The Humdinger Reader

Back cover - Cactus by Kelly Khun

2008-05-04T16:00:00.001-07:00

Everything Big Happens in Manhattan by Rex Horner

2008-05-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

EVERYTHING BIG ALWAYS HAPPENS IN MANHATTAN

Issue 1 - The Beginning, The Origin

SCRIPT BY REX HORNER

Page 1 -

Panel 1 - A sprawling, overhead view of a quaint town. Something out of the fifties, on the edge of industry, but still with a heap of old-fashioned values. It's nighttime and bright out but shadows still manage to wash across the pine-filled hills.

CAPTION

The tallest building in Durham was the water tower. . .

Panel 2 - Swoop in over the town green. A lone teenager drags off a cigarette, a wisp of smoke clouds over him.

CAPTION

The once-a-year fair drew more customers than the Durham's entire population.

Panel 3 - The fairgrounds. Abandoned, farmhouse fences this way and that, the beer-hall, a rough, log cabin building. A slew of beer bottles, some broken, litter the ground and tables.

CAPTION

Drinking was popular. . .

Page 2 -

SPLASH - The water tower shooting up towards us, and a gnarled, man-like creature huddles atop the tank, looking down a steep hill towards the bulk of Durham. It is too dark to make out anything concrete about its features, besides its nakedness and stringy, taut musculature. The moon acts as a sentinel perched up high, surrounded by its army of vibrant stars.

CAPTION

The thing crouched atop the tank, not under the stars but over the city.

CREDITS - THE BEGINNING, THE ORIGIN; Issue 1; Kenneth Rex Horner - Writer

Page 3 -

Panel 1 - A teenager's room. Posters tacked to the walls, lyrics, and other phrases scrawled on the walls. Things scattered everywhere, clothes carpeting the ground. A bed fills the middle of the room, headboard pushed against a wall. A centerpiece. A boy and girl clutch at each other, no clothes on, and the sheets wrapped around their lower halves.

CAPTION

The bed was like a slaughterhouse. Drained fluids spilled across the bed covers.

Panel 2 - Close on the girl's hand draped over the edge of the bed, glistening with sweat. A beaded bracelet and a few rings are still attached.

AMY (O.P.) [the girl]

We have to go soon.

Panel 3 - Close on a hand massaging a muscled shoulder.

JOSH (O.P.) [the boy]

Sure.

Panel 4 - Vantage point from the ceiling, a string with Chinese lanterns bobbing along it crosses the panel. Amy and Josh swing off separate sides of the bed.

Page 4 -

Panel 1 - The teenage boy on the town green drags on his diminishing cigarette. He stares at the looming pine tree in the center of the green. He wears a black blazer over a half-buttoned cowboy shirt, not tucked into his black jeans. His studded belt shows a bit.

Panel 2 - Amy and Josh plow out of the darkness and Josh bumps against the boy. Cale, the underage smoker, loses the remnants of his vice. Now dressed, Josh wears a polo shirt and Amy, a skirt over jeans, and a plaid shirt covering her chest, nothing else. She wears a necklace or two, seen through the unbuttoned shirt front.

CALE

Hey!

Panel 3 - Amy and Josh stop, turning to look back at Cale. They're anxious to get out of there.

AMY

Don't sweat it. We didn't see you.

JOSH

What do we have against you anyway?

Panel 4 - Cale searches the thick grass, squinting his eyes. Amy and Josh squirm impatiently.

CALE

My cigarette. . .

Panel 5 - Focus on Josh's face, his eyes pointed off the panel. His brow is furrowed.

JOSH

You'll have another. They come in packs of twenty, you know.

Panel 6 - Focus on Amy, running a hand through her hair.

AMY

And when did you smoke?

Page 5 -

Panel 1 - Cale stands with his hands shoved into his pockets.

Panel 2 - Amy and Josh dash back off into the darkness.

Panel 3 - Cale meanders down a paved road off of the green.

Panel 4 - Shoot up into the sky, to see the terrain in full. Cale is a miniature, walking beside a graveyard that sprawls down a slope to his left. Houses line the right side of the road, mingled with trees and a steep slope just beyond the meager backyards, heavily wooded. The green's behind Cale, and the paved road surrenders to countryside further down.

Page 6 -

Panel 1 - Seen from the interior of a living room, Cale pushes open the front door. It's a family house, toys in the corners, big sofas, and a sizeable TV. Hank reclines on the sofa, square features, and dark hair, classically handsome with a big frame. He's Cale's age and his good friend.

HANK

Everything you hoped it would be?

CALE

The cigarette? I couldn't walk straight.

HANK

Dunno why else they keep you comin' back.

Panel 2 - Cale smiles, lodged against the doorway into the kitchen/dining room.

CALE

It's always this or that.

Panel 3 - From inside the freezer, the door open and Cale peering in, grabbing at box nestled next to the ice packs.

HANK (O.P.)

It's not a good habit.

Panel 4 - Cale pulls the frozen taquitos from their box, a few already on a plastic plate laid on the linoleum countertop.

CALE

How many years for you?

Panel 5 - Hank plays with the TV remote. He has a wry smile on.

HANK

I prefer to count them individually.

Page 7 -

Panel 1 - Josh and Amy are leaning against pines deep in a forest. They stare each other down.

JOSH

We did it.

AMY

Yeah.

JOSH

Show it to me.

Panel 2 - Amy digging through her jean's pocket.

AMY

What do we do with it?

JOSH

Christ, Amy. Everything. We're gonna do everything. We may even get out of here. Can you imagine that?

Panel 3 - Close on Amy's soft face, as she grins.

AMY

Yeah, Josh. I got the picture all straightened up.

Panel 4 - Josh shifting, agitated.

JOSH

Come on! Tell me you have it.

Panel 5 - Close on Amy's open palm. A gold, shining Rolex watch rests there. Their stolen treasure.

AMY (O.P.)

See?

Page 8 -

Panel 1 - Amy and Josh startle and dash off into the deeper forest, hand in hand.

CAPTION

A delicate snap of brush set the fledging thieves on edge, but it was the heavy steps of two others that sent them running.

Panel 2 - Hank and Cale cross the same spot moments later. They each have a cigarette, Cale's pressed to his lips and Hank's held between two fingers at his side.

CALE
The water tower? Why the water tower?

HANK

You've never look out over the town until you've done it smoking.

CALE

Are you sure she didn't hear us go out?

Panel 3 - Swoop back, showing a full view of the slope Cale and Hank ascend. Past the dense trees that cover the incline, sits the water tower in a clearing atop the hill. The gnarled, man-like creature still rests atop the tank, and casts a long shadow across the clearing and down the slope, over the trees.

CAPTION

“Yeah.”

Page 9 -

Panel 1 - The man-creature stands atop the tank, stretching its arms towards the sky. We stand just behind it, seeing the same view it would. The slope slides downward before the creature. A maintenance shack sits at the edge of the clearing, then gangly brush thickens into an arboreal haven.

CAPTION

It sees the town not as a playground, but more of the way a Persian conqueror looks over a bustling city from his perch atop a mountain pass.

Panel 2 - Through the crook of the creature's neck we see an outstretched arm and a hand tensed and curled as if grasping an invisible sphere. The creature's back is riddled with pronounced veins.

CAPTION

It wants to hold. . . control. . .

Panel 3 - Move closer towards the hand, the forearm filling the foreground. The thumb and index finger form the shape of a claw with the cratered moon positioned between the fingertips.

CAPTION

It doesn't quite know why, some primal urge. . .

CAPTION #2

It wants to clutch. . . caress. . .

Panel 4 - Now the contorted hand fills the entire frame, tightened into a fist. The moon can't be seen past the ridge of jutting knuckles and bulging fist.

CAPTION

Possibly destroy.

Panel 5 - Small frame, centered on one eye of the man-creature. The lids are pulled way back, almost unnaturally so. The eye is a searing array of cataracts and lighting streaks. Muscles clench all around the socket and the bone structure is extremely prominent.

CAPTION

Almost certain, actually.

Panel 6 - We look up at the man-creature. It's splayed awkwardly in mid-air, after a lunge from the water tower. Wicked looking wings framed by knotted bone ridges and strands of muscle blossom from the creature's shoulder blades. Leathery flesh stretches across the framework, dotted with dark feathers here and there. Almost a sinister bat and almost a soaring falcon. Thorny protrusions line its fingers and palms. Blades resembling scythes run on each side of creature's calves.

CAPTION

It flies.

Page 10 -

Panel 1 - From the ceiling, we see a man in jeans and a creased t-shirt pacing his bedroom. It has a log cabin feel, a lot of wood surfaces and handcrafted furniture. The alarm clock is the surest sign of the times in the room. It reads 7:00, with a glowing dot next to the PM stamp.

CAPTION

Yesterday.

CAPTION #2

“A creature needs. . . lost love, terrible fate. . . something that really sets it off. Throws it over the edge.

Panel 2 - Close on the man's face. The narrator has angular features, straw-colored hair that behaves like a wild shrub. He has a hand rubbing his chin, covering his mouth. He bears a look of deep thought.

CAPTION

“A creature needs. . . conviction. Motivation. . .”

Panel 3 - The man sits on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, hands in his hair. The bedding is a patchwork quilt.

CAPTION

“A creature, above all, needs to be horrifying. I mean that. I really do. If you think the creature is anything like yourself, then it's just another human.”

Page 11 -

Panel 1 - Hank holds a lighter to his cigarette, his head turned, looking at Cale.

HANK

What?

Panel 2 - Cale offers a wry smile.

Panel 3 - Hank gestures with his lit cigarette.

HANK

It's a pre-game smoke. A warm up for the water tower.

Panel 4 - Cale now looks alert, eyes glancing to his side.

HANK

Come on. . .

Page 12 -

Panel 1 - The newly emerged tail of the man-creature slides its way between tree trunks and foliage.

CAPTION

A slight whisper.

Panel 2 - The scythed legs of the beast claw against the bed of leaves and dirt of the forest floor. The legs are barely touching the ground.

CAPTION

Reverberations.

Panel 3 - From behind, we see the transformed man-creature. Its wings are tucked close to its body, one gnarled arm outstretched, and the other thrown back. The man-creature's tail leaves a swath of upturned leaves in its wake.

CAPTION

A rush of blades, flesh, and air.

Panel 4 - From close to the ground, Hank throws his hands in front of himself, protecting against the man-creature that half soars, half sprints towards him. His cigarette tumbles through the air, a fiery ember. Cale is in mid-leap, desperately wrenching his body out of the thing's path.

CAPTION

It meets its firsts.

Page 13 -

Panel 1 - A hand taking hold of a tree root, clenching franticly. The hand is smeared with dirt and grime.

Panel 2 - Looking down at Cale, as he pulls himself up the steep hillside. His clothes and face are smeared with dirt, his shirt ripped.

CALE

Hank!

Panel 3 - From behind, Hank in a leaping sprint, head turned back to face us with wide eyes

Panel 4 - The almost human face of the man-creature, its pupils are dots, and its jaw is contorted in the way a wolf would raise its hackles.

Panel 5 - The man-creature's wing unfolds and catches Hank full in the chest.

Panel 6 - Hank is almost on his feet again.

Panel 7 - The man-creature tries to execute a quick turn, but its bulk and momentum make it slide pell-mell on the slick forest floor. Its wings beat furiously, working like a parachute.

Page 14 -

Panel 1 - Wide frame, with Hank pressed against a rock wall, looking up at Cale, perched on the precipice feet above Hank's head. The sheer rock extends for yards along the hillside. Hank has no time to traverse the slippery terrain before the man-creature pounds its way back up the slope.

Panel 2 - The man-creature manages to gain purchase and tenses its haunches, extends its forearms, starting its rush.

Panel 3 - Cale extends a hand down to Hank, lying on his stomach.

CALE

Come on! Get the hell up here!

Panel 4- Hank makes a mighty leap.

Panel 5 - The boys' hands clasp.

Panel 6 - A big frame, as the man-creature crashes against the sheer rock, feet below Hank's dangling body. Cale struggles to hold the weight of his bigger friend.

Page 15 -

Panel 1 - The man-creature holds itself upright against the sheer rock, head thrust back and a growl on its face. It searches the slope for the boys.

Panel 2 - Two pairs of feet strike the ground.

Panel 3 - Hank and Cale rush towards the maintenance shack by the clearing where the water tower stands.

HANK

Get inside!

Panel 4 - Hank and Cale have their backs leaning against the door to the shack. The walls are cluttered with tools; the floor is covered in bins of spare parts, nuts, and bolts. A steel girder leans against the back wall. The shadows are heavy.

CALE

Can you hear it?

HANK

No.

CALE

Your mom's gonna have to wait the night out all alone.

Panel 5 - Hank and Cale have relaxed somewhat, but are still holed up in the shack. They sit against walls opposite one another. Cale has his arms on his knees, curled up to his chest. He holds a cigarette in one hand. Hank leg's are spread out, his arms at his sides, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

CALE

Christ. What was that?

HANK

Huh. Well here's our smoke. Not quite how I imagined it.

Page 16 -

Panel 1 - A panoramic view of a high school. It's set atop a hill, four buildings scattered on the sides of the quad, where students congregate. Trees line the edge of the campus, giving way to a stretching forest. There's a soccer field, baseball diamond. It's early morning.

CAPTION

The Academy. Not a private school. It's just called that. The sun is new in the sky, and sleepy looks pass between all the students.

Panel 2 - In front of the gymnasium, a two story building that doubles as a cafeteria and home to the basketball team. Students converge on the glass double doors, and two single doors that flank the main entrance on each side. Hank and Cale are towards the back of the crowd, shifting along slowly.

CALE

I don't want to be here.

HANK

It's assembly. Just sit peacefully, let them tell you they're putting their foot down on parking, warn you that snowball season is ahead and that'll get you a detention. . .

CALE

Right.

Panel 3 - Inside the gymnasium, Hank and Cale climb the steps towards the faux assembly hall. The architecture is in the New England style. A lot of brick, some of it painted and rusty colors. A teacher stands by the door into the gym, a stern look on his face. He's in his late fifties, graying hair, and a peppered beard, just a little more than five o'clock shadow. He wears khakis and a plaid button-up. A wool jacket tops off the outfit.

CALE

Fenton looks grimmer than usual.

HANK

Prolly doesn't want to be here either.

CALE

There's no harm in retiring.

Panel 4 - The bleachers are pulled out across the shiny wood panels of the basketball court. Students dot the benches here and there; most of them still standing and conversing. Hank and Cale take seats in right corner of the gym, away from the stage, where the Dean of Students stands alongside two other teachers.

CALE

Dean's never here this early.

Page 17 -

Panel 1 - The Dean stands tall in front of all the seated students. His arms are folded.

DEAN

There's been a tragedy in our community.

Panel 2 - Hank and Cale share a curious look.

Panel 3 - Close on the Dean.

DEAN

Close by, a member of the community has been reported missing.

Panel 4 - The look Josh and Amy share, a few seats down Hank and Cale, is much more shifty. Almost worried.

Panel 5 - A wide frame of the assembly. The Dean's hands are in his pockets.

DEAN

There is no firm explanation for his disappearance, but police investigation points towards suspicious circumstances. I'm telling you this as a warning. Be cautious of your surroundings and keep on the lookout. The law would be indebted to anyone who can be of help.

