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Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Diner” by Gina Gidaro<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Everyone Here But Me” by Gryphon Beyerle<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Congressman’s Appointment” by Katilin Gossett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Poor in Indiana” by Marissa Artrip<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Pharos” by Olivia Sturtvant<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Diner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gina Gidaro<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Between the rain and the dark, I almost miss the silver diner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks abandoned, deserted, except for the flickering OPEN sign hanging crooked in the window. I’m tempted to contin- ue driving, make it all the way to my parents’ house without a single stop, but this storm is only getting worse. My car is swaying from the strong winds, the pitter-patter of rain falling onto the metal is making it increasingly difficult to hear my own thoughts, and although the windshield wipers try their best to clear my vision, the rain is relentless. I can barely see the white and yellow lines in front of me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reluctantly, I swerve into the lot and park the car, inward- ly cursing the gods for forcing me to delay my already treacherous journey. I can hear my mother now, \u201cMy god, Joanne, had you left earlier like I told you, you probably wouldn\u2019t have needed to stop.\u201d Yeah, yeah, mom. You\u2019re right. As usual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite my annoyance toward needing to stop, Seth would be proud of me for it. His cool voice echoes in my head, a pleasant comparison to my mother\u2019s harsh one. A clever person knows how to solve a problem. A wise one avoids it. <\/em>He loved to use that line whenever I was doing something he thought was impulsive or irrational. I never thought I’d miss it. I never thought I would have to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoving on my hat and grabbing my purse, I hop out of the car and into the rain. Water splashes around my feet as I run through puddle after puddle before rushing into the diner. The familiar smell of banana bread wafts around me. My dad\u2019s favorite. Mom and I made it almost every weekend. She only ever gave me the simple jobs, like stirring batter or setting out ingredients; but nevertheless, I was always there to help. Even better\u2014she would let me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The place is quiet, except for the jukebox playing Warren Zevon’s \u201cKeep Me in Your Heart.\u201d No hostess comes to greet me, so I take it upon myself to claim a spot at the bar. The place looks vintage, with worn, red-cushioned stools, old-fashioned ketchup and mustard bottles, and red-and-white checkerboard placemats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWicked storm, isn’t it?\u201d says a man a couple stools from where I’m sitting. He appears young, maybe late 20s, but has a slightly gaunt look to him, and is wearing a suit and tie. I assume he’s been here a while, considering, unlike me, he’s completely dry. Removing my hat and coat, I nod. \u201cI’m surprised I made it out alive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s a good thing you stopped,\u201d the man says, squeezing some mayo onto the cheeseburger in front of him. \u201cIt\u2019s looking pretty nasty out there. Not smart to be driving.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrue,\u201d I say, side-glancing him. \u201cBut my mother can be a real pain when I don’t visit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother is my biggest critic. She fights me on every- thing and has a knack for always finding something about me to disapprove of. Dad says it\u2019s tough love, her way of making sure I never settle for any less than I deserve. But there is only so much I can take. When she found out I wanted to study culinary arts, she used her infamous line: \u201cI’m not judging you, Joanne. I just think you could do better.\u201d And that’s practically a compliment from her. \u201cYou could’ve chosen a better college to go to. You could’ve cho- sen a better major to study. You could’ve chosen a more suitable boyfriend.\u201d Lucky for her, that last one ended up in her favor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The businessman nods understandingly and tosses a bun on top of his cheeseburger. \u201cMothers. They’re almost as difficult as bosses.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpeaking from personal experiences?\u201d I ask him. \u201cOh, yeah,\u201d he replies after taking a big bite of his cheese burger. \u201cWhere is it that you work?\u201d I ask. Call me nosy, but his suit looks expensive. \u201cHell,\u201d he says with complete seriousness. Accepting that this guy doesn’t want to get personal, I check my phone for a signal. Nothing. \u201cSounds like the kind of job you should quit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrust me kid, I would if I could, but it’s not that sim- ple,\u201d he mumbles, his mouth full. \u201cIt’s not the kind of business you can just up and leave.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I try holding it in, a chuckle escapes my lips. \u201cWhat are you, some kind of hitman?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man grins, mayo on the corner of his mouth. \u201cYou have no idea how much that fits the job description.\u201d With a sigh, he continues, \u201cI knew the difficulties when I signed up for the job, so there’s no one to blame but me. A clever person knows how to solve a problem. A wise one avoids it, am I right?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I snap my head toward him. Before any more words can be exchanged, the door leading to the kitchen whips open. A waitress comes out, apologizes for the wait, and immediately pours me a cup of coffee. She\u2019s older, with short, gray hair. The name tag pinned to her flour-covered apron says Ruby<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould I have a piece of your banana bread?\u201d I ask her. The woman shakes her head at me. \u201cWe don’t have ba- nana bread here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I say, puzzled. The smell is still as strong as it was when I first walked in. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoney, I’ve worked here for longer than you’ve been alive,\u201d she retorts, looking at me like I’m a child. She tosses me a menu. \u201cI think I know what we serve.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just thought…\u201d I mutter. Someone needs a smoke break, I think to myself, eyeing the waitress, who is eyeing me back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey’ve got the best cheeseburgers around though,\u201d the businessman says. He holds up his half-eaten, greasy burger. An ear-piercing clap of thunder sparks the sky then, causing me to jump out of my skin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone must be angry upstairs,\u201d Ruby mutters as I scan the menu. Chili fries, milkshakes of all flavors, apple pie, fish fillet sandwich, and cheeseburgers. There\u2019s a whole page dedicated to their different types of cheeseburgers. My eyes skim down the list, and stop at the bottom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheeseburger with extra pickles\u2014for Joanne <\/em>My fingers slip from the menu and it falls all the way off my lap and to the checkerboard-tiled floor. Neither the business- man nor Ruby seem to notice. Hastily, I lean down to retrieve the menu. Taking a deep breath, I reopen it and peak inside. My name is gone, along with the way I always took my order at Seth\u2019s diner. I swallow hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beside me, the businessman scoffs. \u201cThe worst is yet to come. Wait until my boss finds out I missed an appointment this morning. Now, that will be a storm.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby shoves the coffee pot back into the machine and says something to the businessman, something I don\u2019t hear. Laying the closed menu in front of me, I try to stay calm. I can’t get what I saw out of my head. Not only because my name was printed on that menu, but because I\u2019ve seen it there before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a freshman in college, I found myself in a quaint 1950’s diner up the road from campus. There I met Seth Hanson, the boy who loved quantum physics and said my emer- ald eyes could play tricks on him from the way they caught the light. He worked behind the grill for little pay and claimed to love his job. Even though he was in the kitchen almost the whole day, customers came in specifically for his easy-going attitude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a couple weeks of returning to the diner, I was considered a regular. I sat at the bar and did my school work, letting Seth assist me with my physics assignments. He always knew what I would want to eat, and even took the measures of making sure everyone else did too. A couple weeks before things went south between us, he somehow got his manager to agree to dedicating my favorite lunch to me in the menu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCheck it out, Joanne!\u201d I remember him saying. I sat at the bar, homework scattered in from of me. Seth held the menu up in front of my face, and when I told him I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, he pointed to the bottom of the page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheeseburger with extra pickles\u2014for Joanne <\/em>Snatching it from him, I surveyed the new addition to the diner\u2019s menu. \u201cHow did you do that?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a smug smile, he said, \u201cI asked the manager for a little favor.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a small act, but it warmed my heart and made me laugh. Once Christmas arrived, I thought\u2014foolishly\u2014that Seth would be able to pass my mother’s test. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe’s not ambitious enough, Joanne. You need some- one who can carry a family. Not someone who works at a silly, little diner,\u201d she had said to me in private. I ignored her as best I could because by then, I was used to her constant fault-finding. Somehow, Seth had overheard the exchange and couldn’t ignore my mother as well as me. He let her words dig into him like a bullet and after several weeks, the relationship dwindled in the most depressing way; neither of us thought we deserved the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was the kindest person I\u2019ve ever known, but by the time I realized that, it was too late. Kindness doesn\u2019t matter to a robber with a gun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHon, do you want anything to eat or not? I’m very busy,\u201d Ruby snaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh…no. No thanks.\u201d Something in her tone reminds me of my mother, and I can’t stop myself from digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand. Ruby rushes off, and even though the diner is completely empty other than me and the businessman, there are loud cooking noises coming from the kitchen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat kind of business did you say you’re involved in?\u201d I ask the businessman, giving him a skeptical look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn’t.\u201d Putting his half-eaten burger down, the man reaches deep into his breast pocket. From there, he retrieves a small, black business card with white text on it. The corner is greasy from his fingers. I take it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reaper of Souls. A business of international travel. <\/em>\u201cSeems like a pretty demanding job,\u201d is all I can think to say as I stare hard at the card. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, it is,\u201d the man continues, taking the last bite of his burger. \u201cAnd there are no vacations. My boss always has a new list of appointments for me. A construction worker in Ontario, a house fire started by a curling iron in New Hampshire, a pile-up in Tokyo. And that was only this morning!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watch the guy out of the corner of my eye as he wipes his hands on his napkin. Between glancing at the card in my hand and back at the man, I’m having irrational thoughts\u2014 thoughts my mother would have a field day with. I can practically hear her snickering at my foolishness and voicing her questions on how I ever got into college with that kind of ludicrous think- ing. \u201cWake up, Joanne. This guy is screwing with you,\u201d she\u2019d say. Wake the hell up… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd Ohio?\u201d I ask, talking over my mother’s bickering. She’s always hated that. \u201cWhat’s brought you here?\u201d This part worries me, because for some reason dread has begun to cover my body like a cold sweat. The man looks over for what I realize to be the first time in the whole night. His dark eyes narrow as he studies me, and I shrink away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you regret?\u201d \u201cExcuse me?\u201d I demand, taken aback by his question. \u201cRegrets. You must have a lot.\u201d He begins searching through the different packets of sugar for his coffee. \u201cOr else you wouldn’t be here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glancing around the empty diner, I ask, \u201cHere? What do you mean here?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could call it…a pit stop,\u201d he answers, his tone light, like he’s telling a joke. Something clicks in my mind, something unsettling. It’s as if subconsciously I\u2019m aware of where I am, of what’s going on. I just need someone to remind me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He clears his throat when I don’t crack a smile. \u201cSo, regrets?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have regrets,\u201d I announce, as he rips open a yellow sugar packet and pours it into his coffee. Seth immediately comes to mind, but even more so, my mother and how I always let her get her way. \u201cEveryone does. Don’t you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you’ve lived as long as I have, kid, you’re bound to have regrets.\u201d He pauses to think. \u201cLike that time I was supposed to get onto flight 185 where there was a terrorist on board.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the businessman talks, the song on the jukebox changes. \u201cUnfortunately, I mixed up the departure times and got on the wrong plane.\u201d He stirs his coffee as he recalls the memory. \u201cYeah, my boss made me work overtime for that one.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The familiar acoustic intro, accompanied by a bass line and cymbals, catches my attention. The man\u2019s story gets drowned out by the song now playing. I look over my shoulder. The red and blue jukebox sits by the door, spinning the record shamelessly… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mama told me, when I was young… <\/em>The song reminds me of the smell of freshly cut grass and my plain, black dress, the one I only wear to funerals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come sit beside me, my only son… <\/em>It was his favorite, that\u2019s why they played it while he was being lowered into the soil. That was the last time I heard the song. I always change the station when it comes on in the car. I leave the bar when the band begins to play it. A loud crack of thunder ignites the sky outside, as if to remind me that I can\u2019t run away this time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyway, this visit isn’t about me,\u201d the businessman continues. \u201cIt’s about you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time I spoke to Seth, he was telling me how he worried that my mother was right about what she said about him, that he wasn’t good enough for me. I told him he was ridiculous, that my mother was wrong, completely wrong. He struggled to get it out of his head though, and I couldn’t convince him. I didn’t know about the robbery that took place at the diner until the day after it happened. It was in the college newspaper, Crossroads. <\/em>At first, I thought it was a joke. Who would rob a diner? The guy who did it was desperate. He brought a gun, but told the cops after he was caught that he\u2019d never planned to use it. That it was an accident. When I read that someone was killed, I had a sinking feeling I knew who it was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He tried to be the hero. I’m sure of it. Seth risked his life and got it taken away from him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haphazardly shrugging my coat on and snatching my bag from the counter, I jump off the stool. \u201cYou know what, I think the storm is lightening up. I should probably get back on the road. It was nice meeting you,\u201d I say while racing for the door. The businessman watches casually. He doesn\u2019t try to stop me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I practically slam myself against the diners\u2019 front doors, des- perate to get out. Fully prepared for the impact of sheets of rain, my body is shocked when it doesn\u2019t come. Because somehow, I\u2019ve walked right back into the diner. The businessman is still in his seat, watching me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rush out the doors again and again and again and again, los- ing count after ten. My heart is hammering in my chest, causing my ribs to ache from the repeated impact. The businessman is laughing. Make it stop make it stop make it\u2014 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby shoots out the kitchen door with a greasy spatula in her hand. \u201cWhat, do you think heat is free? Leave the doors closed!\u201d And then she\u2019s gone again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs this happening?\u201d I ask no one and anyone at the same time. \u201cHow is this happening? This can\u2019t be happening.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happening, kid,\u201d the man says, spinning back around in his seat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlright,\u201d I start, conjuring some courage to sit back down by the businessman. He takes a sip of his coffee and cringes. \u201cHow does this work?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looks at me with a puzzled expression. \u201cHow does what work?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can he not know what I’m talking about? \u201cI’m dead, right? Don’t you have to take me to the afterlife or whatever?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs that your choice?\u201d he asks, raising an eyebrow. \u201cI get a choice?\u201d \u201cOf course you get a choice,\u201d he announces, as if I\u2019m clueless. \u201cWhy would you be here if you didn’t?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I don’t know!\u201d I snap, baffled that he expects me to understand all of this. \u201cSorry that I’ve never done this before, that this is my first time dying.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWow, are you always this sarcastic?\u201d He asks, giving me a look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d This situation just keeps getting stranger and stranger. \u201cJust do what you have to do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I squeeze my eyes shut and wait to be struck by lightning or sucked into the Earth or set on fire. Seconds pass and nothing comes. When I reopen my eyes, the businessman is looking at me the way mom did the first time I attempted to make spaghetti sauce and forgot to use wine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t do that,\u201d the man orders. \u201cDon\u2019t do what? Accept death? Leave my life willingly? Make your job easy?\u201d I retort, annoyance taking over my fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEasy?\u201d He rolls his empty eyes. \u201cEasy is when I don\u2019t have to have these conversations. I swear, spirits are getting snippi- er and snippier after every revolution. You know, there was a time when the spirits didn\u2019t get to choose. Then the Roman Church was like \u2018Hey, why don\u2019t we start handing out indulgences?\u2019 so now my job has turned into a combo of therapy and guidance sessions in which I find myself drinking bitter coffee and being asked to explain myself thousands of times a day.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The diner is silent. I watch the man dump three more sugar packets into his coffee. I let what he said sink into my brain, pre- tending to understand most of it. Roman Church… indulgences… thousands of times a day… spirits? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo…\u201d I timidly start. \u201cI\u2019m…a spirit?\u201d Shrug. \u201cOf sorts.\u201d Great answer. \u201cAnd…everyone gets to choose?\u201d \u201cDo you always ask so many questions?\u201d he retorts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, I\u2019m sorry. The last time I was in this situation I forgot to get all my questions answered,\u201d I snap sarcastically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFine,\u201d he says, setting his coffee cup down. \u201cHere’s the rub. There was a buck crossing the road, you were in a car accident, and now you\u2019re on the brink of death. But since you carry many regrets throughout your life, you get to choose. Do you live, or do you die?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You get to choose. <\/em>It doesn’t seem fair. People die every day. Why should I get this advantage? I don\u2019t feel like I deserve it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMakes it a little more difficult, doesn’t it?\u201d He adds, stirring a spoon around in his coffee. I look down at mine, ice-cold and untouched. I forgot it was there. Ruby continues to clang dishes around in the back and the storm screams louder than ever. I think of my mother, her dedication for perfection and the tight grip she holds on my life, my father and his endearing encouragement. I think of Seth, his benevolent manner and how I should never have let him let me go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me,\u201d the man continues, \u201cthe choice has always seemed simultaneously blindingly simple and fiendishly counter- intuitive. You see, the only people who end up here are the ones who carry too much regret. So, you’d think the choice for those people would be extremely simple. Go back and fix what they broke. Right?\u201d He continues before I can muster a response. \u201cWrong. Almost everyone who makes this pit stop has a prize,\u201d \u2014he gestures between the kitchen door and the front door\u2014 \u201con either side of the door.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stare at him, intensely and for a long time. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. He just can’t be. I can’t bring myself to believe it, and yet… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat’s going on back there?\u201d I ask, staring at the door Ruby disappeared behind so long ago. Loud cooking noises\u2014slam- ming pots and pans, sizzling grease, and running water\u2014continue to emerge from it. All noises that remind me of being back at school, the one doing the cooking. Even though I’m months away from graduation and becoming a professional chef, my mother won’t let me step foot in her kitchen. \u201cI’m the mother. Let me cook,\u201d is her excuse. She claims my food lacks the feeling of a home-cooked meal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man shrugs. \u201cBeats me. You could go find out.\u201d I look at him. He’s staring expectantly at me, waiting for my reply. \u201cIf that’s your choice, of course.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smell my mother\u2019s wonderful banana bread and imag- ine the warmth of it, the softness of it. It wouldn’t be back there though. Ruby already told me that. And that is one recipe I have never been able to perfect. I’ve tried over and over, desperate to re- member the ingredients I set out a dozen times, but it’s no use. Mine always comes out short of something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m only 23,\u201d I blurt to no one in particular, but the busi- nessman answers anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrue,\u201d he considers. \u201cThey say your 20s are the best years of your life. At least, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve heard.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat would you choose?\u201d I ask abruptly. \u201cMe?\u201d He exclaims before erupting into a roar of deep, echoing laughter. \u201cI did have to choose. And isn’t it obvious what I picked?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight,\u201d I mutter, even though it\u2019s not very obvious at all. The sharp corner of the menu digs into my arm, and I think of Seth. Of our last conversation, his cheerful face falling slack when our relationship began to wither. How I never got the chance to make things right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s not particularly welcoming, is it?\u201d I say to the man as we stare out the front doors. Blinding lightning followed by furious thunder, overwhelming rain, and roaring winds. The world really can be a scary place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe real world rarely is,\u201d he replies, and then with a shrug, \u201cBut people really seem to enjoy it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man is watching me, anticipating my decision. I can hear Seth’s laugh in my ears, a sound I never thought I\u2019d hear again, so tempting, so welcoming. It\u2019s mixed with the delicious smell of my mother\u2019s homemade banana bread, the recipe I have never been able to perfect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTick tock, on the clock…\u201d the businessman teases. \u201cThere\u2019s a deadline? What if I don\u2019t choose in time?\u201d I exclaim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone else will for you,\u201d he replies, sending shards of ice down my spine. \u201cLook, if it\u2019s any consolation, my biggest regret remains to be not having the courage to go back and fix mine.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world outside is gray and drowning, with mere moments of clarity when lightning strikes. Would it be wise to take advice from a guy who claims to be the Reaper? I suppose there are worse choices to make… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s still dark when I return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ground is cold and wet. My body is numb. My fingers dig into the earth. There is rumbling above me, and rain is falling. I soak it up like a plant in the spring. I can feel my senses awakening, my bones hardening, and my blood thickening. The stars shimmer and watch me carefully. Several feet away from me, there\u2019s a large animal lying motionless on its side. It\u2019s a buck. Memories of screeching tires, aching fear, and a vigorously spinning steering wheel flood my mind. There is a rough, almost painful thumping in my chest, reminding me that I am, in fact, alive. I can hear sirens in the distance. It’s the eve of coming home, and I’m almost there. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone Here But Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gryphon Beyerle<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve got me strapped to the bed again and I\u2019m supposed to be watching Judge Judy. Judge Judy <\/em>gives me bedsores, which I explained a dozen times to every nurse in the wing. This time, it\u2019s Nurse Hello Kitty setting me up with the food-slurpee straw right into my stomach\u2014clearly revenge for the nasty cat scratch I gave her while she dragged me out of the operating room. I remind her again about the bedsores and how Jell-O gives me red bumps. She says nothing and puts Jell-O on my overbed tray, where my strapped hands can\u2019t reach it whether I want to throw it in her face or eat it after all. When she leaves, Judge Judy smacks her gavel, and I gnaw through my feeding tube. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m more pissed every time they wrangle me into the wrist restraints. It\u2019s like the healthcare equivalent of death by electric chair. It started as a way to babysit me when they were understaffed, but now it\u2019s some routine pacification, like their solution to all my needs. He\u2019s dropping weight? Strap him in and give him a direct flight to fatty, bedsore, Jell-O bump nightmare! He\u2019s disrupting a surgery? Tie him down for two days and make him piss through a catheter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not my fault that they can\u2019t recognize talent. They hate Doctor Brady Angel, so they won\u2019t issue him a hospital ID. Easy fix, though\u2014this morning, I swiped the lanyard from a hungover fourth-floor nurse while she slept at her station, her head lolling like roadkill. Armed with security clearance, I readied myself for a 10 a.m. operation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I burst into the room, the blue-blob docs seethed with jealousy. Everyone knows Doctor Brady Angel; he does the best cosmetic surgery in all of California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoctor Brady\u2019s here! Can\u2019t start without Doctor Brady Angel!\u201d I snatched a wad of latex gloves from the wall like a fistful of maggots from a dumpster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat a charity case we have here! For God\u2019s sake, the poor girl\u2019s not even knocked out yet. Snooze her, and let\u2019s get the beak off this bird.\u201d It would\u2019ve been a simple rhinoplasty: scrape off the girl\u2019s dorsal hump and lift the tip of the nose; a life-chang- ing sweet-sixteen birthday present healed in time for homecoming. Perfect, like Mom\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bitched and bitched while they escorted me out of the room. Hello Kitty was the queen of Tourette\u2019s, slinging slurs at me like darts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019m strapped in bed, with Judge Judy and the Jell-O. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The hospital\u2019s got a fat influx of whiny, teat-suckling, sniffling hypochondriacs now that Christmas is around the corner. Same as last year. Since all these lonely, lost attention hogs are max-ing out the bed space, I\u2019ve got to share my room with a geezer who snores hard enough to suck flies right out of the air. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Christmas, I was a treacherous piglet, too\u2014fresh meat to burden the staff of St. Jesus God is King Mega-Church Medical Shitshow Emporium. Oh, but the scrubs all started out so kind and doting with their pity and their mercy and their prescrip- tion pill abuse. Mom fit right in: at my terminal ward drop-off, she put her hand on my cheek and a lipstick kiss on my forehead like it was summer camp, and voila!<\/em>, she glowed with a holy corona. That\u2019s all it takes to be saintly I learned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She returned two days later with a professional photog- rapher who set up his tripod at the foot of my living casket. Mom wore a violently red dress like she was off to prom. I was in boxer briefs. The photographer combed my sweat-heavy hair off of my forehead and swaddled me in pallid bedsheets like Jesus on the cross. With a little airbrush retouching and some photoshopped snowflakes, the photo became her Christmas card that year. The gold script sentiment read: Pray for a Christmas miracle! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t seen Mom in a week. Last time she came around, I woke up to find her reading Cosmo <\/em>in the chair by the window that overlooks a Taco Bell and a juvenile detention center. She asked me if I\u2019d made any friends. I couldn\u2019t answer before Doc Lumpy <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neck pulled her aside to introduce her to Doctor Brady Angel and Homeless Howard, whom he described as \u201cproducts of the agitation and delirium associated with the spread of his cancerous mass.\u201d She asked him if I was stable enough to come home for the holidays. Lumpy Neck is like a yes-man on opposite day. What a dickhead. I\u2019m thinking, Doctor Brady Angel is the only MD who isn\u2019t a fraud. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doc ran off to stroke his dick in a supply closet and Mom looked at me like she\u2019d opened the liquor cabinet to find that I\u2019d looted all her vodka or flushed her postpartum antide- pressants down the toilet. Like it was my fault that the aggressive cancer hadn\u2019t been cured. They\u2019d taken the mirror out of my room to hide me from my hideousness, but I could see my sickly bird bones reflected in her plastic face. I hate you, <\/em>her eyes were telling me. I resent you. You are my greatest disappointment. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t petty like that. Just petulant. \u201cCancerous mass! Cancerous mass!\u201d I yelled. \u201cBrat with the cancerous mass misses Christmas mass! Is Mommy mad? Poor Mommy! Poor thing! Should\u2019ve had your tubes tied! Should\u2019ve had\u2014\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She took her purse and her Cosmo <\/em>and left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Doctor Brady Angel got his inspiration from his mother\u2019s all-star, reconstructive plastic handyman who\u2019s based in swamp-haven Miami. The God of Florida had given Mom the best upturned nose, the sweetest Angelina Jolie lips, the most brilliant veneers, and so on. She\u2019s the most beautiful woman in the world. Doctor Brady\u2019s her spitting image, with his slinky eyes and charming grin. I love being Doctor Brady Angel\u2014he does good work. He\u2019d make Mom proud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Thanksgiving before my big boo-hoo diagnosis, we had this grandiose family dinner. Mom was beaming with trophy-wife pride, as it was the first holiday spread she\u2019d cooked herself rather than booking a caterer. My dad was kind of bitchy about the turkey, but I ate my way through everything thinking it was a godsend. That was the last time I remember being hungry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could stuff that memory full of Christian bullshit, saying it was the Last Supper. Maybe it was the last of its kind, but it wouldn\u2019t have been a Da Vinci masterpiece; none of us in that house were holy. My dad split within two weeks of his turkey-bitching, and Mom started to smash wine bottles on the kitchen floor. It wasn\u2019t the best time for my brain-rot to steal the spotlight but, like I said, the worst of the worst check into a hospital around Christmas. I know Mom spent a full week asking around if anyone knew my dad\u2019s new address so she could send him one of those awful Christmas cards with my sticky chemo face pressed up next to her post-breakup boob job. Or divorc\u00e9e boob job, or abandoned-wife boob job. She left one of the cards in the drawer next to my hospital bed, just in case he swung by to visit me. It\u2019s still there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never been a great actor, but ever since my brain got me stuck in palliative care\/solitary confinement, I\u2019m like a rat rooting through trash just for something to do. I took on Doctor Brady Angel as a skin to wear after a couple months in the same room, re- fusing the same Jell-O, looking out the same window over the same Taco Bell and kid prison. Sometimes I\u2019d be Homeless Howard and score pills off of emergency room waiting area chumps, or I\u2019d steal dollar-store lipstick from Nurse Hello Kitty\u2019s blindingly bedazzled Hello Kitty purse and assume my drag persona, Kitty Licker. Out of the many characters, Doctor Brady Angel is my favorite. I\u2019m closer to him than anyone else, but that doesn\u2019t really make him a companion. So Mom asking if I\u2019d made friends was like a letter opener to my jugular\u2014my answer would\u2019ve been \u201cNo.\u201d No, I have not made friends. If the doc had let me, I would\u2019ve said, \u201cHonestly, Mom, everyone I\u2019ve met here is either dead or dying.\u201d That includes the staff. And myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only med worker I like is Laura. I see her on Tues- days. She\u2019s got an office in the west wing, which is painted all pink like the maternity ward. Laura\u2019s a social worker, so she listens to me whine about what a black hole my shrinking life has become. After this morning\u2019s bed restraint, I know Lumpy Neck asked her to work me through Doctor Brady Angel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She starts our session by asking me if I wish I could be Doctor Brady full-time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. I mean, docs are shit. Even if he\u2019s the best, I wouldn\u2019t want to be him forever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut didn\u2019t you say that you applied to medical school? Before you were admitted?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Committed, <\/em>I\u2019m thinking. Restrained. Put on death row. Held. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d She looks at me, waiting. \u201cHe does plastic surgery. I don\u2019t fuck with that, you know? Making people into what they\u2019re not. But I wouldn\u2019t go to med school anymore, even if I could. Sick people are either faking or on track to die.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m being blunt and dramatic, but this is true. Even if I were miraculously cured by the divine strike of a suddenly merciful god, I wouldn\u2019t be able to go to college. Mom just spent my savings fund on a facelift. So the money for my dream has ended up in the grabby hands of a Doctor Brady-type while I wait around to die. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019m leaving Laura\u2019s office, I tell her from the door- way, \u201cI am not <\/em>Doctor Brady Angel.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

They took me off chemo six months into my stay. Doc Lumpy Neck asked Mom if she\u2019d allow them to test some new sci-fi research drugs on me to slow the growth and assess the results for use on future patients. Mom agreed, and asked if my hair would grow back post-chemo because she wanted a nice, recent picture of me. Recent, or last. To everyone\u2019s disappointment, being a crash test dummy has turned out to be a painful and mostly bald existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m back from seeing Laura, and Judge Judy <\/em>is still on. I\u2019m balling up my blankets and positioning them underneath me to take pressure off of a bed rash when Mom comes in. Tossing her bag next to my feet, she glares at the TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do they make you watch this crap?\u201d She shuts it off and Judge Judy disappears. Mom confiscates the Jell-O from my tray and eats a spoonful while she settles into the chair beside me. I see the fresh scar under her ear glint while she swallows. Behind her, snow falls past the window for the first time this winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom reaches her hand to my scalp and fusses with the few patchy clumps of hair that have resurfaced since switching treatments. \u201cNot much better, is it?\u201d she says. Not really a ques- tion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re quiet, which is nothing new. Sometimes pain is exhaustion, and speech is a marathon. Sometimes we just have nothing good to say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour doctor caught me in the hall and asked if I want- ed to put you on antipsychotics because of the Doctor Angel thing. I said no because you don\u2019t need that shit, do you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shake my head, and I\u2019m looking at her with the snow in the background like I\u2019ve never seen her before. She\u2019s cussing like she stopped going to church, or maybe she\u2019s drunk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight, good. I told him you weren\u2019t insane. I mean, you cause trouble, but you always caused trouble. It\u2019s nothing new.