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Tetsudou watched soap swirl around the drain, the bubbles clogging all the holes. He raised the shower head above him one more time and let the warm water wash over him, flushing the last of the suds away. “I am Tetsudou Eiyou,” he said to himself, walking towards the bathtub, “and I will be champion.” He sank into the bath, pleased with the rush of water that cascaded over the edge as he did so. Though he was close, he was not the champion yet. That would be determined tomorrow. But, with the benefit of planning and certain agreements, his statement was more than just bravado. These things were never explicit, not among the other sumo, but concessions had been agreed upon, assurances made. Tetsudou rubbed the wooden rim of the bathtub, enjoying the slick, slimy feel of the old wood under his hand, warped and swollen through years of washes. He sank lower and stretched his feet out in front of him, feeling the water rise up to his chin; he closed his eyes and allowed himself a small smile. “Will you be proud of it?” a voice said. “Who said that? Who’s there?” Tetsudou opened his eyes and looked around the bathhouse. He was still alone, and the voice had come from inside the room. “Can you even call it a victory?” the voice said again. This time, Tetsudou could tell it came from the same bath he was in. He looked across the water, over the bulbous parts of his body that bobbed up and down on the surface. “Show yourself, coward.” Tetsudou let the anger in his voice show. “How can you call me such a thing, when it is I that defends your heart?” “Ignore him,” said another voice. “We all know that victory is gained on the front foot and I am always the aggressive side. You always attack with your right side.” Tetsudou scanned the water again, seeking the speakers. “Down here, you lummox.” There, on each of his breasts (long ago he had become comfortable enough with his anatomy to refer to them in such a way), was a mouth. “Plus, you are right-handed, clearly I am the more valuable side,” the right breast said. “What you are doing, will do, is not only logical, but fair. All of the others play this same game; shame on you that you did not commit to it sooner.” “Such garbage. Can it even come from the same body?” Left responded. “What you are doing will taint you for longer than you know. Surely you know this, Tetsudou?” Tetsudou stared down at his breasts, both floating on the surface of the water, both smooth and shiny. He glanced up at the temperature gauge, worried he was experiencing some heat-induced psychosis. But no, the water was not especially hot. “How are you...?” “You have an opportunity to redeem yourself. But the cost will be great. Either abandon the match tomorrow or throw it yourself,” Left said. “Awful, awful advice,” Right said. “First, we must fight honourably, now we should meekly give it all up when the spoils are within reach? Just think of the consequences. If you do that, we’ll never get near the top again. It’s basically over. And don’t you think someone will want some recompense, their pound of flesh?” Tetsudou could not form a sentence and could not yet talk to his body parts with ease. “Just think about it,” Right continued, “this is our chance at glory, maybe even the last. You are not a young man anymore. Do you want to be forgotten? To go down as another sap who couldn’t cut it at the top? The rest of them do the same damn thing, and you know it. We’ve fought for years, amicably, and what has it got us? You saw, just last year, when Noriba fell from the stage?” “You have no right to bring him into this,” Left responded. “His death was a tragedy.” “A tragedy of the poxy rules we have to compete under. Why wasn’t there any damn paramedics? Where is the damn honour in that?” “That’s completely different, and you know it.” “It still stands. There is no honour in this sport, only glory.” Tetsudou was certain his left breast tutted as the conversation paused. The falling water grew loud and cacophonous. When he tried to grip the wood around the tub, his fingers slipped and he could not hold on. He felt down for the base of the tub with one foot but could not find it. A terror took hold of his heart. “You know what you have to do,” Left said. “The only sensible thing, of course,” Right responded. The door opened and the coach poked his head through the doorway. “Come, Tetsudou, it is time for supper. You should not stay in here too long, lest you tire yourself out. Tomorrow will be busy.” The trainer winked, grinning, and closed the door. Tetsudou floundered, wrenching himself out of the bath and onto the cold, wet floor. When he stood, heaving his considerable frame, and looked down at his chest, the mouths had both disappeared. He moved to the shower and allowed the water to run over his head. Scrub as hard as he could, he could not remove the slimy feel from his skin. Stuart is a British writer and poet based in Tokyo, where he writes, eats too much, and pretends to speak Japanese. You can find his work at ergot., Calliope, and Black Hare Press.

boxed & delighted we sit knowing now is not the time to speak whether in doting monologues or mythic verse but sit we sit holding our own with ancestral night George Bandy's publications include War, Literature & the Arts (USAF), New Millennium Writings, Baltimore Review, Blue Unicorn, The Saturday Evening Post, Broadkill Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Neologism Poetry Journal, Broad River Review and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Vol. IX, Virginia. His poem "Return from War" won the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award.

It was more than a shack but not quite a house. Uncle Festus had lived there for sixty years and saw no reason to move into something more comfortable. “This is my home. I love the smell of it, the feel of it, the house, the land, everything. And you think I should leave my place? No! Bagby’s big enough and High Prairie is too big for my liking. Why should I move?” “Maybe because High Prairie has supermarkets, pharmacies and a hospital?” Gail said. “It’s just common sense.” “Like hell common sense. High Prairie also has a nursing home, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said bitterly. “No, I’m staying right here.” Gail, Festus’ niece, drained her mug of coffee and picked up one of the cookies she’d brought with her. “Not a nursing home but how about moving to a nice apartment or small house?” “Absolutely not.” That was in 2007, the last time they had seen each other in person. By then he had grown thin and appeared frail to her but surprised everyone by living another decade and a half. They were not close but she phoned him once a month. He had been a shy old man and now that he was dead Gail missed him. With his death it had fallen upon her, as his executor, to look through his junk, sell the hut and the large parcel of woods surrounding it. Although Festus lived with a woman for a time when he was young, he’d never married and his only sibling, Clarence, had predeceased him. The proceeds from the sale were to be divided among his nieces and nephews. Festus’ house was on the edge of the village of Bagby so it was hooked up to the electric grid and the water system. Cell reception was patchy but the house had a landline, now disconnected. The small isolated community was surrounded by lush forests of jack pines, maples and willows. Nearby a half dozen lakes teemed with pike, trout and perch. It was her second and last day in the place. She’d boxed all the things that might be useful and donated them to a church in Grouard, a small town southeast of Bagby. Everything else, not that there was much, she’d driven to the dump. All that was left was a wobbly kitchen chair and small table. There was also a mounted grizzly bear head and a photo album bound in alligator leather, filled with ancient black and white pictures. Festus was in some of them along with his late brother, Clarence, but who were all these other faces? She was tired. At forty-one she found the hard work was more than she had expected. A small woman, she regretted not having asked her husband, Bill, or one of her three daughters to help her with this unwelcome task. She was at the table looking at pictures when her cell phone rang. It was Bill. “Yes, dear I’ll be back tonight,” she said. “It’s a long drive to Edmonton. Maybe you should stay the night at some motel?” “I might just do that. Anyway, I’ll leave soon. The sun will be up till ten. It’s only four now, so I should be home by nine or so.” The old photo album fascinated her. She took a close look at a picture of two teenage boys and their parents attending what looked like a rodeo. There was a long rivalry between Festus and Clarence. They both fought in Korea in different battalions, both dated girls from High Prairie. But Clarence moved with his wife to Edmonton where he became a refrigeration mechanic and prospered while Festus stayed near home and scraped by. “Clarence was lucky,” he once told Gail over a pot of tea, “horseshoe up his ass. Nice wife, good job, fine kids and me, nothing much. Lady luck never looked in my direction except I survived Korea. I guess that’s something, something no one remembers.” “Clarence has been dead for years and you’re alive. That’s not nothing.” Both brothers were now dead and soon their memories would fade into the ether. The thought saddened her. She closed the warped front door to the decrepit house and fiddled with the lock till it finally worked. The new owners planned to knock the structure down and build a fishing lodge. They said they would be happy to have the mounted bear head. It was the only thing of any value left in the deserted shack. The sun was still high in the sky and it would be some time before the mosquitoes and no-see-ums were out. Gail climbed into her Silverado pickup and placed the photo album on the passenger seat. A chill ran down her back. It seemed to her something or someone was staring at her from among the trees. Nonsense, she reassured herself. She started the engine, gave one last look at the hut and was surprised to see the door had swung wide open. “Oh, no.” She got out of the pickup truck, hurried back to the wooden door, closed and locked it. She gave the handle a good shake to make sure