This month we feature the winners of our Pop-Up Writing Contest, who submitted stories for the prompts “Melting Icicles” and “Cold Wave.” The winning authors are Cath Barton, Roberta Beary, Helen Chambers, and Tricia Gates Brown.
Melting Icicles
By Cath Barton
I don’t remember the first kiss. I do remember the walk back through the woods, the feeling of his arm round my shoulder, the excited fizz of that. At a certain point we stopped and he kissed me. But I don’t remember what that felt like. There’s a lot I don’t remember. But I remember the cold of that winter. The biting cold. And the icicles that hung from the high gutters of the houses in the street where I lived in a student flat. They grew downwards, like stalactites. He said they could be stalagmites. I knew they couldn’t, knew that the way to remember which was which was by thinking of the French words—‘tomber’ to fall and ‘monter’ to rise up. I knew I was right; I was the one studying French, not him. But I didn’t argue, because I wanted him to like me. I remember that. With a sinking feeling. And a sadness for my young self.
We were both eighteen, or maybe he was nineteen. I don’t remember. This is what I do remember: there was a party just before the end of my first term at university, in one of the tutors’ houses. My flatmate, who was tired of me being in every evening when she wanted to bring her boyfriend back to the house, said I was to go and not come back until I ‘had a man.’ Those were her exact words. I remember that. (Though she denied it later, of course she was going to do that, she didn’t want to feel responsible.) So I did what she said. Not that I managed to bring him into the house. He dropped me off at the door, with a ‘See you around.’ I remember the words, played them over and over in my mind when I was back home for Christmas, wondering what he’d meant. I don’t remember giving him my home address, but a Christmas card arrived from him. I remember that, and the little fizz that it brought, which I hugged to myself in my chilly little childhood bedroom.
After that, everything blurs and folds in on itself in my memory. Maybe it was the cold. The wretched pain of it in my nostrils and under my thumb nails. The only things that are clear-cut in the pictures I see of the following January and February are the icicles, rows of them. From my bedroom window I could see them on the houses the length of the road. Every day they grew longer. I went to lectures, some days. Other days I walked around until I saw him, the man who was really just a boy. And probably just as uncertain about everything as I was, but was never going to say so. We went to the cinema together. We sat in my room and listened to the music he liked and I looked out at the icicles as they got bigger and bluer. Maybe I asked him what made them blue; he was studying chemistry, he would know, probably. If I did ask him I don’t remember the answer.
How long the cold lasted I don’t remember, but this much I know: the relationship melted with the icicles, drop by painful drop. He told me, the boy-man, that there was no future in it, this relationship. Not that it really merited that designation. And like the icicles when they had completely melted, there was nothing left of it afterwards. Apart from what I remember, of course. Though they do say that we remake our memories every time we bring them to mind, so who can say what is real, or ever was.
Mother’s Day
By Rory Say
We’re at the kitchen table with pancakes when Molly brings a bird to the back door. Ava, sitting nearest, reaches out but Dad says no, leaving her arm to hang in the air. “But it’s Mother’s Day,” she says, and Dad gives her a look that makes our heads turn back to where Molly waits behind the glass.
The little sparrow in her mouth is still breathing. Nor is there any blood I can see. I want very badly to help it, but I’m afraid that any movement might trigger the cat’s jaws to snap shut. None of us moves, even after Dad tells us it’s out of our hands. Cats catch birds all the time, he says, which sounds funny to me because it’s never happened with Molly before.
He goes on about what he calls nature’s way. About the importance of knowing when to interfere with a thing you see in the world and when, as he puts it, to keep your peace. But before he can finish, Molly interrupts him by placing the bird gently down on the shoe mat and walking away. Dad shuts up. We all lean in and wait for the bird to right itself and take flight, but it only lies there on the scuffed brown mat, unmoving but for the steady pulse of its breast as it breathes. Doesn’t it know that it’s free? I ask aloud why it doesn’t fly, and Ava says it must be hurt. Leaning sideways on her chair, she slides the door open a crack before Dad can shout and stop her, and all in a second the air is alive with wings as the bird shoots over our heads and into the kitchen, where it circles and circles and finally comes to rest on one of Mom’s old painted plates that hang like pictures on the far wall.
