By David Henson

The marriage sutures the wings back onto the bat, rubs the nub to help the lizard grow back its tail. With puffs of breath, the marriage coaxes a spider into crawling clockwise around its nose, tracks down the woman with one blue eye, one brown and smuggles her hairlock into her purse.

The marriage is all swinging arms and whistle till it sees the holes of sunlight in its shadow.

Clothes leap from the closets as it searches for the long-lost mojo it tried to ignore. By the time it reaches the old dresser in the cellar, its fingers pass through the wood whenever it tries to open a drawer. 

*   *   *

David Henson and his wife have lived in Brussels and Hong Kong and now reside in Illinois. His work has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions and has appeared in various journals including Bright Flash Literary Review, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn and Moonpark Review. His website is http://writings217.wordpress.com. His Twitter is @annalou8.

By Mark Connelly

Newman looked forward to his monthly meeting with his parole officer.  Samuel Felber was the closest person he had to a friend since his release.  As Newman presented his pay stubs and recounted his AA meetings and volunteer hours, Sam’s approving nods and smiles calmed his nerves.     

But this afternoon Sam was absent.  His substitute, Ms. Ortega, sat behind the desk, file in hand.  

“I remember your case, Newman. The accident on Howell.”  She tapped the manila folder.  “Two girls dead in the other car.  You got a DUI and two vehicular manslaughters.  Served eight years.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Newman admitted quietly.

She flipped open the file, perusing it with pressed lips.  “Graduated Marquette law.  On the law review.  Worked at Corcoran and Cross.  Top firm.”

“Yes, it is,” Newman agreed.

“Ex-attorney,” she sighed, shaking her head. “What do you do now?”

“I teach GED classes and volunteer at the food pantry.”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a chuckle. 

Unlike Sam, who quickly and deftly accepted his paperwork without comment, Ms. Ortega examined each pay stub and food pantry sheet.

“This one is not signed.” She held up a green volunteer form.

“Oh, that was for last week.  Mary was not in the office when I checked out.  You can call if you need to verify. . .”

“I will,” she said tersely, interrupting Newman mid-sentence.  “And the AA meetings?  I have your word?  I know they don’t take attendance.”

Her voice was smug and sarcastic. No doubt she had reasons to be suspect.

“Every meeting.”

She sighed, glanced at her watch and made notes.  She closed the folder and waved Newman toward the door without looking up.

Newman left, his legs trembling.  He had planned to buy a shirt he had seen on sale, a kind of discount celebration.  But he was in no mood.  He was shaken by the unexpected encounter, that chuckle.  He headed back to the halfway house, then abruptly turned east and walked toward the lakefront. 

Visiting the park, he normally stopped for coffee at the columned pavilion to savor the view.  The strand of beach and distant sailboats reminded him of Antibes.  But today he walked directly to the arched bridge braced by massive stone lions. Corcoran and Cross once posed beneath one of the lions for pictures.  Newman had been given a prominent spot.  Corcoran had placed his hand on his shoulder. The day after the accident the firm revised its website.  Newman’s profile was deleted.  The group photo was altered so Corcoran’s hand now blessed Jayne Kellerman’s padded shoulder. Like Trotsky, he was banished from history, his face and very name an embarrassment to be greeted with disdain or feigned amnesia.  Newman who?

Leaning over the railing, Newman could see his former condo in the distance. Farther south was the yacht club. He wondered if his boat was still harbored on Lake Michigan.  No doubt both would be unrecognizable to him now, having been redecorated, repainted, updated, and renovated by new owners.  Any marks or embellishments he had made had been long erased.  

He drummed his fingertips on the stone parapet, remembering his spacious law office with its rosewood bookcases, polished credenza, and paneled walls decorated with plaques, antique maps, photographs, and awards.  A breeze ruffled his hair and a pair of fallen leaves skittered across the bridge.  The October trees bristled yellow and red. Autumn was a time for reflection.  Memories of lost loves and years past.  Everyone dwelled on the past this time of year, but Newman immersed himself in it, like a condemned man denied any future.  

The wind picked up, and Newman felt chilled.  He gazed up at the stone lion, then retreated to the pavilion to drink coffee and mourn his losses.

                                                                                *   *   *

Mark Connelly’s fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, Milwaukee Magazine, Cream City Review, The Ledge, The Great American Literary Magazine, Home Planet News, Smoky Blue Arts and Literary Magazine, Change Seven, Light and Dark, 34th Parallel, The Chamber Magazine, and Digital Papercut. He received an Editor’s Choice Award in Carve Magazine’s Raymond Carver Short Story Contest in 2014; in 2015, he received Third Place in Red Savina Review’s Albert Camus Prize for Short Fiction. In 2005, Texas Review Press published his novella Fifteen Minutes, which received the Clay Reynolds Prize.

