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Decennial The superstitions I practiced kept me safe. All of the pennies and grains of salt thrown. Every wishbone that broke in my favor rendered me more time. I have been rewarded. A blessing or proof of good karma. What goes around comes around. And it’s finally come around. I want to scream for all I have endured. Roll down the windows and completely deflate my lungs. I am no longer a beacon of distress, a lonely lighthouse counting on my keeper. The waves that sweep the rocks have stopped calling my name. A feeling that’s earned its own decennial. Gone most days and non existent on many. For everything I could’ve been, I had to be sad for awhile. What have I missed while my head was down? Kelsey Lister is an emerging poet currently residing in Alberta, Canada.

Mr. Penny was a retired farmer living on his unkept land on Tibbitts Hill. He didn’t have much beyond his coffee, pipe, and gun. Once known for lively stories down at the bar, Mr. Penny now sits on his porch rocker all day. Ever since the incident, he just sips his coffee, smokes his pipe, and peers past his overgrown field, filled with deserted automobiles, at his old paint-peeling barn. On the rare occasion, a visitor would hail the old farmer. As it happens, today, a sales rep from Tamberlane Supply attempted to sell Mr. Penny on the preventative benefits of a new metal joint lubricant. “Hi, the name’s Chris. Chris Mungalow of Tamberlane Supply, and I would love to show you our exciting new lineup of products, especially for an agricultural expert like yourself!” Chris offered a handshake to Mr. Penny, who just rocked in his chair and puffed on his pipe. The farmer didn’t offer his hand in return, but the salesman powered through with a smile. He looked around and saw the farmer’s large barn in the distance. Pointing at it, Chris continued, “I see your old barn over there, and all old barns got squeaky doors, amirite? We have a new penetrating fluid with very low viscosity. It’ll fix all your hinge-type problems. We could walk over, and I could show you.” “You might not want to do that,” Mr. Penny said to the salesman. Chris looked back, confused, as Mr. Penny took another large puff. “Oh, don’t you worry, I’ve seen some old barns, and trust me, I get that they can get messy. The first thing we gotta do is fix up those hinges. Tamberlane Supply’s new formula will have that old barn just open herself up to you,” Chris remarked with an insincere smile. “Whelp,” Farmer Penny said as he sat up in his chair, “Let me tell you something, farming on this rocky New England soil is something that no one’s ever bragged about. It’s hard. Few crops, difficult summers, and unbearable winters. This used to be a plantation for ships masts, you know? Then, as the wooden ships became less popular, they had to rely on apple and grape vineyards to make ends meet. Which is what I used to do.” “Fascinating story, Mr. Penny,” Chris said as he gestured for the old farmer to stand. “We should go check out that barn now.” The farmer continued, “It all came to an end, though. One morning, hours before that annoying old rooster crowed, I heard a terrible sound coming from the barn. When I opened her up, I couldn’t see nothing but a single small mouse scurrying about. It scampered off deeper into the barn. Then I heard the last squeaks of the rodent, followed by something growling with hunger. I ran outside and quickly shut the door behind me to not let, whatever it was, out.” “Sounds like you got quite the pest problem. Lots of old barns do. You know Tamberlane Supply pest products are offering twelve percent off this month,” Chris suggested as he pulled a can from his bag to show off. Mr. Penny ignored him and raised a hand in the air, “My annoying rooster began to crow not long after. I threw him in the barn to see if it was just my imagination. I just watched through a small crack in the barn door. The rooster just clucked around unbothered. I felt silly. I must’ve just misheard something falling and got scared and confused.” “So I thought to myself, ‘I better get old rooster out of there while he’s still close and don’t have to chase after him.’ Just as I opened the barn door a little wider to grab him, a large lumbering creature rushed forward from the back of the barn. Beyond anything I had ever seen, it was made entirely of frayed flesh. A tattered tapestry floating phantom. Bruised and pale skin that dissolved and reformed into tentacles, antlers, teeth, and eyes.” “I ran out quickly and slammed the door shut. The old rooster crowed in a panic-once, and then was replaced by the sound of chewing. I ran back into the house, grabbed my shotgun and a box full of shells, and called Rufus over.” “Who’s Rufus?” Chris asked. “My dog. Don’t interrupt my story. I grabbed my gun, My hands shook as I loaded it. I headed toward the barn and listened for the creature but heard nothing. I slowly slid the door open with the tip of my gun to look around. Of course, it was dark, I couldn’t see much. I couldn’t hear or see anything, so I sent Rufus in to sniff out whatever it was.” Chris stood staring at the old man, who seemed to have gotten lost in a trance as he looked at the barn. “Suddenly, some strange pallid tentacle flew through the darkness, latched on Rufus, and dragged him into the dark in the back of the barn. All I could hear was Rufus whining. I unloaded two shots in its direction and tried to reload as I backed out from the barn. I couldn’t see or hear Rufus anymore and threw the lock around the door.” “It ate your dog?!” Chris replied and paused a moment. “For more advanced pests, Tamberlane can enlist some local professionals to use our products to help you with the old barn. I’ll even throw in a new padlock.” Mr. Penny ignored him as he continued, “I boarded up the outside and called the sheriff, and I told him, ‘Sheriff Thompson’, I says, ‘get down here. Something horrible is in my barn. It killed and ate Rufus.’ That’s what I told him, and he told me, ‘you got a bear is what you have. You’ll need to call the Regional Department of Fish and Game.’” Mr. Penny took another puff on his pipe and deepened his focus on the barn. “Mr. Penny,” Chris the salesman implored, “Tamberlane Supply would love to do business with you….” “When the local agent from Fish and Game appeared and asked about the bear on the property, I told him, ‘I don’t know what’s in my barn, but that ain’t no bear!’ “’Yup, sure,’ is all the agent told me and made his way to the old barn, where he smelt around. ‘Doesn’t smell like a bear. Are you sure it’s bear?’ The agent asked me. I told him, ‘No, I like I said, it’s not a bear! Something horrible in there ate my dog!’” Chris gave Mr. Penny an annoyed but puzzled expression, “Ya… that’s pretty bad.” “Well then, I gave him the key and made our way to the barn. So he went in and kept sniffing and crying out that he didn’t smell or hear nothing. I just stood outside a moment from fright, but the second I got the courage to follow, all I could hear was some wild cries of the unholy beast salivating over its recent morsel, and I ran back outside again and locked the door.” “Called up the sheriff again. ‘Sheriff Thompson,’ I says. I says, ‘I called the Fish and Game, and who they sent were eaten up in my barn!’ He told me to keep it together and sent his deputy on by the following morning. I just watched from the porch. Ain’t no way I’m going back toward that barn. The deputy asked me where I last saw the agent, and I pointed at the barn and tossed him the keys. He made his way in, then not a minute later, I heard a loud cry from him, just like the Fish and Game agent. All I could do was sip my coffee.” Chris spoke up to get a word in, “I’ve been enjoying the Tamberlane Supply’s Alchemist morning brew myself, and it’s very rich with….” “Once I finished that cup, I gave the sheriff another call. I says to him, ‘Sheriff Thompson, now your deputy is gone too.’ The sheriff huffed on the phone and made his way here. He noticed the deputy’s car and demanded to know where his deputy was. I just pointed to the barn. I told him, ‘It’s not a bear in there, some kind of monster. It doesn’t seem to want to leave. I didn’t see what happened to the agent or the deputy, but I can’t imagine that it was good.’” The salesman tried to interject, “Mr. Penny, I think….” “So the sheriff drew his firearm and headed toward the old barn, and I just focused on drinking my coffee and smoking my pipe. It was about the time I finished my cup that I heard the sheriff’s screaming.” The salesman again tried to interject, “Mr. Penny, I really think Tamberlane Supply….” “Next, I called the state attorney general, only to have the assistant he sent get gobbled up in the barn as well. It wasn’t an hour later that ten state troopers arrived on the scene, all to be directed to the barn. By that evening, the governor had the farm on lockdown. Soon, scientists, federal agents, and people in stiff black suits brought all these vehicles and littered my farm.” “Please, Mr. Penny, the barn?” Chris implored, motioning his body toward the old structure beyond the field of derelict vehicles. “Soon, a plan was hatched. OPERATION NOODLING, they called it. Everyone on the farm, the military, agents, and scientists, would charge the barn at once and overwhelm the creature. Chris opened his mouth to speak. “All of them were gone by morning,” Mr. Penny jutted in. “Just gone?” Chris asked in disbelief. “I mean to say, I didn’t see them the next morning. The only thing left was all their vehicles and equipment. I could only hear their screams as I lay in bed that night. Like the others before, it was filled only with cries of terror and moans of agony. I only heard the cacophony of horrid screaming and gnashing teeth. Blood gargling, desperate cries of being eaten alive over and over throughout the night. Trepidatious lamentations cut short by a vile dark ravenous specter.” Mr. Penny puffed on his pipe and blew out a small ring of smoke, then continued, “All night, I stood at the ready, waiting for death to come out from that barn. Eventually, the sun came up. I stayed in the house all day and night before finally passing out from exhaustion. I ain’t been in the barn since. By and by some government agent made their way here and forced me to sign paperwork saying I saw nothing, and that’s been the end of it.” The salesman watched as the blown smoke ring slowly dissolved in the breeze. “Of