Page 18 -

Panel 1 - Hank and Cale sit next to each other in Fenton's class. The teacher gesticulates with a stick of chalk from the board. Arrows point this way and that, formulas accompanying the diagrams. “Newton's Laws of Motion” is written and underlined atop all the writing. Cale slides a note to Hank.

Panel 2 - Hank looks down at the note, while Cale feigns attentiveness. Fenton continues his lecture.

FENTON

The second law of motion. . .Come on. . .

CAPTION

“I saw Josh and Amy last night. When I was out.”

Panel 3 - Josh and Amy sit a few rows behind the boys. They too look conspiratorial and distracted. Amy plays nervously with a lock of hair. Josh drums a silent rhythm with his pen.

CAPTION

“Smoking? No way. What were they doing?”

Panel 4 - Cale's hand scrawls on the scrap of notebook paper, below the reply. “Running.”

Panel 5 - Fenton strikes his chalk against the board. He's still wearing his wool jacket.

FENTON

The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the resultant force producing it and takes place in the direction of that force. Write that down. Resultant? Let's see some hands.

Page 19 -

Panel 1 - Back to the abode of the unnamed man. He's back at his pacing, hands on his hips. The vantage point is from the ceiling fan.

CAPTION

“Lightning. Flashes of hot white, forks of blinding daggers, heading right at the timid heads of our ancestors.”

Panel 2 - Looking through the window of the house, as the man stares out through the panes of glass.

CAPTION

“What must they have thought? Gods, most likely. Or demons. Something supernatural, not human, I'm sure. Did they think: Lightning is an exclamation of solar particles, charged to the breaking point?”

Panel 3 - Close on the man's features, his face buried in an expression of intense belief.

CAPTION

“It was a phenomenon. It was not a static charge. Tumbling electrons and protons.”

Panel 4 - The man points at us, imitating the men who walked the earth millions of years ago, marveling at the jagged darts of lightning. His face mirrors the amazed expression the men must have had.

CAPTION

“It was decidedly marvelous.”

Page 20 -

Panel 1 - The Academy, on the quad. It's lunch and kids are spread out on the grass. Hank and Cale stand in front of another student. A typical high-schooler. She's slouched, dressed snazzy with a backpack hanging off one shoulder.

STUDENT

Josh and Amy? Yeah, they're down at the woodlot. It's for Forestry. I wouldn't interrupt them, though. They're prolly. . . You know. In the teepee-thing.

HANK

Thanks.

Panel 2 - Hank and Cale cross the quad, heading toward the main entrance to the Academy. Beyond the two-lane road is a slope, heading to a ridge of forest. A man-made path winds its way into the woods, towards the woodlot.

HANK

She's cute.

CALE

Yeah. . .

HANK

No red-haired beauty of course.

Panel 3 - Cale looks over his shoulder to a group of students walking the opposite direction.

Panel 4 - Move to the group of students, particularly a tall-ish girl wearing a flowing skirt and red t-shirt. Her auburn hair flows over her shoulders and down her back. She has emerald eyes.

Panel 5 - Cale gives Hank a stern look.

CALE

Hey. . .

Page 21 -

Panel 1 - Inside the teepee, at the woodlot. The Rolex sits on a stump between Josh and Amy. They give the watch suspicious stares.

AMY

It's just a watch.

JOSH

No! It's not our watch. So it's not just a watch. It's our dirty little trinket.

Panel 2 - Hank and Cale approach the teepee, steeping over fallen tree trunks, and axes lying across the path.

CAPTION

“At least the sex was really fuckin' good.”

Panel 3 - From inside the teepee. Hank peels back the flap, peering inside. Josh launches at the Rolex, hoping to hide it. Amy is caught in a pose of surprise.

HANK

Flashy.

Panel 4 - Amy glares daggers at Hank.

AMY

Get the hell out. Now.

Panel 5 - Hank puts on a wry grin. Cale looks through the flap from behind Hank.

HANK

Where were you last night Amy?

Panel 6 - Josh looks livid.

JOSH

Fuck Cale. I told you I didn't have a problem with you. So you had to go tell the jet-black hulk here, didn't you?

Page 22 -

Panel 1 - Cale enters the tepee.

CALE

Someone's missing. You heard that? So just tell us what you did. Screw the cops. Let's just get this straight.

Panel 2 - Josh is just as angry.

JOSH

Really? Someone's missing. No way. Why do you care so much anyway?

Panel 3 - Hank and Cale look at each other uncomfortably.

Panel 4 - Hank squats and stares at Josh and Amy.

HANK

Listen. Alright? We were going up to the water tower last night. . .

CALE

For a cigarette. . .

Page 23 -

Panel 1 - The four kids, Josh, Amy, Hank, and Cale trudge up a dirt road, bordered on both sides by heavy woods. Hank and Amy shine flashlights through the darkness.

JOSH

Why do we have to go up here?

HANK

Things like this don't happen everyday.

JOSH

Doesn't mean we need to get involved if they do.

Panel 2 - Amy trails behind the rest of the group. She has a funny look on her face, like something's just a bit off in her perception.

CAPTION

1687. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Sir Isaac Newton's coup de grace. A lanky man with a wavy mane of light hair. He had those eyes that looked so profoundly aware.

Panel 3 - Amy stares at her hand by her waist. It swings slightly and a blur follows its movements.

CAPTION

Law, the first. A physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity, unless an outside net force acts upon it.

Panel 4 - A wider frame of Amy alone on the road, jerking slightly. Each limb has a blurry trail behind it.

AMY

Guys?

Panel 5 - The three boys are in the foreground, looking back at Amy. Her entire body appears evanescent. Scattered about the road are three imprints of Amy, floating in the still air. Her dialogue balloon comes from the three ephemeral bodies and the solid one.

AMY

Something's happening. . .

Page 24 -

Panel 1 - Josh runs towards Amy. He's frantic, scared. Hank and Cale look in awe and disbelief.

JOSH

Amy!

Panel 2 - Josh throws his arms around Amy, but it's one of the transient bodies. It dissipates when Josh comes into contact with.

Panel 3 - Josh whirls around, the real Amy in front of him. She's holding out her arms.

Panel 4 - Josh and Amy embrace.

AMY

I'm here.

JOSH

Wh-why?

Panel 5 - Focus on Hank and Cale. The dirt around Hank's feet swirls in bizarre patterns. Cale eyes the miniature whorls out of the corner of his vision.

CAPTION

Back to 1687. Law, the second. The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the resultant force producing it and takes place in the direction of that force. Curious. . .

Panel 6 - Hank picks up his foot, wary of the dust storm surging about his tennis shoes.

HANK

Huh.

Page 25 -

Panel 1 - Hank stands beside Cale. Leaves, dirt clots, and branches gravitate towards, and around Hank. Josh is posed as if he was about to put his hands on Amy's shoulder, but the girl is falling backwards.

CAPTION

Law, the third.

Panel 2 - Amy lands on all fours, the fleeting haze streaming around her.

AMY

Hey Josh! It's still me.

Panel 3 - Josh looks down, surprised, palms displayed outward in a position of innocence.

JOSH

No. I didn't mean to. I just wanted to hold you.

Panel 4 - Amy looks almost angry.

AMY

Well you didn't!

CAPTION

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. . . Horse pulls a rock on a string, and the rock pulls back with just as much vigor.

Panel 5 - Everyone stares at Cale, standing bemused.

HANK

What about you?

Page 26 -

Panel 1 - The abode again. The log cabin. The man has his hands spread outward.

CAPTION

“A chimera.”

Panel 2 - The mythological beast, on its hind legs, letting out a mighty roar. It stands atop a jut of rock, clouds wreathing the blue sky.

CAPTION

“A lion's head protrudes from the neck, and down into the forepaws, followed the ragged fur of a goat, and an awkward, blatting head of the mountainous cross between an antelope and a sheep.”

Panel 3 - The beast stares us down, licks of flame curling at the corners of its fanged mouth. Gouts of smoke spew from the goat head's flared nostrils.

CAPTION

“And from the tensed haunch of the immortal creation, a scaled tail emerges, topped with the lean countenance of a snake, a brilliant emerald green.”

Panel 4 - The chimera throws its forepaws at us, drawing its maw wide, and releasing a furling spit of flame.

CAPTION

“Birthed by the tumultuous Typhon and the scathing beauty Echidna. Instead, I see a different history.”

Panel 5 - The man swings his arms around, like a propeller. The ceiling fan follows a similar cyclonic motion above him.

CAPTION

“I see three animal friends, a goat, a lion and a viper. They crawl about each other when a mortal stumbles into their clearing. The animals turn at his entrance.”

CAPTION #2

“From the man's angle, he sees one creature, something surely from beyond his world. The lion skirts his paw across the ground, breaking a natural deposit of sulfuric gas, and igniting it with a spark from an unsheathed claw struck against sheer rock.”

CAPTION #3

“The mortal runs back to his village, his assessment confirmed by the maelstrom of fire that appeared to issue from the lion's mouth.”

CAPTION #4

“I mean, things are confused like that often. You just don't know what you're seeing. Could be this. . .Could be that. You never know.”

Page 27 -

Panel 1 - The house Josh and Amy invaded earlier looms in front of the four. All the lights are out. It's built against a hill, in a rustic, farmhouse style. Crimson clapboards line the walls and simple, stained wood sills sit below the windows.

CALE

What do we do?

Panel 2 - Hank strides up the cobble stone path to the front door.

HANK

We go inside.

Panel 3 - Shadows coat every surface. The interior is a mirror to the bedroom in the unnamed man's abode. Wood surfaces everywhere and a lack of extravagant decor.

AMY

It's dark.

JOSH

Where's the light switch?

HANK

Figured you'd know. You've been here before.

JOSH

Shut up.

Panel 4 - Illumination floods the living room. Cale stands by a light switch, his finger still one the flicker.

CALE

Found it.

Panel 5 - Josh turns his head, attentive to a faint sound.

JOSH

Shut up!

Panel 6 - Cale turns on Josh, agitated.

CALE

I found the damn switch! This isn't your little con now either, so just cut ─

Panel 7 - Hank puts a hand on Cale's shoulder. Hank's forefinger is at his lips in the “shush” gesture.

HANK

Listen.

Page 28 -

Panel 1 - The frame fills half the page. The front door bursts off its hinges and is tumbling through the air. The man-creature pulls itself through the front door. Its tail is poised like a scorpion's above its head. Its face is a mask of revulsion and anger.

MAN-CREATURE

HOME!

Panel 2 - Hank backs up, keeping his gaze fixed on the writhing man-creature.

HANK

Oh no.

Panel 3 - Amy is out of the frame save a bracelet-laden hand trailing behind her. The evanescent remnant hangs suspended.

Panel 4 - Close on Cale's face. He's terrified, turned away from us, about to make a leap.

Panel 5 - Josh steels himself, facing directly at the man-creature.

JOSH

Come on. . .

Page 29 -

Panel 1 - The unnamed man looks out his bedroom window. A flashing ball of light floats towards his window, slightly bigger than the stars.

MAN

Well, here you are.

Panel 2 - Focus on the ball of light, growing larger through the window.

CAPTION

“I've been waiting and who knows what you've been up to.”

Panel 3 - Shafts of light shine through the window and fill the bedroom with ricocheting beams of luminescence. The clock reads 10:00. The man opens his arms in submission.

MAN

Yeah, go ahead! I'm all ready!

Panel 4 - A vague silhouette hovers through the bright light, approaching the man.

CAPTION

“Damn Flyers. I knew you'd come.”

Panel 5 - The windowpanes shatter, spraying against the man. He keeps his arms open. His face is warped in anger.

MAN

What's the worst you can do?

Panel 6 - Back at the water tower. A funnel of light washes over the tank, the man-creature descending within it.

CAPTION

“What have you done to me?”

Page 30 -

Panel 1 - The man-creature rushes at Josh, who remains determined, hands at his sides. Amy looks on in horror.

CAPTION

An equal and opposite reaction.

Panel 2 - The man-creature crashes into Josh, beating its wings furiously. Josh puts all his weight against the creature.

Panel 3 - Both the man-creature and Josh fall backwards. Amy is jetting her way towards Josh, who looks stunned.

Panel 4 - She catches him, and dashes away just as the man-creature breaks the wood floor with a strike of its clawed forearm.

Panel 5 - Hank swipes his arm at the man-creature, intense with concentration.

Page 31 -

Panel 1 - The debris from around the shoots at the man-creature. The unhinged door hits the thing full on the side, leaving a wing limp at its side.

Panel 2 - Cale stands in a corner of the living room, tormented he can't join the fight, and feeling helpless.

Panel 3 - Hank, Amy, and Josh unite in front of the man-creature. They all have fierce looks directed at the beast.

MAN-CREATURE

HOME!

Panel 4 - Cale pulls back his blazer's sleeve, gazing at his bare wrist.

CALE

The watch. . .

Panel 5 - Cale runs towards the three, his bare wrist outstretched.

CALE

Josh! The watch! It's all about the watch!

Panel 6 - Josh turns, just as the man-creature flails its tail, catching John across the chest.

Page 32 -

Panel 1 - Cale holds out a hand. Amy runs towards Josh, who looks like he's been through a wood mill. Hank stands the man-creature down, both hands thrust at the creature, sending lances of splintered wood forward.

HANK

Get back!

Panel 2 - The man-creature catches one of the wooden lances in its chest, and kicks Hank with a scythed foot, screaming out.

Panel 3 - Close on the Rolex around Josh's wrist. His other hand is sliding it off with a hooked finger. The hands are stopped on the 10:00 marker.

Panel 4 - Josh throws the Rolex across the room with the rest of his strength.

JOSH

Cale!

Panel 5 - Cale takes a mighty vault over a pile of debris, the Rolex falling into his grasping hand.

Panel 6 - Amy streaks in front the man-creature bearing in the collapsed Hank and Josh.

Page 33 -

Panel 1 - Amy launches a blurred punch at the man-creature's leering face.

Panel 2 - It gazes at her through a trickle of blood with mirth and a raised eyebrow.

Panel 3 - Cale's on the ground, cut, and struggling to his feet.

CAPTION

Einstein. The universe is expanding. Time dilation. Even weightless rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field.

Panel 4 - Cale stands, the Rolex clutched his hand.

Panel 5 - The man-creature rears back, grasping its skull in anguish. Fingers pry at its eyes.

CAPTION

For it, the man-creature, only absolute darkness is seen. Every beam of light veers away from the thing's straining pupils.

Panel 6 - The man-creature slams its fist against a wall blindly, the other hand still clinging to its useless eyes.

Page 34 -

Panel 1 - The man-creature retreats through the ruined doorway. The four kids stand side by side among the wreckage of the living room. Amy and Josh have their arms around each other.

CALE

I found mine.

Panel 2 - Josh runs a hand through his hair, staring at the gaping doorway.

JOSH

Where's it gonna go?

Panel 3 - Hank and Cale stand near each other. Hank pats Cale on the back, head turned toward Josh.

HANK

Dunno. I figure it'll be back.

CALE

It said “home.”

Panel 4 - The four kids pick their way through the wreckage and out into the night.

CAPTION

The four walked under the stars, towards the city that was more of a town. They called it home.

Page 35 -

Panel 1 - We see the woods trail from overhead; the Academy nestled in the edge of the frame. Four figures stand next to a wooden railing, talking.

Panel 2 - Swoop in, the four figures are Cale, Hank, Josh, and Amy. Hank and Cale are smoking.

