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Fiction Listing by contributor Spring 2008 Borges's Desk Stephen Beal The things in Borges's desk were the only things that Borges could see. Thus Borges's desk held everything. Beautiful Things Misha Firer Dream riding could be compared to soap bubble blowing. Or, alternatively, to playing a musical instrument: something Kristine had never learned to do properly (she quit her violin lessons after four months). It would be years before Kristine compared dream riding to love making. Mikhail Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino There had been a number of close calls, but most people assumed she simply really liked anatomy. She pulled the plastic sheet back and looked down at Mikhail, the cadaver she had been assigned at the start of the semester. Reys Sean Cunningham Let me explain. I write on your property not because I’m malicious. Not vengeful, bitter, destructive or angry. Neither do I write on your property because I’m political, artistic, rebellious or romantic. The Dollmaker Grant Flint "Cindy has a clitoris, don't you, Cindy?" Libby said, and she pulled down the doll's drawers, lifted up its dress and exposed its red velvet clitoris. Well. Interesting. The Shadow Walked Away Kevin Frazier Everywhere, shadows were drifting loose. The shadow of a bus rolled through a movie theater. The shadow of a house floated on a river. The shadow of a purse wandered up a skyscraper. Bare Knees Lea Soranno The cook came out and filled the pots with noodles that were thick like rope. He started to twist the noodles into knots and loops. He was making a noodle noose, and everyday he contemplated using the noose to hang himself. Encounter With a Unicorn Angela Payne They don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that the writing on the chalkboard is morphing into different things. First the chalk becomes a hamburger, and the chalk-outlined hamburger begins to move toward me, quickly. I duck out of the way and follow as it barely misses my head and flies through the window. Good Music Tells a Good Story Munir Muztaba Ali It was a baneful disease that required not only extensive treatment, but also careful living. It had a name, but I wouldn’t say it, because we Bangalis don’t call certain diseases by their names; it’s kind of taboo in our culture. The Man in the Orange Suit Adam Graupe I later sat down at my computer and typed a short story. The man in the orange suit’s name was changed to Scott, and Zelda was the woman he loved. They fell in love at first sight during college orientation. Winter 2007-2008 Noodling J. Albin Larson He said that if you found the right hole, sometimes a catfish as big as a human would clamp down on your forearm. That you had to fight underwater and be sure to push your legs off the bottom or you might not be able to wrestle the huge fish to the surface. Cross-Country Catherine J.S. Lee Emily dismisses the beach, its strip of glassy luxury towers beyond the means of her careful purse. It's stolen money, but it won't be spent frivolously. Men Are Like Plants Tamara Linse If a geranium were a man, it’d be a pimp. I’m not kidding. All those showy flowers, sorta like gold chains and purple polyester, don’t you think? The Silences Eric D. Goodman They were young, this couple seated on the train. Too young, their friends back home had teased them, to be riding an old-fashioned locomotive. Almost Rickshaw Tom Sheehan I started back toward the Center, hearing only the peepers kissing the night and the crickets holding up their end of all things lovely. The night enveloped Maye and Harvey, and me. The Far Jenny Dunning Not until he saw Moll, his beloved ’74 Subaru wagon, sitting in the high grass at the end of the gravel drive, did Sully know for sure where he was: at The Far, the commune where he had lived during the eighties. How he had gotten here, he couldn’t say. Forsaking All Others Elizabeth Buechner Morris In the beginning we talked about our class and our classmates, wondering how we could relate to Gum Popper, Eyebrow Piercer, Boots, and Tattoo Boy; doubting if we had the ability to affect The Slouch to become one of the gang. Departure Rich Seeber It, it, it!, Tilda thought. Half an hour ago it had pressed against her thigh through his trousers. It had shown the courage to request what neither of them had had the courage to approach with words. Fall 2007 Six-Hundred and Five Words Donia Carey Why has no one kissed me or been kissed? I offer clues: My mouth, manly and firm-lipped as it is, is always open, its corners foaming words, an overflowing sundae of blatherings and wisdom, an erupting Vesuvius of rumbles. Give Me Shelter Sarah Black Just room for a mom and boy, and we’ll live high on the hog, fruit cocktail and chicken noodle soup, play Go Fish and listen to the blues and draw pictures like a couple of artists until the electricity winks out. A Tsubota haiku and a Rodriguez response Tony R. Rodriguez what will get me more ladies, an embroidery machine or my bike? Late for Play Michael Cocchiarale Mom didn’t like the Catholics much, having been (as she said) force-fed their fear and guilt and obscene superstition for eight long years—-but she knew for certain that St. Paul’s would save me from the hell of public school punches or pocketknives or worse. If We Only Lived in Manhattan Nick Ostdick I couldn’t stop. I was on autopilot. I hid in her closet during the morning and jumped out and screamed I love you! while she was getting dressed, scaring her half to death. I left her little notes taped to the steering wheel of her car that read I LUV U written out all cute like that, like we were in second grade or something. Swimming in Colors Ann Tinkham My body became a living purple canvas. I’d plunge in and pretend I was a purple mermaid looking for a patched pirate with a treasure chest of jewels. Affirmations Katherine Luck Methamphetamines are illegal. Methamphetamines will not solve your problems. Methamphetamine dealers make more money each month than I do, and you know what? In spite of that, I do not sell methamphetamines. Allie's Boy Ellen Pober Rittberg One of the many things I love about my boss is that she is a democrat with a small “d.” Sometimes I fetch coffee for her and sometimes she fetches coffee for me. The Artist Angela Meyer Tattoos like stamped patterns on folded silk. She’d gotten them in Paris when she was eighteen, when a beggar was her friend, the concrete her pillow, and a hard knock her income. Summer 2007 Merle Littel Sam Smith Merle had a secret, one that he had never shared with his co-workers out of fear of ridicule. He spent his evenings sitting with a strong lamp, colored threads spread across the arm of his sofa, a large magnifying glass propped on his chest, deftly embroidering. Scarlet Tanager Davina Moss You were a doll, a baby doll, nothing more than a doll, but to him you were a plaything. A doll, a plaything, beautiful, noticed and alone: you were my sister. The Dream (Israel) Talia Lavin I walk through the squares, not