Nina Collavo
Matthew Ineman
Misty Yarnall
El J Ayala
Category Archives: Fiction
10.2 | Fiction
Comments Off on 10.2 | Fiction
Filed under Fiction
Anna Kubiak
When the Mailman Is Late
Cracks are really just spiders in disguise. They fool everyone except for me, because I see things for what they are. How raindrops are intruders and feelings are illusions, but people learn to love both because they think they have to. I’m not one of those people. Someone has to see the absolute truth in everything.
It’s my gift, my curse, that aching itch in the back of my throat just past my ear that I can never scratch, just swallow again and again and again until it’s smoothed over for the moment. My dad always tries to get me to take the drugs the doctor with the fuzzy hair gave me, but little orange bottles are tyranny and pills are just excuses, so we live in peace in a broken little home where the grass is too long and the old cassette tapes move themselves in the night.
I take breakfast at 5:00 a.m. Square bread with discarded crusts, toasted with no butter. If it’s late then there’s no telling what could happen. Maybe the decaying shingles will fall from the roof one by one, maybe they’ll shatter the windows or hit a pipe, maybe the bathroom will flood or a bedroom, maybe no one will help us, maybe we just won’t wake up one day. The coffee has to be black because what if the milk corrupts the proportions? What if I think I’m drinking caffeine, but really it’s just mostly milk and I’ve been lying to myself? I would never lie to myself. It would be wrong and might cause my organs to fail or my father’s. Or maybe the tree leaning towards the house might decide to fall. No, lying would offset the carefully constructed balance that keeps everything in its place. Lying would cause my whole life to crumble.
I wash the table five times before I eat there. I like the number five; it sounds good rolling off my tongue. It sounds right, like if the rag wipes over the wood five times then the neighbor’s cat won’t climb too high in the tree and worms won’t wiggle their way into my bed. I used to like the sound of four and before that three. It was even one once, but five is better, five almost feels good, but maybe six might be the best.
The plate has to be twisted at a forty-five degree angle and the coffee cup at ninety degrees; as long as it’s that way, there won’t be an earthquake. My feet are firmly on the floor when I take my first bite, so that the car doesn’t break down. I would eat with my father, but he always gets it wrong. Can’t he feel when he’s teetering over a line that can’t be uncrossed? After all, failing is always purposeful because success always feels like luck. I don’t like it when he tries to talk to me. Talking doesn’t create change; it just makes you feel bad for not changing. He doesn’t understand, but I wish he would, because how can you not break something when you don’t understand it?
He takes breakfast in his room. I can’t go near his room. Things are always moving: books on the desk end up on the floor, sheets are never straight, and the door always seems locked, but if you don’t check it once, twice, six times, can you really be sure? He works from home on a little laptop, hunched over all day. I check on him seven times to make sure he’s still there. If he runs, his mess, litter, and pollution will drag me with him, and our house will crumble. There will be nothing to come back to.
“Dad.” I stand with my back to the wall outside his door looking directly at the opposite wall without blinking. The toe of my right foot is pointed east and my left foot is pointed north. The three second delay we agreed on ensues.
“Yes?” he replies, his voice annoyingly hoarse. He should clear his throat or else maybe the little particles will continue to grow until he can’t breathe.
“Clear your throat,” I tell him, though he should know what could happen.
He clears his throat.
“Again,” I tell him.
He does it again. “What do you need?”
“The mailman is late,” I say to the opposite wall.
“Maybe he got stuck in traffic.”
My dad sounds exhausted. I know how he feels; surviving is exhausting, but that doesn’t mean we should stop. “No. He’s always here at 8 a.m.” I talk to the wall again.
“Maybe he took a different route today. I’m sure he’s still coming.” The hoarseness is coming back.
“It’s not supposed to be different. He’s late. I think he’s dead,” I say fervently. There can be no accidents in life. Without the big picture, the little pictures wouldn’t make sense.
“He’s not dead.” My dad sighs.
My dad with his nice enough ways, except for his inability to comprehend what is right in front of his face. “You don’t know that,” I reply. We are past the days when he can comfort me and tell me all the things he knows so that I don’t have to worry about them. I now know the difference between what someone knows and what they think they know.
“You don’t know that he’s dead either,” my dad says with a little more enthusiasm.
“But he’s late,” I explain again.
“Okay so he’s late,” my dad says. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to call the mail company and tell them that he’s late.” Sometimes speaking to my dad is like speaking to a child.
“Fine, how late is he?” My dad seems to be scratching his head.
I check my watch. “Exactly fifty-nine seconds,” I say, slowly as the numbers keep rattling by.
“Oh, for the love of…” my dad begins.
“No!” I yelp. “You can’t swear.”
“I wasn’t going to swear, I was just going to say…”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I seal my hands around my ears. Sometimes the oceans in my mind get loud, tossing worries like waves that wash away all the things I need to make sense.
“Okay, I won’t say anything,” my dad says.
“You can’t swear or else I’ll have to put salt over all the window panes and then that would mess with the ergodynamics of the wood.” I’m starting to ramble a little, but how could he not understand how important this is? I’ve only told him two hundred and forty-one times.
“Okay, okay, you win.” My dad groans. “I have work to do now, so run along.”
“But the mailman’s late,” I tell the opposite wall. “I think he’s dead. Probably popped his tire then got bitten by a snake when he went to fix it.”
“I’ll call the company, if he doesn’t show up, okay?” My dad seems as though he’s trying to soothe me. “It’s not likely that he got bitten by a snake so you can find something else to worry about.”
“It’s more likely than a plane crash. I worry about things that are worth worrying about, like missing mailmen.” I pause. “Because he’s late.”
“Why don’t you go check if he’s here now?” My dad’s fingers begin clicking away again.
“But then I’ll have gone up and down the stairs eight times before 9:42 a.m.” I almost stomp my feet, but then they would be out of place.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes you have to go up and down the stairs more than eight times before 9:42 a.m.” He doesn’t sound like he’s listening anymore.
“No, that’s not right, you have to call the mail company and tell them the mailman died. He’s two minutes late; he’s not coming.” Hyperventilating is just drowning without the water, but he doesn’t seem to know that.
“Alright, I’ll call, but you have to go downstairs, because I have work to do.” Dad doesn’t sound like he’s going to call, but deals are deals. Breaking them is like lying, and lying would cause the house to collapse on itself one brick at a time. Being brave when I’m scared is lying too, but people seem to think that’s okay. My dad wants me gone because he thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not crazy, I’m just careful. For all he knows, I could be saving his life every moment I spend mine seeing things he can’t.
The stairs look warped when I look at them from the top. I cleaned them twice yesterday. I’ll clean them again today, but it isn’t time yet. I should have been reading the newspaper when it arrived two minutes ago like I do every morning except for Sundays when I read the first forty-three pages of the dictionary instead. Every step seems like a warning flag, because after all what are possibilities if not ways things can go wrong. I take the stairs fast to get it over with.
If I believed in curses, I would believe that I cursed myself. Everything was safe and right the way it was. Change can only mean that new factors will throw off the old ones and I can be left to figure everything out all over again.
As I suspected, the mailman isn’t there when I go downstairs. I don’t know what to do with myself. What is the point of a plan if no one else cares how important it is? After reading the newspaper, I usually clean the kitchen, but I can’t clean the kitchen until the newspaper arrives, but that won’t happen until the mailman comes, but he won’t come until Dad calls the company, but Dad won’t call until he wants to, and there’s no telling when that will be. I hope it will be soon, but what is hope really if not confirmation that there is no proof of anything?
I have no choice but to venture onto the front step to get the newspaper as quickly as I can. I feel something like remorse for the events of the morning, but that doesn’t make sense because remorse isn’t sad enough to be depression, and it isn’t guilty enough to be regret, so there doesn’t seem to be a purpose for it inside me. If I step on the crease between the tiles on the step, surely the mirror in the closet of the guest bedroom will shatter and little pieces will lodge themselves into the carpet, and when I go to clean it I’ll cut my hands and knees. If the sun hits the top of my head before 12:17 p.m. then the chimney will clog and suffocate us in our sleep.
“Hello.” A voice catches me by surprise. There is a small child standing in the neighbor’s yard. I dislike small children, because they always have juice stuck to their chins and rude questions spewing from their mouths. I don’t reply. I don’t speak to anyone other than my dad before I’ve read my newspaper, otherwise the ink from the newspaper will leach into my skin while I’m reading it and cause irreversible damage to my nervous system.
“You’re supposed to say hello back,” the boy whines.
I have to respond otherwise he’ll come over to me and that would be far worse. “I don’t speak to anyone before I’ve read my newspaper.” I pause. “It’s bad luck.”
“You’re waiting for it now?” The boy is still coming closer.
“Yes, the mailman is three minutes late,” I reply.
“Okay,” the boy says, and walks towards me. “I’ll wait with you.” He sits down on my front lawn in the grass that’s too long.
I glare at his impertinence. This is ridiculous. All the muscles in my body are rigid. What’s the point of having property lines if no one respects them? What’s the point of having children if they don’t listen to you? Why would anyone be outside before 12:17 p.m.?
But the kid doesn’t say anything, he just sits there watching the road like I am. I don’t like it. Waiting is just disappointment before you realize it’s there, and quiet is really just a blanket that covers the real problem. And yet, nothing bad is happening. So, I sit on the porch until the mailman pulls up with my newspaper exactly seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds late, and I can run back into my house where it’s safe and comfortable and everything makes sense. But I don’t make it inside before the boy calls after me.
“See you tomorrow, then,” and at first I hate him for saying it, because friendship is just sacrifice and suggestions are really demands, yet as I begin to remove the dishes from the cupboard, I think just maybe I will wait for the mailman on the porch tomorrow, because what are obnoxious, annoying children if not expressions of growth and what am I if not someone who sees things for what they are?
Anna Kubiak is currently a student at Genesee Community College with plans to transfer to the University at Buffalo where she will pursue a degree in legal studies with certificates in journalism and creative writing. While attending GCC, she writes for The New Courier newspaper and is the President of the Creative Writing Club. She plans to pursue a career that allows her to connect people through writing.
Comments Off on Anna Kubiak
Filed under Fiction
Noah Rigby
Seven Steps to Surviving in the Wilderness by Billy Burkins
Step 1: Find Water
When you’re stranded in the woods, the very first thing you have to do is S.T.O.P. Stop, Think, Observe, and Plan, preferably in that order. You don’t technically learn this until you get promoted to the rank of Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts, which I’m still pretty far from reaching, but I read ahead in the manual in my free time, so I know a lot. I honestly think it should be one of the first things they teach you when you join in first grade, along with all of the brotherhood and God stuff, but when you’re small like that Boy Scouts is more of an activity your parents force you to do to get you out of the house. All Troop Leader David has said so far about survival is that if you get separated from the group while out on an adventure, which is the technical term for our outings, you need to stay put. That’s stopping. Think about where you came from, how you got there, and where you went wrong (if you did. You probably did). Next, observe your surroundings and calculate if you’re in any immediate danger. If you’re not, you plan. Plan how to get your troop leader to notice you and what to do if you don’t recognize anything nearby and all that. That’s what you do if you’re a baby and don’t actually know what to do to survive. That’s what to do if you’re lost.
But I’m not lost.
So, when you’re not lost in the woods, and when Charlie T. from Mrs. Barranick’s fifth grade class made it a point to share with everyone how far ahead the rest of the Boy Scouts are compared to you now that promotions are based on merit rather than age, you set out into the woods behind the playground to prove that just because you’re not getting badges as fast as them, it doesn’t mean you’re not a true boy scout. You CAN survive in the wild despite missing troop meetings a lot. But if you get far enough away so that you don’t remember which way you came from, you find water. Water is pretty easy to find in the woods, especially if you get lucky and it rained a couple hours ago and your mom sleeps a lot during the day, so she won’t be looking for you for a while. After walking for about an hour—or maybe a lot longer—in the woods and scoffing at every trail you come across, you hear water up ahead.
Now, just because you hear water, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be drinkable. Usually, it won’t be. And, I know this because Tessa M. dared me to drink from a pothole puddle once, and I got sick for like a week. That’s why I bring a water purifier with me whenever I leave the house. It’s inconvenient most days, and takes up a lot of room in my backpack, but when you’re a survivalist like me, it’s second nature, and it can save your life. If you don’t have a water purifier, running water is still helpful. Animals usually stay close to a stream, which is what you figure out it is when you get closer and narrowly avoid tripping over a branch or something, and animals equal food. I don’t really like hurting animals if I don’t have to, so, best case scenario, I’ll just follow them around and see what they eat. They know edible plants probably more than I do, and I know a lot. Mom says I have a great memory, the best one there is maybe, which is why I was my elementary school’s spelling bee champion in third grade (Charlie beat me in fourth grade, but that doesn’t matter. Someone called him an overachiever once; I don’t remember who.) Anyway, the stream is small and peters out quickly down a cliff some yards away, so you don’t bother investigating because it’s probably a little steep, but water is better than nothing. If you’re smart like me, you should have had some juice before you left the house, so you’re not super thirsty, but you still should sludge through the mud to the stream and set your adventuring backpack down on a rock to get started. The metal clasps on your backpack are always a little hard to open because it’s cheap and you’ve had the same one since second grade, and you probably struggle with them for a second but it’s okay because no one’s looking, before it springs open and you dig your hands into the camouflage pouch. Without even peeking you pull out exactly what you needed—your life straw. It was like a bajillion dollars, which Mom probably couldn’t afford, but luckily Dad, who lives in a different state now, sent it in the mail as a late birthday present. You clasp the bag up and get as close to the water as you can without getting your clothes or shoes wet. I read the instructions on the straw a bunch before, but I never actually used it. You should get it right, though. And when you go to open it, and maybe tug on it a little too hard, you hear a popping sound and the cap rockets off, making a clacking sound as it smacks against a tree and disappears in the grass past the water somewhere. Then the straw cracks. They’re not supposed to crack, you don’t think. They never broke in the videos, so you’re going to be mad for a moment because you’ve been really excited to use it, but hey, stuff happens. You can’t just rely on your tools, no matter how expensive they are—you have to rely on yourself. A true Boy Scout is always prepared, and preparation means knowledge. Since it rained, you can collect droplets from leaves using a baggie you saved from lunch.
