Sunspot Literary Journal
Volume 4 Issue #3 © 2022 Sun Dogs Creations

Changing the World
Through Words and Art

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Volume 4, Issue 3

Table of Contents
we came to a place that was grieving and gathered to listen /Irene Blair Honeycutt / 1
Strange Neighborhood 2 / Susanna Herrmann / 6
Strange Neighborhood 1 / Susanna Herrmann / 7
You Do Not Stop at Your Skin / Sunny Payson / 8
Dream of Emma Returning / Alex Stanley / 29
Ergo Age / Alex Stanley / 30
Store and Funeral Home VI / Christopher Paul Brown / 31
Untitled, North Riverside Dubuque Iowa 2022 /Christopher Paul Brown / 32
Untitled, North Riverside Dubuque Iowa 2022 /Christopher Paul Brown / 33
Untitled, East Downtown / Christopher Paul Brown / 34
Anna in a Precarious Pose / Christopher Paul Brown / 35
My Wife Dies During Birth / Oisin Farraige / 36
After My Wife’s Funeral / Oisin Farriage / 38
My Grandfather Tells Me His Story in a Dream After His Death /Oisin Farriage / 39
Untitled, from the Facing It Together Series / Jack Bordnick / 40
Counting on Neighbors with Cheerios / Valyntina Grenier / 41
Of Brick / Miriam Borgstrom / 42
Reading Group A / Carolyn Dasher / 43
Flipbooks / Mark Henderson / 55
Customer / Mark Henderson / 56

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Covid Color Set 2L / Cynthia Yatchman / 57
Quarterly Editor’s Prize: Our Obit / Aarron Sholar / 58
Rigel 2022
Winner: Only Water / Julie Esther Fisher / 64
Runner-Up: Kearney Noir / Larry Hill / 72
Runner-Up: Santa Corona / Michael Pearce / 73
Finalist: The Weaver / Serge Lecomte / 83
Finalist: Witch of Wals / Bryan Edenfield / 84
Finalist: The Fall / Steve Capra / 94
Finalist: Being as One / Dave Sims / 103
Finalist: Time Enough / LG Pomerleau / 104
Finalist: Under the Spell of Molly Bloom / Naomi Ruth Lowinsky/ 117
Contributors / 119
COVER: Covid Color Set 2H / Cynthia Yatchman

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we came to a place that was grieving and gathered to listen
Irene Blair Honeycutt

CHORUS:
We gather to listen
That the wounded may be healed.
Without stories we lose our way.
What is forgotten will be remembered.
What is buried, unearthed.
Let the litany begin.
LITANY:I was the minister preaching redemption.
I was the no-see-um in the pulpit.
I was the mantis preying in the offering plate.
I was the genealogy a mother burned in the garden.
I, the black snake, watched from her wash shed.
CHORUS:
There is a time for all
To speak, a time for all
To listen.
LADY LUCK:
I, Lady Luck, for years sat in thePews, until one day,
Weary of our liaisons,
I shot the preacher dead.
He dropped like a duck on my lawn.
I was ruled insane, locked away.
So many stories left untold.
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MOTHER:
Shall I begin my own litany of doom?
What came after? What went before?
Once I was a leader in that church.
My husband, a deacon—
Finest man I ever knew.
I entertained speakers in our home.
Taught Sunday School. Canned
Tomatoes in the church kitchen.
CHORUS:
We have heard it said
This was not enough.
She craved more.
Each life hungers
For its own experience.
MOTHER:I ran away from the farm.
Had little education except
In the fields. Married.
Bore children. Sold Avon.
Served appetizers
At Daylight Groceries.
Delivered politicians’ pamphlets.
Babysat for doctors’ families
Until . . .
Oh, how do I presume?
I ramble in this resume of ruin.
My children—I know they remember
how I tried.
Once a hurricane blew the glass
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From the bedroom window.
I sat between them on the bed—
The Bible open in my lap—and prayed.
A few years later at church one night
I wrapped my arms around their shoulders,
Walked between them down the aisle.
Wanted to save them.
Lady Luck’s minister (and mine)
Welcomed them into the fold.
He came to our house, too.
As did a friend’s husband.
Something cracked inside
My heart. The center
Did not hold.
I became Lady Icarus draped
Over the clothesline
By wagging tongues.
CHORUS:
More than illusion.
More than delusion.
Something other than.
Something deeper than confusion.
MOTHER:Oh do not ask what happened.
The good Lord knows.
My daughter asked me once,
Sitting next to me on the porch swing,
If I could help her understand.
All I could think to say was:Loneliness.
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People with loose lips blamed my demise,
My fall from the church—my scorn of it—
My agony and crazed state,
On the change of life.
A psychiatrist found my jokes amusing.
Nothing wrong with her, he said,
Returning me to my family waiting
In the lobby. At my own peril
I had become a Master Illusionist.
A Jester even he could not see drowning.
CHORUS:
The Muses say
Women have always tried
To unweave the past,
And have grown old
Trying to imagine a future.
MOTHER:I will not defile this space.
Will not utter here all I said and did.
What I became
other than this:I became Lady Arsonist.
Burned the Bible in the backyard.
I became Madam Fury
Fanning the flames.
I became Lady Divinity in the kitchen by day.
Lady Wino in the closet by night.
I became Lady Bagworm
Dragging my home through the streets.
To my children and their father
I became the ghost that never died.

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DAUGHTER:
Sometimes she comes as chimes on the wind
Becomes choruses of frogs in
swamp
lands
Sometimes she reachesforblushing
liliesSometimes floats
on buoyant
leavesShe becomes spoonbills stepping into coolwatersBecomes ghost beads
rattling
inside Peruvian shakers
Becomes a mousepoisedin an
alley
Becomes trees whispering secrets
To
namelessstones.
LITANY:We, the humming birds she fed, tallied her visits.
We, the bees, pollinating flowers, recognized her face.
We, the willows, wept with her when she stretched out on ourroots.
MOTHER:My daughter,
When you thought you were lostI guided you.
When you thought you were alone
I brought you home.
I picked up the prayers
You dropped on the rug.
I became the talking stick
You held in your hand.
Became the drum
You could not stop beating.
Wherever you go I am there.
You carry me—a waxing moonat your back.

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Strange Neighborhood 2 / Susanna Herrmann

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Strange Neighborhood 1 / Susanna Herrmann

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You Do Not Stop at Your Skin
Sunny Payson
It is the missing checkbook register. Proof, for the first time, that
Diana had been taken, examined, done things to, and returned
promptly at the exact moment she’d been extracted. At 12:23 p.m., she
notices the checkbook register is missing. She had just recorded check#1034, remitted for pest services rendered. She had not risen from thechair. She had barely moved. It is not on her desk, nor at her feet. She
searches around her workstation, flipping through books and shaking
out legal pads that lay in orderly stacks, and the register is nowhere
to be found. Her face burns with a new kind of pride. She is entangled,
being called for this experience, finding, after all this time, that she isright, that she is truly a special being, a true starseed, meant forsomething on this earth.
How it was somehow overlooked, dropped from her hand,gently, to the floor. Perhaps hidden in darkness under the examinationtable, its worn pages, the bent staples that barely held it together, thenumbers she’d scrawled diligently, because Jason would not be happy
if he knew she hadn’t kept up. Diana never forgot how he looked at her
after seeing the scribbled withdrawals paired with unmarked balancecolumns.
What, she’d said, I can always check at the ATM.
He had been gentle, though, even though he was under a great
deal of stress launching his new business. He’d grab her by the waist
as she walked by his transitional office space, part of the living roomnear the kitchen, and spin her around on his lap, while she gripped theback rest, the room spiraling.
The shed he’d built for his office is almost finished. The
splotches of joint compound sanded smooth and the unprimed drywall
waiting for paint, solidly upright, not crooked like the walls of thesmall farmhouse they share with a semi-hostile housemate. She is likea teenager most of the time, drifting by in pajamas looking at herphone, on the way in or out of her room.
When they’d converted part of the living room for Jason’s
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the living room wasn’t hers to hang out in anymore, and unless theywanted less rent, they would agree to it. Which was fine, it ended up
working out, most of the time, with Jason in front of his computer,lines of code and text that Diana couldn’t, nor did she want to try anddecipher. She preferred their bedroom anyway, facing south, where theslant of orange light in the afternoon turns oblique, strikes a distinct
diagonal line from the window to her bed, where her polished crystals
are arranged on the nightstand and her embroidered pillows soften thewooden headboard and her thinking mind. And the small, roundedskylight, her keyhole to the clouds.
Even through the smoky and pale sky, a wishful kind of a blue,
she senses the density of what is situated beyond it, that great black
ocean, dotted with infinite pinholes, and beyond that, well, she isinvestigating those realms without her conscious awareness. Diana
had been past what is known to man, and her body had opened to it,
like a quickening.
Diana M. from Santa Rosa purchased a Community Learn/
Grow Your Group Workshop.
Serena K. from East LA purchased a personal tarot reading.
Aline P. from Calabasas purchased a hand crafted Shungite
Pyramid.
Diana slips the credit card back into her wallet, pleased to havefound the website. Pleased that the cost isn’t too high. She is not alone,
wanting to create a community in her own town, in which she knows
few people.
This workshop is a good start. A fresh start. Anything ispossible in a constructed world, she whispers. Her life inside thefarmhouse is hermetic, and good things happen when she leaves it,
when she is paying close enough attention.
A rainbow stretches across the highway, the arc getting lost in thehaze, and then suddenly, brilliant, hovering over the grocery store.
Diana pulls into the parking lot, imagining the automatic doors
shattering, gold coins spilling out across the pavement, rushing
through the streets with ringing change.
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She parks the car and goes in. Rows of garden shovels, neatly
spooning, hung on rubberized steel rods next to the perennials sale.
How many shovelfuls of gold could she put in the trunk? Separating a
mini shopping cart from the row, she has to pull hard and two others
come with it. Before pushing them back, she sees a twenty, folded
tightly in quarters, in the bottom of the cart. She slips it into the outerpocket of her jeans, feels the thickness between her fingers. Could besixty dollars. Good as gold. As the doors slide shut behind her, and thelong aisle of refrigerated perishables stretches out in front of her, shecatches a chill, and her body slows. Trapped in air like water. The cold
lights overhead bring out the yellow undertones of her skin. She islooking at her hands, curled around the greasy handle of the cart, when
she realizes she is unable to move at all.
And she remembers. She has been here before. Not déja vu, but
this trajectory she’s already completed: this time of day, this same lightoutside, this oily shopping cart. She examined the backs of her hands
exactly like this the last time. Her body is sending messages and she
can’t understand what they mean. Why she is stuck in place? Why are
the lights suddenly not like lights but like paint, pouring from above,and the floor is suddenly mostly like liquid. It’s a good thing, she
thinks, that I have hold on this cart. But it’s like someone is saying it
to her, inhabiting her, while she is still present.
Can I help you? A woman in a royal blue smock comes close
to her. Diana moves just her eyes to see the face, reads a name tag on
her shoulder. Lisa. Weird place for a name tag.
Can I help you? Are you alright?
Lisa’s breath smells like she doesn’t drink enough water. She
waves her hand in front of Diana’s eyes. Diana blinks. She hears her
own voice, not her real voice, squeeze up out of herself, as if her bodyis trying to keep it from escaping.
I am fine.
Her voice sounds garbled, though clear enough, but she stays
stuck in place, leaning on the cart for support, and so, does notconvince Lisa. Diana wonders if she looks pale. When was the last time
she ate? Lisa takes out a small, ergonomic walkie talkie, and calls forsomeone in customer service, which Diana hears in the air in front ofher, and after a delay, bouncing across the ceiling and the whitesprayed I beams above.
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Families slump by in groups, the kids belted into jumbo size
carts, kicking at their parents, grabbing the styrofoam packages ofbacon, throwing them at the floor. An older sibling smacks the side of
their head and picks up the meat, tosses it back in the cart.
Sleepwalkers. The bloated focus in the mother’s eyes sharpens
as she drifts past Diana, briefly glancing at Lisa, and moving on. The
teenager lags behind, neck bent to see her phone. Her mouth is parted
as she scrutinizes an image and makes it larger with two fingers. Diana
can see the screen as she passes. Coral pink bikini top. Glaciallybrilliant teeth. Plush pink lips, absent of detail, gleaming.
It all repeats itself like a broken piece of code, in this shambolic
simulation. That’s what Jason calls it, and Diana believes him. She’s
seen black cats double and split, slink off in opposite directions inkaleidoscopic symmetry. She expects she’ll see another family turn thecorner, the bacon will fall, the slap, the mother, the teenager, thephone, the bikini, the teeth.
Lisa is joined by another smock wearing employee, a greyhaired woman holding a price tag gun. Her name tag is right over her
chest. Eliza.
Did you page?
You’re not customer service, where is Barbara?
I am Barbara today.
Your name tag says Eliza, Diana says quietly.
Lisa may have heard but she is involved with telling Eliza
what has happened. She is referring to Diana as the customer. Diana
stops listening and watches as another family passes, this time fromanother direction, as they walk away from her. A jug of milk tumbles
out of the cart. The dad smacks the kid on the side of the head. The
mother leans over and picks it up, carefully placing the dented gallon
under the cart, on its side. A teenager follows.
Diana experiments with small, light steps, and the cart inches
in retreat. It’s not like she can’t move, but a feeling that she shouldn’t.
That she has been changed in ways she doesn’t yet understand, likeafter a long yoga class, lying in savasana, absorbing the benefits. She
is certain that Lisa would not understand and she won’t bother to try
and explain. Lisa and Eliza are still trying to figure out the proper
protocol. Lisa hunches over her walkie talkie, tries to hide the fact that11

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she is paging a supervisor, which Diana can clearly hear echoing backto them.
Aisle Three, Supervisor, customer concern, please.
Diana continues until she is a good fifteen feet away, andquickly swivels into aisle four, Spices/Pasta/Tomato Sauce/
International Food. She doesn’t remember what she was supposed tobuy. Digging in her pockets, only after she’s reached the meat counter,
does she find a list. The handwriting looks different from her own.
More like her mother’s careful letters.
Yes ma’am, what can I get you today?
Diana smiles at the man, snapping back into herself. His voice
has a quality she recognizes, but not from where.
I’ll take the farmed salmon please, enough for two people. She
straightens her back, unties her fleece jacket from around her waist
and puts it on.
Yeah, I wear extra pairs of socks working back here. All thisice. And the cooler. He gestures behind him, towards a scuffed up whitewall. The metal door to the cooler hangs open. Several dents mar its
dimpled surface, as if someone had hammered at it from the inside.
Another man in a white coat with his back to them is wrestling withsomething unwieldy, lumpen. His body resembles a small boulder,rolling around an uneven floor.
Diana tunes her attention, watches the man at the counterlaying out the filet across the white plastic cutting board, gently
angling the edge of the knife to the fatty orange slab.
How much? Here?
Yes, she says, as she glances at his hands.
He sinks the blade into the fish while letting his eyes rest on
Diana.
It is darker outside than when she arrived. The air is acrid still, withthe distant fires, casting a dim blue veil over the rows of cars. To the
far left of the sliding doors, by the loading dock, two seated figures
smoke cigarettes. They do not speak. They are observing her. Thelong strips of vinyl swish in and out.
She slams the trunk shut. The lights above flicker on. A low
buzzing noise finds its chorus and the entire lot swarms with12

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expanding pools of light. She is thinking of the meat counter guy andwonders if she knows him, already.
Jason is in bed reading on his phone when she gets home. One lighton the nightstand points at the doorway, so she can’t see his face.
What’s for dinner babe?
FishWhich kind?
Armchair.
Alright.
After dinner, as she’s wiping dry the last plates, Diana tries tocrystallize her afternoon, as it actually happened. She can’t remember
what exactly had occurred before she was frozen in place. It seems
absurd that she was being treated like an old woman with dementia,
or whatever deemed it necessary for those pushy women to
immediately rush up to her, to try and keep her moving along. She
recalls the events in order, rainbow, money, sliding doors, and thenblank. She reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out the bills. She
was right; it was sixty dollars. She smiles widely and slides the money
back in her pocket.
Jason rounds the corner into the kitchen, a thick joint over his
lip, clicks on the burner and leaning low to one side, lights it in a few
puffs.
What are you smiling about?
Nothing, just happy, Diana says.
He walks over to her, wraps his arms around her, her face at
his chest. While keeping one arm around her shoulders, he takes athick drag, touches her lips with his own. When she opens her mouth
he exhales, and while she breathes in she forgets whatever she wastrying to do, to remember. It was useless anyway.
Let’s get out of the kitchen, babe. A plume of skunky smoke
follows him back into the living room.
Diana pours two glasses of water, can hear Jason’s voice but
not his words. She flicks off the bright lights.

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Volume 4, Issue 3. . . would’ve done it differently, he says from the couch,inhaling the smoke with a low hissing sound, then holding it in as hekeeps talking.
A seamless design structure isn’t necessarily the best design,it’s basically irrelevant.
He lets out the cloud of smoke in a controlled release.
Weighs down the whole system and that’s what causes theglitches, the big ones, that shouldn’t exist in such great numbers. The
ones even the sleepwalkers notice. What you’ve absolutely got to do,
is to get the details perfect and let the seams be like air, like little blankthought bubbles. Let people fill them in, let people see that cat crosstheir path, but not again the same day. What a sham.
He takes another lengthy drag off the joint, runs his other
hand through his hair, feeling the base of his neck, and closing his eyesbriefly, exhales, and time stretches the room away from him.
Diana sits quietly, waiting. She wants the conversation to go
into the subject of original design and theoretical control keepers.
Right now, she really wants to tell him about the checkbook register,
about the edgeless experience of traveling without knowing, and to
ask him, what do you think, where do you think I was?
He looks over at his computer, and back at Diana.
Come here, babe, and he pats the couch next to him. She fits
herself close into the side of his body, which he angles towards her, as
he passes her the joint. There isn’t much left, she takes a quick puff,
barely able to pinch the sticky crinkle of paper at the end, trying not
to burn her lips. The room sinks down while she exhales. The ceiling
disappears. She leans her head back against the couch.
In the bathroom, she flips on the light and starts to floss her teeth
without looking in the mirror. She hasn’t seen her own face all day.
The shower curtain is closed. She edges away from it. Closing her eyes,
and rips it aside. A spider runs across the smooth white vinyl, tries toclimb the wall, slides down again. It could be that the floor is sinking
and the walls are lengthening.
The light is out in the bedroom. Jason reaches for her, his bodyanimal with early sleep, and he pulls her to him. His hand brushes overher stomach, as he slips his palm under her t-shirt, over her breasts.
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His fingers are warm and smooth. They weren’t always. When he’ddone construction, she could barely have him touch her. But he’d gethome early, and they would shower together, fucking while standing
up in the stall, the skin on his hands softening under the hot water.
She missed that. There was no roommate then, either.
Jason pulls at her underwear, his fingers already seeking.
No, not yet she says, turning her back, and his hand retreats
from between her legs, goes back to her breasts. His lips against her
ear, how about now, he whispers, now, he repeats. Her skin is getting
warm and she pulls her t-shirt over her head. His body pools into hers,
sleek against her back. His hand smooths over her hip, trails down. His
fingers stroking her on the outside, and she giggles a little. Diana feels
like an animal, something cute, something adorable, and she is also
getting wet. She pushes herself into him and he slides his fingers into
her, and it feels good in a way she hasn’t had it in a while. Maybebecause the roommate isn’t there, maybe because Jason waited longer
for her, she doesn’t know and is trying to turn off her brain when she
feels something she would later describe as familiar,
A dark smudge of something like a man drifts in the hall, notquite there, not quite man, but a trail of a man, an idea of a man’s body.
She sees him just in the corner of her eye, and of course, as always
when she sees what is and isn’t there, he disappears. What doesn’t
make sense is that she is not startled, nor afraid, and while notunexpected, her body remembers. Not everything, but like a framefrom a movie, filmed while she wasn’t watching.
Where’d you go, babe?
Diana wonders. They start up again.
Jason is fucking her from behind, and she is trying, as always,
to slow him down, to get into his rhythm, and the man-not man
reappears. This time, directly beneath her as a darkish swarm and hishands-not hands are close, his fingers forming a buzzing arc just above
Jason’s cock; a dome or a hive of warmth and everything good, thissensation of movement and buzzing and mostly humming, like a bodyhums and rises, ringing at a frequency reserved for dreams and how abody feels in dreams, without specific sensorial detail, without therecording of smell or the contact of skin.
She shifts her weight from her hands to her forearms, turns
her tongue in slow circles as if to discover a new shape. A brief and15

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bitter taste registers in her mouth, like a spark, and then fades as she
starts to come. There seems to be no end to her, no resistance, only ablazing pulse she cannot bear and doesn’t want to stop.
After Jason pulls out and slumps into the space next to Diana,
it is as if he’s been dropped out of the sky. She remains stone still, lying
on her stomach and holding her breath, trying not to disturb thewarmth under her belly, hoping to keep something of the man-not man
with her. She is being tricked into something, a vague dart at the backof her mind whistles, slicing through the vapor and breath of thechatter in her brain.
Any heart palpitations or blurred vision?
No.
Any headaches or memory loss?
No.
Anything you might be worried about at this time, or mental
health concerns?
The nurse taps out Diana’s answers. It seems to her theamount of letters clicking away exceeds the amount of words she uses.
The monitor is positioned away from her. An uncovered bank offluorescents provides scant light and several of the milky grey tubes
seem to contain fluttering insects. Diana presses her hands together,thumbs interlocked, like she does at the dentist. She kneads her palmon the underside with one thumb, as hard as she can stand it. The
steady pressure keeps her calm. She tries it during the blood pressure
screening. No luck, 130 over 82.
Married, single, partner?
Yes, I live with my boyfriend.
She is a little proud when she says this, imagining Jason at
home, building his company, bit by bit. He is so focused, that when she
comes home, he hasn’t even gotten up to drink water, his lips dry when
she first kisses him, his phone lit up with messages and the snaking
lines of code streaming down the front of his computer, like the stonesof a building, rising, rising.
Contraception?

