Horseshoe Literary Magazine

Horseshoe III.ii

What the Night Carries

Christina Wells

1940 Campbellton, pitch black, no streetlights,
a young girl fumbling in the dark. 
All creatures let loose from stable and dreams
to confront her on the gravel streets.

She hears a sidling, dark night shifting,
rustle and step, clack, drum, drag gravel, 
grunts, sighs, and nickers, blows in strange tongues
baffling as rolling in church. 

Night scrapes like chairs across floors,
oars against oarlocks—hinges on doors,
low sounds, soft sounds, wood rubbing wood,
a motor like a small dog’s growl.

She stands still, quiet, hears stomping 
and heavy, one-two, one-two, the devil nearby.
A great shape emerges, brushes her face
with a mouth, prickly and coarse.

Sudden sharp sound, high and low whinny,
a wrecked car trying to start.
A high-pitched call, when she blinks—still dark.
She leans forward, scuff scuff,            scuff scuff

She throws up her hands, feels underside barrel,
night thickens—air becomes body 
forming around her, greasy and smooth,
shadows gather, flank upon flank. 

Pink Plastic Shit Emoji

Patrick O’Reilly

Supposedly 2000 years ago
a carpenter from a backwater
Roman province rose
to enough social prominence
that a book (or several books)
was written about him.
That book claimed he could 
turn water into wine,
stir the blind to see,
cross yards of sea on foot,
and, as one final dazzling trick,
wobble in and out of death.

I don’t know why I’m telling you,
I know you don’t believe in this,
this bullshit.

I do. Ish. I don’t understand
how this (admittedly unlikely)
event is commemorated by these
cheap plastic shells shaped like
the shit emoji in pink, yellow, and blue
that my child has begged for 
on this morning’s trip to the Dollarstore.

I came for tinfoil and dish soap.
The addled twists and meanderings 
that make up history—misunderstandings,
coincidences, near-misses of travellers
who could have clarified translations
or shot each other dead—
they all must align for these significances
to cross each other. No Christ, no Jobs;
no Jobs, no five-headed firm 
of Japanese pixel artists who foresaw your need 
for a toon-eyed shit on your phone.

None of this matters to Jeremy,
now screeching for these hollow turds 
coiled through the long intestine of circumstance, 
screeching and kicking in the eyes of a woman
who wants to know why 
I haven’t resolved the issue
by just Buying. The Goddamned. Poop.

I’ve never used it. I’m a clean person.
Proper. Careful. Squeamish.
A Christian, even. I believe in
the Holy Catholic Church, 
the Communion of Saints, 
the Forgiveness of Sins,
and the promise of Life Everlasting.
Bullshit, probably. I mean, how
to even be? How
should one love God 
but hate everything God’s made?

Saltbox Olive by Angela Antle (Breakwater Books): A Review 

Ebere Petra Onyia

The Saltbox Olive is a quiet but powerful book that explores loneliness, memory, and the silent emotional struggle people carry inside themselves. In this novel, Angela Antle blends family mystery with war history, showing how the past continues to shape the present. The story begins with Caroline Fisher, a woman living in Newfoundland, who discovers that her grandfather burned the letters written by his brother Arch during World War II. This act of destruction raises questions that Caroline cannot ignore. Why would her grandfather erase his brother’s words? What secrets were hidden in those letters? Caroline’s search for answers becomes the frame of the novel, guiding readers into a journey that moves between modern Newfoundland and wartime Italy, taking us back to the 1940s.  

One of the strongest themes in Saltbox Olive is the idea of family secrets and intergenerational silence. Caroline’s grandfather tried to erase Arch’s story by burning his letters, but the act only created more questions. The theme also applies beyond Caroline’s family. Many Newfoundland soldiers returned from Italy carrying trauma they rarely spoke about. Their silence meant that communities, and even the province’s collective memory, lost parts of their history. The novel demonstrates that breaking silence is an act of love, a way of honoring those who came before. Caroline’s determination to uncover the truth shows how later generations often carry the responsibility of remembering what others tried to forget, suggesting that history is not just about nations or battles. It is about families, and the stories they choose to tell or hide. 

Another important theme is the nature of war and memory. Antle emphasizes that war is not only about strategy or victory. It is about the individuals who lived through it, the choices they made, and the scars they carried home. Beaming the torchlight on Newfoundland soldiers in Italy, Antle highlights a part of history that is often overlooked. Many war novels center on famous battles or well-known generals, but The Saltbox Olive gives attention to ordinary soldiers and their families, reminding us that history is built from countless personal stories. Arch and his comrades are portrayed not as distant figures but as real men whose experiences shaped their lives and the lives of those around them. 

The novel is rich with voices. The narrative moves slowly, giving readers time to sit with the emotions. Caroline’s perspective anchors the modern-day search, but the past is told through Arch, his comrades, and others whose lives intersect with theirs. Min, a woman who reads tea leaves, adds a sense of mystery and wisdom, connecting everyday life with deeper truths. Barbara Kerr, a war photographer, captures the reality of conflict through her lens, reminding us that war is not only fought but also remembered through images. Italian partisans like Lucia and her son Cosimo show how civilians were caught in the middle of violence, resisting occupation while enduring loss. This layering of voices makes the novel feel like a tapestry, where each thread adds to the larger picture. 

Antle writes in a way that is emotional. The characters are drawn with care and her language is simple but powerful, making the novel accessible while still carrying deep meaning. Antle succeeds in making readers feel the pain of war and the weight of family secrets. She brings to life the little-known story of Newfoundland soldiers in Italy, giving attention to a history that deserves recognition. She uses symbols to connect past and present. The olive tree that arrives at Caroline’s door becomes a link to Italy and to memory itself. The saltbox house, a traditional Newfoundland home, represents family and heritage. These symbols remind readers that history is not abstract; it lives in objects, places, and everyday details. 

On a literary level, The Saltbox Olive matters because it tells a story that connects personal memory with collective history. It shows that the past is never truly gone; it lives on in families, in stories, and in the questions that remain. It also argues for the importance of storytelling. As Min character says, “Stories are how we tell people we love them.” Recovering Arch’s story and the voices of other soldiers, Caroline reconnects her family to its past. Antle’s novel gives voice to those silenced men and women, showing how important it is to preserve their stories. 

Angela Antle deserves recognition not only for the story she tells in The Saltbox Olive but also for the care and skill with which she tells it. Her ability to weave family mystery with war history shows a rare talent for balancing emotion and fact. Readers who enjoy novels that connect past and present will find her work both moving and memorable as this book offers a powerful experience. It is not just about soldiers; it is about the people who remember them, the families who carry their stories, and the way history continues to live in everyday life. I would strongly recommend Angela Antle to anyone looking for an author who writes with a deep respect for history.

But I Hate Gardening

Paul Moorehead

The garden’s locus
is a bush of aureate peonies.
Some years I remember
to deadhead this glory.
But mostly it is neglected.
In this climate
it scarcely needs watering,
I tell you. The drudgery
of my father’s garden, my small hands
picking rocks from soil, auguring
holes for fence posts.
Raspberries at the end
a reward hardly deserving
the labour: raspberries
grow anywhere, without omen,
without tending. My garden
is now strangled with morning glories
as beautiful
as any serial murderer.
The peonies endure.

Redemption

Mara Adamitz Scrupe

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook – Oliver
Goldsmith

At first there were roses in every imaginable shade
droplets clinging to the petals’ tips blushed
viscid. Or mine as I am
at once the lure & the contagion –
& there may have been heed or a play at bother
just enough to cover it over in attrition or surrender.
& there was no mother for redemption
only the undersides the dark parts
cut loose for my betterment for my own good.
*
once in doubt as though the wholeness of creation
is verdant figment: arms outstretched/ hands oblate upraised
& the garden nothing but a holdover of birth &
rotundal brace – an azure glaze of hindsight – once
when my mother was eight years old & big enough
to drive the tractor her favorite thing was to lie on the sowed
ground of her father’s alfalfa field arms & legs widespread
the clouds’ bumps & birds & bruises eavesdropped against
her vulnerability she said all she thought of flight
was escape
& I huddled tight to the asphalt shingles – my haunt a shack
a mansion – my hiding roost of height & angle once
I considered: either/ or this way or that I thought
of love letters or distant paeans of fragments & scraps
tanned leather hides anonymous messages from an unknown
admirer left in a library carrel once a novice
I held these gifts kept & conserved them in safeguard
against the ledge the inevitable slump & tumble
of coupling – vinculum – the stroke or embrace: the binding
of the end-of-the-road consummation

One Man and His Machete

Derek McMillan

There was a time when a decent burglar (if there is such a thing) would wait until the family was out or at least try to burgle the house quietly without disturbing anybody. Not anymore. Machete Man will break into a house, usually with a friend; he will demand money, cards, and pin numbers and he will start hacking off body parts if he doesn't get them.

Of course, this couldn't possibly happen in Durrington. Except that apparently it had.

“A couple in Dartmoor Close, Durrington were robbed by two thieves wielding machetes who broke into their house and demanded money with menaces on Monday night between the hours of ten and eleven. The police are appealing for witnesses,” More Radio announced.

Micah and I were sitting in the Black Cat having breakfast.
“It would have been dark and the street lights are coming on later and later as part of an economy drive,” Micah observed. “I live here because it is a nice place where this sort of thing does not happen. Be quiet, Craig.”

I hadn't thought of saying anything at this point.

“It's not our case obvs, but we can't let this go.”

She had picked up the use of “obvs” for “obviously” from a niece and I was quietly waiting for her to drop it again.

“So, what can we do?”

“Well, we could at least ask around.”

For me “asking around” usually meant a phone call to Sekonda. To Micah, it usually meant illegally accessing police information. Still, each to their own.
That evening as we were tucking into Spaghetti Bolognese (my spag bol is of surpassing excellence if I say so myself) we compared notes.

“The man's name is Lech Bocks. That is to say, the victim's name. I don't know Machete Man's name. Not yet.” Micah began.

“He was bullied at school by people who wanted to see if he could box. Children can be very cruel,” I added.

Micah nodded.

“His partner is called Tayla Match.” Micah was making notes.

“Actually, his wife. She just kept her maiden name for obvious reasons. Too many jokes just begging to be told,” I said.

Micah also had their dates of birth and various other data.

“Machete Man had a strong Glaswegian accent. His accomplice was the silent type. Average height, average clothes; average everything really. The balaclavas were knitted.”

“Anything else?”

“Their bank account confirms that they took out all the money from it on the day of the robbery,” Micah paused.

I waited and eventually she continued.

