A Dreamer's Paradise
by Melody Chen
In a clear, calm sky, the wild grass dances in the summery breeze. The seeds of the round, spring-like dandelions voyage through arbitrary directions. Like blind eyes, it carries the seeds in whichever way the breeze takes. A Saint Bernard leaps to catch the seeds with its enormous mouth but misses, and tumbles on the bright, green meadow. In a flurry of color. Each day, a lively dance takes on the soft meadows of paradise and reverberates across the fields. The clouds flow gently in the sky. The breeze whispers summer. The grass sways wildly as it exchanges an enigmatic language to the dizzy bees. However, a time would come when dandelions say farewell to their kins. The clouds come low and pour their rainy jealously to the unaffected meadows. As seasons tumble by, a magic glory would ultimately reveal itself. Like a shaft of sunshine and glimmer across a covert woodland.
Life Cycle of a Mayfly
by Shelley Kim
The last day of summer hung swaying, dying, the air in front of you dripping dust and dried-up flies. She had to set up the classroom for school and the air conditioning had broken sometime that summer and opening the windows only thickened the air with the buzz of mosquitoes. Stacks of papers sagged. Motivational posters peeled desaturated off the walls.
"My God," she breathed. She fanned herself with a math packet. The ink blurred with sweat. It has to be illegal to work in this heat, she thought. She glanced at the time. 11:39. Too early for this.
She sighed and gave up, leaving her paperwork for the gnats to consume. She took off her shoes and threw them at the wall and stared at the footprints, trying to remember why she had wanted to become a teacher. She couldn't. So she walked outside with only socks and the day was still sweltering and her paperwork was not any more done but she decided that she was going to go home and fill a tall glass with ice and something alcoholic, the air conditioner working full blast, and she would kick back without socks and not think about sweat or children or insects or the sweaty children of insects.
She found Scott also pacing himself to the bus stop. His entire demeanor was of someone who had given up. A slow yet undeliberate stride. Constantly tired. Never spoke first. Even his hair had given up-- he was balding in his thirties.
"Good morning," she ventured.
He looked at her feet. "Nice shoes."
"Thanks."
That was the end of the conversation. They walked next to each other, resigned to silence, her socks picking up all the dust and dirt of summer's end. She brought it onto the bus but the driver didn't give it a second glance, not even a first glance. She pushed into the bus packed throughout with strangers and Scott and she rode rest of the highway alone. The lights on the ceiling buzzed, showing off silhouettes of moth corpses. It was all she could look at as the bus hummed its way into the writhing inner city.
When she made it to her flat she threw her socks out the window and filled a tall glass with ice but only made it that far. Instead she lay down and spent her afternoon alone. She felt deprived. She watched a fly throw itself into a window over and over again, its little thumps growing less and less frequent as the sky choked on dust and bruised blue and purple.
The first day of school was a dreadful as she had anticipated. The heat became heavier, somehow, and the air conditioning was not fixed. She put on a smile for her fourth-graders through the stench of body odor and rotting insects. So when recess finally came she found it as welcome as her students did. She waded past the swarms of children into the slightly less suffocating heat of the day outside for recess duty, where she would make sure nobody was trampled.
Scott was there too, balding head shining in a cloudless sky. He greeted her with a tip of his coffee mug.
"Good morning."
He put the mug to his face, probably not drinking it.
She stood by him. Tried to think of conversation to make. Surrounded by children and colleagues and an impossible amount of dust and flies, she couldn't feel more alone.
She coughed. "You ever wonder if there's a word for, ah, a group of children?"
His look said no. But it seemed better to keep talking.
"Well, you know how there's a gaggle of geese, a pack of wolves, a swarm of flies?" She tried for a smile but only managed half a grimace. "What's the word for a- that infestation of tiny creatures?"
His head lolled back toward her, lazy, tired, unlaughing. A single bead of sweat shone riveted on his temple.
"Children," he offered. "School."
"Of course."
They watched the said infestation of children worming to the top of the playgrounds. The dust and heat had stained everything a washed-out brown, yet the children still climbed the wrong way up slides with a vibrating energy. It was almost unwelcome. No, it was unwelcome. The way that they shrieked, flapped their arms, threw their pudgy fingers at everything with vigor, it felt too unnatural. Out of place.
She closed her eyes. Even then she could still see it. The haze. Children shimmering among heat waves like mirages. The roar in a stale breeze kicking up dust. She felt a cloud of heat overwhelm her like a swarm of locusts, flitting, larval and alight, quivering in her skin and nostrils and ears and tongue and closed eyes, inside of her lungs, she could feel them infesting her breath every time she inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, the crumbling musk of insects crushed among themselves in the musty overheating autumn air. Surrounded by the uproar of wings slapping, legs twitching, isolated inside a fog of insects. Alone. She inhaled, exhaled.
When she opened her eyes she was back inside the classroom. It was the end of the day and she watched a drowsy sunbeam suspended through the window blinds, the shadows of mayflies dancing slanted and faded across empty desks. It took several minutes for her to get up and walk alone with her shoes on to the bus stop.
She leaned her head against the side of the bus and closed her eyes. She inhaled the scent of gasoline and exhaled exhaust. Endless cars roared by on the interstate and she heard locusts.
When the textbook told her she was to teach life science to the students, she almost laughed. Her, barely alive, of all the people to teach life science. Maybe there was a God, and he had a taste for irony. Or maybe not. Maybe her predicaments were meaningless and her own, and the only thing God had an inordinate fondness for was beetles.
She dangled a cup of coffee in one hand and flipped through the curriculum with the other. Phases of the moon. Food webs. She paused momentarily to look at the life cycle of silkworms, who, as soon as they escaped their cocoons and laid their eggs, died. She eyed the curvature of the arrows past the handle of her coffee mug as she took a sip. There was an ineffable sort of futility to it, a backwards sympathy she had always felt instead of self-pity. Millions of worms strung around the planet, tirelessly chewing leaves, pulsating, spinning cocoons, bursting out of them, breathlessly placing down eggs until they breathed no more, then all over again with the same vibrating energy to achieve nothing. Maybe it was admirable, she thought, and finished her coffee. Or maybe it wasn’t. When she looked up at the calendar and saw that it was already May she was almost surprised.
"My God," she breathed. She fanned herself with a math packet. The ink blurred with sweat. It has to be illegal to work in this heat, she thought. She glanced at the time. 11:39. Too early for this.
She sighed and gave up, leaving her paperwork for the gnats to consume. She took off her shoes and threw them at the wall and stared at the footprints, trying to remember why she had wanted to become a teacher. She couldn't. So she walked outside with only socks and the day was still sweltering and her paperwork was not any more done but she decided that she was going to go home and fill a tall glass with ice and something alcoholic, the air conditioner working full blast, and she would kick back without socks and not think about sweat or children or insects or the sweaty children of insects.
She found Scott also pacing himself to the bus stop. His entire demeanor was of someone who had given up. A slow yet undeliberate stride. Constantly tired. Never spoke first. Even his hair had given up-- he was balding in his thirties.
"Good morning," she ventured.
He looked at her feet. "Nice shoes."
"Thanks."
That was the end of the conversation. They walked next to each other, resigned to silence, her socks picking up all the dust and dirt of summer's end. She brought it onto the bus but the driver didn't give it a second glance, not even a first glance. She pushed into the bus packed throughout with strangers and Scott and she rode rest of the highway alone. The lights on the ceiling buzzed, showing off silhouettes of moth corpses. It was all she could look at as the bus hummed its way into the writhing inner city.
When she made it to her flat she threw her socks out the window and filled a tall glass with ice but only made it that far. Instead she lay down and spent her afternoon alone. She felt deprived. She watched a fly throw itself into a window over and over again, its little thumps growing less and less frequent as the sky choked on dust and bruised blue and purple.
The first day of school was a dreadful as she had anticipated. The heat became heavier, somehow, and the air conditioning was not fixed. She put on a smile for her fourth-graders through the stench of body odor and rotting insects. So when recess finally came she found it as welcome as her students did. She waded past the swarms of children into the slightly less suffocating heat of the day outside for recess duty, where she would make sure nobody was trampled.
Scott was there too, balding head shining in a cloudless sky. He greeted her with a tip of his coffee mug.
"Good morning."
He put the mug to his face, probably not drinking it.
She stood by him. Tried to think of conversation to make. Surrounded by children and colleagues and an impossible amount of dust and flies, she couldn't feel more alone.
She coughed. "You ever wonder if there's a word for, ah, a group of children?"
His look said no. But it seemed better to keep talking.
"Well, you know how there's a gaggle of geese, a pack of wolves, a swarm of flies?" She tried for a smile but only managed half a grimace. "What's the word for a- that infestation of tiny creatures?"
His head lolled back toward her, lazy, tired, unlaughing. A single bead of sweat shone riveted on his temple.
"Children," he offered. "School."
"Of course."
They watched the said infestation of children worming to the top of the playgrounds. The dust and heat had stained everything a washed-out brown, yet the children still climbed the wrong way up slides with a vibrating energy. It was almost unwelcome. No, it was unwelcome. The way that they shrieked, flapped their arms, threw their pudgy fingers at everything with vigor, it felt too unnatural. Out of place.
She closed her eyes. Even then she could still see it. The haze. Children shimmering among heat waves like mirages. The roar in a stale breeze kicking up dust. She felt a cloud of heat overwhelm her like a swarm of locusts, flitting, larval and alight, quivering in her skin and nostrils and ears and tongue and closed eyes, inside of her lungs, she could feel them infesting her breath every time she inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, the crumbling musk of insects crushed among themselves in the musty overheating autumn air. Surrounded by the uproar of wings slapping, legs twitching, isolated inside a fog of insects. Alone. She inhaled, exhaled.
When she opened her eyes she was back inside the classroom. It was the end of the day and she watched a drowsy sunbeam suspended through the window blinds, the shadows of mayflies dancing slanted and faded across empty desks. It took several minutes for her to get up and walk alone with her shoes on to the bus stop.
She leaned her head against the side of the bus and closed her eyes. She inhaled the scent of gasoline and exhaled exhaust. Endless cars roared by on the interstate and she heard locusts.
When the textbook told her she was to teach life science to the students, she almost laughed. Her, barely alive, of all the people to teach life science. Maybe there was a God, and he had a taste for irony. Or maybe not. Maybe her predicaments were meaningless and her own, and the only thing God had an inordinate fondness for was beetles.
She dangled a cup of coffee in one hand and flipped through the curriculum with the other. Phases of the moon. Food webs. She paused momentarily to look at the life cycle of silkworms, who, as soon as they escaped their cocoons and laid their eggs, died. She eyed the curvature of the arrows past the handle of her coffee mug as she took a sip. There was an ineffable sort of futility to it, a backwards sympathy she had always felt instead of self-pity. Millions of worms strung around the planet, tirelessly chewing leaves, pulsating, spinning cocoons, bursting out of them, breathlessly placing down eggs until they breathed no more, then all over again with the same vibrating energy to achieve nothing. Maybe it was admirable, she thought, and finished her coffee. Or maybe it wasn’t. When she looked up at the calendar and saw that it was already May she was almost surprised.
The Broken Dream Machine
by Renee Wang
Sprawling flowers and
Fantastical scenes
Cascade into wondrous dreams
Man and the machine
Immigrant and the American dream
Wide eyes and broken dreams
Populated with war mongering hearts
Engraved on the inseams of
Hateful paraphernalia of
Anti this and anti that
Pretty houses manicured lawns
Nuclear families inhibiting
A life so many grasp at the seams
Only to be turned down at
The gateway of a broken
machine that once promised to
Churn out dreams.
Fantastical scenes
Cascade into wondrous dreams
Man and the machine
Immigrant and the American dream
Wide eyes and broken dreams
Populated with war mongering hearts
Engraved on the inseams of
Hateful paraphernalia of
Anti this and anti that
Pretty houses manicured lawns
Nuclear families inhibiting
A life so many grasp at the seams
Only to be turned down at
The gateway of a broken
machine that once promised to
Churn out dreams.
The Unplanned Vacation
by Mehek Mehta
Ugh. The Ubers these days. I glanced at my watch for the third time in the last minute. I was supposed to be on my way to attend an important conference and I’m sure I would be fired if I was late again. Every second dragged along as I paced on the sidewalk outside my house, when I finally saw a flash of yellow in my peripheral vision. Oh, the Gods have been merciful. I was so close to resort to sprinting there. I squinted at the nearing Uber, and for some reason, it looked strangely familiar. Whatever it was, I didn’t have the time to think of it. I ran up to door to the front seat, and shut the car door behind me.
Quickly latching my seatbelt, I turned to the driver. Just a simple “gasp” can’t cover how shocked I was at that moment. I had turned to see my very own fluffy, adorable pet rabbit named Chester, sitting calmly at the driver’s seat, with shades on.
“There’s a lot you don’t know, don’t question it,” he said in a husky voice, and he slammed his little paw on the accelerator, making the car jolt forward. I blinked. No, no, no. What did I drink last night? Damn tequila. What is this hallucination? I slapped myself, hard, and then closed my eyes for ten seconds. This had to disappear. It was only a dream, right? I risked a peek under my eyelids. I groaned. I was still speeding to God-knows-where in a car with my pet rabbit who had died when I was ten.
“I’m sorry to break it to you, but uh, I’m real,” said Chester, looking at me pityingly over his sunglasses. Then he slowly placed a reassuring paw on my hand.
“Aaarghhh!” was my response as my eyes widened at his paw on mine. Hand, I mean, not paw. I do not have a paw. Clearly, I wasn’t handling the situation well. Chester quickly withdrew his paw, as if I had struck it. Or maybe I had, but in my moment of extreme panic, I wasn’t aware of my actions.
Thinking quickly, I pulled at the door handle, surely my bunny would not anticipate my plans for escape. A more rational part of me said, “just talk to Chester. He’ll tell you where he’s taking you and why he is alive after choking on lettuce years ago.” But then I backtracked. I was not about to talk to my talking-bunny-who-was-supposed-to-be-dead. So I pulled at the door handle, and braced myself for the fall. When nothing happened, I pushed against it. Once, twice, maybe a couple more times than necessary. It wouldn't budge! But then I noticed a change. The car was slowing down. Oh my God. Chester was going to let me out. Then I could go back to pretending this car ride never happened. I turned to look at Chester, relief in my eyes. But Chester had other plans. In his paw was a syringe filled with a liquid.
“I really wished you would cooperate, sweetie, but I guess this is what it is going to come down to,” he said, turning towards me. Before I could yell out a strangled “no!”, the bunny was on me, plunging the syringe into my neck. Black dots covered my vision as I slowly drifted away from the car, my bunny the kidnapper, and the universe, it seemed.
Nothing would come into focus. I lifted my head groggily, squinting to see my surroundings. Water. Lots and lots of water. Was I underwater? Something approached me. What was that? I rubbed on my eyes. Still blurry. Long ears. Was that a head? Before I could further investigate my situation, menacing footsteps behind me decided another fate for me.
“Oh, not yet, honey bun, we have a long journey,” and yet another stab to the neck. “Chester,” I mumbled as I fell back into this never ending cycle of sleep.
Sunlight hit my eyes, making them burn from the inside. Lifting my heavy eyelids, I tried to lift a hand to rub at my eyes. My hands were bound by a knotted rope. Using every ounce of energy I had in my stiff muscles, I slowly raised myself up against the wall that supported me. I blinked. My vision was coming back. Long metal bars surrounded me. In one corner, I saw something that looked vaguely like a pet bowl. There was a stack of hay in another corner. Wait a second… I was in a cage. A cage that exactly resembled where I previously kept Chester, my bunny. Before he allegedly died, that is. My cool demeanor was no longer an option. Panic settled into my chest, clouding my thoughts. I was in survival mode.
First, my hands. I could maybe just weasel my hands out of the knot. Every movement hurt. Slowly and shakily, I managed to maneuver each hand out of the rope. Ah, the relief. Shaking my hands out, I listened for sounds around me. Not a single voice, no footsteps. I patted down my pockets. The damn rabbit stole my phone. All I had were a few coins.The cage was just big enough for me to be on my knees, so standing was clearly not an option. My brain was still fuzzy and my lips were cracked due to the lack of water. The pet bowl, I thought. Getting on my knees, I gingerly crawled over to it, to find a bowl with no water. What was I doing here? Was this some kind of reverse universe? I edged over to the bars, and rattled the opening door. It was locked. Of course. I gripped the bars, looking through them. There were cages identical to mine lined up with separating walls between them all around me. All of them were empty. I was the only hostage. My head was spinning. My job was obviously out of the question. Right now, I wasn’t sure if I would have a life. No, I said to myself in my head sternly. You are not about to die in a cage as your pet rabbit’s captive. Think, I thought. What would that man from the survival show you watch on Friday nights do? How heavy could the cage be? Maybe I could move it with my body weight. I slammed my shoulder into the bars. That hurt. I pushed against it twice again. I was already sweating. I hadn’t managed to move it an inch. Disappointed, I sat down on the cage floor and held my still spinning head in my hands.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” a Chester-like voice said dramatically. I lifted my head.
“What is it like? Being in the cage and not out of it?”
“Chester? Is that you?” I croaked as loudly as I could.
“Oh whoops, I forgot about the water. What can I say, I learnt from my owner.”
Footsteps echoed down a hallway towards my cage. Or should I say, paw steps? Either way, I quickly grabbed the rope and held my hands behind my back, tying it on my wrist loosely. He shouldn’t know I had freed myself. Sloshing of water. Closer, closer, and then there he was. The psycho bunny himself, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans with no shirt, holding in one paw a bowl full of water. Chester, my long- dead pet.
“Hello, Alyssa. How do you like my new outfit? I think it’s a great upgrade from those itchy tutus you used to force upon me.” He leaned in replaced the empty bowl with the bowl full of water.
“Chester? How are you alive? Why are you doing this? Why am I here?” I croaked.
“Now, now. Drink up. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. After all, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Or at all,” he chuckled.
“Please, Chester,” I croaked back. “Drink,” he ordered sternly now, his voice cold.
Crawling forward on my knees, I obediently took a few sips from the bowl, keeping my hands at my back. Then I crawled back, waiting.
“Remember when you first got me from the Pet Store, Alyssa?” my psycho rabbit said.
I nodded slowly. “It was a rainy day and I felt lonely. So I begged and begged my father until he agreed to get me a pet. I wanted a dog, but he would only agree to a rabbit. So I settled for anything I could get,” I said.
“I remember that day too. You know, the Pet Store was great. So many different people I saw every day, so many fellow bunny friends around me. Until one day, that rainy day, I realized I was one of the few rabbits left to be taken away, and I felt terrible. I wanted a child to look at me and say, “that’s the rabbit I want!” And you know Alyssa? That’s exactly what you did. At the very last moment before the store closed on that rainy day, your father and you drove up to the store in the yellow car you had. Yes, the car I picked you up in. Don’t ask me how, but I have evolved. The point is, you chose me. ”
“That was a great day, Chester. But how are you alive?”
“Patience. I told you, no questions. Don’t make me tape your mouth like I tied your hands, I’m getting there,” Chester took a deep breath.
“The first few days with you were the best days in my life as a rabbit. You took care of me, adored me, fed me. You loved me, Alyssa.” Chester’s eyes were red and wide, his whiskers twitching. He was pacing up and down the length of the cage outside it. I nodded, unsure of where this conversation was going.
“Until one day you stopped,” he said. Suddenly it was if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees, like I was in the middle of a snow storm. I could hear the iciness in his voice, the pain in every word that he said next.
“You no longer looked at me with adoring eyes, instead you spoke for hours on the phone. You no longer cared if I didn’t eat for days, or if my fur was falling out. You meant everything to me, Alyssa, and suddenly I wasn’t enough any more. The moment I realized that...that really hurt. Spending time with your friends and scrolling through your phone was more important. In fact, you had to be reminded to feed me. Your pet rabbit was slowly dying of hunger, and you didn’t even notice.”
“Chester, I-”
“I’m done yet!” Chester yelled, his voice trembling. “I was nothing. I was powerless. I had no one. Until one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I had to get away, but there was no escape. I tried a million times, but you would always catch me, calling me your “stupid rat”. That’s when I knew it was over. You did not just forget about me, you forgot your love for me. You forgot that on your most lonely days, I kept you company. So that one day, when your mom yelled at you to feed me lettuce, I pretended to choke on it and played dead. I knew you would not care enough to bury me, and I was right. I hate that I was, Alyssa, because I could have been your best friend. We could have been best friends.”
“Chester we still can, you know it. You know I love you internally, even though I haven’t been showing it-”
Suddenly his face was between two of the bars of the cage, and he hissed, “Do not speak. I have a story, and you will listen, Alyssa. All those times you were lonely, I listened. Now it is your turn.”
The color drained from my face. I could not believe I was being threatened by my previous pet bunny.
“I am going to skip the part where you left my ‘dead’ body in the trash, because the memory still makes me shake with anger. After I found my way out of the trash, I spent days missing you. Your laugh, your smile. But that soon turned into resentment as I realized what a terrible owner you had been. I would have been dead at this moment. I really would have, if it had not been for a few friends who I found along the way. They nurtured me from the wild, helpless animal I was, into the powerful and intellectual creature I am now. I am now ruthless, and cannot wait to watch you suffer what I suffered. Suffer for days in your lonely cage with no one who loves you. Suffer with no food, no water. Suffer.” With every sentence he said, his voice raised a pitch, his eyes bulged out of his forehead. That is when I realized, my bunny was really a psycho. He was obviously disturbed. The only way to deal with a psycho was this: there was no dealing. Escape was my only option. The question was - how? Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glint. A glint of silver…a key! The key to my cage. If only I could get it somehow…
Chester was waiting for my response. I had to feign it. I held a hand to my heart, and looked up at him as I said, “Oh my God, Chester. I can’t imagine the pain I put you through!” With watering eyes, I said, “I know there’s not a thing I could say that would make things alright for us again, but I need to say this. I am so happy that you’re alive, Chester. I know my initial surprise in the car does not support what I just said, but that was only because I was so ecstatic, I believed I was dreaming-”
“Stop! Stop messing with my mind with your cunning words, they told me you would try this, they told me everything-”
“No, Chester!” I crooned. “You know it’s not true, they don’t know us. They don’t know our special bond, our budding friendship is something they will never understand. I messed up, I got carried away, but those are my flaws. You are better than this, Chester, you have always been. You have forgiveness in you. We can live together, you will never be in a cage again. You will be my best friend. Forever. I know I haven’t earned your forgiveness yet, but I hope you’ll forgive me, Chester. I love you, my rabbit.”
He was confused. His eyes began to dart. He pulled at his bunny ears.
“Believe me, Chester. At least, let me give you a hug. Remember those? Maybe then you will see it. We can make it though these problems.”
His foot shifted towards the cage. His eyes widened at the prospect of being adored once again. Like that would ever happen again, psychotic bunny who kidnapped me.
He inched closer to the cage and whispered, “Just one hug, but you will have to earn my forgiveness.”
I smiled brightly at him and said, “Of course, of course. Just one hug.” I held my bound hands towards him. He cautiously undid the knot.
I leaned towards him, and Chester leaned into my arms. I missed him, and I cried after I lost him, but he didn’t know that. It was too late to save him now. I slipped my finger into the chain that held the key, and slid it into my pocket. After a few excruciating seconds, Chester pulled away, still outside the cage.
“I missed you, Chester.” It was true, I did miss him, but not the talking him. The cute and silent one who listened to me.
He was already walking away.
It was time for action. I had waited for quite some time, and the course was clear. Slipping the key into the lock, I quietly unlocked my cage, and crawled out on all fours. No alarms went off. No sirens. Not a squeak. I gingerly stood up on my feet, trying to shake out the pins and needles. Then I sprinted towards the light.
I was sitting content on my comfortable sofa with a coffee mug in my hand, when the doorbell rang. Weeks had gone by ever since my incident with my pet rabbit from the past. It turned out I had been gone for three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He had managed to smuggle me miles away from the city, to a secluded area in the outskirts. It had taken me a day to find a passing traveller who agreed to take me to the city in exchange for the little money I had left. The important meeting was cancelled anyway because the people we were supposed to meet with did not make it. I got to keep my job after all, and I was safe and happy at my house after having found my way back. I could forget all about it. Chester was a mistake, and I could finally let go. However, no more Ubers for me; those will always haunt me. I sighed and walked to the door. At my feet, there was a parcel. Locking the door behind me, I headed over to the table and opened it. It was a picture of me. No, it was a collection of pictures. The first one of me sedated in the front seat of the Uber. Another picture of me sedated on the floor of a truck. Another of me in the cage, waking up and looking for water. A last one of me sprinting for an escape. To this collection was a note in a beautiful handwriting. It read: “Until our next vacation - xoxo, Chester.”
Quickly latching my seatbelt, I turned to the driver. Just a simple “gasp” can’t cover how shocked I was at that moment. I had turned to see my very own fluffy, adorable pet rabbit named Chester, sitting calmly at the driver’s seat, with shades on.
“There’s a lot you don’t know, don’t question it,” he said in a husky voice, and he slammed his little paw on the accelerator, making the car jolt forward. I blinked. No, no, no. What did I drink last night? Damn tequila. What is this hallucination? I slapped myself, hard, and then closed my eyes for ten seconds. This had to disappear. It was only a dream, right? I risked a peek under my eyelids. I groaned. I was still speeding to God-knows-where in a car with my pet rabbit who had died when I was ten.
“I’m sorry to break it to you, but uh, I’m real,” said Chester, looking at me pityingly over his sunglasses. Then he slowly placed a reassuring paw on my hand.
“Aaarghhh!” was my response as my eyes widened at his paw on mine. Hand, I mean, not paw. I do not have a paw. Clearly, I wasn’t handling the situation well. Chester quickly withdrew his paw, as if I had struck it. Or maybe I had, but in my moment of extreme panic, I wasn’t aware of my actions.
Thinking quickly, I pulled at the door handle, surely my bunny would not anticipate my plans for escape. A more rational part of me said, “just talk to Chester. He’ll tell you where he’s taking you and why he is alive after choking on lettuce years ago.” But then I backtracked. I was not about to talk to my talking-bunny-who-was-supposed-to-be-dead. So I pulled at the door handle, and braced myself for the fall. When nothing happened, I pushed against it. Once, twice, maybe a couple more times than necessary. It wouldn't budge! But then I noticed a change. The car was slowing down. Oh my God. Chester was going to let me out. Then I could go back to pretending this car ride never happened. I turned to look at Chester, relief in my eyes. But Chester had other plans. In his paw was a syringe filled with a liquid.
“I really wished you would cooperate, sweetie, but I guess this is what it is going to come down to,” he said, turning towards me. Before I could yell out a strangled “no!”, the bunny was on me, plunging the syringe into my neck. Black dots covered my vision as I slowly drifted away from the car, my bunny the kidnapper, and the universe, it seemed.
Nothing would come into focus. I lifted my head groggily, squinting to see my surroundings. Water. Lots and lots of water. Was I underwater? Something approached me. What was that? I rubbed on my eyes. Still blurry. Long ears. Was that a head? Before I could further investigate my situation, menacing footsteps behind me decided another fate for me.
“Oh, not yet, honey bun, we have a long journey,” and yet another stab to the neck. “Chester,” I mumbled as I fell back into this never ending cycle of sleep.
Sunlight hit my eyes, making them burn from the inside. Lifting my heavy eyelids, I tried to lift a hand to rub at my eyes. My hands were bound by a knotted rope. Using every ounce of energy I had in my stiff muscles, I slowly raised myself up against the wall that supported me. I blinked. My vision was coming back. Long metal bars surrounded me. In one corner, I saw something that looked vaguely like a pet bowl. There was a stack of hay in another corner. Wait a second… I was in a cage. A cage that exactly resembled where I previously kept Chester, my bunny. Before he allegedly died, that is. My cool demeanor was no longer an option. Panic settled into my chest, clouding my thoughts. I was in survival mode.
First, my hands. I could maybe just weasel my hands out of the knot. Every movement hurt. Slowly and shakily, I managed to maneuver each hand out of the rope. Ah, the relief. Shaking my hands out, I listened for sounds around me. Not a single voice, no footsteps. I patted down my pockets. The damn rabbit stole my phone. All I had were a few coins.The cage was just big enough for me to be on my knees, so standing was clearly not an option. My brain was still fuzzy and my lips were cracked due to the lack of water. The pet bowl, I thought. Getting on my knees, I gingerly crawled over to it, to find a bowl with no water. What was I doing here? Was this some kind of reverse universe? I edged over to the bars, and rattled the opening door. It was locked. Of course. I gripped the bars, looking through them. There were cages identical to mine lined up with separating walls between them all around me. All of them were empty. I was the only hostage. My head was spinning. My job was obviously out of the question. Right now, I wasn’t sure if I would have a life. No, I said to myself in my head sternly. You are not about to die in a cage as your pet rabbit’s captive. Think, I thought. What would that man from the survival show you watch on Friday nights do? How heavy could the cage be? Maybe I could move it with my body weight. I slammed my shoulder into the bars. That hurt. I pushed against it twice again. I was already sweating. I hadn’t managed to move it an inch. Disappointed, I sat down on the cage floor and held my still spinning head in my hands.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” a Chester-like voice said dramatically. I lifted my head.
“What is it like? Being in the cage and not out of it?”
“Chester? Is that you?” I croaked as loudly as I could.
“Oh whoops, I forgot about the water. What can I say, I learnt from my owner.”
Footsteps echoed down a hallway towards my cage. Or should I say, paw steps? Either way, I quickly grabbed the rope and held my hands behind my back, tying it on my wrist loosely. He shouldn’t know I had freed myself. Sloshing of water. Closer, closer, and then there he was. The psycho bunny himself, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans with no shirt, holding in one paw a bowl full of water. Chester, my long- dead pet.
“Hello, Alyssa. How do you like my new outfit? I think it’s a great upgrade from those itchy tutus you used to force upon me.” He leaned in replaced the empty bowl with the bowl full of water.
“Chester? How are you alive? Why are you doing this? Why am I here?” I croaked.
“Now, now. Drink up. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. After all, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Or at all,” he chuckled.
“Please, Chester,” I croaked back. “Drink,” he ordered sternly now, his voice cold.
Crawling forward on my knees, I obediently took a few sips from the bowl, keeping my hands at my back. Then I crawled back, waiting.
“Remember when you first got me from the Pet Store, Alyssa?” my psycho rabbit said.
I nodded slowly. “It was a rainy day and I felt lonely. So I begged and begged my father until he agreed to get me a pet. I wanted a dog, but he would only agree to a rabbit. So I settled for anything I could get,” I said.
“I remember that day too. You know, the Pet Store was great. So many different people I saw every day, so many fellow bunny friends around me. Until one day, that rainy day, I realized I was one of the few rabbits left to be taken away, and I felt terrible. I wanted a child to look at me and say, “that’s the rabbit I want!” And you know Alyssa? That’s exactly what you did. At the very last moment before the store closed on that rainy day, your father and you drove up to the store in the yellow car you had. Yes, the car I picked you up in. Don’t ask me how, but I have evolved. The point is, you chose me. ”
“That was a great day, Chester. But how are you alive?”
“Patience. I told you, no questions. Don’t make me tape your mouth like I tied your hands, I’m getting there,” Chester took a deep breath.
“The first few days with you were the best days in my life as a rabbit. You took care of me, adored me, fed me. You loved me, Alyssa.” Chester’s eyes were red and wide, his whiskers twitching. He was pacing up and down the length of the cage outside it. I nodded, unsure of where this conversation was going.
“Until one day you stopped,” he said. Suddenly it was if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees, like I was in the middle of a snow storm. I could hear the iciness in his voice, the pain in every word that he said next.
“You no longer looked at me with adoring eyes, instead you spoke for hours on the phone. You no longer cared if I didn’t eat for days, or if my fur was falling out. You meant everything to me, Alyssa, and suddenly I wasn’t enough any more. The moment I realized that...that really hurt. Spending time with your friends and scrolling through your phone was more important. In fact, you had to be reminded to feed me. Your pet rabbit was slowly dying of hunger, and you didn’t even notice.”
“Chester, I-”
“I’m done yet!” Chester yelled, his voice trembling. “I was nothing. I was powerless. I had no one. Until one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I had to get away, but there was no escape. I tried a million times, but you would always catch me, calling me your “stupid rat”. That’s when I knew it was over. You did not just forget about me, you forgot your love for me. You forgot that on your most lonely days, I kept you company. So that one day, when your mom yelled at you to feed me lettuce, I pretended to choke on it and played dead. I knew you would not care enough to bury me, and I was right. I hate that I was, Alyssa, because I could have been your best friend. We could have been best friends.”
“Chester we still can, you know it. You know I love you internally, even though I haven’t been showing it-”
Suddenly his face was between two of the bars of the cage, and he hissed, “Do not speak. I have a story, and you will listen, Alyssa. All those times you were lonely, I listened. Now it is your turn.”
The color drained from my face. I could not believe I was being threatened by my previous pet bunny.
“I am going to skip the part where you left my ‘dead’ body in the trash, because the memory still makes me shake with anger. After I found my way out of the trash, I spent days missing you. Your laugh, your smile. But that soon turned into resentment as I realized what a terrible owner you had been. I would have been dead at this moment. I really would have, if it had not been for a few friends who I found along the way. They nurtured me from the wild, helpless animal I was, into the powerful and intellectual creature I am now. I am now ruthless, and cannot wait to watch you suffer what I suffered. Suffer for days in your lonely cage with no one who loves you. Suffer with no food, no water. Suffer.” With every sentence he said, his voice raised a pitch, his eyes bulged out of his forehead. That is when I realized, my bunny was really a psycho. He was obviously disturbed. The only way to deal with a psycho was this: there was no dealing. Escape was my only option. The question was - how? Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glint. A glint of silver…a key! The key to my cage. If only I could get it somehow…
Chester was waiting for my response. I had to feign it. I held a hand to my heart, and looked up at him as I said, “Oh my God, Chester. I can’t imagine the pain I put you through!” With watering eyes, I said, “I know there’s not a thing I could say that would make things alright for us again, but I need to say this. I am so happy that you’re alive, Chester. I know my initial surprise in the car does not support what I just said, but that was only because I was so ecstatic, I believed I was dreaming-”
“Stop! Stop messing with my mind with your cunning words, they told me you would try this, they told me everything-”
“No, Chester!” I crooned. “You know it’s not true, they don’t know us. They don’t know our special bond, our budding friendship is something they will never understand. I messed up, I got carried away, but those are my flaws. You are better than this, Chester, you have always been. You have forgiveness in you. We can live together, you will never be in a cage again. You will be my best friend. Forever. I know I haven’t earned your forgiveness yet, but I hope you’ll forgive me, Chester. I love you, my rabbit.”
He was confused. His eyes began to dart. He pulled at his bunny ears.
“Believe me, Chester. At least, let me give you a hug. Remember those? Maybe then you will see it. We can make it though these problems.”
His foot shifted towards the cage. His eyes widened at the prospect of being adored once again. Like that would ever happen again, psychotic bunny who kidnapped me.
He inched closer to the cage and whispered, “Just one hug, but you will have to earn my forgiveness.”
I smiled brightly at him and said, “Of course, of course. Just one hug.” I held my bound hands towards him. He cautiously undid the knot.
I leaned towards him, and Chester leaned into my arms. I missed him, and I cried after I lost him, but he didn’t know that. It was too late to save him now. I slipped my finger into the chain that held the key, and slid it into my pocket. After a few excruciating seconds, Chester pulled away, still outside the cage.
“I missed you, Chester.” It was true, I did miss him, but not the talking him. The cute and silent one who listened to me.
He was already walking away.
It was time for action. I had waited for quite some time, and the course was clear. Slipping the key into the lock, I quietly unlocked my cage, and crawled out on all fours. No alarms went off. No sirens. Not a squeak. I gingerly stood up on my feet, trying to shake out the pins and needles. Then I sprinted towards the light.
I was sitting content on my comfortable sofa with a coffee mug in my hand, when the doorbell rang. Weeks had gone by ever since my incident with my pet rabbit from the past. It turned out I had been gone for three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He had managed to smuggle me miles away from the city, to a secluded area in the outskirts. It had taken me a day to find a passing traveller who agreed to take me to the city in exchange for the little money I had left. The important meeting was cancelled anyway because the people we were supposed to meet with did not make it. I got to keep my job after all, and I was safe and happy at my house after having found my way back. I could forget all about it. Chester was a mistake, and I could finally let go. However, no more Ubers for me; those will always haunt me. I sighed and walked to the door. At my feet, there was a parcel. Locking the door behind me, I headed over to the table and opened it. It was a picture of me. No, it was a collection of pictures. The first one of me sedated in the front seat of the Uber. Another picture of me sedated on the floor of a truck. Another of me in the cage, waking up and looking for water. A last one of me sprinting for an escape. To this collection was a note in a beautiful handwriting. It read: “Until our next vacation - xoxo, Chester.”
send the pain on
by Kelly Fesler
where do unspoken
words go when
they leave you?
do they burn
with you? or
continue without you?
are they forgotten?
are they remembered?
i’ll never know.
god, i realize
how much i
miss you, though
it’s something i
don’t have yet,
or ever, maybe
i find harmony
or peace, even,
in these words
because i know
it’s all i
have to hold
(some people listen
and others understand,
a subtle difference)
wish i’d just
say the words
and move on
(so many places,
so many faces.
who to remember?
how to remember?)
-- send the pain on
words go when
they leave you?
do they burn
with you? or
continue without you?
are they forgotten?
are they remembered?
i’ll never know.
god, i realize
how much i
miss you, though
it’s something i
don’t have yet,
or ever, maybe
i find harmony
or peace, even,
in these words
because i know
it’s all i
have to hold
(some people listen
and others understand,
a subtle difference)
wish i’d just
say the words
and move on
(so many places,
so many faces.
who to remember?
how to remember?)
-- send the pain on
thoughts of thoughts
by Kelly Fesler
beginning the end
of end’s beginning
in the end
real eyes realize
real lies; real
i’s, real lies
truth’s despair is
despair’s truth, despairing
truthfully, truthfully despaired
forget what’s forgotten
forget to remember
remember to forget
real is not
perfect, and perfect
is not real
-- thoughts of thoughts
of end’s beginning
in the end
real eyes realize
real lies; real
i’s, real lies
truth’s despair is
despair’s truth, despairing
truthfully, truthfully despaired
forget what’s forgotten
forget to remember
remember to forget
real is not
perfect, and perfect
is not real
-- thoughts of thoughts
Spoiled Milk
by Luka M
Every unborn child is induced with scoops of curiosity and mindlessness, each caressed in spoonfuls of hope. Their bodies descent from high heavens and their little fingers hold the power to wrap something as big as their mama’s hearts. Only love and contentment folded into each child and each child slipped into arms full of safe comfort …
So why, after twenty-seven years, under a cheap, flickering light bulb, in a deserted apartment with Chinese take-out boxes littered on the ground, is Elizabeth lying on the dark bathroom floor? Amongst her puddle of puke from binged pizza and stale Kit Kats not long ago, waterline overflowing with blurred tears? Regret and self-hatred punched within each bone and vein?
Funny how everything spills when it’s tipped over. And how everything spilt is divided into either nothingness or eternal damage. Kinda like how that photograph of us in Disneyland from 2003 easily caught in flames as I helplessly realize that it’s all gone.
All that wonder embedded into us rot to fear and insecurity so easily, so suddenly, so carelessly.
So why bother?
Why matter?
All of it vanishes in one millisecond from the time we take our last inhale and from the time we’re brain dead, all black.
(I started realizing this more later once I spilled half of my glass of milk)
All I want is just peace. Just the curiosity, mindlessness, hope and love I was guaranteed with when I was born. I wish I never saw the world through these pair of lens and I wish I left my glass of milk in the fridge before it was too late.
So why, after twenty-seven years, under a cheap, flickering light bulb, in a deserted apartment with Chinese take-out boxes littered on the ground, is Elizabeth lying on the dark bathroom floor? Amongst her puddle of puke from binged pizza and stale Kit Kats not long ago, waterline overflowing with blurred tears? Regret and self-hatred punched within each bone and vein?
Funny how everything spills when it’s tipped over. And how everything spilt is divided into either nothingness or eternal damage. Kinda like how that photograph of us in Disneyland from 2003 easily caught in flames as I helplessly realize that it’s all gone.
All that wonder embedded into us rot to fear and insecurity so easily, so suddenly, so carelessly.
So why bother?
Why matter?
All of it vanishes in one millisecond from the time we take our last inhale and from the time we’re brain dead, all black.
(I started realizing this more later once I spilled half of my glass of milk)
All I want is just peace. Just the curiosity, mindlessness, hope and love I was guaranteed with when I was born. I wish I never saw the world through these pair of lens and I wish I left my glass of milk in the fridge before it was too late.
Warning
by Shelley Kim
He had the luck to sit in front of the window for fourth period literature, that time of day when the November sun forked through the window blinds, ignited the dust in the air before dissolving into a glow on his profile, and you'd get lost watching the way the light landed burning and fading fuzzy on his upper lip. He wasn't perfect, of course, who is? But you'd lean your face a little farther onto your hand and decide that you'll at least give it to him that he's a real pretty boy, a pleasure to watch when class slowed down.
You can tell something is off. He used to have this resting smirk that adults took the wrong way, and even then it was hard to find him with anything other than a smile across his face while he glanced across the classroom in an unspoken inside joke. Without that flash of straight white teeth, there’s just a strangely short pout. An upturned triangle nicked into his face. When you ask him if he’s okay his eyes are a few degrees too low for his yeah I'm fine to get across. But to prod further would be nosy. Rude. And it’s not really any of your business.
Fourth period literature was the class you'd look forward to. The class where discussions weren't forced and disjointed, a class where a young stubbly hawk-faced teacher would give a gangly grin as students launched into debate, thoughts and words flowing sleek and easy. And he used to be the one leaning forward, turning his wrist in desperate gesticulations to get his point across, jaw tilted in a mix of frustration and amusement as he talked over and under others. There was a charisma to him, something about the smile faint in his eyes. It made you want for him to like you, to listen to him. And so it was often he would take charge and speak alone, everyone fixated on the timbre of his voice and the constant smiling in his eyes.
You hear him less often and softer now. He doesn't lean forward to impose an opinion anymore, he's hunching over his desk like he's afraid to be noticed. Days go by where all that comes from him is silence. You see the sunlight brushing on his upper lip but it never opens. Sometimes you wonder if you should ask if he's okay. And then you see the way his eyes are darkened all the way through and around and you don't have to ask him to know, but maybe you should anyway. Let him know that someone out there is concerned for his well-being. But that's not really any of your business so you stay silent right along with him, and you keep thinking about it when class ends, keep thinking after you walk home and lean back at your desk and wonder why you let something like this bother you.
The smoke alarm in the kitchen goes off. There's no fire, it's just announcing that it needs its batteries replaced. The constant wail for attention nags at you, nibbles at the base of your neck and closes on your throat. You know that you should do something about it. But you imagine the scrape of a chair on the kitchen floorboards, forcing open the closet door that never works to find unused batteries mixed among the dead ones, the literature assignment that's due the day after tomorrow. You cock your head to the alarm one last time before twisting in your earbuds and deciding that it can be someone else's business. And the alarm keeps crying away, crying away until the last of its dying warning crackles down into distortion, then silence.
The end happens all at once. One day you stare off towards the window in fourth period literature and there's no one in between you and the lazy sunbeams trickling through the blinds. One day the principal's voice graces the loudspeaker and lets everyone know. It doesn't seem real, it can't be true that the seat in front of the window, that laugh in the corner of your hearing, that tall saunter as you passed him in the hallway will forevermore be empty of that smiling, smirking, pretty boy. This doesn't happen. Barely-eighteen-year-olds don't break from stress into silence, then madness. Sons don't fight with their parents. People don't pour gasoline over a house in the dead of night and burn it down, they don't kill themselves. But in a few days it's printed in the local newspaper and then it's official. You don't have to keep wondering if that strange upside-down feeling you've had in your gut meant that this was all some kind of nightmare. You know now that it means this is all real, this is all wrong…
Sometimes you imagine it. The rise and fall of his shoulders as he inhales that swirling inking smoky night, hands shaking, opening and closing, opening and closing despite the fact that the jerrycan has long since slipped through his fingers and now lies tumbled on the asphalt, watching the flames branding themselves next to the stars reflected and glowing orange on his profile, light landing faded and fuzzy on his upper lip where his tongue reaches out to touch the tears deliberating down his silhouette and tastes nothing.
You wonder if he turned off the smoke alarm before he started. But that's really not any of your business.
You can tell something is off. He used to have this resting smirk that adults took the wrong way, and even then it was hard to find him with anything other than a smile across his face while he glanced across the classroom in an unspoken inside joke. Without that flash of straight white teeth, there’s just a strangely short pout. An upturned triangle nicked into his face. When you ask him if he’s okay his eyes are a few degrees too low for his yeah I'm fine to get across. But to prod further would be nosy. Rude. And it’s not really any of your business.
Fourth period literature was the class you'd look forward to. The class where discussions weren't forced and disjointed, a class where a young stubbly hawk-faced teacher would give a gangly grin as students launched into debate, thoughts and words flowing sleek and easy. And he used to be the one leaning forward, turning his wrist in desperate gesticulations to get his point across, jaw tilted in a mix of frustration and amusement as he talked over and under others. There was a charisma to him, something about the smile faint in his eyes. It made you want for him to like you, to listen to him. And so it was often he would take charge and speak alone, everyone fixated on the timbre of his voice and the constant smiling in his eyes.
You hear him less often and softer now. He doesn't lean forward to impose an opinion anymore, he's hunching over his desk like he's afraid to be noticed. Days go by where all that comes from him is silence. You see the sunlight brushing on his upper lip but it never opens. Sometimes you wonder if you should ask if he's okay. And then you see the way his eyes are darkened all the way through and around and you don't have to ask him to know, but maybe you should anyway. Let him know that someone out there is concerned for his well-being. But that's not really any of your business so you stay silent right along with him, and you keep thinking about it when class ends, keep thinking after you walk home and lean back at your desk and wonder why you let something like this bother you.
The smoke alarm in the kitchen goes off. There's no fire, it's just announcing that it needs its batteries replaced. The constant wail for attention nags at you, nibbles at the base of your neck and closes on your throat. You know that you should do something about it. But you imagine the scrape of a chair on the kitchen floorboards, forcing open the closet door that never works to find unused batteries mixed among the dead ones, the literature assignment that's due the day after tomorrow. You cock your head to the alarm one last time before twisting in your earbuds and deciding that it can be someone else's business. And the alarm keeps crying away, crying away until the last of its dying warning crackles down into distortion, then silence.
The end happens all at once. One day you stare off towards the window in fourth period literature and there's no one in between you and the lazy sunbeams trickling through the blinds. One day the principal's voice graces the loudspeaker and lets everyone know. It doesn't seem real, it can't be true that the seat in front of the window, that laugh in the corner of your hearing, that tall saunter as you passed him in the hallway will forevermore be empty of that smiling, smirking, pretty boy. This doesn't happen. Barely-eighteen-year-olds don't break from stress into silence, then madness. Sons don't fight with their parents. People don't pour gasoline over a house in the dead of night and burn it down, they don't kill themselves. But in a few days it's printed in the local newspaper and then it's official. You don't have to keep wondering if that strange upside-down feeling you've had in your gut meant that this was all some kind of nightmare. You know now that it means this is all real, this is all wrong…
Sometimes you imagine it. The rise and fall of his shoulders as he inhales that swirling inking smoky night, hands shaking, opening and closing, opening and closing despite the fact that the jerrycan has long since slipped through his fingers and now lies tumbled on the asphalt, watching the flames branding themselves next to the stars reflected and glowing orange on his profile, light landing faded and fuzzy on his upper lip where his tongue reaches out to touch the tears deliberating down his silhouette and tastes nothing.
You wonder if he turned off the smoke alarm before he started. But that's really not any of your business.
You
by an Anonymous Contributor
Look how beautiful the sun is
that the flowers turn to face her,
and how mesmerizing the moon is
that the waves cannot but return to him.
Now look how wondrous you are,
you for whom I would forgo
the sun, the moon, and all the stars.
that the flowers turn to face her,
and how mesmerizing the moon is
that the waves cannot but return to him.
Now look how wondrous you are,
you for whom I would forgo
the sun, the moon, and all the stars.