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Adelaide Literary Magazine is an independent international monthly publication, based in New York and Lisbon. Founded by Stevan V. Nikolic and Adelaide Franco Nikolic in 2015, the magazine’s aim is to publish quality poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography, as well as interviews, articles, and book reviews, written in English and Portuguese. We seek to publish outstanding literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and to promote the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and established authors reach a wider literary audience.

A Revista Literária Adelaide é uma publicação mensal internacional e independente, localizada em Nova Iorque e Lisboa. Fundada por Stevan V. Nikolic e Adelaide Franco Nikolic em 2015, o objectivo da revista é publicar poesia, ficção, não-ficção, arte e fotografia de qualidade assim como entrevistas, artigos e críticas literárias, escritas em inglês e português. Pretendemos publicar ficção, não-ficção e poesia excepcionais assim como promover os escritores que publicamos, ajudando os autores novos e emergentes a atingir uma audiência literária mais vasta. (http://adelaidemagazine.org)

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Published by ADELAIDE BOOKS, 2020-11-23 17:18:17

Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 41, October 2020

Adelaide Literary Magazine is an independent international monthly publication, based in New York and Lisbon. Founded by Stevan V. Nikolic and Adelaide Franco Nikolic in 2015, the magazine’s aim is to publish quality poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography, as well as interviews, articles, and book reviews, written in English and Portuguese. We seek to publish outstanding literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and to promote the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and established authors reach a wider literary audience.

A Revista Literária Adelaide é uma publicação mensal internacional e independente, localizada em Nova Iorque e Lisboa. Fundada por Stevan V. Nikolic e Adelaide Franco Nikolic em 2015, o objectivo da revista é publicar poesia, ficção, não-ficção, arte e fotografia de qualidade assim como entrevistas, artigos e críticas literárias, escritas em inglês e português. Pretendemos publicar ficção, não-ficção e poesia excepcionais assim como promover os escritores que publicamos, ajudando os autores novos e emergentes a atingir uma audiência literária mais vasta. (http://adelaidemagazine.org)

Keywords: fiction,nonfiction,poetry

INDEPENDENT REVISTA
MONTHLY LITERÁRIA
LITERARY INDEPENDENTE
MAGAZINE
MENSAL

ADELAIDE FOUNDERS / FUNDADORES
Stevan V. Nikolic & Adelaide Franco Nikolic
Independent Monthly Literary Magazine
Revista Literária Independente Mensal EDITOR IN CHIEF / EDITOR-CHEFE
Year V, Number 41, October 2020 Stevan V. Nikolic
Ano V, Número 41, outubro 2020
[email protected]
ISBN-13: 978-1-953510-91-4
MANAGING DIRECTOR / DIRECTORA EXECUTIVA
Adelaide Literary Magazine is an independent inter- Adelaide Franco Nikolic
national monthly publication, based in New York and
Lisbon. Founded by Stevan V. Nikolic and Adelaide Franco GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN
Nikolic in 2015, the magazine’s aim is to publish quality Adelaide Books LLC, New York
poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography, as
well as interviews, articles, and book reviews, written in CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS IN THIS ISSUE
English and Portuguese. We seek to publish outstanding
literary fiction, nonfic-tion, and poetry, and to promote Sarah Jane Justice, William Paterson,
the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and Malka Daskal, Drew Ross,
established authors reach a wider literary audience.
Finnegan Shepard, James Miller,
A Revista Literária Adelaide é uma publicação men- John Young, Zach Murphy, Suchi Rudra,
sal internacional e independente, localizada em Nova David Leys, Ivanka Fear, Mohamed Mahou,
Iorque e Lisboa. Fundada por Stevan V. Nikolic e Ade-
laide Franco Nikolic em 2015, o objectivo da revista é Melody Sinclair, Edward Sheehy,
publicar poesia, ficção, não-ficção, arte e fotografia de Bryan Grafton, Lisa Robbins,
qualidade assim como entrevistas, artigos e críticas Randy McIntosh, Darrell Case,
literárias, escritas em inglês e por-tuguês. Pretendemos
publicar ficção, não-ficção e poesia excepcionais assim H.L. Dowless, Woodie Williams,
como promover os escritores que publicamos, ajudan- Zachary Aborizk, James Buchanan,
do os autores novos e emergentes a atingir uma audiên-
cia literária mais vasta. Laura Dunn, Sue Rabbitt Roff,
Linda C. Wisniewski, James Hanna,
(http://adelaidemagazine.org)
Swathi Desai, Terry Connell,
Published by: Adelaide Books, New York Christine Hand, Omer Wissman,
244 Fifth Avenue, Suite D27
New York NY, 10001 Terry Tierney, Don Narkevic,
e-mail: [email protected] Martin Agee, Terry Brinkman,
phone: (917) 477 8984 Michelle Hulan, George Gad Economou,
http://adelaidebooks.org Sara Van Reymersdal, Arianna Sebo,

Copyright © 2019 by Adelaide Literary Magazine E. Samples, Mya Nunnally,
Edward Reilly, Lisa Tomey,
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written Jordan Mattox,
permission from the Adelaide Literary Maga-zine Michael Lee Johnson
Editor-in-chief, except in the case of brief quo-tations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS STORM WARNING
by Darrell Case 94
FICTION
IT HAPPENED
DOG ON HARPER BRIDGE ROAD
by Sarah Jane Justice 7 by H.L. Dowless 103

THE GOVERNMENT’S BABIES DROPPINGS
by William Paterson 10 by Woodie Williams 111

SENSIBILITY LUCKY
by Malka Daskal 20 by Zachary Aborizk 115

TALL TALES SHE WANTED
by Drew Alexander Ross 27 IT TOO
by James Buchanan 117
THE FURIES
by Finnegan Shepard 30 CLOSURE
by Laura Dunn 119
MY BUG ZAPPER
by James Miller 36 NONFICTION

THE PRIEST RE-READING THE
by John Young 41 LADY CHATTERLEY TRIALS
IN NEW YORK AND LONDON
THE CONVERSATION AFTER 60 YEARS
by Zach Murphy 43 by Sue Rabbitt Roff 125

IN HER WORDS WRITE ME HOME
by Suchi Rudra 45 by Linda C. Wisniewski 135

TRIGER WARNING TRIGER WARNING I DREAMT I COULD NOT FIND MY CAR
by David Leys 47 by James Hanna 137

THE EMERGENT IMMIGRANT I AM NOT YOUR INDIAN
by Ivanka Fear 52 by Swathi Desai 141

VIRAL BIRTHDAY THE LOST SOLES OF D.C.
by Mohamed Mahou 57 by Terry Connell 145

THE SLOW BREAKUP AMAZONS UP IN ARMS
by Melody Sinclair 62 by Christine Hand 150

ISABELLA OR PENELOPE ALPHABESTIARY
by Edward Sheehy 69 by Omer Wissman 153

BLESSED ARE THE CURSED WHAT IT TAKES TO BE FREE
by Bryan Grafton 74 by Terry Tierney 156

BEING GOOD
by L.A. Robbins 79

FOR THE COST OF A STEAK DINNER
by Randy McIntosh 85

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

POETRY INTERVIEWS

THE STARS ARE OUT STEPHANIE A. SMITH
by Don Narkevic 161 Author of “ASTEROIDEA” 195

MY GRANDFATHER’S POCKET WATCH BIL JOHNSON
by Martin Agee 163 ON HIS AMAZON
BESTSELLING BOOK 200
SONNET CDLXII
by Terry Brinkman 166 STEPHANIE V. SEARS
Author of
WHITE MEN IN BROOKLYN The Strange Travels of
by Michelle Hulan 167 Svinhilde Wilson 204

HEROES DON TASSONE
by George Gad Economou 170 Author of NEW TWISTS 208

VOICES
by Grace Nask 175

THE COUPLE
by Arianna Sebo 177

STATIC
by E. Samples 180

RIBBON
by Mya Alexice 183

WAITING FOR RAIN
by Edward Reilly 185

COMPASSION
by Lisa Tomey 188

I NEVER LEARNED TO SHUFFLE
by Jordan Mattox 190

FLOWER GIRL
by Michael Lee Johnson 191

4

FICTION



DOG

by Sarah Jane Justice

The outer suburbs wear a constant dress- not understand without its explicit prefix.
ing of lawn maintenance sounds. Any day The boy’s parents don’t seem to notice his
not marked by the rare appearance of rain language. They spent their own childhoods
holds the background noise of a lightly sweating under the same UV rays, to the
whirring motor, blending gently with the point where their skin still appears stained
lingering smell of cut grass. Despite the with the remnants of long-forgotten burns.
constant attempts towards a tidy lawn, the Foul language is brushed off as an accepted
grass teams up with the most hostile of side-effect of heatwaves that never seem to
weeds to rise up against the shared ene- end.
my of rusty mower blades. It is a constant
battle for territory that continues day after The dog drools around the scent of
day, and will never be won for either side. meats roasting in a kitchen that barely
For the residents of the houses that sprawl needs an oven to begin the cooking process.
out down the sides of dusty streets, the The smell drifts down the corridor where it
sound becomes no more significant than becomes churned up with the stale aroma
static drifting from a TV mistakenly left on of recycled air. The aging air-conditioning
in another room. unit has lived through its share of unsea-
sonable Christmas roasts. It has pushed
The dog howls with every siren that on through summer birthdays and holiday
passes. It isn’t clear whether he thinks he guests, working itself into a fatigue that
might be joining a chorus that rides the leaves it only marginally better than a cheap
streets like a parade, or if he is simply vo- pedestal fan.
calising his respect for whatever poor soul
might have fallen into the necessity of The dog knows the boy, but he answers
sudden assistance. Either way, he howls to the man. The man is the one who waits
every time. every morning for the newspaper that he
pretends to read through hazy morning
The dog lives with a child who swears eyes. The man drops the dog an extra meat
like a sleep-deprived truck driver. No more scrap when no-one else is looking, faking a
than seven years old, the boy bursts with ex- loud cough to cover up the sloppy sounds
pletives to the point where his voice seems of canine hunger. The man is the one who
incomplete without them. He declares the sits out on the verandah with the dog every
need for his ‘fucking juice’ as if to him, this evening, no matter what temperature the
phrase is one word, a word that he might star-lit air might reach.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

It is those late-night verandah sessions back to the street in front of him. When he
that the dog cherishes most. There is an catches his own attention, he coughs and
old recliner with ripped lining that sits next picks up another treat to send in the dog’s
to the seat everyone acknowledges as be- direction.
longing to the man. It sits empty in the
sweat-drenched light of the afternoons, “We had a strawberry patch when I was a
but the dog knows better than to try to kid,” the dog hears the commentary over the
jump onto it when other voices zip around sound of his own excited chewing, “Mum had
the constant drone of languid flies. After a knack for growing them. Made it look easy.”
the sun sets and silence settles beneath
the chirping crickets, the dog is allowed on The man smiles as he puts the shopping
the recliner. When everyone else is asleep, list back in his wallet. It is a smile that seems
the dog is treated like a guest, an honoured somehow tainted, and drips away from his
companion for the man who names himself face as he counts out a small handful of
as the dog’s best friend. banknotes.

“Quiet out there,” the man comments, “She laid out a little path with rocks,”
gazing across the sparse front yard. the man explains, slipping the notes into a
creased, white envelope, “Always let us go
Without needing to look, he reaches under through picking them. Looking under the
his seat cushion and pulls out a treat the dog leaves to find them. Like an Easter Egg hunt
has learned to expect when these nightly that lasted the whole season.”
meetings roll around. The dog waits patiently
for the familiar signal before snapping the The man pauses to stare at the envelope
treat in his jaws, barely pausing to chew. after sealing it shut. The dog doesn’t under-
stand, but detects an uncomfortable level
The man breathes in the warm night air, of emotion in his closest companion. As the
holding that breath for just a moment be- moment fades away, the man stands up,
fore he lets it slip out of his nose. His stare whistling to let the dog know he can follow.
is pinned to the street in front of him, his
face aimed across the weeds that fight their “Tried to grow my own after. After, you
way along the path. With a furrowed brow, know,” the man mutters, speaking in a tone
he pulls his wallet from his back pocket and he keeps like a rare commodity that is only
holds it between terse fingers. The dog can ever brought out in these private meetings
only just see the lines that wrinkle deeper between himself and the dog, “Never man-
around the man’s eyes as he finally looks aged it like she did.”
down to open the little pocket of tattered
leather. The man stops when he reaches the end
of the path. He scratches the dog behind
“Strawberries,” the man shakes his head, the ear without looking at him, holding the
unfolding a small slip of paper that sat nes- envelope gingerly in his other hand.
tled between the coloured banknotes, “She
wants strawberries for Christmas. Says “They either shrivelled up or never grew
they’re nice in a glass of champagne.” at all,” he grumbles, “Or got hit by the bugs if
they ever managed to make it to that stage.”
The dog watches as the man chuckles
lightly to himself, his vague stare turning He looks down at his hands, disappoint-
ment shadowing his face. The dog doesn’t
know the name of this emotion, but he feels

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Revista Literária Adelaide

a pull from inside himself whenever he sees “That’s just it, you know. That’s life,” the
it. He sees it often enough to recognise it. man speaks quietly enough that the dog can
barely hear him, “Not everyone can grow
After a moment of hesitation that has strawberries.”
battled with the man on every previous night
without taking a single victory, the man opens Wandering back up the path, the man
the back of the mailbox that barely holds itself barely looks down at the dog, who follows
up at the end of the path. The numbers have closely behind him, nonetheless. The dog
started falling away from their position, but sits behind him on the verandah, watching
no-one has put any effort in to fixing them. him pull a small, transparent bag from the
envelope. The dog has seen the little round
“Don’t care for strawberries these days,” objects that always come hidden in these
the man stares directly into the mailbox as plastic bags. He knows the odour of their
he speaks, “They all taste like those shriv- chalky residue enough to smell it on the
elled ones. The ones after. The attempts.” man’s whiskers in the first light of the morn-
ings that follow.
With a careful glance over his shoulder, he
slides the envelope into the box, pulling out “We just do what we can,” the man
another one from its place. The dog watches scratches the dog behind the ear again and
this ritual on a nightly basis and has learned settles into the recliner with the little bag in
that the box will be empty the next morning. his hand, “Right, mate?”
He sees it when he rushes out to collect the
newspaper from the dry, brown grass that The dog will wake him up before the sun
grows in patches around the fence. beats him to it.