It happens so quickly that it’s only afterwards I can see it, looking back. Ava’s up first, then Dad, calling for doors to be closed and windows opened. Of course we’re too late. By the time we’ve left our plates on the table the bird’s already flown out to the front hall and then to the living room. Me and Ava dash to catch up, laughing and clapping as if it’s Christmas. Dad’s less amused. He goes around parting drapes and raising windows, quiet now, a look on his face we know well to avoid. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the bird that’s entered our house and will not leave.
* * *
It’s still there by the time we go down to the beach in the afternoon. No need to break tradition, Dad says, only this Mother’s Day he has to carry Mom in her vase which he cradles to his chest like a newborn.
Mom loved the beach down the road from our house. She liked to swim in the ocean there, even though no one else does, the rocks being too rough and sharp, the water too cold.
So it’s to the shore I go when Dad gives each of us a pinch of her to sprinkle wherever we like. He tells us to think of her, and I do. I wonder which part of her spills from my fingers to be swallowed and dissolved by the sea at my feet. A bit of a hand, I think, or maybe a knee. I can still feel her hands when I think of them, always freezing, like ice on my cheek.
* * *
The bird’s waiting for us when we get back. Ava points it out, perched atop the neglected piano, keys now covered by a black lid. It seems not to notice us as we enter the living room, which Dad allows so long as we keep the door closed. I follow Ava as she kneels down on the rug by the coffee table, from where we watch the bird in its sculptured calm, its head twitching now and then in response to sounds from outside. We keep watching. We watch as it flies the length of the room only to return to its spot on the piano, over and over. For how long do we watch it? Long enough, apparently, that when Dad pokes his head in the room it’s to tell us that dinner’s ready in the kitchen. But he stops us on our way out. Reaching into his pocket, he drops into each of our cupped hands a sprinkling of grains and tiny seeds, a slight smile on his mouth as he explains the importance of offering food to a visiting guest.
* * *
When the time comes to go to bed, the bird still hasn’t left. We say goodnight to it and climb the stairs to our room, where I lie for a while in the dark and think about the day, the bird, the beach, the powdery bits of Mom mingled with the sea. There are times, like now, when I can feel her inside my head in a comforting sort of way, stroking my thoughts until I’m fast asleep.
“Do you think it’s her?” The voice of my sister wakes me in the still-dark room. She repeats herself as I begin to blink, the better to see, but all I can make out are degrees of shadow. “The bird downstairs,” she says. “I had a dream it was her.” I ask what happened in the dream and she tells me she can’t remember. We look at the shapes of each other in the dark for a while, and then Ava crosses the room and gets back into bed.
The bird’s gone when we go downstairs in the morning, the whole house freezing from the windows left open. It’s the only one Molly ever brings to the back door.
Greeting Cards
By Martha Witt
A person who spends time with another person (talking and also laughing, and for some people there is crying, though I know crying should be in private) that person must go to the drugstore and purchase a card for the other person in order to make the most of a special occasion. Instead of spending my lunch money to eat, I will use it to buy a card for Ms. Scarano. Even though Ms. Scarano is my teacher, she is also my friend. She is forty-six, and I am forty-seven, meaning that I am a year older than my teacher. Most of the time, the student is younger than the teacher. Most of the time, the teacher does not talk to the student about the teacher’s life because the teacher’s life is hush while the teacher’s teaching is yap. If yap goes on too long, though, a student like Jerry bangs his head and the yap must stop.
I always arrive to school early. Alone with Mrs. Scarano, everything in hush mode, I feel happy. I am in the advanced class, so, this morning, when Ms. Scarano’s eyes brim the color of sea water, I notice and say, “You look sad.” She smiles, which is confusing because I thought she was sad. But I remind myself that the world outside school is full of gray areas. Multiple answers can be simultaneously correct.
“Good noticing my feelings, Louis.” More softly, Ms. Scarano says, “My daughter told me she wants to become a boy. She no longer wants to be my daughter. She wants to become my son.” Ms. Scarano pushes her big book to the corner of her desk, the book with conversation topics and practice tests to prepare us, most importantly, for working with and meeting people in the world outside school.
“But I am a boy. My mother likes having a son.” I wait eight seconds. Facts can help a person, so I add, “My mother is twenty-three years older than you, and she still likes having a son.”
“I know, Louis. But I am used to having a daughter.”
Jerry and Hugo enter our classroom. Ms. Scarano dabs her eyes and yap mode begins. I pretend to pay attention to lessons but, really, I think about the card I will buy to show my teacher that I care about her. That will make her happy again.