“I looked back over the last few months. The lion's share of their incomes from the County Council (Tayla) and from Barclays (Lech) were transferred to a numbered account. The name of the account-holder was a money-lender, Simon Dangerfield. His rates of interest would make Shylock's eyes water.”

“Does that make him a suspect?”

“Yes and no. If they defaulted on a payment, then he would have to make an example of them. On the other hand, if they kept up the payments, he would be the last person to rob them. Although he is a nasty little man.”

I “accidentally on purpose” bumped into Lech at the Crown. It is not a pub I would frequent for choice. The carpets are filthy.

I couldn't take Barker because they banned dogs. In any case, I think he would need a bath after contact with that carpet. Nevertheless, we did discuss dogs. Lech owns a Staffie called Jaruzelski. Jaruzelski had a number of little habits which were cute or irritating depending on your perspective.

We went on to talk for a while about Brexit and the state of the nation but he was bound to mention his recent experience as an example of the latter.
He did.

“You know about my run in with the Machete Man? It's a sign of how this country has gone to the dogs. You ought to feel safe in your own home.” He raised his voice and got sounds of approval from other customers who had clearly heard the story too.

“Yes, I saw it in the papers. It's appalling. Have the police got anywhere?”

“What do you think?” he asked.

I kept my thoughts to myself so he continued, “It's like that time the police toilets were stolen. They've got nothing to go on. I didn't get a proper look at the criminals. They seemed a couple of average guys in terms of height and weight and what have you. I never saw their faces because they wore those knitted balaclavas. They were dressed in black except their trainers, which were both white and both identical.”

“You can see I've had to go through all this for the cops, for all the good it’s done. Someone can just break into your home and threaten you and then get away with it.”

I offered to buy him a drink and he ordered an improbably large whisky before taking his leave.

“He's had a terrible time,” one customer confided in me. “Been too frightened to come out of the house, so it's good to see him here. He probably needed that shot to summon up the courage to go home.”

Our next information about Machete Man, as the papers were calling him despite the fact there were two of them, came from an unusual article on the Worthing Herald website.

“Officers of Adur and Worthing Council got more than they bargained for when a case of fly-tipping was reported in a Durrington car park. The item was a refrigerator but when they opened it, they had to call the police immediately. A body had been cut up to fit into the space. The officers have been off sick with stress since the discovery yesterday.”

“Inspector Tillotson has appealed for calm. He would like any information about the dumping of the refrigerator which police believe must have been by the murderer or murderers. He confirmed to us that the mutilations could have easily been the work of a machete and repeated his appeal for the public not to panic.

“There is, as yet, no information about the identity of the corpse but DNA, fingerprinting and dental records are all being consulted. The police are also interested in any reported or unreported missing persons.

“Is this the work of the Durrington Machete Man?”

The following day there was an interview with the man who reported the fly-tipping. Mr Baron was unable to provide much information.

“Well, I think it was Saturday, but it might have been Tuesday because I always like to take the dog for a walk on those days; but it might have been Wednesday. Any day really. I just saw the fridge. I can assure you I know nothing about the...well you know...inside it or I wouldn't have reported it. I like to keep myself to myself you know.”

“Nowt so queer as folk,” Micah commented on this, adding, “I think we might have a little chat with Mr Baron and see if we can clarify his reminiscences.”

The “little chat” wasn't straightforward. We took Barker because he is good for breaking the ice. Unfortunately, Mr Baron's Shih Tzu Oswald was having none of it and started up a barking which could have wakened the man in the fridge.

“I've said all I'm going to say.”

He started to shut the door. Micah said, “Ah, Mr Baron I think you might have been traumatised on finding out the contents of the fridge, and you might be entitled to compensation.”

It's a lovely word, 'might' isn't it? All sorts of things might happen so Micah wasn't actually lying, she wasn't exactly telling the truth either but it did the trick.

“I suppose you'd better come in.”

“It would help us considerably if you could just show us the place where you saw the fridge and then we can come back and fill in some forms. We need a few details.” Micah smiled.

“I'll show you. I'll bring Oswald. He needs a walk and he won't bark at your dog so much if they are both on common ground and not in Oswald's home.”

We walked the short distance to the car park. It was bordered by a small area of trees and there was a fair amount of rubbish strewn around.

“You see what I mean. People treat this as a tip. The council are always coming round to clear it, mainly because I ring them up. As you can see it is a labour of Sisyphus. All this rubbish has been left here since the council cleared the area a couple of days ago.”

“The fridge was just here. It was lying on its back. I suppose the door might have come open if it were upright and that would have been ghastly. I reported it to the council.”

“Was this the same day?”

“No it was the day after.”

“Do you ever watch the TV? Did you see Line of Duty?”

“Come to think of it, I did watch it.”

“Was that on the same day as you found the fridge.”

“No, it was the day before.”

Micah made a note in her notebook. We talked about Line of Duty on the way back and then Micah produced some official-looking claim forms which she filled in for Mr Baron. We had the date, the time and the fact that he had never seen the fridge there before so we could pinpoint when it arrived at least.

“Do you have any ideas about who might have dumped it?”

“No, I told the police that I hadn't seen it being dumped. It would have taken quite a sturdy vehicle to carry the weight though.”

When we got home there was more news on the Worthing Herald website.

“The body that was found in a refrigerator in Durrington has been positively identified by DNA as that of Mr Simon Dangerfield, a prominent local businessman. He has no family and therefore he had not been reported missing. His business associate, Mr Eric Green, was unavailable for comment but it is understood that Mr Green will be taking over the business.”

“It couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke,” Micah said, “I suppose I'll have to take him off the list of suspects. He couldn't have chopped himself up into fridge-sized bits. However, apart from the people who owed him money, my main suspect would be this Green character. He is taking over a dirty but lucrative business.”

“The people who owed him money?” I asked.

“We will have a devil of a long list and I have a sneaking and quite unprofessional sympathy for anyone who kills a money-lender. Green is a different case of course. We will see if he will talk to us. We could be shopping around for a loan.”

“Those blood-suckers are not really for people who can afford to shop around,” I began.

“Any better ideas?”

For Micah, my silence implies consent so we got Green's address from a card in the newsagent's window and went round to see him.

Mr Green lived in one of the posh houses in High Salvington. He looked the part of a businessman but there was something unpleasant about him which gave away what a nasty business he was involved in.

“Now then, Mr McLairy, Mrs McLairy, can I offer you a cup of tea?”

We accepted the offer and sat down on seats to which the misery of Mr Green's clients seemed to cling. That may have been my imagination. In fact, Micah tells me it definitely was.

“Now, I know full well you are not interested in borrowing money from me. I am sure the Durrington Detective Agency has plenty of resources so that set me thinking about what you are here for,” he began.

“You know of my unfortunate partner's demise. I can assure you that I have a perfectly good alibi for the time of the murder. Still, there is nothing so suspicious as a good alibi, eh Craig?”

His laugh was not pleasant to listen to.

“How did you two get on?” I asked.

“He was a good boss. I had no complaints on that score. I could wish his records were in better order so I could continue to provide the same service to the community as Mr Dangerfield, but there it is. I am sure there will be new clients to take the place of Mr Dangerfield's list.”

“The list is missing?”

“As I said. Don't make me repeat myself.”

“He kept it on him?” Micah asked.

“He was old fashioned like that. All records in a little black book. It is sadly missing which will not make this changeover easy, Mrs McLairy. Now, if you have no other questions, I am a very busy man.”

“A supremely nasty man, but can you see him wielding a machete?” I asked as we made our exit.

“He would have got somebody else to do that,” Micah said. “I can imagine him giving the order though.”

An hour later, Micah looked up from her laptop and shook her head.

“He makes no use of social media, he does not use online banking, he does not have an email account. If he has a computer, it is not connected to the internet and he only uses his mobile phone for calls," she said.

“A complete dinosaur,” I said.

“Well, he should suit you then.”

Barker always likes a ride in the car so I took him up to High Salvington. I parked at some distance from Mr Green's house. This was going to be a long job.

I was a bit surprised when my phone started vibrating.

“Hello, McLairy, Green here. Listen, High Salvington is quite a nice neighbourhood. We don't want you and your smelly Durrington dog around here. Just thought I'd tell you the police are on their way and if there is any more stalking from you, I will have an Anti-Social Behaviour Order slapped on you and have that dog put down. I'm quite friendly with the magistrates around here, you know. Now, be a good fellow and buzz off.”

I didn't know how much of that was bluff but I didn't hang around to find out.
“Sekonda?”

“I see you are looking into the unfortunate demise of Dangerfield.”

How Sekonda knows these things, I don't know. I suspect witchcraft but she has been very useful to us in the past.

“Do you know anything about Eric Green?”

“I know enough to keep well away from him. He isn't violent. Not now anyway but in his youth, he was a vicious tearaway. He was inside for actual bodily harm for two years but usually his victims refused to prosecute because they were frightened of the consequences. It was his girlfriend who was prepared to give evidence.”

“Do we know why?”

“We found out six months later when the girl died. Beatings from Green had accelerated her death by several years, according to Dr Winter. He was a half-decent doctor in those days remember. The windbag years came later. Green doesn't need to do the heavy side of the job any more. He has a young Walt Alderman for that. He drinks at the Egremont and he usually drinks alone. I hope that is useful.”

“As ever, Sekonda. Shall we say fifty quid's worth of useful?”

“You're too generous. No, I take that back. Fifty is just right.”
Sekonda laughed.

“My mother told me never to talk to strangers,” was the disappointing response from Walt Alderman when I caught up with him in the Egremont.

“I wondered if you fancied a game of cards,” I suggested.

“For money?”

“You can't play cards for money in a pub without a gambling licence,” I said, taking out the pack of cards.

“What's the point then?”

I tried my last resort. “Fancy another?”

It usually works.

We settled down with our drinks and I eventually got him playing a game of rummy. He was very bad at it. I let him break the rules by taking back a few cards he had unwisely discarded but he was still bad at it.

We talked about Brexit and whether it would ever come to anything and the state of the country. This seemed as good a way as any of introducing the body in the fridge.

“Did you hear about that guy whose body was found in a fridge?”

“No,” was his surprising reply.

He read a text message on his phone and suddenly smiled at me like an Alsatian who wanted me for dinner.

“Oh,” he said, “I know all about you now, Mr Craig McLairy. Thanks for the drink but you can run along now and take your cards with you.”
He threw his hand on the floor. I left it there. I wasn't going to get within kicking distance of him.