CALE

What do we do now? I mean with these. . .powers. . .

HANK

When it comes back. We keep it at bay.

Panel 3 - Amy takes a drag from Hank's cigarette.

AMY

What do you mean us?

Panel 4 - Cale gives her a smirk.

Panel 5 - Josh takes the communal cigarette.

JOSH

I liked things before.

Panel 6 - Cale grows serious, looking at Josh.

CALE

You didn't like it here anyway. You wanted out. Now there's a better reason to stay in town.

Panel 7 - A wide frame of the four kids. They all stand separate, unique, but united. Cale takes a drag from his cigarette.

JOSH

I guess I'll stick around then.

CALE

What about that water tower Hank?

Tree by Christine Heinemann

2008-05-04T10:07:00.001-07:00

Sky by Kelly Khun

2008-05-04T10:06:00.002-07:00

Jersey by Christine Heinemann

2008-05-04T10:06:00.001-07:00

Roomie by Christine Heinemann

2008-05-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

Fireflies by Cody Greene

2008-05-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

Feather by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help this feeling any more! Sitting way up here, my head touching the clouds and fingers smearing dirt on the clean blue canvas of sky, I feel so ready to end my life. I look down and see that nice patch of grass I can lie upon. Aside from my own thoughts, all I can hear is the wind and the whispers of intangible Heaven’s invisible angels.
“What are you doing here, small one? All the way up here! You’ll fall,” a female-voiced angel hisses softly into my ear.

Below my feet, there is a tiny cloud. I do not answer the angel. The roof of an impossibly tall tower of a magnificent and forgotten castle in the high mountains north of Nowhere is where I sit. I dare not answer her for fear of damning myself. After all, this castle had heard and seen all of it. One slip of my tongue, and I’d surely be held in contempt and thereby jeopardize any currently unforeseen chances for salvation.

So, I dangle my feet over the edge and kick gently so as not to disturb the little cloud. I can hear the tower blinking, its many eyes slamming their shutters open and closed. I can see the walls of the tower shrinking behind me, trying to get closer – hoping to somehow get a better listen. I can smell the swiftly decaying corpse of the hours-dead princess from here. She’s been dead for forty-one hours.

“What use is a knight that fails in his chivalrous duty?” I mutter.

My hands are still sticky and dirty with blood. I’d slain the dragon! Yet, I had failed to save her. I am a terrible hero. No comforting words for me, though. Oh, no, that’s not what I deserve at all! Not all of this blood belonged to the dragon, after all. That girl had put up quite a ferocious fight for herself. Neither of my naked weapons tasted her delight. Instead, there had been only blood and tears, and then she was dead.

I’m not much of a knight. The angels up here know it. They know me.

“You should fall now. Do it,” an angel whispers sweetly. “If you’re too heavy with sin, then we shan’t catch you. If you’re light as a feather, then you’ll go to Heaven.”

Something warm and yellow waters the top of my head. I hear the anything-but-damned things snickering behind me, and all around me. They say angels are in God’s favor. They are what you become when you are taken to Heaven. The truth is, angels, despite their enlightened wisdom and invisible ways of infinity, are actually quite stupid. Angels say and do things without realizing. They aren’t necessarily sinful, so much as they… well, their heads are up in the clouds – always on high.

I would not believe this to be true, were it not for the fact that I am witnessing the validity of this heresy for myself. These angels are urging me to kill myself, and this causes me to smile. Ending my life intentionally will send me to Hell. Having raped that princess will send me there, anyway. My fate is completely in their hands. I can hardly keep my eyes from tearing with joy.

“Light as a feather, eh? Try and catch me, then!” I exclaim as I push myself off the roof.

“Wait, Sir Knight! What is your name? We must have a name for your grave!” an angel cries out.

I laugh as I fall ever so slowly from very up high, and answer, “I am Sir Feather! Sir Feather of the Castle Bird.”

The angels catch me and bring me to Heaven’s Gates.

“You are disgusting,” one of them says, and he spits on me.

I grin, and lick my lips. There, I can still taste the yolk of the dragon’s eggs. My one regret in all of this, as my feet dangle in the air below me, is that I never got to scramble one of those delectable dragon delights! The mommy had woken to my coughing as I had choked on a bit of shell. It had scraped my throat all the way down until it reached my belly. Before I could open my eyes from wincing through the pain, the big ole Mama Lizard pinned me beneath a great scaly paw and bellowed in my face:

“You are going to taste disgusting!”

Her breath singed my hair a dirty dirty blonde.

I was then swallowed whole, but not before calling out, “Oh, I know it.”

Dragons don’t have hearts. Well, I mean, they do, but they don’t. This is difficult to explain to anyone who has never encountered a dragon. This, as I am sure is obvious, speaks for the vast majority of the human population. You see, dragons breathe fire- a magical fire. Before they are of age to roast you on a stake, dragons have hearts that pump blood. Upon reaching that certain age, their blood boils and, by some property of providence bestowed by God upon this otherwise insignificant-in-all-things-but-its-size lizard, turns to flame. This flame fills the lungs of the great beast (hence the smoke that emanates from its nostrils) and can be ejected in much the same way as a burp, though not necessarily the same concept… I hope you’re following me, as this is difficult to explain. I am doing my best.

Now, the heart of a dragon can be likened to a furnace, of sorts. What I did was cut my way to Mama Dragon’s heart and, well, follow me here, I smothered the flame. I tossed my cape over it and stomped it out. The heart, I mean, I extinguished the furnace that was the heart. The dragon’s flame died out and changed back into blood. I, needless to say, not willing to stay where I was, hacked my way out of the dead dragon. Heading for the stairs, I had a feeling I knew what was next. I mean, this was for the girl – for me!

Now again, as I am dumped on my face before Heaven’s Gates, I have a feeling I know what I’m in for. Picking myself up off the cloudy floor, I take care not to look around. My eyes remain shut as I brush myself off. In doing so, I realize very suddenly that I have left my pants behind. Muttering a profanity, I lift my shirt over my head and cast it down to Earth. After all, it’s only going to get in the way of my wings. Shaking the hair out of my face, and putting on a big smile, I finally look up and ahead at the Gates.

There’s a girl in the way.

I crane my neck leftwards, to look past her. She takes a step to the right, impeding my view. I lean to the right, and she shifts accordingly.

“God damn… Never mind,” I growl. I shove the girl aside. The skin on my palms smolders and melts the instant I touch her. I cry out sharply, and give her a look. That’s when I recognize her.
“Hello.” She picks herself up as I glare at her. “Why do you look at me like that? What have I done to you? Hmm?”

She carefully stands upright, her golden curly locks bouncing at the every tilt of her chin. She must be naked, but one can never know with these angels. Some, present company included, seem to enjoy casting that awful bright light about their bodies. So bright is their glow, their body seems to become the light itself.

“You,” I say flatly.

“Yes, me. Happy to see me? I’m saved!” It’s fairly obvious she is being ironic, especially as she spreads her angel wings to show off her newly established sanctity. The light about her dims to a mere halo over her head. She is naked, but never mind that. There’s eternity for it, later.

“Yes, well, I must be on my way. I get my wings next.” I move to walk around her.

The girl admonishes me, once again stepping in my way as she does so, “You bastard, Feather. You raped me! Killed me!”

That’s when I remember. Call it Enlightenment, because there’s no other way I could have realized. I flash back to my stepfather’s court and the shiny crown on his thick skull. He is not favoring me with a smile. The castle is empty, or so it would seem in this vision. I guess you could say only the most significant aspects of the moment were being revealed to me. Still, as I grit my teeth in pain of this memory, I can’t help but wish my little cloud friend were here to distract me. The King of Castle Bird and the Nestlands of Nowhere, my stepfather, is charging me with my mission. My mother, the Queen, sits in the lesser throne before him. The vile, treacherous woman! I didn’t need a ghost to tell me just how little the current monarchy deserved my trust and respect.

“Feather! Do you hear me?” my stepfather bellows.

“Mhmm…” I murmur.

“You are to bring her back here to her father!” he repeats.

“And my mother returned to her son,” I glare at them both as I say this. In retrospect, so to speak, this was not so significant a thing to say as I had intended it to be.

The King rolls his eyes accordingly, “Okay, Hamlet.”

“You -”

“- Are not in a Shakespearean play. Your father died of natural cause. Your mother married me to keep her power, and so I am king. Now, go -”

“- Rescue,” and I say this as I return to the present eternal, “my daughter. God damn me.”

“You are disgusting.” My half-sister, the princess I’d raped and killed, spits at my feet.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you angels are, too?” I remark airily. I take a step off the edge of the clouds and begin to fall slowly. That little patch of grass is down there somewhere. Perhaps I’ll at least pass through it on my way down. I know I’ll see my little cloud, and this, at least, makes me smile.

“Go to Hell, Feather!” she calls down from above.

“I’m going, I’m going.” I mutter.

The Suffocation of Chastity by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:59:00.001-07:00

Subtle breasts supplying milk
in the lands of rape and money.
Victimized periods, vicious blood-letting
on the carpets of holy exonerates.
And all of this and the name of the Lord
in the name of the Lord:
There are hymens broken upon his word –
his children the sword.

The subculture chastises chastity
and oppression becomes the adopted policy
as humanity aborts its own mothers,

we say we don't need the Father or the fathers.

Blessed are the children:
the first to betray the chaste.

In the lands of milk and honey:
supple breasts, sumptuous rape,
On the carpets of forgiven sinners:
violent periods venerating bloodshed.
In the name of the Lord:
all of this is the face of the Lord.
There is hope in believing his word,
and the child is the sword.

The culture endorses chastity
but oppression is the actual policy
a man may be a woman may abort a mother.

We know we need the Father.

Cursed are the children.
The chaste are the first to betray.

Undercover Vagabonds by Elizabeth McLister

2008-05-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

We’d steal beneath those pitted cloaks of night,
Outdoors from fence to rails our bedgowns shone,
Never wondering whether we were right
To amble into pregnant brush alone.
So spryly we, wee weetzie bats would sift,
Eyes peeled to pluck some treasure off the tracks.
Discerning clumps of fur and knotted guts,
Pressed coins, touchstones, and bones, and old shoe scraps.
When seeking mystery in daylight hours
The dregs from those excursions left us cold –
So every month we’d rise above feigned sleep
To tramp along the tracks, intrepid-bold.

Before first light sent us to snug cocoons,
We’d stockpile cool caches beneath ripe moons.

Darjeeling by Anna Kongs

2008-05-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

The blue rail cars cut the desert into uneven halves.
Somewhere a child is dying
and the women are plucking white blossoms for their funeral robes.
Even the river stones are washed white.
They took salt from the earth
and sweetened their sorrows with the weeds on the dirt road
staining their palms with the sugary grain.
A lone musician offers his notes to the canyon walls
a lowing croon, a half-hat, a b-flat blue.
This is where they wash their hands in the ash –
devote their flames to multi-coloured gods
and bow their necks in devotion,
a serving spot for blessings.

The Boy who Loved to Collect Things by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

Once, not so long ago, there was a boy who loved to collect things. He was not specifically into any sort of collecting, not stamps and not bottle caps. The boy simply enjoyed collecting whatever he found lying about. More specifically, he had a penchant for collecting important things people left behind or otherwise forgot about. The boy’s room was filled with other people’s forgotten valuables that he had collected over the years. There were shoelaces and ribbons, string and nail filers. There were broken watches and Swiss army knives, lockets and keys, and coins and receipts. The boy collected everything, and left nothing behind. He would fill his brown sack until he could no longer lift it over his shoulders, and always cram anything extra into his pockets and up his sleeves. Not only was the boy’s room filled with the collected, but his basement was as well.

Now, the dear boy’s parents were awfully ashamed of their boy’s hobby. This was a thing for them to shake their heads in disappointment over. “What a burdensome, lackadaisical child I have for a son!” his father would protest every time his son would return home with his brown sack. “Why can’t you just play sports and tease girls like boys did when I was your age?” the boy’s mother would whisper when she snooped through his room. The boy’s parents blamed the boy’s friends for his peculiar fondness of salvaging other people’s lost items. They told the boy he was never to speak to these children again as they were “not friends but troublesome influences!” His mother had “half a mind to write an angry letter to their parents about their boys’ lunatic behavior!”

In fact, the boy had no such negative influences as friends in his life. He did not have friends because his collecting left no time to make friends. Not only that, but children his age often kept away from the boy because he was always collecting. The boy had no friends, but had considered making one or two, and had hopes that he would one day, until his parents told him he was not to have them. The boy was saddened, but not for very long. He did not know what a friend was, and collecting was friend enough to him. His parents took no notice of this, however. They simply gave up on their dear boy, because “The next one will turn out right!”

In truth, there had already been two “next ones” in the last five years. The boy was nine, and his siblings were just as strange as he was. Both children developed their own weird habits at early ages, and both times the parents rejected the child as their own. All three siblings, being so wrapped up in their little hobby worlds, took no notice of each other and barely acknowledged one or the other’s existence. The boy was growing up alone, except for his collecting.

Now, one night, it turned very cold and windy. The clouds that had accumulated overhead during the day began to flake off snow. Pretty soon, those flakes of snow turned to sheets on the ground. Those sheets layered up into blankets and then to quilts. The snow fell straight down, very hard and very quickly. The wind seemed to be blowing down from the clouds themselves. Each gust blew a man’s hat down on his face rather than off of his head. The boy, feeling colder and colder by the hour, peered out his bedroom window to view the layers that had fallen to the ground. “There will be no school tomorrow. There will be plenty to collect, and there might even be some already! I should go have a look!”

It may have been one o’clock in the morning, but the boy did not seem to notice or care. He pulled on his blue winter jacket and red knit cap. He wrapped the red knit scarf around his neck and wriggled his feet into his snow boots. He left his fingers glove-free, in order to collect from the snow without the troublesome bother of his bulky gloves. Taking only a moment to locate his brown sack, the boy was soon out the door. He took no heed of his mother, who was busy arguing with his father over whether or not there would be a “next one.” (“Damn it, woman,” his father was saying as the boy left the house. “Maybe this one will make us proud.”)

The boy set out into the high snow with the brown sack protecting his fingers, at least until he found something worthy of replacing his precious digits with in the sack. Somewhere, not too far off, a wolf bayed as the boy looked up, through the clouds that were breaking up, at the moon. He walked along for a long while, until he spotted a slight indentation in the otherwise untouched snow ahead of him. He headed straight for it, eager to make his first collection of the night.

As he approached it, he became acutely aware of a bad odor that hung in the air. This was strange. The cold night air usually made his nose so numb he could never smell a thing. The boy reached the indentation in the snow, and reached in to pull up… a finger. It was shriveled and purple, and yet seemed to pulse softly and weakly with life. The boy decided to keep it, after some deliberation. He slid it into his pants pocket and continued trudging through the snow, avoiding the stinking crater the finger had been found in. He walked briskly, and so did not know that the bad odor wafted after him.

The boy had not walked very far from that crater when he saw a strange sight. It made his eyes go wide and his jaw drop, but only slightly. The boy did not believe what he was seeing, and thought about ignoring it and moving on. He turned to his left, though, and headed for the spot in the snow where the crater dripped blood up into the sky, where it collected in a red puddle between some stars in the night sky. The boy blinked several times, and rubbed his eyes. “This can not be real,” he told himself, but he knew it was. With shaky hands, the boy reached into the pit and pulled out a severed arm. Closing his eyes, almost as though wincing in pain, the boy deposited the arm into the brown sack and turned back to go in the direction he came. He turned around too quickly to notice the puddle splash back down into the hole in the snow the arm had been bleeding from. The odor had not quite caught up yet, but the blood snaked its way out of the hole and was right on the heels of the boy.