About the Author

Sarah Jane Justice writes lyrical poetry, whimsical character
pieces, and thrilling genre fiction. Her poetry has been
included in collections from The Blue Nib, Capsule Stories,
and Pure Slush, and her short fiction has been published
by Black Hare Press, Caustic Frolic, and Hawkeye Books. In
addition to the written word, she is a celebrated spoken
word artist, having won an array of competition titles, and
performed at the Sydney Opera House.

9

THE
GOVERNMENT’S

BABIES

by William Paterson

Anne placed a gentle palm over her stom- their distance. Prato took off after finding
ach with cheek pressed against the cool the positive stick in the bathroom and now
passenger-side window. Stasia drove, the refused to answer calls. She hadn’t spoken
car weaving the unusually empty streets of to her parents in New York City after the
suburban Boston. Droplets of late summer blowout argument about leaving junior
rain tickled across the windshield like ka- year at UMass Dartmouth to move in with
mikaze bugs, not enough to for wipers, but Prato. The friends on campus moved on,
enough to know the day wouldn’t get any took other classes, and closed their social
better. Beneath the trembling fingers, Anne circle by one person. The situation held a
swore she felt the tiniest of movements. common denominator, and once resolved,
a proper life might be salvaged.
“I support your choice,” Stasia said, flip-
ping the right-turn blinker and looking at the A police car and ambulance screamed
barren roads. Her patchouli laced dreadlocks, by, their lights flashing wildly. The women
nose ring, and bra-less attire harkened to tracked the route with their quiet eyes until
the free spirit of middle class white women the emergency crew turned a corner and
poets who believed in solving the world’s disappeared.
problems through free form dance and drum
circles. “The government makes it sound like “Must have been an accident,” Stasia
they care about the sanctity of human life, said. Anne looked at her stomach and took
but more babies means more soldiers.” a long, slow breath.

“Where is everyone?” Anne asked, “What if it hurts?” she asked.
pushing further against the window. Ev-
eryone, it seemed, had decided to keep “It might,” Stasia said, “all good decisions
do.” But as they pulled up to the clinic, they

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Revista Literária Adelaide

noticed the locked doors, the lack of cars in car firing up the engine so fast that it could
the lot. Anne sat up in a panic. have been one singular movement. Again in
the passenger seat, Anne buckled. She wept
“I had an appointment…” she said. without meaning to.
Her long brown hair combed straight, soft
make-up applied earlier that morning under “I’m not ready for this,” she said, her
the dim glow of the bathroom mirror’s light, dreams of the future melting away like ka-
summer dress so that she wouldn’t have to mikaze raindrops on the windshield.
slide in and out of pants, this day was sup-
posed to be a new beginning, a fresh start “None of us were,” Stasia said, and
where her past was scraped clean, a way to floored it up 95 north until they reached her
take back control until she was ready, stable. father’s home in Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire. The man ushered them inside pouring
Stasia turned on the radio and scanned. each a glass of ice water, and turned back to
Every station frantically reported the same the television news with arms crossed.
thing. Something about an airplane, the
Twin Towers in New York City, an attack on “Cowards,” he spat. “What type of
America. She paused on a single voice. person actively chooses to end innocent
lives? An evil person, that’s who!”
Authorities encourage citizens to stay in-
side. A second plane just hit the towers on On screen, Anne watched one of the
this day, the 11th of September, 2001. Rad- towers collapse onto itself. People ran
ical Islamists citing jihad, or holy war, are screaming through the streets as a great
claiming credit through the channels of Al plume of dust opened its mouth to swallow
Jazeera, their leader Osama Bin Laden an- them whole. She felt sick, the ice water sitting
nouncing victory against what he is calling heavy in the back of her throat. Her stomach
the Great Satan, what we know as America. clenched.

Anne put her palm over her mouth. “I need to lie down,” she said.
Tears pushed across the dry skin of her fin-
gers. Stasia turned up the radio and stared “Don’t your parents live near the
at the dashboard in disbelief. towers?” Stasia’s father asked, turning to
Anne with his stone face and grey eyes.
“No, no way this is real,” she said, the “Have you heard from them?”
distance in her voice childlike and haunting.
She unbuckled and hopped out of the car. Stasia touched her father’s wrist and
Anne followed. Stasia dropped a quarter looked up from the couch. She shook her
into a payphone outside of the clinic and head as if to say that it was complicated,
dialed her father, a retired Army General. that there were significant moving pieces.
“Daddy? What’s going on?!”
“What were you two even doing out
“It’s real, baby,” her father said loud this morning?” the man asked. Stasia
enough that Anne heard through the dis- shrugged and turned to the television,
torted receiver. “Get to safety. Our boys will knees bouncing, tattooed purple flowers
figure this out.” shivering on her shoulder. Anne slapped a
palm over her mouth again and ran to the
Stasia said I love you and hung up. She kitchen. Over the sink, she heaved up the
grabbed Anne’s hand and ran back to the still-cool water and watched it disappear
down the drain. She spit thick saliva. Her

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

knees dropped until she sat on the floor, “Is there anything you can do?” Anne
head resting against the cupboard, as news asked, bouncing her legs in the cold office,
broadcaster announced that citizens should her very pregnant body barely able to fit in
prepare for the worst, that life would never the small rolling armchair.
be the same.
“If I could, I would,” the lawyer said, and
“May I use your phone?” Anne asked. that was that. The small fortune turned over
Stasia and Stasia’s father didn’t turn around. to the state, the family legacy aged in dust.
Both waved their hands and gave the
thumbs up as Anne wobbled into the first But Noah’s birth had done something
floor’s master bedroom, sat on the corner to Anne that she wasn’t expecting. He de-
of the mattress near the landline and di- livered an unparalleled sense of purpose,
aled her folks. Each time, three ascending a direction in an otherwise directionless
beeps and a recorded voice claimed the re- life. The moment the boy looked at her
ceiving number was currently unavailable. with those eyes like frozen blueberries, she
She hung up and tried again. And again. couldn’t believe he had ever been consid-
And again until her fingertips went raw, the ered a burden, a choice. In front of her, pink
things inside of her growing into more than skin and thin new hair, the smell of blos-
dread, into more than fear, and into more soming life like a fine powder, Noah’s life
than the false promise of a once bright fu- reinvigorated Anne into the type of person
ture. that might make her parents proud.

* Anne worked two server jobs over the
first years while Noah attended daycare.
Anne named her child Noah Thomas Burke, She didn’t date, she didn’t have the time,
because her mother loved biblical names but she did miss the intimate comfort of an-
and her father thought hard consonants other body beside her. Stasia tried to set her
projected strength, confidence. Swaddled up a few times, but it was always the same
in donated blankets, Anne brought her boy type of guy. Well meaning, but ultimately
to the grave plot where a marble headstone dull and a touch too idealistic.
contained her parent’s etched names. The
location and instructions had been laid out “Coffee sounds good,” one guy told her,
in their will, the same will Anne had been “as long as it’s fair trade or locally sourced.
written out of save for a pair of sterling ear- None of that capitalist chain garbage.”
rings.
“If we do dinner, I prefer a place with
“I begged them to reconsider,” the family gluten free and vegan options,” another
lawyer explained, his temporary New York said. “And that we split the bill fifty/fifty re-
office stacked with files and loose paper- gardless of who orders what.”
work. A month before Noah’s birth, Anne
traveled by bus to the city for a sit-down “I find the true test of intimacy to be
meeting because the phone calls seemed popping pimples on each other’s backs,” a
rushed and impersonal. “They were upset, third said, which was a shame because he
emotional. I think they thought it might had been the most promising. His pictures
scare you into getting back on track. Their made him appear tall with dark hair, goatee,
track.” and athletic build. It wasn’t necessarily a
deal breaker until, over the phone, he had

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Revista Literária Adelaide

requested to meet Noah after their first date. to her chest. The news reported on longer
It made Anne cringe, red flags soaring. The security checks, but she hadn’t expected to
thought of inviting someone into her space see fully armed military personal cruising
to gawk at her boy, the potentially sly move the atrium with automatic weapons. Metal
of saying well, what should we do next?, and detectors chirped at the head of tight, ser-
squeezing zits instead of enjoying each oth- pentine security lines like the screech of a
er’s company brought the conversation to wild beast. Anne approached the service
a halt. She ghosted the man, similar to the desk, handed over the ID, got her ticket
way Prato had disappeared to Italy, and re- printed, and joined the line.
fused to answer the phone without it going
to voicemail first. The people who filed in behind crowded
too close. They bumped forward knocking
Then Stasia moved to Portland, Oregon Anne and Noah into the people ahead of
after her father came out of retirement and them.
shipped out to Afghanistan.
Eventually, a TSA agent at a standalone
“It got too hard,” she told Anne over the kiosk checked her ID again, asked the child’s
phone a month after the move. “Thinking name, asked for the final destination, nature
about all the possibilities, what might of the travel, and then waved her through
happen, feeling stuck. I just had to…you without once looking up. Anne put her car-
know…get out of dodge.” ry-on suitcase onto the roller and joined
another line for the metal detector. She
“Oh,” Anne said as Noah suckled her watched everyone go through, as people
little finger. He kicked his baby legs. “I see.” with a certain look were pulled out and
frisked by men in soldier uniforms.
“The weather here is amazing,” Stasia said
after a moment of silence. “The men too, so “Next,” a woman said, and waved Anne
caring and thoughtful. A different breed.” to the edge of the machine. “Anything in
your pockets? Belt? Keys?”
Anne rummaged through the mail on
the kitchen table and found her bank state- “No,” Anne said, and stepped through
ment. A trip might be possible if she used with Noah still on her chest. The metal de-
the credit card, which would only add to tector chirped, and the woman running the
the already mounting debt. Seeing the west line rolled her eyes.
coast might be nice, and traveling with Noah
meant more quality time together. “Step through again,” she said, yawning.
“By yourself. Please hand the baby over.”
“Is there room on your couch?” Anne
asked. A soldier stepped forward and reached
for Noah. For a moment, Anne couldn’t
Two weeks later with the essentials breathe and shoved down the urge to lash
packed, a change of diapers at the ready, out with violence as the man scooped the
sterling earrings in, Noah sat in Anne’s lap child and stepped to the side. He bounced
in the back of a taxi en route to terminal 3 at Noah in his arms, his face stone-like and
Logan International. She paid the fare with stoic.
the last bit of pocket cash, wished the driver
well, and wheeled her suitcase through the “Please don’t take my baby,” Anne said,
whooshing airport doors with son strapped even though it had already happened.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

She backed up through the machine. It The question made Anne feel like her tongue
chirped again. Anne patted her pockets was swollen all the way down her throat. The
and shrugged. She looked up to see Noah other parents watched with worried eyes,
reaching his small, chubby hand toward the their curious brows invested in whatever re-
face of the soldier. “Please, he needs me.” sponse she could manage.

