Celebrity, Variation on "Variation on the Word Sleep," In Preparation & Father's Day.

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Celebrity

Sitting here, my peripheral vision decreases,
I feel important as eyes are forced to
to gaze toward the back of my head.
Up here, I see things more,
I’ve got a better seat in the house.
The girl’s hair is blacker,
her skin glows more,
I can hear the inconstant validity of her sniffling
in austere surround sound.
My perception is greater –
loose pipes spilling out clear and soluble water
in a cylindrical, constant stream.
I remember it smelt like chemicals in that room,
years of studying the mystery of the periodic table
was baked and seasoned in,
back and forth.
Those two were the celebrities,
whom I gazed at all through the year.
In the winter I dissociated into the weaves of their J. Crew sweaters,
I watched her tight ponytail bobbing up and down in
the curve of her back,
as the snow fell.
And it was perfect,
her mediocre-sized bra strap peeked out
with just the perfect tinge of conspicuousness.
And then, one dewy spring day,
I was surprised.
From below the rich chestnut locks of her tightly bound hair,
led a naïve path down to the collar of her shirt,
white, starched, and perfect as it was.
Scattered on that path, like invisible rocks on a dirt road,
sprouted the familiar sight of
a cluster of pink, newly formed,
round pimples.

Variation on “Variation of the Word Sleep”
Inspired by Margaret Atwood

My wish would be to sleep with you.
Not to sleep
with you,
like man sleeps with woman,
this talk of sleep yielding the uncanny
movements and hushed words whispered between
blankets and warm bodies, but
I’d like to sleep
with you. Near you.
In your apartment.
To have it be late.
For us to be alone, at first;
then to have your companion arrive,
the knight in shining armor returning
from his magic kingdom of rehearsal space,
to greet you.
And I will slide down,
assume my position,
the one I was granted at birth as the
only, the third, the fifth, the watcher –
I’ll bend into my desk chair behind
the paper-clipped stacks of content couples.
I’d like to lie near you, touching –
for us to talk for long hours,
for your hand to slip over mine ever slightly
when our mutual passions surface in conversation.
And I’d like for you to
watch me,
sleeping.
To witness this drowsiness as it overcomes my senses,
and unties the knot of practicality inherent in holy children.
I’d like you to relax, to sedate your neuroses.
Or if relaxation is not feasible, to
allow me the pleasure of closing my eyes on your couch,
your perfume filling up the place alongside your disobedient love for him.
And I’d like to watch you, with him,
as I begin to sleep,
subtle touches held by backward glances and
restraint.
I’d love to go to sleep here, in this peaceful
place, and wake up in my life that is
independent
as I wish it to be.
Until my mothers pocketbook,
her secret, newfound cornucopia,
reminds her of the yearn to shop with me,
and guide me
To play the obstructive, unending, irresistible game
that these two adults now play,
covering the loneliness of her quiescent breast, knotted shoulders, and back
which cry out to be touched by the one she begot.

In Preparation

When my mother dies,
I feel that somehow I’ll know
exactly what to do.
Not because she’s explained what
her funeral must entail for most of
my lifetime,
or because I attended my Grandfather’s
open – casket wake at the newborn
age of eight.
I suppose it could be some
sort of control issue.
I am sure that we will be sitting
in a hospital room in some far away
town or city filled with new smells
and an unfamiliar landscape.

