New World Writing Quarterly

Daniel Berrigan tells a sto­ry about a con­queror who comes into our city. He is a huge, super­hu­man fig­ure, and is pre­ced­ed by rumors of invin­ci­bil­i­ty. He has con­quered every­where and our city is next. We are afraid and there is noth­ing to be done except –more

Begin

Begin with a thing. Make it a spar­row. A spar­row cling­ing to the stem of an Easter Lily. Make the spar­row silent. We don’t want too many voic­es this ear­ly on. Let the lily speak for itself.

Enter

Now, enter. This –more

COWBOY BOOTS

Sometimes an urge takes hold of us and pulls us onto the dance floor
even though we only want to sip our drink and observe.

I don’t mean one of those sud­den, fleet­ing urges
like pee­ing off the back of the boat

or –more

On the day we flee town, we will want the neigh­bor­hood to know what hap­pened. We will tell sto­ries about our step­fa­ther to the kind and not-so-kind men on our street, to the cops who size us up to see if we are under­age, –more

The para­troop­ers fall and as they fall
They mow the lawn. –Wallace Stevens

Everyone was talk­ing about a phi­los­o­phy of life. It seemed impor­tant and the kind of thing that could stand one in good stead for years to come. Things –more

            We all live poor­ly here. Use mail-in rebates at the hard­wood store, get drunk at Sammy’s on Friday nights, and let our chil­dren run around in their –more

Late but not quite mid­night. Marina Melba stands on the com­mu­nal bal­cony of the flats. She pulls a cig­a­rette with ele­gance from a pack­et. Lights it with­out look­ing, eyes fixed on the balustrade and fog­gy sky. 31st December is the date.

            Tess –more

The hotel key was ours. A rec­tan­gu­lar piece of hard plas­tic with the words PLAY SLEEP REPEAT on the front. New York City. That humid sum­mer day when it rained frogs and peo­ple shield­ed them­selves with their umbrel­las, only –more

We’re togeth­er again, three old buds stand­ing in a dark clos­et at our thir­ti­eth high school reunion. We can hear the eight­ies music from the audi­to­ri­um one floor below us. What are we doing? I’d let Larry tell you, but –more

Her hair some­times sailed on her. She was a point in the dis­tance, as if the entire uni­verse had poured from a con­ver­gence. She thought, It’s just as well.

     Hardwick under­stood her, if he were also –more

Hatchings

Parades always made her tired, so it wasn’t sur­pris­ing that the assas­sin fell asleep on the roof.

As she napped, the roof became quite crowded.

A fam­i­ly of six had a pic­nic, fried chick­en and pota­to sal­ad. Their baby gummed lime gelato.

The super pre­tend­ed to repair the cool­ing duct. His tool­box was full of ale.

An octo­ge­nar­i­an who had learned to swim in the Baltic Sea leaped into the wood­en water tow­er for her dai­ly laps.

A boy wear­ing an aviator’s hat fed his pigeons. One of the birds, Charles, was wor­ried about Amelia, his mate. She hadn’t returned from their after­noon flight. The boy under­stood, so he stroked Charles’ head and whis­tled, “Volière.”

The octo­ge­nar­i­an climbed out of the tow­er only to dis­cov­er that she had for­got­ten her tow­el. The fam­i­ly cleared their pic­nic and after apol­o­giz­ing for the crumbs and green stains, wrapped her in their plaid blan­ket. She invit­ed the fam­i­ly, the boy, and Charles to her apart­ment for choco­late cov­ered prunes.

The Super emp­tied his last bot­tle, closed his tool­box, walked toward the rail­ing to take in the view and almost stepped on the assas­sin. He noticed her rifle. Italian. A Marinetti. He picked it up and looked through the scope. There was an old hen cir­cling the build­ing. The sky was melt­ing like a Creamsicle. He clicked off the gun’s safe­ty and tucked it under the assassin’s arm.

The assas­sin dreamed that she was a girl in her bed­room hav­ing a pil­low fight with her sister.

Feathers fell through the air, tick­ing their cheeks.

