sweet decay zineissue one

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Table of contents.

sweet decay zineissue one

meet the authors … pg. 3 poetry/flash fiction … pg. 8 short stories … pg. 11

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meet the authors

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sonia sofia arreodnod (pronouns she/her)

I am a college sophomore in business management and I love to write in my free time. Practicing on horror genre will motivate me to do more as I want to write my own slasher fiction in the future.

Blog: colbelt.tumblr.com.∞

pupcat (pronouns they/them/their)

I am a high-school senior. I am a agender teenager who likes lip-sing in their free time.

Blog: sensitivtytone.tumblr.com∞

clementine (pronouns they/she interchangeably)

‘I’m Clementine, and I’m an amateur writer and comic book artist. I’m a 1st generation West Indian-American, with too many ideas and not enough time on my hands to make them work.

Blogs: babybaphomet.tumblr.com and

Inkswritingblog.tumblr.com’

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featuring:sonia sofia arreodnod

pupcatclementine

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poetry/flash fiction

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‘my amputee’, sonia sofia arreodrodA white, blind eye stares back at me

Another single eye of brown can see

Clutched by an arm and another not

From you, a ghost hug is all that I got

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‘space boyfriend’, sonia sofia arreodrodYou are like a shooting star

One minute you are shining

And then next, you explode

The last time you went off

I became like a black hole

Dead, but my heart still beating

Swallowed by your own abyss

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‘sweet decay’, pupcatI felt my first emotion then, fear.

He holds my hand,he looks at me with his eyes swelled full of tears

and doesn’t answer.There were bodies sweetly decaying near us;

shedding their old identities like anacondas shedding their skin.

These were bodies I recognized but I couldn’t identify. One crawled to me and reached for me.

It was a child looking for their place. I picked up the child.

The softness of its skin brought me to tears.

Unlike the beautiful man, it had a steady heartbeat.

The sweet sound of its heartbeat brought me to tears.

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‘your favorite book’, sonia sofia arreodrodMy husband and I would take turns reading each

other a book. He didn’t come home as early as usual. I woke up looking over my nightstand and my favorite book wide open. He wasn’t in bed next to me but I woke up from the door slamming. When I called out his name, he didn’t answer. I must of passed out because when I woke again, he was in bed, reading to me. I still heard creaking from down stairs and I looked over my nightstand with my favorite book. Then I heard whispers, then nothing.

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short stories

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‘siren’, clementine“I heard Billy Croup fucked that slutty waitress

from ‘Fishers’.” said Jeb, kneeling down beside me to look for skip-able stones. I rolled my eyes.

“One, don’t call her a slut. Two, no he probably didn’t, Billy Croup is fourteen.” I said definitively, grasping a smooth, round pebble in my hand.

“Who’d you hear it from?”

“Does it matter?”

It did matter. If my cousin Jeb was anything, he was two things; gullible, and a liar. I didn’t answer. He straightened up, having found a stone of his own. “Besides,” he continued, “School’s out for summer anyway. By the time we can talk to anyone else about it, it’ll be old news.”

“So?” I retorted, “I just want to know if you’re lying or not.”

“You don’t trust me, Nikka?”

“No,” I laughed, and tossed my stone. It skipped once, before sinking into the water. Jeb was better at this than I was, and his rock bounced off the water at least four times before disappearing near the waterfall on the far side of the pond. It wasn’t a good place for swimming because of it, the pond was very deep, and was connected to a few underground caves. The waterfall itself wasn’t huge, but during a bad storm, it surged; making the whole pond unsafe.

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“I made it up.” Jeb said after a few minutes of silence. I sighed.

“I knew it.”

“Shut up.” He muttered something else under his breath, but I didn’t catch it. My phone rang. It was my mother. I didn’t need to look at the caller I.D. to check; I had no other friends. The only contacts in my phone were my family.