When I got home, I could tell something was wrong. Micah doesn't look stricken by qualms often. She asked a few perfunctory questions about Alderman and nodded absent-mindedly when I replied.

It was over the shepherd's pie that she decided to unburden herself.

“You know Lech and Tayla claimed to have been robbed in their own home. 
They took all the money out of their bank account to give to the robber and that meant they couldn't pay Dangerfield.”

I noticed her use of the word “claimed” and nodded.

“Well, there's more to it than that. They could stall Dangerfield if they said they had been robbed but not indefinitely. He would demand his pound of flesh soon enough and no sob stories would stop him.”

“Do you think they weren't robbed?”

“I know they weren't. I have been keeping tabs on their bank account. It is surprisingly easy. The bank should be more careful. However, the point is that all of the stolen money has been returned.”

“The man with the machete?”

“A work of fiction, but one that became real after the event. The most likely explanation is that they chopped up Dangerfield, either separately or jointly. My money is on jointly because of the logistics of chopping up a body and putting it in a fridge.”

“Well, we should hand this information over to Inspector Tillotson ASAP,” I said without much hope that Micah would go along with this.

“They killed a money-lender.”

“And you agreed it was unprofessional to let the nastiness of the victim prevent us from pursuing the killer.”

“It wasn't our case, Craig. We didn't have to do anything about it. And the means I used to get the information were illegal. You know what this means.”

“It means we can't hand the information over to the police because they can't use the evidence.”

“They can apply for a court order to investigate the bank accounts, but they have no reason to investigate the Bocks family. I'm sorry, Craig, we will have to leave the police to work this out for themselves.”

Within six weeks, Lech Bocks confessed to his crime, gallantly absolving Tayla of all blame. She had, in fact, departed from the country. A clever lawyer tried to argue that the balance of his mind was disturbed. The jury concluded, however, that you don't need to be insane to want to chop up a money-lender.
In prison, Lech wrote a bestseller about his experiences. The profits were donated to Citizens' Advice.

Rooms

Fiona Hartmann

I dared not venture too deep into your heart
and make a home within its chambers
to keep time to your cardiac rhythm
and compose a new calendar of a year.

I’d learn the new seasons of your body—
your fertile spring and feverish summer,
the ruddy autumn flush and the cold sweat
of winter that shivered for heat.

To remake the seconds to the pumped pulse of the aorta
begging to burst into a fountain 
for the festive spectacle of my homecoming.

But I never made it past the door
of your ribcage. I was outside
waiting for the white hinges
to crack open. 

What Now Looks Like

Martina Reisz Newberry 

Pain-tinted, like blood on hay,  
the mystery being  
     who died here? Who was hurt  
     on these dry grasses?  
 
Some invisible life ended in a  
sweet-smelling pile  
     of oats or barley  
     or wheat or all three  
 
or any of these. The earth hugged  
and smothered a life which,  
     in frantic flurries of desire,  
     wondered (maybe out loud),  
 
It all comes to this? The footsteps,  
the spattering of rain?  
     The calls come down from  
     the canyons and the coos  
     of Eurasian Collared Doves  
     sit on scents of bacon  
     and buttered toast  
 
drifting across back yards all over Los Angeles.  
     Some covert life appealed to heaven,  
     to the God of Small Things,  
     to Mother, to whomever  
 
might be standing outside the heap.

Whispering In Tongues From A Place In Her Heart… 

Martina Reisz Newberry 

from the poem Half Japanese Buddhist Daughter: A Poem of Love to Mother
 by Francesca Biller 

Every mother’s story is a story of need: 
theirs, hers, the household’s, the great world’s. 
Her imagination has been her worst fail: 
chimerical visions of danger, misdeed, fright, illness, grief. 

Her body has not sufficed, 
her love has not been enough (important people told her this). 
Her understanding and patience 
failed. Her parenting style was a poltergeist

at best, malarial at its worst. Every 
memory aches with her wrongdoing. God or 
the universe or her own mother let her 
know beyond all knowing (this in reverie)

what she ought to have been and what she was not. 
She read the books the experts wrote, listened to 
what the speakers spoke, purchased and heard the tapes, 
kept the appointments, permitted everything.

The struggle to believe, the deconstruction on
the road to wisdom was the road she followed; 
the signs were painted by all the mothers she 
ever knew. They pointed just one direction:

See the sign. The pop-art finger shows one path:
This Way In. This Way Out. Beware of Quicksand.
All Damages Paid At the End of this Road.
All Sins Confirmed By Your Offsprings’ Frozen Wrath.

The Man Who Looks Like Himself

Duncan Gammie

“Cursed child,” the parents tossed the boy into the basement. “And don’t you come out until you find the man who looks like yourself!” Then, they shut the door behind him. The boy raced up the steps and struggled with the handle, but it was too late, the door was locked and there was no getting out. He pounded his little fists on the door and wailed for them to return, but no one was coming to save him. Fretful, he collapsed on the steps, weeping bitterly, hugging himself for warmth.

He hardly knew how much time had passed when he finally opened his eyes, sniffled, and figured that, if he could not get out, then he would have to go down to contend with this dreadful task, and find the man who looked like himself. The stairs below were dimly lit, narrow, winding and steep. With one tentative foot after another, he followed the staircase down, down, deeper into the basement.

The stairs led him to a room. This room was bare and made of concrete, and there was a man sitting on a chair in the center, his back turned to the boy. The ceiling was high, and there was a tiny hole in it, through which leaked a small, persistent drip of water. The chair the man sat in had a lopsided seat and disproportionate arms and legs, which forced him to curve his spine and hunch his shoulders to maintain his position.

“Excuse me, sir,” the boy said, “Are you the man who looks like myself?”

The fellow turned his head to see who had called, wincing from the strain on his neck, evidently not having moved in some time. “Heavens, no! I am a prisoner.”

“A prisoner?” the boy asked. “This is a prison?”

“Of course not!” the man chirped. “I like it here; I can leave anytime. But, my leg has fallen asleep from sitting in this chair, so I won’t be moving until that’s fixed. In the meantime, would you like to keep me company?”

The boy shrank from the room’s entrance. “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure? Well, if you don’t know what you want, simply take a good hard look at yourself and ask, what is it that I desire? Here, have a mirror. It’ll help.” He reached for something at his feet and handed it backwards to the boy, who studied it, confused.

“But this is an empty sheet of glass,” he frowned. “I can’t see myself with this at all.”

“Of course not!” the man laughed. “There are no mirrors here. This is a prison, not a vanity parlor. Now, how long would you like to spend in my cell? Ten years? A lifetime?

There are other staircases I can show you, endless labyrinths to occupy your time. Who knows, maybe your man is among them.”

The boy peeked further into the room and noticed a carcass at the prisoner’s feet, putrefying. “What is that?” the boy asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Oh, never mind about that, you’ll get used to the smell,” the man chuckled nervously, edging it out of view with his foot. “To tolerate discomfort is a sign of strength, you know!” Water from the ceiling dripped onto the man’s head. “That ceiling keeps dripping,” he pointed. “Could you help me young man? Could you help me plug the leak?”

The boy glanced at the ceiling. “But I’ll never be able to reach it. Why don’t you move your chair?”

The prisoner furrowed his brow. “If moving my chair did anything, don’t you think I would have tried that by now? Besides, the drip isn’t so bad. We all need our distractions, don’t we?”

“I don’t,” the boy grumbled, “I have to find the man who looks like myself.”

“Me too!” the prisoner exclaimed. “In that case, you’d better stay here. What if he comes looking for you?”

“Why would he come looking for me here?” the boy said. “I thought I had to go find him.”

“Of course you do,” the prisoner nodded gravely. “He’s somewhere in this room, I’m sure of it.”

The boy got the gradual sense that this man was stalling, that he had no answers, and that in fact he was doing everything in his power to prevent him from finding the man that looked like himself. With a rush of courage, he ran away, again following the staircase down, down, deeper into the basement.

The stairs led him to another room. The space was cavernous, with walls that were stacked with shelves of books, rows upon rows, that went so high he couldn’t see the ceiling, only a speck of darkness as they climbed endlessly out of sight. In the corner of the room, at a desk full of beakers and measurements, sat a mustachioed man absorbed in his calculations.

“Excuse me, sir,” the boy poked his head through the door, hardly daring to enter. “Are you the man who looks like myself?”

“Why, no! I am a scholar! Observe my almanacs,” he nodded at the pile of books on his desks.

The boy, not understanding, asked, “Do you know where I can find him?”

“Of course!” the scholar said cheerfully. “All the world’s knowledge is contained in this room. What’s his name? I’ll simply query the database!”

“I’m not sure,” the boy said, biting his lip.

“Why, that’s perfectly alright!” The scholar put on a pair of reading glasses, eager to assist in the hunt. “Simply describe him. What does he look like?”

“I don’t know that either,” the boy shook his head, starting to feel silly. “All I know is that he’s the man who looks like myself.”

“Hmm, that’s tricky,” the scholar frowned. “Just a moment!” He produced a magnifying glass from a drawer in his desk, then started turning the pages of a truly stupendous volume of citations laid in front of him. “Aha!” he said. “It seems the only record of someone who matches that description is from the following incident. Not too long ago, the parents of a young boy, upset with his behavior, threw him into their basement as punishment, refusing to let him out until he did as he was told.”

“That’s me!” the boy exclaimed. “Except I don’t need to do as I’m told, I need to find the man who looks like myself!”

The scholar chuckled, “Silly boy, you must have misheard them.” He then removed his reading glasses, turning serious. “So you mean to tell me that you’re the boy in this story?”

“I am!” the boy jumped, exuberant that someone could recognize him.

With huff, the scholar closed the volume on his desk. “Then go away!” he scolded the boy. “I am an occupied professional. I can’t let naughty children disturb my studies.”

The boy darted out of the room, ashamed of whatever it was that he had done, again following the staircase down, down, deeper into the basement.

In the next room, he found a guru in a velvet robe, arms spread, eyes glazed, an empty smile fixed on his face, welcoming the boy into his fold. “Kneel,” he commanded him. “I am the man who looks like yourself.”

The boy, learning now to trust his instincts, ran away from this stranger, following the staircase down, down, deeper into the basement.

In the next room, he found a king size bed, with a nightstand and lamp on either side of it. Sitting upright under the covers was a woman in her pajamas, wearing a pair of ear plugs and a black eye mask, though she was holding a book and seeming to read it.

“Come to bed, honey,” she said. “The man who looks like yourself will be here in the morning.”