course, all that was some years ago, and nothing has happened since. No more agents, no more officers, no more rooster or dog. Since the silence, I’ve sat here on this porch with this rifle and waited for whatever is gonna come out of that barn.” Once the ring dissipated, Chris looked back at the old farmer. Mr. Penny took a small sip of his coffee before speaking again, “But I’m sure it’s gone now, if you’re still interested in testing that there lube on the barn, it’s just passed the sheriff’s car, FBI cruiser, and the Department of Fish and Game van. You can’t miss it.” Chris paused, looked at the barn in the distance, and then back at the farmer sipping from his coffee. C.J. Goodin is author of GRANITE SHORES, a Vocal+ Fiction Award Finalist, and a lover of long walks on the beach

The magic mirrors distort her mind as she follows the words in her head to the merry-go- round where horses race silently to nowhere in the frosted Christmas cake morning. Her smile freezes and shatters in the photo booth. Frozen things break more easily. Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her chapbooks, “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” and “The Big Unda” are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry. Accidental interviewer. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolcha.fox/

Accubitus (noun) is the state of lying next to another in bed without touching / according to an 1817 medical dictionary / the word sounds like a Saxon virus or cabbalistic chant / Tonight in a quiet house / nine years of marriage / it sounds like us /Accubitus in a four-poster bed / headboard A/ two Cs asleep / U shaped sheet tucked / thick B quilt covering / pillows stacked I high / arms stretched a perfect T / & the lexicon pages flipped to the failure of US Vampire Express You turn around Walk away from your car Go back up the stairs To your lover's apartment & Tell him you need the scissors The sharpest pair To cut from your future The terrible mistakes You are going to make & Cut from the night What’s coming for your throat.

Only Pink Satin Sheets Are Ineffable Only pink satin sheets are ineffable And not hot pink, either, And not pale petal pink, But some other indescribable color like all three, The first two and itself most of all. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Or felt a pink satin sheet. A roommate of mine once Had a pair of silk pajamas, But they were probably cheap silk. Not satin, anyway. How many other things aren’t ineffable? You know a potato’s not ineffable, Well, it just sits right there and looks at you, With all those stumpy eyes; It doesn’t even know how to look at something Ineffable. I’m getting a little tired of the word, actually, But I’m trying to think, thinking’s hard— A chipmunk’s certainly not ineffable, Although its little thefts and larcenies Might be forbidden; But most people think it’s just cute, So how can it be, you know, the thing, Ineffable. And a gambler isn’t ineffable, Nope, he (she?) effs himself up Right there with the best, So he’s effing invincible he thinks, But that’s not the same thing, Even if he wears satin drawers. No, I just need to get the feel for it That bedside with the indescribables on it, So I can slip and slide off And land in the floor, and say once and for all That was an ineffable experience, And I’m so glad that effing jolt Doesn’t happen every day. The Earth and Our Dark Love (A Pantoume) It is in fall that humans sense most their dark love, Not even winter’s chill approximates our clutch; In autumn, twitt’ring, leaves drop down like dying doves When winter comes, it is but epilogue’s fell touch. Not even winter’s frozen heart can loose our clutch, In snow, in frost, in mud-time, then in green’s own path We’re fools for a sad love; finale’s own fell touch Does not swell passion like prefigured aftermath. Pass snow, pass frost, pass mud-time, then comes green’s own path, With certain melancholies of its own like fall, Its jest: possession, passion and its aftermath For what’s once young, in autumn must bear full recall. And summer’s swelt’ring way, so fond, its own, like fall’s, Must yet await fulfillment from the dark, its trove Of richness waits on autumn’s fruiting, full recall, It is in fall we rape the year with our dark love. Victoria Leigh Bennett, (she/her). Greater Boston, MA area, born WV. Ph.D., English & Theater. In-Print: "Poems from the Northeast," 2021. OOP but on website: "Scenes de la Vie Americaine (en Paris)," [in English], 2022. Website: creative-shadows.com. "Come for the shadows, stay for the read." From Aug. 2021-Nov. 2022, Victoria will have been published at least 25 times in: Roi Faineant Literary Press, Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art, The Unconventional Courier, Barzakh Magazine, The Alien Buddha Press, The Madrigal Press, Amphora Magazine, Discretionary Love, Winning Writers (requested for 2 newsletters), Cult of Clio. She has been accepted w/4 works for Bullshit Literary Magazine on 4/23. Victoria writes Fiction/Flash/CNF/Essays/Poetry. She is the organizer behind the poets' collective @PoetsonThursday on Twitter along with Alex Guenther & Dave Garbutt. Twitter: @vicklbennett. Victoria is emotionally & ocularly disabled.

