Together Chased the Butterfly | Hadyn Archambeault
It was the summer of 1980, and the Florida heat was getting to all of us.
Corey, from accounting, was desperately fanning himself with a ruler. Dennis, from advertising, was slamming Poland Springs like his life depended on it; I suppose it did. And Rodney, from legal…The poor guy looked like he was on the verge of passing out from heat stroke.
I, in a sticky state not too dissimilar to my less esteemed colleagues, was stripped down to my sweat-stained undershirt, clicking and clacking away at the typewriter. My arms stuck to the desk like putty pressed into newspaper. The heat was so unbearable that I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was putting to paper—and I was too hot to care. The air in the building was acrid; it reeked of tobacco and muck sweat. While mindlessly typing, an exhausted Angela, the secretary, approached my desk.
“Campbell, Mr. Foley would like to see you in his office,” she groaned.
Oh, god, what does he want now? I thought.
“Sounds good. Thank you, Angela,” I wearily and monotonously replied, languidly grabbing my chambray shirt off my chair and my kipper tie I’d thrown off my neck in a fit of heat-induced, claustrophobic rage.
Staggering toward George’s office, I nearly suffocated in the clouds of cigarette smoke that enveloped me.
Who on God’s scorched earth would smoke on a day like this? I thought.
Even through my dry eyes, I could clearly make out his gluttonous figure from behind the frosted glass windows. Once I was in his line of sight, George waddled toward me with an urgency and spoke in a manner I didn’t know he possessed.
“Campbell, my boy. You've just been handed the story of a lifetime on a silver platter, my friend. Come in. Come in.”
He turned to Angela. “Thank you, sexy.”
She chewed her gum, shooting him a look of disgust and lurched back to her desk, cooling herself with her paper fan.
I was a junior reporter for the Sunshine Herald and George’s unofficial errand boy, so when he’d call me into his office, it either meant he was pissy about a deadline or he was out of Viceroys. So I was rightfully disturbed to see the wide, unnaturally white grin plastered on his leathery face—one I’d only seen once before when late one evening, he and his inebriated country club buddies stumbled into his office after a successful afternoon of golf.
Sitting down in his burgundy leather chair, he started.
“I got a call from the warden of the Cocytus Correctional Facility in Oakley, Alabama—bumfuck nowhere. There’s a guy on death row that’s getting the chair in two weeks—Clifford Hayes. Yeah, that Clifford Hayes, The Devil of Mobile County. Apparently, Hayes wants to talk to you; he read those pieces of yours on the Zodiac and that neanderthal that was just arrested up in Pensacola two years ago. What’s his…?”
“Bundy,” I replied.
“Bundy! Jesus Christ, I’m losing it. I don’t get what broads see in him. Anywho, for some weird reason, he liked what you wrote and said he wants you to interview him before he gets the Old Sparky.”
I was stunned. “Listen. I don’t know if I can—”
George interrupted me, dismissively waving his hand as he shuffled through a large stack of paperwork on his desk. “If you’re worried about expenses, I’ve got it covered. Besides, the returns on this thing are gonna be huge.”
I tried, again, to interject. “No, I mean—”
He stopped me, setting his paperwork down and lasering onto me. “Kid, you have any idea what kind of opportunity this is? No, you don’t; that was a rhetorical question. Hayes is notoriously hush-hush. We’re gonna be the only ones with the dirty deets that’re brewing in that sick fuck’s head. Everyone’s gonna be crawling to us on their hands and knees, begging for what we’ve got. I’m…I mean we’re…gonna be filthy fuckin’ rich. And you’re doing the interview. I already bought the tickets to Mobile. Angela has them on her desk.”
George yelled from across the floor. “Ain’t that right, Angie?”
She flipped him off without looking up from the answering machine.
“That’s my girl…Okay, your flight leaves tomorrow at noon. I’ll let you clock out early to get your things in order. You’re gonna be staying at a luxury hotel right on the coast. Only the finest for my best writer. The bus ride from where you’ll be staying to Oakley is just under an hour, and you’re gonna be meeting with The Devil two days from now and every day after up until his…y’know…I wanna squeeze him of everything he’s worth before he squeals. I want you to bring the fattest notepad, the sharpest pencil, and the shiniest typewriter you’ve got. Got it? Oh, and bring this, too.”
George pulled out a tape recorder and slammed it down in front of me.
Peeling myself off the chair, and with a pat on my back from his large, hairy, sticky, sunburnt hand, he sent a neurotic me back to my work station, having to haul the heavy tape recorder.
I spent the next couple of hours at my desk in a haze, mulling over how I’d approach this interview, how I’d approach him. While my obsession with the psychotic was undeniable, my relatively small works on the Zodiac Killer and Ted Bundy afforded me detachment from my subjects—detachment that this face-to-face interview would not provide. I’d be getting in the cage with the lion, so to speak.
He’s read my work? I thought.
What did he think? What does a lion think? Can a lion think? I’d only been able to theorize, speculate. But now I’d have all the questions that had plagued me for so long answered. And I’d finally be cured of my writer’s high withdrawal.
Like promised, George let me go early, and as I picked up my tickets from Exhausted Angela, the fire sprinkler system went off, ruining whatever nonsense I had typed. I had much more important work to do. From across the floor, and with his golf club held behind his head, George yelled to me through the sound of the alarms with that same, sleazy, bleached grin;
“I expect great things from you, Campbell! Don’t let me down!”
I could barely sleep that night; I was a man possessed.
The next day, I made a beeline for the airport, schlepping my luggage.
The flight itself was largely uneventful. The minor turbulence paled in comparison to my restless thoughts. A tiny bag of peanuts and a Harvey Wallbanger fueled me while I examined photos of Clifford’s crime scenes from behind a copy of The Miami Herald. Before long, I had landed in Mobile.
Walking out of the airport, I hailed a taxi and told the driver to take me to The Cadillac Hotel, per Foley’s instructions. Stepping out of the cab, valises in hand, I was disappointed to find the hotel wasn’t nearly as lavish as Foley had made it out to be. It was right on the coast of Mobile Bay, but it looked like it had washed up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. The building’s lemon yellow exterior seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and was sun bleached to all hell.
My room was somehow even worse. The carpeted floors were moldy from the estuary, the Venetian blinds were broken, and the floral bedding might as well have been stolen from a raisin ranch. The wallpaper was a sickly green, peeling at the corners. It looked like someone had slapped seaweed on the walls. There was a large, rusted pipe in the corner of the room that rattled incessantly. Despite the overwhelming humidity of the bathroom, the shower had no hot water, and the tub was teeming with silverfish.
But at that moment, I didn’t care. Yes, because of the stomach-churning state of my room, Foley’s promise of riches seemed as flimsy as the hotel’s roofing, but the story I’d get? One could only dream. I dropped my baggage, tossed my keys on the scratched up nightstand, and plopped myself on the mattress, staring up at the spotty ceiling.
My mind was racing, thinking of the insight I’d get, the book deals, the fame!
I might even get a spot on The Johnny Carson Show, I thought.
I shot up, retrieving the sheet protected and laminated photos, documents, articles, everything I had obtained and preserved the night before, sprawling them out on the bed with the urgency of a bomb technician.
From the late, sultry afternoon, long into the stifling night, I paced around the wretched room, devising questions, taking notes, and practicing the tape recorder. I’m surprised I didn’t receive any noise complaints. I felt like I was the only one in that hotel. As far as I was concerned, it was just me, a Cup O’ Noodles, and Clifford’s work.
The ride to Oakley the next morning was bleak. The potholed roads proved to be a nuisance, and the lifeless landscape was laden with dilapidated houses, downed power lines, and demolished pecan farms.
After entering the Cocytus Correctional Facility, I was searched and escorted to the visiting area. I didn’t notice anything wrong with the room until he entered. I noted how cold it felt when he walked in.
To say he was intimidating would be an understatement. Even the pictures in the papers that looked like they were on the verge of tearing at the seams from his colossal figure did his sheer size injustice. He was dressed in an uncreased khaki short-sleeve jumpsuit. His bulky arms were covered in brilliant butterfly tattoos. His hands were massive but looked soft, free of calluses. When he sat down in the steel chair across from me, I thought it would fall to pieces.
When the grizzled guard left, I anxiously reached for the tape recorder and pressed play.
“This is Jason Campbell with Clifford Hayes—”
“Cliff.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You can call me Cliff.”
“Okay, Cliff. I’m here with Cliff Hayes, The Devil of Mobile County. Speaking of, how do you feel about that nickname?”
“Oh, I love it.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah! Are you kiddin’? I reckon it has a much nicer ring to it than just plain ol’ Cliff, don’t ya think?”
