Final Winter 2019 Fortnight Issue!

Can it be?

The last issue of the semester!

Check out some incredible photography (like the picture above, “Inside/Outside,” by Haley Winkle), high-quality prose, and gorgeous artwork in this editing crew’s last issue of Fortnight Literary Press.  Since our current co-Editors in Chief are graduating, the magazine will be on hiatus until another plucky crew of student writers picks it up.  But never fear – we’re fully confident that Fortnight will be back in no time 🙂

We wish you all an incredible summer!

As You Wish by Alexander Wagner (Issue 2, 2019)

As You Wish

by Alexander Wagner

Issue 2, 2019

“Who do you know?” the large boy behind the card table said, a little louder this time.

Jamie blinked. Maybe it was the loud music and lights spilling out of the front door of the frat house, or maybe it was the small group of people who lingered behind him waiting for their turn, but for some reason his head wasn’t working properly. He was meeting somebody here, but her name wasn’t coming to mind. Jamie had already texted her on his way up the steps, but he’d gotten distracted when he saw the two frat guys sitting behind a folding table at the entrance to the party. He dawdled around the porch awhile, pretending to check his phone and watching what other people did at the table, just to be safe. It was pretty straightforward: swipe your school ID, they ask you if you know someone in one of the hosting frats, you get a Sharpie mark on your hand, and they let you in. So why was he standing here, staring at this guy and not answering?

Oh god, you’re still doing it, aren’t you?

The boy wearing a tank-top smiled up at him patiently.

“Margaret,” he said, at last remembering what he was doing. “She’s in a sorority that’s also here, I think.”

“Which one?” the boy said.

Goddammit.

She must’ve told him a million times, but he always registered the name the way one reads a number too large to care about: when you see 1,945,362,744, the mind says “a lot.” When Margaret told him what sorority she was in, he heard some distorted Greek gibberish, but no memorable letters that he could tell this kid.

“I don’t actually remember which one,” he said.

“What was that?” the tank-top boy said, leaning forward.

Oh god, don’t make me say it again.

He opened his mouth to repeat himself, but was cut off by a shrill voice.

“Jamie!” Margaret shouted through the door, phone in one hand, red solo cup in the other.

Thanks, god.

Margaret hopped down the steps and hugged him before dragging him into the house. The large boys didn’t try to stop them.

Stupid. You looked so stupid back there.

It’s not a big deal. You’re in now, it’s over.

Just sitting there like a dumbass. People were waiting on you.

The guy didn’t seem to mind, though.

He totally did. He either thought you were stupid or trying to sneak in.

Margaret’s saying something, isn’t she?

Don’t let this ruin your night.

You need this. You need to have a good night out.

“…not much left, but you don’t drink much so we should be good,” Margaret said, finishing a sentence Jamie probably should’ve been listening to.

“Yeah, we should be,” he agreed.

They made their way across the house, weaving through the bodies that littered the various rooms. The house smelled like sweat, beer, and skunk, which Jamie was just “in-the-know” enough to understand was, in fact, not skunk. He really didn’t like frat parties at all, he had come to realize: they were crowded, hot, and loud, and they rarely had good beer. It was almost impossible to meet new people because everyone came in groups and the music was deafening, although Jamie probably wouldn’t be meeting new people in any other setting either, so he supposed that was irrelevant. But still, he came to frat parties whenever he knew that Margaret was going to one. He needed to get out more.

Margaret stopped in front of a small circle of girls standing by a speaker in the living room.

“Hey, guys!” she said, “this is my friend Jamie from my writing seminar.”

The girls all said hi as Margaret listed off their names one by one, all of which buzzed into Jamie’s ears, but never settled there. They looked more or less like every other girl at the party: relatively pretty and wearing very little clothing. He smiled uncomfortably and said hi to each of them.

Stop staring at them, you fucking pervert.

You’re not staring. It’s fine.

They didn’t come out here to get ogled by your creepy ass.

You’re not staring, everyone dresses like this. You’re fine, just focus.

They think you’re just another douchebag who-

You’re not above other guys, stop pretending you are.

You’re beneath them.

Shut up, nobody’s thinking that much about you.

Yeah, nobody thinks about you…

Stop.

As the girls finished their introductions, they all turned back to their conversation.

“So, how’ve you been?” Margaret asked him. “It’s been a while since the last time I got you out of your room. How’d that test you were worried about go?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” he said, shouting to her over the music. She was also wearing very little clothing, but it didn’t bother him as much. She was pretty, too, but not the same way everyone else was pretty. She was pretty like clouds or bricks or anything else he was used to having in his life: she wasn’t unfamiliar or frightening. He couldn’t ever see himself asking her out, just because he was too comfortable with the way they were now, and he didn’t want to ruin anything.

“There were a couple questions I felt a little bit off for,” he continued, “but overall I think I did fine. And then I have a quiz tomorrow in Spanish, which should be alright, except I’m not sure if we need to know the new vocab or not.”
You’re boring her. Stop talking about school stuff.

She asked.

Only about the test. Stop talking.

“So, yeah,” he concluded awkwardly. “How about you? How was your week?”

Margaret started recapping her week, but most of what she said was lost in the heavy bass of the speaker they stood under. He could tell that she was already pretty tipsy, and whatever was in her cup must’ve been strong. She must have seen him looking at it, because she pushed it into his hands.

“Try it,” she said.

He took a small sip. A little bit of lemonade and a lot of vodka. Cheap vodka. He felt it slither down his throat and tried to suppress a grimace.

Don’t make a face. You should have a higher tolerance for this stuff.

He smiled and handed the cup back to her.

“Do you want one?” she said.

“Sure,” he said. It wasn’t his drink of choice, but he had a feeling that he was going to need some booze to handle this many people.

Margaret told her friends where she was going and led Jamie back through the crowd and across the house. They slid their way past mobs of people, most of whom were much bigger than Jamie, or at least seemed that way.

They’re all having so much fun.

Yeah. You’re wasting your life.

You should be doing this stuff, too.

Instead you’re just sad and alone all the time.

I bet those guys at the door are having fun.

You need to get out more.

Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?

Not really. You’re just moping around. You’re not enjoying yourself.

You’re gonna be alone and miserable forever. You’re wasting so much time.

You need a girlfriend or something.

But you just keep waiting for good things to happen to you.

You need to make them happen.

But you don’t know how to.

Stop waiting.

Kill yourself.

Jamie pinched himself hard on the side. He drew in a sharp breath through his teeth and let it out slowly.

Stop that. You’re fine. This time will pass, remember.

He’d made a habit of telling himself that “this time will pass,” and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He’d gotten a whole bunch of exercises and mantras from his therapist: things to do and say when you feel yourself going into the “dark places.” It worked most of the time, but sometimes he felt the need to invent his own. This was one of them. It made him feel like everything would be okay, even if he had to wait for it. He was afraid that it wasn’t really healthy, though. His therapist hadn’t told him to say it, and he felt like it delved pretty dangerously into “end it all” territory. Additionally, he wasn’t a fan of the concept of waiting for this moment to pass so that the next moment can come, and then waiting for that one to pass until you’re all out of moments and you realize that you spent your whole life waiting for it to be over. But for now, it helped.

They came into the kitchen and made their way to the counter, which was littered with empty containers of just about everything. Margaret led him over to a large plastic bottle of Kamchatka and started making him a drink with the cleanest looking solo cup she could find. She handed him the cup after she’d finished, and he took a big sip of the solution. It tasted a little better than hers, but not by much: it was lukewarm and flat. He let the drink burn its way down his throat and tried not to cough as he smiled at her again. She looked back at him, a hint of concern working its way into her face.

“Are you good?” she asked. “We can leave if you want, and just hang out at a pizza place or something.”

“Oh, no!” he practically shouted back. “I’m totally fine, honestly.”

“You’re sure? I know that frat parties aren’t really your thing. We can duck whenever, just let me know.”

“Ok, I will,” he said, “but honestly, I’m fine.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she smiled and started to lead them back across the party to her friends.

You’re ruining her night.

She asked you to come here, you’re fine.

She came here to have fun, not to worry about whether you’re enjoying yourself.

It’s fine, she’s just checking on you. She cares about you.

You shouldn’t need a babysitter.

You should be able to do this without someone else’s help.

You should be able to just have fun.

This is why you’re alone.

You’re not fun to be around.

You shouldn’t be pulling her away from a party-

-just because you don’t know how to be happy.

You’re not.

Having fun?

Pulling her away. It’s ok.

This time will pass.

Jamie took a large sip of his drink.

