Listen to Geraldine reading her story:

His flight is grounded. There is dirt in the air, and he doesn’t know when he will be home.

He calls from a payphone in the lounge of the airport bar because he packed his phone charger without noting the banner warning him there was 15% battery left. The phone is old. The battery is always dying. The noise of travellers, Tannoy’s, and rumbling cases rise behind him despite it being 2 am and the airport emptying itself of schedules and people. A baby cries somewhere. It howls. He strains to hear what little I say, so he uses the minutes to speak what he is unlikely to say to my face. He apologises for four things and intimates the probability of a fifth at some stage before the dirt above America clears to a fresh path back home. He mutely apologises for his battery dying, but as he often apologises for this, I let it hang.

One: He withdrew an extra €500 from our joint account – the equivalent of $550 – using his debit card and hopes it won’t affect the bills. He explains this away by telling me he left his credit card in his trouser pocket that is also packed in the suitcase that has long been boarded onto the plane, the plane that idles on the tarmac with all the lights buzzing in the cabin. He plugs his other ear with his finger to hear the echo of silence a little better. He was told by a stewardess to make plans for a hotel nearby because he was not allowed to sleep in the airport. She said a room can be expensive there, but he looked like he could afford it. And she winked at him. She smiled and winked. He awkwardly laughs as he tells me this story, as though regretting the details. He says we should never be without cash and that this is a lesson learned. ‘Is that ok?’ he asks. I’m unsure what he would do if I said, ‘No. Put it back. Sleep on the metal chairs in the airport or the room the airport police lock you away in.’ This is probably what I should say if I were in the slightest bit mindful of our direct debits and the other things he would soon apologise for. But I’m not, so I let it slide and say, ‘Fine.’

Two: He let slip to Alistair that we are expecting. ‘He’s happy for us,’ he says. ‘But he texted Ciara before I knew it. It’s probably too early for her to get on to you yet.’ The phone line crackles as though he moved the receiver to check his watch or turned to find a clock somewhere. ‘Has she been on to you?’ he asks. No, I reply with as much punch as a word allows through a distorted phone line. ‘I told him we’re only twelve weeks so not to go saying it to anyone.’ Eight weeks, I think, without correcting him. We’re at eight weeks, a single ripe raspberry, fleshy and easily damaged.

Three: After a few staggering sentences about how conferences are never as entertaining as they promise to be, he apologises for the third time. He stumbles over the words as though looking for some kind of escape, but there is none. He says she is quite beautiful, the stewardess, and as she leaned over the aisle seat to tip his shoulder and encourage him off the flight with the rest of the passengers, he misplaced his decency and lingered at the sight of her cleavage. After sitting on the tarmac for two hours, the plane was hot, and the sheen of sweat settled on her skin beneath the loosened buttons of her blouse. She smiled. He smiled back. He cries when he tells me he thought of how her lip curved more to the right towards a shallow dimple and how she winked at him. He imagined her naked and masturbated to her in the airport toilets as the Tannoy pinged, and a woman’s voice alerted a final call for a flight to Michigan at Gate 342. He gives too many details and apologises for them all. The line crackles again. I imagine he shields his face from the people who may be watching. There is nothing much else to do but watch people in airports and wonder where they are going and where they are not going, for that matter. I do not say anything but wonder if the quickening I feel beneath my ribcage is the raspberry, even though they say the tiny threads of movement can’t be felt so early.

And Four: He apologises for being drunk, on a Wednesday, at an hour when he should be halfway home, for being in a country far away from me, where anything could happen. The slur of him drips down the phone line as I sip lemon water, the early morning sun leaking through the kitchen window of our terraced house, boxes piled high in the corner of the undecorated adjoining dining room. He continues to apologise as I wonder how dirt in the air can ground a plane, but then I imagine tipping through a cloud heavy with the grit of the earth, the debris clinging to the grooves of my skin, and how cumbersome and heavy it would make me feel, how very heavy I already feel, the dirt of him on me.

His voice distorts as he covers the handset. I make out Alistair’s voice calling to him. Something about bags and rooms and ‘the captain said…’ A woman’s voice laughs with Alistair. A shy titter rises through the air. ‘Looks like we have a place for the night,’ he says.

The phone line disconnects midway through saying goodbye. I keep hold of the receiver to my ear, listening to the flatlining of the call.

I imagine the sweat of her.

Of him.

The dirt in the air.

The messiness of it all.

Geraldine Walsh is an author, editor, and journalist who frequently contributes to The Irish Times. Her debut non-fiction, Unraveling Motherhood, was published in 2023 by Hatherleigh Press. Geraldine is a facilitator with the Irish Writers Centre, teaching non-fiction, editing, and writing. Her fiction has appeared in The Storms, Aimsir, and Agenda, amongst others. She is working on her debut literary fiction and was a 2024 awardee of the Irish Writers Centre National Mentoring Programme. Her work has been shortlisted in various competitions and her novel extract placed in the Top 100 of the Bridport Novel Prize 2024.

Everyday Aviation

There’s so much talk of birds but
what about the worm’s-eye view?
No, it’s not obscure. This is not
the calligraphy of a camel.
This is the wickerwork of your understanding
deconstructing its maze.  

The fruit bowl of dolls in your basement.
It’s so weird like a greeting card featuring a casserole
and yet you’re just leaving it there. 

You enjoy heckling and pinging but
what sculpted finesse of phrase will
it take to get that kiln your neurons call home firing?

If you could take tracing paper to the yearbook
which year would you choose?
I’m guessing it’s that year your face wore a bonnet in the sun
when your babbling added colour to the harmony of the everyday,
when vegetables glued themselves to the gravel of your tongue. 

Now you’ve got poetry
and it’s got backstitch, 
stone-cut sarcasm,
linoleum trimmed with a pastry cutter,
the natural confidence of the underdressed,
that undeniable frieze of human want and waste 
masquerading as trinkets of personal expression. 

Catherine O’Brien is an Irish writer of poems, flash fiction and short stories. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in English Literature. Her work has most recently appeared in Splonk, X-R-A-Y, Frazzled Lit Magazine, Full House Literary, Trash Cat Lit and Bending Genres. She featured on the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist 2024 and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions (2023). You can find out more on X @abairrud2021.

Playground Chatter

Listen to a reading of this poem by the artist:

it is important to recall
that not all kids    are as resilient
as the other parents say they are

if all you think about
is     that next reward
then perhaps this might be the case
but if       a mind is full
of the stuff of Universes
everything       a simultaneous possibility
then maybe   there is      much more to lose
when you treat them       with mealy gross 
contempt  ignoring their infinite outcomes

the other adults sometimes
ideas they hold      are wrong
not all kids are resilient
not all kids   will thrive
crucially

even now

some struggle to survive 

S Reeson [she/they] is 58 and bisexual. They have been published by The Poetry Society, Bloomsbury/OneWorld and their work has appeared in over 20 independent publications and anthologies, most recently in Ink, Sweat and Tears. In 2025 they are expanding their remit into mentoring, peer support and environmental activism.

Listen to Brianna reading this story:

Greece is full of filthy men. I generally try not to generalise, but it’s true.

Not just the Greeks themselves, brown, paper-bag skin stinking of smoke and sweat and wet dogs, barking at our summer sandals, snarling and snapping at Niamh and her arm tucked in mine, both of us screeching our way down white cobblestones. No, not just them filthy creatures. There were more Irish Over Seas, and the British, Aussies and Yanks, rich German boys who didn’t want to tell us what their parents did for a living, because then we’d know for sure that Daddy bought their watches, and the snus we rolled around our gums, and the rest of their boarding school summer holidays. Holidays they’d reminisce about without realising how they got there, drank so much, had all those sunset swims and sexual encounters. We didn’t have sex with them. We just made fun of their collared shirts, tasted their tobacco and left.

The days were lived in memory of the nights before. Crochet bags slung over shoulders just after noon, cream still wet on our backs and long nauseous walks to the nearest beach. On this final island, we couldn’t afford to take the bus. We swung from each other and giggled, the five of us, on our way out of the Airbnb, past our host’s little shrine to Jesus. She ran the place with her mother and daughter, three generations of their fathers’ name on the door. The door stood just below their pledge to God (the Father), a crucifix stuck like a thumb in the air. Occasionally, granddaughters. Little dark-haired girls playing with cats, doomed and scared of our short dresses. When Mary arrived home at 8am that morning, having not returned since we teetered out twelve hours before, they all sat at reception and glared at her, make-up mussed, heels in her hand.

She threw her body into the sea first and I envied her. I longed for that sore feeling, that startle, salt against skin, the heat of a wave. The remnants of a man’s touch lasted hours. I heaped sand into my palm and let it fall through my fingers, form a mound on my stomach, seep like time inside my navel. My other hand held a book to block the sun but the words sunk into the page and I dozed, head achy. My leg twitched every so often and the shape of young women rose and fell around me and occasionally, there was the soft crunch of a plum between Cáit’s teeth.

This most recent time, he lingered on me for days. His dull tongue hung in my mouth every time I licked my lips or had something nice to eat. I could still feel the rough scrape of bark grazing the backs of my calves and with it, the incapacity to feel anything but his hand cradling my cheek, his shattered breath on my neck, the mass of him pressed against me and the tree.

We’d met just a few days before I left for Greece. St. Anne’s Park, his side of the city, a foreign, family life I skirted around; make a good impression, don’t mention the word girlfriend. We hadn’t spoken for a while and I’d stocked up his voice notes, like promises. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t make any. He told me he’d a book for me that I’d like. Naturally, after months apart, this was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard, intensified by the plasticky heat of the book itself and the fact that he’d bought me my own copy. Even if the book was called “Take Charge of Your Career and Find a Job You Really Love”. Even if it did require my answer to interrogating questions I wished he would just ask. It wasn’t on loan.

I launched myself into the ocean then, let her envelop me like he had. The sea was nicer though, fresher, left my lips tasting all salty and new. She embraced me like a lover would from a lost other-world. Spending time abroad made me think like this, waves and wandering paths opening up a depth that everyone suppressed at home. It was hard to ignore here, while she crashed into me and cobbled cathedrals and the haggard edges of islands. Years upon years, layers of stone and stories pressed within them, people swimming and swilling and speaking to each other. A startingly intimate existence. I felt as though I could hang there for hours, under the water. Suspended in the clutch of something bigger, without having to apologise for that. She would just hold me, as I am and if I wanted, for as long as I asked her to.

On our way home, our hair drip-dried and we stopped for Lays and large bottles of vodka. The tarmacadam was beginning to melt, rivers of ink inching into drains, steam rising. The sun, still high, held its breath for later. Foreign supermarkets were exciting and we photographed colourful rows of fruit, the post-it note price tags that valued each. I laughed at the thought of doing this in Aldi and said so to Niamh, whose Instagram feed was curated to perfection. Her last post contained over-ripe strawberries, a blue, white and pink side street and a blurred set of half-full wine glasses. She snorted before posting a filtered basket of courgettes to her story. We then began to discuss taking pictures of things like Dublin bus, or Stephen’s Green shopping centre and laughed the whole way back. “But everything is so pretty here!”

She was right. Even where balconies crumbled, or steps led to nowhere, it only added to the town’s charm. Though we didn’t capture the long, blazing walk back to the apartment, motorway roaring in our ears and desolate nothing for miles, except an odd church or service station. Our budget didn’t stretch to ‘rustic’, ‘cultural’ and ‘centre’.

Before we turned down the final dusty trek, a lurcher appeared on the corner, chained to his owner’s fold-up chair. The chair was folded out and in it sat the parent of the mutt. He leered at us over rounded belly and when the dog began to bark, shouted angrily in Greek. We sprinted, flip flops slapping, and eventually reached the sanctum we now called home, bent over from stitches. I can’t breathe, we wept, I forget how to breathe. I let the thick folds of my stomach swallow my hands whole and smiled.

His sister had an eating disorder. Or issues with that kind of thing… like, when we were kids. I told him I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up without hating my body. We were naked and I watched his eyes widen. His sister’s childhood secret was another reason why he couldn’t commit to me. Another reason why his life now, as a result of his life then, was just a little too fucked up to fuck up having a girlfriend too. Another reason we discussed delicately, in bed, for hours. Scared to hurt each other.

Reasons why men don’t commit are the same reasons they buy books about “following your dreams”. Some things are so big, so consequential, time seems better spent reading about decisions, rather than making them. Or sleeping with decisions, in our case. That’s all we were really, a decision waiting to be made. That all made sense. I understood these things, how things are forever liable to falling apart. I made great efforts to understand, to empathise, to be there. We were twenty-five, after all. Nothing felt fully right. It’s just that being wrong was starting to bother me less and less. What did bother me was his insistence to buy me books anyway, kiss me against trees when he knew deep down that he shouldn’t, couldn’t. Not really.

I’d accepted the book though, and the text, and the kiss. I thumbed through the pages and longed for his lips before we got ready to go out again. Checked my phone for his name. Scrolled through his Instagram profile. One of the girls thumped down on the bed beside me and fed me a Salt and Vinegar crisp. We chased with shots of spirit, tasted like nail varnish remover. Chased that with San Pellegrino and sucked the juices out of limes. Skinny bitches, that’s what we called these concoctions. “I dare you to order a skinny bitch at the bar tonight!”

