By Kyra Bredenhof

Once there was a girl who believed in a whole other world beyond the glass. 

Every morning, as the girl rose to comb her hair and wash her face, singing softly to herself, a voice echoed back at her, her actions mimicked by the image in the glass. Framed by ornately gilded metal, the girl on the other side smiled when she smiled, laughed when she laughed, cried when she cried.

The girl wished to be that other child. When she couldn’t sleep at night, she would imagine stepping through the glass, joining her dear friend in that rippling world. But of course, she never could. 

When the days grew long, when her parents wouldn’t come home for weeks and she was left with her governess in the manor, the girl was comforted by the company of the other in the glass. The two understood each other perfectly, as if they were the same. The girl felt as though she could tell the girl in the glass anything; she knew she wouldn’t tell a soul. Every secret of hers was safe, tucked in that other world. 

Often, the girl would disappear into her room merely to gaze into that window into the other world. For hours, her governess would search the house for her, calling to deaf ears. That was when the girl had begun to stop caring for her lessons, when she would rush through her arithmetic and reading exercises. She never wanted to play outside anymore, sit in the parlor with her parents, or spend time eating her meals. The only thing that occupied the girl’s attention – occupied her heart – was the face, so like her own, that she saw framed on her wall. 

The girl’s governess grew irritated. Tired of always looking for her charge and dealing with her distractedness and daydreaming. She had a mind to quit, find work from some other wealthy family.

Yet she hesitated, for hidden underneath the governess’ frustration was a hint of melancholy. For how sad it was to witness this girl, so young, so privileged, with all she could have dreamed of in the world, to be so lonely, so desperate for company, that she would befriend even her own reflection for a chance to have someone to talk to. 

*   *   *

Kyra Bredenhof was born to tell stories. She is a massive Tolkien fan and finds her best friends in the books she reads. Kyra is currently still a high school student but is looking forward to a university education in English Literature in the coming year.  When she’s not writing, you can find her drinking tea, reading classic literature, walking her mini golden-doodle, or playing piano on most days of the week.

Instagram: @thenotebookof_kb

By Kaitlin Ragosta Hughes

So he led an unusual life. Doesn’t mean there was anything unusual about his death. As he so often did, George kept this thought to himself. When a man like Albert Hensley died, it didn’t matter if suspicion was warranted or not. The press was going to dissect the situation–poke and prod it from every angle, blow every minute detail out of proportion–and as a matter of liability, the department needed to make sure every “t” was crossed and every “i” dotted.

Personally, George had never been a fan of Hensley’s work. The writing probably was skillful if you cared about that sort of thing, but it was all just a little too…odd for his taste. One of his daughters liked Hensley in her teenage years. She also liked combat boots and black eye makeup. George had a hard time understanding why a pretty young girl would want to get involved with crap like that, and while he kept those thoughts to himself too, his wife had less restraint. They didn’t see that daughter much anymore. 

My opinion be damned, I guess, George thought as he pulled up to the estate. Sometimes it does pay to be odd. The old, stone manor sat well back from the street, encased in a matching stone wall and surrounded by manicured grounds. When Hensley bought it, something like 30 years ago, it had been sitting abandoned and dilapidated for as long as anyone could remember. Local lore even said it was haunted. For this particular buyer, that was probably a selling point. Hensley did repair the old eyesore, and George was grateful for that, but the place still seemed off somehow. Not “off” as in haunted or any of that nonsense. It was just out of place in a way George found distasteful; the town had clearly spread outward since its construction, and he cringed at the bizarre sight of a castle-like stone house situated at the edge of an otherwise normal suburban neighborhood as he made his way to the front door. 

Personal feelings aside, George had a job to do, and he would really like to be done before the news broke and the street outside was full of Hensleyheads hanging fishnet stockings on the gate in tribute, or whatever those sorts of people do. Ducking carefully under the caution tape across the front door, he pulled on a pair of too-small latex gloves that stretched taut across his fleshy fingers, with the exception of the small divot where his wedding band squeezed slightly. He ought to have the ring resized. Really, he ought to have had it resized years ago. He just could never quite bring himself to do it. Once a year or so, he teetered on the brink of the prerequisite realization that he was no longer the same George who purchased the ring all those years ago, but he invariably shied away, decided the fit wasn’t all that bad, really, and promptly shoved the whole ordeal out of his mind. 