Step 2: Build a Shelter
Troop Leader David said that shelter can be made out of nearly anything as long as you insulate it. Caves aren’t a good idea because they’re naturally cold and often home to big creatures. Plus, the draft is super bad if you don’t cover up the hole. That’s why a lot of people look towards sticks and mud when they know what they’re doing (but most people don’t). One of the major reasons why people die in the woods is because they don’t correctly protect themselves from the environment, especially when it’s colder out. It’s the middle of March now and it still snows sometimes. I brought my big coat with me, so I’m fine. Plus, I was always the best one at building shelters in the Cub Scouts before we moved up to Boy Scouts and things got way more complicated than they needed to be and Mom got sicker. I had to take a lot of days off to help her get around the house. Mom said I shouldn’t worry, though, because I could survive off anything if I’m determined enough because I’m really strong. Strongest guy she knows, actually, which is impressive because she knows a lot of people. People come by the house a lot to drop off food when she doesn’t have the energy to cook or to donate some clothes here and there. That’s where I get a lot of my stuff from, so I can go to school and the boys won’t look at me weird because we don’t have a lot. Charlie still looks at me weird, but he’s weird, so it doesn’t count.
For a shelter, all you need to find are some trees about six feet apart. Lodge a log between them that’s like three feet off the ground, get some big sticks and moss, and go from there. If there isn’t any moss—and there isn’t, which is weird—dirt is fine. Mud from the stream-—probably about sixty yards away from where you’re going to build your shelter—will keep the sticks together. I wouldn’t recommend building super close to a stream because the dirt there isn’t super stable, and you need stable ground to build a shelter or else things may start slipping and sliding and you’ll get crushed. Danny with brown hair, who is a year ahead of me in the scouts and has a phone that’s really cool, told me that he saw someone get crushed by a rotting tree after they built their shelter near it and a strong wind came. You wouldn’t want to be just another guy getting whacked by a tree because you’re waiting on a card from your dad that has some money in it for new Boy Scout stuff, so you should push on the trees nearby to make sure they’re stable.
You spend like a whole hour finding suitable sticks for your A-Frame, which is when you lodge that log between trees and then rest sticks against it on either side. I built one before with my troop, even though I mostly helped with the finishing touches since Mom was feeling bad that night and I wanted to make sure she was okay before heading out. Now, you have to break some branches off trees to get sticks long enough and sturdy enough. Make sure to take a lot of breaks while working to prevent your asthma from flaring up and sing a song in your head to entertain yourself. Your hands are only a little sore, and it’s only a little dark and cold outside now, so you work only a little faster, gathering up mud and grass to plaster against the sticks with the oven mitts you threw in your bag. While gathering mud, your foot might slip into the stream, and your shoe and sock might get wet, but you can’t worry about that right now. You have to build your shelter before it gets dark, and you have so much more to do if you’re going to prove Charlie wrong. The look on his face when you tell him you went camping all by yourself is going to be well worth your minor slip-ups. Maybe you’ll even get promoted if you tell Troop Leader David. It’s getting cold quickly though, so maybe you’ll only stay out in the woods for one night instead of two. Your hands will feel a bit raw after scooping mud, but at least your shelter is complete. That’s more than good enough.
Step 3: Collect Food
You’re going to be hungry by now, and you haven’t actually had to collect food by yourself before because you’re eleven and that would be ridiculous. I would usually prioritize building a fire, but it rained earlier in the day, so most of the fire wood is damp and unusable, and you wouldn’t have brought a match or a lighter because that’s cheating (also I don’t know where Mom keeps them), so, food. You’re going to want to walk back to the stream and consider going past it, and begin to step on a rock to head over and see if you can find any edible berries or fungi on the other side since you haven’t had any luck so far, but you don’t want to chance getting any more wet, so you don’t. And then you step forward and cross anyway. A real Boy Scout wouldn’t get scared of some water. No, he’d persevere, and besides, Charlie would totally tell Emma L. from Mr. Otis’ class that you’re a pussy if he were here. Anyone would be embarrassed by that since Emma is the prettiest girl in the fifth grade, which I’d swear my life on. Charlie and I both have a crush on her, which is why I think he’s mean to me sometimes even though he already has a better chance with her than me because he’s in school more and farther ahead in Boy Scouts. He doesn’t take days off to spend time with his mom. I doubt he even knows what cancer is. That’s why people like us are going to have to work hard in the wilderness, so we can show them how good we are. That’s why you go deep in the woods, but not too far from where you left your adventuring backpack: so you can show them that you can survive despite not having the merits or the recognition or the support. Despite being the slacker, you’re really good at surviving.
If you find rotten logs, you’re in luck. When you look up survival stuff at the library in your spare time like I do, you’re going to learn that bugs like hiding where things are rotten, close to the surface, and dark. Most bugs can be eaten raw as long as they don’t have a hard shell, you think—those guys tend to carry parasites that need to be cooked out. As mentioned earlier, firewood isn’t in great supply right now, so beetles and grasshoppers are out of the question. On the brighter side, the more wet the ground is, the more bugs you can find. If you’re like me, you’ve only eaten a couple of bugs before, and mostly on dares during recess when the teacher wasn’t looking. The last time your dad called, you told him how many times you’ve eaten bugs because you thought it was funny. He doesn’t call much anymore, but that’s probably just because he doesn’t like eating bugs. Not that you do, but you’re a survivor. You’ll do what you must.
The first log you come across is going to be prime bug real estate, so you have to dive right in. It’s late. Underneath, you find mostly ants, and they scatter pretty quickly, but you’re determined. You have to break the log open to find the fun stuff—termites. You kick the log open with your sneakers, so you can keep your hands in your pockets for as long as possible, and you see there are plenty of termites to go around. You scoop them quickly into the second baggie you brought, and move onto the next. You’re quick. It’s colder. It’s almost completely dark now, and that’s why you don’t notice how close you’ve gotten to the cliff.
Earlier it was just another landmark, something you barely registered. You were too caught up in the stream.
You’ve never been the best at keeping your balance.
You fall.
Step 4: Stay Warm
It’s late when I wake up. The house smells of hot cocoa and iodine, and Dad is mumbling something to himself in the other room. The floorboards of the apartment creak as he paces back and forth, and it sounds like he’s outside my door. He has always been really restless. That’s a trait I got from him, he said, so he suggested I join Cub Scouts. Get my energy out. Do something useful.
I wonder why he’s anxious so late in the night. He should be asleep. It’s Monday, so he has work in the morning. Mom has an appointment with a new doctor in the afternoon, and they’re going to make her lungs better. He shouldn’t worry. I’ll go back to school when she’s better. We’re going to be fine.
I hear the knob slowly twist and warmth creeps in past the opening door and slips under my blanket. The fireplace is roaring outside. I close my eyes. I don’t like seeing him while he’s anxious. Slippered feet shuffle slowly towards my bed, then past, and the window that I left open clasps firmly shut. It’s hot.
The floor doesn’t creak when he stops by my bed. His clothes whisper faintly together as he sits on the ground.
He’s quiet for so long I begin to think he’s fallen asleep.
“I’m leaving, bud.”
You’re supposed to be asleep. Don’t answer, even though you don’t understand.
“I’m not strong, Billy.” Silence. “You need to be strong for her. You need to help her survive.”
He gets up, the floor creaks, the door closes.
I’m not strong. When I finally get the courage to go after him, he’s gone. Mom’s asleep on the couch.
Step 5: If Injured, Conduct First Aid
It’s late when you wake up. You’re cold. All you can register is the biting of the air on your cheeks and the faint smell of iron. You can’t think of anything. You’re tired.
Then comes the pain.
When you were five, you fell off your bike and broke your arm. You cried for hours because it hurt so much, even though it was closer to a sprain than anything. This is worse.
Your head, my head, is on fire. It feels like fire ants are crawling in your nose and over your eyes and ears. The hot on the back of your head might be blood, must be, because the ground is supposed to be cold. I go to reach to pull my jacket tighter, but my arms don’t move. I try my legs. They don’t move either. Nothing moves.
Don’t panic.
If you panic, you’re dead.
I saw that in a video once.
Think.
First thing you have to do is try everything. Despite the burning of your head and the blurring of your vision you manage to look around. Sort of.
My head doesn’t move with my eyes, but it’s okay, all you need to do is see. It doesn’t look like the fall was that far—I can hear the water draining into a small pool a couple yards away—but it was enough. You don’t know how long you’ve been unconscious, but your mouth is dry and you can smell blood. Blood is common in your house. You know how to deal with blood there. You clean it up. But you can’t move. Your arms and legs and stomach and chest are nothing. Something must be bleeding, though, and you have to patch it up.
Your backpack is a million miles away back at the shelter. You should’ve brought it with you when you went searching for food. Why didn’t I bring it with me? Rule number one is to be prepared.
Even if I had my backpack, it wouldn’t matter, though. I can’t move.
You think about what would happen to your mom if you couldn’t move.
You panic.
Step 6: S.T.O.P.
I stop panicking.
I think about Charlie taunting me during lunch a couple days ago. I think about how we were friends, once, when we first joined up and I was a good scout and had time to study our mottos. We studied the concept of brotherhood a lot. Supporting your fellow man, trusting in each other like you’d trust in a parent or God. Keeping up hope. We were friends. I don’t know when that changed. I miss sleeping over at his house and practicing knots together.
I observe my surroundings. I landed on some dirt, and the forest floor around me is covered in leaves and foliage that I barely recognize. There are a bunch of plants that have medicinal properties, but in the dark I can’t tell the difference between poison and immunity boosters. The trees down here are tall. The sky is dark; I can barely see it through the trees. No signs of any animals or people nearby. I observe myself. I try to. I’m scared. I’ll be fine.
I plan how to get out.
It begins to snow.
I can’t tell if I feel it on my skin.
Step 7:
Your lips are chapped and you don’t know how long you’ve been stranded in the woods. You don’t feel so good. You should have brought a flare. Or a flashlight. Maybe the Band-Aids Mom keeps in the bottom of the medicine cabinet. Band-Aids would stop the bleeding that you’re sure is coming from your head now.
You’re slipping in and out of consciousness and your body is hot, one of the first signs of severe hypothermia.
Kids lost in the woods don’t survive hypothermia.
Maybe you’re not as strong as you thought.
You can’t be.
You’d make it home if you were.
Your mom is going to wake up around seven. She’s an early riser because she sleeps the rest of the day. She’s going to call to wake you up, and of course you’re not going to answer. She’ll shrug it off and force herself to the kitchen to make breakfast. It will take her a while, trudging in her orthopedic slippers and clinging to the walls. She’s weaker by the day, but she’ll get it done because you have to eat. She’ll notice that you’re low on groceries and mentally note that she’ll have to order some more. She’ll make you an omelet because it’s your favorite and she can tell you’ve been having a rough time at school. She’ll pour herself a steaming cup of coffee, breathe it in, and cough it out. She’ll say, “Baby, it’s time to get up.”
It’ll mostly be a whisper, but she’ll say it with a smile. She’s strong. You should be there to hear it.
She’s not going to worry too much that you don’t get out of bed. She knows you stay up late reading a lot of the time. She’ll let you sleep in. You need your rest. She won’t notice you’re missing until lunchtime.
But, for now, she’ll sit on the couch and watch the sunrise through the windows.
Noah Rigby is a senior creative writing major at SUNY Purchase with minors in psychology, theatre performance, and playwriting. When he’s not writing he’s either walking through nature, lounging about, or using the term “vibing” in semi-professional emails. His poetry has been published in Gutter Mag and Chaotic Merge, his fiction in Italics Mine, and he has won multiple awards for his playwriting.
Comments Off on Noah Rigby
Filed under Fiction
Julia Grunes
Secondhand
I. Somewhat Nadia
I am Nadia today. Well, mostly Nadia. She is beginning to wear off. The smell of her citrus perfume is already fading, and I breathe it in while I still can. I wish that I could always be Nadia. Nadia doesn’t hesitate when someone asks her a question; Nadia laughs so so easily, and smiles at people she doesn’t even know. Nadia is a faded name written in black pen on the tag inside a colorblocked denim jacket. The jacket is pink, white, and gray, and there’s a red stain on the inside against the white that I think must be wine. Maybe that’s why she got rid of it. If it was blood, she probably would have thrown it away.
But Nadia is beginning to wear off. I wore her for picture day and everyone noticed me. They said that I should wear her more often. They like who I am when I’m Nadia. I like who I am when I’m Nadia, too. I’m wearing her today while I’m at work. I work at Pale Moon Vintage on the weekends, and that’s how I got the jacket. Nadia dropped it off, alone. She’s come in before, but it had always been with one or two of her friends. College friends. She’s a college student.
