3elements Review Spring Journal Issue 34 2022
3elements Review Spring Journal Issue 34 2022
3elements Review Spring Journal Issue 34 2022
THURSDAY No. 34
QUILT Spring 2022
3Elements Review
Issue No. 34
Spring 2022
3Elements Literary Review
Born in 2013
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
Spring, summer, fall, and winter by 3Elements Review
Phone: 847-920-7320
www.3ElementsReview.com
This issue ©2022 by 3Elements Literary Review
Cover Photo
Patchwork Moonlight Karin Hedetniemi
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Mikaela Shea
MANAGING EDITOR
Megan Collins
Poetry Editor
Erin Evans
Prose Editor
AJ Miller
©2022 by 3Elements Literary Review. All rights reserved by the respective authors
in this publication. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the consent
of 3Elements Literary Review. The journal’s name and logo and the various titles and
headings herein are trademarks of 3Elements Literary Review. The short stories and
poems in this publication are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are either the products of the authors’ imaginations or used ficticiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or people, living or dead, is coincidental.
CONTENTS CONTENTS
Art Poetry
10 QUILT Kateryna Bortsova 9 ANY OTHER THURSDAY Rebecca Egan
55 OUTBACK BROCADE Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad 27 RECORDING THE NAMES OF VANDALS Zebulon Huset
70 SUNRISE QUILT Lisa Rigge 43 THE BEGINNING OF SEPARATION Brady Riddle
53 THE BOND Lisa Raatikainen
56 ALDI, 4421 MARKET ST, 9:07 AM Saurabh Sinha
58 GLEANED Carine Topal
Fiction 72 WITH US LATE AND SOON Monique Gagnon German
12 A CERTAIN SOMEONE Julie Iannone 74 DO YOU PRAY FOR ME ON SUNDAYS Lina Khan
29 SON DOWNER Randall Brown 92 GOD LOVES ME EVEN THOUGH Sophia Cannizzaro
45 YOUNG PROFESSIONAL Maggie Munts 94 MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME Heidi Seaborn
59 WELCOME TO THE SPINNING WORLD Greg November
75 THE KEEPER OF THE HEARTS Madeline Mertz
Contributors
96 Contributor bios
Photography
90 PATCHWORK MOONLIGHT Karin Hedetniemi
8 Back to TOC 9
QUILT
Kateryna Bortsova
12 Back to TOC 13
over my Les Paul and go home. a journal, and I swear, it opened onto my lap of its own accord.
I told Charlotte about my hiatus. I wasn’t that much of an There were two pages of neat, double-spaced script, titles in quotes.
invalid, but guitars are heavy and musicians can’t go to bed before On the left: “Communication,” and on the right: “I Die Again.” I
nine. started with death.
She was listening to my lungs when she announced her
approval of “Pendulum,” a song I had written for the Highlands’ Go home girl, don’t you know
sophomore album. I thanked her, but I never liked that song after There’s a shallow beating in these bones
writing it. I thought it was better than it actually was. Leave this town, don’t you wait
Do you write the words first or the melody? she asked. The past is primed to procreate
It’s simultaneous, I said. And, oh, yeah,
My answer seemed to disappoint her. He’s a sad, sad lover
How old are you? I asked.
Charlotte hesitated. Thirty-one, she said. She looked more like Charlotte snapped the journal shut onto my finger, giving me
a college student. I asked if she was lying to me. No, she said. a paper cut. I sucked the blood and sang her verse back to her,
She felt my glands, and I wondered if my face was as birdlike medium tempo. Her expression was like discovery. It brought me
in her view as it was in mine. Was I an eagle or a turkey? Either back to high school, to the girls' bathroom where Frankie sang my
way, I was in the pasture, and the farmer was loading his gun. words for the first time – Detectable rhythm, dormant wound, she’s
eating my love in the coat room.
One time, when Charlotte was over, my blood sugar plummeted I fetched an old Seagull from my front hall closet and tuned it
and I tipped over onto the carpet. I watched her pull a leather pouch while Charlotte paced with the journal, arguing its insignificance.
from her medical bag, and it was bursting with lollipop jewels. I improvised a chord progression and sang. It was too slow, needed
Every day, I threatened heinous fall injuries like neck torsion urgency. I strummed quicker and knew it was right when she
and eyeball impalement until she surrendered the pouch so I could stopped talking and sat down beside me.
rummage for red flavors. Sugar was my last vestige of taste in
my drugged-up state, so it wasn’t a game. I really wanted those Charlotte wouldn’t let me look at her lyrics. She would write
lollipops. and scratch, tell me one line at a time, beg me to change things. I
When Charlotte was in the bathroom, I went into her medical had some ideas but kept my mouth shut. We would sing only her
bag and pulled out what I thought was the pouch, but it was a book, words until she learned to tolerate them.
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She needed practice, but she could play the guitar and sing
on pitch in a clear and pleasing tone. She would inject me, check Charlotte was plucking the strings of my guitar when I asked
my vitals, and I would drum up melodies, suggest records for her her if she had ever wanted someone other than Stan. She didn’t
education, ask after the material I knew she was hoarding. She look up, but her fingers stopped moving.
liked the Cranberries, the Sundays, Oasis. I called her Crumpet for Yes, she said without a hint of longing or regret, like maybe she
a while. was referring to a celebrity crush.
Do you enjoy nursing? I asked. But he’s the one? I asked.
Yes, she said, it’s my living. She flashed her ring, then repositioned her fingers.
I shook my guitar and shouted, This is mine! I’m a moron. Does Stan know you do this? I asked, tapping Charlotte’s
Think what you could do. journal that lay flat on my chest.
She nodded.
Love me like you do in the mornings Has he read your writing? I asked.
Before your body wakes It’s a solitary thing, she said while I ran my hand over her
Love me how you used to love penmanship.
When time was ours to waste I advised Charlotte not to marry Stan if she couldn’t share her
music with him. She crossed her arms over the guitar and glared
I never asked about the inspiration behind Charlotte’s songs, like I had suggested she drop kick him into the sea. Him and his
but it baffled me to learn that her fiancé, Stan, was the only man sour candy diatribes: “Saturday” verse two.
she had ever been with. Oh, Stan, I would say to myself, you absolute bastard. If
What’s he like? I asked. Charlotte were my girlfriend, I would not rest until I knew every
He’s funny, she said. goddamn thing about her.
Stan was actually massive. He came to my house once to pick
up Charlotte. His shoulders blocked sunlight and enraged my I’m writing a song called “Half-Dead Fred,” I said and got the
neighbor’s Shih Tzus. He had pale eyes, thick lips, and a military thumbs up from Charlotte.
haircut even though, as he explained, he was a systems analyst. What are you working on? I asked.
Charlotte stood before him like a Russian doll, eating from a box of She waved a gerontology course booklet. I asked her why she
Hot Tamales she found in his jacket pocket. I can admit they were didn’t gig.
handsome together but so infuriatingly lukewarm. I don’t have time, she said.
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Ah, but you do. from Charlotte’s schedule, so she started dropping by once a week
I didn’t mean it in relation to me, and I think Charlotte knew to jam.
that, but she looked guilty anyway. Let’s write an album together, I said.
When my surgery was scheduled, I called my manager, Lana, For the Highlands? she asked.
and told her about Charlotte. For us.
If I die, will you connect her with the right people? I asked. Our first single, co-written in forty-five minutes, was called
You’re not going to die, Patrick. Did you get the chocolates “If You Don’t Love Me, Why Are You Here?”, a ballad about a fox
Frankie sent? we once spotted in my garden. We were sitting on the bay window
I stared at the unopened case of dark truffles imported from bench and Charlotte was instructing me to eat a carrot stick with
Zurich, a stop on the Highlands tour. every pill she dispensed. She held the bowl up to my nose and then
Stay Strong, Patty xx. gasped. I nearly hurt myself turning around. The fox had frozen
Lana, I’m going to give Charlotte your number. mid-slink in my Impatiens patch. I went to stand, but Charlotte
squeezed my hand, immobilizing me until the creature decided we
I remained in the hospital for six days after surgery. Charlotte were worthless adversaries and trotted next door.
visited and gave me a cotton candy colored ukulele she found in Our subsequent tracks did not come easily. We wasted a lot
the children’s section of a yard sale. It’s almost impossible to play a of paper, spoiled many pots of coffee. Charlotte kept dropping
morbid song on a ukulele, but it was my sole ambition during that her pencil, and I could see the look in her eyes, her belief that
time. everything she had ever written was a sham.
