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When it’s all over, when naked birds with little teeth have drunk their last from the saucers of our hips, whittled thin by the rains of the dying world, will it matter what you did to me, what I did to you? We are now no more separate than  moonlight from sun. Intermingled hopelessly in the slow slough of decay. All our old deeds—whetted each on the other— we have done over to ourselves, passed them back and forth between us like wedding wine, many times, a doomed cat’s cradle, a recursive web of widening lies. We have long since agreed never to look beneath. But we feel it. Against the tips of our fingers, congealing on the dark underbelly of our hate. The shapely glimmer of lives left unlived, of what we gave up that quiet day when we yoked ourselves to death. Marisa Celeste Montany was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, splitting time between Ka‘u and Kona. After spending her twenties as a professional ballet dancer, she attended Middle Tennessee State University where she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in history and English. She currently resides in Maryland with her husband where she takes walks, studies herbs, reads books, and writes speculative fiction and poetry. You can find her most recent publications at The Orange & Bee and Crow and Cross Keys. Visit her at marisamontany.com . She loves horizons.

I woke with two heads. It’s happened before, though long ago. I sat at the edge of my bed. A sad affair of sticks and wooden branches held together by whatever was handy. My hut is small, and a distance from any village and a lifetime away from a place called London. I heard that many of my ancestors died from a terrible disease when it struck that city. I am alone, as I have been for most of my life. Few pass by this far away from the nearest village. The forest where I live has a reputation for not having a soul. Towns, villages, they have souls. People have souls. I know that. I don’t believe that a forest, a place that can be dark and beautiful at the same time, can be soulless. I live in this small space every day, determined to hold on to the scraps of life. The last time I had two heads, days passed before it sank back into my body and left me as one in terrible pain. I am not young, I am not old, and the promise of death is a shadow that follows me. That follows all of us. I pulled out a dead worm and drank the rainwater I collected in a bowl. The bones of the rabbit I caught yesterday littered the dirt floor of my hut. It was cold and I was shivering. The animal skins that once protected me from the frigid winds and biting darkness were clinging shreds of their past. Like most days, this day I was consumed by the injustice of the life I had been given. I craved revenge because I was forced to carry this curse out of no fault of my own. I had to rebuild part of the walls and seal the top of my hut with more dried mud. I had to get myself warm. Yesterday I went out to hunt and spotted a pair of villagers in the distance. I held my position behind a rocky outcropping until they moved off. They had bows and arrows and were hunting too. They had venison skins cloaked around them. That would keep any man warm. I am as tall and broad as any man I’ve seen these last years. Some day those fine skins would be mine and those men would die face down in the frost of the dirt on which they tread. “I have two heads,” I said and tried to shake off my fright and the biting hunger in my center that never went away. These lands were filled with stories and tales of strange creatures of which I am one. There is no place for a soul with two heads. A slice of yellow from the sky slipped through the top of my hut and rained down on my face. It warmed me as I stood thirsting for more. More yellow, more warmth, and maybe the glow would scare off the head. I didn’t know where they went when they sank back into my body. And maybe that was best. I was a fright as it was. I didn’t want to know how I came to be such a fearful sight. I didn’t think of myself as a bad person, or maybe even a bad creature, for it was difficult to compare me to any other man. Even in the reflection of my face in the water of a quiet stream I was different. Not evil I wanted to believe. Though in this part of the forest maybe I wasn’t the only one who had two heads. Was that even a possibility? What if I had kin out there and we were family? I can’t turn my head to clearly see the twin to my left, and my twin never sees me. “Can you hear me?” I said, barely in a whisper, uncertain if I wanted an answer. The last time, and before that, there were no words. The heads did not speak and neither did I. I can’t recall details, but it wasn’t long before each receded back into the bloody opening in my neck as though they had found the wrong home for themselves and had to continue their search. This time was different. Everything I was feeling was different. There was movement within, and it wasn’t mine. “Who are you? Why are you in my body?” it answered. The voice was loud. Threatening. I had never spoken that way. I didn’t think it was possible to speak that way. My body shook violently. My arms rose. My fingers stretched and clawed the air. Searching. “You must go. I will not have it,” it said. “You are in my land and in my body,” I seethed. This time my insides were wrong. Unpredictable movement that wasn’t mine. I was quickly possessed of outrage. I am a violent creature by nature. I have never doubted myself, and the ease with which I turn brutal. My body swelled. I was being pushed, and I was pushing back. This wasn’t the head of long ago. This was a different kind of possession. My left leg gave way. I fell against the wall of my hut and struggled