THE FULL THING — COLIN LUBNER

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The boy asks his friend if he's ever seen the full thing. What full thing? Of what? You know, the boy says. On PornHub, after you finish—after you finish watching the video, I mean—the option comes up, “Watch the full video here!” What I’m asking, I guess, is if you’ve ever clicked on that? Have I ever gone on Brazzers, you mean, the boy’s friend interprets. Bangbros. Have I ever paid for it. For one of the independent sites themselves. He then proceeds to list over one hundred supplementary pornographic sources, none of which the boy knows. The boy's head is spinning. By the time his friend finishes, his friend is nearly no longer his friend. Any of those, you mean? I guess so, the boy says. The boy’s friend shakes his head. No, he says. Five minutes. Ten, max. That’s more than enough for me. The boy nods. But when he gets home that day he locks his bedroom door, brings up PornHub, scrubs to the end of a video in which a girl pretending to be the stepsister of an actor pretending to be her stepbrother straps on a strap-on and uses it to satisfy his mother (her stepmother) while he and her father (his stepfather) look on. When the pop-up pops up, he clicks on it. The video takes a while to load, his computer hitching and glitching, convincing him to briefly re-believe in (and promptly pray to) God. With this taken care of, he considers filling his pockets with the steel miniatures he collected in elementary school and walking into the nearest lake, but decides against it. The website loads. He accepts the offer of a one-month trial. He enters his mother’s Visa, which he’s had memorized since he was ten. He sets a reminder on his iPhone to cancel the subscription as soon as he’s done. He clicks on the first video. His penis is a caterpillar unwilling to cocoon. He shivers. God, how had never acknowledged how cold it got down there? The video is of him, hunching over his desk, watching a video of him, hunched over his desk. He turns to the window but sees only his reflection. He turns back to the screen. He closes the window. The website’s window, that is. His bedroom window, thank God, is already closed. Still, he checks that it’s locked. It is. He wipes his browsing history. He goes downstairs and watches The X Factor with his mom and dad. He eats little for dinner. The next day, he tells his friend he watched the full thing. Oh yeah, his friend says, impressed. How was it? The boy shrugs. Nothing special, he says. And like, I don’t know, I think I might be done with all that? For a little while, at least. But that day, after school, he navigates to the video again. And this time, and so too every time after, he watches the full thing.

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Colin Lubner is figuring it out. You can observe his progress from afar on Twitter: @no1canimagine0.

WHERE EVERYTHING HAS A TANGERINE BORDER — LILLIAN SICKLER

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some jellyfish live forever as long as nothing ever punctures them.
           I learned this when I was fifteen. read it in a magazine while waiting for intake at Baystate Behavioral Health. I almost shared this fact with my mother who sat beside me, anxiously wringing her hands, but decided to keep it to myself.
           she wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about jellyfish.
           not unless they could’ve somehow gotten her teenage daughter to eat.
           a year later, when V & I sprint from Mclean Hospital in broad daylight, ID bracelets still encircling our wrists, I think of jellyfish. I think of their organs floating in fluorescent goo. I think about what kind of teeth could possibly break their bodies open.
           V came up with the initial plan to run away while I swung it into motion. I stole Belinda’s key card to unlock the east wing of the anorexic ward & then led V down the radiology stairwell to avoid both security checkpoints. a cakewalk, really.
           outside, however, is unfamiliar territory. neither of us has left the hospital grounds in several months & running down Chestnut St. towards the big intersection by the river has the same effect as releasing a goldfish into the Atlantic Ocean.
           still, as I grab V’s hand & tug us towards the train tracks, I remind myself that she will be my raft, & I hers. there’ll be no more pills. no more force-feeding. no more crying mothers.
           we jog down the tracks until the muscles in my legs tighten & cramp. I haven’t moved this much in months & my legs aren’t used to supporting my weight. V slows her pace as I do, the skin on her face ashen & tight. bluish-green veins snake up her forearms like tangled seaweed.
           “I wish a train would go by,” V whispers. “I love the sound trains make.”
           thunder is a surge only someone falling in love could understand.
           “if we walk far enough, we’ll find one,” I promise without meaning to.
           she’s tired but beautiful & I know there are a million things I’ve never done before that I want to do with her. she is the cliff I’m dying to jump off—my arms outstretched. in retrospect, maybe my mother should’ve warned me about the dangers of first love instead of cigarette smoking.
           we walk on as night tents the tracks like a speckled bedsheet. I feel hollow but brave as a knife. eventually, we stop at a gas station where we drink from a water fountain just outside the bathrooms.
           V & I are in freefall tumble. I’ll pretend not to see the ground from miles away. everything beneath the 7-Eleven neon has a tangerine border. some jellyfish live forever.
            V heads back towards the tracks & turns around to watch me follow her. I smile & she smiles back. all teeth.
           my heart rolls out of my chest like a high-speed train, heavy & fast.

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Lillian Sickler is a queer Chinese-American poet, writer, and birth doula currently living in the South. Her work can be found in magazines such as The Shade Journal, Crab Fat Magazine, Empty House Press, and Hobart, among others. She has a black cat named Junebug who is a Gemini-Cancer cusp.

THIRTY SOMETHING — LEE MATALONE

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We buy lattes with oat milk, organic orange juices, four dollar fizzy waters, we buy pastries with pecan and almond paste smushed into the centers, we buy margaritas after happy hour, though we planned on happy hour, we buy nachos covered with pork and pineapple and we layer the chips with more green and red hot sauce, each bite a statement of our bad bitchness, we buy platform Crocs doused in glitter and those little adornments we stick in the holes of the plastic shoes, dice and bags of money and a rose and a gummy bear, we buy more plastic shoes of differing colors, we go and try on the racy clothes in the ‘hoe store’ and we take pictures of our tits pressed into latex and spandex and our stomachs rushing out, we do not post these photos, we do not send these photos to anyone, we save them for ourselves, for later at night when we are alone in our beds thinking about how he should be so sad for his loss, for the hot shit he’s missing out on, about how he fucked up, about how when he drop kicked her onto the floor like in a movie, like in Mortal Kombat or one of those other Hollywood Blockbusters with all the lights and oil rubbed on muscles to make violence celebrity, and she thought she was going to die, how he was going to maybe kill her, how it was okay to fuck him now because she knew who he really was and she was in control now, bad bitchness, cheers, we do not buy the hoe clothes, we buy dog food, we buy parts for our cars that are fifteen and twenty years old (the cars, not the parts), we buy more lattes, we buy salads that cost $14 though they only take three minutes to eat, we pay for rent (“buy” seems like the wrong word, we are not buying houses, that’s for damn sure), we buy the good dog food, because the dogs we shouldn’t skimp on, they are the thing we should we really spend our money on, we do not buy the $250 dress, we buy the $150 sunglasses (on sale from $500, we must celebrate), we set out to buy date clothes, we do not buy date clothes, we do not buy houses, we do not buy Botox or fillers, we do not buy baby food or baby clothes, though the women our age are doing both (Botox and baby shit), we buy, we buy, we buy, we do not buy, we save, a little, just enough for a rainy day, but it is hurricane season and it is raining every day, every day, but at least the Crocs are good in the rain, our feet will get wet but we will see it coming and we will be prepared, we know what we are doing, we are not twenty-two anymore, thank god, cheers.

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Lee Matalone is the author of the novel HOME MAKING (Harper Perennial 2020), which was published to acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and others. Weike Wang called the novel 'An intricate exploration of family and home, of mother and child, of friends, of women and written with both precision and style' and Scott McClanahan called it 'the debut novel of the year.' Her work has been featured in Lit Hub, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Denver Quarterly, Hobart, The Offing and more. Recently, ter story, “Loved Things” was on the Wigleaf Top 50, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Best Small Fictions anthology for 2021.

EVERYTHING THEY ARE RUNNING FROM AND A FEW THINGS THEY ARE RUNNING TOWARDS — MATT KENDRICK

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From their childhoods they are running. From mothers that precision-cut boiled-egg soldiers, golden yolks running. Snotty noses running. Hot baths, soft towels, gas fires, Eskimo kisses all running. They graze their knees from falling running. From tears that don’t become them running. In the rain, against the wind, they practise running. Determined running. Thoughtless running. Not saying where they are going running. Let’s have an adventure running. 

 In the morning, they are running for the bus. They are running through the streets before they’ve ever been awake. They are running for an idea, for an echo of other men also running. Those men—steamboat seasick Gold Rush men, khaki gas mask men, big smoke businessmen, unaware they’re on a treadmill, thinking they’ve outrun them boys men. 

 Down the bottle men drink neat whisky, cheap vodka that makes them running men on neon dance floors that run and run, and drink the red sky shepherd’s warning of the dawn. Drink the dew, its possibilities, the taste of perfume, kisses, sweat, ecstasy, like an ocean when it rains, all the moments, all the touches, all the late-night conversations and arguments until they’re drunk on it and they come to that one sentence that stops them in their tracks. 

 And they sit. And look. Feel. Want. Cry. Fall. Breathe. Search. Wish. Dream. Wake. Eat. Think. Yell. Pause. Run. 

 They are running from the pain. Running from the girl. From the nights. From the drinks. From the bars, the bus. Back and back towards hot baths, soft towels, snotty noses, tears that don’t become them, wrapped in their mothers’ arms—There’s nothing like young love.  

 In the morning, they are hugging comfy duvets they previously ran from, hauling heavy bodies up and out and down, undressed, unwashed, towards golden yolks, precision-cut boiled-egg soldiers. Can’t face running. But slow running. Laboured running. Makes them feel better running. Can’t let that one small road bump stop them running. Into a fire and nothing can burn them running. Always running. Forever running. 

 Running until they run out of road. 

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 Matt Kendrick is a writer based in the East Midlands, UK. His stories have been published in Bath Flash Fiction, Bending Genres, Craft Literary, Fictive Dream, FlashBack Fiction, Lunate, Splonk, and elsewhere. He has been listed in various writing competitions and won the Retreat West quarterly flash fiction contest in June 2020. Website: www.mattkendrick.co.uk | Twitter: @MkenWrites

EPISODE — KARI TREESE

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Three weeks after my father died, I say, I was stuck in a line of cars at a stop sign on EastShore Highway. A man on the corner held a cardboard sign that said: “Hey Kid—everyone needs a little help?” 
           I heard my father’s voice: “G’mornin’ kid” and “That’s right, kid” and “How’s school, kid?” I stared at the man’s face without seeing him, thinking instead about whether or not I liked the way my father called me kid. 
           The man winked at me like we were sharing a secret. I blinked away, my body shivering, gooseflesh pushing my arm hair stick straight. When I looked back, it wasn’t the man on the street. 
           I saw my father’s bald pate, that sheen in the sun made from sweat and heat and oil. Then, his fluffed ponytail tucked at the bottom of his neck. I remember my mother cutting his hair and his voice, “Not too much Mary, for God’s sake.” When I noticed the man’s glasses, the same wide clear squares, I tried to shake the memory of my father out of my head. 
           My hair swirled the air in the car and I inhaled the Aqua-net my father used to use to keep his flyaways stiff against the sides of his head. I ran my fingers over the steering wheel and pulled the memory of boar’s bristles—his old red hairbrush—prickling across my fingertips. 
           I thought I saw him wave at me, my father on the corner holding the sign that called to me, “Hey Kid.” My breath caught in my throat. Six cars still to go and all I wanted to do was drive away, leave the stop sign, the man on the corner, and my father behind. 
           Stuck, I rolled down the car window, hoping the breeze coming in off the bay would sweep the smell of my father away. I gulped air, the man’s gaze holding mine now, beneath the glasses and sign and smell of my father. Instead of ocean brine, I bit into the grit of the desert—his favorite place—hot and dry in my mouth. It swam in through the open window, choking me. 
           When the man on the corner stepped off the curb and into the street, I slammed my foot on the gas, heard the crunch of metal on metal and the blast of the airbag exploding into my face.
           I don’t know what happened after that. 
           When I woke, an EMT swirled smelling salts under my nose. I watched the red lights swim around in their glass cages. 
           I was picking grains of sand from my teeth for days. I never saw that man again. 
           After a long pause, the woman from the insurance company says, That’s all very interesting ma’am, but we really just need to know if you are on any medication or have a medical condition that might have contributed to your episode. 
           Oh, I say. No. 

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Kari Treese received her MFA from Mills College. She teaches math during the day and eats words at night. Kari’s a fish person, for whatever that’s worth. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Pithead Chapel, Lunch Ticket, Rivet, and others. She is a fiction reader at Atticus Review. She tweets @kari_treese.

UNDER THE CHERRY TREE — MINYOUNG LEE

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In response to the beloved Korean poem “Azaleas” by Kim Sowol, the first poem I was required to memorize in school, in which the poet translated themes(1) repeated in traditional Korean folk songs and poetry into the “modern” Western form that was introduced to the country during the Japanese Forced Occupation Period in the early 20th Century.(2)

A pink petal floating on the taut surface of snow. I crush it with my foot. The crunch of the frozen soil underneath as I sink into the earth, my femur mashing against my joints. I lean into the ball of my foot, until I feel the capillaries of the petal disintegrate, the cells holding onto one another minced into pulp. The petal there to mock me of my hope, fear, vanity. A forbidden dream. Flutter away like him. Into all the dirt underneath these crystals, flutter away like him. I feel the wet soak my sock. I taste sweet. I taste bronze.

(1) And I repeat, I love this original poem with all my heart, but perhaps a man interpreting how a jilted woman’s voice sounded like in Korean traditional poetry is different from how I, a woman, would have interpreted it.
(2) I also understand, as an occupied people, passivity is soothing.

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Minyoung Lee writes fiction and essays in Oakland, CA. Her work appears in Monkeybicycle, JMWW, trampset, and others. Minyoung is an alum of the Tin House Summer Workshop and VONA Summer Workshop. Her prose chapbook CLAIM YOUR SPACE was published by Fear No Lit Press in March 2020. Her website is https://myleeis.com/.

EXIT — REBECCA HANNIGAN

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And then you have a breakdown at dinner. You finish your fish, the cod, but can’t finish dessert, panna cotta, as if you even know what panna cotta is. You’re drinking a martini and you like martinis, but it doesn’t go together, not the martini with the cod or the panna cotta with the cod or the panna cotta with the martini. Not any of it. Except you, you guess, you’re the common denominator. But you don’t feel like one. You just feel common. At the table, you’re beside your parents and brother and they look like all the other tan, white humans on this ship, being served and room-serviced by men and women who aren’t white, and you stand up and feel yourself sway and think: martini, but remember it’s the boat, a big, expensive boat with more layers than a wedding cake and even more vanilla. You didn’t want to get on this boat, and you hate yourself for not wanting to, hate yourself for having the privilege to resent something as expensive and nice as a cruise, that it’s an option for you, that it’s an obligation. You hate that you hate that it’s an obligation, that it exists as one, and here you are, obliging it.  
           Here you are, walking away from your family and panna cotta. You walk past the other diners, the other cruisers, whose faces are the same shade as the stewed tomatoes steaming on top of their grouper filets. You walk past them. For all the signs that say they are EXITs, you wish they were actually exits because you can’t get off this boat. You follow one sign, onto the deck. You take the stairs until you’re at the top, the 16th. You walk to the rail and think, you could jump. You think about how you’ve thought this every time you’ve been beside a railing, which is often, and how your fingers tingle and lose feeling when you hold on so hard to either keep you from pushing off or prepare you for pushing off, you can’t tell, but every time you look out and down you think about how it would feel, how far you would fall and then splash. In the dark, it would be harder for anyone to see your body in the water. You imagine you’d be invisible, like a superpower, like the superpower you’ve always wanted. A much better superpower than flying, which, really, if you jumped, you would do too. You think about inviting your family up to watch. They’d stare with their glazed eyes and an argument would start and escalate, and you’d let them argue you into stepping over the railing, to stepping off, like you’ve done a million times on smaller boats, on small docks, in lakes and ponds and rivers, just not the ocean, not from this height into this depth in such a sea as this. When have you been in such a sea as this.

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Rebecca Hannigan is an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, Juked, Wigleaf, and is upcoming in Cosmonaut's Avenue.