it was secure. Just past Kinuso she turned south onto Regional Highway 33, Grizzly Trail, a paved two lane thoroughfare. For the next hour she knew the road would be hedged in by woods, clear cut sections and fields with no buildings in sight, no houses, gas stations, or coffee shops, nothing. She didn’t like the thought of traversing this empty stretch of asphalt but it was still daylight and there would likely be other vehicles using the road. She settled back for the drive, searched for a local radio station just in case there was any traffic news she should know about. After a couple of minutes she found a country and western broadcast out of High Prairie and turned up the volume. She was tired but kept her eyes fixed on the highway. Suddenly the road ahead had her full attention. A large brown bear walked out from among the trees. It approached the asphalt without bothering to see if there was any traffic and began to cross. Gail slammed on the brakes a good distance from the formidable grizzly. Her stomach was in a knot. The road was too narrow to easily make a U-turn and escape. She rolled up the windows and waited as the half-ton animal took its time crossing the thoroughfare then disappeared into the woods. After a moment’s hesitation, Gail floored the accelerator and roared straight south away from the unpredictable beast. Ten minutes later she slowed down when she saw a man at the side of the road walking north. He wore baggy pants held up by suspenders. Who wears suspenders nowadays? And where could he be coming from and where could he be going? She was well past him by the time a feeling of uneasiness crept up on her. When she glanced in her side mirrors he was nowhere to be seen. She turned up the radio. Ryan Robinette was singing to her and she could feel her shoulders relax. The serenity didn’t last long. A tire blew and sent her fishtailing down the road before she could bring it to a halt. Jesus, Jesus, when will this day be over? Thank God I wasn’t speeding or the damn thing might have spun out or even flipped. She stayed in the cab for a couple of minutes waiting to see if a bear would show up, then got out and examined the vehicle. It was a rear tire and she wasn’t about to haul out the spare from under the truck bed. From her purse she pulled out her cell which thankfully worked and called AMA. “Yes, we have someone in Slave Lake. I’ll contact him and he’ll call you back.” And he did. She climbed back into the cabin to wait for the tow truck. Feeling a little absurd she combed the ash blond hair that framed her attractive face and carefully applied lipstick. A taciturn, overweight man with wavy brown hair showed up in a new tow truck. Thirty minutes later, spare tire installed, Gail was back on her way. It had been a long day and she was exhausted. Holding her cell with one hand and the steering wheel with the other she spoke with her husband. “Bill, I'm stopping in Swan Hills for the night at a motel. I’m beat and don’t like driving around without a spare tire. I’ll get it fixed or replaced at one of the local garages then drive home tomorrow, okay?” “Yeah, that makes sense. Phone me after you’re settled in.” Google rated all five motels in Swan Hills as good. This abundance of lodgings in a town of only twelve hundred souls was unexpected.  As she headed into the community it reminded her of a large industrial park. The place was built on oil and gas extraction and looked it, austere and uninviting. Three forest fires nearly burned the town to the ground; now trees were a rarity within its limits, less kindling to set the place ablaze. She chose the Dawson Vista Motel on Grizzly Trail. The young woman half asleep at the reception desk gave her a questioning look. Gail told her she’d be staying only the night. “I had to change a flat and want to get the tire fixed or replaced. Any place you recommend?” The woman spat out the gum she had been chewing and took on a contemplative look. “There’s a couple of good garages, Chuck’s Auto Repair or Innes’ Tire and Fender. They’re across from each other just a five minute drive from here.” She made a circular motion with her right arm. “They’d be closed now.” Gail had supper at the local Chinese restaurant. It was a Formica and vinyl establishment straight out of the 1980s, clean and utilitarian. The only other customers were two men, both wearing stained baseball caps, khaki pants and construction boots, drinking beer and talking too loudly, cursing the provincial government’s oil policies. “Yes,” the waiter said to her shaking his head, “the Swan Hills Grizzly, they’re famous for their size. You don’t want to tangle with any grizzly. A couple of months ago one of them walked straight down the street in front of my house, scared the neighbourhood. The thing was bigger than my car. By the time police showed up, it was gone.” She didn’t linger in the eatery. When she got back to the motor inn she unpacked the small suitcase she’d brought with and phoned her husband and eldest daughter then settled in to watch TV. Propped up by pillows on the king-size bed she suffered through a boring movie centred on the life of a woman aviator and her three marriages. Even the romantic scenes were sleep-inducing. After a while she gave up and pulled out a book she’d brought with her, an historic fiction set in 5th century Byzantium. The movie had been a bore and so was the book. She closed her eyes as the volume slid off her lap. Something strange was happening. She found herself in Byzantium being chased by a grizzly. Soldiers in armour and civilians in togas looked on passively as she ran for her life down cobblestone streets, past columned public buildings and street hawkers. The clanging of metal against metal reached her ears. She and the bear slowed down to look at a woeful sight, a dozen emaciated blond-haired men in chains being led to the auction block. Then a growl came from behind her. The beast had resumed his chase. As Gail picked up speed to escape him she was surprised to hear the roar of an engine and see her Silverado truck pass by her going in the opposite direction. Two men in chequered shirts and suspenders were in the cabin. Her Uncle Festus was driving and her Grandfather Clarence was screaming at him, “Stop, stop we have to help her.” But the pickup did not stop. The brown bear closed in on her, huge mouth open, long claws at the ready to rip her to pieces. From a million miles away in another universe she could hear herself moan as she turned her head back and forth on her pillow. The grizzly’s eyes were filled with rage. Her grandfather jumped from the pickup carrying a slingshot and ran toward her. He pulled back on the thick rubber band but was unable to fling the rock toward the attacking beast because Uncle Festus grabbed his arm. The two men began to struggle with each other. “Help,” she said out loud and woke up, heart racing, covered in sweat. After a few minutes she got up, put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth and went to bed. On the nightstand she placed her cell phone and plugged it in to charge. The book, she decided, was trash and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.  A few minutes later she was asleep. In the morning she woke refreshed and drove to Chuck’s Auto Repair. A large man in his fifties appeared. He wore grease-stained overalls and a green and yellow John Deere cap. With a big smile he invited her into his office. The room was a cluttered mess. An old metal desk was covered in papers and unopened envelopes, an overflowing ashtray sat in one corner on a beat-up laptop. A push-button telephone hung on a wall next to a photo calendar featuring a half-naked woman. The room had two chairs but they were occupied by a headlight, a carburetor and parts of a gearbox. “No problem, I can fix your tire. Come back in thirty minutes.” “Maybe I’ll go for a stroll. Where’s downtown?” “There really isn’t a downtown. Sorry.” “I’m going for a walk around here then.” It was a fine summer’s day, cloudless and warm. She retrieved her shoulder bag from her truck and rambled away. Not the prettiest location for a walk. Chuck’s garage was located in an industrial area, a harsher version of the whole town. The buildings were far apart with woods occupying the spaces in between. The structures were mostly prefabricated steel, unadorned and practical. There was very little traffic on the road and since no sidewalks existed, Gail walked on the asphalt. For no particular reason she headed north. Her mind wandered. What would she prepare for supper when she got home in three or four hours? Should she stop at a supermarket first? A large mass of brown hair, muscle, and teeth came looming out from among the trees. Gail froze. Her gut told her this was real, not a dream. The grizzly stopped, sniffed the air then came lumbering toward her, picking up speed as he moved. She knew she couldn’t outrun it, brown bears being at short distances capable of moving as fast as race horses and the distance was becoming shorter by the moment. She started to wave her hands trying to make herself look big, hoping the animal might believe she was a dangerous adversary and not its breakfast. From behind her she heard a rumbling sound. It got closer but she couldn’t turn around to see what it was. Nor did she care. Death was looking her straight in the face. The bear was now in the middle of the street, within fifty feet of her when an ancient GMC heavy duty pickup truck driven by two men in plaid shirts flew by her toward the grizzly. The vehicle flung the bear back so that it rolled several yards. The beast got up dazed but seemed unable to decide what to do next. The pickup truck had now turned around and was again bound for the brown bear. Having had enough, the grizzly hurried into the forest before the GMC reached its target. The vehicle slowed down as it passed Gail. Festus and Clarence waved at her before they and their truck melted into the ether. Abe Margel worked in rehabilitation and mental health for thirty years. He is the father of two adult children and lives in Thornhill, Ontario with his wife. His fiction has appeared in Half Hour to Kill, UPPAGUS, Ariel Chart, Fiction on the Web, Scarlet Leaf Review, Academy of the Heart and Mind, 2020 and 2021 BOULD Awards Anthology and the Spadina Literary Review.