I can’t come by tomorrow, she said, I’m picking up an extra
Fred walks the path to the gates of hell shift at the clinic.
Where the people are merry with tales to tell Then she mentioned an online course. She was giving up
incrementally, and that’s more dangerous than having a tantrum.
The doctor clamped down on my strings and told me that with
radiation I could live to be a hundred. I saw Charlotte at the market one weekend. I watched her escort
No, I said and reprised the chorus. a shaking dementia patient down the candy aisle, encouraging him
to pick out a treat before they joined the pharmacy line. She was
My health improved steadily over the summer, and by August, good. Gentle without pity. It seemed the nursing industry needed
I could stand up while playing my electric guitars. I was pulled her more than I did. I skirted the line, attempting to casually bump
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into her, but then Stan appeared holding a pumpkin. He called the Charlotte, I said, when the lights went down and the movie
elderly man Poppy, and I veered into the diapers and wipes aisle. started. She turned to me with a brief look of nonrecognition.
In November, my sister called and offered to fly out her family You’re here, she said.
to spend Thanksgiving with me. I coughed into the receiver and Yes, I said.
said I wasn’t feeling up to the company. I didn’t mention my plan She pinched my sleeve and led me to the woman in the
for that Thursday, to surprise Charlotte at the senior living facility wheelchair. I signed my Seagull and gave it to her. It was no big
where she volunteered on holidays. deal, but Charlotte must have been appreciative because when I
I showed up in the lobby with an enormous basket of artisanal left, she hugged me. That was new.
corn bread and the old Seagull strapped to my back. The front desk Later that night, I sent two emails.
worker asked for a photo and then brought me to the banquet hall To Frankie:
where he announced me to the residents as their special musical I’m ready to get back in the game.
guest. Charlotte’s ladle froze over the squash purée and her gaze To Charlotte:
followed me to the bingo stage where I set up on a stool and sang a Did my performance tonight inspire the hell out of you?
medley of Highlands hits that complement my vocal range. Charlotte wrote back, I suppose it did because I just wrote a
Most of the residents didn’t know me, so they either tucked into song.
their food or stared with gaping, sometimes toothless, expressions.
One woman sang along from her wheelchair, so I focused on her I was poaching eggs for dinner when my doorbell rang. There
whenever I wasn’t checking on Charlotte to see if she was watching had been a wind chill advisory that day, but Stan stood in my
me. She usually wasn’t. doorway wearing an undershirt.
Word spread amongst the employees that I was there, and they The eggs were on the verge, so I let him inside and he followed
filed into the hall, cameras up, breathless with excitement. It was a me into the kitchen. He didn’t speak while I tended to the stove.
welcome energy, something I hadn’t realized I badly missed. Do you need anything? I asked. Coffee?
I was booted from the stage to make way for A Charlie Brown Are you fucking Charlotte? Stan asked.
Christmas, and someone handed me a plate of food. I noticed that I dropped one of the still wet eggs onto my toast and faced him.
Charlotte seemed to be in charge, jogging here and there, fielding Why would you think that? I asked.
questions and nurturing the most challenging cases. I don’t think Stan pulled a piece of notebook paper from his pocket and
she ate any dinner, but that was probably deliberate. The casserole I pressed it into my sternum. I unfolded the purple-lined paper from
tasted was incomprehensible. Charlotte’s journal.
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surpassed that threshold. I popped two Dramamine and laid down. I stepped back, imagining the only scenario I thought could
change things. It would take me playing with the Highlands again
Charlotte showed up to my house an hour late with chapped and securing Charlotte a front row seat, off-center to the left
cheeks and many layers to remove. because that’s where I stand. Halfway through the show, I would
In the kitchen, I brewed ginger tea, told her I might christen the pull her on stage and we would sing our fox song to thousands of
fireplace. I denied having a fire extinguisher, but she found one and people. She would catch such a rush and never dream of doing
read the hazard label aloud. anything else.
Your tongue is red, I told her. Charlotte flipped through her journal, and I waited until I could
She grinned. Stan, she said. wedge my thumb against the rip in the binding.
She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t want to ask. What happened here? I asked.
Actually, she said, we had a long conversation this morning. Nothing, she said, I tossed it.
I touched my hip, felt the crinkle of journal paper against Charlotte carried her journal and tea into the living room,
corduroy. expecting that I would follow easily.
He thinks I should go for it with my writing, she said, just like I removed her song from my pocket and stuffed it between two
you. polished wine glasses in the cabinet. My turtleneck was convection
Stan wasn’t above stealing my material. baking me, so I peeled it off and unlatched the kitchen window.
But listen, Charlotte said, I told him what I’m about to tell you. The darkening sky was bruised with clouds. In the alleyway, a mail
I’m a nurse, and that’s what I’m going to be. carrier’s footprints had disturbed otherwise perfect snow. There
I could not stop shaking my head. were no fox prints.
It doesn’t mean the music’s not important, she said, I love the Tinnitus leached from my ear to my brain. I couldn’t hum
music. through it, but the lyrics surfaced anyway.
I’m going back, I said, to the Highlands. I’ve told Frankie about
you. He wants you to come and write for us. She’s every bit of nothing…
Charlotte poured the tea. On tour? she asked. A certain nothing…
Yes, Charlotte. Chance of a lifetime. Bring Stan if you must. Highland Queen
She sipped her tea, looking elegant in a cream cable knit
sweater. I was ready to track down Frankie, make it happen. Patrick? Charlotte called, awakening me to the cold.
I’m starting my MSN in the spring, she said. I closed the window and picked up my sweater. As the neckline
26 Back to TOC 27
lost
like the pattern
from the quilt
SON DOWNER
your mom once Randall Brown
spent too many hours
to sew—for you—
as the pendulum
of mortality
ran the spirograph
around her,
but us, too—
oh yes—
definitely us, too.
MY dad sits in the chair next to the hospital bed on the green pad
smelling of shit and piss, speaking in whispers because he thinks
the hospital staff is trying to do something to him.
“Trying to do what?” I ask.
“I can’t explain it, Jack.”
Last Thursday, the hospital had to call me at the hotel, my
mild-mannered father gone Hulk, kicking and punching at nurses
from his bed, ripping IVs and wires out, trying to walk, falling,
then crawling toward the exit. Since then, I’ve slept here, smooshed
into a chair.
“How do I know you’re real?” he asks.
“You’ll just have to trust me, Dad.”
He mumbles something that I think is “That’s not good
enough.”
I must’ve been ten or so. I sat on the milk box by the front door
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waiting for my dad to pick me up to take me to a Saturday morning mean—it’s what I’m supposed to do. Be here.”
baseball practice. I’d been there since sun-up. Inside, cobwebs in “People don’t always do what they’re supposed to do,” I say.
every corner of every room, mice in the stove, a man I didn’t know “That’s something.”
passed out in the basement family room, my mom also, both in “True that.” A pause. “Bonanza. Remember when that guy
their underwear. asked you if it took so long to get his steak because you went out
He pulled up in his green Ford Falcon, his joke being, “I don’t and shot the cow?” On the TV screen, Hoss has treed a leprechaun,
own a lemon; I own a lime.” I went to the passenger side, stood who just disappears. “And you said, ‘No, it was a horse.’”
there, not entering. He reached over, rolled down the window. “Are you saying you don’t love him?” I ask my brother.
“What is it?” he asked. Another long pause. Finally: “I’m saying I’m here because he’s
I described to him what awaited inside. I told him other things, my dad. That’s what I feel right now. That I need to be here. And
too. I told him my brother and I couldn’t live there. I asked if we you?”
could live with him. For the past fifteen years, I’ve taken my dad on long fishing
“You know I couldn’t do that to your mother.” He still dreamed trips, two or three times a year. He had no one. Was it love or
of some reconciliation. He would never date again, never give up something else? I couldn’t imagine him sitting alone with nothing
that hope. to look forward to. He kept journals of each of those trips: fish
That kid got in the car. During the game, as his father watched caught, the weather, the drive, the flies that worked, the ones that
on, that kid stood still as a fly ball sailed over his head. What did didn’t. Pictures, of course.
it matter? But it did. The kid hated that feeling, that sick sinking “I think it’s love I feel,” I say.
feeling in his gut as the ball hit the top of the fence. Never again. “You think it’s love?”