Upon entering, I’ll take off
your socks first,
one by one,
and begin to wash your feet,
so you’ll know that it’s me.
I’ll clean the grime visible
only to me that the nurses
irresponsibly let collect
between your toes.
You’ll feel the refreshing
cool of alcohol as I remove
the polish remaining on your
toes from my last weekly
pedicure to you; I’ll know
you want to go purely.
Your clothes will be next –
against all orders of nurses
and staff
and your own mother
and husband —
I’ll lift your graceful,
cat – like back up off the pillow,
gently, like you’ve always taught
and wanted me to be,
and untie your gown,
lifting it away like wrapping paper
and quietly crushing it under the table.
Your breasts stare at me,
like two concealed souls trapped
inside some pool - some other planet’s pool -
your loose skin’s surface rippling with
your every breath, the life hanging on in them,
afraid to spill out over the edges and be gone;
I’ll wash them and your neck with warm water.
It amazes me how these bittersweet tables have turned, you look at me with grateful eyes
– we are so much more than mother and child,
Madonna and child,
woman and woman,
we are like the two last puppies of a litter left
in the whelping box, anticipating where the
other craves warm, real touch.
So, I take out the tiger balm because
it smells like our old house.
I rub it under your toes,
untying the knots you’ve always battled
that are reflective of your weak sinus cavities.
Everyone has left the room -
cats escape my black bag of tricks,
they are all around you, like the old days.
I apply them to you like a midwife
does leeches, curling about your
neck and defeated chest,
looking like they will transform into stone
and become part of your neo-Rasta sepulcher here.
They say you come into this world and out of it
alone, but we’ve been napping in the sun together
since I was a part of your womb.
In you.
I will always be there,
the cats, the dog and me,
and the music
I’ve turned on
loud and tribal,
the reggae cadence
to which I was
conceived.
We walk you down this
aisle in time,
we are your overdue army,
only one will take you.

Father’s Day

I always wondered how I
would feel on this day after
you were gone.
Your death left me in the
broad category of daughters
who experience this day with
a deceased father.

I wondered, would it be easier
now to encapsulate your life
and tuck it away neatly and say simply,
“my father is deceased,”
relieved that I no longer
have to explain your choices,
and our past?
For years, I knew that the day
you were no longer with us
would provide me with a
sense of relief from the worry
and anxiety that our relationship
caused for all these years.
I had hoped for any sort of closure,
a welcome release of the silent albatross
that I wore daily around my neck.
I watched your memorial service online
and wondered if there would be
any mention of me.
Then, I saw this picture of us appear
on the screen, one that you must
have kept for all these years.
In it, I am sitting on your knee, and you are
holding a borrowed camcorder,
the one you intrinsically knew how to use,
our shared familial duty.
Your eulogy included a simple statement
saying that you “had a daughter.”
Nothing more, and nothing less.
Clearly, you and your family used
the same strategy of encapsulating
our relationship that I attempted.
But, there are memories.

Some come to me in between
thoughts during the day,
memories that I haven’t thought
of in over twenty years,
maybe even longer.
They feel like unexpected
electrical zaps that can
jolt me from my deepest focus,
the adrenaline rush that comes
with suddenly swerving out of your
lane as you drive.
Others make me feel like
I’m surfing a huge wave,
the memory harnessing itself
to all the power of the ocean,
making the emotion
swell and swell
while I hold on and radically
accept the churning water.
And just like that, it’s over.
Grief is an ongoing process,
and it is never truly over.
It is why Leopold Bloom’s statement,
“Me. And me now”
still brings readers to their knees,
over a hundred years after it was written.
In Laurie Anderson’s masterpiece
Heart of a Dog, she says,
“But finally I saw it, the connection
between love and death,
and that the purpose of death
is the release of love.”
I love you, dad.
Somehow, I feel your presence deep

in my bones, like the genes that you
gave me are somehow annotated by your spirit.
You are a part of me, on a cellular level,
and I wouldn’t trade you for any other.

Katharine Chung is a New York transplant who currently resides in Connecticut. An Assistant Director in an urban public library by day, she enjoys stand-up paddle boarding with her dog, night photography, and movies in her free time. Her poetry has previously been published in Italics Mine. Find her on Instagram @vegancinephile.

The Cog of Love

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Birth is not the beginning of life. It is its continuance. Life is a self-sustaining process that began about 4 billion years ago. Living cells are constantly being renewed, some more frequently than others. Life is relayed by the individual members of each species, in exclusivity, to the next generation of the same species.

The most plausible explanation of the genesis of life appears to have been provided by the ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus (460 BC – 370 BC) who is reported to have observed that “Everything in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity”.

Jacques Monod, the French biologist, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner, later accredited and developed that theory in his book “Le hasard et la nécessité” (Chance and Necessity) published in 1970. From this it is deduced that “Life is a spontaneous, evolutive, sensitive and reproductive process triggered by the fortuitous encounter of complementary elements of matter and energy in a favourable environment” (chance in this context being understood as meaning a “random variable” and necessity an “inevitable” event).

The invasion of life on Earth has been overwhelming. Every nook and cranny of the planet has been colonised – from the unfathomable depths of the deepest oceans to the summits of the highest mountains. According to the National Geographic Society :

“Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery”.