He was tipsy enough to have a basic conversation by the time they got back to Margaret’s friends. They talked about majors and foreign languages and other boring college topics, which was fine with him. As the rest of the group started to break off for drinks and bathrooms, he and one other girl, whose name was Rachel, apparently, stayed and talked for a while. She was majoring in some kind of biology and had taken Latin in high school, and her favorite movie was The Princess Bride, which Jamie was buzzed enough to find incredibly interesting. He’d seen it once or twice before, but didn’t remember much of it.

“And Andre the Giant plays this…well, a giant, actually,” she said, laughing at herself, “and he works with Inigo Montoya, a swordsman, and Vizzini, who’s…just kind of a dick, but it’s, like, really funny, and everyone needs to watch it at least once.”

“Oh,” Jamie said loudly over the hum of the party. “So I’ve met my quota?”
“I meant at least once when you can remember it, asshole,” she said, laughing at the joke Jamie didn’t mean to make.

She wasn’t nearly as tipsy as the rest of the group, which made talking to her a lot easier, he thought. Most of what they talked about was buried in his drink, but Jamie felt good about it. He was keeping the conversation going, and as far as he could tell he wasn’t being too awkward. He only pinched his thighs every now and then, when he sounded too drunk or too stupid. After what felt like a half hour, Rachel looked at her phone.

“Oh,” she said. “Margaret started throwing up, so the others took her home. She wanted me to make sure you knew she didn’t ditch you.”

“Oh,” Jamie said, “ok. I hope she’s alright.”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Rachel said. “The others are taking care of her. Hey, do you want to head out?”

They decided to go back to Jamie’s dorm room to watch The Princess Bride “properly,” as Rachel had put it. After a few bad jokes about piracy and its dire consequences, they settled down to watch it on his small laptop.

This is weird.

Why?

Shut up, you feel good.

Jamie’s heart sped up and he broke into a cold sweat. The grandfather had just come in, but he didn’t hear what he was saying.

Something’s wrong.

So what? This is fun.

But something’s wrong.

Then what is it?

Rachel leaned over and kissed Jamie.

Oh.

It only lasted a few minutes. Afterwards they were lying on the bed, their clothes in a pile on the ground next to them. He was out of breath, and had his arms wrapped around her as they lay together in the dark. He was starting to sober up a little.

That was good.

That was really good. That’s exactly what you needed.

This is perfect. Everything is perfect right now.

He listened to the silence for a while. Then he kissed the back of her head. She shifted slightly and sighed.

This is good. You’re great.

What if she didn’t like it?

She did. Everything’s perfect.

There’s nothing to worry about.

There’s nothing to worry about.

He was silent for a little while longer, just to appreciate it all.

Why are you sad?

You’re not sad. There’s nothing to be sad about.

You’re not happy, though.

You should be happy.

Why aren’t you happy?

Jamie shifted slightly, repositioning the arm that was under Rachel so he could feel it again. The cold, static blood rushed back into the rest of his body.

What’s wrong with you?

You shouldn’t feel like this.

What’s wrong?

You should be able to fix this.

This isn’t fair.

You can’t make it better if there’s nothing wrong.

Just figure out what’s wrong.

Then you can make it okay.

Just let me fix it.

Please let me fix it.

His heart sank into his ribs, which pushed into Rachel’s back every time he inhaled. Then he buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes.

This time will pass, remember.

This time will pass.

Monologue from the River by Annie Ning (Issue 2, 2019)

Monologue from the River

by Annie Ning

Issue 2, 2019

“Nurse, hey, Miss Nurse, could you do me a favor? If you’re not too busy, could you write down what I say? You should pull up a chair. This might take a while.

“Why? Miss Nurse, don’t patronize me. Don’t pretend you don’t see these wires on the floor and tubes in my body. I’m already a dead man. These will be my last words. Humor me while I last, won’t you?

“Let’s start from the beginning, from the very beginning. From further back than me or you or the Dead Sea scrolls or the people who wrote them. Let’s start from that ambiguous higher power itself, the one that we call the gods, or whatever you prefer, that power which has forsaken me—let’s start right there. Those gods who left me, an average man with an average story who lived an average life—they left me here without a care in the world and now sit back and laugh, not at just me but at you too. At us all. The futility of life, the absurdity of it all, they pour themselves their chalices of mead and give a boisterous toast to it. They say that suffering is given to us in order to teach us the value of life—they say it while sitting on thrones of gold, playing Russian roulette with our lives. Is it entertaining, I wonder? If I were a god, would I do the same? Pointless questions, I know, but I try to ask them nonetheless. No better way to stay entertained when you can no longer move a muscle. Besides, they may not even be laughing at all. I may just be a crazy man, making up stories because I’d feel even lonelier without the idea of something to resent. Either way, I will not pray to them. There is no point in praying to those who only take.

“For someone who tries to brush off the gods as mere divine annoyances, I think I’ve spent too much time on them to be convincing. Let’s move on then, as it takes too much energy out of me to be bitter. Not much of that left. Let’s set our next destination as the world, this world of ours that belongs to the young and the strong. I’ve already forgotten it—the taste of the air on my tongue, the orange sunlight at three in the afternoon. All I know is this hospital room, this white ceiling and the constant beep of the heart monitor. Though I’m sure this place will be devoid of that sound soon.

“Miss Nurse, don’t cry, don’t cry yet. Cry when this is all said and done, when this room is empty and it doesn’t smell like rot and rubbing alcohol anymore. But not yet. Wait for this dying man to use up the rest of his crippled, blackened soul. I have yet more words for you—more words about this grotesquely beautiful world that I only now am beginning to understand.

“I wanted to see it all, you know, but I only got as far as the ocean—didn’t cross it. My toes touched that water and it was cold, so cold. The salt was in the air itself, and it burned at my eyes and the back of my mouth but I was young and alive then so it didn’t matter. I saw seals basking on the buoys in the harbor by the fishing dinghies, under the same sun that was soaking through my back and seeping into my bones. My nose was red and my toes were freezing, but it was warm there on that windy, foamy coast strewn with pointy black pebbles that stung when you stepped on them too hard—so, so warm. Even if it smelled like dead brine shrimp and the color of washed up seaweed, I can’t help but romanticize being there. At this point, I feel as if I have no other choice. Honestly, if I weren’t lying here right now, stuck in this cluttered hospital room, I’d probably still be standing on that cold, windswept coast. Perhaps I’d already be on the other side. I don’t know what I would see on that vista of the ocean, but I’ll shamelessly admit that I want to go anyway. At this rate, to all the places, all the wonders in the world, I want to go. To climb the sheer cliffs of granite mountains, eternal in the sky, then run my hands through swathes of clouds as they pass by my side. To hike seven hours up a tourist path that turns into a forest path that turns into a path only the monks remember, made with ropes, wood boards, and the balls of someone who’s truly got faith in the world, hitched ten thousand feet up on the side of a jade pillar that will have no mercy should you fall. Nothing to stop you for the next two miles down. Or maybe I’d stay on the ground, breathe the cold morning fog of ancient forests that look like postcard Ireland, ankle deep in three leaf clovers and curling ferns, and trail my fingers through rivers so clear I’d have to wonder if I was just a kid again, because children never notice the silt. Or maybe, instead of all that, I’d just sit at a hole-in-the-wall café on the side of the road in some city of Nowhere and listen to the sound of people, the low murmur of passing lives that are just as colorful as my own. Lives that have absolutely nothing to do with me, that I will never know. Lives and sounds that I haven’t heard ever since I woke up to white lights glaring from a white ceiling, accompanied by this steady, steady beep that’s been slowing for the past ‘long-enough.’ I wonder what it felt like back then when my throat wasn’t crusted in a layer of medicine and I could walk on my own two feet. I wonder if the Sun is still as warm as it used to be, out on that chilly shore that I thought about crossing once. I wonder a lot of things, you see, because I’ve got no other way to go, and because I’ve got nothing left now but wondering.