***
The drugstore divides feelings into categories. I find Happy Birthday, Congratulations, Thank You, Happy Anniversary. If this were a test and Ms. Scarano saw me take one of those cards to the cashier, she would say, “Try again, Louis. You’ve been doing so well. Remember that multiple things can be true at the same time.” I look down and to the left, where I find the section with cards for sad feelings. I pull out one card with raised letters: “Sorry for the loss of your father.” The part about loss is correct, but the father part is not correct. I read a card next to that one: “Sorry for the loss of your mother.” In the class for advanced students, we get questions that try to trick us. The trick answer can look correct and we might pick it if we are thinking too black and white. If we do not get used to gray, we cannot get used to the world outside school. If we pick the trick answer, Ms. Scarano will say, “Close, but no cigar!” Mostly, though, she says that to Jerry. Once, though, almost in hush mode, Ms. Scarano told us, “A black and white world sure would be a whole lot easier.”
I find, “Sorry for the loss of your daughter.” The cost for that card is $1.50 before tax. I will take this card, but it is not enough. For this situation, a second card is necessary. Luckily, my lunch money can buy two. I return to the Happy section. I select “Congratulations on the birth of your son.” Holding two cards and two envelopes, I head to the front of the store and stand in line. But two cards is one too many, and I start to swelter. Nobody gives more than a single card to commemorate a single occasion.
When the man in front has left with his purchase, I step forward. The cashier has “Marisa” written on her name tag in all capital white letters. I read her name out loud and say hello, but I cannot look at her. My hands are sweating. Because I do not want to leave fingerprints on my two cards, I drop them on the counter, though the yapping tells me I am wrong, wrong, wrong. I cannot shout, especially not in a store, especially not with other people shopping and trying to attend to business. I need help. It is okay to ask for help. “Marisa, you are a woman. What card does your mother want to receive if you decide to become a man?” I force myself to look at Marisa’s face. I breathe, in and out, trying to quiet the bad yap long enough for me to see from her expression that she feels afraid. I am asking about the gray area, and she is afraid. I understand. Before the advanced class, I was afraid of the gray area, too. “Become a son.” The “o” stretches into a good hum, which can help Marisa because the huddle of sound offers relief when meaning overwhelms. Ms. Scarano taught us that, in the world outside school, people understand the gray area and expect that we will, too. But I think that maybe Ms. Scarano was crying because she realized this morning that she was wrong.
Chipotle
By Mike Yunxuan Li
When we went out, Ma was in a green striped T-shirt and a pair of beige trousers. It was mid-July, and the SoCal sun was at its peak. In line with Ma’s philosophy of frugality, I did not turn on the AC in the car. We rolled down the windows and made breeze out of the heatwave by driving a notch faster than traffic.
First stop was the bank. I’d tried to convince Ma that as of two years ago she could pay her mortgage online. She believed me, but wouldn’t listen. She’d been going to the same bank for the past fifteen years; she felt more comfortable depositing a check in person. Once we approached Main Street, she said, “So it’s kind of like a salad.”
“Not really,” I said. “The lettuce is more of a garnish. In fact, some people don’t like to add the lettuce.”
“And they put rice and meat in a bowl? But you can also stuff them in a burrito?”
“Yeah, rice, beans, a side of protein, and salsas. I’d recommend the bowl. From my experience they give you more food in the bowl.”
“So it’s kind of like Panda Express?”
“Well, not exactly. I’d say the taste is lighter than Panda, and also the rice isn’t stir-fried.”
“I meant the model of business, the way they do things is kind of like Panda Express.”
I looked over at Ma and saw her explicatory gestures. She liked to move her hands when making a point. “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. The wind rustled her hair, and she toggled her sunglasses.
I knew Ma was looking forward to Chipotle. It contained all the elements she employed in her own cooking: long grain rice, diced proteins, cilantro, and spicy sauce. Additionally, on several occasions when I wanted to buy burgers or fried chicken for the family, she brought up Chipotle as an alternative, though this was likely her way of politely declining my offers. Burgers and fried food, like Panda Express, were too heavy for her taste. Sometimes when we were out together, I’d also suggest getting Chipotle. She’d delightfully agree, but when it came dinner time, we’d always see a hotpot or Szechuan restaurant down the road, and she’d opt for the familiar. “We’re out anyway, might as well have a formal meal,” she’d say. Ma only ate outside food when I was home. Alone, she stayed in the house and scrambled together meals from whatever ingredients she could find in the fridge.
