Fish Barrel Review
Kris Huelgas writes poetry. Kris has been featured online and in print in fine places such as Drunk Monkeys, Sweet Tooth Poetry, TERSE.journal and Alt Milk Magazine. Kris lives in Los Angeles, where it only rains when you least expect it. Find Kris @krswellgs
“Campfire Ghosts” is an accidental photograph: the scene was simply too far and too dark for me to take a still image. The slow shutter speed produced this distorted and haunted image, showing the other summer campers as faceless ghosts. At this point, I was painfully awkward when it came to meeting new people. They were so far away, their faces were obscured, how was I supposed to befriend them? The more I considered the piece, the more I realized it was not a “scary” – it was an invitation. What better way to overcome your fears than to befriend ghosts?
Luke Tan
Luke Tan is a young writer/photographer from New Jersey. His work has been featured in XinSai Magazine, Split Rock Review, Moss Puppy Magazine, and more. In his free time, he enjoys scrolling through eBay for bad vintage lenses he will never buy. He can be found on Instagram: @loquat.photography.
Stroll captures the tranquility during the transitional period between winter and spring. A couple strolls leisurely in the Sankeien Garden in Yokohama, Japan, approaching the three-story pagoda of the former Tomyoji Temple. On that day, the air was chilly with light rain. Visitors were few since spring was still some time away and the plants had yet to blossom. Just as the seasons are fleeting, and our visits temporary, the pagoda is also not rooted in place. Built in 1457 in Kyoto, the pagoda was moved to Sankeien in 1914, where it is currently the oldest building in the garden.
Jacelyn
Jacelyn recently started her creative pursuits proper, having persevered through an engineering major and a short stint as a civil servant. Her artworks have appeared in adda and Sine Theta Magazine. She can be found at https://jacelyn.myportfolio.com/ and on Instagram at @jacelyn.makes.stuff.
You can tip Jacelyn on Paypal: jacelyn_yp@yahoo.com.sg
I hand-pressed wooden type and gouache on 210 × 297 mm paper to print this sator-type square. Two millennia ago, they found the first sator square in the ruins of Pompeii, among pumice and volcanic ash, the 5 × 5 of the SATOR—ROTAS presenting a lock that invited speculation while allowing neither intrusion nor revision. I moved past the 5 × 5 and fumble through many other words, like a child with a combination lock, forgetting the code to make it an infinite toy. Many failures inform these constrained attempts at poetry. Happy are the days (as in this present ARREST—ESCAPE) when I find stories in them.
Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo
Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo teaches for the Department of Humanities, CAS, University of the Philippines Los Baños. Here, he helped institute courses on creative nonfiction, young adult narratives, and literary approaches to film, TV, and the internet. Recent works appear in the archives of Field Guide Poetry, Storyteller’s Refrain, Hot Pot Magazine, and Thanatos.
I have seen the beautiful City Scape from the terrace. I want to get fresh and I have went there. I see there are many kinds of lights here and there. I decide to take a beautiful photo of the city. I then take a beautiful photograph; there are many beautiful lights as well as the city becomes so nice and beautiful in the photograph. The photograph becomes a genius art. It is like a Utopia, like a another world where there is only happiness. More things the art or photograph speaks about itself.
Binod Dawadi
Binod Dawadi is from Purano Naikap 13, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has completed his Master’s Degree from Tribhuvan University in Major English. He likes to read and write literary forms. He has created many poems and stories. His hobbies are reading, writing, singing, watching movies, traveling, gardening, etc. He likes pets. He is a creative man he does not spends his time by doing nothing. He is always helping for the poor people. He can’t see the troubles and obstacles of the people. He believes that from the writing and from the art it is possible to change the knowledge and perspectives of the people towards any things. He loves his country Nepal very much. He has known many cultures of his country as well as foreign countries. He is always thinking wisely towards any things. He solves his problems by using his mind. He dreams to be a great man in his life.
You can tip Binod on Paypal: sydnierbeaupre@hotmail.com.
I recall during the first lockdowns and being taken out of work, my kids being taken out of school, and all the regular daily interactions and operations of capitalist culture suddenly ceasing to exist. It was freeing, but also unnerving. My brain felt full to the brim. Darkness and light. Negatively and positively. I felt I needed some kind of outlet that went beyond writing. Something to pour the emotions out, expel the ferocious confusion. Painting gave me that. I’d fill a canvas, knowing that soon enough, the fire inside would be extinguished, at least for a moment. Those moments became a necessity.
Stephen Lee Naish
Stephen Lee Naish is a British -born writer and visual artist. His writing has appeared in Aquarium Drunkard, Film International, The Quietus, Archetype, Dirty Movies, Drunk Monkeys, Cosmonaut, Albumism, amoung many other journals and zines. His artistic works have appeared in Empty Mirror, Apricity Magazine, Lost Futures, The Creative Zine, and The Spectacle. He is the author of six books of pop cultural critism. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.
“Won’t be long now,” he took a fat huff from his cigarette, “until you’re all done for, huh?”
“Not necessarily.” She was so used to this genre of intense rudeness from abject strangers that she didn’t even pause before she responded, “No judge worth their salt wants their courtroom to become a spectacle. Letting phones and cameras in turns people into chimps. They’ll always need sketch artists. At least in my lifetime, anyway.”
The two of them stood under the awning, chilled by the rain that was coming down in white sheets before them, even with their coats on. Her taxi was still awhiles away, if the app was accurate. So now she was stuck with this loser, the security guard at the courthouse who only had one shirt (from the smells of it).
Driving was one of the things she was going to miss the most of all. How easy it was to lose your independence.
