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I am barefoot and hungry on the forest fringe of a black and white dream over-exposed shadows film my skin as I squeeze out of a tightly thatched family portrait tearing my nightgown to shreds A word from the author: Forthcoming chapbooks: True North (Origami Poetry Project), Coyote in the basket of my ribs (Alabaster Leaves).

Each Step Each Step The Ancient Ones step through me. Each step, So fresh No step was ever taken. Purity Two dozen Purity Roses. The aroma embraces them Like an aura. Frederick hands them to Katherine, Five years ago. Now she stares at his picture While sipping watery ice tea. And talking with their daughter Whom they never had. Something New and Hopeful Pushed off the Mountain. By the fierce wind. Joey chased his kite, Grabbed it, Hid it behind the rocks. Joey stood up to the wind, Protecting his kite From all comers. As the last gust exhausted, Joey’s kite rose To the permanence of their Bond Flying through the sky. Understanding I do not expect you to understand. Very few people can see the clear blue in a field of bluegrass. Or the blue - way back - behind a girl’s eyes When her teenage man goes off to war. Mother made blackberry cobbler That Last night before Tom went off to war. What we got back 4 years and 3 days later Was a man with no arms and legs Who opens his mouth to be fed. Eventually Eventually in meditation One sees the blank wall. Not a vehicle for something, Just a blank wall. Then you are home. You, a person, get up From Meditation, Drive the kids to school, And wash the dishes. The Study of Ego The Ego Is a Blackbird Perched In a Pitch Black Room Pecking at itself In a Mirror. A Study of Blackbird * … the way the blackbird quickly and curiously darts his head to one side at one angle, then quicker than quick to the other side at a slightly different angle; he is sitting here on the thick cable that goes taut at 45 degrees as though it is securing something. the bobbing and weaving of his head shows off the high sheen of his feathers. how very much his coat of sheen has to offer the world. Footnote * I saw this blackbird while I was walking along First Street between Hedding Street and Mission Street... I was walking along North First from Mission Street toward Hedding Street, San Jose, California. Sunday, November 18, 2012 As As morning breaks too late, I am always here Passing through the fiber of every being, every space, every note of music, every rock, every pail of goat's milk. At this moment here in the Sous Valley, Morocco they are blessing weddings with the scent of orange. Endnotes 1. Goat Industry in Morocco … https://www.iga-goatworld.com/blog/country-report-the-goat-industry-in-morocco … … … … retrieved on Mon, July 12, 2021 … … … 2. Goat Milk in Morocco … https://tinyurl.com/3npny427 … … … retrieved on Mon, July 12, 2021 … … … 3. MOROCCO’S SOUSS VALLEY: WHERE GOATS GROW ON TREES … … https://thevalemagazine.com/2020/01/15/morocco-tree-climbing-goats/ .. … … … retrieved on Mon, July 12, 2021 … … …

This is the inventory of what I now have: One set monogrammed sheets, stored under the bed. One set, once-washed, petal pink sheets, on the bed. Two bars, French triple-milled soap of lavender and olive leaf. One guest soap, still in its paper. A long white nightgown. A black slip. The bathrobe which belongs to Sunday, the silk robe which waits for an evening. Set of four wine glasses, three in the cupboard. Set of four linen placemats with a red stripe. Set of four solid red cloth napkins. A stack of small bowls for nuts, or oils, or the tails of shrimp. A ceramic swan waiting to hold flowers. A vase which holds the pairs of unlit beeswax tapers. A drawer of framed photographs, overturned. The blueberry bush he planted. The ruby I wear on my ring finger in place of the diamond which rests in a box. Kel Warren is a writer in New England.

The Music Teacher For Negar Ighani We stood in a circle, patted our chests and thighs, sang and jumped then clapped. We rained, jumped once more in tune, until lightning struck. She asked us to hold hands and the rain grew slower under our toes. We felt like raindrops falling from the sky, like droplets lying deep within the sea. This was her idea of God. We’d told her we didn’t believe in one. What was it others believed in? We never spoke of it again, with anyone. *** We stand in a circle and jump, higher than before. Lightning strikes. We hesitate. We hope to hear her voice. The Missing Spice I am telling her about a recipe I read somewhere, she’s cleaning the oven, stirring the rice while hearing me mention garam masala. Suddenly, she is kneeling on the ground, shuffling through all the spices, rattling, and the rice starts pouring out and then, we are sitting at the table eating a delicious meal followed by a dessert, and it’s all over, so is the recipe I was telling her about and I’m heading home with the garam masala in a little bag, thinking I’ll be making butter chicken tomorrow and if she asked me that. I don’t remember if I replied. Maybe I should invite her over. For the new year? My birthday? Or next year. Sarvin Parviz is a writer from Tehran. Growing up, she was passionate about opera and pursued classical training in Italy. There, she was introduced to micro-fiction and left the music world to enjoy creating characters through words. She earned her BA in Literary Fiction and became increasingly fascinated by languages. This fall, she will be studying Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

TW: Domestic Abuse She dipped the plastic pot into the water trough and heaved it out, pouring it on herself. Soft ripples streamed down her agonizing body while her lips parted with the one name she wanted to mouth, "Lokesh." She waited before saying his name in a hushed tone, like how she had chanted God's names in the prayer room. She counted on her toes as the name spilled out of her mouth, wincing every time the water tugged at the raw skin near her ankles. It was the ankles yesterday that the buckle of the belt scraped out the skin and tasted blood. It had been her arm last week when the firewood came thrashing at her skin, shedding it off the glow and softness and leaving it with ruptures, gashes, and bruises. She counted twenty-five, waiting for the water to gurgle and drown her muffled voice and start again when the door thundered, "You donkey. Are you going to spend the whole day there?" Athe, her mother-in-law shrieked. She didn't respond. She hoped for the magic to work. She offered a silent prayer, and she also sought forgiveness before she stepped out. Athe had told her on the wedding day, "You can't call your husband by name. Saying his name shortens his lifespan." Athe had not given her an alternative. So, she never called Lokesh by his name. A large bucket of dirty clothes beckoned her that noon. She hauled the bucket to the backyard, where the washing stone glistened in the afternoon sun. Sarees, shirts, and dhotis had to be scrubbed, beaten on the stone, and rinsed. She labored through the heap, one after the other, beads of sweat licking her cheeks and forehead. She wet her lips, but her throat groaned for water. She dragged her feet to the clay pot at the end of the kitchen when she heard whispers. It was Athe's voice that roared over the other faint voices. She caught some words, gas, movie, lock, and laughter. She didn't want to interrupt them or attract any attention that came in dagger-like words and sharp objects. She tiptoed to the backyard to continue washing and say the name in sync with the scouring and swabbing. "We are stepping out to watch a movie," Athe called out that evening. She hurried out of the kitchen and saw her father-in-law, Athe, and her husband Lokesh dressed in sharp clothes. "We will be late," her husband added. "Let me get some water," Athe told no one in particular and scurried to the kitchen. They always locked her inside when they went out. She was alone, and a sly grin escaped her lips. "Lokesh," she said his name aloud. The walls, the chairs, and the air could hear her voice and feel her heartbeats without care. "Lokesh," her voice raised over her usual quiet tone. The name bounced off the walls. She opened her arms and twirled without care. "Lokesh, Lokesh, Lokesh…" she sniggered. "Lokesh," she attacked him, gritting her teeth. "Lokesh," she spat with a devilish grin that soothed her sore body. "I am going to say your name as many times as possible," her voice laced with anger, but laughter escaped the corners of her lips. It was her escape, her liberation, her freedom from pain, sorrow, and misery. His name filled her mouth like rice cakes, and she chewed his name without a pause, her eyes glaring, mocking, and sneering at his large picture hanging over the wall. She decided to celebrate her freedom by making a cup of coffee with three spoons of sugar, a luxury she never enjoyed. She picked up the matchbox to light the stove when her eyes darted at the knobs. She was certain she had turned them off. A cold realization washed over her and her body shrunk. A slow stream of urine slid off her legs. She pushed open the window and sank to the floor with her back to the wall. Her feet felt cold, and she hugged her knees, shedding quiet tears. She must have slept in the growing darkness of the kitchen when she heard the banging on the door. She staggered to her feet and pulled at the window. "Who's that?" she called out. They were from the neighborhood, and two policemen stood at the far end. Some had their palm to their mouth. "There has been an accident," an elderly man called out. "It is bad," someone else said. She didn't need to hear further. She stared at her feet, relief washing over her. The Universe worked in mysterious ways. It kept score and always set things right. But she didn't know that. She finally smiled - of relief. Saying the name had saved her.

