JULY 7, 2020| ISSUE no 263
Literary Magazine
crack the spine
Poetry Cameron Morse Mercruy Marvin Sunderland
Short Fiction Lisa Leibow Joanna Kadish
ISSN 2474-9095
Creative Non-Fiction Kaia Gallagher
Cover Art Jean Wolff
Flash Fiction B.B. Garin Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman
Micro Fiction Nicole Marie Zamudio-Roman
Book Review Konstantin Rega
Girls are Flyers
short fiction by Lisa Leibow
It was so cold, Chapman Pond had frozen over. I headed there with shovels and skates to meet other kids from the neighborhood. We four girls, including Meg Flori, who lived across town, laced up our skates while four boys, the Daves (O’Malley, La Marche, and Brunetti) and Freddie Jacobs, cleared snow from the ice. “Let’s play boys are Bruins versus girls are Maple Leafs.” Freddie stretched his arms east and west like a scarecrow. “Set up goals there.” I followed hockey on television and stats in the paper with Dad.“No way,” I said. I didn’t want the girls to be Maple Leafs because the Maple Leafs stunk; they hadn’t won a championship since before I was born. Why did the other girls just sit there in silence? Didn’t they realize the insult? “Flyers, maybe. Or Islanders. Not Maple Leafs.” “Fine. Girls are Flyers,” said one of the Daves. “I call Bobby Orr.” “Won’t help us much,” said another Dave. “He’s on the injured list.” “Pretend I’m last year’s Orr, stupid.” I said,“Fine with me. If he’s Orr, I’m Bobby Clarke.” I looked at Meg and the other girls. “Who do you want to be?” “Dorothy Hamill,” said Meg. “Me too,” said Patty. “If you two are Dorothys, I’ll be Peggy Fleming,” said Kathleen. I slapped my own forehead with mittened hand.“They’re not hockey players.” Meg said,“We know. We don’t care. We just want to twirl on the ice.” Ugh. We girls chatted as we practiced Hamill camels. Meg said,“Your dad bought a lot of Girl Scout cookies. I mean a lot.” I filed this information away. Tagalongs, yum. “My mom says we’re close to enough money for spring campout.” “Campout?” I wanted to sleep outside. “Ruthie, are you a Girl Scout?” Meg asked. “No.” Girl Scouts might be just the thing I needed—instant friends. “You should join Girl Scouts,” Meg said. My heartbeat accelerated. “Yeah, then you can go to the mother-daughter campout with us!” Kathleen said. I turtled my face into my scarf, wondering about the fat chance these kids hadn’t heard that Mom left Dad and me. I leaned into the embarrassment. I asked, “Can I go without my mother?” “What? Why?” asked Patty. “Um…she’s gone for a while.” “On a trip? Our mom went to Italy once to see her cousins in the old country. She sent me a postcard with a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” said Patty. “How long is your mom traveling for?” asked Kathy. “Not really sure.” “Didn’t she tell you?” asked Meg. “Have you gotten a postcard?” asked Patty. I reluctantly admitted,“Don’t think Mom will return by spring. She doesn’t live with us anymore.” “That’s weird. Why not?” “I dunno. I guess your mom loves you more than mine loves me.” I laughed but could feel pressure building behind my eyes. “Come on. You don’t mean that,” said Meg. I stared at my skate, scraping the ice with the blade’s edge. “From what Dad says, I’m pretty sure she’s gone for good.” I tried to sound casual, but admitting this made my feet itch to run. My toes felt freezing. As I pushed off to skate a lap or two, I wiggled them inside my skates. The blade caught on a divot in the ice. At the instant I floundered out of control, Dave Brunetti rounded the corner. I crashed into him, sending him flying. He belly-flopped on the ice.“What the heck!” he grunted. “Sorry.” I offered a hand. He slapped it away.“Don’t be such a spaz!” “It was. An accident.” The lump in my throat made my words halt. “Why are you crying? I’m the one that fell.” My lip quivered as Dave Brunetti scrambled to his feet. He said, “Gonna cry to your mommy now?” The others skated in close, forming a circle around us. Meg said,“Dave,” as if his name were a warning. “What?” He smirked. “Look at the little baby. She’s gonna cry.” He poked my shoulder. “Go cry to your mom.” The two other Daveshigh-fived and one repeated, “Cry to Mommy,” with a laugh. Patty and Kathleen kept their mouths shut and took a few steps back. Meg stepped toward Dave Brunetti. “Shut up, you jerk.” Anger spun from my gut down my legs, winding up. “Mind your own beeswax,” Dave Brunetti said to Meg, reaching to grab his hockey stick at the precise moment my tension exploded as a sharp kick, blade gouging his hand. He stared at his hand without saying a word. The flesh erupted like white lava before the blood started. “Jesus! Get out of here, you freak.” I removed my skates and ran from the pond. Somewhere between the sidewalk and the flagstone path, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around to find Meg. I said,“Please, tell him I’m sorry.” “Are you kidding? That jerk had it coming.” “What?” “Really. He’s always ganging up on someone. Plus, next time you see him, he’ll probably be bragging how his scar makes him look like Jesus.” “Why on earth would he brag about that?” I covered my eyes, trying to unsee a half-naked Dave Brunetti on a cross. I took a deep breath. “At least I lucked out with you coming to my neighborhood. How come you’re here, anyway?” As we sat on myfront steps, Meg explained, “I only spend weekends with my father. Ispend school days at Mom’shouse on the other side of town. I’m used to it. My parents have been divorced for ages.” “Where does your mother live?” “In a lakefront cottage, right across the shore from Calliope Park. If I look out my bedroom window, I can see Halley’s Comet.” “I went there last summer, but couldn’t ride Halley’s Comet. Too short,” I said. “What’s your favorite attraction?” “The Maze of Mirrors in the Fun House. I’ve mastered it.” A feat that made her fascinating. I asked,“What’s the secret?” Meg looked stunning. She wore Vaseline on her lips that made them look shiny. Her long, braided hair hung down her back like a plush velvet rope. As she shared the tricks of the maze, she used her hands to emphasize her words. Her smile was wide and infectious; occasionally, she swatted myknee and said, “You know what I mean?” She explained, “The key to making it through the maze is looking at the floor while keeping your right hand on the wall at all times.” I said, “It sounds easier than expected. Why aren’t youat your mother’s house today? Today was supposed to be a school day until it snowed.” “Yup, but it’s Monday.” “Monday’s a school day.” “I sleep at Dad’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” she said. “If you’re still there on Monday morning, technically you live with your dad part of the school week, don’t you?” Meg laughed and said,“Jeesoman,” a sure sign she liked me. Connecting with Meg in the cold air froze the dread of Dave the bully—at least for a while.
