#archiveprose

[dukearchive]

Red Orison

by: Ruby Wang

Blood holds the color blue under the skin, but when revealed to oxygen, becomes the color red (false). 

*** 

A chamber of syntax expands and collapses on itself, pumping blood everywhere. When I write, I slice a thin line through, releasing the chamber’s contents. Right now, I am creating red stains on this white document. Like seeing physical bleeding, writing inflicts discomfort. Yet here I am, clicking my fingers on the keyboard like a killer stabbing with their favorite knife. 

*** 

I read an interview by Amy Hempel who disliked sentimentality in her works. She considers descriptions dripping with emotions as “unearned”. Instead, her prose conveys the objective: the character observes or does. I scoff at the assumption of agency. The interview upset me, likely because I act in a sentimental fashion; long periods of crying for unearned reasons. 

*** 

Blue is the color of my desires, and red is the color of my writing (truth). 

***

There must be a reason people write about their dreams. When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a white girl. That desire to be white comes from a desire to be liked, I think. I would lie in bed and promise to act like a good girl if God could make me white. That desire to be white comes from a desire to not care about being liked, I think. I now know that many people shared this form of worship as children, and the desire lingers even as they grow up. God did not turn me white. Still, I trust this false God, so I write with a sense of duty. 

*** 

In writing, my characters act as I do, erupting into arbitrary tears and slowly crawling through each malaise-ridden day. You do not deserve to cry, I tell each of them. 

*** 

Everyday, the question recurs: how to become a better writer? One day, I read one of Amy Hempel’s short stories. When I reach the last paragraph, I burst into sudden tears. I cannot erase myself. 

*** 

I press backspace and watch the tears disappear. Along with the crying, so do the desires and prayers.

*** 

A lie, a dream, the same deluded feeling that goes from the brain to the pit of the stomach, consummated by the act of writing. Lies, also the color of blue, turning red as delusions become words. 

*** 

The page becomes completely white again! I have learned how such purity is beautiful, clean. 

*** 

In Joan Didion’s notebook, she lies about Vermont’s summer snow: maybe no one else felt the ground hardening and summer already dead even as we pretended to bask in it, but that was how it felt to me. 

*** 

Recently, I asked a friend whether she rose to the occasion or choked under pressure during important moments. It depends, she said. If academic validation is at stake, then I will rise. We are both daughters of immigrant parents and cold mothers. We both write. We both think in the color blue. She shares my quiet temperament, where most words hide inside her until she occasionally slices herself on the page. But on the hierarchy of pains endured, ours are less significant, less painful. 

*** 

My mother suffers from a chronic hoarding condition. She keeps the mail from months ago, textbooks from the days of my father’s PhD, my Junie B. Jones books. A room holds boxes full of my baby clothes. I tell her she ought to clean the house, that she can get rid of these clothes. My mother in menopause, with a daughter in her twenties, protests: No, no, maybe we need it. 

*** 

In my stories, there are no white girls. There is no whiteness. 

*** 

Inevitably, I return to creating a mess on the page because my inclinations lean towards entropy. 

*** 

I write what I remember: what happened? Then, I read what I write and I identify firstly, all the nonsense that doesn’t make sense. Then, I manage to see the sensical parts, the sections

connected by a plea. I write about being seen, where lonely characters grow less lonely, where I am forcing them to look outwards, to dig out of the indulgent hole they I buried them in. 

*** 

An attempt to trace when I started to bury myself: I was a chatterbox as a child. During lectures or movie days, the teacher shut my blabbering up, shush now, that’s enough for now. 

*** 

I’ve decided a future inescapable from words. I always select whatever will be self-contradictory, proudly inherited from my mother. 

*** 

I don’t know what happened to me. The thought to shut the fuck up occurs at least once an hour. In fear of being silenced, I decided to hide the words myself. 

*** 

In pious fashion, I follow orders and I silence myself. In the painful rapture of stillness, noiselessness, I pray loudly that someday, someone will listen to me.

*** 

I wanted people to like me, and then I learned how to shut the fuck up. To learn the art of subtext, I noticed the small ways people signal shut the fuck up. The obvious ones include when people are spaced out, studying what’s going on behind your head rather than the bullshit spewing out of your mouth. Glancing down their phone. Changing the conversation topic. There are too many signs people are not listening. Shut the fuck up became my perfected skill, my ultimate maxim. From early on I recognized how people don’t like to listen. 

*** 

In Young Jean Lee’s play Songs to the Dragons Flying to Heaven, the character Korean American says, Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? 

*** 

During an interview with the committee of a writing program, nerves overcame me. I spoke quickly and clumsily. The formation of words in my mind trailed sloppily behind the sentences my mouth sputtered. Shut the fuck up, I tried to tell myself. 

***

For an art project, I created a blue tree and claimed the theme was love. A teacher walked up to me and asked, Why is the tree blue if it’s about love? 

*** 

I direct shut the fuck up to others, too. Students at my university surprise me with how they respond to their professors. In my creative writing class, we circle around during workshops and share our comments. Some students defend themselves on instinct, their face getting all red and their mouth teeming with comprehensive explanations on behalf of their bad writing. Of course, me loving the color blue, I can understand feeling protective over your work. But I can also recognize when it’s time to shut the fuck up. 

*** 

I studied English through Dora and Blue’s Clues because my parents didn’t possess the language to give me. They didn’t want me to adopt their pidgin English. Us, in our tiny apartment on my father’s measly salary, somehow finding the means to afford a full package of cable television. Me, watching on the television somebody threw away in the neighborhood dumpster. My young voice shrieking at the fuzzy pixels: Backpack, backpack! 

***

For two months, I’ve been reading fiction stories for a literary magazine. In the submissions portal, I see the comments of other readers and grow disheartened at the feedback. Posts seem devoted to nitpicking lines and scathing remarks. Shut the fuck up, they seem to be saying. Sometimes these critiques are not wrong, but I wonder if I will ever feel ready for my works to be released to piranhas like this. 

*** 

In the past, my mother was the first one I shared my good news with. When the magazine hired me, my mother’s first question was how much they were paying me. It was an unpaid position. Once a week, she sends me a text. An inquiry about my future in a simple message: 有什么新的 消息吗? (Any new updates?) 

*** 

Is there anything else? My interviewer asks. He does not know that I have no words left, that I emptied the burden of myself from my brain. Apart from what I said, there is nothing else about me. He has to believe this. Rid of the excess, no clutter occupies my brain. I raise a limp hand to wave goodbye and the window browser of the call closes. 

***

In one semantics lesson from my mother, I was seven and we were sitting in the Toyota Camry we would trade away many years later. Despite her broken English, she nitpicked my informalities. Most importantly, she demanded respect. When I answered my mother in Yeah instead of Yes, she lectured me on how I spoke like a 野人 (savage). 

*** 

How I develop my characters: I press backspace, washing the page clean. 

*** 

During meetings with my writing advisor, I withhold the secret (maybe fear) that I do not know how to write. Maybe she’s holding this secret too (I fear). I blame it on being Asian, another secret. But I do not say any of this, instead smiling and nodding: Yes. I understand! I will do that! 

