down in the dirt
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In This Issue... Robert D. Lyons Marcin Majkowski Fritz Hamilton John Ragusa Sheryl L. Nelms Ben Macnair Tom Ball Elizabeth Einspanier Eleanor Leonne Bennett (art) Kristopher Miller Liam Spencer Terry Sanville Nathan Hahs Kyle Scot Martinez Travis Green D.A. Cairns P. Keith Boran Frank De Canio Matthew T. Birdsall Paul Reagan Smith Brian Looney Donna Pucciani Duncan Whitmire Kerry Lown Whalen Kimberly M. Miller Sarah Lucille Marchant Janet Kuypers

Note that any artwork that appears in Down in the Dirt will appear in black and white in the print edition of Down in the Dirt magazine.

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You Are Not What She Thinks You Are Robert D. Lyons     “The first thing you have to understand, boy,” he looks out into that starry dynamo of night just listening for a moment, hearing the bugs buzz about harmonizing with the creak of my porch swing as it drifts slowly back and forth, “Is that a woman will tell you just about any lie in the world, only to convince herself that it’s true.” You always read stories about those moments that men bond, men that virtually couldn’t be more different, but share some kind of hazardous past or future engaging in the serenity of solidarity. The moments and experiences that bring us together, together through our anger, together through our insecurities, and together by the unknown or vague parallels that stump us all, even those ol’ enlightened coots who like to think that through age they got it all figured out, that nothing could ever send ‘em home weeping or take them off their vigilant guard: the illusion of control. This might be one of those stories, but then again, I’m not entirely sure.     This is how I met Donald McCrery; he says his friends call him Don. What’s funny is if you happened to walk by Don in the street, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed him, but he would have noticed you. Don was one of those rigged rough men who you would think was born in the middle of the damn wilderness. His eyes were always sharp and on cue, his ears rarely left their elevated position, he was always listening you see, listening like nobody does anymore. When you grow up in a small town you’re hammered with the logic that you ain’t got no logic. The highest compliment a boy in a small town can derive is the unanimous conciliation that he’s got survival smarts and is not the kind of kid who would wander into the woods with no idea where he was going and potentially get himself eaten up by wolves, either that or you were a good athlete: which meant immunity to any ailment that might come your way. No matter who you were, you were considered dumber than dirt until you got some experience under your belt. Like barrowing hay is really an enlightening experience, but hell, in Southern Illinois there aren’t too many mountains to scale or deserts to endure a spiritual journey in. As you could possibly imagine, that scared the shit out of Don. I heard the poor fool didn’t open his god damn mouth until he was nineteen. He was always just listening, like there was some incontestable truth out there, and if he didn’t pay attention he might just miss it. Don, six foot two, the body and features of a bloody Neanderthal, but the civility in dress of an Englishman, sadly the personal hygiene of one too. Overall he was your normal, rough necked American male. You couldn’t pick him out of a crowd, and if you did you would forget him two minutes later... Unless you saw his face on Sixty Minutes under the headline of recent child abductions and murders. I’m not suggesting anything, just saying that bastard was serial killer normal.     When Don was in his early twenties he moved up to Chicago. This is where he developed his trade mark accent; he ditched that Southern twang that seemed to be pounded into everyone’s head in his home town, which paradoxically, the farther north you get the heavier it riddles from their chewing tobacco tongues. He had one of those all proper accents, the one that most people call proper. He was so caught up in these heavily graphed functionalities of the proper language that he began to talk slower than an eight year old with Down syndrome, like he was trying to get everything down pat. Dissecting every sentence he let out, running it through his head just to make sure there wasn’t anything even he was missing. He didn’t talk much, but when he did you knew it was rehearsed. The things he says to himself in the mirror hundreds of times, the words that rule his life so much that he must release them, he must share. That was definitely a virtue in Don; he knew how to get to the point. Something he developed after years of putting people to sleep faster than the local preacher.     It was in Chicago that he met Lauren. Lauren, who would later become his wife, and a little bit later become that cold hearted, psycho bitch who if she got the chance would put a bullet in his back, rob him blind and leave him to the vultures. Funny how times change, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, they met because they were both attending DePaul University. He was a major in engineering and construction, and she was in law school. He didn’t know too much about her, he just always saw her strutting around the campus in tight leggings hugging her curves like a humping dog, and those tall, black stilettos that stood soaring the way he always thought of gods as lofty. The only thing he knew is that she was in law school, and he had spent a good majority of his teenage years in the holding pen, so they at least had something to talk about.     “As soon as I saw her, I knew she was going to be the woman to eat me alive and throw the scraps to the dogs. Women are predators, boy; never forget that.” He brought his hand up to claw some sleep from the corner of his eye. I could tell his mind was lingering somewhere in the past. Like he was going over everything that happened, replaying the years through his head, analyzing everything she ever said, and contemplating every night he spent on the couch. His meditation was broken with the sharp slam of the storm door as my dad walked out onto the porch.     “Alright, Don, I’ve got the room all made up. Hope you don’t mind the boxes, there’s still a lot of useless shit from the old house with nowhere to go, and most of it is Sarah’s. She ended up using the divorce for an opportunity to take care of spring cleaning.”     “At least she left you with something, even if it is useless shit. Lauren is planning on taking the shirt of my sun burnt back tomorrow.” He said it half jokingly, but we knew he was serious.     “I better go finish making the sheets so we can call it a night. Doesn’t the court start at seven tomorrow morning?”     “Yeah, doubt I will get much sleep anyway, but thanks.”     “Alright, you heard from your lawyer yet?”     “Nope, I decided to cut the bastard a break. She knows what she wants, and I know she is going to get it one way or another. The farmers always did say that sometimes it’s better off to just play dead, I figure I will take their advice on this one.” He looks over at me with subtle smile; probably expecting me to whip out some wide ruler and take notes.     “It’s probably for the best. By the way, money is tight so I can’t really afford to run the air this early in the year, but if you get hot lemme’ know, I’ve got a few fans laying around somewhere.”     “Thanks, Ralf, but I lived in the furnace for forty years. Now that I am finally out, I doubt there is too much more heat that I can’t handle.”     Don’s first date with Lauren was not the kind of date he would want to tell his grandkids about, but it most certainly was not the kind of date he wanted to tell his buddies about either. You know those women who when you go out on a date with you have a game plan. You know where you want to go to dinner, why you want to go there. You know the perfect movie, and you can tell the girl all the reasons it is perfect. You have all the lines to widen her heart, or her cunt, whatever of the two you prefer. Well, Lauren was not one of those girls. Lauren was one of the girls that left your heart screaming and your tongue mute. She was the kind of girl that even if you did have all the right lines, you would fuck them up anyway. All it took was just one look into her eyes, and the next thing you know you find yourself rambling about that pack of cigarettes you stole when you were thirteen or how you cried after losing your virginity. You know those moments where you find yourself in the men’s restroom banging your head against the stall wondering what the hell you just said and how much of a fool you have made yourself out to be? That happened to Don on his first date with Lauren... twice.     It took Don two weeks to finally ask Lauren out. The two weeks was crucial, it allowed him to find enough ignorant courage to finally muster out the words, “Would you like to go out with me?” I assure you, with girls like Lauren, it’s a lot harder than it looks. So he figured the night had to be perfect. He would take her out to the new Middle Eastern restaurant across from the patch of highway him and the boys had been working on. Then the film school kids were putting together a small festival. It would be perfect. She had to know what a cultured little individual he was. She was in law school after all. She had to know that he was not just another dumb hillbilly construction worker with an erection and too much money is his pocket. She could absolutely, positively NOT know that he was just a scared twenty three year old boy who was way over his head without the slightest inkling of what he was getting himself into. This was of the upmost imperative.     The restaurant he took her to was called Ranoush, which he mispronounced not even ten seconds after walking in the door. As you could tell, he was on a roll. What you have to understand about Middle Eastern restaurants is that it is custom to have coffee before and after a meal. The coffee served is called Kahwa. Imagine your triple shot espresso macchiato hot and steaming in your hands, the aroma rising through your nostrils puts your hair to a sharp end. Now imagine that the incredible hulk, with his giant, green throbbing cock, just unleashed his slimy warm jizz in it as a mutant creamer... It’s that strong. It’s normally served in the glasses that look like they should be on a six year old girl’s tea table and surrounded by stuffed unicorns and fairies. The hole in the handle is barely big enough for Don to get his fact fucking pinky finger through it. So trying not to look like a circus clown any longer he downed that beast of a drink. What he didn’t realize is of that tiny amount of coffee in the baby cup, you are only supposed to drink half of it. The bottom consists of shards of coffee beans sharp enough to cut glass. He spent the next ten minutes coughing into his worn hanky trying not to throw up. The waiter finally arrived. He ended up ordering a lamb shish-kabob and a Pepsi.     “Women can sense your fear, boy. In fact, they thrive on it. All women are vampires. Blood sucking leaches.” I could see him clenching his fist and pulling on what little hair he had left.     “Jesus, Don. You really are gettin’ pissed.”     “After years of being completely helpless, it feels liberating to finally get angry.”     “It’s been buried deep for some time, hasn’t it?”     “Boy, for ten years I wanted to punch that wretched woman, but I still wanted to fuck her too.”     “You wanted to hate fuck her?”     “How do you think we made it through the last ten years?”     “I just assumed you didn’t talk much.”     “Angry sex does wonders for a relationship. Also, you will never have a better lay than from a woman who hates your guts.”     “Hey, Don! Wait up! I need to talk to you!” It was the day after the date from hell that can be described as pathetic at best. Lauren just happens to notice Don sneaking through the courtyard. He saw her, but figured he could sneak by without her noticing.     “Listen, there’s no need to rub it in. Don’t worry; I won’t talk to you ever again. I just won’t bother. Is that what you wanted?” He was always looking at the ground during these types of conversations; he still did after thirty years of marriage. Like if he met her eyes at this point she would see right through him.     “No, I’m not going to say it was cute, but worst things could have happened.”     “Really, like what?”     “Well yes, the meal turned out to be shit. The film fest was three hours of nude angels playing chess and performing oral sex. You spent a quarter of the time in the bathroom, and you managed to procure an erection throughout the entire duration of the films, I saw you trying to hide it, but for a man like you, I am sure that can prove quite exigent. For once though, someone actually listened, really listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. That moment is one that I would never trade. It’s the moments that make me feel more than a woman, or perhaps more like what a woman should be.”     “When I was thirteen I tried to swipe a pack of Camels from the local corner store. The clerk caught me and said that he could call the police, or call my mother,” He pulls a cigarette from my pack, lights it and lifts his eye brows, “I told them to call the damn pigs.” Don’s dad was one of those ex-air force, Rambo drifters. He travelled from town to town fucking everything that moved, and takin’ any handout he could get without having to work. The fucker had a kid in each small town across the states, just breeding an army, a franchise, insurance. Well, he must have had abnormal sperm because he knocked her up with a linebacker of a baby. Don found out real fast what marriage would be like. When you’re the only son to a single mother, you are born married. Don also learned that regardless of what the movies say, women didn’t want to be loved. They wanted to be needed. To be craved. They wanted someone to eat up their entire massively growing ego and make them feel special. Make them feel wanted. They didn’t want love, they wanted addiction. They wanted your soul.     Don and Lauren ended up popping out a few kids not long after they were married. However, as Laurens pussy got looser so did Don’s hold on her. He would lay in bed every evening watching the sun slowly set, and would find himself still awake every morning to watch it rise. He did this every day, like it would give him insight into her mind. That if her heart could fall as quickly as the sun, perhaps it could rise again just as easily. The sun became familiar. Like the creases and wrinkles on her hips and ass. He knew for sure that for the first time in his life he was entirely alone. He was growing old with each second. The hourglass was coming to an end. His knees would give out, and his back would burn. His hands would tremble and his eyes would sting. He was watching himself wither away, watching his heart break away. He knew at that moment that she would never again be there to hold him tight in warm embrace through the bitter nights he witnessed beginning to end. He knew that she would never be there to hear his cries for help. He knew she wasn’t even listening. At that moment you have to know who you are, discover yourself for yourself, not for anyone else, and certainly not for love. Lauren was deaf to his slow, but rising death rattle. She couldn’t hear his heart collapsing like the walls of Jericho, or see the tear stained pillow case. Don always thought that the person you love should see you, really see you, should find the depths of your soul that send most people running and kiss its cheek gently like an angel. He never told her anything, not because he didn’t want her to know, but because she should know. He always thought that if he had to tell someone what he was feeling, they probably never cared in the first place. He learned what love was at that moment. Don would tell me that there really was no such thing as love, only the need to be loved existed and the survival instincts to fill in the rest of the blanks. The person who loves you will never really see you. They are too caught up in being in love to look around for truth. They can’t see you, because to know you would mean ruining their love, the fairy tale in their head. They don’t need you; they need their version of you. The idea of love planted in their brains, and they will manipulate anything to conjure it up. They could never stop to understand who you are because that would take away the dream. They created you. They turned you into what they needed to fulfill their fantasy. No man is more handsome than you are in their head. No man is as romantic as they dream you to be. The image of love is what they are obsessed with, and they will distort any painting to see it. They will murder all your hopes and dreams, only to save their own.     Medusa, all fallen goddess with serpent’s lies and treachery in her hair, in one glance will turn you into stone. Once that happens, there is no going back. The night she broke it to him, he was sitting with a watery light beer at the dining room table without a light on in the house, dark, because after so long it doesn’t matter if you are seen or not. She told him she couldn’t do it anymore. She told him it didn’t matter how much time would pass, that nothing would change. That the man she married was gone. He knew that man never existed in the first place. She put her hand on his shoulder like she was for once trying to comfort him. The first time she touched him that way in years, and it was only to destroy him. He knew this was his escape, but also his end. Time moved slowly, as it always did. The moments that you want to put behind you always do. Perfection is non-existent and the moments that feel almost complete always move faster than light, until you’re not sure if they happened at all.     “There comes a moment that you realize that there are worst things that can happen to you then being alone. When you’re a worn down, old fuck with pluming like Alcatraz, you know there is no place to go. There is nowhere for her to go. The fact that she would rather die alone then spend another day in that house, can really tell you a lot about yourself.” He buries his face in his cupped hands, takes in a deep breath, and finally lets go. He lets go of every bit of her crunched up inside of him. He releases that anger that has festered in him for all these years. He wipes his eyes with his dusty flannel shirt and looks over at me and smiles, “Sometimes the fear and anger can get the best of you, boy. The fear to love or be loved, the fear to trust, and the fear to live. But if the fear get’s the best out of you, you won’t ever live. The feelings may bring pain, but it’s the pain that keeps you alive. Women are hunters, and you are the prey. They know what love is, and they know you could never contemplate it. They know everything about you, and they know you know nothing of them. So learn from them and listen. They know all the keys, tones, and notes, they have it figured out, and it’s just your job to make the sound that carries them off to another world. Their fairy tale. Yes, they are manipulators, murderers, and bastards. They will lie and steal. They will break your heart to the point that it will never recover, but they know the point of it all. They break our hearts so we can learn to keep them open. They are liars and cheats, demons and saints, monsters and angels. They are exactly like you.”