But even though life is highly invasive, adaptable, and tenacious, Earth’s biodiversity is in jeopardy due to pollution, climate change, and population growth to such an extent that It is estimated that half of all species of life on Earth will be wiped out within the next century.

The fight for survival is engaged and mankind, like all other species, will also come under threat of extinction unless we somehow manage to reverse the current process of degradation and destruction of the ecosystem.

We know very little of the motors of life but observe, not without some apprehension, the gradual evolution of species due to biological processes such as mutation, natural selection, symbiosis, and genetic drift. Some of the motors, particularly so far as the animal kingdom is concerned, are to be found in the survival instinct which protects and preserves life allowing it to continue to prosper and propagate.

The survival instinct is part of what the biologists call our autonomic nervous system (ANS) or, more simply, our involuntary nervous system, which is a network of nerves that regulates unconscious body processes. It is the part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for regulating involuntary body functions such as heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, body temperature, immune system, emotional responses, sexual responses, and many others.

The biologists have established that neurotransmitters and receptors are an integral part of the ANS. It appears, therefore, that what had previously been considered a purely physiological process (of “fight or flight”) involves much more than just unconscious body processes. It also involves unconscious mental processes. Intellectual, psychological, and sociological unconscious mental processes such as morality, altruism and love not only play a key role in the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious co-existence within society, but also in the preservation and propagation of life. They are just as much a part of the survival instinct as the unconscious body processes.

Like the involuntary body functions, the involuntary mental functions of morality, altruism, and love are all cogs that keep the wheel of life turning.

No doubt the specialists who carry out research on such natural processes have noted the correlation of these involuntary mental functions with the survival instinct but there appears to be no mention of it in any of the scientific and academic publications available to the general public. What is sure and certain is that it is not something that would be of the slightest interest to the authors of the plethoric popular literature of cheap paperbacks that deal ad infinitum with the apparently inexhaustible topics of crime and romance.

Involuntary body functions such as heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, emotional and sexual responses are not love. They are not even signs of love. Many people, especially popular romance writers, confound these body functions with love and present them as such even though lovers are not the only ones who experience them. Rapists, paedophiles and all sorts of sex offenders, deviants, imposters, and profiteers experience them too.

Love is something else. It is not a physical function. It is a mental function which the American Psychological Association defines as “any cognitive process or activity, such as thinking, sensing, or reasoning”. Not all species have been endowed with mental functions by nature. They are the privilege of the animal kingdom of which humankind is an eminent member having descended from a common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas about seven million years ago.

The essence of love is placing the well-being of another above all else irrespective of the cost to oneself and without the slightest expectation of anything in return.

Romance, passion, emotion, adoration, affection, possessiveness, religious considerations, love at first sight, kindness, gratitude, admiration, idolatry, generosity, physical attraction, sense of security, wealth, social status, intelligence, affinity, complementarity, companionship, respect, tenderness, projection, concern, care, sympathy, pity, empathy, endearment, warmth, friendship, attachment, loyalty, liking, soft spot – are just some of the many sentiments that may accompany love or, perhaps, be mistaken for love.

Love is not a passing whim or a fleeting impulse. Either love is or it is not. If it is, it always will be and if it is not, it never was. Love does not depend on the other. It depends solely on oneself.

Love plays an important role in maintaining the bond of heterosexual mating couples during the process of reproduction which, in the case of humans, takes about eighteen years from conception to maturity and autonomy. It plays a similar role with LGBT+ couples, some of whom adopt children or have children with the assistance of modern artificial reproductive techniques or through surrogacy.

Survival being the principal preoccupation of all animal species, including mankind, there is safety in numbers, which is a good incentive for forming a couple with someone you can trust. Love is not the only reason for forming a couple, it can be as much an alliance as anything else. By the same token, love can be shared just as well outside the couple as inside it and some couples even seem to fall in love with themselves, they look so much alike.

As for our kindred in the animal kingdom, given the current state of the art of science, we do not know for sure if they are capable of love as defined for humans but indications are they could well be, perhaps to a lesser extent as their reproduction cycle is much shorter than ours.

Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the United States, recounts the story of two dogs: a female, Tika and a male, Kobuk :

« Late in life, Tika developed a malignant tumour and had to have her leg amputated. She had trouble getting around and, as she was recovering from the surgery, Kobuk wouldn’t leave Tika’s side. Kobuk stopped shoving her aside or minding if she was allowed to get on the bed without him. About two weeks after Tika’s surgery, Kobuk woke their mistress in the middle of the night. He ran over to Tika. Their mistress got Tika up and took both dogs outside, but they just lay down on the grass. Tika was whining softly, and their mistress saw that Tika’s belly was badly swollen. Their mistress rushed her to the emergency animal clinic in Boulder, Colorado, where she had life-saving surgery.

If Kobuk hadn’t fetched their mistress, Tika almost certainly would have died. Tika recovered, and as her health improved after the amputation and operation, Kobuk became the bossy dog he’d always been, even as Tika walked around on three legs ».

If, in fact, animals are capable of love as defined for humans, the difference in environments and lifestyles between wild animals and domesticated animals necessarily influences and determines their mating habits. Some mating habits are opportunistic and sporadic. Others are stable and regular. Yet others are monogamous lifetime relationships.

On this score, the similarities between us humans and our kindred in the animal kingdom are about as evident as the evolutionary differences that have shaped us all over the past seven million years or so. Though much has changed, we still have a lot in common. We continue to share 98.8% of our genome with the chimpanzees, 75% with chickens, and even 60% with banana trees – not to mention, of course, the rest of our kindred in the animal kingdom as well as all the other life species.

The evolutionary transformation of mankind has been quite spectacular and extremely rapid on the cosmic scale. The American social anthropologist, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) indicates in his magnum opus “Ancient Society” (1877) that while we are unable to determine the exact timeline of our ethnic evolution, it could have taken about 60,000 years for us to emerge from our original state of savagery to a primitive state of barbarism and another 35,000 years to progress to a more advanced state of barbarism before attaining an initial degree of civilization about 5,000 years later.

Our mating habits during this initial period of civilization were probably not very different from what they had been prior to civilization. Dominant males in many animal species treat their females and offspring as property and behavioral patterns of large portions of human society were not much more evolved if at all. It was not until the late 19th century and the early 20th century that democratic countries phased out their so-called covert marriage laws or the equivalent so that wives and their children were no longer considered as chattel (property) and were granted the legal statute of persons with attendant rights.

In underdeveloped countries, women remain submitted to the authority of men, passing from father to husband and, ultimately, to son. Whereas in developed countries, the two World Wars were catalysts for women's emancipation (somebody had to do the job while the men were at war). But even that has not prevented gender discrimination to continue to be endemic worldwide. Full emancipation only concerns a privileged minority of women. The majority live in underdeveloped countries and, apart from a few notable exceptions, they largely remain subjugated.

In addition, women have always been and, to a large extent, still are the victims of male violence. Beating wives and children has long been tolerated by society.

It has been suggested that the characteristic of male aggressiveness, observed in all mammals (including mankind), reptiles, birds and other vertebrates, may be due to the testosterone hormone present in far greater quantities in the males of each species than in the females, though no conclusive evidence has been forthcoming, so far, in this regard.

Judging from the results of various studies that have been carried out on the causes of family violence it seems that the predominately male aggressors are not a homogenous group. They are diverse and varied. What they obviously do have in common is that they knowingly and willingly commit their ignoble, bestial acts that are constantly repeated over long periods often lasting several years and are therefore entirely responsible for them.

Domestic violence is a common feature of all countries and all cultures, even the most advanced. Thousands of women die each year, around the world, as a result of blows received from their husbands or domestic partners in an atmosphere of general indifference. In 1999, the United Nations declared 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in an effort to provoke public awareness of the problem.

The love cog has an uphill battle pushing the wheel of life on to the next cog to keep it turning. True love is a very scarce commodity in a commodity-scarce market. The declaration of the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, following the death of his 96-year-old wife when he, himself, was 99 years old, came as a breath of fresh air :

« Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished, She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me ».

Nothing about romance, passion, emotion, adoration, affection, or religion, in that eulogy – just the ultimate expression of the essence of love.

Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were married for 77 years. They were the longest-married presidential couple since George Washington was unanimously elected first president of the USA in 1789.

It is amazing that there is so much confusion and ignorance of such a natural instinct as love. The term has been used and abused to the point where successive generations have little or no idea of its true signification.

