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Plaints of the Old Git

by Peter Hankins

These days you frown into the mirror’s face,
Displeased to see more wrinkles on your skin,
You seem to feel they carry some disgrace,
While I just make mine worse with one more grin.
It’s yet another way that life’s unfair,
I never felt I needed to be pretty,
I s’pose at least you’re keeping all your hair,
But I don’t care if I look sort of gritty.
There’s deeper stuff to mind about my face,
Stupidity and malice show their signs,
While shiftiness and greed have left a trace,
I cannot care too much about some lines,
You’ve read those lines and noticed what they say,
But that’s too dark for me: I look away.

I do forget too many needful things,
Appointments, jobs and meetings, special days,
I understand the stress and grief that brings,
I know it causes issues and delays.
And yet you know my mind retains like glue,
Embarrassments and gaffes from all my years,
The stupid things I did, or said to you,
They keep me up at night like childhood fears.
It’s not that I don’t think or ever care,
Regrets I’ve got, appointments just aren’t there.
It isn’t that I’m lacking in civility,
Could we not say it’s more a disability?

Next time I’m born, I’ll get my parents right,
The richest Dad and fondest ever Mum.
I’ll be to them a little ray of light,
I’ll use my words and sit down on my bum.
Next time I go to school I’ll do the work,
I’ll read the books and memorise what’s taught;
Revise for my exams and never shirk,
I’ll volunteer and be quite good at sport.

Next time I live, I’ll get the right career,
Well paid, well earned, rewarding and correct;
I shan’t devote my lunchtime hours to beer,
And if they come, I’ll get those symptoms checked.
So shed no tears, my darling: you must know,
I’ll love you still upon my second go.

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Wiffle Ball

by Gary V. Powell

After standing all day
in restaurants and retail stores,
after swinging limb to limb
and trimming trees with chainsaws
that could as easily take a man’s face
as a branch imperiling a building’s roof,
after carving beef quarters
into steaks and chops
with knives sharp enough
to sever arteries and fingers,
after assembling recreational vehicles
using drills, routers, and table saws
that made no distinction between
an arm and a two-by-two rail,
the men of Treasure Island Village
read the paper, watched the news
and ate dinner with their wives
before stepping out of their
aluminum-sided subdivision homes
and carrying their Millers and Buds
into streets and cul-de-sacs
where they played with their boys
in the pink light of summer evenings,
reclaiming for a little while
the weightless days of their youth,
unburdened by mouths to feed,
mortgages and car payments,
and the fear of losing the jobs
that ground them down
like a blade against a wheel,
throwing and batting and catching
and laughing into the gathering darkness
until all that remained of the light
was a wall of fireflies flashing
in an adjacent empty lot.

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Little Black Book

by Rebecca Victoria Blanchard

At the kitchen table, you drank your coffee and you wrote. I caught you sometimes, early in the morning, chewing on your glasses, scribbling in your black leather notebook, and I wondered what you wrote that captured your attention. Wrapped in your purple velour bathrobe, the smell of coffee, of burnt toast, untouched, your auburn and gray hair wildly independent, you seemed so focused, though not on us which I found disconcerting. 

Sometimes, when you didn’t notice me, I watched you, how different you seemed sitting there, writing, tugging absent-mindedly at a solitary piece of hair that dripped down your forehead. All your concentrated effort on the little book, scribbling, scratching out, confiding in it that which we would never be privy to, long sentences that seemed to flow effortlessly out of the end of your pen as it tried to keep up with your thought processes.  We would never know this side of you.  

You were always so self-conscious, so nervous about drawing attention to yourself, but so many people felt the impact of you. It’s funny, for as much as you tried to hide in the shadows, you lit them up with your very essence more than any of us who strove only for the limelight.  We vied for your attention, knowing your praise, deserved or otherwise, would propel us to where we wanted to go.  I used to wonder how you found the time, until one day, I realized you gave us your time, too. 

About your artist friend Max, the boy who gave you the gold locket and the love letters we found in your closet and read. Are you sorry now you didn’t take up with him, spend your life creating, starving artists, rich in love? How dull we must have seemed by comparison, with our whining demands for clean laundry and dinner. No wonder we found milk in the cupboard and the iron in the refrigerator. No wonder you always burned the biscuits even though you set the timer and stood, like a guard at the oven door. So many times we’d come into the room to find it beeping, and you, puzzled over why you had set it in the first place. 

I guess we didn’t leave much room for you, your high-strung family of extroverts, always seeking a spotlight, pushing and shoving if someone else got to it first. We always just assumed that if you wanted something from us, you would speak loudly enough, like us, to allow your words a voice that might penetrate the din of noise pollution we produced. It never dawned on us, on me,  that you could feel differently, quiet, soft-spoken, a little afraid. After all, in praise of us, you sang loud and clear. I only hope you can hear me now, singing yours. 

Oh, you had your wild side, on Saturdays, when garage sale signs lined the streets and you could barely take the time to finish breakfast for fear you’d miss all the good stuff. Then, all the rules changed, as minor traffic laws and driver courtesy became petty annoyances preventing you from a lawn full of junk on the other side of a busy highway, a time when illegal U-turns met with little resistance and red curbs designated reserved parking for your old, black El Camino. 

I still have the little couch I found at the yard sale in North Hollywood, the one that the pushy, obnoxious woman tried to buy out from under me. You came to my defense, spoke right up to her, though I knew, if you had discovered it instead of me, the old crow would have staked her claim to it without reprisal. You hated confrontation more than just about anything except maybe someone taking advantage of the underdog, or your children.

You always bought weird, heavy things like slabs of marble or cement bird-baths or bricks. To you, finding bricks resembled a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. You loved to create secret paths all over the yard, most of which led to nowhere. Once, you loaded down the back of a Studebaker station wagon with so many bricks, you wrecked the whole rear end, shocks and all. Though it dragged on the ground the whole way home, those bricks belonged to you, and nothing would stand in your way.  Dad flipped when we pulled into the driveway, ripping deep grooves into the asphalt as we lumbered up the hill. It took everything in my power to keep from laughing while you related the tale of the drive home and how people on the freeway should be more considerate of slower drivers, especially when it’s obvious they’re doing the best they can, considering the bricks and all…  You know, for someone who always forgot the punchline when they tried to tell a joke, you told one heck of a story. 

The stories you told always contained some watered-down moral lesson, a weakness you had fallen prey to as a child, like stealing the flowers out of Mrs. Gray’s yard. You felt such shame that you hid them behind the refrigerator at home so your own mother would never know her child’s evil ways. The flowers sat there for years, a daily reminder of your heinous crime, never spoken of, until I got caught for shoplifting at Montgomery Wards. Then, in a conspiratorial tone, you confided in me your most sordid tale so as to allow me the excuse of humanness as my defense. You never wanted it to hurt too much,  just enough to sting a little.          

You thought doctors often overlooked the human side of things, like explaining why your sister’s lung cancer, or your father’s, or your mother’s, would very likely kill them. Or, why the radical mastectomy you underwent the year before, and all the chemotherapy and all the radiation and all the debilitating sickness that came along with these procedures, did nothing to stop the spread of cancer in you. Nor did they explain to you why you would not see your grandson graduate from college, or marry, or your granddaughter become the first woman President of the United States, or why you would never know one of them, at all. 

You revered good health and health food guru Adele Davis, pored over her cookbooks as if they contained holy scriptures, made wheat rolls with enough healthy ingredients in them to render them inedible, and tried each new homeopathic remedy to hit the market, long before it came into vogue to do so. Few new fads or concoctions went untried. You fed us tablespoons of honey, carrot juice, and vinegar water for an upset stomach, all introduced by the now infamous words, “I read this article…” and we knew that, at least for a while, we would act as guinea pigs for your latest experiment. How I miss sampling your brews and your tales of old wives.

In August, for your birthday, we’d go shopping along the Sunset Strip, a birthday present to yourself, you would say. But the bags and bags of stuff always turned out to be full of things for me when we laid them out on the bed at home. That way, Dad yelled at you instead of me for spending too much money on my school clothes. It seemed so commonplace for you to take the blame;   I don’t remember feeling bad about it. But, now, as I write in my own journal, dumping hurt and pain upon the pages, I wonder if your little black notebook did the same for you, if its pages held onto the pain you wanted to unload. I wish I could take the blame from you now. But I let you for so long, I ran out of time.

Mother’s Day, 1986, the cancer had taken control of you, lived with you for three long years. Your children, wanderers by nature, carried on with their lives, always knowing, never believing, that you were going to die.  We also knew our time with you could not be taken for granted, so on that Mother’s Day, we flew and drove from all directions of the country to celebrate you.  Dad said you could not get out of bed, that the radiation and “chemo” had made you so weak we might not get to talk to you at all. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find you standing in the kitchen, cooking a welcome home dinner for us. Your cheeks full of color, radiance, you stood over the hot stove, downplaying your illness as an over-exaggeration by Dad. We begged you to sit down, to rest, let us cook for you, but you said you wanted to be a Mother for Mother’s Day, and your eyes reinforced your words. As evening fell, your face, strained with fatigue, showed all the signs of the illness devastating your frail body. You settled yourself back into your wheelchair as though you finally belonged there, never to rise from it again. Two weeks later, we lost you. 

The day you died, I took the black leather book from your house and put it on a shelf in my bedroom to keep it safe from harm. I looked at it every day, without opening it, wondering if I had the right, or the inclination. I thought about my own journals, the ones I write in the early morning hours, while drinking tea, wrapped in my robe at the dining room table, savoring the few moments I have each day before the kids bombard me with cries of missing socks and dirty gym clothes. In the early morning light, I realized I could not invade your privacy. 

After the kids went to school that morning, I took the book down from the shelf and lovingly touched the worn cover, almost able to feel your touch in doing so.  Then I drove to that little spot at Laguna that you loved so much and tossed your dreams, your fantasies, and your sadness out to sea. I realized at that moment I would never know what you found so compelling on those quiet mornings so long ago. But, somehow, I knew all that I needed to know.

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The Dead Whale

by Carol Keeley

Both dogs are leashed as we exit the car. We’d heard there was a dead whale on the beach earlier. It hit me like dread. A dead whale feels so portentous.

It’s my brother’s first walk on sand. Mike was in a neuro-ICU for the past week. He showed up on Thanksgiving eve with a fractured eye socket and brain bleeds, oblivious to his injuries. It’s still a mystery what happened. He was released to in-patient rehab, but instead the three of us are winging it. Typical of our stubborn clan. Mike is the eldest of eight. Our younger brother, Ter, is the upbeat host. I’m the worrier. Today’s goal is a beach walk.

When I called from the airport, Ter said Mike was excited to see me. I got teary. Crisis is an opportunity for repair. I was grateful Mike felt that too.     

“I don’t think he remembers,” Ter said gently. Meaning: remembers that we’ve been in conflict for years.

Neither of us can recall when we last saw each other. It might have been our father’s memorial, where family fissures widened. Or that’s my take. We’re a family of ten. We all have our own versions of everything. And stories tend to harden with age.

On the beach, I see a sad mountain of grey, the elegiac tail. Surrounding the mythic rib cage are marine biologists in bright orange waders. A giant crane bucks as it lowers its shovel. My brothers head toward the water, where the sand will be more firm for Mike’s walk. Ter pulls the barking dogs. I head to the whale.