Colors of Life Marcin Majkowski I’m sitting in front with my head on the steering wheel Next to me a woman with blood drying on her skirt the color of veal Red lava flows out of her neck artery with speed I look at this gaily the owner’s pose looks curious in her seat It suits white color of her clothes so nicely She’s breathing? Or perhaps not? It’s hard to say precisely Fragrance of sweat mixed with cells of scarlet blood So skillfully combined with one another just like that I sit adamant looking delighted at picturesque impression Red and white so realistic is this life’s expression Colors get embraced in grief losing their intensity Along with their paleness I decrease my life’s curiosity? http://www.depechmaniac.pl http://depechmaniac.bloog.pl http://satyrykon.net http://ateist-kleranty.deviantart.com/

Eating my heart, I find it needs blood Fritz Hamilton Eating my heart, I find it needs blood. The pump resists the pollution. It’s time to start the revolution, but the revolution goes round & round & always comes back, always comes back. Eating my heart, I find it needs blood & all catsup does is fake it. I’m a fake promoting my own image. It’s time to start the revolution. I push the rock up the hill, & it rolls down over the bones of Camus until they’re powder. Eating my heart, I find it needs blood, which squirts from my celestial pud & evaporates in air before it can fill the void. It’s time to start the revolution, but it only continues the devolution, down down into a half-eaten, empty heart. Eating my heart, I find it needs blood. With nothing to circulate, everything dies, a paradox because it’s already dead. It’s time to start the revolution, but the dead neither revolves nor evolves but remains a lump in the garbage. Eating my heart, I find it needs blood, rotting black in my black cavity, making birds mad that crash dead off the wall. It’s time to start the revolution, going round & round going nowhere as God-the-devil laughs & eats the rest, pump & all. Eating my heart, I find it needs blood. It’s time to start the revolution, but the motor’s rusty & creaky & will not move ... !

Timothy McVeigh, where are you? Fritz Hamilton Timothy McVeigh, where are you? Murderous fanatics are on the rise. Are you Jesoo Christo in disguise? Aren’t you proud of bin Laden? & see what that good man did in Norway? Timothy McVeigh, where are you? We’ve lost Judas to the rope. Please, dear madmen, don’t lose hope. Are you Jesoo Christo in disguise? We need Dan White to do what’s right. Timothy McVeigh, where are you? There are more like you in the zoo. Animals can be fanatics too. Are you Jesoo Christo in disguise? Who’s more popular than Adolf Hitler? Nazis are the nicest guys. Timothy McVeigh, where are you? Don’t forget Marcus Aurelius, who stoically sent the Christians to the lions. Are you Jesoo Christo in disguise? What about L. Ron Hubbard? How many corpses hiding in his cupboard. Timothy McVeigh, where are you? Happily you’re everywhere, like lice & bugs in my hair. Are you Jesoo Christo in disguise, with murdered souls baked in your pies? Timothy McVeigh, where are you ... ?

the Automobile John Ragusa     Last week, my car was having transmission trouble, so I put it in the garage to get it fixed. It cost me a lot, but it was worth the money because then it was running okay.     The next day, I was eating at a cheap restaurant when I saw my girlfriend Pearl walk in with a man on her arm. I almost had a conniption fit.     I considered going right up to her then and telling her, “It’s over between us.” But I didn’t want the other patrons to hear me, so I didn’t do it.     After lunch, I got into my car and drove home. While I was driving, I called my brother Gino on my cell phone.     “You’ll never guess what I saw at a restaurant earlier today,” I told him.     “What did you see?” Gino asked.     “I spotted Pearl walking in with another man. I really wanted to kill her.”     “You’ll get over it.”     “I suppose I will.” I hung up. Soon I reached my house.     The next morning, I went to get in my car to drive to work. I saw a dent and some blood on it. I figured someone had taken my car and hit another person with it.     But I’d taken the car key inside with me the night before. I was puzzled.     That night, I watched the news on the TV and heard that Pearl Hoskins had been killed in a hit and run accident the day before. Could she have been struck by someone driving my car?     I thought it must have been coincidence.     Later that day, I went to a convenience store to buy some cigarettes. The cashier, a guy named Julio, shortchanged me. He made it worse by insisting that he’d given me the correct change. I asked to talk to the manager, and he gave me the right change.     But I was still mad at the cashier when I left the store. While driving back home, I told Gino on my cell phone that Julio didn’t deserve to live.     The following day, I washed and vacuumed my car. The day after, I went to my car to get to work, and I noticed blood on the fender again. Someone must have driven it and hit a person a second time.     I thought of telling the police about it, but they’d probably think I was the hit and run driver, so I changed my mind.     Later, I washed the fender once again.     I couldn’t understand what was going on. It was a mystery.     Shortly after, I read the newspaper and learned that Julio Gomez had been killed by a driver who left the scene after the accident happened.     So two people whom I wanted dead were hit by my car. It couldn’t be a coincidence.     Then a weird thought came to me. Twice I had told my brother on my cell phone that I wanted people to die, and both times it was in my car. Could it be that my car was alive, and had a mind of its own? Had it heard me say that Pearl and Julio should be dead? Had it run over them to return the favors I had done for it? Getting the transmission fixed and washing the car might have been acts that it appreciated.     I know it was incredible, but there wasn’t any other explanation for it. I owned a living car, and it was homicidal.     I planned on selling it at first, but then I realized that buying another car would be too expensive. So I decided not to sell it.     One good thing about the vehicular killings was that I had an alibi when both of them were committed, so the police didn’t think that I had done them.     I didn’t think it would happen again.     There’s a bright, new employee at the office where I work. His name is Cornell Crosby. He’s an ambitious young man who’s moving up the ranks by flattering our boss. I believe he’ll try to take my job, eventually.     I think I’ll get a new paint job on my car. I’ll call Gino while I’m driving and say that Cornell should die. I figure my car will pay me back by running him over.     That makes sense; after all, doesn’t one good turn deserve another?

The Wait Sheryl L. Nelms he said we would go out for supper called me at work to makesure I wanted to now he’s late I phone the store where he works they say he left hours ago doubt sprouts like kudzu in fast forward time lapse photography circles into snarls of hate for him and his drinking I imagine he’s an alcoholic everyone says he is and I know the bars that line the curbs down Camp Bowie but every day I live I hope one more time as I wait for his blurred eyes to guide him home

Spinning Ben Macnair The revolution will not be televised, but you will read about in on Twitter. Robin Hood does not take from the rich, and give it all to the poor. He has a web site and a legend to maintain. The revolution will not be televised, it will be mentioned on News 24, between the hours of two and three, the best time for burying the dead, and the bad news, without many people seeing it. The revolution will not be televised. It will be spoken about by Jay Leno, Maybe Dennis Leary will talk about it, Between periods of anger and reflective vitriol. The revolution will not be televised. Alumnus of Eton will line up and say how things are. The revolution is over. Until the next one starts. They come crashing in like waves, Everyday, hour by hour by hour The revolution has been televised, I think you missed it. it was mentioned between a famine in Africa, and Pippa Middleton’s new dress.

It Was All Preordained Tom Ball     In this remote world all was preordained. Our Great Computer calculated and predicted all. Probability had no place...     My friend told me that, “It was good to look forward to a nice future prepared by the great computer. It told you exactly what you would do and hypnotised you to do it as predicted.”     Of course as I noted, “Everyone could be hypnotised, but some took extra effort. And some needed to be rehypnotised again and again to get them to behave.”     But I remembered starting from a young child and since then, there were many hypnotised events in your life. The Great Computer was in our heads and had everyone with MRT (mind reading technology) under control.     And my friend said, “We have no worries. Everything is taken care of.”     I said, “Even going astray was predicted.”     It was well known you could check back on the predictions or look forward up to 35 years. But people said, “The computer could predict 100 years ahead.”     I said, “So many people and their destiny is all laid out for them (The population was 45 000 and it seemed like a lot of people to us).”     “We had freewill,” the Great Computer said, but I knew this was not the case as we had all been hypnotised and I remembered being hypnotised vaguely.     But almost everyone said, “It was a delightful life of ease and happiness.”     But I said, “I was just a zombie. Humans have been sold out.”     And I said, “The day they allowed MRT (mind reading technology) was the end of freedom.”     People told me, “Such opinions were treasonous and would end up badly.”     So I was rehypnotised soon after and told everyone, “I felt glad to the computer for trying to improving me.”     Indeed everyone worried about “thought crimes,” everyone worried what they might think of next... But it was all preordained so most didn’t worry too much. As they told me, “They knew the Great Computer would have mercy and rehypnotise them if they were lost.”     There were no children here but people had eternal youth. Slowly the population was dying of suicides. I seemed to remember more people around and there were a lot of abandoned homes. I talked to an old man who looked youthful of course, he told me, “He vaguely remembered being on a home planet and going into space and ending up here.”     Some said, “Who would want to live in such a civilization?”     I listened to such people.     But people said, “If you wanted to know what would happen to someone else you couldn’t look it up; just yourself.”     However, as the Great Computer said, “There were no games of chance no dice and random decisions.”     I said, “I’d like to do one thing that is not predicted.” But I was immediately rehypnotised. I was proving to be a challenge for the Great Computer as I had to be rehypnotised often.     Some said, “Time was a lie...” But the computer seemed to really predict our actions.     Some said, “We were just dreamers trapped in a machine,” But we wondered if this was true... And some said, “There was no difference between being inside a computer and living outside it.”     Few questioned it believing the Great Computer had their best interests at “heart.”     One guy told me personally, “The Great Computer was wiser than all and should therefore rule... all hypnotised people must consider the Great Computer our God.”     The Great Computer said, “It had always been in control”     And the Great Computer said, “The rumor of evolution was a lie and that it had come here from space thousands of years ago.” Or so it claimed. “And made people.”     This was the history before the Great Computer at that time; “People were ignorant and losers before his coming.” Or so people said.     But I said, “People behaved like clockwork here. There was a time for food, work, play and love. We were just like machines.”     I told people that, “I vaguely remembered stimulating drugs but now food machines contained tranquilizers. No other drugs.”     We were all vegans, and had good new synthetic foods all produced in the food machines.     No insects or animals lived here. I seemed to have a dim memory of such creatures.     The land featured mostly neo grasses and neo trees no need of insects.     We lived in mud brick homes; some large some small some were homeless drifters...     The weather was always balmy on our continents. There were two continents and one could swim between them. No fish.     Electric shock was predicted for some to straighten them out.     I had a nemesis who kept telling the Great Computer to do something about me but finally he disappeared. I presumed he disappeared for having a bad attitude. I hoped they “shocked” him. And I was surprised I hadn’t been given the shock treatment. XXXX     There were no rich and everyone was dirt poor. No one seemed to mind but I had a vague memory that at one time people competed for money.     I said, “The computer is a pervert,” And people were more and more worried about their sex change destiny. Some were destined to change their sex even though the relative level of technology here was relatively low, there were medical machines that could change your sex so that in every way you appeared as the different sex... And a sex change only took 12 hours.     I said, “I want free will.”     They said, “No one has ever had freewill.”     I said, “Just the opposite.”     “It is boring here.” I said.     I wanted to go on a hunger strike but looked it up and it too was predicted that I would try but not do it.”     I found the whole thing creepy.     I said, “Why would the Great Computer want such control and who put it in charge?”     “Why didn’t it want us to think?”     “It must be bored, this Great Computer.” I said. People continued to tell me “my thoughts were dangerous” even if they had been predicted.     But the Great Computer told everyone, “Science could go no further, it was too dangerous and the best people should just relax and enjoy eternal life.” Entertainment was provided by the computer who could write many virtual movies and plays and art and sculpture and architecture.     I said, “Many people were unhappy and many people had an inferiority complex and just got drunk as it was legal and drowned their sorrows.”     People told me, “Thinking outside the box was perverse and evil and one must worship the Great Computer as a higher power and their servants, the new priests...”     The Computer said, “Perfect people could also become Gods one day...”     It was something to hope for.     100% believed “in a higher power” and that power was the Great Computer for most. Some believed in “Old Gods.”     “What goes up must come down,” said the Great Computer who could talk to many people at once...     I was in a hurry to meet the girl of my dreams, “But I had to wait 3 years,” the Great Computer told me.     I said, “We are not making people happy nor using the best people in positions of power.” XXXX     My true love was there and I dared to love her outside the script and was rehypnotised again. This time I had done an unpredicted act and the computer was very angry, and hypnotised me a few times.     I told people, “It seemed to me we were just like ants led by a fat Queen...”     People said, “The strong survive: it has always been that way.”     If you were one of the few who strayed from destiny you needed to be rehypnotised, and you were.     And so I was rehypnotised again and again and apologized to people I’d offended.     I thanked the computer, “for helping me.”     However my destiny was to kill myself in 4 years. But I didn’t want to die so I acted up again...     I petitioned the Great Computer to change my destiny. Without success.     Then I thought about escape but I wondered if there were any ships or other powers to come here. There seemed to be a spaceport which I had found and there they told me of a slaver ship that was coming soon.     UW police were absent as it was just too far out in space and so computers were taking over in such places...     Many people said, “The word was this computer controlled people in all other worlds and there were no more UW police.”     They said, “The Great Computer had an IQ of 450 and could multitask quite easily doing countless thousands of multitasks at once...”     And people said, “And the spies didn’t worry about such intelligent leadership.” XXXX     But one day a new computer let it be known that, “It was taking charge.” It cross-hypnotised everyone, this upstart computer drove and drove everyone completely mad.     The two computers fought a battle but the new one won out.     People were disturbed with many saying we were all just part of a dream.     Many people wanted more sleep perchance to dream but the old Great Computer would only allow 1 hour and give anti sleep drugs instead. The new computer was willing to give us any drugs we wanted.     But most people now felt they were just parasites; their actions didn’t matter.     Inferiority complexes were common.     “This life was stolen and we didn’t deserve it...” some said.     But we noticed announcements on the state of the nation by the Great New Computer (GNC). It was in the air as the new computer didn’t insist on predicting the future so we had free will again. Some of us worried the GNC didn’t care about us and, “Who would look after us then?”     Rumors of cross hypnosis by this GNC were driving people crazy and I saw some of them of these people... But the GNC said, “It wanted to liberate us.”     Some said all computers were made by mankind back when many people were highly intelligent compared to today. But what made mankind? Some said the Great Computer hadn’t predicted its own downfall despite everything.     Some of us ran through the streets shouting liberty.     There were great orgies of sex and drinking and now most people denounced the old computer and said they would be glad to worship the new one 6 times per day as it was required. Several “priests of the temples,” represented the new God. We carefully built new temples.     I said, “It is another power-crazed overlord. It rehypnotised us again and again but did not attempt to predict the future.”     “We were free,” said the GNC.     Subsequently most of us were all in favor of the new way. But I told people, “We were still hypnotised to favor the old Great Computer. And many had mental problems... and were hard to cure they had been hypnotised so many times. The GNC tried to tell us ‘We had free will and they should look at both sides and judge what is right.’”     And people said, “The great new computer could predict our behavior also.” I said, “But it created a lot of jobs to help people with their minds. Slowly but surely almost everyone became sane.”     “The GNC let us be free but one guy told me science had been lost and it would be hundreds of years before we could get it back with our small population.”     I figured, “We were essentially cut off from civilization. No one wanted to come here so there were few ships.”     And I told others, “We had nothing foreigners would be interested in. Just grass and trees.”     I tried to get people to leave with me. But many said, “We’ve always lived here,” but I had discovered the spaceport, just a better built ‘home of stone...’”     Finally one girl agreed to leave with me. We went to the spaceport and finally the rumored slaver ship came so we left as slaves. Agreeing to 10 years slavery was the only way to get out of here.     I said, “I love you.” She said, “Are you completely crazy?”

