LIFE WITH THREE KIDS — GREG HILL

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“How’s life with three kids?” asks my friend, who has no children. I pour myself a glass of wine and consider my answer.
             Last night for dinner we had tortellini, which, baked at four hundred degrees for forty-five minutes, came out half frozen. The baby had been sleeping in her swing but the eldest child, the four-year old, woke her up when she jumped off the couch, landing on the sharp corner of a wooden block, then shrieking in pain.
             I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer but my wife, who had just come home, was upstairs changing out of work clothes so neither of us was able to intercept the middle child who toddled over to the baby's swing and smacked her on the head, something he'd been warned not to do. My wife and I don't believe in timeouts, so I grabbed the child by the arm, whisked him to the kitchen stool and told him to sit in timeout, which he neither liked nor understood. We believe in giving loving attention to our darlings, so I ignored the next fifty words out of the toddler's mouth, each of which was the question, "Why?"
             I stopped the swing and picked up the baby. She wasn’t crying from the smack on the head but because she had pooped out the back of her diaper, all the way up to her neck. I lay her on the changing table and told the toddler his timeout was over but he was already pulling saucepans out of cabinets. I asked him to get into his seat, but that made him cry because the stool he needed to climb into his seat wasn't there; it was in the kitchen—where it was supposed to be—where he had just been sitting.
             My wife came downstairs and helped the eldest child, still shrieking, into her seat. She spooned half frozen tortellini into a bowl but the child erupted because it was in a green bowl. She wanted the pink bowl, which was in the dishwasher. The middle child screamed that he wanted the green bowl. I was deep into the onesie cleanup, leaving my wife to explain that his sister had the green bowl but he could have the yellow bowl, which just made him scream louder. My wife slid the green bowl from the eldest child to the middle child, then scooped pasta into the yellow bowl and placed the yellow bowl in front of the eldest child, who shouted again for the pink bowl. We don't believe in responding to outbursts, so from across the room I yelled, "There is no pink bowl!" to which she replied, "Yes! There! Is!" and pushed the yellow bowl across the table, hitting her milk and spilling both milk and pasta onto the carpet.
             I swirl the glass and take a sip. “Hmm,” I say to my friend. “This wine is quite nice.”

Greg Hill is a writer and voice over talent in West Hartford, Connecticut. He has an MFA from Vermont of College of Fine Arts, which, it turns out, means little to co-workers in a non-profit media company. His work has appeared in Black Heart Magazine; Queen Mob’s Teahouse; Work Literary Magazine; and elsewhere; and is forthcoming in Whiskey Island.

ORIGIN LAVENDER — MELISSA WATT

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He isn’t exactly a horse, but something like it. He feels it when he dances with his wife or puts up magnets on the fridge or uses a stepladder. Something is nagging him — is it his mouth? He pokes a finger at his molars, examines his lips in the mirror, his tongue. Do his cheeks have whiskers? He checks his scalp for anything growing. Everything seems in order, human, but he can’t stop feeling like maybe he should be somewhere else. Maybe he should be somewhere else, galloping.

An appaloosa colt beneath a cherry tree with his mother, the comforting scent of her onyx mane, and then she’s gone in spots and wind, and he’s running.

“Sleepover!” His daughter shoves past him to scoop up her toothbrush. “Bye, Dad!” He squints and taps his foot a bit.

From down the hall, “I’m driving her now. Do you wanna order sushi when I get back?” And closer, “Philip?” The bathroom door opens and his wife appears. “You okay, Phil?” She pinches his earlobes and he snaps back: the blue tiled bathroom, butterfly wallpaper that had been his grandmother’s, bras on the shower rod—all beige. “What are you looking for in there, baby?” Standing behind him, she looks in the mirror too. For a moment, they are both quiet, and then she turns and leaves.

He gets branded. It hurts but it’s just the way things go. He sleeps out in the sun after; the day passes in whiffs of lavender and smoke. By the time he notices the stars above him, he’s whole again.

 

Melissa Watt has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College.

