I cried in the five below today.
Held back from full-on sobbing.
There’s a queer book.
Right there.
Neon lights flashing:
YOU ARE VALID
N. Jones is in love with everything at once. On Twitter for the hot takes, weird genders, and cats @ablazeinhim
House of cards
Sometimes
The floor
Feels
rickety
tw: @TodorokiYung
Based in Florida, I work within the realm of poetry to examine love, alienation and memory.
October 27
Free Porch Pickup!
One vintage cauldron. Cast-iron, well-seasoned!
[picture]
October 28
I am expanding my business! Anyone interested in potions or hexes? DM me for rates!
October 29
Can anyone recommend someone who does yard clean up? The egg yolk and shells will come in handy, but I have no use for streams of toilet paper. Thanks!
October 30
My black cat is missing. No collar but answers to “Beelzebub.” Please DM with location!
October 31
Out strolling I came upon this darling armada of newts being attacked by crows. Happy Halloween!
[picture]
Toni Margarita Plummer is the author of the story collection The Bolero of Andi Rowe. She lives in the Hudson Valley. Twitter: @tmargaritaplum
“You’re sure you weren’t smoking?”
The smell of spent cigarettes clung to his jacket like a poltergeist. He had been riding around with his friends and hoped that keeping the windows down on the way home had dispersed some of the smell. But he had been smoking long enough to know it was impossible to avoid that odor. It crawled into your clothes, climbed into your pores, and all the cologne in the world couldn’t hide it.
He responded, “No,” knowing full well he had a pack of Camels stashed under his mattress.
“Okay, because you know how I feel about smoking. Your Uncle Harry just passed last year from lung cancer.” She always said it to him as if he had forgotten. Uncle Harry had lived just two streets over and had been a constant in his life. And back when Uncle Harry was still among the living, Bill had even snatched a few cigarettes from his pack when he wasn’t looking. “And well, you know what happened to my father. You don’t want to end up like that, sweetheart. Spending your last years being wheeled around by other people, taking breaks to use an oxygen mask. It’s terrible.”
“I know mom. I know. But I wasn’t smoking.”
“You sure do smell like it.”
“It was Kenny, Mom.” Kenny was always Bill’s fall guy because Kenny was on a first name basis with the police. “But please don’t tell his parents.”
“Kenny’s not my problem. You are. And you better be telling me the truth.” She had her index finger pointed right at him–like a dagger–as she said it.
Lying to her always took a toll on him. She was so kind to him, always had been, even before his dad died ten years ago. Dad didn’t die from smoking like ol’ Uncle Harry and Bill’s grandfather. The man ate right, was kind to people, and paid his taxes on time. But drunk drivers on the interstate don’t care about such things, do they?
“Mom, I told you. It was Kenny.”
“Okay. Okay.” She walked over to him. “I know it’s not a school night but you still need to get some sleep.”
She took a moment to fix his cowlick, a habit of hers that had started when he was a toddler, then took both of his cheeks in her hands and kissed him on the forehead. The nightly ritual.
At 18-years-old, Bill had known for a long time he had one of the best mothers in the world. A woman that had grace and kindness in spades. He never took pleasure in lying to her. But his body was in its heyday. Its prime. He could be a little rough on it. Not to mention that Rachel had bummed a cigarette off him this afternoon when they were parked up at Dead Children’s Playground—their favorite place to sneak off to smoke and drink a few beers when they were lucky enough to get a six pack. Without that trusty pack of Camels in his pocket, she would have just moved on to talk to Jake, who was taller than Bill, smarter, and more athletic. The guy was nice too. Didn’t seem fair for one human to possess all those attributes.
But rather than sidling up to Jake and flirting with him like she usually did, Rachel had come over to Bill and asked for a smoke. Fumbling around in his pockets, he had awkwardly got out the pack and lighter (thanking God he hadn’t gotten a soft pack, which usually left the cigarettes looking like sad noodles), handed her one, then performed his best Cary Grant impression, trying to rakishly light the cigarette. He and his mom loved watching Cary Grant movies together and in all those films the girl definitely stayed to chat. Bill was no Cary Grant, but to his surprise, Rachel had stayed and talked to him. Not only that, they had also discovered they had things in common: horror movies and metal music. This tall blond with flawless skin and hair that hung down like the wisps of a willow tree, thought John Carpenter was one of the greatest directors of all time.
She didn’t even talk to Jake while they were there. All because of a cigarette.
So, sorry Grandad and Uncle Harry.
And sorry Mom.
Also, he supposed he would owe his mother yet another apology, because Bill had no intention of making it an early night. He had explored the caves hidden back in the woods behind his house more times than he could remember during the day, but never under the cover of night.
The time had come to right that wrong.
#
From what he knew, the caves used to be some kind of limestone mining operation. That was, until it shut down decades ago and the mining company left the town of Veil, Georgia behind. The site had gone on abandoned for longer than anyone could remember. People just accepted that these caves existed in the back of the neighborhood as a popular spot for kids, high schoolers, and hikers to explore. Well, the hikers came to explore. The rest came to do all things prohibited within sight of the world. No Trespassing signs were posted at every entrance, but that was little deterrent because the police didn’t enforce the warning. If law enforcement didn’t care, then why should anyone else?
Initially, it was the stories that brought Bill and his crew up here. One night, after several Budweisers, Bill’s uncle told him that back in the nineties—during the Satanic Panic—people came up here to slaughter animals in honor of Satan. There were even rumors that human sacrifices were being performed. This was years ago when Bill was only seven or eight. Kids that age will believe just about anything and not only had Bill believed the stories, but they had also captivated the dark side of his curiosity. How could anyone in this neighborhood sleep without knowing what was in those caves?
In keeping with the town’s indifference to trespassing, there was a hole cut in the chain-link fence that closed in the west side of the property. Bill pulled back the thin metal and went through.
Sneaking out of his house had been easy. His mother slept like the dead, always had, even after his dad died. Maybe God thought she deserved mercy for having to become a single mom, who had foregone grad school to help support her husband through law school and as a result, didn’t have a leg to stand on in the job market, not to mention a canyon-sized hole in her resume´. She eventually found work in human resources at the hospital—good hours, good pay, more stress than she liked, but she stuck it out. And despite all that she had endured, all the shit she had had to shovel over the years, she was always able to sleep, which allowed Bill to start sneaking out as a teen. To this day, he was batting a thousand; she had never caught him.
The sounds of full dark greeted Bill: a sporadic hoot from an owl, the whir of crickets, and police sirens far off in the distance. The crunch of the gravel echoed off the walls as he made his way down into the caves. The temperature dropped the further he went into the Earth, making him thankful he had put on his hoodie. He always got a shot of adrenaline when the temperature descended right before he entered the mouth of the cave—the quick plummet made it feel like he was entering a different world.
The next shot of adrenaline came when he had to choose. Like a monster from another planet, the cave had three mouths: Door Number One, Two, or Three. All had paths that snaked around in different directions.
Tonight, it would be Door Number Two.
In he went. The darkness swallowed him.
#
A manmade hole above, presumably to lower tools without having to make a trip back out, was just ahead, letting in a glittery tube of moon-light. The terrain was familiar; he knew every bend and turn back here. Darkness shrouded the walls of the cave from view. In the day-time, he could see the walls, the grooves, the little ledges that jutted out, the water trickling down the face. Right now, he could only see the tube of light ahead, the gravel at his feet, and whatever was in the path of his flashlight. He found himself moving the light to the wall again and again to make sure that it was still there and most importantly, that he was still alone.
Deciding to bypass the cone of moon-light in favor of going deeper inside, he forged on. The back of the cave wasn’t too far away and what he really came here for, what he really wanted to know, is what happened at night in the alcove carved out of a high rock-face at the back of the cave. What he and his friends called the Cubby Hole.
Before he ventured into the Cubby Hole, he decided it was best to shine the light in and make sure there weren’t any large critters, or worse, some kind of predator like a bobcat, waiting for him back there.
He saw nothing there. So he ventured in.
The ceiling was low and always coated in a layer of moisture. He moved the flashlight around, taking in the small rivulets of water, dripping down like tears. He saw where he and his friends had graffitied the wall a few weeks back. Struggling for something cool to tag on the wall, they had finally settled on Nirvana lyrics. The mold and the water were already erasing their hard work. Nothing seemed to last long back here.
Enough of the Cubby Hole. Time to see what happened on the north end of the cave at night.
As exited the alcove, he turned off his flashlight. He wanted to see if he could handle walking along the back of the cave in the dark. Really take in the atmosphere in the absence of light.
He knew the path by heart. Just like he could walk down the stairs at his house while carrying a box without looking at his feet.
Walking in pitch dark, suddenly, he heard what sounded like wings woosh.
It came again. Louder this time. A gigantic woosh, sounding like a train passing by.
It can’t be a bird. No bird is that big. He told himself it was all in his head; there was nothing back here with him.
Thunderous, the woosh came again, bringing a blast of wind that knocked his hair out of place. Something was above him.
Looking up, Bill saw two giant red orbs hovering above him like red stars. Like a locomotive coming straight for him, a giant black mass tore loose of the cave’s ceiling. It descended in front of him, colliding with the floor in a concussive thump that almost knocked Bill off his feet.
Bill beheld the creature standing before him. It was impossibly tall—at least ten feet, maybe more. He looked at the enormous wings that had made the titanic wind-like sound. Its body was as black as the night that surrounded them. Scales covered every inch of its torso and legs. Massive taloned feet clicked and scratched against the gravel.
Without warning, time faded.
How long he stood there he would never know.
Somewhere along the way he realized that his paralysis wasn’t because of fear. The monster radiated an energy that commandeered Bill’s body and mind, but it was soft and soothing, lulling him into willful submission. He started hearing it speak in his head alongside his own thoughts, as if they were just having a normal conversation. Its voice was comforting, an old friend.
The thing brought him close, wrapping him in wings as big as sails. Then, like a loving parent putting him to bed, it lowered him to the ground, keeping him wrapped in its cosmic warmth the whole time.
The creature was kind. It meant him no harm.
It had something to tell him. Something dire. Urgent. His town was on the precipice of tragedy. People here needed help but it wasn’t the one to convey the message. Bill’s kind wouldn’t listen to it.
The creature delivered the message.
Hours later, sunlight cut through the entrance of the cave, shaking Bill from sleep.
He was alone. The creature was gone.
#
“Mom, call the hospital. You have to warn them.” Bill decided not to tell her the truth. Better to say it was a human being—a person feeling guilty about being part of a criminal conspiracy. Bill knew it wouldn’t hold up for long, but it was the best he could do on the fly. His mom would eventually get wise and ask questions that would expose the cracks in his story.
As expected, his mother looked at him like he was crazy. Which, he had to admit, this whole thing was.
But Bill couldn’t shake the feeling the creature had been honest. He remembered that feeling of ethereal warmth—glowing and endless and impossibly beautiful—when he had been cradled in its wings, and it convinced him the creature wanted to help the humans in his town.
“Mom, they will listen to you.”
“Bill, I don’t even work in the actual hospital. I work in H.R. Not to mention they will think I’ve lost it.” Pleading with her, Bill reminded her what was at stake: Someone had told him the hospital was going to burn down and forty-six people would die. She asked him about the number again and he reiterated that it would be exactly that number. He couldn’t tell her exactly why but that’s what the man had told him.
“We have top-notch security there and the fire alarms are state of the art. I don’t even know how someone could get around that.”
“That stuff can be hacked now. It’s not as hard as you think.”
A careworn sigh escaped her. In a subdued, mournful tone, she said, “This is where I work son. I could be risking my job.”
At that, he collapsed, crying and slapping his temples, pulling at his hair, trying to displace his angst and guilt. All those people were going to die if he didn’t do anything. That creature had made him certain of it.
He looked at his mother, big eyes filled with tears, and said the only thing he thought might work: “What if they die and you did nothing?”
#
Twenty minutes later, after hanging up with one of the hospital administrators, that had assured her the information was passed along to the CEO, she came in to check on him.
“They’re not going to do anything, are they?”
“They said they’d look into it.”
“It’s going to happen. I know it.”
“I hope you’re wrong, son.”
#
From the Veil Times, dated June 12, 2018:
Last night a fire claimed 47 lives at the main building of Veil Hospital. Authorities are still trying to determine what, or who, started the fire. An anonymous police source said they believe it was possibly a terrorist attack related to a ransom-ware demand. Although the hospital is equipped with a cutting-edge fire prevention system, it failed last night. The system—installed a year ago—relies on a Wi-Fi network. Police believe the perpetrators disabled the system and then went in and started the fire. The investigation is ongoing.
Twitter: @JBMcLaurin1
In my bowl there are twenty
shark-toothed vegetarians
Each with a surprise
for their vegan friends
Oh shit, there’s more vegetarians
in my bowl, eating
glass, popping
them in their mouths like olives
at a dinner party
where the most interesting conversation
is silence
each bite tears at their tongues
but they manage to keep
their mouths closed.
Jonathan Pessant is a Maine poet.
Look at these little monsters! Just look at these adorable little monsters!
They take the field to warm up: TACO BELL in the wrong font across their tee shirts, some in jeans, some in shorts, some in actual baseball pants (possibly betraying their parents’ aspirations more so than their child’s).
How. Precious. This team in miniature! The intricacies/intimacies of baseball’s higher mechanics will come later, when these kids grow into their hats. For now though? Stand here, run there. Don’t eat the dandelions!
But wait: something in the outfield: 4 warming up with 10.
“Come ooon!” 4 yells, when 10 drops the ball.
“Seriously?” 4 yells, when 10’s glove falls off his hand.
“Dude you suck,” 4 yells, when 10 is busy with a cloud.
4 seems to have already mastered the art of shitting on the other players; and here you are, just strolling through the park on a random Thursday when suddenly 4’s specific frequency of jerk is the only thing you hear above the pings of aluminum bats and the gabbling of parents while they cluster in lawn chairs. It’s like the cop-show computer whiz placed two different audio pieces on top of one another to reveal: this kid, this 4, sounds exactly like the 4 (or whatever his number was) from your childhood. Oh, you remember – all too well – his descending, 2-note, fog-hornish “Come ooon” when you dropped the ball and his weird congested snicker when you struck out.
Poor 10! You know how this will play out: 4’s trash-talking is first gonna spread to his future cellmates 12 and 8, then to the coach (who always seems to be a 4’s father, naturally/ predictably), then on to the kids at school who, at this age, are in that experimental phase of
dividing their classmates into cliques (without your knowledge); then there are a couple of teachers who aren’t so much the romanticized, inspirational sages of teaching lore but half-baked 20-somethings who don’t mind adding a joke of their own at your expense. In front of the class. Which is only your whole universe.
Your less-than-spectacular baseballery becomes a thing, beyond you, creating a You that other people know rather than the you-You that just wanted to play baseball, and their You radiates outward, and outward, and outward, until those ripples slap against something and return inward, back into you, downward, maybe you start trying to convince yourself that you don’t really like baseball anyway; you decline invitations from suspicious (read: popular) kids because it might be some kind of social trap that would only embarrass you further; you experiment with self-deprecation.
Look at you! Game going on, everyone else is having a grand old time, small-townery at its finest, and you’re just standing there, next to it all, struck dumb by a bolt of middle-aged existential clarity thrown by a loud-mouthed kid. It’s like you turned around and climbed back up your own timeline of anxieties and self-disillusionment to find 4 (or whatever his number was) holding the other end. Was he the first person who first chipped away at you?
It can’t be this simple, can it? All that time, all those moments when you couldn’t/can’t get away from yourself, wondering like a simpleton What the fuck happened to me? or How did I get this dented? Was this how the You that you’ve spent so much energy against started?
How much of you was formed and eroded by an adorable, little fucking monster?
Timothy C Goodwin has work included in Maudlin House, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, and 365 Tomorrows. He lives in NYC with his partner and their dog, Awesome. @timothycgoodwin
There’s very few things in this world that won’t burn.
We burn easily.
We are made to break
and crack.
To live is to grieve.
Nes Eyre is a literature teacher and poet. She is currently unpublished and is just starting to submit her work.
A small time California artist originally from rural SWVA. Etsy shop by the name CloudJupiterArt. Thank you! https://cloudjupiterart.carrd.co/
She gashed her palm opening the oyster. The bright pink meat licked its lips and spoke to her,
“You don’t always have to take what’s inside.” Rolling the oyster’s pearl with her fingertips, she
tucked it deep in the bright pink meat then stitched it closed.
Sometime later, her palm swelled and burst at the dainty loc that attempted to seal its middle.
The loc slid away and the lips spoke, “Sometimes what’s inside, takes you.”
Aliyah Curry is a queer Southern bred writer, focusing on Black female sexuality and mental health. Keep up with her at theirdaughters.productions
It was late night conversation time on the back patio where all their friends would spend their final hours together, entertaining each other in the final minutes before sunrise, before they’d all eventually crash out. Like always, it was a time for discussing ideas and plans, however far-fetched and ridiculous those may be. They would sit around pushing the limits of each other’s wasted, half awake minds. This place had always been a spot for free form conversation, a place where some of them let they’re most random and original thoughts come to form…
Their friend Gabe then took one of these conversations, and brought it into new, unprecedented territory.
No one could anticipate what was brewing around the table that night.
“There should be like, a new form of sex act thats like a non-infedelity way of doing it.” Gabe drunkenly spewed to his surrounding friends. Slumped down in his chair, he just rambled out the thought carelessly. “Like if you got caught doing this thing by your spouse or significant other, they’d be like, whatever. But still it feels super good and is satisfying.”
“I don’t think such a thing is possible,” responded their friend Paul. He sitting proudly upright and was quick to reject what Gabe had said as preposterous.
“I kindly disagree.”
“Well what do you have so far?” asked Sammy, sitting in her plastic chair with her knees pulled in.
“Have you given this thought before?” asked Freddy.
“Not really. But I’m thinking, maybe there’s some sort of orgasmic pressure point that two “desirers” can simultaneously press on each other,” Gabe said with finger quotes
around the word desirers. “Combine that with some intimate eye contact and heavy breathing.”
“You could be onto something,” said Karissa.
“Like really really rhythmic breathing — it has to be perfectly in sync,” she added, seeing potential in his idea.
“And what do you, a single man, plan to do with this?” Paul nagged once again. It bothered Gabe and a few others how serious and confrontational he was being about it. Gabe thought Paul seemed more sober than the rest of them, which was maybe why he was trying to apply rational thought to his silly idea. “What a fucking buzzkill,” he thought. “Get him a beer.”
But that didn’t stop Gabe from thinking about his idea.
“I think I might be onto something,” Gabe retorted with a smirk. “Maybe I’ll have to see what I can do with this.”
It was just a silly idea after all.
In a fit of boredom by the middle of the next week, Gabe began researching pressure points and coming up with a technique. It still remained a ridiculous idea to him, but it was an idea he found incredibly amusing. He then took things a step further and booked a conference room and began making fliers — for the fun of it. The plan was to either invite Paul to the meeting, or to take video of it and taunt him with it.
The fliers read:
Feeling lusty? Feeling tied down by marriage or some similar commitment? Learn my new technique. It keeps families together. Check it out. Baxter Springs conference room 6 at 6:45.
Gabe thought it was vague, but that was the trick to grabbing people’s attention. The flier will put an idea in people’s minds, and after enough rumination, they’ll all be heading over to the Baxter Springs hotel for the group meeting, out of curiosity. It was an elaborate joke, but a hilarious one nonetheless.
In conference room 6, after dozens of locals showed up looking to learn a new trick, Gabe had no other choice but to go into showtime mode.
He called on Karissa to help him run it.
He thought she seemed supportive and equally amused that night on the patio; he figured he’d invite her to join him. She happily agreed. Karissa stood at the door and collected the ten bucks admission,while Gabe waited off to the side for the crowd to stop pouring in.
He then stepped up to the podium to greet everyone. He couldn’t believe it was happening.
After giving his introduction and letting everyone know who he was, and how everyone today would be participating in a new experiment, Gabe then began breaking down what the seminar was really about.
“Today is not about forming any sort of relationship with each other in this room,” Gabe politely instructed. “Today is about learning the practice, so that you can then take these techniques with you when you leave, and enjoy them out in the real world.”
After demonstrating the technique on a blow up doll, which drew plenty of laughs, he then turned things over to his attendees.
“What we’re going to do now is choose a partner. If you want to just watch and learn, that’s fine. Whatever. You paid for it. But I want you to find a partner, and face them.”
People all around began walking around and pairing up. Some choose to just watch.
Gabe walked around to all the couples who were trying the technique, and helped guide them to the best of his ability.
“Am I pressing on the right spot?”
“Should I press here or here?”
“We’ve just been moving our hands all over each other and that seems to be pretty great too. Is this another way of doing it?”
Gabe was soon frustrated. Within minutes the joke dissipated, and he began viewing himself a bit more seriously. They weren’t getting the technique down; he wasn’t sure what some of his students were doing; it was extremely difficult for him to teach this many people at once.
That was until he spotted one pair that really seemed to have things down. Everything was mostly speculation to him at this point, but then he looked at these two partners, and knew it could be done.
“Everyone look over here. This is a perfect example. You guys are doing great,” he called out with great enthusiasm.
And the two partners seemed to be really really enjoying themselves as well. This brought great joy to Gabe. His idea was not only possible, but it was successful and certainly appreciated by at least two people. What an asshole Paul was, he thought. That would be the last time he crapped on any idea of his, he thought.
Gabe had a very strong sense of pride and accomplishment…for a few minutes. He then started to look around, and saw that some of the people who had nailed the technique, were now leaving his seminar together.
“Hold on! Hold on. It’s not over!” Gabe yelled to the couples’ turned backs as they made way for the exit. He had still scheduled in another 40 minutes for sharing experiences and other announcements.
But it turned out, Gabe’s idea wasn’t what he intended it to be—
A non-infedelity way of doing it? What wishful thinking that was. What he actually invented was just the most incredible foreplay ever. It increased sexual desire astronomically, but wasn’t satisfying. Those who were ashamed of their desires, who came looking to the seminar looking for a healthy outlet, because he swore there was one, were now in worse shape than ever before.
Minute by minute, more and more couples were giving into temptation, and were quietly sneaking out the back of the conference room. It quickly became a very sinful place, and it left Gabe in despair to realize that he was the cause of it all. He had brought them all together and introduced them to each other…
And showed them the technique.
“This wasn’t what I wanted?” he thought.
Gabe wanted to mock Paul with this seminar of his, but now, his videos and pictures were evidence to be hidden, possibly even destroyed. Karissa couldn’t contain her guilt for her participation in the event, and ended up confessing to their friends what they had done together.
“Why didn’t you tell me, I would’ve gone,” joked Freddy.
“Yeah, I would’ve checked it out,” joined Sammy.
“If the first was a success, we figured we would’ve,” Karissa said, staring at the floor, sick with guilt. “There were fliers everywhere, you could’ve gone…”
“Karissa, you helped plan this?” asked Paul, clearly disappointed.
“I thought it was funny. He asked if I’d help usher in people and collect money.”
“You’re the devil. Why would you do such a thing?” Paul cried out, staring at Gabe. “You’re not even a licensed psychologist or any sort of professional.”
“I said to you straight from the beginning. What business does a single man like yourself have mingling in this kind of stuff. It’s dark and twisted.”
To Paul, what he had done was terrible taboo, much like black magic or something.
But whatever, Gabe thought. He looked at Karissa and she sort of just shrugged. So they played with fire and it didn’t go well. He wasn’t going to host any more seminars, he concluded, that part of his life was behind him, forever.
But by this point, thinking he could just abandon it all, was his most unreasonable, unrealistic idea yet.
“I thought you had the solution?” A random email showed up in his inbox days later. “My life is fucking ruined because of you you fucking shithead.”
Gabe didn’t know who it was, or how they got that email. But he figured for people angry enough, if there’s a will there’s a way.
A week passed since the first meeting, and although Gabe didn’t show up, fans of his first seminar did, as well as plenty of new faces.
The fact that Gabe was nowhere to be found didn’t matter. A man named Lance claimed he knew the technique, and he could teach them. Lance was one of the few students who Gabe thought showed great promise during the first meeting, at the very beginning when things were going great and he didn’t know what would come of it. Lance had nailed the technique
And the crowd at the conference room, while at first standing around waiting for their instructor, eventually found that they had a Lance who could teach them. And he did. And out of respect and admiration for the man who had taught him. Lance gave credit to Gabe and his creation, both of which he considered to be genius.
In instructing, Lance would often refer to Gabe glowlingly, until his name became synonymous with the technique. Lance had the emphatic encouragement of an aerobic instructor, and with his instruction, the second seminar was even more sinful than the first.
“Am I doing the Gabe technique correctly?” one paired couple asked.
“Yeah, come check us out. Are we Gabeing the right way?” another couple laughed.
To Lance’s delight, most of the crowd in the room were newcomers. While some had seen the fliers that were still hanging around, some were recommended to the seminar by friends; it was a spot worth checking out if you wanted to meet someone.
Lance knew it was something big immediately. And was immediately transformed into not just a huge fan of the technique, but now a teacher and follower of it. He wanted to be involved in the seminars going forward, and also, wanted to know why Gabe was a no-show.
Lance talked around, and found out where Gabe lived, and then stopped by his place to talk serious business. Lance wanted to be let into Gabe’s house, but Gabe didn’t want him anywhere near him. And he certainly didn’t want to have anything to do with the seminars.
Shouting through the crack of his door, Gabe wanted the strange man off his porch.
“It’s all yours.You can have it. I don’t care. I want nothing to do with it.”
Gabe was more than willing to let it go. He just wanted to do it to say he could, and because it would be funny. And because it would frighten Paul. And also because he enjoyed making the fliers and setting up the event. It was all a huge lark.
But weeks went by, and the teachings of the technique were going strong. And reaching new territories.
And of all people, Paul was directly affected by the phenomenon Gabe had created.
Pounding on his front door in the middle of the night, Gabe woke up terrified, unable to predict who it could’ve been. If Lance could find him, he thought, who’s to say any other random stranger couldn’t also.
But as he approached the front door with a baseball bat in hand, he saw it was Paul through the glass. Gabe let him in.
“My girlfriend! She was Gabeing!”
“Calm down. Calm down. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding,” Gabe said, thinking he was being helpful.
“No it wasn’t! She admitted to it!” Paul’s face was all red and he had clearly been crying.
“Did it go any further?” Gabe asked, offering a comforting hand to his back, which Paul was too upset to reject.
“What’s it matter?” Paul wept out.
“Well with Gabeing, there is no full penetration. It’s not the real thing.”
Paul nodded in agreement, fair enough. But what it stands for, what it means. It still felt like it didn’t matter to him
“Did you ever talk about Gabeing with her?” Gabe asked inquisitively.
“Yes! I strictly told her to stay away from it!” Paul said, breaking out of his despair and turning it into anger.
“How could you do such a thing? Create such a…a monster!”
The spread of his creation became too much for Gabe, and he was desperately starting to try and absolve him of some of the responsibility as of recently. This wasn’t what he had wanted, it was never supposed to come to this.
“You scoffed at me and said it wasn’t possible. It would have never come to this if you never made a big deal out of it in the first place.”
“So it’s my fault!” Paul shouted. He couldn’t handle it, and had snapped.
“So you go and break up my relationship! I could’ve swore she was the one. You ruined my love life! And how many others too?”
A wrestling match broke out, and suddenly the two were tackling and spearing each other into the walls and furniture. It was destructive, knocking down a shelf, knocking over a table and breaking a lamp.
“Gabeing is a sin! I know it’s a sin! I knew it within the first twenty minutes of my own seminar.” Gabe broke down. He couldn’t run from this or ignore it. It was impossible. “I looked around that first day and said,”What am I doing here?””
“Well you should’ve walked out.”
“I did.”
“Within twenty five minutes I knew I had created a problem child,” he sobbed.
They had a few beers together as an apology to one another for their fight. There was no use fighting. Neither of them had the energy, and it wouldn’t solve anything. Everything had already gone to shit.
Tensions had calmed.
And after a few more drinks, they were getting personal and confessional.
“She was going to leave me anyway.” Paul lamented. “If she’s off Gabeing, she couldn’t have been too satisfied with me anyways.”
Still he was hurt, and had an underlying anger towards his friend.
“I should have never invented Gabeing.”
“So what is the solution? How are you going to undo all of this?” Paul asked, staring down at his beer.
“I don’t know,” Gabe said. He pondered for a few seconds. He had thought about the question before, but he didn’t have any idea what to do. “Different pressure points maybe? A new technique?”
They both looked at each other and thought about it for a moment. Nah.
“I think the solution should involve people keeping their hands to themselves,” Paul added.
“So what do I do?”
They sat and wondered. Minutes passed. They both only drew blanks.
“I don’t know. Hopefully it’s just one of those phases.”
But as they sat and drank and finished their beers, neither knew what would happen, but we’re both equally horrified by the possibilities.
Weeks passed, and more reports of Gabeing kept popping up. They weren’t slowing down at all.
“If this becomes newsworthy enough, they’re going to trace it back to its roots. They’re going to come looking for you, Gabe,” Karissa texted him. She had been worried that her ties to the phenomenon would be discovered as well.
Gabe felt shameful and disgraced. He wanted to come forward and turn himself in just to get over it. But then he began second guessing himself.
“What if Gabeing never stops?”
And
“Is there life after Gabeing? 25 minutes of a single seminar, the gross negligence and indifference not to shut down the following meetings, not to tear down the fliers…” Gabe mopped. He looked at Karissa with a deep sadness in his eyes, it felt as though his life was over.
“I fucking deserve all this. You know just how many homewreckers I helped create? I’m an arsonist and this is forest fire is all my doing.”
He was stressing out to the friend group and he was seeking advice. They all gathered round to discuss.
Freddy came up with what seemed like the most logical solution. “Don’t be Gabe anymore.”
“You mean like change my name?” Gabe responded, wondering if that was really the solution.
“Sooner or later, some investigative reporter is going to come knocking, looking for a Gabe,” Freddy said with a serious look on his face. “I suggest you don’t be a Gabe.”
All his friends looked at him, with expressions that suggested, “Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s time to change your name.”
“But I’m a third. How am I to explain it to my dad, and my grandfather? It will break their hearts.”
But after a few days of tossing and turning, hearing constant news of the spreading trend, he needed more than counsel from just friends. He went to his parent’s house.
“Mom, dad, I need to tell you something,” he said to them, as they all sat down together in the living room.
“What is it son?” his father asked.
“You can tell us anything,” his mother added.
His parents were unsure of what was to come, but it seemed to be very serious. Their first thoughts were that perhaps he had bad news, like a bad diagnosis, or financial troubles, or something was eating him up in his personal life.
But Gabe couldn’t bring himself to say it, and instead, broke down in tears.
“What is it son?” his father said, with grave, fatherly concern.
It hurt his parents to see him like this.
“There’s a new trend going around. It seemed to be sweeping the globe, or at least it’s projected to,” he blurted out, and then followed with more sobs.
“I have had it suggested to me that I should change my name and leave town.”
“What? Why’s that?” his mother asked in a panic, she was as equally distressed as Gabe at this point.
“I’m the Gabe behind Gabeing,” he cried out. “It’s all me. It’s all my fault. I created the technique and then went out and taught it!x”
“I’m such an idiot!”
“Gabeing?” his father said, all bewildered.
“I heard some ladies at the hairdresser talk about it. They were all discussing whether or not they’d be ok with their partners doing it, or whether it’s effective. Whether it’s technically not cheating, or not. They were furious about it. But some seemed curious about trying it, with their partners of course.”
“I know what Gabeing is.” his father said with a mile long stare. “But my son? My Gabe? He is the monster responsible for it? You’ve done this?”
Both Gabe’s parents were in shock and disbelief. Their entire world had been flipped.
“I think it’s wrong and sinful, myself. You don’t know how sorry I am.”
“And you’re the Gabe behind it all?” His father asked in his old and raspy voice. “My son? My Gabe?”
Gabe Junior thought about Gabe Senior, who gave him his name as a grand gesture of pride. When Gabe III’s mother was pregnant, Gabe Senior encouraged his son to pass the name down further, and he did so with great pride.
“Gabe III, what a marvelous boy. ” He remembered saying the day he was born, as he held him up at the hospital. Everything seemed possible at the time. They both believed one day their son, their own blood, could do something great in the world.
“Gabeing,” he repeated, still with that same stare.
His mother looked at him with disgust. She hadn’t stopped crying.
“I don’t know what to do? What do I do?” Gabe III begged them. He didn’t know who else to turn to anymore, he was desperate and lost for options.
“Son…” his father spoke slowly.
“Yes dad,” he responded, with teary child-like eyes.
“You’ll always be my son.” Gabe Junior trembled out and then paused. “But I think it’s time you no longer call yourself a Gabe.”
“Well, what do you think my new name should be?” he asked in all earnest.
They shook their sunken heads, and then his own mother got up to show him the door.
After a few days, Gabe began filing the paperwork for a name change.
It was to be the start of a new beginning, and he was going to have to move away too, he knew.
He gathered the friend group around on the back patio for one last goodbye, and to introduce himself.
“My name is now Sawyer,” he said, with lips pressed together. It was official, a new era had begun.
There was silence all around the table. It felt terribly sad to say goodbye, but everyone knew it had to happen.
But not everyone wanted to part on a low note.
“What if you leave and then six months later we hear about an even newer trend called Sawyering…”Sammy said with a point to make everyone laugh.
Everyone laughed.
And they enjoyed their final moments together.
And then he left for good, packing all his belongings in his car, and hitting the road.
“Sawyering,” he said to himself in the car. “It’s when you’re no longer safebl being a Gabe.”
He drove out cross country to find himself, and to reinvent himself. In parking lots, dimly lit bars, bowling alley bathrooms, he was reminded of his past. Gabeing haunted even his new life too. It was unavoidable.
Sawyer resented when he thought about what he did to his family, and how there will now never be a Gabe IV. Until he thought…
There already is.
Gabe IV was his creation. He was the monster’s father. It, his problem child.
Shane Young was born and raised in New Jersey. He has been writing for over a decade. He has a blog at https://welcomeamnesiadotcom.wordpress.com is on Twitter @Shane91x
At 7 o’clock sharp—in precisely 4 and a half minutes—an app on my phone screen will fade from dull chartreuse to bright green. Eyeing up that tiny icon, I’m more-than-ready.
ExpandApp lives on my phone. No, that sounds too welcoming. My phone suffers a parasite called ExpandApp. It occupies valuable territory next to my lovelies, Twitter and Instagram. A phony neighbor. The name is a clever misnomer because nothing—at all—is expanding. Rather, my world is narrowed. Rather, the lifeblood is drained from my-online-self. I feel faint.
ExpandApp is a productivity tool, and I bend to its will. It started with a theatre camp mom. She became distracted by my phone-absorption. Mom Jeans complained: My little Harry needs to be coached and nurtured! His acting brilliance needs to be recognized! I will get my money’s worth, Miss Counselor! Put down that phone!
Number one: I’m the camp director, Ma’am.
Number two: This theatre camp is free.
Number three: Lil Harry’s no genius. He’s okay and all, but no genius.
To be clear, I said none of this. Instead, I apologized for my negligence and promptly downloaded ExpandApp. A YouTuber or a podcast—or was it a YouTuber with a podcast?—or maybe a real-life friend—recommended it.
ExpandApp endeavors to Expand a user’s free time by barring access to social media at certain times during the day. No scrolling through Instagram while crapping at work. No snapchatting while waiting at a red light. No tweeting about Sephora being sold out of my favorite eyeliner. (Kat Von D’s eyeliner. Yes, hers. Even though she’s an antivaxer, and I’m morally opposed to her belief system. I mean, girl makes an effing fantastic eyeliner. My tweet would explain as much; don’t worry.)
So—No social media. None of it. Not until 7pm. (2 minutes remaining.)
That’s how I set up the app, anyway. I used to have it green-lit between 7pm and 7am, but I would stay up all night to make the most of my time. I traded sleep for social media. Makes me smh. I altered the settings, though. Now, I’m allowed 7pm to midnight on weekdays. It’s open through the weekend. A little treat. My cheat meal.
This way of life is psychologically torturous, but so was the life before this. Gosh, I’m embarrassed by the need for this parasitic jerkoff. Back in college, when I needed to focus during finals week, I entrusted a friend to change my Facebook password. It was so dang easy to step away. Now, in my mid-twenties, my self-control has absconded with my focus. All of my restraint has been wasted.
It’s 6:59pm. 1 minute to go, and I can’t contain my ravenous joy. The promise of connection. The feeling of feeling like myself again. Participating in my community. I posted a picture on Instagram yesterday with the kids in camp. What will the response be? I’ll make the rest of the rounds, too. Twitter and Snapchat. Facebook, to see if I missed any birthdays. What have my friends been up to? What has been happening in the world? What do my friends have to say about what’s been happening in the world?
Five hours of technological bliss, and then the world goes on spinning.
Julia Eldred earned an MFA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, where she still resides. Her connected stories explore femininity and millennial identity. More at www.juliaeldred.com. @thegingerjulia
They called him the “Toy Man”, but children were never happy when he passed by. He rode atop a cart that creaked and moaned, with plush toys swinging from ropes above his head. Stuffed dolls made from scrap and rags watching the world from shiny, button eyes.
The Toy Man dealt with family problems. Families that found a sickness had crept into a loved one, who could not afford the cost of a witch’s magic. Not that a witch would dare to bargain with such things.
No gems, or coin, or favours could afford his work. He only came for the sickness.
No one would ask why he would bring out a half-finished plaything as he politely asked the family to wait outside. No one would notice that he would be sewing them up after the door opened again. Carefully placing the finished doll into a box locked with a key he kept around his neck. They had their loved one back and that was all they cared about.
Sometimes a stuffed rabbit, its head flopping back and forth, would ride next to him. He would pass it a pin slicked with a prick of blood. Its thick arms bobbing as if waving to passersby.
This was the first spooky story I told my daughter over her crib. She slept well. @IvoryWHoward
Unstamatic 