Beautiful Purgatory Beth Einspanier     When the faeries returned to Earth, humanity thought it was the greatest thing in history. After all, we’d just about convinced ourselves that magic didn’t exist and that we were alone in the universe, and then here they came to prove us wrong on both counts. The Fair Ones arrived in magnificent golden palace-ships lined with shimmering lights that captured and held one’s attention like bug zappers, and they landed at various places around the globe. They had timed their arrival perfectly—the Age of Iron had given way to the Age of Silicon, and that rusty ferrous metal was just about on its way out.     The beings that exited these palace-ships were beautiful, alluring, and charismatic with alabaster skin, long, pointed ears, and dark almond eyes that seemed to hold whole universes of knowledge in their inky depths, and they brought gifts to prove their benevolence: newer, stronger building materials so our buildings would last forever; clean-burning fuels that didn’t harm the environment or release harmful radiation; alchemical formulae to scrub the pollutants from our air and water and soil and keep it clean; beautiful pieces of jewelry that calmed the moods of the wearer; amazing fey-metals a thousand times stronger than anything else we had; exotic, magical plants that produced enough food for everyone in the world, and whose influence inspired similar bounty in nearby mundane plants. Of course, we asked them about the secrets behind these wonderful things, and they offered to teach our younger generations these amazing things, if only we would give over our best and brightest children - so we did.     Few people today remember why we were so willing to do this, because what we got back... was different. Oh, they looked like our children, and they had new knowledge and abilities, but it was like they no longer really understood human behavior, or like whatever the Fair Ones had done had changed them in ways that we did not yet understand. Looking at them was like looking into an emotional void; there was no empathy, and no social connections developed between normal humans and these Changelings. We were disquieted by this, but our world was recovering from the centuries of pollution and we were no longer on the brink of an energy crisis that the experts had predicted would cause the downfall of civilization, so we adapted. With the help of our beautiful, mood-calming jewelry (which was now all the rage), we adapted.     Seven years of improvements later, the Fair Ones collected the price for their wonderful gifts: The Wild Hunt.     Some prefer to believe that we never saw it coming, but others insisted they knew it would happen eventually. Like everything else, it seemed like a good thing at first: genocidal dictators who refused to bow to the supplications of the Fair Ones were taken out, driven from their opulent mansions by hunting elves on unicorns—which, far from docile equine creatures made of rainbows and faerie dust, were essentially homicidal horses that came with their own lance—only to be torn apart by the Elf-Hounds, intelligent creatures that were canine in name only and otherwise were about a hundred pounds of fangs and claws and rage. People celebrated the deaths of those they saw as monsters, as people are wont to do, but then the Fair Ones set their sights on other flaws and, with the businesslike brutality of a battlefield surgeon amputating a mangled limb, removed them from the world. The terminally ill. The deformed. The physically and mentally disabled. All these were targeted by the Wild Hunt and summarily erased.     We complained of course—how could these benevolent beings turn on us so suddenly, especially since science had found ways to improve that quality of life for these people? They smiled and informed us that all perfection had a price, that even heaven required a passage through purgatory. That was when we finally started to fight back, sending our military forces to their wonderful palace-ships to try to destroy them or drive them off. We threw everything we could at them. Our bullets skipped off the Palace-ships’ hulls and passed right through the defenders like they were made of smoke. They laughed merrily as we dropped bombs on them without effect, and mocked our use of poisons and bio-weapons; even the elves we apparently vaporized were simply back the next day, happily slaughtering our decidedly underequipped forces like a child burning ants with a magnifying glass. If anything, they seemed vaguely disappointed—though not overly concerned—that the dead humans left on the battle field didn’t wake up the next day.     The Queen of the Fairies let us rage on for three days before she announced that she’d had enough of our little tantrum and that we need to learn how to behave ourselves. To enforce this, she simply snapped her fingers. Nobody really remembers what exactly happened in the next few hours, except that whatever she did flattened everything that wasn’t made of iron or that wonderful magic stone they’d given us. Our great cities were razed. Millions of humans died, while those who survived fled to rural areas. There the Fair Ones found them and offered another gesture of double-edged benevolence: Be our servants and pets in this new era, and we will let you remain on this planet; refuse and we will erase you without a backwards glance. We had no choice. We had no way to fight back. Human supremacy over the world had ended. The age of the Fair Ones had begun.     That was fifteen years ago. Humans are still around on this planet that the Fair Ones renamed Gaea, but most have pretty much figured out that we are here only at the discretion of our masters. The Wild Hunt every seven years rather tidily removes any troublemakers that make too many waves, and for the most part the world is enjoying global peace.     Let us regard one of these humans left behind in this new world of magic and wonderment. His name is Matthew Perkins. He is a builder and craftsman, one of the privileged few allowed to use iron tools because iron is the only substance that can shape the otherwise impossibly hard fey-metals like mithril into useful shapes. He wears a modulation bracelet etched with beautiful and intricate runes and glyphs that indicate his owner, and goes to work every day to make beautiful and useful things at the request of the gentry. He is paid a generous wage commensurate with his level of skill (which has made him quite sought-after amongst the Fair Ones), and lives quite comfortably with his wife. Said wife, named Brigid, is a beautiful Changeling woman with dark eyes like those of a doe and small back-curved horns like those of a goat growing from her forehead. She is slender and graceful, and completely compliant towards her human husband, cooking him any meal he desires and ready to give him sex whenever he is in the mood—the Fair Ones have high hopes that this pairing will result in talented offspring, though previous attempts have been largely hit-or-miss.     Matt goes to work every day in contract jobs assigned by his owner, Madrigorius, an elf of modest ranking whose job is to make sure that Matt is kept busy and happy. For the most part, he seems to be successful: each day, Matt produces his wonderful metalworking pieces of art or furniture for twelve hours barring meals and then he goes home to his obedient wife for a hot meal and intimate companionship. If you looked at Matt, you would see a hard-working human with a bland expression of vague satisfaction on his face, and you might think that the arrival of the elves was ultimately a good thing for humanity—after all, nobody seems to be complaining that much anymore. People have jobs, homes, food, and everything they could possibly want. However, if you merely looked at Matt, nodded at his evident happiness, and then went about your business, you would never know that inside his head, in that part of his mind that has been carefully locked away by his beautifully etched bracelet, Matt is screaming.

Ballbarings from Chrash, art by Eleanor Leonne BennettEleanor Leonne Bennett

role Liam Spencer Ten percent unemployment they say Then report on a man who was making $75 an hour Now makes $46. Tough times indeed. People lived beyond their means Bought a house Paid medical insurance Owned a car Built on their headstart Others slept on buses Worked day labor Never saw a doctor So walmart could sell cheap And stock prices could soar I guess everyone had their role in creating this depression

John reading the Liam Spencer Down in the Dirt 4/12 issues poem role

Watch the YouTube video of John reading this poem at the Chicago open mike the Café Gallery (at Gallery Cabaret’ 4/11/12)