–

Insomnia

My doc­tor rec­om­mend­ed that I rent one of those birds trained to whis­tle lullabies.

I was dubi­ous, but desperate.

On the dri­ve from the rental place, Polly per­formed a beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of “Scenes from Childhood” fol­lowed by Satie.

I was hopeful.

Once home, I broke her neck, plucked, cut, brined, bast­ed and a few hours lat­er: Perroquet au Vin! Lovely.

And you know what—it worked! I slept like the dead.

Of course, the rental place charged me a late fee.

Que sera, sera.

–

An Eel Soup Digression

Because the nav­i­ga­tor did­n’t under­stand that the crease in the map depict­ed a crease in the sea, the ship had to weigh anchor. The cap­tain forced the nav­i­ga­tor to row a dinghy through the line, to reck­on its effects.

Meanwhile, in the gal­ley, the cook was cre­at­ing a bouillabaisse—conger eel, sea robins, fen­nel, cod bones, bou­quet gar­ni, saf­fron, mus­sels, olive oil, gar­lic, white wine, smoke of the after­life, French bread, cayenne pep­per, lit­tle neck clams, toma­to paste, and Thibault, the very lob­ster that was con­duct­ed through the streets of Paris by Gérard de Nerval.

Concurrently, the nav­i­ga­tor was remem­ber­ing a poem about a boy who thought the cres­cent moon was a bro­ken moon and the stars were its pieces. He could smell the soup. At least, he thought, as the water began to churn, I’ll have some­thing good to eat tonight.

~

Peter Jay Shippy is the author of Thieves’ Latin, Alphaville, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic, and A Spell of Songs. His 5th book, Kaputniks, will be pub­lished by Saturnalia Books in 2021. About A Spell of Songs, John Yau wrote: “One day, not long ago, Meret Oppenheim walked past Edward Hopper in Paris, and an elec­tric cur­rent passed between, and from that cur­rent was born Peter Jay Shippy.…” Shippy has received fel­low­ships in dra­ma and poet­ry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002 he won the Iowa Poetry Prize and in 2005 he received a Gertrude Stein award for inno­v­a­tive poet­ry. In 2009 Shippy received the Governor’s Citation for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. He has pub­lished wide­ly, includ­ing The American Poetry Review, The Boston Globe, Iowa Review and Ploughshares. Shippy teach­es lit­er­a­ture and writ­ing at Emerson College in Boston.

My mom just called from the nurs­ing home. She sur­vived anoth­er painful heart episode. She asked me how the peo­ple liked the Italian songs I sang in church. She has asked me this before. I have sung no Italian songs, in church or any­where else. Then she sang a lit­tle bit over the phone. It was love­ly, though her light sopra­no voice is now low and hoarse. I asked her to sing some more. I thought, I need to learn some good Italian songs and sing them in church.

I’ve been read­ing Berrigan’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, as some of you know, the der­ring do of the rad­i­cal Catholic priest who loved America enough to speak the ter­ri­ble truth about America’s addic­tion to vio­lence, racism, and war. And again and again, Berrigan tells of his moth­er, who stead­fast­ly stood by him. “With her, a thou­sand dif­fi­cul­ties did not cre­ate a sin­gle doubt.”

After his broth­er Philip was arrest­ed for throw­ing human blood on draft files in Baltimore, while he him­self was arrest­ed in Washington dur­ing a protest against the war, Daniel called home. His mother’s calm on the phone touched him. He explained things, as best he could. “You mean,” his moth­er respond­ed, “that you are out of jail and your broth­er is in?”

~

Gary Percesepe is the author of eight books, most recent­ly The Winter of J, a poet­ry col­lec­tion pub­lished by Poetry Box. He is Associate Editor at New World Writing. Previously he was an assis­tant fic­tion edi­tor at Antioch Review. His work has appeared in Christian Century, Maine Review, Brevity, Story Quarterly, N + 1, Salon, Mississippi Review, Wigleaf, Westchester Review, PANK, The Millions, Atticus Review, Antioch Review, Solstice, and oth­er places. He resides in White Plains, New York, and teach­es phi­los­o­phy at Fordham University in the Bronx.