“I don’t know,” the security guard tutted, weighing in heavily on a subject he knew nothing about. “Sure, they broadcasted the Depp v. Heard case, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, and look what happened.” She blew the smoke from her own cigarette away from him by twisting her lips, “That was a fucking circus. Too many judges are too snobby about their courtrooms and their cases. They don’t want the work they do posted on bloody TikTok, for Christ’s sake.”
“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands, spreading his fingers as if to placate her, “was just sayin’ is all. But some of them videos were funny, weren’t they?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t watch any.”
It was easy to make a snide joke about the snobbery of judges, but she was no pleb either. There was a sanctity to the job that couldn’t be denied.
#
In UK courts, sketch artists cannot bring their materials in with them. They can’t draw or take photos, though a little note taking is permitted, if it is quiet. Gill didn’t take notes.
This was the rush that had kept her sketching for thirty years. Always at the court early, so she was always in a good seat, eye drops so she didn’t need to blink so much, electrolytes in her water so she didn’t need to drink enough to pee. She touched each of her tools in her bag, just for comfort. Brushes, water bottle, pens, paper. Over and over again. She was still convinced that one day she’d forget something. She watched every second of the proceedings without falter and she knew she had the moment in her head the second it happened. The instant court is dismissed, she was out the door, crouched in her pencil skirt and heels in a corner, blocking out colours loosely, and then scribbling like bedlam over the top with her pens.
There was no greater trail for an artist, no greater pressure, and no greater reward, then to perfectly capture a moment of true, unplanned horror, grief, rage, or apathy, with no reference, no tools, just the hands she had trained, and the eyes God gave her.
The eyes today, black eyes like a shark. Watching her watching her.
Drawing worked her into such a frenzy, most of the time she didn’t even see what she was drawing. She was focused entirely on the image in her head, held it there as preciously as a child cups water, and scratched and attacked the page until she revealed the scene, like it’d been hidden beneath the paper all along. By the time she released the breath she’d been holding, the work was done, and she threw it to the crowd of baying journalists. The flashing of camera bulbs gave her vertigo. Horrible devices. Later, it would appear on screens all over the world, but she never bothered to check. She could hardly remember a single sketch she’d ever done.
She’d sold her sketches to the BBC, CNN, Fox, The New York Times, she’d even sold one straight to Google during the Winsor Acid Attacks Trail a few years back. There weren’t a lot of players in her field, but they were all good. Most of them were women. She knew that if any of them were in her position, none of them would be handling it any better. That did little to comfort her.
#
For a moment, she wasn’t here. She was at the clinic, private of course, sitting with her bag in her lap like an old lady, helpless to the news of what her body was doing to her.
#
A car whoosed by and splashed up big puddles, snapping her back to the present. The security guard just rolled his eyes, and looked out at the rain. Gill suspected he was longing for the days when a woman of her position would’ve had to smile at him and humour his awful small talk. She remembered those days too, which is why she stood two feet away from him at all times.
He changed tactics, one of those apologies men do without saying ‘sorry,’ “So, what did you draw today then?”
The million dollar question.
#
The witness had been very aggravated. The defendant’s testimony yesterday had stirred something up in her, some foul lie or backhanded remark, and she couldn’t be calmed once she started. The judge had to threaten to throw her out, if she didn’t calm. Her eyes caught Gill’s attention immediately. Everything around her face was blurred, but she had dark eyes—black, ringed with red skin as she fought back her tears, tooth and nail.
Her little outfit had been so cute, and her hair was so well brushed. Gill suspected that she’d gotten up at least 90 minutes earlier than normal, so as to look presentable in front of the court. And now it was all ruined, shirt rumpled, hair wrecked from dragging her hands through it, teeth set on edge. She was a hackle being raised away from fully reverting to a wild animal.
And she’d seen Gill. Looked straight at her. There had been nothing else to draw.
#
“I drew the witness.” Gill tapped some of her ash off the end of her cigarette for an excuse to look at the ground, “When she was crying.”
“Crying? That’s not the half of it, love. She was hollering!” He laughed. Gill said nothing, kept her gaze forward. He changed strategy again,
“So, how do you become a sketch artist anyway?” He asked, “Art school?”
“I never went to art school,” she said, a little too quickly, a little too defensive. “I was a journalist first. Moved on from there. Art school’s a scam.”
“Now that, we agree on!” He chuckled, “Still, kind of an odd job to end up in. Doubt you wanted to be one when you were a girl.”
Girl, past tense?
#
When she first started to see blurriness, she had felt the cold hand of dread stroking her spine. She tried to write it off as over-exhausting her eyes, but even then she knew she’d been fooling herself. Macular Deterioration, or MD as they called it. Could be stabilised, but not improved.
At least, the optician had said, It’s coming towards the end of your career. Was it? This was news to Gill. Could an artist of her calibre ever actually retire? It’s not arrogance, it’s just true. Her brain worked in a way different to everyone else’s, it saw and stored things no one else would catch, or care about. But what about the flashing lights? What about the phantom faces in the crowds she could see?
That’s something we call Charles Bonnet syndrome. The doctor handed her a pamphlet, Basically, your eyes know they’re not working like they should, and they’re missing something. So your brain tries to conjure up what it thinks would fill the gaps. It’s not a sign of any kind of mental illness.
In a way, she wished it was. To stay sharp mentally and lose herself physically? She may as well be handed a life sentence.
#
There was nothing anyone could do. They’d like to help, but they can’t. Just like today, when Gill wished she could have gotten up with the witness and told her not to calm down, but she couldn’t. Held by ironclad, invisible social conventions, all Gill could do was stare at her. And the witness stared back.
What’s the opposite of helpless? Powerful?