He’d chase the next one down. And the next. Again and again. The nurse comes to the waiting room. He’s ready for discharge,
back to the assisted living apartment that I pay the bulk of. Back to
My brother finds me in front of the TV, an old Bonanza hallucinate and imagine the staff are cutting up old people, sticking
episode. Someone has left a quilt made of T-shirts I’ve wrapped wires in them when they sleep.
myself inside. Throughout high school, I worked at the Bonanza
Steakhouse, riding my green Schwinn bike the two miles there, Before returning to get the car, I stop at the pharmacy to fill my
washing dishes, scrubbing the grill grates, pedaling home in the prescription for alprazolam, only I say to the hospital pharmacist,
dark. “I need to fill my subscription.”
“I’m just here because he’s my dad,” my brother tells me. “I She looks over the doctor-signed script. “Xanax.” She asks for
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water the right temperature. Softly plop him into the chair. I’m in working in warehouse jobs that don’t require college and don’t
the back, my brother in the front. pay a whole lot. He says I used to beat him up all the time, but I
The smell is horrific, a week of crap, blood, sweat, pee, old age. don’t remember. From about ten years old until I left the house for
We begin. I’m holding his shoulders so he doesn’t slip to the college, my memory is pretty much black. I think he’s made our
ground. My brother’s wetting the washcloth. He holds up the green childhood up, made me the monster. My brother says he doesn’t
soap. Irish Spring. Manly, yes, but I like it, too. The smell of my hold me responsible for what I did when I was a kid, that he’s
dad during childhood: Irish Spring, Old Spice deodorant, cherry forgiven me for it all.
blend pipe tobacco. My brother perhaps holds a mystery: what the it all refers to.
He wipes my dad’s neck, chest, cheeks, arms. I lift up his arms, One day it all will come out. I imagine it as green vomit, green-
and my brother wipes under them. Rinses. More soap. My dad yellow piss, dark runny crap. I keep my distance.
hums a song I don’t recognize. Now the thighs, knees, calves, feet.
We are of course saving the best for last. We’re at a standstill over the penis washing. My dad has
“Can you wash your penis?’ my brother asks him. moments when he snaps back to reality, out of the hum of
“Can you?” my dad answers. dreamland, and that happens now. Without warning, he reaches for
“Can you?” my brother asks me. the washcloth, leans too far, upsets the chair. I’m still holding him
“Yes,” I say. “I can wash my own penis.” We are both in our a bit, so he doesn’t quite crash to the floor, but my feet slip out from
underwear. I’m still holding my dad, preventing him from slipping. under me and I land right on my tailbone, with my dad’s ass on my
My brother has a hold of the washcloth and shower hose. He sprays lap.
me with it. Man, that hurts. It will end up not being broken, but deeply
The head of my dad’s penis has gone inward. “Come out little bruised and painful for months.
turtle,” he says to it. “Another fine mess,” I say, to either my brother or father or
“I’m in the back,” I say. “I have my job, and you have yours.” maybe neither.
My dad isn’t just crying. He’s sobbing on my lap.
I am the oldest. At my mom’s third rehab, I played the role “Dad,” my brother says. “I’m going to clean you up, okay?” He
of the golden child, the one who must achieve and achieve to get looks over my dad’s head at me. “You got him?”
value in this world, to hide the truth of what awaits inside that “What the fuck do you think? Do I got him? He’s on my
house and inside himself. My brother was the lost child, addicted to fucking lap.”
pot at fifteen, crack cocaine later, failed out of college, now clean, “No need for yelling,” my brother says.
36 Back to TOC 37
When was the last time someone other than himself touched washing his penis, and it’s getting semi-erect. My dad hums again.
my dad’s penis? Forty years? His sobbing has diminished a bit. My I reach under him and clean his ass crack, the washcloth a dark
brother bends over, begins at the balls, but my dad starts to pee, green, rinse it, wash him again, rinse, repeat. I get a towel, dry
hits my brother in the face, maybe his mouth. My brother throws him off. In the other room, the door opens, shuts, and there’s my
down the washcloth. brother.
“Really, Dad? Really?” “Do you need help?”
He’s gone. The door slams shut. “Yeah,” I say. “I need help.”
“He peed on me,” he says.
Some nights, I’d look out the window from my second-floor “I know. It’s fucking horrible. Let’s get him to the bed and
bedroom and see him outside, in the Falcon. I’d wave but he’d dress him.”
pretend not to see me. My brother slept so soundly, not hearing We do, and I dress him, a grown-up doll. Outside, the sun sits
the fights when men came to find someone else in the bed or my low on the horizon, like my dad, sinking. Dressed in sweats, he lies
mother passed out. Sometimes, her dates would find no one there down on the bed, and I tuck him under the blanket. My brother and
but two kids, eating Lucky Charms or a Salisbury steak TV dinner I walk to his apartment’s living room.
in front of a sitcom. “I guess I’ll go,” my brother says. “I think we did good work
I went out one night, not sure why that night of all the nights today.” He opens his arms for a hug and I enter them, get hugged.
I’d seen him that I decided to venture outside. I knocked on the “We’re going to be friends,” he says, walking out. “Just you watch.”
window, and he let me in the passenger side. He stops at the door. “He’s doing it again. Manipulating you.
“Why don’t you wave back?” I asked. Making you feel like you’re responsible for his life. Same old shit.”
“You were waving?” “Angry at him?” I want to add “dipshit” but show some
Yeah. I was waving. “Dad?” restraint. “For what? Dying?”
We—my brother, me, Dad—all looked alike, except his skin “Okay, dipshit,” my brother says. “Have a nice ride home
was more olive, his hair darker, his body slimmer. My brother and I wanting to turn around. I bet you even pull over. Maybe even turn
had curly hair, our mother’s dimple, plump cherubs. around. And around again.” One more pause before disappearing.
“What?” he asked. “You do get the irony, yes? Him yelling at us ‘Save me!’ God, he’s
But I’d forgotten the question. so clueless.”
And then my brother’s gone. Home for him is five minutes
I’ve pushed my dad against the far corner of the shower. I’m away; for me, it’s two hours.
38 Back to TOC 39
blanket, picks them off the blanket, puts the invisible thing in his
That night—with the father in the Falcon and the kid returning mouth. “Do you know what’s wrong?”
to the house having forgotten the question he wanted to ask his I shake my head. I change him while he sits there, wipe him
father—that kid did turn around, that kid whose father wouldn’t dry, this time give him an adult diaper, shirt, sweats, new sheets
wave back to him. He got to the door of his house, remembered, while I move him here and there on the bed. The aides could do it,
turned around, knocked on his dad’s car window. His dad rolled it but he’s afraid of them, unsure who they are and what they want
down. with him. And he doesn’t belong to them the way he is ours—
“I remembered the question,” the kid said. mine.
“What question?” “Don’t leave,” he begs. “You can’t leave me.”
His father had already forgotten. “The one I was going to ask I so want to go home, imagine the kids need me, Sarah needs
and then forgot.” He stuck his head in his father’s car, smelled for me, the dogs need me.
drugs or liquor or something. “It was just a minute ago.” “Something’s wrong,” he repeats. “I don’t know what.”
“What do you want?” The aides will check on him every fifteen minutes after I leave.
“Do you think Mom drinks because of me. Because I—” He thinks he did the right thing in leaving us, not answering our
“I don’t know why she drinks.” He reached over, opened the pleas for rescue. He thinks he saved her. He thinks of himself as a
glove compartment. “But maybe if you didn’t think all the time knight, a hero, who sacrificed his own life for love, the love of our
about leaving her and started thinking about being there for her.” mother, who fell out of love maybe before they were married.
He took out his pipe, started packing it with the cherry tobacco. “You can’t leave.” He holds my hand, pets it, intertwines his
“She knows you don’t want to be with her. It kills her.” fingers among mine.
