COME BACK, COME HERE — EMILY HARNDEN

The summer you laser off all your hair is the same summer your twin sister’s left breast becomes unfaithful, lets something else in. That’s how she’s doing: the language of an affair. You’re coming back from your first appointment—belly, when she calls. “Hairless as the day I was born,” you cheer, passengers’ eyes around you lifting. A lanky guy who looks like a boy you once went to school with straightens up. “Lump,” your sister says, her voice a wet mop. “What a dick.”

Next appointment: armpits. The doctor warned this one might be more painful, and you find yourself thinking about pain, being in it, how much you’ll be able to take. The sky today is dirt blue. The boy who looks like Michael sits across from you, his face in a paperback. You want to ask him what word he’s on, and if it’s a good one could you borrow it?

“Lumpy,” your sister says, eight hundred miles away. “Lumpelstiltskin.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“A bad joke always makes sense.”

It’s blazing hot, humid. Your asshole is a real asshole. You can’t sit. The train’s packed. You stand and nose-breathe. You’re craving something: bubblegum, glass of lemonade, swimming. You close your eyes, ass prickling, remembering when your mother took you and Jen to the public pool; how you sprung off the high-dive, Jen yelling cannonball! at the top of her lungs. Back when the only hair you cared about—on your head. The only problem with breasts—not having any.

“Bastard’s taking off,” she says, then switches the subject. “When are you coming?” Her voice is a girl’s.

The next time you see Michael, you reason he must live practically on top of you. You consider asking him, in an easy-going way: Michael, do you live on top of me? Don’t you remember you left me? Ten stops later the doors shut with him inside and you out. You consider palming the door. “Come back,” you say, your throat tar-hot, “come here.”  

On Friday your mother calls. “I have an appointment,” you say. The line’s a cold hand. “Julie,” she says, making your name into a newfound cruelty. “Mom,” you say, but it’s not the same.

Vagina’s a motherfucker. You stay in bed, call in sick. The thing with your hair isn’t a sign of solidarity, you want to tell everyone, it’s the opposite.

Last one: eyebrows/lip. The sky’s a sickly green. It reminds you of home, tornado season. Your sister crawling into the bathtub, holding you against her chest, whispering: I bet you could fit yourself inside something tornado-big, no problem. “Imagine a tube of lipstick,” she’d say. Think how easy it’d be to hide. All you’d have to do was wait for someone to come, pick you up, pop the cap. Twist, twist. Until all of you was out, exposed like a shadow. Until a small voice leaned close to the top of your pink little shadow-head, asked: what went wrong, honey? Do you even know?

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Emily Harnden holds an MFA in fiction from Colorado State University. She was recently named an AWP Intro Award winner in creative nonfiction, and has work forthcoming from Puerto del Sol, the Normal School, and the Adroit Journal. Originally from small-town Illinois, she currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

MUMMY BLOOD — SUTTON STROTHER

The book full of dead men appears in the reading station the final week of third grade. It’s Corrine who finds it first, tucked behind a Berenstain Bears. Its title’s a description, a hook, maybe a warning: Buried in Ice! As to-the-point as the picture of the dead man on the cover, not a drawing, but a real full-color photograph. Corrine takes in his milky eyes and parchment skin, the lips that curl back over teeth frozen mid-chatter. His nose is black from frostbite. Corrine lifts a finger to her own nose, traces the scar she earned in January when her sled hit a thorn bush.

In the book, between a lot of names and dates and vocabulary words, she finds more dead men, just as ugly as the first.

She glances up, on guard but giddy, like when the girls found the porno under Amanda’s brother’s mattress. Her classmates are busy at the computer and Lego stations, all but Kyle, who skims a Zoobooks about gorillas, and Ryan, who’s got an issue of Cracked hidden inside an encyclopedia volume. Corrine snaps her fingers and motions the boys closer. When they come, she slips the book across the reading rug like contraband.

Ryan’s eyes pop wide. “What the shit is this?” Shit’s his favorite word this month. He’s already earned two detentions for saying it within earshot of Mrs. Lee.

Kyle lifts the book to his face to inspect more closely. He starts flipping through but then wrinkles his nose and tosses it back to Corrine. “Smells weird.”

Corrine buries her face between the pages. She smells rotten flesh and old pennies. “Blood.”

