Breadcrumb #598

LUCY ZHANG

Among the phytoplankton and kelp forests, a group of people lives in the ocean. Their hands graze the soft coral, and without calcium carbonate skeletons, the invertebrates flatten and branch and erect like fans billowing in the wind. The coral evokes a distant memory of autumn trees dressed in purple and red and yellow as the wind blows the colors down. The sea people sometimes head toward the surface of the water, where the sun best warms skin, and as they swim, they pass floating waterwheel plants that seem to glow green under light, whorls enclosing stems like ornaments untethered to the obligations of pretty small things.

It is said that these people used to live on land like the rest of us. It is said that some of them owned beta fish whose red and blue tails wilted behind their bodies like the end of a scarf hanging out a window on a more-rainy-than-windy day. It is said that some of them lived in houses with cedar slates for wall finishes, each horizontal course one continuous piece to create a boxy, minimalist form, allowing for clean window openings, clean door entrances, clean exits, so it’d be like no one ever came; no one ever left. According to legend, some of these people hid bookshelves beneath their staircases, the shelves irregularly patterned in polygonal shapes–from triangles to rectangles to scalene trapezoids. The shelves supposedly housed all sorts of titles–the kind of book you’d read for a few minutes and then look up to check for pairs of eyes gazing at your page, the kind of book that you’d open and let your eyes skim the first sentence before pausing and returning to the first capitalized letter of a word so you can reread the sentence over and over again until its meaning is backed only by Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions, the kind of book that’d house a bookmark stolen from a library no one visits anymore. 

“The coral evokes a distant memory of autumn trees dressed in purple and red and yellow as the wind blows the colors down.”

The people under the sea braid strips of kelp into their hair as a tribute to the habitat. They whisper pleasantries to the fish and the sea anemone and the whales, and when they hear a response of uniquely cadenced bubbles, clicking sequences, whistles, pulses, purrs, grunts, drumming through sonic muscles, they smile to themselves. As the saltwater slips through their teeth, they forget how to tell each other about how blessed they feel–to hear a song not spoken in human language.

It is said that these people got tired of listening to the same words, their piggy banks and coin jars heavy with pennies for every mention of the word “money” and “work” and “I”. So they returned the books lying around their houses to the asymmetrical bookshelves, closed the tempered glass windows, placed their keys on the kitchen counter below a calendar marked with blue-sharpie x’s, and left their homes, shutting but not locking the door behind them. They followed the sidewalk to the shoreline, where they watched the waves chase away sandpipers only for the birds to follow back to sea as the waters retreated. The people slipped off their flip flops, stacking them on the edge of the boardwalk next to a paper sign reading “free shoes” in scribbled words connected by light lines of ink, the work of someone who couldn’t be bothered to lift their hand for spaces between letters.

It was too much for them, people will say of those who turned back and ran to shore when the water level rose to their necks. They were too scared to leave everything behind. A breaker submerged the heads of those brave enough to descend. 

The sea people know the truth: they were too scared to stay.

• • •

Breadcrumb #597

CATHERINE CAMILLERI

I press my back to the floor 
and stare at the ceiling,
pretending the peach in my hand 
is the sun. 

Someone put the radio on 
to the classical section 
and I crawl on my belly to turn it up. 
That woman on NPR with a voice like 
cacao— bitter and smooth—  
tells me it’s Beethoven. 

Beatrice the maid, 
as my mother calls herself on Sundays, 
nudges me with her foot. 
The diamonds in her eyes are dull 
and she tells me to lower the volume. 
Your father is downstairs, she says.
Building a wooden boy.

But wood burns and wood breaks. 
It splinters and dies and fills 
with rot and termites. 
Why not make a son out of 
stone or steel? Or titanium?

A hammer pounds and I cough 
on the sawdust filtering the air. 
Beatrice finds the broom 
and starts to sweep—  
I get my inhaler and turn up the music.

• • •

Breadcrumb #596

TSAHAI MAKEDA

He missed the movie, and that’s when she realized that she was of little value to him. It was just a movie so she didn’t apply much weight to his indifference at the time. 

“I couldn’t get off work any earlier.” He told her. 

“Did you ask?” She quizzed.

“Well, no, but I didn’t because I already knew what the answer would be,” he retorted, “besides, it’s just a movie.” 

Her urgency to be loved by him let his passive rejections be okay for they were temporary. Momentary. At the turn, the obstacles that he delicately placed before him as he hesitantly moved toward her, would be removed. Then he would go to her and satisfy a hunger that developed inside her. So she married him.

This scene replayed in Stoney’s mind as she sat in the clinic waiting room. Chet always made Stoney wait. For dates. For leaving the house in the mornings to commute together to work. For dinner. For the commute back home after work. For appointments. The nurse had already called for her once. Waiting for Chet aggravated Stoney and she had a mind to go in without him. But that wouldn’t be fair. This was for him too. She told the nurse to take the waiting couple ahead of her because her husband was delayed a few minutes. This annoyed the nurse, but she obliged. “We can reschedule you if this isn’t a good time.” The nurse said this to her with a tone that let Stoney know she wasn’t really asking.

“He is parking now,” Stoney forced a smile, “it should just be a few minutes for him to come up.”

“Alright then. As soon as he’s up let Amy know and we’ll get you in a room.”

“Thanks.” Stoney replied, and sighed.

Conception was a challenge for Stoney and Chet, but she wanted it, even if it was with him. Even if he probably didn’t. He never said with his words, he was not good at using his words, but his energy implied that maybe this wasn’t for him. And though the part which he enjoyed, where they worked and worked at it, creating a life seemed to bypass them. It was like the universe was saying to them, “No.” Stoney didn’t like no. She didn’t like disappointment, she had her fill. She didn’t like not having options. So this would be her option. This had to work.

“It worked this time.” Stoney closed her eyes and repeated this mantra to herself softly. Over and over again. “It worked this time. It worked this time. It worked this time. It wor--.” She was interrupted by a firm hand resting on her shoulder.

“Who are you talking to?” It was Chet. “You don’t have your earbuds in? I thought you were on the phone.”

“What took you so long? The nurse called us twice already.” Stoney asked sympathetically.

“I’m here now so let’s go in.” He offered a hand to help her stand.

“I can do it, thanks.” She didn’t take his hand. 

Chet watched Stoney walk to the counter and he followed behind her. The hesitancy in his movement made her turn to look at him and her eyes said what she was thinking, why are you over there still when I’m over here. He moved solemnly, purposefully not touching anything. He didn’t like doctor’s offices. He said that’s where germs congregated, to find new meeting space. It was odd to him to be discussing life in a space where everything felt to him as if on the cusp of dying. Chet leaned on the edge of the counter allowing only his sleeves to touch and with his hands tucked firmly under his arms. “Are you okay?” He asked Stoney. He didn’t look at her.

“It was odd to him to be discussing life in a space where everything felt to him as if on the cusp of dying.”

“I’m okay.” She stared blankly at the painting that hung behind the clerks desk. It was a painting of a dock completely surrounded by water, but seeming to go nowhere. She smirked but she didn’t look back at Chet. “I’m hopeful and scared, but I’m okay.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. If it worked, it worked. And if not...well…” He was staring at the painting now also.

Stoney turned and looked at him. Though he felt her gaze, he did not unfix his stare. He focused on the painting.

“Well what?” She asked as her glare burned through his cheek and disintegrated whatever words rose to his mouth for him to utter. He did not answer so she insisted. She reached for his chin and turned his face to meet hers. He let her. “Finish your thought. Please.” She demanded firmly.

“Babe. It’s nothing. We can talk about it at home.” He turned away from her again as the nurse approached the desk.

“Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, you can come back now.” Amy pointed to the door and Chet and Stoney walked in. The corridor was bright and cold and a light fragrant waft of sage and lavender moved over them as they got to the doctor’s door.

“Come in, please, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. Have a seat.” The doctor lazily waved his arm in the direction of the two chairs in front of his desk. He had two oversized windows directly behind him that had no covering; no curtains, no blinds. There were sprawling woods through those windows and trees were all anyone could see. “Thank you for coming in. I know this has been a most difficult of times for you and we’ve come a long way.” The doctor took turns giving measured and equal glances to Stoney and then to Chet. They both stared back at him, hanging on to his every word.

“It’s been difficult, yes doctor, but worth it I’m hoping.” Stoney said.

“Well Mrs. Morgan. Your test results came back positive. I am confident and delighted to tell you both that you are expecting.”

Stoney closed her eyes because she could feel them welling up with tears. When she opened them, a single tear moved slowly down her cheek, as if it didn’t want to leave its point of origin. “Doctor,” she said softly, “you are sure?!”

“Well Mrs. Morgan, we…you,” he chuckled with glee, “you are at the 10 week mark. It’s still early but safe enough to say that this time, it worked.”

Stoney smiled and looked down at her folded hands in her lap. She turned to look at Chet. His gaze was blank. He was looking past the doctor and out the window at the trees. 

“Mr. Morgan?” The doctor said. “Sir, are you alright?”

Chet shifted his focus and looked at the doctor to reply. “Yes, yes doc!” He said emphatically. “It’s great news.” He tried to convince himself of what he was saying in the hopes that it would at least sound convincing to the doctor and especially to Stoney. He loved her. He loved her in a way that forever didn’t seem that long. He just didn’t want the same things that she did, but he wasn’t willing to give her up because of it. “Great news.” He said and turned and looked at Stoney, who was watching him longingly.

“It worked this time.” She whispered to him and reached for his hand.

“It did Stoney, love.” He took her hand. “It really did work this time.” He closed his eyes and then gently, he kissed her hand.

• • •

Breadcrumb #595

YVETTE GREEN

What once stood in my memory,
as helium 
to lift me 
above 
the ever painful present,

to remind me of what could have been 
and what never was,

to hail that vapor as love, 

What once stood,
buckled,
underwent 
a physical change,
when the cool conditions 
met low humidity and 

I could clearly see
that I added 
the excess to those old moments.

Because I gave power 
to cloudy thoughts, 
they took shape,
grew tangled roots,
and threatened to strangle me.

So I had to rescind what I spoke into the atmosphere-
the warm air from my kiss
met his cold shoulder 
and I lost all capacity to 
hold the vapors of my memories. 

I had to manipulate the air pressure
and launch a study into psychrometry.
Now in control,

he became liquid
that I was able to drain from my being.

All that remained was 
a foggy glow of condensation.

• • •

Breadcrumb #594

CHASE GRIFFIN

Holger spins on his heel and stops in the direction of the arched wooden door leading out into the windy field of tall grass. The phantosmia, the smell hallucination, of Stetson leather wafts before Holger’s nose, an off-kilter mix of milk, fish, sulfur, and laundry exhaust. Holger spins again and goes through the next door, the one leading to the suburb.

As he strolls away from Marcel’s house down the sidewalk staring at the contraction joints that cut the concrete slab into squares, Holger imagines himself as a piece in an oversized board game. He heads back to Grandma Vern’s house where he’ll sit and wait for her return.

Scout and the rest of the many children of John B. Stetson catch up to him. Sap and Billy snatch his arms and hold him back, readying him for their grand leader’s punch to the gut.

“Don’t move asshole,” Sap says.

Holger sighs and rolls his eyes. “This is like the twentieth time you’ve played this game today. It’s getting really old. Like, the first two times were funny. Third through seventh times were annoying. Sixteenth through Eighteenth were so funny that I thought I was going to piss myself, especially because you guys were somehow replicating every body movement and vocal intonation to a tee. These last two times have been lacking though. You guys lost your pizzazz.”

Marion asks, “You’ve been counting?”

Skip and Dotty part, and Scout marches through them, his angry face a growing oval in Holger’s field of vision. Scout removes his hands from behind his back and shows Holger a pocketknife. As he opens it, the sun reflects off the sharp weapon into Holger’s red eyes. 

An old man sits eerily on his porch across the street from Vern’s and cackles as he watches the blade get so very close to Holger’s eye.

The man reaches into his pocket, retrieves a large battery, and throws it at Holger’s face. He misses, but Holger still feels his pride get bashed by the D battery.

“I’m going to get that devil out of you,” Scout says, holding the knife to Holger’s eye. 

Holger closes the threatened left eye, and a couple moments later closes the right eye in a sort of glitchy-blink.

Holger feels as though he will never be able to open his eyes once this affair has ended, but there is hope sparking in the background of his signal machine just behind the fear of blade and question of his eyelid’s new possible fixture and dysfunction. For a brief moment he thinks of himself as fully realized Thom Yorke, but without the musical talent or delusion of grandeur. In his mind he sees the aesthetic bridge connecting the gradations of eyelid-related facial changes. Fully functioning eyelid, Thom Yorke lid, dead lid.

    “Please don’t hurt me,” Holger says, almost cracking a smile.

    A group of edgy Tampa goths romping down Fennsbury Lane takes no notice of the altercation.

    Scout doesn’t stab Holger in the left eye. Blood doesn’t spurt onto their faces. Scout doesn’t scream at both Holger and himself. He doesn’t then stab Holger in the right eye.

    Holger merely imagines all of this happening. He cracks and laughs at the game devised by Scout and company. Scout and company laugh too.  

    Sap and Billy let go of Holger and scurry away, heading west down Fennsbury past the edgy Tampa goths. Susy, Dixon, and Marion follow, leaving behind a plume of dust.

    The concrete square below them drops and Holger, slipping from Scout’s grip, falls into a swimming pool.

He peers at the shimmering surface as he sinks to the floor of the pool and watches the tiny bubbles rise. Holger imagines that he is sinking inside a giant glass of soda.

    Holger lands in the lotus position. The chlorine feels good on his corneas, and he lets himself sit there for a moment and enjoy the muffled glug-glugging. 

The pool floor stretches away from him and bows upward like a ghost-white photography background, the kind of superposition-white that induces vertigo. 

Holger slowly rises out of the water and strains when the warm fart of air hits his skin. He grabs the edge of the sidewalk and pulls himself out of the pool. 

    He collapses and lands on top of the contraction joint, his hip crossing the groove between the squares, two squares over from Vern’s house.

    Scout stands over Holger, letting out one long sustained scream at Holger’s soaking wet body. The pool of water grows and connects with Scout’s shoes.  

    Scout’s scream morphs into a guttural noise that wavers and tapers off as he sprints after Susy, Dixon, and Marion’s dust cloud: swirling into a spiral, it looks like it will never settle. 

    A shadow grows over Holger’s body. Vern bends over and snatches the little lord, carries him to her house with a small smile on her face. 

    There is nothing inside the house. No chairs, no tables, no couches, no television, no beds, nothing. There are no kitchen cabinets; just the clean, white spaces where cabinets should be.

    Vern sets him on the tile floor. In the kitchen, she pretends to pour herself a glass of red wine and sips on the nonexistent fermented juice. 

    Holger giggles to himself, eyes closed, tongue now hanging from his mouth. He imagines that he is asleep and pretends that he is dreaming, dreaming about all of the gorgeous artwork that should be hanging from these walls.

    The tiles shatter beneath Holger’s limp body and Bermuda grass pops through the cracks. Vern’s house crumbles to the ground. The rubber is sucked into the grass and the reconstructed house shoots out of the ground twenty feet behind him.

    Holger sleeps on top of a stolen chainsaw. The light cuts through the empty space in the sky where the mighty oak had just stood and hits the boy and the grass and the fallen chunks of the tree. All forms and materializations are cut, nipped, and hewed with a brush that is connected to a master painter who is brimming with passion and opium. The light gives the contents of the yard hard, neoclassical edges. 

Holger wakes and inspects the idle chainsaw with compost crust in his eyes. 

“The light cuts through the empty space in the sky where the mighty oak had just stood and hits the boy and the grass and the fallen chunks of the tree.”

After wiping away the fertile soil, he stands and clomps over the moist grass and slashes with his arms, pretending his appendages are built-in machetes, through the shrubs of Marcel’s side yard. 

Marcel is sitting in his yard. In his lap is a Bell and Howell 16MM projector projecting the classic film, John B. Stetson Goes to Ybor starring a young Jimmy Stewart.

At first glance, Holger thinks the view of the Stetson manor facade is an establishing shot for a classic horror film. He loves the way old houses look in horror films.

“These old houses are always so worn and dirty,” Holger says. Marcel nods without turning in his lawn chair, focusing on the film produced by Intercede Network, but acknowledging both Holger’s presence and opinion. “But they also look so comfortable with their furniture and clutter.”

Marcel takes Holger by the hand and walks his friend to the front door. Marcel’s gabby, excitable parents are sitting in their breakfast nook, both Mom and Dad screaming so loudly about their excitement that Holger swears that the high-pitched double-toned parental pandemonium crosses an irreversible decibel threshold. 

As Holger and Marcel stand in the doorway, mouths agape, Mom grabs the mustard and ketchup and Dad grabs the mayo and butter, all four condiments in squeeze-top bottles, squeezing the every loving hell out of the bottles as they scream about their excitement – the vintage yellow, horror movie chunky blood red, the spoiled white, and the creamed corn yellow spray like one part string theory confetti and one part edible fireworks all over the nook.  

    Marcel says, “See? Eat.” He nods.

    “The fuck are you talking about?” Holger says. “Is everybody on cough syrup?”

Vern, shaking her head at him from across the room, snorts and laughs loudly.

    Holger’s eyes shoot open as he remembers that the chainsaw is waiting for him. He jumps to his feet and runs past Vern out the front door. 

“If you and your friends make me play that damn pocket knife game one more time today,” Vern yells after the little lord, “I won’t let you fill this house with your homemade furniture.” 

Holger wields the chainsaw and shows it off to all the neighbors lined up across the street. 

They cheer. 

“That’s our little lord!” the old man who’d thrown the D battery at him says. He cackles, pulls another D battery from his pocket, and throws it. He misses again. 

Holger takes no notice as he smiles proudly and waves the chainsaw at his people. He revs it.

“You the man, Holger!” Ms. Dempsey yells through cupped hands.

“Fuck Trey Andrews. That’s your chainsaw, Holger!” Vincent shouts.

“Build the furniture! Build the furniture! Build the furniture!” the residents of Fennsbury Lane chant.

    He spends the rest of the day hacking the chunks of oak tree into smaller chunks and nailing them to the other chunks. The furniture looks less like a couch, dining room table, and bed and more like outsider art.

    One by one, the neighbors return to their homes. They return to their cats and oatmeal and croquet sets collecting dust in their foyer closets. They grow tired and fall asleep at the same exact time, 7:30pm. That is how Holger likes the game to be played.

    Trey Andrews, his adjacent neighbor and reclusive Intercede Network founder, pulls into his driveway. He steps out of the car and breaths deep with a hopeful smile on his face as he scans the neighborhood, the neighborhood he believes that he and he alone lords over. Trey takes a sip of his cherry soda and from over the edge of the can, notices Holger screwing around with his beloved chainsaw. Trey spits his pop and darts across the property line into Holger’s front yard.

    “Holger?” Trey says. “What are you doing with my chainsaw?”

    Holger laughs.“Can I, like, pretend to chase you with it?”

    “Is this a variation of the pocket knife game?”

    “Of course.”

    Trey spins around, his back now facing the little lord. 

Holger revs the chainsaw. 

Trey slowly turns his head, pantomiming a scared Homer Simpson. 

Holger shows his teeth through his angry red face. The boy hyperventilates as he wobbles back and forth while swinging the chainsaw.

    Mr. Andrews holds up his hands in surrender. “Easy there. Put it down.”

    Holger screams as he revs the saw once more. 

The blue jays flutter over their heads at their scheduled time, 7:45pm. The boy and the man take no notice of them. They know the drill. 

Holger cracks a smile and breaks into laughter. 

So does Trey Andrews. Mr. Andrews collects himself and clears his throat. He lets out a high-pitched scream and runs across the property line. 

Holger follows closely behind and chases the man into his garage past the empty spot above the work table where he had found the chainsaw.

    Trey screams again. He kicks open his door and crashes into the foyer wall, knocking himself out. 

Holger halts his chase, turns off the chainsaw, and grimaces at Trey’s unconscious body. He puts the chainsaw back and returns to his furniture building.

As Holger hammers the last nail into the chunks of wood representing a TV stand, Trey’s shadow grows over the boy. 

Trey says, “I was only pretending to be unconscious.”

“I know.”

Trey and Holger spend the rest the evening carrying the outsider art into the house.  

They set the bed where the TV stand should’ve gone. They set the wooden item that looks nothing like a toilet in the middle of his bedroom. They set the dining room table in Vern’s room. The moonlight splashing through the sliding glass doors of the southwestern ranch style house give the contents soft edges like an impressionist painting.

• • •