*** 

Still, no matter how many times I think I am rinsed clean, another mess creates itself. Sometimes it’s a scathing remark, the memory of a mistake that creeps up, a goodbye, etc. Some of these things cannot be cleaned, leaving an irreversible stain. 

***

I cannot resist, and I slash myself out of temptation. I write, and I bleed again.

[dukearchive]

Shuiyang Forest

By: Jocelyn Chin

On September 21st, 1999, an earthquake in central Taiwan pulled a mountain high out of this island’s broken side. Brittle rock churned like the surface of a sea. A valley vanished. A stream was dammed; its water flooded a forest of conifers. Deprived of oxygen, each tree died, still standing. Their trunks bleached to silver-white in the sun.

Names refer to origin stories, so it makes sense that many call this place as earthquake lake, in addition to shuiyang -- which means watery in Mandarin, also a homonym for water flood. Still others call it fallen heaven. I heard there is no light pollution at night so you can see the sky in its full glory.

My great uncle and his family lived through what became known as the 921 earthquake. In the middle of the night, Tachung woke to the world’s violent shaking. The ground, they said afterwards, seemingly turned to liquid. My uncle watched his television fall off its stand. He said it was the first time in his life he felt true fear, learned what fear really meant, and he slept in his car the following nights, awaiting the aftershocks. A water pipe two meters wide folded in half. Winding highways were swept over by the sliding land. Over 2,400 people were killed, five times more injured, dozens missing, 100,000 made homeless.

High in the green mountains, a lake was born. In the aftermath, we are left with waveless waters, the suffocated roots of bone-white trees, denuded beneath a starry sky. The stillness is enough to wipe the breath from your lungs.

[dukearchive]

Quis ut Deus

By Akourkor Allotey

“Do you believe in absolution?” It had been a quiet afternoon, which had turned into a quiet evening, and as the last hour of Confession approached, Sebastian was looking forward to being released from his duty and driving home. He hadn’t heard the creak of the bench, only the question from the other side. 

It was December 26th and so cold outside that the chill seemed to seep through the chapel’s stained-glass windows and into Sebastian’s bones. 

“Of course.” He leaned towards the perforated wooden pane that separated him from the shadowed figure. “God’s mercy is infinite to those who seek forgiveness.”

The silence from the other side stretched for so long that Sebastian began to suspect that the person— a man, from the pitch of their voice— had left as stealthily as he’d approached. 

Reluctance wasn’t uncommon. Despite the anonymity of it all, some parishioners rarely came to confession out of guilt or shame— as if they thought the priest was going to be remembering every word, tracking them down by voice alone, and pronouncing their sins for the whole church to hear. Sebastian, personally, had better things to do with his time.

Finally, there was a low and weary sigh, pushed out like a candle-snuffing breeze. “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His Mercy.” 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first true confession.”

It had been three years since Sebastian made his vows, yet still, the thought of first confessions made him grimace slightly. It was a daunting thought to know all a stranger’s worst wrongdoings, their secrets, their failings in one sitting. Sebastian found it hard not to judge. He knew it was wrong; a venial sin, even. 

“When I was a child, I killed my family’s dog,” the man said. “I lied about it to my parents. It didn’t like me. So, one day, I opened the gate and let it into the yard. It ran into the street and got hit by a car.”

Some inappropriate emotion was trying to claw its way onto Sebastian’s face. He pursed his lips, then shakily and quietly exhaled, forcing his expression to stay neutral. He had heard similar stories before. He had experienced something similar. It still unsettled him, to this day. 

Any child could leave the gate open. It was a matter of intent.

At times it was difficult not to construct a monster on the other side of the box. Perhaps it was his inexperience; perhaps it was some form of arrogance. He chastised himself for it but fell into the habit all the same. 

“I would dream about it every night. After-” 

If Sebastian closed his eyes hard enough, he could hear the screech of tires on asphalt and the crunch of bones. A screaming yelp that had curled around his gut like a serpent: coiled, constricting. The dog’s name was…what had been the dog’s name? He brushed it away with a shake of his head. The man was still talking, and he had missed a few words, caught up in his fantasy. 

“-o my desires. I was able to trap a rat. I intentionally hurt the rat before placing it in a bucket. I filled the bucket with water.”

“Rats are pests,” Sebastian said before he could stop himself. 

The man’s laugh was at odds with his voice. For while he spoke in a manner that was low, smooth and measured, his laugh (more of a cackle) shattered air like broken glass. He didn’t sound amused. “I took pleasure in torturing an innocent animal. A rat is no less valuable than any other of God’s creations.”

Sebastian flushed at the admonishment. As a priest, his role was to be a (mostly) silent observer, until the time came to deliver penance. He did not apologize. He instead prayed for self-control. Clearly, he needed it, between his wandering mind and loose tongue. 

The man continued with the confession, “When I was thirteen, I rejected the doctrine of the Catholic Church and denied God’s existence. Subsequently, I engaged in blasphemous activities, saying the Lord’s name in vain, and actively searching for media that made a mockery of Christianity. I found a fascination in the occult and paganistic rituals.” 

There was a certain human curiosity that Sebastian was sure that all people experienced, from the moment that Eve first set eyes on the Tree in the Garden. He knew of the occult and its dealings. He had used a ouija board a time or two (or three), in his youth as well. If anything, he would argue it was human nature to seek out power, to try to take power for themselves. This didn’t mean it wasn’t wrong. 

He wondered what the man had tried to do. What had he tried to achieve, who had he tried to summon? How many times had he pricked his finger and let the bead of blood drop? How many animals had he sacrificed, ripped the hearts and lungs out of small brown birds, how many hours had he spent in the back of the city library with a book that would surely be forbidden in his home pouring over Latin texts, his straw-colored (straw-colored? Maybe he was dark-haired. Perhaps balding. Sebastian would never know) hair clenched in his fists.

Sebastian shuffled in his chair to dispel the sudden tingle of discomfort. He had been sitting most of the day, and now he was starting to feel pins and needles. It was that and nothing more. He checked his watch. It was five minutes from the top of the hour. Had it already been that long? 

As if he knew that Sebastian was checking the time, the man said, “Father, I must admit I need to leave at six. My boss keeps me on a rather tight leash, he’ll be upset if I’m late.”

“Evening shift?”

“Something like that.” It sounded as if the man was smiling. “I have finished confessing today. These are my sins.”

“For your penance, you should say four Hail Marys and three Our Fathers.” He placed his hand on the wooden panel that separated them. “Please say the Act of Contrition.”

There was no response. Perhaps this man was older, hard of hearing. Sebastian repeated his words louder.

Nothing.

He rose from his seat and exited the confessional. He barely heard the toll of the bells signifying it was 6 pm over the sudden high-pitched, ringing in his ears.

The man was gone.

***

Sebastian didn’t hate his room. It was a sin to hate. It was not a sin to strongly dislike.