Suspended Motion
That morning, she did not walk the dog. She didn't make coffee or brush her teeth. She didn't get dressed and she didn't jog the two miles to the studio for a warm-up. She lay in bed and stared at the blank ceiling. It looked the way the world sounded now. She considered never looking at anything else ever again. White silence. But she had trained her body to motion. It could not lie still. It brought her to her feet, bare calloused toes on cool wood floors. She saw the light under the bathroom door, knew her boyfriend was in the shower, though she could not hear the water. Downstairs, a mutt sat by the back door, tail thumping in soundless anxiety. She imagined he was crying. She slid back the screen, missing even the soft whir of its wheels. The dewy spring air kissed her knees, but she did not sink into a luxurious plié. She turned back to the neat, stainless steel kitchen. Her stomach twisted, demanding breakfast. Her body’s final betrayal. It should've known the days of rehearsal and performance were over. That precisely portioned fats and proteins were no longer necessities. Her appetite ought to be as blighted as her auditory nerve. She opened a cupboard, stared at the crooked stack of cereal bowls. The first one she dropped. The rest she flicked to the center of the floor in rapid succession. Her pulse brightened with each silent explosion. Upstairs, her boyfriend, his tie half knotted, heard. She did not know he was deciding to leave her. He had been prepared for the slow bitterness that would come with age, had spoken to others about how to direct her maturing career. But he had no plan for the sudden anger frothing below. She did not hear the front door close. Porcelain shards glittered on the floor. She exhaled and got the broom. The dog had his nose pressed to the screen and she did not want him to cut his tender paws. She was unused to unfilled days. Her muscles writhed beneath her skin and drove her from the house. She lived near the Atlantic, though she rarely visited its beaten sands. She went today because children were in classrooms, and grown-ups were in cubicles, and the beach stretched wide with only a single windblown dog walker in the squint-eyed distance. The waves towered and fell. She could not help seeing the rhythm, counting in the silence of her mind. One-two-three, step-ball-change, as if she were a child in tight black tap shoes, again learning the rules. But the ocean was not a mirror-walled classroom, filled with sweat and little girl laughter. The ocean could swallow her with its rhythm. And what would the difference be then? Everyone was deaf underwater. She'd forgotten the abrasive taste of salt. The chill water did not bother limbs used to ice baths, but the salt startled her. She closed her eyes against its sting. For a moment, her body revolved in a weightless tour jeté. A perfect suspended step. Then something closed on her arm, pulling her and upsetting the next turn. Water rushed from her broken ears. The pressure dissolved and the glare of fresh light cut her eyes. She blinked away salt and sun, saw a man’s head above the seal like skin of a wet-suit. His mouth moved in a loud way. He held her arms over the unforgiving buoyancy of a surfboard. She shook her head when she saw his lips close. She did not know how to explain she had only been dancing. When she tried to point to her ears, he tightened his grip with one arm and towed them toward the shore with the other. Soon, her feet brushed sand. They had not been that far out at all. She wondered where the surfer had come from, she had been quite certain she was alone. When the water circled their hips, he let go. He asked her something else, smiling in a shaky way. Now she tapped her ear and shook her head. She drew a finger over her throat for good measure. She thought he laughed at that. His fingers moved in a halting pattern. But she shook her head again. She had refused classes in that language. The water was at their knees now. The board tried to glide ahead on a billow of surf, but he restrained it with a light hand. She turned as the water rushed back. The sun dipped behind a cloud and the water glistened more gray than blue now. At her side, the man shifted his weight against another wave tugging at both their legs, trying to force them to a lower center of gravity. He stood rigid, watching her. She didn't try to smile, the muscles in her face were out of practice, but she bent her knees and drew an imaginary line in the water to say she wouldn't go further. She wasn’t ready to leave the tension of the tide just yet. He seemed to understand because he tilted the board upright and shaded his eyes, gazing out to the horizon. She closed her eyes. She had always preferred to learn steps without looking in a mirror. To feel them before she saw them. She felt the beat and the weary story of the ocean now. It felt like music.
flash fiction by B. B. Garin
poetry by Cameron Morse
After each bark below the rain dark branches, a small ghost of dog breath dissolves on the last foggy morning of November. Easier for me to crane my neck than the quadruped at right angles with the earth. Easier for me, being vertical, to crane my neck and scan the sprawling empty limbs, patchy with clumps of brown leaves nodding. I’m trying to decide what syllables are audible in the sound that translates so differently between languages while squirrels slip like droplets over soaked boughs. A little growl rolls between the thwacks of bark, bark, bark: I hear the r in roar tinged with the double u in woof, wolf. I lose sight of the surreptitious squirrel. Rainwater settling over fallen leaves crackles like static in the reception, the circuitry of one tin can to another. What the bark most sounds like is Woah now, hang on, hold it. Now the small ghosts are coming out of my mouth.
Dog Barking at a Squirrel
The tabby licked a red stain off a cool cheek.
micro fiction by Nicole Marie Zamudio-Roman
Eternal Rest on the Kitchen Floor
Grandpa
short fiction by Joanna Kadish
Despite Micah’s sadness at his grandfather Heinrich’s death and having to sit through his funeral—a small consolation that he got the day off from school—his spirits rose at the abundance of rose bushes surrounded by rolling lawn in the cemetery and bordered by forest. To reach this idyllic spot, they had to drive several miles south of Brooklyn somewhere near Long Island Sound in a quiet residential old fashioned neighborhood filled with charming little cottages. It seemed a restful place. Micah pictured his grandfather the last time he saw him alive: a tall, gaunt man hunched over a deck of cards in the dim light of his kitchen in a wife-beater tee shirt and frayed trousers. On the battered kitchen table, an ashtray filled to overflowing with a pyramid of ashes, and resting on top, always a smoldering inferno of cigarette butts, his newspapers strewn all over the place. A woman came in every day to cook and clean, but she couldn’t keep up with his grandfather’s messes. Back when Micah’s grandmother was alive, the newspapers were always neatly stacked. They lived in a two-story brick walkup in Canarsie, a working class neighborhood on Brooklyn’s south shore. Both his grandparents smoked. Their place stank of cigarettes; the odor clung to the walls, drapery, and furniture as if the very molecules had fused together. His grandparents promised not to smoke in the presence of the children, but it hardly mattered if they smoked or not; the smell was the same. It was like the windows hadn’t been opened for weeks, if not years. And for double good measure, a double helix of curtain and blinds had been drawn against the lurid noonday sun.Micah’s grandfather bought the building after WWII on the GI bill, and worked in the Brooklyn municipal department in downtown Brooklyn. Micah’s father Stefan grow up in that house and went to high school in Canarsie and then to Brooklyn College in neighboring Flatbush, never having left that house until after he graduated college. “No one to talk to,” he heard Henrik say. “The days stretch out, no one calls and no one comes by. Besides your visits, we have nothing else to look forward to.” With a weary arm Henrik pushed aside his newspaper, tiredness leaking from his every pore. He was trembling slightly and looked frail, his limbs thin, twig-like, his narrow bony shoulders bent with the weight of years. He wore a bemused look. In a shadowy corner behind him sat an old black and white television set he bought in the early 1950s the day Lois and Henrik were married by the justice of the peace. It still worked, but barely. One time Micah asked his father about it and he said Micah’s grandfather never replaced anything until it broke beyond repair. One time his mother asked questions of his grandfather about the war, saying she wanted to understand it better. His grandfather paused in the middle of his game of solitaire, his face reddening. He started choking, it didn’t matter what it was he wanted to say, he couldn’t get it out. His choking got so bad, his face turned purple, he looked like he was being strangled. His father calmed his grandfather down and turned to his mother, and asked what possessed her to bring the subject up. Couldn’t she leave well enough alone?Later in the car, his father told Micah and Seth, his brother, that Micah’s great-grandfather had been beaten to death in a labor camp by German soldiers when his grandfather was about ten, Micah’s age. Micah was tall and slender like his grandfather and father, with the same sweet cherubic face and their moss-green eyes. His great-grandmother had a nervous breakdown and went to hospital, and his grandfather went to a foster home. He was ill-treated there, used as slave labor. Micah’s great-grandmother got him out as soon as she was released, about eight months later, and immediately started immigration proceedings. The Nazis had a way of screwing the paperwork up, and it didn’t look good for them. A few weeks before Kristallnacht, a Hungarian diplomat who had the hots for his great-grandmother was able to smooth the way for their escape. But Micah’s grandfather never forgave his great-grandmother, it was apparent by the way he talked to her, in a voice of muffled rage. It was the same for Micah’s mother when she asked any questions about that time in Germany. “Your father didn’t like me asking those questions,” his mother said, “but I was hoping your grandfather could talk about it—the world should know what happened to him.” “He couldn’t talk,” Micah said. He felt he understood his grandfather too well. “That was the least of it,” Seth said. Even as Micah was repelled by his grandfather’s frog chin, and his alligator skin offering scant cover for fragile limbs, yet at the same time, Micah felt a kinship with the man. Both of them carried a big weight that prevented them from fully expressing themselves. Micah remembered his grandfather declaring many times that the warning on cigarette boxes was a government conspiracy designed to rob them of the simple pleasures of life. No one paid him much mind when he said stuff like that—not that any of it that mattered now. He didn’t think Seth grasped this. Micah did this rapid-fire blink, but said nothing. “Better to have left him alone,” Seth said. Micah realized that Seth’s understanding went pretty deep. Micah’s father claimed his grandfather willed this to happen. Eddie, his grandfather’s cousin, stopped by.Eddie was tall and thin with an angular face and cropped brown hair. He was taller than his grandfather by a few inches; otherwise, they were built much alike. Yet Eddie looked a world apart,very put-together, old-world elegant.His Brooks Brothers suit was perfect. He had a kerchief peeking out of the breast pocket that matched the soft pink of his shirt making him look every inch European royalty, his hair combed neatly in the Prince Edward School of slicked-back. His grandfather glanced up when he heard footsteps, pausing in the middle of doling out cards to look inquiringly at his cousin. “What’s up?” his grandfather asked. This occurred a month before his grandfather died and his larynx had to be removed, and a voice box put in. It frightened Micah to hear those strange mechanical sounds standing in for his grandfather’s voice, it sounded nothing like Peter Frampton’s legendary voice synthesizer. He didn’t want to think about what it did to his grandfather’s soul. An icy shock ran through his veins every time his grandfather spoke through that thing. With his larynx gone, his grandfather refused to see people. “Everything is going well,” Eddie replied. His grandfather’s head shot back down again, his eyes on the cards.Eddie went around the table and kissed everyone on both cheeks in the European manner. “Eddie stayed in Poland the entire war,” his grandmother, Lois, said on the heels of Eddie’s warm embrace. She was a physically strong, athletic looking woman, with a handsome oval face and regular features, plainly dressed, and looked like a GermanHausfrau withopinions and a wit to match. Micah had heard this story before. “I came to New York with nothing but the clothes on my back,” Eddie said proudly. “How did you get out?” Micah asked, remembering that he had asked this same question before not so long ago. “During the war, friends of my family hid me and my brother in their barn,” he said. “Farm life was boring, but it sure beat the alternative. When we heard the war was over, we left.” He chuckled and smoothed his suit jacket. “Sit down, sit down,” his grandmother said, patting the seat on her other side. Eddie checked for crumbs on the seat before sitting down. “You want to be dealt a hand, Eddie?” his grandfather inquired from his perch at the head of the table. “No, I can’t stay long,” Eddie said. “They rode motorcycles through Europe,” Micah’s father, Stefan, said. “Isn’t that right, Eddie?” “In Marseilles, we caught a boat headed for Israel. From Haifa, we took a boat for America. It was the long way to the U.S., but with the restrictions on immigration, we had no choice.” “He did well for himself here,” his grandmother said. “He got in the real estate business and became a multimillionaire.” “I started with a job in construction,” Eddie said. “It didn’t pay very well and the work was punishing. I managed to get through night school and got my business degree, and then my MBA. There was a need for housing in New Jersey, so my brother and I scrambled to fill it. It wasn’t rocket science.” Eddie excused himself and went down the hall to the bathroom. “You could have done the same thing,” his grandmother said to his grandfather. “Why didn’t you?” “How was I to know there was so much money in real estate?” “Maybe he’ll give Stefan a job.” “I like my job,” Micah’s father said. “Why? You’re not making money.” “We’ve got what to eat.” “Ma, would you lay off?” His grandfather waved his hand dismissively. “He pays his bills.” “I think dad should go into politics,” Micah said. “He’d make a great politician.” “Yeah, right,” Micah’s father said. “He’d get assassinated,” his grandfather said. “You’re so pessimistic,” Micah said. “So, Eddie,” Micah’s father said with a smile. “I’m thinking of moving to Poland with all the Hasidim from Israel and America. We need to repopulate Eastern Europe, provide a counterbalance to the Muslim refugees.” “I can’t think you’d be welcome there,” Eddie said. “The Polish goyim have repackaged the Holocaust as a tourist attraction, complete with kosher-style restaurants, souvenir yellow stars, and a Schindler's List of Treblinka and Auschwitz tours, klezmer music playing in the background. It’s Jewish culture without the Jews.” “I’m kidding,” Micah’s father said. “Why would I want to move to the Third World when I’ve got everything I want here?” His eyebrows did this dance. “So, I hear you’ve moved to Miami.” “I needed to get away from the Hasidim.” “You’d make a better Latino.” “Take away the clothing, what’s the difference?” “Torah.” Micah’s father nodded at Eddie, clapping him on the back. “That’s right, my man—Torah.” Eddie said he had to go, motioning to his watch, saying, “Time to pick up the wife. Hair appointment.” “Tell her to come here and visit us for a while,” his grandfather said. “She can take a cab.” “We don’t see you so often,” his grandmother urged. “She’s running late, but thanks,” Eddie demurred. “We’ve an engagement, that’s why I’m so dolled-up. You didn’t think I wore this jacket for nothing, did you?” Micah’s father clapped Eddie on the back calling him, “my man,” and bid him farewell with a hug and kiss on each cheek. Eddie retreated. Micah heard the roar of his car as it sped away. “Eddie and his wife never do anything with us socially,” his mother said. “Why is that, Henrik?” “He’s a busy man.” “It’s because we’re poor.” “No,” his grandfather said. “Yes,” his grandmother said. The memory was tangible but yet elusive, as he reached out to hug his grandfather, he felt only air, yet it was hard to believe that his grandfather was dead, he couldn’t wrap his head around the concept of death. He breathed deeply of the sweet scent of rose, and thought, one minute alive and the next dead. One day he had his larynx removed, the next day he was gone. He couldn’t believe he could die; he was too full of life, his heart pumping vast quantities of energy through his veins. Looking around the garden they stood in, he watched the friends of his grandfather pass by, a procession of the infirm, bent and shriveled, their movements palsied, it seemed their faces and limbs were decaying in front of his eyes. And soon, they too, would be gone. The velvety reds and flashy yellows of roses by the hundreds surrounded him, their colors refracting and multiplying the light of the sun into a million splinters, making the air feel like it was brimming over with the warmth and love he felt for his brother and his parents, the happiness he felt belonging to this family, and realized all the roses would die, and their petals would turn black and crumble. Beyond the roses stretched vast lawns punctuated by headstones of every size, monuments to the decaying bodies buried underneath, a primitive arrangement codifying grief, as if keeping a marker where the dead body had been placed brings the grieving closer to a person who will never come back, and whose memories are elsewhere. It seemed weird somehow, a grave injustice to the living who love these people. Micah walked up to one of the headstones, noting that it marked the grave of a boy about his age, and the cold arctic fear of death put its icy hand on his shoulder. He looked around for his father, seeking reassurance that he was protected, and saw his father’s tall figure topped by his singular head of reddish-blond hair circulating among the relatives. “Okay, I shouldn’t have asked,” Micah’s mother said. “A book we’re reading for school says that the Romans put Europe on the path to becoming a world power by forcing one religion on them,” Seth said. “Renee, our religious school teacher, says that Jews are probably the only people who resisted conversion that have not been totally wiped out. So that’s something, huh?” “If someone said to me they would torture or kill me if I didn’t worship their god,” Micah’s mother said, “I might not be so brave.” “Is that why Dad called you a Nazi sympathizer?” Seth asked. “First of all, my family’s not Jewish. My great-aunt was the first woman elected to Congress and she voted against going to war against Hitler. But then she voted against war on the eve of World War I, too. Then there’s his thing about my mother being French. Your father hates the French because they caved to Hitler.” “Is that why we hardly ever visit your family?” Micah saw how stiff his father was with mother’s brothers and noticed their numerous faux pas—thinking the Seder was done every Friday night, not knowing that devout Jews don’t eat bacon or cheeseburgers—and he knew that his father’s family were the same way with his mother. It was nothing they said directly that gave him this feeling. It was just a thought he had when he watched them talk to each other. One time Micah heard his paternal grandmother complain out loud to his aunt and uncle that his mother didn’t eat enough, and when his mother said something in Hebrew, they would joke with his father, who always made a big point of demonstrating the correct guttural pronunciation, making the deep ‘kuh’ sound, telling Micah that he had to bring up phlegm to do it right. And his grandmother said often, “Well, she wasn’t born to it.” And the way they mentioned these things, it gave him the feeling that the marriage between his father and mother was difficult for both sides. He saw his father’s eyes glaze whenever his mother’s brothers joked about attending Catholic prep school in his presence. And when she said something that showed her ignorance of some piece of Jewish history or custom, he’d say, “Once a goy, always a goy.” “So why did you marry dad?” Seth asked. “When we first met and fell in love,” Shelly said, “we thought none of these differences of lifestyle, opinion, or customs would matter. We thought we’d conquer it all. Easing the pain of Hitler’s coming has proved harder than I thought.” Micah felt warmed by the sun, the crystalline air, and the sharpness of the colors. Dewy-faced rose bushes all around lifted his spirits. He thought the garden too beautiful for a funeral home. Creepy to think six feet under, the grounds teemed with thousands of corpses.
Exposed Skin
When dawn started to peak upon the horizon in the early hours of the morning. My body felt heavy on the old mattress. The quiet reflections that grapple my brain. Of life, of the world, pain, so much pain. I can hear their screams in that expansive blue quiet. Their voices are deep. Until I realize they’re coming from my belly between gurgling pains. The screams travel up to my throat. When they choke, esophagus closing. Swallowing their echoes makes my breath falter, eyes red and tearing. they plunge back into the black night of my insides until they push through every corner. Every nook. Every limb. Exposed skin bubbling in red blotches as they demand to be free. My legs give way. My body suspended. Floating. The screams now pushing me off the ground. Like jumping out of a plane in reverse. A free fall to the ceiling. My long curls wisp around my face as I tumble like Alice through a hole of my own making. I grip knuckles now drained of color in fear of this levitation. I was flying in the cover of a suburban home. As soon as I realized what was happening my body dropped to the floor, slowly, as a long billowing scream erupted through my mouth. A banshee cry that echoed in my ears for eternity thereafter. Their high pitched recitations getting lighter as they surpass human capability to hear and rest as silent tremors on my goose-bumped skin. Like a second heart beating. My eyes fix on the bed. This beating belonged to the man hovered above a limp figure. Black tendrils spilled over the pink, red, and orange rectangles of my pillowcase. My hands went to my mouth, a mouth that wasn’t there. The question of this existence was too much to handle when I can feel his breath in my ear. His hand around my neck, stars floated in the air around me. Their little constellations blending with the pink and purple hues of daybreak. They fade in my vision into spots of blue and black. The screams bubble once again up my throat unable to escape the open hole. The one that used to be my mouth, used to hold the mundane thoughts that repeated in a constant loop in my brain. In a few moments, they had disappeared. The traumas of the past that plagued were now sentenced to the black of forgetting. Now I watched my limp body move like a corpse being dragged across the artificial grass of a graveyard. The man hovering, a gravedigger throwing my consciousness into an open grave and shutting the coffin. His feet stomping on the opening to seal the old lock into place. He had done this before. The sound of a shovel throwing dirt into a pit will be the last sound my ears would ever hear. The cracks and grooves of this sarcophagus and slowly disappearing patches of daylight will be the last thing I see. The feeling of cold dirt on my cheek and the hard rigid joints of scattered bones would be the last thing I felt. I was convinced. Until I awoke in my bed. Throat hurting, lungs begging for air. As much as it could get to flood through my body. Tears streaming down my cheeks blinding me to the light of dawn. Skin exposed to the cold fan. As I sit up and grip reality I think of my mother’s superstitions. Bad dreams come from trauma and exposed skin to the dark chill of the night.
flash fiction by Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman
if you put one (1) bean in your mouth, it will grow. in seventh grade my science teacher showed us all how you could put it in for the beginning of a class period and how it would live off your spit and the warmth of your body heat. at the end of the class a lot of ours took ours out and they’d sprouted. last week i left a cup of beans behind. i’d put some of them in my mouth, sure and i watched how much they’d grown. i guess it all makes sense then some days you just have to leave it in a cup of water and move on. three beans have entered my mouth and grown. my roommates have called me jack and the beanstalk i guess that makes sense because i’d love to climb up and see just how much my beans have grown. so today i go for a climb. there are many beanstalks in the ground it’s just how it works around here because right now my apartment is crawling with beanstalks. i’m not the only one planting them in the ground. so i climb and i ignore the way that my hands and feet are blistering i destroy my pair of doc martens on the density of the travel i haven’t eaten since yesterday and my head is in the clouds but all i can do is climb. in christian ideology they say that god and the angels are in the clouds. i don’t think they ever said that in the bible but that’s just what a lot of people believe. my gods live on mount olympus and my dead live underground. i do not believe in hell. the underworld is not the same as christian punishment. so i climb. i can see mount rainier just like how i always cheered about as a child. my hands are freezing and i’ve got goosebumps all over my skin. the sky is high and mighty and cold and of little oxygen. just a month ago jupiter had a temper tantrum. i was in seattle and the sky was covered in lighting. my family was having a massive house party then and we had to direct everyone inside. today the sky is clear. during the school year i live in olympia and it rains even more here than home. but today the sky is clear the only rain in the world comes from me. the world is clear today and i am the only raincloud. and so i climb. i think i have now passed where the clouds once could be. i can feel myself falling apart but there is a disc of clouds above. the sky is not clear. everything has just chosen to move out of reach. and so i climb. i reach the unreachable and i feel my body tear apart into dust. in christian ideology they say i am made of dust just like every other human being. but i am not dust. i am simply of prometheus’ clay. and that’s why i stick together and make it. even though i want to crumble into nothing. and so i pull myself up and i sit on a cloud. i hear the thundering feet of giants because he smells the blood of a grieving man. they believe that bread is the body and wine is the blood. i always thought that was gruesome being taught that growing up. but i slice my arm carefully and burn my offering. this isn’t the first time i’ve burnt belongings for the gods. and so i walk and the giant leaves me alone. the bloodthirst of christianity is disturbing to me but i’ve done what i can to pass. and so i sit on a cloud. and i search for the tips of each beanstalk. this is a forest of grief and i am merely a tender of three. i find the nearest beanstalk and i fall. my hands do everything they can to grip the leaves but i am falling falling falling. i land at the bottom but i wish i could’ve gone down below. i am not orpheus and my friends are not euridice. as much as i want to climb i can’t see them ever again. yesterday i attended the funeral for one of my closest friends in the world. this is the third consecutive time one of my friends has died and i’m just so tired of this. if you put one (1) bean in your mouth, it will grow. in seventh grade my science teacher showed us all how you could put it in for the beginning of a class period and how it would live off your spit and the warmth of your body heat. at the end of the class a lot of ours took ours out and they’d sprouted.
If You Put One Bean in Your Mouth
poetry by Mercury Marvin Sunderland
Never Dying on Facebook
When Facebook reminded me on June 28th that it was time to send birthday greetings to Will, I laughed. I was sure he was dead, but when I checked, I found that he was still very much alive on Facebook. Even though seven years had gone by since his death, in his Facebook world, Will was still living in Denver, Colorado and working at a local business. Will and I shared friends in common, but I never knew him well. He was a white-haired septuagenarian who lived across the street from a good friend whom I often visited. He also knew my daughter. When our paths crossed, he always waved, but I can’t remember ever having a conversation with him. I accepted his friend request but didn’t follow his posts and only became aware that he had died when a mutual acquaintance mentioned that Will had passed on. Revisiting his Facebook profile, I noticed that his page updates had become sparse over the years. As compared to his earlier posts where he offered helpful information on nutrition and men’s health, the postings were now limited to a parade of friends who sent him birthday greetings on an annual basis as his virtual avatar became a year older. Some of Will’s one hundred and sixty friends appeared not to be aware that he was no longer with us. They uploaded warm wishes, with missives that read, “Hope you had a great day!!”Others who were more informed, used Will’s site to comment on how they much they missed him. Through a relative who appears to be managing his page, Will has offered occasional replies to his well-wishers. In one message, he responded by saying, “Will sends a “like” back to you from his eternal rest.” Another friend received a greeting that read, “Will says “like” from his resting place.” For those who might be confused about Will’s status, details regarding his death can be easily accessed by scrolling to earlier entries on his page. One posting shows the cremation container that his family decorated before his ashes were buried. Will, with the help of a relative, also added twenty-five photos from his funeral, which he is recorded as having attended. Under its current policies, Facebook allows its users to designate someone who will inform the social media platform when they have died. These legacy partners can also arrange to have the Facebook page of the deceased memorialized in recognition of his or her death. Over time, the legacy partners can respond to friend requests, update photos and send messages on behalf of those who have moved on to the afterlife. While these protocols serve to distinguish users of the social media platform who are alive from those who have departed, many Facebook users have not specified their final wishes. In the event that a Facebook user dies without identifying a contact who will either manage or delete their Facebook account, their profile becomes frozen in a digital eternity that will never change. Facebook doesn’t advertise itself as a digital graveyard, yet over 10,000 of the site’s two billion users are estimated to die every day. At this rate of attrition, Facebook is estimated to support the profiles of more than thirty million users who are no longer alive. Some even believe that the numbers of deceased Facebook users who are dead may exceed those who are alive by the year 2065. [1] When Alan, the ex-husband of a cousin, died at the age of forty-seven from an accidental drug overdose, his Facebook profile became fixed as it was shortly before his death. In the weeks before he died, Alan was depressed and questioned the purpose of his existence. He uploaded a picture in which shadowy zombies lurked behind people wearing masks, as he commented, “What is behind a face?” This existential question has ended up being Alan’s last commentary on the world, a haunting reminder of the dark space he occupied shortly before his death. For Alan’s family members to arrange to have his Facebook page deleted, they need to provide proof to Facebook of their family connection either by sending a copy of Alan’s last will or a birth certificate that shows their familial relationship. They must also offer evidence of Alan’s death by sharing a copy of an obituary or a memorial card. Even under these circumstances, Facebook will not share login information for anyone who is deceased. Alan’s page can be memorialized, but it can never be changed. When a family friend named Ben tragically lost his life at the age of twenty-seven, I found myself gravitating towards his Facebook page to recall the exuberant person he once was. In the year before he died, I remembered how excited he was to go to Burning Man and how he made us laugh when he slicked down his surfer boy haircut to serve as a best man at a friend’s wedding. Thinking he had his whole life in front of him, he boasted on Facebook about his new job and the swanky apartment he was leasing in Denver’s art district. On the last Christmas he celebrated with his family, he wrote that he was way too excited to sleep and wished everyone a seriously badass holiday. Full of promise, he appeared to have no premonition that within a matter of weeks he would be gone. Over the years, I have continued to visit Ben’s Facebook profile to recall the zest for living that still sparkles from his posts. Many of Ben’s friends have also visited his page and added tributes. We share the same wish, to keep Ben’s memory alive even as we try to erase the tragic circumstances of his death. The corporate mission of Facebook, according to Mark Zuckerberg, is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. “What we have come to realize is that giving people a voice is good and it helps get more opinions out there.” Zuckerberg has explained. “On top of that, we also need to help people build community and get exposed to new people and new perspectives.” [2] Facebook users (and I count myself among them) revel in the here and now. As we share postings with our friends, we comment on the weather, upload pictures of the food we are eating and highlight the cartoons that have made us laugh. We also exchange photos of our dogs, celebrate our anniversaries and ask others for advice. It’s the grist of everyday life where we curate the digital images we choose to project to the world. Whereas scrapbooks and photo albums were once the vehicles we used to preserve our memories, we now post our photos on social media sites, as we record the passing moments of our lives, rarely thinking about the digital footprint we are leaving behind. What, I wondered, would someone make of my life based on my Facebook posts?The pictures I have uploaded over the past ten years, are not annotated and do not follow any type of order. There are family photos that celebrate birthdays, graduations and anniversaries. Spanning across the years, I can see my children becoming adults. I watch as my parents age and I notice that I, too, am changing and getting older. There are gaps in the pictures I have posted, long periods where I didn’t use Facebook to record the events in my life. There were times when I didn’t post updates about trips I took or holiday parties I attended. Some events seemed so insignificant that I barely thought about acknowledging them. Others, like the death of my parents, were so painful that I didn’t want to remember that they happened. My Facebook profile picture is the same one I posted ten years ago. At first, I was too preoccupied to update the photo. Over time, I told myself that it still reflected the person I was until it started to become obvious that I was denying my true age. As I looked critically at my Facebook profile, the more egregious problem I uncovered was how incomplete and superficial my Facebook posts have been relative to the person I know myself to be. Despite my strong views about our political situation, I have avoided posting contentious information and have chosen not to comment on our increasingly divided world. My Facebook posts do not reveal my cultural tastes, the authors I admire or my hopes for the future. Yet the random and superficial information that I have chosen to upload on my page may end up representing my lasting statement on the life I am living. When asked, many of my friends say that they would never want their Facebook pages to become the digital markers of the lives they have lived. Few believe the social media site captures what they consider to be the most important aspects of their lives. When they imagine their Facebook pages becoming an eternal reflection of the people they once were, most tell me that they hope their accounts will be deleted rather than eternally preserved. To take control of my own Facebook account, I selected my son to be my legacy contact and vested him with the authority to manage my page or to delete it after I die. If he chooses to have my Facebook profile memorialized, he can, at his discretion, create a section for tribute posts and updated photos. Being no longer of this life, I can only assume that these posts would be more for his benefit rather than my own. Perhaps, if, in some future time, Facebook becomes officially recognized as a place of remembrance, more users will employ the site to curate their ideal vision of the world that they hope to bequeath to those who will follow them. Rather than using the social media site to distract, divide and enflame, Facebook can become a place that shows the many ways in which we are connected. As I reconsider my Facebook profile and what it represents, I have become resigned to the possibility that my digital image will live on into eternity. In my more recent posts I have become reflective as I use my Facebook page to highlight what I value in my life, the words that inspire me and the moments that fill me with awe.If my Facebook profile does live on, I hope that my memorialized site will allow my friends and family to remember the joyful times we spent together. Wishing me a happy birthday on an annual basis will be completely optional. [1]Hiscock, Michael, “Dead Facebook users will soon outnumber the living.” The Loop, 6/26/19. https://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumber-the-living/.Accessed 22/11/20. [2]Guynn, Jessica, “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s new mission: Bring the world closer together.” USA Today, 2/22/17. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/22/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-new-mission-bring-the-world-closer-together/103085170/.Accessed 2/11/20.
creative non-fiction by Kaia Gallagher
As this is an honest review, I will strive to deliver both praise and criticism, for writers need such feedback to move forward and broaden their practice. The first thing one notices in Frank Watson’s latest collection is the use of the short form, sometimes seeming almost Haiku-like or possibly being influenced by the master of brevity, William Carlos Williams. This short form makes the poems easy to read; they go back quickly, the images and phrases like snapshots of a bigger landscape that is to be revealed later on. And what lovely images, too. Often, the magic of this work is building a sort of overview of the poet’s mind: all these mystical, naturalistic elements collide in surprising ways. However, these images can also feel somewhat weak, as with the work of Rupi Kaur (though written with a good heart and the best intentions). The poems, because they are so short, may seem to some shallow—as Emily Dickenson said of Longfellow, “His genius lies in stating the obvious.” But I do not think that can be applied directly here. Though the poems are a bit thin, I think they are actually meant as columns to the temple. Each poem is like a piece of “floating driftwood” and will create “the shipwreck / of frozen dreams” where something magical and extraordinary will hopefully appear. These poems, I think are love poems. Mr. Watson is really an old Romantic trying to live in a postmodern era. The adoration is focused on a woman, on nature as a woman, and a mythical being that lies and lives in everything about us. Though it is risky to make “Time” or “Nature” as female (merely read Kate Soper’s essay on “Feminized Nature”), I do not think Mr. Watson has any baleful intents (as it describes in the poem “Fossils”: love will last the ages). It is about telling a story. It is about expressing an individual’s story as universal and personal at the same time. My main concern with this long (and it is indeed long) collection is that it perhaps covers the same ground. I wonder, if these chapters could not only be shortened but made into individual chapbooks? Yes, there is a beauty and depths in the whole as a story of wondering and wandering the Earth, of “opening and closing the doors / until life with lend no more”. Yet, I cannot help feel that the “seeing [of] the world / in so many shades” may lead us to become color blind. Because the individual poems and chapters are so short, are so lock-and-key (sometimes), I wonder if it would not benefit the whole to also express this minimalist format? All things considered, Frank Watson is clearly prolific and holds an eye for the poèmes romantique. Furthermore, I really found the artwork placed throughout very enjoyable. The effect was quite complimentary and gave a sort of visual portrait to the mystical verses at work in the chapters. In his collection, In the Dark, Soft Earth, Frank Watson meshes life and dreams and nature to create an abundance of love and spirituality that most people can connect to.
In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson
book review by Konstantin Rega
Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman Creator and former Editor of Shards through the University of Houston, Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman is a bi-racial Muslim writer and artist. She holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Creative Writing and History. She is the Administrative Coordinator at Writers in the Schools, the Marketing and Development Director of Defunkt Magazine and creator of Brown Girls Book Club. Her interests are Middle Eastern History, culture, linguistics, and biracial identity. She primarily writes from the Arab-American perspective. She as a featured performer at The Museum of Fine Arts and Houston Grand Opera’s event “The Art of Intimacy” January 2020. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and translation publications can be found or are forthcoming in: Scintilla Magazine, Paper Trains Journal, The Bayou Review: The Women’s Issue, and Glass Mountain, Volume 21, Dead Eyes Literary Magazine. Her visual Artistry can be found in Cosumnes River Journal, Sonder Midwest Review, and Wordpeace Magazine. Kaia Gallagher Kaia Gallagher is a free-lance writer who lives in Denver, Colorado. Since earning her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California-Riverside, she has experimented with many writing genres including memoir, essays and flash fiction. She enjoys reflecting about those aspects of our current lives that will live on well after we are gone. B. B. Garin B. B. Garin is a writer living in Buffalo, NY. She holds a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Her e-chapbook, New Songs For Old Radios, is available from Wordrunner Press. She has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and was a semi-finalist inSunspot Literary’s Inceptions Contest. Her work has also appeared in Embark and Inklette. She is a current member of the GrubStreet writing center in Boston, where she has developed a series of short fiction pieces, as well as a novel. Joanna Kadish Joanna’s work has appeared in a handful of literary magazines, print and online, including Catamaran Literary Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Potato Soup Journal, Literary Orphans, Cultured Vultures, and Citron Review. and is slated to appear in Juked summer 2020 issue She was a finalist in Cutthroat’s 2016 Rick DeMarinis Short Fiction Contest, and received honorable mention in GlimmerTrain’s Emerging Writers Contest for 2015 and 2016. Before that, she was a regular freelance contributor for the New Jersey Regional Section of The New York Times, and several regional newspapers and magazines, including The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Asbury Park Press, and received a few awards for essay and feature writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. After self-publishing two novels she went for an MFA in creative writing from Bennington Writing Seminars in Vermont. Her undergraduate degree in literature and philosophy is from UC Berkeley. Lisa Leibow Lisa Leibow’s work has been published in CommuterLit, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eleven Eleven, Folly, Griffin, Mulberry Fork, NoVA Bards, Pisgah Review, Red Rose, Rougarou, Sand Hill Review, and Sanskrit. She earned a master’s in writing with a concentration in fiction from Johns Hopkins University, and currently teaches writing at George Washington University and Northern Virginia Community College. She’s a Faulkner-Wisdom Award novel finalist, a two-time merit-based grant recipient and resident at the Vermont Studio Center, and the winner of Pitchapalooza D.C. She’s attended numerous conferences, including AWP, Algonkian Workshop, and the Writer’s Digest New York Conference. In addition, she’s a member of the planning committee for the Washington Writers Conference, and holds leadership positions with both ShutUp&Write and the Johns Hopkins Writing Program Alumni Association. Cameron Morse Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Terminal Destination (Spartan Press, 2019). He lives with his wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website. Konstantin Rega Born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Konstantincurrently attends East Anglia’s MA in Creative Writing program and has his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from The University of Kent. He has been published by: The Claremont Review, Minetta Review ,Crack the Spine ,FIVE:2:ONE, Adjacent Pineapple ,Every Writer, Storm Cellar, The Broadkill Review,TheWhite Wall Review, Mikrokosmos Journal, and www.jonimitchell.com, among others. He has won the ZO Magazine Silver Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2018 Dan Veach Young Poets Prize, was nominated fo rBest of the Net (2019), and has read at DATABLEEDER ONE, the National Centre for Writing’s UEA Live, and Café Writers. Currently, he composes a monthly Jazz Column (Ladies‘ Night Jazz Bar) for Into the Void and is a contributor to The Black Lion Journal and to Treble. He blogs at: www.neomodernkonstantin.weebly.com Mercury Marvin Sunderland Mercury Marvin Sunderland is a Hellenist transgender autistic gay man who uses he/him pronouns. He’s from Seattle. He currently attends The Evergreen State College, and his dream is to become the most banned author in human history. He can be found as @Romangodmercury on Instagram and Facebook. Jean Wolff Born in Detroit, Michigan, Jean Wolff studied fine arts at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving a BFA in studio arts. She then attended Hunter College, CUNY in New York, graduating with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She’s since had group and solo exhibits in various galleries in New York City and internationally, published works in 62 issues of 41 magazines, and is part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan. Nicole Marie Zamudio-Roman Nicole Marie Zamudio-Roman is a graduate of Rollins College. She received her B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and will be going on, in the Fall of 2020, to start her M.P.S. in Publishing at George Washington University. Currently, she serves as a reader for Rollins College’s Art and Literary Journal, Brushing. Most of her free time has been devoted to her writing and work in the publishing industry. She has had several poems and articles published, thoughCreative Communications and The Sandspur, Rollins College’s student-run paper. When she is not writing or working, she can be found watching Netflix, walking her dogs, or reading books with bizarre plotlines and cliffhangers.
Contributors
Poetry Editors Olivia Kiers Elizabeth McIntosh
Creative Non-Fiction Editor Suke Cody
Editor-in-Chief Kerri Farrell Foley
Short Fiction Editors Becca Wild Konstantin Rega
Crack the Spine Staff
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