“I-I guess you’re right.”
“You guess?”
“Sorry. Yes, you’re right.”
“Relax, I’m just bustin’ yer balls.”
“So, you’ve read my work?”
“I have.”
“What did you like about it?”
“Hold on now, I said I’ve read your work. I never said I liked it.”
“Did you invite me because you didn’t like it?”
“Well, I never said that neither. What’re all these questions about you? I thought you were here so we could talk about me?”
“We are. I just wanted to know why you invited me specifically. I’ve heard you’re pretty taciturn when it comes to your…how should I say…nature.”
“Taciturn?”
“Media-shy.”
“Ah, I get ya. Well, I do like your work. But that don’t make me gay er nuthin’. I ain’t no queer. I want that on record.”
“Well, what about my work resonated with you?”
“I guess I saw a part of myself in your writings.”
“You see yourself in the Zodiac and Bundy?”
“I see myself in how you write about ‘em, at least. And on the whole me bein’ hush-hush about the motives behind my proclivities, I don’t want my voice in the wrong hands is all. A man of your vocation ought to respect that. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I think your hands’ll do the job just fine. And sayin’ that don’t make me gay! Got it?”
“Mhm.”
“OK, good.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask about the tattoos.”
“Ahh, see, I’m already glad I picked you. No one even thought to ask about ‘em.”
“Why butterflies?”
“Well, before she passed, God rest her soul, my granny used to collect butterflies. I’m talkin’ Monarchs, Morphos, Swallowtails, Spotted Jokers, Viceroys, Jersey Tigers, Painted Ladies…You name it, she found it. I mean, she had cases and cases full of ‘em. I tell you, you could fill the Grand Canyon with how many she had to her name. She’d even keep the ugly ones. Or, sorry, the ones I thought were ugly, at least. Granny used to say ‘All God’s creatures are beautiful.’ She took real pride in her craft.
Growin’ up, I was too immature, too infantile to understand the gravity of her work. I just thought she was some crazy ol’ coot. But I remember late one night, I must’ve been thirteen at the time, I snuck downstairs, well past my bedtime, mind you, to get myself a snack. Even to this day, I’m a slave to the ol’ sweet tooth. Anyway, I’m sneakin’ downstairs, creepin’ toward the kitchen when I see that the office lights are still on. Now I’m thinkin’ to myself, ‘What the hell could she be doin’ at this hour that’s so goddamn important?’ So as to not get caught, I took a teensy-weensy peek from around the corner to see what that witch was up to. And what I saw was one of the most heavenly things I ever seen.
Now I don’t know if it was the way the light was hittin’ her as she sat at that ol’ mahogany desk, but it was like God was showin’ me the divine answer. The way she was pinnin’ the butterfly so precisely, holdin’ it down to the board, spreadin’ its wings, piercin’ the thorax with such fervor…I was enraptured, aroused. Gave me one hell of a rush, I tell ya. It was the toothsome act of total domination over somethin’ so small, so helpless, and preservin’ that action that I was compelled to reproduce. But I reckoned butterflies wouldn’t be sufficient; I needed somethin’ with a bit more meat on its bones. So I started real small with squirrels, then graduated to stray cats, foxes that would roam the ol’ cemetery, and I even improved Granny’s craft on Old Man Eugene’s beagle, Milo. Man, you shoulda seen the look on his face, pacin’ the streets all day, tryna find Milo; fuckin’ priceless. But I still wasn’t satisfied. I realized I needed to work my way from somethin’ to someone, and that someone quickly grew into someones. I guess what landed me in this wonderful facility is that I worked on enough someones or I worked on a certain someone that people started carin’.
After I’d get my fix, I’d head on down to the tattoo parlor and get me one of these beauties. You see this one right here on my forearm? Yeah, that one. The Red Admiral, it’s called. He was my first, my favorite. That’s the butterfly Granny was preservin’ on that fateful, toothsome night. You ever get a tattoo? Nah, who am I kiddin’? You look like the kinda guy that’d jump just at the sight of a needle, no offense.”
“None taken.”
“Well, the feelin’ is incomparable. I can picture it now, lying down on that table, the needles piercing my skin. I like to call it the blissful burnin’. Now, I got these winged inks to preserve those sweet, fleetin’ moments, but as I worked on more and more persons and my tattoos started multiplyin’, I realized that I was also preservin’ myself, embeddin’ myself in the earth. When I get the Yellow Mama in two weeks’ time, I’m gonna fly high into the sky and spread my wings across the world. I like to think Granny’d be real proud of me.”
“I’m sorry, the ‘Yellow Mama?’”
“The chair.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, do you think they’d let you bring in some pie, or like a cheese danish? Ooh, maybe a cheesecake. Somethin’ with a good mouth feel. Desserts’ll sure keep this sweet-toothed mouth of mine a talkin’.”
I was transfixed. I took notes with such strength and swiftness that day, that by the time our hour was up, my pencil had shrunk to a stub. I had struck gold.
***
The next day, as luck would have it, on my walk from the bus stop to Cocytus, I spotted a small confectionery in downtown Oakley. Sweet Mimi’s was one of the only places of business that was still open; many of the shops on the strip were boarded up. So I did my due diligence and fed Cliff Sweet Mimi’s sweets to keep him talking.
Around a week before The Devil’s execution date, the owner of the confectionery, Barbara Sneller, inquired about my habitual purchases and my presence in Oakley.
“Listen, I love that you’re comin’ in every day, supportin’ my business, but you’re gonna get diabetes eatin’ like that.”
“Oh, don’t worry. These aren’t for me,” I chuckled.
“Well then I pray for the health of whoever you’re forcefeedin’ my sweets to. What you got in them cases?”
“Just my work equipment.”
“What line of work are you in that’d bring you to a place like Oakley? I can tell you ain’t from around here. You stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I’m a reporter.”
“Oh, what are you reportin’ on?” She asked, numbly.
“Not what, but whom,” I gushed.
“Okay then, who are you reportin’ on?” She disappointedly replied, as if she already knew the unfortunate answer that awaited her.
“The Devil of Mobile County,” I enthused.
Barbara sighed, setting down her tray of peach cobbler.
“It’s people like you that make me sick to my stomach.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You reporters, with your pens and papers, flockin’ here like a wake of vultures. Haven’t we suffered enough?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t get to tell me you’re sorry. Tell that to my dear friend, Holly Miller. I reckon you got photos in them fancy suitcases of yours. Well don’t ya!?”
I nodded.
“So you know what that man did to her poor Bennett? How he pinned him? How he—”
She stopped herself, choking back tears.
“May God rest his small soul…You know what happened last year?”
I shook my head.
“Tch, course ya don’t. Hurricane Frederic. They say not many people died cause of it. They’re dead wrong. That man you’re so gleefully reportin’ on saw that tragedy as an opportunity to take Holly’s precious boy away from her and so many other sons away from their mothers. That’s what you ought to be reportin’ on. But no…”
I was practically shaking from embarrassment, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my handkerchief. “I’m sorry about your friend, Harley, and her son. I mean, what that monster did to him—”
“It’s Holly, jackass, and don’t you call him that.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t you dare call him a monster. He’s a man, nothin’ more.”
“I’m sorry, I really am, but you need to know that I’m doing really important work here. The story of that man and what he did needs to be told. And according to him, I’m the only one qualified to tell it.”
“You know what? I’ve had just about enough of you and your empty apologies. You can take those attaché cases of yours and get the hell out of my store! I don’t need nor want your tainted money anyhow.”
Shambling out of Sweet Mimi’s, anxiously placing my handkerchief back in my pocket, I noticed her two children sulkily staring down at me, sitting at the windowsill of their apartment above the confectionary. I gave them a pathetic wave. I got no response. I never did tell Barbara that I was interviewing Clifford, just that I was reporting on him. I think that was for the best.
Other than having to switch from Sweet Mimi’s fresh-baked goods to prepackaged pastries from the five-and-dime, something else changed in that last week with Clifford Hayes. I noticed he had a slight limp. His nose was a little crooked. He had a scar on the left side of his neck. His teeth had a harsh yellow tint, and he’d thrust his tongue when he ate. He spoke with a similar confidence, but I spotted a tinge of worry in his voice. Each evening I’d come back to The Cadillac Hotel, I found I’d taken less and less notes. I couldn’t even look at the photos anymore.
Why did I laminate these? I thought.
On one of my last walks to Cocytus, I passed a roadside memorial for Bennett that I hadn’t noticed before. People of all ages were crowded around it, adding flowers, crosses, candles, and stuffed animals to the heap of offerings.
As the execution date neared, I saw reporters in droves slowly coming out of the woodwork, perched on the outskirts of Oakley, waiting to pounce. I guess I wasn’t any different.
