Laura Quinnelly

Blood Moon

And what if someone did come, just then, to the rescue of the dying rat. There was the time in the convenience store when, half-drowned, one came crawling up out of the drain. I took my own shirt off to wrap the precious thing like baby Jesus, and the man behind the counter wanted to know what was in the shirt, never mind my tits hanging out, he wanted to know if I was trying to steal or what. So, I revealed the babe to show the man what swaddled thing I’d done, and the rat didn’t move, wasn’t dead but didn’t move at all, and I didn’t have to shush the man behind the counter, because he knew what it meant. But then, years later, another rat dropped from the ceiling of my older brother’s basement, right in front of me, while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and my daughters slept in the next room; a rat dropped from the ceiling to show me his death in a rampage of spasms, in a final and dramatic performance by the nervous system, he chose to show me, and I didn’t pick him up, and I didn’t disturb him at all, and I didn’t put him out, just watched his animal dream from the outside with envy.

. . .

There were snakes in the basement, as i was saying, the quantity unknown and of little importance, when dealing with snakes, let it suffice to say there were multiple,

He said, I don’t think your dad’s out of the woods on the suicide thing, then perhaps reading my expression,

I only bring it up so you can prepare yourself for that demon.

 

. . .

There’s smoke over Popocatépetl. With the sun rising behind it. All orange and alive.

He says, That’s a God, just like he says about the big cocodrilo the gordito feeds to keep satisfied, just like he says about the sun when I say,

I think I have heat exhaustion, I need to lie down, I think it may be sun poisoning, maybe I stayed out too long.

But lying down, I go from sweating to shivering in the midday heat, and I think, no, the sun didn’t do this. And I drift in and out of sleep. And I bob in and out of fever dreams. My daughters blur in and out of my vision. I’m in a long corridor, and the rook, in passing to take my queen, says:

Maybe I am a queen in red lipstick are you going to fuck my ass? I doubt it.

And the insertions and extractions continue. A mosquito gives me his prick in exchange for my blood. I sweat and then I freeze. I’m present and then I’m leaving. And the rook says:

You interrupted my dialogue, you broke my epistolary periodicity here, I’m still here you know, outside of your head,

which ultimately makes it so difficult to look at the rook in any meaningful capacity, because the immensity of believing anything, of conceiving of anything outside of one’s self is so very frightening, and makes one feel like a newborn deer, wet in the grass, waiting. Of another’s existence, I was utterly afraid.

To protect my small and insignificant world from shattering, to prevent this audacious creature from tearing down my veil, coward that I am, I proceed viewing the rook as a rook, y nada más, and we dance without touching, inches apart, giving and taking when it feels good, until, inevitable, as we all knew, coming just as quickly as it was going, it breaks.

. . .

 

But it was only then that you realized there was something else you wanted. When you’ve eaten cashews next to the flower goddess, all bloody and fresh, in a glass bowl in your bed, when you’ve had the flower goddess in your bed, bloody and new, the placenta in a pretty glass bowl, and after all the hard work, she suckles, and you think there isn’t more you’d like to do in this life, there isn’t more, 

that is until you’re lying down to die, gracefully, at peace, and as you rest your head on your arms, and begin to close your eyes, you see a color you’ve never seen before, or rather, you have seen, but only once or twice before, and but it eluded you those other times, back when you had something to prove, back when this color wasn’t interested, 

and now suddenly, you’d forgotten it, but now suddenly, this color appears on something easy, like a dead dog, when before it was on something difficult, like a cardinal, but now you see it, easy to have, easily attained, and you half heartedly tell yourself not to get up, but your eyes no longer close so readily, and you think, 

well, maybe just one more thing, maybe I have just one more thing to do, could I just take care of that dead dog, could I nurse that dead dog back to life, then that color would not disturb me so, that color would not bother me so, and then I will surely be ready to close my eyes for always, 

so you slink toward it, hands and knees toward it, and on closer inspection, the color is attached to, get this, not a dead dog at all, but your own death, and you find yourself to have been dead a lot longer than you had previously presumed, and your experience of death slips away from you, cheated, and you find yourself at the beginning again, with your own placenta, and your own suckling to do, small and foolish.  

