Day One, Year One: Best New Stories and Poems, 2014
Page 1
Michael Hirshon © 2014
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Little A, New York
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477820964
ISBN-10: 1477820965
Cover illustration by Michael Hirshon
Interior design by Ashley Saleeba
Text Copyright
FICTION
This Great Love by Valerie Geary
Copyright © 2014 by Valerie Geary
I’m Your Shade by B.D. Mauk
Copyright © 2014 by B.D. Mauk
Cat Man by Heather Monley
Copyright © 2013 by Heather Monley
Sandwiches for Steve by Sean Adams
Copyright © 2014 by Sean Adams
Highway with Green Apples by Bae Suah
Copyright © 2013 by Bae Suah
Translation of Highway with Green Apples
Copyright © 2013 by Sora Kim-Russell
Small Bottles by Theo Schell-Lambert
Copyright © 2014 by Theo Schell-Lambert
La Sepoltura by Khaliah Williams
Copyright © 2014 by Khaliah Williams
The Inaudible Frequency of Longing by Kilby Allen
Copyright © 2014 by Kilby Allen
Sheila by Rebecca Adams Wright
Copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Adams Wright
The Invasion Commander’s Motion for New Business by Shaenon K. Garrity
Copyright © 2014 by Shaenon K. Garrity
The Cutoff Man by Chad Benson
Copyright © 2014 by Chad Benson
Of Equal or Lesser Value by Kevin Skiena
Copyright © 2014 by Kevin Skiena
The Last King of Open Roads by Brenda Peynado
Copyright © 2014 by Brenda Peynado
POETRY
“Beauty Secrets” by Jameson Fitzpatrick
Copyright © 2013 by Jameson Fitzpatrick
“Minor Saints” by Mary-Kim Arnold
Copyright © 2013 by Mary-Kim Arnold
“out south” by Nate Marshall
Copyright © 2014 by Nate Marshall
“Upon First Looking into a High School Photography Exhibition inside a Strip Mall” by Jeff Baker
Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Baker
“Ann Arbor Venus Walks into a Bar” by Kenzie Allen
Copyright © 2014 by Kenzie Allen
“Je Ne Sais Quoi” by Elizabeth Langemak
Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Langemak
CONTENTS
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
THIS GREAT LOVE
I’M YOUR SHADE
BEAUTY SECRETS
CAT MAN
MINOR SAINTS
SANDWICHES FOR STEVE
OUT SOUTH
HIGHWAY WITH GREEN APPLES
UPON FIRST LOOKING INTO A HIGH SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION INSIDE A STRIP MALL
SMALL BOTTLES
LA SEPOLTURA
THE INAUDIBLE FREQUENCY OF LONGING
SHEILA
THE INVASION COMMANDER’S MOTION FOR NEW BUSINESS
ANN ARBOR VENUS WALKS INTO A BAR
THE CUTOFF MAN
OF EQUAL OR LESSER VALUE
JE NE SAIS QUOI
THE LAST KING OF OPEN ROADS
MEET THE ILLUSTRATORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DAY ONE COVER GALLERY
Michael Hirshon © 2014
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
A bizarre event kicks off a winning streak for a woefully bad baseball team.
A young entomologist attempts to explain love and heartbreak through a lab report.
A factory worker gets dosed with eyedrops that blur his vision before his shift every day.
Turnip-shaped extraterrestrials meet to plan their takeover of Earth, but struggle to stick to an agenda.
What’s going on here?
Mind-bending scenes like these have been part of my reality for the last year while filling the digital pages of Day One. We wanted to publish a literary journal devoted exclusively to emerging writers, poets, and illustrators, and the book you’re now reading constitutes a greatest-hits package, featuring some of our favorite work from the journal’s first fifty-two issues. We’ve published messy breakup stories, workplace horror shows, postapocalyptic tales, and coming-to-America dramas. And every story is paired with rich, thoughtful, and sometimes comical poetry that explores the great topics: love, abandonment, and, of course, antiaging.
“It feels a little silly sometimes,” Heather Monley, author of Cat Man (Issue 4), once said to me. “After all, what can I offer a world that already includes, you know, Chekhov? It’s sort of like bringing cheap wine to what turns out to be a fancy dinner party: embarrassing, but at least you brought something.”
Our contributors are indeed bringing something—something unusual, entertaining, and entirely their own. I remember the first time I read Cat Man, about a woman who enters a relationship with a man who is in the process of turning himself into a cat. I thought, How beautifully strange! The premise was fantastic, but Heather depicted a relationship as believable as any I’d read about. It’s a story I’ll never forget.
Short stories are about instant impact. A writer has only so long to leave an impression. With such a constraint, it’s no wonder that the short story is often where writers take the biggest risks, choosing voices or scenarios that might not be sustainable for the length of a novel. I love stories that zero in on the tiniest, strangest, most fascinating moments of human lives yet also explode outward to reveal a character’s life over a dozen pages. B.D. Mauk, whose story I’m Your Shade (Issue 25) takes place during a single night in an office, does something like this, creating a micro/macro view that’s funny and sad all at once. B.D. and Heather and the other writers whose stories are gathered here take us to destinations as real as our workplaces, as strange as our desires.
“What excites me about poetry is also, I think, what is most difficult,” writes Mary-Kim Arnold, whose charming “Minor Saints” appeared in Issue 8. “I am trying to play with language, the sound of words, the rhythms of syntax, the way words and letters look on the page, while also trying to evoke some kind of emotional response in the reader . . . to present something that is both recognizable and startling for a reader. Not to alienate, but to make contact.”
Michael Hirshon, one of the talented illustrators for Day One, found inspiration in Mary-Kim’s poem for Day One, Year One’s cover: “I dreamed you / at my sink in your socks.”
“I look for the most emotionally charged scenes,” says Michael. “I pay attention to the small details that reveal something big, and then do my best to capture it in an illustration. There’s something about standing at a sink in socks that tells us all we need to know.”
I’ve had such fun watching our stories and poems transform into vivid cover art, especially the gorgeous mechanical heart Forsyth Harmon conjured for our debut issue in October 2013, which featured Rebecca Adams Wright’s Sheila. Forsyth’s drawings are like lavish hieroglyphics; she has an uncanny ability to pluck an image from the text and turn it into a stunning symbol as mysterious and elegant as the words it represents.
Happy reading!
Carmen Johnson
Michael Hirshon © 2014
Maryanna Hoggatt © 2014
THIS GREAT LOVE
* * *
VALERIE GEARY
I
Cuthbert Wilson tries to wiggle his toes—and can’t. He tries to bend his knees—and fails. He’s lying down. Where? Some dark room, in a bed not his own. Dim light through a curtained window reveals shadow-shapes crouching nearby. A chair heaped and draped with dark coats hunkers in the far corner. Near his head and off to the right, a computer beeps repetitively, glowing a faint red and reflecting off the screen of a television bolted to the opposite wall. The bed has rails. The blankets covering him are bleached white. The walls, the ceiling, and what he can see of the floor: white on more white. A hospital room then, because his legs have stopped working—though how this all happened remains unclear, his memories over the past few hours either missing completely or too muddled and broken-down to be of any use.
The last thing Cuthbert Wilson does remember is this: walking his usual workday route, from his house on Southwest Jefferson, twelve blocks to the Standard Insurance building on Fifth, at his usual brisk clip, shoulders straight and arms swinging in a lazy rhythm. Right, left, right, left, up, down, up, down, excuse me, pardon me, coming through. The orthopedic insert in his right shoe had shifted and rubbed wrong against his heel, but other than that his legs were working just fine. And before that? As far as he remembers, this morning started out like all previous mornings. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that might have brought him here.
His alarm rang at 5:00 a.m. exactly. He took a seven-minute shower, shaved, and dressed in a white-collared shirt, navy-blue tie, pressed brown slacks, and matching brown suit jacket. He combed his hair, parting it straight down the middle the way he always does. At 5:20 a.m., he was in the kitchen making the same breakfast he always makes: scrambled eggs and toast for one. He turned the small television on the counter to QVC and drank his usual cup of instant coffee with his eyes closed, imagining his house filled with laughing, talking people who didn’t care that he never talked back. With the last sip, he choked down a multivitamin and a low-dose aspirin, and then washed and dried his dishes, and returned them to the cupboard. He spent exactly two minutes brushing his teeth, one minute flossing, and thirty seconds rinsing with mouthwash. Then he went to the living room and slid the lid off his fish tank.
“How’s the water this morning, old girl?” Goldie swam to the surface, her orange lips puckering and sucking up her food flakes. Cuthbert watched her swim circles until his wristwatch beeped. He could watch Goldie all day, and sometimes on lazy weekends he did, but today was a Thursday, a workday, and he had a time card to punch. He grabbed his briefcase, and the sack lunch he’d packed the night before, and left his house. He remembers making it to Salmon and Park. And after that? The very next thing he remembers is waking up here.
Using his arms, he tries to push himself into a sitting position. A lightning bolt of hellfire and needles shoots up his spine. He cries out and falls back against the pillows. The dark coats in the corner spring to life, rushing and fluttering toward him like angel’s wings or demon smoke.
Through the darkness, a voice: “My love! You’re awake! Oh, thank you, Lord!”
This is no devil then, no eater of souls, no Grim Reaper, and no Saint Peter opening heaven’s gates, ushering him into the light. Here beside him: a woman. Plain and simple. She brushes her hand across his forehead, bends, and kisses him above his left eyebrow. The smell of her is familiar—rain and mothballs and a hint of vanilla. Familiar, though he can’t think why that would be.
She takes his hand. “Are you in terrible pain, my love? Shall I call the nurse?”
He tries to answer, managing only a weak and pitiful croaking sound.
She hushes him and tucks the blanket tight around his shoulders. “You gave us a real scare today.”
Who are you? Where am I? What’s happened? He makes that sad croaking sound again, and the woman squeezes his hand.
“Let’s get you a sip of water.” She reaches for a cup and, for a moment, her face is visible, backlit by the window.
Cuthbert has one of those minds that never forgets a face, and hers is one he recognizes. Maybe he’s seen her around the office. Maybe he even hired her. He sifts through his memory, recalling the face of every woman currently employed at Standard Insurance, starting at the top of the alphabet—Cynthia Adams, Benny Alton, Jessica Blackwood, and on and on, all the way to Gloria Zuckas—but none of them are her. He digs deeper, sorting through the faces of every woman who’s ever worked at or interviewed for Standard Insurance during his twenty years in human resources, but finds no match. He knows he knows this woman; he just doesn’t know from where.
She lowers a paper cup to his chin and tucks a straw between his lips. “Here we are. Careful, slow sips. That’s it. Now, see? Isn’t this nice?”
Cold rushes into his mouth, down his throat—soothing, fresh, and it is nice, so very nice, to be cared for this way. He can’t remember the last time someone looked after him like this, showed him such concern. She dabs drool from his lips and chin with a soft cloth and asks if the pillows are comfortable, if she can get him anything else. His own mother never even cared this much. She lets him take another sip of water and then sets the cup on a nearby table.
She says, “Close your eyes, my love. You’re safe here with me. Close your eyes and sleep.”
He doesn’t feel especially drowsy, but his eyes close anyway, his whole body relaxing. A few more hours can’t hurt. After all, he hasn’t been sleeping well these past few weeks. Someone’s been calling his house at all hours of the night and hanging up. Wrong number probably, and what a nuisance. Yes, he may as well sleep a while longer since he has the chance.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.” The woman says this so quietly, Cuthbert wonders if maybe he’s dreaming and that’s why she seems familiar, because she’s his own creation, a fantasy pieced together from glimpses, scraps of memory, and yearning. This makes sense, and so he falls into a deeper sleep, rather pleased with himself for having figured the whole thing out. His alarm will ring at 5:00 a.m. sharp, and he will wake, and it will be a day like any other day, and he will walk, as he’s always walked, his usual route, twelve blocks from his house to the Standard Insurance building on legs that work just fine.
Somewhere in Cuthbert Wilson’s subconscious mind, a memory rises to the surface and with it, terrible panic. He jerks from sleep, arms flailing, grabbing at shadows. He thrashes and groans, desperate to get away, but his legs—they aren’t working. And the woman—she is still here beside him, trying to hold him down, telling him everything’s going to be all right, though clearly it’s not. A door opens, and hot white light floods the room, blinding him momentarily. He blinks and blinks until the world re-forms.
A man with blurred features and coffee breath bends over him and says, “Mr. Wilson, you’re at Legacy Emanuel. I’m Dr. Richmond. I need you to take a deep breath and try to calm down. There you go, that’s it.”
Cuthbert stops thrashing, but he is not calm. The doctor steps away to check the machine monitoring his vitals, and the woman comes into view again, standing close to the window, her back to the glass, one arm cinched around her ample waist. She rocks a little on the balls of her feet and gnaws he
r lower lip. He stares at her and, beneath this cold, fluorescent glare, yes, now he sees clearly. Now he is certain.
She is the same woman from this morning, with the pale moonface and too-small nose, the raised mole on her ill-defined chin, the dull-brown unkempt hair, unraveling to her shoulders. The very same woman who materialized from shadows near the apartment building on the corner of Salmon and Park, who pleaded, “My cat! My poor, poor baby! It’s stuck in the dryer vent. Please, help me!”
Now, of course, knowing what he knows, with hindsight what it is, he realizes how stupid he was, falling for it. But this morning, she was just a woman who loved her cat, and he, a man who understood exactly how an animal could become a person’s whole life. He followed her into the apartment building and down a dark hallway that seemed to go on forever, but instead of opening the door marked “Laundry,” she pulled him toward another door at the end, a red door, without a single word of explanation. He should have known when he saw the stairs that something was wrong, but he was thinking of Goldie and how terrible it would be if he lost her the way this woman had lost her cat, and so he continued to follow. Up four flights of stairs to the roof.
The roof! Oh God—what a fool he was!
“Mr. Wilson?”
How long has Dr. Richmond been calling his name?
“Mr. Wilson, can you tell me what day it is?”
He can’t stop staring at the woman.
Dr. Richmond, noticing her for the first time, says, “Ma’am?”
The woman shrinks a little, hunching her shoulders.
Dr. Richmond asks, “Are you family?”
When she doesn’t answer, he turns to Cuthbert again and says, “Mr. Wilson? Do you recognize this woman?”
Yes, but she does not belong here.
“Mr. Wilson? Do you want her to stay?”
No. No, he does not want her to stay.
Dr. Richmond is waiting for his answer. Cuthbert gathers his strength and shakes his head. Vigorously.
“My love?” the woman says, her voice trembling, barely a whisper.