Uninvited

I shake the dirt from my cold, stiff hands. “Almost done,” I mutter.

The worn leather cuff shifts down, resting heavily on my wrist. It was the last gift from her before the accident ten years ago. “I miss you, Mom. I wish you were here,” I whisper.

I swallow hard and bend down, picking the shovel up. Once again, I find myself mechanically throwing dirt onto the grave.

Finally exiting the garden, I release the shovel, the weight of it gone. Low rumbles of thunder echo, not too far off, electric blue streaks paint the sky. My pace quickens, the safety of my back door near. One last look before I head in; the previously bright purple and white coneflowers now seem dull next to the freshly unmarked grave. The flowers will eventually conceal my guilt – I hope. The rain has arrived, beating down hard and fast. I reach for the door and drag myself in.

Earlier That Day

The sun was unusually bright for 7 am, but I didn’t mind. With my backpack securely on and coffee in hand, I locked my front door and hurried down the concrete steps. 

“Good morning William,” my neighbor Silvia said from across the way, wearing a bright pink tracksuit that matched her colorful pink walking cane.

I gave a short friendly wave.

 “Thank you for helping me bring those groceries in the other day,” Silva said as she continued her approach.

“I don’t know why they pack those darn bags so tight. Look at me! I can barely hold this fellow.” Silvia pointed to Ralph; the Chihuahua paused mid-itch at the mention of his name.

“Sure, no problem. Sorry, I would love to chat, but I’ve got to get to work. Dinner next week?” I said, swinging the driver’s side door open.

 “You bet, kiddo!” Silvia replied.

I backed my trusty blue hatchback out and was on my way.

The Drive home

My body sank back into the soft padding of the driver’s seat. The dull white noise coming from the tires further encouraged my relaxed state. I stretched my neck from side to side; my bones cracked and popped as I recounted the stresses of my workday. I was glad to be headed to Jared’s house to meet Dean and the rest of the crew. It was our weekly gaming tournament, and I was currently in last place.

Before I’d even realized it, the dark object slammed the hood of the car and flew off.

“What the hell?” My foot hit the brakes. The car skidded to a stop.

Just then, the engine let out a clunk, and the car stalled.

“Great, just great,” I muttered.

I reached for the ignition and turned the key. The engine groaned.

I tried it again.

“Come on,” I pleaded, stroking the dashboard.

This time the engine fired, and the car idled smoothly.

“Good girl.” I steered towards a dirt patch up ahead.

I cut the engine and got out. Now, where the hell was it?

I looked up the road, all clear. Next, I crossed the front of the car to check the passenger’s side but stopped—smack in the middle of the hood, a dent the size of a soccer ball.

“Crap!” I threw my hands up and kicked the dirt.

My jaw tightened; it was worse than I thought.

Wait! Hal’s was less than a mile back. I bet they could fix it before tonight.

I rushed back to the driver’s side but then remembered the object. Now what? I made my way around to the backside of the car, and that’s when I spotted it, a reasonable distance down the road. In the dirt, partially covered by the trees, the dark mass lay motionless. From here, it looked to be about the size of an overstuffed suitcase. Anxious, I scanned the dirt for a stick. Wielding my new weapon, I warily approached. To my surprise, it was a bird on its side with its wings neatly folded. At first, due to its coloring, I thought it was a raven, but then I realized it couldn’t have been because of its massive size.

The questions poured in: Was I going too fast? Maybe I was distracted? How could I not see it?  I shook my head, dismissing my thoughts.

The crimson-colored blood pooling near its beak confirmed that it was no longer alive, so I knelt. Now closer, I saw something showing from under the wing. I maneuvered my stick carefully, lifting it. A thick magenta strip with flecks of silver on the underside glowed and pulsed.

“Jesus, what the hell?” I dropped the stick and backed away.

My mind started up again: What the hell did you hit? Anybody watching? Leave it; it’s just a bird. Heavy deep croaks followed by sharp caws and kraa reverberated from the trees above. Startled, I scrambled to my feet and looked up.

“Just crows,” I whispered. Wait, are they watching me?

I turned my attention back to the bird I had just hit and sat down. As soon as I left, the vultures would come. A large group of them, feeding, ripping, and tearing at its flesh. The bird was dead because of me! Unfortunately, I knew what had to be done. Abandoning my evening plans, I dragged the carcass to my car and closed the hatch. I’d bring it home and bury it.

The Morning After

Sweating through my sheets, I throw my covers off and sit up. Bits of dirt still clinging to the same soiled clothes I had on the evening before beginning to fall. I rub my head and groan; a killer headache is brewing. My mind wanders back to the accident. Maybe burying it wasn’t the right call.

The buzzing of my phone interrupts.

A text from Dean:

What happened to you last night?? You missed an epic party! Anyway, we’ll see you at the cabin tonight, okay? Bring some bug spray. The mosquitoes are killer!

Right, the trip. I almost forgot.

I text back:

Sorry about last night. Had to head back to work. Deadlines. See you guys at the cabin tonight.

I reach for the Advil on the nightstand and lug myself to the shower.

The Visitors

A balmy 80 degrees according to the sunroom thermostat. I remove my long sleeve, placing it on my favorite chair near the wicker table. My mom loved this room; I still do. Over there, the long wooden bench situated under the vast bank of windows, her favorite spot. On her good days, she would sit strumming her guitar and humming. On her bad days, my smile fades; those became my bad days too.

I stand in front of the windows, running my camping list through my head. Bug spray, sleeping bag, water bottle, backpack… The hammering of the woodpeckers and the “fee-bee” calls of the Chickadees launching onto the birdfeeders fills the yard.

Then, without warning, silence.

I put my mug on the end table and move closer to the windows.

The birdfeeders, once busy with action, now hang vacant.

My eyes search the yard, scanning for the Chickadees. I stop my search in the garden. There, next to the coneflowers, a dark figure stands. My body stiffens, and I step back, tripping over my feet. The stone floor strikes my backside. I wince, forcing myself to sit up.

“I thought I buried you?” I whisper, staring out.

I search for the grave containing the bird I buried yesterday. To my relief, I locate it, awkwardly situated among the coneflowers. My eyes move back to the new bird. This bird is much larger than the bird I had buried. Its height is almost equal to the six-foot-high fence surrounding my backyard.