I couldn’t see my way clear to make it to the annu­al Gala.  I had RSVPed under self-imposed pres­sure, but I wasn’t above claim­ing a sud­den ill­ness should any­one men­tion my fail­ure to attend.  I’d cleaned myself up in a more fas­tid­i­ous man­ner than usu­al and had stuffed myself into my aging tux, which had over the years man­aged to elude moth­dom.  I’d then gazed with revul­sion in a too-large mir­ror and asked:  “Do I wish to present this per­son as me?”  Who was this alleged per­son?  Not some­one I knew, I was sure of that.  I imag­ined all the buffed-up human beings pack­ing the Gala hall, beam­ing with mer­ri­ment, chest-high drinks abet­ting the façade.  How would I fit in, one who was unable to ban­ish from con­scious­ness my unpol­ished and frag­ment­ed self-image.  I couldn’t arrive in my nat­ur­al state of iden­ti­ty while in tux dis­guise, and I couldn’t tol­er­ate hours of unabat­ed grin­ning by every­one with­in eye­shot.  I had an embar­rass­ing his­to­ry of rude­ness when con­front­ed with repet­i­tive ques­tions or sto­ries from cer­tain annoy­ing peo­ple who seemed to lie in wait for me.  My per­for­mances had the humil­i­at­ing out­come of mak­ing me less bear­able than they were.  Take Trowbridge, who’d some­how caught wind of my prostate trou­ble and had grown exces­sive­ly fond of shar­ing his prostate issues and ask­ing me: “How’s our favorite gland doing?” I didn’t like the unin­tend­ed impli­ca­tion that my prostate could be his favorite gland.  After sev­er­al sim­i­lar encoun­ters I’d asked if he want­ed me to bend over so he could address his favorite gland direct­ly or if he want­ed to make an exam­i­na­tion and reach his own con­clu­sions.  I should have been more sen­si­tive, respect­ing the trau­ma of his prostate surgery and his desire to com­mis­er­ate with me on the decline of one of our most pri­vate parts.  Yet, I did not see it that way and didn’t care to pre­tend that I approved of his out­sized inter­est in my out­sized prostate.  Trowbridge retreat­ed upon hear­ing my heavy-hand­ed mes­sage, and when­ev­er I see him I sense endur­ing dis­tress from my out­burst.  Also sure to be there was Mossland, a man deeply in love with his hunt­ing dogs and full of sto­ries detail­ing how they’d helped him kill great num­bers of ani­mals.  I’d final­ly told Mossland that I envi­sioned a future dog breed that would halt in its tracks and point at flee­ing flocks of hunters so that high­ly evolved apes could more eas­i­ly shoul­der their rifles and pick them off.  He hasn’t come with­in close range of me since, and I sym­pa­thize with his desire to avoid me.  I couldn’t doubt that if I attend­ed the event, numer­ous peo­ple would be unhap­py to see me there, despite my past char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions.  I thought it best not to inflict myself on oth­ers, con­ve­nient­ly elim­i­nat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of oth­ers inflict­ing them­selves on me.  By stay­ing home, I was mak­ing a small con­tri­bu­tion to social well-being at the Gala.  I heard it was an unmit­i­gat­ed success.

~

Glen Pourciau’s sec­ond col­lec­tion of sto­ries, View, was pub­lished by Four Way Books. His first sto­ry col­lec­tion, Invite, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. He’s had sto­ries pub­lished by AGNI Online, The Collagist, Epoch, New England Review, New World Writing, The Paris Review, Post Road,and others.

I sat on the back­stairs, on the top step near the screened kitchen door, wait­ing. I did a lot of wait­ing. For Maud Ellen to come talk, or my grand­moth­er, Mamoo, or Daddy when­ev­er he’d appear, or for our dogs, Wanda and Beebee. Pinning down the dogs was easy; I could pre­tend to be a dog if I had to. I did wait­ing so well I’d turned it into art. But some­times I got bug­gy. Buggy made me feel like I’d burst. And around here burst­ing spelled trou­ble in a bot­tle full of lit­tle white tabs.

