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Strange Quarks Did the ice cube tray fall nine minus one bodies broken into sheer chaos along the cold hard atomic angles of the terracotta tile grid saturning euclidean in shock waves of mostly frozen resolve (un)determined? Or did I drop it releasing rebellion bound up in the garden of nerves in my hand free to let go and watch the ice flowers consequencing on the fertile earth floor in melting blooms obvious only to the willing observer? I Don’t See Why Not I just put your daughter on a plane. She’s going to say goodbye to you, although she might not make it  to the hospital in time. It’s a long way. I was 23 when I nearly stumbled in the doorway on those harsh steps from the kitchen to the garage  where you were disassembling  another Saturday by yourself and we stood on opposite sides  of the pool table blinking until I broke the silence to say that I was planning to ask her to marry me.  -I’m hoping to have your blessing. -I don’t see why not. We have stood mostly on opposite sides for 23 years now,  many of them in blinking silence. Today, I hope she is able to be close to you, at your bedside, maybe hold your hand and holding together  a Thursday barely morning  talking about the kids and letting go. I picture you going home across all that distance  and through the garage,  asking to be let into the house. -I’m hoping to have your blessing -I don’t see why not. Traveling in the Rain A map of unwiped raindrops  clouds the landscape and the horizon rumbling closer and the hazy sky  just beyond the windshield while rivulets carve out continents and archipelagos on the glass leaving you free to imagine whatever weather you want and choose  to live in any land of sparkling emerald where there is no longer any sea or drop into the crystal water in your mind and float away in shifting winds toward a destination undarkened  by the evening soon to set until the next moment and all is clear. Ryan Keating is a pastor and writer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Ekstasis Magazine, Fare Forward, Roi Fainéant, and Funicular. He is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. His chapbook, “A Dance In Medias Res” is now available from Wipf and Stock.

You ask to stop at the café, that pretty little one on Berry Street, because you’re thirsty and need caffeine, and I ask you if I’m really that boring and you laugh so musically while pushing open the door that your voice blends with the tinkle of chimes announcing our arrival to the café and it sounds like a song we’d sing together while I stretched out my legs and pushed my toes into the dashboard of your navy blue 2011 Prius and you’d drive us home, one hand on the wheel and the other around your coffee, and the barista holds up two fingers like a peace sign, and I remember how I spilled my matcha on my tie dye pajama shirt, the ugly one, and you laughed and then let me borrow a shirt, the one you’re wearing now with the white lace, after I threw out the soggy lump of tie dye in a public trash can in Idaho, and you join me while we wait for your drink and tell me about the video you saw this morning about the lunch place you’re taking us to, some hole-in-the-wall ramen shop with noodles that the influencer in the video says are to die for, and then the barista calls your name and pushes two cups forward, and I say that you only got one drink, didn’t you, but you’re walking forward and taking both and you hand me one, an iced matcha, and you smile, say that you know what I like, tell me not to worry, it’s on you, and then we walk on. Annabelle Taghinia is a junior in high school and spends her free time writing fiction. Her work has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Lost Balloon, South Florida Poetry Journal and others.

Maud Lavin’s latest novel, Mermaids and Lazy Activists, A Lake Michigan Tale  is equal parts ode to Lake Michigan, to the indie writing scene (and writers) and a call to action to take greater care of the waterways that support us. Set in Chicago, the story takes readers to many of Lavin’s favorite spots, including the Printers Row Wine Bar, where she hosts regular readings of poets and writers from around the Midwest (and sometimes further afield like this particular writer from California) and 57th Street Beach. In fact, Maud is a central character in this meta twist, and the story is almost “Being John Malkovich” meets “Splash.” Story Maud makes the acquaintance of Evelyn, a midwestern freshwater mermaid on one of her swims in the lake. Instead of being shocked by this discovery, Maud befriends the bold and irreverent, but still midwestern-friendly mermaid. They bond over a love of swimming, poetry and concerns over how pollution is impacting the lakes, which provide drinking water, fish and recreation to communities across multiple states. Evelyn soon befriends Maud’s husband, Bruce, and introduces the couple to her own merman partner, Malcolm. The mermaids can transform their tails into legs so they are able to travel to the wine bar for a reading—and in one fun scene, they go all the way to Kansas City to attend the AWP conference. Roi Fainéant Press even gets a mention in this section of the book, as do some of the writers who have been featured in independent presses or literary magazines! Through the tale, Maud and Evelyn seek out ways to be activists, but their conundrum lies in that neither of them wants to give up their lives of relative leisure.. Maud wants time to swim in the summer; Evelyn wants to travel through the lakes on gourmet food tours. So they try to find a middle ground of easierways to support their causes. The book does have plenty of eco-facts in it. As a former reporter in an agricultural and coastal region of California, much of what Lavin’s has written about the effects of fertilizer runoff into streams and creeks that flow into larger bodies of water was familiar to me, but for those who aren’t as versed on the topics she provides an appendix with resources at the back of the book. Lavin’s prose is accessible and down-to-earth enough to impart important messages about how oil pipelines and agricultural run-off are impacting the Great Lakes without coming across as preaching or lecturing. All in all, the book is a quick read and a clever way to raise awareness of environmental concerns. Mermaids and Lazy Activists A Lake Michigan Tale available now! From Beyond Press  $13.99

In honor of the arbitrary hierarchy I am pleased to announce that, even though we are lost at sea with no butcher no baker no candlestick maker, we can explore newer, drier lands to  scrape linoleum dig for time capsules hunt for books we should’ve read years ago about regal moons and amethyst mountains to see what we missed  because we didn’t understand… The birds in their nests with their blue eggs and blue wings  sing their best songs for the conquerors. Sara Cosgrove is an award-winning journalist and poet living with disabilities. Her poems have appeared or are scheduled to appear in Roi Fainéant, Poetry Ireland Review, The Seventh Quarry, Meniscus, Osiris, Notre Dame Review, Gargoyle, Great River Review, Frogpond (Haiku Society of America), Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Under the Basho, San Antonio Review, ONE ART, In Parentheses, Panoply, Sparks of Calliope,  and Unbroken . She has worked as an editor for 15 years and has studied in the United States, Cuba, and France.

My name is Finn Ramey. I’m twelve years old. I was born February 5th, 1940. The story I’m about to tell you is true. I swear. Well, I can’t swear to it. Not now anyway. You’ll just have to take my word, for now.  There was nothing that led up to the beforehand, nothing I can remember anyway, I was just sitting at the dinner table with Mom and Dad and baby sister, Merle, when I saw Merle’s bowl fly off the table and shatter on the parquet tiled floor.  I saw it before  it actually happened. That was the first time I saw the future.  I called them beforehands  because I didn’t know what else to call them. Visions? Dreams? Prophesies? Those words seem a little farfetched and a bit too serious for what the beforehands actually were. They were just thoughts that I saw in my head. Thoughts that flashed quickly in and out like a distant memory, there one second and gone the next. I was never exceptional. Never was the best at anything. Didn’t have a wall full of trophies or ribbons. I was about as average as you could get. Below average, really. Even my parents treated me like I was some kind of mental cripple, buying me Scholastic books a grade or two below my reading level and keeping me well stocked in crayons even though I had clearly outgrown them. Well, mom did anyway. Dad never really took an interest in me. There were times when I spent the whole day reading comics or watching Dragnet  or The Lone Ranger  and never even realized he was in the house. Morning to supper and bedtime without a word spoken between us. He came back from the war in the Pacific changed somehow. I’d never get a chance to find out how much. It was a Thursday night. Pasta night in the Ramey household. Mom and Dad were talking - Dad drinking milk; Mom sipping her red wine. They were talking about money like they usually did. Seems there was never quite enough of Dad’s paycheck to cover all the things Mom wanted for us. Dad thought things would improve after Truman was run out of the White House. He’d dropped the bombs on those two cities in Japan, Dad said, maybe he’d drop one on us next. I assumed he was talking about our whole family. Dad had a way of saying things that sometimes sounded like he wasn’t including Merle and me. I wondered if we weren’t accidents, unintended. I wasn’t quite sure how things worked back then. I knew Dad had his thing and Mom had her thing and sometimes they put their things together and poof!  there was Merle and me. We had more fun with Mom. Sometimes she’d take us to the Green Stamp store and we’d watch her pine over the newest blender or swanky lamp. She said she’d buy them one day, with or without having enough stamps to do it.  Merle was sitting in her highchair, her face covered in red sauce with strings of pasta all over her tray top. I was twirling the pasta on my fork, thinking about the things most ten-year-old boys thought about: The Adventures of Superman, riding my bike to the Rex-All to buy comics, and if I’d be getting a View-Master for Christmas. I was absently thumbing through a Field and Stream, looking at pictures of how to catch sac-a-lait, when my eyesight swirled for a few seconds, like my eyes were watering and I had to refocus. Before my vision became clear again, I saw Merle throw the bowl of pasta on the floor, the bowl breaking into pieces. When my eyes cleared, I looked at Merle and she was still eating pasta from the bowl. Mom and Dad were locked in their never-ending discussion. I knew what was about to happen. Before I could react and prevent it, Merle slapped at the bowl, sending it skidding across her highchair tray top. I managed to scream out “Merle! No!” before the bowl tipped off the tray top. Mom and Dad looked up just in time to see the bowl tilt and fall to the floor. Merle froze. Mom and Dad froze. I froze. Everyone looked at me, not quite believing if I’d called out the accident a split second before I should have been able to. Merle started crying. Mom got up and saw to the mess. Dad stared at me, knowing something wasn’t quite right but unable to place his finger on it. I never told them about my beforehand. In truth, I didn’t know it was a premonition. I thought it was a quirk that would never happen to me again. Boy, was I wrong.  Things went back to normal for about a week. I put the beforehand out of my mind. In fact, even the memory of the premonition became murky. It was like trying to remember a dream or an episode of déjà vu, where you’re not even sure it happened in the first place. And then there was Buddy.  Buddy belonged to our neighbors across the street, the Rosenstein’s. He was a small brown-haired Cairn terrier who liked to journey across the road and conduct his business in our front yard. Dad would get so mad, he’d shovel up the mess and fling it back across the street into the Rosenstein’s yard, showering Mrs. Rosenstein’s perfectly manicured flowerbeds and her prized hydrangeas. We were watching Texaco Star Theater in the family room . Milton Berle and Fatso Marco were pratfalling their way across the stage. Merle was crayoning in a coloring book. I was sitting next to Mom, flipping through a Reader’s Digest, only half-interested in the television show. Mom was crocheting a doily and Dad was sitting in his chair, fast asleep with the newspaper draped across his chest.  Then it happened again.  