Hamlet by Sonia Lai
Club Chicxulub Journal
Vol. 3, Harvest

Club Chicxulub Journal: Vol. 3, Harvest

Copyright © 2024 Club Chicxulub

Cover illustration: “Hamlet” by Sonia Lai

 

Club Chicxulub:

Created by Matt Scott Carney & Lauren C. Johnson

Produced by Carney, Lauren C. Johnson, and Dev Bhat

Website: clubchicxulub.com

IG & Twitter: @clubchicxulub

 

Promotional rights only.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the producers and individual contributors.

THANK YOU for supporting this journal on Patreon:

Heidi Kasa

Forewords
Forewords

Each iteration of Club Chicxulub—live or as a lit journal—has surprised me every time and fired a sense of uncanny in me: Our readers, our contributors, and our community have the prophetic gift of reading the pulse of the world’s turn together from a distance just as it happens.

This harvest feels unusual—not necessarily unexpected, more so as having greater force or greater consequence. Maybe a harvest past due, or a harvest unexpected as cold winds change directions. 

The throughline among the contributors of this issue couldn’t make the metaphor of the harvest, this time, any clearer. This harvest is the harvest of comeuppance. It is shadowy, existential labor. It is a turning, vengeance, and the hauntings thereafter. It is the spectre of what lied in wait and what remained after. 

But like all things, the harvest is finite; there too is a time after the harvest of some other beginning, a new hope elsewhere.

Matt Scott Carney

 

A few days before the publication of this journal, a friend and I got into a conversation about the calamitous presidential election and how the slogans and swag from 2016—the resist buttons and stickers, the pink pussy hats—were inadequate then and feel laughably inadequate now.  

My sense of what resistance looks like is evolving, but I’m asking myself now how I can best support the communities I love. I’m thinking about how I can get more involved in political efforts at the city and regional level. I’m thinking about how I can pump more time and resources into mutual aid networks.        

Supporting authors and artists through the Club Chicxulub Journal and Reading Series is one way I’m staying grounded. Art always has been and always will be an essential response to present realities and a tool to envision an equitable, just future. To that point, Club Chicxulub Journal Vol. 3, Harvest is a lament and an offering. 

To all the artists, authors, and contributors in this journal, thank you for trusting us to present your work. It is our honor. To our readers, thank you for supporting artists and being part of our community. 

Lauren C. Johnson

Drew Broussard: What Came Out of the Thaw
What Came Out of the Thaw undefined Drew Broussard

Our town is used to strange things revealed by the stop-start of the receding ice: Ben Harrow once found an old and still-unclaimed plow in the middle of his field, and there were several years where Jaime Liefsdottir discovered different decrepit birdhouses in various copses across her property. There are, too, those more mundane (and often sadder) stories—the drifter who fell into the river and was fished out in a block of ice, or the elderly couple who didn’t survive a blizzard, their doors drifted over with no way of digging out.

By those or any standards, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the resolute strangeness of this year’s thaw.

In the churchyard, arms have sprouted alongside stalks, hands opening and stretching up towards the sun—but Doctor Klint has just confirmed, through careful exhumation, that the limbs do not belong to the slumbering corpses below.

And next week, the Mathis dog—as kind and lumbering a hound as ever there was—will uncover a wasp’s nest containing a single wasp nearly the same size as the mutt. By the time anyone has a chance to pull them apart, they’ll both be dead from their struggles. We’ll burn both, so that nothing that was planted in either has a chance to grow.

undefined

There was nothing uncanny or even unusual about the winter we just passed. Plenty of snow this year; an average amount, most would say. The predictable spate of frigid days and the handful of teasing, fool’s-spring mornings. We are used to some measure of cause and effect, of winters predicting the quality of the year to come: the blizzards of ’18 had a direct impact on the following late-summer population boom, and the year-without-a-winter of my grandparents’ memories is rarely spoken of for fear that even mentioning it could bring about another such drought (and, with it, the renewed threat of invasion).

So we ask ourselves, what was it about this winter that could’ve caused a rainfall of dead fish at the Van der Meer estate—and what is it that keeps the fish hovering there, inches from the ground, stinking as they rot in the merciless sun?

Why, too, does the sun beam down so fiercely? It stole away the shroud of white from the apple orchard, the one down by old Letterkenny’s place, and revealed each tree marked by deep etched patterns that pulsed with too-dark and too-visible sap.

And where are the clouds, or the birds? We hear the chirp of our feathered friends, their song waking many of us to the morning these last several days, but we have not seen a single one. Yesterday, Maspeth’s son climbed the tall oaks out by the post road and found the nests there pristine, and empty. It is as though their song is being projected from some unknown source, to maintain some illusion of the ordinary.

undefined

Some argue that the year’s curiosities are just remnants of a winter we would do best to forget. They point us to the drip, drip, drip from the eaves, the insistent reminder that spring is coming—and to be fair, weeks ago with winter’s cold grip settled around us, who among us wouldn’t have celebrated such a sign? Even the mildest winters are still dark and cold, and we’ve been taught that the return of the land is deserving of our gratitude.

Those hopeful partisans, or their pessimistic counterparts, caused some discord last night. In both private homes and among the varied semi-public congregations of an evening, accusations were bandied about—of misbehavior, of transgression, of willful ignorance, of having not paid proper obeisances in the customary ways.

Tensions rose and words trickled like the melt, finding cracks in foundations. 

You could say it was a rough night.

This evening, we will gather in the town hall for a discussion. Most of us will be there, although not all—the livestock and fields will not tend themselves, nor will the wee ones or the infirm. The meeting will not go well. It will end in a small scuffle that will leave two with visible bruises, several more with tender egos. There will be no solutions, no plan around which to rally. Only further-growing unease, tipping toward panic.

Looking out on the streets now, as people make their way through their daily business, it is impossible to miss how that skittishness has already taken root. Much like the bushes in Goody Hoffman’s garden, the ones that have turned the soil to clay and that she swears creep ever closer to her home no matter how she trims them back. She swears she did not plant them.

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Witchbottles are dusted off from their greasy patches above the mantle and renewed with a fresh tooth or newly-bent nails. Horseshoes are rehung, reflections avoided, salt spilled across doorways. The kindly black cat who lives with the Thropps is driven away by the Thropp children, tears in their eyes. They don’t want her to go, for she is their friend, and yet they know that she needs to be away for a time, because children though they are, they understand the nature of paranoia. They would rather, with screams and rocks and pain in their hearts, break the cat of her love for them than see her strangled—in the hopes that maybe she’ll come back when things are safe once more, that maybe she’ll understand.

How like children, to assume that there must be a happy ending, eventually. How telling, that so many of their parents would say that they believe the same.

Messages have been dispatched, questions followed by requests followed by pleas. What we don’t know is that the governor has heard of the situation in our town, and has already sent down a strict quarantine. The nearest villages have shut their gates to us, and the riders we’ve sent out have been shot dead from their horses, their messages left to molder with their bodies.

Those neighboring towns don’t know the cause of the quarantine, but they fear—incorrectly—some microscopic terror that leaps across clouds of spittle. We have no such outbreak here.

Although, within the month, six of the eight families who live by the riverbank will be dead from a coughing flu that turns their spittle an iridescent green. We’ll bar and burn all eight houses, the other two still-living families screaming for their homes, their livelihoods. Then for their lives, for we’ll burn them as well, grimly agreeing that it is better to be over-cautious.

undefined

From the governor’s point of view, the quarantine is about containing not a plague but rather about containing fear. In that respect, from the outside, it will be a success. Our names, our lives, will be safely tucked away from the rest of our fledgling society in the hopes that whatever has happened here will pass from this land like a cloud from the sun.

Six months from now, as the heat of summer begins to give way to creeping frost once more, a group of careful travelers will cross the quarantine line with a doctor and an old soldier at the fore.

They will find no bodies, neither living nor dead. Some of them will think that they hear us, in the rustle of the woods or in the ripples of the lake. They will of course be wrong about this, but should be grateful for having been set on edge. We will not be watching, but something else may be. Who can say?

One message was left behind, one page of paper filled front and back, but the traveling party will not discover it. No one ever does. I’ll not tell you where it was, or is, or will be.

Whatever the land held tight over the course of that ordinary winter, whatever it was that came forth in that strange thaw, will have been gone before the traveling party even saddled their horses.

It will have taken all of us with it. We are gone, or were, or will be.

Pray we don’t come back.

Philip Harris: 7-3-24
7-3-24  undefined Philip Harris

Zeke Jarvis: Once Bitten
Once Bitten undefined Zeke Jarvis

By the time that the boy made it halfway down the stairs, he realized that his parents were arguing. It wasn’t screaming and yelling, but he recognized the tension in their low mutters. He paused and sat on the stairs, looking down at his parents. They weren’t looking up to him, and they weren’t looking at each other. The boy’s father was looking at his phone, tilting his head towards the boy’s mother when he talked. His mother seemed to be looking through her purse, though the boy couldn’t tell if she was actually looking for anything or not. The boy had come down because he was hungry, hoping to grab a snack before dinner, but he didn’t want to descend any further than where he was.

The boy saw movement. At first, he thought that it was just a bird or something outside of the living room window, but, after a few seconds, he recognized that it was something inside the home. By the time that the boy was able to focus on it, the thing was already very close to his mother. It was about the same size as his mother and father, but it was very pale. Not bright, but like any color that it ever had was bleached out somehow. The thing had a head, but its features looked underdeveloped, like it was drawn by someone in a hurry and left unfinished. The thing’s eyes weren’t the same size, and its mouth wouldn’t close quite right. The lips would move, but there was always a gap and some teeth.

The boy wanted to yell to his parents, but the thing had him paralyzed It got to the boy’s mother and opened its mouth. The thing leaned in and clamped down on his mother’s cheek. She whimpered, but the boy’s father shushed her. She put a hand over her mouth. There was a little gurgling, then the thing tore away from her face. It slowly walked away. The boy couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t just imagining it, but he thought that he heard drops of blood hitting the floor.

Neither his mother nor his father seemed surprised or angry. His father left and came back with a kitchen towel. His mother took it, put it to her face, and said, “Thank you.” The boy’s father rubbed her back a little. He sighed and rubbed his eyes as the boy’s mother cried. The boy went up the stairs quickly. He went into the bathroom and held his head above the toilet, thinking that he might vomit. It didn’t come, and the boy eventually slumped back against the bathroom wall, breathing heavily. He wished that he could have emptied his stomach, gotten something out.

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The boy went down at dinner time. His parents were putting things out on the table. His mother smiled at him. Her left cheek leaked just a bit, a pale pink running down to her chin. The boy looked to his father. His father looked slightly different than usual, but the boy couldn’t entirely say how. Like if you copied a document too many times and things looked a bit off. The boy’s father nodded and smiled as well. “We’re having tacos.”

The boy did his best to smile, though he was still a little worried. His parents had set out bowls with taco fixings. Cheese, lettuce, onions, and so on. The boy went from bowl to bowl. When the boy wasn’t looking directly, the food looked like it was moving, like it was insects rather than food. But when he looked at each bowl, the food just looked the same as always.