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The nurse has stopped typing and is looking directly at Diana
for the first time, speaking to her as if to a child after having repeatedherself. Opaque turquoise eyeshadow shimmers against her dark skin.
What?
What form of birth control do you use?
The air in the room tightens around Diana, as it always doesright before she lies. The walls bend convex behind the examinationtable, its stirrups like arms, reaching.
I’m on the pill.
OK, and the dosage?
Oh, I forget, I’ve been taking it so long.
The nurse stops typing again and looks at Diana, her hands
still poised at the keyboard, her nails lacquered and sharp. They arebriefly locked together, two lambs. The nurse doesn’t hide her
reaction, rolls her eyes, and slides the keyboard table back under thescreen, which blinks out and is replaced by a lazily bouncing logo.
The doctor will be with you shortly, the nurse says into theair. She closes the door gently behind her. A slow click. Diana’s clothes
sway lightly on the plastic hangers on the back of the door.
Diana begins to cry, and is unsure why she is here in the firstplace. The annual. It’s simply what we do, she had remembered. She
looks down into her lap, her fingers all twisted together, her legs
pressing into each other. Her crossed feet look unlike her own, resting
against the speckled linoleum squares. Her body wants out.
She stands up, slips on her sandals, throws her jacket over her head,over the paper gown, and runs out the of the exam room, hugging her
keys and clothes and wallet and phone to her chest. A different nurse
pauses in the hallway, in slow and subtle movement, turns her body to
see Diana. Her look is unsurprised. The heavy bar of the exit doorclunks down and the pitch of alarm sounds waver on, then cut out as
the door slams shut.
There is an empty field, an incongruous stretch of prairie near the
freeway, that Diana has passed on her way in or out of the city moretimes than she can remember. And each time she passes it, shepromises she will pull over the next time, and walk right into the17Sunspot Literary Journal

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center of it. There is a concentration of spectacular energy, multipliedby the thousands of wheat-colored stalks, either created in theirsusurration when the wind picks up, or perhaps the oddity of the nonnative grasses themselves, originating from a thousand miles away,
spread like a silk rug, woven in secret. That its power comes from its
indifference, this square plot of land, seemingly owned by no one,
unmarked or fenced in any way. An invitation, a wayshower stamped
into the earth, for those who are looking, those who can see.
It is night now, and Diana cautiously drives onto the shoulder,
into the border of the grasses, her headlights reaching no further than
the first thick rows. Cars shave close as they zip by, hurry home. She
wriggles across the interior of the car, exits from the passenger side.
A silent red light, blinking across the western edge of thenight sky, drops off from Diana’s field of vision, as she tries to expand
the peripheral edge of what she can see. The limits are too close, she
thinks, the field too narrow to capture signals, or to send them withher positive mind stream. She breathes in deeply to clear her body of
any webby darkness, any doubts that might stain her consciousness.
They do not reach out to human bodies in discord.
A semi truck downshifts off the curve in the highway. She can’t
see it, but the bridge is only a few hundred yards away. It is late andthe traffic has subsided. She doesn’t check her phone, the brightness ofthe screen will ruin her eyes for the night. She should go back to hercar, back home, where the man-not man might be waiting, where thesign and signaler are together, she shouldn’t have to look further into
the stars, when the stars are pitted deep inside of her already, lighting
up like seeds in a bed in spring, unfurling their fresh sprouts andpushing through pebbles and clumps of clay to reach the sunlight.
Diana presses her back into the dry grass and imagines a
stream of light underneath her body, as defined as a shadow in full sun,extending downwards, punching a perfect copy of her silhouettethrough the center of the earth, blasting out the other side. She is a
ribbon of liquid gold and is signaling fiercely. And the humming of the
man-not man begins to thread itself through her, and she knows she’s
made contact. Radio, on.
When she arrives the house, the lights are all out. It’s not solate, is it? She quietly closes the door to the carport, hangs her keys on
the nail. And he’s there, standing in the kitchen, a smoky figuration in18

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front of the refrigerator, its door open and the light shining throughhim in some places, other areas are more opaque, like molecules
rearranging. Condensation is running in rivulets down the front of thefreezer door. He stands still in a widening pool over the linoleum. She
keeps her eyes on him, lowers her purse from her shoulder to the floor.
The refrigerator light goes out. What did it say in the contact manual?
Diana doesn’t remember. So she whispers her intention, whatever mybody directs me to do, I promise to follow. She feels a tiny circle ofwarmth at her sternum, just under the Agoudal pendant hanging froma silver chain. Diana holds the stone out from her chest as it seems toheat up, or freeze, a burning touch in the center of her palm, as she
offers it to the man-not man, is it what he wants? But she doesn’t
understand. Of everything she can offer, it’s her pendant?
A few steps forward, her whole body is being drawn into thedark corner of the kitchen. The compressor jerks on and the smell ofvegetables packed too close rises up from the heated air below the
fridge. The air is thick like oil. The agoudal has become unbearable
against her open palm and she is afraid to see its soft shape in the dark.
A pulse of white as a car passes.
And then it stops. The stone is gone from her hand. She is left
with the sterling chain, and rawness in her hand. The fridge lightsnaps back on. This little 12W light blazes across the kitchen, thedrooping produce and the softened milk cartons are illuminated like afine painting, a still life, glowing gold and easing into decay. Diana
shuts the door gently, and wipes her wet soles on the carpet when she
gets to the bedroom.
The next morning, there is a note in the kitchen, a brightorange post it, stuck to the side of the fridge:
I’m sick of your collective shit.
An arrow had been drawn, with a bold black sharpie, pointing
to the garbage can, which is stuffed with wilted kale and cauliflower,
the cream florets tinged with black. A handful of yellowed scallions,slick at the ends. The heat still blowing full force from under the
fridge. A window thrown wide open, and the smoky, residual edge ofthe fires lacing the dawn.
The puddle had grown and pulled out thin clumpy swirls of
hair and dust from under the fridge, materials that have beengathering since they first moved in. What a disaster, Diana thinks.
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Diana is at work, counting the minutes until she will leave, until she
can exit this zone of the mundane, the dull, unrelenting ticking as theday passes. The words. She is so sick of the words she must use.
Absolutely. I can do that for you. Of course. It’s understandable that you
would. Clearly. Is there anything else I can help you with? The efficient
vocabulary of assent, bright with promises, buzzing with optimism,
productivity, feels like bees in her mouth.
Someone she detests walks by. The sound of her loafers
scuffing across the low pile carpeting sends a shot of adrenaline
through Diana. She furtively reaches for an amethyst from her mini
gem collection, a little grouping of thought-positive minerals,
carefully placed in a circle where she can access them easily. She closes
her fingers over the jagged, cool surface, takes a breath, and tries torelease those feelings in the exhale. She closes her eyes, only briefly;
she doesn’t want to get caught with her eyes closed. She’s afraid she
might reveal something untoward in her posture, when she can’t see
her body. She can easily see the shoes in her mind’s eye, however, theirmatte taupe leather, stitched up like a wound. If only she could willthem away, instead of calling them closer. The woman’s perfume.
Diana composes an email to HR, again, pleading to disallow perfume
in the office. A migraine begins to swell.
In her car, she is calm. In her car, she can breathe fresh air.
She is relieved to pass through town, is comforted by seeing
everyone out, people doing everyday things. The sun beaming, anunusually clear afternoon. The shops mostly open, inside, customers
bending in nutation to the sparkly lights and skillfully displayed
goods. Stopped at the intersection, she looks through the open door toan ice cream counter, illuminated under a thick curvature of glass, tworows of abundant, swirling colors. There is a free parking space rightin front. She pulls in, the opportunity too good to pass by. As she steps
lightly onto the curb, something catches her eye. A little troll doll tied
to a car antenna, its fiery orange hair still orange, but its body faded
to an anemic yellow.
That must be Jason’s car, but it can’t be, she thinks. Of course
he’s working such long hours, it’s possible he went out for ice cream,just like her, on a whim. The farmhouse can be lonely sometimes, it’s
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old, so many people have lived there and gone on, their absence creeps
up on you, hollows out a warm corner with a gusty draft. Diana thinksof her room again, how lovely it is, how it seems not to share theevasiveness of the house. Her plants thrive in the window, little
succulents in pebbles and a few rows of African violets. Maybe Jason
should put his desk in there? She feels a rush of blood to her brain, anidea, a new way forward. She is excited to share this with him. It’s
already clear in her mind where the desk could be situated, and maybe
adding a mirror to direct the light around the room, add movement
and energy. Then he wouldn’t have to contend with the roommate.
As she approaches Jason’s car, the reverse lights flash on, andit begins to pull out, she can’t be sure but it seems like there are two
people in the car. The glare of the bright blue sky, obscures the view
inside, like someone threw a sheet over the back window. As the carpeals out, she sees a flash of a small hand flicking a cigarette out thewindow. A dainty arm, like a doll’s, suntanned and ringed with thingold bracelets. A small puff of smoke from under the back wheel whichis spinning, dragging rubber across the asphalt. A terrible smell
lingers, that sharp burning tires in the woods smell.
People pause, turn their heads, and then resume what they
were doing. The holy slow development of a shared awareness, thewoman scooping bright blue ice cream, the couple holding their paper
coffee cups, breaks their gaze.
This fermata of experience shared by everyone, suddenly
ignites Diana. A cleared pathway through collective presence! She
knows that she could harness the same power, in the group she would
start, as they look out from their immediate experience, and everyone,
all at once, focusing on the same thing, at the same exact time. She
couldn’t believe that it hadn’t come to her sooner. Diana reframes theincident. Maybe it wasn’t Jason after all. Most likely it was aninvitation, an instructive! Like a bell chimes to begin something new.
Diana has hope. This moment, carries her high, into the ice
cream shop. Well, that and her checkbook’s disappearance. Would it
be returned to her? Probably not. Such things must have such little
importance to higher beings. A ruffle of worn papers, carefully written
numbers in black ink, names and reasons for paying them. It didn’t
matter. But it did matter that they’d let her go, and not noticed she’dleft it. A piece of evidence of her existence, something she had touched21

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with her fingers daily. It did matter, that she’d also been asked, andexamined. Her body knew. Her physical body was much more sensitive
to their call, to the man-not man in her home, she just couldn’t figure
it out though, was he one of them, or one of her?
Sheila R. from Petaluma just purchased a Triple Light Wave
blocker.
Katrina B. from Long Beach just purchased a Follow Your
Body’s Call Guide.
Diana M. from Santa Rosa just purchased an Agoudal pendant
and ring.
The phone rings. It’s Diana’s mother. She doesn’t usually call thisearly in the morning. Diana closes her laptop and puts away her credit
card before answering.
Your father is really dying. You should go, Diana.
Diana pictures her mother on the phone, sitting in the tidy
little vestibule by the kitchen table. The white walls unblemished, allsurfaces immaculate. The Arizona heat kept at bay without any visualevidence of ducting, the advanced system’s nearly silent hum andperfectly maintained temperature at 63 degrees Fahrenheit yearround. She is probably wearing a sweater, a light cardigan, cashmere.
She probably still uses perfume that is better suited for baking pastries,
notes of clove, vanilla, almond, rather than for one’s body. Most likely
there’s a glass of sherry on the table.
Why should I go now if I haven’t been in years? He won’t evenrecognize me.
You know the answer to that Diana, her mom exhales and she
can practically taste it. Probably still smoking 100s, as her own motherdid, the longer cigarette useful for extended telephone conversations,also conducive to raising children, constantly having to pinch the halfsmoked cigarette into the grooved holders in the ashtray. To break up
a fight, to carry a child to the bathroom, to retrieve a fresh pair ofpants, underwear.
Besides, her mother says dismissively, he probably doesn’t
even remember why he hasn’t seen you in so long.

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Diana remembers and all the times she forgot, she remembers.
Her mother’s face hidden in her hands, one eye puffed closed, dots ofblood staining her pressed work shirt. Her father turning to look at
Diana, lifting the handset from the wall, her father driving towards
her and hitting the phone out of her hand, grabbing the back of her
shirt as she tried to run. He never hit her, he used to remind her, andher mother’s echo, you know he’d never hurt you.
Diana hangs up midsentence. She is drawn back into his house,
his rooms, is afraid of what she could do when he is vulnerable, hismuscles atrophied, the vigor released back into the universe. But therage, she’d bet her life on it, remains at a blaze like the sun’s explosions
in the indifferent air of space. Diana knows she wouldn’t try. What
could it change? He’s just another old man dying in the world. Withany luck, he’ll hurry up and go before her plane even lands. Still, she
can feel the softness of a pillow in her fists and her muscles’ tremor, as
if she might.
The house front is unlit, save for the lights that dot the concrete pathto the porch. Two rectangular glass panels on either side of the door
allow a partial view inside. A circle of lamplight illuminates the hall.
An enormous purse has been set on the console table by the front door,
bulging against the wall, casting a lumpy shadow onto the floor, its
brass hardware and chain straps gleaming.
Spotlights mounted high above the garage flood the front yard
with icy light, motion detected. Diana loses her bearings, waits for hereyes to reassemble the steps up the porch, waits for the faint orange
glow of the doorbell to reappear in the dark. A current of cooler air
rushes in, swaying the tops of the pines. A wash of needles drifts to theground. It seems unforgivingly isolated, at the end of the cul-de-sac.
What few lamps are on, across the street, beam through the baretrunks of the pines, shooting defined blocks of light amplified by low
lying fog. Diana raises her eyes to the night, the sky a soft woolly
cover, suffused with orange, illuminated from the next town. No
visible stars. Silent radio. She could use some help here.
The door unlocks and Diana opens her eyes. The nurse is there.
Diana, she says, wondering.
Yes, I’m Diana. It’s been a while.
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The nurse leans back slightly, her white sneakers in place, andflicks on the porch light, then steps aside, holding the door. Diana
wants everything but this moment right now. The nurse hassoundlessly shut the door and is whispering to Diana, but she is slow
to hear it. A gentle line of questioning unspools from her mouth, how
was the drive, the traffic, how is she feeling really, is she ok? Diana
looks at the nurse’s young face, wondering how many deaths had she
seen, as if they could be recorded there.
She places her suitcase next to the door. She hangs her coat on
the empty rack, an old wooden one, all the marks of her childhood still
there. Her mother had marked her height every year with a deep notch,
and now, the last recorded one etched level with her throat. She takes
time removing her phone from the pockets, double checking where she
put the keys to the rental, crinkling plastic ginger candy wrappers into
a ball to throw away.
The rented hospital bed sits in the center of the living room,
facing the sliding glass doors to a deck. If he were to open his eyes, hecould see a thin strand of pines, and the small man-made lake justbeyond. Diana lingers in the kitchen, searches for a glass. Waits forthe water to run cold over her fingers. The nurse is leaning over thecoffee table, which has been pushed right up against the low-slungcouch, leaving just a small portion accessible, enough for one person
to sit. She takes her phone and the can of soda.
Let me know if you need anything.
Thank you, Diana says, surprised by the meekness in her
voice, as if her throat were wrapped up, muscles bound. When people
are kind, she feels self-conscious, as if she should be handing
something back to them, something she doesn’t have.
The nurse retrieves her heavy bag from the hallway and points
to the den. After she closes the door, Diana sits down, bedside. Her
father lies still. She recognizes the quilt that has been laid over him, awedding band pattern made from pink linen scraps and large cotton
floral strips. There are pictures of her as a baby, struggling across thesame fabric, darker in hue, straining to pull herself up, to grasp thecamera, or her mother’s hand. Desire sits there, lodged in the glitterof her tiny eyes, her fist squeezed tight like an unopened peony
blossom.
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Her father’s breathing. He is turned slightly towards her. The
muscles in his face have altered the structure, as if he were jutting out
his chin, favoring one side for too long. His jawbone sharply visible,
dry lips parted. She starts rubbing her palm with the thumb of herother hand, seeking the pressure points, relief. She doesn’t know what
to say, how to even begin talking. A tumble of voices come from behindthe den’s closed door. Laughter. The volume goes down.
The last sense to go is the hearing, her mother had said, sotalk to him. You won’t get interrupted, that’s for sure.
Instead, Diana is tracking a fluttering moth and her eyes can’t
move as quickly. It settles violently against the lamp so she tries tocup it in her hands, to take it outside. It escapes and lands on top of theblanket, wings pressed flat, as though it had been painted on the quilt.
As his body shifts under the carefully spread cloth, the moth
stays put. Brown and black zigzags across its wings, a thread of white
dots at the edge. Diana moves cautiously, reaching her curled hands
out, as if she were already holding something fragile. Her fingernails
press gently at the blanket as she tries to lift only the body of the moth,
not to disturb the dusty protective layer on its wings.
She flinches as her father suddenly attempts to speak, emitting
a low crumbly moan. His jaw continues moving and the lips nottouching, and the smell of his breath souring the air between them.
His eyes are the clear, same blue of his younger self, shining. Pupils
sharp as knife points.
He forms a string of sounds that lift her further out of her seat,out of necessity to hear, leaning far forward, turning her ear to him, tomake sense of the thick, damp warmth of his breath, labored, andbeginning to sound like a rusty whistle as he inhales.
You little cunt.
It takes Diana time to connect the meaning to sound andrather than falling backwards suddenly, she sinks in a protracted
motion, until she is seated again, and a kind of searing occurs, as if
looking directly into the sun, comes over her entire body. Her father’seyes remain open, fixed on Diana, and she is unable to move. Not
because she is stunned, but that it just sits there, on her lap, like somerabid animal, daring her to make a move.