Almost an hour later, a wolf cried out again. The boy was shivering with cold, and very much regretting not having taken his gloves along. He was sure that at least one of his fingers was frostbitten, and was very much afraid that he had lost all feeling in it for good. “I’ve done enough collecting tonight. A bloody arm! That beats all, and I’m going home!” And, so, he turned around, but stopped as still as death when he did so. He saw the trail of red that was following him, and noticed that the blood was now soaking the snow around which he stood. Crying out in feverish alarm, the boy ran and struggled through the snow. He was now determined to put the arm back where he had found it. He was even more hell bent on getting back home and hiding under his nice, warm, blue blankets.

The boy had not gone more than ten yards when he hit the smell that was following him. It made his eyes water, and so blinded him. He stumbled on, until he tripped over something in the snow. “Oh, no! What now?” the boy mumbled through the snow in his mouth. He stood up, and looked around. The green gas cloud that was the odor hovered pervasively about his head, making his eyes water and head foggy. The trail of blood had soaked up at his feet again, warming his cold toes and feet in a sickeningly sticky way. Worse yet, now there was an awful low, and haunting, hum in the air. The source of the noise was in the pit of snow the boy had stumbled over in his blind and frantic dash.

The boy looked down into the pit, and then leapt back in horror. “What is all of this? Why is this happening?” he exclaimed. Now the trail of blood had soaked itself into a puddle that filled the pit to its brim. The nauseating odor cloud swirled and danced above the pit of blood. Bubbles began to surface in the blood pit. They popped in above the surface in a loud and messy way, spraying red on the boy’s blue coat. From the shallow depths of that bubbly blood pit, an emaciated corpse began to rise. The stinking and rotten carcass rose slowly, as though it were being raised on a platform. The boy felt something itch on his leg, and the arm he had collected began to flop around inside of his brown sack. The boy dropped the sack, and turned away from the blood pit to escape the one-armed, stinking, wasted corpse that was stepping out from the blood.

“Michael, stay!” it called out, and the boy stopped dead in his tracks.

“How… How do you know my name?” Michael turned around, suddenly unafraid.

“My arm… bring it to me!” it ordered, and the boy obeyed.

The boy looked away as the corpse-thing reattached its arm. It made a horrible squealing noise as it shoved it severed part back into its rightful place. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw the gas cloud circle the corpse-thing’s shoulder until it caused a dry patch to form like a scab over the reattachment site. The corpse-thing then patted the blood pit’s liquid onto the scab, and caused the mark to disappear. It flexed its four fingers and rotated its arm at the shoulder. It bent its elbow and wrist, and, apparently satisfied (not appalled) by the gross crunching sounds these made, sat back down into the pit. Hearing the sploosh, Michael turned back to the corpse-thing.

“Who are you?” Michael asked.

“Not who. What,” the corpse-thing hissed.

“Fine. What are you?” Michael was beginning to feel that something about this corpse-thing was familiar.

“A collectable,” and at that the corpse-thing let out a long, shrill laugh. The masculinity in its voice was lost in this laughter, and Michael, who had until now believed the thing was a male, was now unsure. “I’m one of your collectables.”

“No you’re not!” Michael whispered.

The corpse-thing laughed again, but stopped suddenly. “Come here, look in here!” it said to the boy. Michael obeyed, and approached the blood pit and the corpse-thing. The boy peered down into it, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, the thick red blood was not so thick anymore. In it, Michael could now see people and things. Everything was moving so fast, he was growing dizzy but was so hypnotized by what the blood was showing him that he could not look away. So, he did not notice when he began to age, and barely blinked as his teenage years came and went. Michael did not notice, then, that the corpse-thing had its hand on his head. Slowly, Michael became aware of his shaking knees and long white beard. Michael realized his skin was not young and smooth, but old and wrinkly. The boy was an old man, but the corpse-thing was now a beautiful young woman.

“Why?” Michael croaked as his body decayed into the same rotting corpse the beauty had been before. “Why have you done this to me?”

“Oh, Michael, little boy.” Her voice was the soft tone of gold-winged angels. “Don’t you see? You’ve spent your whole life collecting, you worthless little shit. Now, you are a collectable, just as I was to you.”

Michael, the old man/little boy, gasped at the hideous serenity with which she said these words.
“Don’t look so surprised, boy. It was either you or me,” she hissed. “There is no ‘why’ or ‘how.’ You facilitated my rebirth, and I gave you your death. Imminent.”

The way she spoke, the boy was reminded of his parents. Was this the only way the world knew to treat him? He wondered, silently, if his name was just another means of saying “worthless.” Thinking back to all he had collected in his room, Michael began to cry. Tears crept and crawled over the wrinkles that creviced his face. An embittered thought came to him: They were not just collectables.

“They’re not just collectables!” Michael bellowed. “They were left behind, left alone! They mean something to me, and that means they are not worthless.”

“Who cares?” The corpse girl cocked a sleek eyebrow. “You’re about to die, and, with your death, your meaningless sentimentality –”

“Over meaningful things,” Michael felt his thigh pinched, and he then remembered. He takes a hold of the collected in his pocket, and speaks firmly, “You’re still a collectable. You’re mine, though you may mean nothing more than just what gives me the right to care about myself.
The boy pulled the finger out of his pocket. She screamed with terror as the old man/boy fused the digit to his left hand with the odor cloud and scabbed it into place with the blood of the pit.

Now, that boy has long since decayed and his skin and muscles and organs have rotted away. His skeleton remains though, and so does she, the once corpse-thing. She writhes and wriggles at the boy’s skeleton feet, begging for her freedom – begging to use her beautiful and youthful body again. He won’t answer her, and refuses to release her. So long as he has her finger fused to himself, “the treacherous woman is a collectable. And, oh, how I love to collect things.”

The F Scale by Anthony Valdez

2008-05-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

The F Scale

(The only thing that matters is whether you’re on the top or the
bottom)

F G A B^bC D E (F)

We’ve all heard of Kinsey and Freud
The thirds start like this:

F A G

Sounds like tradition.

City 5 by Emily Allison Turonis

2008-05-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

The irony of a new city is,
of course, being alone.
How many people does this city have?
One million, maybe two, they answer.
Funny, I´d only need a couple.
I have more people than I could ever know.
I have no one.

Bodytasm by Jeremy Moran

2008-05-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Greetings family, friends, well-wishers, skanks. It is imperative that you take notes upon the following. All of it will be on the exam. If you do not pass the exam, you will only get a small slice of cake at the end of the year gathering. This is a night for umlauts, good friends, for we shall be changing the way our lives are pronounced tonight.

Yet, how have our lives been pronounced up to this point? How do we define them? I, personally, define a good life as a working oven, fourteen inflatable balloon elephants, a twelve-foot of yarn, and two sips of Calvinist Ale: one in the morning and one in the mid-morning. I have been accused, by my more old-fashioned, way-of-the-world parents, of asking too much from the ninety-five elves that live within the clouds, weaving cookies with cloud-fluff and baking sweaters with raindrops. In a way, perhaps this is true. Perhaps only an 11.9-foot of yarn would be less greedy. There are those starving for their share of the yarn out there. I rarely think of them. But, then again, I rarely care to.

I believe that this may be a symptom of a cancerous, yet common, cold what has plagued me throughout my life. From the moment I punched my way out of the spicy, lobstery primordial soup that seeped throughout the innards of my mother, I always felt as if unwelcome company had trailed me, attempting to ride the coattails of my success as a cobbler of decent-enough brownies. I am referring to, of course, my humanic organs: The bloodthirsty heart, the wily lungs, the cunning kidneys, the wicked rectum. The list goes on, of course, as there are more and more of these devious creatures using my body as a Trojan, ready to pop out at any moment and cause me slight annoyance at the great pain they intend to inflict. They are leeches, really, grabbing onto the magnificent feather boa I was wearing at the time of my own crowning and subsequent expulsion from the leathery, flinty, well-worn paper sack that was the uterus.

From that moment on, they have attempted to control my actions and decide my decisions. The heart, in particular, is an arrogant little prick. It sits upon the high horse, whom I have christened “Peter,” believing that it has the right to pump the blood that just wants to run around free in my veins. It hath imposed a work ethic on my blood, taking away its valuable free time by forcing it to march in lock-step towards the Heart Almighty! O Fortunata! Bless us, the blessed ones, for we are TRULY blessed for knowing the Heart Almighty! It gives us the power to breathe its illustrious air! It gives us the strength to open Aunt Hornice’s sacred jar of pickled roast! And it gives us the strength to watch the film Next Friday at frequent intervals upon this summer canoe ride that other folks call “Life” in order to laugh as though we have never laughed before!

The blood truly is the victim in all of this, I cannot stress enough. Anytime it senses an escape, be it through a cycling accident or during my morning ritual of toast spread with jam, cheese, and a freshly cut pound of my own flesh, it immediately rushes forth through the new cavity on a madcap, Three Stooges-like dash towards freedom. Aye, but sadly, the heart has a secret weapon: Crafty, yet clever, agents called “platelets” who pop out of nowhere, as if they had been hiding in a Trojan all their own, and trap the blood in an iron-clad prison woven out of red netting. The blood, dejected, sadly marches back to solemnly toil upon the heart’s fascistic rule. And this, my friends, may in fact be the great tragedy of human life.

Yet, life is not all about getting solemnized up the arse by sadness and tragedy. There are smiles along the way. They are initiated by the one organ that truly is on our side: The Brain. This organ, named in the year of our Lord, Eighteen-Ought-Berry-Blast, after the dog companion of Inspector Gadget, guides us through life. It points out helpful hints on our journey towards the nirvana that we all seek. These hints include but are not limited to: How to walk, how to dress, and how to properly sing “The Ballad of Maxwell Demon.” The brain is the proverbial hand upon all of our backs, patting us on when we prove our worth and slapping us on when we deserve to be scorned. It is the parental figure to end all parental figures, making our own parents look like homeless circus freaks. In fact, it is the brain itself that caused one human, named Horace Tyrone Xavier III, to create the umlaut itself.

In closing, we may never be able to force the American public to make love to their umlauts, but at least we will be noble in our attempts to do so. Somehow, somewhere, the Umlaut King will dance with joy when he hears of our gratitude. He will call his Queen over and they will share a kiss to break through the Great Wall. This, in turn, will free the elves that were trapped and they will join their ninety-five brothers and sisters in the sky on their own personal quest for the wondrous wonderment known as “Peace.”

Monster in My Closet by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

There’s a monster in my closet. He’s really a monster. He’s a real monster. He has two sharp and horizontally-striped horns. These horns tear through the hood of his very long shirt. This shirt is belted at his waist. It ends right above his ankles. Well, I think it ends there. I can not say for sure, on account of the fact that the monster is invisible. His invisible three-fingered and one-thumbed hands are gloved and his invisible feet are concealed by a pair of fancy, albeit worn out, shoes. Aside from his horns, awful dirty-white wings, empty eyes, and sharp-toothed mouth, the monster in my closet is invisible.

He says he wears his shirt with a hood and gloves and shoes because he wants to blend in and be seen. He says that being invisible “really makes you stick out.” He has a strange mind. Yes, I talk to the monster in my closet. I almost never did until he came out of my closet one September night. After an awkward silence that followed my wetting of the bed, he finally said, “Good day.” This may be an unusual thing to say in the dead of the night, but it is very charming in its own way.

“My name is George.” I tried to smile.

“I know,” the monster said. “I’m called Ape.”

“Ape?”

“It’s because of my appetite.”

I did not understand, but, then again, I never wanted to. Our conversation continued until daybreak. I never once called him by his name. As he stepped back into my closet, I asked him if he was coming out again that night. He told me he probably would, and he did. That night, my parents came into my room and found me talking to the monster. My mother screamed and my father yelled. The monster fled back into my closet as my parents rushed to save me.

“What was that?” my father asked. There was a wild look in his eyes.

“The monster. His name is Ape.” I shrugged. “Short for Appetite.”

“Never talk to him again, George! Monsters are dangerous,” my mother said.

“Okay.” I shrugged. I didn’t intend to obey her order, nor did I.

Adults are a peculiar thing. They rule every aspect of my life, from breakfast to bedtime. They tell me what I need to learn, and when to learn it. They make me eat my broccoli. Adults close and lock their bedroom doors to make noise, and send me to my room to be silent. I know I love my parents. I have always liked my teachers. I just find them weird.

I have known about the monster in my closet since I was small, even though I did not meet him, officially, until recently. We have lived in this house for as long as I have been alive. Ape hadn’t been here when I had come along, but he had been around. My friend Billy Dean knew Ape. Billy Dean and I used to play in the sandbox. We’d build terrible and unstable sandcastles, and plow our little trucks through them. He would get upset when I’d knock over his castle. He would get upset when I did it by hand. Billy Dean did not like hands. He was always sitting on his own, or biting at the skin at the tips of his fingers. His hands were always clean. Often, I’d have to pause and watch him leave the sandbox to get sanitary wipes from his mother’s bag on the bench.

“What’s that, Billy Dean?” I’d asked once. We were real small then.

“It’s my hand wipes.”

“I mean, what’s that for, Billy Dean?” I corrected myself. I liked to do that – say one thing, but really have meant another. It drove adults crazy, and it put a smile on my face to know something they didn’t.

“To wipe my hands,” Billy Dean explained matter-of-factly, “to get rid of all the, um… All the germs! So, I don’t get anyone sick.”

“How could you make anyone sick?” I wondered aloud, and, because Billy Dean had gotten up again to throw away the wipe, continued, “My mother says she’s sick of having to tell me the same things over and over again. Are there germs on my hand that make her repeat what she says?”

Billy Dean strolled back over, and plopped down into the sandbox. “Not just anyone! I can’t get him sick, or he’ll be nasty with me. He says children should be clean and not so dirty all the time. It’s – it’s bad enough that, um… adults are so dirty.”

I did not think to ask him who had said that. I was only small, after all. Very small.

My sense of time isn't very accurate. After all, I was only little when I knew Billy Dean. Anyway, one day, there was a murder in my neighborhood. No one knew about it for days, and, by time they found Billy Dean and his mom and dog, they were skeletons. It was a mystery; well, it still is one. I solved it, though. It may have been the night of the murders, but I would not know for sure. All I know is I saw Ape outside my house one night. He was looking up at my window, and grinning with those sharp teeth of his. He went around to the side of the house, and shimmied up to the roof. My room is the one below the attic. He slipped in through the cracks in the roof, and slunk down the stairs. I tossed the sheets over my head, too scared to make a sound. I heard my door open, and the heavy pit-pat of awkward feet move towards my closet. The door shut with a click!

I never removed the sheets from my head that night, for fear I’d find the monster bent over me. I peed in my bed that night. I was not one bit embarrassed, though. I had real reason to be afraid, after all! Well, also, Ape was freaking me out. I don’t think I would have been awake to pee my bed if it had not been for Ape. Ape was sobbing in the closet. He cried all that night, and did not stop until my mom knocked on the door the next morning.