“There are two of you?” I gasp.

Without haste, I retrieve the Valium from my pocket, pop open the bottle, and swallow the little yellow pill. I close my eyes, wishing I was someplace else. When I open my eyes, I see that the giant bird has advanced into the middle of the yard.

At once, I push myself back, away from the windows, towards the back wall. A powerful blast sweeps the length of the yard as the bird extends its dark wings outward, covering the entirety of the garden. Its chest bared, titanium hatch marks prominent, glowing bright red.

I make for the door leading out of the sunroom, but trip over the steps, landing on my back. The blow knocks my backside hard; a sharp pain runs up my spine. Loud caws erupt everywhere as the dark mass of birds descends. I look out towards the yard. They converge into a tightly woven circle, rotating around in unison above the giant bird. I get to my feet, run out of the sunroom, slam the door, and lock it. I slide down into a seated position and cover my ears, my back firmly pressed against the door. With the calls of the birds filling my head, I rock back and forth, breathing in, trying to slow myself down.

“Stop!” I yell.

Suddenly, silence.

I drop my hands from my ears and edge the curtain back.

The yard is empty; the grave is gone.                                                                                    

Hills Crest Pass

Only thirty minutes left of my three-hour drive.

“Almost there,” I say, my voice breaks off, my mind back with the birds.

I chug my soda and turn the radio up. Just ahead, my exit, Hills Crest Pass, painted in small white letters on the crooked green sign. Feeling the homestretch near, I grin and feel the warmth of the campfire. Once I get closer, my smile falters. At the mouth of the exit, awaiting me is a long dark road with gnarly arm-like branches overgrown along the edges. I slow the car down and reluctantly enter.

The silence ahead is shocking, unnatural. I turn the radio up but hear nothing. Perplexed, I tap the knob and turn it the other way. Again no sound. I continue to hit it harder and harder until I am pounding so hard the knob falls off. “Old piece of junk!” I shout, my attention back to the road.

High or low beams? I can’t see shit in here. I move the handle back, forth, then back again, unable to get clear visibility. My grip on the steering wheel increases to vise-like, trying to keep up with the sharp turns in the road.

Without warning, the car thrusts ahead, and I’m thrown back. The red arm of the speedometer rapidly climbs. The small hatchback rattles, the speed increasing too much for it to handle. I jerk the steering wheel in short tight turns, trying to keep up.

Wildly, I feel around for the emergency brake. Got it! I pull it back.

The tires screech as the emergency brake, combined with my kicking the brake pedal, forces the car to skid, landing on the side of the road.

I fumble around for the interior lights and lock the doors, trying to steady my ragged breathing. I look out but can’t see past my fogged up windows.

I need to get out of here!

I turn the key over in the ignition. No response.

I continue. Turn click, turn click, turn click.

Still no luck.

I grab my phone from the passenger’s side seat, my hands trembling. I need to call someone.

Click. All the lights cut out.

I clutch my phone and glance down at the dimly lit display: no cell service, and the battery is at twelve percent.

“Shit!” I curse, squeezing the phone, wishing I had checked it before leaving the house.

My head begins to throb, stabbing pains; another headache is starting.

Bang! The car whips around, and I watch as my phone flies out of my hands, moving as if in slow motion. I grasp at it in desperation as my seatbelt snaps across my chest, pinning me down. The car continues to spin. I brace myself, one hand on the door and the other on the armrest – eyes closed, waiting, hoping the car will stop.

Before I can get my bearings, another hard slam and the car rotates even more violently than before. My body tenses, and I scream.

Abruptly, the car stops. I wait. Light is now filtering onto the passenger’s side. Gingerly, I unbuckle my seatbelt and slide over towards it. The darkness was maddening; I’m grateful for leaving it. I gaze out the window, the warmth of the sun on my face. The car, no longer under the canopy of trees, is balanced at the edge of the hillside. I peek over the edge, dizzy, I pull back; I’ve always been afraid of heights. I rest my head against my seat and stare up through the sunroof. The dark-colored trees sway back and forth, calling me, asking me to join them. Wait, what! I shake my head and sit up. I inch closer to the sunroof, careful not to rock the car.

“Bird feathers?” I whisper.

My body falls away from the sunroof, and I dry heave into the passenger’s seat. The reality of my situation is apparent; breaking down here is no accident.

Caw, caw. Caw, caw.

At once, I lift my head.

“My phone!” I feel around for it, eventually locating it at my feet.

I snatch the phone up and hold it close to my chest, clasping it like a life jacket. I move the phone out and see the text message, the one I had never sent to Dean, still there, black font against grey.  

Three red blinks from the battery icon, and the phone dies.

“No!” I protest. The phone slips out of my hands and drops into the crack between the seat and the armrest. I stare down at it, just beyond my reach.

 “It was an accident,” I whisper. The burning of my tears near.

“It was an accident!” This time, my voice no longer a whisper.

I ball my fists up and start to beat down on my thighs. Each blow harder and faster with every shout.

 “I’m sorry!” I scream. My fists are raging, pounding down hard and fast; my thighs numb.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!” I gasp.

I lurch forward and vomit all over the dashboard.

I lift my head, wipe the remaining bits of vomit from my mouth, and rest my body back against my seat. I stare out blankly. I’m trapped, just like she was. I couldn’t see it then, but in the end, I understand. 

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I whisper, with the last of my energy. The tears streaming down my face carry my guilt and anger with them.

Caw, caw. The calls from across the ravine, now closer.

My eyes lock onto the dark wall of birds approaching, a mass of at least one hundred.

At the front, the giant bird from my yard, the monster. Its massive wings are cutting effortlessly through the air, titanium chest ablaze.

A low disturbing hum starts, growing louder as the birds close in.

I stare, my face numb, my body sick.

In one swift motion, the monster’s giant razor-like beak opens, and a blood-curdling scream shakes the hillside.

I scream, but no one hears me.

Jodie McMahon-Joseph was born and raised in Rhode Island (the smallest state in the USA). She has always been considered a dreamer. Jodie pulls inspiration for her writings from nature, the ordinary in our lives, and the light and dark forces often unseen by most. When she is not writing, Jodie spends her free time bird-watching along the Rhode Island coastline with her husband and kids.