\u201d Mom finishes the Jell-O and tosses the cup in the trash. \u201cSometimes I think these doctors are completely full of shit. Es- pecially that fat one with the lumps. He always hits on me, too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to tell her, yes, exactly, you\u2019re getting it, <\/em>but I\u2019m in mind-numbing pain. I consider buzzing for a nurse to hook me up to some painkillers, while Mom checks her lipstick in a com- pact. Taking low, careful breaths, I watch the snow fill my room with light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sees the twist in my face and puts the compact away. \u201cListen\u2014I know you wanted to be a doctor and I didn\u2019t ever want to spit in the face of your dream. But after this last year, I swear they\u2019re doing you wrong. And God is, too. Isn\u2019t it just so unfair?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smile. Yes. <\/em>She\u2019s looking at me, and she smiles, too\u2014a full, real smile. It\u2019s got life to it, so much life that I can see through her modifications and her choices. And she\u2019s seeing me, weaker than I\u2019ve ever been, but she\u2019s seeing the life. The not-psy- chotic life, the not-dead-yet life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom\u2019s running her thumb over my eyebrow, where the hair hasn\u2019t grown back. I\u2019m breathing slow and shallow through the pain. I\u2019m tired, but I\u2019m not dead. I\u2019m thinking: quiet is a new peace. Silence is a new face. <\/em>She gets up to leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be back tomorrow, Marcus.\u201d She\u2019s quick out the door, and I chant my name in my head like I\u2019ve forgotten it. Tomorrow is Christmas. Doctors are not saviors. God is unfair. I am not alone. Snow makes every- thing look new. Dying is not dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcus. Marcus. Marcus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congressman’s Appointment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kaitilin Gossett<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t do it,\u201d said Congressman Stephens, sitting on my examination chair with legs open a little too wide for his hospital gown, arms akimbo. There\u2019d be no small talk. The Congressman was here on a mission. I put on my examination gloves. \u201cI\u2019m never shoving anything… up there,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta give me something else.\u201d His square, Mr. Middle America face still had a bulldoggish look to it, even if it was a little softer these days. His eyes were hard without being unfriendly, his jaw set in an assured smile. This was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. When he gave people that look, things happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things like getting booked with one of the nation\u2019s top gynecologists for a basic consultation, with no referral, all because he couldn\u2019t tolerate tampons. He demanded a cure for menstruation, and he wasn\u2019t waiting around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered, vaguely, bloodstained ballet tights. A middle school bathroom stall with peeling paint. And a cardboard applicator. All that stage makeup running down my cheeks. It never occurred to me to do anything but hide, and endure. They say one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. If only Simone de Bouvoir had lived to see the the Annandale virus, she would have had known how truly right she was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any doctor could\u2019ve examined the Congressman. All gynecologists are trained for Annandale Syndrome these days. I would probably prescribe a hormonal birth control with no placebo pills to slowly suppress his cycles, same as any other doctor. But no, it had to be me, and it had to be right now. Thus, I had a full slate of rescheduled patients and the beginnings of a tension headache. I wondered what kind of donation check the University of Michigan was cashing off of this. My department hardly needed the money; ever since the Annandale outbreak the ob\/gyn department of the university hospital had been getting grant after grant approved. There was a whole new ob-gyn facility being built on campus. <\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Let’s get your exam done first,” I told him. “Then I can make some recommendations.\u201d He grimaced as I adjusted the chair and unfolded the stirrups, but complied with a soldierly air. His vulva was healthy, with the telltale abnormalities we\u2019d come to understand as normal for victims of the Annandale virus. Still, not a bad looking vulva considering that, just over ten years ago, there had been a penis and scrotum here. The clitoris was still noticeably enlarged, a reminder of its previous life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he\u2019d been infected in the initial outbreak ten years ago, the Congressman had only recently begun having periods. Just in time for menopause<\/em>, I thought. He\u2019d be back pounding on my door the second he had a hot flash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Annandale victims never started cycling. The effects of the virus tended to vary a little from man to man. The virus only produced full Annandale Syndrome in around forty percent of men; ten years in, we were still learning its pathology, with a cool two billion infected to study. Sweet, sweet vindication for whoever wrote those worst-case-scenario pandemic warnings at the CDC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sexually active, Mr. Stephens?\u201d I asked. He snorted, one unshaven thigh twitching. \u201cI\u2019m not here for a full workup. I just need something for the\u2014\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2014we don\u2019t have a full history on you,\u201d I interrupted as gently as I could. I\u2019d seen the Congressman on C-SPAN, and I didn\u2019t put it past him to try and give me the Lyndon Johnson treatment, paper gown and exposed genitals or not. \u201cAccording to the records transferred to us, you haven\u2019t had a gynecological exam in six years. We need to get a history before we can decide on any treatment options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should’ve made sure a PA had this part done already,<\/em> I thought regretfully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congressman nodded, eyes fixed somewhere on the ceiling as I myself often did when it was my turn in the chair. Finally, he seemed to come to an agreement with himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am sexually active with my wife,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly your wife?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly my wife.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd how long have you been monogamous?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been married thirteen years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd how long have you been monogamous?\u201d The Congressman looked innocently surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the leading causes of complications from An- nandale is comorbidity with an STI,\u201d I reminded him. \u201cMen who were infected with an STI before contracting Annandale are at a high risk for pelvic inflammatory disease, and other problems.\u201d The Congressman grimaced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a few partners,\u201d he said, and then quickly add- ed, \u201cbefore I got Annandale. All women. I used protection.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noted that in his chart, and then got out fresh gloves and swabs, and the speculum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re going to do next is called a speculum exam,\u201d I told him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truly, he didn\u2019t know how pampered he was. The speculum was one of the new designs. It was gentle and silicone, and it opened without the dreaded ratcheting noise that had caused generations of women to shrink back in terror, never to return to the ob\/gyn office. These new, humane speculums had actually been around for decades. Problem was, nobody had ever funded the scrappy little women\u2019s health startups that manufactured them. None ever got to mass production. Until Annandale. Now, you couldn\u2019t find a practice without them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressman Stephens looked at the device, carefully designed for women\u2019s comfort, with naked disgust for a second before he caught himself and smoothed his face back out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw the construction on my way over,\u201d he said, possibly to distract himself from what was to come. \u201cIt\u2019s good to see our legislation in action. You know, I\u2019m damn proud of that bill. They said the Freedom Caucus would never go for it, but I brought them over, despite the extremists trying to play football with millions of American\u2019s lives. With my life.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can\u2019t imagine what that would be like, <\/em>I thought. This chatter was a little less smooth, trying too hard for a masculine edge as I carried out a most unmasculine examination. But he was doing better than a lot of Annandale victims do for their first few exams. I\u2019d had dozens of runners. They panic and break for freedom, gown and all, the second the speculum came out. I had to admire the toughness of this guy; with resilience like this, it\u2019s no wonder he became such a political star. Who else would have the balls (too soon?) to spike VA funding measures because he didn\u2019t get one of his riders attached? Oh yes, I\u2019d been watching the news long before Annandale. His donors were some lucky people indeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressman Stephens wasn\u2019t a fan of the Pap smear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTax dollars at work!