Even now, she watched as the white ripples of rain fell in curves and bends unnatural. In some places, they blurred together entirely. At least it’s coming towards the end of your career.
#
“You know, when I was a wee lad,” the security guard laughed at his own memory, “I wanted to be a bus driver. That was just the coolest thing I could think of. And I loved bus drivers! I was so jealous of them, driving around all day while I was stuck at school. Everyone said ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ to them, and you got your own uniform.” He sighed heavily, blowing out more smoke, “But that’s kids for you, you know?”
Gill turned to him and said, “Why didn’t you become a bus driver then? It’s not exactly a difficult job to get.”
He didn’t look at her, his feathers a little ruffled.“I dunno. They weren’t hiring.”
“Well, there you have it,” she said coolly. “The courts were.”
All this talk of buses got her missing her taxi even more. She was going to have to find a different way to get around; taxi fares were too expensive to use every day. Was she old enough to—God forbid—qualify for a senior bus pass? Gill swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
#
How many more sessions did she have in her? Double digits? No way.
She thought back to forty minutes ago, when she’d finally straightened up from her hunched drawing in the corridor, no table to lean on, just her own knees. She’d used too much watercolour, and the page was heavy and pilled. The large bubbles almost ripped the paper where she’d laid down the colour. The witness’ wild head was ringed in a halo of fuzziness and there was a lack of detail to the background that her usual buyers would find odd. She’d given her subject six pairs of arms, flailing wildly around her, as if trying to swat a hundred flies. Her black eyes were scrunched up so that the red of her face showed, blooming across her nose, cheeks, and from under her eye sockets. Just the left eye was creaked open slightly, so the purest dollop of black ink she’d ever laid could be seen. She’d handed it to a reporter without even looking, confident the money would come later, as it always did.
Her taxi still wasn’t here, but her cig was done. She dropped it on the ground and watched it explode into light as it vanished into her own personal void. Turning her head, she could see lights in the sky, moving around grey clouds. And when she looked back in front of her, there was a woman standing in the rain with black eyes. And when she looked still, the woman looked back.
Grace Magee is an Irish writer, based in Belfast. She’s obsessed with the mundane macabre and stories about old ladies. She’s been previously published in the Awkward Middle Children anthology, work coming in Sublunary Review, and has told her stories on BBC Ulster radio.
Phili almost rode over the smudge of grey and yellow. She stopped to get a better look. It was a fluff of feathers, the size of a table tennis ball, maybe smaller, now bouncing towards her chirping. Images of that zoologist being followed by ducklings popped into her head. Imprinting? Was that what it was called? A bike whizzed by, veering to miss her, the cyclist hurling abuse over their shoulder.
Dismounting, Phili herded the little bird over to the verge. It had smooth, wispy grey feathers framing a chest of bright cotton wool. When it chirped, it opened its mouth wide like on nature documentaries, as though sitting in a nest, waiting for its mother to drop dinner in. This tiny creature would die if she didn’t do something. And as much as she wanted to get home, she also wanted to save it.
#
Every Saturday, Phili cycled to the farmers market, no matter the weather. It gave her satisfaction to support the small businesses. She liked to impress the cheese seller with her pronunciation of the French names; she glowed when the woman with the accent pulled a carton of eggs out from under the table that she saved just for her. Best eggs to be had in the city, with their fat golden yolks. And she liked the ride through the park. She tried to be mindful of the trees and the sound of bird calls mixing with muffled traffic. Mindfulness was important. Today she had been mindful: it was warm and crisp, and the light was dappled. She had bought asparagus for dinner. When she got home, after unpacking her things, she always curled up on the couch with the newspaper, a good coffee, and some croissants from the organic baker arranged on the beautiful polished steel tray she’d bought herself for her birthday. The rest of the week she had to build her marketing business, deal with her staff, get clients, be on the go, hold it all together. Even on most Sundays. Like tomorrow, she had to prepare for an important meeting, develop a pitch. But not today. Saturday mornings, they were sacrosanct. They were the time to breathe.
#
Last Saturday, the trees had just had spots of delicate green against the grey branches, but today the leaves covered them in a verdant veil. The air smelled earthy. There were more people out and about on their bikes too. The city was reemerging from hibernation.
And Phili was standing over a tiny bird.
It had clearly fallen out of its nest. It could clearly not fend for itself.
Phili scanned the scene. No nests to be seen in the trees looming over the path. And even if there was one, how would she reach it? Parents? No sign. There were bushes about ten meters away, but if she put the baby bird into the bushes, it would be too far from the nest for the parents to find it, and anyway, it would just hop out onto the path again and be run over. If it hadn’t starved already. If it wasn’t eaten by a crow or a fox first.
The image of Phili holding a shoe box, feeding the little bird was so real it was more a vision than an imagining. The hypothetical bird in the shoe box was arching its neck back and opening its beak wide in anticipation, trusting her. She saw herself opening up the box on her balcony, and the little bird, bigger now, looking at her with a question in its eye before reluctantly flapping its wings and flying off into the sky, maybe circling back to say goodbye.
The bird on the path chirped. It was a delicate sound, not quite musical, but beautiful.
Another cyclist went past, shaking their head demonstratively at Phili and muttering something she couldn’t catch. She was in the way, but she didn’t care. The bird was more important.
It was clear what she had to do: she was taking it home. She opened her backpack and pulled out one of the cotton shopping bags. She always had more than she needed, just in case. Perfect. Then she gathered the weightless ball up into the bag and carefully put it next to her backpack in the basket.
She cycled off, upright and steady.