Dinner was sourced in a quaint eatery next to the water. Hollow and cosy all at once. Cave walls and little paintings speckled by the sea. I slurped spaghetti, suckled prawns. Shared smiles of watermelon slices, fresh tomatoes and feta. We spoke of what we would do with our lives in a way that felt possible. This was a rare sense of mine, and I savoured it like the shrimp, stretching the muscles of my cheeks. Expansive. I squeezed my dreams between my teeth, rolled them over my tongue and fed them to my friends.

Chocolate fondant for dessert, rich and blameless. However many drinks in, we’d moved on in conversation. “And he hasn’t texted you since? He buys you a book and hasn’t got in touch?”

“Yeah, but I did tell him I was going away.”

“Still…”

“Does anyone else think we’re reading into the book too much?”

Everyone directed death stares towards Mary. “Sorry, no, of course not. He bought you a book.”

“He bought her a book, Mary! I can’t even get a text back.”

“Well, neither can she.”

“What did you say again?”

“Just that I had a good time and could we do it again when I get back. Could we at least figure it out?”

“And he’s seen it?”

“Yeah, he saw it forty-five minutes later or so.”

“And how long has it been?”

The night before, at about 2 am, I’d sent him a text demanding a reply. The room was sticky and Cáit’s arm had slumped itself across my stomach in the bed we shared of its own unconscious accord. At 2:07, I sent another apologising. He hadn’t responded to either. I shoved the prickly shame down,

down,

down,

and said, “Well, we’re here, what, ten days? Eleven days?”

“Bastard!”

“No, it’s probably me. He doesn’t owe me anything, we’re not together. We were never together. And he has a lot going on, you know.”

“It’s NOT you!” On this, they were unanimous.

After the tree in St. Anne’s Park, there was inevitable, hasty sex, back on my side of the city. He’d left then, eyes fixed to the floor. Book on my bedside locker. Suddenly aware of what we’d done again and the weight of it. He’d stuttered, “We should talk when you’re back.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” I’d felt light. Like my body had lifted from the bed and only my soul remained, sinking into the covers, naked and bound to something big. Stopped, for a while, thinking about all the things wrong with me. Wrong with us. How, when there had been this, could there be anything wrong with us?

The clubs in Greece weren’t clubs. They were tiny bars wedged into the same walls as the restaurants, like pop-up shops for alcoholics. Inside resided more seedy animals, encouraged by a self-confidence that only came from the inhibition of being somewhere new and temporary. Tight white jeans, coifs gelled into hard little hills, shirts lacking one too many buttons. They were greedy, starving, entitled, and we were fresh summer meat. Cáit inched herself away from one, step by tiny step, eventually grabbing my hand and spinning us away. “Bitch” followed us, just under breath, barely a second after.

We didn’t care. This was it. This had been it for a lot longer than this, than us. There was something nice about surrendering to it, about surrendering to Greece and the simplicity of it all. Boys who barked and churches for houses and girl-prey in summer pubs. The music reverberated our bones and we threw them around, danced on table-stages. They watched and we let them. We enjoyed it, them watching us. I know we did. I know because Niamh kept fixing her top and Mary flipped her hair and looked over her shoulder every few seconds, towards a tall man in the corner whose hands were big and skin was sallow. Cáit adjusted her skirt and I watched us like the men did, before checking myself in the mirror on the opposite wall.

Time passed like this, quicker than we could keep up with, the night slipping from under us until we found ourselves pulled into a tangle of German girls. It occurred to me that before this moment, I hadn’t noticed the presence of any females in the place. Not even to compare an outfit to my own, the golden spray of another’s tan, the sway of hips and sound of anklets decorating delicate feet, placed there to make me feel fat.

One by one, they dragged us in, and then others. Two Spanish, a few Australians and one from Costa Rica. Every girl that passed was swept up until the bar was left with only men at its counter. More men stood along the walls and sat at tables. At their centre, this circle of dancing women.

It didn’t take long for them to approach, as though we emanated some kind of wanting. Needing. Dependence. Reliance. Assurance. Affirmation.

No. We didn’t let any of them in.

Each and every one was pushed away, the German ringleader spreading her arms and forcing us to find each other in the dark, find hands we’d never held and shoulders we’d never cried on. At first it seemed accidental, like there wasn’t enough room. We filled what wasn’t a dance floor, but the only space between door and drink. The more who tried, the more active she became in her agitation. Gimme, gimme, a man after midnight.

We wouldn’t let any of them in.

“I feel kind of bad”, Mary whispered in my ear, but she was caught now too, wrapped up in us, the length of our hair and our limbs, generations long.

“I feel free!”

We were skinny bitches. Thin, beautiful victims. Allowed to be wronged. Allowed to be angry. I let myself dance, in a circle of strangers, waxed armpits and plucked brows and the perfume of sun cream sweat. And I let men be filthy creatures.

Brianna Walsh is a writer living in Dublin. Originally from Kilkenny, she works in rights education and youth engagement. She's interested in people, how we behave and relate, and how we're impacted by contemporary culture. She writes fiction and personal essays and is a member of a writer's group, whose feedback, support and example are sources of motivation and inspiration.

Listen to a reading of this story by the author:

Jess shows me how to load her dishwasher. The ringing of the glasses, the clack of the plates, the clink of the cutlery. The little pouch of soap, the buttons. I intend to forget all of this before she invites me back.

“It’s so easy, Mom!” Jess beams at me like she did when she was a baby. “Don’t you wish you had one of these at home?”

No, I do not. I know how to wash the dishes.

My Dan sits at the kitchen table. He plays with the Minolta he loves above all other cameras, taking picture after picture of me in black and white, the press of the button, the snap of the shutter, until he runs out of film. I stand at the sink with my hands immersed, the lemon scent, the rising steam. Sunlight streams through the window, the perfect light at the perfect angle. The golden hour, Dan calls it. Perfect light for a perfect woman.

Jess tuts when she sees the shattered dishes on the kitchen floor. She thinks I dropped them. She can’t imagine me hurling china against the wall, the weeping, the screaming, the smashing, the crashing.

There is no Mother outside of motherhood. If I weep, she turns her head.

Dan stands behind me, hands on my shoulders, mouth on my neck, running fingers down my arms to grasp my hands in the dishwater, then back up again. The water on my sleeves, across my collar, down my back.

The linoleum floor, cold against my bare shoulder blades, then hot. The dog who thinks we’re playing, the laughter.

The unbreakable dishes Jess hauls out of the attic, bought when she was a toddler, stored there since she moved away.

The wedding china, what’s left of it, packed up and brought back to Jess’s house for safekeeping. “They’re heirlooms, Mom! We don’t want anything more to happen to them.”

Dan always helps me to dry. The china, the glass, the careful stacks in the cupboard. We are new together, we are fragile, fine-boned, taking cares, taking pains. The caresses as we work. His hands, my new husband’s hands.

Oh, the golden hours.

The woman Jess sends in to “help” me once a week. The vacuum cleaner, the wood polish. She tries to erase the years of scratches from Brownie’s claws as he chased Jess up and down the hallway, the giggles and the barking, the exhaustion and the joy.

If I don’t do the breakfast dishes before she rings the doorbell, she’ll wash them herself. The briskness, the efficiency. She leaves them in the dish rack to dry.

Dan drops the camera and clutches his chest. The ambulance ride, the surgery, the waiting. Brownie at the front door, worried, whining. Jess at a friend’s house until Dan pulls through, or doesn’t.

“Don’t you wish you had a dishwasher at home?” Jess asks again as she drives me back to my own house, away from the noise of her own family. When I get out of the car she follows me in, even though I haven’t invited her.

We walk into the kitchen. “Surprise!” she yells.

The presence of this intruder under the counter. The memory of hands. I cry; she looks away.

The driving lessons, the college fund, the empty room. The wedding china back from the attic, the slow dancing in front of the kitchen sink.

The second heart attack.

Later, when I bathe Dan’s body, I imagine his hands guiding mine to all the places I know so well. I imagine my hands guiding his.

The condolences, the concerns, the advice. Dan’s hands folded together, wrinkled skin shifting with every farewell touch.

My own hands, wrinkled and stiff, as I dip them in the hot soapy water, wiping the plates in slow, wide circles. The lemon scent, the steam, the slant of the light. The silence of the unused dishwasher.

Linda M. Bayley is a writer living on the Canadian Shield. Her work has recently appeared in voidspace zine, Five Minutes, BULL, Short Circuit, FlashFlood Journal, Underbelly Press, Stanchion, Does It Have Pockets, Roi Fainéant, and Tiny Sparks Everywhere, the National Flash Fiction Day 2024 Anthology.

Find her on Twitter and Bluesky @lmbayley.

Listen to Aisling reading her story:

He wins you over with Etta. He wants to make love to you, he croons in your ear. It would have been creepy if the song hadn’t been playing at the bar. You laugh and let him away with it, surprised he, or anyone, even noticed you.

He dances in the front row to Alanis and it’s ironic, you think, how he left you queuing for drinks.

He hums along to Ani’s strumming, pupils dilated, feeling the full weight of the struggling artist. He’s the real Napolean, not them he tells you. ‘They don’t know art, they just don’t get me, you know? Not like you, you believe in what I do.’ You smile, because it’s true, write another check for his tuition and fantasise about all you’ll do when it’s your turn to quit your day job and follow your dreams.

He comes back from the Nina gig buzzing. ‘Did you know it’s still so hard for Blacks to just live in America?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘And Baltimore, wow… we should really finish watching The Wire, it’s so real, so gritty, you know? Just like Nina, man! She gets it, yaaas,’ he says, doing his best impression of a 1920s Harlem jazz bro. ‘Shame we couldn’t find a babysitter, you’d have loved her.’

‘Laurie’s the true artist,’ he says. ‘Better than Lou ever was. She didn’t lose herself to drugs.’ But her strange angels sing just for him. As soon as he leaves for work you switch to Beyoncé or Brittney or Gaga, scrubbing spit, vomit and mashed-up food off the linoleum floor to their pop beats.

Polly Jean’s his gal, his one true love. But so skinny. ‘Too skinny,’ he says shaking his head. ‘At least you don’t have to worry about that anymore.’ He pinches your belly. You smooth your t-shirt over a tummy three pregnancies have stretched from an eight to a twelve. He says he doesn’t mind your legs puckered with cellulite, nor your breasts flapping from half a decade of suckling infants.

Patti rages on the stereo. He pulls you away from the sink and spins you around the linoleum. He laughs at the yellow rubber gloves, calls them sexy, while he nuzzles your neck. You shrink from his grasp. ‘It’s late, you’re tired, the kids have school in the morning,’ you say by way of an excuse. ‘Don’t worry about all that,’ he says. Tonight belongs to us.’ His breath is heavy, insistent. You don’t fight, not anymore. He calls it love, and brings it each night whether you want it or not.

Tori’s earthquakes ripple through your world. You hate the fighting followed by silences, lasting days. You hate how long it took to realise you were already torn to pieces, disintegrating. The rage in those verses – those men with their guns, those women on their stomachs – makes you tremble. But he has no time for your pain, so you disappear to the kitchen whenever he clicks play on those clanging piano keys.

He’s Emma and you’re Alan from your favourite holiday rom-com, leaving a wrapped CD, Joni’s greatest hits, under the tree for him. There were many other things you could have gifted him but playing house and playing Santa got in the way. You’d like to watch the movie on Christmas day, giggle at your own inside joke but, he insists on something with a strong-female-lead. You try to keep your eyelids from drooping over two hours of a naked Kirsten touching herself under the light of Melancholia’s astral menace. You find out soon after that he’s having an affair. He was Alan all along.

He used to whisper nothing compares, alá Sinéad, not Prince. But really he was just waiting for new candidates, young and childfree, to measure you against. In the end you were found wanting. Demanding, frigid and hysterical, were the words he used to justify his departure. Now you’re more needy than ever, waiting with your three babies for a check that never comes. Your belly rumbles at night from the dinners you skip so they won’t go hungry.

He left a stack of CDs behind, all his favourite divas, the only women deemed meritorious of his attention. Patti, Aimee, Janis, et al. The ones he kept on a first name basis, as if they were friends. You suspect their words have the power to save you from the ranks of freaks, the jilted wives, the single mothers, who’ve never been loved by this country. But you can’t listen to their refrains without the urge to scrub the sticky residue of his paws off your body.

Aisling Walsh (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent writer based in Co. Clare, Ireland. Her short stories, essays and features have been published in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Irish Times, Jezebel, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Púca, the 2024 From the Well anthology and others. She won the Listowel Writers' Week creative writing award (2024) and her essays shortlisted in the Phoebe (2022) and So to Speak (2021) CNF contests. She was awarded an Irish Writers Centre Bursary in 2024 and an Arts & Disability Connect mentoring grant in 2023. She is a fiction reader at Anomaly. You can find her on substack at where she writes essays about movies and neurodivergence.

