing,” he said, “Same as what all we seen everyday since we started this goddamn little journey.” “Cherries look good,” she said. He looked away. “Get me some cherries?” He didn’t say anything, but stood there, staring at the distant farmhouse. “Would you bring me some cherries?” He turned on his heel and his eyes burned. “Whyn’t your baby’s pa pick you some cherries? I don’t see him. Maybe he’s coming with some gunny sacks and got held up. What do you figure?” She folded her hands on her swollen stomach and stared at a place on the ground where the shade ceded to a patch of sunlight. But a second later, she jumped like she’d been stung by a wasp. She scrambled halfway to her feet and lost her balance and plopped down again against the tree. “What? What?” he said. “A kick. I felt it all the way up my neck.” “A kick.” “The baby.” “That hard?” “Sometimes. It’s so big now.” The sky was blue, and uniformly so, and the day had been hot and utterly still. But a wind—a wind and not a breeze—blew through the cherry orchard, bending all the branches and flipping all the leaves at once so their sea green underbellies flickered and the patter of cherries raining on the hard ground was like the sudden roll of tom-toms. And then it stopped. The day was still and quiet again. She gathered a handful of cherries from where she sat and ate them one at a time and while she ate, she looked at him. His eyes were wide, but they no longer flashed. Was he gasping for air? “What’s wrong?” she said. “You done that, someways.” “Done what?” “The wind.” “The wind don’t obey me,” she said from her spot on the ground. The baby came later that week, in a rooming house run by an old man. The old man brought hot towels and water and made coffee, and after she’d labored and given birth, he scissored apart a set of sheets from another room in which nobody was staying and warmed the strips by the stove and gave them to her so that the baby, a boy, would be warm. When she and the baby were asleep, the man crept out to the porch and rolled a cigarette, put it to his lips and eyed the road that wound past the rooming house like a black vein. He had no matches. But the old man, watching, followed him out. He produced a match and struck it against one of the bowed wooden columns that held up the porch roof. He held it out to the man and the man drew on the cigarette and the smoke drifted away. “What’ll you call him?” the old man asked. “Got any ideas?” the man said, “I’m fresh out.” “I haven’t named a baby in years and years.” They stood side by side, looking out. “You were fixing to run just now, weren’t you?” the old man said. The man flicked the butt end of the cigarette into the yard. “That boy ain’t mine and I ain’t no kind of father anyway.” Water sprang into his eyes and he flashed it away with the back of his wrist. “Come inside. There’s coffee. We’ll sit up and talk awhile,” the old man said, and his face shone like moonlight. Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collections Animal Heart (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), Brief Instructions (Ghostbird Press, 2017), Metropolia (Ghostbird Press, 2021) and The Museum of Heartache (Pski’s Porch Publishing, 2021.) He serves as an adjunct professor of fiction writing at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He and his family live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The monstrous key ring hanging from Jack Oliver’s belt fascinated us. The top large hoop held smaller ones, in a complicated interlinked puzzle. We had theories about the keys, none of them satisfactory. Jack Oliver didn’t run one of the storage facilities in town, he didn’t own the wreckers salvage dump or the RV park, and he didn’t sell golf carts or other recreational vehicles, all occupations that generated a significant number of keys. He lived alone with his dog, a border collie named Peggy, on the old farm that had been in his family forever, where he took care of a bunch of horses rescued from various ranches and overgrazed public lands. We often spotted him riding in fallow fields or rights-of-way, with Peggy tagging along. The animals looked happy with Jack. In my book, that made him a good guy. “How many keys does your mom have, Cassie?” Ethan said. “Two,” I said. “The house and the car.” “My dad has four,” Lucas said. “The house, the car, the garage, and the ATV.” “What, not the boat?” Ethan smirked. Lucas was the rich kid in our trio. Rich being relative. The Summervilles weren’t millionaires. They just had more stuff. Ethan Maher, my best friend, wasn’t as well off. He lived with his grandparents in a sagging old pile that needed a new coat of paint, on top of the peeling multi-colored previous ones. Not poor, but he took good care of his bicycle because there wouldn’t be another set of wheels under the Christmas tree for a long while. My circumstances were slightly better. I lived with my mom in a bungalow, midway between Lucas and Ethan. The closer to the lake, the more expensive the houses. The Summervilles were on the water. “He must have a tractor,” Lucas said. “Maybe a baler or a loader, and a wagon.” “Okay, so maybe six or seven keys,” Ethan said. “It’s more than a regular person, but it doesn’t explain the clanging pile.” “Padlocks,” I said. “Anything that isn’t locked down tends to grow wings in this place.” My two buddies agreed. Jack Oliver must carry a large number of padlock keys. “Why doesn’t he keep them at home?” Lucas said. “That ring is so heavy I’m amazed he’s not listing. You know, like a boat.” “We know what listing means, Lucas, you dolt,” I said. “He must want to keep his stuff with him. Can’t blame him. What’s the point of locking things up if somebody can break into your house when you’re out, and steal everything.” We were hanging around the feed store, one of our favorite spots, especially when the mobile vet was in town. We watched the cats and dogs being dropped off and picked up. There were always puppies. Caitlin, the assistant, drafted us to register the animals when she was swamped. Lucas was good with the paperwork, and Ethan and I bonded with the animals, sometimes with the owners, although there were grumpy ones among them that looked at all teenagers as if they were juvenile delinquents. Jack Oliver wasn’t a cranky type. He was taciturn but not sour, and Peggy was a sweet dog. We’d seen him walk into the feed store, tall and lanky with that battered cowboy hat of his, a distinctive silhouette recognizable from a quarter mile away. “I think we should ask him,” Lucas said. “What? Walk up to him and say: Pardon, Mr. Oliver, sir, but what the hell are all these keys for?” Ethan laughed. “That’d be something to see.” “We can’t do that,” I said. “It’s very rude.” “Why not? Either he’ll say it’s none of our business or he’ll tell us. What’s the harm?” Lucas’s suggestion was common sense, but I couldn’t picture myself doing it and judging from Ethan’s face, neither could he. “Well, you go ask him then,” Ethan said. The gauntlet was thrown. Lucas pondered, weighed pros and cons. “What do I get if I do it?” “Bragging rights,” Ethan said. “Uh-huh, not enough. The largest pizza with all the trimmings, at Napoli.” “You know how much that’ll set us back?” I said. I had twelve crumpled dollars in my pocket, what was left from babysitting an ornery toddler last week. Ethan, who was even more cash-strapped than me, shrugged. “He’s blowing hot air through his ass. He won’t do it and Jack won’t tell him anyway. We’re safe.” That led to a lengthy discussion of the fine points of the challenge. Was the pizza for the ask only, or was an answer from Jack Oliver required? We haggled worse than horse traders. After we’d dissected the arguments, we agreed that the ask was worth a small pizza with two toppings. An answer would earn the big pie. And we had to witness the conversation. Lucas was devious. He might walk up to the guy and ask him what time it was. I could tell the thought had crossed his mind because he winced when Ethan said we would go with him. We hovered around the mobile vet truck, waiting for Jack to exit the store. He was really tall when you stood close to him and his boot heels added a good two inches to his frame. He was old, but not like Ethan’s grandparents. He was strong and brown from working outside. I felt heat flush my face, thinking he must have been a handsome man when he was younger, with these gray eyes and a nose like a hawk. I stepped back a few steps. Mom said nothing intimidated me, but that wasn’t true. Ethan gave Lucas a light push between the shoulder blades. “Time to shine, bud,” he whispered. To his credit, Lucas followed through. “Hi, Mr. Oliver,” he said. “Beautiful day, ain’t it? Is Peggy at the vet, is she okay?” Ethan glanced at me and winked. Smart way to start the conversation. Jack leaned forward and down. Lucas stood his ground and looked into these knowing gray eyes. “The old girl was sleepy this morning. She’s fine. Thanks for asking.” “Now it comes,” Ethan mumbled and Jack turned to look at him. I couldn’t put words on what passed between them in these few seconds, but it gave me goosebumps. I moved closer to Ethan, so close our elbows touched, and the clean smell of his freshly laundered shirt tickled my nose. He leaned on me a bit as if Jack’s stare had unbalanced him. Lucas swallowed so hard I thought he would dislodge his tonsils. “Uh, Mr. Oliver, why do you have all these keys?” His voice dipped on the last syllable. Jack released Ethan–that’s what it felt like–and smiled. “Well, well, Master Summerville, how long has that question been burning you? For quite a while, I believe. You wonder, like most people around