The bell on the door rings and I straighten up. Mrs. L. doesn’t like when her employees have bad posture while customers are in the store, so I always make sure to pull my shoulders back when the bell rings. I’m behind the register, so whoever walks in will see me immediately. The girl who walks in smiles at me, as she comes through the doorway. I smile back. I begin to idly sketch the outline of a face on a rejected receipt. It isn’t a drawing of her. This girl is the type of person that you forget as soon as you look away from her; her brown hair is straight and somewhat greasy, and her clothes envelop her with their slouching hugeness.
She’s probably a college student. Most people who come in here are. Mrs. L. always says the only reason she’s still in business is because of the students. Her shop is fifteen minutes away from the liberal arts college and when they’re on break, barely anyone comes to the store.
“Hi, welcome to Pale Moon! Is there anything that I can help you with?”
“No thanks, I’m—I guess I’m just looking,” the girl says, giving me a small smile before quickly walking over to the cluttered racks of clothes to the left of me. She’s definitely a college student. From what I’ve seen, liberal arts students always seem to be “just looking” for something. Or at least they want me to think that. And this girl is no different. She has that same faraway look in her eyes that they all have; it looks as if she’s thinking about something that she thinks is important like the weight of existence or the possibility that life is a simulation, or maybe just her GPA.
I would never wear anything that used to be hers. I tried a few times with people like her when I first started working at Pale Moon, but when I put on their clothes they were far too heavy and spiraling and desperate. After that I became more careful about who I wore. I never want to be them.
Nadia is a college student too, but she’s different from the other ones who come in here. Everything is easy for her: her laugh, her movements, her voice. She isn’t trapped in her own mind. I’d hoped for ages that she would sell something instead of just buying. Every time she came in, she bought something—some piece of clothing that she would caress, her fingers examining the fabric for imperfections. Even if it wasn’t in perfect condition, she would usually still get it. I do the same thing.
If it wasn’t clothes, she would still look through the assorted sunglasses, rusted necklaces, and other worthless trinkets that Mrs. L. has amassed. When Nadia sold us her jacket, she bought a tiny bronze heart that opens and closes with a matching tiny key for three dollars and ninety-five cents.
I saw it happen. She was in a hurry, I think. But something about the bronze heart caught her eye and she stopped and picked it up, smiling slightly as she opened and closed it a couple of times. She grinned when she noticed me watching, then laughed quietly, and placed the heart on the counter. I don’t think that even she knew quite why she wanted it. Maybe its smallness attracted her to it; maybe it was the fact that it had been lying, dejected, next to a somewhat cross-eyed plastic bust of a woman with ivory skin, cropped black hair, and red lips, topped off with blue sunglasses shaped like triangles. Maybe Nadia couldn’t bear to see it left there all by itself.
“Excuse me?”
I look up and a forgettable face is floating directly in front of me. I need to stop getting distracted. Mrs. L. has already caught me twice, and she doesn’t like having to catch people.
“I just wanted to buy this,” she says, shyly sliding a nondescript blue sweater onto the counter. The sweater looks almost exactly like the one she is wearing. I wonder if her closet is just a dark mass of fabric, each item congealing to the next so that you can’t tell where one ends and another begins. I smile at her, taking the sweater in one hand and shoving the receipt I was drawing on into my jacket pocket with the other.
“That’ll be $11.95.” She pays with cash. “Also, if you’re interested, we have a raffle for a $25 gift card.” I gesture toward the mason jar with raffle tickets next to the register and drop her change into her hand.
“Oh, uh…yeah! I guess I’ll do that.”
I give her a raffle ticket, showing her where to write her address and phone number. Her handwriting is small and neat. Nadia entered the raffle too. She seemed so excited about it and about the little bronze heart, even though she was in a hurry. I could still smell the bright lemon of her perfume for a few moments after she left.
I wish I knew why that heart caught Nadia’s eye. Even now, when I am her, I don’t know what she was thinking at that exact moment. If I knew that, maybe I could be completely Nadia and not just somewhat Nadia or almost Nadia. I wouldn’t need her clothes or her perfume to make me her. She wouldn’t wear off in a week or so. I don’t want her to wear off. But for now, I am mostly Nadia, and for now that is mostly enough. The smell of her citrus perfume is fading, but I breathe it in while I still can.
II. Real Nadia
Real Nadia is running down the stairs. She is going to be late for something; she can’t find her perfume, and she is sure that her housemate Kaylie was using it the day before. Kaylie says that she wasn’t though, and now Nadia will have to leave without it. She hates doing that, because I don’t think she really feels like herself when she doesn’t have it on. But she’s leaving anyway, deciding not to push it any further with Kaylie. There’s a very small possibility that she’ll make it on time if she leaves now.
She has gathered all of her things and is rushing out the door, pausing only to yell a quick goodbye. I don’t know how long it will be until Kaylie and Zoe–Nadia’s other housemate–will be gone too. Kaylie is still in pajamas in the living room. I can’t see Zoe, but I assume that she’s still sleeping. Nadia is starting her car now, and she backs out of the driveway, her tires bouncing slightly as she runs over the curb in her hurry to leave the white and red paint-chipped house behind.
The walls of the red and white house are thin, and I wonder if it stays warm in the winter. But that doesn’t matter so much now; today it’s hot so they have all their windows cracked open. Hopefully Kaylie and Zoe have somewhere to be soon. I have work at 2:00 p.m. and even though it’s only 9:24 a.m., I’d rather not be sitting here all day. There’s also the possibility that they don’t have anywhere to be and that would mean waiting here again all for nothing.
I move slightly in my seat, gripping more tightly onto the branch in front of me. The sun is beating down on my skin through the foliage, and I’m suddenly glad that my mom forced me to put sunscreen on this morning. I told her that I was hanging out with Lily today; she was happy since I haven’t hung out with Lily for a really long time. To be fair, I haven’t hung out with anyone for a really long time.
I told her that I was meeting Lily at the strip mall that has Pale Moon and a few other stores. It’s only a fifteen minute walk from my house and I always walk there for work, so my mom wasn’t nervous about me getting there. Nadia’s house is a thirty minute walk, so it isn’t that much further. My mom won’t ask any questions or check up on me because she’s just so glad that I’m supposedly talking to Lily again.
Lily was my best friend in elementary school and she stayed my best friend until eighth grade. I don’t think that she purposely stopped talking to me, but it just seemed like she was busy all the time. I asked her to hang out a couple of times in the beginning of eighth grade, but she was always either at tennis practice or had a lot of work to do. And she never asked me to do anything, so I stopped asking. Lily wouldn’t have stopped being friends with Nadia. No one would ever want to stop being friends with Nadia.
Now, Lily and I smile at each other in the hallway, but that’s about the extent of it. And my mom doesn’t understand that just because we were best friends it doesn’t mean that we even talk in high school. Things have changed, obviously. It isn’t like before when Lily and I were united against everyone else and made fun of the girls who dyed their hair blond and wore clothes from Hollister. We had always talked about working at Pale Moon together, but by the time we were both old enough, only I applied.
I applied in the summer before ninth grade, and I’ve been working there for a little over a year now. A few other employees have quit while I’ve been there, since they say that Mrs. L. is hard to work with. She does expect a lot, but I think that she just wants people to care about the clothes that she sells. She always says that I understand the clothes just like she does; she’s the one who told me about how clothing retains a part of the person who once wore it, that it holds onto a piece of their soul.
Other people say that Mrs. L. is crazy and old, that she never stops talking. I think that I’m the only one who listens. Mrs. L. likes when clothes become hers when they used to be someone else’s. I never want the clothes to become mine. So, I don’t really feel the exact same way about that. And I think—
I jolt forward as I hear a quick rustling, and then a white and gray bird lands on a branch directly next to me. I slowly turn my head toward it, and its beady eyes fix on mine, unmoving. Its eyes are black with a ring of yellow around them. I take a shaky breath and try my best not to move. If I shoo it away, someone might see a sudden movement from this tree and check if there’s anything strange in it. I take another breath. The bird is small, but up close, its beak looks sharp, and I hope that it isn’t thinking of poking my eyes out. Is that a thing that birds do? It opens its mouth and my heart almost beats out of my chest, but it just lets out a strange, grating cry and then becomes silent again.
It turns its head away from mine and just continues to sit, shifting its feet every so often. Looking at it again, the bird’s body is all soft lines and feathers, completely opposite to its beak, but I avoid thinking about that. I almost wish that I had brought my sketchbook, or even just a piece of paper. I reach into my pocket where I still have the receipt half-filled with the featureless face, but I don’t have a pencil. I tear my eyes away from the bird and realize that the two cars in front aren’t there anymore. Kaylie and Zoe must have left while I was distracted. I start to let go of the branch in front of me, but the bird cries out again as soon as I do. It sounds kind of familiar now that I hear it again.
I look at it and it gazes back at me for the second time; I have the distinct feeling that I am being reproved. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about what a bird thinks of me. I begin again with the process of carefully climbing down the tree, and as I swing my leg to the side, the bird unfurls its wings. After some more quick rustling, it’s gone. Good. I make it to the bottom of the tree safely, but not without cutting my left hand on the trunk. My hand is all scraped up now and there’s blood, but I was careful not to make any noise.
I got blood on the sleeve of Nadia’s jacket and I hope that it’ll wash out. It doesn’t matter so much to me now though. The jacket is barely her anymore, and I’ll have something new of hers soon. Then I’ll be able to figure her out. I won’t need her clothes anymore to stop her from wearing off. It’ll probably be some old shirt that she won’t even miss. I open the gate at the side of the house, making sure that no one is around.
It is 10:47 a.m. on a Saturday morning and the streets are empty. The only place where that makes sense is a college town. There is a window on the side of the house which has a busted screen. They need to get it replaced; bugs must keep getting in. Since the window is open, it’s easy to pull away the screen and to push myself through, head first.
I’m in the house again. I cringe slightly at the smell of vanilla air fresheners and beer that hits me as soon as I walk in. I doubt that Nadia chose vanilla. It seems far too heavy for her. I walk up the stairs, and the smell grows a bit more bearable as I get closer to Nadia’s room. I stop in front of her door. She has her name written in colorful, bouncing letters on a white sheet of paper that is held up with scotch tape. I smile at the simple loudness of it.
I open the door.
III. Two Nadias
On her desk, there is a framed picture of Nadia in the jacket with a few other friends. In it, she is laughing at something, and her curly brown hair is falling over half of her face. The jacket complements her olive skin perfectly. It will never look as good on me as it did on her. I look down at my own ghost white skin and frown. Maybe that’s part of the problem. My skin will never look like hers, just a pale imitation. And my hair looks so washed out and dead; I tried to curl it, but after an hour it just fell back into its usual dull straightness.
The walls in her room are covered with pictures strung up with fairy lights and her blanket is blue and white tie dye. One of her pillows is on the floor. She didn’t have time to make the bed this morning. I consider making it for her, but I think she would probably notice that. I walk over to the nightstand next to her bed and sitting on it is a silver domed alarm clock, pink heart sunglasses, tangled bracelets, a little bronze heart with a key, and a tiny silver ring with a glossy green serpent on it. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to have something other than clothing too.
I pick up the ring with my unhurt hand and hold it closer to my face, examining the way that the silver meshes with the snake, trapping it in a pretty cage. Its mouth is open and I’m not able to tell if it is screaming for help or merely showing off its formidable fangs and tongue. It doesn’t look helpless though; it looks as if it’s incapable of fear. I wonder how the serpent came to be caught in the silver. It almost looks as if it has–
“Umm…hello?”
My heart drops into my stomach, and I shove the hand with Nadia’s ring into my pocket. There’s a crinkling noise as my fingers make contact with the crumpled receipt. I can feel my heart crawling up my throat as I slowly turn around, already knowing who must be behind me. Nadia. Her eyebrows are stitched upwards in a look of confusion, and she is holding three textbooks. She doesn’t seem angry that I’m here.
“Did Kaylie or Zoe let you in? This is my room, not one of theirs. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She smiles at me and walks into the room, dropping the three textbooks onto her bed. I look down. The book on the top of the pile is blue and green and says Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures. I know that I should say yes, but instead I just look back up at her, my hands beginning to shake. She is wearing black bike shorts with an oversized orange and yellow T-shirt that has a bleary-eyed sun on it. Her smile begins to fade.
“I”– My mind is blank and I have forgotten her question and my left hand is really starting to hurt.
“Are you…did they let you in?” This time her voice is less sure and she backs away from me slightly. “Wait, that’s my jacket! Well, not my jacket anymore, I guess, I sold it to”– She looks intently at my face and her eyes narrow in suspicion. “Wait, you–you’re that girl who works at–what are you doing here? How do you know I live here?” I open my mouth but no words come out. “What are you doing here?” she repeats, slowing her voice down as if she thinks that I don’t understand what she’s saying.
“I just”–My voice cracks, and I pause as I hear how weak I sound. I squeeze her ring and then desperately hope that she doesn’t notice.
“Just what? Did you follow me home one day or something?”
The words are slow-acting venom. My whole body begins to shake. “No, I didn’t follow you,” I say. “You wrote your address down for–for the Pale Moon raffle.”
“What? Like that’s so much be–why are you here?” Her voice shakes on her final word.
“I just want to be y–like you. And, if I have your clothes”–
“You want my clothes?”
“Yes!” I almost shout it. She understands.
“You’re trying to steal my stuff?”
“No! Well, I just need”–
“You know, you could have just asked me where I got something from. I would’ve happily told you. But you can’t just steal” —
“No, please, you don’t understand. I need your–I have your jacket but–but it’s wearing off, and if I could have one more thing I would”–
“What?”