“Miss, you’re crying again. The ink will bleed if your tears spill onto your writing. But I must think it’s miraculous that you’re still here. You’ve got a pen, a paper, and my last words held in the palm of your hand, so I think that makes you the most powerful person in the world right now—I think that might just make you the strongest too. It takes a lot of courage to listen to a dead man, doesn’t it? So don’t cry for me, or at least, don’t cry too long. If it makes you feel better, I don’t regret living and, laying here right now, I’m not afraid of dying. I stopped being afraid a long time ago. When I realized that blaming those gods who I try to despise so much wouldn’t change a thing, I closed my eyes and began to wait for the day I cross that murky, black river and take the sound of my beeping, beeping heartbeat with me. Because I don’t believe in miracles. If I did, I wouldn’t be here, giving you my last words. I’d probably be praying to that incorrigible divine power or whatever it’s called that maybe it would forget about the tragedy, about the morbid fun it’s had with my life, and I’d wake up tomorrow ready to walk across that ocean to the side I never saw. To the mountains and monks and uncountable mornings under a gorgeously indifferent sun. But I won’t pray; I can’t. The gods don’t care. And I can’t blame them either for the same reason. To blame them would be to make the incredible assumption that I’m actually worth something to them, and that is not a statement I can make claim to. I’m not so presumptuous as to believe the gods have ever known my name. Besides, there’s no reason for me to leave my fate in the hands of those who set it afire in the first place. Or perhaps I’m already being too arrogant, assuming that they even lit it to begin with. I am not worth so much as a blink, and so, Miss Nurse, I am not afraid of death. I have already come to terms with the idea of crossing that barren river. I just wish that I knew what it looks like on the other side. If I knew, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much apprehension inevitably trapped in this hospital room. I wonder, are there still oceans on that side? Is there still a sun? Are there valleys, caverns, deltas, skies, monuments…are there? Those great, big, inconceivable wonders that are somehow, somehow, built by worn, human hands, the ones that are so unbelievably grand that they make you think that our kind truly has always been insane—I wanted to visit them, you know, while I was still alive. I wonder, do they exist too on the other side too? I cannot know until I reach the place. And so, as it has always been, I’m left alone to wonder.

“…Hm. I sigh in the end, despite my passionate ranting. I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. Don’t mind it. It is simply the fate of a dying man. I was just thinking that, even though I told you I’m not afraid of death, I might just miss this world anyway. I’ll miss the valleys, caverns, deltas, skies, and monuments, in all their glory that I’ve been fantasizing about. Even though I know there are leeches in the valleys and ticks in the caverns and mosquitoes in the deltas, I will miss them nonetheless. There’s no other way for me to cope with never having gone. Pretending that I missed out on nothing solely because these places were dirty would be the grandest lie I’ve ever told. Let the dirt sling. Let the mud crust over my skin and let the leeches and bugs take my blood. In my fantasies at least, I’ve got plenty to give. And I will ultimately emerge from the wild, triumphant in having seen just a little bit more of the world. I will. And I will perhaps one day return to that cold autumn ocean as well, the one frozen in my memory so harshly that it might as well be engraved. The one so deep that I could bet you and the doctor and the patient next door that even time hasn’t managed to reach the bottom. So deep that perhaps if I jumped in, I’d never stop falling. You know, I don’t think I’d mind that.

“I’m sure the river I have to cross will chill my toes like the ocean did, and I have to admit that that makes me just a little bit happy. At the very least, it will mean that I’m actually standing on my own two feet—for the first time in much too long. So, Miss Nurse, Miss most-powerful-person-in-the-world-right-now, as I slowly board the ferry, I must find some proper last words for you. I’m not lonely, no; I won’t tell you anything about that. And I don’t have any ‘if-only’s left either; left those behind the moment I came here. All I can do is thank you, I suppose, thank you for hearing out this dead man. I’ve got nothing else to do, after all, but fantasize. So I hope you don’t believe a word I say, even though I know that the tears won’t stop and your hands are shaking. I have not yet seen that side either, you see. I have not yet seen the face of Death. So I hope that there comes a day when you can dry your tears and forget about me, and leave only these words to last in my name. Let them speak for themselves. Let them tell of a man who did not a single thing with his life, and then spent his last words as if he had. Let them travel the immeasurable distance between me and the living—let them reach someone, from all the way across the river. It’s the only thing left that I can still do. It’s the only thing left at all. All I have is the power to speak from the dead as if I know what the place looks like, because who else is going to tell you but a man halfway there? So I’m sure that it’s warm over there, across the opaque mist that rises over the river, in the same way I’m sure that the ocean still smells like seaweed and salt, and the Sun still feels like a heavy down blanket around my shoulders. I’m sure. I have to be. A hesitant soul cannot board the ferry.

“Yet you see, Miss Nurse—and I laugh despite the grim reality of it—in the end, no matter how much I ramble about that great, ambiguous ‘beyond’, I haven’t got a clue. This confidence is only because I’m a man who’s got nothing to lose. But I’m on my way, aren’t I? I’m on my way.

I can’t wait to see what it looks like.”

Dead Letter Office by Hannah French (Issue 1, 2019)

Dead Letter Office

by Hannah French

Issue 1, 2019

The DLO was a nowhere place, a nowhere address. It may as well have been “missing or defunct” itself. Helen had worked at the dead letter office for eighteen years. She could hardly name a single person or place that actually existed. Sometimes, as she sorted mail, she’d try her hand at playing Sherlock: the writing is large and confident–a young letter writer sending a note to Lucy: a grandmother? Or a friend? Lucy was a more common name in the 20th century, so grandmother, probably…but why wouldn’t she know that her grandmother was dead?

More often than not, letters were double returned to the DLO, which was ironic–a “return to sender” returned to the sender. So the letters were burned. In the winters, insulation around the DLO was so bad that the workers would huddle around the incinerator, holding their hands up to the glow of forgotten words.

A lot of good material came through the dead letter office. There were manuscripts here, after all, and Helen could spend hours perusing them. Some of them were quite good. Some of them, if they’d reached their destination, may have risen to rival Harry Potter.

Dear Santa,

I want a trained squirrel for Christmas.

Hannah

The walls of DLO were papered with letters like this, highlights in a particularly dense encyclopedia. It could get a little confining, Helen thought, the four of them in a 12×14 square foot room. They couldn’t bring in fans or blast the AC too high, because it made the walls flutter, and sorting became impossible. Instead, they permitted themselves four half hour breaks in the kitchen throughout the day. Some prankster had given each of them a milk carton for Christmas with their faces on it and the word MISSING. None of her colleagues would admit to doing it. Helen had tried to throw hers away–it gave her the heebie jeebies–but it had appeared in the same spot in the fridge the next day.

“Probably it had a missing or defunct address,” Taylor had told her, watching her with blank eyes as she stared at the newly-replaced milk carton. She laughed, but stopped abruptly when his face didn’t change. Taylor didn’t make jokes. It was hard to picture anything concrete about Taylor. She thought he always wore a vest, but she couldn’t be sure; he was so put together he became unnoticeable.

Helen didn’t like the other two much better. Rudy was a funda-environmentalist, who lived and traveled around in his RV, but wore a string of shark teeth around his neck, whether to emphasize reuse and recycling or to appear “native,” she didn’t know. He liked to preach about the benefits of living life as a roamer, and was skeptical of anybody and anything stationary. Yes, Rudy liked the call of the wild. Helen liked the quiet creak of her office chair.

Elena was shy and wore a Bryn Mawr sweatshirt every day. She had gotten the job the summer after her junior year in high school to get away from abusive parents. Helen couldn’t remember if she’d ever gotten into the school or not. Perhaps Elena was a part time student at the community college. She didn’t say much.

“The weather’s nice today,” Helen said to her, as they began to sort letters. Elena glanced quickly at her and then away. Helen continued to watch her. Taylor continued to watch the wall.

“Bullshit,” said Rudy. Helen glanced at him, but didn’t reply.

They sat, for the most part of the next hour, in silence, each of them at their own tables. The room was organized in fours. Each of them had their own long table with four bins and a high bar stool (the better to drop mail inside the bins). Consumerism, Life Updates, Reckoning, and Unrealized Dreams. The Dreams bin was often empty, not only because they were rarely received, but also because everyone in the office felt that it was better to eat or loot what was inside than to burn it. Sometimes, if they felt particularly kind, they would return it to the sender.

“We forgot to go down to the incinerator last night,” Taylor commented.

They all looked up. Rudy was the first one who spoke.

“Let’s wait on it until today’s haul–have ourselves a bonfire.” He grinned.

“Bonfires aren’t very environmentally friendly,” Elena murmured.

“Bullshit,” said Rudy.

Helen sat rooted to her chair. She had continued sorting while the other three talked, uninterested in the usual banter, but now found herself holding a very odd piece of mail. It was a Bed Bath & Beyond back-to-school  magazine, organized into bright squares, each promoting its own piece of dorm furniture.

“Hang out in style with this SWIVEL CHAIR,” said one square.

“GIRLS–keep your feet warm in winter with a FUR RUG,” shouted another.