My eyes teared up and my vision swirled again. I looked at the television but instead of Uncle Miltie I saw a grainy image of our front yard from the vantage point of the Rosenstein’s driveway, the road in full view running between our properties. Then I saw Buddy, hunched on his back paws, completing a transaction on our front lawn. When his business was done, he trotted back across the road with that satisfied look dogs get after they’ve relieved themselves, especially on a patch of grass that doesn’t belong to their humans. Next, on the television, I saw a Plymouth Belvedere barreling down the road as though the driver were in a hurry to get someplace, the bulky ride topping out every bit of its flathead straight-6 engine. Both the car and the little rapscallion mutt were completely unaware of each other. Their trajectories plotted like missiles that, once fired, couldn’t be taken back.   I knew what was going to happen before the television showed it to me. I screamed “Buddy!” and leapt of the sofa, spilling mom’s crochet basket and snaring her yarn in a tangled bird’s nest of knots. Dad woke up, throwing his paper down, angered that he’d been woken up. Mom and Merle froze, watching as I ran for the door. I ran out into the front yard as fast as I could, not realizing Dad was only a few steps behind me.  I got outside just as Buddy was finishing spoiling our lawn and beginning his trot back to his side of the road. I looked down the street. The Plymouth Belvedere was closer than the television had suggested. Seconds away from disaster. I bent down and picked up a rock lying along the walkway connecting our front door to the street. In a perfect side-arm throw a major league pitcher would’ve been proud of, I slung the rock and beamed Buddy right in the rump, causing him to jump-skip quickly to the other side of the road and onto the safety of his own front yard. The Plymouth Belvedere raced past, ignorant of what had almost happened.  I stood for a moment, breathing heavy and letting my adrenaline settle back down. When I turned to go back into the house, there was Dad, staring at me in disbelief. All he could say was “What the hell?” The next several weeks were normal. No more beforehands. Dad still didn’t say much to me, but I started catching him looking at me – at the dinner table, in the garage, in our backyard. He seemed to always be watching me. I didn’t mind it. At least it was something. Mom and Dad kept on not talking. Their distance seemed to get further and wider, until it was a shock to see them in the same room together. Usually, it was Dad that found somewhere else to be - a project that needed finishing or something that needed to be tinkered with.  Mom had grown used to her personal time too. She had her lady friends, other women with husbands they didn’t like talking to, she’d meet at their homes for an afternoon of tea, cards and quilting. Dad wasn’t much of a babysitter, so Mom had to find something else to do with us, something to keep us occupied so she could have her time with her friends. She found a play center for Merle, a place where she could play with other kids. She just had to figure out what to do with me. She was flipping through the paper one day when she came across the movie page. Our small town had three theaters. They weren’t exactly movie palaces like the Regent or the Strand or the Bijou, but they played the newest films plus second-runs and revivals. My favorite theater, the Golden, was within a short bike ride from our house. My first movie there was The Cimarron Kid  in which Audie Murphy uttered my favorite line: there will be no killing unless it's forced upon us . Chills.   The Golden looked like a typical box office in the front - tiled entrance with a closed in ticket booth set back under the marquee; movie posters encased in glass frames on either side of the large walkway leading up to the huge front doors; bright fluorescent lights (gold of course) highlighting the entire affair; and that great marquee - a neon masterpiece with changeable letters showcasing the latest films. For me, the movie-going experience started when I stepped into the bright lights of the entranceway. It was the portal that transported me to another world, another time. I loved everything about the Golden, and some of my favorite movies were seen there as first-runs: Destination Moon, Samson and Delilah, Treasure Island, The Day the Earth Stood Still . Something about the theater seemed unreal. Even the lobby was like something out of a dream. From the burgundy and gold lines of the expansive carpet, to the chandeliers hanging from the ceilings that seemed tall as the pecan trees in our backyard, to the concession counter that housed every known confection Mom said would rot my teeth, not to mention the popcorn and sodas – the Golden was a place I didn’t want to leave.  The first-time Mom dropped me off there to use the Golden as a babysitter, my dream turned into a nightmare. Mom said she’d found the perfect movie for me: Abbott and Costello in Jack and the Beanstalk . And it was playing at the Golden. She didn’t worry about getting me there for the start of showtime. Movies ran continuously with newsreels and cartoons at the beginning and a long intermission in the middle. Movie houses were used to people arriving all throughout the movie and staying until the film circled back to where they had come in. When Dad was in the garage, Mom called her friend, cupping her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and saying she could make it the next day. She would bring me to the movies and have all afternoon to spend playing cards and talking.  Mom dropped me off, giving me a dollar bill and a handful of change for concessions and telling me to stay in the theater until three o’clock when she would be parked out front. The woman inside the ticket booth was young, a girl with bright red hair curled up like Lucille Ball. Her name badge said Jeanine . She was sitting inside the booth chewing bubblegum and reading a torn copy of The Old Man and the Sea . She smiled at me when I gave her my forty-six cents. She passed me a ticket and told me to enjoy the show before going back to her Hemingway.  I bought a soda and a box of Red Hots, then handed my ticket to an older gentleman standing at the entrance to the theater. His nametag said Mr. Mike  and he scowled at me as he handed back my torn ticket. With my soda and candy, I settled into the old theater. It was a matinee show, so there weren’t many other moviegoers – a few couples, but mostly singles, like me, glad to have something to do to fill the time. The cartoons were just finishing. Mom had gotten me there in time for the start of the movie, by mistake, but I was still glad to see it from the beginning. When the movie started (and this is where it really  gets weird) instead of Abbott and Costello, a nightmarish cemetery showed on the screen. A graveyard at night with flashes of lightning briefly casting a glow on the tombstones. Too fast for me to catch any names. I was intrigued. Mom and Dad never let me watch scary movies. Whenever we went to the show, it was strictly comedies and cartoons, never graveyards. I sank into my seat, not wanting anyone to see I’d wandered into the wrong theater. I wondered how long I could get away with it.  My interest quickly went away when hands, rotten and bony, began digging their way out of the graves. This was too much! I quickly ran out of the theater, spilling my Red Hots and splashing my soda, still clenched in my white-knuckled fist. I ran through the concession stand, past Mr. Mike, and out to the ticket booth. I looked up at the marquee, expecting to see the horror show title had replaced Abbott and Costello. But no, there in big bright blue letters Abbott and Costello in   Jack and the Beanstalk . Jeanine was still inside the booth, reading. She saw me looking bewildered and asked, “You okay, squirt?”   I looked at the movie posters inside the entranceway to the theater. There were no scary movies advertised at all. The Greatest Show on Earth. The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Ivanhoe.  No scary movies. Jeanine tapped on the glass of her booth, finally getting my attention. “You okay?”  I nodded my head. I didn’t know what else to do. I pulled out my ticket stub. The Golden had old-time tickets that displayed the name of the movie. They weren’t like the cheap generic drive-in stubs that only said Admit One . My ticket clearly had Jack and the Beanstalk printed on it, the half I could read anyway. I decided not to go back in. I’d seen enough for one day. I walked down the sidewalk and sat at a bus stop bench to wait for Mom.  When Mom arrived at three o’clock, I climbed in the car, trying not to look shaken. She asked how the movie was and I lied. Sometimes, I’d noticed, it was better to tell your parents a white lie just to keep them satisfied and incurious rather than tell the truth and invite a whole slew of new questions. It wasn’t that difficult. Mom and Dad didn’t ask too many questions anyway. I was still trying to figure out what had happened at the Golden. Since I didn’t understand, I knew Mom and Dad wouldn’t either.  The following week, during breakfast, Mom asked me how I felt about westerns. “They’re okay, I guess,” was all I could come up with. Actually, I didn’t much care for them. The shooting was fine but there were long spaces in between the action I didn’t much care for.  “Good,” she said. “because High Noon  is playing at the Golden. I’ll drop you there on Wednesday.”  The next week we were parked in front of the theater. Mom was telling me to have a good time and once again putting some money in my hands. She seemed in an awful hurry to get to tea with her friends. I found myself standing outside the ticket booth as Mom pulled away from the curb and left me there, the Golden lit up before me in all its glory. Jeanine was once again in the ticket booth. “Gonna watch the whole flick this time, sport?” I looked at the marquee, making sure Gary Cooper’s name was on it. “One for High Noon , please,” I said, emphasizing High Noon  like it was a word I was given in a spelling bee. I skipped the candy counter and went straight to Mr. Mike, holding out my ticket.  “Hey, Boyo. Gonna make it through this one?” Mr. Mike leaned in close and whispered, “I hear there’s some shooting.”  I quickly took my seat, anxious for the movie to start. Everything was fine until after the opening credits. It happened again - the same graveyard; the same rainstorm; the same lightning. The camerawork was a little better this time, steadier. I could just about read the names on the tombstones, and then...the hands. The rotten, bony hands jutted out of the wet earth. The other movie-goers seemed to be enjoying themselves, some even remarking how handsome Gary Cooper looked in his cowboy outfit. I recognized some of them. They were people from our town I’d known all or most of my life: Mr Watkins from the hardware store; Mrs. Washington, my 2nd grade teacher; Miss Louise, who ran the counter at the local Rexall pharmacy. They all appeared to be enjoying the movie, none being put off by the zombies I was seeing on the screen. Was I the only one seeing the corpses coming back to life? And for the second time? I managed to stay a little longer, compelled for some reason to read the names on the tombstones, but my nervousness got the best of me and I rocketed out of the theater, past Mr. Mike, who tried to wave me down. I ran out past the ticket booth,; past Jeanine reading a teen-zine and blowing bubbles.  I waited once again for Mom, sitting on the curb this time as I waited out the couple of hours before my pick-up time. I couldn’t help but think of the beforehands that had happened and wondered if this odd and grotesque vision in the movie theater was linked somehow. The visions seemed to be for good, though, allowing me to prevent disasters of one kind or another. The zombies didn’t seem to involve anything good that I could tell. I chalked it all up to nerves, the stress of being left alone and having to be responsible for the first time. Mom picked me up, right on time, her hair slightly mussed and her lipstick smeared down one corner of her mouth.  I didn’t say a word all the way home. At dinner that night, Mom was more talkative than she’d ever been. She said she and the ladies were getting along well and they would be starting another quilt next week. Without asking, she said she’d find me another movie to see on Thursday. My heart beat faster just thinking of the Golden. Dad saw me squirm in my seat and fiddling with the food on my plate. “You okay, Finn?”  His voice startled me. It had been weeks since I’d heard it, directed at me anyway, and I didn’t quite know what to say. I looked up to see everyone looking at me, even Merle, her face smeared with green peas.  In that instant, with my entire family looking right at me, my eyes teared up and the swirl came.  The dinner table became a kaleidoscope, with the whole dining room changing and becoming another scene altogether. In this beforehand, I was outside, standing in our yard and looking across the street at the Rosenstein’s house. Mr. Rosenstein was on a stepladder working on a tree branch with a handsaw. Buddy was sitting in their driveway barking in my direction. Mrs. Rosenstein was walking out of their house holding a platter that held a glass pitcher of lemonade and two glasses of ice.  