IT'S ALL SO BEAUTIFUL — AL KRATZ

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Sometimes, I’m too tired for pigeons. I talk about them too much. Birds this, birds that. I hear you too, you know. You think Sydney is all over the moon. So what. I know you think I’m absurd. So what, so what, so what! So what the fuck if I am. So are you. Okay? You tell me how the bird turns its neck that way, this way, my way, your way, three way, no way, every which way circles and circles. You tell me the birds aren’t up to something. You tell me and I will believe you! I’m all ears. I’ll be your trigger. Please pull me. Pull me and pull me and pull me again. Sometimes I smell you burning Nag Champa and I swear to sweet Jesus, I can see you. If I get the right angle of the sun, if everyone else shuts the hell up, if I block out the static—hey, static cling. Ha! I wanted you to know, what I’m trying to say is that I need you to know I still hear you. I hear your poems. I hear you calling me Baby. A whisper really. A kiss really. It’s my gauge. That’s what you used to say, right? When we broke on through to the other side. When we held the glass onion and we weren’t afraid to look right through. We were going to drop out. Together, right? When everyone else was absurd. When we understood Sartre. We read that shit because we wanted to. Not because the old man did. Fuck him, right? We understood measure. When you read your poems to me before anyone else. Right? You did that for me? You were my gauge too. I know you were. We were electric and no one could pull the plug. No one except for me, I suppose. Sometimes I wonder about this life of interiority. Is it all that I wanted? No. But I wonder. If it’s really what I chose, and you weren’t really around, then I have to know, how was the life of exteriority, Alex? Is it all that you wanted? No. Okay. Fair enough. The pigeons aren’t that bad, Dude. They walk in circles and they don’t mind. They do the herky-jerky and they don’t mind. They have yet to hurt me. Sometimes I clap just for that! I get mad at them too sometimes. My anger is mine. Don’t worry about me. I have lots of possessions. Wouldn’t that be absurd? Ha! It’s all too good, Alex. It’s all so beautiful, all so true. The world makes me want to cry and that’s what I fucking do. So what. It feels good. I do that and then I get tired. So what if I’m too tired for pigeons. When I’m done with that stuff, I hear everyone say forgive me for I know not what I do, and I say amen. I say amen, amen, amen, Alex, until I fall asleep.

Al Kratz is a writer from Des Moines, Iowa, currently living in Indianola, and working on moving back to Des Moines some day. He has been a reader for Pithead Chapel and Wyvern Lit, but currently reads for no one but himself. It's not because he's selfish. He might read again for someone. He might start a new flash fiction site. He doesn't know. 

ALL THREE SIXTEEN — CHELSEA VOULGARES

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All three of us are sixteen. Two girls, one boy: all in flannel shirts, with wet-look hair that smells like grapes. We get ready at your house—jostle for a spot in front of the tiny mirror in your room—while Rusty plays Nintendo on the bed. We have done this every weekend for years, but before it was just us two. I find an eyelash on your cheek, wipe it off with my fingertip and tell you to make a wish. You blow on my finger. “What did you wish for?” I say, but you shake your head and laugh.

We storm the Mansion of Terror like Vikings, made brave by the six-pack of cheap beer we downed in the back seat of Rusty’s Ford. The guy in devil makeup takes our tickets and leers at us, his red face and horns an invitation. Rusty pushes to the front, puffs himself up. The devil looks at his feet while Rusty ushers us past.

Rusty walks in front, you in the middle, me in back. We enter a butcher shop, the table filled with human feet and hands. Clowns, an electric chair, an asylum. We grip and giggle, try to scare each other even more.

The fifth room is full of light. A fluorescent hum. I don’t understand what’s scary here, but then I spot her in the corner, a woman crawling toward me on hands and knees. Black hair masks her face. She grabs my ankle, and I scream. I run to the door, it jams, too heavy in my shaking hands. Rusty opens it, hugs me, and laughs.

