My Own Haunted Apartment

By Jade Braden

When we moved in we both got the feel that something was there, something rather than somebody, which was an important distinction because we were used to living with somebody and weren’t as sure what to do with something, especially when we couldn’t pin down exactly what that something was because there are so many options when you move to this part of town (like demons or land spirits who were never human) but now that I’ve had some time, I think I have it figured out: somewhere between the ever present hum of power lines and chemicals in the water putting us on edge, foreshadowing snuck in and warned us that we wouldn’t live alone long if we ever did, and you know I don’t think we did, because there was always something crawling in (fat spiders through the door jam and stink bugs through the windows) and we hoped that nothing bigger would come along, but of course that’s when the first mouse showed up, and then the second, and the others, and we got so tired of calling the landlord each time that we started buying our own traps and snapping their little necks in them, which I haven’t stopped feeling guilty about even though I gave them fair warning—as if they speak English and as if I don’t entice them with name brand peanut butter (because I refuse to let them die with any less dignity than that)—and either way they kept coming and we kept killing them and then I’d have to dispose of their cold tender bodies so I could make my breakfast or dinner—we were always waking up or coming home to death—and I sort of got good at it, taking them away with latex gloves (while praying), didn’t have to cry every time, but still that ball of guilt welled up in my heart and hasn’t yet receded because I know I’ll do it again if I have to and that I’ll have to (because who are they to resist a hole in the wall that leads to warmth and sweetness) until someone comes to patch those holes up and that in the meantime our sanity will be steadily chiseled away because the kitchen is now a live-in jumpscare, a full-on stop-in-the-doorway-hair-raised-slowly-checking-each-trap-before-proceeding movie moment, bated-breath, hoping that nothing is waiting, hoping that nothing will jump out of the toaster (again), and honestly, maybe I feel better that I’m suffering because I know the mice are having their revenge; in fact, when the closet door started swinging open at random I surpassed the logical answer that the weather was making the house shift, and straight to the conclusion that the ghost mice were opening it (and somehow maybe there’s more comfort in that thought than fear), saying “we’ll never be gone” and “check the trap in here, we’re waiting” which would be a good ploy if they were dealing with an amateur, but I’ve watched too many horror movies so I just close the door five times a day and don’t look in, hell, I wrote papers on The Tell Tale Heart, so I know how it all goes, but that doesn’t stop me from being a heroine on the brink of madness, it doesn’t stop me from knowing that ghosts, guilt, and grief are so often the same thing, doesn’t stop me from knowing that one of these days I’ll have to look inside the door and face the fact that what I abhor most here, waiting with death and rot and severance and sadness, reflected in their big dead eyes, is me.

Jade Braden is an author and artist based in Columbus, Ohio and can be found on Twitter @jadewcb, online at jadebraden.com, or buried underneath a mountain of guilt for all the mice she’s had to kill in the past few months.

Art by Jade Braden.

Crystal Ball Bubbles

By JV Genova

Frothy spit swirled in the bottom of the small plastic bottle, my tiny little spit bubbles popping slowly as sunlight filtered in through the slats of the window blinds, producing little rainbows on the translucent bubbles while I bent over the bottle and watched my saliva swirl, shine, and pop as behind me in the small room the rustling sounds of other people—a doctor, my husband, my baby, and my mother—all uncomfortable and unsure what to say, could be heard as I lingered over the bottle studying my future, wondering what the spit would reveal, considering the technician in the lab who would process the spit full of my DNA much like a prophet reveals the future in tea leaves at the bottom of a cup, and the technician would relay the information to the computer before leaving for their lunch break, my future a simple task needing to be completed before another person’s future could be read, and this alone would tell me and my family members gathered in the small room making the small noises what the odds were of my death and what drastic measures might need to be taken to try to avoid it—answering the mystery of whether my ancestors gave me the genes that could cause various parts of my body to replicate and replicate and replicate until my death—maybe soon; maybe not, but now we wait for a lab test prophecy, everyone contemplating their own future.

JV Genova dabbles in photography and growing potatoes; she can be found on Twitter @jv_genova when she should be writing.

Photo by JV Genova.

Hear Me Out

By Rebecca Fishow

Are you kidding, of course I hid it from him, I mean, they say that you’re supposed to share everything with spouses—your mensural cramps, body count, passwords—but put yourself in my shoes: what would you do, waking with a fleshy, rippled, lump on your lower back that looks like an ear, but must be a tumor, so you do, you show your man, of course you do, but his gentle touch makes you wince, more in panic than pain, as in his “calm voice” he says it’s probably benign, a harmless fluke, but his face is all terror as he tells you a doctor visit never hurts, so next week, there are more ears now, on your arm, your belly, another near your foot, you bend forward for this old-man doctor who says, “Looks like ears,” and you think, no shit, Sherlock, and the old guy scowls, so maybe you said it out loud, either way he sends you to the ear specialist down the hall, who’s honestly the most lovely doctor, human, you’ve ever met, and he touches your ears gingerly, applies salves, feathers his fingers over every little fold, finds you incredible, suggests weekly check-ins, you unicorn, you gem, and even this you tell your husband, who by now is trying every overwhelming trick to make you feel safe, cooking meals, running baths, so careful not to touch your ears, apologizing, apologizing, when, meanwhile, you can’t wait for your visit to Dr. Ear, who massages, feathers, whispers sweet nothings into each one, who studies and learns, who knows you like no one else ever has, and what do you say to your husband when weekly visits become daily, then secret dinner dates, because you’re covered now, filthy with ears that Dr. Ear nibbles in a way that melts your soul, so tell me, how you say, “Husband, I am finally home.”

Rebecca Fishow is the author of The Trouble With Language (TRSNFR Books), which won the 2019 Holland prize for fiction, as well as the chapbook, The Opposite of Entropy (Proper Tales Press).

Art by Rebecca Fishow.