to right myself. My left hand turned and rose against me and clawed the air, searching for my throat. It came and with long powerful fingers, thrashing for prey. It was almost upon me and as quickly was met with an equal force as my right hand rose in my defense. My right hand clutched my left wrist and twisted it violently. An anguished howl sprang from the lips of my tormentor. I held back the left hand and subdued it. “I will break it off if you don’t leave,” I said in a voice of anger and frustration, now a welcome kin from the depths of whoever I had become in order to survive. There was a garbled response. As close as it was, I couldn’t make it out. My anger and outrage shook me. Deafened me to all else except my survival. I found myself a creature of power without thought. I twisted my left wrist until I heard the bones snap. The creature inhabiting my body gave out a terrible cry, trying to free itself of my grasp. I released his broken left hand and went for his throat as he had come for mine. There was no way to defend himself. He twisted and turned away from my right hand. It had come for him, and it would not be denied. His head scraped violently against mine, trying to push me away, but I had found a strength within that I had to believe was mine from birth. It took the evil this creature was trying to impose upon me that allowed me to discover who I already was. My fingers, part of my right hand that I had never known or understood, had a life of their own and a mission, rendering me a spectator. My hand fisted and slammed into his throat, shaking my body. My hand opened, fingers stretched long until they wrapped around his throat and quickly exerted such a force that my body trembled out of control. We dropped to our knees. My hand clinched tighter and tighter as his broken left hand flailed mindlessly, trying to fend it off. I held and squeezed and fumed and spoke words I never heard and tightened long after his head slumped down, dead. “There,” I said, angered and empowered as I had never been, before my world turned dark and uncertain. I woke in a shaking chill sometime later. The battle had left the whole of my body in wrenching pain. I worked to get to my feet and steady myself. The left side of my face was smeared red. What little order there was of my hut was scattered and broken. I was exhausted, spent, and trying to recognize myself and what I had done. My left shoulder was twisted, unrecognizable, as was the meager comfort of what remained of my world. The rest of the day was a blur of foreign images. By the time the yellow from the sky returned, I knew that I would not be threatened again. I had killed the soul of the beast within and had become a greater beast myself. I was less a man and more of the forest. My right arm and hand were measurably larger than my left. It was the arm and hand of a hunter. A warrior. A killer. Everything was different and the same. Why had I taken so long to fight for my own life? To rid myself of the curse? The anguish would end as would my living in a world of uncertainty. I found myself, a soul with purpose. “I’m alive,” I said breathlessly, finally turning back to see the remains of my dead self. Splattered dry with my blood, its right eye twitched. Then, again. I stepped away, startled in shock and heaved a fear that I had not rid myself of the beast. It was alive. There was no killing the monster. It would regain life and once again I would be both slave and host to its horror. The twitch quickened and wrenched the eye open, frantically searching, then blinked and blinked and blinked, and slowly faded. “Die,” I screamed over and over, launching the heel of my foot into the remains of me. Cursing, fevered with a lifetime of fear and rage until the splatter of its existence covered much of the dirt of my shattered hovel. I stumbled, caught my breath, and stepped from my hut for the first time, alone. I lifted my gaze to the sky and screamed. A rageful howl echoed loud through the forest. I continued until my voice gave out as my anger exploded into a fearful determination. The air smelled rich. Fervent. The sky blossomed a deep, embracing blue as never before. I was free of my dark world. My devil was dead. The world had cursed me. They made me an outcast. Now, free of my tormentor, retribution would be swift. I had a world to explore and was determined to venture fearlessly. The hunters I avoided for so long were out there. Jealous of their freedom and my crushing lifetime of confinement, they would be the first of my prey. Then others, unaware of who I am and the reality of what I am and the lifetime of grievances I have to exorcise from my spirit. One good arm was all I would need to survive and find warmth in many heavy cloaks of stolen venison skins. This part of me was always the me that was hidden. Rageful, I always was, and remain a one-headed monster. Arthur Davis is a retired Wall Street trained management consultant. He has been quoted in The New York Times and in Crain’s New York Business , taught at The New School and interviewed on New York TV News Channel 1. He has advised The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, Senator John McCain’s investigating committee on boxing reform, and testified as an expert witness before the New York State Commission on Corruption in Boxing. His work has been published in numerous journals as original and reprint fiction. He was featured in a single author anthology, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, received the 2018 Write Well Award for excellence in short fiction and, twice nominated, received Honorable Mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017. More at  www.talesofourtime.com , Amazon Author Central and the Poets & Writers Organization.

