Tears
by Brooke Blazek
In a foster house, a little girl about eight years old whose name was Opal cried every night. Everyone called her Cry Baby Oval Head, except for one of the older girls Katie. Katie always walked over to the poor girl and glared at the foster kids who made fun of her. She was sixteen, and knew everything about Opal. Opal’s parents died in an airplane to New York and she was being babysat by a nanny at the time. The nanny was too mean though, and didn’t even care about Opal and sent her to the foster home. So now every time Opal is made fun of, Katie is there for her.
Even at bedtime, Opal cried. She always remembered the people she saw when she looked out the window on winter days and saw little girls with their parents smiling. Katie would even wake up with her and let Opal sleep with her. And as usual, Opal would walk out of her bed with her silent feet and crawl into Katie’s bed.
But one day, Katie and Opal tried to make it out of the foster home together. Katie had always promised to Opal that they would make it out without being caught. “I promise you, Opal. We will make it out.” And so they tried. But the other foster kids would tattle anyways, not giving any signals telling them to run even faster or that she was coming. They just tattled.
So, they were caught. The foster lady sneered at them and looked at Opal in the eyes. “Was this your idea?” Katie pushed Opal aside gently and admitted that it was her. “No, ma’am. It was me. I was the one trying to get out, and I let her come.” The lady had a sly grin on her face. “Oh, so it was you! Well, I think we’ll be having a little something for you, missy.” And she took Katie with her.
Opal ran to her bed and got under the covers and prayed. “Please let Katie stay, please.” But God couldn’t do that. After two days, Opal knew what had happened. She was put away, not coming back, now, or ever. Not even returning to Earth. Now Opal cried even more every night. “Please let her come back. Or are you going to let her stay with you, God?” She would say, shivering and crying.
But then one night, she knew something was going to happen. She saw Katie’s soul. It was all fiery and orange though. Opal backed away. “Katie?” She whispered. The soul nodded. “This is only my soul, if you hadn’t noticed. God said I could do this for you because I am one of his helpers and was a nice person to you.” Opal kicked off her covers. This?” “Yes, I am letting you have a gift. Your tears mean madness, and madness is fire.” Katie said, lifting up her hands. “Now, lift out your hands.
Opal got out of bed and lifted them slowly. She could feel something funny. “Katie, what is this feeling?” Katie smiled. “Anger. Now when one of the foster kids tries to bully you around, they’ll feel what you feel. And this doesn’t just go for crying. It goes for any type of anger or sadness as well.” Opal smiled a little. “Thank you, Katie.” Katie waved, and then disappeared.
From that day on, Opal was treated much better with her feeling powers. Those foster kids felt it. They felt her.
Fever Dream of Marianae
by D. Hamilton Doggett
Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Carmilla, the fiend!
She drew the life from my veins my love
I thrust in her and as I died
she fed me to the Beast
the graveyard lilied I ensouled
were pale repose where night’s dark til
gave birth to me in strength
mastered her an so she fled
to river, then to sea
I followed her down to cooling depths
where she caressed my hate
and shrunk it with a kiss
that pulled the very breath from my lungs
gently, so gently, she lay me down
where the fish whim through my bones
and of the thousand eggs she laid
only I survived
too quick and clever to be the food
of lesser languid minds
I followed her and found her pool
beneath the seaworn rocks
she slithered up a hole
and pulled me toward the sun
in the desert I was burned to husk and ash
she laughed and cried, “I’m free!”
and I a cinder on a strong west wind
blew down her brazen throat
she birthed a brood that ate themselves
and I alone survived
“O’ for the Garden!” my anguished cry
knowing in my supplication
I never would be free
she took to wind, a feathered angel
and I in lust made chase
Unreal City: The Ravaging of Tempe by Gregory Stephenson
Unreal City:
the ravaging of Tempe
by Gregory Stephenson
“ Place is the only reality,
the true core of the universal.”
William Carlos Williams
“A new daimon has got into the world,
a daimon that cancels place …”
Guy Davenport
It can at times be difficult to believe that there does not somewhere exist a powerful, perverse, sinister, secret organization whose purpose is the eradication from the earth of all manifestations of individuality, authenticity, originality and human meaning. Certainly, there is considerable inferential evidence to suggest the operation of such a conspiracy – a clandestine Society for the Propagation of Insipidity, or League for the Disenchantment of the World – an evil cabal relentlessly scheming and intriguing, acting in the shadows, co-ordinating a network of agents, with the aim of establishing for its colorless, cold-blooded membership a homogeneous world habitat of standardized banality.
The black irony is that were there such a fiendish plot it could scarcely have been more brilliantly successful, more spectacularly effective in achieving its goals than the loose, obtuse affiliation of city councils and city planners, architects and developers that have reduced the city of Tempe to a wilderness of blandness.
Year to year, Tempe continues…
To read more, buy The Maple/Ash Review No. 2
Vora by GHOLTZ
Vora
by GHOLTZ
In a rare show of selflessness, Roger stepped between the oncoming bus and his friend. The oddest part about all of this is: up until five minutes ago, Roger had been absolutely positive he was lacking friends altogether.
Rachel felt the bus jerk, and her copy of The New York Post fell from her hands onto the sullied bus floor.
She snorted in disgust, spat on her shoes, and hobbled away.
As Rachel exited the idling bus, she noticed a corpse stuck in the grill that looked suspiciously like her estranged brother. Not to be outdone by the already crowded lookers-on, she rushed into the rapidly widening circle of rubberneckers, screaming Roger’s name at the top of her lungs.
With tears in her eyes, she began to devour the smallest finger on his left hand. She worked her way up the hand, finally finishing it altogether, and then proceeded to move on to the right.
