016. THE CROSSROADS.
commit to a single exit.
Welcome to ISSUE 016: THE CROSSROADS 🚦
Finally the light goes off, the year ends; finally, we get to die so that we can fertilize. How fortunate we are that we get to do this, repeatedly. How grandiose the subjection to perpetual recommencement. And how elegant Death’s black robe. I was asked last month whether I preferred to remember or to anticipate. What is there not to look forward to? Together, we get to be born and watch others be born, then watch others die until it is our sour, well-deserved turn to retire. We remind each other periodically and fervently, we mustn’t forget; every illness, every creation, but also every meal, or every fellatio, spell out don’t forget. We are each other’s walking vanitas. It is the still life that is a lie, and the illusory exit that is in fact a portal to starting again. Death, like a dance piece, or IKEA, or a New Year’s party, are transitional spaces our species’ sense of meaning relies on. Indistinctly they serve the purpose of fabricating potential, their start and end times preemptively established and recurrently visited, yet tasting of novelty each time around. The astrologer’s power is ours. We are the croupier and we are the bankrupt. We ought to embrace the fear of this inescapable outcome, whether the death of the trees’ leaves or our own, for there will always be things we have left to do. Let them be left, let them leave. The young who carry our pleas will pick up our half-finished business, our manically scribbled notes, and determine their worth, if any at all. Trust them.
Checkmate—it is time for a close. Your body, the animal, knows this. It loves and it demands and it hates to wait for others, until its limbs itch to fold in, to disappear into the self-made cave of an aching child’s pose. To shed and stand bare like the trees do, close to each other and praying in secret desire for that which stands at the border between redemption and annihilation. I dedicate this and all future deaths to you. I make vows honoring the cyclical, and ask for nothing if not for the chance to start over: faithless leaps are still leaps. Darling, do you hear the wind gusts outside?
For this last issue of in 2024, reflects back on a year of deceptively ordinary instances in the poem “The Year of”, where miracle and grief sometimes seem to share one body. Sean Selbach’s “there are mirrors everywhere & things like mirrors” invites us to get lost in the illusion of where I begin, and you end. What could be more frightening, yet appealing, than this uncertainty? This fragile dance between beginnings and ends is portrayed in Williamson’s “The Unexpected”, while fires in T.R. Healy’s “The Crossing Guard” release suffocating smoke. Katie Wolf’s visual pieces “Good” and “The Monster in the Closet” reveal fragments like pieces of a puzzle best left incomplete. In “Raja is a Sahib”, Vasundhara Singh tells a tale of paradoxical desire and distaste. “Unfinished Exit”, Claudia Wysocky’s poem, sets the tone for this upcoming, illusory ending.
| poetry editor
there are mirrors everywhere & things like mirrors by Sean Selbach [Poetry]
The Unexpected by Margaux Williamson [Fiction]
The Year of by Nirris Nagendrarajah [Poetry]
The Crossing Guard by T.R. Healy [Fiction]
Good and The Monster in the Closet by Katie Wolf [Visual Art]
Raja is a Sahib by Vasundhara Singh [Fiction]
Unfinished Exit by Claudia Wysocky [Poetry]
there are mirrors everywhere & things like mirrors by Sean Selbach | Instagram | Zine
you in the oldest jacket you could
find in the store.
i left in whatever one i left by the door.
this moonlight won’t last forever
so what exactly
did you ask me here for.
someone you don’t know has a picture
of you somewhere you don’t
even know about where
it’s you, you right in the background
& i’m sure you look great
in that one too.
there are mirrors everywhere & things
that work like mirrors,
which one would you like?
i can tell what you're going to say
when you turn with
your face behind that turned up collar.
you in that old jacket,
took you two hours in the store to find.
i in the one right there.
there are mirrors everywhere.
The Unexpected by Margaux Williamson | Instagram
Clare never discussed it because it was difficult and draining. Also, sad and bizarre. She had stuttered through the story unintelligibly for the paramedics and later for family but, since then, not at all. And she was okay with that. Distance from the incident was welcome, so opportunities to relive it were not. But ten minutes into her first session with Joanne—a therapist highly recommended by her doctor—it came up simply, as if prosaic. Can you tell me about that? Immediately, she thought, No. But, unfamiliar with the mechanisms of therapy, Clare–unaware of the ultimate discretion she held and that it was, in fact, she who determined what was divulged and when–still felt obliged to share. She sat up straighter, affecting a faux confidence.
She started at the beginning, with the party.