After Mark Strand

“The world contains too much,
and, no matter how long you
live, there is never enough time.”

Even the magpie, pecking at trash
in the suffusive but disastrous light
of the early morning sun,
in a vacant part of the city,
in the ninth month of the year,
in what is collectively
supposed to be
the twenty-first century;
even this image will dissolve.

You are walking in the city
in that same morning and
you watch, mourning, as
things keep dissolving. As
though all the world’s
waters were sweeping
in; in tides of acid.
And you stand there
and you can’t understand it;

why the inhabitants of this small world
take it so seriously. And you watch
as their anguish is hurled
from sixth floor windows.

“And they are all just images,”
you say, speaking to no one.
“The magpie pecking at trash,
the skyscrapers threatening to topple over,
shaking their impotent fists. The
outcasts thrust to the city limits.

The bricks, the mortar, the tyres, the faucets:
the ambulance crews rushing to lost causes,
all are just images.”

And then, still standing there, you suddenly decide
that all you want or could ever need is someone
with beautiful hair
to turn to you in the onrushing darkness
and say “Yes, I agree too,
they are all just images,
nothing but images,”

but they never do.

Adam Lee lives and works as a bid writer in Manchester. Over the years he has studied 18th c. English Literature, Psychology and History. His poetry is largely concerned with time, death, loss, resurrection and renewal.

‟There’s a man drowned in Little Pond!”

Sheriff Tray Halberd looked up. His scowling face was not a pleasant sight, but it was what most people saw if they encountered Tray while on duty. He had been scowling since inauguration day, and he scowled now at Matt Baer, who stood just inside his office door. Matt, a slack-jawed man at the best of times, was now fully agape and panting slightly as if he had come the five miles from Little Pond on foot.

‟Drowned?” Tray asked with no evident interest. ‟He’s dead?”

‟He’s dead all right.”

‟Drowned, you say?”

Matt now realized that he was dealing with legal bureaucracy. He backpedaled slightly, an exercise he engaged in on a regular basis. ‟He’s face down in the pond, Tray. That’s all I know.”

‟You don’t reckon we need an ambulance then?”

Matt couldn’t fathom being asked his opinion in this weighty matter. ‟I don’t know, Tray. Somebody’s got to pull him out of the mud. Don’t they?”

‟He’s in the mud?”

‟His feet are.”

‟And the rest of him?”

‟His head’s kind of floating. I guess.”

The sheriff nodded.

Matt felt compelled onward by the sheriff’s silence. ‟But his feet’s in the mud.” This statement didn’t get Matt the response he’d hoped for, so he added, ‟I don’t think he’s going anywhere, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Running for sheriff had been Tray’s wife’s idea. She said he looked like a sheriff, by which she meant he was big. He had broad shoulders and bulging biceps and a pendulous potbelly, which was currently squished up against his desk drawer.

‟Did I say I was worried, or did you deduce that from my worried expression?”

Matt wasn’t familiar with the term rhetorical question, but he didn’t answer.

‟I take it you don’t know who he is.”

‟No.”

‟And you say he’s dead.”

‟Near as I can tell.”

‟So this would be a job for the coroner.” Tray picked up his desk phone. ‟Now when you say he’s in Little Pond, you mean capital L Little.”

‟Little Pond, Tray. That’s right.”

The sheriff dialed.

There was a Little Pond and a Big Pond, imaginatively named sometime in the nineteenth century. Since then, some combination of natural erosion and unnatural interference with the flow of nearby Green River had made Little Pond into a lake and left Big Pond as more or less a puddle. ‟Jack,” Tray said into the phone. ‟I’ve got a pick-up for you. Allegedly.” He listened for a moment. ‟I haven’t seen it. I’ve got a witness. Citizen Baer here claims to have seen the deceased.” Another moment of listening. ‟He’s in Little Pond. At the…” Here he looked up at Matt who whispered the location. ‟At the north gate. I’ll meet you there.” He hung up, but didn’t move. Matt continued to stand at the door.

The incumbent sheriff had been Scott Anderson. ‟He’s such a skinny-ass man,” Tracy’s wife JoElle had said. ‟He’s got no business being sheriff of anywhere. Even a little skinny-ass town like this.”

‟JoElle, hon. He’s sheriff of Randolph County, not just Bryden.”

‟It’s a skinny-ass county too,” JoElle said as if that proved her point.

Considering JoElle’s idea, Tray had thought about his future digging holes with hydraulic excavators. The hourly pay came from the far end of blue-collar fantasy, but the work was here and there, catch as catch can, no security, no benefits, no pension. Bryden had a definitely finite need for building foundations, which was the main thing Tray dug. At his last job, they put him on a John Deere 17G. A 17G is about as small as you can get and still be running heavy equipment. Below that, you’re in what might be called the welterweight division with a disproportionate decrease in pay and prestige. Even on the 17G, he’d endured ribbing from some of the crew, one of whom told him he looked like a fat lady on a Tonka toy. In spite of the fact that Tray felt the 17G gave him incomparable control over the bucket – much better than the Caterpillars he’d been on – he felt resentful, and this had made him open to JoElle’s suggestion.

‟You may need to show us where he is,” the sheriff said.

‟I can do that,” Matt said, nodding voraciously. He began to back out of the office.

‟And keep Jack occupied. The son of a bitch is too cheerful for my taste.” Tray watched Matt disappear, but he didn’t get up immediately. He wanted to be sure he was last to arrive.

With Bryden being such a small town and Randolph such a small county, Tray and JoElle both knew political people. Tray had coached every variety of athletics for both boys and girls, and JoElle ran a popular hair salon. So the idea of Tray running for sheriff wasn’t far-fetched. Tray didn’t want to appear enthusiastic, so he waited to see if his wife would bring it up again. ‟I don’t know,” he said when she did. ‟Wasn’t there a colored fellow going to run?”

‟What if there was? You could win against a black man.”

‟I don’t mind running against Anderson, but a colored man…a black man… That’d be different.”

‟How different?”

‟Well, I’d want him to win. It’d be his turn, you figure.”

‟You’re Mr. Racial Harmony all of a sudden?”

‟I may not like very many of the black men I work with, but I believe in fair play, and black folks have gotten damn little of it. If a black man wants it, he should have it. There’s never been a black sheriff.”

