dreamland – M P Armstrong
before, my dreams were populated with half-fantasy images
from the curled-up and shadowy edges of reality, a variety
that seemed culled from the random spin of a wheel. teachers
from a semester abroad grew fangs and appeared, pale and
growling, in desks next to me in my tenth-grade algebra class.
the sun dripped glittering watercolor over the backyard fence
that gobbled my sanity, and probably also my hand, if touched.
the jewel-toned scales of dragons perched on the roof of the
dining hall and vortexes to other dimensions swirled in the
pond on the quad. my dreams now are comprised of ordinary
moments: my family gathered around a table laden with a heavy
holiday dinner–mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and
three kinds of pie, with ice cream, even. my roommate bringing
steaming mugs of coffee, golden brown with clouds of cream, to
our spread of notebooks and textbooks in the library as the sun
begins to smudge the sky with light, a friend locked in a warm
and determined embrace under a blanket as the light chatter of a
romcom and the multicolored glow of Christmas lights fill every
corner of the room, turning the standard dorm into an image off
the front of a greeting card. my brain is romanticizing the moments
from life before, my subconscious smoothing over the stresses and
tensions, and my sleep setting the scenes to songs from the bleachers’
discography. i do not want to remember what those were really like,
dinners spent with bitter words bubbling in my throat and threatening
to boil over, the specter of failure hanging in the air-conditioner wind
over every flashcard and frappucino, the rotted curiosity about the
blurry lines of relationships twisted up in every body entangled with
mine. i want to think about the mirrors of those moments in the near
future even less. terror served next to the turkey, cooked by a respiratory
therapist and carved by a man of almost eight years old. peeks at the
list of names tucked inside the front covers of books with dates, mental
calculations: could their coughs still linger on the pages? the threat that
lurks in every human being, even the ones that we once could touch
without thinking twice, even the ones we had been dreaming about
holding close throughout the months we spent separated. i would rather
live in that fantasy world, bleed out because the woman who taught me
about roman history dug her teeth into my jugular in front of the girl
i wanted to ask to homecoming or watch my dorm burn to the ground
from the sparks belched by a winged lizard, than live in this one, this
hazy dreamland where the dangers do not disappear when my alarm
starts beeping and i open my eyes. a conscious nightmare is darker
than the bruise-like circles under my eyes born of avoiding sleep; i
would rather spend the rest of eternity waking with night terrors than
experience the screaming, sweating horror during the bright daytime.
M.P. Armstrong is a disabled queer poet from Ohio, studying English and history at Kent State University. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Luna Negra, Red Earth Review, and Social Distanzine, among others. They also serve as managing editor and reporter for Curtain Call and Fusion magazines. In their spare time, they enjoy traveling, board games, and brightly colored blazers. Find them online @mpawrites and at mpawrites.wixsite.com/website.
Emails From God – Valerie Griffin
Email from: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com
To: mothernature@thisisallthereis.com, theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
Subject: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
I accept the responsibility falls on my shoulders. Although, in my defence, I never thought they would start to bite the hands that feed them. I gave them everything they needed. In hindsight, maybe I gave them too much? It’s hard to stomach, watching them systematically harming themselves and every other living thing on the planet; killing off the life that was given to them to nurture; the life to keep them alive.
Email from: mothernature@thisisallthereis.com,
To: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com, theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
Subject: Re: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
Frustrating though this is, beating ourselves up about it won’t help and the onus doesn’t just lie with you, God; it lies with all of us. We have to find the solution for them to realise, and correct, the consequences of their actions. They think they know better, but this proves they don’t.
Email from: theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
To: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com, mothernature@thisisallthereis.com,
Subject: Re:Re: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
I am beyond angry. I have no time for these arrogant and selfish people, deluded by their own self-deception that what they’ve been doing is for the better good; who are now bogged down and suffocating in their barren land of wastefulness. We all know it can’t go on. This doesn’t just affect Earth, it affects the balance of the whole of space and time. I can arrange for a meteor strike, that’ll shake them up. BOOM! BANG! GONE! HAVE A NICE DAY NOW!!!
