‘The Poet’

Daniel Acevedo is a Mexican artist who uses photography as a means of self-expression, creating images that communicate authentically and intentionally. Their work focuses on portraying people, blending meaningful conversations with subjects and translating their stories into visual narratives.

The Poet

Death infused the air, a foul whiff of decomposing weeds swathed in mystic sulfur.

Beside Angelo, millions of colors danced on the surface of a stream. As clear as quartz, a streamlet branched out and away from the light chatter and plunged into a muddy puddle no larger than two feet. In the little pool, a handful of rhubarb leaves fermented slowly, soaked like leftovers of overcooked spinach. Angelo knelt, and his mended blue jeans stretched when he rolled up his yellowed sleeves aged like parchments.

“Our path goes no further, Poet,” Orwinn said from his side of the stream. His voice cut through the bubbly chatter as he leaned his boot against a boulder, and his iron-hazel gaze locked on Angelo. For a second, a carnivorous smile gleamed into the aged pupils. And Angelo shivered. 

There wasn't much Orwinn needed to say anyway. Both knew what trailed behind them:  twenty-one years of stalemate.

Angelo cupped the cold water, splashed his sunburnt face and sweaty blond hair, then glanced at the doomed rhubarb. A tall pebble stood planted beside it. Without much of a second thought, he signed the grey stone and gazed down at the vast no-man's land covering the Yosemite Valley. A wild canopy of dark and brownish greens spotted with maroons and burgundy spread on all sides and beyond the horizon. After years of the grey concrete walls of Orwinn's mansion, looking at all this green had lifted the weight over Angelo's lungs.

As Angelo reached the other side of the stream, Orwinn turned and forged ahead on a trail going down hill and toward their base camp. Angelo pulled down the sides of his dark-brown, worn-out vest and followed through the dense ferns, sycamores, and pines. 

Despite being five-foot-three, and dressed in neat denim shirt and khaki slacks, Orwinn kept a steady pace at the rhythm of his boots crushing brown needles as if the snaps and cracks could spark life in the controller. No educated eye would have guessed under the trilby hat and the tanned drooping cheeks laid the most powerful man of all GOM. A power acquired with the swiftness of a shark and the cunning of a crow thirty years ago. A time when the old ways of living burned in the smoke of the little towns, the cozy villages, the hidden tribes and the scattered cabins. Though none of it in an obvious way came from Orwinn, his image too clean as his luxurious clothes to be tainted by any soot. To the eyes of the world, Orwinn was a builder, a helper, even a savior for some. But for those with feline sight, they looked through the twilight and watched, incredulous, his armies in disguise roaming streets and avenues for the sake of destruction and looting. His open palm served in the morning with bird seed to buy back the crumbled shops and invaded homes. The oldest con in town to push the scared into brand new gulags. 

Back then, Angelo had written a column on the dome cities for his high school journal. His first poems on the gigantic slabs of concrete poured over verdant valleys, then cut with the giant, grid-like, cheese slicer of an insane god. No grace in lines or curves, beauty annihilated in a gasping fright while bridges meshed each level and insured those above would not look at the bottom slums and prevent the Great Omega Management's goal: the ascension of the superhuman.

A tweet from a branch drew Angelo's attention to the forest pressed around him like a warm presence. Its life boasted in buzzes and little chirps, exuded from the ferns and the bushes, soared out from cracks between the yellowed, heated rocks, and descended from the rustling canopy of pines and sycamores. A gust nudged into Angelo's back as he ran downhill, the wind pushing him forward, always forward. But to what end?

Ahead, Orwinn stopped, his hand frozen on the bark of a pine tree. He stretched his neck outside the shade. Life around them stilled.

Up hill, two dozen slithering shadows swarmed down the patches of grass separating them from Angelo and Orwinn. 

“Come, come, dour rhubarb,” Angelo whispered. “Let me taste your sourness before all ends.” 

Hordes of boots trampled twigs and pine needles while sepulchral steel slashed through wild bushes and branches. And the pristine life of the forest scurried away in squeaks and shrills at the arrival of GOM's special police encircling Orwinn and Angelo.

Orwinn raised his chin high and scoffed at the barrels of the short riffles nudged in his sides. “Who dared drag this sloth of skunks on my land?” 

Angelo hid a smile at Orwinn's try of alliteration. A poetic trick the power hungry had marveled to control with Angelo's help.

Wrapped in nothing more than opaque plastic layers sewed together in a childish imitation of a trench-coat descending to the knees, the head of the CZ-phons swaggered through his men and stopped at arm's length as if to make sure his black military cap would stand above Orwinn's trilby hat. “I am CZ-phon 2031,” he said with a nasal voice. “Controller Orwinn 6, your transcendent level 7 has degraded. GOM grieves the loss of your transcendence. It is a shame a great human like you did not preserve his mind and debased himself to level 2. Therefore, by order of CTcom, all of your prerogatives have been revoked. You no longer manage this land… or anything.” He rubbed his gloved hands. 

Whoever had sent him had to fear Orwinn's power and had prepared a jugular death-lock. Sharks and wolves had no friends, and Angelo wondered if Orwinn's enemy cared for poetry. It would be his doom if it was so.

Hands over his hips, Orwinn let out the cavernous, bone-wrenching laugh that had made Angelo fear for his life over the years. 

A bang reverberated across the forest. Branches shook and a flock of yellow warblers and purple finches fleeted away in the blue sky. Orwinn's rabbit hat toppled over and flopped down amidst the dry needles and dead leaves. And a hundred and fifty pounds of grievous greed smashed down the browns, the greens, and the rabbit hat.

Angelo stared at the short man, master of GOM in the Americas, now sprawled like a fallen sycamore with a slug in the hollow of his trunk.

CZ-phon 2031 leaned over Orwinn's back. “All level 2 are prohibited from expressing sound in any form unless requested.” Satisfied, he turned a browless, icy glare onto Angelo. 

Bolt handles skidded along grim barrels and clanged into position, and Angelo braced for the fiery bayonets to pelt his flesh with a thousand bullets.

But the leader of the CZ-phons slipped his colt back inside his holster. He lifted his military cap with the white trident incrusted over the black shield of GOM, wiped the sweat from his bold, shiny scalp and screwed his cap back in place. Then his lips, of an exsanguinated purple, curved in a thin crooked line. “Well, well, well.” He clapped his hands as if warming up the black gloves to muffle the mouth of his future victim. “Controller Orwinn 6 had the insipid taste of breeding a level 0 in the Eight Castle. No surprise he dehumanized and lost his transcendence. He should have known parasites suck pure blood like his.”

“My name—”

CZ-phon 2031 raised his palm. “Names are for humans, not insignificant things like you.”

Angelo gathered his breath and boosted his hoarse voice. “So it assuages your guilt to know not who I am before you kill me. Though I will tell you nonetheless. I am, Angelo.” 

“Oh.” CZ-phon 2031 shivered, and his blank face animated with an insane pleasure flaring up to his ears. “Even your name is in total prohibition of GOM's regulation 207.” He signed his men. They grabbed Orwinn's body under the armpits and dragged him up the hill before they all disappeared. 

How fair the harvester of children and breeder of CZ-phons would be gunned down by one of his chipped hands. Angelo took a good look at the grim plastic stretched around the CZ-phon leader and shaping a tube-like being. All his features had been shaved and polished, then his skin plastered with whitish cream so that not one color could identify him. 

Alone among the red, tall pines, the flaky aspens and the ferns, CZ-phon 2031 sauntered and gazed as if he had developed a sudden interest for the aspen's trunks gathered at the bottom granite wall of El Capitan. Then his back to Angelo, CZ-Phon 2031 plucked at the grizzly peels shed by the trunks.

Minutes passed with no glance from the CZ-phon. Angelo's back stiffened as CZ-Phon 2031's black boots crushed leaves and dug in dirt. Angelo's sight roamed beyond the forest and over the rim of tooth-like mounds and peaks. From a quick look at the trail behind him, he knew the slope too steep for his weakened legs and the path too open to hide. A crowd of red pines flanked his left and a thick mesh of aspen fenced his right. Trapped. 

So alike Orwinn's games. Angelo's calves hardened at the memory of the agonizing pain that had wrenched his legs twenty years ago while Orwinn's sugar voice echoed back in his mind, “ah my poet, my heart swells with joy my rescuers found you alive. You should have known life outside the Eight Castle is quite unhealthy for a sensitive soul like you.”

Strapped on a table, Angelo had shivered in his jacket, wet with his blood and lacerated by the Doberman's jaws. He could not move and only felt the pricks of IVs in his arms and legs.

“Anything you need, just ask,” Orwinn said as he patted Angelo's crimson shoulder. “And don't worry, you'll be fine from now on. My doctors will make sure your naive runs cannot hurt you again.” 

And they had. Angelo's legs had never run after his second escape. Never.

Though Orwinn was dead, Angelo still felt a net of iron woven around his heart. He glared at the only way open to him. Forward, and through the CZ-phon and his men surely hidden behind the hill with their rifles ready for a little exercise. Angelo eyed the raven coat. Another snare but Angelo was no rabbit, and he'd rather die on his feet, smiling at the sun than facing dirt, a bullet in his back. 

“I will not run,” Angelo said, and the sound of his firm voice tranquilized the light tremors of his arms. 

CZ-phon 2031 turned a glassy look as though it was the tip of a sharp blade and he aimed it right under Angelo's chin. 

Relief washed over Angelo as he realized the CZ-phon did not plan on taking him alive. Angelo had feared another two decades of torturous verbiage to safeguard his limbs and throat while his restless soul would witness the fall of reason.

“Can't expect much thinking from a pet,” CZ-phon 2031 said. “At least the last one had the instinct to run.” He smiled. “Like a mouse, he scurried and squeaked for his life, his face soaked by the disgusting water that poured out of his orbits, pathetic.” His hand nestled over the butt of his colt.

“It doesn't mean I'm willing to die.”

CZ-phon 2031 scoffed. “Lower than an animal, you are to be extinct. Our sages knew your death was guaranteed at birth.”

“It is for all of us.”

The waxy mold covering CZ-phon 2031’s forehead cracked in thin, horizontal lines. “Not for a transcendent like me.” He slid his thumb along his transparent belt.

“Transcendent, the new Heaven sold to the young. An unattainable goal with GOM's score cards loaded with parasitic crutches sucking on your soul to hinder your real legs. Even Orwinn had realized it to be an illusion.” 

CZ-phon 2031 slapped the air with the back of his hand as if Angelo's words were dust to be scattered. “What was Controller Orwinn 6 doing this far from the Eight Castle and for over two weeks?”

“Your edgy fingers should have asked him. Now none of us will know. And if you hope I—” Angelo's eyes widened. “Torturing me for words is useless.”

“Low life like you have never held much time in my hands.”

“I am one with the word, why would I refrain it to leave my lips?”

CZ-phon 2031 grimaced. A frequent contortion Angelo had seen on the young generation thrust back into their entrenched beliefs while confronted with contrasting ideas. And Angelo wondered how long this one could listen before his words became actions and he'd taste the steel of his gun. 

“Then talk little thing who believes to be alive. Let's hear the guttural insanity coming out of that wheezing pipe.”

Light wind lifted Angelo's ragged shirt. He shuddered as he massaged the granular scar descending his throat. A souvenir of Orwinn's competition who had silenced three dozen bodyguards, Orwinn's second wife and son, and left Angelo with a muffled, scratchy voice. 

“I cannot tell you of Orwinn's intentions, for I know none of them.” Angelo looked at the range of lofty peaks and their soft icing melting like vanilla scoops. Beyond the fence of white aspens, the rocky shoulder of El Capitan looked over Angelo. 

Angelo missed the old world with its caramelized waffles at breakfast, the laughter of friends clinking their glasses of Chardonnay and downing roasted sausages at the foot of Jamie’s apple tree, and he missed even more the strolls along the Shenandoah River in feminine company, their golden hair floating in lavender whiffs. Angelo breathed in the smoky breeze of the red pines as if to find strength in the silent presence. “It is said, wherever we stand, benevolent eyes are always upon us.” 

From the crown of a sycamore, a squirrel burst out and jumped into the aspens below. The squeaking russet fur landed fast, swinging with the soft cracks of the aspen. Then, its bushy tail waved at Angelo, and before CZ-phon 2031 noticed anything, the squirrel had bounced from branch to branch and dived into a curtain of leaves. Angelo nodded in a silent thank you to the forest. “This immense valley used to be called Yosemite. A wilderness belonging to all and not one man.”

“Your words have no meaning.” CZ-phon 2031 paced across the rocks and leaves. “I have not found the controller's armored cars. Nor his secured mobile home. Where are his bodyguards? His snipers? And his long swords?” 

“We hiked alone. Took our own bedrolls and made a campfire, which I assumed you found days ago.” Near the fire Orwinn's eyes had changed into something Angelo had never thought possible: a kind of weariness blended with resignation. Had Orwinn expected all this?

“We found bones in the ashes. Why?”

“We cooked.” Angelo smiled at CZ-phon 2031's shocked expression. “Orwinn caught a pair of brush rabbits along the trail. We roasted them.” Angelo's first authentic meal in twenty-one years of captivity.

“You ate… of an animal?” CZ-phon 2031's eyes goggled out. “It's your fault! You perverted Controller Orwinn 6. You infected him, and led him to scavenge and downgrade himself.”

“Before the protein black goo cut in jellied strips you call food, we, humans, used to eat some animals… and herbs, and fruits, and greens too.”

“Barbaric! You are distracting me with words as you did with the controller, but I know he hid here to prepare his coup against the other level 7s.”

“Doesn't an old wolf recognize when its young pack is ready to put him to death? No room for lambs at the top. It is the kingdom of canines. Is it not why you came here, sent by ferocious fangs?”

“I tracked him on my own. His lavish behavior unveiled my suspicions. But why bring his pet with him?”

Angelo tightened his fists. “Orwinn was a predator for only goal; to control us all. Poetry intrigued him as he could not master it through sheer will nor shackle its ankles to obey him. You see, poetry flows from the heart, it jumps over the windowsill, runs through sunny meadows and vast fields of goldenrods and buttercups, and when its gaze falls, it's to caress the chrome yellow of a soft petal, in awe of its mesmerizing glow.” 

The wind whistled through a cracked trunk, and CZ-phon 2031 looked over his shoulder, the wilderness unfriendly for a citizen raised in a cluttered city capped by an opaque dome.

“As Orwinn could not control the word, he captured its voice. So he did with me as those who pretend to be friends with their parrot kept in a golden cage. An advantage, he must have thought: words.” Angelo set his hands on his hips to relieve the growing strain over the muscles of his back. “Orwinn enjoyed creating invisible dungeons around people. GOM's idea grew out of him. A self-imposed caste system glorifying a new kind of kings with the delusion that all can ascend to their own throne while each step binds subtle rings around their wrists.”

“So you confess your crimes: harming the controller's mind with words. Writing is worthy of instantaneous death.” CZ-phon 2031 drew his colt. “Criminals like you escape our dome cities, prey on our high minds and manipulate them into their disgrace with what you call art.” 

“I thought you wanted to hear what happened.” 

CZ-phon 2031 pursed his lips and signed Angelo to continue. 

“Orwinn had his evilness of course, but he developed a taste for poetry and this is the taste of a soul, not of a programmed mind. It did not make him a good man, yet it was enough to melt a bit of the ice trapping his heart.” 

Four feet from him, Angelo noticed a flat and grey boulder forming the neck, shoulders and back of a man extracting himself from the ground. Angelo's knees popped as he crouched and brushed away a couple of dry leaves from the sun-baked granite. Long leafy blades of grass had taken roots near the neck. He caressed them and glanced at CZ-phon 2031. “A poem at every campfire. That's what Orwinn wanted. Every morning he'd toss me a topic: the howling of crowds, radicalism growing against GOM's policies, the songs rising from the slums, or the glory of a revelation, all these and more. It surprised me at first he wanted to hear all this.” Angelo sighed and set his arm atop of his thigh. Angelo had perfused each poem with his soul in a secret wish to mellow the terrible man and set this world in a new direction. Childish hopes picked up from the twinkling lights of Orwinn's eyes. Angelo looked straight at CZ-phon 2031. Another one with an atrophied heart, starved of real food and with a cold soul. What words would kindle him to change? He looked twenty years younger than Orwinn when his men had captured Angelo in his cabin in West Clear Creek, south of Sedona.

CZ-phon 2031 pointed his gun at Angelo's nose, and the wind brought the smell of grease and heated hematite. 

Why were those things that ended life always black? As if to advertise the color of the end. But Angelo knew the end had all the colors and even more, the secret invisible ones the eye could not see awake, the colors of ecstasy and joy that knock you from within and fill you up like a swig of Lagavulin on your tongue, leaving you warm and cozy.

“Your meaningless work will cease today,” CZ-phon 2031 said. 

“Often, what we perceive as the end is only the beginning.” Angelo stood up, and CZ-phon 2031's Colt followed him. “Narrow minds see these trees planted like stiff poles. I see sycamores enamored of the earth, wild pines twirling up and tuning to the blue sky, and white aspens lifting the wind's burden with their silky mesh. And as I watch, I hear the piano allegro of the waterfall, its baritones gushing out of granite cracks while its muse fleets down through mossy lumps and its toes stretch out in the valley of life. And as I hear, I feel the quivering pulse of the world as if it were mine, and when it trembles, I rage at the stifled cries of its people, stocked in buried shacks. All of this CZ-phon 2031 is all but the end, and I know it with a certainty that warms my soul just as I know your disembodied heart.”

“You know nothing, level 0.”

“To the contrary, I was there thirty years ago when the world collapsed in a deluge of nonsense and caged every mind and heart. I heard the justifications to confine us in cities to save the wilderness. I watched the debates of those so-called experts who sold us the protein goo for good health, and how they convince everyone a child would be better raised by the state. And I have seen and cried the day they shaved your black and blond heads, scrapped all of your brows and made you all the same in this insane competition for your very life in a rush to win an illusion.” Angelo looked at CZ-phon 2031. His pale face had lost its complexion. “Tell me CZ-phon 2031, in the pitch black hole they had you buried in with your playmate, you had but one way to survive. How then did your friend call you when your cold blade bit into his throat?”

CZ-phon 2031 squinted in horror, and his arm fell by his side.

“Like all of you made CZ-phon, you stayed two days breathing and choking on dirt with your dead friend limp by your side. The tomb of two eight year olds digging with their nails for their liberation.”

“I was freed… reborn.”

“No. You died with your friend.”

CZ-phon 2031 scoffed. “Your words will not turn me. I am more than human. I am a transcendent level 5 if your debilitated mind can fathom its meaning. I am beyond human and need no past to become. And from the realm I have ascended to, toad things like you are clearly identified.”

Angelo's gaze roamed over the ferns and bushes nestled around the pines. Granite rocks laid scattered all around and atop the burned layer of needles like ossified remains of crusty cakes. “Pastel,” Angelo said, surprising himself at this confession, “pastel has always been my style.”

“Past—”

 The warmth of a smile rose to Angelo's cheeks. “Pastel, the colors of angels when they scoop you out of your misery with might and gentleness. Did you know?”

“Barbaric beliefs retrograding to homo-sapiens transcendent beings like me. This is why your species should never be born, eradicated by our doctors.”

“Or maybe it is especially for that reason.”

“Reason died with Nietzsche and I stomped on it.” 

A flow of words rushed to Angelo's lips despite himself. “We all have a purpose. I have not learned mine yet… I had hoped—”

“You have no purpose.” CZ-phon 2031 pushed his Colt into Angelo's sternum, and his egg-like face cracked into a sneer. The glee of power shone in the black eyes. He could end Angelo's life right here and no one would care to remember him. But instead CZ-phon 2031 looked behind his shoulder, then headed back under the shade of pines where Orwinn had died minutes ago. His index ran through the groove of a red bark, then stopped. “Ah, this hole should be my slug nestled in its cradle.” He crouched, picked up Orwinn's trilby hat and tossed it to Angelo. 

The blood-stained hat slapped against Angelo's ribs as he caught it. 

“Put it on, pet. And come close, so I won't lose my slug in a worthy life.” He flashed an insane grin and waved his gun as if he was calling a child. “Come close, little thing. Let me help bring that dead air out of your lungs and bring your life to its real purpose.”

“I'd rather die under this marine blue sky than in the shadow for the illusion of a few more seconds.”

“Ah, the cackling song of a parasite's last words. Dying is the only good you can bring to this planet.” His glassy eyes scanned Angelo from the top of his ruffled blond hair to his raddled boots. “Ragged and shabby, your species breathes out poison and sucks in precious oxygen that could serve our trees.”

“Trees use carbon dioxide, only mammals and flowers—”

“Heresy. So why I will not take your worthless body to our cities to hang it like Controller Orwinn 6. He, is worthy of exposition to our incubator's stares so they can learn the risk of degrading their minds. Though they've never seen a level 0, and it could make their education…” his voice lowered, and his sight fell on Angelo’s bony forearms, “I worry your beaten body would split apart at the first hit of their sticks.” 

“Inc—children you mean.”

“Your way of naming all things is the mark of your shallow mind.”

“Names give meaning to life. Though imperfect it may be, it expounds on the essence of what we observe.” Angelo locked eyes with CZ-phon 2031. “What was the name of your essence made-up-soldier? The roots they took from you?”

CZ-phon 2031 shrugged. “So you name things and then what? You do not improve nor could ascend to transcendence. You're worthless.”

“Transcendence used to mean something high and beautiful, close to ecstasy. An ability. A quality to go beyond one's possibility. Today it's wrapped in rubber and trash like all things made in GOM. You cannot develop by… by… upgrading through credits acquired in society. Development comes from within. It is a fine tuning provided in invisible ways for which rewards are felt through the entirety of who you are. Not because you—”

“Enough!” CZ-phon 2031 strode to Angelo, snatched his collar and aimed his Colt at Angelo's chin.

But Angelo's shirt yielded in a long tear, surprising CZ-phon 2031 and freeing Angelo, who, in a swift move, shoved the colt down and followed with a punch on the killer's right cheek.

“Or what?” Angelo glared at CZ-Phon 2031 wiping the blood from his broken lip. Twenty-one years he had waited for this, withholding his punches at the sick taunts of Orwinn's guards, but today was his last. “You cannot kill the word in me. It is as precious as life and the lost path to home.”

Like a bolting cat, CZ-phon 2031 landed back on his boots and whacked the barrel of his colt into Angelo's temple. “Parasite!”

The blow thrust Angelo down to the shaded ground while cold metal dug into his ear and pinned his cheek into a nest of dried needles. It was over.

But frantic gasps erupted above Angelo, and CZ-phon 2031 took into a wild dance like a madman, beating his Colt against his knee and screaming. “Work, idiot thing!”

It took a minute for Angelo to understand why he was still alive. “You killed Orwinn. You must have activated a safeguard in your implant.” Orwinn's insurance to control his legion's hands, but why had it not worked to save Orwinn's life?

“What?”

 Angelo wiped the needles off his jeans and got up. “You think CTcom will allow you to progress now that you killed its creator? They'll kill you or shove you out of the way. There's no place for a drunk dog among the warring wolves.”

“If the right can't shoot, the left will.” CZ-phon 2031 seized the grip of his gun with both hands and pointed the barrel between Angelo's eyes.

The fore sight of the gun dug into Angelo's forehead. He inhaled the forest undergrowth and waited for the loaded chambers to rotate.

Beeps echoed from the CZ-phon's wrist watch. “CZ-phon 2031,” a woman said, “you have been reassigned. You are expected at CTcom as soon as you rejoin Dome 21. Please stand by for further instructions.” 

CZ-phon 2031 paled and his jawbone protruded from his vitreous skin. “Reassigned? What—how? No, I'm a transcendent.” He glared at the little screen and pressed the side of his colt against his forehead. “To CTcom Subliminal Learning Center. It can't—I'm a level 5. I can't be typing on a keyboard, in a cubicle, like a dumb level 3?”

A rushed reassignment even for the networked cities. The Subliminal Learning Center embedded GOM's propaganda through invisible cues in posters on buildings and bridges, but also inside lyrics, musics, and videos, then broadcast them all over the world to tranquilize and subdue the mind of their citizens. 

“CZ-phon 2031, take position to receive improvements,” the woman said.

CZ-phon 2031 dropped to his knees and stared at the watch as if sedated by her tone. 

The watch would feed the CZ-phon's malleable mind, but with what? Angelo glanced behind him. If he could go up the slope in a short sprint, then take a left, swerve to the grove and across the waterfall, Angelo would erase his tracks in the clear stream. With the CZ-phon in a trance-like state, Angelo had a chance. A thin chance of a couple of minutes to disappear and be free. His heart bounced in his chest at the perspective of recovering freedom after all these years. Angelo turned to the rocky trail, and the earth groaned under his boots.

“Standby for omega upgrade,” the woman said.

Angelo froze. 

Omega upgrade. It sounded like a crisis code right out of Orwinn's mouth. Was he behind this? A sneaky revenge out of his tomb? If so, then Orwinn must have thought his enemies had infiltrated CTcom to use a killer this way. Though easy to program, CZ-phons knew only one master: death. But if the old wolf thought his kingdom infiltrated and wanted to strike back, or… Angelo's lips tightened as a chill made its way up to his neck, and rule 109 resounded in his mind, “Level 2 shall not talk without express permission. No matter the urgency. Any infringement will equal to immediate retrogression to level 0.” And death. Orwinn could not have forgotten his own rule. 

Cold wind seeped through Angelo's torn shirt, and the hair on his arms rose like a thin aura. Angelo brought the trilby hat to his nose and smelled the rabbit hair. No iron smell aside from the sting of tin above the musk and a light touch of eucalyptus oil—Orwinn's expensive aftershave. Yet, among the blend laid the distinct scent of the burned sweetness of canned tomatoes. Angelo looked at the parallel lines carved in the pine needles. The planner, the organizer had said it, the end of their common path. Angelo shivered at the horrific realization of his role in the evil scheme. Upgrade of commands… word commands. Poetry had a way to roll unhindered in the mind and settle quietly to blossom later. But what if it was cast to enchant crowds, to possess minds, or even to subvert the other level 7s? A future butchery of innocents used as drones in Orwinn's war. And Angelo had thought the man had changed. He had used him. He quenched the nausea rising to his lips. Orwinn must have realized Angelo had never exposed the full might of his poetry, and after two decades Orwinn had tricked the voice and harvested its words to build his abhorrent, penultimate world. After so many years of the bleak and barren walls of the Eight Castle, the dense brown forest and its sense of peace had lulled Angelo into giving too much power to his verses, and he recalled now the glow of Orwinn's watch beside the campfire, recording his every word.

Angelo looked at CZ-phon 2031 on his knees, standing by to gobble Orwinn's orders and vomit them back at the Subliminal Learning Center. A bewitching blue dabbed CZ-phon 2031's face, preparing his mind to soak in any word heard or read. Angelo had to break the spell, find a way to stop it all. And if Orwinn wanted the word embedded in minds, Angelo had no lack of it, and would give it freely to the world.

Angelo knelt beside CZ-phon 2031, squeezed the plasticized shoulder and spoke to the deformed ear, “CTcom betrayed you. Retrograded you. You're like a goat tied to a pole waiting to eat at the hands of your master. A simple level 0.”

A wispy blue coated CZ-phon 2031's wide eyes. 

“Upgrade started,” the woman said.

Angelo snatched the black cap and thrust it into a shrub, exposing the ashen naked skull to the sun. “Orwinn is a monster, and he's using you. His armies kidnapped children and left a torrent of tears behind their heels. You—you were one of them. They seized you from your parent's arms, kicking and screaming, then buried you and killed your heart!” 

CZ-phon 2031 blinked, and his dilated pupils morphed into a silent black. He pulled himself up, his right arm with his colt hung limp by his thigh as he stumbled toward Angelo. “You… perverted the controller… distracted me. By rule 703, levels 0 are not allowed to act, talk, or breathe.” His left hand grasped the right, and he raised his colt to Angelo's forehead. 

But CZ-phon 2031's fingers resisted on the trigger as Angelo had predicted. Orwinn needed Angelo's body with his head intact as a testimony of Orwinn's death. Meanwhile, hidden in his lair, the evil brain would launch his sneaky attacks of the three levels 7 with his infiltrated commands, and armies of citizens would rise and subvert the other kingdoms in Orwinn's name.

“Upgrade in progress,” the woman's voice said from the black watch.

Angelo walked back toward the sunlit layer of brown needles and he prayed for his words to keep the CZ-Phon's gaze away from the watch and the loaded colt only on Angelo's head. “You had a name before they stole everything from you. A human name, given by your father and mother. What was it?”

The colt trembled. 

“They have programmed you. Hypnotized you to believe in a fantasy, and now GOM will forget all about you. Bury you again, but this time no one will come to dig you out.”

“Shut up! Your words are poison!”

The barrel pushed deep through Angelo's left cheek. “Tell me CZ-phon, your friend was another boy. He looked very much like you. In fact, they paired you as twins.” Angelo paused and watched the effect of his words deforming the mask of wax. “Live human, for as long as your heart beats there is no defeat.” 

CZ-phon 2031 pressed his hands over his ears. Sweat poured out, and a web of cracks split the compact resin covering his face, then his cheeks sagged like dead lumps while dark sunken orbits emerged from underneath the paraffin. 

“Transform one and you transform all.” Angelo's voice rustled through the shivering branches of aspens as the word rolled out of his tongue, alive. “Name a man and you shall raise his soul.”

CZ-phon 2031's jaws whitened. 

“Rise, Man. Let me hear thy divine name.”

The CZ-phon's black oily eyes soared out of their sockets. His nose flared, and he clenched his teeth. “No, more, words!” He jabbed his colt under Angelo's ribs.

The shot rang like a wild scream in a mad flight through the branches, and El Capitan swung in the blue sky.  

Angelo stared down at his hands. He had lost the rabbit hat; the pelt hunkered down between the leaves. His thumb rubbed a glistening ruby between his fingers. It glittered as if filled with golden flakes, and the taste of iron shackled his mouth. 

Sharp rocks bit into Angelo's knees. Heat rushed away from his legs and chest, and sheltered into his hands. And he crawled: his fingers animated of a new life dug into dry needles, clutched at rocks and clumps of grass, and seized, trembling, the edge of the flat boulder. Angelo collapsed on top of the grey, rocky back, and a flow of words flitted from his index and onto the stone in a haze of slippery curves and lines until ruby sealed granite. 

Boots crushed fallen leaves, and a twig snapped somewhere. Angelo had the vague impression of the sounds coming from another dimension, one cold and obscure while light showered him in soft petals of yellows, greens, and blues. He forced his mouth open and swallowed rust clogging his throat. 

Still in a trance, CZ-phon 2031 appeared above Angelo, and his goggled eyes moved as if reading the stone while his lips uttered at a staccato pace:

Guard your mind

for you are

one eon

Angelo

CZ-phon 2031 blinked, and round cold steel sifted through Angelo's hair as if to find its rightful place, then it descended and stopped on Angelo's nape. 

Somehow, the metal cooled the fever inside of him. For twenty-one years Angelo had waited for Orwinn's guards to dispose of him. The wind lifted a row of leafy grass while the soft blades stroked his cheek. 

A wail infused the air, the faint whisper of a child's innocence choked with neolithic tears. “Gui,” it said.

“Gui, I forgive you.” Millions of warm colors descended upon Angelo's forehead, and as his eyes shut, a woman murmured to his ear. “Upgrade successful. Ascension completed.”

Atara Karan has settled into the cozy, evergreen mountains of France where she teaches English to local communities. When she is not preparing her fantasy book series, she dives into reading about the healing powers of plants and Earth ancient mysteries.

‘PHOTOSYNTHESIS’

Michael Christopher Contreras is a chicano fine art photographer & award-winning filmmaker from the Inland Empire, Ca. Michael's love for photography is shared through his visual expression of the world around him. With a keen eye to capture unique photos, Michael specializes in abstract, landscape, b&w, and candid photography. The majority of photos taken by Michael are from his travels around the united states while working as a freelancer. Contreras has a fascination with using film and natural lighting for his subjects.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Everyone in the crowd was practically on the edge of their seats as Adam Williams paced on the stage, spewing his self proclaimed wisdom. A baby blue turtleneck wrapped perfectly tailored to his body and a Rolex was snug on his wrist. The frail Black man smiled and absorbed the validation from the engaging crowd. In every event, no matter how long or how little he spoke for, he made sure to spark, hurt, or baffle his audience's brains.

Today he twisted the crowd’s brains.

“Although we’ve built this artificial world around us, as humans we are a form of pure nature.” he stated. “Our bodies know how to create, repair, and replace their own parts. Even without knowledge of how it does so. How many of you can come up here and tell me the exact process that heals your finger when you get a papercut? Sprain your ankle? Break your shoulder?”

A few apprehensive hands raised halfway up into the air.

“Yet despite this, each cell does precisely what it needs when deemed necessary. Could you imagine if our brains had to understand how a broken bone heals before it could start healing? It would be barbaric and gruesome, and some of you would be in here today with twenty-year old complex fractures.”

The crowd let out a collective laugh.

“We are the very essence of nature. We are one with this earth and we are this earth, down to even the soil. The only difference is we’ve built a barrier between us and nature. We’ve built on top of our natural surroundings. You know what organism doesn’t do that? Plants. They get everything they need from their environment, the same environment that they originated from.”

He paused to let the crowd catch up.

“Humans are the only species on earth that define their environment by things composed artificially—made by ourselves. If you ask someone about their living environment, they’ll mention their man-made house, and man-made possessions in said house, and their man-made accomplishments. However, if you ask someone what a plant’s living environment is,” he paused dramatically, “they’ll mention the nutrient-rich soil, or the mineral filled flowing water, the pigment of the chlorophyll. They’ll bring up the crisp oxygen, they’ll describe the radiant sun. And we have strayed from that.”

There were shocked gasps from the crowd.

“We used to get everything we needed from the ground around us. And yes, I know we invented numerous tools and improved and improved and improved for ages to reach where we are. But look at what it’s done. It’s taken us so far from what we used to be. And, let’s be honest, don’t you think about how complicated things are made to be most of the time?”

Agreeing nods went around.

“But now, what if I told you there was a way to get back to our roots? No more killing two birds with one and some, let’s try to feed two birds with one loaf.” He continued.

There were confused murmurs from the crowd.

Adam Williams took their confusion as interest, and their interest as praise. He waited for everyone to pause from their bewilderment and refocus back on him. He lifted his hand and the room fell silent. He pointed at a screen behind him, and a picture appeared.

“Ooh’s” and “ahh’s” filled the crowd.

“I have created a way.” He boasted. “A way to be one with the earth once again. A way to reconnect to our roots.”

The lights dimmed and the crowd watched with eyes wide and jaws collectively on the floor. A seductive ad faded in. A tall light-skinned male and a wavy-haired brunette walked onto screen in beach attire. The ad then cut to a scene where the two models were in slow-motion and exiting the pool, splashing water in an alluring way. It cut once again to the models laying on the individual chairs with edited, visible steam coming out their bodies. The screen darkened to black, casting the room into a full shadow. Then a six-letter word in all caps faded in.

ROOTED

The lights faded in and Adam Williams was impatient.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” He proclaimed loudly. “Rooted! The world’s newest technological advancement, providing human photosynthesis!”

Gasps mixed with the “ooh’s”, the “ahh’s”, and the confusion.

“With a one-time operation in the base of the medulla, any human will now have the ability to harvest and sustain life purely on sunlight. Eliminating the need for the consumption of any type of food while completely emitting the risk of dermal cancers.”

The over-stimulated crowd began to murmur amongst themselves once again. He didn’t wait for them to quiet down before speaking again.

“My staff hasn’t eaten in many, many months. And I, myself, haven’t touched food in sixty-five months.”

He smiled at the fact that his words had made the room so silent. He felt as though he could hear a sigh even from someone in the last row. “I have been filming my weekly, daily, hourly moments to document the progress of the biggest life-changing technology in human history. It contains the results of many tests and an analysis of my vitals at the end of each day and the beginning of every new morning. It shows us the key to our future.”

He had captured the mind and spirit of every person in the room.

“Now, although you will no longer have to eat after the operation, I highly suggest you continue with your normal consuming patterns and slowly decrease after three months. That’s something me and my team had figured out the hard way.”

He smiled at his own quip as he did a quick victory count to see how many minds he had rattled.

The crowd had questions they wanted answered.

“This chip has the potential to save the world. Here lies the power to eradicate world hunger, anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, joint pain, need I go on?” He said. “In times like these, this country can use some progression. The world can use a lot of progression. Progress with me!”

The crowd stood to their feet and erupted in applause.

Adam Williams let the crowd cheer.

The ringing had not stopped in either of Adam Williams’ phones the whole ride back to his home.

Publishers, politicians, and every top media station wanted to get in contact with him immediately. A snippet of his presentation had been posted on social media and had already gone viral, making him the number one trending topic in thirty-seven states.

The next name that rang on his work phone was a name he admired.

He picked it up.

“Jeremiah! How are you?” He said with a wide smile.

“Never—and I don’t use that word lightly—have I felt better in my fifty-two years of living.” Jeremiah said on the other end. “How about yourself? I heard your premier went ‘greater than great’—and yes, I’m quoting that.”

“It would be easier for me to tell you a list of people that haven’t called me today. To be honest, I want to turn off both of my phones, but I just love the sound of success.” Jeremiah laughed wholeheartedly.

“Oh, and before I forget, I heard someone hit sixty months going full-photosynthesis today.” Adam Williams mentioned. “Congratulations brother. I’m proud of you, and I’m still very appreciative of your commitment to stand by my side the whole way through this tedious process. You’ve boosted me to the pinnacle of mankind through your support and I know I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

“Have you been drinking?” Jeremiah said with a laugh. “Don’t get all sentimental and cry-baby with me. You built this! All I did was stand there and believe in you. You always told me that one day you would create something. What kind of person would I be to try to tear that dream away from you?”

“Just take the appreciation.” Adam Williams said with a smile.

“I’ve been hearing your other phone ringing throughout this whole phone call. You really weren’t lying.” Jeremiah chuckled.

Adam Williams grabbed his personal phone and immediately dropped it with a groan.

“Oh, why’d you grumble like that? Who was calling you?” Jeremiah asked.

“Mia.”

“The crazy but gorgeous one? I couldn’t forget her if I tried.” He joked.

“You know, I don’t I told you but she sent another request to remove her chip.”

“She started calling you about the procedure?”

“Every day, around noon. This is the latest she’s reached out.”

“Just answer. What’s the worst she can do over the phone? Probably talk your ear off, but that’s it. And you don’t even have to listen, just make confirming sounds of you agreeing with whatever she’s saying every two or three sentences. That’s what I’ve been doing to my wife for the last ten years.”

Jeremiah cackled, admiring his own humor.

“I’ll talk to her later.” Adam Williams replied. “I’m already on the phone.”

“Well, you’re not anymore. Just talk to her.” Jeremiah said and hung up before Adam Williams could reply.

He put his work phone down and stared at his personal phone until it stopped vibrating. And after two seconds of silence, a new name appeared, and the vibrating continued. He glanced back to his work phone and saw Mia’s name again.

He slid his finger across the screen and put the phone up to his ear.

“Miss Mia, I—”

“Why have you been avoiding me?” She interjected. “I’ve been nothing but calm each time I’ve approached you. But now you’ve made yourself scarce when I already told you that you need you to help me.”

“Miss Mia.” Adam Williams repeated. “What happens when you uproot a plant? When you strip it of its source of nutrients? What happens to that plant?”

She took a composing breath before answering.

“It dies—”

“So why would you try to uproot yourself?”

“You’re not listening. I’m already dying.” She whispered.

Adam Williams was silent.

“I’m pregnant and it’s twins. And there isn’t enough sunlight I can intake in a day to provide for me and the two growing babies in me. Please.”

“How often do you actually ea—”

“No, no!” She screamed. “I completely stopped eating months before even getting pregnant and haven’t eaten since. In fact, that’s how I found out I was pregnant with twins. I was feeling fatigued, after not feeling it in the least bit for months. So, I went to my doctor to see if my body was beginning to reject the chip. But instead, an additional two heartbeats were found. And those two need sunlight too, in addition to how much I need. I was practically in the sun all day prior to this, but with how quick night comes, I’ve been extra tired, and just weak. I don’t want to feel like this.”

Adam Williams heard as she moved the phone away from her face to sniffle back her snot and tears.

“You know, I went back to my doctor earlier today.” she continued. “He looked me in the eyes and told me that both of my babies are beginning to show signs of malnutrition. I can’t take in enough sunlight in the time that the sun is out. And everything I try to consume comes right back up and makes my body ache for hours. Please! You want to save the future of mankind? Here’s your chance! For these two in me right now! So please do us all a favor and keep your word! Save manki—”

He hung up and slowly dropped the phone back down, placing it right beside his personal phone.

With both thumbs on each phone, he held the side button for three seconds. Then he swiped the top of both screens at the same time.

He stared at the screens as they individually loaded then simultaneously shut to black.

David "Dapeki" King is a Black fiction writer who loves spending hours upon hours spinning thriller stories into a web of creative chaos. He lets his mind bleed onto the page which opens an interesting and eerie door that just compels readers to continue down a path full of unimaginable experiences. Works like “Killer Beauty” (in Untold Phantoms) and “Blood & Water” (TheYard Crime Blog) have proven Dapeki’s aptitude for insanity integrated into his tasteful, horrifying shorts.

