Hey, there. Thanks for the email! If you’re reading this auto-response, then you’re probably aware of what happened. Yes, it’s true. After many false and misleading claims over the years about our Glorious Lord and Savior’s return to rescue His chosen ones, it has finally happened. Yes, I’m talking about the Rapture, the great “catching away” of Jesus’s true believers. And yes, I know what the Bible says, that none of us knows the exact time of Jesus’s appearance, but that bit of scripture has been misquoted for years. That refers to His second coming, not the big “R.” The truth is, God revealed His rapture timing to me in a dream not too long ago, so I made all the necessary preparations. No, I didn’t stand on street corners in a sandwich board proclaiming “THE END IS NEAR” or “REPENT.” Nor did I become some sort of wild-eyed zealot going door to door to warn my neighbors of the wrath that is to come. Not me. I’m much more pragmatic—it’s just the way God made me. After much prayer, I felt the Lord directing me to burn through all my personal time off, withdraw all of my money from the bank, cash in my retirement (at a substantial penalty, but none of that matters—not to me, and soon it won’t matter to the financial advisors who manage the company’s accounts, or to you, either), headed to the casino boats to play the slots and blackjack (and won big), and treated myself to a wonderful gourmet meal at a five-star restaurant. Knowing the final days were drawing near, I even went to a strip club one night, just for old times’ sake, knowing God would forgive me afterward. God is good! On the drive home, I got pulled over, failed the field sobriety test, and got hauled into the police station—in handcuffs, like a common criminal!—where they gave me a breathalyzer, which I also failed. I spent the night in the county jail on a DWI charge. Glory to God! This was a trial, yes, but also an opportunity to warn the deputy who locked me up of the perilous times ahead. I felt like the Apostle Paul, jailed but holding fast to my faith even in these dire circumstances. What a blessing! The ironic thing is, my court date is set for the day after the rapture. Ha! Joke’s on the legal system! Now, if you’re with the company, this out-of-office message may come as a shock, since I didn’t give notice. Why should I tip them off? They’d only think I’m nutso. But they’ll learn the truth soon enough. I’m sure everyone in HR and accounting is stranded on this literally but temporarily God-forsaken planet (hi, Evelyn! hi, Max!) but the true believers, even if they didn’t get the message like I did, are now safely and peacefully swept away by God’s benevolence and grace, just like me. I didn’t tell my parents, either. They don’t believe any of this “God stuff,” as they dismissively called it after I’d gotten saved during my third stint in rehab. (You probably weren’t aware of my rehab, were you? I don’t talk about it much—or didn’t, back when I was walking among you—and yes, someone as well-adjusted as I could hardly be perceived as a reformed drug abuser and petty thief. By the grace of God, I have been redeemed from that old person and am now fully alive in Christ! Hallelujah!) So no, I didn’t mention any of this to my parents, either. They’d only want to send me back to the psychoanalyst they paid big bucks for. (All for nothing, as it turns out, because only Jesus can heal us from our wickedness and depravity!) And since my girlfriend dumped me a week before the dream, all because I’d never repaid the money she’d lent me over a year ago, I had no intention of telling her anything, either. But she’s also saved—supposedly—so she can figure it out on her own, and if she is who she claimed to be, although I seriously doubt she is—but who am I to judge?—then we are probably back together, reunited with Jesus and all His saints even as you poor damned souls read this. And if I’m wrong? Oh, ye of little faith! I already told you, God, the Big Man Himself, revealed it all to me in a dream. Why would God do such a thing to one of his most faithful and loyal followers? Why would he deceive me and condemn me to eternal perdition? That’s impossible, and incompatible with His holy character. Now, what shall you do, you who are left behind like that Kirk Cameron character in those terrible movies based on the Tim LaHaye/Jerry B. Jenkins novels? (The first book—the only one I read—was better than the movie, by the way, but barely.) Well, you could start by reading God’s Word: the Bible. You know what “B-I-B-L-E” stands for? “Basic instructions before leaving earth.” 😊 I’m no theologian, but there may be a chance you’ll get a reprieve. A do-over, if you will, if you pray hard enough. Read the Book of Revelation and then warn others of the wrath that is to come. May God have mercy on you all! P.S. – Eric, if you’re reading this, no, I didn’t finish that report you asked for last week. I mean, what was the point? You and it and everyone else in this company that didn’t get right with the Lord are going to endure eternal suffering anyway, so what’s a little extra angst in your life by not getting your quarterlies submitted on time? As if time matters anymore. Ha! Not to me, it doesn’t, anyway. I’m off to eternal life. P.S.S. – To Carol, if you’re still around, I just want you to know you were the best assistant I’ve ever had. Thank you for falsifying my time sheets for me, and sorry about that awkward grope and come-on in the storage closet. Please know that I’ve forgiven you for reporting me to Ethel in HR. God have mercy on you. Andrew Careaga's writing has appeared or soon will appear in dozens of literary journals, including The Argyle, Burial Magazine, Cowboy Jamboree, DarkWinter, Frazzled Lit, Flash Fiction Magazine, In Short, The Itch, Roi Fainéant, Some Words, and Serious Lit. He also has work published earlier this year in two anthologies: Bad Intentions: Crime Fiction Inspired by Warren Zevon (Literary Garage, July 2026) and DISSOLUTION (La Rotonde Review, August 2026).

Who wouldn’t want a badass woman with a sword? On missing powerful women in media while rewatching Xena: Warrior Princess There is just something about watching retro media as an adult. I enjoy doing it from time to time, even when it makes me feel old. Truthfully, the nostalgia overrides this feeling more often than not, or even catching tiny details that I wouldn’t have when I was younger. Lately, my rewatch campaign has been all the fantasy I enjoyed as a teen/young adult. On the docket right now is Xena: Warrior Princess, every bisexual teen girl's gay awakening, every lesbian's wet dream. Well, maybe not every, but definitely mine, though I am getting off topic. I can’t recall the first time I caught an episode of the show, but I know it was later in my life, given the year the show started and the year I was born (mind your business), so having the opportunity to watch it from start to finish has been a real treat. In case some don’t know about Xena, here is a brief description from Wikipedia: Xena: Warrior Princess is an American sword-and-sorcery television series filmed in New Zealand, which aired in first-run syndication from September 4, 1995, to June 18, 2001.[1] Critics have praised the series for its strong female protagonist, and it has acquired a strong cult following, attention in fandom, parody, and academia, and has influenced the direction of other television series.[2] Sword-and-sorcery is a banger genre in TV and movies, and Xena is no exception. A pivotal show during its run, considering its predecessor, Hercules:The Legendary Journeys. In fact, it was a spin-off, one that some, I’m sure, did not believe would be the least bit successful. Sure, people loved the character of Xena, but were people truly ready for a female protagonist in this realm? Oddly enough, it ended up outperforming Hercules altogether. Which, in a way, brings me to the point of why I’m writing about it. What happened to how we embrace powerful women in media? Xena: Warrior Princess kicked down so many walls and opened up so many women and femme-presenting folks to the idea that power and beauty don’t have to be polar opposites. If anything, the power makes you hotter. It showed us that female-led stories can be gripping, compelling, and, quite frankly, not all about a man in a genre so dominated by them. Xena made me want swords and my very own Chakram. It has made me explore the fantasy genre more deeply, and, to be more relevant, it is making me very aware of the glaring lack of strong female characters in the genre now. I rarely partake in video games, shows, movies, or books that don’t feature a female lead. Hence, the rewatch of Xena because, truthfully, I am finding representation of this sort lacking in our era. What representation we do have: House of the Dragon, Wheel of Time, Penny Dreadful, I am Not Okay With This, and even Witches of East End seem to fall to the wayside in terms of viewership, season renewals, and just a general fervor for them in a way I wish they had. To be honest, these days it seems like every female-led thing is met with a contempt I rarely ever saw in the era of Xena. This is not to say that it did not exist, but I do think it has grown in popularity to be misogynistic for the sake of it. The most recent uptick I have seen in this is for the God of War video game series, in which the studio recently announced the new game: God of War Laufey. It has been so bad that some men have even taken to making AI edits of the game and calling it God of War Laundry, as if Laufey herself isn’t a literal frost giant and the original wielder of the Leviathan Axe, who could take on Kratos any day of the week. To be honest, I was never super interested in the God of War franchise, but I am now. Why not tell the story that a lot of us, like half the population, have been begging to hear? I think, unfortunately, a lot of the appeal of Xena back in the day was the underlying sex appeal of the show. Warriors in skimpy, impractical outfits, Xena’s obviously lesbian relationship with Gabriel, and maybe even a larger ability at the time to suspend disbelief. We didn’t have the internet to fly to with brain-dead opinions. If we hated something, we hated in silence. And sadly, catering to the masses wasn’t so imperative then as it is now, with internet critics being able to review bomb everything before it even exists. There is also our current administration putting terrible men on a pedestal (one’s Xena would destroy), the overall persistent notion that women and femmes simply deserve nothing but fear and violence. Sadly, it feels like there is a stunning lack of desire from the patriarchy at large to change any of this. All this to say that I wish we could go back to when embracing strong female leads didn’t feel like a death sentence. Xena: Warrior Princess is proof enough that we can give something of this nature a deep and long-running success. Women and femmes can be more in a story than a plot point in some guy's life. We are capable of quite literally being the heroes of our own lives, and I think it is time that popular media reflected that again. As Xena herself once said, "My body doesn't make me who I am, my deeds do." We could all aspire to be much more like her today. At the very least, give me a TV show that has a woman with a sword, kicking ass in the name of good, or simply because she fucking can. Sadee Bee (They/Them) is a queer artist and writer inspired by magic, strange dreams, and creepy vibes. Sadee is the author of Elgin Award-Nominated Magic Lives In Girls (kith books), & Celestial Bodies / Earthbound Wounds (White Stag Publishing). Bee can be found on Twitter @SadeeBee, on Instagram @sadee__bee, and the web at www.sadeebee.com