‟For that matter, there’s never been a woman sheriff. How do you feel about that?”

‟I wouldn’t want to run against a woman either. Why don’t you run? You’d make a good sheriff.”

JoElle regarded him with wicked eyes, but decided to reorient the conversation. ‟That black man you’re thinking of is Henry Price. He won’t run for sheriff because he ran for city manager and won.”

‟Oh.”

After giving Matt a five-minute head start, Tray left his office and went out to his car. It was his own car. The county provided one, but it was a ten-year-old rattletrap Ford with a dinky engine and sticky doors. The two bullet holes in the trunk gave it a bit of cachet, but no one knew how they got there. His own car had no official markings. It had been fitted with a flashing blue light that Tray had never switched on. He didn’t keep the car in his official parking spot, since it was in the sun all day. Instead, he parked in a corner of the lot under a hickory tree.

At the pond, he could see Jack talking a blue streak and Matt nodding ostentatiously. Tray sighed and got out of the car.

The local political honchos didn’t much like Scott Anderson, so they jumped at the chance to field a candidate who would face him, and a political virgin at that. They backed him, they wrote his speeches, they planned his campaign. Tray smiled for the cameras. It wasn’t until the campaign was well underway that Tray found out about Scott and JoElle. However long the affair had gone on, it ended about the time she brought up the run for sheriff. Tray stopped smiling for the cameras, but won the election anyway.

Scott Anderson shook Tray’s hand and gleefully introduced him to the trappings of the office. A 12×12 room with faulty air conditioning, and the aforementioned car. The job, Scott said, was a holy shitheap of paperwork. The expression was new to Tray.

‟All right,” the sheriff said. ‟Let’s go see what we got.” He had the office camera with him. Tray had never fancied photography, and he wasn’t sure how to operate the old 35mm SLR. He hoped there was film in it.

The three walked down the path that ran to the north end of Little Pond. A breeze blew toward them, carrying the smell of mud and muck, and rippling the leaves on the row of willows near the shoreline.

A week after Tray took office, JoElle left and started living with Scott. Scott, with eighty hours a week of rediscovered time, was making free with Tray’s wife, while Tray found himself waist deep in what had once been Scott’s shitheap of paperwork. Wedged into his office chair behind his undersized desk, Tray found it hard not to dwell on the unfairness of the exchange.

The body was in plain sight, but Matt dutifully pointed it out. Jack chattered on while the sheriff photographed the gravelly shore, then stepped into the water and crossed the thirty feet of shallows to where the body was, as Matt had said, stuck in the mud by its feet. He took more pictures and was surprised to find that Jack had followed him.

‟This one didn’t drown,” Jack said. He walked a step past Tray and looked down at the man’s head. ‟Small caliber. Twenty-two, probably.”

Tray followed Jack’s gaze and found the bullet hole in the man’s skull.

Jack looked up. ‟You got enough pictures?”

When Tray nodded, Jack took another step, then turned the man slightly and raised his head out of the water. ‟Anybody you recognize?”

Tray watched the water drip from the dead face, making small circles in the murky pond. The face was only slightly muddy. A sodden leaf clung to the man’s hair.

‟Yeah,” the sheriff answered. ‟I know him.”

Jack lowered the head back into the water where it bobbed momentarily. He wiped his hands. ‟That’s good. That’ll simplify things.”

Tray looked again at the hole in Scott Anderson’s head. ‟I don’t think so,” he said.

William Brasse is the author of three novels published by Rough Magic Press. His short fiction has appeared in The Southern Review, Border Crossing and Liquid Imagination Online.

I stopped eating the meals that Mother brought me when I decided that I no longer wanted to exist. She continued her efforts to get me to eat, of course, carrying in dishes of my favorite foods ranging everywhere from whole roasted chickens covered in butters and herbs, to freshly baked cinnamon rolls slathered in warm, milky white frosting melting down the sides. I refused every meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

            Staring at the same four brick walls for nearly two decades had taken its toll on me. The walls looked as if they had been copied and pasted from the picture books Mother read to me as a child, the same russet shade as the hair that ribboned down my back in one long, thick braid. I trailed the tail of my braid against the turmeric clay, the color of my mane so similar to the walls it nearly disappeared. If I sat against the wall for long enough, pressed my body against it, would I melt into it, vanish without a trace? I tried it each night to no avail despite shrinking with each passing day.

            Mother insisted I start eating again, her only argument being that I needed the nourishment to grow into a strong woman, a strong woman with long, beautiful hair. I retorted that I already had long and beautiful hair, to which she told me it was not long and beautiful enough. I wondered if it ever would be long and beautiful enough, or if she planned on feeding me until I popped like a balloon so she could collect my hair and wear it as a wig.

            I tracked my progress to death by counting the hair strands as they fell from my head like a shedding animal, collecting them in the corner of my room until a bird’s rest had formed. I tore it apart and reassembled it, stitching the strands together into bracelets and necklaces to adorn my thin wrists and neck. When I looked in the mirror, all that was left of me were my once bright eyes turned dull, and cheekbones I wished could slice Mother’s throat. It was the most beautiful I had ever looked, the most beautiful I had ever felt.

            I was eggshell bald when Mother tried to force a slice of white bread down my throat. I protested and screamed – I fought her to the best of my abilities, her long, red, acrylic fingernails tearing my freshly crafted jewelry from my body. My lips sealed together tightly, she held me down and dug her knuckles against the soft white of the bread, pressing it into my mouth. Her knuckles nearly separated my lips when the rough, overbaked crust ripped my paper-thin cheeks, the crust and my cheekbones behaving like two daggers sparring against each other. I winced in pain for a moment before I felt nothing, not the torn skin or the soft bread or the weight of Mother’s body on top of mine.

            That is when death took me, breadcrumbs sprinkled around my head like Mother Mary’s crown of stars. Mother straddled my husk, staring down, replacing the slices of bread she still held with what remained of my hair. She unravelled my jewelry and searched the skin on my skull for any fibers she’d missed. She thumbed at the strands, tears streaming down her cheeks, but I was happy to permanently see any other color surround me besides that haunting gold: the sweet relief death brought me was more intense than the satisfaction sleep had handed me each night, letting my eyes softly shut and the world around me becoming black.