“Nikka, the news said it’s supposed to storm really bad tonight. I want you home early,” she said. I looked up at the sky, which had filled with dark, ominous clouds.

“Okay.”

∞

I got home just as the sky broke open. Sheets of rain came pouring down out of nowhere, flooding our backyard, our basement, and the street outside. “This storm rolled in off the coast,” my mother commented, handing me a cup of tea. We always watched the summer storms pass together, it was our thing.

The nearest beach was two hours away, but we still got to feel the fingertips of the beast. It was morning before the rain let up, but even then it was still too flooded to do much, so I resigned myself to staying home. The minutes passed like hours, which didn’t seem to bother my mother at all; she was consumed by her soaps, and the news while I sat in my room, willing the waters to recede.

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“Hey.” I turned, startled, to see Jeb at my windowsill. This wasn’t unusual, he often climbed the trellis on the back porch to get to my room, but only when he didn’t want my mother knowing he was here.

Which meant he’d snuck out.

“How’d you get through that gross water?” I asked, opening my window wider to let him in. “Leave your boots outside, I bet they’re disgusting,” I added, and he complied, leaving them on the roof outside.

“It’s not so deep anymore. Lots of people are out, just wearing rainboots. It looks deeper than it is,” he said defensively. “I want to go see what’s washed up at the falls,” he said eagerly. We’d found an arrowhead there once, after a storm like this one. “You want to come?”

I nodded, eager to get out of the house. I left a note on my desk, and started tugging on my rainboots. “You think anything cool’s washed up?” I asked, and he shrugged. He still had the arrowhead; he’d asked his dad to drill a small hole in it, so he could make a necklace out of it. He wore it all the time, even still.

∞

The pond had surged up over the shore, making the edges slick and dangerous. The waterfall was still swollen with rainfall and tide waters–it was a sedimentary river. Sometimes, very rarely, we found dead saltwater fish washed up on shore.

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Now, however, the pond was full of trash and tree branches; a kid’s red sneaker, some aluminum cans, and food wrappers. Jeb stepped closer to get a better look, and I felt my chest tighten.

“Don’t!” I shouted, and slapped a hand over my own mouth. The cry had come from my lips unbidden, but the fear remained. It was slippery and still wet, and neither of us were very strong swimmers. He stepped back immediately, and I felt hot tears of embarrassment pricking at my eyes. “Sorry.” I said quietly, kicking at a clump of wet dirt. I’d almost drowned when I was little, and retained a strong aversion to deep bodies of water ever since.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We should be careful.”

Jeb grabbed a long stick, and used that to bring some of the trash close enough to grab. There was nothing interesting, but still it felt good to get out of the house. “There’s so much garbage, Nikka,” he said, tossing a can into the undergrowth. “Nothing cool at all.” I knew he was disappointed; he’d wanted to find another arrowhead,

“Maybe next time,” I said placatingly. “You know there’s always lots of storms in the summer.”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching up reflexively to run his fingers across the smooth surface of the arrow around his neck–only it wasn’t there.

His eyes widened, panicked. “Nikka was I wearing my arrow when I came to your house?” he asked, kneeling down to pat the ground, looking for it.

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“I-I think so,” I answered, getting down on my hands and knees to help him find it. “Did you tie it tight enough?”

“I always tie it tight when I wear it!” he snapped, looking around wildly.

“Maybe it fell off at my house,” I suggested. He nodded forlornly, looking even more sullen and disappointed than ever. We trudged home through the murky flooded streets in silence. I told Jeb that I would call him if I found his arrowhead, and he muttered a half-hearted ‘“thanks”, and went home. I didn’t bother trying to climb up the trellis, it was too slick, and I wasn’t as skilled a climber as Jeb was.

My mother was in the kitchen.

“Oh, I didn’t know you’d gone out,” she said absently. “Leave your boots by the door or you’ll track mud all over the house.”

∞

“Nikka! Nikka!”

