THE STONE GIRL — LUCY ZHANG

(Basalt)

The stone girl appears more air than mineral with her cavities and pores of hardened lava trapping dissolved gases, the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. Over time, she oxidizes into hematite, taking on a rust-red that mars her grey-black surface. When a child picks up one of her pieces from the dry stack rock wall surrounding a garden of mulch and hyacinths and drops it onto the driveway, not a single piece chips off. 

(Travertine)

To some, the stone girl appears more fibrous and concentric, a cream-colored mass of calcium carbonate. They look at her and think yes, years ago, she precipitated to the bottom of a hot spring and now with the water evaporated, she emerges in solidarity, strong enough to forge ancient Roman temples and aqueducts.

(Something else)

Before the sculptor carves into her, he knocks off her limbs, positioning the point of a chisel against her elbow and swinging the mallet in one stroke. Her arm breaks off. When he is satisfied with the general shape, a stump with a few rough edges, he measures the width of her nose, the curve of her lips, the length of her eyelids with calipers, and draws lines marking the removal area. He softens his strikes so he can remove the small parts with precision–excess flesh in her cheeks, the bit of her temporal bone that protrudes a centimeter too far, the bump in her nasal bone. He pushes a riffler across her scalp and carves out locks of hair that extend past her shoulders. She has hair now.

He leaves the sculpture uncovered before retiring to bed, a twin-sized mattress on the floor, next to his toolbox of chisels and wall mirror.

The stone girl watches her reflection as the sculptor snores. She thinks she has never looked so symmetrical, so delicate, and she wonders if this is what having skin is like. Or maybe this newfound fragility is because she stays awake the entire night, waiting for the sun to strike at dawn, for its rays to heat her face.

When the sculptor wakes up the next morning, he notices a crack down the girl’s face: a jagged line between her eyes, off-center and slanted, tearing through her philtrum and off to the edge of her chin–she resembles a Picasso painting. I can work with this, he thinks as he picks up his chisel and attempts to pivot his artistic muse–embrace the asymmetry, work with serrated and pointed and straight edges rather than curves that start and end at the same place. But when he strikes the mallet onto the end of the chisel, a chunk of her face cracks off, falls to the ground, crumbles to unevenly sized chunks and dust. The other half of her face stands upright, its remaining eye staring at him, as though to ask what he’d do next.

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Lucy Zhang is a writer, software engineer, and anime fan. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Parentheses Journal, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. She can be found at https://kowaretasekai.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.

AWARD NOMINATIONS — 2020

We’re so excited to announce our 2020 nominations for the Best of the Net,  Pushcart Prize, and Best Microfictions (400 words or less). We wouldn’t be here without our amazing contributors—quite frankly, we owe them everything. It’s never easy to select nominees in a given year, but we felt these pieces really highlighted our focus and drive here at CHEAP POP.  

Editor’s Note: Not all stories have been published yet in 2020; we look forward to you being able to read these soon, and publication dates indicated below. Find links to all of the nominees here.

Best of luck to our nominees and a huge thank you to everyone who submits to our site; you’re all a part of the CHEAP POP family!

Best of the Net

• “How Could You Know?” — Joaquin Fernandez

• “Be Conscious of Form” — Myliyah Hanna

Pushcart Prize

• “Graffito” — Andrew Adair

• “Rock Collection” — Sabrina Hicks

• “How to Get a Message Behind Enemy Lines” — K.S. Lokensgard

• “All Churchgoers are Fanfic Authors” — Andy Lopez

• “They’ll Steal Your Skin and Other Lessons from the World’s Fair” by Erin Vachon

• “The Stone Girl” — Lucy Zhang

Best Microfiction (400 words or less)

• “Collision” — Jennifer Mcgaha

• “After Sex, We Find a Praying Mantis in Our Bed” by Cortney Phillips Meriwether