Next we confront the maze, so dark my eyes hurt. The walls are covered in rough fabric, and are so tight I have to squeeze my shoulders toward each other. I am teenager thin and don’t know how grownups make it through here, or fat people. I grope along, duck down when the ceiling drops. I stub my toe when the floor suddenly rises and I reach out for you, for Rusty, but my fingers wave empty against the cold, damp air. I listen for your breath, and wonder where you are. I wonder when I will ever get out of this darkness.

When I finally escape the maze, you and Rusty are kissing in the red light of the hallway before the last room. He sees me and nudges you to stop. My stomach is like that butcher’s meat, and when you turn you avoid my eyes. I try to smile. A chainsaw screams ahead of us and the gas fumes burn my nose. We charge into the room, you two in front, and try to run past the man in the mask who blocks our way. When I fall behind, the chainsaw blocks me. A toll booth. A gate. Your black hoodie fades through the exit door, and I can see only the flood-lights in the parking lot outside.

Chelsea Voulgares grew up in Ohio catching lightning bugs and watching bad horror movies. She now lives in Chicago, where she’s working on a novel and a collection of short stories. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Midwestern Gothic, Literary Orphans, The Millions, and Bust, and has been recognized with grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. You can find her online at chelseavoulgares.com.

HOW THE ANIMALS DANCE — EVAN NICHOLLS

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Parcher, take a drink.

He’s in the ring, and the bull of a man across from him has been whipping his ass all over the room. They call the bull across from him Ganado. He’s a fat, meaty man. Ganado is being given water right now.

Parcher, take the drink. Open your mouth. There.

Parcher’s ring-man is giving him something to drink and Parcher is just barely opening his mouth to take it in. The drink is alcohol, and here they call it mezcal. Parcher accepts the fluid. His tongue is a dried agave leaf.

He’s gonna hack you if you don’t drink. You’re spewing.

The ring-man is talking to him about bleeding. Parcher sits on his side of the ring and is thinking no. He resents that his own ring-man thinks he can’t tell he’s bleeding. He can tell. Though his eyes are swollen bad.

Have some more, Parcher.

He can barely open his swollen eyes but what he can see is Ganado’s feral hands looking like a landscape, bare-knuckle hilltops and the torrid earth of his palms. The man has snuff pressed up in his nose, and he snorts in, hard.

Parcher. Drink.

Parcher is feeling his tongue getting spikier and bluer and blue like an agave and numb. His ring-man is pouring more mezcal into his mouth. He’s looking around the room and at the ring of shouting earthy faces and remembers the names on the bills pasted outside. He didn’t know what they stood for, but they read like animals. Ganado was a bull.

More.

Parcher was wondering why he was drinking so much alcohol, and how a good ring-man had been so easy to get when he’d only been in Juarez one more day than a week. His ring-man was doing him good by giving him a drink. Parcher tasted his tongue; spike.

More. 

He could feel the heart of the plant gone down his throat and into the pit of him. The heart boiled in his stomach. His ring-man violently shook the remnant drops of mezcal from his smoky plastic jug. 

There.

One of the faces of the ring banged a dinner spoon on a dirty black pan. Tin sound. Now was the moment to raise hands. Ganado snorted a pinch of snuff and got up from his dumpy balsa chair. Parcher got up shaky from the heart and the alcohol. A great feeling came up into him from his pit. He looked around him and the ring shouted. He looked at his ring-man. His ring-man showed his teeth and they were like shoeshine. Parcher was thinking. This was how the animals danced. He came to the middle of the ring and fat Ganado stood in front of him. They touched their knuckles together. 

He was full of drink. Now he wanted meat. He scraped his spike along the ceiling of his mouth.

There.

Evan Nicholls is a high school student and musician from Fauquier County, Virginia, and has work appearing in The Hoot Review. He will be attending James Madison University in the fall.

GRACE & EVIE — JOHN HARKEY

/

This is neither a rising nor a falling action. They are elsewhere. She's glad she's here. They are happy enough here, not talking. They are thinking & watching the water fold in on itself.

Smooth warp of the water, solid warmth of early or late light through cool air. Is this morning or evening. Is this a memorial. The world spins slow & drifts.