I was awoken the same evening by Jeb’s insistent voice. I sat up in bed, and looked around blearily. it was still dark outside, and my alarm clock read 4:00 AM. I furrowed my brows.

“Wh-what are you doing here…? I said sleepily, opening my window to let him in. “It’s four in the morning, Jeb.”

“I know.”

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“Why–”

“I found a mermaid.”

I groaned. “I’m tired. Can you at least lie to me on a full night’s rest?” I pleaded, trying to usher him back out the window.

“I’m not lying!’

“I don’t believe you.”

“Nikka please, I’m not lying, I’m not! She’s real, she’s at the pond.”

“Is this about your arrowhead? I’ll help you look for it again in the morning—”

“Forget the fucking arrowhead!” he said impatiently, grabbing my robe from my closet, and forcing it into my hands. “Go get your boots, I’m telling you I saw a fucking mermaid!”

“Jeb mermaids aren’t real,” I said, slinging the robe back at him. “I’m not going to go wandering around in the woods just because you want to find your arrow.” I sat back on my bed, and crossed my arms.

“Nikka please, please I’m not lying, I’m not, I swear I’m not! I couldn’t sleep, right, so I went back to the pond to look for my arrowhead, and I get near the pond and I hear this splashing, right? So I’m like ‘what the hell is that’ and I get there and there’s this girl sitting in the water, but like way out past where it’s safe to swim and she’s just like floating upright in the

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water! and I thought maybe she was lost and I started to ask if she needed help and she kind of swam closer, and I could see it, I could see her tail under the water in the moonlight, and then she dove under. Nikka I’m not lying, I swear to god I’m not,” he pleaded.

Looking back on it, maybe it was something in his voice, something in his eyes, and I knew, for once, that he wasn’t lying to me.

“Okay.”

∞

It was a little chilly, but my robe was warm enough. Jeb hadn’t given me the time to get dressed, so i knew I’d be spending hours picking burs and twigs out of my dressing gown.

The pond was as we’d left it; although some of the garbage had sunk down into its depths. It was empty.

“I saw her, she was here,” he insisted, crossing his arms resolutely.

“Jeb,” I started, pausing to let out a huge yawn, “There’s no one here.”

“But she was here.” he said, plopping down on a rock.

“Let’s go home,” I replied, patting his shoulder. He looked up at me desperately.

“You don’t believe me.”

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I hesitated. “I think…I think you think you saw something. You’re tired. I mean, you totally admitted you couldn’t sleep,” I said. “Jeb it’s okay. I don’t think you’re lying.” He still looked angry.

“I didn’t think I saw anything; I know I saw something. I know I saw a mermaid, Nikka.” He turned away from me. “You can go home if you want to, but I’m gonna wait for her to come back.”

I pleaded, but he refused to move. Eventually, I just sat down beside him on the dirty rock, and waited.

∞

The sun rose late that morning, and light had just begun filtering through the trees when I felt Jeb stiffen beside me. I was half asleep, but I jerked upright.

“Look...” he said.

There in the pond, was a woman. She looked thin, but pretty, I suppose. Her golden blonde hair was thick, but tangled, forming a knotted mass around her. Her wide, silver-white eyes were fixed on us, and her lips were slightly parted. I could hear her breathing.

“I told you she was real,” Jeb whispered. “I told you there was a mermaid here.”

I couldn’t speak. I felt Jeb rise beside me, and I grabbed his hand. “Hello.” he breathed, and she swam a little closer. Now her shoulders were above

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the water, and I could see sunlight reflecting off her pale, veiny skin. “Can you talk?”

She didn’t answer. Now she was only feet from the shore. She raised a thin, bony hand above the water, and placed something on the muddy bank. Her fingers were long and webbed, longer than any humans I’d ever seen, and they looked like sharp bone.