Charlie waits in a line of reeking men those few minutes before five o’clock. Isn’t supposed to. But everyone does it.

Blare of the hooter then. Each hand sliding a card through the grey machine.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

He leaves the factory gloom. Squinting against evening light. Wanders for home.

Finds himself turning left instead of right at Ardboe Street, down into the park, a place he rarely frequents.

His body guides him of its own accord, like it paid more attention to the doctor than his own mind, heeded the advice, that to sleep through the night a person needs to be tired, go out for walks, exercise, get plenty of fresh air; not that it matters he has a physically demanding job and gets plenty of exercise already. But it’s something more than that…

‘It’s like…’ he opens a hand, as though words might float down like feathers and gather into his palm, ‘it’s like…my world has changed. And everythin’ has turned to black and white.’

The doctor nods. Reaches for his pad with a striped-shirted arm and speaks as he scribbles. ‘Here’s some tablets that will help with the mood, and to sleep.’ He tears it off. Hands it over.

Charlie mooches perimeters of football pitches, along tarmac paths that morph into loose gravel tracks, snaking through dark-leafed bushes and pale trees, to the far side of the park where a grey squirrel sits upon a tree stump, paws up, like singing into an imaginary microphone, startling at Charlie’s boots upon the gravel, before zipping away up a tree and disappearing into the foliage.

Charlie catches the frayed rope, dangling from a thick branch.

Stares then. Wonders about it.

Feels so incredibly tired he could lie down and sleep.

Children’s laughter trickles from the playground further along, dissipates among the grass and leaf-buds. Sheep baaa through the fence behind him, calling after lambs as the last of the pearly spring sky turns for dusk.

Charlie continues around the lake, rows of daffodils like starlights. Sees a crowd of people, a line of them down into the water. Someone bursts up through the surface then. Gasping. Dripping. Smiling. As he keeps walking, next in line wades forward, crosses both arms at the chest, preacher manoeuvres to drop them under.

He passes the playpark, tennis courts, out through the gates and back towards Ardboe Street.

In the shower that evening, he tries to better articulate what he told the doctor and comes up with: layers. Everyone lives in one. Most in the vivid, colourful, kaleidoscopic wander of normality. Yet, he drifts in black and white, colour sucked out to make rainbows elsewhere.

He massages shampoo through his hair, thinks about that rope in the park. Maybe once a swing?

Perhaps some kids built it, and then one day, after a summer of fun, it snapped and they moved onto something else?

Normally he wouldn’t dwell on things this deeply, but it niggles him, this rope.

As suds fall in slaps, he decides to avoid the park then, part of him wanting another look at that rope, but mostly feeling dread about the whole thing.

He turns off the water. Steps out. Grabs a towel.

The tablets already help him sleep better, that’s for sure, but come with nightmares that sometimes wrench him awake and damp with perspiration.

How is he supposed to decide between little rest or rest that is disturbed?

He pulls on pyjamas.

How is he supposed to navigate, to behave, in a layer that isn’t his own, where his mind feels like a clock unable to keep accurate time?

The following Monday, in the unrelenting heat of the factory, he manoeuvres three farm gates with the crane, dangling them above the silvery pool of molten zinc.

Stares at the thick metal chain above.

Imagines a person hanging from it.

‘Did anyone ever hang themselves in the park?’ he says to Weeker at tea-break.

‘What park?’

‘The park.’ he signals with a thumb, through the staffroom wall, over a spread of fields, then through a housing estate and past the school.

‘Somebody’s hung themselves in every park in the country!’ Weeker lathers red sauce across his sausage roll. Bites half of it in one go.

Charlie slurps his tea. Steenson the supervisor pauses by their table. Small features crunched into the middle of his face like a rat. Everyone calls him - that bollocks Steenson - forever galdering over the roar of furnaces, working here so long the fires have seeped in, heating his temper to steady volcanic. Most days, he’s like Adolf Hitler orating at the Nuremberg rally.

‘Maybe ye’ll do us all a favour, Charlie. Buy yerself a good length of rope and head down to the park.’

Weeker laughs. Steenson sniggers.

Charlie sits wide-eyed. Sets down his mug. Before he can assemble the correct words, Steenson is gone. Back out on the factory floor.

In his old layer, Charlie would have laughed it off, thought no more about it. ‘Ye think that’s funny, Weeker? Jokin’ about someone’s life like that?’

‘Lighten up. It’s only a bit of craic!’ Weeker scoffs the rest of his sausage roll.

‘Aye, it’s alright to have a joke when it’s not on Steenson. Like that time his hair mysteriously changed from grey to brown overnight and the wee apprentice made a wisecrack about it and Steenson kneed him in the balls in front of everyone? Aye, only a joke, my arse.’

Weeker leaves the table.

Ivan the womaniser sits. ‘What’s happenin’, Charlie?’

‘Say Ivan, do ye know if anyone ever hung themselves in the park?’

Ivan adjusts his glasses. Shakes his head. ‘Aye, sure there was a young fella last year. Bloody awful. When they found him, his feet were an inch from the ground, like the branch gave all the bend it had.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Can’t remember his name. Sorry state of affairs. I mean, nineteen years of age.’ Ivan sips his tea. ‘Did ye have a run-in with Steenson? I saw him over here laughin’.’

‘He gets away with everythin’, just cause he’s a supervisor.’

‘I know, Charlie, but sure what can ye do?’

Charlie stares out the window. A clutch of snowdrops trying to hide in the grass. Then something surges inside and he is out at the big furnace, the zinc-silver pool, hoist in his hands, signalling across the shopfloor. ‘Steenson! Steenson!’

‘What!’

‘This hoist is too old. It’s done.’

‘What are ye talkin’ about – there’s not a thing wrong with it.’

‘Look.’ Charlie slings the hoist around his shoulders, wriggles, makes a show of it being too loose. Chain rattling above.

‘Yer fulla shit. It’s grand.’

‘I’m tellin’ ye! We need a new hoist!’

Out of nothing but pure incensed spite, Steenson puts the hoist on himself, pulls it tight around his shoulders without securing either of the main clips. Charlie has already slipped a cable-tie in through Steenson’s belt-loop and secured it at one side of the hoist.

‘What are ye at!’ Steenson shouts. Squirming. His ratface boiling red.

He grapples the cable-tie, Charlie already at the back of him, securing another, then grabbing the dangling controller, pressing a button.

Steenson rises into the hot air. Shouting and bawling. Legs kicking.

Weeker dashes over. Eyes wide behind safety glasses. ‘What’re ye doin’, Charlie?’

‘Teachin’ him a long-overdue lesson.’

The hoist swings out over the pool of molten zinc, Steenson ready to be galvanized, made new.

‘Right, that’s enough.’ Weeker seizes the controller.

‘I’ll friggin’ kill ye!’ Steenson’s voice so high it could shatter glass. ‘Yer bloody fired! Weeker! Weeker! Get me down!’

‘No, Steenson,’ Charlie points a finger, ‘I quit.’

As Weeker begins to operate the controller, Steenson shunts a little to the right. Shouts down. ‘Quit away, Charlie! I’ll get more work out of a bloody mannequin!’

In that moment, the look on Steenson’s smug ratface, Charlie lunges for the steel pillar to his right, flips open the cover. Slams the emergency release button.

The hoist above detaches from its coupling, falling with Steenson for the zinc below.

Eyes widened, panicked.

Left hand flailing for nothing that will help.

Observers startle back, to avoid hot splash.

As his body glops into the zinc pool, a silver arm briefly breaks the surface, then disappears.

‘What did ye do? What did ye do?’ Every facet of Weeker’s face alive with shock. ‘God, somebody hit the alarm.’

The siren blares. Flashing red lights spin into action all over the building.

Charlie runs around the side of the tank. Climbs onto its edge.

Stares into the molten zinc, a beautiful sight, waiting for Steenson to emerge silver and new.

How he’d like to be the same.

Galvanized.

Reborn.

Then a feeling of being deep inside his own head. Shouts of the other workers faint. Factory siren a whisper. Hand seizing his collar as he leaps for the hot silver.

The hooter blares.

Tea-break over.

Charlie blinks.

Stops staring out the window. Downs the rest of his warm tea.

People leave the staffroom, return to work.

He rinses the mug. Ready for late-afternoon break.

Approaches the swing-doors, glancing the small window, Steenson by the big furnace checking his watch.

Charlie pushes through, into the noise of the factory.

Wonders if he’ll ever get out of this layer.

Jamie Guiney is a literary fiction writer from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His short story collection 'The Wooden Hill' (published by Epoque Press) was shortlisted under Best Short Story Collection, in the 2019 Saboteur Awards. Jamie's short stories have been published internationally and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He has also been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize, long-listed for Irish Short Story of the Year in the 2021 An Post Book Awards, and short-listed for the Best in Rural Writing Contest 2023.

His debut novel - The Lightning - is publishing in 2026 with Bluemoose Books.

Listen to a reading of this story by the author:

You hug the yellow door, your forehead brushing its edge.

‘Thanks for coming.’ Your voice is low.

The dim bulb in the hall throws little light on your face, but I can see your puffed eyelids.

I don’t like your house; too many traps. Gleaming brass handles I might smudge, clear plastic runner I might trip over, perfect cushions I might ruffle, Ainsley vases I might topple, glossy tiles my filthy shoes might spoil, velvet wallpaper my damp jacket might blemish. Your mother has said it all to me, not about the cushions though, but I’ve seen her watching.

‘You ok?’

Your nod doesn’t convince me.

I follow you to the garish green kitchen. You flick the switch without even looking, a reflex movement of your arm—the glare of the fluorescent tube splutters into action.

I watch you fill the kettle and set it on the boil, then turn to the dark autumn evening that presses against the window. I know that really, you’re assessing your reflection. The switch flicks when the water is ready, bringing you back to the room.

Three dunks in my mug are enough. You know my palate. You add the underspent teabag to your own, brewing a liquid as dark as mine is pale. Taking a packet of custard creams from the biscuit tin, you put two on the table and nod at the chair. I pull it out, pushing the seat pad against the backrest, careful not to crease it. I sit. You circle your spoon long after the milk has married with the tea.

‘Do your parents like each other?’ you say eventually.

‘Depends on what you mean by like.’ The hot ceramic burns my lips, making me slurp.

‘Do they, you know, talk to each other?’

‘Just because you talk to someone doesn’t mean you like them.’ I place my mug back on the table. I’ll wait for it to cool.

‘I know that.’

‘Do you mean do my parents love each other?’

‘Yeah.’ You bite your lip. ‘I suppose.’

‘No. They don’t.’

Your eyes widen, a new fibre threading our connection, solidifying our friendship.

‘I thought I was the only one,’ you say.

I shake my head.

‘Wanna fag?’

‘Don’t have any.’

‘Dad left some under the shed.’

‘He’s so cool,’ I say, shoving both biscuits in my mouth and looping my thumb and forefinger around the mug handle.

In the back garden, you emerge from the darkness with a raggy pack of Rothmans, and we sit on the low wall, elbows touching. You light up. I light mine from yours, sparing the matches. Orange embers glow in the darkness and tobacco crackles as we inhale deeply, hold it for a bit and exhale a long lazy smoke trail, relishing the ritual of the first drag.

‘My parents hate each other,’ you say. ‘She gave Dad a black eye on Friday.’

I swallow hard, pushing the horror back inside. ‘What happened?’

You work a loose thread on your jumper. ‘She was belting me with the sweeping brush.’

My throat is dry. I peel my tongue from the textured dome of my mouth. ‘Did you hit her back?’

‘You don’t hit back.’ You look at me with raised eyebrows, your eyes questioning my grasp of your reality. ‘He tried to stop her, but she got him square in the eye.’

‘Why did she hit you?’ I cough the words out.

‘Didn’t clean the house properly. Wasn’t even dirty,’ you say. ‘Told me I’m the laziest bitch she could ever’ve been cursed with.’ You round the tip of your cigarette to a peak against the wall and look at me. ‘What’s the story with your parents?’

‘Should never have married.’ I surprise myself. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. ‘She keeps a chair under the bedroom door handle.’

‘That’s fucked up.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Mine hate each other, obviously,’ you say, dragging the embers in a circle on the path. ‘I’m supposed to be in my room, you know. She locked me in earlier and went to her sister in Tipp. Hopefully she’ll stay the night.’

‘She can’t do that.’

You shrug. ‘Dad’s away so she can do what she wants.’

‘How did you get out?’

‘She left the key in the door,’ you say. ‘I dropped it onto a bit of paper and slid it under.’

I turn to look at you. A vein in your temple throbs.

‘I need you to lock me in before you go.’

‘I can’t do that.’

You grab my sleeve, pinching me. I know you don’t mean to. Your gaze penetrates deeper than comfortable, making me blink hard.

‘You have to or she’ll kill me and then you’ll be responsible for my death.’

‘Okay,’ I say, pulling away and rubbing my arm. ‘But it’s fucked up.’

I stub my cigarette on the path and fan the black ash with the sole of my shoe. You do the same. I take the butts and throw them at an angle over the back wall into the wasteland behind, careful they don’t land directly behind your garden in case she goes looking. I follow you back inside.

