“When the Deer Bites the Sister”

Noa Covo

When the deer bites the sister, there’s no blood. The sister’s hand was past the fence, and the deer was curious, or perhaps unhappy. There’s no telling with deer. The issue of disease arises. Deer can become zombies. It’s scientific. The prions enter the bloodstream. The proteins fold abnormally. The deer was behind a fence. It will be dinner soon.

The charts are checked. The country is devoid of zombie cases, or chronic wasting disease, as it’s really called. Never has a deer turned zombie in these parts, the man who owns the deer says. The disease isn’t transmittable to humans, the other sister reads from the internet. The parents study the databases and come up with nothing. The family goes home. The wound closes.

There is no telling how long someone could have it before the proteins go awry. It could be weeks. It could be years. The sister’s scar fades. The deer stands in the pasture for months. No one else attempts to pet it. Eventually, it becomes stew.

It happens slowly. At first, the sister loses weight. Then she stops eating. The usual things are suspected, but nothing comes of it. There is nothing left of the scar. The sister’s parents take her to the doctor. Medically, she is fine, the doctor says, and the parents nod wisely.

The sister knows there is something wrong. The sister begins to forget things. Her siblings show her photos from their photo albums. We went here, they say, and here, and here. We climbed this mountain, the three of us. We raced to the top.

The sister does not remember the mountains. The sister only remembers the deer on the other side of the fence. She wonders if it infected its friends, stuck in the fence with it, waiting to become soup, if it was even sick at all. The sister walks around the house, climbing imaginary mountains, trying to win races against no one. The sister takes a microscope and examines her blood. She asks herself if the proteins are twisted. She asks herself if she is twisted. She can’t stop trembling.

The sister watches zombie movies to pass the time, watches the undead stumble in the snow. They’re always together, zombies, she thinks. They go in packs. One infects the other so that they don’t have to go on alone. They don’t do it on purpose, she thinks. It just happens. The sister begins to think of leaving. She knows that soon she will step out the door never to return. She doesn’t do it yet. She waits.

When the siblings begin to forget, begin to tremble, begin to ask, again and again, the sister is not surprised. There is nothing the parents can do but watch as the three of them stumble, leaning one against the other for support. They leave the house behind, become a herd, a pack, losing themselves to the wilderness. 

“Let That Motherfucker Do the Crying for Me”

Nick Gregorio

I went to class nursing a biblical hangover.

The headache started easing up on the walk back to the house a bunch of us were renting together senior year.

I found out once I tossed my bookbag to the floor. Dave and Greg were all choked up when they told me.

Kevin was going to be an oceanographer—we’d taken a few of the same classes together, had lived in the same house since the fall semester. He was one of the more intelligent people I’d met up to that point.

He’d drowned in his vomit.

I didn’t cry at the funeral.

Most everyone else did.

Jesus on the cross looked down at Kevin’s casket from above the altar. I figured that motherfucker could do the crying for me.

When I was asked how I was holding up a little while later, I said I’d been through something like this before. “Still hurts. But more like pressing down on a stitched-up wound instead of getting a brand-new cut.”

No one talked about Kevin or the funeral much at all after that.

We talked about other things.

“Week Fourteen” as seen in Elevator Stories

Kyungseo Min

WEEK SEVEN:

Your baby is as big as a blueberry! New brain cells are forming rapidly, so are its arms and legs. Expect that nagging pregnancy nausea and enjoy your fuller breasts.

You blueberry. You tiny, fragile blueberry. What am I going to do with you?

Can I raise you into a decent human being? Can respect and honour and dignity even be taught? I’ve only been taught injustices and spite and frustration. Am I going to be an awful mother? What if you hate me? I can’t survive that. It would kill me.

Have I ever said that to my own father?

Yes. Yes, I have. I remember.

He grabbed my forearm and dragged me out of the principal’s office. His hands were so big—or maybe my arm was that small—they wrapped around the entire circumference with fingers to spare. His strength clamped my veins shut. My tendons grated against supple bone.

He said something. What did he say? I was confused. He had always told me to be proud. So why did he make me apologize to that bully?

I pulled out the only weapon I had then. I mumbled, “I hate you.” He must’ve heard it. My tears clouded the world, so I was spared his expression. How much did I shatter his world? With but a squeaky, trembling voice.

Dad never knew this, but his hand had bruised me. I would look at the blue-purple storm clouds for days. Before his bruise, I never realized how thin my skin was.

Oh. I remember now. “Don’t fight battles you’re going to lose.”

But I could’ve handled that little boy. I could’ve. I think.

WEEK EIGHT:

Only seven months left to go! The boy parts (or girl parts) are beginning to develop but it’s too early for the doctor to detect the sex of your baby. Expect headaches, thanks to your increased blood volume!

You are growing too fast. Stop it. How can you already be a boy or girl? If you’re a girl, how can I protect you from all the eyes and words and hands that I couldn’t even protect myself from?

If you’re a boy—no. I can’t. Even just imagining it drills at my eyeballs and teeth. Can I teach you to hold back your rage and strength? To unfurl your fists and declaw the glint in your eyes?

I promise not to raise you with fear. Though I may be in fear. Like how I was with my own father. No. I wasn’t scared of him. I was scared of his strength and how it would split the seams of the walls at home.

I remember tiptoeing around the carcass of the crashes and shatters and clangs. The walls, the frames, the windowpanes were unrecognizable when our chairs and books and plates became the legless chairs, the spineless books, the bloody plates.

I picked up a shard, blood already glazed and hardened around its edges. It reminded me of dad holding up my bleeding baby tooth, a piece of floss dangling around its crown. Him, grinning. Me, wailing.

So, I kept it, wrapped its sharp fragility in one of his ties—the one he was always looking for. It reminded me of many, many things. And I prayed that reminder would keep me safe.

WEEK NINE:

Your body is working overtime to create the placenta, the lifeline between your blood supply and your baby. No wonder you feel exhausted!

You are leeching my life away. Any youth I have left, you slurp it up. You little parasite. My little parasite. Every heartbeat with you feels like a period. Dot. Dot. Beep. Beep. Tap. Tap.

I remember another bedridden moment.

Through the darkness of my eyelids, the sounds of his nervousness seeped through. Tap, tap of his loafers. Smack, smack of his lips.

He must’ve known I was faking sleep. But he didn’t disturb me. In the white noise of a semi-private hospital room, we simmered. Him in guilt. Me in blame. I blamed him—the first man in my life, the man who would always protect me. I blamed myself too. Since when did I turn helpless? Since when did I roll over and offer my belly to the world? To a gaggle of drunk boys with a merciless sense of humour and a curiosity for cruelty?

It took a while to see my own face without the black eye, the red neck, the violet cheekbones. Even when the sunset faded from my flesh, my body—this female body—reminded me: I am a target, and I am fragile.

No matter how much time has passed, there are a few moments that will never heal. His grip around my arm that afternoon in elementary school. The first slam of my bedroom door. His guilt congealing my respect into a tough crust of a scar that day in the hospital room.

I wish I said it: was this what you meant by don’t fight battles you’re going to lose?

I promise you my little one. You will learn to fight for your body and your life. You will be strong. You will command respect. You will win your battles.

WEEK TEN:

Congratulations, your baby has graduated from embryo to fetus! Bones and cartilage, knees, and ankles are forming this week. Your baby bump may be starting to show this week too!

You are a tiny, soft skeleton, coffined in my womb. When I’m throwing up, I half-expect a bone to climb my throat. I eat more than I ever have. I sob every time I eat an egg or veal. Even baby spinach makes me shed a tear. I must nourish you, fill the sea inside with waves of courage and tides of toughness. Even though I can’t hold back my tears, I keep the food down. The wish to be strong vicariously through you swells higher every day.

When will you show yourself to me? I long to touch your supple, soft skin. I can’t wait to meet you.

WEEK ELEVEN:

Your baby is starting to look more human, with little fingers and toes! Don’t forget to add baby nail clippers to your baby shopping list!

Why did I dream that? That awful, awful day. Is it infecting you with horror too? I pray this memory hasn’t been implanted inside of you.

In the dream, all of father’s friends, one by one, hugged me. I asked them not to, but they continued to touch me. Their faces were but fake smiles and phony tears. Over their shoulders, I saw his matte pupils, watching me. His funeral portrait. Hollow. Heartless. His gaze pointed a finger at me. His friends changed, barely looking human. Shadows of selfish adults. The lines and colour of his portrait melted into ashes. Human ashes. I saw remnants of burnt bone and… that broken plate. Shiny and sharp. The Corelle logo still crisp and blue.

What does it mean? Maybe I should book a check-up, just in case.

WEEK TWELVE:

If you haven’t already, you may be able to hear your baby’s heartbeat at your next appointment. Prepare the tissues!

Another dream. This time, I was in a hospital bed. He was crying, holding my hand, and then… he thanked me.

He thanked me. Through sobs, he whispered, “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you.”

A father’s tears are always disconcerting.

Why? Why was he thanking me?

Even now, my hand feels unsettlingly warm. And I know I’m being superstitious but I’m careful not to touch my belly—you—with that hand.

WEEK THIRTEEN:

This is the final week of your first trimester! Vocal cords are now forming, the first step to hearing your baby say, “I love you, mommy!”

I feel empty. But heavy. Is my body a womb or a coffin?

Something’s wrong. I don’t know why but I itch. Everywhere. That tickle of new skin stretching over a wound invades every pore.

Make it stop.

WEEK FOURTEEN:

Welcome to your second trimester! This week, fully developed genitals can be detected so it may be time to finally choose a name for your little boy or girl!

It isn’t a sudden realization. No exact moment. But I now know. Now I understand.

He—father—dad—you thanked me for surviving, didn’t you? And survival wasn’t your low expectation of me. It was your hope. You knew, didn’t you, how dangerous the world was—is still. And the weapon you chose to give me was not sharpness but softness. Because you nor I can win this battle.

So, you thought at least I could survive. And not all victories are glorious.

You’ll never know this dad, but your victory is a prison. You’ll never know, not because you’ve already passed away, but because you’re a father. A man. Because you loved me.

I wish you could know that I forgive you. That prison was the best you could do.

Can you forgive me? For aborting your granddaughter?

“to cancel” as seen in Elevator Stories

Tyler Barton

It was a pink. Damian knew that it was truly a pink. A pink so pale it was an ocean of white with a single Swedish Fish swimming somewhere in the center. That’s how faint. That’s how light. A pink nonetheless. It was a shade of pink that would make Damian a renowned artist. So renown, in fact, that he could, by age thirty, determine to the hour how long ago a croissant had been baked.

At forty, his new photography phase was not welcomed by fans. They wanted more of the color. That color. That color Damian had never properly named. That color everyone just new as and called That color. That color they dyed the tote bags. That color they painted the space station. The first time Damian had ever seen That color, he was twenty-two, and That color was the background of a magazine cover wrinkling in the rain on the road. On the cover, a trio of Korean teens lounged beside the headline: Boy Band Maturity, but behind them was nothing. They simply floated in That color. Damian told this story on a podcast when he turned fifty, and it was decided that what this was was cultural appropriation, and Damian never sold another piece of art again. Except to his mother. His happiness increased exponentially every year until his death.

“Homebound”

Alla Vilnyanskaya

I understand now, my dear
how you not wanting me to be alone
was a reflection of how alone you felt
and how my distress at this
was reflected in being unable to accept your company

In one year I have aged a hundred
by placing cigarettes in my mouth, like paper drums.
Last night, drifting in sleep
I saw his face again.

My grandfather’s death
before the cemetery.
Stones resemble
Halloween decorations.

The miracle of my grandmother sitting
for years before her time came
cutting out newspaper articles to send to us;
planning her funeral.

Contents Under Pressure

Michelle Brooks

Maybe I’m another dead girl,

an electronic billboard flashing

my face between ads for Kroger

and Rent-A-Center. Maybe I’m

the voice in your dreams, the one

that says, Do you ever think of me?

And maybe I’m the wrong turn,

the road you didn’t take. Don’t worry.

It still had plenty of traffic. And maybe

you’re dead, and I am a negative

that nobody bothered to develop.