I heard the branch crack as if we were watching it on television with the sound turned way up. Looking back at Mr. Rosenstein, I saw the branch swing oddly and thump his thigh, knocking him off balance. The stepladder tilted and then began to teeter on two legs. Mrs. Rosenstein dropped the platter of lemonade, the glass pitcher shattering on the concrete driveway. In slow motion, Mr. Rosenstein fell off the stepladder and landed with a loud crack!  on the ground, his hands immediately going to his hip and holding it tightly like he was trying to keep it all together inside him. Buddy kept barking.  In another instant, my vision cleared and I was back sitting at our dinner table with Mom and Dad and Merle staring at me. Without realizing I was moving, I was up and out the door, speeding across our yard toward the Rosenstein’s driveway. I was a split-second too late. Mrs. Rosenstein had already dropped the lemonade. I watched the glass pitcher shatter on the driveway and the platter and cups bounce a few times before coming to a rest in the nearby yard. Mr. Rosenstein was landing with that familiar crack!  and was already holding his hip. The whole scene was over before I could do anything about it. My beforehand had prevented nothing.  We were standing in our driveway when the ambulance took Mr. Rosenstein to the hospital. Mom held Merle; Dad stood next to me. As the ambulance drove down our street, I noticed Dad had his hand on my shoulder. It was the first time I could remember him doing that. Mom took Merle inside and Dad and I just stood for a moment watching the ambulance disappear. “You saw that before it happened, didn’t you?” Dad had never been that sincere, that compassionate to me before. I should’ve been more shocked. Maybe it was the latest beforehand or the confusion of the whole scene playing out before I could react to it and change it. Either way, I answered him as honestly as I felt he was being to me. “Yeah.”  “And Buddy? And the time Merle threw her bowl of pasta?” I remembered Dad looking at me strangely after both of those beforehands. I just didn’t think he’d put everything together so quickly. I guess that’s what dads do. “Yeah. Both times.” He took me by the shoulder and spun me around to face him. “Any others?”  The look on his face was more concern than fascination. “No. No, sir.”  He looked into my eyes for something and I guess he found it. He turned us both back toward the length of our street and we watched the ambulance finally make a turn and leave our view. He continued to look down the empty street. “Your mother’s cheating on me. Guess you didn’t see that  coming.” With that, he took his hand off my shoulder and casually walked back into the house.  The next week Mom was excited to be spending the Thursday afternoon with her friends again. She’d been combing the newspaper for a few days before, looking for just the right movie to send me to. Dad had read the newspaper first that morning, leaving it in a jumble on the kitchen table before going to work. Mom picked through it, folding it into a quarter-page and presenting it to me as I ate a bowl of cereal. The Crimson Pirate  starring Burt Lancaster was premiering at the Golden. She would drop me off just after lunch and pick me up in time to get home and cook supper. She started humming to herself as she sprinted off to do a few house chores before getting ready for her weekly outing.  I noticed Mom had done her hair differently that morning, letting it stay down and not twisting it up in the customary bun she was used to. She also smelled different. She rarely wore perfume, saving the expensive oils for occasions like church functions or special events. That morning she smelled fresh and lovely, like a bouquet of flowers. She kept prodding me, making sure I’d be ready when it was time to leave. I thought about what Dad had said. I hoped for a beforehand, something that might help me understand all that was happening, but once again, none came.  Mom dropped me off in front of the Golden. There were more people queuing up at the box office than I’d ever seen. Burt Lancaster was a big star and any new film starring him was sure to draw a crowd. She kissed me and slipped money into my shirt pocket. When she left, the scent of her perfume stayed with me, and I watched her driving away from the Golden the same way Dad and me watched that ambulance carry away old Mr. Rosenstein.  “Hey, runt!” Jeanine said as I finally made it to her box office after waiting for what seemed like an eternity in line. “Got yer running shoes on today?”  I’d thought about not even going to the movie, walking around downtown for a couple of hours and telling Mom one of those little white lies about how great the show was. I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do, no matter how spooked I was to go back into that theater. “I’ll be okay. Something feels different about today.” I didn’t know if I actually felt that way. The feeling just came upon me after I’d asked Jeanine for my ticket.  She counted out my money and pushed a ticket through the ticket window. “You start getting jumpy, you go see Mr. Mike. Okay?”  “Okay,” I said, taking my ticket and reluctantly starting off toward the entrance.  “Hey,” Jeanine said, stopping me. “Enjoy your show.” She winked at me and started serving the next movie-goer behind me.  I walked cautiously towards Mr. Mike. He watched me with a skeptical eye, as though he expected me to bolt out of the Golden before I even made it to the theater. “Little man. Ticket, please,” he said, extending his hand. I gave him my ticket and he tore it in half, offering a torn piece back to me. Despite how busy the theater was, he stopped and bent down to me in that weird way grown-ups like to do when they want to have a private conversation with you. “Nothing in there to be afraid of, you know.”  I looked at his face. It was covered in stubble. Right then and there, I realized there was something sincere about stubble. It made you believe a person.  “You get a case of the nerves, come out here with me. I’ll let you tear the tickets. Maybe buy you a soda. Deal?”  I nodded my head, stuffed my half-ticket in my jeans pocket and headed into the theater. This time, I thought I’d save my money and only buy candy and popcorn if I made it to intermission.  The movie began and there was Burt, playing a handsome, roguish, swashbuckling pirate with pirate ships and high adventure. I watched with reluctance, expecting the graveyard and rotten hands to burst through the earth in the very next scene. I looked around at the other patrons. Everyone reacted the way I thought they should: gasps during the ship battles; oohs and aahs during the swordfights; and pleasant hums coming from the ladies every time Burt lit up the screen in puffed shirts and tight breeches.  Once again, I noticed some of the townsfolk, avid movie-goers, enjoying a weekday afternoon at the show: Mr. Watkins was laughing and sipping a large soda in between bites of popcorn; Mrs. Washington from the 2nd grade, taking the afternoon off and watching Burt’s every move while chomping from a box of Atomic Fireballs; and Miss Louise from the Rexall, eyes wide as she twisted and pulled bites of Turkish Taffy from a bar she smuggled in from the pharmacy. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the movie and, for once, I thought I was too.  Then everything went dark. Caribbean scenes turned into the shadowed graveyard I’d seen in prior movies. Lightning strikes sent flashes of bright, white light like strobes, thunder echoing through the Golden’s loudspeakers. The camera panned across the graveyard floor, the tombstones lit from the bursts of light above. This time, there was no mistaking the names carved into the tombstones. Here lies the body of Joseph Watkins 1910-1952. Here lies the body of Amelda Washington 1922-1952. Here lies the body of Louise Brennan 1886-1952.   I looked at the tombstones closely. 1952! They all died in 1952!  As if on cue, my eyes started to water and my vision swirled. The whole of the theater began to circle around like water floating down a drain. When the swirling stopped, I was sitting in the Golden watching The   Crimson Pirate , Burt Lancaster, in the middle of exciting swordplay.  I smelled smoke before I saw the flames. I turned my head towards the smell and saw the curtains going up, lit from the bottom, a bright orange flame dancing rapidly towards the Art Deco-tiled ceiling. People were already running towards either of the two exits on the ground floor. Women were screaming. Men were yelling at each other, everyone trying to figure out what to do. The rush of people jammed the inward-opening doors and made it impossible for anyone to open an escape route. The flames spread across the ceiling as if it were covered in gasoline. The Golden was an old theater with precious few updates to its fire code over the years. Exposed wooden support beams, far too few sprinklers, curtains made of wood pulp mixed with asbestos fibers (but mostly just wooden pulp), and no emergency lighting added to the chaos. From my theater seat inside my head, I watched everyone in the Golden burn.  Another swirl brought my vision back to the here and now. I was once again sitting in the theater with the townsfolk, watching and enjoying the show. I looked around, trying to see where a fire might start, but I saw nothing. Everyone was laughing or fawning over Burt Lancaster. It seemed to be a pleasant movie in a pleasant theater on a pleasant afternoon.  Then I saw him.   A young man of twenty or so, sitting in the back of the theater, lighting a cigarette. His Zippo wouldn’t catch, and he was only able to get sparks coming off the flint. His Zippo finally lit and he touched the flame to his smoke, taking a huge inhale that burned up a quarter of his cigarette in one puff. He tapped the cigarette on the edge of his seat’s armrest and the cherry tumbled out, falling to the carpet just below the edge of the curtains. The wood pulp did the rest.  People were screaming by the time I was able to make it out of my seat and run towards the double exits, crammed ten-deep with movie-goers already. The fire started on the curtains where the young man (now long gone) was sitting and was now directly over my head and moving rapidly to the opposite side of the theater. We were all being enveloped in a blanket of fire. The air was getting heavier and heavier, with particles of fabric from the curtains, carpeting and chairs floating into my every breath.  The screaming became deafening, with everyone in the theater shrieking loudly for help or mercy. I wondered if Mr. Mike and Jeanine were on the opposite side of the doors, desperately trying to push them open against all that body weight. They must have been successful because a quick blast of white light exploded into the theater, engulfing the Golden from the outside the way the flames were engulfing the Golden from the inside.  When I finally opened my smoke-filled eyes, we were outside, standing in the street across from the burned-down theater. The marquis was gone and so was the box office. I couldn’t even tell exactly where it had been, and I didn’t see Jeanine or Mr. Mike anywhere. I hoped they had gotten out okay like the rest of us. I looked around and saw Mr. Watkins. He was still holding his soda, empty now, of course. His hand was shaking as he stared at the burned building. Mrs. Washington and Miss Louise had made it out too, both ladies crying and trying to wipe the soot from their eyes. I was glad they were okay. I wondered how many others weren’t.  The three of them seemed to be looking around, as if trying to find someone. I thought I might be able to help, find whoever it was they were looking for. I started to walk to them, then stopped in my tracks. All three of them seemed to turn at the same time and look directly at me. They appeared relieved when they saw me, as if they’d just found who they were looking for.  Mr. Watkins walked towards me, flanked by Mrs. Washington and Miss Louise. They approached me with a strange look of calm on their faces despite the devastation in front of us.  Mr. Watkins extended his hand to me. “Come on, son. It’s time to go now.”  The ladies behind him looked at me and smiled, slightly nodding their heads. With no reluctance at all, I took his hand. The three of them began to lead us away from the hollowed-out Golden. I turned my head to look at the old theater one last time. I saw Mr. Mike and Jeanine standing in front of the smoldering remains. Jeanine was crying as the firefighters brought out bodies one by one. Mr. Mike was quickly inspecting them as if he were looking for someone, too. One of the bodies was small like me, about my height, wearing sneakers and jeans just like me.  As we began to fade into the smoke-filled air, the young man from the theater fell in line behind us, trying to light another cigarette with his Zippo. There were only sparks.  Ron Cassano is a writer living in Baton Rouge, La. His stories are thought-provoking narratives that flirt with the borders of magical realism, historical fiction, sci-fi, mystery and horror. His stories have appeared in Dig Baton Rouge magazine, Dark Horses magazine and the Freedom Fiction Journal.