The walls were the color yellow-gold color of white wine and the furniture probably hadn’t been replaced since the 1960s. Including the short, wooden-framed bed, the sheets still mussed from the nightmare Sebastian had woken from that morning. The only decoration was a crucifix affixed above the door and a plain-looking poster with the Commandments and the Beatitudes hanging over his desk. The sole thing he had added was a portrait of his martyred namesake, St. Sebastian, next to his mirror. 

But, his room was the one site of privacy that he had these days, living amongst five other priests in a rectory. Even then, it seemed privacy was a rare commodity. His clunky old laptop sat in the center of his desk. A hastily scrawled sticky note had been left on its cover. 

Used your laptop to print my homily. Thanks. 

Vernon 

“Fuuuhh…” Sebastian bit his tongue before he could finish that curse as he opened his laptop. He should have never told Piero his password, but Piero had needed it that one time and Sebastian had foolishly forgotten to change it. It was common knowledge that the Italian priest couldn’t keep a secret unless he was sworn to oath.

The browser history had been cleared, all his tabs closed. He couldn’t even remember what he had last been looking at. Frustrated, Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He went to find Vernon, fully intent on (politely) giving him a piece of his mind. 

“Vernon! Vern-” As he rounded the corner, his yell caught in his throat. Vernon, Piero, and Ezra were at the dinner table, mid-meal. It took a moment for Sebastian to place what exactly was most wrong with this scene, though. Vernon— his gently wrinkled face still and serious— wasn’t smiling. He always smiled. 

It was enough to take the wind from Sebastian’s sails and replace it with a gentle chill instead.

“You, uh, need something, Sebastian?” 

“Sorry to interrupt. I saw your note.” The silence was so painfully heavy it was smothering him. He had to clear his throat to get his next words out, but his voice still cracked all the same. “Is… everything okay?”

Vernon shrugged a shoulder and twisted his mouth into a fragile grin. It was the  smile a lamb that had strayed too far from the flock gave to a wolf: tinged with fear at the edges, a hint of pleading, and regret. So much regret. “My laptop gave up the ghost last night. I hope it’s not a problem that I used yours. I just needed to print.”

“I see. No problem,” Sebastian lied.

Commandment Eight: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor. 

As he walked away, he heard someone whisper, “If you’re sure of what you saw, we should tell the Pastor.”

***

The confessional was dim and cold and it was all too easy to doze off. 

One would think that after Christmas, the confessionals would have more activity. Instead, people waited until the New Year and made it their resolution to come to church more often. That was ultimately how he had ended up re-entering the Catholic Church after he had graduated from college, drawn to the sense of community and the promise of repentance. When he was younger, the shame of his actions had burned hot in his belly and he had spent weeks if not months wondering how he could ever be worthy in the eyes of the Almighty. The priesthood had shown him a new way to serve, both himself and his God. Now, he was more than willing to be a leader for his flock and bring them to salvation. 

But, today was one of those long and trying days that made him pray for strength and faith. He had spent the first few hours of his day trying to work on his homily, a task that proved near impossible with the little sleep he had gotten. He had taken an impromptu break, and stopped by the offering box, fingers skimming over the meager offerings before he closed the tithing box again. Then, just when he had settled down again, he had been called to an emergency at the hospital for Extreme Unction. He would surely have to perform a funeral in the coming days. 

“Hello, Father.”

Sebastian jerked awake. “Peace be with you,” he reflexively spluttered, blinking sleep from his eyes.

“And also with you.” The faint rustle of fabric on the other side suggested the confessioner was doing the Sign of the Cross. Sebastian echoed the action and leaned against the back wall, checking his watch while mumbling the traditional words of response that had been seared into his brain. It was five twenty-seven.

“Have you been here long?” “I have,” was the reply. 

“I’m so, so, sorry.” He would get into serious trouble if the Pastor heard about this. Thomas was such a stickler for the rules. “It’s been a long day-”

“I know.” Sebastian turned his gaze to the perforation. Interrupting someone was not a sin, but it was still rude. “My apologies, Father. I left before my penance.” The man from yesterday. Had he come solely to ask about his penance? Sebastian’s question was answered before he had the opportunity to ask. “I come with more to confess.”

“Please.”

“In college, I over-indulged in alcohol. Alcohol bought with stolen money, nonetheless. Then, I helped a friend commit mortal sins.” “Which sin?” “Infidelity and premarital fornication. I drove him to a bar, knowing he would engage in sexual activity despite being in a relationship. He made advances on a drunk girl.”

College had been a wild time for Sebastian. He remembered very little of it. Before he had gone to seminary and had begun his training to become a priest, he had partied a lot. It wasn’t really the man’s fault. He had been trying to be a good friend. The friend had been— probably— drunk, so if anything the man was doing them all a favor by keeping a drunk driver off the streets. He’d saved lives that night, even. If it came to murder (of a human) or lust, surely lust had to be the lesser sin. 

“I remember being…so jealous. Jealous that my friend was able to enjoy what I could not. So, I purchased and viewed pornographic content. I willfully entertained and even encouraged impure thoughts. I masturbated to images of…” the man sighed heavily, the east wind that parted the Red Sea. Sebastian imagined he was disappointed in himself. Disgusted, maybe. Or maybe the priest was projecting. 

He didn’t need the details, Sebastian wanted to object aloud. His stomach began to churn.

“I kept the pictures and put them on my personal computer. I’m in my early thirties. Tell me Father— why do I still look? Why do I still desire?”

There was something cold moving through Sebastian’s gut, slithering up his ribs. The serpent had wrapped around his heart. 

Sebastian woke up when the bells began to ring. 

The confessional was empty, the curtain swaying gently as if it had just been disturbed. 

***

He tried not to think about the man from the confessional the next day. He had no idea how much of his encounter had been a dream. Mass had been an overall uneventful affair. Attendance had been low, but that was expected for a Monday night. He had been preoccupied with a lurking shadow that didn’t exist, and his homily had gone for too long. 

His chest still felt tight. 

He dismissed one of his altar servers with a soft word of gratitude and made his way down the steps before the altar. He turned to bow. A flash of movement in his periphery nearly had him jumping out of his skin and he whirled around half expecting it to be Father Thomas, his face flat with disappointment. 

“Great homily, Father.” 

It was not Thomas. The words came from a smiling woman with too-blonde, blonde hair in a flower-print dress. Her forehead was a little too big, her eyes just a little too small.

“Thank you.” Sebastian calmed his racing heart with a smile that he hoped didn’t look like a grimace. 

“I’m Margaret Nemoto. This is my husband, Yuto.” Sebastian shook hands with the man, squarish and East Asian with short, dark hair streaked with grey. Yuto looked disgruntled. It had clearly not been his idea to approach Sebastian. Was he, perhaps, the man from the confessional? 

“Pleasure to meet you, Father.”

With that simple sentence, he was not. The voice was all wrong. 

“And our kids Robert and Rachel.” Robert was around fourteen, maybe. His eyes were glued to the screen of his phone, fingers tapping away. Rachel looked about a year older, though she was small and short, inky black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her features were soft, her eyes a dark brown that reminded Sebastian of the wood of the pews. She met Sebastian’s gaze and smiled shyly. 