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Gentle laughter sifts through the door. A clock strikes thetime. Diana steps over to the couch, removes her shoes, and goes tosleep.
In the morning, a honking mass of geese crash into the lake, one after
the other. Diana sees that the sliding door has been opened an inch;
the air cuts in. She has been tucked underneath a bundle of puffy
blankets. The coffee maker is hissing and gurgling in the kitchen andshe can smell the first cups. She is thinking, with her eyes still closed,
how much promise is contained in the brewing of coffee. How themorning hasn’t been afflicted just yet, the day begins with eachsubsequent minute, intact.
Her father rests in the same position as last night. His
breathing is even, quiet. The moth is gone.
Diana sees the nurse out on the deck, stubbing out a cigarette.
She enters quietly.
Did you get some sleep?
Yes, Diana lied.
I’ll be heading out soon, but you’re in good hands, Jalissa isgoing to be with you today.
She gives Diana a tired smile as she gathers her things. Her
skin is bright with moisturizer, fresh lip gloss. She looks at her watch.
The doorbell rings. Diana pretends to be sleeping when Jalissa comesin. And then she pretends she is just stepping out, and drives home.
When Diana pulls into her driveway, it is almost dawn. It isn’t until
she gets to the front door that she realizes the whole of the house isdark. There are no other cars in the driveway but her own, the metal
gently pinging and clicking as it cools. The house is silent. She flips
on the kitchen light, a low buzz emits from the ceiling somewhere.
Hello?
Diana has an inexact sense that people had just left, a certain
humidity indicating breath, perfume, sweat. She is disappointed,
exhausted by the trip and had hoped that returning home would shakeout the spindly sticks of discomfort rattling inside of her. A warm
house. Jason at the computer, smiling to see her.
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She drops her bag, and turns the corner into the living room.
Jason’s desk is tidy, the chair pushed in tight. The loveseat is gone,
again, the fireplace exposed. The roommate’s door is open, whichmakes her heart lurch—it is so unexpected. That door was never left
open, only as the roommate came or went. She tiptoes over, noticing a
new, small dent in the panel, torn at the edges showing splinteredwood.
Hello? Her voice quavers. She stops moving, stands absolutely
still to see if she can hear anything, any sign of life or threat. Nothing.
Her heart swings up and she feels heat from her body, micro-currentsof adrenaline charging.
She takes silent steps towards the room, flips the light switch.
It doesn’t work. She flips it back and forth several times. Her eyes arehave adjusted to the semi-darkness enough to see that the room isempty, save for little pills of styrofoam scattered across the floor.
In her room, the bed is unmade. The tiny nightlight Jason had
bought her on a work trip glows in the corner, its carved bear claw
pattern glued over a piece of amber glass. As she reaches for the wall
switch, the window darkens several shades and the man-not man isthere; he’s managed to take up more space, more light than what she
remembered. He is less transparent and contains a density like aswarm, more defined, like a string drawn loosely around him.
Diana doesn’t turn on the light. She closes her eyes. She
imagines the stars again, and their material counterparts in her body,
like magnets. Her angel is here. She lays back on the bed, feeling as
though she’s riding in an elevator which is plunging, stopping,plunging again. She sleeps. She remembers.
It was into a lightless room, a room with no discernible
temperature. The air was thick, but not humid. It was a bright day andthe clear skies unusual. She never saw the faraway earth, the perfect
blue and emerald jewel that astronauts breathlessly cite, post return.
She also never experienced the painful juddering of a spacecraft, theforce exerted on bodies on the way to space.
Lightless rooms existing perfectly, built in time, changing as
the dreamer moves through them, without ever seeing their own
hands, or touching the walls. A slim doorway. A window to an unguent
sea. Her body remembers that they were not rough, nor gentle, butthat they approached her body with expertise. And that time, was not27

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time, but passage, as she seamlessly went from recording numbers ina column, to the woozy awareness of the room. Object gone missing.
Parts of her touched without touch and irrevocably changed, the seams
and fissures of her own brain and tissues, having come together again.
They’d given her a gift, the soft and generous murmuring she hears,
not with her ears, but inside of her, as natural as her own blood.
She returns to her skin against the sheets, the perspiration, as
it trickles minutely from her breast, trailing to under her armpit. The
touch of an errant mosquito, a brushing against her. She wants to go
back, where the men-not men are without language, promise nothing,
but are as real as breath, pluming white in the cold morning air, andhovering.
The sun begins to rise up over the thick edge of dank morning
fog, obscuring the wet lowlands and silvery leaves of eucalyptus. Her
phone buzzes. The alarm for her first workshop. She had nearly
forgotten. Brushing her hair into a neat ponytail, rifling drawers for aclean shirt. She sprays complexion mister all over her face, pinches hercheeks, and sits, without pants, at her little nightside table.
Diana joins the meeting. The pre-screen displays her face, herneck and the collar of her shirt. The new stone pendant is still aroundher neck. She touches it lightly.
Waiting for the host to let you in.
She reaches for her glasses and can suddenly see, plainly, that
she is crying, that her cheeks are shining and red. The virtual doorbell
chimes and a band of faces are spread across the screen like cards. She
cannot pretend to hide this from anyone.
The facilitator begins.
Welcome.
She speaks from a black square, nameless, at the bottom edge.
Everyone’s eyes move restlessly. The books, the shelves, thekitchens, the lights, the curtains, the coffee cups, the glasses of water,
the animals drifting in and out.
Let’s begin with a question. How do you know there are others
like you?
Diana raises her hand first. She already knows it’s a trickquestion.

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Dream of Emma Returning
Alex Stanley

All of my logic points to coincidence,unless dreams are like roots in a forest,
connecting everything. I dreamt of you
the night your father died, made a note of it,that you returned to me, that you were happy.
It’s been three years since we last spoke,
yet I heard you cry, thousands of miles away,
waking me in my sleep, here, beyond the confinesof love, arms, the smoothing of your eyelids,
and when you told me you’d never speak to me
again, I didn’t know another world could open.

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Ergo AgeAlex Stanley

I walk in the spring that light warmth brings—
I walk in the sky that rages from night into day
as the bright ocean breeze grows silent as gold.
Let’s leave the Appalachians and travel past
the Missouri into the glow of harvest wheat—
we will walk clear to the Pacific if we have to.
I walk with an impatient mind longing to wander.
I walk with a joyful spirit—my feet grow callused.
My charming friend, our encounter is fulfilled
down the road, at a time when we will make a homeout of our different paths, each leading back to the other.⁠1

1 Ergo Age is a translation of Catullus’s Carmen XLVI.

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Store and Funeral Home VI / Christopher Paul Brown

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Untitled, North Riverside Dubuque Iowa 2022 /Christopher Paul Brown

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Untitled, North Riverside Dubuque Iowa 2022 /Christopher Paul Brown

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Untitled, East Downtown / Christopher Paul Brown

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Anna in a Precarious Pose / Christopher Paul Brown

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My Wife Dies During Birth
Oisin Farraige

1.
spinal tap then split her stomach open in
front of me. chiral winged death. angelof the other side looming, crying inwant. crossing over provides certain
particulars for the attentive soldier ofgod. the frontline is you, in the maternity
ward. the bridge is the depth of willto cross it. this soul economy hastaken its toll and crossed you. though
you’ve taken your last you’ve given new.
2.
new blood it would’ve been in my time,
my son. there’s this bending of the airaround you, heat death of father bonds.
i can’t help but pile blame upon you,lump flesh of mine, take and take is all
you seem to do. then you grasp at that
air and it insulates you, by the time you’rein my arms I’ve taken responsibility. little
glimmers of her brighten your crib: youreyes and the patterned walls and sheets,
mobiles, toys she took ages searching for
into near perfect matches for the bump.

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you sprang up faster than I could haveimagined, into something far greater thanyour parts. maybe more of her was taken
for how unlike myself it seems you are.

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After My Wife’s Funeral
Oisin Farriage//
I wroteEverythingThat I felt

down

Strucklight
Out of dark
To burn these poems
Thinking
Of everyTrace
I
Could let her

If I could rid

earth

go . . .

Now I spend the rest
Of my life
Writing to keep her here//
Color, scent, voice, touch of hand,heart, driven out by time—
Straws if ever grasped again— always trying
In a sushi restaurant
seated for one.

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My Grandfather Tells Me His Story in a Dream After His Death
Oisin Farriage
In the hills of Kentucky, where old men sit andread small town papers
Where tossed bikeframes crawl the walk in front of Bennet’s,
tripping men for Ale-8 sips Where a plow ispushed by cracked hands against impotent sod
Where the gravestone of my grandfather lies
disturbed, footpaths unbeaten Where themountaintop has been blown to pieces—soaked
the hollers in sickness for cars and comfort Whereyou get sun at ten—lose it at two
Where asyoung as six you can tote your father’s dynamite
for him
You can haul a coal bucket one
hundred feet deep You can watch him clutch
his chest at your eighth birthday party searchingfor breath
You can see your own future—hacked
black globs filtered through bleeding lungs—in
the toilet bowl after one of his fits You can see
his pale face before they close the lid
You canwatch your mother open the only mail from thecoal company to no letter and a check for half of
his weekly pay
You can stop for gas thirty
years later at a Circle K and suffocate on yourphlegm going to take a piss in the bathroom
while your grandson pumps gas

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Untitled, from the Facing It Together Series / Jack Bordnick40Sunspot Literary Journal

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Counting on Neighbors with Cheerios / Valyntina Grenier41

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Of Brick
Miriam Borgstrom

to notice her hair was to notice her past / and when she offeredherself, the size of her hands differed / if we defined her hair,
we would reach zero / the frequency of voices would shatter /once, we attempted sleeping while waking / twice, we
attempted new backdrops / and to notice this, has gotten us
nowhere / no less than where she began / she forgets the
texture of brick as we become experts on brickplease accept this glove I offer
or accept the glove and call it something else
this is a test on how responsible you arein a wayin a time of great war between neighboring countries
and neighboring brickpresenting yourself in physical form
presenting a life with room for another life
or simply
replacing our batteries together

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Reading Group A
Carolyn Dasher
It’s a perfect day for work. The warm breeze smells like gardenias. The
sun and surf and rocks at Moloa’a Beach look like something out of akid’s drawing—vivid yellow, deep blue, glossy black, straight from thecrayon box. My mom used to bring me here when I was little. I’dsplash in the shallows while she chatted up men. When I got older—when the men started furtively checking me out—she left me at home,which was a relief to both of us. And possibly to the skeezy men, too.
But I’m all grown up now, and always happy to spend a morning at
Moloa’a.
To get to the beach, you park on the street, duck under treelimbs at the end of the road, and then wade across a sandy stream. And
there, kicking off his flipflops before crossing, is Len.
“Hey, kiddo. Nice to see you.” It’s never skeezy hugging Len.
He’s known me since I was four, and he’s one of those decent guys who
keeps you four in his heart forever, even once you’ve gotten tits.
“How’s your mom?”
I tell him she’s good. That she’s hostessing at the new place in
Princeville, and though he surely already knows this, he says, “Yeah?
That’s so great.”
We detour around a pale, fresh-off-the-plane family setting up
their beach chairs.
Len and my mom used to date. He’s what my mom calls a
trusty. Lucky ducky trust fund fucky. Not that you can tell by looking
at him. His board shorts are ancient. His t-shirt is more holes thanshirt. He buys his flipflops at Costco just like the rest of us. His tan isa deep mahogany and his hair is a little too long, these days, for hisage. He’s here for his morning swim. He’ll take another one in theafternoon. Then he’ll head out for dinner. Maybe with a woman, maybe
not. He and Mom were together a long time. Long enough that hebought me several expensive birthday presents. Long enough that noone could blame me for thinking he’d be around forever.
But Mom understood he was temporary. She kept her eyes andher options open. After a few years, he just became . . . scarce. I mean,
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it’s impossible to avoid anyone on this island, but we somehow did not
run into Len for about six months. And when we finally did see him, it
was all friendly hugs and we’ll have to catch up sometime, meaning
not really, but hey, we’re both okay and c’est la vie.
“New renters in that one,” Len points up the beach toward ahouse with an emerald lawn and an expensively-furnished lanai. A lineof palms studs the boundary between grass and sand. “Young family.
Husband plays a lot of golf. Wife takes Pilates. I guess there’s a nannyor something.” Len lives nearby, and he has a keen eye for these things.
And he knows—but is kind enough not to mention—why I’m here.
He ditches the ratty t-shirt and launches into the water. The
guidebooks say you shouldn’t swim at this beach. But Len could swim
pretty much anywhere in pretty much any weather. When he was withmy mom, he taught me how to swim and how to catch a wave, and henever once made me feel like I was in his way.
I head up the beach to the house he pointed out, snap open mystraw mat, and start my routine.
Typically, they don’t come out to chat on the first day. The
first day is just for show. You should avoid even glancing at the house.
You won’t see anything in the windows but a reflection of palms andocean. But you can sense when someone is watching. If you’re lucky,
it’s not the wife or kids.
Focus on the routine. The stretching and twisting andbalancing. You are strong and flexible and steady. The routine shows
you off in all the best ways. When you’re done, you sit on your beachmat, tailor style, watch the waves and emanate a sense of peace.
It’s important not to appear agitated. No scratching. No
fidgeting. No brushing off sand. Project a sense of dignity and calm.
These men are on vacation. They’re not looking for drama. Calmsignals discretion. Which is one of many things they find appealing.
I calmly shift my gaze up the beach, and see that Len is out of
the water now. He’s lying down next to a couple of women. Younger
than he is. Len has no towel, so he’s soaking theirs, but he wouldn’t
think about that. It’s warm. The towel will dry, as will Len.
I squint to make out who the women are. One of them is
Kimbra, I’m almost positive. We were at school together. She’s
another trusty. Actually, the child of trusties, which, depending on thefamily investment strategy, is just as good. Her parents didn’t like the44

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private Christian school on the island, so she attended public schoolwith the rest of us. We were never exactly friends, me and Kimbra, but
we were thrown together a lot in school, starting with Mrs. Matsui’s
Reading Group A.
No fish, no fruit, no animal names or colors for Mrs. Matsui,
when it came to labeling her reading groups. She didn’t see the point.
As if we wouldn’t have figured out that a particular fish was the best
one, or a particular fruit the saddest and most loser-ish.
If she put you in Reading Group A, that meant that instead of
the big reader with a rainbow on the cover and twenty years of student
names inscribed inside, you read actual books. Books with chapters. A
Wrinkle in Time. Watership Down. Instead of taking turns reading out
loud, you took the books home and read them on your own. Then you
discussed them with Mrs. Matsui.
Reading Group A was whispered about in the lower grades,
and yearned for openly in the middle grades, by parents and students
alike. But not by my mom. “There’s a library,” she said. “If you want
to read those books, you can read those books.” Which was true, but
not the point. The point—which other parents understood—was to be
in Reading Group A, whether you cared about the books or not.
Reading Group A kids went on to take honors classes in high school.
They were almost exclusively haole, Japanese or Chinese—so I had
that going for me. But they were also almost exclusively kids whoseclothes did not come from the Salvation Army in Kapa’a. Kids who did
not live crooked stilt houses shrouded with blue tarps to keep out therain.
My mom may not have cared, but I did. I cared tremendously
about getting into Reading Group A. Which meant that all throughfourth grade I was on my best behavior, turned in every assignment
on time, aced all my spelling tests, practiced my handwriting until it
was textbook perfect. When Mrs. Matsui gave us quizzes at the startof fifth grade—just to “see where everyone is at”—I had to leave theroom to throw up before each one.
Then one morning she sat at the reading table pressing her
hands against the sides of a stack of paperbacks until each copy of The
Island of the Blue Dolphins was perfectly aligned with the one beneathit. Before I could raise my hand to go throw up again, she called myname. She called me first, even though my last name starts with P.
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Then she called Kimbra, and Kiri, and Donald, and Hanna, and Linus,
and Chuey.
I loved the naked envy on the faces of the kids who hadn’t beencalled, and the horror on their parents’ faces when they heard I had
been. That was enough, at first. But then came the books and thequestions Mrs. Matsui asked about the books. And the way she wanted
us to disagree with her and with each other. I never loved anything
about school as much as I loved Reading Group A.
Everyone in Reading Group A went to college except for Kiri,
who got pregnant senior year and went straight to work at Big Save,and me. I made some noise about community college, but mom wasgetting older, and her golf course guy hadn’t made the scene yet, andour meals had become mostly ramen or rice with little bits of this andthat tossed in.
We needed money, and I knew how to get it. So I did.
Now Mrs. Matsui, when she runs into me at Big Save, looks
past me into the distance, as if we never had those amazing
conversations about Captain Nemo or The House of Dies Drear.
Kiri and I have stayed close. Most of the others got jobs in
Honolulu or on the mainland after college—I see them around at
Christmas time. We wave and smile. Kimbra got her degree and cameback. She waves and smiles, too. She throws terrific parties, or so I
hear. Kiri gets invited, but not me.
Kimbra works as PA for some celebrity with a house inKilauea. Which means when the celebrity’s arrival is imminent, she
stocks the kitchen, makes sure the Range Rover is tuned up and thetank is full, orders the flowers, confirms that the sheets and towels andthings I probably can’t even imagine are all fresh and ready. She
schedules the airport pickup, the golf rounds, the massages and spa
treatments. And when the celebrity leaves, Kimbra makes sure thefridge is empty, the Range Rover is tarped, the pool is covered, thehouse cleaned, the lanai furniture cushions stored away. She doesn’t dothese things herself, I’ve been made to understand. She coordinates thedoing of them by others. For this coordination, according to Kiri, shegets paid a shocking amount of money.
Good for her. She’s smart to earn. My mom’s grandparents
came here from the mainland with money to burn. And they burned
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imaginative people, they called the inland one Mauka (mountain) andthe beachfront one Makai (ocean). When their inheritance dwindled,
mom’s parents sold Makai. So now there’s just Mauka. The roof leaks.
The stilts on the weather side are slowly rotting. The house kneels
toward the ocean, like it’s bowing toward a distant Polynesianancestor. Some wet season not too far in the future it will probably
keel right over.
Paradise, it turns out, is perpetually damp, mildewy and full of
dry rot. But in the beautiful house behind me, and in the house Kimbra
manages, the sheets are always dry and crisp. The towels smell as freshas spring meadows.
I stand—no hands, because I can gracefully rise from theground without them—and roll up my beach mat.
You never carry a beach chair. Not just because they’re
expensive—the good ones—but because you are not a pack horse. And
because a chair hides your body, which entirely defeats the purpose of
you being here, in front of this fancy house. No towel, because towels
fill up with sand which must be shaken out—a matronly action thatevokes scolding children for tracking dirt through the house. Your
straw mat sheds sand the second you lift it off the ground. You bendat the waist as you roll it up and let whoever is watching get a goodlook at your lovely ass. You tuck the roll under your arm and amble
up the beach as if you have all the time in the world. Which you do.
If you felt someone watching, you come back the next day—same time—and do it all again.
That’s usually when he’ll come out. Ask if you’re “native.” This
is not the moment for a history lesson. There are shockingly few
natives left on these islands, but these men don’t come here to learn
about things like that.
I have dark hair and a year-round tan, but I am completely
haole. Any local would never think otherwise. No going into that. All
he means is did I grow up here. “I grew up right down the road,” I lie.
My mom couldn’t have afforded anything near this beach. But I spent
plenty of time at Len’s, and I gesture vaguely in the direction of his
house.
“Beautiful,” he says. Which could mean the place, or which
could mean me. And that’s when I know I’m in.
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A few days later he informs me that his wife and kids have left
for Maui—her parents have a condo there. He’s hanging back though.
He needs the quiet for a deal he’s working on.
You never ask questions about the deal. A: you’re supposed to
be a break from their routine. B: they’re sure you couldn’t understandit. When they’re sure about something, they’re happy, which is how
you want them. A happy man, even if his happiness is an illusion, is a
generous man.
A wife in Maui means expensive dinners out. It meansmodeling dresses and bikinis for him at the boutiques in Princeville. Itmeans scrambled eggs—they are all so proud of their scrambled eggs;
an egg is just an egg, but you can ooh and aah with the best of them—and coffee on the lanai. It means you can use the classes left on his
wife’s Pilates punch card if you want.
There will be gifts. Gifts are the point. This is mutually
understood. Express your gratitude but don’t act too blown away.
Make him feel good when he gives you things, but never let him see
your need. Needing is not sexy. Needing is messy. Thank him in acalm, low voice. Slowly extend your hand, angled to accent thedelicacy of your wrist, and accept the offering of the moment. Bring
the gift gracefully to your lips, your heart, wherever it is you’d likehim to direct his gaze.
I tuck the punch card into my waistband—watch his eyes
follow it as I take another sip of coffee. He’s golfing later, he says, somaybe I could take a class then. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll do that.” They liketo keep you occupied. They don’t want you at loose ends, stretching
and twisting on some other beach in front of some other guy’s rental.
Some gifts can be exchanged for cash later. Others must be
used as intended. I put on my best gear and go to the Pilates class. The
woman at the desk scrutinizes the card and its star-shaped punches. “I
don’t remember you,” she says, “and I remember everyone who comes
here.” She’s the little sister of someone I went to high school with—I
actually do remember everyone—and she’s not quite certain if I’m who
she thinks I am.
People talk about me. The same way they used to talk about
my mom. I know what they say. But I don’t have a trust fund like
Kimbra. And I don’t want to clean vacation houses or stock shelves at
Big Save. Or rent out snorkel gear. Or any of that shit. I want to go48

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the beach and eat nice meals and enjoy eggs and coffee on fancy lanais.
I want to try on pretty dresses and have someone else pay for them. I
want to be touched by men who think my body and my skin areamazing, who make worshipful noises as I slide between their crisp,
dry rental house sheets.
This life comes with an expiration date. My mom is a
restaurant hostess now, and she goes home to a boyfriend who mows
the greens on the golf course. He’s nice. She’s happy. “I got it all outof my system when I was young,” she likes to say. Also: “Why would
you settle down unless you didn’t have a choice?”
The receptionist’s fingertips go white, she’s pinching the cardso firmly. Like I might snatch it back from her. I shrug. “My friend
went to Maui, and she had some classes left. But if it’s a problem . . .”She punches another star in the card and reluctantly releases it backto me.
I’ve taken Pilates classes before. I incorporate the more
attractive moves into my beach routine. In flush moments, I’ve paid
my own way. But usually a guy treats me. The other women in thestudio can tell—like it’s a scent I give off—that I don’t really belong
there. They shift their mats away from mine, wary.
That night my mom seats the two of us at one of the better
tables in her restaurant. She talks up the specials, tells him they’rerunning low on the seared tuna—this is her way of letting me know
she’ll save me one. She unfolds his napkin and offers him a long lookat her cleavage as she drapes it across his lap. After the seared tunacomes a shared dessert—only a tiny bite for me, thanks—and a final
scotch for him. Then Mom slides the bill in front of him. She turns andwinks at me, the only moment of recognition between us. Even ourwaitress, who’s known me all my life, doesn’t give me away. But she’ll
be talking in the kitchen when she thinks my mom can’t hear. “It’s sucha shame,” she’ll say. “She was so smart in school.”That night you have another drink back at his rental, and thena couple more. He puts on music and you dance. He’s a good dancer.
You never expect it with these guys, but they occasionally surpriseyou. He knows where to put his hands and how to guide you into arhythm and before long you are on the fluffy rug in the living room,and he’s taking off your top, and the drink is swirling in your head,and he says, “I just want to feel you. Really feel you.” And you want to49