One of the newer kids on the force, Rollins or Richards or something, showed George through the home’s labyrinthine hallways with a thinly veiled excitement that George found exhausting until they reached a tall and winding spiral staircase. Albert Hensley would be found dead in his observatory, George thought darkly as he found himself quickly short of breath. His doctor was right; he really ought to do more cardio. He shoved that thought away too.

When he finally reached the room, he adeptly hid both his labored breathing and a disgruntled harumph. The observatory could’ve passed for a wizard’s tower in a storybook: luxe velvet furnishing, a free-standing globe inlaid with some sort of expensive-looking stone, and a large, antique telescope pointed up at the domed glass ceiling. Splayed across the plush Persian rug was the corpse of Albert Hensley. It looked out of place due more to its attire–loose basketball shorts and an old t-shirt–than anything else. Otherwise, a dead body actually fit quite well with the decor.

There was only one door into the observatory, which Hensley had apparently used as an office, and his maid insisted he always kept it locked while writing inside. “Mr. Hensley is–or um, was” she corrected herself, beginning to sniffle, “very private about his writing process. No one was to read his drafts before he was satisfied with them, and–” Here her sniffling grew into full blown tears, but she continued. “And the door remained locked while he worked lest someone mistakenly enter and catch a glimpse of any unfinished work.” Most likely, she was repeating verbatim a speech she’d been given; normal, non-Hensley people don’t say “lest”. 

Her tears turned to heaving sobs, and George shuffled uncomfortably. Decades of policework, and he still never quite knew what to do with himself when women cried. His wife rarely cried; that was one of the things he liked about her. She yelled sometimes, but yelling was fine. Anger he could take. Tears were a different story entirely. The handbook instructed him to offer comfort, whatever that meant. He decided to silently offer her a tissue and let Roberts or whatever his name was usher her back downstairs.

Hysterics aside, her story checked out. She’d called 911 this morning when Hensley didn’t answer to a knock on the door. First responders broke it down when they arrived. By that time, several firefighters and medics were on scene, and none of them saw anyone in the room other than Hensley. 

Sweeping the room with practiced eyes, George saw no signs of a struggle. No objects overturned, no defensive wounds or injuries of any kind on the body. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat abandoned on the desk, but Hensley had one of those single-cup coffee machines–the kind that used expensive pods and made a noise like nails on a chalkboard and still didn’t taste half as good as regular old drip coffee, so poisoning was unlikely. Nothing at all suggested that Albert Hensley had been the victim of anything other than his own failing body. The man was in his mid 70s, after all, and his dripping nose suggested he hadn’t been in the best health. Maybe it could’ve been a suicide, but the circumstances didn’t seem right for a man with such an infamous flair for the dramatic. Could George believe that Albert Hensley flung himself from the observatory? Possibly. Slit his own throat under the light of a full moon in some bizarre ritual? Certainly. But quietly overdose, without so much as a note? His gut said no.

Just in case, George did another sweep of the room and crouched down to check that nothing on the body had been missed. As he turned the head slightly, more liquid came flooding out of the nose and, this time, the ears. When the smell hit him, George’s stomach turned. This wasn’t a runny nose. He’d smelled decay often enough to know that his shoes were now covered in liquefied brain matter. Before he could even wonder how the liquefaction occurred, George was interrupted by the sound of the kid–Rogers, maybe?–screaming like he was being skinned alive. George turned sharply to find him frozen in place, staring directly upward at the glass dome above.

