Woodland Tea Party by Carissa Geraud
Made by Carissa Geraud.
Carissa is a mixed media artist who resides in the mountains of Bailey, Colorado. Nature is
her biggest inspiration, she is always finding new ways to immerse others in the natural world
she sees. You can find more of her work at artbyris.com.
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Urban Echoes by Allie Smith
Made by Allie Smith.
Allie Smith is a passionate artist and writer currently studying at Arapahoe Community College. Inspired by street art and its raw, expressive energy, her work explores themes of identity, rebellion, self-love, and mental peace. She blends bold visuals with fun color palettes to capture the essence of creative freedom and personal growth.
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Letter From The Editor
Dear Reader,Light some cedar and lavender incense well after midnight. Find a nice spot on the floor, in the warm lamplight, and preferably by a window. Bonus if you can see the moon. Put on an easy record. Bring a glass of water and maybe a smooth stone to hold. Shuffle your deck, talk to it, and breathe while you prepare to draw your first card. Flip it: the fool.It’s a misconception that many who practice tarot read the future. It doesn’t even have to be that serious. Sometimes I just draw a few cards to prompt a poem or story. Anyways, how could they read something so diffuse and immaterial as what has yet to happen? Always, they read the present; a reading pulls from the past and reaches into the future, relying entirely on the moments and minutiae of now. We all, in our ways, feel the weight of the past as much as the ceaseless relevance of now, but next is where it gets tricky: so why reach?—why peer?To stretch maybe?—have a sense of control? Rather than predict specific outcomes, a tarot spread can at least open up your imagination to unfold an array of potentials—the already present pieces of you, just waiting to awaken. Some will seem appealing, and some will be unsettling. Ambivalently as such, the function of tarot is to view an image—its symbols, characters, settings, colors—reflect on it, let it in, and see what it brings out of you. That is, define it according to everything you have available.Lean on your intuition and experience with as much weight as you can. Certainly, use the guidebooks to spark clearer associations, but linger on the cards—the images. Put them in conversation with one another. Reflect on them. Authentically. Think of yourself, your friends and family, your community, anywhere you exist— anywhere you’d like to, and anywhere you wouldn’t. Find through-lines and let them tell you a little story. Decide what to do with it. Just enjoy it?—learn from it?Images and stories can cut through our awake world to penetrate our dreams and other vaults which often sleep during the day. In this way, tarot can be deeply spiritual (that is, purposeful) as it elucidates the undercurrents which move around and through us. Similarly, stories track the surface of an experience, imagining, or both, while containing traces of something deeper.So approach the stories, expressions, and artworks here similarly to the tarot: be present with them. Notice how they tug at your experience, inspire new potentials, spark conversations in the margins, and form a community among their collection. Much like the cards, these works may reveal to you something unsanitary, unattractive, or otherwise indecent. Remember that how you choose to engage with these pieces is their worth.Know too, that as much as I believe the content curation team and I have captured raw representations of the world’s turmoil and viscera, we also found its beauty: we carried Petoskey stones across a dry seabed, we stuffed easter eggs with some stinky suburban revenge, we were protected by a preacher on a train, and we attended an emergency meeting between a coyote and a deer, who seemingly hate each other, but actually have some great chemistry. Joys and wisdoms, like diamonds and gems, are waiting to be unburied from these artworks and writings. The team and I have already spent our time down in the caves, we have collected the shiny things, and now we get to bring them to the surface and scatter them where we go.We chose the fool’s journey as our theme because we couldn’t choose anything else; like actually: we didn’t settle on a theme until nearly March. We couldn’t have been more indecisive when the semester began in January. The patience of our design team was vital as they worked on concepts and mock-ups for the six or seven different aesthetic directions we toyed with. The perfectionist in me wanted everybody on the team to feel heard, and for that to be reflected in the journal we’d create. I wanted to curate our perfect collectanea of poems, stories, drama, and art; I feared failure.As part of my foolish journey, I found there is no such thing as perfection, and I did fail a few ways or more, but the editorial team, the design team, our advisors, and contributors came together repeatedly and miraculously to make sure this journal would be bound by today. I just led some meetings and wrote this letter. I read a lot, but so did everyone else. The editors and staff did the heavy lifting here—yes, with all the reading—but mostly in all the disagreeing and compromising they had to do about our selections, and in how they honored our contributors. They showed up, and I’m so grateful. I’m proud of this team because they came together in service of our authors and artists.We chose the fool’s journey as our theme for this, the 60th volume of the Progenitor Art and Literary Journal, the diamond edition, because who else could take that first clumsy step. In February, the submissions stacked up, intimidating as a mountain—nearly 350 submissions across five genres. It took us a while to find our momentum, but we set out, stumbling and uncertain if our steps were the best ones. It wasn’t until the second week of pouring through poetry submissions that I knew we were on the right path.We arrived at a massive poem, which the author swears really is a poem—seventeen hundred words, and five pages long. I started to say, “we’ll just skip this one,” because the length of it was clearly preposterous. Before I could finish the thought though, the team—some members who’d been mice until now—were yelling at me. Outraged. They loved this poem—this ridiculously long poem—and it stirred a fire in them I hadn’t yet seen. This nearly ubiquitous protest warmed my heart. I knew they were here. I knew they cared. I knew they were reading. Overjoyed, I listened as they banded together to fight for