Amy talks to the space behind the refrigerator now.  And she only wears blue. When her mother dresses her in the morning, any unblue clothes she fights free from, squirms and kicks away. Today, I see her leaving for school in blue shorts, blue flip flops, and a puffy blue coat, under which, I imagine, hides either her Bluey or Grover t-shirt.  I sit at the kitchen table and eat my English muffin, spread with strawberry jam, studying the latest blue-on-blue drawings that Amy’s brought home from kindergarten, a series of blues done in Crayola on construction paper, which we’ve taped to the cabinets, walls and fridge, which Amy grows distraught if we adjust or displace. “They’re like the alphabet,” she says, and we’re supposed to learn them.  Today, her class finger paints, but Amy refuses to touch white paper and tantrums so severely over the shortage of blue paint that I have to come pick her up.  Ms. Richards, her teacher, stares at me blankly when I say this must be Amy’s “Blue Period,” which I think is low-hanging fruit, just a dad joke, but Ms. Richards, who looks seventeen and always stands torn threadbare, like a cat’s scratching post, coated in children, overcome and loathing her life choices. On the way home from the tantrum, I deny Amy ice cream because we’ve resolved not to reward bad behavior, her mother and I.  My wife, Amy’s mother, works with grown children as a college advisor, and most days comes home with that same look that haunts Ms. Richards, saying her students were rewarded for bad behavior and it shows. After snide comments from her father about my drawing unemployment, my wife insisted I find work. In her parents’ minds, a “stay at home dad” is a concept we invented. Compromise:  I work from home, taking orders for Pizza Hut all over the planet. I had to learn, “Take out or delivery?” and “Our drivers carry twenty dollars for change,” in dozens of languages.  People think Picasso painted blue because he was depressed by his poverty, but he was poor because he painted blue and no one wanted blue paintings, which depressed him.  Once home, Amy goes to sit by the fridge. I catch her there daily. On days it’s just us, I try not to leave her alone often, but I pace on the phone. My voice rises when I speak certain languages and I don’t want Amy to think I dislike my work, or I’m angry, that all grown ups are miserable.  I ask Amy if she’s made an imaginary friend back there. She says, “No. It’s blue all the way up,” and shoots me a look like I’m interrupting.  All the way up, behind the refrigerator, she means, though it’s just dusty and rusty and dark, like most apartment refrigerators. Sometimes she’ll cram her arm in there, and I tell her that’s a good way to get spiderbit, or electrocuted, not to do that and to come out and play with her toys.  She says that toys are for boys, implying intellectually, and asks the dark crease if it’s time yet?  I feel in over my head and want her mother, my wife, who Amy eventually abides, and ask her to come watch a movie in the living room. This game has gotten old and weird and is freaking me out.  I take a call from Acapulco, a large with pepperoni, which I upsell to extra large with a brownie and a two-liter of Dr. Pepper.  Amy’s gone when I peek back in the kitchen. No trace. Believe me, I look everywhere. Behind the wall and the fridge I search with a flashlight, which is stupid—we’re talking, like, three inches of space.  When I squint, like a Magic Eye poster, I finally see the blue. The faintest whisper of blue, like a pilot light. But, it’s no blue I’ve ever known, like a ripe blueberry, but bluer, or a bluejay but a little less blue. Forget the sky, that’s not really blue. That’s an illusion. I can’t describe it to my wife or the police, who all say they can’t see it when they look—only glance—behind the fridge.  Amy’s pictures wallpapering our kitchen are close, but they all contradict each other.  In a folder in Amy’s backpack, I find a drawing by blue marker on orange construction paper, a drawing of a blue rectangle with a blue arm creeping out from behind.  “That’s it,” I shout. “That’s the blue you’re looking for.”  I want them to understand how Amy’s all blue now, how her blue is the blue we’d be lucky to be.  When the cops take my wife out in the hall to ask her about my on and off unemployment again, my frequent terminations, I sit and study the blue paintings along the wall, that New Blue ghost light burning behind my eyes as a cipher code.  Thanks to my job, I’ve developed a tongue for languages. Ironic, since I failed high school Spanish. I rush to the fridge, press my face into the crease and whisper in blues how I’m ready to come back there now, how I’ve been searching for years, but now everything’s perfectly blue. Travis Flatt (he/him) is a teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear in Fractured Lit, New Flash Fiction Review, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, Does It Have Pockets, MacQueen's Quinterly, HAD, Bull, Maudlin House and other places.

END 6 An unfamiliar woman waves at him from across the park. She sidesits on the ground with her baby. The child is lying prone on a downy blanket, soft as baking flour, in the prickly grass, arching its back and wobbling its new head. She wears an A-line dress with a green hem and a red body, spotted with upturned black teardrop shapes, because it is summer, and she is a fun summer watermelon. He is sitting on a bench, watching kids play. He doesn’t recognize her, but she seems to know him, so he waves back. She looks at him strangely then. A woman just behind him emerges and calls back to her, and he realizes the wave was not for him. He was just in the middle of someone else’s thing. He was “It” in their game of keepaway. 5 He stands over the trash can looking at a hunter green Father’s Day card that says “Reel good dad,” with a picture of a fishing pole. He accidentally smirks but then suppresses it. He is not a dad, so the card is not for him, so he throws it away. 4 Flowers arrive for her, white roses and lilies elbowing each other for space in the over-packed vase. Green spears of Bells of Ireland protrude from the phalanx. The card is not addressed to both of them, only to her. He grimaces. Where are his flowers? But then he isn’t particularly fond of flowers. She is, so it’s nice that they were sent for her by a concerned friend. 3 He is in the store returning gifts. Matching brown baseball gloves, one hand-sized and one a miniature. The little one is the size of a baby’s hand, too small for real use, only a novelty to go on a white dresser next to a crib. “How adorable!” says the red-vested Target clerk, awakening from her programmed regimen. “Are these yours?” He hesitates and then tells her they were for a friend, but he got them something else instead. 2 He is told to stay in the waiting room. The appointment is not for him. His wife is escorted off by a nurse who smiles flatly to mask her hurry. His wife does not return her smile, but looks at the floor as she passes. The doctor’s office smells like someone spilled mouthwash a while ago and didn’t clean it up well. There is a humming fish tank with one yellow fish. The humming is a merciful alternative to silence. The fish is a merciful alternative to making eye contact. The visitors sit in chairs that are too close together, so they try to stagger themselves apart like the black squares on a checkerboard. He reads the news on his phone. His wife emerges later, walking too fast towards him, and falls into his embrace. She shakes quietly in his arms and covers her face with her hand. By osmosis, he comes to understand. He has never heard of these feelings, nor been notified that they would be out there waiting for him. He doesn't have words for it, this thing that has been thrust upon him, into him. 1 He is not invited to the baby shower. She and her girlfriends are going to get together, just them. He’s happy for her, though. They only have one car, so he drops her off at the friend’s house. As he drives away, he does something that he has been doing lately, something that only he knows about. It’s only for him to know. He turns on his music stream and chooses Can’t Help Falling In Love.  Elvis sings them out loud in his warm, silky baritone. He doesn’t sing, but he sings the words in his heart and smiles at what is in store for him. BEGINNING James W. Miller is a professor and writer in the Los Angeles area. He has previously published in Adelaide Literary Magazine.

No Coming Back Turn around, don’t drown.  There are signs all over the Houston area saying this. You watch the news, and there is someone in Manhattan or Los Angeles, a prerecorded skyline behind them, saying, “Why would anyone stay in the path of a hurricane?” They’ve sent the greenest reporter out with a crew; he’s knee-deep in brown water, his face continually lashed by the downpour. “What are people there telling you?” Does it matter? They saw the signs coming in, and they even saw a couple of cars trapped in the underpass, said a prayer for the poor suckers who didn’t turn around. Maybe they missed the signs. The thing is, you see the signs clear enough. The dark sky, the rising tide, coming home late, then not coming home at all, sudden weekend work trips. Soon enough, you stop asking. You just go about your day like normal, walk the dog, water the plants, watch the news, laugh at the reporter in the water asking if the folks in New York know about alligators actually getting into the flood water. They laugh with you. You think about getting eaten by an alligator. There’s this made-for-television movie you watched with your mom, who loved a soapy drama. The star, this woeful woman clearly on her way to a divorce, gets in a boat with her husband, and he proceeds to drop her into a lake filled with alligators. Your mom says, “Puta! Why the fuck would you get into the boat? Stupid, stupid.” And you both laugh. Your mother’s marriages were all disasters. People came for the dinner parties, of course, and they offered the requisite single comforting visit after the divorce. On the way home, they’d discuss all the signs, “When is she going to learn?” And they laughed. People never cease to amaze you. They assume, for example, that surviving  is what any rational person would want to do. It’s the kind of thing you believe when you’ve never really had to survive  shit. But when you’re a real survivor, when you’ve lost jobs and babies, husbands and hope, survival loses its shine. The woman survives the alligator attack. She gets 1980s plastic surgery—that is, a total makeover—and comes back rich (for some reason) and proceeds to have her revenge on the ex and the mistress and everyone else. She has the last laugh. That’s what anyone wants, of course, but it doesn’t usually work out that way. You climb out missing a limb or two, worse for wear. At some point, you tire of telling the stories, explaining the scars, carrying what is left to the next shelter. At some point, you’re exhausted. You run out into the water. You’re hoping for an alligator. A whole bunch of them. A last laugh. Billows & Waves Jonah 2:3 “That bastard didn’t want to let go,” Robyn tells me about riding a whale. I’m not sure where the struggle takes place, what body of water he’s talking about. His stories start in Fiji but always end up somewhere else—Mai Khao in Phuket, or a boarding school outside Melbourne, or a flight to the States. Sandy, in the kitchen, hands me a mug of tea for her husband and says, “Don’t believe everything he tells you, but that story,” the one about the whale, “that one is true.” They met on that flight. He played rugby. She served drinks to him and a dozen other players, living off their good looks, a little charm, promise. I ask Robyn about his surgery, the third in two years. He smiles, “There’s this big goddamn robot thing,” this is also true, “and I asked the doctor if I could come and see it,” he starts scrolling through pictures on his phone, their granddaughter on a horse, his sister in a wheelchair, an old black and white, “Look at this!” It's Robyn, maybe 18 or 19, shirtless skinny body, that 70s hair, he’s holding these enormous fish by their jaws, one in each hand, he’s smiling like he’s in a beer commercial. I picture Sandy, a navy blue number with white hemming, laughing at the boys in first class (on someone else’s dime) trying to get her number. “The whale?” Sean, their son, guesses the story I’m interested in, “I tell my dad maybe he shouldn’t tell it anymore, people will get mad you killed a whale, even if it was a long time ago.” He’s right, of course. People never let you finish the story. Which is why you have to keep trying to tell it the right way before all the billows and waves take over. "Billows & Waves" is included in J.D.'s full-length collection, Reluctant Prophets (Moon Tide Press, 2025), which can be purchased here: https://www.moontidepress.com/books Life on the Jawa Transport We are scraps. We are refuse. Half of us are half of us, missing gears and gadgets so long we’ve forgotten our function— and this bolt, it hurt so much going in, a pain to keep us in place, to remind us not to wander or explore— to stay in this desert place, as merchandise, broken parts barely worth what they offer, our motivators bad, silenced in sand. J.D. Isip’s collections include Reluctant Prophets  (Moon Tide Press, 2025), Kissing the Wound  (Moon Tide Press, 2023), and Pocketing Feathers  (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). J.D. teaches in South Texas where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.

At 39,000 he turns to say the moon always falls to Earth and  instead of words I web my fingers to the darkness  and fill so wide with light to say we are always touching Requiem   Another blue  screen slices  the night with  ice skates and gelid currents,  how empty river arms fling to  a frozen sheet— those flapping goose wings and sharp  twists of blade, those rows of bare trees quivering in stark light, waiting for children with red gloves to hang ornaments and tinsel from their gentle,  tired, fingertips, how quietly a door  creaks with bad  news like even  the hinges hold  grief for the noise  to follow Schoolbus  Girls stand by nine, morning sweet with snap- open lunch boxes and pale shoes  scuffed with doll  dust, with their open lashed eyes  In her quilts  the wind on  the top floor  sounds like wolves,  white lacing  night as needle  threads seam or ear lobe with shine— how I adorn my  cheeks with a shade called plum or  loveliness or  watch my legs spread in  wonder When did this brisk air turn so bodied, our arms magnets to  scoop long limbs from the concrete,  did this wide mouth  turn vessel to  surprise or my voice mistaken for a cry  in the flat lands? A wild, sharp  beg for the  cracked window  Icebox Intimacy  Sometimes silence is a doorway  and your bare body presses gold against the frame. Jutting hips pale to your closed lips, the freezer  door open and the  whole room  ice-kissed.  My hands rich  with blackberries, purple gums, knuckles stained from scrubs. I have primed fingers to pick frozen bodies from the shelf and watch fruit fall to  softness in my palms. A birth in reverse— small, ripe, things,  destined to thaw  Sofia Bagdade is a poet from New York City. Her work appears in One Art, The Shore, Red Weather, and The Basilisk Tree. She finds joy in smooth ink, orange light, and French Bulldogs.

you are entitled to one carry-on My heart swells in a way I can’t pin down–and Don’t care to–when I watch ferries pass in the Sound, Crane my neck backwards, Delayed because I am no longer there, And you, no longer here. When I bit into the jacked-up frozen  QFC chocolate buttercream chocolate whateveritwas, I'll treasure it because of the way it Shattered in my mouth, because you were there, Because we all were, in your apartment, Crisscross sprawl on your floor,  Shirley Temples at Cuff later–we never did want To blend in– Because you only have one chair, and you don't Know what you want out of such a big city, but you Looked at me when I came out of the bathroom, When we played the Dreamcast on the Air mattress, all shifting our bodies to Replicate a coveted double bounce,  Alchemize a drop in the stomach,  The most innocent high we could Conjure, and the soft glow of the TV was A temporary limelight, and I guess I took  The idea of myself for granted, or at least The very physical way I thought we could All look past if I never stopped being funny, But I guess I went quiet for a few seconds Longer than I'd intended, and don't look at me In that way that I can't let you take with you,  And I told you you could Borrow the shoes, the eyeliner, The dozen things I didn't think I'd need for The trip, but they might do something for you, As I wear the heaviest things on my body, Because I hold love in the potential, Because my suitcase was swollen with it. everyone loves catgirls!! When I saw the tenderness was still Stuck in your throat–a blaze more than a thaw– I wanted to claw it out, the way cats nuzzle and purr But you can't breed out the evisceration, the way kids can't  Share, the way I still remember your family landline, The way you let me. i don't care if you took too much, come look at the snow Fragments of angels in hail, The best we can do, squinting Until we see Orion, forgoing stasis For ecstasy–for chattering teeth that Speak glimpses of intimacy, when the Real deal is on omnipresent, enough For us to reach out and hold like moths in The cup of a palm, enough to swallow us  Whole, flapping our wings  As youth flickers, then glows. Romy Rhoads Ewing is a writer and photographer from Sacramento, California. Her work has appeared in HAD, Bullshit Lit, fifth wheel press, BRAWL, Querencia Press, Nowhere Girl Collective, Major 7th Magazine, Y2K Quarterly, and more. Her debut chapbook, please stay, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. She is a poetry and nonfiction editor for JAKE and also runs the archival site SACRAMENTO DIRTBAG ARCHIVES. Romy and her work can be found at romyrhoadsewing.xyz

He sat next to the elderly pilot’s hospital bed, hand raised in absolution as he read from the approved script: “Benevolent spirit, please understand, the Captain was only following orders.” A little girl materialized at the foot of the hospital bed and threw her hands in the air. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? We were dancing at a wedding when we burned alive, but I guess that basically makes him innocent, right?” He nodded solemnly as she gathered up her loose skin and jumped into the puddle of piss and tears that had accumulated in the pilot’s bedpan. H. A. Eugene is an O. Henry-nominated writer of strange stories about food, work, and death. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y Lit, Radon Journal, HAD, and Flash Fiction Online, among others. Witness him talking to himself on Bluesky @autobono.bsky.social  and Threads @h_a_eugene.

The naked woman in the glass stall slathers on liquid soap, a bridal train of foam swirling at her feet. At the adjacent sink, I swipe my pits and crotch with a washcloth. A bird bath , we called it when I was little. I’m grateful for my friend at the front desk who sneaks me into the Malibu Equinox twice a week. A lady behind me sucks in her breath and steps gingerly onto a scale. Amid the mirror’s reflections’ reflections’ reflections, I realize I am staring at the naked woman. She catches my eye, and I look away. I hate getting caught. I can feel her staring at me as I towel off. It’s a soft stare, not threatening like the ones I sometimes get when people suspect I don’t belong wherever I am.  Pipes groan as she shuts off the water. “I’ve seen you here before.” Her silky voice echoes against the tiled walls and floor. “Are you homeless?”  I pretend not to hear. Coil my braids atop my head like a crown and dress quickly. Drag denim across my damp skin, wrestle with a thermal shirt, fold into an oversized Army jacket, slap on a watch cap.  “I don’t mean to pry. I asked if you’re homeless.” She emerges from the shower in snowy towels that she’s wrapped and tucked into a toga and turban. Her eyes are clear, with light purple shadows beneath. Chiseled cheeks, like most club members. From the rich diet or the skinny pills or some plastic surgeon’s signature slice. “Oh, I thought you said ‘Are you hungry? ’” I crouch down, lace my boots. There’s a discarded scrunchie on a bench. I don’t like it, so I leave it. I stash a handful of soaps, then another, into my duffel. This gym goes all-out on soap. Robust foam, mild scent. There are also soft-bristled toothbrushes, mint ribbon floss, designer hand lotion. The lighting in this place is to die for. Not like the fluorescents in the Hollywood gyms, which flicker and buzz. Everyone there is cranky, and they don’t realize it’s because the illumination is in-fucking-humane. The woman, now dressed in a blouse, slacks, and flats, stops on her way out, combing her hair. “ Are  you hungry?”  I tighten drawstrings, buckle straps. Try to assess if she’s a turn-the-outsider-in type. My intuition says she’s not. I get cocky. “No, honestly, I had a big lunch.” She hands me a folded bill. “Here’s a little something.” Her smile is like a frosted strawberry Pop-Tart: overly processed and sweet yet comforting, nonetheless. I unfold the bill. A twenty. “Oh. Wow. Thank you. I’m really OK, though.”  “You’re welcome. I’m glad to help.” She’s walking again. “I didn’t ask.” I have certain rules.  “My pleasure.” I treat myself to fish tacos and beer at a cantina with twinkle lights, then head to the shore. The song of the waves is primal. Like my own blood, cresting and surging. There’s a teenage couple ahead of me. She holds a fistful of daisies and wears a long dress, its open-weave fabric like a fishnet. His jacket is silkscreened with waves. They laugh, tear apart, then come back together to kiss every now and again. I wouldn’t mind something like that. It’s been a while since I’ve auditioned a new sidekick. A while since I’ve wanted to. I ramble the length of the beach and back, cross the Pacific Coast Highway, and return to Spindrift Lane. That’s what I call the spot where my #vanlife van resides in the parking lot of the Smile Center mall. I strip to my undies, smoke half a joint and mess around on my phone. Thank you, Smile Center Wi-Fi password “BrightWhite123.” The sunset is reasonably spectacular, so I throw open the back doors for a portrait sesh. My selfies are amazing. My single goal in their composition: surrender no personal details.  No brown eyes like my dad’s, wherever he is or isn’t. No “flaxen” hair like my mom’s; her word, not mine. No beauty spot in the crook of my left nostril, like my aunt’s. I am a stark silhouette against slate ocean and tangerine sky, a dark shadow of my physical self. I download a fresh dating app and create a new profile. I like this part best: creating a new character for the next entertainment. I imagine actors feel like this when they research a new role.  On the first app, I was Sandy Johanson. Sandy was finishing her dental assistant certification (that part was true) when she met Riverside Danny, who taught her a few things about credit cards and kissed like he meant it. Shortly after she completed her cert, Danny was convicted of fraud (dull story). Selena Johnson used the card tricks to make her way to Los Angeles, where, after a few days on a new app, she moved in with Brentwood Bart, a nepo baby with a healthy habit. Selena became his live-in housekeeper slash personal assistant slash drug caddie slash mixologist. When that blew up, luckily without jail time, Sylvette Jonas dropped her savings on a pre-loved #vanlife van, whipped out her dental assistant credentials, and signed on at the Smile Center. It’s a fine job as bullshit jobs go. Handing sterile instruments to Dr. Fish, soothing youngsters afraid of the drill, preaching the floss manifesto. I’ll do anything as long as I’m near the ocean.  Cut to six months later, to now.  I wave my fingers over the phone’s tiny keyboard, conjuring my next incarnation. I look for a signal, a sign. The sky is just dim enough for the tritest of lucky things to appear. Starlight Jackson . SWF, doing fine . Don’t want much, just a good time. Walks on the beach, Coca-Cola on ice. Daisy bouquet and tuna sandwich nice.  The rhymes are pure Seuss but that’s the point. They’re meant to attract the kind of guy who doesn’t realize Starlight is the hook, not the worm. I change Coca-Cola  to Champagne  and hit Send. Stoned and satisfied, I lock up, draw the blackout curtains, and turn down the futon. The waves sing me to sleep. I am quasi-ocean adjacent, quasi-living my dream.   * * * Two weeks later, on a Storm Watch Wednesday, Crash makes his entrance from a matte black Charger in ironic seventies prom: velvet suit with a ruffled shirt and flared slacks. Shoulder-length dirty blond hair combed back. He is blandly handsome. Like Val Kilmer’s before days.  “Nice look,” I say. Riverside and Brentwood had muscle cars, too. “Not bad yourself.”  I’d purchased one of those fishnet dresses at the surf shop and tucked in the tag to return later, then artfully posed near the Smile Center door. His sky-blue eyes caress my body in a way that suggests an internal licking of chops. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a white girl in cornrows, but on you they look good.” I laugh at the sideways compliment. The gym shower was closed for re-grouting, so I’d plaited my salt-air hair and smoked my scalp with incense to mask the funk.  We head north toward the gathering clouds. He parks at the far end of Paradise Cove, near the bluffs. From the Charger’s trunk emerges a small bistro table and folding chairs, a fringed umbrella, tuna sandwiches and chips, plus a silver stand and bucket filled with Champagne on ice. “A glass of champs, a tuna sam and thou,” he says, bowing with a flourish. He thrusts a daisy bouquet in my direction. “That’s the closest I get to Shakespeare.” Crash is no William S. but he gets points for reading comprehension. He makes no fatal errors while we dine. Nothing spills, no food collects at the corners of his lips, he doesn’t laugh or talk too loudly, which isn’t easy surrounded by bombastic waves and scavenging seagulls. Afterward, he wraps a wool blanket around our shoulders and, champagne in hand, we stroll along the surging tide. Decorum quickly disappears as our limbs wheel and wing in the sucking sand, champagne splashing, the blanket cast aside. Soon we’re laughing and panting like kids. “Up for a swim?” He lifts me under my arms and swings me around as if to toss me in. “Don’t!” I scream. Too shrieky. Too panicked. Too loud. Too much. “Sorry, I’m sorry.” His tone shifts and he plants me on the ground. “I was just fooling around. I would never do anything you didn’t want me to. I promise.” I wrest away, shaking my head. How did I lose my composure so quickly?  The clouds have swirled into dramatic pillars rising from a threatening gloom. Suddenly serious, he grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him. His sky-blues are dark gray. “I swear to God. You’re safe with me.” “You can die at the beach, too, you know,” I blurt, breaking another of my rules: Never show your fear. “The beach is the best place to talk about your dreams.” “Maybe some other time.” My teeth are chattering. The rope dress hangs heavy. “Listen.” He puts his arm around me and reels me in. “The sound of the waves makes you have to yell, and by yelling, you’re closer to making them come true. I’ll go first.” He squeezes me tighter. “I dream of making money by managing talent and content and manifesting other people’s dreams,” he yells.  A guy jogs past. “Good luck with that.”  Crash gives a goofy grin. “See? Easy!” “Take me home!” I dramatically twist away and plunk into a knee-high wave. I lose my balance for a long second, teetering on the edge of a face-plant, until he stabilizes me. “You really don’t like the ocean, do you? And yet you love the beach.” I realize my fingers are clamped on his biceps, and quickly let go. “Starlight Jackson, you are beautiful and strange.” He turns my head left to right, kissing the corner of each eye where my signature liner wings up. My knees buckle. “Whoa!” He catches and holds me. “Now you. Yell it out. You’ll feel better.”  “Raincheck.” I stumble away.  And then the stupidest thing happens. Rain splatters our faces and hands, the flutes, the already wet blanket. “Ha!” he shouts. “Nature has spoken.” He kisses me on the mouth this time and I break another rule: I kiss back. “Now you.” I imagine yelling about how I’d do anything to have my own place on any beach. The thought of it leaves me terrified, breathless. The rain stops. The clouds part. The sun is low, and the sky is crazy spectacular, deep purples and reds, like bruises and blood. “That’s not how rainchecks work,” my strangled voice says.    * * * Sobs resound from the waiting room, where my next patient—hysterically uninterested in Highlights  or comic books or crayon drawings of smiles and teeth done by other girls and boys who are quiet and don’t cry—waits with her mother.  I straighten the Sylvette Jonas nametag and smooth my hands on my dancing teddy bear smock. My head pounds. Aftereffects of last night. I chug water, then open the door to the waiting room. “Hi, honey,” I say to the still-crying girl, “How are we today?” She continues to cry down the corridor, then in the padded chair. When I snap the paper bib’s chain around her neck. When I ask if she likes her teacher at school. When I flick on the overhead lamp and swing it close to her face. “Yell it out,” I say. “You’ll feel better.” I flush when I realize I’m parroting Crash. She whimpers, as though tears-time might be ending, then howls with renewed energy. I leave the big light shining in her eyes and straighten the instruments on the tray. I absentmindedly reach for my phone to see if he’s texted, then jam it back into my pocket.   I’d invited Crash into the van last night. For that, I blame my dead mother.  The rain was slanting sideways as we drove south on the P.C.H. Visibility was crap. I told Crash he was driving like an old lady, and he agreed, said he wanted to be safe. Said to do that, we needed old lady music. Real golden oldies. “The Great Pretender” came on. The first “oh-OH-oh, yeh-hes” opened the floodgates. Mom nursing morning coffee in a yellow kitchen. Reading me fairy tales at night in her bed. Planting kisses on my fingertips.  Through more “ooh-wee” tunes and “la-la-la” melodies, the memory tsunami continued. Holding my hand as we galloped through waves at the beach. Crying to old movies in the blue TV glow, an empty bottle of wine at her feet. Smoking on the front stoop. I thought of the last time I saw her, that day at the ocean. The Charger roared into the Smile Center lot. I pointed to Spindrift. His eyebrows lifted as he parked alongside my van. “You got so quiet,” he said. “Is everything okay?”  