He didn’t know what he expected to see when he turned his service weapon upward, but he expected something. An intruder, the rapture, Bigfoot, something. All he saw was a pane of glass that looked a bit wobbly. No, wobbly wasn’t quite right. It rippled, almost as if the glass had become molten again. A drop of something seeped through its surface, and when he went to touch the carpet below, his fingers came away dry but shiny. Not a watery sort of shine; his hand now shone the way a backlit prism shines, radiating a kaleidoscope of colors across the room. Some kind of oil? George wondered, but he knew that wasn’t quite right either. Some of these colors he had never seen before. When the effect spread to the surrounding panes, the ripples took on a kaleidoscopic tiling quality, as if the glass was floating in tiny, fractured pieces on the surface of a pearlescent liquid. 

The ceiling didn’t so much collapse as open in a direction that didn’t previously exist. While George failed to comprehend what he was seeing, something slithered outward from the new opening. Monster, was the first word that came to mind, but that wasn’t right. To call it a monster would be like calling a tornado a bully–somehow both an understatement and a mischaracterization. Monstrosity requires malice. Malice, however, is a quality unique to human beings, and George wasn’t looking at a being–human or otherwise. 

George didn’t bother searching for a better description; he simply opened fire and thought, “How the hell am I going to explain this in the report?”

                                                                 *    *    *

Kaitlin Ragosta Hughes, a Ph.D. student at Brandeis University, combines her life-long love of the supernatural with her formal training in the often counterintuitive world of pure mathematics to create fiction with an out-of-the-box twist. The Unusual Death of Albert Hensley is her literary debut. Originally from Tulsa, OK, Kaitlin now divides her time between Boston, MA and Bonn, Germany. When she is not reading, she can often be found watching horror movies with her husband or working on an ever-changing assortment of crafts.

By Chris Van Langenberg

She had never had a home. A home was a dream, one she never dreamt about until he came along. The dream now felt far away, the distance growing with each passing moment, like it was being carried away along a river. She wanted to wade out into the water, place herself as a dam against the current. Halt the dream in its place. Bring it back into existence through the sheer force of her will. But she had been in the river before, and no woman can enter the same river twice. Because it is not the same river, and she is not the same woman. 

She once had everything she desired, just didn’t know she desired it until it was gone. How was she to know how sweet the air of that life was, until she felt the chokehold of this one? Isn’t it strange. You don’t think about breathing until you can’t. Then it becomes all you can think about. And you would do anything to get it back. And she would. Do anything. To get it back. That man. Their home. That life. 

That man had gone, this one came back…Those men had gone, these ones came back. He was one of the ‘lucky’ ones. He had returned, ‘unscathed’. There was no physical manifestation of what he had lost. But sometimes unseen wounds can be the most painful. He had lost his life. He was still alive, but he was no longer living. 

That life was gone, all that remained was this one. The dream, once so vivid, now a fading memory that lingered like the scent of a passing stranger’s cologne. She would grasp on to it. It would be enough to sustain her. There was no alternative.

She had once lived that life, with that man. Now, she would live this life, with this man. In this house, which was once a home.  

*      *     *

Chris Van Langenberg resides in the suburb of Diamond Creek in Melbourne, Australia. Despite the fact his mother is a poet, he never thought he had it in him to write. After years of putting it in the too hard basket, at the age of 40 he thought he should give it a shot… so he did. Writing is all he has been able to think about since.

 

By James C. Clar 

As soon as Saul saved $5.00 or $6.00 in can and bottle money, he schlepped over to the Akropolis Restaurant and had two or three cups of coffee and a piece of cherry pie. It made him feel like a king, or at least like a member of society again. Theo, the owner of the joint, understood what it was like. He, too, came to this country with the kind of hope and the kind of work ethic that was born only of utter desperation. Saul would trade places with him in an instant but, of course, that wasn’t possible. Saul had exhausted all of his luck decades ago when, as an eleven-year-old boy, he escaped from the killing fields of southern Poland. After that one sudden gush of good fortune the well had run dry. His unaccountably long life had been a series of catastrophes ever since. He sometimes wondered if it had been worth it. 

“How’s the coffee, Saul?” Theo asked. The proprietor’s apron was stained with grease and sauce. “Is it hot enough? I’m using a new machine today.” 

