Green River Autumn

By Jem Morgenstern


Roaches settle under milkweed patterned floors
Summer sets on churning bodies, wilting  
  daisies nestle on garden stones
Wooden homes along dirt roads, stretching 
  only from the one-eyed man's home 
  to the farthest point his eye spies

Quiet folk keen on speaking with pointed eyes
   and locking their doors before the gloam
To the well, they do not send their children fetching
   or else the beast will chew their bones
Passerbys' screams keep mother from her quilting
   and the locks stay on the doors

Brandon, OR/ID: Part VII

Suspended Pinks
By Jem Morgenstern

A cello sits quietly in the corner of the room. Its dark body stands out against the blushing pink walls. The wooden floors are similarly dark. Anne is sitting on a yellow chair. This is a room she hasn’t been in before. The cello in the corner is a stranger to her - a distant relative to her own cello. She is staring at its peg box. The head of each peg is parallel to the others - an impossibility that leads Anne to ask questions that she doesn’t intend to answer or vocalize. She wonders if the cello is tuned properly. She wonders why it wouldn’t be. She wonders if the cello’s cellist has a method of tuning the cello in a way that keeps the pegs perfectly aligned with each other. An impossibility.

She stands. Her shoes are between the doorway and the wardrobe. The left side of her left shoe is parallel to the right side of the wardrobe, the right side of her right shoe is exposed to the air flowing in through the doorway, the heels of both shoes are against the wall behind them. Their laces are undone. Each time she looks at the shoes, she is bothered by the end of the lace on the right shoe that is frayed. She is planning to replace the laces soon, because she is trying to minimize the number of small details in her daily life that make her uncomfortable. The next pair of laces will be the fourth pair of laces that have been on these shoes. She replaced the first pair because they were a particular shade of blue that didn’t match well with the peachy yellow of the shoes’ bodies. She still has this pair of laces stored in the bottommost left drawer of her own dresser at home. She has considered lacing that pair onto the shoes rather than buying a new pair, but she decided the combination of colors would cause the same amount of discomfort as the frayed end that she is attempting to ignore now. The shoes are now on her feet and she is walking down the stairs. The stairs are steep - otherwise, her pace would be quicker.

There is a long hallway at the bottom of the staircase. The walls are bare, likely because it is hard to pair artwork with the intricate wallpaper. The floors of the hallway are the same as they are in the room with the cello. There is a small decorative table near one of the doorways. Nothing is on the table. The rooms in the house are wide and spacious, but this corridor is suffocating.

The tiles in the kitchen are a muted white that is similar to the tile on the countertops, the cupboards and walls are a heavy blue. On the countertop near the sink, which is below a wide window, there is a wooden cutting board. There is a column of drawers next to the white fridge - two cutting boards that are identical to the one on the counter are in the middle drawer. The knives are all kept in the drawer above the cutting boards. The drawer below the cutting boards contains miscellaneous tools that are not used often. None of the handles to the cupboards or drawers are matching. There is an asparagus green kettle on the stove and Anne hears it begin to whistle. Two teacups are set next to the cutting board on the counter. Something is placed on the cutting board - Anne is unable to identify what it might be by just the sound of its heavy body landing on the wooden board. She enters the kitchen and does not look at the cutting board.

“I have to go. Are you busy later this week?”

Anne knows that he is busy later this week, but she feels that asking this question makes her unexpected exit seem more polite. Her question and presence in the kitchen are met with a concerned expression.

“Yeah, the rest of this week will be kinda busy, but I can see if I can find some time. Is everything okay?”

She knows that ignoring his question might spark some suspicion, but she chooses to anyway.

“I’ll text you later. Let me know if you can find time.”

She can tell he isn’t satisfied with this response. They talk for another short amount of time before she is able to leave. She’s glad that she decided to leave before he was further into the lunch-making process. They both exit the kitchen and walk down the narrow hallway towards the front door. There is a table next to the door with a stack of small books. Anne glances at the titles and finds that they are almost all contemporary christian fiction. She’s glad that she decided to leave before she was further into the romanticizing process.

It has been two hours. Anne is walking through the mall to a store she believes will have shoelaces. The mall is crowded and she worries for the unsupervised kids who are chasing each other around the always ignored mechanical rocking horses. She thinks about coming to the mall with her parents - she is surprised by the lack of change and she experiences a mild sensation of loss while thinking about the things that have changed. She wonders if the children understand how temporary childhood is - though she then hopes that they don’t, because she doesn’t want them to worry about the impermanence of their childhood freedoms. She doesn’t want the pleasure of childhood to be spoiled by the aggressive reality of temporality. Her thoughts sway between the consideration of childhood as a concept and memories of her own childhood. She remembers the excitement she felt when her parents gave in to her begging for a ride on a mechanical rocking horse and the dry embarrassment she felt when she got on the horse and discovered it wasn’t as fun as she had imagined. She tries to pinpoint the exact moment her childhood ended, but eventually determines that the loss of childhood is a gradual process of it being torn away rather than a single moment.

The store’s shoelace options are more limited than she had imagined. There is white, black, off-white variations, and a small group of neons. None of them are particularly attractive to her. She takes a few off the rack and holds them against her shoes. A sedated blue, a muted yellow, a pristine white, a violent neon pink. She puts the neon pink and the white back on the rack. She holds the blue and yellow against her shoes again. She puts the blue back on the rack.