here. They’re just too polite to ask.” I felt myself turn beet red. “Ah, fair Cassandra had misgivings, didn’t she?” That didn’t help my crimson complexion. I wished I was five miles away. And nobody calls me Cassandra, ever. “Was it a challenge, Ethan? They’re big on challenges and dares in the Maher family. It sends them crashing down more often than not, poor suckers. At least you hide behind your friend.” Ethan jumped as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod. “I don’t fucking hide behind anybody!” Jack laughed. It crinkled a riot of wrinkles around his eyes. I noticed he had a silver tooth. The sun put a sparkle on it. “I recognize that trademark spunk. It’s caused so much damage among your relatives.” He jangled the humongous key ring. “You know the expression: Curiosity killed the cat. Are you dying to know?” “I’m not,” I said, when that cat he was talking about gave me back my tongue. “Sensible. Females are so much more sensible than the males of the species.” “Sir,” Ethan said. His fists were bunched in his jeans pockets. “We apologize for bothering you. Goodbye and have a good day.” And he turned on his heel. “Wait,” Jack said and Ethan cringed. His shoulders slumped, and his head went down to his chest. I knew how hard it was for Ethan to back down on anything. If Jack Oliver insisted on a more formal apology, he wouldn’t get it, no matter the consequences. Humiliation set fire to Ethan’s tinder-dry temper. I wanted to comfort him, but he would explode if I reached for him. “I shouldn’t have implied you lacked in courtesy,” Jack said. “That was wrong of me. Your friend asked an honest question, and he asked it straight, which is more than I can say about the entire population of this benighted place.” He held out his hand to Ethan who stared at it, hesitant. He wiped a hand on his jeans and shook Jack Oliver’s hard-callused big paw. “Thank you, sir.” He stood straighter and seemed to grow before my eyes. Ethan wasn’t used to being given much respect by adults. At best they ignored him. It was grossly unfair. He was no more responsible for the misdeeds of his boneheaded family members than I was for the absence of my deadbeat father. It didn’t matter, we got daubed with the same dirty brush. Small-town gossip is relentless and unforgiving. According to the local babblers, Ethan was destined for jail, sooner or later, like the rest of the Maher clan, and not much good could be expected from me either, being raised by a woman whose husband must have had good reasons to leave her. Some days, the whispers were hard to ignore. Jack smiled. “Tell you what, youngsters. If you come by the farm this afternoon, I might–just might–tell you a thing or two about my keys.” I didn’t like the icy feeling at the base of my neck. “It is not necessary, sir,” I said. He tilted his head and studied me from under that slouchy hat. I forced myself not to blink. “Concerned about secrets revealed, Cassie-the-sprite? Your two knight servants don’t have the same qualms.” I wanted to say: They’re boys, of course, they don’t. They’d jump off a bridge to prove they aren’t chicken. “We shouldn’t impose on you, sir,” I said. “It isn’t proper.” That made him laugh so hard he shook all over. He pointed a big knuckled finger at me. “It is my fancy to unlock a few boxes for your benefit, kids. I insist you come.” And he turned away. It was the same cheeky move as Ethan’s, with more years and more inches added to it. “Oh man, oh man,” Lucas muttered. “What have we gotten ourselves into?” I wasn’t the only one feeling prickles of dread. “Can’t bow out now,” Ethan said. “It would be like I slapped his hand away.” He rolled his shoulders. “What can happen anyway? There’s three of us and he’s alone with an old dog. And it’ll be daylight.” “I won’t drink or eat anything unless I see him eat and drink it first,” Lucas said. “Good luck when he pours himself a big glass of whiskey,” I said. “That too,” Lucas said. “I’ve taken a nip before. Have no fear.” We all needed a big laugh to feel like ourselves again. # The farm was well-kept, without the rusted tools, machinery, or carcasses of discarded vehicles that littered a lot of neighboring properties. Bales of hay were neatly stacked in a barn and the horse paddock was clean. We pushed our bicycles to the top of the hill where the house stood, a long log cabin with a wide wrap-around porch that was newer than the main structure. It wasn’t screened and the ceiling fans buzzed at high speed. Peggy came bounding down the steps, black ears flopping. She wasn’t young anymore but like her master, she was in terrific shape. She ran circles around us and came to a stop in front of Ethan. He extended a tentative hand and she bumped it with the top of her head. We were cleared to proceed. Jack Oliver pushed the screen door open. He was wiping his hands on a checkered kitchen towel. “Good timing,” he said. “The pie is out of the oven. Needs to cool.” He pointed at the cane chairs, one of them a rocker. “Sit.” The border collie, used to the command, flopped down. “Does she work with the horses?” Ethan said. He took the middle chair. There was no need to discuss seating arrangements. We were as well-trained as Peggy. Jack’s smile was a thin amused line. “You all must be what, fourteen? Barwin Middle School?” Lucas nodded. Ethan sighed. School talk bored him. It was the go-to topic for adults that didn’t know what to say to kids. As if school was the only thing in our lives. It sure took up a lot of our time, but less than what work sucked out of grownups. I thought Ethan’s reaction was funny because of the three of us, he was the best student, straight As, and he didn’t give a shit. Or pretended not to, rather. He told me once that he planned to go to college. He said it with a determination that gave me the shivers. I felt Jack’s keen eyes on me. “What kind of pie did you bake, Mr. Oliver?” I said. “Blueberry. Made the crust from scratch.” “I love blueberry pie,” Lucas said. His vow not to eat anything before Jack test-proofed it was forgotten. Resolutions couldn’t resist the wafts of freshly-baked pastry that came from the kitchen. Ethan was fidgety. The dog put her head on his sneaker and he got the message. Settle down, you’re a good boy. “How many horses do you have, sir?” Ethan said. “Twenty-two. That’s as many as I can handle. A lady from Lufkin is taking one off my hands, so there’ll be a spot for a new adoptee.” He tapped a booted heel on the planks. “I wished I could take more, but I don’t have the room.” “You can’t ride them all,” Ethan said. “They’re on a rotation, but yeah, I can’t give them the time they need.” He leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees. The rocking chair creaked. “I could use a bit of help. You like horses?” “I don’t know them well,” Ethan said. “Not been around them much.” Jack extracted his long body from the chair. “Let’s go take a look.” We spent the next hour in the stables. They were as ordered as the rest of the property. The man must work his butt off to keep them that way. “Do you have any help, sir?” I said. “Sometimes, but I’m tough to please and it’s mucky work. You have to love the animals and not be afraid to get dirty.” He smiled. “Interested?” Lucas groaned. He pinched his nose and his mouth against the smells. Ethan stroked the silky muzzle of a chestnut mare. He was lost in her long-lashed caramel eyes, smiling, falling in love. I suspected this was why Jack Oliver invited us to come over. The keys were bait. He needed stable hands. “That’s Carmen,” Jack said. “She was a wreck when she got here. Skin and bones. Her legs are good and she’s fast, but you wouldn’t have known.” He swiped her forelock to the side, tender. “She loves a good headlong run.” “I don’t know how to ride,” Ethan said. I sighed. That was it, slam dunk, seduction complete. Lucas revived as soon as we exited the stables. He didn’t care for horse and manure talk. He was a reasonable boy. A true Summerville. Destined for solidity in banking, or insurance, or nuclear physics, anything with logic at its core. Having a crush on a four-legged animal–even one named Carmen, that fiery lady–was outside acceptable parameters. I was, as always, between them, one foot in step with Lucas’s common sense, the other one kicking at the clouds with Ethan. We had blueberry pie with lemonade. Jack had double helpings of both. I elbowed Lucas. See, he’s eating and drinking with us! Even Peggy had a small bite. We were sated when Jack put his massive keyring on the table. “There used to be forty keys on this ring,” he said. “There are many more now. Jesus spent forty days in the desert. It rained for forty days in the great Flood. Lent is forty days long. It’s a good number, but I couldn’t stick to it. Too many things happening.” “You only have twenty-two horses,” Ethan said. Jack grinned. “Don’t be a smartass. I’m making a point here.” He started slipping the keys off the ring. “These are the usual ones. The house, the barn, the stables, my truck.” He listed them. Machinery. Padlocks. It still left a bunch of unexplained ones. Jack gathered them in a pile. “I could tell you they are the flotsam of life. Accumulated things that I have no use for anymore, that I don’t know what to do with. That I’ve forgotten what they were for. That I keep them because I’m not sure what to do with them and maybe one day they’ll come handy because I’ll find out what they open.” He picked up one shiny and intricate silver key. “This one is for you, Lucas Summerville. I remember when I took it from your aunt Clarissa at the county fair. It opened her jewelry box. She said she kept a lock of my hair in there. It wasn’t