Byron D. was a lawyer, a good one I guess. He died on a day just like this, right in this spot on Highway 44, shot in the leg. He crawled out of his car, bled to death in the ditch. The village of Wambli is just over the hill. I live there in what used to be his house. He’s been dead since January 31, 1976, died before I was born. This was back in the bad times on the rez, Wounded Knee in the 70’s, AIM, the FBI, all that. One guy copped to accessory to second degree; one was a juv. Neither did much time for killing Byron. Two others weaseled out. Some are relatives of mine. Nobody in Wambli says much about it.

Snow is heavy along the road; the sky, terrible. Driving’s a nightmare.

People in Wambli say there’s a ghost car drives this road. Sometimes people see a man in the ditch, alive. When they get out to help, no one’s there. But there’s blood, especially if there’s a heavy snowfall, like that day, blood in the ditch, on the bank, on the road.

I hear thunder even though it’s snowing. Booming. My car skids on ice, and I fight the skid but whirl toward the ditch. The impact is horrible.

I’m upside down, my nose, mouth bleeding, blood on my hands, legs. Getting out of the car is murder. I don’t know how much I’m hurt, but something’s wrong. My leg is numb in a way that seems bad.

He’s right there on the snow bank, lying on his side, looking at me. He looks like my cousin. That’s a surprise; I never saw a picture of Byron. Dark-eyed, intent, he looks like a prosecutor. I crawl up and put my arms under his armpits, try to lift him. He’s dead weight. My leg can’t stand much of this.

“Why’d they do it?” I ask.

“I can’t say,” he answers.

Itis snowing worse, and the sky is terrible.

- – - – -

Janet Shell Anderson is currently nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction and the Micro Prize for short fiction. Her work has appeared in Vestal Review, The Grey Sparrow Press, LITSNACK, Gemini Magazine, Convergence, The Citron Review, and other publications. She often writes about the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and is an attorney.

At the table, we opened the bags, laid out our sandwiches, then told jokes. I should say my sister told jokes because mostly it was her telling them. Big Alabama had a knack for the punch line, like all other kinds of punches.

Sometimes kids gathered around to listen to The Alabama Humor Show, where I was Abbot to my sister’s Costello, and it was during this show I told the joke about catching a fish, the one where you spread your arms to show how big the fish is and smack the other person in the mouth and you say, “It wiggled its tail like this…” while continuing to smack.

So I did this to my sister, not smacking hard, just enough to get laughs, and everyone thought it funnier than that time Eddie March played Joseph in the school play and fell off his donkey and said, “Jesus H. Christ!”

And for a moment I didn’t feel bad about being the biggest wimp going.

But St. Peter’s principal, a nun so small she was shorter than most kids, saw me do the joke, and she called me over, the whole place looking on – must have been 300 kids – and she asked me why I was smiling? Did I like hitting people? Did I think I was funny?

I was about to say no, you don’t understand, my sister and I… when she smacked me so hard that side of my face felt stung by bees.

Tears puffed my eyes, not just from the pain, but also from the shame of getting struck by a nun half the size of a hobbit in front of every kid I’d ever known.

The entire cafeteria collapsed into a sickly silence, and even the bullies, the ones who chased me after school and pushed my face in the dirt, shook their heads and sighed, as if Jesus himself was trying to tell us about justice in a fallen world. I saw them all through wet smudges as I waddled to my seat, where Big Alabama sat at the long table, not smiling, joking, just munching her liverwurst sandwich.

- – - – -

James Valvis lives in Washington State with his wife, daughter, and cat. His poems or stories have recently appeared in Arts & Letters, Nimrod, Atlanta Review, Hanging Loose, Pank, Southern Indiana Review, Crab Creek Review, Rattle, LA Review, Linger Fiction, and River Styx, and are forthcoming in Midwest Quarterly, New York Quarterly, Pearl, Pinyon, Verdad, and many others. He will be the featured writer in Re)verb 7. In addition to being a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Web nominee, a novelette was a storySouth Million Writers Notable Story. His first poetry collection, How to Say Goodbye, is due in 2011.

“Where did you get that?” Will asked.

“From the secret compartment in my book bag,” was the answer. Curtis held open the main section of his bookbag as Will looked inside. He didn’t see a secret compartment; just normal books for a fifth grader and well-used folders.

“I don’t see it,” Will said.

“It’s there,” Curtis said. “I get almost anything I want. Well, anything that can fit into my bag. All I have to do is say it and I have it. Want anything?”

“Yeah, a turkey sandwich,” Will said, chuckling.

Curtis stared into the bag, said “turkey sandwich,” and immediately pulled out a small sandwich wrapped in plastic.

Will took the sandwich, removed the cellophane and lifted the top bun. “Mustard. I should have specified mayonnaise,” he said.

“Do you want one with mayonnaise?”

“No. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Okay, let me know if you get hungry.” Curtis replaced the sandwich in the bookbag, then crumbled up the candy bar wrapper and shoved it in as well. In three more gulps, Curtis finished the Pepsi and put the can inside the bag.

Will laughed. “We have a garbage can, son.”

“I’m recycling.”

* * *

Lewis sat on the stone bench at the entrance to his father’s castle. He held a palm-sized, blue pouch with gold drawstrings in his hands. The pouch vibrated and Lewis reached in and removed a strange piece of material. The brown paper—he assumed it was some sort of paper—crinkled in his hands and had words he didn’t know the meanings of in various sizes of print.

A horse approached. Lewis’ older brother Edmond was already dismounting when he reached the bench.

“Are you playing around with that pouch again?” Edmond asked, irritated.

“Brother, it’s absolutely strange.” Lewis held up the plastic. “I got this a minute ago.”

Edmond grabbed the wrapper and angrily tossed it in the moat. “I should punch some sense into you. That is not a magic pouch.”

“Look! Look!” Once again, the pouch shook, more violently this time. Lewis reached in and removed some bread with meat in between.

Without hesitation, Edmond snatched the food and whipped it into the moat, landing near the wrapper. Edmond stormed away towards the main castle door. “I’m telling Father. The King would love to hear how insane you are.”

The pouch pulsated and Lewis instinctively inserted his hand and removed a cylindrical object. It was some sort of metal painted blue with white lettering. On one end of the object was a hole. Lewis sniffed the opening: sugary, tart.

He called after Edmond. “Edmond! What’s a Pepsi?”

- – - – -

Gregory M. Thompson is a former screenwriter returning to the speculative fiction world after having his last published pieces in 1999. Currently he has an award-nominated short story in the Steampunk Anthology, which was released in November 2010, and will have short fiction appearing in an April issue of Dark Gothic Resurrected. You can also find his work in Apehlion, Digizine, and Macabre Realms.

When she was feet away, he stopped and leaned against the fence with his shoulders hunched. “What you doing here?” she said, squinting at him as though she didn’t know.

He stared downward, toeing a mauled leaf. “You told me to come back Friday night and you’d pay me to pull out your trashcan again, ma’am.”

Miss Lucy grunted. “Well, you did a good job on the lawn a few days ago. You got pride in your work and that’s a good thing. Okay, you go ’round to the back porch. I’ll meet you.”

Crickets chirped somewhere in the blackness. The back screen opened with a squawk and Miss Lucy held out a small garbage bag. She still wore her pink church hat and lacy white gloves, all relics from a past century and age. The boy met her shrewd gaze as his hands accepted the burden.

“Here’s five,” she said, shoving money into his shirt pocket. “You pull that can across the yard, out the side gate, and into the alley. Close to the fence this time, not out on the asphalt. You still going to church?”

“Yes’m. Every Sunday downtown. Thank you, ma’am.” He stuffed the bag inside the can and began to drag it away.

“You got good manners, boy,” she said, speaking loud to be heard. “Your parents are doing right by you.” His pride could be a sin, surely, but sometimes that’s all a person had left. Miss Lucy understood that.

The boy stopped, his lips gaping as though he would speak, and then they clenched tight again as he continued to tug on the rattling can.

Once the gate clanged shut, he lifted the metal lid. There had to be something good. Yes—a swish left in a gallon of skim-milk, still cold. A bag of raw hamburger, too, the edges barely turning gray. He sniffed it. Still good. Some wrapped cheese slices, too. Mama would like those. A box of wheat crackers was open yet full. The remnants in an ice cream carton were just starting to melt, but that’d be fine. Sara always liked milk shakes better than ice cream anyway.

He pulled a plastic grocery bag from his pocket and set his haul inside. With that and the money, they’d survive until Sunday services at St. Paul’s kitchen.

Miss Lucy waited on the back porch for the canister lid’s telltale clink into place. “Lord have mercy,” she muttered, heading inside. Maybe if she made a chocolate spice cake on Tuesday it would start to go stale just in time for next Friday night.

- – - – -

Beth Cato resides in Arizona with her husband and son. She’s an associate member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, with work appearing in The Pedestal Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and the Mountain Magic anthology from Woodland Press. Her essays can be found in several volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul. For information on her latest projects, please visit bethcato.com.

- – - – -

Jade Ramsey is a native Texan who currently resides in Ohio while she earns an MFA from Bowling Green State University. She has decided that winter should be limited to Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as opposed to November through February. She can usually be found reading (or trapped) on her fire escape, where she is soothed by the sounds of traffic. Her work has appeared in ShelfLife Magazine and Jellyfish Magazine.

“Hi,” I whispered. “Can I lie next to you for a little while?”

“You can do whatever you want, you know that.”

The sun fell in through the skylight above us, casting shadows in the hallway leading to the bathroom that Grandpa couldn’t use alone. My great grandparents, stolid and frozen in time, watched from a framed wedding portrait on the wall, the gold-leaf frame textured with leaves layered on thick, like impasto paint.

“So I’ve been thinking I want to be a chef,” I said, sliding closer to him so I could feel the warmth of his body. His arms rested on his belly, which rose and fell slow and measured like my father’s when he fell asleep watching football.

“Well that sounds like something.”

“We could open a restaurant.”

“Okay.” He scratched his forehead. “And split the profit seventy-thirty?”

“That’s not fair!”

“Fine, sixty-forty.”

“Deal.” I smiled and crossed my arms behind my head. I felt young in this room, younger than the green velour chair with a pair of pants draped over the back, younger than the white wooden armoires with black trim that flanked a matching vanity table long since used, younger than my great grandmother on the wall.

“So about the restaurant,” I said. “I assume it will be Italian.”

He gestured to me. “And only good looking people can come in.”

“And you and I will be the judges of that.”

Only Grandma spent time with him in this room, reminding him how to lie down for naps, following him into the bathroom, stroking his back when he realized he had said something that didn’t make sense. I rested my head on his shoulder; he didn’t always know me, but he always seemed to trust me.

I looked down the length of the bed at his feet, toes standing straight up under thick white socks. Grandma kept the air conditioner as cold as she could because she didn’t love the heat, and Grandpa wore socks in the summer.

As he coughed, I checked the clock on the bedside table—almost five, which meant soon he would be “sundowning.” Grandma would hurry me out of the house so I wouldn’t have to see him at his most confusing part of his day, the time when his lucidity slipped away with the sunlight.

But leaving him alone seemed like the worst thing to do. He was far away in a dream, and though I couldn’t go with him, I could wait, here on the bed under the skylights, warmed on all sides by the sun above, the bedspread beneath, and Grandpa’s steady breathing.

- – - – -

Dianna Calareso is a writer, editor, and teacher in Nashville, Tennessee. She writes creative nonfiction with a special interest in family memoir, and her essays have been published online and in print. She authors a creative nonfiction blog (dcalareso.blogspot.com) and recently completed her first memoir, At Ease. Dianna earned her MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Outside, tree limbs writhed in the wind, as black and serpentine as Medusa’s locks. He held a magazine in his right hand, open to an article about finance—the Greek fiscal crisis, a photo of the Acropolis on a stormy night, perfect proportions, bone white columns. Leaning toward the man, she inhaled his warmth, smelling exotic spices: cinnamon, orange blossom, maybe a hint of cardamom. She thought of cinnamon and butter on toast, fresh orange juice, a stone patio overlooking the sea. She imagined sticking her nose between his naked pectorals, tasting terracotta skin, warm and smooth, straight from the kiln.

Someone jammed in behind her, reaching over her head to grab their strap, forcing the man’s hand down over hers. With physical contact, she felt justified to look up, directly at him. Her eyes sought his. He didn’t move his hand, maintaining soft but steady pressure. A small dimple appeared on the left side of his mouth.

The bus swerved; she teetered, but he caught her as she fell back. They danced for a moment, hands entwined on the strap, his other hand on her back, pulling her to him, their hips pressing into each other. For a moment, they moved to the rhythm of the bus, back and forth, side to side. She righted herself, allowing him to pull her closer, his body engulfing her, his hand spidering up her back, her head tucked beneath his chin. She closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his chest. The bus accelerated. Her arm snaked past his lats, gripping the back of his shoulder, her fingers spread like talons. Beneath the fabric of his white cotton shirt, his body was as hard as a statue raised from the depths of the Aegean after twenty centuries of waiting. She held on to him, wanting 5th Avenue to never end, wishing the bus would roll right across Washington Square, through Soho, the Battery, and into the sea.

It was when she got to the office that she discovered her wallet was gone.

- – - – -

Mike DiChristina is a writer and software engineer originally from Chittenango, New York, the birth place of L. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Mike spent his childhood playing sports with his three brothers. Of the four boys, he was the best athlete. After graduating from MIT, Mike spent twenty-five years as a software engineer before retiring to focus on his passion for writing. He currently lives in Riverside, Connecticut with his wife and three teenaged daughters, all of whom are musical. Mike is now the family chauffeur and is an avid fan of school music recitals.

“It looks more like a very steep hill to me.” I focus my camera and shoot a treacherous path that twists upward before us.

Below us, a cataract smashes against rocks. I focus and shoot. A light spray touches me.

“I wanted to see a mountain,” he says. Disappointment covers his face.

“You may be right. I think it is a mountain. But a small one.”

“Can we climb?”

“It’s too steep,” I say.

“Please.”

“I don’t have any wind for a climb. You know that.”

“I’ll climb just a little way up, okay?”

“Okay, just to that first bush on your right. I’ll watch.”

“I’ll go to the second bush, okay? It’s hardly any farther.”

“Okay, but no more.” Happy, he scampers upward.

My wife screams at me, “Get your daughter away from that crater.”

A hundred feet away my daughter stands quietly at the edge of a voluminous hollow. Instinctively, I focus my camera and shoot. But it’s a wide angel lens. I want a close up. I switch to my telephoto lens and bracket a series of shots as I walk toward her.

“What are you doing?” my wife shouts. I focus and capture her hardened mouth.

Spellbound, eyes focused inside the pit my daughter waits. I walk to her side. Her hand moves, grasps mine. Together we stare into an endless depth of blackness.

My wife yells, “Get her away from there.”

My daughter leads me to a spot where water bubbles from soft earth.

“It’s awesome,” she says.

“Yes,” I agree.

“Like soap bubbles from a bubble pipe.”

“Not quite that awesome,” I say.

My wife yells, “Look at your son.”

I look. He is stuck far up the slope and off its path. He can’t get down. I bracket shots as I walk to the path. I pause. My son waits. I take my first step, then my second. Time does not pass. Space does not exist. I am off the path, by his side. I take his hand. Walk with him to the path.

“Go down,” I say. “Not up.”

Secure. He races down. I collapse, my heart pounds. I gasp for breath. I will die here. I can never get down. I am too far up. The decline too treacherous.

My heart beat slows. My breath comes easier. I weigh my single option and cautiously stumble along the path. Rock and dirt tremble beneath my feet. I trip, scrape my hands on cutting rock and brambles.

My wife yells, “Hurry up. It’s not like we have all day.”

I reach for my telephoto lens. From here I can capture strands of her wind blown hair.

- – - – -

John Hayes was a scurvy looking corpse in the TV series Homicide. He acts and directs in community theater and likes to give poetry readings. Six of his one-act plays have been produced. He recently directed his own one-act play, The Pranksters, in Greenbelt, Maryland. Pulsar, Thema, Emerald Tales, BareBone, Premonitions, Flesh and Blood, Hungur, Modern Haiku, Tales of the Talisman and Writers Journal are a few of the many magazines that have published his work.

Featuring:
Trash Night – Beth Cato
Housebreaker – Elizabeth Creith
Magic Boxes – Luis Garcia Romero
Teddy Day – Lara Konesky
Coffee with Plumnuts – Rebecca L. Brown
Streetlights – Colin Lalley
Raptured – Dixon Hearne
Treats Like Chicken – Scott Akalis
The Compartments – Gregory M. Thompson
Wednesday Afternoon – Dallas Woodburn

Staff:
Editor – Daniel Copulsky
Readers – Els Baum, Benjamin Copulsky, and Victoria Klimaj
Proofreader – Doreen Clark

Featuring:
Death in the Family – Bryan Anthony
Feathered, Giving the Bird – Jade Ramsey
The Groovy Blue Dragon – Sean Finucane Toner
Marco… Marco… – Daniel W. Davis
Feeling the Pinch – Damon Barta
Reckoning – Jyotsna Sreenivasan
The Myth of Mustard Mustang – Christopher James
Sunset – Dianna Calareso
Peas on Earth – Jennifer Rhodes
Late Night Fiction – Derek Thompson

Staff:
Editor – Daniel Copulsky
Readers – Els Baum, Benjamin Copulsky, and Victoria Klimaj

This issue was printed with thanks for the generous support of Josh Amrhein, Bonnie Brody, David Brody, Karen Carlson, Chantelle Chan, Doreen Clark, Katherine Fortune, Amy G., Chris Grace, Liz Groebel, Len Kendall, Karrie Olick, Anna Peerbolt, Morgan Powers, Veronica Russell, Kate Solso, Olivia Stransky, Schuyler Towne, Sameer Vasta, and Kyr Westwind.

Featuring:
Rumbling – Justin Edwards
A Sister’s Burden – Shannon Schuren
Pleasure’s Past – Kevin Brown
Homeward Bound – Craig W. Steele
Adonis on the M104 – Mike DiChristina
A College Education – John Wilmes
Shark’s Teeth – Suvi Mahonen
Focus and Shoot – John Hayes

Staff:
Editor – Daniel Copulsky
Readers – Benjamin Copulsky, Evan Rothman

Featuring:
The Colony – Bridget Fallen
Transplanting – Jo Ann Heydron
The Party – Erin Carrillo
Hands Off – Nathan Kamal
The Center Does Not Hold – Fred Skolnik
Fixtures – Bryan Jones
Tree Home – F. R. Gagliano
3F Sharp – Andrew Reilly

Staff:
Editor – Daniel Copulsky
Reader – Benjamin Copulsky

Featuring:
Memorial Sloan Kettering, September 10th – Kathryn Dennett
From the Tour Diary of Edmund Lee – Sarah Dowling
Clandestine Music – Imee Cuison
A Memoir 241GB – H.E. Mantel/HaroHalola
The Red Sweater – C. Perella
Moment – Lauren Marino
The Toy – David Fleming
Night of Hope – Steven McBreaty

Staff:
Editor – Daniel Copulsky
Reader – Benjamin Copulsky