            I sat with my Mother as she mourned, my newly phantom form undetected by the seemingly devastated woman. I watched as she continued to collect my hair, piece by piece, strand by strand, gathering it into her hands like a woven basket. Leaving my lifeless body behind, she walked to my bedroom across the room and sat on my bed. She began humming softly, the tune switching between a hum and a song as she tied the locks together at the top. She seemed to age twenty years as she sang. Before I knew it, my Mother was completely unrecognizable and I thought she might join me in the afterlife soon.

She gently brushed each section, detangling the neglected tresses and beginning to braid them like she did when I was a child, before I knew how to braid my hair myself. That was when I felt like she loved me, when her fingers combed through my hair and gently caressed my head. She’d occasionally trace my eyebrows, run the tips of her fingers along my face. I ached to feel that again, sitting on the floor  and positioning my spectral figure in front of her. I lined my head up with the severed braid so that I could pretend we were Mother and Daughter again, if only for one more moment in time.

When the braid was finished, she stood up and walked towards the window, popping it open. She tied the braid to the windowsill and let it hang out like a flag, something to symbolize my lost life – or hers, or ours. We stood together and watched my braid blow in the wind, but as it blew, it tapped against the glass as if knocking, asking to be let back inside. I wanted to untie it, let it be free, blow away and never return, but she was the only one who could do that. Instead, I stayed by her side as the breeze passed right through me, her body shivering as it aged, wrinkled, delicate, and haggard.

Melissa Martini (she/her) a short fiction writer and Capricorn from New Jersey. She studied Creative Writing in both undergrad and graduate school at Seton Hall University. Currently, she serves as Founder & EIC of Moss Puppy Magazine and is staff at the winnow mag. She can be found @melissquirtle and her publications can be viewed at melibeans.wixsite.com/home. She has three dogs, all of which are fluffballs.

What a story it would have been,
about a man rotting in a self-dug pit
when gilded wings came down and wrapped him ‘round
and honeyed lips came down and spared no kiss
and spared no hope
‘till he was lifted
up to the light of the living.

What a story it would have been,
one you tell yourself through every night,
your feathers scattered in the tar around us –
black bitter sheets that sucked up all your warmth
as I dragged you down,
convincing you
that neither of us can fly.

Daniel Revach is a graduate student at Oxford University and an aspiring failed artist. He approaches his poetry like he approaches his scientific pursuits: rather than an act of creation, it is the discovery of the universal in the particular.

It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me.

                           Herman Melville Moby-Dick

He was a fair-haired man, with fair skin. His white legs were swollen and mottled from the disease.

Something about the whiteness of the body – legs splayed and butt naked, draped over the side of the tub, his head and shoulders covered by the shower curtain, his buttocks presented to me as I turned the corner to the bathroom. Black excrement streaked the white skin, dribbled down his scrotum and penis to a mound of black on the shining blue and white tiles of the bathroom floor.

I take a circle around the apartment hyperventilating and saying out loud Jesus Jesus Jesus even though I am no longer of the faith. Then I find the phone and dial 911. A female voice asks me a lot of questions including – am I sure he is dead. Well, no, I am not a doctor. He appears to be dead. I am near panic now. Do I want to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation? I can’t do that. Just send someone over, NOW. I do lay my hand upon his back. It’s as cold as the floor. What if he isn’t dead? I should be giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation, but I can’t bear to lift the curtain to look at his face.

My father was four years in a war. Four years he never got over. He never let anyone else in on them. I wonder how much the war made him crazy.

D DAY, The Battle of the Bulge, Omaha Beach, the Ardennes, Eisenhower, Patton – these were not just names in a book, old photos, black and white Movietone news clips…these were events he survived, places in which he had been scared, cold, and hungry, and people he had met and loved or hated.

I was four years in a war. Four years I’ll never get over. Even though it’s not a fair comparison; I was never cold, hungry or in the line of fire. Still …. PCP, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, wasting, dementia – these were not just terms I’d read in Time Magazine. They had names and faces. Danny, in the hospital for the third time on oxygen and IVs. Bruce, his face and body streaked with brown – patches of brown cancer that looked like old bruises from a blunt object. Peter, the feel of his hand beneath my own – just a little pile of bones; beside him, his beloved Luke, the joy of his life, the golden retriever he’d raised from a pup, Luke, who now never left his side except to be taken out for walks by the volunteers – and Peter asking me, “What’s his name?”

Relating old war stories, I wonder if my father saw eyes glaze over, heard people clear their throats as they maneuvered to change the subject. Nobody wants to hear about war in another country.

In the training for my war, they told us about anger, grief, frustration. They did not use words like horror, sorrow, rage, nor did they tell us how understanding would come, not like a light, but in sad and terrible darkness.

I was not prepared for the rage I felt toward a client for eating cake. For getting a sunburn. Don’t you know anything about your immune system for christs sake?– or my fury – I who have always held sacred a person’s right to die – at Mike for committing suicide and leaving himself naked, white, splayed over the cold tub for me to find. Not on my shift, you bastard! Not on my shift!

Some time during that war, I grew up, grew old, got tired. Sometime during that war, I stopped praying.

I lasted just under four years. Many stayed on the frontlines much longer. But I learned my limits. Because I reached them. War, even my kind of war, if nothing else, teaches you your limits.

I begin now to understand why my father could not speak of his war.

For months, I saw splayed legs everywhere…jeans draped over a chair, cloud formations, “V” shapes on billboards. And I smelled stale excrement wherever I went. In New York City, often this is real. But then, I could not tell whether it was real or not.

My own physical condition worsened. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. which I’d suffered for years, became so debilitating that I went to a doctor who diagnosed me clinically depressed. I was down to 130 pounds (my normal weight being around 170). I was weak and tired and sad, and scared. Prozac was the magic bullet, the talisman, the crucifix and wafer that drove off the darkness, or at least, held it at bay. My pills – the good little Rottweilers of my psyche.

Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.

The darkest strains of pallid privilege
are rarely known by others for their ego

or evil now. The meeker, plainer strains,
no longer brandishing these two e-words,

seek to acquire a sleekness of their own.
But once upon a time, from their ranks grew

the best, who’d not be silenced but, when pressed,
spoke out again such ills as slavery.