Gold Watch Fever In progress, anonymous dog-eared milksop employees pigeonhole discreet chagrin so as to excavate spine-tingling conformity and thus imitate harmony for the sake of a pension, a handshake, and a gold watch. Corporate Restructuring There are times when secret sensations ignite impending fissures. Personal passions aside, the disruption of the norm and ingrained routine shatters into doubt particles followed by gossip, then defection and finally personal examination. The standard response is to deflect. Then there are those few who ignore the perceived moment and know that there are opportunities in chaos.

Crossings after moon river (the frank ocean cover) a friend whom I love dearly once told me: it’s never about them, it’s about you don’t believe in absolutes and I don’t believe that there is no us, just two slumped scarecrows stuck in place still somehow chasing after our ends echoes of somedays don’t quite cross rivers, but you know this, my daylight moon, this is no breakfast at tiffany's - wherever you’re going, I’m going away. Blank In 6th grade I made my very first American Friend, which meant that unlike the first-second-or-third generation Miami Cubans I had become so accustomed to in the 2 years I’d been in the U.S., she was a blonde, blue-eyed, family-arrived-on-the-Mayflower, American. The first time I went to her house, we had green beans, mashed potatoes, pork, and some light-brown goop for lunch. As her mother set a plate before me, I anxiously whispered to American Friend: “Did your mom forget the rice?” I was raised right and couldn’t bring myself to inquire about what I would, years later, learn was gravy. My good manners had limits though, and I simply couldn’t stay quiet about the rice, I mean, who eats a meal without rice? She laughed, assuming I was joking, and dug in, smothering her pork in the brown stuff. After the incredibly disappointing lunch that left me pining for rice, beans, and a banana, American Friend directed me to their dishwasher, another concept that was entirely foreign to me (“So you leave your dirty plates inside this thing for a few days and let the machine wash it? It doesn’t smell? The plates don’t break inside?” / “Wait you’ve never seen a dishwasher before? Do they like, not have electricity in Brazil or something?”). I tuned out her questions, which were no longer foreign to me after two years, and instead focused on her refrigerator - we definitely had those in Brazil. Baby pictures of her and her older sister, a red, white, and blue magnet with the Pledge of Allegiance printed nearly illegibly, and a photo of her parents in their uniforms (her mother was a firefighter, her father a cop - so American it hurt). What interested me though, were those little word magnets that you can use to put together silly sentences. These dotted the fridge with phrases like I am bear, boy is yuck, and cool egg. On the right side of the fridge, below a “I Survived Everglades National Park” magnet with a huge gator on it, someone had put together something different, less silly: I dreamed of my home and as my love flew I cried joy I tried to stitch those words together as my friend babbled about the benefits of a dishwasher - dreamed of my home All that came up was home Leticia Priebe Rocha received her bachelor’s from Tufts University, where she was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she immigrated to Miami, FL at the age of 9 and currently resides in the Greater Boston area. Her work has been published in Rattle, Apricity Press, Arkana, and elsewhere.

Anna, a woman in her 80s. An aging hippie, a Gloria Steinem-esque look but not an exact copy. ANNA: Whenever I travel, give speeches, talk to people—which isn’t that often anymore, I’ll say, I’m veering into obsolete for most people, except other women my age of course, but they’re becoming obsolete too—there’s one question everyone loves to ask— Are things worse than they used to be? I’m asked this question over and over again. And no matter what approach I take, no matter what I say—and I’ve answered this question I think a different way every time—they’re never satisfied with my answer. Back in my heyday, I wrote one of the leading texts on feminist theory. And, it was the 70s, yes, so we were asking different questions back then. And we made strides together—undeniable strides forward. Are things worse? I don’t know. They’re certainly not better. They’re just different, I suppose. Roe v. Wade is gone again. Black women are losing their sons every day to gun violence. Children are being shot in classrooms. The planet’s going to shit. More often than not, I read the news and think, I have seen the worst. But that was before I met Melody. Melody was more than a woman: she was an experiment. The details of her past were gritted so tight between her teeth that I never got them out. When I saw her on my doorstep that night, I thought: victim. it wasn’t the first time. It was like a scene from a tired historical drama: the young woman desperately knocking on the aging feminist’s door, thunderclap, bolt of lightning, her hair matted down around her skull, her eyes bright and pleading. Only now, if she’s being honest with herself, the feminist isn’t aging, she’s aged, and unprepared for the survivor the universe has carried to the steps of her apartment. She was clearly pregnant—again, not the first time this had happened. I never knew how they got my address, it was always an unnamed friend-of-a-friend, always under the cloak of night, eyes shifting, hands nervous, belly swollen to varying degrees of fertility. Sometimes it was an abortion. Sometimes it was just a safe place to stay. And once, it was dropping the infant at the orphanage myself, barely a day old, because the young woman said if she handed the baby to a stranger and walked out the door, she thought her heart would give out. How odd and beautiful it was that she did not consider me a stranger. I ushered Melody inside, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, sat her down by the fireplace. She had been on the road for months, she told me, trying different doctors and different abortionists, but none of them would operate on her. The question: Why? hovered in the air, but instead I offered her dry clothes and assured her that she was safe here. As I turned the corner into the hallway, I heard a sharp gasp and rushed back into the living room. Melody had just had a contraction. She told me they had been happening for hours, which is why she needed to find a place to stay tonight. Can I take you to the hospital? I asked. No. A doctor won’t understand them, she said. Them? Is it twins? But before she could answer, she was wailing with pain again. I was determined not to show it, but I was frightened. I had attended several births—my friends were all hippies, you know, so when they started having babies they wanted to give birth in a hot tub with harp music playing and a circle of chanting women welcoming their baby into the world. It’s all downhill from there for the baby, if you ask me. Sets their expectation pretty damn high. But anyways, that was different than me, alone in my apartment with this strange girl— woman—forty years later. This was more than just holding hands and singing kumbaya. This could, ostensibly, mean life and death. I wrapped Melody’s arm around my shoulder and ushered her to the bathroom. I filled the tub with a few inches of warm water while she undressed, then helped her lower herself into the basin. The contractions were coming faster now, each one contorting Melody’s face into a tapestry of pain. I couldn’t believe she had made it to my apartment like this. And with every bout, a wincing cry escaped her dry lips over and over again: They’re coming. Oh God, they’re coming. My fear for Melody began to give way to fear of Melody. I couldn’t help it. At one point, I had the fleeting thought of what if my time is up? What if this is some demon sent to usher me to the fiery pits for having sex before marriage and taking women to clinics? But then I remembered that Jews don’t believe in Hell, and my mother and father and Rabbi Isaacson raised me to be a good girl, so I squared my shoulders and went into the kitchen to get more ice for Melody’s forehead. When I returned, there was a tangible difference in the air—a stillness that wasn’t there before. And a smell—earthen, deep, and probing. Melody had a look on her face that I will never forget. It was the face of a woman who has seen the other side of hurt and will never go back. The face of a body that has transcended pain. I could hardly look at her, this young girl, woman, experiment, victim, survivor—who was I to look at her? I never had children. It wasn’t a choice for me. That’s just life, I guess. A head began to crown at the opening. I knelt down and clutched her hand. Vaginal fluids floated stagnant in the bathwater. Melody let out a maternal cry that still echoes across the bathroom tiles to this day. Push! I cried, and readied my hands, a net of flesh, to catch the baby. Melody pushed, and pushed, and out of her womb, slick with internal matter, came ten rabbits. I caught each one. I wrapped them in my towels. Their skin was blush pink, not that different than a human baby, but there was no doubt that these were not human. Melody took a deep breath. Her body slouched against the side of the porcelain. I didn’t know what to say to her, this girl, this thing, this woman. Finally, I managed get out: You can stay as long as you want. To recover. No, she said. I’ve gotta get going. She began to hoist herself out of the tub. Her strength seemed to have returned. It was uncanny. Are you sure? I— If I could at least trouble you for some dry clothes… Of course, I said, still shaking from what I had seen. I opened my closet in a daze. I could hear Melody, back in the bathroom, draining the water in the bathtub. And softly, ever so softly that I thought I was imagining it, I heard the whimper of the baby animals, crying out for their mother’s warmth. But their mother was slipping on a pair of my old baggy jeans, pushing her head through a turtleneck, shaking out her umbrella… Are you really leaving? I asked. Yes, I think it’s best, Melody said. And…the— I didn’t know what to call them. The rabbits? Keep them. She put her rain slicker back on. Suddenly, she looked very childish. I could picture her on the streets of my hometown, splashing in puddles, wishing for rainbows. Then she added: It’s not their fault they had to be born. She thanked me, and then she was gone. If it weren’t for the rabbits still nestled in my towels on the bathroom floor, I would have been certain I dreamed her. That night, I got my period for the first time in six years. I have never bled since. For the first time, the smell of my menstrual blood made me gag. There were notes of sick sweetness I had never noticed before, like artificial flowers excessively perfumed. The smell was rank and deep, heavy, cloying. For the first time, I realized my body was dying. The rabbits are now fully grown. I gave one to my niece’s daughter, but the other nine still live with me. I have never named them. Every time I try to…I don’t know. I just can’t. So are things worse than they used to be? They’re not better, I know that for sure. I don’t know what happened to Melody, who did that to her or why or how, but I know that we live in a world where a woman gave birth to live rabbits in my bathtub. And we live in a world where no one will believe me, even though I know what happened that night was real and true. So I don’t know how to answer your question. I guess I don’t know. End. Sarah Groustra (she/her) is a writer from Brookline, MA and a recent graduate of Kenyon College. Her writing has previously appeared in or is forthcoming in Funicular Magazine, HIKA, Lilith Magazine, Boats Against the Current, Moon Cola Zine, Spires Literary Magazine, and Fish Barrel Review, and her plays have been workshopped or produced by Playdate Theatre, the Parsnip Ship, and B Street Theatre Company. You can find her on Twitter @ladypoachedegg and at sarahgroustra.com.

Maxwell stood alone at the abandoned bus stop. Wind blew across the thin fabric of his hospital gown, raising goose bumps along his exposed skin. Across the empty street, the old church sat in shadows, and the bell atop its steeple rang out, echoing into the night. Twelve times the bell rang, and Maxwell listened, the lingering space between each reverberating chime like a fermata written on a living sheet of music. The church too appeared abandoned, but somewhere within, someone kept its weak pulse alive, creating music amidst midnight’s silence. A monotone note that repeated, bounding off crumbling and graffitied walls, until the final sound floated away, beyond where Maxwell could see. As if the renewed quiet were an invitation, two lights appeared from down the street, dissolving the surrounding darkness as the chugging, hulking vehicle drew closer. The bus stopped in front of Maxwell, and the door swung open. The driver didn’t speak, nor remove his hands from the vibrating wheel, nor take his eyes off the road ahead. Maxwell stepped onto the bus without a word. The door closed behind him. Before he could walk forward to find a seat, the bus began to drive. In the reflection of the rearview mirror, the old church disappeared behind a black veil. All that remained was what existed inside the bus, and the headlights’ yellow beams, eating away at the shadows like maggots on a corpse. Three people sat on either side of the aisle, each taking up their own row of seats. Closest to the front was a tall, dark-haired and severe-looking man. He wore a tailored and expensive three-piece black suit that helped to distract from the skeletal melancholy of his face. He was handsome in the way a drug addict can be—gaunt with a pale, defined jawline more from emaciation or self-destruction than anything else, and his eyes were black and sunken deep into their sockets like he hadn’t slept in days. No gestures or words were exchanged as Maxwell walked past. Behind the gaunt man, sitting in the opposite row, was a young woman, fidgeting with anxiety and rosy-cheeked as if she’d just finished a strenuous run. Where the first man appeared overdressed, she presented the opposite: Nothing but two towels were wrapped around her, one covering her body and the other carefully knotted around her head. The towels were still wet; a small puddle of water had formed on the bus floor around her feet. When Maxwell walked by, she shot her arm up towards him and inhaled sharply as if about to speak, before straightening back into her previous clenched posture, and turned to look out the window into the black abyss. Sitting at the back of the bus, and staring directly at Maxwell, was a child. She was dressed in pajamas. They were decorated with little pink and purple elephants. Her arms were wrapped around a stuffed rabbit. Its ears were long and floppy and hung down past its feet. The rabbit looked as if it was once white, but was now dirtied and loved until its fur had turned brown. She squeezed the rabbit tight, holding it close to her face like it was a lifebuoy keeping her from sinking into an ocean only she could see. Maxwell took a seat in the row just ahead of the child, and looked out the window into the darkness. After a few moments of silence, the sound of gentle footsteps approached from behind, and shallow, raggedy breaths began tickling the back of his neck. “This is Franklin. Franklin says hi.” Maxwell turned, and shoved directly in front of his face was the rabbit, held by two little hands underneath its arms. When he failed to respond, the child spoke again: “He’s my ticket. So you can’t hold him. I’m not supposed to let him go yet. He says hi, though.” Maxwell looked around the bus, hoping for one of the other passengers to speak up or corral the child so he wouldn’t have to interact with her. The man continued facing forward, but the woman watched, her eyes piercing and wide as if trying to communicate in place of words, her right fist clenched and trembling upon her bouncing knee. “Where’s yours?” the child asked. “Do you have a ticket, too?” Before he could answer, a loud and authoritative voice came from the front of the bus: “Leave him be. Sit down. The child’s eyes fixated on the space over Maxwell’s shoulder like a deer after hearing a gunshot, and she bolted back to her seat. The man had now twisted around to face the two, and his gaze shifted between Maxwell and the scorned child. “That’s none of your business,” he said. “I’m sure your parents taught you better.” Though it was apparent the man was reprimanding the child, Maxwell felt as if he were speaking to the both of them. A thick layer of guilt seeped into his body, prickling the skin like his limbs had fallen asleep. “If he wants to show you, he will.” The child tucked her knees into her chest and squeezed the rabbit again, burying her face into its matted fur. Maxwell waited for the man to stop glaring and face forward, before getting the child’s attention with a subtle hand gesture. She looked up, the rabbit still concealing the bottom half of her face, her eyes glazed and red with tears. “Hi, Franklin,” he mouthed, and waved at the stuffed animal, forcing a closed smile. The child pinched the rabbit’s limb between her fingers and wagged it back and forth. “He’s not very nice,” she whispered, her eyes darting towards the back of the man’s head. “I don’t like him.” “Me neither,” Maxwell whispered back. “I bet he’s just grumpy he doesn’t have his own rabbit like Franklin.” She giggled into the stuffed animal’s floppy ears. “Yeah. I bet that’s it.” Maxwell began to turn around, when the child tapped on his shoulder. “Psst.” Just outside of view, he could feel the woman’s gaze burning into the side of his head, communicating as clearly as if she were screaming out loud, aching for him to acknowledge her. “Psst,” the child tried again. “What is it?” “Why are you wearing that funny dress?” “It’s not a dress. They give it to you when you go where I went.” “Where did you go?” Maxwell opened his mouth to speak, and as the first word was about to escape, he realized the memory wasn’t there. He didn’t have an answer. He swore he knew—that only a moment before, he knew—but it was gone. There was nothing. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Oh. That’s okay. You’ll remember soon. Once we get closer.” Maxwell paused. “You think so?” “Yep. I know so. All the fuzzy stuff from before—it’ll start going back into your head soon. The bus does that. But you have to wait and be quiet.” “How do you know that?” “ ‘Cause. I know lots of things I didn’t used to. Franklin didn’t used to be Franklin. He was just Bunny Rabbit. But the road started to get darker, and all the stuff outside the window went away. And then I remembered his name is Franklin. So I bet you’ll remember where you got your dress. Just as long as you remembered your ticket.” Maxwell stared into the child’s eyes for a long time. Waiting until he could see through her. But the child was there, staring back. “Okay,” he said. When he turned, there was the woman. Her eyes danced back and forth between brief, urgent glances at Maxwell and the corners of the bus as if following ghosts moving amongst the shadows. She gestured with one hand beneath her knee, compelling Maxwell to come sit beside her. He approached and slid into the woman’s row of seats, his feet making a wet slap as they sank into the thin surface of water spreading out from her dripping body. “Is it coming back to you?” she asked, her gaze focused on the back of the bus driver’s head. Maxwell kept a watchful eye on the man in the row opposite and ahead of them as he spoke: “No, not yet.” “Do you have it on you?” He looked down at his hospital gown and held out his palms. “Where would I keep it?” “Well, you need to find it. You wouldn’t have been let on here if you hadn’t brought something.” In the rearview mirror over the driver’s head, Maxwell could see the eyes reflected back, staring at him. Black eyes, obsidian eyes, cloaked in shadows but backlit by the sickly yellow headlights dispelling the evidence of night like windshield wipers in the rain. “What happens if I don’t?” “You will,” she answered. “Because you have to. You don’t have a choice. You got on the bus.” Maxwell looked at the woman, studying her face, her limbs, the wet knots of hair dangling from her shoulders, the water falling from the strands and landing on her pink skin like rain streaming over a cliff. As hard as he tried to focus, her features seemed to shift, refusing to settle in place, like a Rubik’s cube rearranging itself before his eyes. “Do I know you?” “Does it matter?” She opened the clenched fist resting upon her knee, revealing a small diamond ring, as if the whole time she’d been clutching a lump of coal, squeezing until the pressure transformed it into what she now displayed. “I can’t lose this. It’s all that’s left before everything else leaves me. Just because you made it on the bus, doesn’t mean it’s over yet.” The sight of the ring burned somewhere within a hole in his mind. Where there was once a blank space, a fire had been lit, cleansing the debris of amnesia from one corner of the empty room that had enveloped him upon stepping foot inside the bus. “What is that?” he asked. “It’s an anchor. Find yours, before we reach our stop. That’s all that matters.” Her face was coming back into focus. Pieces of the past gluing themselves back together. Like flashes of light bursting through the canopy of trees while driving down a wooded street, brief glimpses into memories shone through in her image before fizzling away: A beach. A bed. A television screen. Laughter. An empty room. Silence. Wires. Machinery. And tears. Constant throughout them all was the feeling of comfort—comfort that faded more and more with each glimpse, until all that remained was fear. The kind of fear you don’t forget. And yet in that moment, it was as if it were the first time he’d ever felt it. A troubling and foreign sense of déjà vu overtook him, and without another word, Maxwell stood, walked up to the gaunt man, and sat down. Refusing to look away from the front of the bus, the man spoke: “Enjoying the ride?” “I need my ticket.” “Why do you think I have it?” The man turned to face Maxwell, his eyes pockets of blue ocean water. “Because I don’t know you.” “I don’t know you either. I know about you, though. Not much. But some. If you’d just be patient, I’m sure it’ll come to you.” “I’m running out of time.” The man opened his mouth and laughed. “Do you see a clock? Look outside.” The world surrounding the bus was a swirling vortex, like layers of gray fog blown to and fro in a pitch-black night. There was no longer a road beneath the wheels. The vehicle was propelling forward like a spaceship in the cosmos. “We’re all strangers here,” the man continued. “You don’t know the child. I don’t know the child. You could ask her the same question, and she’d have the same answer. It’s between you and the driver. But no one talks to the bus driver.” “I know,” said Maxwell. “Ah, see? It’s coming back to you, bit by bit. Be patient. Enjoy the ride.” He gestured behind him towards the little girl, kicking her feet and mumbling to the stuffed rabbit. “This will always be easier for those who don’t question it. That much, I know. And that much, I can tell you.” “What else? What else can you tell me? Anything.” The man peered over his shoulder, at the woman staring into her trembling legs. “I can tell you that she’s been here the longest. She was alone when I got on. Then the child arrived. Then you. Because of that, I’d imagine she knows more than me. So I’m not the one to ask. But asking questions—that’s my point. It’s probably best not to. Do you want to see something?” Without waiting for an answer, the man reached into his jacket pocket and brandished a switchblade. Its handle was black, and engraved into the side were two initials. He pushed the button beneath the hilt, and the silver, serrated blade popped out. “This was my father’s,” the man said. He twisted the knife around in his hand, and let it dangle from his fingers as he talked, eyeing it like it was a mouse he’d captured in the kitchen. “He always had it on him. Every day. Always be ready, he’d tell me. Always be prepared for the worst. You have to always be prepared for the worst, and when it happens—which it will—you can’t act out of emotion. You have to react like you would with any mundane, day-to-day task. Accept that it’s happening, and do whatever you have to do—like… like you’re taking out the trash. That’s how you keep going. You put your head down, and you put one foot in front of the other. Just like with anything else.” He folded the blade back but kept holding it, clutching it in his fist like the woman clutching the ring. “My father always talked like that. When I was a kid, he seemed so wise. Like he knew everything there was to know. Like he was invincible with knowledge. But then he dropped dead of a heart attack. You can’t prepare your way out of that. You can’t outsmart a clogged artery. “And now I’m older than he was when he died. I always held on to this thing to remind me that maybe I’d be as wise and prepared as my father when I grew up. But just a little better. A little smarter. Yet, here I am. I don’t feel smarter. I don’t feel prepared. In fact, I feel like an idiot. Wandering through life. Utterly clueless. And that used to bother me. But now, I’ve realized that he probably felt the exact same way. He just did what he knew despite it all: Head down, one foot in front of the other. Don’t think about it. Just… act until the curtains draw.” Maxwell focused on the man’s nose, studying the black pores dotting his sun-starved face, unable to look him in the eyes. “Why are you telling me this?” “Because you seem like you could use this more than me.” The man hesitated, but handed the sheathed switchblade to Maxwell. “Just as a reminder. Whatever is going to happen will happen. And when it does… act. Don’t overthink it.” “But this is your ticket,” said Maxwell. “It must be. I can’t take this.” “Maybe,” the man answered, turning away to look out the window into oblivion. “Maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see when we arrive.” “Where are we going?” “I’m sure you already know that. Failing to accept what you already know won’t do you any favors.” Maxwell fell silent. He stood to leave, and without prompt, the man talked into the window: “It feels like returning from the dead, doesn’t it? All these memories pouring back in. Like someone finally remembered to pay the electricity bill. I can see again.” “Something about it,” said Maxwell. “It doesn’t feel right.” “Well, that’s the thing: Once you’re out of the dark, you may not like what you see. One foot in front of the other, though. Yeah? Left-right-left-right. There you are. Left-right-left-right. Go on then. And try to enjoy yourself. We’ll be there soon.” Maxwell stepped out into the isle and began walking back to his seat. As he passed, a hand gripped his arm. The woman looked up at him, squeezing and digging her nails into his flesh, trying to pull him closer. Her whole body trembled and a terrible grimace pulled the skin taut against her clenched jaw. “I remember everything,” she said. “I remember… everything. I’m fucking scared. Please help me.” Maxwell allowed her grip to guide him into the seat beside her. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” he lied, and slid his hand over hers in hopes of taking away the anxiety. A moment of panic set in as he felt the fire burning away at more hidden memories when he looked into her face. Reality was becoming fluid, melting away from the inside, but he brushed these feelings away. The things becoming clearer were things he didn’t wish to be revealed. Pockets of time separate to the space within the bus flashed behind his eyes, and he pushed the images down like stifling vomit. But what still remained was the impressions those moments had carved into the walls of his empty room. There was no place to escape. The bus became like a coffin, an echo chamber, forcing the poisonous residue down his throat, screaming at him to accept what he knew. Still, Maxwell fought back. The woman held up the ring, the growing light of the ethereal cosmos through the window glinting off of the diamond. “I never forgot about you,” she said. “I did everything I could. I just hope you can forgive me.” “I don’t understand, honey.” Maxwell flinched as the word reflexively left his mouth. Outside, thunderous booms erupted in the void, shaking the bus like a plane during turbulence. The man began humming loudly to himself, letting the violence rock his body back and forth in his seat. “I did it for you,” said the woman, placing a hand against Maxwell’s cheek to keep his focus as the world became a lit powder keg. “I knew I’d be put at the top of the list. There was no time. It was all I could do, and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry it didn’t work. But I had to hope. I had to try. Didn’t I?” “We’ll be there soon,” was all Maxwell could say. He stared down at the switchblade resting on his lap, avoiding the images flooding in, aware of it all. “Can’t you listen to me? I’m fucking scared, Max. I’m not losing you again—I won’t.” She slid the ring on her finger. “But there’s nothing else I can do.” “I’ve got my ticket,” he answered. “Thank you, Melissa. I wish you hadn’t.” The convulsions rushed down through her body in one mighty burst, bringing forth tears; the levees had collapsed under the weight of what they now both knew. “Please don’t say that. What would you have wanted me to do? Just watch? Do nothing?” “It wouldn’t have changed a thing,” he said. “Maybe we wouldn’t be on the same bus, but they’re all going to the same place. How would you have known what was coming, though? I don’t blame you. There’s nothing to forgive. I just wish you hadn’t done it. That’s all.” “It’s a sin,” she whimpered. “It doesn’t make sense. You shouldn’t be here with me.” “No such thing,” Maxwell replied. A wave of calm had come over him, as if he’d submerged himself in water. The deafening sounds of the void dissolving around the bus fell away into a church bell ringing—one single, reverberating chime. He was a man strapped to the electric chair, listening to God speak His final word. “It’s okay to be scared. It’ll be over soon. We’re almost there.” The woman glanced down at the switchblade, now nestled tight inside his closed fist. “Is that it?” Maxwell stood, letting his hand slip away from her grasp. “I’m gonna go check on the kid.” He pointed out the window. “Look.” The world was shifting, returning back into a moonlit, city street. There were no adjacent buildings, no markers or signs, but they had arrived on the final path home, traveling down the middle of a desolate plane. A gentle bounce shook the bus as the wheels touched down upon asphalt. The headlights again began swallowing up the pervasive shadows, burning through the darkness to reveal the empty road ahead. The woman turned to watch, leaning against the glass to catch any glimpse of what was to come. Maxwell walked to the back of the bus and sat down beside the child and her stuffed rabbit. “Hi,” he said. “How’s Franklin?” The child’s eyes reflected the fear within himself, and it made him uncomfortable being forced to confront it. He wished for his own stuffed animal, something he could speak to and bury his face into, and hide behind. “He says he wants to go to bed. We want to go to sleep. We’re tired.” “You are asleep,” said Maxwell. “Can’t you tell?” “No,” the child answered flatly. “How do you know?” “ ‘Cause. I just know. It’s all too silly to not be a dream, don’t you think?” “Maybe.” “What does Franklin think?” The child leaned her ear into the rabbit’s face. “He says maybe.” “You know what I think? I think you’re in your bed right now. Safe and sound. You and Franklin.” The child didn’t respond, but shifted uncomfortably and curled into the corner beside the window, propping the rabbit up between the wall and her head as a pillow. “You just hang on to Franklin,” said Maxwell. “So that way he’ll wake up with you. And before you know it, you’ll both be right back underneath the covers. Alright?” “Okay,” said the child. Maxwell stood as the bus began rolling to a stop. “You’re very brave,” he said. “I wish I were as brave as you.” The other passengers arose and lined up in the center isle. Maxwell reached out his hand for the child to take, and lifted her to her feet, letting her press against the back of his leg. The woman glanced behind to lock eyes before gesturing out the window, and then faced forward. Water continued to drip from the fringed ends of her towels and the strands of her hair. The man stood at the front, humming and swaying, tapping his foot in nervous anticipation. Maxwell peered through the glass and saw what awaited them: The building was like an abandoned roadside attraction on the side of a long-neglected highway. With nothing but miles of flat, empty space in every direction, the bonfire glowing and spitting orange and red stood like a lighthouse on the edge of a storm. It seemed to serve as a guardian, a violent and wild entity posted between the bus and the entrance to their destination as a final arbiter. The sight of the flames carried weight, and the heat seeped through the walls and sunk deep inside Maxwell’s mind as if it spoke in telepathic tongues. It told him the truth, burning away each mote of debris and dust, until the words filled the empty room like oxygen, screaming, shoving the images before his eyes, screaming, the amnesia melting away, screaming, unable to cling to the shadows disappearing in the blinding glare, the truth like a string of unspeakable obscenities, screaming, until it was all that was left in existence, and the room was consumed by the birth of the brightest star. Maxwell saw it all. He saw everything. Acceptance was never a choice. The bus driver opened the door, left his seat, and walked down the steps. He continued until reaching the edge of the bonfire, and turned to face the bus. Backlit by the light of the flames, his face was doused in flickering shadows, and no features or expression existed. The passengers followed, proceeding in a line towards the building, and stopped short of the driver. He flourished his arm, gesturing for the group to make a circle around the fire. They all took their positions without a word, like soldiers carrying out a rehearsed protocol. The child stayed close to Maxwell, one hand holding the stuffed rabbit close to her chest, and the other clasped gently in his own. There were no thoughts to be had, no hesitation towards what was next to come. The voices in the flames beckoned for their release, and all machinations within the group’s minds were given freely, and cannibalized by the entity. What remained were the emptied rooms bleached and purified by the light of the infant stars now living within. The building loomed over them like an alien monolith, its door the gateway to a dream yet undreamt. It was unremarkable on its own, a simple structure painted by decay, seeming to remain standing by sheer will and stubbornness. There were no windows, no architectural quirks to redeem its unkempt appearance; nothing of note but the solid, wooden door that only served as a point of interest for the possibility of what it contained. But there was something intangible that separated the building from any other abandoned structure forgotten by time. A magnetic energy pulsed from the ground beneath it, and soaked through its rotting walls. It was as if an entire city lived within it, waiting to come alive when the time was right, holding their breath until the stars returned to the black sky. Waiting for the ceremony to begin. Maxwell let go of the child’s hand and stepped forward, letting the heat of the flames dance across his skin. The driver stood beside him, silent and masked by the night. An odor emanated from the driver, like sterile floors and chemical cleaner. He did not look at Maxwell, nor did any of the passengers. They all stared ahead at the fire, listening to it speak, hearing and accepting its words with no illusions left to obscure the message: Surrender your tickets. The switchblade unsheathed in his hand, and Maxwell held it up to the blood-red light. The reflections of the woman, the man, and the child shimmered along the serrated edge like hallucinations seen at the end of