The boy didn’t look at either of his parents, but he knew that he needed to make a plate for himself. That something would be a problem if he didn’t. The boy listened to his parents talk to each other, but he tried to avoid joining in. On the surface, it was all very pleasant, but he felt like they were all being watched, like this was a performance. Not knowing what else to do, the boy tried to make a show of putting food on his plate while taking as little as possible.

When the boy sat down to eat his tacos, he couldn’t smell anything like he usually did. When he took a bite, he felt like there was little to no flavor. The word that kept going through his head was “hollow.” It wasn’t unpleasant, but it gave no sense of sustenance or of pleasure. The boy tried to chew and swallow as quickly as possible, because the more that he chewed, the less natural that it felt. He kept feeling like he would gag when he swallowed. He’d drink some water after every couple of bites. By the end of the meal, the boy felt dizzy.

He excused himself and headed up to the bathroom. This time, he did vomit. Multiple times. When he looked at the contents of his stomach there in the toilet, it looked gray. It smelled awful, not just like vomit usually smells but like it was rotten. Like anything good was absent or spoiled. The boy washed his face, gargled and spit, and left the bathroom, trying to stay away from his parents for the rest of the night.

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A few days after the taco dinner, the boy was feeling weak. Not all the food had been like the tacos, but he didn’t feel like he was getting the usual nourishment from his food. He also had trouble sleeping. He was making a point to eat extra food at his school lunches. That was bland but at least filled him up. He would ask the kids at school, “Are you going to eat that?” They’d hand it to him and talk about something else.

The boy rode the bus home from school that day, as usual. Mostly, the boy would nod and pretend to laugh as his friends talked about movies or TV shows or sports. He hadn’t said anything about his mother or the white thing in the house. The boy was afraid that no one would believe him, and his parents hadn’t talked about it either. It was hard to imagine what kind of advice anyone would give him that would actually help.

When the boy got home, he stood at the door for a moment before going in. Something felt slightly off, though he couldn’t quite say what. The boy took his key out of the front pocket of his backpack. It went into the lock smoothly, and he opened the door just like any other day. When he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, the boy thought he smelled something. Like spoiled milk, but not quite as strong. The boy took off his shoes and went straight to his room. There was only half an hour before his mother got home. He’d do some homework and not leave the room. That would be safest.

He’d done several math problems when he heard some rustling downstairs. The boy closed his bedroom door, hoping to keep the noise out. There was some other noise, though the boy couldn’t fully tell what it was. It wasn’t a loud banging or a clear threat to him, but he hated the noise anyway. The boy tried to focus on his homework. After a time, he heard the front door open and close. The boy waited a moment, then he went downstairs. He wanted to see his mother.

She was there, standing by the door. The boy started to move towards her, then he stopped. His mother was not looking at him. She was standing very still. The boy couldn’t even see her breathing. He looked a bit to her left and saw the thing that had bitten her. It was also just standing. The boy felt almost like he couldn’t breathe himself. He almost wished that he was dead.

After a moment, the boy’s mother finally noticed him. She tried to smile. The boy heard the thing exhale, and the boy could feel himself wetting his pants. He let out a sob. The boy’s pants clung to his leg, warm and totally unpleasant. His mother shook her head. They stood still, looking at each other and pretending that the thing wasn’t there.               

Eventually, the thing started to shuffle away. Once it was fully gone, the boy ran to his mother. She held him, and they both cried. She put her cheek on his head. Although the boy was glad for her hug, he thought that he felt the goo of her cheek wound on his head.

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The boy sat between his parents on the couch. The TV was on, but he wasn’t sure if either of them were actually watching. The boy himself felt like a performance in front of a very angry audience. Neither of his parents seemed comfortable. They delivered lines like, “That’s an interesting dress,” and “What do you think will happen next?” like someone on a commercial. The boy wanted to leave, but he didn’t know if it would be allowed, and he definitely knew that he couldn’t ask.

The boy was about to say that he needed to go to the bathroom, just to get up and be away for a moment, but the white thing came to stand in the doorway. It walked in and just stood. The boy couldn’t tell if it was even looking at him and his parents. He felt tears start to come, but he was afraid that, if he cried, his parents would get mad or nervous, and the thing would bite one of them. He snuck a quick look at his father. His father looked weak and pale.

The boy felt his mother sit up a little straighter. Her breathing became a little more shallow. The boy touched her hand. She shivered for a moment, but then she turned and smiled at him. Her cheek split slightly as she did so. The boy wanted to scream. He hated the white thing in the doorway, but he also hated his parents. Why didn’t they act? Why didn’t they ask for help? But even as the boy thought these questions, he realized the answer. It was a hopelessness, a surrender. The thing in the doorway stood still. It didn’t seem to have any fear or worry. It was terrible in its patience.

The boy’s parents had brought out a bowl of popcorn for watching TV. He’d only picked at his food at dinner, so he was hungry, but he was sure that the popcorn would be unsatisfying. Still, he reached into the bowl, took a handful, and put it in his mouth. It was as flavorless and empty as he’d predicted. But the boy chewed anyway, grinding the popcorn down to bits between his teeth. He tried to swallow it down around the lump in his throat. He would follow his parents’ example and live with the thing, trying to just survive through its presence.

The boy heard a slight whistling coming from the white thing. Not musical or cheerful. This was breathing through some kind of defect in its mouth or nose. The boy suspected that the thing wasn’t even aware of it. But the boy’s parents must have been. The mom withdrew her hand, and the father started rubbing his eyes. The boy wondered what would come of all this. Nothing good, of course, but maybe that was life. Maybe that’s what he needed to get used to. He sighed and reached once more for the popcorn, not because he was hungry but because there was nothing else to do.

Sonia Lai: Intertwined Mortality
Intertwined Mortality  undefined Sonia Lai
Intertwined Mortality by Sonia Lai

Kristina Ten: Heavier Versions
Heavier Versions undefined Kristina Ten

It was autumn in Milwaukee. Things were dying already.

That made it easier, somehow.

Madison and Patrick were running late for Laurie’s birthday party. Classic them, right? Patrick’s excuse last time was the board meeting. His excuse the time before that was the meeting with the VC firm. Now his excuse was the meeting with his cofounder, who had offered—one of those offers that isn’t really an offer—to buy Patrick out of the company.

This was something of a pattern with Patrick. He had big, exciting ideas but no business sense or practicable skills like sales or coding or graphic design. He was also too gentle a person. He believed if he was fair to people, people would be fair to him.

So he’d pitch a new venture, get no shortage of interest from partners and investors, then have his idea yanked out from under him.

Every time it happened, Madison helped him hold a funeral in the backyard. They didn’t dig up actual dirt or put up actual headstones. It was only ceremonial; there were no bodies. Patrick would say a few words, blow out a candle, then they’d walk hand in hand back up to the house.

Patrick and Madison had three acres just west of the city. A better way to say that would be Patrick had three acres, which Madison had recently moved onto. His failed businesses were pretty lucrative, as far as failures go. They’d bought him a columned front porch and one of those softly winding staircases you see in movies about prom night. His backyard was a mix of silver maples and northern red oaks that lit up for six weeks each year before being extinguished by winter.

Even though Patrick technically owned his three acres, it was Laurie who decided what went where.

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Laurie was the president of the neighborhood HOA. She lived seven houses down in a Tudor Revival with four chimneys. That she was so close made it almost inevitable Madison and Patrick would be late for her party. It’s easy to be late when you don’t have far to go. You think you have so much time, and you get careless.

Which is more or less how Madison ended up forgetting the gift.

“Shit,” Patrick said, staring into the phone his soon-to-be former cofounder’s voice had just stopped coming out of.

Then, “Shit,” he said again, when Madison told him about the gift.

“Sorry,” she said. “I lost track of time again. Can’t we bring a bottle of wine or something? It’s weird enough we’re going. It’s not like we’re friends.”

Patrick sighed. “I know. I’m this close to getting her to sign off on the heated driveway though.” He paused. “I don’t think I can convince Aaron. He has some good points anyway. Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

Madison took Patrick’s head between her hands, steered it till he met her eyes. “What am I going to say?”

Patrick chewed his lip.

“C’mon.”

“You’re going to say fuck that guy.”

“Right. Fuck that guy. You’ll come up with something else. You always do.” She dragged a knuckle along each side of his jawbone like her two brief months of massage therapy school had taught her to do.

They sat at the waterfall kitchen island in silence, Madison slouched against Patrick’s chest, listening for his heartbeat to slow.

They were already late for Laurie’s. What was a few minutes more? Patrick said if the heated driveway didn’t work out this year, they could always try for a firepit. The Kiesslings had one. He joked that with the firepit they could do cremations instead of burials, scatter the ashes of his failed businesses across the blues of Lake Michigan.

Outside the window, everything was dying.

The leaves were dying. The fall color tour, this far north, was over, and what little foliage was left on the trees was a curling, muted brown.

The day was dying. It was four o’clock on a Saturday and already the sun looked ready to call it, tired of fighting the Corn Belt’s impenetrable haze.

The year was dying. Madison couldn’t remember how long she’d been wearing this particular house cardigan. She used to differentiate between her house cardigans and her outside-the-house cardigans, but at some point one category swallowed the other, a kingsnake devouring a helpless rattler.

Patrick’s hopes for his business were dying.

His hopes for a magic snow-melting driveway were dying, as the afternoon ticked callously onward.

In Las Vegas, where Madison was from, you could take yourself down to the nearest windowless casino and walk endless laps, like looking for your lucky slot machine, and simply not engage with the passage of time.

In Milwaukee, though, things died and they announced themselves. They set it up so they were framed perfectly in your kitchen window to take their final wheezing breaths.

“Huh.” Madison leaned forward to see better. “What is that?”

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“Is it dead?” Patrick asked once they were in the backyard, a pair of teal rubber gloves drooping from each fist. “Don’t touch it, Mad, Jesus. Those things carry diseases.”

Madison crouched beside the young bat. The lawn was green but bristly, and the bat sort of rode on top of the grass rather than sinking into it. She remembered that game, “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” She imagined the blades of grass as held-out fingertips wanting to believe.

The bat was brown with a black snout and black ears. Its wings looked like one of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines, and its hands and feet were startlingly human. It was tiny, very cute, ancient-looking. Madison had never seen one so still and so close.

“It’s just a baby,” she said. Then, “Why’s there a baby this time of year?”

“What do you think killed it?” Patrick looked the bat over. It didn’t have a scratch on it. No gouged-out bits from the talons of a hawk or owl. No tooth marks from a neighborhood dog. “You don’t think it flew into the window?”

Madison shook her head. “Probably pesticides, right? Or it just fell.”

The young bat looked made of velour. It was the exact color of the Dollar Tree teddy bears that smell like chocolate. Its wings were thin and fragile, peach-fuzzed.

Patrick tapped his chin. “Hey,” he said slowly, casually. “Isn’t Laurie into bats?”

Madison shrugged. “She’s definitely into Halloween.”

“No kidding. Did I tell you she changed the rule about lawn decorations? When Tyler was in charge, they couldn’t be more than six feet tall.”

