by Neon Books
-
He drives to work. There's no interesting weather feature that day. He doesn't use the motorway. There are no numbers to count on B roads.
He drives home from work. On the way he stops at a services. Buys a dirty magazine. Has to double back to his lay-by. Crawls into the back seat, mag in one hand, torch in the other. Batteries are flat. He buries the magazine under the front seat. Recalls the babysitter. Unzips his fly.
-
He sits in the car. Waits for his wife. Chants the mantra: your hair looks nice. Thumbs the paper. Ogles the third-page titties. Reads new news. Remembers old news.
He drives his wife home. Her hair doesn't look nice. It looks expensive. A hairspray fog masks the tang of petrol, even with the window down. She makes him put it up.
The wind'll ruin my do.
He lets her out on the drive. She dashes for the house. He lets the engine idle.
-
He passes a crash. Vectra and Focus, nose to tail. Crumpled. Coppers. Paramedics. Fire crew. Ambulance parked up skew-whiff not for nothing. He wants to see what it hides. Slows to a crawl. Cop waves him through.
-
He hits a cat. It runs out in front of him. Bloody wee shite. Jolts the car. He keeps going. Heads for the carwash. Rollers crush over him. He doesn't have the stomach for cleaning up blood these days.
There's light at the end of the tunnel but it's only the same old day. Just enough distance left. He unzips his fly.
-
He takes the babysitter home. She doesn't chat tonight.
Are you alright, love?
She cries.
How's about a drink, love?
He drives to a pub. Not his local. Gets her a double. Gets himself a single. Just enough to take the edge off. Gets her another. Gets himself cheese and onion crisps. Gets two more doubles. Tips one inside the other. Gives her the glass. Lights his first cigarette in three months.
He helps her into the car. Into the back. Drives to his lay-by. Cuts the engine. Tree corpses crowd round him. Ghosts. Memories. Rose-coloured. Withered.
He gets in the back with her. Lifts her skirt. Tugs down her panties. Pink. Stretchy. No lace. Buries them under the front seat. Drives her home. Leaves her at the corner. Drives himself home. Parks in the garage. Old habits. Looks hungrily at the back seat. Presses himself against the door. Grinds into it. Sighs. Goes inside.
-
He drives to work.
He drives to work.
He drives to work.
He drives to work.
He drives to work.
-
He forgets about the magazine. He forgets about the panties. He doesn't forget about the babysitter. But he only remembers what he wants to remember. Always he only remembers what he wants to remember.
It's dark. He wipes himself off on a soft cloth he finds under the front seat.
-
He piles the cases into the boot.
Taking a trip?
His wife watches from the bedroom window.
Aye, but business, like, you know.
He gets into the car. Slots the key in the ignition. Gets away from home.
He stops at the motel. Has to park out in the open. Takes one case from the boot. Leaves the other. Checks in. Goes to the bar. Orders a large one.
Ya alright, pal?
Bloody wife, bloody threw me out. Bitch.
Playing away, were ya, so?
He bites his tongue. Drowns his sorrows. Doesn't clock the harp inked on the barman's neck, the stomp of his heavy boots.
Barman takes his keys.
Don't want you doing owt daft, do we? ABS's fuck all use if you're pissed as a rat.
He doesn't remember anything.
-
He checks out. Gets his car keys from reception. Remembers the barman. Sharp lad. Cocky. Type They were always on the look-out for. Type he was once. Nothing for his sort now. 'Cept maybe the Dissidents and they're a fucking bad joke.
He goes to his car. It's been parked out all night. Poor baby. He hesitates. Wonders. But the carpark's full of comings and goings. And nobody checks underneath anymore.
He gets in. Slots the key in the ignition. Thinks about his drive to work. The numbers he'll have to count down: 12... 11... 10... 9… Turns the key. Hurtles skyward in a thousand bloody fragments.
Michael Frazer
Image by Maurizio Carta
Point Null
I tried to kill my reflection, tried to kill the bastard, by counting the paces from the mirror to the middle of the street, walking back twice that distance and waiting for a car to pass. I think the driver was listening to something by Vampire Weekend, but that's not really what's at stake here. I heard the thud of the vehicle passing over the body. Ran back to find him dead in the middle of the street. Dragged his body to the mirror. Dammit, there were three reflections now. The mirror breeds an ill symmetry. Thus, he refuses to die, even when I let slip his lifeless body to the tiled floor with another thud. The third reflection does likewise, lets the second body fall out of view. Gone.
And when I die, there will always be at least one remaining. Because when I die, my final reflection will close his eyes, half-homage half-mockery, with me. But even when I'm buried in the darkness, he will live on, even if he leaves the mirror forever. Because, though he closes his eyes, and though he may be lowered into the ground symmetrically, he will only be napping, or pretending to nap. And if he leaves the mirror, he could leave the coffin. And if he can manoeuvre between two mirrors, to create a million more reflections, he can find life in infinite regression, spiralling into a point beyond null, beyond the weight of gravity and the necessity of space, no longer the lone reflection bearing the weight of a cigarette scar.
Reflection 1: A reflection (deceased)
Reflection 2: A reflection of a reflection (stillborn)
Reflection 3: A reflection (?)
*
Its
Tail In Fright
At 22 I forgot what it
meant
to be sober
without a drink in hand
At 20 I forgot how to hate
my father never
knew I did
At 23 I forgot the lizard
sheds its tail
in fright
only to
regrow
it
Kate Folk
Image by "nahuel1992"
Where There's Smoke
You're eighteen and have just finished your first semester at an expensive liberal arts college in Vermont. You're back in Minnesota for Christmas. Your parents are sixty miles away at the outlet mall, buying discoun
ted Gap hoodies for your many cousins. You refused to go, claiming a sore throat. It's twelve fifteen. You have just put a pan of cookies in the oven.
You'll soon be in the worst pain you've ever experienced, several orders of magnitude above your occasional menstrual cramps, headaches triggered by perfume, and the time you broke your wrist at Disneyland. The pain will carve out a new space inside you, one you can crawl into when you need a rest.
You lie on the overstuffed, striped love seat with a view of the driveway, waiting for the oven timer to sound. To your right is a piano that hasn't been tuned in twenty years. You keep a finger on one of the white keys, a high, shrill note, because that's what you can reach. Every thirty seconds, you push it down and wait for the sound to fade. You are interested in those last moments of sound before silence, the exact boundary between the two things.
You would have unfurled the curtains but you like the warmth of the sunlight through the glass. It bakes your face and forearms, making you sleepy and slightly nauseous. Outside, it's ten degrees. You saw a family of deer earlier. Their eyes were blank orbs; their nostrils spilled steam. They poked their noses under the snow and then ran off, startled by something you couldn't see. This is a snow-blanketed land of farmhouses and spindly trees. You are contained in a snow globe, waiting to be shook.
A UPS van circles, once, twice. Then it backs into your parents' driveway.
Last night at a gas station, you stood in the beer cooler with a man who wouldn't stop staring at you. Late twenties, topaz eyes, orange hunting jacket. He asked where you lived, what your parents did. His stance was stiff, and he spoke carefully, slowly enough to unnerve you. You gave him your phone number because he reminded you of someone from your dorm whom you find attractive. By the transitive property of lust, you found this man attractive, too.
When the UPS truck comes, you wait just long enough that you can no longer run upstairs and hide; he has seen you. He gets out of the truck. He is wearing a black parka, jeans, work boots. You are embarrassed to be wearing no makeup, but at least you are fully dressed, in jeans and an oversized wool sweater.
You and the man look at each other through one of the small, square windows in the door. He's about your height. Blue eyes. You pause with your hand on the brass door handle. When you were in first grade, a tall fireman dressed in full fireman gear came to your class and taught you about fire safety. Feel the doorknob, he said, and if it's hot, don't open the door.
The handle is cold. You open the door.
The man kicks it in and it knocks you backward. Your head hits the wall behind you. You try to stand up, and he punches you in the mouth, then blindfolds you and ties your hands behind your back.
He doesn't bother with a gag. You couldn't scream loud enough for anyone to hear you. Even the deer are far away now, over the ridge.
Footsteps pitter-patter around you. Men's voices. The smell of cigarettes. They are boxing things up, putting them on the truck. They put you on the truck last. You flail and kick, and are shoved against the side of the truck.
Your arm has been pulled out of its socket. The pain tunnels through you. You can think of nothing else. You're composed wholly of tortured sinew.
Someone runs his hands over you, inspecting. He pops your shoulder back into its socket. You are grateful.
You bump along in the truck, which smells comfortingly of cardboard. You roll around, cultivating bruises, before managing to wedge yourself in a corner. Every few hours, the truck stops. Someone pets your hair and coos.
-
The shoulder was one thing; it persists as a nagging ache, like when you've left something at home but can't remember what. The worst pain is yet to come, in childbirth.
You live with the five men in the gymnasium of a burned-down school in Ontario. The windows are all broken. Birds nest in the eaves. The men always say they're going to shoot the birds, but so far they haven't.
You've been with them almost a year. You know from the changing of seasons; it's getting cold again. You hunker down at night in a sleeping bag with the topaz-eyed man, whose child you carry. He claims his name is Phoenix, but you heard the other men call him Brad.
During the day, they go hunting with your father's guns. You are left alone in the gym with the fluttering birds.
They bring in a midwife who only speaks French. You suspect she does know English, but refuses to speak it with you. She gives you commands accompanied by broad hand gestures. She is always knitting, and seems annoyed when she has to stop and tend to you.
Through the distorting haze of pain, like a wall of gas fumes, you suddenly remember the cookies you were baking the day they took you. You wonder how long the cookies stayed in the oven. Did they burst into flame? Could the curling fingernails of fire have crept from the oven and strangled the house?
Here's what happened that day. Your parents returned with bags of hoodies along with presents for you, which they hid in the garage behind bags of salt for the water conditioner. On entering the house, they smelled the smoke and heard the chirp of the oven timer. Because all things must happen in order, your parents first turned the oven off. What were once cookies were now shrivelled black discs that collapsed, when touched, into powder. Were they oatmeal chocolate chip, or regular chocolate chip? Did they contain nuts? No one could tell, because you put the ingredients away.
The ash coated everything in the kitchen. The tops of the fan blades wore black fur. The walls and the wood of the cabinets bore an acrid smell, a faint sheen of ash, long after your parents moved to escape the memory of you.
Heidi James
Image by Petr Kovar
The Points Of The Kite
The points of the kite tilt to the ground
Turn and turn, air supports and then
Neglects
Allows a collapse before collecting
Up the wings and fragile framework, again.
Tethered, it must land, it must return
We watch, a small crowd
Smoking cadged fags, mouths full of cheap cider
Swigged back, heads tipped up,
Eyes narrowed, watching a sky the colour of washing up water
The clouds like dirty suds
He took her hand
Not mine, with bitten nails
and said, "Want a go?"
She put on the leather glove
He whistled a high-pitched command
Flicking the limp body of a chick, greasy yellow with death
Not Easter fluffy
Over her fist. Overhead
The kite circles as if considering
Whether or not to make a run for it
I would if I had wings
I wouldn't hang around here, watching
Him nuzzle her neck
Giggle giggle giggle as the huge bird
Bolts in wings folding claws extended landing on her gloved fist with a
Shove
The sound of feathers rustling like a newspaper shook out to be read
He puts it back
On a perch in a box in his van. Its eyes covered with a fancy hood
She sits up front with him, his hand on her pale leg
The rest of us
Cram in
Around the boxed bird
For the drive back home
"I know someone with a gun,"
I say
No one answers, but close their eyes and doze over
&nbs
p; The bumps in the road
"He's old enough to be my dad," she said earlier
When I asked if she fancied him.
"Yes," I said, "I s'pose so."
*
Standing
Standing,
looking out over the gardens and flat, tar paper roof of the council office
her chest pressed against the rail
her coffee cup a warm curve in her palm
the high whine of the spin dryer
drowning out
the love songs of pigeons
and the school kids mustering
in the playground
she hopes this time it will work out.
She steps off the balcony
into the lounge
the sun pooling on the leather sofa
a small patch
fading faster, nothing lasts, is undone
a process of dilapidation.
Time gathers and culminates
around the objects
in the room
as quick as knives, quick as mirth.
In the bedroom, he sleeps flat as
a blank page
mouth open sucking air in
huffing out
a surprise of teeth – white – a full set
brown eyes
like an animal, thin light hair rises from flesh
I'm done with all the trouble
he said
All of it, she asked
All of it, all of it
How long for this time?
For good
Can I come home now?
And she let him in
because he looked clean
and it'd been a while
and because she missed
him
despite it all.
Last chance, she said,
And I mean it this time.
*
Living Here
Next door smokes too much,
he coughs and coughs all night
hacking up phlegm and spewing in the morning
Downstairs likes reggae
Upstairs, he gets pissed and handy with the missus on a Saturday night
and two floors up
They like a drink and a party, but not that often
They're alright
usually
And the old bird with the spotty dog who sometimes says hello and sometimes sniffs and whispers "Slag"
just depends
and the bloke
That pisses in the lift
And the good boys that smile and hold the doors open
When you've got loads of shopping
that sell skunk on the fourth floor
and nice quiet family from Africa somewhere
You see 'em going to church on Sunday in bright cotton clothes
And the alkie fat woman that knocks her kids around
in public
and calls 'em cunts
And the girl who threw herself off the 7th floor
They never mended that cracked paving slab
where she landed
And the junkie who died on our stairs
we stepped over to get to work
because, who would know the difference between sleeping and dying,