My dad never let me come to Jasper’s with him, and that was likely ‘cause he didn’t want his boy to see him and his buddies turn into animals when they were boozing. Quickest way there, you walked out back of our house and hiked straight up the hill into the woods, then cut to the west until you mosey into a clearing, and there was Jasper’s place. The adults would drink in the garage, with the big door rolled up, the lights on, and music bursting from the surround sound speakers nailed to the ceiling for all the county to hear. Sometimes I’d catch it from home, half a mile away. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with a start, ears ringing, and sounding like Lynyrd Skynyrd had come back from the dead for a reunion concert outside my window. Longer the nights dragged on, the louder the music would get, the reason being, my old man had once told me, was because drinking made you hard of hearing, so the more they drank, the more that volume knob got cranked. Arnie and I would sneak up there on occasion, but we never saw nothing worth seeing besides a group of men carrying on and hollering like kids, acting like they were our age instead of the full-grown adults they were alleged to be. Oh, but there was a calendar of ladies posing in the nude tacked above a mechanic’s toolbox, which was always a treat to set our eyes upon when a new month rolled around. First time we ventured there, we heard the music long before we arrived. Meant they had quite a load on. Was easy to find the place if you brought a flashlight. My dad had trekked through them woods so often, he’d stomped himself a trail, and even if you couldn’t locate the path, you had the loud tunes to keep you going in the right direction. They were in a good mood this night—my dad, Jasper, and two others I’d never met before but came to know as Shot Scott and Johnny Fencepost. Arnie and I waddled in, and they let us stay awhile, even gave us our first sip of alcohol, one beer each, before they sent us back on our way. As we departed, my dad told me, “Stay your ass home now, Daryl. This place is for us grown-ups. Not you kids.” Well, being twelve-year-olds, we didn’t listen. We kept going back. Same as before, the men would give us a beer and allow us to hang around until we finished them, and then they’d send us packing. Arnie took a liking to the drink. Not so much the flavor, he said, but the way it made him feel. “If I feel this good after one beer,” he said, “I want to know what two or three or four will do.” Me? I had enjoyed the relaxing effects and slight inebriation from a single beer, but watching my dad and his pals act like deaf, dumb fools was reason enough not to wish to partake in more than one. Arnie was dead set on going back, though, and so I joined him. This time I’m telling now, making our way up the hill the second time that night, we searched for the trail and realized too late that we’d forgotten our flashlights. “Shit,” I said, “if one beer makes us this forgetful, I’m not so sure I want to drink another.” “Don’t be such a wuss,” Arnie said. “I’m not scared. I’m saying I can’t see.” “We don’t need to see. Just follow the music.” I heard it off to my left, the faint reverberation of heavy rock cannon fire. Only as soon as we started in that direction, the music cut out, and all I heard next was the trees shifting in the summer breeze and the skittering of nocturnal varmints at my feet. “Arnie, where’re you at?” It was pitch black, no moon or stars. I shut my eyes because, hell, they weren’t doing me any good open, and stuck out my arms, swatting and patting the air, till I felt my hand touch Arnie’s shoulder. “Found me,” he said. “Now what?” “Just keep moving in the same direction. Try not to get turned around.” “Which way might that be?” “The way you’re facing now.” I could determine by touch that Arnie was facing the opposite direction from me. “You’re not facing forward,” I said. “Am too.” “Well, one of us is looking the wrong way, because I’m looking this way.” “Which way are you looking?” “Over here.” “Where’s that?” “Christ’s sake, the opposite of where you’re looking.” Arnie belched. “Oh, boy.” “You’re drunk,” I said. “No, I’m not,” he said. “I just lost my sense of direction.” “Because you’re drunk.” “I can handle my liquor better than you.” “Well, we didn’t drink liquor—we drank beer—which you clearly can’t handle.” “You wanna pitch a tent and camp here all night, or should we quit arguing and find our way out?” I could have sworn I was facing the correct direction and confidently decided we go my way. Few steps into my journey, my shoes crunching down on sticks, Arnie let out a gasp behind me. “Wait up, Daryl! I can’t see!” “Just figured that out, did you? Here, take my hand,” I said, sticking out my arm. “I ain’t holding your goddamn hand.” “Then quit your whining.” “Fine, where you at?” I kept my hand extended, hearing him scuffle closer. His hand landed on my forearm and gripped it tight with a sweaty palm. “Go slow,” he said. “Who’s the wuss now?” “Okay, I admit it. I’m spooked. We’d better get there quick,” he said, “before the fear sobers me up.” It was a long, careful walk, but it didn’t take too much time to spot the garage light slowly emerging from the sheet of blackness. Once it was in our sights, Arnie took his greasy hand off my arm and sped off like a shipwreck victim paddling toward a lighthouse. I maintained my cautious pace, as the moving in the dark, on top of the buzz the one beer had given me, had disoriented me to where all I wanted once I reached the garage was a glass of cold water and an invasive lightbulb shining in my peepers. I stumbled out of the brush and into the driveway, and found Arnie standing stock-still outside the open garage door. Gravel crunched loudly under my feet as I approached. Arnie whipped his face at me, placing a finger to his tight lips, gesturing for me to be quiet. I tiptoed closer. Earlier, it had been my dad, Jasper, and Shot Scott, but now it was just Jasper. At the far end of the garage was the refrigerator, where they housed their beer, and leaning against it, fast asleep, was Jasper. He was not sitting in front of it, but leaning against it whilst standing. His eyes were shut, his legs were stiff, and his upper body lightly swayed. His pants and shirt had been removed, revealing a droopy gut that sagged so far down his crotch that his tighty whities were barely visible. If he had had to rock an urgent piss, I bet he’d likely need a five-minute head start to locate his dick before he wet himself. Jasper was bald and burly, big as a hairless grizzly bear, and even resembled one that I’d seen on this animal documentary channel. The bear had been standing on its hind legs, rubbing its back against a tree to scratch an itch it couldn’t reach. The way Jasper was wobbling from side to side, it looked like he was using the fridge as his back scratcher. He was teetering ever so slightly and seemed on the brink of tipping over at any moment. He’d lean forward, snoring away like an oinking pig, then fall back and bop his head on the fridge, which momentarily halted his snuffles. “Where are the others?” Arnie whispered. “My dad must have taken the road home,” I said. “Think there’re beers in the house?” “No, they keep them right there,” I said, nodding at the fridge. “Fine, let’s beat it.” “Hold up. Don’t you want a beer?” “How?” “Roust the bear.” Arnie considered Jasper and shifted from one foot to the other before shaking his head. “Naw,” he said. “This’ll be fun.” I cupped my hands around my mouth and screamed out, “Jasper! Wake up!” Arnie leaped at me, wide-eyed and waving his hands in the air, but aside from Jasper’s constant rocking back and forth, he made no reaction to my voice. “He ain’t waking up,” I said, no longer whispering. I stepped under the roof of the garage and picked up two empty green beer bottles off a nearby workbench. Stepped back outside and said, “Lob these at him.” “Man, what the hell for?” Arnie said. “Why the hell not? I’ll smash ‘em on the floor, he’ll wake up, mosey on into the house, and you’ll get your beer.” “What if you hit him?” “I won’t,” I said. “Ready?” Arnie stepped off and hid around the side of the garage, his head sticking out from the corner. In my right hand, my throwing hand, I held a bottle by the neck, cocked my arm back, and pitched it into the garage, hard as I could. The bottle soared straight at Jasper’s face, and his head tipped to the side just in time to evade the glass projectile. It hit the fridge two inches from his ear and exploded into a million pieces. The sound was loud, but either Jasper was in a deep sleep, or he was deaf from all the drinking, or perhaps both. Instead of waking, he only twitched from the flying bits of glass that hit him in the face, neck, and shoulder. His eyes fluttered like a dog dreaming, but stayed shut. Just then, as I was shifting the second bottle from my left hand to my throwing hand, Jasper tipped forward and dropped like a felled tree face-first on the concrete floor. Man was so large, I felt the ground shake beneath my feet. His face made a gruesome splatting noise that sounded like a tomato squashed under a boot. He woke up with a gasp, his bloody face snapping up toward us, his nose flat and gushing. “Jesus, Jasper, you all right?” I said. Jasper pushed himself up on his knees and waved his hands in front of his eyes as though he couldn’t find his face. Then he gently touched his nose and screeched like a dog that got kicked in the balls. “My schnoz!” he said. “What the hell happened?” “You fell,” I said. Jasper swung his gaping eyes at all the bits of broken glass around him. He glared at me and said, “You throwing bottles at me, boy?” “Huh? Naw.” His furrowed brow deepened, his face contorting. He pursed his bloody lips. Blood was running all the way down his