“Nuh uh!” says Ryan, though he tears the book from her hands anyway. He sniffs once, tentative, then again with gusto, like he’s appraising a wine’s bouquet. Over the summer, he will dream the dead men lie in coffins beneath his bed. He’ll wake screaming until his stomach cramps with the effort of forcing out all those screams.

“I bet they got blood all over the film when they took those pictures,” says Corrine. “Mummy blood.”

The boys nod. “Must’ve,” says Ryan. “Shit.”

They pass the book around, inhaling. They learn the dead men’s names, all the ways you can die on an Arctic expedition. What a stroke of luck to have found the dead men at all, when the rest of the expedition vanished, crew and ships alike. They learn the ships’ names, too, whisper them like curses. Erebus. Terror.

Kyle notices that one dead man has his limbs bound with strips of cloth. “In case he tried to get out,” he reasons, but the Arctic’s a desert. Where would he have gone?

At recess, Corinne lies down behind the playground’s maple tree. The boys grab fistfuls of mulch, sprinkle it over her. It’s sunbaked, smells sickly sweet. She pretends that it’s ice, bright and crystalline, enough to anchor a body right here for the next hundred years, maybe longer, maybe forever.

---

Sutton Strother is a writer and composition instructor living in New York. Her work has appeared or will appear in Natural Bridge, Longleaf Review, Ellipsis Zine, Citron Review, Jellyfish Review, and elsewhere.

CHAMELEON — RACHEL SMITH

It’s her dress I notice first. Same fabric as my bedcover, a garish crimson against sea-green floral that I’d bought for the exact purpose of pissing you off. Our house was made for summer, so come winter it was layered over a stack of musty blankets, pulled up tight around our necks.

She is holding a glass of wine, looking closely at your red painting. You had given it another name, something arty, but we both knew it came from bloodstained sheets.

It is never too soon to look ahead. You taught me that. Come winter she could be my human bed cover. When I come home late at night I will fall onto her and be embraced by floral arms.

The inside of her neck smells like old lipstick, and when she turns her chin towards me there is a faint bristle against my cheek. She does not move, make noises in her sleep, or have a sudden need to create in the dark of the night. I have always been an early waker - slid easily from under heavy arms. No need now. She wakes as I do, gently removes one arm after the other, unwraps me like a fragile package. I considerately turn away my morning breath, prop pillows behind her head, and bring her a cup of tea—white with half a sugar.

And then she moves two steps to the right, wine slips against glass and in a camouflage of crimson-green-red, colours shift like light on ice patterned windows, and I can no longer see where she begins and I end, or where we were.

I sleep with arms and legs wide these days.

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Rachel Smith lives and writes in the Cook Islands. Her flash and short fiction, and poetry, has been published in print and online journals in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. She was placed second in 2017 NZ National Flash Fiction Day, is the fiction editor for takahē, and scriptwriter for a feature film Stranded Pearl, due to be released in 2018. Find her at @rachelmsmithnz1 and http://rachelmsmithnz.wix.com/rachel-smith.

GRADE BOOK — CHERYL J. FISH

“A” lives with two other freshmen and a video game console in an apartment building converted to a dorm. He stole something from the store. As punishment, he has to write an essay about theft in convenience stores and how ubiquitous it turns out to be—many losses in bodegas run by immigrants working long hours. Charges are not pressed against him, as the store is on campus and that provides immunity. His essay convinces college officials that he understands how selfish his behavior has been. His parents never find out about the theft because the office of conduct does not disclose student conduct violations.

“B” doesn’t socialize much offline. She can’t make eye contact or do group work in class. She hasn’t a real friend and grows bored if she can’t stare at her phone. She plays Candy Crush to pulverize jelly beans and gumdrops. Her only boyfriend abused her, and now he won’t stop trying to friend her under his three different profiles. She answers questions with questions.

“C” is addicted to gambling online, and instead of doing homework he stays up and loses $160. He admits this in his essay and wonders how and if he can find new friends who don’t play and gamble. He makes numerous excuses for his absences. The prof says he should get counseling and he nods, but he can’t imagine doing so.

“D” lied to her grandmother who takes care of her baby. She said she went back to her classes after the break, but she did not. Instead, she went shopping and hung out on her phone. Smoked some weed with her boyfriend, not the baby’s daddy. She and the teacher exchange heated words in the hallway, each expecting an apology from the other. She missed thirteen classes but planned to come back no questions asked. Showed up late for the final exam and fell asleep. She writes better than she lies.

“W” works too many hours. Also, he must drive his relatives to the airport, and he misses school due to family demands. He smiles when necessary but stares at the screen and writes one paragraph in 90 minutes. W is not diagnosed with a learning disability because he doesn’t visit that office. He drops out before spring break.

“NC’s” Office of Accessibility counselor said she could not adjust to the demands of the first semester. In class, she had an anxiety attack that resembled a seizure.  When she came back she was alternately friendly or hostile to those who approached her. She stopped doing the work after the midterm. She thanks the professor for changing her F to no-credit. She’ll try again; a friend she met in class and her mom give her hope she’ll manage. She signed up for tutoring sessions in the writing lab with “A.”

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Cheryl J. Fish is an environmental justice scholar, fiction writer and poet. Her short stories have appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream, (Autonomedia Press, 2017) and Liars League NYC. An excerpt from her novel manuscript, OFF THE YOGA MAT, was a finalist for L Magazine’s Literary Upstart contest. Her most recent chapbook is Make It Funny, Make it Last (#171, Belladonna). Her poems have appeared in The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry; Hanging Loose; Terrain.org; New American Writing; Talisman; Santa Monica Review; Kudzu House Review; Reed Magazine; Volt; (B)oink and The Gyroscope Review. Fish has been Fulbright professor in Finland, writer-in-residence at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, and she teaches at the City University of New York.

NEW LEADER — CLAIRE POLDERS

After Bernhard Christiansen’s Nieuwe Paus (New Pope)

This morning, I invented a new leader. I was tired of the old one and thought: I want a leader who is as loyal as my watchdog, Jodie, and as fierce as my cat, Joelle, and who possesses some magical power, such as breathing underwater like my goldfish, Jojo. The new leader would be a woman, of course, either resembling my favorite aunt, or that clever lady I often see on TV, and whose eyes keep me standing each time I feel tempted to fall into despair. She would have a lovely smile, my leader, a smile that she would never show unless she meant to give it to you as a present. All men would fear her fingernails. Not because they were painted or as sharp as weapons, but because they made her fingers longer, and therefore her accusations more acute. My new leader would have wild hair, as in untamed, as in free. She would love to dance and shake her body in a triumph of force. Her voice, too, would be uncaged, allowing her to shout and whisper and sing whenever she felt like making a point, and even when she felt like making nothing. Traveling, for my new leader, would be as easy as spreading her wings like my parrot, Jorinde. And she would never sleep; sleep would be unnecessary. My new leader would absorb what she needed from the opposition, sucking their vapid energy into her pure wakefulness. Would she have hardened teeth? Nuanced arms? I tried to imagine what dog-eared books she would read in secret, and drew a blank, perhaps because she would carry all the books inside her head, even the ones that had yet to be written. The only complaint you could make about my new leader was that she would be difficult to approach. But that’s forgivable, at least in my house. Jodie, Joelle, Jojo, and Jorinde never let me pet them either. Even so, my respect for them is boundless.

---

Claire Polders is a Dutch author. Her debut in English, A Whale in Paris (Atheneum/Simon&Schuster), is a novel for younger readers about a heroic girl who saves a lost whale during World War II. It was released in May 2018. Her short prose is published wherever it is appreciated. Read more of her work online at www.clairepolders.com or follow her @clairepolders. 

OURSELF — BRIAN RANDALL

He is wanting us to do things. Us to touch ourself. He is showing us himself, abandoned light falling through the broken window. He pushes, grabs. We slash. Shards of glass. He retreats, cradling a tattered face. After, we shuffle through empty rooms. Write our words in the dust. Set fire to the old mattress.

At school the others watch us from a distance. Try to decipher our language. Knock our books from our hands in the hall. We make a list.

We find two dead birds. Necks broken. They are husband and wife. We give them a room in the dollhouse. They lead grand lives. Many acquaintances.

Our parents are afraid. Tell us not to speak our language. Too much time spent in seclusion. Door shut. We make doll shows. Set fire to the dollhouse. Some of them survive.

