The Cheshire Cat We 39;re All Mad Here
Zenia
Adam McOmber is the author of three queer speculative novels, The White Forest (Simon and Schuster), Jesus and John (Lethe) and Hound of the Baskervilles (Lethe), as well as three collections of short fiction, Fantasy Kit (Black Lawrence), My House Gathers Desires (BOA) and This New & Poisonous Air (BOA). His work has appeared recently in Conjunctions, Fifth Wednesday, and Hobart. He is the co-chair of the Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Hunger Mountain.
Wendy Elizabeth Wallace is a queer disabled writer who lives in Milford, CT. They are the editor-in-chief of Peatsmoke Journal and the co-manager of social media and marketing for Split Lip Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly , The Rumpus, Brevity, ZYZZYVA, The Carolina Quarterly, Okay Donkey,and elsewhere. Their writing has been chosen as a finalist for several prizes, including The Hudson Prize from Black Lawrence Press, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
This piece came out of seeing a dead bird in a tree and suddenly becoming aware of the turf war that had been happening right outside. There had been mynas first, then magpies and later currawongs and butcherbirds. The smallest birds were never going to win of course.
She tells him that by the age of fifty, a single of these birds may have flown the equivalent of nearly 149 times around the globe.
He tells her he has always wanted to fly in his sleep, but his brain is too hypervigilant.
The man on reception is coiled up with pussy-cat eyes, gifts them a cheshire grin with their keys. Paisley carpet climbs the stairs. The bed in the room is a gape of tartan. Lily soap white as stars. Two coloured glasses on the pristine sink to bring summer to their tap water.
Far too late to eat, the tiger on reception informs when they emerge salmon-skinned from showering. They take in the dining room all the same as though domesticity is theirs for the taking. It has a fast-food feel with its red vinyl, gingham kitchen tablecloths.
She lusts for hot dogs and popcorn. He is after duck parfait.
When she says she could murder something cheap he tells her how fast-food restaurants use car oil on pancakes instead of maple syrup: for viscous makes better billboards. Aesthetics are never what they seem, she says, even when it concerns gourmet.
When the street outside picks up with night noise and the fuzzy vocals of the passersby start unspooling, he surrenders to sleep. The thermostat in the room starts climbing. A belly of a moon blues up the sheets with light, but he is adrift elsewhere.
She cannot comprehend a man sleeping without pillows. One of his legs is in the eiderdown, the other one out, the muscle in his buttocks a conch. Yin and yang.
Sleep gazing always makes her soften.
She watches him for an age. Outside, people get lairy. The city is a snapdragon: opening.
Eyes widening, he tells her he dreamt about the albatross. How its under-parts were clean white, feather tips arctic black. That in order to gain height it turned to face the wind, rising on the updraught until it could rise no more, then it tipped downwards, accelerating quickly, ready for another turn. He tells her he has never heard wingbeats like it.
Kathryn Kulpa is a New England-based writer with stories in Best Microfiction, Fictive Dream, Flash Frontier, Ghost Parachute, and other journals. Her books include Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted (New Rivers Press), For Every Tower, a Princess (a micro-chapbook, forthcoming from Porkbelly Press), and the flash collection A Map of Lost Places (forthcoming from Gold Line Press).
c80f0f1006