What can I say to help her understand? “I thought that I could change my skin but I know”–
“Your skin? What–what’s wrong with you? Are you high?”
“No, I–”
“You need help,” she says, shaking her head slightly. “Get out of my house.”
I curl my fingers even more tightly around Nadia’s ring, my bleeding hand beginning to drip onto her floor. Her mouth is open, and she stares at the blood on the ground, her eyes wide. I don’t think that she noticed my hand before.
“Nadia, I”–
“If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to–I’m going to call the police.”
“Okay, I’ll leave. I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” I can feel my throat tighten and I look down. I want so badly for her to understand, but I can’t get arrested. My parents would kill me. I look back up at Nadia. She doesn’t look angry. Not that she looks happy, either. Her eyebrows are furrowed, her jaw tense. I try to make eye contact with her but she avoids it, turning her head away. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. I turn my head away too. I walk out of the room as she gestures toward the door. She follows behind me as I walk down the stairs, keeping at least a five feet between us. I reach the front door of the house, and I hear her footsteps stop.
“Don’t come back,” she says. The finality in her voice makes me wince. “Or I will get the police involved.”
I turn around, my heart trailing at my feet, and look back at her. She averts her eyes again. For a second, I think that maybe she feels guilty. But as I wrap my bleeding hand around the cuff of her jacket, I think I understand. Nadia’s eyes aren’t guilty. They aren’t apologetic. They aren’t beginning to understand. Nadia just pities me.
“You should fix the screens on the windows,” I say.
“What?” I can tell that she heard me.
“That’s how I got in,” I explain. The jacket feels rough and itchy now, and I have a sudden urge to rip it off, to throw it to the ground. As I put my hand on the doorknob and open the door, the serpent ring falls out of my hand and hits the ground with a tinny scream. I don’t look back at the red and white house. I don’t look back at her. A squeaky gate mimics a gray and white bird. I leave.
IV. Not Nadia
I’m lying on the floor in my room, the sun streaming from the window onto my ghost skin. My dad calls from downstairs that dinner is ready. I don’t answer. I burrow myself deeper into her jacket. My jacket. My dad calls again, louder this time, “Sophie, dinner’s ready!” I don’t answer. I’m repulsed by my very being, by that look on her face, by bronze hearts, by birdsong. I’m not at all Nadia anymore. I sprayed her citrus perfume all over my body but it sits, heavy, on my skin as if it knows that it doesn’t belong there. I can’t be her. I can never be her. I will go to work tomorrow and maybe someone else will come into the store and they will be even better than her. Maybe they won’t wear off. No. I won’t let them wear off.
Julia Grunes is a sophomore at SUNY Geneseo, studying English (creative writing) and psychology. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely enjoying the fresh air, singing with friends, or falling off her longboard!
Comments Off on Julia Grunes
Filed under Fiction
Nick Pattilio
A Perfect Day for Caiman Hunting
The sun was blistering by midafternoon. It was the kind of day you would beg us to drive down to Galveston to play on the beach, then stop for ice cream at Bob’s on the way home. I haven’t been to Galveston in almost fifteen years now. I parked the truck on the muddy path right beside the lake. I got my catch pole and ice chest out of the bed of the pickup and started walking down to the lake. I passed the patch of bright pink lotus flowers that you used to run to as we were walking to the lake; the same ones you would cut and bring home to your mom after our day was through. My cap started to slip off the back of my head and my Ray-Bans down my nose; my neck was already drenched in sweat, my skin already beginning to turn red. I made it to the edge of the lake and readied my catcher.
The caiman were all strolling along the pebble and sand deposits where the water met land, unsuspecting and unquestioning. I snuck up behind one, slipped the loop around his neck, and snagged him. He started to squirm; he was definitely a fighter. I wrangled with him to get him in the ice chest, and finally I was successful.
Hours passed. I waited for more to come out of the lake, ready to snatch them. After my tenth catch, I decided to pack up and head back up to the truck. Right about then, is when you would start to whine and complain of boredom, ready to let your imagination run rampant elsewhere. I chuckled as I thought of you lighting up when I said it was time to go home; running up the hill, back passed the flowers, jumping up and down on the narrow dirt path, eager to get back in the truck. I gathered my pole, the ice chest, and our lawn chairs. I still put yours out. The drive home was always my favorite part. You sat beside me in the truck, wiped out from a day in the sun, slouching peacefully against your seatbelt as we cruised along the long stretch of highway that would take us back to our front door. The sun would start to sink, leaving behind brilliant tangerine and lavender hues in the sky while a staticky Glen Campbell sang to us through the radio. The drive feels long, now. They don’t play too much Glen Campbell anymore. Next to me, the passenger seat is empty.
I stopped along the causeway in my usual spot. I broke out the old cardboard sign that you helped me write out years ago. This was your favorite part of the day, if I remember correctly. We were just about to be home, but we first had to say farewell to all of our catches and send them off on their way to their new homes. Afterwards, you would beg for pizza, just about every night, and I would be able to hold you off until right before we got home, when we passed Pizza Palace in the shopping center on the corner before our street. I was able to get rid of all but one of the reptiles today. I was packing up, when a gentleman pulled next to me and offered me $80 for the caiman. I couldn’t believe it. Before I could tell him I only charged $45, he stabbed four holes into the lid of his own ice chest and sped back down the road. I tossed the sign in the back of the truck and started home. When I walked in the door, I could smell garlic coming from the kitchen.
“Hello, dear,” your mother called out to me from the kitchen. “Dinner will be on the table in just a minute.”
“I‘ll be right in,” I called back. “Just going to wash up.”
We sat down at the table, three settings out.
“How was it today?” she asked. “It sure was a hot one.”
“It was nice. Perfect day. Caught ten of ‘em.” I could only offer punctuated answers in between the huge bites of the pasta: I was starved.
“Ten? That’s gotta be at least $400.”
“Almost five. Some guy stopped to buy the very last one—gave me eighty for it. He didn’t stick around long enough for me to tell him I only charge forty-five.”
“Well, he must have been in some hurry then. Almost five, you said?”
“Mhm,” I responded, in between my chomping.
“That’s lovely,” she told me.
She smiled, but I could still see the hurt in her eyes. It never gets easier.
After cake and coffee, your mother heads to bed. I step into the office and sit down at the desk. I write out my weekly check to Dr. Roberts and Clearwater Medical Group. You loved Dr. Roberts. Every time we left his office, you said how much he made you feel better. He always offered you a lollipop on our way out. I remember you always went for the red ones. Dr. Roberts is moving along in his research now. “Any day now,” he says. Fifteen hundred for this week. I place the check in an envelope, seal it, and turn out the lamp.
As I walk up the hallway, past your room, I listen for the creaks in the floorboards, the same creaks I would hear on Christmas morning or when you would sneak out to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I miss waking up in the night to the sound of the creaks in the hallway. It never gets easier.
Nick Pattilio is a junior choral music education student at SUNY Fredonia. He is also the President of the Teacher Education Club and a campus tour guide. When he is not studying music or writing, Nick enjoys going on walks around campus and is on a quest this year to listen to a new album every week.
Comments Off on Nick Pattilio
Filed under Fiction
9.2 | Fiction
Comments Off on 9.2 | Fiction
Filed under Fiction
Misty Yarnall
Looking for Home
The carpet is gone.
The realtor’s heels click against the cherry-finished hardwood. “And this is the master bedroom.”
“Beautiful floor.” My toes budge at the tips of my sneakers. Once Ben and I buy the house, I’ll slip across this room as if ice skating, gliding in sock feet with a wicker laundry basket on my hip. He’ll kiss me, folding work pants in thirds and adding them to a pile towering at the foot of the bed.
“It’s just hardwood, Nelly.” Ben crosses his arms.
My parents had an orange carpet in the bedroom. I vomited on it once when I was four. Paper towels soaked up the raunchy mess. A stringy washcloth placed on the stain became a bridge to my mother. My feet squished against the damp spot, and I awaited her invitation. She lifted her arm and the covers rose. Once nestled beside her in the big bed, she pressed me into her chest. The sheets always smelled like a woman.
The bedroom is bigger than I remember. Maybe it’s because of the missing carpet. There’s space to walk around now that the dresser and vanity are no longer squished against the wall. It’s enough space for Ben and me to share comfortably—something malleable to recreate and make our own.
At age eleven, I opened every jewelry box on my mother’s vanity. While I sat on the ottoman, her studs blinked in my ears in the mirror’s reflection. Lines of pearls bridged between my fingers. Her bra cups draped to my ribs. A stick of cherry-red lipstick sometimes found its way into my backpack in the morning, marking my face in the girl’s bathroom before class.
I open Dad’s closet, the biggest one in the house. It always served as the perfect hiding place.
My father would count down from thirty in the kitchen. I lost myself in his dress shirts and buried myself in a mountain of neckties.
His cologne still stings the space. I want to step inside, to sit in the corner again, and hide.
I pull the light string. Empty.
“Ben, look at all this closet space.”
“Might be big enough for your shoe collection.”
“We’ll have to tear down this wallpaper though.” The rose petal wallpaper is coarse under my fingertips. “I hate wallpaper.”
The realtor leads us back into the hallway. The previous owners hung new drywall and painted it red. My mother hated red. It made the house feel dark. This red was clean. There was no red on the molding—no red on the floor.
When I was seven, my mother brought home long rolls of striped wallpaper marked with a yellow clearance sticker. She sprawled out on the living room floor with a straightedge and a pair of scissors. The paper hissed as the blade dragged across. She bent around windows and outlets, cutting the perfect fit. There wasn’t enough to cover the whole room. It looked stupid, having one side of the room with the old paper and the rest new, but I didn’t want to paste over all the work I had done. I scraped bubbles out of the walls. My fingers got oily. It looked terrible.
“Down here we have a second bedroom.” The realtor opens the door and I’m taken back.
My childhood bedroom wallpaper is still there. Light green. I can still smell the vanilla bean candles on the walls.
I tug on Ben’s arm. “This room is gorgeous.”
“You hate wallpaper.”
“This is subtle. It’s nice.”
Ben shrugs.
There are still swirls in the plaster ceiling. I used to imagine they were galaxies. The tan carpet hadn’t aged in ten years.
I hid on the far side of my bed when he told me, clawing at carpet fibers. My father’s heavy feet hit each step. A steady hand on the comforter, he eased himself onto the floor beside me and told me we were moving. By we, he meant him and me. My room had to be clean so the buyers wouldn’t see my clothes scattered across the floor. The books had to be shelved. Anything I couldn’t find a spot for could be tucked into a dresser drawer. The house had to sell.
My father spent that afternoon in the garage painting slabs of white wooden molding. He carried the long beams up the stairs, the wood smacking the steps behind him. A cup of nails clattered against my homework desk. I held the molding against the wall, and he hammered it into place.
My bedroom was the first room in the house my mother renovated. She wanted me to have a nice space for myself to grow up in. While pregnant, she and my father patched the ceiling with plaster, wallpapered the walls, and stapled down new carpet. I was born before the molding went up. No room in the house was ever finished.
Kneeling against the wall, my father threw down the hammer. It crashed against the carpet. The section of molding was too long for the wall. He’d have to pry it off, re-measure, and cut again.
“Your mother ruined this house.”
I sat beside him, tracing his calloused knuckles under my fingertip. It was the first time I saw my father cry. When I hugged him, his shoulders drooped, like my mother had destroyed him. By then, he had already asked her to leave.
“Why don’t we head back downstairs now?” The realtor gestures back to the door.
The brass knob lingers in my hand. I remember Mom lying in bed with me, playing the alphabet game. Apple. Blueberry. Cotton candy. Doritos. She’d ask if I wanted to play another round, this time coming up with different animals. I smelled lavender body soap on her skin. It was almost as if she didn’t want to sleep in her own bed. Sometimes I woke up next to her.
I pull the door shut behind us.
“Only one bathroom?” Ben traces the porcelain tile under his fingers.
Brown water stains speckle the ceiling as if there had been a leak. I wonder if that was here before. Inside the medicine cabinet, I see faint dust marks from where pill bottles had sat for years.
Before the move, I tossed old prescription syrups from childhood ear infections in the trash. I packed my father’s blood pressure medication in my shower bag. My mother left things behind—things my father and I would have to clean out of the house. Lipstick tubes. Allergy pills. Makeup remover wipes. I swiped her things into the trash. They were dirty. The new family shouldn’t have to dispose of them.
“Yes, this is the only bathroom, but it has a shower and a bathtub, as well as plenty of storage and fans.” The relator gestures to the vents on the ceiling.
A single hair dangles from the fan.
My mother’s hair marked its territory. Hair ties with her brown curls tangled in them. Hair snaked out of the bathroom drains. Hair tucked in the heat vents. I vacuumed what I could.
Maybe her hair is still here.
“One bathroom will be an issue if we ever have a family.” Ben peeks in a towel cupboard.
“Let’s see the kitchen next.” I take his hand. The realtor is quick to take the lead.
The previous owners tore all the shelf paper out of the kitchen cabinets, but the border my mother stenciled around the room is still here.
“We’ll have to paint over that.” I point at the border. I want all traces of her erased. Paint over everything. Tear it all down.
“Small kitchen.” Ben’s hand skims my hip.
Mom elbowed the coffee maker when she rolled pie dough. Flour trailed behind the microwave. The clunky, wooden cutting board stuck off the edge of the counter. I sliced apples at the dining room table. Mom pulled out a folded apron from the buffet drawer. She looped the strings around my neck like threading a needle and knotted it at my waist like she was tying a corset. Mirroring the same motions, she secured an apron to her body.
“What made you choose this house?” the realtor asks.
“We haven’t chosen this house.” Ben squeezes my hip.
“Just looking for home.” I place my hand over his, finding the gaps between his fingers.
“It’s a great option. There’s a small grocery store just down the road. Great schools, friendly neighborhood.”
A real-estate sign pierced our front lawn where my mother and I used to have picnic lunches on a checkered blanket. Tuna sandwiches on white bread. Potato chips. Watermelon squares. I mowed the grass for Dad. The smell of gasoline and spring suffocated the air. The grass grew so long it masked the name of the realtor tasked with selling the property.
Stepping off the mower, I tugged at the sign.
I have to mow here.
“I hear her mom kisses girls.” Two girls stood on the sidewalk.
Teachers pulled kids aside at school and told them to take it easy on me. That I was from a broken home. Dad told me to ignore it. We’d be moving soon. I knew he heard the same whispers at work. It made me feel like I finally had something in common with him.
I ask the realtor, “Mind if we take a few minutes to talk?”
I pull Ben into the living room. We stand under the ceiling fan like it’s mistletoe. I remember my mother standing on the back of the couch to change the lightbulbs. My father scooped her off her feet and kissed her cheeks until she blushed. My mother had the prettiest smile.
I wonder who will change the lightbulbs—me or Ben? Unless we pull down the ceiling tiles and scrap the fan.
“What do you think?” I bounce on the tips of my toes.
“Serious?”
“It needs a little work, but I can see us making this a home.”
“A little work? Nelly, this house is ancient. The kitchen needs a whole remodel, there’s wallpaper everywhere, and the master bedroom is tiny.”
I wonder how we can arrange the bedroom to make it different from my parents. We can put the dresser next to the door, and the bed on the opposite wall. I can’t imagine having an orgasm in the same space my mother did.
“What about the house in Hannibal? That one was beautiful—modern and well-kept.” Ben leans into me, kissing my hairline. “I don’t think we’re going to be happy in this house.”
I wasn’t happy. I pushed everything off the kitchen counter. The floor was littered with bruised apples and dusty flour. I took a bite out of an apple and spit it at her.
“Nasty dyke.” I pulled my apron strings and tossed that at her, too.
My mother wiped the chewed piece of apple off the front of her apron. “Nelly…”
I rub Ben’s forearms, pinching the sleeves of his shirt. “It just needs some extra love. We have that. We can fix this.”
“It’s going to skew our budget. I’m sorry.”
Tears prickle my eyes. My parents and I sprawled across the living room floor, a Monopoly board between us. Bills of all colors tucked under the cardboard. My mother and father went back and forth; Dad pleading for Park Place, Mom eyeing Marvin Gardens. I bought the railroads and charged them every lap around the board.
“Sweetie?” Ben closes me in a hug. I look out the back door, where her garden used to be. She had watchful gnomes scattered in the dirt. They’re gone now.
“It reminds me of home.” I sniffle.
“You hated home.”
“I hated my mother. I never hated home.”
Ben traces my arms, rubbing my shoulders. “Ever since your mom passed, you’ve been obsessed with finding the perfect house, and you settle on this?”
“It’s cozy.”
“It’s falling apart.” Ben holds my hand. “We need a fresh start. Leave our pasts behind. We can create something new that’s all ours.”
“I’m not good with change.”
“We can be ourselves, but in a new place. We’re looking for a forever home. We’ll never have to move again.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “You’re right.”
Ben wipes a tear from my eye. He studies the black smudge on his fingertip. “You wearing mascara today?”
I nod.
“It’s pretty.” Ben cups my cheek and kisses me. “I’ll let the realtor know.”
I sigh. “Okay.”
Ben walks into the kitchen. I go the other way, into the dining room. I sit on the floor against the wall staring at the empty paneling.
My mother always left a tin tray lined with a paper towel and a tower of Oreos on the table when I got home from school. Some classes I only had every other day, and rather than watching a kid toss paper wads at a proctor for forty minutes in study hall, I came home early some days.
That day there were no Oreos on the table. With no sign of my mother, I took the whole package of cookies upstairs to watch TV while I finished my biology homework. The plastic crinkled. A cookie crunched between my teeth. Noises bubbled from my parents’ bedroom.
Poking the bedroom door, I found Mom pinned to the sheets by a woman. The woman’s hair masked my mother’s hips. Mom’s mouth opened and released little cries.
As a child, I watched my mother lather creamy lotion across her olive skin, careful attention to the creases: her armpits, the space between her toes, the folds of her neck. She’d pump more into the palm of her hand and share with me. I wanted her figure to mold the shape I would grow into.
But I didn’t want to become her—to become this.
Mom latched onto my eyes. She squirmed under the woman, masking their bodies behind the sheets.
I ran down the steps and sat on the dining room floor, under the table. This was another one of my common hiding spots. I’d hug the center support with my legs wrapped around it so my mother and father wouldn’t notice me at a walk-by glance. I wonder what happened to our dining room table after the move.
“Ready to go?” Ben caresses my arm, pulling me from the memory.
“No.”
“Sweetie…”
“We have to fix this house.”
On that old paneling, Mom pounded nails into the board and displayed our family portraits. A photographer followed our family around a field behind Mendon Ponds in muck boots and a hoodie. My mother burned curls into my hair. She twisted her own hair into rings too. The photos were perfect. We were the perfect family.
“I’m sure another family will buy this house. It’ll be a terrific home, but it’s not for us.”
Ben holds out his hand, towering over me.
I push myself off the floor, disappearing through the house. Up the stairs. They still creak. Into my mother’s bedroom. The master bedroom. It’s not theirs anymore. None of this is hers.
I open the closet door and crawl inside. The carpet burns my knees again. Mom used to crawl in here, too. I haven’t outgrown it.
Maybe I didn’t hate Mom. Maybe Dad taught me to hate Mom.
I didn’t pray beside my mother’s open casket. Old men shook my hand and squeezed too tight. Sorry for your loss. They were a few years too late.
It was my mother’s girlfriend, Suzanne, who told me the house was on the market again. She wore black, plucking cubes of cheese off the end of a toothpick, red lips staining the wood. I wondered if she called herself a widow now, but I didn’t ask. She and my mother wanted to buy it back, she said, before Mom got sick. I wanted to know what Mom left behind in this house.
“Nelly? What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding.” I hug my legs to my chest, the sharp scent of cologne stabbing my nose. “Come in.”
“You can’t be serious.”
I pat the space beside me.
“But what about the realtor?”
I rub the carpet, as the heat sparks from the friction. She can’t stop us. This is my house.
Ben rolls his eyes and climbs into the closet beside me. His hip pokes against mine. His legs can just barely lay straight, toes tapping against the opposite wall. His arm crams beside mine, and as if by instinct, he places his arm over my shoulders scrunching us more into one another, as if the closet was closing in on us. I swing the door shut.
“Nelly, why are we—”
“Shh!” My finger presses against my lips.
His voice shifts to a whisper. “Why are we in here?”
“Can’t you imagine it? Playing hide and seek with our kids someday. Scrunching together into this closet…”
“Most houses have closets.”
“But not like this one.”
“It’s not even that big, Nel. We barely fit.” He scooches back against the wall of the closet, his hip crashing into mine. “And it smells like old man.”
“It’s cologne, Ben. Try it sometime.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?”
“I’m not stubborn.” I bite my lip, inhaling Dad’s scent. “My parents and I used to play hide and seek all the time when I was growing up. I want to have those kinds of memories with our kids someday.”
“We barely fit in here as it is.” Ben squeezes my shoulder. “I would hide beside the washing machine instead. More leg room.”
“Maybe they’d find me first and pull me around the house to look for you.”
“You better not tell them my best hiding spot.”
I pinch my fingers together, and drag them across my lips like a zipper.
“We can play hide and seek in a newer house,” Ben says. “One where the floorboards don’t creak. Creaky floorboards give away hiding spots.”
“So do peeking children.”
“What?”
“I’m ready to look at other houses.”
Ben smiles, squeezing my thigh. He grips the molding along the door and propels himself out of the closet. He’s too much of an adult to crawl out like I do. He offers me a hand, and I stand.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” he asks.
“Don’t you know me at all?” I kiss his cheek. “I hate wallpaper.”
Misty Yarnall is a creative writing major at Purchase College. She has an AA in creative writing and an AA in English from Monroe Community College. Her publications can be found in The Roadrunner Review, KAIROS Literary Magazine, Litro Magazine, The Merrimack Review, The Finger, and Gandy Dancer. Misty is working on a novel.
Comments Off on Misty Yarnall
Filed under Fiction
Julia Grunes
Sunny Days
Edgar had become accustomed to the idea that he would be miserable here. In fact, he had assured himself of his own misery as soon as he walked (or more appropriately shuffled) through the glass doors of the blue-walled building. It was too bright in here, and the nurses always smiled for a little bit too long, and the halls had an overpowering smell of ammonia. One of the overly chipper nurses had checked him in; he didn’t remember which one. They all had the same cooing voices, the same style of colored scrubs, and the same highlighted hair that was cut right above the shoulder.
Part of him understood why he was here. He had to admit that he wasn’t walking as well as he used to. But another part of him thought that even if he had to lean on every object and person that he walked past, he was still walking, right? And fine, maybe his driving skills weren’t as good as they had been, but the accidents weren’t so bad. He wouldn’t even really categorize them as accidents. No one was dead; everything had worked out fine in the end. No problem.
His family, however, disagreed. First, they came for his keys, and the process of wrestling them out of his grip had taken over a year. It had involved the smiling eyes of his grandchildren, the desperate mouths of his children, the flaring nose of his wife, and some help from the growing confusion of his mind. Then, a doctor had mandated the use of a wheelchair. Edgar had refused, but whenever they went anywhere after that, the wheelchair was brought, and he ended up in it halfway through the excursion. He told himself that it was just to placate them, but he knew somewhere inside him (likely in his shaking knees) that he needed it.
Then, his car accidents had turned into just plain accidents; his legs were the consistency of unkneaded dough from lack of use, and his diet consisted solely of chocolate milkshakes and spaghetti. His wife was forced to turn into his caretaker, a job that she endured gracelessly. It certainly wasn’t what she signed up for, and Edgar didn’t make it any easier due to his unassailable hatred of being looked after. Edgar had noticed his family having countless hushed conversations while he watched TV, but he didn’t think much of it. Everything had seemed hushed to him lately because he had been refusing to put in his hearing aids. When they finally told Edgar what they had been talking about, Edgar felt that he had been sent away to die.
This is a thought that was quite frequent in his mind during the first few weeks: I have been sent here to die. As he watched people being wheeled around, he couldn’t comprehend the idea that he was one of them. The other residents talked or they didn’t talk; they sang or they didn’t sing; they sat and they watched the TV in the Big Room after dinner until they fell asleep or yelled for one of the nurses to take them out.
It was in the Big Room that he had met Helen for the first time. Their wheelchairs had been set up next to each other after dinner while the TV was playing, and Helen had noticed him looking at one of the nurses in confusion. He had forgotten her name again. He still couldn’t figure out how to distinguish any one of them from the other.
“Her name is Blue Scrubs,” Helen had said with a knowing grin. “But only for today. Tomorrow she’ll be named something new.” Then, she had nodded wisely and turned away, seemingly entranced with the program on TV, a soapy kind of drama that Edgar could sometimes bring himself to enjoy. He had merely given a grunt in response, but from then on, he always thought of them as Green Scrubs or Flower Scrubs or Pink Scrubs, and it was somehow easier. The days began to pass in a sort of haze after that, punctuated only by calls from his family and the occasional Fun Activity. Edgar felt certain that the person who had created that name had never been forced to experience one of them.
Today’s Fun Activity came in the form of a tiny, smiling woman with an uncontrollable mane of faded brown hair and skin so grotesquely tanned that it looked as if her freckles were tiny scars running up and down her arms. Edgar didn’t pay much attention as one of the nurses explained what she was there to do. Instead, he thought of the newspaper in his room wistfully, squinting his eyes as he attempted to remember how it had said the Mets were doing. But he supposed that it didn’t really matter. For a long time now, no matter the season, the one constant was their abysmal performance. He sighed and turned his head towards the tiny woman who was now gesticulating wildly in the front of the room, her hair bouncing up and down as she spoke.
“This is some bullshit, isn’t it?”
Edgar started and turned toward the low, nasally voice that had just spoken right next to him. “Are you talking to me?” he asked, his eyes resting on the overly rouged woman sitting next to him. Helen.
“Well, I’m not talking to Paul,” she said with a quiet laugh, giving a nod at the man sitting across from them who was staring blankly through Edgar as though he wasn’t even there. “He’s not really…here anymore. And, I would know. I can get anyone to talk, and he won’t even say one word to me. But yeah, I’m talking to you.”
“Oh, I–”
“And I was saying that this is some bullshit, isn’t it? The amount of money I saved for this place, and this is what they bring in? I mean, look at what she’s doing now!” Edgar focused his attention back on the tiny woman who was now slowly moving her hands close to another resident’s head, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“What–”
“It’s some hippie crap about channeling energy. Ree-kee? I don’t know. Just bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Edgar echoed, “Bullshit.”
“I bet Maureen isn’t going to be standing for it much longer though,” Helen said with a wry grin, pointing surreptitiously at the resident who had the tiny woman’s hands an inch away from her face. And she was right. A second later, Maureen began to shudder so violently that she seemed about to jump out of her own skin. She began to move her mouth, saying something that Edgar couldn’t hear from across the room. Green Scrubs cheerfully guided the Reiki practitioner to another table while she apologized profusely, and two other nurses began the process of removing Maureen from the room.
This proved to be a difficult task as Maureen had begun to wail, and her hands were now flailing wildly in all directions. Some of the other residents looked up briefly at the commotion, but seeing that it was Maureen, they returned to what they were doing before with little more than a second glance. Pink Scrubs, the nurse who was standing next to them, ran over to help, and then Helen turned her body back to Edgar, her wheelchair rattling with the rapidity of her movement.
“So, this seems as good a time to talk as any, doesn’t it?”
“Sure,” Edgar said. He attempted to shift himself farther away from her.
“You’ve been here for a few weeks now, haven’t you? And, to be honest, it really doesn’t get much better than this,” she said, gesturing at the three nurses who were still trying to subdue Maureen without much success. “But I’ve got something that’s a helluva lot more interesting, if you’re…interested.” She batted her eyes, and Edgar again attempted to shift himself as far away from her as possible.
“Wha–I’m not interested in–”
“What? Honey, no!” Helen gave a cackling laugh that pierced through Maureen’s sobs. “You haven’t heard about me from anyone else yet? Huh, that’s surprising. I thought I told them to–well, nevermind.”
“What do you mean, then?” Edgar said gruffly, feeling his ears turn a bright red. He looked down at the table, feigning interest in the napkin that had been left there. A small smiling sun was printed in the corner of it, along with the words SUNNY DAYS SENIOR LIVING, which were half covered in some brown substance that Edgar was not eager to find out the source of.
“Well, I supply this–this pill to people here. I call it,” and here she paused for dramatic effect, “Reminall. It really gives you something to look forward to. This place gets bland real quickly. Don’t you think?” Edgar agreed, but he didn’t want to give Helen the idea that she knew anything about him, so he merely gave a shrug in response. Helen, however, took that as a sign that he was still interested and powered on, her mouth gaping wide open with each word she spoke. “Ask anyone! They’ll all vouch for me! Well, not Paul. But, ya know, he can’t vouch for anyone.”
“I’ve even got a couple of different choices,” she said, opening her mouth even wider as she continued her pitch. Edgar noticed that half her red lipstick was on her teeth. He wondered absently if she put it on herself every morning or if one of the Scrubs had to do it for her. “Package Number One is cheaper, and you get the same sort of, well, the same incredible experience! However,” she paused here, her eyes wide, “when those Scrubs are looking at you, they’re gonna be just seeing a pure vegetative state, you know? And some of them do get concerned about that, especially for you since you’ve been so talkative here.”
“I don’t talk that much,” muttered Edgar, still distracted by the lipstick mixing with the yellow of her teeth. He could imagine his wife and her friends laughing about it over their sewing needles and unread books. Edgar suddenly felt a rush of pity for Helen, but not enough to fully listen to what she was saying.
“You talk enough. So, that’s why I got Package Number Two. More expensive, but they see you talkin’ and there’s even a bit of singing thrown in, huh? So they have no idea that anything’s different and they don’t go getting anybody worried, you know? And I got the delivery service down pat so you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. You know what? I’ll even give you the first one for free, just so you can try it out.”
“I don’t want–”
“But you think about it all and let me know. We can’t be talking about this when she gets back.” She gestured at Pink Scrubs, who was coming towards them with an enormous smile on her face and a broken fingernail. Helen smiled back, her eyes still on Edgar. “So, Edgar, what’s your necklace about?”
“Huh?” Helen pointed at the golden חי on his chest, widening her eyes and tilting her head towards Pink Scrubs. “Oh! Oh, it means–well, it means ‘life’ in Hebrew. It was my father’s.”
“Well, the more you know.” She laughed quietly, and then turned to Pink Scrubs, holding her stomach. “You think you can take me back to my room, hun? I’m not feeling so great.”
“Of course! Nothing too horrible, I hope? And, oh, isn’t it nice that you’re making friends, Edgar!” Pink Scrubs trilled, her eyebrows disappearing into her uneven bangs. Edgar gave a small nod and turned his head to face Paul, still watching Helen out of the corner of his eye. She gave him a painful blink that he assumed was some sort of attempt at a wink, and then began jabbering to the nurse about nothing as she was wheeled out of sight. Edgar wondered how she was able to get out of a Fun Activity so easily; if he had said that he wasn’t feeling well, they would probably give him a cheery suggestion about doing some arm stretches and tell him that it would be his turn with the Reiki woman soon. Well, at least Paul wouldn’t bother him.
He hummed quietly to himself, thinking again of the newspaper sitting in his room. He had barely had the chance to read it before he had been dragged out of bed. Maybe next time he could bring it, and then he wouldn’t have to be bothered by Helen or whatever horrible idea of an activity that this place came up with. What had she even been talking about? Some sort of pill. And he couldn’t seem to remember what she said it did. Whatever it was, he reasoned with himself, it didn’t matter. He was fundamentally opposed to the idea of it, both because of his sixty-year avoidance of drugs based on one unfortunate instance with a brownie in college, and his immense dislike of Helen and her lipstick-stained teeth.
When he finally returned to his room, he certainly did not feel as if he had been imbued with any sort of healing energy. In fact, the activity had only reminded him that he was miserable, and he would continue to be miserable until the day that he died. Pink Scrubs had helped him out of his wheelchair and into his bed, and he reached for the newspaper that he had left on his nightstand. But it wasn’t there. He scanned the small room with confusion, looking for any other place where he could’ve left it.
Then he spotted the newspaper on the chair that was sitting next to his TV, a mere five feet away. But Edgar was already in bed, and the sheer impossibility of getting out of it suddenly dawned on him. He could have called one of the Scrubs to help him, but the idea of talking to one of their too-bright faces right then filled him with a dread that he couldn’t quite explain. He would just be watching TV tonight. Maybe the game was on.
He grabbed the remote from his nightstand and pressed the on button, sighing as he stared at the newspaper that seemed to be mocking him with its closeness. He looked back up at the TV and realized that it hadn’t turned on. He was sure that he had pressed the on button…he pressed it again, and again, and again, shaking the remote as if it would signal to some electronic god the aching need he felt for it to work. For something to work. But it didn’t. And then, Edgar realized that the remote was making a sort of clacking sound. Was it broken? His remote had never broken at home, but, of course, this place would ruin it.
He held it up to his ear and shook it once more; again, he heard that same noise. He opened up the part of the remote where the batteries were and immediately realized the problem. In place of any batteries, there was one small, nondescript white pill. Edgar picked it up and stared at it for a moment, struggling to understand how this atrocity had occurred. And then it clicked: Helen. Of course. Because of her, he now had one pill and no TV. He was sure that she was somehow the reason why his newspaper was now sitting in a chair. He looked at the nurse call button and sighed, his frustration building. This button, unlike the ones on the remote, worked almost too well. Only a few minutes after he pressed it, Purple Scrubs appeared in the doorway with a smile as big as Edgar had feared it would be.
“Is everything alright?”
Edgar grimaced at the cheery voice. “The TV won’t turn on, and the remote it’s…ah…well, Helen…” He couldn’t find the right words to describe his current situation, and Purple Scrubs’ widening grin certainly wasn’t helping. It was moments like these that made him think it would be easier if he was just dead. He smiled wryly as he thought of how his daughter would react if she knew that he was thinking that. She would probably yell at him. Edgar wondered if she would visit soon.
“Yes, you were talking to Helen today, weren’t you? I’m so glad that you made a new friend here! Oh, why did you put your batteries here?” Purple Scrubs asked kindly, gesturing towards the nightstand and carefully pulling the remote out of his hand. Edgar turned his head. The two batteries were sitting next to his watch on the nightstand between his necklace and a cup of water. Had they been there the whole time?
“No, I–” But maybe they had been. He couldn’t seem to remember. Purple Scrubs just smiled again and placed the batteries back into the remote.
“There, it should work now!” She turned on the TV with a flourish. An infomercial for Wearable Towels began to blast throughout the tiny room. “Perfect!”
“Thanks.” Edgar knew he could’ve done that if he had seen the batteries, so he didn’t feel the need to say anything else.
“And what do you have there?” Purple Scrubs asked as she continued to smile. Edgar looked down and unfurled his fingers. He had almost forgotten; resting in his palm was the white pill that had been in the remote.
“Oh, you. You know you have to take everything we give you to make you feel strong! That’s your Donepezil from dinner, isn’t it? You really are a tricky one!” She laughed and then narrowed her eyes at Edgar as if he was a child who was trying to get out of eating his vegetables.
“No, I’m not. I–”
“Don’t worry about it, honey. I’m just teasing you. Here’s some water.” She picked up the cup that was sitting on the nightstand. Edgar bristled, but he still took the cup from her. He was pretty sure that he had taken all of his pills with dinner. But Purple Scrubs was still standing there watching. Waiting. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he gave her an unhappy smile as he placed the pill in his mouth, taking a sip of water to swallow it. She took the cup out of his hand, and Edgar closed his eyes. He could still hear the woman on TV raving about the Wearable Towel, but it sounded fainter. Maybe Purple Scrubs had turned down the volume.
But when he opened his eyes again, he was blinded by light and had to shield his face with his hand. He could feel sweat on his forehead, and all over him. But his muscles weren’t aching, and he could feel the balls of his feet and all the way up his leg. And he was standing! Edgar was standing without any sort of support or struggle, as casually as he had when he was young. He looked down at his arms and almost screamed. The arms he saw were tan and muscled and strong. They were young arms, ones that had deteriorated a long time ago into the pale ribbony ones he now possessed. Could this be a dream? He’d never had a dream like this.
His mind felt awake, pulsing with thoughts and half-washed away feelings that were becoming clearer the longer he stood there in the baking sun. He had just asked Penny to prom. She had said yes. He’d never thought that she would say yes to him. Everyone had said that she was still in love with Jack, but maybe she wasn’t really because she had said yes. Jack was an asshole anyways, and he didn’t deserve her. But some of Edgar’s friends had said that she had only said yes to make Jack jealous. He tried to ignore the idea. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t have said yes if she wasn’t into him, right?
He looked down at his watch and realized that he had just been standing in the middle of the sidewalk for five minutes. Damn it, why did he stop? He was supposed to be practicing every day, and he couldn’t afford to lose a second of time if he wanted to beat Jack in the next meet. He began to run again, his feet hitting the pavement hard, each step bringing him closer to Penny, to the irrational hope that she would love him if only he could get three seconds faster for the 800. That’s all he needed. Three measly seconds. He couldn’t get distracted, couldn’t just stop in the middle of his workout.
He kept thinking of her. Of Penny. How he had smudged her red lipstick and how she had rubbed it off his face, laughing. How her eyes had lingered and how she had smiled at him before she walked back to her friends. Maybe at prom they could get somewhere far away from everyone else and they could–No. He couldn’t get distracted now. He had already wasted too much time. Stay focused stay focused stay focused stay focused…he could feel the sweat pouring down his face, and he blinked it out of his eyes. As he did, the light began to change and refract around him, becoming somehow artificial, cooler. The heat felt like it was sliding off his body, melting into nothing.
When Edgar opened his eyes again, he felt the weight of his body sag back into his bones, his mind slowing from the breakneck speed that it had been going a second before. He blinked again and found himself sitting in the Big Room with the other residents, facing the TV. He looked down at his arms, at his hands, and they were almost translucent again, the blue veins looking almost as if they were above the skin rather than beneath it.
“You tried it, didn’t you?” Helen was next to him again, and her wide eyes and stretched out smile made her face look like that of a bullfrog. “I knew you would. You said you didn’t want it, but I knew you would in the end. And you enjoyed it, didn’t you? Huh?”
“Yes,” Edgar whispered, his hands shaking. “Yes.” He didn’t care anymore about her lipstick and odd comments, how she pretended to know everything. He had been young again. If only for a short while, he had been young again. And the aching of his body and the slowness of his mind had never felt more prominent to him than in that very instant.
“We can talk about prices for more soon,” Helen whispered. Edgar had to strain to hear her. “I think Maureen’s gonna lose it in a few, and then we can talk.” Edgar nodded, trying to stop himself from shaking. He hadn’t thought about Penny in years. And he kept going over in his head–the sure beating of his heart, and the way his legs had worked like machines, pumping in succession with his arms as he ran. He laughed under his breath and felt tears coming to his eyes. He had been young again. He looked back at Helen, but her smile was gone, replaced with a somewhat glazed look.
Then Maureen began to moan, and Helen shook her head, her eyes clearing. She straightened in her chair, becoming a businesswoman again. “I gave you Package Number Two for your first experience, and none of the Scrubs knew anything was up. You’ll be wanting that again, I assume?”
Edgar nodded more vigorously than he intended to. “I don’t have money in here with me. I don’t know how I would pay.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I don’t have anyone pay with money. It’s more of a bart–”
“Get away from me!” Maureen screamed, drowning out Helen’s words. “I want my babies! Helen gave me my babies and then she took them away.” She began to sob, her frail body bending as she hugged herself tightly with her arms. Helen watched the spectacle as if it was nothing more than a program on the TV, and then continued to speak when Maureen had decreased to an acceptable volume.
“As I was saying, it’s more of a barter system. I get what I want, and you get what you want. Much easier than money. Money’s exhausting; when I worked in sales all I got was money, and all that got me was this.” She gestured mindlessly at their surroundings. “I’m sick of it.”
“So, what do you want?”
Helen smiled again, and for the first time since Edgar had met her, she looked almost bashful. “I want your necklace,” she said, pointing a wizened finger at his chest. Edgar looked down at the gold חי and his stomach began to churn.
“My–”
“Yes.” Her eyes were clear, calculating. Edgar dropped his gaze to his legs, to his unmoving feet. If he had one of those pills, he would be able to walk again. He would have control. But he couldn’t give her his necklace. It meant–well, really, what did it even mean to him anymore? His wife would be angry if she found out that it was gone, but she hadn’t visited once since he got here. She probably wouldn’t even notice. And he had been planning on giving it to his son, but he seemed wholly disinterested in anything Jewish or anything related to Edgar, so there wasn’t really any point in that.
He couldn’t seem to find any reason in his mind for keeping it; all he could think about was breathing fresh air through his lungs and walking on his own two legs and kissing Penny in his car, fucking Penny in his car. It had been that old green Chevy that had stopped working after a year. He grinned. And why had they broken up? Maybe she had gotten back together with Jack. He couldn’t remember.
“Are you gonna give me an answer? Come on. I’ll make it–I’ll make it two pills for the necklace. You’re killing me here.”
Edgar nodded. He lifted the necklace over his head and dropped it into Helen’s outstretched hand. Her claws quickly retracted, and the tiny חי, along with its chain, disappeared from view.
“I’ll switch one of your pills at dinner with Reminall for the next two days,” she whispered, and then turned her head back to the TV, smiling about her latest acquisition.
The thought of the Reminall waiting for him made the always-smiling Scrubs and their enthusiasm easier to bear, and he even managed to give a respectful nod at Maureen while she was wheeled by. He made it through the rest of the day in a sort of daze, muttering to himself about Penny and sweat and lipstick and running faster, faster, faster. When Blue Scrubs finally handed him his usual seven pills, Helen nodded at him from across the room, and he gave her a short nod back. Almost mechanically, he reached for the water and quickly swallowed everything that was given to him. The room began to blur around him, and he could feel his heart beating faster and faster with every second.
He blinked his eyes rapidly and was then immediately attuned to the fact that this was quite different from last time. He was sitting alone in a classroom, his classroom from when he taught ninth-grade math at Lindham High School, his back aching slightly from the rigid chair that he was sitting in. Edgar felt a pulse of disappointment when he realized that this memory would not have Penny in it. This quickly faded, however, when he looked at his familiar cluttered desk covered with ungraded papers and the lopsided wooden π that his students had given to him the year before with all their names signed clumsily on it, and the picture of his family that rested on top of three textbooks. He, his wife, and his daughter were all grinning from ear to ear. His son’s face, however, was distorted and red, and he looked as if he was attempting to squirm out of his mother’s arms. Edgar smiled softly.
He didn’t even mind the heat of the stifling classroom. Anything was better than the unbearable chill of SUNNY DAYS SENIOR LIVING. He looked down, and in front of him sat the lesson plan for the day and multiple unfinished seating charts. He was switching up the seating again as some of the students had grown too comfortable with each other, and it had become impossible for them to focus in his class.
“Mr. Applebaum?”
Edgar looked up and saw one of the boys from his fifth-period class standing, timid, in the doorway. “Aaron! How can I help you?”
Aaron inched into the room and looked at Mr. Applebaum while tapping his fingers anxiously against his leg.”I–umm–well, I was just–I got really confused on the homework, and I know that you said that it’s really important for the Regents, but I didn’t really understand it in class and then I got really confused at home and now I don’t have it done and I don’t want to not know how to do it for next unit because you said that we would need to know this to do well with that and I really don’t want to fail the Regents and Iwaswonderingifmaybeyoucouldhelpme.” By the time that Aaron had reached the end of this statement, he was quite out of breath and his entire body was shaking.
Edgar gave him a reassuring smile and covered the seating charts with a textbook that was lying next to him. “I’d be happy to help. And as long as you study and keep doing what you’re doing, you should do fine on the Regents. I know you’re a hard worker, and this unit is really difficult. We’re going to be going over it in class, but come sit here. You’ll know it as well as I do by the end of this.”
Aaron gave him a disbelieving look but nodded, walking up to the chair next to Edgar’s desk with less trepidation than he had had originally.
Edgar smiled at him again and began to take out the worksheet that had been assigned for last night’s homework. “Alright. Let’s get to it.” Edgar began to sketch out a parabola to explain the first problem, and Aaron’s hurried questions started to become more relaxed as he understood the concept. After five minutes, he had stopped shaking, and by the time they had been working for twenty, he was almost smiling. Edgar picked up his pen to write one more note on his paper, but as soon as his pen touched something solid, he saw Aaron’s body begin to melt into the desk, the blue of his shirt and the pink of his skin slowly solidifying into the wood. Edgar grabbed at him desperately and cried out, but when his arm touched Aaron it began dissolving into the wood and he closed his eyes in horror.
When he opened them again, he was seated at the table the next day for dinner, and his breath was coming out in quick, shuddering gasps. Helen grabbed his arm and whispered, “Calm down! It was just a bit of a reaction. You’re fine. You’re fine!” Edgar nodded and looked down at his hands. He grasped for his necklace before remembering that it wasn’t his anymore. “Quick, relax! Or a Scrub will notice. What did you see?”
Edgar didn’t answer for a few seconds, smiling slightly despite himself, despite the horror of the memory’s final moments. His voice had been so sure, so confident, so capable. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt certain of anything. “I was–I was a teacher again.”
“Alright, you’re good. You’re good,” Helen said, relaxing, her face breaking out into a smile again.
“Where are my pills?” Edgar said in an urgent whisper. “I want to take it now. I need to–I can’t be here.” He hated the desperation in his voice, but he was too shaken to have the ability to mask it.
“Just–just wait a few minutes, okay? Catch your breath again.” Edgar nodded, and started to take deeper breaths. He looked at the food on his plate and saw that it was half eaten. Strange. He took a sip of water and then reached up his hand to call someone over to get his usual–
“Edgar! Edgar, honey, you have a phone call!” Pink Scrubs came rushing over to his table, a cellphone in hand.
“Who is it?”
“It’s your daughter! Isn’t that nice?” she cooed.
“Yes, it’s very nice,” Edgar said. He took the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Dad!”
“Hey, kid. What’s going on?”
“ I–I just wanted to see how you were doing. I just–I was setting up my classroom today and I was thinking about you.” In that moment, Edgar hated her. He hated his daughter more than he had ever hated anyone. He hated her for being able to live memories rather than merely reliving them and dangling that knowledge in front of him as he sat here, useless. “And–I don’t know why, but I was thinking about that time when you took me sledding the first time it snowed that winter when I was like seven because I wanted to go so badly. Remember how pissed Mom was? She was yelling at you about how you could still see the grass on the ground, so there was no way that we could go sledding. But you took me anyway.”
“Yeah, I think I remember.” And then Edgar felt so guilty for his hatred that he couldn’t stand it.
“When we got to that big hill close to the house, we really couldn’t sled because there was only the thinnest coating of snow and the grass was still poking through.” She laughed, and Edgar laughed too, a quiet laugh, but a laugh all the same. “And you said that it didn’t matter, that we could still have a good time. And we stuck out our tongues and caught the falling snow on them and–I don’t know why I was thinking of it but–” and then her voice broke, and Edgar could hear her trying to stifle a sob. “I miss you, Dad.”
“I miss you too.”
“I’m gonna come and visit you really soon, ok? And we can all go out to dinner. But–shit, look, I–I’ve gotta go. I’ve got to make dinner for the kids. But I love you so much, and–”
“I love you too, kid. Talk to you soon.” Edgar handed the phone back to Pink Scrubs and stared straight ahead, his face blank. The nurse handed him his pills with a smile. Edgar took them from her and stared at them for a moment, his hands shaking as he held them up over his half-eaten meal of dry chicken and spaghetti. He wondered vaguely when his daughter would visit. And then he placed one of his pills in his mouth, wincing slightly at the bitter taste as he let it sit for a few seconds, and then swallowed it. And he did the same with the next one and the next one and the next.
“What are you doing?” Helen whispered, her eyes wide. But Edgar didn’t answer. When he finished, Edgar closed his eyes, leaving a certain white pill to dissolve, slowly, on his tongue. When he opened his eyes, he could almost see his daughter standing next to him, her face red with cold, the two of them catching snowflakes with smiles and frozen tongues.
Julia Grunes is a sophomore at SUNY Geneseo. She is majoring in psychology and English (creative writing). When she isn’t writing or doing schoolwork, she’s likely doing something music-related.
Comments Off on Julia Grunes
Filed under Fiction
DongWon Oh
Under the aEgis
There is a certain calm in the barracks at this hour, in the half hour after dinner and before evening roll call. The unspoken agreement here is that even amidst the wide expanse of the barracks, this half hour belongs to each man, and is his alone. Private Yun Ji-sung watches his unit leader, Corporal Kim Jae-hyun, lounge in the corner and go about his evening routine. He has flipped his beret into a makeshift bowl full for chips. The latest music video from BLACKPINK is stuck on repeat on the screen in front of him, its repetitive chorus ringing off the metal cots.
Corporal Kim powers through a third bag of chips. What a fucking pig, Ji-sung thinks. With an overhead announcement that it is twenty-one-fifty, the TV turns automatically to the evening news. Before the screen’s static has a chance to settle, the corporal grunts and reaches over with his toe, pushing the off button. Ji-sung wonders if he could follow this man into war. The men turn to each other and talk about the day, their girlfriends, dinner.
The metal cots ring with the grunts of bored men doing push ups. Ji-sung watches one man across the hall grunt between sets of twelve pushups. “If I make ninety-two pushups in under a minute, “ he says, “I can get three extra days off next month.” He flips over onto his back, huffing as he comes up for air.
Ji-sung winces as Corporal Kim tunes the barracks’ decade old guitar for the thousandth time, all the while insisting that “Wonderwall” by Oasis is worth playing daily. Since the workday has ended, Corporal Kim wears his uniform unzipped, exposing a burgeoning belly filled with ramen and snacks from the on-base convenience store. Ji-sung watches him strum away, making the guitar strings shinier with each pass of his fingers. Within a few chords Ji-sung is entranced. Corporal Kim might be a pig but he sure sounds like an angel.
In the cot adjacent to the corporal’s, Ji-sung sits at his cot with a journal in his lap. Day 5, he scrawls. First night on patrol. I should call Mom. I miss JiYeon… He stops, not sure what else to say. He looks up at the wall-mounted clock, watching the second hand tick away. It’s 9:50 PM — no, it’s twenty-one-fifty. He has to remind himself he’s a soldier now, and that’s how soldiers speak. A wad of paper enters his peripheral vision and lands near his chest.
“Shit, sorry Private. I was aiming for that broken record to your left.”
Ji-sung looks up to see Corporal Lee Min-ho grinning down at him. The corporal’s body shines bright and tan after five hundred days of labor under the sun. His lean and mean workout routine is visible beneath his undershirt, fatigues, and loosened boots.
“Ji-sung, was it?”
Private Yun nods.
“I think we’re paired up for patrol tonight.”
Private Yun shrugs.
“Your unit leader didn’t tell you? At twenty-two hundred, two men from the barracks go up into the mountains to check the Super aEgis II turrets in our sector. In ten minutes, kid.”
I said maaaybe, you’re gonna be the one that saaaves me, Corporal Kim sings.
Corporal Lee retrieves the wad of paper and hurls it at Corporal Kim.
“Yeah, yeah,” Corporal Kim says, tucking the guitar away beneath his cot.
Corporal Lee reaches over and ruffles the little hair that Ji-sung has. “I’ll see you soon, Private Yun.”
Ji-sung runs his hands through the remnants of his hair, feeling where he had longer locks just seven weeks before, six weeks in boot camp and a week at his assigned base. His fingers settle on the red grooves created by the interior netting of the helmets, created to provide support. He rubs the almost bloody welts, hoping to massage some circulation back into his skull. Ji-sung slips his journal underneath his pillow, hoping he will have more to write about when he wakes up. He hopes he will sleep better. Lately, his dreams are of rolling around in dirt. In uniform, crawling through barbed wire. A canteen, shovel, extra magazines, radio are all clipped to his waist and with every wriggle, they get snagged on the barbed wire just inches from his face. The world is on fire and the war is real. Other nights, he dreams he is a small turtle, and the helmet is his shell, its rough canvas interior netting chafing his whole body. Either way, he wakes feeling itchy and trapped. Ji-sung wonders if the others have similar nights. He hopes they do. He hopes all these men have had similar nights and that their dreams faded with time. 600 more days, he tells himself. Ji-sung clips his tactical vest at his sternum, secures the helmet at his chin with a wince and pulls his bootstraps up.
Corporal Lee whirls by Ji-sung, with boots polished darker than the war-paint Ji-sung used at boot-camp. ”Up and at ‘em,” he says to Private Yun; then back at the barracks in general, he shouts, “The war hasn’t ended yet!”
After yanking up his boots, Ji-sung catches up to his corporal. Corporal Lee’s knuckles ring dully on the wrought iron doors of the armory. They duck in as rain begins to fall, trekking in size eleven and nine boot prints. Corporal Lee salutes the draftee on duty, Sergeant Park Kyu-jin, who has his feet up, bootlaces undone & a copy of Die Another Day in his hand. After dismissing the salute with a flick of his eye, the sergeant waves his hand toward the racks of K2 rifles. Ji-sung stands still. He looks at Sergeant Park, then at Corporal Lee.
“Did Corporal Kim teach you nothing? The lower ranking soldier signs the paperwork and then I retrieve the rifles.”
“Sir.”
Ji-sung reaches down to the desk, hurriedly scrawling Yun Ji-sung / Private / 17-5401254 / 20:50. Below that, he writes Lee Min-ho / Corporal / 16-76045990 / 20:50.
Above them, the rain picks up; the slats that make up the roof are thundering across the armory, shaking the iron cage that holds the rifles. Corporal Lee reaches inside the cage to collect both his and Ji-sung’s rifle, pausing just for a moment to listen to the gathering storm.
“Sarge, are you sure it’s safe for us to go out there?”
Sergeant Park doesn’t look up from his book.
“What do you mean, Corporal?” Ji-sung asks, looking from his accompanying corporal to the sergeant on duty. In the ensuing ten seconds of silence, the rain fills all of their ears.
“It’s raining, Sergeant Park.”
The sergeant puts the book down and looks directly at Corporal Lee. “Good, you can place a tarp over the aEgis II turret on your way. The damn thing has been reporting heat signatures just past the steel fence, go check it out.”
Corporal Lee sighs and motions for Ji-sung to bring along two rain ponchos from the desk. They throw them over themselves and are enveloped by a mass of camouflage print. The corporal retrieves a radio off the shelf, and they head out into the mountain. Ji-sung sees Corporal Lee swing his rifle to his back, breaking protocol. They are taught to always be alert on patrol, to heed regulation. But it’s wet and late. They are tired; so they break protocol. After a while, the rain slows to a trickle and they march side by side, trekking up the usual path lined by dirt-filled tires.
“Chin up, Private Yun. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Sir.”
They continue along the path, grunting as they go uphill.
“I tried my best back there, you know.”
“Sir?”
“To get us out of this bullshit duty. Whether we do this or not” —Corporal Lee gestures around them, catching drops of rain in his palm— “doesn’t change much. ” That thing up there? The Super aEgis II has night vision and can shoot accurately up to four kilometers. It’s basically a stationary Terminator.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Ji-sung and Corporal Lee keep on moving, looking just ahead. Left boot, right boot. The butt of his rifle slaps into Ji-sung’s left shoulder, just into his wing-bone. He reaches up and adjusts his flashlight so that it points downward. Out in the dark and wild, he only concerns himself with what he can immediately see. There is the wetness of the leaves and dirt all around him, and he finds himself thinking how easy it would be to just lie down in the softness and rest. Just for a minute. He feels the rain seep through the poncho onto his fatigues. He’ll feel the cold in his bones soon.
“Do you smoke, Private Yun?” It is less a question and more a statement.
“Sir?”
Corporal Lee points to a stone shelter just ahead. Maybe twenty steps. It looks like it’s barely big enough for two men, if that. Ji-sung remembers that in his initial training he was told to take cover there during active conflict and fire north; really, it has turned into a pit stop for soldiers on their nightly patrol. The corporal drags Ji-sung inside and the poncho and fatigues settle onto their skin. Ji-sung imagines himself a snake in the barracks, shedding all these green layers. In the comfort of the stone shelter, Corporal Lee slips out a pack of Marlboro Ice Blasts from a pocket inside his fatigues and taps one out.
“You’re Delta Unit?”
“Yes, sir.”
Corporal Lee exhales with a laugh. The cold air and the mint of the cigarette clash in the few inches they share. “I’m sorry about your unit leader, Kim Jae-hyun. He was born in the year of the pig and he thinks he can use that excuse to the absolute fullest.”
Ji-sung isn’t sure how to answer, especially when he isn’t addressed by his rank. “So what’s out there, Corporal Lee?”
Min-ho continues to smoke his cigarette, looking into the leaves that sway in the wind.
“Legend has it, the souls of boys who were virgins when they were drafted. They roam the DMZ, doomed to roam no-man’s land until every draftee gets laid.”
Ji-sung looks quickly away. A spurt of smoke escapes his nostrils as he hides a laugh.
“Really though, I hear conservationists have discovered species of tigers and birds native to our country, thought to be extinct, in the DMZ,” Corporal Lee says.
“How did they get there?” Ji-sung looks into the darkness, as if expecting to see the moonlight glint off a tiger’s claws.
“I’m sure those nature nerds got permission to venture into some DMZ areas with some fancy binoculars.” The corporal shrugs, tapping the cigarette with his index finger.
“So, the Super aEgis II turret, “ Ji-sung says, “is it true it can fire in the dark?”
“Yes, and it’s so accurate, it can blow that zit off your forehead.”
“Huh.”
“What, Private?”
Ji-sung takes a long drag off his cigarette. He embraces the nicotine entering his blood stream, imagining that it is actually entering through the space between his index and middle finger. He feels the tension that has built up his neck and elbow joints.by “Sir, won’t it still be wet in the morning? And if it’s so efficient, why are we even here?”
“Yeah, kid.” Corporal Lee taps the end of his cigarette with his index finger. His eyes follow the clump of ash down and watch it disintegrate into a puddle by his boot. “How was boot camp? You arrived here last week, which means you graduated boot camp just over a week ago.”
“Sir. It was all flowers and sunshine. You know how it goes.”
Corporal Lee spurts out a mentholated laugh. “I suppose. It’s been so long, I can’t even remember how my boot camp was.”
Ji-sung notes the hints of aging on his young corporal and wonders what that is like. He looks up, lighting up the inside of the hut with his flashlight. Some of the smooth patches of stone are inked in marker by the soldiers who have passed through: LYS 3.14.2012 and in another corner, KHY 5.16.2015. Corporal Lee catches Ji-sung’s eye.
“Here.”
The private looks down, sees a hand holding a faded marker.
“Go on.”
Ji-sung accepts the marker and uncaps it. He reaches up to a small patch of smooth stone and scribbles. Yun Ji-sung 11.31.2020 and next to it, Lee Min-ho 5.21.2019. Maybe in two years he’ll take a fresh faced private up here and scribble proof that he’s done his 600 days of soldiering. Who knows, maybe the war will have ended before then.
Their cigarettes start to flicker out. Ji-sung mimics his corporal as he drops the butt, stomps it out, and scoots it into a corner of the shelter. The rain falling from their rifle tips makes a clicking sound on the stone floor. The canvas rifle strap, the metal clutches on their tactical vests, the unwelcoming wet cloth of their fatigues; all seem to weigh more now.
“Just a few more minutes, then we’ll reach the turret. Let’s cover it up and go home,” Corporal Lee says.
Ji-sung wonders how it would be to use his rifle as a walking stick. After all, it is just the right length. “Do you have a girlfriend, sir?”
Corporal Lee almost stops; surprised a private would speak first. “No, kid. I don’t. Too much of a headache while you’re here.”
“Oh.”
“Do you?”
“Yessir. We started dating right before I went to boot camp.”
“Unf. Sorry kid.”
“Sir?”
“Good luck.”
The rain has picked up again, and the two men can feel it more and more, almost piercing their vests and their uniform shirts, onto their bare backs. They trudge along in silence, the air between them heavy with Corporal Lee’s relationship advice. To Ji-sung’s right, Corporal Lee steps and waves again to just ahead of them.
Ji-sung sees it: the Super aEgis II, with its dull green plates, two-meter barrel, and fifty-caliber bullets that snake around the machine. The automated turret is on a raised platform made of stone. It turns, scanning the northern mountain skyline for threats. What threats, Ji-sung isn’t sure. All it sees are the birds and tigers, once thought extinct, now free to roam this patch of the Korean mountains while the war continues.
Ji-sung is wet, miserable; the barrel of the rifle digs into his leg with each swing. He notes the tarp at the bottom of the stone platform, folded into a neat square. From underneath the tarp, ropes snake out in clumps.
“That thing can stop a tank in its tracks — and it’s still not waterproof,” Corporal Lee says and strolls over. He begins to climb the side of the turret, pulling himself up with his right arm. He has a length of rope wrapped around his left arm and begins pulling the tarp up with him.
Ji-sung takes the hint. He jogs over, starts to tie the other end down to the hooks at the bottom of the platform. All he wants is to be dry, back in the relative comfort of the barracks, where he can warm up. So he yanks on the rope, reaching for more of it. His right hand brings the rope over the hook, securing the rope to a piece of curved steel.
His fingers slip and his palm smashes against the protruding hook. Flesh meets steel and draws blood from his right hand. Ji-sung swears into the rain, stepping back to see his work and clutching his hand to his chest. He takes a careful step back, avoiding the steep drop behind him.
“Corporal Lee?”
There’s no answer. The tarp comes loose, the wind whipping it toward Ji-sung. The other rope flaps by him. The flashlight on his helmet carves swathes of light through the night as Ji-sung swings his head around, looking around for Corporal Lee. He calls out again before seeing a light halfway down the mountain, fainter than those from the barracks. Just strong enough to be a helmet-mounted flashlight. “Corporal!” he yells, but his voice gets caught in the wind.
Ji-sung looks down at the pristine knot he made, then to the rest of the tarp waving in the wind. The rain flowing down the back of his neck meets his bloody hand, leaving streaks of blood on his uniform. In his hand, Ji-sung feels the rope that sent Corporal Lee Min-ho down the mountain.
Beside him, the Super aEgis II machine gun whirs in the night, scanning left and right for threats. It blows sparks into the wet night.
DongWon Oh is an international student at SUNY Geneseo from South Korea. He is graduating from SUNY Geneseo in May 2020, and in the Fall, will enter a graduate program in screenwriting, where he plans to produce his short stories and see them on the big screen.
Comments Off on DongWon Oh
Filed under Fiction
Misty Yarnall
Outside
Lisa Marie hadn’t smelled a flower in four months.
The pink petals kissed her lips the way her mother was too afraid to. She thought it smelled sweet like cherry blossom or honeysuckle. She didn’t remember exactly what those smelled like, but they were often the scents of the bubble baths and body lotions her mother bought.
Lisa Marie couldn’t remember the name of these flowers, but they bloomed every year on a bush out in the backyard. Back when they were allowed outside, her brother Nicholas used to kick soccer balls into the bush on accident and the petals would drop. Mom always got mad.
The plant’s leaves felt leathery. Lisa Marie pulled one off the stem and put it in her pocket. She would have to remember to take it out before Mom did laundry.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to be outside.”
Lisa Marie looked up, noticing Gavin, one of Nick’s friends. He leaned his bike against the house and unbuckled a helmet from under his chin.
“I thought my mom said you couldn’t come over,” Lisa Marie said.
“I’m only not allowed to come over because you’re sick.” Gavin balanced his helmet on the handlebars.
“No, you’re not allowed to come over because of the virus.”
“No. My mom let me go over to Tim’s house yesterday,” Gavin said. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”
Lisa Marie traced the leaf in her pocket. Her secret. “I was born too small. I get sick a lot. My mom says that I will get more sick than other people if I get the virus. So, no one can come over, and none of us can leave.”
“How’d your mom let you come outside?”
“She’s asleep.” Lisa Marie picked at the grass below her. She liked the sharp tickle against her fingertips. “She sleeps a lot now. She usually just makes breakfast for Nick and me and then doesn’t come out of her room until dinner.”
“That’s weird. What do you think she does in there?”
“I think she’s sad.” Lisa Marie plucked a flower and put it behind her ear. “One day I think I heard her crying through the door.”
“My mom’s sad, too,” Gavin said. He took a seat in the grass beside her. He began to pick at the grass too. “She said my brothers and I are driving her crazy and told us to go outside and ride bikes.”
“She won’t let you back inside?”
Gavin shook his head.
“Must be nice. I wish I could spend all day outside. I’m outside now, and I’m not sick.”
“Lisa Marie!” Nick ran down the porch steps. “You’re not allowed to be outside!”
“Neither are you!”
“I’m out here to come get you.”
“No, you’re not,” Lisa Marie said. “You’re here because Gavin’s here.
“You’re the reason Mom won’t let me go outside. It’s not fair that you’re out here and I’m not.”
“You are out here.” Lisa Marie threw a handful of grass at her brother. The blades rained down and settled in the green.
“It’s your fault Mom’s always sad. It’s your fault Dad can’t come home anymore. It’s your fault we couldn’t go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for an Easter egg hunt this year. You ruin everything!”
Tears budded in Lisa Marie’s eyes. She ran back to the house, up the porch steps, and inside, slamming the screen door shut behind her.
Lisa Marie’s mother ran down the steps. Her hair was wispy and messy, unlike the way she used to wear it when she drove Lisa Marie to school or went to one of Nick’s soccer games.
“What’s that in your hair?” her mother asked. She walked up to Lisa Marie and plucked the flower from behind her ear. She studied the bright pink petals in her palm before clasping them into a fist. Lisa Marie figured this wasn’t the best time to ask her mother what the flower was called.
“Lisa Marie, go to your room.”
Lisa Marie ran up the steps and into her bedroom. The same floral wallpaper lined the walls. It still peeled at the edges. Her bed still creaked when she sat on it. There was still a stain on her carpet from when Nick spilled grape juice last week. Nothing had changed.
She took the leaf out of her pocket. It was bent, and no matter how many times she flattened it, the creases would not come out.
Misty Yarnall wrote a five page story in third grade, and never stopped writing. Growing up in northern New York, she obtained sixteen awards for her short fiction and poetry, along with a publication in Thousand Islands Life. She is currently a Creative Writing major at Monroe Community College and is working on a novel.
Comments Off on Misty Yarnall
Filed under Fiction, Remote Voices