By Akshita Krishnan

amma braids my acrid, rotting esh with jasmine, and feeds me persimmons & mangoes & nectarines. her wrought hands crush my fingers and sink into me like my dog’s teeth as we make chapathi for the first time. she plaits plush silk until the skin between my back and hips, the vertebrae, do not touch. i feel her paint overlay my body, slowly peeling into ivory. 

somewhere, across the Atlantic, i hang a garland over her portrait and chop onions like the lines following the are of ribs: someone mistakes her legacy for mine. 

                                                            * * *

         

Akshita Krishnan is a South Indian writer whose works have appeared/are forthcoming in Eunoia, Atlas and Alice, & Girls Right the World. You can nd her at akrishnan.carrd.co. 

By Mark Boatwright

John Phillips was what lifers in the Marine Corps refer to as a Shit Bird. John wasn’t especially mean, lazy, or disrespectful. He was good at his job, a radar operator in the Missile Battalion. What he was not good at was being gung-ho. He was not the baby-faced killer that the higher-ups wanted him to be. They had trained him to kill, shipped him to Vietnam, and assigned him to stare at a radar screen. He was watching for enemy planes that had no chance in hell of reaching Chu Lai. Although bored, he considered himself lucky. Leaches, jungle rot, and firefights were not primary elements in his job description. He would do his job and do his time, 237 days and a wakeup, and then be gone,

Phillips sat, leaning back in a canvas folding chair in front of his hooch. He wore cut-off pants and enjoyed the glorious sunshine. He’d spent the past ten hours in a blacked-out radar bunker. If he looked east, he would see the South China Sea and headquarters. Running westward up the hill, two ascending rows of hooch’s. At the top, past him, was the mess hall. The climb was steep, and he was glad he was only two doors down. If he’d been watching, he’d have seen the Sergeant Major ascending the hill toward the mess hall.

Sergeant Majors, at least in the Marine Corps, are a breed apart from other mortals. They are the ‘generals’ of the enlisted ranks. Although even boot Lieutenants outrank them, they take shit from no one. And they run the whole fucking circus. Even generals stop talking and listen when they speak. Sergeant Major Jackson was a massive man. He was a six-three, two hundred-twenty-pound Black Adonis. He wore a pristine starched utility uniform and polished boots that all but gleamed in the sun. 

As the Sergeant Major reached Phillips, he stopped and looked down upon the sight before him. “Corporal Phillips, what is your first name?”

Phillips looked up and thought, shit, ‘the biggest lifer in the compound. With a nervous smile, he said, “Ah, John, Sergeant Major. My first name’s John.”

The Sergeant Major seemed to roll the name around in his mind for a few seconds and then said, “Well, fuck you, John.”

With that, Jackson turned and proceeded up the hill to the mess hall.

Phillips was dumbstruck by the brief exchange. The Sergeant Major had actually told him to fuck off. As if he, a lowly Corporal, were a real human being and worth the time and energy to curse. He sat in his chair and pondered the encounter and what the hell it might mean. Time passed. Phillips saw Jackson leave the mess hall and proceed back down the hill toward him. 

When the towering man reached his doorstep, Phillips raised his head. “Ah, Sergeant Major, what’s your first name?”

Lincoln paused, looked down, and smiled. “Well, John, my first name is Sergeant Major,” and proceeded down the hill.

                                                        *   *   *

Mark Boatwright is a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He is a native of southeastern Wisconsin, a retired grant writer previously working in the Health and Human Services genre, and enjoys reading, writing, hunting, fishing, the great inland sea, and virtually anything outdoors.

By Brett Pribble

Mason lay in bed, his body a broken string. On the floor, his socks and shoes loomed like landmines. He twisted on his bed like a lizard on a burning rock. Creeping out from the safety of his covers, Mason slipped off his twin bed. He commenced his plan to end his depression by buying a new mattress. 

He drove to the nearest Mattress Kings store. Through the glass windows, dozens of mattresses dozed like cotton-white coffins. He remembered what his neighbor Gary said: No respectable woman would date a guy with a twin bed. That he was forty for Christ’s sake and needed to have adult furniture. 

Mason hated Gary. 

Inside the store, a salesman with a goatee and mustache marched up to him. “How are you doing, sir?”

Mason stared at his shoes. “I’m all right, I guess.”

“Me too. Two more hours and I’m outta here. You off today?”

“Not exactly,” Mason said. He’d been living on unemployment since his depression took over.

The salesman laughed. “I’m not exactly anything either. Can I get your phone number and email address?”