“It’s your earrings, ma’am,” the soldier “Because he’s on a secret mission,” she
said. Anne slapped her palms over her lobes said, and kissed her son on the top of his
in pained disbelief. She popped the backs, shaggy hair. Noah nodded, thought for a mo-
and both fell into her cupped hand. ment, and blew out the candles. The other
parents eyed each other, many turning hard
“We’ll need to run those through the shoulders.
machine,” the TSA woman said.
Shortly after, things started going missing
“Just take them,” Anne whispered, from the apartment. A porcelain wade fig-
shoving the pieces into the woman’s small urine of an eagle from the mantle in the
plastic bowl. She stepped through the silent living room, the magnet on the fridge from
metal detector and marched to the solider. Portland, the long and rusted skeleton key
He handed off the boy who had seemed to from the junk drawer, and more than once
calm in the short separation. Anne walked in on Noah playing with toys
she hadn’t purchased for him.
Even as she collected her things and
stormed to the gate passing enormous win- “Where’d you get that GI Joe?” she
dows of tempered glass, Anne realized that asked. Noah shrugged and kept his eyes on
Noah wouldn’t take his eyes off the man in the toy.
uniform.
“I’ve had it forever,” he said, and con-
* tinued playing like his mother wasn’t
standing in the door with eyes burning a
Noah hadn’t come home yet, and even hole into his stocky frame.
though they lived a block from the school,
she began to wonder if he’d received anoth- Now, Anne pushed back the curtain
er detention for behavior. Third grade had and looked down the block to see if her
seen the boy transform into the type that son might be playing in the schoolyard,
went over bike jumps as large as he was, even though she told him to always come
swim too far into the deep end of the com- check-in first. Instead she found him being
munity pool despite orders not to leave the walked home by a large man in khaki pants
shallow end, and saunter inside on warmer and tucked-in polo shirt. Mr. Carlsbad, Anne
days with suspicious bruises that didn’t jive realized, the athletic director from those
with the explanation of “playing”. Some- parent/teacher meetings. She watched the
where, Noah had learned to lie and Anne man duck with his shoulders like a charging
found the discovery unsettling for a num- lineman, plant his feet and rush forward for
ber of reason, mostly because she knew she two quick steps, Noah’s eyes glued to his
was to blame. movements.

“How come I don’t have a dad?” Noah Anne spun around and hid the dinner
asked as classmates crowded the birthday box of macaroni and cheese sitting next to
cake glowing with candles for his 9th birthday.

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the stove, shoved the pile of unopened bills “Boys will be boys,” Mr. Carlsbad said,
into a thin plastic grocery bag, and pulled “but in cases like Noah, we don’t think de-
the window shade across the pane of glass tention will send the right message. Have
with duct tape over the splintered cracks you considered signing him up for football?”
from when Noah played dodgeball inside.
“Too violent. And he’s too young.”
There was no knock. Noah used his
own key—another thing that gave Anne The athletic director nodded at the
pause—to push open the front door. The taped-up window glowing through the
boy clomped in while the athletic director pulled shade, the ruffled couch blankets,
rapped on the open doorframe with thick the chipped kitchen table.
knuckles choosing to stand in the hall.
Anne entered with the feigned breath of a “I understand, but consider that he al-
pleasant surprise and invited the man in- ready possesses something he’s having
side. Noah kicked off his shoes, the small trouble expressing. The gridiron allows re-
rubber soles sailing across the room. lease, instills discipline, creates a system of
positive, male role models.”
“Hi Ms. Burke,” Mr. Carlsbad said. “There
was a bit of an incident at school today, I’m Anne’s vision went red, her jaw clenching
afraid.” so tight that a vein in her temple pulsed. She
knew what the man meant, but something
Anne felt her body tighten, even though in his voice implied judgment, that Noah
she did her best to appear confused. Of wouldn’t act this way if she could only keep
course, she thought, what else is new? a man around.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, putting a hand “Thank you for your concern, but we’ll
over her eyebrows. “We’re kind of skating manage,” she said, holding out her arm to-
by at the moment, as you can probably see.” ward the door with eyes that burned the
message get out.
“No judgment,” the man said, and went
on to explain that during afternoon recess, “Please, mom?” Noah said, standing in
Noah tackled a kid and pummeled him for the middle of his room. “You don’t let me
being mean to a girl, the girl he might have do anything the other kids do. I want to play
a crush on, Carlsbad surmised, and when football. I want to have friends. I want to
teacher’s stepped in to break it up, Noah wear clothes that aren’t bought for a dollar
took off running so fast that the other stu- from a place that smells like a basement.”
dents cheered him. The pursuing faculty
couldn’t wrangle the boy. “He surrendered “Noah…” Anne said, the tightness soft-
when the principal threatened to take away ening. “It’s not that simple.”
afternoon movie privileges for the entire
class.” “Don’t you want me to be happy?” he
asked, stomping his foot and clenching his
Anne sat on the ottoman in the living fists. Behind his eyes was that manipulative
room, boiling. She looked at Noah sitting in smile and Anne wanted to scream at him,
his room, proudly playing with action fig- to yell in his face that people didn’t just get
ures, a self-satisfied smirk pouting his lips. what they wanted just because they wanted
it, that life was hard and unfair, and that
“Is the other boy hurt?” Anne asked. rewarding bad behavior only encouraged
more bad behavior.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

“Let me see what I can do,” she said in- “He’s not drunk, just in love, Ms. P,” Noah
stead, and closed her eyes to calculate the said, grinning the grin of a starting varsity
time to cost ratio required with taking on wide receiver. He traipsed up the steps and
yet another shift. gave the finger guns to his mother in the bay
window. Stiff white papers stuck out of his
* back pocket. Anne leaned into the doorway.

Stasia paced the living room, the old dread- “As someone three years older, I ex-
locks lopped in lieu of a silver pixie cut. She pected more from you,” she said, and Noah
checked the phone, and dialed again. Voice- brushed it off as the group stepped inside.
mail. Anne watched the young girls paw and
swoon over the boys and felt weightless
“This is Noah’s fault,” she growled. “Cas- nostalgia course beneath her skin. The way
pian is a good boy, and your boy corrupted these pretty little things must have spent
him.” hours getting ready, prepping their hair,
choosing an outfit, practicing conversations,
“I can phone the police and say they things that the boys wouldn’t even notice, a
stole my car, but if caught, Cas gets a re- part of her reached out in solidarity to the
cord,” Anne said. It wasn’t the first time remembrance of the excruciating high of
Noah had taken her car without asking, and puppy love. Noah kissed Anne on the cheek
she knew it wouldn’t be the last, a small and peeled out of his jacket.
price to pay for the uptick in good grades
and scholarship offers. After landing a job “If you ever…” Stasia said, marching to-
in admissions at UMass Dartmouth, Anne ward Noah with her finger pointed into his
turned in the old beater for a Rav-4 and face. “This is my baby boy, my cub, under-
rented a one-story ranch on the outskirts of stand?”
Cape Cod. The weekend was meant to be a
housewarming. “He’s not a toddler. Maybe fly the heli-
copter elsewhere,” Noah said, and opened
“They just pulled up,” Stasia said, and the refrigerator. He pulled out the OJ and
bolted through the front door talking took a swing from the carton. The girls hud-
faster than the winds of a nor’easter. Anne dled against the wall holding their small
watched Noah pop out of the car laughing, purses below their pierced belly buttons.
the letterman jacket fitted to his muscular
frame, a petite girl in tight pants climbing “Unlike your mother, I actually wanted to
out of the passenger seat and giving him have him,” Stasia said. She snapped her fingers
goo-goo eyes. Caspian stepped out of the at Caspian and motioned to gather his things.
back in his too-large pants, ill-fitted rugby The boy adjusted his glasses and obeyed.
shirt, and crooked glasses with a brunette
in a slim tank hanging from his shoulders. “Stasia!” Anne said.

“I love it here, Ma,” Caspian said, stum- “What’s that supposed to mean?” Noah
bling up the walkway to a furious Stasia. asked.

“Are you drunk?!” the woman asked, “Did she ever tell you where we were
cupping her son’s face and looking into his when we found out about 9/11?” Stasia’s
eyes, his mouth, his ears. “You are fifteen red face turned toward Anne. “What she
years old!” had planned?”

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Revista Literária Adelaide

“This is my twitter handle, and my insta, open his door, even though she heard him
and snap,” Caspian said, handing a ripped rustling, pacing, talking to himself. Stasia
piece of paper to the brunette. The girl had offered a tearful apology before she
forced a smile as she stuffed the paper into left, that her emotions had bested her, that
her purse and looked at the floor. she and Caspian would stay in a hotel near
the airport. During a day of togetherness,
“What did you have planned? And don’t all had fled.
you lie to me,” Noah said. Standing there
demanding an answer, his wide shoulders Anne heard a window slide open and
filling the room, his dark eyebrows and wild a hushed voice through the wall. One of
hair, Anne thought he looked so much like the girls from earlier, she thought, come
Prato. back to offer comfort, as if teenagers had
any grasp on the concept. The spider de-
“Termination,” Anne whispered, and scended from a small web and swung itself
looked at the floor. When she looked at against a wall. Noah’s deep and steady voice
Stasia, she found her friend mortified, face pushed through the space and across her
pulled into the twisted mask of regret un- ceiling like he was already gone, a ghost of
able to utter anything that could salvage the the boy she knew stepping into the role of
situation. a man. Light thumps on the wall. Bed frame
squeaks. A child following in the footsteps
Noah reached into his back pocket and of his mother.
removed the papers. He placed them on
the table, walked into his bedroom, and Funny, she thought, how a tragedy
slammed the door. revealed the greatest joy she had ever
known, and how eighteen years would
“I’m going to call an Uber,” one of the never be enough. But it would have to do.
girls said, and the two let themselves out. She thought of everything she’d given up for
Anne watched them go wanting to tell them her child, the nights out, a dating life, new
no, to stay, that if they were a friend of her clothes, jobs that required travel, and how
son they were welcome inside of her home. she never once questioned that she’d made
She wanted to tell them to love fiercely, but the right decision. The ambient glow of the
to think longer than the moment, beyond streetlamp outside made the spider’s web
schooling, beyond the overpowering feeling sparkle like silver.
of the now.
*
“Oh god,” Stasia said, picking up the pa-
pers. She clutched the top of a wooden chair Anne hadn’t slept in days. She sat on the
for balance. Caspian stood on his tiptoes to corner of her bed scrolling through the news
look over his mother’s shoulder, smiling. apps on her phone, many of them reporting
Anne walked over holding her breath, and on Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani’s
felt lightheaded as she read the enlistment attack on the US Embassy where Noah was
papers signed and dated. stationed. She hadn’t heard from him. At all.

That night, she stared into the stucco She told herself that he was ok, that his
blankness of her ceiling unable to sleep. A fighting spirit and will to survive already
small spider soundlessly crossed the ceiling overcame impossible odds. Yet, her body
toward the far corner. Noah had refused to

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

felt hollowed out like a gutted pumpkin at funeral like they had never existed at all.
Halloween. She put a cigarette between her Eventually, a check for $100,000 came, tax
lips, a habit developed to quell the worry, free, the apparent cost of her son’s life. In
and slid open her bedroom window. The the same shipment was the American flag
empty house ached with memories. used at her boy’s funeral folded into a com-
pact triangle.
Anne drew in a long breath. She exhaled
out the window where the late summer The second funeral happened in New
rain sprinkled like ice cream toppings across York City, a headstone placed next to her
the un-mowed lawn where Noah’s rusted parent’s. Stasia came. So did Caspian and
mountain bike sat unused still chained to his Bahamian wife with perfect, shining
the fence. skin. They stood by Anne while she wept
and touched the cold marble, her finders
The doorbell rang. Anne stamped out running the curves of Noah’s strong, con-
the cigarette on the windowsill and checked fident name. Both days had been sunny,
her phone. She didn’t remember ordering the grass green, the wind slight. Anne won-
any food, but since Noah’s deployment into dered if her son had ever been happy.
hostile territory, the neighborhood rallied
and often sent take-out on their behalf. The When Anne returned to Massachusetts,
clock on the phone read 4:15 PM. An early she found herself driving through the sub-
dinner wouldn’t hurt. She walked through urbs of Boston in a haze, the old streets and
the living room and opened the front door towns no longer the places she remem-
to find two soldiers in formal dress taking bered. The layout held the same patterns,
off their hats. but they pulsed with different life, different
shops, different people. She pondered the
“Ma’am,” the first one said. “It’s about emotional impact of mourning her son
your son…” and Anne’s knees gave out, the twice, about her new prescriptions that
world slipping into a dream. slurred her words and turned the world into
a swimming pool until she realized it wasn’t
Two funerals. One for the military with a just two.
21 gun salute blasting blanks into the sky and
ruining the serenity of solemn remembrance. Anne managed to find a familiar brick
Soldiers she’d never met crowded next to the building now abandoned and wrapped with
politicians that had sent her baby to war, the vines. Shattered windows led to dark insides,
same balding white men who actively fought the door chained shut, the city posting a sign
against a woman’s right to choose. announcing the property as derelict. She
popped a cigarette between her lips and lit
“We’re so sorry for your loss,” they said, up leaning her cheek against the cool window
shaking Anne’s hand with showy grips and of the driver’s side door. The building sat un-
polished smiles. “He died a hero.” used, left behind and forgotten.

