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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.

I looked out at the half frozen lake. How lovely to be here without you: no stones or pinecones breaking the crust of ice and disturbing the fish. I had time and hands to look up the name of the black duck with the white beak and belly: The tufted duck. I turned back to the path. No squeals, no mumbled half remembered songs from the preschool down the road. How awful to be here without you. Abigail Myers lives on Long Island, New York, where she writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, with a personal essay forthcoming from Phoebe in winter 2023. Her microfiction recently appeared in Heart Balm. Her poetry recently appeared in Rough Diamond Poetry, with poetry forthcoming from Sylvia, Poetry as Promised, Amethyst Review, and Unlimited Literature. You can keep up with her at abigailmyers.com and @abigailmyers (still on Twitter).

Appointment 1 Instead of stomping the slush off her boots, Regina wipes her feet on the mat with a restrained marching motion, almost baby steps. Bill is already in line. She waves and points to the tables. She eases into a chair gingerly then unwinds her scarf. Bill sets down the purple tray with their bagels and peels off his coat. “So, talk to me,” he says. This is a phrase he picked up while studying to be a social worker. Regina drags her paper plate toward her, trying to remember Dr. Terry’s exact terminology. “He says I have… a subluxation of the second thoracic vertebra affecting the function of the brachial plexus.” “That sounds serious.” “I guess so,” Regina says, though she hasn’t yet put it to herself in this way. Bill looks at her, patiently awaiting more information. “Did you end up telling him how it happened?” He’s still feeling responsible, no matter how much she tries to convince him otherwise. “Of course not.” Regina gestures to the wintry scene outside. “I said I slipped on the ice.” It had happened in bed two weeks ago. Things were progressing nicely when suddenly she felt as if an ax had been hurled into her back. Since then, she’s been trying to manage the pain with stretching and ice. Bill’s well-meaning massages haven’t helped. So Regina set up an appointment with a chiropractor named Dr. Terry. He’d started today’s appointment by taking X-rays. When they were ready, an assistant came in and clipped them up on a back-lit surface. “Wow,” Dr. Terry said then started penciling notations on the films. When he finally moved aside, Regina stepped forward so she was face to face with herself. Her eyes, nose, and mouth looked like gaping holes. Her hands: a string of pointy bones like links of a chain. And her softer tissues – the tendons and ligaments – resembled smoke. In an attempt to connect her dots, Dr. Terry was forced to draw all kinds of crooked lines. He explained, “It’s like plate tectonics. One part of the earth shifts.” He pointed to her illuminated spine, right at the second thoracic, which did look quite off-kilter now that she looked closely. “And the part next to it shifts as well, or gets damaged in some way.” The doctor put his hands out horizontally before him then collided them together. “Chiropractic adjustments will gradually maneuver everything back into place.” He returned his hands happily side by side. Regina dabs her bagel at the stray sesame seeds on her plate. “I think skeletons get a bad rap.” “How so?” Bill backs up on his chair and crosses his legs, another counseling idiosyncrasy: the listening pose. “Every Halloween they’re depicted as villains, symbols of death. The thing is,” she continues, “we all have them.” She taps her sternum. “We’re all concealed skeletons.” Bill nods his head thoughtfully. “Let me see if I understand: the Halloween hype, the skeleton frenzy, is yet another form of commercialized self-loathing?” “Yes, yes it is.” Regina smirks, pleased, as always, with their banter. Though they met a year ago and have lived together almost as long, she’s often still amazed they found each other. Sometimes when she thinks about Bill, she clasps her hands together, as if holding something embarrassingly sentimental, a gush of some sort, between her palms. As they walk toward the door, she doesn’t hook her backpack over her shoulders, but carries it in her hand down at her side, like Dr. Terry suggested. “We should do this every week after your appointment,” Bill suggests as they step out onto the slushy street. “Sounds good.” She likes meeting up with Bill, like this, during the day. He pecks her on the cheek and they walk in opposite directions: he, toward his office, she, toward her 12 