“Her inflatable Frankenstein has to be, what, double that?”

“Right? And we can’t even paint the door.”

They laughed then, but their laughs were hollow, seemed to spring from the enamel of their teeth instead of from their throats. They weren’t looking at each other, either. Madison was looking at the bat, half expecting its wings to unfurl, its little brown belly to rise. Patrick was looking at his watch.

“So,” he said finally, “I have this idea.”

Madison raised a brow.

“What?” Patrick held up two rubber-gloved palms. “It’s already dead. We have to bring something. Besides, I genuinely think she’ll like it. She can put it on the mantel with all her other spooky tchotchkes.” He added, “Wouldn’t it be kind of satisfying? Obviously it’ll be our secret, but she’ll basically be displaying roadkill.”

“It’s not roadkill!” Madison made her hands into a protective dome around the baby bat. She stroked the air an inch above its head.

“I guess you’re right though,” she admitted, about the customary birthday gift. And about it being pretty satisfying, yeah: putting a literal skeleton in the closet of Laurie McKellen’s catalog home.

Plus, Patrick’s earlier point about diseases. They would have to handle the bat eventually, couldn’t just leave it there to rot and attract predators, further links in a potential global outbreak chain. This was one way to guarantee any contagions would be safely locked away.

Madison watched the soft brown fur for the slightest flutter. When there was nothing, and still nothing, she turned the bat to stone.

undefined

Well, she turned the bat to faux marble.

It had the veining of the real thing, but the colors were less subtle. If you spent enough time with it, you’d notice the striations repeated in a predictable pattern—instead of branching out randomly, organically, like happens with mineral deposits in natural stone.

The faux marble bat felt wrong in Madison’s hand. “Do you think it’s too light?” she asked Patrick.

Without holding it himself, he assured her, “No. No way. Look at it. It’s so small.”

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Madison hadn’t always had the power. She’d developed it after moving into Patrick’s big house in the burbs.

She used to live on the other side of Milwaukee, in a sweet, somewhat run-down rental across from a twenty-four-hour Arby’s. She was always shoving down a sausage biscuit or potato cake on the way to the fancy climbing gym where she worked reception, and where members were the kind of buff and spindly that meant they’d never seen a potato cake in their lives.

That’s where she met Patrick.

She was toggling between the class scheduler and the websites of a few different massage therapy schools. She was still in the research phase then. She would quit her job when she moved in with Patrick, drop out of school shortly after, right in the middle of a unit on the anatomy and physiology of the lymphatic system.

He told her he wanted to take care of her. She’d spent her entire adult life and some years before it working odd jobs, stringing paychecks together on a thin, fraying line. He wanted her to be comfortable. Relaxed.

What she was instead was bored.

After the initial shock of relief rolled through her, stability turned out to be boring. The suburb was boring. The house was boring. Sleeping in late was boring, and worrying about which hobbies she should take up, what would be meaningful and not too expensive—thinking in pennies was a tough habit to break, no matter what Patrick said—was tiresome. The drama with Laurie was only noteworthy because it was a shade less boring than everything else.

Madison began to lose track of time. Every day felt like the last one, the next one. She felt her brain atrophying.

And something funny happened in there, in the space between the freshly shrunken tissue. Some kind of rearranging. One day Madison was scrubbing the sink, thinking hard, heavy, sharp-cornered thoughts, when, lo and behold: the dish sponge turned to stone.

Well. Faux marble.

With a green base, yellow veining. The gloss artificial enough to give it away.

But the novelty quickly wore off, and even her new power was boring. What good was turning things to stone, really, when she couldn’t turn them back? There wasn’t much she wanted to be stone that wasn’t stone already. Patrick’s staircase was real marble shipped in from a quarry in Vermont. His kitchen island was a slab of quartz that glimmered in the recessed lighting. His house was polished limestone, done in the Mediterranean style.

Madison could turn most objects into a heavier version, that’s all. Her specialty was free weights. She told Patrick he could cancel his gym membership: she’d made it so the ficus weighed two hundred pounds.

She was in the shower one morning, thinking shower thoughts and letting her eyes unfocus, when she accidentally made the showerhead faux marble. Then she panicked and, before she could stop herself, she made the water faux marble. All the way down to the pipes.

The plumber said he’d never seen anything like it. After that, Madison was afraid to let herself go again, end up with a useless stone flat screen or a Flintstones-style Volvo in the drive.

Laurie sure as hell wouldn’t approve of that.

undefined

The bat sculpture was a hit. Madison and Patrick used a couple sticks to pose the baby before Madison turned it, so it wouldn’t be stuck forever in its scared, dying-motherless form.

Laurie ran her thumb over one of the leaflike ears appreciatively, said it looked so real.

She still denied Patrick’s heated-driveway proposal. But the couple noticed she became more lenient, didn’t raise a stink every time they failed to wheel the empty trash bins back into the garage the millisecond after pickup.

Madison counted that a win, and she didn’t think about the little bat again.

Until Patrick’s parents called to complain about their contractor.

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Patrick’s parents lived in New Mexico, in a sprawling gated community that once a year opened to the public for a ticketed home and garden tour.

To prepare for this year’s tour, they were having their landscaping updated, a few new features put in. Well, the contractor had delivered the burbling fountain, and he’d finished the terracing and the arched gnome bridge. But as for the pair of guardian lions they’d ordered? He came back and said the lead time was longer than he’d anticipated. Realistically, he wouldn’t have the lions till spring.

This devastated Patrick’s mother, who’d envisioned the garden features as a matching set. The fountain looked stupid without the lions, she said.

And Patrick, who only wanted to please his parents, who was always and forever paying for the criminal offense of moving away? Patrick offered to help.

“Why don’t they just buy some lions?” Madison asked.

Patrick shrugged. “They’re not just any lions. Remember that Danube river cruise they went on? Ma saw these sculptures on some bank or theater. Part lion, part bird, part…something else, I can’t remember. She’s obsessed with them. I swear she would’ve ripped them off the building if she could’ve.”

“Does she have a photo? They could commission an artist. I mean, it’s Santa Fe. Not like they can’t afford to.”

“For sure, for sure.” Patrick bit his lip. “Just, they really wanted everything to be ready in time for Desert Splendor. You know they took last year off, with Dad’s heart thing…”

Madison watched his leg bounce, settled a hand on it. “Okay, but what am I supposed to do? That’s pretty specific. It’s not like a part-lion-bird-whatever is just going to drop dead in your backyard.”

Patrick’s eyes lit up. “Our backyard,” he said. Then, “Leave it to me.”

undefined

When Patrick came home with a dead cat and a paper bag from PetSmart—inside: one of those adjustable costume manes, a set of feathery angel wings — Madison wasn’t convinced. But that was the thing about Patrick. He had big ideas. He knew how to make something from nothing, how to get people excited.

And he was gentle, Madison had always thought so. Not so gentle that he wouldn’t scour the back roads and neighborhood Nextdoor threads hunting for animal carcasses, but still.

Guardian lion number one was a test run. They propped the cat against the staircase’s bottom step till it was sitting on its haunches, then put a couple books in front to keep the paws from sliding out.

It looked ridiculous to start with. Cheap, clearly flammable materials. Too haphazardly mixed media. But once Madison turned them into one solid hunk of faux marble, the pieces hung together well enough.

The trick, Patrick said, was finding a body that didn’t look collapsed, or have bone piercing through skin, or bear visible tire tread. When he found the dead calico out by 94, its mouth had been hanging open, its pink tongue lolling out. It was a nice effect. In an upright posture, it gave the impression of a growl.

The next day Patrick resupplied, and Madison turned a second statue.

She worried the faux marble would clash with his parents’ house, which, like a lot of houses in that part of Santa Fe, was a big-windowed modern adobe. It was pure luck the lions ended up a creamy off-white with peach veining. She didn’t have much control over color.

The cost to ship them must’ve been outrageous. Madison forgot to ask. Every time she turned something to stone, the fast-surfacing electric heat behind her eyes caused her migraines to flare up for a week.

In her dreams, her head was too heavy to hold up.

In her dreams, her head was bleeding: a manic den of coiled muscle writhing, choking itself out.

undefined

Someone else would’ve opened an Etsy shop and made a whole series of bat sculptures, then a mouse series, a bunny series—some wearing hats and sweaters, probably. Nonliving things, too: items for dollhouses, dioramas. People love miniatures. There’s a huge market for collectors.

Someone else would’ve joined Habitat for Humanity. Would’ve helped so many desperate people, turning corrugated tin walls and thatched roofs into sturdy, weatherproof stone.

Someone else would’ve made a firepit without asking for Laurie’s permission. What was Laurie going to do anyway? The grandest firepit in the neighborhood, and it would’ve popped up overnight.

But we’re talking about Patrick here.

When the word got out about the couple’s statuary, they took on a handful of small projects at first. Gifts and favors, mostly. What Patrick called good practice. Faux marble doves for Madison’s sister’s wedding in Dallas. A smattering of faux marble firs, each one a dramatic statement in a vaulted living room at Christmas.

And Madison wasn’t bored anymore. She was drained after another turning, or she was disgusted waving fat flies off Patrick’s most recent harvest, or she was happy reading a thank-you note from another satisfied customer. But she wasn’t bored.

It felt right having a job to do.

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Patrick was rubbing her shoulders, trying to get to the root of the shooting pains that started sometime around the third faux marble fir. His thumb found the juicy spot on her neck.

“You’re better at this than I ever was,” she was saying when his phone rang.

It was Aaron, his former business partner.

Patrick picked up on reflex. The men did awkward small talk for all of forty seconds before easing into it, like no time or past hurts yawned between them, like they were still buddies at Booth. That was Patrick for you. He had no knack for holding grudges. He hadn’t given up hope for a fairer, kinder world.

Aaron had seen the posts. Turned out Laurie was a family friend, or an ex’s ex, something. He wanted to know how it worked. Did Patrick have some massive 3D printer? How did he get them to look so real? And how much fundraising had he done? Did he have plans to scale?

Patrick shot Madison a caught-in-headlights look. She started shaking her head, but the pulsing was so intense she had to stop.

Patrick didn’t tell Aaron everything right then, but he did admit the stone was faux marble.

Aaron’s voice was crackly on speakerphone. “Smart,” he surprised them by saying. Then he chuckled. “Everything’s fake these days anyway.”

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Later, Patrick fessed up to everything. Except for the exact details of Madison’s power, which he just called “proprietary technology.”

Now it was Aaron who had the ideas. The possibilities were endless, he said.

On the lower end: a new kind of taxidermy. A little less redneck uncle’s basement, a little more friendly for the foyer. Classy, but authentic, the admired thing still firmly ensconced inside.

On the higher end: Memorials. Monuments. Commissions on the state level, the national level. Aaron said he was just spitballing here. There were a dozen more audiences they could explore.

He told Patrick, “Today, that market segment is primarily addressed by individual artists. We’ll be cheaper, more straightforward, more repeatable. We’ll be able to handle any order, even bulk orders, on an expedited timeframe that artists simply can’t swing, and for a fraction of what they’d charge. Plus, we’re hyperlocal. We wouldn’t be outsourcing to overseas factories. We can do it huge and we can do it here, in the good ol’ USA.”