“No. He died,” Anne said, squeezing tight As she exhaled and the interior filled
and begging for eye contact. with bitter smoke, Anne placed her hand
over her stomach. She felt nothing.
“If there’s anything we can do, please
let us know,” they said, and then left the

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About the Author

W. T. Paterson is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, MFA candidate for Fiction at the
University of New Hampshire, and graduate of Second City Chicago. His work has appeared
in over 80 publications worldwide including The Forge Literary Magazine, The Delhousie
Review, and Fresh Ink. A number of stories have been anthologized by Lycan Valley, North 2
South Press, and Thuggish Itch. He spends most nights yelling for his cat to “Get down from
there!”

19

SENSIBILITY

by Malka Daskal

Mavis has only been home from the hospi- Benny is only five and her notions of privacy
tal a month when Ethan informs her of his have been revised slowly over the course of
upcoming business trip in three weeks time. the last decade. She does insist, however,
Ethan is a futurist; a job title Mavis believes that he please close the door behind him.
to be a misleadingly fanciful moniker for the
data analysis tedium the job actually entails. Mavis has heard of sensory depriva-
These conferences, events Mavis has never tion tanks one can go to where you can lie
attended with Ethan but which take place still, suspended in salt water, in complete
quarterly, are an essential aspect of the job darkness. Her husband has promised to
and Mavis knows Ethan has already missed buy her a gift certificate for Mother’s Day.
one week-long seminar while she was away. For sixty minutes she will float and she will
He should go to his conference. She and the hear nothing. Mavis is curious to know what
boys will be perfectly fine. Mavis is commit- nothing sounds like.
ted to being well.
Mavis can trace her hypersensitivity
Mavis likes to keep the door closed in back to when she was a child. Movies gave
whatever room she is in but especially in her headaches. Amusement parks left her
her bedroom. When the door is closed, fatigued for days. Her parents like to tell a
she feels contained in the room, safe. With story about how they brought her to an ar-
the door open, the sounds are an endless, cade once for a friend’s birthday party and
sprawling mess. A cyclone of white noise. after ten minutes she sat down on the sticky
Since she has returned home, Mavis spends carpet and wouldn’t stop crying until they
a lot of time in the bedroom, the only room hustled her out. Ethan tries to be sympa-
in the house with black out shades. She thetic. Mavis tamps down the need to apol-
doesn’t know what Ethan told the kids ogize for her condition.
about her hospital stay, but they have ac-
cepted her absence and reappearance as She does her best to be normal, to do
simply another inexplicable factor in their normal things. She takes Benny to a bounce
lives like Benny, Mavis’s youngest enters fun center called JUMP IT! in a suburban
the room while she is dressing. Mavis does strip mall. Six massive inflatable bouncing
not mind him seeing her getting dressed. castles are housed in the 8,000 square
This lack of modesty would have surprised foot space. Each one is kept inflated by a
an early Mavis, a pre-children Mavis, but churning motor. Mavis must yell to be heard
over the noise, Are you having fun? Benny is

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radiant, running from one castle to the next. Mavis knows she is getting worse. Every
Against the far wall parents sit on a plastic day she seems to be able to tolerate less
bench, placidly checking their phones, and less sound. The squeals of the garbage
reading a book. Not digging their nails into truck on Wednesday mornings. The blast
their palms. when the air conditioning turns on. The
music coming from her neighbor’s back-
On the website, the sensory deprivation yard. All of it a suffocating blanket of noise.
tanks look a lot like coffins and the company
reassures potential patrons that at anytime The doctor looks in both ears, his breath
and for any reason they have the ability to warm on her cheek. He escorts her to a
open the tanks and come out. Mavis suf- windowless room where a woman, Mavis
fers from a degree of claustrophobia but doesn’t catch her official title or ranking,
it’s less about being confined in tight spaces places heavy headphones over her ears.
than about being surrounded by people in The woman moves with a choreographed
a crowd. Their smells and heat forming a efficiency around the room setting up the
physical barrier around her. When she sits in auditory machines to her satisfaction,
a packed church or attends PTA fundraising handing Mavis a red button with instruc-
events, she can feel her body pulling towards tions to press the button when she hears a
the exits like a plant listing toward light. beep. The woman sits behind a glass parti-
tion, her control console just outside of Ma-
She drives the kids to school every vis’s view. Fog horns blare, then the deep-
morning even though their backseat bick- throated calls of howler monkeys. The shrill
ering makes her head pound. Let’s play the cry of a newborn. The thrum of cicadas. The
quiet game, she suggests, but Anthony who high-pitched squeal of a nervous swine.
is ten is too old to be taken in by such ruses. Mavis hears them all. There’s nothing wrong
Mom, he asks, how many minutes are in a with your hearing, the doctor informs her
week? Benny begins to count, something he when she is delivered back into his care. It
has only recently mastered and takes great pleases him to give her this news and he
pride in. Between 7th Avenue and West- makes space for her to respond apprecia-
grove Street, he gets stuck in a loop. 17-18- tively but she won’t. Maybe you should try
19-12-17-18-19-12. After dinner Mavis tells meditating, he offers on his way out of the
Ethan about the car ride. Ethan laughs. Our exam room.
little Einstein. Do they do this to you to?
Mavis wants to know. Do what? Talk inces- Mavis thinks of her brain as hollowed
santly. Ethan shrugs. They’re kids. They like out cantaloupe or a great underground
the sound of their own voices. But don’t you cave like the cenotes she and Ethan visited
feel like sometimes they’re hijacking your in Mexico. Dark, cavernous. Inky fathom-
train of thought? Like your brain is being less black water. Soaring craggy ceilings
invaded? Ethan turns on the faucet and concealing sleeping bats. The tour guide
begins washing the dishes. I think they’re warned them not to touch anything, not
just being normal kids. The sound of run- to speak loudly, not to wear sunscreen. We
ning water from the faucet drowns out his must preserve the integrity of the caves,
words. Mavis only realizes how much she of the ecosystems that have lived here for
hates the sound of the faucet when he turns millennia. She and Ethan looped little flash-
it off and the sound is blessedly absent. lights on their wrists and wore wetsuits to

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

protect them from the water’s frigid tem- for him to appraise. Ethan views her feet
peratures. Sleek as seals, they eased them- in the mirror’s reflection, not pausing his
selves into the water, gliding through the electric shaver which continues to whirr as
labyrinth, sometimes swimming through it makes its way over the smooth planes of
tunnels, surfacing in new caves, the light his jaw. Looks normal to me. Mavis sits on
from their flashlights bobbing white on the the toilet lid and wiggles her toes. They feel
surface of the water. Sometimes the walls fine, she says hesitantly.
of the caves were close and confined and
others had ceiling so high, the flashlight’s They look fine, Ethan says. Why? Did you
beam was swallowed up trying to trace the step on something?
stalactites back to their origins. Without the
guide they would have been lost a hundred No. It’s just that they look a little blurry
times. When Mavis closes her eyes, she to me. Around the edges. Like a photograph
imagines she is still down there, lost among of something moving too fast.
the bats.
I don’t see anything. It’s just a normal
* foot. If it’s still bothering you in the morning,
get it checked out.
There is an hour in the evenings- after the
children are in bed, the kitchen cleaned It’s not bothering me. It’s true. Mavis
from dinnertime debris, the sun’s relent- wiggles her toes again. She is not bothered
less gaze a distant memory- when Mavis can by it, just curious. In the morning, she thinks
feel a sense of stillness and her thoughts are her toes are even more blurred, the tips of
her own to pursue or squander. It is during her big toes are just a flesh colored smudge.
this time Mavis first notices that the out- She does not get it checked out.
line of her toes is blurred. Each toe remains
distinct, but where there was once clear *
definition between what was her toe and
what was just beyond her toe, in this case On Sunday Mavis makes deli sandwiches
the brown leather ottoman on which she is and the family goes to Mountainview park.
resting her feet, now there is a an indeter- Anthony and Ethan toss each other a frisbee
minate haziness, a muddling of what should while Mavis pushes Benny on the swings.
have been two discrete substances. Mavis Benny has learned how to pump his legs
considers it may be the fault of her vision but he still demands Mavis’s involvement in
but when she turns to examine the books his swinging. From where she is standing,
on their shelves and the neatly arranged Mavis watches Anthony run, dive and jump,
flowers in their vase, everything appears as his hand reaching for the frisbee, his whole
it should. body reacting to the thrill of the catch, his
little body a marvel. Higher, Benny calls to
Mavis calls for Ethan but when he her, registering her inattentiveness. Mavis
doesn’t answer she goes upstairs to look for gives him a firm push and his body soars.
him; her toes do not hurt at all as she walks.
She finds him in their bathroom shaving in They find an empty park bench and
front of the mirror. Do you notice anything Mavis distributes the sandwiches, turkey for
strange about my toes? With one hand on herself and Ethan, bologna for Anthony and
the wall for balance, she holds her foot out Benny. Benny, she knows, does not actu-
ally like bologna, but he is still too young to
separate his preferences from those of his

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brother’s. His desires, whatever they are, away. Anthony and Benny are thrilled and
always designed by their relation to those easily sworn to secrecy. Ethan believes in well
of his family members. balanced meals- an abundance of vegetables,
a palm sized portion of protein. Most nights,
Mavis pulls off her sandal to let some Mavis feels the dinners she prepares are
of the trapped sand out. She had drawn a being judged and found lacking. Each dinner
red mark as a demarcation to keep track of is another chance to disappoint either Ethan
where the blurriness begins, just as is her or the kids and Ethan is less vocal so she usu-
practice for her sons’ bug bites in order to ally opts for the starchy foods the kids prefer.
track for spreading infections. The arched
red line, circumscribing the flat juncture With Ethan out of the house, Mavis can
where her toes meet her foot has begun to concentrate on the problem of her feet
go hazy. The ends of her toes she can only which have, for all intents and purposes,
make out by squinting but are otherwise disappeared to just below her ankle. While
translucent, now showing the verdant grass she has no sensation of her feet still being
beneath her feet. attached to her body, if she touches them,
or the area where they ought to be, with
* her hands, her fingers register the smooth
skin of the dorsal portion of her foot or the
Ethan leaves on a business trip to Chicago rougher calluses if she is touching what once
the following day, grumbling in anticipation was the bottoms of her feet. She doesn’t
of the frigid weather that will greet him want to alarm the kids so she keeps the door
there. He goes once a year, his company has closed to her room during her investigations
a sister office in Chicago, and he complains but Anthony, whose bright imagination has
every time. Mavis calls Ethan a homebody conjured forts out of blankets and super-
but really it is more the disruption to his heroes out of toothpicks, cannot fathom a
routine that irritates Ethan on these trips. scenario in which his presence would not be
In the past, he would video call her from the wanted. He barges into the room on a hunt
hotel room after a day of meetings, grouchy for a pair of his sneakers.
about the coffee the smells in the elevator,
the expense of valeting his car, his face too Mavis sits on her bed with her knees
close to the screen, strangely alien. In the drawn up.
background Mavis catches a glimpse of a
spacious hotel room, tastefully decorated in What are you doing? Anthony asks, mo-
creams and luxurious greys. The bed’s head- mentarily distracted from his search.
board is a sleek ebony with a plush tufted
center. One time, Ethan called her while in At the age of ten, Mavis is aware she is
the lobby and Mavis could see a polished entering into a dangerous phase where ev-
marble column jutting out beyond Ethan’s erything she does will appear weird to her
right shoulder and the happy, smiling fac- son. There’s a possibility then, that even the
es of the hotel staff behind the receptionist truly odd behaviors will get lost in the mi-
desk. Mavis tries very hard to be patient on asma of everything being labeled as weird.
these phone calls.
Do you see my feet? Mavis asks lightly.
Mavis plans to feed the kids waffles and
pancakes for the three nights Ethan will be Anthony glances down to where Mavis’s
feet should be. Ya. Anthony studies her ex-
pectantly. So what?

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Can you press on my toes? bleary eyed from going to bed late. They
miss their father who, despite his insis-
Why. tence on their vegetable consumption, is
the more patient, more compassionate of
My back is hurting and I can’t reach them. their parents. Mavis doesn’t begrudge them
this. She would feel the same way if she had
Mavis has never complained of back pain to choose between herself and Ethan as a
but she knows in Anthony’s mind her body parent.
is an old decaying thing, and any amount of
malfunctioning is well within the realm of Mavis is groggy this morning too. Ethan
possibility. snores loudly when he sleeps, his body
making lurid gasping noises that are hard
I guess. to reconcile with the cheerful, dignified
man he is in the morning. And yet, in the
Anthony pinches her would-be big toe absence of his cacophony, Mavis finds she
between his thumb and pointer finger and can’t sleep either.
Mavis can feel the comforting pressure like
an old friend. Do it again. Mavis places the plates of scrambled
eggs in front of the boys who are sitting on
Anthony pinches again and this time bar stools by the kitchen island. Instantly,
Mavis notices the shimmering haze below Benny makes a face.
her ankle rising to just past her heel. She
swats Anthony’s hand away. I don’t want that.

