Crack the Spine Literary Magazine

crack the spine MAY 4, 2021| ISSUE no 268 Literary Magazine Poetry Michel Steven Krug  Danielle Rose Short Fiction Mackenzie Denofio  John Murray Cover Art Jean Wolff ISSN 2474-9095 Creative Non-Fiction Jessica Hudson Micro Fiction D.G. Bracey Flash Fiction Linda Eve Diamond Paul Luikart Take Care He had a funny way about him. His height made him one of the tallest men on the base, but his silence made him one of the smallest. Even the way he sucked on his cigarette was quiet, his hands clenched tightly around the burning embers. His throat seemed to swallow the smoke as if he was afraid of blowing it in anyone’s face. I half expected it to come back out his ears like one of those cartoons. He would sneak his little rotting chair into his small little corner of the pub every night we went, his leg propped against his knee and his elbow resting on his leg, his back hunching over as he consumed cigarettes like they were candy until the night got rowdy and I couldn’t see him anymore. He was too quiet. His bunk was next to mine, yet he made no noise, not even in his sleep. His mouth squirming back in forth in the darkness like he was uttering a silent prayer. He was too gangly for his bed and his hand would dangle out onto the floor between us. I would trace the lines on his palm wondering what my sister would say they meant, wondering how cold the cement was on the floor, wondering how he felt about this winter, what his home was like. I fucking hate silence, it’s unnerving when you got bombs going off all night long and a guy won’t even tell you his middle name let alone his first. “Want a drink?” I asked him, shouting over the noise of the boys. His face looked up at me, his brows tilting inwards. “What?” He asked. “Drink,” I repeated holding the cup up into the air, a moment of silence stretched between us as I stood with my hand fixed around a chair, its legs tilting up waiting for the word. He nodded his head and the chair landed again. “Thanks.” He said quietly, accepting the drink. I nod back, deciding to play his rules, I turned the chair backwards and sat in it. “I feel terrible. We’re bunkmates and I don’t even know your name.” I wrap my arms around the chair to keep them from gesturing, waiting for my voice to carry around the walls of the joint and back to his ears. The shadow of a smile glanced across his lips. His lips mouthed the words first and I move my chair to be closer to him until the words came back to me. “It’s Sam, Sammy.” “I’m Andrew,” I shout back, and he laughs, the sound cutting through all the voices, its richness echoing around the walls and shooting through me. “I know.” He says, a deep chuckle in his throat. “Do I talk that much?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck and itching for one of his cigarettes. “Nah, I just listen.” “Where you from Sammy?” “Louisiana.” “No shit.” “You too?” “Nah, Massachusetts.” “Hmm.” I don’t ask what his grunt meant in reply, I move my chair closer to hear his voice more. “I feel a long way from home now.” “Mmm-hmm.” “You’re a quiet fellow.” I snap out as he taps out one of his cigarettes. “I’m listening.” “Lend me one?” I ask nearly ripping one out of his hands. He passes me one so slowly I could scream, he even takes the time to light it, his hand brushing up against my own. I could have lit my own cigarette. “How long you here for?” He asks and the smoke slips from his lips. “A month or so, you?” “Two more weeks.” “You like England?” I ask and he shrugs, his sharp shoulders nearly poking out of his uniform. “It’s cold.” “I know. I see you shivering at night.” I say with a chuckle before thinking of my words, “I mean-” “You know you talk in your sleep.” He says to me, leaning back in his chair with a huff of a laugh. “Get out of here, I do not.” “Yeah talk all the time saying, ‘Hello, hello’ who the hell you saying hello to?” He laughs out, his brown eyes scrunching up in his brown face, as his chest moves up and down. I can’t help but laugh too, leaning my head in more towards his. “Just trying to be friendly,” I say between laughs. “Hmm.” He says with a smile still frozen on his lips, a bit of a chuckle hiding in his grunt, “Awfully friendly, aren’t you?” I know I’m not supposed to answer a question like that so I can only shift my head and look up at him then. My chair scraps across the floor, so close to his now, only a breath apart. He’s crooked up on his leg again, coming closer. I should lean away, I should get up, but I just look into his brown eyes, golden bits hangin in them and a crease of a smile tugging at their corners and I can’t bring myself to look away. “You got a girl?” Sammy asks as he bites into his crumbling toast. “Nah, you? Got a wife?” He laughs at the mere thought. “Man, I’m only nineteen.” Nineteen. “When’s your birthday?” I ask out of curiosity. “July 12th.” “Mine’s December 15th.” His eyebrows flicker up for a moment at the fast-approaching date. “How old?” “Nineteen.” There’s some nights when I can’t sleep at all and my body shivers from head to toe, I don’t know what it is. Sammy falls asleep every night, even as his voice carries through a conversation his eyes will be drooping down until he’s passed out and nothing can wake him till the morning sun. Even