‘Dodge Ball’

Kathryn McDanel is a photographer whose photographs demonstrate a zest for life by capturing secret little moments that comprise humanity.

Dodge Ball

I am fascinated by the sensitivity of human fingers. When reading a book, I am able to tell if I have accidentally turned two pages, instead of one.

Dodge ball has been described as “modern day stoning.” That’s the definition stated in 2012, by the character of “Kurt” played by Chris Colfer on Glee. The thought process makes me laugh. I am by no means some pain enduring, butch boy. I have only been punched once in my life, when I was a pre-teen. Ironically, the person who knocked the wind out of me was the same guy who defended me a decade later in high school by punching someone else (coincidentally named Kurt) in the stomach. This was my cousin, Glenn. I don’t consider us to have been close in our youth. But by the time he and I were in the same high school, we built a relationship that stands strong to this day.

Glenn’s daughter, Sarah (that makes her my first cousin once removed, or maybe my second cousin...I can never figure these titles out), lived a few blocks from me for a short while. I felt very protective of her, though she sure didn’t need my protection. She ended up leaving New York City and moving to a southern state with a warmer climate.

We played dodge ball at Montrose Elementary School in South Orange, NJ, in front of a wall at the rear of the building, next to the stairs leading to the gymnasium. Maybe it was banned sometime later, though I don’t think there was any political correctness uproar back then. I loved playing the game, both as the pitcher and a target. To play it correctly, throwing the big, rubber ball took power but not a whole lot of skill. I don’t even remember how the game was scored. It could be an accurate explanation as to why I am able to toss mooring lines with great strength for the motor yacht on which I work. After I graduated from my three years at Columbia High School, located in the sister town of Maplewood, the system of grades was rearranged. Starting a year earlier at grade six, junior high became middle school before sending students on to high school to complete the final four years.

The elementary school I attended closed its doors due to a decline in the childhood population. The building sits vacant. When I used to travel from Penn Station in New York City, to see my parents in New Jersey each week, the train passed the empty school building ahead of pulling into the trestled South Orange Station.

At the end of my time at elementary school, where I had been popular with my fellow students, there were rumblings of my soon being alienated. I didn’t know, let alone notice. Entering junior high was like walking into a field of landmines I had not been warned I would be expected to navigate. I was verbally attacked every day, from day one. I’m not sure this will make sense but that became my accepted norm. I never saw any of the kids with whom I went to elementary school once we moved on to junior high school, so I didn’t consider that they too might have begun treating me differently.

40 years later, my friend Jim, a neighbor from my days growing up, reconnected with me. He explained by way of apologizing for his part in something I was not even aware had been mapped out. The winds of change were set before we all graduated to the new, pink brick building. I had been under the delusion that my elementary school friends would have been allies. Jim’s confession confirmed that this was not the case, though part of me wishes he hadn’t said anything about it. Since none of the kids from my elementary school were in my junior high school “cycle,” I didn’t know anything about their turncoat discussions. (Cycles were how our school system grouped students of similar aptitude in junior high. You stayed together, attending different classes throughout the day.)

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my experience at school before moving to the city to go to university. It’s become repetitious therapy. After six years, I had gotten so used to being a target that it hadn’t occurred to me that it would end once I left the suburbs for college. There were times growing up when it was unbearable — particularly my first year in high school. It was also something I began to believe was how it was always going to be. Oddly, if I recall correctly, the verbal abuse didn’t color my everyday moods. What I mean by that is not that I grew used to it. It often was brutal. But knowing it was coming became part of my adolescent reality. I was called a faggot while walking the halls at school and sometimes even when in an active class if a teacher turned his or her back, or wasn’t paying attention. Even now, though it happens very rarely, if someone yells a derogatory comment at me, I internally shake. I may flip them the bird or not give any evidence of a reaction, but inside I have a PTSD response. Having nothing to do with the taunts and what I now view as accusatory insults, I did not allow myself to be with a boy sexually until my second year at college, after I fell in love. I believe the verbal attacks during my pre-college school days were a result of my being flamboyant and feminine. I don’t think that the majority of the abuse had much to do with assuming there was any literal boy-on-boy sexual behavior. Whatever the case, I definitely stood out just by being who I am. Friends, adversaries, defenders and bullies: everyone in school seemed to know me. There were times I wished I had been invisible. I ignorantly imagine it might have been like being the one student of color in a sea of white kids.

With the exception of a woman named Darryl, I haven’t maintained any friendships from my college experience. She and I also attended high school together. During our senior year at Columbia High, we were in a few of the same electives, which is where our lifelong friendship took root. I have maintained a selection of friends that knew me from those volatile days. I look back and wonder how much peer pressure had to have been part of their existence. It was easier for girls, but for the boys who were in my life, they may have been ridiculed for associating with me. To my knowledge, all these guys were straight. This was the 1970’s. They most likely had to defend themselves. I don’t know if any of them thought that by being my friend meant that you had guts, but I do. In particular, one boy named Doug, a jock, who was a year older than I. Our introduction by his girlfriend, Anne, helped in forging our friendship during the roughest era. Anne and I had been in each other’s lives before the high school years. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember with clarity the first time Doug invited me to hang out with him at his house. Anne was there when the invitation was offered on a street corner, a few blocks from his home. It was a casual gesture that meant Doug had begun thinking of us as friends. For me, it represented something very significant.

It may seem unnecessary to my life as it is now to focus on events from a lifetime ago. My mother would be annoyed at the emotional stall. She used to spout how much she couldn’t stand it when people seemed stuck living in their memories. She felt it was easier to walk away from certain pieces of her past. That’s what I think. Mom once told me she never wanted to return to the shores of Chappaquiddick, on Martha’s Vineyard, where our family vacationed when I was a child. It was a time that could not be replicated. A photographic reminder was as much as she was willing to inhale. The sunsets and ocean waves; the sea glass and sand beaches. And the peace she found in the silence of watching a rising sun by herself, before the children all awoke.

Enduring words that cut invisible wounds or accepting the physical pain of being hit by a blood red ball thrown hard with intent, have both found a permanent place in my psyche. Private and significant.

For years, I would go to a gay bar in Chelsea. I would order my drinks from a straight bartender named Brian. When I stepped up to his station, without fail, he would cuff me in the left shoulder. It was his way of showing affection. To be clear, after the first time, it was at my invitation. It hurt and sometimes left a black and blue bruise, but I loved it. So I suppose that means I have been punched more than once. Just not in the stomach. On the day my dad died, Brian bought shots for anyone hanging at his bar. He then asked everyone to raise their glass, as he toasted the memory of my father.

Andrew Sarewitz has published more than 75 short stories (website: www.andrewsarewitz.com. Substack access is @asarewitz) as well as having penned scripts for various media. Mr. Sarewitz is a recipient of the City Artists Corp Grant for Writing. His play, Alias Madame Andrèe (based on the life of WWII resistance fighter, Nancy Wake, the “White Mouse”) garnered First Prize from Stage to Screen New Playwrights in San Jose, CA; produced with a multicultural cast and crew. Member: Dramatists Guild of America.

‘Holes in the Sky’

Michael C. Roberts is a mostly retired pediatric psychologist seeking creativity through photography. His photograph book, "Imaging the World with Plastic Cameras: Diana and Holga," is available on amazon.com. His photographs have appeared in several literary and scientific journals. His current work of minimalist images depicts the essential beauty in nature and constructed forms often passed without acknowledgement. This series of minimalist images is entitled: The Basics.

Holes in the Sky

We’re going to watch Alan Shepard punch a hole in the sky
we’re going to watch an American astronaut make history
the young nun says while wheeling a black & white TV
into her eighth-grade classroom on a May morning in 1961
and forty students stare and squint at the 12-inch screen
and at 3-2-1 blastoff! the nun makes the sign of the cross
while off to the side under a framed photo of the pope
a ghostly Galileo fails to stifle a sardonic snort
but nobody gets the joke and so they ignore him
and from the back of the room Yuri Gagarin insists
he already punched a hole in the sky a month earlier
but nobody understands Russian so they ignore him too.

Robert Eugene Rubino is a former sports columnist and adult literacy tutor old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and smart enough to solve The New York Times crossword puzzle on Mondays (other days not so much).

‘Weirdly Impressive Views from Rock Bottom’ & ‘Hard Stools & Dead-End Thoughts’

Anastasia Noelle Pirri is a Connecticut-based photographer, writer, and traveler. When she is not spending most of her time with her cat, she can be found enjoying the beauty nature has to offer.

