From the Editor

Welcome back,

I moved to Providence, Rhode Island this past summer. I was expecting difference. Different neighbors, different drivers, different customs, but besides the slightly hotter heat wave, everything felt the same. Rhode island was Maine except smaller. Providence was Portland except bigger. I was both disappointed and relieved. The move was such a large leap for me, leaving my family, my friends, my job, but here I was in a supposedly new place feeling pretty much the same.

Then, I attended WaterFire. Eighty-six blazing braziers bisected the Woonasquatucket River. Hundreds of people walked, sat, or kayaked along the dark water transfixed by the fires and the Italian opera music pumping from refrigerator-sized speakers. Though there were people everywhere, squeezed along the canal’s edge, leaning over the bridges, or bumping into each other along the river-walk, they were silent. I’m not sure if they were genuinely dumbstruck, or if I just couldn’t hear over the booming music. I was certainly dumbstruck. I watched a man propose to his girlfriend on the other side of the river and then looked back at the water and fire.

I haven’t been to many concerts, so my excitement about WaterFire may be naivety, but regardless, when I learned that the festival happens every other weekend, I promised to go to every one. So far, I’ve been to four.

Because I grew up in New England, it’s easy to think I’ve experienced everything the region has to offer, but of course, that’s impossible. There’s always another festival, fair, or phenomenon. No one has done it all.

My favorite thing about editing is the sheer variety of writing voices. No two authors have the same thing to say. Some are joyful, some despondent, fantastical, romantic, terrifying, or angry, but all are personal. While not every piece will go down as a literary classic, each one offers an honest slice of that writer’s personality, and I get to read them all.

Here are some of my favorites. Thank you for reading, and see you in April!

 Jonah Bradenday

 Contributors 

Fiction

Tom Abray (“Mineral Assortment”) has published a collection of stories, Pollen, and a short novel, Where I Wanted to Be. He lives in Montreal, but "Mineral Assortment" is inspired by recent trips to Maine and Vermont.

Alice Kinerk (“The Last Year of Trick or Treat”) holds an MFA in English from The University of Washington. Her middle grade novel, The Octopus Under the Bridge, was published in 2020. She lives and teaches in the woods of Washington State with her husband, twelve-year-old daughter, and their lovable but lazy black lab. Her website is alicekinerk.com.

Jonah Bradenday (“Los Desperados”) lives in Providence, Rhode Island with his partner. When he’s not reading, writing, or editing, he enjoys going to the movies.

Nadja Maril (“It Began With Something That Might Break”) is a former magazine editor and journalist living in Annapolis, Maryland USA. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at University of Southern Maine and her work has appeared in magazines that include: Lumiere Review, Lunch Ticket, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is currently working on a novel and additional credits include weekly blogposts at Nadjamaril.com. Follow her on twitter at SN Maril.

Jennifer Frost (“Of Course I Didn’t”) lives in Woodland Hills, CA with her husband & son. With an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Iowa, Jennifer has spent her life as a devoted reader & secret writer. You can find her stories in Esoterica, East of the Web & Deracine. Visit www.jennniferfrostwrites.com for stories, articles, and book reviews.

Amy Logan (“The Census Man”) lives with her family in Eastern Washington State. Her work has been published by Antipodean SF in Australia, but she enjoys writing in all genres. and has a soft spot for fiction that transports the reader away and lets them fully engage with the characters. She wants her readers to be able to feel something tangible and to change, just a little bit, from how they were before they read her work .

Nanami Fetter (“Terminal Water”) lives in Portland, Oregon. Her works have been featured in The Magazine, Pathos Literary Magazine, and Sapling.

Nate Currier (“Polar”) isn't such a bad guy once you get to know him. He lives in California and walks in the forest when he feels sad. Usually, he's pretty happy.

Nonfiction

Mal Cole (“Fall Comes to Great Head”) is a writer based in Massachusetts.

Twain Braden (“Diving For Junk in the Gulf of Maine”) is a great father. He’s funny, charming, and good looking too.

Visual

Rebecca Pyle (Cover, “The Clear Glass Teapot”) is an artist and writer. Artwork by her is in Tayo magazine, Rathalla Review, New England Review, Dream Noir, Gris-Gris, The Kleksograph, and West Trestle Review, among others. Find out more at rebeccapyleartist.com. She lives in Salt Lake City, the kingdom of sea monkeys/brine shrimp.

Mal Cole (“Three Leaves in Watercolor”)

GJ Gillespie (“Old Admirals”) is a collage artist living in a 1928 farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island (north of Seattle). In addition to natural beauty, he is inspired by art history -- especially mid century abstract expressionism. The “Northwest Mystics” who produced haunting images from this region 60 years ago are favorites. Winner of 18 awards, his art has appeared in 55 shows and numerous publications. When he is not making art, he runs his sketchbook company Leda Art Supply.

Twain Braden (“Haunting Bicycle Silhouette”)

Barbara Hageman Sarvis (“Breaking Through the Ring of Fire”) is an artist, educator, writer and activist living in Vermont after a successful career in art education and administration. During the past ten years, she wrote, illustrated and published five children's books in addition to having 5 of her paintings published this year in literary journals. Presently, she works as a gallery teacher at MASSMoCA in North Adams, Ma.

Mineral Assortment Fiction

Tom Abray

It was cool in the mountains in the late morning, so it didn’t really matter that the climate control system in the car wasn’t working. Gordon had recently bought the car used, and he was slightly proud of it. Some day he would need to have a few issues taken care of, but until then he simply cracked the window an inch to keep the air from getting too stale.

As he pulled onto the shoulder of the mountain road, Carlie put her phone away and reached for her backpack. At the hotel, Gordon had dropped in a few snacks that he had taken off the table near the restaurant door, assuming they were free provisions for guests like them, heading out to explore the day.

A short walk up the road they found what they assumed to be the trailhead. There was a sign, but the paint had been weather-blasted and the plywood had decomposed into a substance that looked like the walls of a wasp’s nest. Gordon and Carlie filed past onto the narrow staircase and climbed into the woods.

The first section of “trail” wasn’t a single path but a spidery free-for-all. Hikers had branched out, looking for the shortest route to get ahead of others before the pinch up ahead and the awkwardness of having to overtake slower parties.

Gordon and Carlie took different routes. Gordon was ahead, so it was really Carlie who chose not to follow. Now they seemed to be competing to prove who could find the most direct path. Gordon capitulated, slowing to let Carlie move ahead. There had been some awkwardness back at the hotel, and he was trying to be on his best behaviour. It was nothing too serious, but he felt that it wasn’t behind them yet.

Soon the trails merged. This part was easy going, except for the protruding rocks that threatened to trip you up or twist your ankle. Gordon glanced up from the ground briefly to try to read the back of Carlie’s head. What was this silent march all about? Was she dwelling on the test she had given him while they were still in bed, closing her eyes until he told her what colour they were?

The path descended slightly into a shallow valley where they trod over remnants of mud. Carlie felt the ridges through the thin soles of her shoes. A day or two ago this would have been quite a mess. Now it just crumbled a little beneath her weight.

While they were in a clearing, she listened. She could not hear the cars on the highway, at least not while they were walking, with the footsteps and the swish of fabric. If there were no trees, though, would she have been able to see? They were probably still laughably close to the flow of traffic, though it already seemed like they had entered another world.

Is that why they had set out from the hotel with a poorly Photoshopped brochure about local hikes?

The whole weekend had been a little “last minute”, spontaneous rather. She thought of it as Gordon’s idea, but it had really been hers. She was the one who started to browse Google maps while procrastinating at the office. She was the one who sent the first link. She sensed that Gordon was inspired by the idea of driving through the mountains in the new car. The drive had been nice, yesterday afternoon, longish but anticipatory and scenic. The walk around the lake hadn’t disappointed. Dinner had been pretty good but a little over-priced, according to Gordon. Then love-making, a deep sleep in the mountain air, and this morning the stale whiff of boredom before Gordon found the brochure.

The process of choosing the trail had been a distraction, but now that they were on it, they didn’t know what they wanted from it. Was this exercise? Were they hoping to enjoy the regenerative effects of nature, discover Instagram content, spot a falcon? The blurb about this particular trail mentioned a rock formation that was “worth the effort”. Symbolically, it represented the end of the hike for most; however, near the top, there was a branching trail to a “precarious descent” that “hooked up with” the “piggy-back loop” of another trail that was accessible off a county road on the other side of the mountain.

Forging on to another trail actually intrigued Gordon, though he kept the idea to himself. There was no one to drive him from the other trailhead back to the car unless he and Carlie parted ways at the top and she returned to the car and drove around to pick him up. But that option was too dangerous, selfish, and unfeasible to mention.

They followed a switchback that delivered them to the base of a steep climb. They took hold of sinewy trees for stability. It was time to abandon daydreams and focus on climbing. It was almost embarrassing, this heavy breathing, losing balance, having to try hard.

The climb was tricky, but not very high. Gordon pulled himself over the lip and took a few steps just to definitively conquer the obstacle. Turning back, he offered Carlie a hand, but she reached for a tree instead. After hoisting herself over the edge, she exhaled and stepped past him.

“That must stop a few people,” Gordon said.

“Yeah.” Carlie pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. She located the path and proceeded forward. The ground was even and free of rocks and roots, for a stretch at least. She gazed up at the branches and leaves. She thought she might name them, but she didn’t know trees, other than birches and maples. On more than one occasion she had decided to learn but hadn’t yet.

The path snaked gently. Walking single-file, they fell into a rhythm. The tension between them eased, at least for a moment. It frustrated him how often she emanated anger, inexplicable anger. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t the true cause, although he did feel it aimed at him. It was unfair, he thought, and at times he wondered how much longer he could take it. But then, like now, it would pass, and in hindsight seem almost insignificant. 

Carlie was thinking she would potentially get into hiking. It was like yoga or tai-chi, one of those activities that brought the mind and body into unison and didn’t do harm, relatively speaking. She shared the idea with Gordon.

“Absolutely,” he said. A few seconds later he added, “Especially if you don’t drive to the trail.”

She lengthened one stride in order to place her foot beyond the edge of a protruding rock. She said, “Yeah,” but distractedly. She enjoyed the sensation of being nimble. Jogging on this path could be fun, especially here where it was not too technical. She wasn’t currently what you would call a runner, but she had a physical affinity for running. Twelve or more years ago, in phys. ed. class, she finished the 3k run near the front of the pack and people said she should do track or cross-country. She wasn’t interested but had a premonition that at some point later in life she would run.

The path again dipped into the valley, and they stepped through dried, corrugated mud. A tree had fallen, and someone had cut out a two-meter section of the trunk to clear a way through. The bark had sloughed off or had been removed. Absent-mindedly, Gordon slid the palm of his hand over the wood as he passed. It was smooth and cool. The touch was too brief. He reached out and let the leaves of a sapling brush against his fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, through the foliage, he saw a rocky peak in the distance. “I think that’s where we’re going?” he said.

They were advancing through a stand of young trees. The air was cool on Gordon’s skin. Perhaps it was the smoothness of the wood that had heightened his sense of touch. He wondered how alone they were. There had been another vehicle parked at the trailhead, a beige mini-van, but they had seen no one. He took two long strides and touched Carlie on the shoulder. She looked back at him. The colour of her eyes: did it matter which word you chose? Most eyes were not “brown”, “blue” or “green” anyway. They were some mineral assortment. Carlie’s contained a significant portion of emerald but also flecks of other minerals he couldn’t name with colours resembling rust, orange peel, charcoal, and blue Mr. Freeze.

Instead of touching her bare shoulder, he slung his arm around her, backpack and all. She offered him a smile and circled her arm around his waist. They took a few steps side-by-side, but the path was narrow, so Carlie let go and Gordon dropped back.

“We have a good pace going,” he said.

“I can slow down for you if you can’t keep up,” she said. “I think we’re going to have to climb again soon. We’ve got to get up to that ridge.”

It was similar to the first climb but significantly higher. Much of the time they were scrambling on all fours, as the dry earth crumbled underfoot.

When Carlie reached the top, she knelt over the edge to look for Gordon, but he wasn’t behind her. At some point, they had apparently diverged onto different routes. She ducked through the brush along the edge of the ridge, failed to find him, and turned back. He was waiting for her.

“Where’d you go?”

He shrugged and asked playfully, “Where’d you go?”

They could not see it yet, but they were actually very close to the end. The path was pebbled here. It almost looked as if it had been landscaped. The “trees” were short, crooked, almost vine-like. It was brighter and the air was different. In anticipation, they lengthened their strides. Twenty meters further they emerged onto a rocky precipice. It was like a stage of smoothed rock, slightly domed, and out near the end was the boulder, which looked vaguely like a huddled rodent.

About four meters from the sloping edge, they came to a stop. To take in the view they had to turn their heads and twist their bodies. They could see where they had been and far beyond.

“I didn’t see the other path,” Gordon said.

Carlie stopped squinting into the distance and looked at him.

“To the other path,” Gordon said.

Somehow this annoyed her, because she had been looking for it too.

Gordon, himself, was a little torn. He wanted to admire the view and inspect the premonitory but he also wanted to scoot back down the path and figure out how they had missed the other trail. It didn’t have to be right away, though. He would soon find out: they had to go back that way. He sat down on the rock, stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles.

“Do you want to eat a little something?”

Carlie shook free of the backpack and practically dropped it at Gordon’s feet. He reached in, found a granola bar, and tossed it to her. He also fished out the bagels and a container of yogurt, which he peeled open. As he looked over his shoulder, he noticed Carlie. “Where are you going?”

He thought he heard her say, “Nowhere.” When she was twenty meters away, he got up to follow. He knew where she was going, but he tried to be nonchalant. By the time he reached her, she was on her way back, with a decidedly innocent expression on her face.

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

She flung her arm backward. “Just there.”

Gordon walked to where they had emerged from the bush. About ten meters along, the path veered to the left. That was where they had come from, but now that he was not focused on reaching the premonitory, he saw two narrow strips of pebbled path that ran on each side of a thin, delicate tree. Looking more closely, he realized that the two strips merged. The tree was growing in the middle of the path.

He found Carlie standing near her backpack, looking away from him. He pulled the warped brochure out of his pocket and looked at the map. It was hand-drawn, it seemed, lacked detail, and wasn’t made to scale, but it did have a dotted line in more or less the same location as the newly discovered path.

“That’s it,” he said.

Gordon waited for some response, but Carlie just chewed her granola bar and looked out over the tops of the trees. “Too bad we didn’t have someone to give us a lift back here from the other trailhead,” he added. “Could be cool.”

“Could just do it,” Carlie said, turning back around to face him, more or less.

“We’d have to walk both ways. It could be dark by the time we get back and we don’t have water or much food.”

Now Carlie was looking off in another direction, not at him. “I guess,” she said.

He was hoping she would say, “You should go. I’ll drive around and meet you,” but instead he said, “You could do it.”

“And leave you?”

“I actually wouldn’t mind driving over there to pick you up, but splitting up is probably a bit dangerous.”