“Is that for us?” Jeb asked, stepping closer. She didn’t speak, but her wide, empty eyes fixed on him. She didn’t have pupils–her eyes were entirely white, huge and luminous, like the kind you’d find on a deep sea fish. He quickly knelt by the shore, and picked it up–it was his arrowhead. Somehow it had fallen in the pond, and she’d given it back, He smiled. “Thank you.”

“Let’s go home,” I said, finally finding my voice. Something about her was wrong, dangerous. I could feel it. She looked at me, and an icy chill ran down my spine. I could feel the hair on my arms pricking up, and bile rose in my throat. The sheer wrongness of seeing her there, in the pond–acting like she belonged there–made my palms itch.

“Why?” Jeb asked, pocketing the arrow absently. “She gave me my arrowhead back. I think she likes us,” he said. “I’m Jeb.”

“Don’t tell it your name,” I hissed, backing away. He was too close to the pond, too close to it. I felt panic rising in my chest. My vision tunneled, and I

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could barely breathe. “Let’s go home,” I repeated, panting. He could slip and fall in, and then he’d be in the water with her. And I couldn’t save him–even if I was able to get myself into the water, which was doubtful, I was such a weak swimmer that we’d both drown in minutes.

Jeb let out a long suffering sigh, and came over to me. “You go ahead home, Nikka.” he groused.

“I’m not leaving you here with it!” I spat. I didn’t know where my intense hatred for the thing in the water had come from, and Jeb sighed.

“I don’t think she’s dangerous. “

“You don’t know anything about it!” I snapped. “It washed in upriver because of the storm. It could be dangerous.”

“Whatever.” he said, letting go of my hand.

“Fine.” I said angrily, stomping away. I heard a silvery laugh, and turned. It was laughing at me! My cheeks burned, and I could feel those eyes on my back. Even when I got home, I could feel her watching me. I hated it.

∞

“Did you tell anyone?” Jeb asked, bouncing a ball against the wall of my room. He hadn’t come to see me at all the day before, and when he’d shown up nonchalantly at my window, I was loathing to open it. I was still angry about the mermaid.

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“Stop that,” I snapped, grabbing it from him and stuffing it into one of my desk drawers. “And no, I didn’t.”

“She’s amazing,” he said excitedly. “And I think she understands us. I asked her to bring me a stone I dropped in the water, and she did, she brought up the exact one!”

“So it can fetch,” I said venomously. “Dogs can do that.”

“Whatever,” he said, ignoring my frustration. “I’m going to see her again.”

“Don’t,” I pleaded. “Don’t go alone.”

“Well you won’t come with me,” he said, shrugging.

“I don’t like it.” I said, feeling my throat tighten with embarrassment. “It’s weird, it’s not…it’s not safe,” I pleaded, unable to express the depths of my fear and hatred for the pale, bony creature in the water. Jeb rolled his eyes.

“Well I’m going.” he said, and stood up off my bed.

“Fine.” I said huffily, and began pulling on my rain boots to follow him down the trellis. The streets were still flooded, clogged with muddy brown water and garbage. Very few people were even outside, the sky was dark and heavy with rain clouds, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before another rainstorm was upon

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us. But Jeb didn’t care, he’d even mocked me as I grabbed my raincoat before we left.

The trail leading into the woods was behind Ingram’s General Store, on the edge of town. We followed it silently, leaving it when we were close enough to the waterfall not to get lost. As we got closer, icy fear ran down my spine at the sound of a voice.

It’s voice.

I knew, somewhere inside, that the melodic, light tones echoing through the trees could belong to nothing else. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead as the voice wrapped around me, ensnared me. It was like my legs didn’t belong to me anymore, they stumbled forward on their own, taking quick, jerky steps through the underbrush toward the pond. I glanced at Jeb, who wore a dreamlike expression, a smile playing on his lips.

“It’s beautiful…” he muttered, absently swatting leaves and branches out of his face. As we approached the clearing, the voice faltered and stopped, and suddenly my limbs were mine again.

There it was. Floating in the water, the sunlight gleaming off its translucent flesh. Eyes wide and dead looking, arms beckoning. I retched.

“Hello again,” Jeb said softly, kneeling at the water’s edge. “Was that you singing?”

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The fish monster said nothing. It only made a sound like a satisfied sigh.

“It was beautiful,” he said, and it smiled, showing rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. I felt panic rising in my stomach.

“Come away from the water, Jeb,” I whispered, too afraid to get close enough to drag him back from the pond’s edge. He ignored me. The thing reached up and caressed his face, and he leaned into its hand. It cooed at him. My vision tunneled, and I took a single, shaky step toward the edge of the pond. “Please, Jeb!” I was shouting now. My lungs felt as though someone had wrapped a vice around them, and I wasn’t getting any air. Suddenly, the mermaid began to sing again, and Jeb dreamily began to strip, as though he were getting ready to dive in.

“Jeb!” I screamed, and he finally turned to look at me. I didn’t remember falling, but I was on the ground, laying, twitching in the mud, my own pulse roaring in my ears.

And then nothing.

∞

The hospital room I woke up in was cold, clinical. My mother was asleep on the chair beside the bed, and Jeb was nowhere to be found. I sat up, but immediately fell back onto the pillows, my head was throbbing.

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“Nikka…?” my mother murmured quietly, yawning and stretching as she woke. “Oh thank god, they said they didn’t know what was wrong, it was like you had a seizure.”

“I’m in the hospital,” I said absently, and she nodded.

“Jeb dragged you home, thank goodness, I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.” I felt nauseous.

“Where is he now?” I asked, sitting up weakly. “Where’s Jeb?”

My mother sighed, and rubbed her temples. “I don’t know, Nikka.” she said tiredly. “He left after the ambulance came.” I started to get up, but failed. I still felt weak.

“Did he go home? I need to know, mom!” I said harshly, forcing my feet into my muddy sneakers. “Please,” I added, but it didn’t do any good. She only stared at me with barely masked surprise, and worry.

“Nikka, I don’t know where Jeb is.” she said slowly. “After the ambulance came yesterday afternoon, he left,” she repeated. “He’s probably at home, just fine.” I could recall hazy memories of nurses and doctors, and slurred conversations, but nothing more. “He’s fine,” she said again, and ice shot through my veins.

He was at the waterfall, with that…thing.

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My mother checked me out of the hospital, and the doctor gave me a prescription for a drug I couldn’t pronounce, and said they’d need to run follow up tests, in case I had another seizure.

When we got home, she made me drink a glass of water, and go to bed. I laid there, as dusk filtered in through my windows, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. The shadow of the pencils in the cup on my desk stretched across the walls like a bony hand, and I shuddered.

I needed to find Jeb.

I slid off the bed, and padded across the floor to my closet, and slid my feet into my rainboots, and grabbed a jacket. I stared at my window, trying to will the courage to leave the house into my aching muscles. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. I jumped, knowing I’d be in trouble–my mother wasn’t a stupid woman. She’d know I was sneaking out.

She didn’t open the door. “Nikka, are you asleep?” she asked, and I tried to make my voice sound groggy, like she’d woken me up.

“I was,” I said, and prayed she wouldn’t open the door to check.

“Okay, I’m sorry baby. Good night.”

I waited to hear her move away from the door, and then slid my window open, wincing at every creak and groan. I stepped out onto the slick roof, and for one terrifying second, my feet slid, scrabbling for

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purchase on the wet surface. But my boots did their job, and I stood, the wind beating against my face. The trellis was only a few feet away, but it too was slick and cold with rain water. I could see my mother in the living room, pacing, worried. I felt guilt coil in the pit of my stomach, but I pressed forward.

The ground was spongy and slippery from all the rain, and my feet sank a few inches into it with every step, but I kept going. Jeb was out here somewhere, and I needed to find him before the thing sang to him again.