The muscles in Mason’s arms tightened. “I’d prefer not to.”

“Well, what’s your name then?” 

“Mason.”

“Great name, Mason. I’m Tanner. Feel free to call me Tan or Tan Man or whatever you like.”

Mason nodded.

“Perfect. You a stomach sleeper, side sleeper, or back sleeper?”

“I don’t really sleep.” 

“Well, that’s what we got you here for. What’s your price range?” 

Mason ruminated for a moment. “How much for a mattress that’ll make someone love you?” 

“I’d say we can accomplish that at a reasonable rate. Why don’t you lie down on this bed for me.” Tan Man waved his hand over a mattress.

“I’d rather not.”

“It’s okay. You’re with friends. Just give it a good lay.” 

Mason lay down. He drifted into the middle of the ocean. He couldn’t see below him in the dark water, but he sank. Deeper and deeper. All choices left him impotent. If he tried to swim his arms would tire and he’d drown faster. If he stayed afloat a great white shark would emerge beneath him and gnash into him as his body burst in a vomit of gore. Powerless. No one could hear him and no would care even if they did. 

Tan Man patted the bed to wake him. “How is the softness? Too soft? We can get a harder one?”

Mason smiled as best he could. It wasn’t something he had much practice with. “Fine.”

Tan Man waved his hand over another mattress like he was casting a spell. “Try this one. It’s got memory foam and cooling features. It cooled my girl down enough to let me try some new things, know what I mean?”

“No.” 

“Just bounce on it for a sec like you would if it was a sweet honey.”

Mason shook his head. “I don’t want to lie down again.” 

Tan Man smiled. “I believe in you, Mason. Come on, man. Lie down on this queen here. Work hard, play hard. Am I right?”

The title queen-sized suggested to Mason that only royalty was allowed to sleep in nice beds. Peasants had to choose a twin or a full. He grazed the linen with his fingers. “The queens are a bit pricey. How about a full? I only have a twin bed right now.”

“Nothing is too pricey for love,” Tan Man said. “Check out this king-sized bed. It’s adjustable.” He pressed a remote control and the mattress raised. 

The last time Mason saw a mattress that large was in a hotel. A fancy hotel where they change the sheets more times in a week than he did at home all year. It was large enough for two people to sleep on without bumping into each other all night. They could remain untouched as they slept on two connected islands, together but alone.

Tan Man grinned. “So, what’ll it be?”

Mason swallowed. “What’s the cheapest mattress you have?”

“Cheapest? I thought you wanted love. No one is going to love someone who is cheap, am I right?”

Mason’s head drooped. “Maybe, but the rest of my unemployment checks are for groceries.”

“Perfect. No problem. We’ll get you on a payment plan. This king-sized bad boy is only 500 a month.”

“I can’t afford five hundred a month. I only wanted to spend about three hundred.”

Tan Man laughed. “Sure you can. Just cut out those lattes from your budget.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Tan Man said. “But what are you thinking about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just take me through your thought process. Step by step.”

Mason couldn’t breathe as his breakfast climbed up in his throat. He spewed warm chunks onto the remote-controlled mattress. 

Tan Man put his hands on Mason’s shoulders. “Holy shit.” He inspected the bed. “Oh buddy, what a mess. I guess you have to go on that payment plan now, huh?”

“But I told you I can’t—”

“None of that matters now, pal,” Tan Man said. “That’ll be seven thousand dollars or five hundred a month until it’s paid off.”

Mason gasped. “Seven thousand?”

“Yes sir, my friend. It’s our most expensive mattress. What credit card will you be using? I can also automatically withdraw payments from your bank account if you prefer.”

Mason moved towards the door.

“Buddy,” Tan Man said. “Where are you going?”

Mason darted to the exit.

“Hey!” Tan Man shouted. “You can’t just leave here. I’ll call the police.”

Mason burst through the door. Near the street, an inflatable, yellow man jerked around in the wind like he was hanging from a noose. Mason jumped into his car and sped all the way home. Back in his twin bed, he buried his face in pillows and imagined he was the only living person on earth.

* * *

Brett Pribble’s work has appeared in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, decomP, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Saw Palm, The Molotov Cocktail, Five on the Fifth, Maudlin House, and other places. He is the editor-in-chief of Ghost Parachute. Follow him on Twitter @brettpribble.

“Much Time Has Passed,” by Lindsay Bamfield

“I Dream of Unforeseen Collisions in the Night,” by George Nevgodovskyy

“Self As Other,” by Alexander Penney

“Fixed,” by Clare Rolens

“Here on the Balcony,” by Beate Sigriddaughter

“The Little Things,” by Judith Shapiro