. . .

 

But there wasn’t a way to know, really, if what I was seeing was the moon or the streetlight. It was so bright and high. I was in a garden.

Later, I’d lie down and move between waking and sleeping. In an individual bed too small for the whole family. But there we were. I would startle awake, thinking the baby needed me, but I’d look over, and she’d be sleeping. And I’d startle awake, thinking my daughter needed me, but I’d look over, and she’d be in his arms. And I’d startle awake, having seen my father’s demon, from the shoulders up, turn to me as if on a lazy susan, revealed as if a game-show prize, all red, with its voice buzzing in the front of my skull, having not really said words, but having barked something infernal. And I’d startle awake, laughing until tears formed in the corners of the bed.

A Miyazaki playing from a laptop on the refrigerator. My daughter sleepwalks to the bathroom and falls asleep again in the doorway. I think to move her. I stay. I think to myself, don’t fall asleep on your back. It’s easier for the demon. I tell myself, it’s going to sit on my chest if I don’t roll over. But I don’t roll over. So maybe I’m asking for it. And I laugh at nothing in particular.

I woke to find that the crib was closer to the bed. It was closer to me. It was so close that I had to wonder how close something can be to my body before being considered inside of my body.

I’d said, I’ll flinch when I see the demon. No, he’d said, I don’t think you will. I’ll flinch and go right back, I’d said. I’m far from getting free, I’d said. He’d said, I really don’t think so.

The refrigerator exhaling sounds of wartime, sounds of agony, and I'm giggling. Then, I'm losing my mind. Then, I'm laughing the way lunatics laugh. Then, I'm weeping in the blankets. He's saying, maybe you should go for a walk. I'm making it as far as the garden, and I'm realizing, if he speaks, I will explode. Before, earlier, I’d thought I’d heard his voice, suggesting the walk, so distinct, so crisp, but if I actually had, if he spoke now, I will disintegrate. And how I am praying for silence, and how I am praying to the streetlight.

Laura Quinnelly is a West Virginian currently living in Morelos, Mexico. Her work has appeared in Lammergeier Magazine, Burning House Press, and Occulum, among others. Her chapbook, Sparrow Pie, is available through Eggtooth Editions.

Verity

Alice

The white rabbit was hurrying down a few paces ahead of you. You could see the chain of its wristwatch bounce again its tuxedo; you considered the way even in such a haze it brushed a paw over its ears, to preserve a professional look. It was indeed very late to see the Queen and you thought that she’d be angry, as she often was. The Queen tended to give one the illusion that she was stuck in some permanent state of rage against the people, made you wonder how she behaved in her personal life, in the quiet safety of her own chambers- whether she laid like a popped-out balloon or she kicked her stools and bedside tables, angry still. The rabbit yelled out of general terror and of its lateness before it jumped down the rabbit hole, casting a look behind only for a moment. Its ears flopped as it fell down and you followed quickly without hesitation. You crawled at first, a few paces, and then you fell, clutching the metal of your weapon so that it did not bang against the walls.

You fell slowly even when you realized you were falling. You could hear the rabbit squeaking somewhere beneath your feet and thought of dropping something to see how deep the hole was, but decided against it. Your blue and white dress waved all around like a flag on a summer’s day, the heels of your shoes dragged against the walls and your blonde hair almost floated above your head as if you had been trapped in some magical illustration. You fell in a pile of leaves and almost shouted, but caught yourself at the last moment: a hunter should never betray their position. Your back hurt only a little and you stretched your arm, furrowed your tiny brows and tightened your hand around the gun. That damned rabbit had no chance of escaping you.