My older brother and I were brought up in constant intoxication-fueled chaos. And as siblings with traumatic upbringings often do, we developed almost opposite strategies of coping with what we were powerless to change. He sought to befriend everyone and perform for no one, while I sought to befriend no one and perform for everyone. Deep down, however, what we both wanted was to be pleasing enough to others to avoid altercations of every kind. A natural performer like myself quickly learns the value of risking his own well-being. Because frankly, if someone is otherwise indifferent to our existence, without an element of personal sacrifice or danger, they probably will not pay much attention to what we are doing to amuse them. Until my twelfth birthday, I mostly entertained others by exhibiting violent behavior in non-violent sports, following through on almost anything that anyone ever dared me to do, and performing dangerous stunts inspired by a movie I greatly admire called Jackass with my brother as the silent and disapproving cameraman. Then, at my twelfth birthday party, my grandpa bestowed me with a privilege that would alter the course of my life, allowing me the honor of setting off an enormous box of illegal fireworks he had brought home from a recent business trip to North Carolina. That night, I set them off in the most entertaining and performative manner possible, proudly aware that much of my drunk and usually disinterested family was watching my every move. The next day, I accepted my inability to drive out of state and began browsing the internet for step-by-step instructions on making exhilarating homemade explosives. The first promising example I found of this appeared only to require a little tape and a lot of sparklers to assemble. But after hastening to a nearby store and attempting to buy all the sparklers my birthday money could afford, the cashier informed me that I needed a parent or guardian present for her to sell me such a thing. And although this made me inordinately upset, I returned home and recommenced combing through the internet’s seemingly infinite search results until finally coming across another possible solution. So when my parents left for work the following morning, I returned to the same store and bought enough tinfoil and toilet bowl cleaner to supply even the most wasteful household for several decades. I built and exploded a practice bomb before boasting about it to my brother and exploding another to prove I was no liar. And for a long time after that, scarcely a day of summer vacation passed without me building a bigger bomb and detonating it in front of a larger crowd. Eventually, however, I ran out of materials and money. Then I started fooling around with homemade flamethrowers until I had entirely depleted my dad’s supply of spray paint and my brother’s supply of body spray. Then, as it was the only highly flammable material I could still get my hands on without stealing from someone outside my immediate family, I started experimenting with gasoline. And this, I swiftly discovered, is a particularly unsafe substance and thus advantageous for putting on public shows. I invited every neighborhood kid somewhat near my age to watch what would be my most daring spectacle to date. The show was to consist of many carefully planned tricks. And for the grand finale, I built a bike ramp using three cinderblocks and a relatively sturdy piece of plywood. Maybe two feet in front of that, I positioned a bucket half full of gasoline. I planned to dip a small twig in the bucket before hurrying back to my bike and setting it on fire. Then, after pedaling down a slight hill and hitting the ramp at high speeds, I would- while in mid-air- drop the burning twig into the bucket and pass harmlessly through the massive resulting fireball. My performance got off to a wildly successful start, inspiring an unprecedented turnout and earning applause breaks following each dramatic moment. Nevertheless, almost immediately after my bike’s back tire left the ramp for the grand finale, gravity brought it down on the far portion of the bucket’s rounded rim, which I had intended on clearing with ease, and sent me crashing unexpectedly to the ground. This drenched much of my left arm and chest in gasoline before the burning twig suddenly ignited everything and, for some time, rendered me a desperately screaming and difficult-to-extinguish individual. After my first and most excruciatingly painful week of many bedridden months spent recovering from severe burns, my ever-thoughtful and deeply loving brother brought me what was perhaps his most prized possession: all thirteen books of A Series of Unfortunate Events. And forty days after apathetically opening the front cover of The Bad Beginning, I appreciatively closed the back cover of The End. These books afforded my young mind its first experiential evidence suggesting the lasting and inexplicable impact a writer’s story can have on a reader’s heart and soul. And it was this slight accumulation of this newfound knowledge, in fact, that prompted my immediate assumption of a new identity with another purpose to move my near-unchangeable self forward, hopefully away from the blistering flames that forged it. Chester Holden is from Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in Door is a Jar, Across the Margin, The Bear Creek Gazette, The Helix, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Lit Camp, Primeval Monster, Alien Buddha, and others.