“Okay, Dad. I’ll try.” Outside, the dusk has turned to night. I let his head rest on my
He smiled. “I know you will.” He lit his pipe. “Problem chest, lean back. He falls asleep. Each time I visit and sneak away,
solved?” he awakes not remembering that I was there. This time, he won’t
“Yes,” the kid said. “Problem solved.” remember the shower, the week spent in the hospital chair next to
his bed to keep the ghosts away. All he knows is that I’m not there
“Oh, I wee-weed the bed. I wee-weed the bed,” my dad now, that he’s alone, that people sit around his table, some of them
whimpers from the bedroom. without faces, that the aides want to chop off his penis, that he
I find him curled up, soaked. “Something’s wrong,” he repeats. cannot know what is real and what is not, that he found a scribbled
“I don’t know what?” He reaches out for invisible things on the note from someone stealing things from him, that someone keeps
40 Back to TOC 41
moving his wheelchair into the shower. Every time I took a pill, got into the car, got into bed, sat with
Save me. Please. I need you to come here. them at dinner, fell asleep on the couch, no one able to wake me up,
missing the classes to teach, buying even more pills online—I both
I will not be able to stand it. I will get addicted to the Xanax betrayed them and love them more than anything. How could such
stockpiled in the glove compartment as if this were the plan all a thing be possible?
along. I will stop answering the phone. I will be there as a ghost for I will confess my addiction to Sarah the day after my father
the kids, my wife, all of whom will have no idea I’m swallowing dies, in May, four months after the night in the shower. The third
pills at an alarming rate. strike, the first being four years of panic attacks around the clock,
the second being a year of agoraphobia, finally unable to leave the
Outside, the pendulum-sun completes its swing, down, down, guest room. Each strike followed by therapy, medication, exercise
gone, and I’m in my car, watching my dad through his apartment programs.
window. He kicks and hits things in his sleep, the aides coming in, The therapist will ask me to close my eyes, become that kid
repositioning him, covering him again with the blankets. again, surrounded by the squalor of the cobwebbed rooms, the
unvacuumed rugs, the piles of laundry, the bottles and cans. Your
Yes, you betrayed your family, the therapist will say. There are mom isn’t there. Your dad doesn’t care. There is no way out.
reasons of course. The therapist excuses himself. Has to go to the bathroom again.
Excuses, you mean. Enlarged prostate.
There can be both—the reasons and the betrayal. That’s what he’s good at, excusing people, even himself.
The therapist will return to an empty room. I don’t want let off
My tailbone buzzes with pain. I open the glove compartment, the hook.
the bottles spilling out onto the passenger’s side floor. I pop the first
Xanax, tell the first lie to my wife, that I’m staying on my father’s At first light, I wake up, watch him at the table, talking to
couch to watch over him. the people he sees in the chairs, mostly kids from his childhood,
I close my eyes. At some point, my father comes to the window, George Martin and Wayne Pixler, holding onto trucks, feet on the
waves, and I am too tired or too pained or too out of it to wave icy streets, waving bye, bye as they fly by him. In the hospital, he
back. He pounds on the window—bang, bang, bang, Jack! Jack! looked at me as if he’d kill me, yelled, “You leave them alone.”
Jack! Does it happen or do I dream it? He threw his pillow at me, punched me with the mittened hands
that prevented him from pulling out his catheter and IVs. “You
42 Back to TOC 43
touch George or Wayne and you’ll be sorry.” What about me, Dad?
Where was that fight for me?
My tailbone hurts like hell. Imagine that kid in that room,
THE BEGINNING OF SEPARATION
abandoned, trapped, no hope of rescue. Was it anger he felt? I reach Brady Riddle
into my pocket, start the car, turn it off, start it again, swallow
another pill, another, until I too am a ghost, a haunt, another dead
kid at my father’s table.
On Thursday a friend
congratulated me for being
a short-timer—he called me that—
“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of it,” they would lie to end the “How so?”
conversation. “Well, sometimes he cooks.”
At night, she would get back to her apartment with just enough “Uh-mazing.”
time to go for a jog to Nowhere and back before the sun set, eat After a few hours of this, she would make an excuse to leave
a pre-packaged salad, and watch an hour or two of forgettable So-and-So, stumble into a cab, and head home, giddy with deceit
TV. Sometimes, to feel Something, she would survey her own and alcohol. At home she would have a bag of chips, call it dinner,
skin, hunting for a blemish, a blackhead, an in-grown hair, any and once more reassure herself of all the imagined Something she
imperfection to pick at. She would squeeze and pinch until her had most certainly done that day.
pores were filled with Nothing too. Then she would crawl into her But sobering up before another dreamless sleep, Nothing would
bed, full of quilted throw pillows that used to be beautiful, where re-assert its hold. Methodically, it would swallow her while she
she would drift off to a dreamless sleep. brushed her teeth under the fluorescent bathroom light.
On Thursdays at 5:00 p.m., she would do her best to pretend A few nights ago, she had heard a furtive whisper coming from
that spreadsheets, pillows, and tired lettuce added up to a life. under the throw pillows. It was so quiet that it would have been
Thursdays were when she met So-and-So for drinks. They would easy to mistake for Nothing at all. She forgot about it as she slept.
rehash office gossip, speculate about next week’s weather, tell Only two words. Less than a second. Nothing at all. But the next
endless lies of omission, and then wave listlessly for another round. time, she woke up with a shadow of memory.
Each sip was a welcome anesthetic as they went through the “What for?”
painstaking process of pretending that they liked what they did all “What?” she mumbled.
day and went home to at night. Soon enough they would be numb “All of this Nothing, what for?”
enough, their fiction believable enough, that enthusiasm for their “What Nothing?” she thought.
lives and each other would begin to border on somewhat genuine. “You know exactly what Nothing,” it replied.
Enough vodka sodas, and these women would try to turn even the Yes. She did. She knew Nothing exactly. For years now she
most average days and men into mythic conquests. had been steeping in it, losing herself to it, like a bag of tea in
“Oh so, it was just fascinating.” lukewarm water. Her skin crawled. She hopped in the shower to
“Do tell.” wash off the feeling and get ready for another empty day.
“Today I sent this great email.” Gray. Gray. Blue. Black. White. Gray. Beige.
“Uh-mazing.” Cream. Blue. White. Black. Gray. Gray. Gray.
“And this new guy I’m seeing, he’s just great.” Getting dressed was its own kind of Nothing. Sometimes she
48 Back to TOC 49
would stare at her wardrobe and wonder if she was in fact going Bzzmhmfml. Oh yeah, I know it. You? All over really. Oh yeah?
colorblind. Today she opted for blue on blue and called it good Yeah, drinks? Sure.
enough. Smile a lot.
Dressed and ready, she walked to her car. A non-descript silver Nod at his Nothing like you care.
sedan from the mid-2010s, it was an entirely unmemorable vehicle A year of this. A year of hiding her Something to make room
but for the dent in the passenger door from when her ex No One for his Nothing. A year of succumbing to her own Nothing. It was
had opened it into a pole on the night they broke up. a slow fade, gradual enough that it was hard for her to register the
He had been the type who worships Nothing, ardently. He lived extent of her own disappearance.
for emails, promotions, protein powder, his watch, obscure brands Their breakup had been about traffic. No One hated waiting. He
of beer, leg days, and the most efficient route to the grocery store. was chronically impatient to get to Nowhere and do Nothing.
Sometimes it had felt like his brain could only register things that They were coming back to the city after a long weekend of
were gray, square, and unimportant. empty conversation at a cabin with friends. They had left later than
They dated for about a year. It had been a transitory time in her planned because No One and Nobody, No One’s best friend from
life. She still held onto Something, but found her days increasingly college, got into a circular conversation about the state of their
populated by deadlines, deliverables, and an encroaching sea 401ks.
of emptiness. It felt like she was holding a bouquet of invisible She waited in the car for him for forty-five minutes, picking at
balloons. Every now and then, in a small act of rebellion, she would a scab on her arm with one hand, refreshing the navigation app on
loosen her grip, let one go, and look around to see if Anyone other her phone with the other. The red line of traffic crawled further and
than her had noticed the beautiful Something flying up to the ether. further toward their current location as she slowly re-opened her
But that was the first rule: keep Something to yourself, seldom own skin. It started to rain.
mention it, avoid it in conversation, even pretend not to see it. The Finally, he came outside, jacket over his head and a
second rule was to act like Nothing was meaningful and real. To performative flurry of apologies.
nod along and hurry up and get frustrated over Nothing like it A two-hour car ride became a four-hour car ride. The rain. The
deserved every ounce of emotion and consideration. The third rule traffic. He could not believe the nerve the world had to delay his
was not to question. return to a half-furnished apartment and a box of stale pizza.