The only way I knew to shut down the memory channel was to disengage my brain and disappear my body into someone else’s. Once our clothes were off, Crash was animal, vegetable, and mineral. An all-you-can-fuck buffet of sexual comfort in one unironic bikini brief. He kept asking what I wanted, so I kept demanding. Here, not there. Softer. Faster. Harder. Tongue . He earned additional points for following instructions. Dr. Fish enters the exam room, bringing his signature wave of cologne, mouthwash, and antiseptic. This is my favorite part of the appointment: right before the grand oral opening. What bizarre grind patterns, chips, and anomalies had DNA, night terrors, and sports wrought since the last check-up? Most of Fish’s patients subscribe to the family package. The father who refuses to let Fish touch his baby teeth. The mother who whitens diabolically. Fish tells her again and again her enamel will be destroyed. But it looks so good , she says, returning monthly on the day he plays golf. The son whose teeth slant top-left/bottom-right, the mirror opposite of his sister’s—today’s crying girl—whose teeth slant top-right/bottom-left. Her crying has become soft whining. I give in and check my phone. Nada. I pat the girl’s hand. “There, there, honey. Everything will be fine.” Sometimes this bullshit job makes me a liar. Three cavities, big and deep. Oh well. As I’m locking the deadbolt on the Smile Center, my phone rings. It’s Crash. “What?”  “Hi! I waited until you were done with work so I wouldn’t interrupt. Am I bothering you?”  Bothering me? The very silence of him listening makes me wet.  This is not protocol. Not okay. I don’t entertain memories of my mother. I don’t allow sidekicks in the van. I don’t fuck on first nights. Feelings are verboten. “You could have texted like a normal person. In like a week.” “Fuck normal.” He laughs. “I can’t stop thinking of you. Can we get together?” I blink hard. The beach is there, across the highway. The sky, the waves. Nothing and everything has changed. “I’m busy.” “Tomorrow?” The hope in his voice is total torture. “Ditto.” “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you don’t want to see me.” “Maybe you don’t know better.” I lock myself in the van. I want to drive, to find another dental office, another parking lot. Instead, I light a joint and hit my tunes. Give myself the talk, review the rules. Tell myself to play him like Riverside and Brentwood. Stay cool, keep him hanging, remain focused. Find his weak point and yank off the scab. For some reason, when Crash swung me around, I panicked. And he called me out. And he stayed. Spent the night. Honest truth, I am wet again.   I remove my ear buds so I can hear the song of the waves and put one hand on the traitor between the V of my legs.   * * * One thing I love about #vanlife is living my #life #outdoors. Early weekend mornings at Spindrift, beach world is my oyster. I feel like “Little House on the Prairie” as I rinse my braids with lavender oil and water straight from a bucket. Seabirds cackle and scream while I scour my teeth. So, I’m caught off-guard when the Charger roars up and Crash climbs out rocking sweats and a T with a spectacular fit. “Good morning, Starlight,” he says.   I suddenly feel naked in my oversized T. Idiotically, I try to wriggle into sweatpants and brush my teeth at the same time. He reaches toward my face. I pull back and spit into a hedge. “Chill out.” He touches a finger to a blob of paste on my upper lip and puts it in his mouth. “Peppermint. How are you?”  I grab my phone and start making up shit. I don’t talk before coffee, I text. He sets a white bakery bag and a tray of to-go cups on the roof of the car and texts back. Chocolate croissants and double-shot lattes, no talk.  Dammit.  The beach is empty save a few joggers with their dogs. I’ve never eaten a croissant so slowly or let a latte go cold, but he says nothing, shows no signs of impatience, seems to actually savor the slow-mo show. After an hour of convincing myself I know what I’m doing, I slap flaky crumbs from my hands, drain the dregs of my cup, and stand. My phone dings.  He’s texted. Talk now?   It’s only fair. “Okay. That was delicious, thanks.” “You’re welcome.” He extracts an oblong leather box from the paper bag. Inside is a gold necklace with “Starlight” spelled in rhinestones. “Just like mine,” he says, hooking his thumb on a chain that spells his  name in rhinestones.  He doesn’t know Starlight’s not my real name. Like his mother named him Crash. “That’s so Pretty Woman  of you,” I say, hooking it around my neck. “I knew you’d get it.” He tosses our trash into a nearby can and takes my hand.  When we reach the water, my shoulders relax. The lines in my forehead erase themselves. The chilly salt air makes me feel alive in a way that’s better than almost all other ways of feeling alive. My wet braids slap at my cheeks. He laughs and sweeps my hair from my face “Do you want to be happy?”  It smells like a trick. “Doesn’t everyone?” “What does happy mean to you?” “You’re being a dick.” “I’m not. I sincerely want to know. Why can’t you answer?” “I am  happy,” I insist. My shoulders hike up. “No judgement, but living in a van makes you happy?” I stare hard into his eyes and notice spots dotting his cheekbones that could be freckles, could be sun exposure. Maybe he knows more about #vanlife than he’s letting on. “Living in a van makes me ecstatic. In Mali-freaking-bu Beach . I come and go as I please. I meet interesting people on my own terms.” “Is that your dream come true?” This dream bullshit again. “My dream is to live near the ocean. I’m living it.” “What if there were a better option? Also, near the ocean. With an easy way to earn income, lots of fun people around, plenty of freedom. Plus, me.” The damp has made his hair stick out in crazy angles and he’s so effing cute, his marketing tagline almost sounds like an earnest invitation.  I manufacture my best unimpressed face. B.F.D. Still, I wonder who I might meet. The potential is exponential. “We have indoor plumbing. And outdoor, if you prefer.” I’ll let the beach decide. If the next three waves in a row reach my feet, then with Crash I will go.                       * * * We drive deep into the Santa Monica mountains to a gated promontory, then to a modern bunker, all concrete and glass. There’s a DJ playing music and people my age milling on the front lawn and around the pool. As though they’ve been placed there by an art director. You, tall boy with no shirt and white jeans, lean against the wicker chair and suck on that straw from a fruity cocktail while you gaze out at the blue horizon. Tall girl in floral gown with cleavage to your navel, yes, you! put your finger in your mouth and twirl your hair. Look at me! Now look away! Look back! Crash detours down a side yard to a place he calls the chalet. It’s filled with clothes, racks and racks. Tops, jeans, dresses. Swimsuits. Shoes. Sunhats and visors. “Pick something. Anything,” he says. “Do I have to?” Defiant in my T and sweats. He points to toothpaste stains on my T and wet sand on the ass of my sweats. I find a simple silk dress with ties at the top and slits on the skirt to the tops of my thighs. I bun my braids at the back of my neck. This and flip flops feel right. I do look kind of amazing. We enter the big house together, and the atmosphere palpably shifts. “Why do I feel like fresh meat?” I ask without moving my lips. “Because you’re paranoid,” he whispers into my neck. “We’re all friends.” To the room at large he says, “Everyone, meet Starlight. Starlight, meet everyone. Mingle, eat, drink.” I am quickly corralled toward the bar by a group of smiling women with fluorescent teeth. My expert guess is Crest 3D White Strips. An older man turns his face away from me and leans into Crash’s ear. “Back in fifteen,” Crash mouths to me, and follows the man up a clear plexiglass staircase.  I make small talk while I study the hell out of the place. Everyone wears those rhinestone necklaces. With names like Butterfly, Kitten, and Sparkle. The men, too: Maverick, Bronco, Malibu. So original. The talk is loud because the music is loud. Everyone is chill and smiling, laughing, draping themselves nonchalantly across the furniture and each other, taking photos. Sometimes dancing or lounging but always drinking. And eating. The buffet is constantly refilled. I dance. I drink. Visit the buffet a few times. Snort a short line or two. Turns out everyone at the party lives in the house to save rent while they work on the business. “What business?” I ask. “Rhinestone necklaces?” They all laugh again with their white teeth. That’s just a side-hustle, an inside joke. Their main income comes from commissions for leasing the extravagant house for extravagant events at extravagant prices for the owner, the older man. Everyone who lives here works the events: music, food, light displays, fireworks, talent, team building. Today’s party is just for them. Everyone is so happy I’m here. What do I do? How did I meet Crash? I excuse myself to look for a restroom. What I thought could be a viable con sounds more like an opportunistic game plan for ambitious dreamers. Not my style. I’m disappointed but not dissatisfied. You don’t know until you know. The restroom has a line, and someone mentions there’s another upstairs. I ascend the invisible staircase, hoping it doesn’t shatter. There’s a long corridor on the second floor, doors on both sides. I flash on a story called The Lady or The Tiger  but can’t recall how it goes.  Behind the first door on my right is the bathroom, as promised. The walls are stripped to the studs, mid-reno. Thankfully, the plumbing plumbs. Back in the corridor, I peer over the plexiglass banister to scan the big room. Still no Crash. I’m starting to come down. I need a place to be alone. Behind door number two I find glossy black furniture. Mirrors veined with gold. A white leather dish with five rings bearing one flashy initial each: H.R.A.S.C. The guy gets props for commitment. Without a twinge of guilt, I survey inside dresser drawers, rifle the closet. Athleisure, jeans, neutral basics, white athletic socks. I stretch across the bed, punching the pillows beneath me for support. Someone turns up the music downstairs, and I move to the muffled beat, snapping pics of myself lounging in that silly dress on black satin. Maybe I’ll use it for my next profile. Drop a sunset background behind me so it looks like I’m at the beach... “Hey, there you are.” Crash leans against the doorway. His hand is tucked under his rolled T-shirt the way guys do accidentally on purpose to show off their abs.   “Hey you.” I stand and move toward him. “I was looking for the toilet.” “You picked the wrong door.” “Actually, I picked the right door and then I felt like I needed some quiet, so I picked the other door. But now that you’re here, maybe this door is the right door.”  He kisses me backwards onto the bed. His lips brush my ear. His breath is the roar of waves. “Right, left, right, wrong. Age-old questions too boring for a Saturday afternoon on my bed.” His hands slip inside my skirt.  My nerve endings spark and snap as the full length of him presses against me, his weight a delicious blanket. I wrap my legs around his back. “Do you know the story about the lady or the tiger?” “ The Lady or The Tiger ?” he muses. “If I remember eighth-grade English, I think that’s a question of reward and punishment marked by chance.” He lifts my hips. “Not destiny?” I giggle at the sound of my voice, all breath and no tone. “Destiny, schmestiny.” The smallest of grinds. “Can we stop talking now?” “I thought you’d never shut up.” Another grind. Then another, then the sensation like cresting waves. “ Oh-OH-oh, yeh-hes, I’m the great pretender . Oo-WOO.”  Crash likes to sing in the shower. I wrap myself in the duvet; I’ll have a bird bath when he’s done. I smile at my mom’s turn of phrase. I’ve been allowing memories of her more often now. Back to when we two pulled off what she called “petty flimflams.” Shoplifting, but only things we needed. Nail polish, jewelry. A 100% real human hair postiche à cheveux chignon, couleur marron.  I’d wait at the motel and promise not to unlock the door for anyone. She’d slink across the parking lot like a movie star, that bird’s nest of cinnamon hair tumbling down her back, in a black sequined sheath and high-heeled sandals, red nails flashing. She’d return late at night, tipsy and giggling. She’d tuck some cash into my pajama sleeve. I pretended to be asleep.  “ Pretending that I’m doing well .” Malibu Crash has a nice singing voice. There. He has a nickname now. Does that make him part of my history or my future? I touch the handle on the nightstand drawer with my toe. It glides open.  Passport. Score. Charles Rayhill Ash. Brown military crewcut. The exact opposite of the way he looks now. From Orange, California. Tablet. Score again. I type “lady or tiger” into the search. Apparently, that’s too much for Safari to handle. The crashed browser disappears into the lower right corner of the device. An open email remains. To: Mr. Charles R. Ash, Esquire Thank you for your kind note. I have been searching for my niece for the past five years in hopes of enticing her to reunite with the family. I appreciate your understanding regarding the delicacy of the situation and agree to pay the amount of $25,000.00 for you to escort her to the location below at the proposed date and time, after which I will arrange for the release of funds to your banking account.  