Carlie swallowed and looked down at the last third of her granola bar. She peeled back the wrapper to prepare her next bite.

“Don’t you think?” Gordon asked.

“I guess,” she said, as she cracked a piece of granola between her molars.

On the return, she was so quiet that he said, exploratorily, “One of us should have done it.” The only reply was footsteps and light breathing, so he added, “But that would have been irresponsible: to split up.”

“Yeah. There was no way. Not today.”

“You’d have to start early, bring a lot of supplies. Do it as an out and back.”

She had nothing to add. Her unwillingness to help save the moment--the day in fact--irked him, but he tried not to think about it. He tried to enjoy the walk, but the return held less mystery.

Carlie was thinking of the future. Maybe she would start running this week. She pictured trail shoes, firmly laced, and undulating trails. She was striding between trees, alone, pushing herself, breathing freely.

Inspired, she started to jog. A few seconds later, Gordon pulled up beside her and said something like, “Extra energy?” to which she replied, in a gasp, “Yeah,” before picking up the pace. Gordon fell behind but stayed on her heels as they snaked through the trees. Carlie sped up.

Gordon’s footsteps quieted as he fell back but then grew louder again. He was at her heels breathing heavily. He tried to laugh. “Is this a race?”

“No,” she said, but it was.

They reached the car red-faced and panting, though trying to hide the extent of their exertions. Rather than resting in the open air, they stepped right into the car. As he pulled onto the road, Gordon had a premonition that, as a couple, they would always teeter on an edge between happiness and resentment.

Carlie sighed and opened her window. “You really have to get your fan fixed,” she said.  

“I know,” he said, admitting it fully, even sympathetically with no defensiveness or wounded pride. She looked over and gave him one of her determined smiles with the squinty eyes, holding it until he could glance over and see, which he did. And then he turned his eyes back to the road, which was narrow and curvy.

Definitely some orange peel, he thought, but he would need another look to confirm the Mr. Freeze blue.

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Three Leaves in Watercolor by Mal Cole

Fall Comes to Great Head Nonfiction

Mal Cole

 Mount Desert Island hovers in my consciousness like Maine hovers over my home state, Massachusetts. It looms like a thought cloud in a cartoon— not quite attached to my daily reality.

Mount Desert Island doesn’t sound like a place in Maine. It sounds like somewhere a pirate ship washes ashore. It seems far away, though it’s only a four-hour drive north from where I live—far enough. Often I forget it’s there, but then it returns through the mists like Hy-Brasil, Avalon, Brigadoon, or Howl’s moving castle. Maybe it appeared that way to Samuel de Champlain in 1604 when he arrived at the coastal island that the Wabanaki Native Nations call Pemetic (“range of mountains”). Champlain saw the bald peaks of what is now Acadia National Park rising up as if from nowhere in the midst of the Atlantic. He was searching for Norumbega, a mythical city. He called the place Isle des Monts Deserts.

Really, it’s me who appears here every few years.

I came for the first time the year I turned twenty-one, and again at twenty-five, and again at twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, and, now, thirty-five. Each time, it’s a slightly different me who comes with a new job, new ambition, new anxiety. But the same person (almost) always is with me, Pete—my boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, and, now, my husband.

We’ve been here in the town of Southwest Harbor for more than a week. We rented an old house with wide knotted floorboards and exposed beams—right by the sea. It’s the first time we’ve been able to afford to stay for so long. It’s September, and the house lets the night drafts in, but the days are lukewarm, like a pot of soup with the lid left on all day. The mornings are wet and thick with mist.

And I feel like my body is failing me.

I wanted to hike for days, without stopping, without tiring. I wanted to hike up and down as many mountains as I could. I thought it was what I needed. We’ve never stayed on this side of the hundred square mile island before, and I wanted to climb new mountains. But every day I have struggled. My soft overwrought body struggles up and struggles down each peak. I am aching, and it’s not that good sort of aching that lets me fall fully and blissfully to sleep. It’s the sort of pain that keeps me up at night. It’s the sort of pain that begs me to stop. Is it my age? Or am I just that out of shape?

I’m frustrated with myself; Pete flies up the steep rocky paths like a mountain goat and only occasionally looks down to see me galumphing behind him. The concern in his eyes, the sunlight at his back, and his long uncut hair give him a disconcertingly Christlike air. I hate feeling like a burden, like I’m holding him back. I hate that I’m not enjoying this beautiful place. Or the person I love.

At night I look at the pictures of my slowly aging self, each time I’ve come here—like there’s some clue in these frozen moments. What happened to me, the college student, the sales associate, the administrative assistant, the gardener, the farmer, the florist? And what is happening to me, now? I drag my useless legs to the harbor, and glare at the fancy sailboats, as if my concentration will free them from being battered by the sea. I hurt so badly, I wonder if there really could be something wrong with me. But I’m afraid to believe it.

Pete was supposed to have another week off, but the real world has called him back. When he told me, I ran my tongue behind my teeth to stop the words. He can’t come and frown at the boats with me because the world beyond the mists, beyond the mountains, needs him.

Envy settles over me, heavy and humid as the mist.

Pete has always known who he is. At fifteen, Pete was an engineer before he could drive. When four interns at a local tech company left for college, Pete replaced all four of them. It’s not just that he’s always been startlingly brilliant. He loves what he does. It’s the love that makes him good. I can see it when he’s working on a problem: the pure desire to solve it. But I don’t want to be one of those problems.

I have struggled to find myself. In the past I’ve been distracted from what I really wanted out of life with the immediate necessity of work. But not now. Without my usual hustle, I feel like a wedding gift— a heavy, bone white, casserole dish: not useful in a day-to-day way, aesthetically benign, and too nice to throw away. I’m lucky, I know, to be free—privileged. But maybe I wasn’t built for this kind of luck.

—

The retreating tide rushes through the wide stream in the sand that separates me from the path up to the Great Head Trail. The stream washes all the way to the sand dunes to my left. To my right is the sea. In front of me the small peninsula of Great Head peers out of the coast like a shameless looky-loo spying on a tiny island. The island—I know from the Acadia National Park map, is called Old Soaker.

The still rising sun retreats behind a cloud and the pink granite cliffs seem cloyingly rosy. It’s a steep trail up from the beach. I am below the trees, below their roots even. As I draw closer, my steps are slowed by the sand. The sun is obscured completely by the cliffs. In this cold and sudden shadow, I have the brief sensation of being in the underworld.

I’m not alone here. Other people, other dogs, other kids, mill on the beach like sand fleas. Their voices rise above the crashing waves like harsh whispers over a church organ.

They don’t know what I’m feeling.

I cross the small stream, and my feet sink into the sand. Old Soaker, I think while wishing I had worn real boots. My thread bare sneakers seemed like enough for the job. The wet September air, palpable, almost potable, is an extra burden. My skin feels damp even inside my raincoat.

And my legs are still crying out in protest. Hiker after hiker passes me as I feel the sharp response of every footfall. I have no reason to try and keep pace with anyone, but I lumber up the slope feeling leaden—only half begun, and already depleted.

The path crests at a crossroads. Self-consciously I pat my pockets for the map. Trim little people pass me: people who are probably running a marathon next week, people who have the right kind of shoes, people who have visible clavicles. Tough chitinous bodies pass me while I wriggle moistly in place like a grub. The sweaty paper from my pocket reads like hieroglyphics, and its meaning melts before my eyes. There’s no way I could really get lost. It’s a tiny loop path.

And I’ve been here before.

The path levels briefly before returning to a steady climb. A zealous dad with toned, hairy, calves zips ahead of his kid laden partner, as if he’s late for a forgotten appointment. Someone else with gray pigtails who sounds like a schoolteacher quizzes her friend. “How can you make a bucket of water lighter without removing any water?” she asks. Her companion nervously thumbs the straps of her backpack, like this is a real test of intelligence. Somehow, I can’t bear to hear her answer. I push my pace, hoping to pass them, and the effort winds me.

I stop, step away, and let the stream of bodies pass me by.

Was I always like this? Was my body always so heavy—did I always feel so heavy? I’ve had a recurring dream since childhood: I run down a hill, so light on my toes that when I come to the end my feet leave the ground, flying. Was that feeling ever real, have I ever really felt it?

I slink into the trees, and onto a small path of pebbles and gravel ground to sand by hiking boots on the boulders. Blueberry bushes push through pale lichens piled up like snow. The leaves of the blueberry bushes are touched with the red. I pick one of the leaves and pop it in my mouth, chewing it gently as I walk. I know that it should taste sharp and green, but my mouth is dry—I can’t taste anything. I run my hand up the top of a small scrubby spruce tree like the tail of a dog. I sniff my palm, and the piercing scent clears the inner mists for a moment. My eyes water, and I can’t tell if it’s from the wind, the spruce, or something else.

Beyond me is the cliffside. The wind, free of the trees, whips my hair out of its headband. I’ve bleached it so many times, like the pigment might somehow be weighing me down. Now it’s breaking free, flying everywhere. I step closer to the edge. The sea roar is too loud now to be pierced by a hiker’s voice. I could scream if I wanted to. I look down, watching my feet as if they might overstep the speckled granite, and fall into the sea. When I look up, I can no longer see solid ground in front of me. The mist blurs the line between water and sky. The pain in my legs has left me. I can’t even feel my heart beating. The wind on my skin is the only thing that reminds me that I’m still a sweaty creature full of guts and messy feelings. I’m a rock piled on the edge of the land: silent, solid, salt kissed, clammy and cold to the touch.

I will be here forever.

—

It doesn’t matter how many times I have hiked around Great Head, the place never seems to stick in my memory. I can never remember how long it takes to hike, or how far the loop walk is, or how steep the slopes are. I remember that the views are good, and it doesn’t take too long—a hike you can add on when you’ve already hiked too much. Those are the things that I remember before I’m there.

When I came to Mount Desert Island for the first time, Pete was newly graduated and coming back to Massachusetts from New York State for a job. I was trying to transfer out of my large state college where I was getting lost—swallowed, really. That May was a dead zone. Pete’s job wouldn’t start for another few weeks. I had finished my sophomore year, but hadn’t heard back from the schools I had applied to for transfer. The train of our lives had stalled, and we had no choice but to look out the windows and see where we were.

And we needed to catch our breath. Pete had nearly died of a blood clot, in the first weeks of my freshman year of college. I drove home from college after only being there for a few days. The first time I saw him at the hospital he was wheeled by on a gurney surrounded by nurses. He was crying out with the pain. That was the first time Pete’s parents told me to go home. As Pete’s condition grew more dangerous my parents begged me to go back to school. I missed the first two weeks of my freshman year. I wouldn’t leave. To me there was only one option: to stay as long as Pete wanted me there, and he said that he did.

One night in the hospital, a nurse roused me from my sleep in an uncomfortable chair, and told me matter of factly that Pete’s condition was unstable. His parents had gone home for the night, and were on their way back. I was afraid to go back to sleep, like my own loss of consciousness would give Pete permission to leave this world. I stared at the veins on his hands and willed the blood in them to keep moving. I watched doctors and nurses jostling and injecting.

Time seemed to slow down, and Pete’s death began to feel inevitable. All at once it occurred to me that, a hospital was a strange place to die—with beeping machines, the smell of plastic, antiseptic, and half-washed bodies. Shouldn’t he have been laid out somewhere as beautiful as he was, and allowed to slip away into the earth? At a loss, I prayed, angrily, and I didn’t know who to. I loved him. I wanted him to stay with me.

“I don’t want him to die,” I told the nurse.

“I know you don’t, and I don’t either, but I don’t want you to be unprepared. You’re not the first little girl I’ve had in here, you know?”

I was eighteen. It was the first time that I thought I might be too young for all of this.

I gave way. When Pete was perched on the edge of life. I ran away, for a while, unable to stand my ground anymore. When Pete’s parents returned, we argued, and I left. I understood that I was an unwanted complication as they tried to care for their son. I couldn’t go home and face my parents, so I walked stiffly through the cold hospital light and outside to a dark garden. I lay face down on a stone wall. I though, selfishly, about how by tomorrow I might be a dead boy’s girlfriend.

I could finally cry.

We both survived, and for a few months we could pretend it was all some fluke, like a car accident—a close call. And then, we went through it all again that summer when Pete had another blood clot.

I tried to adjust to life at school but, in addition to missing Pete desperately—like if he were out of my sight for a second he might slip away, I felt like every adult in my life had failed me. I just couldn’t see how graduating on time was so important, in the face of life and death. A high school bout with mixed eating disorders metastasized and mixed with other coping mechanisms. When the hunger pains kept me awake, I would drink and take the pills the campus health clinic gave me until I could sleep. It was a symptom of a deep undressed wound. I couldn’t recover from the first major hardships of my life.

I hoped I would never wake up.

When Pete suggested the trip to Mount Desert Island I was terrified that he would see how broken I was.

—

In 1947 a fire destroyed much of Bar Harbor and the surrounding wilderness. Earl D. Brechlin writes in his pocket guide to Mount Desert Island that “all the vegetation on Great Head is still recovering from the effects of the Great Fire of ’47, which blew itself out in a great wind-whipped fireball that leapt from the head and extinguished itself out over the ocean.” The fire had burned all the trees, all the grass, all the moss and lichens—everything back to its bare essence. Brechlin wrote his guide to the island in 1996. I don’t know if Great Head is fully recovered, or if we will ever know when it is.

—

I step away from the cliff side and I’m startled by a single blue flower growing out of a crack in the rocks. It is so blue against the gray that it looks like a hole in the clouds. I can’t find another one nearby. She’s there alone. The seed that she grew from was dropped long ago by some bird or blown in by the wind. She was left there to struggle into bloom, I want to capture how blue and how lonely the flower is against the gray sky and the cold stone. I lie on the ground to try and photograph the flower, but she flails too wildly in the wind; the camera won’t focus.

In time I rejoin the fray of hikers. I’m not looking out at the sea anymore. I can look back toward the island, now. The maple trees are turning scarlet in the low places. From here I can see the beach bellow me, and the people milling around taking pictures of the yearly dying. When I came here a week ago, all the leaves were green. The change happened gradually. I noticed one leaf brushed with red, it’s veins still green.

As the chlorophyll in the leaves is depleted other pigments, formerly masked by the brilliant green, come forward. Soon all the brilliant reds in the maples, the gold in the paper birches, and russet browns of the oaks will be revealed. The leaves have this intense moment of brilliant brightness before they fall to the tree’s roots. They fall to the earth and are eaten up, bit by bit, by tiny organisms. But the tree lives.

Autumn has caught up with me.

—

When Pete was in the hospital he couldn’t shave, so he grew a beard. He hasn’t shaved that beard in fifteen years. I forget what his bare face looks like. There’s gray hair in that beard now, and at his temples. I forget that he has changed too, and there’s no version of him I couldn’t love.

Besides the beard, the regular tests to monitor his blood thinners are the only reminders of his sickness. But, somehow, I’ve never been able to fully let it go—let the lessons learned inform my life in a practical way—like I’m supposed to. I’m still angry. The anger hovers in the back of mind, and then, sometimes, the bright and brilliant pain of it comes flooding back.