as a baby I wasn’t a good sleeper, but this is worse, sometimes I nearly feel so sick I think I’m gonna vomit but then I see Sammy. His mouth working out quick words that he never speaks, and I try to make them out, wonder if he’s asking for a cigarette. If he’s calling out to his Momma. And my body will take what comes to it, my eyes always feeling frozen in the morning. Sammy will look at me and shake his head, passing me a cigarette, “Boy, you gotta sleep.” He’ll say as we go into breakfast and I’ll make a sound to brush him off. The shaking is never as bad during the day as it is at night. I used to wonder if Sammy shivered for the same reason I did, but I’ve seen him through the night now, watched as the morning rays shimmered over his face, illuminating each inch of his smooth skin and I know I don’t just shiver because of the cold. It’s worse when I get a letter, I don’t know why. The shaking at night is unstoppable as I run over and over my Mother’s words in my mind. Her clumsy lettering as she wishes me a happy birthday, the first one I’ve ever spent away from her, without a cake, without a hug. I think about it at night, think about the smell of the house when I would come home from school and how she’d sit at the table with me and go over arithmetic. I wonder- I wonder- I turn to my side to escape the thought, small little buds of wetness gathering around my eyes. I frantically clasp my hands together murmuring words to a God I don’t know is listening. Just like I did when my Daddy was sick, and just like I did before we saw action for the first time, the men around me crashing to the ground in bloody spurts. My prayers are never answered. This time I ask for my Momma’s sake. To spare me, to let me live. I wonder a lot if I’ll ever smell the house again, if I’ll ever hug Momma, if I’ll ever have another birthday after tomorrow- I stop. Sammy is looking at me, laying in his bed, his eyes full of something I don’t want to explain, and I’m grateful he doesn’t say anything. His fingers twitch on the ground from their usual position and I take it as an offering, dropping my hand into his, feeling his warmth travel through each finger, his thumb running along my hand. I squeeze my eyes shut and let the tears fall slowly, gripping onto his hand tighter. There’s a dark corner of the pub where we drink and smoke and no one bothers us. Turns out there’s guys friendlier than me who always want to talk. We don’t want none of them and the corner is our hideaway like a fort in the backyard. We speak in hushed voices and inside jokes, our words weaving around each other dragging us in closer and closer and- The first time it happens it’s so quick I almost don’t think it’s real. The second time I knew it was and the third time I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer. His lips are soft against mine, his grip strong despite how skinny his hands are. He runs his hands through my hair even though it’s shorter now than it used to be. He doesn’t pull back and neither do I even when our lips stop touching and our souls stop breathing, we stay intertwined, our arms around each other, our heads bowed in prayer. When I go to bed for the first time as a nineteen-year-old, I clutch onto Sammy’s hand tracing over the calloused palms and circling his fingernails until I fall asleep. My eyes don’t feel frozen in the morning. “My Momma cried so much when I left home.” Sammy says. “My little sister pushed me out the door, she was crying though, she’s real mean about those things.” “My brother is real into those train sets, my Momma always screamed cause they’d cover the whole house.” “I’m terrified of dying in this war.” “I’m scared of being lost. No one’s gonna remember the way I do my hair,” Sammy gives a sly smile, flicking his nose, “Or, you know, what I think about before I sleep, or what songs I hummed. I’m gonna be forgotten.” “You hum Paper Dolls cause you’re a sap.” I say, taking his hand. “I’ll remember you.” We go on like this trading secret whispers in the dark, talking about our lives, we never talk beyond our time, never talk about the end of the war, if it will ever come. Never talk about what happens if one of us dies. He kisses me when he can, before breakfast, in the showers, on the hand. Quick pecks that can never rival what we do in the shadows of a smelly pub with our feet stuck to a beer-soaked floor. He holds me one day in the pub, his arms wrapped around my chest, my back against his and I can feel something I never felt before. I don’t know what it is if it’s what you feel when you got a girl or if it’s something more. I pray that he never let’s go, that I can hold onto his hand forever and kiss his soft sweet lips until the day I die. And sometimes I wonder if I will, if he’ll be the last person I see as a bullet cuts through my throat and he’ll have to remember me in that way. I kiss his palm, stroke his cheek, nuzzle his neck all to make the thought go away. And to keep the even worse thought at bay, of his neck exploded into bits, his blood dribbling through my fingers, his beautiful brown eyes hollowed out and sinking into the cold English ground. He leaves in the morning. Like a puff of smoke, he’s dressed and ready with a quick squeeze of the hand. I wish I could kiss