#
Not far from her house, there was a pet shop. It was on the way. Perfect. Phili carefully picked up the bag of bird and strode in. “I’ve found a baby bird. Do you have some suitable food?” Her voice was very calm, as though this was something routine for her. Yeah, no big deal, I save wild animals all the time.
The assistants seemed impressed. “Really? And you’re going to rear it? That’s great, good on you,” they said. “How big is it?” they asked, and she carefully opened up the bag and showed them. They seemed very impressed.
She left with a bag of ‘Egg Food.’ Complementary feed for all ornamental birds’ and instructions. “Mix up the food in water so it’s porridgy. Drip water onto the beak to make it open, that’s what they do in the wild. Then squirt the food in with an eye dropper.”
“I don’t have one of those, but I’ll improvise,” Phili said.
“Good luck!” the assistants called as she left.
#
At home, Phili realised that she didn’t have a shoe box. She looked around her flat for something suitable. But there was nothing quite right, even in the hall cupboard, into which she threw random things that she didn’t know what to do with, out of sight but still there if she needed them.
So she rang her neighbour’s doorbell. “Sorry to disturb you. I live next door. I found an abandoned baby bird and I’m going to hand-rear it. Do you happen to have a shoe box I could have?”
“Oh,” said the neighbour. “Really? A wild bird? Wow, good on you, I wouldn’t dare try.”
“Well, I rescued a few as a kid. I fancied myself a bit of a Dr. Dolittle.” She laughed and the neighbour smiled.
“That’s fantastic, good on you. I’ll just see if I have a box.” The neighbour returned with a quite large cardboard box and a child wrapped around their leg. “Can Otis see the bird do you think?”
So Phili and the neighbour and Otis went over to Phili’s flat and she showed them the bird. As she peeled back the bag on the kitchen table, she realised that the bird wasn’t really moving and her chest tightened anxiously. But the little bird twitched its head around in the light and gave a forlorn chirrup, to the delight of Otis and the adults. It was the first time a neighbour had been in her flat so Phili looked around with neighbour-eyes and was pleased. Everything was tidy—just cool, clean lines and colours. Her cleaner came on Fridays, so the flat was sparkling.
#
Alone again, Phili thought about how to prioritise and decided food was top of the list. It was already past noon. Surely baby birds get fed frequently and who knows how long it had been on the ground before she rescued it. She made a bowl of porridgy Egg Food and dug around in the kitchen drawer. She pulled out an old syringe sheath. Perfect. She spooned some Egg Food in and squeezed it down, but it just blocked the hole at the bottom. Phili looked more carefully and realised that the hole was tiny and the Egg Food grainy. It only took her a moment to problem-solve, and she was quite pleased with herself as she used a knife to widen the hole. Yes, that squirted Egg Food just fine. But when she opened the bag again and held the syringe over the bird’s head, cup of water at hand, she realised that this was not going to work and felt a niggle of worry. She could not drip water onto its beak and squirt food in quick succession. You’d need a second pair of hands. Phili hesitated, but she was self-reliant, she would work it out. And then she found that the drips didn’t seem to work anyway. The bird kept its beak resolutely shut and looked at her with suspicion. She abandoned the water and hovered, waiting for an opportunity to squirt food into its mouth, like in the documentaries. When it finally opened up, she was not fast enough, and a blob of Egg Food fell on the bag beside the bird. She tried coaxing it by smearing some onto its beak. The suspicious look grew darker. She formed a tiny ball of porridge between her fingers and hovered again. When it opened its beak next, she was quicker, but the ball was too big to go in. It had looked miniscule on the tip of her thumb but now against the bird, it looked huge. It took another twenty minutes, but she managed to get three microbeads of porridge eaten. She was exhausted.
#
Phili was annoyed at herself for telling the neighbour she’d saved birds as a kid. It was such a pointless lie. Why did she say it? Now she’d have to remember it for the future. She had saved bees, not birds, as a kid. In a shoe box. She went searching for them in the garden. There were always a few to be found with their stings protruding out their backsides, clearly unwell. She would gather them up and operate with a small kitchen knife, removing the sting, pulling out the guts dangling from it. Then she would cushion them in cotton wool beds in her shoe box, with some flowers and honey to sustain them. Usually, she had gotten bored then and forgot about her patients. Only now did she wonder what ever happened to her hospitals. Probably her mother had found them.
#
Phili cut the advertising pages of the weekend newspaper into fine shreds, letting them float down into the cardboard box. The strips of paper seemed pretty forlorn in the large space, so she cut up the sports pages too. When she had dealt with the bird, she would finally be able to read the rest.
She gathered up the little bird and gently placed it in the paper nest. Its legs splayed and it keeled over onto its side. This was unexpected. Phili felt a pang of concern. Google. She flipped open her laptop and typed in “what to do with a found bird.” “Protect yourself. Wear gloves,” Google told her. Too late for that, and protect yourself from what exactly? “Prepare a container.” Check. “Put the bird in the box.” Check. “Keep it warm.” Oh, of course. She leaned over the box and touched the bird. Cool, definitely not warm. Easy fix. She sometimes used a microwavable barley bag for her shoulders. Plain red, she’d never liked the ones with the busy patterns on them. When she took it out of the microwave, she stopped for a moment to let the warmth soak into her palms. Too hot for the bird though, so she wrapped it in a towel and put it into the box. She lifted the awkward bird. It was now stretched out, no longer a ball. That made her nervous. She lay it on its side on top of the towel-wrapped barley bag and partly closed the lid of the box so that the bird was in dim, calm light. Much better. Then she kept googling.