To throw some light on the subject, neuroscientists decided to research the brain functions that cause people to fall in love. Scientific research was carried out on a small rodent known as the prairie vole, found in grasslands in the central United States and Canada. The prairie vole was chosen for the clinical experiments because, like us humans, it is a mammal and also mates for life.

After several decades of research, the final results seemed to indicate that a molecule called oxytocin was the hormone responsible for forming social bonds in prairie voles, humans, and various other species. However, more recent research, the results of which were published in the American neuroscience journal, “Neuron” in 2023 found that prairie voles without oxytocin receptors also form pair bonds. So, we are back to square one on that score.

Well before science decided to undertake research on the brain functions that cause people to fall in love, a long list of philosophers and religious leaders have expounded their theories on the subject.

Plato and Aristotle considered there were many different types of love: erotic love, friendly love, familial love, universal love, long-lasting love and self-love. As for Socrates, Plato cites in extenso in his “Symposium” the long dialogue Socrates is reported to have had with the prophetess, Diotima, in which she declares that “love is of immortality”. She explains :

« For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.” “What then?” “The love of generation and of birth in beauty.” “Yes,” I said. “Yes, indeed,” she replied. “But why of generation?” “Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,” she replied: “and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.” »

Love is of immortality because “generation is a sort of eternity”. That rings as an echo of the rationale exposed here that morality, altruism, and love are cogs that keep the wheel of life turning.

Christianity teaches that love is an attribute of God. Whereas in Islam there are four types of love: love between a man and a woman, love among the members of society, love of the Prophet Muhammad, and love of Almighty Allah. “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might”, “love the stranger”, and “love your neighbor as yourself” are the edicts of Judaism.

In Hinduism love is devotional, or for a divine purpose. In Buddhism it is universal, for enlightenment, and for all humankind. Confucianism teaches that love is in actions and duty of a person as a part of his society. A core concept is “ren” which means benevolent love or compassion The focus is on duty, action, and attitude in a relationship rather than love itself.

No matter how it is conceptualized, people continue to fall in love and life goes on despite all the wars and destruction it has engendered. Life has accomplished its colonization of Earth but, in doing so, it has also generated a process of self-extinction that seems irreversible.

If life is to survive, it must find a new haven somewhere in this vast and constantly expanding universe in the not-too-distant future – on the cosmic scale, of course.

Rodney Crisp is an Australian author and freethinker who lives and writes in Paris near Montmartre, the favorite haunt of the 19th-century impressionist painters, between the modest lodgings in which Suzanne Valadon gave birth to her son, Maurice Utrillo, and the elegant bourgeois apartment of Paul Cézanne.

The Idiot Savant

Photographer - Tobi Brun

The Idiot Savant

Nineteen years of eating bats and salamanders. Nineteen years of painting walls. Nineteen years of humping the stalagmites when he was horny. Nineteen years of shitting in the corner by the rocks. Nineteen years.

Yes, nineteen years have gone.

The idiot savant is getting old these days. His head has balded, his feet have splayed, his spine has crooked and bent. At night he cackles. Wouldest thou see him there in the dark, thou would not even recognize him for a man, for a man he is no longer. A creature of the cave he
hath becometh, and with that, he grunts, he has finally done it. Today is the day the idiot savant enters the prime of his artistry. He wakes up and lights his torch with flint and stone and mashes up his berries between two rocks in its light. Then he takes the paste he’s made, rubbing it into his hands, and, going up to an empty wall, he starts painting. His subject, a horse, which came to him in a dream, prancing across a prairie he himself had never been.

“Grhm,” he grunts. The horse is goblin-like. It looks as if it shouldn’t prance. Rather it should romp.

“Grhm,” he grunts. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know what a horse looks like. He only knows what it doesn’t.

“Grhm.” He can’t tell what the painting even is.

“Grhm.”

“Grhm.”

“Grhm.”

He stops, standing back and looking at so far what he’s done.

Am I a brainless lizard? he thinks. A dilettante thug? Do I have any talent at all?

“Grhm,” he grunts once more, meaning no.

. . .

They found him there in the cave fifteen thousand years later, then just a shriveled mummy in the corner by a mound of fossilized shit. According to the lab where they tested him, died of malnutrition. Though, it was also suspected that, due to the phrenologically distorted crown of his skull, there lurked something else, an injury perhaps from his youth, although that they could not determine.