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really feel him, too, so you say yes. Yes to everything. And it’s great.
It’s the best you’ve had in a long time. And since he’s leaving soon, you
let him know that it’s the best you’ve had in a long time. And this is a
mistake, because when you say your final goodbyes, there’s no giftcard, no special piece of jewelry, no little something to remember him
by. He thinks he’s already given you the gift of a lifetime.
Which, it turns out, he has.
The responsible thing to do is get a test. I’m in the parking lot
at Big Save by seven a.m., right when it opens. But there’s Kiri,
dodging puddles as she runs for the door. She sees me and waves,opens her eyes wide at me as if to say, “Rain!” and “What are you doing
here so early in the morning?”
I wiggle my phone at her, my eyes saying back, “Yeah, I
know,” and “Oops. Gotta go.”
I’ll come back later when, hopefully, someone else is working
the till.
The swell is up, and Kiri’s such a surf ho, I was sure she’d drop
the kids with her mom and call in sick. But you can only do that so
often. I briefly consider heading to Foodville, but Foodville means
tourist prices, and I can’t float that this month. I can’t even float
enough gas to drive down to the Safeway in Kapa’a. Which would be
the best place. Although even there, I’d probably see someone I know.
Subtract out the tourists and it’s a small island—all of us up
in each other’s business.
Where can I go on my last gallon of gas? What will I do withmyself today? It’s a Saturday—turnover day—so pickings will be slim.
But you never know. No point in doing my beach routine until people
are up and about though. Maybe Jillia will share the bounty from
whatever house she’s cleaning. But checkout’s not til 10 or 11, so I’ve
got time to kill.
Just then Paolo raps on my window. “Hey, girl, what’re you
doing here so early?” Paolo runs the Brazilian food cart, even thoughhe’s not Brazilian. The food cart people start early. Really, almost
everything starts early here, so he shouldn’t be surprised to see me.
Everyone’s trying to catch a wave or get in a swim before work. I dothese things too, even though I don’t exactly keep standard hours.
Work starts when I want it to start. Sometimes it starts while I’m out
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for a morning jog around the golf course, dressed in my best
Lululemons and my too-revealing-to-be-supportive sports bra.
“You hungry?” asks Paolo. And yes, I realize I am. He fries mesome plantains. I dip into my precious cash to treat him to a coffee
from one of the other carts. “No coffee for you?” he asks. I lie and tell
him I’ve had my daily quota.
Later, I sit at a breakfast bar watching Jillia empty out therefrigerator in her first house of the day. “You need any mustard?”
If you know someone who cleans rentals, you never have tobuy mustard or ketchup—there’s an endless supply of barely touchedbottles free for the taking. Also the dregs of chip bags and cereal boxes,of liquor and wine bottles. Partial six-packs of soda and beer, half limes
and half lemons, and hit-or-miss containers of take out. I’m not proud—if it smells okay, I’ll happily eat it. Usually. But lately, I confess to
Jillia, nothing smells good. Lately I’m having trouble keeping downeven the blandest food. Just the smell of scrambled eggs and coffee
would have me puking over the edge of the most beautiful lanai.
“I thought you had an implant,” says Jillia. She was the
sharpest girl in my grade. Not the best student, not Reading Group A
material, but she never misses a trick. “Paolo said you were at Big Savebright and early this morning, but you didn’t go in. He said you looked
off, and he’s right.”
So this is what they’ll all be talking about now. Like mother,like daughter. My mom got knocked up when she was twenty-one.
And here I am, perilously close to thirty, more than old enough toknow better, following in her footsteps. I sometimes wonder when my
expiration date will kick in, and today I think it’s more likely a matterof months than years. Maybe I should start applying for restaurant
jobs. Maybe I should ask Mom’s boyfriend if he has any younger
friends on the greens crew.
“It’s pretty old,” I say, probing the ridge beneath my skin. “I’vebeen meaning to get it taken out.”
Jillia drops a half loaf of bread and a stick of butter into hercooler and puts her hands on her hips. “Well, girl, what now?”
I sigh and push the takeout container further down the
breakfast bar, away from my sensitive nose.
“You should talk to Kimbra.”
I laugh. I haven’t talked to Kimbra in years.
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Volume 4, Issue 3“Seriously. Kimbra knows how to hook things up.”
I shake my head. I know how to hook things up myself. I’ve
done it before, and pretty much assumed I’d need to do it again
someday, seeing as I’m lax about things like replacing my implant.
“I’m keeping it,” I say. Out loud and to someone else, so it must betrue.
Jillia doesn’t respond. Maybe she disapproves. Or maybe she
simply has to keep moving, keep cleaning. She has another house toclear by 4 pm. The most time-consuming thing is the laundry. The
dryer buzzes. “I’ll get it,” I say. I start the towels and put clean sheets
on a bed, and prepare to explain that I want to be a mom, and I knowhow do my job and raise a kid. My mom did just fine by me, after all.
And I’ll do even better. If my kid wants to be in Reading Group A, orwhatever, I’ll help her make that happen. But Jillia isn’t looking for an
explanation. I return just as she finishes mopping the kitchen, and, as
if no time has passed, she says, “I thought you might. All the morereason to talk to Kimbra.”“For what? Advice about having a kid?” Kimbra is single andchildless and has never shown much interest in me.
But Len has. I flash to the two of them, lying on her wet towel
at Moloa’a. Talking intently. About me?
Jillia shrugs as if it’s not her place to say, and I decide I’drather catch some waves than watch her vacuum the carpets.
The swell has died and the waves are shitty, but I do my best.
When I get back to my car and fish my phone out of the glove
compartment, there’s a message from Mom. “Hi honey. I ran into
Kimbra yesterday. She wants to talk to you.”Absurd. The last time Kimbra talked to me was shortly after
graduation when she gave me some lame excuse for not inviting me toher summer luau. But we both knew the real reason why. I was alreadyin the game.
“I’m expanding,” Kimbra says. She finally called me directly
and invited me to lunch, which means I’ve joined her at the picnic tablein front of Paolo’s food cart. “Referrals,” she spirals her fork in the air,indicating skyrocketing demand for her services. She needs someone
to help her manifest the many luxuries that must be manifested
whenever one of her clients aims a private jet toward our little island.
That someone must be reliable, discreet, and smart.
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Volume 4, Issue 3“Len suggested you. And I thought, right! Reading Group A!”
She holds out a fist and I obligingly bump it with my own. When I
don’t lunge at her offer (needing isn’t sexy, needing is messy), she
stifles her surprise and gives me a week to think about it.
A day later she calls and tells me the job will, naturally, comewith an array of benefits, including, should I ever need it, maternity
leave.
Two days later, Mom calls and talks about how much it would
mean to her if we could afford to fix up Mauka. How, if I didn’t wantto live there myself anymore, we could rent it out. Have Jillia manage
it.
Three days later, Len calls. “Take the job, kiddo,” he says. “It’sthe right play.”
Everyone on the island is in on it. They’re blocking all theother exits and channeling me toward this single remaining door,
which might as well have “Opportunity” painted on it in neon letters.
Once I walk through it, they can all applaud Kimbra for rescuing me.
I inspect myself in the mirror every morning. I’m not showing
yet, but for the last two weeks my beach routines have landed zilch.
Mrs. Matsui used to tell us to make the most of ouropportunities. She assumed that Reading Group A was just the first of
many that would come our way.
Opportunities don’t always look the way you think they will.
Also, you can’t eat pride. So I call Kimbra and say yes. She offers asalary which surpasses my expectations, but for form’s sake, andbecause I’m not an idiot, I counter with a higher number, to which she
agrees. Then she says she’s putting the signing bonus (the signingbonus!) in the mail right away.
I walk around Mauka wondering how much mold lurks
beneath the carpets—those will all have to be pulled up—and what it
will cost to replace the stilts and repair the roof. When the signingbonus arrives, I pay all the bills with red “final notice” stamps on themand then decide it’s time to buy that test and confirm what I alreadyknow to be true.
On my way out of Big Save, my test safely hidden in a brown
paper bag, I run into Mrs. Matsui. She has her canvas shopping totes
slung over one arm, and she casts a disapproving glance at my paper
bag. Behind her, her very fit, handsome son is asking do they need a53

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cart. Eric, I remember. He was a senior when I was a freshman. Moreof a jock than an Honors English kind of guy — possibly just to pushhis mother’s buttons. He’s recently back from the mainland, where hedid something in tech. According to Paolo, he took a big payout and
now he’s home. Consulting. Which, since you can do it from anywhere,
why not from paradise?
A family of tourists dithers in the store entrance. The rest ofus, who need to be particular places at particular times, roll our eyes
at one another and edge past them. The gap for edging past is narrow,
which means Mrs. Matsui must either speak to me or make a show of
being rude to me.
“Well, look who it is. I’m so pleased to see you,” she says. Allsmiles. Her son is all smiles, too, behind her, where she can’t see him
looking me up and down.
“I hear you’re going to be working with Kimbra. Such a great
opportunity. Reading Group A girls sticking together!”“Yay, Reading Group A,” I say with a little ironic fist pump.
Eric laughs and winks at me. Mrs. Matsui purses her lips andhurries past me into the store. Her son follows, still smiling, giving me
another once-over before he joins her in the produce area. I watch fora minute. He doesn’t turn around to look at me again, but that’s okay.
I know the closest beach to Mrs. Matsui’s house. I know where to find
him.

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Flipbooks
Mark Henderson

We’re not so much moving
as repeatedly manifesting—born and dying in rapid succession
under boredom’s thumb,reincarnated as different poses
from the same ol’ paper.
We dare hold ourselves to yesterday and tomorrow
beneath the shade of looming pages,
indignant at the backward stares of our pasts.
We come to each otherthrough the inky pain of the long undrawn,
aching to be what someone else wants
against the flattened fibers—
sped along in dizzy samsara
until we are praying for fire.

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CustomerMark Henderson

I would say I was on breakor it was my first day on the job,
but I don’t know what anyof those words mean; I’m just here,
and I’d tell you what all of this is surrounding me
if I could tell the difference between sand and water.
Is this a boat or a desk?
A silence explodes, andI see a dot far off as soon as I think about it.
It’s growing, walking, threatening mewith the fact of it—a Big Bang confronting
with the gravity of its universe,looking for some sort of explanation.
And I don’t know; I just work here.

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Covid Color Set 2L / Cynthia Yatchman57

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Our Obit
Aarron Sholar
Quarterly Editor’s Prize(b.1999)

how to shave my legs, like all
the other middle school girls
had begun to do. I imagine her
face lit up as she explained theprocess to me: how you should
lather your legs up with soap,
go against the way the hairfalls to be sure you get it all, but
be careful she warned me, it’ll
get addicting—you’ll want to getevery last hair. I probably
smiled back at her, nodding,trusting
her
words
of
experience. I still hear her
words every time I shave myface.

I would sit on thequeen-sized bed in the guest
room, dressed in a pair ofpajama pants and a long tshirt. The bed faced a simple
mirror and a dark wooden
bookshelf, which held anendless number of books topick from each night. One day,mom brought me a book that
had a magenta sleeve, maybe
with some yellow as well, witha picture of a young girl on thefront. Mom sat beside me andbegan to explain what thedoctor had said about me being
an early bloomer. She
explained the process ofpuberty, what would happen,
and that it’s normal. She asked
me if I had questions before
bed, and she happily disproved
the utterly confused questionof does a hole show up in my side
and just bleed? Will it close up
after?

Mom also read nonpuberty books to me on that
bed. When I was evenyounger, before I could readreliably, she showed me her
favorite book series, The
Chronicles of Narnia. They felt
and looked old, they evensmelled old, but I nestled besideher on that bed as she’d readthe chapter for the night.
She never read in silly voices
for different characters, assome parents might; instead,In the seventh oreighth grade, I asked my mom
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she just used her own voice. I’dwatch her flip every browning
page, each one releasing moreof the book’s relaxing, albeit
ancient, odor. Some nights I
never wanted her to stop
reading—thiswasourconnection, books. I was the
only sibling out of the three ofus who actually liked them.

thru, as she knew this wasmore exciting to us. I got thesame meal every time, sixpiece chicken nuggets with aboy toy. I’d peel the semi-hardskin away, eating it before
consuming the pale meat, allwhile playing with the Narnia
Happy Meal toy I’d gotten thistime. This series of toys had
ended before I was able tocollect all of them, so my mom
dug through eBay to purchasethe rest of them. After a few
weeks, I could reenact therising of Aslan properly, over
and over.
Mom eventually got
me my own, newer Narnia
book set; this set came in asleek box with shiny, gold
lettering and a picture of the
Dawn Treader on each side.
The books were sleek too, thecovers featuring reimagined
pictures of series events, suchas battles or major characters.
This time, I read through themin my own voice. While I loved
the stories, I was more so
fascinated by them because
mom loved them. I see now
that I wanted to be closer toher—to not only see why she
loved these books for myself,
but to see a part of her in them.

Mom would stand in
the kitchen every Thursdaynight as she washed dishes andcleaned up post dinner. She had
her drying towel in one hand, aplate in the other, being dried,
and a green and yellow
spelling book on the granite
countertop in front of her. She
goes down the list of vocab
words
for
that
week,
protruding them at me withher voice: definition, exempt,
discipline! I’d write all ten on
my loose-leaf paper for her tocheck afterwards. If I got any
wrong, she’d have me verballyspell out every word on the listback to her instead of writing
them. If I got them all rightduring our practice, I could goplay video games.
Mom drove my sisterand I to McDonald’s every
month or so for a treat. We’dactually go into the building
and not just through the drive59Sunspot Literary Journal

Volume 4, Issue 3(d. 2015)
In my junior year ofhigh school, I stopped shaving
my legs. Come the Spring, mycargo shorts displayed my leg
hair to the whole school. My
mom’s once wide smile fromthose years ago was gone asshe drove off to my sister andI’s weekly music lessons
without me. It was the hair. If
I wouldn’t wear pants, I
wouldn’t leave the house, iswhat I understood it as. From
the front window, I watched as
my mom sped away in theminivan. My violin sat besideme as I wondered what she
told my violin teacher. Maybe
I’d come down with a cold,
maybe I’d injured myself
somehow. I decided that I was
not to be seen.

which I had forced under mythighs, began to sweat, my skin
sticking together. Although
she knew why I had stopped
shaving, I was still not allowedin public with those legs. They
were
still
the
most
disrespectful thing she had
ever encountered.
Maybe a year later, mytherapist suggested I offer abook to my mom, to help her
understand what I was going
through; that book was Some
Assembly Required, the one I had
read just after realizing thatbeing
transgenderwaspossible and a legit medical
thing with a diagnosis andeverything. That book gave
me hope for a future, and I
wanted it to do the same forher. I left it on her desk with anote on top of it. Not a daylater, it was on her bookshelf,
unread—the note removed.
Still, I decided that I
wanted to ask my mom tocome with me to my hormone
therapy consult with me. I
walked into the kitchen, thestruggling starting up again.
Mom tended to do this thing
where if she didn’t seem towant to come to terms withsomething, she’d just ignore it,hoping it would eventually go

I sat on the loveseat, apillow on each end; my mom
sat in front and to the right ofme, my gender therapist in
front and to the left. My momheld a folded-up sheet of looseleaf paper, the one I’d spent a
week scribbling all over; thissheet of paper revealed to herthat I was a boy. She had asmile on her face as I lockedeyes with her, but her words
said the opposite: I’m not goingto call you that. My hands,
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away. My arms rested on thegreen granite where that vocab
book once sat: Mom, can you
come to my consult with me next
week? She stopped doing thedishes, the clang of plates andsilverware sudden under thewater of the sink. She didn’t
even turn to look at me: No, it’s
just sad. Her voice seemed tofalter some, distressed. There’s
silence. And then: This isimportant to me, please? She
begins washing again. No, it’s
not important, it’s just sad.
I left.

she’d said in the kitchen, but
she was here, asking questions.
She was present, at the least.
And I appreciated that.
The day I was to have
my double mastectomy, my
mom and I both zombied out of
bed at 4 a.m., got dressed, andwandered into the car. I
remember laying in thatmoving hospital bed, the soft
fabric of my gown brushingagainst my body; it reminded
me of why I was there—thesebreasts didn’t belong, theycaused too much pain. My
mom came into the “room,”really just an open space
divided up by swinging
curtains. She sat beside me, but
I can’t remember if she held myhand or not. I had to ask her fora hug before I was wheeled
away. She gave me one, tellingme I’ll see you soon, I’m going to
get some coffee. I told her that
was a good idea; a nurse
recommended some nearby
coffee places.
On the car ride home,
she told me that that hospital,
George Washington in DC,
was the one she was also bornin, all those years ago. Isn’t
that funny? My mom was bornin the same place a part of me
died.

A week later, my mom
sat in the examination roomwith the doctor and I as we
discussed
hormonereplacement therapy, goingover all the ins and outs. The
room was sterile in every way—the smell of alcohol wipes
stung our noses; the air webreathed was stale; our voices
seemed to echo within theroom; the paper sheet I sat on
felt extra paper-y, more
intense. My mom sat in thecorner, her arms crossed
against her chest and her eyes
never meeting the doctor’s.
But, she asks—Does she have todo this for the rest of her life? How
does it affect fertility? She may
have been unhappy, sad, as61

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After my surgery, my
mom was not necessarily
happy to help with recovery,
but she was there to help. She
collected items off kitchen
shelves for me that I couldn’t
reach, she stood beside me inevery bathroom in the house,
emptying my drains into a redsolo cup (yum) before dumping
the bodily sludge into the toilet
before flushing. She made sure
I was taken care of, but—
There were rules formy new body around thehouse: out of the shower, I still
had to wear my towel wrappedaround where my breasts
would be; I wasn’t allowed to
be shirtless in front of anyone
else in the house. I felt like I
couldn’t bring it up in any way.
It was over, done with, so I had
to ignore that it ever happened
too, just like mom did.
Regardless of her help, I was
still she, I was still [redacted].
But this went on for years, so
I’d get used it; so much so that
I’d ignore my own feelings offake love. of rejection.

support; I was originally OK
with my original name being
used around the house; I wasfine with being a she at home—
but it wasn’t OK anymore.
Those words held memories,
memories like being held homefrom school due to myunshaven legs, like my mom
telling me how sad it is what
I’m doing. I wanted to be thatlittle girl in bed with my mom,reading peacefully, but a boy—I wanted that relationshipback.
Mom called me on my
way to work: so I got your letter—
and we talked about it. I could
hear her smile come back as
she spoke:(b. d. 2021)
Finally, I sent mymom a letter. The letter
detailed my feelings from thelast couple of years: I
appreciated her newfoundI love you, Aarron.

Why didn’t you just tell me thatyou were so upset? I didn’t think
you cared.
Do you want me to call you
Aarron? Yes, dear God, please.
...

I was back in that bed
with her. She was reading
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, thepart where one of the men at62

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the table exclaimed “mustard
please!” for some reason I don’t
remember, but that was myfavorite part of the book (I wasvery upset it was not in themovie). I asked her to read it
again, so she started the page
over. I’d read this scene tomyself a couple of years later.
Maybe I should dig thatcollection out and read it
through again.
(b. 2021 —)She hasn’t messed up
my name since.