Playing by the rules was how she met her ex No One. The air in the car felt thin. She could feel herself disappearing
Swipe. Swipe. No. Yes. Left. Right. Hey. Hi. What are you and tightened her grip on the steering wheel to collect some
up to? Nothing. Same. Where are you from? Bzzmhmfml. Where? evidence she was still there, amidst this growing sea of Nothing.
50 Back to TOC 51
The rain was relentless. But thankfully, so were her car’s volume:
windshield wipers. Back and forth, a water-wicking pendulum, “What for?”
they squeaked “dump him” with each wave. “Nothing,” she thought.
She stayed silent, barely breathing, counting down until she “Exactly.”
could drop him off at his apartment. When she did, they exchanged She went to respond again but found no words. So, she
some words she could no longer remember. Still, she knew she said screamed instead.
more in the seven minutes it took for them to break up than she had It was not a sound she had ever made before. It sounded like
during their entire relationship. It was her last balloon, her last bit her throat was ripping open.
of Something, and she used it to escape. She screamed like she had an audience with the gods. Past her
When it was over, once again, he was in a hurry to Nowhere exit. Past the city limits. She screamed. Eventually, miles from
and opened her car door abruptly, slamming it into a pole in the anywhere familiar, she tapered off, afraid that with silence would
parking lot. That had been a little over a year ago. Now, every time come Nothing all over again. But instead, she felt warm relief
she saw the dent, she felt a subtle hollowing out in her abdomen, as swelling up from Somewhere within her.
if her body was trying to mimic the shape. She looked at the clock on her dashboard. It was 9:30 a.m.
On this particular morning, the morning after her twenty- Soon, scratchy voices would be reading out the weekly meeting
seventh birthday, when she reflexively began to cave inward, the agenda. But she knew she was not going back. There was Nothing
voice came back, louder this time: in her apartment she really needed. The fridge was empty. Her
“What for?” lease would end. She would miss some of the pillows, but maybe
She stopped and straightened. “I don’t know,” she thought. without them, her sleep would no longer be quite so dreamless.
“Yes, you do,” it replied. Ahead there was a rest stop. She pulled off and parked. As she
She flinched, waiting for more, but all she could hear was grabbed her phone to figure out where she was, she noticed that
a pigeon cooing. Looking down at her watch, she saw she was a sparrow had landed on the hood of her car. It chirped loudly,
already running late for work. She got in the car and drove away declaring its arrival, and then flitted off to join its friends in the
from Bzzmhmfml. field next to the rest stop.
The highway hummed steadily beneath her tires. With She cracked her windows. Warm air rolled in, carrying with
the predictability of a conveyor belt, it carried her toward an it sounds of early summer. Gossiping birds. Industrious bees.
unremarkable day. Cicadas. So much Something. For the hell of it, she flicked on her
Halfway into her commute, she heard it again, this time at full windshield wipers to join the chorus. Ever willing, they grumbled
52 Back to TOC 53
partings.
When you come home
write it off
“It’s no big deal.” Cole spits on the ground as he’s watching them. “Peaches,” he says.
“Your old man, he still around?” “Yeah, they’re alright. A bit skinny, you ask me. Deer legs.”
“He’s around.” “No, peaches,” Cole says, holding up his bag. “I have peaches for
Cole whistles through his teeth. “Well, alright then. And now my girl.”
you’re out and waiting on old Rollie Shit Dick to buy a ladder. Looks “Who’s your girl?”
like things worked out. Fuck the old man, right? So move the car, “Laura.”
huh. I have places to be.” “Laura Ellenport?”
“Would love to help you out, Cole. But the thing is, judge’s “Laura Ridgeby.”
orders, I’m not supposed to drive. I don’t even have a license I know Laura Ridgeby, too. Last Thursday I saw her dance
anymore.” topless on the lip of a hot tub at some friend’s condo, holding a beer
“It’s not driving. Just move the car four feet.” in one hand and sliding the other up and down her flank, while three
“I’m not sure the judge will appreciate the nuances between or four of us in the tub clapped.
driving and moving.” “What?” Cole says. “What do you want to say about my girl?”
“Well, I’ll move it myself then.” “I don’t want to say anything about your girl.”
“Sure,” I say. “But Rollie’s got the keys.” “You don’t know Laura Ridgeby.”
While we’d been talking, I’d allowed the keys to drip from my “That’s right.”
hand and fall between the seat and my door, because I’d remembered “You may think you do, Jimmy fucking Lyons, but you don’t,
something else about Cole: he owed me money. Eighty bucks, in okay?”
fact. Plus interest over six years, if I wanted to push it. Back in high After that we sort of sit there for a while. I sit there. Cole paces
school, at some party or another, he’d bet I couldn’t shotgun three back and forth outside the car with his bag of peaches. A time or two
beers in a minute. Afterwards, he refused to pay. Said no one told he looks up at the sky, down at the cracked pavement. He calls Rollie
him about me. Said I hustled him. a few names, keeps twisting the neck of his paper bag.
“Tell you what. Rollie will be out here shortly and he can move “Cole,” I say, “Jesus.”
the car at that point. Until then, why don’t you relax? How about “What?”
telling me what’s in that bag?” “You owe me money, that’s what.”
Two teenagers wearing skirts the length of headbands walk by “What?”
Rollie’s car and Cole watches them. I watch them, too, thinking they “You heard me.”
could be the younger sisters of girls we’d gone to high school with. “Naw man,” Cole says, laughing. “Naw, I paid you.”
64 Back to TOC 65
“You paid me?” “Cole,” I say. “I can’t talk about it. Judge’s orders.”
“Yeah, I paid you. Back in high school, right? Fifty bucks. I paid Cole spits again. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know all about you,
you ages ago.” momma’s boy. I was there the night your call came in. I was at the
“First of all, you didn’t pay me. Second, it was eighty you owed firehouse.”
me.” “That right?”
“Eighty? No. I don’t make any bets more than fifty. Made a “Oh, I know all about you, Lyons. I was fucking there.”
promise to my granddad.” Even while he’s saying this last part, Cole turns from me because
Here’s what I know: you back down, you show any sense of someone, a girl, has appeared by Rollie’s car. She looks anxious. Then
understanding to a guy like this, anyone really—hey, yeah, I had a I see it’s Deer Legs. She’s looking between Cole standing outside the
granddad, too—boom, they sock you in the dick. car with his paper bag and me in the car, yanking her skirt down,
“Cole,” I say. “Fuck your fucking granddad.” thinking probably that she’d rather not be standing there.
Cole laughs, still spinning his bag of peaches. “You don’t know “Excuse me,” Deer Legs says, her voice waxed paper. “Hey, we
shit, you know that?” can’t start our car.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t.” The shopping center is busy. But I suppose it was Cole’s fireman
“Where the fuck is Rollie?” shirt that made her come to us. Nearby, two day laborers struggle
“I told you.” across the lot with a large bale of chain link fencing while a young
“He best be coming out here soon. I got places to be.” mother pushes a stroller into the deli. High schoolers gather by the
“Laura Ridddgggeby,” I say, dragging out the name, insinuating dumpsters, knocking each other on the shoulders and smoking
god knows what. deliberately, unaware of how old their scene is. Rollie and I used
Cole doesn’t say anything. He appraises me for the third to do the same thing. Our fathers, too, probably. The sons of
or fourth time. Then he looks away. “I heard your mom filed a immigrants, they had no idea the jackpot they’d hit being born here.
restraining order against you.” Their fathers survived death camps so their children could smoke by
“Yeah?” the mall dumpsters.