“He’s a savant,” one said, shrugging his shoulders and scratching his head with his micro-pipet.

“Sure.”

And so from then on in the eyes of modern science, he was a savant, the idiot savant. What was more a miracle than the mummy, however, was that, as for the art he made, it was still there, a bit grimy in parts but all still there. Archaeologists documented over two-thousand individual paintings, many of which on canvases that seemed to have been repeatedly scored. In one of their reports, they wrote that the paintings were the most lurid, the most sublime, the most visceral they’d ever seen, this coming from a part-time curator for the Uffizi and the Louvre and the Vatican. Another wrote that the paintings were so much what their colleague had said that, for weeks on end, lions and cave bears lurked in their dreams. They took special note of a horse in a field they said they but dimly recalled as though it was their earliest memory.

And so on and so forth until the hearsay had confounded, the reports had ballooned, and the money, the money, that which pervades all, too, had pervaded this. The company had planned to open the cave for tours to the public.

COME, they said. SEE THE SAVANT. FORGOTTEN DREAMS LIE WHERE HE RESTS.

By the time the archaeologists had searched the cave wall to wall once then twain and the company had opened the cave up, within no more than a single month, that month being February, everybody, everybody in the whole world seemed to have come. Ernest Hemingway,
Winston Churchill, Amelia Earhart, the Dalai Lama, to name a few. Picasso came once too, and when he emerged from the cave’s jaws as if straight from a woman’s womb, grabbing a hold of his wet tan fedora and wet tan suit, he turned to his wife and said, “Fifteen thousand years of
mankind and art.”

“Yes?” said his wife. “Yes, honey?”

He coughed. “And we’ve learned nothing.”

Condor Wrights -- Writer, student, cheeky little monkey with a stick. Lives in Nashville, TN and Oxford, GA. Reads in his spare time and lies around with Billy, his dog. Stokes the fire when he can.

A Solitary Affair

Photographer - Tobi Brun

A Solitary Affair

The man had been a famous writer in his day. He’d won the Booker and the PEN Faulkner and was a consistent bestselling author since his debut. His realm was the short story. They said he brought the form back from the grave. The boy was an aspiring young playwright. He had
boarded the man’s boat, again, seeking his advice.

"You didn’t say this writing business would be so lonely."

“Yes.”

“Yes? Well what do you mean?”

“Have you ever met a writer?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever met a socialized one?”

There was a pause.

“I suppose not. I see your point.”

They were sitting in a jacuzzi in Aruba on the man’s boat while a little Guatemalan girl
fanned them with a banana leaf. She had gecko eyes. They blinked from the side.

“Oh, Plata.” Plata was her name. It means silver in Spanish.

“Yes?” she said.

“Will you please stop it with that fan and get me my drink, please?”

“Sir, right away.” She folded in the banana leaf and set it by the corner.

“This feels nice, doesn’t it?” The man was leaning against the tub. His back was against the bubbler. “Ahhhh, isn’t it nice?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

His arms sank into the water. He scratched his stomach, twirling his belly button hair around his thumb. “So what makes you want to be a writer, kid? Is it the women? Is it the money? Is it the fame?”

“No. Not quite.”

“Well, you’re not a writer if you don’t want something.” The man sat up. “Cervezas, niña,” he said. “Pronto.”

“You see what I did there?”

Not long after the girl returned with the drinks. The boy stared into her eyes. She blinked, handing him his glass.

“Thank you,” said the boy.

“Yes. Thanks, darling,” said the man as lifted his glass to his nose then to his lips. “Mmm. Grhhmm. So kid, why do you want to be a writer? Tell me, what is it that truly brings you to such a craft?”

“It’s not that I want to write,” said the boy then took a sip. “I have to. I just have to. It’s in my blood.”

The man shook his head. His jowls jiggled along, “What? Margharitas in your blood, not spirit.”

“Margarita.”

“Yes. Rum is in mine.” To this the man finished his glass. “Welp, kid, you know, I have no real advice this time. Just chase it with a hatchet, and buy your boat in Aruba when you can afford one.”

The boy stood up. He waded through the hot bubbly water, thick as it was, crawling out of the tub. The girl handed him a towel.