#
One website after another told her in no uncertain terms to leave the bird where she found it. She clamped her teeth together. Well it had been a judgement call, they don’t know. And anyway, it’s a bit late now. One site had a flow chart, and she kept redoing it until she found that by answering “no” to “Does it have all its feathers” and “Can you find the nest?”, and “yes” to “Is it in immediate danger?” she ended up with affirmation of her rescue. Well, she didn’t know if that was all the feathers he would get, he certainly couldn’t fly yet, and he had been in danger, she explained to herself, painting herself a detailed picture of the perils. She considered cycling back to the park and setting him out, but she’d only just gotten home and still hadn’t even had a coffee, let alone brunch, and it was already afternoon, and anyway, the parents really were long gone by now, even if they had only been hiding when she had found her bird. She knew that the benefits of taking him home outweighed the risks, well, she was pretty sure. And she could mitigate the risks. She just needed to do more research.
#
It turned out that quite a lot of research was needed. She looked through mugshots of baby birds, peeping back into the box to compare them. He seemed to be a blue tit. She’d hoped for a less common bird, with a less ridiculous name. Much worse though was that the blue tit was an insect eater and the website minced no words in telling her that she should never, ever, feed a blue tit grain. Specifically, she should never feed it Egg Food. It even said—smugly, she thought—that some pet shops claim it’s suitable, but it’s most definitely not. Bloody shop assistant.
Phili felt an ache in her jaw, and she now genuinely regretted bringing him home. But she’d made their bed, and now she had to rear him.
Ok. But where was she supposed to get insects from? More websites, none offering an alternative to living or frozen insects. Seriously, frozen insects?
#
She made herself a pot of coffee, but even the dense aroma didn’t smooth away the tension. She absentmindedly drank her coffee and munched on a croissant straight from the bag as she hunched over her laptop at the kitchen table, clicking on links and writing herself notes. Flakes of pastry fluttered onto the table and down to the floor.
#
Phili looked at her bird. He had reconstituted as a fuzzy ball of feathers and chirped at her, sitting in the middle of the barley bag. Pride and relief made her smile. If she hadn’t thought of it, he would have died. So odds were that she had saved him. Monday she’d tell her assistant all about it. Rani was a bit reserved, maybe this would help them bond a bit more. Show Rani Phili’s soft, caring side.
She considered whether another bead of Egg Food would hurt. He seemed hungry, well he must be, it was now four o’clock, he must be starving. But she rebuked herself, she’d probably given him too much already, it sounded dangerous, he might die just from that. The Internet said to wait 24 hours before taking a lost bird home, so clearly he could survive a little longer without food. And now that she knew what she was doing, she was going to get some proper nourishment for him.
#
First, she cruised the entire pet shop. Not the one she’d been to on her way home, that would have been embarrassing. One several blocks away, but it was a nice day and the additional bike ride was good, it calmed her down.
She could find no insects but did find a small jar of calcium powder. She checked her notes. Seemed right. But the insects were most important. He would die without them. What was she going to do? Catch them for him? Maybe later, when he was older, she could cultivate a pot plant with aphids for him to pick off. She would teach him to fend for himself. Maybe bury insects in a little sandpit and teach him to dig them up.
Phili pictured herself walking down the street with someone and her bird coming out of nowhere to alight on her arm. Just like Snow White in Disneyland.
But first, insects were required. It was not like her to lose focus. She just needed to get herself sorted.
She found a shop assistant and asked, without much hope, if they had frozen insects. “No, I’m sorry, we don’t,” came the reply and Phili felt panic begin to rise. It was getting late. What had she done? He would starve and it was her fault. This was not how she had envisaged spending her Saturday.
“We only have fresh insects.”
Phili beamed. “Even better!” she said and followed the assistant over to a shelf she’d already walked past three times. Only now she read the signs below the small clear plastic containers, about the size of the ones strawberries are sold in. “Bolivian Cockroaches” “European Grasshoppers” “Fruit Flies” “Superworms” “Microcrickets” “Small Crickets” “Giant Crickets.” She swallowed a shudder. After all, she wasn’t squeamish. “You can do this,” she told herself. Focus. She pulled out the box of fruit flies. They were small enough for her bird. But looking at them buzzing in there, she realised that there was no way she could catch one to feed her bird. She saw herself opening the box and her kitchen being full of fruit flies. No, not an option. The assistant took pity and asked what they were for. When Phili explained about her little bird, the assistant pulled out two large open bins from under the shelf unit. They were writhing. Plump off-white worms at least four centimetres long in one bin, small maggot-sized ones in the other. Phili’s skin began to crawl. She should have left the bird; the parents were probably there the whole time.
She rode home with a jar of calcium, fifteen grams of small mealworms, and a box of small crickets. All discreetly packed in a plain brown paper bag. She carried it gingerly, making sure nothing tipped or opened.
#
“Hi there!” called out a neighbour coming towards her as Phili fumbled for her keys. “Been shopping?”
“Well, actually, you won’t guess what’s in here,” Phili smiled. And she explained about hand-rearing her bird and presented the containers of insects. The neighbour seemed impressed, especially at Phili’s coolness with the insects. “I don’t think I could do that.”
#
The bird was perkier now, looking at her and opening his tiny beak. Phili took a photo of him. Adorable. She looked at the containers on the kitchen table. It was only up close that you noticed the little crickets walking around, their fine antenna and delicate legs. She needed a cup of tea. A bird trilled outside the window, and she wondered for a moment if the parents had come looking for their baby. Guilt flushed through her as she imagined their distress.
First, she chopped up some chunks of asparagus and put them in with the crickets as the shop assistant had instructed. Well, he had said cucumber, but Phili didn’t have cucumber. “The crickets are still just empty husks really; they need some nutrition in them before they can nourish a bird,” the assistant had said. It would take a couple of days. Ok. The crickets were just over a centimetre long. They were soon crawling all over the asparagus.