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning. — The Buddha The heat kicking in at precisely five a.m. stirs the shirred glass chimes dangling over the open vent, their fragile song reminding me I am alone. Outside, where I know too-early browns loom in the dark where constant white should lighten this time of year—here, far north of the end of Mardi Gras—one car purrs by per hour. A semi ascending the hill, up-shifting its dissonance across the cushion of the dumb neighborhood, will turn left at the next intersection, head east to open road, and merge with the world. This separateness is indeed a dream, though priests today will call the many to mourn whatever separates them from God and from each other, then swipe soaked ash across their foreheads in remembrance that we’re all just dust. Which is true, but in this blue mood I prefer the Buddha’s drop of dew and picture its sole self temporarily resting upon a palm leaf before a breeze shivers it earthward or the desert sun draws it skyward— in either case to mingle it by absorption or by evaporation into the eternal system of one. Which is really only a better way of getting it wrong. Poor sentient drop, alive in the thought it has ever left its sisters and brothers, who in their own dreams manufacture fantastic bubbles but imagine wry shadow, or lightning. D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip  (Dos Madres Press). https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

It is the silence of Mars that makes it so alien. Not the stuffy recycled air, nor the reddish sky that tints everything in shades of dread, but the silence. The non-noise of a dead world. It picks at something primitive within my psyche, telling me something is wrong. Something. Everything.  I ponder this as I replace the filter for vent 15-MM because the hum it emits is natural adjacent. My shoes shuffling over the floor, my keys jingling, the fans—the sounds of Mars Base Bacchus. There is an airflow by the unfiltered vent. It jostles my hair and reminds me of home. An approximation of wind, minus the life. I fit the new sponge filter hastily and cart my trolley to the  next vent.  Red dust dirties the views from the corridor windows. Bacchus is shaped like a doughnut. To my left is barren nothingness, and to my right is a murky view of our sheltered sample extraction zone. Sometimes we jokingly call it the back garden. I linger for a moment at the glass, my breath frosting the window and obscuring it further. I try to remember what grass feels like under bare feet.  I get to work on vent 16-MM, unlocking the grate and removing the dirty sponge filter. Mars Base Athena didn’t have locks on their vents, but someone tried crawling through one and almost suffocated the entire crew, so now all bases have locks. That person and I share a kinship because I often become stuck as I reach for the filters, and every time that happens I wonder if pulling a body from the air vents will become a Martian base tradition, like breaking a bottle against the hull of a ship.  The breeze within the vents is addictive. I stay inside longer than I should; I pull out as a woman I must recognise but cannot put a name to shambles by. She looks plasticky in her white jumpsuit. There are bags under her eyes – mine, too. "Morning," I say.  She recoils as if my voice were the rattle of a snake. "Morning?" she asks, supporting herself against the window. "It’s afternoon."  I check my watch: 1307. "Oh."  "You shouldn’t say things that aren’t true," she says, continuing on her way. "You’ll confuse people."  "Sorry," I mutter, replacing the filter. I continue to 17-MM.  Condensation rains over my face as I unlock the vent. I gasp and open my mouth like a child in a storm. It’s icy and tastes metallic. Something must be gloriously wrong with the humidity – but isn’t this right? Isn’t it supposed to rain? I blink, trying to remember what rain felt like, what it smelt like, what it sounded like. I shake my head, replace the soggy sponge and note the vent code. I don’t stop shaking my head on my way to the cafeteria – my lunch was supposed to start seven minutes ago.  "I just don’t understand," the chef says as he plates up my broccoli and noodles. "It wasn’t supposed to be like this."  I nod along. I cried with joy when I received my offer – I imagined myself a pioneer, an explorer. My life was spent behind a computer regardless – why not relocate for the sake of science? A corporation offered me Mars in exchange for my boyfriend, apartment, job, and planet, and I thought that was a good trade.  "What was it supposed to be like?" I ask the chef. "I can’t remember if they lied to us." He freezes mid-scoop. The shade of Mars befalls his skin; haze covers the sun and darkens the cafeteria. I think he might cry, and his phantom tears chase me away. I sit by the window and dig in.  