Let’s talk about blurred pictures Steaming cups of coffee now mud foggy Brown and white dots brushed into one Let’s talk about the artistry Colors moving into one another On the wall are features of the face Melanin skin flying into space Let’s talk about the action Memories running from capture Moments escaping immortality Let’s walk with blurred pictures And hold their ghost like hands And embrace their evasive selves Let’s walk with the photographer And watch their shaking hands And learn how nervous they were

She'll catch a glimpse of herself in the glass, realise she's beautiful but know too that in her shadow a ragamuffin stray slinks down littered streets. Her favourite season is always the one to come, Sierra, Playa. And why not? Things go on as they always have. The cacophonous voice you cannot ignore, a parent giving advice you did not ask for and will not use yet a lover too, sweet flamenco nothings at twilight, a jasmine scented caress. She gives you the intimacy of years, her discontent and her blue skied joy. leads you along cypress paths then trips you up on a cobble. You question why you stay but she only shrugs, offers the rivulet of her hand, turns you towards some new splendour. Becky May´s poetry and short fiction have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies, including Full House Literary, Ellipsiszine and Janus Literary. She currently lives in Granada and tweets at @beckymaywriter.

Daughters of We are the daughters Of sons of fathers from another land. We are the daughters of babbas who see in us the shadows of their mothers Of papas who see in us The youth of cousins Long left somewhere else. Of babbos who raise us in the margins Of what we might have been had none of them left, Or crossed time zones, Or borders, Or languages. We are called honey, mija, bimba, habibti Our names are translations, We come subtitled. Our lives are simultaneous interpretations, Aquifers of words running away together. We marry boys who come from outside in, Sons of daughters of fathers from this land. Or another. And together, we make a third And send messages back and forth In boats made of Pasta, Tortillas, Hobs Or Nothing But Words. And sometimes, you are home. When you first came in the room, There was the oddest shock of recognition. Not from daydreams. Not from photos sent and studied, Not from missives back and forth through DM, But something in just the very way you WERE… A beautiful, composed stillness, with something coiled beneath it. When we stood to greet each other, there it was again… As if to say hello, remember me? I saw you startle for a moment, as if you felt it too, Something from before we were ourselves in our present forms. And when you kissed my cheek and held my hand ever so briefly, I suddenly knew what it was…. It felt like home…. And I hope you felt it, too. Welcome home, we have been waiting for you, It’s nice to have you back… A note from the author: I am a Californian born arts journalist who teaches film and media studies at several colleges in San Diego. My personal writing and arts projects focus on language, identity, and belonging. I have lived in EUrope, Morocco and the US, and work on projects about North Africa and curate art shows with artists of Latino and/or Middle Eastern origin.

The Violence of Sound Parcels of darkness take to the sky, storm warnings that strip skin from bones, swallowing the blood of entire generations. Heavy wings blacken the sun, relentless beaks spitting smoke, staining the horizon with doom. Empty bellies are filled with ash, lips tattooed with terror. The violence of sound scars agony into stone. War slices into the marrow of families, splinters cities into shards of shadows, echoes of the dying left caged in the ruins of time. Seduction I pour the first drink to settle my nerves, throw it back with determination. I snatch up the second to take the bite out of self- loathing, eager for the solace of denial flourishing in the depths of a tequila bottle I gulp down the third to loosen my tongue, delight in the way it scalds my throat, burning up the roots of inhibition. I indulge in the fourth to feel beautiful, drown in the seduction that warms my belly spreading like a potion beneath my skin. By the fifth, I forget my name. Soundtrack The movie business has shut down. Aspiring starlets and boys with chiselled chins are holed up in box car apartments, faces pressed against the glass, wondering when it will be safe to breathe again. The streets of Hollywood, usually filled with dreamers, wide eyed and desperate to be seen, have dropped into death watch quiet. The sidewalks are patrolled by men armed with sticks and plastic knives, losing their minds under the rolling eye of covid and an unexpected heatwave. I walk the dogs, but never leave my block, smile at the rare person passing on the other side of the street, forget they can’t see beneath my mask. Across the road, a saxophone player practices on her rooftop deck, a soundtrack of smooth and mournful notes connecting us through the social distance. Susan Richardson is an award winning, internationally published poet. She is the author of “Things My Mother Left Behind”, from Potter’s Grove Press, and “Tiger Lily” an Ekphrastic Collaboration with artist Jane Cornwell, published by JC Studio Press. She also writes the blog, “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. You can read more of her work on her website.