this poem. Now, it is the first piece you will find as you begin your own journey through this collection.So walk with the fool, as they leave the mines with their newfound fortunes: their diamonds and gems. Stay with them as they abandon the court where they jestered for the lovers, the queens who built their kingdom of poetics. Follow the fool when they set out to find their own poems. Watch as they attend the magician who conjures absurdities, fables, and parables. Here, our fool learns to transmute the winds, waters, soils, and fires around them, taking familiar elements and imagining something entirely new. Go with them next as they seek the hermit in the night, who grazes the stars, epiphanous. She demonstrates how to weave lessons from our own travels and from the solitude we all carry with us. Sit with the fool still, as they ride death’s ferry towards a dawn on distant shores. Nearly spent, with only two coins and no gems left, they ready themselves to die—in a way, for a time at least. Play a different role, in a different land. When morning breaks on that new beach, who will the fool be? They may drop precious things along the way, for their journey will not be perfect, but it will be theirs.Remember the connective and restorative power of real stories, from near and far, in our age of AI generation and state-perpetuated unrest. Let this collection be a redoubt of originality, authenticity, and creativity. Remember the efforts of the editors, staff, designers, artists, advisors, publishers, and mostly—the contibutors. Let this journal be a testament to the creativity and dedication of more than one hundred people, largely from right here at ACC, and many more from here in Denver, but also from all over the country, and a few from other parts of the globe.Dear reader, enter this journey foolishly, openly, humanly, not to arrive anywhere, but to walk for a while, and arrive where you may.And reader, be well, wherever you may wander,
Iris Everett
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Editor in Chief
Spring 2025 v. 60
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Feather
The sky’s pale blue color had been transformed in an instant to a dark, ominous gray hue. Thick black clouds rolled in like waves, beckoning attention. As of yet, no rain had fallen, but the threatening clouds gave warning—they were an undeniable signal of a storm to come. The wind carried the smell of manure from distant pastures, and there was the slightest hum of electricity pulsing through the air.Despite the bright fluorescent lights and white floors and walls, the DMV felt ominous, too. It was uncomfortably quiet, as DMVs typically are, as though making any sound is a punishable offense. The bubbling of a water cooler and the small click of a computer mouse cut through the silence periodically. Though the most jarring noise came from the loudspeaker, crackling with static as instructions were called out: Number 53 to Desk 2. A teenaged girl, looking cheerful and bubbly stood up and walked alongside an older, middle- aged man—her father, Harold—to the second desk in the lobby.“Here for a minor permit?” The clerk asked. The girl, Mira, beamed as she nodded her head yes, offering forward the papers from her driver’s education school. The worker motioned for the pair to sit before thumbing through the forms.“Looks like it might storm here pretty soon,” Harold said to the clerk, a lame attempt at small talk. The employee looked up from the paperwork and out the windows of the lobby, unfazed by the growing darkness of the sky outside. He glanced back down at the forms before clacking at his keyboard.“Yep. Don’t wanna get caught in that on the way home,” he exhaled heavily, shutting down the same obligatory conversation he’d had with the previous customer, and resumed his work with the same lack of efficiency.An unflattering, toothy portrait and a signed affidavit of liability later, the father-daughter duo exited the DMV. A sudden gust of wind knocked into them, nearly snatching the temporary license permit slip out of Mira’s hands. She clutched it in her fist, wrinkling the soft paper, then looked to her father with wind-tossed hair and wide eyes. “Oh my god,” she laughed. “Could you imagine?”Harold huffed a laugh and shook his head before continuing to the car. As he approached the car he tossed the keys at Mira. “You’re driving, birthday girl.”She caught the keys with her free hand and flashed him a proud smile. The locks in the door clicked and the two entered in on their respective sides. Mira straightened her spine and held the button on the side of her seat that moved her forward and raised her higher, before adjusting the rearview mirrors. “Woah—that’s a lot of geese!” She turned around to look out the back window at the grass lot next to the building. On it, hundreds of geese sat huddled together, still and unmoving for just a moment, before they abruptly launched themselves into the air, wings beating furiously as they formed their V-formation. Through the closed windows, Mira and her father heard a cacophony of honks as the birds flooded the skies, flying along the threatening undertow of the clouds.Home was not far from the DMV, but between the strip mall where it sat and their neighborhood was a vast open field. Several acres of for sale commercial land embraced the three-laned road. It was the result of this and higher speed limits, that roadkill was not an uncommon occurrence. Mira merged into the left lane early, anticipating the turn into her neighborhood within the next few miles, and it was in this
moment that she noticed a gray pillow on the side of the road. As the vehicle passed it and she got a closer look she realized it was a goose, it’s long black neck twisted around as it lay on the ground, dark red blood dotting it’s wings.“Ew, someone hit a goose,” Mira remarked. “Oh god, I hope it’s not suffering.”“It’s definitely dead,” Harold responded, neck craned back to look at it. He turned forward in his seat and they continued on. The black clouds had swallowed up the last sliver of the sun. Then it began to rain.Small drops at first, barely enough to give purpose to the windshield wipers. But then they got harder, and the drops hit the car with ferocity; rhythmically and aggressively smacking the car’s exterior. Mira’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel and her eyes widened as she struggled to see through the blur of the rain. Harold shifted in his seat before giving her instructions.“It’s alright, ease up on the gas a bit and just take it slow.”“I’ve never driven in rain like this before,” she replied, a hint of panic in her voice.