Maud Ellen mate­ri­al­ized from the front yard and dropped into Uncle Walter’s chair made of plumb­ing pipes, the same chair my father hanged him­self on. She had a Don Q and her Lark 100s.

“Let’s talk about bats, Mama,” I said, using the inti­mate to snag her atten­tion. I was hap­py she’d come. I had to talk quick. Everybody in my fam­i­ly, except the dogs, liked flight.

“Bats?”

“I like bats.”

“I know noth­ing about bats.”

“Why not?”

“Bats are not some­thing I am inter­est­ed in.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think about them.”

“I do. Bats eat bugs. I don’t like bugs.”

“Yes, I sup­pose they do,” she said, puff­ing on her Lark.

“I bet they eat those cat­fish-sized cock­roach­es like the one fly­ing around the chan­de­lier in the front hall last night. Mamoo was so fun­ny, shriek­ing and flap­ping her arms like she might fly, too, and you bat­ting at the roach like a slug­ger. Would Uncle John real­ly throw us out for break­ing Mummy’s antiques?

Maybe we could trap a bat, bring it inside. Get it a bat house and a swing. Whenever those roach­es come along, we’ll let it loose and watch as it sucks their necks. Or maybe it swal­lows them whole, feet first—the way the French do when they eat those lit­tle birds.”

Maud Ellen stirred the air, and almost blew me off the step. She stamped out her cig­a­rette. “I’m going inside to eat a banana.”

“Don’t you think a bat would eat those bugs?”

“I have no earth­ly idea,” she said.

She prac­ti­cal­ly flew up the steps. I jumped up to let her pass. The screen door slapped its frame. I want­ed to tell her we wouldn’t have to be afraid any­more about bugs and Mamoo pop­ping Phenobarb to calm down. As usu­al, I’d said too much.

In her hur­ry, Maud Ellen left her Larks. I sat back down, tucked my arms around my knees and prac­ticed wait­ing again. This time I’d wait for a sign. The sky was fast dis­ap­pear­ing around the arm of the oak. That’s when I saw it, a queer dark bird with a plas­ter-white face and eyes-as-blue-as-my-blond-head­ed dolls, fly­ing in the yard. The clos­er it came the big­ger it got until it got right up in my face. I opened my mouth. It glid­ed inside. As high as a kite on white tabs, I unfurled.

~

An M.F.A grad­u­ate of Stony Brook University, Lucinda Kempe’s work has been pub­lished or is forth­com­ing in Midway Journal, Bending Genres, The Southampton Review, Elm Leaves Journal, and the Summerset Review. Wigleaf longlist­ed her micro fic­tion (2018 and 2019). Her fic­tion “I Became a Girl” was nom­i­nat­ed for the 2020 Pushcart Prize.

My moth­er acts like the con­flict between her and me is seman­tic, rather than due to her crap­py par­ent­ing. For instance, when I try to talk to her about how when I was a kid and she was pissed at me, or sim­ply found me irri­tat­ing and noisy, she would make me sit in the garage by myself for hours (pitch dark, smelling like ran­cid milk), she says, “It’s ridicu­lous to call that ‘abuse’! I nev­er laid a hand on you. Your gen­er­a­tion is much too loosey-goosey with words.”

Which makes me smile— mad­den­ing as my moth­er is, the way she’ll let fly some phrase like “loosey-goosey,” as if she’s a fifties house­wife in a flow­ered apron, kills me.

So I press her. I want to know what oth­er words she takes umbrage with.

She gives me a look to con­firm that I’m not mess­ing with her (my moth­er and I have min­i­mal trust in each oth­er), and says, “All right, what about gen­der? In my day, gen­der was a con­crete thing that you just were. You all act as if it’s a cos­tume you can just throw on. ‘Today I’m feel­ing like a girl.’ Gender is not some­thing you feel!”

“Says the woman who tells me I ought to make an effort to look more fem­i­nine,” I say. “And what about your birth­day twin?”

My moth­er hates it when I call David Bowie her birth­day twin, though it is true they share the same birthday—same year as well as the same date. I real­ized this only after he died, and weird­ly, this fact prompt­ed me to call her when I heard the news. I took Bowie’s death hard. What my moth­er said: “You didn’t even know the man. It makes no sense to be so sad.”