This time with my brothers has been precious, as well as bruised. It’s hard to see my big brother so frail, but it invites a rare openness. He shares stories new to me. Ugly stories about our father, but also old hurts from high school and life.

“I was never the smartest guy in the room,” Mike says, “or the most athletic, or handsome, or socially graceful.”

I had no idea that he felt such quiet exiles—ones I feel, too. It’s the opposite of how I see him. He’s the pioneering eldest son. He’s the first openly gay deputy mayor in the U.S. He oversaw the budget for Los Angeles. To me, he’s always been dazzling.

 I ask whether that sense of not fitting in related to being gay—long before gay rights or parades. He shrugs, fading. I leave space, mindful his brain is still healing. And we don’t usually have such conversations.

The wound of not belonging seems to infect our family. A niece told me her dad insists none of us think he’s smart. Another brother is sure he’s called fat. My labels are broken and failure. We can’t know, of course, the true source of such shame splinters, though they’re common in alcoholic families. We seem to savage ourselves with judgments we ascribe to each other. No wonder connection feels thorny and fraught.

“We are the family of hurt feelings,” Ter said once. Hurt can shapeshift into bitter distance and mistrust. Into warring narratives.

They detached the head earlier, a biologist explains. The whale, a humpback, is too huge to remove without sectioning. Now a crane digs into the creature’s belly, hoisting buckets of gooey organs.

“Most dead whales are calves,” a dog-walker interrupts her, addressing me. “They get separated from their mothers during storms and can’t fend on their own.”

“Is that what you think happened?” I ask the biologist.

“Calves wean after a year,” she says. “This one was two and had a full belly of food, so seemed to be faring well.”

“It’s the wind farms,” a woman says, tugging her sweater. The biologist pauses before responding.

Yesterday morning, Ter dropped a stack of books on the kitchen counter, all about death and dying. I welcomed the topic. But it quickly veered into climate change, then a battle between his Catholicism and my Buddhism. Mike paced the kitchen as Ter and I argued, his hands clasped behind his back. Ter insisted that Buddhism lacks a creation story, so is somehow illegitimate. It’s not a religion, I said, confused.

“Just answer this,” Ter said, “Who created the universe?”

“Why is that the litmus test?” I laughed. “That’s random.”

The premise was absurd, but I delight in such arguments, and I knew we didn’t actually disagree. We were just in the wrong starting block. I tried to describe the view, not unique to Buddhism, that everything is an interwoven web of continual, mutual change. This is as true of a single tree—which depends on the soil and weather and industries—as it is of families and moods, our planet and this very moment.

“Let her finish,” Mike said, when Ter interrupted me. Then, “Don’t both speak at once.” Then, “No, that’s not what he said,” when I distorted something.

This delighted me, too. I’d forgotten how Mike used to referee our heated arguments as kids. His deep listening helped transpose sibling tension into something greater than its warring parts.

“Who made all of this?” Ter demanded, waving his arms.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we don’t need to agree on how it was generated to share a sense that it’s sacred and worthy of protection.”

Mike stopped pacing. “I agree,” he said.

I nearly levitated with joy.     

The differences in our family are vast—of politics, faith, sexuality, and income. In times of intense conflict, Mike would oversee a discussion, then conduct a vote. We are a messy democracy. It’s glorious when it works. But it’s felt brittle since our father’s death. I fear we’re as cleaved as the nation is by siloed certainties, by talking about instead of to one another.

I watch as the biologists take tissue samples, mark slippery bags, then drop them into buckets on a several rows of white tables.

They won’t know the cause of death until they do a full necropsy, the biologist says, if then. It’s often a vessel strike. There are many more shipping boats now. But this whale had no signs of an impact injury. Propellor gashes are obvious. All these scientists are volunteers, many from out of state. “People assume we have tons of funding,” the biologist tells me. “We don’t. We just care about this work and these animals.”

I leave the whale to catch up with my brothers down the beach. In the distance, Mike looks fragile, with his shuffling walk and bent head. Ter is animated beside him, juggling the dogs as they strain their leashes. I used to call my six brothers the Sequoias. All noble, sheltering wonders.

“What did I miss?” I ask eagerly.

“We were talking about you, actually,” Ter says. They both look grim.

My heart wobbles with fresh dread.

I believe our father is the crux of the family ruptures, not each other. After his death, I wrote through my fear of him, to break the spell of dark secrets. There were reactions. Terrible things were said to and about me. That’s my take on it. But Ter says the family felt rejected and judged. That I didn’t go to Thanksgivings anymore was hurtful.

No one tested any of these theories. They just grew into chasms on their own.

We head back up the beach, toward the dead whale. They’d been discussing the time two brothers came to my small town with our father. The root system for this wound feels more vast than the incident. We walk into the wind. It quickly goes sour.

They had every right to come, Mike and Ter argue. A niece lives here, too. Who was I to say her father couldn’t visit her? Of course, I say. I never said or thought that. I wasn’t told they were coming, so had other visitors. That’s why I didn’t see them. I can feel the tension as I walk alongside them. This fallout has festered for years.

Again, the argument seems to be in the wrong starting block. The conflict is embedded in a faux premise. Defensive anger climbs on all sides, including mine. So far this week, we’ve been able to discuss even difficult things with the love I know lies underneath, until this one conversation. So I stubbornly hope.

“Look, I want to do the repair,” I say. “I do. But this doesn’t feel like the right time or place. Can we pause for now?”

“We didn’t know about you and Dad then,” Mike says curtly.

 I stop walking, try to quiet my rioting heart. Then say, “I assumed you all knew and I didn’t matter.”

“That’s ridiculous,” they both hurl into the wind, as we draw near the dead whale again.

One of the fruits of a Buddhist practice is learning to question the perceptions we mistake for reality, to notice when we constrict. As anger surges, I pause to look at it. It’s tempting to reenter the story, the one that feeds my sense of grievance. But instead I ask, what’s being resisted? What feeling is that story constructed to avoid? Anger is often a shield for shame or fear.

That’s when I see that behind my heat-blaze is the sense of not mattering enough to believe, to protect. Touching this young injury frees me. The anger dissipates. I breathe along with the ocean’s pulse, softening. My brothers have supported me in countless generous ways, so their reaction in the moment makes sense, too.

“There’s no hierarchy of pain,” I tell them when we try, and fail, to have the conversation again days later. “Dad impacted all of us. Your hurt matters too.”

It’s not clear what killed this whale, the biologist tells a fresh crowd, as Ter wrangles the frantic dogs. This humpback had been dead for weeks. Most of her wounds, including a broken tooth, were from banging up and down the coast as a corpse.

Dead whales keep washing up on this shoreline. They’re taking samples to look for infections or parasites, for any possible cause, the biologist explains. But in many cases lately, they’ve unable determine a definitive cause of death. No, they don’t think it’s wind farms, she says to another beach walker. The biologist is too polite to say that claim is false and has been liked to the fossil fuel industry. That it persists despite being discredited.

What feeling is the wind farm story constructed to avoid? That we’re all interdependent. That we are fragile and finite and this planet is our home, the ocean our lungs, the whales our relatives.

There was a morning news story about gay men being drugged and robbed in New York. But Mike wasn’t robbed. It’s still unclear what happened. It might have been a spiked joint or the meds he was taking for pain. It could have been many things. It’s a troubling mystery. I long to know, if only to protect him.

Climate change has shifted food sources closer to shores, the biologist explains again as more gather, and cargo shipping has spiked since Covid. The causes for this animal’s death aren’t clear—they might never be—but the tragedy is.  

We watch the crane lower into the whale’s cavity again and lift its ghastly offering to the sky. We don’t have to agree on causes to know what’s worth protecting. That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t bear to lose any of my beloved seven siblings.

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The Memory Eater

by Eric Reitan

Malachi, who delivered mail for forty-seven years, stands at the screen door clutching a letter. He pictures the route he’ll have to take: north, west, and north again, stair-stepping through Tulsa’s tangled highways.

The branches of the old oak are their own kind of tangle, ice-coated, gleaming like quicksilver in the streetlamp’s glow. Behind the tree moves something large, dark, and shaped all wrong.

“Dad?”

The voice startles him. He shakes his head, looks at his fist. There’s an envelope in his grip with an address in blue ink, Claire’s precise handwriting. No stamp. And words scrawled in his own hand: Important. Remember.

Remember. He blinks and shakes his head again.

“Dad? Close the door. It’s cold out there.”

As if on cue, wind rattles the door. Ice-coated branches crackle and chime. A black shape behind the oak shifts into view.

“Dad!”

Why is he standing at the door? He looks at his hand. A letter. Important. Remember. The ink of those two words looks fresh. Not like the address. He can almost remember writing them.

He needs to ask Claire. She’d know. “Take me home.”

“This is home now, Dad. You live with us now.”

“How can I live with you? There’s no room.” Claire can’t handle more than a few hours with Dan’s wife. What’s her name? Something with an H.

He likes how the ice coats each blade of grass and shines on the wooden stairs. Not on the street, though. Too much heat from the day. He lifts the envelope.

Important. Remember.

“Oh God.” It’s almost too late. His heart thuds. He grabs the doorframe. Outside, multi-jointed black limbs settle like tapping fingers on the oak’s trunk. “I have to go! I need to ask Claire.” He shakes the envelope at Dan. The contents stir: the slip-slide of a necklace chain. He pictures a garnet pendant resting below Claire’s collarbone.

“We can’t go anywhere, Dad. Roads are slick as snot.”

“The roads hold the heat. They’re only wet.”

“Except where they’re not!” Dan sighs. “What you got there, anyway?”

“Claire told me…” He shakes the envelope at Dan again. He pictures his route: through downtown, past the Greenwood District. Up to a stranger’s door.

Dan squints. “Is that something from before Mom—” Dan closes the distance and tries to take the letter, but Malachi jerks it back, pressing it to his chest.

Dan sighs again. “It’s got an address on it. We’ll put it in the mail when the weather clears.”

“It’ll be too late. Little Danny will be cursed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know!” Tears form in his eyes and he blinks them back, swallows them back, refuses to cry in front of his son. “Claire knows.”

“I’m sure she did.”

There’s a pressure in Malachi’s chest, a pressure he can’t allow. He swivels back to the ice-glazed night. Something large and black moves through the freezing rain: a dozen insectile limbs with too many joints; a massive, sagging body the color of tar or black oil; a mouth that…a mouth that…

It opens wide. He sees. He screams.

*

The living room furniture doesn’t suit the house. He knows these beautiful old two-story homes, built in the 1920s with their creaky floors and built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace.

He’s holding a mug, but what’s in it isn’t coffee. It smells like coffee but it’s darker, oilier, moving in a way coffee shouldn’t move.

“You feeling better?”

Malachi looks at Dan. His boy. When did his boy grow a beard? It looks silly on him. “I need to go home.”

“Dad—”

“It’s close. You should let Danny walk by himself next time. You’re overprotective.” He tries to picture his grandson Danny, but all he can see is Dan, his little boy Dan who’s got a beard now and is staring at him with sad, angry eyes. How can eyes be sad and angry at the same time?