“Once we turn in by the clubhouse we can pull over and switch. But we can’t stop in the middle of the road.”Mira’s back straightened and she sighed as she leaned forward into the steering wheel, as though getting closer to the dashboard would help her see better. A maroon colored rain drop landed on the windshield, but disappeared quickly with the pass of the wipers. Mira saw and followed that streak of blood before it vanished, though, and she was about to ask her father what it was, but before she could part her lips there was a thump against the roof of the car.“Was that hail?”Harold looked to the roof with a puzzled expression. “I don’t think so.” He pressed the Sunroof button and the shade rolled back, revealing the limp, gray body of a goose.“What in the hell?” Mira dared a glance up and cried out upon seeing it’s bloodied and battered body right above her head. Her foot stepped on the gas, thrusting them forward and she glanced ahead at the road again in the same instant that another goose struck the hood of the vehicle. It’s body bounced off the hood to the side, leaving a few feathers and a wide dent in it’s absence. “Dad!”The other cars on the road began to aggressively honk their horns, in warning or in impatience, Mira couldn’t tell, as more birds fell from the sky. Their bodies pounded against the exterior of the car, the muffled thumping from their impact came from all directions.“Dad, what do I do?” Mira cried out.“Just keep going, keep going,” he yelled back at her. “Goddamnit, what the hell is happening?”Through the dense rain, they could see the geese as they dive bombed the road. Their necks were twisted and bent at the wrong angles, their wings ripped from their bodies, beaks crunched from the collision against the asphalt. Drops of blood fell from the sky like red rain as the car sped down the road, it’s wheels rolling over the dead waterfowl along the way.Headlights from oncoming traffic swerved left and right in an attempt to avoid being hit, and Harold could just barely make out a car driving into the median, a bird splayed across the windshield, still alive as it frantically flapped it’s broken wings. Hundreds of geese littered the roads, and the asphalt was covered in dark blood, iridescent oil, and large feathers.A thick fog then settled atop the streets, blanketing the other cars and road lines and masking the falling birds until the very last second. “I can’t fucking see anything!” Mira shouted, fear lacing her voice.Suddenly in front of them, there was a flash of red lights. Mira slammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel to the left. The car hydroplaned off the road and rolled over into the median, glass shattering and metal folding from the impact.The birds had stopped falling a long moment later, and just as quickly as it lowered, the fog lifted, revealing a dozen cars that had crashed into each other or driven off the road. The geese, with their mangled bodies and their plumage, were scattered about both sides of the street. The rain began to dissipate, and when it had finally let up completely, one last grey feather fell from the sky, gently landing on the underbelly of the girl and her father’s SUV.
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Written by Sophie Lark.
Sophia Lark is a moderately caffeinated, chocolate addicted mother, student, and writer with a zeal for baking, brooding, and being creative.
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Let Me Breathe You In
“Next.” Stiff black gloves flexed as a hand beckoned.Emmet’s thin-soled steps padded quickly forward from the sweaty line of downtrodden people. His hands clutched a trembling card, connected by a ratty lanyard around his sunburnt neck.One of the faceless guards raised his rifle. “Step up to the yellow line.” His command not something to be ignored, much like the weapon he clutched.“Yes, Warden.” Emmet breathed through a smile, raising his calloused hands, the card still dangling from one. The other set of sleek black armor moved, and that guard scanned him with a tingling beam.“Clear.” He announced after reading the result. With a jingle, the priest behind him beckoned for Emmet to approach.Emmet bounded past the painted line and through the black armored guards up to the robed figure. The priest’s ringed hands quickly procured a reader device, and Emmet pressed his card to the interface. A bead of dirty liquid slipped down his temple, as the near- empty account drained to its dregs. After a second it made a cheerful chirp; the transaction went through. The priest read the amount with and a smirk waved his hand. The sleek metal door, slathered with chipping gold paint, hissed open.Emmet all but ran inside.The interior, white. Blank. Comprised of four small walls with nothing notable save for an identical door on the opposite wall, a single, flimsy chair resting dead center, and the glorious machine with an acolyte standing at the ready. Sitting down quickly in his seat, Emmet whipped to the acolyte expectantly. If he noticed the poorly scrubbed away bloodstains at his feet, his giddiness didn’t indicate it.“This faithful one has paid for a full thirty seconds,” The priest behind him said with a slick grin in his voice. “I will pray it is a most blessed time.” He began to chant, once heinous words rendered beautiful in a tiny cathedral of bleached white walls.The acolyte nodded, adjusted the machine by turning dials and inserting a small tube of what flowed like a cloud or liquid gold, and helped a jittery Emmet slip the breathing mask over his nose and mouth.“Gently,” they murmured.Emmet drank in deep. Filled his lungs with the gritty blessing. Felt the tiny shards seep deep into his chest. Reveled in the tangible blessing that flowed into him. A warmth. A burning trickle that tip-toed on sharpened nails up and down his throat and behind his eyes. He blinked quickly with his glassy orbs, their once hazel circles becoming infected with flecks of golden dust.Rapture.He blinked hard, stinging fluid leaking from his tear ducts. He tried focusing, tried widening. Why would the lens of this imperfect camera not behave for just these few precious seconds?He inhaled again, sending spikes down his throat.There.The light blurred around the edges of his vision, and slowly the room melded into a completely new brilliance, the peripherals forming into a kaleidoscopic flare as the far wall lengthened. Not away from him and his seated mortal body, but in a deepness as if the physical wall itself was merely a paint layered over something so much grander and more real.Colors with unknown names, shapes without form, futures that