22

June 2025

For tragedy, window. For comedy, mirror.

JEREMY ERIC TENENBAUM, FOUNDING EDITORwith KELLY RALABATE

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IRIS JOHNSTON • JOHN STEIGERWALD • JONATHAN MCLELLAND • KELLY RALABATE • PATRICK EBNER • ROBERT POPE • AND SHEILA MURPHY

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Cover Image: Pan Reclining, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1610

Robert Pope
“The Demon Seed”

When the commotion died down, I went back to my kitchen and put on the kettle for tea. There was no way they could take it from me now, no reason to try. I heard someone call out "Abigail!" but too late. I felt the transformation taking place. Henry thought he didn't want it, but he did. He didn't know whether he loved or hated Corinne. That's his problem. One day, it will creep up on Corinne what she has lost, and it would crush her spirit but leave her standing or sitting or lying beside her doltish lover, hoping for a miracle.I wish her well, but I have turned my back on the forest, the future spreading before me like green countryside cut through by that long, winding highway to the stars. That's where I am now, somewhere in Oklahoma, heading out to where the sun sinks in the sea at the end of day -- at least until further notice -- recording thoughts for a future time when I will look back on them, maybe see if I can figure out what they mean. Depending on where I am at the time.

#

This began with an article Corrine wrote for an issue of Natural Worlds on dwindling forests -- about what the American forest still means to us -- when she became interested in the painting used as illustration on the facing page: a lone man before an imposing forest all in browns, some white in there, streaks of black. Hints of yellow. The title credit intrigued her: The Demon Seed. She contacted the artist, set up a meeting, and traded her check from the magazine for the painting. He was a starving artist and needed the money; she was an art critic and needed the painting -- on the speculation that he would one day do something worth doing.She no longer had the painting because he showed up one night, a couple of weeks before his accident, took it from its place among a dozen paintings of younger artists on her wall, mine among them, and carried it off while she stood watching from the kitchen. She went to the window as he came out two floors below, where he threw it against the curb, stepped on it several times and stormed off without looking back. I got out of my car when he glanced my way. He had on a white shirt, tails hanging out of his pants, in spite of the chill. The painting looked like a broken kite. My eyes went to her window, where she stood watching him walk away.The wreckage of the painting became edged and then obscured by snow that fell all week. I never passed without wondering what would motivate an artist to destroy his own work, even when he no longer possessed it. I didn't want to touch it until I gave in and threw it in the dumpster. The name of the painting alone gave me the creeps.Henry was a good-looking man, loads of dark hair, dark blue eyes, a squarish build, almost five years younger than Corinne, closer to my age. After the destruction of the painting, she tired of his excesses and didn't think he had and might never fulfill the promise she saw in the illustrative painting. He talked too much about possession by ideas, of finishing something and feeling unreleased from its spell, which held on for days and nights of furious drinking and wild dissatisfactions, and then he started blaming her for his failings."I've got to go home now and kill myself," he said as he went home one night. I stuck my head out the door as he went by, thinking of inviting him for a nightcap. Corinne told me he meant 'put himself to sleep' or 'shut off his mind.' I had issues like that now and again, but my painting hadn't taken off and Corinne cooled on the subject. I still had teaching, somewhere to be where people expected me to be more put together -- though I often feel more held together than put together. Henry cobbled sustenance selling paintings, building decks, sheds, tables, rabbit cages, birdhouses, once a treehouse, handyman work, but Corrine had gotten under his skin. He couldn't focus on anything or anyone else, and I didn't know why at the time.

#

A little over two weeks after the destruction of the painting, he went down in the parking lot beside Frank's Place, a bar where he occasionally ate. Someone found him there and called emergency; he came out of the coma six days later and couldn't remember what had happened, or his name, or Corinne's, or mine. He might have gotten in a fight in his state. Or been mugged, but he also could have fallen down drunk. Whatever happened, we kept coming, Corinne and I, even if he didn't know why. He didn't know who either of us was at the time, and I barely recognized him with that scrape down his face, the right side looking at him, freshly scabbing over. They had taken off the bandage when we stepped into his room."Not visiting hours," the nurse said. "Please leave." That did not happen. Not when we had to call police and hospitals to find him. We took him home at last by promising to be responsible before they released him. He didn't resist since he only knew anything about himself from what she told him, and he didn't remember either of us. He went right to bed and passed out. We made supper, watched a movie on television, and finished off the bottle of merlot in the fridge, once she got over its being in the fridge.He had purchased the house when he got the national grant and rebuilt it inside for his studio. I felt more comfortable than I had in weeks, or months, maybe even years, sitting on the couch with her, Henry zonked out in his bed, his painting life over for a while, perhaps for good. This did not seem the worst development I could imagine, not until she sent me home. "You go on, Abi. You need your sleep," she said. "I'll stay with Henry. Don't worry about us. We'll be fine."When she said this, I experienced a rush of heat to my scalp. My ears swiveled back with the tightening. I had the impulse to encourage her to go back to her place, so she could rest. I understood this made no sense even at the time, but the anger had been sudden and unexpected. When I called next day, ostensibly to find out how he was, she seemed impatient. He had spent the morning wandering through his own house in his hospital pajamas, those footy things on his feet. She had the impulse to be amused by him while I became unaccountably jealous -- of him or her I could not be certain.At some point, he had turned to her, arms to either side, clearly confused, asking what this mess was. He'd set up a studio, knocked down a wall between two rooms, most of it, to give him space and two big windows; now everything was strewn about in the throes of whatever took hold of him to make him want to destroy his own work. Paint on walls and floor, debris of destroyed canvases, various kinds and sizes, a general catastrophe. He needed an explanation, one I could not have given yet, though I knew it had something to do with Corinne. She said she gave him the three words he needed to hear: "You did this."He looked around the room, surveyed the floor and whispered, "I must have gone crazy." Those manic eyes focused on her, and he asked, "Was it you? Are these your paintings?"I wanted to laugh, thinking of Corinne painting anything but her own walls, but it would have been a bitter laugh, so I said, "Oh, gosh, my ride's here." I had an impulse to say something hurtful but bid her a hasty goodbye and hung up. I imagined her hand on his arm as she promised to tell him as much as she knew, as much as he wanted to know, once he had a real breakfast in him. It galled me he did not remember how angry he had been at her, back when he knew who she was, what she had done to him. Of course, at this point I didn't know what she had done to him. Not knowing left me in limbo. I still lived in her building, but we had very little of the original relationship sprung up around my painting.What Corinne didn't know was why I had done nothing since she left me behind. It all looked like dross. She had done this to me, so completely oblivious to my hurt, my need to demand satisfaction from her would have been foolish. She was nowhere in my life anymore. She helped him straighten and store what remained of his painter's accessories in the attic.

#

I saw her now and again, coming and going. She reported Henry still had questions. He couldn't recall a thing about painting, nothing of his mania. He even spent a few hours trying to draw something, a cup, an orange, a bird on the wire -- all aberrations. Even if he couldn't remember, shouldn't he be able to do it? He had lately wondered if she had been telling the truth, it seemed so preposterous."What did you say?" I asked."Nothing. I remember the sound of our utensils against the plates, an occasional sip of wine, a rustling of cloth. He wilted slowly, arms on the table, head down."She tried to see if there was something on his plate that would warrant such study, but just the same as hers, chicken, potatoes, asparagus, half-eaten, forgotten. When he raised his head, his eyes looked glazed. "I must have been possessed," he said. "No other explanation makes sense."She reminded him he had taken quite a fall or been knocked unconscious and didn't wake up for two weeks. "You can't expect everything to come back at once. It will come back slowly. In time, you'll be back on your feet and kicking me out of here."And she hoped that was true. It had been exhausting; she couldn't leave him alone until she knew he could function, but she'd given up. The last call she had, he was certain he had been possessed, and whatever happened in the parking lot of Frank's had ended it. He thought it was possible whatever got into him considered him dead meat and moved on. He didn't know where it had gone, but one thing he believed was that he didn't want it back in his life.He attended mass for the first time in a decade, where I saw and spoke to him. When I asked how he was, he told me how free he felt, how the past seemed only a murky forest from which he had emerged. It struck me that he described the painting Corinne bought from him when they met and he destroyed in the rampage that concluded in a hospital bed.I tried for information but didn't want to startle him by coming on too strongly. After all, he only remembered me from hospital visits. I told him we should get together sometime, for coffee or a drink. He'd applied for a med tech job at the hospital. He had done that work before art or whatever took him over. He was confused but mildly ecstatic. I wished him good luck with the job, forced my phone number on him, and told him to call if he needed anything. He thought he was doing fine, and I certainly didn't want to interfere with that.

#

Corinne had fallen in love with a passionate artist and now wondered who this guy was and what he had to do with her. She felt this cooling rush of relief wash over her, as if it was she who had been possessed since he left the hospital -- by him.She told me this in the elevator in confidence. When she stepped out I told her I had forgotten something in my car. I rode up, down, and got off at the same floor as she had, because my condo was across from hers, a couple of doors down. I had to get away. She had gone from an inspiring presence in my life to this, strangers or acquaintances with a few experiences in common, nothing that mattered more than anything else. As if she never understood or cared to understand me. Her indifference was suffocating.Once things quieted down, I knocked on Corinne's door with a bottle of wine, wagging it in invitation. She opened her door, we sat in her all-white living room, and I encouraged her to tell me more of the saga. Corinne had run into him. They wound up at Nervous Dog coffee shop. The bad feeling she got from serving him when he desperately needed her without thanks had worn off. He looked better than he had. It turned out he worked at a couple of hospitals in various capacities as a young man, and the hospital had a need for warm bodies, so he had the job, thinking about an accelerated nursing program at the university where I taught as a guest lecturer.Still, she had newly rekindled hope. Recently, he had experienced a little more success with drawing, taking an adult education class to discover any tiny bit of talent left over from the time he was possessed. He was still on that one, even though he could not remember what happened in the parking lot of Frank's or the nature of his wild behavior before his blackout. "Evidently, one day I was a painter, a wild, drunken one at that, and today, here I am.""So, what are you now?" Corinne had asked."A man capable of having hobbies. I'll never lose myself like that, knowing how it turned out. I'm going to give art another try, just to prove it to myself. I may try watercolors. It's peaceful meditation. I seem to be coming along.""I'd love to see what you come up with," she told him. It occurred to Corrine that in this frame of mind, he might handle the talent that had previously taken him down. She had no doubt about the quality of his imaginative ability. She had seen it in action. Though there was room to worry about him, what she saw looked promising. The next project for his class was to create a version of someone else's artwork. An imitation, or another version, anything in that range. The original as prompt."Have you chosen yours yet?" she inquired."I've looked, but nothing inspires me.""I have a suggestion.""What's that?""An image I have always liked. By a painter I once loved.""What's his name?""What does it matter? Will you do this for me?""For you. For all your help." And then he laughed. "If it's any good at all.""I have a good feeling," she told him.At home, she sent a photo of the original image of The Demon Seed as an email attachment, unaccountably excited. Maybe she could jump-start his return to painting. Perhaps open the floodgates. Part of her knew this was a tad dangerous, but not the dominant part. She missed him. She wanted to see him painting again, this time with his new self-control. He sent a thank you by return, but her trick might have worked too well. And was it self-control he wanted?

#

Something happened between the time she sent the image and the next time we saw him. Working on replicating the image had revived his memory. Corinne and I had become co-conspirators, and she told me her hope that Henry would re-awaken. He sent her a note expressing his engagement with the painting, which seemed vaguely familiar to him. She thought his talent might be stirring, and with it the old obsession with painting and her. When she encouraged him, he hadn't responded for two days, and when he did, all he said was this: "Totally copacetic."I told her to give him space, let him call her, but four days and then five passed during which time she sent two midnight texts, one filled with tenderness, another with anger. What she got in return: nothing. May he rot in hell, she vowed, before she attempted to contact him again. I did not know what I wanted to happen, but it did seem a long silence after they made up -- or close to it. I wanted something to happen, but I also became aware of a desire for her to experience complete rejection, just once, so she knew how it felt.I didn't know how to feel when, once more in the elevator, looking at her phone, Corinne showed me the sad text she sent the night before: "Not copacetic.""Not?" he returned.Then, she sent one more: "I can't stand not having you."She shouldn't have, she admitted, but in truth, she really shouldn't have because that set him off. It must have been the last straw. Now, it was me who shouldn't have, as I texted him to ask how he was doing. Next morning, he sent a reply: "I remember everything."I had an inkling of what he meant, but not everything, not until he showed up at Corinne's door late that night, banging with his fists. I did not see him, but I knew who it was and got up, wrapped a robe around me, tying the belt around my waist as I stepped into the hallway. I saw him immediately, though he remained unaware of my presence, as if I were a ghost."Corrine!" he bellowed. He'll wake the neighbors, I thought, but I was her neighbor and I had already been alerted. I noticed the large, triangular butcher knife in the hand he drew back as if he would bury the blade in her door. I moved closer, so I could see into her apartment. He bellowed as he blew past her, stabbing the back of her couch, ripping a slash perhaps a yard long.I held the top of my robe closed, as if this would offer protection as he savaged an upright chair and smashed the butt of the grip into the wide, gilt-framed mirror on the far wall until it shattered. He did leave the paintings untouched. The sound was tremendous, but Corinne watched without alarm, never fearing for her own safety or caring for what was destroyed. She wore what appeared to be a blue winter coat, the hem belling out stylishly.He came toward her but veered into the kitchen, where I heard him pulling drawers and emptying shelves, wreaking as much havoc as possible. Corinne moved to the kitchen entrance, where she could watch his progress; I came directly behind her with no sign of notice from artist or critic caught in a drama all their own."Henry," she said, "what are you doing? Give me that knife." I did notice she did not hold out a hand to receive it, and he lost his sense of purpose for a moment, backed to the sink, becalmed, panting, disheveled, flour on his shoulders and hair. He cocked his head at her like a dog and saw what I had only heard before, pots and pans and pottery, knives and forks, salt and pepper shakers, dish-washing sponge, all on the floor around their feet.I did not know what to expect as the silence deepened. I listened to his breathing for a moment but never expected her to start laughing. She pointed at him and laughed. She had his attention. She reached down, took hold of her coat, and flared it out at the bottom. "You're probably wondering," she said, "why I have on my new winter coat, which I was saving for the first snow." She laughed coquettishly."As you well know, I can't fall asleep with clothes on -- so unnatural. When I heard your knock, I threw it on in my hurry. I knew it was you. I knew what you wanted and put it in my pocket. A pleasant feature of this coat: pockets, one on each side. But it's the size of the pockets that matters and what's inside." He raised his eyebrows. "Want to see what's in my pocket?"My own face burned by this time. How could she be so composed? I thought her condescension would rouse his fury. Somewhat hesitantly, he said. "What's in the pocket," his voice husky from exertion."Well," she said, "let me see what I have for you." She reached in one pocket, and when she brought forth and opened her hands, he leaned toward them. Neither paid me the slightest attention as I angled around to see the tiny creature on the palm of her hand, looking up at Henry, hands on its hips, tail switching."No," he whispered, "no, not that..."But it jumped or flicked onto Henry's shirt like a flea, He tried to pluck it off, but it moved so fast he pinched himself before catching it in his hand. What would he do with it? He hadn't thought that far, but there she was now, the blue winter coat about her feet, swaying gently side to side, humming softly. She had him in a trance; I wanted to warn him, but no words came, nothing. "Put it in your mouth, Henry," Corinne was saying for the pleasure of words in her mouth and ears at the same time. She laughed dreamily. "That's all you have to do."That's when I stepped in, my back to Corinne so I wouldn't look into her eyes. I squared before slack-jawed Henry, who noticed me for the first time."Henry," I said. "You don't have to do this." I held out my hand. "You don't want this to start all over again, do you, Henry? Give it to me."I felt Corinne's hands on my neck, trying to move me aside, screaming, "What are you doing? It's nothing to do with you!""Give it to me, Henry," I insisted.He looked like he was coming out of his trance. "Give it to me, Henry, now," I shouted, as Corinne pushed me closer to him and then pulled me back by my hair. He had tears rolling down his face, and while she pulled my head back by the hair I grabbed for the thing, felt it in my hand, prickly like a hand full of wires, but when I held it before my eyes, striking back at Corinne with the other, it closed into itself like nothing more than some tree nut, rough hairs wrapped around."Take it from her," Corinne screamed, pushing me to my knees, tugging at my hair, trying to get my hand open before I could hide it away in my mouth, where the thing changed to what felt like a viscous liquid on my tongue and sliding down my throat. I turned and threw her to the ground. When she writhed naked beneath my bare foot, I laughed, didn't even glance back at Henry as I fled her front door to my own, slamming and locking it behind. All I could think, as I pressed my ear to the door: you should never have underestimated me, Corinne.

Corwin Ericson
Four Poems

“Rendering”

As she receded into the whitespace
my mother yelled hurry up.
She was thousands of cels in front of me --
I was trapped in the zoetrope.
My childhood ended then. And started right up again.
Mom, wait, I am crawling panel by panel
but my knees have been erased.No matter my bongoing footfalls
I could not keep up. I found
speech balloons I knew were hers
gone wordless, floating just inches from the ground.
Mom, wait, I am misdrawn.
Mom, your stipples are dispersing
and I can't pick them up
with my fat white gloves.Among my thought clouds
is one of hers:
I never liked cartoons, said my mother,
I was only ever one for you.

“So Funny”

The crow in the oak sets up the joke:
"Caw! rah? Awk. Rah! Ot ot? Caw, caw -- "
The one bouncing on the branch says,
"Brok?"
The crow in the oak delivers the punch line.
They all caw and caw. Good one!
The crow in the oak tells it again.
They all caw and caw --
it's so funny.
Another one in another tree
tells it throatier with more bokking.
They all can't stop cawing.
It's just so funny.
Later, they waddle the yard
muttering their favorite fragments.

“Cetology”

We measured the whale
in school buses -- yellow school buses
seven of which make a football field
a football field which is measured in chains.
The weight of 200 blue whales being
the weight of the clone
of the Armilaria ostoyae
which covers 1665 football fields.
We measured the whale in cubits
which are fractions of arks
which are measured in floods.
With our tricorders, our spectrographs.
The whale in rods in tree rings in smoots.
We measured the whale
for two verses of "Happy Birthday To You"
for as many Mississippis as it took.
We counted iridium, nurdles, sucker scars.
We measured our days measuring
the whale in calendrical
prison cell scratches.
A tall man's foot, a fit man's stride
the distance from his fingertip to his nose.
In seventeen syllables
we mis-measured the whale.
We lost count of the squid beaks
inside the whale.
We factored in bio breaks
power naps and wellness moments.
We estimated the whale's crowd.
We sought comparisons
in the Chicxulub Crater and Deccan Traps.
We held out our thumbs
our paintbrushes our cesium
decay calculators
to measure the whale.
We flung our stopwatches
the length of the whale.
We held our breaths
until we exited the whale.
The closer to the horizon
the larger the whale appeared.

“Young God”

Go down, sun
now come up.
Dance to my guns.Set on my lap
moon. Good.
Tell the stars to leave.I don't need you, sky
I have my own
clouds now.I was wrong, sky
hold me. I don't
want to touch the mud.

Maya Jacyszyn
Three Poems

“Mesophilia”

I should have mourned you
the moment
I caught a shimmer from
your left hand.
Instead, I followed the
narcissi flowers downward.At the very least, I should
have been scared,
scared that I had never seen
these flowers before,
that they smelled like absinthe
and wet rock.A victim would never
have thought these blossoms
led anywhere but the grave,
yet, a doting muse
scapegoats her mind
for dreams given existence --you left your coat on the
metal queue at work one night.
I knew if I stayed just
a while longer,
you'd come back for it,
I'd see you.When you finally ascended, I
still didn't feel fear,
just the constant picking
at my liver
over the thought that
you might want me here, too,with your jaw chomping,
showing how you fed,
all that could be gotten cast
in sweat and silver,
youth molting my irreverent figure
to feed our raw, buzzing flesh.I often seethe
in the echo that
was your howling gaze,
in your shadow fine
against the dying light --
down we went.You didn't forget
your coat in the
hull of winter that day,
you drew a trail, and
painted me
a flower.

“Virgin Nightmare”

I stood bareboned against a concrete slab
the color of slugs
and summoned the holy language,
a phrase I did not manage to savvy in daylight
but here, I chanted it constantly --
...............Domina Nostra.
Black hoods tripped around me
and spat miseries on my thighs
as I buzzed like a glass of water in a theatre.
The rock was damp naturally,
and from my sweat that
dripped between my chest in a cold, effortless cry.
As a child, I would find the lake-like puddle at the end of my street,
curl into it
bring my knees into the pale pockets of my eyes
and pray,
squeeze and pray --
...............Madonnina.
Always,
I found an end,
crowds of tepees in the Pennsylvanian wood piled weapons
never for me,
drawn to a limp noose swinging on my favorite oak tree,
where the does lay,
until I'm taken to the ocean
where there is urgency and the scent of tsunamis.
My feet white
clothes pillaged
and the dire sense to run becomes
an aura of panic that I carry on each hip
like a screaming set of twins.
The chalkboard on the basement door tallied
the visits I made when I was young,
down there in the dark,
my father's tool room on fire
with only myself to rage against the flames,
and that cursed green hag always found me there
waited for me
to spring like scampering game after a thunderous gun
to run, again,
stinking of all things adrenal and helpless.
My limbs numbed to the low whistle of the street
now morphing beneath the inked sky
as she trailed behind on a rusty set of wheels, and I am dead lost.
The cul-de-sac is a mountain, a new world entirely,
my house dissolved
the puddle gone
and I'm still praying in this space
where most find rest.

“The Cat Never Meows”

worry pools over
me like the bayou
that is now our
backyard thanks to
days of rain
because
the cat figure-eights
between my heels
meowing
and he never meows
so
I default to the
old lady upstairs
is dead on her
kitchen floor and
her cat meows of
hunger and
Punxsutawney Phil's
misread of the
bone cold wind
which thrashes open
the slit of my gown
as if I have a pole
to be swinging around
and Park Ave
is my oyster

Tim Bemis
“Fake History Month”

Itto and Mekiya Outini
“To The Island And Halfway Back”

The party that would alter the course of Blake Sorenson's life, decisively cleaving his before from his after, could only have happened on Caranicao. Occasionally listed as the smallest nation in the world, more often forgotten by the makers of lists altogether, the Indomitable People's Republic takes up less square footage and has fewer citizens than Vatican City, yet Caranicaoans enjoy the protection of a one-of-a-kind law, a frontier in the realm of human rights, banning the exclusion of any person, regardless of origin, color, and creed, from private social gatherings. "Lunatic," it was judged by world leaders and suburban patriarchs alike in the 20th, the island nation's natal century, but in recent years, pioneering scholars have become more receptive, citing the deleterious effects of bullying and FOMO on the mental and physical health of the youth and holding up Caranicao as an exemplar, a leading light spurring the globe toward a new age.Presumably, those who invoke such metaphors do so in ignorance of the total dearth of lighthouses on Caranicao -- a sensitive point among locals, who would rather not be reminded that the highest structure on their island achieves an elevation of no more than fifty-three meters. It's significantly higher, they'll point out, if one starts from the sea floor. Besides, the island bristles with just about everything else a Caribbean paradise should offer: white sands, cerulean waters, a variety of mixed drinks showcasing the ambrosial versatility of rum, and plenty of parasailing opportunities. Situated to the north of Barbados and the east of St. Lucia, Caranicao has a demonstrated record of resilience in the wake of hurricanes, when like rainbows and earthworms, foreign aid workers materialize to snap selfies and stimulate the local economy (and also the local women, and sometimes, unfortunately, the local children as well) while the local men go about the arduous task of rebuilding their ramshackle homes.Not all the homes on the island are ramshackle, of course. Out of the hundred or so semi-permanent dwellings -- not counting the two hotels, reserved all year round for aid workers -- eleven consist of brick and stone and stand on deep foundations. Their storerooms are stocked with waterproof flashlights, backup generators, and smorgasbords of canned foods imported from Miami, courtesy of the nearest Trader Joe's. Ten of these homes belong to the ruling elite of the island nation, the children and grandchildren of wealthy expatriates -- themselves mostly third, fourth, and fifth sons of powerful families in their former countries -- who relocated to the island after its abrupt conversion from forgotten backwater to socialist utopia in 1963.The architect of that revolution, an American renegade known as Alf the Unwavering (later Alpha the Unwavering), no longer lives in the eleventh house, having succumbed to liver failure in 1991. That home is now owned by his son, an energetic Aryan posterchild who goes by Shaun the Unimpeachable, and who inherited not only his father's home, but also his Kalashnikov, the only firearm on the island, possession of which secured Alf the title of Superlative Leader in '63."They know not to spoil a good thing," Blake's roommate, Valens Taglieri, had explained when Blake had asked him why no other country had ever invaded or attempted regime change on Caranicao. "They invade places with oil, uranium, cobalt -- that stuff you can plunder. You can't plunder vibes, jack. You invade a country for its vibes, and poof, what you came for is gone. That's high crimes even for someone like Kissinger."The excruciatingly average product of a sepia-toned Nebraskan home where judgments fell like hammer blows on all who dared to do things differently, Blake drank in his roommate's words with unadulterated awe. He listened as Valens told the story of the island's name, presumed to derive from a bastardization of Carriacou, or Curaçao, or both, though no one was entirely sure since no one, to date, had looked into the matter. "History's whatever enough people think it is," Valens declared, a signature rhetorical flourish, at once glib and profound. "That's what I think happened. That's enough for me." He spoke proudly of the Carinacaoan hoverboards, the principal mode of transportation on the island, and how the local kids from "down-the-ladder" would borrow and use them like everyone else, without fear. He waxed poetic about the law that banned homeowners from refusing anyone entry, and the loophole that had maintained the stratified status quo, the absence of a prohibition against smearing one's shit on one's guests, itself a holdover from the time of Alpha the Unwavering, who was said to have kept laxatives and plastic sheets on hand for nights when groupies on spring break stopped by from the mainland. Then, without warning, Valens's timbre turned poignant. "It's hard, jack, you know, making friends off the island. The outsiders don't understand."Beyond the window, the remnants of a winter sunset guttered over Syracuse. A stiff and steady wind was piling snow against the sill. Less than twenty-four hours remained before their departure -- by private jet, of course, for Caranicao has no airports -- and Blake, seated on the opposite bunk, found himself quietly working to separate two braided threads of emotion: shame at being one of those outsiders, kith and kin to all the chauvinists who blithely sleepwalked through the dreary Western world; but also pride at being an exception, an American who'd not only befriended a Caranicaoan, but also earned an invitation to the island."They got it all wrong." Stretched on his bunk, fingers steepled over his abdomen, Valens spoke to the ceiling, from which the grinning, spray-tanned face of Shaun the Unimpeachable, emblazoned on a poster, gazed back at him. "They think life's only life on the mainland. They think we got nothing."But how good a friend was he? For weeks, he'd been so preoccupied, not just with end-of-term exams, but also with the looming prospect of his first trip overseas, which paled in comparison to the adventures of a couple of kids from his high school, restless souls who'd joined bands or backpacked through Azerbaijan, and yet proved at the same time illegible to his own parents and sister, a cryptic and unnecessary leap into the void, that he hadn't thought to wonder whether Valens might be nervous, too."Hey, man." He wondered whether he ought to slide off the bed and go to Valens, give him a clap on the back, a brotherly hug...a handshake? None of these felt right. Unsure how else to make up for the distance, he made his voice chipper and upbeat. "I can't wait to see it.""That's right." Valens seemed to speak directly to the graven image of Shaun the Unimpeachable. "Good times is coming for you, jack. That island of ours, you can take it from me, no exceptions -- it's the best place in the world."And so it was. "See that," Valens said the following afternoon, pointing out the window of the plane at the eleven enormous, white houses sparkling on the western ridge, magnificent in daylight and apparently even more so after nightfall. "Disco lights everywhere. Who needs them lighthouses, jack? Can't miss us."Blake wasn't old enough to drink in the United States, but as soon as they were in the air, the stewardess, a petite girl with dark skin, broad cheekbones, and coconut halves concealing both her nipples, had brought him a glass of prosecco. On the airfield, he was greeted with a second glass, a wreath of tropical flowers, and dainty cheek kisses from an entourage of similarly underdressed young women. From the airfield, situated in the middle of the island, they were borne up the ridge by a ski lift, and in the foyer of Valens's childhood home, surrounded on three sides by huge slabs of plexiglass through which flooded tropical sun, Blake was introduced to Valens's parents, an alarmingly wrinkled but otherwise youthful-looking couple who welcomed him with open arms.The tour began with the underground theater, progressed to the minibar, the swimming pool, the gym, the tennis court, and the discotheque, and concluded with the vault that housed the generator and emergency supplies. Valens's parents took turns narrating their journey in a rich island brogue, all swallowed consonants, back-shifted vowels, and palatalization -- the sort of creole that emerges when a sober population collides with an inveterately drunk one -- and this seemed to cast all that they spoke of into a lower resolution. As if they'd slipped out of reality, Blake thought, or the prosecco thought for him, and into mirage. Back in Fremont, in his own childhood home, the walls had seemed to swallow light, and all intoxications were achieved behind closed doors, and Blake had understood that he and he alone was not quite real. He'd told and retold Valens's stories, but he might as well have spoken to his parents in another language, at a register they could not hear. His words, once uttered, had dissolved out of history, the echo there, the meaning gone."History's whatever enough people think it is," Valens had told him.Here, they were all outside history. They were all not quite real."You should be proud." Valens's father's arm swung out of nowhere, dealing Blake such a powerful clap on the back that he nearly tumbled forward through the plate-glass window and down onto the jagged alabaster rocks, and wiry scrub trees, and verdant canopy below. "Our son's particular about his company. He wouldn't bring just anybody here.""Our son," Valens's mother chimed in, "is going to start a university. Our very first. That's why we sent him to America. To become a scholar." She hiccupped.Valens hadn't ever mentioned anything about a university. Blake glanced at his friend, unsure whether to expect an explanation, and found only a strange expression on his face, a mask that he had never seen him wear, a curious blankness behind the eyes. Markedly gone was the pride that had lifted his voice when he'd spoken of home, and in its place -- what was it? Bashfulness?"Come on, Ma..."His mother promptly waved away his protestations. "So that we can get our story out there. Make the world understand.""Make them understand what-all we have to offer," boomed his father. "Make them understand our indispensable role in the global economy. Without our vibes, you know what you people would have? A lot of junk. That's what. A whole lot of surplus and nothing to do with it. No feeling. No creativity. Nothing to fire up the markets. No entrepreneurial spirit at all."Through the window, something caught Blake's eye. Alerted by the shift of his attention, Valens's father turned as well, spotted the smudge of color moving on the road that wound along the ridge, and snapped his fingers. "Spyglass."A girl appeared with a telescope, which Valens's father pressed into Blake's hands. "Get a load of that. Our pride and glory."Through the spyglass, Blake found himself staring at the same face that Valens had pasted to their ceiling in Syracuse. The expression was moodier, the jaw set more firmly, but Shaun was as unmistakable as he was unimpeachable. From one shoulder hung the Kalashnikov, and behind him marched a dozen youths, half-naked, light- and dark-skinned, half male, half female, each bearing a feather-encrusted spear."Out for his afternoon constitutional," Valens's father explained."He walks the high road every afternoon," added Valens's mother, "when the sun's at its highest. That's how he stays in shape. That, and his Peloton." She hiccupped again.From the reverence in their voices, an impression was roused in Blake's liquified mind: a remote and untouchable sovereign, enshrined here in his earthly palace, but celestial in essence, a man-god. If not for that impression, shock might not have jolted through him seven hours later, for he knew all about parties on Caranicao, understood the laws that govern them, and should not have been surprised to recognize that face once more, this time in the foyer of Valens's home, where his welcome party was in full swing.Techno roared from speakers, limbs and lasers lashed the humid air, cocktails floated on silver trays borne by olive-skinned girls, teenagers wrestled with arcade machines, and Blake watched woozily as the Superlative Leader threaded his way through the moshing crowd, into which the half-naked gaggle who'd entered behind him dissolved, and took his place in front of Pacman, Nikes shoulder's width and planted firm.Having swallowed, in a single afternoon, more booze than he'd consumed in his entire life, Blake had shied from the dancefloor, where control of one's bowels could not be assured, and taken an armchair in the corner, from whence he surveyed the dizzying scene while inside him unfolded one equally dizzying. The fact that he was, for the first time in his eighteen years, abroad, damp with a foreign heat, vibrating with a foreign bassline, watching a foreign leader take evasive action against Inky and Blinky, experiencing these things firsthand, without the mediation of rumors and rumormongers, speakers and screens, outweighed the fact that even if he was officially the guest of honor, this party would've happened without him: that his presence in Caranicao held no greater import, in the final analysis, than the pen used to sharpie the event on the calendar. This understanding had no edge, dulled by familiarity, but neither did it have an end. It didn't even really hurt him anymore, after eighteen years spent on the sidelines, watching others throw themselves at life in what he'd taken once, and fatefully, for desperation. These circumstances were eternal. There was no separating this from him.So absorbed was Blake in contemplation that he failed to notice the stooped little figure who approached along the room's perimeter until he was nearly upon him."What you say, jack?" The hunched old man, barely taller than the arm of Blake's chair, aimed an inquisitive gaze into his face from point-blank range."Huh?""What you say?"From a back pocket, the man produced a stack of cards -- Tarot cards, Blake thought, but when the old man fanned them out, he saw that they bore original images, realistic and hand-drawn. From what he could make out through the strobe lights and booze, the artist was not without talent, though his technique was a little crude.The man said something that he couldn't understand."Huh?""Take a pick!""Take a pic?"The man brandished the cards. Uncertainly, Blake selected one, waited a moment to see if there would be another cue, then drew it from the deck. When light slashed across its laminated surface, he made out an image of the houses on the ridge: unmistakably, a postcard."You got," the man grumbled, "you give. I got, I give, so you got, you give.""I give?""I make the art, you take -- you give.""Oh." Not at all sure what to make of this game, but grasping that he'd agreed to some sort of transaction, he groped for his wallet. "I've only got American money," he admitted, realizing as he said it that he'd never asked what sort of currency was used here, or whether he would have to get his changed."Money fine, money fine, money fine! Just give a take!""Like...ten dollars?""Bingo!" the old man shouted, punching a gnarled index finger in the air. "Bing-ooo!""Sure." He handed over a five and five ones. Then, because it was what his grandfather always used to say, and no one else had ever given him money, "Don't spend it all at once?""Bingo!" the wizened vendor warbled, stuffing the cash into his britches and weaving away through the crowd. "Bingo! Bingo!"Blake sat clutching the card with both hands as if it were his firstborn, or his phone: his first souvenir from the island, an errant fragment of this place's weirdness, entirely unsought. His eyes remained stupidly fixed on his purchase, time slowing, seconds stretching, too many seconds, too long, too drawn-out an interval before his senses registered that he was not alone -- that a figure stood over him.

Rising from the postcard, Blake's gaze collided with dazzling blue. The man who stood before him also could've been a postcard, or stepped out of one: his features too chiseled for real life, too clean. When he spoke, he didn't seem to raise his voice at all above the bassline's pump and throb -- seemed to speak through it somehow, as if graced with access to another frequency, a private channel all his own."Blake, isn't it?"Blake's mouth tasted of cotton. It took all his strength to nod."Shaun." The Superlative Leader's hand glimmered in the air between them, first red, then blue, then green, then gold, then red again. "But you already know that.""Yes, sir.""You're new here.""I'm just here for winter break.""I'm not a goldfish.""What?""A goldfish. A fucking moron with no memory. A goldfish. Me, I've got a good memory. I approved your entry visa fifty-six days ago. Fifty-six days. And I've been trying to shake your hand for forty-seven seconds. Forty-eight now."Blake reached for Shaun the Unimpeachable's hand."I don't normally approve entry visas," Shaun went on, shuddering and withdrawing his hand as if Blake's touch were moist and unpleasant, "when I think the visitor might be stupid, but you came to me on a recommendation. But tell me something, Blake. Are you stupid?""What?""All you can say is 'What? What? What?' Is that because you're stupid?""I don't really know," Blake said, feeling the words come slithering up from somewhere deep inside him, several floors below his conscious mind, "what you want me to say."The room was receding, the bass going silent, the strobe lights washing him into a trance, another plane of consciousness, another realm, a mirror universe where reality could not get at him -- but unreality, the island's unreality, was another matter."What I want you to say?" Shaun the Unimpeachable echoed. "What I want you to say? I want you to say something not stupid, but I guess that's beyond your ken, isn't it, compadre?" He let out a short, sharp, whinnying laugh that ended abruptly, a blade coming down. "Tell me," he said, crouching in front of Blake, their eyes suddenly, horribly level. "What were you doing, talking to that uncle from down-the-ladder?"Blake tasted blood. He must've bitten his tongue."Hey! Off! Off!" The Superlative Leader snapped his fingers, snapped his fingers, snapped his fingers, and the music died. The strobe lights went on whirling in the incandescence, washed-out and vestigial. All eyes were on them now, sweat-soaked bodies at attention, ragged respiration heating up the room."What were you doing," repeated Shaun, placing a singular and terrible weight on each syllable, "talking to that uncle from down-the ladder?""I don't know." Blake felt his body shrugging, not because clarification was needed, but because total stillness is the privilege of the invisible. "He was talking to me.""He was talking to you?""Yes." Blake made a valiant effort to sit up a bit straighter. "He was talking to me.""Huh?" Shaun warbled, a mewling pantomime. "Huh? Huh? Was he the one saying huh, or was that you?""That was me.""Because you're stupid?""I didn't understand what he was saying.""Don't like how we talk on the island, jack?" demanded Shaun, slipping seamlessly into a brogue. "Got your mainland way of talking, but you come here for the vibes and want for us to talk like you? That it, jack?""It was loud. I couldn't hear -- ""Or maybe," Shaun declared, resuming the flat, midwestern drawl in which he had begun -- the real affectation, Blake realized now, too late, the real pantomime -- "you're just stupid."Laughter crackled like dry brush igniting, a dangerous sound. Among the sea of strangers' faces, Blake spotted Valens, his mien transfigured by a white, toothy grin. A cold hand reached into his heart, turned it inside out as if it were a glove."What did you give him?" Shaun wanted to know, his face inches from Blake's now, radiating a powerful scent of mint and rum and aftershave and jojoba shampoo."He wanted me to pay for the postcard," Blake mumbled. "I gave him ten dollars -- ""You think my people need your money?""No, sir.""You think I don't take good care of them?""No, sir. No -- ""You think anyone needs your money here?"No longer on the sidelines, stabilized by his inertia, looking in: no, at the center now -- except that his mind wasn't there in the center. His mind hovered far from the spotlight still, gazing down, wafting on high, surveying the dancefloor as if through a hummingbird's eye. His mind was groping for reality -- the inverse of the usual -- his body caught in the mirage."My people," crooned Shaun, swaying snake-charmer style so that his voice wasn't coming from one place, was coming from everywhere, "are the best in the world. The strongest in the world. The happiest in the world. The safest in the world. The sexiest in the world. Even if you're stupid, Blake, this is something that you've got to understand." He leaned in so close that his tongue brushed Blake's ear: "My people are the world.""You tell him, boss!" someone shouted from the crowd -- not Valens, but it could've been. Others joined in, cheering, jeering, applauding, war-whooping."This island," Shaun hissed, "is the world."A name was struggling to rise into Blake's mind -- a name he'd once heard, not so long ago, a name whose bearer had dissolved out of history, leaving only an impression, an echo."I bet they told you lots of lies," continued Shaun. "I bet they told you that my country isn't even real. Well, guess what, jack. Down here, your country isn't real."The kid who'd gone to North Korea, stashed a flag from his hotel room in his bag, hoping for a souvenir -- what was his name?"Your country never even bothered to establish an embassy," Shaun went on. "We never said, 'Hey, don't set up an embassy,' did we?""No, boss!" came the shouts from all around the room. "Never told them no, boss!""Quite the opposite, actually: we extended an invitation. Let them know that they were welcome on our island any time. And what did we get?""No answer, boss!""That's right," said Shaun. "No answer. Shame, because here you are now, running around like you own the place, dropping cash on the first little uncle who throws garbage in your face, but you never said hello to me, did you? Me, who approved your entry visa. Let me ask you something. Can you count, jack? Can you count to sixteen hundred?"Blake shook his head woozily, first yes, then no."That's how many miles," whispered Shaun, "are between you and American soil. Unless you brought some from the mainland. What do you say, jack? Better check. Is there any American soil on your shoes?"He'd been apprehended at the airport, disappeared, then reappeared, except that the kid who'd reappeared had not been the one who'd disappeared at all. No longer the simple, red-blooded American male who'd embarked on the fieldtrip. No. He'd been a quivering, pulverized wreck of a thing, cringing there behind his podium, blubbering an apology with all the world looking on. And then he'd died. But what had been his name?"Let's see." Shaun prodded Blake's shoe with the toe of his own. "Let's have a look, see what you brought on your shoes."Otto Something German-Sounding: that was his name, had been his name, would now and forever after be his name -- and, too, would never again be his name. Blake's fingers tugged at his laces, but when he pried his sneaker off and attempted to offer it up to the Superlative Leader, Shaun pushed it roughly away."Don't give me that! You're disgusting!" Laughter boiled around them. Eyes and teeth threw off sparks. Shaun seized Blake's wrist and pushed the shoe into his face. "Lick it.""Huh?""Huh?" Shaun echoed. Then, raising his voice and turning to address the crowd, "It's a well known fact that the tongue and the dick are the body's most sensitive organs. And no one wants to see your dick tonight, jack. So, I repeat -- because apparently my breath's worth less than your American dollars -- lick it. Lick it and tell us, is there any American soil? Have you brought any American soil?"Past the tip of his own tongue, which bulged redly at the center of his vision, far away across the dancefloor, Blake caught another glimpse of Valens, no longer laughing, no longer bearing any expression at all. Just watching. In the blankness that had stolen over his friend, Blake saw something familiar, a lifelong knowing thrown back uncannily from someone else's eyes. The house whose mahogany walls swallowed light, and the island so bright that it needed no lighthouse -- these places weren't so different after all. Both warped whatever crossed their thresholds, pinning arms to sides, and dreams to skulls, and certain words to certain ears while others were dissolved. These places could not be rebelled against, resisted, or escaped from. They simply were. And Valens simply was. And it was not his fault. And it was not Blake's fault. Perhaps it wasn't even Shaun the Unimpeachable's."What's the matter?" Shaun knocked Blake's cheekbone gently with his shoe, a blow conveying all the force that wasn't there but could've been. "Don't you like American soil?"

#

Years later, Blake will wake with a start, smelling earth, tasting blood, body wrapped in a straightjacket of sweat-drenched linens, awareness of confinement beating hard behind his eyes. Gradually, his breathing will become more regulated. His heart will settle back into its well-worn groove. He will disentangle himself from his sheets and pad across the hardwood floor and down the hall. From his parents' bedroom, snores will reach him, echoes of a distant surf against a foreign shore, and he will hasten toward the kitchen, an everlasting shudder at the base of his spine. Not surf, he tells himself. Not surf. Just a nature documentary playing in another room. A sunscreen commercial. A rainmaker machine.In the milky harshness spilling from the fridge, he'll fill a glass. Paper scraps will flutter with the AC's exhalation, crayon-and-marker scribbles on the fridge door, and one will catch his eye: his sister's cosmetology certificate, proudly tacked there by their parents, staunchly unaware that such achievements, in adulthood, warrant frames. The refrigerator will not bear the sibilant imprimatur of Syracuse, for Blake won't have returned to school -- will have materialized, instead, in his parents' driveway on the morning of December 23rd, dragging a suitcase full of rumpled clothes, a little more haggard, a little more wise, a little twitchier around the eyes, but still their son, still recognizable, the only son they've ever known.He'll have found work at a hardware store and carried out his duties conscientiously, though he'll have shown no interest in professional advancement. He'll have undertaken a few dry flirtations, but will not have married. The thirty-mile radius around his parents' home, beyond which he will not have ventured, not again, will have come to feel quite vast and terrifying. His sister's marriage to a man from Albuquerque will have left him fretful, anxious to ensure that foreign ways do not infringe. This will have widened the distance between them.An idle thought will strike his mind -- if there ever was an island to the north of Barbados and the east of St. Lucia, it will have sunk beneath the waves by now -- and he will chuckle, not because this notion will amuse him, but because he'll know from hard experience that laughter grants the upper hand. He will throw back the glass. The water's filtered chill will hit his tonsils like a truth that no one wants to hear. Then he will shut the fridge, leave the glass to drip-dry by the sink, and shuffle back upstairs into the darkness of the hall, the darkness that he knows.

Sheila Murphy
Three Poems

“In Situ”

and now this sudden shock of pop-up
therapy along the riverbank
amid fish and such and poles and grief
in relief yet nothing like reliefI stood still and heard the consonants
be dropped in an epidemic of
weak speech I loitered near the bus
and exhausting fumes of cars it keptbeing summer again I rode the waves
you could not see especially amid
the spate of emails from the vicar
of a church he bought to love and keep himsafe from restrictive face time and served
sherry within dark old-world furnishings
with what-if innocence a vinyl prompt
to shift the swamp to an imagined dance

“Flute Poem”

Stop telling me you also play(ed) the flute,
perhaps in pursuit of some vivace,
something allegro you would rather play,
or a diminuendo that backs away.Say something else. The flute is personal
to me. Like deodorant I would rather not
see on commercials by doctor what's her name
finding new places to cauterizepossible offense. If it's dissonance
you prefer, hold still. I'll find Charles Ives
or perform a crash course in now tired
twelve-tone rhapsodies, maybe Webernas I learned to hear him. Hindemith
for cause. No one does homophony
like me, in a major key, reams of reasons
in pitches tightly pitched within treble range.

“How I Learned He Could Not Teach”

Guess what I'm thinking, he meant but did not say.One took notes, always a Marvin Gardens
kind of play, keeping him right and posing
questions kept us in our place.We might otherwise have won, placed, shown.Learning without him, playing by heart meant sight
reading past the mantra of shut up, sit still, absorb
old stories in which he was the star.Wearing a feather in his cap gun cap
plus boutonniere, a white rose imposing
on ingenues lithe like in vine green.He stood at the podium eyeing one next
victim at a time. We knew exactly
who we were.

Evie Duffy
“my fig, my plum”

I was something different before and then I was told I could be better and then I became new. It became the ghost of something exciting, just over my shoulder, because others told me so. They shrieked and said, "well, there is that phantom!" with big smiles on their faces and hugged me hard until my spine popped.I am my circle. To fathom detaching, I drink tea and think fathoms deep into the ocean, what fish make a happy life with similar problems and less voice. My voice is small and he comes to me, handing me round pills and putting the water glass to my lips, tipping my head back for me.I -- was a dancer perhaps. Or an open-water swimmer. Or a nude model, a muse. Can't remember. Something similar to Björk? Lots of Björk. It plays against the mound and seeps through my lungs, my larynx. No no, I was a dancer who played chess during rehearsals and smoked joints with outward feet and perfect posture and threw up before an audition because I didn't want to be left out. I listened to Björk and swam at the pool and watched movies about painting and then I met someone who worked in finance and allowed him to stick his penis inside me and ejaculate after a couple months of dating. That didn't get me pregnant but when it happened again over a year or so later, that time it worked, even when the doctor had bestowed me luck: "You can't have babies! You haven't had your period since you were 16!" That was lucky. I was lucky. People tell me I am lucky now. I like blood too. I began to miss seeing it ruin my panties, permanently staining what was baby pink into mottled brown. I missed having an excuse, even for those brief years I had it, to say I should be left alone, allowed to stay home in bed, allowed to eat all I want and then complain about the pains. The growth allowed for that. I got my wish.I never much liked sex. The meaty slick lips, wrestling one over the other, hand over fist, playful domination. The cold hands grasping your nipples too hard, the smile that would appear on men's faces. I reveal my skin, pearls to be plucked, and it begins: the hair pulling; the jamming and grabbing. It would all be nice if only I could do it to myself, my pleasure and pain. Still, there was sex: "Well that seemed nice!" Triumphantly. I think it was because the men were always happy and heaving. I mimicked them, a new version of father's blazer, loafer flippers, and a doodled mustache. I liked when men bought me things afterward, like a fancy soda or a waxy chocolate bar where the saliva dripped down the squares and got detoured in its grooves. Sometimes there were nice sisters and cute friends who pretended we had inside jokes and history. I never remembered their names.The fresh vegetables on the table mock me and the sick dog in the corner drools with no direction. The winters are horrible and our radiators are volcanic. It is a charade when you mustdecide which toothbrush holder is better for your mutual aesthetic. Then you hear all the pleas and allow him to ejaculate inside you again because condoms are expensive and the lights keep flickering and maybe it would be nice to start a registry to get that humidifier you always wanted because you can say it's for the health of an infant, not for you and your dermatitis.Why was it not an affair with an Italian man over a caprese at a cafe table? I scoop the dog's pudding off the sidewalk and worry that the neighbors will judge me for not scraping my best. Knees have always mattered to me and now mine are worse than before. Fire shoots through my joints as I bend down to hand the dog pills wrapped in cheese: there it is, a pill hierarchy, a passing. I love the dog and I forget his name and never know his breed. To me, he is an outdoor cat and truly understands my thoughts: I see it in his eyes. Are they brown or just sometimes green? We talk and sit alone together. February sun toys with my conscience. I almost feel happy and then I am kicked again.For me, the baby came differently. Others may be able to guess how it happened, the same way your brain jumps excitedly imagining your art teacher lying in repose as her turgid husband repeats and repeats over her body, the whooping that must ensue to prove that yes, you are purposeful, yes, you are joy. I am not exempt from such performances. It is my job to perform, whether or not I should. But no, my baby was different.A fig fell before me and now my silk sheets hugging my mattress are a pale blue, the pink sacrificed. I walked through a shining field, bugs nipping my ankles cheerfully, and chose a lush path, lined with trees bearing its fruit proudly like fine jewels. The sun had an undeniable desire to reach through the wide fingers of the trees. From above, a fig traced my body like a window pane, something more of a shroud than a shield from the branch. The air shifted and I followed.The fig skin, like mine, could be pierced with just a thumb and fingernail. A pink tongue treasured its insides. The wasp rested amongst the sugar, its corpse subsumed. I wanted that. I said that. I wanted to die within sugar, to be steeped and swallowed: to be consumed rather than to produce and produce, up until my coffin. No one needs to maintain my grave, I thought. No flowers or frames. I envied the fruit but it gave me what it deemed a gift, one that I had not asked for, one I did not know I wanted. I ate through it, imagining myself among the seeds.When people ask, I tell them we had sex. I know the truth and I am thankful it is not his. The baby should not develop a model train hobby like his father, although that seems common for men. The baby's hair should not be thin, but that is common too. I ordered a porcelain helmet so his head isn't misshapen in the same way, just in case. The man - not his father, the quasi-father, fake father, the non-fig father - nurtures red wine next to me at the kitchen table, clicking his lips together with each taste - each click like an alien chuckle. The grains at the bottom of the glass appear and he pours again. A pink tablecloth, gingham, drapes beautifully over the wood, like springtime. He places a hand on my belly with sincerity because he is told to do so by the television. We share a bed and he insists on wrapping me up in his arms, restraining me so I wet the bed and apologize hollowly as he mutters something about new sheets. If I escape, his model trains seem to compel my feet to step on them; it's always the endless, crosshatching tracks or the friendly conductor in blue. I scream just because it feels better at two a.m. He talks about work in the morning, as if it isn't a great joy to distract yourself, to know that you don't have to think about the time bomb. How could I let him kiss me?When the pains don't interest me, I am preoccupied with my hobbies. It was easier earlier on: I wake up early and run around the house once that man is gone. I like to feel my feet on wood again and again. I want to remind the dog what it is to be free, but the doctor said I no longer can do so. I listen because if I don't I fear time out or more pills or ankle weights, something the doctor and that man joked about. Is movement funny to you? Instead, I sit in our yellow dining room and watch the neighbor - who is kind in my imagination - with a baby she probably earned from rubbing skin and touching mouths and then, of course, ejaculation. She is my television. Each day she does the same thing - lots of wiping and feeding then more wiping and walking, all with a gentle smile - and I order packages online to match her, inspired. A wicker stroller, a red dress, display grapes - a waxy green and ripe for squeezing. Her belly protruded until it didn't one day and then she was no longer alone. She had that thing, a bald reddened mess with violently pink gums, thrashing fits, and screams that I heard through the city noise and glass panes between us. My mother showed photos of me as a child, a me I don't recognize even distantly in the mirror, and I cooed in response, thinking of my beautiful neighbor, how her raging spawn somehow seemed to complete her fair exterior. My envy of the neighbor only grew my love for this fig inside me, what I could become once it arrived.Femininity swelled within my skin. Spring turned and as I progressed into someone who 'glowed,' who wore pearls, rubbed their stomach, and said "pardon me" when reaching over an old lady for formula. I ate carrots and steamed greens and drank the formula just to see. Pains arose despite my diet or my calisthenics. I swirled away the pinked blood lingering in the toilet water, thinking only of my old sheets, how I missed them. The sick dog licked my legs and I thought "Well that's a sign." We walked together, wishing we were hand in hand. His dander left an opaque film on my fingers. I threw up in the grass and waved shyly to bypassers, knowing I had an excuse. It felt nice to finally be grateful.So how the fig lied. Tests and people disproved what I knew to be true.It was only laughing at me as it passed me over. The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?" he repeated. No, there was no change. I felt what I thought were kicks and aches, what I thought was my growth. My sweet beautiful Growth, his tuft of inky hair and scaly skin. How I would miss his bee obsession, his spitting, his quiet demeanor, his biting habit, and he had not yet arrived. "Nothing," I said. "All the same."Red streams flowed out from the soft skin under my wrists through tubes - new licorice-like appendages - and the cups of yellow were laughing at me from the gray linoleum counter. Nothing, nothing there. White lights radiated above, seeking answers from me that I could not give. The snapping clipboard reminded me of Mahler. The void within me grew: how does emptiness grow? I imagined the sound of space, that hollow drone, clothed in black, in my stomach.That man shook his head at me. Couldn't he see I became what he wanted? The skirt of my dress, floral and scratchy, draped flaccidly over the edge of my hospital chair. Each thigh movement sounded like a fart, something I could no longer pawn off to shifting organs and population building. The man asked me why I hadn't spoken, how I didn't know. I was thankful we did not share wine these past few months: he did not deserve to see my pleasure, my red lips. I was no longer his drained pool or his savior. He filled me with nothing, just like I knew, but not like he thought.Ignorance was necessary. It felt right to honor such a ghost, to carry it with me and nurture it. I needed no job. I needed no true future, just that pit inside me, begging to be watered, if only I could reach it. I chose my shoes and, for once, admired my time within them. How was that not real to them, as it was to me? Both the phantom and the fig? I pinned my hair with pearls, ate my vitamins, and grazed my skin lightly, whispering to strangers all the same: "he is due soon. He will be my sweet little plum."

S.D. Dillon
Three Poems

“Skyscapes”

1.
Paled as afternoon cast over,
...........................it lengthens the count to lamplight.2.
Cezanne's clouds, cured
...........................by snowblindness.3.
Nostalgia collars the fog
...........................of malevolent wind.4.
Twelve hanging valleys glaze over basins
...........................of conifers & brooks meandered dry.5.
Windmills, sixty-five wide, propel
...........................miles to the dusted horizon.6.
The frigate bucked the crest as knife
...........................to bone, damaged as a shell at the frontier.7.
A canyon of elk
...........................chiseled from a uranium sunset.8.
No more peaks, nor crowns.
...........................just plateaus: a flat divide.

“Maybe for the second time:”

Visualize the colossus of blank
plans. Glass of deep
enmities, forged & imploded in error.
Drill through the veneer
& it's chaos, choked through like the needle of eviction.
Faltering, alone in the night,
you verify their recovery.

“Compartments”

1.
Box of...............Scotch & holly
Crafted on....................a rag wool night,
Tabletop lighted..........by golden bells
..............Aside the balsam fir.2.
Chamois dyed orange-black:
Lantern.............under a wet
...............Half-moon.3.
Convolution of the wind-swept:
Jade....................encased............in its own
Reflection:..................................glass
...............Cocktail cornered by jewels.4.
Boston ivy escapes
..............Into the pathetic fallacy of tropisms.5.
As the other
Side of the pillow
..............Lava.6.
Cups & saucers on.........ir-
.............Regular...............keels.7.
Red algae loops the archipelago.8.
Canning of soap & gasoline &
Other...........................................solvents --
Curiosities of................history
Bogged........................................in a mire
With a stranger who lost a glove.9.
Hoofbeats outside the
Corral................arrowhead
..............The silence.10.
Lines..................of anthills --
Rattlers............................ensnare
..............Them like belts.

Yurii Tokar
“The Devotion”

A young goat girl and a young goat boy were born on the same day after the morning explosions. Not far from the place where new lives were born, something that brought death was shot down over the field, or perhaps it reached its target and caused destruction somewhere. However, the local residents of the village are used to explosions. Although "locals" is a strange word, visitors and local residents were mixed up by the war. And I found myself in the house where the little animals were born, next to people I did not know before, because the winds of war controlled the sails of human destinies in their own way. My profession is a math teacher, and my apartment is far from the village I found myself in. Rural life is unusual for me. The fifty-year-old owner of the house, a large and tall, good-natured woman named Oksana, and her thin husband, Misha, had no children. I, too, had no children or family at the age of 58. During the war, we all found ourselves under one roof by the will of Heaven.Time passed, and after a few days, the cute little goats were running around the room. Yes! It's true. The animals lived in the house. Every night, they spent inside the big wooden box filled with straw. But in the morning, they regained their freedom. Unfortunately, the mother of the kids got sick and couldn't produce milk. So, Oksana milked the second goat every day and then gave this milk to the little animals from a bottle. The adult goats were in the barn, while the little ones lived in the house. A week later, the little goat was left alone because her brother had died. Oksana named the little goat Lisa and often talked to her like a child, especially when she fed her milk from a bottle. I was surprised that she talked to her as if she believed that the little animal understood human language. Besides the goat, there were three cats running around the house and two dogs in the yard. It all looked a bit like a zoo. The barking of dogs and the purring of cats prevented me from conducting distance mathematics lessons, so I conducted them in a car parked near the yard. However, during the day, I went into the house many times, for example, to make myself some coffee. It turned out that the little goat had become very attached to the mistress of the house, and as soon as Oksana went outside, Lisa would start screaming hysterically. Never before had I thought that the scream of a small creature could be so loud. Sometimes I looked at the screaming goat, waiting for her mistress to return, and it seemed to me (or maybe it was so) that tears appeared in the eyes of the little animal. "Could Liza really have become so attached to Oksana that she screams and cries so loudly, even when her mistress leaves the house for a few minutes?"Misha was indifferent to animals. Misha, Oksana, and I usually dined together. I brought sausage or fish bought at the store, bread, various sweets, and sometimes a bottle of vodka, which the owners did not refuse. They put various pickles and dishes made from homemade products on the table. I do not drink alcoholic beverages, but I gladly took part in table talk, learning more and more about simple rural life.But one conversation struck me. After drinking another glass of vodka, Misha said thoughtfully, "Our Liza is somehow weak and not gaining weight. Maybe it's time to cut her up for meat?" The hostess was silent for a while, drank her glass, and then said, "No. It's too early. How much meat will she produce? Let her gain at least a little weight. Besides, maybe she will become strong and start giving milk. Let her live for now, and we'll always have time to slaughter her."The women spoke of Lisa as if she were meat, quite calmly, and this was in incredible contrast to her sweet conversations with the little goat when she was giving her milk from a bottle. During this table talk, I remembered Lisa's eyes. I understand that it is hard to believe, but in the wide-open, naive eyes of the animal, devotion to Oksana, or even love, was clearly visible.-- Well, look for yourself; we can wait, Misha answered indifferently, slightly shrugging his shoulders and stabbing the fragrant fried potatoes with his fork.After dinner, I walked outside to the yard past the kitchen, where Lisa was already sleeping in her box. I glanced at the small, living, curled-up bundle and thought that in the morning, when the mistress would leave the house, Lisa would again scream hysterically because of parting with Oksana.Of course, the little goat didn't know what fate was in store for her. But do we know our fate? Do we know whether a rocket will fly over the house or fall on it if it is shot down? When will peace come? Will good ever triumph on this Earth? When will people stop killing each other?I thought about all this, standing in the yard and raising my head to the spring sky, which was generously scattered with stars. At the same time, I understood that many of the stars visible in the sky have long been gone, and we see them because the light from the stars takes too long to reach the Earth.And the small, living bundle in the box in the kitchen slept soundly, breathing barely audibly. Did Lisa see dreams? Who knows.

Ivars Balkits
“0 [The Fool]s”

The seven feathers in his hair, could those represent the Deadly Sins? [Those are chicken feathers. He has spent the night in a coop.] His eyes are slightly crossed: what do you think they symbolize? [He is looking down and to his left, maybe at a chicken. There's a shadow of a tear.] What's that he's clutching in his left hand? [It might be an egg.]He may have been the Hanged Man once. But the smirk has been wiped from his face. Dumb as a hoe handle, he stands there without consciousness of shame or anything like it really. [Look, maybe he's thinking, 'Why am I here? What's my purpose?'] He is more likely thinking, 'Maybe I could have had that chicken, as well as that egg."He can't keep his pants on, or wouldn't be able to keep his pants on if he had pants. [Right, he wears only a kind of diaper, a tattered tunic, and worn stockings.] Under his coat is something pink, bulging. [A plucked chicken?] [Get off it!] Like most of the figures of the original Sforza-Visconti pack, he is standing in an interior space, in front of a tapestry, recalling for us, of course, the Moorish mamluk playing cards, once patterned after prayer rugs. [Ah, recalling.]That stave, that fool-stick, in his hand -- is it to drive away the dogs, or bandits that might attack him as he wanders abroad? [Where is that dog?] Dog gone. Out of the picture. Dog is ubiquitous in the later Tarots. Is the figure a kind of angel? [Silly! He's no angel!] [He may have been assaulted by an angel once.] Or maybe by the farmer that owns the henhouse??]?

No Fool like the old Fool.

And...No fool like the old fool... made new, eh? [The fool the world is fond of.] The fond one the world is fool for. [Clueless, offering clues, in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of the earlier 20th Century CE.] Head in the clouds, starry-eyed. Entranced by a something in the sky. [Chicken flying?]Nature boy, vagabond, beatnik, hippie, nonconformist, anarchist … numbered 0 and valued as 0. Striding foolhardily future-ward, starry-eyed [As noted.]... the mark, the chump, at times the object of fond derision; interpreted at times also as saint, angel, goddess, hero of the Journey. Most definitely, interpretation has much to do with whether one sees the Fool as particle or wave…about to step off the cliff, knowing the angels will catch him… or acting from the deeply undefinable and maybe dark purposes of the unconscious mind.At least this Fool's on the move. [So one can justifiably talk about a journey.] He's left it all behind, like Siddhartha. [Nose in the air. Stuck up?] He is savoring the scent of the rose. [Rose is white, dog is white, sun is white. Peaks are white. Sleeves are white under the cloak.] Red feather. [Is there a feather in his cap? [Yes.] [Usually you earn that feather, no?] Unearned, possibly a servant plucked it for him before he left. [From a red hen?] By a white wheelbarrow.?]?Arcane. Arcana. Arcanum. You get a sense the person is not even looking at the cards, but going off on tangents of deliberately obscurantist verbal head-tripping. [Who is?] The one reading the cards. [Same one having the cards read for them.] What is that person looking for in the end? What is that person hungering for? [Folly.]

Contributors

CORWIN ERICSON lives in western Massachusetts and is the author of the novel Swell and the collection Checked Out OK. His work has been published in Pine Hills Review, Galaxy Brain, Volt, jubilat, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere. Follow him @corwin.ericson.EVIE DUFFY is a NYC-based writer who grew up in Massachusetts and Virginia. She has been published previously in the literary magazine Another New Calligraphy for a story titled "Kindle."ITTO AND MEKIYA OUTINI are a wife-and-husband team who write about America, Morocco, and all those caught in between. They’ve published in The North American Review, Fourth Genre, Fine Lines, Chautauqua, and elsewhere around the globe. Their work has garnered support from the MacDowell Foundation, the Steinbeck Fellowship Program, and the Fulbright Program. They’re currently collaborating on several books and running The DateKeepers, a full-service author support platform. They hold an MA and an MFA, respectively, from the University of Arkansas.IVARS BALKITS, a dual-citizen of Latvia and the USA, lives in a small mountain village in Crete, Greece. His poems and prose have been most recently published by The Woolf, DMQ Review, Poetose, The Palisades Review, ephemeras, Vernacular Journal, Meetinghouse Magazine, Mercurius Magazine, Pnyx (Ozymandias Project), and Punt Volat.MAYA JACYSZYN is a multi-published poet and the associate director of Neumann University’s writing center. She received her bachelor’s degree at Saint Joseph’s University where she also served as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine, Crimson & Gray. More recently, her work is featured in the Flint Hills Review, In Parentheses, Prime Number Magazine, and Quibble Lit, among others.ROBERT POPE has published several books of short fiction, including Killers & Others, which includes stories from Alaska Quarterly Review, Fiction International, and Sequestrum. His nonfiction has appeared in Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Big City Lit, and Pushcart Prize. He lives in Akron, Ohio.S.D. DILLON has an MFA from Notre Dame and lives in Michigan. His poetry has appeared recently in Bloodroot, The Phare, MORIA, #Ranger, Canary, and The Shortlist: Best of BarBar 2024. His poetry is forthcoming in Bacopa Literary Review, Southland Alibi, and Rundelania. Find him on IG @sddillon50.SHEILA E. MURPHY’s work has appeared in Verse Daily, Fortnightly Review, Poetry, Hanging Loose, and others. Her most recent book is Escritoire (Lavender Ink). Her awards include the Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press) and the Hay(ha)ku Book Prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Press). She lives in Phoenix, AZ, and you can check out her Wiki page.TIM BEMIS received a BA in creative writing from New England College and an MFA in fiction from Southern New Hampshire University. His fiction has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, Indiana Voice Journal, Subtle Fiction, Mystery Tribune, and Modern Literature, amongst others.YURII TOKAR was born in 1967 in the Soviet Union. He graduated from Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1988 and began teaching mathematics and physics in the region affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Yuri Tokar's stories, essays, and poems have been published in Ukrainian, German, and American newspapers and magazines. For example, his work has appeared in the Russian-language magazine Чайка (Washington), the newspaper Gorizont (Colorado), and Adelaide Literary Magazine.

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SORTES is?

SORTES is a spinning collection of stories, poems, songs, and illustrations to help while away the wintery June nights. It’s an oddball grabbag wunderkammer mixtape offering distraction and refreshment.We have neither theme nor scene. Each issue is its own creature. We publish both the sufficiently strange and insufficiently boring: swart stories, hoity poetry, magical surrealism, beatnik travelogues, hard modern haiku, pulp, fantasia, antibiography, crooning balladeering, experimental sentimentalism, and grainy sideways photography.We also host online readings, old time radio performances, and other beloved gimmicks as they occur to us. Previous issues are available via the site’s Archive link.

Submitting

SORTES considers unsolicited submissions of poetry, prose, illustration, music, videos, and anything else you think may fit our format. Feel free to poke us; we’d love to find a way to publish dance, sculpture, puzzles, and other un-literary modalities.SORTES is published quarterly. Each issue includes approximately ten works of lit, visual, or performance art. We like a small number of works per issue: artists and readers should have a chance to get to know each other.SORTES, you’ll notice, is primarily a black-and-white publication, and we like to play with that (by featuring monochrome videos and photography, for example), but we’ll happily consider your polychrome submission.Submissions are ongoing throughout the year. We consider artists with both extensive and limited publishing experience. We accept simultaneous submissions but please inform us if your work has been accepted elsewhere. We publish translations and reprints on a case-by-case basis; please send us a note describing your interest. And while there's no restriction on the number of pieces you can submit, please have a heart.There’s no need for an extensive cover letter or publication history but please tell us who you are, what kind of writing or art you do, and a bit about what you’re sending us. There are no formatting requirements for text submissions. There is no fee to submit. Please send submissions as email attachments whenever possible; multimedia submissions may be sent as links.

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You asked and we provide: what's up with publication rights and ownership?Simple: When you publish with us, you give SORTES one-time publication right for your work. You retain all right to your work after publication. Work published with SORTES will remain available via our online Archive.While SORTES retains the right to link to or excerpt your published work, we do not have the right to publish your work in new formats (including print). If we would like to pursue publication of your work in new formats, we'll ask you and hopefully agree to terms.

Mahoffs

SORTES was created by founding editor Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum and emeritus editor Kevin Travers. Current editors are listed in our masthead, Many of us live in Philadelphia, some luckily do not, but we invite writers and artists everywhere to live the SORTES fantasia.

Events

SORTES regularly offers readings and performances. For upcoming events, please check here and our Facebook page.

Coming Soon Enough

The SORTES 22 Reading

Sunday, June 29, 2025
7pm

Please remember, above all else in life, to join us for the SORTES 22 READING, where we will sing pagan songs and singe heathen bloods with:Corwin Ericson • Evie Duffy • Itto and Mekiya Outini • Ivars Balkits •
Maya Jacyszyn • Robert Pope • S.D. Dillon • Sheila Murphy • Tim Bemis • and Yurii Tokar.Heresiarch Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum will pip panpipe. This free for all is free for all.

• Zoom Link

Meeting ID: 830 6594 6944
Passcode: 480452
Call in: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdxGQXiHa5

• Facebook Event

Radio SORTES

Archive

A Suspense-Full Halloween, October 29, 2023

On October 29, 2023, Radio SORTES presented A Suspense-Full Halloween -- live performance of two old time radio Suspense episodes -- "The Screaming Woman" and "Ghost Hunt" -- each dripping with period music and sound effects.From 1940 through 1962, Suspense, "radio's outstanding theater of thrills," terrified radio listeners with macabre true crime and supernatural horrors.Our production was reanimated by the electrifying Radio SORTES Players: Alyssa Shea, Betsy Herbert, Dan DiFranco, Demree McGhee, Eliot Duhan, Emily Zido, Fionna Farrell, Iris Johnston, Kelly Ralabate, Lino, and Nick Perilli. The performance was adapted by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum and Aria Braswell, with direction and sound by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum.

Scary SORTESies To Tell In The Dark, October 30, 2022

On October 30, 2022, Radio SORTES presented three ghastly and unnerving old time radio stories, including original adaptations of Arch Oboler's "The Dark," Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains," and Oscar Wilde's “The Canterville Ghost,” plus poetry from "Weird Tales" magazine.Our infernal Radio SORTES Players included Betsy Herbert • Brenna Dinon • Christina Rosso • Demree McGhee • Emily Zido • Evan Myers • Iris Johnston • Kelly Ralabate • Lino • Luke Condzal • and Rosanna Lee Byrnes. The performance was written, produced, and scored by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum.Radio SORTES is an unnatural extracurricular extension of SORTES magazine, whose events and readings are always free, open to all, and ideally less than two hours. See SORTES.co for inexpressibly brilliant literature, art, and upcoming events.

1950s Western / Sci-Fi Double-Feature, February 25, 2022

The talented Radio SORTES Players performed two old time radio episodes broadcast live via ethereal wireless right to our audience's home receivers.We galloped into the unknown with a 1950s western / sci-fi double-feature: The Six Shooter episode “Battle at Tower Rock” and the Dimension X episode “A Logic Named Joe” -- each with music and convincing sound effects.The all-star Radio SORTES players were: Abbey Minor • Betsy Herbert • Brenna Dinon • Brian Maloney • Britny Brooks • Daniel DiFranco • Dwight Evan Young • Emily Zido • Evan Myers • Iris Johnston • Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum • Kailey Tedesco • Kelly Ralabate • Kevin Travers • Luke Condzal • Nicholas Perilli • Rachel Specht • Rosanna Byrnes • and Victoria Mier.Radio SORTES -- an unnatural extracurricular extension of SORTES magazine -- was produced and directed by Kevin Travers and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum. Radio SORTES is always free, open to all, and less than two hours. See SORTES.co for upcoming events.

The 39 Steps, February 19, 2021

The Radio SORTES Players performed this classic adventure story, written by John Buchan and adapted by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum from Hitchcock's 1935 film and the 1937 Lux Radio production. It starred Brenna Dinon • Heather Bowlan • Rosanna Byrnes • Betsy Herbert • Iris Johnston • Warren Longmire • Brian Maloney • Britny Brooks • Nicholas Perilli • Kelly Ralabate • Dwight Evan Young • Emily Zido • Victoria Mier • Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum • and Kevin Travers.

Halloween Eve Special, October 30, 2020

Introduction

Suspense, "The House in Cypress Canyon"

Commercial

Inner Sanctum Mysteries, "Voice on the Wire"

The Radio SORTES players presented a live Halloween Eve special: two programs of classic old time radio horrors. The shows -- including dialogues, music, and sound effects -- were performed for a live Zoom audience.The Suspense episode “The House in Cypress Canyon” was originally broadcast December 5, 1946 and the Inner Sanctum Mysteries episode “Voice on the Wire” was originally broadcast November 29, 1944. Both programs were performed by Kevin Travers • Sean Finn • Britny Perilli • Don Deeley • Brian Maloney • Betsy Herbert • Kyle Brown Watson • Nicholas Perilli • Emma Pike • Susan Clarke • and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum. Between episodes, we presented an original commercial in period style written and performed by Kevin Travers.

Odd Lots

A Proper Mast-Lashing

Philosophies and Phrases for Debased Phases

or Aphorisms for Schisms or Epigrams for Pigs and Rams

The first lie we're taught is existence of sin. The second is we shouldn't have it..
Drinking, like religion and suspicion, is only dangerous in excess or less.Sex and love are each admirable but together inconceivable.The problem with good taste is that there's too much of it. A surfeit of quality is the tedium of heaven.From birth I easily succeeded. Only through great effort have I failed, albeit not very well.Sobriety is the only impediment to intoxication.Poetry lies to make truth seem plausible.Don't deny yourself a fantasy because reality is flawed. Fiction is a valid form of fact.I derive from a long line of the dead. In fact, everyone I know comes from dead stock. All living people have survivor's guilt.I assume all interactions are loving and flirtatious except those that are.The body makes us human but adornment is denial of the body and denial of the body is civilization and civilization makes us human..
It's later than you drink.I'd like to die while I'm young enough to appreciate it. I may not have traveled much in life but I expect to travel reasonably far in death.La petit morte is more manageable and repeatable than la morte grande.Intellectual property fences in the ocean. Wit belongs to any qualified thief.A friend is just a stranger you've met.Morality says A is right and B is wrong. Ethics asks you to choose between C and D.A nickname given for not drinking is a soberquet.Marry the myopic and live beautiful forever.Decency is the most popular hypocrisy.Religion revealing the historic is a useful mooring. Religion revealing the mystic is abusively boring. Religion is only useful when unbelieved..
My only regret is having been born a man instead of a book.An epicurean, voluptuary, and hedonist walk into a baroque...My mistakes are my best and only qualities.It's best to be hated by the wrong people.We always knew the world was round. Through vast effort we taught ourselves it was flat. Then through much more effort we taught ourselves it was round. And we've never learned our lesson.Fear is not, and the only, convincing theological argument.Life exists to create life but death exists to create thought.I'm queer in every sense except the homosexual.I'm an atheist because I'm too moral not to be.Great minds kink alike..
All evil is caused by children or what they become.
.
.
.
Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum
Editor
June 13, 2025

Correspondence

Title

“Text.”

Name, Date

SORTES Riposte

Archive

• 1: “SORTES” (April 2020)

• 2: “The Distract” (June 2020)

• 3: “The Mysterious Hammer” (September 2020)

• 4: “I Want To Be Your Peggy Guggenheim” (December 2020)

• 5: “The Audacity of the Seagull” (March 2021)

• Reading (March 26, 2021)

• 6: “A Thorough Enemy of Fortune”

• Reading (June 25, 2021)

• 7: “The Man Going Before Me, Who Led Me Away” (September 2021)

• Reading (October 1, 2021)

• 8: “That Famous Mosaic Table” (December 2021)

• Reading (December 10, 2021)

• 9: “Pub Time For A Book In Jeopardy” (March 2022)

• Reading (April 1, 2022)

• 10: “It Seems Like A Kind Of Trap Laid Especially For Me” (June 2022)

• Reading (June 24, 2022)

• 11: “Rum Lot” (September 2022)

• Reading (September 30, 2022)

• 12: “Up With The Yardkeeper” (December 2022)

• Reading (January 8, 2023)

• 13: “You And I Should Own A Copper Mine” (March 2023)

• Reading (April 16, 2023)

• 14: “At First We Felt A Little Nervous About This Leprosy Business” (June 2023)

• Reading (June 26, 2023)

• 15: “Sticky Marmalade; Opposite Direction” (September 15, 2023)

• Reading (September 24, 2023)

• 16: “Rimbaud’s Heart (Hollow As A Bamboo)” (December 15, 2023)

• Reading (January 14, 2024)

• 17: “Quiet! Quiet!” (March 15, 2024)

• Reading (April 7, 2024)

• 18: “Teddy Lingers On” (June 14, 2024)

• Reading (July 7, 2024)

• 19: “The Castle, The Laboratory, The Money” (September 13, 2024)

• Reading (September 22, 2024)

• 20: “The Patent Cosmo-Opticon or Theatrum Mundi in More-Or-Less Working Order” (December 13, 2024)

• Reading (January 12, 2025)

• 21: “Dean Of Lush Workers” (March 21, 2025)

• Reading (April 6, 2025)

• 22: “aint that high brow stuff archy” (June 13, 2025)

• Reading (June 29, 2025) (coming soon)

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SORTES is a mostly online journal, as you know, but every so often we can't resist existing.

Spectral Annual 2024

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Here are four ghastly cards celebrating the tradition of sharing ghost stories at the end of the year. Each card features original eerie illustrations and newly-commissioned horror stories:-- Irina Tall's illustrations
-- Kailey Tedesco's poetry
-- Luke Condzal's historical existential story
-- Nick Perilli's familial ghost warmer, and
-- Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum's fraternal horror.Keep them, mail them, trade them, resell them once supplies inevitably exhaust.

Annual 2023

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The SORTES Spectral Winter Annual 2023 revives the tradition of haunted holiday fiction. This beautifully crafted 44-page paperback anthology features ghastly short stories showcasing a dead man’s special deliveries, a judgmental seaside specter, the pains of an aging table-rapper, the heartwarming war on the poor, and the electrifying end of the year / world, as well as poems celebrating the Jersey Devil's unsung siblings. Authors include Daniel DiFranco, Jean Zurbach, Kailey Tedesco, Max D. Stanton, Mordecai Martin, and Nick Perilli. The Annual makes an ideal holiday present for any dear friend or family member who loathes the living.

SORTES Sampler 2

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A SORTES Sampler 2 is a slender tasty book collecting weird fiction by Max D. Stanton, surrealist collage art by Danielle Gatto Hirano, and a poetry cycle by Uri Rosenshine. It’s a handsomely designed but affordable little snack of a book. We have incredibly limited copies on hand, and every day they become incredibly more limited, so leap today.

SORTES Sampler 1

SOLD OUT

A SORTES Sampler 1 was our first attempt to make the ephemeral real. It contains a dystopian farmstead fantasy by Iris Johnston, paper cutout art by Abi Whitehead, and a Coney Island noir by Mordecai Martin.

Or delay your delicious fulfillment and

Buy In Person

When in Philadelphia, please gobble up your copies from:Brickbat Books, Head & Hand Books, A Novel Idea on PassyunkPlease note that not every publication is sold in each location. If these fine stores are sold out, march to the counter and sweetly demand more SORTES.

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Patreon

• Visit SORTES's Patreon Today

SORTES is dedicated to free: every online issue is lovingly brought to you for zero dollars while each Radio SORTES entertainment is beamed gratis to your Zoom dial. Our masochistic editors tell me they’re delighted to put in hundreds of hours for no money and paltry recognition.However, the rest of the chilly world is less dedicated to free and much the opposite: our website, our Zoom, our physical publications, and so many other digital nickels and dimes sap us more each year.We must fight back – and we need you to help us! Every dollar supporting SORTES goes to creating a strange literary world in which you’re a citizen. To delight you, we’re dancing in our red shoes down to our nubs.Why don’t we accept advertising? Because we hate it and it seems like too much work anyway. It blocks the bucolic view. It spoils the fine pleats in our website.So we turn to solicitation, which is much more up our alley. Patreon revives a tradition old as Roman poetry and frumpy chapel ceilings.

When you subscribe to SORTES for little as

• $2 a month!

you'll be rewarded with loot, publications, and even opportunities to chat with our sumptuous editors.