“Danny started walking to your place when he was eight, Dad. Walked there almost every day before—” Dan shakes his head. “What’s the point?”

Malachi tries to picture little Danny walking by himself. “How old is he now?”

“Fifteen tomorrow. We’ll have a party if the ice melts.”

Malachi lurches to his feet. “Fifteen.” He looks around. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The envelope! I—”

The black thing oozes from the mug until a spidery limb breaks free.

*

Malachi wakes in the night and reaches for Claire. His hand closes on emptiness. He sits up, back protesting. Enough light seeps through the curtains to show this isn’t his bedroom. But one of Claire’s paintings is on the wall: a boy squatting by Swan Lake.

“That’s what our boy will look like, don’t you think?” Claire says. She’s toying with her garnet pendant, the one he gave her, the one she never takes off except to shower.

“Not right away.”

“Of course not, silly.”

“He’s got a beard now. Why does he have a beard?”

Claire doesn’t answer. He looks for her but she’s gone.

He gropes for the bedside lamp, struggles to find the switch. Finally light spills over the rocker, the one they could never part with despite the missing spoke. Why is it here? The world’s all wrong, all sideways. Malachi lurches up and looks for something to wear. The clothes in the closet hang neatly alongside a creature made of oil, with limbs like multi-hinged sticks and a sack-like body with a mobile mouth.

He doesn’t scream because then Dan will come and stop him, and Danny will turn fifteen and the curse will consume him. He grabs clothes and throws them on over his night shirt, slides into the loafers by the rocker, turns his back on a dozen black legs reaching through a gap in the rocker’s spokes, and staggers into the living room.

What’s he looking for? His eyes scan the hutch, stop on the envelope. He snatches it and studies the address. For forty-seven years he delivered mail. He knows where this is.

Outside, everything is crystalline. Tree branches creak under the weight of ice. The landing and steps shine with slickness, but if he can reach the grass he’ll be fine. He grips the black iron railing. He’s stiff but strong. Walked miles every day of his life.

He can do this. Across Utica, through Swan Lake Park, north on St. Louis.

He shoves the envelope into the inside pocket of his tweed coat and starts down the steps. The railing moves beneath his fingers: flexing, unfolding. He flings himself forward. The lawn crunches under him, a hundred blades of grass turned to tender icicles.

*

A bronze sculpture of a trumpeter swan spreads its wings, preparing to take flight.

The Trumpet of the Swan. One of his favorite books. He read it to Dan and then Danny. Have they finished reading it yet? Danny will want to know how it ends.

A crack like a gunshot. A crash. A car horn starts to bleat.

He looks towards the aftermath: across the street, by a house built with oil money, a house with columns and pretensions and too many rooms. A tree limb has surrendered to the weight of ice, branches splayed over an SUV’s roof, one limb pushing through the glass.

He has to get home. Dan is waiting for him to finish The Trumpet of the Swan. But Swan Lake Park has become a wonderland of glittering slickness. And the tree limb across the street, tired of tapping the horn, rears up, its body a flaccid sack of tar-coated fat, its limbs crackling like the ice as it straightens dozens of knobby joints.

The body heaves and twists to expose a gaping mouth, a mouth full of fire and gunshots, rage and terror, the blackened skeletons of houses, and blond-haired women darting from the ruins, golden prizes in their fists.

Malachi flees, falling by the statue of a mostly-naked youth scolding a swan.

“I need to get home,” Malachi says. “Claire will know.”

“Home is gone. Claire is gone.” He doesn’t know who says it, but it sounds like Dan’s voice when he’s cranky and condescending.

“My house is just half a mile that way!” He flings his arm toward the path he knows, a path written in his bones.

“Where did you kiss her first, Malachi?”

This sounds nothing like Dan.

Malachi rises, turns in a circle, trying to remember the last time he kissed her. Was it here? Claire loved Swan Lake.

“The first kiss,” Claire says. “Not the last.”

He looks for her, but his eyes land on a massive bulk heaving incrementally across the street, piston legs hauling and straining, maw swiveling towards him, releasing the sound of bombs and bullets and the last cries of the dying.

*

They always go through the kitchen door, the family door. The front door is for strangers and guests, for dinner parties that stretch into the night with candles and Claire’s bright laugh.

The door is locked. He pats his pockets for the key, then looks for the rock under the holly hedge where they hide the spare. There’s no rock, no hedge. Everything is wrong and the black thing is moving in from the side, limbs skittering, bulk-sack body swinging so its mouth flops towards him.

He pounds on the door. “Claire!” He keeps pounding until lights turn on inside, and then the light over the door. A man yanks it open. “What the fuck!” He’s huge and black-bearded.

Malachi flees, skids on a slick patch but somehow keeps his feet. He was always good at that, keeping his feet, but it’s harder now and a monster is chasing him and a strange man shouts after him to wait, come back, come inside.

“Where did you kiss her for the first time?”

*

They were seventeen when it happened, but they’d always known each other. Malachi never had a sibling. What he had was the girl next door. While war tore the world apart, they played in Woodward Park. When Claire’s brother came home without a leg and everyone called him a hero, Malachi and Claire used their allowances to buy candy cigarettes at Sipes. When the river flooded Riverside Drive, they rode their bikes there to see the spectacle.

But the first kiss happened on a hot summer night outside the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, two weeks before their senior year. They’d been to a choir concert and were waiting at the base of the broad church stairs for Claire’s father to pick them up.

That was when Malachi gave her the garnet pendant. Of course he fumbled with the clasp, and of course she giggled at his clumsiness. She asked him how it looked and he said beautiful.

*

He clutches the black rail that bisects the concrete stairs, his neck aching as he looks up at the church’s art deco spire: sweeping lines of limestone and terra cotta sculptures that resemble Incan gold. His body shivers. His hip aches and his chest lances with pain. He wonders if he’s broken a rib.

“Claire? Why are—”

“Where’d you get it?” she asks, lifting it from its resting place on her collarbone. The garnet’s facets catch the moonlight.

“Mom,” he answers. “She gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday. Said to give it to the right girl when I found her. ‘I don’t have a daughter, and I don’t want it anymore.’ That’s what she said.”

He never asked why she didn’t want it. His thoughts were anchored to the first part: When you find the right girl. He knew it would be Claire, even though it took two years to build up the courage to give it to her.

“Why are you giving me a family heirloom?” Claire asks.

“Because you’re the right girl. You’ll always be my family.”

Tears fill her eyes. She rises to her tiptoes to kiss him, and his feet slip out from under him, and he falls onto icy concrete. Pain shoots up his tailbone.

“Claire?”

She was here, and it was a summer night, and the stored heat from the day still poured from the church’s limestone walls. His eyes rove up along the spire. The thing perched on top looks like it’s impaled, but then the legs begin to move, and the body slips like liquid through the spire’s blades.

It scuttles downward with a clacking like a hundred metal legs, or a thousand, or the sound of icy tree limbs snapping and crashing all around.

*

An old man huddles over a trash can lid where paper cups, catalogues, and plywood bits are starting to catch fire. The man’s grizzled face breaks into a smile. He shakes the lighter at Malachi in triumph before settling back to stare into the flames.

Malachi smells garbage, urine, and something sweet, like apple pie. He eases closer to the fire. A glance around shows him he’s in an alley. The black thing is framed by the buildings at one end, but it stays just beyond.

The old man nods to himself before looking back at Malachi. “New here,” he says. “Bad night.”

“Cold,” Malachi answers.

The old man nods.

“I can’t do it myself, Malachi. I wish I could, but I can’t anymore. Just…please, it isn’t ours. It never was.”

He blinks at Claire, flat on her back in the bed. Claire always slept on her side, her knees pulled up.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s stolen!”

Malachi shakes his head. Anger rises in his throat. Why would she say such lies? “My own mother put it in my hand.” He shouldn’t snarl at her, not when she’s sick, but how can she speak such lies?

He turns away, his body trembling. He slips, grabbing the dumpster’s edge to slow his fall. Still, he lands with a crack on the cold concrete. The pain surges up his spine.

“I saw it in a picture,” she says from the bed. Malachi blinks back tears, because she’s dead and he’s so angry with her, and her voice is so weak and the pain is shooting up his back and the old man’s face is hovering close.

“I know, I know,” says the old man. “Slick as snot.” His words cover up Claire’s voice, but her words remain, words about the picture in the library display and the throat of a beautiful woman. “Like a Black Mona Lisa,” Claire whispers. “The same smile.”

The old man helps him back to the fire.

“That’s not proof of anything!” he declares. “There could be more than one like it, right?”

“Of course,” says the old man.

“My family. We were never racists.”

“If you say so.”

But Claire isn’t done. Her voice comes from all around now, echoing in the bricks, gliding across the ice and up his spine: “Looters.” Malachi’s eyes rake towards the end of the alley. He sees them, the looters, running in and out of ruined homes—and the tarry black thing there with them, its maw open and its spider-legs clicking against the alley’s walls.

Malachi weeps.

“How long has she been dead?” the old man asks.

“I don’t know! How can I not know?” He slams his fists into his legs. And then, because the pain feels good, he does it again.

“If you can’t remember, sing. A song she liked.”

“Blue Moon.” Malachi rocks back and forth. The tune slips through his head, swirls out from the little fire in the alley, over the gleaming ice until it touches a single, multi-jointed leg.

“Please, Malachi. I’m too tired to fight. Just…please.” The monster heaves itself up, pushing its bulk between the buildings. Malachi knows what it is. He knows.

“I have to go,” he says.

*

He kneels in a ring of ice-filmed bricks. “Where am I?” His voice becomes a chorus, flung back to him from every direction.

“Of course there could be more than one,” Claire says. “But there’s a name. Inscribed on the back. I always thought it must be some relative of yours I didn’t know.”

“It’s yours, Claire!” His voice returns to him like the voices of a dozen men, a hundred, a multitude gathered round to stone him for his sins. “I gave it to you.”

“I know, Malachi.”

“Because I love you!” He staggers to his feet despite the ice, defying the accusers striking him with his own voice. “It’s always been you, Claire, and now you’re going to die and you want me to…to….” He stops because he can’t make his voice work, because the sobbing is too deep in his throat.

All her life she wore it. Always that gift from when they were kids in love, kids who never stopped being in love. How rare is that? How rare and perfect and caught up in the shine of a garnet pendant. And now she’s dying, and he knows what he has to do: hold onto it until Danny turns fifteen. Give it to him then. Give it to him and tell him how his mother gave it to him on his fifteenth birthday, an heirloom to give to the woman he’d marry. Tell him how Claire wore it every day, all her life, more precious than a wedding ring, and now it goes to him, to beautiful Danny whose head is just as full of dreams and yearning as Malachi’s own, a boy more like Malachi than Dan would ever be, who’d choose his own Claire, his own beautiful bride, the pendant weaving through the generations like a thread, tying them to one another so tightly Claire couldn’t die, she’d live on every time Danny saw the pendant at his lover’s throat.

“I can’t do it.” The words return to him like a blow. He’s afraid his ears will bleed. He covers them before he cries again, “I can’t!”

The spider legs reach over the wall’s lip. The body heaves up and over, slapping onto the footbridge. The mouth opens. Screams pour out, and the looters laugh. He sobs.