“George! Good morning!” My mother strolled over to my bed. “What’s that smell? Time to wake –”

“Mommy!” I tried to explain before she could react.

“George!” she slapped me on the top of the head. “Did you go peepee in your bed? That’s disgusting, George. Go clean yourself in the tub. Quickly now! Your father will hear about this later.”

As I undressed, going down the hall towards the bathroom, two thoughts occurred to me. The first was that Ape would eat my mother, and my father would never have to find out. The second was a bitter curiosity. Why did she have to hit me? I peed in my bed! Wasn’t that punishment enough? I mean, it was yucky and smelly. Did she need to hit me on top of all of that? Adults are peculiar.

Now, after he’d been caught, Ape did not come out of my closet again for a couple of weeks, despite my constant urges for him to do so. The night he finally did, I woke up to find him lying down next to me. He lay over my sheets, as I lay under them, and was staring up at the ceiling. His empty eyes were mesmerizing; I might have lost myself in them for all eternity. I would have, had I not first seen his sharp teeth and smelled his piss-stained wings. His teeth were dripping with blood, and I did not know whose blood it was. His wings felt dirty on my arm, and made me tingle unpleasantly. I must have woken with a start, because he was saying:

“I’m going to eat you, George. Your mom and dad were not at all appetizing. I just took a bite out of you, and must say- you’re delicious.”

I was horrified by his words and frightened by my monster for the first time since he had moved in. My eyes followed the blood trail. From Ape, my eyes wandered to the bloody and broken skeletons at the foot of my bed. I had to lean over the rail to see, though I should not have. I felt my head become cloudy. I noticed my right hand was numb. I held it up to my face to have a look at it, only to find it missing. I looked back at Ape. He was not smiling.

“I liked getting to know you. You’re a nice kid, George. There aren’t many like you left. So many boys and girls are trying too hard to grow up. Did you know your meat becomes tough to chew as you get older? Forced aging is terrible. Forced aging tastes like unsalted beef jerky. Kids like you are tender and soft and moist.” He licked his lips and continued, “I’m glad I got to know you. You’ll most certainly be worth the wait.”

I gulped. Then I coughed up blood and vomit. It lay in my lap, and I felt like a stew. A hot, messy, yucky stew, like the ones my mother would make when she got lazy. The monster began on my feet, and seemed intent on working his way up from there. I found myself wondering where Ape had really come from. It occurred to me that Ape was all in my head, and that all of this was a nightmare. I do not understand monsters. Why do they get to eat people, and scare us children? It’s not fair!

“Oh. Yes. You were worth the wait,” he mumbled through a full mouth.

If you’ve never been eaten by the monster in my closet, consider yourself fortunate. If you have, then, by all means, consider yourself eaten.

Jolene by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

She was a pretty girl, much prettier than I was. She wore her hair long and blonde, much like mine. Jolene wore short skirts and tall, pointed, high-heeled boots. She insisted on real Italian leather. Her skin was soft and radiant with youth in its prime. Her blouses were never wrinkled, and never less than gracious to her breasts. She wore a pair of sunglasses at all times. Jolene caught my man's eye.

I don't know how he found her. I was always with him, after all. However, once he had, she was always popping up. She was there at the best of times and the worst of times. We would eat lunch with Jolene. We would see her smoking a cigarette outside the church after our AA meetings. She was quiet, sweet, and pretty. She had my man in her sights, though I was never certain he was aware of this. My husband would not have recognized his opportunity until it came to him, which is probably just how it occurred. I never saw her eyes until it was all over. She would always wear those damned sunglasses. Things would have gone different, otherwise.

My husband and I had had a fall wedding, in the forgotten-named forest where stood an immense tower, and a shattered skeleton of a keep that must have existed proudly long ago. The entrance to that tower had been sealed off, but its arched-roof pavilion, adjacent to the north side of the tower, housed our wedding reception. It was the happiest day of my life. In my nightmares, she's wearing my beautiful gown and saying the "I do" for me. I always wake with a start, sweating as though the room were on fire. My mind is a hell. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I study the wedding photo by my night stand to my right. I examine it closely; I am not satisfied until I am sure that it is Jolene in the picture. I then lie back down, close my eyes, and cry myself to sleep. My husband stirs, asks. "What's the matter?" and falls back asleep as soon as he hears that Jolene is fine. I don't have to say a word on these nights. I feel like shit.

"Hi, Jolene," I would say on the train ride to work.

"Hi Jolene?" my husband would be smiling, but he'd cover it up with a look of surprise.

I would stare past him, at the window on the door behind him. She was always there with us, so I came to figure that being cordial might make it awkward between them. I toyed with the idea in my head for a while. If I had become friends with Jolene, she might have backed off my man. It was a thought I'd invented on a cigarette break after church one evening.

"Hi, Jolene," I'd repeat. If only he could see my eyes, then my secret might have been known! If he'd just take his eyes off of Jolene, damn it!

She would just nod and stand against the window, looking pretty. She would look at my husband. My attempts always failed, and I quickly gave up on the plan. My husband never talked to me on our train rides. He would never talk to me because of her. There was nothing I could do but stand there and watch him. I could only watch as my husband stopped caring about me.

Jolene made my husband not want to talk to me anymore. He and I began to fight. I was right there, kicking and screaming in his strong arms, but he could still only see her. I'm sure of this! He would tell me he'd vowed never to fight with me. I'd remind him he could never leave me, not for anyone. He pretended to be puzzled by this. I would proceed to tell him that that part was in his vows, too. This would infuriate him.

Fights like those would get me thrown out of the apartment, with him asking me why as the door slammed shut between us. As if I had been the one doing something wrong! I spent so many nights in the sixth floor hallway of our apartment complex. The walls would echo with my sobs, and were never hushed by the sounds of cars passing out on the boulevard. Occasionally, I could hear the sounds of footsteps at the doors on the floor and the twisting of the covering of peepholes. I was never truly alone. I spent so many nights in that hallway, on the stairs, weeping. That bitch Jolene would be with me on those nights; she'd cry, too. The next day, conversation between my husband and me would be bitter and harsh.

"Why won't you quit smoking for the baby?" my husband asked, that last afternoon, at lunch. "Why won't you take those shades off?"

"Why should Jolene have all the fun? Jolene's pregnant, too," I'd retort. "You're going to let her have the child, aren't you? You bastard.”

At that moment, I remembered my first pregnancy vividly. We had both been sixteen at the time. He had me give the child up. He'd told me he couldn't be a father for a child who "wouldn't have a mommy." I tried to tell him I'd be fine, but he spoke sternly and said I was not. His friends agreed, I was too young to risk pregnancy. I gave the child up for him, but he wouldn't let me go visit the grave. Not ever.

Still, I'd wait for him so we could go to school together. I'd drop him off, and then wait for him outside – rain or shine. I was failing out at that time; the pregnancy made me lose everything I'd had. He dumped me, telling me it wasn't so because we "weren't together,” and that he just wanted to be to himself. So, I stuck a switchblade in his back, just above his left kidney. It had hurt so bad when he swung around and punched me in the side of the head. We both woke up in different hospitals.

I did not want to live without him. I took my time recovering. The trauma to my head had been minimal, but I did all I could to claim short term memory loss and the appropriate pain killers for my sorrows.

Both of our families were going to press charges against the other. My husband, however, had demanded that his family's claim against me be dropped after he'd come to speak to me. I made him regret hitting me. I winced every time he stroked my hair or kissed my cheek. He'd lift his hands, and I let out a tiny yelp. He made up his mind with tears in his eyes, and was thus mine again. We cried together, and then I told my family not to press charges against my future husband.

"You're not going back to what it was before, are you?" he asked meekly at prom, a year later.

"No. Promise me you believe me. I'm the me before the baby," I whispered back.

"I didn't want that version of you either," he tried to lead me back to our table, but I dug my nails into the back of his hand.

"You've no choice."

"Not again." He choked on a sob.

"No. Not again." I put on a big smile then and we'd danced the night away.

I murdered Jolene tonight. She had taken my man, even after I had pleaded for her not to. She had taken him because she could. She was going to be the mother of my husband's child. I could not allow it! That's why I had to kill her. I took the cake knife, plunged it deep into her pregnant stomach, and twisted the blade out. I stabbed again and again, until the blade found her heart. My husband came into the fray, screaming. He held me loosely with one arm, tossed away the knife with the other, and Jolene might have been there, too. I wasn't thinking anymore. He took my sunglasses off, though, and I saw Jolene's eyes for the first time.

They were right there, reflecting off his eyes as he gazed into mine.

"Why?" he asked.

I could not answer, because I died.

The Glutton's Lament by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

We're shitting chocolate
and processed cheese –
the nigger's diet a radioactive white man's waste refuse dream.

A six pack on a pothead's stomach,
and steroid pills for the
I Got The Munchies.
Popping pills and a heroin's addict
hates sesame seed bagels, but loves
the cinnamon raisin swirl of glazed Cinnabuns
going straight to my ass.
And, shaking my phatty, I know
I got enough drunk in my trunk to waste your junk.

The sewer sewage our homogenized milk.
And wide open pastures of duck shit
to roll down the hills of.
To roll down the blinds of windows facing the noon-time sun
that flicker in the breeze as the Zippos
of Camels in leather jackets,
Crying, with a bright array of feathers on my head,
"more Ovaltine and KFC, please!"

Help me, I think I'm going to be healthy
off this soy-based protein bar and Slim Fast shake.
Postmortem suicide note: the contents of my bowels
on the seat of my pants and clinging to my socks,
and ass hair, are dried chunks of Cheese Wiz,
or Cool Whip, mixed with her urine
and my own saliva –
because I'm into that sort of stuff.
I like to experiment.
God kill my mother for giving birth to me
and forgiving my masturbation on her sofa with scrambled
eggs and porn.

I'd like to think there's
something wrong with me,
Doc, I need some vagina Viagra-
my wifey's leaving me.
I can't get it up
to the shelf and out of sight!
So, I've just been swallowing
my own load, regurgitated
from that hooker's mouth
and my dog's food bowl.

Poor old people eating cat food
invite me to dinner, but I'll politely
refuse and use their bathroom to
pop antacids and exercise my right to bulimia.
I'm sure no one will mind.
I don't leave a mess.

Because I clean up my vomit –
smear it on my shirt, and braid it into her hair,
so she'll smile at me and know I'm tender
as a frozen fast food burger with a side order of fries
and some BBQ sauce to rinse the taste of her
cigarette tar off my tongue and down my throat.

There's delight in every delicious bite of
her nippled pastries and that cherry!
on her whipped cream Sunday sundae,
because Saturdays I'm too drunk to get it up
and, God, is our sex amazing.
Now if only I could remember it and
if only she could find the dumpster where she
put my baby to roast.

Grandma's Image by Oren Goodman

2008-05-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

"I'm so proud of you today. Mazel Tov on being a Bat Mitzvah, darling."

Susan could smell the musk on her grandpa's suit as he leaned over and kissed her cheek. Her mother and father came over to her and handed her a prayer book and a folder.

"Dad, why don't you go call Diana and see if she's on her way? And Susie, why don't you take this to the sanctuary and put it on your seat?" Susan's mother was always pushy on special occasions.

Susan took the book and folder from her mother and walked out of the social hall, trying to keep steady on her uncomfortable high heels as she made her way down the dimly-lit hallway to the door of the sanctuary. As she reached up and pulled on the heavy door her prayer book and folder slipped out her grasp. She bent over, cleaned up the mess, and walked to the bima and put her load down on a chair that sat diagonal from the podium.

"Shabbat Shalom, Susan."

The voice startled her. She turned around to see Rabbi Rubin towering over her with a beaming smile.

"Oh, hi."

"How are you today?"

"Okay, I guess."

Her hand shook a little. Rabbi Rubin gave Susan a hug.

"There's no need to be nervous today, Susan. I'll be right next to you, helping you along. Today you become a woman. Show me I can be proud of my newest woman, Susan."

Susan had known Rabbi Rubin since she first came to the temple when she was in preschool. She thought about singing along with her at age six, dancing with her at age eight, baking cookies with her for sick congregates at ten, discussing her year of Hebrew language and Torah study with her at twelve, all of which had led to this day. Susan began to feel dizzy, and excused herself to the bathroom.

Susan supported herself along the walls of the bathroom. Her purple dress slipped down off her shoulders a bit, but she had no time to fix it. She felt her body convulse, but it was only a dry heave. She felt more relaxed now. Examining herself in the mirror, she saw part of her white bra was visible over the top of the dress. Today you become a woman. The words kept echoing in her head. How could this be true? She was still treated like a girl by her family. Her friends wore makeup, pretending to be sophisticated like their older sisters. Susan didn't have an older sister.
There was one woman Susan idolized: her grandmother Moira. Her eyes began tearing as she thought of her. She was always happy, able to make any bad situation seem trivial. When Susan was four, she went to the park with her grandma on one of her many trips to California. She had fallen down and scratched her knee. She thought the skin would never grow back. Grandma Moira explained to her with a smile that the skin always comes back. As she grew older, she learned about how smart her Grandma had been. She was a fund raiser for Brandeis University, focusing on giving underprivileged women a chance at an education. Susan knew her grandma as a smart and independent woman, until recently when her body and mind had started to shut down.

She thought back to last Wednesday, when she visited her grandma at the home with her father. The nurse had called them in on an emergency.

"We think she had some mini strokes last night. She didn't eat much of her food today, and she can't really talk."

"Dad, this isn't fair!" Susan protested.

"Honey, she's been sick for so long. This was going to happen eventually. Why don't you tell her about your Bat Mitzvah on Saturday?"

"I want her to be there!"

"I don't think that's an option right now."

Susan bent over her grandma's bed. Grandma Moira's hair was very damp, and she smiled, though her expression wouldn't change.

"Grandma, I'm having my Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, four days from now."

"Yeah, Mom. Can you believe it? Remember when you used to watch Susan when she was a baby? She's really growing up, huh Mom?"

Grandma Moira babbled something back.

"Well, at least she's processing," the nurse said.

Susan heard a loud knock at the bathroom door. She quickly pulled some paper towel from the dispenser and dabbed her eyes dry, threw the paper towel in the trash, straightened her hair with her fingers, and pulled up her dress.

She walked out the bathroom to find her dad waiting for her.

"You were in there a long time. Are you okay, honey?"

"I'm fine." Her voice sounded shaky. "Where's Mom?"

"She went to get some things out of the car."

"Oh."

"Honey, I know you're upset about Grandma Moira not being here today, but if she were aware and steady enough, you know she wouldn't miss this."

"I know, Dad. I think the retirement home is getting to her. She was so lively before."

"You know Grandma can't be alone. That's why I brought her to Ohio to be with us."

"But she's not with us today!"

"She's having a bad week. That's all."

Susan's father gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"I know you'll do great. I'm so proud of you."

Susan sat nervously on the bima. You've made it through most of the service. All you need to do is relax. Rabbi Rubin called her up to deliver her Torah portion. She picked up the metal yad, a long metal stick that had a likeness of a hand with a pointed index finger. She carefully positioned the yad on the first line of her portion, which was carefully inked on to the giant scroll rolled open on the podium. She started to chant the Hebrew text using the yad to keep her place, as she had been instructed to do countless times during her six-month rehearsal.