“Blessèd” were they “in spirit.” But no more.

By light, the Dark Folk “get away with murder”

and do not look in mirrors. But by night,
they look—and to appear attractive they

use only artificial wicks which light
them only from the side. With fine makeup

and strip-lighting’s new Frosty-Focus bulbs,
the race of evil egos, the Dark Folk,

each and every evening, and with ease,
seem enviable, expressly because

They look

Pretty

Damned

Good.

James B. Nicola is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense. His decades of working in the theater culminated in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award. Born right before Halloween, he is used to black birthday balloons (just for the “hell” of it, so to speak).

I’m waiting for my prescription at the pharmacy, my stomach churning like basil in a blender. I keep an eye on an older man farther down the aisle, rummaging through the antacids. He seems fine. I’m suffocating in here.

A lady over by the contraceptive display jabbers away in Arabic. Her hijab is covering what I know must be a head wound. She’s also missing an arm. I do my best to ignore her. The old guy moves on over to the snack aisle, no threat for the time being.

I hear my name, “Riley Hoffman,” over the store’s PA system. As I approach the prescription counter, I happen upon the lady in the hijab, now accompanied by someone who could be her sister. They’re pointing at me and chattering incessantly. I remind myself to breathe. I feel the perspiration breaking out across my forehead.

Just pick up my prescription and slip out the door.

Too late. Artemis is already filling an order behind the counter. His large black frame blocks out the shelves stocked with pharmaceuticals behind him. Artemis finds a way to really ruin my day, almost every day. I see his camouflage combat uniform peeking out from beneath a spotless white lab coat. His fatigues are bloody and in tatters thanks to a detonated IED years ago.

He leans over the counter, sticking his rotting face close to mine.

“Not a good look today, is it, buddy?” he says.

I leave without picking up the paroxetine.

Artemis appears again back at my parents’ house, where I’m safely insulated in my basement bedroom. It’s like he can’t leave me alone.

“I see you’ve booked a little social engagement later this week.” Artemis is stretched out on the wire frame bed, his head staining my pillow with coagulated blood. His boots, biscuit-colored military issue, shed sand on my sheets.

I shrug. “My mother wants me to meet this girl, says I should get out more.”

He lifts his head and surveys my bedroom. “She’s got a point. You are getting a little stale down here.”

A trio of severely injured women shuffle past us, hurling invectives at me in Arabic. One of them holds out the residual stump of her arm for the rest to see.

Artemis sits up, his entrails leaking out of his abdomen. “Think of all the fun you’ll miss here. Another night playing Overwatch on your Xbox and jacking off. It’s impressive how you can perform both of those at the same time.”

The Iraqis bump into my dresser and deflect off, heading back the other way across the room. Gabbing away the entire time.

Artemis straightens up on his gelatinous legs. He teeters on those unsteady pinions, testing out his equilibrium. “You’re going through with it, right? You have to be getting close to some sort of federally mandated social expiration date down here.”

My mother isn’t forthcoming about my potential “date.”

“She’s unemployed, just like you. You’ll have a lot to talk about.”

“I have a job.”

“Picking up dog poop isn’t a career. Imagine me telling her parents that. I just said that you were in between jobs.”

Whenever the subject of gainful employment comes up with my father, he just shakes his head and asks me when I’m going to move out. That’s why I usually stay hidden in my bedroom when he arrives home, tucked away in the basement, same as I did as a gangly middle-schooler.

The dog-walking has been a good gig for me. I set my own schedule, and I’m out in the open where things aren’t so claustrophobic. The ghosts of the past mostly leave me alone while I’m with the dogs. Not sure why.

And I have one enormous advantage over my competition from the adjacent communities.

Grosse Pointers prefer to do business with their own kind. Especially when it comes to their beloved Tucker or Bailey.

My father’s completely silent on our drive over to the Whiskey Six, a quaint sports bar embedded in the retail district of Grosse Pointe. My mother is primping herself in front of the vanity mirror located on the sun visor.

“Try to be engaging, okay?” she says over her shoulder. “I’d say just be yourself, but we know where that leads to.” I’m riding in the passenger seat in the back, gazing out the window at the storefronts on Kercheval Avenue.

The things I do to placate my mother.

Linda Jevnikar’s already there waiting for us at the bar. I know immediately that I’ve been hoodwinked. Sure, she has some interesting assets, a small waist and diaphanous brown eyes. But there’s no getting around the ridiculous bouffant hairdo. If you remember the girls who sang with the rock group the B-52s, it’s that kind of hairstyle. Swooped up into a conical shape on her head. Not to mention her hair color is Easter egg dye orange.

Then there’s her laugh. Right off the bat, she giggles at my mother’s compliment on her dress. Except it’s a cackle loud enough to startle the other diners and stop their conversations cold. I recall a witch from a Tales from the Darkside episode whose laugh came disturbingly close to Linda’s.

“Oh, Linda and I have talked long enough,” my mother says when our food arrives. “It’s your turn, Riley.”

Except for having ordered fish and chips, tartar sauce on the side, my father still hasn’t said a word.

I jam a piece of too-hot pizza into my mouth, burning the inside of my cheek.

“Okay, I’ll start,” Linda says. “Your mother tells me you’re a Marine.”

I nod and motion that I have food in my mouth.

She lets out a rackety cackle. “Go ahead and finish chewing. I was interested in your fatigues.”

“Our uniform?” I swallow hard.

I describe our military attire, from top to bottom. Linda smiles approvingly. I add in an anecdote about my bootcamp instructor. The first thing he taught us was how to lace up our boots.

“What was your typical day like? Did you have a gun? How big?” This question is accompanied with a rip-roaring cackle. I notice the diners at the next table asking their waiter if they can move to a just-vacated table against the wall.

It’s a mundane explanation. Most of our days were spent cleaning our weapons and preparing for inspections.

The whole terrain was sandy, so you had to try to get every grain out of an object that has endless crevices and compartments. We used baby wipes to remove the built-up carbon from our rifles. Cotton swabs were inserted into those hard-to-reach spaces.

“So you’re telling me that the U.S. military is the biggest buyer of household cleaning products?”

“Probably.”

I’m having a good time, even if I don’t want to admit it to myself.