The air horn blew loud and I woke up. I turned over and with narrow eyes looked over at a wind up alarm clock sitting on the bureau – its glowing green hands read: 6:47. Another morning, another dream interrupted, and Monday of all days. A school day. Now for whatever reason, my mind chose sunrise as the best time to get imaginative. And like all the other weekday mornings, it ended abruptly courtesy of the Union Pacific Railroad. As usual, I laid there listening to the rolling clamor and metal clanking fade into the distance until another familiar sound intruded – one almost as loud as the train. “Mack! You up?" "Yeah!!" "Time to get up." I discarded the bed linen and sat up, and sat there, and sat there, and then laid back down. I tried stealing a few more minutes. Suddenly, darkness vanished as bright sunbeams shined off the walls. She parted the dark curtains and blinds. I put the pillow over my head in a futile attempt to keep out the sun’s irritating radiance, and befriend the Sandman again, if only momentarily. "Mack? Wake up!" Her voice resonated clear and close. Nancy Ivory, also known as Granny, or Mother Earth, as I fondly named her, stood large yet only five foot three in the bedroom doorway. Nancy could've been mistaken for an old Hippie, or some Bohemian type, with her chestnut skin in her decorative and brightly colored caftan, those open toed sandals, ankle and wrist jewelry, and two long French braids nearly touching the floor. She's not. Mother Earth was Native American, Chickasaw, from Mississippi, and proud of it. "Boy! I thought you were up. Get your butt out of bed. I'm not up for playing today. Let’s go. Speed is what you need. Now get up or I'll get you up. Is that what you want?” “No, ma'am. No, I don’t.” “Alright then. So get up and get ready for school.” She departed and began her normal count down from ten. Pokko'li, chakka'li, ontochchi'na, ontoklo…a warning I better get up, and get up fast. Last time, she reached one (chaffa) and then came back and landed her short and stocky frame across mine, tickling me unmercifully. I laughed so hard I nearly emptied my bladder. Luckily, a series of protests and foul farts forced her to quit. To this day, my body cringes at the thought of being tickled. I liked it as much as dream-shattering air horns. So when she reached the three count (tochchi'na), I quickly sat up and then stood, still somewhat drowsy. "I'm up. Happy now.” “Yes.” I ambled lazily into the bathroom. There, I handled my business except for combing my recently unbraided hair. Hair care came after getting dressed and before the bureau mirror. Soon the climate in the house changed, becoming more aromatic. Sniffing fresh percolated coffee generated hungry growls. So I sped up my hair grooming, having breakfast on the brain, and hurriedly picked out and hand-shaped a head full of kinky hair into a nice big, circular Afro. I should blame Mother Earth for having so much hair. She frowned on haircuts for biblical and cultural reasons, and as I grew up, it did as well. My Afro became so huge, friends said it looked like a dark halo behind my face, and gave the impression I favored a black cosmic angel. "Good morning," she said, as I set foot in the kitchen. The window was open and a nice breeze circulated, making the curtains gust in and out, as if breathing. "Morning." "Sleep well?" "I did until that train blew. It screwed up another dream just when it was getting good." "What was this one about?" "I met the astro-botanist, Carl Sagan, on some distant planet and together we gathered and named plant specimens." "Astro what? Carl who? You watch way too much television, you do know that, don't you?" "PBS?" "PBS my foot. It wouldn't hurt to look at those encyclopedias every now and then. I spent a small fortune on them, you know." "I know and I do use them, including those old Oxford Dictionaries." “Just sit down and eat your breakfast.” I pulled back the chair and sat. Mother Earth placed breakfast on the square cedar wood kitchen table: a bowl of Malt-o-Meal, topped with blackberries – taken off the front yard's fence line – brown sugar, butter, a half a cup of coffee, a glass of Tang, and goat's milk. "Mack?" She began, a nickname given for my fondness and constant request for oven-baked macaroni and cheeses. "Have you heard about Mrs. William’s son, Gregory?" "Heard what?" "He's in the hospital. I found it out yesterday from Mrs. Hunter while talking across the fence." I looked over my shoulder, giving a wry smile, and thinking good. Since I never liked him anyway. Not one bit. I mean, who likes a bully? Nobody I know. I couldn’t stand him. He tormented people regularly and soon made it his business to get into mine, focusing his attention on my homemade insect and animal traps scattered throughout the community's woodlands. I enjoyed catching and releasing anything that slithered, flew, crawled, or bounced. Somehow, Greg learned about what I did as fun and considered it as fair game. "Really?" "That's right. Something got him good. That's why I worry about you when you're running around out there alone. It's news like that. I know you're trying to become this Carl fellow, but do your Grandma a favor, and put nature exploration on hold for a while." "Because of him? I don't know, Granny?" "Mrs. Hunter never said what attacked him, but whatever it is might hurt you." "I doubt it. Unlike him, I have a connection with nature and a healthy respect for it." "I just know something out there sent him home soaking wet and covered in nasty green swamp slime. Mrs. Hunter also said: "Greg had