Pete chose this place for us to recalibrate: him from his double brush with death, and me from my slow self-destruction. On that trip, Pete took a picture of me on Great Head staring out at the sea. Last night, when I looked at that photo again, I didn’t see the depleted ghost that haunted my insides. Today I realized that she’s been here all along.

I’m afraid to be sick. I’m afraid to need help.

—

The mountains loom beyond the beach—the hikes I’ve done before: Gorham, Cadillac, The Beehive. It’s enough to know that they’re there. I don’t need to climb them again. Not today. Their peaks are hazy—in the clouds, and for once I’d like to be able to see for miles uninhibited.

But that’s not the kind of place I’m in.

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The Last Year of Trick or Treat Fiction

Alice Kinerk

“Hurry Up, Kaitlyn.”

Kaitlyn cannot hurry up. It is Halloween, and she is dressed as her favorite thing, a book. Every time she takes a step, her thigh bangs into the cardboard cover, knocking the costume to one side. The only way to walk is in tiny steps. Fast, tiny steps.

But Portia and Yesi keep getting farther ahead. She can see them talking. They are swinging their brooms above their heads and talking. They have forgotten all about her. Kaitlyn should call to them, demand they wait up. But she has the kind of voice that’s good at whispering with a best friend, not so good at shouting.

At least now they are walking down the Pine Street hill, which is straight and steep and therefore easier. Kaitlyn, Yesi, and Portia are twelve. They have Halloween figured out. Their plan is to walk down Pine hill, through downtown -- downtown Laconia, New Hampshire is Y-shaped, maybe five blocks altogether -- to Pleasant Street alongside Lake Winnisquam, where the houses are bigger, and the candy is too.

It had been the three of them alone at Portia’s since the school bus dropped them off, eating microwave pizza and watching Heathcliff. Yesi and Portia are both dressed as witches. They had flopped over at the waist and pulled combs the wrong way through their hair until it was puffy as a rat’s nest. Then they stuck their brooms between their legs and took turns chasing each other around the living room. 

Now they are taking the long way, down Pine hill, rather than the shortcut down Batchelder, over the footbridge, and behind the old textile mill. They have to because Yesi lives this way, and her mom wants to take a photo. Kaitlyn’s mom wanted something similar just that morning, but Kaitlyn threw such opposition she backed off.

Kaitlyn did not want Portia to see her house with the flamingos in the yard. Her mom bought them two summers ago at a flea market in Sarasota during an impromptu trip to her grandparents after Kaitlyn’s dad moved out.

“Flamingos are funny. And flamingos in New Hampshire?” her mother had said, shoving the metal posts into the earth. “Even funnier.”  

Kaitlyn had agreed. But then, one afternoon right after school started, when Yesi and Kaitlyn were practicing cartwheels, Yesi pointed out how the sun had faded the birds’ plastic from pink to white, and also, a hairline fracture along one wing. 

“Flamingos are funny,” Kaitlyn said. 

“Yeah,” Yesi said. Yesi was the sort of friend who would never say a mean thing. But sometimes, the way her face looked, you could tell she was thinking it.

Kaitlyn’s face is warm as she baby-steps down Pine hill. Ahead, Portia and Yesi turn right on Dixon toward Yesi’s house. By the time Kaitlyn arrives, Yesi’s mom is outside, oohing over the witches. She positions Kaitlyn in the middle, steps back. The shutter snaps.  

“Wait here. I have candy.” Yesi’s mom disappears.

Yesi spots the neighbor’s black cat slinking through the yard. She cackles, assumes a starting position. “Look! The perfect costume accessory!”

The two witches beat it toward the cat.

Kaitlyn starts after them. She takes one step. She’s stuck. The cardboard edges of her costume have caught on the branches of a low bush. Her head hole and arm holes are too high to pull down. Her nose is inside, her eyes peeking over a cardboard horizon. A branch prickles against her leg, poking her through the too-small spandex leggings her mother ordered her to wear. The way her foot is pinned down, she can’t even move away from it.

There’s no use calling for help. Her mouth is inside the costume. Her nose has been running in the cold, and now it’s begun to drip. There is snot on the rim of the head hole. There is snot on her nose and cheek. It itches terribly, and she cannot reach an arm up to wipe it.

She could try rocking back and forth until she falls out of the bush. The costume is wide but thin. Easily toppled. But she doesn’t want to risk hitting her head. 

In a moment, the door squeaks open, and there are steps. “Look at you!” She feels hands under her arms. She is being lifted. She raises her knees, points her toes, and her feet jiggle loose.

“Thank you,” Kaitlyn says, and waits with Yesi’s mom for an awkward moment as Portia and Yesi jog back. Candy is dispersed.

Yesi’s mom wants to talk to Yesi alone on the porch. Kaitlyn can tell she’s getting a lecture, probably about leaving a friend in the bush. Yesi’s eyes move between Kaitlyn and her mom. She’s frowning.

Then she’s back, and they’re walking toward Pine hill. Yesi walks on one side of Kaitlyn, and Portia walks on the other, which would be nice, except it proves that Yesi’s mom told her to. Also, the sidewalk is only just barely wide enough. Every time they reach a telephone pole, Yesi has to skip ahead to avoid walking into it.

They turn right at the bottom of Pine hill toward downtown and walk Main Street, past the tire shop, past the grocery store, past Dunkin’ Donuts. Streetlights blink on. They’re by the Lions Club when two boys on bicycles approach. They are in black, black sheets flapping behind them like capes. Last minute, low-effort teenager costumes designed to score candy. It’s Portia’s older brother, Tom, and his friend.

“There you are.” Tom sticks a foot out, brakes. “Mom said stay together. You’re late.”

“We know,” Portia says.

Tom pushes back his sleeve and checks his watch. “We were going to be at Pleasant Street by six-thirty before it gets crowded.”

“We know.” It’s Yesi this time.

“It’s already six twenty-six.”

Nobody speaks. Kaitlyn’s thigh is sore from where the book bangs. She wishes she was reading.

“Well, walk faster,” Tom says. He pedals away.

So Yesi gives up walking beside Kaitlyn. She and Portia go on ahead. Kaitlyn’s legs have turned to Jello. She feels weak, her face itches, and she has developed a tremendous thirst.

Nearing Court Street, out of desperation, Kaitlyn discovers another way to walk in the costume. She leans back, takes a wide step with her left leg. At the same time, she throws back her right shoulder. The cardboard goes back with it. Then she takes a wide step with her right leg and simultaneously throws back her left shoulder. Now she isn’t walking into cardboard! Now she can walk as fast as she’d like!

Kaitlyn-the-book sashays quickly down the sidewalk, enjoying her newfound speed. In minutes she’s close enough to hear Portia and Yesi talking. A block ahead, Tom and his friend do figure eights in front of Sawyer’s Jewelry.

When Portia and Yesi reach the Court Street intersection they press the button and turn to Kaitlyn.

“You look like you’re on the catwalk,” Portia says when she gets close.

Kaitlyn doesn’t know what a catwalk is. “Thank you,” she says.

The light changes and she sashays across Court Street with the witches. They bear left, onto Beacon. Tom, across the street now, lets out a holler and starts pedaling double speed. Portia yells too and begins running. Brake lights appear on a passing van. It pulls into the parking lot behind Melnick’s Shoes. The driver rolls the window down.

It is Portia’s oldest brother, Drew. Drew says he’s on his way to pick up his girlfriend. They’re going to a party. “What do you want?” Drew looks annoyed.

Portia walks to the passenger side door, opens it, and tosses her broom inside. “Give us a ride.”

“I’m not going that way.”

Tom bikes up to the driver’s side door, stops with a sudden thump. Words are exchanged. The engine is too loud. Kaitlyn can’t hear anything. Then Portia and Yesi are climbing inside. Tom and his friend are already racing each other to Pleasant Street. 

“Come on, Kaitlyn.” Yesi motions for her to get in.

Kaitlyn just stands there. She doesn’t want to walk, but she can’t sit down with the costume on. And she can’t take the costume off. Underneath the cardboard, she’s wearing the too-small spandex leggings and a too-small turtleneck. Yesi knows this. Try as she might, the shirt and pants refused to meet in the middle, so her mom had ordered her to add the overall shorts, the stupid ones with the daisy print. Underneath, Kaitlyn is a mix of spandex, daisies, and turtleneck. She’s dressed like a crazy person.

She wags a hand. Her cheeks are warm but everything else feels cold. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Don’t be silly,” Yesi frowns.

“My costume doesn’t bend.”

Yesi climbs out of the passenger seat and behind her, Portia does too. Drew twists the radio dial. Portia pushes past Kaitlyn. She throws open the van’s double doors. “You can ride back here. It’s like surfing.” Portia sticks her arms out, wiggles her hips. “Tom and I do it. It’s fun.”

Kaitlyn does not want to ride in the back while everyone else rides up front. She knows they are being nice, but it doesn’t feel nice. Now that she can sashay, she would prefer to walk, and she says so.

But Yesi and Portia won’t have it. They discuss how to hoist Kaitlyn into the van. Drew gets out. He lifts Kaitlyn, as Yesi’s mom had done, forklifts her under her arms. Portia lifts her left leg, Yesi lifts her right. Kaitlyn is placed into the van. She leans forward, sort of shimmies onto her right knee. Her fingers bump against the wall, and she is inside.

The doors are shut, everyone else climbs back in up front, and they go. Drew’s blasting WAAF 107.3, Boston’s home for hard rock. It’s unmistakable with the squealing guitars. Drew turns it up so loud, the speakers crackle.

Kaitlyn props herself against the ceiling with one hand, and her other hand is on the wall. The van is not tall enough for her to stand upright, but right now the book’s at a forty-five-degree angle, and she’s on her feet, her knees to one side. Her chin is down inside her costume, like a reluctant turtle. All snot has dried. She watches Portia and Yesi in the front seat. They’re headbanging.

They exit the bank parking lot, turn right on Beacon. Then Drew hits the brake, and her hands slip.

Kaitlyn falls and the air is knocked out of her lungs. “Huh,” she says as if she’s just learned something important. But of course, all she’s learned is not to stand up in the back of a moving van.

Silvery specks float before her eyes. Her chest hurts.

They’re moving again. Drew must have caught sight of Tom on his bike because he’s speeding up on Beacon.

Kaitlyn is frictionless on the van floor. She tries to grip, but she can’t. Her fingers are not strong enough. She slides again as Drew switches to gas.

At a red light, Kaitlyn struggles to her feet. Then the light turns green, and Kaitlyn goes down backward. The back of Kaitlyn’s head bounces against the van door’s metal frame and she is once again face down. For a moment, everything goes black. When the world returns, it spins with pain, and feels fuzzy somehow, fuzzy and forgotten, like a fifth-generation photocopy of a story she used to know. Kaitlyn felt like this before, at the Bloodmobile three years ago when she was ten. She’d gazed too long at the blood bag attached to her mother’s arm and passed out right there in the Sacred Heart gymnasium.

Kaitlyn isn’t thinking she might be hurt. She is thinking her costume might be ruined. One shoulder has a dent. And the van floor is not clean. It is covered with gravel and leaves. Every time she slides, she can feel grit scraping the cardboard underneath her. 

Probably the paint is already scratched. That’s sad. She and her mom worked hard on the costume. They began in September, with an idea Kaitlyn sketched on notebook paper. Her mom brought a cardboard appliance box home, carried it to the basement where they had the space, measured the whole costume out, cut, and glued it. The next day she procured a long sheet of butcher paper, clean and white, and they set about creating the cover.

Kaitlyn chose the book The Watcher in the Woods by William W. Johnstone. She’d read it last summer, in four days, at sleepover camp. Afterward, her best friend at camp had read it too. When they were done, they were full of shivery, delightful fear. Kaitlyn loved camp.

And Kaitlyn loved making the costume with her mom. Drawing the cover and writing the back cover blurb was great fun. Kaitlyn’s mom was busy, of course, but it was the sort of thing she made time to do after the divorce. Because Kaitlyn’s mom loved her, and she worried about her. And Kaitlyn worried about her mom too.

They turn onto Pleasant Street. Drew takes the corner fast. The van stops. Kaitlyn maneuvers toward the door. When it opens, she pushes down, shoves against the floor with her sweaty palms. Her feet sink. She pops up.

The lights of Pleasant Street are insufficient to show the blood matting the back of her hair. Even she doesn’t know yet.

“You’re right,” she smiles when they open the door. “That is fun.”

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Los Desperados Fiction

Jonah Bradenday

Lilac wanted to rob the train. And he knew how. He could visualize it happening so well it felt like he was remembering, when in fact he hadn’t done anything related to the caper but think about it. It was so well formulated in his mind that he imagined nothing could go wrong. He realized he might be the first man to think up an actual perfect idea. Overcome with pride, he grinned.

He did most of his thinking on his back porch. The pear tree provided shade and the ocean was just visible through the shrubbery. He was comfortable on that porch. When he was comfortable, he became a vigorous thinker.

While he was thinking about robbing the train, his friend, Paduallis French arrived carrying a milk crate crammed full of bottles of yellow liquor. Paduallis distilled molasses into rum, but he hadn’t yet gotten good at stopping the wash from boiling over and staining the liquor. It tasted fine anyway.

Before he could set the crate down, Lilac stood and pointed a finger at him.

“You’ll be my horse wrangler.”

Paduallis stopped, crate in the air, and looked at Lilac like he thought the man had lost his wits.

“I brought drinks,” he said.

Lilac waved his hand as if drinks were the least important thing he'd ever heard of. Of course, he hadn't heard Paduallis speak because he was still thinking about the train.

“Your cousin has horses?” It was spoken as a question, but he knew Penny French had horses. They were the big ones with thick legs. He also knew their specialization was wagon pulling but figured they could be ridden as well. They were strong enough.

Paduallis set the crate down carefully, but the bottles still clinked. He took one out, held it up to the sky as if he wanted the sun to shine through it, which it couldn't with the trees in the way, and then he uncorked it.

“She does,” he said.

“Big ones,” said Lilac. So, he had a horse wrangler. He would be the leader. El bandito principal. All that left was the need for a pistol-whip. Tourists weren't often the rambunctious type, but having someone who knew how to use a firearm might make the whole operation smoother.

Paduallis took a drink. He winced at the heat of the liquor.

“Are you still thinking about robbing the Narrow-Gauge?”

Lilac was tapping his chin, scrolling through names in his head like prizes on a fairground spinner. When Paduallis asked it, he felt starbursts across his body. Better than piss tingles.

“Next Tuesday seems best,” he said.

Paduallis scratched his hairline with the mouth of his bottle.

“I never heard of anyone robbing a train in the twenty-first century. Especially the Narrow-Gauge. It’s barely bigger than a roller coaster.”

Lilac didn’t feel like arguing. He wanted to rob the train. He wouldn’t stop wanting it until he did it. He shrugged.

“We’ll be the first.” First and most famous. He could already visualize the headlines.