o’clock seminar on Surrealists, a class that pays almost nothing, but she loves to teach. That is, when she isn’t in pain. Appointment 6 Regina arrives first and orders their bagels. A few minutes later, she sees Bill tying her dog to the No Parking sign out front. She usually walks Scott mid-day, between her classes, but it hurts to do almost everything now. In fact, even sitting is excruciating, so she stands up beside the table. At home, she even stands to watch TV. When Bill reaches the table he stands as well, until she gestures for him to sit in the chair. There’s no reason they should both be uncomfortable. “So? How are you feeling today?” he asks. “Worse,” Regina sighs. She has recently started wondering if Dr. Terry is running a racket, if he’s overcharging Regina for something he knows is never going to work. She read somewhere that any “perceived” chiropractic strides are easily undone, anyway. “It’s a process, Reg,” Bill says, kindly. “Maybe I’ll never get better. This is me now,” she says with more bitterness than intended. “Try to have some faith,” Bill says. Give it time, he has been telling her. Patience. She rolls her eyes and instantly regrets it. She tries to backpedal with a nod of agreement. He’s right, and he helps people feel better about things for a living, but she’s annoyed anyway, mostly with herself. She’s been a jerk lately. She isn’t hungry and doesn’t want to hear herself complain more. Instead, she leans her hip against the table and watches snow accumulate on Scott outside. She rescued him and named him before she met Bill, when she thought for sure she’d always be alone. She imagines the little dog under attack now, each snowflake like a wheel of spinning daggers. She’s not an artist, but often she re-envisions scenes in her mind how they might be depicted on a canvas. It’s her own secret creativity. Since she’s been getting Dr. Terry’s weekly adjustments, she’s been experiencing pain all over her back as if the soreness is nomadic, roaming from the second thoracic to the ninth, then up to the fifth. “This is perfectly normal,” Dr. Terry had reassured her today. “In fact,” he made the tectonics sign with his hands, “it indicates we’re getting somewhere. Things are changing.” Things are changing all right, Regina had thought to herself. Bill reaches into his backpack. “I got you something,” he says and places a tiny pot on the corner of the table. “A cactus,” she says, looking down at it. He nods up at her, grinning. They’ve remarked on this before, how all kinds of people have these little upright penises on their windowsills and mantels. The cactus stands erect between them. It has now been almost two months since she got hurt. “Thank you,” she says. She bends her knees a few times. Standing this long makes her legs tired. She knows this is a jokey attempt to cheer her up, rather than an act of foreplay, but she takes it as another opportunity to feel bad about herself. Lately, she’s started thinking she doesn’t deserve Bill, that he’d be better off with someone who can move around the world normally, as if not made of cement. Bill is the polar opposite of other men she’s been with. Since he’s a good listener, she has often found herself revealing things she’d never expressed to anyone before. After their first date, he’d perched on her couch, knees under his chin, as she described the artists she liked to teach most: Rothko and Diebenkorn with their corridors of color. Frida Kahlo with her mix of realism and fantasy. She told him about the succession of drawing and painting classes she’d taken since she was a little kid. She admitted the truth: “I can understand art, but I can’t really create it.” He nodded. “Sounds like your talent is in sharing these artists with so many people.” “Maybe,” she swallowed. It wasn’t insta-validation and it wasn’t something that had never occurred to her, but it was what she needed to hear. That night, he recounted his parent’s divorce when he was eight, and meeting with his first therapist. He said he loved this woman almost more than his parents and thought maybe I could do this one day. Even though she retired, he was still in touch with her. To Regina’s amazement, Bill broke his lease the next month and moved in with her. Regina looks at the cactus, his cute gesture. But it looks less like a penis to her now and more like a spine: misshapen and misaligned. Regina examines its thistle vertebrae, touching one of the spikes. She wants to tell Bill that sometimes she doesn’t want to move, that she’s started worrying this sharpness she wakes up with, walks around with, reads with, will never go away, that this is now just how she is. But she doesn’t want to keep putting all of this on him. He has to listen to other peoples’ problems all day. Plus, her problem has become his too, a fact that pains her almost more than anything else. She presses her finger harder. She thinks of Frida Kahlo and how excruciating it must have been for her to have sex with her husband, the famous Rivera, after all of her back surgeries and miscarriages. Regina can only imagine this: the piercing, again and again like lightning along the spine. Maybe Frida kept trying. Or maybe she didn’t. “Woah, be careful,” Bill says, and takes her hand in his. Her index finger has a tiny dot of blood. He dabs at it with the napkin. “Hey,” he moves his face up closer to hers. “You’re going to be okay,” he says. “If this guy can’t help you, we’ll find someone who can.” She nods her head, genuinely this time, her eyes filling. Appointment 12 Regina sits down by herself and starts eating her bagel while it’s still hot. It’s the first day in months she hasn’t experienced even a prick of pain. Dr. Terry announced she was almost entirely “in line,” that her treatment would last only a few more weeks, followed by monthly maintenance visits. When he said this, Regina imagined her skull winking back at her from the illuminated wall. She watches pedestrians navigating the sidewalk, a bunch of bundled skeletons. It has been sleeting since yesterday, turning to ice when it hits the pavement. Road salt hasn’t yet managed to eat through the slick surface. She’d taken Scott for a quick walk before her appointment even despite these conditions and she felt fine. Bill can’t join her today because one of his evening clients needed to meet earlier. At least this means he’ll get home early. Realizing this, Regina feels a sudden surge of energy. She swallows another bite then swings her arms above her head and arches. She stretches as far as she can, as if she’s just woken up from a three-month slumber. There’s no pain whatsoever, not even a twinge. She looks at her phone. If she hurries, she’ll have time before her 12 o’clock seminar to pick up a bottle of celebratory wine. Maybe she’ll stop at that lingerie shop she’s never gone in, and buy something lacy and transparent. Regina thrusts her arms through the straps of her backpack then heads quickly toward the exit. On the sidewalk, she moves carefully: she looks down at the ice and thinks about each step. She waits for the WALK sign then crosses the street with precision. Halfway across, she catches a hint of something in her peripheral vision. She rotates her head to see a tan sedan skidding sideways toward her, its tires locked in place. Regina lurches forward. The car’s front bumper just misses the back of her thigh. Her boots slide across the ice. She manages to regain her balance. But as she does so, there is a rift, a violent shifting in her spine. Another ax has been hurled into her back. Regina shuffles her way to the curb, each movement more painful than the last. She drops her backpack onto the ice at her side. So it was true about chiropractic. All that progress, easily undone. Regina closes, then slowly opens her eyes, the only movement she can muster. Car tires spin, exhaust fumes swirl, and the air is streaked with falling ice. She envisions the self-portrait she’ll never paint: the tectonic plates, the ax, a single, blood-tinged tear rolling down her cheek. Even though the famous Rivera, who was said to resemble a frog, hopped around the world and into the arms of countless other women, he kept coming back to Frida’s bedside. Was this love on his part? Or devotion? Guilt? Maybe it would have been better for them both if he’d just stayed away. Regina stands undecided. All she wants is relief. There’s no way she can pull herself together to teach another class in pain. Dr. Terry’s office is two blocks east, and the apartment she shares with Bill is four blocks north. All destinations seem far off, like sinkholes in the distance. She decides they should break up. Bill might be resistant to this idea or maybe he won’t. Regina picks up her backpack. She grits her teeth and heads slowly toward class. Sleet has the nerve to pelt her cheeks, her eyebrows, and her lips. A word from the author: I hold an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. My essays, fiction, CNF, and humor have appeared or are forthcoming in Roanoke Review, Penn Review, Brevity Blog, Belladonna Comedy, Slackjaw, Leon Literary Review, Rougarou, Five Minutes, Slate, NBC Think, Newsweek, and Chill Subs. I have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I live in Nyack, New York with my husband, son, and my antique eyeglass collection.

We choose our words with care. The garden is still and honeysuckle-sweet again, and the evening shade shadows our faces. We cradle our fledgling trust in our hands. We both know how easy it would be to let it fall into the grass, into the waiting jaws below. I want to take a paring knife and slice this moment into slivers. Carefully peel away ribbons of fading sunlight, prise out the hard seeds of disappointment that were nestled in the middle all along. Until all that's left is you and I, the twilight and the cool brown earth. Katy Naylor lives by the sea, in a little town on the south coast of England. She has work published in places including Ellipsis Zine, Emerge Literary Journal and The Bear Creek Gazette. Her poetry chapbook, Girl / Mirror / Wolf (Bullshit Lit 2022) and short fiction microchap (Moonlit Cafe Press, 2022) are out now. Find her on Twitter @voidskrawl.

I am the rough fish that escaped the winterkill. somewhere, at the bottom of the lake the light reached me, trickling through a hole in the ice. my lateral line tells me to go higher, and I go higher. I am the rough fish; the dandelion of ichthyology. I’ve swum so far now, they find me all of me scattered in devil’s lake. reel me in, all my parts, and put me in a creel. I am the winterkill. I am the sun turned white. I am the bloated body of a bowfin, my ribs exposed through my skin. I am the deathless cold haunting this body, this lake since the pleistocene, splitting— like rivers through teeth. and I am the rough fish, my otoliths sensing the breathing darkness around me. I am the rough fish always swimming; the annuli of my scales running out of space to count my winterkills. I am the rough fin, rough water, rough winter: I am the kill, I am the fish.

The airbnb listing said Reconnect with yourself in nature and mindful solitude, and if that's not the realest thing I've read in years. Everyone who lectured me about travelling is stuck at home, probably freezing all the same. Meanwhile I'm crunching snow under my feet, watching birds soar by—the biggest and weirdest I've ever seen—and breathing in fresh air. Like a thousand tiny knives in the lungs. But in a good way, waking me up from my old life. Back home I look out a window and twenty windows stare back, with a neighbour staring out of every one. Here? Nothing but me and nature. It's all good. All good. Except for my shoes. Got holes in them that go right to the socks. Besides that they're no better than cardboard now, after all the soaking and drying, soaking and drying. Few months back, I figured I'd head up this way 'til I saw another face. Not that I was scared—it's just the feeling of not knowing where everyone is, of being the only one who's in the wrong place. Point is, I never saw anyone else. That other direction? Dead end since my second try. Still not a hundred percent on what happened that first time. So up this way I thought I heard some people, but no one could've hidden behind those trees taller than anything and thin as barbecue skewers. Fewer birds in that area, too. Maybe if they came down closer they wouldn't be so unnerving, who knows? Point is, I turned back. Can't very well buy new toes. Look at these, and the two on this side. Didn't help that the firewood ran out for the burner and the airbnb man didn't leave anything to cut more with. I ended up burning some of the junk. The books on the shelf, like. Then pictures and curtains. Checked the shed in the garden, but nothing in there except more of those ugly pictures. I'll pay for them if airbnb man says anything, but I doubt they were worth much. The ones in the house were literally oozing, all swirls and sharp things, and I don't usually even feel anything when I look at pictures. Same with the birds. I don't look right at them. Just when their shadows show up on the snow, you can see how something's not right with their proportions. Their beaks... Ah, look at me now, searching for neighbours—what I hated most about the city, other than the prices. Probably shouldn't have burnt the curtains, in hindsight. Airbnb man will definitely charge me for those, and he already wants three hundred for cleaning. The last few weeks, lights have been getting in at night so I can't sleep or think. No. Sounds, too. The exact same sounds coming from behind those trees, now that I think about it, yes. Yes. The trees. We're almost there. This has been a grand trip, hasn't it? I'm lucky I've made new friends here. Winter would be unbearable without friends, my friends from behind the trees, their faces and bodies long and sharp as metal skewers. Perfect for slipping into an ear... Here come the birds. No. Listen to their screams. My ears... Yes, see how they eye my long, sharp friends, like worms born for those slicing beaks. Did I say no one could have been behind those trees? Oh, no, I must have been confused. Of course my new friends were there. I recognised their faces from the paintings immediately. We're all heading to the trees now, yes. Yes. The birds are for the trees as my new friends are for the birds as I am for my sharp friends. There will be more sharp things. There will be more lights. This is a season of lights, as they say. Isn't it beautiful walking through snow, free from watchers or rules or shoes. I can barely remember my old life, I'm so glad I chose airbnb. Yes, oh no no. No rotting at home for me. Monica Wang has writing in Electric Lit, Southword, Augur, and The Malahat Review, among other publications. In 2020 her flash won The Sunlight Press's fiction contest; in 2022 she was shortlisted for the W&A Working-Class Writers' Prize. Born in Taichung, Taiwan, she grew up in Taipei and Vancouver, Canada, and spent the last five years drifting from Dresden to Dublin. She recently completed a creative writing MA at the University of Exeter.

When it’s all said and done, and the wild flowers have bloomed, mother forgets. At the moment, she oozes with passion from the thrill of him, blasting Gloria Estefan’s “Live for Loving You” on repeat as she vacuums, cord laced between fingers, floor nozzle, her microphone. Flushed cheeks, bright stars in her eyes, she’s spring cleaning again, packed the harsh remains of winter in storage boxes, and rides high on newfound love. Unlike her, we’re frozen in time. We, her guardian daughters, watch mother unthaw. She’s softening, shedding her permafrost skin as she dances under his temporary warmth, her heart mush, her swaying hips liquid. We scoff at her awful sense of rhythm in love, her bad instincts, her poor taste. And though they all bring her roses, we swear never to be as forgiving. That no amount of apologetic bouquets will erase the bad habits of men. Excuse red flags. Dare we remind her of last December, piling into our rusted maroon van to see the holiday lights? She over dressed for the occasion, insisted we get fresh air in a near blizzard. We wasted gallons cruising up-scale neighborhoods, places we had no business being, only to stumble in front of his place, watch his new life unfold without her, in front of her. We noticed then that she’d always second guess, yearn for his shelter, as we sat stranded, shivering in his tundra. She gripped that steering wheel so tight, her ice knuckles shattered while Gloria crooned, “Don’t Wanna Lose You” on the stereo as it finally snowed. How we wanted to smash that cassette, smash his windows. When romance is cooking, we still feel his chill. Most days, she’s making grand plans, dreaming the seasons away like winter won’t come. She can’t remember which parts of her are frostbit. She forgets his bitter wind, how it howls, stings, and digs into her before cutting. We’ll do what we do. Carry her across his frozen landscape. Cradle her head and caress her snowflake hair. Chip away those icicle tears. We will be all she has, all she will ever need. She’ll call us her saving grace, guiding lights, her snow babies. Her breath a glacial cloud of regret, she’ll vow to make it out alive, and never look back. How relieved we’ll be to hear her say it. We’ll move mountains for her, use our last ounce of strength to plow her through his tundra. Maybe for the last time we won’t have to brace for it. But we forget. Wendy writes and teaches high school choir in eastern Washington. Her creative non-fiction is featured in Emerge Journal, Complete Sentence, JMWW, and more. This is her second feature in Roi Faineant Press. When not writing, she tries to keep up with her three kids. You can find her on Twitter @newburywrites or newburywrites.com.

After all this time, my father shows up. Only thing is, he’s dead. “Good to see you,” I tell him. “Don’t get smart,” he says. So, it’s like that. We both know it’s not good to see him. That’s because he was always broke, gambling or something like that, and he’d yell at my mother all the time. A couple of snarly dogs, they were. And then him selling my stereo when Iwa s in school and calling me a baby for being upset. It was for the family, he insisted. Put those tears back in your head. Now he shows up, all ghost and out of excuses. “Why are you here?” I ask. “I don’t have a stereo for you to steal.” He’s grayer, more prune than I remember. He looks old. He looks dead. Dead is older than old. “You should forget about that.” He sits down. He doesn’t even need a chair. “Tell me,” he says. “Is it cold where you are?” “You mean here?” I say. “You mean five feet away from you?” “I’m not really here,” he says. “It only seems that way.” I was always making that mistake. Like the time I was little and I sat on his lap. He was a cradle. A home. Who’s my best little girl? he said. I said me? Is it me? He booped my nose. He was right. there. “It’s warm here,” I tell him. “It’s the temperature of your hand when someone has squeezed it and the heat of it is still on yours.” “I have to go now,” he says. That’s the father I know. Always one foot into tomorrow and me never invited. “It’s burning where I am,” he says. I think yeah, I think about the devil licks toasting his feet. And then, just as he disappears for forever, I hope, I remember the other nights like that one. Me, a shiver in my bedroom. My parents downstairs. Thud of furniture, breaking of plates and me turning up the volume to full blast on the stereo, that one album, The Who, the one I played so often, even when the needle skipped and played that one part over and over and over. Francine Witte stories are forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2022, and Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton.) Her recent books are Dressed All Wrong for This (Blue Light Press,) The Way of the Wind (AdHoc fiction,) The Cake, The Smoke, The Moon (ELJ Editions,) and Just Outside the Tunnel of Love (Blue Light Press.) She is flash fiction editor for Flash Boulevard and The South Florida Poetry Journal. She lives in NYC.

My sister and I lost our allowance this morning betting against Sixth Grade Ciara. We were a thousand percent sure that Alaska was (Is too! Is not! Is too!!)—a fingernail’s length beneath California and to the right of that was us, Hawaii. We googled “maps of the 50 states” and showed Pa, but Pa cooed that we were just being girls when Ma snickered at us, when Ma ignored us but slapped plates on the table, barked LUNCH! more as a threat than a calling. We were so tired of living on the edge. “Ciara’s stupid!” We could always count on Mynah-Mynah, our bird, to root for us from the corner of the living room. Mynahs mate for life, but if its mate dies, it will quickly find a new mate. But Pa said he loved Ma no matter what. “Lunch was great!” We could always count on Mynah-Mynah’s reminder, but even if we said it (which we did), Ma would only acknowledge Pa, or snap at Pa, or nag at Pa until he melted out a sigh when she complained how we weren’t growing up proper—on the computer too much, our noses in too many books. If we grew up too smart, no one would like us. Mynahs prefer to build nests in shrouded holes and tree cavities. That’s probably why Mynah-Mynah waddled through our door one morning last year on our way to school. In captivity, just like in some families, animals are forced to live in groups made up of strangers. Mostly my sister and I felt embarrassed for Pa and tried to be his best girls as much as we could stand to be. But we loved reading more than movies, phrases and words we’d written on a long list and rolled it up like toilet paper. We had accumulated two twelve-packs hidden in the closet beneath our dirty laundry. In captivity, most animals live shorter lives due to being stressed out all the time, never knowing when it’d be cleaning day and all our drawers were emptied, every bottle, pencil sharpener, reading light, books off the goddamn book shelves, were dumped in a pile in the middle of the room we shared. You’re their mother—were the last words Mynah-Mynah said under our roof. Later that day, my sister and I sat on the stoop and watched two mynah birds continue their fight. Facing off, they’d lift up in the air, dive at the body, twist and evade then land, like a dinner plate, squawking and yelling back louder is Pa’s voice, “You’re really something else!” One bird gets kicked in the head, dodges more humiliation, and its body slides against the sidewalk. As if on cue, the two take to the air again, stretched legs rake at what it can. Another kick, and one bird is ready to clamp down, its toes spread wide enough to read the signs. In the end, we couldn’t tell if it was our Mynah-Mynah. We didn’t know how to feel about birds eating their own kind. Pink and red bits appeared where feathers once covered. It was missing a wing or a hat or heart. No, maybe it was folded under, like a napkin or a loyal husband. My sister and I start to feel queasy remembering most organs need covering up.