After consuming the majority of Roger’s torso, she paused to drink a small bottle of designer water, which she drew from her handbag.
By now, the curious pedestrians (as well as the bus) had dispersed, leaving her alone in a somewhat desolate street with the corpse of her delicious brother.
A passer-by remarked to Rachel, casually: “The way you’re attacking that guy, I’d have to guess that he’s pretty tasty.”
Rachel replied, rubbing bits of Roger’s body-temperature lipids, quickly jellying in the sweltering heat, from her chin:
“He’s not tasty; he’s my brother.”
To read more work by GHOLTZ, buy the Maple/Ash Review
Dragonfly Lady by Dominic Ng
Dragonfly Lady
by Dominic Ng
That evening I sat upright in my rigid steel chair, glancing through the scratched glass. Streaked with thousands of fingerprints, it blurred my view of New York City’s underbelly, and I had mistaken each passing female figure as my dragonfly lady. They came to my workspace, an information booth for misguided tourists, with perfumed bodies and Soho shopping bags. I hated those ladies with clicking heels and bleached hair. I must have glanced at my clock four-hundred times within an hour waiting for her. When I noticed that she had not arrived at 6:30 p.m. for the third week in a row, my chest felt like a spiked insect writhing around in my lungs, ready to crack through my ribs and leave me dead.
At 6:32 my co-worker Tammy knocked on the side door. Like a fat slug, she gasped for air anytime she dragged herself around longer than fifteen minutes. She stuck to the “food-vendor” diet of deep-fried potato knishes, polish sausages, and hot pretzels. I gagged when she came into my office with a bag of pork rinds.
“Nice to see you too, Remiro,” she replied. “How’s it going tonight? You keepin’ busy?”
She pointed at the composition notebook that I had scribbled a few lines in. I immediately shut the cover and shoved it into my desk drawer.
“Whatcha writing in that little book of yours? A bunch of rap songs about babes rubbing themselves on top of convertibles?”
That’s how Tammy pissed…
To read more, buy The Maple/Ash No. 2
A Good Mental Disheveling By Rikki Lynn Hale
A Good Mental Disheveling
By Rikki Lynn Hale
I couldn’t tell if there was blood in my mouth or if I had been chewing on my house keys. It was that rough of a night. After a week of little to no sleep my life had turned itself into a zoo. Colors had become dull and sound almost mute. I hadn’t felt my legs in days as I ran the streets rampant with nervous frothing rabies. I had been searching for something, but I didn’t know what. Salvation? Answers? Myself? Or quite possibly just sleep.
It had all began on a Tuesday night when after work I had headed out for a brisk walk in the city. See, the city lights always so bright gave me little fuzzy feeling in my pea sized heart. On my jaunt I saw a man with a monkey. You know, the circus monkeys? The kind that dance for nickels and babies bugged out eyes. The monkey made me nervous, he created bugs in my tummy. As he did his little dance, shifting his hips and pounding his fists, the monkey’s assistant clapped his hands in a mentally retarded joy. The man made a bigger spectacle of himself than the creepy monkey as he was overjoyed by what his string-less puppet could do. That is when I noticed the man actually was mentally-handicapped. Who gives a monkey to a handicapped guy? I imagined the two living in a studio apartment filled with cockroaches and paper airplanes.
My brain fizzled at the thought of this so I spun my heels and ran all of the way home. That night I turned on my dusty television to calm my nerves. That is when I saw it, dancing monkeys! This couldn’t be coincidence. I paced the floor of my apartment thinking about the man and his monkey. I saw them sharing toothbrushes and sleeping as spoons. I needed a drink, I needed a valium, and these crazy thoughts needed eviction from my noggin. Rummaged through cupboards, through pockets, tiny hiding places…nothing. No lobotomy for me tonight, just me and the…
To continue reading, purchase The Maple/Ash No. 2
From the Burning By Gregory Stephenson
From the Burning
By Gregory Stephenson
The Chinese-owned cantina was the only two story building in the village. The street was rutted, a dog was barking. Thin blue coils of mesquite smoke rose into the late afternoon sun and hung over the adobe houses. My horse was tender footed, having cast a shoe the day before. I drew rein in front of the cantina, uncinched my saddle and turned my horse into the corral.
Inside the cantina it was dim and chill. The floor was bare earth, sprinkled and swept clean, but there was a lingering odor of stale tobacco and spilled liquor. A tarnished mirror was nailed to one wall; a clock and a calendar were hung on the wall behind the counter where a shelf held canned goods and bottles.
I paid in advance for one night, took my key from the Chinaman and climbed the stairs to the room. On the window hung a discolored linen curtain. Rags, newspapers and flattened cans had been used to plug the cracks between the boards. There was a table, a lamp and a basin. Down the hallway, in another room, a man was coughing.
There was a wedding dance in the village until late that night. Then the rain came quick and hard, the wind seething in the trees. I slept and awoke suddenly in the dark, wondering where I was. Outside there was gunfire and shouting. I rose and dressed quickly, pulling on my boots and putting on my hat. In the intervals between the sharp reports of firearms I could hear the ticking of my watch. Por Dios! someone cried.
Heavy steps ascended the stairs from the cantina and thumped down the hallway. There was the sharp crack of a gunshot nearby and then another shot was fired and a man grunted in pain. My heart was beating hard and my breath came fast. Panting and shaking, I cocked my .44..
To continue reading, purchase The Maple/Ash Review No.2
Hohokam
I couldn’t sleep, so I took a bike-ride around ASU at dawn.
This is Old Main, which was erected in 1884. It was the first building of what is now known as the ASU Main Campus.
The figure depicted on the fountain is an allusion to the Pre-Pueblo Native Americans, known as the Hohokam.