Junk mail  came through the DLO all of the time. The Consumerism bin was to Helen’s right, and as a consequence, her right arm was far more muscular than the left from years of throwing spam magazines out in bundles. Junk mail was never returned to sender.

There had been no reason for Helen to notice the addressee on this particular spam, except that a particularly vibrant BEANBAG CHAIR had caught her eye. Above it in small print was the name and address of the recipient:

Elena Ross

1995 Hawthorne Dr.

West Chester, PA, 19380

Helen frowned at it. “Elena?” she said.

The girl looked up from her table. Was it Helen’s imagination, or did she look paler than usual? Her dirty blond hair hung limply from her head, falling in odd strands into her sweatshirt hood.

“What?” Elena asked.

“Isn’t your last name Ross?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Helen handed her the advertisement. “Did your parents move and forget to register the new address?”

Elena made a vague frown. “No,” she said.

Helen scrutinized her face. She didn’t appear to be lying. But why, then, would the mail default? She must be lying.

“Elena…” Helen said, in her gentlest voice. “You can talk to me.”

“We didn’t move, Helen. I was there yesterday, and the day before. I’ll be there tonight. The postman probably messed something up.”

This would not be an unusual mistake–it was why the DLO was supposed to return things to their sender–but some wrong note, some slender rib inside of her body, made Helen shiver.

“I get stuff like that for Taylor all the time,” Elena added.

“I get stuff like that for Rudy,” Taylor piped up, dully.

“C’mon, I’m nothing like Taylor. My stuff comes here because I’m off grid,” Rudy groused.

“Then why are you here?” said Taylor.

Helen looked uncertainly between them. She’d never received anything like this before, addressed to one of them. Had she just never noticed before? It couldn’t be that abnormal if everyone else in the office was receiving junk mail here.

“Has anyone ever gotten something other than junk here?” she asked.

Rudy and Elena looked at each other. Taylor blinked slowly.

“No,” they chorused.

“These corporations just have too much data to handle,” Rudy added. “They don’t even know what to do with half the crap they buy off the NSA. I mean, look at this guy!”

He held up an advertisement for a new anti-balding serum. The cover was plastered with the image of a tall man in a blazer  and scarf, with slicked back hair. A single bang fell into his dark eyes. The ad was addressed to “Katie Winstrop.”

“You think this guy was intended for Katie?” Rudy snorted. Helen frowned at him; he shouldn’t be so judgmental.

“Elena?” Rudy asked, casting out for support.

Elena shrugged, turning back to her work table and tossing the advertisement with her name and address on it into the Consumerism bin. A blank look settled over her face. For a moment, she looked like Taylor. Then she frowned at something and bit her lip, and Helen shook herself of the image.

“I need a kitchen break,” she said, and stood up. She was feeling dizzy. She tried to remember if she’d eaten lunch, but couldn’t. In the kitchen, she leaned against the counter and focused on her breaths. She put on a pot of tea and added some of the “Missing” milk into the mug when it was finished steeping (not the carton with her face on it, though). After a moment of hesitation, she rearranged the cartons so that the one with Taylor’s face was nearest the door. Taylor was near-sighted.

The kitchen was painted a color blue that would probably be described in a Southwestern catalog as “haint” (Helen had seen a lot of Lowe’s and paint supply ads come through in her day). She couldn’t figure out what was bothering her.

Helen replayed the conversation in her mind. Taylor had received junk mail for Rudy. Elena had received junk mail for Taylor. Helen herself received junk mail for Elena. That only left her. No one received junk mail for her. She laughed aloud, and then covered her mouth, glancing toward the main office. How ridiculous–being upset that her junk mail was actually delivered to the proper address? Feeling left out of the dead letter party?

We are in charge of lost people…

Had she ever received mail at home? She tried to picture her mailbox, but couldn’t. She frowned, and tried again. No images. Panicking now, her heart making her vision swim, Helen tried to remember anything at all about sending mail, receiving mail, her mailbox, or her house. She couldn’t. There was nothing there.

“I have temporary amnesia,” she said into the quickly numbing silence. And then, louder, “I have amnesia.”

“What?” Rudy yelled from the office.

Slowly, Helen walked to the middle of the office floor, an open space of about 4 square feet.

“I can’t remember what my mailbox looks like,” Helen said.

“Bullshit,” said Rudy.

“It’s probably black,” said Taylor.

Why hadn’t her coworkers been to her house? Had she ever invited them over?

“No–I can’t remember it at all. I know what mailboxes should look like, but I…I don’t know anything about mine. And I…” Helen was tearing up. Elena looked frightened.

“Lady, calm down,” Rudy said. Elena shot him a quick and furious look. “You’re going home tonight. You can look at your mailbox then.”

A collective glance at the clock told everyone that it was 4pm. In only an hour, Helen could find out what her mailbox looked like. She would leave the office, get in her…car, and….drive……

“What does my car look like?” Helen had never heard her voice sound like this before.

“Probably has wheels,” said Taylor.

We are in charge of the lost things of found people…

“Are you on something?” Rudy asked.

“Leave her alone!” Elena’s scream shocked the room into silence. Taylor started in his chair and fell sideways onto the floor. A letter he’d opened and laid on the edge of the table fluttered to the floor. It was a newspaper clipping from 9/11. A figure was circled. Someone had scrawled “I think this was grandpa” on it.

Elena sat with her knees folded up to her chest and her arms folded tightly between her body and legs. She looked terrified.

“Elena?” Helen said, alarmed, and started forward.

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember!” Elena’s eyes rolled wildly around the room.   

“What don’t you remember?” Helen asked.

“My mailbox,” Elena said. She started to rock in her chair.

“Well, you just moved, so that makes sense,” said Rudy.

“I didn’t move, Rudy,” she snapped.

“Okay, okay.” Rudy held up his hands in self defense. “Was just trying to make you feel better. But really, who cares–it’s not like mailboxes are the end-all-be-all of your life, right?”

“Do you own a mailbox, Rudy?” Taylor asked. He still hadn’t moved from the floor, giving Helen the impression of a turtle flipped on its back. Something close to genuine curiosity had crept into his voice, giving it a semblance of life.

“Nah,” Rudy said. “I used to have a little PO attachment to my RV, though. It got rammed off when I hit a deer. Had to redo my paint job. That was when I was in…” Rudy trailed off.

After a minute, Elena prompted: “In?”

Rudy was frowning.

“I don’t even know what color my RV is,” he said.

“Don’t you drive it home every day?” Taylor said.

“Away,” Helen corrected hastily. “He drives it away every day.” Rudy was touchy about asserting the fact that he did not have a home.

“Do you remember anything about what it looks like?” Elena asked.

Rudy’s frown deepened. Tears welled in his eyes. “No,” he said eventually.

“Taylor,” Helen said urgently. “What does your mailbox look like?”

“I don’t have a mailbox….” Taylor murmured vaguely.

Rudy stood up violently. He made a motion like he was going to hit Taylor, but then just clenched his fist and tucked it into his pocket.

“What color is your mailbox, Taylor?” Elena asked him harshly.

Did Helen own a dog? Had she driven here this morning? What was her favorite food?

“Rudy, what’s the best place you ever traveled to in your RV?” Helen asked.

Rudy’s entire back clenched. “I don’t remember traveling anywhere,” he said. Helen began to cry.

“None of us remembers anything,” Taylor said. The dam broke.

“Did you get into Bryn Mawr?” Rudy asked Elena.

“What’s your mom’s name?” Helen asked Taylor.

“Are you lactose intolerant? You never drink your milk,” Elena said to Helen.

“What kind of shark teeth are those?” Taylor asked Rudy.

Elena looked down at her sweatshirt, which said Bryn Mawr in big block letters. She wore her Bryn Mawr sweatshirt every day. She sank to the floor and began to scream, softly, a whisper scream whose decibels were felt and not heard.

Taylor pressed his forehead blankly to the wall and went still. Helen and Rudy looked at each other. They split up implicitly. Helen went to Taylor and slid her arms around him, pressed her forehead against his. Rudy walked over to Elena. He sat down next to her and leaned into her side.

“Why haven’t we been getting our mail, Rudy?” Helen said quietly.

“Two ways to not get mail,” Taylor said from the wall. It was loud in her ear. She fought against the instinct to jerk away.

“Dead,” Rudy said flatly.

“Or missing,” Helen finished, turning away from Taylor and staring back at him. They all looked around at each other, Taylor turning his face slightly from the wall, Elena gazing up at them from the floor.

Helen walked into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and stared into her own face. Then she threw the carton away. She threw them all away.

“Let’s not go crazy just because this was a weird day,” Rudy said, looking her in the eye as she reentered the office. “We can sort this out. Let’s call someone.”

“Who?” Elena asked.

“I’ll call my mom,” Rudy said. “I talked to her the other week. Totally normal.” He took a breath, pulled out a flip phone, and dialed on speaker. Everyone leaned in. The top button of Taylor’s vest had come undone.

“Hello?” came an elderly voice through the phone. Rudy made a choking noise. Eyes bulging, he gestured frantically at his coworkers.

“Hi,” Helen said abruptly. Rudy relaxed. “My name is Helen Gallino. I’m an old friend and coworker of Rudy’s.” Friend?

“Rudy?” The woman’s voice cracked. “Do you know where he is?”

Everyone turned to stare at Rudy.

“No,” Helen said. “I was hoping you would know.”

“He took off in that RV of his eight years ago,” the woman responded. Rudy hissed in a breath. His mother didn’t seem to hear. “I haven’t been able to reach him since,” she continued. “Cell line disconnected–all my letters are returned to sender.”

“Nobody knows where he is?” Taylor asked.

“No, honey, I’m sorry,” said Rudy’s mother. “Are you another friend of Rudy’s?”

“Mom?” Rudy asked.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Mom?”

“Ma’am?” said Helen.

“Yes, dear,” came the voice immediately.

“Did you hear that?” Helen asked.

“Hear what, dear?”

“Mom,” said Rudy.

“Are you still there? Hello?” said Rudy’s mom.

“Thank you,” Helen said, and disconnected.

“Did your parents kill you?” Taylor said mildly, looking at Elena. The girl started to shake. Rudy snarled at Taylor and pressed his hands firmly on either side of Elena’s shoulders. She reached up to grab his hands and held them pressed to her. They almost looked as if they were in slow dance position. It reminded Helen of a letter she’d once received for a girl in Catholic school, whose parents had wanted to remind her to “leave room for Jesus.”

“What in God’s name is going on?” Rudy asked. “I called my mother last week. Now suddenly I’m…missing?”

“No. No,” Helen said. “This doesn’t make sense. We go home every day! …Don’t we?”

Rudy was staring at his phone.

Helen couldn’t remember how many years she’d been working here. She couldn’t name a single person or place that actually existed.

An alarm sounded; 5pm. Like clockwork, they started moving. Helen liked to stack her bins–it made them easier to carry. She put Dreams on the bottom–it was empty today–followed by Life Updates, followed by Reckoning, followed by Consumerism, the heaviest. Rudy carried his two under each arm. Elena and Taylor both made two trips.

The incinerator room was half furnace and half mail room. It was shelved to the ceiling with return to senders, the red stamp looking from a distance like thousands of small eyes. Against the far wall an enormous oven stood sullenly. Nobody could remember ever having cleaned it. They dumped their mail bins one by one through the chute. Taylor punched the buttons. There was a gasping noise as gas was ejected into the space, and then everything burst into flame.

Above the furnace stood a large plaque engraved with the motto of the Dead Letter Office:

We are in charge of lost people, and of the lost things of found people. We hold lost memories and pieces of self. We are the essence of everything humanity has left behind.

Underneath the engravings, years ago, someone had scrawled a quote in sharpie.

“Why should I fear something that can only exist when I do not?”

It had always looked vaguely like Taylor’s handwriting to Helen.

Although there was a grate and a chute underneath the incinerator to catch the residue, most days some of it escaped. It fell now around their feet, settling into the air.

They stood in the ashes, and forgot.

Stars in the Soup by Emilia Prado (Issue 1, 2019)

Stars in the Soup

Before I could get my keys, the door to my apartment building was pushed open by someone heading out. I stepped back, and my foot slipped on the rain-slicked stoop. A hand shot out and grabbed the front of my sweater and pulled me back. I tried to blink away the rain from my eyes, but still found myself looking through a few drops on my lashes. Hunter had kept me from falling. He lived in the apartment below mine. Sometimes he played his guitar on the fire escape. I liked to open my window and watch the notes drift in on the breeze. Sometimes they were the colors of a golden sunset, sometimes they were a chilling shade of blue.

He gave me the usual lopsided grin. “Did you seriously go for a walk in the rain?”

I shrugged and wiped my eyes with the cuff of my soaked denim jacket. “It wasn’t raining when I left.”

Hunter tilted his head, confused with stars falling off him like the water drops that rolled off me. As they hit the stoop, they shattered into millions of pieces before dissolving into nothing. “The weather channel said it’s been raining since four in the morning.”

The rain was coming down in sheets, giving the world a silver haze. “Yeah, that sounds right. It started about an hour after I left.”

“Jesus!” I was still watching the glittering drops when he tugged me inside. “You’re going to get yourself sick like this—or killed—walking around alone at night.”

I let him take my jacket, and unzipped my sweater before he pulled that off too. “I can’t sleep. I keep having weird dreams. The walks help.”

“You walked for five hours just so you could fall asleep for few before work?” I watched him look over my face trying to find something that would tell him I was fine. People always did it to Mom. When she went to stay with the stars they needed someone else to look at. They looked at me. Hunter sighed, but it seemed like he found something familiar. “Where are your keys?” I held up my keys. He took the lead up the stairs.

We climbed to the fourth floor and I let Hunter take the keys to unlock my apartment. He told me to go change into something dry, but I stood by to watch him lay my jacket and sweater over the radiator. I was still in the same spot by the door when he turned around. He was nice and just told me to go change again. As I headed for my room I heard some garbled noise from behind me, probably Hunter, but all I could focus on were the sounds coming from my room.

I stepped into my room to find small hills of sand scattered about. But what surprised me was the fact that they were growing, fed by various threads of sand that fell from my ceiling. There was no sign that they were letting up soon. The nearest one was collecting on the foot of my bed. I moved closer, and reached a hand out to touch the stream coming from the chipped ceiling. The grains trickled over my palm, tickling the skin as they passed on their way to the pile growing on my sheets. It felt nice.

“Hey, you decent?” I didn’t flinch at the sound of Hunter knocking on the wall to get my attention. I’d heard the landlady say he was a gentleman, so I figured he was probably waiting out of sight to give me privacy. I hadn’t bothered to shut the door.

“Yeah.” I kept my hand in the sand.

I listened as he came into my room and made a noise like a scoff and a laugh. “I thought you were changing?”

I shrugged. I didn’t turn to face him. “I got distracted.”

He paused then, to look me over again. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling the sand.” It was better when I said the truth. Mom always said the truth was better.

“Okay.” He dragged the end of the word out. I finally looked away from the sand slipping through my fingers when he stood next to me. He pulled an old falsa blanket off my bed, the pile of sand sliding off onto the sheets.

He went to wrap it around my shoulders, but I shook my head. “There’s sand on that.”

Hunter nodded, and shook the blanket before looking to me for approval. I nodded, and let him wrap the blanket around me and gently nudge me to sit. “Stay put for a sec, I’ll find you some dry things.”

I did as he asked and stayed on the bed. But then I heard her voice. It was faint and muffled, coming from the window. I stood and pulled back the curtain. The world was velvet, pin-pricked with diamonds in the sky. I heard the voice again, louder this time.

“Come with me, please.” Mom’s honey voice trickled into my veins and filled me with warmth. I hadn’t even realized I was cold.

“Hey, what’s in these prescription bottles?” Hunter’s voice was hardly a hum, and it faded out into nothing by the end. Hunter was gone. My room was gone. Everything went goodbye for now.

I swung my leg through the window, and ducked my head as I stepped the rest of the way through. My feet sunk into the ground. Looked like I’d stepped into one of Mom’s paintings again. For miles, all I could see were blue-gray dunes with smudges of indigo shadows where the valleys dipped. It was like God had smeared some chalk over the sand with his thumb the same way I had seen my mom do many times when she worked. Her thumbs were always stained with the grays and blacks and blues of those shadows.

“Feel the sand between your toes.” Her voice seemed to come from everywhere, vibrating in the air with a gentle hum. I did as she said, and slipped off my maroon Vans and socks. I watched as the little rabbits on my socks paired up and began to dance a cakewalk. I smiled, and laid them carefully over my shoes. They waved as I stepped away, letting the cool sand tickle my feet. “You loved taking walks with me to the beach.”

“I liked how the sand felt.” I took a few more steps before I stopped halfway down the slope of a dune. “I used to help you look for sea glass to make jewelry for the shop.”

“That’s right, you were always the best at finding sea glass.” I looked all around, but I couldn’t find her. All I had was her voice. I wiggled my toes in the sand. “You liked to count how many of each color we found. Your favorite was green.”

“I want to lie down.” My head felt creamy like pudding.

“Go ahead, sweetie.” With her permission, I let myself fall back into the slope.

I held out my hands to catch me, but I kept falling. Instead of landing against the dune, I plunged into the sand. It was cold, like jumping into the ocean. I didn’t try to stop myself. I just let my body go, and plummeted deeper and deeper into the sand.

***

“Cassi!” Someone grabbed my waist and pulled me back.

The Lovely were gone. Everything wet and gray. I slammed my fists against the arm around my waist. “Where’s the painting? The Lovely stopped singing. I need to get back to the desert!”

Man. Won’t let me go. I needed to get back to the Lovely. Won’t let me go. “Cassi, you can’t go back, I know you want to but—”

I screamed. It was like that God-awful sound infants make when distressed. I screamed again. The Lovely would hear me. The Lovely would come.

“What the hell is going on out here?” Hag. Hag with the herb garden. I hate spaghetti. Hate the Hag. Hate spaghetti. Hate the voice.

“Call Weill Cornell medical center, tell them that a woman is experiencing psychosis and hasn’t been taking her medication—we’ll be there in half an hour.” The Lovely began to hum again. Don’t be afraid. The voice is nice. Don’t hate the voice. The voice is Hunter. Hunter is good. Hunter will take care of you. Hunter will take you back to the desert and the soup.

“I’m calling the police.” Hag. Hag with the herb garden. I hate spaghetti. Hate the Hag. Hate spaghetti.

“No, they’ll just take her straight to the nearest hospital. They won’t know what to do with her.” White walls and burning nostrils. Ticking. Everything goes tick tick tick. Cold and white. Burning nostrils. Mom won’t go there. Stars had to save her. The Lovely won’t go there. “Please, she needs to see a good psychiatrist, and she’s not going to get that anywhere in Flatbush.”

I started my infant wail again. No more burning nostrils. “No! Let me go! Where’s the soup?”

“Screw this, I’m calling the cops.” Hag. Hate spaghetti. Hate the Hag.

“Cassi, please you need to calm down. If they take you in I can’t help you.” Hunter. Hunter is nice. Hunter will help. Stars in the Soup. The Lovely. Stop the crying. “I forgot how fast the voices could take someone from zero to ninety.”

***

I was floating through a nebula of twinkling lights. They flocked around me as I passed, as though I were plummeting through some viscous sludge. But I was sliding as smoothly as a sinking stone. I drifted down through satin sheets that slowed my fall. It made the bottom less terrifying…less painful.

“The only thing that could pull you away from me were the stars.” She didn’t even sound sad, just amused.

“They sang to me.” I reached out a hand into a thick stream of stars. They felt just like a warm handful of sand. “The coats didn’t need to tell me anything—I knew the second I heard you singing in tune with the stars you went for tea.”

As if in answer, the world around me began to shiver with a thousand heavenly voices. They were the same voices I’d heard during my sleepless nights.

“’Twas Brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Everything slowed as they sang. The stars swam lazily through the midnight seas. I moved like the child of molasses and Mom’s veggie cheese soup.

***

“Do you know why you’re here, Miss Carole?” I didn’t like him. Coat seemed nice, he didn’t yell or grab me like the others. But he was scaring away the Lovely. I didn’t like him.

“Because the other brought me here.” I was scared, but I found that I couldn’t move my face.

Coat nodded, he liked my answer, but I didn’t like him. “Good, and why did they bring you here?”

“They couldn’t hear the Lovely, so they took me here, so I couldn’t hear them anymore.” Scared flat. Coat don’t like. “The Sunset. The Sunset notes were fire and wanted to take me back to the Lovely.”

“What are the Lovely, Miss Carole?” Odd. Don’t like. Who? The Lovely? “Who is the Sunset?”

“Stars in the soup. I like to swim with them while they sing and my mom knows where it is too.” Back to the soup. Back to the Lovely. “The Sunset.”

Nodded. Looks pleased. Don’t like. “You know, Miss Carole, I think we have a few friends you’d like to meet.”

“Don’t worry, Cassi.” Hunter. The Lovely brought him. I can see the sunset notes. “I’m not going to leave you. Not me. Not your Mom, or the Lovely. We’ll be right beside you.”

“Will you play for the Lovely?” I could hear Hunter laughing, and the Lovely sighed in content.

I could hear the garbled nothings of Coat next to me, but he was drowned out by the sunsets and the singing of the Lovely.

***

The voices did not cease their tune. They grew louder. Like the bells of Norte Dame.

“Sleep now, darling.” Even surrounded by the hundreds of celestial voices, the sound of my mother was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

The stars began to chant my name while Mom continued to tell me it was time for bed. It would be a crime to go against the wishes of the Lovely. My eyes drifted shut to the tune of my name. Cassi. Cassi. Cassi.

“Cassie!” Velvet night gone. Tears on my face. No. Not mine. The Lovely. Tears of the Lovely. Someone took me away from them. “Cassie, stop! You’re going to fall over the edge!”

Climbing On by Jessica Kahn (Issue 1, 2019)

Climbing On

by Jessica Kahn

2019, Issue 1

She tumbles upwards, unknowingly drawn to the sun. It’s unsurprising that she doesn’t register her cells stretching and compressing to push her closer to the light. She doesn’t register anything. She climbs her entire home, getting imperceptibly closer to the sun each day. One day, she will reach the top of the roof, but it will not matter to her. She’ll grow stronger, and stretch higher. Her goals, although entirely centered around her wellbeing are not selfish in the traditional sense. Working only for herself, she strives to survive, but not at the expense of others. She isn’t certain that there are others to survive at the expense of, but if there were, she would not strive to compete with them. That would be distinctly out of character. No, she has always craved stability through balance. She competes only with herself. And so she tumbles upwards, day after day, lusting after the sun.

She shines brightly in the glistening light, using only the sense of it to continue her winding journey to the source. Since she began, she’s grown strong and resilient. Climbing has made her large, but stable. She twists and turns, familiarizing herself with every space in her home, becoming ever more sure of her objective. Her beauty, although abundant, is not her primary concern. She does not have a primary concern, but if she did, that would most certainly not be it. She does not put effort into being beautiful, although there are those that do. She does not think any less of them because of it. She does not think of them. They do not think of her, either. She has never thought of anyone else, and nobody has thought of her in quite a long time. She directs all of her effort into her own growth, her own goals.

She never speaks. She has never tried to, and never will. If she did, which is exceedingly unlikely, there would be no way to know. Nobody checks in on her, and she does not miss them. She fares well on her own. She rolls down hallways and inches up stairs, gracefully moving closer to the sun. She has tried to use windows as a shortcut, but lacked the strength to open them. Because she could not use the windows to move closer to the sun, she used them to pretend. Pressing herself to the glass, she feels light bathing her for hours at a time. She uses a great deal of energy bumbling around the south side of her home, reaching for windows to hold. Because of their shape, windows are difficult to cling to so she has a specific method she must use. To approach the windows, she grasps onto the exposed brick close to the window frames, working her way up and around, and eventually over the windows themselves. Then, with unimaginable elegance, she allows herself to fall in front of the window, eventually landing on the windowsill. It’s an intense process, and it consumes a great deal of time and energy, but it’s well worth the effort. Draping herself in front of a window, she is able to bathe in sunshine, and able to be satisfied. Unfortunately, she can only rest until the compulsion to carry on with her growth overcomes her once again. After a certain amount of time in front of any one window, she eventually falls out of the light and onto the floor. Lying in the shadow of her past achievement, she once again sets out to find a place of limitless sun, where she can glide along, and never encounter a shadow.

Her home, although old, protects her from violent storms, so she has never left. She is not yet strong enough. Her home is tall, and it once sheltered many like her, as well as many that were not like her. These creatures interacted frequently, and all of their interactions looked the same. They considered themselves a community, but really they all just shared her home. The creatures each inhabited different parts of her home, spending most of their days in only a few rooms that they each considered their own. She was the same way once, because she was not yet large. There was a time when she would not have left the room she spent her time in, because it did not make sense for her to do so. As she became larger, though, she began spending time in her room and the hallway, then her room and the hallway and the staircase, then her room and the hallway and the staircase and the other creatures rooms. She never visited the elevators, as they were too dark to be comfortable. The old creatures used to bask in the light, but only for short periods of time. They made a hobby of it. Unlike them, she uses the sun to propel herself. She’s never once questioned the importance of sunbeams bursting through windows, nor closed the shades in an effort to limit the light. She treats the sun as her sole reason to exist, and spends each moment trying to move closer.

She doesn’t think about the old creatures and they don’t think about her. Although one of them brought her to her home when she was young, and nurtured her for years, she does not have the capacity to feel grateful. Her Caretaker is not offended by her lack of gratitude, and never was. There was an understanding between her and Caretaker. Her sole responsibilities are and have always been to grow and seek light. She has never failed to do what was expected of her, and although nobody expects anything of her anymore, she continues. She’s outgrown the space that Caretaker gave to her, and it wasn’t ideal to begin with. She does not resent Caretaker for raising her so far from the sunlight she seeks. They had an understanding. Caretaker’s role was to facilitate her journey and prevent her death. Placing her in direct sunlight was never one of Caretaker’s responsibilities.

Caretaker gave her the gift of life, and when she was complimented, her admirers spoke to Caretaker. She did not mind, though, and Caretaker appreciated the praise. Almost every creature in her home was a caretaker of some kind or another, and sometimes they would bring together the objects of their attention to interact. These interactions were usually short and had little meaning, but the caretakers thought them extremely important. Now, the creatures, and those like her, had all left. She was the only remaining inhabitant of her home, which is what makes it hers. None of the old creatures claim ownership of her home or any of the rooms inside anymore, and if they did she would not care. It is likely, though, that Caretaker would limit how far out of her room she could search for sunshine, but she would not mind that much either.

Reaching out to the light, she lifts her thin fingers skyward. She moves with a languid motion, gracefully and accidentally splaying her arms open, haphazardly leaning into the sun. Her fingers blend seamlessly into her arms, which blend equally as well into the rest of her. Her fluidity of motion depends heavily on the blurred lines between her appendages; she does not appear to have hands, or a torso to speak of, perhaps because of her constant upwards stretch. Every part of her branches out and up in a beautiful, steady extension of the self. Her movements have no sense of urgency about them, as she does not care when she reaches the light, only that she gets closer to the source. She does not understand that she will never reach the sun itself, but if she did she would not care. She would only want to move towards it consistently.

She breathes deeply, taking in the air around her and sending it out, slightly changed. The old creatures used to breathe too. Caretaker sometimes worried that she did not breathe as deeply as she was supposed to, but these fears were baseless. When she was young, an expert reviewed her to put Caretaker’s mind at ease. Caretaker continued to worry, but was less open about it, sometimes performing her own examinations, just to be certain. In fairness, Caretaker was right to check on her breathing; after all, anything that does not breathe will cease to live. Caretaker worked tirelessly to ensure that she would breathe easily and well, taking in a great deal of air, frequently, and sending it out, slightly changed. Caretaker wanted what would be best for her, but was selfish. Her survival was what would be best for Caretaker, back when Caretaker was in a position to survive. But even now that Caretaker has gone, she lives on.

Her thick roots burst through the tile on the ground floor of the building where she once sat as a potted plant, her long viney arms grab upwards, as if to pull the lab where she was designed down to the ground. Everyone who used to live or work anywhere nearby has gone, and yet she remains. Leaves draping elegantly over bricks, as if to hide them, as if to say “no, this is gone, don’t look at it”. She asks that everyone and everything look at her instead — for we’ve all spent so long turning her away.

Wrong Way by Miles Stephenson (Issue 1, 2019)

FOREWORD

In 1910, Congress considered a plan that would bring hippopotamus ranching to the United States. Legislators believed this plan would fix two major issues: a national meat shortage and an invasive water hyacinth problem. They never went through with the plan, but if they had brought this gargantuan African mammal to the Louisiana bayou, we might have had the stories of “hippoboys” in the American South. Here’s one of their stories.

Lee woke to the rumble of the tracks under him like he had for a decade. He felt around in the dark for his matches. He struck one. It showed the dim corner of his boxcar, his shoeless feet, and tattered denim pants. All his belongings were beside him in a leather trunk. Outside, he heard the train whistle and the brakes engage. He heard the booming voices of the bulls patrolling the railroad and the howling of their hounds in the morning dust.

Lee’s hand was trembling and he thought of a jug of wine. A drink was all he needed to calm his nerves, he told himself. This was what living day to day did to a man. He swigged his flask. Then he crept to the boxcar door and looked through the crack into the light. A bull passed in his pressed uniform with a baton in his hand. When he reached the caboose, he dragged back the door suddenly, as if he was trying to catch a man with his knickers down. He searched through the straw and in the nooks between freight, any place where an American hobo might be sleeping. A pair of hounds sniffed by Lee’s boxcar on leashes. Bulls smoked and talked about a weekend on the riverboat. When they left for the caboose, Lee saw his chance. He slid the door back and ran with his trunk under his arm. “Trespasser!” One of the bulls yelled in pursuit. They shook their batons. One fired a gun and ripped up a plume of dirt under Lee’s feet. But Lee ran. He slid under a freight car and crawled out the other side. He hopped over tracks and ran into a warehouse and escaped out the back through a drain pipe. “Wherever this is, it’s hot as hell here,” Lee thought to himself, waving mosquitoes as he hid in a bush by the river.

“Which way he go?” The bull huffed, planting his hands on his knees. The bullfrogs were croaking on the peat moss.

“I saw him hit the storehouse, let’s check there.” They lumbered off.

When his blood ran cool again, Lee crawled out and followed the river. Soon, he came to a one-horse town curtained by weeping willows. A snake oil salesman hawked his tonics to the passing wagons but didn’t offer one to Lee. From only a glance he decided Lee didn’t have the money. Lee pushed through saloon doors and settled at the bar, his forehead glistening with sweat. “Just a whisky,” said Lee. The barkeep poured. “And some work if you got it.” 

“You one of them railway boys?”

“An American Hobo,” Lee raised his glass to that with a smile. “Ever since the South lost, I’ve been on the rails.”

“Looking for that Big Rock Candy Mountain?”

“My whole life.”

The barkeep laughed. That’s the place where the coppers have wooden legs and the chicken lay soft boiled eggs. That’s the hobo’s paradise.

“Well, Rancher Grooms been having problems with the lake cows. No man here will take the damn job ‘cuz it’s too dangerous. If you got nothing else…”

“Lake cows. Hmm…” Lee spent the afternoon refilling his glass until he was loose enough to fall off the stool and coil up like a hose. When he got numb from drinking he thought of his father- the only person he had truly ever cared about. His father was the last cowboy.

Imagine that? A whole way of life going belly up in one generation. When Lee was young, his father had told him about the death of the cowboy. He was sitting among his steer in the smell of straw and dust when the final gold sun set on the Wild West. Big companies fenced their cows up in feedlots now and packed the cities with workers. Running steer across the plains just wasn’t profitable; it was time to move on. Lee’s dad told the rattlesnakes and the coyote. He told the prospectors sifting through sand in the canyon. He told the steer’s skull, its hollow eye sockets looking back in disbelief, and then he told the hawks circling above. No one seemed to care. How strange, Lee’s father thought. No one cared about the end of the cowboy.

When Lee came to his senses, he was out back in a mud pile. The barkeep was standing over him waving his arms around.

“What is it?” Lee squinted.

“You don’t have any money to pay for those drinks, bum!”

“Bum? That’s a city word. Where you from?”

“Charleston.”

“You can take my leather trunk. That’s all I’ve ever had.”

The barkeep cursed him some and went inside for the trunk.

“You alright, Mister?”

Lee turned. A woman with a cowboy hat stood in the alley. She had hair of polished cinnabar and her hands rested on her hips.

“I’m doing better now that you’re here.”

“You’re a drunken mess,” the red-haired woman said, leaning down. She helped Lee out of the mud and to his feet.

“You’re not from Louisiana, are you?”

“Just passing through.”

“A drifter?”

“An American Hobo.”

She smiled. “I’m Evelyn Grooms.”

“Lee, but they call me Wrong Way.”

“Why’s that?”

“The rails take me here and there or never really anywhere. Can’t say I’m going the right way.”

“What about a job? Would that get you going the right way?”

“You got one?” Lee shook off his drunkenness. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

“Take a walk with me.” Evelyn took Lee’s arm and helped him along the trail. They passed a general goods store with peach cobblers in the window and a butcher who was skinning the leathery tail of an alligator. She led him down to the bayou and across a footbridge that stunk of swamp cabbage. Finally, they approached a farmhouse with a stable and a well.

“This is my daddy’s ranch, Lee. We raise lake cows.”

Lee stood there drunk. Mosquitos swarmed on his arms.