“I heard she was shacked up with someone else and your old man All these folks around and Deer Legs comes to us. Comes to
caught wind of it and tried to break in through the guy’s garage. I Cole, I should say. By her expression, I doubt she knew I was there
heard he had a hacksaw or something with him. That why you did it? until she’d walked up. She peers at me. Cole pulls jumpers from his
You were always such a momma’s boy. That why you tried to drive trunk, tosses in his bag of peaches, and before he follows Deer Legs
over your old man?” to her car he tells me once again that Rollie better be out soon. “If
66 Back to TOC 67
you’re still here when I get back, Lyons, I’m going to hotwire this would have been easier to believe Rollie was an officer of the law.
shitbox. I don’t care who you tried to kill. I got places to be.” “Are you a monk now?”
But Rollie doesn’t laugh. “Jesus, Jimmy. Welcome to the spinning
When Rollie comes out with the ladder slung awkwardly over world, where some of us like to strive for something? I mean, don’t
one shoulder, I go and help him get it to the car. We tie it down with you ever want to feel good about yourself?”
twine from the store and as we pull out I tell him the Prius belonged “I feel good right now.”
to Cole. This time Rollie laughs. “You feel good? You’re less than a
“Cole Nabel?” month out of jail for attempted murder, your parents are afraid of
“You know another Cole?” you, no license, no job, no money to speak of, and I’m the only one
Heading back to Rollie’s place, open window wind brings the will give you the time of day and you’re telling me you feel good
scent of grass and motor oil and Warrant’s “Bed of Roses” shakes about all that?”
cigarette ash from the dashboard. Rollie beats against the steering “I feel good. What can I say? You want me to feel another way?”
wheel while I try and smoke a Red the moving air has other ideas “I’m amazed by you, man. Whatever they have you on, it either
about. When the tape ends, Rollie tells me to hand him another. isn’t working or it’s working too well.”
“Which?” We unload the ladder at Rollie’s place, change the bulbs in
“Your call.” the hallway, and then settle in the den with some beers. We watch
Thinking it’d be funny, I hand Rollie the tape I’d found earlier, TV, talk about nothing, until Rollie says he’s going to his room to
the one with all the moaning. meditate.
“Pop it in,” he says, not looking at me. “I’m watching the road.” “Seriously?”
The moaning starts in and I stifle laugher. “Seriously.”
“That one’s not music,” Rollie says, eyes ahead. “It’s for “You meditate before you sell pot to kids?”
meditation.” “Actually, since I’ve started meditating, I don’t sell pot, to
“I didn’t know you meditate.” anyone.”
“I meditate.” “What’s gotten into you?”
“While driving?” Rollie stares me down, sort of shaking his head like he
“You can’t be doing anything else when you meditate, that’s the disapproves of my outfit. “Jimmy, I love you man, really, we have
whole point.” history and all that. But I’m not standing still. Know what I mean?”
The Rollie I know doesn’t meditate. No one I know meditates. It “You learning to dance, too?”
68 Back to TOC 69
“Yeah, I’m learning to dance, Jimmy. You nailed it.” maybe—but he may have just been appraising a smear of bird shit on
Before heading back to the bedroom, Rollie says he’s got the window, then he turns back to my mother and they keep talking.
someone coming over and asks if I want him to drive me home when I suck on the last Red from Rollie—then flick it into the bushes and
he’s done with his meditating. take off jogging, in search of someone to hit.
“Who’s coming over?”
“Laura.”
“Ridgeby?”
“Ellenport.”
I tell Rollie no thanks for the ride, saying I have to clear my head
or some other near truth, and he spots me a few Reds for the walk.
“Keep moving, Jimmy,” he says, making some kind of pendulum
motion with his hand.
SUNRISE QUILT
Lisa Rigge
72 Back to TOC 73
We watch them
spreading out, lining up
It is Thursday like sheet music
not quite night sharps and flats
and the clouds of a song dissipating so fast
are dolloped across it can only
the sky like Cool Whip art, be hummed right now by us
thick puffs pure white and only once.
above the pendulum swing
of rushing cars to and from
on highways and byways
stitching on our honeycomb
quilt of high-rise
office parks and homes.
We have no idea
what it is all about
but sometimes
a few pieces arrive
like pollen on air,
like dandelion fuzz,
and we wind up somehow
aware of the smiling
grille-work of our lungs.
74 Back to TOC 75
smile on his face and eyes so wide I could see the whites of them. pictures in my mind’s eye of harsh fall winds and voices that
He didn’t look like the rest of the gray ones either, his skin was whisper out from the darkness and under beds.
a stark white, cold from being in the rain, and his dark hair was It took a great deal of effort to get my lips to form into the same
dripping wet and slicked back with water. He carried no umbrella quiet “hello.”
or bag. He wore no boots either; just rain-drenched sneakers that He took a step closer then, settling into the seat next to me on
looked as though they would make squelching sounds when he the empty train, never breaking eye contact between us. I could
walked, from all the water pent up inside of them. He looked over hear the squelch of his shoes when he walked. He smelled like
my head through the window, and I looked at him. smoke and spices and something more, the scent of him enveloping
Several scowlers had moved away from the man in the green me completely.
coat now, condensing the masses of gray in the car, so that there I wanted to know more.
was a small bubble of space around him now. The woman on the “What’s your name?”
left of me shot out of her seat as soon as the car screeched to a halt, “Damien. What about you? Do you have a name?”
breaking my stare at the man in the coat for only a millisecond. It seemed like a strange thing to ask; why not just ask what
Yet when she had passed and my eyes returned to him, I found that my name was? Of course I had a name. I told him my name barely
his eyes were no longer staring over my head now, they were fixed above a whisper and he nodded thoughtfully.
on mine. I could no longer see the gray ones then. All the scowls “That’s a nice name. I like names. I like the power they hold.
disappeared, and the train car was suddenly empty of all but the What if I knew the names of every person in the world? Well then I
two of us. might just be the most powerful person in the world.”
His eyes were dark, not quite brown, but not black either, and I frowned in confusion. It didn’t seem to me that my name
they were rimmed in something, kohl or eyeliner, I couldn’t tell. was anything out of the ordinary, or that knowing it provided any
On any other person, his eyes would have looked like empty pits, sort of power. Damien must have seen the confusion on my face,
black holes full of nothing but sucked energy; yet on him, they because he spoke again.
carried the same puzzling darkness as the rest of his features. “If I knew the names of every person in the world, and I
It seemed like I should speak to him, start some form of walked through Times Square, I could stand in the center and shout
conversation to break the staring limbo that we had begun. Yet, the names of random people passing by, and out of nothing more
I couldn’t think of a single thought or question that would fit this than reflex, every single name that I shouted would be forced to
moment. I was so deep in thought that I nearly jumped when I turn around and look at me, even if it was only for a second.”
heard him say a quiet “hello” in a light raspy tenor, conjuring
78 Back to TOC 79
I opened my mouth, then shut it again, considering his words. cloudy water. I shook my head once to clear it, and all thoughts
When I thought of powers, I usually thought of flying or magic of where the gray ones had gone eddied from my mind and my
spells, not just saying someone’s name. Though I didn’t want to be attention returned to him.
rude, so I let him be. “Do you ride the subway every day, Damien?”
There was something eerie about him. He didn’t seem to move His smile widened again. “I usually prefer to walk, but I
like other people did. Every one of his motions was fluid and suppose it’s not so bad with you here.”
purposeful, as though he knew that specific motion was exactly I smiled at the complement. I wanted him to like me, though I
what he was meant to be doing at that point in time. I had never wasn’t sure why.
seen him walk down the street, but if I ever did, I knew exactly “I will admit, though, I am bored of riding the subway. Would
how he would look. Confident, with his head high and strides long, you like to get off at my stop?”
never once slipping or stumbling or crashing into anyone. He stood up, offering a hand to me, and I took it without
“Do you like the rain?” hesitation. Stop, a small voice in the back of my mind whispered.
I shook my head slowly, my eyes fixed on his.