∞

This time, there was no silvery voice as I approached the waterfall. There was no noise at all. No insects, no animals. The quiet was deafening. I hesitated before stepping out of the underbrush, my fear paralyzing me. The thing had given me a seizure the day before, I couldn’t afford another one. I was already weak and injured, easy prey.

Prey?

The word sounded right, although I’d never thought about it before. Was that what Jeb and I were for it, prey?

I swallowed my anxiety, and stepped out into the clearing. The waterfall had slowed from a rushing roar into a small trickle, but with more storms on the way, I knew that would change.

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Jeb stood, almost nude, just a few feet away from the pond’s edge, staring into it, as though he’d been there for hours. His mouth was moving, as though he were speaking, but no sounds came out.

“Jeb,” I said shakily, my voice shattering the silence. “It’s time to go home.”

He didn’t look at me, he only continued staring down into the yawning emptiness of the pond. Slowly, very slowly, the creature’s thin, bony hand rose silently from the water, and beckoned him forward with a single finger.

Jeb smiled, and took a step forward.

I began inching my way over to him, trying not to slip and slide on the loose earth. He took another step, and so did I. I was almost there. I told myself to keep breathing, not to panic, it would be okay. Jeb would be okay. We would leave this thing here, and never come back.

The mermaid erupted out of the water, sliding up onto the shore on her belly, her veins glowing blue in the moonlight. Her mouth yawned impossibly wide as she hissed at me, gills gaping on either side of her neck. Her hands, now sharp talons, scored the rocks beneath her as she gnashed her teeth. She was between me and Jeb, I couldn’t get to him, stop him from stepping into that deep, deep water, without crossing her. A low rattling growl emanated from her open mouth–I was getting in the way.

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Her hunt was almost at an end, and I was going to spoil it.

“Jeb! Jeb please! Jeb you have to listen, she’s going to kill you, it’s going to kill you, Jeb–” a loud splash echoed through the clearing as he jumped into the water. Suddenly, the mermaid was as she was before, ethereal, pale, delicate.

A satisfied look graced her face as she turned, and began dragging herself back to the water, scraping translucent white scales off of her slimy tail. She slid back into the pond noiselessly, leaving me standing, alone, on the shore. The water began churning, and blood bubbled up and frothed on the surface.

I fell backward, into the muck, and stared. I stared for a long time. Finally, the water stilled, and I began crawling cautiously over to the edge.

It was floating, just below the surface, staring up at me. Gore floated around it, and it began to move upward, toward me.

I stumbled away on my hands and knees as it breached the surface. It didn’t attack me again, though, only stared, it’s head just above water. It spat something at my feet, and then opened its mouth, laughing that silvery, beautiful laugh.

It was Jeb’s arrowhead.

Fear energizing me, I grabbed it, and ran, out of the clearing and through the underbrush. Its laughter

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rang in my ears even after I was home, crying into my pillows. Rattling in my head.

∞

“We think he hit his head and fell in,” the officer said to my aunt, who had been staying with us since she’d reported Jeb missing. Jeb’s father was a trucker, on his way home, but hadn’t gotten back to town yet. “We found one of his shoes, and some blood on the rocks. I’m sorry, Ma’am.” he said, and my aunt collapsed on the front porch.

I went to my room, and stared at the window. Even now, I could hear its voice, coiling around my soul, beckoning, caressing, inviting. I wake several times a night, now, standing outside, or coming to at the start of the forest trail–sleepwalking. I dream about her; her enormous pale eyes, staring up at me from the darkness of the water, her bony hands gripping the shore as she pulls herself toward me, mouth gaping large enough to swallow my head.

She’s calling me.

And I don’t know how long I can resist.

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‘dried out, pipeline dreams.’, pupcat

“You try to leave and I’m shootin’ you dead in the back, boy. Now, imma ask ya one last time, what did ya say?”

“I told them that we’re brothers, Archie.” The warmth of blood spread down his back as the

young boy falls face first into the midnight water. There was so much ringing. He felt like he was melting. He was becoming the lake, embodying it.