No one talks as they eat. Over a hundred of us share this lunch slot, yet the gentle taps of our plastic cutlery are the only sounds we make. There is nothing left to say.  Kicked-up dust scatters against the window. The wind calls. I only finish half of my portion. Someone has their ear against vent 18-MM as I arrive. He looks like a castaway’s washed up corpse, bearded and bony. His jumpsuit is too large for him – he resembles a Halloween ghost in a bedsheet. A not-yet spectre. Schrödinger’s spaceman. "Hey," he says, "listen." I feel antsy because I’m nearly at vent 20-MM, which is the final MM-coded one. Reaching a new code – in this case, vent 01-MO – feels like progress. The final vent is 20-RB, and if I reach 20-RB enough times, eventually, I’ll never have to reach it again. I know that’s strange logic, but finishing my shift is a checkpoint, a chance to step back and look at my history of vent-checking and say, yes, I am making progress. Yes, one day will be the last.  "What are you listening to?" I ask sharply.  "The wind," he says. "It’s lovely."  My cheeks warm. That’s my wind, my secret joy. "You should speak to the therapist." "All booked up," he says, closing his eyes. "If you’re close enough, you can feel the air." "That’s nothing," I say, brandishing my key. "You want to really feel it?"  His eyes focus on the key as if it’s wrought of gold. Gold, iron – what’s the difference on Mars? "Please," he says.  I unlock the vent. Condensation drips onto my shoes – another fault.  His gasp is almost a sob. He shoves me from the threshold and crawls in. I think I should catch his ankle, but I hesitate. It feels wrong to deprive him of something I’ve imagined countless times. I’m oddly jealous, like when I watched the moon landing for the first time. The filter splashes onto the floor as the man’s shoes skid into darkness. Condensation drools by the vent. It stinks of blood.  I replace the filter and note the code for a humidity check. Relocking the vent, I try to remember what grief feels like. Silence settles.  I know only what it sounds like. Josephine G Cambridge is a biologist from the United Kingdom who abates the horrors of STEM with scary little stories. When she isn’t spacing out in a laboratory or recommending people read Shirley Jackson, she enjoys history and all things fantastical.

He came to me, like an old friend. He came to me, like a lover. He came to me, looking for help. Three nights. Endless days. Somewhere between madness and prayer, he wept. He spoke of envy, of guilt, of the stain his name had become. His voice was thick with ruin— sweet and sour, like wine turned to blood halfway down his throat. He spoke of the Father— the first sketch, the rough cut, the mold we shattered when we fell. But those plans changed. He was drunk on memory, reeling from grace. The room reeked of burnt offerings and something older— the rot beneath sanctified skin. He spoke briefly of Hell. Not fire, he said. Silence. A kingdom of echoes. A choir of teeth and regret. He didn’t ask for forgiveness. He didn’t offer it either. He just sat there, trembling— I held him, and he held me. In that place of sin and holy grace, we wept. Not as man and angel, not as sinner and fallen, but as two things once loved, now lost. And in that silence, we were very, very human. Adrian Weston writes dark fiction and poetry that explores grief, ritual, and the spaces between the sacred and the haunted. Their work blends gothic, folkloric, and speculative elements, with a focus on voice, body, and memory.

Last night I saw Jesus in the basilica  a face familiar but unlike  what art or statues show. Yet clear as day  a strong nose, parted lips, facial hair, eyes not clearly closed.  I never thought I could be sure that holy forms appear  on walls or cloth.  And this was not from drugs  or drink or mental states  I hope.  Did he sense my heart still running now since from  the womb?  He was at my feet, I feared  to step  on him, a test some faithful  passed or failed.  But he is here within the stone  reminding me how he placed divinity aside  so we might walk on him  as we trample those we know.  Was I host  or guest; which of us welcomed  or were receiving hospitality?  I exchanged  short poems with a friend.  One said: I am agnostic  or am I an agnostic?  I am one of these. I said:  I am agnostic, largely when  I think about  agnosticism. The rest is silence.  Even when I stared in darkness  he remains.  At my feet he is still here  as if he had found my soul  and taken root. Royal Rhodes retired after nearly forty years of teaching courses on global religions. His poems have appeared in literary journals, online and in print, in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Singapore, and India. His poetry and art collaborations have been published in hand-crafted booklets with the artists of The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press. He lives now in a small village in the heart of Ohio, and enjoys reading poetry and mystery novels.

