Issue 33

The elephant leers down at me.

It’s not really an elephant. It’s a water stain with a trunk and two sloping tusks, a tail flicking to the right, wrinkly lower lip curled in a sneer.

I roll out of my cot—there’s a faint dip in the mattress after nine years—and crawl to the dresser, too bone-weary to stand up.

Eight months ago, James left a china doll in our mailbox. She has waxy skin, red paint flaking from her glossy red lips. An ivory qipao stretches over her chest and my thumb brushes over her porcelain curves as I pick her up. I pinch the stained silk between two fingertips, rubbing it in circles. It’s brittle. Transparent. Like him.

He used to write me letters in his sloppy, stilted handwriting. Then, he started mailing me threadbare cadet hats. Dane’s shoelaces. The prom tickets we bought together. An embroidered handkerchief with a spring chicken stitched into the fabric.

The doll smells like leather and cigars and his rosemary aftershave. The way men used to smell, my mother says, when women wore two-inch pumps and walked with halting steps. She told me that smoking was an act of elegance “back in the day” — men were seen lighting cigarettes dressed in Saint Laurent suits, while women in cocktail gowns flicked ashes from sleek cigarette holders.

One month after the china doll, the gifts came to a halt. Just like that. My mother was flipping through crosswords when James’ father, Joseph, knocked on our door. The door nearly snapped off its hinges when he flung it open, his face worn and drooping like Dalí’s melting clocks.

His words bounce around my head as I pull the white canvas from Dollar Tree out from underneath my dresser. “He died from a blast injury two days ago,” Joseph rasped. “An’ don’t tell me he’s in a better place. He’s an eighteen-year-old boy for God’s sake.”

Like clockwork, I climb into a streetcar twenty minutes later and watch the storefront windows pass in a blur of FOR RENT signs and flaking paint. The trees lining the sidewalk grow in small square plots, leaves still stubbornly clinging to their branches. The city is asleep. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.

The china doll is tucked away in my drawstring knapsack, which rests against my feet. I lean against the plastic seat and line the bottles of paint on the seat next to me. Magenta. Red. Blue. Brown. Three seats away, a wiry old man with a puckered red face puffs on a pipe, his chest heaving.

I squeeze a drop of brown paint onto a paper plate caked with old paint. James didn’t use white or black. Ever. He painted bright, bold geometric shapes — yellow diamonds for feathers, green triangles for pine trees. Uniform strips of red, orange and pink sunsets.

I never paid attention to the mint fragrance of his cologne, or the calluses on his palms, until he was gone. I took his raspy laughter and crooked smiles for granted, never saving the stems of angel’s breath that he’d snap off and tuck behind my ear.

You don’t long for the sweltering heat of Tucson summers until winter rolls in.

I start by painting his thick, dark curls, easing the bristles into the thin canvas. His eyes, a dark mauve. Slashes of magenta to suggest lips. A strong, square chin. A single dot for the mole beneath his cheekbone and—

The old man behind me begins sputtering, his coffee splashing down the front of his Oxford shirt.

The stain is shaped like Africa.

“Jesus,” he spits, dabbing at the coffee stain with a tissue. “I’m gonna die young.” But he won’t.

He won’t ever know what it means to “die young.”

He lived in a sweeping Craftsman home, I imagine. Probably owned a cocker spaniel named Gloria. He could afford luxury smoke pipes and premium rolling papers, cannabis gummies and bottles of whiskey that he drank like orange juice.

He lived three times the life James could have lived, and he didn’t deserve half of it. And suddenly, I’m making my way down the aisle as the streetcar jolts to a stop.

It’s like I’m watching a YouTube video through a first-person camera. I watch her hands grab his cooled coffee cup. She tears the cardboard sleeve to shreds. She dumps the rest of the liquid down his shirt.

She stumbles into the gray morning, leaving behind the china doll and the painting of her boyfriend on the streetcar.

 

 

Robina Nguyen (she/her) is a queer Vietnamese-Canadian freelance writer based in Toronto, as well as the current Editor-in-Chief of The Outland Magazine. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Shameless Magazine, Disobedient Magazine, the Yale Daily News, Ambré Magazine and West End Phoenix, among others.

The wind whistled through the downy, feathery warmth of the swift’s wings, soaring like an arrow to accompany the swift on its wearying flight before dispatching into ribbons of currents that the swift utilized to ride the skies. A fierce, harsh cry echoed from its ebony beak, hooked talons arching through the hair, and the sonic echo rang through the empty air over the rolling quadrants divided neatly below.

The swift’s ancient eyes, pitch-black and haloed with steel-strong spirit, swept over the rippling points of the compass rose that transformed into four wild and bright territories. Beneath the grubby point of a human finger on a time-worn, crinkly map, this land meant none to those who were only eager to reap its resources, but to the swift soaring across the blue expanse of the empyrean, it was home.

Look – to the south. There lies beautiful, verdant Summer in emerald glory. Trees stand tall and proud, bark deep mahogany, leaves sprouting from every visible surface of every arching branch. Elegant are the carpets of endless green that ripple across acres of rich moist soil, smelling of ripeness and things long gone.

Somewhere in the distant future, a little girl will be seated in a compartment of a creaky silver train that rumbles along its tracks, occasionally stopping to spill forth passengers or bring aboard new adventurers in search of the next place to walk toward. She will be unable to keep still as the air grows warmer and the white-hot sun cooks the train’s weary shell past miles of deserted country until finally –

She disembarks the train, a small yellow bag in hand. Looks around for the hunched, waving couple standing by the door leading outside of the station, running over in delight. Skips into the pasture, climbs over the fence to lie with the cows and chickens, breathes in the smell of growing things, and learns to call this place which thrives in the scorched atmosphere of mid-summer heat, home.

“Dhudum, god of the summer and health, hear me.”

The swift tipped its wings and angled its path to the west, where Summer’s green began to recede, giving birth to deep ruby, dark tangerine, and golden yellow leaves that littered the ground like teeth from splintered rowan branches. Ah – this is Autumn. A gauzy veil of approaching chill hung over the cinnamon crunch of the forest floors, which twitched here and there with small, warm field mice. Nearby, the honks of geese rang by the swift as they flapped their wings, returning south.

Somewhere in the distant future, a young girl will be fishing by a large pond that is quickly beginning to chill as summer dies and fall returns to the countryside. Her small hands are enclosed within her grandfather’s big, wrinkled ones, and both pairs are grasped around a fishing pole. Inside of the brightly lit house, lights twinkle; the days are growing darker and shorter indeed. Winter is coming. But for now, autumn – the time of change, decay, and renewal – is enough.

The fishing pole jerks around violently, and the girl almost drops it, but her grandfather steadies her hands. Together, they haul a small carp onto land, and her grandfather drives a hook into its belly. The girl watches the fish wriggle and die, eyes dimming, and anticipates the onion and potato fried meal that this carp will provide.

“Now don’t forget, autumn is the season of survival,” her grandfather says to her as they walk across the grass, golden light burnishing the deep purple of oncoming twilight around them. “Our land, this land, it takes care of you as long as you take care of it.” He coughs, covering his mouth with a white cloth, but his eyes twinkle.

The girl nods and hopes that she will be able to remember this fleeting moment.

“Xivanke, god of the autumn and chaos, hear me.”

The north greeted the swift before it could truly descend into its frozen heart. A howling wind crisped with frost smacked the swift sideways, and it quickly righted itself before flakes of soft snow settled onto its feathers. The swift strained its eyes and thought it caught a glimpse of skeletal, cold-bitten trees bristling with barren sticks and knobbly spindles, peppered only by teardrops of gleaming silver shrouded with a layer of ethereal mist that wafted like steam off of the hard-packed, ice-slick ground. Winter was the time of death and darkness, and yet, the swift only saw a world that was just as alive as any of the others.

Somewhere in the distant future, a teenager will be sitting by the frost-laced window of her grandparents’ country house, a mug of hot chocolate clasped within her rosy hands, which are now significantly bigger than the ones that held that fishing pole. She is staring out the window, longing to run outside and roll in the snow, maybe catch a snowflake on her tongue and let it melt into a patch of icy water and satisfaction, but she remembers the stories her grandmother tells her; the wolf of the ice prowls outside looking for young women to snap up, blizzards come without warning to swallow up unsuspecting people, the ground is as thin as a sheet; with one step the ice will fracture and dissolve into knife-sharp shards. Stories that would not faze another child, but would frighten a girl who loves the worlds her grandparents create with soothing voices and dancing words.

Outside, it is a magical, wintery world, one she is forbidden to enter, but as her grandmother sets a plate of biscuits down in front of her, she finds that she is content to stay in the world she knows.

“Qorasil, god of the winter and thought, hear me.”

Pockets of green punctuated the snow, which began to melt in rapid sheets that rushed into a throbbing river of cool, fresh water. Brown, beastly bears snagged flapping salmon with hooked claws, stripping pink flesh from the narrow bones. All around the swift, flocks and gaggles of fellow avians soared toward the warm air as nimble buds uncurled, sprouted, and bloomed into pink cherry flowers, snapping daffodils, and long-petaled mums. A rosy light shrouded the chirping of newborn bluebirds, the sigh of rejuvenated oak trees, and the chatter of new life.

Perhaps this was the swift’s final stop, the end of its journey. It was as if winter had never come to freeze this place into drowsy darkness.

Somewhere in the distant future, two white coffins emblazoned with the golden cross and one with an American flag draped with great ceremony across the lid rest in the sweet spring grass. A small group of mourners clothed in deep black gather by the trees, where a funeral meal has been appointed, to grieve the loss of two full and rich lives. Visible over the tops of the trees is the beloved country house that has weathered summer flame, autumn wind, wintry storms, and spring buzz for generations.

Standing in black, a graduation cap clasped in both hands, remembering this, is a child becoming a young woman who lets a peck of salt dry on her cheeks. She knows the turn of seasons, generations of lifeblood, and cycles of leaves like no other; it is her blood. Her home. Her inheritance.

“I love you,” she says to the quiet calm of the spring air, wiping tears that start anew.

Tomorrow, she will take her first step into the unknown, of navigating the four ancestral corners of the world. Summer, fall, winter, spring.

Somewhere in the distant future, the young woman will grow up to preserve and protect the land her family has kept for as long as the leaves fall and the flowers bloom. She will face love, adversity, hunger, kindness, cruelty – but even when her hands have withered and her hair grays, she will remember what those who came before her have taught her: home is forever.

“But where is my home?”

            —asked the swift as it flew onward desperately, seeking a reprieve. The currents billowed like taut sails and carried it across the points of the compass rose, but none felt like its rightful place.

“Maybe there is no place for me out there.”

            Said the withdrawn swift as it glided through the air in search of a place to rest its weary wings.

“Maybe there is no such thing–

                                    as home.”

 

 

Lauren Kawamoto began writing when she was seven years old. To further her technique, she has attended several programs such as ATDP (Academic Talent Development Program) and BAWP (Bay Area Writing Project). She has additionally won the historical fiction section of her school’s Creative Art and Writing Contest, and been published in the Written Tales Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

“Remember Trish,” my dad said to me. “She went out without a jacket and by the time we found her, she was frozen solid. It took a whole week to unfreeze her.”

“That’s great, Dad,” I muttered. Trish this. Trish that. That’s all I ever heard from him. Now you’re probably wondering who Trish is. Trish is my imaginary sibling that my dad made up to scare me into following the rules. As if one sibling wasn’t bad enough. When I was little it was funny, but now it’s just weird. I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. It was Friday and I had school.

“Remember not to talk in class, James,” my dad called to me. “There was a girl named Trish and she talked in class so much that her tongue fell out and she couldn’t speak.”

“Ok. Whatever Dad,” I muttered.

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me,” my dad said. “You know, you had a sister once and she…”

I got on the bus before he could finish his sentence. My real sister, Maddy (not Trish) sat next to me.

“If I hear one more word about Trish,” I grumbled.

“I think it’s funny,” said Maddy brightly.

“Well, I don’t,” I said and the conversation ended.

Later that day, during science class, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. We were working with chemicals, but I knew that it could be important, so I raised my hand.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I said. Once I had made it to the bathroom I picked out a stall and slipped in. After making sure I had put the seat down, so as to not drop my phone in the toilet, I unlocked my phone and checked my text messages. It was my dad.

“Be careful to waft when you’re smelling the chemicals. This girl, Trish once forgot to waft and her nose got so big, she could barely breathe.”
“Cool, Dad,” I sent and sighed. Texting me during school? He had gone too far this time.

I once again pocketed my phone, annoyed that he had interrupted my favorite class over this. Later that day, back home, I heard banging in the attic. I asked my parents if I could check it out, but my dad gave his response.

“You had a sister once and she wanted to go into the attic, but we told her no. She did it anyway and she got stuck up there.”

I sighed in exasperation, but the next day I heard the banging again. And the next day. And the next. Then, one day my parents said they were going to go on a short business trip, but they’d be back in the morning. Me and Maddy would be home alone until they got back.

“Don’t do anything reckless,” my dad said. “The last time we went on a business trip, Trish decided to play with the lawnmower, and she got so cut up, she actually lost an ear!”

“Dad,” I said. “The last time you went on a business trip was a month ago and the worst thing that happened was when I bruised my elbow.”

“Maybe if you had listened to my Trish stories, that wouldn’t have happened,” countered my dad. “You know you had a sister once,” he began. I nearly shoved them out the door. After they had left, I turned to Maddy.

“Let’s go up in the attic,” I said. “Mom and Dad aren’t here!”

“No!” said my sister. “You heard what Dad said. About Trish.”

“He made that up,” I sighed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He sounded pretty serious.”

“Whatever,” I said. “You can be a scaredy cat if you want, but I’m going.”

“Well I’m staying here,” she said promptly and walked into the kitchen to grab a snack. I ran up the stairs, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish did that and hit her head. I skidded to a stop in front of the door to my parent’s room. I opened their valuables drawer, grabbed the keys and left the room, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that and scarred herself with the key by accident. I unlocked the attic door and pushed it open, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that once and the door had crushed her hand. I climbed the ladder and turned on the flashlight. I looked around the room. I couldn’t find the cause of the banging.

Then I heard another noise. A raspy, choking sound.

I turned around. I was face to face with a horrid creature. As it came into the light I realized what it was. She had a huge bulbous nose, from the story where she forgot to waft. She had red, bloodshot eyes, from the story where she looked directly at the sun. Flecks of ice clung to her skin, from the story where she didn’t wear a jacket. She made another sound and I got a glimpse of what was in her mouth, or more accurately, what wasn’t in her mouth. She had no tongue, from the story where she talked too much. There was a huge bump on her head, from the story where she ran too fast on the stairs. Her body was covered in scars, from the story where she fooled around with the lawnmower. She wore nothing more than tattered rags, from the story where she didn’t do her laundry and had nothing to wear. Her gnarled hands extended towards me. One was deformed and crumpled, from the story where she threw open the attic door. The other had a long scar running across it, from the story where she stole the keys.

Then it hit me. She was here, because of the story where she went up into the attic without permission. Then I realized that I had done everything she had. I didn’t wear my jacket. I had talked in class. I had forgotten to waft. I had been reckless when my parents were away. I had run up the stairs. I had grabbed the keys. I had opened the attic door. I had gone up without permission. I had looked directly at the sun. I had neglected to do my laundry. She made a croaky chuckle and leapt through the air. Her chewed-on nails dug into my flesh, her maw opened wide, and she attacked. No one even heard my scream.

Years later…

“Remember to wear your jacket son,” Charlie’s mother, Madeline, called.

“I had a brother named James once…”

 

 

Henry Lomma is thirteen years old and enjoys writing, playing the clarinet, skiing and reading mystery stories.  He lives with his family in New York.

A chill breeze blows through the abandoned playground. Its cold fingers toy with the swings, casually rocking them back and forth. The wispy air flirts with a forgotten jacket on the bench, lifting it an inch or two before dropping it. Pale moonlight filters down the tube slide and casts eerie shadows that dance and twist, contorting into strange shapes in the night. The children’s bright world seems draped in a thin, supernatural gauze that pools in the sandbox and curls around the teeter-totter. A single, incandescent light bulb struggles against the strangling darkness, trying to penetrate the veil.

A man walking a dog comes down the sidewalk. The dog stops to bark at the preternatural playground. The man sees nothing, but the dog sees a young girl, white and diaphanous, riding the creaking swing set. The child locks eyes with the dog and laughs a thin, drifting laugh.

Slipping down from their undulating perch, she begins to walk toward the dog. The man, still seeing nothing, tugs impatiently at the dog’s leash, urging him on ahead. Although he doesn’t know why, the man feels a strange compulsion to leave this place. . . quickly.

The dog resists, approaching the playground fence instead. He presses his face to the metal grid, struggling in vain to smell the girl. A small, translucent hand reaches out, and a pair of pale lips giggle at the soft feel of the dog’s licking tongue. The dog noses the child as a signal for her to follow him down the slope. She complies, passing through the wires.

The man watches his dog’s actions with apprehension. He begins to pull sharply on the dog’s leash, yelling and calling in a sense of rising panic. The dog dawdles, appearing to guide something, or someone, down the embankment, away from the playground fence. The dog’s eyes are glued to something beside him. The man fumbles for his phone, clumsily turning on the flashlight app. He turns the light toward the dog. . . and sees two shadows on the grass.

The man screams as he bolts. The dog’s leash slips from his hand; he races in wild terror down the road, his shoes beating a fast tattoo on the asphalt. The dog looks in curiosity after his owner, wondering what there is to fear in this small stranger. When the dog turns back, the girl is gone. He spins around, whirling in a half circle, seeking through the gloom for a sign. There is nothing, no smell to trace, no shadow to spot, only a dark playground with a weak light bulb casting an anemic glow. The dog lowers his head, whimpering, as he sulks after his owner. His leash drags over the blacktop, fraying the edge of the nylon handle. A frozen gale whips past, ruffling the fur on the back of his neck. He’s sure he hears it whispering, “Thank you for being my friend.”

 

 

 

Adah is a high school senior with an addiction to Jesus and words. She has been homeschooled by her mother since Pre-K, and is looking forward to graduating in the coming spring. Adah is currently studying Creative Writing, and is excited to see how God plans on using her. Adah also loves horses (especially Appaloosas), spending every minute she can with them. Her main hobby is model-horse collecting/customizing, and her blog can be found at: spotteddreamsstudio.blogspot.com .