him; I wish I could run at him and hold him for so long he wouldn’t be able to go, wouldn’t be able to leave me. I want to yell out and don’t even care if I get looks. I want to smoke a million more cigarettes with him and have a million more conversations in a pub that smells of beer and peanuts and makes our boots stick for days. But I restrain myself. I grip onto his hand so tightly he looks like he’s in pain. “Please, take care An.” He whispers out to me, his voice laced with something more and I lean in closer even though I don’t have to. “I’ll write to you.” I say even though I don’t have his address. “I’ll visit you in Massachusetts when this is all over, alright? We can go to the ocean and-” “My Mom will make you homemade bread that won’t crumble.” “Yeah.” “Yeah.” We both know it’s a lie. That we’ll be lucky enough to make it out alive, that we’re just two passing bullets heading towards our targets. But it feels nice to live in a lie for a moment, to live in the idea of the two of us on the beach, the ocean breeze running through our clothes and our eyes shutting against the sun. “Take care, Sammy.” I hold onto his hand, my body shaking slightly. “Take care, Andrew.” He says again and I can feel small little tears rising in my eyes. “You’ll get in trouble,” I say looking at the door where the other soldiers have already passed. His eyes are frantic as they tear from me to the door, his movements quick as he slaps his lips onto my knuckles and squeezes tight before he breaks off and runs out of the room. I bow my head in prayer as soon as he leaves, begging God to spare him no matter how many other men have to die, and I hope for once my prayer is heard. short fiction by Mackenzie Denofio Autobiography of a Mouse flash fiction by Linda Eve Diamond I’m the smallest in my mischief and afraid of my own shadow. When I feel a mighty roar inside, I open my mouth and my words come out sounding like meaningless chirps and squeaks, even to me. I hate my little mousy face and my mousy little ways. I hate my little mousy tail and my mousy little tale. Deep in my ever-racing heart, I imagined I’d be magically changed one day into a beautiful horse with pink plumes, a flowing mane and a long, luxurious tail. Of course, my favorite story to chew on when I was tiny was the one about Cinderella and her mice and that night when they were all transformed. I guess we don’t all get fairy godmothers. Ah, well. Probably lots of mice who grew up with that story have these animated storybook dreams. Being a modern mouse, I’m never far away from my computer. The internet’s a strange maze, but it helps me see a bit of the world. Some nights I click around and binge shop for itty bitty teddy bears, chocolate-covered hazelnuts, and other creature comforts. All in all, I live a quiet life, mostly out of sight. From time to time, I like to get away by painting small portraits of myself as someone else—a magical horse, a colorful bird, a sturdy moose—expressionistic impressions of a mousy poet. poetry by Michel Steven Krug Inherited China I ate salmon off my grandmother’s Wedgwood, the surviving plate from the set chipped like rock cleaved for a freeway. On the ornate Florentine edge dangerous to the lick yet impossible to discard. Projecting it survived the ’27 crash, The Bronx, The concrete panels of the Pennsylvania turnpike The oil refineries near Lake Michigan Gazing at the buttes in Wisconsin. The durable, center blue floral pattern not scared of the past, No fear of blood or today’s resentments. It lived through nights of broken glass. In the midst of salmon off the grill, the crunchy skin grazes the divot of age, Hosting the devour of tonight’s catch. micro fiction by D.G. Bracey Undetermined circumstances, but here’s what we’ve learned about the boys. Too immature to know better, they ventured too far, lost their way. Harsh conditions befell them. Victims of hard rain ambitions. If only they worked together, combined their individual knowledge. Instead, one led. One fought to lead. The others squabbled over sides. A little lending of ears might’ve reversed fortunes and not left them laid low in dead-harvest fields, squalid bodies, as if God reached out, grabbed them up in handfuls and smashed them back to earth, broken, unable to reach for hands to hold when their final moments came. A Briefing on the Boys Fish Story short fiction by John Murray It wasn’t until Jim’s twelfth birthday, when his father gave him an aquarium, that he realized it was sometimes better to be alone. His father had never been one to notice styles or fads, so he knew, when he examined the contents of the new aquarium, that there must’ve been some guidance from a salesman in the purchase. The fluorescent light on the hood was tinted a purplish-blue, and the plastic sea-fan was a vibrant orange, springing from true-to-life, pale-green roots. For the bottom he’d purchased a bag of cherry-red, blue, and purple rocks, creating an underwater world that was just shy of psychedelic, a popular aesthetic in 1973 that made him feel that the new fish tank was “cool” on several levels. His father carried the aquarium, heavy with its accessories, up the stairs and into Jim’s bedroom, where he placed it on the floor at the foot of the bed. He stood, hands