***
On the day of Clifford’s execution, I, alone, sat in the dark witness room. When he came out, he had fully transformed into something smaller, someone helpless. He was trembling as he approached the chair.
“Do you wish to make a final statement?”
He sat there, frozen. Before Clifford could get his last words out, if he even had any, I stood up, turned my back to him and walked out. Behind me was white noise, nothing more.
I could barely get my foot through the door before I was flocked. Flashing cameras and readied microphones came at me from every direction.
“So, what can you tell us about The Devil of Mobile County?”
“What did he look like?”
“What were his last words?”
These reporters were hungry; I’d feed them nothing. Clifford Hayes would die with his name.
“No comment,” I replied.
I don't know, I thought.
Pushing past the ravenous reporters, I was met with a haze of simultaneous cheer and rage. People held up signs that read:
“Down with The Devil!”
“Say Yes to Yellow Mama’s Embrace”
“Fry, You Fuckin’ Pussy!”
Some lunatic threw a Molotov cocktail, starting a dumpster fire. People roared in agreement.
Through the smoky ruckus, I saw a small group of fathers and mothers, some wholly stripped of their parenthood, weakened to woebegone husbands and woeful wives, huddled together on a nearby field, detached from the chaotic crowd.
Seeing them gathered like that, I looked down at my suitcases. I paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. I looked back up. Even further from the field, I spotted Barbara’s boys with some of their friends, hopscotching and jumproping. I stared back down at my labor. I knew what to do.
I flung my work into the dumpster fire and waded through the haze to the bus stop, passing by the spirited kids along the way.
Hadyn Archambeault is a senior year English Major, with a double minor in film studies and creative writing. He's also a tutor at the Writing Center. His work has been published in previous issues of ARCH journal. He has a passion for creative writing. He's also a music lover and film nerd. He's addicted to Letterboxd, and you can follow him @hadyngrey.
I always lose my friends to dick | Jelisa Gonzalez
Every time I think I can escape this pattern of horny, dick-obssessed people, I am proven wrong time and time again. So often have I found myself disillusioned by the prospect of people, platonic or romantic. Everytime I find myself doing the socializing wrong. Everyone’s so fucking chill about everything. I am so intense that those I tell my situations or instances to grimace at the fact that I can’t human like them. I’m sorry I’m not worried about a 20 year old [redacted] probably flaccid penis and lack of common sense. I’m sorry I don’t get the “connection” that you have with this [redacted] over a two month span. Shit, I couldn’t get past three months in highschool. Thank god. I think time and time again that I am the one with no sense but everytime I come further and further back into myself. Everytime I find myself inhaling information and a whiff of some apple cucumber vape, I question what life choices have gotten me this far. Speak your mind! They tell me time and time again. I fear I would have a lot less people in my life that would call me a friend. I usually take my time. No, I can’t say what I want or feel in the moment. Maybe that’s auditory processing or just processing in general. I am the one thats there when a friend drags a situation with someone that doesn’t give two shits about them. I am there, now, when they still bring up their name in transitory conversation. Why can’t we get past this? I thought I held onto shit for a long time. Everytime I see that I believe I am beyond that. Sure, maybe the way I process things is passive but I always get over it. Time is a real bitch but she passes and heals. I am not absolving myself of seeking dick. Dick to me is a pastime. I don’t need it every second of every day. It would be nice to come by from time to time. Most people aren’t worth it though. I recently read a creative nonfiction piece where someone was outlining all their emotional strife and experience with men and dick. I couldn’t make it to page two without rolling my eyes. The duality in me reading and getting annoyed was the fact that a couple days prior I was anxious and mad at the fact that some 19 year old was being strange and not texting me back. This same stranger currently bores the living shit out of me. There is nothing that entices me. Sure you might look good and carry a dick on you, but usually that’s it. Most times that’s it. To see friends and people I used to know enthralled by some body parts and short lived emotions. SHIT ME TOO but there’s “levels to this shit” apparently. I high-key don’t give a shit about much of that anymore.
For Spencer | Jonah J. Martinez
A little over two decades have passed; I still try to remember the day they brought me home. May 26th, 2004. 1:59 P.M. A lot of firsts happened that day. Light seeped through my eyes for the first time once they cut the cord from around my neck. Air entered my lungs for the first time. The day my creators first uttered my name. I remember the warmth of my mother’s embrace. My father, a man who rarely ever cried, had tears streaming down his face.
When I was carried into the place I would call home for a decade of my life, I met an unexpected little fellow. Something I initially believed was a white ball of silky hair, given legs. The sounds it made seemed more like chirps than actual barks. But when my mother waved her finger, he would be obedient.
This wondrous little creature my parents called, “Spencer,” which I would soon learn was our family’s little white maltese. Looking back, I think of him now as the first Martinez son, which would make me a middle child. I was told that when I was still in the hospital with mom, my dad would bring home pieces of clothing with my scent on it so Spencer would adjust to my presence. Around the time I began to grow my first teeth, my mother would give me baby carrots. Spencer loved his baby carrots. He would sit and expect you to hand him one when you’d pull them out of the fridge.
Spencer was very well-trained. My mother would tell me that within a couple of days after bringing him home in 2003, he was already housebroken. “Smart dog,” my father would use to describe him. Interestingly, he was so gentle with me as a baby. It was like he was aware of how fragile I was, but time would prove that we were equally as fragile in the moment. Spencer and I were almost inseparable for about four years.
In 2007, my brother was born. His birth went a lot smoother than mine, as there was no umbilical cord constricting his breath. He was brought home in the beginning of March, and spent a lot of his time away from Spencer. By that time, I was around two years old, but no taller than three feet. I would walk over to my brother’s crib just to see him. My brother had become my favorite person in this world, and I think in my mind I made an unspoken vow with myself. Protect him at all costs. I still hold this belief.
I wish I could have been aware enough to do the same thing for Spencer. He was not used to my brother, and of course, Spencer was a little skittish around my brother as he was learning to walk. But Spencer did his best to get to know my brother, like he did for me. It got to the point as Spencer would try to play with him, it would get kind of rough. My brother would press his weight on Spencer’s back, which only served to hurt him.
The charade of playful unawareness by my brother towards Spencer’s condition led to frequent trips to the veterinarian. I was worried about that poor dog. I could tell my parents were, too. They were conflicted as my attachment to Spencer had grown too strong. My grandparents who lived about ten minutes away from us, offered to take Spencer in.
I fought my mother on this, as my little heart at the time couldn’t take it. “Why would you give away my best friend?” I shouted. My parents justified it to themselves that it was for the greater good. We got to keep Spencer close, but also far away enough so that my brother wouldn’t accidentally hurt him. When Spencer moved, my parents at least took me over to see our grandparents so I could play with him.
Luckily, Spencer wasn’t alone. Not only did my Nana grow to adore him, there was another dog in the house with him. A wheaten terrier with mocha-colored curls and a deep-black beard on his face. Morgan. He was about the same age as Spencer. No matter the architecture of their relationship, Spencer and Morgan became inseparable. They shared meals, would play together in the yard, and were both very happy to see me whenever I decided to visit my grandparents. Every time I’d walk into their house, Morgan would release a bellowing bark, followed by Spencer’s chirps. They’d bark for about five minutes until I finally decided to pet them. I’d argue the distance strengthened the relationship between Spencer and I. The family would come together in Nana and Poppy’s RV, and we’d take trips to parks and go on hikes. Morgan was one to pull on the leash, compared to Spencer’s well-paced strut. My brother and I would occasionally come over for dinner, in which I’d feed the dogs table scraps. After grade school, they really would make the end of my day worth it; and in middle school my grandma would send me pictures of them during class to brighten up my day.
When we would go on family trips to Rockport, Massachusetts, the dogs would feel as free as birds. I remember once, I was buried about neck-deep in sand, the dogs came over and started licking me. The laughter plastered across my face was unbelievable. Spencer and Morgan would run across the beach together, their manes flowing in the wind like a symbol of honor. Those were my boys. From youth to my teenage years, they were always there. As I continued to grow, Spencer and Morgan played a strong part through my developmental years.
. . .
2016. My second year of middle school. The dogs were beginning to get up there in years. Spencer had lost a lot of weight, but was still healthy. His flowing curls had started to become droopier. His eyes became a deep gray, as he had been developing cataracts. But he was still ol’ lovable Spencer. Morgan on the other hand, wasn’t taking to age as well as his counterpart. Being almost 14 years old, that’s a long time for a bigger dog to live.