PORTLAND POLICE PUZZLED

TINY TRAIN TERRORIZED

SHERIFF RANDY BIGGS DEMANDS JUSTICE.

OUTLAWS OR ICONS?

He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure of the public’s support. They would see the robbery for what it was, a finger to the system. He would be an antihero. Prince of thieves.

Paduallis tried once more.

“It’s a tourist train. There isn’t anything to rob.”

He offered his bottle to Lilac, who took it and sipped. He also winced.

“Tourists have watches, don’t they? And phones. And wallets.”

Paduallis looked dubious. He drew from the bottle again but didn’t argue.

Millie was more difficult. She was the only person Lilac knew who owned a gun. A .22-caliber revolver with a baby blue grip. He liked the fact that it was a revolver. It fit his vision. The baby blue didn’t, but he wouldn’t be choosy. Millie was also his sister.

“I won’t steal from tourists,” she said.

“Why not tourists?” He wasn’t sure if there was something specifically sympathetic about tourists he had forgotten.

“It’s an evil thing to do. They don’t deserve my gun in their faces.”

“You can keep a third of the booty.” As soon as he’d said it, he knew “booty” was the wrong word. He was embarrassed. Given the opportunity, he’d try to amend his error.

“Obviously,” said Millie. “There’s three of us, so we’d each get a third, or were you going to take more than your fair share?”

He had planned to take half. It was his idea. He deserved the king’s share. But Millie was being difficult, and really it wasn’t about the money. Not for him anyway.

“You can keep half,” he said.

“Two-thirds.”

And so, Millie was convinced.

The rest of the planning was easy. Lilac drove to Party City and bought ten sets of handcuffs. They were plastic, which wasn’t ideal, but at least they looked like metal. He only knew there were handcuffs at Party City because Millie brought some to her bachelorette party last October. They were pink and the chains were fluffy. When he saw the metallic ones at the store, he was so relieved, his tear ducts went tingly.

He also bought a cowboy costume for Paduallis. The package included cow print chaps, a holster and orange-tipped revolver, and a hat as wide as a trash can lid. They were each supposed to provide their own outfits, but Lilac had known Paduallis most of his life. If he wasn’t distilling, he was drinking, and if he wasn’t drinking, he was either sleeping or feeding the squirrels nested in his garage. He was apt to show up on Tuesday wearing sneakers and a tank top.

Penny French was delighted to be rid of her horses for the week. She stuffed them and all their gear into a U-Haul trailer and went to the movies. She didn’t ask Lilac why he wanted them. He felt a little regretful about not being asked because he’d written and rehearsed a three-page lie starting with the words,

“Whatever happened to horse racing?”

On Tuesday evening, they drove the trailer into town and parked behind the Boys and Girls Club. It was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to lack of staffing. Then, they each took turns in the truck stripping down and donning their costumes.

Millie came out wearing a bowler hat, bolo tie, and jeans that went up to her ribs. Paduallis put on the Party City gear but refused to take off his sunglasses. Lilac argued that outlaws didn’t have sunglasses back when they were robbing trains. Paduallis took a gulp of yellow liquor, spat, and said,

“They didn’t have plastic handcuffs either.”

Lilac was last to dress up. He took his time, carefully stuffing the legs of his khakis into his black leather boots. He buttoned his pinstripe dress shirt up to his neck and buttoned his best man’s vest over that. Finally, he placed the authentic felt ten-gallon hat on his head and straightened it in the mirror. He felt a warmth in his chest when he saw his reflection that could only be described as satisfaction. Tucking a black pillowcase into his belt, he climbed out of the truck.

He hadn’t been able to find any genuine handkerchiefs, but Millie had some extra neck warmers from ski season that were basically the same thing. Before they saddled up, Lilac made sure each of their faces was covered.

Each of them had enough riding experience to know which way to pull the reins and how to stop and start a gallop, though as soon as they set out, Paduallis began complaining that he was too drunk to ride.

Lilac felt tingly about the eyes again, though this time it was not a happy feeling. Paduallis French was getting on his nerves. If he kept wobbling about in the saddle like that, people would notice. If the wrong people noticed a drunk-looking cowboy, they might never reach the train.

“Try harder,” he said in a shaky voice.

People noticed though it was probably more the horses than Paduallis’s drunkenness.

Some people stared. Others pointed. The children they passed were most excited. Their mouths gaped open as they tugged on their parent’s arms. One was brave enough to approach.

“Can I pet your horse?” she asked.

Lilac knew he ought to let her. It might strengthen his infamy. The girl would remember the day she touched the Narrow-Gauge Bandit’s horse. But his insides felt like oily metal and Paduallis had frustrated him.

“She bites,” he said. The girl snatched her hand away and scuttled back to her family.

The Narrow-Gauge railroad ran between the cruise ship pier and the east suburbs in a tight loop. Two miles of oceanside tracks. Tourists from Tampa and Tuscaloosa filed into the two cars every hour, rode for forty-five minutes, and then filed back onto the cruise ships.

The view from the train was lovely. A smattering of islands. A lighthouse. A civil war-era fort built from refrigerator-sized blocks of granite.

When Lilac, Millie, and Paduallis arrived at the pier, the sun had just dipped behind the trees, tinting the waves purple. Gulls floated above silently. A trio of busking cellists lent an eerie tune to the scene. Lilac felt peculiar. Not the plain excitement, he’d expected but an apprehension of the nearness of their deed. Of course, he was not so nervous he might quit. More than ever, he wanted to rob the train. But he was restless.

They waited a hundred yards from the station in an empty dirt lot. The train was back, but not yet boarded again. Tourists milled about the platform, some taking photos of the three riders from afar. Lilac didn’t mind as long as their faces were covered. He wanted infamy. This was the first step.

Paduallis started drinking again as the tourists began to board. Lilac gave him a mournful look.

“You’ll fall off your horse.”

Paduallis gulped, gargled, and swallowed.

“I’m awfully nervous.”

Millie took the bottle from him and guzzled for a few seconds before handing it back.

“It’s an evil thing to do,” she said.

Lilac felt like his hands were someone else’s. He tightened his grip on the reins. The train lurched forward and moved away at a steady jogging pace.

“When?” said Paduallis.

They’d discussed the details numerous times. Lilac wished he’d written a step-by-step to keep Paduallis from further bungling, but such a document would be incriminating. He wanted to rob the train, but he also wanted to get away with it.

“As soon as it’s around the corner.”
The engine reached the corner.

He felt like he’d drunk a pitcher of coffee. He pressed his eyes closed, hoping to speed up the passage of time. He opened one eye.

The first car rounded the corner.

He shuddered. He’d never felt so unusual before. Like his brain had turned into a clementine and the wedges were coming apart.

The second car disappeared.

Paduallis whooped and kicked his horse. And the three of them burst forward.

They caught the train in a minute and a half. Sure enough, Penny’s horses could ride. If he hadn’t felt so uneasy about their coming crimes, he might have been terrified by their speed. The horses passed the carriages in three seconds.

“Is it still driving?” shouted Paduallis. It was. They were just galloping fast. In fact, they passed the engine too, though it was meant to be their destination. Each rider had to wrench on their reins to slow.

By this point, the passengers were watching, likely wondering if they’d accidentally signed up for a reenactment of some sort. Some were probably delighted. A cheap fare for a ride and a performance. Others were certainly already rolling their eyes. They’d come for the elegant ocean views, not rough-housing rodeo clowns.

The engineer was also watching. His face was even more full of befuddlement than the others, for he knew there was no reenactment planned and could only wait to see what might transpire. He was short and barrel-shaped. No hair, save his eyebrows, and pink-cheeked like a choir boy, though he looked to be nearly seventy.

When they drew even with the engine and its engineer, Lilac gave the signal. They hadn’t practiced or discussed the motion, but in his extreme discomfort and desire to gain control of his surroundings, he pumped his fist like a truck driver, hooted once like a barn owl, and hopped aboard the train.

While the engineer didn’t seem confident about which regulations forbade costumed horseback riding, it was evident to Lilac the man was well-versed in stow-away dealings. He hadn’t been aboard the little train for a full second when he received such a thump on the back of the head that he dropped to his knees and grunted.

“No free rides, buddy,” said the man, and he thumped Lilac again. All he could do was sit there and try not to pass out. His eyes were full of speckles, and his tongue tasted like copper Pop-Rocks.

The blows continued for a minute or so, not getting much worse nor better, though the likelihood of unconsciousness seemed to be growing, as did Lilac’s desire for it.

Then, he realized it had been many seconds since the last knuckle hit his head, so he gave an immense effort and opened his eyes.

He was surprised to see Millie in the engineer’s place, the violent man nowhere in sight. He breathed sharply to invigorate himself. The speckles gave way to smudges, and he smelled fireworks.

“Get up, Lilac,” said Millie.

He did as she said, though not without some resentment. If she had been the one receiving a beating, she might have had more patience.

“Where’s the engineer?” he said.

“Gone.”

It was a bad answer, but he didn’t much care. So far, none of the robbery was going as anticipated and frankly, he was ready for the conclusion.

“Alright, have you counted the tourists?”

Millie had a twitchiness to her that he wasn’t familiar with. Instead of standing and looking in one direction, while they talked, she kept glancing everywhere and nodding like a sprinkler head.

“Bunch of them jumped when I did it. There’s a couple left though. Hiding under the seats.”

Lilac nodded. He wasn’t sure what “did it” meant, but things were close to finished. He’d have time to ask her after.

In the next moment, he felt the vigorousness of the idea return. He stood as straight as he could on a wobbling surging train engine, adjusted his hat low over his eyes, tightened his neck warmer, and went to find the tourists. He realized he’d forgotten the handcuffs, but he wasn’t bothered. The robberies were quick and victimless. He wouldn’t need them.

There were two in the first car. Two old ladies crouched low behind their seats.

“Well, Howdy Ma’ams. This is a stick-up,” he said in his best dusty drawl. He tugged the pillowcase from his belt and held it out.

“All your fineries, please.”

The ladies scrambled for their purses and sunglass cases and dropped them in, their hands shaking terribly.

Lilac was thinking about headlines. He turned and strode into the next car. The train backfired twice, which was odd. He didn’t know trains to backfire, but he wasn’t an engineer, so he didn’t think about it for too long.

There was one in the second car. A man, maybe forty, with blond hair and a bad sunburn. He cringed as Lilac approached.

“Please, don’t do it,” he said.

“I’m a reasonable fella,” quoted Lilac, “give me the gold and I won’t have’ta.” He stuck out the sack, and the man emptied his pockets. A phone. A wallet. Keys. Some nickels, and a gum wrapper. Lilac tipped his hat.

“Sir,” he said.

This time, he watched Millie shoot the man. All his vigor left him. Like soup through a sieve. There was less blood than in the movies. The sunburned man jerked in his seat and then went still. Lilac felt a strange distance between his thoughts and what he was seeing. As if he were watching everything transpire on stage from the back of an auditorium. He looked out the window and saw that Paduallis was gone.

“Where’s our horses?” he said. He didn’t really want to talk to Millie. He felt a degree of frustration toward her for changing his plan. It was all meant to be illustrational. A performance with stakes. Somewhere between a reenactment and an actment. But, there was no one else to talk to, so he looked at her.

“Paduallis took them.” She continued to twitch about like a marionette.

“Where?”

She shrugged, which looked funny given her shiftiness.

“Back to town. Soon as I shot, he bolted. I knew it was an evil thing to do.”

The resentment bubbled and popped its way out of his throat.

“It wasn’t til’ you made it. I wish you hadn’t come.”

He noticed she was crying He felt quite poorly, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. If he hadn’t been with her, he felt he might cry as well.

“I told you it was evil,” said Millie, still brandishing the gun. It looked foolish in her hand now. A cheap rubber fake, no better than Paduallis’s. Though the barrel was still smoking, Lilac almost believed it had never gone off. Then he saw the dead man again. He had to frown deeply to keep from choking.

They stood there for almost a minute, Millie weeping down her sleeves, and Lilac trying his hardest not to. A siren in the distance wrenched him from his wretchedness.

“The law,” he muttered. He couldn’t help himself. Between two heartbeats, he’d become a desperado once more. Millie gave him a queasy look, but he wasn’t dampened.

“We’ll foot it,” he declared, marching towards the exit. The sack of contraband, bumped heavily against his back, deepening his satisfaction.

“If we run like hell, we can disappear in the shrubbery. If we’re lucky, we can slip the law in the dark.” It wasn’t nearly dark, but the words felt right. He reached the door, flung it open, and looked back at Millie.

She hadn’t moved. Her gun arm was limp at her side. The top of her neck warmer was soggy with tears. She just stood there quivering not looking at anything.

“Millie, they’re closing in,” he said. “Look lively.”

She looked at him and opened her mouth, but she didn’t speak for a second or two. Her body shook again, and fresh tears rushed down her cheeks.

“Lilac, why’d you make me do an evil thing?” She stared at him and then sat opposite the sunburned man.

Lilac’s lower lip trembled, so he clenched his jaw to stop it. He looked at Millie, the dead man, and the floor. Then he turned away and hopped off the train. The sirens were louder now, but not so loud that he was caught. Without looking back, he ran for the trees and crawled under a gooseberry bush. He lay on his belly, watching the train roll further and further away, while the sirens came closer. He was comfortable there, and though he thought a bottle of Paduallis’s yellow liquor might add to his enjoyment, the heavy sack was company enough. The ocean was just visible through the leaves, and the swells reminded him of purple prairie hills.

He pulled his handkerchief off his chin and exhaled. He’d never felt so lonely.

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It Began With Something that Might Break Fiction

Nadja Maril      

It was the last day of the antiques show. In a few hours, the rented display cases, pegboards, and tables would be stacked onto dollies and wheeled away. The glitzy displays of antiques, fine art, and jewelry would become another memory as I waited in the empty auditorium.

What started as an experiment became my profession. My husband Zack was a middle school teacher. I had dreams of opening my own boutique. But first, we needed seed money. A flexible schedule with lots of travel, a chance to tour the country. Our plan was to eventually stop traveling and post our antiques on the internet. But shipping was dicey and selling in person was lucrative, once we got our spiel set.  

Zack had a habit of scratching the corner of his mustache before he began to speak, which I think makes him look thoughtful. He’d pick up the item being considered and say, “Look at the way that crystal sparkles, all those stars cut into the surface. The hours of labor spent polishing and buffing.” Then he’d lower his head slightly and look sorrowful. “They just don’t make things like this anymore.”

Standing beside my husband, I’d speak in measured tones about the history of the object, adding details about the manufacturer and museums where they might find similar items. Then more likely than not, Zak would put his hand on their arm or shoulder, as if telling them something in confidence. He’d read in a book that if you make physical contact with a customer, you’re more likely to make a sale.  As long as they appeared to be listening, we kept talking, never knowing if they had intentions of buying until they reached for their wallet.

Some of the shoppers made a game of feigning serious interest. They’d circle the booth, ask a series of questions, pocket our business card, and effusively assure us they’d be back. We called those people “be backers,” because they were the people who never came back at all.  Instead, they would waste our time, posing as connoisseurs with money to spend, as if our feelings and time had no value.  

In college, I once dated a guy who did exactly that. He took me to an antiques show at a big fairground in California, and he asked every dealer if they had a small pewter flask. They’d search their inventory and if they had such a flask, they’d triumphantly pull it out, expecting to make a sale, because they thought he was some sort of collector, Then he’d hem and haw and say it wasn’t quite what he was looking for, but he’d think about it and might be back.

“I could probably find you one, a nice flask, when I go back east. There’s more antiques there,” I said and he looked at me and laughed.

“I don’t want a flask. It’s just more fun to have them think you’re going to buy something,” he said. “It gives them something to do.”

We broke up a few weeks later.

In the antiques business you see things you don’t want to see, like the customer taking photos of your descriptions and price tags when they don’t think you’re looking, the man who tries to lift your wallet out of your purse you left hanging on the chair, and the mother who watches her child rip the corner of an antique book you labeled “Do Not Handle Without Assistance” and is indignant when you ask “Are you going to pay for that?”

But like everything in life, we took the bad with the good. We met plenty of nice people who became repeat clients. People we wanted to entertain. Because purchasing an antique isn’t like buying something new. It’s an experience. 

If someone buys something used, they want to know who was using it before them, so we gave our customers a story.  No one wants to hear the boring truth that we bought the Limoges porcelain from another dealer at a flea market. Instead, we’d say, it came right from a lovely Victorian home, stashed inside one of those big mahogany china cupboards.  The family were bankers, and they only used it on Sundays. That’s why it’s so perfect, scarcely a chip.  

They listened, and they smiled and imagined everything we told them. They bought the kiln-fired art pottery, the porcelain teapots, and the iridescent colored glass goblets.

“Dealers,” a voice boomed over the loudspeaker, “We still have two hours left before the end of the show. Customers are shopping. Do not start packing. I repeat. Do not start packing.”

Typical show promoter nonsense, I thought to myself. If he did a better job bringing customers in, he wouldn’t have to be making these announcements because the dealers would be too busy selling. But on a Sunday afternoon when they get bored, of course, they’d start packing.

I surveyed how much inventory was left to box up. If business didn’t pick up soon, I too would start stealthily packing, a little bit here and there.  Zack had run across the street to buy us each a turkey sandwich. I debated whether to ask the dealer across the aisle to watch the booth while I changed into my jeans.

But the show wasn’t over yet, and I heard a deep voice, “Is this one of your lamps?”

I turned and saw a young man about my age wearing khaki slacks and a trenchcoat carrying a large cardboard box with a brass lamp peeking out of the top. His hair was damp, and he had a handsome face. “Is it raining?” I asked.

“Yes, a little bit,” he said.

Load out on a rainy night meant wet vehicles and slippery roads. It might be two in the morning before we got home. I felt sorry for Zack. He’d have to use the side mirrors to see out the back, once the van was fully packed.  Not an easy drive.

“So, what do we have here?”  I looked down into the box and recognized the desk lamp with a telescopic arm. Our brass lamps were old, but their surfaces were free of blemishes. This lamp had several dents.

“What happened to the base? “I asked, “and where’s the shade?”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “I need a shade. It broke.” He retrieved a bag from the bottom of the box and pulled out an opaque shard of white glass.

I took the piece of broken glass from his hand and examined it, recognizing the brand and style.  We’d only had a few. A shame this had fractured, I thought, and then I saw her in my mind. The woman who bought the lamp the previous year. Honey-colored hair. Smudged liner around her brown eyes. She’d asked me how far out the lamp could be extended. “My husband’s an architect,” she’d said. “I think this might be perfect for his desk.”

“Oh yes,” I’d said, “This style was specifically designed for drafting. Made around 1920.  American.”

Probably embarrassed he broke the shade, I thought, so he’s come to buy another one. I pulled out a shade from a box under the table and screwed it to the lamp. “This would do the trick unless you want a different shade. A green cased shade would look nice.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I want the same shade as before. My wife bought this lamp for me. She came to the show, last year. She bought this lamp for my desk.”

“Yes,” I said, “I remember. It was a birthday present, right?”

“Yes. My birthday. On the way home, she was rear-ended.”

“So that’s how the lamp got dented?” I said. “Is she alright?”

He cleared his throat. “After the collision, she got out to inspect the damage. Another car hit her while she was standing in the road.”

“What?” How could he be standing here, telling me this, a year later?

He lifted the lamp out of the box and cradled it in his arms.

“She died on the way to the hospital,” he said.

I imagined his wife, disoriented and confused, getting out of her car, the rain pouring, water dripping down the sides of her face, trying to get her bearings, and then run down by a passing motorist. Taken in an instant, completely unexpected. The husband receiving the news. Perhaps two policemen knocking at his door to tell him.

How would I react, if something like that happened to me, if suddenly my husband was dead?  

This young man, this customer in my booth; how was he able to go on? Could I pick up the pieces of my life, replace the broken lampshade, and keep forging ahead?

“Can I just give you a shade? It’s the least I can do. Take your pick.”

“If you have one close to the original?”

I felt around, anxious to make things right for him, as if I had the power. I had several shades that would fit, but none were exactly like the one his wife had selected. But he’d never seen the shape, had he? Only the color of the glass. I could say it was the same. A version of the truth. Tell a healing story.

“Oh, here it is,” I said, “Here’s the one.” I unwrapped a shade from the bottom of the box and pulled it out for him to see. “It’s perfect. The sister to the other. Look at the way the edges flare, to capture the light and focus it down on the spot where you’re working. Your wife picked this very style. It’s the other one of the pair. We’re lucky to have another.”

Our eyes met. I’ll never forget the look on his face. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m so glad I made the trip. I’ve been staying with my parents, but I thought…”

“No need to say a word. I’ll just put this in a box.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“Oh no, this is a gift,” I said.

“I insist. I want to pay for it. You’re running a business.”

I still have the check he gave me folded inside the center drawer of my desk. Every so often I take it out of the drawer and stare at it, a reminder that life is short and it’s the stories that count.

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Old Admirals by GJ Gillespie

Of Course, I Didn’t Fiction

Jennifer Frost

The night my parents reported me missing, the police came over and searched the house. Missing kids can turn up in closets where they’ve dozed off playing hide-and-seek. The heating ducts in the old house conducted sound between floors, so I heard the doorbell, my father giving orders, my mother’s mousey squeak.

“We’ll search from top to bottom,” said an officer, heavy shoes on the staircase. Up, up, up to the attic. Their sounds faded, then grew closer as the party descended through the house. The men moved furniture, opened doors, pushed coats aside in the hall closet. They rummaged in the laundry room, looked behind the TV and shined flashlights around Dad’s dark office, its shadowy shelves heaped with his army gear.

I was there behind the furnace, holding my breath as lights swept over rucksacks, spare boots, camo fatigues, and MREs, the room reeking of army camps, dried sweat and worn leather. Officers shifted the desk and filing cabinet where Dad kept his red pens, teacher’s gradebook, past papers, and drafts of his letters to the editor. His draft notice, dated 1970, lay among the leaves of a faded photo album in the bottom drawer. Police beams directed at the furnace, and even behind it didn’t illuminate every corner. With my feet tucked in, I was invisible.

“We’ll search the neighborhood,” said the officer.

“The neighbors will be asleep, won’t they?” said Mom, “We can’t go knocking on people’s doors at this hour.” But off they went, up the stairs, convincing Mom that the neighbors would want to help. The front door opened and closed. Mom stayed home in case I returned.

In the morning, I overslept, so I missed them going out. Dad’s staff meetings started at 7:30 AM. Mom’s boss was a real jerk. The house was quiet from top to bottom. I used the bathroom and ate from the fridge. The phone kept ringing throughout the day. Of course, I didn’t answer. I watched TV until I heard Mom’s car. I was hiding again before she got inside. Most afternoons, Dad stopped for an hour in his favorite bar on the way home. . He liked to share a pitcher of Miller Lite before the evening grind of correcting papers and grading tests. Maybe two or three pitchers.

“Did you hear from the police?”

“They left a message with the receptionist. No news.”

“I didn’t give them my work number. I can’t take personal calls during office hours.”

That night, I slept in my own bed. It was too dusty behind the furnace, even with a pillow and blanket. In the morning, I woke to the sound of the shower, footsteps passing my bedroom door, and bickering.

“I’m going to be late.”

“You’re late every day.”

“You sound like my boss.”

Down the stairs and out the door, they rushed. Their cars pulled away, one after the other. I slept another hour, then got up and washed the cobwebs out of my hair. Around lunchtime, I walked over to the school, and from there; I went to the park. If I’d had 50 cents, I’d have ridden the bus somewhere, but my pockets were empty. I returned to school in time to hear the last bell ring, falling in step with the kids from my neighborhood.

“Didn’t see you in class today.”

“I came in late. Doctor appointment.”

I let myself in with my housekey, turned on the TV, and sat down to finish a tub of chocolate ice cream. I rinsed it and buried it in the trash when I was done. The phone rang. Later, it rang again. I was on the couch when Mom came in from work smelling of copy paper, printer ink, and fading perfume. “Meatloaf for dinner tonight and no complaining,” she said as she passed. I hate meatloaf.

She came back a moment later, her face dark with emotion. “What are you doing?”

“Watching TV.”

“Where have you been?”

“In the basement.”

“The basement? For two days? God damn you. We’ve been looking for you. The police came.”

“I know.”

“What is wrong with you? I’m going to have to call the police station and tell them you wasted their time. I’ll have to tell them they spent all that taxpayer money for no reason. That might be a crime, you know. You might go to jail for this.”

“They don’t put kids in jail.”

“Juvenile detention, then. Your father wants to send you to military school. But it’s too expensive.”

“I’m going to my room.”

“Stay up there.”

On the stairs, I met my brother. “Where were you hiding?” he asked.

“Crawl space behind the furnace.”

He grinned. “I knew it.”

“You didn’t tell.”

“You never tell on me.”

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The Census Man Fiction

Amy Logan

Caleb sat at the rough wooden table, his fingers gently stroking the small bottle of ink. It was almost entirely empty, except for several small droplets of black in the very bottom. He had used it sparingly, up to the very end. He had planned all the words in his mind, carefully, holding them there, stacking them up in long rows of sentences until he could not remember another word, or add another letter. Then he carefully grasped the pen and lightly, ever so lightly, put the words down on the piece of scrap paper, its tip tracing the scrolls and loops and crosses that Caleb commanded until his mind was empty. Then he would write the next section, within his own mind. 

As Caleb examined the ink bottle, he imagined that it was full again. He saw hours of words, trying them in new combinations, arranging and rearranging until every word was in just the right place, until the words could make his heart sing or weep. He had not been so careful with the ink in the past. He had never dreamt of the day when he would hold his very last bottle of ink.  But now he sat, alone, with no money, far from the town.

So, he stretched his mind and memory to hold a hundred words, no, two hundred or three hundred at a time. He arranged them perfectly there until they held just the right meaning. He could not afford to throw them down onto paper, he could not afford the extra use of ink even to scratch a word out or draw an arrow to move a word to another spot. He could not afford to make a mistake. 

Caleb’s memory had grown, but he could not hold all the words forever. He could hold them temporarily, while they were new, and some phrases he was particularly fond of would stay in his mind forever. The plots, the characters, the settings, all were there, deep in his mind, but there was something about the pleasure of reading them, completely, once they were written down. He would go back sometimes, in the cold of night, and select a story he had written years before. He would clear his mind, and pretend it was the first time he had ever read it. He pretended that he was a stranger, someone who was looking for something to take him away, take him away from the troubles of the world. And he would read. And the story, if he had done his job, would take him far away. The four walls of the cabin would dissolve, and the howling wind would silence, and even the coldness of the room or the heat of the fire would disappear.  And Caleb would find himself instead, in a dripping green jungle or a deep red canyon, alone.   Then he would feel the prick of the tropical mosquito piercing the skin of his forearm, the noontime heat radiating off the red canyon wall. And he’d feel joy. This is why Caleb read. This is why Caleb wrote.

But the joy of writing was tempered, now. There was a pall of sadness, of depression, as he looked at the nearly empty ink bottle. Now he would have to hold all the words within his head forever with nowhere to put them. No way to write them down. No way to empty his head, to clear it, to make way for new stories. Then what would he do? He tried not to think about it.  He told himself that he should be thankful that he had had the chance to write these many years.  That he shouldn’t complain, but instead be happy for the stories he had been able to write down.  But at the core of his being, squatted a sullen child, who was unhappy as he had been so good for so many years, only now to be punished. If he couldn’t write, if he couldn’t get the words out, Caleb, most certainly, would go mad. 

It was a matter of survival. He had tried experiments with ash and stone and branch but none of them had been satisfactory. Carving words into wood, drawing them into soil or dust or snow to no avail. Caleb needed ink. 

There was a knock on the cabin door. A firm knock. A deliberate knock, one of authority.  Caleb paused. Who would be coming out here, this far out in the country? No one came into these hills on purpose. It was the knock of a stranger. Caleb tried to look out the cabin window to see what kind of stranger was out there. What kind of stranger wanted in.

He saw a short man, in red, not a poor man. Not a country man. His woolen hat was red, and his woolen coat was red, and his pants were black, and his boots were of brown leather. The man held a thick pad of paper in one hand, but the paper did not get Caleb’s attention. In the same hand, was a pen and a bottle of ink. A black bottle of ink.  He could see the ink’s fullness, tilting at a slivered angle through the opaque glass.  [JB1]  The stranger was coming in. 

Caleb opened the door. 

“Good afternoon,” the stranger greeted him. “I’m with the United States Census. We are doing our census count, every 10 years you know?” he stated. “Do you mind if I ask you just a few questions?”

“No,” Caleb answered, finally tearing his eyes off the ink bottle. 

“Would you mind if I came in?” asked the census man. “Much easier to write sitting down, you know.”

Caleb didn’t reply, instead swinging open the rough-hewn door for the man. Caleb awkwardly gestured toward the wooden table nearby and one of two chairs. 

The man in red smiled gratefully and took a seat at the table. He laid out his thick pad of paper and began to arrange the ink and pen to begin to write. His pad of paper hit Caleb’s bottle of ink, tipping it onto its side. The man started to right it, but Caleb moved quickly, and lovingly, carefully, picked up the ink bottle, gently placing it on the wooden shelf on the wall with the others, as if treating it so carefully and respectfully would refill and renew its contents. 

“Well, this won’t take long,” the census man said. Let’s start with your name, first and last if you don’t mind.”

“Caleb,” stated Caleb, sitting down, letting his eyes focus once again on the census man’s black bottle of ink. “Caleb Thurman.”

“And your age at your last birthday, Mr. Thurman?” 

“60.  April.”

“And do you own your home or rent?”

“Own. It was my Pap’s.”

“And you live here alone?  Any wife or children?”

“No, just me.” Caleb’s arm now rested on the table, his fingers just inches away from the bottle. But they may have just as well been in the next county. The ink didn’t belong to him. 