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Only Water
Julie Esther Fisher
Rigel 2022 Winner
She would sometimes bring him food in the tub. Feed him with her
naked arms. He splashed around in the water, eating a cream puff, her
hand spooning it into his mouth, a migrating finger on his chest if hespilled.
His mother had just sudsed up the tub. Rainbow bubbles stoodon the surface and he splashed them, poked them, watched them fly
upwards and drift back down. His mouth was filled with small white
first teeth. He had not yet been washed, the water was pristine, andthe woman with her large hands leaned over the rim of the tub that
separated them. He caught hold of a bubble and held it on his
outstretched palm with a mouth and eyes of delight. He held the
bubble out and slid it on to her palm. It slid on its little river of whatflowed from him to her, easy, without resistance, and stood there
quivering.
“Gloria, kindly tell me what is the meaning of this?”
His father: arid, his voice the clack of two dry bones.
He brought an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“He won?” she said. “My boy won the Ivory Soap competition?
His face will be on every billboard between here and San Francisco.”
His father cracked his knuckles.
“Gloria, you have lowered us. Made us common. People will
say we needed the money. You’ve brought shame on us.”
“But look at him. Look at your son, Henry—that face.”“We’ll write to them. Tell them we changed our minds.” Heshoved paper and pen at her. “Take it down, Gloria—Dear Sir—”“It’s too late, Henry. Didn’t you read it? The billboards are
already in production. It says so here.”She put down the pen and paper, turned toward the tub.
“You’re playing a game with the soap?” she said to the little boy.
Beaming, she held out a cream puff.
“Put that down,” his father said. “Put it in the bath.” He too
looked at the boy. “Now eat it.”64

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Volume 4, Issue 3“But there’s soap in there, Henry.”“Then let him eat that, too.”“Henry, please--”“You’re turning him into a Jew sissy.”
He stood there. Stern. Seething. Knuckle-cracking.
His mother leaned over and when she and the boy rubbed
noses her bosom hung inches from his nose. He gazed deep into thecrevasse. The sight of it wet some strange appetite. His mother fed
him, delighting in the act that contravened her husband.
Now, in other humid vapors, the grown man Clifford wants to melt
the fat from his bones. To become that boy. A bubble-producing sackof happy skin in a room of twos. Two breasts perched on the tub rim.
Two hands slapping the water, sending bubbles airborne. Two pairsof eyes to see it all: the bar of soap sliding around the back of him,brushing by his buttocks, slipping between his legs. Ivory soap. His
soap. He thinks of the little face with its halo of curls on all thebillboards. The three of them saw it everywhere, and each time hisfather looked away, his face screwed with fury.
The memory is lodged somewhere in Clifford’s fat, if only hecould feel himself beneath it all, beneath the tire rings around his belly.
Profiteroles sit on the side of the tub. He dips a foot in, holding
on to the metal bar. Tears squeeze from his eyes.
The last bath. Alone . . .
He’d known women. Asked them each, to a one, to step into hismother’s shoes. Never wanted sex with them. Only wanted the water,
the washing hand, the food, the glittering eyes that drank him in.
He gazes over his blubber, trying to join these sights with thelittle boy that still splashes within him. He loves that boy. Or does hejust love being that boy? There’s a difference, he tells himself. No
matter how big he got, he was never big enough to fill that bath alone.
Cream puffs? In the tub?
In the warm water the cream floated, the same color as the soap.
Sweet. Bitter.
“Never let anyone see you like this,” she said, smothering him
in a towel and pressing him to her breast. “Don’t cry now.” She pushed
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him from her and gazed at him with eyes as calculating as a shark’s.
“You’re my beautiful boy. You won. You’re my winner. My Ivory Soap
baby.”He had cried, but it felt good. Good to eat the food, the sloppy
mess slithering out the gaps between his few tiny teeth, theswallowing gulps between the gasps that shook his body. He didn’tknow why it should feel good when he was doing something sohorrible, when the tastes had gone from sweet to bitter, scouring theinsides of his mouth. They were both still here. His father as tall andrigid as a telephone pole, she kneeling, pink and dimpled with mysteryin places that his seeing made him shudder. What they shared was asdangerous as the journey of that single bubble he had passed from his
palm to hers. A covenant. Theirs alone. His body could feed her too.
Humidity. Steam. Taps on full. Memory pouring out.
His last day here in the Squire Hotel. Too dangerous for sucha beast to get into the tub. This is what he tells himself, though he’s
been eyeing it all week, feeling the bubbling up of some glorious achehe’s been harboring all these years. The bathtub? At the sight of it thestrange pain pulls at him.
His father hid a stash of Playboys under the bed.
What was wrong with Her—she, who hung over the side of
the tub? He, the little boy, looked in these magazines, poured overthem, yet was there a single woman as beautiful as she?
At the foot of the mountain of his tummy, his dangly lies slumbering.
He can barely feel it—this part of himself—and cannot see it for whatlies in its way. But he recollects the stirrings from long ago thatwarmed the creature from its hibernation. He feels these vague
stirrings now.
It happens by accident, the food coming to the wrong room—thesweets trolley clattering with silver platters of profiteroles, strudel,
gateaux. The knock comes out of the blue. The trolley is wheeled inand Clifford, thrusting his hand into his pocket for a few bills, thanks
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the boy and closes the door. A moment later he calls the boy back. He
looks deep into the boy’s solemn eyes.
“I didn’t order this,” he says. “There’s been a mistake—butthen, I don’t believe in mistakes. Do you know that when I was a little
boy. . .” He looks straight at the boy, who shifts awkwardly.
Occupational hazard, Clifford imagines, entering guests’ rooms,
listening to their ravings. You must hear the strangest things.
“I’m sorry, son, I’m making you uncomfortable. I just need totell someone . . .”He looks more probingly at the boy—at his face, his skin.
“How old are you, son?”“Sixteen, Sir.”
Clifford’s eyes linger on his. “Nobody’s sixteen. Sixteen is a
fiction—an impossibility . . .” He shakes his head. “Do you know thatwhen I was your age—”
He’s been drinking and yes, he is a little drunk.
“—I was beautiful. Such a beautiful boy. I don’t know what . . .”He indicates his present body and starts to leak tears. So help
him, he is bawling his eyes out. He can see the boy wondering whether
the tips will be worth it.
Pointing to the sweets trolley, Clifford says, “You see that?
You see what’s on there? You want to eat sweets, but sometimes you
can’t. Sometimes you just have to eat…soap.”
In the silence, the sound of the tub filling.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for a man like me to getclean? How dangerous it is? Do me a favor, son. Stay with me. Make
sure I come out. I don’t want to be alone. I need to fix myself up. I havea big day tomorrow.”
He is spewing tears.
Mother and son play with the bar of soap in the tub. He tries to catch
it. She sends it up between his legs. Oh, but it tickled his dangly, as she
called it. Now she was reaching in there and his eyes were wide withdelight, her fingers brushing by it. They laughed. He did not knowwhat delighted him exactly—bubbles, soap, food, breasts, laughter, thehumid atmosphere? It was a puzzle. What sent his father in? A cold67

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gush of air cutting through the dense intimacy. His father interposed
between them. She got up. Not immediately. Not at first.
His father never sets foot in here. He is always out there, chairbound, reading his newspaper, smoking his pipe, pretending not tothink of his stashed magazines. So why does he come in now and talkto her so gruffly? Why does his father look at him with such disdain?
His skin hurts when his father looks at him. A fire in his father’s eyes
incinerates everything. Not even this water can put it out. Poor boy.
She feeds him, but he is her meal. With every word, look, touch, heknows this at two, three, knows it more surely than something knownat twenty, thirty, sixty, seventy. He wanted to say Daddy get me outof here. His father—God, how he loved the man for making him eat
soap!
“Do me a favor, son,” Clifford says to the room service boy. “Stay here
till I get out. There’s dosh in it. Lots.”“But, Sir, there’s all the other rooms to serve. And Mr. Carter,
he’ll have my guts for--”“Life is full of Mr. Carters, son. I need you more than he does.”
Looking askance at Clifford, the boy says, “You ain’t gonnaslit your wrists in there, are you?”“No.” Clifford smiles ruefully.
They are silent a moment. Then the boy says, “Mr. Carter.
He’s very particular. Last year he won room service of the year award.”
Clifford nods. “Once, a long time ago, I won something, too.”“Cool,” the boy says breezily. “What?”“What, indeed. That’s the question.”
And now he steps into the bathtub, and the hulk of him, naked andquivering, stands here, afraid to lower himself in.
He looks over his body. Wave upon wave of the flesh that ishim. Or is it? He can see the little boy, feel him here, flailing in thetorrent. Save me, he calls. Or does he? No, worse, he says nothing. He
is flat now, a photograph…no more.
The tub is filling up, yet he dare not do more than sit naked
on its edge, holding on, his toe swirling the contents so that the waves
spanking the sides fill him with a kind of aching delight. He remembers
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that she used to do this, though with her hand, swirl the water andthey would play a game of find the soap. He remembers with the sameaching delight the perfect diamond-ringed hand moving through thesteam and coming toward him, coming down in slow motion, as if shewere conscious of another layer of meaning that now required thisagonizing slowness when all he wanted to do was get on with thegame. He would never forget that hand, his anger and disgust for the
betraying slowness of its journey. Diamonds sparkled on the polishedfingers. And when the hand broke the surface of the water, he wasaware of a certain feeling of corruption. She swirled the water,
thinking it would delight him, sending the Ivory soap slipping off
between his legs and away. He slapped the water, this time not indelight, but in wordless indignation.
“Now, now, Cliffy, don’t make a fuss.”
Only the little hands could express the desolation at the turnin the water, the bittering of something sweet that no perfume of hers
could cover up. She leaned in. He brought his knees up to his chest andcurled his back, depriving her of a view of his anchor. He didn’t know
why he did this, hid the birthmark, clearly it displeased her. He feltthat they were both floating now, in peril, without destination. That
was when his father came in. The Ivory was lost somewhere in thewater. Yes, he would eat soap! Oh, how he wanted to! Let him wash hismouth out! Let him digest it! Undo the corruption, the loss. And
somehow his father knew. Knew that he’d saved the boy. He couldn’t
stand this—it wasn’t what he meant—hadn’t been when he marched
into the bathroom and demanded to know “the meaning of this.”
Her hand crept up his back.
“Baby. Baby boy. Winner. Let me wash you.”
Wriggling away. It’s a game? Why did he feel afraid?
Smiling of the pink lips. She laughs again.
But he knows this is a warning.
What’s threatened? Why should he not wriggle away from thesilver cascade she makes so hot? It hurts him! And her hand?
Something scrubs his back. An alligator?
“When you are clean,” she says, “you can have this.” She holds
up a fat cream puff. “Don’t cry, Mama’s little boy. What do you haveto cry about? You’re a winner.”69

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Something is gone when the room clears. Like returning froma dream—bad or good, he cannot tell. He only knows that it is done—something, done. Is he crying only because it was so hot?
They agree on that reason.
The anchor is stamped on him. She draws her hand across it.
Knives of pleasure slice through him.
He wees into the tub, holds on to the soap. She swirls her
fingers in the water, creating what vortex into which he’ll be sucked if
he looks up at her now, laughs, does anything to delight her.
“Don’t leave,” Clifford calls out to the boy waiting in the bedroom.
“Not much longer now.”
Taps, tears, time—all run together.
Then comes the voice.
“Sir, are you all right?”
Clifford stands dripping over the bathroom floor.
“Don’t worry, son, you’ll soon have your dosh.”“It isn’t that, Sir. . .”The door opens. Tears jump from Clifford’s eyes. The boy’seyes widen with shock and horror at the sight of the quivering flesh.
In spite of themselves, they rove over the body as eyes do at sight of aghastly accident.
He knows that the boy will never forget this moment. Neverforget it because he will never understand it. He feels sorry now forusing him, for frightening him, confusing him.
“I wasn’t always this way,” he says gently, letting the bar ofsoap slip from his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m frightening you. I’ll covermyself up.”
A towel hangs from the dripping arm, but it is too small—what part of himself should he cover up? The chest with its fabulous
tits, his belly that is not one but the rippling waves of many, or the
wan genitalia that hang lifeless underneath. Useless. The boy has seenit all.
Clifford says, “Tonight I’ve subjected you to something you’ll
never forget. But I want to tell you why. You should at least know
why.”

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He knows that the boy waits and that his waiting is like thewaiting for an ambulance after an accident. He wonders what to say?
How to explain?
At length, he walks to the edge of the bed and sits down. He
can feel the boy’s eyes on him, rapt, bewildered.
“I want to tell you why, but I don’t know how,” he says simply.
The boy walks over to where the soap lies on the floor andpicks it up. He doesn’t know what he holds—doesn’t know themeaning of it to the man who’s dropped it, but it is a tender gesturefrom one so scared, it takes courage, like picking up some personal
effect from the asphalt after the body’s been thrown from the car.
“I knew who I was once. For a little while . . . I wasn’t always
like this. People didn’t always look at me—the way you’re looking at
me now. Once--”
The boy lowers his eyes.
“No, no, son, don’t look away . . . Once… But that was a longtime ago now . . . If it wasn’t for a picture—a single photograph taken
long ago—I’d never believe it possible either. I’m trying to explain it
to you,” Clifford says when the boy looks up. “Because boys
understand. But boys become men. And then they stop.”
Afraid he might cry again, he lowers his eyes. He knows he
has the boy’s attention, totally and without qualification. He knowsthat something is happening between them. He knows that the boy
feels it, too—feels that they have passed from some weird, potentiallyvulgar encounter to something mysterious, a story—something hemight still be telling years from now.
Sometimes big things happen to little people and little things
happen to big people. The thing is, sometimes the big people are thelittle people.
Now the boy walks over and covers the shivering body withthe blanket he pulls from the bed. But it is the boy’s presence thatwraps Clifford in warmth. The fact that he is still here. Stays. Doesn’t
run away.
“I’ve wet your floor,” is all Clifford can think to say.
“It’s your floor, Sir,” the boy replies. “Your room.” He looks
Clifford right in the eye. “But not to worry. It’s only water.”71

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Kearney Noir / Larry Hill
Rigel 2022 Runner-Up72

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Santa Corona
Michael Pearce
Rigel 2022 Runner-Up
1.
Sailing on my bicycle, my silent chariot,
along streets my bike knows, has beena hundred times
but they’re different now
their colors are brighter
their quiet quieter andthe vigilant families that walk them
glide by in crystal bubbles,
I swerve wide arcs, speak soft hellos
so as not to shatter . . .
these are not the same streets.
Familiar smells hang in the air we plunge through—the smoke of grilling beef
the harsh perfume of fabric softeners
the exhaust of a diesel 18-wheeler
the pungent stink of frying fish
the simmer of tomato-plantain-sausage-yucca
the pitchy fragrance of fresh-cut fir—familiar smells now drawn with effort
through a mask infused with the chlorine and sulfurof paper and the dank sour of my breath.
An old couple on the sidewalk,dark freckly faces on the movestep lightly as if they were barefoot,and they are quiet, too intent to smile or nod,
unlike the nearby parents and kids.
I see them through your eyes now
needless martyr (obscure and ubiquitous73

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tragic and foolhardy and absurd)
I see fragile lives, shaky as fall leaves,matchflames under torn umbrellas
I see . . .
I’m not sure what I see
I try to see what’s there and then some.
2.
You can’t see dead saints, they area presence close and intent
you wonder if that ripple of shameor clarity is their celestial breath.
A dark shimmer, a silent crackle
that animates the air around you
they arrive without summonsloiter with smug abandon
your prayers spread you open
like butchered meat you become
their ward, their project, their prey.
Santa Corona is in the neighborhood,a floral bloom, a waxy reptile scent,an expectation as before a ballgame
or concert, she has no dimension
but in a crowd, among the buzz
and titter, she is the bond androar she is the worry and awe.
Spirit and breath that animates,
infectious smile, choral amen,
exhalation of promise of resolveof resignation of compassion,a slow, anxious pant, a steer ina chute, not quite choosing
where to go but going calmly
and with a timeless comfort:
you can’t see viruses or dead saints.
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3.
Drawn to the chicken factory
the prison the old folks’ homethe mortuary the clinic the hospitaldrawn to the tomato sorter
the handler of meat mail fruit garbage
cash plastic bags and boxes
to the hands the eyes the mouth
the breathing lungs of the handler
to the husband the children
the parents the friends of the handler
I sidle to snuggle with shudder
under hands warm and sticky withthe thick juice of desire
oh people!
people you are my destiny
my calling my happy medium.
Drawn to the west side of town
the tall tenements the sturdy bungalowsof faded paint and spike iron fencessounds of Tupac Lauren Wu-Tangspill from grated windows
defiance in a pumping meteryou exhale a martyr’s affinity
for the tired, the hungry, the homeless
yearning to breathe freeknowing the blue flame underthat cliché is pestilence the terrorof pestilence the vigor the hunger ofinsatiable submicro purpose
gone global gone
hostile gone takeover.
Drawn to the teaming beach
the sports arena the nightclub
the concert hall the restaurant
the slow parade the ardent protest
75

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she is in the air she sticks aroundawhile maybe longer maybe
migrates to another fertile fieldanother undawn in the overbelly
billowy bags she inspires she
incites to riotous fever pitch
she consumes with an untropy
that is beyond passion.
4.
I don’t remember when she first arrived,
I wasn’t home maybe, or slept,or yanked the front door open to
receive a package. Maybe Grace,
my kid, snuck her in when I
was in the shower. She lives here now.
Lives and whispers, runs barefootround the block, dances on
the kitchen table, chews my sweets
mouth wide open
files my nails with a calloused sole,takes off her mask and tells her story
with a salesman’s wink and shake,
she’s here until the experts say she’s gone
and then she’s here again.
5.
Don’t touch me stranger
don’t cross that line
your gifts are gift horses
your food is tainted
you people smell bad
clothe your faceremove your shoes
she has a stained aura
disinfect with holy water76

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quarantine at Ellis Island
you chinks with your flu
you wops with your diseases
you kikes you niggers you faggots
you huddled masses when
I touch what you have touched
I feel a fine damp dust spread awhirlfrom my fingertips I feela tingling in my blood
this simmer in my lungs
takes on a grim weight6.
My domain has expanded
to every corner of your life
my genome shed in pernicious bits
we enter the air you breathe your homeyour water your conversations
your routines your eating habits
your tentative gait the way
you meet talk love sob
every ache cough sneeze worry
pulls you home to me
7.
I am a vacuum
I inhale I devour I plunder
I prey I dismember I consume
I engorge I digest and shit big
I contain lies that suck out
the valor of honesty
the balm of kindness
the leveling of facts
I contain the absenceof empathy generosity
compassion simple pity.

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You elected me you can’t
escape my words my decrees
every fart from my mouth
goes viral every twitch of myinfectious prick breeds pain
every tick contagious
every action murderous
I luxuriate in such fetid slime
without containment
I am communicable
I contaminate multitudes.
8.
Underneath her laughanother tireless voice keens
a new life burning.
9.
Who are you?
Italian, they say, married
to a Roman soldier
tromping through Syriaa century after your so-called savior.
A crypto-Christian who they say rushed
to comfort a Christian martyr
and plunged into the demented cruelty
that Romans visited on Christians
that Roman Christians visited on
the rest of us Jews Huns Mongols
heathens heretics scientists.
A teenage girl, they say, cursedwith passionate empathy
precursing martyrs of all stripes . . .
Who are you?
10.
Trillions of us and then someyou better learn our ways
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You figured me out, farmgirl,sorted grain and pulse you
cultivated like crazysniffing and sifting forsugar starch and crumby bulk
you couldn’t see the mathbut found the method
unlocked the vault of my bounty
the gate to your majestic city
I’m the skinny one
if you want them melonic cells
go north I’m a red chili pepper
can you feel this tiny allele
this micro-cuz come to steal
thunder from that buzzy
mal-aerial bloodbug but hey
don’t thank me from thebottom of your anemic heart
this skinny sicko guy aint
so hale it aint all good baby
but it good enoughyou feel me?
We find our way we adapt
we’re in it for us and noone else it’s on you to figure
two and two then dash
like a sprinter with dense shins
and fast-twitch thighs
you’re up against time andmultitudes that don’t care
Trillions of us and then somesurvive by sifting the shiftingcodes the stubborn mutant chunks
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to function to fiddle fight andfuck you up
11.
The cool green-blue that clothes usmasks danger tedium dead sweat
the cruel math of risk . . .
The dry airy pulse of machinethat is your lung for now
your-last-breath, your-last-breath . . .
Automobiles, each its own cell
waiting dully hummly for somedumb thing to climb inside . . .
Triage in parking lot tents
beds counted and covetedbagged bodies stacked like sheaves . . .
A life saved and delivered
horizontal on its gurney limo
a wan smile to tired applause . . .
My chest, that chamber that refreshedwithout effort, now boils hacks burns
in chronic sighs, sus-pir, sussss-pirrr . . .
My head the center of gather input
decipher intend respond control
now throbs boils grinds me big . . .
Tough fist crams hard plastic tube
through choking throat into chestthat burns struggles acquiesces . . .