They can carry their own boat, thank you.

*

She thinks about her. She didn't, she doesn't, know much about her. She doesn't know what to think about her. She doesn't know what to think as she thinks about her, sliding along the road, across the watery winter ground.

Here she is, returning, dragging her giant shadow.

*

Somewhere else, an old house is being pulled down. This is a good thing, a falling action, the walls spent from standing. This is just work to be done: taking care of an already ruined thing.

*

The sun burns along the tree-line. The late hour is heavy with light, but night will & does finally fall. Is this a test. Someone is gone or missing.

Everything’s broken by & soaked in strong tones: what was, what may be, what might have been. 

They talked, they would have liked to talk, like this.

*

Morningtime slides along grooves & the pedals rise & fall as she bikes to work. Her thoughts, too, move steadily in grooves. They loop & overlap. She follows herself tracing these worn paths, these woven grooves. Is she somewhere else, on some other side.

Her pedal-pulses rise & fall & she slides toward work.

*

This is work. This is a good or a bad thing: transactions, repetitions, the clatter of plastic on plastic. Such fluorescent clarity, so many goods. People & things endure, she thinks, but they slide around, fade, change places, get lost.

But a little abandonment is in order, too. It feels good to be pushed around by your friends. It feels good to swerve & rattle, to move fast across the floor, through the aisles, through the clothes & toys.

*

This is falling, a falling action. It is a tough break. There is another side. This is the other side. Is this a test. Where is she. She returns to herself. Elsewhere.

*

Everything’s soaked in strong tones, heavy with light.

*

And why wouldn’t she call. They would have said things, back & forth. Her voice trailed off. To hear each other's ghost is a small struggle & a great pleasure. Their voices trailed off, would have trailed off, then returned. They return to each other, elsewhere.

*

Something somewhere is burning. Something is burning at the edge of the day. They hurry across the ground, toward the fire. They hurry toward the edge of the day. They don’t speak. They don’t soar over the burning thing. Is this a memorial. There is a rising action. This is a rising action.

They wait, then they start over.

John Harkey lives in Columbus, GA, where he teaches high-school English. He received his Ph.D from the CUNY Graduate Center, where his dissertation was on "small poetry." A few of his poems can be found online, and his chapbook Mask Work was published by Little Red Leaves. 

EVOLUTION — J. BRADLEY

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I didn’t tell Seth that I knew what the shadows were beneath the waves. I didn’t think we were good enough friends for him to follow me under. I was wrong until I got caught in a strong current; Seth got smaller and smaller. I was more worried about the turbine waiting for me at the other side of the pipe, if it would chop me up as it churned me around and around. I had about 30 minutes of air left. I hoped it would be enough time.

When the nuclear power plant worker found me sitting on the side of the reservoir, he asked how I got here. “By accident,” I said. I stared into the distance, implied trauma so he wouldn’t ask any more questions. I couldn’t wait until the next morning to check my neck for gills, if my skin could stop a knife, or whether I could finally catch a bullet between my teeth. 

J. Bradley is the author of the linked short story collection The Adventures of Jesus Christ, Boy Detective (Pelekinesis, 2016) and lives at jbradleywrites.com.

LOOKING FOR: ASSISTANT EDITOR

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Yup—CHEAP POP is looking to expand our roster with an additional Assistant Editor! We're thrilled with how much we've grown in the past few years...but we need help. 

What are we looking for? Ideally, someone with experience working on a lit journal/magazine (or in publishing of any kind)—although, we're not opposed to a newbie with little experience but the passion of a thousand burning suns. Social media experience is not required, but please let us know if you're familiar (it would be a bonus). 

**Please note: We are going to vet every single person who emails us, but preference is going to be given to women, people of color, queer or trans or otherwise marginalized peoples. Diversity is hugely important to us—getting a chance to give folks a place in publishing to have their voices heard and to make a difference is something we're all in on.**

Send us a cover letter/resume to cheappoplit@gmail.com. Tell us why you'd like to work here, why we'd like working with you, why you like flash fiction...all that good stuff.