At home, she replaces the laces on her shoes. The old ones are placed in the garbage bin. She feels like throwing them away is a waste, but she knows that keeping them around will do no good. With the new laces on her shoes, she is relieved that she won’t be bothered by frayed laces again until these ones are also worn to their limit. This small chore was the only activity Anne had planned for her day. A moment of stillness follows the completion of this one goal as the embrace of her achievement loosens. The stillness is a midpoint between her short pride in her small accomplishment and the inevitably approaching fear that the empty hours following will be filled with nothing but the questioning of what to do next. Anne is ashamed of her ruthless habit of killing time - the guilt of idling while time passes overwhelms her before the time she is afraid of wasting has begun to pass. There is some dirt on the rug in her bedroom, she thinks, so she decides to vacuum. She knows this will only occupy a small portion of the time to follow, but she is happy that the few minutes it takes will be spent in a way that she considers productive. With the vacuum on and the bedroom door closed, Anne doesn’t hear the knocking at her door. She would never know there was a knocking at the door and she would never know why.

Anne is able to occupy the rest of her day with small activities similar to vacuuming the rug in her bedroom. She finds a short time to play her cello, but she hasn’t yet forgiven her talent for the work it created when she was invited to perform at the Philadelphus Lewisii Music Hall nightly each day of the previous week. She punishes herself for the stress she has caused herself. At this time, playing her cello evokes the same stress her practice sessions had before, which is unpleasant. Overall, she is satisfied with how she spent her time.

She receives a text from the date she abandoned. He has found some free time later in the week and wants to know if this time aligns with her schedule, because he would like to see her again. Anne isn’t sure if she wants to see him again. She doesn’t respond.

Anne’s shoes are in the hallway. Her left shoe is on the right side of her right shoe - the toe is against the wall and its heel is against nothing. Her right shoe is pointed in the opposite direction. Her socks are still on her feet. She is sitting at the kitchen table in silence. There is an empty floral white bowl on the table in front of her. The head of her spoon is resting in the bottom of the bowl. There is a matching plate to the right of the bowl. On the plate, there is a small portion left of the bread she cut herself from the loaf she bought the day before at a supposedly French bakery. The texture of the bread isn’t as satisfying as it was the day before. Anne hasn’t yet decided if she will finish eating the bread. With the potential for love and the bread on her mind, she’s reminded of one of the many Johns she has known throughout her life. His absence doesn’t darken her mood. She wonders what he might be doing with his life now - she knows he’s no longer a gardener and she knows the friends they shared haven’t heard from him for a long time. Although she doesn’t care about him, she hopes that he is doing well.

Tunnel Shears

By Jem Morgenstern

The walls were once slick with condensating excrements and the scent of feces was an inescapable force that lingered in the air at all times. Now, the sewer corridors are as dry as the desert above them. Putrid scents come and go as the winds blow through galleries of semi-petrified masses of ancient feculence - or the scents are carried from fresher excrement after the wind passes through corners of the sewers reserved for stews of waste and rotting dead of the present day.

These corridors, once solely the home to pests and shifting excretion of the old age, now house the people who could not bear the striking heat of the dual suns and the jagged sand winds. All who abandon the arduous journeys above for the security of the sewer passageways face the questionable hospitality of the indigenous craftspeople known as The Sewers.

The Sewers are the last remaining people of the Northwestern Landmass who have the skills needed to manufacture clothing. Because it is the only skill that offers them an advantage in the trading networks, they cruelly guard the secrets of their techniques. Without their secrets, the only product they could offer to the markets would be the petrified manure of the ancients. With only that to offer, they would find themselves starved and dying because so few ask for the petrified manure.

The Sewers reserve all garments they make to be sold in the world above them. Because of this, they all live their lives disrobed. The docile underground wind wraps its fingers around their bare bodies, refugees from the desert avert their gaze until they finally become accustomed to uncovered skin, nudity is only interrupted when they dress themselves in newly made clothing to ensure it will fit similar bodies in the dusty world above.

The Sewers’ utilize their nudism to distinguish themselves from the refugees whose bodies are veiled by clothing. Although those who are clothed are not treated poorly, they are excluded from greater sewer events. They are not invited to the occasional dinners afforded to The Sewers by their monopoly on skills of clothing production, but they are treated to the leftovers from these feasts.

The Sewers are kind enough to allow outsiders to participate in their industry, too. For a long period of time before they are truly considered part of the sewer community, the outsiders work as liaisons to the desert markets. They bring the clothing up and the traded goods down in exchange for gradual acceptance - plus, they are compensated for their labor with popular currencies and necessary comforts.

Eventually, some outsiders become Sewers and are offered the privilege of learning the skills hoarded by underground dwellers since the beginning of this age. There have been attempts by desert travelers to infiltrate the indigenous sewer communities by stripping their rags from their bodies and entering the tunnels while pretending to already be Sewers. The Sewers, having exceptional eyes for details, are able to distinguish a dust dweller’s skin from their own. With exposure to the desert, patches of skin are rugged with scars that do not occur in the sewers. If The Sewers discover intent to steal their secrets, the former potential thief is quickly tied and brought to an empty corridor that is strictly used for immolation. Afterwards, the body is transported to a waste corner where it is left to decay.