“It’s tough work, but so is what you’re doing right now, stumbling about and fightin.”

“How much you pay?”

“Not much. But we’ll straighten you out, give you a cot in the bunkhouse, and keep your belly full. My bread pudding and crawfish gumbo are known beyond the Mason-Dixon.”

“I’ve never seen a lake cow,” said Lee.

“Well come on in.” Evelyn led him into the stables. “Another good thing about them is that you can ranch them on land that you can’t ranch steer on. They don’t mind the swamp. Hell, they live for it.”

She opened a stall door. A hippopotamus calf blinked his beady eyes in the light coming through the loft. Bristles sprouted from his snout and rotund rear, and when he yawned his jaws open to feed from Evelyn’s hand, Lee saw the beginnings of his mighty tusks. This was a wild, ancient thing from Africa, not fit for the lowlands of Louisiana. But when Lee looked at it, he saw a scene. He saw himself up on a handsome Appaloosa. He was herding the lumbering animals through the lily pads like some John Wayne of The Nile, and he was laughing with wrinkled, sober eyes. He saw a new day so golden that not even the death of the cowboy nor all the casualties of the Civil War could darken it. He saw a sunrise.

“I’ll take it,” Lee shook Evelyn’s hand.

“Headed in the right way,” she smiled. “You should know, however, these aren’t cattle. One thing those Congressman didn’t think about was how aggressive these fellas can be. Last summer a bull hippo nearly took the arm off Beau the fisherma-”

“Evelyn Grooms, I’ll take it.”

“Alright, hippoboy. We’ll saddle up at first light.”

She showed Lee his bed with soft sheets that smelled like soap and gave him a pair of working pants and boots for the bayou. Lee slept like a stone without drinking that night. It was his first smooth sleep in 1912. Every night this year he had nodded off with an anxious suspicion of waking to a bull beating his skull in with a baton. He was a fugitive who had broken no laws, a man on the lam from his own soberness. Now he snored in a bunkhouse with a fireplace and a rack to hang his hat and enough grits and beans to last the winter.

Lee woke with hot blood at sunrise. He jumped up and ran to the door. He listened for a train whistle or a bull talking about the sinking of the Titanic. Then he realized where he was. He sniffed a vase of flowers. He felt the soft rug on his toes. He walked out into the yard where hens made their rounds. Evelyn was in her riding clothes.

“You look well-rested,” she said.

“I feel like I’ve just been born,” Lee rubbed his eyes. “Got a drink?”

“Nope. Today we’re just eatin’.”

Lee washed himself in a tub and broke his fast with eggs and lake cow bacon. The only thing he drank that day was lemonade, and when the shakes took him, he bit down on a stick and acted out the motions. Evelyn and Lee spent the morning corralling hippos on an islet as they grazed the purple flowers of water hyacinth. When a bull hippo thrashed with a gator upstream, they lassoed him and led him back to the others. Twice Lee was thrown from his horse when a bull charged, its tusks and guttural bellow inches from the saddle. But Evelyn and Lee looked out for each other. When one was being charged, the other lassoed and reared the hippo back. It was nice to have someone watching Lee’s back. It was a feeling he hadn’t had since he was a boy.

When Lee was a little scampering thing, his father told him that a man could move West and make a new name for himself. There was always some sort of rush to it: gold rush, Oklahoma land rush, fur rush. This was before automobiles and audits from the IRS, and he swore to Lee that all you needed was a log cabin by a stream and a dog at your side and the plains of America. Miners panned for gold and trappers skinned for furs and the Americans learned from Iberian vaqueros about how to create their own destiny on horseback. Then the skyscrapers blocked out the stars and asked the cowboys to pay taxes and the Wild West wasn’t so wild anymore. The frontier died and the cowboy was buried and Lee’s father took to the bottle and traveled the country by rail. Lee was born in a boxcar that was supposed to be heading east but was heading north. He was born the wrong way.

On Sunday, Evelyn and Lee’s horses broke the water in the bayou. A group of extra-territorial bulls had ran off and flipped a pastor’s canoe before church. The town had wanted them shot, but Lee lassoed them one by one and locked them up in their stalls instead. There was six other males, a dozen cows, and a healthy litter of calves all grazing in the marshes. The elder of the herd was Taft, a long toothed bull named after the President with white spots around his eyes. Lee rode among them from atop his horse feeling taller than a skyscraper. The water was dappled with the yellow-green of spatterdock pads and duckweed, and silent cypress knees stood like sentinels near the banks. The swamp was a peace Lee hadn’t known for ages. He lit a cob pipe and dreamt of a new Wild South.

He heard Evelyn scream. Lee wheeled his horse around and splashed over an islet. Evelyn was before the jaws of old Taft, her horse broken in two and floating in the water. Lee dug his stirrups in and before the hippo had thrashed Evelyn, Lee whipped Taft in the face. The old bull turned and charged him but Lee fired his revolver into the air and the animal fled. It erupted onto the bank, hurdled its weight up to the farmhouse, and took the road to town. “Lee!” Evelyn waded among the lilies. “He could kill someone in town! We have to stop him.” She saddled up behind Lee on his horse and they galloped for the water’s edge. Night had descended on the town when the two-person horse cantered up main street, and only the storefront lamps stirred with light. Despite the wake of shattered barrels and posts and wagon wheels where Taft had charged through, there was a dead silence. They rode into the town square with their ears to the sky. A boom shook the earth like the clap of thunder.

“There it is, Earl. Blow it to Heaven!” A voice called down a side street. Lee lashed the reins and when his horse turned the corner, he saw what was left of the general goods store. It looked like a train had barreled through the storefront, the door and windows flattened to splinters among the floorboards. Taft was inside, thrashing through the foodstuffs. Another boom cracked the sky, so loud that Lee’s horse spooked and threw him and Evelyn into the dirt. It was the store clerk lighting sticks of dynamite and tossing them at the animal. “Hold up!” Lee shouted. The man threw another red stick. It landed by peach cobblers and exploded bits of debris out into the street. “You’re damn near destroying the whole town!”

“No but those lake cows are!” The store clerk said. His friend lit another stick.

“I’ll handle it!” Lee grabbed the dynamite and stomped the flame off the wick. Then he took his six shooter from his belt and ran inside with Evelyn.

This is not how it’s supposed to happen, Lee thought. This is the new frontier of the hippoboy in the South. There’ll be ranching and feasting and at night men will even have dreams of tomorrow. There will be expeditions like Lewis and Clark, and gunslingers in horse chases of charming lawlessness. There’s gonna’ be a town mayor with a mustache and no skyscrapers for a century. In their dreams, they’ll see a sunrise on a new America. But when Lee’s boot crunched on broken glass, he looked at the ruin of the store and the beast within and knew it was all a lie.

Evelyn crept down the bread aisle and took aim at Taft’s eyes. “Lee, I got a clear shot on his spots!”

“You sure we have to kill him?”

“What?” Evelyn knitted her brow with confusion. “The bull’s gone mad.”

“But we were building something here, weren’t we?”

“Yes, Lee. We were.”

Lee’s handle was trembling. He was thirsty like he had been in the boxcar for ten years.

“I’m taking the shot!”

Evelyn fired and Taft reared with a bone-rattling roar. His tusks knocked over the liquor shelf and a bottle rolled down the aisle to Lee’s foot. He picked it up. Evelyn fired again, the hippo bellowing. Lee took the cork out. She fired a third time and Taft had fire in his eyes. Lee brought the bottle to his lips and closed his eyes. Taft charged. Evelyn pulled back the hammer and fired the last hippoboy’s shot in all of Louisiana.

In the morning, Lee stumbled to the tracks. He had a jug of wine in his hands when the train clacked by. A bull waved his baton and shouted for Lee to halt. But Lee ran. He caught up to a boxcar and pulled the door open and hoisted himself up inside. He crouched there watching the tracks blur under him and feeling the engine of the train chug to the golden West. When Evelyn had said her goodbye, she gave him her cowboy hat and wished that he found the right way. When the town had all the hippos shot by sunrise, Lee was out in the swamp with a bottle, drinking until he couldn’t feel his feet. Now in his boxcar again, barrelling to a new place, he wondered if the American hobo would be buried next. He wondered if all great dreams have to end, and just like the death of the cowboy, he wondered if anyone would care.

We’re Back!

Thought we were dead?

Think again.

Although updates to the blog are still underway, feel free to enjoy the latest edition of Fortnight Literary Magazine, which includes the prose category winners of our 2018 Literary Contest!

Stay tuned…

 

Volume 8 Staff Issue

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Volume 8 Issue 3