CURRENT ISSUE | the-zodiac-review

I FIRST NOTICED third-grader Vitalik Karvatsky when I lined up the children in a column of two (to make it easier to count) in front of the bus. It was supposed to take twenty schoolchildren of different ages and me, a teacher, to the south, to the sea. All the pupils were from our rural school, located on land marked by the shadow of the Chernobyl disaster. Until 2014, children affected by the nuclear fallout were sent to rest in the mountains or to the sea. Vitalik caught my attention because, standing in front of the bus, he was holding a suitcase of an unusual size. It was too big for a child. “A strong boy,” I thought in the hustle and bustle of departure.

When we were already at the sea, Vitalik surprised me again with his suitcase. Or rather, with its contents. It contained a piece of laundry soap, a rag (probably for wiping the suitcase), and several old plastic bags; no one knows what they were used for. And the clothes?! They weren't in the suitcase. All the clothes that Vitalik's mother had given her child for the seaside vacation were on him. Vitalik's mother could confidently outdrink more than one strong man in the village. She was a professional at drinking vodka. The boy was wearing shorts of indeterminate age and color, a similar faded T-shirt, and old sandals stitched many times by no one knows who.

Vitalik's father had long since left the family and lived separately from them. Even now, I don't know who he is or whether he ever comes to the village. But this didn't stop Vitalik from talking about his dad very often. I don't know what exactly in the child's stories about his loved one was true and what was fiction, but the boy obviously loved his dad.

Often, during his vacation by the sea, Vitalik would say that he was preparing a gift for his dad, and I, sometimes encouraging the boy, didn't take his words seriously. Later, I had to understand my mistake.

On the day of our departure home, I again noticed Vitalik with a suitcase. The boy was dragging it to the bus with great effort. "It's strange," I thought, watching the child, "is he really so weak after the sea that it's hard for him to lift an almost empty suitcase?" I helped the boy and then asked,

- Vitalik, your suitcase is heavy. What do you have in there?

The boy answered, slowly and quietly pronouncing each word, almost solemnly:

- There's a present for Dad.

- A present? - I was genuinely surprised.

- Yes! - Vitalik exclaimed offendedly, probably sensing my mistrust of his words.

Then he suddenly opened the suitcase. It contained several dozen small sea pebbles, which were very beautiful. The child had carefully selected them on the seashore. There were also several weeds; otherwise, I cannot call these dried plants because I do not know their correct name. In our native Chernobyl zone, such seaside weeds do not bloom. Their original shape and bright red-blue colors, apparently, attracted the attention of the boy, who was taking wildflowers home as souvenirs. I loaded Vitalik's suitcase, along with the other children's things, into the luggage compartment of the bus. The next day, unlike the other children in our group, no one met Vitalik in the village. He stubbornly dragged his suitcase with gifts for his dad home, refusing my help. The boy believed that he should manage on his own.

# # #

Yurii Tokar, 2025, Ukraine

Yurii Tokar was born in 1967 in the Soviet Union. He graduated from Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1988 and began teaching mathematics and physics in the region affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Yuri Tokar's stories, essays, and poems have been published in newspapers and magazines in several countries, including Ukrainian, German, and American. For example, his work has appeared in the Russian-language magazine "Чайка" (Washington): https://www.chayka.org/authors/yuriy-tokar

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I Am A Stone

by Margaret Ries

I am a stone, sitting on the corner of Balcarres Street and Morningside Road. I am round and smooth and speckled gray, with a small indentation in the middle, like a worry stone. Nestled up against the brick wall of the Bank of Scotland, I get fat on the afternoon sun.

The front corner of the bank juts out slightly further than on the side, so I’ve been caught here for a while. It’s nice to not be pushed some place new every day, to have the chance to get to know one patch. And this is a great one. Cars and buses and trucks trundle up and down Morningside Road. The newsagent and the neighboring bakery brim with recent patrons of the cashpoint. Around the corner, The Waiting Room bar serves a full Scottish breakfast all day for £5.95. I was positioned there too, out front next to the chalkboard menu, until the evening a customer picked me up. He was trying to prove he hadn’t had too much to drink, when any fool could see that he had. He bet his companion five pounds he could throw me in the air and catch me three times in a row.

He managed to do this twice. Whoosh, up down, in the night air. On the third go, I plonked off the top of his head, landed hard on the sidewalk, and rolled to my current resting place.

The man’s friend erupted. “I knew it. You’re off your face. Five pounds, mate. Now. Before you forget.”

“Lemme try again. Where’s that stone?”

I was relieved I was out of sight.

The men staggered off, one poorer, the other richer, and me very pleased with my new situation. Balcarres is a side street, albeit a busy one, but just a feeder to the main attraction, Morningside Road. Now I get to see all sides of life, not just those heading for the pub. In the mornings it’s the mothers, and the occasional father, hurrying their children to school, and the office workers, well-heeled yet vacant, standing like cows in line for the bus. Next it’s the shoppers and lunchers and people withdrawing money from the bank, until the mothers reappear, rushing to get to the school gates for the 3:15 bell. The children, sprung from their Victorian prison, race on ahead, stopping with difficulty at the traffic lights. And then the chockfull buses exhale the men and women returning from work. Later, they reappear, the employees in more casual clothes, the mothers in fancier, their lipstick catching the streetlight. Later still, I watch them crawl home, disheveled and disoriented.

I witness vicious arguments, the words poison-tipped arrows aimed at their mark, and passionate kisses. I see what people do when they think the street is empty. The man with the long sideburns, who presses on, forward, between, even though his companion—never the same woman twice—is squirming to escape, or the young mother in the blue parka with the hood up, who bends over the buggy as though to wipe the snot from her baby’s nose, but secretly pinches him hard behind the curtain of the tissue. I see each day dawning with hope and promise, and the wreckage that remains at its end, glittering like flint in the pavement.

And then. Early one morning, before the bakery does more than release delicious smells into the air, the “Wait” sign for pedestrians lights up at the intersection. A woman appears out of nowhere. She must have come from around the corner, from the direction of The Waiting Room. I have never seen her before, yet she also looks like no one I have ever seen. Certainly not on my corner at the intersection of Balcarres Street and Morningside Road. She wears a dress the color of a pat of butter. It ends just below her knee in a froth of ruffles. Her stockings are white, and her sling-back sandals, and the parasol she is using like a cane. It has yellow ruffles around the top and looks like a closed daffodil. Every once in a while, she swings it around her hand.

She moves down the sidewalk like silk, smiling as though she caught a piece of the sun before it rose. And then, just like the sun, she is gone, out of sight and out of view, lost behind a street sign.

I see her the next day, and the next. It gets so she is all I see. Not the mothers, the employees, or the shoppers, not the drinkers, the gropers, or the drunks, nor all the injustices that attend them like handmaidens. When she surfaces, in her ruffled yellow dress, a huge smile cracking her ruby red lips, looking like there is nowhere in the world she would rather be than mincing down the sidewalk in Morningside, they fade from sight altogether.

I always thought I was safe as a stone. You sit in this place. Or another one. The days pass, the nights, and you are glued to the same spot. But one day, something happens. A woman in a ruffled yellow dress twirling a parasol floats into view. She flounces, she minces, she laughs. And then, her ruby red lips caught in a smile, she leans over and picks you up, the tip of her thumb slotting right into that little dip in your heart, and you know you’re on your way.

# # #

I have had several short stories accepted for publication. Most recently, “Boxed” appeared in LIT 38. Before that “Lucky Strike” was published in New Writing Scotland 36: With Their Best Clothes On. That same story was also highly commended for the 2018 Costa Short Story Prize. I am currently working on my third novel. My second novel, THE BLOCK OF JOY, was longlisted in Mslexia’s 2015 novel competition prize. My first, SHADOW JUMPING, was one of three finalists for the 2016 Dundee International Book Prize. I lived in Berlin for 13 years before moving to Edinburgh in 2006. I earn my keep by running creative writing clubs for children and teenagers.

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In the Pacific

by Lynn Kozlowski

THE BLONDE YOUNG MAN is perfectly muscled, tanned deeply, and wearing a tiny bathing suit. We followed this guide down a steep path to the empty beach. He is leading my wife of 16 months and me to a private spot he knows. I am a tall, slim male, new to ocean swimming. My wife is two inches shorter than I am and an expert, fit swimming champion. (If we ever arm-wrestled, she might win.) She is also blonde and beautiful. They young man keeps smiling at her and chatting her up.

I walk out into the warm Pacific. After about 10 yards my feet can no longer touch the bottom. I am treading water and looking toward the ocean. I do not notice a riptide is carrying me away from shore like a cork in a fast river. Turning around, I am a football field away in deep water and still traveling. I am afraid now because I am trying to swim in and still moving away from the shore. I already feel exhausted and just keep being drawn further out.

My wife is still standing knee deep next to our guide, and they are chatting. When she looks out into the bay, she sees me far out and still moving away.

She strokes out in a perfect Australian crawl to catch up with me. She reaches her arm over my chest, tells me lean back and not struggle, and she swims us parallel to the beach until out of the current. I am floating, and she keeps dragging me in, telling me to just stay limp.

The young man who has stayed close to shore takes a few more steps into the water and puts his arm around me to steady me as I am walking out. He says, “Man, you need to watch out for riptides and know how to get out of them.” He is shaking his head and smiling. “You are lucky your wife knows what she is doing and is such a strong swimmer . . . . You are lucky, man. You are a lucky man,” ogling my beautiful wife as the water drips off her.

# # #

Lynn Kozlowski has published in Every Day Fiction, 50-Word Stories (a runner-up for story of the year in 2023), The Dribble Drabble Review (featured author), Bright Flash Literary Review, Five Minutes, The Malahat Review, The Quarterly, and failbetter.com. He has a book of short fiction, Historical Markers (Ravenna Books). He is based in the United States, but spends part of the year in Canada.

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Leavers and Stayers

by Christopher Woods

THE RAILROAD PEOPLE left in broad daylight, right in front of us. One of them leavers, a woman, she said they heard a voice from miles away. Calling them, you know. Oh, she made a big thing of it, said that voice was calling them home. But heck, where was that? Weren’t they already home?

Stayers, myself included, don’t understand any of it. We didn’t hear no voice. Didn’t see no angels, walking around or flying or whatnot. Nobody with wings anyhow.

Heck, it’s lonely here now. And I gotta tell you, some nights those railroad tracks look mighty good. Sometimes, I think they’re even talking to me. Calling me home, you know.

Least it seems that way some nights.

# # #

Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer who lives in Texas. He has published a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a poetry collection, MAYBE BIRDS WOULD CARRY IT AWAY. His novella, HEARTS IN THE DARK, was published in an anthology by RUNNING WILD PRESS in Los Angeles. He has received residencies from The Ucross Foundation and the Edward Albee Foundation, and a grant from the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation. His plays included MOONBIRDS, an absurdist play about census-takers in a country where there are no people left to count, FIRE, a drama about a woman who loses her family in a house fire she may have set, INTERIM, about souls in Purgatory, and HEART SPEAK, an evening of monologues for men and women. Gallery - https://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/f861509283

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Fans

by Charles Hayes

STANDING THERE with her books, smiling to herself as she turned her face to the autumn sun, she looked like a photo queen hugging catalogues of pricey wear. But when she looked aside and caught my gaze, her lips uncurled and her eyes boldly held mine. In her own skin and beyond a need, or one that mattered not, she waited. While people brushed by to and fro, all attuned to the crosswalk glow, we searched each other’s eyes, as if words were only light.

Blessed by Starbucks all about, we fell aside the crossing push to sip a cup and let it be. As cups with frothy tops passed by, their holders watching other palms, she told me that she taught and asked about me. I told her that it was another world, I did shows for culinary flair, pleasant couples, no needs at hand, smiled and watched me play.

It was fun being with her, the scent of ivory towers brought back a time afore, and her nice looks with a mind to match made an edge of interest something more. My wayward ways she did not seem to mind, the reach of her eyes told me that. When it was time to go I was about to ask for her number as we dusted about, two colors of one ilk. But she made it easy as if there was no other way, and handed me her card. She told that on the back was the real number to call.

***

I called so many times but it was all for naught. Only muzak voices that asked for a note had anything to say. The disappointment was sharp at first but slowly slid todull, like those that had passed that way before. Time moved on to a steady click and I just let it go.

After needy clinks of china and mindless chatter with bellies full enough to watch, I did OK. And a fan that sometimes hung on for more to do, passed my time a little

bit. But a lot, I roamed the walk that crossed the avenue, hoping to again see her. Balmy autumn, shades of orange and green, turned to windswept grey and shadows darker still. She was gone.

One night I dropped a line when I looked out and saw her smiling on. An elegant gent was at her table too. I did my show by rote and kept my eyes where they

belonged.

While walking home alone, feeling anger that she had put me on a stage, I crossed the avenue to find a taxi parked along the curb. As I neared, the dark glass slid down to show her face, just as it had been that day we met. She said that her father had to go, would I show her where I lived?

***

When she left she said that she would be in touch, not to call. So deep in, with little choice, I almost smacked her face. Don’t be a spoil sport she implied, my other fans would tide me by. It was late and even if there was no father, things would just have to be. I took her words to heart and it hurt to see that it was not so much. Only fans, him and her, and me.

# # #

Charles Hayes, a multiple Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. His writing interests center on the stripped down stories of those recognized as on the fringe of their culture. Asian culture, its unique facets, and its intersection with general American culture are of particular interest. As are the mountain cultures of Appalachia. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Scarlet Leaf Publishing House, Burning Word Journal, eFiction India, Blue Lake Review, Piker Press, and others. Many stories, as is this one, are inspired by the Vietnam war and the older readers.

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A Dollar for Your Sins

by Timothe Davis

OLD PREACHER JOHNSON always said the holy spirit whispered to him.

We don’t know how the Lord works,” he would teach, “but his works are indeed mysterious.”

So, when the broken-down vending machine in the church cafeteria started spewing slips of white paper scribed with the sins of the congregants, well he said it was a mystery of the Lord.

It was on Easter Sunday that Preacher Johnson had stood at the front of the church in his black six button double breasted suit—the one he liked to wear every first Sunday while his wife Betty had that big flowery hat on her head ain't nobody could see around—and pronounced, “Someone has slept with his neighbor’s wife!”

Well, the congregation gasped so loud that the curtains shimmied just a bit, and then there was a loud ding. Preacher stormed off the pulpit, went to that old vending machine, and returned with the next confession. “A man here,” his voice crackled with brimstone, “has laid in wait against his fellow man.”

That's how it began. Every Sunday the preacher would read a confession, that old vending machine would ding, and the second one would drop.

I must admit, that ding always made me a little nervous.

“Come forth,” his voice would rattle the rafters like a gale wind, “if this is your sin! And let me cast the Devil out of you.”

Of course, there was a price—to get the Devil cast out of you. And by August, that preacher had traded in his Kia for a Caddy, but the general sense was that the congregation was being cleansed.

By October, about seventy-five of the congregants had come forth: including Sister Pamela who needed cleansing because she bad mouthed Sister Hazel's dry red velvet cake at the church bake off, and Deacon Henry and Brother Sutton had stood when Preacher announced someone had been coveting the church secretary.

That night my wife had looked at me and asked the exact same thing I’d been thinking. “What if someone finds out?”

We had been eating grilled salmon and bitter watercress salad. Which was real odd because the

A rainy season had been good. So, I sent our youngins to bed and I looked at her real stern-like, “Well we can't let that happen, can we?”

Her eyes had met mine. “No, I guess not.” Her voice was soft and her pretty brown face filled with quiet determination.

I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Then you know what we have to do.”

She sighed deeply, although she had never liked that old preacher. Neither had I. “Yes, I do.”

I waited till December.

Then late one Saturday night, ‘bout the time when Johnson is three sheets in the wind on that brown liquor and Sister Betty is on the phone spreading false rumor, I stole into that church, unplugged that vending machine and replaced it with another.

It still dings at noon on Sundays. But only me and my wife are reading the confessions now. A poor old Pastor couldn't make those caddy payments without the vending machine.

So, I bought it from him.

The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways.

# # #

Timothe Davis is an African American writer based in Dallas, Texas. His fiction explores the surreal and spiritual, often blending humor, horror, and the quietly haunted. He lives with a very thoughtful dog named Nebuchadnezzar.

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Strangled

by Ethan Cunningham

PANIC AND PAIN seize my thoughts, dragging hot burning rope across my larynx, choking off my jugular and carotid. In my mind, there’s a flash of pale yellow like an early afternoon sun that blinds with incising blades, subsiding into the return of my sight, the sudden alarm of my breath being cut off, a tingling sensation screaming up veins as they discover blockages en route to my brain. Crimson burns translucent around the rim of my field of view. What is happening? Why is it happening? Who is doing this? I don’t know. My fingers, arched, nails digging in, trying to pull the twine away but it is so tight—so fucking tight—and getting tighter. A twisting at the back of my neck seems to be pressing in as the loop constrains even harder, putting pressure against the base of my skull and rear mandible muscles, like stretching my face backward to smoothen its aging wrinkles, like shoving downward with either end of my lips into a deep frown. Before my eyes, coral and lead clouds hurl back and forth, pulsating into lighter hues and charcoal. I feel the blood leaving my brain, enervation that drains away processing power so that time slows and the next few moments span the space of eternity. Closing in around my eyelids is a creeping, smoky black vignette as a dull but pungent searing blossoms at the back of my mouth behind the molars. Chest pain next. I wish it would just end. I’m struggling now, cutting open my own skin as these nails scrape for purchase against the hideous, slow weapon of my demise. Incessant geometric patterns in brownish-gray and radiant red-orange dance through my vision. The periphery is fading to black. Panic accelerates into all-out crisis inside my torso as my heart begins to run double-time to supply my head with blood. Fleshy alarm bells are screaming that something is going horribly horribly wrong—it's wrong! it's wrong! Alarm! ALARM!—in my burning, heaving lungs, hungry for air. Terror suffusing the interior of my muscles and organs at such a deep primordial level that it bypasses emotions entirely—this is terror felt by my individual cells. Fiery splotches, pulsating amoebas glowing neon wave before me. Sheets of incandescent light. In what must have taken seconds but feels like a long stretch of hours, I see Jenny’s face, a portrait in medium close-up. She is not doing anything, just there. Looking back at me. She blinks. Oddly neutral. I feel the ache—the fear—that I will never see her again. The slope of her small nose. The swoop of her delicate eyebrows. Those lips. Those teeth, one canine slightly off-kilter. The traits she passed on to Carey and Sam, each a blend of her and I, the same pool of puzzle pieces so differently arranged that each is like both of us but unlike each other. Carey’s voice as she sings the latest teen hit beneath her headphones. The warmth of her young skin against the crook of my arm as I cradle her close as an infant, my cherished daughter whom I wished to hide away from the cruel world in an ivory tower, but knew I could not do that without stilting her own autonomous being. The taste of her tears I wiped away the night her first boyfriend dumped her. How I, comforter supreme, would no longer be there to give her strength in times of weakness. Or Sam, whose toddler legs have barely started running and whose small chortle set my heart aflutter—an addiction I fed time and time again, forcing myself to do the silliest things just to hear that tiny laugh. Whose young eyes have not yet realized what it is to be in love. Will not know what father figure to model, for his prime example will occupy an empty space half-remembered, if at all. Or sensations of Jenny’s familiar breath on the back of my neck as we slow-dance to candlelight and our song, the one we danced to at our wedding, a languid arrangement for string quartet. The coolness of the sheets when I awake after her and she is not there, only now reversed, my side of the bed left a slate of ice. The hidden tears that will soak into those fibers, unseen by the world at large but squeezed from her inner being by inconceivable tragedy. The monochrome gauze blanketing her world when her husband no longer inhabits those shirts, those shoes. The nervous waiting. Calling of police. Searching. Wanted posters. Hysterics. Because of my absence. Because I’m frail. Because I’m weak. Now the lamp of my consciousness is darkening. Arms flailing. Legs kicking. Knees buckling. Frenzied hysteria gripping the interior organs of my chest. A bulging lance thrusting and thrusting and thrusting in my head and jaw and neck and ribs. Drumming my nerves with a sledgehammer. Curtain of void over my senses. Jenny’s voice screaming SURVIVE YOU MUST SURVIVE in my skull. Joined in chorus by my parents, my friends, past lovers, my children, and grandchildren yet to be. Splintering fingernails. My blood and fingertips and my pain indistinguishable as sudden weakness overtakes my muscles and all sensation drains away, paralyzed into peaceful nothing. Into calm. Into uncaring. I wait for it to end. All to end. Eyelids drooping. Easing closed. Yes, it will be over soon. I’m sorry, Jenny. I’m sorry mom, dad, Carey, Sam. I must go to sleep now. Like slipping between the sheets of a feather bed, I fade. Subsiding into slumber. Into permanent rest. Into...

# # #

Ethan Cunningham’s short works appear in print, on-screen, and on the stage. His most recent publications can be found in The Alembic, Corvus Review, Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere. When he’s not writing, he advocates for human and animal well-being. He writes because he must. He is online at www.storysci.com.

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ALL THAT REMAINED

by Philip Davison

BRIDGER didn't want trouble. He knew people who did want trouble. People who weren't happy unless they were unhappy. He could keep company with them, but in their company he reminded himself to shut completely up until it was time to leave, which was when they found what they were looking for. It was not surprising that among his trouble-seeking friends he had a reputation for being a good listener and a softy. He had learnt to hold his nerve, just as they did. His timing was good, as was theirs.

It was something about the colour of his shirt - on this man it was an affront. Furthermore, it was the body he was walking around in. The way he slob-shuffled about suggested he was looking for confrontation.

Bridger should have left, then and there, but the service hadn't finished. It wasn't the time or the place, but he was thinking this mug was in line for a battering. From time to time his sort would forgo the avoidance of pain and there would be an affray. They didn't have the wisdom to recognise the odds and would take a pounding.

Bridger didn't like the man's eulogy. Didn't like the tone. Didn't like him saying it was the grey, wet winter that had done in their friend.

Being a late starter with his fists, Bridger was more than game. Immediately after the funeral he spoke to the offender in the entrance to the crematorium. Spoke loudly in his ear portico. The approach was misjudged, mistimed - which made it more than appropriate. Being dead was the ultimate trouble. What was needed was a few crisp words as an opener, but he could only manage a stutter: 'You...you...you-you...you - '

Bridger wound back a right fist, but at the point of contact it opened to a rough slap. He followed through with a left hook. He didn't know until that moment that he had a left hook in him.

After that, he wanted to go for a lie-down, but they wouldn't let him.

Later, he would not be able to say what it was this man had said at the funeral that he found so offensive. He would only curl his lip and tug lamely on his shirt.

# # #

Philip Davison lives in Dublin. Among his published novels are McKenzie's Friend (Cape) The Long Suit (Cape) and Eureka Dunes (Liberties). His play, The Invisible Mending Company, was performed on the Abbey Theatre's Peacock stage. He writes radio drama. He co-wrote Learning Gravity, a BBC Storyville documentary on poet and undertaker, Thomas Lynch.

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Red Snapper

by Neil Weiner

MELINDA, A STRIKING REDHEAD with an effortless elegance that contrasted with the battered linoleum floor of Salty’s Seafood Market, stood beside Ryan as they surveyed the rows of glistening fish on ice.

“Everything looks good,” she said. “I don’t know what to choose. I’m making a special dinner.”

She angled her head just enough to catch his reaction. I hope he knows it’s just advice I’m after. Not a dinner invitation.

Ryan studied the case. Was there something more to this? She was effortlessly put together—too polished for a casual grocery run. And that blouse… a little too stylish to be standing next to the discount tilapia.

“Uh—red snapper’s a solid choice,” he said. “It’s delicious broiled or grilled.”

Melinda nodded. “That’s helpful. Any wine recommendations? I’m clueless about pairings.”

Ryan scanned the aisle for an easy escape. My wife will be back any minute. Keep it simple. Keep it neutral.

“I’d go with a Viognier,” Ryan replied. “It complements the snapper. Maybe serve it with some braised asparagus.” Red snapper, flounder, whatever. I don’t know the difference, nor do I know wines.

Melinda crouched to pick up the fish. He’s staring down the front of my blouse. Jesus. It’s just my dinner. I’m not seducing him And he’s wearing a wedding ring.

Ryan forced his eyes elsewhere, suddenly hyperaware of his ogling. What am I doing? Marlene is three aisles away.

“My wife will be here any minute,” he added too casually. “Are you all set with your dinner plans?” There. That should clear things up. A signal flare in case this was headed anywhere dangerous.

Melinda straightened, placing the fish in her cart. And there it is. The inevitable “my wife is coming” line. As if I’d been angling for something. Men get so tangled up in their own projections.

Melinda replied, “No, you’ve been extremely helpful. Thanks. My wife will love the dinner you’ve suggested.”

Ryan nodded in relief. I’ve overthought the whole thing. Just a normal, harmless chat with a lesbian.

As Marlene rounded the corner, her eyes flickered between Ryan and Melinda.

“Oh? Who’s this?” she asked, her tone light.

Ryan felt heat creep up his neck. “Uh—just helping this kind lady choose fish and wine for a dinner party,” he said, a little too quickly.

Melinda offered an easy smile and took a step back. “I appreciate the advice. Nice meeting you both.” She turned and disappeared down the aisle.

Ryan turned toward his wife, feigning nonchalance. “Nice lady. Simply happy to help.”

His wife stared at him for a second. Does he really think I’m the jealous type? Like I’d pitch a fit because he helped some woman pick out fish.

“Let’s head home, Mr. fish connoisseur.”

Ryan chuckled awkwardly. She saw right through me. I’ll get her a gift tomorrow.

# # #

Dr. Weiner has over 40 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery and anxiety disorders. He enjoys using stories to help readers harness their resilience within to aid them on their healing journey. He has been published in a variety of professional journals and fiction in magazines. His psychology books include Shattered Innocence and the Curio Shop. Non-psychology publications are Across the Borderline and The Art of Fine Whining. He has a monthly advice column in a Portland Newspaper, Ask Dr. Neil.

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Capsule Biography Number 11 –

Vivian “Cliff” Elvidge

by Ben Guterson

ATTORNEY CLIFF ELVIDGE, who resembles a young Sean Connery, has a classically trim jawline, gentle eyes, and an expression so placid he often appears to be contemplating eternity. That a man so physically appealing served six months in a federal prison for obstruction of justice is difficult to imagine. That he was once the confidante of Richard Nixon seems unfathomable. He claims a reading of Luis de Molina’s On Divine Foreknowledge, undertaken during his term of incarceration, changed his life.

Elvidge was born in 1940 in Detroit, where his father was an executive with Hudson’s department store. He received his law degree at the University of California in Los Angeles. He is an enthusiastic tenor and sang with the UCLA Men’s Chorus; he was also a member of the school’s cross-country team and the archery club.

During the summer after his sophomore year, he served as a knife-thrower’s assistant at an arcade on the Santa Monica Pier and briefly considered a career as a circus performer. His first wife maintains every aspect of this story is apocryphal. Elvidge received his Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1967 after a term in the U.S. Navy as a communications officer aboard the USS Essex.

A chance encounter during an annual spring bacchanal in Key Biscayne with the daughter of Bebe Rebozo’s ex-wife led to a friendship with Rebozo himself. Elvidge began as general counsel for Rebozo’s Key Biscayne Bank & Trust in 1968 and joined the Nixon administration as an advisor in 1970. He claims to have no party affiliation and has never cast a vote in a presidential election.

During a diplomatic trip with Nixon to the Portuguese island of Terceira in December of1971, Elvidge visited a volcanic vent known as the Algar do Carvao and suffered a bout of claustrophobia-induced panic. He has said Henry Kissinger berated him for fainting inside the cavern. In recent years, Elvidge has indicated he experienced an auditory hallucination beside a small pool that lies at the base of the vent, hearing a song whose melody seemed familiar but that he has never been able to identify.

Nixon’s deputy assistant, Alexander Butterfield, selected Elvidge in 1972 to lead a unit investigating the distribution of illegal drugs in the United States. At Nixon’s urging (by all accounts), Elvidge left a small bag of marijuana in Johnny Cash’s guitar case during an unplanned visit to the White House by the singer. The ensuing scandal left those above Elvidge unscathed; Elvidge, who was disbarred in the state of New York and has never publicly implicated Nixon, found his silence rewarded with a prison sentence.

The Molinist assertion that God possesses a so-called “middle knowledge” of counterfactuals attracted and then fixated Elvidge during his incarceration. “I could never make sense of the fact that God seems to know what’s going to happen to us, but it also feels like we have free will,” Elvidge told a reporter with the Eastern Arizona Courier and Graham County Guardian two weeks before Nixon’s resignation and just prior to his release from an Arizona federal prison. “Now I get it. I feel free inside my own mind. If presented with a chance to alter choices I have made in the past, say, I believe I would be very clear on the paths I would take.”

Elvidge became an unlicensed legal mediator and was readmitted to the practice of law in 1978. A three-year stay in Evora, the Portuguese city in which Molina once briefly taught at the University of the Holy Spirit, followed.

A frequent visitor to Evora’s Capela dos Ossos, a chapel decorated with thousands of human bones abutting the Church of St. Francis, Elvidge cites the inscription above the crypt’s doors as an abiding influence: “We bones that are here, for yours await.” The chapel is said to be a frequent pilgrimage destination for members of the Lisbon Circle. Elvidge is reputed to be the group’s de facto in-house counsel.

Elvidge has been married five times. He claims he has no knowledge of the rumored love affair between Nixon and Rebozo. “They used to play King of the Pool in Key Biscayne,” Elvidge says. “They would drink a little too much and then try to knock each other off a little rubber raft they floated in Bebe’s swimming pool.” He denies having had any romantic entanglement with either man. He is adamant that determinism is a bankrupt philosophy.

Sembla Intelligencer, April 18, 1988

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Ben Guterson's writing includes the Edgar Award-nominated middle-grade novel Winterhouse (and its sequels) with Holt/Macmillan in 2018-2020, and the New York Times bestseller The World-Famous Nine with Little, Brown/Hachette in 2024.

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Thank You So Much for Letting Me Be

This Movie’s Filler Love Interest!

by Katie Bockino

HI! THANK YOU for looking in my direction. No one ever does. I’m Sarah/Beth/Amy/Something Not Too Memorable. OR my name is something semi ~quirky~ to prove how annoying/nontraditional I am in comparison to Her. If I even have a name, that is!

I probably am not a baker, or a teacher, or a struggling art house gallery curator. Those are jobs for Her. She has really niche interests, which is awesome! I wish there was something interesting about me too. I’m not sure if I even have a job.

By the time you meet me, you’ve already been invested in Her for most of the movie. And why wouldn’t you be? She’s definitely a brunette with highlights, even though she said she can’t remember the last time she went to a “salon” (she scoffs at that word in a way that lets you know she’s very down to earth, because that’s what every guy / our guy / Her guy / wants).

But back to me! Well, wait, I guess I should also say she and he broke up a few minutes ago (in screen time a few weeks ago) and now he’s with me, even though I should have realized by now he is still very much in love with Her. We perhaps met by accident on the street when I sent him an overly sexual smirk, or I’m somehow a rival with Her at the Parisian, retro cinema we both frequent. But honestly, who cares! This was never about me.

You first met me after he rolled lazily out of bed and looked out of his Brooklyn brownstone window, daydreaming about Her and her perfect imperfections. You can tell by the music’s soft, forlorn switch and how this B list actor is really struggling to put on a sexy/sad pout. (It works! He’ll win a People’s Choice Award for Hottest Frown.)

I’m still in bed, happy, and honestly unaware how much he’s regretting his dramatic breakup with Her. It was over a simple point of miscommunication they could have worked through if they both weren’t convinced deep down that they don’t deserve love. But they do!

And wait, I do too! Well, you don’t think that. But I want to deserve love. You see, when I met him, I had been single for a while. The camera didn’t show this, but I’ve been in therapy for almost a year now and I’ve really been working on myself. I stopped crying when I glance in the mirror, stopped worrying if my laugh sounds too much like the hiss of a bottle of soda opening, and began to actualize that my personality, while maybe nothing that unique, is warm, and kind, and sometimes even funny.

And then I met him! He’s great, I totally get why he’s the lead. So cute, sarcastic, and he wears ties to work even though he loves to take them off at his local bar afterwards and crumble them up into little balls, pretending to shoot them into an imaginary hoop. He’s so smart and is working on repairing his relationship with his dad, which will be fully repaired after thirty years of differences by the time the credits roll. Did you know that I was the one who encouraged him to finally answer his dad’s calls instead of letting them go to his retro voicemail every night?

I think I might love him. He’s the person whom I’ve always dreamed of marrying, even though on that one date the camera lingered on me rolling my eyes at his oddball sushi order (eight California rolls, but hold the crab and cucumber? Come on, that’s a little weird). I wish you saw what happened afterwards. He grabbed my hand and thanked me for paying. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life.

But you didn’t see that. You don’t see any of our fun times, or serious conversations about our future, or even the time he held me after I cried when I found out my family parrot Guinevere died. You are just waiting around because you know he still loves Her.

I’m just the side girl, the in-between girl, the girl that makes him realize that She is his soulmate. And then they get to ride off on the Harleys he repairs on weekends with local underprivileged youths while I wait at home, confused why he hasn’t called. He didn’t even officially break up with me; instead, I saw a viral TikTok they posted of them dancing to Her favorite underground band (ABBA).

I don’t get it! He barely even mentioned Her! Besides when he accidentally called me Her name in bed, and stared at Her pictures at night, and sobbed when Her favorite TV show came on (Twin Peaks… I know, She’s so cool).

This isn’t my story. It’s his, or really Hers. I’m the footnote in their love story HuffPost will detail in a few years, stating “Before they reconciled, he attempted to date around but, no one could ever live up to Her!” No one will even remember my name, because I’m just the filler love interest in the movie you paid $21.99 to see in IMAX.

But thank you so much for stopping by; it really means a lot. Janice, my therapist, said that their reunion at the ocean where they once played with blind sea lions made her cry. She’s really happy for them.

And I guess I am too, in some sick way. It’s nice to know that true love does, in fact, exist. For some.

For Her.

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Katie Bockino received her MFA from NYU's Creative Writing Program. Her work has appeared in Barely South Review, The Satirist, Underwood Press, The by manuscript consultant who is obsessed with the Byzantine Empire and most TV show love triangles.

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Orion the Hunter

by Melissa DiGiovannantonio

They say Orion is a hunter, but of what I’m not quite sure. I’m not sure anyone does. But night after night, ten months of the year, he appears in the black sky, three stars for his belt, a shield, a sword, Betelgeuse and Rigel bright against the endless void where he stands guard.

I guess in a way I’m like Orion. Recently I’ve found myself hunting. Only difference is I know what I’m hunting. Myself.

My lady told me I’m crazy. She didn’t understand what I meant.

Nah, fuck all of that man. I am crazy, but not in the way she was calling me. I’m missing. I’m hunting myself. Searching for the lost part of my soul that took off one day and went into hiding. Man, I don’t think he’s ever coming back again.

So I’m heading into the woods. Ten days. One backpack. Shitty freeze dried packages of food like the ones they eat on space shuttles when astronauts are out searching for life on Mars. Or Jupiter. Or Venus.

I unzip my bag. Army roll a few t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans. Fold up the bottom. Now fold it three times. Roll and tuck. Yeah, just like I used to pack my bags before I headed out to the next place I was stationed.. The keychain my parents gave me on their last trip together. The one they took to Bermuda, right before my dad died and mom offed herself not long after. Left a note saying there was no point without Dad. A picture of Kieran. I love her for the shit she puts up with because of me. I hate the shit I make her put up with because of me.

I look around, taking in what my bedroom looks like one last time before I find my missing piece.

Take in the picture frames of the art I bought from the men and women on the streets begging for money for their work—the starving artist types that hang around Philly. Claiming they were vets like me. Can’t walk away from that. A bookshelf stands in the corner, creating a home for authors like Thoreau and Fitzgerald, Woolf and Plath. Next to it, a desk, scattered with papers, rough drafts dancing with final drafts dancing with blank pages.

A laundry basket overflows next to the bed, the detergent sitting on top, the clothes begging for a bath, blanketed by the messy sheets hanging half off the bed after a night of intermittent sleep.

I grab one of the blank pages. Scribble a note: Kieran, I’ll be back. Wait for me. The real me. Xoxo Jamie.

Man, I’m so fucking cheesy writing notes like that and shit but that’s my girl. I need her waiting here for me when I get back.

I throw my shit in the trunk of my Uber. My bag. My shield. Sheathe my sword. Tell him to take me to the edge of the forest. To the edge of the Universe. I’ll take it from there.

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Melissa DiGiovannantonio lives in Perkasie, PA with her wife, three cats, and a dog. When she isn't writing, she is throwing axes, knives, and various other sharp things, or shooting a bow and arrow.

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The Suitcase

by Robert Boucheron

WHAT DID Giselle bring to the emergency shelter?

An antique suitcase in two colors of leather, with belts stitched to the side panel. The leather is in good condition, not likely to burst in transit and spill the contents in the street, on the wet ground, on the floor of a school gymnasium. She also brought a cat in a carrier.

Does the suitcase have a brass combination lock?

Yes, but she didn’t lock it, because she hasn’t memorized the combination, which is written on a scrap of paper, which is in the jewelry box, which is in the suitcase.

Did Giselle send a photo of the suitcase on her telephone?

It was laid open on the double bed to show the satin lining and purse-string pockets and buckled straps. When she took the photo, the suitcase was empty. She was in a calm frame of mind when she started to pack. Light rain had started.

Is this the same part of Florida that was ravaged by a hurricane last year?

Giselle wasn’t here last year. The evacuation order caught her off guard. She had a glass of wine to steady her nerves. It was in the photo, on the bed beside the suitcase, precariously tilted.

Is the suitcase of sentimental value?

It belonged to Giselle’s maternal grandmother, for whom she is named. Or to her great aunt Hortense. The sisters got along and shared, so the suitcase might have belonged to either one.

Was Giselle staying in the house just while Granny is in the hospital?

That’s what she says. The apartment in DC was too expensive for a single woman in her late thirties with no job and few marketable skills. The house is crumbling for lack of maintenance, but it has curb appeal.

Do the relatives know?

About staying there, no. Giselle kept them informed about the latest health crisis. In the hospital corridor, the doctor said this may be the last straw and recommended hospice care.

Where was the suitcase?

Stored in the attic. Giselle pulled down the folding stair from the upstairs ceiling and climbed it like a ladder and poked her head through the hatch. With a dim memory from childhood, she pawed through the clutter.

Why did she pack the suitcase by the light of a flickering candle?

The power went out.

Did she make an attempt to fold things and layer them and fill in the gaps with rolled socks?

She tried to make a list, because you always forget things, but as the storm picked up, she panicked. She yanked out drawers, grabbed piles of lingerie, and stuffed them in. She agonized over jeans. She selected one dress for an occasion she could not imagine.

Was she distracted by worry about the old clunker in the garage?

She was afraid it wouldn’t start. She dreaded driving through torrential rain and wind, flooded roads, and fallen branches.

What about the cat?

Isadora was hiding, as usual when there was noise or a stranger in the house.

Could Giselle be considered a stranger at this point?

When it comes to food and trust, cats have their own criteria.

Did Giselle even for a moment consider leaving the cat in the house to fend for itself?

Somehow, she forced Isadora into the carrier.

Is Isadora any kind of normal cat or a demon in a fur coat?

You tell me.

Did Giselle remember to turn off the utilities and lock the door on her way out?

Not sure. Dealing with the cat, the blood from the claw scratches, and a note taped to the door, she almost forgot the suitcase. She ran upstairs, saw it on the bed, and the candle still burning on the dresser, and moaned. She was about to snuff the candle in exasperation, then prudently picked up the suitcase in one hand, the candle in the other to light the way downstairs, and left the empty wineglass.

Despite the sense of impending doom, did the car start on the first try?

Mercy! The gas tank was full. The tires were properly inflated. The interior was reasonably clear of debris.

In the carrier during the long drive, did Isadora howl and cry?

The driver howled and cried, too.

Did they arrive intact at the emergency shelter?

Giselle felt a little glow of pride at having managed so well in the storm. The staffers admired the genuine leather suitcase, the two colors, and the brass combination lock. They admired Isadora.

Does Giselle even for a moment consider leaving the cat in its carrier at the emergency shelter by accident?

If Granny never returns from the hospital, she won’t know or care.

If the storm destroys the house, and Granny dies, and the suitcase is all Giselle has left in the world, will it be enough?

# # #

Robert Boucheron is an architect in Charlottesville, Virginia. His stories, essays, book reviews, poems, and translations have appeared in Alabama Literary Review, Bellingham Review, Fiction International, Literary Heist, and Saturday Evening Post. He won a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in January 2025.

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End of Fall 2025 Stories

Return to Top of Page

I am a Stone

In the Pacific

Leavers and Stayers

Fans

A Dollar

Strangled

All That Remained

Red Snapper

Capsule

Thank You

Orion

The Suitcase