Morgan began to have accidents within the house. Like Spencer, he was always very well-housebroken. But once he got to be that old, his mind seemed to just go. We thought this was going to be the worst of it, but then Morgan started throwing up his meals. We had to start being very careful with what we fed him, at risk of him losing it. But he was still Morgan. Old, maybe a little dementia-ridden, but still Morgan. Spencer, even though he may have had a hard time seeing, stuck by his side.
We took Morgan to the vet one day in early 2017. We walked out with the knowledge that Morgan had stage two liver failure. He was given approximately three months to live; to the vet, he’d be gone by April. But, Morgan proved us all wrong and kept his spirit high until he couldn’t any more. He ran again like he was half his age again. While he still struggled to eat, he was taking food better. He still barked at the door like he always did. He would help guide Spencer. Morgan was strong, as he survived till about ten months after his initial diagnosis.
We lost Morgan in mid-October of 2017. The pain got to the point where he couldn’t walk anymore, and to watch him suffer would be inhumane. He went peacefully.
. . .
Spencer had completely lost his sight and hearing. Yet, I think he felt that Morgan was gone. A couple weeks after he passed, we got his ashes. I think Morgan’s soul still resonates in my grandparents’ old house. Sometimes Spencer would just begin to whine and bark at… nothing. We’d go over to touch him, but because he can’t hear or see, he barely recognized us anymore. He’d start shaking when I held him. The only person he felt comfortable around anymore was my Nana. She would hold him and he would seem calm. He would follow her around just by her smell alone.
When I would visit Spencer, he didn’t play like he used to. He would wobble around more often than not. But when he wasn’t walking, he’d sit on Nana’s lap. Watching a loved one age, especially dogs, I think is one of the hardest things to watch happen in real time. It really makes you think about how fragile we all truly are. The time I had left with Spencer I took full advantage of. I would visit multiple times a week, one day hoping that he’d be so used to my smell so that my presence wouldn’t scare him anymore. I feel like we almost got back to that point. I made Spencer feel loved, no matter if he was a little scared of me.
One day, Nana came home to see Spencer standing still. He didn’t immediately pick up her smell and wobble over toward her. He just stood there. She picked him up, he was breathing, but he was still and cold. She checked his teeth to see if there’s anything wrong. Pale white gums.
Nana rushed him to the vet. The vet told her that Spencer’s body had completely stopped producing red-blood cells. His body had begun to shut down. He was alive, but not truly living anymore. Nana decided to have Spencer put down.
On a cool morning in November of 2017, Nana called my mom in hysterics. After a moment of silence, my mother handed me her phone. With a deep shakiness in her voice, Nana uttered three words I would never forget. “My Spencer’s gone.”
My world froze in place. I dropped the phone from my ear. The only question going through my head was… how? He was doing just fine a few days ago when I saw him last. My childhood friend, the dog who got me through my developmental years of childhood… gone in an instant.
These days, I look back and take solace in the fact I had a friend like that. He was truly more than a loyal pet, as was the best thing about my childhood. I would even dare to say, he was like the older brother I never had. It’s been almost eight years now since I lost Spencer. I know now that he and Morgan’s bodies may be sitting in boxes on my grandparents’ fireplace…
…But from what I feel, I know right now they’re running across the beach together, wherever they may be.
Jonah J. Martinez is a senior Political Science student minoring in Creative Writing, hailing from Middletown, NY. He spends days writing short fictional works when not studying to become a lawyer. This is his first set of works featured in ARCH magazine (Fall 2025). Jonah will be graduating in Spring of 2026.
Occupational Hazards | Jonah J. Martinez
Alright, here goes.
Last week, Carlos was crushed by a pallet of black mulch. I wasn’t driving the machine. I want to make that crystal clear. I was outside when I saw him standing under the forklift’s raised forks. Ten feet above him, a full pallet of mulch motioned slightly in the air. I asked him who was supposed to be driving. He told me his manager, Tim, had been operating it but got off to go block the aisles so customers wouldn’t walk through. Carlos stayed put. He shouldn’t have. I told him he shouldn’t be standing under the load. That it was against Howe’s safety policy. Then we heard a creak. A deep, aching sound, like an old tree bending in the wind. I yelled for him to move. Then, SLAM! Carlos didn’t move in time.
The police came. An officer took my statement in the breakroom while I ate a vending machine sandwich. He asked what I saw, and I told him. Just the facts. I told him how I warned Carlos. I told him how Tim left the forklift unattended. I told him how the pallet just fell, like the whole thing had been waiting to happen. The officer jotted everything down in his notepad, nodding as I spoke. His pen, a thick black Sharpie, made bold lines on the page. Not subtle, the kind of ink that stains.
“Is that all you know?” he asked.
I chewed on my sandwich, the stale bread leaving chunks in the corner of my mouth.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s all I saw.”
He paused and clicked the Sharpie closed. Slipped it into his pocket like a knife. “Would you be willing to testify as a witness in court?”
I glared at him. His badge gleamed under the humming fluorescents. Behind him, the vending machine flickered. The digital display glitched between $1.25 and $1.75.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He closed his notepad and stood, stretching his legs. Then he left. Tim didn’t come back to work. No one said why, but we all knew. Management sent some regional guys in suits to do “safety assessments.” They walked around with clipboards and took pictures of the forklift like it was a crime scene… which, I guess, it was. Two days later, they moved Carlos’ locker. Not cleaned it out. Just moved it. Like the problem wasn’t what happened, but where. His shift was still up on the schedule. Nobody erased it. I kept looking at his name, waiting for someone to replace it with a new hire. They never did.
A week passed, then another. I kept working. Kept zoning shelves, unloading top stock, doing what was required of me. Paychecks kept coming. I went home, I came back. The fluorescent lights kept buzzing. The forklifts kept running. Nothing changed.
Except—Except now, I noticed things. Like the cracks in the loading dock ramp… The way the concrete looked brittle. Almost like it could give out under significant weight. Like the way the shelves in Aisle 24 teetered just slightly to the left, with screws missing from their baseplates. Like the way the trash compactor in Receiving stuttered and hesitated when it crushed down a load, as if hydraulics were seconds from failing. Little things. Things I’d ignored before.
Then, I saw the accident report. I found it coincidentally, buried under a pile of paperwork on the store manager’s desk when I went looking for a pen. The first page had Carlos’ name in big, blocky letters. The second page had a timeline of the accident. The third had a section titled, “Contributing Factors.”
There were bullet points. Forklift left unattended. Load exceeded recommended weight. Warehouse floor uneven. I reread that last one… twice. The floor. Not Carlos. Not Tim. The floor. I flipped through the rest, my eyes scanning for something, though I didn’t know what. Then, I saw it. Page seven.
Previous Incident Reports (Last 12 Months):
Employee injury, laceration, Aisle 6.
Equipment failure, hydraulic press, Receiving.
Employee injury, ankle fracture, Loading Dock.
Equipment failure, shelving collapse, Aisle 14.
Employee fatality, crushing injury, Garden Sales Floor.
Fatality. Not Carlos. Someone else. It… had happened before. I put the report back where I found it. Walked out of the office. Clocked out like it was any other day. Went home. Didn’t sleep. The next morning, I came in early. I walked through the store before the opening time, before the regional guys arrived with their clipboards, before the assistant managers started barking orders. I passed the forklifts. The compactor. The shelves. Then I found what I was looking for. The spot where Carlos died. The concrete there was different, smoother. A definite patch job.
I stared at it for a long time. Then I reached down and knocked on it. Hollow. I left work that night with my final paycheck in my pocket. Never went back. Didn’t testify in court. Didn’t return the officer’s calls. Didn’t do anything. I don’t know if they ever found Tim, or if the regional guys ever closed the case. Or if the next guy to take Carlos’ job ever noticed the way the floor felt soft under his boots. All I know is that at Howe’s, the pallets keep stacking, the forklifts keep running, and the accident reports keep piling up. It’s just an occupational hazard. That’s all it is.
That’s all I saw.
Jonah J. Martinez is a senior Political Science student minoring in Creative Writing, hailing from Middletown, NY. He spends days writing short fictional works when not studying to become a lawyer. This is his first set of works featured in ARCH magazine (Fall 2025). Jonah will be graduating in Spring of 2026.
The Tides of Change | Jonah J. Martinez
We’ve been on the road a while now.
Mom told us to pack some clothes the other day because we were going on a surprise road trip. For most of the trip, I had no idea where we were going. Then, I saw something super familiar. A huge roundabout… giant windmills… rolling green hills… I KNEW IT! We’re going to my favorite place in the whole wide world, Rockport, Massachusetts. I can barely contain my excitement!!!
The rushing air of an open car window brushes over my face. The smell of the salt and sand invigorates my young spirit. I feel the butterflies building within me. My second home is approaching. My mom has been trying to get my brother and I away for vacation for quite a bit now. She told us the hotel we’re staying in is not as nice as the usual one we stay at, but it’s still an opportunity for us to be in Rockport. My family has been going to Rockport longer than I’ve been alive, my parents would go together with our grandparents all the time. This tradition was passed down to us. I love Rockport! One of my best memories was a couple years back on my tenth birthday, Mom and Dad bought me a DSI with New Super Mario Bros. I play that thing every day. In fact, I brought it with me!
If we’re going to our favorite place, that means Mom must have booked our typical hotel. I like to call it our clubhouse, as it's sort of disconnected from other buildings. It’s really cool.
The car pulls into Gloucester, a town about 10 minutes away from Rockport. In just a few minutes, we’ll be at the- Gloucester motel…? As the car pulls in, I sit, confused. I ask my mother what’s on my mind.
“Mama, are we not going to the clubhouse?”
She looks back at me, with a sadness that molds into a smile.
“We can’t go to the clubhouse, I didn’t have enough time to book it. But it’s okay! We’re gonna stay here this time, we’re on an adventure.”
I look back at her, I notice she's doing her best to maintain a smile. It may not be the clubhouse, but we’re here in Rockport. I try to look at the bright side. I smile back at her.
“It’s okay Mama,” I say to her. “It’s still nice.”
My mom’s smile becomes even more apparent. Her eyes appear a little glassy. She turns to my brother and I.
“We’re gonna go to the beach and country store and do everything we usually do. We’re just gonna sleep here.”
We go into the office of the motel, and get the keys to our room. We then unpack the car and bring our bags over to the motel room door. Once the door opens, I notice there’s a bit of a funky smell in the air. But, nothing is horrible about it. Sure, the feeling of the beds are a little off, but it’s only where we’re staying.
As soon as we finish getting settled into the room, we all decide to get back into the car. I keep my eyes peeled for the “Now Entering” sign. Mom drives us into the quaint little town. The streets we’ve walked countless times, my Mom and her constant window shopping. We pass Tuck’s chocolatier, where saltwater taffy and chocolate covered snack foods are plentiful. The local coffee shop where I tried my first whoopie pie. The ice cream parlor we always would go to in the evenings. The hot dog stand where I spilled ketchup on my pants a little, years back. The country store where we buy our little metal robots every year. It’s a little different for my brother and I, Dad can’t come with us. But, Mom is making the best of it for us. She said she’s gonna take us to Roy Moore’s Fish Shack tonight! Some of the best fish in town, in my opinion.
I’ve noticed that mom has been awfully quiet as of recently. Almost like she has something on her mind. Sometimes I get worried about her, my brother is sorta too young to notice this. But I see it.
“Mama?” No response.
“Mamaaaaa….?” Once again, no response.
“MAMA!” I yell. This seems to catch her attention.
“Yes, Pops?” (That’s what she calls me, similar to Papi.)
“Are you excited for the beach?” I ask.
“Of course,” she responds. “I’ve been wanting to go all year.”
“Yeah, me too! I wanna take Aramis swimming!”
“Oh boy,” she says, worriedly.
We pull over to where we’ll spend most of the day: Front Beach. We park the car and go to the bathrooms to change. Mom grabbed a beach towel out of the car, a bag full of snacks, and a book for her to read. Once on the beach, mom relaxed and took in the scenery. My brother and I made sandcastles and dug canals. We swam out to a platform over in the middle of the water. Mom was nervous we’d get tired along the way, but I proved her wrong. The scene was tranquil. The first real peace we’ve had in a while. I look over to my mother. She’s leaning back, eyes half-closed, listening to the waves. For the first time in a while, she looks… okay. Maybe things really will be okay.
-END-
Jonah J. Martinez is a senior Political Science student minoring in Creative Writing, hailing from Middletown, NY. He spends days writing short fictional works when not studying to become a lawyer. This is his first set of works featured in ARCH magazine (Fall 2025). Jonah will be graduating in Spring of 2026.
Blues Clues | Yasmeen Owens
Growing up, I had a favorite television show I would watch religiously. I came home from kindergarten and made sure to get my homework done before the show started. I sit down in front of the television, waiting for the catchy theme music to begin and waiting for the main character Steve to ask me.
“Hello there, friend,” he says
“Hello, Steve,” I reply
“Have you seen Blue? My puppy,” he says
After scanning the screen, I found the cute little blue puppy hiding behind the green bush and screaming. “There she is,” I say.
Then the show starts as Blue comes out of her hiding place and goes into the house. As it zooms in closer, I’m introduced to the other characters like, Side Table Drawer is the keeper of the Handy Dandy Notebook, Tickety Tock, who is the adorable little clock and Slippery Soap called Slippery, for short, and lives in the bathroom of the Blues Clues House.
I was given a close-up of the purple door as it opened up with Steve greeting me, doing something interesting, whether in the kitchen making a snack for everyone in the home, or in the Big Thinking Chair. Steve would be telling me about what plans Blues has for me today, and just the pure excitement of trying to figure out what Blue wants to do today. Blue would always leave three paw-prints clues for Steve and me to find and to write down in the Handy Dandy notebook, and I would run quickly to grab my own Handy Dandy notebook and piece together all of the clues to figure out what Blue wants.
As time passed, while I watched the show, it took time to find the three paw-print clues. Steve then takes a short break to open up a letter from the Mailbox, he shows us a child telling him about their day. Then after the “We Just Got A Letter” theme song ends, we go back to figure out all the paw-prints clues and by the end of the episode, we figure out what Blue wants to do and our time and the episode for the day comes to an end.
I wave goodbye to Steve and Blue until the next day as the show ends and it goes to commercial.
I hear an announcement, “Blue's Clues will return right after the break.”
My face lights up upon hearing this news as I run upstairs to my grandmother while waiting for the next episode of Blue's Clues to come back on.
“Grandma, can I have a snack, please?” I asked her.
As the sun shines through the blinds, my beloved Grandmother finishes cleaning the kitchen. In response to my giggle, she gives me a warm smile and pats my head gently. I could hardly contain my excitement waiting for her to respond to my question as I played with my dog Yancey on the cold tile floor.
“Sure, Yasmeen, just give me a sec. Don’t give Yancey anything because she needs to eat her food first,” she says.
My grandmother opened up the white porcelain fridge to see what she could serve me for a healthy snack to eat while I was watching my favorite show of all time. Yancey is on her back as I rub her soft pink belly her fine golden fur shines in the sun as a bit of her fur sheds off her wagging tail.
“Here you go, Yasmeen, enjoy,” the grandmother says.
She hands me a flower-painted bowl filled with green grapes. The grapes look plump and sweet. When I pop one in my mouth, the tart fruit bursts, and it makes me cringe as the sour taste takes over my tastebuds. I thank my grandmother and go back downstairs to watch Blue's Clues.
The one thing that confused me was whether or not Blue was a girl or a boy puppy. When I see the color blue. I automatically thought that Blue was a boy. I kept tuning out the fact that Steve and the children kept saying “she.” In my mind, blue meant “boy” and pink meant “girl,” so it never occurred to me that Blue was a girl in the first place. It didn’t hit me until I entered high school, and I discussed with a bunch of my classmates, talking about misgendering our favorite cartoon character. When I realized that Blue was a girl and not a boy, as I initially thought, this blew my mind.
Another character, Blue's friend Magenta, was a girl who I thought was a boy because, in the old days, blue was associated with a boy, and pink was associated with a girl. But also in modern society, a girl can like blue and a boy can be very fond of pink. When I entered young adulthood, this question still confused me. I researched in more detail that all the main puppies in the show, including Blue, Magenta, and Green puppy, were all-girl dogs, and this interesting fact just blew my mind. I wonder how, in my younger years as a child, this little detail confused me so much as a young adult. I didn’t catch on to the sign sooner rather than later in life.
I remember when I grew up, my room changed different colors each time I was going to conform to the stereotypical gender norms. When looking back on this popular television show, Blue's Clues, my eyes have been opened to the fact that we can break down the gender barrier. As a girl myself, I love the color blue, and now boys love the color pink. My room changed from pink when I was around the age of five to lime-green, and I have no idea what even possessed me to pick that awful color in the first place. Then lastly, my favorite color is ocean blue, where the main wall of my room is painted this one color, and the other walls are painted swan white.
This circle of change from this supposedly girly girl to now a complete tom-boy where I can proudly say that I love the color blue in any shade. I want to thank the show Blue's Clues for showing me that a girl can love any color besides pink to let it define who I am as a person.