naked, not clothed, through the narrow streets leading to the Wailing Wall and the excavation sites with their half-eroded pillars -- pillars without roofs, lifting into the perfect sky like bodiless legs. One of the Guys Bruce Taylor While his wife was to me like some Hopper heroine, sultry in a thin chemise stifling in some rented room somewhere by an open window either waiting or merely gazing out. To him she must have seemed something suddenly Picasso, more like Du Champs’ “Nude Descending a Staircase.” La Sombra Jane Hammons In La Sombra there is no water to speak of, so it must be said that Mateo Luis Hernandez de Roybal knew what he was getting into when he held conversation with the white woman who didn’t care that people laughed about what she was doing in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert. The Wallet Sondra Friedman On the way to work, the wallet sat beside his own in the passenger seat. He regarded them both. One: battered, bloated, with a bad credit rating. The other: sleek, polished, cash-flow positive. Jetlag Sharon Black In Berlin we eat Käsespätzle the first night. I have to pick the bacon bits out of mine. I’m actually a vegetarian, but this was the only thing on the menu that didn’t come with a still-kicking hoof. Spring 2007 Babydoll Olivia Kate Cerrone Although I live alone, my bedroom closet houses a proud collection of babydoll nighties in silk and chiffon, and satin chemises trimmed in velvet and lace. On the days I see Michael, I like to place the babydolls on my bed and admire them. The Aquatist at Rest Marc Levy Reclining on its back, the heart spits a stream of water into the air, paddles its legs, lifts its arms up, slaps them down, performs a credible backstroke, swims underwater a good ten yards and back before coming up for air. Free Bellies Sabrina Tom I am thinking about the men in Beijing, how they walk around with their shirts hiked under their armpits, exposing their firm and brown and perfectly smooth bellies. I decide to ask Chinese Boyfriend about it. Creatures of the Night Randall Brown It takes two milligrams of Xanax—for me, not him—to keep me out of his room. It's like a marijuana high. Whatever he does to get him through the fear becomes a ritual without which he cannot survive. He cries out, "I love you, Daddy" because he wants my counter-cry. The Summer I Loved Will Erica Russo So I question other memories. Did he jump into the freezing Ladoga to impress me or to show off for his buddies? Did he hold my hand in Novgorod merely to warm his own? Quiet Deaths David Erlewine He was the only non-therapist that I ever talked to about how covert stutterers like me were living on borrowed time, that we were the exceptions to Caesar’s exhortation that cowards die a thousand deaths. Safe Lights Brian Friesen From where Keith stood on the deck, the sky was a deep blue and there were patches of stars up there. Then a flashlight clicked on amongst them. One of his father's hands, ghostlike in the beam of light, held a shimmering can. Winter 2006-2007 Arun D'Silva Vidya Ravi Whenever he saw a particularly pretty woman, he couldn't help but shout his usual introduction, "My name is Arun D'Silva. I am from Bombay. Can I fall in love with you?" Jacob's Breath Mike Moran Jacob imagined that there was another branch just a touch higher that he couldn't see, a branch coming down from the sky, and if he took hold of it the whole world would turn over, and Jacob would find himself climbing down this other tree, disappearing up into the heavens. A Contemplation of Death Lisa Cochran What if she died and no one (besides her family and closest friends, of course) could quite imagine her face? She was Catholic, so she believed in heaven, but what if, unlike Walter Benjamin and his books, she had no afterlife on earth? How to Make a Baby Robert Levin Thoroughly upended, I even began to think about homosexuality; about, that is, the solution it afforded to the problem of getting your rocks off without spinning what Kerouac called the "wheel of the quivering meat conception." Voices Carry John Cavlin Hughes Her parents were making love. The bed was creaking loudly. Rose's mother, my aunt, was going oh oh oh in time with the bed. It went on and on and on. I looked at Rose. She had her eyes closed too, trying to imagine, I imagined, what the lovers looked like. Fall 2006 The Odd Vertex Catherine Segurson At the desk, I turn on my wife’s vanity mirror lights because it's time to be a clown. Be a clown, be a clown. All the world loves a clown, I'm singing. I pin on my wig made of yellow yak hair. Here and Found Pen Werner Low In the news stories about these events they love to show aerial footage. The helicopters are not allowed to get too close, so it's difficult to make out individuals. What I do is position myself near a landmark such as a fountain, or even a car of an unusual color. Resurrection Jennifer Wright Think about Lily, the former model and professional dancer who came just before you. Hold your breath. Remember what your ex-husband used to say to you, "Baby, you'd be pretty if you just wore more make-up." Even Richard Nixon John P. Loonam I had brought Nixon another Big Mac, and offered it to Agent Howard. He refused with a politeness that seemed simultaneously genuine and official. I ate both Big Macs and most of Nixon’s fries, smiling as I thought of the story I could make out of this. The Floating Man Ralph Greco, Jr. Emil actually floated as he stood, hovered if you will allow, his toes just tickling the carpet, his heels gliding as if executing a perfect hover-craft maneuvering there in his peach-and-mauve bedroom. The Author Robert Levin Helen looked at me then in a very peculiar way and I knew she knew who I was. (How many authors had something like this happened with in her career?) Little Miss Perfect Jenny Sinclair Miriam Wooster, nee Smith, was 47 years old when she decided to become an Olympic gymnast. She got the idea one night, just before bedtime, about half past nine, from the television. Summer 2006 My Sadness is My Own Eileen Cruz Coleman She'd never again take a breath without feeling pain. And I'd stay until her lungs failed. I'd stay because she had once loved me. She carried me in her arms all the way to the hospital when I was eleven years old after having found me naked on the side of the road. Six Passengers in Search of a Conductor Eric Diamond Mr. All Right Now sees his own personal India, Istanbul, Mexico City out there, any judgments mean you are too small for New York City, man. After the Funeral Aaron Gilbreath Trevor died driving into a tree. He was twenty-eight years old when his truck slid across rain-slick asphalt and wrapped around a date palm. The Losers J. C. Frampton "Look, Fred. No, look at me. We decided to knock it off. Neither of us is gay or anything. God, I hate that word. We're bachelors by nature, that's all." photo by Jason Black Fine Bones Jala Pfaff It started when she overheard her parents laughingly, gently commenting to one another that she was "getting a little pudgy." And