By Jem Ashton
Good Bird
Tangled between lines
I say to myself good bird
What was meant to be girl
almost became boy
blurred
and was bird instead
For my dentist, I am so
Sweet candy
you say I’m good
You can see I’m flossing
and indeed that’s what this is
Flossing for you
and I will not stop my flossing
For the job you want
Dressed
alone in my apartment
Straight up and down
chest to thighs, flat
What do you want to be
and I wish I could say dentist
Sophia watches a worm. Whichever end that’s poking out of the dirt - equally likely a head or worm butt - is wriggling in slow chaos. It flicks up, to the left, then the other way. It all seems uncoordinated and thoughtless. Its lack of movement either outwards or inwards makes it seem even moreso. Has it lost itself in a panic? Is it struggling to make its way wherever it planned to go? Sophia doesn’t know, we don’t know, and the worm might not either. As its body slams against the dirt, clumps that are crumbs to the human eye but must be boulders to the worm are shoved to the side.
“Where are you going?”
Assuming the worm would be more comfortable buried entirely, Sophie uses nearby wooden detritus as a makeshift trowel to shift dirt to the worm. She’s safe to assume her action was helpful, because she can no longer see the worm struggle and she will never see this worm again.
Satisfied with this moment being the end of her distraction, Sophia rises from her kneeling position and stares into the distance. The ruins of the North stretch beyond her eyes. The sight reminds her of the mud cities in the South along the trails traveled by her courier troupe before the group was dissolved for a reason unknown to her but obvious to several other members - they just couldn’t cut it as couriers, in part due to Sophia’s lack of self-awareness. This trait of hers was a fault then, but it serves her well now as a Klein, a designated wanderer of the still-unknowable wastelands. When she stepped into the Office of Designations after her troupe’s dissolution, the Marking Officers only glanced at her before assigning her new designation. Her spirit was clearly unsettled, unrestrained by a course that must be maintained, ready to be cast off in any direction.
Her walk begins again. She decides to go deeper into the North Ruins. As she follows the disquieting allure of the distances in the North, further and further from this point where she shared dirt with this worm, her footsteps are light.
The worm, now alone and confused by this girl’s choice to bury his head, senses the stillness in her absence and pokes his head back up from the dirt. She’s gone and he is comforted, though his setae are now sore from his panicked thrashing. He hasn’t surfaced for a long time, preferring to linger in the dark, comfortable underground and to forget the acrid wind above.
Since the Great Wind Cataclysm that transformed the world so drastically, the earthworms were fortunate to experience only slightly more drastic mutations than the humans - mutations that mostly affected their psychology, leading to changes in their social structure. While humans did become less social due to psychological mutations, they have maintained a largely community-focused approach to structuring their society. Worms, on the other hand, experienced psychological mutations that pushed them past the point of community. The structure of their society changed drastically. They no longer formed herds, as their ancestors did. Group decisions of any sort were largely abandoned, with the exception of together deciding to go in opposite directions when coming across each other when digging. However, although the instinct for socialization had mutated out of their genetic makeup, the need for socialization hasn’t gone away entirely. That is the reason for this worm’s occasional journeys to the surface. To satisfy his need for some socialization, he will surface to witness life. With his head poking out of the dirt, he will look up and hope to see birds, giant wildedogs, or even a wandering Klein. This visit to the surface has so far been a disappointment - he leaves the underground to notice, not to be noticed. Sophia’s attempt to comfort him was agitating and it set him behind schedule to an extent that felt unforgivable. He had not witnessed enough life to sate his need for socialization, but he would soon need to return to the damp dirt below to avoid the gullmen, who would be emerging from their nests as the sun set and the dimmer sun rose.
The hoarse, twittering yells of gullmen in the distance signals the end of his experience on the surface. He turns around and quickly makes his way through the dry dirt layer, heaving clumps as best as he can with his limbless body. Tomorrow, he will surface again and he will have a more pleasant experience. After which, he will express gratitude quietly to himself. He is grateful for the mutations that have granted earthwormkind with gelatinous, human-like eyes with which they are able to witness the world, and he will be reminded of how much a gift these eyes are after his next attempt in the morning.
By Jem Ashton
In the second month of a new relationship while on a weekend road trip to a small town in the desert - one that’s more of a byproduct of tourism than an earnestly charming podunk - my then-new boyfriend dragged me to the one bar in town where fags might not get stared down. That weekend, fags were actively welcomed, actually. The local queers put a bare-armed effort into staging a full-fledged Pride Festival that drew queers in from all over the region. It also lured in some queers who intended to “just pass through town” but couldn’t resist the timeless charm of pop music barely audible through amped up bass and rowdy, drunk homosexuals.
One was a rugged man with gray hair, tanned skin, and a beard that reached his sternal notch - bare, only hidden by the same chest hair that would guide your eye down to a vertex held together by a shirtbutton below his chest. He said we - me and my then-new boyfriend - fit the vibe for his company, which was looking for models. We should consider modeling, he said. He didn’t say what his company was and we didn’t ask, but we enjoyed his company enough to make him our friend for the evening. We kept talking and he stood behind me during the long wait for drinks at the crowded bar. He was passing through town with his husband, who was somewhere else in the crowd, and they caught wind of the party. They liked road-tripping on their motorcycles, they liked meeting new people. He liked our look - or maybe or looks, as distinct and separate as they are.
He brushed his rough, asphalt hand along my wiry forearm and I shifted my weight back to lean fractionally closer to the affectionate man standing behind me at the bar. With the gentle movement of our bodies - shifting to drink or make way for the flowing crowd - his belt pressed into me. His body pressed against mine. My fraction of a step became whole and I pressed myself against him, signaling I welcomed his belt, his body. Signaling I welcomed his body pressing into me.
He asked for my number, saying he wanted my number to keep in touch about the modeling suggestion, but I caught a glimpse of a more familiar invitation in his eye. His cheeks were rosy with lust and beer. His eyes were heavy like ripe fruit, plump and ready with visions of seeding fertile earth.
I gave him a fake, because I wasn’t sure I wasn’t crossing the boundaries of my then-new relationship. Would my boyfriend mind my minute flirtation with this stranger? I both cared and didn’t. My fake phone number felt like the middle ground.
I was saying “yes.”
I was saying “no.”
I was getting what I wanted and I was giving it up.
Because I took the lazy way out of a tricky situation, that was the end of the road.