When Claire hands him the envelope, he shakes his head but takes it anyway. And then he leaves her there, leaves her with that uncertain look on her face, uncertain because she doesn’t know what he’ll do, because he doesn’t know, because he can’t lose her, because everything is dark and he can smell the smoke of countless bonfires pouring from the monster’s maw.

*

He stands on a street corner. A highway to his left is empty of traffic. Of course. The bridges and overpasses will be slick, slick as black oil, and maybe the monster isn’t coated in oil at all, maybe it’s black ice, invisible in the dark, and it’s a wonder he’s standing, held up only by his hand on a street sign’s pole.

He knows where he is. A mail carrier knows his city.

Did someone drive him here? Is he supposed to wait for someone to pick him up? Maybe Dan is on his way. Or Claire. It’s strange that he’s out on a night like this, the ice making the branches hang heavy and the power lines sag. It must be something important.

Important. Remember.

Fifteen.

“What are you doing?” he asks Claire.

She’s pale and thin, and her eyes are red. She sits at the computer, typing, leaning in, moving her mouth as she reads. Finally she looks at him. “I’ve known for a year, Malachi, and I did nothing. I always thought there’d be time. But there isn’t any more time.”

He turns fifteen today. “Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true. I’m dying and…and I’ve got to do this.”

Fifteen? That can’t be right. Danny’s little. He was only nine when Claire died.

The cold aches in the hollow spaces of his head. It intensifies and he tips back his neck, his eyes taking in the night sky. The darkness has shape. It slides free of the gaps between the stars. He tries to run but falls on his knees at the edge of the street.

He has no way of knowing how close it is. The thing’s size could mean it’s a monster to fill the heavens or that it’s close, that its maw is about to splash hot breath down his neck.

He scrambles on all fours, heart thumping, hands scrambling for purchase, and the darkness has a voice, and the voice is bullets and fire, and the voice is Claire ripping all his fantasies apart, asking him to give it up, to give her up, to forget about nostalgic threads and knots and Danny’s fifteenth birthday because it’s not an heirloom, it never was an heirloom, it’s always been a curse, and there are still things we can fix, even if it’s only garnets and a bit of gold.

*

He’s sprawled in the street. White light shines through his closed lids. He blinks and lifts his head. Flashing red and blue behind the white, and a shape, a man in a uniform like the one he used to wear.

But no. This is no postman.

The officer squats next to him. “Are you hurt? An ambulance—”

Malachi shakes his head. He reaches into his tweed jacket and pulls it out. “Here.” He beats at the address with his fingertip.

The officer squints at the lettering, at Claire’s precise hand. “That’s right around the corner. Is that where you live?”

Malachi pushes himself to his knees. No ambulance. They can’t take him away in an ambulance when he’s so close. His whole body aches. He imagines broken ribs, a fractured hip. The pain is everywhere but still he rises without wincing, rises to his full height. “I’m fine,” he says.

He put it in a drawer. All it would’ve taken was a stamp, and instead he put it in a drawer. His will over hers. His dreams over her sense of justice. Stowed in a drawer for Danny’s fifteenth birthday.

“Oh, Malachi.” Her voice is kind, too kind for a man like him. “You know that isn’t true. You never took it out of the envelope.”

He blinks as he turns to the officer. The sky is paling. Almost dawn. “I found it two weeks ago,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“If you could just…” He gestures at the address.

The officer helps him to the cruiser. He sinks into a seat. As the car lurches forward he turns and sees his oily black monster scampering alongside, its gut heavy with stolen memories.

But then it stops. Malachi cranes his neck, watching it recede into the glittery dawn.

As the police car pulls into the drive of the small green house, Malachi takes in the gray shingles and overgrown junipers. Dawn light splashes the white garage door.

“I know this place.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s light,” Malachi answers, pointing to the dawn.

*

Dear Baker Family,

I’ve worn this pendant most of my life. I thought it was an heirloom of my husband’s family. In a way it is, but a cursed one, heavy with crimes.

The inscription on the back—R.A. Brown—matches the name of one of your ancestors killed in the Tulsa Race Massacre. Ruth Ann Brown. Last year I saw her picture at an exhibition about the massacre. She was wearing this pendant. Maybe one of my husband’s relatives stole it in the looting.

Its return can’t undo history, but maybe it can do something. I don’t know. But in your hands it becomes what I always wrongly took it to be: a family heirloom.

I hope it brings some measure of joy to you and yours to have something that was taken, restored.

Sincerely,

Claire Jacobs

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All the Way to Mystery

by Stacy Clark

The waves come and come. Don’t give in, don’t give in, I silently whisper. I run down the suburban path, wending beneath the leafy oaks. Tripping on snarls of roots bursting up through the asphalt, I do not fall. Not this time. I run on. To the pace of classic rock.

Some days the wind is at my back, nudging. On this day, I am running into the wind. Waves of sweet, spring air coming at me as I push toward, forward, against. It is harder. Often. Lately. Don’t give in, don’t give in, I silently whisper like a mantra deep inside.

Around the bend, crepe myrtles in bloom. A gust loosens a shower of color. Pinkish petals fluttering like butterflies, only falling down. Don’t give in, don’t give in. Let the beauty take you all the way to mystery, I whisper to the sleeping part of my soul.

Silence is my superpower. So, I hope, is following beauty.

Silence is awkward for a writer, who writes about life.

For a mother who encourages her daughters to speak up.

For a woman with a diagnosis she can only run toward, not beyond.

The difference is in one letter. “A” means acute. An all-out, immediate battle to the other side. “C” means chronic. A wait in the shadows for what is gathering like a coming storm. I am grateful for the “C,” and yet, living into something can be hard to explain.

Living in a palm-lined Florida suburb, I raised two daughters. When I came home that startling day, the daughters still lived with us, a high schooler and a young professional diverted by a pandemic.

“You have to tell them. Tell them now,” my husband insisted after meeting me in the driveway with a shaky smile.

He called them down from their bedrooms into the kitchen. But what would I say?

My older daughter knew what to say. “Mom,” she explained when I told her, “It’s like nothing has changed and everything is different.”

At first, I told a few friends. The sister of a brother waved it off with a story of how he survived. The nutritionist gave me nutrition. The born again gave me God. The optimist brought optimism. One friend brought coffee. She arrived on my porch with to-go cups in hand, and we sat outside on the back lanai and looked at life without blinking.

Quickly, I went silent. I was fine. Nothing had really changed. Except I drove fifteen minutes down the road to Moffitt Cancer Center for a blood check every three, and then six, months. Except a friend texted me every Sunday to see how I was, even if I was fine.

Life carried on. I ran half-marathons. I celebrated birthdays. I said goodbye to the daughter moving away for her job, the daughter going off to college, the dog that had been here for all the growing up. I went back to work for an ad agency downtown.

Everybody went back to life as usual, with the rare exceptions.

Before one appointment, I meet a friend, the kind of friend who marks her calendar and invites me for coffee before I go to see if my blood cells have picked up speed. She and I sit sipping warm coffee at a high-top table and, fine as I am, I tear up. Silence had made fear fall into the background. A quiet brewing, unnoticed, unreal. Talking makes it real. My friend says hiding fear is like trying to keep a beach ball under water.

When it is time to go, I tell her I have to pull myself together. “You can’t cry on the way into Moffitt,” I say.

She laughs. Wonders why. Says, “There’s a story there.”

Why not cry? Because Moffitt people are caring, from the cheerful valet to the smiling greeter who directs your lost-looking self to the Hematology Department. If you cried, I think, they would care like a four-alarm fire. But more so, if I am honest, I do not want to be noticed. I do not want to be cared for. I do not belong in this story.

Belonging is the heart of this story.

No longer am I the heart of my family with two growing lives spinning around me. No longer am I making lunches, driving carpool, reading stories in small beds tucked shoulder to shoulder as if we had all the time in the world. Where do I belong now?

When life is pulling you toward the daily responsibilities of motherhood, there is scarce time to ask about belonging. To wonder what life is asking of you. I went from childhood to adulthood to motherhood. What hood am I in now?

There are wayward cells at the deepest part of me. There is loss at the heart of me. The me that wrapped my days around mothering. The juggler of school papers and dentist appointments, art classes and piano lessons. My daughters used to call me “The Great Scheduler of All Things.” Now they tease I am “The Not Very Good Scheduler of Much.”

When I left my younger daughter on the sidewalk beside her newly stuffed college house, I felt as if I had been mugged, and they took everything. Here on the empty margins, I have had to face myself head on.

Unbecoming. Rewilding. Surrendering. The story travels these unfamiliar grounds.

When you are running toward a storm, even on a sunny day, everything has changed.

Silence is no superpower.

Some days feel like bailing sloshing emotions out of the emptiness so I will not sink.

One day, a friend tells me she went looking for wild ponies on an island. She found pony hoofprints and pony poop so fresh it was still steaming. She did not see a single pony.

She poetically decides this is faith. The evidence clear, the mystery remains unseen.

What am I looking for? Her wild ponies make me think of rewilding golf courses. Where the fairways and the greens are left to revert to their natural state. The wildlife returns.

Now that my children are grown and I am running toward the storm, I like the idea of rewilding. Though I am not sure how wild I can get on a cul-de-sac in suburban Florida.

That night I dream of a whole herd of wild ponies galloping toward me.

I read that some golf courses get turned into Super Targets, and I wonder if it is better to try and stay who we are. Being a fairway is better than a parking lot.

Small miracles, small miracles, I remind myself in silent deep-down whispers.

I cannot see the edges.

Beauty in all its rawness and nowness is the only place I have found I am able to stand. I tell myself, if things get bad, I will get a tattoo on the inside of my wrist, delicate, almost indecipherable script meant only for me saying: Beauty all the way.

I believe in beauty. Except at Moffitt.

The first couple years, I went into Moffitt head down, tucked away. No beauty there. Only something invisible ravaging human life, and life, and life. Hope wafting like ragged flags as families pushed wheelchairs, held hands and held tight.

I did not belong in this story.

Nearly four years have passed since I embarked on this unchosen journey. As fine as I am, the Sunday texts and the pre-appointment coffees unfailingly continue. During one of these coffees, my friend says with a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes,

“There’s beauty at Moffitt, you know. Even there.” “No,” I quip. “Where have they been keeping that?”

Maybe in the painted stones of the flowerless garden outside the front door. On my way into Moffitt right after this beauty conversation, I see the stones. A leave-one, take-one offering of stones painted with hearts, stars and words of hope. Silent messages saying I see you, I know you, hold me in your hand, I’ll go with you, as far as we can go. I pick up a stone with the word “Hope” and wrap my fist around it, hidden in my pocket as I wander through my appointments.

When I leave, I set the stone back in the garden. A few days later, when I return for a follow-up, I put my own painted stone in the garden. Hot pink with rays like a sun. I’m no painter, yet it has its charm.

I never go back to see if anyone picks up my stone. This is not that kind of give and take. You give, and what happens next is not up to you.

Recently, a friend gave me a book, a YA novel, purportedly lighthearted. She is the one who came with the to-go coffee, but she is innocent here. The main character is a sentient typewriter, helping a family solve a mystery. How dangerous could it be?

There, in the end, I am crying softly as the family solves the mystery of a missing mother. They drive all night and find her high up on her rock of safety. She has run away from what has returned to her body, what she fears will take her family down this time.

The relieved family entices her down from her rock, they wrap their arms and love around her no matter what comes. And they know what is coming.

My snuffles and sleeve wipes carry on after the last page. I slip into the bathroom to avoid my husband, daughter and tear-licking dog on the couch catty corner to mine.

The sobs go on for a good twenty minutes. It’s a typewriter for Pete’s sake.

It’s this. When I run for safety, will my family come and wrap around me? I am afraid they will find me. I am afraid they will not look.

That startling day I stood on the sidewalk at Moffitt, minutes after the doctor had gently, matter-of-factly handed me a diagnosis, my brain clouded with thoughts. I did not know what would happen, how good, how bad. The most actionable thought: Do not go home.

The valet took a while to bring my car. Even I knew, even then, I could not run away from me. I could not find safety on a rock. But the desire to flee was like a mother’s need to push her newborn into the world—volitional and not of her say. The only handhold I saw was truth. The known and unknown, felt and not felt, set forth and apart. Squinting into the sunlight on the sidewalk, I vowed to stand there. I vowed to not turn away.

Holding out for truth led to silence. I could not bear the push for positive thinking, the cheer handed out like candy. It slayed me. Still does. I feel guilty. As if I have somehow failed to think my way out of this. Positive thinking feels like chasing a butterfly.

Beauty cannot be chased.

After all these coffees, texts and runs, I have learned there are rocks in a secret garden hiding in plain sight. I have learned, sometimes, in the stillness, beauty finds you.

Like on a run into the wind when the petals fall across your path.

Beauty comes in its own time. Disguised in the dark.

Heading to my most recent appointment, I drive up to Moffitt. Inching through the valet line, with rogue cells in the marrow of my bones, I am spontaneously singing along to AC/DC. Head-bobbing, voice-screeching, body-wiggling singing. When George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone comes on, I smirk and eye the sky.

There are times I give in to the waves of despair. I can feel them, those wayward cells elbowing out the healthy ones. I keep running toward, because it is better than away. Truth always gives back. I do not want to miss the beauty no matter its duck and cover.

Slowly, though, I am beginning to put my faith in the story I am, in the wild mystery coming at me like a butterfly, like a galloping herd.

When I can, I surrender, which is not the same as giving in. More a waking of the soul.

Beauty carries us forward.

I am hoping it can take me all the way home.

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Poison Pills

by GK Daffu

People took the pills to get better. None of them knew they were part of an experiment.

8:57 AM

FDA Special Agent Lexi Knox adjusted her blazer as she stepped into the brightly lit conference room at the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations field office in South Boston. Papers cluttered the table, and the scent of burnt coffee and whiteboard markers filled the room—the telltale signs of long shifts and sleepless nights. A whiteboard on the far wall was covered in frantic scrawl with chemical structures, timelines, and a growing list of victims. The air in the room was thick with the weight of unanswered questions.

As a special agent with the FDA’s OCI, she was charged with protecting the public from criminal activity involving health care products. The OCI serves as the FDA’s law enforcement arm—covert, relentless, and built for the kind of cases where warnings and recalls came too late.

Over the years, she had led high-stakes undercover operations and surveillance efforts targeting individuals and organizations behind some of the agency’s most serious violations. From counterfeit generic drug rings to fraudulent schemes involving unproven cures, and all sorts of contamination cover-ups, such as with microbes and heavy metals.

She took a seat across from Dr. Louis Reinhart, the agency’s chief toxicologist. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His normally sharp features looked hollowed out, exhaustion carving deep lines into his face. A half-empty cup of coffee sat beside him, long gone cold. He was thumbing through a stack of autopsy reports, but the one on top had his full attention.

Without looking up, he exhaled and slid a file across the table. “We’ve got another one,” he said, his voice low, drained.

Lexi reached for the folder, the weight of it settling into her palms like a loaded gun. She flipped it open. Inside was a forensic report detailing the sudden death of Gregory Henshaw, a forty-six-year-old male, previously healthy except for mild hypertension. He had collapsed in his kitchen barely an hour after taking his prescribed Lypetra, a widely used cholesterol medication.

Her stomach knotted as she scanned the toxicology results. Dioxin. A toxic compound known to be a common environmental pollutant, but lethal at high levels.

She exhaled sharply. “That’s the twelfth case this month.”

Reinhart nodded grimly. A shadow passed over his face. “And that’s just what we’ve caught.” He tapped the table for emphasis. “How many others slipped through the cracks? How many were written off as heart attacks, strokes, sudden cardiac arrest?”

Lexi’s fingers pinched around the edges of the file. These deaths weren’t isolated incidents. Every case followed the same eerie pattern: middle-aged or older patients, no history of major illness, sudden, inexplicable collapse. And every single one had been taking Lypetra.

And yet, Vascora Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer, had reported no contamination, no recalls, no anomalies. Their internal quality control records were clean. The preliminary tests of their pills—also clean.

Lexi shut the folder and fixed Reinhart with a piercing stare. “I need to see the supply chain reports.”

Reinhart hesitated. “Lexi—”

She leaned forward, her voice a low warning. “Every single distributor, every third-party supplier, every subcontractor handling raw materials. Someone’s cutting corners for the sake of profit.”

The older man sighed, rubbing his temple. “You think it’s contamination?”

Lexi’s jaw tightened. She tapped the autopsy report. “Twelve unexplained deaths. The same drug, the same toxin. I don’t believe in coincidences, Louis. Not twelve times.” Lexi’s pulse drummed at her temples. “We need answers before the bodies pile up and the morgues overflow with unexplained deaths.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy with implications. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang and went unanswered.

11:45 AM

The Vascora Pharmaceuticals headquarters loomed over downtown Boston, its glass façade gleaming under the bright January winter sun. A single-asset pharmaceutical company, Vascora had a large pipeline of investigational drugs, but Lypetra was their only product on the market. It was a two-billion-dollar-a-year drug, and the company was doing just fine.

Lexi adjusted the FDA badge clipped to her belt as she entered the building. The lobby was a seamless expansion of polished white, high-gloss marble, exuding an air of clinical precision and modern sophistication. A space designed to inspire confidence and trust. A receptionist greeted her with forced politeness and directed her to the executive floor. They were expecting her.

She was met by Henry Caldwell, Vascora’s VP of Compliance, a stocky man with a politician’s smile and an accountant’s demeanor, his sharp eyes assessing her with the practiced ease of someone used to deflecting scrutiny. His handshake was firm, but his palm was damp—a small but telling detail Lexi filed away.

“Agent Knox.” He greeted her with a practiced smile. “I trust this is just a routine inquiry?”

“It’s about Lypetra manufacturing.”

“I assure you, Agent Knox,” Caldwell said, ushering her into his office, “Lypetra undergoes rigorous quality control. We have the safest manufacturing processes in the industry.”

Lexi dropped the autopsy reports on his desk. “Then explain this.”

Caldwell’s smile faltered. He flipped through the pages, his expression darkening. “I—I don’t understand. These deaths—”

“They all had Lypetra in their system. And they all had traces of dioxin.”

“That’s impossible.” Caldwell shook his head. “Our raw ingredients are vetted. Our facilities are state-of-the-art. There’s no way—”

“Somewhere along the line, something is going wrong and people are dying from your drug,” she said, cutting in with her voice rising. “And unless you want Vascora to be the face of a corporate manslaughter case, I suggest you start talking.”

Caldwell hesitated, running a hand over his face. “We have a few new suppliers. We switched recently and source some of our inactive binders and fillers from them. They’re all overseas, but—”

“But you don’t test their shipments beyond routine spot checks, do you?” Caldwell swallowed hard. “No.”

Lexi stood. “Then I suggest you get me everything you have on these new overseas suppliers.”

2:10 PM

Lexi sat crouched over her desk in the cramped, windowless office that held the musty scent of old paper and file folders. Supplier records lay open in disjointed piles—yellowing invoices, faded shipping manifests, red-stamped customs documents, and tightly spaced lab reports filled with chemical notations and trace contamination levels.

She ran a tired hand through her hair, then pressed her fingers to her temple, where a dull ache had been building since midday. A half-eaten sandwich and sticky notes scribbled in

shorthand littered her desk. She flicked a red pen between her fingers like a pendulum, marking time between each unanswered question. Every document she touched added to the picture, and the picture was damning. There were discrepancies in lot numbers. Duplicate entries in the distribution logs. A shipment that had cleared customs in under twelve hours. Far too fast.

She leaned back for a moment, letting the papers slide under her palm like puzzle pieces rearranging themselves.

Zenteva Labs, based in Shenzhen, China, had provided Vascora with pharmaceutical fillers—substances used to hold pills together. The latest shipment had arrived six weeks ago, a seemingly routine delivery. But the timing was damning. Only a few weeks before the first known fatality, which provided the right amount of time for the fillers to be incorporated and to get into circulation.

Coincidence? She doubted it.

The office was cold. She reached for her mug absently, then stopped short when her phone buzzed against the desk. She grabbed it, and her heart pounded when she saw the caller ID.

Reinhart

She answered. “Tell me you have something.”

“You’re not going to like this,” he said, his voice clipped. “I ran an extended analysis on the dioxin traces from the victims. It’s industrial-grade, the kind used in pesticide manufacturing.”

Lexi’s stomach twisted. “Pesticides? Why the hell would that be in a medication?”

She heard him clear his throat on the other end of the line, as if bracing himself. “That’s the thing. It shouldn’t be. And it gets worse.” He paused. “I traced the specific chemical markers. This batch has a unique composition, like a fingerprint. It matches a banned factory that was falsifying test results and manufacturing data to meet U.S. regulatory standards.”

Lexi gripped the edge of her desk. She already knew where this was going, but she had to hear him say it.

“Guess who owned it?”

A bitter sense of inevitability washed over her. “Zenteva Labs.” “Bingo.”

Lexi closed her eyes briefly, rage overtaking her exhaustion. “And people are dying because of it.”

“Yeah.” Reinhart sighed. “Look, Lexi, If Zenteva is behind this, we’re not looking at sloppy corporate negligence. We’re staring down cold-blooded intent. This isn’t their first offense. They’ve been caught falsifying data multiple times, banned from doing business in the

U.S. for it. And yet, someone at Vascora made the call to partner with them, anyway. A factory that routinely fakes records, fails inspection after inspection. No one should ever have trusted them. That means Zenteva found a backdoor into the market by using Vascora as their willing accomplice. And someone at Vascora knew exactly what they were doing when they pushed this poison into circulation. They gambled with lives just to save a few bucks.”

She shoved back from her desk, grabbing her coat. “And I’m going to find out who.” “Be careful,” Reinhart warned. “If they know we’re onto them—”

“They’ll try to bury the evidence,” she said. “I know.”

Her mind was already racing ahead. If Zenteva had gone to such lengths to cover their tracks, exposing them wouldn’t just be dangerous—it would make her a target.