Impossible to explain to her that as a kid, I felt more seen by David Bowie than I did by my own moth­er. Those long, dark hours in the garage, Bowie was who kept me com­pa­ny. I sang “Life on Mars?” to myself and the crickets.

On the phone that evening, I repeat­ed “sad­den­ing bore” over and over again until my moth­er said, “Finis!”

Now she says, “His songs are nonsense.”

“And what do you mean by nonsense?”

My moth­er looks at me, again to ver­i­fy that I’m not fuck­ing with her, and appar­ent­ly decides instead I’m a moron. She twirls one hand in the air, con­vey­ing dis­missal. “Poppycock. Balderdash,” she says, and again my irri­ta­tion at her dis­solves in the face of her words. The fifties house­wife with the apron morphs into some Victorian lord with a hooked, dis­dain­ful nose and a bur­gundy vel­vet smok­ing jacket.

Sometimes I think my moth­er and I would final­ly get along if, instead of try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate, to explain our­selves to each oth­er, we just sat across a table and occa­sion­al­ly emit­ted sin­gle words: “star­ship,” “per­ni­cious,” “grasshop­per.”

~

Kim Magowan lives in San Francisco and teach­es in the Department of Literatures and Languages at Mills College. Her short sto­ry col­lec­tion Undoing (2018) won the 2017 Moon City Press Fiction Award. Her nov­el The Light Source is forth­com­ing from 7.13 Books this July. Her fic­tion has been pub­lished wide­ly.  She is the Fiction Editor of Pithead Chapel. www.kimmagowan.com

Michelle Ross is the author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), which won the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award.  Her fic­tion has recent­ly appeared or is forth­com­ing in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Electric Literature, and oth­er venues. She is Fiction Editor of Atticus Review. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.  www.michellenross.com

 

 

=&0=&

A Mariachi walked in the city in the mid­dle of the day. He had a gold trum­pet at his side. His Mariachi suit and som­brero were black with gold embroi­dery and he wore a red bow tie. Every now and then, at red lights, he would play a lit­tle bit of the trum­pet. Sometimes peo­ple would clap. Sometimes they would just stand there in awe.

The Mariachi was on his way to meet his team, but he was late and lost in the city. He called the gui­tarist to ask for directions.

“Where’s this funer­al? I thought you said it was on 17th Street?” the trum­peter asked.

“It’s on 34th St and Lemon. You’ll have to hur­ry because it starts at 1:30,” the gui­tarist said.

“I’ll be there on time!” the trum­peter said.

He hailed a taxi and they sped along to the funer­al. He smoked a cig­a­rette out of the win­dow as they skipped through town like a stone on a lake. The taxi was red, green, and white, like the Mexican flag, so he con­sid­ered it a good sign.

They arrived right on time. The trum­peter walked in the funer­al house play­ing “Un Puño de Tierra.” The son of the woman who was deceased began to sing along with the Mariachis. He closed his eyes most of the time as he sang. He sang well and more impor­tant­ly he hon­ored his mom. When he fin­ished, he gave the Mariachis a big hug and shed a few tears on their shoulders.

The next day the trum­peter received a text mes­sage from the gui­tarist. “We have a change of sched­ule today. We’re no longer per­form­ing at the bap­tism down­town. They can­celed. Instead, we’re going to meet at Nacho’s (the violinist’s house) and watch La Liga MX final. We could use a break, com­pa,” he said.

“Sounds like a plan, com­pa!” the trum­peter replied. The Mariachi put his gold trum­pet back in its sil­ver case and got ready for the game. He was hop­ing for a León victory!

 

=&1=&

A cir­cus per­former smoked a cig­a­rette on his lunch break. He had once been the lion tamer at the same cir­cus, but had been demot­ed to Adjunct Clown. He looked up at the thick clouds as he smoked. Spring is a tease, he thought. His red, blue, and yel­low suit clashed with the grey clouds in the sky.