were not.And in that, her.Her smile, her hair, her expression a caress upon his soul. The shine and glow of a mother, a wife, a friend. She moved like an angel, he thought, her long dress like folded wings that guided her as she danced.Such a wonderful thing, to witness her dance again. He couldn’t put words to what it was she danced in, perhaps knee-high flaxen strands of wheat, or the liquid of some amber ocean, but she weaved and flowed like the world itself. All bent together, rhythmically, a silent pulse that he could feel in the beat-like tremble of the iridescence that pulled at his peripherals.And then, there was a twinge, a pause, a perturbance that crossed her face, an expression not made for her as she no longer was quite one with the otherly. Her smile sagged slightly, and a question crossed her merry eyes. No longer in sync with the flow of the colors, she dared to search. Her eyes met his.Emmet convulsed in his seat, reaching out a longing hand, outstretched toward where his unraveling irises ached. He gave a muffled cry, words formed in his feverish state but were spoken as throwing up red and gold into the mask.“His body cannot handle it!” The acolyte yelped, tensed and poised to assist the seizing Emmet.Chanting ceased, the priest surmised the situation with disinterest. “He paid for a full thirty seconds, he shall receive a full thirty seconds.”Emmet’s vision blurred. He struggled to keep his lids open, even as the world around him melted. Her face, her gaze, her sense that she was being watched but could not place from where was the last thing he focused on, a relentless passion fueling his failing form as he finally fell from the chair.The acolyte ripped the mask off, releasing a torrent of gold-speckled crimson that Emmet coughed onto the rough, white floor.The priest hummed the chant, a half- hearted sing-song as he watched the clock until the digits marked three zero. “Reset the room for the next!” He ordered.Strong arms dragged Emmet from the room, out the opposite door and dropped him in the street. He lay there, a spluttering form with dirty gold streaking from his nose and eyes. Blurry figures sidestepped around him where he lay, twitching slightly as more of the gritty blessing leaked from his form as he grew more and more still.He had seen her, one last time.Seen her dance.Seen her smile.“I love you, Christine.” He gurgled.Perhaps he would see her soon, once more.
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Written by Adam Budris.
When not story-crafting, Adam can be found slinging rpg dice or tending to a jungle of houseplants. He’s definitely not three gnomes in a trench coat.
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The Bunnies
Bunnies everywhere, bunnies dashing across your path when you are walking, bunnies waiting for you in the lawn when you pull into your driveway, their wide reflective eyes glowing back your single headlight before they dash away. Headless bunny corpses on the doorstep nightly courtesy of your murderous cat.It takes you back to the summer when you were 10 or 12 and your then- murderous cat found a nest of baby bunnies. She kept bringing one baby bunny out at a time and slaughtering it in front of you, until you followed her back to the nest and tried to scatter all the bunnies, to yell at them and stomp on their home until they broke for freedom. How relieved you were when you stopped hearing their dying cries.The bunnies are back now, and everyone is starting to notice.“Do you…?”“See so many bunnies these days?” your friend finishes for you.“So many bunnies,” you say. “Why?”“I think it’s because the birds are dying,” she says.You haven’t seen a hawk all summer so maybe she’s right. Last summer, you saw one swoop down into the field where you were walking. Snatch up a bunny and disembowel it from the fence post as it side-eyed you, daring you to interfere. You watched the gore become dinner and did not feel sadness.In today’s walk, a tiny bunny hops into your path. You crouch down and try to evaluate its hypervigilance. Bunny ears poised, nose twitching. To be so small and vulnerable, speed your only weapon.A slightly larger bunny joins it. You curl into a crouch, arms around legs into chest. More bunnies, one, then two more, three bunnies of all sizes, surrounding you. At first, you are afraid, but then you are curious as more bunnies crowd together, a colony, a herd. A hoard. You lay down on your stomach to watch them better, to observe. This was the summer you learned how much observation feeds you. You spent weeks watching the chickens dismantle the ant hills, the way they dragged and pecked down the population for weeks until the ants gave up and relocated the few survivors.You watch the bunnies, and they make a sound like a whisper, a collective twitch, but with tone. They come closer to you. The tiniest one hops on your back and burrows in. Then another and another. Rabbit fur coats used to be an elegant choice, but only the cruel wear fur these days. But, like other cruelties, it is making a comeback.You wonder if a fur coat has similar weight and heft to the rabbits crowding on your back now, they are soft fur with tendons and heartbeats.When you get closer to another creature, your heartbeats start to sync up and you feel it now. How all your heartbeats are becoming one. At first there is terror, then relief, finally silence.It starts with one bunny nibbling on your hair. You can feel the pull and release but don’t dare to move in case they all scatter. Then another bunny’s teeth on your breast. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but there is a moment when you feel the skin break. Then all the bunnies start to chew at once and your body feels electrified with their turbulence. There is the feeling of ooze, of leaking, but pain evaporates. You try to lay still, to feel your breath move in and out. In and out. To become a bunny. To become bunnies. To let go of the fear of losing yourself, of ego dissolving. To let go of “I” and “me.”As night starts to fall a hooting owl reignites the bunny terror and you can feel the quickening of tiny heartbeats, infinitesimal jolts of electricity. The rabbits leave in ones and pairs until there is only you, little remnants of fur clinging to you as you roll onto your back and gaze up at the moon, running your hands up and down your body to feel for damage.
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Written by Leah Rogin.
Leah Rogin's first novel, Burying Norma Jeane, was published by Blackwater Press in 2024. She lives in the mountains west of Denver with her children and other creatures. Website: leahrogin.com.