The contrast!, they chuckled, with our fine-boned family! The Companion Arlene Sanders And what of happiness? In thirty years, he’d had none. And then it had happened. Her warm companionship. His finger shaking, pressed against a nipple. A balm of lilies. The luscious taste of possibility. Spring 2006 The Story Is Bruce Taylor He told her his wife hadn’t read a word he’d written in the last ten years. Tessa (he had never seen her have six beers before) said that was like not looking a man straight in the eye when you came. The next time they each got up to go to the bathroom, they wrote that down. Him in all CAPS. The Sari Vicky Fish Laura bought glass bangles and silver toe rings, too. All the girls at the Gandhian University, the Vidyapith, were thrilled. They tugged and readjusted Laura's sari. They gave her an Indian name and laughed when she tried to sit cross-legged on the floor to eat. Gladys, Pear Woman Francine Witte One day the doorman offers Gladys a smile. Ancient reaction -- Gladys is smitten and later, she orders a rowing machine. How many pounds, she wonders, are standing between me and love? The Sad Little Happiness of Drinks and Kisses Timmy Waldron I've woken up on trains in the middle of the night, not knowing where I am, my clothes stained and disheveled. I'm like a werewolf, no memory of the carnage, just the telltale signs of a crime. I find ketchup and mustard spattered on my clothes, the taste of hotdog or pretzel fresh in my mouth. Lost in Canyonlands Sarah Black I was like one of Macbeth's witches, dressed in gray rags and tatters, my hair gray, skin gray, eyes gray, soul gray. But this place had too much color. This incessant red was burning me up. The heat, the desolation, the improbable and ridiculous redness of it all -- Abandon Hope, All Who Enter The Maze Without a Compass. Has Always Hated Champagne Victoria May Collett And with another click of the ENTER key, there, in a bold black Arial font, size 12, on a lush iridescent blue and pink background—was her husband’s profile. All of it. And then some. Height (he lied). Weight (he lied). 99 Cents Joseph P. Thayer A hot hazy afternoon passed by, and on the brick wall behind my house I imagined pictures of how life would be when I grew up, how I would have money and buy my Ma nice things. The planet was moving around a great ball in space without me knowing it, and beautiful reds and yellows poured into the clouds. Cat's Eyes M. Stefan Strozier There were so many things he wanted to write about, and he was still young. It was like a calling he had to answer. But it would all be over soon, probably this week. Hell, maybe tonight. There was no way of knowing for sure. The doctors had said he had less then a month left. Winter 2005 - 2006 A Pale Shade of Yellow Kelly DeLong Your wife has heard these stories, and the more you tell them lately the more she gives you that troubled look of hers, the one with the frown and the stare at the walls, the one that says, Why did I marry you? Without Louise Kyle Killen Perhaps you've seen my grandmother. White hair, five foot two, seventy years old. She was in a hospital gown and plastic shoes. Her chest is wide open. She may or may not be conscious. She answers to Louise. Marilyn Stephanie Nolasco Only Spanish girls like me get slapped and spanked for simple things, such as dropping a bowl by accident. Why couldn't I become a true American, like Marilyn Monroe, and speak English? Razor Blade Chaser Victoria May Collett Today, now, here in her own kitchen, she’s been at the sink washing one of her artsy glasses for fifteen or twenty minutes already. It’s clean. She knows that. She can’t stop. She has to get it so clean that there is no memory of the orange juice left. It's Up to You Michael Cocchiarale She was wincing because she knew she would make a sizable dent in the world, while I would just splat against its side like a bug against a windshield. de nada Richard Lutman "I'm called Margaret, with one 'E'," she said, in a voice that sounded faraway. "I tried to kill myself once by walking into the water. It was really grand. The water was so warm as it closed about me. I thought I was in my mother's womb." The Head of Karl Marx Arnold Levine Workers of the world were milling around the monument as we ran up to see the effects of the bomb. The fierce-looking, three-foot-diameter, hollow bronze bearded head of Marx once had sat proudly atop the violated block of marble. The Night Bus Kristen Roupenian The night bus out of Kampala crosses the Kenyan border at 8:30 p.m., an hour after dark. Awino, who is afraid to be outside after nightfall, arrives at the border station just before sunset. The Rest of the Dharma P.L. George I wanted him to knight me. Instead he told me not to be so careful with words. To free flow, like jazz, blowing through a shiny sax. He said he'd keep three out of a hundred, which gave me a burn flicker. Fall 2005 The Sadness of Strangers Monica Kilian She arrived every year in August, the woman from Wakayama. Year after year she signed herself into the same bed & breakfast in old Broome town, on the remote pearling coast of Australia. She first recorded her name and address in neat Japanese script, then, very carefully, in English. Torque in Angkor Wat Marc Levy We are guests to a lost age in sacred rooms which know the luminous voice of prayer and song. We are guests under low roofs locked in the vise of towering trees and serpentine vines. We are surrounded by stone and light and triple-layered jungle which knows no law but its own. Puberty on Polaroid Joe Dugan You wade along the shore, searching for shells wishing you looked Seventeen, dreaming up your first kiss. It won’t come today. You’re not ready. The Swing Brian K. Crawford She remembered the delicious instant of weightlessness at the end of the arc, lying there motionless in the sky, free even of gravity. There would be a tingle in her belly—a mixture of danger, freedom, and total elation that Mabel only now recognized as an early sexual response. The Magical Publishing Pen M. Stefan Strozier Sure. Why don’t we make it a game and use your soul as collateral? Just like in Chaucer, the best story gets paid by the others. At the End of the World Thomas E. Howard The last page of the portfolio was a list compiled of names, dates, locations and manner of death from March 2003 to the present, from Iraq Body Count. Bullet in head. Shrapnel. Missile. Burns. Tank attack. Air strike. Full body burn. Aerial bombardment. American soldiers. Car hit by tank fire. Bullet cut arteries. Bullet in heart. B-52 dropping cluster bombs. WildCare Robert F. Bradford Anyway, we're comfortable with the silences, which quit being awkward a few thousand smokes ago. Skyler doesn't seem strange to me; it's not like chunks of my brain have never been scrambled. The Black Hole in Tommy's Backyard J.A. Tyler The biggest thing he'd thrown down it so far was an apple. It was a golden delicious that was more red than anything. He'd twisted the stem while reciting the alphabet and ended up on R. He couldn't think of any girl with an R at the beginning of her name. He had been hoping for S, because Sarah was the girl he liked best. The Undies Pennant Tom Sheehan Johnny Templemore, never with a girl other than minor petting, a clumsy fondling of a breast or two, but full of dreams, walked away from the Center at 7 p.m. in a quandary. He was a dead duck, he figured. Sixteen years and nothing to show for it. Now he had five hours and the whole world was coming down on him. When Flesh Covers Bone, A Creature is Made Joseph Hegwood I found myself lying naked on the cool dark tiles in my upstairs bathroom one important afternoon not long ago. I had been there nearly all day, letting my mind consider it all, not talking, just lying and waiting for a decision. I needed something, I had decided; I needed all of the demonic chattering monkeys in my mind to hush. Summer 2005 Men With Briefcases Are Shocking Me Shane Alan Noecker The way she romanticized her relationship with God, Satchel wondered if she might not still be a virgin. He knew she had never married. She still had the high, distancing laugh of a virgin. The idea of it! He thought he had deflowered his last virgin fifty years ago. Red State Darryl Halbrooks After the last big rally for the Pres, where I am forced, because of love, to fraternize with the enemy crowd, it’s all I can do to keep from throwing up. They cheer wildly at each of his clipped platitudes. They love him. A true man of the people, and to prove it, his southern drawl becomes lazier with each mile that separates him from the White House. Sub Timothy Reilly It’s dark. The phone is ringing. You know why the phone is ringing. You want the phone to ring—you need the phone to ring—yet you dread what you will hear when you lift the receiver. First there is the silence of one who is blindfolded, anticipating the report of rifles. You feel it rip into you before you hear it: This is the Happytown Unified School District Substitute Calling System, calling for.... The golden calf David Alexander McFarland Noi did carry the pink card, the V.D. card that allowed her in the Wat Sai and the Sampan Club and the other bars. She said she had never slept with a GI. She said she had not slept with any man, even now at age seventeen. It seemed impossible. He believed her and it still seemed impossible. Frog-Smitten Hareendran Kallinkeel Mother never allowed you to go beyond conventions, and she always had a list of things you should not do. If you broke a rule, you took a hundred dips in the pond. Sins must be washed off before you got back home. Naked Lady in 3B Wayne Scheer But I'm hot now. I mean I've seen her naked and I've heard her voice. Usually for me it's one or the other. I either talk to them at a bar or I see a nude picture on the Internet. This is about as far as I've gotten in a long time. The Shailah Andrew Madigan Her abaya is open as well, revealing what appear to be wrinkled pajamas. She doesn’t always dress in the Emirati style; only when she’s having a bad hair day, he muses. Abaya as sweatpants: what you dress in when you don’t have time to get dressed. Beauty Dive Arndt Britschgi What makes a dive a beautiful dive? he'd started thinking. It's not the height (although the height was an important part of it: below ten feet was not a dive in Stacey's eyes, but only a leap). It's not the execution, one by one, of the stages (take-off and swallowing, extension, entry, surfacing -- although that too would play a part). It's not the line of flight you trace, no, it's the water you dive into. Spring 2005 QWERTY Shellie Zacharia Kate creates new almost-sentences for days straight. He comes to expect them. After she reads one with the words orgasm and quiver but which lacks the letters d, l and p, he takes her to the bedroom and tries to help her through her sadness with fingertips tracing letters on her collarbone. Bass Violin Boris Tsessarsky The only thing he said that I understood was that he thought (for the longest) that we were the moon playing. He said when he looked out the window he saw the moon and heard music, and finally had to come investigate. Artificial Colors Erin Dionne Ashley had achieved a perfect score on the PSATs. Everyone wanted to know how she’d done it. Truthfully, she’d spent the night before watching reruns of Laverne and Shirley and eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Even she was surprised at the results. Rainy Day Chloe Noland In my dream you are three years old, and your fat cheeks are dirty with tears because you fell off the monkey bars at the park. I know exactly what you look like; your mouth is a shivering droop of a line, your hair is uncombed and raggedy, hanging in your face, and your eyes are huge and frightened. Rock Star, art by Joel Nethery Maurice Charles Elizabeth Christopher That morning, Maurice woke up to find that he couldn’t make out anything more than a few inches away from his face. Neither his reading nor distant-vision glasses made a difference. Near and far, it was the same: The world remained a blur. Before the Plunge Tripp Reade Though by no means an old hand, this was not her first time: there'd been Darius Green last summer. Zack tried not to think about it, but never managed the trick. Darius lived right here in Tabitha's neighborhood and drove a Beemer. Zack drove a Chevy Cavalier, the cockroach of the road. Comparisons were inevitable. River Candles Christopher Tolian She takes off her shoes and sits on a limestone overhang. Luminescent wake trails out, making the river candles jump in the current. Somewhere across the river a window is opened. Blues slinks out into the night, all cool grind and hot wails. Winter 2004 Chikan Christine Allen-Yazzie Marcy had heard that, just yesterday, two windows had burst from an express train similar to the one she was now on, one also on the Chuo line, when unheeding swarms of people had forced themselves into the sliding glass throat of an already overburdened car, pressing themselves against each other like a bag full of worms. The Writer Decides Michael P. McManus I am a writer with no legs. Well, that’s not entirely true; twin stubs extend down to where my knees used to be. One might make a case for semantics by arguing that indeed I do have legs that are only thighs. Lula Devreaux Rich Hallstrom Maybe the same thing happened in houses all over Salt Lake, every night. The church was all around. People made up their own rules to it. As long as you don't kill anybody. As long as the tithing gets paid. Freedom's Just Another Word Diane Payne I lived in a shabby trailer park surrounded by forest in Flagstaff. A friend had once said my trailer looked like a generic beer can, and the more I thought about that, the more I wanted to plant a garden, make it seem more like a home. The Falls Tanya Underwood We can go to Canada. That is what he tells me. We can drive to Canada and just keep on driving; watch the roads become black and the sky fill with forests. Sonny Rollins 1963 George Sparling "How do you make your life work?" What kind of a question