Next stop was the supermarket. I helped Ma pick out the biggest watermelons from the stack and loaded them in our car. Then we stopped by the post office to drop off an Amazon return package. I drove on. We bantered on a variety of topics, from gossiping about our neighbors to discussing big events on the radio. We made jokes and laughed, but like most things I chatted with Ma, I remembered little of it afterwards. I picked a route that did not contain any Chinese restaurants, only BBQ shops and burger joints.
It was still early when we arrived at Chipotle. Most of the restaurant was empty. A high schooler with a mullet greeted us from behind the counter. Ma was in front of me, gazing up at the big menu hanging from the ceiling, trying to make sense of her options. From the back, she looked gaunt. Her shoulders were narrow, her neck lean and frail, vaguely showing the joints of her spine. I perused her trousers and wondered if she didn’t feel hot in this weather. The green stripes on her shirt were thin and stacked like the interior of a mille crepe cake. Due to the fact that she cut her own hair, her hair was short and spiky, the cowlicks especially conspicuous from behind. Against Chipotle’s modern interior design and the Dua Lipa music that surrounded the place, Ma looked anachronistic, as if she still lived in her era. It was our fifteenth year in America, and this was her first time in a Chipotle.
I went up to the high schooler and told him we wanted two bowls to go: white rice, black beans, chicken, sour cream, mild and hot salsa, yes corn, yes cheese, and yes lettuce. Ma also had a philosophy that two people should always get two different dishes at a restaurant so they could share. But I wanted her to try my signature combo, to eat Chipotle the way I’d been eating it throughout college. Mild plus hot salsa made it extra spicy, and I knew she’d like it.
On our way back home, Ma was in a good mood. She stared at the bowls in the paper bag with intrigue and repeatedly weighed them in her hands. “Dang, this is like two solid pounds. For only $20? I call that a good deal,” she said. She sniffed the bowls and seemed to relish the fragrance. She turned off the radio, connected her phone to the aux cord, and played her favorite Chinese songs, moving her shoulders in a little dance. When we passed by Starbucks, she told me to stop by and bought us two frappuccinos. “Some ice drinks to cool the heat, yeah?” she said brightly.
Yet she never ate her bowl. When we got home, she said she was full from the coffee. She watched me eat my bowl as she sipped the remaining ice slush from her cup. Whenever I looked up at her and asked if she really wasn’t hungry, she’d smile and say, “If I’m hungry later tonight, I’ll eat it then. This doesn’t look like the type of food that needs to be eaten hot anyway.” Before I went to bed, I saw her heating up the hongshao chicken she made for dinner yesterday, the house smelling of ginger and anise. The next day, she heated up the remaining bowl of Chipotle for me before leaving for her morning walk.
Remember When You Told Me Santa Claus Wasn’t Real and My Parents Called Your Parents About It?
By Andrea Bishop
Remember in high school when we hiked the West Coast Trail, and even though I should have known better, I believed you when you said you were pale and woozy because the bugs had sucked all the blood out of you? I would’ve taken you to the hospital, but there wasn’t one, so I gave you an antihistamine because that’s all we had and I wanted to do something? Anything? And it did help.
Remember when we got separated from our group canoeing up that river in the Amazon and those guys with machetes came out of the jungle looking pissed, and we paddled like hell back the way we came and once we started laughing we couldn’t stop? Even though we were lost. And later that night we bought ayahuasca from that supposed shaman? And I was so mad because you gulped yours all down and then I couldn’t take any because we couldn’t both be stoned out of our minds in a foreign country. When you started seizing, I couldn’t figure out how to get help without leaving you alone. And I would have called your dad even though I knew he’d kill me for letting this happen and you’d kill me for calling him, but there was no phone and when you finally came around you said, “Please, may I have some more?” right before you puked again?
Remember after we got home, we went to the local and it felt too safe and small and familiar and we felt superior and everything felt the same but different, and we were bound together even more than before and nobody else could ever understand? Remember when that guy with the cowboy boots I’d crushed on forever showed up and I wanted to leave with him, and you were pissed because we were only just home? And how you followed us and banged on his door, and he only opened up after you said you were going to call the cops even though you already had? And then we did go to the hospital. And I asked how you knew and you said it was because my face was blank and normally I show every emotion and anyone could read me like a book. But I don’t think everyone could.
Remember after you got married how you’d say I miss you, we should really try and see each other more? But I wouldn’t have known how to act around all that money anyway, and besides, his friends were dicks. And when we did see each other, you told me he was a dick and I agreed, but that just made you mad. Remember that time he made you get the abortion, and when you called I said get one of your new fancy friends to take you? God, I felt bad after that.
Remember when that girl from high school that neither of us used to like told me you got cancer? I didn’t even know you were friends with her. Remember how surprised I was? And when I found out you’d moved? Divorced? When the whole time I’d been visualizing you laughing and partying with famous people and sure you’d forgotten about me? I could have sworn I’d have known if you were alone and needed me.
Cold Wave
By Tricia Gates Brown
He asked to take her bracelet. “Sophie” engraved on a steel band along with memories—someone who had loved her. You’ll give it back? she asked. Jerod nodded. In untucked shirt, skinny jeans, bare feet, Jerod was as self-absorbed as he was blue-eyed-handsome. Practiced at silencing herself, she let him take it.
Like the following week when he took her breath away. Covered her mouth and plugged her nose. So polished her disassociation that she analyzed the action rather than fought it. How long had it been? Why would he do this? Had he done this to others? She concluded that yes, surely he had done this to others. She waited for him to remove his hands as her mind, flooded and frozen, took note of his dorm room scents, scuffs on the ceiling, the chill on her bare and perfect torso. Observations more accessible than a young male’s quest for power. Jerod sat naked beside her on the bed, a casual grin on his face.
The next night, when he called to her from his dorm room window, she shook her head and walked into the cold. What happened to the bracelet, Sophie wondered. She never knew. Likely thrown out with accumulated detritus at the back of a bedroom drawer. As easy to lose as herself.
Valediction
By Cecilia Maddison
Your mother cries when she sees what we’ve done. “Oh, girls,” she manages, her eyes turning into pools I swear I could fall in, even though they’re meant for you. A tiny cry flies from her like a bird and she clamps a hand across her mouth to stop a flock of them following. I wonder if we should stick around for a while but she disappears into the living room and closes the door. Chat show banter drifts through the wall in an absurd pretence that everything’s fine. That you’re okay.
“Ready?” you ask, shrugging on your jacket. I stroke the strange new texture of my scalp. I’m not, but I nod.
You pocket your keys and we’re off, slamming the front door behind us. A strong breeze buffets us as we turn the corner, and I scurry along with hunched shoulders.
“Aren’t your ears cold?” I ask, unsure of this new nakedness.
“No. I’m good.” You haven’t once touched your shorn head. “No more hair to blow in my eyes.”
We’re wearing our Doc Martens. Mine are plain black but yours have a violet sheen from the time that boy tagging the railway bridge spray-painted them. When you stepped into his space he scowled and shook his head in a way that really meant why not? You howled with mirth as he knelt before you, blurring your boots with mist. For weeks, the spot where you stood was marked like an indigo crime scene.
The town centre’s teeming after afternoon fixtures, but the more the merrier, and we head for a haunt with late night opening. This is our last blast and we’re going to devour the hours.
“No trouble tonight, alright girls?” The doorman folds his arms and looks down his nose, his chin merging with rolls of neck flesh. Beady eyes flicker over your baldness and tartan dress, sizing you up. He spares a second-thought glance for me.
Your eyes glitter. “You letting us in or not?”
Sighing, he waves us through. When you grab my arm your fingers pinch, but I’m happy to be dragged in your wake.
We wriggle through the queue and plant victorious elbows on the bar. I buy a round of snakebite and black and we slurp the pink froth, staring at our reflections in the bar’s mirrored wall. It seems you’ve become an elfin waif while I’ve become an egg-headed alien. When my hand wanders to the new-found knobbles of my skull, you bat my hand away and order peach schnapps shots: sweet-shop drinks for baby grown-ups. In years to come when I’ve refined a preference for dry white wine, I’ll sigh at the heady scent of schnapps, longing to be nineteen again with you.
“Why would pretty girls go and do something like that?” The barman, who sees us plenty down here, can’t peel his eyes from our shaved heads. He hands over your change, whistling, marvelling. He’s referring to you, of course. More than pretty, you’re the brightest light in town. You ignore him, knocking back the viscous syrup and he shrugs, turning away.
We squeeze through the throng to our corner, feed coins into the jukebox and line up the Cure, the Manics, and a Joy Division throwback. Only it won’t be love that will tear us apart and I’m giddy with fear when I think about it. We swig more pints. Belch like truckers. Become emboldened by stares. When I make a slurred suggestion for more shnakebites we cackle, bent double until death rattles leave us gasping. I wipe away tears and smudged mascara. Your sweeping black eyeliner remains pristine, but there are thumbprint shadows under your eyes.
A rugger bugger in lurid team stripes lurches over, baring jug-handled ears and a sneer. He slaps a sweaty palm on your head, then mine. You glare; I grimace.
“What’s with the skinheads? You lezzos or what?” His breath is sour, his eyes pink-rimmed. “How about I change your mind?” He grabs his crotch.
When the dregs of your drink in his face don’t cut it, you hoick up a glob of phlegm to follow. The rugger bugger roars, incensed, his fury barely contained by the lads hanging onto his arms. But you’re rooted, unbent by the gale of his wrath, your chin jutting into danger until I yank you away. This time it’s my fingers that dig into your arm, but you don’t flinch.
Once outside we run hand in hand, boots battering the pavements until our lungs burn. Shrieking and whooping, we dart across streets towards the seafront. A car swerves to miss us and the driver hurls expletives that we scream back into the night sky.
Breathless, we settle on the seawall, legs dangling over the edge. Below, waves slap and suck, slap and suck. Out at sea the lights of a distant tanker twinkle as it balances on the tightrope of the horizon. After the frenzy of the bar, silence seeps into our bones.
“I’ll visit.” I lean my head on your shoulder. “I’ll take the coach up every weekend.”
“They won’t let you in. The treatment’s going to fry my white blood cells.”
Beneath our feet the water glistens, black and restless. I resist an urge to slide under the surface and sink until my boots imprint the seabed.
“Be strong for your mum,” I say. “Or she’ll be a nightmare. Promise?”
“I promise. In fact, I’ll be shtrong.” You flex a bicep and punch the sky with your fist. One day, I’ll watch my daughter take endless selfies with her friends, freezing every second in a frame, and I’ll wonder how it is that with nothing but memories, I still see this moment so clearly.
We watch the tanker slip over the edge of the world. When its lights disappear as if it never existed, I’m glad you and I were the last to set eyes on it, sitting side by side on the wall.
Melting Icicles
By Roberta Beary
Although it is Wednesday afternoon, the police have yet to arrive for the weekly inspection. The Alsatian our daughter left behind sits patiently by the oven. The scent of baking bread is palpable. Little bursts of hope bubble up from the radiator. Perhaps in anticipation that the police will forget. The stamped name change arrived three days ago from the capital. O’Reilly has no vestige of Riga, of Krakow, of Vilnius. The police may never return.
The icicles remain. They appeared overnight on the winter solstice. Little crystal daggers, a strange sort of border for the large bay window. That day the official liaison, a cultured old gentleman, took Erich’s details. Name, place and date of birth, occupation, ethnicity. The man admired Erich’s landscapes, standing very still before the one of bluebells. Saying they reminded him of his village in Bavaria. Erich saw this as a sign that we were safe. But two weeks later the guards led him away.
Today marks the vernal equinox. The Alsatian sits patiently by the oven. Then growls at the thud of boots. Bares her teeth, snarling at a series of sharp knocks. Or is it my heart pounding? The bluebells shake their heads as if to say, Come now, don’t be silly, open the door. What’s the worst that could happen? In answer, the first icicle falls. The melting has begun.
This is Arlo, Your Nephew
By Michael Czyzniejewski
My dad came into my room and asked me to write a letter to my Uncle Travis, who was in rehab. We were putting together a care package: candy and nuts and gum, toothpaste and mouthwash. Me, my sister, and my parents would all write and we’d stick those letters in the box. “We need to show him we love him.” I told my dad okay, and to close my door on his way out. “Do it,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later, my dad came back. I hadn’t started the letter. My dad was noticeably pissed. I told him I didn’t know what to write. He said, “Just write I love you and sign your name.” I told him I could do better. The post office was closing. My dad said I’d write my own letter that night and we’d mail it the next day. “Or no computer.” He didn’t shut the door on his way out.
~
My uncle had disappeared for years, then showed up married to a gorgeous woman from the tattoo parlor by the DMV. She called him Puddin’ Pop and he called her Sugar Lumps. They battled each other for who had the most ink—it was neck and neck. The next thing we knew, he didn’t have that wife anymore and pretended not to know who we were talking about. Then he was in a nosedive and ended up in rehab. I was mad at his ex for leaving him but still jerked off to her a few times. I’d even bike out to the tattoo parlor just to see her through the window. One time she waved and I sped away and never returned.
~
That night I started the letter in my geometry notebook:
Dear Uncle Travis,
This is Arlo, your nephew. My dad told me you’re in rehab, the kind where you stop drinking, not the kind where you fix a bad knee. I hope they let you out soon.
—Arlo
My dad came to get the letter before he went to bed. I had it folded tight but he opened it and read it. “Are you serious?” he said. “We can’t send him this.” It took me a second to realize he wanted me to write another letter, right then. Or no more computer.
I proceeded to write this:
Dear Uncle Travis,
This is Arlo, your nephew. I’m taking driver’s ed this term and will soon have my license. Then I’ll steal my dad’s truck and break you out. When I flash the headlights three times, move everyone away from the window and I’ll bust through the wall. You can hop in and we’ll be gone before they realize what’s happening. We can get tattoos and find hot babes.
—Arlo
I left it on my desk. I woke up to my dad disconnecting my monitor. “I asked you for one thing,” he said, “and you couldn’t do it.” I jolted upward, but Dad ordered me to stay in bed.
“I can do better.”
My dad was gone with my keyboard and hard drive before I finished the sentence. I went to school. Dinner that night was quiet. I almost talked, but my mom mouthed No. When my dad went to bed, no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find my computer.
~
The next morning, I drove my bike to the strip mall with the tattoo parlor. The place was called No Regrets and didn’t open until ten. I waited in the parking lot, called myself off school, and played on my phone.
At ten a guy wearing a black trench coat like from The Matrix opened the store. He said, “You have to be eighteen. I’m genius at spotting fake IDs.” I said I was waiting for someone. He shrugged. I thought maybe Travis’s ex didn’t work there anymore but then she pulled up in her burgundy LeSabre and I followed her inside. After she settled in, she looked at me and said, “I know you.” I reminded her who I was and she said, “Don’t you drive your bike past here all the time?” I denied it. She asked me why I was there and I told her Travis was in rehab, that he was sad she left, and he started doing drugs.
“He was doing drugs before I left. That’s why I left.”
“Oh.”
I told her about the letter, how I didn’t know what to say. I asked her if she could write him, say something to help. She went to talk to the trench coat guy, whispered something, and he shrugged. She came back and instructed me to sit down. She prepped her gear and I thought she was going to give me a tattoo. Instead, she took off her shirt and pulled down the right side of her bra, exposing her breast. Above the nipple it said Sugar Lumps in fancy letters. She started tattooing herself. I couldn’t see what she was doing but was mesmerized: the buzz, her concentration, her exposed, perfect flesh. She didn’t flinch once. When she finished, she snapped a Polaroid—they were all over the walls, hundreds of shots of tattoos—and reclothed herself. She showed me the picture: Her boob now said Get Better, Love Sugar Lumps. She instructed me to get it to my uncle. I asked her if she’d take him back, if his rehab worked out. She didn’t say anything, instead pulling out her left breast. It said Puddin’ Pop above the nipple. I thought she was going to cry, then she did.
~
I rode to the P.O. I’d found the stamped envelope my dad made with my uncle’s name and the rehab address written on it. In the white bar at the bottom of the Polaroid, I wrote Love Arlo, Your Nephew. I took one more look at my ex-aunt’s naked breast then sealed the picture inside the envelope. I was positive this was going to work.
Melting Icicles
By Helen Chambers
Skadi inhales and, straightening her icicle crown, stands up to her full height, ice skirts chiming. Her toe-pinching ice stilettos weren’t necessary, she’s way taller than everyone here. But she likes to carry a discrete weapon. Reminds herself that not only is she a giantess, she’s also Queen of the Far North.
Here in Asgard the air is denser than at home. A bitter aroma lurks beneath the haze of woodsmoke and stale mead.
The taint of unwashed feet.
Skadi sighs, a long plume of icy fog, and addresses herself to the task in hand. Dozens of pairs of feet—male feet—line up for her inspection. Odin has decreed that she’s to choose a husband from amongst the gods. Making the decision by selecting from their bare feet, that is. Toes, heels, ankles, and the curve into calves, while the rest of their bodies are obscured by screens.
Secretly, she hopes to pick virile and handsome young Baldur. She fancies herself cougar, kept youthful by a younger man—but, on examining the assembled feet, disgust rises like nausea.
What is wrong with these gods? Do any ever wash?
She sighs more cold mist as she peers closely at the first pair. Dirt is wedged beneath ragged nails, toes curling and scrunching away from her cold breath. Ugh. The next pair are covered in wiry black hair—Loki’s, she suspects. He’s a fool, a prankster and slippery as an ice-eel. Not husband material.
Yellowed nails suggests a much older man. No thanks.
Engrained dirt on the next two pairs, followed by deformed toes, a pair with dry and peeling skin, swollen ankles, weedy calf muscles, calluses, corns, toenails bitten to the quick (belonging to some flexible shapeshifter, she presumes).
Standards are low.
She glances over at Odin himself, lounging on his throne by the fire, feet safely ensconced in thick boots, glaring raven perched on his arm. Odin’s golden eyepatch glows in the firelight, and Skadi keeps a safe and respectful distance.
‘Most of these could do with a decent wash,’ she says, arching a glacial eyebrow.
He grunts. ‘Not only the feet … ’
‘Can you choose quickly?’ someone shouts from behind the screen. ‘I’m getting chilblains.’
‘This is important,’ says Skadi. ‘I’ve got to share a bed with the owner of these feet.’
Cue embarrassed coughing and shuffling, one foot rubbing against another in a belated attempt at smartening them up. A cloud of hands reach down and polish big toenails, until Odin thumps his staff on the ground. ‘Norse Gods are tough and don’t complain about the cold,’ he announces, loudly. ‘Hurry up, Skadi,’ he mumbles. ‘Put us all out of our misery.’
Of the dozens of feet she examines, only one pair is clean and a normal shape and size. The nails shine like icy meltwater in low sun.
‘These,’ she announces. ‘I’ll marry the owner of these feet.’
The other feet disappear. Skadi glances at the gods she didn’t choose and spots Baldur amongst them with a lurch of disappointment. How stupid to agree to Odin’s suggestion. Who needs a husband, anyway? She’s managed perfectly well without one, thank you, content with her wolves, ice-spiders and eagles for company.
Skadi looks down at her husband-to-be. He washes his feet, she reminds herself. She’s surprised by the bluest eyes she’s seen, like the sky above mountains in high summer, set deep in a brown, wrinkled face. He must be at least her age, and she’s no spring chicken. His hair, however, is a mass of matted grey curls which could do with a wash, and he carries a tang of the sea about him. She bites her lip and glances down. His feet truly are immaculate. It’s a small start, and she has to abide by Odin’s rules.
Let’s hope this husband can manage to smile in the cold of her home.
‘Njord, god of all oceans at your service,’ he says, holding out his hand. It’s as clean and soft as his feet. She takes it, admiring his firm handshake, though her own hand feels damp after shaking his. How strange, her chunky ice-rings look smaller than she remembers.
‘I wish to return to my realm, my ice palace. I’m missing the cold,’ she says, swishing her icicle skirts which jangle, tinkle and—horror—drip.
‘Of course,’ he smiles. ‘I’ll gladly accompany you.’
As they clamber into her sledge and she offers him furs, a trickle of water from her icicle crown runs down her forehead. Not a moment too soon to leave. She ignores the dripping, commanding her sledge-pulling wolves to hurry.
They fly northwards into the freezing night, and she breathes happier in the crisp air. Njord, huddled beneath the furs, shows a polite interest in the constellations and mountain ranges she points out, and appears positively entranced by the aurora.
However, Skadi feels queasy, and fidgets, itchy on her ice seat – which, now she thinks about it, is decidedly damp. Water streams down her face. Ordering the wolves to stop, she kicks off what remains of her damp stilettos and steps barefoot onto compacted snow. On her sledge, a steady drip rolls from her seat into the puddled stiletto remains.
Wriggling her toes free on the ice to soothe herself, she catches Njord staring at her bare feet, disgust on his face. She looks down. Her own feet are shabby: chipped polish, bunions and rough skin. She hadn’t time for a pedicure before rushing to Asgard.
At the same time, she reaches into the sledge, dips her index finger into the puddle on her seat, and puts it to her lips.
Salt.
‘This won’t work,’ they say, simultaneously.
Keeping her favourite wolf with her for company, she returns Njord to Asgard on her sledge, and sets off northwards, blessedly barefoot, along the glacier.
BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION 