•
For lunch, my ProGusto cooks filet mignon with mashed potatoes. The two dishes are actually some type of grey protein slurry, just with different constancies.
Sergeant Johnson is up and off of the couch. He’s in a good mood and wolfs the protein slurry down like it really is filet mignon. I turn on iPerceive and pick at my food while watching the crisply-painted fire hydrant across the table from me. It’s not moving, but the food slowly disappears.
The fire hydrant starts singing. “Huh,” I say, turning iPerceive off.
“Is it supposed to be cold tonight?” he asks.
Very cold, but I don’t tell him that. It’s one of those things that he doesn’t need to know. Instead, I say:
“There’s no room at the shelter.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“And I can’t keep you here,” I say.
“I know,” he says. He finishes his meal, gets up and slowly walks to the door, dragging his feet. He opens the door, turns and says, “Thank you.” Then he smiles, scarred lip peeling back to reveal missing and rotten teeth. And there’s something about the smile. It’s not ugly. It’s like the song, the one from my DreamWell archive, the one my grandfather played on the disc in the antique shop, melancholy but joyous, sober but whimsical, flawed but...real, something that I could touch, something I could feel, something created, existing only for a moment, shared between two human beings. It’s not perfect; it’s beautiful. Sergeant Johnson turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
I sit on the couch thinking about Sergeant Johnson. I play with iPerceive, flipping it on, turning it off, turning it back on, then back off. On, off, on, off, on/off/on. Now I’m at the door, now outside; now it’s snowing again, cold and getting colder. I turn iPerceive off. I follow muddy tracks in the virgin snow.
Nathan Susnik is a biomedical researcher and medical writer who lives with his wife and children in Hanover, Germany. His fiction has appeared on Gallery of Curiosities and is forthcoming from in Devilfish Review and Grievous Angel.
For publication updates, follow him on Twitter at @NathanSusnik.
The Black Tide
Laura Duerr
Art: P Emerson Williams
The harvest moon drew us out to the beach late on Friday night. It was mid-September, still warm, and I ached to escape campus with my new friends and enjoy the coast – no matter the hour – before the autumn rains started. I sat in the back of Angela’s Jeep with Gabe. Up front, Angela and Kate argued over the best route to take.
“Michelle, you grew up there,” Angela said as we left campus. “Which freeway do we want?”
“It’s almost midnight – does it matter?”
“Fair.”
We reached the beach within an hour and a half, expecting to find the town asleep, but it was as crowded as a summer weekend. Every street, every parking lot, even front yards and dunes were crammed with cars. Shadowy masses of shouting people poured down the moonlit, sandy lanes towards the beach. I’d hoped for the head-clearing solitude of the deserted coast; instead, the atmosphere felt more like the minutes before a concert starts, all electric anticipation.
Much too late, I remembered why. The moonlight should have reminded me, but I’d worked so hard to forget. It had felt so freeing, so daring, to mark up my September calendar with normal things like soccer practice and homework due dates instead of the countdown to the harvest moon – but there it was, gleaming innocently, luring all these people down to the surf.
I felt two truths instantly: the moon would take my new friends, and it would be my fault – unless I did something.
“Maybe we should just try again next weekend,” I suggested. It was the best I could come up with. I couldn’t tell them the truth, they’d think I was crazy, but in my panic, I couldn’t think fast enough.
“No way.” Angela continued down another block, negotiating the Jeep through the swarming crowds. “I didn’t drive all the way out here just to turn around.”
Her bangles jingled against the steering wheel. My dresser top was scattered with orphaned earrings and a tangle of necklaces, but Angela’s looked like a store display, with dainty metal trees showcasing her jewelry. Angela asked weekly if I’d help keep the room clean, but I kept finding excuses – I had practice, I had homework, I was late for class. I’d found excuses to let Gabe take on more than his fair share of work for our case study. I’d even found excuses to avoid Kate when she needed someone to talk to about missing her boyfriend. I’d been selfish and I’d taken my friends for granted. After tonight, that would change.We just needed to get back to campus.
But no excuse seemed good enough, especially since I’d been the one to suggest the adventure – we had no game tomorrow, no need to go to bed early.
I felt sick – and then relieved. I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t feeling well, to beg them to drive me home.“Look!” Kate pointed. “Those guys are leaving.”
Three people climbed slowly into their sedan. They were crying.
“What’s that about?” Gabe wondered. I said nothing. They wouldn’t believe me anyway, and if they refused to leave, they would find out soon enough.
When the sedan didn’t immediately depart, Kate reached over and tapped the horn, earning us a trio of middle fingers.
“Just give them a minute,” I burst out.
“Jesus, fine – I just want to get out of this car, already.”
The sedan left and Angela took its space. Kate had already unbuckled and leaped out before the engine shut off. Within moments, I was alone in the car.
“Let’s go!” Kate shouted.
The sounds outside were familiar, the soundtrack to my annual living nightmare. As I climbed down from the Jeep, I felt like I was five, or twelve, or fifteen again, terrified of how my quiet beach town turned into a moonlit hell once a year.
The streets were raucous with voices and the distant surf. The thrum fed Kate like a breath over embers, but for me, it was a harrowing reminder of why I’d left. I’d chosen a college inland, safe from the moon, but also near enough to reach my family, if needed. Every past harvest moon night loomed in my mind: identical memories of trying and failing to sleep, thanks to the blinding full moon and the shouts of triumph and grief that reverberated through the town all night.
I wanted to run, to hide in the car where it was safe – but I knew if I let my friends out of my sight, I might lose them forever. They didn’t know, and even those who knew were lost so easily on nights like this.