“It’s wonderful, as usual.”

“OK. Just holler if you need anything else.” 

Saul watched as his Greek friend walked slowly away. It was then that he noticed the woman and the young boy seated at a table across the dining room from him. They paid him no attention whatsoever. Or at least they pretended not to notice him. It was alright, Saul was used to being studiously ignored. In a land of plenty, the old and the indigent were rendered nearly opaque. Nonetheless he clearly observed that they were upset about something. The woman, Saul assumed she was the boy’s mother, kept dabbing her eyes with a napkin. The child sat with his head sunk on his chest. Remarkably, a thick chocolate milkshake sat untouched on the table in front of him. 

Ten or fifteen minutes later, the mother and child paid and left. Glancing at the spot they had just vacated, Saul noticed a small golden object, smooth and round, which they had obviously forgotten. He got up and, with some difficulty, crossed the room. As he drew near, he could see that it was an antique pocket watch. Its case was pitted and tarnished. Saul didn’t need to pick it up in order to determine that its movement had long since stopped working. Despite its condition Saul still recognized the quality of the workmanship. It reminded him of the watches and clocks that his father had repaired in the shop he owned before they had taken it all away from him; a victim of whatever particular “-ism” happened to be in vogue at the time. As a very little boy, Saul would sit on a stool and watch in amazement as his ‘tata worked. 

Picking up the watch, Saul returned to his seat. He unfolded a napkin and placed it on his table. Using the blade of his knife, he pried the back from the timepiece and exposed an intricate network of springs, flywheels and cogs. He blew forcefully two or three times. He became short of breath in the process. With a toothpick from the little silver dispenser that sat next to his pie plate, he began carefully extracting dust and dirt, the detritus of the ages, from the tiny surfaces of the mechanism. Saul turned the watch over and tapped the case lightly against the tabletop. When he was finished, he replaced the back. Pulling out the stem he set the time and began to wind. He was rewarded by a soft, rhythmic ticking. The old watch still needed thorough cleaning and oiling. Saul knew that without further attention it probably wouldn’t continue to run for long, but he was proud of his makeshift efforts nonetheless. 

Saul had been so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t noticed the small boy and the woman return. They were standing next to his booth. 

“How dare you,” the woman sputtered without preamble. “That watch doesn’t belong to you. It was my father’s and when he went into the hospital he gave it to my son for safekeeping. We buried him this morning and now this. Some old wino tries to steal it. You should be ashamed!” 

Saul didn’t even bother to respond. What would have been the point? All that the woman saw was an unshaven old man with yellow teeth wearing a tattered coat. Besides, he’d concede to her the grief that so obviously consumed her. Saul had been there, done that. The woman reached down and quickly snatched the watch from the table and handed it to her son. She turned on her heel and, taking the little boy’s other hand, headed for the door. 

Theo had watched the encounter from across the restaurant. He had wanted to intervene but refrained from doing so out of respect for Saul’s dignity. He opted instead to nod sympathetically toward the older man and raise his hands, palms up, and shrug his shoulders in a gesture both of resignation and understanding. 

Meanwhile, the woman and child reached the exit. Before passing through the door in his mother’s wake, the boy held the watch to his ear. Looking back over his shoulder at Saul, he smiled. Saul waved discreetly in response then finished his pie and took one last sip of coffee. He was looking forward to becoming invisible again. 

                                                                      *   *   *

James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently, his work has been published on Freedom Fiction Journal, Antipodean Sci-Fi, The Sci-Phi Journal, and The Collidescope.

By Jon Moray

Shiela began loading the SUV with a square fold out table and three fold out chairs. George’s eyebrows wrinkled as he saw a smirk that wove a story she had called an audible on their Thanksgiving plans.

“I thought we were getting rotisserie chicken to take home from the restaurant?” George asked.

“We are, but we are not going to take it home,” Shiela announced, rubbing his chin.

“Huh?”

“You are just going to have to trust me and follow my lead,” Shiela replied, with pursed lips and bouncing eyebrows.