3:35 PM

Lexi’s next stop was the FDA’s regional forensic lab. It was an unassuming concrete building on the outside, but inside, it thrummed with urgency. She swiped her badge, pushed open the heavy lab door. The sterile bite of formaldehyde and industrial-strength bleach immediately hit her. The air stung her nostrils, clinging to her clothes like evidence. Inside, the space was a hive of controlled chaos.

Rows of stainless-steel tables stretched across the room, crowded with pill bottles in various stages of dissection. Some cracked open, others ground into powder. High-performance liquid chromatography machines blinked steadily beside mass spectrometers, their screens alive with data streams. Technicians in disposable white lab coats and blue nitrile gloves moved with silent focus, heads bent over their workstations, scanning molecular fingerprints and comparing chemical signatures.

Near the back, a wall-sized monitor displayed a growing spreadsheet of medications flagged for irregularities. Lypetra topped the list, but now half a dozen generics appeared below it, with red-highlighted rows indicating the contamination wasn’t isolated. It was spreading across supply chains like a cancer.

Dr. Anika Patel, the lead forensic analyst, barely glanced up as Lexi approached. She was hunched over a microscope, eyes sharp with focus, her face drawn with something far graver than mere exhaustion.

“I hope you have something for me,” Lexi said, her voice taut.

Patel straightened, pulling off her gloves. “We started with Lypetra,” she said, grabbing a printout from the table. “We found contamination in one bottle from a pharmacy in Baltimore.” She handed over the report.

Lexi scanned the data, her pulse spiking. “This one contains lethal levels of dioxin.”

“Right,” Patel said, exhaling sharply. “But then I widened the scope. I ran tests on random samples of other medications. Some widely prescribed ones for cancer, diabetes, respiratory diseases. I figured if someone had access to one supply chain, they might have access to others.”

Lexi’s fingers tightened on the paper. “And?”

Patel grabbed another stack of reports, her expression grim. “We found dioxin in multiple samples. Not just Lypetra. A metformin batch for diabetes from a hospital in Chicago. Steroids used for chronic pain patients in Houston. A chemotherapy drug in Los Angeles.”

Lexi’s stomach dropped. “This isn’t a targeted attack on one drug. It’s systemic.”

Patel nodded. “And it’s deliberate. The way the contamination appears, the distribution— it’s too precise to be a fluke.”

Lexi’s mind went into overdrive. This was bigger than corporate sabotage or a grudge.

This was an attack on the most vulnerable. Patients relying on life-saving medication. If the

dioxin contamination was accidental, why would Zenteva go to such great lengths to cover their tracks? On the other hand, if dioxin contamination was deliberate, what would Zenteva have to gain? It wasn’t clear to her.

Her phone buzzed. She barely glanced at it before the words on the screen sent a jolt through her.

You’re getting too close. Walk away.

Lexi’s breath caught. She lifted her gaze to Patel, her voice barely above a whisper. “Someone knows we’re onto them.”

4:30 PM

On the drive back to the office, Lexi’s phone buzzed with a message from a different unknown number.

I have information for you. About Zenteva. We need to meet.

Staring at the message, she scrunched her eyebrows. She had plenty of sources, but none who reached out like this. She pulled the car over.

Who is this?

Three dots appeared, then vanished. A minute passed before another message came through.

Someone who wants the truth out.

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Vague, but not unusual. She’d played this game before.

What’s in it for you?

Another pause.

I can’t be a part of this anymore. I have to help fix this.

Lexi exhaled slowly. The wording was careful, but revealing. Whoever this was, they weren’t some whistleblower looking for five minutes of fame. They had skin in the game.

Where and when?

She clenched her jaw.

Bunker Hill Monument. 7 PM. Come alone.

Public enough not to be a death trap but secluded enough to be risky. Exactly the kind of place these meetings always seemed to happen.

I’ll be there.

A final message flashed across her screen before the number disappeared from her call log entirely.

Don’t be late.

She set the phone down, staring at it for a beat before getting back on the road. Whatever this was, it was big. And she was going to find out just how deep it went.

6:40 PM

Lexi gripped the steering wheel and pulled into a parking spot near the Bunker Hill Monument. The historic site loomed against the darkened sky, its tall granite tower casting long shadows across the frostbitten ground.

She scanned the area as she stepped out of the car, her boots scraping against the frozen gravel. The air was crisp, laced with the faint scent of snow and the distant sounds of traffic from the bridge beyond. The park was eerily empty for a winter evening. No joggers and no tourists braving the cold. Only the stillness of the night and the distant creak of bare tree branches in the wind. Exactly the kind of quiet she had expected.

She wrapped her coat tighter around her and made her way toward the Prescott Statue, a bronze figure that stood resolutely atop its stone pedestal in front of the Bunker Hill Monument. The informant had chosen this spot deliberately. More open space, fewer blind corners, and a clear view of anyone approaching.

Lexi exhaled slowly, forcing herself to stay calm as she checked her watch: 6:57 PM. Three minutes early.

Her gaze swept over the monument grounds. A flickering streetlamp buzzed near the walkway. A car rumbled past in the distance before disappearing down the hill. Other than that, silence.

She shifted her stance, her muscles tense beneath the layers under her coat. Had the warning earlier been legitimate? Or was it an intimidation tactic meant to scare her off?

Then a sound.

A faint crunch of footsteps on frozen grass.

She didn’t turn immediately. Instead, her hand tightened on her firearm as she adjusted her position, angling herself to see in her peripheral vision. A figure emerged from the darkness near the pathway. A man, bundled in a hooded coat, hands deep in his pockets. He moved with deliberate steps, cautious, head slightly ducked as if reluctant to be recognized.

“Agent Knox?”

Lexi nodded, keeping her posture neutral. “You have information for me?”

The man hesitated, scanning the darkened surroundings. His breath came quick, misting in the chilly night air. “I don’t have much time. Zenteva Labs…there’s something bigger happening. You need to know. The dioxin…it wasn’t an accident. They knew. They’ve been testing it for months.”

“Testing it? On who?”

“Patients. Unwitting consumers. They needed data before selling to the highest bidder.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a battered manila folder. She jumped at his sudden movement. He thrusted it toward her. She took it and flipped it open just enough to catch a glimpse of the contents: medical reports with names, dates, toxin levels. Her pulse quickened.

“They’ve been collecting data from hospitals and clinics—mostly places that serve vulnerable populations. People with preexisting conditions, those who wouldn’t question why they were getting sicker.” His voice was low, urgent. He looked from side to side. “They manipulated research reports, slipped test compounds into medications, even the water supply in

some cases. Zenteva Labs is mapping long-term exposure effects of dioxin so they can refine the formula.”

Lexi’s grasp on the folder tightened. “Refine it for what?”

The man exhaled sharply and shook his head. “They want to make dioxin more predictable. More… weaponizable. A controlled poison. Something that can weaken, incapacitate over time, without immediate detection. They’re looking for the perfect dose. Enough to cause irreversible damage, but slow enough that it won’t raise alarm bells.”

Her blood ran cold. “Who are they selling this to?”

His eyes darted past her again. His hands twitched at his sides, as if he wanted to run. “Foreign governments. Private interests. Anyone willing to pay. And they’ve already started negotiations.”

She swallowed down the rising fury in her throat. This was worse than she had imagined. “Why are you telling me this?”

The man’s jaw stiffened. “Because I was part of it. I helped collect the data. I watched people suffer, and I—I can’t do it anymore.” His voice cracked. “You need to stop them before they take this any further.”

Before she could respond, the distant screech of tires echoed in the night. Headlights flooded them. The informant’s eyes went wide.

“They found me,” he whispered. A gunshot rang out.

Lexi dove behind the monument as the echo of the gunshot ricocheted through the night air. The sharp tang of burning rubber filled the air as the man crumpled to the ground, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Blood pooled beneath him and gleamed eerily under the full moon.

Heart pounding, she readied her firearm, her fingers tightening around the grip as she scanned the surroundings for the shooter. Another gunshot shattered the silence, striking the pavement near her foot, sending shards of concrete into the air. She ducked lower, pressing herself against the cool stone of the monument.

A second set of tires screeched in the distance. Another vehicle? A getaway car? She risked a glance around the monument and caught the fleeting outline of a figure in dark clothing disappearing into the streets. Whoever they were, they were fast, and they didn’t want witnesses.

Cursing, she ran to the dying man.

“Who did this?” she asked, pressing her hand against his wound. His lips trembled. “Zenteva… they… they own everyone.”

Then he went still.

Lexi called for backup, but by the time agents arrived, the shooter was long gone. The man’s final warning hanging heavy in her mind: Zenteva owns everyone.

The Next Day

Lexi confronted Caldwell again, but this time, she wasn’t alone. The full weight of the FDA, FBI, and Department of Justice bore down on him. Federal agents had raided Vascora’s

executive offices early that morning, hauling away computers, internal records, and entire server backups.

Now, inside a windowless interrogation room, the charge in the air was heavy and electric. The scent of sweat and stale coffee clinging to the walls. The fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare over Caldwell’s already pale face.

He sat hunched at the metal table, hands twitching in his lap. His tailored charcoal-gray suit, which had once radiated boardroom confidence, now looked wrinkled, the fabric damp with nervous sweat. His wedding ring clinked against the tabletop as his fingers fidgeted in frantic, repetitive patterns.

Caldwell tried to keep his composure, but the walls were closing in. His voice cracked as he stammered out excuses of misunderstandings, clerical errors, and subordinates.

Lexi slammed a thick binder onto the table, the impact sharp and final. The sound cut through his excuses like a blade. Inside the folder, a tall stack of pages consisting of emails, financial records, and internal memos. Every single document was a nail in his corporate coffin.

She leaned in, her eyes narrowing like a predator closing in on its kill. “You knew.”

Caldwell flinched.

Her voice was low, seething—measured not in volume, but in pure, unrelenting fury. “People were dying, and you still pushed this through.”

A muscle twitched in Caldwell’s jaw. His gaze darted toward the one-way mirror as if unseen Vascora lawyers stood on the other side, ready to sweep in and save him. There was no one coming.

His shoulders slumped, the last remnants of corporate confidence draining from his posture.

Lexi flipped through pages of damning evidence, each document stripping away his last defense. Internal memos detailing the first contamination reports from their supplier, Zenteva Labs. Executive emails discussing how a full recall would cost “hundreds of millions” and how it was “better to mitigate than panic.” A financial projection showing how lawsuits were calculated into the budget, including deaths, settlements, and all.

Then, the final piece of evidence.

An email dated two weeks before the first recorded death.

LOSSES FROM A RECALL FAR OUTWEIGH THE RISK OF LIABILITY.

Silence thickened the room.

Lexi’s fingers clenched the edge of the table. There it was. Proof of premeditation. Proof of corporate greed taken to lethal extremes. Proof that Vascora had willingly gambled with people’s lives.

Her blood boiled. How many lives could have been saved? How many deaths had been tallied in spreadsheets before they ever happened?

She exhaled sharply, steadying her voice. “You signed off on this.”

Caldwell shook his head rapidly, his breath hitching. “No. I—I was just following protocol.”

“Protocol?” She snapped. “Your protocol was gambling with human lives.” This wasn’t just corporate negligence. This was premeditated. This was murder.

A harsh knock on the door. The metal handle clicked, and DOJ Prosecutor Ethan Landry stepped in, a thick manila folder tucked under his arm.

Landry was the shark circling the tank, his tone calm, methodical. “Mr. Caldwell, I’m here to make things crystal clear for you.”

He slid the folder open, revealing the official DOJ indictment paperwork—stamped, signed, and ready to be filed.

“You and your colleagues are looking at multiple violations under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

Landry ticked off each violation on his fingers, his voice cold and efficient. “The illegal distribution of adulterated drugs. Felony misbranding and concealment of contamination. Wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and obstruction of justice. Manslaughter charges for every documented fatality.”

Caldwell stiffened, his face ghostly pale. Landry leaned in, voice a lethal whisper. “You’re looking at life in prison.”

A shuddering exhale rattled from Caldwell’s lips. His gaze darted toward Lexi again, desperate.

“I—I didn’t know about the extent—” Lexi’s voice cut through his stammering. “Yes, you did.”

Caldwell swallowed hard, his lips trembling. His fingers dug into his lap, clinging to the last shreds of his denial.

Then, the final blow.

Landry pulled out one last document. A plea deal.

“Tell us everything about Zenteva,” he said, tapping the paper, “and we’ll talk.”

Caldwell’s lips parted. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, his hands shaking so violently now that he had to clench them into fists.

Then—finally—he spoke.

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The Order of Ordinaries

Chapter 1

After weeks of covert sleuthing and surveillance, I, Birch Barton, have come to an improbable but inescapable conclusion: My new next-door neighbor is a shapeshifter. Yes, the seemingly ordinary Dusty French—who might be dusty, but definitely isn’t French—has the unique ability to turn himself into a furry feline.

“Let me get this straight.” My best friend, Gabby, holds her half-eaten breakfast bar in mid-air as she pedals down the tree-lined street, quiet as usual in the already-warm morning hours. “You think Mr. French shapeshifts into a cat?”

Dang, it does sound a little out there. “I’m one hundred percent positively almost sure,” I say, repping confidence. “A bobtail to be exact.”

“And you’re basing this all on the fact that you’ve never seen him and his cat together?”

“That’s not all I’m basing it on, but don’t you find it odd?”

She shakes her head. “This is one of your better ones, Birchie.” The fact that she isn’t buying it doesn’t surprise me. Gabby’s been the more sensible one for as long as I’ve known her, which is basically my whole life.

“Dude, you can’t make this stuff up,” I say.

“You’re right.” She nods and takes a second to swallow. “I can’t make this stuff up, but you sure can. Sounds a little like the talking tree, am I right?”

“I never said the tree actually talks.” Okay, so being able to feel and sense the life in a tree is a tough one to prove. But I’ve got hard evidence of Mr. French the shapeshifter. “Here, pull over.” I angle my tire to the shoulder of the road and fish my phone out of my school backpack which is weighing me down like I’m the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

“You really should get one of these.” Gabby pats the basket attached to her handlebars. It sits, silently mocking me, holding her stuff like a personal assistant. For the record, Mom actually bought me one, but let’s face it, a guy with a basket? Might as well walk around with a “kick me” sign taped to my back.

“Don’t change the subject. Check this out.” I scroll to the pic and hand her my phone.

She squints at the screen. “What am I looking at?”

“Right there. The cat on the limb.” I point to a fuzzy orange blob.

“Cats are known to climb trees, you know.”

“I know but”—I swipe left—“check it out…literally two minutes later. I went to the bathroom and came back to this.”

She leans in closer.

“It’s Mr. French.” I hear the excitement in my voice. “In the same spot where the cat was.”

Gabby squiggles her face in consideration. “Okay, so a grown man sitting in a tree is odd. But maybe he just likes to climb trees like you do.”

It’s true, I love a good climb.

She hands me the phone. “I don’t think it proves he can turn into a cat. Or maybe it’s the cat who can turn into a man?”

Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Come on, I’m not going to be late on the first day of school.” She pushes her pedals and takes off.

I shove my phone back into the side pocket, stealing a glance around. The sunlight is reflecting off the dewy grass and, for these few minutes, the otherwise dull town of Everdale, Texas, sparkles and shines.

“Gabs, you’re not taking me seriously.” I double pump to catch up. “Did I mention, they have the same Dreamsicle-colored hair? And—get this—the cat wears shoes. Shoes! I mean come on.” I feel my eyes widen. “What’s that about?”

“Oh my god.” She flashes me a warm grin. “I’ve missed my Birch.”

And I’ve missed everything about Gabby. Two weeks at summer camp and two weeks at her grandmother’s equals ten years in feels-like time. But now she’s home and—despite her going on and on about some guy she met at camp—things can get back to normal, the way they’ve always been. Me and Gabby against the world.

I do a double-take at her as we ride along, noticing she’s taller than before she left. I check to see if her seat is raised, but it’s not. “I think you’ve grown a foot.”

She kicks out a leg and wiggles her Converse. “Really? Last I checked, I only have two.”

“Ha ha.” Not bad for Gabby humor. “But seriously, what’d your abuela feed you?”

She makes a swoony face. “Gallo pinto, empanadas, mangos, papayas, avocados, patacones—” She rubs her stomach.

“Okay, okay.” I hold up a hand in surrender. “What I’m hearing is Costa Rica’s got nothing on Taco Bell.”

She tilts her head sideways. “Well, it is hard to beat the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

She finishes her bar and tucks the wrapper into a pocket of her weightless backpack as she pedals. “Can you believe Nik has never had the Bell? As in ever!”

Ugh. The camp guy again. Thankfully, he was only visiting Texas for the summer and is back where he belongs, on the other side of the planet. “There’s something wrong with that guy.”

“Birch! Watch out!” A black cat darts between our bikes and crosses in front of mine before disappearing into a hedge. Gabby screeches to a stop, so I do too.

“Oh no.” She’s out of breath. “You have to circle back to where the cat crossed and count to thirteen.”

“Gabs. It’s just a cat.” I give her a calming smile. On rare occasions, I get to play the role of the sensible one. For the record, I don’t consider myself superstitious, only sorta-stitious. I mean, I don’t go around walking under ladders or opening umbrellas inside—duh, that would be asking for it. Gabby, on the other hand, happens to be megastitious.

“Just. A. Black. Cat?” Her eyes grow bigger with each word.

“Well if I have to, you do too,” I say.

“Nope, it came from behind me and went in front of you. It’s all yours.”

“No time,” I say. “This backpack’s killing me.” Truth.

“Okay, but don’t blame me. It’s your bad luck. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

Then—oh no, not again—as we resume our trek, I feel it. The eyes-on-me sensation I’ve had way too often lately. Like someone’s got me in the center of their crystal ball, watching my every move. My skin prickles as I swing my head side to side, trying to find any sign of the watcher. But like all the other times, there’s no one. Just a squirrel or two and a bird or three.

I haven’t mentioned this to Gabby yet. And given the black cat drama, now’s not the time. I shake my head as if it will loosen the weirdness gripping me.

“You okay?” Gabby’s eyebrows practically touch her hairline.

“What? Oh…um…yeah, I’m good,” I say, but my voice says otherwise.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. But when it comes to black cats, you can’t play around.”

I nod and force a flat grin as we enter the bike lane on the main road that leads to school. If only I were playing with black cats instead of a pair of invisible eyes.

Chapter 2

Gabby’s outside, waiting for me at lunch like always. She makes it to our table first because she brown bags it. I, on the other hand, get the great displeasure of waiting in the smelly cafeteria line for the unidentifiable entrée du jour.

As I near our table, I notice three birds perched in the mesquite tree that sits in the middle of the patio. One large crow shares a branch with two small doves. The doves are close, but facing in opposite directions. Kinda odd, but it makes me smile.

I set my tray down and hold my arms out wide as I take my seat across from Gabby. “Look at me. Still in one piece.”

She scoffs. “The day is long, Birchie. The day is long.” She bites a carrot stick and flashes serious chestnut-colored eyes my way.

I kick off my shoes like I always do and pull my socks off. Aw, yeah. I rub my feet into the grass as a warm sensation floods me. Weird I know, but I’ve always been like this.

“Gettin’ that good ground feeling?” she asks.

“You know it,” I say, opening my milk carton.

Gabby leans to look around me and cocks her head sideways. “What the heck?” Her face flashes in confusion before it fills with an awed grin.. She drops her carrot and pops up like a jack-in-the-box. “Nik?”

I turn to see a tall kid with wild black hair, holding a cafeteria tray and sauntering toward us.

“Nik!” Gabby squeals and runs to him, hugging him like he’s a soldier home from war.

Nik? The guy who’s supposed to be in Greece?

“What are you doing here?” She squeals again so loud I want to cover my ears. He says something inaudible.

She links her arm through his and escorts him to our table. My and Gabby’s table. Her face is lit like the sun. I squint to prevent blindness.

“Birch, this is Nik,” she says with too much excitement. “The one I told you about?”

I fake an “I dunno” face.

“The one from camp?” she prods.

How could I forget? His name seems to have taken over her word bank. She clicks an impatient tongue at me and turns to Mister Tall-Dark-and-Not-Supposed-To-Be-Here towering over her.

“Nik, this is Birch.” She waves toward me.

“Hey Birch, nice to meet you.” He sets his tray on the table and holds out his hand like I should shake it. What are we, thirty-year-old businessmen?

I take a bite of a chicken nugget, aware of Gabby’s eyes sending me don’t-be-a-jerk signals.

Nik drops his hand and takes a seat next to her. “You’re all she could talk about at camp.”

I could say the same thing about him, but why risk coming across as welcoming? “I thought you were from Portugal or Spain or something.”

“So you do remember me telling you about him,” Gabby says.

My cheeks burn.

“Greece.” Nik doesn’t skip a beat. “My dad had business here for the summer. That’s why I was at camp. And he liked it, so”—he shrugs—“we bought a house and here I am.”

Oof. It feels like I took a medicine ball to the stomach.

Gabby goes in for a side hug, pulling Nik close. “That’s amazing. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it’d be fun to surprise you,” Nik says.

Fun? “Gabby hates surprises.” I lift another nugget to my mouth but set it down, suddenly full. “Ouch!” I say in response to an under-the-table blow to my shin.

“Ignore him. Birch is just in a bad mood.” She’s talking to Nik but glaring at me. “So where’d you move?”

He hikes a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s a new build near Stieber Ranch.”

There’s only one new house near the ranch. “Wait. You live in the glass castle?” I say.

“The what?” Nik asks.

“That house is sorta famous,” Gabby says through a mouthful of PB&J.

“Oh.” Nik nods. “The whole sustainable, LEED-certified thing.”

The what now? “I think it’s because of the takes-up-a-whole-block thing,” I say.

“Yeah. It’s not really my taste, but nobody asked me.” Nik sounds annoyingly apologetic.

“I think it’s awesome,” Gabby says. “I saw on the news it has a green roof, all kinds of solar stuff, and a spring-fed pool with a waterfall.”

Nik nods and runs his hand through his thick hair. It lifts and falls in slow motion like he’s in a shampoo commercial. I feel my puffy blonde curls frizz and shrink in envy.

“The waterfall is pretty cool,” he says. “You guys’ll have to come for a swim.”