Yasmeen Owens is a published writer with her works published in The Rainbow Poem, Atlantis, Earth and Sky Anthology, Seabreeze Literary Magazine, Downright Creepy, Chrd Magazine, The Secret Society Of Poetry, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. She is also a Poetry Editor for Zoetic Press, DownRight Creepy. In her free time, she enjoys playing with her dogs Barney and Miracle, taking them on long walks, and reading a good book in her spare time. One day, she published her first novel series with the support of her family and friends.
Murphy’s Law | Jacqueline Skiadas
I start every day the same.
In some twisted way, I am Alice, stuck in Wonderland, and I must consider 10 impossible things before breakfast. The impossible things infect my thoughts—they are my thoughts—forever spiraling into the worst-case scenario as I attempt to exist for a day. From the moment my brain awakens, I am plagued with spiraling thoughts about the day ahead of me. One day–hopefully–my luck will turn for the better, but since I’ve entered my late 20s, it seems like life is just one bad event after another. I’m almost used to it being that way. So, for my sanity, I think of only 5, all while I’m in the safety of my bed, under my warm polyester comforter:
1) My alarm does not wake me in the morning. The screeching—which is closer to electronic singing, thanks to the new IOS update—soothes me like my mother’s calming voice, and I sleep the best I ever have. Instead of waking up at 7:00 am, I awaken at 7:28 am. Perfect. I think, just perfect.
I get up anyway, even though the day is already ruined, and head to the kitchen for some coffee, the chill from the dingy linoleum seeping through the soles of my feet, the cold tile floor grounding me. The bitter cold shifts to my toes as I reach up to the cupboard, my abdomen pushing against the not-as-cold greige laminate of the counter. I pour myself a cup of fresh coffee into my last clean mug— “Seize the day!” it says in faded rainbow letters—without any complications, and I bring the cup to my mouth, ignoring the sharp ache in my wrist. I realize before taking a sip that I don’t have any clothes on. Quickly, I walk back into my room, flip on the light switch coated in paint—the ‘landlord special’—and get changed into my work clothes. I think I’ll wear the baby blue shirt today, maybe with the khaki pants? I think as I sift through my closet. Michelle always says something nice about these, how the colors pop in the fluorescent office lights—or is her name Mary? Mary-Michelle will have her day made when she sees me with these on, although I only see her in the breakroom. She works in Quality Control. She’s good at what she does, and she controls the quality of my outfit. My perfect spotless outfit, completed with my stainless-steel watch.
Upon my second entrance into the kitchen, being much more awake, I catch a whiff of the stale, earthy smell of mildew. I ignore it, and I hop up and sit next to the sink and begin to drink my coffee when Murphy joins me on the counter. The sun has started to shine through the slim window behind me, warming the back of my head. He rubs against my arm and purrs, his whiskers tickling my skin.
2) Then, my cat spills my coffee onto my khaki pants. Damn it, Murphy. I suck the air through my teeth, quickly stand, and glare at my cat. “Oh–Murphy. He has no idea, none at all, of what he’s done,” I say, gritting my teeth. I start grabbing his little face and smooshing it softly. He meows in response.
Some days, I wish I were Murphy, and he were me, and I could spill his coffee onto his khaki pants. He doesn’t wear pants, so I would have to buy pants to put on my cat and spill coffee on him. That’s terrible. And a waste of money that I don’t have. This morning is making me think insane things.
It takes a moment, but once the adrenaline wears off, I feel the scalding pain seeping down my leg. This day is ruined, and the universe was trying to tell me that from the second I woke up. I should have taken the sign when my alarm didn’t wake me up on time. I should just get in bed and tell my boss I died and can’t come in today. Maybe my co-worker Martin will send flowers. Or would Mary? Would they have a party because I died? No, no, that would be too much. It’s only quarter-of-8—there’s still time. I head back into my room, flipping the chalky light switch, when I realize...
3) I didn’t do laundry this weekend. Because of course I didn’t. Why would I? That would’ve been too simple, too perfect. Too convenient. Too smart. I put a hand on my head and groan in frustration. Not me—instead, I spent the whole weekend filing reports and filling spreadsheets with the same two words: Labelled and Unlabeled. The same click-clack task over and over again.
I suppose my job could be a lot worse. Other people risk their lives to save others from fires, or do miraculous surgeries, or deal with snotty kids all day. All I do is stick labels on boxes and fill an Excel sheet in my off time. At least it’s easy. The worst I get is carpal tunnel.
Reluctantly, I reach into my hamper and grab the first pair of pants I see. They pass the smell test, although they don’t quite fit as well as they do after they’re freshly washed. I guess they’ll do the job for today. I really need to do laundry later. I can’t afford another day of lacking pants. Not again. I unbutton my khakis and let them fall to the ground, exposing me once again to the bitter cold air that my comforter should be protecting me from. No, no, stop. Today will be a good day. I breathe and accept the cold, stale air into my nostrils, allowing it to fill my lungs—and then I let it go. Murphy slinks around my ankles and lets out a “Brrrt.” I raise my wrist to check the hour. 7:50. Okay, there’s still time, as long as I leave now. I grab my bag from the table, which thankfully I packed last night, and fish my car keys out from the bottom as I head out the front door.
I’m met with the sight of my 2000-whatever red rust bucket of a vehicle, its dented front bumper and spare tire glistening in the sun. Despite its age, the car doesn’t give me many problems. Sure, it makes a few funny sounds now and then, but it gets me where I need to be. The car door creaks open, and I slump into the driver's seat, stretching to put the key in the ignition. My foot finds the brake, pushes it down, and I begin to turn the key when I hear...
4) Clunkclunkclunk GRRRRRRT, followed by a puff of smoke coming from the hood, and every single light on the dashboard illuminates simultaneously. Dread surrounds me like a predator hunting its prey, and any ounce of hope I had for the day escapes me. I exhale a series of obscenities and sink farther into the car seat. The universe is giving me every indication that I should stay home, get into my bed, apologize to Murphy for getting mad at him, and sleep the day away, far from anything else bad happening.
With my luck, especially today, the roof would collapse and kill me and my cat, so I’ll take my chances trying to get to work. Even if that means taking the bus. I hate the bus.
I begin to walk to the bus stop, which is about three blocks away, and check my watch again—I have to be at work at 8—it’s 7:55. My situation this morning is almost laughable. Can I even traverse 3 blocks in 5 minutes? On a day like today, anything is possible. I fasten my bag close to me and begin to run, my feet thumping on the sidewalk below me. The neighborhood around me becomes a blur of brick and siding and mailboxes whooshing past me as I dash down the street. Even in my haste and panic, I make sure not to step on any cracks or breaks in the pavement, as each of my shoes hits the center of the almost-square slabs. 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. Left, right, left, right, left, right...
I check the time again—7:58—I won’t make it. Not at this pace.
I veer to my right, through a yard and into the brush behind the house. I break through some shrubbery and run through the small wood between neighborhoods. I run and run, not stumbling on roots, avoiding the hanging sticks, and I soar through the thicket. I can make it. Branches and thorns tear at my clothes, leaves crunch beneath me, and suddenly I’m through to the other side. Slowing my feet, I take a second to reorient myself. Left. My pace quickens again, and I see the bus stop on the horizon ahead of me. I ignore the aching in my legs and the stitch in my side and continue running. Houses and mailboxes and people walking their dogs and murmuring to themselves rush by me as the bus stop gets closer and closer. I blink, and suddenly, I’m there. I made it. I can feel my heart pounding in every inch of my body, and a metallic taste fills my mouth as I sit at the bench and close my eyes.
After a moment, I hear the hissing of the bus and my eyes fly open. I stand, brush myself off, and steady my breathing as much as I possibly can.
5) I get on the bus.
As if that wasn’t bad enough by itself, I fumble through my wallet and realize that I don’t have a bus pass. Since I don’t have any other choice, I pay the $2.75 fee and find a seat by the window. The cold from the hard vinyl seat nips at me through my hamper-pants, and I lean my head on the window. I check the time again, and it’s 8 a.m. on the dot. Against all odds, it seems, I’m going to work this morning, even if I’m late. The bus jolts forward, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Bus rides have always scared me. The concept of a large, rectangular vehicle on the road withlots of people inside sends a shiver down my spine. Buses can cause so much damage to other cars, and vice versa. I don’t have a choice. I need to get to work. A gentle vibration and humming noise fill the otherwise quiet interior, ripping me from my thoughts and making it feel as though I’m on the bus alone. Maybe the bus isn’t so bad.
The bus continues to accelerate as it travels down the road, causing more and more bumps and jolts. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary; the city is notorious for disregarding the state of roads. There are potholes everywhere. Suddenly, the gentle humming is drowned out by the hard shaking of the vinyl and plastic and metal interior. The vibration that previously calmed me has transformed into a deafening, violent shudder throughout the entire bus. I open my eyes to see the area around the bus flashing past at breakneck speeds, reducing buildings and people to blobs of color around me.