When he fin­ished smok­ing, he put on his red nose and head­ed back to the cir­cus tent. What will I do today? He thought. Ride a tiny bicy­cle? Balloon tricks? Wrestle an alli­ga­tor? Or gen­er­al deviance? He decid­ed to do bal­loon tricks. First, he made a pig. It was soft, pink, and adorable. The audi­ence clapped. Then he made a giraffe. It was yel­low and had a neck longer than twice its body. More applause. Finally, he made a Tyrannosaurs Rex. It had a giant head, big feet, long tail, and tiny hands. He placed the T‑Rex on the floor and it start­ed to walk and growl. The audi­ence was amazed. They stood on their feet and clapped, loudly.

At mid­night, the clown clocked out and went home. He lived by the ocean where it’s always over­cast and gloomy. He made a green tea as soon as he got home. He sipped the tea as he read the local news­pa­per. In the back of the paper, he saw an ad announc­ing the cir­cus cal­en­dar. He was filled with pride. His jaw dropped as he gawked at the pho­to of the jug­gler, the acro­bat, the lion tamer, and him­self. That’s me! he said. It’s real­ly me! He put the paper on the fridge with a mag­net and went to bed.

The next day, he took the ad to Michael’s and framed it. He hung the frame in his garage where he prac­ticed his cir­cus tricks. He felt accom­plished and sat­is­fied and even decid­ed to quit smok­ing. Maybe I want to stick around for a while, he thought. He threw the box of cig­a­rettes in the trash can and went to work.

 

=&2=&

A man looks out of a win­dow in the mid­dle of the day. No one is around. Only a stray dog and some rose bush­es. The man has the day off from his work at the library. He’s a clerk at a library down­town, but his pas­sion is painting.

His paint­ing style can best be described as a mix­ture of sur­re­al­ism and abstract expres­sion­ism. Since he has the day off, he decides to paint.

What shall I paint? He won­ders. Maybe “The Last Supper,” but post-mod­ern in the city. No, I think I’ve seen that before, he says. Maybe a game of bas­ket­ball at the park by a lake with a turquoise sun­set? Perhaps.

Finally, he decides to paint a self-por­trait. He paints him­self sit­ting by a win­dow, smok­ing a cig­a­rette, with his bull­dog Kafka. The sun is in the cor­ner of the paint­ing and is rep­re­sent­ed by a sun­flower. The man is wear­ing a black-and-white shirt with blue jeans. He holds his bull­dog with one hand. Kafka is wear­ing a pair of sun­glass­es. He titles the paint­ing, “Self-Portrait with Bulldog, Kafka, and Sunglasses.”

When he fin­ish­es the paint­ing, he has some soyri­zo with beans, tor­tillas, and a glass of water. Then he rides his long­board to the Venice Boardwalk and tries to sell the painting.

At first, it’s rather slow and he only receives a cou­ple gen­er­al com­pli­ments. It’s a gor­geous day weath­er-wise, though, so he tries not to sweat it. Eventually, an English teacher approach­es and kind­ly buys the paint­ing for $150. He thanks her, repeat­ed­ly, and then skates back home.

~

=&3=& is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is from Southern California. His work appears in Bat City Review, The Cincinnati Review, Huizache, The Iowa Review, The Nation, The Progressive, Witness, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. His man­u­script was a final­ist for the 2018 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.

Sunday din­ner in Columbia, Tennessee: fried chick­en, mixed greens— turnips,
–more

After the Orgy

After the Sunday orgy, the men changed their shirts. The women changed their shoes.

Man #1 swag­gered all week.

Woman #2 com­posed a per­son­al ad: “Needy woman in search of help­less man. Weren’t you at the orgy on Sunday?”

Man #2 won­dered whether to con­tact woman #2 but nev­er got her name.

Woman #3 in her sex edu­ca­tion class announced bright­ly, “For the next two weeks, we’re going to turn the boys into girls and vice ver­sa, then com­pare notes.”

Man #3, rem­i­nisc­ing at least a few times dai­ly, thought the men had been hot­ter than the women.

Woman #2 felt unlove­ly, grow­ing more so by the minute—and signed up for the next orgy.

Man #3 found him­self in love with man #1.

Woman #1 jot­ted down in her old-fash­ioned plan­ner: “Sin at leisure, repent in haste”—and hur­ried to the drugstore.

Man #3 dreamt of the orgy sev­er­al nights run­ning, but with the man’s faces on the women’s bodies.

Woman #2 recon­sid­ered all her orifices.

Woman #1 felt, At this point, all I want is for man #2 to become a haunt­ing memory.

Man #1 remarked sar­cas­ti­cal­ly: “As if sex were an equal-oppor­tu­ni­ty employer.”

Woman #1 put it this way to her friend at a Sunday brunch that was a pal­lid sub­sti­tute for the Sunday before: “I’m not a hope­less roman­tic but a hope­ful one.”

Woman #3 bought a poster-sized chart of penis sizes.

Woman #1 start­ed to write a short sto­ry about the expe­ri­ence but got bogged down in the first action sequence.

Man #2 wrote a poem about the expe­ri­ence, con­tain­ing the line “shud­der­ing loins.”

Woman #2 began siz­ing up every man she encoun­tered, includ­ing the ugly ones. Especially the ugly ones.

Man #1 decid­ed to start an orgy agency.

Woman #3 thought about the one prob­lem with a five-hour orgy and began a cater­ing start-up.

Man #1 changed not a whit.

Woman #1 nev­er told her husband.

Man #2 ill-advis­ed­ly post­ed pho­tos on Instagram.

Man #1 boast­ed to his wife.

Woman #3 rec­og­nized one of the par­tic­i­pants on the street the oth­er day and winked.

–

Bird Feeder

One day I woke up to find I’d been mar­ried for twen­ty years with two kids in high school. Bob sat at the yel­low break­fast nook, gaz­ing at the eter­nal squir­rels gang­ing up on the bird feed­er in our back yard. Look at that one with the clumpy tail. He point­ed at a deter­mined squir­rel cap­siz­ing the bird feed­er tray for access to the silo of seed inside. An irate blue jay cheat‑cheated overhead.

I was about to reply when our two daugh­ters Cindy and Mindy entered the kitchen. Since it was Saturday, they weren’t hur­ry­ing to school but were bored already at 8:00 a.m. It’s a love­ly June day, I told them. Take advan­tage of it while you can.

As for me, the decades had flown over to the bird feed­er, where the clump‑tailed squir­rel was gorg­ing him­self on sun­flower seeds. I was a psych major at Penn State, then an office temp till I met Bob the sales man­ag­er at Sears, lead­ing to our wed­ding at the Orange Chapel, after which Cindy was born, then Mindy. I worked flex time at an insur­ance office, arranged for babysit­ters, packed a thou­sand PB&J sand­wich­es for school lunch­es, drove to two dif­fer­ent soc­cer prac­tices, and lay in bed next to Bob night after year.

But none of that is true. I’m only sev­en­teen, and I have all those years ahead of me. I have the time to make mis­takes and cor­rect some of them. My mom calls out from the hall­way that it’s shap­ing up to be a splen­did morn­ing and that I should take advan­tage of the fine weath­er by going out­side. I look out the win­dow to see that the squir­rel has made off with all the seed he can take, and still the sup­ply spills out.

–

Second Act

Ignazio was sup­posed to feed the ele­phants that after­noon, but he want­ed to fin­ish his math home­work first. His father was a clown at the Rolldale Circus, his moth­er an acro­bat. “You have way cool par­ents, Iggy,” a boy from the audi­ence told him. They’d met dur­ing an inter­mis­sion and chat­ted. The kid’s name was Edward. His father was a lawyer, his moth­er stayed at home, and they lived in a ranch house with a dog named Rex.

But Ignazio wished his father didn’t put on an orange wig for work, and he wor­ried about his moth­er tum­bling off the high-wire. The scent of stale pop­corn always hung in his nos­trils. To earn his allowance at age twelve, he turned into Rex the Dog Boy, with a snap-on tail, claws, pointy ears, whiskers, and fur patch­es. For the marks, he’d bark, scratch his ears with his toes, and shove his face into a bowl of raw meat. In his dreams, he sat in a fam­i­ly den and watched TV sitcoms.