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He calls himself a long-hauler
you call yourself fighter
the press of time knows better . . .
My self contracts around mesome days beyond exhaustion
sometimes your body is your soul . . .
12.
Cars hum, trucks groan, bicycles slither,
we walk past the bakery the drugstore
the dead movie theater walk into
the market with its onions and oranges
its rice and beans chicken and broccoli
bread milk beer toilet paper
its invisible clouds of pregnant droplets
its workers basking in nasty air
some have left, most are still there for us.
You don’t breathe like you used toor smell or taste or step or thinkyou’ve been somewhere I haven’t
maybe you have a story maybe
you survived with nothing to say.
Maybe we stand, a rotten fence between us
one of us hacking and aching inthis warm room on that frozen street.
Those old men and women waitingin line, murmuring — have they been spared?
That package deliverer that chicken slaughterer
that short-order cook that hospital orderlythat old cop that grocery checker —guess who’s been granted immunity
or bought it for thirty shares of Amazon
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your turn to savor the fruits of science
the exorbitant gift that zooms in close
plucks snippets of code the itty bitty bugs
that fiddle with your micro nuts and bolts
and make decisions final.
There is history and there is forgetting
and here we stand, masters of both—ride this littered road that leads
everywhere including a future without
the choke of contagion with only a smoky
memory of an orange and black masque.
Maybe we’re a peloton each hugging close
to the one in front yet trying not to kissthat spinning wheel . . .
never trust
metaphors about love or death.
She walks these streets not like a saintwe’re talking something else here
her words follow the rhythm of her breathing
and of her stubborn steps andhistory is the story of our infectious
love of ourselves, each other,
we inhale.

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The Weaver / Serge Lecomte
Rigel 2022 Finalist
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Witch of Wals
Bryan Edenfield
Rigel 2022 Finalist

For some reason it has not trickled down to the manon the street that some physicists now are a bunch ofwild-eyed, raving mystics. For they have perfected
their instruments and methods just enough to whisk
away the crucial venom and what stands revealed is
the Cheshire’s grin.
— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
FIRE

I am a follower of the Witch of Wals.
I follow her on all the platforms. I subscribe to her newsletterand listen to her podcast. I bought her book when it came out last year
through Chronicle Press. I don’t usually fall for the hype, and I’m nosocial media maven. 40 Followers; 40,000 Followers: it makes nodifference to me. I don’t know an Influencer from a Flux Capacitor andcan’t tell my tweets from my toks. I’m not tech illiterate—my Officeskills are topnotch—but the faces in my book are mostly default purple.
Maybe that’s why she appeals to me. No one notices me. I’ve
spent four decades cultivating invisibility. If I had the nerve, I’d makean excellent thief, but I lack the burning desire for danger. Give me
nerve, please. Send a charge through my inert body. I don’t mind if
you charge for the charge; that only makes sense, considering the firstlaw of thermodynamics. My credit is a vision of the future. But I can’t
feel my skin sometimes. The world glosses over me like a featurelessthing, less than a breeze. I’m not quite numb—I can feel temperature,pressure—but certain tactile qualities allude me, the timbre of texture
muted. Where is that vibrancy of life I hear so much about?
The Witch of Wals asks these same questions.
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She has only 20.8 million followers online. She follows 4; I
haven’t bothered to see who. On a planet of nearly 8 billion people,
20.8 million equals only about one quarter of one percent of the whole.
How much influence can she really have? That’s less than the
population of Beijing but very slightly more than the population of the
New York metropolitan area. But her reach goes beyond her followers.
Many of those 20.8 million people worship her fervently and share herteachings with messianic urgency. Even if that were not the case,would it matter? The 26 richest people in the world own as much as
3.8 billion poor people. Does it matter if a house cleaner in Kolkata
knows nothing of the Witch, when prominent and wealthy
entertainment moguls spread her gospel?
I’m not sure how I stumbled onto her work. The algorithm,
right? The flow of energy harnessed and redirected via binary code.
One has to wonder if the algorithm now aligns with god’s will, syncs
with the moral arc of the universe. Originally, they designed it tochannel propagandistic content—ads, or worldviews—to those most
likely to respond to it. That response need not be positive. We either
swallow it or negatively react to it in a way beneficial to the status quo;
either way, we do what they want. But over time, maybe thealgorithm’s logic evolves away from capitalism and towards a different
cult of mystery.
It is a mystery cult, isn’t it, the Cult of Capitalism? We’re all
prey to its whims, but only a select few are initiated into the inner
sanctum, their status achieved by right of lineage. Occasionally, newmoney is admitted due to perhaps low birthrates amongst
industrialized countries. I don’t know; I’m just spitballin’. I don’t fault
Capitalism for aspiring toward spiritual status; it never made sense asa rational philosophy anyway. Fittingly, one wonders if this introducesa Hegelian antithesis into the supposed enlightened secularism ofliberal economic ideology. If we worship mystery, how can ourallegiance to a self-flagellating series of rules founded on rational
certainty make any sense? That’d be sacrilegious! The professional
Capitalist, pretending as if he didn’t know, makes no claim that hissacred path is a path of mystery, but that’s because he was born into
the Inner Sanctum and to him sacred knowledge is banal. That doesn’t
seem like how a mystery cult should work. Maybe I’ve got this all
wrong. Moving on.
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My point here is that I’m perhaps not the kind of person thatyou’d peg for a follower of the Witch of Wals. But I am. And I’m goingto go see her tomorrow.
EARTH

She’s stationed near the produce, but accessible only via Aisle 9: Bathand Body. Her location ascribes to disobedient physics. To enter the
cave, ascend the silver and black escalators towards the blue neonlights. There, you are greeted by an elder clad in blue robes. He ushers
you toward avenues of sacrifice and bounty: a pound of my flesh, mylabor, for a dozen rolls of paper towels. The busy sun beats down on
the earth a frenzied energy, and the earth takes the fire and turns it
into life. We dig into the earth and turn it back into fire: see it there
on the walls sparkling; see it in your very own hands, buzzing andchiming; see it blinking across the skyline. We swallow the earth.
With the energy, we grow food, we eat it, we swallow it more.
I wander through the illuminated valley, the procession ofvegetables glittering beneath a constant spritzing of water vapor. I
can’t even comprehend the energy we’ve poured into this lettuce. The
human body aches to transform the earth so that it may produce thislettuce. Our machines, our chemical inventions, manipulate thegenomic composition of this lettuce, maybe. Our chemicals keep the
pastures clean, chemicals forged in the fire of the earth, from the wet
life of the earth.
These are the teachings of the Witch of Wals. There is no better
home for her than here, amongst the products of the assembly line.
Beyond, in a different indoor biome marked by dimmer lights andcarpeted floors, home goods beckon, arranged in simulation of the
Middle-American home. A chant drones over loudspeakers, a folk tune ofstatic thumping weight, a real pop banger structured chorus chorus
chorus chorus. What’s this idol’s name? It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .
Just as I think I’ve remembered, a priest’s voice booms with asubdued crackle and speaks in tongues a command that only the
initiated can understand.
Part of me feels sick, moving down the white corridor, passing
pictures of pure white teeth, chiseled bodies, intestinal ailments
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depictions of the earth’s healing gifts that can be combined to give
perfect bounce to our hair, perfect glow to our skin, perfect wit to ourmind. Part of me feels sick in a way nothing here can cure, not themelatonin, not the aromatherapy treatments, not the rejuvenating
ointments and balms. I feel sick like terrified. So many frozen eyesstare at me. Every other bottle or box has a face on it, smiling, staring.
Why is everything so bright? I don’t know why we associate the color
white with cleanliness but I’m pretty sure our reasons are not pure.
What is cleaner than darkness? Rich, black soil may be decayed matter,but it is the stuff of life. We are what happens when decayed matter istransformed. Forget that we are aging. Forget that we wither. Forget
the nasty bugs that roost in our bodies, eating us, sometimes slowly,
sometimes not. How fitting that I’m reminded, on my way to the
Witch, of all of my impurities and imperfections. How fitting, thiscardboard cut-out of a fitness celebrity and her sworn formula ofingestible dirts that keep her muscles articulate and her ugliness silent.
She is the last thing I see before I cross the final threshold. I imagine,briefly, the magazines waiting for me on my way out of this place. I
want out. I have regrets. I am unsettled.
I’d been mostly ignoring others within the temple, but that
isn’t possible now. I’m in a waiting room with a few dozen people.
There is no coherent line and I desperately want there to be because it
gives me anxiety, not knowing precisely where to stand. This is a test.
Let go of my need for order. Embrace this enactment of sacredanarchy. Shove down that Pavlovian reaction, that indoctrinatedthought, that this is all . . .
Study the faces. She is a hopeless beauty queen. He is a haplesslocomotive. They are a goliath Gemini. That little one is a terrorist,
nipping at its mothers heals. The mother is a mountain of nails andhair and rainbows. The father is a silo of scorches and tattoos. They
want to win a car. They come bearing meager gifts, credit cards. A
man flosses his teeth and a businesslady spouts supremacy into her
cellphone. A couple fuse their bodies together in quasi-erotic union,
but clothed. A plump fellow watches. The loudest person in the room
is a muscular man who’s devoted every inch of his body to theteachings of the Witch; he expounds her gospel to a young doe-eyedwoman shivering at his hypnotic dance. Perhaps she’s eager. Perhaps
she has the same trepidation as I.
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I don’t belong here. This isn’t meant for me.
The meek shall inherit, and so forth.
ÆTHER“I only take cryptocurrency.”
I am prepared for this but hesitate.
The Witch senses my misgivings and says, “Don’t you think
there’s something mysterious there? Is cryptocurrency a collection of
occult signifiers and runic infestations?”
I know this is a rhetorical question. For some reason, I start
blabbering. “Cryptocurrency requires an enormous amount of computing
power. This, in turn, necessitates an enormous amount of energy usage,straining our already taxed globe and contributing to CO2 emissions.
There are some green [in air quotes] alternatives, but even theynecessitate some amount of energy usage, or computational power.”I think of nuclear power plants. I imagine us tearing open
atoms not to heat the world, but to mine for imaginary currency. Am
I a hypocrite? Typing these words, disseminating them for public
consumption (if such a thing happens), and even reading them (maybe),
all of it takes power. Power cannot come from nowhere. We suck itfrom the earth. We pull it from raging waters. We siphon it from thesky. We gut it from atoms. But I’m no hypocrite. The line is easy to
draw. For the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency, [nameredacted], yearly data transfers consume the same amount of energy
as a country. My word processing isn’t the problem here.
Because I can’t keep my big mouth shut, I share my luddite
concerns with the Witch.
She smiles lightly and folds her hands in her lap like a patientelder. (She is a decade younger than I.) “Why does cryptocurrency
require such disproportionately enormous energy usage?” she asks.
Before I can answer another rhetorical question, she continues.
“Maintaining security for cryptocurrency transactions requires
diligence and power. Something cannot have value if you can’t rely on
its inherent existence.” She winks. “Right? If gold sometimes
disappeared when you touched it, or teleported from your hands andinto someone else’s, willy nilly, it’d make a volatile economic standard.
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Don’t you think? But cryptocurrency doesn’t adhere to an archaic gold
standard. Its standard is data.”
She lifts her hands to the sky and arches them widely, as if
drawing an imaginary rainbow above her. “What is data?” She thengrabs her thin arms and pinches her flesh. “Is it this stuff?” She pounds
on her chest and I hear a dull thud. “Is it this? Inside us?” She shakes
her head theatrically. “The most valuable data is data created by themost advanced computers. Do you know what that data is? Do you?”
I shake my head.
“The answers to riddles.”She waits for that to soak in, but it doesn’t mean anything tome, so she continues to explain. “The most valuable piece of data is theanswer to a riddle that only a supercomputer can solve. Of course thisoperation is enormously expensive! As is the mining of any mineral.
The ecological toll of mining has never been one of its selling points.
We don’t mine for coal because it makes rivers healthy. We don’t minefor data to learn anything about this stuff.” She takes an object fromher small desk and holds it up as an example. It is a small black tubeof hand cream, made with indigenous methods to bless our skin, $29.99
before tax. “No, these are not the riddles that our Oracle decodes.”She sets the hand cream down and takes a sip of tea, thenpuckers her lips with a satisfied smack. “The most valuable answers
are the unambiguous and certain ones, nonetheless extraordinarily
difficult to come by. Moral quandaries are unanswerable. But
computers can solve madly complex math problems, or find the correct
alphanumeric combination from a nearly infinite set of combinations,and unlock a special chamber with nothing but itself hiding inside.
This alchemy mints new coin by asking the supercomputer—the
Oracle—to do increasingly difficult operations. Puzzles. Riddles. Thisis hot activity!” She fans herself sardonically and catches her breath.
“Imagine! Server farms buzz with power. Fans and cooling systems
keep everything from overheating, from bursting into flames. Imagine!
Our computers may overheat from relatively mundane tasks, likeuploading content to the Internet. Now, imagine an entire warehouseof that, and then imagine many giant warehouses, all over the world.
We think our virtual space, our virtual realities, have no consequenceor materiality. But these spaces are made from the earth and the heatof the sun, just as anything else.”
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I nod. Isn’t she making my point? Wisely, she sees that I do
not see, and continues to guide me.
“Imagine the most powerful computer possible. This computercan answer the most complicated riddle and thus create the mostvaluable crypto-mineral. There is no greater alchemy. The mostpowerful computer possible, if you can manage it, might consume thewhole of the planet, or the whole of the universe. The more resources
we pour into building the supercomputer, the more crypto advances invalue, the greater the riddle we solve. We are betting on our own
enlightenment but also our own annihilation. Cryptocurrency takes as
its gold standard consumption and revelation. The Oracle unfolds
riddles with seemingly no existential import, makes prophecies about
its own capabilities to make prophecies. It becomes more powerful; theriddles become more complicated. Eventually, the riddle becomes,‘What will happen next?’ When the computer can tell the future, wehave closed the loop. The future is gone.”
She pauses, as if for applause. But I’m frozen.
The Witch smiles with practiced patience. “The Oracle
answers our final question. Nothing happens after this, she says. It took
all of existence for me to answer the question. The computer, now the whole
universe, thus speaketh. And then there was darkness.”
The loop closes.
AIR

I must have briefly passed out.
The Witch’s hovel is dark and smells like a burning wet
desert. The air is too cold; I realize she lives in a secret room behind
the refrigerated pantries that line the back walls. I can see my breathand it looks polluted. I push too much hot air into the world. If we allstop breathing, will that solve our problems?
But the air in here, though cold, is delicious. I want to slurp it
up. Black banners fall from the walls, tapestries illustrating the cosmos
and its ephemeral internal structure, its ghost organs. The place is lit
only by organic candle light, smells provided only through sustainable
harvesting and foraging. The air is purified and I feel clean, so cleanthat it’s gross, so clean that I feel I should be cleaner. I should have nobody at all, be pure soul.
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Volume 4, Issue 3This is wrongheaded. The body is an enactment of the soul.
The body is how the soul becomes.
I can hear her breathing. She is surrounded by alternating
lunulas of handmade jewelry, framed by dangling strands of Christmas
lights, seated on a stool available for sale in Aisle 3. Crystals sparkle
on her necklaces and her hands are covered in webs and runes, unreal,
inked into her skin. I don’t understand that stuff. I don’t entirely buy
into it. The skeptical inquisitor inside of me begs for sweet release.
The devil’s advocate rests on my shoulder, ready to puppet my mouth.
But the devil is the witch’s friend. The Witch of Wals is no
acolyte of Light. She harnesses the darkest power. Her website says
so. If you visit her About page, you’ll find that darkness has, according
to her, a bad reputation. Nature resides there, the wilderness atrickster demon. And so on and so forth. Yes, I think I see it! I see thetrickster in the woods! I see the divine in shadows! Ghost things follow
us everywhere.
This is silly. It’s all a lark. Wait until I tell my coworkers about
this. They’ll laugh and laugh. The building will suddenly have less air
to breathe. Air and space are the same thing. Suffocation is a closingin. Breath saves us from the crushing force of gravity, the room
constantly trying to collapse on us.
I can’t breathe right now. I suppose I’m just nervous.
She asks me if I feel okay. The hair on the back of my neckpricks up, as if trained by her voice. Hasn’t it been, via podcast, viaYouTube tutorials on smudging and tantric meditation? My hairs now
know to be alert. Pay attention. But the rest of me can’t move. She
laughs, gently, because she’s a gentle and kind person. “I won’t bite.
Unless that’s what you want.”
A good joke sets a person at ease. That’s from one of her tutorials
on charisma.
I take a deep breath. “I was thinking about what you wrote in oneof your recipes for ancient-grain risotto.” I blurt this without meaning to,without thought, as if she pulled sound from me without my permission.
She nods. I continue. “You talked about how certain foods canmake you feel at home.” I shift in my seat. “Not me. Certain foods
remind me of where I grew up, I suppose, but that doesn’t feel likehome. It’s a sick place. The food is sick food. It makes me sick. My
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alien. It avoided all of the things that make me feel queasy. This feels
better than home to me. Maybe I’ve got my wires crossed. Maybe thisis simply a matter of semantic--”“Hush.” She whispers, harshly soothing, like a short fable withgruesome subtext. “Sometimes words only get in our way.”“I agree!”She leans close. “Would you like to know a secret?”
I lean closer and nod but air can’t escape my lungs, can’t vibrate
my chords, can’t animate my thoughts. Air fails me. I feel hollow.
And then she tells me . . .
WATER

Lesson learned. Wisdom taken. A flow of information.
After, I need to use the restroom. It took me some time to find,and once I did, the door was locked, and it took me more time to find arobed disciple, carrier of secret password, which I then dutifully whisperwith my fingertips into the door’s digital ears. Bashful, it opens withresistance, as if I’m pushing through an airlock, or combating notdensity but attraction. Sometimes a thing is immovable not because it islarge and heavy, but because it is compelled against you.
I’m unsure what to make of her revelations. I empty my bodyof fluids, thinking them toxic and interfering with spiritual clarity.
Many others have done the same; the stall walls are sprayed withpsychic cleansing. Only the third door opens into something evenremotely sanitary. This is another test, I think.
I sit and doubt my place on this earth as I empty and spray myclarity into the void. Oh, what am I talking about? Social anxiety getsthe better of me. My stomach folds inside-out because I’ve justunwillingly taken part in a performance for the audience of the unseen.
We, the Witch and I, stumbled our way through a skit for god’s
benefit, and not the big god at the center of the table, but the scurrying
ones underneath, shredding the scraps, conspiring and plotting. They
chant, Soon, louder and louder, faster and faster, another propulsive
pop melody, another infernal banger.
Soon soon soon, baby baby. Soon soon soon, baby baby.
Soon what? Virgin sacrifice? Firstborn? I don’t know. I don’tknow anything.
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I won’t tell my coworkers about this. I’ve always been a little
ashamed of my interest in the occult.
I regret leaving such a wet mess, and pity the poor cleric or
initiate that has to clean my sin. I consider cleaning it myself, erasing any
evidence of my existence here, but I don’t have the proper instruments.
Two shopping bags—I’d forgotten the reusable ones at home,
but these are made from recycled paper—rest at my feet on the sortof clean floor. We fill our lives with stuff we like, stuff that makes us
feel better, stuff that gives us joy: the smell of a burning wet desert, ora polished stone that resembles the universe solidified in shadowy
amber, or the blood pitch of a leafless tree. The difference between the
hemoglobin that carries oxygen via our blood network and thechlorophyll that helps plants turn dry harsh light into something wet
and soft is only one atom. I don’t know what this means. This isn’t
something the Witch told me; it’s just something I know. I learn a lot
from TV and the internet. Or was it a nature documentary at the film
forum? A pub quiz? Magnesium and iron. Annie Dillard wrote about
it. Did I learn it from her? Did I learn from a book?
I’m drenched in sweat and very thirsty. When I leave thebathroom, I consider reaching into my bag and taking out the bottleof locally brewed hard cider that the Witch recommended. That won’t
help. I study the label. Apples sweat too. Expertly, they are set out toslowly wither in a wooden crate only just a little, just enough so thatwhen you press your fingers into these apples, they take the pressure
and reflect it back to you with intimate bruises.
I go home. I imagine it’s raining, but it isn’t.
Another loop closes.

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The Fall
Steve Capra
Rigel 2022 Finalist

Canto I
Paradise
The Lord:
Let there be light.
Angels:Glory to the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth—
And of all things visible and invisible—
Radiant is His presence—
And His mercies know no end.
The Lord:
This is Eden, My gift to you, My children—
The tendril of My grand imagination.
This is the Orchard—eternity’s brash lover—The blossom and the fruit of My mind.
The glorious blue of the glowing sky, the mysterious
Blue of the sea, and the fleeting sunset’s yellow!
The green of summer leaves, and the red of clay
For your delight, my clear-eyed mignons. Paradise!
Adam:Black the earth and rich—
Deep the root and warm the moss—
Speak and we exalt!

