Author: The Editors

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The Visitation-Among Women by Rhonda Melanson

Two women, branded crone and slut,

our commonality our hung baskets

of surprise fruit each in different phases

of ripeness. I speak. Hushed, but fierce:

brilliant words about justice,

about coiled rainbows within tight spaces,

how they’ll unfurl band by band

how every balled up woman

will witness these colours of resistance

even as we pound, pound from within

our arks, one by one, drumming

on planks an incantation for fresh rain.

She grabs my hand, pulls it

to her taut belly.

Commands me to feel the sandstorm.

Cause grains are gonna fly, baby!

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Your Closet by Jane Dibble

The mustard colored coat,

You always used to wear.

The red beaded dress,

That gave you such a flare.

That little pink cowboy hat

That smells like your shampoo.

Those gold buckled 3-inch heels,

I used to steal from you.

I’m standing in your closet,

Wearing your green cardigan;

Thinking I’d give it all away,

If I could just see you again.

Jane Dibble is a staff member at HCC. Jane developed a love of literature while attending community college and went on to earn a B.A. in English from St. Mary’s College of MD. Her writing is influenced by the works of great poets such as Emily Dickinson and Nikki Giovanni

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Cassiopeia by Jessica Gregg

It’s common wisdom, a chestnut of chastity,

this belt and suspenders, this notion

that we lose a piece of our soul

to every partner whose body we caress—

no, no, they say, we give it away as though

it was a party favor, bits of soul like bits

of glitter or little sugared candies in pastel

balls of netting, flints of our self, falling

stars knocked out of place in the night sky

…but wait, I must interrupt to ask a burning

celestial question of soul and heart, of lovers

who have only seen starry nights (and days)

with each other if they too took pieces

of each other’s soul each time they sighed

in those arms, if this is what love is,

the wearing down and rendering into dust,

a dwindling of the cosmic, the supernova,

or if that’s Cassiopeia winking at us now,

at our Earthly silliness and the stellar strength

we draw in the breaths we take from each other.

Jessica Gregg is a Baltimore-based poet, former journalist, and proud rowhouse dweller. Her work has appeared in Broadkill Review, Delmarva Review, Global Poemic, Rise Up Review, and the Under Review, among other publications.

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Paul Bunyan Takes a Lover by Jessica Gregg

She laughs too loudly, her cackles

dimming the light towers. Her sighs

send back the tides. She opens

her hands and sapphires turn

to berries that fall into his bowl.

She covers him with her feathered

cloak, and he sleeps a forest slumber.

When he awakes, she takes him

to her bed and he weeps silver tears

of joy and wonder that fill the ocean.

When his enemies come, she ties them

to arrows and shoots them into a denim sky.

He wails that this is too good, that she

is too much. But Paul, she tells him,

she cannot daisy chain her days into easy,

weave shrouds or cast nets for only three fish.

Someone who can turn petals into golden

topaz to spit at the moon cannot be told

to turn them into glass. That Paul, she says,

is like unbreathing the air or unseeing

the sun, unfeeling a moon crater

of heartbreak. And this Paul, she tells

him, is what it would be like to be small.

Jessica Gregg is a Baltimore-based poet, former journalist, and proud rowhouse dweller. Her work has appeared in Broadkill Review, Delmarva Review, Global Poemic, Rise Up Review, and the Under Review, among other publications.

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Dancers In The Park by Sabrina Small

The first thing you have to know, Seth, is that we always leap toward participation. The opportunity comes so rarely in Berlin, to join in. Who am I to turn down an invitation? I mean, I want my children to be friendly. It’s the only American quality I still feel proud to pass on.