‘Fancy a real drink?’ You say, bolting the back door. A twinkle ignites your eyes.

‘You have to ask?’ I shake my head, feigning disappointment.

In the sitting room, you slide the drawer from the drinks cabinet and hand it to me. ‘She thinks she’s clever, keeping this locked.’

I place the drawer on the floor, careful not to disturb the contents.

‘She knows exactly where everything should be,’ you say, reaching in and gripping the lip of the Smirnoff bottle on the glass shelf. Unscrewing the cap, you put it to your lips and take a slug. Your mouth forms a misshapen rectangle at the burn, making me laugh. You hand the bottle to me. I swallow a mouthful and try not to wince while you drop the needle on the record player and turn the volume up.

We shout the lyrics, mumbling the parts we don’t know. ‘Scary monsters, super creeps—’

You drink, I drink.

We sing, ‘Keep me running, ru-nning scared—’ Loudly.

You drink, I drink.

You start to cry. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘Who’s leaving?’

‘Me and Dad, we’re moving out.’

‘Where’re you going?’

‘Dunno, but we can’t stay here anymore.’ You put your arms around me. ‘You can’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t breathe a word. She can’t find out before we go.’

We jump to the music. Your outspread arms make contact with a bust on the mantel and it smashes on the hearth. We freeze, stare at it, stare at each other. Laughter tumbles from us.

‘Oh Mozart, don’t you like Bowie?’ I say. ‘Fuck, she’s going to murder you.’

‘I’m too drunk to care. She doesn’t even like music.’ With one sweep of your left arm, Mozart’s mantle buddies join him in smithereens on the hearth. ‘She only has them to impress people, pretend she’s educated, like. Everyone thinks she’s lovely.’

‘I don’t.’

‘I know.’ You fall onto me in a bear hug. ‘She’s horrible to you.’

We collapse on the floor.

‘She wears a girdle,’ you say. ‘Who does she think’d be looking at her?’

We’re on our backs now, kicking our feet and holding our stomachs.

‘A-and her knickers,’ you say, trying to get the words out between guffaws, ‘go up to her neck.’

‘Sexy lady.’ I dab my eyes with the cuff of my jumper. ‘Saves her buying scarves, eh?’

‘I spat in her gin last night, a nice gobby one.’

We roll on the floor, holding our sides, knees to our chests, til our breath runs out. Lying on the mustard and brown vomit-patterned carpet, we stare at the ceiling, at the five-candled chandelier that’s far too grand for a house in this estate.

‘I need you to do something else for me,’ you say, sitting up and propping yourself against the couch. Your right hand grabs my right hand, your left hand takes my right elbow and you pull me up. Your mouth is straight and your eyes are searching mine, so I know this is serious.

‘Anything,’ I say.

‘Can you take some of my stuff? I don’t know when we’re going, but I need to get some things out without her noticing.’

‘Of course,’ I say.

You come to a wobbly stand. ‘Be right back.’

I get up and stumble to the kitchen to get the dustpan and brush. I can’t find them so go back to the sitting room and start sweeping with my sleeves, slicing my hand on a jagged edge. It bleeds and you come floundering into the room when you hear my cry, leave, and come back with a wad of toilet paper. I press firmly until the flow eases. You grab the brush and pan and sweep the band of musicians into a plastic bag, double bag it and tie a knot. I’ll take it with me. The leftover porcelain dust goes under the mat. I wipe my blood from the marble with the heel of my hand.

Back in the kitchen, I replenish the vodka bottle with water, which is hard because I can’t hold it steady under the tap, and there’s a lot of vodka missing. I impress myself by putting the bottle back on the glass shelf without knocking anything and carefully replace the drawer, which is really hard because I’m seeing double of everything. I wash the mugs and lick the biscuit crumbs off the table.

You come back downstairs with a bulging red backpack, a Monchichi hand with an upright thumb peeks out of the top zip. You put it by the front door. ‘Don’t forget it, okay?’

I don’t need to reply.

Trundling up the stairs, we sit on your bed for a while chatting, flicking through a copy of Just Seventeen your dad bought for you. It’s cold so we get under the floral eiderdown and chat some more. The room starts to sway. I run to the bathroom and vomit in the sink, letting the tap wash away the evidence. A cold wave engulfs my head and a sickly pallor returns my gaze in the bathroom mirror, and I see you, sniggering behind me.

‘Feel better?’

I nod, wiping my mouth in my jumper. ‘Better go.’

‘Lightweight,’ you tease.

‘I love you,’ I say, pressing my body to yours and wrapping my arms around your shoulders. ‘But not in that way.’

‘Not in that way.’ You smile and push me away. ‘Now get out of here.’

I lock your bedroom door and push my forehead into it. ‘Are you sure —’

You swear you’ll be okay.

‘See you in school tomorrow so.’

Stumbling downstairs, I pick up your red bag and the rubbish, wishing I could take a marker to her posh wallpaper and cut up her curtains and slash her cushions and empty the bin on her kitchen floor.

I pull the front door behind me with a force I know will make the walls shudder. Yellow. A dishonest representation of what lies behind.

Outside, the air is crisp and I feel strangely sober. I swing your bag over my back and start my twenty-minute walk home, dumping Mozart and his pals in a neighbour’s front garden along the way. When I pause to look back at your house, I see your shape behind the net curtains, lonely, angry, scared, but you’ll never admit to anyone, not even to me.

Fionnuala Meehan is a passionate writer who draws inspiration from the world around her, crafting characters from the simplicity of everyday life and weaving stories grounded in the subtleties of human nature. She completed her M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin in 2024 and lives in Co Wicklow.

It took a gruff-looking surgeon with forceps to urge my baby into the world. When he finally arrived, quiet as a stone, he was dropped like a grenade onto the end of the bed before the surgeon passed out cold on the cool white tile of the delivery room floor.

I was as surprised as anyone that I’d given birth to a gun, specifically a Kalashnikov (a detail I didn’t find out until later—one I found very surprising as, as far as I know, there is no Russian blood in the family). Everyone had passed out by this point: the homely nurse in the corner holding the clipboard, the anesthetist who kept getting my name wrong, and the ne'er-do-well excuse for a dad who had finally made an appearance. Everyone except me, that is. This was my baby, and I didn’t care that where there should be a spine there was a gas piston, where there should be ten tiny fingers there was a trigger.

Guided by instinct, I gently lifted my sprawling newborn from the end of the bed and placed his stiff, rangy body on my chest. He was still attached to me, of course, the umbilical pulling tight as he lay there, covering me with blood. His eyes were squeezed shut. Yes, of course there were eyes, one on each side of his tender barrel, plus a small rosebud mouth that puckered soft at the tip of his muzzle. His rosewood accents dazzled and his handguard was small and perfectly formed. Despite everything, he was beautiful. I hoped the smell of the first milk that gathered thick on the end of my nipple would rouse him, but he was fast asleep.

Those early weeks were tricky, to say the least. Breastfeeding didn’t come easy and felt like a constant risk—I could never manage more than a few minutes on each side. And I was lonely; lonelier than angels. My friends and neighbors kept their distance, but I heard their whispers as I pushed Kal in his Bugaboo to the park, to the market, to his first checkup.

Doctor Faith had obviously been forewarned about Kal’s condition and did her best to stay professional, though when she lifted Kal, when she checked his height and weight, she looked like a rookie at a shooting range. A shiver of fear rippled her skin like silk. Kal was a good boy and didn’t make a sound. Doctor Faith assured me he’d gained weight and, despite everything, I was thrilled. My breast milk was obviously doing some good.

During the second week, we received a visit from Mrs. Arborian, a social worker. She was overly tall and plump and smelled of lavender and cotton and talc. She refused my offer of tea and instead marched straight to Kal’s crib, cast aside his patchwork quilt, and just stared at him. Kal’s tiny eyes filled with tears at the sight of this stranger, but she just kept on staring. Then she thrust her chubby, capable hands into his crib and picked him up, holding him at arm’s length the whole time. I didn’t think my heart could bear it.

What do you think you’re doing? He’s not a freak show, he’s a baby. My baby. You need to put him down.

Mrs. Arborian looked at me as if she’d just been woken from a long dream.

I’m sorry, but a complaint has been filed. More than one, in fact. I’m here to see if there’s cause for complaint.

Complaint? He’s a baby. You can’t barge in here and manhandle him like this. Please, hand him to me.

Kal’s cries were getting louder now. His tiny mouth quivered and the air shifted.

Please! Give him to me now!

She wouldn’t listen. She just kept staring at him, mesmerized by the tears that snailtrailed down his sleek black surface and gathered soft on his night scope rail.

Please, you need to…

I heard it before I realized what had happened. A loud crack that broke the air in two. A large hole in the living room wall. Everything stilled for a while—it felt like forever—then the social worker dropped Kal in his crib and ran screaming from the house.

The next day we moved to a new city in a new country, one where the streets were filled with dust and cinnamon and the mountains loomed like stone lions on the horizon.

As Kal grew, there were a few more incidents where his nature would get the best of him, despite our many talks. One day in the village school library where I worked as an assistant, a girl who’d bullied Kal incessantly for two years pinched his muzzle or called him a name and he retaliated the only way he knew how. Her arm was only grazed—luckily, most of the damage was done to the library window—but blood misted from her flesh like rain and I grabbed Kal and ran and ran and ran.

Now, he’s strictly homeschooled. I don’t answer the door to anyone. I haven’t dated in four years—Kal doesn’t like it when I see men, which I understand. It’s just him and me, and, yes, sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe and sometimes I dream of running away. But Kal came from me and he needs me. And despite the holes that gape like sighs in the walls and the shadows that loom behind each corner, we get by. Most days, I read to Kal, adventure stories or thrillers or poems I memorized like prayers when I was small, and we watch the world pass by our living room window, my finger furled tight around his trigger like a comma.

Lucy Palmer is from Cornwall in the UK but now lives in California. After taking a few years off writing due to a battle with autoimmune encephalitis, Lucy is writing again and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon! Her work has appeared in Cherry Tree, Monkeybicycle, The Matador Review, and others.

When he said he would be focusing on the Buddhism, I knew there must be trouble with the wife. There was no way Sadie would put up with that auld shite. Sure enough, word filtered around the town that she’d upped and left him. He’d been writing poetry, she said, and sure I thought she was joking since Skinner Flynn was ‘bout poetic as me old Granny, and her an illiterate who couldn’t so much as spell her own name. But no, Sadie said there’d been a poem about the soil and its stain on his soul which she couldn’t make head nor tale of. Another about his father and the temper on him when Skinner and the brothers were nippers. But he’d be forgiving him now for his fondness for the strap. Big on forgiveness, were the Buddhists.

‘I thought you’d have talked some sense into him,’ she says to me when I ran into her down the town, blonde hair down around her shoulders, still lovely as she ever was despite the extra few years and pounds. ‘I was thinking to myself, Davy’s the man to make him stop this nonsense,’ and she smiled at me, and I felt myself grow two inches that she was thinking of me at all.

Me and Skinner have been diggin’ the graves together since as far back as I can remember. Some think it morbid - depressing even - to be surrounded by dead bodies, rotting and festering in the ground beneath, but I always found it to be a gentle, peaceful sort of place. It’s quiet, at least when Micheál isn’t giving us one of his stories about his former glory days as a motorcycle cop in Maryland. Micheál joined us a few years back when he came home to Ireland for reasons unclear. There were rumours of a relationship with a simple-minded woman and an angry father with a gun, which is how they say Micheál’s limp came about. Anyways, things had gotten busy on account of the plague sweeping through and he’s been with us since, stoppin’ things comin’ to blows between myself and the other fella. A right contrary prick he is, winds me up something terrible does Skinner.

The first ‘Namaste,’ he gave, I just brushed it off, but then he turned down the offer of a pint.

‘Just a Ribena for me, Davy,’ he said, and myself and Micheál looked around to see who was speaking, certain we were, that it wasn’t Skinner Flynn.

It was a Sunday in late-September and the whole town was sucking the last rays of light from the week autumn sun, like a dying man’s last gasp. We were in Nolan’s’ beer garden which is really just two picnic tables, a beer barrel and some torn tarpaulin strewn between the trees in the pub’s carpark. Aidan Nolan had quickly thrown it together back when you weren’t allowed to drink indoors and now even a hint of sunshine has everyone crowded in, young wans slathered in orange lookin’ tan, grown men with the tops off and bellies out. So, I comes back with the pint of Ribena, wondering to myself what he was up to, but I didn’t say nothin’ since that’s what he wanted. Tryin’ to wind me up again, no doubt. But Sadie’s words were ringing in my ear, ‘bout how I could put a stop to it. I just didn’t know how.

A few hours later as the cool air hit and Monday morning loomed, an argument broke out when Micheál began chattin’ up a gaggle of girls, all shimmering and shivering, at least two decade younger than himself. A boyfriend of one of them – a stocky man with a shaved head and the puckered pink cheeks of a man who’d spent too long in the sun – called Micheál an old perv and then it all kicked off. There were fists flying and girls screaming and before long Micheál was collapsed on the ground, winded and wounded. Got a few digs myself but nothing life threatening. Skinner though, he just sat at the table, sipping his fifth Ribena of the night, a look of simple contentment replacing his usual snarl.

‘What the fuck Skinner?’ Micheál wheezed, cause usually Skinner would be the one to have his back, not because he was loyal or gave two shites about Micheál, but because he was a man who liked a fight. Got it from the old man, they said, the streak for violence.

‘If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another,’ he says, and everyone just stopped and starred and the stocky bald lad looked ready to raise his fists again and sure I couldn’t blame him, with that kinda talk.

For most of that week, we worked in silence, days spent slicing at the hardened soil, death a constant companion, circling like a foggy mist. Wasn’t an easy week, having buried Mags Shanahan on the Monday, her only thirty-four and the baby not yet born. We’d seen it all. The child who’d been knocked from his bike on the Athy roundabout. My old grandfather– ninety-eight years old and still supping pints in Nolan’s ‘til the night he died. Ger Mullen who’d been shot in the back of the head when he’d got in too deep with them drug dealers from up in Dublin. And women like poor Mags, diagnosed not six weeks ago with pancreatic cancer – a real cunt of a cancer -and left a clatter of kids and a cheating husband behind. But you couldn’t let it get to you, cry for one and the tears may never stop.

When we took a breather for a bit of lunch on the Thursday, Skinner sat cross legged and closed his eyes.

‘Not hungry, Skin?’ Micheál asked.

‘I’m fasting,’ he replied.

‘Too fuckin’ good for food now, is it?’ I muttered under my breath but loud enough so that he could hear.

No response.

‘Too fuckin’ good for food now, is it?’ I repeated, raising my voice this time.

‘Namaste,’ he said, and I could see the flicker in his eye, daring me to continue, same one he gets when the lads do be makin’ comments about Sadie and what they’d like to do with her. Good lookin’ woman, so she is. But I let it go, bit into my ham and cheese sandwich, and crunched loudly on my Taytos knowing full well the bollix would be droolin’ at the mouth, dying for a bit of grub.

When I got home that evening, I pulled out the phone and started a bit of research for myself. Sounded like a right bunch of boring pricks to me now, with their ‘passivism’ and not drinking and sitting around all day doing sweet fuck all but praying to some fat aul China man. Lookin’ down their noses at the rest of us just cause we enjoyed a breakfast roll. Mairéad was tutting and asking what it mattered to me if he was Buddhist or Muslim or even a Protestant, sure he wasn’t hurting anybody. A lot less people, in fact, than he was hurting when he was down Nolan’s, drinkin’ every night. But see, I’ve known Skinner near all my life and he’s no Buddhist no matter what he does be chanting and I knew he’d reveal himself soon enough.

‘What about the poetry?’ I asked her, and she just rolled her eyes and told me to leave her alone while she watched the soaps. Phil Mitchell was off the wagon again.

He’d always thought he was a cut above the rest of us, had Skinner, and him no reason to think that what with the mother leaving them and that brute of a father never working a day in his life. But none of that ever bothered Skinner, and he carried the air of a man who overestimated his own place in the world, helped I’d say by all the women who he had some sort of magnetic pull on. And then he went and got Sadie, the best-lookin’ girl in Gilstown and the one all the fellas were after, myself no exception. To this day I feel the red heat of shame creep up on me when I think back to me asking her out all them years ago and that look of confusion and pity that came over her pretty features.

‘Ah no, Davy.’

And then I found out soon after that her and Skinner were together, no doubt laughing at the poor little fat fucker who thought he had a chance with her. Mairéad came along a year or so after that. I’ve never told her any of that though.

There was no sign of him in the pubs that weekend after his ‘fasting,’ but he was spotted in the library near the school, shoulders hunched over a book titled Luminous Darkness. And that’s how it continued, him chanting and fasting and reading. There was talk of him going up to Dublin to a poetry night where he’d stand on a little platform at the back of a bookshop and read out them poems, about the father and the soil and probably ones about Sadie too, when we all know what he really likes doing is getting rat-arsed, same as everyone else. I’d say now if those lad-dee-dah Dublin ones knew the truth about him, they’d have him on the first train back to Gilstown.

As the weeks turned into months, people got used to Skinner and his new ways. Talkin’ ‘bout his ‘transformation’ and a begrudging acceptance of how they didn’t think he’d keep it up but sure lookit, wasn’t he making a great effort and the town was a lot more peaceful now. Himself and Sadie remained apart though, and it was if we were the only two who could remember the man he really was. Danny Maguire said he might look into the Buddhism now himself, seeing the great change it had brought on Skinner, though it turned out he’d confused the Buddhists with some other crowd who took psychedelics and had ten wives and when he discovered there was no drink or drugs and no free pass for cheating on the wife, he quickly backtracked on his conversion.

It was when he started the talk about reincarnation that I decided enough was enough. Not a few hours after Jim McNally was lowered into the ground - God rest his soul - we were in Nolan’s for the soup and sandwiches and sorry for your troubles, when Skinner says sure we should be happy for Jim since he’d be coming back soon in some other body to some other life. A man who’d spent his life digging eternal resting places for men who met their maker, and this is the kind of shite he was spouting.

‘And what is it you’ll come back as?’ I said to him. ‘A man who can hold onto his wife?’

‘Says the man who never got her in the first place,’ he replied, and I heard some sniggers, and a spasm of shame rippled through me followed by a bubbling fury that I couldn’t swallow down. Before I knew it, I was on him, a solid right hook meeting his nose and a gush of blood hitting the pair of us. That flicker in his eye flared and Skinner Flynn’s rage was unleashed, snarlin’ like a rabid dog, teeth, fists and feet hitting at such a speed that I was sure it would me they would be digging a hole for next. Micheál and Danny Maguire pulled us apart, cut up and bruised like we’d just come out of the ring. An eerie calm prevailed, and then we were snapped back to reality by the sound of poor Jim McNally’s weeping widow. Sadie rushed over, eyes filled with worry but also pride. It wasn’t for me though, she only had eyes for the one man.

Elaine Maguire O'Connor is a writer from Dublin.

Listen to a reading of this story by Kevin:

Clouds of small fingerprints surrounded Oscar’s hands as he stood on the window ledge, fascinated by the display of superheroes. Tina kept her hand on his back. The electric-blue light from the insect trap lent a cinematic quality to the figurines, and their action poses and background scenery must have been a big draw before the shelling forced the mall to close.

Oscar pointed to one of the toys.

‘Mum, will they have MoonHunter in Dublin?’

‘Of course, love.’

Later, as they moved through deserted arcades lit by the ghostly insect traps, Oscar repeated the same question with dogged persistence, as if gathering irrefutable assurance. Tina glanced backwards once, and the shadowy emptiness added urgency to her attempts to steer Oscar onwards. Abruptly they arrived at the exit door. With a touch it flew open into an unnerving brightness, but no one looked up as they walked in.

It was the café, just as promised. A few people, well wrapped up, sat on their own amidst a sea of empty tables. Autumnal sunlight invaded from a shattered wall, the opening toothed with broken masonry. Oscar slipped from her hand and ran to an aquarium, the centrepiece of the room. It was teeming with brightly coloured fish. Tina vainly called him back, afraid he would go too near the edge. The aroma of coffee heightened everything, including her fear.

A man stood up from a table near the damaged wall, speaking with authority and pointing to scaffolding fixed as a guardrail. Tina knew enough of the language to catch his meaning. Feeling a little foolish, she thanked him. He approached. Most men in the city were in army fatigues or the stained jackets of the auxiliary services but he wore a fine wool overcoat, a long scarf and a suit. She put her hand on his shoulder, smiling, partly to keep him at a distance and partly, perhaps, to touch him, to persuade herself he was real. Her fingers sank into clean fabric.

‘Sorry, can you speak English?’

‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Your perfume is wonderful. No one makes the effort anymore.’

Something in his voice loosened her sense of time, as though she was between dreaming and waking. Tina embraced him, continental style, it having become a habit, and then impulsively kissed his cheek. His body leaned forward and Tina dropped into a chair to escape his encircling arms. She blushed. Oscar was staring at the man.

Tina laughed nervously. ‘Oh god, I didn’t mean that.’ She looked up.

‘Let me start again. My name is Stanislav, or Stanley if you wish.’

‘Tina. This is my son, Oscar.’ She bit her lip, half afraid of a lecture for taking Oscar out of the blue zone.

‘Are you staying or being evacuated?’

‘In thirty-two days we’ll be flying home to Ireland.’

‘Good. I was afraid you had made the mistake of marrying one of us.’

They laughed. He took a chair from the nearest table.

Tina beckoned Oscar over. ‘I was supposed to start teaching in the University a few weeks ago, but the fighting changed everything. Classes are on-line so I can continue giving the module from Dublin.’ She began to waffle, as she often did when she was embarrassed. She felt such a fool for relocating to a country that shortly afterwards began to tear itself apart. Oscar’s shoulders burrowed into her.

‘Let me order something,’ said Stanley, ‘I work here as a volunteer since the…’ He half turned to look towards the street. ‘They have fresh pastries today.’ Then, to Oscar, ‘Flavoured ice creams too; the counter is downstairs.’

Oscar took the man’s proffered hand and Tina followed at a distance. The handrail was cold; she thought of the maze of steps in the multi-storied café she’d loved as a student and the endless quixotic conversations where no one wanted to be the first to leave. Then the mad rush back for tutorials, the fastest runner tasked with the excuses. The pavements clotted with tourists. Before Oscar. Before the fruitless struggle to get a place of her own. Oscar’s excited voice broke her reverie.

Stanley carried a tray with evident pride. Two coffee cups, a plate with two pastries and a single knife, and an ice cream sundae.

‘There,’ said Stanley. ‘Almost as pretty as the fish!’

Tina coaxed a thank you from Oscar and added her own. ‘A sundae! I haven’t seen those since the war started!’

Stanley winced. Tina reprimanded herself. ‘War’ was a dirty word; ‘hostilities’ was preferred in the media, as in a cessation of hostilities is imminent. In the less partial news from home, the rebels and the government were described as being locked in a conflict. Not even a small war.

She picked at her doughnut, thinking of saving some for later. Oscar ate his ice cream at a restrained pace. Stanley chatted to Oscar, telling him what he did - watched films - and where he lived – by the river - whilst deftly producing a napkin from the inner pocket of his jacket and cutting his pastry in two. He proffered the knife to Tina.

‘Have you made friends?’ he asked, looking quizzically at the boy. Tina froze, thinking the question was directed at her.

‘Lots,’ Oscar said, ‘but their grannies took them away.’

‘We settled in very well,’ said Tina. ‘We’ve just come from the mall. There’s an amazing display in the toy shop.’

‘It’s closed,’ said Oscar, sliding away to the fish tank.

‘We had no idea things would turn bad,’ Stanley said, once Oscar had left.

‘Me neither.’ Tina flushed, again. ‘I should have stayed put.’

Stanley looked back at the scaffolding as if there was no more to say. Tina laughed apologetically. ‘It’s ironic; I came here to teach medieval history but I’ve had to catch up on modern!’ She fidgeted with her hair, remembering she’d left her earrings in a deposit box in the residence hall.

‘It’s not so different for us. Lots of history, most of which is true.’ Stanley shifted in his seat. ‘I tell myself every day that this is a peaceful, civilised country. It’s a necessary lie.’

Tina lifted her cup. ‘You know this café is famous? I heard about it in the university. And this is absolutely the best coffee I’ve had since moving here. The best.’

Stanley looked dutifully at his coffee but it did not hold his attention. Tina itched to hold his hands, to share her resolute optimism, not that it amounted to much.

‘You volunteered to work here?’

‘Yes. I am not the most practical of people, but the co-operative asked me to join.’

‘That’s lovely. Are you the manager?’

‘I can only manage to clean tables. They put me on the committee because my brother is on the other side. A rebel commander. They thought it might make the café safe.’

Tina giggled. ‘No way! It’s sort of funny. The blown-up wall.’ His face was expressionless. ‘Oh God, was anyone killed?’

‘No. It was a night time shelling. It’s okay to laugh, I am quite used to the perverse humour of my situation.’ He looked at the floor. ‘There was a motion to remove me from the committee afterwards.’

Tina laughed loudly, causing faces to turn towards them. There were no other couples in the café, but then, couples were a rarity on the streets too; people were either in some kind of military unit, or else alone. The prolonged stares were passing judgement, a pronouncement she imagined in her mother’s voice. ‘Couldn’t you at least have fallen for a man your own age?’ That’s what Mum had said about Oscar’s father. Visiting Professor in Medieval History. Exiting professor when Tina said she was keeping her baby.

This was different.

‘Stanley, are there any cinemas still open? I mean, if a café like this can survive…’

‘No. A few people show films in their cellars, that’s all.’ He asked Tina about her university career and she launched into her doctoral thesis on medieval romance. The screech of chairs being pushed back halted her exposition.

Oscar called out ‘Mummy?’ People were standing up, hurriedly putting away their phones.

‘What is it?’

Stanley stood up also. He announced to everyone, in the detached style of a newsreader, the familiar warning that a bombardment was imminent. He stressed that there was no more than five minutes to get to the shelter in the basement. A woman appeared at the staircase wearing a helmet. Tina was buffeted by Oscar running into her and she fought down his attempt to climb into her arms, dragging him to the queue filing down the stairs.

Two women with rifles stood beside a door in the basement. It must have served as a store room for the mall too, because there were alcoves with crates and racks of clothes under dustcovers. Tina walked past people already sitting, legs out, on the bare concrete. Some were stuffing tissue paper into their ears. She hunkered down, making a space between her knees for Oscar. There was no sign of Stanley. She hugged Oscar and pressed her face against his cheek. He nuzzled back.

The door made a heavy, booming peal as it closed. Tina forced her throat open; she croaked to the warden.

‘There was a man at my table, Stanley. Did he come in?’

‘Stanislav?’

‘Yes, sorry, Stanislav. Shouldn’t we wait for him?’

‘We wait for no one.’

The warden spoke with finality. Some people were looking at Tina with expressions of astonishment. An open door was no protection.

‘Stanislav is where he wants to be. He likes to see the shelling!’ The warden exchanged a smile with the guards at the door.

The first shell sounded like distant thunder. The mantra of her colleagues in the university was: ‘You are safe until you are dead.’ It wasn’t much reassurance, but the morbid humour appealed. Three shells landed split-seconds apart. The ground shook, and Oscar cried out. Tina whispered ‘Good boy’ into his ear, and tried to be calm. With a great effort she stared at the wall opposite, remembering the instructions drilled into her at the university; don’t look at other people’s faces, fear is infectious. The shelter is safe…stay in the shelter. Suddenly, a tremendous noise. The floor moved. Dust floated in the air. Oscar’s voice, or echoes of it, bounced off the ceiling and he wriggled closer. A voice commanded silence. The man on Tina’s right talked quietly to Oscar, repeating, ‘Look at that wall; the wall does not move.’ Oscar said ‘Mummy that was near us.’ She hushed him. No one dared say that aloud, it was bad luck. ‘You are safe until you are dead.’

The next volley was more distant, and when the next was further away again her head sank into Oscar’s hair. She inhaled his essence. The all-clear sounded and Tina gushed thanks to those beside her, to the guards, to everyone within reach, her joyously muddled phrases becoming part of an intoxicating babble that reclaimed the shelter from the spirits of the tomb.

The guards dragged the door open. Fresh air, carrying the bitter whiff of atomised concrete, filled the shelter. The warden detained them until the guards returned to say the building was safe. Tina asked if Stanislav was okay. Everyone is okay, they assured her with a blitheness that undercut any sense of relief. Not for the first time, she longed for the gabby voices of home, the “supposes” and the “would haves” that lightened the burden of truth with well-meaning conditionality.

The staff in the café were wiping down the tables when she reached the mezzanine. None of the patrons had returned and the chairs were in a state of haphazard disorder, save one. Stanley! He had his back to them, and was completely still. Oscar became suddenly heavy, and his hand pulled her back. She moved on anyway, carefully avoiding the debris strewn on the wet floor. She noticed shards of glass, and hesitated. His stillness was frightening. ‘Stanley?’ She called again, louder. In the first week of shelling she’d seen sights she wanted to forget, people flattened, their bloodied faces stiffened at the very instant life was crushed. Images that made the blood pool in her legs. She dug her nails into her palms and edged forward. Stanley moved when she came into his eye line. He pointed to his ears, and mimed deafness. On the table, partly shrouded by napkins, were half a dozen goldfish.

Tina suppressed a laugh. Stanley glowered at her, and looked pointedly back at Oscar. Poor Oscar. His eyes were fixed on a zebra fish that brightened the rubble. She knelt beside him. Stanley joined them and with a solemnity that drew mute agreement from Oscar, proposed gathering all the dead fish to give them a proper burial. Tina promised Oscar that they would dig a grave as soon as they got back to the university. Stanley didn’t have papers for the bus to the blue zone, which made parting less awkward than she feared.

In the evening, as she was putting Oscar to bed, they looked down at the little grave they’d dug earlier.

‘Mum, can we get pretty fish in Dublin?’

‘Of course.’ Tina hoped they were not expensive. She imagined her mother refusing point blank to have an aquarium in the house. Not even a goldfish bowl. Was that fair? The subject had never come up. Oscar did a little jump.

‘Time for bed!’

‘Is Stanley your friend?’ Oscar turned to look at her.

‘Maybe. He is nice isn’t he?’

‘Why didn’t he get on our bus?’

‘It’s only for people who are going home.’

She kissed him goodnight and retreated to the kitchenette to clear the table. Her phone lit up with another message; she’d leave it until the dishes were done and another day crossed off the calendar. When she was finally tucked under the duvet her phone had two missed calls, both during dinner time. She flicked to the text messages.

‘You could’ve been killed!’ That was hers, sent while they were on the bus.

He’d sent a thumbs up emoji, which at the time she thought was irritatingly cryptic. It was only when the bi-lingual signs for the campus appeared that she had realised he might not know how to switch to English.

‘Sorry for delay’ came a couple of hours later. Then: ‘I am foolish enough to think I protect the café, that my brother doesn’t hate me that much.’

‘I don’t want a hero,’ she had replied.

‘Next time will be different,’ he had typed, after a pause. Then followed it with ‘Could I meet you tomorrow?’

‘Too soon.’ She’d muted the phone then, and made dinner for herself and Oscar, and did all the other labours of love that apparently did not count as effort.

‘I have a day pass,’ was his unread message.

‘You’ll need thirty-one,’ she replied.

KM Walsh is a writer living in Kilkenny, Ireland, who is interested in medieval history, great books, the whole earth, and science fiction. He's been known to leave things out.

Listen to Michelle reading her piece:

The summer was immense and I was bleeding on the sidewalk. This was China, June of 2014. Nighttime and the apartment buildings skyscraper tall. The park had no gates, and children with their grandmothers flooded into the square, they brought their yo-yos, bicycles without training wheels, shiny decks of Pokemon cards, whatever they had loved at the time, and picked fights with each other. That summer, I think I had watched a bird die, but I cannot be sure of anything now. I recall my brother standing over what remains as a dark mass in my memory, a body twitching like a wet match trying to spark, twig thin legs, wings fluttering into dampening flames, and then there is blood, dark as asphalt, on the asphalt, and we cannot be sure how there can be so much; a wetted, shell shaped beak, and Ethan on the verge of tears and traffic all around, and this is what I think of when I rollerblade into the wall that night—am I dying from this pain or from this reality, that nobody saw as I pick myself up, and I might as well as live my life unnoticed? I must have always had this unexplainable sadness, so I staggered around and sat down on the stair steps in front of the frozen yogurt and apothecary shop and cried and nobody, not even I could figure out why. It was like poetry, a stirring sadness, or something ugly. Red Chinese characters slid across the screen display between the two shops and I couldn’t make out a single word through my tears, and lights everywhere, yo-yos lit up, digital watches, a boy joking about setting off a firecracker. I remember my aunt coaxing, half laughing, offering to buy frozen yogurt, sitting down on the steps next to me, and my knees looked less battered under the blistering heat, but I don’t know what any of this is supposed to mean, so that’s why I decided to become a writer. This is one of the first things I recall about childhood, but when I think childhood, I also think about dreams, and the one where I was Batman’s leading lady. In the beginning, we were poor as rats and my mother was alive—this is how all good stories start—but I was snotty enough to ask God how to find bigger loss to write about. The house we lived in sagged with heat, the whole block like tar, and I was told that to lose something great, you must become the great thing. By one miracle or the next, I walked down the street, loitered into Batman’s backyard and found him gardening, bent over daffodils and lilies like my grandmother and I knew I could love him and lose him easily. He looked up and took off his gardening gloves and asked me to the next dance and the story goes like a tragedy. He told me to wear something devastating, then stand by the bus stop at 6; I said okay and the next thing is we are waltzing under a chandelier. He says, look at me, I can’t bear for you to stop, so I look right through him and see into the night his parents died, into the night I collided into the wall, see into the hunger dabbled greatness he has wanted for so long, the people he is going to kill for it and the ceiling is breaking in half, and now we are in mist and rubble, there are two ends of cliffs. He is on the other end, the side where the grasses are green and I can see nothing else. On my side: my grandmother is pushing me to sit down, dotting antiseptic on my knees, my aunt talking about taking us through Asian malls and malls, running her hands through my hair; he reminds me that even a lifetime well lived will still end in loss, so why not save the world instead? He was convincing, his eyes marble green, so I jump, sling my body through the air like a question mark, land at his feet. I pick up my purse, gather my high heels and he has already disappeared through a shining blade of light that hovers above the grass. But I look back because grandmother is crying, and my aunt is begging her not to, but oh, she jumps anyway; they both do—grandmother’s silver streak of hair catches whatever light there is as she gracefully plummets into the abyss below, she’s still crying, I’m sure, and auntie has one hand on the edge, knuckles whitening, and the piece of stone breaks and falls along with the rest of her body—and how could I possibly even dream this, the horrible child that I am? I sat on the edge of the cliff, barefoot—the hero must go on, this life must go on, because how many things die at every given instant, but how many must die? I know he is on the other side; waiting. He didn’t laugh, but he won’t stay either. I had wanted wrongly. I tell myself this pain is how I know I am still alive, the way all memory lives and dies, these ragged moments under congested midnight, I’m still wearing something devastating like love, loving something devastating like people, but no one would know now. I ask myself: who has hurt me? I run my fingers over the crook where the stone has chipped and fallen. I think I have always been in love with people, and I learned too late that what you leave can still hurt you. What makes a good writer, then? Loss, I suppose, but I don’t know a damn thing nor am I brave enough to continue and make beauty out of anything. The thing about writing is you have to be paying attention, because no suffering lasts—either the sufferer will die, or the suffering will—and the only thing I remember is the falling motion, the gravity carrying two people towards a small plot of land, the pinpricks of light, the yo-yos, the red lettering on the screen, the singular firecracker hissing in June, the stone wall, the love for a vanishing world, Ethan crying over two bodies below; and above, the sky turned a color I didn’t know how to name, it rains over our southerly nights in China. My childhood left so soon, with a fresh flock of bird calls. I will think of death as a mercy then, a kind of door that will crack itself open. Listen, it’s morning now. And if I look downwards, there is a bruise on my knee that looks like a bird trying to escape. Sitting on the cliff, I tell my aunt I’m sorry. Sitting on the stone steps, I tell my knee to stop bleeding. The summer was immense and this time I bled out on the sidewalk. In my time of dying, I fall in love with the world, but not enough to stay^[1]. This time, I’ll follow the path of freefall, with no wings.

^[1] Author’s Note: This line is from a poem written by an acquaintance, but I cannot recall the title of the piece

Michelle Li has been nationally recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, the Rising Voices Awards, and Apprentice Writer. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop and her work is forthcoming or published in Aster Lit, wildscape. literary, and Third Wednesday. She edits for The Dawn Review and is the executive editor for Hominum Journal. In addition, she plays violin and piano, loves Rachmaninoff and blackberries. You can find her website at michelleli.carrd.co.

Listen to a reading of this story by the author:

I turned the steering wheel with sweaty palms as I exited the bank parking lot. My heart, an inmate pounding on bars, thumped against my rib cage. I drove straight home to my studio apartment, conscious of my speed so I wouldn’t get pulled over. My mind raced with ideas of how I would spend all that money.

The phone rang an hour later. My heart was still beating twice its normal pace, and my mouth was dry with fear. Perched on the side of my bed, I was running my hands through the thick stack of bills, waving it under my nose, savoring the smell.

“I made a mistake,” your voice trembled as you explained that you were a trainee, first day on the job. “I’m really sorry for the mixup.” I was only half listening while you explained how you had accidentally looked at the check number on my paycheck instead of the amount.

I was thinking about my parents. They would be so disappointed in me. Hell, I was disappointed in me.

Your frantic tone rattled my nerves. Your desperation buzzed through the line like electricity as you asked me to please return the overage amount of one thousand twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents to the bank before the close of business.

I tuned back in when I heard you say, “They’ll take it out of my paycheck. I could lose my job.”

It’s been forty years, but I’ll never forget the way your words came out all vibrato, your vocal cords quivering. I will never stop being sorry for that.

I want you to know it’s not that I didn’t care. I just cared about myself more. I could have used the stolen money to buy more ramen noodles and off-brand ketchup to stock my cabinets. That’s what a starving college student should do. But what I actually bought was a new pair of shoes, a pair of sensible black flats that were comfortable to walk in. Mine were falling off as I walked across campus to class. Turns out, when you lose a large amount of weight very quickly, even your feet shrink. Snorting cocaine for six months had triggered Bulimia to morph into Anorexia. I went from bingeing potato chips to snorting cocaine, dropping acid, and smoking crack.

The new shoes cost less than twenty dollars. The rest of the money went up my nose or in my eyes. A respectable person like you probably knows nothing about dropping acid in your eyes to have the trip of a lifetime. You probably never woke up in a boat parked on a trailer in a deserted parking lot after a Grateful Dead concert. You probably look your parents in the eye.

“You must have me confused with someone else.” My voice was so steady that I almost convinced myself I was telling you the truth.

You probably thought you were dealing with a hardened criminal, a repeat offender with no conscience, a sociopath with no empathy for her victims.

Sometimes I think about the way you said goodbye to me at the end of that phone call. I heard the way you gave up on me, the lost girl. You were right, I was on the edge of destruction. And I decided to jump.

Tracie Adams, a 2025 Pushcart nominee, writes from her farm in rural Virginia where she spends a ridiculous amount of time with two writing buddies who look a lot like dachshunds. Her work is featured in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Sky Island, Raw Lit, and others. Read her work at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.

Listen to a reading of this piece by Jane:

At my husband’s Wild West 40^th birthday party I dressed myself as Brandy the slutty cowgirl for the duration of the ho-down

I worked for a woman called Karen before Karen was a proper noun she poured us Brandy and diet ginger ales and smoked Winfield Lights while I cooked the meat and three veg with sauces at 5 pm then put them in a stainless steel electric warmer to sweat covered until dinner at six when the single shepherd came in Karen was happy by then but not hungry the cloying artificial ginger sweetness clung to the back of my throat well past the mutton gravy when I tucked the children into bed I was the sixteen year old live-in nanny

Brandy is recommended in times of shock death divorce being left a crumbling chateau in Burgundy by a long lost cousin once removed a grey-haired black man smacked me on the chops when I was leaving the Notting Hill carnival in ‘84 maybe he took offence at my strapless cream lace debutante meringue of a long vintage dress in that alley I didn’t stick around to ask I retreated to my French lover’s flat nearby he was peeling the skin off roasted red peppers at the kitchen table his fingers drenched in olive oil he told me Brandy originates from the Dutch word Brandewijn meaning ‘burned wine’ and poured me a red to soothe my stinging face

When I was a temp in London my first placement was at the Barbican Events Centre I worked with a woman who wore Brandy like a balloon dousing herself in the heady notes of Cinnabar perfume in an attempt to conceal her Brandy consumption most evenings we’d walk together to the underground station so I could be her steady arm and help her take that vital first step onto the steep wooden escalators rattling down to the platform below

I made a Christmas cake one year and fed it a daily diet of Brandy once cooked because Nigella said that is how you treat a fruit and nut cake you gave an entire day to in the process of just combining the Brandy soaked ingredients with eggs and flours and baking in four layers of baking paper and four layers of brown paper at 150 Celsius until just right a week into turning this cake into a raving alcoholic I ate a slice with a nice cup of tea feeling like Martha Stewart when she got out of gaol and drove to town to get the children from school only realising after I picked up a hitch-hiker and giggled instructions for him to sit between the booster seats in the back I was sloshed

Calvados is a Brandy made from apple ciders originating from Normandy I sipped it with my father when I visited him in France in my twenties care for a digestif he would say after dinner very good for the digestion not really it was just adding to the level of alcohol our livers already had to break down the French have a reason for everything I don’t remember particularly liking the taste but I put a lot of effort into trying to keep up with my dad drinking in the hope some sort of close bond would form that he’d see me as one of the guys he never did

Kiwi Pop singer Bunny Walters recorded hit song Brandy in 1972 I knew all the words but couldn’t play guitar like Bunny dubbed the Māori Tom Jones I bet a lot of baby girls in Aotearoa New Zealand were named Brandy after that and girl dogs I had a neighbour Mrs Snee with a red setter named Brandy Mum told me she lived alone because she was a spinster nothing to do with spinning but two years later a boy racer spun out and hit her dog and American crooner Barry Manilow recorded Brandy renamed Mandy which made it more of a mega hit and made him and his record company a lot of money I don’t know if Mrs Snee got another red setter we moved again soon after that

Oh Brandy you came but you sure did some taking.

Aotearoa | New Zealand based writer, Jane Bloomfield, is the author of the Lily Max middle-grade trilogy. Her poetry and or CNF are published in Tarot, Turbine |Kapohau, a fine line - NZ Poetry Society, Roi Fainéant Press, Does It Have Pockets, Dust Poetry Magazine, The Spinoff, Sunday Magazine and elsewhere.

Listen to a reading by the author:

1. Before the Fire

A rubber paddle whacks the ball—ping. A ball slams down on the table—pong. Ping, pong, ping pong. Ping pong the sound. Echoing. Forehand, backhand. Spin. Again. Serve. Rally. Smash. Ping pong the slam.

Ping pong the family connection. Played with father, brothers, husband, children. Ball into corners yes! Barely cresting the net gotcha! Slamming it ooh good one. Little white dog following the ball with his head, scampering after it when it lands off the table—not giving it up. Point for dog. Point for son. Game. Ping pong the table. The new tournament sized black one in the carport. Shiny. Inviting.

2. The Fire

Evacuation.

Goodbye table, carport, house. Goodbye everything. We will be back. Wood becomes flame becomes ash at 570 degrees. Wildfires burn at over 2000 degrees. We talk Fahrenheit but it’s all the same, irrelevant to the incinerated. To the disappeared. The house, the carport, the ping pong table.

3. After the Fire

The melted remnants of metal legs lying in a pool of bizarrely beautiful. Ping pong the debris.

Ping pong the art piece. Hanging on the wall of the new house. This was our ping pong table we say. Its legs. Pointing to the dark charcoal bits embedded and protruding from the abstract sculptural metal form, these are pieces of the old house. Our old life.

Ping pong the memory.

Shira Musicant, a retired psychotherapist, lives in the foothills of Santa Barbara with her husband, several adult children, six chickens, and one black cat. Twice a Pushcart nominee, she has stories in or upcoming in Star 82 Review, Vestal Review, Fourth Genre, and Does It Have Pockets, among others.

Listen to a reading of this piece by Nadja:

It’s Saturday at the supermarket, the week before Thanksgiving. First, my son Chris wants to push the shopping cart. Then, he wants to ride inside.

Whatever he wants, I think, whatever would make him happy, restore a sense of normality to his life, I’m willing to oblige. But I don’t need to choose, because my boyfriend Peter (should I call him my boyfriend?) lifts him up and sets him down into the cart’s seat and starts pushing.

I see a lady, wide bangles clanking on her wrists, filling a plastic bag with onions. In her cart is a twenty-pound turkey and I’m envious. I imagine her kitchen filled with good smells, stuffing made with melted butter, garlic and sage, a large bird roasting in the oven.

I don’t have a reason to buy a turkey. We’re going to my mother’s house. She’ll give us plenty of leftovers.

Peter, my first steady boyfriend since my husband’s death, won’t be joining us. He’s visiting his mother that weekend. Around the table will be his sisters and their husbands, and his nephew. He didn’t invite me. Didn’t invite us. Just announced his plans before I could ask him, “Would you like to come to our Thanksgiving?”

I am scared he is running away, but he’s here this morning. We’re cooking dinner together tonight. He’s barbecuing chicken on the grill.

At the checkout line, he lets Chris from inside the cart, help with the groceries. He encourages him to place the lighter ones on the conveyer belt. Then Peter moves to the other end of the check-out counter and begins bagging the lettuce, tomatoes, chips, barbecue sauce, and rice we bought.

The cashier’s nametag says “Darlene” and I notice dark puffy circles under her eyes. Chris hands her the last bag of chips to ring up. She thanks him, smiles and points to Peter. “Your Daddy is a good bagger,” she says. “A helper just like you.”

Chris looks at Peter and then looks back at Darlene. He shakes his head. “He’s not my daddy,” he says. “My Daddy is lo-ong gone.”

Darlene claps her hand over her mouth. I don’t know what I can or should say to take away her sense of embarrassment. This woman who works so hard and is trying to be nice, thinks the father of my child must have abandoned me.

Inside my head I see my late husband, unable to speak or move, lying in his hospital bed. It’s better he is gone, I think, no one should endure such suffering.

When she hands me the receipt, I want to tell her, it’s not what you think.

Outside the store, I turn towards Peter. Ours eyes meet. We both start laughing. “Oh, that poor woman,” he says.

He takes my hand, gives it a squeeze, and I know he’s not running away.

He really does care, I think to myself, about me, my kids and the check-out lady. He’s just cautious.

And in this moment, I’m not worrying about my children’s future, my love life or the holidays. In this moment, everything is okay.

And although for each hour of feeling normal I will endure two hours of feeling hopeless and lost, one year in the future I will be back at this very same supermarket shopping. Peter and Chris will be with me and I’ll be looking for the largest fresh turkey I can find.

Nadja Maril’s prose and poetry has been published in literary magazines that include, Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Review and Across the Margin. Her chapbook of poems and memoir, Recipes from My Garden, was published by Old Scratch Press in September (2024). A former journalist and editor, Nadja has an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. To read more of her work and follow her weekly blog posts, visit Nadjamaril.com

Listen to Melissa reading this piece:

I look at the time on my phone and then walk from the living room to the kitchen though I don’t need anything there. The house is quiet because it’s a work day and it’s just after the holidays, with opened gifts piled on end tables and on the corner of the couch. I have one wrapped present on the coffee table for James, when he arrives. I have taken the day off work, a precious vacation day, precious because I have so few of them and my supervisor is so reluctant to grant even the ones I have.

I’ve been dating James for almost two months. He missed spending Christmas with me because his truck broke down when he visited his mom and stepdad in Mariposa. We are in the precarious phase of our relationship where I’m too scared to call him my boyfriend, to say we are dating, so I tell people we’re hanging out.

I told him to pick me up around 8 a.m., and now it’s past 11. He texted me the night before to say his younger sister asked to visit him. She graduated from college last spring and now she is heading to Korea to teach English for a year. It’s the only day she can visit, but as soon as she leaves he said he’d drive down to see me.

The later it gets, the more anxious I get that he won’t show. Then I get angry that he’s wasting my time, my precious vacation day. I’m used to people ghosting me or changing their minds. I don’t yet know that his sister is always late, will always be late.

James shows up after noon and I mask my frustration. I hand him the gift. Inside, there is a blue cashmere sweater. It’s expensive. I wanted to give him something nice. I tell him if he doesn’t like it, tell me so we can return it for something else. Don’t feel bad if he doesn’t like it. I don’t yet know he will put the sweater in the bottom of a dresser drawer. He will never wear it.

He hands me a gift. It’s a DVD of my favorite movie, a 1980s romantic comedy starring John Cusack. I mentioned it the first time we hung out, when we went to lunch and rented movies from Blockbuster.

He knows I love movies and I see one in the theaters almost every week because I write a movie column for the paper where I work. I write a food column, news stories, shoot videos, take photos and design pages. The staff is only three people now. That’s part of why this day off is such a luxury, and I spent half of it alone. Waiting.

He apologizes for being late.

“My family isn’t great at planning, but I couldn’t say no to my sister when she was leaving for a year.”

I can choose to hold onto the bad mood and let it sour the day, or I can let it go and appreciate the time we still have.

We leave his truck in the guest parking outside my place and I drive my car south through the green hills along Highway 101 and then cut across the rural stretch of Highway 156 that connects to the Pacific Coast Highway. He tells me his uncle has a place out this way. He used to visit when he was a kid. I don’t yet know that his grandparents and my grandparents at one time lived in the small rural town not too far away, in Hollister. Even though we grew up in different valleys.

When we arrive at Cannery Row, we park in a lot a few blocks from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ve been here dozens of times, but never in the month of December. The wind whips through my silver coat and blows my hair around my face. James’ cheeks turn red with the cold. He takes my hand as we make our way into the guest entrance and stop in front of the sea otter tank. I point them out, name them. One of the otters has been here since I was a kid, and I’ve watched its fur go from a golden brown to gray around its whiskered face. We watch them dive and circle back up to the top of the tank, where they chase each other and play.

James takes my hand again as we walk to the open sea exhibit and all the remnants of my morning’s frustration flow away. We peer together into the extraordinary tank that houses sun fish and sea turtles, bluefin tuna, hammerhead sharks. We are just in time for the afternoon feeding and a school of sardines swirls around the center of the tank, their scales glimmering like Christmas tree lights.

I spot the sea turtle as it moves lazily up to the top of the tank to catch chunks of fish. The turtle is my favorite animal and a trip to the aquarium isn’t complete until I see it. I don’t yet know that someday these trips to the aquarium will be different, with a small hand guiding me toward his favorite spots, and I will be willing to give up the sea turtle sightings.

When the feeding is over, people clear out and move to a new exhibit. James and I sit on the fabric covered steps in the dark. He puts his arm around my shoulder as we watch the creatures swim in the immense tank.

We walk across the aquarium to see the penguins and I tell him how they’ve been rebranded. They used to be called jackass penguins because they sound like they are braying. I know because I saw them in South Africa. But now they are South African penguins. He laughs and his blue eyes follow the birds diving in the water.

We leave the aquarium and get lunch at a brewery then walk toward the wharf. It’s colder now so James ducks into a store and buys a beanie and gloves. There is an outdoor skating rink, but I don’t know how to skate. I confess that I have a fear of falling. We watch families and children circle the ice. James takes my hand, then takes a selfie, our noses red from the cold and our smiles bright.

We don’t yet know, but we are falling, falling in love, and this time it doesn’t feel scary because I don’t recognize it for what it is. It’s not overdramatic and full of chaos, like in stories and movies and TV shows. It’s quiet and warm, like when he puts the DVD of my favorite movie in to play on his PS3, and I cuddle up to him on the futon that serves as a couch in his apartment on the weekend. I don’t yet know I will move in to that apartment in 15 months, after we get engaged. That I will buy a couch for us, and it will be our home when we are first married, where I will take a pregnancy test that has two lines, where we will bring our baby home from the hospital and he will laugh and cry, and roll over. That the apartment will be the first of three homes we share.

What I know is that what is happening is different than anything that has happened before.

Melissa Flores Anderson is a Latinx Californian who lives with her husband and son. Her creative work has been featured in more than 40 literary venues and anthologies, including swamp pink, Chapter House and HAD. She is a reader/editor with Roi Fainéant Press. She has co-authored a novelette, “Roadkill,” (ELJ Editions) and a chapbook “A Body in Motion,” (JAKE). Her first full-length short story collection “All and Then None of You” is out September 2025 (Cowboy Jamboree). Follow her on Twitter/Bluesky @melissacuisine or IG/Threads @theirishmonths. Read her work at melissafloresandersonwrites.com.

Listen to Camara reading his piece:

“Remind me later to tell you something,” Steffi said.

I hadn’t realized that she was awake. She blinked her eyes open cautiously, like a child adjusting to the morning light, and stared at the tiny room’s gray ceiling. Steffi’s younger brother, Hans, had generously lent us his studio apartment in Nuremberg for the duration of my three-week visit to Germany. The room was modern utilitarian to the extreme – austere, stainless steel, shades of gray – but better than paying for a hotel room that I couldn’t afford.

During the few months that we’d been together, Steffi hadn’t once deviated from her sleep-wake ritual. She slept naked and, like an embalmed Egyptian, always on her back with her hands clasped over her stomach. The duvet, which she carefully tucked beneath her armpits before she fell asleep, would by morning have slipped below her breasts. No matter how late we stayed up, Steffi always woke up the instant the glow of first light reached her face. The days I woke up before her, just before dawn, were the only times that she was perfectly still and peaceful. I resisted every urge to trace the curves of her silhouette with my fingertips, if only to avoid disturbing the calm before the inevitable storm.

“Tell me what?” I asked.

“I said I will tell you later.”

“Please tell me now, Stephanie.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked for a reminder to tell me something later, and the ‘somethings’ tended toward the unpleasant. Remind me later to tell you that I was married before and that I’ll be busy all afternoon meeting my ex-husband for coffee. Remind me later to tell you about my before-and-after photo book of Nuremberg's destruction by Allied bombers during World War II, so when you laugh uncomfortably at my teary defense of wartime Germany, I can accuse you of anti-German bias. I thought it best to address this day’s forewarned test of my relationship mettle immediately.

“No. Not now, later,” she said, her voice rising. “It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, and you know what you want to say, then just tell me now.”

Steffi sighed heavily. “Please, mein Schatz,” she said. This was a warning: Steffi only called me 'darling’ in German when she was extremely randy or extremely angry.

She took her bedside bottle from the nightstand and began the final step of the ritual – the daily morning chug of water. The discussion, at least from her perspective, was over. Neither caffeinated nor awake enough for a real argument, I gave up. Not that I’d ever been much of a match for her when we argued, a mismatch that felt starker now that our battles were taking place on her home turf instead of back home in D.C. My sharpest ripostes – keeping my passport handy and my suitcase packed; secretly checking the prices of early return flights – amounted to an unspoken, empty threat.

She returned her bottle to the nightstand. “I will tell you later,” she said. “Just don’t forget.” The burden to remind Steffi to tell me – whatever it was – was now mine. By the time we pulled on to the Autobahn two hours later, I’d forgotten.

Steffi set the scene for her maternal grandparent’s yearly family cookout during the hour-long drive south into the heartland of Deutschland. Her grandparents hosted the cookout at the country home they’d built 50 years prior on the outskirts of Weissenburg, a picturesque town in central Bavaria. I pictured two dozen relatives chatting, laughing, singing, and dancing to folk music, while barefoot, blond-haired kids, wearing all-white picnic outfits, whizzed a shuttlecock back and forth over a badminton net, doing how they do on The Sound of Music.

We took the exit for Weissenburg and passed through the town’s central drag of cobblestone streets, gingerbread houses, and wooden balconies lined with red geraniums. I glanced at Steffi in the passenger seat. For the occasion she’d donned what she referred to as her ‘battle armor’ – her favorite dress, which was black with red flowers and fell just above her knees; black, open-toed shoes with thick high heels; and a generous application of mascara. The night before she’d also re-dyed her layered, shoulder-length bob a color she called “raven,” which looked suspiciously similar to a color I called “black.” I wondered why she’d wear battle armor to a cookout.

“Turn left at the next corner,” she said. I pulled into the driveway and parked. Steffi unclasped her seatbelt, inhaled audibly, sat upright, pressed her hands down into the seat, and arched her back as if overwhelmed with a sudden, uncontrollable urge to practice yoga. I watched her, knowing from experience that watching her was what she expected me to do in such circumstances.

Whether by design or malfunction, the uppermost button on her dress landed just below the center of her chest. She typically held it all together with a single, gold-colored safety pin, placed an inch or so above the button, which did little to limit exposure but prevented any unintended spillage. Now, as she squeezed her shoulder blades together, the dam threatened to burst. This was all very familiar, Steffi powering up before taking the stage, drawing energy from the attention of others. The honor of being her main power source filled me with equal parts of pride and resentment.

We exited the car and I followed her along a curving path through a grove of evergreens. The sounds of young children’s laughter and animated voices speaking in German, harsh and aggressive even when joyful, grew louder.

Steffi stopped in her tracks. “Scheiße,” she said. Shit.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’m nervous.”

“I’m the one who should be nervous, wandering around Bumblefuck, Germany like I’ve got no sense.” Then I remembered. “Wait. The thing you mentioned this morning, to remind you about. That’s what’s making you nervous. Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Steffi said. She paused for a moment, then added, “You forgot to remind me.”

Yes I’d forgotten, but she hadn’t, and both of us knew it. Her five-word accusation served as a self-pardon and also implicated me in whatever crime she was about to confess. A confession she’d postponed until it was too late for me to refuse to come.

I’d spent sleepless hours contemplating what compelled Steffi to play these games with me, to send me on such wild swings of emotion, often on a whim but always with intent. I had a couple of working theories: that she was mimicking destructive behavior she’d witnessed at home during her childhood, prior to her parents’ divorce; or that my being from a different culture and ethnicity than any of her previous lovers made me an intolerable mystery, a conundrum that she needed to break down to its constituent elements to truly understand and love.

Or, perhaps, I was overthinking it all and the explanation was straightforward: Steffi simply enjoyed toying with lovers’ emotions. Some predators, after all, enjoy playing with their food before they eat it.

“Okay. We’re here now. So what’s the big mystery?” She shook her head. “Come on, Stephanie,” I said, raising my voice. “Tell me now or I’m getting in the car and driving back to fucking Nuremberg.”

“Okay. Fine,” she said. Steffi approached me, not stopping until she was only inches away, which instantly defused my anger, a tactic she’d employed before. No longer blinded by my rage, I saw her again. I noticed her mascara. At a distance it accentuated her comic book heroine’s eyes, bright blue with flecks of hazel and dark limbal rings. This close I could see that her mascara had gathered on the tips of her lashes like tiny clumps of fudge. Her hair framed her face, with its high cheekbones, softly squared jawline, and crossbow-shaped lips. She squeezed my hands and moved even closer, pressed her breasts against my chest, so close I thought she was going to kiss me. My lips parted. When she spoke I could feel her breath on my mouth.

“The dark family secret, well I don’t know how much of a secret it is, really, but…” She giggled uncomfortably. “We think that my grandfather was probably a Nazi during the war.”

I felt the knot of rage in the center of my chest, a permanent fixture since my arrival in Germany, tighten. I shook my head. She looked at me impassively, as if waiting for a response. I pulled my hands from Steffi’s and backed away from her. An insect buzzing around my face made me aware that my mouth was open so I shut it, clenching my jaw so tightly I thought my teeth would crack.

“It’s a joke, right? Tell me this is a joke.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not a joke.”

“Oh. So just a lovely afternoon with the Nazi relatives?”

“Only my grandfather. It’s not even a 100% sure thing. We just think so.”

“If his own family believes he was a Nazi then it's a 100% sure thing that he was a Nazi.”

“Come on. You’re making too big of a deal about this. It was 60 years ago.”

“What? Who cares how long… I’m the one making a big deal?” I balled my hands into fists and pressed them into my temples. “You were looking forward to this, weren’t you? Parading your boy toy in front of the SS. I’m guessing you also failed to mention to the Führer that I’m Black.”

“Actually I did tell him.”

I studied her face, unsure whether or not she was telling the truth. “And?”

Steffi shrugged her shoulders. “He asked me if you were an African,” she said, pursing her lips as if trying to stifle a chuckle.

I spun on my heels and marched back up the path toward the car, before stopping and turning around again. I closed my eyes and took several slow, deep breaths. Until that moment I hadn’t noticed the scent of summer flowers, lavender or perhaps jasmine, beneath the rich smell of the pines that surrounded us. The hum of voices beyond the trees spiked with laughter before settling again.

I opened my eyes. Steffi, framed by the trees, with the path winding away behind her, stood motionless as if posing for a portrait. As we stared silently at one another, the warm, redolent zephyr relieved me of my rage.

“Well, your grandfather will be very disappointed when he finds out he’s meeting an American instead of a real, live African for the first time,” I said.

“Steffi!”

The voice came from behind her. A young girl ran up and jumped into Steffi’s arms. They spoke excitedly in German. The girl looked at me open-mouthed and wild-eyed, as if she’d just found her parents' secret stash of unwrapped Christmas presents.

“This is my cousin, Clara,” Steffi said.

I forced a smile, offered a quick wave, and approached them. I shot Steffi the iciest stare I could muster and leaned toward her until my mouth was next to her ear. “Remind me later to tell you something,” I whispered.

I turned to Clara - she’d seen the expression on my face. Her smile dissolved and she cocked her head at me. I noticed something dangling at her side: a shuttlecock, its skirt pinched between her fingers. She held it up, said something to me in German and reached for my hand.

“Komm und spiel,” she said. Come and play.

Camara S. Garrett spent 16 years responding to political and humanitarian crises in war-torn countries, including Ukraine, Libya, Myanmar, Iraq, and Bosnia while working for USAID, an incredible community of hard-working public servants that was recently “fed into a wood-chipper” by renowned apartheid baby, Elon Musk. Camara left the U.S. Government during the first Trump administration and moved to Costa Rica, where he spent his time building a forever home in the cloud forest, co-raising two wacky, beautiful children and, occasionally, scrawling opinions about geopolitics and reflections about past lives into Google Docs. His essay “Uncaptioned” will be published in the summer 2025 issue of The Threepenny Review.

You meet me at the Galactic Cafe

Listen to Sara reading her poem:

and yeah, the coffee here’s sublunar, but you’ll ask for one last slow-drip before we ride whip-quick into the next supermassive black hole, tossing lightyears asunder. No sunset left to measure our heartbeats against gravity beckoning us by bone and creamcore stardust. we face an intimate reckoning, my atoms pressed against your particular particles and, maybe, I’d be worried without your electromagnetic smile pulsing my heart back into song. with an indomitable event over our horizon we catapult each other, hand in star-speck hand, asking 

who between us made time finally lose his black-holed tongue.

Sara Aultman is a Seattle poet and writer. Previously featured in Fahmidan Journal, Olney Magazine, HAD, Stone Circle Review, you can find Sara on Twitter @TheSaraAult and Bluesky @saraaultman.bsky.social.

Falling

Listen to Juliet reading her poem:

We’re on the roof when you set your coffee down. I think of it falling. And I consider the first person to drop a penny off the Empire State Building and how that penny landed on the sidewalk and rolled into a gutter but the next person to drop a penny killed a man when it landed on his head.
 
What is luck and what is bad luck? 

I don’t always think of death when I'm falling in love. But I do think of luck and the tenuous ground it lays. 

The elevator operator at the Empire State Building once let my son push the lever, giving a six-year-old control of propelling us downward. 

    Delight. 

In 1945 a plane flew into the Empire State Building. 

    Fog.

The force caused an elevator operator named Betty Lou to be thrown from her elevator. She broke many bones. 

    Bad luck. 

Paramedics put her on a stretcher, put the stretcher on a different elevator. That elevator fell many floors.
 
    Worse Luck.

She fell so many floors and survived.

    Luck.  

She fell so many floors and survived that she made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

    Delight.

I am delighted and I feel lucky and I’m afraid of the fog.

Juliet Waller is a Seattle based writer and playwriting teacher. Her pieces have appeared in, among others, Third Street Review, 3Elements, New Delta Review, and Does It Have Pockets. She has an upcoming piece in Pixie Literary Magazine.