He watched as the census man marked the paper and blotted each entry dry. He watched as the sharp metal tip of the pen dipped deeply into the bottle and emerged, dripping, ready to write. Ready to write anything that the holder requested. With that ink, Caleb could write again.  He could once again empty his mind. But it wasn’t his. 

Caleb moistened his lips, his eyes straying to the heavy poker leaning against the rough stones of the hearth. He was strong. The poker was made of iron. He could lift it and swing it easily, accurately, if required. He watched the census man fill the tiny squares on the paper form with ink. The census man wrote briefly and expertly. 

“Occupation?”  he asked.  Looking around he guessed, “farmer?” 

Caleb looked around the cabin as well. Farmer. Yes, a farmer of the rough, rocky soil around the cabin. He farmed so he could eat and live another day. But that wasn’t who he was. He sat straight in his chair and locked eyes with the census man for the first time.

“Writer,” he stated, “I’m a writer.”

The census man’s face brightened. “A writer,” he exclaimed.  “How fascinating! What do you write, if I may ask?” he said, genuinely interested. 

“Stories,” stated Caleb.  “I write stories.”

“Author,”   the census man wrote neatly in the occupation square of the form. “You are the first author I have ever met for the census. Fascinating.”

The afternoon sun slanted in through the bubbled glass of the cabin windows. It entered first through the windowpanes, then passed through and around the rows of empty ink bottles on the shelves of the cabin. It briefly illuminated the paper labels of Waterman and Skrip. It passed through the thick glass, then what light remained, filtered its way deep into the room, reminding both men of the awkward passing of time. 

Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off the pad. Author. It said so right there, on that line. For the world to see. For the government to read. Forever. He had finally said it. That was what he was, who he was. But an author without the tools to write. Without the tools to live. 

The census man stood up to prepare to leave. He noted the neatness of the rough cabin.  The swept floor, the kept fire. He noticed the rows of empty ink bottles standing at attention on the thick wooden shelves across the cabin wall. There were dozens of them. It must have taken a man years to use that much ink. He noted for the last time the bottle from the table, nearly empty.  [JB2]  

Caleb watched as the census man gathered his things. The census man placed the cork firmly into the ink bottle. Caleb wanted to weep. This was his only chance. He didn’t know when he would be this close to a bottle of ink again. His despair grew as the census man grew more cheerful about leaving, leaving Caleb’s home, his cabin, and taking the ink with him. Caleb watched, hungrily, as the man stood up to leave. He noted the small pile of stout logs stacked near the hearth. They were oak, about 18” long, although seasoned they still carried the density and heft of hardwood. Caleb could easily pick one up and swing it through the air. 

“Well, thank you very much for your time,” the census man said. “I’ve got to be moving on, many more people to see. You have yourself a fine afternoon.”

Caleb silently opened the door for the man and closed it behind him. He wasn’t a violent man. He didn’t watch the census man leave. He didn’t watch the man cross the porch, pause, go down the three steps into the yard. He didn’t watch to see if the man was on foot or on horseback. He returned to the chair at the table and sat in the darkening room with the stories churning, tumbling inside of his head. He didn’t go to bed. He simply lowered his head to the rough wood facing away from the shelves holding the empty bottles. He faced away from the nearly empty ink bottle, the last bottle of his life. He was no longer a writer. Not without ink. 

He slept fitfully, head cushioned by the woolen plaid on his arms on the table. He heard the screech owl’s cry and mountain lion’s whistle, but he did not care. He no longer had room for them in his mind. He no longer had room for the thick hoarfrost coating the cabin window, or the squeak of the iron hinge on the door. No room to describe how the softly padding rain sounded at night on the thick mossy shakes of the cabin roof. His mind had no room for anything. Not for a single word. 

When morning came, he finally rose and went outside, and stood on the porch. The sun was just up, its warmth shone and warmed Caleb’s bearded face, taunting him with pleasure, with comfort. Caleb looked down to step away to the yard, and into the morning. And looking down he saw a squat bottle of black ink, firmly corked. It rested on a bundle of tan paper. It sat there expectantly, waiting to be discovered. He sank to his knees there on the porch and picked up the bottle, carefully. He tipped it to one side, gently, and the other, and watched the ink’s level see-saw to the left, and back again. He fingered the thin pad of paper. He thought of the man in red. What words he could write with this bottle! If he was careful, as he always was, it would last him a very long time. 

He stood up, carefully grasping the bottle and the thick pad of paper.  Then Caleb went back inside his cabin and sat at the rough wooden table to write. He quickly wrote a fine story, the words tumbling out of his mind and onto the paper. He called it, “The Census Man.” 

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Haunting Bicycle Silhouette by Twain Braden

Diving for junk in the Gulf of Maine Nonfiction

Twain Braden

I came to scuba diving during my last term in college; needing a credit or two to graduate, and my major (philosophy) was complete, just a few short months and a few essays stood between me and my diploma. Together with a couple of other slackers, we perused the spring course offerings and saw – toward the back of the alphabetical list of classes under “S” – that scuba could be earned for credit. The classes would be held at the school’s gym in its grim and frigid cinderblock pool; and the open water final exam at one of the local lakes. This being western New York, amongst the glacially-carved Finger Lakes, whose waters have not warmed much since the last Ice Age, we were suitably chastened at the thought. We signed up, dutifully studied our dive tables, splashed around in the pool for a few weeks, and then were ready for our final open-water dive.

By early May, the deep waters of Lake Skaneateles were still barely liquid form, maybe 34 degrees Fahrenheit[1]. My memory is that we had to gear up in wet suits (not nearly thick enough), submerge to two atmospheres – 66 feet for a certain amount of time called for in the dive tables –, and then log our times at various depths before we returned to the surface. When I and my buddy stumped from the lake, burdened by the heavy gear, I felt nothing below my knees and elbows. We admitted our testicles were likely tucked safely up in our abdomens. My hands and feet were still at the ends of my limbs, but they were not mine. They seemed to belong elsewhere, unconnected to my mind and nervous system. Peeling off the suit and gear proved virtually impossible, facilitated by our laughing instructors; our naked limbs gray and corpse-like. My teeth chattered. Had I needed amputation or two, I would not have felt a thing.

It took days to warm up, but I and my chums passed the exam and were issued our scuba certificates, which, unlike almost any other license to engage in a dangerous activity (see, e.g., driving and flying), is valid for your lifetime; you never have to take a recertification as long as you live, provided you don’t lose your card. And this also makes you a member to an elite worldwide club.[2] Wherever you are in the world, if you want to rent tanks and gear, you flash your badge, and off you go – coral reefs, shipwrecks, lost treasure.

Here in Maine, the water is no warmer, even in the height of summer, than those frigid dives in the Finger Lakes. But I’ve done countless dives over the past 30 years, because breathing underwater is just about the coolest thing that humans can do with the help of science, short of shooting into space and walking on the moon. I still recall the first underwater breath I took in the pool. With the regulator in my mouth, I slowly put my lips under and breathed in; I did not choke. I was serene. I put my nose under, and breathed in. Death did not impose. I put my whole face under – looked around at the darker blue of the deep part of the pool – and breathed in again. I descended slowly and sat on the bottom like Subsea Buddha. A miracle!

I’m an unlikely diver, afraid of and ungainly in the water, and a terrible swimmer. When I try the crawl, I get water in my ears and nose and swim in circles. I’m skinny and tend to sink. I get cold easily. I’m terrified of being attacked from beneath by sharks or losing my breath and gagging and going under. When I was a kid, I would feel a form of alien terror when looking at the shadowy shapes of underwater objects. Pilings that disappeared in the murk, boulders that loomed, immense and sinister, with dark crevasses that suggested unknown evil. When I took my first swimming lessons in Lefferts Lake, Matawan, New Jersey, rumors of the “summer of terror” still persisted amongst us six-year-olds, some 60 years after the attacks.[3]

But when I pull on a thick wetsuit, strap on the buoyancy compensation vest, secure my mask, and feel the reassuring weight of the belt and tank on my shoulders, I become a kind of superhero – impervious to these terrors, real and imagined, capable of breathing underwater and ready for heroism.

Which is to say that I dive for junk, or to cut lobster lines or fishing nets wrapped around the propellers of friends’ boats, or search for leaks in wooden planking. I have found coffee cups, those white and green CorningWare kind that used to be in every diner, skateboards, and many, many bicycles – some useful, and others resembling a specter of their former selves, covered in sponges and barnacles and algae but retaining a haunting bicycle silhouette as they loom up from the bottom. When a human-made object sits on the seafloor for a while, it attracts life, fish and crustaceans, and the seaweed and other growth waves gently in the currents, giving it a kind of beautiful, undersea second life.

Here on Peaks Island, Maine, there is often a rash of bike theft. Teenagers and post-wedding drunks, who pull an unlocked bike from the rack, carom downhill and shoot off the end of the pier, howling all the way. As a result, the bottom of the harbor at the end of the pier is a bicycle graveyard. As I descend – the bottom is between 25 and 35 feet, depending on the tide level – I see lobsters shoot past me, flicking their powerful tails and disappearing like backward missiles. Crabs stand their ground, claws up. Stripers and mackerel circle curiously in my periphery. I turn to look, and they’re gone.

One day this summer a friend asked me to look for her lost bike. A treasured blue Rocky Mountain that she’d had professionally sized. It had been stolen from her yard the weekend before, and she’d checked the usual spots that hooligans usually stash borrowed bikes, all the local teen hangouts. On a small island, there are only so many places to get into trouble. But it was gone, and she feared the worst.

Her husband Mark and I met at the dock early one Saturday morning in July, and I suited up and dropped off the town float. Visibility was terrible, maybe six feet, and a strong outgoing tidal current was sweeping the face of the pier. I started on one corner and worked my way across, swimming from the base of one piling to another, seeing a few bike skeletons long since wasted away and a smashed lobster trap. I swam back and forth, each time performing a zig-zag pattern so I wouldn’t become disoriented from the pier and end up in the channel. I soon came across a blue bike, lying on its side. I tied a quick bowline around the frame and gave the tag line two quick jerks, the pre-arranged signal for Mark to haul up whatever I’d snagged. I soon found another – a lime-green Felt – also not in bad shape. I came to the surface and asked if one of them were hers. Nope. What had appeared to be an adult-sized bike was a 24-inch kid bike, the magnification of my lens had made it seem much larger. Down I went again, losing hope, but committed to searching one final area, about 10 feet out from the ramp where bike thieves are known to launch when they’re at their most daring. If you get enough speed down the hill, and don’t hit the brakes with last-second misgiving, you can catch clean air and sail far out over the water and into the deepest water. And there it was, the unmistakable words “ROCKY MOUNTAIN” emblazoned on the blue frame.

Bowline, two tugs, and up it went. A freshwater rinse and some judicious oiling, and the bike was back in service. Mission accomplished. Until the next wedding or teenage rager.

[1] Not really. It was probably in the mid-50s.

[2] This is not true either. Scuba divers are one small step up in life form from surfers, whose qualifications, beyond a high opinion of oneself, is not even knowing how to swim but simply clinging to your board sufficiently not to drown.

[3]  In 1916 there were four fatal shark attacks on the Jersey shore, including in the very waterway where I was taking lessons. I don’t know how this information still circulated amongst children in this area, maybe from sadistic grandparents. (“You know, Jimmy, when I was a kid four people were killed in that creek.”)

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Terminal Water Fiction

Nanami Fetter

3:00 PM

In another world, my parents don’t leave me behind. I leave them first.

They aren’t able to escape, but I’m able to. In the dark green cave, there isn’t one speck of light. But the moss still seems to glow from something within. All around us, I can feel it slowly breathing. I press my hand against the wall to move forward and feel it squish underneath my palm. The air is cold and wet inside my lungs.

On the ceiling, there must be a leak somewhere, because water drops and splashes at the very center of our heads, where the skin is exposed. I don’t know how the water always knows where our scalps are in the darkness, but I’m impressed. I don’t quite believe in coincidences, but I do believe in chances. And this tunnel is giving me a chance right now to get out of here forever.

“Hey,” my mother calls softly. “Hey.”

I don’t stop to turn, as it would be meaningless. I keep going.

“Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” I say. “You’re only a few steps behind me, I’m sure. Your voice sounds very close.”

“Honey?” my mother calls. “Are you still there too?”

“I’ll catch up,” my father says, his voice echoing slightly. “I’m right behind you.” “Hey, let’s stop and wait for your father,” my mother says.

But I don’t stop or say anything back to her and keep going, the sound of my feet splashing in a shallow puddle. I almost stumble, but then step down hard, regaining my balance.

“You keep going,” my father says a little louder. “We’ll catch up to you in a second.”

They don’t have to tell me twice, and so I continue what I’ve always been doing. Still, at my ankles, my jeans cling to my legs, and my skin feels itchy. My thighs have also become sore from the hours of walking, and it takes all my focus just to lift one foot up after the other. I can’t imagine talking and walking anymore.

We’ve passed that point in time now.

3:00 AM

At this time, something, if not for a moment, belongs to me. And that’s all that matters. As to what that something is though, I don’t know. But it’s much stronger than the night and even stronger than the coffee I’ve just drank. (An iced cold brew. It’ll hurt your stomach later…)

Perhaps, it is caffeine which I am holding in the palm of my hands, tightly, like a diamond. Even planes and silence can’t get past me at this moment. I hear too much, and therefore, can never sleep through the night. I lean back into my pillow and then sit up, too quickly…

Walking around at night is only something a sick person does, right? I say this to myself the entire time I walk. I do this so that I know that I am self-aware.

The suburbs are very tan brown. I’ve always thought so since I was younger. It reminds me of nostalgia and the feeling of holding your neck tightly when you’re in pain. All the way down the road, there is a corner. And if I squint my eyes, I can see that there is a boy.

“I’m an alien,” the boy says when I get closer.

Okay, I think. Say the kid really was an alien. And say that I was the first person to ever meet an alien on earth. (That we know of…) The responsible thing then to do, would be to hand them over to the authorities, like a lost child. Unless, of course, the alien said they didn’t want to be handed over. And the alien began to talk about world domination or something. Or that there was a mission that only I could help them accomplish or something like that…

“You’re going too fast,” the alien boy says. “Geez, it’s like your mind is going a thousand miles per hour.”

Maybe what I am holding in my hands is the wind.

“The wind doesn’t blow in the middle of the night,” the alien boy says. “You must not know that.”

Or maybe what I am holding onto is actually the time itself.

“That’s right. But only a moment of it. It doesn’t even amount to a second of the time you are holding.”

I don’t have to pursue every thought, I think. I don’t have to pursue every thought. I don’t have to…

“Geez,” he finally says. “Are you always like this? I’m turning this off now. I can’t even have a proper conversation with you…”

The boy reaches up to his head and pulls on a part of his hair. He then shakes his head as though he is a dog. I look down at my hands and then see my fingernails, covered in blood. I pull back my sleeve and see a scab, now opened.

“It’s going to rain tonight,” I say, pulling my sleeve back down.

“I know,” the alien boy says. “So, what are you doing out here, walking around?”

It’s true, I think. I shouldn’t be out like this in my pajamas in the middle of the night. If someone else sees me like this, they might call the police, and that would be stressful…

“I guess it works out though,” the alien boy says. “I was looking for someone like you. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you.”

He extends his arm out to me, his hand limp. I shake his hand lightly with my left hand and then think about how cold his skin feels. At first, I wonder if that’s just how all aliens are, but then think it more likely that he’s been outside for a long time.

“There,” the alien boy says, not letting me reply. “Now that we know each other, it’ll be easier for me to ask you that favor I have. Are you ready to hear it? Okay, here I go…”

The alien boy raises both of his hands in front of him, palms facing upwards.

“I need you to collect some of this rainwater for me tonight,” he says. “What do you think?”

I stand there, looking back and forth between his hands and his face. He is smiling with his eyes. I nod.

“I suppose I can do that…”

“Great!”

The alien boy then turns halfway to start walking in the opposite direction. “I’ll come back next time. Same everything.”

“Oh,” I say, taking a step towards him. “Wait. Is collecting it in a bucket okay?”

“Anything’s fine.”

He waves me off and then puts a hand on his head, smoothing out the tufts of hair that are sticking out. The streetlamps are starting to flicker, and I realize that it’s because it’s getting lighter outside.

The alien boy and my neighborhood street now look pale blue. I wonder where those rain clouds are.

He turns the corner.

3:00 PM

There seems to be no end in sight.

While walking, my feet have seemingly become numb to the motion. Walking for a day straight will do that to you. I start to feel pretty bad, and every once in a while, I strike my head against the wall of the cave in order to feel something. I just don’t want to go insane.

Thud.

My forehead is dripping with sweat. My parents must be miles away from me now, but I’m pretty positive that we’re almost done. My suspicions are confirmed when my head collides into the head of the tunnel, where there are sharp boulders that have fallen right where the outside world should have started.

Thud.

I lay there on the ground a while, my mouth open and panting, as the water from the cave drips down onto me. One of its tears even lands on my tongue, and it’s enough relief for me to sigh and relax finally. I pull my phone from my jacket pocket and find it still at fifty percent. I now feel that all the boredom I’ve endured from not checking it is worth it, just to get even one bar of service to call for help.

“Hello?”

I panic until I hear it finally ringing.

“Hey,” I hear my father call. “Hey.”

I turn around and see him, limping along. Along his back is a large shadow. He is carrying my mother.

“So,” I say. “You finally caught up.”

There is a small click, and then a small breath before the operator begins to speak.

“Where are you?” the voice asks. “Where are you?”

I catch my father’s eye, as he sets my mother’s body down. He then looks up at me, expectantly.

He waits.

3:00 AM

I always wake up at the same time that I was born. It’s been like this ever since I can remember.

Sleeping has always felt like both a blessing and a curse. If I go to sleep, there won’t be anything to be afraid of. But on the other hand, I am always afraid, and so it’s hard for me to actually get to that dreaming land.

In bed, I lay awake and stare into the ceiling, as the alien boy slips in through the window. Our house is only one story.

“I have a small hole in my heart,” I say to the alien boy. “It’s so small, I can barely notice it. But my doctor did once I started having trouble breathing. At first, they checked my lungs, but it was really my heart. They said that it was bad, but if I’ve lived this long without any problems, I don’t know what the big deal is…”

The alien boy is glancing around, as though this information shocks him, and he has no idea what to do with it. I want to let him know it is okay to laugh, and so I laugh. His head snaps to the sound, and he looks at me.

I realize that he is angry.

“It isn’t funny,” the alien boy says. “This is all serious. Everything is.”

It is then that I realize how old the alien is. I feel sorry for him.

“You’re right,” I say. “I shouldn’t joke around like that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he says quickly. “It’s alright.”

In my dreams, nothing is ever really said.

3:00 PM

I don’t know where I am anymore.

“Do you hate us?” my father asks.

He’s in the mood to ask me all these questions, but not in the mood to help me dig. My nails are completely shattered and ripped from my skin as I shove my fingers in between the rocks, trying to push them out of the way. My mother’s body is starting to smell like vanilla.

“I should have never been allowed to become an adult,” my father says. “I’m sure you blame me for lots of things. But you know what? I did my very best. I promise you that, okay?”

He’s talking about the time he once slapped me right across the face. I was around twelve.

“I’m the one who should be crying, though,” my father suddenly says. I wonder how it is that he can believe in anything anymore.

“I want to die,” I say back at him.

“Why?”

“The world just doesn’t feel new anymore,” I say. “It can’t just be me who feels this way.”

“There are so many things you don’t have to think or say at all, though,” my father says. “Isn’t that relieving?”

But I want to say them all.

“Even if other people weren’t happy, I’d still want to be happy,” I say.

“You’ve done a good job up until now,” my father then says. “You’ve worked very hard.”

It’s strange, I think. Why is he saying that? As if that’s going to change anything.

“Progress of society and all that,” I say. “I couldn’t care less. I just want the progression of my own heart. That’s all. I want to be healed.”

But he isn’t listening.

“Hey,” my father says instead, lying down on his back. “When we escape this tunnel, I’ll talk to you a lot. I’ll tell you everything I’ve been feeling, and we’ll understand each other better. I’ll be a healthy person who can talk normally about the things that are hurting me. I’ll make sure of it.”

This tunnel becomes a hole. And that hole is in the center of my chest.

I can feel it. That something or someone has carved it out.

3:00 AM

On the park bench, the air is heavy with water. It seems that all the rain from the clouds has just dropped into the atmosphere and is lightly floating around.

“Imagine you were in a tunnel,” the alien boy says. “And there was no way out. Where would you go?”

“Huh?”

“There’s no way out, and you’re in a tunnel,” he says. “What do you do?”

“Well,” I say. “There’s no way out, right? What else can I do? And what kind of question is that, anyway? It’s kind of harsh.”

“It’s just a hypothetical,” he says. He then laughs.

“Exactly, though, right? Exactly. You wouldn’t do anything about it.”

“You calling me weak?” I say.

He doesn’t laugh or say anything.

“Geez, this is making me feel sick,” I say.

“What is?”

“Talking like this.”

I have to look down at my feet.

“I have such a bad feeling about this,” I say.

“About what?” the alien boy asks. “You can tell me.”

I sigh and then spill over.

“I have beliefs about this world like anybody else,” I say. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But I think my beliefs are wrong. I’m never on my own side, and that makes me mad. I want to believe in myself. In who I am. I get the feeling that it’s the only way I’ll ever get closer to what I really want to believe in. And it’s the only way I can probably understand myself and change.”

The moon is peeking at me through the sky.

“Sometimes I think that the only way I’ll be able to truly connect with other people is by dying,” I say.

The alien boy looks at me for a moment and then takes a sharp breath in. “Are you dying?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s why. I can feel us connecting.”

I laugh. He laughs. I don’t know why. I guess because it’s funny. But I don’t really think it is.

I can’t tell what I’m really thinking. But he leans in and kisses me.

I don’t move.

3:00 PM

It’s funny how the news wants to interview me. I think it is. And the fact that they think I am going to die.

“And what is your name, again?” they ask.

I think about how long it has been since someone has actually called me by my name. “So,” the interviewer says. “How’s it going in there?”

“I’m dying here.”

“Really?”

I switch the phone to my other ear. In the background, I can hear what sounds like the shuffling of papers, and the squeak of a chair being turned.

“In that case,” they say. “Any last words?”

I think for a moment. Breathing in. Breathing out.

There are only words, I think.

3:00 AM

I sometimes think that I would prefer it if the world wasn’t real.

On the radio, there is a story about two people who are stuck inside of a tunnel. They interview the man, and his voice snaps me out of my numbness.

“My son,” the voice says. “He’s dead. It’s just me and my wife now.”

The alien boy looks over at me from the bed. His arm is hanging off the edge of the pillow.

“Hey,” he starts quietly, like the rolling of sudden thunderclouds. “I want to tell you something.”

I turn over to look at him while lying on the dusty carpet. How long has it been since I’ve vacuumed? Every second, I feel anxious, and glance over at the door just in case my parents barge in.

“Yeah?”

The alien boy puts a hand over his chest and then stares straight at me.

“You know…” he starts. “About your heart. How’s it been lately?”

I hold his gaze.

“I’ve been fine. Why?”

“Because I gave you a new one,” the alien boy says. “While you were sleeping.”

I find myself looking away before he can finish his sentence, and my heart skips a beat. I feel my stomach drop. Oh, I think.

“Could rainwater be used to build an organ?” he says. “When you told me about your heart, the idea just came to me…”

“So, what are you saying?”

I stay very still. Seeing becomes hard.

“I’m saying that instead of just saying that’s just the way people are, shouldn’t we try and surpass being that?” the alien boy continues. “Isn’t that what life is all about?”

I stare at him, and his face becomes so different I can’t recognize it. Suddenly, my heart feels as though it’s gotten a little lighter, and the meanings of things make a little more sense.

“This can’t be real…” I hear myself say.

“This is as real as it gets,” he says.

I feel my heart beating inside my chest. I wonder if this is how a healthy heart feels. The alien boy reaches out towards me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“This is what I came down to earth for,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to heal you.”

In the quietness of his words, the rain outside is still tapping on the house.

“Don’t stop trying to reach us,” the man says through the radio speakers.

The sound of the man’s voice then fizzles out like a bomb.

3:00 PM

Even sensations like the wind feel far away.

In the darkness, I can feel that my parent’s bodies are gone and melted. Myself, included. I don’t know why, but I can still feel my lungs moving, and yet I’m not unable to keep up with my breath. They’re not expanding large enough to what they need to be.

I lay down, and then feel one small burst of energy. I use that energy to produce tears.

Geez, I think. If this was how it was going to be, then I shouldn’t have ever imagined such sad things. But this was what I wanted. Why do I think only things that end are beautiful? Who taught me such a thing? No one should have. No one should have, and yet still…

Even if there was the distant sound of someone digging, or even if someone was calling my name, or even if I was just able to escape this cave without my parents, there must be some place where that isn’t the case. My parents…maybe they’re becoming more honest and smiling somewhere. Even if it was without me. I’d like to believe that.

There’s this feeling I’m feeling now. It must be elation. But I still must be a little sad. When these people reach me and pull me out of here, I’ll have to realize everything. I’ll have to believe in myself, and that’s a hard thing to do. Ask anyone. I’m sure at least that’s true…

I always forget and then remember. That I don’t love the world in spite of it not being real. I love it because of that very reason.

In that case, it’s alright if I don’t have anything to hold in my hands.

I guess this is how it ends, I think. I close my hands and then open them. Like a butterfly.

I think that I can let the night wind go now.

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Breaking Through the Ring of Fire by Barbara Hageman Sarvis

Polar Fiction

Nate Currier

The three doctors sat cross-legged, chipping ice off a chandelier. It was one of many amenities shipped northward over the last six weeks. Crates and pallets arrived by propeller plane, pushed through the air by combustion and planning and money. Along with the chandelier was a china set, two Turkish rugs, a portable toilet, and a case of brandy, among other things. All spared no expense, all shipped north. The amenities came from all over the world, but that hardly mattered. The doctors were north of everywhere.

Doctor Johanssen wiped the sweat from his brow. His wrists were numb. There had been a problem with the shipping of the chandelier. Some tear in the bubble wrap, or the long veil of plastic, had allowed condensation to freeze. That wasn’t unusual. Everything froze if given the opportunity.

The bigger issue, Doctor Lu thought, was the time these preparations diverted from work. In the past six weeks, thermometers had gone unchecked, field notes left in disarray, greenhouses awarded minimum attention. He would be glad when the ordeal was over. He looked forward to the moment, less than fifty hours away by his watch, when they would wave goodbye to the most hated man in America.

Doctor Harlan tried not to think about anything. It was a skill he had developed over many years, a trick to disassociate himself from the drudgery of being a scientist. He chipped ice from the chandelier the same way he installed the heating system in the new yurt. The way he assembled the yurt in the first place. He completed every job linearly, down a track, like a sled with runners. Harlan found it best to break down each task to its barest components, and perform those components step by step, as a means of self-preservation. His work would have felt too insignificant, had he ascribed it any significance at all. He knew no other method of being an ecologist.

Johanssen stood and shook out his wrists. The other two stopped and watched him.

“That’s done, jah?” his bright blue eyes tried to smile. “We put it up now.”

—

The most hated man in America arrived by dog sled. He did not drive. He sat in the front in a parka jacket, a puffy green hood ornament. Cortlandt Bright was a tycoon, the sort of man who had the strings of the world stitched into his loafers. His wide, bald head dominated magazine covers in supermarket checkout lines. He dated a carousel of glamour models, owned one professional football team, and had founded two newspapers, one on each side of the political spectrum. He had become the most hated man in America only recently. In fact, it occurred of his own volition.

There was no record of his purchase. The rights were sold at private auction. He publicized it himself, in all of his media outlets. He posted a selfie announcing the news, smiling broadly in a terry cloth robe. In the six weeks that followed, distant corners of the internet banded together to revile him, admonish him, even hate him. Long, tumbling screeds raved against him on social media. Late-night hosts skewered him. An online petition threatening to boycott Bright Industries had been signed by a hundred thousand faceless usernames.

Brand recognition had never been stronger.

The dog sled came to a halt. The green giant stepped off, untied a duffel bag, and the sled left without him. Bright unwound his scarf, revealing a wide smile and chapped lips.

“Good thing I didn’t wear my sandals!” he boomed, rubbing his shoulders. He shook the hands of each doctor, with a grip like a vice. They stepped into the yurt to have dinner.

—

“Great land up here,” Bright growled, leaning back on his stool. They were in the smaller of the two yurts, where the doctors lived. “The edge of fuck-knows-where, huh? Take a piss off the peak of the world. Course, your balls’d freeze off, the moment you whipped it out.”

Johanssen laughed. It was up to the doctors to make their guest comfortable. Harlan prepared four cups of cocoa. Lu cooked Kobe beef on the small solar-powered grill.

“To be honest with ya,” Bright said, glancing around the kitchenette, the wall of file cabinets, and the triple-high bunk bed, “I thought you guys might live in an igloo.”

“No,” Johanssen said.

“No? Ah. Well.” Bright considered something a moment, then waved it away. “Did you see the dog sled? I did that by choice, you know. I chose to take the dog sled. The dog sled was my choice. They told me I should take a helicopter, but I said, no, I wanted the full thing. Hell, I’d cut a hole in the ice and throw a line in if you wanted. Do you guys ever go ice fishing?”

“No,” said Harlan.

“I did as a boy, a little, jah,” said Johanssen. “In Norway.”

“Norway, huh?” whistled Bright. “You don’t say. Good, good! What about you, Lu? Where’re you from?”

Lu pretended not to hear over the sizzle of the grill.

“He is from China,” Johanssen said.

“China! Well, that’s good too.”

Harlan served the cocoa.