My mother and Linda excuse themselves to the ladies’ room. They chatter at each other as they walk away, gesticulating in a vaguely familiar manner. I look over at my father, who is slowly eating his French fries, bite after methodical bite. No way I’m going to be stuck with him while we wait for the women to return. I get up and make my way to the back of the restaurant and push open the men’s room door.

“Ocupado, man. You’re going to have to wait.”

This time, Artemis has thoughtfully rearranged the skin back onto his face. I make a detour around him and head to the urinal.

“I’m sorry, dude, but that ugly chick scares me.” He opens his hematic eyes wide in an expression of mock horror.

I finish up, flush, and walk to the sink.

“Her laugh. Riles, it freaks me out,” he says. “Like someone caterwauling through a blowhorn.”

I can’t see Artemis’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, only that big shit-faced grin of his.

Like an oversized Cheshire cat.

I wash my hands and grab a towel.

Doesn’t anyone else in this goddamn restaurant have a pressing need to urinate?

He cracks open the door and peers out. “They’re heading back to the table now. She’s a slump-buster, all right. Woof.”

I throw the towel in the trash.

“She’s gonna change you, man. You hear me?”

He opens the door wide and extends his arms toward the dining room. “Go ahead,” he says. “Unless you’d rather stay in here, where it’s safe.”

“I’m going back in,” I say to no one in particular. I return to my seat and manage to finish dinner without incident.

I’ll admit it was a bit unusual for a Grosse Pointe-bred lad to join the Marines. Every senior in my class was college-bound unless you counted Arnie Glesson, who’d opted for trade school. And me, of course. I had the grades and the ACT score to attend college. That wasn’t the point. I wanted to see new things. Experience the world, not matriculate on a college campus where everyone else came from privileged families. My mother suggested I take a gap year, like some of the neighbors’ kids did after college.

“See Europe,” she said, “or perhaps Greece.” I made a mental note that my mother might be geographically challenged.

My father just told me to man up and go to college or get a job.

I decided to take that gap year, and an extended one at that, and have Uncle Sam foot the bill. Everyone thought I was nuts to join the Marines. I thought it was bad ass. I didn’t anticipate seeing any hostile combat. Boy, was I wrong on that number.

Linda wastes no time in texting me the very next day.

LINDA: I had the most wonderful time.

I ask how she got my number.

LINDA: Your mother, silly. Let’s talk on the phone.

So we do, for almost two hours.

“Weren’t you excited to be in a different country? A new culture?”

“Most of it was insanely boring.”

She’s obsessed with military attire. I wonder if she’s a dog tag chaser. I’ve heard stories of such women but have never encountered one before personally.

“Did you wear those yellow-colored combat boots?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

“You know, the suede boots? Very fashionable.”

We wore tan desert military boots, developed for desert conditions. No steel toe to fry your foot in the oppressive heat, and the eyelets were sealed to keep sand from getting inside. They were issued with a buff-colored instruction tag, informing you to change your socks regularly, dry out the insoles from time to time, and not to polish the boots.

“I love the color coordination,” she says.

Artemis makes a point of standing next to my bed the whole time, pointing at his pilot’s watch and shaking his head.

“Time’s a wastin’, Riles,” he says, tapping on the bezel. “We’re supposed to be watching The Walking Dead reruns right now.”

My treatment requires that I periodically visit my therapist, Dr. Alice Kim. The waiting room she shares with an eye surgeon is not much bigger than my closet.

Eight of us are crammed into a room with only six available seats. And it’s warm. Like tropical rain forest warm. I can feel the perspiration dripping down through my eyebrows. The canary-colored walls are closing in. My heart’s doing kettlebell swings in my chest. Is my left arm going numb? I need to distract myself. I try concentrating on another patient’s eye patch. I figure she can’t stare back.

I feel weak, like someone’s sitting on my chest. My breathing’s labored. I’m getting woozy.

I’m going to have a heart attack, right here, in this godforsaken waiting room. I practice the breathing exercises Dr. Kim has taught me. Nausea inches its way up my esophagus.

Should I call 911?

I opt for stepping out into the hallway. Breathe, I tell myself. In and out. Two women in head coverings are watching me. I feel a little better.

At least the mutilated Iraqis are here.

Then I realize these are actual living, breathing Muslim women, themselves avoiding the stifling waiting room by lingering out in the hallway. No injuries, no head wounds.

“You’re alive,” I say without thinking.

They avert their eyes.

I reenter the waiting room, still a little queasy.

Dr. Kim is there, motioning for me to enter her office.

“Ready?”

“I guess. Can you leave your door open?”

“It’s not protocol.”

“Just a crack? Please?”

It’s an appointment of convenience for both of us. The same old questions, the same curt answers. I keep an eye on the door, closed for privacy. Her office is slightly less claustrophobic than the waiting room. If I keep my breathing slow and steady, I can avoid another panic attack.

She perks up when I tell her about Linda.

“This could be a real breakthrough.”

Fine, I’m happy to talk about Linda. It’s not like I’m going to mention Artemis or the dead Iraqi women, so we might as well talk about something.

“How does that make you feel? That’s your first date in a very long time.”

“I guess we’re phone dating right now. She calls me almost every day.”

I leave out some information, like the 1960s hairstyle and her blaring cackle. And her infatuation with all things military.

I’m avoiding a question I know is coming. And I’ll be forced to lie when she gets around to asking it. The truth is, I’ve stopped taking my meds. If I divulge that little tidbit, my treatment could be cut off. My father will raise Cain and perhaps issue an ultimatum for me to leave the house. My world will come crashing down.

It’d be easier just to go back on my meds. But I’m not myself on the paroxetine. I feel fatigued and dizzy. I forget about dog-walking appointments.

I don’t want to go back on my meds.

I depart through the same suffocating waiting room. Artemis is there, sitting in the last available seat. He tilts his head back, aiming a plastic vial at the corner of his putrescent eyelid. He’s stolen someone’s prescription eyedrops again. His chest wound, exposed through a tear in his military uniform, festers with maggots. He stands up to greet me.

“You could have delved into some more sexual problems,” he says, blinking from the assault of medication in his eyes. “Frankly, I was getting bored sitting out here.”

Linda wants to know about all of it. Every gory detail of my time in Iraq.