Once more, the boy ran away, following the staircase down, down, deeper into the basement. This time, however, he decided not to stop on the stairs at any of the other rooms he found, until he made it to the bottom. Down into the basement he went, a slow, steady, patient digging, all the way down, deeper than he had ever wanted to go.

The rooms he passed on the way were colorful and loud, some hideous, some tempting, but the boy continued on his path until he got to the bottom.

When the stairs at last leveled out, and there was nowhere deeper to go, he found a narrow corridor. The walls were plain, the floor was bare, and at the end of it stood a doorway shrouded in a grey curtain, with faint glimmers of light shining around the edges. A guard in a full suit of armor stood in front of the passage.

The boy walked to the end of the corridor, and before he could go any farther the guard raised his spear. “Halt!” he yelled. “You cannot pass. The man who looks like yourself is behind that curtain.”

The boy faced the point of the spear and struggled not to cry. “But that’s who I’m looking for.”

“But do you have the key?” the guard asked, refusing to budge.

“What key?” the boy asked. “It’s a curtain, isn’t it? Why would I need a key?”

“If you don’t have a key, you’ll have to go find one. You won’t be ready to meet him without one. He’s a dangerous man, you know, you mustn’t upset him.”

The boy could feel himself shake with adrenaline. He couldn’t wait any longer for some secret key that might not come. “I have to go see myself,” he said, and sidestepped the spear, slipping past the man in his suit of armor, which must have weighed heavily on his frame, for his movements were slow to respond.

The boy was in front of the grey curtain now. It was a light, breezy cloth, much lighter than the boy expected. He could lift it in an instant, he knew, but now that he was on the threshold, he hesitated. The guard could be right. This unknown man who he’d been looking for could, after all, be the last person he’d want to meet. It was an absurd task anyways. Why should finding a man who looks like himself help him escape from anywhere?

The guard had almost fully turned to face the boy, and was raising his spear to prevent him from going further. The boy couldn’t stand still, he had to choose, and for whatever inspired reason, he decided to risk the unknown. He threw back the curtain, his vision flooded with light, and he passed to the other side.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw that he was no longer in the basement. The only ceiling above his head was the tranquil, expansive, cloudless blue sky.

It Speaks

Brooklyn Young

Listen to the wind, 

It speaks to you. 

You’re not alone, 

Listen to the wind… 

It’s all right there, right in front of you, right there in your own mind. 

Each day the sun rises, each day the sun sets, 

And each day there is meaning in your steps. 

Each day, we remember. 

The small echoes of children’s footsteps, silenced too soon. 

The laughter stolen, the languages hushed, 

But still if you just listen its carried with the wind, 

Echoing loud and clear. 

The drums may have been quieted, but never stopped. 

They go on in each heartbeat, in each sway of the trees, 

We remember, we don’t forget. 

As the wind speaks to you, reminding you, painting a picture, 

Of the story, 

The story of the ones, taken too soon. 

They tried to bury them beneath cold walls, 

But our roots grew stronger in the dark. 

The wind carries, the land remembers. 

Listen to the wind, it carries our truth. 

It carries our strength, 

It carries us home. 

So listen 

Listen… 

The wind speaks to you. 

Cherry Compote

Elana Wolff

You’re standing on the ladder
at the cherry tree and reaching—into the dark
serrated leaves, sliding

the ripened clusters into the bowl
you’ve brought to the ladder-top.
I’m predictably dizzy

down below, predictably stiff:
my movement stilled to thinking of what if …
a block falls, somebody’s crushed—

the neighbourhood, the city,
everything in it …
My left hand on the ladder, right on you—as if

I’m holding you up.
I’ve sometimes thought of you happier elsewhere,
what if we’d never met?

Take the bowl. It’s full, you say,
and hand it down to me. Whatever’s left in the tree
is for the creatures.

I strip the stems and leaves and place the cherries
in a pot, add water. Boil, simmer,
mash. The pearly pits, released from their skins,

sit like shrunken skulls in crimson flesh.
I strain them out, but what if
one remains to crack a tooth—whose would it be …

A silly thing to think and then for some reflexive reason
I think of Pearl who told me out of the blue—
one day while we were chatting—that she sometimes breaks

into frantic
laughter she can’t control

till she chokes.

THE SEAL

Renée D. Bondy

Gabriel looked out the window of the train at the blurry landscape and thought about his parents, the shop, the Blessed Virgin standing watch over them, and wondered when he would see them again. They would be waiting, surely; but would they be the same, or would time alter them ever-so-slightly, like water over stone? For most of his life, Gabriel had believed that some things are unchangeable, as fixed as the genetic code that determined his curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and birthmark. Decreed by biology. Or God. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Gabriel’s birthmark was lighter at birth, but clearly defined. Marie-Claire was the first to see it. She came from hardy stock and had been catching babies in L’Étoile du Nord for decades, but when Gabriel emerged from his mother, slippery and wet, the midwife’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her chest. The birthmark was directly over his heart: a purple cross, about five centimetres in length. A non-believer might have seen the letter T; or a crossroads; or even a blunted dagger. But Marie-Claire saw the cross for what it was – the symbol of divine redemption.

She managed the situation expertly. Had someone of lesser skill been on duty that night, it’s hard to say what might have happened. But Marie-Claire remained calm and, instead of laying the infant naked at the breast, she took the writhing pink boy and swaddled him snugly in a receiving blanket before handing him to his parents, Henri and Madelaine.

“He is a gift. A precious gift from God,” said Marie-Claire.

“We know,” Henri said, bursting with pride.

“Remember this moment,” Marie-Claire said, then quickly tidied the room and left the new parents to coo over their infant son.

When Marie-Claire returned, she offered to change the baby.

“His name is Gabriel,” said Madelaine. “Like the angel.”

“That’s a fine name,” said Marie-Claire as she lay little Gabriel in the bassinette and loosened the receiving blanket to reveal the cross. “Look here. Gabriel has a lot to live up to.”

“Mon Dieu!” Henri whispered.

“Have you ever…?” said Madelaine, tracing the cross with the tip of her finger.

“He is a special child.” said Marie-Claire. “Blessed.”

Henri and Madelaine told no one about the birthmark. Then, on the day of his christening, when Father Charet loosened Gabriel’s gown to anoint his chest with chrism, he saw the cross and gasped. “It is a sign,” the old priest said. “A seal.” Then he held little Gabriel high over the font for his aunts and uncles, cousins, and eighty-two-year-old grand-mère to see. Their collective intake of breath was like a sudden gust of wind on a still day, a sure prediction of a change in the weather.

Father Charet cleared his throat, then proclaimed: “It is written in the Song of Solomon: ‘Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.’ Gabriel is the fulfilment of the scripture. A sign for us all.”

As was their custom, the family gathered at Henri and Madelaine’s home after the christening. Once the initial shock had eased, once the aunts and uncles, cousins, and eighty-two-year-old grand-mère had marvelled over Gabriel, once the cake and coffee were consumed and everyone went home, the story of Baby Gabriel began to spread. Word of mouth carried it through the town, then beyond.

Beginning the next morning, a steady stream of friends, acquaintances, and strangers arrived on Henri and Madelaine’s doorstep. May I see Baby Gabriel? May I see the seal? May I touch it? Such was the sincerity and devotion of the visitors that Henri and Madelaine felt they must oblige, but their generosity only fueled interest in their special son.

The first healing happened a week after the christening when their elderly neighbour, Madame Villeneuve, laid her gnarled, arthritic hand on Gabriel’s tiny chest. “The heat,” she whispered. When she raised her hand and flexed her fingers, they moved freely and painlessly. “A miracle,” Madame Villeneuve declared. “A true miracle.”

In less than a month, stories of Baby Gabriel’s healing power went viral. Many of the posts were false claims made by people unknown to Henri and Madelaine. Photos surfaced – a few images of Gabriel at his baptism that did not show the birthmark, and several poorly photoshopped images of infant torsos with garish purple crosses. Hundreds of stories circulated about Baby Gabriel’s ability to heal all manner of illness and infirmity. Mail arrived from near and far.

Henri and Madelaine decided to appease the faithful and the curious alike by creating a small card – a holy card, of sorts – with Baby Gabriel’s image. “What harm could come of it?” Madelaine said. Henri and Madelaine sent the holy cards to everyone who wrote. They were in such demand that they ordered a second print run, then a third. Madelaine enlisted her sister, Rose, to help with the mailing.

“I wonder what else people might want,” Henri said one evening as they sat at the dining room table, now piled with cards and envelopes.

When Henri came up with the idea to open a small shop in their living room, Madelaine was skeptical. “Why would we want all those people coming to our house?”

“Those people are pilgrims. They’re going to come anyway,” said Henri. “A shop will occupy them. Look at how popular the cards are. We could sell other items – rosaries and whatnot. We’ll put some money aside for Gabriel’s education, maybe give some to the Church.”

In a matter of weeks, Henri had converted the front of the house into a storefront. In addition to the Baby Gabriel holy cards – which were also available as postcards – the inventory included rosaries and religious medals, plaques, Christmas ornaments, prayer books, and an assortment of small statues of Mary, St. Francis, St. Christopher, St. Joseph, and various other saints including, of course, St. Gabriel. A blue neon sign by the roadside proclaimed BABY GABRIEL’S GIFTS AND DEVOTIONALS, and an eight-foot-tall, illuminated statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms outstretched, welcomed visitors.

People arrived on foot and by car, and sometimes by the busload. Henri quit his job at the sawmill and worked in the shop full time. Before long, he took on an employee to handle the online business. Madelaine agreed to bring Baby Gabriel into the shop for one hour each afternoon at three o’clock, after his nap. For a small donation, visitors could meet Baby Gabriel; for a larger one, they could place a hand on the seal and experience its searing, radiant heat. This often resulted in swooning, fainting, speaking in tongues and various other dramatic outpourings of faith. At first, Henri and Madelaine found this shocking, but in time they grew accustomed to the ecstatic reactions of the pilgrims.

Of course, Gabriel knew nothing different, and except for the birthmark, he was a perfectly normal child in almost every way. He was rosy-cheeked and good-natured. He ate and slept and smiled and crept. He loved strained carrots and disliked cheese. He toddled unaided at eleven months, could say mama and papa and dozens of other words by a year and a half. He climbed and explored and played. His golden hair thickened, and his eyes turned from azure to cyan. He grew taller and thinner and raced up and down the driveway on his tricycle; a year later, he rode a two-wheeler. At school, he earned As in reading and art, Bs in math and science. He learned to skate and played shinny on the pond, but he didn’t swim in the summer with the other children, and no one asked why.