Sailing the chill waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the cargo ship MS Harper was the only speck of brightness in the vast moonless night. Floodlights illuminated the shipping containers stacked on top of one another. Some scuffed, some dented, all of them with their rectangular space occupied by a brand-new Korean car. Fluorescent lights shone through the bridge windows, while inside the bridge, the night watch was convinced that they were the only ship for miles. Harper’s radar told them so. It detected nothing. But that’s understandable, as radio waves have never once bounced off the supernatural. The two exist in completely different realms. A shipwreck ploughed through the trail of water churned from MS Harper’s propeller. Its pitted hull and keel peeked above the waves, rusty rudder as menacing as a shark fin. Below the waves, a school of tuna scattered to avoid being swallowed whole by the broken windows of the shipwreck’s upside-down bridge. No hesitation, no mercy, the shipwreck attacked its prey, rammed the tip of its bow into Harper’s starboard side. The collision knocked the night watch off their feet, flung the rest of the crew out of their bunk beds. Metal bit into metal, a shower of sparks brighter than the stars up above. A metallic screech, the only voice for a dying ship. The shipwreck’s objective is reached, Harper’s hull has been breached. Now the hunter can move on, seeking new prey. Harper’s bow dipped below the ocean. Her stern rose into the air. Sea water swept through her corridors and cabins, converted the living quarters into a submerged coffin. She disappeared under the waves; her bow pointed directly at the seabed somewhere below. The soggy corpses of the crew floated through Harper’s interior like astronauts in zero gravity. The shipping containers tumbled through the watery void, each one with a tail of air-bubbles, more effervescent than the gaseous tail of a comet. Down, down the containers went, faster than fallen angels plummeting into Hell, taking with them Harper’s cargo, capital gain, delivery goals—all of the ship’s ties to humanity were forever lost at sea. Water seethed as Harper rolled her great bulk, neither sinking nor surfacing, neither here nor there. How a cargo ship could slip between the cracks of physics, only the supernatural knew but would never tell. Inside the bridge, the corpse of the captain floated towards an instrument panel, her swaying hair slithered around her scalp. The pale light from a screen glowed upon her bloodless lips and broken veins scribbled across her bloated face. Not even a stray prawn, swimming into the pilot’s gaping mouth, could prevent the corpse taking the helm. The shipwreck started to rise until her bottom hull and keel resurfaced. Like the gills of a fish, ocean water flowed in and out of the jagged gash in her hull. Shipwrecked Harper, and her undead crew, sailed the Atlantic Ocean. All that water, stretching to the horizon in every direction, is now her hunting ground. Glenn works as a support worker in community aged care. Fantasy and sci-fi are his favourite genres that he enjoys reading and wants to write about. Glenn could spend hours reading about mythology, and would like to see ancient Persia become as common as medieval Europe in fantasy novels. Glenn wishes that the process of writing a short story was the same as eating a bowl of ice cream—every spoonful is a pleasant experience, and it’s all over in about five minutes. His fantasy short story, set in ancient Japan, has been published in the Valor anthology from Dragon Soul Press.

The beloved science teacher does this every year: takes a large glass container to the front of the room, shows it to the class empty, of all but air before filling it with rocks. Would you say this is full, he asks, when no more rocks – size of fists, potatoes, pig hearts – will fit without falling out. Yes, the students say. Then he takes out a bag of gravel & pours it in, the chips settling in the holes. He grins as he asks. “Would you say this is full now?” Everyone says yes, now it’s full. So he pours in sand, & then water, & when the meniscus strains at the glassy surface, reflecting back all the earnest faces in the crowd, he says, “Yes, yes, now it is full.” But in this dream I am here in the crowd. I chuckle as I raise my hand and walk to the front of the classroom, pulse attempting to escape the mob murmuring, moisture gathering, here & there where I hope it won’t darken the fabric that hides my creases, my bendable joints, the dead inside limbs that still shuffle. I open myself with a grunt, pour in a portion of my anxiety, let it sink in. Things start to wobble. Dread eats away at everything, the rocks, the sand, the water, the container. The experiment shines like a pickle hooked up to a battery. And I mean, I know, I know nothing can be created or destroyed, no matter, no energy, I flinch as I watch – waiting for something to blow. Shana Ross is a new transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. A Pushcart and Rhysling nominated author, her work has recently appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Laurel Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Radon Journal and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry competition, as well as a 2019 Parent-Writer Fellowship to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly and a critic for Pencilhouse.org

I wake up to the fine grit of sand against my cheek. The scent of human scum and beach funk permeates the space. There’s a stainless-steel toilet on one end of the suspiciously damp public restroom. All smooth edges, nothing for someone to grip onto and rip off. Festooned with toilet paper and piss. The urge to vomit tickles my throat. I gotta get out. I’m in Hermosa Beach. I recognize it. But I can’t fathom how I got here. Above head, the sad darkness of the night, more a static than a sky. I hear the murmur of the promenade from around the corner. I’ve been here a hundred times before. Been coming here all my life. Why am I here? What time is it? My shirt’s soaked against my skin, like the slick fetid slime of seaweed wrapped around your feet. I need to change my clothes, but I wouldn’t know for the life of me where to find any. It’s really early in the morning. The sun is just a melancholy wish, awaiting its grand entrance above the horizon. Or is it really late at night? No point in mulling it over. I head toward the promenade from one of the outlying public restrooms. There’s a somber tranquility permeating the evening. I could see the old arcade, a neon sign winking in the distance. I see the kitschy tourist store, dumb slogan tees draping the façade like bad teenage fringe. My friend Donnie is sitting on one of the benches lining the wide walkway. Looks like he’s eating frozen yogurt by himself. Is he expecting me? “Yo, Palomino!” He glances up, startled. “Oh, hey,” he says, his big horse teeth shining. “W-what. What are you doing here?” It’s all I could muster. “What do you think, idiot. I’m waiting on you and the other two jackasses.” That’d be John and Bobby. Late as usual. Apparently. Donnie should be back in Houston with his family. I don’t remember making any plans to meet up at Hermosa Beach. The circumstances don’t seem to make any sense. My brain’s frozen though. I’m too shaken by this sudden scenario. Should I ask him a question and risk him thinking I’ve lost my marbles? It’s a gamble. I make up an excuse about needing to change – which I do – and retrace my steps back to the bathrooms. It buys me some time alone. Across the ocean, I still see just a rouge scrim of hopeful sun, swallowed by static black. I need to figure this shit out. I discover the splayed remains of my old high school backpack. There’s a bundled-up hoodie inside that I use to replace my filthy shirt. Not much else has been left in the pilfered bag. There’s an aerodynamic frisbee, a fuchsia ring of rubber. With my tattered backpack slung over my shoulder, I head back toward the promenade. Something tells me I shouldn’t ask Donnie any questions. I shouldn’t confront something I’m not ready for. Instead, I figure it might be funny if I fling the frisbee in Palomino’s general direction. He loves shit like that. It sails about a foot over his head, slicing through the sad buzzing warmth of the night. Damn kid nearly drops his froyo. Speaking of which, I’m beginning to crave. For a few minutes Donnie and I post up on the bench, coolly surveying the first few solemn ebbs of life awakening in Hermosa Beach. When I glance over, I still can’t bring myself to ask the questions surrounding these circumstances. He’s got a wife and three kids half the country away. How did this happen? Or why? We hear John hollering from one end of the promenade. Donnie gets up, and retrieves the frisbee. He throws it as hard as possible back toward the beach, way over my head. I hear him chuckling behind me as I chase the damn thing toward one of the berms of sand rising up to prevent flooding into the promenade. A creaky wooden pier bisects the two behemoth mounds, totally empty save a pair of elderly fishermen near the very end. The frisbee flies up and over one of the berms, forcing me to ascend and then tumble down the backside of the hill toward the water itself. I can hear John and Donnie greeting each other in the distance. They’re both teasing me, just the playful hassle between friends. As I approach the fallen toy, I notice the horizon brightening. What was once a sad glow grows cheerier, the sun very nearly bursting through the seam that separates land and sea. “Whaddup EZ,” John says at the foot of the promenade once I’ve returned. We bump fists. “Wanna get some Street Fighter in?” All three of us head to the arcade. Why would we be here so early? Why would the arcade be open at this ungodly hour? Wait. We’re on the West Coast. The sun doesn’t rise over the Pacific. It sets. Or rather, it’s supposed to set. Why did the sky just get brighter when I was retrieving the frisbee that Palomino soared over my head? Is time moving backwards? John has shaved. It’s weird, I haven’t seen him without his characteristic chinstrap beard since we were teenagers, maybe young adults. Did Tiana convince him to do this? He looks objectively younger without the facial hair, I’ll give him that. But it’s a jarring look given how the last decade I’ve seen him with that bushy beard of his. Now that I think about it, Donnie looks kind of different too. A little pudge to him? I can’t quite put my finger on it. But they both definitely look younger. The arcade beckons. The digital explosions, the laser beam simulacra, the buttons mashing. It forms a cacophonous symphony that invokes something deeply nostalgic within me. With the sun coming back up from its plunge below the western horizon, I can’t help but feel like a kid again, soaking up the sights and sounds of Hermosa Beach once more. Street Fighter is one of the first machines within the buzzing game room, just a few feet off the promenade. I let my two buddies head on in first. I’m still struggling to orient myself. The must of beach piss still tickles my nostrils. And the utter lack of memory getting here leaves me just on the right side of sheer panic. Donnie and John have nabbed the machine, and are feeding the little orange faces below the game cabinet with quarters. Everyone else in the arcade is obscured, either their backs turned toward me or their faces mired in a blurry splotch that erases the definitive quality of real life. One of them has chosen Blanka. The other Ryu. The second the fight starts, John starts mashing the punch button, electrifying the screen. Donnie jumps straight into it like a fool, laughing all the same. Bobby’s still nowhere to be found. But that’s the least of my worries, right now. I can’t stifle my disorientation anymore. “How’s Tiana,” I ask, over John’s shoulder. I desperately want him to even acknowledge her existence. He’s been married to her for five years. And Donnie’s had three kids since that point. Are they living in the same time as I am? “Wha-?” they both ask. No recollection. Tiana’s just a word scattered in the early evening breeze. These are the young punks I knew when we were in our early twenties. None of us were involved with anyone back then. It’s the small window where we were really at our closest. When I swivel back out toward the promenade for fresh air, I notice that the sun has resurrected even further up from its decline, and the horizon is now a deeply resonant orange. John’s doing that long swooping double punch Blanka is capable of, keeping Donnie at bay. Each punch that connects, the sun rises further out of the sky, diminishing the coming tragedy of sundown. They’re just a couple of kids, mashing buttons. Everything is beginning to make sense. I’ve woken up in the putrid stench of a beach bathroom, and I’ve gone back in time. Years ago. Now it’s just me and my friends chasing the dreams of early adulthood. They don’t have any memory of everything I’ve lived through in the years since. They don’t know what’s to come. John wins the first round, and the sun crests the horizon. I’m greeted by the ethereal glow of a rising sun. I try my hardest to forget the circumstances of how I got here, or the logistics of my time travel in general. Donnie attempts his comeback. He throws his first hadoken, the blue fireball rolling across the screen. From there on out, he spams the one power move he knows. John’s initial fury is masked by the dopey smile on his face. Over my shoulder, the setting sun defies us further. It’s halfway out from the horizon. “Howdy, maggots,” Bobby says, having materialized by the air hockey table. “Sup,” Palomino says, mashing down-forward-punch, down-forward-punch. A flurry of his fireballs brings us closer to home. The sunset is just fading despair, this day defiantly wanting to make its mark on me. I know I have to live in this moment. I have to relish it, because I know these circumstances are sure to collapse soon. The gig will be up. “Hey, man” I say, and shake Bobby’s hand. I shake it the same way I always have, to this very day. Whichever one I may be existing in. “Whaddup,” John says, skillfully hopping over an incoming hadoken. While they’re all crowding Street Fighter, I head outside. It’s golden hour. The frozen yogurt shop’s a few steps away. Self serve. I swirl a base of vanilla, glancing back out through the window. The sky is going more brilliant by the second. I see the ghostly strangers on the promenade pausing, engulfed in its beauty. I swirl strawberry, to balance the sweetness of vanilla. It’s working. My joy is saving the day. Our joy. We’re all experiencing the innocence of youth. Whether they know what’s to come or not, for this moment, we can enjoy the virtue of our friendship. With the resurrected sun, maybe I get to live it for a little while longer. Lychees and Fruity Pebbles to top the froyo. I walk out, and bathe in the sun. At the foot of the promenade, curbside, gleans Bobby’s Camaro. We’ve gotta go for a ride. It’s what we always do. I remember every weekend, each revery rushing up to me, driving up the coast, through the snaking roads. The sun seems to be following our joy. John reigns supreme at Street Fighter, the electroshock of rapid button mashing stymying both Donnie and Bobby. We meet at the curb, and get in the car. Bobby’s always happy to drive. None of us ultimately care where we’re sitting in the car, but someone’s gotta yell shotgun anyways. “Shotgun,” I holler. I know this moment is going to end. The scenario will inevitably collapse in on itself. The illusion of youth will fade away, and the sun will sink back beneath the horizon as time reorients and trudges forward once more. But for now, with every joke hollered, every inch of gravel gnashed, and every moment savored, I can at least forget the notion of real life and be with my friends. In Bobby’s Camaro, we carve through the hills above the coastline, and bathe in the resurrected sunshine. Eric Farrell is a beer vendor by day, and speculative fiction author by night. His writing credits stem from a career in journalism, where he reported for a host of college, local, and metro newspapers in the Los Angeles area. He has recent fiction with Aphotic Realm, HyphenPunk, and Haven Spec.

“Why do my minions have to be such damned idiots?” Though chapped beyond all patience (admittedly, a low threshold in his case), he grins at the witticism. Somebody has to glimmer in this darkness. Having quickly returned to glowering, he sends visible tremors through the ranks of his retainers. Heads, arms, and legs will roll before long. “Most dread Majesty...” begins his chief toady. “Itching for a dip in the lake, are we?” Effective beetle-browed menace. “One would think the Loosifer episode enough of a warning, wouldn’t one?” That was five centuries ago, practically yesterday in the grand scheme of things and his elephant memory for slights. A laborer who’d only had experience carving gargoyles in life chiseled that creative spelling on a plaque. As if his master’s unparalleled iniquity came down to a question of looseness: lax morals, the gyrations of a floozy. Plus, it contained the barely veiled implication that the Creation’s arch-rebel was no more than a cosmic loser. When bored, he sometimes visits that hapless peasant forced to incise the correct spelling in his soul’s flesh without end. It’s pleasant to be supreme punisher. He points a wickedly long fingernail at three random victims, now slated to be baked, broiled, and fricasseed. “All hail the boundless might of Emperor Satan!” Normally he would deign to accept such a tribute, but just now it only serves to remind him of another insult, a single-letter flub. Let’s see, how did that go: Shake, O Earth, from pole to pole; Thy liege lord, Satin, takes his stroll. Aside from that ridiculous image of him on a leisurely constitutional, he apparently struck fear into the world as a paragon of textile smoothness. When one of his ministers tried to spin the boneheaded gaffe into praise of his silky seductive powers, he had the fellow rolled up in a bolt of molten lead. Satin indeed. He could practically hear his underlings smirk as he strolled past. And now this: death by contraction. The edict was fiendishly stringent. Performance reviews for tormentors would no longer be based on testimonials from the tormented. That practice led to quid pro quo deals: laxer inflicting for stellar assessments. Instead, objective data from newly installed shriek meters would be used. These things are sophisticated enough to distinguish the real article from fake no-stop-you’re-hurting-me cries. But at the bottom of the directive, where the name of absolute authority should have ended all discussion, lay the chummy sign-off Stan. Stan rakes leaves in a cardigan sweater. Stan drives his son’s Cub pack to a jamboree in his minivan. Stan has a power-washing business that specializes in removing tough stains from vinyl siding. Stan does not exult over introducing sin and death into paradise. Stan cannot take credit for stoking numberless souls with despair one customized dejection at a time. Stan will never know the hellish satisfaction of infinitely spiteful pride. So he sits on his throne literally steaming with resentment and malice. Emperor. Are they comparing him to a penguin? James Fowler has authored a poetry collection, The Pain Trader (Golden Antelope Press, 2020), and a volume of short stories, Field Trip (Cornerpost Press, 2022).

For you, I’d stand sacrificial on the plinth, neck first. Perhaps the gravest worship Is an oncoming death. My willingness to Spill. I will be– Blood, running, head Rolling Asymmetric Limbs swollen splinter thin Lit in sacrificial fire lying, imaginary on your lap, No longer virginal. My last pleasure would consume me. See, non-corporeal lover of horror and me, You blissful sorrow-eater, It is right to love between your teeth, Natural to consume. Jordan Davidson is a student of Humanities and Physics at Yale University with aspirations of genetically engineering large, centipede-like rabbits to be used for world domination. Just kidding. Or is she? Her work has previously been published by Zombies Need Brains, Gingerbread House, and CORTEX Collective, among others, and is upcoming in Ionosphere and Corvid Queen.

Sometimes one of us rises to the surface, taking flight from the bottom of Dark Sea, where, exiled, we have stayed for so long. Defeated in old battles forgotten by time, sentenced in absentia by a merciless court, clearing debts of incautious ancestors. Our vision accustomed to the shadows, our body surviving with minimal breath. When the one who adventures the climb arrives on the shore and breathes full life, he is abruptly sunk again by diligent guards, those armed cherubim at Paradise Gate. Has our penalty not yet lapsed? Has not yet been paid the reparation of the beaten? Could we endure light by the day of release? Perhaps, then, with a pledge of the dark days of yore, we may, sharing beloved Earth with the Almighty, make a new light; friendly to human nature, openhearted, unabrasive and compassionate. Edilson Afonso Ferreira, 80 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in international literary journals, he began writing at age 67, after his retirement from a bank. Since then, he counts 190 poems published, in 300 different publications. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and his first Poetry Collection – Lonely Sailor – was launched in London in 2018. His second, Joie de Vivre, has been launched in April 2022. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

I’ve been in a dark place since the accident. I know I need to let her go, to accept that I’m never going to see her again, but I can’t. I can’t rest. I can’t lie still. I can’t move on. All I can do is think about her. My wife. My love. My Lisa. What’s done is done; what’s dead is dead. I know that—of course, I do. I know she’s in a better place. I know she’s up there somewhere, looking down on me like a guardian angel. And I know I should take comfort in that…but I don’t. The thought makes me livid. There’s nothing for me here, nothing but suffocating loneliness. It’s like I’m drowning in crude oil, trapped in tar, sinking slowly into an infinite void. There’s no warmth, no light, no hope, just an impenetrable gloom that presses in on me from all sides, threatening to crush me with the grim finality of my situation: I’m alone. Forever and ever, alone. But…what if I didn’t have to be? What if I could be with her again, even if only for a moment? She’s so close, I can practically touch her. The only thing between us is a few feet of freshly-turned earth. All I have to do is dig. I know there’s something wrong with me. I know I’m not well. A normal person doesn’t have these kinds of thoughts. But I don’t care. I have to try to reach her, to see her one more time. I need to tell her I love her. I miss her. And I’m sorry. The accident was my fault. We wouldn’t even have been on the road in the first place if I hadn’t insisted on leaving her sister’s place instead of spending the night there to wait out the storm. The forecast was calling for 12 to 18 inches of snow in the span of a few hours. An inch-deep carpet of downy white had already blanketed every surface outside. “You seriously want to drive in this?” Lisa asked. “Why don’t we just stay here for the night?” “We’ll be fine,” I insisted. The thought of spending even one more minute with Lisa’s vapid sister and her idiot husband turned my stomach. At my urging, we said some hasty goodbyes, made vague promises about visiting again soon, then slip-skated down the driveway to my car. I regretted the decision almost immediately. The snowfall was so heavy that I could barely see