on hips, surveying the room for a minute before feeling for his pack of Bel-Airs in the pocket of his dress shirt and lighting one, which suggested that the cigarette might help in making the right decision. He tried the tank in several different locations before they both decided the top of the dresser was best. With the cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth, he pulled a used bath towel off the radiator and laid it on top of the dresser to “protect the varnish…in case there’s a leak or a splash.” Splash, Jim thought to himself. Could he be capable of creating so volatile an environment within that ten-gallon glass box that its contents might have the strength to break from the relative calm of its controlled world and “splash”? He’d be careful. No rabble-rousers, no punks of the fish world here. He would read, cover to cover, the copy of “Know Your Tropical Fish” that came with the purchase of every fully equipped aquarium from the Land of Fish store. It was essential to learn who got on with whom. Kissing fish were fun to watch but they were bullies. Angel fish were a showy addition to a tank but were prone to disease and sensitive to changes in temperature. If he was in charge, he had no intention of seeing anything go belly-up. The following Saturday, after collecting from the customers on his paper route, he took his $4.68 profit, along with the $10 his father had given him to stock the tank, and asked his mother to take him to Land of Fish. After ten minutes she had to leave the store because the combination of the waving walls of water, the dim lighting, and the warm temperature made her dizzy. She walked outside, pulled out a stick of Beechnut peppermint gum from her purse, and looked in the windows of the adjacent fabric store as she savored the mint and got the smell of fish out of her nose. A couple of minutes after she left, a balding man with one greasy strip of black hair slapped across the top of his forehead came out from behind the cash register and approached him with an offer of help. Jim’s face flushed with embarrassment, and he told the guy he’d be right back before darting outside to retrieve his mother. When he went out the front door, she stood there expectantly, eyebrows raised, one hand on her hip, with her purse linked on her wrist, the other hand out to her side. “Where’s the fish?!” “I’m almost done. Can you help me?” He was serious, determined. He turned around and went back into the store, his mother in tow. She stopped at the second tank. “Guppies, Jim.” He backed up and looked at the swarms of nondescript, gray-brown fish. The prospect of filling his tank with them caused a sinking frustration to take hold of him. He knew his mother always emphasized practicality. “The older kids had guppies when they were your age, and you just can’t kill ’em. And they multiply like crazy. You’ll never have to buy another fish.” The prospect of never buying another fish made him wish he hadn’t begun the whole project. For an hour he’d been wandering through aisles with the most flamboyantly colored living things he’d ever seen. To fill his new aquarium with cheap, nondescript guppies would be like creating the fish equivalent of an anonymous crowd of people. He had aspirations and none of them included five-for-a-dollar guppies. He stood in front of the guppy tank, feeling that he might be sucked right into the floor, afraid his frugal mother might not relent, when he heard the man with the greasy swipe of hair. “Did you want tropical fish or cold-water?” he asked Jim’s mother, having made the correct assumption that Jim was inept at making a decision. “Well, I don’t know. Jim, tropical or cold-water?” As devout hobbyists have a tendency to do with novices, the man couldn’t help but allow a bit of condescension to rise in his voice. “Well, do you have a heater for the unit?” His mother remained unruffled. The fish-geek didn’t intimidate her. “Jim, do we have a heater?” “Yes.” “Well, then,” he replied, happy to set them straight, “you don’t want any cold-water fish, unless you want to boil them to death.” He was happy to demonstrate his knowledge of what sorts of gruesome fates fish might suffer in the care of amateurs. “I think I know what I want,” Jim blurted, forgetting to be uncomfortable. “Okay,” his mother said, the tiniest bit of irritation beginning to creep into her voice, “show me.” He led her past four or five tanks to the first fish that had struck him as especially pleasing to look at: neons. They were the same size and shape as guppies, but the top of their bodies was a metallic blue and the bottom half a bold fuchsia. He turned to the salesman, who had followed them down the aisle but dropped back a few feet behind Jim’s mother. “What about these?” Jim asked him. “Good choice. They’re pretty hardy but you need to get a few. They need a group situation.” “You like those, huh?” his mother asked. “Yeah. Do you?” “They’re pretty snazzy,” she replied and leaned closer to get a good look at the fish before backing away to read the price on the top right corner of the tank. “You know, Jim, these are almost three times as much as the guppies.” “I know,” he responded, almost sounding snotty. “Well, it’s your money, hon, get what you want.” She backed away, giving