I’d rather swim with sharks.

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Burnt Toast

by Don Michalowski

In 1990, my best friend John and I took a three-week road trip through the western United States. In Custer, South Dakota, we camped at Flintstones Bedrock City – a theme park and campground inspired by The Flintstones. As we did every night, we got real high and went looking for adventure.

We decided to sneak into Bedrock after-hours and visit Fred, Wilma and Dino. It was on Main Street, as we passed Mr. Slate’s house, that John said to me, “You know what dude, if this trip has shown me anything, it’s that you’re, like, actually funny. I mean it. You’re one of the funniest people I know. I bet you can come up with stuff as funny as that guy who does The Far Side.”

“Thanks man,” I said, posing for a picture while cupping the stone breasts of the Wilma statue. I loved The Far Side, and I loved a challenge so, as I went off looking for the Betty Rubble statue I said, “I can yabba dabba doo that for sure!”

We eventually wandered back to the tent, kept on smoking and kept on laughing as I set out to write stuff as funny as that guy from The Far Side.

Long before this trip, John and I got in the habit of always having a notebook with us when we got high. We knew we wouldn’t remember anything if we didn’t write it down. It helped answer questions like: Where did we park? Why do I have a pocket full of Canadian coins? Who is Susan and why do I have her library card?

That next morning, in our tent outside of Bedrock, John and I reviewed our notes.

• Smoke
• Bedrock – Dino
• Wilma – stacked
• Shots – fired
• Barbed wire
• Cynic overlook
• Moses in the morning

Much more had been written, but this was all we could make out—thanks to our terrible handwriting and the dozens of blood droplets scattered across the page. The notes helped trigger our memory. We remembered being chased out of Bedrock by a security guard, hearing shots fired and then losing him by running through a field. I recalled leaping through tall grass then slamming into a barbed wire fence when I looked back to see if we lost him. This explained the blood.

Next to the chicken scratch and blood smears were two drawings.

A bit of background on the first. Our trip took us through a lot of national parks where there was always a sign that said, “Scenic Overlook.” It directed us to pull over, park the car, walk over to a railing and look at something breathtaking. Often, however, there was nothing remarkable to see—just another “been there done that” view that left us doubting the merits of the Scenic Overlook concept. We started calling these kinds of stops a “Cynic Overlook.” My drawing had a group of people standing at one of these railings, looking down at a guy yelling, “I told them there was nothing great to see here, but did they believe me? NOOOO!!! They never listen to me. They just want your money!” Caption: Cynic Overlook.

That was my first attempt at being funnier than The Far Side guy, whose name, by the way, is Gary Larson.

The second drawing was simple: Moses holding his staff, looking in the mirror with his hands stretched out wide as his hair miraculously parted. Caption: Moses in the morning.

We laughed hard at that one, then closed the notebook and packed up our gear. I slapped a few Band-Aids on my barbed wire holes, and we headed off to see Mt. Rushmore. By then, all I could think was, when was my last tetanus shot?

I didn’t write any more ideas for the rest of the trip. Or maybe I did, but didn’t write them down, or we couldn’t read them. Either way, that would have been the end of that story—if not for January 14, 1993.

I was sitting on the toilet reading the newspaper, when something on the comics page caught my eye. That day’s Far Side cartoon. There it was—Moses, looking in the mirror, arms stretched out wide as his hair miraculously parted. Caption: Moses parting his hair.

I was floored. That caption sucked. Mine was so much better—less obvious. And where was his staff? Everybody knows Moses parted stuff with his staff. Every depiction of Moses—Bible illustrations, sculptures, Charlton Heston—has Moses parting with his staff!

I didn’t think, “Hey, that Larson guy stole my idea.” I felt proud. I came up with an idea that Gary Larson came up with, before Gary Larson came up with it. That meant something. Sitting there on my toilet, I had an epiphany. I realized my purpose.

That was the day that I discovered I wanted to be – had to be – a syndicated cartoonist.

Of course that didn’t happen. Have you ever heard of Burnt Toast? Has anyone? Of course not. But Burnt Toast became my passion project. I went all in: designed a logo, printed business cards, secured a URL, even wrote a mission statement:

Laugh at life’s little things…why not, it’s only Burnt Toast.

I didn’t say it was a good mission statement, but I took Burnt Toast seriously. I wrote nonstop – hundreds of ideas in dozens of notebooks. Sketches drawn and redrawn, captions written and rewritten. I was determined to get Burnt Toast published.

There was, unfortunately, one major problem. I was not a very good artist. And if Burnt Toast was going to be syndicated in every major newspaper across the country, I needed an illustrator.

I met with dozens of artists, but only one clicked: Jay Washer. He had a fun, easy drawing style, but more importantly, his sense of humor matched mine. Together, we sorted through my mountains of ideas, picked out what we agreed were the best of the best and got to work producing our submission kits.

The result? Forty well-drawn, funny, off-the-wall comic panels, assembled into a professional presentation package complete with cover letter, bios and our mission statement. We sent them off to all the top cartoon syndicates. Not only were we proud—we were over-the-top excited. Why? Because it had been announced that Gary Larson was retiring at the end of the year. That meant there would be a big hole on the cartoon page of every newspaper in the country. A hole that needed to be filled.

And, in our hearts, we knew Burnt Toast was the answer.

We mailed off our submissions…and waited.

If Burnt Toast was going to be the answer, could someone please repeat the question?

There was no joy in Mudville—Burnt Toast struck out. Each submission was met with a polite but firm rejection letter. I was confused.

Did I pick the wrong illustrator?

Was I a one-hit-wonder?

Was I…not funny?

How could so many great ideas be met with absolutely no interest?

Two dedicated years of creating, writing and promoting Burnt Toast resulted in nothing. I even submitted to every magazine that bought cartoons—still nothing. After dozens of replies saying, “Not what we’re looking for,” or “Too close to what we already have,” Jay and I reluctantly decided to hang it up.

No syndication. No book deal. No merch store.

Our dream of a Burnt Toast coffee mug on every desk as co-workers gathered around the water cooler laughing at that morning’s Burst Toast panel evaporated.

That year, every newspaper launched a Far Side clone. The cartoon world had prepared for Larson’s retirement years before Burnt Toast ever hit their desks.

Then I read a Gary Larson interview explaining why he decided to retire. He wanted to quit while he was ahead and avoid creative burnout. He feared his work slipping into what he called the “Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons.”

Ouch.

Was Burnt Toast…mediocre?

Fast forward twenty-five years.

While moving to a new home with my wife Lee, I unearthed my Burnt Toast tote – stuffed with all my old notebooks, sketches and rejection letters. Reliving the Burnt Toast magic so many years later with someone new was a total hoot.

I must admit, Burnt Toast is…funny!

Those syndicates were wrong! What the hell were they thinking?

Okay—all joking aside—yes, there are some solid gems in the Burnt Toast collection. But overall, it is kind of, well, mediocre. Still, for as much as I loved creating Burnt Toast, I loved sharing it with Lee even more.

Her responses were priceless.

“This is stupid,” she said.

“Whaaatttt?!?!” I laughed, flipping through the panels.  “This stuff is great! Look at this one.” I showed her a drawing of a guy celebrating on a tennis court, arms raised in victory. On the other side of the net lay a dead horse, flat on its back, a tennis racket strapped to its front legs.

The caption: Bill has no problem beating a dead horse.

“That’s wrong,” she protested. “And definitely not funny.”

“Not funny?” I fired back. “Look at the score! It’s 40-15. He may have beaten the dead horse, but the horse still scored. That. Is. Funny!”

“It’s just mean,” she said shaking her head. “You got anything else?”

“Look at this one, it’s one of my favorites.”

I showed her a drawing of an open time portal, all squiggly on a wall. From both sides, the same guy, at the same time was trying to go through the opening.

Caption: Having found the portal to a parallel universe…Don bonks heads with himself trying to cross.

“I don’t get it,” she said flatly.

“It’s a parallel universe,” I defended, “so, by definition, the same thing is happening at the same time on both sides. So, he has to bonk into himself trying to get through.”

“Nope…dumb. Next.”

This went on for almost an hour. Me showing her one Burnt Toast panel after another, cracking myself up and watching her grimace in response, which, only made me laugh harder.

I kept going, determined to find at least one she liked.

“When people weren’t looking, Peter Piper picked his nose.”

“Gross!”

“All the campers wanted to have a big weenie roast, and Carl was the biggest weenie they knew.”

“Bad.”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. But give him a few beers and you can get him to do practically anything.”

“Stuuuupid.”

Finally, on my last attempt, I slowed down, carefully pointing out the details.

“Okay, look closely,” I said. “See the hunter? Now look at the tree in the background—see it? The duck, just barely poking his head out.”

I pointed to the caption and read it aloud, barely holding back my laughter: Hunting the very elusive Peeking Duck.

“Ugh!” she shouted. But then it happened.

A smirk.

A subtle smile she tried so hard to hold back.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, surrendering, “I’m not laughing because it’s funny—because it’s not. I’m laughing because YOU think it’s funny. I’m enjoying how much fun you’re having showing me your stupid cartoons.”

And then she added:

“I do love how you see the world so differently. How you always find the funny in the little things. That’s why I’m smiling.”

It took twenty-five years.

Mission accomplished.

Get recognized for your writing. Find out more about the Writer’s Digest family of writing competitions.

The post Writer’s Digest 94th Annual Competition Humor First Place Winner: “Burnt Toast” appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(See the list of winners here.)

Alison Luterman’s five books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, Desire Zoo, In the Time of Great Fires, and Hard Listening. She also writes plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, Esalen, and Omega Institutes, and writing workshops around the country, as well as working as a California poet in the schools for many years.

Here’s her winning non-rhyming poem, “Charring Lemons.”

Charring Lemons

by Alison Luterman

February, and those fat yellow

knobby-nippled grenades

are dropping from everyone’s backyard tree,

to be kicked around like little hockey pucks,

or left to rot in tall grass.

One neighbor fills a cardboard box

with precious Meyers and sets it,

as an offering, on the sidewalk.

Another leaves a bag on my doorstep–

Take, take, m’ija, my tree is bursting!

And I remember walking

in the Berkeley hills decades ago

with my first husband who was not yet

my husband, gaping at all the front lawns.

Look, a lemon tree! Another one!

Fresh out of Boston, naive as a new puppy.

Everything in this golden state

was a wonder to me, not least

the boy-man on my arm

with his black curls and high-wire heart.

What did I know then of fire and flood,

mudslides or earthquakes?

Oh, to be twenty-five and free

from even the thought of disaster,

to be so simply dazzled by a tree

heavy with fruit in the heart of winter!

That was our first year together,

when everything was still possible.

Before the marriage collapsed

under our feet like a beautiful building

not built to code. Well now he’s dead

and I’m old, and standing over a hot skillet,

charring lemons—a trick I learned

on the Internet—blackening them just enough

to bring out the hidden sugars.

Hold anything over the fire

for a few minutes or a lifetime

and it turns into smoke.

Get recognized for your writing. Find out more about the Writer’s Digest family of writing competitions.

The post Writer’s Digest 94th Annual Competition Winning Non-Rhyming Poem: “Charring Lemons” appeared first on Writer's Digest.