Sincerely,  Miss Lucinda Traveler-Jones There’s an address for the Travel Inn Motel at Traveler Beach in Laguna above a high-school yearbook photo of a beach girl. Tank top. Tanned skin. Long hair with blond streaks. Fairy-dust freckles, mascara-tipped lashes, and liner that wings up from her eyes like punctuation. Beneath the photo is her name: Samaritan Jones.  That girl is me. “Well.” Crash stands nude in the doorway, dripping onto the shag, rubbing a towel over his head, looking at me looking at what I’m looking at. “This is awkward.”  Dots connect like mad in my head. “Is twenty-five grand, like, a lot or a little?” “Ask me, it’s a bargain.” He dresses efficiently. “Walk on the beach? “I think not.” I stab at my phone for an Uber. Crash sits on the bed. Wraps his hand around my dagger finger. “Don’t bother. They never find this place. No service.” I jerk my hand away. “Fuck!” We sit for what might a long time or a moment. The atmosphere in the room shifts, as though the lights have dimmed, or a cloud passed under the sun. My feet are suddenly freezing, and I feel the way I did on our first date, like I’m about to face plant in a cold wave. I can’t stop the idiotic question that’s coming out of my mouth. “Did you know who I was when you tagged me on the dating app?”  “Of course not. How could I? Your photo was a shadow.” “If my photo was a shadow, then why did you pick me?” “I picked you because your photo was a shadow. I love a good mystery.” “When did you know she was me? Or I was her. Whatever.” “The day we met. The first second I saw you.” He snaps his fingers. Off my look of disbelief, he says, “Your wings,” tucking his fingers under my chin and kissing the corners of my eyelids.  I pull my head away. “So, you were already looking for that girl when you accidentally found me?” “Guilty as charged.” “You’ve done this before? Found people?” He nods. “I have.” “Why?” He shrugs. “It’s just something I do. There’s a Facebook page. You can help if you want. I think you’d be good at it.” I’m shivering now, as though frigid water is rising up my legs to my thighs.  “It doesn’t have to be like...” “Like what? Like you’re a fucking bounty hunter?” I’m shrieking and I don’t give a shit. The light in the room darkens more. The sound of the undertow swirls in my ears. He presses a warm hand on my back. “I was going to say, it doesn’t have to be like Brentwood or Riverside.” Shit. He’s done his homework. “Meaning?” “ Meaning  we can arrange this so both—so all —of us benefit. Profit. Thrive.” His lips are on my neck. The light fades a few more degrees.                       * * * The hardened cracked vinyl in the booth jabs my legs through my jeans, and there are dead flies on the windowsill. The diner at the Traveler Inn hasn’t changed a jot from the way it was when I was a kid, down to the pink and blue neon wall clock stuck at a quarter after one. In true SoCal spirit, Crash and I drove separately. We’re an hour early. He rubs his hands together briskly. “Lunch?” One of the flies is not completely dead. It buzzes wildly in fits and starts, trapped in a frantic bardo. I know how it feels. I never had any desire to reunite with Lucinda, but now that doing so is my destiny, I’m having so many emotions that I’m entirely numb. “I should probably have something to eat.”  He scans the menu. “What would you like?”  I cannot tear my eyes away from the break-dancing fly. “You pick.” Crash claps his hands on the Formica top to get the attention of the teenager behind the counter. “What’s your specialty?”  “Kobe tomahawk and caviar,” she says, not looking up from her phone. Beachy, blond, tan. Me 2.0. My yearbook photo updated with eyebrow piercings and neck ink. I wonder what she knows about life, loss, leaving home. “Two tuna sandwiches...” Crash says. I interrupt, suddenly ravished. “Melts. Rye bread...” “Melts with rye bread, side of fries. No, side of chips. And do you have any champagne? We’re celebrating.” She gives him a dead-eye deadpan. “Let me run right down to the wine cellar.”  I’m starting to like her. “Two Cokes.” Crash slaps his hand on the table again. She tacks our order to the spinner, brings our sodas, and returns to her phone. I clear my throat. “Anything I should read into that food order, Charles ?” He reaches inside his fleece jacket and presents me with a handful of bedraggled daisies. “Nothing in particular. Samaritan .” I slit a flower stem with my fingernail and insert the stem of another, then repeat. Our plan, such as it is, consists of him presenting me to Lucinda, at which time she calls her bank to release funds into his account. Fuzzy family reunion ensues. Auntie and I make nice, Crash and prodigal niece return to Malibu, split the cash. Horizon T.B.D. Beach girl brings our tuna melts and fries. “I ordered chips.” Crash says. “Oopsie.” She turns and leaves. “Oopsie.” I loop the daisy chain around my neck.  “Oopsie.” He dips a fry in ketchup.  We eat in anxiously agreeable silence. “How’d you get named Samaritan anyway?” he asks. “It’s kind of unusual.” “It’s ridiculous! The story I was told, and I don’t know if it’s true...” “Her parents named her that to piss off their parents and it worked,” says a familiar voice at my back. Miss Lucinda Traveler-Jones herself whirls a chair from one of the tables and sits at ours. She wears a burgundy crocheted hat, burgundy puffer. “Hello, Samaritan dear.” She extends a burgundy-veined hand. “Hello, Aunt Lucinda.” I put my greasy tuna-melted hand in her cool one. She looks the same, only older. An alternate version of my mother, an alternate-universe version of me. Something about the line of her jaw. That beauty mark larger now, faded.  About a year after that high school photo was taken—the one she shared on Facebook, the one Crash recognized after meeting me—Lucinda and I were with my mom at the beach. I always picture that day with capital letters, like an episode of “Friends:” The One with the Last Day . Or: The One Where Evelyn Says Glug. The One Where I Never See My Mother Again. The One Where I Leave Childhood In The Sand. “Classic denial,” my ex-therapist said. We both knew I was deep into obfuscation, but she also said you can’t get past it until you get into it. Years of ramshackle detours later, there are still unanswered questions. Did she willingly disappear into the sea? Or was there an accident, a struggle, the water won? Was there something Lucinda knew that I didn’t? I’d often imagine she might have had a fling with my good-for-nothing father. Or maybe my mother was pregnant and didn’t know what to do. Maybe she just couldn’t swim. Maybe she didn’t want... “Earth to Samaritan.” Crash stares with his concerned Botox brow.  “There’s no need to worry. She’s just in shock, Mr. Ash,” says Lucinda, her eyes locked on mine. Eyes so very much like my mothers’, maybe like my own. Her eyes make me feel suddenly, totally me. As I was before Sandy, Selena, Sylvette and Starlight.  She keeps staring, and I realize she’s seeing her sister, just I see my mother. “I saw you both here earlier. I’ve arranged for the transfer. You should be receiving a...” Crash’s phone pings. He reads the text and smiles. “Thank you.” He pockets his phone and leans his arms on the table. As if he’s actually excited for us, proud of consummating our family reunion, anticipating reconciliation or redemption. Or maybe it’s just the money. How am I going to get rid of him? Lucinda lays her hand on his arm. “Mind giving us some privacy, Mr. Ash?” “Oh! I’m sorry! Of course.” He pats Lucinda’s hand, swipes his napkin across his face, and stands. Tucks in his shirt and kisses the top of my head. Runs his finger along my daisy chain. Leaves some cash on the counter. He stands in the parking lot and stares at the ocean for a long time before the Charger screeches away. She stands up from the table. “Come on, honey. Let’s get some air.” The shoulder across the P.C.H. above Traveler Beach is rocky, the hillside steep. Rusted metal rope lines the path. We hold hands as we make our way down the crooked steps. Trash litters the spiky brush. It’s the kind of beach where, once you risk your life to reach the shore, danger only increases. There’s hardly any sand, just piles of kelp under buzzing flies. Rocks occasionally leer up from haphazard waves, the coastline too treacherous for tidepools. I imagine the drop-off to the Mariana Trench begins right here. One step too far, and down you go, straight to the fishes that have no bones or color, no need for eyes.  “Did you really just shell out $25,000 to find me?”  “I did and I didn’t,” she laughs. The corners of her blue eyes branch into beautiful wrinkles. “I got a guy at the bank. We have an agreement.”                        * * * Most days I wake early enough to watch the sun rise. Lucinda likes me to move the van across the highway on days the motel is full up but lets me park in the lot at night. I get along fine with Darcy, the teenager at the diner, and on my days off, I take coffee and my phone to the water. To that rocky beach with its fly swarms and glass shards and one-legged seagulls. I swear, it’s like they reach a certain bird-age, and one leg just falls off. Every now and then, I think about Crash. Was he back on Facebook looking for another post like the one Lucinda deleted while we ate our tuna melts? Does he wonder where I am? Will he show up someday? I haven’t heard a peep since I blocked him. One exceptionally cold afternoon, Lucinda and I cross the P.C.H. and pick our way down the death stairs. We huddle behind a dune and tear into sack lunches. She pulls a flask from her pocket. We both take sips, and whatever it is burns like hell. We cough until we laugh.  She offers to read my hand. “What with the glaucoma, it’s mostly by touch anyway.” She traces a bony finger inside my palm along the half-moon curve that grows straight up like a tree from the middle of my wrist then forks near my thumb pad and splits into two, three, no, four lines. “This is your past and this is your future,” she says. “I don’t know about the other two. Your Mount of Mercury indicates you are quite eloquent, but your Mount of Venus, that’s your love life, is flabby. In general, your palm is schizophrenic.” She looks out at the waves. “Long ago, you were a beloved oracle on the island of Atlantis. You were half god and half human, and the island people brought you gifts and sang your praises. They asked you for advice: when to plant their crops, whom to marry.”  “Great. The last thing I need in my karmic backstory is to be blamed for a lost civilization. What did I tell them?” “I don’t know. You’re the oracle.” I snort.  “This other line is your future. Do you want to know what I see?” “Not really.” I’ve gotten used to this life for now, but it won’t last forever. Something will fall apart. It always does.  “Fine, then. I won’t tell you.” She tightens the puffer around her.  “Fine.”  We empty the flask and watch the reflection of sky in the vast bowl of sea. “Crash said the beach is the best place to talk about your dreams, because the sounds of the waves make you have to yell them and by yelling them, you’re closer to making them come true.”  “He’s cute but that’s hogwash,” she says. “Shall we give it a go?” We fall back onto the sand. On the count of three, we open our mouths as if to yell, but neither of us says anything. Which makes us laugh and then cry. The waves sing their song and inch closer to our feet. We hold hands as we hike the steep trail to the highway, lifting each other up and up, crooked stair by crooked stair.  Tracy DeBrincat’s short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of literary journals from Another Chicago Magazine  to Zyzzyva . Her most recent short story, Rise , was published in Lit Angels #15  in December 2023. Her first work of non-fiction, Letters to Myself the Younger , appeared in Vol. VIII of The New Guard  and received a Pushcart nomination. Her first novel, Hollywood Buckaroo , received the 2011 Big Moose Fiction Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press. Her award-winning short story collections, Troglodyte  and Moon Is Cotton & She Laugh All Night , were published by Elixir Press and Subito Press, respectively. Tracy lives in Los Angeles where she is working on a new novel, Once Upon a Coyote .