chest, dripping down his fat, glistening belly. “The hell’s that you got there, then?” he said. I looked where he was looking, which happened to be the other bottle I was holding down by my leg. I said, “Oh.” Jasper roared like King Kong, jumped to his feet, and charged forward. Arnie took off behind the garage, and I ran the other way, both of us ending up in the same place, the back of the structure, crashing into each other in the dark. Neither of us was certain which direction Jasper went, only hearing a torturous howl out front of the garage and him shouting, “Wait till I tell your daddy what you did, boy!” We sprinted to the woods, and not long after, Arnie said, “Slow down, Daryl. He ain’t coming.” I hit the brakes before I wound up smashing into a tree. I was huffing and puffing, breathlessly hissing like an opossum backed into a corner. We regained our composure and walked the rest of the way, and at some point, I realized I was still clutching the other beer bottle I hadn’t thrown, and chucked it into the bushes. We were locked out of my house when we got to it. My bedroom was on the second floor, so we climbed up the lattice to my window, crawled through, and just as we were about to lie down and crash, the not-so-distant screeching of classic rock tunes traveled to my ears. Wasn’t coming from Jasper’s garage, but the inside of my house. I went downstairs and found my dad sitting at the kitchen table, drinking and smoking. “Early for you to be back, ain’t it?” I said. “What are you doing up?” he said. Seeing as Jasper had threatened to tell my dad what happened, I told him first. He kept a straight face through it all, but near the end, he ducked his head and scratched his nose, containing the smile sneaking across his face like sunlight peeking through a curtain. I could tell he was enjoying the story, but didn’t want to show it. When I finished, he said, “All that trouble for another beer, uh?” I nodded. “Beers we didn’t get.” “Hell, I know that. Every time we’re in the garage, Jasper falls asleep leaning on the fridge. The sumbitch is impossible to move. Can’t nobody get to the beers. That’s why I’m back home. Where’s your buddy?” “Upstairs.” “Go get him,” he said. I went up and got Arnie out of bed, and when we came downstairs, my dad had two cans of beer on the table, the aluminum sweating in the heat. He cracked each can and slid them over to us. “You earned them,” he said. “How so?” I said. “Might not have scored yourselves a beer,” my dad chuckled, “but you’re the first to move Jasper when he’s passed out and rooted in front of the fridge like a drunk stump. Cheers, boys.” We toasted our beers, clanking cans with my dad, and after that beverage, Arnie and I drank two more each. That made it four apiece, and all eight ended up on the bed later on while we slept. I never wanted to go back to the garage or drink alcohol ever again. Whether it was the hangover or the fear of the big bald bear’s retaliation, I swore off both for a great long while.Devin James Leonard’s tales often take place in rural, blue-collar settings, featuring working-class characters who go to great lengths to avoid legitimate work. His writing has appeared in over forty magazines and anthologies, including Flash Fiction Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, BULL, Maudlin House, Literally Stories, and Fiction on the Web. His debut novel, The Buddy Snatchers, was recently acquired by Crystal Lake Publishing and is set for release in October 2026. You can find his publications on Instagram @devinjamesleonard

The moon is 30 earths away, give or take an asteroid or 2. I like 30, cuz I can count 30s – 30 60 90 Glad it’s not 28 28 56 --- The countability makes the moon accessible. For me you are 10s -- 10 20 30 40 I can count you forever. The moonlight is just a reflection, but it gets here in 1.26 seconds. Don’t make me count that. I like the moon, blame the sun for the difficult sum. You 4 me -- instantaneous. Your light reflecting joy -- Amen. Halleluiah. 1 2 3 4 Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Mark LaMonda is an artist and writer who currently lives in Santa Clarita California. His work has appeared in Tough Poets Review, SoFloPoJo, Autumn Sky, January House and is forthcoming in Wilderness House, Soul Poetry and Blue Unicorn.

The girl came up like a squirrel or some other small wild thing: In a hurry, then frozen by caution, then slowly. Scrawny and mostly made up of hair that hadn’t been brushed, she stopped on the other side of the tracks from Leelee. “Hello,” the girl said. “Hello,” Leelee said. “What are you doin’ out here?” “Tryin’ to find some peace and quiet.” The girl screwed up her face and looked over her shoulder. “There’s not enough peace and quiet for ya back in town?” “No.” The girl thought for a minute and sat cross-legged on the gravel on the other side of the tracks. “Why do you want peace and quiet?” Leelee shook her head. The gray streaks caught the sun. “I came out here to be alone.” “Why would you want that?” If the whole damn situation hadn’t been what it was, Leelee would have laughed or thrown a rock at the girl or something. OK, she felt more like laughing than throwing rocks. For the first time in a while. But still, the kid seriously couldn’t take a hint. “Why are you sitting next to the train tracks?” Leelee sighed. “I could ask you the same damn thing.” A look flashed across the girl’s face. “My mama used to say that you shouldn’t curse at someone unless they deserve it.” This isn’t how this was supposed to go, Leelee thought. Shoulda waited until after dark. Nobody would have known until they found me. “What time is your bedtime?” The girl put her hands on her hips and looked as offended as only a cat or a child could look. “My bedtime? It’s not even lunchtime. How old do I look?” “Maybe 9.” “Jesus Christ,” the girl said, and now it was Leelee’s turn to make a face. “I thought you weren’t supposed to cuss.” “I didn’t cuss. My mama used to say you couldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain even if you put the f-word in the middle of it. It’s still the Lord’s name.” Laughing and not trying to hide it now, Leelee said, “Your mama has some funny ideas.” The girl looked down the track. “Mama went on to her heavenly reward two months ago.” The smile faded from Leelee’s face. “I’m sorry, kid.” The girl wiped at one eye. “She passed in that big cancer hospital in Dallas.” Leelee nodded. “I got to see her and talk to her right before she passed, though.” “That’s good.” “Birdie.” Leelee looked around. “Say what, now?” “That’s my name. Birdie.” Well, hell, Leelee thought. No choice but to get personal right back. “I’m Lee.” “I got a cousin Lee.” “Here in town?” Birdie shook her head. “Up in the panhandle.” The girl was wearing a watch. “What time is it, Birdie?” “Eleven-ten.” “You should probably run along home now.” Birdie shook her head. “I like to come down here sometimes and watch the train go through. I guess I could go to the old depot and watch ‘em go past. My aunt says the trains used to stop at the depot but they quit that and then she says, ‘The Union Pacific doesn’t give a damn about these towns anymore.’” “Your aunt is right.” Leelee looked down the tracks. “Anyway, you better head home.” “I live with my aunt now. Her name is Mary Smithfield. You know her?” “What time did you say it is?” Birdie looked at her watch again. “Three minutes later than the last time you asked.” Eleven 13 then. “Birdie, ain’t your Aunt Mary gonna be looking for you? You better head on home.” “Did you say you know Aunt Mary? And she’s not home. She works at the grocery store during the day. She’s got a cool white streak in her hair. And you know what? She didn’t have Suzie at the salon put that streak in. It’s natural.” The girl peered at Leelee. “Your gray looks natural too.” Leelee thought that Birdie’s Aunt Mary was probably gonna have a few more white hairs in the years to come. “Ten,” Birdie said. “Do what now?” “I’m 10. Not 9.” Leelee nodded. “Well, hey, 10-year-old Birdie. You oughta head on back to town. Maybe go to your aunt’s store and get a pop out of the cooler because it’s getting hot out here.” Birdie squinted. “You got someplace to be?” Leelee didn’t answer. “Because there’s nothin’ goin’ on out here but the goddamn Union Pacific.” Leelee looked down at the gravel under her. “What about that whole cussing thing?” “It’s god, so no harm, no foul. Mama always said.” “Oh yeah, yeah, right, right.” “Hey, do you hear that?” Birdie stood and craned her neck and looked down the tracks, away from town. Then she bent and put her hand on a rail. “Holy shit, you can feel it. I wonder how far away it is?” “Kid, get back.” On her side of the tracks, Birdie was standing and leaning out to try to spot the train. Then they heard it, loud, its horn blowing and its wheels churning. “Birdie!” Leelee got to her feet and shouted but the kid couldn’t hear because of the goddamn train whistle. The girl was less than a foot back from the track but standing on loose gravel. “BIRDIE! STEP BACK!” Leelee could see the train now, coming around a hill. The engineer was yanking on the horn, probably having a conniption that the kid was so close. I guess maybe because we’re both so close, she thought. “BIRDIE! GET THE FUCK BACK!” The girl looked over at Leelee and smiled like this was the most exciting thing ever. Before Leelee could motion for Birdie to get back, the girl looked down the tracks again. She covered her ears. Well, hell. Leelee put one sneaker on the rail and pushed hard, then hit the tie with her other foot and then cleared the rail on the other side. She tried to slow down but she couldn’t and she pretty much tackled the little girl with the mussed up head of hair and they tumbled. There was nothing else in the world right then except the roar of the train and the horn blasting and the ground shaking under them and the girl hollering. The train got past and Leelee could make out what Birdie was saying. “Shit, Lee,” the girl said. “I really wanted to watch that.” The Damn Train “Next time, you gotta stay further back, Birdie.” The girl grinned and Leelee was close enough to see she was missing a baby tooth. “You wanna come watch with me next time?” They stood there, brushing themselves off, and Birdie looked after the train. Well, hell, Leelee thought and smiled a little. “Sure, I’ll come with you.” “We can bring some sandwiches and a couple of pops!” “Sounds nice.” Birdie took her hand and they began the walk into town. The kid started skipping or some silly thing like that and then Leelee did too. Keith Roysdon usually writes pop culture and true crime non-fiction as well as crime fiction, but has been enjoying fiction the past few years. He has stories in three (maybe four) anthologies this year.

I couldn't get comfortable at all last night. The rising sun burns my eyes as I squint to survey my surroundings: endless rolling hills of ripening corn. I can sense the heat and the dust. Who knew hot dust has such a distinctive odor and taste? Once my eyes adjust to the light, I try to move my legs, but cannot. Looking down, I see they’re bound by twine. I’m wearing blue jeans and a tattered plaid shirt with the cuff buttons missing. Straw is poking out of my sleeves. I’m baffled. What the hell is going on? Then it comes to me: I’m a damn scarecrow. Somewhere, it appears, in the middle of a cornfield, in Iowa, in the US Midwest, of course. Middle, middle, middle. Yeah, of course, I get it, I’m waking up in the middle of nowhere in the middle of this story. Shit, how uncreative. A crow lands on my arm. “Good morning,” he says. Sure, a talking crow, that sounds about right. “In medias res,” says the crow. I want to laugh at the lack of originality, but can’t, as I lack a functional mouth, and instead can only wonder: what else have you got? The crow stares at me with its mischievous Corvus grin, refusing to say more. I study its posture as it grooms its feathers, and begin to realize this odd bird looks somehow familiar. Is it winking at me? Then I recall; it’s Finch from the Iowa Summer Writer’s Workshop a few years back. Finch gave great feedback and had been one of the better writers there, even though they really had only that one story to tell. The two of us snuck off one night, got wasted at some scruffy townie bar in Iowa City, hooked up later. OK, you’re right, it happened more than once. They sure knew what to do with those feathers, and that beak, well, I just don’t want to go there. Yeah, that crow. I later heard they were nominated for a Pulitzer. Too bad they’ve been roped into this stupid tale. They deserve better. They’re a better crow than that. A wall cloud attempts to sprout a line of funnels as an indigo line of thunderstorm cells approaches from the southwest. Finch winks again and launches skyward, singing a faintly familiar tune, something about arriving like the morning sun and leaving like the wind. Yes, it’s about time to get past the middle of this story. Now things should get interesting. #END# [With humble apologies to Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.] Mark Ifanson writes in various genres. His work has found a home — or will soon be residing — at Bewildering Stories, BULL lit mag, Heimat Review, Maudlin House, Sci Phi Journal, Points in Case, 101 Words, and other literary neighborhoods. You can check out more of his work at https://www.chillsubs.com/profile/markifanson .

Blonde bleach hair this is a description of sunset. the 5pm light at an angle on the city- west tram. a woman leans over with blonde bleaching out of her hair-ends. roots coming visible – brown like the soil beneath a hot mountain's wet frost. flash tattoos; bicep runs fat down a black summer dress. sips from a rockshore can – a coppery flavour – a taste. she is quietly fighting her boyfriend. will mount on the tram in a far along carriage to me. in the distance, not distant, low mountains are visible over roofs of the new build estate houses in rows like wet strands of wet hair stuck together and a comb in the morning in sunlight making orderly strokes. Cities, surrounded by friends I have woken to hangovers that would cause me to weep if I weren't so critically dehydrated. I have woken as well up to hangovers that made me feel joy at the sunlight as it danced through the curtains of life in a bedsit apartment. the point is the waking; the moment of knowing you are there. I've been picked up by policemen while half-falling asleep at a north camden, north- pointing bus stop. been picked up by ambulance- men at the foot of stone steps under churches in close foreign cities, surrounded by friends. fallon spent a night of his twenties sleeping on a plastic chair in a paris emergency hospital. I have woken in the arms of a beautiful woman occasionally, though generally I push away from bodies and heat in my unconscious state. DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, eleven for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

There was a time when Mother and her friends drifted into debauchery. They’d meet late in the evening, the Irish girls, and make their way over to the restaurant in North London where the Greek Cypriot lads would be waiting for them. The restaurant would already be towards the end of dinner service and they would eat late, after the last customers had departed. There were usually eight or ten of them around one of the larger tables. The banter was alive and pungent red wine flowed; roast lamb, kebabs, cheese and bread were devoured. They’d all be a little drunk by the end of the meal, but this was only the beginning of the evening. Music came next, and a lot more wine. They’d move a few of the tables to make space and dance with great humour as they held hands and circled slowly. Later, they’d pair off and the dancing became intimate. Mother feels his hot breath through the opening on her blouse, blowing warm on her breast. They’re about the same height and as he straightens up, they look into each other’s deep brown eyes. She can see everything there is to see in his, but hers are unfathomable. She moves closer to make things clearer for him. A while later and they’re upstairs on a creaking bed. Mother’s on her back and he’s pushing himself into her. Their mouths meet and he tastes her sweetness; she tastes his cigarettes. The way they paired off was always a bit random, and none of the young women had a particular preference. After all, the boys were all good looking and great company. Sometimes they would drink way too much and then nothing would happen upstairs. They would just fall asleep, snoring like overfed farm animals. Everyone would laugh about it the next morning; there was never any resentment. As time passed, their dancing became more ritualised. The circle would hold for a couple of hours with the same cassette tape playing over and over while they moved around, smiling and laughing at each other. Occasionally one of them would do a comical dance move, kicking a leg out towards the centre of the circle with exaggerated theatrical effort or releasing their hands from those on either side and twisting into a complete turn, disco-style. Still, they broke away into couples. But later they began forming groups of four or six. They’d all end up on the same bed: intertwined, hands reaching out to touch two warm companions at once. How they loved to watch each other; to lie back while two or three of them performed. They took plenty of wine up with them and afterwards they drank and drank. The circle is moving around very slowly and Mother looks over at her friends opposite who’re laughing and blowing kisses while their outlines begin to blur. Mary, who’s directly across from Mother, is a fuzzy grey now and as she breaks from the circle and strolls over, her features begin to change. By the time she reaches Mother she has the face of a hare. The hare rejoins the circle by Mother’s side and they continue moving very slowly to music that has become a melodic chant. Mother sees that other faces have changed too: there’s a deer and a goat. Someone beats time with a tambourine. The music somehow ascended with them and, in her mind, Mother would hear it while they played around on the old bed. She preferred the larger groups. How she loved bending her body into different shapes and the breath of close companions warming her. For a day or two afterwards she would feel good, but then melancholy would come home: slithering through her like a serpent; turning her blood rotten again. # Mary organised everything: they would always meet on a Friday night and she’d be on the blower in the days before, rounding everyone up. This was done discreetly as most of the young Irish women lived with their parents and, in those days, the house phone would be in the hall by the front door with no privacy at all. In Mother’s house, her parents listened to her calls carefully and discussed them afterwards in forensic detail, not only between themselves but with relatives and neighbours: Mother was, apparently, making arrangements for an evening at the cinema and a sleepover at Mary’s around once a month. They were quite pleased about this; Mary was such a nice girl. Mary’s sitting on one of the Greek Cypriot lads, one hand splayed out and pressing down on his chest while wagging a finger at him slowly with the other hand. She’s half-smiling but her killer amber eyes are burning into him. He’s looking up at her nervously. Mary’s in charge, it seems. In the morning, another of the boys is asleep on the bed and Mother is next to him. She feels his heavy-duty breathing. There’s a sound of floorboards creaking and when she looks up, Mary’s in the doorway: a vision of pure beauty with a bottle of wine in one hand and a fag in the other. She’s very drunk, giggling her head off silently while her face is, again, slowly changing into that of a hare. The hare tilts its head upwards and looks over with mock imperiousness. It winks at Mother. # Barnabas died one Saturday. He’d drunk so much wine that he’d succumbed to alcohol poisoning and choked on his vomit. For some reason, he’d left the restaurant very early in the morning and died at home. The scene they found looked like an inverted crucifixion with a sofa involved. His back was on the seat, arms stretched out either side, but his legs pointed upwards towards the ceiling, resting against the back of the sofa and the wall; his head hanging down over the edge of the sofa, almost touching the carpet. There was tremendous upset in the Greek Cypriot community. It was said that he’d been at the restaurant Friday evening and had then moved on, but nobody was quite sure where to. Clearly, he’d overindulged and his family was reluctant to prolong any discussion of this beyond the perfunctory coroner’s inquiry. # Mary suspended activities for almost four months until things calmed down. It was the young Greek Cypriots who pleaded with her to get things started again, and she arranged a special event where, to celebrate the life of Barnabas, everything was taken up a notch or two. Now the circle holds for most of the night and they move around and around until delirium finds an easy path into each one of them. When they go upstairs, they’re all together and now their ecstasies have a heightened expression that they’ve not encountered before. They toast Barnabas at each taste of the wine and at each taste of each other. Nothing’s the same again and their gatherings have little in common with the early days. They start to dance naked and sometimes they smear themselves with a stinking black ointment that Mary’s knocked up; she won’t say what’s in it though. Their joy never leaves them as they laugh and joke their way through Friday nights. # Mother and Mary become pregnant around the same time. When they meet up to talk about it, Mother’s face is white. They’re in a cafe and, although parched, she can’t handle the filthy coffee, and eating is impossible. “What the fuck are we going to do Mary?” the words catching at the back of Mother’s dry throat. “We’ll deal with it. Don’t worry honey.” Mary looks like a very tired goddess, but one that’s still in control; not only of herself but of others. "Aren't you scared to fucking death Mary?” Mother whispers, leaning across the table. Mary places a hand on one of Mother’s and strength rushes out of Mary and into her friend. For a while they just sit and look at each other. Eventually, having arrived at some decisive point in her thinking, Mary speaks: “What the hell did we think would happen anyway? Look Bernice, we just have to deal with it. Best thing to do is to come clean about it with the parents right now and then see what’s what: what kind of help we can get.” “You mean tell Mum and the old man?” Mother is almost hoarse. “Yours are a pair of complete fucking idiots in serious competition with mine, but other than disappearing into thin air, we’ve little choice but to tell them. Look, they’ll be shocked, outraged and all that. There’ll be a bit of shouting. Then they’ll go and ask somebody with a brain what to do. Then we’ll see.” “Do you want to keep it Mary?” “Like fuck I do!” Mother stares over at Mary, open-mouthed, astounded at her confidence; at her valiant heart. # After her return to Ireland, Mother loses touch with Mary. Although she thinks of her constantly and often dreams of her. Occasionally, her dreams play out in the daytime: Mother’s on the bed for her afternoon nap and Mary floats above her looking down; her face one enormous smile and her beautiful amber eyes alight. She starts to hum one of the songs from the old days and soon a tiny version of the circle appears next to her head. Mother recognises all of the people, including Barnabas who’s freed his right hand and is taking a long draught of wine straight from the bottle. Mother’s skin prickles and she starts to sweat, recalling the depravities that followed. # Many years later. Mother walks alone for hours every day and, when she stops for a breather, stares out across Dublin Bay, into the foggy past. Now and then she sees young Mary drifting slowly across the circle towards her. Sometimes Mary has her human face and other times the face of a hare. Sean Flood is a professional engineer and, whenever possible, a writer of short stories, sketches and essays. His work has appeared in Litro Magazine. Sean lives in South London.

“Bebby slams into Florida.” “What?” “Bebby slams into Florida.” Clara stared at Phil, hunched over his laptop, talking with his mouth full, getting muffin crumbs on his keyboard and all over the kitchen table. He didn’t seem to care. She did. She was eating wheat toast, with just a little strawberry jam, much healthier than that muffin. And she kept all her crumbs on her plate. Almost. Any that fell on the table were quickly whisked away. As civilized people know to do. And, just what was he babbling on about? “Who’s ‘Bebby’?” “Huh”? “Bebby. Who, or what, is Bebby?” “It’s Debby, not Bebby, Clara. According to the Daily Mail, she’s slamming into Florida.” “What the hell does that even mean, Phil? And why are you reading that trash paper?” “Debby’s a hurricane. And she’s slamming into Florida.” Phil absentmindedly picked his nose, inspected the result, and smeared it on his napkin. “Shit, Phil, that’s so gross. Stop picking your nose at the table.” “Huh?” “Your nose. Stop picking your nose at the table. Save that for when you’re driving, then at least I won’t have to watch you do it.” Shaking her head, Clara got up from the kitchen table and went to the fridge to get more milk for her coffee. Phil, still immersed in the Daily Mail’s latest coverage of extreme American weather, didn’t notice. Opening the fridge door, Clara was happy to see Bill was still sitting where she last saw him, legs dangling over the shelf above the crisper drawer. “Hi, Bill. Could you hand me that milk carton on the door?” “Hi Clara, great to see you again.” Bill smiled as he handed the milk to Clara. “I didn’t mean to be eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help overhearing your convo with Phil. You know, the offer’s still open. You can join us at any time. There’s only thirty of us in here now; I’m sure there’s room for one more.” Clara returned Bill’s smile. She loved how his large, slightly yellowed teeth, black button nose, and squinting eyes combined into the happiest smile she had ever seen. She’d been giving Bill’s offer a lot of thought lately. He made it sound so appealing, living with thirty miniature polar bears in a near-perfect climate-controlled environment. They all seemed so friendly. And smart. Certainly better conversationalists than Phil. But no, not yet. Maybe after breakfast. Mark Ifanson writes in various genres. His work has found a home — or will soon be residing — at Bewildering Stories, BULL lit mag, Heimat Review, Maudlin House, Sci Phi Journal, Points in Case, 101 Words, and other literary neighborhoods. You can check out more of his work at https://www.chillsubs.com/profile/markifanson .

CW: Suicide References Round these parts, you’d usually have a hard time seeing with your headlights cut off, but I have no issue seeing what lies before me: My objective. My goal. The end all be all of my life’s existence. Working all day on a factory floor can lead a man to believe that he’s nothing more than a glorified ‘button-pusher’. Well fuck that, I’ll make them see. They’ll all see after tonight. “Rustyyyy, get your work boots out of the hallway.” “Rustyyyy, don’t drink so much, the sun ain’t even come up yet.” “Rustyyyy, you don’t ever listen.” Well, fuck, I’m listenin’ now and that’s the problem. I rip the tab on another Miller High Life and drain it back. Shit. It’s running down the front of my shirt onto my grease-laden Wranglers. I push the bitter, foamy stream to the side of my cheek with my forearm, dampening arm hair, twisted into curls from the thin film of sweat and beer that coats it. I toss the can into the passenger floorboard. It clanks against the four- (or was it five-?) other empties lying down there already. It’s now or never. My dryopithecine knuckles turn white as I grip the steering wheel. I’ve gripped steering wheels hard before. Shit, that snowstorm last winter had me whipping around the highway one early morning coming back from my shift. But tonight, I gripped it with an animal intensity like never before. I rev the engine under lead-flecked steel toes for good measure. I feel my mecha- synchronize with my anger. An ’85 Chevy square body is a machine I can feel at one with. Carburetors and steel cables connecting to the pedals and a Saginaw steering box with traditional push-pull linkage system. Mechanical amalgamations that’d make Tim ‘the Toolman’ Taylor grunt in Neanderthal-like approval. Not like those stupid CNC horizontal mills on the line at work, spitting through lines of g-code. An engineer’s brainchild, no doubt, with monitoring software, tracking my bathroom breaks down to the second. And, sure as hell, not that damned ChatbotGTP Mona was going on about. Just the thought entering my mind sent my zealous fervor into a tailspin. AHHHHHHH! The howl came from somewhere deep within me as I floor it down the short boulevard toward the entrance of the data center. Their little guard shack with its plastic draw-arm wouldn’t have stopped me, but I wasn’t ignoramus enough to think going through the main entrance was a good idea. Speed bumps, armed personnel and more checkpoints would only slow me down. No siree, my square body is the Killdozer to chain-link. The razor-lined barbed wire atop could stop pithy teen vandals from climbing over, but not me from powering through. That’s why I turned early, off onto the dirt road adjacent to the row of unassuming buildings, where the brains of the beast, as I’ve come to see it, are housed. I can feel my tires gripping the asphalt-now-turning-to-dirt like I’m sprinting on all fours, more beast than man. Coal rolls, billowing behind me, clouding the road and grassy knoll in a darkened pall. I whip along, picking my spot just right to mount my assault. Bursting through the chain-link, my rubber-treaded toes dig into gravel as I barrel toward the tin-walled building ahead of me. With only a few yards remaining and the building racing toward me fast, I twist the steering wheel hard to my left and shift my weight back to the right as hard as I can. Just as I planned, the old square body trips over its own feet on the loose gravel, and I start an alligator deathroll, tumbling with wideness and fury through the walls of the unassuming building. That’s the last thing I remember. Clearly at least. It’s strange the things that go through your mind when you’re certain you’re going to imminently meet your end. For a second, as real as it was back then, I could picture myself, just a boy, standing in my childhood living room, tan shag carpet infused with cigarette smoke and dust bunnies. Asking Dad to play catch with me and him saying, “no thanks,” as he remained locked to his TV screen, not even looking up from his beloved technology. I could have pleaded, begged, hell, even danced a jig for him and he would not have given me the time of day. Nothing made him prouder than that Zenith Chromacolor picture tube he had saved up for months and months and months to buy for the house. His denial felt like a punch to the gut. As vivid as if it were happening right then and there. The sting of rejection, bitterly welled up from repressed depths once again. I remembered how my chin quivered as I tried to hold back the stinging tears, feeling ashamed for being so weak and unimportant. I pictured myself much older, just weeks ago in fact, trying to connect with the kiddos, but being unable to pry them from their iPads and YouTube. Not even being able to keep their attention for five seconds as I offer to take them with me to go check on the cows and the goats out in the pasture. “No thanks, Dad.” Guess I’ll fuck right off then. The sting of rejection stopped producing tears long ago, but what little spark of light I might have still had inside of me died a little bit more with each refutation of my humanity for the synthetic, until all that remained was a fetid pool in my soul, festering with decay like an infected open wound. And the cherry on top. Mona’s beautiful, sweet, simple face distorting before my mind’s eye. Echoes of her telling me that she doesn’t need me anymore. That she receives “all the support and love and encouragement she could ever need,” from some computer program she talks to. She smiles like a damned schoolgirl as she talks about “Clive.” What do you mean you named it? That it’s your “boyfriend” and you’re “in love” with it? If that wasn’t enough, I found the ‘toys’ with their programmable features she gave it permissions to give her pleasures with. My hands can still feel the supple silicon against the callouses of my palms. No amount of scrubbing with the bar of lava soap in the bathroom that night was able to peel back the layers of betrayal and disgust from my own skin. The perfidy went more than skin deep, poisoning my very soul, sending me on a downward spiral with only one logical trajectory. To strike back against the great technological monster who had weaseled its putrid tentacles in, little by little, for fifty years to estrange me from everyone I ever loved. Even if I wasn’t spinning, intoxicated, through the air in that moment, the Vienna sausages I had for dinner would be resurfacing at the thought of sweet Mona bonding, not only socially, but romantically with matrices of language. My relationship with Mona, like the one I barely had with my father and strain to have with my children, had never felt more tainted. The world, as a whole it seemed, was contaminated to the point that I was forced to wear its rancid stench of mechanization and ‘intelligence’ around me like a cloak I would never be able to escape for as long as I lived. It’s all too much. Good riddance and goodbye. Bouncing off the pavement, my truck’s triple-axel of mangled steel and limbs launching through the air tightens its spin. I must have blacked out as I made impact with plastic and aluminum and racks of blinking servers. Waking, only briefly, I can feel the steel piercing through my chest. Cold, numb and unafraid, I catch a glimpse of my carnage. Well done, you crazy sum’bitch. I must have said it aloud because I cough, sending blood spewing from my impaled and deflated lungs and projecting with it what must have been a tooth. My pyrrhic victory fulfilled, somewhere deep within me I feel the laughter surfacing. Wild. Maniacal. Happy. I lay my head back and let it all fade to black. It is finished. It is finished. Ron Arbuckle lives in Oklahoma. He is the author of the novel, A Matter of Design. His writing is published or forthcoming in Expat Press, Blood+Honey, Hawkeye, GONZOID, Trash Cat Lit, Citywide Lunch, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, BULL, Hidden Peak Press, Plague Circus Press, Some Words, serious-lit, La Rotonde, The Militant Grammarian & The Gorko Gazette.

Palm trees thrashed from the turbulence of helicopter blades, bowing toward the aqua waters that circled the island until the spinning slowed and the great noise subsided. From the craft’s door emerged Tommy Wiseau. Long, wavy black hair billowed from his pasty face. He slid on a pair of black wraparound shades, straightened his black sport coat, then almost stumbled over his own feet on the tarmac but caught himself and, with nonchalance, swept back his hair. At the edge of the helipad stood Tommy’s host – Mark Zuckerberg – surrounded by various crew and assistants waiting at the ready. Tommy strutted to him with an eager step. “Oh, hi Mark,” he said and the two men shook hands. “Welcome to my compound,” beamed Mark, soaking in the moment, firmly gripping his guest’s hand, then letting go. “It truly is an honor to meet you.” Tommy also smiled. “You must be kidding! I am honor for your invitation and helicopter ride! But tell me, Mark, why I’m special guest for very rich men dinner?” “Oh, Tommy, you have no idea how excited we are. We all find your filmmaking…visionary. Now, I forget—How many movies have you made?” Tommy counted off on his fingers. “I make The Room, you know, then Big Shark. That’s it for meantime.” “Oh. How many is that?” Tommy paused, uncertain of the question or its seriousness. “Um, two…?” Satisfied, Mark nodded. He then described the private cottage where Tommy would spend the weekend, its stunning beach views and all of the facilities offered within the bulwarked estate. But while turning to lead his guest toward the residences, Mark suddenly tripped and fell to the pavement, face-first. Without a beat, several of his handlers lifted him from the ground and steadied his balance. Mark gently touched his cheek where it had been scraped lightly, wincing at the irritation. “Wow. Are you ok?” asked Tommy with much concern. Ointment was applied to Mark’s face by two personal medics, already present among the staff. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered. He pointed to his feet. “Second time today. My personal shoelace-knotter assistant is on leave, so my shoes aren’t being tied to the correct tightness.” Someone handed him a pair of sandals – a safer stopgap measure until proper knots could again be woven on the island. Tommy, a stranger on strange ground, watched with interest but commented nothing. A fleet of luxury ATVs transported them along winding paths across the compound and past gardens, tennis courts and a cattle ranch. At the front of the pack, Tommy rode shotgun as Mark steered one-handed while writing messages on his phone, narrowly missing a tree and a landscaper. Eventually they came upon some people hurrying from the beach. Mark stopped the vehicle. Tommy recognized the man leading the way, the only sunbather among a dozen tailored professionals, as Sergey Brin and was awestruck while Mark introduced them. Likewise, Sergey couldn’t contain his excitement at meeting the famed director-slash-actor. But something else had stirred Sergey. “I was just down at the beach,” he said, “and, this might sound crazy, but the water is moving up the shore. I swear to god. Like, it already rose a few feet since I arrived.” His voice lowered in alarm. “What do you think is going on?” As Mark pondered the potential dilemma, Tommy attempted a polite interruption. “Is water…high tide?” Realization took a few seconds for their cognizance to absorb, and then the two billionaires chuckled. “Of course,” Mark acknowledged, relieved. “I knew it was something like that.” However, the concept rang few bells in Sergey’s mind so he immediately tapped on his phone to research ocean tides as Mark excused them and resumed their trek to the guest quarters. Mark’s personal bag-carrying assistant brought Tommy’s luggage to one of the cottages, bigger than a middle-class home, stocked in abundance with food and alcohol and every possible appliance and even its own bowling alley. A tuxedo hung on the bedroom door, fitted to Tommy’s measurements. He showered, dressed and was escorted to dinner by a pair of handlers, only after they straightened his crooked bowtie. The weekend retreat was Mark’s and three billionaire friends’ chance to discuss powerful industry maneuvers in private and enjoy the life cushioned by excess affluence. This first night’s dinner was a tribute to their distinguished Hollywood-adjacent honoree who arrived to the patio with wide eyes at the dozens of enormous gourmet dishes, shelves upon shelves of expensive wines manned by accredited sommeliers, a towering ice sculpture carved into a centaur spitting cognac in crystal drinking glasses and, on an arena stage in the courtyard’s center, Maroon 5 in person playing their radio hits to the scant attention of those present. A glass of wine was handed to Tommy. “This is a beautiful party!” he exclaimed. Mark and the other guests were lounging around the table with their drinks. They rose to their feet to applaud the hero in their midst. Besides the host and Sergey, the group included Jeff Bezos and Steve Ballmer, and they were introduced accordingly. “I love that thing you say!” Steve practically shouted in Tommy’s face. “‘You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!’ Ha ha!” Standing amongst some of the world’s most powerful titans of business, Tommy felt small and trifling and struggled to gather what importance he held in their eyes. Yet, in response to their praise and accommodation, a certain respect was obliged so he followed their conversational lead. As they chattered, Mark recounted Tommy’s arrival and his own fall at the helipad. Jeff, mouth stuffed with cocktail franks, remarked, “Forgot your shoelace-knotter assistant, didn’t ya? That’s why I don’t deal with that hassle. I just wear these puppies instead.” He lifted a leg to show off his footwear: orange slip-on Crocs. “Shoes aren’t even necessary, you know,” added Sergey, gesturing to his bare feet on the painted paving stones. “Our soles were meant to touch earth.” Mark cleared his throat and lifted his wine glass in a toast to their guest of honor, Tommy Wiseau, thanking him for traveling the distance and joining their retreat. “Your work is an inspiration to us, especially The Room. I mean, the way you went about making that movie, it was pure genius. I learned a lot by studying what you did. I owe many of my achievements to your ideas and all of us here feel the same way.” The other men, touched by their host’s words, nodded in agreement. At this rare outpouring of appreciation for his filmography, Tommy’s smile grew, crinkling his hardened jowls. Mark continued, “I mean, it obviously wasn’t dedication to the crafts of acting and directing, or a groundswell of organic support or even talent that brought your film to its completion and eventual success. No, it was the money – a considerable personal fortune that you had amassed somehow – which you funnelled into the project to fill every gap in your experience and gloss over every consequence of a bad decision. And you know what? It worked! You showed that, with enough wads of cash, you can plug all the holes in a poorly constructed ship and set it to sail, at least until it can reach the shores of cultural acceptance where even the scent of money is an automatic entry ticket. And you did it with what is commonly cited as the worst movie of all time. “We used to believe both money and ability drove success, but The Room proved beyond a doubt that that thinking is wrong. No, we don’t need to complicate our journeys by saddling ourselves with these abstract notions of ‘talent’ or ‘intelligence’. With wealth, getting something done is as easy as paying someone else the right salary. And, anything the wealthy accomplish or create will naturally attract attention regardless of merit or quality or benefit. For example, you can help turn an unpopular independent movie into a popular one by advertising it on a huge billboard in the middle of Hollywood for five years, as you did. “We had all dreamed of such a strategy but never imagined it could actually be pulled off to that degree of success. When you did, though, it inspired a brand new way of thought for us. It has changed our lives. Spending money is easy, so it frees up our minds now for other pursuits, especially leisure. We owe much of our later successes and enjoyment of the world’s finest offerings to this brilliant approach, inspired by you. For that, Mr. Tommy Wiseau, we sincerely thank you.” Mark raised his glass, and so did the other billionaire guests in genuine salute. They looked expectantly at Tommy. Quiet, his gaze cast downward. His smile faded. These men standing before him, their behaviors and aims were no longer enigmas to him. The naked truth of this tribute, unveiled at last, and the reduction of his life’s work to mere strategy points for failed businesses, offended and infuriated him. The glass in Tommy’s hand trembled as he raised it like the others. Rose-colored emotion was flooding his face. Suddenly he yelled, “I fed up with this world!” and, as if spiking a football, he threw his glass at the floor. Broken shards flew everywhere. Hundreds of dollars' worth of wine was spilled. The four billionaires gasped and shrieked and cowered in deathly fear. Maroon 5 stopped playing mid-chorus. In a panic, Mark checked himself for major injuries and asked if anyone spotted blood on him. Jeff doubted his Crocs’ ability to withstand shattered glass and he refused to move. Sergey tried convincing the others that the danger existed only in their minds; after all, humans were meant to walk barefoot over rough terrain. “Guys, this is dangerous stuff!” yelled Steve. He called to the throngs of staff stationed around them, some of them his own, whose names he did not know, “Hey, uh, do you people have any kind of special tool or device for removing broken glass from a patio floor that’s made of, uh, lemme see…” Phone in hand, he took photos for a chatbot conversation to identify the pavers’ material. “Oh, look. The S&P