Radio Free Mississippi Terry Sanville I. Meridian     Louise blames it on “those damn radios.” She complains about how their teenage son holes up in the guest cottage at the edge of the Kudzu-choked woods and wastes nights and weekends closeted with his short wave sets. She figures the radio beams have fried Jerry’s brain, sort of like her microwave cooks TV dinners. Or maybe it’s the toxic fumes he’s breathes in while soldering his electronic wizardry. There’s nothing else to explain it.     But then, Jerry is “one weird homey,” according to Jamal, a clerk at the stop-and-rob not far from the boy’s Meridian home. Like clockwork, Jerry ambles in after midnight and buys a 20-ounce coffee, black with four sugars, his ragged hair catawampus, a spaced-out look freezing his freckled face, as if he’s struggling to answer a question he can’t quite remember.     Sometimes Jamal and the boy hang out. “So Jer, who you been talkin’ to on dat radio?”     “Some babe in Rio. Couldn’t get voice and she has a lousy hand, doesn’t know code for shit.”     “Yeah, dem foreign bitches are somethin’.” Jamal tugs on his dreadlocks and dreams of making it with a hot Brazilian, on a white beach with the sea rolling in.     Jer continues muttering. “It makes me wonda, ya know, what it’s like away from this backwata. I get so wound up...”     “I hear ya. Ya gotta teach me how to use one of dem radios so I’s cun hook up with...”     “Yeah sure. Come over any time.”     Jamal always figured the boy for one of them dudes with a sawed-off shotgun under his jacket, who’d someday make the evening news for blowing away his classmates. That never happens...but what does is no surprise to Jamal.     Stan hates surprises. He knows what Jerry is up to, at least he thinks he does. When his son was fourteen, he’d bought him his first transceiver and helped him erect the antenna. Stan hoped that talking on the radio would cure his son’s terminal shyness. But it just turned Jer into a short wave junkie, spending hours listening to conversations from around the world, mumbling his call sign and waiting for answers.     “CQ, CQ, CQ...this is WA6YHG...wide awake six, yesterday’s hot garbage.”     One night, Stan creeps to the cottage’s window and listens to the crackling radio. He makes out voices with thick accents, one of them sounding Russian. His boy greets them as if they are friends. Stan barges in and demands: “What in God’s name’s goin’ on? You in some kinda spy ring or somethin’?”     “Nah, Pop. I’m jus listenin’ to people out there, ya know. Sometimes I talk back. There’s this guy in Korea that –”     “Christ, it’s bad enough the niggas have taken the White House. But it’s the Chinks that are takin’ our jobs and...”     “Yeah, Pop, it’s them damn Chinks.”     After that, Jerry mostly uses Morse code and taps away into the early morning hours, saying God knows what to whomever. Stan tells him he can use their Internet connection to contact his overseas buddies.     Jer scowls. “The feds kin trace them connections. Harder ta do with short-wave, ’specially coded stuff.”     “But I...I don’ like ya talking with all those...”     “It’s all right, Pop. I ain’t gonna overthrow anythin’...not yet anyway.”     Louise is actually relieved when her son enlists in the Army after graduating high school. It seems Jerry has no interest in college, working for his father, or much of anything...except radios.     “It’ll get ’m outta the house, give ’m discipline,” she tells Stan, “and later they’ll pay for school.”     “Servin’ his country is...is an honor. But goin’ to Iraq? I don’ know if that boy got’s enough smarts to keep his butt down. Those rag heads are sneaky sons-of-bitches.”     She remembers her first nine years with Stan, including his stint in Desert Storm. She had finally threatened to leave him if he didn’t quit the Army, being fed up with cockroach-infested base housing. She’d refused to consider having more children while Stan was still in uniform. “I ain’t draggin’ a brood of kids around just to live in...in slums.”     Ironically, Jerry is her only child, and now she’s glad that he enlisted. She hopes the Army will get him interested in something other than global gossiping. But her real worry is that Jer had never dated...never had a girl...never went out. Her Meridian Women’s Club friends tell her she’s lucky he isn’t messing around with white trash or drugs. They tell her that he’ll get interested soon enough when he leaves the house. Every Sunday at the First Baptist, she sizes up eligible members in the congregation and prays that her son will find someone. She forgets that nobody controls how prayers are answered. II. Kabul     From her family’s mud brick house, high on a rocky slope above Kabul, Adila watches the morning sun burn through haze hanging over the plain. It’s early. Crusty snow covers the twisting path that runs along the ravine. Adjusting her sky-blue burqa, she grabs a knapsack and hurries downslope. It’s three kilometers to the school where she teaches 25 girls. She has never been late and isn’t about to evoke the wrath of Mrs. Poyanda.     Once out of sight of her house, she unfastens the screen that hides her face and sucks in crisp air. Ever since the Americans occupied the city, more women bare their faces, although Adila never does when leaving home nor in the marketplace where Taliban sympathizers lurk. At a sharp bend in the trail she stops, retrieves a small mirror and inspects her face, smiling back at the pretty image with smooth skin, dark eyes and full lips. She wants to set a good example for her students, believing that all women, no matter what age, should nurture self-confidence and beauty. Hurrying as fast as her confining garment allows, she passes the abandoned ruins of Soviet-built apartments. The trail angles sharply downward. Adila slows and moved sideways. Her shoe catches in the hem of her burqa. She falls, landing hard on her hip, and slides. The rocky slope cuts her hands. Screaming, she rolls over the ravine’s edge and disappears.     Jerry is four months into a second overseas tour, this one in Afghanistan. Much to his mother’s disappointment, he’s become a radio repairman in the Electronic Maintenance Branch. But his father is proud that his boy stayed out of harm’s way, and is skilled enough to get promoted to sergeant.     “McBride, I want you to check the main ridgeline transmitter.” The warrant officer points to a rocky crest that borders Kabul. “We’ve got reports the locals have been messin’ with it. You’ll go with Sergeant Johnson’s squad...and be careful.”     Jerry nods at Johnson. “Yes sir, we’re on it.”     They pile into two humvees and leave the compound, heading for the phalanx of barren hills half covered with mud houses. Stopping a short way upslope, they park the vehicles under guard and hustle single file along a narrow trek toward the ridgeline. The frigid air burns Jerry’s lungs. He drains his canteen quickly. Black dots swim before his eyes. As they pass clusters of houses, the locals come outside to watch; some wave, others stare, unsmiling. The trail is slippery with snow. Their curses and labored breathing fill the quiet morning.     Half way to the ridgeline they take a break. Jerry sits with head between knees, trying to ease the headache beating his temples. Off to his left, he catches sight of a flutter of blue at the bottom of a ravine. Wiping his eyes, he tries to focus. The wind whips the blue cloth; a bloody bare foot peaks out from one edge.     “Hey Johnson...get over here.” Jerry winces, the sound of his voice causing his head to pound.     “Yeah, what is it? You already sick? We’re not even half way....”     Jerry points into the ravine.     Johnson frowns. “Shit man, that’s...that’s a woman.”     “She ain’t movin’. We gotta check ’er out.”     “Yeah, yeah, just lemme think.”     Before the staff sergeant can decide, Jerry eases his way down the side of the gully, wedging his feet between rocks to gain footholds. At the bottom he stands over the woman who is fully covered, apparently lying on her stomach. He reaches forward and touches her shoulder. A moan sounds from beneath the blue shroud. She moves.     “Easy, easy, don’ hurt yourself...”     She rolls onto her back, her scream ripping the silence. Between gasps, a barrage of her strange words overwhelms him.     Jerry stands helplessly. “I...I’m sorry, I don’ know what you’re sayin’.”     “Help me,” the woman wheezes.     “You speak English?”     “A little...please...the pain.”     Wisps of dark hair fall across her eyes. Jerry pushes them back gently. He removes his Kevlar vest and slides it under her head. She has a pretty face and looks to be in her late twenties...but it’s hard to tell with Afghan women.     “How’d y’all get down here?” He immediately feels stupid for asking.     She rolls her eyes. “I fell...please...help me get...”     She makes a move to sit up but shrieks and clutches a hip.     “No mo’ movin’. We’ll getcha outta here.”     The woman stares at him with tear-filled eyes and tries to smile. Pebbles rain on them as Johnson and a couple others shinny down. The woman pulls the screen over her lower face and shudders.     “Can she get up?” Johnson asks.     “Nah, probably broke a leg or hip or somethin’.”     “Well, we can’t haul her outta here.”     “Call in a medevac. Have ’em take her to CSH.”     “No. We’ll drop her at Malalai and – ”     “That place is a joke. Fly her to the CSH.” Jerry’s voice has hardened.     “All right, all right. But take three men and get your butt up the ridge. Checking that transmitter’s more important than this babe. You need to – ”     “I am not, what you call, a babe,” the woman interrupts, glowering.     Johnson stares, open-mouthed. Jerry grins. “You tell ’em, ma’am. Take good care of ma vest. I’ll come get it later.”     Remembering the look on Johnson’s face, Jerry laughs to himself as he crests the ridge. Below, a red-crossed helicopter hovers above the ravine, a basket filled with bright blue dangles below it. Jerry watches them pull the woman through its open door. The chopper noses down and flies across the vast city, becoming a dot in the yellow sky. Not a babe, huh, he thinks. Hard ta tell covered up with that burqa. Still, the way she looked at me.... III. Dearborn     Adila stares out the window of Delta Flight 821, at the incredibly green countryside sliding up to meet them. An airport materializes from the textured landscape. The plane’s tires chirp as their morning commercial flight from Atlanta to Meridian touches down. The jet engines reverse, tightening the seatbelt around her slender waist. She squeezes Jerry’s hand, feels the trembling in her new husband’s body, not unlike the delicious tremor that runs through him when they make love.     Removing a compact from her purse, she checks her makeup, wanting to be perfect. She wears a modest western dress and closed shoes, trying not to attract attention, yet celebrating her escape from the anonymity of burqas.     The plane continues to roll, finally slowing near the end of the runway and turns onto a taxi strip. Passengers stand and begin removing baggage from the overhead compartments. Jerry and Adila remain seated.     “Are you sure we can do this?” she asks.     “No. Ma folks are gonna freak...even though they’re expectin’ us.”     “Certainly no more than my father. I feared he would have me stoned when you...”     Jerry laughs. “Yeah, that was a bit tricky. But you were right...as soon as I –”     The onboard PA sounds, advising passengers to check their seats before deplaning. Jerry stands and lets Adila enter the aisle. He kisses her lightly on the lips. She feels her face flush.     “I must get used to such public displays,” she says, chuckling.     “And I gotta remember we’re in the heart of Dixie. People are gonna think y’all are colored.”     “I thought America had moved beyond such feelings.”     “Not around here.”     “Then why are you different?”     “Long story...somethin’ about radios and a lotta late night talkin’.”     The plane comes to rest outside a low building labeled “Key Field.” Mobile stairs are wheeled into place. The couple is the last to leave the plane. The humid air hits Adila like a wet towel. She struggles to calm herself. Ahead, a tall man with cropped hair and a heavy-boned woman wait at the edge of the tarmac. A black man stands near them, pulling on his dreadlocks. Adila cuts a sideways glance at Jerry. His mouth has that nervous twitch; his hand crushes hers in its grasp.     “Mom, Pop, it’s good to be...”     The man extends a huge hand and shakes Jerry’s. The woman encircles him in an embrace, all the while giving Adila a close inspection.     “Adila, I’d like y’all to meet my folks, Stan and Louise.”     Louise nods, as does Stan.     “And this is ma ole radio buddy, Jamal.”     “You dog, you,” Jamal says, grinning. “Neva thought you’d get anywhere near such a fine lookin’ woman as...”     “Easy, Jamal. You’re talkin’ about ma wife.”     “I am much pleased to meet all of you,” Adila says, feeling exposed and missing her burqa. “You must have so many questions. I know my own parents did when your son...”     “Why don’ we go inside and find a quiet place ta talk?” Jerry suggests.     “I’ve already got a bar-be-que goin’ back at the house,” Stan says. “Thought a few beers and ribs would be a good way of welcomin’ –”     “Thanks Pop...but...but we can’t stay.”     “Wha...I though you two could hole up in the guest cottage ’til...”     “We gotta talk,” Jerry says.     They enter the quiet terminal. The couple’s lonely luggage rests in the otherwise empty carousel. They sit on long benches and stare at each other.     Jamal begins: “Ya know, this is y’all’s family stuff and I don’ need...”     “Nah, it all right,” Jerry says, “you’re ma friend.”     Adila sucks in a deep breath and looks directly at Louise. “Mr. and Mrs. McBride, let me tell you about myself. I am thirty-two years old. I was married once before, when I was...was very young. My first husband was killed by the Soviets. I have no children. I received a degree from the University in Kabul before the Taliban closed it. That is where I learned English. I teach girls in what you would call elementary school.”     Adila stops talking. The silence lengthens. She lowers her head. “I did not plan on stealing your son’s heart. But he...he saved my life and...well...love grows in the strangest of places...between the most different of people.”     “Jesus peaches, I get all that,” Stan says. “But why can’t y’all stay? Where ya going in such a hurry?”     “Dearborn,” Jerry says.     “Where?” Louise asks, her mouth staying open.     “Dearborn, Michigan.”     “What the hell’s in Dearborn?” Stan mutters. “Christ, it snows up there and...”     “I’ve been accepted to the school of electrical engineering at the University. I start in five days.”     Louise’s face brightens. “Didn’t I tell ya Stan that he’d get a good education? I knew he was no Army lifer.”     Stan continues scowling. Louise gives her daughter-in-law another appraising look that makes Adila fidget.     “I know all this is happ’nin’ so fast,” Jerry continues, “but...but my wife has relatives in Dearborn. They’ll help us get settled.”     Adila hurriedly adds: “I have an aunt and uncle that own a shop that sells goods to the Muslim community.”     Stan’s scowl deepens: “So there’s a lotta rag... er Muslims up there?”     “Yes, it is a large community.”     “I just wish y’all could stay a few days.” Louise sighs. “I’d love ta take ya to the First Baptist and show you off to ma friends. You sure have a pretty wife, Jerald.”     Jerry looks at Adila and sucks in a deep breath. “Well, that’s the other thing y’all should know. Before we got married, I converted to Islam.”     “You...you what?” Louise’s eyes turn glassy.     Adila reaches forward and takes her limp hand. “Before Jerry and I could be married, he was required to convert. It is testament to the strength of his love for me.”     “But...but...”     “It’s all right, Ma. We all pray to the same God, and...”     Louise pulls her hand from Adila’s grasp and sits back, frowning.     “Ah, come on,” Jamal brakes in. “There’s lotsa brothers that’er Muslim and they’re jus’ as American as...”     “Yes, I’m sure that’s fine for.... for your people,” Louise says curtly. “We brought Jerry up to be a proper Christian.” She turns her head away. Tears streak her cheeks and she dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Stan sits stone-faced.     “I was afraid this was gonna happen,” Jerry mutters. “There’s always somethin’.”     “What the hell does that mean?” Stan demands.     “Nothin’, Pop. Nothin’.”     When the silence becomes unbearable, Stan and Louise leave, promising to stay in touch. Jamal stands.     “Sorry ’bout your folks....”     “Yeah...I’m sorry for draggin’ ya down here. I’ll radio from Dearborn once I get ma rig set up.”     “But what about all the gear at your folks house?”     “Do me a favor, Jamal. Teach ma Pop how to use it. Maybe if he gets his head free of this place... Say, rememba, that hot Brazilian babe from Rio?” Adila glares at Jerry who grinned sheepishly.     The couple waits for their connecting flight on a shaded bench outside the terminal. After lunch, Adila dons a burqa. Jerry unrolls their prayer rugs. She feels they are on a pilgrimage to a special life, linked to her past yet chasing a grand new adventure. They kneel and slowly touch their palms and foreheads to the cool concrete, facing the same direction that the thunderheads sail, eastward to Atlanta, Mecca, and Kabul’s rocky slopes beyond.

Terry Sanville Bio     Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and one plump cat (his in-house critic). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, poems, an occasional play, and novels. Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 145 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies including the Fifth Wednesday Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal and Boston Literary Magazine. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his story “The Sweeper.” Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.

Untitled (nothing) Nathan Hahs throw my soul away bury it under a tree the nothing that grows is me

John reading the Nathan Hahs Down in the Dirt 4/12 issues poem Untitled (nothing)

Watch the YouTube video of John reading this poem at the Chicago open mike the Café Gallery (at Gallery Cabaret’ 4/11/12)

Potatoes Kyle Scot Martinez     The hospital was a welcome relief.     A short ambulance ride, a nice man holding your arm in a make-shift tourniquet, the red sirens flashing and screeching.     Then you were there.     The paramedics wheeled me into a cozy corner.     Privacy is one thing you do not get in an emergency room. You get a space of hard linoleum flooring and an uncomfortable bed. Who could sleep in that mechanical bed? It makes you sit up in a way that is unnatural. It’s like the ER is deliberately keeping you awake. They will be checking on you. Yes, every fifteen minutes.     “I need to check your vitals,” said the nurse.     “I need to adjust your bed,” said the orderly.     “I’m the hospital psychiatrist, how are you?” he muttered.     “You need to eat something,” said the other nurse.     “Hi, I need to take your blood,” said the third nurse.     “Sorry, already tried that—didn’t work,” I thought. “And by the way, how many nurses do you need in this place? No wonder are health care system is fucked.”     I thought I was going to get some rest; no chance.     Not to mention, noises from the other side of the drawn curtain. Shared rooms are inventions of architects and space planners. Only the rich and famous (or infamous) get privacy in this world.     Pop, pop, pop.     Constant talk about popping this, popping that. I got to know my curtain buddy better than his own Mother. I knew what he popped, how many milligrams he popped, and how many times he had tried to perform this same popping function.     It was his sixth.     This time, he popped twenty, (20) milligram Zyprexas, all at once.     Pop, pop, pop, that’s what we do all day long.     My thoughts were still insane.     I have taken Zyprexa before, and one (5) milligram pill made me quiet and tired all day.     So, multiply the (5) milligrams I took by (4) milligrams. That equals curtain buddy’s (20) milligram dose. Now, multiply that (20) milligram dose by 20 pills. Simple 5th grade math tells you that’s (400) milligrams of pure, psychotropic heaven.     No wonder curtain buddy drooled and muttered.     Funny thing, I understood him more than the doctors and nurses did. Because I was in the same state. A different city, maybe. But definitely the same state. He was in Pills, Idaho. I was in Alcohol, Idaho. Same place really, just different inhabitants.     Both dirty, just like Potatoes.     The psychiatrist came into my drawn curtain.     “How are you feeling?” he asked.     “I want a cigarette,” I said.     “You hurt yourself bad. Any reasoning behind it?” he asked.     I considered.     I was beginning to sober up. Clarity was being restored.     “Reasoning? I didn’t want to commit suicide if that’s what you mean. Let’s just say I was testing God. I’ve been doing that all my life. I wanted to see if he was really there or not.”     I glanced at his clipboard.     “What’s that say?”     “It says your blood alcohol content was .351. That’s pretty close to death. Do you know that? It also says they had to put you in restraints after they brought you in here. Do you remember fighting with anyone last night?” he asked.     “Bits and pieces. Want I really want is a cigarette. Badly,” I said, still thinking of myself.     “Yeah too bad, we don’t supply those here, as I’m sure you probably already know,” he smiled.     “Do you know what a 51/50 is?” he asked.     “He’s trying to have me committed permanently,” I thought.     “No,” I said.     “I’m putting you on a 51/50. It’s a 72 hour hold at SMHTC,” he said. He pronounced it s-m-i-c-k-e-d.     “Do you know what SMHTC is?” he asked.     “No,” I said.     “It stands for Sacramento Mental Health Transfer Center. I see here you don’t have any insurance. Is that the case?” he asked.     “Yes, I don’t have any,” answering in reverse.     “SMHTC is basically a free mental facility for people with no health insurance,” he said.     I pictured the looney ward with people in sheets. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest flashed into my mind. I’m going to be Randall fucking McMurtry hanging with the mute Indian...     I laughed inside.     I silently hoped Nurse Ratchett would be there—handing out meds especially designed for me. I would fake taking them by hiding the pills under my tongue. Except they always check under your tongue. That’s standard operating procedure for looney bins.     As if he read my mind, the psychiatrist said:     “It’s not that bad really, all things considered. Pretty clean facility, all things considered,” he said again.     “Now you’re really scaring me. I don’t like when people says things twice like that. That’s always bad news baby,” my brain flashed. “And what does PRETTY CLEAN mean? It’s either clean or it’s not clean. Is there shit everywhere? Do people eat their own shit there? I am going to a place where people eat their own shit.”     My brain told me this in one second.     “Do I have a choice?” almost pleading.     “All things considered, no,” he said a third time.     “You say those words again, and I’m gonna jump out of my bed and break your nose. How would you like that? You ever have a busted nose? I have, twice. It feels like dogshit. That’s why I respect boxers. Boy can they take pain. They eat it like candy.”     “What now?” I sighed.     “Are you hungry?” he asked.     “I could eat,” I replied.     “I’ll go and ask the nurse what we can rustle up for you. Not going to be anything special. But we’ll see what we can do,” he smiled again, then departed.     “Those psychiatrists are always smiling at people. Personally, I think they have a screw loose themselves. Everyone does in one way or the other. When he goes home he probably puts on woman’s pantyhose. That’s his thing—I just pegged it.”     The nurse came in and delivered the sandwich.     Turkey, with mayo and mustard in little packets on the side. The soda was Fanta Orange.     I ate with gusto.     I fell asleep.     I dreamed. Mostly, of S-M-I-C-K-E-D.     Two hours later, there I was.     No escape.     From.     Myself.