Email from: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com,
To: mothernature@thisisallthereis.com, theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
Subject: Re:Re:Re: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
Ah…you never suffer fools lightly, do you Universe? We need to save Earth not destroy it totally, that would make us no better than them. These people need educating again. Let’s get them working in harmony once more, not discord. Despite the few, there are hundreds of millions who, I know, will grasp the chance to make a better life for themselves and save the planet. People who will spend time self-reflecting, who will look, and find, the silver lining…because there’s always a silver lining.
Email from: mothernature@thisisallthereis.com,
To: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com, theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
Very dramatic, Universe, but I agree with God. And the silver lining is the seas being free from contamination, allowing marine creatures to swim in clear, uncluttered waters; the skies devoid of airborne impurities, providing thermals of fresh air for the birds to soar freely. And the land. The forests, the woods, hedges and fields – so lovingly created and vital for existence – will start to regrow; the animals, unceremoniously ousted from their natural habitat without a thought from those desperate for profiteering, can start to rebuild their homes again. It’s time to heal.
Email from: god.creator@thisisallthereis.com,
To: mothernature@thisisallthereis.com, theuniverse@thisisallthereis.com
Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Our Discussions re the Deterioration of Planet Earth
Well said, Mother Nature. I have an idea…leave it to me.
Valerie is a published writer living by the sea in Dorset. She writes short stories, flash fictions and is currently editing her first novel. She likes growing weird-shaped vegetables and people watching on the seafront.
Walls – Tamara Rogers
The walls moved again today.
You’d miss it if you blink, but I don’t blink. I haven’t blinked for weeks.
Always alert.
Eyeballs starting to itch.
Maybe put some cream on them, in them.
Because constant vigilance is required in this dreary apocalypse. This apocalypse of online shopping and socially distanced street parties that turn into moist, sweaty germ factories. Whole streets ready to go down together, singing Vera Lynn in triumphant idiocy.
They sing and clap while others die saving them.
That’s the spirit.
But I digress, because we were talking about the walls moving. You can tell, for those who haven’t been paying attention, by looking at the shoes I left by the front door. The shoes that haven’t been worn for weeks (government mandated exercise can eat my ass), the shoes that were piled on top of each other in the carefree way of someone who thought they were going out again but then never did, the shoes acting out the Mary Celeste of Clarks. Because the shoes have fallen over. You see? The right foot’s heel was resting on top of the left foot’s toe, but now it’s prone on the floor, laces trailing onto the welcome (but don’t tread shit everywhere) mat.
Easy to miss, I guess, so I’ve smeared paint on the wall for next time. One long streak from the wall onto the floor, nice and thick, dripping lilac (surely a drunken shopping choice) in ugly, bulbous tears. The walls move, the line breaks.
It’s time for (more) coffee in my carefully curated quarantine schedule. On the way to the kitchen I kick the wayward shoes into the corner. What do you do about moving walls? Are they hostile or am I an unwitting accomplice to an act not yet revealed?
Is this a benign Changing Rooms?
Is this a trash compactor from Star Wars?
Should I call the letting agent?
And the coffee is strong and black and bitter, it burns my tongue but tastes good, topping up the buzz roiling under the stale sweat on my face. My heart races, forgetting that sport is cancelled for the foreseeable. Feel alive, albeit riddled with anxiety. Feel alert, refreshed, wired to fuck.
Next stop on the timetable; ten minutes in the back garden. Fresh air is good for the soul and also for the lungs and let’s be honest that cough has been hanging around. The garden is, well, barely a garden. Dirty paving slabs squeezed into a back alley, the reincarnation of a well-behaved public urinal.
Inside, and back to the couch.
I look at the wall, glare at the streak of paint, stare out the window. There the neighbours come and go, wear their masks around their necks or under their noses, stand two metres apart but let their kids smear snot on each other.
I rub my eyes, sandpaper scratching under my ‘lids.
Mom used to say things could be ‘so dull it’s like watching paint dry’.
I never thought watching paint dry would feel so tense.
Tamara writes mainly dark, surreal tales with a touch of science fiction. Her novel Grind Spark was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award 2014. She is interested in all things weird in the world of psychology, artificial intelligence and armageddon. And cats.
Twitter: @tamrogers Website: http://www.thedustlounge.com
The Garden Not Open – Bronwen Griffiths
The garden was due to open after the long winter closure but the disappointment of the grey clouds was nothing compared to the realisation that the garden would not open this spring and perhaps not even this summer and I was wondering if there would be anyone to clear the weeds from the cracked paths or if the bird topiary, with its fuzz of new leaves, might be metamorphosing into new shapes. I imagined the birds turning into furry cats, the kind of cat caught out in a rainstorm, not that it has been raining and indeed there has been no rain for many weeks and we have been glad of this because all winter it poured cats and dogs, and lakes appeared where none were there before. I was also, in thinking of the garden, remembering its ancient mulberry tree because we too have a mulberry in our garden but when I spoke to one of the gardeners last year he was not much interested in our mulberry though I am interested both in our mulberry and the garden’s mulberry and how and if they are related. What I thought was that our mulberry might be the grand-daughter of the mulberry in the garden, though perhaps it might be the daughter, but I have no evidence of this. The only evidence I have is that mulberries make delicious jam but are also a devil to pick because the juice runs down arms and stains hands until the picker of mulberries resembles an extra from a slasher movie and this I have most definitely known. Thinking more of the mulberry, in particular its large leaves, larger than a hand, I am now wondering if, once the leaves appear in their fullness -and even now in the middle of May they are not quite grown to maturity – the quarantine might be lifted so that I can go and visit the gardens and see the other mulberry, the old mulberry, which may or may not be the mother or grandmother of our own mulberry.
Bronwen Griffiths is the author of two published novels and two collections of flash fiction. Her flash pieces have been published in a number of anthologies and online journals and her novella-in-flash, Long Bend Shallows, was shortlisted for the Bath Award. She lives in East Sussex and likes to garden.
Goldie and Three Scary Bears – Liz Power
So there’s this little girl, real cute…she goes for a walk in the woods. Big woods, maybe bad woods, full of wolves and real bad people. Shithole woods.
She’s called Goldie… real pretty blonde hair. Remember… I have tremendous respect for women… all women.
Anyhow, Goldie comes across a small house right there in the wood and she knocks on the cute front door. It’s not a big house, by the way, not like mine. I’ve got more money… more brains… better house, apartment, nicer boat. I’m smarter than they are. When no one answers, she just walks right in.
On the table there are three bowls of porridge… I love porridge by the way, it’s from Scotland where my mother’s from…did you know that? Goldie’s hungry, real hungry, like she’s not eaten all day. She tastes porridge from the first bowl, and it’s too hot.
She tastes porridge from the second bowl, a bigger bowl, but that’s cold. Finally she tastes the porridge from the third, biggest bowl and it’s just perfect. She eats the whole lot up…the smart thing to do, big brains… smart cookie.
Now, she feels real tired… long day out avoiding bad people, scary people.
She sits in the first chair, the biggest, which would be the best chair as it’s the biggest and the best. But it’s too big so she tries the second chair, not as big, but still too big. Then she tries the smallest chair and it’s just right.
But then it breaks! Shit manufacturing! If you vote for me, I’ll make sure there isn’t shit manufacturing. Build a wall – keep the shit manufacturers out, along with criminals and Mexicans…
Goldie feels real exhausted. She goes upstairs to lies down, but the first bed’s too hard, so she gets in the next. That’s too soft! Soft beds give me back ache – I like a good firm bed. Then she lies under this sweet little quilt in the third bed. That one’s just fine and Goldie falls right asleep – just like that.
While she’s sleeping these three bears arrive. It’s their house, right? Scary bears…might be bad bears from Mexico. But I’m probably the least racist person you will ever meet…
Daddy bear… he’s short and fat just like that Kim Jong-un… he says real loud ‘someone’s been eating my porridge!’
And Mama bear… she’s a handsome bear… remember, I have tremendous respect for women, I really do… she says ‘someone’s been eating my porridge!’
Then this real cute Baby bear says ‘someone’s been eating my porridge and they’ve eaten it all up!’ Baby bear starts wailing and carrying on because his chair’s all broken. Crooked – like crooked Hillary.
Then the scary bears go upstairs to look round some more.
‘There’s someone sleeping in my bed!” cries Baby bear.
Just then, Goldie wakes up and sees the three bears, yells real loud and runs away into the big, bad forest.
You know what? Never goes back there again. So, if you vote for me I’ll make sure there’s no more scary bears in shithole woods, because I’ll build a very big wall and keep them all out. I probably would do that, probably. Maybe.
Can’t Quit Drinking Today – Shelly Norris
It’s like Earth shuddering on her axis.
If only there were some method of proof.
It’s like watching Rilke’s tiny slumbering
silences cradled deeply in the limbs
peeping through, vulnerable
to a month of cold slate sky
snowing ash and sleeting ice.
It’s like the foreshadowing
after the opening climax (just
one of fifteen) that twists
the bloody battle scene
into a training exercise
where casualties rise and dust off
that follows the heroes’ conversation
casually revealing the exposition.
It’s like the dog excusing himself
when he thinks movie explosions
and aftershocks are genuine
gunshots and thunder.
Like trying to remember
not only laughter is also contagious.
Like trading Cabernet for Absolut,
needing limes, and making do
with essential lemons.
Like when after two decades
the one guy finally invites
the other guy to dinner
to meet his wife and baby
and I remind the dogs
TV coyotes are just actors
though they know I know
they know a flesh and blood pack
lurks right across the road
in someone else’s woods.
It’s like when the other hero—
usually older jaded or younger
hungry, maybe with the least
to lose—says maybe; we know
which character will not live
much further into the plot
or probably washes out filthy
in the end. It’s like ghost ships full
of live tourists and sailors marked
for death drifting into ports
forbidden to disembark.
It’s like the hero’s young wife grilling
the past out of two old soldier friends
who’ve fought to hell and back together
her and us wondering why
he wasn’t the best man
or even a guest at their wedding.
It’s like Elliott’s cruelest month
growing sociopathically more sinister
like choking in the billowing smoke
from a neighbor burning brush
on a dry windy day or that black
poodle off its leash dashing
in front of speeding cars every time
or feeling torn as the Palomino’s head
stretched between barbed wires
as she reaches for greener.
It’s like the hero’s DNA at the scene
the explosives residue in his garage
the encrypted folder on the dark web
the millions in offshore accounts
he never opened. Too tidy.
How does the FBI Director miss that
every time? It’s like the Walker Hound
wolf howling in his dreams.
It’s like all the conspiracies
coalescing into golf ball hail
beating us down on the front end
of a tornado swarm sweeping
the wobbling planet
and irruptions kicking off mega fires
and triggering fault lines—Wasatch,
Tatsuda, Sobral, Seattle, The Rhine
Rift, New Madrid, Longmen Shan,
Clarendon-Lindon, Elsinore, Tacoma,
The North Aegean Trough—more
than you can name and all of them
at once, and the shifting waves that morph
into hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis.
It’s like when the tests weren’t perfect
and no one actually offered tests
and technically no one refused them
or when King County’s Public Health
Department sent body bags instead
of tests to the Native Health Clinic
and sometimes
nothing is fathomable.
It’s been just like that.
Shelly Norris currently resides in the woods of central Missouri with her husband John, two dogs, and seven cats. A Wyoming native, Norris began writing poetry around the age of 12. Norris’ poems embody the vicissitudes of unrequited love and loss, dysfunctional wounds, healing quests, and the role of cats in the universal scheme.
The Cabinet of Heed 