a dark hallway. With the knife Maxwell cut into the hospital gown, tearing a hole over the center of his chest, and sliced down until revealing his entire abdomen. Silence became its own language shared by the group, only perforated by the cracks and pops of the fire growing larger and brighter as if feeding off each passing second. The flood of recollection clawed to the surface and guided his hand as he stabbed the knife into his breastplate, making a Y-incision. He then dug his nails into the carved shape, and pulled from both sides until the bone snapped, and his insides lurched forward, and the pain spilled out like a howl, and the sutured organs pulsed and flinched in the cold, exposed and bleeding and alien to the body they inhabited. They were given, and they were now owed, and there was no time for thought, or for regret, or for remembrance. All that endured was the ticking of the clock, the ringing of the bell, the monotone note repeating, repeating, repeating, demanding not hesitation but action, as it understood that every second that ever expired and became the past had led to the moment required, the moment that would always be looming, waiting to be called upon, and no amount of fear, nor anxiety, nor numbness to the world would ever slow the coming of the present. And so Maxwell stuck the blade into the cavity he’d created, severed the liver from the body, pulled out the organ, and threw it into the flames. The man in the suit emerged from his trance, stepped away from the fire, and walked towards the abandoned building. The door opened, and he stepped inside. Maxwell reached into the leaking wound and cut out the remaining kidney, and let it slide from his hand into the flames. The child stirred, approached Maxwell, handed him the stuffed rabbit, and walked towards the abandoned building. The door opened, and she stepped inside. The heart began to beat like the war drums of an invading army, and disregarding the switchblade, he grasped the organ with his free hand and pulled, yanked, screamed, until the sutures tore away from the newly attached blood vessels, and it dislodged from his chest, seeping recycled blood that ran down his wrist, dripping onto the ground. He held out the heart, watching it twitch in his palm like a frightened animal, and hurled it into the flames. The woman awoke, floated past the bus driver, took off the diamond ring, and slid it onto Maxwell’s blood-soaked hand. As the ring left her finger, the brief flash of recognition faded from her eyes, and she turned and walked towards the abandoned building. The door opened, and she stepped inside. Maxwell stood alone before the fire, the switchblade and stuffed rabbit clutched in one hand, the ring adorning the other. The driver was beside him, more a shadow than a person, providing neither eye contact nor communication. Maxwell turned to look at the shadow, and there were no eyes to see, no mouth to speak. It was an inhuman and unfeeling vacuum, unmoved by the events and indifferent. With the three items Maxwell approached the closed door to the abandoned building. It hummed and the wood was alive. He twisted the knob but it was locked and wouldn’t relent. It told him no. Please, he said, speaking through the empty hole in his chest. Let me through. I came all this way. I don’t want to be alone with it. The bus driver remained stoic, standing before the bonfire, the flames’ light casting a shadow at its feet that made it appear as large as its presence felt. It was like looking at the galaxies above in the reflection of a lake. Maxwell pounded on the door with his fist, panic crawling over the new star inside him like a black fungus, clouding the blank room of his mind. He clutched at the stuffed rabbit, begging for reprieve, his eyes closed, waiting for the nightmare to dissolve and for the door to swing open. He stroked the diamond ring, begging for the brittle memories contained within to float so he could cling to them like a raft in the ocean, but nothing came. There was only the bus driver and the flames cackling at his back. There had always only been one way out. Maxwell knew this, and had always known this. He had known this long before he ever understood what it meant, before he had ever gotten on the bus. Before he’d ever accepted that one day the bus would arrive. He had always known. It was imprinted on the stardust that birthed him, that was now enveloping him again, returning to the place from which it came. The ride was over. Maxwell turned to face the flames, and walked forward, into the bus driver’s silhouette. He stopped at the bonfire’s edge, and the bus driver was there beside him. It reached out a hand, and Maxwell took hold. The switchblade dropped first, consumed by the pyre, and the driver squeezed tight, refusing to let go. The rabbit next, swallowed whole and turned to smoke in the light, and the driver’s grip grew stronger as the weight of loss threatened to tear Maxwell from the ground. With his footing regained, Maxwell’s hand slipped away from the driver. He pulled the ring off his finger, the diamond imbued with the red and orange glow. Alone, truly alone, Maxwell let it fall into the flames. The heat coaxed out the images trapped inside its beauty, released into the night sky as billowing smoke, and guided the now lifeless item into becoming a pile of ashes—indiscernible from the rest. The driver walked away unacknowledged, got onto the bus, and drove. When Maxwell pulled his eyes from the fire, the bus was gone. He had completed his end of the deal. There was nothing left but the reward. Maxwell walked towards the abandoned building, silence becoming him, his hollowed abdomen the proof of a debt paid. The door opened. It crawled out from the frame like the tendrils of a living god. Inkblot-black. A shade of obsidian so pure it extinguished the burning fire and swallowed every molecule of light in the world, until it was as if nothing had ever existed—until the idea of existence itself was impossible to comprehend. It was the inevitable, intangible center. The source of everything. The canvas of Creation. Staring back at Maxwell was an empty and endless chasm. Nothing. All that remained was a single step. Maxwell leapt. Jack Moody is a novelist and short story writer from wherever he happens to be at the time. He is the author of the novel Crooked Smile and the short story collection Dancing to Broken Records, as well as a former staff writer for the literary magazine and podcast Brick Moon Fiction. His work has appeared in multiple publications including Expat Press, Misery Tourism, Maudlin House, Punk Noir Magazine, Scatter of Ashes, Paper and Ink Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bear Creek Gazette, and The Saturday Evening Post. He didn't go to college.

The car roars past the abandoned station. Beyond the windows a glimpse of the tiled artwork, then darkness. They settle in for the ride to West 14th. From there it’s a long walk to the theatre. The wind blows cold up the skirts they hike down, stride and tug. C’s hair cascades in graceful waves that M envies. C has the walk; men stare after her on the street. M bounces along. C says Stop galumphing. Remember how I told you to walk. Those are my best catch me/fuck me shoes, don’t waste ‘em. Yeah, C, but they’re 7.5’s. M is a nine, manages to hobble and galumph at once. By Ninth Avenue, her heels are bleeding. M, it’s a small price to pay for a night out. C models shoes and cheap clothes for a creep in the garment district. She swears he watches her change but isn’t 100% sure or she’d have to fuck him up. It pays cash and C gets to keep clothes. M is glad C dressed her for this. M needs all the help she can get. She talks like a boy, laughs like one, and the galumphing. They might go to the Saint after, so C makes her dress up just in case. She is a 6.5 on the hot scale tonight, C says—up from her usual 5. C does her eyes and lip, makes M into a hyena. C carries it off, a hot hyena, an 8.5. It’s the best you can hope for, with less than perfect noses and hair. But C can dance. C lives in something like an artist commune in a seedy brownstone. One of the other tenants is a musician and his sort-of-wife but also an ex- is a dancer at his shows. The other weekend C invited M to a private show in one of the nicer brownstones on the park. C brought home a guy from the party in violation of the living agreement and also in violation of her invitation for M to sleep over. M slept in the dancer’s kid’s bottom bunk upstairs and C’s guest peed in a Dr. Pepper bottle in her room to avoid the artist-landlords in the morning. The kid whose bed M crashed in made her tell him stories while she waited for C’s guest to finish and leave. Today it's M’s show. She knows one of the actors. From before. A funny guy, sad eyed. M laughs loud with her heart at the funny sad. There’s this boy in the audience. She sees him again outside afterwards. M and C are walking or galumphing or limping east—go dancing or home? M wants to go to the Saint. Needs a night out even if it’s the night boys do it in the girls’ bathroom so you can’t really use it. She has to take care of B, the guy in the hospital tomorrow. He is restrained so he doesn’t pick at the infected bedsores. He can’t speak, really, but likes to watch television all night. He moans to get you to change channels and cries tears when he needs to be changed. The indifferent nurses sometimes let him lie in his mess all shift, so M changes his gown and the sheets. His mother leaves, goes home when M arrives. The old woman has identical twin boys, aged sixty. C can be persuaded on the dancing. She doesn’t want to waste the subway fare and not have some fun. M's show was funny, C says, but wow it was full of old people. They are walking east now, and they see the actor, one of the old people, and the boy walking together ahead of them. M thinks the boy is interesting. He has a face like a map. C catches her staring. You like him, don’t you, M? C shoves her into the brick wall as they walk and M nearly goes down. M laughs and her voice makes the boy and the actor turn around. M, the actor smiles, how are you? The girls catch up to them and C lets M talk a lot this once. The boy is older up close but not so much it’s creepy. He asks M for her number while C asks the actor how he got the idea for the show. M writes her number on the inside of a Violets wrapper and the boy reads it. He smiles, pockets it. Maybe I’ll see you soon. Yeah, maybe. M feels her cheeks boil and her heart galumph. She wants to dance all the way to the Saint. She takes off C’s shoes and carries them after 6th Avenue. Near Union Square she buys a pair of Kung Fu flats for three dollars and tugs down her skirt again. Nobody cards them even though M is in Kung Fu shoes because C is already dancing and M looks older than seventeen. M dances, drinks diet Cokes. After M’s fifth soda C is ready. Let's go. They lean on each other but don’t fall asleep the whole ride home. A homeless man with gangrenous feet gets on at Carroll Street and shuffles across from them but they exit at Seventh Avenue. A chihuahua escapes from one of the man's shopping bags as the doors close behind them. M enters the pub lit amber. The boy waves from behind the bar, smiles, shrugs. I'm sorry, I tried to call. I have to cover until my da comes. The good news is, it’s all on the house tonight. M climbs onto the stool. Her stomach growls. She thought they’d get pizza and walk around, ride the tram or ferry. This, their date. The game on the TV casts green, red, blue onto her face. The man beside her turns to her; it’s the actor. Hello there, M. Fancy meeting you here. M smiles back at him, nervous here, now. The boy does not explain they’re supposed to be on a date. The man returns to his pint and the game. M orders a Meyers and OJ. She wants to sound like she’s done this before but she's just channeling C. The boy pours and wipes, mixes. In between orders he stands in front of her and they talk over the bar. He is learning to repair stained glass, like his father. He has graduated from Fordham. Sometimes, like tonight, he tends bar in his family’s pub. The stained glass is honest work. His hair falls over his face and he pushes it back as he talks. He is pretty. Why did he call her? I want a do-over. It's not going well, this night. Where is his da? The boy refills her drinks and she loses count because he removes the empty glasses, loads them in the rack to be washed. She feels lightheaded during Johnny Carson’s monologue. She notices the actor has left without saying goodbye. M switches to Guinness like C always does. It’s practically soda anyway. She nurses the second pint through Letterman. Stupid pet tricks. Whatever happened to his da? He’s not coming, is he? They are the only ones left in the pub. Okay, I have to lock up. She waits outside, drinks the fresh air. The wind on her face hard like a slap. You're such a fool. The five dollars in her purse would have been enough for pizza and soda but it won't even get her out to Brighton now. Would you ride home with me or spot me twenty for a taxi? I wish I could, but I have a job in the morning and I’ve already locked up. You could crash by me. M hesitates. The boy is nice and she knows his family, sort of. She consults an imaginary C: Don’t be such a pussy, it’ll be fine. C knows these things, unlike M. His couch is the safest option. He kisses her in the taxi. Don’t get ideas. I don’t want to do anything. She isn’t flirting. She's queasy. No. I just want to sleep. No, the couch is fine. No, I am good here. No. The couch is firm, tufted grey squares. There is a soft pillow and a quilt and so she sleeps. In the morning he offers her a glass of orange juice in the kitchen. I’m sorry I don't have anything else. M is quiet. Class at ten, work four to midnight. She needs to get back to the dorm and shower. Her mind loops the quotidian. You don't know how to behave. She tries to understand what has happened. She wants to cry, mustn’t. She shivers, cannot stop. Are you cold? he asks. He hands her a rugby shirt that smells like Downy. The gesture feels out of place, like the orange juice. She pulls it over her head. He's normal, isn't he? Is this normal? M no longer knows. The night before, like a series of gaps staggering toward a black hole. She remembers certain drinks. She remembers the television, a world cup match on the screen with the volume silenced. She remembers, later, lying down on his couch but waking up in the pitch dark bedroom to— The sun is bright. Daylight is safe. Outside the window, a squirrel runs across power lines. We should get going. And she does. Tess is a writer, teacher, and recovering attorney who holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence, a JD from NYU, and a third dan in WTF Taekwondo. Fiction editor @VariantLit. Words (poetry) @RedOgreReview.

The man dove his fork into a sea of spaghetti, twirled a fat skein, slurped the wet tails that uncoiled in transit. “Dry cleaning,” the woman answered. “A deposit, some calls.” His day, he offered, unasked, smiling somewhat, had been similarly smooth. Sauce like a slaughter streaking his chin, he shook dandruff cheese from a plastic green cylinder. He couldn’t believe, he said a third time, the Pats had roared back after multiple fumbles and missteps last night. Snoring by nine, he’d missed the upset. The woman poured a second glass from the week’s bulk reward. The per-bottle price had made the man pledge club allegiance. “Convenient,” he’d commented the day they signed up. “No need to go out.” She swallowed. Summer tastings, that dark-haired sommelier’s nuanced prologues, the scent of sharp cheese, the tang of tannins swirled on her tongue. Wine, when they’d met, involved destination, a dash of dress up, a heightening of senses, an unspoken stirring in her solar plexus. Last week, in her session, she’d dug for that feeling, but a terrifying blur had taken its place. Her therapist probed. The woman went further: “Shapeless, uncertain. Quicksand you can’t see.” Ten minutes to sit-coms, the woman loaded the dishwasher. A few prongs had bent under the pressure of meal after meal eaten at home. Did the handyman carry a straightening tool? She tapped a quick text. Probably too small to drive all the way out. She started the cycle and stood there, adrift. Prior to appliances, before landscaping and built-ins and three point five bathrooms (back when the man and the woman had that one-bed near Broadway) she hand-washed, he toweled. Their hips grazed. Hands touched. A half dozen times, he took her right there, her yellow-gloved hands grasping the faucet, her screams kicking up a riot of suds. She came back to herself when the hiss of pre-wash collided with the clamor of main cycle’s churn. “It’s starting,” the man shouted, two rooms removed. Premium ice cream on his end table, light frozen yogurt on the one next to her. The man muted commercials to air office grievances he’d skipped during dinner: an overdue spreadsheet, a no-show new hire. The woman wondered if he knew she slept and web-surfed through her work-from-home days, sometimes smoked joints, began keying in data an hour or so before he pulled up. Remote work, she liked lying, did not equal idleness. The woman flossed with a single-use pick. The man did it differently, his index fingers spooling, turning red at the tips. They leaned into separate sinks, a selling point the man still talked about to this day. They brushed. They spit. Swished capfuls of mouthwash. The man reminded the woman about the latest statistics on cell phones in bed. Out in the hall, her heart hammered like heavy construction equipment. Not too small, the handyman’s little square said. What time should I come? She thumbed, backspaced, deleted thank you so much. The man’s blanket breathed, the woman’s was weighted. She switched off her light and rolled toward the dark, away from the beam of the booklight she’d gifted him three birthdays ago. I’ll be here, she’d said, come whenever it’s good. Before the Thrill is a prequel to After the Thrill, which was published by the very rad folks at Flash Frog and is included in Best Microfictions 2022. Amy's work has been published in Waxwing, HAD, Lunch Ticket, No Contact, FRiGG and a bunch of other places.

Shirley checked her bag twice to see if she’d put tissues inside. The kitchen windows needed cleaning. She could do that when she returned home later. The visit would be quick. She went into the downstairs bathroom, applied some lip gloss, post box red, bared her teeth like a lioness, rubbed them with her index finger, added a liberal smattering of perfume, and left the house, double-checking the front door before getting into the car. Charles had only been in the hospital for two days, but how she looked would matter. She couldn’t work out whether she missed him or the idea of him. It was easier at home without him there; she could hide her need for life to be ordered, along with her penchant for a glass of Pinot Grigio. It was never more than a glass or two, but the way he curled his lips to one side said enough. The cat would have to find something wild to eat tonight, she thought, as the lights turned red at the end of the street. Roxanne blasted out of the car radio, seeping out through the open windows. Summer nights like these felt hot and sticky. She glanced at the man in the Mondeo next to her, assessing her, and she turned down the dial. Dialing down was something she had become skilled at, she’d spent her whole life doing it. The Mondeo man had a gray beard and round glasses. He wouldn’t approve of red lights or selling your body to the night. He wouldn’t approve of her lip gloss, either. She had wanted to make the effort for Charles, whatever state he was in. She’d been taught to keep herself free of makeup or wild impulses, in keeping with her Mormon upbringing, but it went against her nature. Now she would take it out on the bathroom, scrubbing and cleansing, bleaching every inch of the surfaces. Her own body, though, would no longer be subjected to the same disciplines. I know my mind is made up, So put away your makeup, Told you once I won't tell you again. It’s a bad way. The street thrummed with music; sounds from the fairground in the park up the road threatened to drown out her own. She could hear the screams. That much fear is bad for your heart, her father had told her. It’s the thrill, she had said at the time, but he’d already walked away. Charles had walked away when she talked about the cat or the children. The only thing that interested him these days was classic cars or some current news item, as long as it didn’t involve global warming, because it didn’t exist. She had learned to stick to frivolous subjects that did not involve the non-existent warming of the planet, the cat or the children. The latter had already left home. It made her heart feel weak. He never talked about them, as though they didn’t exist, either. The lights went green and a young boy, about the same age as her Brian, floored it down the street towards the edge of the city, hair all slicked back, music louder than hers. He wouldn’t have heard of The Police. What she wouldn't give to go back to those days with her whole life ahead of her. The hospital was a street away. The sun lowered over the tower blocks. Children lined the pavements with chalks and footballs; carefree. The scent of charred red meat rose up between the houses in billows of smoke. The hospital car park created the usual fiasco of digging around for the right change, Or you’ll be towed, M’am, the parking attendant had told her when she’d gone in to visit Jan, from her book group, who was Just in for a small procedure. Shirley had never found out exactly what it involved. Inside, staff swirled around like the beginnings of a storm with the swooshing and circling of currents, picking up things as they gathered speed. Patients were being pushed about on beds and in wheelchairs. Doctors moved swiftly and without looking up. A lady at reception was telling someone to Please come in to see a doctor. She hated the accident and emergency department. It reminded her of her brother, Ronnie, breaking his ankle in football at school. The smell of disinfectant made her queasy. “Can you tell me where the cardiology ward is, please? I haven’t been before,” she said, as a nurse passed her with a tray of meds. “Take the lift up to the fourth floor and it’s on your right.” Shirley nodded, but the nurse had already gone, talking as she moved, her voice disappearing off down the corridor. The lift was empty. It stopped on the second floor. A lone man got in and stood away from her on the other side, didn’t look up, checked his watch. She always felt safer when people didn’t look directly at her, although she felt ridiculous thinking this as a grown woman. The lift juddered to a halt on the third floor. He got out. An elderly lady was waiting with a nurse, and holding a walking frame with a crocheted bag hanging from the top. They stepped in gently. Shirley pressed the button to hold the lift. The nurse nodded, put her arm on the back of the lady, rearranged the drip that was attached to a stand. Moving all of this metal between a fixed floor and a moving floor looked precarious, but she suspected that they were used to it. She had probably seen too many horror films, expected something to be severed. These were the kinds of thoughts that she couldn’t share, not with Charles, not with anyone. She turned to look in the mirror behind her, pulled out the red lip gloss, and reapplied it liberally. She pursed her lips together, got out on the fourth floor, and turned right. The corridor was long and stark, with insipid green walls and a fire extinguisher with a ‘break glass press here’ sign on a red box on the wall just above. Charles did not appear to be in any of the rooms, which were mostly filled with older men, much older than him. In one room, a whole family had gathered and machines were beeping. She wondered whether he was, perhaps, nearing the end of his life, partly because she had seen a priest hovering in the corridor. In another, a lady sat knitting, watching a man sleep. She stopped to look at Shirley as she passed. It was a soulless place, not somewhere you would choose to be. Where was Charles? Had he left? “Excuse, me?” she said at the nurse’s station, “Is there a Charles Stephens? I can’t find him.” “Who are you?” asked a small nurse with her hair slicked back into a high ponytail, curls spilling out. She was holding some papers in one hand and tablets in another. “His wife. I’m his wife, Shirley Stephens.” “Right, well, he’s a little groggy. We’ve given him some strong pain medication. I’ll take you. I’m going that way. He’s in room 406.” “Thank you,” said Shirley, wondering how they could deal with the stench of bleach and patients in pain, or worse, near the end of life. The place needed flowers, she thought, then she remembered that flowers were not allowed. The nurse led her to room 406, dropping off things on the way, swirling in and out of rooms the way she had seen in the entrance to the accident and emergency department: a storm brewing. “There you, go,” said the nurse, “he’s here.” She disappeared off down the corridor. The priest was still in sight. Charles was asleep. Shirley went in and sat down next to him, felt his forehead. It was cool to the touch. He was hooked up to machines. She wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing to his body, but it wasn’t life support, because this was not the intensive care unit. She would know if she was there. The room was darkened a little, squeezing out as much joy as a room where no flowers were allowed. Shirley thought back to how they had met at the docks and how he had been youthful and robust, sweeping her up in his arms when she was eighteen, and about how the years had dialed him down, too. The spark that they had initially felt, replaced by a deep loyalty to one another, despite her constant cleaning and his incessant ramblings about cars and politics. She loved him, she knew that much. He could be a fool, of course, but she wasn’t naive enough to think he would be perfect, knew she would be devastated if he was nearing the end of life. He opened his eyes, squeezed her hand, turned his head towards her and gave a half-smile. “Are you in pain, my love?” she asked. “A little, but the nurses gave me something to help. It’s made me sleepy. You came?” “Of course I came. Do you think I would leave you in here alone?” “You’re always going on about the parking and I know how much you hate these places.” “Maybe, but I wouldn’t just leave you and not visit.” He squeezed her hand again, gave her another half smile. “Your lips look pretty,” he said. Shirley looked away, felt uncomfortable with the compliment, as though she didn’t deserve it. “How’s the house? Everything ok?” “Yes,” she said, “Rachel’s coming home at the weekend. She said she’d pop in to see you.” She wouldn’t usually mention this, but it was important. “There’s no need,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to bother anyone.” “You’re her father, Charles. Don’t be ridiculous.” “Ridiculous would be having a heart attack,” he said. “I’m fit and healthy one minute and the next I wake up in this Godforsaken place.” “It’s not Godforsaken,” she said, “Don’t be disrespectful, my love.” “It’s not disrespectful, Shirley, and anyway, God would hardly check himself into a place like this, now, would he?” Shirley smiled, although she felt that was also disrespectful. She liked his bluntness, the way he said all the things she was too afraid to say herself. “There’s nothing wrong with your mind, Charles, I’ll give you that, or your tongue for that matter.” They both smiled and he closed his eyes. The nurse came in. “Everything alright?” she asked. “Yes, can he have some more light? It’s quite dark in here. Do you know how long he’ll be in for?” The nurse walked over to the windows and opened the blinds a fraction. It hardly made any difference to the light in the room. “He’ll be here at least a week. We’ll keep an eye on him and we will let you know. He needs to go on some medication for his blood pressure, though, but the doctor will explain it to you both. “Blood pressure?” asked Shirley. “The doctor will talk to him,” said the nurse, as she moved towards the door, trying to leave the room, like a beetle scuttling away from a predator. “But his blood pressure has always been fine,” said Shirley. “I think that’s unlikely,” said the nurse. He had a heart attack, Mrs. Stephens. I have to go, I have other patients to see.” She vanished, as though Shirley was about to swallow her up. Shirley couldn’t understand why his heart attack was induced by high blood pressure when Charles had always told her it was fine. Had he not gone to the doctor? Had he lied? Why didn’t she know? Her chest felt tight and she wanted to go home and clean the kitchen windows. FC Malby is a contributor to Unthology 8 and Hearing Voices: The Litro Anthology of New Fiction. Her short fiction won the Litro Magazine Environmental Disaster Fiction Competition. She was shortlisted by Ad Hoc Fiction, Lunate Fiction and TSS Publishing, and her work has been nominated for Non Poetry Publication of the Year in the Spillwords Press 2021 Awards. Her work is forthcoming in the Reflex Press Anthology, Vol. 5. Twitter/Instagram @fcmalby