She heard a loud thump in the audience, and saw her dad quickly get up and leave the sanctuary. The chanting stopped for a moment. Rabbi Rubin started to chant for her, and she knew she had to continue. A moment later, Susan heard the sanctuary door slam shut, and saw her father reenter and walk towards his seat, looking at the floor all the while. Susan felt uneasy in the pit of her stomach and stopped chanting again. Rabbi Rubin put her arm around Susan, who continued to read, feeling a little more at ease.

The luncheon was being served in the social hall. Susan sat still at her long table in the back, filled with her closest friends, mostly female, who were gossiping amongst one another. Susan tried to join in on their conversations, but was railroaded by constant hugs, congratulations and Mazel Tovs from relatives and friends of the family.

A candle holder with thirteen large blue candles was brought out and placed on a table in the center of the room. Susan's mother and father stood beside it and began to speak.

"I am so happy that you are all here to help us celebrate this wonderful occasion," her mother said.

Applause filled the room.

"Right now it is time for the candle lighting ceremony. Please welcome my daughter to the center of the room."

Everyone stood as Susan made her way to the candles. Her father lit a candle and handed it to Susan, and gave her a loving squeeze.

Susan began her candle dedications. Her mother handed her a piece of paper.

"My first candle is dedicated to my grandma Moira, who couldn't be here today." Her eyes began to well up. "But I know she would've loved to see me on this day, and I know she is here in spirit. I love you Grandma Moira, get better soon."

Her hand shook as she reached down to light the candle. Her dad quickly leaned over to help steady her hand.

As she dedicated the last candle, her father left room to answer his cell phone once more. He came back into the room with tears in his eyes. The candle lighting ceremony ended, and everyone went back to conversing. Susan was pulled aside by her father. He didn't have to speak. Susan hugged her father and cried. She thought of all the warm memories of her grandma, who was a strong woman. Today was Susan's day to become a woman. Today she became the woman her grandma had been.

Department Store Worker by Anthony J. Notte II

2008-05-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

I work in a department store and I watch all the people and I get them their couches and I get their grills and I get them their lawn furniture and I listen to their complaints and their fat mouths when they want a fan from the back room because the one on the shelf has been handled by too many people and the box is dented.

Think about this: most times, people don’t wash their hands with soap after they go to the bathroom. If you can touch the door handle to get into the store, you can touch a roughed-up cardboard box.

I argue with them when they want this brand of boxers but we only have that brand. As if there was a real difference. As if they weren’t all made with the same fibers.

I get them their bikes off the rack because they’re too dumb to know to just take it themselves. People are so used to rules and prohibitions on self-action they can’t even get a bike off a rack.

Don’t do it, we’ll do it for you.

Don’t strain yourself, we’ll handle it.

Don’t ask me (the worker) for help, I’ll come to you and beg you to let me help you.

It’s a nice, neat existence.

So I work in a department store and I work the night shift. The reason there is a night shift is because the stores get so messy we (the workers) have to stay four to five hours after it closes to clean it all up. How do all the items get back to their spots the next day? We stay late and put them there so you (the consumer) can find them. You think: “I don’t want this candy bar (that you really didn’t want anyway put picked up because you thought “Well maybe”), I’ll put it here, in the electronics section.”

Then we put it back.

Picture thousands of guests (the name for consumers in the handbooks) doing this all day for fifteen hours. Then imagine twenty workers having to straighten it all out, six days a week.
Think about what the guy saying “Welcome to (insert store name here), how can I help you?” is really thinking next time you’re asked that question.

I (the worker) get the batteries and the crayons and the pencils and the air conditioners from the back room and I put them on the shelf. I deal with the backroom guys’ dirty looks when I ask them to drive a forklift (which is their only duty). I then bring you your nice colorful shit that you will use for a while then throw away. I feed your consumer insatiability. I watch you swipe away your savings with your debit or credit card day after day. I watch you cycle through these cards, card after card, because you have so many that you have no idea which ones have any value still left in them. I know what underwear you buy. I know when you buy a thong. I laugh at you silently when your fat ass buys a size six dress. I lie, for fun, to you when you ask my opinion about products. You look at me when the cash register breaks like I broke it purposely just to slow down your day, which is so much more interesting and important than mine. I look at your fifteen-year-old daughter’s ass when she walks and think about having sex with her and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This is my life. This is how it connects with yours.

You know why everything you buy says “made somewhere third world” on it? Because where goods are made is determined buy how docile and low paid the workers are. Business goes to the factories in the countries where workers have the least amount of rights, the longest hours, and the lowest wages. Low wages mean low production cost, low production cost means you can buy t-shirts for one hundred bucks in the mall and business owners can get fucking filthy rich off the difference. The textile industry went from Britain to New England to the American South to Japan to China, all because workers gained rights and higher pay so the businesses left and went somewhere where workers were lower than dirt.

This is our marvelous Industrial Revolution.

This is the birth of our spectacular modern world.

This is the nature of consumerism.

Welcome to it, how can I help you?

The Treehouse by Erin Brooks

2008-05-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

Before mom said

If I ever want to sell this house—

and had it torn down.

I imagine the destruction

to be piece by piece

like the old cotton mill

up the street from

Mema’s house—

not violent, not

allatonce—

piece by piece

the way the art

exhibit is moved:

a thousand carved

lipsticks

by refrigerated truck.

And mom said,

If it’s that important to you,

go out there and find

a piece of wood

a nail or something

to keep.

7:49 am by Emily Allison Turonis

2008-05-04T09:34:00.002-07:00

The morning this morning´s a looker—
blue and creamy with orange wheels.
People on the bus, however,
seem insistently unimpressed.
Not quite tired, just as if they´d rather
be riding in the other direction—
towards their piano, or the mountains,
or the person they always meant to confess
some idiot-hearted love to.

Instead they were off to be
bank tellers, secretaries,
the lifters of heavy boxes,
the teachers of tired books.

A gray crowd we sometimes are.
(Who chose such a color?)

A Mumble Lullaby by Breanna Perera

2008-05-04T09:34:00.001-07:00

I tried to look inside you head
And did not know where I was going to
The moment was my weakest yet
Quiet enigmas facing a deeper blue
Of Africa, the diamond stead
Crawling around the fires and the gloom
Looking where the flame-dust led
They cried out and sought a starlight true.
Of randomness a prophet said
“Ramble on does the unwise fool.”
His melting bones are long-since dead
But his teachings will always find truth.

Hangman by Vvinni J. Gagnepain

2008-05-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

SCENE 1

Stools are everywhere. A coffee table, too.
Traffic cones and a single wall stage right. An
armchair is center stage.

There are two people on stage. One person is on a
stool with a noose dangling from offstage up (a
line set). The other person is in the armchair
reading a newspaper. We'll call these two people
NOOSE and SQUIRREL.

NOOSE
Well shit, I don't think that's lode-bearing.

SQUIRREL
The lamp?

NOOSE
No, the roof.

SQUIRREL
Roof has to be lode-bearing. It's holding up sky.

NOOSE
Yeah, but the sky doesn't weigh that much.

SQUIRREL
There's a lot of it, though.

NOOSE
Still doesn't weigh that much, there are airplanes
after all.

SQUIRREL
And the sky has to hold up the airplanes.

NOOSE
So?

SQUIRREL
So the sky has to weigh enough to support an airplane.

NOOSE
Do you think the sky is lode-bearing?

SQUIRREL
Well if it weighs that much it has to be.

NOOSE
Then I'll just use the sky!

SQUIRREL
No, you can't. No hooks.

NOOSE
No hooks?

SQUIRREL
(shaking his head)
No hooks.

NOOSE
Why hasn't anyone put a hook in the sky?

SQUIRREL
It's too high up.

NOOSE
What about the low sky?

SQUIRREL
Well that's the foundation, can't drill a hole in the foundation.
Makes it weaker.

NOOSE
One little hole won't ruin the foundation.

SQUIRREL
Oh, but the sky's filled with holes already.

NOOSE
The sky is filled with holes?

SQUIRREL
Yeah. There have to be holes. All the airplanes.

NOOSE
Oh, the airplanes.

SQUIRREL
Took a lot of Chinamen to make all those tunnels
through the sky.

NOOSE
God bless their souls.

SQUIRREL
Yep. Sky's not very malleable, not easy to drill
through.

NOOSE
Then I guess I can't use the sky.

SQUIRREL
No. Besides, air traffic controllers can't detect
hooks. They'd clog the engines.

NOOSE
Well shit.

SQUIRREL
That's what they'd say.

Pause. Noose looks up at the noose, Squirrel reads
his newspaper.

NOOSE
Well if the roof has to hold up the sky then
it has to be lode-bearing.

SQUIRREL
That's what I said.

NOOSE
Then I can just use the roof!

SQUIRREL
Be my guest, no one else is.

NOOSE
Fantastic!

Noose begins to put the noose around his neck.
Squirrel reads his newspaper. A knock sounds at
the door.

NOOSE
Door.

SQUIRREL
No, you're using the roof.

NOOSE
Yeah, but there's a person at the door.

SQUIRREL
Then he should come in.

NOOSE
He should.

Another knock.

SQUIRREL
Oh, the door.

Squirrel rises and exits. He reenters with ROOFER.

SQUIRREL
The Roofer's here.

NOOSE
Now?

ROOFER
Sorry, routine check. You know how roofs are.

NOOSE
Yeah. Well go ahead. Don't mind me.

ROOFER
Won't do. Say, does that noose have supports?

SQUIRREL
No.

NOOSE
Does it need supports?

ROOFER
Oh yes, otherwise it'll just fall off. That
roof isn’t strong enough.

SQUIRREL
But it has to hold up the sky.

ROOFER
Yeah, but the sky's also hanging from space.

NOOSE
(to Squirrel)
You forgot about space.

SQUIRREL
But does space really help with the sky at all?

ROOFER
Oh yeah. Great building material, that space. Cold
though.

SQUIRREL
What's keeping space up?

ROOFER
More space. Yeah, that space is pretty sticky stuff. It
just kinda sticks to itself. Durable once it freezes,
but melt it down and it's like putty, really warm
putty.

NOOSE
I never would have guessed.

ROOFER
Most folks don't, that's why I'm a roofer.

NOOSE
Then could I hang the noose from space?

ROOFER
(whistles)
Gonna need the Irish to do a job like that.

NOOSE
But money's too tight for the Irish.

SQUIRREL
Could we use the Welsh?

ROOFER
Suppose you could, but wouldn't do a very good job.
Hook would probably fall out.

SQUIRREL
Ah, then it'd clog an airplane engine.

ROOFER
Yep.

NOOSE
Shit, I don't want to clog an airplane engine.

SQUIRREL
What should he do then?

ROOFER
Well, I'd say put up a few supports and you'll be fine.
Make sure it's a good material though.

SQUIRREL
You thinkin' steel?

ROOFER
Steel'd be fine, but make sure you get a good dealer.

NOOSE
But all the good dealers are closed this time of year,
it's too dark.

ROOFER
Oh yeah, gonna have to go thirty miles north to get
enough light for steel.

SQUIRREL
Well shit.

NOOSE
Well shit.

ROOFER
Yep, shit.

NOOSE
Well what do I do?

ROOFER
What kind of floors do you have?

SQUIRREL
Wood.

ROOFER
Could always drill a hook into the floor.

NOOSE
Is the floor lode-bearing?

ROOFER
Oh my yes, has to keep the ground from coming in.
Nasty stuff, that ground. Well, roof looks good. I'd
stick around, but there are a lot of roofs.

SQUIRREL
Thank you for your help.

ROOFER
Oh, not a problem. Best of luck to you both.

Roofer exits. Noose pulls down the noose. Squirrel
sits down and goes back to his newspaper. Once the
noose is down, Noose goes offstage and gets a
hook. He then shoves the hook into the floor and
ties the noose around it.

SQUIRREL
Make sure it's a good knot.

Noose nods and reties the knot. He looks up to
Squirrel for approval and Squirrel gives it to
him. Noose then tugs on the rope to make sure it's
tied correctly, and puts the noose around his
neck.

NOOSE
Well, here I go.

SQUIRREL
Have fun.

NOOSE
Will do.

Noose jumps, so as to hang himself. It works. He
struggles on the ground, twisting and turning and
trying to get air. His convolutions become less
and less forceful, and then stop. Pause. Squirrel
reads the newspaper. He turns the page.

SQUIRREL
Hm. There's a sale on bullets.

He pulls out his wallet, and looks at his money.

SQUIRREL
Yeah, it'll be worth it.

He rises and exits. End.

Rapture by Sarah La Rocque

2008-05-04T09:30:00.002-07:00

I sing, in your arms, I will kill
all your monsters.
Living dead girl,
I scare you more than all the predators, who never sang
you, to an un-willed
peace.

Deceived by Sarah La Rocque

2008-05-04T09:30:00.001-07:00

The addictive
intelligence
of your lies, falling
like Tarot cards
from the high window of your lips.
The ruthlessness with which you shape each jewel
of ice
in your cathedral of frozen water
and diamonds

You cry
living tears
as I approach
your throne
for forgiveness
for loving the illusions.

Butterflies
made of paper.
Your butterflies,
flapping around me
one pierces
my heart
with a rose thorn
and I bleed
with joy,
for the integrity
of my crucifixion.
I am spent
like a gold leaf,
sunset,
I rise
Again.

Blank Street Books by Emily Allison Turonis

2008-05-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

I.

Do you want it to hurt now or later?
Now, you nod,
as you´re acquainted with the interest
pain accrues.
But regardless of the decision made,
it will hurt all the time;
now, tomorrow and somehow
yesterday.

II.

Never had there been something
like it, savage and red,
saliva and nipples
on green countertops
desperately
on the expensive white couch.

III.

Though you thought you had,
you had never heard his voice,
until he, standing playfully akimbo
and staring into his glass of white wine,
called you pathetic.

Daruma Eyes by Cody Greene

2008-05-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time in Disney World

I decided I could paint my fortune.

One-eyed blinking constants of the floating head.

Behold! The great Oz who grants haphazard

wishes for falling stars and sometimes me.

When I was kiln-baking fortune cookies

and engraving “voice” in tiny crooked letters,

You were already behind the blank face of the Daruma

on His left, there, slightly behind the white eye.

The blind eye.

The glaze cracked, chipped in my pocket

against the sea-hewn edges of my rotten lucky penny.

I was only left part of an “o” and “ice.”

All this and a half-green half-white rabbit foot

on a brown, not gold, chain.

One-eyed blinking constants that kept Future

in the moistened white glare, set back in the socket,

They were just some of the many things you used to call

Bull-shit.

II.

It’s a dusty road.

When I lost count of the telephone poles at 52,

you reminded me about the weeks until the Chinese New Year.

We were only excited about eggrolls, sweet, sour,

and Mama Fu. Well, Szechuan really,

because that babe of a waitress really knew how to walk,

and make eggrolls, and deliver fortune cookies that became more than slips of paper.

Since we can see the horizon here,

we don’t stand still anymore.

It hasn’t been the Year of the Dragon for going on 20 years.

Only climbing to touch the top of the 52 foot star,

you’re surprised when I come home with a new number

And it’s 66 and it’s a highway and it’s not you.

It’s a dusty road.

But God, how did I forget narrow mountain roads where coming down slow is a Jubilee

of leafy orange-pink lollipop rays that you’ve hidden from me this long.

Cheated heart, you bet your bottom dollar.

And I can’t believe that you do this to me now

when the Western Witch’s glass of sand holds

2 weeks, 4 days.