This is unanticipated. My parents have never asked about my military service. Dr. Kim asks, but I refuse to tell her. Even Artemis doesn’t go there, which I find sort of strange.

But Linda presses me for specifics.

I explain that an IED is a simple contraption, a triggering device made of wood and wire usually hidden haphazardly, undetectable.

They were common, really. Not a week went by without one going off in our vicinity.

It was part of the landscape. Just like the mosques and clay brick buildings. One minute everything was quiet, and then, boom! Chaos.

“Shit,” Linda says. “It didn’t kill anyone you know, did it?”

When Artemis bought it, it all happened in slow motion.

We were finishing up a reconnaissance mission, inspecting the nooks and crannies of a small village, any place where an insurgent might be hidden. Artemis said he’d had enough, that he was heading back to our vehicle. He took a half step, the kind you take when you want to change direction. That was a half step into oblivion.

I turned my face away from the blast, then looked back after the smoke had cleared; then I had to look away again.

The next time I saw Artemis was when I returned home to Grosse Pointe.

“There was no war in Iraq,” I tell Linda. “At least not technically.” The top brass labeled it a counterinsurgency, and it was our job to contain it. Every Iraqi resident, from the guy across the street watching you to the children playing some version of jacks or marbles in the dirt, was suspect. You couldn’t take your eyes off them for a minute. If you did, you might end up like Artemis, a whole side of your body split wide open, your guts oozing out onto the ground.

“Did you shoot anyone?” she says.

Sure we did. We fired indiscriminately first and asked questions later. This resulted in a string of unnecessary Iraqi civilian casualties. Our whole unit was perpetually agitated and on high alert. We were a bunch of pissed-off Marines on the prowl for a scapegoat.

“Did they shoot back?” Linda says. “Were any of your friends hurt?”

“I can’t recall. It’s all a blur now.” Another lie. We say good night to each other and hang up.

“It’s funny, I can recall every detail,” Artemis says. He’s playing Grand Theft Auto on my Xbox, running over pedestrians haphazardly in a low-slung sports car. “I remember lying on the ground staring sideways at a pair of boots.”

“That was the last thing you saw?”

“Yeah. An ordinary pair of military-issue boots. You know, the ones with the tan laces. There was a dog tag tied under one of the eyelets.”

He swerves to avoid running his animated twelve-cylinder coupe into a light pole.

“It was someone trying to provide first aid, I guess,” he says. “I couldn’t tell who it was. The lights went out pretty fast after that.”

I wish to dear God those pair of boots belonged to me. Not a chance, though. I was too busy bending over and puking, trying to forget what I’d just seen.

Linda texts me a few days later. Do I want to go to a movie? I text back that I’m not comfortable in movie theaters. I expect her to ring me up and continue our nightly engagement, chatting on the phone.

LINDA: Fine. I’ll bring over the popcorn.

Turns out Linda isn’t all that interested in popcorn or any of the many streaming options on my TV. She has no qualms about “doing it” in the basement of my parents’ house. Even with my parents directly above us, watching Cake Boss in the living room. She kisses me quickly on the mouth, then tumbles onto my unmade bed. She lets out a snort followed by an ear-piercing cackle. No way my mother didn’t hear that.

We’re risking an appearance by the normally bumptious Artemis. I expect to see him standing next to my bed in all his grisly glory, nodding his head in approval. The Iraqis, they can do their own thing, it won’t bother me. But I can’t shake the notion that Artemis is there, somewhere, watching.

We take turns, Linda and I, performing a time-honored, choreographed mating dance. I unbutton my shirt; Linda lifts her blouse over her head. Her bra slips off. My Levi’s do the same. Linda’s skirt takes some fiddling, but eventually it’s pooled around her ankles.

Problem is, Artemis is lurking in my head. I keep an eye out for him, focusing on the right-side bedpost, where he likes to materialize.

I kneel on the bed, exposed, flaccid, and unable to consummate the act.

“Don’t you find me attractive?”

A real dilemma. Be honest? A better strategy: lie like a rug.

“Of course I do. I’m just distracted.” A partial truth.

“Guys don’t get distracted.”

She begins to whimper, still sprawled spread-eagle across my bed.

“I’ve hit a new low, naked in a musty old basement bed with an unemployed guy.”

“I have a job. I walk dogs.”

That just prompts a rash of uncontrolled sobs. She stutters out something, its import obscured by all the bawling.

I stroke the Creamsicle-colored swirl on top of her head, thinking that might quell her crying.

She sits up and scans the room for her bra. “I thought you were supposed to be some sort of bad-ass Marine.”

Linda marches out the front door in a state of half undress, in full view of my parents. Her parting words, mumbled under her breath, are “I don’t deserve this.”

She’s right. She deserves someone who adores her despite the beehive hairdo and wicked cackle of a laugh. She might have to look long and hard for that person, but that’s what she deserves.

I descend back down to my dungeon of a bedroom and fire up a video game. Save for the explosions emanating from the television, it’s quiet. No one here but me and my Xbox controller.

I expect Artemis to reveal himself, ready to contribute some sort of snarky comment. But he doesn’t, and even the Iraqis don’t make an appearance.

I’m alone for the first time since returning home from Iraq.

Douglas Steward has attended several creative writing workshops, including Gotham Writers Workshop classes. Semi-retired from a career that has included working in the automotive industry, manufacturing technologies, and real estate development, Douglas now devotes his time to writing and taking care of his two collie dogs.

Dad used to hang things
from the rafters
with wire and nails:

Bicycles, lawn chairs,
shovels and pails,
beds and sleds
and sunfish sails.

Things he treasured.
Things he mended.
Anything that could be suspended.

If light enough
and not too large,
They’d find a place in his garage.

But then one day he lost his way
and his whole world thereafter.

And if I could, I surely would
hang his widow from a rafter.

Frank William Finney was born in Massachusetts and educated at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Simmons University. He has recently retired from teaching literature at Thammasat University in Thailand, where he taught for 25 years. He is currently employed as the caretaker of three cats: Fluffernutter, Karma, and Dappledots. They sometimes watch him while he taps or scribbles.

With this second issue, we are going to slow down with the frequency of our publication. We are adding new platforms but our staff size remains the same. Our aim is to put out a new Black Works issue each fall. Sometime around Halloween seems appropriate.

Look for us in the fall of 2020.