Then she scooped up her little bird and put him into a small bowl to weigh him. He barely registered. Six grams. He looked bewildered. She checked her notes. He needs to eat forty percent of his body weight a day, so the mealworms would be enough for around six days—that is dozens of worms a day—and then there were the crickets of course. How on earth do you weigh them without them escaping?
She used tweezers to pick one of the worms out of the heaving mass and dropped it onto a plate. It squirmed, looking both fragile and repulsive on the white porcelain. She sprinkled some calcium over the worm. “What am I doing here?” she asked herself as she carried the plate over to the box and opened the lid.
Her little bird chirped at her. She wondered if she should give him a name. Tomorrow, tomorrow she can think of an appropriate name.
She held the wriggling worm tight with the tweezers and dangled it in front of her bird. He looked at her, tight-mouthed.
By the time he opened his beak, Phili could feel tears welling. When the worm was much too big for him and fell into the paper shreds, some of the tears slid down her cheeks.
Deep breaths. “You are a capable person,” she told herself. “You have got this.” But she no longer believed it.
Phili tilted the plastic container and stirred the seething worms with the tip of her tweezers. The tweezers were to pluck her eyebrows with. Maybe she would just throw them out after all this. She picked out the smallest worm she could find.
Dangling in front of the tiny beak, it was clear that the worm was still too big. It was almost as big as one of the crickets. No wonder he wouldn’t open up. “Please little bird, I don’t know what to do,” she whispered and put the worm back onto the plate.
Then she took a small fruit knife from the drawer and stood over the plate, watching the worm wriggle. Before she could change her mind, Phili cut it in half. One half kept wriggling. The other half was still. Phili nearly gagged. She wished desperately that they’d had frozen insects.
The little bird ate three half-mealworms before she gave up two hours later and cried into her hands.
#
Phili soothed herself with a tea, a sandwich, and Instagram. Then she had another go. Four severed worms later, she decided it was time for bed. She scanned the kitchen. She screwed up the bag from the croissants and threw it into the bin but left the rest of the chaos with a sigh. She reheated the barley bag, stroked the soft grey head, and murmured, “Please live little bird.”
#
Mornings were usually her most productive time, but that Sunday she lay in bed for a long while, staring at the ceiling.
Finally, Phili walked into the kitchen. It was silent, so her bird must still be asleep. She stared at the box for a moment before slowly opening it. He was lying on his back, with his legs folded up to his belly, rigid claws grasping at nothing. She hesitated, then prodded him gently. No response. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. She poked him with a bit more force. His little body stiffly rolled over onto his side, a dull blur against the shreds of paper.
She turned away from the box and made a cup of tea. She dropped the tea bag into the hot water unseeing. Splashes went all over the kitchen bench. Then she went back to her bedroom and hunched on the edge of the bed, her hands trembling as they grasped the cup.
The tea was cold when Phili put it aside, sprang up, and strode back into the kitchen. She grabbed a spoon from the bench. She scooped up the bird and dropped it into the rubbish bin under the sink. As she closed the bin, she felt jittery. Then she quickly opened the bin again and threw the paper nest in too, and scraped the bits of worm from the plate. She grabbed the barley bag and unwound the towel, which went straight into the washing machine. She turned it on, although the machine was almost empty. She looked at the barley bag, hesitated, then threw it into the rubbish bin. She cleared off the kitchen bench: the bowl, the spoons, the plate, the knife, the scissors into the dishwasher; the syringe and the tweezers into the bin. Then the kitchen table: she emptied the Egg Food into the organic waste bin and stuffed the bags into the rubbish. The mealworms were squirming in their container. Phili clenched her jaw and carried them into the bathroom. When she flushed the toilet, some worms were still floating. She flushed again, and again. When none were left, she flushed twice more just to be sure, then closed the toilet lid. She briskly wiped down the kitchen bench and the table. She folded up the cardboard box and put it near the front door, ready to take down to the recycling bin. No, better outside the front door. The kitchen looked normal again, you’d never know. Except that, of course, she did know. And except, of course, for the box of crickets.
How would she explain it to the neighbour?
She was glad she hadn’t given it a name.
She didn’t know what to do with the crickets.
And right on cue, they began chirping.
Rachel Herz is a queer writer with a day job. They have now lived in Berlin, Germany, longer than Aotearoa New Zealand, where they grew up. Rachel’s work has appeared in Sand and Visual Verse.
Robert said he never liked trousers on women, preferring Audrey in hemlines reaching below the knee. Robert wanted Audrey to be discreet—even while he gave sidelong glances to a well-revealed leg. He was like a child hiding his sweets.
Audrey buys wide-legged high waisters and three-quarter length capri pants, poplin cotton shirts and a fitted jacket belted at the waist. She packs with care. She wants to be comfortable but stylish too. She hasn’t included a single skirt.
The transfers are smooth, but Audrey concedes—with Robert, travel was easy. She didn’t have to think, she could merely follow. Nothing has been beyond her but being alert is tiresome. Before, her mind could drift. In public, Robert would say she was a dreamer, her head was in the clouds. In private, he’d criticise. ‘Audrey, are you listening to me?’
Cruising was Robert’s choice. If he was to go to a foreign country, he wanted minimum fuss. His money, his decision, his arrangements. When he died, Audrey could have cancelled but she decides she wants to escape—to take a break from widowhood. And she will prefer the trip alone, without Robert. Being alone in the crowd will, she thinks, be a good stepping stone to more adventurous travel. Besides, she aches to feel the definite sun on her skin.
Her cabin is comfortable, not quite luxurious, but well-appointed. There is a narrow private balcony, a bed with scatter cushions, and she can see herself foreshortened in the chrome of the bathroom. It might have felt tight for two.