III.

McDonald’s fed them so much garbage

they’re telling us McA’s McB’s and McC’s

In the same summer when my alphabet was

Tall, Grande, Venti

I saw the sunrise enough times to know that you

didn’t cater to them, and that made me happy

because New York never liked me

and Atlanta only begrudgingly gave me a zip code

so you could send me postcards

from an espresso milkshake coffee-shop

where they only deal in small or large.

They used to tell us that Nostalgia made fools of men.

Nostalgia!

Janus taught us otherwise so that my Oz

has 3 eyes and only sees the past clearly.

It’s why I fell for kitschy gift shops that had

photo frame snow globe where I could put that picture of you and me

in January

IV.

Jubilee.

There is nothing else.

And when I wanted to be a big shot

your gently curving map always brought me back to pollen valley dust bowls.

See, Dr. Fate and the Justice Society of America

caged the Spectre so I could deal with all the voodoo garbage on my own.

“Your future is as boundless and lofty as the heavens.”

That’s something I carried in a paper crane jacket for

52 weeks, even though the ink had long worn off and I’d stop believing it anyway.

I’m struck by how all the best futurists are super heroes.

Tony Stark and the Avengers chasing Ultron and the horizon in the Quinjet.

The pulsing Quasar of that constellation is the only closure we need in that gutter.

What I found out, was that no matter how many crises,

or cranes,

or coffees,

or comics,

Heaven isn’t that far away.

And all the future ever seems to do is click my heels together for me,

three times.

VI.

Jaclyn.

Phenomena.

Narwhales are the unicorns of the sea but I always had to give you a hard time about that

because, damn, your seafood was awful,

Red Lobster at best, and that just don’t cut it.

But because my Daruma doesn’t see so good, I didn’t know that the desert was worse

and sea scallops meant green chile and sopapillas.

It’s not filled with rib cages and steer skulls.

Just scrub and dust and sand and the Western Witch.

It doesn’t have that mountain you can drive up,

look over the edge,

crane your neck,

and see your house with other houses and green trees

Orion on the night of the lunar eclipse.

I remember green.

I abandoned art class and that one tertiary color

in favor of red, blue, and Momaday.

Rachel pretended she was on cocaine

while that other girl was actually putting that stuff up her nose

and Professor Carr was overdosing on her own loneliness and puppy dog tails.

I never mixed my own secondary colors because it was so much easier pulling greens

from the box of crayons.

VII.

The Daruma is weighted on the bottom.

Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down

It’s the releasing of a jar of July fireflies,

and folding 1000 paper cranes,

and pocketing the fortunes of every Chinese restaurant in town.

It’s the prayer flags that tatter in your room when the silver fan was left on high.

It’s the tea you drink religiously, jasmine flowers plucked at midnight.

It’s the way the moving forward makes you wish you had two January faces

so you don’t have to worry what you’d leave behind.

It’s a lucky penny, broken by seashells and horseshoe crabs,

and the way new year’s resolutions fade and all you’re left with is a right eye.

Daruma looks straight at me and says that you aren’t part of the equation.

And that your “bull shit” is only in the one painted eye of my little red beholder.

For 52 weeks, Daruma reminded me that all the good fortune in the world wouldn’t

help me find the bucket of water and confront His elusive left eye.

Daruma, and Jubilee, and Me.

Blinking. Squinting. Not seeing enough of anything.

Daruma and Me.

Him. Standing stoically, maybe wobbling a little. Me. Crying.

Daruma.

Two eyed, unblinking constants that tell us fortune is only endurance.

God’s honest Truth.

VIII.

I crashed my kite.

The sea was angry, my friend,

and an octopus swallowed the Wright Brothers Flyer whole.

Supple, slender, especially delicious tentacles snapped my kite string.

Canyons and ice cream are poor replacements

for Mountains and ice cream,

but even now, with eagles and crows swirling overhead,

I think that the sky behind Appalachia holds

Mysticism.

I’m waiting for the decisions to be made for me.

And when I’m angry because they have already been made,

I always have to question the jar of India ink.

The short and sad answer is that

I don’t know what I know.

I believe, and since that’s enough,

I’m writing a script about a chef who finds love and God through Pad-Thai.

And since that’s enough,

I think the kite never mattered

and all that remains is the Emerald City.

I’ll wait for the fireflies,

watermelon

the summer honeysuckles

before I decide whether I’ve earned a pupil.

Whether I earned the resiliency of fortune.

While the bristles of the brush dry out

and harden.

The House by Tamara Bryan

2008-05-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

The house scrubbed clean, still smelled of bread yeast.
That – I imagine – stays
long after the oily realtor smiles, says, “Sign here to sell.”
The crescent of my nail is deep dirt, yellow-gray
like a feather ground under heel, several times.

I’ll admit now, in the living room now empty:
I once used a man for fifteen minute love, not sex
he used to tease me for my clutter
the pile hiding keys, homework
I swore artist, laughed.
The only one to get hurt, of course, was him.

I pad, barefoot, room to room.
Walls dull white, like sun-blanched shells
counters glisten, smell like bleach.
I fall body spread, on floor,
the ragged twists of carpet press familiar.
Even scrubbed clean, the house smells like bread, rising.

I tuck my head, imagine the pillow-like crook
a clavicle, right where neck meets.
I used a man for fifteen minutes, not sex
but that cushion.
Then compared him to the one before,
the mind fuck – I should say love –
in the scattered heap, laundry and day old sketches.

The darkening hours lay thick on the house
so quiet my ears ache for something other than the smell of yeast –
the thudding of feet, shifting clutter
the scratch of pencil on paper and his sigh,
phantoms now, to whisper
and send me in search of another man to use.

Ashes by Sarah La Rocque

2008-05-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Ashes mixed and drunk.
The eyes
of a cat in the dark.
I am wallowing, mummified in mud. Every part of me is dead. From
within.
I burst
like a milkweed pod.
Forced to drink milk in the mental hospitals of the mind.
Reduced to an equation: game theory
1. Every game has rules.
2. Every game has a payoff.
Calculate me, master.
Seal me in transparent
plaster.
Put me in a museum for children to point at. Until my eyes open
phosphorescent.
Then they can no longer keep me. I walk away. Searching for you. To
remove
this plaster chastity belt.

Ginsberg was right: the burden is love
But love is not a tender thing.
Love smells from being contained in pressurized cans like anchovies
becoming fish, the hair of mermaids.

We are not free, but you know that better than I in your crystal castle,
looking high through your telescope
at real feelings.
Love:
Where the body is torn apart by wolves and reassembled incandescent. Not weeping for the deaths that were necessary for the constant
renaissance of the spirit.
Oh, you see it all. But you neither smell nor taste your mannequin
lovers who sacrificed themselves to you only to terrify you in dreams
without number.
Oh, you are an unfortunate king under a curse
I am in the apple orchard. You see me there searching naked for
unicorns. and men who stay.
Maybe I will find the unicorns. Men are made of dry corn sewn
in a poppet but then you try to hold them they are sand –
people at sunset. They melt.
My tears melt too.
But my tears are made of ice – my heart of padlocks.
That open to hummingbirds’ keys that will not be tamed,
anymore.
The female centaur in the entryway is laughing at me. She says I use
too many words to express the simple.
But it is in these complex costumes and masks that I catch the
conscience of the king.
His castle is locked with a rusty iron gate.
There are no gargoyles to gargle the rain that comes because mother
sky
weeps.
She weeps lemonade,
alcohol
and acid.
She sings,
a song only I
can hear.

Promise You an End by Frank Vasquez

2008-05-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

There were stars that weren't charted
and we sailed between them all.
Each morning, a new one started,
and each evening another would fall.
To be someone else's wish or
collapse into itself.

Still, the same, there a black spot,
from Earth one less bright spot,
and nowhere the radiance of a brilliant wonder
for it had burst through atmosphere and come asunder
or else a terrible blight on the peace of minds
and tasted of bitter, rotten apple, did this pie of mine.

One taste, dear, and one listen,
that was our exchange.
In haste, fear, and one missing
component to us: the grange
burning and never with a roof
for we let the rain fall on our heads always.

This house of ours on untilled land,
there a sun, a star, a moon, in every moment.
For no roof was built, and I'd never laid a hand
on your pretty little face, but every last of me you spent
on fear and loathing, and a journey to the stars.
We never could bring a wish back with us.

I promise you an end.

We traveled far and we traveled wide
going nowhere, and everywhere but here, though in-between
the stars collapsing into themselves and through atmosphere, I died.
One would think we'd caught our wishing star, or one we'd seen,
but, instead, our hearts fell and I left to follow it
while you bled out and kept twitching.

I promise you an end
is soon if you'll only leave the way
Lead us to another moment
and the past is past is where it will stay.
Kiss me in this moonlight-
remind me of the coming bright day.
Close my eyes to storm clouds growing.

Or wallow in your self-hate.

Better than Mama by Cody Greene

2008-05-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

Mama says that’s
Wonderful!
That’s better than I could do!
But all I’m doing
Is doing exactly
As Paula Deen tells me to
On channel 42.
Eat my grits.
It’s like polenta and it’s good for you.
The thing is
I have so many spoons
In the drawer
And Mama can’t ever tell me why
Because her English is bad

And she’s too busy
Watching the space above my shoulder
For smoke.
I ended up choosing the slotted spoon.
Incorrectly.
She’s right though.
It probably is better
Because she can’t even say
Bravo.
It comes out with an L at the beginning
And a second B at the end.
But the end is always the best part
Because that’s when I get to stir-fry
And usually burn the garlic.
See, Paula really likes butter.
Loves really.
Mama says it’s easy to spread it.
Just turn the pan, she says.
I do.
But it’s not easy because
It’s so hot,
And the liquid just sputters
Covering (maybe)
Only half of the pan.
Wonderful.
Paula wishes me love and best dishes.
I see Mama and I remember
Whose kitchen I’m in.
Mama wears a handkerchief in her hair
With daisies and basil
And I can’t remember why I chose Paula
As a foster parent.
The garlic’s burning again
And this time
The space behind my shoulder
Just says
Not bad.

The Zenith of Things by Jonathan Jefferies

2008-05-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

The news anchor was openly weeping now, his impossibly square jaw ajar with a slight tremble as his stoic mask, sidewalk-cracked, crumbled away. Still, he managed to finish, a professional to the bitter end. “…Any military presence is unsanctioned and not to be relied upon. The time we have left, we can only face it with dignity, and trust that we will be judged fairly in whatever place fate leaves us. This is Brant Stone signing off. To all humanity, I wish you good luck and blue skies, until the end.” The channel seemed to fade for a moment before dying, emitting a quiet machine whine before going silent, for the last time.

“Well, we finished T.V.” Josh said, “I guess that’s one less thing.”

“Don’t change the subject, Josh. Stone didn’t off himself on air, after all. Looks like I get the last piece of pie!” Kevin said, a sly grin sliding up his cheek.

“He was crying though! That deserves a bite, at least! I bet he just couldn’t track a gun down, or they took it from him at the last minute, otherwise he would’ve totally done it!”

“Yeah, well maybe St. Peter follows FCC regulations, and he didn’t want to press his luck by losing his shit on air. Whatever, plus one slice to the Kevin.”

“I thought he was a Scientologist though.”

“Didn’t you hear? They’re all going to centers and being put into pharmaceutical comas, something about ‘attuning their wavelengths to anti-thetan frequencies.’”

“Not like it’s going to do them any good.”

“Yeah…”

A lot of conversations were ending that way, in the final week.

“Are you two still betting on that last slice of pie? You know I’ve already won it.”

“Bullshit, Michael. You never proved that Steve burned down his entire block!”

“Emily saw him do it, Josh. He lit himself on fire and jumped into a bathtub full of cheap meth.”

“Don’t give me that – Emily’s been smoking his bathtub meth ever since the government folded.”

“That’s right, Michael. Emily is a meth-head and she dated a guy who wears sun-visors backwards, her opinion is meaningless. Hence, no empirical evidence exists. The pie is mine.”
“You realize that this argument is coming from the two biggest potheads in the unit. That was a feat before the end of the world began.”

“The pie is mine, Michael. If I wake up tomorrow and find it gone I will cut someone. I’m an atheist with three days left to live, don’t test me.”

“I’m more concerned with what you two are going to do now that there’s no more T.V. left. Anyway, someone told me that Samantha’s volunteering over at St. Mary’s, I think I’m going to go check it out.”

“Samantha became a Repentant? Blowjob Samantha? Get your coat, Kevin, we must see this.”
“What? I thought we were going to go to Williamsburg so we could play Bright Eyes albums and see if the annoying hipsters start jumping off of buildings again.”

“Are you kidding, Kev? Skank-ass Samantha got her ass to a nunnery and you want to waste time looking at guys in girl pants? Not on my time.”

“Hold on guys, I’d kind of like to talk to her alone, one last time, if that’s cool.”

“Dude, if she’s gone Repentant for real she’s probably not gonna be down with a quickie, even for old time’s sake.”

“No, it’s not that. I just want to, I don’t know, clear things up with her a bit.”

“Eh? Okay, man, if you think you need to. C’mon Kev, let’s hit your place and get the boom-box.”

Kevin and Josh slowly got up from the couch, giving the television a final, longing glance. I joined them for a brief stare – wishing an old friend goodbye in its own lethargic tongue. Before heading out, Josh rested his hand on my shoulder a moment, giving it a slight squeeze.

“Look, guy. I know you and Samantha didn’t have the best relationship. I remember what she did to you. Just… just be here tomorrow man, whatever happens. Don’t walk off a bridge or anything, okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, okay? I been over her for awhile, I just kind of want to close that book, you know what I mean. Oh, hey, and keep an eye out for Karen.”

“Yeah,” he said, bringing back his smirk, “I’ll see you later.”

Sentimentality seemed to be getting contagious.

The stairwell down was dimly lit, but still powered, somehow. Apparently some utilities retirees stepped in to keep the lights on, until the end. No family left, maybe, something to feel needed or appreciated. More than a few were probably terminal, also, or at least more terminal than the rest of us. Seemed as though people who were already comfortable with their own sentences had gone from the least useful to the most functional. The people that used to remind us of our own mortality were now tucking us in for the Long Night. Not quite yet, though, still a few people left to see. I allowed myself a slight smile as I exited my building, into the grey afternoon. Thanks anyway, Brant.

I had taken to not wearing my coat out. The cold helped keep me moving, less wasted time dawdling about, made warmer places feel more warm. The ten blocks to St. Mary’s had become some of the quieter ones in the city, not much here left to burn away. A small child, probably around seven or so, was drawing a happy, smiling sun on the wall outside my building with a small piece of blue chalk. She drew a little stick figure girl, waving at it, smiling as well. I froze for a minute, backing up slowly while I had a look around. I didn’t see any other kids around. Had to be careful, the ones that the parents abandoned tended to band together, no telling what they would do. We were hearing horror stories about Jersey, it was best not to cross over if you could. Everything looked clear, though. I began to walk over to her almost sheepishly to tell her that I liked her picture when I noticed that she had drawn another figure, labeled “mom,” floating in the sky with the sun, waving back down. I’d better get to St. Mary’s.

Did I mention I didn’t have my coat with me?

The streets were more abandoned than usual. St. Mary’s must’ve been running another soup kitchen. It was cold enough to almost jog, but I slowed down a bit to look at the graffiti while I walked. Each day, the walls of the city would get more and more chaotic, a losing battle against the constant grey. Colorful, peaceful murals at first, born of some euphoric denial, clashing harshly against the more common scrawlings, violent diatribes, messages of frustrated helplessness, admissions of guilt, curses against God, pleading to any power, higher or otherwise, to change fate – and everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, “Too late.” They were getting less clever, as the days grew shorter, but louder, and much more ominous.

I could see the beginnings of a crowd forming down the street from the ancient cathedral. The normally grim structure was alive with bustle, people moving in and out, forced smiles tacked on, and everywhere be-kneeled penitents guilelessly submitting. God hadn’t heard this many prayers from the neighborhood since the Mets were last in the pennant race. As I approached, the smells of fried food and sweaty parishioners became almost overwhelming. Closer now, the second wave hits, the sad murmurs and wails from those who were still not all cried out. And in the midst, applying a bandage to a bloodied vagrant, was Samantha. Her hair was an impossible, blurry light brown, the casualty of trying to un-do too many bad dye jobs. Closer now, I could see the small holes in her face where the jewelry used to be, unsuccessfully hidden behind a thick slather of base. The vagrant was mumbling something about “goddamn kids had a bat” unsuccessfully behind a thick slather of what must’ve been heavily discounted opiates.

Samantha, who would never back down from the opportunity to berate and harass the local bums, now fussed with the dressings, which were quickly becoming soiled in something black and soupy. Her expression was an unbelievable combination of benevolence and revulsion as she finished with the man’s ankle.

“Sam, is that really you?” At hearing my voice, she rose at an odd, swift, practiced pace, as though trying to maneuver in her bulky white robe was still a priority over being surprised. She gave me church-smile. “Michael, how wonderful to see you. I trust you’ve come to your senses and are here to repent for your transgressions?”

“Transgressions” was the longest word I’d ever heard Samantha utter by about five letters.
“Well Sam, kind of. I was hoping we could talk for a little while.”

“I have many people to attend to, Michael. If you have a confession to make, you may enter and wait in line until a priest can see you. I am hardly qualified…”

“Please Samantha, I’m not here about that kind of confession. Well, in a way, I am, but it’s one that I need you to hear.”

“Perhaps it is His will that sent you to me, then. Well, what did you want to confess?”

“I just wanted to tell you that, well, I know a lot of things happened between us.”

”I’ve already dealt with my past, Michael.”

“And that’s great. Look, I know it probably wasn’t meant to be, and I’m okay with that. But I’m not okay with how it ended, with what we said to each other.”

“If you feel as though you need forgiveness Michael, I’m not the one that can give it to you. Only through the love of Jesus …”

“No, it’s – I don’t know how to say it without sounding silly, but even if it did end badly, I just wanted you to know that our time together was special to me. I don’t care if it earns me points to whatever’s after, but I need to know that you didn’t just think of me as a waste of time. I just want to give goodbye another shot, a nice goodbye, for once.”

Samantha looked at me for awhile, not quite an appraising look, more of a confused one, as though she couldn’t even understand what I was talking about. Without saying anything, she turned around and walked into the cathedral. The groaning and grumbling and praying and tightly wound voices suddenly became both infuriating and terrifying to me, forcing me backwards towards the direction of my apartment. Before I could clear the throng, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Please Michael, take this back for me.” Samantha must’ve ran back inside to get it, the pendant that I gave her on that day. The sun was brilliant and I had told her she was beautiful and she teased me about it for hours but she couldn’t stop smiling either. Before I could tell her that I was happy she’d kept it and that I would keep it with me until the end, she spoke again. “I see now that you’ve still got such a powerful attachment to the physical world. This only represents our sin together, Michael, and you should carry it if you refuse to forget us. When you are ready for His forgiveness, you can throw it away yourself.” She produced a scrap of paper, crumpling it up around the pendant before placing it in my hand. “If you must ask someone for forgiveness, ask her.”

Samantha walked away before I could respond. She always had a way of surprising me, it seemed, even at the end.

Confused, I uncrumpled the paper. It showed a name and address. Karen. Too far for walking. I would need Josh’s car.

Breaking out in a run for the first time in forever, I headed back to the apartment, hoping to catch the guys on their way out. Perhaps I just assumed that it was the natural progression of things, but in my excitement I somehow did not notice the growing signs of chaos all around me. Our entire block was ablaze, thick black smoke pouring out from everywhere. The stairwell entrance was clogged with residents slowly filing out with a depressed indifference. Some of them were collapsing as they walked, being ignored as their neighbors shuffled by almost aimlessly. Running to the entrance, I kept low and tried to see past the thick haze of the smoke, desperately looking for any of my friends. Then I spotted him, the telltale grey sweatshirt and threadbare jeans of Kevin. Dragging him out of the hallway, I frantically looked around for the help that I knew no one would offer. Upon getting him out of the building and to the curb of the road, I began to pound on his chest, trying to get him to start breathing again. “Goddamnit Kevin, not now! I need you man! I found Karen, we’re all going to go see her together. All of us. JOSH! Where the fuck are you! Don’t let this happen!”

It was the first time I had wept in years. I didn’t even cry when we all found out that this was It, but this somehow seemed infinitely more hopeless then even then. All I could do was sit there and cry and mumble, “Three more days… we still have three more days left.”

I rose, I’m not sure how, but I felt like I had to walk somewhere where the water ran dark and deep. I didn’t know what was going to happen after that. It was then that the car pulled up on the curb right beside us.

It was a rusted iron hulk, somehow still running strong despite the evidence of repeated strikes from suicidal drivers. The door flew open with a protesting creak, producing a whirlwind of a girl, surprisingly nimble despite the complex and expensive-looking shoes she had on. They seemed so silly in this situation. I found myself grinning. Then I realized she was yelling at me.
“Are you going to hold him still or what? If you think I’m going to let your friend die just because you haven’t seen Manolos before then you’ve got another thing coming.”

Coming around finally, I managed to hold Kevin still while she administered CPR. After a frantic minute, Kevin groaned, rolled over, and coughed up what looked to be a kilogram of whatever the hell was wrong with the vagrant earlier that day before losing consciousness again.

“Hey, your friend’s in pretty bad shape, we’d better get him in the back. I think I know of a place with a spare oxygen treatment.” It was still too fast for me. She put a hand on my shoulder. It was getting a lot of mileage that day. “I’ve seen that look before. You were going to give up, weren’t you? That’s why I stopped you know, ‘cause I know that look. Not going to happen while I’m around, got it? No giving up. Now help me get your friend in the back here. And if you ever decide to start talking, I’m Michelle.” After putting Kevin in the back seat, Michelle ushered me to the passenger door. She got into the driver’s seat and began to drive recklessly through the city, taking some strange back route that wasn’t nearly as clogged with abandoned cars as the rest of the city. A blue lacquered fingernail reached to the dash and hit a button. “Dirt” by The Stooges came roaring to life while she bobbed her head to the music, tying her long red-dyed hair back while she drove with her knees. This might have been the first time Iggy Pop brought someone out of a stupor. I rested my head back against the back of the seat and closed my eyes.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, so you talk. Thanks for what?”

“For driving up. For saving my friend’s life. Maybe for saving my life. For everything.”

We shared our first awkward silence.

“And especially for not playing that fucking R.E.M. song.”

“My God! Are you completely fed up with that song too? I thought I was the only one.”

“It’s not just the song, it’s that expression your friends get when they put it on. Like they’re so clever and ironic-”

“I know! Oh, thank Christ there’s someone in this city who’s at least half sane.”

“Are we driving through an alleyway?”

“Bridge is up, probably for good. Besides, this way is quicker.”

“I’m Michael.”

Fifteen minutes of knocking over trashcans and satisfying small talk later, and we were in the outskirts of Harlem. It was the sanest neighborhood I’d seen in months. For some reason or another, there were about eight ambulances parked in the back yard of a short black man graced with the moniker Stripe. I was told to wait in the car. Ten minutes of bargaining later and Michelle managed to procure some smelling salts and a portable oxygen treatment for Kevin. He roused slowly with a groan, giving us thankful murmurs and rubbing his head. Michelle looked satisfied.

“Is his place all burned down? Do you have a place you can take him, Michael?”

“No, that was my place that burned. He lives a few blocks east of me, hopefully it’s still standing.”

“Oh, that was your place? I’m sorry, Mike. Are you going to be okay? Does your friend have enough to eat where he’s at?”

“We’ll be fine, I think. His uncle ran a vending machine route, gave us his master key before he ran off with some hookers.”

“Far out! People bricked all the machines in my neighborhood. I could really go for some Funyuns right about now.”

I rolled my window down, letting the breeze from the ocean in for a minute, ignoring the decay. I reached into my pocket, digging around until I found a small piece of paper. I tossed it out of the car, resting my elbow on the top of the door.

“Would you like to share a piece of pie with me?”

Vol 1 Issue 1 - Editorial Letters 2

2008-05-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

Letter from the "Editor"

Wilkommen to the VERY FIRST ISSUE of the Humdinger Reader! Anything that was submitted was printed - as a result, we have an eclectic mix of screenplays, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, paintings, doodles, digitally manipulated images, so on & so forth. The work here is exceptional; this truly speaks to the nature of the students at CSF... We didn't reject anything, yet everything here is legit. Where else but CSF could this happen? We rule.

So enjoy the HDR, pass it slong to whomever you think might enjoy it, and be sure to contribute next time!

Love -
Charlotte Jusinski
(SWA's fearless leader)

Contributors
(make sure to do them favors)

Erin Brooks
Tamara Bryan
Vvinni Gagnepain
Oren Goodman
Cody Greene
Christine Heinemann
Rex Horner
Jonathan Jefferies
Kelly Khun
Anna Kongs
Sarah La Rocque
Elizabeth McLister
Jeremy Moran
Anthony J. Notte II
Breanna Perera
Emily Allison Turonis
Anthony Valdez
Frank Vasquez

Cover by guest (non-CSF) artist Ryan Frank

Vol 1 Issue 1 - Editorial Letters

2008-05-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

... ZEROETH BIRTHDAY ... INITIATION CEREMONY ...
... MAIDEN VOYAGE ... PILOT EPISODE ... GRAND OPENING ...

aka Volume 1, Issue 1 of

The Humdinger Reader

is a creation of the Student Writers' Association at the College of Santa Fe
Santa Fe, NM

* For information, visit www.humdinger-reader.blogspot.com
* or email humdinger.reader@gmail.com
* or snail-mail
SWA
1600 St. Michael's Drive
Santa Fe, NM 87505

Anything in here is the opinion/expression of the author, and not reflective of SWA or CSF, blah blah blah... though we do think everything in here is pretty cool

May 2008.

VOLUME 1 - ISSUE 1 - Cover by Ryan Frank

2008-05-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

FIRST ISSUE DEADLINE

2008-04-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

The deadline for submissions to appear in VOLUME ONE, ISSUE ONE is April 25, 2008!

The issue will be released April 28.

more, more, MORE!

2008-03-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Keep it coming!

We've had a slow beginning (word of cool things travels slow at CSF, while that stupid rumor that Joe Fitz is actually 10 prairie dogs stacked on top of each other travels like wildfire), but submissions are starting to trickle into the inbox...

If we want to have at least one awesome issue before May, keep 'em coming! Especially photos, drawings, and paintings... because really, who wants to just read a bunch of words? I think Love in the Time of Cholera would have been MUCH better with illustrations.

Email your brilliance to humdinger.reader@gmail.com

Submission Guidelines & Instructions

2008-03-08T08:48:00.001-08:00

Want to get your stuff into the Humdinger Reader?

Here's how... And remember, These rules are always subject to change! If you want to add or amend a rule, email humdinger.reader@gmail.com and let us know what and why!

Submission Guidelines:

+ You must be a CSF student. Because we will accept submissions anonymously, this is partly on the honor system. Alums are also welcome to contribute. We would prefer you include your name with your submission, so you can show everyone how awesome you are, but anonymous submissions are indeed allowed.

+ Mediums accepted: Any type of written word, drawings (send us your doodles!!), photographs, or facsimiles of paintings. Digital files emailed to us will be used as-is, and originals submitted to our CSF PO box will be scanned. If you want your original back, please include your CSF PO box or street address. We will probably print in black and white, however, so know that your work will be turned to grayscale in print. If you would like your work to be web-only (thus only in color), please specify that in your submission.

+ We will publish just about anything. We'll tell you straight-up that porn, smut, racist/homophobic/sexist wank, and other blatantly inappropriate material will not be posted. The exact definition of "inappropriate" is a fluid thing; any piece that is straddling the line will be discussed amongst the editors. But be warned.

+ Egregious spelling and punctuation errors will be corrected. We don't want to look like someone just threw up on a page. In poetry and experimental prose, where "errors" are not really possible, we'll of course cater to your aesthetic purposes. If you have a problem with the way your piece was edited, let us know. We won't change the meaning, we'll just make it intelligible.

+ When you submit something to the Humdinger Reader, you're giving us permission to post it on this blog and to distribute it in print around campus. We don't have anything by way of copyright abilities or legal mumbo-jumbo, so if it's something you plan on selling to make your first million someday, you may want to re-think this. Because obviously, the world will come to us to steal your stuff. (Sarcasm.)

These are the basics. We're always willing to change or add details, so let us know your thoughts at humdinger.reader@gmail.com

So you want to submit?...

Email your submission to humdinger.reader@gmail.com

OR

Drop off a hard copy of your submission at the CSF post office. Bring it to the counter and write "Student Writers' Association" on the envelope. From off-campus, mail it to:

Student Writers' Association
1600 St. Michael's Drive
Santa Fe, NM 87505

About the Humdinger Reader

2008-03-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

Over the years, it has become clear to the members of the Student Writers' Association (SWA) that the student body at the College of Santa Fe needs an outlet. Sure, we have Glyph, but only about 30% of the submissions to the College's main literary magazine actually get printed. For an even smaller set, the Helman Prize is awarded annually, and the finalists end up in a chapbook - but that's usually only 5 or 6 stories, and the competition is limited to juniors and seniors. Other than printing out your work and leaving it conspicuously on cafeteria tables, there was really no way to get your work out there.

Enter the 'zine. For years it has been on the minds of the powers that be at SWA, but due to a combination of laziness and lack of form, it never came about. In the 07-08 school year, however, we decided to just go for it, to create the 'zine, to get it over with - and modify the rules and regulations as time goes on.

The first step was SWA members submitting possible names. The second step was a mass email to the CSF community, asking for votes on the name. The title emerged, the blog and email were created accordingly, and here we are today.

We have no idea how often we'll publish. Every week? Every two weeks? Every month? Whenever we have enough to produce a worthwhile issue? It all depends on the number of submissions we get and how fast we get them. This is a work in progress.

At the moment I, Charlotte Jusinski (cjusinski@csf.edu), am the proprietor of the Humdinger Reader (as well as SWA's fearless leader). I've served my time on the staff of Glyph and the Independent, as well as putzing about at the Santa Fe Reporter, so I've taken the reins. I'm always down for help, and someday I'm gonna move on and someone will have to take over. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So that's the story. It will keep evolving and more details will emerge as time goes on and we realize exactly what the students want, what the magazine needs to stay afloat, and what rules need to be laid out so we don't get in trouble (uh-oh). This has never been done before at CSF, so there's no foundation whatsoever. Let's start building.