bumps all over his body.'" "Really!" "That's not funny." "Yes it is. I can picture his fat butt running, arms flailing, and screaming, before he jumped into that pond." "And how would you know that?" "He must've found that yellow jacket nest." "Yellow jackets!" "Yeah, yellow jackets. I've been studying them for the last month." "Studying them?" “Yeah, studying.” I discovered them by chance. One day, I was searching for a better place to hide my traps and sticky pads from Gregory who took pleasure in vandalising them. Once done, I explored further, going farther into the woods, and marking the trail when necessary. Then I came across a patch of wild mint and sat in it, ate a few leaves, and put a couple more into my notebook. Then, a drone buzzed by my head. I believed it was a bee, and if lucky, there's a beehive, and some honey nearby. As the sound became louder, I looked skyward, shading my eyes from the sunlight penetrating through the treetops. I discovered something else altogether. Not only did I find myself in an abandoned garden, actively producing wild fruits and vegetables, but also a big mud mound at the base of a peach tree. Although excited, I fled right then and there. I knew what they were; I recently captured a yellow jacket, but only after watching it defeat and devour a bumble bee following an aerial battle. And now I've stumbled across their hideout, to study them up close, and do so every Saturday and Sunday morning. I learned they were breakfast for a family of blue jays. Plus, yellow jackets fed mostly on rotten fruit and decaying animal carcasses, and they rarely flew near the wild mint, for it served as a natural repellent. Thereafter, I made sure to stop at the wild mint patch to crush up and put as much of it on my skin and clothes as possible, in order to get even closer to their nest without spooking them, and facing their relentless wrath. The one thing I wanted to do, which would've been foolish, no matter how tempting, involved breaking the nest open to look at its insides. Then, I got a bright idea. The next day at school. I confronted Gregory. I told him to leave my field tests alone, particularly my latest one, or I would finally give him that fat lip he rightfully deserved. I hinted at studying a bunch of flying insects near this pond and they lived below ground. To which he replied: "Flying insects don't live in the ground." This coming from a guy who thought termites were albino ants. So, I said: "Okay, just don't go playing with them, alright; seriously. They're dangerous." Greg resented being told what he could and couldn't do, especially by a dweeb, and he did what I expected. He tampered with them and got attacked. "Mack, Mack, Mack?" "No, no, no." I said. "Had he minded his own business, he wouldn't've gotten swarmed. That's his fault. So, no, I don't feel bad for him, not at all. I told that fool: 'don't go looking for it.' But, did he listen? Nope. That's why he is where he's at, the hospital." "Mack, that ain't right, what you did." "He's a bully, Granny." "I'm not raising you to do ugly to other people." "I know, but he deserved it." "Maybe? But that's not your job. Now eat your food and go on to school before I do something rash. I'll deal with you when you come home, and come straight home. Don't think about wandering off, you hear." "Yes ma'am." Mother Earth sat down, bringing forward and putting her braids into her lap, and then rubbed her left knee. "I think it's going to rain," she said. "My knee is hurting something terrible." I stood up to go to the refrigerator and took out a cold Mason jar. It contained thick pieces of willow tree bark. After unscrewing the lid, I dipped my fingers inside and removed one, and then handed it to her to chew to help alleviate the knee pain. I sat back down and devoured my breakfast, placed the dirty dishes in the sink, kissed her on the forehead, and ran out the front door. Sprinting as fast as my legs would allow, the wind pushing back my Afro. Down the street I dashed, taking a winding shortcut through a meadow. I soon met crushed stone, a gauntlet of railroad tracks, and box cars. After crossing and climbing them, I took another trail through a forested area, to which it led to a well-bent section of the fence behind the elementary school. I jumped over and pretty soon greeted my classmates. Some were playing around. The others stood discussing when to visit Gregory, and what to give him for get-well gifts. I disliked the gift giving idea, but I would go anyway. Just so I could tease him. To say, his thick skull and ignorance put him in the hospital. His situation, albeit regretful, produced a sense of gratification and others felt likewise. Apparently, everybody welcomed his absence. Some even laughed at his expense, I sure did. Right then, a second train blew, and then a third, and finally the morning school bell. Playground joy and chatter halted, for it alerted students everywhere they had three minutes to line up at their teacher's classroom doors. So off I ran – my soul buzzing happily until the final bell rang and upon meeting Mother Earth. Wayne McCray's short stories have appeared in Afro Literary Magazine, Bandit Fiction, The Bookends Review, Chitro Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, Drunk Monkeys, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, Ilinix Magazine, Roi Faineant, The Ocotillo Review, Ogma Magazine, Pigeon Review, The Rush Magazine, Sangam Literary Magazine, Swim Press, and Wingless Dreamer. He practices Minimalist writing from a small country home in the Mississippi Delta.

Don't write a story about a ball rolling down a hill. —Workshop adage A ball that is my life is rolling down a hill. The hill, I suppose, is made up of sedimentary layers of years—in my case, decades. That the ball will slow and wobble to a stop is not in question. It is totally expected and utterly, irrevocably predictable. Still, there remains a haze of drama on where it will land. I think of it as being red rubber, the kind we used to hurl in dodge ball, thumping against the gym wall as kids shrieked. This ball is pudgy, a little deflated. There are mars and scrapes on its tacky surface. Will the ball dribble across the busy street at the foot of the hill, only to lodge against a chain-link fence? Will it splash into a puddle by the curb, muddied with leaves from last night's rain? Or will the ball keep miraculously angling down a sloping street lined by ranch houses, like a pinball, going impossibly far? The streetlights will blink on, and it will finally be scooped up by two boys chasing fireflies in the front yard. The taller one will kick it clear over the roof of the house. I wonder if the ball retains some sense memory of teetering on top of the hill, buffeted by a strong wind or soaking up sun. Up there the whole town can be seen, its toy cars and clutches of houses, in the distance gleaming corn silos and a splindly water tower. But the ball that is my life is wary of too much metaphysical blather. There is a hill to be rolled down, with a rutted ravine and stubby tree stumps, more or less against its will. Along the way, there are bumps from roots and stones sticking out. They're not symbolic, they're real— threatening to puncture the ball or knock it off course. Those two skinny boys are me and my older brother, Don, our chests pale in the summer heat, hands clasping mason jars as we pounce on flickering insects in the grass. Ruby, my dad's mom, is watching us from a lawn chair on the front porch flanked by spirea bushes. Later we'll join her to count car lights sweeping past. From the basement, we we'll be able to hear the squealing frequencies of my dad's ham radio. I imagine I can see my mom, a nurse, across the street at St. Joes where she works, in the big yellow-lit window on the top floor I'm convinced is the operating room, like in a Frankenstein movie. Somehow the ball that is my life thuds onto the OR's steel table. I'm dying, but I don't know it yet. There's a sharp scent of ammonia. Through an incision in my skull, the surgeon has slid in a clip to seal off the blood vessel that's feeding an aneurysm, but the tool has accidentally ruptured a smaller, hidden vessel too. The whole world is going bright red, the color of a flashlight haloing through closed eyelids, and I'm cramped inside that orb that's lurching down a steep hill, like a dirty snowball gathering up smudged letters and torn-out, frilled sheets from notebooks, as well as movie stubs, gold-sealed diplomas and wadded-up tissues from old calamities, plus broken eyeglasses, pulled teeth, the smell of hot asphalt, and the sound at night of a train chugging through a crossing three blocks away—all getting swept up into a gummy, awkward, ridiculous clump that hobbles along before it comes to a halt of its own weight on a dark street where the houses have all gone quiet. A few neighborhood kids whiz by on bikes, shusshing through leaves by the curb, and a mother's voice can be heard playfully calling out the back door, Olly olly oxen free! Gary Duehr has taught creative writing for institutions including Boston University, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review. His books include Winter Light (Four Way Books) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press).