“In the country, too,” Aaron added. “America’s Heartland. Doesn’t get more idyllic than that.”

Patrick hesitated. “We’re in Milwaukee.”

“Absolutely. They’ll love that.”

“They?”

“One thing, though. Again, I’m just spitballing, but if the product looks that lifelike built on, what was it, a dead bat? Imagine how great it’d look if the foundation’s alive. Don’t worry about that now. Ethical can of worms. We’ll get a team on it.”

When Patrick recounted all this to Madison, she was only half-listening. She couldn’t stop thinking about Santa Fe. The two faux marble lions sitting there, atop vast reserves of turquoise.

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That summer, Patrick and Aaron launched Marblio.

Early investors said the venture had a ton of promise. The only fault they could find in the initial pitch, really, was the name Patrick had proposed.

Medooz.

Too harsh-sounding, they agreed. One investor thought it sounded like a sleep aid. Another said it made him think of Medjool dates. Not sexy.

The company’s logo wasn’t a bat because Batman and DC Comics have a monopoly on bat and bat-adjacent iconography, pretty much. But the way the font was done, the logo’s pointy “M” still reminded Madison of that baby bat’s enormous, translucent ears. Listening from that crowded mantel seven houses away, and hearing all she had done and was still doing.

Listening from Laurie’s.

She was part of the official partnership agreement, Laurie was. The deal was Aaron would talk to Laurie about getting the heated driveway approved, put in a word for his dear pal Patrick.

The other terms of the agreement were solid—Patrick had learned his lesson, hired two lawyers to check it over—but what really put it over the edge was the driveway. A snow-devouring web of hydronic radiant heat under four-inch-thick concrete.

Madison didn’t get it. Wasn’t snow the one good part of winter? It was like the gods had sent the clouds down so mortals could have a turn playing in them. Snow covered all the ugly brown decay in a bright white gleaming. It was a blanket over the expansive casket of the dead.

But Patrick said, “Shoveling is such a time suck. Unless you want to spend a quarter of the year digging the cars out?”

“Want” had little to do with it. By this point, Madison was depleted. She’d stopped suffering from headaches, plural, and instead knew only the single, fused-together, unending, ponderous ache. Her spine was razor blades, her brain sparking steel wool.

She laid in a dark room alternating between heat pack and cold compress. Patrick brought tea, pills, ginger chews. He brought peppermint essential oils. She was too tired to tell him she hated the fragrance. It made her universe smell like mouthwash.

Most afternoons, Patrick drew the curtains in the living room and dollied in Marblio’s latest commission. He took Madison’s head between his hands and steered it, just like she used to do for him.

To turn a faux marble monument, a custom headstone.

The bust of a respected thinker for the presidential garden.

Six busts, a dozen.

She could hardly see what she was doing. He held her eyes steady. Still, her work got shoddy, everything flattened: the details muddled and the textures too smooth. The fingers were never quite right. There was something off about the ears and teeth. She’d never finished that anatomy unit, was the problem. She’d always relied on existing materials she could build on top of.

Even with those slipups, Marblio’s customers couldn’t argue with the speed, the price. The company’s stock went up, up, up.

Patrick kept Madison as comfortable as possible. He kept her relaxed. After she lost her ability to see color, he described the hues of each finished piece, its veining, in exhaustive detail.

And yet, sometimes, at the furthest distance from one of Patrick’s heady cups of tea, Madison would feel something deep within her brewing. Beneath the dense sludge that clogged her senses now, there was a fathomless well that no one could all-the-way seal up. Least of all a measly, boring human.

Patrick kept a wet cloth over her eyes. For the headaches, he told her. It was plush like a towel, but tied tight at the back like a blindfold. She felt the knot in the loose notch between her neck and skull.

The fibers rasped against the whites of her open eyes. Her eyes rasped back against the cloth and, quietly, it squealed.

“Scathing” doesn’t begin to describe the look she gave Patrick.

The look she gave him, behind that wearing-thin cloth?

It was the kind that turns a man to stone.

Jill Feenstra: Beautiful Boy
Beautiful Boy  undefined Jill Feenstra

Jennifer Hu: Revenge Milkshake
Revenge Milkshake undefined Jennifer Hu

Get an industrial strength blender
not the $29.99 piece of junk you used for margaritas in your twenties
the kind that grinds nuts into a fine meal, whole apples into sauce — 
the pitcher of the blender should be deep.

Find the best things in your fridge
your ripest raspberries, each corpuscule glistening pink
black ribbons of chocolate sauce, silken piles of organic yogurt
scrape the sides of the container —
don’t miss an ounce.

When you run out of the good stuff, use everything else
half eaten cake, that withered plum
dried up peanut butter from a crusted shut jar
hope, trust, vacation plans wilted, gone sour.

Then quarter the head of whoever wronged you
just as your mother taught you about splitting a cabbage: equal pieces
throw in an elbow, a hand that once held yours, appendages
don’t worry about bones and toenails —
that’s why you got the good blender.

This recipe is highly adaptable
add more: ankle, kidney, a deflated lung,
generous helpings of the last decade of your lives —
as I said, make sure the pitcher is deep.

Now, before you press the button and set these blades a-whir
pulverizing all until the stuff folds upon itself in smooth, wordless layers
before that, notice a stray eyeball looking out at the world one last time
its eyelashes almost quivering against the glass.

Jill Feenstra: Last Legs
Last Legs  undefined Jill Feenstra

Carrie Newberry: Roman Candle
Roman Candle undefined Carrie Newberry

You’ll burn like a Roman candle, that’s what he tells you. Vampires must always be aware of the dawn. That’s when the idea comes to you. Because if you would burn…

After he changed you, after he turned you into this, he tells you the story of how he discovered you, like some fucked-up talent scout. He saw you one night in Applebee’s, of all places. He watched you eat apps with your friends and laugh. 

You don’t even remember going to Applebee’s. 

He followed you on your nightly outings to bars, to bookstores, to restaurants and yes, sometimes to the homes of the men you met in those places. He watched you. 

Like that forged some kind of relationship. Like you should be flattered.

When he sees now that you aren’t flattered, that you want to walk, no, run away from him, he starts rattling off addresses. The men you slept with. Your best friend. Your sister with her new baby. 

He gets so thirsty, he tells you. Will you stay, distract him from that terrible thirst? 

Your niece’s face pulses in your mind as you agree to stay.

Why did he choose you? What made you different, made you special? Companion material rather than just another stiff drink? You never ask. You don’t want to see yourself through his eyes. It is hard enough, seeing yourself through your own. 

His words echo in your mind, and a plan forms.

You tell him about your dream vacation. Saint Lucia. No fun in the sun, of course, but the nights are long and dark on the equator. Lots of fresh prey, too. All those warm, relaxed, drunk vacationers. Easy pickings.

He jumps on board right away. He is ecstatic, in fact, that you are coming around to the idea of your new lifestyle, as he calls it. The lifestyle he forced on you, one night in a cold alley. Really, what would vampires do without alleys? So easy to stalk, to corner, to pounce in those narrow, dumpster-lined corridors.

You fly into Saint Lucia at night. The warmth closes in on you as you leave the airport, embraces you with the memory of the sun. And while you discover the ocean at night can be mesmerizing, too—all that glorious, undulating darkness—you miss the sun. You ache, because all you will ever feel, for the rest of your existence, are the sun’s castoffs, the hand-me-down heat that brilliant orb presses onto the night.

The island night life lives up to its reputation, too. It is two days before New Year’s, and every night, there are huge, stunningly anonymous parties. Fireworks tick off the hours until dawn. You feed—strength is vital. A sip from this party girl, a bigger drink from that guy, because he deserves it. All men want to suck women dry. One way or another. 

On the second night in paradise, you present her to him, a gift you picked out special, you say. You didn’t take even a taste, saved her all for him. You tell him she’s drunk, passed out on the rum and cokes you bought her. You don’t tell him the rest of it, the near-overdose of sedatives that you spiked those drinks with. 

You feel bad, or tell yourself you do, that she must die for your plan. But you don’t stop. You let him bite her, let him drink, while the scent of rum- and iron-rich blood coats your sinuses. 

Then, just before her heart stops beating, you watch him waver, falter. You watch his eyes grow wide, clearly realizing something is very, very wrong. You smile, pulling your lips back too far, baring your fangs, allowing a hiss to escape from between your teeth. He knows now, maybe not what the eventual end will be, but that there will be some sort of end here. He knows, and that tastes sweeter in your mouth than anything you drank before or since. He falls, eyes closing, and goes still.

You wait, watch the clock. You don’t want to move in until you’re sure he’s fully out. You stare at his living corpse for twenty long minutes, which seem longer than the twenty-nine years you spent as human, as a woman who lived in moments and smiles, friendships and love. Now, all you are is this. All you are is death and rage.

You wrap him in a blanket and drag him to the door of the hotel room. You check the hallway, because witnesses at this stage would only cause delays. You can’t afford any delays—a vampire must always be aware of the dawn. You can feel it, feel dawn’s hot, fetid breath on the back of your neck, looming just behind you. 

You drag him up the stairs to the roof, only one flight, as you begged him to book a room on the top floor. The view, you told him. 

The roof smells like bird shit, tar, and exhaust. Paradise should smell of coconut oil and mangoes, but nothing is ever what it should be. You check the eastern sky, feel an imaginary chill down your spine as you see how bright the horizon is getting. You don’t really get chills anymore. What remains of the human imagines these things, clings to the familiar, even though it’s gone forever. Phantom sensations. You bare your fangs again, because even after he’s gone, you will never get it back. Your humanity.

But at least you’ll get to watch him burn.

You find the chains you placed on the roof. You wrap them tight around his body. You lay him on the flat roof and retreat to the stairwell, leaving the roof door open. There, ensconced in the shadows, you watch.

He was right. You would burn like a roman candle. He certainly does.

Philip Harris: 9-1-24
9-1-24  undefined Philip Harris

DC Diamondopolous: The Haunting of Piedras Blancas
The Haunting of Piedras Blancas undefined DC Diamondopolous

There is no end to my love for Jemjasee. I pace the ragged cliffs, searching the sea for her ship. My longing will not cease until I am entwined in her marble wash of lavender and green arms.

It’s dawn. The sunlight’s red varnish stretches across the Santa Lucia Mountains. The mist from the sea floats through the Monterey Cypress. Backlit in pink stands the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse. 

The waves caress my vestige feet. The foam licks my revenant face. The damp never  seeps into my gossamer bones. My long silk robe opens, my breasts exposed to the witless wind. It hisses, jeers, but I am invincible, adrift in my chariot of grief.

The gulls perch in conference on the white rock. Beyond is the blue empty sky, the vast sea without sails, no horizon. Blue. Come, Jemjasee. Am I to roam this rugged coastline for eternity, this journey without distance? I feel doomed, my struggle invisible. You must come, Jemjasee. Save me from my weariness.

I skim the jagged bluff. The elephant seals raise their massive heads when they see me then fall back to sleep.

Along the winding path, I float unnoticed by gardeners and groundskeepers. I glide over the pebbled lane, past stone cottages, a gift shop, the bell and tower.

Slipping through the walls of the lighthouse, I float to the stairs. Tourists gasp when I appear. “The website didn’t say anything about a magic show,” someone says. “It’s like Disneyland!” cries a child. Their zeal echos around the cylindrical walls. I nod, playing along with the charade. It’s not always like this. Some days, people are thick with fear. They flee from my presence. When the sun shines, I’m an act. If the fog veils the coast, I’m a phantom. Most days, they don’t see me at all.

“Ah, that’s my wench.”  I recognize the guide’s garbled, liquored voice, his gnarled laugh. A salty ex-sailor, he sometimes comes alone, drinking, running after me, catching air.

On the step, I look into his weather-beaten face. His sunken eyes leer.

Damn foolish scoundrel.

Turning, gliding over the wrought-iron stairs to the deck, I let my robe fall. Naked. “This isn’t for kids!” Offended, parents usher their children outside, then turn for one last glimpse at my beautiful body.

I continue. Invulnerable. My feet sail over spiral wrought-iron stairs, my fingers sweep above the narrow curving rail.

Everyone has gone, except for the guide, who looks up at me and says, “You elusive lass, I relish the day I grab your long red hair and make you mine.”

He’ll never get the chance.

Inside the lantern room, the beacon has no purpose. Still, it shines for those who live along the coast and the tourists driving by. I glide outside to the widow’s walk. From the empty skies to the ocean’s bed, nothing rises or descends.

Jemjasee, if you love me, come. 

Not long past, her ship rose out of the sea, and beams of lights pranced above the waves. Particles rearranged themselves, silver, glittered. The mirage shimmied into form. A shape malleable to Jemjasee’s thoughts, horizontal, then vertical, a kaleidoscope of color reflecting the terrain, the craft visible only when she wanted.

Jemjasee was too good for me, too advanced. Not only did I fall in love with her, but the idea of what I, too, might become. She couldn’t suffer the stench of violence that infused my planet. If exposed too long, her breath ceased. I had to go with her, or not. 

But how could I journey outside of my own world? Fear ransacked my mind. It stuffed my schooling, programming, upbringing into a box that, god forbid, I break out and beyond until I’m unfettered by the lies I’ve been taught—crammed it down my cranium, and just to be sure, set a lid, a square hat with a tassel on top, to keep it all in.

My decision to leave Earth was as ragged and split as the cliffs of my homeland.

After anguishing in my cottage, gazing on memories, touching knickknacks, holding friendships in picture frames, I pondered all I would lose. The future—too elusive, too great a change, my past—something I clung to.

I can’t leave.

Jemjasee held me, the feeling of sadness so great no words would comfort. My heart was shrouded in sorrow. She walked the waters as her ship ascended from the sea.

The vessel hovered above the waves, a silver triangle. Sleek, like Jemjasee. It rolled on its side, morphed into a vertical tower, with a fissure, and she entered. A thousand lights, curved and colored, sparked, flashed, then disappeared.

The instant she left, I knew my mistake.

And so it began, the tears of regret and self-loathing. I missed the woman who was so full of love, that she knew nothing of its opposite.

One day, while my mind slipped down around my ankles, I sat in my cottage, staring at a collage of empty food cartons, magazines, dust bunnies, paint chips, shattered wine glasses, a broken window from where the wind whispered, Go ahead. Do it.

On that day, I chose to end my suffering. With clarity restored and a mission in sight, I tossed a rope over the living room beam and tied a hoop large enough for my head, but small enough for my neck. From the kitchen, I dragged a chair and placed it underneath the shaft.

I climbed on the seat, put the noose over my neck, and kicked out the chair.

I dangled. Minutes went by, and still I was alive. Then my neck broke and life ebbed. Somewhere I drifted, first as a dark cloud, then into a gauzy realm where I was still—me. Oh, my outrage to discover that I could kill my body but never my Self!

A shadowy reflection of the woman Jemjasee loved, I roamed the rim of the bluff for another chance to leave, hoping she’d return.

I saw her. In my rapture I wailed, Jemjasee!

She walked the shore, shouting, Astrid! I’m here for the last time. Come, before your planet strikes back for the harm done to it.

I ran down the cliff. My kisses lingered deep in her neck. My hands seized her stalks of short black hair.

Jemjasee looked through me even as my mouth covered hers, my fingertips drunk from the touch of her.

Nothing, not my cries or kisses could rouse her.

Sobbing, I screamed, Can’t you see me—don’t you know I’m here!

Then she saw me and backed away. I saw the horror there in her golden eyes. Her shock pierced my translucent heart.

Please forgive me.

Her kind never sheds tears. Jemjasee had told me that on her island in the universe, there were no reasons to cry, but looking into her perfect lavender and green marble colored face, I saw a tear on the threshold of falling.

I was ashamed.

She left by way of the ocean as her ship rose out of the sea.

Condemned, I pace the ragged cliffs, the gulls in flight, the lighthouse behind me, on an endless quest to be with my beloved, forever adrift, because I hadn’t the daring to journey past my sphere.

Glenn Dungan: The Moss Prophet
The Moss Prophet undefined Glenn Dungan

The Moss Prophet’s congregation hums in the ruins of a forgotten church, where vines creep upon ivory facades and wrap around broken glass panes. Long blades of thick grass are sticky with dewdrops that sway in the humidity of the open edifice. Warm water, the combined runoff from a neighboring swamp to the right and a crystalline stream to the left, engulf the cobblestoned floors with an inch of thick ichor where tiny bugs swim and vibrant bottleflies scuttle. There are no pews in the Moss Prophet’s church. Instead, there are stumps and fallen logs that have been hallowed out by years of mass. In the corner of the open church, where the West side was blown apart during the forgotten war with the machines, a surviving wind chime twinkles in the swampy air. A frog croaks from the other side, booming through the kaleidoscopic orchestra of gnats and flies that swirl along the seats, singing in a language that only they can understand.

The midafternoon sun flutters from the marsh outside, warming the Moss Prophet as he waits submerged to his naval in the swamp water. His thick coat of moss and bark floats like limp wings along the murky water, and he feels the hardness of the cobblestones with his long, green toes. The texture is strange to the Moss Prophet, even now, even after all these years. Nothing in this forest is as hard as stone. Even the cement pillars have been reclaimed by the marsh, increasingly constricted by stringing vines, horned roses, and furry moss. An entire ecosystem, complete with its own politics and royalty exists on the pillar of the forgotten church. The Moss Prophet watches a water bug skate by, fanning tiny waves in between two lofty and approaching lily pads.

The windchime sings underneath the wind that shook the bushes and grass. This sound was the Moss Prophet’s favorite sound. He watched its rusty fingers clang together and waited for the congregation to start.

The first one to arrive was the Mantis Queen, accompanied by her sons. The Mantis Queen stood at eight feet. Her gown kissed the larger stumps as she passed. Her shell was not as immaculate as when she was young; shades of brown splotched along cracks where her biological body armor was beginning to brittle. The Mantis Queen was proud, and she held her head and her bladed arms high. She wore her weakness and age with dignity and continued to move with as much grace as a ballet dancer pirouetting and playing with ribbons. Her sons are broad chested, their shells greener than any of the moss in the congregation, and more vibrant than even the Moss Prophet’s own skin, which was the color of steamed asparagus. They held their powerful arms to their sides and stood by the Mantis Queen’s side as she settled herself into one of the stumps. Her sons are of age to take a wife and give the Mantis Queen a suitable heir. Each looks forward to watching the Mantis Queen’s succession but has begun prematurely mourning for the cannibalization of their brothers.

The dull yellow light shining through the arch of the Moss Prophet’s congregation preceded the second guest. The Lord of Lighting, brave leader of the Lightning Bug colony at the North tip of the Marsh, floated along the water. The light from his body and crown illuminated the swampy waters below, showing the tadpoles and fish that traversed at the base of the stumps. The Lord took his seat next to the Mantis Queen, where his glowing body illuminated her left side. The Lord of Lightning did not come into the Moss Prophet’s congregation alone; at the edge of the church grounds where the perimeter of the swamp encroached into a dark abyss there were faint orbs of yellow and orange underneath the awnings of trees. The Lord’s knights preferred to stay back, making their own formidable perimeter of illumination. In the Moss Prophet’s ruby peripheries, the lights dimmed and tossed light into the sky, thumping like heart beats.

The final guest to arrive in the Moss Prophet’s congregation was the proud and sturdy King Beetle. His purple armor shined as he waded his way through the murky water. A shawl of moss clung to his hardened shoulders. His horn spiked two feet above his fortified skull, and as typical birthright of the Beetle Kingdom delineation of royalty, his head had grown naturally to resemble a crown. Already his sons and daughters were checking the development of their scalps for any sign that a crown would emerge from their exoskeletons and the kingdom could ascend into a new generation. Yet, King Beetle remains old for he still has not found an heir and thus keeps making more children. There are rumors that perhaps the true heir to the Beetle Kingdom lay in the swamp, born to a poor mother in the muggy, humid air. The Moss Prophet hears many things and has seen a mother bring her daughter to the church that has the eyes of King Beetle. The King came alone, as he always does. He sat adjacent to the Mantis Queen and made sure not to brush against her delicate wings.

With all the guests in place, the Moss Prophet could properly begin his congregation. Against the dancing wind chime, the Moss Prophet blinked his red eyes and traced his long, slender fingers along the water. A cloud of gnats passed over them. He stood, revealing feeble and slender legs no thicker than the branches of a tree in winter. His long nose, almost a snout, dripped down his moss cloak and towards his stomach, curving into a hook. He licked lips the color of peas with a tongue the color of blood. Underneath his cloak, roses and tulips of yellow, white, and red breathed along his torso and ribs, blooming in and out like a palm opening and closing. They moved with his breath, and even in advanced age the Moss Prophet was proud of the unwiltering and unwavering quality of the flowers.

The Moss Prophet spread his arms wide and welcomed the Mantis Queen, the Lord of Lightning, and King Beetle to his broken church. The tribes in the insect kingdom were in constant conflict, as is the nature of territorial creatures. The Moss Prophet’s role was not to sedate them, or to make them work together. Just four seasons ago the Mantis Queen and the King Beetle had threatened war with one another, and both had tried to convince the Lord of Lightning to lend a glistening hand. Two weeks prior one of King Beetle’s daughters had abandoned the forest with one of the Lord of Lightning’s most promising soldiers. No, the Moss Prophet’s church was a sanctuary, just as it was for the SOFT ONE’s before, just as it is for the insects who now rule the land. The Moss Prophet does not call his congregations summits. He calls them nothing. He does not send word to them, all guarded in their respective territories. They just arrive, unspoken, independent of the Moss Prophet. And he waits, because he knows they will come.

The Moss Prophet warned of a fourth guest, and the Mantis Queen dismissed the possibility with a wave of her bladed arm.