“Thank you,” he said.

The towel soaked the water up.

It was evening. He looked back over at the man. The man was chewing ice from his drink, staring off into the sea and the sun. He sat alone.

“Sir, can I get that towel for you?”

The girl was behind the boy. Their eyes met. She blinked.

“No. No, I’m fine,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Really?”

“Really. I can get it myself.”

He threw the towel in the bin by the sliding glass door.

The boy’s room was shaped like the inside of a conk, cavernous, marbled walls, mother of pearl. It sounded like a conk too. When one put one’s ear to the wall, the sea could be heard. He was packing his bags when he heard the knock. It was the girl. She poked her head into the room.

“What is it?” he said, walking up.

“There is dinner. Hermit crab, plantains and wild rice. He is waiting for you. Would you care to join?”

“No,” said the boy. “I prefer not.”

She smiled. It was a sad smile. “That’s too bad.”

He could see the light of the sun shining through the porthole streaked across her face.

“Here. Take this,” he said.

He held out a dollar coin in the palm of his hand. She reached. For a moment their hands clasped as she did. The coin was still there when she drew her hand back.

“I can’t accept this,” she said.

He looked at the coin. It glimmered in the light.

“Right.” He set it against his chest, wiping the grease from it, then slipped it in his pocket. “I best get back to what I was doing
then.”

“What was it you were doing, if I may ask?”

He stood there for a moment, looking down. “I was writing,” he said. Then he turned
back up without looking at the girl.

“Well, it was nice to meet you,” she said.

The boat had shifted. The sun was gone.

“It was—I mean, it was nice to meet you as well.”

She smiled. “Good bye, sir.”

He nodded then shut the door.

Condor Wrights -- Writer, student, cheeky little monkey with a stick. Lives in Nashville, TN and Oxford, GA. Reads in his spare time and lies around with Billy, his dog. Stokes the fire when he can.

‘That’s Absurd!’ Contest Shortlist

Photographer - Tobi Brun

‘That’s Absurd’ Anthology Contest Shortlist

Winner - Tacenda, Jamie Good. 

Jamie Good is waiting for the fairies to come and abduct her back into the fairy world. Until then, she has not at all been a menace and has only ever been up to nice, everyday, perfectly legal things. 

Honorable Mention - Squirrel Husband, M.C. Schmidt.

M.C. Schmidt's recent short fiction has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, EVENT, Coolest American Stories 2024, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel, The Decadents (Library Tales Publishing, 2022). He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University.

Honorable Mention - The State v. Nathan Crane or: The Trial of Fill in the Blank, Nick Seifert.

Nick Seifert holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a fiction concentration from George Mason University and a Master of Arts in English from St. Cloud State University. Currently, Nick is a Master Instructor in the Department of English at Howard University where he teaches creative writing and composition. Additionally, he teaches a creative writing course at Georgetown University. Nick serves as the managing editor and faculty advisor for Howard University’s premiere literary arts journal, The Amistad. He has lived in Minneapolis, New York City, Seoul, South Korea and has traveled extensively. Nick’s fiction has appeared in various print and online publications. His latest work, “Using Experiential Learning to Elevate Black Voices: Analyzing Howard University’s Journal, The Amistad” was published in the book Teaching Humanities With Cultural Responsiveness at HBCUs and HSIs.

Honorable Mention - Ouroboros over a Pond of Water Lilies, Yuyi D. He.

Yuyi D. He is a Chinese-Canadian girl completing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Previously unpublished (and now published in this anthology), she is trying her best to get her short stories and poems printed, which are often philosophically inspired and psychologically rich. Her literary idol is Japan's Yukio Mishima. In her free time, she can be found staring into space and thinking about aesthetics.

The Next Scene, Adam Southers.

Adam Southers is a writer and educator from Tipp City, Ohio. He currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Ohio. After graduating with a degree in Language Arts Education from Miami University, Adam returned to Miami to receive a Master’s degree through the Ohio Writing Project. When Adam is not teaching or writing, he can be found coaching tennis or spending time with his partner, Kaitlin, and their dog, Lola. More of Adam’s work, including short fiction, writing advice, and non-fiction essays ranging from comedy to politics, can be found at medium.com/@adam.southers.

THE HOUSE TREE, Deryn Pittar.