“Excuse me,” I shout to the bus driver, but I get no response. I stand up, trying to steady myself, but another bump causes me to stumble back, and I grab an overhead handle to hold myself up.
“We’re going too fast!”
No other passengers are phased but are instead looking at me like I have six heads. “What? I’m not the one driving like a lunatic!” I shout, and I quickly consider the possibility that I could be overreacting. As I do so, I notice the bus approaching an intersection. We have a red light. The other cars surrounding the bus are starting to decelerate, but the speed of the bus is staying the same. Slow down.
“Hey!” I shout again, and a large bump sends me stumbling forward down the aisle. I steady myself on the overhead handles once again and continue towards the driver. “Slow down!” My heart pounds in my ears as I approach the driver. I try to shake him, but his gaze is glued forward. I look out the windshield, and, for a split second, I see a massive semi-truck crossing the intersection as we pass the red light. The bus smashes into the semi-truck, and the sound of shattering glass fills my ears as the windshield is destroyed. Then, a violent and deafening screech and the sound of metal creaking and tearing as the bus collides with the semi-truck. I feel my entire body get crushed and ripped apart and bend in every direction as the bus continues forward through the semi-truck. Everything comes to a stop.
6) The bus crashes.
The feeling of nothing engulfs me. I faintly hear sirens and screaming, but far off in the distance, nowhere close to me. Help is far, far away. I feel so much and nothing all at the same time. In front of me, I see Martin and Mary setting up the breakroom for a celebration of sorts. The room is filled with black balloons, coffee cups, and my coworkers all dressed in black, crying to each other while picking at the hors d'oeuvres. I guess I was right, I think, and I hear the words echo in my mind; They really would throw a party for me. I mean, I had to die for them to do so, but a party is a party.
Eventually, I feel myself begin to soar away. The feeling is eerily similar to when I was running to the bus stop just minutes ago, but instead of flying through a neighborhood forest, I am flying through a gigantic nothingness. It’s almost freeing in a way. Suddenly, everything that happened to me this morning—actually, everything that has happened to me ever—feels so minuscule now.
I feel myself float back to the bus, and my eyes fly open again. The bus has stopped, and there is a deafening hiss as the doors open. I stand up and leave.
And then, I walk into work.
The End
Jacqueline (Jackie) Skiadas is an Adolescent Education major with a concentration in English at SUNY New Paltz. This is her first time being published! She enjoys creative writing and drawing, and hopes to pass on her love for creativity to her future students.
Roadside Memorial | Saylor Skidds
She was driving down a gravel road. And you passed under a single flickering streetlight. And her hair was so red, the orange made it flash at you. It burned out your retinas one cone at a time while you were waking up. Somehow the orange and red were loud and brassy, like the worst kind of alarm clock. Like an air raid siren or the lights on an ambulance. She reached down and nudged your t-shirt, prodding you with her finger three times, while keeping her eyes on the road.
“Wake up, please.” She said, “It’s morning.”
“Are we almost there?” You asked.
“I don’t know.”
You sat up. You could feel the grinding of the gravel under the tires. The thing that had woken you up before the bright lights of the streetlamp, her hair and the sun, which you could now see was protruding out from the ends of the trees around you, was a large, bumpy rock the car had just passed over. That and the small, pointy pebbles you were passing over had started a series of quiet grinding sounds from the bottom side of the car. That couldn’t have been good, you had thought. But now wasn’t the time to ask.
“What does that mean, you don’t know?” You prod.
“I’m just not sure.” She was reaching down now, grabbing a bottle of water. There were only two left in the case, you noticed. And then she was holding it out to you. She smelled like a bizarre mix of iced tea and gasoline. When her mouth hit your ear, you wondered briefly if she would still remember your name. It had been so long since you last spoke, how could you have known?
“Laura, drink this. We won’t be able to stop for a while.”
You twist the cap open, the water is lukewarm by this point, but there was nothing left either of you could do about it. That car only had two air conditioning vents, one by the radio and one by the steering wheel. It was ridiculous, what else could you do? What else could either of you do?
“Are we at least close to the river? You said we have to pass that river to get to his house, right?”
“Probably? Check the map.” She had to raise her voice slightly. You heard the grinding noises from underneath the car getting louder. There was also a faint popping sound. You grabbed the map from the place you had folded it up on the dashboard last night. You flipped it upside down. Caitlin had circled Levi’s house in a blue pen at the start of the drive. You traced it with your finger and followed the road out from the house down to the river. It was a mess of interlocking tiny red, yellow and even more blue lines. It looked like your aunt’s varicose veins before her surgery. It looked like the cables on the inside of your old TV. “What’s the name of this road?” You asked Caitlin.
“I don’t know, okay?” She responded. “Why are you asking so many questions all of a sudden? This is just how TJ said the directions to me.” Her hands gripped tighter on the steering wheel. The grinding continued, and you could hear the scraping of metal against the rocky ground. Still, you didn’t want to mention it.
“When did you and TJ last talk about this?” You spoke.
“Four, five months? I don’t know!” She slapped her hands against the wheel. The car twisted slightly towards the trees to the right of the road. The grinding continued, and you could feel that something had shifted, that something was off. Somehow, Caitlin’s seat looked a good six inches higher than it needed to be. And your view out of the passenger window had dropped much, much closer to the ground. Still, you didn’t say anything. Why didn’t you say anything? Idiot. You were such an idiot.
“Do you have a better idea of where we should be? For all we know, we’re still going the right way!” She continued, but her voice was wavering. You could tell she didn’t know where she was going, she didn’t know if this road was a dead end. There were no houses anywhere, just a few of the flickering streetlights that had woken you up before. They were dimming now; the sun was rising higher and higher over the tops of the trees. You could hear birds in the bushes now, too.
“No.” You replied. “I’m not sure how to read the map,”
“Then be quiet and drink your water.”
You both stopped talking for a few minutes. You heard the wind in the trees, fewer crickets and more birds as the car rolled down the road. Once Caitlin had stopped talking, she relaxed her hands and her posture. When you turned, you could see her muttering to herself, something you couldn’t quite make out. Something about stupid plans, a bad idea. Something about the road and the state of the car, and what Casey and Levi would think about all this. She was right. In your heart of hearts, you knew that she was right. This was a terrible idea. This trip was a horrible plan. Neither of you had even thought the concept through that much, to be honest. And you were worried, too. You were so young. And you were so tired. And what was Levi going to think if Caitlin drove up to his house for the first week of her college semester and she told him she would have to take care of her stupid, stupidly curious little sister.
Once Caitlin had quieted down, her eyes widened. Now she could hear the grinding noises, and the scrapings of plastic and metal against stone. There was also the bouncing of small pebbles. Had something gotten inside of a pipe? You couldn’t tell. Neither could she.
“Shit.” She muttered. “That was a pretty big bump just then. What is going on?” The car had begun to slow down. She pressed her right foot down on the gas pedal harder, but the speed barely increased.
And then you saw headlights. And heard the honking of a horn. Someone moving at a much faster speed coming down the very small road directly at you. Caitlin was screaming. You were completely silent. Dragging and pulling the steering wheel as hard as she could, she swerved off of the road, missing a tree and stopping in a patch of grass against a large rock. You heard a thud, something on the bumper was going to be dented. Caitlin swore again, and you both got out of the car.
“So, sorry, ma’am.” A woman was stepping out of the other car, which had stopped on the road and was walking toward Caitlin. An older man climbed out of the driver’s seat and followed her towards your car.. “My husband hit a bump in the gravel and lost control of the vehicle, briefly. Are you both all right?”
Caitlin was standing at the back of the car, observing the exhaust pipe and the way the car was gradually elevated on one side. She gave a thumbs up to the woman and circled around the car. The old woman stood there, and she and her husband continued to chatter at and with Caitlin. You couldn’t hear much of it. It faded into a dull monotone as you walked towards the woods.
It was late summer, everything still had leaves. The cover was thick, it made the forest seem cramped, almost claustrophobic, so much more than it was in actuality. Only small rays of the now risen sun peeked through the thick cover. The trees were old, thick with twisting branches. Some were covered in hairy vines of poison ivy, some sported bulbous growths on the trunks that showed signs of deeper-rooted sicknesses and infestation.