This brutality towards thieves is the only violence found in the sewers. There is no other place that provides the same asylum from barbarism. Above, even the air is savage. Below, the world is gentle enough for nakedness to be commonplace and for inhabitants to be so untroubled by their surroundings that they are able to socialize without irritation piercing through their interactions. Couriers, wealthy travelers, and even the Dust Raiders rest in the company of Sewers - to escape the suns, to rest without worry of Horrible Centipedes emerging from the sands, and to disrobe and refresh in gentle air.

Injection Eight

By Leiani Brown

It was one of those snowy mid-February mornings that Alice had loved. Just after a blizzard. The surrounding whiteness gave the earth a newness that seemed to slow time. It was 5 a.m., the softness of the snow soothing the harsh sounds of morning to a kind of muffled silence. Sean was used to being the first one awake in the world, but there was something about snow that made everything softer, sleepier.

       He walked out to the road, rubbing his hands together to generate heat. He could feel the numbness already beginning to take hold of his skin. His were the first footprints to touch the fresh snow. He stopped in the middle of the road, the orange glow of the faulty streetlight illuminating his lone figure.

       Within hours, Sean knew, the pure, untouched road would become a grey slush, tainted by car exhaust and tire tracks.

       Alice had hated the slush. Sean would always hear her griping about the grey mess that seeped into her shoes and made a splash with every step. That's why he'd often find her outside in the cold at 4, sometimes 3 a.m., just staring at the untouched snow.

       “It's so beautiful,” she'd say when he came to herd her inside. “Why can't it stay like that forever? Why can't people just stay inside? Just leave it alone?”

Alice was a bit of a purist in that way, she hated to see things tampered with.

       He had laughed at her then, shook his head at her ridiculous standards and unrealistic hopes. But he wasn't laughing now.

       Sean and Alice had been married for 27 happy years. High school sweethearts. Their marriage hadn't been perfect, but it had worked. That's why Alice leaving two years ago took him by such surprise. Sure, he hadn't always been around, but it was a part of the job, and he knew Alice understood that. Being a truck driver meant traveling a lot. It was a lonely profession, but they had found a way to fit marriage into the lifestyle. Or so Sean had thought.

       He shoved his hands into his pocket and sighed.

       The drive to the clinic was long and uneventful. He stayed in the car for a dozen minutes before finally going inside.

       “And how may I help you, sir?” The woman at the front desk wore a cyborg-looking Bluetooth attached to her ear and had big bulging eyes that stared up at him as she spoke in an annoyingly sweet voice. Sean wasn't sure if she was talking to him or the electronics wired to her face.

       “Sir?” she repeated after an uncomfortable amount of silence. “Sir, can I help you?”

       “Y-yeah,” his voice cracked. “Yeah I'm here to see Dr. Stanport.”

       “Alright, if you'll just wait one sec,” she smiled a toothy, over-friendly smile, and turned to a computer behind the one in front of her.

       She wears way too much makeup, Sean thought to himself as he took a seat that was set out for waiting clients. And how many computers do these people need?  He was thinking like Alice again. He did that sometimes.

Sean calculated his age to be somewhere around 84, and his bones often agreed, despite . He had striking green-blue eyes that held the vividness of his 20 year-old self, and the slightly sagging skin of an 80 year-old, with the brown, somewhat greying beard of his thirties.

“Sean Kimball.”

His name came over the intercom, like he was back in grade school being called into the principal's office. Dr. Stanport's office certainly matched the description of one, as far as he could remember or imagine one might look like.  

       “Sean! What a delight to see you!” Dr. Craig Stanport, head physician of the clinic, stood in front of his desk in the middle of his office, welcoming Sean in.

       “I had a scheduled appointment. You were expecting me.” Sean replied brusquely. He’d always suspected Dr. Stanport of faking pleasantness. In fact, he’d always got the feeling everyone was faking something, like the whole place was just one giant plastic bubble filled with plastic plants and phony mannequins posing as people.

       “Yes, but nonetheless, it's a delight! An absolute treat!” For a mannequin, Dr. Stanport sure was animated—so many hand motions and shifting facial expressions. “How are you doing this fine summer day?”

       Sean froze. “Summer?”

       Dr. Stanport nodded, a fake smile still vibrant on his baby-faced features.

“What do you mean? I had to drive through a nasty snowstorm to get here, the roads are awful.” Sean began talking fast, his confusion and dread picking up speed. He jerked his head in the direction of the window to see sunshine creeping in through the blinds.

       “No…” Sean groaned.

       “Ah, I see we still haven't given up on those hallucinations.” Dr. Stanport’s voice was annoyingly matter-of-fact.

       “There's snow on my windshield you can look for yourself!”

       “Please, Sean. Take a seat.”

“But it was snowing! I felt cold! I'm wearing a coat for Pete's sake!”

       “Yes, and you're sweating immensely. Please, take a seat.”

       Sean suddenly became aware of an uncomfortable amount of heat generating from the insides of his thick winter coat. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and cursed. “No. No no no no no... I don't understand. I honestly... I thought…”

       “Sean, please, take a seat.” Dr. Stanport spoke slowly, as if coaxing a child.

       Sean reluctantly took a seat, never taking his eyes off Dr. Stanport's baby face. He didn't look older than 19 or 20, and Sean hated that. Dr. Stanport took his spot across the desk from Sean, pulling out a few files, a smile seemingly ever-fixed onto his face.

       “Are you telling me I can't even tell what season it is anymore?” Sean’s confused voice mixed with frustration and hostility.

       “Can't? Sean, we've been over this. You alone can eliminate the can'ts.” Dr. Stanport and his stupid philosophical quips.

“But it was freezing! I woke up and the snow was there! If I had gone out in shorts and a t-shirt I would've frozen to death!”

       At this Dr. Stanport’s eyes widened, a kind of fear sneaking into his curtain of tolerance. “Sean—”

       “What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to think?”

“Sean, please. Just leave it.” His voice was dangerously low, and his smile teetered ever so slightly.

       “I'm sorry. Honestly, Dr. Stanport, I wasn't trying to be difficult, it just caught me by surprise is all. I'm sorry. I really have been trying my hardest to let everything go like you said, sometimes I just get confused. And I was doing good too, I had everything together—”

       “It's alright, Sean. Please, take a seat.” Somehow in his agitation he had stood up again, and he quickly shuffled back into his seat.

       “Tell me about this morning,” Dr. Stanport finally stopped flipping through files and placed his hands atop the stack, fingers interlocked.

       “I woke up early,” Sean said slowly, thinking hard. “It was a long drive to the clinic, and I didn't want to be late. But I... I took a moment to look at the fresh snow. Alice, my wife, loved fresh snow…”

       “Sean.” Dr. Stanport sighed. “I can't help you if you don't help me.”

“I can't remember. Please, just show me the tapes. Please.”

“Sean, you can't rely on that forever. You're never going to improve if you don't at least try to remember on your own.”

       “Tapes? Haha how old is this guy?” A third voice made Sean jump out of his seat. A young man in scrubs was standing behind Dr. Stanport's swivel chair, but Sean hadn't seen him. Had he been there this whole time?

       “Shut up Chris,” Dr. Stanport's voice was uncharacteristically brusque. “He can still hear you, you know.”

       “Why does it matter? He won't remember any of this,” the man named Chris said bluntly, either oblivious to Sean’s presence, or he just didn’t care.  

“Ha, true.” Dr. Stanport’s voice was different now. Callous. Raw. Unpleasant, even.

       Sean's hands were shaking. “Excuse me? Who do you think you are?”

       “Sean please, sit down.” Dr. Stanport repeated, reverting back to his fake pleasant voice.

       “I'm not stupid! I will not be treated like this! You're just going to let him treat me like some kind of-of—” Sean began to yell, flustered and angry.

       “Of what?” Dr. Stanport snarled. That look on his face. The one of smugness mixed with indifference. Sean hated that look. “Struggling to find the words?”

       He was sweating immensely, his boiling rage only adding to the heat.

       “Please, Sean. Sit.”

       Sean obeyed. He was beginning to feel lightheaded.

       “How about taking that coat off now?”  

       The coolness of the air-conditioned room seemed oddly harsh, like being dunked in ice-cold water.

       “There we go. Much better, huh?”

Sean could barely hear Dr. Stanport's voice through the ringing in his ears.

       “Now. Tell me about your morning.”

       Sean could see a woman's face. She was laughing. She was staring back at him with big brown eyes. She was staring at her palms, holding them up to the light to see every line and detail with perfect clarity. She was slipping—

       “My wife, is she okay?”

Dr. Stanport sighed.

       “Guess I should go get the 'tapes' now,” Chris said with heavy exasperation, forming quotation marks in the air.

       “Shut up, Chris,” Dr. Stanport said again, this time more harshly.

       “C'mon, let me just stick him and call it good,” Chris argued.

       “No, wait. Not yet. Sean, don't you remember?” Dr. Stanport persisted in his most soothing voice, slowly, deliberately. “Remember last week? What did we talk about last week?”

“I don't think we met last week, did we?” Sean was full-on confused now, his mind flicking through images he couldn’t identify. Memories, he thought they must be, days spent in this very office. Across from Dr. Stanport, talking. But he couldn’t remember what about. The woman again. She was there. Only she wasn’t. She was wrapped in white linen being poked and probed--she hated needles.    

       “We meet every week, Sean. Do you remember why? Look at me, Sean. Do you remember why?” Sean could hear Dr. Stanport’s voice, but he couldn’t shut out the woman’s face. Who was she? No, she didn’t belong here. He pushed her away, thumbing through memories, looking for Dr. Stanport, their conversations. Sean’s arm felt numb and sore, remembering a pang just below the top of his shoulder as his memories of Dr. Stanport resurfaced.   

“The car accident…” Sean said quietly, slowly.

       “What car accident? Tell me what happened.” Dr. Stanport continued to coax it out of him.

“No, we've done this before. You know what happened.” Sean said, annoyed as everything started coming back to him.

       “Yes, but I need to know you know what happened.”

       “Of course I know what happened, I'm not an idiot!”

       “Okay, okay. No one's calling you an idiot, Sean. I'm just trying to help you.” Dr. Stanport smiled.

       Sean could feel a tingling under his skin, he felt dizzy, irritable. He could see yellowing skin, hair falling in clumps in his hand, her discolored hands clutched in his. At the same time he could hear her laughter, he could feel himself laughing, he'd forgotten he could do that—

       “I don't understand.”

       “What don't you understand, Sean?”

       “Why would she leave me right after I got in a car accident? Because she wasn't there, I was working, she was at home—”

“Sean, you've never been married. This woman doesn't exist, these are hallucinations, and you're better than this,” Dr. Stanport's blurted finally. But his words seemed rehearsed. How many times had he told him this?

       “Oh give it up, Craig.” Chris said, already advancing towards Sean.

Dr. Stanport sighed and placed a small rectangular box on the desk in front of him. He placed his thumb on the center and a blue light scanned it back and forth. The light glowed green, and he withdrew his hand.

       Had Chris not already silently injected the needle into Sean's arm, Sean would have clearly seen a holographic image sprout from the center of the box moments later. He would have watched as it showed a semi-truck and a smaller, unrecognizable car collide in a silent tumult of metal and blood, then rewind to show a slide-by-slide sketch of a life not his, but plastered with his name and face all over it. He would have seen Dr. Stanport grab a recorder and move to the window. He would've heard Dr. Stanport's tired voice as he spoke into the small, electronic speaker: “The 22nd of July 2025. Subject 28843. Subject's eighth round of injections. Still not fully severed from dependency. Effects barely last a week. Subject reported the same circumstances as last week; his brain appears to be permanently replaying the same winter morning. Significance of the morning still unknown. Subject does, however, believe in the car accident scenario streamed during initial injection. Subject still remembers lost one’s name, but remains unaware of death or cause thereof. His brain seems to have explained it away in terms of ‘leaving,’ implying perception of conflict, but he shows no sign of recognition of death. However, today he displayed fluency in the terminology of death, his first recognition of its existence, but it appears only to be on an idiomatic, figure of speech level of understanding. Recommended close monitoring for further signs of cracked perception buildup. End session eight.”

Had Chris not already injected him, Sean would have heard Chris ask Dr. Stanport why he even bothered to talk to patients, that clearly the drugs were working. He would've seen Dr. Stanport shrug his shoulders, and heard him mumble, “The reason we began the clinic was to stop people from remembering their hurt, but clearly this man is still hurting.” Sean would've then heard Chris’ matter-of-fact reply, “Every cure has its minor drawbacks.” He would've seen Chris leave, but Dr. Stanport remain. He would've felt the doctor’s eyes as he stared at Sean’s lonely face. He would've watched him pull out the files and take one last look at the picture of his patient’s dead wife before throwing it into the pile of a dozen files stuffed with pictures of other dead wives, husbands, fathers, brothers, children, pets.

But the instant the needle hit Sean's skin he felt its substance enter his body and rinse out his thoughts, draining out words such as “death” and “cancer” and “Alice,” and wringing out his limbs and mind until both were suffocatingly numb. His eyes and his subconscious were the only parts of him that stayed awake, and the instant the holographic images popped up in front of him, his eyes locked onto them and fed the lies to his subconscious: a quiet life alone as a trucker, shattered windshield shards, waking up alone, unhurt.

Sandpaper

By Jem Morgenstern

Our skin was raw and dirty, rubbed down by the vicious sand winds, thoroughly dried by the endless sunlight; every inch was aching and every uncovered portion left completely unprotected from the natural sting of sun and sand was torn and tanned like the many leather chairs found in the crumbling home of the mostly untouched North Ruin. None of us enjoyed this section of our journey - the birds, as always, were especially negative - making the giddy warmth these memories extract from our well-fed emotional paunches unexpected. That was the case with most of the horrible things we endured. The one exception to that being the day we were attacked by a truly violent and terrible clan of Dust Raiders. Most Dust Raiders are nothing more than bullies, who would only go as far to leave you with a few bruises or take a small portion of a traveller’s supplies. Some encounters can be pleasant; they’re not always on pillaging duty, and they’re very loving and welcoming during those times. When we saw the vicious dust raiders coming our way, we did run, but our previous encounters with Dust Raiders didn’t motivate us to make our run anything more than a playful jog. They caught up to us without effort and when they were near enough to us, we could feel an air of aggression, we could feel their passion for unsurmounted violence snaking its way up our spines, and we could smell the death they carried with them. Even before they engulfed our inexperienced group of couriers, we knew to regret our entirely fabricated attempt to outrun them. They only chose one of us - a purposeful darling, who rode the sweetest wildebeest I would ever meet and reminded me of myself - and we were lucky that one was all they wanted. When they roped her steed and thrust the bone-tipped spear through her spine, we kept moving. We left her behind. All we could save of hers were the staining memories of her deep red blood, the cracking of her bones, the tearing of her flesh, and the haunting yells she managed to throw from her lungs that we ignored and tried so hard to push out of our heads. When anyone mentions that trip, we feel those brutal memories slipping back up from the depths and we ignore that, too. We never talk about that day. If that day never happened, the rest of the memories we have of unpleasant times might not make us laugh, but having that experience knocking on the floorboards makes every complaint feel silly.

Brandon, OR/ID: Part III

The Noted Palace

By Jem Morgenstern

She walked onto the stage. The audience remained completely silent and listened to the click of her heels, as she sauntered to the cello that stood waiting for her in the center of the stage. John watched, like a dog presented with a plate of pulled pork, intently and excitedly with a heart readying itself for impending joy. John listened, as if her heels knocking against the stage were the music they had been waiting to hear. Although she hadn’t started playing, he could already feel the vibrations of the music that he had become so familiar with in the weeks and months of listening to her practice. He was as excited to see her perform, as she was to play. The clicking of her heels stopped, she sat on the chair, and she looked out into the audience for what seemed to her like many seconds, but it was really just a few. She felt nervous, but she wasn’t. She knew she could do this and she had no worry that she might make a mistake. The auditorium was completely silent, except for the echo of stillness and quiet. The walls anticipated the long, deep bellows of her cello.

The Philadelphus Lewisii Music Hall was built to stage massive musical performances with hundreds of people playing on the stage at once. Structurally, it was very unique. Instead of being built with depth, so that musicians could be placed row behind row behind row, it was built so that one-thousand musicians would fit on the stage with only two very wide rows and enough space between the individuals for each player to be comfortable in their skin and have the space for the instruments themselves and the movements required to play them. The architects paid no mind to the effect the arrangement would have on the sound emanating from the orchestra’s instruments; their goal was to design the most aesthetically intriguing display within the city, rather than the most technically profound orchestral stage. Because of its width, the music would always sound less harmonized and synchronous than it would on a regular stage. After the construction was complete, the architects realized this and advertised the less-than-perfect stage as a modern artwork with supposed commentary on how a person’s physical location affects the way they perceive events and time, how one person will experience an event one way and another the other way, and how a person could experience something once and then return to experience it again from a slightly different perspective and find themselves witnessing something that is completely different to what they had experienced before (this would help drive their argument that everyone should come see each performance at least twice, which would greatly increase their monetary gain for some time). Their brilliance in marketing their ineptitude as exceptional intellect paved the way for a few of these architects to move to careers in advertising.

The length of the stage made the woman’s walk to the center more exciting than it would have been, if she had walked across a regular stage. She didn’t want to seem rushed, nor did she want to take up too much time with her walking, so she practiced for hours to find the perfect measure between a brisk walk and an elegant saunter. The walk was as much of a performance as the music she would play. Her walk would preemptively define her character and personality, affecting the way her music would touch the audience’s ears. If her walk radiated confidence, it would be beautiful and subtly erotic, which is what she had hoped for (she had caught a glimpse of the audience beforehand and hoped her gentle sashay would land a few dozen scraps of paper in her dressing room, leading to more scraps of paper, plastic, and rubber in the coming nights of the week, which would be disposed of pridefully in each of the following mornings). If she reverted back to her most well-known form, a delicate arch, her music would only result in mediocre reviews and sympathetic thank-yous from women in their mid-forties, who would be reminded of themselves by the gentle innocence of a gifted and unconfident young woman (who they all feel they once were).

Still, the walls anticipated the bellowing voice of her cello. She was still sitting and in three seconds, the lights flood the stage, as had been rehearsed. She could feel the heat and the eyes latching onto her, now unobstructed by a wall of shadows. His eyes pierced her skin and she felt that, too. She barricaded herself with a deep breath, clutched the neck of her cello, and took the bow across the strings - a heavy moan. This wasn’t the song that he had heard her play before. The same notes, order, length, and tempo, but the intent had changed. It didn’t exist for him, as he felt it did while listening to her practice. She consciously made the decision to ignore his presence, which resulted in the creation of a miniscule, yet soul-altering void in his chest. Like a rash that ate away his positivity, it spread upwards and downwards, slaughtering the energetic tingling that came with his excitement to see her play her song in front of a begging audience for the first time and replacing it with an aching pulsation of worry, anxiety, and a hollow hopelessness. With the decision to disinvite his gaze, she radiated a confidence that warmed the room.

Fours hours later - no intermission between them, no pauses, and no interruptions - the music finally ended. Originally, the performance had only been set to go for two hours, but she was so pleased with how well she had been playing that she made an independent decision to extend the performance’s time by two hours. The audience, of course, was confused, but they sat still and graciously endured the additional two hours of singular-cello orchestral music because they didn’t want to seem rude. Not once during the performance did anyone leave their seat, out of respect for the confident young musician on stage. Anyone who needed to pee held it in, no matter how badly they needed to. Considering that at least half of the attendees went to the performance directly after attending the Kamen Drinking Water Convention, during which they drank a grand multitude of the booths’ samples, and that another large portion came directly from the grand opening event of the Archimedes Artisanal Water Bar next door, there was an understandable amount of uncomfortable shuffling that started about one hour into the performance and lasted for the entirety of the remaining three hours. The only audience members who didn’t seem to be in dire need of urinating were those who came directly from the event at the Bravo Watersports Arena across town. After five minutes of heavy applause, the audience shuffled their way towards the rows’ ends, into the aisles, and out the doors. She stood at the center of the stage until the last person turned their back, and then she made her exit.

She stood in the connecting hallway and buried her lungs in a deep breath. In her mind, she was rapidly pacing back and forth but - although beginning to wilt - her figure was still. Her confidence was beginning to dim and bleed into the air, but she vacuumed it all back in through her wide nostrils and pushed it back into her body, letting it spread into each corner of her body, like cotton filling the deflated skin of a stuffed animal.

She used this moment to say to herself, “Anne, it’s not going to work,” a sentence she had been hiding from herself. She knew this moment of self-honesty would dissipate and that she had to take advantage of it. It took four seconds longer than it should have for her to find her coat and bag. Luckily, her phone was lying dormant in the first pocket she checked, which saved her an indeterminate (because of the multitude of possible search-and-not-find scenarios) amount of time. It had grown cold in the hours it spent without the heat of her body keeping it warm, but it wouldn’t take long for it and her hand to rekindle their friendly bond. With only fifteen swipes of her finger, her life had changed for the undeniable better and her mood had sprouted from a horrific seed into a flourishing bouquet. A pleasant smile grew from the corners of her lips and her eyes rose from sunken pits. The string connecting him and her was cut.

A small paper - only two inches wide and one inch tall -  laid on the rug; like a primitive business card, it displayed a handwritten name and phone number. Its surface was unscathed by anything but the pristinely black ink in which the letters and numbers were written. The handwriting was nearly perfect: pronounced curves, sharp angles, and calculated length, yet it was uniquely human. It caught her attention the same way a particularly attractive ghost might. She picked it up from the floor and slipped it into the pocket of her coat, along with her phone. She left her dressing room, and The Philadelphus Lewisii Music Hall, and returned to The Property. Pushed by her excitement and general impatience, the fourteen minute drive only took her eight.

Brandon, OR/ID: Part II

Flower Stuck in Gums

By Jem Morgenstern

Anne is a recent high school graduate from West Kilby High School, which has no counterpart in the East, North, or South. It is the smallest high school in the city and is mainly reserved for the elitist children of the classist wealthy adults. Their sports teams are ranked as the worst in the region despite having the best equipment. West Kilby High School’s archrival is The Deng Xiaoping Catholic School for the Gifted, which is the school with the least and worst sports equipment and also ranks as second-best in the region despite their condemnation of extracurricular activities because, as quoted from their introductory guide, extracurricular clubs and activities distract students from achieving their full intellectual potential. West Kilby High School doesn’t have much to show for its overfunding besides its orchestral dominance over other schools’ music departments. This is mostly because the school is able to afford having a music department. Of the six high schools in the city, only three have musical classes to offer. Anne, although a student of West Kilby High School, didn’t play in the West Kilby Orchestra. Instead, she played for the Callcott Loyal Orchestra, whose home was Callcott Loyal Orchestral School for the Musically Talented. Callcott Loyal, although being dedicated to the musical arts, only had the second-best orchestra of the three schools that have music departments. This is mostly because the students of the school had no teachers. Callcott Loyal Orchestral School for the Musically Talented let the students teach themselves. Considering that many students at Callcott Loyal were completely self-taught musicians, them ranking second-best in the city is actually very impressive. Anne is a musically-gifted, 19-year-old, kind romantic. She often has a difficult time hearing what people say and is too shy to ask for repetition. She chews rose flavored gum, she hates talking to the elderly, and she too often drives over the speed limit. Her life had reached a stasis where positivity and negativity lifted each other up and dragged each other through the dirt. There was no movement in her emotional vortex, which left her with a pleasant blank feeling most of the time. This was what she had expected her life to feel like after achieving her ultimate goal, but she questioned how it could possibly feel this way if she hadn’t yet met her true love.

Anne had never cared about romance or marriage. She tried so hard not to care about romance or marriage. She almost succeeded, but she couldn’t stop herself. Love was what she wanted most, out of everything. She always had the feeling that it might be hiding around the corner, but every time she turned that corner, nothing was there. She sat in her room, listening to the wind and her neighbor’s radio that always played too loudly, thinking so fondly of her perfect future. She doesn’t want anything spectacular, nothing worth writing books about, nothing anybody would care to hear about. Anne wants a calm, sweet, clean future. Anne wants that future to be now. The love she yearns for takes time and patience - truckloads of patience - she understands that, but she can’t help it.

From outside of her bedroom window, he caught her eye. He: twenty-three and already dead inside, commonplace brown hair, commonplace white skin. His name is John, often referred to as The Gardener by Anne’s parents and - for the sake of narrative eccentricity - by me. In all honesty, The Gardener is such a boring character. He isn’t boring in a way that makes him interesting, unlike Anne, who is boring in a way that makes her quirky and relatable. The Gardener is so simply boring, but has won Anne’s love so simply by standing in her view. Henceforth, The Gardener - however uninteresting he may be - is now an important character. Anne looked at him. Only looked. She had not one thought of him, she did not listen to his rustling in the bushes beneath her window, she did not attempt to speak to him. Anne knew this was love, but how could this be it? It changed nothing and everything inside her, but how could this be it? She is drawn towards him. She wants to garden beside him so badly, despite hating working in the yard (as well as her parents, which is one reason why the hired The Gardener). She hated him already for cutting her bushes too short, but she forgave him immediately because her love would not allow her to pay mind to such a small thing. He finished with the bushes and turned the corner. Her heart bleeds with his absence, because she is so deeply in love. Anne is in love with The Gardener she knows nothing about. She does not catch another glimpse of him for the rest of the day.

It’s 8:45 PM, well past the usual 8:30 PM dinnertime. Anne glances at her clock, back at the screen of her computer, back at the clock, back at the screen of her computer, at the clock on the screen of her computer, back at the clock. It’s 8:45 PM and she has not been called down to eat whatever it is that John - The Cook, not The Gardener - should have prepared for her to eat by now. She brought herself up from her chair, casually so as not to seem angered or hurried. Then, casually, she walked to the door of her room. She opened her door, casually, as if just to use the bathroom. She stepped from her room and walked to the stairs that led downwards to the first floor of the house, which contained one of three kitchens on The Property. The first of the other two is in the basement level of The Home. The second of the other two is in The Maid’s Cottage, which is currently home to The Gardener, The Butler, The Maid, and The Laundryman. The Cook lives in The Home, along with The Breadman, The Tailor, and The Family. In all, The Property is home to only three people who are not men: The Tailor, Anne, and Mother Anne. Mother Anne is the mother of Anne, and those two are the only two women on The Property. The Tailor, who is not a woman and also not a man, is the only one on The Property to identify as either or neither. While still not identifying as either of the one-two genders, The Tailor prefers to be referred to with the use of the pronouns typically used for women: she, her, and such others that can be inferred from the given information. Of all the men on The Property, only two are not named John (John is a very common name in this city). John, the son of Father John and Anne’s younger sibling, is the youngest of the Johns. The youngest of Anne’s two siblings is one of the two men on The Property to not be named John. Mother Anne and Father John decided that naming both of their sons with the same name just wouldn’t be practical, so they named him Jon. The other man on The Property not named John is The Maid, who is named Anthony.

Anne is now in the primary kitchen. The time is 8:55 PM. The house is rather large, so it takes some time to get from room to room. The Cook is finished preparing dinner, twenty-five minutes later than usually scheduled, as requested by Mother Anne and Father John. Anne arrived just in time, along with her parents. Anne questioned her parents and asked for them to reason why dinner was scheduled twenty-five minutes later and they said plenty, but it could have been easily summarized with no good reason. They began eating: carrots and potatoes prepared in a variety of ways, caramelized onions with mushrooms, lentils, and pulled pork.

Anne needed to ask about The Gardener. She couldn’t stop thinking of him. The thought so fondly of him. Every minute of the time she spent watching him was etched into each each minute of the rest of her day and she could not stand living a minute longer without knowing who he is. The clock ticked dramatically, as if it were being held up to her head to taunt her with each passing second. She was nervous. She knew asking about him would raise her parents’ suspicion, but she had to. To herself, Anne promised that she would ask straight after swallowing the bit of mushroom that was in her mouth. She chewed slowly. Before swallowing, she paused and thought more. She made an agreement with herself to eat one more mushroom before asking her parents about The Gardener. The rearranging and rescheduling of her planned actions continued for some time, before she realized that it would never happen. She knew herself well enough to know that she would never be brave enough to ask even one thing about him. She finished eating, left her seat at the table, and began the long walk back to her room.

The time is now 10:01 PM. Anne is alone in her room. She regrets not having the courage to ask about The Gardener. She regrets not having spoken to The Gardener herself. She goes through every crevice in her mind, searching for anything to wallow over and regret. Her window is open, her room slowly loses its heat to the chill of the dark Autumn air, and her blankets have never felt more cozy. All she wants is to sleep. She wants her consuming thoughts to be brushed aside by exhaustion. Then, she wants to fall deeply into her sleep, so that her mind refuses to let those thoughts back in.

The morning came quickly (not literally any quicker than usual, but Anne felt it had). Anne woke with a startling sense of rest. She wasn’t tired and she didn’t mind the fact that she had awoken half an hour earlier than she wanted to. The sun shone brightly through her window. The Property’s figure was sharpened by the contrasting shadows and illuminations. The gentle sound of garden shears snipping at her bushes wafted upwards and into her ear. She could not believe he dared to cut her bushes any shorter, but she was glad to know that he was nearby. She peered through the immaculately polished glass, down at him. He looked just as perfect as he did the day before. The Gardener’s perfection, which is so obvious to Anne, is not obvious to most others. Even in his own narrative, The Gardener was less than important. That day, Anne was the only one to value him. He didn’t value himself, as a person. Mother Anne and Father John didn’t value him, as an employee. The Staff of The Property paid no mind to him and didn’t value him, as somebody who had shared an experience with them. His mother and his father didn’t value him, as a child. Even before speaking to him, Anne knew that The Gardener would be boring and valueless, but she loved him for being genuine. He was real. All she saw, all he showed: it was physically and limitlessly real.

After staring, watching, gazing, and glancing for weeks, Anne finally talked to The Gardener. They talked and they both enjoyed the conversations they had together. Their chats became more frequent. When Anne felt the timing was right, she asked The Gardener if he would like to go on a date. They went on a date. They enjoyed their date and they both agreed upon going on more dates, so they did. They went on many dates. This continued for many months. The Gardner changed Anne’s contact name in his phone from Anne to Anne(GF). Anne never changed The Gardener’s contact name in her phone to anything besides John. Despite their many dates and many efforts, the two never fell in love. In the end, it was Anne who put their dates to a stop. He was simply boring. Even in Anne’s ridiculously romanticized reality, his combined personality traits couldn’t create any dynamic of interest or allure. Anne’s first impression of him was completely inaccurate. It wasn’t even a struggle for Anne to decide whether or not she break her ties with the boy. One day, she simply said to herself, “Anne, it’s not going to work”, and she texted him right then and there. She didn’t take care to be gentle with it either. Anne knew that The Gardener would not flinch regardless of what it said. The day it happened, Anne removed his number from her phone, but The Gardener kept hers as Anne(GF) until the day he died. That was the first time he developed any character. He couldn’t bring himself to delete or even change the label in his contacts because, to him, it felt as if that would remove or alter a time in his life that he hadn’t even realized he enjoyed so much. For the first time, The Gardener was an actual being with actual feelings and a real personality. He acquired the trait of being sentimental. He acquired a genuine appreciation for time and memories. Now and then, he would come upon a moment he found to be beautiful yet he knew without effort that he would forget that moment only hours after. In these moments, he would strain himself to remember every detail, so that he could look back on it and recall the mundane sense of bewilderment that came from them. It was in one of these moments, only months after the day of Anne’s last text, that The Gardener died.