gray then, it was as dark as yours. I like this key. I like it more now than I liked Clarissa then. She went to marry that used car salesman in Huntsville. How is she doing?” Lucas was surprised to be called upon that way. “Uh, I saw her at Thanksgiving dinner. She’s okay I suppose.” “Well, at least she’s still alive.” Jack picked up a sturdy rusty key from the stack. “This one has a story that could get people in trouble, me among them. It touches you like the brush of a heron feather, Cassie. Do you want to know what it is?” I didn’t. I felt the eyes of my friends on me, inquisitive. I was trapped, like Ethan with the horse named Carmen, but in a much less pleasurable way. “Will it hurt, Mr. Oliver?” I said. “Hurt you, sweetie? Maybe a little. The people you love? It could complicate their lives.” “Then put the key away, sir.” He nodded and pushed the key aside. He didn’t put it back on the ring. He pulled another one from the pile, a long, flat piece of metal unlike any key I had ever seen. “It opens a cash box. You know what that is, Ethan?” “I’ve seen movies. That’s where people keep their jewelry, fake passports, and running away money.” Jack walked the key across his fingers. We watched, rapt. He was good. “There was nothing glamorous in that box, Ethan. Only pain and heartbreak. Connor had the other key. Your father, my best friend.” Ethan pushed his chair away from the table. “My dad is dead.” He stood up. “What does he have to do with all this?” “You don’t remember him, do you? He was charming and quick to light up, like you. He had a gift for friendship.” Jack shot a glance my way. “He passed that down to you, looks like. With a few other things.” He put the key on the table, among the pie crumbs and the sticky silverware. His head was down and his clear eyes were as glossy as the silver tooth had been. He blinked. “You say you were his friend,” Ethan said. “I know what people say about my dad. They say it to my face. He was a drunk. He got into fights. He couldn’t hold a job.” His voice broke. “He was a gambler and a thief. He should have been locked up. Connor Maher. Wild, dangerous. We all are. The entire family is garbage.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “We don’t have friends.” I hated when Ethan was like that, stiff from the anger he worked hard to keep inside. It was exhausting. For both of us. Jack shook his head. “That isn’t true. There is so much being said around you that isn’t true. Your father upset people that he should have stayed away from. He also loved where he shouldn’t have. I warned him, and he didn’t listen. Will you listen to me, Ethan?” “You’re nothing to me.” I reached for him and pulled him close. He resisted at first, then leaned over my chair, with my arm around his waist. “Listen to him,” I said. “He made Carmen healthy again.” Ethan was tense as a bow string. “I’m no fucking horse.” My eyes locked with Jack’s. “It isn’t the same,” I said, although it kinda was. “His keys are history, memory, something like that.” Ethan seethed. “And why is he telling us? People don’t do things out of the kindness of their hearts. That’s Bible bullshit!” He tried to pull away from me and I held tight. Jack Oliver swiped his loose keys and strung them back on the rings. “Good point.” Ethan unhooked my arm, gently, and walked to the window. He spoke with his back to us. “I don’t need more bad memories.” “What about truth?” Jack said. “Lucas, would you mind taking Peggy for a walk? She likes the barn. There’s always a mouse or two that she can go after.” Lucas sniffled. “I’m no dummy, Mr. Oliver. You want me out of here. You don’t want me to hear what you’re going to say to Ethan. I get it. What about Cassie?” “She has a stake in the story. She can stay or go with you. It’s her choice.” “I’ll stay,” I said. We waited in silence until Lucas was off the porch with Peggy at his side. I was sorry for him. It stung to be excluded. # “There were family papers and a bracelet that belonged to your mom in that cash box, son,” Jack said. “I didn’t touch any of that, but I took the letters. I burned them. Connor was dead and there was vicious talk all around town. There was no need for more.” Ethan snickered. “You didn’t burn enough. Dad’s been dead ten years and people are still jabbering.” His head dropped. I was hurting for him. I wanted to get him out of there. “We’re cheap entertainment,” Ethan said. “For a few years after your mom passed, Connor couldn’t find his bearings,” Jack said. “He loved her like he did everything, no brakes, never. He wasn’t bad, Ethan, but he was damn unlucky, and people took advantage of him. When they didn’t blame him for all the nasty stuff his brothers and cousins did. I told him to pack the truck, take you, and get out of here. He was going to when he met Mina, and I knew there would be no happy ending.” Mina. My heart did a jump and raced. I heard its beat in my ears and I couldn’t find my breath. “Cassie?” I heard Ethan’s voice through the wad of cotton that stoppered my ears. Jack’s rough hand grabbed mine so hard it was painful. “Pour her a glass of lemonade, son,” Jack said. He pressed the cold glass against my lips, pushing my head back. I drank a little and it made me feel better. “What happened?” Ethan said. “She asked if it would hurt, when I pulled out her key,” Jack said. “I’m an idiot. Wanting to show off to you kids. Show you how cool I am, with my collection of secrets hanging from my belt.” I drank the rest of the lemonade. Jack had said the story touched me like a heron feather, it was more like the swipe of a vulture’s wing. “My mom’s name is Mina,” I said. Ethan slid a chair close to mine, and took my hand. “My dad knew your mom?” He was in awe, a smile in his eyes. Jack leaned on the table. “I saw it happen. They were both in pain, and they helped each other. Connor stopped drinking himself stupid. Mina smiled again. That was good. I could see the good they were doing to each other.” I wiped the dew off the lemonade glass. The darkness of the bird wings was still on me. Jack said it would hurt. Ethan’s smile hurt. Something was coming, I didn’t know what, but I didn’t want him to hear it. It was too late to stop, however. Jack had already said too much. “I warned them to be careful,” Jack said. “Your father was a hard man, Cassie. Jealous, vindictive. He wanted his wife at his feet and he used his fists to keep her there.” It knocked the breath out of me again. Words that hit like my father’s fists. “He beat Cassie’s mom?” Ethan said. He had turned pale under the tan. Jack looked away. “There are others like him. Too many.” “Tell me, please,” I said. Jack’s voice was low. “One night, he dragged Mina to the toolshed to teach her how to behave. From what I gathered, he didn’t want the noise to wake you up. You were little. Connor learned about it the next day. He was enraged. He went to take Mina and you away. There was a fight in the shed. Connor shot your dad, Cassie. He said it was self-defense and maybe I believe him. I helped Connor that night. We made up a story, that your parents fought and your dad got in the car and left.” Nobody talked for the longest time. “I’m sorry,” Ethan said. I bristled. My nerves were raw. “It has nothing to do with you. Would Ethan’s dad have married my mom, Mr. Oliver?” “Except for the little complication that your father is supposed to be still alive. They would have managed, I suppose.” “It didn’t happen,” Ethan said. “Is that why you said my dad was unlucky?” Jack nodded. “One piece of bad luck among many others. Bad decisions too. He wanted to get out from under his gambling debt. He went to pay what he could and try to negotiate the rest. The guys got rough and knocked him around. He should have called me and I’d have come get him. I suppose he didn’t want to show these goons they’d gotten to him. He managed to get to his truck and drive away. He must have passed out from the beating. He slammed into a telephone pole.” Ethan put an arm around my shoulders. I wanted to cry and I couldn’t. I thought of Mom, and how much heartbreak she went through. An echo of Ethan’s anger rang inside me. I understood him. Oh how I understood … “The key you showed me,” I said. “Was it for the toolshed?” “Your mom tore the thing down and burned the boards. That must have felt good.” Jack portioned off the rest of the blueberry pie. “I’d give it to you to take home but your folks would ask where you got it.” He stood up and went to the door. “Your friend must be bored solid by now.” He blew a long and loud whistle. A few seconds later, Peggy came running, with Lucas trying to keep up. “How much do you pay for the stable work, sir?” Ethan said. He gave my shoulder a little squeeze. I was so wound up I could scream. “How about eight dollars an hour, and I throw in the riding lessons? Now, once you know how to handle yourself on a horse, you can help with the customers. That’s extra pay and there are tips. What about you, Cassie, wanna give it a try?” His voice was soothing as a summer rain. “I’ll think about it. I wouldn’t mind the lessons. Once Ethan is good enough, I mean.” “Smart girlfriend you got there, son. She’s roped you in, all right.” Jack fiddled with the key ring again and extracted the flat cash box key. “Take it.” Ethan reached for it and then pulled his hand away. “You keep it, sir. They’re your memories. I’ll make my own.” M.E. Proctor is currently working on a series of contemporary detective novels. The first book in the series will come from TouchPoint Press in 2023. Her short stories have been published in Mystery Tribune, Shotgun Honey, Pulp Modern, Bristol Noir, Vautrin and others. She lives in Livingston, Texas.