Hospital. White space. Lip-chewers and shit-smearers. “Whose choice was it to set the fires?” she asks. Who? Choice? Our language does not hold these words.

Separate rooms. We go blank.

“Isolation doesn’t seem a viable option,” she says. “Twins often form a special bond.”

Twins. Twine. Two. Our language doesn’t separate. We try their language. It is like sand on our tongues.

An hour a day in the courtyard. Bird sounds. Creaking wheelchairs. Mutterings. Orderlies steer away. We have only ourself. Our lives will never run to other horizons. They will only collide. We are the only ones to know our language. It is a vise. It works tighter if we resist. There is only one way out.

She cannot understand us anymore, nor we her. Our words are snared in the air between, fuzzed out, shredded. Nothing can split this cocoon we have wound around ourself. We must make a choice.

Eyes thickening. Slackened shadows. Crawling tubes. “We can’t discern what is wrong with her. A sudden slowing of the heart. No cause.” I try to tell them but they can’t know my words; part of us must wilt so that the rest of us may grow.

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Brian Randall is a poet and writer living in Santa Cruz, California. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Rust+Moth, Jelly Bucket, and Roanoke Review. Find more of his work online at www.brianrandallwriter.com. 

THE PERILS OF PAPERBOY — EMILY STEPHAN

As kids, we screamed with laughter whenever the kid in Paperboy got killed. We’d sit in front of that old TV and that little grey box, the carpet reddening our knees, one of us embedding the square sides of the controller into our palms while we stared at the pixelated images.

Amusing, how many ways there are to die on a paper route: rocks, vicious dogs, rogue tires, possessed lawn mowers, suspicious men exercising in inconvenient places. Everyday life trying its best to destroy you.

We cracked ourselves up so much we never made it beyond the second stage. We’d pass the controller around. We’d laugh in the face of constant failure.

I wish I still could.

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Emily Stephan is a writer, reader, film buff, and Louisiana native. Her poetry has recently been featured in Louisiana's Best Emerging Poets by Z Publishing House.

US — LEONORA DESAR

My husband is cheating on me with me. It’s simple. It’s the younger me. The me when we first met.
             I find them christening the curtains. That’s their thing. Drapery. They’re too lazy to walk over to the couch. It makes them feel it. Wild. They pull the fabric out and spread out on the floor. I find them like that, tangled in Ikea. I say, what’s gotten into you? My younger self looks at me. I think that’s obvious, she says. He’s gotten into me.
             She’s cheeky, my younger self. Maybe that’s why he still loves her. He covers her and walks away. He shuts the door. I follow him. His head’s down. He won’t look at me. This is the problem. Even when we were younger we never looked. Not really. We always saw that more interesting spot on the chin, or just between the eyes, the turtleneck that reminded us (okay, me) of Uncle Ralph, but not in a pervy way, in a safe way. We thought, he wears red turtlenecks, so he must be able to keep me safe.
             And he thought, she wears dresses, and sometimes goes without underwear. She must like the feeling of the wind. She must like doing it on the kitchen tile and will never complain of lumbar problems. He never realized I was just too lazy to go shopping.
             And that’s the thing: One minute you are free and the next you are just lazy. The shift happens in a second. I ask her about it, my younger self. Sometimes when my husband’s gone I crawl on top. I whisper things. I tickle. I sing us that song we both like, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I say, come on, let’s do it, and she rolls her eyes. She doesn’t want to. But she can’t resist me. Not because I’m hot but because she has to try it. Something different. I take advantage. I say, I am the sexy older woman and you are my seduction. She likes it. She plays with my sagging boobs, and I pretend I am him, my husband, that I am deep inside her and it feels amazing, the way I own myself and him, all at the same time.
             I pretend this. I tell her to run away with me. I say it, run away with me. She smells like wine, like us, her teeth are stained with it. She smears some on my lip. I lick it and taste all of us.

---

Leonora Desar’s writing can be found or is forthcoming in River Styx, Passages North, Black Warrior Review (online), Hobart, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Quarter After Eight, among others. She recently won third place in River Styx’s microfiction contest and TSS Publishing's Flash 400, and was a runner-up/finalist in Quarter After Eight’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose contest, judged by Stuart Dybek. She lives in Brooklyn and writes a column for New Flash Fiction Review—Dear Leo.