Breadcrumb #94

BRITTANY DIGIACOMO

The entire city must be well fed
fast asleep on foot with eyes open
or listening to a drum beat from mars,
or living in an imaginary town where
“I” is in too frequent of use,
or maybe their silk is so fine
they think it turned them invisible —
even from behind the wheel.

The thing is
at times, I forget who I am

and that’s because you make me want to
whack my shoulder into yours while passing,
or dive through an open door that closes in your face,
or smash my car into the rear of yours because
you cut me off and I had to swerve into the other lane.

Really, though, I’d like to
crack courtesy over your head with a sledgehammer.

The thing is,
I don’t want the insensitivity of your ill- manner ways
to gnaw my skin into blisters that like your vulgarity  
will ultimately become infectious.

It doesn’t take much
to train a beast:
skill and discipline,
reward and punishment,
at times multiple trainers.

Yet,
even the most feral animal can be taught to utilize sense
and social knack to exist among the human race.

• • •

Breadcrumb #93

STACY SKOLNIK

Hello
just simple looking
for someone to see on a regular
basis into building        
some sort of friendship am black 5'9
am dtf you be the same and
please send pics with your reply and
serious I'm a white
male with lotsa fantasies
some lived out some never
to be. I'm lonely
and home early on Fri night
Would love to e-mail
or message with a woman whos
kinky herself. Just be 18+
and enjoy kinky e-mail exchanges
successful professional
experienced sadist behind
closed doors, looking for
a woman want a long-term
relationship based on pain and intense
punishment. Limits respected
of course. Any age, any
level of experience
considered, but no smoking
drug use, heavy alcohol
consumption or overweight. I'm
a perverted man and I love to make
virgin girls very nervous. I
like doung creepy things
to makr you feel
embarrassed and uncumfortable
I want you to feel nasty
and dirty when you go home
You will come back again fir more
You have needs too but
want to keep your virginity
You can go home feeling all the things
your feiends only told you about
and have ypur virginity in tact
I live alone in Tomkins Cove
but would be more than willing
to travel to meet you. I am hard
working, creative, sensitive
and dynamic. I have a good life
I am only missing a partner
in crime. I love animals and am
a good cook (bad news
for both of us) and I have pics
to trade and am for
real. Race and Size (I want to be
upfront about my size
I'm a big Guy) unimportan
Send an email and lets
start the Conversation

• • •

Breadcrumb #92

CHRISTIE DONATO

Anna sat on the steps of what had once been a university’s campus. The buildings were neutral in color and noble in their abandonment. As if they didn’t require people to maintain their status as places of learning. Green, leafy tendrils had pushed and pulled and wrapped themselves around the small, red bricks of the old walkway. Anna had even seen the beginnings of trees — little sprouts — cropping up here and there. Just like back home, the earth was slowly reclaiming its space. She supposed that people could come and go, but the plants and trees would always find a way. They could outpace humanity. Trees especially seemed to have infinite time.

     Lily, who never passed over an opportunity to nap, was dozing, belly up, with her little paws slightly bent. Early autumn sunlight warmed the back of Anna’s neck, and she relaxed into the stillness of the moment. Leaves had already begun to fall. David, from the Manhattan colony, had told her that winters could be harsh here. She knew he was worried about all the people under his care. Anna understood his concerns. Food and other stocks were low. There just weren’t enough resources to keep everyone warm and fed throughout the winter. She thought of the first colony at Jamestown. That first European settlement in America had resorted to cannibalizing their dead in order to survive the winter.

     The little dog moved one paw feebly in the air, and the motion directed Anna’s attention to a man who had begun ascending the stairs towards them. Anna had been too absorbed in the morbidity of her thoughts to notice him before. It was Simon.

      Simon and his ship had landed near the colony’s base only a few days ago. The Dies Infaustus was a small, brass-colored shuttle. Anna had taken a liking to the crew: First Mate Jacob Walden, Young Jerry, Joan, Fly, and the captain, Simon.

     He took the steps casually, as if he hadn’t been specifically looking for her. As if they had both just happened to have the same idea to spend an afternoon on an empty campus in the middle of an empty city. She made a point of looking past him at the sky. He stopped a couple steps below her and followed her gaze. From where they were, the swirling purple-gray of the rift was visible, hanging low in the sky. The hole in the universe was constantly in motion, turning in on itself over and over again, like a giant ouroboros made entirely of gas.

“She made a point of looking past him at the sky. He stopped a couple steps below her and followed her gaze. From where they were, the swirling purple-gray of the rift was visible, hanging low in the sky.”

     “They tell me 8 million people used to live in this city,” he said.

     “You mean there’s not a parallel version of New York where you’re from? There’s no side-world where, at this very moment, a different version of me is in my old house and my parents are still alive?”

     “As far as I know, there are no parallel dimensions. My world is very different from yours. Our technology, in comparison, advanced far more rapidly.”

     “So we must be like cavemen to you.”

     “No, of course not. It’s just different. Unfortunately your world was an easy target. You were virtually unprotected, but you already know that.” Simon’s voice faltered.

     Anna looked down at her dirty hands, lightly clasped together, and, past them, to her rust-colored boots. She knew how she must look to him, how this whole place must look to him.

     “You’ve come to tell me this is goodbye.” Anna finally said, looking at him for the first time. “You’re leaving.”

     “Not exactly,” he said.

     He took the last few steps quickly and sat down beside her. They sat in silence for a moment. Anna could feel his eyes on her. She had the impression that she was being sized up. That there was a lingering question about her, and Simon was here to puzzle out the answer.

     “Tell me, what does it feel like to travel through there?” Anna asked, nodding at the hole.

     Simon shrugged. “It makes you feel insignificant.” He stopped, and shook his head. “No, that’s wrong. It makes you feel all opened up on the inside. Like the universe might be inside you, or you might be the universe, and then you realize that it doesn’t matter which is which, in the end. You’re just weightless.”

     Anna didn’t respond, but instead they both watched the swirling of the rip in the sky.

     Simon finally spoke again. “David told me I would find you here. You make him very nervous, you know. It was hard for me to figure out why at first, but then I realized it’s because you understand what’s happened to your world better than he does. Better than most people do, and I think I’ve figured out how. You and I, Anna, are very similar. You’re very brave, but you’re also very clever, which is why I don’t believe this runaway story you’ve concocted.”

     Anna sat up straighter, but didn’t respond to the allegation.

     “I think you’ve met someone from beyond the rift, and you’re looking for him now. In fact, I believe we’re looking for the same person, or thing, or however you would describe him.”

      Anna looked up at the hole-rift-rip-tear and considered what Simon had said. She felt hot all over, and realized that her palms were damp. She wiped them on her pants before responding.

     “And how would I have met this person, exactly? This person from beyond the rift.”

     Simon leaned in close to her, like he was about to tell her a secret.

     “How did he happen to come to the same small town on the same dying planet as you? That part is easy. That part is the simplest to explain. The world is different now. Anything can happen.” He smiled at her then. “You already know what’s coming next.”

     Anna shook her head. Her eyes felt strange, though. Hollow and a little dry.

     He continued. “We can really help each other out here because, the thing is, I’m looking for him too. I can take you well away from here. The places that are through that hole in the sky.” He pointed up at it for emphasis. “You can explore them with us. You can feel weightless too. All you have to do is help me find the dragon.”

• • •

Breadcrumb #91

WENDY O'SULLIVAN

• • •

Breadcrumb #90

BOB RAYMONDA

Erin hasn’t been with a woman, or a man for that matter, in years. Not since long before her daughter stopped needing a babysitter. She’s grown used to the empty pleasure she gets from taking advantage of her showerhead’s multiple speeds. Coaxing out her own orgasm in a controlled and methodical way. She plays NPR through her cell phone on blast to drown out the sound of terrible metal music from Margaret’s bedroom. This is her one time of day to feel relaxed and independent, so she takes advantage of it.

     Erin steps out of the shower, stands on the almost moldy bath mat, and stares into her own bloodshot eyes in the mirror. She notices the distinctly human musk in the bathroom that lingers when she relieves herself before taking a shower. There’s something so gratifying about her own odor, mixed in with the stark humidity emanating from the stall, that she likes to live within it for a moment longer.

“She notices the distinctly human musk in the bathroom that lingers when she relieves herself before taking a shower.”

     Margaret, her once beautiful daughter, round without being fat and constantly cloaked in a summer dress, has turned into a monster. She’s rail thin and barely leaves her cave of a bedroom, which smells almost as thick as this bathroom does right now. Averse to taking showers and her own classmates, the 15-year-old prefers online role-playing games and most likely has a boyfriend twice her age halfway around the world. “Dating," of course, in the loosest sense of the term.

     She wonders where she went wrong while popping a zit just beneath her collarbone, above her drooping right breast. She’d enrolled the girl in a modicum of the best after-school activities the city had to offer. Ballet and mad-science classes became computer programming and video game design. She’s always made sure the girl is not only provided for, but also busy. And yet now, after all these years, Margaret is carrying on a correspondence with her birth mother, lusting after a life she never had. The ungrateful little bitch.

     There has always been transparency with Margaret about her being adopted. From a young age she taught her daughter that there is more than one way to start a family, and that none of these ways is the wrong one. Erin’s mother says that five years old was too young for Margaret to know this, but what else was she supposed to do? The “if you’re my mommy, who’s my daddy?” questions had already started and she wasn’t keen on selling the stork story or immaculate conception. She didn’t believe in lying to her daughter, or setting false expectations.

     Erin uses a string of mint-flavored floss and puts her face as close to the fogged mirror as possible. She continues to breathe in the hot air and rhythmically carries out her task while wondering for the hundredth time this week what brought about this curiosity in Margaret. She’d of course been supportive of the idea, providing all the documents and contacts she had, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt. Maybe Erin wasn’t her sister, Diane — she’d never shared her feelings with her daughter or been able to give her more than the most cursory of physical affection — but she likes to think she did right by her. Better than her real parents ever could have.

     With her finger she writes the word “bullshit” on the fogged mirror and sighs. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to share things with her daughter. Her therapist for years tried goading her to do it, promising that it’d help form the bond she’d been paranoid they’d never developed. But now it was too late, and as much as she hated to admit it, the idea of Margaret sharing with her biological mother instead of Erin drove her insane. The details of Margaret’s first boyfriend, the people she hated most in school, the hopes and dreams she had — anything more than the “fines” and “nothings” Erin got from her daughter every day of her life.

     Erin shoves a Q-tip in her ear and marvels at the wad of wax she’s able to extrude. She looks again at herself, not old but certainly older, in the mirror as the fog begins to clear. Her hair, slicked back and exposing her forehead, sends water droplets down her sore back. She sighs, wrapping a towel around her head while still sizing up her naked body. She wonders if she’ll have to wait for Margaret to go away to college before she can go on dates again, or if it’d be OK for her to start doing it now. Diane had tried setting up a Match.com account for her ages ago, but she never checked the messages. Created a filter in her Gmail account just so they wouldn’t come into her inbox. Maybe it was time to open one or two, if only to pass the time.

     The doorknob starts to jiggle and Margaret knocks loudly, shouting, “How much longer are you gonna take?”

     The soft but worn robe Erin puts on fits like a glove, “Just a minute, honey.” She makes sure the “bullshit” is gone from the mirror before unlocking the door, which hasn’t stopped shaking from her daughter’s pounding. She takes one last deep breath of her musk and opens it, stepping aside for her daughter.

     The two look each other in the eye and Margaret covers her nose, shrieking, “Jesus, Ma, what did you eat? It smells like a bomb went off in here.”

     The door slams before Erin can respond but she still whispers, “Same thing as you, my dear, same thing as you.” She smiles, listening to Margaret cough louder than the fan and emit other, more human sounds.  She remembers again the gorillas at the zoo: how they’d pound their chests and snarl in defiance one minute before picking flies off each other’s backs in the next, complacent and nurturing.

• • •