We Swayed Furtively I You were a shadow of rhythm In the arms, song, and body Of another man. So from a distance, I became him In order to be close to you. I Uprooted in his posture. And the song ended and I bended Smoothly, myself rooting back Inside like bass strings. After the song ended, you both said Thank you and he set you back down Like a cell phone or iPad. He would come back to you When he needed to restock On Tik Tok views. The precursors to influencers Are that when they leave, you like And leave a comment. II I recognized the music in your body, Clearly we had met before to this Music through another’s body. Los Angeles is a new country, It breaths on a different beat Then New Orleans. My hips sing something different Then this music. Music there Is hips and bass strings. Like their music, my hips slink To bass beat and my heart beats On the two and four. And he left you blessing both your Shoulders looking from side To side. I whispered the immediate next The bass string instinct of Another song. III I shadow-coaxed the note to you And you glanced across the room, Your breath on beat. We spoke as dancers do we Spoke with our bodies and Our movement. You walked into my chest where Your presence was met with wrapping Up and into me. And we let our bodies see each Other through their singing as they Laughed, a bit of flirting. We swayed furtively with each other We let our musical bodies meet and sing and kiss. We let our musical bodies rinse and Wash each other as we swayed Furtively together. Monoga-mish -At The Seven Grand Whiskey Bar -Downtown L.A. A place to share a drink with some friends. A place to discover your new go-to. A place to end and begin your night. I I first met her at a house party. Where they had turned their garage into a club. I was the new guy, from The Big Easy. New Orleans, who could dance the blues. I could not help but notice her. I am A relationship person; she is too… She was so active with men and women there I was convinced her FB status was single. After we had danced, poured each other drinks, She moved to the couch. I followed suit. I sat down next to her, as though we were both single. We laughed, exchanged some playful words. After, she rose her glass in the direction of the balcony grill. Specifically to the man, manning it. She said, That is my husband. And there was the moment, really a few seconds of a moment. Where my demeanor popped. Which is what she expected. Which is why she laughed. II We’re monoga-mish, she said, twirling her legs and her drink. I recomposed, reconcentrated, and rethought…monoga-mish? Oh? … Yes. We both work from home, cook, and eat together. And in the evenings, he plays video games and I go dancing. One night, I thought to explore those grounds In the land of Monoga-mish at The Seven Grand. My thoughts were positive, I found stools At the end of the bar. It feels more private there. She appeared, we got right to talking. I love listening, Listen enough you will always learn something. Something you didn’t know about them at the beginning. Even if it’s not directly in what they say, after two old fashioneds. She did directly say, I was homeschooled. And didn’t really expect To graduate, because I was raised in a cult. I had to turn away a few times. She was dressed casually But she was wearing the most blood-thirstiest lipstick. And we both knew at this point that our blood tasted like seven-year-aged maple wood cast whiskey old fashioneds. Cid Galicia is a Mexican American poet who taught in New Orleans for over the past decade. He is in the final year of his MFA, through The University of Nebraska Omaha. He is a poetry editor for The Good Life Review, a reader for The Kitchen Table Quarterly, and this year's FIRECRACKER Poetry Manuscript Awards. He was the recipient of the Richard Duggin Fellowship—granted for demonstrated excellence in writing, runner-up for the Academy of American Poets Helen W. Kenefick Poetry Prize, and most recently nominated for the Helen Hansen Outstanding Graduate Student Award. He is currently living in Los Angeles as an Intern to The Editor for The Red Hen Press. His work has appeared in The Watershed Review, the National Poetry Month Issue of The Elevation Review, Trestle Ties Issue 5, and the upcoming spring issue of Trampoline. (@formal_poet)

In my fancy Park Service clothes. Stupid hat and everything. First day “opening” the Visitor Center. With COVID, this means unfolding tables outside and taping a laminated map of the Park on top. And, giant Plexiglas sneeze guards to ensure nobody can hear what you’re saying through your mask and the wind. First-of-the-season tourists wander like plane crash survivors. Imagine them blurry-eyed from tears freezing in the wind, muttering, “Why?” Inside, two female Rangers dance in place to stay warm, praying no one outside has a question. In their parkas they look like bloated pickles. App that delivers pickle-flavored french fries. Duck behind a cardboard cutout of a moose. It’s time. Panorama’s open, we could go on a date :hearteyes: Katie G: I can’t tell if you’re serious…either way, take it back. Currently in no state to date. Idk about you. But, have my suspicions. Was kidding! Take it back. You may be right about me not being ready. Kicking it/being vulnerable has been nice, tho. Katie G: Ugh my gif didn’t send :angryface:. It has been fun. Thanks for being there. Step away from the moose like, nothing-to-see-here. Sidle up to my sorta-friends, “What’s hap’nin?” “Thank god. These people are terrible. Everyone’s pissed. The bathrooms aren’t open. None of the buses are running yet. All the trails still have four feet of snow. I can’t do it, Tyler. Tell them to leave.” Set up my register. The other girl asks where the hell Luke, the Ranger taking over her shift, is. “I think I saw him applying for a different job.” A woman in a blue fleece that says ALASKA tries at our attention, her hood drawstringed so only her nose and bottom halves of her eyes show. She’s on tiptoes with her arm all the way up, waving a pink, frilly glove. Like we’re soldiers leaving harbor and she hopes the image burns in our minds before we die. “UGgghhhhhh,” the Ranger grabs her mittens and walks out. “Do you have a bathroom,” is heard as the door shuts. Katie G: Pretty much free tonight. You’re closer to pizza, but I have a shower, soooooo… I’ll bring pizza. Need a shower. Katie G: Don’t bring shitty pizza. Walk outside. A family approaches wearing blue fleece jackets that say ALASKA. The wife has bleached hair and, fifty pounds ago, probably captained the cheerleading squad. A white, caterpillar-of-hair spans the husband’s upper lip. A joke: How do you know if someone’s from Texas? They tell you. Two girls, about three years old, look to be twins. Each puts weight on one of their mom’s hands and hang. Their toes barely graze the ground and they slowly twist like abandoned marionettes. Somehow, punctuating the look of despair/desperation on mom’s face. “Do y’all have a toolet?” “We have port-o-potties, in the parking lot,” gesturing with an open palm, trying to nail a look like everything’s normal. It doesn’t work. “Come on, girls.” In defeat, she drags the twins while they yell, “Nooo!!!” “Gah lee. We’s from Taxes. Didn’t think id be suh bloomin cold.” Expressing surprise through eyebrow movements, I say, “Wow,” but the wind blows it away. He cups a hand around his ear. We lean in. Without the Plexiglas it’d be intimate. “Wow,” I yell. “Me and the wifey, well, y’all know whut they say, we ain’t gettin no younger. So, we saddled the girls for they’s old nuff tuh protest, flew um to Worshington. Took at Inside Passage turr. Gah lee, thas purty. Wells, n musta seen bouta hunnerd bald eagles. Glaysers fallin n the wadder. Gahd.” “Different world down there for sure.” “Huh? Got these plates uh halbut big is yer hedd,” he makes a circle then palms his belly where the fleece is stretched to capacity, “Gahd, they’s damned spensive, but gooood. I says, Margret, we gotta get to Denali quicker I might not make it through is bucket list.” He laughs, genuinely taken off-guard at how funny he is. I smile with my eyes over the facemask. Staring at the mustache. It’s trying to tell me something. “Glad you made it.” He’s suddenly serious, “Gotta ask. For the girlser back,” he checks over each shoulder, like it might be listening. “Where’s, Denali?” “Bout seventy miles away.” Luke joins the table, pointing two women toward the frozen plastic toilets. His face has a supremely stoned and flabby look. “Suh, you sayin we cayn’t even see it?” He looks incredulous. “You’d have to probably take a bus in the Park to get a decent chance.” “Could we steel take one?” “They aren’t running.” “Gahd! Can we do anythang, then?” “Have you paid your entry fee?” Visitor Centers are like wombs. Mirrors, showing the disregard for planning, the total helplessness, we long for signing up for “vacation.” I step back in the warmth inside. The building. The Visitor Center. Should I bring beers? Katie G: Only if you want something other than fireball. I’ll mull it over, decide if it’s tonight we make out. Katie G: What a thing to contemplate. I normally decide in the moment. I have blue moon and a few IPAs, so no pressure. I’ll bring a six-pack. Katie G: I still don’t know how I feel about beer/IPA’s. Sometimes I’m really into it and sometimes I just want high abv. Maybe I should keep you away from the fireball :tongueout: We can toe that line. Katie G: Looking forward to toeing that line dew, and the beers :cheers:. I think I have to attempt to clean now. Just enough that you won’t worry about me. You’d have to be an entirely different person for that. Four girls, early-20’s, walk up in black leggings and white sweaters. The sweaters say UCSC and PINK across the chest. Luke is visibly upset when they choose my side of the table. “Ughhhh, is that liiiike, Savage Alpine Trail, like, good?” “It’s pretty good.” “You, ughhhhh, think we could, do it?” “What kind of shoes are you wearing?” They turn side-to-side, asses in profile. Luke bites his knuckle. I assess the Crocs and Chuck Taylors. “Yeah, you’re good.” Their faces brighten, “Thank you!” Watch them walk away. I could take those legs and snap them, all the way up with me, to the windy blue. I walk to the port-o-john and piss. (Sorry again, for the go on a date joke, I wasn’t thinking about your current situation. I fucked up.) Katie G: It’s all good. Just so long as you know where I’m at. Totally do. Caught me off guard, when you reacted. Here, I thought you didn’t feel, but you’re a big SOFTY! :kissheart: Katie G: Don’t remind me! It hurts so much to feel :nervouslaugh:

Basket with Raspberries (for Anatoly Marienhof) The raspberries are misplaced in a wooden basket, cradled thankfully in multiple paper towels thick enough that the raspberries won't bleed through to the top of my coffee table. … Well, it's not a coffee table … any more than I am a real person. I mean I do not feel like a real person. I feel like a poser even though I live in a group home for the mentally ill. I live on a fixed amount of money from Social Security. I can write poetry but today I'm under a lot of pressure because each bedroom has four people living and sleeping in that bedroom. And oddly enough when things are going good I freeze up like crazy. So today is the day just before Thanksgiving and two of my roommates have gone out to be with family. I have the bedroom pretty much to myself. The one other guy that's home is watching TV in the front room, which I would call a living room except that 2 other people sleep there and call it their bedroom. I don't know what to tell you. I'm just beside myself when things are too good. I break down like crumbling cheese. Do you know that kind of cheese that crumbles so easily? Writers, especially absurdist writers, and especially writers that I have been following for 30 or 40 years, these are my friends ... my dear dear friends. I want to say that the raspberries are complaining about their lives. But that idea - that raspberries are conscious enough to complain - is too far-fetched for this world, or for this, my small group home, on the corner of the eternally parallel streets, 7th Avenue and 9th Avenue ... precisely because others might not be familiar with the work of Daniil Kharms, Nicanor Parra, or Anatoly Marienhof. Coffee Pot Larry Larry's very common way of reaching for the coffee pot in the Academy's Officers' Lounge was such an extreme habit that he could have done it blindfolded. Oftentimes he would be saying his affirmations and really have his eyes nearly closed during his break from work or first thing in the morning when he came in. He said his affirmations very frequently - some would say constantly - throughout the day so that he could raise his mood. Only very rarely did Larry ... Take stock of the situation in the break room or how much coffee was in the coffee pot. He would simply walk into the lounge, eyes closed, through the mild maze of tables and end up squarely, exactly in front of the coffee pot … completely preoccupied with his affirmations, most especially in the early morning hours, almost sleepwalking ... then, after standing inexplicably in front of the coffee pot for a few affirmations, Larry would go get himself a styrofoam cup and go back to the coffee station to reach for the coffee pot with his right hand. This morning the sun shone through the window just the way it did every single day of the week including the weekends when nobody was here. As Larry reached for the coffee pot unbeknownst to him it had been completely empty for about 73 minutes and 36 seconds. It exploded robustly. The glass went into Larry's stomach, into his intestines not by way of his mouth. Also, the shrapnel of glass went into the side of his head as a missile through his skin through his torso, his right eye, and his right temple. Larry felt a certain pain and couldn't figure out what it was - but he was doing his affirmations. Larry fell down bleeding profusely, groaning his affirmations. Larry died wrapped in his affirmations.

the sweet spot she weeps & creaks into the ooze & creep & scrape & crushing crackle of whenever trim / shape / slice / sculpt to feed this unstable dislocation every crazy corkscrewed thing braiding birds – in and out of cages (yellowing wallpaper) or tangles of manicured truth what do you reckon – pink or blue? is there a sweet spot? merging the question she unwraps another sixty shades of purple kaleidoscopic calamari curating the caricature chargrilling hearts nicely done unboxed: it’s a little bit Saturday when I bite into your warty heart (a hearty treat) Sunday is no longer such a terrifying prospect violent parasomnia peachskinned she commits murder in her sleep walking painting the apple spitting rainbows such strange delights what did it taste like? breaking hearts glow & she’ll eat you alive not being Kate Bush first time i saw her on Top of the Pops singing Wuthering Heights i wanted to be Kate Bush / & it was 1978 & I was not-so-sweet sixteen but i wanted to be her for the next 30 years because she was everything i aspired to be / & because you admired her talent & creativity / respected her originality / fancied her incredible mind & perfect body / if i could only look more like she did (i frizzed my hair / dyed it russet / wore bright leg warmers & tight vests) learn to sing like her (i had lessons) / write profound lyrics & memorable music (i got a music degree & composed songs) but i could never be her & as i approach my sixtieth birthday / hear Running up that Hill play on a nostalgia radio show / i wonder / why / i tried so hard / for so long to be someone else / for you / manicuring authenticity why i never felt enough / if i could only UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize. In 2021, she was nominated for Best of the Net, shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Her first collection edible was published by Beir Bua Press in July 2022. Website: janeayreswriter.wordpress.com

### “Yes, life is life,” Charles said. “Except when it …” ### “Isn’t” ### Charles pauses here, to which Cassandra says: “Okay, so what we think is, isn’t, if I understand you correctly, because if that’s what you mean, I don’t.” “What I mean,” Charles explains, “is, what is and what isn’t, isn’t always what we perceive. What I’m saying is doesn’t always mean something is, and what isn’t doesn’t always mean something isn’t, unless we establish it is or isn’t.” After a pause, for effect, which doesn’t come, Charles continues his conjecture, uninterrupted. Cassandra still seems confused. “Another case in point is, if you think you see something that isn’t there, does it mean it’s there? It can be an optical illusion in the same way when you don’t see (or hear) something, or someone, say, behind you, does that mean someone is behind you, or isn’t, and you may be somewhat startled once someone walks passed you, since you had no idea or didn’t realize anyone was behind you, until you found out there was. Is that a better explanation?” “You didn’t know, until you did, what’s your point?” Cassandra returns. “Well, if you didn’t see (or hear) anything until whoever it was walked passed you and you only realized it then, that’s how quick someone can sneak up on you and how unaware and how unprepared you’d be if that someone had planned to attack you.” Cassandra’s eyes widen. “Of course,” Charles adds, “that is, or isn’t, only a supposition.” ### “Living in the Ancient Times” ### today.. Not all who wander are lost, Charles thought. Although they may be. They wear labels: If found, turn into the lost and found. The lobe in the center of the outer ear often lets in sounds they don’t hear. “Even if you do,” Cassandra says. When I got on the bus I walked in the front door and while the other passengers got on I walked out the back door and did the same thing with the next two buses that followed. I had time to kill and didn’t want to just sit there looking like I had nothing to do when a bus came and the other people waiting there got on. That’s usually the case when one doesn’t have anything to do to look like he was busy by having something to do when he didn’t have anything to do other than getting on and off a bus. Afterwards, I went back home, but went out again, as if I had somewhere else to go when I didn’t. Pretending you have something to do when you don’t is a job in itself. You can’t see the forest through the trees. Thousands of acres may surround you, but all you see is what’s in front of you. No wonder people get lost walking around until they don’t know where they’re going even if they think they do when they start out. You wouldn’t think that, but it’s true. It’s happened to me before. “I felt like such a fool,” Charles said. “You are,” Cassandra says. The people who say they don’t like BIG government intruding in their lives sure don’t seem to mind intruding on other people’s lives in any way they can. They love power. Except when it comes to money. They love money more. “Of course,” Cassandra says, “what’s at issue here are the singular groups of people in certain political groups who feel it’s their right to tell a nation of 350 million how they should live their lives.” “We know who they’re talking about when they say little government when it comes to the people they’re in office to serve,” Charles adds. “Corporate Greed!” Cassandra says. “The Monopoly World of BIG Money!” Charles adds. “Deep Pockets!” both say. A land where rules and regulations to protect the environment and our planet against corporate abuse is when they love little government. Rules and regulations are an infringement on