Ouch, Anthony says aggrieved. But you said you wanted scrambled
eggs, Mavis says.
Sorry. You were pinching too hard. Mavis
swings her legs so they dangle off the edge Not these scrambled eggs.
bed feeling the strange lightness of her
missing feet. I think I saw your sneakers by Mavis knows, even as she can’t help but
the front door, she calls to Anthony who argue, that she will lose this fight. But these
has already left the room exasperated with are scrambled eggs.
his mother’s inexplicable behavior. Mavis
tentatively stands up and makes her way I wanted the other scrambled eggs. The
across the room to close the door behind hard ones. Benny pushes away his plate like
him. When she was around Anthony’s age, a dissatisfied patron at a diner.
she had broken her ankle after tripping on a
garden hose. She wore a cast for six weeks, He wants a hard-boiled egg, Anthony
and when the cast came off, walking on her clarifies. He calls hard-boiled eggs, scram-
foot had felt like walking through powdery bled eggs. Dad knows that.
snow, every footfall ending a few centime-
ters beyond what was expected, a sensa- Once, when she and Ethan had been
tion very similar to the one she feels now newly married Mavis had watched as a
walking on her absent feet. friend of hers cleaned up the same box of
oversized stacking bricks four times. The
* woman’s three-year-old kept unceremo-
niously dumping the box on the carpeted
In the morning, she makes scrambled eggs floor and walking away as if he had more im-
for the boys who are still pajamaed and portant things to do than watch his mother

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Revista Literária Adelaide

clean up his mess. Mavis and her friend had the house all at once, Mavis can feel them,
been conversing, sitting cross-legged on the fact of them, their physical bodies and
the floor and this mother, without pausing ephemeral needs, mounting in her head,
in conversation, would simply gather the filling up the cool dark spaces like so many
bright blocks up again and again seemingly grains of sand.
completely unperturbed by her Sisyphean
task. Tell me we won’t be those kinds of To celebrate Ethan’s return home, An-
parents, she said to Ethan on the car ride thony requests they throw a party. Mavis
home. If Ethan had responded, she cannot blows up balloons until she feels light-
remember now what he said. She only re- headed while the boys color banners made
members the exact shade of blue in the sky from printer paper taped together.
that day, just beyond the windshield, an
endless canvas of opaque cerulean. In the four days Ethan has been away,
Mavis’s legs have become transparent to
You will eat the scrambled eggs. Mavis the knees. Far from making walking more
kept her voice measured and firm in an difficult, Mavis finds her movements, if any-
attempt to manufacture authority. That is thing, to be more graceful, more like she is
what you asked for so that is what you have drifting about the rooms of the house. And,
to eat. although the kids do not notice a change in
her appearance, Mavis is sure she no longer
Make me the other, Benny counters. has an audible footstep. Barefoot, she can
move around the house making no sound
I don’t have any more eggs, Mavis says at all.
looking into the fridge. Her words could be
a statement of defeat or defiance but Mavis Anthony has put together a playlist of
knows it is the former. And she knows Benny songs for the party and Benny wants Mavis
knows it too. to dance with him. Mavis holds his hands
and moves around the room to the music.
She pours Benny a bowl of chocolatey
cereal. Ethan will be home tomorrow night Can we dance like Daddy does? Benny
and the kids can resume their healthy eating asks.
habits then.
How does Daddy dance?
*
Benny places his feet on top of Mavis’s.
The week passes by in a slow progression Mavis can feel the pressure of Benny’s body
of hours and minutes. The boys build obsta- weighing down on the tops of her feet even
cle courses in the backyard and play board though she cannot see them. To Mavis,
games on the living room floor. Mavis as- it looks as though Benny is floating a few
sents to play with them every third request, inches off the ground, swaying to the music,
a calculation that seems fair to her but An- swaying in step to her own rhythm.
thony and Benny begrudge her hesitancy.
They are such good children, Mavis thinks. With the pressure of Benny’s weight on
Smart and good-hearted, and surely better her feet, Mavis can feel the transparency
behaved than most. But still, their voices moving up her legs more quickly. Anthony
echoing off the walls in the living room, has turned the music on far too loud and
the way they seem to be in every room of the music, a pop song Mavis knows all the
words to without ever having consciously

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Adelaide Literary Magazine
listened to it before, saturates the room
with its up-tempo beat. Her legs are now
completely transparent and her stomach is
a hazy outline. Mavis closes her eyes and
holds tightly to Benny’s hands. Anthony’s
playlist is long and if they choose, they can
dance like this for hours.

About the Author
Malka Daskal received her master’s degree from Columbia University and was the recipient
of the Maricopa Artist of Promise Award in 2016. She is currently a fiction reader for New
England Review. Her work has appeared in The Bookends Review, Passages, and The Traveler
and is forthcoming in Kind Writers, december Magazine, and The Dalhousie Review. She lives
in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and two sons.

26

TALL TALES

by Drew Alexander Ross

“Tommy threw Dad’s wallet on the roof.” “Where is it?” Mom asked.

These words revealed to my parents they “Tommy threw Dad’s wallet on the roof.”
had a liar-liar pants-on-fire rascal for a kid.
The blank stares from my Dad and Mom
This happened during a family vacation and the dumbfounded leer of my brother
when I was seven years old. We didn’t go on with frozen peas melting in his lap should
many, but my Dad was able to get a week have informed me my tale wasn’t believed.
off that summer. This was as rare as beating I still recall the sense of pride I felt telling
my older brother in any sport growing up. them this lie, but it was years later until I
I remember my mother spinning like a top was reminded how and why this lie was so
as she got everything ready for the trip. We blatant and obvious. Tommy was my cousin,
went to Cape Cod for seven days. It rained and he was in Virginia.
every day except one.
A few years later, my tall tales became
That one sun-filled day was spent at the more refined. When I was eleven, I figured
beach. My brother got sun poisoning. When out the formula of how to get out of a day at
we went back to the rental, my Dad couldn’t school. I could imagine Einstein feeling the
find his wallet. It was one of two things I same joy I felt when he figured out E=MC².
always remember he had on his person; the That bliss coursed through my veins every
other was a Blackberry. time I woke up and told my Mom I don’t
feel well, with a fake cough and the clammy
My Dad tore through the couch, looked hands suggested by Ferris Bueller. I spent
under the bed, and checked the car. Mean- many days at home with my Gameboy lib-
while, my Mom tried to get my brother erated from my Dad’s closet, where it was
to sit still long enough for a frozen bag of stored after being confiscated, sometimes
peas to cool his forehead. The heat didn’t for weeks at a time.
keep him still like a baked cookie; it got him
moving and screaming like a boiling teapot. Karma came back to douse my joy later
that summer.
“I know where Dad’s wallet is,” I said.
My Dad was a fisherman in his free time.
My Dad looked over at me with one hand This was a hobby he tried to pass on to his
down the side of a La-Z-Boy recliner. My children. My brother picked it up. The roots
mother let go of the peas, and my brother of why I didn’t were planted during the
sat still with the makeshift ice pack in his lap.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

hours we spent fishing without catching me at the urinal. At this moment, my smile
fish. That summer, the roots of why I didn’t dwarfed my reaction to when Lynn Buccolo
blossomed. said she would go out with me.

“Dad, I don’t feel well,” I said. The bell rang for class, and I waited. I
gave it a good fifteen minutes before I re-
This was forty minutes into an eight- turned to the classroom. My teacher asked
hour charter fishing trip. me why I was late.

Unfortunately, I had called wolf too “I was in the Dean’s office.”
many times. My act was flawless by the end
of that school year, so I don’t blame him for I said this with a pitiful moan. My head
not recognizing the truth behind my words. was down, and my shoulders slumped. I
Dad grabbed my ankles and dipped me in trudged to my seat without another sound.
the brisk ocean to cool me off. Maybe he I made sure to give Dylan the look of a de-
did that to get my head underwater, where feated athlete in game seven before I sat
my mouth couldn’t open with complaints, down. I didn’t answer his whispers of what
so he could get a few moments of peace. I happened?
never asked him.
After the bell rang for the end of class,
Seven hours later, we headed back for Dylan came over to confront me. I told him
shore. We got back to the house, and I the guidance counselor reported to the Dean
couldn’t walk up the stairs. The next day that I was on drugs. My fate would be de-
my parents brought me to the doctor. The cided after school when my parents came in
results from six vials of blood came back for a conference. I told him I didn’t want to
to inform us that I had Mononucleosis and talk about it anymore when I finished my tale.
Lime’s Disease.
By the end of the day, Dylan was almost
I got over that, but the years passed and in tears. I waited a cruelly long time before
I still lied. I told him it was a joke. He told me he didn’t
know if he could believe me anymore.
When I was in high school, I kept telling
tales to amuse myself and my friends. This was when I realized I couldn’t keep
They didn’t know the stories weren’t true, telling lies. I made up stories to entertain
though. Eventually, I came clean to my friend myself and my friends, but I didn’t want that
Dylan. I had to tell him; he was about to turn to ruin our friendship. I told tales that were
himself into the Dean to make amends for self-deprecating as well, but most of them
something that didn’t even happen. weren’t true either. Dylan’s reaction made
me think about why I told stories.
I went to a Jesuit high school. One of the
classes we had to take was Theology. One In college, I figured it out.
day the guidance counselor came in to talk
to the class about drugs. She asked if anyone When I thought about what I wanted
experimented with illegal substances. Dylan to do for a living, I realized that my ability
decided to conspicuously call out my name and fondness for tall tales could provide me
in a long drawl. I was not pleased. with a career. A politician was one of those
options. A lawyer was another. But I didn’t
I stepped into the bathroom as we like either of those. Another idea was to be-
walked to our next class. An epiphany hit come a writer.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

I’ve used the years of my life, since my friends. My parents supported my deci-
conclusion, to walk the path of becoming sion to become a writer when I told them. I
an author. I started to make up all kinds of imagined that it was preferable to the other
stories, but they no longer hurt anyone. career choices. And since I chose this career,
I’ve recanted my tendency to tell lies. But I
Writing brings immense pleasure to still stood by one tall tale; Tommy did throw
my life, and I share that healthily with my Dad’s wallet on the roof.

About the Author

Drew Alexander Ross studied business and film at the
University of San Francisco, class of 2015. His primary focus
is screenwriting, and he enjoys reading a book a week
across various genres, fantasy foremost. He resides in Los
Angeles, where he has worked in education and writes for
Hollywood Insider. Drew has placed in three screenwriting
competitions and has short stories published by The
RavensPerch, The Book Smuggler’s Den, Down in the Dirt
Magazine, and Drunk Monkeys.

29

THE FURIES

by Finnegan Shepard

Abigail dreamt that her ex-girlfriend was “What concerns me,” Abigail said, “is
laying in a field of alpine wildflowers, and that the extremity keeps growing. It’s as if
that when Abigail reached her--stepping my dreams are reacting to each other. Not
from a flying carpet, holding a juice box— like I’m processing the real events.”
her ex rolled over to offer Abigail the patch
of ground she had flattened with her body. “Well,” her therapist said, “we know that
The next night she dreamt of walking in on every time we touch memory, it changes.”
her ex fucking her cousin. Abigail pushed
her cousin off the bed, straddled her naked “Exactly,” Abigail said. “That’s what con-
ex, and slapped her. It was a disjointed feel- cerns me.”
ing, the slap; not like ringing a bell but like
scrabbling for a hold on a cliffside. Her therapist smiled benevolently at her
over her notepad. The rim of her glasses
“It switches, every night,” Abigail told was thick as a finger.
her therapist. “One night all tender, the next
I’m like Clytemnestra.” “It’s a relief though,” Abigail said. “I prefer
grieving in the dream world.” She was silent
Her therapist was nonplused. “This is a moment, then said, “You know what pisses
normal,” she said. “The brain tries on ex- me off the most?”
treme stories until it tires itself out.”
“What?”
“Like a child,” Abigail commented. “Or a
dog.” “The last thing she said. It was such a
cliché. She said that over time I’d forgive
“Does it help to imagine your subcon- her. What kind of a cunt says that while
scious as a dog?” her therapist asked. you’re breaking up?”

