Copulant: Theft and Sex (DRAFT)

 By Jem Ashton

I stole Lady Gaga’s Artpop from the FYE across the street from my highschool. It was a gift for my highschool boyfriend, who credited Lady Gaga with saving his life - a classic gay boy story of the time. I’ll refer to him by his first initial, M. M once tackled me in the parking lot of his highschool when he was trying to get into my pants. He was aggressively horny - he sexually assaulted me, really -  but that wasn’t what led me to dump him. I dumped him after he gave me a promise ring. It was clear that what I thought was a silly highschool relationship looked like something else from his perspective - not a match. I kept the ring, but I never wear it. It’s too big. Perfect for his own chubby fingers, but a bad match for my bony hands.

The FYE I stole from is now the gym I go to. After breaking up with my most recent boyfriend - a relationship that lasted nearly seven years - I moved back to the suburban town where I spent my latter teenage years. It’s as suburban as I remember it being. The grocery store is filled with the elderly, the middle-aged who wear Cookie Monster sweatpants, and children who are unattended. The strip malls are filled with chains, whether national or regional. There’s a thick layer of patriotism spread over the neighborhoods. I’ve stolen from the gym now, too. Just one towel so far. Every time I go, I consider taking another one. They’re a good size - modest enough for the sauna while still being small enough to require a good portion of one thigh to be visible when you’re seated with any degree of spread. It gives me the opportunity to be a tease - something I insist I’m not but love to be at any given opportunity. Countless times, I’ve been signalled or directly asked by men in the sauna to show off my dick and I’ve gladly complied. Gladly, because it means I’m wanted. Gladly, because it puts me in a position to reject somebody, which means I have power. And I like having power. Thank you for giving me power, here you go.

One week this summer, I was propositioned each time I went to the gym. The first was on a Sunday. The man sitting next to me whispered to me déjame mirarte. Por favor. I know just enough Spanish to understand. I let him look. The next day, the same man was there. I showed him again and he used his phone to show me a picture of his boner. On Wednesday, a man followed me from a bench into the sauna after we made prolonged eye contact with each other during our workouts - a ripped, hairy, bald man. We then left the sauna together and jerked each other off in his car. His phone was connected to his car’s bluetooth and I learned his name was Greg. Greg’s iPhone. The day after that, there was a tall man who followed me in. We groped each other a little before some other men joined us in the sauna, which forced us into couthness. I later learned this tall man is the current boyfriend of a man who I once went on a date with. They’re a cute couple. For my last workout of the week, I didn’t intend to visit the sauna, but I was persuaded by an older man. At first, I rejected his advances by saying I didn’t bring a towel, which wasn’t true. Then, he offered me his extra towel. We sat together in the sauna. Eventually, a friend of his came in. They both jerked off while looking at me. I didn’t. I still have the towel. It’s green and large - intended to be a beach towel probably.

Since that week, I’ve been propositioned less frequently. I now go to the gym at times when it’s less busy. Overall, the gym is less busy than it was early in the summer. Maybe it’s because people gave up on getting their summer body, resigning themselves to their suburban truths. Maybe they’re busy living it up on lavish vacations. There are dozens of excuses I can come up with for them - both denigrating and kind. 

At the gym today, I sat in the sauna and I was wishing the perverts were back. Being horny after a workout is an animalistic pleasure - a simple, physical state of being - and it’s easy to satisfy. I’m craving that simplicity, the uncomplicated act of helping a man you’ll never see again get off. Everything else in my life feels like an insurmountable problem. At every turn, I have to ask myself if I can make it work. Grad school. Relationships - WHICH relationships? Money. Managing my time. Becoming SOMETHING. Compared to all that, making some guy cum feels so easy. If I ask myself if I can make that work, I know the answer is yes. There’s nothing to worry about. There’s no financial risk. I have no emotional hang ups. It only takes a few minutes. Like petty theft, I often think. Just a low-risk, convenient, moderately satisfying action that is always available. If the choice is between being a kleptomaniac or a nymphomaniac, which would you rather have me be? 

I appreciate the material benefit of theft. I appreciate the more innocent delights of sexuality. However, the right answer, of course, is neither. The right answer is to confront life’s complications, as inconvenient as they might be, rather than riding them out until life makes choices for me while I distract myself with the simple pleasures. To me, these confrontations often feel as though they’re pushing me towards psychosis. While I’m fairly sure it’s not psychosis, just the WHACK of stress that comes with life-hood, I can’t count out the possibility that it could be psychosis (it’s common enough in my family). The mature thing for me to do is to engage in those complicated feelings and then get a grip on my feelings while I push through, whether those feelings are psychotic or not.

I’ve recently been on a borrowing kick. It’s like stealing, but I promise myself I’ll bring the things back. Back to the ex who I was with for close to seven years. The life we had together was who I’ve been for as long as the relationship lasted and I feel like I’ve been struggling to give birth to my new identity - one that’s mine alone. The things I borrow are things we shared. Things that are his, but were also mine for seven years, but are now just his again. His CDs, which I’ve borrowed for road trips with potential friends, lovers, exes. His hiking boots, which we always shared because we wear the same size. I felt bad about borrowing those and have since purchased my own - just mine - hiking boots. His microplane, which my family gifted to him, so it certainly is his, but I needed to zest a lemon. Shortly after this borrowing, a friend asked what they could buy me for my birthday and I asked for a microplane. The microplane void in my kitchen has been filled now. I won’t need to borrow his again. I’m glad to say I have so far returned everything I’ve borrowed from him. The myriad voids in my life have been slowly erased by my own versions of his things.

As I build a fuller version of my life by replacing what’s been lost with things that are my own, my borrowing and theft become less necessary. Same goes for my frivolous sexual encounters. While I was with my long-term same-sex sexual/romantic partner of nearly seven years, being a tease for the perverts at the gym was an escape from my dissatisfaction. It was an escape from my inability to confront necessary amendments or a dissolution. I was once again using the simple pleasures available around every corner to distract myself from the more complicated issues in my life - from reality. Now that sex is just sex instead of a distraction from displeasure, I’m seeking it out less. It feels less necessary. Being in a long-term relationship expanded my life. While that expansion felt good, it also created more gaps. I didn’t have enough within myself to fill those voids on my own. Single again, my life has shrunk and returned to a size that’s manageable for my little nut of a brain. If a pervert at the gym asks to see my dick, it’s there for them, but I’m not going out of my way to increase the odds of that occurring. If I find myself in a rut because I don’t have the right tools in my kitchen, I can solve that problem myself.

Three Poems, Three Stanzas Each

 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

sitting in church imagining my own gruesome death isn't blasphemy it's love

by lei

from where I sit I swear the angels see me

as strangers preach of God 

or whatever pain or peace ascribed to Him

I swear the angels 

they see me hidden 

behind the comfort of ivory sounds

alone

staring into the lid lock bar of a stranger's baby grand 

I swear they see my eyes seeing

suspension

--that wooden bar 

a deadly beam from some precarious construction zone

whose fate I imagine impaled in flesh 

aimed at the bridge between my eyes

glued still, 

but slipping 

with every falter of my resolve not to join them 

yet

He Says

By Late Night Writings

“No matter what, I don’t think I’ll ever believe you.”

Then we went back to talking about the usual stuff. My day was okay. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. His day was busy. His days are always busy, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. Either of us could have said more about our days. Either of us probably would have liked to hear more about our days. We like listening to each other talk, even if neither of us ever have anything interesting to say. Neither of us like to talk much though.

It was one of the rare days that one of us could start a more substantial conversation. The subject got us both talking. We both replied to the other’s comments with more than five words. Somehow, I think we both managed to make a lot of our responses more than one sentence. More than five words. More than two words. That doesn’t happen often. I think we were talking like that for a little over five minutes. It didn’t feel long, but it felt long. Maybe if the conversation had stayed on the initial topic, it would have gone on for even longer. But it didn’t. It turned a corner and led us somewhere else.

I was still giving instinctive responses. Just saying the first things that came to mind. He gave me an opinion that I didn’t agree with. I asked him to elaborate. He did. I still didn’t like it. The conversation didn’t turn into an argument or anything, but the mood was definitely different now. He wasn’t too defensive, I wasn’t too aggressive. He explained his position the best he could and I understood why he held that opinion, but I still didn’t like it. I said that it’s a good thing I love him. Then, he said he loves me too. He said it with confidence. He said it like he meant it. But then I said it. I said it with confidence. I said it like I meant it. I said that I don’t and probably won’t ever believe that he loves me. It might be true. I might not believe that he loves me. He might care about me, he might like me, he might like like me, but I don’t think he loves me. I’m not sure how he took it. We both brushed it aside and changed the topic immediately. I don’t think it’s because either of us were afraid of addressing the issue. I think we both just need some time to think about it. We need to wait until we both have the energy for another short, long five-minute conversation.  Maybe longer.

Brandon, OR/ID: Part IV

Liquid Evergreen
By Jem Morgenstern

The desk is littered with ink bottles, neatly organized by color and by shade. The drawers are filled with pens and pencils, meticulously arranged to look beautifully cluttered. A small silk blanket is draped over wooden chair that sits next to the window. The feining sunrays highlight the dust in the air and land on a large chest across the room, which is filled with spare blankets of various materials, weights, and sizes. One of the more regularly used spare blankets sits neatly folded on top of the chest. Another lays sprawled at the foot of the bed with a corner draping over the edge, nearly touching the floor. A small pillow rests next to that blanket, for the dog that sometimes wanders in for a change of scenery after a long day of lounging on the armchair in the next room over.  In that room, along with the armchair, there are three identical bookshelves that are all mostly filled with books (not all of which have been read), two small tables (one holds a lamp and the other holds a vase of dried eucalyptus and miniature roses), another armchair, and an intricate rug that is vacuumed every Tuesday and Thursday. The rest of the house doesn’t follow the same studious theme. There are three rooms besides those two: the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. The kitchen is large enough to fit everything a cooking hobbyist would need and enough storage space for a casual wine enthusiast to keep a fair supply. The fridge is currently stocked only with the basics, besides the small plate of pulled pork that will be fed to the dog in two nights. The living room has a small couch, a glass coffee table, and a television with a thin silver frame. The bathroom has a classic blue color scheme and is well-stocked with any toiletries a person may need. Daniel (the third most popular name in this city - behind John and Jon) is sitting on the small couch in the living room, sipping from a glass of a disappointing-but-not-bad glass of madeira, and watching a show that only interests him a little, but he enjoys watching it anyway because he forces himself to. His dog lays next to him.

Back in the bedroom, two tickets have been casually set next to the ink bottles. Rather than being two tickets for two to attend the same event, they are two tickets for a singular person to attend two events. Daniel doesn’t know anybody else who would share an interest in attending either of these events, so he has no choice but to go alone. This is despite how peculiarly common these interests are in this city. One, in fact, has inspired a dedicated structure that wouldn’t be found in any other city. Of course, it is used for many other things besides the purpose it is named and built for, and hosts a variety of events that are similar to or not similar at all to the personal interest from which it is named. Daniel is primarily going to the event for what is implied and all else the event entails, but the other aspect of the event (which for most others would be the primary reason for attendance) also intrigues him. While he only considers himself to be a casual why-not sort in regards to that specific interest, others may consider any interest in it at all to be extreme and many do consider his interest in it to be extreme (because he does have more than a casual interest in it, no matter how he tries to deny it). The other event he plans to attend is more widely accepted and the venue in which it will be hosted is no less common in cities outside of this one, however, the design of it is much less practical than most you would find elsewhere. Although an interest in events such as this one are common in most places, it is slightly more common in this city. In Daniel’s small pool of friends and acquaintances, there is not one who shares this incredibly common interest; a nearly supernatural oddity, considering 99.5% of the established social circles within the city’s boundaries contain at least three people who share this interest and 80% of the remaining .5% contain at least two people who share this interest.

Since Daniel had been sitting on the small couch in his living room, five hours have passed. He was very pleased by the first event of the night and he plans to attend more events hosted in that rare venue of entertainment in the future. He is now sitting comfortably at the second event. It has been one hour since it began: the person sitting to his right has his legs crossed and is shaking his foot, the person sitting on his left has her knees pressed against each other and is clutching her thighs in mild discomfort. He recognizes several audience members from earlier that night. Three more hours pass and it is now time for the audience to leave. Seeing that the crowd seemed so rushed and knowing that he had no reason to hurry, Daniel kindly let the others leave before him. He was the last to turn his back to the stage.

One hour later, Daniel found himself on an impromptu date with a man he met outside of the building of the second event. It’s uncommon for Daniel to speak to strangers, especially to this extent, but here he is - answering the typical questions to be asked, asking those same questions, and listening to the answers:

“If you have one, what’s your favorite color?”

I don’t really know. I kind of like most of them. All but orange, maybe. What about you?

“Same here, but with yellows in addition to oranges.”

Yeah, I’m picky about my yellows. Sometimes I like yellow, but not usually.

“What do you like to do?”

Oh, I don’t know. I like to do a lot of things. What about you?

“There has to be something you like to do. What do you do with your free time?”

Not a lot, honestly. I like music, art, movies.

“What kind of music do you like?”

A pretty big variety. It depends on my mood. You?

“I have terrible taste.”

That last answer evoked Daniel’s lips to curve slightly upwards into a mellow smile. He was thoroughly enjoying his time with his new acquaintance. Already, he excitedly looked forward to spending more time with him. He was also very pleased with the food they were eating and he was excited to have a new place to suggest to his friends and brag about having been. Their conversation continued. Although it never grew from its mundanity, it was intensely pleasant. More time passed, Daniel’s smile became a prominent feature on his face, and the stranger’s warm personality began filling the cracks and crevices in Daniel’s skin and bones. They left the restaurant, continuing their conversation until it was time for them to part ways with each other’s names and numbers in hand.

Forty minutes later, Daniel found himself back on the couch in his living room. The uninteresting show was playing again on the screen and Daniel was paying less attention to it than he ever had before, with all his thoughts on Scott (the fourth most popular name in this city - behind John, Jon, and Daniel). The last thing on his mind that night would be Scott, and the first thought in his mind the following morning would be the same. That day, everything had gone as well as it possibly could have. He was in love with that day more than any he could remember and he was in no hurry to let it end, pushing him to stay awake hours later than he usually would, basking in that temporary, precious, and wonderful feeling. The mediocre madeira was down the sink and a new bottle was opened, a polished lambrusco with complex floral notes. The dog trudged through a tired slog into the bedroom, lept onto the bed, pawed at the sheets until they were maladjusted to her content, and curled into sleeping position: tail tucked away, jowls hanging limply, eyelids gradually closing. In two more hours, Daniel would fall asleep on the couch, despite how strongly he dislikes sleeping there. The bright television screen will continue to illuminate his face throughout the night and the sounds will seep into his subconscious, provoking unusual dreams.

Seven hours later, Daniel is awake. He feels rested and is looking forward to his day, although he has no plans to look forward to.

I Love Lucas

By Late Night Writings

“Wait, you said no? Why? Haven't you been together for, like, eight years?”

“A few more than that.”

“Ten?”

“Add a few more.”

“You’ve been together for more than ten years and you said no.”

“It didn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean? It sounds like he put a lot of effort into it. If anyone did that for me, I would have said yes. You’ve been a package deal for as long as I’ve known you. What’s that about? Do you just not even like him? Why?”

The conversation continued for about half an hour before I could convince her to drop it. She had always looked up to my relationship with Lucas and she would have given anything to have something even reminiscent of our relationship. She grew up yearning for her dream guy and to be happily wed after a two-year relationship. Marriage has never been one of my goals. It doesn’t appeal to me and I don’t see a reason for it. Sure, there are some great financial benefits and all the free toasters and towels might have been nice, but we didn’t need any of those things. We’re well-off on our own. I’m happy with my insurance plan and he’s happy with his, so we don’t need that. We make enough money to live comfortably and we can easily afford the occasional luxe pampering. We don’t need more toasters; I like the one we have. We don’t need any more towels; only I know what I like in a towel. For us, getting married wouldn’t have meant much. I already know how much he loves me and (I hope) he already knows how much I love him. Though, honestly, I hadn’t put a lot of thought into why I’m so strongly opposed to getting married, until I had that conversation. The fact that it changes nothing is an argument that can be used pro-marriage just as well as it can be used for anti-marriage. It’s not like we would have to switch over to one insurance plan. It’s not like we would have to receive useless wedding gifts or even have a wedding. I thought about it for awhile and after hours spent pondering, I could only come up with a few reasons; they might not be the best reasons, but here they are:

Marriage is a social construct and not giving into society’s expectations for a young woman makes me feel powerful. From such a young age, women are force-fed the idea that the absolute pinnacle of their life will be their wedding day. For some of them, it might be, but it’s not even close to being that way for most people. I want young unmarried women to be just as accepted as young unmarried men are. In fact, I want people to stop differentiating between men and women completely. I don’t even want gender to be a concept because that’s a social construct too and we don’t need that shit. I want us all to just be people with different parts that do different things. If at all, it’s going to take centuries to eliminate unnecessary social constructs, so I’m not going to hold my breath for it, but I hope it does happen eventually. Anyway, yes, the first reason for me not wanting to get married is that breaking free from societal boundaries is highly empowering and I hate that people are branded by their genitals.

My second reason is that it would be much easier to just break up rather than have to get a full-out officializing divorce, if we ever do decide to part ways. That’s not something I’ll be telling him, of course. Saying that to him might be a little concerning, as if saying directly to his face, “I have no faith in our relationship and I would rather it be as easy as possible to abandon ship when things go awry.” I have a lot of faith in my relationship with Lucas. I feel safe around him, I feel like he loves me, and I feel the same love for him, so I’m not worried that the ship will sink anytime soon or ever. However, if things do start going downhill, I want to get out as quickly and effortlessly as possible. I firmly believe that a relationship going sour should just be abandoned. Rough spots are totally fine - those happen with every couple - but a consistently unhappy relationship is unsalvageable and abandoning it would be the better option for everyone involved.

My third, final reason, is that I’m just afraid. I’m afraid of what it might do to my social life and of what might change in my relationship with him. I don’t think I’m ready for it. Even though I consider marriage a waste of time that means absolutely nothing, I feel like it will change everything. I feel like I’m not good enough for him to marry and I’m afraid that he might realize that, if we go through with it. I can’t accept that he would love me enough to legally declare himself eternally dedicated to me. I don’t know if I could handle being the one wife he gets to have. I can’t wrap my head around how much he must love me to say to me, “there is nobody else I would rather have as my wife and, if you choose to be, I will forever onward be as glad that you said yes as I am today.” I’ve never felt so loved before and part of me is trying as hard as it can to deny that it’s true. I don’t know what it would take to convince me, but I want to be, and I hope that I will be. I want to feel the love he tries to give me and I want to be as happy as I know it should make me.

Afternoons at Jackery Lake

By Jem Morgenstern

I would watch them from beneath the water, as they rode by in their little row boat. The paddles gently sunk into the once-still surface of my lake and pushed them along the surface. They were the only ones to have come by in years, so I always knew it was them. I became familiar with their voices. The bigger one, who steered the boat most of the time, had a deep humming voice that was comforting and warm. The smaller one spoke so softly, as if always whispering. They looked at each other with admiration and sincerity. They spoke to each other as themselves, instead of fabrications displayed to impress the world. They were so entwined in each other that they never noticed me; not even when I swam so near that I could reach them. Their love was so infectious, seeing them together made me feel as though life could never be more pleasant or hopeful. I never became jealous. I would only hope for their love to continue for as long as it could. For a short time, I had even considered granting them an infinity to share together, and hoped that in all that time, they would still come to float across my lake, talk, and laugh.

I had always been taught to expect the worst. In my own experiences, through centuries of history, I had never been given a reason for why I shouldn't. When the novelty of their perfect romance had worn off, I solemnly began the wait to see hearts broken, lovers murdered by a disapproving mob, or any sort of pain to arise from their love. That day never came. Years passed. Their visits to my lake continued. More years passed. Their visits became less frequent. The lovers were aging. More years passed. Their visits were only once a month. Their love still as present as ever. Still as infectious. Still as pleasant and joyous. Seeing them together still brought me so much happiness. The time came when their visits did come to an end and I knew what their absence implied. I wished them well in death and would remain eternally in debt to the love that graced Jackery Lake and proved to me that good does come and bad does not always follow.

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.

Brandon, OR/ID: Part I

A Baguette Shouldn’t have a Name

By Jem Morgenstern

This story begins in a not-actually-French French bakery in a not-quite-suburban division of a not-quite-recognizable city directly on the border of Oregon and Idaho. Neither state wants to claim the city for no reason other than its reputation. The city isn’t scathed with rampant crime, infestations, or insurmountable poverty. Really, claiming the city wouldn’t be burdensome in any way, but the place is so inexplicably unextraordinary that neither state wants to claim it. Residents aren’t taxed by either state, so they’re only taxed by the city and the national government, which allows the city to raise taxes by quite a bit without any complaints from residents. Because of their increased taxes, the city has been able to become quite beautiful, but still unseen and unheard of by anyone besides the residents living there. The city’s residents never feel the need to move away from the city, unless temporarily relocating for schooling or just vacation. People living outside of the city never feel the need to move into the city (people are only interested in cities they’ve already heard of and don’t care to hear about anything “near Idaho”).  There are only two difficulties for a city with no state, really. One is that people who still send mail are never sure which state to put on their envelopes and the employees of the USPS are never quite sure how this city could be here and there, but they’ve learned not to question it and they sort the mail that goes to the same city that is somehow in different states in its own category. The second is that residents don’t know which state is their “home” and don’t know which state to have pride for. Some residents decide to show no pride for either possible home state and some choose to show pride for both, but the second of which is often too much work and is the less common of the two. In smaller portions of the community, the confusion caused by having no state goes further to where they question if they even have a country or which country they belong to, which is the only explanation as to why the not-actually-French French bakery in a not-quite-suburban division of the city claims to be French while having been run by not-actually-French Americans since it was established twenty years ago.

This day’s sunrise seemed to last longer than the average sunrise, which had caught the eye of the single baker who showed up to work that day and the single customer who had begun driving to the bakery just as the sun’s cantaloupe light leaked through the outlines of his neighborhood’s rooftops and treetops. The sun rose with a certain gentility that slowed the pace of the hour, neutralized worry for the seemingly elongated passage of time, and warmed the mellow chill of the air. For the baker and the customer, the time they spent alone that morning was for each of them one of those undefinable moments that are so appreciated and then easily forgotten by the next hour. As the baker stood in reverie without disruptive thought, a piercing chime rung in the kitchen and pulled his ear towards the baking bread. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave his position quite yet because he knew this would result in the loss of this immaterial moment of comfort, but he had to for the sake of the not-actually-French French bakery’s reputation. He took a deep breath to say goodbye to his lull. Then, he walked into the kitchen and passed the counters topped with flour and flavorless yet decorative seeds. The baker pulled a pan of seven baguettes from the oven. The bell dangling from the door’s hinge jingled as the customer, who took a deep breath to say goodbye to his lull before he left his car, walked into the not-actually-French French bakery. This was the only bakery where he would buy breads despite it being a twenty minute drive from his home and that there were several other bakeries within a considerably closer distance. The customer had always felt like this specific bakery was more authentic than the others despite it being pseudo-French. What truly appealed to him wasn’t the bakery’s authenticity. If he had cared about authenticity, his favorite would most likely be the actually Albanian bakery just fifteen minutes away from his home. The customer actually cared about which bakery made bread the way he imagines bread should feel, smell, and taste. With the exception of their bethmännchen (which is German, not French), this not-actually-French French bakery closest fit the standards of his idealized bread.

While the customer has come to recognize the baker because of his frequent visits to the bakery over the years, the baker has yet to register the customer as a recognizable figure. The customer always feels somewhat disappointed when that baker fails to recognize him, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the baker. The customer’s disappointment is made obvious through teeny expressions and vocalizations imperceivable by himself, but seen by bystanders and misinterpreted by those bystanders as off-standish traits that make the customer feel even more like a stranger than he should at this point with his history of customer loyalty. The baker’s inability to recognize this customer or any of the other regulars is somewhat negligent, but excusable because of his tendency to focus on the insentient instead of the living. Because many of the bakery’s regular customers give off-standish vibes of imperceivable disappointment at this baker’s inability to recognize their loyalty, the baker comes across many off-standish strangers in his line of work although they aren’t actually strangers or even off-standish.

The customer bought one of the seven baguettes and left the baker and the bakery without any exchange of words beyond the standard employee-customer conversation.

“What can I get for you today?”

Just a baguette.

“Okay. Is that all?”

Yes.

“Two dollars, please.” (Bread isn’t taxed in this city.)

Thank you.

“Thank you.”

Goodbye.

“Have a good day.” (It had been, but it soon wouldn’t be.)

The baguette was in a brown paper bag, shuffling around in the passenger seat of the customer’s car as he drove the twenty minutes back home without the witchlike sunrise illuminating his middle-class car’s worn surface. Six minutes into the drive, the customer’s car was struck by another much heavier car. The customer then died. The owner of the heavier car wasn’t unphased by the strike, but he was still in the same condition as he was before (physically, but possibly scarred mentally). The survivor looked around the intersection. There weren’t stop signs on either of the intersecting roads and the speed limit for both was 45. This hazard had simply been overlooked by anyone and the owner of the heavier car, in the end, would not be blamed for the fatal accident. Then, the survivor took his cellphone from his pocket and called the emergency dispatch hotline. The emergency dispatch hotline squad arrived shortly afterwards. The squad pried the door of the customer’s car off its hinges and onto the ground. They were actually unsure of that to do next, since this particular emergency dispatch hotline squad was composed entirely of recently trained officers who hadn’t paid much attention to the boring parts of the training process. They stood at the pried entrance of the crippled middle-class car and stared at the most brutally mangled corpse any of them had ever seen (some had seen mangled corpses before). The squad looked to the survivor, stupidly, as if he would know what to do in this situation. The survivor looked back at the emergency dispatch hotline squad. The baguette stood still in its brown paper bag, unscathed. The survivor realized the squad was staring him down for answers.

“Pull out,” he said to them with stern certainty without noticing that he forgot to say “him” between the two words he had said. The squad hadn’t noticed either, so they pulled him out.

Most of him. His stringy torso slipped out from beneath the seat and the wheel with a surprisingly low level of effort, but his waist and legs stayed put. The squad wasn’t sure how to react. They knew these were the remnants of a person, but it wouldn’t have been easy to identify as a former human without the context. They ignored the mass of boney pulled pork they just flung onto the ground and frisked the pockets. They found his cellphone, which had a chip on one of its corners, but there was no evidence showing that the accident caused the damage. The customer had always been trusting of his company and felt no need to protect his phone with a password, which made things a lot easier for the emergency dispatch hotline squad. The baguette rolled just a bit because of the squad’s interference in the car. The squad opened the phone’s list of contacts, opened the tab of recently contacted contacts, and found Anne(GF) at the top. They scrolled down a little more and found several other Annes with explanatory labels in parentheses next to them with no spaces. Anne is an incredibly common name in this city. They decided to contact Anne(GF) first. They called and she didn’t sound worried despite what they had just told her. She hadn’t actually heard most of what they had told her and she filled in the blanks with what made the most sense to her, which shouldn’t have made any sense at all. The scenario that Anne(GF) had made up to steamroll over the blanks in the conversation was that John (she knows several Johns because it’s an incredibly common name in this city) got into a car accident and they needed her to collect some items. What the emergency dispatch hotline squad had actually said to her was that some guy got into a car accident and they needed her to help identify his unrecognizable body. Anne(GF) got to the scene in twelve minutes.

“Anne,” the squad never would learn how to greet soon-to-be-scarred identifiers of corpses.

Where is it?

“In the front seat,” slightly surprised by her hurried reference to him as it.

Anne(GF) noticed the legs in the driver’s seat and figured that wouldn’t be the front seat the squad was referring to (she was still under the impression that she was collecting John’s items). She walked to the other side of the car and opened the front passenger’s door. She saw the baguette. She took the baguette.

Is that all?

“What do you mean?”

Is this all there is to take?

“We’re not sure if you’re supposed to take anything. What is it?”

Anne(GF) didn’t understand any of what they said. She decided that they must have asked what the guy’s name is, which she thought was odd because they were the first ones to mention his name. After some thought, she came to the conclusion that they were just testing her to see if she was really the Anne they called to collect the items (now item).

John.

“What is that?”

John.

The squad stared at Anne(GF) and Anne(GF) stared back at the squad. She got into her car and drove off with the baguette in her passenger seat. She was home in ten minutes.