Deryn Pittar writes Sci.fi., Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult, contemporary fiction, short and flash fiction. - and dabbles in poetry.She is published in all of these genres and won a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Young Adult in 2018 for ‘Lutapolii – White Dragon of the South. Her dystopian novel, ‘The Carbonite’s Daughter’, was a finalist in the Sir Julius Vogel Awards,2023. The sequel ‘Quake City’ will be released in August. Her latest novel, “On the Wind’, a contemporary rural escapade set in New Zealand is being released on the 31st March, on Amazon. This month she came second in a national contest run by The Cambridge Autumn Festival for her piece ‘Living is Hard’. Sign up for her newsletter here: https://iwriteuread.substack.com

THE LAUGHTER OF HYENAS AT BAY, Adam J Galanski-De León.

Adam J. Galanski-De León is the author of the novella, "The Magpie Funeral" (Querencia Press), and the forthcoming novel, "Szarotka" (American Buffalo Books). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Farside Review, Jimson Weed, Soundings East, the Running Wild Press Novella Anthology, and other journals. Adam lives in Chicago, IL with his wife and four cats. He maintains a website at http://www.adamjgalanskideleon.com

House Emeritus, Froshie Evans. 

Froshie is an author and poet living in Bristol, UK with her plethora of plants, two cats, and her partner. By day she works in marketing for a tech company, and when she isn’t behind a desk, she’s found either in the gym, running, or on a mountain trail. When it comes to writing, she trained originally as a screenwriter but has since found publishing and performance success with short stories and poetry. She is currently working on an anthology of short stories about motherhood and the climate crisis, and an ecocritical fantasy novel. She is also applying for her PhD in Literature.

Questionable Continuity: the Absurdist Buddy Cop Adventures of Sid and Royce, Joshua D Taylor.

Joshua D. Taylor is an author from Southeastern Pennsylvania who never stopped playing make-believe.  He enjoys gardening, comic books, ska-punk music, Disney World, and traveling with his wife and son.  Raised during the weirdness that was the late 20th century Josh’s eclectic interests produce eclectic works. He loves to mix-n-match things from different genres and story elements to achieve a madcap hodgepodge of the truly unexpected. His books can be found at amazon.com/author/joshuadtaylor and facebook.com/authorjoshuadtaylor. 

ZUGZWANG into ZWISCHENZUG, A.C. Perri. 

A.C. Perri lives in the southern hemisphere where she has been writing free-style poetry and pieces of fiction described as 'delightfully unconventional' and 'over-the-top' creative works for many years. She has won awards for her work in local writing competitions having had a few published in Indie magazines. Perri’s most endearing quality is her persistence. 

The Life We Left Behind, Alice Baburek. 

Alice Baburek is an avid reader, determined writer, and animal lover. She lives with her partner and four canine companions. Being retired she challenges herself to become an unforgettable emerging voice.

WORKDAY RITUAL, Dylan Webster. 

Dylan Webster lives and writes in the sweltering heat of Phoenix, AZ. He is the author of the poetry collection Dislocated (Quillkeepers Press, 2022), and his poetry and fiction have appeared, and are forthcoming in, anthologies by Quillkeepers Press and Neon Sunrise Publishing; as well as the journals Ghost City Review, Resurrection Mag, 5enses Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, Last Leaves, The Cannons Mouth by Cannon Poets Quarterly, Amethyst Review, and The Chamber Magazine. Dylan has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize as well as the Best of The Net.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING PUFFLINGS, Kelly Karsner-Clarke. 

A New England expat, Kelly Karsner-Clarke lives deep in the wilds of the Fort Lauderdale suburbs with her husband, children, and more pets than she wants the HOA to know about. While this part of her identity doesn’t factor into this story, she is a multi-disabled creator. A member of SCBWI and HWA, longtime Cybils Awards judge, and recipient of a 2020 SCBWI Rising Kite Honorable mention, she does something or other with cyber security when not writing or screaming at her kids to finish their homework.

Monolith, P. Fey. 

Perseverance Fey is a Dayton local queer artist and author. When they aren't working on their novel, you can find them playing ttrpgs and listening to audiobooks.

Weapon of the Heart, Luke Docherty. 

The Anthology is set for publication MAY 31ST 2024, Stay tuned for preorder release!