the road in front of me. It was a near-total whiteout, as if a shroud of white gauze had been draped over the windshield. I drove as carefully as I could down the winding mountain road. But I wasn’t careful enough. We were on a steep downhill stretch when I lost control of the car. A tree had fallen across the road on the far side of a blind curve, completely blocking our lane. Its branches materialized out of the snow-smudged darkness like giant black claws reaching from the nether. My breath caught in my throat as I slammed my foot on the brake and wrenched the wheel. The tires didn’t screech—they whispered, sliding silently on the blanket of snow covering the asphalt. The car fishtailed, spun, then plowed trunk-first through the guardrail and over the side of the cliff. There was a brief, eerie silence as the car plummeted through open air, then the world exploded in a cacophony of shattering glass and rending metal. Lisa and I were both thrown violently within the confines of our seat belts as the car rolled down the slope and crashed into the trees below. Once the car came to a stop, everything became a blur. I remember looking over at Lisa as she slumped against the passenger side door, her head hanging loose on her neck. A fine dusting of snow blew in through the gaping hole where the windshield used to be, accumulating on her blood-matted hair like the delicate lace of a bridal veil. The next thing I knew, I was laying on my back, looking up at the night sky. One of the car’s headlights was still illuminated, sending a beam of white light slicing through the frigid air like a distress beacon. The snow had stopped. There was no moon, just a low cover of clouds that pulsed with red and blue light from the emergency vehicles assembled somewhere on the road above. Muffled voices warbled like the underwater vocalizations of a diver shouting into a snorkel. Then I was floating in the air, rising toward a giant metal bird that beat the air with a whup-whup-whup sound, conjuring a dervish of stinging snow and freezing wind that blasted against my skin. After a long period of oblivion, I awoke on a table as a doctor wearing a rubber apron and blue nitrile gloves moved above me, silhouetted against the bright light overhead. I tried to call out for Lisa, but I was unable to form any words. It felt like my mouth was stuffed with cotton, like my lips were stitched shut. I remember how cold I was, as if they had opened every window to let in the frigid winter chill. I tried to raise my hand to signal to the doctor to close the windows, but I couldn’t move. My limbs were stiff and numb. They felt almost foreign to me, the arms and legs of a mannequin instead of a human. Never mind the cold, I thought to myself. Where’s Lisa? I resolved that, as soon as I could speak again, I would ask the doctor to wheel me in to see her. Little did I know that it was already too late. The funeral was horrible. Lisa’s face was deathly pale in contrast to her all-black dress,the rouge on her cheeks garish and overdone in an obvious attempt to bring some color to her ghostly pallor. I remember a parade of forlorn faces streaming past me, awkwardly mumbling their condolences. There were tears. Hugs. Prayers. A eulogy. Grief filled the room like a noxious ether. Lisa’s parents were there. They didn’t speak to me though—they just stared vacantly at me from their seats in the front row. My suit felt uncomfortable and ill-fitting; the tie was way too tight. At first, I wondered why I had tied it so tightly, before realizing that I had no recollection of tying it at all. Normally it would have been Lisa who tightened it, ensuring that the knot was straight and even, but obviously it hadn’t been her. So who had tied it then? I couldn’t say. Whoever it was, they hadn’t given much thought to my comfort. I couldn’t turn my head. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was wearing a noose. After the funeral, the darkness settled in. Or rather, I settled into it. I let it envelop me, succumbing to its cold embrace. I didn’t know if there was still a sun in the sky, but even if there was, it didn’t matter—its light couldn’t reach me. I was too far gone. All I could do was think about Lisa, about how we were doomed to spend eternity apart. There was no more us. There was just me and her. Me, here. Her, there. Forever. I’m not sure how long I allowed myself to suffer in silence before I decided to do something about it. I spent what felt like days in a dissociative fugue, floating outside my body, looking down on myself from above. What I saw made me sick. I didn’t even recognize who I was anymore. I was a shell of my former self, wasting away, disintegrating into nothing. I had given up, allowing myself to succumb to my fate as if it was inevitable, as if there was nothing I could do about it. But there was. I just had to summon the will to do the impossible. The unspeakable. The insane. I know things between Lisa and I can never fully be restored. There’s no going back to how we were before the accident. Like I said earlier, done is done and dead is dead. I know that. But if there’s even the slightest chance that we can be together again, I have to try. As I reach up and begin clawing at the silk fabric lining the inside of my coffin, I feel a surge of hope for the first time since the accident. I don’t know how long it will take to dig my way out of here, but it doesn’t matter—I only have forever. I’ll dig my way through silk and wood, past dirt and worms, through grass and mud, emerging from the darkness and back into the light. I’m coming for you, Lisa. I love you. I’ll see you soon. Warren Benedetto writes dark fiction about horrible people, horrible places, and horrible things. He is an award-winning author who has published over 100 stories, appearing in publications such as Dark Matter Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, and The Dread Machine; on podcasts such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Chilling Tales For Dark Nights; and in anthologies from Apex Magazine, Tenebrous Press, Scare Street, and many more. He also works in the video game industry, where he holds 35+ patents for various types of gaming technology. For more information, visit warrenbenedetto.com and follow @warrenbenedetto on Twitter and Instagram.

my head speak to my soul from under my pillow. I drink the occult of the night as dreams of Goddess Artemis surface. In a forest, among the silver glow of the leaves, raucous blue veins shine through the lush, foliage. Artemisia exhales terra and bitter and fluorescent voodoo. I feel: into this moment, in these green trees, into the pantheist sea and into the fold of nature’s embrace. I trust as I am turned inside out, alive, in the twine of mystery. I glide: into this spiral, in the fold of descent, into the broad, fresh waterfall and into the crest of the universe. The magic in the wave peels away the curtain of mundane and swells against the humdrum of everyday’s stage. I day break to mugwort crumpled in my hand. Medicine guides a vision of me, out of that shadow where I hang, out of the darkness into light. Helen has a fine arts degree from St. Michael's College, Vermont and after the birth of her children, left a successful career in marketing to write and paint. She has been published in literary magazines and is currently working on a book of poetry about healing from a ski accident. When she is not busy developing her craft, she teaches yoga and ayurvedic cooking classes.

Bernard Bartram had achieved some notoriety among the unbelieving community, and, therefore, had become notorious in the community of belief. He thought of himself as an expert in the field of unbelief, which tickled him. His defining book, Unbelieving, written twelve years earlier in a fit of rational passion—there’s an oxymoron for you, he thought—had established his bona fides. He followed this two years later, while he was still hot, his publisher told him, with the more painstaking and laborious (to write) You Can’t Be Serious. These made him a welcome speaker at various clubs and societies for the preservation of unbelief or belief, such as the one he had spoken at this evening, opposite Dr. Ollie Apple, a famous believer. He sat in an odious dressing room provided by I.I.F. (Institute for the Investigation of Faith) sipping a second glass of Glenlivet on crushed ice, also provided by I.I.F., reflecting on a joke he made during the debate at the expense of his opponent’s surname, explaining he hoped to make the good doctor take a bite of his own apple. Though it garnered the expected laughter, it brought him no joy. He had not delved deep to find the line, and it seemed overworked, lacking in the seeming or actual spontaneity of true humor. The dressing room did not help his mood. He sat facing a wall with a three-paneled mirror and a shelf at about waist level, presumably for the application of make-up, though nothing but the scotch and a bowl of ice sat on it. The wall on his right was the original tabula rasa, a dirty beige with scars, marks, and scratches in places both inexplicable and uninteresting. To his left, a long closet occupied the wall, lined at intervals with coats and costumes defeating explanation, all dark and unused, as if for centuries. The wall behind him, the fourth wall, contained nothing but a single door, closed, through which one entered this dismal room, and he saw it only through the bad graces of the speckled mirror. Like the room, this career of his seemed empty now, as it should, he reasoned, given that the position he long ago adopted was unbelief. He felt certain there must be deep irony in being a famous atheist, but no more than in being a celebrated believer whose arguments he could barely recall seconds after Apple spoke them: pure nonsense. For moments that grew longer through the evening, he lost contact with the words spoken by his opponent, irritation growing into various scenarios in which he strangled Apple right there on the stage. His own best moment came when he broke into one of Apple’s explanations with the unexpected quip that Dr. Apple was the only human being left in the world who hoped to talk God back into existence. It drove him to despair when Apple leaped into what he obviously considered a clever reversal as he attempted to prove the existence of God through scientific formulations. Bartram’s patience wore thin enough to instruct the audience Dr. Apple revealed himself as someone who knew nothing of true science, particularly the second law of thermodynamics, which he mentioned three times in rapid succession, as if it were a magical incantation. Then, as he fell silent and sullen, Apple droned on, imagining his audience spellbound. To be sure, he did seem to recall several bright episodes of communal laughter during the good doctor’s speech, but Bartram himself grew sick and sicker of Apple, of himself, of this charade, nothing more than a ritual repeated before an audience that long ago lost its ability to believe in God, religion having devolved into a set of gang signs, at worst; at best, into empty cliché. As he poured himself a second scotch on ice and sat back down before the mirror, he had begun to enumerate in his mind each time he had participated in this blank ritual, and for which he had begun to slightly despise himself. Neither he nor Dr. Apple could refrain from this mind-numbing work since they both valued their living quarters and their dinner tables—for Bartram, restaurants—sufficiently to keep them at it. Worse, they both knew this, and during one of those passages in which Ollie had developed another execrable conceit, Bartram recognized the deep boredom this God-bearer to the New World hid beneath a thin veneer of otiose wit, boilerplate scripture, and timeworn phrases in which he had stopped believing years before, if he ever had. The word effete applied to both of them: affected, over-refined, and ineffectual. No one would be saved or damned. They could only hope to entertain, and that had worn so thin at final applause, peppered with cheers, boos, and laughter, that he nearly ran offstage to his ridiculous dressing room to down his first, now third scotch. When he heard a door closing behind him, he looked up, into the mirror, rather than behind, to find a swarthy, diminutive man with fly-away white hair and a thin goatee in a gray-on-gray striped suit. At the throat of a shirt somewhere between white and yellow, he wore a large black bowtie with white polka dots. The man appeared to be a tad embarrassed, holding a worn leather satchel at his knees that strained at the seams with a bulging something secreted inside. Having received his share of death threats and well-wishing encouragements in equal proportion, he had for years awaited the unknown assailant who would step from the shadows and make good on his threat. “Dr. Bartram,” the man whispered, “my name is…” and he said something completely unintelligible to Bartram. Then, he smiled and said, “But you may call me Jesus. I represent the Institute and wish to congratulate you on a sparkling defense of unbelief.” He paused and smiled again, his face returning quickly to its slightly apprehensive expression. “I hope you will give me leave a few minutes for a valuable experiment. Valuable to the Institute, potentially to yourself.” “Your name is Jesus?” “A common name in all cultures but your own.” This so irritated Bartram that he could not speak for several moments, during which time Jesus kept his eyes trained on him, waiting for approval to continue. Bartram rubbed his forehead with two fingers to demonstrate irritation. “Number one, I am not a doctor; number two, I have no notion of which institute you speak. I am now going to refresh my drink, and by the time I am seated once again, I hope you will have the decency of God and make yourself scarce.” He began to stand, but the girlish tittering of the man who called himself Jesus surprised Bartram so that he could not move for a moment. “Oh, Mr. Bartram, you made us laugh tonight. Thank you for your wisdom and humor.” Bartram dropped back in his seat, watching the stranger in the speckled mirror. “Well, Mr. Jesus,” he said, “if that happens to be a bomb you are carrying, I will thank you to leave it outside for the duration.” Again, Jesus laughed with delight. “It is no bomb, but you might say a gift, for a man of thought like yourself. The institute of which I speak is The Institute for the Investigation of Faith, housed here in this building where you and Dr. Apple have been debating the existence of God so much enjoyed by one and all. Shall I go on?” Jesus did not move as long as Bartram studied him in the mirror. At last, Bartram said, “I can offer you nowhere to sit, as you can see this is the only chair. Please continue, though, if for no other reason than that I am dying to know why you have appeared and what this means.” At this invitation, Jesus moved past him, trailing a scent of aftershave and sweat. With his back to him, he busied himself moving scotch and ice aside to set up his contraption on the shelf directly before Bartram. Twice, Jesus glanced at him in the mirror with a bright smile filled with surprisingly white teeth. How old the stranger might be, Bartram had no clue, though he would guess somewhere upwards of seventy, with no top limit. At the same time, he seemed infinitely young, younger than Bartram in his movements and animation. That alone was worth the price of admission. Speaking to Bartram from the mirror, he gestured toward the machine, which looked like an applause meter, instructing him that it was this contraption which brought him to his dressing room, and which he hoped Dr. Bartram—he did not want to give up the honorific title—would allow him to explain. “I imagine you have you heard of the so-called God gene?” When Bartram nodded, furrowing his brow in confusion, Jesus pinched his own lower lip between thumb and forefinger of one hand. “How to explain, when so much has gone into this—so much that would interest a man of your persuasion. Is belief or non-belief a matter of genetic make-up? What do you think?” Bartram shrugged, eyeing the scotch the other side of the machine. “What if,” Jesus continued, “such things we hitherto considered immaterial substance—I refer to the soul, etcetera—actually come down to material substance, the brain, nerves, so on, do you follow?” Jesus spun to face Bartram, one hand on the machine. “This we are attempting. We have located this God gene, and everyone has such a thing here.” He tapped his temple. “At the same time, we have come to acknowledge that the idea of the gene, of genetic make-up, of the double helix we have come to believe some person at some point in time might have viewed with a powerful microscope, are nothing more than metaphors for something we cannot explain. We scientists at the Institute enjoy a little joke now and again, and sometime refer to this gene as the G-spot. Are you with me, Dr. Bartram?” Bartram nodded, though to what he was not certain. “Do you recall that admonition, in both the Jewish and Christian testaments, of which you often speak, to make a joyful noise unto the Lord? Such a thing exists in every religion, singing, dancing, chanting, humming, even where there is great attention to silences surrounding us. And we have discovered the reason for this.” Jesus waited long enough that Bartram felt he had to say, “Which is?” “You ask an excellent question!” Jesus slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. “Sound, you see, such as in prayer, or song or rhythmic humming.” He closed his eyes and hummed for several minutes, falling into a rocking motion as he did so. “So, you see what I mean. Sound activates this God gene, or God self, Godhead, and so religions encourage us to activate this G-spot for worship. Once turned on, the individual may return to it for reassurance. If I continued humming several minutes, and you joined in willingly, you might experience mild forms of the ecstatic, which you could repeat at later moments, when you felt high or low, up or down. Do you understand what I am saying?” Bartram’s defenses had broken. He might have laughed out loud if he did not still fear this fellow might be out of his mind and have nothing whatsoever to do with the Institute. “So, what you’re telling me is…” Here, Bartram trailed off. “What I am telling you is this apparatus produces a kind of dog whistle, you see, tuned to the God frequency, the Godhead within, the indwelling spirit. In Christianity, it could be referred to as Holy Ghost, if I am not being blasphemous in any way.” “No offense taken,” said Bartram with a wave of his hand that sent the final splash of scotch onto his fingers, which he sucked. “You see, I am not a Christian. I am an atheist.” “Yet, you come from the background of the Christian sect, correct?” Bartram nodded. Jesus waved his hand in a rolling circular manner. “So, Holy Spirit—you understand—if I am to turn this dial toward center point, which we scientists playfully refer to as ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’, where I have made this notch and painted it orange on this otherwise drab machine…” When he tapped at the notch, Bartram noted his long fingernails. “And because we are all the same, all human, we may not hear anything for a while, but we will experience mild ecstasy, our Godhead activated, you see. At least in theory. And, as we know, theory and practice may be quite different. Yet, as they come together, bingo! We have lift-off!” He laughed with delight at his own effusion. “So, you are the perfect subject on which to try this out, as an avowed and practicing atheist who intelligently and willfully rejects the world of spiritual things you cannot see or measure in an empirical sense. This is the very area in which our experiment will rise or fall, succeed or fail. “Now, I will leave you alone to try this out yourself. If I remain in the room, I would not, or could not, keep my scientific objectivity. So, I invite you to pull your chair closer and turn the dial toward this notch which I point out a second time. Please, do not go further, as the machine is likely to overheat and create disturbances to you and those in the next rooms, if they have not all gone home, as I believe they have.” Jesus clapped his hands with a beatific smile. “Oh, Dr. Bartram, the effect should be far better than that scotch you have been drinking. But you can tell me about it after. I will give you some time, and here, allow me to help you move your chair closer. I think that is fine, sit down again. You will not need this glass. You will find this instructive, sir. If you experience what we think you will experience. You may recognize that this may well take place in every person with the normal gifts with which we come into this world, even though many of us never explore the regions of mind or spirit of which you may soon become aware.” Jesus patted Bartram’s shoulder as he passed, which Bartram took as an encouragement. He heard the door snap shut behind him, though his attention was focused on the apparatus at eye level. He wondered if he should touch the thing, but touch he did. Grasping the dial firmly in the one hand, he held on to it, ascertaining it was a simple metal knob, like so many knobs one has learned to turn in this life. His curiosity got the better of him, and he inched it toward the notch. A third of the way he sat back in his chair, noting he had so far experienced nothing. Except, of course, the dull hum of alcohol revolving through his brain. He once more sat up in his chair and turned the dial further, though he experienced a bout of laughter at the silly experiment into which he had allowed himself to be drawn. He witnessed again the ridiculous figure of Jesus before him—in imagination—excited beyond reason. What a figure he cut! Of course, he understood he himself had become a figure of fun, even of ridicule—to himself many others, like Dr. Apple. What a fool! Trying to prove God with scientific theorem and mere language, which, of course, could never reach God, or anything like God. Aristotle had explained this centuries ago. He heard something now, not exactly a ringing in his ears, perhaps a form of music, high pitched, not irritating in any way. Somewhat pleasant, he had to admit. Maybe if he turned up the volume, he could hear it. So, he turned up the volume, until the point of the dial rested in the slot Jesus pointed out with a click of his nails. Very nice. Delightfully pleasant. It lifted the spirit; it filled him inside, made him idiotically happy. He had not even realized how weighted down by the world he had become, but that dissipated, evaporated into thin air. He might have approached such a sensation that year he lived by the Pacific, writing his first book. Yes, that had been quite an experience. The book lifted him up and carried him away. Now, he realized what Jesus had spoken of, this mild ecstasy—though it did not seem so mild to him at this moment, which made him realize, intellectually, how depressed he had been every day of his life the past few years. He felt the Holy Spirit inside him, elevating mind, recalling a phrase that had not occurred to him for many years: Music of the Spheres. That’s what he heard around him, but was it music, feeling, or pure thought, his mind rising to the best of which it had ever been capable. Tears flowed from his eyes, down his cheeks. “This is the day the Lord has made,” he cried aloud. But as feeling ebbed a bit, moving back toward normalcy, he had a fear he would return to his previous state, in which he had been so deadly unhappy. Naturally, he cranked up the volume, higher, and then higher, but as he did, something began to change. His mood turned on him as forms took shape around him, one dark robed, hooded figure emerging from the closet—he saw it in the mirror. And leaning beside the door, some wicked creature too human not to be cruel, grinning at him. Something brushed by him, and he saw what in the mirror, the dark shape, the coldness, and three tiny devils on the shelf beneath the mirror, multiplied into six, watching him, laughing, pointing blades and tridents. A thing behind him whispered: “Who the hell do you think you are? Why have you never listened, when I have so much to tell?” “Bernard,” the creature emergent from the closet whispered; the demons cackled it. They saw him; what was worse, he saw them. Had they always been there? He had never seen or heard them except in his nightmares of torment. Had these specters always been there, waiting for him? Had he been protected from them by his unbelief? And, if so, could he now return to it? A voice deep inside his mind—his own this time—spoke loudly—turn the damn thing down. He struggled to reach a hand to the dial, and as he grasped it felt how hot it had become, burning to the touch, taking skin off his fingertips. “Jesus,” he shouted, as rancid smoke emerged from the machine. Jesus ran past him, shouting, “Unplug it, Dr. Bartram.” But as Jesus lay his hands upon the infernal contraption, it cracked open, sending springs and gears, and wires of red and blue, bolts and nuts spinning outward, bouncing on the shelf, the floor, knocking solidly on Bartram’s skull. “Too late!” Jesus shouted forlornly. As Bartram watched, the machine melted to a hard, black lump, filling the room with the acrid odor of burning plastic, rubber and metal, and still creatures and shapes and forms did not go away. Not one showed the slightest inclination to cease calling his name. He saw the face of Jesus, frozen in a scream he could not hear above the din that clattered on his ears and vibrated on his skin. “Do not answer them,” Jesus shouted, though Bartram could barely hear him. “Oh, do not answer them, Dr. Bartram.” But Bartram had sunk into his chair, his mouth and eyes wide in terrible rictus, his fingers fumbling at his face, unable to speak a word to Jesus or to answer demands of voices now calling to him with increasing urgency. When the Institute’s maintenance men found him in this position in the morning, the empty bottle of scotch in his lap, he was taken to a hospital, from there to the morgue, where an autopsy determined that he died of alcohol poisoning. Stories in newspapers and on television the next few days eschewed sensational details, identifying his various accomplishments. Gloating satisfaction remained to the shock jocks and bloggers who dragged him over hot coals the next weeks, months, and years, until he was all but forgotten—to everyone but Dr. Ollie Apple, who had his own demons to confront. He felt some responsibility for the death of his old friend Bernard Bartram, even though he still felt the joy of victory in their debate. The Institute, the Press, and the talking heads had given him that much. But, quite frankly, Bartram had lost interest halfway through taping. Apple knew because he had watched it many times over, long after the distance between the words he spoke and what he felt inside caused him to recognize that he no longer believed in anything. As he believed in nothing, he saw no reason to put an end to his career. His wife and children still required a house, food on their table, clothes on their back, all that living in affluent society demanded. In the short or long run, what difference did it make? He would keep talking until he ran out of words. The choice had been taken from his hands. Robert Pope has published several books of stories, most recently Not a Jot or a Tittle and Disappearing Things from Dark Lane Press. New work can be found at Granfalloon, SORTES, and Fictive Dream.