Though Gabriel played hockey in the winter and baseball in the summer and joined in schoolyard games, his friendships were better described as acquaintances. There were no play dates; no birthday party invitations; no sleepovers. Because the town was small and its only significant attraction was Baby Gabriel’s Gifts and Devotionals, everyone knew about Gabriel’s birthmark and his reputation as a healer, and the other children treated him with cautious deference.

When Gabriel was young, his outsider status didn’t bother him. He was accustomed to appearing at the shop after school. Some pilgrims brought toys or trinkets, and Gabriel loved the attention. But as he grew older and the number of pilgrims lessened, and he appeared in the shop only one afternoon per week, Gabriel began to notice that his life was different from his classmates’ in so many ways.

High school widened the chasm between Gabriel and his peers. St. Scholastica’s drew from three other small towns and, though most of the students would have known of Baby Gabriel, they feigned disinterest as they jockeyed for position in the adolescent hierarchy. Though Gabriel was an excellent student and a better-than-average athlete, neither the academically inclined nor the jocks took him in, and the various other sub-strata of the school – the geeks and artsies and partiers – followed suit. Gabriel drifted through the halls like a ghost, neither here nor there.

Then, in the fall of Gabriel’s senior year, a new student enrolled at St. Scholastica’s. Jason was good-looking, bright, and athletic. Everyone wanted to be his friend, and because he was also kind, generous, and outgoing, he befriended them all. Jason had come from Toronto and had never heard of Baby Gabriel. But he took notice of the handsome blonde boy whom no one else seemed to see.

In winter semester, they took the same English class, and Jason chose the desk directly behind Gabriel. While the teacher read the syllabus, Jason stared at Gabriel’s long neck, his buttery curls, the way he shifted almost imperceptibly in his seat every few minutes. When the teacher assigned the major project for the term and said they could work independently or with a partner, Jason saw an opening. At the end of class, he tapped Gabriel on the shoulder.

Gabriel flinched.

“Sorry. I was just… I’m Jason. Would you want to partner up for the project?”

Gabriel barely managed a nod.

“Well, good then. Maybe we could get together after school and choose a topic?”

Again, Gabriel nodded.

“So… your house? Or mine?”

Gabriel didn’t have a cellphone, and he knew his mother would worry if he was late. He cleared his throat. “You can come to my house.”

“Great. I’ll meet you at the front entrance at 3:00.” Jason flashed a gleaming smile, ran his hand through his thick dark hair, and hurried off to his next class.

On the walk home, Jason talked and Gabriel listened. When they reached Baby Gabriel’s Gifts and Devotionals and the larger-than-life Blessed Virgin greeted them at the door, Jason blurted, “This is your house???”  He regretted his tone immediately.

“I – I thought you probably knew,” Gabriel said, head down, eyes fixed on the “Bless This House” welcome mat outside the shop door.

“It’s cool. Really. I’ve heard the other kids say things about how you’re some kind of miracle-worker. I just wasn’t expecting…”

“It’s a long story,” said Gabriel.

When they entered the shop, Gabriel’s mother looked up from polishing a display of dashboard statues, as shocked by Jason’s arrival as he had been by the shop.

“This is Jason,” Gabriel said. “We’re working on a project.”

“Well, isn’t that nice. You boys get started and come down to the kitchen when you’re ready for a snack.” Madelaine’s relief shone brighter than the gleaming St. Christopher statue in her hand.

Upstairs in his room, Gabriel relaxed a little. He and Jason sat on the floor and discussed the project, then their favourite books, surprised at how many they had read in common.

As Jason stood to leave, he noticed a Baby Gabriel holy card tucked into the frame of the mirror on the bureau. “So, that’s you. You’re Baby Gabriel.” It was an observation rather than a question.

Gabriel nodded, blushing. 

“That’s pretty amazing,” Jason said quickly. He waited for Gabriel to make eye contact, then asked, “Can I see it? The seal? I mean, it’s okay if that’s too weird. … I probably shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” Gabriel said. Then he undid three buttons of his shirt and exposed the cross.

Jason stared. Several seconds passed. A minute. Two. “Can I touch it?”

Gabriel nodded.

Jason raised his hand and pressed it to the cross. Their eyes locked. Gabriel felt a searing heat, flowing from Jason’s palm into his chest. It was as though the thermodynamics were reversed, and for the first time, Gabriel felt the sensation that everyone who had ever touched the seal had felt.

Jason’s phone pinged, breaking the silence. “That’ll be my dad,” he said, his hand still pressed to Gabriel’s chest, his eyes still fixed on Gabriel’s.

“What was that?” Gabriel asked, breathless.

Jason leaned in and kissed Gabriel’s parted lips, as gentle as a whisper, as soft as ash.

Gabriel was radiant. Transfigured. Transformed.

The train neared Montreal’s Central Station and Gabriel reached into his pocket to check for the apartment key, as he’d done at least a dozen times on the four-hour trip. Jason would come to Montreal in August, when his tree-planting job ended, and the summer sublet would see them through until September, then he and Jason would move into the dorms at McGill. Gabriel would miss Jason, but knew he needed the month to himself, and his Baby Gabriel money bought him the time. His first laser treatment was scheduled for the next day. He had made the arrangements himself and hadn’t told a soul – not Jason, not his parents. The doctor said it would take at least six sessions for the birthmark to fade, and there would be a scar. But the cross would be gone, the seal broken.

Gabriel made his way through the station and merged onto the sidewalk where he marvelled at the cafés and cigar shops, haberdashers and used booksellers, the buskers and sex workers and panhandlers, all luminous in the city’s gritty, rush-hour heat.

What Was Held

Maggie Burton

I learned I hold back from love 
because you might disappear. 
You might take your flowers back, 
dig my pennies from the floor 
of the wishing well. If I love 
to the limit of language, I will lose 
the edge of the longing night. 
Cherry pits blanket the stage  
on which the poet speaks of loss, 
the tree is armed with ants 
as her words cut me like paper. 
A mosquito bites my hand, draws 
blood from my cold body. 
It is my last day in paradise, I’ll return 
to bruised apples in my green bowl 
passed over by my children. If I love, 
I might find religion, I might find 
that space between words is comfort, 
I might gather you a sack of acorns or 
a bag of abandoned snail shells, I might 
take a piece of the castle wall as proof 
I yearned for home, for you standing 
in your housecoat, pouring milk  
into my cup of coffee. 

Lynx

Joshua Cody

Where interspace and mutations blend,
The Lynx fed his prey a pressing end.

The Eastern Cottontail never found peace 
Easily – a fact rarely grown
On his side of time. As the pointed ears
Narrowed down to his shrunken size,
The fang yellow ends opening before him – 
His breath a hint of past victims
Who had given in to their fearful gleam 
Which crept up before visits from wisdom
Could arrive – spiked through his agile mind.
Defying motion despite heavy memories
Clasping at his hide like ghostly foes,
Advances past the instant, plummets the unknown.

They conclude their chase on tense spires 
And breath forces upon bodily confines,
A ceaseless wheezing cyclically round,
Which takes them eternities to stop.
Whatever wish for growth on other merits,
Such winds that bind them never listen.
Jagged teeth breathe hot fog in patches 
At the feeble creatures’ bristle back.
As his homey hole beckons out of hedges,
He jaunts fiercer than planetary orbits,
Looks for growing signs behind his eyes,
Catches one second, escapes death. 

These moments, cutting the nape 
So suddenly squander a vague mould
The spirit is stuck with, its mauled
Bearings briefly lost beside a clough
That never ceases streaming through years.
With opponent gone, his snout still smears 
A private spring within him,
Always there to keep his gem-sized soul
Dyed with the air of alien days
So straining that their recollections 
Live in him on an oxygen all their own,
Totter through the blasé head, yet never stray.

And below the last wave 
Of wood sounds dying in silence,
A demented tenderness is left 
Between the homely burrows.
The Eastern Cottontail surveys
His wounds like new friends –
Slightly hesitant before flying 
From that furrowed edge of caution 
Into an acceptance more weightless,
Blind and alive – a blessed shadowy 
Gem pervading all blood-soaked trials,
A spirit among this perishable world.

Trip to the Zoo 

Niles Reddick

After lunch, my teen son and I merged onto the interstate, and I noticed a zoo sign coming up at the next exit.  We’d never been to this zoo since we relocated a year ago. “You want to go? We could get some steps in, and it doesn’t look like rain.” 

“I’m down for that,” he replied, and I moved to the exit lane and switched on my blinker. 

After paying the entrance fee, we looked at the map to decide which way to go and what we wanted to see. I’d been to several zoos in my life, as far West as Denver and as far South as Jacksonville, Florida, but he said he didn’t recall having gone to a zoo. 

  “Sure, you have,” I said and named them. He may have been a toddler for his first zoo experience, but I knew of at least two school trips to zoos, including one in St. Louis. 

We saw bears, lions, tigers, and even a couple of massive rhinos. We saw gorillas, a giraffe (the other was hiding even though that is difficult to imagine because of its height), and all sorts of birds. The best bird of all was the blue kingfisher or kookaburra, also known as the laughing bird. A carnivorous bird native to the land down under, its laugh was human-like, and I was enthralled. I could have listened to its laughing sounds all day and felt if I ever wanted another pet, that would be my pick. 

When the pop-up thunderstorm struck, we dashed inside the amphibian exhibit and looked at snakes, lizards, and even crocodiles. Neither of us liked the snakes or crocs and probably wouldn’t have gone in there if it had stayed sunny. I’d suffered a dry snake bite from a Copperhead the previous year while trimming thick hedges in flip flops and didn’t feel comfortable at all even though the snakes were enclosed in heavy glass terrariums. I was proud I didn’t have some sort of anxiety attack. 

When we exited, the storm had passed, and it was drizzling. I used the zoo’s map to cover my head, and my son sported a favorite baseball cap. The newest additions to the zoo were the pandas. I’d probably seen pandas before in a different time and place, but I wanted to see them again.  They were really amazing creatures, so calm, fluffy, and beautiful. They looked like stuffed animals, and I wanted to pet them, play with them, like I had played with my stuffed collection as a child.  

I don’t recall much about the way I might have behaved at the zoo as a child, but the kids I had observed at the zoo seemed to have two modes: either detached and tired, likely from a sugar crash from Icees and candy or wandering aimlessly and zombie-like, or hyperactive and excited from a sugar high, running around in circles or jumping in puddles and splashing anyone near them along the walkway and exhibits. It reminded me of times my son played carefree in the rain or once when I’d lost sight of him at a wedding and found him at the edge of a concrete pavilion, shorts dropped to his ankles, urinating in the rain rushing out of the gutters and falling from the edge of the roof.  