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Red Rocks
It’d been seven years to the day since Rod and Miriam found out that their son, Will, had died during a hiking trip in Sedona. He’d fallen into a crevice, snapped his neck. His body was found a few weeks later.The living room was quiet and drab. A thin ray of sunrise pierced through an opening in the curtains, illuminating a flurry of dust particles in the air. Rod was in the kitchen starting up the coffee machine. Miriam walked into the living room and took a dust cloth to the coffee table. “I’ll have mine iced today,” she said. “This dry heat is enough to make a fountain feel parched.”“It’s a hot one,” Rod said as he opened the freezer door. He squinted his eyes at a full tray of ice cubes as the chilled air graced his pock-marked face. “I think I’ll do the same,” he said.Rod prepared the iced coffee, walked into the living room, placed the two glasses on a pair of coasters, and sat next to Miriam on the couch. He grabbed the TV remote and pointed it toward the TV.“What are you doing?” Miriam asked.“What do you mean what am I doing?” Rod answered. “I’m turning on the television set.”“We agreed not to turn on the news on this day,” Miriam said.Rod dropped the remote between the crack of the couch cushions. “Oh my gosh”, he said. “How did I not realize?” He launched up from the couch, dashed to the kitchen, and traced his finger over the flower-themed calendar on the refrigerator. “August fifteenth,” he said. He turned around toward Miriam. “Am I awful for forgetting?” he asked.Miriam shook her head. “You haven’t forgotten our son,” she said. “Just the date when we found out. It must have slipped your mind.”Rod walked back into the living room and sat back down on the couch.“Miriam, I have to tell you something,” he said.“What’s that?” Miriam asked.“A couple of autumns ago when I went golfing with Joe Tamburello,” he said. “I didn’t go golfing.”“What are you trying to tell me?” Miriam asked.“I went to Red Rock to see the spot where it happened.”Miriam set her coffee down on the table. “I knew something was peculiar that day,” she said. “Whenever you go golfing, you always spend the rest of the night talking about eagles and birdies and hawks and whatever else type of scores you make in that game.” Miriam ran her hands through her wavy grey hair. “Why did you keep it a secret?” she asked.“Because I knew it would upset you,” Rod said.“Well that’s no reason to keep a secret,” Miriam said.“I wanted to see what he saw,” Rod said.Miriam took a deep breath. “What was it like?” she asked.“It was a beautiful view, Miriam,” Rod said. “The most beautiful view.” His eyes widened. “The rock formations were like works of art. Miles and miles of them. And the shades of red were like none I’ve ever seen before. It was as if God himself painted them.”“Wow,” Miriam said.“But what struck me the most,” Rod said. “What struck me most is how short the fall was. It wasn’t a long way down. Maybe five, six feet. It must have happened so fast.”Rod took a sip of his coffee. “He probably didn’t even feel anything,” he said.“You’re right,” Miriam said. “Probably didn’t even feel anything.”Rod and Miriam sat in silence for several minutes and stared into the blackness of the idle TV.“Hell of a view,” Rod said.
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Written by Zach Murphy.
Zach Keali’i Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in The MacGuffin, Reed Magazine, The Coachella Review, Bamboo Ridge, Raritan Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, Little Patuxent Review, Flash Frog, and more. He has published the chapbook Tiny Universes (Selcouth Station Press). He lives with his wonderful wife, Kelly, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Blue Skies
First, she told them honestly, “No, you cannot make Gate A to Gate P within 5 minutes because the plane will taxi at 10, and unless you marathon run, with a little OJ hop-skip action, that’s not going to happen.” Then Claudia smiled because that’s how it’s done at Big Blue, but this woman yelling just outside the lavatory was a problem. She kept calling, “Pauly?” Claudia stared at her computer screen. The panic in the woman’s voice frightened her. “Pauly?” When Claudia finally looked up, the woman’s face loomed large and ashen under pale blonde hair, her mouth opened in dismay: “He was just here!”“Your son?” Claudia could feel the other passengers’ eyes. She kept her voice firm. “When did you last see him?” No answer. “Ma’am, when did you last see Pauly?”“We came together. He was right beside me.” Her gray eyes were large, feverish, scanning the airport. Her fingers reached for air, caressing the emptiness, “Right here.”“We’ll find him,” Claudia assured her, “He can’t be far… Pauly... what’s his last name?”“Darfus. Pauly Darfus.”“You are Ms. Darfus?” Claudia saw that she hesitated. Her expression changed from utter panic to guarded guilt, then finally, decisively, “Yes, Mrs. Darfus. Penelope Darfus.”Claudia reached for her microphone, “Would Pauly Darfus please come to Gate B12. Pauly Darfus, please come to Gate B12.” Penelope shook her head.“Pauly,” she yelled in accompaniment, then, quietly, “He won’t come. He won’t understand.”“He doesn’t speak English?” Claudia asked.“No, he can. He just…” Penelope didn’t finish. Claudia frowned, waited. The child would likely show up, weepy and scared. She’d seen it before. Once, a little Mexican boy stashed away in a luggage trailer behind a backpack just large enough to cover him. When Sam fired up the trailer, the boy was too frightened to say anything. He huddled there making himself mouse small. When they unloaded, Sam found him, hugging a loose sleeping bag, eyes flooded with tears. “Poor little tug.” Sam handed the boy over to the frantic mother.Like this woman, this Penelope, out of her mind with worry, Claudia thought. She issued a missing child alert.***If you paid attention, you could always find a good hiding place. Pauly reconnoitered. Behind a closet door, below a restaurants makeshift seating area, a large man in overcoat, or woman in swirling dress. Rotating magazine racks were prime, shelving for croissants and glutinous sandwiches, and always, huge suitcases. Pauly spent five minutes emptying a luggage bag and stuffing underwear and clothes into the trash bin, and then climbed in, working the zipper mechanism from the inside to seal himself. He became very still, and listened.***They had instituted the alert system three years ago when ten-year old Shirley Nixon went missing from the airport and was later found dead, near the Potomac River basin. Now airport staff got a short radio message, like an amber alert: Young boy, age 8, brown eyes, brown hair, named Pauly Darfus.Nick looked at Sam, “You think?” They had just seen a boy matching that description wandering around the Red Robin.“Could be.”Sam liked to see Claudia smile and the idea of showing up with the kid in tow held a certain appeal. Nick said, “A6 is the nearest to Red Robin, check it out?”“Sure, I’ll give you five bucks if he’s there.”“Fair enough,” Nick made a sharp left. Flight 875 was due to depart from there in five minutes, but rounding the bend Sam saw Captain Morrell manning the stand. Captain Morrell ran the luggage transport operation, and sometimes helped with passenger questions. He was their boss. “Take a right, take a right!” Nick yelped. Sam swerved to the right. “This ain’t even on our route. Pull over there, I’ll talk to Beatrice.” Nick and Beatrice had a thing. “Just tell her we saw the boy and we wanted to check the luggage racks,” said Sam. “That’s where I found a kid one time.”Nick explained the situation to Beatrice who looked dubious, but after a minute he swaggered back over to Sam, “She’ll let us check the bags, but I got to take her out to dinner.” Nick didn’t appear too sad about that. Sam laughed. “We just gotta get past Morrell. Watch Beatrice, she’s going to do something to draw him away.” The two men waited some 25 yards distant behind a Bulova Watch kiosk. Beatrice approached Captina Morrell with a panicked expression and, within a minute, both she and Morrell were walking rapidly away from the gate.Nick and Sam drove over to the luggage line, hoping to spy the boy tucked between the suitcases, but they didn’t see him anywhere. “Where next, genius?” That’s when Nick spied Isdora Fleming’s pink panties peeking out from the brown recycle bin, like a distress flag.***Pauly realized his mistake at once. The sweet tangy perfumed fragrance: Mustard Gas! To the mask, boys, the masks! He stuffed his face within his t-shirt, but it was no use. His eyes watered, he gasped, tried to squirm free of the devastating smell. He heard the advancing tanks, next. Their sound was unmistakable, the thick steel tread, grinding across the no man’s land of the Somme, and then more invidious gas, he sought a clean breath, above the trenches, he knew the danger and yet he raised his headNick caught the slightest movement of the baggage rack and slowed the truck.“Did you see that?”“What?”“Right there.”The boy shifted again. Nick stopped the truck. He rose from his position and placed his hand on the bag. “Sam,” he whispered, “it’s moving.”***The tank had ceased its terrifying advance and now there was an eerie calm. Pauly waited. The treacherous gas had kept his lungs to a shallow breathing but he forced himself to stop, waiting for the command. The bag moved, an earthquake of mortar shells flung him against the trench wall.“Over the top, boys! Over the top!”As Nick tried to lift the bag, Pauly unzipped the side and spilled out along with the remainder of Isadora’s clothing.“Attack, Attack, nous allons!” The boy cried flailing mid-air from the dangling suitcase Nick held out. Its contents spilled across the gate’s tiled floor. Pauly scrambled across the tile just as Captain Morrell turned the corner scowling at Beatrice for what had been a wild goose chase. The small boy barreled toward Morrell as Nick yelled, “Stop him!” Beatrice snagged Pauly’s arm.“I’m hit! I’m hit!” The boy wailed, but Beatrice would not release him.“What the hell?” Said Captain Morrell.“He’s the kid! He’s the kid Claudia issued the alert about!”Morrell looked at the boy kicking out at Beatrice at an odd angle, like an addled kangaroo.“He’s the kid that was lost?” “Yeah,” said Nick, “100%”“How do you know?”“He was hiding in the luggage.”“In the luggage?”Sam waved at Isadora’s clothes spilled across the tiles.“The kid was in the luggage,” insisted Sam.Morrell shook his head in disbelief.“Jesus,” he said, at last.“Yeah. We need to take him to B12.”“No,” the boy screamed, “No, I will never surrender! I will never be taken alive!”Pauly dug his teeth deep into the flesh of Beatrice’s amble forearm. She wailed, but didn’t release her grip. Instead, she yanked on the boy’s left ear until he yelped, forcing his mouth open. Then, for good measure, she hissed at him, “You do that again, mister, and I will rip your flipping head off.”Pauly shouted that he was being tortured, but no one listened. Sam grabbed Pauly by both arms and held him tightly as he wiggled to break free. Nick drove, while Sam clasped the boy in a bear hug. When Claudia saw Sam hugging the unruly boy, she cheered.“Pauly,” Penelope whispered, “Oh, Pauly!”“No! She’s a murderer, a kidnapper!” Pauly screamed.Penelope pleaded, “Please, Pauly!”“I will never be taken prisoner! I will never be taken alive!” “He gets this way when he has too much sugar,” said Penelope.“She’s a murderer!” he added.“Isn’t she your mother?”“Please honey, you must stop saying these vile things.”Penelope turned to Claudia, “Pauly is hyper imaginative. Too much television.”Penelope looked at Pauly, then at Claudia and Captain Morrell.“Let’s talk over here. Away from the boy.”They moved ten yards away, in front of a massive Bon Jovi ad.“Pauly has emotional issues. I’m not his mother. His mother died six years ago. Pauly was unable to accept the news. The doctors have tried medicating him, but he refuses to take his pills. We’re on our way to visit relatives in Alexandria. Please, just give us a few minutes, he’ll calm down.” She looked from Claudia to Captain Morrell, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”***Much later, after Pauly stopped hyperventilating and accusing Penelope of mass murder and Beatrice of being a torturing goon for Kaiser Wilhelm, Penelope managed to drag Pauly onto the D.C. Metro. They were more or less alone when Penelope turned to face the young boy.“You better settle down.”He stuck his tongue out at her, but was otherwise quiet.“They’ll take us both back. You’ll end up in a foster home and then where would you be? Going on that way.”“You killed father. And you’re not my mother!” “Of course I’m not. I’m your sister, but there’s no need to explain all of that. And he killed himself, Pauly, you know that.” She paused, watching him closely, “Right? We agreed that’s what happened.”He scrounged down, looking out the window. They were traveling across the Potomac.“We can go to the beach, then? You promised we’d go to the beach.”“Yes, we’ll go to the beach.”“And I want ice cream, like they show in movies. Do we have enough money?”“We have enough. Yes.”“And a boat ride, you promised a boat ride like a pirate.”“A boat ride is fine, but you mustn’t go on that way.”“Okay,” said the boy. He looked down at his hands, resting calmly on his knees now, his dimpled knuckles. “There was a lot of blood.” He said.“Shhh, that’s enough now,” said Penelope.
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Written by Jack Johnson.
Jack R. Johnson is a monthly columnist for North of the James Magazine in Richmond, Virginia; an editor of The Alliance for Progressive Virginia blog and a contributor to Style Magazine. His published works include award winning short stories, articles and the novel, An Animal's Guide to Earthly Salvation.
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Black Widow Spider, 1955
Daddy wore his red swim trunks with fish that squirmed when he walked. Stains rimmed the armholes of his wife- beater undershirt. (The worst ever name for a piece of clothing.) He pocketed his car keys and grabbed the deck of playing cards with naked women.I pinched his arm hair. “Can I go with you, please?”“Not this time, honey.” He slouched awkwardly. “Mom will be home soon.”I should’ve hidden his keys. “Fine!”He could’ve pretended to have a job— to shave and put on normal clothes. Instead, he did nothing, day in and out. Every time he left, I had this fear that he might not come back. Today he was in such a damn hurry he forgot to kiss me goodbye.His demon shadow wobbled inside the truck cab as he backed out of the driveway. I pressed my nose to the smeary front window and flipped him the bird. He slowed at the curb to wave, but my nine-year-old fists were frozen to glass.The truck evaporated and I punched the couch wondering what time mom would be home. First, she had to scoop up my brother from a lady with a house full of other people’s kids.I slid off the couch and attacked Daddy’s argyles with scissors, making a spiffy skirt for my doll, Carol Sue.Then I scampered off to the bathroom, squinting at the peach fuzz between my eyebrows. I’d never be movie star glamorous.In the kitchen, I stretched the curly cord on our Bakelite phone. It had a thin pullout drawer with a thin pad inside. The number of Mom’s work was written in red pencil. I’d only called a few times because the mean manager always sounded like he wanted to smack someone. Tony’s filling station was scribbled at the bottom of the pad. I knew that one by heart.I traced a hole in the dial with my finger, wondering if Bonnie would come over and practice smoking? We’d never be truly grownup until we could inhale without choking. And I wanted to show her the right way to hold a cigarette.Our wall clock said six-fifteen. She’d be combed and spruced at her dining room table with cloth napkins her mother had ironed while wearing red bareback pumps. Her father would pass a bowl of mashed potatoes made from a box and pork chops with crispy fat.Sometimes, it was hard being Bonnie’s best friend.Roger would ditch dinner to come over; he loved me that much. I picked up the phone and started to call him, then slammed it down, because there was this bird-brained rule against girls calling boys.Instead, I dialed the cocktail lounge around the corner. “Is my Daddy there?”The guy who answered said, “What’s his name?”“John.”“Hang on, kid.”I heard him holler, “Anyone named John?”“Sorry, kid,” he said when he came back. “He’s not here.”“Are you sure there isn’t a John?”“Yeah, I’m sure.”“So everyone pees on the floor?” He laughed before hanging up, but even that didn’t make me feel better.I slid a stick of Beech-Nut into the phone drawer for later, snatched a steak knife off the counter, and wound it in a paper napkin.The sun gave up the day beyond the kitchen window and backyard fence. It blew me a fiery kiss, and I blew one back, heading to the tree in the front yard. It grew from a square of weeds between the sidewalk and gutter.Since our nosy neighbors were probably watching, I made a big show of hiking up my skirt before hoisting myself onto the lowest limb. From there, it was an easy climb to the branch that was all mine—the one near the top, just under the streetlight. Not that I was afraid of the dark. I liked places where no one could see me.My legs dangled, ankles hooked, and I uncurled a thick strip of bark. The flesh underneath glistened, and smelled slightly sweet, as if Green Apple Kool- Aid gushed through its veins.I felt light-headed from going all day on a peanut-butter-graham-cracker sandwich. The leftover goop that stuck to the roof of my mouth was long gone. I carved a lazy S, pressing down hard, watching the tree bleed. I didn’t care that I was scarring it, because there was love in what I was doing.“Sherry and Roger sitting in a tree, k-i- s-s-i-n-g . . .” I hacked a crooked W for Webb. “First comes love, then comes marriage . . . ” I wiped the blade on my skirt, then dug in to carve Roger’s R.I heard our Rambler before it floated into the driveway. Mom got out and walked around to the passenger’s side, her kitten heels clicking. She always strolled, like she didn’t want to get to where she was going. Anytime I asked, “Why can’t we get a dog?” she’d say, “Because I’d end up walking it.”Once inside the house, the lights flicked on. She’d put my brother to bed, probably still in his play clothes, without brushing his teeth. I’d never get away with that.Would she come outside to look for me? I felt more and more desperate for her attention. Maybe if I faked a cough, she’d smear an old T-shirt with Vicks VapoRub, wave it over a flame on the stove, and smooth it on my chest.The porch light twitched. “Sherry, are you out here?” Mom moved into the porch light, shading her eyes, a slender shadow of herself. “Are you in that tree?”She hadn’t forgotten about me. “Coming!”“Oh, honey. You shouldn’t be up there in the dark. Where’s your father?”“Um, at the Piggly Wiggly.”Mom took my hand as soon as I hit the ground, and I knew all I needed was her warmth. “Have you had dinner?” she asked. I took off my headband because the metal teeth were scalping me. “Not yet.”“How about a fried Spam sandwich? I’ll let you open the can.”I loved the tiny key that hooked over the thin sliver of metal. I loved twisting it and hearing the sucking noise of salty- jelly just pink enough to let everyone know a pig had been pulverized before being squeezed into a tiny tin. And I loved my mom because she never forgot I loved these things.The next morning, I threw back the covers and slid from bed, hoping to catch her in the bathroom before work, drawing on cat eyes with a liquid pencil. She’d paint her naturally plump mouth with Pink Minx lipstick in a hairspray fog. I doubted Daddy appreciated her glamorous movie star qualities.“Mom?” No answer. “Mom!”The house was quiet. Nothing left but her smells. I stood in the bathroom where they were strongest, inhaling sprays, sticks, creams, and wondered if my parents even liked each other.I’d seen the employee’s lounge at work—a square room behind the office where the mean manager hung out when he wasn’t bossing people around. The lounge had a midget fridge, a portable hot plate, and a square table to eat on. A cot was shoved against a wall.If I squinted hard enough, I could picture Mom’s overnight suitcase and fuzzy slippers between the wooden legs of the cot.I climbed on the kitchen counter for a box of Cocoa Puffs, figuring Daddy spent the night somewhere else. Then, through the window, I saw him in the backyard, dead asleep in the hammock in a weird position, like a rubber toy.Some kids learn to tiptoe on days when their dad works the graveyard shift. I learned to do the same after one of Daddy’s benders. I eased the sliding glass door over the gritty runner, stepped out, dropped to my hands and knees, and crawled toward the hammock.There was no reason to sneak. Daddy probably wouldn’t wake up if I turned the garden hose on him. He never looked like this, not even on his worst hangover days. Pale and grinning too hard, matching that awful picture in my dreams.I got that fizzy upside-down feeling in my stomach and rubbed my itchy eyes, inching closer, seeing a spider on the shoulder of his t-shirt. A spider could kill a man who cheats when playing checkers with a fourth-grader.“Daddy, wake up! There’s a spider!”He jolted from his stupor. “You trying to give me a heart attack!” “S-s-spider . . . your shoulder!”Daddy jerked, and the hammock swung, nearly dumping him on empty beer cans. He seized the culprit, squished it gutless with his fingers, and displayed what was left on his thumb.“Damn black widows. Females are the worst. That’s why you have to clap your shoes together before putting them on. Always remember that, okay honey?”“Okay, Daddy.” He pulled me in, and I pressed my cheek to his t-shirt, because beer stink was better than nothing. “You saved my skin, honey.”That life-saving deed did something to me, maybe because we didn’t have a dog or cat that wouldn’t scratch my eyes out or one of those goldfish from the school fair you get when your Ping-Pong ball lands in a glass bowl. Or maybe because no one else cared enough about him.One night, I felt like such a baby cradling Carol Sue, when just the day before, Roger and I had been practice kissing on top of my bedspread. She shook in my arms when wordless voices bled through the wallpaper. First, rat-a- tat anger, then a dull sob. “Divorce . . . ”“Don’t cry.” I stroked Carol Sue’s stiff hair. “They don’t mean it.”“Come on, Frank . . . ” Mom pleaded. “Just sign the papers.”I slipped from bed and opened my notebook. Using my ruler, I drew a straight line down the middle. A stick figure of Daddy on one side and Mom on the other. I put the paper on my dresser, folded it in half, and creased it until my thumb hurt. Then, I folded it the other way and did the same.“Another chance . . .” Daddy’s voice. “A job . . . I promise.”I tore the paper carefully, starting at the top, working to give my parents equal halves because I wanted to be fair. The teensiest scrap fluttered away on its own. I figured that lost piece was me.I grabbed a bobby pin from my dresser and stuck it in Carol Sue’s skull.
Dumb doll.
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Written by Sherry Shahan.
Sherry Shahan is a teal-haired septuagenarian who writes in a laid-back California beach town. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, taught a creative writing course for UCLA extension for 10 years, and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry and Short Fiction, and Best American Short Stories. Phone: 805.772.1524. Email: [email protected].
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