Things had been festive. Clare’s wife, Noa, had just begun a new role after six months of unemployment, an especially opportune occurrence since Clare was expecting. They’d been lucky; it took only six weeks of IVF treatment for the pregnancy to take, a fact which pleasantly surprised them both. Adding to their joyous effervescence was the purchase of their new car, a white SUV they’;d gotten to accommodate their growing family. Their good fortune and subsequent cheerful disposition lent them a fizzing, gleeful air, which produced an extroversion that urged them to throw a party. They called it a Celebration of Beginnings. They cooked, cleaned, and prepped decorations. They eagerly awaited the fête. But the day before the party, Noa realized their lack. They hadn’t any candles for the cake Clare had made. Dark chocolate layers with vanilla buttercream frosting, Noa’s favorite.
Clare explained to Joanne that she was initially unconvinced of the cake’s necessity; it wasn’t anyone’s birthday, after all. Even the candles were redundant; they only added height and drama to the unveiling.
But Noa, placing kisses down the curve of Clare’s neck, had claimed into her ear that it wasn’t a party without a cake and candles. She called it an essential spectacle and insisted on it gently, then intensely, right there on the kitchen counter in the middle of the day until, in the throes of her passion, Clare was reduced to moans of assent. After, flushed and sated, she was moved to acquiesce. She gathered the ingredients, stirred, whisked, and frosted, then extended the spatula for her wife to lick. Noa said, Mmm, looking into Clare’s eyes. They both tasted buttercream when they kissed.
Those memories assuaged the inconvenience of the trip for the candles, rendering the errand a labor of love. When Clare told Noa she was off to the store, Noa, clingier since the pregnancy began, said she would come along. That she could use some air.
The candles they’d agreed on—tall, gold, and chic—were only available at the Target across town. Clare placed the order for pickup before they got into their car, an act that still suffused them with excitement due to the vehicle’s novelty. Though Noa had offered to drive, Clare sat behind the wheel. As she started the car she said with a playful edge, I won’t be bubble-wrapped during this pregnancy. Noa reached for her seatbelt, clicked it into place, smiled, and said, We’ll see.
In the car, they talked. Not about anything special, Clare didn’t think. Still, for Joanne, she tried to remember. The lapse in memory annoyed her, but she didn’t linger on it long because, in the months since the event, she had convinced herself that, in the grand scheme of things, whatever conversation occurred beforehand was insignificant in light of what followed.
Anyway, Clare said. We were talking when the car beeped—a kind of high-pitched staccato. It sounded sort of like my pressure cooker.
A message appeared on the dashboard after that: Maintenance required, see car manual. Once the beeping stopped and the message disappeared, a blinking symbol followed: a hollow triangle with an exclamation point inside.
What she didn’t explain—it felt too personal despite her imagined expectation for total transparency—was her perception of things: the symbol flashing at her as though it was flagging her down, calling her name. The strange sense of being recognized by something inanimate, that she was being watched and beckoned, that she must engage.
Another withholding: after the event, Clare researched the symbol until she found and memorized the following: On some vehicle and roadside warnings, an exclamation point is used to draw attention to impending danger, hazards, or the unexpected. She returned to this verbiage with noxious frequency. The highlighting of the event’s unexpectedness became a balm. It reaffirmed that she could not have done anything to change the outcome and that it would have always happened as it did.
I showed the sign to Noa. Dead center in the dash like a bullseye. She asked if the car was driving okay. I said that it was. She looked at it closely, the blinking, and said she’d call the dealership about it later. Made me feel a little better, having a plan. She was good like that. Practical and clear-minded. It was nice. She balanced me in that way. I like to cosplay as affable, but she didn’t have to pretend; she really was. And she was understanding of me, of how I can be sometimes.
How can you be sometimes? Joanne asked.
Anxious, Clare said. Probably a bit neurotic. Mostly about things I can’t control.
Joanne scribbled casually onto her notepad. Clare rubbed damp palms on the smooth plane of her jeans—a self-soothing gesture that narrowly worked. The room was getting warm and she felt the urge to flee, but she found the fortitude she needed in Joanne’s warm expression.
She side-eyed me when I merged onto the shoulder. Asked what I was doing. I told her I just wanted to quickly check the driver’s manual, that the warning worried me. I said that turning the car off and back on might fix it—another reason I wanted to pull over. She asked if I needed anything once I parked. I said I didn’t, that I wouldn’t be long. I told her to just sit there and look pretty. She looked at me strained, feigning stress, and said, ‘Pretty? Tall order, but I’ll try.’ Ever the smartass, that one.
Remembering, Clare laughed; it was subdued instead of bright. Joanne smiled at her encouragingly, but Clare still wanted to run.
I got the manual from the trunk—I can’t think now about why we kept it there. I stood outside, leaning on the car, flipping through the book, looking for the symbol. I remember feeling a breeze and noting the good weather. The air had a clear quality to it. Nice break from the humidity we’d been having.
She sighed deeply and peered down at her hands. Platinum ring passed down from her grandmother. Silver wedding band and engagement ring. Long nail beds Noa had coveted. She ran those hands across her bump to feel them move. Twins. Due in two months, ready or not. She felt more aligned with the latter because she still couldn’t see herself parenting without Noa. She wanted to feel prepared but only felt Joanne’s gaze on her, nonthreatening but anticipatory, awaiting a continuation Clare did not want.
I felt the car rock a single time. Like there had been an aggressive movement from inside. For whatever reason, I thought nothing of it; figured she’d lurched from an insect or something. Meanwhile, my nose was in the manual, looking for the warning—whatever specific hazard or danger it signaled. I remember being frustrated, getting back in the car with a groan, face still in the book, saying I couldn’t find anything and needed to check one more time before we drove off.
She swallowed hard, made fists, then flexed her fingers. Clare tried to steady her voice, her internal whirl.
But Noa—she didn’t respond.
Clare housed a specific, deliberate silence. The words were in her but wouldn’t come out; squatters in her throat, refusing eviction. She heard Joanne say, Take your time. Clare breathed deeply, willing the words out. Eventually she managed it in a wavering whisper.
It was so quiet. Like a vacuum had sucked out the sound, the possibility of sound. That’s how—That’s how I knew. It was... Impossible, the quiet.
Joanne encouraged her to breathe. Clare inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, trying to summon a sturdiness that evaded her.
It was a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, she said, feeling quite far away from herself. Symptoms are nonexistent half the time. Did you know that?
Oh, Clare, Joanne said. No, I did not know that.
Clare felt the familiar lump in her throat, the impending eruption, but pushed it down. The doctor’s guess was that, barring any potential defect of the car—which was unlikely, of course—the rocking I’d felt had been a final… final involuntary spasm that jerked her as she died, eyes open. Shocked. Like she’d been caught unaware by a bear or a train or a truck coming at her. Like she’d wanted to scream but found it too late. Like in a nightmare when you try to—
Clare’s hand met her mouth in a futile effort to smother her cry. Ultimately, she sobbed. Openly, brutally, continuously. It was indulgently turbulent, the shake of her shoulders, the tightness in her core, the heaving of her chest, the torrential release. Fat tears fell freely onto the knot of her hands, which were white-knuckled, grasping each other. The tears streaked on, a broken dam, a hurricane, a forever-flowing faucet.
Finally, Clare described holding Noa’s hand until the responders arrived because Noa feared police and doctors; Clare didn’t want her to be afraid although, intellectually, she knew Noa felt nothing then, not even the interlacing of their fingers, not even the heaviness upon them. She explained how she still saw Noa under red and blue lights whenever she shut her eyes, especially at night, before bed. She remarked again on holding Noa’s hand, how it stayed warm longer than she expected.
By the time she collected herself, Clare was surprised to find the session nearly over. She and Joanne decided that a weekly appointment would be best, at least until after the delivery. Clare left the office feeling decidedly drowned. She thought to herself on the walk to the lot, Therapy ought to come with a warning.
Reaching the car—new make, new model—she unlocked it, got inside, and shut the door.
She turned the ignition over, then clicked the seatbelt into place. She plugged in her phone and put the car in reverse.
It was then that she heard the beeping. High and clear. Unmistakable. Throwing it back in park, she froze. Afraid to look at the dashboard but unable not to, she glanced furtively behind the wheel to see the words just before they vanished: Maintenance required, see car manual.
Panicked, her hands flew reflexively to her bump. Her ears filled to the brim with her own heartbeat and the incessant beeping of the car. Then finally the sound ceased and the message left. Clare’s babies shifted inside her, surely agitated by her fear. She rubbed her stomach and cooed apologies with an uncertain, quaking voice. A breathing technique shown to her by Joanne lent her placidity. The uncoiling of her nerves sent a deflation through her that relaxed her posture and slowed her breaths. Okay, she said, quietly to herself. It’s okay. You’re okay.
Then it was there—the warning symbol, the exclamation point in its triangle. Clare sat motionless, ashen and unbelieving, watched by a cautioning, blinking eye.
The Year of by Nirris Nagendrarajah | X | Letterboxd | Instagram | Substack
The Crossing Guard by T.R. Healy
As soon as he climbed out of his rattling Road Runner, Dressel tilted his head back a fraction, letting the early morning mist rinse his face, then walked around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. From a canvas gym bag he took out a yellow safety vest and slipped it on then he put on a weather-beaten Dodgers baseball cap with the bill turned back. Next to the bag was a dented STOP sign which was about the size of a serving platter. Attached to the base of the sign was a small wooden handle stained with sweat. Just for an instant, he glanced at himself in the side mirror of his vintage car, making sure he had on all that he needed, then proceeded to his station for the past five months across the street from the northeast entrance of the Glisan Elementary School.
This was his second year of employment as a school crossing guard. Following his discharge from the Air Force, he worked almost two years as a sales associate at a large hardware store on the edge of town. One afternoon, during his lunch break, he heard on the radio that the local school district was looking to hire guards for the upcoming academic year. Without any hesitation whatsoever he applied for a position—mainly because he preferred to work outdoors rather than being cooped up inside a gigantic store. Even though he had no previous experience, he was hired immediately.
All guards worked a morning shift, which lasted from one to two hours, then returned for an afternoon shift. Some of the senior guards didn't like having to work two shifts but Dressel didn't mind at all. As a part-time student at a local community college, he was able to squeeze in some classes between the shifts which left the evenings to himself so he could get together with other students at a popular watering hole near the college.
"Good morning, officer," the twin fourth-graders greeted him in unison as they approached the crosswalk.
"Good morning, girls. Those are pretty snazzy caps you're wearing today."
Shyly their nodded their heads.
Their mother, who always walked with them to school, smiled. "They're wearing the tam-o'-shanters because they're going to perform a Highland fling in class today."
"That should be exciting."
"It should be," the mother agreed. "They're a little nervous about doing it, though, but I'm confident they'll do well."
"Of course they will," he said as he stepped into the crosswalk with the STOP sign held high above his head.
Slowly the twins and their mother crossed the street with half a dozen other students then, as soon as they reached the other side, he returned to his station on the corner of the block. Drivers then rushed past him, a few with noticeable frowns because he had dared to make them stop for a couple of minutes on their way to work.
For the next twenty minutes, he stopped traffic for more students and their parents to cross the busy intersection. Many of the younger girls greeted him like the twins but the boys seldom did and just glared at him as if annoyed they had to wait for his permission to cross the street. The Grenfell brothers, who were nine and eleven, never paid any attention to him and dashed through the intersection whenever they thought it was safe. He had reported their disobedience to the school secretary but they continued to cross the street as they pleased despite his warnings.
"Now you don't cross until I say you can," he cautioned the brothers as they made their way to the corner.
As usual, they said nothing and stared past him at the traffic. Then, not more than a minute later, they darted between two slow moving drivers who immediately beeped their horns.
Damn their hides, Dressel thought to himself, shaking his head so animately his cap fell to the ground.
Thursday evenings Dressel drove across town to a small Catholic church near the waterfront called Saint Michael the Archangel. A few cars were already there when he pulled into the paved lot and parked in front of the massive old rusted anchor that sat near the side entrance to the church. He was a little early so he waited in his car until some more people arrived then got out and followed a couple of them into the church and down the creaking staircase to the basement where the meetings were always held. Many of the folding chairs were already occupied, arranged in a semi-circle in the middle of the floor. As usual, one chair sat facing the others, though this time it was occupied not by the usual Mr. Nadler, but another therapist. On the portable blackboard behind him the gentleman had printed his name: Gerald Smotrich.
"Where's Mr. Nadler?" Jennings, one of the last to arrive at the meeting, asked as he took a seat at the end of the second row.
"His father suffered a bad fall and he had to take him to the hospital," Smotrich informed the group, "and he called from the emergency room and asked me to fill in for him tonight."
"Do you have any idea why we're here?" Andrews, who arrived with Jennings, asked pointedly.
"I understand all of you were involved in a pretty serious traffic accident."
"Not an accident," Higgins piped up, "but the mother of all accidents."
The short, chunky therapist, who sported a salt-and-pepper goatee, glanced around the dimly lit basement. "Please, tell me about it, gentlemen."
Right away, Dressel was reminded of all the substitute teachers he had in high school who seldom had a clue to what was going on in class and, in frustration, let everyone do what they pleased to fill the hour.
"Are you serious, sir?" Jennings, who suffered a couple of broken ribs in the accident, asked in disbelief. "You haven't heard about the other month? The wreck on Highway 34?"
"I haven't."
"Don't you watch the news?"
"Not if I can help it."
"All of us here happened to be out on the highway that afternoon, and though there was some road maintenance going on at the time, there wasn't much of a hold-up."
"Hardly any at all," Higgins chimed in.
"Along this one stretch of the highway a burn-off had just got under way and I don't think any of us thought much about it because it's a pretty common occurrence at this time of the year."
"Excuse me," Smotrich interrupted. "What's a burn-off?"
"Farmers set fires on their fields to burn off any residue left after they've harvested their crops. Not all farmers do it," Andrews admitted. "Some till in the residue but many prefer to burn it off."
"I never heard of such a thing but then I don't really know much about farming."
"Anyway," Jennings continued, "all of a sudden the wind picked up and smoke from the burning field spilled across the highway. It was absolutely impossible to see a thing and, as a result, there was this massive pileup of cars and trucks."
"Three people died in the wreck," Higgins told the therapist, "and several more were injured."
Smotrich did not say anything for a minute and, again, glanced around the basement. "So, as survivors, I guess you're feeling some sense of guilt."
"I don't know if guilt is what I feel so much as confusion," Peterson spoke up without raising his hand. "Why am I here and not others? How?"
"It's God's plan," Lawson declared emphatically.
"I'm sorry but I don't believe that. Not for a second."
Smotrich then encouraged others to share their feelings.
Schrunk, who sat to the right of Dressel, dropped his head in his hands. "I'm tired of talking about the accident," he whispered, as if talking to himself, "tired even more of hearing others talk about it."
"As am I," Dressel agreed.
"Really, I don't know why I keep coming to these meetings. I was told they would help me get over my grief, but constantly talking about it only makes me feel worse, more confused. I swear this is the last one I'll ever attend."
"Are you sure about that?"
"I'm positive," he snapped then got up from his chair and headed toward the staircase.
Out of the corner of his eye Dressel saw the rail-thin mother and her even thinner daughter walk in his direction and he looked at his watch. Always, just a minute or two before the final school bell sounded, they arrived at the crosswalk. Like most of the mothers, he didn't know her name but thought of her as Alice because that was the name of Schrunk's wife whom she closely resembled. He had shown him a snapshot of her at the first gathering of survivors at the church. She was pretty. Finding seatbelts confining, she wasn’t wearing one during the crash. She was thrown out of their car and was crushed to death by a panel truck.
Promptly he raised the STOP sign and guided the mother and daughter across the intersection. She thanked him which very few parents ever did and he bowed his head in appreciation.
"If it wasn't for you, officer, I don't know how we'd ever get across the street. There's so much traffic at this time of the morning."
"And so many impatient drivers."
"That's for sure."
Back on his spot on the corner he suddenly imagined Schrunk crossing the busy street with his wife even though he knew that was impossible. He supposed he was still a little rattled by the widower abruptly leaving the meeting last night. He was concerned because Schrunk was adamant he would never attend another meeting and he, more than just about anyone, needed the support of others.
Dressel also was very upset by the accident but hadn’t really lost anything or anyone in it. He wasn't driving on the highway at the time of the accident but was working as a temporary road guard for the maintenance crew. He barely knew any of the other guards, including the one who was killed, so his grieving wasn't comparable to Schrunk's even if he did share his confusion as to why he survived and others didn't. The man who died had worked as a road guard for close to a dozen years while he worked for only half a day. It made no sense at all which was why he attended the meetings at Saint Michael's.. So far, he had no satisfactory explaination and began to wonder if, maybe, he should also stop going to the meetings.
At an earlier meeting Nadler suggested that the survivors consider visiting the scene of the accident.
"It might exorcise some of the demons from your thoughts."
Dressel was skeptical it would be of much help but Jennings, who hoped it would, invited him and Schrunk and Andrews to go there with him on Saturday morning. Though he really believed it was a waste of time, he agreed to accompany him because he had nothing else planned for Saturday.
There was very little traffic on the highway—the drive was short but felt much longer. Scarcely was anything said as everyone sat uneasily anticipating the visit. They stared out the windows, half listening to the music on the radio.
"You’d never know such a terrible thing ever happened here, unless you knew," Jennings remarked as they approached the scene of the accident.
"Not a skid mark is to be seen," Andrews observed. "Not a broken taillight, not any tire shreds, not anything."
Dressel, who sat in the back seat with Schrunk, noticed him ball his hands into fists and thought he might say something but he remained quiet as he had throughout the drive. Some rosary beads hung out of the side pocket of his canvas barn jacket. He wondered if Schrunk remembered that they were there.
In another moment, Jennings pulled over and shut off the engine then, one by one, they got out of the car and stared at the burnt soybean field across the highway. Still, everyone was quiet, as if lost in the memory of that awful day, then all of a sudden Schrunk picked up a rock and threw it at the field. He didn't utter a sound. Then he threw another rock and another, his eyes moistening, until Dressel, worried, walked him back to the car.
True to his word, Schrunk didn't show up at the next meeting at Saint Michael's. Dressel was concerned, as were Jennings and Andrews who wondered if they should pay him a visit. Dressel suggested they get together again on Saturday.
"Doing what?" Andrews asked.
"Does he like to golf or fish?" Jennings wondered.
"I've never heard him say anything about doing either of those things."
Jennings thought for a moment. "What about tubing?"
"What's that?" Dressel asked.
"You know, you sit in an inner tube and float down some river," he answered. "It doesn't require any particular skill. Anyone can do it."
Andrews nodded. "Yeah, that'd be fun.”
"You think he'll go?"
"I don't know but there's only one way to find out."
Somewhat to their surprise, Schrunk agreed to go. Again in Jennings' car, they drove out to the Big Wing River at the north end of town, parked at a gravel entry point on the west side of the water, and trickled onto the beach. They changed into their swim trunks, doused themselves in sunscreen lotion, and slipped on their life jackets. Barefoot, they shoved the tubes into the water, mounted them, and with their hands paddled out to the main current.
Tethered to Jennings' tube was a small floating cooler packed with two six-packs of beer. Right away, he popped open a can for himself then passed out cans to the others. "Tell me, guys, can life get any better than this?" he asked, after swallowing a mouthful of suds.
Andrews led the foursome downriver, with Jennings almost beside him, and Schrunk and Dressel a couple of feet behind them. Along the way they saw several fishermen and campers who waved as they drifted past them. Two girls even lowered their bikini tops and flashed their breasts and, laughing, they raised their cans of beer in gratitude.
Dressel had seldom seen Schrunk smile, let alone laugh, and he was glad he had agreed to come along with him this afternoon. Maybe, he hoped, Schrunk was coping.
Slowly they floated down the river, the sun blazing across their backs. The heat and all the beer they drank left them feeling weak and sluggish. It was hard to stay awake and, after an hour, Schrunk fell out of his tube. No one was aware of what happened for a couple of minutes until Dressel, half asleep, looked up and saw he was gone.
"Where's Schrunk?" he shouted, waking up the others.
"I don't know," Jennings said, rapidly blinking his eyes.
Dressel, panicking, looked all around but didn't see him anywhere. "Where the hell is he?"
A moment passed, then another, and then Jennings abruptly stretched out his right arm. "There he is!" he shouted. "Wedged between two boulders."
Dressel turned in the direction Jennings pointed and saw Schrunk on the opposite side of the river and wondered if Schrunk fell or dove. It was a dreadful thought, one he wished would never have crossed his mind.
When they asked what happened, he said, "I must've dozed off and, before I knew it, I was in the water."
"Why didn't you call out for help?" Dressel asked.
"I did," he claimed. "You must not have heard me."
The queen and her princess, Dressel thought to himself, as he watched the mother and daughter turn the corner and head toward the crosswalk. He could not suppress the smile that curling out from the corners of his mouth. They were easily the most recognizable couple he escorted across the intersection because they almost always dressed alike, as if the mother were really an older sister. This morning they had on brown penny loafers, white kneesocks, plaid skirts, and dark blue blazers. They each carried an unopened pink umbrella on their wrists.
"Hello," he greeted them.
The girl smiled and the mother said, "Good morning."
"How are you two doing today?"
As usual, the mother answered for both of them, "We couldn't be better."
He waited until a few more people arrived then, holding up the STOP sign, he stepped into the intersection. The queen and the princess were right behind him. He started to step aside to let them pass when he realized a truck driver had no intention of stopping and, urgently, he pulled the girl out of the path of the barreling truck.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
"She's fine," the mother answered. "I just can't believe that driver didn't stop. He had to have seen your sign."
"Every so often, for whatever reason, some drivers just don't pay any attention to it."
"They're going to hurt someone some day."
"I don't doubt it."
Back on the corner, thinking of the reckless driver, the traffic sign resting against his knees, his mind wandered to Schrunk. Dressel was not surprised when Jennings told him that, a couple weeks after their excursion on the river, Schrunk went back there and apparently drowned. The tube he rented was found snagged in vines near the shore.
As he escorted another batch of children across the intersection, with the STOP sign held high above his head for everyone to see, he imagined Schrunk driving right past it on his way to the river.
Good by Katie Wolf Instagram | Website
The Monster in the Closet by Katie Wolf
Raja is a Sahib by Vasundhara Singh
May 1994, New Delhi
Raja, rubbing his puffy eyes, sits in a mustard pool of light at the edge of a single bed in his rectangular room at the YMCA. The fish he ate last night is performing somersaults in his stomach. The crumpled kurta that he is dressed in is drenched in sweat for the room he paid for does not have an air conditioner. The air conditioned room cost a hundred and fifty rupees more than the non air conditioned room. This is the first time Raja has paid for anything with his own money. Well, not exactly his own for he is yet to receive his first salary but this is a small amount from the cheque signed by the richest landlord of his village where Raja’s mother works as a maid. He looks down at his toes, yellow and hard, and is reminded of his new pair of shoes. He must polish them before he leaves to meet his friend, Shiv in the lobby. Raja spent a day admiring his new pair of shoes, brown faux leather with black shoelaces. They are his first pair of formal shoes, something other than rubber slippers. The pockmarks in his skin will receive another meticulous scrubbing at the sink with the cheap hotel soap for ever since he became an officer, Raja has become ashamed of his features. He doesn’t want his colleagues to find out he is from a village. Such things are inspirational only to a certain extent. Stories of poverty stricken boys studying under street lamps and eating dry chapatis as their mothers scrub someone’s toilet is often met with eye rolls and pursed lips from officers who don’t understand why one must gloat so loudly of one’s suffering?
Raja walks to the toilet to find there is no toothpaste. He shuts his eyes in irritation for now he must call the room service and speak to the sugar voiced lady whose English is much too fluent for his comprehension. There is half a minute of ringing before the receptionist picks up. He clears his throat to say, “Madame, I need toothpaste.”
“Toothpaste?” the lady asks as though this were a queer request.
“Yes, Madame. Toothpaste,” Raja repeats.
The lady tells him that he will have to come to the ground floor to fetch it for himself as their staff is busy setting up the complimentary breakfast buffet. He doesn’t want to walk down in his pajamas and ruffled hair so he dresses up in his tweed undercoat, tweed blazer and brown pants.
He combs his hair and rubs the hotel soap over his cheeks, hoping to rid himself of the pockmarks inherited from years of acne. The telecom rings. The lady informs him that Mr. Shiv Srivastava is here to see him. Raja doesn’t rush with tying his shoelaces and spends a few minutes polishing the blunt tips of his shoes before heading to the lobby where he meets his friend of seven years who is dressed in a creased white shirt. Shiv is taller than Raja and his physique is leaner but he always appears frantic as if he is uncertain of where he must go next.
As they hug, Shiv asks Raja if he is ready to meet his wife. Raja tells him that he needs toothpaste. Shiv, unlike his timid friend, shouts to the receptionist who is at least three feet away from him, to bring his friend a toothpaste. The receptionist rolls her eyes. Raja is flushed. He elbows his friend and says, “don’t behave this way.”
But Shiv relents. “Oh, Madame, my friend here is a Police Officer.”
The receptionist, droopy eyed and thin lipped, scans Raja from head to toe and seems unsure of Shiv’s statement yet, she rings a bell and a moment later, a boy in khaki pants appears. She tells him to fetch toothpaste for the man in the suit. Raja, blushing red, turns away from the woman while his friend puts his arm over his shoulder and giggles. “You’re a Sahib now, Mr Singh. Stop acting like a sheep,” says Shiv, tickling his friend’s tweed overcoat.
They sit opposite each other on a small rectangular table covered with white linen and stains of yesterday’s lentils and tomato gravy. They each have a plate of canned pineapples and scrambled eggs. Shiv complains of the cracked plaster on the wall and discolored door knobs and the waiters whispering into each other’s ears. “This place doesn’t go with your image,” he states.
“My image?” Raja asks with raised eyebrows, “I have no image.”
“You are an officer now!”
“It’s been a week since I became an officer. I haven’t even received my first salary.”
Shiv slams his palm against his forehead and exclaims, “I can’t believe this boy. You really don’t know what lies ahead of you.”
Shiv has always been this way. The son of a school principal, he introduced himself to Raja in the library of the University of Allahabad where they were pursuing their Bachelors. While Raja studied English Literature, Shiv had opted for Political Science in preparation for the State Public Service Commission exam. After hearing Raja’s story, Shiv advised him to study for the Civil Services.
“You are poor. Your mother is a widow. You have brothers who will probably sit on their asses for the rest of their lives. You have to become an officer and feed them for the rest of your life. You are a man. That’s your curse,” Shiv explained to his friend. Raja borrowed books and test series from Shiv and his friends who too were preparing for the same examination. While Shiv loitered in the canteen or spoke to girls under the Banyan tree, Raja sat in the library and devoured the books, yellow page after yellow page, word after word, full stop to full stop. Shiv recognised his friend’s hard work and remarked, “I wish I was poor too. My hard work would seem more obvious.” They appeared for the first attempts in their respective exams a few months after their graduation. Raja cleared the prelims but Shiv didn’t. In the following winter, Shiv was married off to the eldest daughter of a clerk in the Post Office from the neighboring village. He received two Lakhs and a Bajaj bike as dowry.
“Oye! Are you listening?” Shiv taps a spoon against the table. Raja sits upright and looks down at his messy plate. “Maybe, the sahib is too busy for ordinary men like me.” Raja shakes his head to feign irritation. On their way out of the dinning hall, Shiv tells a waiter to feed the leftovers to street dogs.
Raja sits sheepishly on the worn out velvet sofa in Shiv’s living room while his wife deep fries florets of cauliflower in mustard oil. A portrait of Shiv’s dead grandparents hangs above the door to the kitchen, their unsmiling faces scan Raja’s lanky figure. In a corner, a thumb sized statue of Lord Ganesha sits on a wooden table. The sweet scent of Mogra flowers floats across the room from the incense sticks stabbed into a potato in front of Ganesha. Shiv returns from the toilet and sits in a cane chair. “Are you ready?” He asks with a smirk.
Raja gives him a questioning glance.
“You’re not just here to taste some fritters. Manju’s sister is here.”
Raja takes a moment to realize that Manju is the name of Shiv’s wife. He feels the pineapples and eggs surge up his throat. He knows that he must marry soon for what else is there for a man to do after he secures a well paying job. He knows that he cannot rely on his family to look for a prospective bride for him because they are poor and illiterate and their choice will reflect their station in life. This is his fate and he must accept it. He nods to signal his approval and Shiv runs to the kitchen to whisper the agreement in his wife’s ear. From the mesh of the kitchen window, Raja sees Manju turn off the gas and shout, “Indira!” He adjusts the collars of his tweed jacket and pulls up his socks. Indira walks into the drawing room holding a plate of cauliflower fritters which she places on the table in front of Raja. With eyes downcast, he sees the girl’s head covered with a blue dupatta and her toes painted a cherry red color. The smell of her cheap chemical deodorant mixes with the scents of mustard oil and Mogra flowers. Raja doesn’t look up when Manju says, “Indira has just passed her board exams. She scored better than anyone in the neighborhood. How much did you say it was? Yes! Eighty percent. That’s not easy. And, she can make the best Brinjal bharta. Shiv told me how much you love it. Raja? You are like a brother to me. You know I only have sisters and now my only bhai is a Sahib!”
For as long as he can remember, Raja has been made to feel the advantages of belonging to the male sex. However, today he can’t seem to decide whether it is worse to be a man or a woman.
He hears Shiv giggle and looks up at him. “Manju, look at how our Sahib is blushing!”
Manju holds her sister by the elbow and makes her offer the plate of fritters to Raja. He finally looks at her and freezes. She continues holding the plate to him but he doesn’t budge. Manju exclaims, “Uffo! There is no need to be so shy,” and places a few fritters in his palm. Once he recovers, he eats the fritters without glancing up or uttering a word. He knows that Shiv has brought him here to humiliate him because Shiv couldn’t clear the Civil Service. His father may have been a school principal but he is bereft of values. Manju asks Indira to chant the Hanuman Chalisa followed by a song about a woman asking her lover to let her go. All the while, Raja stares into his cupped palm which is stained with oil and bits of cauliflower. He walks out of the house and takes off his jacket. Shiv places an arm over his shoulder and says, “I know this is your first time but you can’t behave this way. Manju’s father is ready to offer you a car and ten lakhs in cash.”
Raja looks at his friend in disgust. “I wouldn’t marry her if you offered me double the amount.”
“Why? You both belong to the same caste.”
“She has pockmarks all over her face. It looks like the surface of the moon.”
Lines form on Shiv’s forehead. “You have pockmarks too.”
Raja pushes him away and says, “would you have married Bhabhiji if she had pockmarks all over her face?”
“If her father would’ve offered me ten lakhs, I wouldn’t even have looked at her face.”
Raja sheds a tear. “I am not going to let myself be degraded.”
“You have pockmarks too. What is the big deal?”
“But I am a man and she is a girl.”
Raja stomps out of the metal gate and walks to the chai stall where rickshaws stop every few minutes. Shiv continues standing in his tiny garden. Manju comes out of the house and says, “Raja is a Sahib now. He wants the whole solar system. A moon isn’t enough for him.”
In the drawing room, the dead grandparents stare at Indira humming a song about a woman chiding her lover for holding her wrist too tightly. When Manju walks in, she says, “I am sure the fritters made him sick. Didi, they are too oily!”
She sighs and studies the hollow marks on her sister’s face. “Indira, would you like to go to college?”
Indira frowns. “What will I do there?”
Manju throws the fritters in the dustbin and asks her husband to run to the market to purchase a packet of toned milk.
Unfinished Exit by Claudia Wysocky
I keep thinking about the time in high school when you drew me a map of the city, I still have it somewhere. It was so easy to get lost in a place where all the trees look the same. And now every time I see a missing person's poster stapled to a pole, all I can think is that could have been me. Missing, disappeared. But there are no posters for people who just never came back from vacation, from college, from life. You haven't killed yourself because you'd have to commit to a single exit. What you wouldn't give to be your cousin Catherine, who you watched twice in one weekend get strangled nude in a bathtub onstage by the actor who once filled your mouth with quarters at your mother's funeral. The curtains closed and opened again. We applauded until our hands were sore. But you couldn't shake the image of her lifeless body, the way she hung there like a marionette with cut strings. And now every time you try to write a poem, it feels like a eulogy. So even though you haven't found the perfect ending yet, you keep writing. For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost souls who never got their own missing person's poster. Because as long as there are words on a page, there is still hope for an unfinished exit to find its proper ending.
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So honored and excited to part of this issue. I can’t wait to read it all!! 🚦🫶🏾🥹