was that? I told him about my job at the post office. "Not that. How do you make your life valuable?" Honing in on the same question, rephrasing it. Back to the original melody... Today, Quite Early Christopher Woods No matter how I tried, I could not make their room new. This was something that had not happened before, ever. I sat on the edge of their bed in that room and could not see anything good in the future of the couple from St. Louis. Gasoline and Perfume Christopher Tolian The piano stomps out a chromatic swing, while the guitar flashes blue-tinged flamenco. Violin weeps out over and through the chords, pulling out notes into a mourning wail. The trumpet softly rasps under it all, a scat chant calling all to listen. Fall 2004 At the Good Looking Shop-a-Lot Michael Cocchiarale It was clear she wasn't simply seeking out Red Romes or Bartletts -- she was looking for me! God, how I'd both waited for and feared such an occasion -- at least since the early ugly days of high school, which in my mind appeared as one long lonely afternoon in the back of a classroom, socially debilitated by chronic bologna breath and Sears corduroys smooth with age. Skin Kate Heartfield I hear jungle creatures pacing in the hall. My skin aches with tired, but still I don’t sleep. Not sleeping is not a lack of action; it is a marathon sport. It takes effort. Sleeping takes something else; I don’t know what. Car Trouble in a Blues Bar Paul Germano Darryl James was just what Elaine Bellanova was looking for in a one-to-four-night stand: Twentysomething and rough around the edges. Beyond Superman Rich J. Stone In the beginning, there were a lot of whiny humans. They'd bitch and moan about how meaningless their existence was, and wondered whether they had souls and if said souls were eternal. Ike decided to take pity upon the human and created God. The New Bohemians Utahna Faith They pass the creamy buildings on Ursalines Street, Antebellum structures milky in buttercup yellow, rosy brick, white-chocolate mint. They duck into Croissant d'Or, black-clad and smoky among fresh morning joggers. Angels Born Falling Sieannen Bell My coworkers seem sedated, content even. I try to tell myself that this is life. This is how millions of people survive every day. This is the way it's done. And every hour I feel my heart pumping a new scream into my throat. Safe and Familiar Faces Kevin P. Keating A feeling of bitterness crept into my heart, and I often found myself gazing at the houses in the neighborhood, believing that every Christmas tree looked like a burning bush, as if each potbellied, middle-aged, American man was Moses, and in order to receive a daily dose of divine revelation he need only step through the front door, remove his shoes, and shout, "Here I am!" A Little Sacrifice Naomi Leimsider The sweet thickness of them, pushing them all in my mouth at once, can't get my mouth around them fast enough, trying to get them all in. I sit in the glow of having done something bad and not being able to do a thing about it. Then I curl up like a doughnut and fall asleep. Summer 2004 Dancing on the Riverbank Eileen Cruz Coleman Lovers who met by the river; Carmella was married to someone else and had five-year-old twin girls; Andres was her childhood sweetheart. As children, they sat in front of Manuel’s bakery, eating chocolate-covered mangoes...Life was simple. Gretchen of Wisconsin Darryl Halbrooks We were fat. It’s easy to swear off sex when you’re fat. We’re thin now. Are you sure you want to miss out on this? I. Shy Men Anonymous II. E Misha Firer Bobbie "Fat Cat" had no interest in eking out her serotonin or in enticing her mind to become chemically happy. She was here just to get laid. A Miniature Forever Linda Oatman High Joe carries his journal with him each day. He writes a few lines by the cemetery. But on this day, Joe decides not to write. He decides instead to bury the journal. The journal is yellow -- the color of hope and sunshine and Joe’s first car. Drowning Miriam N. Kotzin So Mom has to put the kittens in a tied sack with a rock in the bottom to weight it down. You can just about hear them through the burlap, kind of mewing, and the sack is all squirmy. You're trying to push her away from the barrel of water, and you can't. Smell Sandy Steinman My shrink says his passivity goes to the root of our marital problems. Alice thinks he has a sensuality blockage and would benefit from aromatic massage. I call it lazy. The Photograph Liz Dolan Kathleen would watch her mother stare at the photograph, and she wanted to ask her about him. Could he run fast? Could he play scullies, flys are up, or curb ball? She wanted to ask her mother, but something always stopped her. The Outing of Polonius Pete Wayne Scheer He became so notorious, in fact, that the Sidewinder organization asked him to wear the skintight uniform in the opening game of the new season. Why the Ball Stayed in the Park Gary D. Wilson Even the blind man and the kid with blue hair trudging up separate aisles of the stadium know that crack doesn't do justice to the report of a perfectly thrown pitch meeting a perfectly swung bat. Baseball Forever Michael Schein It was the Microsoft Mariners versus the Genentech Red Sox. The game was a little late startin', 'cause the players all had to renegotiate their contracts based on their performance from the day before. Spring 2004 A Hard Place Gary Glauber You ask about the afterlife? The stone-cold reality is just that: I've returned to this earthly plane as soul resident of a large rock. Native Americans contend rocks have souls; how my soul got here is the mystery. Love Prevents War Diane Payne What pains him the most is that he’s shed tears over their distance, over Janice’s need for solitude, and she’s never cried about hurting him, about being afraid their relationship won’t work out; yet, she cries listening to the "Star Spangled Banner," and he knows she’s not moved with patriotic fever, but with real sadness. This Magic Moment Eduardo Santiago See, I'm not just another prostitute. What happened with Rodney King was personal. It was special. He knows it and I know it. Sometimes you feel something. But the Cubans, they would never understand that. Same way they don’t understand the sadness of grandchildren who scream in horror at the icons on the altar. They don’t understand English. And they don’t understand me. To The Phillips Motel in Sheldon Elizabeth Gauffreau The following Friday night, Donna and Gary started going together. Even though his car had a button that said, "Happiness Is a Warm Pussy," stuck to the dashboard, it was his first time. Donna pretended it was her first time, too. Ol' What's-Her-Face Benjamin Reed She walks in the bar around midnight. Well, not walking so much as tugging on angel feathers, soaring, just above the ground, at two miles per hour. I’m shaking a martini when I see her, the blood rushing into my hands make the ice melt into the temperature of tears. Still Life Claire Sherba Chewy, cardboard chocolate against Frieda Kahlo’s bright Mexican prints and severe eyebrows. Cheap, weakly-colored prints of her self-portraits page after page: her organs floating in space and tethered to her winged, uni-browed baby by a disconnected umbilical cord. This is not Lola. The Redemption of Billy Saddle Michael J. Vaughn I was a celebrity. I got death threats. The cops said they couldn't make any promises. I decided to move, but my wife said she couldn't leave Tennessee, couldn't put the kids through it. I think the truth was, she didn't want to be married to Big John's Curse. Going Yard Susan DiPlacido Dust flies, my helmet rolls off, and I can hear it. Laughing. That fuckin' lefty on the mound is laughing, so's their second baseman. And so is, I'm sure, everyone in the stands. Even her. Winter 2003-2004 Leonard the Blind Man Tom Sheehan The blind man and the sighted man said silence as if they stood in the middle of a mausoleum, and the word hung there for them and then died away and became itself. All around them they felt the word become itself. When they said color, some long minutes later, Charnley had his eyes closed and Leonard had his wide open, and they knew they were twinned in this sound, this nothingness. Your Name Here Deirdre Day-MacLeod My car has been flying lately. I think that the wheels have lost touch with the earth. I am inside of my ten year old tan-colored Toyota Tercel driving through Brooklyn along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean on my way home from work and my car is flying, maybe just an inch or two, maybe even less, above the road's surface. I Don't Know Where It Comes From Mark Vender Julian stayed up all night, thinking about how he could prove that far from being a stalker, he was an innocent victim. But he had worked alone for a year, on a typewriter, and there were no human or computer witnesses to show that the book was his. At the same time, Julian was tormented by the question of how Theodore Green had stolen his book. Africa Amy K. Cogswell Our brother is silent, his switch talks for him, and the sound of it reaching across us is good enough for him. Then Father walks in, in his flight suit, his gym bag in his hand. He stops in the foyer and sees us running, and he sees the switch in Drew’s hand. Big Brother Karin Lin-Greenberg Curtis watched carefully as I spliced his head onto the body of an astronaut. We put a helmet on him and made him stand on the moon, planting a flag on the surface that said, “Curtis Was Here.” I printed out the picture, handed it to him, and he grinned, said he was going to tape the picture to the wall in his room. Dancar Tempestuoso Chris Tolian I have faith in this kind of manic passion. I don’t know. Somehow I can't get enough, even though it's just one more addiction. One more thing to kill myself with. Call-to-Prayer Andrew Madigan Being imam used to mean something, he sulks, remembering a time when he was treated with respect and Islam was more than a label for people to wear, like Armani or DKNY. He wonders if this is true, his memory, or if it’s just the pessimism of an old man. Loose Change Thomas Kunz His name was Brian, and he told me there was a microchip in change that enabled a person to travel back in time to the year on the quarter, dime, or penny. He offered me a cigarette, but I refused. He told me the strangest things. The Pinch Hitter Nathan Leslie Each time the pinch hitter walks to the plate, for a brief moment, a split second, he sees a vision. A crane flies slowly over a dusty road, over a line of birch trees, over a bog, and swoops downwards to a vast lake, the sun nearly blinding. Fall 2003 Tia Norma's Wig Eduardo Santiago If only I could turn our dining room table into a boat! I'd sail to Paris...and get a job at a wig factory. I would make wigs of every size and every color in the rainbow. Rainbow wigs and candy colored wigs, wigs like ice cream sundaes and flower-covered, it would always be like the first day of spring on top of your head. Wigs like fountains and wigs like clouds, wigs like birds nests and bird baths. Carl Hastings Geoff Goodman Of the young men, one is a writer, another is painting, and the third is a violinist. He has already written down all of his kingdom’s music that he can remember, and rewritten and rewritten it, but still knows that if people tried to play from his charts that it would not sound right. He can’t sleep for fear that with him would die their music. Rocket Science Joseph Levens It really is amazing what modern technology can do these days. When the experiment started and images appeared on the screen and my hands were directing the imaginary car, I felt like I was really on the road. The truck handled like a Cadillac. "Math-modeling," said Martin. I liked his teeth. They were about as white as the sun. The Exit Stage Marc Levy Six days a week, eight hours a day, half hour lunch, wearing a black tuxedo, white shirt, bow tie, and shined black shoes, I take tickets. "Tickets, please. Have your tickets ready. Tickets." No one knows I carry a gun. Goo Cares Phoebe Kate Foster Gracie decided that married life wasn’t so bad, really. Dwayne was easier to live with than the other men she’d known. He didn’t watch sports or get drunk and hit her. Instead, he spent his free time in the spare room, reading his Bible and "waiting for the Spirit to move," as everyone at church called it, which made Gracie envision Casper the Friendly Ghost in a U-Haul truck. Summer 2003 Dive Nicola Evans Skidmore The one match Todd attended, Pam pointed out to the girls the top of his hair like ocean foam in the back row of the bleachers. They thought they saw him, but they weren’t sure. They asked her why he sat so far away. When she explained through growing impatience that he had work on his mind and could only stay for a little while, the girls shook their heads as sadly as old wives. Carmen Who Lives By the Lake David Surface John saw the boy's face burn red and thought that all boys are sad, frightened liars. He knew he didn't want to be one. He wanted to love a girl without having to be a boy. Jane Winterbottom, Jane Winterbottom! John Gould I met Jane in the jungle at the dawn of time while swinging through the trees. She was the newest star of sexy-classical music and I was a poet-laureate of New Jersey, persecuting the Jews. Bob Frog R.J. Bullock Ears still ringing, I walked home after school, anxious to begin my disections. A curious thing: on my way to my room with my first frog in hand, I slipped at the top of the stairs and fell forward onto the landing, losing my grip on him. He was cold and easy to catch, but I remember my main concern was to grab him up quickly so that he'd not have to suffer the coarse, scratchy carpet against his tender belly. God and Baseball on the Roofs of Brooklyn Walter L. Maroney In my dream, in its earliest part, I am still entwined in Phoebe’s arms, wrapped in bed sheets that are tangled, damp and funky-smelling from the fucking we have just concluded. It is summer. All over Brooklyn the air shimmers over tar roofs. From my window, the World Trade Towers seem to dance in the sunlight across a wavering vista of brownstones and church steeples. Spring 2003 In the Inaka Aaron Paulson High water undercut the opposite bank, which opened into a clearing where blue and red and yellow insects whirred through sunbeams, and more bamboo. Butterflies. Dragonflies long as knives. From the river's edge, a trail ran back into the bamboo, and the spindly trees beyond... A scene out of a movie, Sailor thought. That samurai one, where the woman gets kidnapped by bandits. Cecilia's Rosary David Quinn "If you go somewhere in the wheelchair and want them to put you back in your bed again, most of the time, it takes forever," Cecilia began slowly and then, with the glee of a child putting something over on her parents -- "So you park your wheelchair sideways in the middle of the hallway, set the brake, and then assume the position." Someday Morning Michael Cocchiarale On that someday morning, forearms bumping in the brown leafy breeze, you’ll stand engrossed, not quite knowing what you’re looking at until, through some inexplicable science of the mind, you’re in the middle of our now classic text, savoring the words that stand in now for sights and smells and tastes...and for all the splendid arrhythmias of our early love. Magic Man Jamieson Wolf Villeneuve "Here it is: everything in the world is magic. That there is the most important piece of information that you’ll ever hear. Everything in the world is magic. Say it." Rockin' Robin Carol Papenhausen The eighteen-year-old with the mop of hair under his cap lifted his head slowly, and his hands dropped. He stared at Danny and then he grinned. The sharp teeth were a little more pointed than Robin’s, but it was his smile, and Wynn felt the shiver run all the way along his spine. Winter 2002-2003 Names, On His Body Marnie Webb My brother has the names of seven girls carved into the inside of his left forearm. The names of nine carved into his right. They are angry scars on tender, hairless flesh. The veins at his wrists pushing up into the "d" of "Amanda." He uses a buck knife given him by our grandfather. He wears short-sleeved shirts. I can barely look at him. Going Out With Angela David Surface He thought of a conversation he'd once had with two friends of his, about when sex begins...with a kiss? With the removal of clothing? Which article? The shirt? Pants? What has to be touched? Finally his friend brought it all to an end with his quote: Sex begins when you know you're going to have sex. Mazzonelli's Masterpiece Phoebe Kate Foster Sandy learns that whenever Mazzonelli’s ex-wife runs into him, she screams, "Don’t come near me, you monster, or I’ll have you sent to jail for the rest of your rotten life!" He lost his fancy wine-and-cheese shop after the divorce. "Nobody wants to buy their Beaujolais and Brie from an abuser," the neighbors say. Places You've Been, Places You'd Like to Go Matthew R. Gleckman In the inky-black darkness of her room she tells you that she once had an uncle who used to fly-fish, that she would visit him during summer vacations to Idaho, and that she had always hoped to learn. "There is something poetic about a river," she says. "Its rhythm." You promise to teach her someday, but know you never will. The Angel in the Municipal Pool Susanna Laaksonen The wind wasn't a howling storm, it was a friendly but decisive neighborhood wind. It rustled the dry leaves and lifted up a plastic bag like a giant butterfly. It lifted my parents off the ground and blew them here and there, like falling leaves, but in reverse. They continued arguing. Soon I couldn't hear them any more. They were gone. Miri's Piano Adhara Law On the morning of August 26th, Miri awoke to find that someone had stolen all the notes. More accurately, someone had stolen all of the notes except those found in Beethoven's Für Elise. And what they didn't steal they forced to line up along the staves in the locked and rigid pattern of one of the most tired, most recycled pieces of recital fodder of the last two centuries. Man in the Moon Adrianna de la Rosa She took almost nothing with her when she fled her marriage. She didn't want anything that could remind her of the past. Who was she? Something different. There was nothing in her tiny studio. The glamour of nothingness. She loved it. Bare walls, bare grey carpeted floors and the promise of the Moorish tub behind the louvered shutters. Fall 2002 See a Match Burn Twice by Benjamin Reed Loose pieces of my attention began to cement together. I guess I had noticed that all the kids on stage were black, but suddenly, I realized, as I scanned the audience before me, that for the first time in my life, I was the only white person in the room. The Curse Woman in Search of Her Sex by Christine Hamm At 14, I am visited by strange green flies and visions of the virgin. She is out of focus. Her hair appears to be pink. She speaks only in Greek. When I shake my head because I don't understand, she gives me the finger. Idiot Boy by Tim Wenzell In his delirium of sudden change, a fog of futures rolled across his brain in a rapid drift, never stopping to solidify anything concrete. Instead, he beheld only a glimpse of hopeful summer lawns and rooms full of love -- somewhere, he guessed, in a strange house, on the other side of the valley. Flip by Ptim Callan Idly, I pointed the remote at my sweetie and hit the mute button. Her lips kept moving, but I didn’t hear any sound. Sikes Hebert: Triangle Player by Chris Duncan I am speaking into a tape recorder because my shrink, Mr. Lipchitz, (whom I call "licks dicks") says that I am not in touch with the feelings of my inner child, and that I should record my thoughts. This led to a debate on the differences between thoughts and feelings. After two hours, he finally told me to shut the fuck up and keep a fucking diary because he was the fucking doctor and he fucking says so. Offense in Black and White by Marc Estrin Now the "mere gook rule" doesn’t come from nowhere. As a term, it hides and excuses the inexcusable. It grows out of a culture which hasn’t seen the last of its lynchings and murders. It inherits the cold-bloodedness of a nation built on slavery and extermination of the Indians, our own domestic gooks. Summer 2002 Maniac Island by Mark Kline Slow Ribbons -- that's the title of the song, I'm sure of it. I can picture them now, the ribbons, I'm holding them, light in my palms, they tickle when I pour them from one hand to the other. They're faintly scented with perfume. Lilac, I think. Yes. I have to concentrate to hear them rustle against each other, a tiny sizzle. I tilt my hands and watch them trickle down. They fall in formations, slithering in crimson curlicues, covering the song. The Blue Room by Lisa Taddeo Dear Candidate, It has come to the company’s attention that you will be interviewing for such and such position on such and such day. Please accept our invitation to your initiation ceremony tomorrow at nine o’ clock am in the blue room. Signed, The Mgmt. Maps & Detours by Diane Payne It dawns on me that the