• “The Eternity Berry” — Grace Q. Song

• “Mystic Hustler” — Erika Veurink

THE GRAVITATIONAL CONSTANT — BILL GILLARD

I sat behind Hassan McMillan in a tiered classroom for Physics junior year at our NYC Jesuit all-boys high school where Father Doyle brooked no haha but I was bolder then and during the course of his forty-five minutes I gently shoved Hassan’s chair inexorably forward across the polished wood floor until his feet hung in the air a foot above the tier below and he punched helpless at my calves whenever Father Doyle turned not often to the chalk board until with a slow crash Hassan cartwheeled forward onto Bruce Chow’s indignant back both of them sprawling onto the floor clutching knees and ankles until the eclipse of Father Doyle whose seismic rage dimmed the lights flaying the skin of innocent Bruce and Hassan left me paralyzed by what I had wrought a silent bystander for all Father Doyle knew and the most courageous act I have ever seen was when Hassan looked back at me with anger in his eyes and then instantly relented he could see the fear in my eyes me and my D in Physics and then set his desk upright apologized to Father Doyle and to Bruce and then sat down and reopened his Physics notebook I don’t know why he didn’t ID me I certainly would have except that maybe Hassan this basketball playing giant of a young man knew he could catch what Doyle was throwing but in that moment when he made his decision he wasn't sure maybe I could and maybe that’s why and he wasn’t wrong let me tell you Father Doyle was just about the scariest thing since the H-Bomb that we learned about in Chapter 4

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Bill Gillard is an award-winning teacher of creative writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. His writing has appeared in dozens of journals, and he is the author of the poetry collection, The Vade Mecum of the True Sublime, and two chapbooks, Ode to Sandra Hook and Desire, the River. He is co-author of Speculative Modernism, a study of the origins of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He is the Fiction Editor at the literary magazine, Masque and Spectacle. He earned an M.F.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University, is a recovering youth hockey coach, and lives in Appleton, Wisconsin, with his wife and two daughters

A(UTONOMOUS) S(ENSORY) M(ERIDIAN) R(ESPONSE) — JULIA LoFASO

She shaves your beard. She strokes your forehead. She reads you Lord of the Rings. She is not your mother, not your girlfriend, not your wife, not your lover. But she is gentle, with soft skin—you feel like you can feel it through the screen—and wide green eyes.

You’re a sensation seeker, always have been. You move like smoke. You like cats better than dogs. You’d follow a jangling arm of bracelets for miles and you’d let anyone filled with the right kind of light place a sacred cube of sugar on your tongue, then stretch your long, lean self paws-to-tail to let its warmth spread through you.

The girl on the screen is not here, but she is filled with light. She can get you through the cruelest months in your cold city, until you can fly to a place where all the colors bleed so deeply your eyes spring tears, where every girl is beautiful because she isn’t yours, will never be yours. The girl on the screen will never be yours, either. She belongs to every searching blue-lit face, to power lines that speak in sparks, to cables and fiber-optics, to hands that see without touching, hands that know.

The science is not there, say the experts. But you are there and she is (sort of) there, and that’s enough.

Then again, maybe she is your mother. Maybe she’s everyone’s mother. It’s so hard to remember way back when your senses were blurred wide open, shortsighted eyes enraptured by the crinkle of balled paper, hands flailing to reach a soft thing you stuffed in your mouth until it soaked with the smell of you, of her, of all your animal mothers. Back when you were all sensation, lantern-thin skin incandescent.

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Julia LoFaso's writing has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Conjunctions, Day One, Wigleaf, New South, PRISM international and elsewhere. She lives in Queens. 

CHIEFS — JOSHUA BOHNSACK

I remember the day my mom left because I watched a guy say “fuck you” on live TV for the very first time. I heard my parents say it to each other a thousand times a day, but there was something special about the response on the sportscaster’s face when a drunk football fan in red and gold face paint put a hand on his shoulder and shouted those two beautiful words to the camera.
           I don’t remember what my mom said as she shook my shoulders for the last time. I don’t remember the pattern on our wallpaper or the way Dad pounded his fist against the wall or the color of my mom’s car as it spit gravel against the windows. I don’t remember how long I lived at my grandma’s house. I don’t remember what I did when I heard my mom’s voice on the answering machine apologizing for all those late nights and how she appreciated that her son was being taken care of. Or, actually, I remember doing nothing but listening to her recording a sobbing message. I guess I don’t remember why I didn’t pick up the phone and ask her why she didn’t come back home, but I probably knew the answer.
           I remember the first time I went to a Chiefs game and how everyone raised their hand as if it were an ax, chopping the air on each first down. I remember thinking it would cost a lot of money to change the name of everything involved with the football team. I remember wondering how they did it when the Rams relocated. I remember thinking this and not paying attention to the winning touchdown.
           I remember the Boulevard beer tasting too flat for eight dollars at a bar close to the stadium. I remember when the reporter and camera walked into the bar ready to ask us what we thought of the game. And I remember thinking of my mom as the reporter approached me with a microphone and I looked into the camera and said, “Fuck you.” 

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Joshua Bohnsack is the author of Shift Drink (Spork Press) and his work has appeared in The Rumpus, Hobart, SAND, and others. He is an editor for TriQuarterly and Long Day Press, and lives in Chicago where he works as a bookseller.

BECOMING — KYRA KONDIS

When the ghost arrives at the photo shoot, she is a burst of cold wind, a slight tinge of silver in the air. Everyone on set tells her she looks amazing, even though they’re not sure where in the room to find her. You’re stunning today, they say. They say: you look hot. 

In the industry, it is widely known that the ghost is the best model. She has no imperfections. She doesn’t demand certain snacks or drinks or amenities. She doesn’t try to sue anyone for being inappropriate. She doesn’t show up on camera at all, of course, but that’s fine because they photoshop her in later. She can be so many things, the ghost: a tanned, oiled woman with a tiny nose; a pair of slim, long-fingered hands; shiny black hair cascading down a figure-8 body; skin so smooth people look at it and say, that can’t be real, and at the same time, they never guess that it isn’t. 

When the ghost was a girl, she got paid twenty dollars to be in one of those mall fashion shows, where kids wear department store clothes and walk down a catwalk between a Starbucks and a Pottery Barn. Her mother made her do it, just like she made her do a commercial for kids’ allergy medicine and a print ad for jellies. It’s a shame she has such round cheeks, said the show’s organizer, scrunching her face between thin fingers. 

Now she is only almost the outline of a woman, a cool air under hot white lights. Everyone wants to photograph her. She knows this is because she is whatever they want, but isn’t that nice sometimes? She can become and become and become.

Look over here, the photographer says. He is shooting an ad for shampoo. The ghost is a thousand shiny specks in the air, a glare in his lens. When she looks at the camera she cracks the lights on each side, their glass bulbs splitting. It’s fine, the photographer says to an assistant who gets up to help, we’ll edit the exposure later. 

Truthfully, the ghost misses being just one person, and not many. She misses her cheeks. She misses her flesh. She misses seeing herself in a photo and remembering what she really looks like. Being wanted doesn’t replace being her.

So while the photographer kneels with his camera, the ghost leaves the shoot, forging a chilly breeze through the studio. No one notices. When the ad goes live in magazines and Internet pop-ups months later, underneath the woman made of pixels, there will only be air. The ghost will be proud about this, for a second. Then, she will be sad.

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Kyra Kondis is an MFA candidate in fiction at George Mason University. More of her work can be found in Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, and Pithead Chapel; her flash has also been featured in the Best Microfiction 2020 and the Wigleaf Top 50 of 2020. 

HOLY JESUS, THERE'S A NUN IN IKEA — SARA HILLS

At first I think she’s a mannequin perched on an Ektorp sofa; some hipster’s idea of a humorous gag in the showroom. But then she moves. Her dark veil swishes like the flash of a crow’s wing as she turns to caress a shaggy silver pillow.
           Matty’s waiting in the car, and I’m supposed to be quick—in and out—to pick up a replacement picture frame after our wedding portrait crashed off the wall. But I can’t take my eyes off this nun.
           She stands, smooths out her tunic and strides past me, past the paper measuring strips and doll-sized pencils, past the cage of yellow shopping bags, and heads straight for the display of throws. She strokes each one, knit in vibrant golds and grays, and presses them against her cheek like one would a kitten.
           She sees me staring and smiles. I turn away and pretend to examine an armchair, one of those wide ones big enough for two, the kind Matty says are wholly impractical. He’d have found the frame and made it to self-checkout by now, but I like to linger. Imagine what if. Stand in each decorator room and pretend to be living some alternate version of my life—a young twenty-something with a new apartment; a scientist who collects jazz records; single and on a first date, wondering if I’m brave enough to smoke a little weed if he asks, if he’ll tip me over the edge of the armchair or if he’ll go slow.
           I should hurry, get in and out like Matty said. But the nun’s on the move, and I snake after her; I can’t help myself. Her tunic swings with each graceful step, as if with every movement she gives more of herself to God. And she’s beautiful, even with her hair hidden under the wimple—such a sad, salty word—she’s ageless. I bet she’s shopping for refugee families or abused women; people in need.
           The nun doesn’t dip through the sneaky short-cuts, not like Matty does when he comes with me. Straight to the end, so they can’t sucker you into buying more crap you don’t need, he says. But how do you know if you need it or not if you don’t even lay eyes on it? For example, the picture frame shelf? If we had one of those, our wedding portrait wouldn’t have crashed off the wall. Maybe stemmed glassware would make us more refined and floral sheets would encourage something to grow.
           The nun stops at a decorator bedroom, sits on the edge of the bed and bounces twice. She lays herself down atop of the covers. The bottom of her black shoes are worn thin. How tired she must be, taking such careful steps, acceding to God’s wants and whims. Serving only Him and not herself.
           I know I should hurry, that Matty is waiting, but the beds are so inviting and so soft.

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Sara Hills writes from Warwickshire, UK. Her short fiction has been featured in several anthologies and journals, including Barren Magazine, Reflex Fiction, TSS, and Flash Flood Journal. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Award and the Bridport Prize, longlisted for the Fish Flash Fiction Prize, and in 2020, she won the UK National Flash Fiction Day micro competition. She tweets from @sarahillswrites.

COCKATOO'S FLIGHT — MICHELLE XU

In my dreams, he finds me on the thrice-waxed floor of our old high school gym. Clumps of shadows are clapping for some spectacle in center court, a wrestling match, a theater scene, a tango of purple cockatoos perhaps, but I am leaning against the bleachers’ plastic wrinkles and scanning for a familiar face. Then he strides into view, sixteen again in cargo shorts stuffed with cinnamon gum, knocks his shoulder against mine and whispers:

“I’m sorry.”

Sometimes he takes my hand first. Sometimes he kisses my cheek farewell. Sometimes we rush into the center of the crowd and each grab a cockatoo’s tail, bursting through the ceiling of tessellated fluorescence, upwards like the birth of two stars in the night.

But either way, I stop wondering what came first: him loving me or him wanting to leave his girlfriend. (Instead I leave him, trampolining off the clouds into thinner and thinner air.) I stop fearing the corroding mists of rumors after every date. (Instead I twirl free like a cockatoo, purple invisible against ink sky.) And I stop dreaming of him inside this dream, no longer confused by how a cinnamon kiss, shared, could mark only one target.

(Instead, the sky up here is clear. I soar.)

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Michelle Xu is a physicist by day and writer by night. Her work has appeared in Riggwelter Press, and she runs a compost heap of a writing blog at colorcompendium.wordpress.com.