While we stood at the enclosure for the red pandas, it occurred to me that if animals could be sad, then these caged creatures had to be. I was reminded of the PETA commercials on television. My wife couldn’t watch them or she cried at the abuse and mistreatment, but these zoo animals weren’t abused or mistreated. For me, the smells that permeated the air, feces and general stench, combined with the noise pollution from the interstate right next to the zoo was enough to cause anxiety for me and probably them. I imagined that most of them had been removed and imported from their natural habitats in Africa or Asia, calm and serene jungles or wide-open Sahara’s. While zoo employees likely treated them well, kept them watered and fed, being penned in cages was simply not their homes. I imagined the scenes to be like people who have been arrested, charged for crimes they didn’t commit, put away behind prison bars for life, and any freedom coming through their deaths or perhaps a surprise DNA result proving conclusively they hadn’t committed a crime. In a postmodern, technologically advanced world, it seemed fitting to me the time had come to reimagine zoo philosophy altogether. I would imagine conscientious donors might get behind a new concept rather than having benches, cages, or cement pathways named for them. 

The rain had stopped, even though I still held the map on top of my head, when I was pulled from my thoughts to the awareness of several zoo patrons running down the sidewalks, yelling and screaming. One old lady with a bad hip moved up and down the sidewalk, looking back, seeing my son and me. “Hide,” she said. “The tiger is out!” 

“What?” I said to no one in particular.  

There was a ladder to the roof of the red panda’s enclosure I noticed and pointed, “Let’s get up there.” We quickly climbed the fence and scurried to the roof and crouched behind a small tree. At the time, I didn’t think the tiger could get to us, but he certainly could have if he wanted. From a distance, we noticed the stripes of the Siberian Tiger through reeds and other plants. We’d viewed him earlier and got a close-up shot to share with friends on social media. He sauntered down the sidewalk, the path of which circled around a collection of birds and then wound down a hill to the gorillas and further to the giraffes.  He stopped and bobbed his head from one side to another and let out a roar that sent the other animals scurrying within their outside prisons and making loud sounds. We captured the scene on our cell phones. While I readily understood the threat of having a tiger on the loose in a park packed with people, it also sparked in me a sense of fear, satisfaction, and awe all at once, a zoo experience like none other. 

Several motorized golf carts headed around the corner and up the sidewalk with at least two zoo employees with dart guns while the tiger sauntered off into the adjacent woods. He was out of our sight, hidden in bushes and trees, but employees soon caught sight and took aim. Both fired dart guns and the tiger jumped up and moved and then paused, the tranquilizer taking effect, and he toppled over. It was fascinating to watch them muzzle him, bind his front legs and then back legs, lift him onto the back of the cart, and zoom past headed toward the tiger’s compound. 

We climbed down from the panda’s roof, amazed at all of the activity. They were fortunate no one was injured or killed like in other famous zoo escapes in Russia, Spain, Canada, or San Francisco, where two people were bitten and one person died from an escaped tiger. We knew there would be a brief blip on the news. The employee who’d left the gate open briefly while getting supplies would be looking for new employment, and the public would need reassurance before ticket sales picked up. We didn’t buy souvenirs, coffee cups, or t-shirts in the gift shop as we exited. We didn’t need anything to prompt memories of our zoo experience, and I imagined the kookaburra laughing from her pen. 

Darkwood

Dee Allen

The murky stream cuts across
Where crows hide in branches of oak
And children’s lives are lost.

Beware the Darkwood
The place we’re told to avoid
Where the Prophet went hunting—
Four witches were destroyed.

Beware the Darkwood
A girl chased after her ram
Where the Dark Mother’s power is strong
A forest of the damned.

She entered the Darkwood
Alone in this scary place.
Met two witch lovers, a gift was given:
The leather book in Immanuelle’s face.

Again, she entered the Darkwood
Because screams broke her sleep.
Delilah the third witch crept up,
Pulled her into the dark water deep.

Again, she entered the Darkwood
Met Lilith with the horned stag skull.
Immanuelle felt her first bleed and ran—
The evil wood swallowed her whole

Yet she survived the Darkwood
Her mother’s words from the book came true:
Blood. Blight. Darkness. Slaughter. 
Dark Days start anew.

Yet she survived the Darkwood
Now Death will come to call.
When the four plagues reach us,
Bethel—get ready to fall.

__________________________________________________

W: World Goth Day 2025
[ Inspired by the novel The Year Of The Witching by Alexis Henderson. ]

what friendship truly is

Linda M. Crate

your love 
reached out for my 
heart when it was
broken glass,

you didn’t flinch away
from the blood;

you merely mended 
the wound with your 
kindness—

you helped adjust my
crown without telling the 
world that it was 
crooked,

listened to my fears and 
my tears and insecurities
without judgment;

and you’ll never know
just how much i love you

for being the friend
i always wished for when
the world made me feel
little and small and pathetic
and i wrapped my arms around
myself as the lonely girl

who wanted nothing more 
than to be loved—you’re the angel
whose love saves me,
teaches me what friendship truly is.

the choice is yours

Linda M. Crate

i don’t kneel
before any man
nor will i,

you are men
and you bleed the
same as any 
other man;

you are not the gods
that you believe
yourselves to 
be—

i am not your property,
your broodmare, your
side-piece, your wife;

i am magic, 
a soul, 
a star given a 
name and you will see 
i can be a gentle moonbeam
or the fire that burns 
your entire empire down—

the choice is yours.

Happy Birthday, Katy! 

Kira Mackenzie 

Five years ago, I died, and I don’t think anyone noticed. 

I guess I can’t be too upset, because I didn’t do a very good job of acting dead. I got up the next morning and went to school, like nothing was wrong, because I had a massive math test that day, and even when you’re dead, the feeling of academic pressure is endlessly crushing. I got 85%. Not bad for a dead girl. 

Five years ago to the day, I died. 

So, I died that night in my sleep, wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of blue flannel pyjama pants. No bra. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be allowed to change clothes, on account of being dead, but I got up and got changed and I never wore those pyjamas again. Just in case they were tainted. They certainly felt tainted, and I had tripped running home at one point, so the knees were all muddy. Gross. 

But I went to school, and took notes, and raised my hand to answer in class, and I almost forgot that I was dead, until I got to gym class and we had to run the mile and my heart didn’t beat and I didn’t need to breathe. My muscles didn’t ache and my body felt weightless. I had to pretend to be alive to avoid suspicion. Why would I be able to run the mile without effort all of a sudden? The truth was that I died, but I don’t think any gym teacher would take that as an excuse. My zombified limbs could be rotting off and they’d still make me run the mile. 

My heart stopped in my sleep, I think. Just up and gave out. There was a brief stabbing pain that night, and then… nothing. 

I go through all the motions. Yesterday, I filled out some neat and tidy college applications, not that I intend on going, on account of being dead. Part of me is curious if my parents will notice, or if the guidance counsellor would, but nobody sees. I am dead, and the world was none the wiser. 

My cat knows, though. At least, I think she does. Pearl started acting weird the day I died, always batting at me gently with her claws tucked away, curling up in my lap (something she never did, on account of being a jerk), napping on me, never leaving me for very long. Mom made a joke that I must be pregnant, because cats act weird when you’re pregnant, but we both knew I couldn’t be. Dead girls can’t get pregnant. Dead girls also can’t get periods, on account of being dead, so that was a bit of a boon. Never thought I’d miss it. 

I could’ve washed those pyjamas, I suppose, but even that felt wrong. I buried them in the backyard alongside the friendship bracelet I had made for her. There were dead leaves stuck to the bottoms of the pants. 

I knew my parents would miss me, even if they didn’t know I was dead; I could never muster up the courage to let them know. How do you even start that conversation? “Oh, hey mom and dad, yeah, I’ve been dead for five years. Sorry. I can help cover the funeral costs, though. Dollarama isn’t against hiring dead girls, so that comes in handy. I suppose you could bury me, but I’m not really thrilled about the idea. I could just claw my way back up, if that makes you feel better? Or maybe you’d want to have me cremated. Please don’t cremate me. I don’t wanna die again.” Can you even die twice? Maybe we should find out. It’s weird being dead, so being dead-dead wouldn’t be too bad, I guess. 

The night I died, I had snuck home from a sleepover at my cousin’s house. She only lived down the road from me, and once she had fallen asleep, I got up, packed my bag, and left.  

Her mom, my aunt Hanna, caught me in the porch while I was putting my shoes on. “Jasmine,” she said, “the party’s not over.” 

“I wanna go home. Katy doesn’t like me anymore. She never liked me.” 

Her mother nodded, like she knew what her daughter was capable of. “I can call your mom, sweetie.” It always confused me why Katy was like this. Why, when Aunt Hanna was so sweet? What happened when I wasn’t there? 

Before she could do anything, I ran out the door and booked it home. I didn’t realize I left my bra there until the next morning when I, now dead, went to go get dressed. It was a shame. That was my favorite bra. 

The best part about being dead is that you don’t need to breathe, and it’s less of a dead (haha) giveaway than the movies have you believe. I don’t breathe, and nobody notices. Someone rips a horrible fart in class, or the janitor finds spoiled milk of two years in someone’s locker, or another dead deer pops up in the soccer field, and I am blissfully unaware. I can’t smell the boy’s locker room or Axe body spray or vapes coming from the girl’s bathroom because I don’t need to smell. I also can’t be out of breath, because I am never in need of breath. Pretty sweet deal, all things considered. The only smell I really miss is the smell of birthday candles being blown out. 

Pearl knew I was dead, being a cat and all, but I still don’t know if Katy knows. After that night, she never looked me in the eyes, or looked in my direction much at all. If I’m a ghost, which I suppose I am now, Katy’s the skeptic who just can’t see me. Maybe she’s the only person who can’t. I hid a birthday card in her locker one year, just to see how she reacted. She didn’t say anything. Maybe it wasn’t enough. 

Tomorrow, though, Katy is turning eighteen. She’s only a few months older than me. Five years ago to the day, I died, and buried my pyjamas in the backyard. Five years ago, Katy decided I didn’t exist anymore, and tonight, her mom insisted I come over for cake. 

Aunt Hanna has such a lovely cake knife, nice and sharp and perfect for cutting fat slices of her famous double chocolate cake. Katy is precise, careful cuts to expose the inside, no hacking and slashing, but perfect, neat precision. I used to love watching her at work, before she decided we were no longer friends. 

I can almost picture it now: a bright 13, no, 18, on the cake, in bright yellow icing, a cluster of pink candles, dark fudgy icing with round, fat sprinkles in every colour of the rainbow. Katy, cutting the first piece, just as I force her bright blue eyes to meet mine. 

“Hey Katy,” I’ll say, “do you remember your 13th birthday?” 

I can’t wait to see the fear on her face. Maybe Aunt Hannah will catch on. And then I’ll shout, as loud as I can with no working lungs: 

“Happy birthday, Katy!” 

Glory

Wayne Hebb

Steeped in the blood of hate
Fueled by anger and
Destruction flooded by the
Tides of sorrow and despair
That is the glory of war
There will be bodies 
Draped in flags buried
Before sobbing mourners and
For the living, the maimed 
The injured there will be
Medals and honours perhaps
Covering the visible scars and
Maybe comforting those unseen
There will be tales of bravery
Evil and cowardice on both sides
To bolster history and to spawn 
The gene of war in all especially
The young when they are old
Enough to understand 
Most do not want it but 
Some do and they have the power
To encourage the masses to
Take up arms 
To avenge wrongs and
Look for ground to 
Bury the dead

I’m Afraid I Have Lost My Fear

Grayson Jesso

I’m not afraid of heights
Since I lost us
I don’t care how far I fall
I don’t want to get up

You would hold my hand
While we slowly stepped off
But now I don’t tense
While looking down in thought

I haven’t been able to feel fear
For so long, you kept me terrified of death
Because you gave me something to lose
Something I could regret

Looking now over the waterfall
I no longer shake or cry
I simply stare, with little care,
For my life; or if I die

Now that you are gone, I have no need for phobias;
No reason to be scared for my life
So now I spiral down, reaching the ground,
Lost in my fearless utopia.

Homing

Fhen M.

Salmon embark on a journey, 
for a journey, and such a long journey
the ways deep, the river current strong 
returning from the open ocean 
to the mountain streams and fresh water.

Swim against the tide,  
the soul remembering  
what the stomach had forgotten:  
the taste of home in the rocks,  
the way the river bends  
like a mother’s arm around a child.

When they reach the river’s mouth,  
where fresh water greets the sea,  
the invisible map grows sharper,
a compass carved in their senses.

When they arrive,  
the water is thinner,  
the world is quieter.

Water Babies

Cynthia Stock

The day Indigo Cates found Alta Osterman’s grand-daughter face down in Alta’s swimming pool began like any other. Indigo woke up thinking about the two things she loved most in the world, swimming and her sister, Celeste. At times, both seemed out of her reach. Pool time was hard to find in a big city. As for Celeste, everything Indigo did earned her older sister’s disdain. She hugged her Pouty Bear, the sad-faced stuffy Celeste had given her.  

“This is how you look even when you know I’m teasing you,” Celeste said, as she lobbed the bear at Indigo on her birthday, not even wrapped. 

Water provided Indigo’s escape. The water possessed an all-encompassing human touch. It muffled the exterior sounds from around the pool and provided solace.  She looked forward to practicing in that purity every day with teammates who accepted her, who didn’t make fun of her big feet, like Celeste did.  During work-outs no one wore a mask like the hero of her favorite show, Sea Hunt. The chlorine stung her eyes.  After the last cool down lap, she pinched her thigh just enough to make her eyes water.  Tears washed out the chlorine and eased the burn. A slight irritation persisted, so when Indigo left practice, she entered a charmed world where fluorescent lights surrounded everything in rainbows.  

 The pool was clean, safe, and familiar, not like the city bus, where Indigo depended on Celeste to sort out the mystery of the enormous, strange world in which they traveled. On the bus Indigo saw a woman breast feed for the first time. Celeste casually explained the act as “a fact of life,” her voice calm and authoritative. 

  Indigo liked the way sounds echoed around the practice natatorium. She sometimes heard things people said on the other side of the pool. She enjoyed the power she felt eavesdropping on conversations that described in lurid, unfamiliar terms the way people looked in their bathing suits. One day someone admitted to peeing in the pool. Only the smell of chlorine kept Indigo from heading for the shower. 

 If Indigo took one of the metal lane hooks and tapped it on one end of the pool, a teammate could hear it on the other. In contrast to the shape-shifting outlines of things viewed underwater, the water transmitted crisp, clear sounds. There was no place else like the pool.  In the water, she floated with a lightness she wished her spirit had. It was difficult being the “baby” sister. 

Indigo swam alone in the biggest of Alta Osterman’s three pools the day it happened. Alta ran a summer camp teaching kids to swim. Her back yard housed three pools, one shallow for the littlest kids, one four feet deep for the kids learning to swim, and the big one, deep enough for diving. Indigo found that pool, like Goldilocks and her porridge, to be “just right.”   

There was no need to perform her usual sprints. Indigo abandoned them for the expression of her childish fantasies with movements not even remotely human.  She played a shark, menacing through the water, coasting to freedom in an endless ocean where she would reign.  She jettisoned herself from the bottom of the pool and splashed into the air with a thrust of her hips.  Spouting a misty plume of water, she honked like a dolphin and swept her arms across the surface creating a halo of waves.  Then she dived to the bottom of the pool which felt so private. She listened for the water to speak. Indigo sensed the power of the water resided in its motion, not its noise.  

While Indigo swam, Celeste, Buddy, Indigo’s first crush, and his little niece stayed inside with their parents. If she couldn’t have Buddy to herself, Indigo preferred to swim alone.  She didn’t want to compete with Celeste for Buddy’s attention or have him bear witness to Celeste’s endless sibling ridicule. Indigo regretted not asking to borrow Celeste’s new transistor radio, music to complement the wistful susurrus of the water.  

Indigo hoped maybe Buddy would tire of Celeste and come outside to spend some time with her.  Indigo loved Buddy. He made her appreciate the different ways boys filled a racer’s skimpy nylon racing suit.  Whether skin tight or creased from being too big, the shine of the fabric suggested details of things Indigo had never seen, and at her age, only imagined.  These details mattered to the older girls, to Celeste, and thus to Indigo. 

Celeste knew how Indigo felt about Buddy Osterman.  In an effort to make Celeste realize they were not that different, Indigo had confessed her feelings, even though his ears stuck out enough to slow him down in the water.  Even though he wiped his face and dropped snot in the pool.  When Celeste laughed as hard as Indigo had ever seen, Indigo thought they found a commonground. 

What a fool she had been. Celeste committed the ultimate act of betrayal.  One day Celeste flirted with Buddy until he grinned like an ape, gobbets of black licorice stuck in the crevices between his teeth.  She bewitched him with the special power of her changing body.  She timed it perfectly, after practice, while they waited for their respective rides home.  Buddy stood in his swim suitand a t-shirt he had out grown.  He stammered and blushed and his ears turned cherry red.  What Indigo noticed, what impressed her the most, was the way Buddy’s suit puffed up like a marshmallow over hot coals when it swelled, crusted, and burst, dripping molten white sweetness into the fire.  

Thinking about Celeste using Buddy to tease her made Indigo want to punch something, maybe even the pristine surface of the water.  Instead, she pushed off from one end of the pool, her body undulating, her arms over her head with hands forming a dagger that cut through the water.  She glided along and the shadow that followed, her shadow, became a shape-shifting demon trying to catch her.  She talked to the shadow.  Like the water, it never spoke.  The silence and the pressure building up in her lungs pushed Indigo to hurry to the other end of the pool.  She broke the surface and floated on her back. Lines of gold snaked across the water. The sun turned her cheeks pink. The thought of more dreaded freckles made her dive to the bottom again. She looked up and saw trees and clouds and deck chairs stretching and flowing, distorted by the water. The water melded with her body. In that moment, Indigo felt beautiful, capable of a grace she could not manage out of the pool.  

During one pass along the bottom, Indigo noticed a ball, white with a crinkled outline and big as a head of cabbage. It bobbed in one corner of the pool.  She hadn’t thrown anything in, no toys, no kickboard, and certainly no floats.  She didn’t need floats.  Maybe her towel had blown into the water. She kept swimming. 

Indigo floated back against the wall and pushed.  This time, she stayed on the surface with a rolling stroke.  With one arm, she pulled forward and rolled on her back; with the other, she propelled herself through the water and rolled onto her stomach.  She looked for a glimpse of Buddy’s red suit on the pool deck. All she saw was her towel draped over the back of a canvas captain’s chair. 

The blur in the pool drifted out of the corner. It bounced in Indigo’s wake. She continued to play. Pull. Roll. Glide. Pull. Roll. Glide. The water tickled and trespassed upon every wrinkle on her body. The next time she passed the floating ball she noticed a patch of pink. Pull. Roll. Glide. She finished her lap and pushed off again. Holding her head above water, she dog-paddled over to the thing.  

At first, Indigo thought it was a doll.  One of the campers might have left it behind.  The hair floated, matching subtle the rise and fall of the water. Synthetic curls wouldn’t do that.  The short, blond strands obeyed the water’s motion. They mimicked the ripples caused by Indigo’s approach.  She saw a line of pink in the scalp, just like hers.  Each arm bent at right angles from the body.  The legs weren’t rigid like a doll.  They floated with the water.  The feet were bare. Indigo counted ten perfect toes.  Indigo’s dolls didn’t have toes, because their shoes were painted on, shiny black Mary Jane’s with straps across the instep. The shoes never came off her dolls. Indigo began to shake. Her jaw quivered just like it did when the dentist kept her mouth open too long. 

Indigo reached out and touched the doll.  A shock surged through her fingertips, her arm, into her heart. Her hand drew back.  She knew the difference between a doll and human flesh. So pale pink.  So resilient. The hair floated like seaweed because it was hair, not a nest of nylon gold.  The child’s diaper was covered by white lacy panties embroidered with blue trim. The head dipped beneath the water like Indigo’s did when she was looking for a penny she had thrown in the pool.  

Indigo knew she should get the child out of the water.  But she didn’t want to get in trouble; she didn’t want to be blamed. She treaded water, searched the side of the pool, the back yard, and the porch for a grown-up.  Alone. How she so often wished to be just that. How she so often ended up. Not now. She reached for the body. Her legs pumped; her mind shut down. She yielded to instinct. Urgency stopped her sense of time. Crazy thoughts flew through her head: where she left her favorite stuffed bear, how her best friend’s mouse died in Indigo’s care, how she peed in her pants walking home from school one day.  