space for him to tell the guy what he wanted. “How many did you want?” he asked as he stepped forward and folded back the lid before squatting down to pick up a net and a plastic bag from a shelf beneath the tank. “Fourteen,” Jim answered after doing some uncertain math in his head. He knew that however many he got, they had to be divisible by seven because since he’d begun doing things in sevens about a year earlier, his luck seemed to have improved a little. That afternoon, as instructed, he floated the plastic bags containing the new fish and water from their store tank in the aquarium to mitigate any difference in temperature and to prevent them from going into shock upon entering their new home. He sat there and watched them, seemingly happy about the prospect of a new environment. It made him uncomfortable that the man in the fish store put five in one bag and nine in the other, and worried that it might be an omen about who, among the family of neons, would survive. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, the tropical fish handbook folded open to the “New Home” chapter, when there were two light knocks on the door, followed by the turning of the knob. His brother opened the door a few inches and peeked into the room. “You playin’ with yourself or can I come in?” he asked. “Gross,” Jim said as he glanced at his brother and then back at the aquarium. “Oh, I forgot,” he said, “you still think that’s dirty.” Teddy, who was five years older, had been making crude jokes for as long as Jim could remember. His voice changed during the summer before eighth grade, when he had also shot up to a well-proportioned five feet ten inches. Jim, now at that same age, was still looking forward to the day he might surpass his mother at her modest five-foot-three and would be happy when there would be no chance of being mistaken for her when he answered the telephone. “Can I come in?” Teddy asked, although he was already well past the threshold. “Sure,” Jim answered, as if he had the choice of saying “no.” “So, Ma said you got your fish.” “Yeah.” He walked to the aquarium, leaned over, and looked in. “What, do you have to keep ’em in the plastic bags?” He was playing dumb. “Ha-ha,” Jim said in a monotone. “They have to get used to the new water.” “Well, it looks like they’ve been in there long enough. Let’s open them up.” He picked up one of the bags and began to tear it open. “No!” Jim jumped up from his bed. “They need five more minutes!” “Oh, that’s a lot of bullshit. C’mon. Let’s put them in. Don’t be such a pussy.” He opened the bag and poured its contents into the tank. The five neons wiggled with a spastic appreciation of freedom in their new space. “They better not die.” “They’re fine. Here, you open this one. If any of them die, I’ll buy you new ones.” Jim pinched the air-filled top of the bag and, still allowing it to float in the water, tore it open. Nine more fish added a flurry of color to the tank, and he was certain he’d made the right choice. “You’ve got yourself a nice little fish tank here, buddy.” “Yeah.” Although he was pleased with his choice, fourteen small fish didn’t look like much in a ten-gallon aquarium. “What’s all that shit in the back?” “The thermometer, the heater, and the filter.” “Oh, you don’t need that crap. We never had that for the guppies.” “Well, these are tropical fish and they need heat. And I know you didn’t have an aquarium for those guppies, you had a bowl. Aquariums need filters.” “No, they don’t, that’s stupid. There aren’t filters in lakes and ponds. I’m gonna take it out.” Teddy pushed up his right sleeve and began reaching into the tank; he loved to tease that way. Jim grabbed his arm and held him back as best he could. “Ass!” Jim yelled. It was just a game for Teddy, to see how much his younger brother could take. He had a slight smile on his face as he pushed Jim out of the way and grabbed the charcoal and cotton-stuffed plastic filter, its bubbles going in all directions instead of the usual straight line to the surface. “Maaaaa!” “Shut up! Baby.” He threw the filter back in the water. A few seconds later their mother called up from the bottom of the stairs. “What’s going on up there?!” Teddy quickly shook the excess water from his hand and grabbed the corner of Jim’s bedspread to finish drying it. “Nothing’s the matter, Ma,” he called back, walking toward the door. He turned around and scowled at Jim before crossing the threshold, calling back in a voice riddled with disgust, “Baby.” The next three months were highlighted by numerous trips to Land of Fish. If Jim had $5 that went unspent, it was torturous. The fish tank sat there looking barely occupied, reminding him of what he felt was his obligation to continue populating the world he’d created. He added eleven more neons and one catfish, purchased strictly to perform the function of trash collector on the bottom of the tank. At night the light from the tank filled his bedroom in a dreamy lavender, and he believed the glowing glass box provided more satisfaction than any book or hearth or television. The bubbling filter eased him to sleep, the plastic sea-fan gave him a sense of peace, and the neons made him grateful. Even the industriousness of the catfish, relentlessly cleaning the bottom