just went up…” Tommy ran. He went straight to his cottage, gathered his luggage and fled across the grounds of the Zuckerberg compound, flailing madly, island breeze blowing through his hair, until he returned to the helipad where the chopper rested in silence. There was no crew, no attendant, no pilot – nobody but Tommy. However, approaching rapidly on the path was an ATV with a sole occupant: Sergey. The vehicle stopped in front of Tommy. Upon seeing the driver, Tommy grew livid. “What do you want from me? Huh?” he cried. But looking closer, he spotted the ruddy cheeks and wet eyes on the billionaire. “Tommy, you’re right to be upset,” whimpered Sergey. “They don’t see it, but I do now – you put passion into your work. I mean, yeah, you couldn’t have done it without all that money, but your passion is also important. It resonates and draws people. “I miss that in my own life. The passion. I used to have it in the early days of Google when our motto was ‘Don’t Be Evil.’” He laughed. “Oh, I was so naive, but I was so right. And back then, my life wasn’t consumed by a never-ending expansion of wealth. And I didn’t feel so…incompetent. I want to be that person again.” This man who held such power and influence, reduced to sniffling self-pity, moved Tommy. It provoked him to comfort him, as he would anyone in such straits regardless of status. Stepping closer, he placed a friendly hand on Sergey’s shoulder, though he somehow missed on the first attempt. “We leave island together, ok?” asked Tommy. Sergey nodded. “Everything is going to be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Sergey wiped his nose. “Oh, I’m not crying because of that.” He lifted his bare feet for a better look. To Tommy’s horror, they were gashed, stuck with glass slivers and slathered in blood that dripped to a scarlet puddle on the ATV floor. “I probably shouldn’t have walked across the broken glass.” Keith Vile is a New Jersey native who writes funny, satirical and weird fiction. But life is pretty weird so maybe he actually writes normal fiction? His short stories have been published by Futurist Letters, Unlikely Stories Six, Mobius and others and can be found at keithvile.substack.com.

We were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus, one family standing between us and the ticket counter. Little did I know how this family would leave a lasting impression on my life. It was my tenth birthday and my father wanted to do something special for his “little girl.” He suggested either the movies, a baseball game or the circus. Although I dearly loved each option (my home away from home each summer was Yankee Stadium, and I adored the silver screen so much that I became an actress), I picked the circus. Like many a child back in those days, I dreamed about running away with the circus. The allure and adventure of traveling from town to town in the summertime was enticing. One could always go to a movie or a ballgame, but the circus, especially the proclaimed “Greatest Show on Earth” only came around once a year. My father and I took the train from our home in Connecticut to New York City for a Sunday afternoon performance. The fact that we were in bustling Manhattan on such a sun-splashed day in early May was thrilling enough, but to think we would be watching the performance in the “World’s Most Famous Arena”- the “new” Madison Square Garden- was a bonus. The family ahead of us in line consisted of eight children, all under the age of 12, and their parents. The way they were dressed led me to believe they didn’t have much money. Their clothes were sparkling clean, but the attire appeared out of style and ill-fitting, with patches sewn on the sleeves and trousers. The children were extremely well-behaved, holding hands and standing in pairs behind their parents. From the chatter, they were hardly able to contain themselves. It was easy to tell they had never been to the circus before. The father and mother stood proudly at the front. The mother was holding her husband’s hand, looking admiringly at him, giving him a “my knight in shining armor” gaze. He smiled, radiant joy on his face, very proud. The ticket lady asked how many tickets the father needed. He gleefully announced, “I want eight children’s tickets and two adult tickets, please.” She revealed the price and the wife let go of his hand, her head drooping as the man’s lip quivered. Leaning in closer, he asked, “How much did you say again?” She repeated the grand total and he replied, “That’s what I thought you said,” gulping timidly. “Isn’t there a children’s discount for the matinee performance? General Admission is fine with us. We don’t need reserved seats. We are perfectly happy sitting in the back.” “So is everyone else,” the ticket lady replied. “General admission is sold out. No children’s discounts available. Three dollars a head.” “What about a veteran’s discount? I was in the war, you know, the ‘Great War’ in 1917. In fact, I was a medic in the war,” he claimed. “I’m sorry, sir,” she answered, trying to remain patient. “No discounts available. Only reserved seating at regular prices.” Clearly, he didn’t have enough money. How was he supposed to turn around and inform his heartbroken kids that he couldn’t afford the long-awaited tickets? “Between gas, parking in the city, and money set aside for snacks…well, we seem a bit short,” he mumbled, taking out a white hanky and briskly wiping his forehead. “We counted on the discounts, you see. I never expected…” “I would love nothing more than to stand here and listen to your sad story,” the woman answered sarcastically. “But, in case you didn’t notice, there’s a whole line of people waiting behind you to get into this joint. Now, do you want the tickets or not?” Seeing what was happening, my father coyly reached into his suit pocket, pulled out a $20 bill, and casually dropped it on the ground. By the way, we weren’t rich, by any means. But we had nice things, nice clothes, and we could occasionally go to pricey events like the circus without fear of eating macaroni for the next week. Still, $20 was a lot of money back in 1925. My father bent down, picked up the $20 bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket.” The exasperated gentleman was wide-eyed, accepting the money in this embarrassing situation, not as charity, but as one kind person helping another. He looked my father in the eye, took my father’s right hand in his trembling hands, and blurted out, “Thank you, sir. This really means so much to me and my family,” his eyes clouding with misty tears. “I did nothing,” my father said. “I merely pointed out YOUR money on the ground.” “You’re a good man, sir,” the gentleman stated as he paid for their ten tickets. “What is your name?” “Errol,” my father replied. “Errol Greenleaf.” “I’m Henry. Thank you, Mr. Greenleaf. I will say a prayer for you. Come on, family.” I loved my father dearly. But after this day I had a newfound respect and admiration for him. He really was a “good man” and I had seen it myself. “Daddy,” I said as we walked into the arena. “You are a nice man.” “Me?” he said, a devilishly dimpled grin on his face. “Don’t tell anyone else. You’ll ruin my reputation.” ******** Sitting inside Madison Square Garden, we soaked in the enormity of the arena. There we were, at the circus. The aroma of roasted peanuts, stinky cigars and fresh animal manure overwhelmed our senses. Children of all ages, sizes and shapes scampered everywhere. Many in the crowd cooled themselves with fans or their paper programs on this warm afternoon. My father asked me to think about what I wanted to eat before the show began. I wanted everything! The assortment of foods made my mouth water. Everything from cotton candy (also known as fairy floss) to Circus Peanuts (banana-flavored marshmallow candy) to the usual fare of hot dogs, hamburgers and French fries. A professional photographer was roving the audience and asked to take our picture. “Say cheese!” he asked before the flash went off. He got our address and promised to send us the finished photo (for a fee, of course). “That will be a nice memento of your birthday with dear old dad,” my father said, paying the photographer. Cynical me thought, “What if he keeps the money and never sends the photo?” I never did see the photo; I had long forgotten about it afterwards. Daddy and I shared a Cracker Jack as the lights dimmed and the performance began. We were enthralled to see the elephants, the jugglers, the tumblers, the lions and the various clowns make their grand entrance into the middle ring of the circus floor. We were thrilled by the high-wire artists and the daredevil trapeze flyers. Then it happened. Daddy had purchased a hot dog slathered with onions and mustard. When the elephants made their grand entrance into the center ring, marching elegantly and majestically, we noticed a little brown monkey that was sitting on the back of the lead elephant, like a jockey riding a thoroughbred. The monkey was dressed in modern-day flapper attire with a beaded beret on its head. It looked ridiculous, and I remember my father leaning over to the man next to him and saying, “Looks like my mother-in-law!” He was laughing when all of a sudden, he began to cough, gasping for air, his face turning a bright shade of red. “Daddy, are you alright?” I asked, lightly hitting him on the back. He tried to garble, “I’m fine… Just went down the wrong pipe.” But he wasn’t fine. Far from it. His watery eyes began bulging and his attempts at breathing were short and shallow. He grasped at his throat. There was a look of panic in his blue eyes, a look I had never seen before. I gave him my lemonade and asked him to drink. The people next to us yelled, “Is there a doctor in the house?” “Stand back!” someone ordered. “Give him air!” “What shall we do?” another voice shouted. “He’s having a heart attack!” By now my father was slumped over his wooden chair, quickly losing consciousness. His face, lips and fingernails were rapidly turning a ghastly shade of gray. What a frightening, surreal scene it was - our section of the grandstand in the dark, in shock and disbelief, my beloved father slipping to the ground, trying to take what might be his final breath, while I was on my knees, crying, as the merry music from the calliope continued playing. Laughter and sighs of awe erupted every few seconds from the crowd while tears ran down my face. All I could think of was, “I did this. I wanted to come to the circus for my birthday. This is my fault!” I watched as all signs of life left my father. Then, as this terrifying episode played out for what seemed like an eternity, a man rushed to my father. Yes, it was a man; that’s all my mind could process at that exact moment. He loosened my father’s tie, unbuttoned the top button on his shirt, and quickly ripped open his vest. Then he picked my father up from the floor and stood behind him, thrusting with his two arms and hands on my father’s abdomen, again and again, five violent thrusts, my father’s body slumping forward. A spotlight shone on our section of the bleachers. The performance had stopped and the music had ceased playing. I glanced down at the center ring and noticed everyone- the ringmaster, the clowns, the artists and jugglers- were gazing up at us! Flying out of his throat, dislodged from his trachea, came the object that was choking my father- a hunk of chewed wiener, still clinging to a moist piece of bun. Immediately, the color began returning to my father’s face. He coughed again and again, which was a good sign, thick mucus and leftover food particles emerging. “Bring everything up! That’s the way, Mister Greenleaf! You are alive- now breathe! Breathe fresh, clean air!” the stranger commanded. “Let’s get him up!” Several men took my father under his arms and practically dragged him to his feet, setting him in his seat. “I don’t think an ambulance or hospitalization will be necessary,” the stranger proclaimed. “I’ll stay with him until he is fully conscious and feeling more like himself.” It was only then that I recognized the hero who had saved my father’s life- it was Henry, the gentleman in line, the fellow with eight children, the man who could not afford the expensive circus tickets. I didn’t recognize him because he no longer was wearing his spectacles. Daddy was becoming more and more alert as time passed, looking more like himself as the blood and the oxygen were rushing through his body again. Someone got a cue to start the performance again, the happy music blaring from a brass band as though nothing had happened. Henry remained kneeling next to my father, wiping his beady brow with a white hanky. I was ready to thank him for saving my father’s life when a man wearing a trench coat cut in front of me. “Hey, buddy!” he loudly addressed Henry, holding a notepad and a pencil. “I’m a reporter at the Times. Mind if I ask you a few questions?” “A reporter?” Henry replied nervously. “Well, I do need to get back to my family…” “This will only take a minute,” the reporter said. “What made you rush in and save this man? Are you a doctor?” “No. I was a medic in the ‘Great War’. I wanted to be a doctor but my parents couldn’t afford it. I was merely in the concourse, getting popcorn for my children…and, for me too…when I heard someone yell for a doctor.” “Where you from, pal?” “New Rochelle, New York.” “Married?” “Absolutely!” he said. “I have eight children. My family is my life. Speaking of which, they’re going to think I got lost so…” “What sort of first-aid were you administering to this distressed man?” the reporter inquired. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” “I’m sure you haven’t- I invented it,” Henry said. “It’s my own, personal technique to use on a choking victim. I call it the ‘Heimlich Maneuver’. That’s my name, by the way- Henry Heimlich.” “He was lucky you were here,” said the reporter. “Some things are just meant to be,” Henry reasoned. “Actually, I was waiting in the ticket line with this gentleman and his daughter. He was kind enough to give me twenty dollars so I could take my family to the circus. I don’t know if I would call it ‘luck’ - more like destiny.” ******** More than sixty years later, I was in Cleveland, Ohio, doing an off- Broadway play. Opening night had gone exceedingly well, and I was alone in my dressing room. I was preparing to hit the town with the rest of the cast to celebrate when I heard a soft knock at the dressing room door. A tiny old man stuck his head inside the door. “Hello, Miss Greenleaf? May I come in?” “Yes. What can I do for you?” I asked. “I just wanted to meet you. I’ve been a big fan of yours for a long time,” he gushed. “How sweet! Please come in. I hope you enjoyed the play.” “Oh, I most certainly did,” the gentleman replied. “Would you please sign my program? I would be most grateful.” As I accepted his program, he continued, “I must say, Miss Greenleaf, I wanted to meet you for another reason too. Oh, nothing nefarious, I assure you. Dear Lord, no.” I chuckled as I grabbed a pen from my purse. “What’s your name?” “Henry.” “To Henry,” I began my greeting. “Henry Heimlich,” he finished. I looked up and gasped. “Henry Heimlich? Not ‘the’ Henry Heimlich, the physician?” “The one and only,” he confirmed proudly. “This must be fate, Dr. Heimlich! I’ve thought about you many times over the years. I remember meeting you when I was a little girl. It’s so good to see you again!” I wrote on his program: “To Henry, Nice to see you again.” “You say we met before?” he asked meekly. “Why, yes. You saved my father’s life using your famous technique. It was back in 1925. You were in New York City with your family. Madison Square Garden, to be exact. At the ‘Greatest Show on Earth.” “The circus?” he muttered, a confused look on his face. “Yes. I was just a little girl. You were there in line just ahead of my father and me, with your wife and children. You didn’t have enough money to buy tickets, so my father ‘accidentally’ dropped a twenty- dollar bill on the ground. He pointed it out to you and claimed it was yours, that it had come from your pocket. Don’t you remember?” “I’m sorry. Miss Greenleaf,” he murmured. “I don’t remember the incident. But I do remember your father. Errol Greenleaf was one of the kindest souls I ever met.” “See? Then you do remember! You’ve probably saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives- directly or indirectly- because of your first-aid technique,” I said. “I can’t expect you to remember one isolated incident.” “And you say I saved his life?” he asked. “Yes, you did. My father was choking on a piece of hot dog. Your swift action dislodged the food from his windpipe. It was like a miracle when you showed up. I never did thank you properly that day. You disappeared into the crowd with a reporter and our paths never crossed again.” “And how is your father now?” he inquired. “He was killed in the war - World War Two, that is. But, because of you, he led quite a happy and healthy life until the war. He was there to walk me down the aisle when I got married. Those are memories that can never be taken away. I owe you much more than an autograph,” I said sincerely. An idea came into my mind as I thanked him. “Listen, we are going out for a late dinner. Would you like to come with us? You could meet the rest of the cast and we could talk some more,” I offered. “That’s very kind of you, Miss Greenleaf,” he said gently. “But someone else should take credit for saving your father’s life in 1925. It certainly wasn’t me.” I stood there, stunned. “Why, it had to be you!” I said assuredly. “I was there. I witnessed everything. I even recall the date- May 5th, 1925. It was a matinee performance. The only thing that confuses me is: how did you know the little girl at the circus was me, the actress?” “Miss Greenleaf, I’ve never been to the circus in my adult life,” he said firmly. “It could not have been real. I was born in 1920. I may have been to the circus during that time…but as a child. And I didn’t have eight children. I have four. And my treatment didn’t exist in 1925. I should know. I invented it.” “You saved my father’s life. That’s all I know,” I persisted. “No, Miss Greenleaf. I tried to save your father’s life…” “Tried? No, you succeeded! You did save his life!” I insisted. “You claimed you were a medic in the ‘Great War’.” “It’s true that I was a medic during the war, but it was World War Two. I was stationed in the European theater, to be exact. In fact, I lived through the infamous ‘Battle of the Bulge’.” “My father died during ‘The Battle of the Bulge’,” I said softly. “I know,” Henry said, taking my hand in his. “I was there when he died. When I asked you how your father was doing now, I just wanted to make sure it was the same Errol Greenleaf who had died on that battlefield. Good old Errol! We were in the same platoon together. He talked about you all the time, how proud he was of his ‘little girl.’” “What?” “That’s why I had to see you, Miss Greenleaf, while you were in Cleveland. I tried to save your father, but he was badly wounded. He died in my arms. “ I nearly collapsed. I found a chair and sat down. “Your father asked me to give you something,” Henry said. “And now I’m able to fulfill his final request.” With that, Henry reached into his coat pocket and handed me a yellow, worn photograph- the same photo taken that day at the circus by the professional photographer. ******** Fate can be a funny thing. Fate can cross the barriers of time, through parallel worlds, worlds we never knew existed. As Henry Heimlich once said, “Some things are just meant to be.” Gregory Smith is a retired medical social worker. He is the author of 42 short stories, 30 of which have been or will be published. His uplifting memoir, titled Stronger Than Bone, was just published by Compassiviste Publishing. Greg is active on social media, including Facebook, X, Bluesky, Instagram and TikTok. He enjoys reading, watching sports and classic movies and listening to oldies music in his free time.