Their drive to the restaurant was void of conversation. George, behind the wheel, sneaked intermittent peaks at Shiela while she hummed an inaudible tune.

They got to the restaurant and picked up the entree along with the sides that included mac-n-cheese, potato salad, and candied yams.

“Now what?” George huffed as they drove off, growing gradually tired of the mystery.

“Now we find our dinner date,” she cheered, with enough enthusiasm for the both of them.

They travelled along the main road a mile when Shiela eyes sparkled with glee. “At the light, make a left.”

George negotiated to the left lane and waited on the light. He spied a homeless person holding a cardboard sign on a grassy island near the intersection. “Him?” George shouted.

Shiela shook like a bobblehead, as a giddy as a schoolgirl at a pajama party.

“His sign reads homeless and hungry. I offered him a sandwich several times. He rudely denied each time.”

“It’s Thanksgiving. Trust me.”

George turned at the light and parked near the intersection in the adjacent shopping center parking lot. They methodically took the makeshift dinner furniture and dinner out of the vehicle; he took the furniture as she toted the meal.

They began to set up on the island at the area near where the homeless man was. The man turned back to watch them unfolding the table and chairs. He tsked and focused back on the intersection traffic. Shiela carefully positioned the white table linen making sure each side was symmetrical.

The homeless man turned back and commented, “You’re hurting business for me.”

“You call what you’re doing a business?” George deadpanned, accompanied by a ‘cut it out’ elbow, from his loving wife.

The table and the three chairs were set up, along with the plastic cutlery, accented by a soft flamed candle that Mother Nature refused to extinguish and provided an overcast sky to complement the ambiance.

As George began carving up the rotisserie chicken, Shiela asked the homeless man, “Come join us, before the food gets cold.” 

“Leave me alone,” barked the man.

“There’s not many vehicles on the road. The stores are closing, and people are home for the holiday,” Shiela persisted, as she poured a bottle of red into three plastic wine glasses.

The man gritted his teeth, but his demeanor softened as he inhaled the whiff of the chicken. “My mother made chicken on Thanksgiving. She wasn’t big on turkey,” the man lamented.

“So, join us. There is plenty for you,” Shiela offered. The man gazed out on the traffic and resigned to her invitation. He plopped himself on the chair opposite George and beside Shiela. George was so engrossed in his dish, scarfing down intermittent bites of the chicken and sides, that he didn’t notice the arrival of the third member of their party.

The man chewed his food opened mouth like a camel. He then swigged a gulp of the red. “What’s the alcohol volume on this wine?” as he perused the bottle. “7.5, it might as well be grape juice,” he mumbled under his breath, that drew a roll of the eyes from George.

“Did your mom also make sides like what is on the table,” Shiela pried.

“Forget about my mom. She is old history,” the man asserted with brooding eyes. The man stared at the candle, deep in reflection that sparked a pleasant memory. Silence drowned out the reduced traffic on the road. Finally, the man spoke. “The world has beaten me,” he said in a soft tone.

Shiela tilted her head in curious mode. 

“You are wondering why I am in the place I am in. The world has beaten me. It offers good and bad. Unfortunately, the bad consumed me and I have lost faith in humanity to get back on track. I have given up.”

George raised his eyes from his dish and focused on the man. He gazed upon him as if sizing him up before a fight, but his facial expression bled compassion. “What about those that give to you, the good?”

“They’re exceptions. Most ignore me, those that give are few.”

“So, we’re exceptions?” George asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. The man didn’t answer, as he reached for the bottle for another full glass pour.

George studied the man as the man stared at the candle. “The world hasn’t beaten you; the world is beating you. There may be plenty of success left in your life. The bottom line is there is time.” The man did not offer a rebuttal. His study of the candle and its subtle motion hypnotized him.

Thanksgiving dinner ended and George and Shiela offered a “Happy Thanksgiving” with only a patronizing thumbs up reply from the man.

George drove the next few weeks passing the intersection without sight of the man. 

“Maybe we scared him off and he found a different intersection,” guessed Shiela.

About three months later, George was shopping for a bathroom light fixture at one of the big box stores and notice the man from a distance stocking candle tip light bulbs in one of the aisles. The man felt the presence of someone peering at him and made eye contact with George. The man half-smiled and rendered a thumbs-up to George, that George reciprocated with one of his own.

                                                                      *   *   *

Jon Moray has been writing short stories for over a decade and his work has appeared in many online and print markets. When not working and being a devoted family man, he enjoys sports, music, the ocean, and SCI-FI/Fantasy media. Read more of his work at moraywrites.com.

By Catarina Delgado

We open the blinds before the sun’s first whisper. The sky looks like a pool of ink waiting to drown whoever takes a moment to stare. We wake up slowly, bodies comfortable with closeness and warmth. Still in bed, Winter suggests having breakfast at the cafe down the street. I can’t describe my feelings for him. A clear meaning hides beneath my inability to describe our relationship, but I ignore it. This confusing feeling is the only one I know. 

He goes to the bathroom first. I wait. Winter considers time more valuable than anything, so he never makes me wait too long. He quickly opens the door to reveal his signature unbrushed hair and young face. Winter touches my shoulder. I walk inside the yellow-tinted bathroom to examine my skin, ready to begin the process. My cheeks have a sunkissed glow. My dark circles are more evident than ever. I wonder if he cares. I return to the bedroom just in time to see Winter struggle with the buttons on his shirt. I put on the same clothes as yesterday. It’s just another improvised morning. Our outfits always match by accident. We never mention it and take it as a positive sign. The sky looks more friendly, so we grab what we need and leave the apartment. People start their day at different times, but this town has a constant number of early risers. Some are obsessed with running or coffee. Others are looking for special moments. We walk in silence. 

I carry a small tote bag with a notebook and pen, and he carries a heavy backpack with his laptop. We walk inside the cafe, and I sit on a small round table in the corner of the café.

Winter asks me what I want. 

Whatever you want, I tell him.

He hates my non-answer but offers me silence. I see him join the queue, hands in his pockets, thinking about something I believe I know. Did I annoy him? I ask myself. Probably. When I’m with someone else, I never know what to order. He returns with iced coffee and two croissants. I thank him. He nods. We spend the morning deep in our hobbies, quietly sipping the cold coffee and taking small bites from the croissants. We casually ask each other if the breakfast tastes good. I want to ask him if he wants to leave, to go home or somewhere else, and act like two people who are in love. The words never leave my lips. Winter is too cold to understand what I mean, anyway. Despite it all, I find his company to be comfortable. Necessary. I don’t know what life would be like without him. But I’m not sure if he thinks about me the same way. 

Are all relationships like this? I ask him.

Like what? He answers. 

We let the words meet the walls of a loud café. The answer is in the question. Winter would never understand. I’m not sure I understand. Still, we stay together, unable to move on.

*   *   *

Catarina Delgado is a writer from Setúbal, Portugal. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Eufeme Literary Magazine, NOVA em folha journal, Pigeon Review, Impostor Literary Journal and Wildscape Literay Journal. You can find her on Instagram: @catarina_delgado0

By M.R. Lehman Wiens

I watch and the wind grabs the breath from her mouth and tosses it into the surf. 

The children are close to the water, digging, delving deep into the sand. Their backs are turning red, but I can’t bring myself to make them pause for another coat of sunscreen. I remember being sunburned at the beach, remember it being a part of summer. They’ll be fine, I think to myself. They’re making memories. 

Rachel sighs again, and I know that she disagrees with me, know that she’s thinking of elevated cancer risks and the kids whining through the evening in straitjackets of hot, irritated skin. I don’t have to look at her, but I know.

I think of the look she’ll give me as I’m rubbing aloe on their backs, and I frown.

“That good, huh?”

Rachel is nodding towards my book. 

“It’s nothing. Just a random thought.”

The book is open, but I haven’t been reading. The sun is too bright, and the wind and the noise of seagulls and waves are washing the words from my mind before they can take root. 

“What?” Rachel pushes.

“It would take too long to explain. It’s not worth it.”

“Well, try,” she says, her tone shifting, drawing up something sour from our shared reservoir of spite. I glance over at her; she is lying on her towel, unmoving, still as a corpse. Sunglasses cover her eyes as she basks in the sun. Staring at her, I imagine her oiled skin darkening to bright copper, almost bright orange, before it dulls. A patina starts at her chest and spreads like wine across a table cloth. The verdigre grows, covers her body. She will remain on this beach, rusting away, alone, forever.

I try to make something up, a memory of a dream I had or didn’t have last night, one where I grew wings but couldn’t fly and felt like a failure.

“Really, Jon?”

I want to take the bait. I want to snap at her that it’s just a dream, and she asked, so why does she care? I want to tell her to have some imagination, to remember that I’m not one of her children. I want to lay next to her beach towel and ask her why we can’t talk anymore. 

But I don’t. 

I set my book down and close my eyes. She gets up, her footsteps a thick staccato in the sand, and the sounds of our children’s protests fill the air as she approaches them with the sunblock. I lay still with my book, alone, turning copper and bronze in the sun. 

                                                                  *    *    *

M.R. Lehman Wiens is a Pushcart-nominated writer and stay-at-home dad living in Kansas. His work has previously appeared, or is upcoming, in Consequence, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Metaworker, The First Line, and others. He can be found on Threads as @lehmanwienswrites.

 

Creative Non-fiction By Marla Lepore

Summer camp, Mississippi. Muggy torpor. Once again, my parents have checked the permission box on my application in case I want to take horseback riding. I do not want to take horseback riding. Once again, I am at the stables, weighted down in twentieth-century blue jeans, the kind without any spandex or stretch, plopped atop a horse, a horse that smells like manure and earth and horse. This is the kind of heat that squashes your will to live, but not the buzzing things that zizz around my ears and feast on my arms and ankles. We scratch and claw at those bites until they bleed, until the ooze-and-crust forecasts a ticket to the infirmary and a shot of icebox air. A cold so yearned-for you can almost forget the aroma of antiseptics and calamine, hospital. 

There is no such reprieve out here. The sun pounds from above, the humidity pulses up from below, and my horse, Rousseau, stands stolid, gathering flies. I am matched with Rosseau because he is an introvert, a dawdler who tends to clop along behind the pack. But on this stifling afternoon, some instinct ignites and we are off, Rousseau yanking me down the trail in a blur of trees. Turbulence throttles my chest as I clench the reins, a whoosh of hot wind and the manic drumbeat of hooves playing backup to the sound of my screaming. 

I didn’t sign up for this.

The path beneath us is divoted and knotted, but Rousseau is undeterred. A rush of lush greens and shimmering wood blows past me and over me, everywhere, an abstract acrylic painting better than anything I’ve ever made in arts and crafts. With each footfall and grounding, the dirt kicks up around us in applause, the trees wave us on, and I can hear a chorus of spirits amid the thickets and gusts, they’re unleashing me. This seems to go on and on forever and be over in an instant when Rousseau and I catch the pinpoints of other riders in the clearing ahead, clumped and plodding under the blazing heat. 

I am still humming, still vibrating, late that afternoon as I find my place in line among my cabin mates at the canteen, where counselors are peddling Freeze Pops in the shade of the breezeway. A jolt of thunder crackles on the horizon. Around here, an idea of rain is always hovering around. Today, the fat drops will finally break through. A cloud drags its curtain across the sun.

*  *  *

Marla Lepore is a writer based in Nashville, TN. Her essays have appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Points in Case, Sky Island Review, MIDLVLMAG, and elsewhere. She writes the Muck Rack Daily newsletter, a digest of journalism and media news, and has also contributed to WNYC’s On the Media newsletter. She received a BA in English-Language, Writing, and Rhetoric from Tulane University and completed the Pocket MFA in creative nonfiction. She has also participated in the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and Colgate Writers’ Conference.

By Annabel Moir Smith

I say she left me – really I should say that we left each other, but what does it matter, it was a hundred years ago. And whose sympathy is there left for me to earn? Certainly not yours.

It was really that I thought she was the best person I had ever known. And she was, for a time. She was brilliant and witty and lit by something that I wanted for myself. When we became bitter and vindictive towards each other I realized that I would never come to learn about the fiery tongues of cruelty and inscrutable need that burned inside her, not nearly as well as I had been forced to learn my own. It couldn’t have lasted much longer after that – the memory is unclear now, I apologize – but in my mind it feels like an eternity and I have to wonder why we kept it going for so long. I have always been so ashamed of my loneliness. In this instance I thought it would kill me. 

I lived in a small house by the lake. Do you know it? It dried up some time ago. It must have happened gradually, but I do not remember clearly the drying-up, only that one day I stepped outside my house to find that there was a dusty crater where it had once been so alive. 

Yes, that’s right, it would not have been a lake in your lifetime. Of course that is true, but it frightens me. I remember it so vividly. For the first several decades that I lived there it felt like a world of its own, as much of a world as I needed. The surface of the lake was the only mirror that I had, and I used to go out often and examine my appearance in the water. For years I kept expecting to grow old. I welcomed aging. In fact, I was impatient to outgrow my youth and settle into the evenness of old age, but I was never blessed with that. I am saddled with an abundance of things that I wish I understood. 

In the summers people used to come down to the lake and go swimming or canoeing, or sit on the banks and watch the frogs and fish among the reeds. Kids, mostly, but I would see couples sometimes, or older people that seemed as solitary as I was. Whenever anyone would go to the lake I would shut myself in my house and lock the door, but I would open all the windows and listen to their voices, their laughter, their quiet conversations. It made me happy. 

I do regret, at times, never going out to greet them. For many years I was so terrified that I would see her there, even though I desired it so strongly. It pained me to think that she was out living her life while I had quietly removed myself from mine. I had become so intrinsically tied to my solitude. I was embarrassed by how much it saddened me, frightened of how much I enjoyed it. 

I became petrified by the idea of seeing anyone. I felt as if making eye contact with another person would send me crumbling into dust. Even now, I am finding it difficult to meet your gaze. I have never been skilled at connecting with other people, even before I moved into the house by the lake a hundred years ago. I know that we have only just met but I have to admit I am afraid of losing you. I worry that the interest you express in what I have to say is only politeness and I will drive you away with some incommunicable quality of my personality. 

Something strange and wonderful happened this morning. I woke up and I felt old. My joints had begun to ache, and I felt a fatigue, a physical fatigue so distinct from the fog that I have felt myself in for such a long time. It was a joyful feeling. I felt a sense of readiness, that the time had finally come to face the world again. I know that life is meant to be a series of highs and lows, and there is no real satisfaction to be found, but it is my own fault that the high moments have been so fleeting and the lows so prolonged. You can only sustain yourself on the minutiae of those happinesses for so long. 

I left the lakeside for the first time in a hundred years today. I walked among the abandoned buildings, to the old park all filled in with concrete, the eerily quiet harbor. I was sad to see the state of my old town, but not terribly surprised. Even in my lonely life I have witnessed the slow destruction of things. The only real shock was the cemetery. I went to see if I could find her grave, and the entire plot had been razed down, was now a parking lot with scarcely any cars. That was what I was doing when you found me. I wanted to know, at least, that she was resting somewhere, since her death has been a vague sort of certainty for quite some time. I hope that it was peaceful and her life was fulfilling. I hope that she has been tortured with regret over losing me all this time. I wonder if she thought of me as she was dying, if it made her miserable, or sustained her for just a little bit longer. 

                                                        *   *   *

Annabel Moir Smith is a student and writer from Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Her fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Bending Genres, Bright Flash Literary Review, Literally Stories, Eunoia Review, and others. She can be found on Instagram and Twitter at @annabelm_smith. She currently studies English at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.