of the tank, made him inexplicably optimistic. Hanging around with one of the few friends he had became a chore in comparison to the effortless time spent in the company of fish. Cleaning the tank was a lengthy process, and Teddy would sometimes sit in the bathroom, sneaking a cigarette as he watched Jim lean over the tub to take the whole thing apart and put it back together. He didn’t want to admit that he liked watching the routine. “Jim, they’re fish. No one goes out and cleans out the streams and the ponds, for Chrissakes. Why don’t you go out and hang around with some of your little friends?” Jim pretended he was too preoccupied to hear anything as he strained the multicolored gravel through an old colander that his mother, since finding out what he’d used it for, would no longer allow in the kitchen. Eventually Teddy got bored, flushed his burned match and cigarette butt down the toilet, and left Jim alone. On a Sunday morning in late September, the fish ceased to be a source of pleasure. Jim woke to see one of them belly-up on top of the water. Its skin was shaggy and white, and its neighbors were pecking away at it and gobbling down pieces of flesh. He immediately scooped it out with the net and ran down the hall to the bathroom, where he wrapped it in a piece of Kleenex and flushed it. By the next morning three more were dead. He consulted the handbooks he’d purchased and decided that the dead fish had all the symptoms of “ick,” a common parasite that plagues tropical fish. His mother drove him to the fish store, where she paid $4 for a small bottle of “NO‑ICK.” By the time they got home, the catfish was floating on top of the water, providing an early dinner for the remaining neons. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, facing the fish tank and reading the directions to administer the NO-ICK, when Teddy walked in the room. “Hey, you know you got another one tits-up?” “I know.” “All that extra shit—the filter, the heater, the thermometer—and you can’t even keep the friggin’ things alive.” “Shut up.” “Don’t tell me to shut up, Jim, ’cause I’ll kick your ass.” In a rare moment of forgetting who was who, he flew head-first at Teddy’s stomach and began to pummel his back and sides. It took Teddy only a second or two to recover from the surprise, and when he did, he boxed Jim’s ears with all his strength. Jim was dazed and collapsed into a sitting position on the floor, which made it easy for Teddy to punch him three more times on the left shoulder before turning to leave. “Don’t you ever mess with me again,” he said and slammed the door behind him. Once the door was closed, Jim jabbed his middle finger in the air three times as his mother called up from the bottom of the stairs, “Who’s slamming doors up there?!” For a few days it seemed NO-ICK would rescue the surviving fish, but after a week eight more had died, and according to the man with the greasy hair at Land of Fish, the prognosis was grim. The aquarium’s presence became a sadness Jim tried to ignore, and he began shutting off the purple light before he went to bed. When there were only three fish left, perhaps as a subconscious form of empathy, he developed a severe case of the flu. He lay in bed for days, feverish and sapped of energy, his body feeling doughy and weak. Still the filtering system on the aquarium hummed and bubbled away hopefully, as if it were still supplying an atmosphere of health and abundance. His father, home from one of his business trips, came up to his room a few times a night to visit. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched the remaining fish, no doubt having been informed by his wife that they were on borrowed time. Sometimes he’d pick up the food container or the bottle of NO-ICK or the pH test kit and read whatever was written on the side of it, eventually losing interest and putting it back in its place. One night Jim woke to see him carrying the net out of his room, cupping the mesh in his hand to keep it from dripping on the floor on his way down the hall. A few seconds later he heard the toilet flush. Jim slept through to the next late morning, not waking until he felt another hand squeezing his. “Jim? Jimmy…” It was his mother, sitting on the edge of the bed. Behind her was Teddy, standing there, looking uncharacteristically friendly. “Hey, buddy.” “Jim, Teddy and I have a surprise for you. Are you up to it?” “Sure he’s up to it, Ma, all he has to do is sit up. Besides, it’s eleven-thirty; he’s had enough sleep.” His mother propped him up with an extra pillow so that he could have a full view of the fish tank, which was draped with a bath towel. “Ready?” she asked, involuntarily grinning. “Yeah.” Teddy walked up to the aquarium and yanked off the towel to reveal at least a dozen gray-brown guppies of various size. “We bought you new fish!” She was very happy about it all. “Did all of the others die?” “Yeah, hon, they did. But now you havethese! Guppies! You can’t kill ’em. They’ll last forever.” “Not one lived?” Jim wasn’t surprised but he had that tiny bit of hope left. “No,” Teddy answered flatly. “They were too much work anyway. What’s the matter, don’t you like them?” “I like them. Thanks.” Teddy remembered that he had someplace better to be and left the