You walked towards the one closest to where the car had stopped. There was a small white wooden cross erected at the bottom, a wreath of desiccated white roses and lilies resting on top of it. It was a roadside memorial. You wondered what kind of crash it had been, and how long ago it had happened. The cross gave no information except the name Emily painted across in blue calligraphy that must have once been gorgeous but was now peeling so much that the L was almost completely gone. You saw other memorabilia around the cross, too. Somehow you knew that the items were not connected to each other. There were splintering pieces of glass, the bottom half of a picture frame, and a young boy’s face on a scrap of paper pinned under the wood. There was a small bouquet of very old, dry chrysanthemums, a couple of dark red roses sprinkled throughout. You saw some water soaked pieces of paper, the remains of a letter written on them soaked beyond legibility. And there were two stuffed animals, a small rabbit and a replica of a dove with one of the wings ripped off.
“Laura?” Caitlin called out to you. The monotone had stopped; the couple must have driven oƯ already. “What are you doing? The car is mostly fine; we can keep going for a bit.”
You didn’t answer. You stepped closer to the tree. There was a small dark hole at the bottom of the tree, where the roots spread out around the memorial in a fan. You crouched, moving closer to it. You thought you could see the flash of the light against something reflective. “Laura? Let’s go!”
“Laura?”
“Laura!”
You stumbled on one of the thicker tree roots. You felt them twisting around you, like long, tapering fingers. One curled in on itself, like a rope, grabbing you by the ankle and pulling you down. You hit your chin when you hit the ground, biting your tongue hard. Blood filled your mouth and trickled down your lips. Another root grabbed two of your hands. You couldn’t prop yourself up anymore. You felt dirt against your skin as you were dragged closer to the hole behind the memorial, the direction had pulled up your shirt. You spit out a tooth and began to flail your free leg, trying to grab hold onto something, anything vertical to stop the slide. So much blood filled your mouth, you tried to scream, but there was only a bubble. And then you saw nothing. You saw nothing, you couldn’t make a sound. You heard Caitlin call your name one time before your hearing was cut off. You felt the scraping of thorns against your ankles and the dampness of more blood against dirt. You brushed against something smooth, something with hair and limbs and eyes and nails, and briefly realized it was a human body—Emily?—before dirt covered your face, filling your nose and mouth, piling up in your lungs and pressing down on your ribcage. You could feel the cloth of shirts against your toes, a tangled mass of hair not far off. The bitter, acidic black soil filled your throat, pressing down on your esophagus like a rock. You could feel an undulating, small strip of flesh pulsating in your throat. Dirt mixed with blood on your lacerated ankles as the wounds began to clot, and the dirt was in your skin, and the dirt was in the bloodstream now. Your ears were filled with soil, a beetle burrowed itself in your left eardrum that you had not noticed. But then you couldn’t even feel the blood against the soil or the dirt in your lungs or the place where your hand was against a human arm, and at that point you were gone.
Saylor Skidds is an English major at UAlbany from Rhode Island. This is their first time being published in ARCH. In their free time Saylor enjoys reading, sewing, and volunteering at the library.
Windows | Saylor Skidds
I am seven years old when I discover that rocking back and forth on the edge of the church pews makes my stomach drop like it does on roller coasters. The pews are made of blond wood and have rounded backs. The edges of the pews are slightly raised and form a kind of rounded berm. After Mass I like to slide back and forth on them or race matchbox cars from one end to another. They always end up slipping off that perfectly rounded edge. When my great grandmother kneels from the pews to pray, she loses her balance on that little berm and stumbles as she pulls out the riser. I never get caught. Mom is the church musician, so she doesn’t sit with us, and Dad always sits at the end of the pew, with my brother and I inside next to him. To him, it just looks like I have unusually good posture I don’t have anyplace else.
My family usually goes to the 11:00 mass on Sunday mornings. One time we have to go to the 5:00 mass on Saturday night. I don’t know why. My mom plays the organ, so she gets there before us. She rides with a friend. Dad, my brother and I take her car, so we get to park in the staff spaces right by the front steps. There’s a visiting priest this week. He drives a small dark green Camry. It’s parked right next to us.
I’m not used to going to church at night. The light pours out the windows instead of in. The stained-glass windows look gray and flat. Each window is a station of the cross and has a smaller window beneath with a different picture on it. The pictures always seem random to me. There are also stained-glass windows higher up toward the ceiling with psalms and pictures of bread and fish on them. Dad, Aidan and I always sit in the little alcove near the organ so we can be close to Mom. I like to stare across the church and look at my favorite window, a little one with a basket of bright red roses. Tonight, all the lights inside are on and from where I’m sitting the roses look boring and dark and are no longer surrounded by vibrant green.
When we go to church on Sundays, I leave at the beginning and go into the basement for the children’s mass. Mom has a special musical interlude she plays on the piano to serenade the children out the door. They don’t have any of that on Saturday nights, so I have to listen to the adult homily.
I don’t pay attention well in regular church. There’s so much to look at! At least children’s mass is in a bland downstairs classroom, so I can just focus on my coloring or whatever. But upstairs there are stained glass windows next to me, above me and behind me. I crane my neck around to look at the giant one behind the choir loft. Our nook by the organ also has a really good view of the cry room, so I can watch the little kids through the big glass window. I always feel a sense of superiority over them. Even though my brother and I argue, we are never, ever sent in there. I count the planks on the hardwood floor. I like to sort through the collection envelopes. For some reason it’s really important to me to use them to bookmark all the songs we sing for that day’s mass. I make designs in the nubby carpet. I crane my head upward to look at bees on the bushes in the garden. And, of course, there is my aforementioned rocking.
So, I don’t pay much attention to the priest that day. I figure since he isn’t usually here, he isn’t that important. One of the deacons introduces him. He says he’s from New Hampshire. I have no reason to pay him special attention. Because of this, I now don’t remember his name or a single word of his homily. What I do remember is the standing ovation he gets when he’s done.
I make a move to stand up. I go to the theater all the time with my grandma because my brother can’t stand it. Standing ovations are just something you have to do. It doesn’t matter whether you agree that they are warranted or not. You just do it. But I feel a firm hand pressing on my shoulder.
“Don’t clap.” Dad says. He speaks out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t look at me. I sit back down. So does my brother, who had been about to clap his hands.
The rest of the Mass passes as usual. Like always, we stay behind to greet Mom after she’s done playing music. We have to wait for her to be done packing up because we were all going to ride home in the same car. Our family walks out the door together and we make our way to the staff parking lot. The green Camry has all its windows smashed in. There is a large scrape near the trunk that wasn’t there when we arrived. Two old women in walkers who had been rolling down the ramp nearby have paused to stare. One makes it to the bottom of the ramp and takes out her phone.
Saylor Skidds is an English major at UAlbany from Rhode Island. This is their first time being published in ARCH. In their free time Saylor enjoys reading, sewing, and volunteering at the library.
Vampire Story | Saylor Skidds
It was incredible, Deborah thought, how much she and all the movies had gotten it wrong. It wasn’t sexy. None of this was remotely sexy. Deborah lay sprawled on the damp sand, her legs splayed out in the low tides. She gasped and wheezed, and felt her body spasming in ways and places she could not control. She had wanted it, but she hadn’t anticipated how violated she would feel. She had never thought that Nathaniel, on top of her, could have ever looked so different. So unlike himself. So bestial.
“Don’t you want to live forever?” Nathaniel had asked her.
“Don’t you want to have talent?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to create something that would outlive you?”
“You’ll never get there in your lifetime, at the rate you’re going. You don’t have enough time to build up your skills or hone in your craft. You’re getting old. We both are, but I started this all younger than you. You need a shortcut. I can give it to you, if you want.”
It had started so simple when he said it. After that, after all of the whispers of forbidden things, he had talked like it was some sort of business deal. I drink your blood, you drink mine, he said. It’ll be relatively quick after that, it’ll only take one night, he said. It’ll only take one night. One long, excruciatingly painful night. Then you’ll be a creative supernova. Deborah could feel several thousand pinpricks under her skin at first. Briefly, she wondered if this was anything like the experiences of hypothermia. The pinpricks then seemed to elongate, and Deborah started to think that there were knives in her bloodstream, reaching out, bones snapping and slicing through her skin. Only there were no ruptures, no blood trickling down her arms or legs. She wanted to scream, she wanted to beg for mercy, she wanted to push Nathaniel off of her. But he had one hand pressed over her mouth as he worked his way down, biting her in various places on her body. It was fruitless to try. And somehow Deborah knew that it would be too late to do anything anyway.
The pain had started quickly, spreading like a virus over Deborah’s extremities. But just as quickly it stopped. No, not quite. It didn’t stop, so much as Deborah went numb. As numb as if she had been doused in ice cubes, as if she was underwater in the winter ocean in front of her. Where she had twitched and pushed against Nathaniel, she now went limp. She was now detached from her body, only her head and neck were still mobile. