010. THE FINAL PUZZLE.

on the edge; desperately human.

Welcome to ISSUE 010: THE FINAL PUZZLE 🕸️

Fielding season, along with its distasteful and desperately human aroma, is upon us. We are compelled to trade domesticity for the promise of going outside. But this goes beyond the search for shiny new mates; it triggers a thirst—for answers, for fate. For justice to be served before our pollen-stung or wind-bitten eyes, depending on your side of the world. In thrilling anticipation awaiting the promised buzz, discernment may evade us for some time, and we may let it.

This issue cuts through the haze with blade-sharp, unapologetic declarations of emotion, such as those found in Gabriela Sabogal-Paez’s poem “Spider”: "If you kill one, they all come out.” In “Club Rush,” Brittany Ackerman welcomes the warmth of the season with a reminder of unforgiving youth: “I feel myself on the edge of something. A faraway tremor that reaches me faster than anyone else.” In the poem “Housing Crisis,” Joe Mitchell delicately unravels “minuscule intimacy often forgotten,” reminding us of the place human vulnerability occupies in things greater than us. In Vasundhara Singh’s short story, “the wives have no other option but to entertain themselves with cups of masala chai and gossip,” leading to a haunting conclusion in the absence of what’s left unsaid. Finally, Alexa Esqueda’s poem “Stain” reminds us that life is an inky path of negative space and unanswered questions, with no escape route:

“I can’t wipe away,

Can’t constrain

These claims

That long for infinity.”

We hope you enjoy ISSUE 010: THE FINAL PUZZLE 🕸️ Make sure to lose yourself in the lines whenever possible.

Be safe out there (but not too much),

Nilay Conraud | poetry editor

Stain by Alexa Esqueda [Poetry]

Club Rush by Brittany Ackerman [Creative Non-Fiction]

The Spider by Gabriela Sabogal-Paez [Poetry]

The Death of a Memsahib by Vasundhara Singh [Fiction]

Housing Crisis by Joe Mitchell [Poetry]

Stain by Alexa Esqueda | Instagram

It stained my hands.
I could see every detail
Of my fingerprints
Like a dark, inky maze.
Lines that end,
Lines that curve,
Lines that deepen,
Lines that swirl.
Where should I wipe off
These fingerprints?
My annotations
Have already stained
The final edit,
The final puzzle,
Of printed words
That have left
Margins for writing
A way out.
The lines
Of negative space
Long for fresh ink
Of questions,
Of escape routes.
I can’t wipe away,
Can’t constrain
These claims
That long for infinity.

Permanence
Is burdensome.
Prints
Are worrisome.
Where is the margin
Of error?
Where does preservation
Align
With the fine lines
Of human design
That seek
No end?
There is no way out.
I was stained
By another.
My thoughts
Will bleed
On another

Club Rush by Brittany Ackerman | Website | Substack | Instagram | Novel

A wet bathing suit. The rush of air conditioning on pool-damp skin. I pull down my bikini bottoms and the elastic nylon fabric rolls into itself against my upper thighs. I hover about the toilet to pee, the stream shy and warm. My body shivers.

My feet are bare on the tiled floor. My toenails are painted red and they match my bathing suit. My favorite swimsuit, black with cherries printed all over. I love the suit because the top looks like a bra with padding that pushes the flesh of my small chest together. The bright light of the restroom glares above the quiet stall. A faucet leaks out of view.

I can hear the faint sounds of the pool outside, all the families and honeymooners and lifeguards and waitresses. I want to be like the waitresses. They wear bright orange one-pieces that droop low down their backs. They wear tropical printed sarongs tied in a knot at their waists. They wear clean white sneakers and visors with the hotel’s logo. They are so tan and so pretty and so perfect as they bend down to place drinks on side tables and bowls of chips in front of kids waiting to eat. Their grace feels impossible to me. Their lives seem infinite.

*

You have to be sixteen to enter Club Rush. I’m fifteen, but I look thirteen at most. The last time I was in the Bahamas, I was six and there was no Atlantis. There was only Paradise Island. There was only the Beach Tower, the squat pink hotel with a small pool and a small casino. There was no movie theater that played A Christmas Story on loop over the holiday season. There was no Club Rush, no teen club where kids hung out before they turned eighteen.

This is my spring break. We spend four nights and five days in the Coral Tower, the newest part of the resort that looks like a mythical castle. My mom calls this my tween year, the year when I’m not old enough to drive, but too old for things I used to enjoy as a girl. My Barbie dolls are stacked horizontally in plastic bins in the closet; my light-up sneakers, retired and donated to our temple; the PG13 movies and long afternoons spent at Color Me Mine and the way I still have to be driven around by my parents in order to see my best friend—all of it has begun to take its toll. I want to be older. I want to be sixteen. I want to go to Club Rush with its promise of a DJ and dance floor, computers with Internet access, game consoles and a concession stand and pool tables, air hockey, foosball. I imagine playing these games with older boys, their hands around my waist helping me aim a pool cue. I picture us laughing and toasting our colorful virgin drinks in a room full of teens. We are old enough to be unsupervised. We are old enough to hold the night in our hands, to shape it however we please.

But all I see is the entrance to the club. The double doors are made of glass. When I try to look inside, I only see the hotel reflecting back at me.

*

Atlantis was a utopia for its inhabitants. The way Plato wrote it, Atlanteans were half-god, half-human, a civilization that reigned in naval power. Atlantis was a group of islands strung together by canals that met at its center. It was all lush green, an oasis that rested somewhere between Spain and Morocco in the Gulf of Cádiz, perhaps lying West of the Straight of Gibraltar, the channel connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. Or it could have also been located on the Greek island of Santorini, or maybe the Italian islands of Sardinia or Cyprus.

Atlanteans were tan with white hair, full lips, black eyes. Atlanteans had blue skin and superhuman strength. Atlanteans had olive skin and dark brown hair and were the ancestors of modern Native Americans, Mongolians, and Malayans. They wore robes of blue. They wore gold tunics. Their garments were orange.

The seas provided them with an abundant supply of fish. They cultivated grains and baked bread and cakes. They ate milk and fruit and vegetables. Some sources say they could communicate with fish. Some say this is absolutely false.

The islands themselves contained precious metals of gold and silver. Rare and exotic wildlife roamed the lands. There was a great capital city on the central island. In one illustration, an Atlantean rides a horse across the edge of a beach. In the distance, a white rotunda sits atop another island. There are palm trees, elaborate bouquets, perfectly green grass, and sparse rocks jutting out of the calm water. Atlantis looks like paradise.

But despite its beauty and lure, Plato’s account of Atlantis is the only known record of its existence. The rest is myth.

*

At the buffet breakfast with my parents, I eat mini waffles and chunks of cantaloupe and strips of bacon. There are endless glasses of orange juice. My parents want me to eat more than I do. The buffet is twenty-five dollars a person.

My mom wakes up early to reserve lounge chairs by the entrance to the wade-in pool. I see a group of girls my age. They lay on their stomachs in the shallow part of the water. Their sunglasses slide down to the tips of their noses from sweat. They wear bikinis with colorful patterns: neon cheetah, hibiscus flowers, nautical anchors. I look down at my own bathing suit, the padded bikini I coerced my mom to order me from the Delia’s catalog, black with a pattern of red cherries linked at the stem.

I wonder where their parents are.

The Lagoon Bar is underneath a pastel pink rotunda decorated with giant cream-colored shells and baby blue starfish, a spiraling whorl at its peak.

My mom reads a thriller. She does a crossword puzzle. Dad leaves us to gamble in the casino. I covet the cool, air-conditioned inside, the belly of the hotel where the casino spreads itself out across multiple giant rooms. All high ceilings and nautical patterned carpets. The red and orange and yellow glass sculpture, a fiery globe, a sun exploding.

Sometimes there’s a late afternoon nap before we shower, dress, leave the property for some extravagant dinner where I have to order off the kid’s menu because I don’t yet eat fish. I order pasta with butter. I order chicken tenders. I order a Coke or a Sprite or a Ginger ale. My mom eats a salad and my dad orders red snapper. My mom orders chicken and my dad orders filet mignon. My mom’s skin is tan, her face shimmering in restaurant candlelight. My dad is also tanned, and his Breitling casts a glare on the wall behind us. My parents are beautiful as they eat their dinner. Their beauty should comfort me. Beauty should make me feel safe against the uncertainty of the world.

But a nervousness overwhelms my body. I feel myself on the edge of something. A faraway tremor that reaches me faster than anyone else.

*

The entrance to the marine exhibit glows blue. I walk inside the fake cavern that twists and turns so I no longer see the lobby. Beyond the glass walls, manta rays and sea turtles swim. So many fish. Swordfish, Angelfish, Moray eels, Lionfish, Jellyfish. Sunken treasures line the sand and I imagine the hotel staff in scuba gear, diving down to strategically place them there, all that manmade wreckage, all those stones stacked in a way that suggests they fell from the sky.

A stingray opens its mouth and I watch the bubbles exit and then disappear.

A lone shark paces back and forth. The gray of his body looks like velvet. I watch his fin glide from one side of the glass to the other. I wonder why he paces when he can be anywhere.

I put my forehead against the glass that separates me from the shark. Make something happen, I whisper.

*

Atlantis was destroyed in a single day. An earthquake. A fire. One night’s worth of devastating natural disaster. The entire island disappeared below the waves and became a myth.

The Atlanteans had fallen out of favor with the gods. They were greedy. Morally bankrupt. They had lost their way and turned to immoral pursuits.

I try to imagine an entire civilization sinking into the sea. The water churning white and violent, bubbling sea foam and blood. And then the water goes flat. Maybe a thin mist, a muddy briny smell, the belch of something ending. And then calm.

*

Two little girls share a package of Goldfish in the hotel theater. A beer bottle hurtles toward the screen and crashes on the floor. Two boys call to me and I go.

A hotel room with a bathtub filled with ice and beer. Shot glasses lined up on the bathroom sink. A row of Hawaiian print board shorts hang on the shower rod. I drink. Every sip is sweet, dry, burning as it goes down.

The girls from the pool lie on one of the queen beds. They look tired and happy. They color Styrofoam beads and string them to make necklaces. I color the beads green and red and yellow and blue and purple. The markers stain my fingers.

We jump into the pool with our clothes on, the beads dissolving as we submerge. The boys do cannonballs around us. I watch a circle of red disappear in the water. I swipe my hand beneath the surface but the beads are all gone.

The night swirls.

A lounge chair on the beach. One of the boys cups his hands around a flame. He breathes in. He coughs. He passes it to me. Hotel staff walk toward us. One of the boys leans toward me, whispers run.

Through the casino. Through the long, winding corridors of the Coral Tower. Past the Gucci store and Louis Vuitton. Past the Buffet. Into the lobby, into the elevator.

My room key in the door. A green light. Two beeps. A shower. The hot water.

Brown vomit in the toilet. I turn on the sink and let it run.

*

Scholars say Plato fabricated the story of Atlantis so he could project his philosophical theories, his ideologies of human nature and civilization. A legend of a utopian society. A question of morals, of spirituality.

The Atlantis hotel on Paradise Island has 3,805 rooms. The resort includes a water park, a 7,100-yard golf course, a plethora of restaurants and bars, a casino, a marina to dock large yachts. A 14-acre marine habitat houses rescued bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, and manta rays.

There are now two Atlantis locations in Dubai: The Palm and The Royal. And one in China: Sanya.

Rooms cost between $300 and $800 a night, or more. The Atlantis Bahamas generates around $359 million in annual revenue.

Peak season lasts from mid-December to mid-April. But the cheapest month to visit is in September. If you’re willing to go during hurricane season, you can certainly get a great deal.

*

Another day spent in the water. I apply sunscreen beneath the shade of an umbrella.

At the pool bar, I see one of the girls from the night before. She eats tortilla chips from a basket. She wears a zebra print bikini. The black and white stripes disorient me into a hypnotic trance. She notices me, but does not look at me to make it known.

I know the resort is all-inclusive. The chips can go on forever and ever, refilled, replenished. All that salt. Wet fingers. Lips open eternally.

The Spider by Gabriela Sabogal-Paez | Instagram

If you kill one, they all come out.
The babies; the mother; the whole family.
I’m serious.
You say this to me while circling my leg with your finger.
It tickles my skin.
The sky turns gray and
I laugh at you.
That’s a lie, a myth, I say
over and over, shaking my head.
A dagger forms in your eyes,
which are brown and beautiful.
Your circles become wider and
they grow hot on my skin.
It’s a warning that I welcome.

Anything to have you touch me.

I see the bulbous body and
my fear consumes my desire.
It approaches from my nightmares,
the places not even you can go to.
Its legs are hairy and the sight erupts my spine
with shivers
and aches.
I bite my lip.
You pinch me.
The heat pricks my leg and
the thing stares down at me and
I ignore you and
grab the tissue.
I move fast; you are too slow to catch me.
There is a ring of fire on my flesh –
Your mark
Your punishment.
I kill the spider;
I sheath my blade with a kiss.
Your eyes are on the black spot on the wall
where the body once roamed free.

The Death of a Memsahib by Vasundhara Singh

“Did she hang herself from the ceiling fan or shoot herself in the head?” Vartika asks Neelu in a whisper. Neelu shakes her head and narrows her eyes, hooded with sparkly eyeshadow. They are discussing the very “unfortunate” death of the superintendent’s wife. They know from Neelu’s cook that she killed herself in her husband’s cabin office but the manner of her suicide is not certain. In all probability, the ladies decide, she would’ve hung herself from the ceiling fan for she was not clever enough to operate her husband’s pistol.

*

Neelu holds tea parties every other week because her husband is posted in a dreary place, Shahdol, that has neither a cinema hall nor a supermarket. The wives have no other option but to entertain themselves with cups of masala chai and gossip. Vartika’s only daughter studies at a boarding school in the hills of Mussoorie while Neelu’s sons stay with their grandparents in New Delhi where they play in the basketball team of Modern School.

*

Neelu offers Vartika a plate of Hara Bhara Kebab that her cook prepared an hour ago. Vartika remarks that the kebab is moist but a little too salty. Neelu calls out for the cook who comes jogging into the living room and stands under the arched doorway. “You should be careful,” she admonishes him, “now take the kebabs and feed it to the strays.” The cook, nearly at the end of his three decade long career in the police, explains that he couldn’t concentrate on the kebabs because he has to look after his granddaughter for the day.

“Why must you look after her?” Vartika asks, scrunching her thin eyebrows, plucked with tweezers by a maid.

“Her mother is ill,” he replies with his face to the marble floor.

“Oh, it must be the flu,” Vartika turns to Neelu with wide eyes, “you should send them back home otherwise we’ll catch it too.”

Before Neelu can say something, the cook interjects, “Memsahib, we don’t have the flu. My son-in-law beat up my daughter with the lid of a pressure cooker.”

The women glance at each other, nodding very slowly. “Oh, accha,” Neelu says, “I will give you painkillers. Take it for your daughter in the evening.” The cook folds his wrinkled hands in front of his chest.

“And send your granddaughter,” Vartika says. She sheds a sly smile, recalling that the cook had worked for the Superintendent at the time of his wife’s suicide. “We’ll look after her,” she assures him. “You take care of the dinner.”

*

The girl walks into the living room, and leans against the custom made teak bookshelf. Dressed in a lilac coloured frock lined with white lace, her large eyes blink fervently as her chubby fingers clutch the laced hem of her frock. Vartika taps the empty spot on the sofa to her right but the girl doesn’t budge. Neelu says, “Isn’t that a pretty frock? I would like one for myself. Where can I get it from?”

The girl, blinking incessantly, mumbles, “you can’t.”

The women laugh with their heads tilted back. Neelu continues, “Oh, is that so? But the frock would look so good on me.”

The girl repeats, “you can’t.”

“Why is that?” Vartika asks.

“Because,” the girl says, “she gave me the dress. She is dead.”

“Who is dead?” Vartika asks, impatiently.

“Memsahib,” the girl replies.

The women nod with triumph. The field is ripe for further questioning. Vartika lowers her head and asks, “Angel, tell us, how did your memsahib die? Did she shoot herself in the head?”

The girl, blinking at the ceiling, shrugs her shoulders.

Vartika asks, “Did she hang herself from the fan?”

The girl shrugs her shoulders.

Neelu clicks her tongue in irritation. Vartika offers the girl fifty rupees from her faux leather purse and once the girl accepts it, repeats her question. Neelu pats her friend’s knee and asks, “Do you like it when your father beats up your mother?”

The girl shakes her head.

“Do you like watching your mother bleed and weep?”

The girl criss-crosses her fingers.

“Would you like to stay with your nana in the servant quarters? You know there is a spare room.”

Vartika, impressed by her friend’s bribe, squeezes her soft forearm. She leans forward to ask, “Now, sweet girl, tell us. How did she kill herself?”

But the girl is staring at Neelu with a gaping mouth. Her eyes no longer blink. “Will you let me live here?”

Neelu rolls her eyes. “Yes, I will. Now, tell us!”

The girl inches closer to them. She says, “will I have to take off my clothes for you after Sahib falls asleep?”

The women look at each other with raised eyebrows.

“Memsahib would let me stay in the servant quarters if I took off my frock at night.” Neelu swallows a ball of spit. Vartika slams her hand against the sofa and says, “we aren’t asking you if she let you stay in the quarters. Angel, tell us, how did your memsahib kill herself?”

Housing Crisis by Joe Mitchell | Instagram

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