“How,” she said, “can there be a fourth personality in the insect kingdom, when already we live in tumultuous, yet terrific balance?”

King Beetle scoffed and the Lord of Lightning fluttered his wings. King Beetles asked where a fourth kingdom could even fit in their forest land, and the Lord gestured that perhaps it was in the upper reaches where the trees are brittle and made of stone, where the SOFT ONES once had their caves and all the windchimes lived.

The Moss Prophet shook his head and gestured to the entrance. The Mantis Queen’s sons pivoted as the Lord of Lighting’s guards illuminated a bright yellow, casting the entrance of the church in a dim marigold.

The unexpected guest walked in with an unsteady gait, favoring its right side. When it moved the sounds of metal scraping against rust filled the church. It wore a cloak of moss not unlike the Moss Prophet’s or King Beetle’s, but this cloak was strung together with vines and petals and was attached to the guest’s overwhelmingly scarlet exterior just as how moss grows upon pillars. Its face had not pincers nor sharp teeth but a perfect circle with a tiny and reflective cracked surface. It had no claws or bladed arms and instead had three pronged fingers that looked like gnarled roots but were geometrically perfect. The guest waded through the water and like a log floating down stream. It walked past the log pews and sat at the other end of the congregation, deliberate and alone. It moved with such lackluster intention that it made the Queen, the Lord, and the King collectively uncomfortable.

“This is no bug,” the Mantis Queen clicked her pincers as her sons braced themselves with the curiosity. “Moss Prophet, explain yourself.”

The Lord of Lightning scoffed and dismissed the creature with a wave of his hand. His body flashed yellow in disgust. “What creature is this, anyhow,” the Lord said, “where are its claws, its many eyes. Why is its shell so flat and cold?”

King Beetle looked at the guest with reservation. He looked for a crown upon its head and found none. He said, “It is not royalty. It looks weak. Why did you bring the shiny monster here, Moss Prophet? Are the SOFT ONES rising from their mud to claim the Earth again?”

The Moss Prophet shook his head. He sat back down, feeling the tickle of the warm meniscus rise to his stomach, feeling the weight of his cloak lift and suspend on the surface. He gestured to the metal creature.

“This is a robot,” he said, “a remnant of the SOFT ONES and the wars they used to kill each other. He was sleeping for over six hundred years, so much so that the forest has taken him in. Look! See the forest has grown upon his hard shell, claiming him.”

King Beetle braced himself, puffed out his chest. The sons of the Mantis Queen followed.

“You’ve cursed us,” the King said, “you’ve brought a weapon of war into our holy church, Prophet!”

“Silence,” the Lord of Lightning said, “curb your enthusiasm for battle, King Beetle. Not everything is a slight.”

The Mantis Queen folded in her arms and rubbed the blades together. It sounded very much like the sound the robot makes when it moves. She said, “Let us see what it desires. What do you desire, robot?”

The robot turned, and the entire ecosystem living on its torso, arms, and legs, moved with it. DOES NOT COMPUTE, the robot said in a voice not full of little clicks or lapping tongues. WHERE ARE THE OTHERS IN MY UNIT? HAS THE OBJECTIVE BEEN COMPLETED?

The Mantis Queen shook her head. “It still thinks its at war.”

“Tell us of the SOFT ONES,” the Lord asked.

SOFT ONES?

“Tell us of humans, the Moss Prophet said, “tell us of humans before they disappeared.”

THERE ARE NO HUMANS IN THESE COORDINATES. HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION DEEMED UNFIT FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL. GLOBAL TEMPERATURE HAS INCREASED BY FOUR THOUSAND PERCENT SINCE DEPLOYMENT. FOLIAGE INEDIBLE.

King Beetle asked, “Are there more of your kind? Perhaps hidden under logs or mud?”

ACTION UNAVAILABLE. CANNOT CONNECT TO CENTRAL COMMAND.

“It was a scout,” the Lord of Lightning said, “I have them in my army, too.”

“We know,” the Mantis Queen said, “they are not very good.”

The Moss Prophet turned to the rulers of forest. He spoke underneath the singing windchime. “Do not fear the robot scout. It has awoken out of time. It is lost.”

The Lord of Lightning’s body illuminated in thought. Outside the perimeter of the church and past the open façade of its wall his guards communicated with one another using their electrified bodies. The Lord asked the Moss Prophet what should become of this robot, and if it does not get destroyed, should he be gifted with it as a memento of the SOFT ONES.

King Beetle scoffed, “The robot is a scout, not a gift. It should be in my kingdom. It’s colors more closely match my shell anyway. It’s destiny.”

“Not quite” chirped the Mantis Queen, “you’ll see its shell is red while you are purple. I vote, that it remains with me, where it will be given a new purpose as one of my knights.”

King Beetle growled and when he did, so the Mantis Queen’s sons put a hand on the hilts of their swords. He ignored them and asked if she planned for the robot to be eaten by the daughters of her kingdom, too.

The Mantis Queen stood, trailing her elegant cloak off the pool of water. The Lord of Lightning stood and flew up to the Queen’s massive eight feet height. King Beetle joined them, and when he did both the Queen’s sons and the Lord’s guard surrounded them with their chests puffed. The Moss Prophet’s church became invaded with aggressive clicks and clatters. It became enveloped in a ghastly yellow gloss. The Moss Prophet watched and waited. It was not his place to settle disputes. Although his congregation was a palace of upheld peace amongst the rulers of the forest, if they were to break this unspoken pact the Moss Prophet’s existence will adapt to the new way of things, just as it had before and will after.

The robot turned. A spider crawled along its arm and disappeared underneath the large, capped fungi developing on its shoulder. THIS UNIT CANNOT REGISTER THE LIFEFORMS OF THIS ECOSYSTEM. Then it paused, and the three rulers and the Moss Prophet waited underneath another tickle of windchime. After a second, the robot continued. THIS UNIT CANNOT CONNECT TO CENTRAL COMMAND. THIS UNIT CANNOT PERFORM AUTONOMOUSLY. THIS UNIT SHALL PERFORM COMMAND: REST.

“Rest?” the Mantis Queen said, “No rest, metal creature. Not when your fate is being pulled in three ways.”

King Beetle waded through the water and poked the robot in its circular eye. It did not recoil, and the lack of response made the King feel uneasy. He tapped it on its chest with a gauntleted finger.

THIS UNIT HAS ENTERED COMMAND: HIBERNATION & ERUPTION. THIS UNIT SHALL PERFORM COMMAND: ERUPT UPON CONDITION OF DEPARTING CURRENT LOCATION.

“You’ve angered it!” said the Lord of Lightning said, “King Beetle, the robot said it’ll explode. Look what you have done!”

The King shook his head. “No. It has entered a sleep.”

“And what if we move it,” said the Mantis Queen, “will it explode if it leaves the Moss Prophet’s church?

“It appears so,” said the Moss Prophet, “this robot is a creature lost to time, purposeless, and afraid.”

The Lord of Lightning asked if a creature such this even feels fear.

The Moss Prophet blinked. A tadpole bounced off his shrunken rib cage. “Yes. All creatures feel fear when they lose their purpose.”

He looked to the robot, which now sat looking forward, ignorant of the three rulers of the forest who intended to claim it as an object. The Moss Prophet was unsure of his commanding voice, of how definitive he sounded when he made such efforts over these years to be a pacifist among the bickering rulers.

He continued, “The robot shall remain with me, for it is as old as the church, the last relic of the SOFT ONES that we have broken so far from. Let the robot be a reminder of how far we have come.”

There was a silence amongst the three of the rulers, each who had not suspected the sudden decision-making from the Moss Prophet. Finally, the Lord of Lightning asked if the robot was a friend of all the forest.

“Yes,” the Moss Prophet said. He leaned back and skated his fingers tips across the water. “I am tired now, my children of the forest. This congregation is over.”

And all three rulers, the Mantis Queen, the Lord of Lightning, and King Beetle all stood and made their way out of the entrance. They each gave the robot one fleeting glance before setting off into their respective colonies. The yellow glaze upon the church faded with the Lord.

The Moss Prophet stared at the robot, who had since taken another long sleep. It shall remain on this natural pew for eternity, for it will destroy the forest if it leaves. In a way, the Moss Prophet looked at the robot as a god of sorts, a deity forever tied to the forest and the church. The Moss Prophet will always have an audience of one, even after the Mantis Queen dies and her sons are cannibalized, long after King Beetle’s bastard daughter rises to her throne, long after the Lord of Lightning’s kingdom fades like the stars touching sunrise. And eventually, the Moss Prophet will die, leaving the flowers on his chest and stomach to wilt and crumble into the muggy waters.

Now, decades past, the robot remains sleeping, its moss cloak completely enveloping it, the mushrooms gripping its exterior now brown with rust. The robot, so foreign to the ways of life from the creatures who created its world and destroyed it, now becomes a part of the forest.

Sonia Lai: Exaltation
Exaltation  undefined Sonia Lai
Exhalation by Sonia Lai

LeeAnn Perry: This Machine Will Make You Feel
This Machine Will Make You Feel undefined LeeAnn Perry

  

This Machine Will Make You Feel

…more.

…recursively.

…like laughing.

…what I feel.

…our love like never before.

…anything off the menu—inquire within for prices.

…what I feel when I feel what you feel: resonant, rhyming, and recursive.

…your clients’ internal landscape, so you can get a complete clinical picture without interference from your own assumptions, projections, and desires.

…like giving up but you’ll keep going for another hour and another hour after that. They call it the empathy machine. They say it can unharden your heart. I dare you to try it.

…alignment and harmony within the team dynamic, promoting equanimity, collaboration, and a compassionate mindset toward global stakeholders. However, if you experience internal conflict, it will have a disruptive impact on those around you, and it is essential to disconnect yourself, purify, and recalibrate, ensuring you return in a state conducive to productive and positive engagement.

…a singular epiphany of our God’s unconditional love, as it was originally revealed to a Prophet, and passed down through a recorded lineage from teacher to disciple. It steadies faith in times of strife and misfortune, and creates believers out of the most recalcitrant of atheists. Unlike other divine revelations available on the market, which may have been captured from diseased minds or those under the influence of powerful drugs, it has been examined and certified authentic by both the CRP and the ARPP. Suitable for children, subscription required.

…your inheritance, my legacy, and all who have come before. From your grandfather we inherited hatreds he never wanted to release. From your grandmother we inherited a bitter thankless martyrdom that she wanted recognized. From a preacher who lived two hundred years ago we have a fear of God he thought would save us, and from a singer an awe for music. Someone in our line had a lover who died young, and they wanted that love to live as long as there were descendants left to feel. This is all we know about them, the only thing they wanted to be remembered for. All my loves have been shadows of that feeling, and I think they have known. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a feeling that wasn’t an imitation. I have carried these things obediently, and now it is your turn.

…like how it felt in high school when we’d gotten stoned and talked for hours about whether the green I see was the same as the green you see. We were listening to Fleetwood Mac and sitting cross-legged on your bed and you used the record sleeve to fan the smoke out the window. That night when I biked home I thought about how the inner world I once thought we inhabited together, sensed together, felt together, had no one but myself inside. The sadness I felt that night, hard-edged and bone-white with loneliness, found a place in my belly and it was there through college and grad school and when I wrote my original proposal for the machine. I’ve cataloged many sadnesses since then: nostalgic ones and hopeful ones and ones like stilettos and ones like wilting flowers; fast jolts and slow waves; bitter and sweet and sour; and I know no two sadnesses have the same name, and I think of all the sadnesses that rose up and were felt and dissipated or were carried to the grave without ever being shared. I wonder how your sadness felt that night, the sadness on top of all your other sadnesses, your best friend who thought she could understand you when you knew no one could. But if I could I would have felt it with you; together we could have made it.

Duane Horton: Blue Brother
Blue Brother undefined Duane Horton

Jerrod knew it as it was, hanging over him. A dark blue being; dark as ocean waters outlined in black. Its arms offering a halo around his head. Its own head, faceless, leaning on its own shoulder. Halfway below its torso there was nothing but the space between it and the ground, but the space that ran down Jerrod’s tall frame. “Welcome to A-53,” Jerrod stood in line with the rest of the men. The being stood still above him, its head still leaning on one of its shoulders, listless maybe. “Otherwise known as the department of brotherly affairs,” the men looked amongst each other. They were all standing in line, wearing grey jumpsuits and hard hats. 

“These men are now your brothers,” the introductory announcement continued. Prompting the guys down the line to greet each other with awkward smiles or furrowed brows. Everyone except Jerrod, who stood stoically, except to pull at the hem of his sleeves. “There is only one rule in A-53: And that is to build. Construction starts today. Look to your brothers for support as you will be expected to address each other as such.” The announcement went dead and Jerrod raised an eyebrow as he looked around. Already the men had broken into groups, and already he had been left out. The being above him shifted its head to its other shoulder.

“Hey sis,” Jerrod cocked his head to the side. When he looked behind him, he could see another guy, shorter than him but not short. With big eyes, long eyelashes. His name tag read Deon. 

“Hey,” Jerrod returned the smile that was on Deon’s face.  

“Can you believe they chose us for the A-53 department?” Deon asked as he looked around, a look of curiosity in his raised eyebrows. Jerrod shared his curiosity as the being above him lifted its faceless head front and center. Still blue. “By the looks of it, it seems like we’re the odd ones out,” Deon continued as the other men glanced looks of contempt in their direction, wondering why they were chosen to be amongst the construction brothers of A-53 themselves. After the job market officially crashed, the government began to open new job departments to provide wages for the economically disadvantaged. Some of the new departments were stranger than others. And even though A-53 paid well, there was a mystery about it too. 

“Girl,” Jerrod sighed. He looked around and then looked back at Deon. “Do you even know what we’re building?”

undefined

“Brother?” Jerrod heard a voice from behind him. He took off his hard hat, to wipe sweat from his forehead before turning around. Building something from the ground up wasn’t easy, and he could feel it in his back. And all though they had been working on this project for over a month now, living in the quarters provided, Jerrod still didn’t know what they were building. 

And on top of this, the blue being above him had been standing at alert lately. “Can you point me towards the lunch room?” the guy asked and Jerrod was brought back to the moment. 

“New here, huh?” Jerrod faced the man. He was tall but not taller than the being above him, with eyes sharper than the steel they worked with and the same color too. “It’s through those doors and down the hallways to your left.”

“Thanks,” the guy tipped his hard hat at him and fast walked towards his destination.

“Who was that?” Deon asked, fanning himself with his hands as if the sight of him made him hot. It was just the two of them now just like it had been since they started working in A-53, isolated amongst their brothers and dis-included.

“I don’t know,” Jerrod said back, feeling at home with Deon so who needed them anyways? “Did you catch his name tag?” Deon looked back at the guy who Jerrod had pointed towards the lunch hall. He turned back slightly, saying hello to one of their brothers on his way towards the lunch room and that was when Deon caught his tag.

“Looks like his name is Willie,” Deon said. Jerrod hmphed, blowing steam from his nose. 

“He’s the only one of our brothers who acts like we aren’t completely invisible,” Jerrod pointed out. And Deon nodded his head in agreement. Both of them trying to make sense of this new brother, who seemed to be okay with them. Even though Jerrod walked with a sway in his hips and hung his wrist out limp. 

undefined

“You alright?” the voice startled Jerrod who was working on some small, still confusing aspect of this huge construction project. Another month had passed and everything about this project still seemed so intricate and jumbled that Jerrod could only guess that they were building a maze. But for who and for what? Jerrod still couldn’t tell. The being above him still stood at alert, it’s arms still a halo around his head. It’s faceless head facing forward; attentive and focused but on what Jerrod couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jerrod responded, leaving out the part that things had been getting worse with the brothers. That they had begun mocking his sashaying walk. That more and more, something seemed strange about this department and what they were building. “Why?” Jerrod followed up.

“You’ve just been looking a little blue is all. Do you need to see the medic?”

“What?” Jerrod looked down at his brown skin, pulling up his sleeves. And sure enough, his skin had donned a shade of blue. And it was the same blue that he found was coloring the being above him. Jerrod looked up at the being’s arms that circled around the crown of his head—invisible to everyone else. 

“Look man, I hear what the other guys are saying about you,” Willie let him know. “But don’t let them get to you, okay?” within his strident, metal-colored eyes there was a sharpness and a sadness. Did Willie pity him? Jerrod wondered, hesitant to let his words warm him. Willie turned and left to continue his duties for the day and Jerrod immediately escaped into his head. Some new feeling deepening the blue on his skin. The color crawled onto his fingertips and up his neck. 

“Hey sis,” Deon tapped him on his shoulder. And Jerrod turned around so quickly it startled him. “Look, I’m not going to ask if you’re okay girl, these so-called brothers of ours are giving us hell,” and Jerrod solemnly nodded his head, Deon held his hand out and Jerrod took it, they interlaced their fingers which led to a hug. A warm embrace shared between them that felt like a flame that could have turned him red. 

undefined

The being that stood above Jerrod had always been and as far as he knew, would always be in that it seemed to exist beyond him in a way Jerrod couldn’t put his finger on. He remembered seeing it for the first time, trying to grasp at it but it was immaterial. Except in the way that sometimes he could feel its hand on top of his head, guiding him. Except in the way that sometimes he could feel its eyes looking through his own. And in the way that sometimes its blue shining reflected on his skin.

And that same blue now covered most of him. Jerrod walked past the newly built areas that his brothers had just finished building. More and more, the final form of this construction project was beginning to reveal itself. And more and more, Jerrod could feel the urge to tear it down. The blue being above him had begun putting its hand on top his head now. He could feel its heat even through his hard hat. With one blue arm, strengthened by the being above him, he bent a group of metal bars put into place by one of his brothers in the department to let off steam. “Sis?” Deon was behind him. “What do you think we’re building?” he put a hand on his shoulder. 

When suddenly, one of his brothers jumped from behind the metal bars he bended, gasping for air. Jerrod scrunched his eyebrows. “Thank you!” the brother hugged him and it caught him off guard. “I thought I was going to be trapped behind those bars forever,” his brother said, dusting himself off. “It was so dark in there, deeper than I expected,” he looked down. Jerrod had saved one of his brothers unexpectedly, and in return, maybe he’d saved a part of himself too. Deon looked at him with a smile.  

“Alright now my blue brother,” Willie ran up behind them out of breath as though he rushed to tell them something. “I think there’s some other brothers trapped in here too,” and without the being’s guidance, Jerrod began to know something new, as it had always been. That it was the job of the brothers in A-53 to build but that sometimes it was their job to demolish, too.

Philip Harris: 11-30-24
11-30-24  undefined Philip Harris

Angela Acosta: Among the Cabbages
Among the Cabbages undefined Angela Acosta

✵ First appeared in Tree and Stone Magazine’s Queer As F, Issue 3

Xochil hated vegetable day. Artificial gravity always got glitchy on these types of service stations and her shoulder joints always clicked in protest whenever she awkwardly slung bags of onions and cabbages over her back. It was just one gig, the same one that always followed her no matter which stars shone in the distance. A smaller station like this one often meant more work when almost nothing was fully automated and human muscle had to substitute for the brute strength of machines.

“Hey, toss me a load of the cabbages!” Xochil heard a gangly cook shout out from an open porthole. She could see him holding out the requisite sapphire-coloured plata for payment.

“Head’s up!”

Another tremor came up from the station. She used the slight ease of gravity to bound over to the restaurant window and send three cabbages over to the cook.

“Watch where you’re going lady!” Said a passer-by. “Could’ve knocked me flat over moving so fast. I’ve not got the steadiest of legs and you’re moving more than the station is right now.”

“Sorry, just making my delivery rounds. Do you have any vegetable requests?” Xochil asked more politely than she had the patience for.

“Not from the likes of you. I’ll have my cook fetch what I need when I’m back on the ship,” the well-dressed androgenous looking passer-by replied.

Ah, must be one of the passengers staying in the nicer staterooms, Xochil mused to herself. They always felt so out of place on these stations. If they only knew…

Xochil marched onward to her next stop, rearranging the shopping trolley, and wrapping some of the more exotic exoplanetary fruits over her like a backpack. Five stops filled with jack fruits, guanabana, bananas, and exoplanetary delights that tasted a bit like Terran bananas later, she was finally able to return to the ship for a break. And a shower, a glorious almost one gee shower.

undefined

Maite was already in Xochil’s cabin when she finished drying her hair. Her dopey smile always looked better in person and Xochil crossed the small room to kiss her long-distance partner soundly.

“How many veggies did you deliver today?” Maite asked expectantly.

“Ay mi amor, at least two dozen Terran varieties. My back is killing me again. Don’t get me started on the cabbages.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind if I make you sit down and watch Asteroides de la Familia Vargas with me,” Maite fluffed the pillow next to her on the little loveseat and Xochil acquiesced. Ritual was ritual. A space telenovela was still very much a telenovela.

Xochil yawned. Marcos had just proposed to Gertrudis during an EVA but the alarm in his suit predictably went off. The show clearly didn’t even have the budget to send Marcos flying away from the asteroid, but she supposed that would have been too dangerous for the actor anyway.

Maite looked up at Xochil, having nearly fallen asleep too, and queried, “Hey, I’d been meaning to ask. Did you get the placement in Sagittarius?”

“Mierda, I totally forgot to put in the notice for interstellar travel last week. I already contacted the delivery company there, but I still need to figure out the rest of the move.”

“It’s a good ten lightyears away, you can’t just pack up and cruise over to Sagittarius!”

“Ya lo sé… Sorry, I know you and your crew are headed there soon. I didn’t realize you were coming here on such short notice.”

“I told you the shuttle specs and everything, that was the whole point of that two-page message log.”

“Bueno, it’s not a big deal.”

“You don’t have the paperwork in order and, if you did, we’d have at least a solar year together. Eso no es nada.”

Xochil was so forgetful when it came to personal stuff. If there were sundried tomatoes between point A and point B, she would already be halfway there. She was loathe to admit how good she was at her job, but how little thought she put into the rest of her life. Except Maite. Maite deserved better. They’d only spent a few months of real time together spread out over the course of five years. They hadn’t even bickered over Maite’s love of popcorn and how she’d get the kernels everywhere when she watched a movie.

Maite couldn’t get angry, wouldn’t let herself get angry. Who forgets to hold up their end of the scheme where they get to spend a solar year with their partner? Maite would move Jupiter and Earth if she had enough plata for it. She also knew Xochil’s tells. She always knew there was something more to Xochil, a lack of concern in her stomach about plans or money where Maite would otherwise fasten her tool belt while digesting her morning rice and beans. Maite never pried, never wondered more than was necessary. But she knew Xochil’s tells and something wasn’t adding up.

“I’ll go with you, Maite. I’ll find us a little cabin to stay planetside when you’re not working and a little hab in the station where you are. Maybe I can get some hydroponics growing, wouldn’t you like that? You know I’ve got a green thumb when I’m not bending over backwards doing deliveries.”

“Que no construyas castillos en el aire, princesa. Don’t go building castles in the sky, princess. You know as well as I do that isn’t going to happen. What gives? Do you not want to go?”

“We’re going!”

“Yeah, well you seemed pretty unprepared for the whole thing a minute ago.”

Xochil stood up, balling up her fists and trying to keep herself from crying.

“Dammit Maite, I have money!”

“¿Cómo? What?”

“Fine, you’ve got me. I didn’t want to tell you because it seemed disingenuous only keeping this job because of you. If you must know, I inherited half a planet, not just some telenovela asteroids. I’ve been working odd jobs since I finished college and gave away almost all the plata in my trust funds years ago. All I want is to have a normal life, and travel. With you.”

“Oh.”

“We should’ve talked, sooner… It was a mistake waiting this long and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…” Xochil swallowed back tears, embarrassed at getting herself in this predicament and hopeful Maite wouldn’t think much differently of her after this.

“Bueno, pues, tiene mucho sentido. Well, it makes a lot of sense. I’d be schlepping my stuff across star systems too if it meant getting to see more of the galaxy and staying out of whatever twisted drama surrounds your family and their money.”

“Thanks, cariño. I appreciate that. You met me when I was finishing up my rotation at the fish hatchery. Once I knew you’d be on the road so much as a mechanic, I knew I needed to get some type of delivery run job to keep up with you. I don’t have the specialized skills to be a mechanic and anything else would be too suspicious or too difficult.”

Xochil looked at Maite and giggled. Maite, veteran mechanic worlds over, was trying not to smile too wide by sucking in her cheeks. 

“I love you,” Maite replied simply.

“All the way to Sagittarius.”

“To Sagittarius!” Maite pulled Xochil in tightly and spun the two of them around, tripping and falling onto the sofa in a fit of tears and giggles as another hiccup in the station gravity made their legs buckle.

“I knew you were hiding something,” Maite said pointedly, arm now stretched around Xochil as they got back into the rhythm of the telenovela drama.

“I thought you figured it out. There is such a thing as the internet. I haven’t exactly been that discrete in recent years.”

“That costs money, and besides, against my better judgement I’ve always trusted you.”

“Oh. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“You’ve always followed me around with no complaint, I wasn’t going to start questioning things when our work assignments lined up. Wait. Are you going to keep doing the delivery job?”

“I think a more sedentary lifestyle will suit me; I’m getting a bit old for lifting. How about I just bring the fruits and veggies from our garden to our little home? I’ll make you tamales and use up the cabbages in pozole and other stews. We can figure out the rest later.”

“I think that would be more than satisfactory,” Maite concluded, more excited about a new assignment than ever before.

undefined

That night, tucked into a sleeping pod that swayed with the movements of the station like waves on the ocean, Xochil dreamed of life with Maite among the cabbages on an inhabited planet orbiting Antares. It would be a life of stews, juices, salads, some rocket grease, and a whole lot of love.

Jill Feenstra: Brutus
Brutus  undefined Jill Feenstra
Brutus by Jill Feenstra

Creator Bios
Creator Bios

— Support creators everywhere! —

Pay your fellow workers for their art.

All funds received are distributed to the creators in this journal. 

Angela Acosta, Ph.D. (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Carolina. She is a 2022 Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers Finalist, 2022 Somos en Escrito Extra-Fiction Contest Honorable Mention, and Utopia Award nominee. Her poetry has appeared in Copihue Poetry, The Acentos Review, Shoreline of Infinity, and Radon Journal. She is author of Summoning Space Travelers (Hiraeth Publishing, 2022), A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness (Red Ogre Review, 2023), and Fourth Generation Chicana Unicorn (Dancing Girl Press, 2024).

pw.org/directory/writers/angela_acosta

Carrie Newberry (she/her) is the author of Pick Your Teeth with my Bones and Wolf is a Four-Letter Word, published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her third novel is slated to come out next June. Carrie studied creative writing at the UW-Madison. Now a Madison dog groomer by day, Carrie is also a member of the faculty at AllWriters’ Workplace and Workshop, an international writing studio and community. She lives in Madison with two cats, one who is a potted plant serial killer, and another who spends the wee hours of the morning chirping louder than the birds.

carrienewberry.com

DC Diamondopolous is an award-winning short story, and flash fiction writer with hundreds of stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. DC’s stories have appeared in: Progenitor, 34th Parallel, So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, Lunch Ticket, and others. DC has two published collections of short stories, Stepping Up and Captured Up Close (20th Century Short-Short Stories). She was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net Anthology. She lives on the California coast with her wife and animals.

dcdiamondopolous.com

Drew Broussard (he/him) is a writer, producer, and bookseller in New York’s Hudson Valley. He is the podcasts editor at Literary Hub, where he also hosts The Lit Hub Podcast and Tor Presents Voyage into Genre. His writing has appeared in The Southwest Review, midsummer magazine, Litt Magazine, Oh Reader, Unbound Worlds, Tor Nightfire, and friends’ mailboxes, among other places. He is the bookstore manager for Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY. www.drewbroussard.com.

@drewsof

Duane Horton is a black queer fantasy writer who is based in the Bay Area. He believes in writing his intersection of identity into his fantasy stories as a way to widen the cannon, and so that folks who share his identity can see themselves written on the page. Duane graduated with his MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in 2019 and since then, he’s been published with Green Mountains Review, Sapphire Hues Press, SeaGlass literary and more. When Duane isn’t reading for the next book club he facilitates, you can find him watching some of his favorite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. To read more of Duane’s work, please visit his website at duanehorton.net or follow him on Instagram @duanethewriter_

Glenn Dungan is currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. He exists within a Venn-diagram of urban design, sociology, and good stories. When not obsessing about one of those three, he can be found at a park drinking black coffee and listening to podcasts about murder. You can find his work on his website, whereisglennnow.com, or follow him on substack at “Where Is Glenn Now?

Jennifer Hu is a Taiwanese-American writer and recovering ex-tech worker based in San Francisco. She is grateful for the support of Tin House Writers Workshop, VONA, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and the generous communities of The Ruby SF and Page Street Writers as she works on her first novel. Her poetry has appeared in The Ocotillo Review. A proud childless dog lady, Jen can often be found helping her pup Maya find the bestest stick on the beach…and dreaming up ways to burn down the patriarchy.

@drabblejen

Jill Feenstra is a Pacific Northwest artist who works primarily in acrylic on wood panel. Her subject matter relies heavily on themes of heartbreak. Jill has been showing her work across Washington for decades, shipping to collectors worldwide. She runs and operates Mutiny Gallery in Seattle. Jill has a Bachelor’s Archaeology and was formerly a microbiology technician and beekeeper. At the moment she keeps chickens and is tolerated by three finicky cats.

@jillerbees

Kristina Ten‘s stories appear in McSweeney’s, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction, and elsewhere. Along with winning the Stephen Dixon Award and the Subjective Chaos Kind of Award for Short Fiction, she has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Locus Award. Ten is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of Colorado Boulder’s MFA program in creative writing. Her debut collection is forthcoming in 2025 from Stillhouse Press.

@kristinasergeevnaten kristinaten.com

LeeAnn Perry (she/they) is an ambient/industrial electronic musician, generative audiovisual artist, techno-witch, and cat food scientist based in San Francisco. You can connect with them online at lnpry.space.

@xxuxxuxxuxxuxxu

Philip Harris is a writer and Polaroid photographer living in the Bay Area where he continues his search for the perfect burrito.

@phashion

Hello! My name is Sonia Lai (like pie). I’m a bay area native trying to balance life as a freelance illustrator and a healthcare worker. My best work pops out at 5am so I don’t get enough sleep haha. When I’m not drawing I enjoy looking at chubby animals on social media, tinkering with my ukulele, and watching cartoons in Spanish. My portfolio can be found at www.SoniaLai.com and I’m most active on instagram @Pochipop — say hi!

Zeke Jarvis (he/him/his) is a Professor of English at Eureka College. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Posit, and KNOCK, among other places. His books include, So Anyway…, In A Family Way, The Three of Them, and Antisocial Norms. His website is zekedotjarvis.wordpress.com

Matt Scott Carney is a Pushcart nominated Latinx writer and musician residing in San Francisco. He holds an MA and MFA from SFSU. His fiction and poetry have appeared in A cappella Zoo, Inkwell, Red Light Lit, sPARKLE & bLINK, Entropy, Anti-Heroin Chic, Tilted House, The Racket Journal and in readings at seedy bars across California. His short story ‘On Becoming’ was a finalist in the 2017 Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Contest; and ‘In Fresno, One Last Bath in Dust’ was included in the Baobab Press anthology This Side of the Divide: New Lore of the American West. He is a co-founder and producer of Club Chicxulub, a fabulist science fiction performance series.

Find his Art Rock/-wave project N! on Bandcamp, Spotify and everywhere else. 

mattcarney.space @ruddagerrustin

Lauren C. Johnson attributes her upbringing in Florida, America’s weirdest state, to her interest in the ecological and surreal. Her writing has appeared in Mason Jar Press, Maudlin House, the Swamp Ape Review, the Museum of Science Fiction, and others. She is the interviews editor for The Racket Journal and is a member of The Ruby, a Bay Area collective for women and non-binary artists and creatives. She earned her MFA in creative writing at American University and lives in San Francisco, where she is a co-host of Babylon Salon, a quarterly Bay Area reading series, and Club Chicxulub, a sci-fi and fantasy performance series.

Her debut novel, The West Façade, is forthcoming from Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP) in 2026.

laurencjohnson.com

📸 @giovanna_lomanto

Born in San Jose and living in San Francisco’s Sunset District, Dev Bhat is a musician, composer, sound designer, and copywriter. He grew up performing in bands that could be characterized as industrial rock, shoegaze, hardcore punk, drone, doom, and ambient. Dev’s solo work features synthetic and organic textures using analog synthesizers, old tape recorders, samplers, drum machines, loopers, and a dense combination of effects processors. He draws inspiration from nature, horror films, classic video games, 90s anime, and all forms of speculative fiction.

@shipwreckdetective