“We’re new to the parish and just overjoyed-” 

Margaret sounded like she had a ball of phlegm lodged in her throat, just begging to be freed by a cough. It was all too easy for Sebastian to tune her out. He found his thoughts drifting back to the man from the confessional, despite everything. He was a priest, one who spoke and commanded the word of God. Why was he so cowed by a layperson, one from his community nonetheless? The sins that the man had admitted to were human flaws, things that anybody could do. 

Things that Sebastian could do.

“Father?”

He tore himself from his thoughts, looking back to Margaret. He had no idea what she wanted from him. “My apologies. It’s so nice to meet you and your family. I was just thinking about the programs we have here for young Catholics.” He glanced at the pair of children. They both seemed so young. “Has your son ever been an altar server before?”

Robert’s face scrunched with disgust and Margaret shot him a disapproving look. Sebastian huffed, amused. He remembered a time when that would have been his exact reaction to such a question. 

“And if something like that doesn’t interest you,” he continued before the boy could be properly chastised, “both your children are welcome to join us at Wednesday’s youth group. Pamphlets with more information are near the font.”

***

It was three days before Sebastian went to the confessional again. He had traded shifts with Ezra twice, and then Wednesday had been youth group. He told himself he hadn’t been avoiding the confessional. Rationally, it didn’t make sense for the man to return. Ezra would

have given him his absolution. Just in time for the new year, as well. 

And yet. Sebastian had sat in white-knuckled trepidation for hours. 

The bench groaned. “I broke my vow,” the man said without preamble. “What?” Sebastian’s voice was a mere whisper. He felt a wave of dizziness rush over him and had to grind the heels of his palms into his knees to settle himself. 

“My wedding vows. I cheated. I use my position of authority and power to take advantage of the women around me. On Monday, I spotted a young woman with hair like ink and eyes the color of oak wood. I knew I had to have her.”  

Why was the man here? Why?

“I called her to my office under false pretenses, and when we were alone, I began to make advances I knew she could not refuse. It started out small. A brush of the fingers, my hand on her thigh, as I provided her comfort.” “Stop.” He felt like he was choking. 

“She cried as I fucked her-” “Stop!” There was something in his throat, crawling up inch by inch. “I bent her over my desk and told her it wasn’t a sin, since I was a man of God. She was sixteen. I made her praise me, say my name. Sebastian.” 

It was a perfect mimicry. The hiss echoed through his head, and for one moment, he could see Rachel, her face wet with tears, eyes open wide as she cried out. His heart pounded in his chest, a fierce anger burning in his belly as he rushed to deny the claim. 

“I didn’t…” Sebastian stammered. His hands flew to his temples, tugging his blond hair. “You’re a liar.” The man laughed, brittle bones and ash and salt. “I do not lie.”

Sebastian forced his heaving breaths to slow to a rasp. He needed to calm down. It must have been Vernon or one of the other priests on the other side. They must have found his diary, or spied on him, or something. “No one will believe you. Get out of my church.”

“Your church? Oh, Sebastian. It hasn’t been your church in a long time. I’ve recited the most grievous of sins that you’ve ever committed. You sat here and absolved me of them as if you have that power. As if you have that authority.” 

The last word cut into Sebastian, a sword sharper than any needle he pricked himself with. He needed to run. Run while he still could. 

He tore out of the confessional, shoes slapping against the smooth marble of the floor.

 “Silently judging me, shamelessly making excuses for each one, knowing deep down inside it would be the only way you could live with yourself.” The voice followed him, hung over him like a noose. It roared in his pounding ears and threatened to overpower him, a windy storm. 

“No longer, Sebastian.” 

Out of breath, Sebastian fell to his knees in the middle of the aisle, cowering, beseeching for mercy he did not deserve. 

The voice just laughed. “You don’t believe in absolution, or surely you would have sought it.”

“Who are you?” he managed through ragged, heaving, coughs. He could see nothing in the church but stained glass windows of judging saints and empty pews, stretching for eternity. “What are you?” 

“Quis ut Deus?”

Sebastian felt himself go pale. He turned his gaze heavenward, panting. 

Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict.

He couldn’t move, trapped under the piercing stare of hundreds and hundreds of eyes burning with holy light. 

Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil 

may God rebuke him, we humbly pray:

The figure in the mass of eyes was indecipherable, though the impression of a flaming sword and a scale inexplicably pounded at the back of the priest’s head. 

and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,

by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell

The coughing was worsening— he could scarcely catch his breath. 

and with him those other wicked spirits

who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Blinding pain gripped him as his jaw cracked. Cold, and smooth, and wriggling, something was coming out. Scales slick with blood, the serpent emerged head-first, forced from his throat inch by inch. 

Amen.

Sebastian was found the next morning by Piero. By then, his body, slumped in the confessional, had grown stiff with rigor mortis. A single white feather was pried from the fist of his right hand. His left held open a book of prayers. The Prayer of Saint Michael.

His watch had stopped at 6:00. 

[dukearchive]

Action Potential

By Monika Narain

My friend Jessie has been dating Ben for three years now. An economics major and an English major walk into a bar during freshman orientation; they hook up once and they become inseparable. But now they’ve gotten into a big fight, and everything’s awkward, and they are apparently broken up.

Again.

At a surface level, Ben is a basic guy, who plays a lot of video games, is aggressively passionate about “impact investing,” and always cries during the Lion King. And Jessie, while I love her, is a pretty basic girl, who writes lifestyle and culture articles for the school paper, wears a lot of chunky sweaters, and also always cries during the Lion King. The two of them spend much of their evenings, weekends, and summers together, and they have seriously considered taking the “next step” post-graduation.

The two of them are terrible for each other.

Maybe it’s because Ben is too demanding, or Jessie is too loud. Maybe it’s because of all those other girls Ben keeps making out with, or that Jessie is too desperate to leave. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met two more stubborn people in my life. But for the majority of my collegiate career, I’ve been forcibly sucked into this coming-of-age soap opera, this endless saga that everyone is frankly sick of watching. Their love is a confusing flow of oscillatory moods, waves of anger immediately followed by brief moments of pure affection. And these arguments are routine, like clockwork, and they always occur in the same way.

I don’t think I’ll ever be equipped with the emotional language to fully describe the intricacy, intimacy, and inadequacy of such a couple. It’s too complex; it’s too stupid. 

But let’s imagine their relationship as a dynamic system, separated by a distinct border that divides the messy region of “outside the relationship” from the even messier region of “in the relationship.” Ben, of course, as the classic dominant boyfriend, takes up a greater space “in the relationship,” and exploits a variety of controlling tactics that metaphorically push Jessie “outside the relationship” into the uncomfortable sidelines where she naturally feels upset and unappreciated. Over time, her anger and resentment towards Ben accumulate, and inevitably she reaches a point where she physically can’t take it anymore. 

It’s 7:13 and Ben scowls in impatience as the basket of garlic breadsticks before him starts getting cold. He stares at his phone, then at the front door, then at the hot hostess cleaning up some annoying six-year-old’s spilled apple juice; and at that instant Jessie is staring at him from across the table. 

“You’re 15 minutes late.”