We went to Rehberge–you know the one. It’s that expansive park near my place with enough space for a tennis court, two playgrounds, two running tracks, enclosures for boars and mountain goats. It’s where we saw the Amy Winehouse film at the outdoor cinema. Anyway, we went there to look for fall leaves. I insisted the kids bring their backpacks to fill with leaves of red, gold, yellow, green and brown. I figured it would kill time now and kill time later as an art project. I rode the mom-mobile to the largest meadow in the park. It was what my dad would have called a Chamber of Commerce kind of day, with the sun hitting the long green meadow flanked by stately oaks. And even though it was busier than usual, I immediately saw the group of revelers. That’s the only way to describe them, Seth. They were dressed in a variety of costumes, like 50 of them altogether, twirling umbrellas! The women had long hippie skirts in red, overlaid with nets and jangly gold coins. They had hair that made me think of the word tresses, and their faces were done up in theatrical makeup. They were all so colorful, even the men. One man wore a brown polyester 70s suit with a pork pie hat. Another wore an all red Santa suit. Some carried musical instruments, like accordions and tambourines. They were obviously a group of some kind, but it was unclear how they fit together. Just a colorful group of adults, ranging in age from maybe 30 to 70. And they were singing and dancing.

As we stood watching them, I noticed this drone swooping overhead, controlled by a director of sorts. And it dawned on me that they were making a music video. They sang the same refrain over and over, each time following a loose choreography that brought them closer together for the final shot. The song was in German, of course, and it took me a few times hearing it before I began to piece out distinct words. It was something about wanting to sing again, dance again, hug again. It sounded amateur, like a song made specifically by the group.

By the time I started to pick up the words, Deedee was already running toward them, in party animal Deedee fashion. Well, Seth, she wanted to dance! The world’s so fucking dreary these days, I can’t bIame her. I think I called her back to me once, as a show of parenting, but one of the hippies welcomed her, so I let her dance. The director with the drone shook his head and then the hippie lady came over to me, all smiles, and said I would need to sign a release-form to allow her to be in the music video. Wanda had been persuaded by that point to join too, little Ms. Look at Me, heard “music video” and got ready for her close up.

I guess this should have been a red flag, but honestly, Seth, it didn’t seem that out of the ordinary to me. I grew up in LA, and it was quite normal to stumble onto a film or TV set, just walking around. I signed dozens of release forms. Shit, I was hoping to spot myself on TV. Anyway, I should have asked what it was all about. It’s a perfectly reasonable question. What are you filming? Why? I didn’t ask but the orange and yellow hippie did explain something in German. It was hard to understand, honestly. I thought she said it was something to do with mass nahen, which I think means tailoring and sewing? I didn’t dwell on it. I thought they were against sweatshops maybe. I mostly thought about how excited my daughters were to be dancing and singing in the park with a bunch of silly adults. I actually felt lucky, Seth. What luck to run into this group and have this ordinary day turn into something spectacular. I said to the hippie, sounds good. We exchanged emails.

They rehearsed a bit more and finally broke for the day and formed this little jam session near the oak trees. They invited us to join and we were like, fuck yeah. But this time they weren’t singing their German song about hugging and dancing, no-no. They were singing Pink Floyd’s, Another Brick in the Wall. But they had altered the lyrics and were singing, “We don’t need no vaccinations. We don’t need no mass control.”

Panic spread through me immediately, Seth. Panic and nausea and a wild sense of danger. I did a lightning round revision of the message from the hippie. It was clear now that what she said was “Maske nahmen” which means wear masks. It all made fucking sense now. They were anti-mask and anti-vacc and they were dancing and singing with my children. And you know these motherfuckers were probably thrilled to have a music video which featured kids, promoting their message that it’s all this big conspiracy and we should just go back to how it used to be. Eventually I recovered enough from this big reveal to call the kids away and hoist them into the bike. They were pissed. Mom fucking ruined it again. Made us leave the colorful fun people.

I was spinning out Seth. I worried about their dad finding out my mistake. He would surely use it against me when he needed to. I mean, plenty of proof of that from past court hearings. I worried the kids would tell him about their amazing encounter, that he would find out that way, so I went into PR mode. I was like, these people want Corona to be over so we don’t have to wear masks anymore. But right now we need to wear masks to stay safe. And soon, you will be able to get the vaccine so it stops spreading. Wanda was immediately on my bullshit. She was like, “that’s not what the lady said.” And the pain Seth, the pain of having to gaslight my smart child was heartbreaking. I was like, “everyone just wants this to be over so we can dance and hug again. I don’t know what she said, but we have to stay safe and safe means masks, at least for now.” I can’t remember if I tried to change the subject or if we just fell silent after that.

We had actual plans to visit with a family in the neighborhood at their apartment so we were heading there. I thought about canceling because of the incident and possible exposure but I was more nervous about altering our plans. How would I explain that to the girls? So we went.

They lived in one of those beautiful, too small, pre-war apartments that no one leaves, even when they have kids, because the rent is sick and will never be that good again. So it’s like three gorgeous rooms that always feel cramped anyway, but now I fill them with my bad vibe, duplicitous COVID energy. I felt like I had something rotten inside that I was spreading and I wanted to get it out but was so scared of the backlash. At one point, the conversation veered toward my friend’s cousin, a wayward relative, who was struggling to make it as an actress and seemed to be intelligent but stumbling through life. I was so wild with the need for confession that I said I identified with this cousin, that I felt I had no common sense despite being intelligent. I told her I don’t look before I leap, which was more of an admission burp, rather than the meatloaf sized dump I wanted to make. 

Wanda was wandering in and out of the main room, bored. Deedee was fighting with the twins and soon we packed it in. When we made it home, Seth, it was honestly a relief to launch into domestic tasks. I made the girls fishsticks and french fries. I hung laundry. I got them into their pajamas and we sat on the couch and watched cartoons. Before bed, I admitted the day had been weird. The girls both agreed they never wanted to go to my friend’s house again. I promised we never would. They said nothing about the park.

Once they were asleep, I googled how to forgive yourself, Seth, which was as straightforward and unhelpful as you’d expect. When sleep wouldn’t come, I felt the depression begin to wash over me and I knew I was in for a doozy. I would not do anything productive the next day. That was clear.

The next day, I took the girls to school, and when I came home, I was almost horny for an intense period of self punishment. I was thinking about how much I would overeat and how I would do no exercise whatsoever. I knew I was not leaving the house or showering. Just settling in with my mistress, TV, for the next two to three days. Weather forecast calls for couch farts. I remember laying there filled with such intense self loathing that I had to be absolutely silent and withdrawn to keep from unleashing anything worse than the litany, you know? You’re stupid. You’re too stupid to take care of your children. You’re too stupid to make any good decisions. You’re useless. You’re incapable of taking care of yourself. You’re a failure as an adult, as a mother, as a person. You don’t deserve anything good because you make a mess out of everything.

On the second day, god bless me, I tried to build a  website, Seth! Just a little one for my writing. And, of course, in my state of agitation, I moved too fast and bought the wrong domain name, which sent me back into a state of deeper self loathing and depression.This bitch is too stupid to build a website. At some point I tried to make a stew with what was laying around and ended up using a chana masala mix that went rancid and couldn’t be masked no matter how many other ingredients I threw in. In the end, I dumped it all down the toilet. Too stupid to make a fucking stew. I went back to the couch where it was impossible for anything to happen to me or for me to happen to anything. I avoided any meaningful contact for the better part of two days and then felt that I had to check in with J, who usually stays with me Thursday through Sunday. I called him and he asked me how I was, and the way he asked, so filled with empathy, Seth, made me cry immediately. “I’m not good.” It was the first thing I’d said in two days.

On the third day, I forced myself out of the house. I went back to the park in my leave me alone clothes, with some podcast in my ears. I was in that freshly bleached depression skin, where you’re just trying not to do anything truly heinous to yourself. And the crazy thing is, I can’t remember what happened next. Like depression amnesia, some other cycle just took over and the week continued.

I did get an email a week or so later from the director. He was like, so fun to meet your family. And it was, Seth! It was fun for a fucking minute, at least. I was so dreading this email and when I finally saw it, it was just so human. And I thought about how we’re all just trying to find some way through it with these podcasts and videos and community projects.  I just told him, you know, respectfully, I was confused. I made a mistake. I told him that my family does believe in vaccines and can’t be a part of their message. Of course, no one wrote back.

Sabrina Small is a Berlin-based writer and antique seller. Her work has been featured in Hobart, Expat Press, and Gastronomica. Find her at smallsabrina.com

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Attention creators!!

Although submissions have ended for our themed issue, we are still open for general submissions until April 4th and will not reopen until October 2022! So send us what you’ve got, we can’t wait to take a peek!

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The Storm Walker by Edward Ahern

There is what was a man

who walks October storms in darkness.

On sleepless nights I see him striding

all wrapped up in sheets of lightning

or flushed with the sodden rain of fall.

The gentle nights are spent without him

who rouses for the howl of wind

that consummates his passage.

I think to join him in his trek

but fear that he will tell me

of why he travels in this violence

or worse, for whom he seeks.

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over three hundred stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of nine review editors.

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We Are Many We Are One by P.T. Corwin

The girls had materialized on the street like cold night made flesh.

Both of them wore Little Red Riding Hood costumes – capes red as sin – and the irony wasn’t lost on Lucas as he and his friend Joey followed the girls through secret alleys and deserted backstreets.

Lorelei, who had red hair like Lucas, had walked on his arm, while Jezebel had led Joey.

‘Forget it,’ Lucas said when they arrived at their destination.

The crooked streetlights illuminated a stone building so covered in soot that it looked like smoldering coal. It was difficult to make out the letters carved into the stone above the entrance: Town Hall.

‘I’m not going in there.’

It wasn’t like there was a way in anyway. Not unless the girls could bust through the metal security shield over the door or the boarded-up windows.

‘Dude!’ Joey pulled Lucas aside. ‘What the heck? This is our chance to make a good impression, maybe walk away with a love bite and a couple of phone numbers.’

‘Unless the roof falls on our heads or we crash through the floor and impale ourselves on a rusty flagpole. That’s if we don’t get arrested for breaking and entering first. Do you have any idea what my parents would say, if the police brought me home?’

‘They’d probably say, “He’s sixteen, officer. What the hell do you expect?”’

‘It’s safe,’ Lorelei said.

‘We’ve been here before,’ Jezebel said. ‘Lots of times.’

‘See? They’ve been here before.’

‘Doing what?’ Lucas asked.

Lorelei smiled with crimson lips as she walked up to Lucas. ‘I’ll show you,’ she whispered, ‘if you come inside.’ She leaned closer, her breath in his ear somehow colder than the October air. ‘It’s something best done in private.’

She licked his ear, softly, like a feather, sending shivers through his body.

‘Or we find someone else to join us.’

‘Someone more up to the challenge,’ Jezebel said.

Joey glided over to her. ‘Hang on, darling. We’re up to the challenge. Aren’t we, Lucas?’

The grimace on Joey’s round face told Lucas that yes, they were, and if he said anything to the contrary, he could walk home alone and forget about calling Joey ever again.

‘Fine. But how are we supposed to get in?’

Lorelei walked up to one of the windows. The board here had a long scar running through it.

Lorelei checked that nobody was around, then pulled the smaller piece away. The remaining wood stuck out like shark teeth.

What big teeth you have.

‘See you inside.’ Lorelei climbed through the gap first and was swallowed by the darkness of the place and the silence.

All the better to eat you with.

‘Lorelei?’ Lucas called.

His voice sounded hollow in the nothingness beyond.

He leaned forward to peer into the black. His eyes hadn’t adjusted enough that he could see anything beyond vague shapes, but he thought he heard movement. Somewhere in the inky void, rubble shifted, a crunch crunch crunch that was getting closer. Closer.

Something was coming. Something taking its time. Something big and lumbering.

‘Lore-’

An arm shot out of the gap and grabbed him by the jacket.

Lucas screamed. He stumbled back, but the arm gripped him tightly, pulling him towards the gap, towards the broken wood.

All the better to eat you with.

It had taken Lorelei, and now it was going to take him. Take him down into the dark place, the place of lost children who had become too reckless for their own good, where pain waited to dig its claws into his soul, nothing but pain and eternity and the scream inside his own head.

And then somebody was laughing.

Lucas opened his eyes and saw a red cape, and then Lorelei, sticking her head out of the hole in the wood. She was laughing, and so were Joey and Jezebel behind him.

‘Sorry,’ Lorelei said. ‘You scare too easily. I couldn’t resist.’

Lucas pushed her hand away. ‘That wasn’t funny.’

‘It was a little bit funny,’ Joey said. ‘I’m next.’

One by one, they went through.

Lucas emerged last in the dark room. He could just make out a large hump in the middle of it, something glittering in a passing headlight. For a moment, he expected it to move, to unfurl into a beast with glowing eyes.

All the better-

‘Just a chandelier.’ It was Lorelei beside him.

She took him by the hand, and he was glad to feel her, glad to feel someone human in this place.

‘Speaking of,’ Joey said. ‘I don’t suppose you know where the light switch is?’

‘Not yet,’ Jezebel said. ‘The gap. We need to get to the back of the building first.’

‘Is that where the other guests are waiting?’ Lucas asked.

He had expected to hear the party once they got inside. Faint music or people talking. But there was nothing except the occasional car driving past outside.

‘Follow us,’ Jezebel said somewhere ahead of him.

‘And be careful,’ Lorelei said. ‘You don’t want to stumble over the dead.’

‘The dead?’ Lucas searched the darkness, not sure he wanted to see.

‘The busts,’ Lorelei said. ‘Old men that were left behind when this place closed.’

Old men. And now young men to join them.

As Lucas followed the others, feeling around the floor with his feet, he thought: This better be worth the risk.

The room had been the main ballroom once. It must have looked magnificent under the three chandeliers. But in the flickering candles the girls had lit, it looked more like a battlefield.

The floor was littered with debris that had fallen from the ceiling, sticking up here and there like craggy mountains. Some of the tables had remained, tipped over, lying dead like poisoned beetles.

Lucas sat next to Lorelei on a dusty chair, both of them watching as Joey and Jezebel kissed while the portable radio sitting on the fireplace played a slow song.

Lorelei looked bored, occasionally sipping from a beer bottle that had been empty for a while now.

Lucas hadn’t started drinking yet. He was peeling at the label of his bottle, stealing glances at Lorelei.

What would it feel like to kiss her?

In the light of the candles, Lorelei’s lips glistened. They looked soft, like rose petals misted in morning dew.

She turned to him. ‘You want to kiss me.’

It wasn’t a question.

She took another sip of nothing. ‘Well, you know what to do.’

Somewhere far away, Joey let out a great burp. ‘Oh God! I feel all tingly inside.’

To hell with it. In other countries, it was legal to drink at sixteen, so what was the big fricking deal? Besides, the girls had brought Botlov beer, which wasn’t that strong anyway.

‘Screw it!’

The beer tasted bitter, but it went down.

Jezebel whooped.

‘How is it?’ Lorelei asked.

Lucas spat out the aftertaste. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Let me make it better.’

It wasn’t as nice as he had expected. Her lips were too cold, and maybe it was her lipstick or something, but they felt slimy too. Like he was pressing his lips to a slug.

‘What’s that?’ Joey was asking somewhere at the edge of the world.

It seemed the beer was getting to him. They’d probably both have a bit of a headache in the morning.

Something did feel weird inside Lucas. Like pins and needles spreading across his body from his stomach.

‘What the-’

His insides felt like they were on fire.

‘Joe!’

Joey had doubled over, his face screwed up in pain. Jezebel was watching him, not at all disturbed by any of it.

‘What…’ – Lucas pushed the words out of a burning throat – ‘… happening?’

There were shadows around him now, as insubstantial as ink floating in water. But they were solidifying, and Lucas had a vague but terrible urge to get out before they arrived.

He just couldn’t move. He tried to get to the door, his steps heavy. He had to steady himself on one of the upturned tables.

Joey. Where was Joey? Was the same thing happening to him?

‘Don’t worry.’ Lorelei was beside him.

Good. She could run for help. She could-

Lorelei sat down on the edge of the upturned table. ‘It’s tough to get through, but you’ll emerge as so much more. You’ll be like us.’

‘Dying,’ Lucas said.

‘Not exactly. You’ll be in their glory.’

Lucas wanted to say so much, but he brought out only one word, feeling as if someone else was trying to speak through him: ‘Who?’

‘The Many as One. You can see them all around you, can’t you? You can even see them in me.’

She leaned closer, until Lucas saw only her eyes. And behind the black of her giant pupils, he saw the dark swirling of countless souls.

A scream built inside of him, rising to a terrible crescendo, unable to burst free.

They should never have come.

P. T. Corwin uses his training as an actor to read to himself in funny voices. He is proud to say that in secondary school, he read Stephen King so religiously that his teacher had a quiet word with his mother.
His stories have been published in Dark Matter Magazine, Schlock Webzine and Constant Readers. He celebrates his literary victories on his website at www.ptcorwin.co.uk and on his Facebook page (@ptcorwin).

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Night Moves by Robert Pope

When I first realized what had happened, I was terrified. I felt strange and out of place. What would my friends and family say, if they knew? I mean, I was still in high school. Slowly, I began to enjoy the added strength I experienced, even the bulk through the chest and shoulders. I had a newfound confidence in my physical abilities, and this extended to the mental arena as well. I just felt better about myself, knowing what I could do. I felt less judgement from others—including my Pops, who used to take the belt to me. When I started crawling out my window on a full moon, I guess what I’m saying, it made me feel free.

It took me a few months before I relaxed enough to walk down the sidewalk at night or cross the street in my altered form, but I began to feel proud of my body. I didn’t care who saw me, and sometimes I wanted to be seen, even or especially if I scared people I passed. I didn’t have to growl or feint toward people with my fingers clawed to scare them either. They saw me, they flinched, or crossed to the other side of the street, and I enjoyed that. I could feel them shivering. I could hear my muscles singing, the blood coursing through my veins

If I said something simple, like, “Hey, now,” even very quietly, which had no effect once upon a time, people jumped out of their skins. I once said, “Hey there, baby,” to a woman, and she took off running, which gave me a real, genuine laugh. I actually had to stop and slap my knees. I had no intention of chasing her down, though I could have, easily, but she showed she was scared enough not to think rationally. I mean, a guy that looked like me could obviously grab her on the street and carry her off over my shoulder any time I wanted.

But I hadn’t done anything like that. Not yet! I was so young then. I guess you could say that I gained a lot going weir. I didn’t always like it, as I’ve sort of indicated before. I mean, when that thing saw me on my bicycle, heading home from a few hours of playing Dragon Bait in my friend Henry’s basement, I knew I had found the kind of trouble you don’t come back from, not easily. I thought, this is going to mean a few years of rehab. And I was not far from wrong about the trouble. This woman—it was a woman who bit me—came after me so fast I couldn’t think of changing gears, just pedaled like crazy.

Bang, I was on the ground, her face shoved in my shoulder and my neck. She had a huge head, and just one or the other could not accommodate her. I can’t tell you what it felt like when she sank her teeth and nails in me. I screamed so loud I couldn’t think straight, and then she flipped me and bit my right butt cheek so hard I peed myself, like immediately. I still have the bite marks. She rolled me over a few times, but I couldn’t see clearly because I lost my glasses in the initial attack. At the time, I thought she was playing with me. Now, I know she was.

There must have been something she liked about me even then because I heard her laughing in among her roars, and I knew she liked scaring me as badly as she did. I was like a pebble tossed in a huge ocean wave or something, and this woman-creature laughing and growling and spinning me. She took special pleasure in twisting and mangling my bike. I had this idiotic thought it would take me an hour to get home now, without my bike, but only because the pain hadn’t sunk in yet. I hadn’t had time to feel it until she loped off on all fours, then went to her legs, and I could still hear her laughter.

I know now she was a relatively new weir—she got off too much on her powers. You take an older weir, especially an Old One, the real thing, they don’t enjoy it the way she did. I understand how she felt, because though it took me a little while to feel good about it, I did, and still do, as a matter of fact. There is something awesome about taking a chomp out of someone so scared they wet their pants or worse. I mean, it’s hilarious. You have to experience it to appreciate it. At first, I was a bit squeamish, because I felt bad hurting someone I didn’t even know, but you start realizing that when you have seen one human being you have seen them all. It’s like a species change.

Some of the shoulder growth became permanent, and I have to believe I am several inches taller than before. I needed an all-new wardrobe. My Mom went with me when she saw I had gotten a late growth spurt—I was a junior in high school at the time. I used to dress in jeans, pullover shirt, and tennis shoes, but now I favored shiny shirts where I could leave a top button or two open. I got two pairs of leather pants, and one thing I noticed right away is that girls took a look at me now, some because I frightened them, some because they liked what they saw.

My long-term goal was to own a Harley, but at this early stage, I was digging on the speed of my legs, the ground I covered just walking. My stride was longer. The real change came the day I saw that weir that bit me, the last day of my human life. Don’t ask me how I recognized her, but I did, and was she glad to see me? She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes, and she had to be five or ten years older than me. “You are coming along nicely,” she said.

“And you,” I said, “are one foxy lady.” She threw back her head and laughed, and I could see her throat muscles working. I blew off school and went down to the river with her. By nightfall, once the moon came out, I had said a fond farewell to my virginity.

School and I parted ways. I never went back and no one complained. My mother worried, but she seemed relieved when I moved out of the house and into Vanessa’s basement apartment, which had padding everywhere, where we could flop when tired, play when required. We never went to the grocery store, like normal folks. We liked a balance of what we called fast food and slow food, by which we meant how long we took to eat it. If we got hangry, we’d go for fast food, or what we liked to call take-out, by which we meant something snatched off the street and brought in. Slow food was more fun, though we gauged this by our mood. We gauged everything by our mood.

Once I saw this young nerd on a bicycle, like me at one time, and we took our time. She liked the mangling of the bicycle, to terrify him if nothing else, and while she worked, I held him by the back of his shirt as he pumped his legs trying to run away. This caught her eye and distracted her so much she fell on the ground, pounding the earth with her fists and howling with laughter. Since I had him by the shirt, she took his ankles, and I slipped him down so I had his wrists, and we swung him like a jump rope, laughing ourselves sick. She had this inspiration to take off his pants, which was difficult for her in the state she was in, working his belt and all and laughing, and then we let him go, just to watch him run like that.

We got ourselves in such a hysterical state we worked up an appetite. By morning, we were home and groaning, our bellies distended, and a pile of bones in the middle of the living room! Good times. But I think we both knew this couldn’t go on forever. You see, neither of us had ever been one of the Old Ones, and we just couldn’t keep it up.

The weir started wearing off after a couple of years. We could see it happening. We enjoyed a few more wonderful nights together before we started going back to who and what we had been. My shoulders dwindled, and I lamented to see I had a little pot belly. She had gone to flab, not a lot, just by comparison, and we looked puny. Our clothes hung off us, and we had to invest in new get-ups, something suitable for the workplace once we had to eat the same way as everyone else.

But, you know, it all works out. We’ve been together over a decade now, and we still care for each other. We reminisce about the old times, when we could scare the piss out of anyone we met. We both decided it was time to get on now, so I passed the G.E.D. for the high school equivalency. She finished college and became a nurse. We took up a workout regimen, to stay in shape. It hurts too much to go to seed once you’ve gone weir.

But I swear, if either of us saw a weir again—which we haven’t, not for years—be it a new or Old One, we would love to be bitten all over again just to feel the rush, to hear the blood coursing our veins, to howl at the moon like it belonged to us. What I wouldn’t give to feel that once again, and she’s the same on that score. Though, I do have to admit we are doing all right for ourselves. We have a little house, and Mandy is preggers now, and we’re happy, by human standards.

It’s just that sometimes, when the moon is full, we can’t help but dream we are back where we were, two crazy kids who had the world by the tail, and the tail in our teeth.

Robert Pope has published a novel, Jack’s Universe, as well two collections of stories, Private Acts and Killers & Others (2020) and a chapbook of flash fiction, Shutterbug. He has also published stories in journals, including The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Fiction International, and anthologies, including Pushcart Prize and Dark Lane Anthology.