\u201d he grunted, flashing me a wry smile. I smiled back. Tax dollars indeed. I wondered what the Congressman remembered of those pre-Annandale days. I wondered if he thought about how he\u2019d been redirecting and funneling those tax dollars back then. A Freedom Caucus superstar. I sure remember. I was there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dissertation was on the reproductive care of poor women. I spent my PhD years in crowded, run-down waiting rooms, where too few doctors would try and keep women and their babies healthy. Those little buildings had been full of suffo- cating pressure, weighing on the staff and the patients. There was a feeling like being slowly strangled; one measure after another signed into law, sucking funding away, chipping away at those clinics bit by bit. The women could feel it. They were afraid, like refugees huddled in the middle of the holy war the government was waging against abortion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funny how the pro-life groups had shared the fate of the Congressman\u2019s gonads after the Annandale outbreak: shriv- eled, withdrawn, transformed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He listened with annoyance as I explained the bimanual part of the exam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know what the secret was, to getting the bill passed?\u201d He asked me as I put on fresh gloves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was that?\u201d I asked, because it was better to keep the patient relaxed before this part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe name,\u201d he told me. \u201cNobody remembers what it used to be called, when the first draft was brought before the House. It was the Emergency Appropriation for Women\u2019s Health Infrastructure in Response to Annandale Syndrome. No wonder it got tanked five times in the House. No, the new name was what made it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smiled appreciatively. Sometimes, at home, I had to shut C-SPAN off. The things I\u2019d hear just made me too angry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressman Stephens continued. \u201cAll the good things we\u2019ve accomplished since that bill became law. Teen pregnancy is down, cancer screenings are up, infant mortality is down, maternal mortality is down\u2014did you know we used to have the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world? Can you believe that? Barbaric. It all came down to the name.\u201d I nodded and mhmmed. <\/em>\u201cWhen I renamed the bill, I knew that my colleagues in the House just needed to be reminded of what was at stake. Those of us who contracted Annandale didn\u2019t choose to suffer this. Victims shouldn\u2019t be punished by a chance of biology. These are human beings we\u2019re talking about!\u201d He paused. Keeping me hanging onto every word, I guessed. I could see him giving this speech next year during the midterms race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd so,\u201d the Congressman concluded, \u201cI was able to bring together a divided House by renaming it the SOS Act.\u201d As if I didn\u2019t know the name of the law that had transformed my field. That had changed everything, more so than the virus itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is much catchier,\u201d I agreed lightly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it unified Congress at last,\u201d the Congressman said, grinning. \u201cJust by reminding them that the purpose of this great law was Saving Our Sons.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor in Indiana<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Marissa Artrip<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThwack!\u201d slams the old screen door. It clings to its rusty hinges more for show than for effectiveness, as the mosquitos fly in through the welcoming holes that permeate the mesh. Little bare feet slap against the concrete floor of the breezeway and hurry up the wooden stairs, careful to hop over the third stair that splintered and collapsed two weeks ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll fix it on a rainy day,\u201d Grandpa rumbles from his lawn chair in the shade of the garage where he makes camp each day with his ration of cigarettes and Diet Pepsi at his feet. \u201cS\u2019too nice to fix it today.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s June in Indiana. The rain doesn\u2019t come. The little feet are muffled by the threadbare carpet of the first floor, but the rotting floorboards underneath release a cacophony of creaks and groans that remedies the quiet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrandma!\u201d calls a little voice that belongs to the little boy with the little feet. \u201cI found momma!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh,\u201d says Grandma from her easy chair. It\u2019s not a question, but the boy in his red Spiderman pajama top and too big basketball shorts answers anyway. \u201cI said I found momma!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh.\u201d Grandma says, with all the same concern as the time the boy announced that he found treasure down by the riv- er. What he called the river was a drainage ditch, and the treasure was the chipped remains of a glass insulator from the old power line. Grandma\u2019s eyes never left the grainy television. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the little boy, his grandma and the worn brown La- Z-Boy she sat in were one and the same; it seemed her pudgy, round arms were too heavy to lift from the fraying armrests, and her thick, veiny calves glued to the floor at the base of the chair. Bulging out from beneath the faded fabric of her long blue dress, those legs frightened the boy for they were so unlike the toned, smooth legs of his mother who never seemed to stop moving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSit down, Brianne,\u201d Grandma used to say to her. \u201cYou\u2019re wearing a hole in the carpet pacing like that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Brianne didn\u2019t stop. Her legs kept pacing, moving, run- ning. In high school she ran track: the 400 meters, the 200 meters, the 4×100 relay. She ran the five miles of muddy dirt road that separated her from the squat brick building that was Loomington High. She ran at practice each day on the black, cinder track that surrounded the mud pit that was the football field, and she ran home from practice each night as the sun was setting on the cornfields that seemed to line every road in town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was eighteen, Brianne ran to Colorado to go to school on an athletic scholarship. She made friends who had parents who took her out to dinner to places that did not serve their food in paper sacks. When her coach\u2019s wife accused Brianne of seducing her husband and chased her down the hall of the student center, Brianne was asked to leave. So she went back to Indiana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Brianne was twenty she fled to California to become a singer. She stayed with a friend she\u2019d met in Colorado and performed in bars and caf\u00e9s for applause and little else. When Brianne punched a producer for telling her she\u2019d sing better topless and was charged with assault, she decided it wasn\u2019t the career for her. So she went back to Indiana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Brianne was twenty-one she escaped to Florida to be a bartender where she ran into her coach from her brief stint in university. He went back to Colorado with his wife. She went back to Indiana with a baby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce poor in Indiana, always poor in Indiana,\u201d her daddy said. When Brianne\u2019s Greyhound from Florida pulled into the station in Loomington, and she saw her daddy\u2019s rusted red Chevy waiting in the parking lot, she cried. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She named her son Jesse, and he made her happy for a time. \u201cYou keep my feet on the ground,\u201d she told her baby boy with a smile on his first birthday. After six long years of waitressing at the local diner and enduring the false pleasantries of her peers from high school who married and had families, she found it difficult to see it as a positive anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days ago when the little boy told his Grandpa he\u2019d walked home from school alone because his mama wasn\u2019t there to meet him, the old man lit another cigarette from the half-empty pack on the ground. Grandpa showed just as much interest the day Jesse came home from school and told him he\u2019d found a real dinosaur bone. The scratched rib Jesse produced looked identical to that of the deer that had decayed on the side of the road near their house after having been hit by a car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be back,\u201d Grandpa said in his raspy voice, exhaling a cloud of smoke. \u201cS\u2019too nice a day to go worrying about where Bri- anne\u2019s got to now.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boy stared at Grandpa, his backwoods Buddha whose tobacco zen couldn\u2019t be interrupted by a pack of wild dogs. Bunching up his baggy shorts in his little fists, the little boy wandered out of the garage, kicking at the cracked concrete with his bare feet. Grandpa just stared down the vacant dirt road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The corn in the field next door shriveled up and died. The rain did not come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two nights ago when Jesse asked Grandma where his mom- ma was, she said \u201chmph,\u201d and kept watching the TV just as she had months ago when he had asked her where his cat, Whiskers, had gone. Jesse had called for Whiskers out his bedroom window every night for two weeks, but she did not return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little boy watched the veins in his grandma\u2019s leg bob sluggishly as she shifted her position in her chair, and then he ran out the door into the suffocating heat of the Indiana summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little boy looked for his mother among the shelves in the library where she had read him Love You Forever<\/em>, and she cried and clutched his hand. The little boy looked at the post office where they had gone to send a picture of the little boy to Momma\u2019s special friend in Colorado. He looked for her at the playground with the purple and green jungle gym where they played hide and seek the day she had received the same unopened letter back from her special friend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, he looked for her on the tallest ledge of the quarry where they watched the sunset over the man-made lake bordered by walls of jagged gray limestone decorated with green and yellow graffiti that proclaimed \u201cGod is dead.\u201d As the sky turned red, Brianne held her son to her chest. \u201cOne day we\u2019ll leave Indiana,\u201d she told him. There was a rumble of thunder from far off and the air smelled of rain. \u201cOne day.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe always comes back,\u201d Grandpa said to Grandma one night after a long day of smoking in the garage a week after Brianne had disappeared. \u201cAnd she never asks for money. That\u2019s something.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPfft,\u201d snorted Grandma. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t ask for nothin\u2019 but she sure left us somethin\u2019,\u201d she said gesturing at the little boy with her can of Diet Pepsi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be back,\u201d Grandpa rasped. But Brianne didn\u2019t come back. The next day passed, and it felt like an eternity to the little boy. Grandma sat in her La-Z-Boy. Grandpa sat in the garage. The little boy searched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really found her!\u201d Jesse says again to his grandpa while the old man folds up his chair and tucks it against the wall next to the dusty bocce balls and the cobweb covered lawn mower. \u201cIt\u2019s bedtime, kid,\u201d Grandpa says without looking at his grandson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little boy feels his throat begin to tighten and his eyes burn with impending tears. He hangs his head as he turns and steps over the cracked wooden transom, the slam of the screen door sending a spray of mosquitoes swirling into the tense evening air. The boy drags his feet up the wooden stairs, barely remembering to skip the third, collapsed step as uneven breaths shake his chest. In the squeaky bathroom with its ancient knobs and faucets, he brushes his teeth lethargically with a large glob of Crest, splattering his Spiderman shirt with white flecks of toothpaste. He shuffles across the hall to the baby blue room that was his momma\u2019s when she was a girl and both of theirs when she came back from Florida. He drags his Spiderman pajama bottoms out of the lowest drawer of the wooden dresser as the first tears begin to well over the edges of his eyes. Kicking his loose shorts into the wicker hamper, the boy pulls on his pilling PJ pants and then pulls his knees up to his chest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of the dresser sit the cracked insulator, the deer bone, and a number of other bits and pieces, treasures in no one\u2019s eyes but Jesse\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All at once, Jesse\u2019s longing and frustration overwhelm him. The sniffles he\u2019d been holding back overflow, and he begins to shake and heave in earnest as tears carve raw lines down his ruddy cheeks. His uneven breaths are now punctuated with involuntary moans and gasps that fill the stuffy air of the little white house. A light flicks on in another room, and the boy tries to suffocate his sobs as heavy feet creak down the hallway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse does not turn as the door to the room opens, and he does not respond when his grandma calls his name. He hears her step closer, feels the shifting of the warped floorboards beneath them. When she asks what\u2019s wrong, he does not respond. She reaches for him, and he scrambles away, putting his back to the wall like a cornered mouse. She demands to know what\u2019s wrong, and he relents, explaining as best he can between his shuddering breaths and uncontrollable whimpers. When she puts a meaty hand on his shoulder, in that room that belonged to him and his delicate, light-footed mother, Jesse jerks back again, pushing himself tightly against the wall and then up to a standing position. Shoving past his startled grandma, Jesse runs out of the room and then out of the house, leaving the screen door banging behind him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He runs, runs through the cornfield next door, up the power line, and down to the base of the old quarry. He stumbles along the thin, rocky trail to the small lake in the center of the pit. When he reaches the looming shadow of the highest point of the quarry, he pauses and looks out over the water with its little islands and idle ducks all tinted red in the fading sun. The air is heavy and a strong breeze whips around him, and then up out of the quarry and across the fields to the little white house where Jesse\u2019s grandma is quickly dialing the phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the little boy turns to face the ground at the base of the cliff where a pretty blonde woman lays with her arms spread wide and her left leg bent at an odd angle beneath her tattered, white dress. Her eyes and mouth both hang partially open. Lady- bugs and flies speckle her face and cluster at her sticky hairline. Resting on a large, smooth stone, her head is encircled in a rust-col- ored halo. Sirens begin to wail not far off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse lets out another rattling breath and steps over to his mother. Ignoring the splotchy bruises on her skin and the unfamiliar bloating of her limbs, he sits next to her and curls up in the space between her arm and her body. The little boy rests his head on his mother\u2019s shoulder and waits for the rain to come.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pharos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Olivia Sturtvant<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The first time I saw her was on a dark night in mid- April. I had set out on a walk in search of beer but ended up on the beach. The Atlantic ocean spit its bitter cold salt at me as if it, too, were questioning what my intentions were. To its credit, I would also be suspicious of any twenty-some-odd man wandering aimlessly on my shores. I glanced around to see if anyone was nearby to share in the ocean\u2019s wariness. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stood tall and sea-worn, each brick bent slightly to the position the harsh waves demanded of them. The green hue of neon light illuminated the fog around her skirt and made the tower appear to be much more formidable than what it really was\u2013\u2013an old lighthouse at the edge of town, only remembered by those who depend on her for guidance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drew closer, curiosity behind every step. The green light was emanating from a sign blinking into the darkness, broad- casting OPEN to all souls who may find themselves awake at this terrible hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon further inspection, I saw the open sign belonged to a bar that had taken up residence in the bottom nook of the lighthouse on this rock-fortified peninsula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noticed that the glass door was cold against the palm of my hand; I pushed it open with some force. A rusted bell alerted all four of the bar\u2019s inhabitants to my presence. The floor- boards let out a loud creak, and the smell of spilled scotch, leather boots that would never be completely dry, and damp driftwood hit me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender briefly took his attention off the glass he was cleaning to glance at me. His eyes didn\u2019t quite fit him, the edges of them too hardened by time to still have that vibrant spark of youth inside them. Something about him rang with familiarity, yet also fear. He turned back to the glass and addressed me without looking up again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst time in,\u201d he said. It wasn\u2019t a question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, yeah.\u201d I shrugged off my coat and tossed it onto the bowing wooden stand by the door. Bits of residual sea spray and rain rolled off the coat\u2019s grimy black sleeves and fell to the floor. My boots tracked in more water as I made my way to the comfortable looking bar stool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without saying anything the bartender placed a shot glass in front of me and began to fill it. The bottle, smaller than the rest on the shelf, was covered with a thin layer of dust. From where I sat I could see that it was hardly full at all and the label had been torn off, save for a small scrap with a red letter I could hardly make out. I swore the bottle could have contained part of the sun, judging from the bright orange floss that flowed from it. The floss turned to liquid in the glass and when the man stopped pouring, the drink began to shimmer and swirl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is that?\u201d The bartender looked me directly in my eyes and it hit me how much I had missed at first glance. The creases around his eyes and on his forehead weren\u2019t what made him look so old, nor was it the silvery gray shadow of a beard. It was his hands that aged him so drastically. The skin by his nails was peeling back, liver spots stained the fragile, cracking skin, and it looked like his fingers were permanently bent forward as if he had never really stopped scratching at something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHope,\u201d he said, \u201cNot much of it around these parts any more, so drink up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I didn\u2019t ask for this,\u201d I said as he made his way over to the other end of the bar to carefully put the bottle back on the top shelf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, yeah,\u201d he grunted, his shoulders still facing away from me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bell above the door solemnly announced the arrival of another patron; the sliver of the bartender\u2019s attention I held shifted to the newcomer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrank,\u201d the bartender said as he nodded to the man walking into the bar. From the tone of his voice I could gather that these men had known each other a while, yet the sweeping note of hostility that the one word carried filled the room with palpable tension. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank made his way to the bar and chose the stool three seats from mine, leaving me well within earshot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThought you wouldn\u2019t be back for a while,\u201d the bartender grunted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBelieve me,\u201d said Frank, \u201cneither did I.\u201d I watched as the bartender let his hand hover in front of the array of bottles that lined the set of shelves in front of a dingy mirror. He didn\u2019t move. I was beginning to think time had stopped when finally he moved. It wasn\u2019t a large motion, just barely enough to disrupt the still air around him. In fact, it almost looked as though the bottle ap- peared in his hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He placed a champagne flute in front of Frank and coaxed the cork out of the neck of a glass bottle that shone a brilliant blue in the light. The color held my eye. I watched as the bartender began to pour\u2013\u2013instead of the effervescent pale blue liquid I was expecting, a dark gray sludge speckled with bits of what looked like mold and moss oozed out of the bottle and landed in the flute. The sound and smell of it reminded me of every Thursday night in college spent regretting every sip of lukewarm alcohol that had passed through my lips only hours before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is that?\u201d I retched. With hardly any regard to me, the bartender turned the bottle toward me so I could read the label: A TASTE OF ONE\u2019S OWN MEDICINE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ink was bright and bold, and shimmered as he placed the bottle down. He turned the label so that Frank could read it too, and then watched as Frank picked the flute up and held it under his nose as if it contained a dark red wine. He took one sip and winced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know the drill,\u201d the bartender said ominously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank simply nodded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began to feel out of place. Every gaze up from the bar, and away from the drink, seemed to bring the walls in closer. The air suddenly felt thicker; each inhale coated my lungs like coal smoke and lingered until the exhale. I could only tell time was passing because each second was counted off by a beat of my anxious heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t leave \u2018till the glass is empty,\u201d Frank said, glancing at me with a look that was hard to place. It bordered on sympathy but with pangs of jealousy in his irises. He looked, begrudgingly, at the bartender and lifted the flute from the stained oak bar. He brought it to his mouth and paused before touching it to his lips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is this place?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one is really sure,\u201d Frank said, the drink clinging like plaque to his teeth. \u201cIt\u2019s a sort of otherworldly space\u2013\u2013some think it\u2019s an isle that Odysseus once visited, others say it\u2019s like the lost city of Atlantis, and some say it\u2019s a twisted version of Fate.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender ignored him. \u201cIt\u2019s called Pharos,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was all the explanation he gave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked to Frank for more but he was busy trying\u2013\u2013and failing\u2013\u2013to chug the liquid that was now coming out of the glass like tar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity drove the words out of my mouth before I had time to think them through, \u201cWhat did you do to deserve that?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank eyed me from his seat. \u201cNosy, ain\u2019t ya?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I held my hands up in defeat, but something about the old man\u2019s eyes softened and a moment later he began to tell me of his sins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone in town knows\u2013\u2013there\u2019s no use trying to hide it anymore. It was me who bought the paper mill.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper mill employed more than half of the town. It was powered by the river that cut through the east side of town, and emptied into the ocean about a mile back from the part of the beach I had been walking. The mill was the symbol of Penobscot; its brightly colored roof had become a sort of emblem. Those that worked there took pride in that fact; they carried themselves differently from the people who were employed elsewhere. That pride had evaporated last week when we learned that soon we would all be people who were employed elsewhere, or nowhere. The mill was shutting down. Worse, it was being torn down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old owners, the Lyins, had fallen on hard times recently\u2013\u2013we all had. The downturn of the economy had left the mill in trouble, and ultimately up for sale. This meant one of two things, depending on the buyer: a significant injection of capital, with which the management whispered the old mill might well turn a profit again, or a quick buck for some out-of-town scrap dealer. With one mind, a whole town hoped for the first option, but feared and, on some level, expected the second. When we walked up to the mill\u2019s great oak doors to find them locked from the inside with no explanation but a scrap of paper that read CLOSED, we knew the worst had happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abruptly, I was hyperaware of every strand of hair on the <\/p>\n\n\n\n

back of my neck, because they all were standing straight up. I could hear the blood pumping through my heart and rushing into my veins. Every part of my body was begging me to find a way out, or hit someone, hit Frank. I couldn\u2019t move. I felt like I was made of lead. Now I could sympathize with the dead flies in my mom\u2019s kitchen. This is how they must have felt when they hit the bright yellow fly paper\u2013\u2013calm at first and then suddenly excruciatingly stuck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender eyed me, \u201cDo you not listen, boy? You can\u2019t leave without finishing your drink. Fighting will only make you tired.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I eyed the glass in front of me. Beads of condensation had started to form and fall down the sides. I took it in my hands. It felt surprisingly light for how full it was. I held it briefly under my nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled like sour candies and vanilla. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMight as well just get it over with,\u201d Frank said, now halfway through his own glass. He gulped the rest down. He left soon after, making eye contact only with the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I figured I should do the same; maybe I could catch him on his way to the car. Give him more than just a bad tasting drink. I braced myself, then drank it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strawberries exploded in my mouth. Fresh, picked right at the beginning of summer, just before they got too ripe. Only it wasn\u2019t strawberries. It was as if I was drinking the sunlight that was stuck inside the berries when they were harvested. Their lifeblood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next sip gave me a similar sensation, only this time I was sucking the sun out of a mint leaf. Then an orange. Ginger. Then a mango. At the very bottom of the glass was a ring of sugar. I stuck my finger into it and hastily scooped the sugary paste into my mouth, as much as I could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnough,\u201d the bartender said yanking the glass back across the bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut\u2013\u2013but\u2013\u2013I!\u201d My hands shot out after it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStop.\u201d The warning in his voice gave me pause. \u201cIt\u2019s addic- tive, that\u2019s why there is so little. Too much hope is a dangerous thing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender turned towards me for the last time, his gaze heavy. \u201cI\u2019ve seen men turn to beast for a fifth of what you just had. Commit unspeakable acts\u2013\u2013murder, treason\u2013\u2013for one small sip.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen why did you give me so much?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He held my gaze for a beat, then went back to cleaning the glass he had been holding when I first came in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I blinked, and then I was outside on the cold sand. In the distance the morning sun was rising over the hills, illuminating the spot where the tower had stood. Now it was just a pile of rocks being beaten by the sea.
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Table of Contents “The Diner” by Gina Gidaro “Everyone Here But Me” by Gryphon Beyerle “The Congressman’s Appointment” by Katilin Gossett “Poor in Indiana” by Marissa Artrip “Pharos” by Olivia Sturtvant The Diner Gina Gidaro Between the rain and the dark, I almost miss the silver diner.  It looks abandoned, deserted, except for the flickeringContinue reading “fiction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sphere-63","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/sphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}