Weirdly Impressive Views from Rock Bottom

You’ll leave the earth one day.

It won’t be all smiles,
neon nights,
and cocktails in the sun.

You will dip low,
screw up,
incur emotional bruises,
and if you're lucky,
you'll get your heartbroken.

Don’t lose your cool.

It won’t seem like it...but there’s plenty
of reasons to maintain your optimism,
look to the future,
and there will always be an open barstool.

Don’t lose your edge.

Rock bottom can always go up,
long walks improve your stamina,
and feeling strange is better than feeling nothing at all.

Don’t give up.

You’ll leave the earth one day.
Don’t let the living part get away.

Hard Stools & Dead-End Thoughts

Life’s too hard to figure out...my advice: give up, you’re already beat...it’s all stacked against
you, anyway.
Last night looks bleak from the vantage point of a new day...ya got vibes of despair and other sad
sentiments, ejaculated at a poor time in the past, hanging on your brain, and from what I
remember the future had a better glare...but the finest smiles, done walked down the toughest
miles.
A sense of meaning, big or small, grabs traction in the chaos of life – and better men have faired
alright through worse free-falls.
Friends are fleeting, and heart is trivial these days. Unless proven worth-a-shit; you’re gonna
lose some souls before you go gray.
Don’t expect the truth to face your back, fighting forward. Most beliefs are nothing more than
agendas.
Love’s the only reason to live. It’s a pay to play system...and any heart that cares for you with
nothing in return is a privilege. The easy way is to harden your senses on the hike of life and lean
on a tough disposition.
It seems silly...but lighten-up...you didn’t ask to exist...and this digital world will self-pressurize
you into endless pursuit of accomplishment. Although, eventually, if you look out, on the long
drive of life, your pride focuses till it’s wins are simply long stretches of days and no pants full
of shit.
So, let some love eat you alive...there’s no point believing what you see, lies camouflage, and
truth are details you must seek.
Chase what you want. Words are worthless and actions live in eternity. Probably redundant to
say, but you gotta pay to play...it’s important...handle the bills first, though – funny how you got
to work, but the Government can live off your sweat. Nobody is looking out for you, and you
gotta take every damn thing you get.
Nike sloganized the point in our heart beats...get outside, sweat it out...who you were, slowly
fades. Tomorrow is coming and from my last Wiki check, it's the only thing we can’t defeat.
Harsh truths & Father-Time saves no sympathy. Do some favor to your mind and neglect
anything that doesn’t contribute to your precious mindset.
There are no rules, just perceived limitations, and you can contort those to fit the goals in your
imagination.
You died yesterday and today has a chance. Let’s smoke some hope; someday is playing our
tune, and directions full of regret is the wise partner taking your hand at the living dance.

Nicholas Viglietti is a writer from Sacramento, CA. He started writing in high school. After which, he served in the Americorps. He graduated from Humboldt State University. Now, he works for cheap checks and attempts to get words published under his name. Nicholas enjoys hot, lazy days by the pool with his wifey.

‘Arrow Twisters’

Caleb Ishaya Oseshi is documentary and street photographer. He tells stories through photography, exploring nature's beauty and human diversity. He is a participant of the UNESCO World Heritage Volunteer Program in Nigeria; he also collaborated with Kaduna Fashion and Art Exhibition (KAFART) as a Research Photographer (2023). His photographs are featured in Synchronized Chaos, Watershed Review, Readers boom and other publications, with exhibitions in Nigeria and the United States. He is a member of the African Photojournalism Database (APJD).

Arrow Twisters

He believes it was President John F. Kennedy who said, “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” That’s the phrase that stuck in Fletcher’s mind. On the ceiling above his bed, he sees the gloating faces of all the people who’d been responsible for running him down, circulating half-truths, innuendos, and complete falsehoods about him. What they always referred to as his “checkered career,” when they’d smile coyly or nod as if they knew something about him, he himself didn’t know. There’s Randolph Farnsworth circling overhead, former president of Canard College; his fat leathery jowls flapping like some ancient church organ, his sleepy half-moon grain-fed eyes bleed daggers of accusations, sending yellow sparks flying, infecting any chance of sleep, releasing him from his nocturnal prison.

At one time, long ago, he’d taken the bumpy, winding road to the academy. He stared up at those smirking faces on the ceiling. He’d diligently studied, as best he could, he told himself, Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. No small feat. He’d spent many hours with his nose in dusty tomes. And when he finally looked up, he found himself an Assistant Professor of Philology picking over words like old, dried bones when he realized what he really wanted to do was stand- up comedy. A far cry from philology, the study of texts both oral and written, establishing their
origins and their meaning. So why not a philology of comedy?

His friend, perhaps his only friend Halton Camsteed, who teaches stand-up comedy at Kempt College, where they both work, said to him one day as they strolled across the rolling green lawn of the suburban campus: “Last time I checked, you can’t learn to be funny. But I’m hoping I’m wrong.” He guffawed, pleased with himself.

Halton cast a long shadow wearing a wrinkled grey trench coat and black bowler hat. He’d made quite a name for himself on the campus comedy circuit playing a truculent Winston Churchill—the man who only ever wanted to raise calico Maine Coon cats but found himself thrust upon the world stage playing the hero against a mutton faced moustached maniac in jodhpurs and riding boots.

So, when Fletcher Mallory owned up to his secret ambition, it stopped Halton in his tracks. Students glued to mobile phones zipped by them, oblivious to the shifting ground under their feet.

Halton Camsteed clamped down on his rubber cigar, a prop from his act that had become so ingrained in his life he never left home without it. His smooth, round face and bulbous nose brought to mind a bygone era; he looked like a chubby vaudevillian, his clothes slightly too big, with a faint smell of cannabis clinging to him. But deep down, his creative wellspring had run dry. Things that had sparked his inspiration now languished in a jarring void. Even the gentle breeze and the sweet melodies of birdsong, once so soothing, now felt like a discordant cacophony, assaulting his frayed nerves. And the feeling of emptiness settled in, a heavy weight upon his shoulders, suffocating his once-vibrant imagination. But Halton Camsteed likes Fletcher Mallory. Poor Fletch didn’t know when to stay in his own lane. Stand-up? Mal? Fletch Mallory, for his part, felt passionate about stand-up. He came to this realization one rainy day as he was reading Cicero. He brushed his right eyebrow with a little finger. It could have been Pliny the Elder... anyway, he realized life is nothing if not a pantomime of sorts. All those egg-headed colleagues of his in the academy were nothing but posers pretending to be doing something serious when really the only thing that matters is humour, to laugh at yourself and this absurd world. He gazed around at the naked trees.

“Mal.” That’s what Halton Camsteed called his friend Fletcher Mallory. “Mal,” Hal said.

“Be good. Whatever you do.”

Mal’s gaze drifted upward to the fluffy clouds billowing overhead, transforming before his eyes into the sneering faces of his enemies, their expressions as shifty as the wind. Old professor Delby Carmichael, all rosy-cheeked and as round as a washtub, whispering behind that soft white hand of hers into Constance Fulbright’s slightly tilted silver head, her glossy red lips smirking snidely. And her eyes, those greasy lizard slits burning with recrimination, bored deep into his soul.

“If you really are going to start something new, you’ll need to be fearless, not worry about what anyone thinks.”

They strolled across campus on this cloudy day, pleasant enough for this time of year.

The bite of winter was long gone, and the promise of summer lay ahead. The birds nattered in the leafless trees as the two rather strange looking academics meander towards the busy street.

Mal is tall, over six feet, although his stoop betrays an average height. He has smooth rat brown hair receding in a wide balding swath down the centre of his small head. His nose, long and wide, stands out. With a touch of melancholy, his hazel eyes appear tired. His thin lips refrain from smiling. And while not exactly obese, his middle is as soft as a cat’s tummy.

“You need to consider yourself a pioneer,” Hal said. “Out there alone against the elements, with who knows what danger lurking behind every rock.”

“Or tree,” Mal contributed dully.

“Right,” Hal nodded. “They’re shooting arrows at you, trying to kill you, knock you down.”

“Then they twist the arrows.”

“You’re not listening, are you?” Hal sighed, shoving the rubber cigar back into his mouth. “If you’re going to do comedy, take risks, make mistakes, try new things... be audacious!”

That’s an interesting word, Mal mused, as they strolled across the brown-green turf.

Derived from the Latin ‘Audax’, meaning brave, bold, foolhardy even. And there’s also the 16th century notion of ‘impudence’ in there somewhere, and what about the implications of ‘shameless’ and ‘impropriety’ that still cling to the word like a foul smell?

“If you’re going to be successful... in your own mind,” Hal continued, the rubber cigar flopping between his teeth. “You shouldn’t concern yourself with the opinions of others. Comedy, after all, is about taking risks.”

“But I’ve already made a ton of mistakes. And you saw me last night at the Bull Circle Pub. Those faces haunted me all night, just staring blankly up at me.”

“You haven’t found your groove yet, that’s all. Everyone has setbacks, bumps in the road. In comedy like everything else, stretch yourself, push the limits of your abilities, see failures as temporary, an opportunity to learn and grow.” He stopped, looked into his friend’s sad hazel eyes. “Everyone makes mistakes. It was Einstein who said, ‘a person who never made a mistake, tried nothing new.’”

“People look at me like I’m crazy, leaving philology for stand-up comedy. I’m not like you. You’ve always wanted to be a comedian, ever since you were a kid.” He touched his right eyebrow again with his little finger. “The way they looked at me last night. I could see the recrimination in their eyes. Who does this guy think he is?”

“You can’t let them get to you. The arrow twisters don’t know it. You might not know it. But they’re your best friends. They’re helping you to grow. Get better.” Hal leaned in. “Comedy is a mindset. I keep telling my students that. I believe it was Churchill who said: ‘Success comprises going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’” He glanced across the sprawling lawn as a little black and tan Yorkie raising a leg against a scrawny maple tree. “Or something like that.”

“So let me get this straight,” Mal said. “So, when that heckler yelled, ‘why is this man smiling?’ he wasn’t criticizing my uneven dentation?”

“Just another arrow twister man! That’s when you must push yourself to the limit.” They stopped at the edge of the lawn. The traffic on the busy road in front of them roared like an angry beast.

“If you want to be a pioneer, accept the arrows coming your way. We all do. That’s the way it is, man.” He placed a firm hand on Mal’s shoulder. “You think it was easy for me, but it wasn’t? Do you think I enjoy dressing like a tramp in this ridiculous outfit? Do you think I relish this stupid rubber cigar or wearing a bowler hat?”

“But that’s who you are,” Mal said, shocked by his friend’s sudden candour. “Everyone
laughs when they look at you.”

“Exactly,” Hal said with a hint of melancholy, glancing back at the busy traffic. “Behind my back I’ve heard them say, ‘those who can do, those who can’t teach.’”

“And those who can’t teach, teach teachers,” Mal added unhelpfully.

“Don’t you see?” Hal pleaded. “You either grow or... you die. These are the only options.” There was a sudden change of expression on his round face. Almost luminous, Mal recalled, just before Hal stepped off the curb and into the path of an oncoming Express bus. Fletcher Mallory adjusted the oversized bowler hat. Since retrieving Hal’s hat from the roadside after the accident, he has worn it to honor his friend and for another reason. He felt as if Halton Camsteed’s flair for comedy clung to it, and so he wore it as a sort of talisman, and with beneficial effect. Ever since, that silly hat, two sizes too large for his puny head, gave him a mysterious connection with his now departed friend. Every time he stepped on stage, the crowd roared with laughter, no matter what he said or did. Could it be this was the philology of comedy he’d been looking for?

He looked up at the ceiling over his bed in the dark, all the faces of the arrow twisters now laughing their heads off—all except one. The beaming moon of a face of his old friend

Halton Camsteed stared down at him. In that twinkling moment, he believed he saw his friend’s lips mouth the words, “Illegitimi non carborundum.”

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” Mal said aloud to the crowing night. The secret to success, his friend was telling him, was not to be afraid of the dark, or of making a fool of yourself in public.

P.W. Vaughan dwells intentionally on the shore of a small innocuous lake at the eastern edge of the vast continent known to many of its original inhabitants as Turtle Island. Vaughan has numerous nugatory publications, including two fusty self-published novels on Amazon and original music on SoundCloud, both tagged with the anodyne meme By Rushton Beech. His award-nominated humorous short story Plato’s Flan published in The Danforth Review (2002) was unfairly alleged to have contributed to the online publication’s untimely demise.

‘The Death of Conquerors’

Vanessa Aiello is a writer and photographer from Springfield, MA. She has previously been published in Mass Poetry's Future in Verse, The Wingless Dreamer, ArtWife, The Hemetera Editor, and CoolBeansLit for her writing and photography. She was recently named an Intercollegiate Poet at the Mass Poetry Festival, where she represented Regis College and recently graduated with a B.A in English and Secondary Education.

The Death of Conquerors

Like an earthquake or a great storm
Enough to shake kingdoms and empires
Such is the death of conquerors
Mortals raised as royalty
Suckled by Victory,
Gilded in invincibility
But not all die with dignity
A conqueror is a legend born
A mighty soul clothed in gold
With swords and men at his command
To claim all that his eyes can see
Some say that conquerors are chosen by destiny
Theirs is a tale forged true
Made in the crucible of war
Their innate defiance against all odds
Etches their names in the hearts of men
How high they rise, on the winds of success
Hands reaching for the sun,
Unchallenged and untamed,
Fearless and exuberant
Until a dark hand claims their crown
Hurling even the greatest into the grave
Gazing down from His pale horse,
The plundered crown perched on His skull,
Sits a lord who will not be denied His due
A toll no earthly king can pay
Nothing can stop His demand
No soul can escape His scythe
Blood, not gold, drips from His ancient blade
Proving that legends are but men
That great names can be forgotten
That mighty kingdoms can be undone
Like a silent whisper or a loud roar
Enough to shake kingdoms and empires
Such is the death of conquerors

Onyeka Ndukwe, a Canadian artist currently residing in Ottawa, Ontario, is a lyrical poet* whose work has graced the pages of esteemed publications. His 1st poem titled "Trust Half Spent" was featured in the Praised by December anthology (2021) published by Wingless Dreamer. Beyond his poetic endeavors, Onyeka is an avid history reader and occasionally indulges in anime, forging a creative path that blends artistry and intellectual curiosity.

‘MY WORDS’, ‘THRESHOLD’ & ‘GHOST FINGERS’

Erin Brown was born first thing on a Monday morning in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1995. She has grown up to be a poet, writer, and filmmaker. Her writing has been published in Blank Spaces, Anodyne, and more. Her most recent short film, PERIPHERALS, premiered at the 2022 Atlantic International Film Festival. Erin is lucky to have a job where she gets to make art with friends.

MY WORDS

I am a paper plane
soaring through the mainland
past houses and people on bikes
I wish I had met once or twice.
Watching through windows,
was I made to be hollow?
All I leave of me are fingerprints.
I am soaking in sin.
You remind me of my worth
as a delicate fruit.
I stumble upon
My lonely Muse.
I don’t want my time
eaten alive.
My lips are rusted over.
My Kingdom falls with each word
That echoes, reverberating against your cavernous walls only
to fall lower, ever lower.
I, desperate to be loved, am cursed.

THRESHOLD

Waves crashing over
white knuckles
blue, holding onto seaweed
as if it could save me
I’ve been slipping
Do you know what you did?
We stop by the fence, the wide divide
underworld clunking, churning
embers alighting red expressions
demons conversing and convulsing
in laughter
I used to be the keeper of my keys,
but you ripped away my throat
and took out my ribs
now I can’t speak or think
I am a canary that can’t sing
Is everything I have enough? You take
until I am nothing, you pour your thoughts

into my brain like filling up your golden chalice
but I am not to be drunk,
I am mortal
You on your throne of souls
Molding me into a faceless mirror
Surveying me with your face of faces
If I had regained my voice, if I had been stronger
Would you have lifted the haze?
When it is all over
Would you dance on my grave?
Land simmers above
like cracked crème brulee.

GHOST FINGERS

Ghost fingers
around my neck
lifting up to caress
my ears, so all I hear
are your fingerprints
and your breath
Ghost fingers feel different,
splicing through my skin
like ice – a promise
Ghost fingers don’t melt, don’t
have me hoping
for something else
My temperature rises
ribcage shudders
voice caught on your words
like a leach, desperate
to taste, or to feel

your Ghost fingers seek flavor
you say other girls don’t have –
what you found in me –
making me deadly.

Zoe Mae Huot-Link was born and raised in Maplewood, Minnesota. She is a winner of the Manitou Creative Writing Fellowship. Her work has been published by For Women Who Roar, The Antonym, Awakenings, among others. Find her work at: https://zoemae.art and @zoemae.art on instagram.