corporate accountability. The environment and our planet be damned. This is when the Monopoly World of BIG Money wins. “BIG time!” Cassandra screams. ### “The Last Turn of the Screw” ### Charles met Cassandra passing through Harlingen working in Brownsville when he was in Texas. She looked like she needed a friend just like he looked like he needed a friend. She was working there like he was working there while they were both working their way through college. We spend the next week together. As a thank you she reached her hand down his pants and whacked him off every evening. A Howard Johnson comes in handy. She tasted just as good as she looked. The first turn of the screw hurts like hell. I can’t imagine what a piece of wood feels, Charles thought. Before you screw a screw into a piece of wood, you use a hammer and nail to make a little hole to start with, at least that’s what we used to do back in the old days before all these new power drills came out. You don’t need to be much of a man to work any of them. You did back in the old days when you’d get blisters across the palms of your hands and fingers even when you wore gloves until you got used to the work. But before that, you had to work through the soft hands and blisters, if you wanted to get paid. You couldn’t be a pussy about it. Screwing a screw into a two by four frame was hard work, hammering a nail is easier, but we ain’t talking about easy work here. We’re talking about real men doing real men’s work and by the turn of the last screw you feel you’ve accomplished something. All that’s easy compared to working on a relationship. Where screwing is easy. And you don’t need a power drill to do it. But the blisters you get on your heart from the hard work you put into it and the pain it leaves on your soul once it’s over and done with that comes from all the hard work you put into it that leaves you empty and distraught is a lot tougher than any job will ever be. I learned that from the relationships I’ve been in and I guess it’s safe to say each girl learned the same lesson from me, since relationships are a two-way street. ### “Rivers of Time ” ### flow through me all the time, Charles thought. I hope they bring us back together, Cassandra thinks. ### “The Wheel of Time” ### never stops turning. It keeps moving. Even after our wheels stop. You were gone before yours stopped. A memory that fades from time to time but still lives on in me everyday. Time is funny that way. It keeps moving even when it seems it’s standing still. “Dragging ass,” we used to call it. Because even if you were to sit and watch it, you never see it move, even though it’s speeding right passed us. With every breath you take. Until your time is up. ### “The Right to be Wrong” ### I never could figure out Cassandra. How many times can a person be right in life? How many times can a person be wrong? Is there a set number? Say 50/50? Maybe 75/25? Depending on what disposition a person has? Positive? Negative? A balance in between? Where most people seem to be. Do the people we hang around with influence us? The people we don’t? Some people think they’re never wrong. Some people are made to feel they’re never right. It’s a coin toss either way. Because no one’s ever going to agree with anyone 100% of the time and negate their own points of view on life even if they’re never right all of the time even if no one else is always wrong all the time when you agree with them whether they’re wrong or right or you’re right or wrong and nobody cares. This is the nature of the animals we are. How cool would it be if everyone just accepted that and let life be life instead of always having to try to prove how right they are all the time when something goes against the general norm as they think the general norm is? There’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re wrong every once in a while. I will if you will Charles says and Cassandra smiles. It doesn’t mean you have to become a different person. It just means you’re not always right all the time, except to you, and no one else. None of us always follows all the rules of the game that everyone is expected to play. As if we are all the same. ### “Closer Than You Think” ### If it isn’t, it is. By choice. I’m standing right in front of you. You just don’t see me. Yet. But you will. Soon. Right now you’re looking through me as if I’m not here. But you know me. I’m you. I’m lost, yes, like you, lost, in the unknown where no one exists but where everyone who is lost exists, and there isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt lost at one time or the other. We may find each other one day when we least expect it, if we bother to look. After all, you are me. I am everywhere you are. It doesn’t matter where you are. Italy. France. Spain. I am there. Right next to you. If it is, it isn’t. But will be. ### “An Incident of Mind Over Matter” ### I’ve looked for you around every corner. An empty void is where I travel. It’s how I get from place to place. It’s almost like time travel except I’m in the same time zone just a different location from a moment ago. It saves time and money that way when you’re in New York one second and the next you’re in San Francisco or anywhere you want to be next. Rome. Paris. London. You’ll find me. I’ll meet you there. ### “Turn the Clock Back” ### I want to go backward. I want to go forward. But I must go backward to go forward. Until we meet again. Cassandra never knew what I was going to say. Until I said it. But it didn’t matter. She was the same way with me. What time of the day was it when we first met? Do you remember? I don’t want to make the same mistake. Twice. And miss you. ### “If It Flies, Board It” ### Cassandra made Charles happy, and Charles made Cassandra happy. But it was a cat and mouse game. And each was winning in his or her own way. Charles was an aeronautical engineer at Gateway. When he was away on lecture tours or business elsewhere, he had affairs with as many women as possible as time allowed between trips from St. Louis to New Orleans or New York to San Francisco or elsewhere. When Charles was away on duty elsewhere outside of Chicago, Cassandra had affairs with numerous men she encountered on her own trips to Atlanta as a flight navigation instructor at Gateway where she and Charles worked and lived together in St. Louis after they met in Harlingen, Texas, when they were students at the College of Flight and Aviation Studies. Cassandra also taught flight navigation courses in Brunswick, Georgia, seasonally from September to December, where she also had numerous affairs with the other male instructors there as well. She also taught flight instruction studies for Gateway in Los Angeles during summer where she lived with James in his apartment off Sunset in North Hollywood. While Charles, during these periods, lived with Jane in the flat they shared together when Cassandra was away and he was on duty in Boston. Charles and Cassandra loved each other deeply. Their motto, like all lovers, was: It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. They planned to marry in the spring. They hoped to live happily ever after. Even if they knew that was a pipe dream. Rarely achieved by anyone. ### “Nine IX 9” ### Novo Neuf Nueve Nege Neun Tissa Devet Nau Thesha Tisa Chin Mathematically, if that sum were to be cut in half, that’s how fast the world can change in the blink of an eye. Get it? Understand? All right? We still may be able to avert it Before we reach ten. No matter what language we count in. ### “The Journey Ends” ### You ever wish for something you never had and get it and later regret it? I have. I’m living it right now. The vastness of space where I’m at is overwhelming. I never knew how this gift began. But I know how it ended. It began like it ended. I thought about Spain and then I was there. In Spain! Barcelona, to be exact. I don’t know how. I was just there. I could travel anywhere just by thinking and I was there. It ended as mysteriously as it began. I thought about Scotland. Glasgow, this time. I was to meet Cassandra there. We’d planned it, and I figured since I could travel so easily, I’d meet her there and surprise her. [He surprised her all right.] [He never showed up.] I was on my way there when it happened. All of a sudden! Nothing. I’m here … in the middle of … I have no idea where I‘m at. Nothing? The emptiness I usually pass through when I traveled here to there is where I’m stuck now. My mind keeps racing. Havana! New Orleans! Berkeley! Hoping against hope to travel anywhere but here. But as mysteriously as it began, it ended, and I’m lost between here and there. Reality and Unreality. There’s nothing around me, but I know I have to be somewhere, anywhere, other than nowhere, I have to be, there’s – air to breathe, because I’m still alive. I think. I was alive a moment ago. I believe I still am. But am I? I don’t know. This just happened. I’m here, lost. A victim of circumstances beyond my control. Where existence meets… non-existence? Yet I feel alive, or something is keeping me alive, if I’m not actually dead, and I have no idea what’s what beyond that. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary happening before this happened. But I’m here now in a void of darkness. Did I die along the way and don’t know it? Where am I? Where is this? It’s as if someone’s turned off the lights. Did the sun die? Earth? All the people on it? How does anyone describe this? I started my journey, then everything went black. All of a sudden! Except my mind. Where life is or isn’t anymore? ### “A Thought on Lost Love” ### Cassandra never heard from Charles again. She never knew what happened to him. She did eventually get over him. Yes, she mourned his loss, wonderingly, over a weekend drink with a stranger she met in a bar in Detroit before going home with him later that evening; she had a fleeting thought while in bed with him that Charles may have run off with Susan who lived in the condo next door to theirs, because she caught Charles one time sizing her up when they were together, when Charles thought she didn’t notice, something they never did, except when one or the other was away on official duties elsewhere, as they often did, but never when they were together, so she easily dismissed that thought from her mind as jealousy; besides, Susan still lived next door, and she knew Charles loved her; so as in any love story, she went on with her life, hoping one day he would return, while knowing he never would. ### “What Is and What Isn’t” ### is not for the faint of heart to know unless it isn’t then it will do no harm. “I will meet you in Greece,” Charles had told Cassandra earlier that day, “and we’ll honeymoon in Monte Carlo.” Cassandra smiled, they shared a parting kiss, and she left him knowing what prevented Charles from leaving with her, since the groom is not supposed to see the bride the day before they are to marry, while neither knew the consequences that custom would carry, as Cassandra left Charles there, but she didn’t mind because she had plans of her own, like Charles, and knew they would be together afterwards. What neither knew was Charles was to be murdered later that day by the jealous husband of the stewardess who helped make his flight plans for later that evening, who also had no idea that her tryst with Charles would have her husband find her in bed with another man, kill them both, and later bury them in an unmarked grave in the backwoods of Louisiana in St. Charles Parish. He placed their naked bodies one on top of the other, as he found them. “Rot in hell!” were his parting words to them. While he pissed on their grave. Had either had any idea, their plans would have changed. Instead, with death, as is often said in moments like that, Charles’ life flashed before his eyes in a series of jumbled flashes at the exact moment as he ejaculated prior to the moment Jackie’s husband stumbled upon them unexpectedly and caught them in the middle of their liaison and killed them. Charles had his neck broken in the middle of orgasm while he lay atop Jackie unaware of what just transpired, while Jackie, herself at the height of her orgasm, had her face smashed in with the side of Charles’ head. In the same way an orgasm causes one to momentarily lose touch with reality, neither had any recollection of that moment in the bed they shared before Jackie’s husband found them in the middle of their rendezvous. For added measure, her husband put a fireplace poker straight through the side of Charles’ head right between his wife’s eyes, as a parting expression of his anger, and twisted it around, so the spiked part ripped away portions of Charles’ brain and Jackie’s eyes when the poker was yanked out. The effects of the fireplace poker struck that part of the brain experiencing the height of sexual pleasure. It left that moment as the dying image in their minds. Ghana! Tibet! Panama! And Charles wondering why those intrusive thoughts were there, other than his plan to fly to Greece to meet Cassandra later that day after his tryst with Jackie was over, but not wanting to leave her bed now and, moreover, Jackie not wanting him to leave. Unknown, wonderingly, Charles felt lost and quite discombobulated about the unusual circumstances he found himself in. Unlike his many trysts before, he has no understanding beyond that and even if he did he had no idea what he would or could do about it. He felt as a person whose life left its body, but was sure he was still alive, but he didn’t know for sure either way, but knew he just had one hell of an orgasm! A total out-of-body experience! What he thought was alive, if life left, was his soul. He was raised religious, but never gave it a second thought, until now, which made him question his relationship with Cassandra. Steve, Jackie’s husband , was later arrested after family members reported her missing. He claimed he had no idea where Jackie might be, but his annoyed displeasure and abrupt behavior about being questioned over her disappearance told a different story. He was later tried on suspicion of being the only person of interest in connection with her disappearance – that of Jackie’s alone, since no one knew of her tryst with Charles, other than Steve, not even Cassandra – and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison – with the possibility of a life sentence staring him in the face, if her remains were ever found, along with those of Charles. He was released 15 years later, for good behavior, and now resides in Jacksonville, Florida. He continued to maintain his innocence with her disappearance and no evidence was ever found to prove otherwise. As of this writing, Jackie remains missing and, in a sense, so does Charles, although no one is searching for him, not even Cassandra. Worse, neither has a memory of something they have no recollection of happening beyond their tryst. Charles wants to stay, but knows he has to leave in order to meet Cassandra later this day, but will wait until after the heightened effects of the orgasm he’s experiencing is over, unknown that it never will. As for Jackie, the last thing she remembers is Charles on top of her and both of them exhausted and breathing heavy and now, with nothing beyond that, believes she is still in bed with him, her eyes shut in ecstasy, hoping the moment will never pass but that her husband won’t come home any time soon to find them, which she fears, which would intrude on the revelry and the heightened pleasure she is still experiencing after her bout in bed with Charles and, wanting him to stay, but knows he has to leave, but not now, not at this moment, at least until this heightened feeling of pleasure subsides and before her husband comes home and catches them, unaware of time’s passage, with the reliving of the moments prior to death ongoing, like Charles, unaware of death, let alone atop of Jackie in a grave in the latter stages of decay, while feeling at the same time like a man with a mounting headache the size of the Sudbury Basin knowing he has to leave soon and not sure why unless it’s the residual effects of his time with Jackie and his fear of missing his flight, which was a thought he had prior to his last moments of life when he ejaculated and died at the same moment and all he could attribute to any delay in his plans to meet Cassandra is Jackie and hoping neither she nor her husband will delay time against that, but wondering that both might, in some strange loop of not progressing beyond those romantic moments, like Jackie, with no memory what transpired in those moments, other than the thoughts she was thinking during it with Charles, who was unable to piece together any delay in his flight plans or the fact he didn’t know what he’d tell Cassandra, like Jackie who did not know she would never see Steve again while wondering if she should divorce him and hoping Charles would never leave, but not wanting her husband to catch them in the same thought, and the fact Charles didn’t want to leave, but worried about missing Cassandra, unaware of the fact that he would never see Cassandra again or the fact that she is no longer the woman he remembers with the passage of time and has long since forgotten about him. Which only goes to prove what he has always thought. That happiness is rarely achieved in one’s life. Without consequences. ###

pills got bigger: ten to twenty milligrams. now they’re horsesized. change in dosage prompted by a cry for help. by a secret told to my therapist, my confidant. turned into a posthaste, rushed, emergency type situation. mixing dulled phantom spirits with SSRIs. was that the cause? the reason for this joyless head? eh, i remember rhyming emotions, of the same ilk, since middle school. but my seven-year-long, unchecked, recently-acknowledged [get ready for a scary word] alcoholism certainly didn’t help to keep the black dog at bay. so i toddler-proofed my pad. no more painkillers under the bathroom sink, no more sharp objects lying around, no more booze in the fridge for this flight risk. i was the losing caballo, handicapped by ailments unseen. magnet me was two souths, two norths. pressed up against each other: repulsed by everything, everyone, including myself. so i put down the bottle. things seem a little better, brighter, yeah. not so many no-sleep nights of intrusive thoughts and death on the brain anymore. but just below the surface, the hot war turned cold. never ended. that nasty demon parasite eats up my lust for life, still. just at a slower pace now. mmm, yummy, he says, after leaving me with an empty cupboard. rears his noggin sometimes: when i think about him too much. when i let my mind offleash to run free. despite all my impulses, my feelings toward living, the rational side of my brain wants to keep on running. even if i have to whiteknuckle it to the finishline. all that being said, i don’t wanna see that checkered flag until several years from now. don’t let me cheat or cut across the track. keep me from sprinting to see the end. keep me slow and steady. even with that hellhound at my feet. don’t let me quit this race, no matter how much i tell you i hate it. i ain’t got no cross, no crutch, to fall back on. just my own two legs. my two depressed, anxious, drunk, itchy-with-ideation legs. but still, i trust they’ll carry me to greener, sober, cheerful pastures in due time. will you be my champion jockey? Nicholas Barnes earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Southern Oregon University. He is currently working as an editor in Portland, and enjoys music, museums, movie theaters, and rain. His least favorite season is summer. His favorite soda is RC Cola.