He couldn’t give in to death. He had a promise to keep.

He closes his eyes as he hears the sound of his father talking in the background.

“Archer Dean Collins, what hell you doin’ here? Takin’ my gun, boy, you must be outta ya mind. Louise call 911! Now listen here, boy, no matter what happens, you betta not say nothin’ to nobody.”

∞Using all my vacation days, packing all my things

and driving for six hours was unplanned. Seeing the familiar, dusty, pale yellowish pink sign that said ‘Welcome to Beauty, California, where there is beauty every day.’ was unplanned. Going back to my hometown was an unplanned event in my life.

It wasn’t the quaintest town, nor was it a nice town to raise children in; that is, unless you were some young white, suburban mom. We had a Walmart, a doctor’s office with one doctor, a gas station, a bus station, an all-in-one school and a postal office. Everyone who lived in the town except for my family and another were white, mindless hicks who enjoyed hunting season more than they enjoyed each-other.

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The only thing that made Beauty enjoyable during my childhood was a lake behind the school. We swam there so many times without incident; it was surprising as a kid to find out that someone had drowned there.

It was a young boy around my age at the time.His parents had moved here because of the size

and the pleasant name. They were newlyweds when they moved, I

remember my mother telling me. There were rumors circling around how the boy was the result of an affair; my mama and her friends would often talk about it in the hair salon, ultimately shunning the family that was the object of those rumors.

I honestly couldn’t remember what he looked like. He wasn’t a well-known person so it’s not weird I didn’t know remember his face or his name exactly.

Some cops from out of town drained the lake and investigated his death. They ruled it an accident but left the lake empty for ‘safety reasons’. His family moved a couple weeks after his death, from what I heard in the newspaper and on the five o’clock news that morning after. Was it to escape persecution, or to grieve, I wondered. That person must have not been important if I couldn’t remember them clearly.

The reason I came back was something common and simple. My sister died. Her name was Sundae. My sister who had got with some white guy named Billy-Bob and had a kid with him; from I read on her Facebook page. My younger sister. My only sister.

How old was the child? Barely six months or barely six years-old? I was surprised when I had

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gotten the call that she had died from cancer in her stomach. I hadn’t spoke to her since I left at twenty-two with some savings, a college acceptance letter and rode the only bus in town to a city far away called Sacramento.

I had my mind set that I wouldn’t think of the place I grew up. And now here I am, parking my Sentra, trying to make sense of the base but complex situation at hand.

“Hello Miss Morris? Semaj Morris?”“Yes, this is she. How may I help you?” I

remembered that there was a pause on the line before the person had spoken further.

“I’m calling to inform you that your sister died.”“Oh... was it sudden?”“Yes, she died of a hemorrhage shortly after her

first pregnancy. No one informed you of that?”I paused.“We weren’t that close.”“Well, you’re aware about the child, right? Since

there is no family left but you, so it’s your choice to raise the child or not.”

“What about her husband? Billy-Bob, right?”“His name is Bruce Walker, Ma’am. He went to jail

for hitting someone with his car. She has no existing family members except for you.”

“Oh, I see.”There’s coughing on the other end after a period

of silence.“Wait what was your name again?”“It’s Ariel.”“Well Ariel, when is the funeral?”

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“In a couple days. It’s being held in Beauty at Greater Grant Church, so there isn’t that long of a drive to there from Sacramento.”

∞I drop about twenty dollars in the gas attendant’s

hand. That should be enough to fill my tank. I recognized him. He was some red-headed kid who used to bully me in middle school.

“Archie?” He looked at him.“Yeah. Semaj, was it?”“Yeah.”“You know, after you left, everything was quieter

with one less negro gone.”“You still have an interesting vocabulary, Archer.

See you.” He’s still an asshole. I see.Too bad. Maybe it was too nice of me to think he’d

change after 10 odd years.∞

Going to the funeral home was interesting. I was the only one there, other than Billy-Bob’s mother. It had been too hot to wear a suit so, I settled wearing black shorts and cut-off Slayer shirt.

My sister would have told me to stop playing and change my clothes.

I missed her.“I’m not taking care of that child.”“Why not? You’re the grandmother.”“You think I want some kid born from wedlock?

This family has values.” I glance at the baby in her arms.

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“Charming, you’re very charming Ma’am. How old is he?”

“About four months old.”“Quite big for a 4 month old, isn’t he?”“Just take the kid and go back to where you came

from.”“Chill wicked witch. You and your family will be

able to live the Beverly Hillbilly lifestyle once more. Say hello to Billy-Bob for me whenever you visit him in jail again.”

∞As I napped in my car I had a dream that seemed

like some distant memory. There was a dark-haired teenage boy in a white gap shirt that contrasted with his black slacks and brown church shoes. Beside him there was a happier, younger version of myself in faded overalls and raggedy converses. We held hands in a hazy vision.

He laughed and called my name. He told me everything was okay.

I’m pretty sure I had loved him at the time, even if I didn’t know his name.

Another boy, a red-head, had hit him. It was Archie. I cried and threw a punch at him out anger, out of protection for the boy.

He shrinks away, all bloody and battered, running away with his tail caught his legs.

After that, the boy and I had held hands once more, wading our feet in the coolness of the town’s lake.

That beautiful boy had went away to another place.

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I wanted to follow him no matter where it was. He had told me with a whisper it wasn’t my fate to, that I had to keep living no regardless of how the future maybe.

∞He had the same eyes as me. The baby, I mean. “You’re pitiful, you know that, right? You’re going

to be raised by me and I wasn’t even raised properly myself.” his rosy hands grip the steering wheel as he sat in my lap.

“You’re not driving until you're sixteen. I know, I know, don’t look at me like that. I’ll get you a car seat at Walmart hopefully.” I look at him at his bare chest.

“It seems the evil witch and Sunny didn’t have any clothes for you. Maybe we’ll have some luck looking at the clearance section in the baby section. Hmmm, some food too. I hope you like mushed carrots.”

A car seat intact and be good until he starts school and was about 300$ plus tax. Well, damn. I have like thirty dollars left on me for gas.

Oh well.“Thank for claiming my savings, you little

cabbage patch.”I turn to the tall, lanky teenage employee closing

down his register and ask him for help.“Hey, could you help me put this in my car?”’“Sure.”“I just became a mommy today. I wasn’t planning

on him being younger than three, though.”“Is your sister’s name, Sundae?”

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“Yeah. I’m guessing since there isn’t but 150 people living in this town, the news that the occupation size dropped spread.”

“Thank you...” I look for a name tag.“It’s Freddie. How long are you staying here?”I clicked the seat, locking in the quiet cabbage

patch.“Three more days and then I'm heading for

Sacramento.”I noticed he was sweating. A lot.“Fred, was it? You might want to dry yourself off,

you’re dripping all over the floor.”“Oh... this? I just came from the lake.”

∞I close the backseat car door.“What you mean at the lake? You’re kidding,

right? It’s been drained for years and no one has swam there since that guy drowned there a while back. I forgot his name, though.”

“Freddie Miura.”“What?”Before I reached to the driver’s side, I asked him

this.“That was me, Freddie Miura.”There’s a pause.“I’m glad you came back, I heard that you moved

to the big city. I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at your house that day.”

I remembered who he was. Freddie, I mean.“Since you’re here now, was it really an

accident?”

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My hands are shaking. I reach up to touch his face, droplets threatening to flow out my eyes.

“If you want to believe that. It seemed back then, Archie wasn’t too fond of me. I feel sad you’ve forgotten me, though.”

He was my best friend. I felt warm tears roll down my cheeks as I gripped

the steering wheel.“Now, now. Don’t cry, Semaj.”

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