“How sad,” he mused, tipping his head back against the grimy Damien tugged on my arm again and we were stepping off the
window. subway and onto the station. I had never seen this station before. I
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. I didn’t think it was didn’t know how far into the city we were or how long I had been
sad that I didn’t like being soaking wet on the subway. I thought talking to him on the train.
it was fairly normal. But then again, Damien and his bright green It was clean, though, cleaner than any subway station I had seen
coat and manic smile weren’t normal, so perhaps I seemed strange before, and it was completely empty of gray figures. Magazines
to him. The absence of all the gray didn’t disturb me. I didn’t know stood in perfect rows on their rack in the corner, and a spotless
where all the people had gone, but I didn’t miss them. I wondered if escalator led up to the ground above. The concrete was clean too,
he had noticed them. free of wet footprints or puddles.
“Where did the people all go?” I asked without looking away It was only then that I realized he was still clutching my hand,
from him. leading me along towards the escalator. His hand was cold and
“What people? No one left. There were never any people here.” clammy, and it only made the sense of wrongness around him
I opened my mouth to protest, but as I thought about it, I heighten, though my mind was far too muddy to think much into
couldn’t remember all the people getting off the train. My mind it. I turned to Damien, frowning in confusion as I could feel my
was slow and foggy now, like I was looking at the world through anxiety start to rise for the first time since I had started talking to
80 Back to TOC 81
him. The part of my mind that had tried to pull away from him felt
“Where are we going?” like a dog on a leash, being led wherever my master bid, and that
“Don’t worry. We’re headed to my house.” frustrated me. He was the man on the subway. I liked him. I had
Any anxiety I’d previously had washed away with his words, talked to him, but I did not want to go wherever he was taking
replaced by the same cloudy complacency I’d been feeling since me. Though I could tell at this point that if I simply asked to leave,
he’d appeared. my wish would not be respected. My mind would only cloud over
We stepped onto the escalator, one of my hands encased in his, again and I would be a puppet once more.
while my other clutched around the handle of my umbrella. We Was he a magician? A psychic? That would explain why he
ascended out onto the platform in blaring sunlight. Not a single could control my mind. Though that would mean he had managed
trace of the earlier downpour to be seen. The pavement was cool to control both me and every person on the subway. Was he really
and dry, the crisp autumn air sending a chill through the thin controlling me? Or were the sudden blanks and strange changes
sleeves of my raincoat. Buildings stood tall all around us, and of scenery my own doing? Was I going crazy? My head hurt from
while I could see the gray ones through the windows of a quilting thinking about it, and my feet ached from walking so fast in my
shop and the restaurants, there wasn’t a single person to be found heavy rain boots. I could not go wherever he was taking me.
milling about the streets. “Are we going to your house?” I asked lightly, making sure to
Had we been on the subway long enough for the rain to stop keep my steps in line with his so he didn’t think I was trying to get
and the city to dry? Surely not. away again.
I frowned as I looked around at the landscape, twisting my arm a “We’re going somewhere nice.” He looked down to smile slyly
bit in his grip to get a better view, but not truly fighting him. at me. “You’ll like it.”
His expression flickered then, the cool smile fading to an His words were spoken so calmly that a shiver went down my
expression of frightening annoyance, his brows creasing inwards. spine that had nothing to do with the cold or my wet clothes.
And something…dark…flickered in his eyes, like a shadow moving “Nice how?” I prodded innocently.
under a pane of glass, but then it was gone. His expression returned He didn’t respond; instead he took a sharp left, pulling me
to the same composed smirk, and his hand clamped down on my harshly into an alley with him so that I stumbled over my feet,
arm again, harder this time. I gasped at the pain and opened my my clunky boots making it hard to keep upright, and my umbrella
mouth to say something, but before I could get the words out, my slipped out of my hand, clattering onto the pavement.
mind grew foggy again and my vision clouded over slightly. “Wait! My umbrella!” I cried out, reaching back after it while
he pulled me to my feet and tugged me along, leaving the yellow
82 Back to TOC 83
umbrella lying sadly at the entrance to the alleyway. I could feel my wet boots left no marks on his red pants. He wasn’t human, not
the panic rising in my chest. Whatever hold he had over my mind a normal one at least, and I didn’t know what he wanted from me.
was now gone; he didn’t find it necessary to keep me happy and We made one more turn into an alley, arriving at the back
complacent now that we were out of sight of all the gray ones. door of a red brick building. The door was dark rusted metal, and
I had been so annoyed by the presence of all the gray, of all an aura surrounded it that made the hairs on the back of my neck
the mundane earlier. Now, I missed it. I wanted normalcy back. I stand up. The building radiated the same wrong feeling as Damien
had wanted some color, some adventure, and I had found that in did. It was an otherworldly place, and I knew for a fact that I did
Damien, and now I was paying the price. I opened my mouth in a not want to go inside.
feeble attempt to scream, but the sound was stuck in my throat, and “Welcome to my house.” He chuckled lightly, and I could feel
my mouth suddenly went dry, tasting of alcohol and dust. It was the angry helpless tears beginning to well in my eyes.
same sensation that had taken over my mind so many times, only I couldn’t see anything inside when he opened the door. It
now it was my body. was completely dark, and a sickly-sweet smell emitted from the
We turned another corner, starting down another alleyway. As blackness. I cringed.
we kept walking, the scenery began to morph as well, signaling “Come on in.” Damien laughed at my expression and then
that Damien was no longer bothering to charm me with the look threw me forward, my feet tripping over the threshold so that
of the city. The previously sunny sky began to darken, turning to I gasped as I landed hard on a tile floor in the darkness. I
a somber gray, and the clean, dry pavement became wet again, immediately pushed myself to my feet and whirled around, but
puddles slowly reappearing. We were swerving between bags of I only got a glimpse of Damien’s outline as the door swung shut
trash that had been tossed in the street in haphazard piles in the behind him, sealing us into the building.
alleyway. “How about a little light?” He trilled in a sing-song voice like a
I couldn’t scream, but he wasn’t bothering to control my mind, child would use to cite nursery rhymes.
and the rest of my body was still my own. I began to fight then, I shielded my eyes as the light flicked on. I was in a building
digging my heels into the pavement and tugging against his hold that looked as though it had once been a studio of some sort,
on my arm. I opened my mouth over and over like a gaping fish, but was now converted into a living space. Huge floor-to-ceiling
pushing against the feeling in my throat and willing myself to windows made up the front wall, giving us a view of all the gray
make a sound, any sound. ones walking past. I jumped up then, waving my arms in the air,
My fighting did next to nothing against Damien’s strength, he trying to catch the attention of one of them, and Damien watched
simply dragged me after him, and any kicks I aimed at him with with a smirk on his face, leaning back against the wall. It took me a
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moment to realize the reason he was so calm was that the windows My limbs stilled in shock as I realized what this meant. He was
were tinted. We could see the gray ones, but they couldn’t see us. It going to cut my heart out.
was the worst sort of torture, having help right in front of me, but Not only was he going to kill me, but it would be in the most
they couldn’t see me or hear me. disgusting and inhumane way possible.
“Having fun there, little mouse?” he crooned as I stopped Pure unfiltered panic raced through my veins, and I kicked
jumping, staring out the windows in defeat. back harder and harder, my clunky rain boots making hollow
“My name isn’t mouse,” I snapped, though deep down I knew sounds against his arms and shoulders. I arched my back to kick
he was right. I was a mouse that had left the safety of my home higher, trying to hit somewhere that would hurt. Finally, my foot
because I had seen something shiny and now I was caught in a landed against his face, and he lurched back away from me with a
trap. sickening crunch, cursing. As soon as he was occupied, I felt the
The rest of the room was fairly plain. There were no rugs on grip on my throat lessen, freeing my vocal cords.
the tile floor or chairs, but there was a small kitchenette in one I screamed then, scrambling to my feet. My whole body was
corner, and a pendulum clock pushed against one wall. The other trembling as I sprinted towards the door, freedom the only goal.
walls were covered with oak shelves that were filled with jars of All I wanted was the gray.
things that I couldn’t see from the center of the room. I grabbed the handle of the metal door, desperately trying
He was going to kill me; I knew it now. I was going to die with to turn it, but it was stuck. It wouldn’t open without whatever
hundreds of potential saviors standing right outside the glass. magic Damien had used on it. The door wasn’t a way out, but the
He was on me then, before I had a chance to make another windows and the gray ones were.
peep. He gave me a two-handed shove forward so that I went He was still kneeling on the floor, nursing a nose that was
sprawling across the floor again, landing hard on my stomach and crooked and dripping blood onto the tile floor. He seemed to
knocking the side of my head painfully against the ground. What have completely forgotten that I was there, or at least he wasn’t
do you want from me?! I mouthed desperately, squirming and bothering to use magic on me.
kicking as hard as I could when he stalked over again to pin my I sprinted towards the windows now, snatching one of the
hands behind my back. jars up off the shelf and hurtling it as hard as I could through
It was then that I took a closer look at what was in the jars that the glass. I could hear him moving behind me then. He gave a
lined the walls: floating in a yellow liquid were familiar organs. tortured scream as he watched the jar go flying, one of his precious
Hearts. There was one in each jar, and hundreds of jars along the keepsakes ruined.
walls.