five dollar car may be like the old Buick and won't require a key to start it. Could a five dollar car that only needs a knob turned to have it start just be sitting there in the woods, ready to take off, ready to collect new stories? Mad Ida Loved the Wind by Seonaid Lennox Can you imagine that? Small little gusts of wind undoing the ties of my nightgown, blowing it down and exposing my breasts to the night air. I was nearly naked, and I couldn't move. That old wind just kept me right there. The Ever After Book Shoppe by Heather Shaw & Tim Pratt Dragon-Friend? Oh, dear lord, Alex thought, leave it to Alice to befriend the dragon in this story. He couldn't very well tell the Elf the truth, or he'd be left here in Ye Olde Darkest Forest of Most Lamentable Death and Danger or whatever it was the Elf had called it, for the rest of the book. Spring 2002 Traveling Clothes by Thaisa Frank There were other things I didn't think about either -- like the fact that Aaron and I had gotten married and I had forgotten about it until one night it floated up in a dream. "Forgotten? How could you have forgotten?" This from my current husband. Lo Siento by Marcy Sheiner The maid's heavily lipsticked mouth opens in a silent laugh. She turns quickly on her heel and goes back upstairs, shrugging to the other maids who have gathered on the landing. Through their laughing chatter Martha is almost certain she hears the phrase, "El sombrero de la gringa loca." The Stars Like Rain by Adhara Law Her time spent staring into the shimmering pool of night cradled in the telescope's mirror began to grow longer than the time she spent using the telescope itself, until one night she climbed into the mirror and lay on top of it, staring up out of the slit of the dome and into the night, motionless until the sun rose again. The Dictionary of Youthful Lies by William Dean I am a prisoner, the son thinks. I am Cervantes and Casanova and De Sade, locked away because I think of things and the things grow into stories and the stories are not about me but are only about me. Kitchen by David-Matthew Barnes I was sitting in the kitchen with a swollen, fat lip because even though I was a girl, Emerson Randall had punched me in the mouth. He had called my mother a jezebel and I told him his mother was a gold-digging whore, because according to my mother, she was. Winter 2001 - 2002 The Temple of Air by Patricia Ann McNair When I saw Mom sneak a pack of HiDeeHo cupcakes out from the bottom of the pan cupboard and slip them in the pocket of her sky blue bathrobe, naturally I thought they were for me. It was my birthday after all, we were supposed to do that kind of thing for each other, right? Pink Oleander by Anne Tourney That summer I was trying to decide whether to become a whore or a poet. I knew I couldn't be both: vivid and sexual, quiet and solitary. Though I didn't know exactly what whores did, besides wearing flashy dresses and smoking and swearing, I believed I knew what poets did: they lived in seclusion and wove their words in silence. You Speak Good English by Aaron Paulson The real thing, Megook had already decided, was a stork, was a praying mantis stretched out on a branch of a cherry tree. And it was the real thing Megook had come half-way around the world to find. Not some shadow, not some second-rate imitation of the hamburger and vanilla milkshake world he’d left behind. School Day by Brendan Connell Children circle math, worshipping her unalterable rules, her savage truth. For while parents lie in their puerile unreality, their wishfulness, mother math is puncture frank, telling you how in all likelihood you will not live more than one-hundred sixty-five thousand three-hundred and thirty-five days. Fall 2001 The Path of Marigolds by Isabelle Carruthers Concepcion waits near the end of the line, and sneers as Solana approaches the door. "Your pathetic offerings will not bring Agustin back. You would do better to make a shrine to Tlazolteotl. She alone answers the pleas of witches and whores." Duck Duck Goose by James V. Emanuel One of the ladies has long dark curls. She holds an infant that suckles at the nipple of a baby bottle. Leonard wants the lady to notice him. He clears his throat and speaks in a low, steady voice. "I hate milk," he says evenly, pointing to the bottle. He tries not to smile so she won't see his missing teeth. Captive by Marlene Mason The words day trip to Morocco should never be used in conjunction with do you want to go on a. No, the words no fuckin' kinda' way will I go on a should always proceed the words day trip to Morocco. Thirteen Channels by Karl Krausbart Henry, alone. Behind the half-opened louvers of Alice's bedroom he moves slowly. He is carefully and thoroughly looking for something. He opens and closes drawers. Occasionally he holds up a blue sheet of note paper, a notebook, or an envelope to the single room light, scans it quickly, and carefully replaces it. The Final Summer by Tom Sheehan The jock writers picked it up, then TV. "Forty-two year old old rookie is signed up!" "Hope blooms eternal for the carpenter!" "The Hammer hopes he can pound a homer!" "Thor to get chance to bat in Majors!" god@heaven.com by Susannah Indigo God is handsome. I can't help it. He's wearing a tux, and I have a weakness for men who can dress. God looks tall and strong, but he's bald. God's bald. My mind can't quite wrap around this concept. Summer 2001 Paraphernalia by Michael Braverman "Our mother," I said. "It's our mother who's dead. Not just your mother. Do you know what I'm talking about?" Jay rocked back on his haunches and stuck his finger in his mouth again and started to hum. "Do you remember our mother, Jay?" Read My Mind by Jamie Joy Gatto The envelope grew larger, its contents bulging, papers spilling from its guts. Apparently it had decided it would no longer talk to Walter, though it began to laugh at him, mocking his weakness. Marie by Ron Porter I am not a friend to the day. She makes me wait. I am not strong. To be lost is a kind of leaving. These thoughts I jot down as I sit swooned by a bluesy guitar coming out of a residential brownstone mansion. Upon its stately curb I sit slugging red table wine. Cow Girl and Pig Heaven by Jerry G. Erwin She moved away from me and sat up in bed. I was about to start babbling in defense of myself, when I realized her anger was not directed at me -- thank God. She was looking across the room. I did too. Oh, shit. A pig. On Track by Diane Payne "I've died before. It ain't no big thing." We're ten years old. I've never heard anyone talk like this before. Dancing With The Streets by Susannah Indigo "Yeah, forget about it, Gear," Powell pipes up. "We're going to dance! Don't you know it's impossible to be depressed while dancing with the streets?" The Truth About Paradise by Oona Short Evie turned around. A sticky wind blowing in from right field tousled her hair, dyed not the blonde she had hoped for, but a shade that exactly matched the orange of the home team's uniforms.

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