She climbed into my mouth and   made a pocket, paper thin,  shallow as the envelope at the   back of your books I held her like an idol  tucked there in my cheek,  and inside me was still the red of   maraschino, of hot cherry pies She makes me say things then,  standing at the mailbox—  We are dust...we are just dust and wind!  I whisper to the sky, to the  man now folded over, foam  filtered through the lines of his teeth I have dreams of Dobermans,  of walking out high-rise windows   into thin, shifting winds,  the dawn still sea glass—  formless, not yet alive And inside me a soft crescendo,  a choir singing Nirvana I write it all out on slate,  whatever she says—  all those little perils added up in chalk,  brought south with a shaking cosine Twist, twist go my thoughts,  go my words, go my mouth when I   try to keep her stitched there inside We are with my mother so I can’t   let her speak, so I swallow her deep   and she runs then—up the trunk   of my throat, and runs and runs—  furred legs slipping on my swallowed   tears, on everything wet inside me and either she or me says Remember this me forever  before we’re both brought fallen back to the dirt,  to the trapdoor of this grave, on this hole on this hill,  a small family of a thousand black nights The storm fumbles its way from the   absurd simplicity of the horizon  and by the time the rain falls,  my vibrating mind and hers are one—  the twitch of our heart,  the smooth sliding of limestone   To be dead is not so bad, as they say Amanda Mitzel lives in a cabin in the woods, where she writes horror and free verse poetry. She has been published in Strange Horizons, Moonday Mag, Weird Lit Magazine , and  more, and her chapbook We Are All Made of Glory & Soft, White Light was published by Bottlecap Press. She can be found at amandamitzel.com and on IG @amanda.mitzel.

Figured I had time left; Doesn’t everyone, it seems. Thought I could be deliberate. Consider options, at least. Then they gave me the news. Told me to get my affairs in order. Square away messes I made— The shambles my life had become. At first, I was devastated. Who, on this unsteady earth, Wouldn’t feel the floor drop, Fathoms below their feet? I envisioned a future, without one. A black hole, like my dad warned, And nobody knows where he ended up. Guess I’ll simply pass my days— Or what remains of them. Try to discover new hobbies. Study a few foreign languages, Should different tongues be spoken In any place that will have me, After I cast off this coil. Yet, I’m prepared to meet my Maker, If such a Supreme Being exists. Give him a piece of my mind. Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and T his Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse , a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.

The tent flap opens and it’s her mother. Draped in elegant blue fabrics, adorned in white gold and garnets, her steps are tight and quick as she marches toward her daughters. Ana was more or less fine until now, disoriented by the surreality of her surroundings, she hasn’t had enough mental footing to get truly anxious. But the nervousness her mother brings with her saturates the air, and Ana’s pulse begins to climb.  Her mother has directed every aspect of the preparations. She’s lost her temper with the dressmaker, made her sisters practice hair and makeup on each other, and lectured about the ceremony for hours. “Keep your chin lifted, Ana. Walk with confidence – with purpose. Do not, under any circumstances, stumble or trip on your dress.” The same words, over and over.  “How are you feeling?” she asks now. Ana’s youngest sister smooths down a sleeve, inspecting it for blemishes while her eldest sister fixes her hair. Scared , she wants to answer, but tucks the word under her tongue. Her mother’s eyes narrow, and Ana hopes it isn’t dissatisfaction she’s seeing on her face. She holds one hand with the other to keep them both from shaking. Her ribs are crushed by her bodice; it squeezes like a cinched and frozen serpent, shortening her breath and smashing her breasts. Her sisters don’t make a sound as they attend her, dabbing and straightening and plucking specks of lint.  “Fine,” she lies, avoiding eye contact.  The tent is large, thrown with rugs, and a brume of frankincense permeates the space. It's warmed by small heaters, but she can still feel the chill through the canvas walls. The wind pushes them inward with violent palpitations that crack like sails in a tempest. Her mother cups Ana’s chin in her hands. They’re as soft and cold as fresh snow and they tilt her head upward, forcing eye contact. When she looks, Ana sees a trace of warmth there, buried deep in the gunmetal blue of her mother’s eyes. She reaches for it but it does little to soothe her.  “You're going to do fine,” her mother says. The words sound tender, but feel final. Ana doesn’t know who they’re meant to reassure. Her mother understands her nature, having spent sixteen years trying to change it. Now, Ana wonders how much her mother fears she will burst from the tent and run away as fast as her oppressive dress will allow. She’s sure everyone in her family shares that worry, and their concern isn’t misplaced. She’s been considering doing just that from the moment she stepped in the tent.  Her mother squeezes her shoulders firmly and leaves quicker than she entered. Ana turns to look in a gold-framed mirror sat between a chest of drawers and a table laid with ornaments: necklaces and bracelets, a dainty gold crown. The knife. Ana is hypnotized by her reflection. Her hair was brushed for an hour and fixed into an elaborate, shining braid. Her dollish makeup erases the burn under her nose from when she pressed it against a hot pan as a child, trying to smell bread fresh from the oven. She’s never felt beautiful before. She’s never been dressed this way, in soft white that falls in cascading folds like sheets of buttercream frosting. It’s a dress made to be worn only once, intricate with lace and silk and other fabrics she can’t name. She’s never seen or touched them before.  “You don’t look real,” her sister says over her shoulder in the mirror. Her eyes are near-vacant; they don’t seem to see Ana, and Ana doesn’t understand the detachment she feels from the girl she spent so much time giggling and gossiping with. She wonders if her sisters are jealous of her. Maybe of the dress, she thinks, but not of what it means. No girl is that foolish.  “None of this feels real,” Ana says, and almost falls over when she turns to face them. The dress makes her movements stiff and awkward, and her sisters steady her before they begin decorating her with jewelry. The necklaces go on first, and the bracelets. The veil is draped, and the small crown set over it. Her pulse is in her temples. She’s becoming lightheaded. Her body hums as her nerves condense, forming a molten nest that surrounds her heart. Her vision zooms in and out, trying to find focus through the chiffon.  A man’s voice thunders from outside and there are other voices too – smaller chattering spread across a crowd. Ana closes her eyes and listens, unable to make out the words or discern how many people there are. She hears the waves then, tucked in with the slapping wind, louder than the man, and she finds a momentary pause of calm. The infinite roll of the ocean has been the heartbeat of her life. She projects herself to its surface in a little boat in her mind, making herself feel its steady, arhythmic rocking. She takes a single, deep breath, her chest defying the bodice.  A strong hand falls on her shoulder. “It’s time.” Her father. She opens her eyes and looks at him, poised and serious, his thick jaw held high. His eyes point down at her, and she feels the same distance she feels from her sisters. The usual familiarity and warmth are gone, as if her family has been replaced by skinwalking spirits. Imposters. Or maybe they’ve temporarily forgotten who she is, dressed this way, without grime beneath her chewed-down fingernails and sand in her hair.  He gestures toward the table, to the one remaining item. Her hands tremble as she picks up the knife and holds it upright against her bodice, the way her mother showed her. The handle is polished bone, fatter than a broom handle, and long enough to fit both her small hands. This can’t be real, she thinks, it just can’t be. Soft weeping eeks from her sisters in the corner, and her father takes her elbow, leading her to the tent flap. He stops before they exit.  “I’m so very proud of you,” he tells her, and the words sound practiced. The shapes in his face shift as she studies him for any hint of softness. From behind her veil, his features slide unnaturally with the flickering light. What she sees is the suggestion of her father, but it isn’t the person who’d scolded and praised her all her life. “You and your sisters are the most precious things in my life,” he says. The word – things – hits with another crack of the canvas that startles her as the sounds of the ocean and wind wrestle like quarreling gods outside.  Her father opens the tent, revealing the path to the altar at the end of the rocks, and the rows of people who are there to witness the ceremony. She catches glimpses of the fine suits and dresses beneath their heavy coats as they stare. The rain blows sideways in thin strands. The real storm hasn’t started, and there isn’t much time. She feels tethered to the safety and comfort of the tent even as her father pulls her from it. The witnesses, some familiar, some strangers, watch silently as she passes. Her veil dances against the wind, the meager weight of it the only defense against the gale.  “Do you see it?” her father whispers. “There, in the clouds at the horizon?” Above the porpoise-colored and thrashing waves, far off, a dark range of storm clouds hangs. Behind the veil, she can see they’re blacker than the night that surrounds them, thick as a volcanic plume.  “Do you see?” he asks again, more firmly. She’s shaking as she looks for the shape of the thing in the clouds. It’s hard to see anything, but she tells herself she does. She knows she’s supposed to. She sees it.  “Yes,” Ana lies.  There’s no moon or stars and the surrounding cliffs are lit by fires that show as streaked and jagged blades climbing their faces. Thunder tumbles through the cove, and a wave punches the rocks. A spray of dark water explodes up, feet from the altar, and her father squeezes her elbow tightly. He’s dragging her now. She wants to run back to the tent.  A woman is singing somewhere in the crowd, a church song, and Ana’s delicate slippers fill with water as they land awkwardly on the craggy surfaces. She presses the knife more tightly against herself as her hands start to freeze and loosen around the handle. Some people are crying, the sound almost snuffed by the storm and sea.  Her mother stands near the altar, beside the priest. Ana can’t read her expression, but she’s never been able to. The priest steps forward and waits for her. He’s dressed in black, as all priests are, and is a foot taller than her when she reaches him. Her father releases her elbow and it feels as if the wind may blow her away, across the ocean, catching her dress like a tossed flower. She wants it to.  