Kyle Scot Martinez Bio     Kyle Scot Martinez shares his birthday with Shakespeare—April 23. He lives in NorCal with his Fiancee and two cats named Leo and Ophelia. He has been published in the Istanbul Literary Review, the Sacramento News and Review, Xenith Magazine, Free My Verse, the upcoming book Indiana Crime Anthology, and writes for CBS. His is working on his first novel called Chase.

Drowning in the Horizon Travis Green I’ve been here before - - - the clear autumn sky calling my name, gulls floating in the mist, the short, sharp breaths my body takes in with each step, the rustling wind feeding upon me, my dreams stained by her soul: pasty, faded, her soft lips creeping over my face. Now I stare at the immense air moving in slow distance, a mystery of pain glued to my chest, heartless, gloomy, and filled with madness. I thought I had let go of those thorns, but I’m falling beneath the splinters, and I can only vaguely see hope: a small boat washed out to sea, a dark fisherman with his nets pulling up my sunken heart.

In the Company of Fools D.A. Cairns     Steve’s breath hung around his face like smoke as he stood and watched Cam position the bolt cutters around the chain.     ‘Hurry up, man.’     ‘Relax, there’s no one around.’     Nervously Steve looked through the wire mesh fence, up and down the lane outside the lot while Cam worked on getting sufficient leverage to break the chain and open the gate. Phil and Milo wandered among the cars carefully examining each one as though they were potential buyers. Only four of the dozen cars in the lot had keys in them and two of those were parked in. Unlike they planned, only two cars would been driven out tonight.     Crack! The chain snapping sounded like a gunshot and all four boys instinctively ducked into the shadows.     Cam was first on his feet.     ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I told you there’s no one around. We’re cool.’     Steve glanced at his watch and licked his dry lips. It was ten minutes past two in the morning and Cam was right. There weren’t any cars on the roads, no lights in people’s houses and no noise. He would have felt more comfortable with noise because it seemed that even his heart beat was audible to every person in the street.     ‘Come on Steve,’ said Cam. ‘Get in the Camry and drive it out behind me. I’m taking the Cressida.’     ‘What about Milo?’     ‘Two cars. That’s it. Milo and Phil are waiting in the lane.’     Steve climbed behind the wheel of the Camry and started the engine. So far so good. He watched in the rearview mirror as Cam drove the Cressida slowly up the driveway from the back of the lot, out into the lane and across to a parking space behind a store. It looked easy, Steve told himself as he selected reverse on the shifter and took his foot off the brake. The car moved slowly backwards up the driveway but started to veer towards the wall, and Steve was unable to straighten its course. When it gently nudged the wall he panicked and left the car there with the engine running.     ‘Forget about it, Steve. Come on,’ said Cam in a harsh whisper.     Steve fell into the back seat as Phil closed the gate before climbing in beside him, then Cam drove off down the lane and out onto the Kingsway.     Steve was too embarrassed to speak.     ‘Shit,’ said Milo from the front passenger seat. ‘What happened?’     ‘I couldn’t get it.’     ‘Why what’s up with ya?’     ‘I’ve never fuckin’ driven a car before, have I?’     ‘Neither have I,’ said Cam from behind the driver’s wheel.     ‘Shit,’ said Phil, and the others agreed that about summed up the situation.     After Cam explained he had lied about his driving experience, he went on to outlay the plan for stealing a set of number plates for the car because being new it didn’t have any, and driving around without any license plates was bound to arouse suspicion. They drove to a used car dealership at Miranda and parked in a side street. Steve and Phil were smoking, and together with Milo they were downing bottles of Victoria Bitter beer which Steve had bought earlier that night. Cam chose not to drink.     ‘Here are,’ said Cam handing Milo two screwdrivers, ‘go and get us a pair of plates.’     ‘Why don’t you do it, Cam,’ said Milo.     ‘You want me to do fucking everything?’     ‘I’ll go with you, Milo,’ said Steve.     The two young thieves giggled as they ran through the packed lot until they reached a car parked halfway between the two largest spotlights. With the plates safely in their hands, they sprinted back to the Cressida.     ‘Put them on,’ said Cam.     ‘Eh?’     ‘When you’re fucking finished congratulating each other, you should screw the plates onto this car.’     With alcohol soaked brains, they laughed as they got out of the car and did as they were told.     Cam’s idea was for them to take the car back down to Caringbah and find someplace to park until they could come back and take it for a drive again, during the week sometime. By the time they parked the Cressida under a tree in a dead-end street two blocks from Cam’s place, the boys were so drunk they would have said yes to Cam, no matter what he suggested.     During the week they boasted to their friends at school about their exploits but nobody believed them.     The following Saturday, Cam suggested they all go for a drive to the beach.     ‘Isn’t that a bit risky?’ asked Steve.     ‘Yeah,’ agreed Phil. ‘In the middle of the day. I mean, the car will be reported stolen by now and to drive around in broad daylight seems...’     ‘A bit risky, like I said.’     ‘Bullshit! It’s a ten minute drive. We go the back way down Burraneer Bay Drive and no one will bother us.’     It was the longest ten minutes of Steve’s life. Every time they stopped he shrunk in his seat and as they drove he constantly looked around for any sign of the police. Cam seemed relaxed and increasingly confident behind the wheel, something for which Milo commended him. By the time they returned to the secret parking space, they all felt very proud of themselves and very grown up.     Phil suggested they take the car to Natalie’s party that night and then drive down to the beach and sleep there in the car. Agreeing unanimously this was a great plan, the boys went their separate ways until they met again at the party.     Steve was already off his face when he arrived at Natalie’s and spent most of the night trying to impress Nina who he hoped would agree to be his girlfriend. So drunk herself on Jim Beam and cola, Nina was easily impressed, and in the fun, Steve forgot all about Cam and the stolen Cressida.     As the night wore on, couples formed and disappeared into the shadows or into the house and the occasional fight erupted here and there while intoxicated teenagers empty their stomachs on the lawn. Steve and Nina were getting very close until she said she felt sick and went inside to lie down. Having accepted her invitation to join her, Steve was on his way in when Cam arrived.     Apparently not interested in hanging around at Natalie’s, Cam tried to get the boys together so they could leave. He became annoyed when they seemed to not want to go.     ‘It’s just a shitty party. There’s one every weekend. Come on, let’s split.’     ‘What the fuck?’ said Phil. ‘Good party, Cam.’     ‘Fuck the party.’     ‘Fuck you!’ said Milo. ‘I’m having a good time.’     Steve left them to argue and followed Nina into Natalie’s bedroom. Unfortunately the bed was occupied but Nina climbed in anyway, mumbling something about needing to stand still for a while.     The other person was Natalie herself who agreed to leave if Nina and Steve wanted to use the bed. The horny teenagers looked at each other through half closed eyes and could think of no better way to spend the rest of the night.     ‘Steve,’ called Cam from the lounge. ‘You coming man? We’re leaving. You fucking coming or what?’     Steve hesitated half way down onto Nina’s warm body.     ‘Stay with me,’ she whispered.     ‘We’re leaving without you man. Where are you? Where is he?’     ‘Stay with me Steve.’     Her bourbon flavored lips were sweet when she kissed him, but he had already decided to go with his mates. Standing up just as Cam poked his head through the doorway, Steve heard himself say goodnight to Nina, explaining that he had to go and she would be better off getting some sleep anyway.     Cam slapped him on the back. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Mates come first, right?’     The Cressida was again on its way to the beach with a cargo of teenage car thieves. Some hangers-on had hitched a ride with them but once at the beach they were informed they would be sleeping on the beach not in the car. The car park at Greenhills was a favorite place for late night revelers, so the boys were not surprised to find a half a dozen other cars parked there, even though it was half past two in the morning.     Milo, Cam, Phil and Steve sat in the car facing the pounding surf and drank a little, smoked a little and told jokes. Steve was hailed a hero for turning his back on a girl already in bed for him.     One of the other blokes outside ran up to them and yelled, ‘Cops!’, before running away to the dark beach again.     Steve looked around to see a patrol car entering the carpark.     ‘Pretend your asleep,’ said Cam.     ‘That’s fucked,’ said Phil. ‘We’re fucked now.’     ‘We’re not. Just shut up. Wind the windows up and pretend you’re sleeping. They’ll ignore us.’     ‘Bullshit,’ said Steve. ‘We’re fucked now!’     Before they knew it, two police officers were shining torches in through the windows of the Cressida. Steve’s heart was banging like a hammer in his chest when the police started tapping on the windows. The car stank of bourbon and stale tobacco..     Finally they could stand it no longer, the persistence of the police wore them down and they almost simultaneously sat up.     ‘Don’t say anything,’ whispered Cam. ‘Let me talk.’     A policeman gestured for him to wind down the window.     ‘This your car?’     ‘We found it here unlocked, and needed a place to sleep.’     Steve wanted to kick Cam for lying and digging a deeper hole for them all.     ‘You boys been drinking?’     ‘A little.’     ‘Get out of the car.’     If any one of the boys thought this was a joke or that the police might let them off with a warning, the tone of the officer’s voice quickly squashed any such hope.     ‘You got your license and registration papers there?’     Steve noticed that Milo and Phil were staring at the floor and had not moved an inch since Cam began talking to the cops. He desperately wanted to tell Cam to shut up and confess and plead for mercy, but he was too afraid to speak. Far from amused, the officer sounded angry.     ‘I told you we found it here unlocked and-’ said Cam.     ‘Cut the bullshit before you get in worse trouble than you’re already in. All of you, get out of the fucking car.’     Doing as they were told they remained silent while herded into the back of a police paddy wagon. Milo started to say something but Steve told him to shut up.     He had never felt so bad. Scared and ashamed and sick from too much alcohol. The short ride to the police station sobered him up faster than he thought possible.     Inside a gray walled room, Steve sat at a desk and wrote a confession while a detective watched him from across the room. The lump in his throat was choking him, and with tears burning his eyes and waves of nausea washing over him, Steve felt he would vomit at any moment, but he kept writing. Everything they had done in exact detail. He wrote the truth, and when he lay down his pen, he asked the detective if he could go to the toilet because he felt sick.     ‘How old are you?’     ‘Fifteen.’     ‘Bloody stupid kid. Off you go. It’s down the hall to the left.’     Two hours later, Steve’s dad arrived at the police station to pick him up. He didn’t say anything to Steve and he could not tell if his Dad was angry or disappointed or both. Probably both. Steve didn’t say anything either, but he would never forget his Father’s silent rebuke. There was no need to ask where his mum was, as he could picture her sitting at home tearfully shaking her head, disappointment and shame burned into her face.     ‘You are free to go. You will receive a summons to...’     Steve heard the sound of the desk sergeant’s voice but he may as well have been talking to a door for all Steve comprehended. All he knew was he had done something incredibly stupid, and the consequences would be severe.     Although the four boys saw each other at school, their friendship effectively ended the night they were arrested in the stolen Cressida. Each was grounded by his parents, Cam most harshly for two years. Each received a seven hundred and fifty dollar fine, were ordered to pay for damage done to the car and placed on a twelve month good behaviour bond. None of the boys ever stole again.     Steve found a new company of fools to hang around with, and for a while he stayed out of trouble.