Her index finger throbs, becomes swollen. The climbing rose brims with scarlet-edged garnet flowers. Their perfume is heady, musk and Turkish Delight. Thorns bind the stems like razor wire. The prickle is embedded deep in the finger-pad. It hurts when she presses against anything—her tea mug, her toothbrush, her keyboard, her trowel. She rubs it with antiseptic and olive oil, massaging the soreness. “That’ll learn you. I told you to wear gloves.” “I did. The gauntlet ones, but I had to take them off to tie the stems in.” He shrugs. “Get rid of the rose bastards. They make a mess on the lawn.” Messy, like you, his eyes say. He doesn’t care for her garden. He dislikes the plants crowding his pitch of artificial grass, where he shoots goals, bending the ball's trajectory with a sly touch of his boot. He relishes moments of imagined glory, running like a champion, arms waving overhead. When she was twelve, she slipped while climbing on a bed of oyster rocks. Far out on the bay at low tide. The rocks lacerated her calf muscle in stripes, punctured her knee and the palm of her hand where she’d stretched to brace her sudden fall. The cuts were slow to heal until six months later, the point in her hand became red and swollen. It festered into a pearl of yellow pus, a piece of oyster rock was spat out, as if her body had ruminated, endured then expelled the shell in disgust. After she serves, then clears away dinner, she joins him in front of the TV. She squints to spy the prickle, squeezes the sore spot with her nails. “For fucks sake, leave it alone,” he says. “Watch the match. I don’t want to have to tell you what happens.” She tries to watch, so as not to annoy him. The commentators shout in excited cliches, ‘The stage is set, it’s evenly matched, it’s there for the taking, it’s anyone’s game.’ She stares at the screen, sucking on her finger. She can’t ignore the annoyance under her skin. The thorn is a constant irritation, one her body will soon reject. He roars when the match goes to penalties. He expects her to stand, shout support alongside him. She turns her giggle into a gasp when the opposing striker kicks right through the goal keeper’s padded arms. Should have worn better gloves, she thinks and bows her head to hide her glee at his fury. “Look, it’s out!” she says, and gives him the finger. “It was in, you stupid woman!” he shouts. Emily Macdonald was born in England but grew up in New Zealand. Fascinated by wine as a student, she has worked in the UK wine trade ever since. Since going freelance in 2020 she has been writing short stories and flash fiction. She has won and been placed in several competitions and has work published in anthologies and journals with amongst others, Fictive Dream, Reflex Fiction, Crow & Cross Keys, Ellipsis Zine, Roi Fainéant, Free Flash Fiction and The Phare. In writing and in wines she likes variety, persistence, and enough acidity to add bite.

The music fades out and I’m concentrating through the booze to work the ATM. It’s a more delicate operation than I remember. I stick the card in the slot. It spits it back out. I try again. In and out, in and out, in and out. I look to the dancer waiting for her money and wink. *** The bouncer is telling me I need to go. I ask why, but he waves away my question with a giant hand like I’m nothing. He has a body like a tranquil cow, and his arms are thick enough to pop my head from my neck like the cork from a champagne bottle. I tell him fine, fine, I just need to get my credit card back from the bartender, thankyouverymuch. He tells me, out, now. I tell him moooooooooo. *** The 911 operator is asking where I’m calling from. Man, do the police arrive quick. Once, Annie and I thought we saw a girl being kidnapped (turns out she wasn’t), and it took the cops over an hour to knock on our apartment door. Not this time. Five black and whites converge on the parking lot to help me get my credit card back before I finish my smoke. I explain the situation to an officer with an absurd mustache that bops up and down when he talks like a ballet dancer pirouetting. He doesn’t listen. Only wants to talk about how I’m getting home. Oh, boy, if he only knew. I don’t want to get into it and tell them to relax. I’m fine. It’s fine. I’ll sit in my car. Sober up. Go. For some reason, they all think this is hysterical and tuck me into a cab, hand on the top of my head, just like on TV. *** I’m telling the cab driver, change of plans. Take me back to the club. He’s got a hell of an accent. I ask him to repeat himself twice. I don’t want to ask a third time because that would be rude. It finally clicks. He’s asking, Are you sure you don’t want to go home? Buddy, I say, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. *** I’m practicing walking sober in the parking lot. Annie taught me the trick the first night we met. Charged me two cigarettes for her secret. You gotta swing your arms just so, she said. Not too much, not too little. It helps to pretend you’re carrying a heavy plastic grocery bag in each hand. Stop, commands a thin man in a baseball cap. He looks like a scarecrow posed as a crossing guard, one arm outstretched, the other resting on an object at his hip. I’ve accidentally whiskey-waltzed behind the club into the parking lot reserved for the dancers. I’m trying to find my car, I tell the scarecrow. There’s nothing for you here, he says. Is there someone you can call? No, I say. There surely is not. Bio: Keith J. Powell writes fiction, CNF, reviews, and plays. He is a founding editor of Your Impossible Voice. He has recent or forthcoming work in Lunch Ticket, New Flash Fiction Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Bending Genres, and Roi Fainéant Press.

Six months have passed since François Bereaud and I collected 21 pieces together for the first Roi Fainéant Press special issue. Summer brought us heat in all its forms—fire, revenge, lust, blazing suns—and it also had some sweetness to it, reminiscent of summer fruit and happy times. But the warmth and lazy days of summer only last so long. Soon after we closed out that issue, I told François I wanted to do another with a theme of Cold if the Press Roi team would agree to have us back. Thanks to the original team, Tiff Storrs, Kellie Scott-Reed and Marianne Bartesky-Peterson, as well as our fellow “new lazy king” Margot Stillings for agreeing to let François and I take the helm for one winter issue. I joked in a tweet that we wanted literal, figurative, metaphorical, metaphysical and astronomical cold. And I think we can say we’ve got it all. These 35 pieces represent half a dozen genres and evoke even more emotions. It is an overall darker collection than the summer Heat issue, but with glimmers of light and hope. I want to thank the overwhelming number of writers—double that of Heat—who sent in work to us, at a busy time of year. I found something to admire in every piece I read. Saying no to beautiful pieces, writing we know people have dedicated their time and heart to, remains the hardest part of this gig. I hope everyone who received a no continues to send in work to Roi Fainéant and other journals. Lastly, I want to say I am so grateful to have met François, who is an excellent writer, a thoughtful reader, and a gracious and humble co-editor who was willing to work with me on this special issue even if it meant zooming during winter break. Whatever the season, whatever the temperature, he’s a wonderful writer friend and partner. I look forward to many more collaborations with him and the rest of the RF team, whatever form they might take! --Melissa Flores Anderson __________ In the summer of 1998, I spent one of the coldest nights of my life in perhaps the hottest place I’d ever been, Lagos, Nigeria. The air conditioning in my western hotel room was set to freezing and I shivered under a thin blanket anticipating and fearing an unplanned cross-country bus ride the next day. I’d read both The Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart in preparation for the trip and neither helped me as I tossed and turned, wondering why I’d left my family to take this solo journey. In this issue, extraordinary writers, from across the country and globe, take us on beautifully rendered Cold journeys in expected and unexpected places. It was a privilege to curate these tales and a heartache to decline so many fine pieces of writing. We had an outpouring of submissions and you’ll find familiar names alongside first timers to the press. This issue would never have occurred without the determination, organization, and literary passion of my exceptional co-editor, Melissa. She kept us on track, working both fast and slow to select the exceptional pieces here. If you haven’t read her writing, do so. It’s a privilege to be part of the Roi Fainéant community. I’m so appreciative of the support and inclusivity in all aspects of the press. Much love to the team that makes this happen every two weeks. Enough from me, you have a lot to read. Whether your favorite part of the sundae is the cold ice cream or the warm hot fudge sauce, take your time, you’re in for a treat. Francois

Your scuffed, unruly top hat has settled onto an adequately round head. Your body leans left, but not that smile. Small steady hands have made you. One thin tie hangs draped around your whole self. I gave you a broomstick. Keep us safe behind you. I give you some fancy dress shoes. Do not forget us when we forget you, and we will forget you. Try to entertain us as we entertain you. At night ice creatures froth at the mouth, their chill hands reaching clenched through frost windowpanes. Their poltergeist voices bouncing between shut houses, half frozen. Safe in my bed I imagine you smiling. Two men, strangers, in love, surprised themselves by stopping unexpectedly to pour their hearts out to you. You are a therapist, a time machine, a carnival midway. All things considered, you are my favorite Frankenstein. I saw a rabbit eat your face. At least the part of your face the squirrels knocked over. I wish that rabbits knew how to smoke the corn cob pipe that’s fallen off and decorates the grey shrinking snow. I wish you wind, hypothermia, frost. You, a rolled white mudpie whose snow patted middle bends. No spine, red mittens, weary smile beneath a slowly poured sun. Eager glazed eyes, charcoal nose, a days delight in flurries. Your form is your undoing.