“Oh dear, oh dear, I’m going to be late,” the echo of its voice reached your ears, and how those blue eyes widened and the knuckles of the hand turned white against the cold metal. Small heels clinked against the marble floor like wine glasses- and down you ran, rushed as fast as the wind, rolling across a corridor that seemed endless, switching shapes like those big mirrors they have at the circus. You took a turn here, another one, said a hasty word or two aloud and there it was, the white rabbit, right near a curtain small and red.

It had spotted you, thrown its white gloves far away and was fumbling for the key, shaking whole, its ears trembling like leaves of autumn trees, its paws dragging a small key out of its pocket as in manic agony it attempted to fit it through the tiny keyhole of the short, round door that lead to the garden- lovely garden, vivid one, beautiful, painted an hour ago. But it was afraid, too much, and its whiskers were falling off and its whole fluffy body was run through by waves of terror. It pleaded for its life in broken whimpers, it swung its wristwatch as a silly weapon -harmless before your power- and the key stood steady in its sweaty paws; but you were too fast for it. You aimed straight and low and you held your cartoon head as high as you could, your lips came together in a line and you shot two times, one in the skull and one in the ribs- and there, there, the white rabbit lay dead, conquered. How proud you had felt! The blood pooled, that bright red that seems fake, and you did not think, your empty brain, you were only a pretty girl, a pretty girl with a gun, you were unstoppable.

Verity lives in Wales, and studies English literature and Creative writing at Aberystwyth University. She began writing as a kid and has since been published in After Dinner Conversation and Confluence Magazine.

J. Fisher Christopher

Cole slaw

The violence had gotten obscene. So we did what we always would; we went shopping. Arkansas in the summer is akin to resting upon the face of the sun, so atop the 64 Lincoln’s sub-mental idea of air conditioning my mom opened the windows. We took in the swamp air, and filled the cabin with the odor of good dope and silliness.

The grocery store was a cavalcade of choice. I put boxes of sweet corn sugar cereal into the pit that I had no intention of eating.

When full, we attempted to put our time in against the check-out counter. In her usual rage, my mom had no time to stand. The idiocy of attending was too much for her.

We ducked the line, rolled the cart out of the store, and filled the cavernous trunk with our ill-gotten booty.

As the road rolled under out magnificent wheels, she took the time away from her fuming cigarette to put her long, thin fingers over mine and tell me “I love you”.

They say narcissists have no capacity for love.

I would tell them 

Try it.

J. Fisher Christopher has been working and publishing for the last 20 years, and is also a host of nom de plume. In that time he has had works circulating from Balzac to Berlin. J. Fisher has published 3 formal poetry collections on the Frontenac House label (Death Day Erection, bulletin from the low-light, and iii).

Rhianna (Reese) Dains

Arrival

Two battered wipers swished over the yellowed windshield, splattering rain onto cracked asphalt in heavy sheets. The steering wheel thrummed under my fingertips as Ol’ Rusty rumbled down a desolate stretch of road, dim headlights barely illuminating the interstate. Even in the cab with heat blasting, every breath turned to fog. Although I wore the winter jacket my daughter had sent a few years back, the cold made my stomach turn. They usually stayed away in weather like that. 

I was alone out in the rainstorm, coming home after a month on the rig and clenching an unlit Newport between my teeth. The radio wailed static; this was gonna be a long ride. Halfway home, I stopped at a gas station, hoping the rain would clear up. 

The cashier’s name was Carla, written out on a silver tag in blue-black calligraphy. She was young, maybe twenty-five, and probably from the next town over: North Creek, about forty miles out. As she scanned my things, I speculated. 

Maybe the pay is good? Maybe She has a kid at home? Maybe she’s desperate? Maybe she’s alone. Maybe anything.

Carla smiled as she printed my receipt—two packs of Newports, a Slim Jim, and sixty dollars on pump eight. After I had paid, I went and lit up on the curb, hiding from the rain beneath an awning. Car was full, and my jacket was thin, but I didn’t want to keep driving. I just wanted to sit out in the cold and smoke. 

I did a lot of smoking. When I first saw them, I had been lying on the softball field, high off my rocker. I thought it had been a hallucination, which had happened before, but it was real. The cops didn’t believe me, but it was real. I was just the only one who could see them. That didn’t make it any less real. 

Parents made me see a therapist after that. Therapist thought I had a problem—what a load of bullshit. I still wonder about him. My high school therapist. His job must have been hard. He must’ve hated looking at kids and thinking they were just starting up on that slow trajectory to madness. He was probably already feeling it burning in the back of his mind.

And I was thinking about the therapist and about Carla, a girl whose story I had already made up in my head. And I was thinking they might never show up for her. Or maybe the cold would be enough to keep them at bay. Or maybe nothing would ever be enough.

And that’s when I saw them, because they came. They always came.

Two of them, circling in the sky like stars. They shined about half as bright, but the light was a vibrant red, so you knew they were there. You knew they weren’t just stars. They seemed to orbit each other with some gravity that was different from the known. The whole scene—the lights, the rain, the orbit—seemed special. 

Fuckers.

Part of me wanted to just start driving, but it was better to wait it out. They got angry when I didn’t stay to watch, and last time they’d been angry, I’d had to replace Rusty’s whole engine. 

I lit another smoke, this time from the safety of my truck, and watched quietly as they circled closer to each other, falling nearer and nearer to the ground. I had theorized once—back in my theory days—that they needed a partner to perform the lift. After all, people weighed a lot. Less after the arrival, but still a lot. I figured maybe the extra weight and the force of gravity was too much for one of them to handle alone.

The whole thing took maybe twenty minutes, which seemed like a long time. For them, time passed differently. For them, it must’ve only been a couple passing instances. 

They collided in sparks above the dim parking lot, and the world raged in a sudden pound of wind. Rain shrieked through the air, striking against Rusty’s ruby body with intentional violence. From across the concrete, Carla emerged from the station, fearfully clutching her coat in the storm. And she looked right at me, crying out the way they always did. And I didn’t say anything, just watched her face contort in pain from the heated cab of my truck.

And then she was gone. Inhale, exhale. They took her particles with them, but her smell hung amplified in the air long after they had vanished. The smoke made the smell go away, so I lit another Newport, and another. And another. 

Rusty’s radio was playing this shitty song about love, and I thought I would never love because I was toxic and she would never love because she had disappeared. 

When her smell had dispersed, I went back into the gas station and yanked the keys from behind the register. She was smart not to bring them. Smart for me; sometimes, the responsible type would bring the key with them, and I would have to pick the lock.  

In the control room, I took the fire hatchet to the monitor system. Smoke poured. Alarms wailed. Cameras all defaulted to black as Ol’ Rusty and I wheezed down the road. 

Maybe she’ll wake up in a field tomorrow. Maybe she’ll be okay. Maybe they’ll come for her every month. Maybe they’ll never come for her.

Maybe there will be no one to come for.

It was best not to think about this. This, most viable explanation. 

The following month, there was a new cashier at the register. He grinned as I walked in, telling me about all the new deals they had. Hot dog and drink combo, only two bucks. As he took my cash—nothing traceable—I looked up to see Carla’s name removed from the staff registry. 

“Can I get two, actually?” He replied with a ‘sure thing,’ and added another combo to my bill. It seemed like the least I could do. 

Usually, I didn’t hit the same place twice, but I was irritated that day. There wasn’t a reason for it. Things had been good that month. Big promotion at work. Food was better than usual. But the irritation throbbed in my mind all the same.

As I sat on the curb of the gas station, watching the sky, I had to smoke twice as many Newports to keep the edge off, and it seemed like a while before I saw red. 

But they came. They always came.

Rhianna (Reese) Dains is an avid fan of science fiction, theater, and horchata tea. Currently, she's studying Computer Science in New York City. You can find more short fiction and poetry on her Instagram, @rhiannadains.