She unpacks. Laying her books on the table to the left of the bed, she pauses, gathers them again and walks around to the seaward side—what was Robert’s side—and stacks the books, straightening them.
Audrey decides she will avoid cruise routine. Some days she will rise early to pace the decks while the ship is still groggy in sleep. Or perhaps she will stay awake late into the cocooning ink-pitch of the night. She will dine at different times and find alternative and illogical routes around the ship. Audrey will take excursions onshore but will deviate from the tour group. She won’t be unsociable, but she will be irregular.
Audrey nods and smiles to other passengers—letting her eyes just slide so as not to catch—as she negotiates the labyrinth of passages on her way to the hairdresser. Robert insisted he liked her hair long, even though its weight annoys her.
Larry is delighted to be making a dramatic change.
“Darling, I see you. This heavy hair needs to go, go, go! I’m seeing a shape to frame your face.”
Larry is seeing what Audrey requested: a blunt-edged bob, shaped into the nape and following the line of her jawbone and a short, straight fringe lined with her eyebrows. Larry whines. He wants to colour her hair, but Audrey is stubborn. The cut is already a revolution, and she likes the stripe of silver-grey on the left side of her head. She appeases Larry, promising to return for regular blow dries.
Desmond catches her a few nights later. Absorbed in her book, she doesn’t notice him sidling his chair closer to hers on the top outer deck. He coughs, perhaps for the second time. Desmond has ordered her another drink. She frowns, hesitates, but with a gracious nod, she accepts the glass.
Desmond introduces himself. He is a retired financier, divorced, he has two sons. This is his fifth cruise. Audrey sees he is pleased when she says it’s her first. He is not unattractive—trim with full grey-streaked hair and wearing good quality, understated clothes. Audrey takes a sly look at his shoes and he passes with lace-ups, not slip-ons.
“I expect you’re only now finding your way around the ship?” Desmond asks the question as a statement.
He offers her black olives from the ceramic bowl on the table.
“You’ll love these, they’re Greek. The best the Med has to offer.” Audrey declines. She’s not keen on olives, finding them too often dry, the flavour disappointing. Robert wouldn’t eat them. ‘Foreign food’, he’d say. Desmond presses her.
“You enjoy them,” she says, and leaving most of her drink, she stands, thanking him, registering his dismay. He hastens to his feet, but she turns away, giving a slight wave to indicate she’s not hostile—but not staying.
Audrey locks the door to her cabin. The air-conditioning is shocking after the sideways heat of the afternoon sun. She shudders. Robert was the same—always answering for her, presenting his thoughts and decisions as if they were collective. Desmond, she thinks, is not unkind, but he’s arrogant, careless, unopposed. Audrey catches her reflection in the mirror—she looks different, but she doesn’t yet feel different. Or correcting herself, the feeling is different, but the behaviour is the same. Is Desmond at fault if he’s never challenged? She suspected a Robert, but perhaps she misjudged him. Audrey hopes she hasn’t been unkind.
Audrey decides to eat in the mid-morning. She limits herself to two meals as the abundance of food is sickening. She sits in a corner seat, observing the other diners, a fan of melon slices on her plate, crumbling cubes of goat’s cheese and a couple of figs. The melon is sour, but the figs ooze jewels of nectar. Audrey wants to eat with her fingers, to feel the stickiness on her hands. She sets her fork aside.
Heading back to her cabin, Audrey spots Desmond. She suspects, by his studied gaze out to sea, he has seen her first. He looks smaller, diminished. In a rash moment of forgiveness, Audrey waves and calls his name. She invites him to join her for a drink the following evening. Desmond stands straighter as he accepts, and they agree on the time and place.
The ship slides into the port of Malaga. The air is still and humid. The light hazes, and the water looks heavy and oily. Audrey stands on the deck, anticipating the city—seeing behind the sandstone-coloured buildings to the shaded courtyards within. She pictures the glazed balconies and iron battened wooden doors. The Alcazaba ruins where disconsolate youths turn sleepy eyes on distracted visitors and the cathedral where the long-skirted women thrust sprigs of rosemary at alarmed tourists. She pictures the paper pompoms festooning the baroque boulevards, the bars littered with screwed paper napkins on their terrazzo floors. Her mouth waters in anticipation of pinchos de gambas, navajas and warm, salty almonds.
Audrey walks through the Paseo del Parque running parallel to the port, the broad path shaded by palms, the beds rich with spikes of birds of paradise and crimson bougainvillaea. The trees clatter with birdsong, audible even over the revving traffic running alongside.
She turns into the city on Calle Larios before turning left, towards the covered Mercado Central. Inside she slows, strolling alongside the iced marble slabs with the silver, blue-green fish, and the orange crustacea, so fresh their smell is briny and appealing. She eyes the swollen red chorizo and black morcilla, the alien conejo and sweet Iberico ham, the pyramids of fruits and vegetables. Bustling, straddle-legged women pull their shopping trolleys, carving determined furrows through the crowds of witless tourists. Vendors shout, projecting their calls like radiation, and Audrey wanders immersed in the noise, the press of bodies, the sights, and smells. Robert would have hated it.
She stops at a stall selling dried fruits, nuts, and olives in every size and colour. A broad, bare-armed woman in a long apron offers her almonds to try. They are warm with crunch and salt. Audrey buys a tub to eke out with her evening appetisers. She pockets her change, starts to walk on, then returning asks, which are the best olives? The ones, ‘muy typica?’ The woman points to ashen green-grey pebbles, marinating with garlic cloves still in their skins. Audrey nods.