room. Their mother tidied up the nightstand and then carried the wastepaper basket and an empty water glass out of the room with her. She called back from the top of the stairs. “I’ll bring you up some toast and tea.” “Okay, thanks.” He didn’t much feel like toast and tea, but he knew it was easier if he just took what was given. He’d rather not have to think about it anyway. The old man walks into Kanku’s to buy cigarettes. They have the kind he smokes, and he hands the clerk, Jules, a ten. She gives him his change. Outside, he strips the pack of its plastic and lets it fly off in the breeze. The gentle motion of having a smoke—hand to mouth, breathe in, breathe out—is an aphrodisiac for sleep. Next thing, Jules is grabbing the old man’s shoulder, shaking him. He opens his eyes. The moon is materializing in the darkening blue above. “You can’t sleep here,” Jules says. After a struggle that reminds her of a pill bug on its back, the man sits up. “Shit,” he mumbles, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” “Well, you did,” Jules says, “You have to go.” “I know. I’ll go. Be okay I sit here a minute first, just to wake up?” The grime in the wrinkles and bags under his eyes reminds her of crusted mascara. “That’s alright,” she says, “But then you have to keep it moving.” “Thank you, sister.” Jules goes back inside. The door closer chimes. A black SUV pulls up to one of the pumps. Then, next to it, a Dodge. The old man lights a new cigarette and keeps an eye on the moon. Cigarettes at Kanku's flash fiction by Paul Luikart The Poet writes a prose poem in which The Narrator speaks in third person. The Poet calls The Narrator by a name but it becomes buried under snowfall. The Narrator is surprised by snowfall, seeing as they have never before touched snow. The snow is like a puppy sticking to The Narrator’s leg; The Poet believes the snowfall to be a metaphor about poetry. The Narrator believes the snowfall to be a new companion. The snow, itself, keeps falling and melting and becoming new snow. A Guide to Touching Snow poetry by Danielle Rose creative non-fiction by Jessica Hudson According to the Global Peace Index, Iceland has been the most peaceful country in the world for over a decade. On the east side of the harbor at Keflavík, Iceland, past the dock where the whale-seeing tours depart and the fishermen park their smaller boats, a dozen rain-scrubbed yellow spools dangling from their masts—there lives a giant. Her meter-long footprints tread the concrete sidewalk toward a rambly old shack built into the side of a cave, its huge grimy windows grinning like uneven teeth, the dark wood like bruises on the cave’s salt-swept skin, the front door merely a shadowy opening in the rock-face. A large woman in a cherry-red black-polka-dotted dress welcomes visitors, along with two blond Icelandic children with cut-out ovals for faces and painted smiles. The wooden giantess grins good-naturedly around her two large buckteeth. Prepared for a childish display, we step through the dark opening into a semi-circle cave. It’s very chilly inside, the walls dank and mossy, the ground covered in knobby stones. On the far side of the cave, straight ahead about thirty feet, stands ten-foot-long bare wooden bed decorated with colorful pendants. A twenty-foot wooden cage-like structure towers on our right. A loud rumbling emanates from this cell, vaguely familiar. When we peer through the wooden slats, we understand what it is: giant snores on repeat. Giganta has fallen asleep inside her cell, smiling, eyes open but unseeing, her crude rocking chair still. (I suspect the locked door is for her own protection seeing as she is quite a friendly giantess.) We come up just about to her knees. We let her sleep. We arrive at the park through a narrow alley between two apartment buildings—both white, as most things tend toward in Keflavík, Iceland. Except the glorious trees. Though nameless to the two of us, the park speaks to us right away in rich green tones, seasoned swings, and thin, curving pathways. A narrow wooden bridge runs the length of the field above a shallow pond. We take one of the empty benches on the south side, our backs to the hospital on the other side of the road. On the other side of the bridge, a father swings with his young daughter. To their right, a young couple plays on the workout equipment with their little boy. Soon, another father enters stage-right with his little girl, maybe three years old. As they step onto the wooden slats of the bridge, he reaches his hand down to her. She doesn’t see it and charges forward by herself. Her father’s hands return to their pockets, and she leads him across, another pacifier left behind on the narrow bridge. While she sleeps, we have a look around the cave. The plaque placed conveniently near the entrance for natural reading light tells us about her 60-year history—from her birth in the first Sigga and the Giantess story written by the Icelandic author Herdís Egilsdóttirin 1959, to her creation by the Norðanbál art group and final relocation to Keflavík in 2008. The pendants on the bed are letters and drawings by the children to Giganta. Most interesting to me, however, is the Charlie-Brown-esque tree standing in the middle of the cave: handmade, about my height, bare trunk crafted out of thin wooden beams. The spindly branches are ornamented with oddly shaped plastic pieces and bits of rotting rubber. At first, I think they are small toys placed on the branches or tied with colorful strings and ribbons. Stepping closer, I realize they are baby pacifiers. Dozens adorn this pitiful fake tree, secured by the children who were ready to leave them behind, in Giganta’s cave, before passing through the other doorway and out into the sunshine. Enter two boys on bicycles, peddling up and onto the bridge. Helmets off, soda cans popped. Giggles and chatting ensue until one of them has a good idea. Socks stripped off, pants rolled up to their knees, bikes rolled to the edge of the water beside the bridge, front wheels toeing the ripples. A prompt from the one in back and they’re off through the water – who knows how deep? (unless, of course, this is not their first ride) – with a stream of more laughter, then back onto shore. Pedaling off from the far side now, one of them yells out a flurry of Icelandic that probably translates into something close to “Shit, that’s cold” as they push through deeper water, their wheels almost halfway covered as they struggle over the rocky bottom, giggling all the way. They look our way without a hint of embarrassment before continuing their new game. Young masters of spontaneity, playing on the brink of young adulthood. Before play becomes exercise. Before parks and pacifiers are reserved for the next round of youngsters. I wonder if these boys once placed their pacifiers on Giganta’s tree, if that is why they seem so grown-up already, ready to cast off into new waters. But only if they can still see the other shore. Pacifiers for Giganta Contributors DG Bracey DG Bracey is a teacher and a freelance writer from the Carolina coast. He’s published short stories in various journals. He has worked as a columnist and reporter for local newspapers. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, a MA in Writing from Coastal Carolina University and a BA in Journalism from the University of South Carolina. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram under DG Bracey. Mackenzie Denofio Mackenzie Denofio is an emerging writer working on her BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College. When not writing she can be found binge reading or watching with her beagle, Geraldine. Linda Eve Diamond Linda Eve Diamond’s poetry has appeared onstage at the California Palace at the Legion of Honor, on display at The Museum of Art—Deland, in the pages of Grey Sparrow Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, High Shelf Press ,and elsewhere. She is a recipient of multiple awards, including a Grand Prize Award from Artists Embassy International .Find Linda Eve’s poetry, flash fiction and photographs athttp://LindaEveDiamond.com. Paul Luikart Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collections “Animal Heart” (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016) and “Brief Instructions” (Ghostbird Press, 2017.) His work is included in Pelekinesis Press’ “Best Microfiction 2019” anthology and his short story “Barclay Station” won theNassau Review’s 2019 Writer Award for Fiction. He serves as an adjunct professor of fiction writing at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He and his family live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jessica Hudson Jessica Hudson is a graduate teaching assistant working on her Creative Writing MFA at Northern Michigan University. She is an associate editor forPassages North. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Pinch, Fractured Lit, Sweet, and Perhappened Mag, among others. Read more atjessicarwhudson.wixsite.com/poet. Michel Steven Krug Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist and Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars graduate and he litigates. He’s also Managing Editor fo rPoets Reading the New s(PRTN). His poems have appeared in Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven’s Perch, Tuck Magazine, Poetry24, Main Street Rag ,the Brooklyn Review and others. John Murray John Murray has a Master of Professional Writing and Doctorate in Education from University of Southern California, where he is now an associate professor. In addition to teaching academic writing, he teaches a class that helps students create short documentaries to raise awareness about community concerns. Murray also co-teaches a creative writing workshop for recently paroled prisoners who were serving life sentences. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Avalon Literary Review, Big Muddy, Delmarva Review, Opiate, Origins Journal, Pendora Magazine, The MacGuffin, Mount Hope Magazine, The Penmen Review, Rougarou, and Summerset Review.His essay “Saturdays in the Kitchen” was nominated for a Pushcart in 2018 by The Summerset Review. Danielle Rose Danielle Rose is the author of “At First & Then” (Black Lawrence Press’21.) Her recent work can be found in Palette Poetry, Hobart Pulp, and Pithead Chapel. 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 66 issues of 44 magazines, and is part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan. WWW.CRACKTHESPINE.COM CRACK THE SPINE LITERARY MAGAZINE