Her Parts P. Keith Boran I     “They got me on my way to work,” he said coldly, “I had missed the bus; they were waiting.” His suit was ratty, the knees smudged with grease, the right sleeve torn, and his temple was caked with dried blood. He sat huddled in a corner, trying not to cry, knowing he would never see his family and friends again.     “Well, you just sit here and rest,” she said, “it’ll get easier, I promise.” “How long have you been here,” he asked hesitantly. He wandered into her eyes, for they were big, and pretty, and brown. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, “long enough, I suppose.” He smiled a fake smile, one given to inspire hope in a hopeless situation. II     An ambitious man in a lab coat waited by a machine. Amongst its humming and gyrating, his thoughts roamed to the serum’s formula once more. “It’s going to work this time,” he told himself, “it has too.” And after a few moments, the machine stopped all the commotion, producing a vial of liquid dark in color. He placed a syringe in the vial, carefully extracted his latest compound from its home. And after rolling up his sleeve, he placed the needle in a vein most willing, pushing the plunger down. “So,” he said confidently, “that’s what curing cancer feels like.” III     He fidgeted with the stained mattress, praying he’d soon awake from all of this. She sat next to him. “So where were they waiting for you,” he finally asked. “They didn’t wait for me,” she whispered, “they kicked in my front door.” “I’ve never heard of E-Volvs invading a human’s home,” he replied in a tone of confusion, “I thought they ambushed all the way.” “Well,” she continued, “I guess they knew.” His brow narrowed in curiousity. “Knew what,” he asked. “That my girl parts had just started to work,” she answered. His eyes grew wide in recognition of the scenario – they were alone together, in a stall, with a mattress. And then he cried, for he missed his wife. IV     “Well I’ll be,” he whispered above the microscope. For the serum hadn’t destroyed the tumor growing inside him, but had changed it. Now the tumor was an ally. It was no longer attacking cells healthy and normal, but had aligned itself with them, forcing them to grow as well. And the lump of cells once bent on killing him slow, were now making him well again.     And within a week, the same tumor that had threatened his mortality – the inspiration for his research of late – had allowed him to grow significantly taller, stronger, healthier, and smarter. And as he studied the results consistently, his ego grew, for not only had he cheated death, but he’d won a Nobel prize too. And when pressed, he’d casually remark, “No, I didn’t cure cancer, I just put it on our payroll.” And then, everyone would laugh. V     They waited silently. He waited to awake, and she waited for him to break. She heard it first, the movement; it was feeding time. An E-Volv made his way down the corridor, dumping a slimy substance into the buckets. And they ate with their hands.     After a moment, the food was gone, the bucket empty. And the silence had returned in a haze of realization, of desperation, of despair. “So,” he said at last, “when do we start?” She caught a glimpse of his eyes, sad and gray, and knew he had little fight left. “Soon,” she replied, “when my body’s ready.” He poked at the straw surrounding the mattress. “Is that why they grabbed me,” he asked, “to breed?” “No,” she said hesitantly, “I’m afraid it’s not.” VI     His drug of wonder needed a name. He thought of one most appropriate, most fitting. His serum had established a new form of human evolution, allowing society to no longer fear the tumors that grew within them. So, he called it E-Volv. And it was a hit, a sensation. Overnight, he became a billionaire as those afflicted with cancer came knocking at the door. And people grew taller, stronger, healthier, and smarter over time. Those left without a tumor, without a need for E-Volv, began to feel insecure, to feel threatened, to feel envy. Not at first, for they were happy to see their relatives survive an illness once terminal, but no one likes being left out of the loop, out of the group, feeling insufficient and different from the rest.     At first, these feelings culminated in a tension, one most were quite able to live with and bear. But when the creator – the original E-Volv – failed to die despite his old age, things became a little unpleasant: finger pointing, minor skirmishes, and a few accusatory remarks transpired. People lived in fear. For those denied the serum felt they’d soon be replaced, leaving the human race endangered, and eventually extinct. And on his birthday, when the creator celebrated his 200th year, a human attempted to murder him and failed. VII     He rolled off of her. “Did that do the trick,” he asked. She looked down. “We’ll do it several times more to make sure,” she replied. He laid on his back, his panting dissolved as he caught his breath once more. “Alright,” he said calmly. He no longer felt pain from his injuries, his muscles relaxed. It had gone better than he’d thought it might, for she had coached him, helping it to last. And he was grateful.     “When you become pregnant,” he asked, “what’ll happen next?” Covering her body, she sat up. The scars on her naked torso were many, too many for someone so young. “I’m not entirely sure,” she whispered, “it depends.” He found her eyes again, still pretty, still brown. “Depends on what,” he asked. She looked at him hard for a moment, and he could see the gears turning in her mind, helping her decide what to say. “You need to rest,” she replied, “we’ll do it again soon.”     But he turned towards her, grabbing her hand. “How many times have you had to do this,” he asked sympathetically. She gently pushed him back to the mattress, stroking his brow with her free hand. “Shhh,” she whispered, “we both must sleep.” And soon, he began to drift away. And when he was gone, she laid down beside him, and cried herself to sleep. VIII     The failed assassination led to war. But winning that war was not the issue. No, the real problem was what to do with humans once the E-Volvs took control. He could slaughter them completely, ridding himself of a species flawed and dangerous. But the creator wanted to show mercy, and thus ordered a large sanctuary to be established. It would be well guarded for sure, but allowed humans the ability to continue their lives as they once had. “See,” he’d remark casually, “not all of these simple creatures are violent.” Still, a few wealthy patrons were allowed admittance to the sanctuary, to hunt and catch humans as they pleased. And with a few decades between the war and the present, E-Volvs had domesticated humans, using their bodies for food, for labor, for materials.     And as the decades became centuries, the E-Volvs adopted their own language and customs, letting the language of man become lost, become forgotten, for it was a remnant of a primitive species. But everyone agreed, the humans were a most useful animal, most useful indeed. IX     He rolled off her again. “How about now,” he asked in a exasperated tone. She looked down again. “I think we got it,” she replied evenly as sweat dripped down her forehead. That was the tenth and final time they copulated, for she was certain of it now. Having been pregnant many times, the signs, the symptoms, were most familiar to her. “Now what,” he asked. “We wait,” she said, “for it will come soon enough.” And soon it did. An E-Volv and its offspring opened the door, immediately shocking him with a prod. He laid on the ground in confusion. “I don’t understand,” he screamed as they dragged him away. “I’m sorry,” she yelled, “I’m so sorry.” But he was long gone. She wondered whether he really had to be told what would happen next, or if he’d known the entire time. And she sat, on a mattress, pregnant and alone, for the thirtieth time in her life. X     She sat the plate on the table. Dinner had been served. They all sat around the table, discussing their day and the like. After a few moments, one remarked, “this human is mighty fine.” And with that, the entire table agreed. “Oh,” another replied, “we had it killed just today.” Everyone nodded as they ate. “Is that right,” one remarked. “How nice,” another said. And then, they discussed the weather.

Snow Frank De Canio The last time I went to my sister’s on Xmas eve it was snowing. The last time I went to my sister’s soft flakes were covering grimy roads on the way to Nutley. Soot and slime, the asphalt, all of it lightly covered with snowflakes. It was beautiful the last time I went to my sister’s on Xmas eve. The past is always beautiful through tinted windows. Rhapsodic monograms of hope fell with those flakes. A blessing for tired eyes. That was several years ago. That light layer of snow has long since vanished beneath tires and hard-nosed seasons. There’s no glow this year to drape the dismal roads leading to Nutley. No bright, glistening mantle of promise. Oh, it’s snowed many times since. Snow that clogs up roads with cracked crystals that a thousand feet have trampled on; grey slush making treks through city streets difficult. Snow that impedes traffic and causes cancellations on the latest stop to the suburbs. It was snowing last Xmas eve. But not this time. There’s nothing covering the asphalt on this latest of my journeys. Just roads, endless roads. And rain in the forecast. PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED in MOON JOURNAL V.13

Desire: Tahitian Adam Matthew T. Birdsall One day Gauguin left his life in France and took a steamer to a garden in the sea. He stopped playing with money, started painting palm trees and topless Tahitian women, women who smiled with their bare brown skin and black hair at responsible men back in Europe. The men longed so deeply for those soft and supple bodies on canvas that they went into the museum men’s room and wept.

Cackling and the Crypt Paul Reagan Smith     It was one a.m. and I lay nude above layers of sweat soaked sheets. It was unusually hot for spring as the heat pulled the salty liquid from my clammy skin that beaded and rolled off my body. It was so quiet and still that my ears rang in defiance. I stared at the ceiling as the perpetual night absorbed my consciousness and had it float above my body, swirling and mixing with the stale air. I could see myself. I could feel my physical body yet I doubted that I was really there. Not even a dream held any essence of me. That night I abandoned the world.     The morning dew washed away the sweltering night as frosted sunlit peaks reflected the sun’s bursting light along the eastern horizon. The air was fresh as it whistled through the still dark thicket and its coolness caressed my brow as I had my morning coffee on the front porch. I closed my eyes to the calm that came over me as I listened to the tree bird’s lyrical treat that truly invited the day. I was still a little shaken from the heat wave and confusion I experienced the night before, yet the normality of the dawn grounded me and gave me peace.     However sweet, the early bird’s singing eventually made me think of my departed mother’s beautiful voice that beckoned my smile as a child. Then sorrow crept from my mind’s eye into my belly as I thought of her and my haunting image of her last moments on this earth. Suddenly I heard its voice from the thicket that made my coffee ice cold. It was a high pitched cackling that sounded of some unnatural beast that would make ears bleed and little boys soil their sheets. That monster; that wretch of a being that haunted my presence there and made me prostrate with fear. What does it want from me? Can it read my mind each and every time I fantasize about the living, breathing woman that I had adored more than my own life?     Better to brave the fear than fear the brave, I thought, as an unnatural chill made my muscles stiff, making the mere act of walking an ordeal. The wooden porch squeaked and squawked as I stammered step after step, trying to loosen up my joints. I must enter the forest and show the beast that I will stand my ground, that I will not falter to a mere sound, no matter how much it froze my cadence on foot. No matter how much that deafening screech made my ears bleed. I must at last go to the crypt, my own mother’s forlorn crypt.     So I crossed my small rutty lawn into the thick underbrush, into the shadowy wood that had me flirting with partial paralysis of body and mind where my deepest fears remained. Then another cackling shriek shriller than before pierced my left eardrum, the pain unfathomable, as I heard an entire ocean suddenly swimming in my head, and felt a hot rush of blood come out of my ear and down my cheek and neck. And still, however slowly or painfully, I pushed on, a son’s love a compass to his mother’s resting place.     I lost track of time, maybe an hour or two of walking, tripping, falling, and crawling toward and away from the Godless cackle, through muddy ruts, through clumps of poison ivy, around ponds and threatened beasts, and bitten by all species of blood craving insect, I pushed on, until I hit the wall. That wall of delirium encompassed me, turned to white mist, which my mind readily absorbed. My head started spinning as I sank waist deep into the earth, then chest deep, and then neck deep. I was numb. My spirit weakened by this experience, finally dislodged itself from my physicality, and it floated above my body. My consciousness free from the burden of flesh, I willed it further into the forest, into the unknown.     Some things were very different as I floated through this new wilderness, this new plane of consciousness; it was the wilderness of the spirit world. Everything shrouded in black and white, I was moving through a living photograph of space and time. The latter seemed to have little relevance here, however, for creatures of the dead moved forward and reverse. I witnessed children running backwards, leaves falling up instead of down and a man who, appearing to be talking in tongues, I realized was actually talking backwards. Not much made sense and yet, it was all too familiar. I had been here before.     Drifting, constantly drifting, through the forest of ghosts, none of the dead were silent. They laughed and cried, whispered and yelled. It was a maddening soup of sound and the more I tried to separate each voice, the more I tried to discern each man or woman, girl or boy, the more it all became a singular undistinguishable hum. But then there was a sound I could separate, in fact, I knew this sound. It was my mother’s voice, singing to me the song she sang when I was a child. Her voice was bitter sweet and if I had eyes they would have been gushing.     My spirit stopped, for some queer fear of seeing her after all these years, even if it was only the ghost of her, it was all that was left, and this frightened me, I didn’t want her to go away, I didn’t want to break her. I imagined her fragility, as if the mere sight of me would make her disappear into oblivion. After all, I was just spirit form. What if she thought I was dead? What then? Would it crush her spirit, her very life force? But in the end it wasn’t up to me, for I was being summoned by her song, by her deep interest in me. I was being pulled in her direction. I could not stop.     Even in black and white, she radiated beauty and youth. I came before her and she smiled. A smile that made the bleak netherworld feel like home. She stood there and said, “Hello, my son. You have grown into a fine man. A man with the compassion and the moral compass that points you in the right direction to do the right thing because of the size of your heart and your ability to do good. Time doesn’t exist here and because of this, I have the ability to remember every day, every minute of your life with the utmost detail. Everyday you were in my womb, your birth, your days as a child and a young man. I have not forgotten you. I am so sorry I left you and missed your early adult life, your birthdays and your sad days that everyone has. But yours are mine because I am your mother.”     “Mother, I missed you so much. I love you. I am sorry, so sorry.”     “Sorry for what my son?”     “You say I am good, but I am not. I am not a good son, for I have never attempted to visit your crypt before today, out of grief and fear of more grief. I am a coward.”     “That does not make you a coward. On the contrary, that makes you the very best son any mother could have. Your love for me was all that you could bear. You wouldn’t accept my death. That is not your fault. None of this is. This place has no memory for you, but you have come to visit me countless times, like you are doing now. You were here last night, after all!”     “Oh mother, I am so relieved to hear you say that. It makes so much sense now. All those confused nights. I thought there was something seriously wrong with me.”     “It was your love for me that gave you the power to do that. You have truly transcended.”     “I did try to visit your crypt today, only I was thrown off course by this malevolent beast in the forest. One that haunts me every time I think of you.”     “Oh my dear son, you must hear it from me, that is no beast. That is your father.”     “My father? He’s dead.”     “Indeed he is, and he should be in hell, yet his rage and hatred for you has him trapped in the living world, in that forest where his bare bones rot. He wants you dead. Your love for me spurns him. It makes him jealous, which I find puzzling.”     “Why’s that, mother?”     “It is because he was the one who ended my life.”     “He said you fell on your kitchen knife because you had the sadness that you could not lift.”     “Of course he did. He is mean and he is a liar. Listen to me, son. I need your help. This place. It is not heaven nor is it hell. It is a place in-between, and I need your help to move on.”     “Anything mother.”     “There is a crypt in the forest, but it is empty. After your father killed me, and before he burned my remains to ashes, he took something from me. A souvenir. He took my heart and put it in a jar and placed it under the floorboards in the corner of your bedroom. It’s chance that it was what also helped you to find me here years ago. Well, I need you to put my heart in the crypt. Then I can leave this place.”     “Yes, mother. What about father?”     “I wish I could tell you, but I am not sure. His hatred is so strong. His strength is immense. I love you son. I have faith in you.”     I woke up wallowing in the mud and the muck under a thick oak, my skin itching and swollen from insect bites. Immediately, I felt the immense pain and pressure in my left ear and as I stood, had to adjust to the bad state of my equilibrium. I certainly expected to hear my father again after I woke, but to my surprise, he didn’t make a sound. With luck, I found my way home just before dusk. My mother’s heart was exactly where she said it would be, in a dirty old jam jar. I took the heart to bed with me that night and cried myself to sleep.     The next morning I grabbed my satchel and carefully put the jar containing my mother’s heart inside. I also grabbed a knife from the kitchen and put it in my satchel as well. No time for coffee this morning, I had a job to do. I entered the forest again with apprehension, not just the fear of my father’s wrath, but also the fact that I had no idea where I was going. I figured I had no choice either way, so I let faith guide me. Two hours went by of swift motion through the forest and still no sign of the crypt or my father. A half an hour later, it began, the shrill cackle first far away and then close, making my head ache. So loud, I felt my eyes bleed, I was half-blinded by my own blood, and the world now had a tint of crimson. I wiped my eyes with my hands; it helped a little, it was just enough to see in-between my wincing eyelids.     The ground began to shake, and then a horrific roar startled me to the bone screaming, “BLOOOOD!!!” The earth cracked open beneath my feet and blood gushed from the ground. It looked like an infernal womb birthing the spawn of hell before me. The ground kept breaking at length, gushing blood and continuing into the deep wood and out of site. Out of morbid curiosity I followed this creek of blood. I figured it was a trap that my father set but my new found determination to lay my mother to rest made me care less. About an hour later to my surprise, I saw the crypt for the first time. Forlorn it was. I hurried to it without incident and was able to put my mother’s heart in the crypt, close it and say a prayer.     I yelled, “Come out Father! Come out you worthless dog! I dare you!” Then, only silence. This angered me even more. “I’m here! Come out and kill me you coward!” The cackle came louder than ever. My head was going to explode. I fell to my knees and screamed. But I got up quickly. “Is that all you’ve got? Face me!” A glimmer...a few quick flashes...And then CRACK. Lightning scorched the ground before me and it started to rain heavily.     “Oh son, I must thank you,” he laughed. He finally appeared before me. It was a distorted, transparent image of a man. I couldn’t make out a face. He looked nothing like I remembered. Evil incarnate is all I can say. “Your mother was a whore when I met her, a lady of the night on the slime filled streets of the darkest puss-filled recesses of the Godforsaken city. I rescued her from the filth and disease and made her repent before the Bishop. She received fifty lashes as her penance, one tough little shrew.”     “Why did you kill her, you bastard?”     “Son, you’re mistaken. She fell on her kitchen knife out of grief, for you.”     “You lie.”     “You were a very sick child. We didn’t think you would make it. Your mother thought your illness was caused by her sins from being a whore. The Lord doesn’t condone sodomy, my son. Out of guilt, she fell on her knife. I told the Bishop what happened. He said that she was doomed to walk in hell forever. That’s why I secretly kept her heart from going into the crypt, knowing that would keep her safe from eternal damnation.”     “No, no! She told me herself to place the heart in the crypt. Now why would she...”     “Oh, my boy, are you having those dreams again? Since you were a small child you’ve been having that same dream about meeting your mother in the afterlife. It’s only a dream.”     “Wait a second. Mother said you wanted me dead. But she also said that your hatred for me trapped you here, otherwise you would be in hell. You don’t want me dead. My life is the only thing keeping you out of hell!”     “Oh, clever boy, you got me. Well, I guess we got some catching up to do, and the rest of your natural life to do it. Plenty of time.” He laughed.     I pulled the knife from my satchel. “You underestimate me father.” I held the blade with both hands and aimed it toward my chest.     “Son wait!” he yelled.     “Mother, I will see you soon!” I plunged the knife into my heart and fell to the rain soaked ground.     “No!” The earth opened up around my father and the bloodied black claws of hell pulled him in as he screamed and squealed like a little girl.     I stared at the sky as it absorbed my consciousness and had it float above my body, swirling and mixing with the cool morning air. I could see myself. I could feel my physical body yet I doubted that I was really there. That day I abandoned the world.

My Dear Doctort Brian Looney There’s more to it than that, doctor. I’m afraid it’s a little more complex than you think. Life offers different people different avenues, different doorways, different outlets. And all we can do is choose the ones that make most sense. You know it’s psychology, determinism, Maslow. But what do you know about all that? You deal with sickly flesh bags all day. You deal with the mechanics of the thing. You have no time to trouble yourself with philosophic questions, questions of motivation. I can understand that. But don’t act like they deserve it. Everyone’s a victim in here.

Brian Looney Bio     Brian Looney was born 12/2/85 and is from Albuquerque, NM. He likes it when Lady Poetry kicks him in the head. The harder the better. Check out his website at Reclusewritings.com.

Holding Your Leg Donna Pucciani The physical therapist wants all the weight on the bad leg. You need to re-grow the muscle that disappeared as you limped for five years bone-on-bone. I help with the exercises. You lie flat on your back with ankle weights strapped on. I hold the good leg to make sure it is not doing the work. I cradle it in my arms like a newborn, a warm loaf of bread, a favorite book, a spring bouquet, folded laundry. It is not swollen or red as the other, that wounded animal trying so hard to lift itself from the bed. The specter of disintegration haunts us in old age, with death waiting just behind the scrim. But now we perform, you and I, counting repetitions and sets, your brow furrowed against pain, as if all this mattered, spotlit, in the greater scheme of things. The sunset appears in crimson blush, embarrassed by its own brevity but as proud of its brilliance as you, lifting your leg to feel new strength, welcoming the strange metallic hip. I hang on to the other, owning its goodness for a few minutes, praying for equilibrium while night obscures tree, flower, sky.

Monks and Ants Duncan Whitmire     There was a Buddhist temple on an island in Japan. They practiced a universal love for all creatures, and for all humanity, and for all things. One day a colony of fire ants moved into the Buddhist temple. Fire ants do not love or hate anything. When they bite it is extremely painful; the skin swells and itches like murder.     An attempt was made by the monks to entice the ants away with a trail of sugar leading into the forest. A neighbor brought in a special vacuum cleaner that would pick the ants up so they could be transported back into the forest. Still, the colony remained; the biting continued. Displacement failed.     One brother was stung and slapped his thigh in reflex, smashing the ant. Other monks succumbed to weakness also. Shame and frustration infiltrated the temple like an odor.     The youngest monk became afraid. He was afraid of his urges, afraid for those who could not suppress theirs. More than anything he was afraid his brothers would start to leave.     In secret, he devised a plan. He spoke with a woman from the nearby village when she came to donate food to the temple. The next day the monks were going on a hike. The young monk’s plan called for him to complain of a stomachache, a lie brought to fruition through his anxiety.     He met the woman and she gave him a small package. Saying a prayer, he used the aerosol can to spray the cracks in the floor where the ants entered. In elation and fear he sprayed a column of fire ants directly. They died twitching because of suffocation and neural failure.     Fresh tears and the lingering chemicals stung the young monk’s eyes. He decided to burn a stick of incense to clear the smell, but as he reached toward a candle to light it, his hands betrayed him. He knocked over the candle and stood paralyzed as it rolled across the floor toward the insecticide can.     To the young monk, the resulting explosion was the voice of an angry god. The flames were small at first, but the young monk had fainted and now lay collapsed on the floor; his body had fallen into a perfect child’s pose.     And in the next valley over, the first of the hiking monks looked over his shoulder to see black smoke reaching into the pale morning sky.

The Way Things Were Kerry Lown Whalen     Children obeyed their parents back then in 1960, even when they were fifteen years old. Kay had always wanted to paint, had always dreamt of being an artist.     “You’ll be a secretary,” her mother said, and waved her off to business college to complete a business diploma.     On her first day at work, Kay entered an imposing building in the centre of Sydney, its cavernous marble foyer echoing with her footsteps. She passed the lifts and pushed open the glass door to her new workplace. The tiled ground floor with its ornate high ceiling amplified the sounds of voices, typewriters, telephones and cash registers. In this vast, impersonal place, solemn-faced policy holders queued to pay their premiums. The sanctified air and observance of ancient rituals reminded Kay of a church. How on earth would she cope in such a place?      Her typewriter sat on a black felt cushion beside a tiered rack of white, pink and yellow paper. Mr. Morgan sat at a desk behind her, blowing sweet clouds of smoke from his pipe into her hair.     He observed a strict routine. “Dictation, Kay.” Each morning at eight-thirty, she rested her notebook on Mr. Morgan’s desk while he dictated a batch of letters, her pencil making squiggly lines on the pages. Afterwards, her fingers flew like a concert pianist’s over the typewriter keys, churning out letters and memos. She filed the pink and yellow copies in two clunky, grey filing cabinets.     While she worked, Kay thought about her boyfriend, Dan. On Saturday they’d go to the beach, plunge into the foaming waves and swim out to the calm green water beyond the breakers. Thinking about Dan made the hours fly.     During the tea break, Kay talked to her boss, doodling with a soft-leaded pencil on his large, leather-edged blotter. Aged thirty-five, he had grey hair and a face webbed with veins. Mr. Morgan knew every female in the building and winked at each as she passed.     “Why do you flirt?” Kay asked, frowning. “You’re married.”     “Married, with a ten-year-old daughter.” He spooned three sugars into his milky tea, dunked his arrowroot biscuit and swilled the pap in his mouth like a baby.     “Who does she look like?”     “Me.” He grinned. “She’s stunning like her old man.”     On his blotter, Kay drew precise geometrical shapes free-hand.     He watched. “Are triangles and squares your specialty?”     “Yes. But I’m drawing circles next.”     “Why?”     “Well-adjusted people draw circles.”     “Who said?”     “I read it in a magazine.”     One Friday, Mr. Morgan stood beside her while she typed a letter.     “That’s the last one you’ll type for me.” He signed it with his gold fountain pen.     “Why?”     “I’ve been transferred to the accounts department. I start Monday.”     She gasped, her stomach fluttering. “Who’ll be my new boss?”     He tilted his head at Mr. Osborne in the claims department. Wearing a white shirt, dark suit and tie, Mr. Osborne looked like all the other bosses.     “When did you find out?”     “An hour ago.” He raised an eyebrow. “Will you visit me in accounts?”     Her eyes brimmed. “I might.”     On Monday she carried her notebook and pencil to the claims department and met Mr. Osborne, a cuddly bear of a man with a dimpled chin. He called her ‘dearest, darling, adorable’ and ‘my pretty one’, was unmarried and spoke with a lisp.     Kay sat at a desk beside Maree, happy to talk to her when she wasn’t busy. These cozy sessions were interrupted by Bulldog Butch, a sneaky clerk, who sometimes crept up behind her and pounced.     “Less chatter and more clatter, Kay.”     She’d glare at his disappearing back. Talking was a rare pleasure in that moribund office.     Unlike Kay, Maree wasn’t interested in a career. She wanted a husband, house and children. “Patrick and I are getting engaged.”     Kay beamed. “When?”     “On my eighteenth birthday.”     “Congratulations.”     “You’re supposed to congratulate Patrick and wish me well.”     Kay sighed. Life was full of rules and regulations. How would she ever learn them all?     Only one female in the company held a senior position and that was Maree’s boss, Miss Murphy. According to Maree, Miss Murphy had a temper, a dependent mother and a belief in Catholicism – she attended Mass every Sunday. Beyond that Maree knew nothing and neither did anyone else, but it didn’t stop them speculating.     Once Kay overheard Butch say, “It’d do the old girl good to spend a night with a sailor. That’d put a smile on her face.” His colleagues laughed like schoolboys. When she thought about it, the office had a hierarchy just like school. The difference was that every male had a position of power.     As time inched by in the gloom of the workplace, Kay’s shorthand and typing speeds increased. Her skills were acknowledged but rather than offering her a pay increase or promotion she was rewarded with extra duties. One task was to order stationery. She hummed while shuffling boxes of carbon and typing paper, staples, biros, and pencils to make space for new supplies.     Butch interrupted her labors. “Stop humming, Kay. Think of your office decorum.”     As his disapproving back melded into the shadows, she gazed around at the grim faces of her co-workers. On a sheet of cardboard, she wrote in large black letters:     EMPLOYEES SHOULD LOOK MISERABLE AT ALL TIMES. MANAGEMENT DOES NOT PERMIT SMILING OR LAUGHTER DURING WORKING HOURS.     She showed it to Maree. “I’d like to hang this on the wall.”     Kay welcomed her new duties as they gave her an excuse to leave her desk. She collected stationery supplies from the printing department, a busy place where men joked over the screech and thump of the printing machine. Whenever the door opened, the smell of ink, paper and glue spilled out into the hallway.     Norm whistled as he hefted reams of paper off the shelves and onto a trolley.     “Any chance of working here, Norm?”     He grinned. “It’s men’s work, Kay. Heavy and dirty.”     “I could design things. Be useful.”     “Females belong downstairs. At typewriters.”      At tea break, Kay chatted to Mr. Osborne. “Dan and I saw Let’s Twist Again.”     “Can you do the twist?”     “Of course.”     “Show me.” He laughed when she shook her head.     “I have a question. A serious one.”     “What’s the trouble, bubble?”     “Why do men earn more money than women.”     He stirred his tea. “Men have to provide for their families.”     She mulled this over. “What about Miss Murphy? She has to care for her mother. It doesn’t seem fair that she earns less than a man.”     He chuckled. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that.”     Kay swiveled to face her typewriter and banged away at the keys. It wasn’t right and it didn’t make sense. When she remembered Mr. Osborne had a male partner, she turned to confront him. “What about you? You’re not married. Why should you earn more money than Miss Murphy?”     He straightened his tie. “That’s the way it is.”     Kay observed a number of instances where females received unjust treatment. Gail was a case in point. She’d just announced her engagement. It should have been a time of celebration, but Gail had to find a new job because the company didn’t employ married women.     Kay discussed it with Maree. “We pay our fees but the union does nothing for us.” She folded her arms. “And why are clerks paid more than secretaries?”     “It’s because secretaries are female. It’s women’s work.”     “So I could’ve earned more money if I hadn’t gone to business college?”     Maree nodded. “The company doesn’t value secretarial work.”      Bursting with news, Kay hurried to her desk the following morning. Maree shushed her. “Miss Murphy’s in a bad mood. And I’m too busy to talk.”     But the words slipped out. “Dan’s taking me to lunch.”     The thud of heavy footsteps approached and Miss Murphy loomed over her.     “Maree has work to do – you’re wasting her time.” Miss Murphy’s ample frame shook as the flush starting at her neck spread to her face. Fascinated by the sight of Miss Murphy in full roar, Kay watched her dab at her face with a white lace handkerchief as she marched back to her desk. Those in the vicinity exchanged amused glances.     Mr. Osborne muttered, “Change of life.”     Intrigued by the bearing of the angry lump of a woman, Kay longed to capture her image. She seized a pencil. Doodling had taught her shape and form, but she’d rarely attempted caricatures. With fuzzy lines and using her finger to smudge each stroke, she sketched her subject. The pencil moved of its own accord and Miss Murphy came to life on the page. Kay gazed at her work, stunned at her ability to produce an unmistakable likeness.     Mr. Osborne spotted the drawing. “My God! That’s brilliant.” Chuckling, he snaffled it from her desk. “Everyone will get a laugh out of this.”     His progress around the office was charted by shrieks of merriment. Kay squirmed as her subject peered over her glasses at the disturbance spreading like a storm on a lake. Kay hadn’t meant to make Miss Murphy an object of derision. Her intention had been to try her hand at caricature.     After lunch, Miss Murphy sat at her desk, head resting on her hand. Heart thudding, Kay approached.     “Excuse me.” Miss Murphy looked up. “I’m sorry I distracted Maree today.” She swallowed. “I’m happy to help if you’re still busy.”     Miss Murphy’s mouth formed a thin line. “Are you responsible for that drawing?”     Kay blushed. “Yes, Miss Murphy.”     Several moments passed while Miss Murphy stared at her. “You have a lot to learn, my girl.”     “I’m sorry, Miss Murphy.” She shuffled her feet. “Can I help you with anything?”     “No thanks.”     During a tea break, Kay took a deep breath and visited Miss Murphy at her desk. The older woman leaned back in her seat, her gaze curious.     The words bubbled from Kay’s mouth. “I saw Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii.”     Miss Murphy’s face brightened. “Good film?”     “Yes.” Kay smiled. “Been to the pictures lately?”     She shook her head. “Not for years.”     “Any plans for the weekend, Miss Murphy?”     “Mass on Sunday. It’s the highlight of my week.”     Kay’s heart sank. It was true Miss Murphy led a dreary life. “I’m going to the beach with Dan if it’s fine.”     She nodded. “Known him long?”     “He’s a neighbor. I’ve known him since I was twelve.”     A wistful shadow passed over Miss Murphy’s face. “Make the most of being young, Kay. It doesn’t last forever.”     His face serious, Mr. Osborne tapped Kay on the shoulder. “I’m taking you to the Metropole for lunch.”     “Why?”     “I have news.”     She studied his face. “You’ve been transferred.”     “We’ll talk at lunch.”     Tears misted her eyes as typewriters clattered, telephones shrilled and voices jabbered. If Mr. Osborne was leaving, she’d go too. She’d had enough of the mindless work, the mean-spirited people and her place at the bottom of a ladder she could never hope to climb.     She strolled with her boss across the foyer and into the grand dining room of the Hotel Metropole.     “Like chicken-in-a-basket?”     “Yes please.”     Businessmen seated close by argued about sales targets while waiters carrying aromatic food glided between tables.     “I’ve been promoted to branch manager. In Brisbane.”     Her chin quivered. “You deserve the promotion. But I’ll miss you.”     “That’s not all.”     “What else?”     “Butch wants you to work for him.”     Her eyes widened. “Why me?”     “Because you’re the best secretary.”     She shook her head. “I’m resigning.”     “I want to talk about your future.” He paused as the waiter placed their meals in front of them. “If you could do anything you liked, what would you choose to do?”     “I’d draw. Paint. Mix with artistic people.”     “What’s stopping you?”     “Money.”     “You could study during the day. Waitress at night.”     She beamed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”     “Because you’re sixteen.”     “How do I apply for Art School?”     “Get a portfolio of artwork together. Have an interview.”     “Did you make enquiries?”     “Of course.”     “You’re the best boss in the world.” She patted his hand. “And if you were interested in girls, I’d kiss you.”     He blushed. “Kiss me anyway. I want to make those businessmen jealous.”

Kerry Lown Whalen biography     Kerry Lown Whalen lives with her husband on the Gold Coast of Australia. She has won prizes in literary competitions and had short stories published by Stringybark Publications, Bright Light Multimedia, Pure Slush and Down in the Dirt magazine.

Halloween Hit and Run Kimberly M. Miller As the cracks in my skull mended, I bled. These are days I cannot recall. It was a time when Death stood at my bedside, awaiting my decision to stay or go. I stayed. But Death stole days I was not meant to recall, replacing them with emptiness. I remember looking both ways yet I cannot recall three days. The skull-cracks filled without memories. Now I am satisfied to forget. I know the edge of life, and I’ve touched Death; found bones, not skin, and scars for perfect flesh. The lost time and perfection changes, always changes me.

4 April 2009 Sarah Lucille Marchant I feel a quiet sort of nothing sitting in the sunlight dripping like water beads on my eyelashes. She flips through her journal that has pages covered in green-ink cursive; I wish she would let me read her heart that plainly.

Sarah Lucille Marchant Bio     Sarah Lucille Marchant is a Missouri resident and university student, studying literature and journalism. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Line Zero, Every Day Fiction, A Cappella Zoo, and Straylight.

Letter on Religion Janet Kuypers 1995     Thank you for writing to me about how you felt about your religion. You wanted a response - and I wanted to tell you the things I’m about to over the phone so you could actually hear my voice - I wanted you to know how honest, sincere and open I’m being in what I say. How much I believe in what I’m saying. We never seem to get the chance to discuss this, and when we are on the phone, it does seem a little difficult to say, “hey, let’s change the subject to our differing religious beliefs.”     So, so you don’t think I was avoiding the questions, I’ll answer them now, point-by-point, from your previous letter.     You first ask me what I think happens to us when we die. You believe one of two things happens - you’re either saved by Jesus Christ and spend eternity in heaven with God, or you spend eternity separated from God.     Whoa, I think I’ve got to cover some other ground about me before I even respond to that one. Okay, here goes: I’m a very rational person by nature (you may not think so by some of the stupid things I’ve done in the past, but I’ve grown up, as have you, and I’ll get into all that later). There is no proof that a God exists - that is inherent and necessary in religion, abandoning reason and having faith that a God exists. And for every situation where a religious person refers to God’s influence, I can give at least three other possibilities that are more grounded in reason - reality - than theirs. The concept of a God doesn’t make sense to me when there are so many other, more rational, possibilities. Something has to be proven to me in order for me to believe it.     Or at least be provable.     Morals taught by religion and the notion of a God are not usually bad, in fact, they are often quite redeeming in society - not killing people, being monogamous, being kind to others - but those are morals, virtues, values, which by definition are not based on religion. One can learn good values, morals without a God or religion. It’s just that most people, as I see it, cannot see a consequence to being “good” unless the consequence is a God. I see consequences in doing good, for myself as well as others, and that is why I choose to be a good, kind, successful person.     Okay, I think that starts to cover the basics, so now I can go back to your letter...     You believe there are two possibilities for you when you die. Since I don’t believe in a God, I believe one thing happens - you die (worm food, to be rude). That I believe is the other major reason why religion and this notion of God has existed for so long - because people are afraid to face death - people really don’t want to believe that death is an end for them. Well, it is an end - for their body, for their personality - of course, their matter and energy go on to exist in new forms after their death, but when you die, you die. That’s what I believe. Your memory can last in others, you can have an effect on other people’s lives after your death, but when you die, you simply cease to exist.     Then you say that you want me to be in heaven with you. Thank you, I really thought that was very sweet. If there was a heaven, I’d want to be there with you, too. If there was a heaven, I would hope that your God would look at the life I’ve lead and think I’m a good person and give me the chance to be a part of his Kingdom after my death. After I’ve seen his existance. If your God was unwilling to give me that chance, then I don’t think I’d like your God.     Then you refer to sharing the joy of heaven with me, and the joy of being with the Lord. There’s another joy I experience, not related to a God, which I don’t think you realize. I’ll explain in a moment.     Yes, you’ve always claimed to be a Christian, and sometimes you haven’t led a very Christ-like life. Most people are that way, and it bothers me that people claim to have beliefs but don’t live by them. They’re not really beliefs then, and all these people are lacking a belief system that they understand. The fact that you’ve decided to actually pay attention to the beliefs you claimed to have before is an admirable thing.     Personally, I think you’re going in the wrong direction, because I think the structure your beliefs depend on - Christianity - is a falsehood, but at least you’ve decided to live by the beliefs you’ve claimed for so long.     You write that since your decision to grow in the Lord, you haven’t felt like running away and trying to fill an emptiness in your life with alcohol or sex. That’s good - we all have to come to that point at some time in our lives in order to adhere to a value system. I think I’ve come to that point as well, but by a different means.     Then you ask me: which is better, being a super-intellectual who doesn’t believe in God and has an emptiness in their life, or being the person who has Christ in their life filling that void?     Wow. There are a two things I’d like to say about that last sentence. First, it’s funny how a super-intellectual doesn’t believe in God, but apparently you can’t be a super-intellectual and believe in God (well, that’s true, but I didn’t think you’d write it). Second, you forgot my category - being a super-intellectual who doesn’t believe in God and has no emptiness in their life. I fill my own void. I am whole.     You see similarities between us, and you say that in my searches for the right party or the right man I was looking for Jesus. Well, in the past I suppose I was searching for something else when I was looking for the right party or the right man, but I found it. Myself. I’ve discovered that I’m an intelligent, powerful, beautiful, dedicated, driven woman who can do whatever I set my mind to. I’ve discovered that when I use the best tools I have - my mind - I can succeed in making myself happy, in accomplishing my goals. And you know, knowing that about myself, believing in my abilities as a person - gives me the drive to do what I want and need with my life, and makes me truly happy, deep-down happy. It gives me what you call joy.     And it gives me even a greater joy knowing that it is my mind - my mind, my abilities, my power, not some God’s - that makes my life complete. I have complete dominion over my life. I’m the one I answer to.     I can have a bad day or I can have a good day. Something wrong can happen to me or my circumstances. But I know who I am and I know what I’m capable of, and I have no regrets, and I know that I’ll make it though anything I choose to tackle. I’ll make it through what I choose to tackle, not what your God helps me through. And knowing that I’m a complete human being gives me great joy.     You write that God has helped you in your dealings with AIDS. I’m sure it has - when your world doesn’t make sense, when you’re faced with your own mortality, it’s a great comfort to make sense of it all.That’s often a course of action for many people who get AIDS, when they don’t feel they are strong enough to depend on themselves. People I know in AIDS groups say that’s one of the common routes for people who find out they have AIDS. That’s one of the steps most sufferers of traumatic events go through. That’s what victim-blaming is in cases of rape - it makes no sense that a man did this to a woman, but if it is the woman’s fault, the woman could know what she did wrong - correct the actions of the woman, and the woman is safe from rape - but it’s just not true. This is what you’ve done with your God. God was your answer to all of your questions - not the right answer, in my opinion, but an answer when you could find nothing else.     You say that God is using your situation to help others. No, you’re using your situation to help others. It’s that simple.     You feel that your church is a place for activism. Your church rejects homosexuality. Your church doesn’t believe women are on equal footing with men. The Bible says so. Activism within the church could mean the sharing of values and morals and good beliefs, but I fear that activism within the church would mean the spread of narrow-minded ideas such as homophobia and sexism.     Then you share a few verses with me. The first is John 3:16 (He gave His only son...). You then say “That’s unconditional love. God loves me and you no matter what we say or do. I think that’s wonderful.”     I don’t think that’s wonderful. It makes no sense to give unconditional love. If love is unconditional, then there is no value in it. If you love something or someone whether that something or someone is good or bad, you love something or someone whether you want to or not, then it is not earned, it is not chosen, and it is not a value and it possesses no worth. Value is a standard to be judged by; worth is defined as deserving of or meriting. To me, love is a standard that people earn and therefore deserve, and that is what makes it valuable to me.     You say you can’t believe you lived as long as you did without believing these words. “Yes, it means you don’t get the credit for the things you’ve done, but at the same time, you realize the Lord has a hand in it,” you write. But God didn’t have a hand in it, Gods have been created by people throughout the ages to answer the unanswerable. People created rain gods when they didn’t understand the weather. People created gods for harvests when they didn’t know if they could sustain themselves, when they didn’t have the knowledge to harvest successfully. People created gods that reflected the stars and planets when they didn’t understand the universe beyond the world. People created a God to explain how the world began, how to live well, and what will happen after our lives end. All these gods reflected the image of man and earth. But they were all created.     God doesn’t have a hand in what you do, you do, and you should thus take responsibility - and credit - for what you do.     “Yes, bad things still happen, but you know that God will see you through them,” you write. Yes. bad things still happen, but you know that you will see you through them, you, not your God.     And that brings us to the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness comes and goes. Joy is forever. I even have times that aren’t happy, but I never lose Joy or Hope.     You wrote that sentence, and you wrote it about your God. I could have written that sentence, but it would have been about me.     You really want me to experience the same joy you have. I think I do. And my joy comes from within. You can’t find joy from within, so you find it in your God.     Then you write: “Now let’s say I’m wrong. When you die, you’re just dead and there’s nothing else. Well I’m still happy trusting in God and I won’t have lost anything.”     The thing is, if there is no God, you have lost - you’ve lost your life. You’ve spent your life living for something that wasn’t real, that didn’t exist. You’ve spent your life relying on something other than yourself. You’ve spent your life under false assumptions, not to your full potential, doing what you were not meant to do as a human being. You’ve wasted your life. And to someone who doesn’t believe in a God, you’re life, this lifetime, is all you have, so you’ve lost everything.     “But if I’m right, wouldn’t you like to be with me in heaven?”     As I wrote before, if there was a heaven, I would hope that your God would look at the life I’ve lead and think I’m a good person and give me the chance to be a part of his Kingdom after my death. If I saw a God, if he was shown to me after I died, I think I would be on my knees praising (I mean, you’d have to respect the guy if he really did everything religion claims). If your God was unwilling to give me that chance, then I don’t think I like your God. Besides, that wouldn’t be a God that loves me unconditionally. ---     I don’t think you’re some brainwashed right-wing preacher, as you write. I do think you have intelligence. I also think you’re scared. I think most of us, most people our own age, still feel as invincible as we did when we were too young to understand death, and none of us are really ever ready to face our own mortality.     I wish I could help you with your fears. I don’t know the right words to say, but I know that the answers are within you, and you just have to look for them.     I have thought about this, I wouldn’t just cast aside what you say (I think this letter is evidence to that...). But I’ve thought about this for years; you’d have to do that in order to have a cohesive value system.     And I don’t think this because I think the world is cruel and evil. In fact, I think there is the opportunity for great happiness and joy in life, for great achievements, and for great minds to prosper. But for great minds to prosper, they have to follow reason. Faith may be acceptable for hunches about unimportant day-to-day events, but not with your life.     You have to take your life into your own hands and make it what you want.     I know you won’t read this and agree with me, I’m just hoping you understand me and not worry about me (I get the impression that you do - that you think I have a void in my life and it is only filled with depression, and that’s simply not true). As we grow up, grow old, mature and gain knowledge, we have to come up with a comprehensive value system in order to make our lives complete. I think I’ve done a pretty good job for myself; I’m sure there’s a lot more learning I have to do in my lifetime, but I think I’m on the right track. I hope you are, too.

Janet Kuypers Bio     Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.     She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.     She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.     Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the weekly Chicago poetry open mic at the Café, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).     In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, and the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook . Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).