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The Lord:
These are the blooms that blow in the verdant spring,
These the tempting fruits that bring the fall.
These are the tickling grasses that stroke your feet
In the mornings, and the sweet, gentle nights.
Eve:
High the sky and wide—
White the clouds and bright the stars—
Speak and we adore!
The Lord:
Adam, alpha man, my eye’s mirror,
The glory of the grove, and Eve his rib,
The Tree of Life and a thousand spreading vines—
All but the Tree of Knowledge are your pleasures.
Adam:
Tallest in the grove—
Enough itself, the Tree of Life
Blossoms in the Lord.
Eve:
Artless is the bloom!
Apples are a shady tree—
Knowing Good and Bad.
The Lord:
These are the creatures of Eden’s hills and sky,Its cool rivers, its muddy, rich plains.
Of its noons and its glittering nights, these are the forms
That I give life—and you the several names.
Adam:
Teeth and fur and claws!
Lick my face, my playful friend.
Kin, I call you bear!
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Eve:Soft the call, the cry—Pretty cousin, sing and fly!
Song, I name you Lark!
Adam:Soft on pads on paws—
Peaceful as an evening’s hush—
Tiger is your name.
Eve:
Low as soil and quick!
Quiet as a missing moon!
Spy, I name you Snake!
Adam:
Playmate! Swim—mate! Laugh!
Break the surface! Weave the waves!
Dive! I call you whale!
Eve:
Here beside! Above!
Here and far and back again!
Buzz, I name you bee!
The Lord:
I am in love with the fleeting forms of time
And my pleasure is walking in the garden.
Play, my naked children, these but one
Your toys, your treasures. Joy is now begun!
Eve:
Paradise is joy—
Say you love me, Adam, here,
Heaven be the earth.

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Adam:Timeless is Your Name!
Praise to You, the seed of joy!
Eve:
Speak and we believe!
Angels:Glory to the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth—
The Seed and the Fruit of time—
We give thanks for His wondrous gifts—
And righteous is His law.
Canto IIThe Temptation
Snake:
Mother Eve, Oh Mother Eve,
We never know what we believe.
Mother Eve, Oh Mother Eve,How cool the shadow of these leaves!
Mother promise, Mother Eve,
What suggestive fruits are these?
Eve:
Gifts of His the Lord.
I have heard Him speak my name—Morning is His word.
Snake:
Mother Joyance, Mother Eve,
Plainly might the Word deceive.
What the secret of this tree?
What the falsehood you believe?
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Eve:
Nectar of the bloom
Satisfies the hummingbird.
Still, the handsome snake.
Snake:
Mother Wonder, Mother Eve,
What sweet taste the apple leaves!
What tied powers could it free!
What fleet visions might you see!
Eve:
Adam may be near.
Sounds in Paradise are soft.
Be afraid, the beast.
Snake:
Brave Madonna, Mother Eve,
Man will think what man will please.
I offer so much more than he.
Taste the apple! Set us free!
Eve:
Eden is a dream.
Lest the sleeper waken, hush!
Go, the snake! Away!
Snake:
Mother Eve, believe in me—
The Lord above will never see.
I love you more than ever He
Who made you loves you, Mother Eve.
Eve:
And do you love me for my thought?
Snake:
For what is thought and what is not.
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Eve:
Do you love me for my heart?
Snake:
Thought and heart are not apart.
Eve:
Do you love me for my words?
Snake:Your words and words I have not heard.
Eve:
Do you love me for my touch?
Snake:
Touch the apple: such is such.
Eve:
Adam! Come! Listen! The snake has made me
As wise as the Lord! My sight is as keen as His
Who painted Eden! Such tricks he plays! Deceit!
Do not believe! Come to the shadows—and taste!
Snake:
Mother Sorrow, Mother Eve,
What a stench from core and seed.
As I fell once, so you and he.
Smell the guilt, but taste the grief.
Angels:Glory to the Lord, creator of heaven and earth—His mysteries are eternal—
Infinite is His reign—
And His wisdom is without end.

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Canto IIIThe Expulsion
The Lord:
I am in love with the fickle forms of time
And my pleasure is walking in the garden.
Adam, I am enjoyed of your presence, life—
Eve, I am Mystery, your suitor.
Where is my son, my Adam, the master of Eden?
Adam:
Here, Lord.
The Lord:
Where is my Eve, the paragon of Paradise?
Adam:
Here Lord, next to me.
The Lord:
Why do you hide, my innocents? What your shame?
Adam:
We are naked.
The Lord:
And do you despise my pride, my incarnation,
The wonder of your bodies, bone and flesh?
Both my jewels, lost among the flowers.
In this garden I have grown you, there was
A signal order that granted the joys of creation.
Now your lives will ever be grief for Eden.
You were at home in Paradise. Now you are lost.
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Snake:
Mother Eve, Oh Mother Eve,
We never know what we believe.
The Lord:
Go! Wander homeless! Live bereaved!
Cry, disloyal Adam! Keen, Eve!
Gnash your teeth and tear your burning hair!
Weep, banished Man! Woman, Shriek!
Snake:
What a thought the mind conceives!
What a weight the heart must heave!
Adam:
Lord, we did not believe—
The Lord:
You will parent thankless generations
Who will curse you as the cause of death.
Loss will be your life, the grave your goal,Your lover will be white, brutal fear.
Snake:
What a word the lips might breathe!
What a burn the blossom leaves!
The Lord:
East of Eden—and at its barred gates,
A hundred hungry angels with salt on their swords!
Only because you praised me once, misery,
I leave you a leaf of Eden: each the other.
Adam:
The earth is hard.

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The Lord:
Go! Wander helpless! Mourn, bereaved!
Cry, accursed Adam! Keen, Eve!
Wring your hands and tremble! Wail and grieve!
Weep, wretched Adam! Shriek, Eve!
Angels:Glory to the Lord, Creator of heaven and earth—
And of all things visible and invisible—
Radiant is His presence—
And His mercies know no end.

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Being as One / Dave Sims
Rigel 2022 finalist

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Time Enough
LG Pomerleau
Rigel 2022 Finalist
Chapter One
Goll sheese ny liargagh:
A bad omen
Port Erin, Isle of Man
May, 1904
Nan said, “Come.” So Euphemia went, though she had so much to
do after supper, before the evening singsong ‘round the hearth. And
Baby Hugh might fuss in her absence, wanting to nurse. Besides,
she was bone weary, as usual at the end of the day, having cooked
three meals for nine people and tended to the baby since dawn. The
boys needed supervising to do the dishes properly, the floor wanted
sweeping . . . she sighed, inhaling the comforting scent of thechicken they’d had for supper. That needed stripping for
tomorrow’s sandwiches, too. No matter. Nobody could deny Nan.
She ran the household with a gentle but firm hand; although
Euphemia was her daughter-in-law, with six children to raise in thetiny cottage, Nan was definitely in charge. Love and respect boundthe two women together, and routine kept the days running alongsmoothly. Euphemia’s curiosity was piqued by Nan’s invitation, too.
Her eldest son, Henry, always accompanied his grandmother toFaery Hill of an evening, for the ritual offering to the Little Ones.
Henry’s eyes posed a question. Euphemia returned his gaze with ashrug of her shoulders as she closed the red cottage door. Blackie,
the sheepdog, tagged along.
Gripping Nan’s elbow, she carried the wicker basket on her
left arm, clutching her skirt as they trod up Cronk Howe Mooar. A
cool breeze fragrant with gorse and blackthorn flowers swept them104

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Volume 4, Issue 3along. She heard little blue tits chirping in the thorns. Robins, too,chatted softly amongst themselves, preparing for nightfall. Euphemia
allowed all the sights and smells to distract her, knowing that Nan was
listening for the faeries on the wind. Do they have words for me
tonight? Is that why I’m here? But Manx faeries don’t speak English,
so I won’t understand. A giggle bubbled up, but she suppressed it. She
would never mock Nan’s beliefs.
As the path ascended, the wind teased their hair and swishedtheir skirts. Sheep browsed on the purple and yellow hills. Clouds
roamed the sky, basking in the last rays of summer sun. Waves crashedat the foot of the cliffs edging the landscape. In the distance, cattle
were lowing, waiting to be driven in for the night. Just like in the song
about Little Lord Jesus, came the sudden thought, and Euphemia
wondered if her baby had awakened. The image of Hugh tossing in his
cradle tugged milk from her breasts.
“Hang on a mo’, please Nan.” She handed over the basket anduntucked her blouse, wet on the front with milk and round the waist,with sweat. Never mind, she thought, the wind will dry it. Ah, it feels
good to stop, catch my breath. Nan’s not out of puff, though. She’s used
to it, I reckon. It is so beautiful up here, looking out to sea. It’s like all
mankind sprung from the tiny Isle of Man. Like the Garden of Eden.
For me, life began here for certain. Nan gave her a nudge, interrupting
her thoughts. There she goes again, urging me on, as though we’ve an
appointment to keep. What’s the hurry?
Skylarks reeled overhead and, above them, seagulls threw
lonely cries across the water. A few more steps and they reached thesummit of Faery Hill. Our courting place. We haven’t climbed thishill in years. Why not? We should come up, have a picnic with thelittle ones. Our little ones, not the “Little Ones,” though they’d bewelcome too. I wish I could see a faery, just once. Or hear them, likeNan does.
The drowning sun spilled curdled milk across the Irish Sea.
She hadn’t been on the water since William had rowed their boat
along the coast to Kitterland, the islet near the Calf of Man. She
smiled at the memory of making love on those wild shores on herhoneymoon. They’d been free to go naked as Adam and Eve: not asoul lived there. For a lark, they’d flash their bare backsides to tease
the fisherman in the boats off-shore. The memory made her glow.
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Our one and only holiday. We ought to go back, take a picnic, justthe two of us. William never even goes out to fish, anymore. Always
too tired now.
Crests of waves sparkled, pierced by gannets expertly diving
into the depths. Blackie raced ahead to a green mound and sat,patiently waiting, obviously following Nan’s routine. So pleasant.
Peaceful. Little wonder Nan comes here morning and evening, andshe had five boys, and all. I ought to have come along before now.
She recalled performing the ritual with William long ago when Nan
was ill, and felt once more her wonderment at the notion of faeries
living under the hill. Still, it doesn’t take a belief in faeries to feel the
magic here.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Nan echoed her thoughts. She always seems
to know what I’m thinking, bless her. Affection washed over Euphemia
as she nodded in response. Nan dropped to her knees on the grass;
Euphemia followed suit.
Nan reached into the basket she’d packed, and, from under atea cloth, extracted two cups no bigger than thimbles. Setting them ina depression on the mound, she drew out the handkerchief tucked inher sleeve, and then smoothed the square of white linen on the grasswith her wrinkled, knobbly fingers. After carefully rearranging thecups, she filled them from a battered flask in her pocket, before
sprinkling crumbs from a small loaf, reserving a good-sized piece forBlackie, who wagged her tail but didn’t beg. Whispering in Manx, Nanbowed her head, and placed both hands on the ground. After a few
moments of silence, Nan tapped Euphemia’s arm. Her eyes had beenclosed as well, observing Nan’s rituals.
“Help me, up, would you, lass? It’s not the getting down, but
the getting back up that’s hard,” she said, grunting with the effort.
“My dress made that noise, not me,” she said, and winked.
“Of course, of course, Nan. Why don’t we just sit awhile?
May we?”“Aye, Themselves won’t mind if we tarry a while,” she said,
relaxing. “They know we’re here, but will stay put ‘til we leave. The
rascals will listen in on our conversation and gossip about it later.”“Thank you for bringing me tonight. I’d almost forgotten how
fine it is, the place, and the ritual, both. I used to do it with William
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Nan nodded. “Those were troubled times. All things must
pass. It comes ‘round right, in the end. Remember that, my chree.”“Can you hear the faeries, Nan?”“I do, be’times. Always have.”“But you go to church. How do you reconcile both beliefs? The
Sisters in the orphanage said —”“No harm in holding to the old ways, lass. God is everywhere.
With Themselves, too, ye ken. Everyone needs a belief in a higher
power, otherwise we sink into a bog of despair. So many troubles . . . .
What do you believe in, ban my chree?”“Hmm, good question, Nan. I once followed the Catholic faithat St. Hilda’s. But then, when I left and some things went wrong, I
lost my beliefs, I reckon. I go to church now for the sake of thechildren, and you. As to the faeries, well, they don’t speak to aYorkshire lass like me, any road. Hmmm . . . hmm.” She started tohum. That’s it. “Music. I know! I believe in music. It lifts me up; gives
me hope. Yes, music. I never realized that before.” Her head buzzed
with the revelation. She thought she could hear a tune, soughing on
the wind.
“That’s God, too; Themselves agree. Can’t you hear their flutes?
Listen.” She cocked her head like a robin, then clicked her tongue. “Ah,the English. I’m sorry to say that they don’t understand Manx
traditions, any more than they ken our language. I should have taught
you more about the meaning behind our ways. It’ll be up to you now,as the mother, to pass them on to your children.” Her voice seemed tocome from far away and a sad, forlorn look clouded her blue eyes.
Euphemia shuddered with the apprehension that someone had walked
on her grave.
“Whatever do you mean, Nan?” Her tone harkened back to
fifteen years ago. Is she sinking into depression again, after all thistime? Oh no. “You’re here, Nan. We’re all here. Our Henry’s learningfrom you; the others will too. There’s no rush. Don’t you always saythere’s time enough: traa dy liooar, is it? I’ve learned that much, you all
say it so often.” She attempted a laugh. Please, please let me bring herout of it, like I did before.
Nan patted her hand. “Well done, my chree. You’ve an ear for
Manx.” Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry to say, there is no moretime.” Her muffled voice dropped the words into her lap. She pounded107

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her fist against her thigh, then raised her head to meet Euphemia’s
gaze. Suddenly it seemed the birds fell silent and the wind dropped toearth. Whatever can she mean? She seems angry, and sad, both.
Nan inhaled, as if preparing to push a boat into the water. “The
Little Ones had something important to say, t’other night. Terrible
news, I’m afraid, my chree. Themselves said someone in the house willpass over. Soon. “Goll sheese ny liargagh: he’s going down the slope,fast.” Didn’t need them to tell me that. I know it. As do you.”“Know what?” A roar like crashing waves on the sea blocked
her ears against Nan’s shaky voice.
“Please, we must be honest and face facts, dear one. I’ve
suspected since New Year’s morn. Saw it plain as day, in he ashes fromthe chiollagh, which I spread on the floor, to foretell the year ahead, yeken, according to the old ways. The faery footprints led out the door,
not in. Luck has left our house.” Nan paused and looked past the cliffs,
breathing harder than she had after mounting the hill.
The ominous tone tempted Euphemia to laugh. Nan seemed
to sense her doubt. “I didn’t want to believe it, either; I’ve watched forthe signs and now I’m sure. William’s been poisoned, by the lead mine.
We call it “the milk reek,” my chree. The sweats, the shakes, andespecially the ill temper, so unlike my boy. He’s getting worse everyday. Goll sheese ny liargagh.”Euphemia’s lips parted, but the protest caught in her throat,
as if clogged with ashes from the hearth. She collapsed backward,
nearly overturning the little cups. Nan lifted her head and held thecool flask to her lips.
“Drink a bit, lass.”
Euphemia jerked upright, grabbed the flask, and gulped. She
coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“It can’t be,” she said, sputtering. As she tipped the flask backagain, whispers whirled around her. “Yes, yes, it is. Yes it is. Yes it is.”The hair rose on her arms. Her head swam. Tears stung behind hereyes but wouldn’t fall.
“Aye, doesn’t bear thinking about, my chree, I know. I tried topretend, too. I’ve seen you do the same, seen the worry at you, when
William coughs, or shouts at the boys. It’s not him. It’s the sickness,
my chree. Oh God, the loss of another son to those damned mines.”
She hit her thighs, as if hurting herself could ease her pain. Euphemia
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recognized that impulse. “So many families torn apart. So manywid—” A sob completed the awful word.
True. Eva, Mary, Amy, others whose names she didn’t know,gone away, forced to find work in English factories after theirhusbands’ passing, their children left with kinfolk, or orphaned. Ifanything happens to William, could I leave my five youngsters, leastof all my newborn babe? To be raised by their grandparents, who
mightn’t live long enough to see them grown? Now tears and milk
spilled freely. My milk will be spoiled tonight, curdled. Hugh will get
the colic and not sleep . . .
“Shh. There, there, I’ve a solution.” Nan’s voice brightened asshe expelled one word: “Thomas.” Euphemia thought she detected anote of excitement, where usually Nan sounded disappointed, evenangry, when mentioning her youngest surviving son.
“Thomas? What? You think he might come back? From
America? No.” She reached for Nan’s hand, which trembled in hers.
“Please, there’s got to be another way, Nan. What about the farm?
Henry loves helping Grandad with the sheep. He’s nearly thirteen. He
could quit school anytime, and I could help--”“We’ve not enough land to support the family, lass.” Shehunched her shoulders and sighed, picking at the grass. “That’s why
our boys went down the mine in the first place. Only our Arthur
avoided that fate. His bones lie here, looked after by the Little Ones. My
sweet lamb. Took by the diphtheria. The mines got the rest of them,too, one way or t’other. First the twins, buried alive. Inseparable indeath as in life, lying under Snaefell.” She stopped for a moment. “The
only good from that came when Thomas brought you to help me
through the grief. It laid me low, as if I had to climb Snaefell meself,
to get out from under it. I loved you like a daughter from the start,”
Nan said. Blood rushed to Euphemia’s cheeks. Nan had never
expressed love for her, in words.
“Ah, but then the mines won again, didn’t they? For Thomas
left to escape working underground. At least that’s what he said. I’ve
always thought there was more to it than that.” Her inflection
suggested something. Euphemia lowered her gaze, cursing the blushthat rose to her cheeks. After a pause, Nan continued.
“And now, why, the mine’s killing my William. Well, not if
Themselves and I can help it.” Her voice retrieved its headstrong tone.
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Volume 4, Issue 3“Thomas brought me a daughter, and you’ve given us grandchildren.
He’ll do his duty again, you’ll see. I’m awaiting his answer.”“No, no, please, Nan …” The last thing she wanted wasThomas to return. Well, there could be one worse thing. She fell backon the ground, damp seeping into her clothes. She yanked at the grasswith clenched fists.
“Come, lass, the dew’s falling. You’ll catch your death. We’dbest get back or they’ll think we’ve been fetched away. Not a word to
William, mind. I’m prepared for a battle with him. Quick, there’s thefirst star. Help me up,” she said, patting Euphemia’s knees.
“We mustn’t be caught here after sunset or the Red Caps willtake us, sure. The way down is much easier. I can almost run, like ayoung girl. Ah, was, was,” Nan expressed her customary wistfulness
for times past. “Here’s the basket, my chree. Let’s see who gets homefirst.” She threw the challenge backwards as she trotted down the hillwith Blackie trundling along behind.
Euphemia stumbled and tripped down the rugged path, theempty basket banging against her side. Now alone, did she hear voicesin the bushes? Her heart pounded. What did Nan say would happen,
should a Red Cap appear? I’d be carried off to another world? She
quickened her pace, following the smell of peat smoke rising from thewhitewashed cottage up ahead. In the twilight, the footpath almost
disappeared. She knew the way, but when was the last time she’d run
anywhere? Arriving at the red door, she leaned on the frame, to easethe stitch in her side; she waited for her heart to slow before pushingdown on the metal thumb latch. Warmth and light from the peat fire
spilled across the threshold. Blackie greeted her with a wag of her tailand a sloppy kiss.
Lifting the teapot in salute, Nan chuckled. “Here she is,young’uns. I told youse she’d not let the Red Caps get her. Hand me
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Chapter Two“Ogh-cha-nee: Woe is me. Ta graigh-ayn: I love him.”“The Phynodderree: A Tale of Fairy Love”
REdward Callow,1882
Grandad rosined up his bow, preparing for the evening sing-song.
“What would youse like to hear tonight, young’uns?”“Phynodderree,please,Grandad,”Edwardbegged.
“Phynodderree! Phynodderree! I love saying that word!”“Shh, mind you don’t keep repeating it or you’ll conjure upthat hairy elf, foolish boy,” said Nan, snapping a tea towel in the air.
“You mustn’t tempt fate.” She stood at the kitchen dresser, replacing
her precious crockery on the shelves, arranging it “just so.” Then she
sat in her bent willow chair and set it to rocking.
Euphemia shook her head. She acts as if everything werenormal. When I can hardly stop my tears. My throat is on fire.
Grandad obviously doesn’t suspect: his tone is cheery, as always, whenhe’s entertaining.
“That old chestnut? I know it’s your favorite, since my fiddle
can practically play it without me,” he laughed. “Sing then, boys.”
The Phynodderree went down at dawn to the round field
and lifted the dew from the meadow.
The maiden’s hair and cow’s herb, he trod them both beneath his feet.
He stretched out his width across the ground and threw the grass
towards the left.
“Tell us again how the hairy elf flattens the crops into
patterns, Grandad,” John asked when the song ended. “You’ve seen thecircles in the fields, yes?” His wide brown eyes gleamed like burnishedcopper in the firelight. Euphemia smiled. Sweet, sweet boy. He’s got
my eyes. And hair. Maybe I am softer on him than the other three, as
they accuse me.
“Look, can’t you just imagine the elf in the flames, John?
Bending the wheat in all manner of patterns and designs, making
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his brother’s shoulder. Henry sat cross-legged on the rug like his
younger brothers, Edward, John, and Tom. Except his knees jut out alot further, Euphemia observed. Henry’s a scarecrow. Head andshoulders above the rest, too. Tall, like his father. Edward nudged
back, hard, and then scooted off to sit beside John. Henry’s an awful
tease. Our Edward, on the other hand, likes to dish it out but can’t takeit. Just like his father, came the sudden thought. Stop it, she told
herself. Her fingers were as cold as the steel knitting needles in her
hands. A Phynodderree just appeared, indeed. She shuddered.
The homey scene of the family gathered by the fire resembled
a quaint old painting, she thought. It might be a hundred years ago,for nothing ever changed, on Man. A surge of pride warmed her
through, like hearty soup, from the inside, out. My sons: five strong
and healthy lads, each one different and special in his own way, fromthe eldest, so eager to become a man, to the youngest, still at thebreast. And my sweet Ann, small as a fairy, quick as a fox, bright as apenny. How she loves to rock on Nan’s knee, of an evening. How everam I going to break her of that thumb-sucking, though? My family.
All I ever wanted. Why I chose William and to live in this crowded
little cottage, on the edge of the sea, on the edge of poverty, too. My
first real home.
Her mind turned to how the scene might change, if William were to
become too sick to work, or even . . . pass away. Nan said I must face
facts. Henry, he’d go below ground, in the mine, though not yet
thirteen. The other three boys would be relegated out of doors, to thecold, filthy washing floor below the water wheel, separating ore fromslag. Like so many village boys. And poor women too, come to that.
Only Ann and the baby would be spared, for the time being. Whilst I,
what on earth would I do? Stay here, take in washing? Or go back to
Douglas? Oh my God. Anger suddenly boiled up and she tasted metal.
Why is William lingering outside? He ought to be here, with us, damnhim. Oh, don’t even think that.
“Themselves can do anything, can’t they, Grandad? Good andbad?” John persisted. Grandad set the fiddle and bow aside to stuff his
pipe with fresh tobacco. A gust of cold air blew in as William opened
and closed the door. All heads turned. Euphemia suppressed a gasp as
her heart dropped. Hark at his pallor and the circles under his eyes.
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She noticed Grandad’s bushy black brows gather in a frown. Does heknow William is ill? Nan could never keep it from him. They’re likeone person, after so many years together. That’s what I dreamt of for
us someday. We’d be a couple of old fools teasing each other, singing
the same songs, playing with grandchildren . . .
“Grandad? They do magic, yes?” John insisted. Ach, that boy
never lets go until he gets an answer, like a dog with a bone. Now,
where was I? Euphemia gathered up the knitting needles, askew in her
lap. She’d dropped the last stitch.
“Where was I?” Grandad stared blankly at John. He tucked his
pipe between his teeth and picked up his fiddle. “Ah yes, you asked
about the Phynodderree. Half man, half goat. You never know if
Himself’s inclined to grant a wish, but no harm in asking. Just
remember, Lhiat myr hoilloo: to thee as thou deservest. You might well
get what you deserve. Themselves are neither good enough forheaven, nor bad enough for hell, and they delight in tricking usmortals.” His blue eyes sparkled as he deliberately squeaked his bow
and lowered his grey head in the children’s direction with a menacing
look. They instinctively moved back. Grandad sputtered a laugh.
“And what do we deserve, Da?” William’s voice scraped acrossthe room like his chair on the slate floor. “To slave in a mine
threatening to close every day, for starvation wages? Potatoes andproverbs, that’s what we live on. Don’t these bairns deserve better?”Silence, but for the popping fire and the knitting needles,
clicking out of time. Euphemia’s shoulders tensed. It’s no use; the wool
keeps slipping. I’ll have to unravel all tonight’s work. Start again. Hereyes blurred.
“Mum, don’t knit.” Henry moaned. Euphemia pursed her lips.
Cheeky bugger. “Please,” he added, with a look that reminded her ofBlackie, begging forgiveness. His father’s harsh tone toward Grandad
had obviously upset him. And the other boys, too, who sat frozen,
hunched over, staring at the fire. Euphemia wound the skein aroundthe knitting, placing it in her lap. Edward’s head shot up as thoughhe’d been struck by lightning.
“Sing us an English tune, Mum. Tom, you next, in Manx,” hesaid.
“My goodness, you’re a proper choir director tonight, Edward.
What shall it be, then?” Her heart wasn’t in it, but she hoped to lighten
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the mood. “Early one morning, just as the sun was rising . . .” Somehow
she made it through. Flat on the high C’s, she knew. Should’ve chosen
a lower key. Henry fetched her a glass of water. He knew I was off.
“Ah, beautiful, my chree,” Grandad said, repeating the refrain
on his fiddle. “Tom, you’re learning to sing from the best. Did yourwife’s voice soothe you, my son?”
William dropped his head on the table, covering his face in his
crossed arms. Euphemia cringed. Oh, that song was a poor choice,dammit. Too sad. He’s overcome. Dare I go to him?
Grandad resumed playing. Nan rose to her feet, leaving thechair to rock, cradling Ann, fast asleep in her arms. She motioned withher chin to the boys: time for bed. Euphemia lifted Hugh from thecradle and hastened after Nan to settle the youngsters into theirtrundle beds. Edward and Henry scrambled up the ladder to the loft
quicker than usual. All that talk of the Phynodderree, Euphemia
thought. Maybe he’s after them, and all.
Grandad spoke to William, his warm tenor carrying easily tothe back rooms. “We Carines are one of the oldest families on Ellan
Vannin, ye ken, probably here since the time of Olaf the Black. You’re
no doubt related to the bugger, given that crop of dark hair on yourhard head. Mine’s grey now, more’s the pity, but still just as thick. The
Manx are a handsome lot. I turned many a lassie’s head in my day, now
I tell ye,”
Nan cleared her throat to draw Euphemia’s attention to her
eye roll at Grandad’s boasting. “That man,” she said, her voice warmwith a smile, as she lowered Ann into the trundle bed below John andTom. Euphemia stood rooted in place, clutching the baby.
“Put him down and light the lamp, my chree. It’s too dark to see
these scallawags.”
It took two matches, her hand shook so. Nan lifted the boys’ covers.
“You can’t sleep in your clothes, lads. Go get into yournightshirts.” She tapped their backsides, then made her way to thewashstand. Their wan faces matched the white sheets. Nan wet a cloth
while the boys quickly donned the nightshirts waiting on a chair. Aftera perfunctory wipe-down, she tucked them in, planting a kiss on each
forehead.
“Don’t fash yourselves, boys. Your Da’s just tired and not
feeling well. Sleep tight. God bless you, my loves.” She whispered114

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words in Manx, put her finger to her lips and tipped her head to call
Euphemia out of the room. Grandad’s voice penetrated the wall,sterner now.
“Stop being so cantankerous and set an example to yourfamily, William. We’ve survived invasions, plagues, famines.
Manannan’s mist hid us from the Romans, kept us safe. Ellan Vannin
is our home, best place in all the world.”
He accompanied his assertions with notes on his fiddle. Why
does he play while he talks? Euphemia wondered. It’s annoying. Ah,
but his words are a song, came the silent answer. I could almost singit myself, so often have I heard the refrain. William’s next statement
echoed her thoughts. We’re connected too, like Nan and Grandad.
“Ach, I’ve heard it a thousand times, Da.” William sounded
exasperated. His next breath caught in his throat. He coughed andcoughed. The flat of a hand struck wood. “Fine words. But they don’t
put food on this table, do they? Goddamn mists haven’t prevented theEnglish stealing our wealth, have they? Next, they’ll be taxing thevery air we breathe. It never ends.”
The music stopped with a painful sound, like the pull of a rusty
nail. The two of them are just sitting there now, staring at the fire.
Euphemia pictured their faces in profile: jaws set, bushy eyebrowsfurrowed, high cheekbones catching the light. Two sides of the same coin.
Gathering Hugh to her hip, she followed Nan next door to her
own room and laid the baby down on the bed. Her hands trembled asshe fought with his diaper pins.
“Here, lass.” Nan gently moved her aside. After removing
Hugh’s wet nappy, Nan left him to kick his chubby legs. “He loves tobe naked,” she said, shaking her head. “Just like a man.”“I hope the cold air doesn’t make him wee; I’ve no more clean
sheets.” Euphemia let herself fall sideways, next to him. “What does itmatter, any road?” She moaned into the pillow.
“Hush, hush now, darling girl. Foddym gra gyn danjeyr dy bee dychooilley nhee dy mie,” Nan whispered. She petted Euphemia’s head,
twirling a strand of long brown hair that had come loose from her coif.
“What’s that you say, Nan? Oh, I’m that worried. I can hardly
breathe.”“Don’t take on so, darling. All will be well, the saying goes.
Get yourself to bed and rest easy. I’ll settle his little lordship, smoor
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the chiollagh, with prayers to Themselves and blessings for the house,and set the table for morning. William can bring the cradle in later.
Come on wee man. Oh, you’re getting heavy,” she groaned, as she lifted
him and headed for the door. She opened it and Grandad’s voice
entered.
“We’ve come through worse, my son. A Manxman’s always aleg to stand on. Our three-legged man rolls along. Don’t give in todespair. For all our sakes.”
As if he hadn’t heard, William spoke in a voice that soundedas far off as the waves below Faery Hill. “There’s rumors they’ll close
Bradda Mine, Da. They claim it’s no longer profitable. Damn English.
Money’s all they care about. Never mind a man’s livelihood.”“Oie vie. Immee dy chadley. You’ll need your strength for
tomorrow. Go on, get some rest now. Things’ll look better comemorning.”Grandad’s tone with William is like Nan’s with me, Euphemia
realized as she rolled over. Poor old folks, doing as best they can not
to panic. To keep our spirits up. Then she registered William’s words.
What’s that he said? The mine might close? Christ, what next?
Shivering, she put her feet on the cold floor and hastened into hernightgown, then burrowed under the damp sheets. She swam her legsback and forth to create heat. Dammit, my feet are freezing. Ought tohave left my stockings on. William, come to bed, she silently
summoned him. Let me hold you while you weep in my arms. We’ll
cry together. She squeezed her hands into fists. I’ve closed my eyes tohis pain and he’s suffered all alone. What’s wrong with me? I always
go on pretending, no matter what, I guess. Learned that at theorphanage. Pretending my mother would come for me, that she hadn’t
meant to abandon me, she’d rescue me, and we’d be together again,
safe, rich . . . Castles in the air.

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Under the Spell of Molly Bloom
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
Rigel 2022 Finalist
with borrowings from James Joyce’s Ulysses
In a dream that rings the Campanile’s bell I’m back in
Flanagan’s “Ulysses” seminar he’s pacing the floor dropping
ash from his chain–smoked cigarettes giving voice to Molly’s
magic spell and then he asked me would I say yes my mountainflower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down
to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart wasgoing like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes O Flanagan with yourelfin prance in Wheeler Hall never mind your professorial
Harris Tweed you’re Molly Bloom you’re river flow conjuring
lives I’ve not yet lived but though I lack your Irish lilt it’s
Molly I’ve been when I cast my spell in the dark parked carfor yes I’m wanton and full of yearnings and yes I know I scare
him yes I know he’s rising to me yes I’ve set the scene frommy bedroom window while my parents think I’m sound asleep
he’s gazing up at me from the street a sickle moon my naked
breasts and yes I have outfoxed myself lost myself in an oldstone fortress with a drawbridge only he controls but he can’t
hold my gaze so full of himself so empty of me all I see is hisabandoning back until one day I show him mine all the way
across the drawbridge yes Flanagan I do because Molly’s got
me under her spell I say yes to the man with the flute to theman with the drum to the man with the tools who can fix mycar and yes it’s a bloody mess and yes I’ve seen my own
faithless back and yes along came one who says Yes to my gazeand Yes to whatever blooms in me even now as we come tothe owl’s eve and the river’s mouth approaches the sea in atime when the air hangs heavy with plague and the old gods
shudder and pass away and trouble is a giant in seven league
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now as I lie with my love in the bed we’ve made together overhalf our lives I am still under Molly’s spell thanks to you O
Flanagan though you’re long gone to glory I can still hear you
voice those holy words yes I will yes I will Yes

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Contributors
Jack Bordnick’s sculptural and photographic imagery is a reflection of his
past and present forces as well as the imagination of his life’s stories. They
represent an evolutionary process of these ideas and how all of life’s forces areinterconnected, embraced and expressed through creative art forms. He calls
it “my quantum and metaphoric moment, the changing from one form toanother.” They express and implement his thoughts and feelings regarding
taking risks without any guarantee of their success.
Miriam Borgstrom resides in the neon desert of Southern Nevada. She is an
advocate for ampersands, eyeglasses, and avocados. Borgstrom’s most recent
work can be found at Monday Night and Dream Pop Press. Find her online atwww.amiareiaam.com.
Christopher Paul Brown is known for his exploration of the unconscious
through improvisation and the cultivation of serendipity and synchronicity
via alchemy. His first photography sale was to the collection of the Standard
Oil Company of Indiana, and his video, You Define Single File, was nominatedfor the Golden Gate Award in 2004. Over the past four years, his art was
exhibited twice in Rome, Italy, in Belgrade, Serbia, and his series, Obscure
Reveal, was exhibited at a Florida museum in 2017. His work appears in two
hardcover books released by Manifest Gallery, and in Tusis, Manipulated
Images, a Dek Unu (2019).
Steve Capra is a playwright and theater writer living in New York City. His
plays have been produced in New York and the UK. His dramatic poem, The
Fall, was a finalist in The Bordighera Poetry Prize Competition; his play, The
Shanghai Arsonist, was a finalist in The Tennessee Williams Short Play
Competition; his play, At Night in Praha, was a finalist in The American GlobeFestival and placed third in The New Venture Festival. His book, Theater
Voices, includes interviews with leaders in the British and American theater.
After a nomadic, army-brat childhood, Carolyn Dasher found her true homein Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and a cat who thinks
it’s a dog. When she’s not writing, she’s probably fixing something in her
hundred-year-old house.
Bryan Edenfield is the author of Cake, published by Really Serious
Literature. He was born and raised in Arizona, but has lived in Washington
State since 2007. He has been alive for a few decades.
Oisin Farraige writes poetry and lives in SC.
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Julie Esther Fisher’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in the Alaska
Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly, Prime Number, William and Mary Review, Other Voices,and others, and is forthcoming in Bridge Eight. She has been a finalist in
Boulevard’s Short Fiction contest and in Arts and Letters Unclassifiables. A
passionate gardener dedicated to sustainability, she lives on several hundred acresof conserved land in western Massachusetts.
Valyntina Grenier is a multi-genre artist living with her wife in Tucson, AZ.
She works with paint, ink, Neon, encaustic medium, recycled or repurposedmaterials, and words. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Fever
Dream/ Take Heart (Cathexis Northwest Press 2020) and In Our Now(Finishing Line Press 2022). Her work appears in Impermanent Earth, The
Journal, Lana Turner, and The Night Heron Barks. Find her atvalyntinagrenier.com or Insta @valyntinagrenier.
Mark Henderson teaches English at Tuskegee University. He earned his
Ph.D. at Auburn University with concentrations in American literature andpsychoanalytic theory. He has poems published or forthcoming in Cozy Cat
Press, From Whispers to Roars, Defenestrationism.net, Bombfire, Former People,
Neologism, Broad River Review, Rune Bear, Flora Fiction, Flare, Visitant, Blood
Tree Literature, The Closed Eye Open, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Burningword,
Better Than Starbucks, and The Racket. He was born and raised in Monroe,
Louisiana, and currently resides in Auburn, Alabama.
Susanna Herrmann is a designer and visual artist from Bloomington,
Indiana. She studied philosophy at Georgetown University before doing somephotography and curation work and pursuing an MFA in studio art at theEskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design at Indiana University.
Susanna’s work is based in theories of visual perception and is influenced by
space and landscape. Themes of orientation and navigation are foundthroughout her work. She enjoys mixing analog and digital methods. Her
current work centers experiences of landscapes.
Discharged from the Army in 1955, after being exposed to Asian art, Larry
Hill discovered the renowned New York School of Painting. Seeing the workof Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning changed his life. Hill’swork was displayed and sold with theirs at the Sidney Janis gallery in New
York. According to Samsung, he is one of the top 100 living artists in the world.
He gets up almost every day, walks to his garage/studio and tackle a painting,usually one over six feet. At an Ikebana Society show, the great William
Saroyan left him a note describing his work as “heroic.”
https://www.larryhillartist-writer.com/

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Irene Blair Honeycutt’s fourth poetry book, Beneath the Bamboo Sky (Main
Street Rag 2017), is subtitled Poems and Pieces on Loss and Consolation because“It is my attempt to honor life by giving voice to sorrow and joy. Much of thebook is about the loss of siblings—a grief not often recognized in our culture.”
Irene founded Central Piedmont Community College’s annual literary
festival Sensoria. Her work has been published in Nimrod, Southern Poetry, The
Southern Poetry Anthology: VII, and Virginia Quarterly. Garrison Keillor
included one of her poems on Writers Almanac. Irene has studied in the Czech
Republic, Ireland, and Iceland. She lives in Indian Trail, NC.
Serge Lecomte was born in Belgium and spent his teens in South Philly and
Brooklyn. He joined the Air Force Medical Corps and was sent to Selma,
Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. There he was a crew member onhelicopter rescue. Lecomte received a B.A. in Russian Studies from the
University of Alabama, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt
University in Russian Literature with a minor in French Literature. Lecomteis also a published novelist, poet and playwright. For several years he was thepoetry editor for Paper Radio. He recently moved to Bellingham, WA.
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky won the Atlanta Review International Merit Award,
the Blue Light Poetry Prize, and the Obama Millennial Award. Her fourth
full-length collection, The Faust Woman Poems, trace one woman’s Faustianadventures through Women’s Liberation and the return of the Goddess. Her
new collection of poems, Death and His Lorca, was recently published by Blue
Light Press. She is the poetry editor for Psychological Perspectives and blogs
about poetry and life at sisterfrombelow.com.
Sunny Payson received an MFA in poetry, but has gravitated to fiction over
the years. Payson lives in Vermont with family.
Michael Pearce’s poetry has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Yale
Review, Nimrod, Spillway, The Gettysburg Review, The Sun, and elsewhere, andhas won several national prizes (New Ohio Review, Oberon, Dogwood, andothers). His collection of poems, Santa Lucia by Starlight, won the Brighthorse
Prize and will be published in 2022.
LG Pomerleau is a writer of poetry and historical fiction, living in Nanton,
Alberta, Canada. Pomerleau has written two novels and is a published poet,with poems currently in print in literary magazines and anthologies in
Canada, the US, and abroad.
Aarron Sholar is a transgender writer who has essays forthcoming andpublished in Dead Skunk Magazine, Broadkill Review, Beaver Magazine, Sierra
Nevada Review, 45th Parallel Literary Magazine, Hobart, Polaris Magazine, and121

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Volume 4, Issue 3others. He holds a BA from Salisbury University and is an MFA candidate in
CNF at MNSU, Mankato, where he is Head CNF Editor of Blue Earth Review.
A retired educator, Dave Sims makes art and music in the mountains ofcentral Pennsylvania. Since 2016, his paintings and comix, both old-school
and digital, have appeared in dozens of tactile and virtual exhibits andpublications. Recent work is available or forthcoming in Fauxmoir Review,
Peatsmoke, Beyond Words, and Inverted Syntax. He just finished a new song foranother beautiful grandchild named Waylon James, who was born on June
18th, 2022. Experience more at www.tincansims.com.
Alex Stanley is a graduate of Boston College, and he received his MFA in
Creative Writing at the University of California, Irvine. He is a former sports
journalist, and his sports writing has been featured in Sports Illustrated. His
published poems have appeared in American Poets Magazine, HCE Review,
Helix Magazine, Duck Lake Journal, The Write Launch, and Doozine. He is arecipient of the 2021 Academy of American Poets Award. He resides in Costa
Mesa, CA.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. With an M.A.
in child development and a B.A. in education, she has a strong interest in art
education and teaches art to adults, children, and families. As a former
ceramicist, she studied with J.T. Abernathy in Ann Arbor, MI. After receiving
her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington, she switched from
3D art to 2D. She works primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art
is housed in numerous public and private collections, and she has shownnationally. She is a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and COCA
(Center of Contemporary Art).

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Writing a New World
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nonfiction, poetry and art can speak truth to power with the power inherent
in all human beings. Our mission is to amplify every voice. Four digitalquarterly editions are produced per year, along with one print volume.

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