“What about you, Doctor Harlan?” Bright asked, his stubbed fingers tapping his stomach. “Where’d you come from? Egypt? Zimbabwe?”

“Harlem.”

Bright frowned. Harlan could see his trip to the North Pole lose a touch of the exotic. But after a moment, he smiled again.

“Harlan from Harlem! Huh, doctor? That’s good too!”

He reached for a silver flask from some inner puff of his jacket and unscrewed the cap with his teeth. He tipped a heavy pour into his cocoa.

“Doctor Harlan is the one, who is been taking most of the pictures,” Johanssen said. “He takes good pictures of c-134, jah?”

Bright looked up from his drink. He took the cap out of his mouth. “You took those pictures, the ones in the magazines? The ones all over the news?”

Harlan nodded.

“Hey, those are great!” Bright said. He offered a drop of his flask to the doctors, but only Johanssen humored him by holding out his mug. “They’re really great. You’ve really made that fuzz ball a celebrity, you know that? I mean hell, only reason I’m up here is because of those pictures.”

“Thank you,” said Harlan.

“You make the thing look so…human. I mean, you really give the goddamned thing a life, you know that? Do you know that?”

“Thanks,” Harlan said again.

Bright shrugged as if he had given away too many compliments. “Well, anyway.” He reached down to untie his boots. He had fat feet, and loose laces helped them to breathe. They were new boots, never worn before.

“That story in the National Geographic, let me tell you, everybody really picked that story up. It really drove up the price at the auction. Black Rhino went for twelve million a few years ago. Last year, Giant Panda went for fifteen. That one, you know, I don’t get. A fucking panda? Where’s the fun in that? Just walk right up to the thing! It’ll probably try to suck you off. Save your money, go buy a pin cushion.”

Johanssen kept smiling.

“This is the one. Everybody wanted this one. Partly cause of your pictures, Harlan! That goddamned story, it was picked up everywhere. You oughta feel great. Twenty-five million is a lot of money.”

“It is,” Harlan said.

“Twenty-five million,” he repeated, drinking from his mug. He shook his head. “That’s a hell of a lot of money to you guys. The environment, I mean. I overpaid, I admit it. But it’s for a good cause, huh? I bet you guys can really do a lot with that.”

“Yes, jah,” Johanssen clasped his hands in a minor display of gratitude. “Thank you much, Mr. Bright.”

“Ah, well. You’re welcome much! Of course!” he waved his hand. “This is going to be good. This is going to be really good for all of us.” He tipped his mug. “So, what happens tomorrow?”

“Doctor Harlan will take you out in the chopper,” said Johanssen. “He is the best pilot, you will be safest with him.”

“The chopper? I already told the guys at the auction I don’t want a chopper. Get another sled out here.”

“c-134 hunts over a range of five hundred miles,” Harlan said evenly. “We’ll only have a few hours to get out and come back. Once the sun goes down, that’s it.”

“And here I thought this place was getting warmer,” Bright laughed.

“Doctor Harlan, jah, he is a good pilot,” repeated Johanssen. “He will fly where you need to go.”

Bright acquiesced. “Alright, alright, don’t break my arm off about it. Doctor’s orders. But look, tomorrow, huh? Drop me off and go away for a while, will you? Gimme a walkie-talkie or something. I’ll call when I’m ready to get picked up. You guys have walkie-talkies, don’t you?”

The doctors nodded.

“Good. That’s perfect. I don’t want any distractions out there. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” He stirred a finger in his cocoa and quaffed the whole mug. “You seem like a good bunch of guys. Do you have internet up here? You don’t, do you? Let me tell ya, and you’re not gonna believe this, but people’ve been saying some real awful stuff about me.”

“We heard,” Harlan said.

“I mean dammit, people have been playing off like the whole fucking state of affairs up here is my fault! The whole—situation! They go to coffee shops drinking from plastic cups, and sit on their laptops sucking up power, and bitch on the internet about how I’m the end of the fucking world! As if my pipelines went nowhere. As if everything doesn’t flow right into their convenient little lives. And lemme tell ya right now—it’s the kids, I know it is. The kids who can’t get laid, or are trying to get laid, so all they do is sit around and fantasize about my throat getting ripped out as if I was the devil or something. Twenty-five million…that’s a lot of money!”

“Are you okay feeling, Mr. Bright?” Johanssen asked. “Have you had too much to drink?”

Bright shrugged, but raised his flask for another swig. “Do you guys know what you’re doing wrong? Could you take a little constructive criticism, from a man of business? It’s alright if you say no—but you want to know, don’t ya?”

Johanssen nodded.

“Well alright, here it is. Cause I feel some real pity for you guys, I mean it, I really do. I mean, you guys are up here all alone, trying to save the fucking world, and nobody is listening to you! It’s gotta feel real bad. But look, the problem is that people are listening, you’re just not telling them to do anything. You’re telling them to use less and do less and to have less, but shit, nobody wants less. What the hell is wrong with you guys? That’s why these kids are so angry. They feel bad for existing. You guys keep saying, the world would be a better place if we were all dead. That’s why they hate me so much. They’re so fucking neutered, they can’t handle how happy I am to be alive. They can’t handle that I have beliefs.”

He took another swig of the flask. Nobody asked him what he believed, but he told them anyway.

“I believe in adventure! I believe in exploration! But the thing I really believe in most of all—and this is what those bleeding heart, dying dove motherfuckers can’t stand even though they preach about it every fucking day—I believe in myself!”

“You’re really going through with it,” said Harlan.

“Huh?”

“You’re really going through with it?” Harlan asked.

Bright laughed a little, showing some teeth.

“Didn’t I pay for it? I’m all the way up here, aren’t I? What kind of moron pays twenty-five million dollars just to sit on it? Of course I’m doing it. I’m excited for tomorrow, hell I’ve been dreaming about it. You just keep the engine running, alright?” He leaned back and hollered toward Lu: “And the grill too! Steak again tomorrow, eh Lu!?”

Standing over the grill with his back to the others, Lu was crying.

—

Bright and Harlan flew over the white desert, silent save the noise of the helicopter. Bright was in his green jacket again, zipped to the chin. A long wooden case rested against his shoulder. They had been flying for hours.

Harlan maneuvered the helicopter steadily. He was not used to going into the wilderness. The helicopter was only used for emergencies and supplies. He followed a blip on a handheld GPS, a tracker they clipped years ago onto c-134’s ear. It was how he always knew c-134 had wandered near camp, close enough to take out his camera on the snowmobile.

“How close are we?” Bright shouted over the propeller blades.

“About two miles,” Harlan shouted back.

“Take me down here,” Bright nodded.

Harlan shook his head. “It’s difficult terrain.”

“Take me down here,” Bright said again.

The helicopter landed in a flat patch of snow. Bright hopped out of his seat, setting the long wooden case on the ground. “You got another one of those radars?” He asked. Harlan nodded and got out of the cockpit. He walked around to where Bright squatted in the snow, a GPS in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other. Bright snatched both and shoved them in his pockets. He nodded enthusiastically, unbuckling the clasps on the wooden case. Two long, smooth barrels rested there, in a furrow of green velvet. The stock was wood and polished, the grain looked like glass.

“Four fifty Nitro,” Bright smiled, lifting the elephant gun reverently and making a show of inspecting the barrels. “Eighteen forty-eight. Beautiful, huh? Damn fucking thing’s an antique.”

“Is it heavy?” Harlan asked.

“No heavier than my dick.”

The billionaire drew two long, golden bullets from a pocket in the wooden case. He cracked open the stock, loaded one in each chamber, closed the stock, and took aim at nothing. “Dunno if the damn thing will even fire out here,” he said, staring down his imaginary prey. He opened the stock again and took out the bullets. “Guess that’s part of the fun.”

With Harlan’s help, he wobbled back to his feet. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and removed the GPS. His big body throbbed at the sight of the little blip on the screen.

“We didn’t expect you to bring that,” Harlan said.

Bright stared at him: “Huh?”

“The gun. We thought you might bring an assault rifle.”

His face contorted. “What the fuck for? I’m not shooting up a kindergarten.”

“That’s not funny,” Harlan said immediately.

The green jacket slumped. “It’s not supposed to be.”

They studied each other a few seconds. There was no sound and nothing moved. Sunlight dropped on the ice sheet, the reflective snow almost blinding. Both men knew more should be said, but neither had any idea what it was, or who should say it.

“I’ll call in when I’m done,” tried Bright.

“I’ll come pick you up,” said Harlan.

Bright nodded. Stooping, he closed the empty case and handed it to the doctor. Then he nodded again, and grinned, and turned away from the helicopter, and followed the blinking GPS into the desert.

—

Harlan was right: the terrain was difficult. With every step, Bright’s new boots sank into the snow. The sun battered from above, but the cold seemed to rise all around him, stiffening his joints. The landscape, so flat overhead, was actually a series of slow-rising dunes. Bright’s heart thumped hard. The cold air stuck in his throat. He had only gone half a mile before he crested a dune and descended the other side, looking back to discover he could no longer see the helicopter. He took deep breaths, and smiled, and felt a ball of excitement in his gut. He was alone.

Shielding his eyes, he glanced at the sun, already ebbing toward the horizon. He looked over the desert in every direction. Without the GPS, without those damn doctors around, it would be himself and the snow for a thousand miles. He was a man, a human being alone in the snow. He started to laugh but his breath had not caught up to him yet, and it buried somewhere in his throat. He glanced at the GPS again. The blur was moving away from him, slowly.

“Perfect,” Bright growled out loud. The strap of the elephant gun dug into his shoulder. He adjusted and kept walking.

Time disappeared in the snow. The sky was still. The world was frozen. The sun crept lower, but Bright could not tell whether minutes or hours had passed. He was occupied, imagining the days to come. A future version of himself telling this story over eighteen holes, or dominating a dinner party. He chuckled, thinking of how uncomfortable he would remember himself being. The blip on the radar drew closer. He climbed another dune, the heavier snow dissipating under his feet, replaced by a thick sheet of ice. To his left—West? or maybe East?—white turned blue. The ground giving way to an expanse of water.

He checked the GPS. The blip was close. In fact, it was right under him. Bright surveyed the landscape again. He should have been able to see it by now.

A wet bulk splashed out of the water. Two thick, shaggy paws crushed into the ice, an impossible white mass lifting itself above surface. It stretched its neck as four limbs seemed to elongate, four feet widening and rooting into solid ground. It shook, heavy rivulets of ice water blowing off its fur. Its snout was angular. Its paws too big for its body. The curves of its back craned and jutted as if it wore the wrong skin.

“Jesus Christ,” Bright muttered. “You really look like that, huh?”

c-134 started to slink, shambling slowly, taking no notice of the giant green puffball. Bright unslung his rifle. He cracked open the neck and loaded both barrels. With small steps, he moved towards him, the nose of the gun aimed at c-134’s own black nose. When he reached a certain distance, c-134 stopped and stared at him. Bright stopped too.

“I’ve only got two rounds,” Bright said loudly. “Do us both a favor and go down quick, okay?”

c-134’s blank eyes kept staring. He lowered his head and shook his neck again, swaying his furry, circular ears.

The shot cracked through the desert. The emaciated prey roared, a roar like a great, heavy crash. The power of the elephant gun stunned Bright. He stumbled and fell on his backside. He rolled and leaned forward to see if c-134 was dead. A streak of red stained the fur on his shoulder, and another at the base of his neck. c-134 was not dead. Bright’s shaking hands reached into his pockets for another round.

c-134 lumbered towards him, fixed on the wiggling green ball in the snow. A giant paw rose and came down, tearing through the back shoulder of the jacket. Bright squealed in pain, turned, and almost whipped c-134 in the chin. He pulled the trigger and shot back again. The big white mass fell straight to the ground with two bullet holes in his forehead.

Bright could hardly breathe. He wanted to smirk, to tear off his shirt, to have an erection. But he was worn out. He crawled to the fuzzy white corpse and leaned against it, resting on its stomach.

“None of the other fuckers understand, you know that?” he spoke slowly, gasping a little. “I’m being villainized by my own fucking kind. The first time I saw your pictures, I knew I was gonna have to come kill you. It was…the fuck do you call it…an obligation.”

The blood in c-134’s fur had already froze.

“I pray they send a hunter for me,” Bright said. “I don’t pray much, fuck that blessed be thou horseshit. But I pray with every ounce of fat on this body, someone has the decency to put a bullet through my head. A young male, in his twenties. I don’t care if he comes in a suit, or camo, or buck naked. Someone young, and hungry, and desperate. Someone better suited for the world than me. Better adapted. A kid in his twenties, who’s sure there are good guys, and he’s one of them. An elephant gun would be asking too much. I know he’ll come with a checkbook, or a retirement home, or a deposition. But if I had my way, I’m not fucking here, if I had my way he’d come with a gun, or a bow and arrow, and he’d shoot me through the neck. All those fuckers saw you on TV, felt sorry for you, they wanted to leave you in peace. To starve to death, as if that was the best way out. You understand, doncha? You’re glad I showed up. The only thing men like us want is a fight. It doesn’t have to be fair, so long as our knuckles get bloody. Anything’s better than being left behind.”

He inhaled sharply, then patted c-134 on the fur. For a moment, a terrible feeling ran through him. But it was a feeling he had never felt before, and there was nowhere for it to live. He unzipped one of his pockets and tugged out the walkie-talkie.

“Harlan? Hey boy, doc, can you hear me?”

A few seconds of static passed.

“Did you do it?” The emotionless voice came through the receiver.

“Come see for yourself!” Bright chuckled. “Get the hell over here, we’ll cut you out a wallet!”

Another lag.

“So he’s dead?”

“The fuck? Did you hear me? Quit playing and get over here before my dick freezes off!”

The walkie-talkie went static again.

“Hello? Harlan? What’s up, doc?” Bright smacked the walkie-talkie into his glove. “Piece of shit,” he muttered. He looked at c-134. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spare batteries, would you?” His shoulder was cold. He could feel the tear in his jacket.

He got to his feet and started climbing a nearby dune. He hardly reached the top when he heard a familiar sound.

“For fucks sake,” Bright smiled, hand on his hip, waving towards the helicopter. The chopper came nearer. He could not see Harlan. It was too high, and the windshield was tinted. Bright had not realized how loud the machine was. From the inside, it was not so bad. Out in the snow, the blades made so much noise his ears started to ring. He pointed towards the carcass, gestured his thumb across his throat. He waited for the helicopter to land. But it did not land. It went higher in the sky, and turned, and started flying away.

“Hey!” Bright shouted. “Hey you fucker, over here!” He took a step down the dune and stumbled, rolling into the snow. “Where the fuck are you going? Get over here!”

His hood flew off. He took off his hat and threw it in the air.

“You’re going the wrong way!” he thundered.

His head was in the open now. Chill seized his bald scalp. He huffed back to the walkie-talkie, but there was no more static. “Heh, heh. That’s a good one, doc! You almost had me there. That’s a good one!” He pulled down his hood. He glanced at the lifeless white body, and again towards the horizon. The helicopter was gone. His shoulder was cold. The sun was going down.

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