The priest looks down at her delicate veil. He lifts it slowly before the wind snatches it violently up over the crown. He stares at her with adoration and pity as rain spits in her face.   Without the veil, the world is too vivid. The priest’s face is old and pocked. He held her as an infant and watched her grow. His smell, unavoidable because he always stood too close, has made her nauseous her whole life. It’s putrid meat and musty paper, and she can smell him now, even in the rain. He brings a large, ornate cup to her lips and tilts it.  The liquid is thick and bitter as it enters her. There are fibers in it she can almost chew and a trace of it tracks down her chin that the priest catches with a thick finger as she forces down gulps. Her body revolts, stomach spasming, throat locking. She jerks her head back, but the priest’s enormous, granite hand seizes the back of her neck and he tilts the cup harder, pinning it against the corners of her mouth until she’s drained it. When she’s done, he steps back and it’s as if Ana is tumbling in the waves themselves. The world swoops in circles like rolling down a hill, colors and lights spark in her eyes. The wind bullies her.  “See the Colossus, little one,” he says, bringing his hot breath close. “See it. Know your purpose, and be grateful.” He steps aside, stretching out his arm toward the horizon. She looks across the stone table of the altar. “Do you see the shape of its wretched anatomy tangled in the storm?” he asks. The priest’s brew warmed and numbed her; she’s not sure if the whirl of her vision is the world moving or her body. Maybe it’s her brain rolling in her skull like a sticky-wet ball of dough. Her eyelids feel tied with anchors. She squints, trying to see the danger that looms over them. She knows what she’s supposed to say. There is only one answer ever expected by a priest.  “Yes.” Her voice has become a slow pour of syrup.  “Do you see its monstrous head moving to consume us?”  Her eyes are barely open, and she’s worried she might vomit all over her pretty dress. “Yes.” She swallows the vomit.  “Do you understand your purpose?”  Her father explained her purpose to her over and over again, all her life, even before she was chosen.  “Yes.”  The priest grabs her tightly by the shoulders. The thumbs of his mammoth hands almost touch across her thin clavicle. His eyes are black in the shadows of his deep sockets. He spins her toward the witnesses with little effort, dizzying her further, her mind unable to keep time with the world. He calls out strange words she doesn’t understand. They’re muddy, and in some language she recognizes but doesn’t speak. The witnesses respond in unison. The storm has grown stronger and no one is crying; maybe the time for that has passed. Staring at the throng, the faces look the same, distorted by the rain that comes down harder. Her parents are amongst them, but she doesn’t know which shapes they are. She wonders if her sisters are watching. The priest turns her back again.  “Now, lay down on the altar and ready yourself for me.” She falls forward onto the table and attempts to climb, but her limbs won’t respond fully to her command. The priest hoists her up in a clamor that’s made clumsy by her dress and intoxication. He rolls her onto her back. The wind, rain, and sea slosh dully in her ears, and she’s nauseated again. The altar table feels like it’s been spun like a dial. The cold stone beneath her naked thighs causes a low sear of panic. Everyone can see her legs, but her body is too heavy and useless to do anything about it.  The rain forces her eyes closed as the priest drones on. His words garble like a drowning man’s. He yells, and the witnesses answer. He yells again and again. Ana pushes the human sounds away and listens to her ocean. She feels her heart align with its chaos, and she goes back to her mental boat. The rain feels thick as wax sliding down her frigid body. Her pretty dress is drenched through. She sees prismatic shapes behind her lids and, for a sweet moment that melts almost as soon as it appears, Ana forgets where she is.  The yelling ceases; she rests in the hypnotic, tuneless music of water.  Ana opens her eyes. The priest is holding the knife. She doesn’t remember him taking it from her, and rain runs from its tip. It’s crying for me , she thinks. The priest’s face is passionless, his eyes still hidden in shadow as he adjusts the blade's position in both hands above her. He calls over her body, across the ocean to the thing that will consume them. She lets her head fall to the side, away from the priest and the witnesses and her father and mother and sisters. She wants to look at the ocean.  The horizon is dark, but she thinks she sees stars out there, resting on the lip of the Earth like hastily drunk milk. The end of the storm. She examines the clouds again, searching for the Colossus, and finds nothing.  It’s just a storm, she thinks. Why do they think they can stop a storm?  The stiff fat of the priest’s hands lands on her chest. She feels nothing as her body jerks once against the force. She feels nothing as her soft heart is lanced, as she hears the tip of the knife snap against the stone beneath her – she has served her purpose. Jimmy Gardner lives and writes by the ocean in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently at work on his debut novel and publishes short fiction and personal essays on Substack under the publication Clean Chaos .

The alphabet is not enough  to convey the complexity of a mind.  Rounded subtleties express ennui  where there should be evocations  clawing their way out of living rock.  Which came first?  the desert on my tongue? or  the glacier in my gut?  Lain amongst sand and shadow,  I bleed on the rubbery points  of hen-flowers. I’ve become reduced  to an instance  in succulence.  I hear a voice. Their voice? They  speak in teeth. The Archer splits  all cosmos in half: an apple  explodes asunder  by a tiny fragment of metal  and one instance of  combustion.  I feel the dying coming.  I feel the dying coming all the time.  Not coming for me.  It does not set out for I or anyone,  but I feel the dying coming all the time;  the killing comes by surprise.  I hear a voice. The most ancient voice.  Water. Old holy sound, one  drip at a time. My mouth, my nose,  held within the depths of the Dipper. A thirst that cannot be quenched—  the desert on my tongue.  A soul trapped in its corpse—  the glacier in my gut.  A marsh of starlight where sight gets stuck  as I gaze in awe,  a reverence for what  cannot be understood.  I hear a voice of grinding teeth.  A shroud, asleep, in my mother’s arms,  spread open. She sleeps in tongues.  A voice of feathers in my head.  A final whisper trapped in bubbles  beneath a milky sea.  Death, extant in memory. John Wise (he/ him) is a middle school English teacher living in Florida. Whether writing on his own or when working with his students, he promotes writing that is deeply rooted in curiosity, craft, and the sheer joy of creating. John has poems published or forthcoming in Midsummer Dream House, Seedlings, JAKE, Pine Hill Review , and Moonlit Getaway , among other publications. You can find him on BlueSky @central2nowhere.

̶  Jessica Nirvana Ram Like the Madonna in stained glass, I too allowed myself to be broken into blue fractals. I segmented my fingers further as I tried to hold my child, knowing he’d be broken as well. We allow others to decide which shapes go together after the initial shattering, to decide if the crown should stake into our foreheads or rest gently in our hair. My love, you weren’t the first to decide I could become smaller, could become a martyr for you, but you were the first to see the broken disc of light behind my head and not cry from staring at it too long. You just wanted me to become more than a beacon on a hill, more than a lamb underneath a tree. You wanted me to continue the cycle of breaking and restoring, and you wanted others to gaze upon my broken light and know that it would be their fate as well. Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in SoFloPoJo, Cotton Xenomorph, Bullshit Lit, HAD, fifth wheel press , and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.

I’m sorry for asking questions a mother isn’t made to answer —spirit or otherwise. So many times I addressed you, Why won’t you let me die? Last winter I asked you to lay me down with a morning snow to watch it build on branches one last time. Please don’t confuse my recent infatuation with life with a desire not to see you. I picture you clearly enough in this fight too. When I sip my morning coffee and write you’re reading your heavily noted bible alongside. I’m still trying to refrain from pestering you from your meditation. When I spend time with my little brother, whose first months were your last, and my partner, who you never had the chance to meet, I’m picking up our lost minutes. This morning I sit by the window and we watch the hoarfrost grow, just as we will next time it snows. Bea Morrow is a transfemme photo poet based in Minneapolis, MN. She recently graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a Photography BFA. Her self-published books have been collected by MCAD and the Hennepin County Library’s artist book collections.