Indigo flipped the body, face up.  It didn’t look at the sun, the clouds, or the chaotic path of a dragonfly buzzing over the pool.  Although the mouth was open, no sound escaped, nor did it draw in a breath.  Dusky blue lips formed a passive “o” in an expression of surprise beneath sightless eyes. Indigo worked her legs in a circular motion, keeping her head and shoulders above the water. Her muscles cried for relief.   She extended her arms holding the body across them.   

“The baby’s fallen in! Help! Come quick!  The baby’s fallen in.”  She screamed even after her hollering turned to a raspy whisper.  Her legs churned with the furious speed she used on her bicycle. The water framed the flaccid face of Alta’s grand-daughter. Indigo’s determination kept it from creeping over the child’s nose and mouth. 

  Indigo didn’t notice Celeste run up to the side of the pool; she focused on the child in her arms, the burn in her legs, and a silent prayer of redemption.  

Celeste leaned over the water. “Give her to me.”  

Indigo kept pumping her legs. Her mouth moved without a sound. Despite her time in the sun, a pasty luminescence painted her cheeks. 

“Indigo,” Celeste yelled. “Give her to me.” 

Indigo kicked until she reached the side of the pool. Celeste lifted the child from Indigo’s arms.  

Without the weight of the body, Indigo realized her arms were numb. 

“How long has she been in?” The child flopped as if her bones had dissolved into the water. 

“I don’t know.” Those three words introduced Indigo to the meaning of remorse. 

Indigo could recite her personal best for every race she entered, yet she could not answer Celeste, could not tell her the one thing that might help save a life and connect the two sisters forever. Indigo slammed a fist into the water.  The surface opened and swallowed her anger.  How many times had she swum by the thing in the pool? Why hadn’t she stopped? If something bad happened, it would be her fault. If? Something bad had happened. 

Celeste held the toddler upside down.  Water poured from her nose and mouth.  

Indigo didn’t believe a tiny child could hold so much water. She looked at the stringy blond hair pressed against pallid skin.  She watched Celeste.  How did Celeste know what to do? When hadshe learned that? For a moment, Indigo wished it was she her sister fought to revive.  Celeste hugged the child, covered its mouth with a macabre kiss, and breathed in shallow, repetitive puffs. Indigo believed she watched an act of love. Not the kind of love she felt for Buddy, something both pure and purposeful. Even if she had to die, Indigo wished to trade places. She ached to receive not just the breath of life. She hungered for recognition from Celeste.  

Indigo let her body drift from the edge of the pool. She exhaled and her body sank into the watery tomb of escape, leaving behind a trail of bubbles. With her arms over her head, she paddled her hands, a gesture just like a prom queen waving to a crowd. If only I had paid more attention.  

 Immersed in the water, Indigo wanted to feel what it had done to the child.  She needed to know the truth. Could her beloved water be cruel, as cruel as an older sister?  She prayed if she embraced the water, she would find comfort. With her hands waving, she pushed herself down to sit cross-legged on the bottom of the pool. The water cloaked her in the dark circle of her own shadow. Holding her breath, Indigo ignored the burn in her lungs, fought the natural buoyancy of her body, and remained submerged in shame.   

The wail of the child when air rushed in and out of her lungs failed to penetrate the water. Through its distorted lens, Indigo watched Celeste hand Alta’s grand-daughter over to a faceless adult. Then Celeste’s hands gestured in frantic circles. Round and round they went like she was reeling in a fighting fish.  

Celeste looked like a manic puppet. If she hadn’t been under water, Indigo would have laughed; she couldn’t hold her breath much longer. If only she knew the secret to pleasing her sister. She closed her eyes and floated to the surface. When she dunked her head back to get the hair out of her face, she heard Celeste chattering.  The words flowed. No pause. No snide remark. Pure amazement. 

 “Indie. Indie. How did you hold her up so long? You saved her.” 

Indie. Celeste had called Indigo by a name of endearment only their mother used. Then Indigo heard a child’s crying and burst with laughter that harmonized with the sound. She swam toward Celeste’s extended hand. Indigo glanced back at the water. It shimmered, gentle wavelets nodding approval as she reached for her sister. 

Lindsay Bird: An Interview

Shari Berner

Lindsay Bird is a poet and journalist based in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Her first collection of poetry, Boom Time, inspired by her time working in the oilfield in Alberta, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2019 and shortlisted for several awards. She is a 2019 recipient of a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters award, and a past winner of Geist’s Postcard Fiction Contest. Lindsay is the producer and host of Atlantic Voice, the home of documentaries and storytelling about the East Coast on CBC Radio and CBC Listen. Her work has earned national and international journalism awards. 

Shari: Can you tell me about how you started writing poetry, Lindsay? 

Lindsay: Oh, I’ve been writing since I was a teen. I always knew that I really loved poetry and I loved writing. That’s how my brain works, in terms of expressing myself through writing, it was always poetry. Growing up, we had a lot of books around the house, and it’s kind of that magic of being bored as a kid with nothing else to do, that you start looking at the books that are on the shelves. My sister had a collected edition of Leonard Cohen poems, and E. E. Cummings. I remember being a teenager, reading throughboth those collections and just getting that exposure to the way words could work. I hadn’t even heard of Leonard Cohen before, like as a musician or anything. I think the first time I heard his song “Suzanne” I was like, “But this is a poem!” 

Shari: That is so funny! I’m pretty sure most other people have not heard of Cohen as a poet but as a singer and songwriter. 

Lindsay: Yeah, totally! Anyways, I always kind of just wrote. I kept a journal when I was a teen and wrote little poems, then kept at it in university. There, it was a little bit more formal with creative writing classes, and university had a little writer’s journal that I submitted to. So yeah, I always knew that I wanted to be a poet and wanting to have a collection of poetry was definitely a goal, but a hazy one for a long time. 

Shari: Your poetry collection Boom Time was published in 2019, inspired by your time working in Alberta. How long did it take you to write it? 

Lindsay: Oh, like an embarrassingly long time. I had been writing a little bit more seriously after I finished my undergraduate degree and I moved to Alberta and was working in the mines. I had a couple things published at that point. At the same time, I kept a journal while I was in Fort McMurray. A couple years after I had moved away from Alberta, I really felt like this experience in Fort McMurray wasn’t leaving me. I was still processing it and thinking about it. It’s its own world. I knew I wanted to write a book about it, and because the way that I write in my spare time is in poetry, I decided to make this a collection of poetry. So, I started writing poems toward that idea of making a collection. I even went to the Banff Center in Alberta, and had a writer’s residency there for five weeks. 

Shari: Oh, that’s amazing. 

Lindsay: It was, it was truly formative. I just applied with the idea and three half-baked poems, and they accepted me. While I was there, I was being mentored by Jan Zwicky and Carolyn Forché, who are such amazing poets. And they told me “You can actually do this; you are a poet.” It was kind of like that license to get more serious and to push myself on it, as opposed to it being this hobby that you just do for yourself. It made me think about how do I make this poem a bit more relatable or open to external interpretation? If I want somebody to read this, as opposed to just me? That was in 2011. I came away with a manuscript. I sent it out to some places, and I got some really great feedback about how it wasn’t ready to be published, so I just worked on it again and again at different points. I’ve been working full-time as a journalist since 2009 and it wasn’t always easy trying to find the time to go back over it and try to work on each of the poems. I finally did get it accepted for publication with Gaspereau Press years later, in 2019. Maybe, if I’d have been working harder at it, maybe it would’ve happened sooner. But I think there’s something about taking time with the art and making sure it’s at the place where it needs to be. And sometimes that is a matter of time, and maybe I needed a lot more time in between to be able to distill some of those experiences and not just have them be these raw, heavy emotions, which is what they were for a very long time. They were blunt. 

Shari: Because this first phase of just getting the words on the paper is basically journaling, right? It’s very emotional, very heavy. 

Lindsay: Yeah, there’s a difference between the poem as personal catharsis, and then a poem you read on the page that can open up a window into a feeling for somebody else. I think that the catharsis part of it is totally valid; it’s just that sometimes, an entire collection of that is really only meant for yourself. 

Shari: That’s true. Did you work with an editor on the collection? Or did you mostly edit it yourself? 

Lindsay: By the time it got accepted for publication, I had had a lot of feedback on the manuscript itself. Particularly the final drafts of it really went through an intense process after my daughter was born and I met Adam Beardsworth and Shoshanna Ganz. Both of them read it and gave great feedback and helped me push it to the next level. So, I’d say, before it even got accepted, there was this kind of really informal editorial process. I owe them all the credit in the world to help making it shine. Once it got accepted, it did go through another round of edits with Andrew Steeves, who was the editor of Gaspereau Press at the time, and is a really fabulous reader and critique of poetry. He knows how to get something to the next level. 

Shari: Do you find it hard when people give you feedback on your work? I mean, it is so personal. 

Lindsay: I think at the time that I’m ready to have that feedback, I’m sick of it (laughs). I’m sick of myself. Someone just tell me what to do here. Creation, you know, is such a solo act that by the time you’re ready to show it to a person, I think you’re ready to have that feedback. And sometimes it’s a relief when someone says, “Oh no, this isn’t working,” because it’s hitting on that pressure point that you knew about but you couldn’t admit to yourself. So really, I love feedback. Maybe that’s partially because of my day job, too. It’s a lot of being in an editorial sphere, always critiquing or working on others’ work, or having your own critiqued. 

Shari: In the end, an editor is there to make your work better, right? 

Lindsay: Definitely. And good editors are always finding ways to lift the work up instead of punch the poet down. 

Shari: What a good way of looking at it! So, are you working on anything right now? 

Lindsay: Yes and no. My day job involves a lot of writing and a lot of being creative in service of radio documentaries. So, it robs me of the same creative space where I get my poetry from. When I’m working full time, it’s very, very hard to write poetry. I’m lucky that my work does have a program where I can take time off. I was off work all oflast year for 2024 and I did write another full manuscript. It just poured out. And I did send it out some places. It didn’t get accepted anywhere. And I think I’m in the same cycle where I need to let it sit and come back to it with a little bit of distance, with fresh eyes and see what to do to make it a little bit better or a lot better. I feel like poets don’t have maybe the greatest work ethic in the writing world (laughs). Sometimes you write for like an hour and you’re like, “Oh, well, I’ve punched a full shift.” And then sometimes you’re not going to write for like six to eight months. And I’m definitely in that really fallow period right now where I know I have this work that I need to come back to, but it’s like anything, I always find that I’m the most creative after I’ve taken my brain out of that. When I’m writing, I always make time to go walk the dog, because it’s after the dog walk, and after that space of just thinking about very little, that you can come back and actually get into something. Like your brain has solved the problem while it wasn’t thinking about it. 

Adam Beardsworth

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