She walks with no direction, entering shops selling artificial flowers, bobbing plastic earrings, flouncy Feria dresses in thick cotton and fans in polka dots or painted and trimmed with lace. Seeing the bright scalloped combs, she feels a moment of regret for her lobbed long hair.
“Audrey, darling, over here.”
Larry is sitting at a high table outside a tapas bar. He is with two men. Like Larry, they are wearing tight T-shirts with denim cut off shorts.
Audrey intends to decline the invitation to join them—Larry should enjoy his time off away from the ship—but he is already telling his friends to admire her hair, introducing her like she’s a valued friend. Larry helps her to mount a stool and pours for her a glass of cold manzanilla; the sherry searing and saline.
Larry and his friends tell indiscreet tales about the passengers and delight in having a new audience for their stories. Little is beyond their scrutiny. Audrey recognises the embellishments but enjoys the tales even more for the eye-rolling exaggeration, winks, and shrieks.
“So darling, tell us about you. Any onboard romance?”
Audrey giggles but tells the boys, no, she’s not interested, and besides, having heard their outrageous stories, she wouldn’t dream of sharing confidences. They moan and tut, but she feels she’s passed some unspecified test.
Audrey turns off the brutal air-conditioning and leaves her balcony door wide open to allow the sea breeze. She wakes refreshed in the morning, relieved to find her head is clear. She stretches and smiles, reliving the complicit laughter, the scandalous tales, the crisp, cold sherry, and the small plates of fried fish. She sighs, remembering her planned meeting with Desmond.
Desmond sits at the table with two glasses before him.
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering your drink,” he says, standing to greet her. Audrey is not late. She invited him—he could have waited. She thanks him, formal and polite, and sips, wishing she was drinking more of the cold manzanilla instead of the sour gin.
“I saw you yesterday,” Desmond says.
“Oh?” says Audrey.
“Yes. Not quite the company I expected of you.”
“Oh,” says Audrey. Again.
“Yes, I was surprised…” He starts to say more, but Audrey interrupts, thrusting forward the olives from the market.
“I bought these. They’re supposed to be the best of the region. They come from Antequera, just over the Montes de Malaga.”
Desmond falters mid-sentence, deflates. He thanks her, assuming a restoration of order. Audrey has brought him a gift. He opens the plastic pot and takes a deep sniff.
“They’re very garlicky.”
“They’re said to be very good.” Desmond plumbs for a large olive, throwing it into his mouth. He bites hard and winces. He cups his hand to his mouth to stifle himself—not expecting the stone, he has cracked a crown, broken the tooth, leaving a gaping hole.
Desmond holds a napkin over his mouth. He mumbles something she can’t decipher and blunders away, flapping one hand behind him to indicate he doesn’t want her to follow. Audrey puts her hands to her face. She is shocked—not so much by the dramatic event—but to realise she is straining to contain tears and a full body swell of laughter.
The olives remain on the table, in their plastic pot. Audrey orders a half bottle of cold manzanilla. She selects an olive and sucks on the bitter and garlic flavour. She chews, feeling the stone with her tongue, enjoying the texture and the piquant brine. She decides she rather likes olives—ones like these—and will enjoy having the whole pot to herself.
Emily Macdonald was born in England but grew up in New Zealand.
Fascinated by wine as a student, she has worked in the UK wine trade ever since. Since going freelance in 2020 she has been writing short stories and flash fiction.
She has won and been placed in several competitions and has work published in anthologies and journals including Fictive Dream, Reflex Fiction, Retreat West, Crow & Cross Keys, Ellipsis Zine, Roi Fainéant, Free Flash Fiction and The Phare.
In writing and in wines she likes variety, persistence, and enough acidity to add bite.
This was written by Harold Mutton, who is a developmentally disabled person. I am one of his caregivers and also I teach a remedial writing class at William and Mary High School in Landia, West Virginia.
I hereby certify that what I am saying is true.
……………………………….
The 2 sides of my big thick blanket it is different shades of teal one side is a bright teal with variations and 1 side is a weak lighter teal. The 2 sides do talk to each other. I cannot honestly say I am a bedridden person. I feel like a bedridden person because I spent a tremendous amount of time and bed. I have a lot of interest in the absurdist poet Nicanor Parra. What else can I say to you I’m reaching out to you. I don’t think I’m that good at reaching out to you. Yesterday I almost fell out of the bed.
Yesterday I read a little bit more about myself—where I am from and the many people whom I have been. In my past, I have been bruised utmost self-proofed and how he (my past self) lived a big part of his life in bed, especially towards the end of his life, and how he wrote one of the longest books in recent history. His book has a title I just want you to know that it really does have a title.
I am not retarded. An ambassador said that my friend Cheryl a) is a very tall thin woman and b) is one of my caregivers…Cheryl said that people are not supposed to use the word retarded anymore. I cannot remember in what part of my twisted asphalt life—when were we supposed to know that “The R Word” was no longer acceptable? That made me happy and at the same time the sun was shining through the window so that made me happy too but the problem is that when I get really happy, I have kind of a small psychiatric event—nearly every time I get happy—ever since I was 19—which was 51 years ago.
So very little is said about people who are on the margins on that periphery of the world. Who is the referee of society people that are congenial to society see I know some words I know some words but people don’t ever look at me let alone talk to me enough to know that I know some words. I am tired, can we quit now?
Marc Isaac Potter (we/they/them) … is a differently-abled writer living in the SF Bay Area. Marc’s interests include blogging by email and Zen. They have been published in Fiery Scribe Review, Feral A Journal of Poetry and Art, Poetic Sun Poetry, and Provenance Journal. Twitter is @marcisaacpotter.
Fish Barrel Review 