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The yellow liquid and broken glass splattered over the She held out a hand to me and I took it, nearly gasping as my
pavement outside and several gray ones passing by gasped and skin met hers, for as soon as I touched her, color suddenly exploded
screamed, ducking out of the way of the broken window and organ around me. The sky turned from its gray hue to a light sunset
jar. I ignored them, bursting through and taking off through the purple, and the crisp fall air was paired with buildings painted in
window. My heart was pounding when I landed, and my head was an assortment of colors. Even the woman in front of me was no
heavy. I was tired of fighting. I jumped a bit when a gray figure longer gray. Her hair was flaming red and the coat she wore was a
knelt next to me. bright yellow, brighter, even, than my own.
“Are you okay? I saw you run out of that window.”
She was gray. I noticed that first, but as I looked at her longer, I
began to notice other things about her. She was young, maybe only
a few years older than me, and she had laugh lines around her eyes.
She looked at me with a genuine smile too; it was soft and warm,
with none of Damien’s hard ice. Yes, she was gray, but she seemed
good.
“Can you help me?” I croaked, my voice coming out scratchy
from stress and suppressed screams.
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PATCHWORK MOONLIGHT
Karin Hedetniemi
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GOD LOVES ME EVEN THOUGH know that god loves me because she sends me
beautiful insects when I am sad, and I tattoo them on my hands.
Sophia Cannizzaro then my hands say god loves me even though I love pain so much,
even though I am not a missionary vanilla kind of girl,
god loves me even though I quilt myself into being, stabbing and stabbing.
god loves me because the pendulums make circles and the needles
puncture me and because every thursday I pray for the arrival of my shift drink
my mother needled fibers, stabbing and stabbing, and for my lover to survive another day. god loves me even though
until everything came together. I was small and wondered I only have time to call her once a week. my psychiatrist says I have
why it was called quilting if no quilt resulted. OCD tendencies and I remember walking down the stairs when I was little,
I made quills from found feathers and wrote with them, I had to say my prayers before I reached the bottom. the lord’s prayer,
every thing was a tool when I was so young. the prayer where I asked for my house not to be struck by lightning
ink splattered on my hands, tattooing myself. people say and burned down, the prayer where my parents stayed alive until I was dead.
it is impressive, to be able to inflict such pain I woke up in the middle of every night and roamed the house,
on my own body. I say the pain is most of the point, checking that everyone was breathing. sometimes I found my parents
unfortunately. stabbing and stabbing, dots at a time, having missionary vanilla sex and was very glad they were alive.
this was before I bought my tattoo machine. I worked with they said they were playing a game or that they were showing each other
sewing needles and pen ink and none of it stayed in my skin, how much they loved each other. like I didn’t know what sex was at nine years old.
except the pain, which was most of the point, unfortunately. and still god loves me.
I swung between masochism and sadism like a good little girl.
I take a BDSM test now and it says I am mostly vanilla,
which I don’t believe for a second. a crystal on a chain
answering my own questions. I always theorized about
whether the pounding of my blood in my fingers
decided the way it moved. I forget what was yes
and what was no, but the pendulum made circles
and I felt answered. my mother says I am anxious because
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Lina Khan is a writer from Scottsdale, Arizona, who received her Brady Riddle currently resides in Shanghai, China, where he
BFA in Writing for Screen and Television from the University of teaches secondary English at Shanghai American School, Pudong
Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Campus. He is also the literary editor for A Shanghai Poetry Zine
and an active member of Shanghai’s Inkwell Writers’ Poetry
Madeline Mertz is a creative writing and business major at Workshop. Brady has been a featured poet and presenter at writers’
Truman State University and author of Rebuilding Atlantis. conferences and poetry festivals from Houston, Texas, to Muscat,
Oman, to Beijing, China. Most recently, Brady’s work can be found
Maggie Munts is a poet, writer, and creative. Her poems in A Shanghai Poetry Zine and Alluvium in Shanghai, China;
illuminate the transcendent aspects of seemingly ordinary Spittoon Collective in Beijing; Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine in
moments and memories. She received her BA from Pomona Hong Kong; Prospectus: A Literary Offering in the US; and Rat’s
College in Claremont, California, and is currently a graduate Ass Review in the US.
student at Columbia University.
Lisa Rigge has been involved with photography since the early
Greg November lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. He 1980s. For two years she studied at the MIT Photography Lab
was a 2021 Jack Straw Writer, teaches writing at North Seattle in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1992, she began to hand-color
College and Highline College, reads submissions for New England black and white darkroom prints with photo oils and pencils. As
Review, and was a finalist for the 2020 Curt Johnson Prose Award digital images eclipsed silver gelatin images, she switched to hand-
for Fiction. His work has most recently appeared in Boulevard, tinting digital images with pastels and pencils. She is a teacher,
Carve, Hawaii Pacific Review, Epiphany, and Juked, among other photographer, and artist. “Sunrise Quilt” is a hand-tinted digital
places. His story “Decoys” is currently a finalist for the Miller photograph with collage materials added to the quilt.
Audio Prize from Missouri Review. He has an MFA from UC,
Irvine. Heidi Seaborn is executive editor of The Adroit Journal and
author of PANK Poetry Prize winner An Insomniac’s Slumber
Lisa Raatikainen’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Party with Marilyn Monroe, the acclaimed debut Give a Girl
Whale Road Review, Moist Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, and Chaos, and the Comstock Review Chapbook Prize winner Bite
elsewhere. She holds degrees in religion and biology, and can most Marks. Recent work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal,
commonly be found either herding her small children or teaching Brevity, Copper Nickel, Cortland Review, Diode, Financial Times
piano lessons from her home in Vermont. of London, The Missouri Review, The Offing, The Slowdown, and
the Washington Post. Heidi holds an MFA from NYU and teaches
at the Hugo House.
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NEXT UP
Issue No. 35 STAFF - 3ELEMENTS
Summer 2022
Mikaela Shea received her MFA in Fiction Writing from
3ELEMENTS: Columbia College Chicago. She was a writer-in-residence at
Moon, Western, Placebo Ragdale Foundation and has published stories in Midwestern
Gothic, Copperfield Review, Hypertext Magazine, and others.
DUE MAY 31, 2022 Mikaela won the Editor's Choice Award for Fiction at Waypoints
Magazine and Superstition Review's First Page Contest. Mikaela is
currently looking for a home for her novel. She lives in Iowa with
her husband and three kids, @mikaelashea.
Submission due dates are November 30, February 28, May 31,
and August 31, for issues forthcoming February 1, May 1, August 1, Megan Collins is the author of the novels The Family Plot,
and November 1, respectively, unless otherwise noted on our website.
Behind the Red Door, and The Winter Sister, which was a 2019
Book of the Month Club selection. She holds an MFA in Creative
There is no minimum word count, but please keep your fiction and
Writing from Boston University and taught creative writing at the
nonfiction submissions under 3,500 words. Poems must be under two
typed pages. high school and college levels for many years. A Pushcart Prize
and Best of the Net nominee, her work has appeared in many
It is equally important that all three elements given for the specific journals, including Off the Coast, Spillway, and Tinderbox Poetry
submission period be included within your story or poem. Artists and Journal. (megancollins.com)
photographers are only required to represent one element.
Erin Evans received her MFA in Poetry from the Vermont
Visit www.3ElementsReview.com for more info. College of Fine Arts. Her work was nominated for a 2018 AWP
Intro Journals Award, and she has attended the Bread Loaf Writers’
Conference. An avid photographer, she works and lives in Vermont
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