Jessie sighs. She is visibly exhausted. “I’m sorry - I was finishing up a history paper and then lost track of time and then I had to get gas on the way here and yeah, it’s just been a long day.” 

Ben loudly slurps his water, crunching on a piece of ice.

“So how was your day?”

“Fine. Had a midterm but I thought it went pretty well. Did some laundry. Took a nap.”

Jessie loudly slurps her water, spitting out a piece of ice.

At the start of each of these aforementioned “waves” is a trigger, a stimulus, a brief, inciting event that’s often the buildup of a series of smaller everyday annoyances.

“Have you finished editing my resume? It’s been like a week, and my dad’s been on my ass for getting a good job this summer.”

“I’m almost done, I promise! It’s just - it’s taking me a bit long to put all my comments in, and I’ve just been so busy and -”

“So you’re calling me stupid.”

“No! NO, no, no, that’s, that’s not what I’m saying at all. There’s just some areas that could use some work, you know?”

At that point a sixteen-year-old probable stoner in an “Olive Garden” button-down approaches the table. He says, not as a question but as a statement: “Hi my name is Derek Welcome to Olive Garden can I start you two off with any appetizers or drinks.” 

They ignore him and keep talking. “What do you mean, ‘work’?” He makes air quotes with his fingers.

“I mean, Ben, some of the skills you write about could be framed a lot better and,” she lowers her voice, “I think you might have lied about some of the things you wrote.”

Ben scoffs. “WOW, I lied? That’s pretty ballsy coming from someone like you. Do you know how hard it is to apply for major-corporation finance jobs?

Jessie doesn’t say anything. The breadsticks are a bit stale by now, and the salad has become soggy. She looks at the clock on the wall. 7:17.

“It’s not like you’d have that much to write about anyway.”

And at that very moment, something changes in Jessie’s demeanor. All of that nice-girl energy she once performed with ease transforms into coldhearted fury, as if some switch were flipped or channel activated in her head. 

What happens next is a rapid, non-reversible, all-or-nothing response:

Jessie puts her fork down. A cherry tomato from her salad falls on the floor. The kid who spilled his apple juice what feels like hours ago cranes his head in their direction.

“You know what, Ben? I’m SICK and tired of ALWAYS having to do things for you and you never accepting my opinions. It’s like, it’s like you don’t even listen to me half the time, it’s just ben ben ben ben ben ben ben 24/7! Being your girlfriend is like - a full time job, honestly, and it’s NOT fair. When are you going to start helping me with my work, get my dinner, hang out with my friends, say my outfit looks good; when does Jessie ever get anything? Sometimes, you make me so mad I just, I just, I…”

One can actually document this particular moment graphically. Over the years of observing edgy mid-adolescents in their natural element, I’ve come to observe that all young relationships are constantly fluctuating on a continuum of passivity and aggressivity, with very few (if any) consistently maintaining at the center. If we monitor points along this continuum over time, the resulting trajectory for Jessie and Ben will look something like this, beginning from the aforementioned “passive” equilibrium to a drastic rise in emotional activity that crosses into major aggression:

As is made clear, during this rising phase Jessie characteristically voices her angered sentiments in feeling excluded in attempts to normalize their imbalanced equilibrium to that of a healthier nature. And characteristically, she goes a bit too far and overshoots the monologue:

“...I just want to scream! Have you even looked at that piece of crap you sent me? You literally CAN’T. DO. SHIT. That was actually THE WORST thing I’ve ever read, and if I EVER submitted that anywhere - I honestly don’t know what I’d do to myself. And I know you flunked math, and I know your dad thinks you’re in a job, and I know ALL ABOUT Christa - did you honestly think I was that naive? God, for putting up with you as long as I have, I should get a goddamn prize, because that’s a skill way better than whatever the hell ‘synergistic analysis’ is.”

On occasion, these insults reach a point of diminishing returns. 

Now, something truly remarkable occurs. Just when Jessie feels like she has power over her boyfriend, that she’s the dominating the relationship, and her verbal attacks reach their expected fortuitous conclusion, this happens:

“Well, if I’m so bad for you,” he takes a deep, calculated breath, “maybe we should break up.” 

Jessie freezes. Her mouth is stuck in a halfway open and closed position. She’s getting a spam call on her phone but it feels like she can’t even get her hands to move. The entirety of the Olive Garden dining room lingers in suspense. Derek will probably tell all his friends about this when he gets more baked than a family-style lasagna.

In a hoarse whisper, she says,“Yeah. I think we should.” 

They pick up their things and try to leave in separate directions before realizing there is only one exit. They don’t look at each other as they get into their cars. They forget to leave a tip.

After the fallout, there is a period of relative refractory tranquility, where there’s no fighting, no rage-drinking; they barely even talk to each other. Their dynamic can still be described as passive, but now it’s through a lens of callous indifference rather than one-sided obligatory compliance. They are now pretty much “outside the relationship,” Ben more than Jessie because he’s not as used to criticism. From anyone, really. 

Despite having hit a low in their love lives, they carry on with their daily lives and pretend like they’ve never even met before. This quieter phase may be graphically represented in this manner:

But eventually, they “spontaneously” run into each other one night. He makes a joke, she laughs, even though it clearly wasn’t funny. Soon enough, they start texting and kissing and making out and before you know it they’re back to eating out of the same organic turkey sandwich and making out on the soccer bleachers. The mechanisms that have long defined their relationship - passive, active (if you know what I mean) - are seamlessly reintroduced, and things return to their default, egregiously problematic state. They seem to forget as quickly as they forgive. It makes me sick.

And the whole cycle repeats. Over and over again.

Can two people be terrible for each other, but at the same time meant for each other? I’ve always thought that this incessant emotional rollercoaster is their fatal flaw, a blatant indication of a toxic relationship. But what if this volatility is the key to their success as lovers?  What if these perpetual peaks and troughs are not only a natural, but necessary part of their love, creating its foundation and subsequent continuation? What if arguing is their way of communicating with each other, and what if it’s working? And who am I to judge whatever the hell they are, when I’ve never shared an organic turkey sandwich or made out on the bleachers with anyone?

What their dynamic reveals is more than the fascinating inner workings of juvenile lust. It actually reveals a great deal about the neural mechanisms that facilitate such romantic idiocy, namely something called the action potential. This is nothing more than a temporary disruption in electrical activity, a characteristic “spike” that sends the voltage of a nerve cell from low, to high, to low, to really low, and then back to low again. This particular pattern is namely the result of the interplay between sodium and potassium ions, two like charges that move in and out of a cell based on varying thresholds of electrical activity. Such a pattern forms the basis of all neuronal communication; and, in turn, all human behavior.

[dukearchive]

forgive me

Against all odds, I hope that you will one day return. But I know that whenever you do, I will be ready to forgive. I know how it will go. You will come to me, heart in hand, and I will rip my own out to replace your missing. I will offer it with shaking arms, bleeding out from the hole in my chest, and you will look at me with pitying eyes. I will forget what you look like when you are not terrible. And you will laugh, not unkindly, never unkindly, and hold your hand out expectantly; I will wonder if you are helping me stand or taking my resolve. I will offer you both then, and you will not choose because you have always been selfish and I have always been weak. And when I am finally level with you, I will glance up quickly and you will smile then, not unkindly, never unkindly, and ask for another chance. Another chance to change, to repent, to regret. And I will hesitate, biting my lip and looking everywhere but your eyes. You will take my hands in your own, folding them in on each other and intertwining them easily with yours, and I will notice that your hands are softer than mine. And then you will tell me to look at you, and I will (because that is what I do), and there will be tears in your eyes. They will be awful and apologetic, threatening to spill over with the thought of losing the part of me that is yours, and I will cry too. Leaving splotches on your sleeves, trying desperately to wipe them away before you notice. But you will notice (because that is what you do), and you will hold my face in your hands, and you will tell me that it is okay. And you will pull me in, whispering in my hair that it was just a mistake. And I will believe you, allowing myself to deafen the alarms I have grown accustomed to. And I will look at you again, and you will smile, and I will too. I will then pull away from you in an attempt to regain my sense of balance but you will not allow it, pulling me back into your chest and wrapping your arms around my head as if you were the sole thing holding me together. So I will tell you to wait and that I need some air and that it will only be a second. And you will not listen, and you will tighten the grip you have around me, and you will move your arms down from my head and encircle them around my neck instead. No sound will come out of your mouth, nothing I can hear anyway, but if I were to look up at that second, I would see the corners of your mouth tilted upwards, not kindly, never kindly. If I were to look up, I would see the veins on your upper arm screaming with no intention of letting me go, of letting me breathe. If I were to look up, I might catch the sweat beading off your forehead in an attempt to escape the poison emitting from your pores and I might let myself believe that I am one of those drops. That I will find some way to wrestle your arms off of my neck and fill my lungs again. But I will not, so I will not be able to breathe until you allow me to (because that is what we do), which I know that you will at some point. You will never intend to silence me permanently. You will never aim to kill. Only, perhaps, to scare. To remind. So I will know that the moments I spend in your lethal embrace are only temporary, and it will be this thought that comes to mind when I look in the bathroom mirror the next morning to find a crown of blue around my neck. And in nine days, when the blue fades to yellow, and the yellow fades into a memory, I will touch the skin and flinch because it is still raw and fresh. And when you go to reach for my hand, I will flinch again, and you will become frustrated, and grab instead.

Folding them in on each other and intertwining them roughly with yours, and the only thing I will think is that your hands are softer than mine. You will yell, and I will listen, and I will apologize, and you will not. You tell me that kinder people would be more upset, and I will nod, and I will apologize again. Will offer my hands out in desperate compromise. You will look at me then, and you will shake your head. No, you will say, you are not worth it. And you will turn, and glance back once, and leave. And, against all odds, I will hope that you might one day return.

[dukearchive]

Forrest Drive

By Ethan Gurwitch

Wooden alphabet blocks sliding across a red, tiled floor—my first memory of Forrest Drive. I did not know why we were looking at houses, as our 1915 craftsman bungalow in Sanford, N.C. seemed perfect. Nonetheless, I was happy to be there. The “Red Room,” as we would soon call this seemingly ever-expanding space, was equal in size to the bungalow’s ground floor. The room, empty at the time, was the perfect play space, so we decided to knock down a stack of wood play blocks and slide them across the floor. At one end, I stood, sliding blocks to the others, who attempted to dodge them. During this newly created game, we were barefoot. So, getting hit surely meant you would break a toenail at least. 

The "others" I am referring to are my sister Gracey—my “Irish Twin”— and my two cousins, Caelan and Jimmy, who were two years older and younger than I, respectively. My mother took us to this house, just two miles from the bungalow, with an exterior of chipping, tan paint in hopes of buying it at a bargain and accomplishing something on her own, while my dad was away. She told us the house was a "fixer-upper," while emphasizing this repeatedly to the seller’s realtor. I assumed this to be a ploy at reducing the asking price, $350,000. As we walked upstairs, into the hallway, equal in length to my 26-foot Rainbow Loom necklace created in middle school several years later, I ran my hands across the lawyer’s wood. The dark, outdated paneling, with its woody knots and decorative molding, was in stark contrast to the worn-down, orange, wooden floors popular in the 1950s. 

As we walked past the kitchen, library, office, and dining room, into the foyer, I was awestruck, and by the look on my mom’s face, so was she. My naive nine-year-old self wondered, how could a house so large be going for this price? 

At this point, my mother was a stay-at-home parent. Unlike those on Desperate Housewives, a show we would both come to love, she had a do-it-yourself mindset—doing most of the renovations with her friends while my dad worked overseas. With her experience in home remodeling, she had high hopes for what I now understand to be a dilapidated, mid-century modern mansion. 

Despite her efforts, she could not get the price reduced. As we drove away, disappointment on our faces, we decided to end our home search there. That is, until the realtor called us three months later. She told us the house was not selling, and knowing my mother was interested, they decided to lower the asking price for her. She signed her name the next day, making us the proud new owners of my childhood home. 

As we re-entered the foyer of our new project, moving boxes in hand, the daunting scale of the work hit us. Struck with the heavy smell of mildew, we noticed the water stains spotted across the formal living room’s ceiling. In the dining room, the Paris-themed wallpaper was worn through, exposing yellowed drywall underneath. Given the house was built in 1953, the AC could not keep up with the sweltering southern heat. In the back yard sat a 35,000-gallon swimming pool laden with cracks, weeds, and one enormous frog, which would have to be removed by hand. 

Regardless of the flaws, including the mustard yellow, shag carpet installed in the early 70s, we knew we could make it work, and work we did. Our uneventful move into our home would signify the start of my mother’s many projects. 

The first thing that “had to go” was the kitchen. At the time of this remodel, my mom’s friend and her two daughters—Nina and Nadia—were living with us after recently immigrating from Sweden. My mother, being the strong-headed caregiver that she was, was determined to give her friend a helping hand. Her friend, Lena, had little money and knew bits of English. In between taping up doorways and removing noxious green countertops prevalent in many homes of the area, my mother would help her friend with notecards, quizzing her on facts ranging from our first president to the past participle of the word “run.” 

Though it may seem unusual, at least to me at the time, that a grown woman was learning, what I, a student at B.T. Bullock Elementary School, had been told a dozen times, Lena was trying to earn her green card. In return for helping her study, she would help my mother with the kitchen, as my dad was away in Afghanistan, and my siblings—Gracey, Jernigan, and Alexei— and I were too young to help her. 

My dad, an E-6 in the U.S. Army, was gone for six months out of each year. Though I am nineteen now, he has only been my father for nine and a half years. In and out, a father and husband one day, and a man over the phone—a white landline— the next. I am reminded of his absence whenever I pass one of the many gifts he sent me, even to this day: wood dolls, stuffed animals, and other boyish things. I wonder what it is like to have a father who knows you, who raised you? 