There were so many plants in the office “She says this in the dreams?”
that Abigail felt as though she were in the
wild, or on a set. Every week, the Birds of “No no,” Abigail said, picking at a stain on
Paradise was moved somewhere new. “It her jeans. “In real life.”
needs change,” her therapist had told her.
*
“I don’t really care for dogs,” Abigail said.
At the end of the summer, Abigail moved
Her therapist noted this down. to a new neighborhood, close to the high
school. There were three coffee shops in
walking distance, and when she opened her

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Revista Literária Adelaide

bedroom window in the late afternoons, she “That’s a good line,” Abigail said. “Do
could hear whistles and shouts from football you mind if I write that down?”
practice five blocks over. Sometimes she sat
at her desk with her work pulled up on the “Be my guest,” her therapist said.
screen and imagined all those teenage boys
so narrowly focused on the task at hand, Abigail got out her phone and typed it
their muscles bulging against spandex, curli- into Notes. Then she crossed her arms and
cues of calf-hair, penises tucked into little gazed at the Birds of Paradise.
cups, and was delighted and envious of how
perfectly contained their lives seemed. “You know what moving on is like?” Ab-
igail said.
Abigail read that routine is the antidote
to heartbreak. She played Settlers of Catan “What?”
with her roommates on Thursday evenings,
and began to take a cycling class every “Like building with Legos in deep space.”
Sunday morning. Her friends told her that
her energy seemed lighter. She dreamt that “Could you elaborate?” Her therapist
she went to the grocery store, and when asked.
she came back her house had disappeared,
but that was alright because she was then “No,” Abigail said. “If I have to explain,
on a treasure hunt that involved inter-state it ruins it.”
travel, a rogue vibrator, and a chihuahua,
and in the end she was led to believe—led *
herself to believe?—that her ex had orches-
trated it as a means to win her back. The Soon after this session, the dreams ratch-
next night she dreamt of driving to her ex’s eted up in extremity. Abigail dreamt that
house in the dead of night with a deer trap she and her ex were floating in an amniotic
and setting it up, jaw gaping and glittering in sac, their bodies intertwined to the point
the moonlight, just outside the door. of fusion. In the next image, they were
driving a Prius, with three kids in the back,
“I find nothing problematic there,” Abi- and it was clear that the children had been
gail’s therapist said when she reported the miraculously produced by the mixture of
dreams. “Your subconscious is doing the both their eggs. They were all blonde and
work.” shiny and wearing red swimsuits. Then she
dreamt that her ex was so pregnant that
* she couldn’t get out of bed, and that Abigail
wouldn’t help her, and instead took great
In November, Abagail noticed that her ex pleasure in her ex being prisoner to her own
was no longer her first thought upon wak- body. She brought her scraps of food and
ing. She was ambivalent about this devel- water in a bowl that her ex lapped up like
opment. an animal, and despite her ex begging her
to stay, Abigail left for the strip club.
“There’s just something so terribly final
about it,” she told her therapist. “You know what desire’s like?” Abigail
said to her therapist.
“The closest thing to presence is to wor-
ship its absence,” her therapist said. “Tell me,” her therapist said.

“It’s like one of those food shows, the ones
where contestants eat as fast as they can.”

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“My mother loved those shows,” her “You’re leaving her behind,” Abigail’s
therapist says. therapist said. “This is a critical part of let-
ting go.”
“It’s a race to see who can consume and
digest and excrete it the fastest, and the “To be literally eaten by a zombie,” Ab-
loser is fucked forever.” igail replied. “Also, even in the nice dream
I’m exposing myself to a virus without a
“Why fucked forever?” mask and getting back together with her.
That’s not really laying healthy patterns as
“Because you can’t stop wanting it if the a foundation, is it.”
other person stopped wanting it first.”
“Feed it time,” her therapist said.
Her therapist made a note. “Would you
say you broke up over desire?” she asked. “Oh, I am,” Abigail said. “I feel like I’m
sleeping more and more.”
“We broke up because we disagreed
about whether we had a problem with de- Her therapist gave her an odd look, as
sire,” Abigail responded. “Desire in the macro though there’d been a misunderstanding,
sense. Desire as what keeps you engaged.” but neither of them addressed it.

“Interesting,” her therapist said. *

Abigail picked a piece of lint off her shirt In the spring, as the year anniversary of their
sleeve and rolled it ferociously between her breakup approached, the dreams began to
fingers. “She was bored of me. She wouldn’t fuse. Reconciliation was interwoven with
admit it, but she was. I was always starved revenge. Her ex pleaded for Abigail to tie
for attention. That’s not a life. You can’t live her up and beat her black and blue as a sign
like that, always peckish.” of love. Every night, Abigail beat her hard-
er, and longer, until her own hands were
“No,” her therapist said, “you can’t.” raw and bleeding and it was only because
of her own pain that she stopped. When
Abigail got a raise, and cleaned behind she looked down at her ex, curled into the
the toilet basin, and planned a cross-country fetal position on the mattress, clumps of
ski trip, and dreamt that her ex caught the hair missing, scratches and bite marks and
virus which was sweeping the globe, and bruises blooming over her body, Abigail felt
would not stop calling out for Abigail from a tenderness so potent it was as though she
her hospital bed. She flew to her ex’s bed- had been turned inside out, her unaccus-
side, and from her sweaty bedclothes her tomed flesh quivering against the air.
ex confessed: getting to a state of such
precarious mortality had made her realize Abigail had this dream, in the exact same
what really mattered in life. It was obvious, sequence, every night for a month. She fin-
in the dream, that they would live happily ished the roll of 500 trash bags she and her
ever after. The next night, Abigail dreamt ex had purchased at Costco. She bought the
that she and her ex were walking through Seafarers expansion pack to Catan. She vis-
a semi-apocalyptic city when a zombie ited a sex therapist, who told her that on a
jumped out of a man-hole and tried to grab cosmic level, violence had shifted into the
her. Her ex intervened, and he latched on realm of sexuality, as there was no accept-
to her instead, and Abigail ran, leaving her able place for it in society anymore.
ex behind to certain, and gruesome death.

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“Chopping wood or taking up boxing just around by her ponytail, rode her face, and
isn’t cutting it,” the sex therapist said. then commanded her to get herself off, be-
cause she didn’t deserve Abigail’s touch.
During the daytime, Abigail thought of Her first thought on waking was that the
her ex frequently, but without friction. Her sheets didn’t breathe very well, and that
ex scampered across the country lane of her she’d take herself on a date to buy a linen
mind, as though her thoughts and the tra- set. She deserved it.
jectory of he ex inside of them were at right
angles, with places to be. It was a pleasant It is possible that Abigail could have
way to live. She began to take naps over continued like this indefinitely. Over the
her lunch break. She would eat quickly, and summer she lost seven pounds. Her co-
then sleep for twenty five minutes on a yoga workers and friends told her that she was
mat under her desk. glowing.

At night, Abigail prepared herself for the But what Abigail didn’t know is that the
dream world—at first nervously, but then, dream world is not immune to the laws of
as May turned to June, with excitement. the real world. In the dream world, time
She enjoyed their nightly encounters, which operates with a different pace and velocity,
always began with violence, and found com- but its properties are the same. Dream char-
pletion in sex. Sometimes she woke in the acters grow up and change and move on.
middle of an orgasm. In the mornings she Abigail could set the scene, but she couldn’t
leapt out of bed, invigorated and refreshed. actually control the outcome. In short, her
She stopped setting an alarm. ex grew bored of her, just as she had in real
life.
“I think I’m lucid dreaming,” she told her
therapist. “It’s incredible. I’m discovering It was subtle at first. Her ex asked if they
new parts of myself.” could have more gentle sex one night, and
framed it as though it were an exciting ad-
“You feel in control in the dream world?” venture. Then she seemed less turned on
her therapist asked. by the slapping and the clawing and the
pushing around. She began talking less in
“Oh yeah,” Abigail said, nodding. “Way bed, no longer encouraging Abigail the way
more than in real life.” she used to. At first Abigail responded with
more dominance, but this was difficult to
“And what do you dream of, now?” maintain. Her confidence withered. She
tried communicating. “This doesn’t work
“Different things,” Abigail lied. unless I really know you want it,” she said.

* “I know,” her ex said, but nothing changed.

Abigail, who, since the age of fifteen, had *
never been single for more than twelve
days, was no longer interested in dating. Abigail’s waking hours grew more difficult.
Everything she could want from a roman- She thought of her ex incessantly, missed
tic or sexual partnership was being fulfilled her, resented her, could not wait to get back
in her dreams. When she heard that her ex into the dream world to confront her. She
was with someone new, the information started taking naps during hours when she
passed through her heart like water through
a colander. That night she dragged her ex

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was supposed to be working. She missed an effective method. Nobody at work com-
two important meetings, and was given a mented on her glow anymore. Her friends,
warning by her boos. Her head felt fuzzy deciding it was time for an intervention,
while she was awake, like it couldn’t latch forced her to come out dancing with them
on to anything. She stopped replying to her one Saturday. She drank seven Pina Cola-
friend’s texts, and began to exercise very das, threw up on a sapling, and ordered an
hard, right after work, so that by the time Uber. On the way home she looked through
she got home and had eaten dinner, she her text thread with her ex for the first time,
was exhausted enough to go to sleep. but she didn’t last long. It felt like a cheap
imitation of the real relationship, which was
She tried surprising her ex. She suggested the one that existed in her dreams. The next
dates, and weekends away, and matching day, she lay on her living room floor and lis-
tattoos. She tried wining and dining her. tened to an Esther Perel podcast. Esther
She tried initiating sex not before bed, but was right. They were in the death spiral of
in the middle of the night. She tried morn- desire. Abigail felt a cosmic injustice, that
ings, too. Her ex didn’t stop her at first, but even in the dream world, nothing lasts. She
her heart wasn’t in it. Abigail could feel it. resolved to stop initiating.
It filled her with desperation and a sadness
so deep she thought she might fall through Now, when she slipped into bed beside
it into oblivion. She wanted to shake her her ex, she wore pajamas and brought
ex and yell, “wake up! Remember us? Re- a book with her. At first, her ex seemed
member how it used to be?” suspicious, but after about a week of this,
stopped commenting. She read her own
Abigail broke up with her therapist. book. Sometimes she put her hand on
Abigail’s thigh as they read, or leaned her
“Processing in waking life doesn’t do any- head against her shoulder. Abigail’s cunt
thing,” she said. “All I want to do is sleep.” pulsed, but she ignored it. All I have to do,
she thought, is smoke her out. The first time
Her therapist set her notepad down. she initiates, I’ll say no, and then we’ll be
“Surely that’s a sign you need to spend off to the races. We’ll fuck and she’ll buy
more time awake,” she said. me a ring and we’ll start talking and things
will get better and better every single day,
Abigail shook her head. “Things are get- forever.
ting really serious,” she said. “I’ve got to be
present for it, you know?” But it never came. It was as though inti-
macy had died and gone to live somewhere
“Abigail,” her therapist said. “I must else, and her ex was perfectly fine without.
admit, I’m a little concerned.” She didn’t care about sex. She didn’t care
about conversation. Little by little, a part
“Don’t worry, Doc,” Abigail said. “I’m of Abigail changed, too. She lived in a per-
using everything you taught me. That’s the petual state of waiting for the romance to
point, right? Learning how to do all of this return, but while she waited, she learned
on my own?” to enjoy the minor interactions they shared;
the jokes, the nighttime cuddles. She could
* almost live with this.

Exercise fatigue stopped helping Abigail get
to sleep, so she began to drink half a bot-
tle of Merlot before bed every night. It was

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It was November, again, by then. Abigail Her ex shook her head. Abigail could feel
was jumpy at work, and had bags under her the sun beating against the windows and
eyes, but insisted that everything was fine. the door. She could not comprehend how
She felt as though she were soaring through she would survive the minutes after her
a large open sky, suspended by her finger- ex left. She was convinced all the oxygen
nails to something she couldn’t look up to would go with her.
see for fear of losing balance and falling. Her
ex and her new partner moved to a new city “I did the best I could do,” her ex said.
together. “It won’t last,” her friends said. She brought her full cup of coffee back to
“It’s insane for them to be so serious so the kitchen, where it steamed, redundant,
quickly.” Abagail shrugged. “I’m happy for on the counter.
her,” she said.
“How the fuck is this the best you can
* do?” Abigail said, trailing behind her.

Then, one glorious December day, her ex A garbage truck passed outside.
left her. When she woke to make coffee, she
found her ex already out in the living room “I think,” her ex said, “with time, you’ll
with a steaming mug and a packed bag. “I forgive me.”
feel like we did everything we could do,” she
said. “I won’t,” Abigail said. This time she was
ready. But the words didn’t do anything. Of
“Are you kidding me?” Abigail yelled. “I course they didn’t. They never would have.
literally can’t remember a single thing that They were just words, after all.
you’ve done.”
Her ex left. Abigail stared at the coffee
until the steam died off, and then she went
back to bed.

About the Author

Finnegan Shepard is a trans writer, classicist, and entrepreneur. He holds a B.A. from Sarah
Lawrence College, a third of a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and three quarters
of an MFA from the University of New Mexico. Recent work has appeared in The Mystery
Tribune, Amarillo Bay, Darkhouse Books, and Typehouse Literary Magazine. He is a regular
contributor to Archer’s, and the founder of a trans and non-binary apparel start up called
Both&. He is currently finishing up a collection of short stories entitled Turn Your Feelings
into Animals and Talk to Them, from which this story has been extracted.

35

MY BUG ZAPPER

by James Miller

In my backyard, there are fruit mice that and catalysts to bring about a pulsating,
come out at night, devious, and peel my thriving, growing garden of life. It’s pumping.
oranges. In the morning it looks like a herd It’s fornicating, my backyard. I wake up and
of suburban moms have come through for things have grown and grown together and
mimosas and left their shavings. It’s so dis- replicated and stretched and split into two.
respectful. I am a maid for mice. I clean up It’s a pornographic, seething, hotbed of
after them and let them have at my oranges rapid regeneration, my backyard.
again the next night.
So I have a bug zapper. It’s purple. Pic-
I saw a possum come through. He ran ture that, because I want you to see it, the
off hurriedly when I shined my cell phone purple cylindrical light, the lone siren on
flashlight on him, after I struggled to find an otherwise pitch black background. It’s
the button. But when he ran away, it was designed by genocidal engineers who have
his running away that let me know that he studied the evolutionary predilections of
wasn’t supposed to be there, that my intu- invertebrate nervous systems. Some slimy
ition that he was in my space was right. I organism in a mud puddle developed a soft
got angry after he was gone, like a home- spot on one side that was sensitive to light,
owner who returns to find that he has been and it drew it towards light, which, at the
robbed. What did he want? What was he time, was how it produced glucose within
doing? Why didn’t he just ask? itself on which it fed, so the attraction to
light made it survive. A billion billion years
I saw a racoon in my front yard, on the later, that’s an eye. And the eye draws its
porch, last autumn. It was after my pumpkin. host towards light because it’s supposed
The experience was very different. While he to. And the Josef Mengele at the Bug Bgone
was dressed like a robber, he acted like he Bug Zapper production plant knows all of
was supposed to be there, and didn’t move. that and made my purple aphrodisiac that
He acted like the resident of a bed and break- draws them in.
fast, saying, “I’m renting. Get me food.” And I
wondered if I was supposed to be mad or to I hear it, like a barber’s razor that turns
accommodate. But because I had heard sto- on and then shorts out. I’ve brought an end
ries about these con artists and their claws, I to an evolutionary line older than the Bible.
threw the welcome mat at him. No more offspring. No next generation. I
have killed as many descendants as there
My backyard comes alive at night, a Dar- are stars in the sky, and I pause momentarily
winian pool of exactly the right chemicals

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Revista Literária Adelaide

from a Dodgers game when I hear it, to apart, multiply, and reproduce, which, to
think, “Good, the next time I have a bbq, I’ll me, seems meaningless enough to not be
be less annoyed. The next time I step out worth my time so much as calling the bug
on the patio to take a phone call, I will have zapper factory to find out what’s up.
to fan my hand in front of my face one less
time.” I turn to my colleague, Bernard, who was
another of the forty-five, and I tell him, “If
To the Zulu chant of “Baaaaa sowenya he asks for something, can you cover it? I
mama beatsebabah,” rising from the have to make a personal call.” We’re not
growing circle of life in my backyard, I ex- supposed to make personal calls, of course.
tend my purple middle finger.
Bernard looks at me with the sly side
The bug zapper factory is a few miles glance of a priest who has heard the con-
from my home in San Dimas, so I call to find fession of a fellow cleric and who promises
out what’s wrong with them. Under the pre- to keep his destructive secrets. I know, of
tense of writing an article for a gardening course, Bernard will do it. Bernard makes
magazine (I just named a recognizable lots of friends, because it’s part of his plan
journal, the one you’re probably thinking for advancement. Mr. Jacobsen calls him
of), I tell them I am researching, and that my quickly, “Bernard!,” because he’s proud
article will promote whoever is most helpful of the fact he remembers one employee’s
in answering my questions. name. And Bernard is proud to be known.

I call, by the way, from work. I am a re- I ask Bernard to cover for me, and when
cently hired member of a team of forty-five Mr. Jacobsen walks down the aisle of cubi-
IT workers at a large university who all sit cles, Bernard sticks up his neck eagerly to
at identical Swedish-manufactured desks in intercept. All of us get what we want.
a single, musty room. Not to brag. All of us
are men, except the woman who answers On the phone, I talk to Denise, who
the phones. There’s a supervisor, Mr. Ja- works at a front desk at Bug Bgone, perhaps
cobsen. He has a name, and the rest of us with forty-five clones seated behind her; I
have an identity only at exactly the moment don’t know.
he looks around the room for an available
delegatee. When he looks at me, and I can “So for my article, Denise, I was won-
see he’s combing his memory for my name, dering if there was a manager I can talk to
I don’t tell him, because I don’t want him to about the effectiveness of your products.”
know. I only ask, “How can I help you?” So
at least he likes my face. “Ok, I don’t know if someone is available
for that.”
I’m making this call not only because
I’m fishing in the publishing pool, but for “...because there were questions raised
the sheer distraction. Otherwise, I would at our staff meeting about some com-
be developing the backend infrastructure plaints.”
of an admissions system, creating viable
electronic pathways for the thousands “What’s that?” she jitters.
of freshmen who are seeking to advance
themselves through a high-quality educa- “Is there someone I can talk to?”
tion. They will pour in, join together, split
“I’ll get someone.” I feel like a cartoon
bank robber, ear planted against the safe,
listening to the final click of the broken lock.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

I learn all kinds of things about bug zap- “I can talk to Ryan…”
pers from Ryan, a diligent and well-informed
shift manager. Why do people work for this “Truly, Denise, Ryan seems a bit intense
genocidal system? They work in lawn care to me. You’ve been most helpful. If I could
and simply see a related opening. Do they just swing by at a time when it’s convenient
feel qualms about the fact that it brokers for you to let me in, I don’t want to bother
in mass death? Certain pests carry disease anyone.”
and infest plant life, so this is helping, Ryan
assures me. Has PETA called them? It’s fairly “Umm…”
painless, and nobody much cares, so no.
“Just like ten minutes, Denise. Ok?”
Then he asks, “Did someone give you the
run-around about it causing brain cancer?” She agrees to see me tomorrow evening
at five, just before they close.
“It causes brain cancer?”
Bernard returns to his desk. “Bad news,
“No, it doesn’t.” buddy. They’re paring back staff. Enrollment
is down, income is down.” He’s oddly grin-
I am now suspicious that bug zappers ning as he says this.
cause brain cancer, and I think over my
health in recent weeks, and whether I spend “They say who?”
too much time in the backyard.
“I just made sure I’m good,” he says. “I
“I have a couple of questions for Denise, mentioned you were….” then he goes silent.
if that’s ok?”
“You mentioned I was what?”
“For Denise?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” He was
“Yes, for Denise.” still grinning.

“She’s just a receptionist with us. I can I greet this news with the ambiguity
answer any other questions you have about of someone being dumped by a toxic girl-
the business.” friend.

“I have some questions about being a As I’m leaving, early, I again employ
receptionist,” I tell him. He’s silent. “...in the Bernard’s help. I’m not sure what undoing
home care industry.” He audibly sighs. Bernard has already wrought, whether he’s
covering for me or privately calling atten-
“Yes?” Denise asks after some mur- tion to my failings when he’s behind closed
muring between them. doors. At this point, I don’t much care.

“Thanks so much for your time, Denise.” “No problem. I got you, buddy,” he as-
I lay it on thick at this part. “You’re honestly sures me, the way a fly trap applauds a fly.
the most helpful person I’ve talked to all “He won’t notice. He’s about as dense as he
day. I mean, really. You’ve been so gracious.” seems.”

“Oh...why thank you so much.” Bernard grins.

“Denise, I’m going to need a tour of the I grin too.
plant to get a few pictures.” I really don’t
like my job. The mutations that landed me When he sees my gaze fall over his
at this desk were maladaptive blunders. shoulder, he turns around and startles. Mr.
Jacobsen has walked up behind Bernard.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

We are both looking for some indication of if a guy does read it, his name is Earl, he
whether or not he heard. Jacobsen rolls his wears a lot of plaid, owns a tractor, and so
eyes and walks away. I’ve never liked him forth.”
more. His departure leaves me with a clean
break for the door, and I escape an ashen She giggles. “We have an Earl who works
looking Bernard. here.”

I see Denise as her parking lot is emp- “A lot of plaid?”
tying. She’s the only one who makes eye
contact, and gives me that quizzical gaze that “Yup.”
one sends to a blind date on first meeting.
She’s a brunette twenty-something wearing “That’s my niche, right there, Denise.”
a polo with an embroidered company logo.
I’m thinking that her dad or uncle works We wander through conversation about
here. This isn’t the land of Oz millennials how a young woman ends up here instead
envision when they finish school. It’s the of a cafe or a bank or an anything else.
job you take because it draws you close to Called it - a relative has set her up. She has
things that produce food. that residual adolescent fog that indicates
that life has come without a manual. There
“Denise!” I introduce myself from twenty are only basic instincts and open terrain.
feet away at a steady pace, like a salesman,
and she goes through the usual courtesies. Bees wander through fields looking for
bright colors, I suppose, not deciding in
“This is an unusual visit,” she notes. advance which kind of flower they prefer.
Instincts cut out pathways which become
I assure her it’s very standard. habits, and we just do the same thing over
and over until one day we look in the mirror
She walks me through the office, the and realize gravity and time are pulling us
warehouse, a makeshift lab in the back. back down towards the dust from which we
There’s not much to see but cardboard came.
boxes and unfinished industrial utilitari-
anism. I take pictures as if I’m fascinated. We talk about vacation and time off,
benefits and apartments. Before she has
“Do you like what you do here, Denise?” time to get the sense that it is getting late,
I tell her, “I’ve got another appointment,
“The people are nice…. Do you like re- Denise.” I don’t, really, but I feel awkward
searching...for your work?” staying. “Can I give you my number and we
can maybe catch up after work some day
“It’s more interesting than anything else next week?
I’ve done.” This statement makes me sad as
I say it. I feel that breathless moment of hes-
itation on which everything hangs. She
“Are people actually reading about bug doesn’t immediately answer, so I reach out
zappers?” Denise has a wry hook on the hurriedly: “You can bring Earl along, if you’d
corner of her mouth. She doesn’t know me like. I’ve got a lot of great material for him
well enough to poke at me like that. I like now.”
this.
She laughs, and there is very little dis-
“I can’t imagine anyone who would,” I tance between a laugh and a “yes.”
acknowledge straight-faced. “I suspect that

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

The next day, Bernard emerges from Mr. When Mr. Jacobsen walks by and scans the
Jacobsen’s office looking forlorn. He carries a room, no one looks at him. No one wants
cardboard book box to his desk and I quickly to be caught in that light. I know what has
hang up the phone. Mr Jacobsen seems dis- saved me. Writers are that species that has
interested, with a vague look of satisfaction evolved to realize that trying to get ahead
that he’s getting rid of something that an- in the process of natural selection is only a
noys him, and walks past without acknowl- dive into a pool of predators. Watching the
edgement. I don’t make eye contact. Bernard action at a safe distance is a more adaptive
puts his few things in a box and prepares to mechanism than initiative. Evolution is not
go for the last time. I stand up to walk him mindful of those noble attributes which one
out, and there is a mournful silence from a touts on one’s LinkedIn. It’s a thoughtless
few who watch the transaction, well aware killer that weeds out most variations, and
of what is transpiring. rewards those who lurk in the darkness far
out of the reach of its lights. It doesn’t favor
“What happened?” I asked. those who consciously want to progress. It
blesses those who accidentally survive.
Bernard shrugs to say that he doesn’t
want to tell me. So I walk him to the office Eventually I will have dinner with Denise
door to say goodbye. in my backyard, at sunset, just as the purple
light turns on. She thinks it’s funny that I
I return promptly to my desk and look have one. I do too.
at my monitor with new invigoration.

About the Author

James W. Miller is a professor at Horizon University and the pastor of Real Life Church of LA.
He lives in Los Angeles.

40

THE PRIEST

by John Young

Much given to the idea of good order and response rather than a reflection of any
predictability in all aspects of life, Javier, resi- quickening interest.
dent police officer in the same small town for
many years, viewed with renewed suspicion “Quite young, I think, longish, black
the recently appointed, boyish looking priest hair,” the priest replied. “Couldn’t see much
now standing at the door of his church. He of his face as I passed him. Dressed in dark
did not approve of the young man and his working clothes. Never seen him before.”
pious affectations. As a spiritual police force
the church of course played a useful role in “Lock up the church and go home,
regulating the moral life of citizens, and in Father,” Javier said decisively. “I’ll make some
discouraging too much thinking about mat- enquiries and come around again in an hour
ters beyond the intelligence of ordinary folk. or so. If anything’s unusual, I’ll let you know.”
But the priest’s intense otherworldly pres-
ence, in Javier’s thinking, unbalanced things. Vanishing man! thought Javier already
beginning to dismiss the priest’s concern
“Ah, officer,” the priest said, when he saw as he watched the young man walk away.
Javier approach. “You haven’t seen someone Overactive imagination, most like, too much
come out of the church, have you?” praying. A case for a psychiatrist rather than
a policeman.
Javier shook his head as he studied the
priest. I would have made a good priest, Javier
told himself as he recommenced his stroll
“There was a man praying in the pew round the town. But a good solid priest, eyes
behind me. I passed him as I made ready firmly fixed on the people not forever gazing
to put off the lights and lock up the church. heavenward, like this chap. He was liked, so
At the door when I turned around, he had he believed, well respected and often con-
vanished. I’ve searched the church carefully fided in. Twice a day, and sometimes more
but...nobody there.” often, he would sit with the old men at the
tables outside cafes listening to their gossip,
Very puzzling, Javier thought. He did not their complaints about wives and children,
like puzzles. Puzzles required all sorts of ef- their aches and pains; and, when young
fort. Now in his late fifties and looking for- women passed, he heard them confess their
ward to retirement, Javier felt that he could lust fuelled imaginings. “Now, now,” he would
leave puzzle solving to his more ambitious say pretending to scold them “… you’re far
and energetic big city colleagues. “Can you too old to be thinking that way. Not good for
describe this man?” he asked - a mechanical your blood pressure.” “Blood pressure be

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

damned,” they would reply. Then he would the town. A child who was blind had, sup-
administer his own form of absolution - an posedly, recovered her sight after being
admonitory wagging of his forefinger - and he touched by the young priest. A woman who
and the old men would laugh together. had cancer was cured - supposedly! - after
being prayed over by the priest. The priest
Days later, one evening, when the light had funny marks on his hands. Supposedly!
was beginning to fade, Javier thought he saw
a youngish man with quite long black hair All make believe! thought Javier. He liked
enter the church, the briefest of glimpses the people of his town, but there was a strain
but enough to energise what remained of his of gullibility in their character which from
investigatory instincts. Ah he thought with a time to time gave credence to ideas which
smile, the priest’s vanishing man. A loose unbalanced the settled order of things.
end, that can quickly be tied off. He briefly
debated his options: Question him immedi- But then a worry: in increasing numbers,
ately, or wait in some convenient spot, follow strangers, all searching for the priest, began
him and see where he goes. Curiosity de- to filter into the town. The predictable pat-
cided the question in favour of surveillance. tern of life was being threatened by the boy
He took up his stance under a tree at a con- priest and his pretend holiness.
venient distance from the church door. After
half an hour he grew impatient. How long The arrival of the large black Mercedes,
can a person pray for? he asked himself. He the diocesan car and the sudden removal of
casually made his way towards the church. the priest to an unknown destination was,
for Javier, a source of quiet satisfaction. Per-
As his sight adjusted to the dark inte- haps my report had something to do with it,
rior of the church Javier quickly spotted he judged. Brief, factual and to the point, it
the priest bent in prayer. He quietly looked laid out for his superiors his concern that
around. There was no sight of the man with matters were moving beyond the point ‘…
dark hair. An irritating thought occurred to where good order could be maintained
him. Was someone playing a game with by one officer’. Did his superiors speak to
him? Was the man standing by the door and church authorities? He liked to think so.
slipped out when I entered. But what pos-
sible reason would anyone have for such silli- Javier’s daily life assumed its normal and
ness? Then a new darker, more perplexing predictable pattern. Almost.
idea took root in his thinking: that he was
being infected by the priest’s nonsense. This In the following months as he did his
was not impossible, he decided. Years of po- rounds, Javier thought he saw a dark
lice work had taught him that expectations stranger enter the church – a few times and
sometimes play tricks on the senses. always the merest glimpse. Silly imaginings
he thought. Shadows! Tricks of the light! In-
As Spring gave way to Summer dis- creasingly, however, he tried to avoid going
turbing rumours began to percolate through past the church during certain twilight
hours.

About the Author

J F Young is an old chap, grappling with themes of limits, longings and finitude. Likes spooky
stuff. Lives in St Andrews, Scotland, an ancient town with an ancient university, home of golf,
home also - allegedly - of many ghosts. (He has not met any yet.)

42

THE
CONVERSATION

by Zach Murphy

The Conversation surrounded by stars that have already expe-
rienced the same fate. . . Gazing at a magnif-
“How do you want to die?“ icent view of the moon. . . It’d be the perfect
way to go.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That actually does sound pretty good.”
“I mean, like. . . If you could choose,
which way would you prefer to die?” “I have something to tell you.”

“Thank God. I was worried for a second.” “Should I be sitting down?”

“And you can’t say in your sleep. That’s a “You are sitting down.”
copout. And a cliché.”
“Is it something that will freak me out?”
“Aren’t conversations about death a
cliché?” “I have terminal cancer.”

“Just answer the question.“ “What?”

“Hmm. . . Skydiving.” “It’s on my spine. I just found out last
week.”
“Skydiving?”
“Fuck. Can’t the doctors do anything?”
“Think about it. You get that insane
adrenaline rush as you’re jumping out of “Nope. It wouldn’t do any good.”
the plane, and if something happens to go
wrong, you’ll hit the ground so fast that you “This only means one thing.”
probably won’t even feel it.“
“What’s that?”
“That sounds awful.“
“It means we have to start figuring out
“You asked, and I answered. What would how to get up to space.”
you pick?”

“I’d like to die up in space. It’d be so
quiet and peaceful. Just floating out there

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

About the Author

Zach Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in Adelaide
Literary Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Ghost City Review, Spelk Fiction, Door = Jar, Levitate, Yellow
Medicine Review, Ellipsis Zine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Drunk Monkeys, and Flash:
The International Short-Short Story Magazine. He lives with his wonderful wife Kelly in St. Paul,
Minnesota.

44

IN HER WORDS

by Suchi Rudra

The trail is steep, my shoes are wrong. waiting for the world around her to catch
I don’t know why I followed her but I al- up. When it happened, I felt relieved, alone
ways do. I wanted to warn her that the again, my thoughts untouched. Everyday I
sun was setting, we were going nowhere. questioned this life with her, this invasion of
We’re going up, she would reply. I paused my head, my privacy. Agreeing to live by the
as the cramp in my side returned, wonder- pull of her gravity meant no privacy for me,
ing why we even had conversations, why I but it also meant protection from dangers
ever talked to her when it was like talking to that she saw first from where she existed.
myself. We knew the shape of each other’s She turned toward me again, watching me
thoughts. I recognized that the day I met review the terms of our contract as I rested.
her, clinging to her expensively sneakered
foot for dear life on the fake climbing wall “Ready,” I mumbled staring at my grey
that I’ll never see again. Only selfish peo- fabric walking shoes crusted in dried mud,
ple stick to the familiar, that was me, that the damp shoelaces. I’d just bought them,
was why I decided to keep her in my life. I she told me we’d take a leisurely walk
expected her to make me better. I couldn’t through the woods. I mostly never knew
bother doing it on my own. She liked chal- what our weekend adventures would be,
lenges, so she kept me. she didn’t want me to plan, didn’t believe
in plans. She also didn’t care about new
“Break?” She had heard me stop. She shoes or clothes or hairdos, and I could
never pretended she didn’t and kept on, she have agreed, but I realized it was my job to
wasn’t like that, although I would have done refuse, so at least one of us looked present-
that if I was her. I was the impatient one. able.

I nodded, squinting into the darkening The climb finally sloped downward for
tangle of shrubs on either side of us. Don’t a moment, causing us to lose sight of the
worry, she would say, we aren’t lost. I’ll sun. The trail rose back up but gently, then
make a fire when we get there. suddenly a thicket of trees that I couldn’t
name (I never can) confronted us, the trail
While I squatted down, she stood un- disappearing inside the darkness captured
moving, facing away from me, a few feet up by entangled branches.
the trail. She could have been meditating,
she didn’t need to think about the trail. I Her back is to me, just out of my reach,
noticed this often, this removal of mind, and I feel her smile growing, ready to

45

Adelaide Literary Magazine

pounce at whatever is inside that mess of “Wait there,” and as the words hit my
limbs. I want know what she knows, but I’m ear, her body is gone. I move a couple steps
distracted by how fast the last of the hazy closer toward the cluster of trees that has
orange light has dissolved, leaving us sur- enveloped the woman who has led me here
rounded by silhouettes. I wait for her to turn and get down on my knees to peer inside.
around, this blurry body before me that is I think I see her long legs but I squint and
starting to bend and crouch. Everything slowly realize they are only slim branches
seems ordinary, why wouldn’t it, there is that dip low over the ground. I wait for her
no space for doubt right now, and I call out in the blinding purple of dark, falling asleep
her name. listening to ant feet.

About the Author

Born in the cornfields of the American midwest, Suchi Rudra is a nomadic writer of fiction,
articles and songs. Her novella Kitaab, published by Six Gallery Press, is based on a year spent
in India. Her journalistic pieces can be found in The New York Times, BBC Travel, October and
other publications. She is currently seeking representation for a literary fiction novel.

46

TRIGER WARNING
TRIGER WARNING

by David Leys

“So was Lucy there tonight?” “When you shh me,” he giggled, “it’s
triggering.”
I was driving Finn home from Irish dancing.
“Stop using the word triggered,” I said.
“No, she says she’s not doing it any more,”
he said. “Ever.” We’d reached the top of the sandstone
stairs now. Two paces ahead he turned to
“Oh,” I said. I was disappointed. Lucy was me, his face a blaze of triumph with the
a friend Marla and I were actively courting porchlight shining behind him like a parodic
for him. “Why not?” halo. “When you tell me not to use the word
triggered you trigger me!”
“She can’t do the single reel and she’s
triggered.” Onnie was on the deck ready to greet us.
Her full name was Henrietta – a name I had
I blinked. That wasn’t a word I expected given her based on a complicated, and erro-
a six-year-old to use. “Triggered, huh? Can neous, reading of her breed’s relationship to
you use that word in a sentence again?” history. She was a cavoodle – a mix of a cav-
alier king charles spaniel – named after King
“Sure,” said Finn. At that age I guess he Charles I - and a poodle, a French dog. King
was habituated to people interrogating his Charles I had a French wife, Henrietta Maria
use of language. “When I bite into a hard of France. Each marriage a mixture of breeds.
apple I get triggered.”
I’d been wrong on two fronts. The cava-
“Umm,” I said. “I’m not sure …” lier king charles spaniel was actually named
after King Charles II. And poodles weren’t
He continued. “I ate a stale Jatz the other French, or at least not definitively so. They
day and I was triggered.” He must have were probably German, bred to be ratters.
sensed I had hesitations, because as we got
out of the car and began walking up the Names stuck, but everything else was
stairs, he kept throwing lexical grenades. transient: facts, history. Meaning slipped
“When I get tired walking up the stairs it off like rain running down an oilcloth. Even
triggers me.”

“Shh,” I said.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

her nickname, Onnie, was elusive. Bonnie? He nodded. “I’m going to be a zombie
people would say. and live in a graveyard with the other zom-
bies.”
I’d been listening to Disintegration
Loops by William Basinski. An experimental “Good,” I said. “It’s good to have a plan.”
composer born in Texas, he’d eventually
ascended to New York. In the 1980s he With that he retreated back to his room.
recorded stuff from shortwave radio and Then he stopped and turned to us once
other sources, then decades later when he more. “But not for a while. I’m going to live
tried to digitize it, the silver from the mag- with Mummy and you till then.”
netic tapes flaked off as it passed the tape
head. He just let it play and captured it. He scanned my face for approval. I
Static. Scratches. A shimmer. must have signalled something because he
seemed reassured and trotted off.
It sounded like the world for all heart
pulses breaking down. A memory on rotation. Marla was the opposite of reassured.

“Shoes off,” I barked to Finn. “You never should have shown him
Thriller.”
I hurried him inside. The heater was on.
I had a headache. In fact I’d been waking up It was hard to argue with her, but I tried.
every other morning with a tight ache that “You read him monster books.”
clenched around the back base of my skull
for weeks now. “They’re age appropriate,” she said. Her
voice dropped into a register she reserved
Later that night I cracked and took the for the truly stupid.
Diazepam Marla offered me. I looked it up
online after I’d swallowed it. It was used to Sometimes I went through the motions
treat anxiety, alcohol withdrawal and sei- with her, putting up feeble counterargu-
zures. If anything lately I’d decided, after ments. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a
a life lived under the illusion I was relaxed, masochistic bent too green for pants down
to lean into my anxiety. It was certainly the and whips but eager enough for a tongue-
condition of the age. As to alcohol I had no lashing or its common cousin derision. It
plans to withdraw any time soon. was equally possible I had a sadistic bent
and wanted to frustrate Marla and provoke
I plied the top of my neck with my fore- her into thinking she was shackled to an im-
finger and thumb. becile.

“It won’t take the pain away,” Marla said, Tigg’s fascination with monsters had
“it’s just that you won’t give a shit about it been nascent for over a year but had really
any more.” developed over the last couple of months.
As with everything to do with my children
Our younger son, Tigg, appeared in the I figured the predilection was beyond my
bedroom. control and that all I could do was channel
it. He did the same. If he woke up more
“When I grow up I don’t want to be a frequently now, claiming he was scared
man,” he declared. He had his pyjama bot- Greenie the Zombie was coming through
toms hitched right up. the window, who was to say even without
the literary ground of the monstrous he
“Really?” I said.

48


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