At eigh­teen, he ran away from the car­a­van to enroll in col­lege. After grad­u­a­tion, he count­ed twen­ties as a bank teller while he earned his cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a CPA. He mar­ried a tax attor­ney and moved to the sub­urbs, where their son, Ed, was born. Ig keeps reg­u­lar hours and likes his steak well done.

But he’s will­ing to clown around for his son. He has a baby trapeze in the garage, sent by a pair of dot­ing grand­par­ents. And every once in a while, he freaks out the neigh­bors by get­ting down on all fours and howl­ing at the moon.

Ed, now age five, watch­es from the porch until his moth­er calls him indoors.

~

David Galef has pub­lished over a dozen books, includ­ing the nov­els Flesh, Turning Japanese, and How to Cope with Suburban Stress (a Book Sense choice, list­ed by Kirkus as one of the Best 30 Books of 2006); the short-sto­ry col­lec­tions Laugh Track and My Date with Neanderthal Woman (win­ner of Dzanc Books’ Short Story Collection Award); two children’s books, The Little Red Bicycle by Random House and Tracks by William Morrow Junior; a co-edit­ed anthol­o­gy of fic­tion called 20 over 40 (University Press of Mississippi); the poet­ry col­lec­tion Flaws and Kanji Poems (David Roberts Books); the trans­la­tion Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom (Tuttle); and lit­er­ary crit­i­cism: The Supporting Cast (Penn State Press). His lat­est vol­ume is Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook (Columbia University Press). Most recent­ly he won the ALSCW Meringoff Award for short fic­tion and place­ment in the top 50 very short fic­tions of 2017 from Wigleaf. His web­site is www.davidgalef.com, his Twitter han­dle @dgalef. He’s a pro­fes­sor of English and the cre­ative writ­ing pro­gram direc­tor at Montclair State University.

The dolls were drink­ing Jack Daniels and hav­ing an argu­ment. The moth­er doll said she was through with the father doll and had rent­ed a room in anoth­er doll­house. This room was freez­ing cold, with torn pink cur­tains; but the doll­house had wit­ty occupants.

Who are these peo­ple any­way? said the father doll.

I don’t know their names yet.

What about your crea­ture comforts?

I have every­thing I need there.

The father doll got out a note­book, looked at fig­ures, and said he wouldn’t send her any mon­ey if she left.

You’ll be out on the streets in no time.

I don’t need your mon­ey, said the moth­er doll. I got a job as a fur­ni­ture buyer.

A fur­ni­ture buy­er? Be care­ful you don’t con­fuse nov­el­ty with change.

I don’t. I learned the hard way by watch­ing you.

A new roof isn’t a novelty.

I went back to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine.  From the win­dow, I saw my hus­band and our dog, mak­ing their way through the snow.  Soon they came in, fill­ing the house with cold, and I told my hus­band the dolls had been drink­ing Jack Daniels and arguing.

Do you think they have a drink­ing prob­lem? he said.

They just try to copy our lives, but they nev­er get any­thing right, I said. So no, I don’t think so. You’d nev­er say crea­ture com­forts, for example.

My hus­band pat­ted the dog and gave him a biscuit.

Seven peo­ple stopped to talk to him, he said. And some­one waved from a window.

He’s a good dog, I said.

More than good.  He’s the star of the neighborhood.

When my hus­band said good­night, I went back to the doll­house. The dolls had lit can­dles and were in their four-poster bed, twined in each other’s arms. The sheets were tan­gled in love-knot and Stevie Wonder was singing You and I. When they saw me they made the cov­ers into a tent and dove inside. I poured more wine and raised my glass to them.

~

Thaisa Frank has pub­lished five books of fic­tion, most recent­ly Heidegger’s Glasses (a nov­el, Counterpoint 2010, 2011) and Enchantment (short sto­ries, Counterpoint 2012). Recent pub­li­ca­tions includ­ed work in New Micro (Norton, 2018) and Bloomsbury (2019). She lives in Northern California and is a mem­ber of The Writers Grotto.