The sunset yellow cabinets were repainted a desert tan and the counters were tiled over with variegated, brown, and gray stone. Despite the impression given off by Southern Home, we later regretted this dysfunctional design choice, as tile makes for an awful baking workspace and is too difficult to clean. At the same time, we converted the tired, Parisian-themed dining room into a makeshift kitchen. Though we had no stove, we did have a waffle maker, an instant pot, and an assortment of handy, easy-to-use cooking gadgets. 

After a humid, summer day, the AC barely hanging on by a thread, my mother made us breakfast for dinner—my first encounter of such a meal! The moist smell of vintage furniture that usually lingered throughout our house was replaced by sizzling sausage, a mountain of pancakes, two-dozen eggs, and Aunt Jemima syrup. Our dining table, laced with memories of dinners past, was now bursting at the seams. Gracey, Caelan, Jimmy, Jernigan, Alexei, Nina, Nadia, my mother, Lena, my uncle, and I were crowded around the buffet. 

As I finished off my last flapjack, rubbing it through the last dribbles of syrup on my plate, I wished these nights—gathered around the table, with my family and friends— would never end, but end they did. The last door handles were screwed into the cabinets. The curtains, a paisley red, were hung up, regardless of their clashing with the farmhouse yellow of the kitchen. Lena, my makeshift stepmother for months on end, eventually passed The Naturalization Interview and Test. She secured a job as a bank teller for Wells Fargo and moved out. 

With this, my mother’s first projects were complete. 

Six and a half months later, while my brothers were in early high school, it would be time to tackle the fractured, concrete swimming pool. Around the same time, Julian, a “friend of my brothers,” came to live with us. While driving home from Davison’s Steaks, my parents saw him sitting on the side of the curb near the downtown train depot. As I heard through the fiberboard hollow core doors of my parent’s bedroom, he was kicked out for reasons unknown and needed a place to stay. Initially a temporary situation, they thought about adopting him down the line, later disclosed to me by my mother.

With my mother’s next projects in full swing, the aforementioned frog would be scooped out of the pool. And, yes picking up a Bullfrog the size of our neighbor’s small dog was strenuous and left our hands covered in a syrup-like mucus. Which would later end up in my sister’s hair. 

Our goal was to finish the pool before summer. After pumping the water out of the massive pool, all that was left were mountains of leaves. Unlike those covering the surrounding trees, these leaves were brown, compacted, and reeked of sewage. The pool had all the characteristics of a swamp, including large quantities of algae and precariously aggregated flies. This would be one of the first projects I got to help on, so I was cautiously excited. With our shoes off and rakes in hand, my sister and I jumped into the shallow end of the pool. The calf-deep leaves were heavy, damp from the algae-filled water that was previously removed. 

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” 

On the other side of the fence, I could see Julian running down the street with his skateboard in hand. Unaware at the time, preoccupied with a cumbersome pile… mountain, of leaves, he just fought with my parents over snake bite lip piercings he got with his stepmom’s approval, in secret. Regardless of Julian’s pugnacious attitude, he was ordered to take them out. Interestingly, I learned from my dad three days after that he had tried to convince my parents to take him to a piercer—they had obviously told him, “No.” 

The pool would not take that much longer. With most of the leaves out of the way, I could see the extent of what was left to do. As far as we knew, the pool had not been used for at least a decade. The Pomeranz family, at the peak of Sanford society in the 60s, commissioned the addition of the pool. With their booming success in the international looming business, they could afford such an extravagant addition. However, much to their chagrin, the loom was phased out and replaced with speeder, modern fabric manufacturing techniques. Thus, marking the end of their business, their use of the pool, and the rest of the house for that matter. 

Sitting unused for such a long time, the sea-foam blue paint covering its walls had chipped away. Hoping to complete the pool in just a few days, we would need to strip and repaint. 

You have not experienced summer heat until you’ve stood inside an empty, lightly painted swimming pool in the middle of June. Sunlight, great for the garden just nearby, bounced off the rough concrete, heating it to skin blistering levels. To make the work bearable, we needed to keep a water hose running, which allowed us to walk on the surface freely. 

With just a few chips of paint remaining, we worked to finish the scraping. After washing out the pool, my mom painted it a powder blue with an air painter she got from the local Rent-All down the street. Despite how grueling the renovations were, our family manual labor felt cathartic. When I think back to Forrest Drive, passing just nearby, I think of the work we did together, and of course, the time we spent gossiping over pizza and Subway after. My siblings and I now had a common thing to bitch about. 

I saw my father stumble back into the wall adjacent to our front door, bracing himself against the white, bowing chair rail jutting out from the wall. Julian was the opposite of him. When I turned the corner, into the foyer, I saw my mother standing, attempting to diffuse the situation. The air was still, the calm before a storm. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone, a burgundy Motorola Razor. Before she finished dialing, she told me to go back to my room.

Wrapped in my Toy Story quilt with Woody and Buzz’s faces plastered against a cloud speckled, sky blue background, I could hear the tidbits of commotion. Splintering, as if a tree had fallen—which, did occur twice while we were leaving there: one landed on the roof and another in our backyard both while I was 16. 

 A few hours later, I crept down the stairs, still lacking a railing. With each creak of the floorboards, I froze. The tension in the air was heavy, but also, meeting an untimely demise was not on the day’s agenda. When I made it downstairs, back to the foyer, the weight of that afternoon hit me. Without hesitation, my eyes darted towards the doughnutted Formica door leading into the office. 

The pool was complete, and Julian— “a brotha from anotha mother,” as he would say, for almost two years— was gone, picked up by his stepmom. I never asked what happened to the door. Though, it was replaced by an oak and glass pocket door. 

January 2016, passing the glass pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee, we were almost to the group home where my stepcousin, Paige, was staying. My sister, my mom, and I were cramped into the blue, two-door Mini Cooper purchased just two weeks prior. A few months before, my mother learned Paige moved into a group home after being kicked out of her grandparents’ house. Before staying with them, while I was still in diapers, she lived with us. 

Unconvinced the group home, located in the mountains of Missouri, was a safe place for an impressionable teenager, my mother wanted to let her move back in with us. Bumping along the gravel driveway winding around the split-level ranch, with its white columns and red brick façade, we could see the kids standing up top. “Which ones Paige,” I remember asking. Before today, I had never met, let alone seen her. After listening to Bad Romance played on the grand piano by one of the other group home girls, we loaded what little Paige owned—three pairs of jeans, a selection of tops from Justice, a purple body pillow, and three Beanie Babies—into the Mini, and head home. Apparently, from what she told me; the other girls had stolen the remainder of what she brought there. 

The sleeping arrangements had all been worked out. I would take the downstairs bedroom, my brothers would be moved to the far back rooms, Gracey would stay put, and Paige would take my old room, just across from my parents. For this to work, however, the bedrooms would need a facelift. 

We first started with Paige’s room. Before, the walls were a cobalt blue and the floors a faded brown with the gloss worn through, revealing the rough untreated wood underneath. To remedy this, cheaply, my mother decided to hand paint the floors. In both Paige’s and my sister’s rooms, rugs were painted onto the floors to match their new wall colors. Paige’s floors were painted cream with white daisies. Her walls were a pale turquoise. In my sister’s room, the walls were painted pink. In the center, a rectangular section of wood was painted with black and white diamonds. Around the edge, a black and pink striped border was added. My mother did both rooms by herself while attending Campbell Law School. 

When it came to my room, on the sub-floor of our three-floor split level, I had the freedom to do as I saw fit. With a grey concrete floor, and a white acoustic tiled sealing, I knew the room would need a total remodel. 

“Give me the phone!”

“What phone?”

From my room, connected to the Red Room by a short hallway, I could hear my mom yelling at Paige. This was just three months after she moved in, and my concrete floor was painted pumpkin orange. The ceiling tile was replaced with ice white sheetrock and the walls, the familiar cobalt blue—I realize this did not match. 

My sister came through the door. “Paige stole a phone from the Temple Theater,” she told me. Her hands were around herself and her quivering lips were drawn in. Her eyes were hidden by the side of her turned-down face. She confessed to me that she knew Paige had stolen a phone and told our mother. Worried as to what her actions might have done, I consoled her. “She’s not going to kick her out,” I repeated. Gracey grew up with only brothers, and though I played Barbies and dress up with her, Paige filled the sisterly gap. 

A year later, those words would come back to haunt me. Crying at the top of the stairs, Paige was standing with a bag of clothes at her feet. The day before, my mom walked into the living room, catching Paige and her boyfriend on the couch. “What if one of my children walked in here and saw you two,” she screamed. I do not know much of what happened, but that would be the last time I saw her in person. 

Over the 12 years we owned that house, we poured in hours of labor and love. With the help of my mother, we built a home and memories. As I drive by, even now, I think of what my mother has created, and what we have done. Paint, pool, floors, doors, trees, family, and friends—all are a part of Forrest Drive. Though not all, both people and things, had a successful, permanent ending. I do wish the new owners would have refrained from painting the front door a seashell pink. After all, this is not the beach.

[dukearchive]

A Golden Throne of Arrogance

By Mary Elizabeth Howard

The folds of red silk come with her to the vanity. The glistening, red fabric sits on the table as she sits on the golden chair placed in front of the mirror. She unwraps the perfect square with gentle moves of her fingers to reveal the locks of braided hair inside. Two different colors tied to each other and blending together. One part completely golden, one a dark blackish-brown, and the last a mixture of the two so well-combined that it forms its own color. The blond strands are wavy and short. The blackish-brown pieces are curly and long. They are uncompromised in their natural state. It represents something. She used to know what the strands meant. Now she doesn’t know what to think, and she doesn’t know what to do with the dead keratin. She can’t throw the pieces of hair away yet. 

“I didn’t know you’d kept it, it’s even still in the cloth I gave you.”

She scrunches her face up in surprise and embarrassment. Then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She stands with her naked face, dripping hair, and black dress. She turns around to face him. Her golden man in his grey suit leaning against the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” she asks with defeat. “How did you find me?”

“You didn’t think I’d forget to keep tabs on my wife, did you?”

Her nose twitches in anger, and he grins. 

“What are you doing here, you rotten storyteller?”

“Oh, pet names so soon. I’m thrilled.”

She narrows her eyes at him and raises her voice.

“Eres mentiroso. And you didn’t answer my questions, so fucking answer them already.”

“You know I don’t like answering questions someone already knows the answer to, amante”

“What makes you think I know the answer, Gabriel?”

“You know me, cara.” She threw her head back in frustration. He was irritating.

“Stop calling me that. Stop giving me false endearments and give me what I want.”

“You know divorce isn’t my style, and I thought you loved me, Isabella.”

“I don’t.” she said with a forced kind of certainty.

“Hmm.” He walked to where she was sitting, lifted her chin, and looked into her eyes. He was searching for something, and when he found it, he smiled. It was a  devilish kind of grin and in his eyes she saw the wickedness and danger she had missed when she first met him. “Let me know when you’ve made up your mind about us. I want you home.” With that parting statement, he walked out of the room and she watched him walk away. Her gaze affixed to his strong shoulders, firm backside, and the golden glint of the ring on his hand as he walked out of her bedroom. When the front door slammed shut, she realized that he had taken the strands of their braided hair with him. He had left the red sheet and in place of their hair was the ring she had thrown at him, the match to his.

Secret never lasts His love was an illusion Her trust must be earned

[dukearchive]

Creekside

by Miranda Gershoni

Translucent green pours up and through. Teasing from my desk, the glow of the bottleneck. I’m back to seven, the walk home from school when mama took us down a different street. We roamed through shadowed trees, looking. Fossils, glass, bones, twigs for the fire. Leaves browned and feet grew and the creek sang still. Our new ritual, scouring the earth after school, treasure hungry.

Mama showed us what we couldn’t see. Raccoon skulls, pre-war milk bottles, an extra breath in the day. I was always catching up, trailing behind myself. My mind revved and tangled. Then we walked gingerly through trees. Looking for treasures below, it slowed me.

These days there is no time for slow. But past the cries of fading debts I hear you in the water near. Trapped in the flat hue of dirt, a scarlet brown filtering the sun. I reach down and pry it out. The remains of a beer bottom, soft and crooked glass patiently wed to its industrial stamp. Tiny bumps curve the edge in obedient rhythm—a Braille of better days, a half mandala that lives to tell the end.

The oyster shell sits as always. Demurring above papers, the numbers leaking out, it sits. Gold rapture waiting to be asked. Painted before your hands were dust, its shape makes mine different now. Holding it emits something new, a fresh duty somewhere far. Back then I could sink, before when flesh could be trusted. In my palm now the shell is cold. Will I ever thaw below it again? A thousand miles east from our creek, mine rushes on. Each print leaves the anatomy of place, history bleeding before me. I know she couldn’t stay here. The gold was part of it. Making new what none of us saw. The drip of stars welled in her, cavernous hunger bowed in stillness.

Molecules packed, no page left white.

So many times we’d just go. Get in the car and move till we got there. Chest dense with bass. Clanging riffs and raspy voices. Content to sit in the safety of surprise, we flew above the road like boys on bikes. From my window now they ride on, witches like us in middle school skin. On the brown glass I see it—seven two. The year your body drifted in. Always your numbers, everywhere. Saying hi from the water.

Mama tell me how. I walk with the leaves. I sit with the water. I listen to the restless finch. I look with the eyes you made, taught me to see with. What flickers on and where? How is the hard one. But you knew that.

The boys just came back around. I remember when we looped like that. Through side streets and alley gardens, grab some basil on the way. Us like paint in the hot air. Lifting from wheels down the hill, rising higher to meet the sun. Those tiny white flowers spinning out on even more impossibly delicate stems. We ride to the tip, laughing. Our sidewalks never ended.

What you knew I can see only now. Why you needed to scream. Peel and bite into avocados. Howl with James Brown in the car. Walk each street and round every corner. Take my hands and dance the floorboards in. Eat many colors. Add sesame seeds and sprouts. Try it with raspberries on your fingers. Write what’s true and burn it. Let the fire take your tears. Bring us to see the smoke. Let us be your fire. Let me be your body now. And you, my spirit. I feel you in the wind. Say it again. Tell me one more time.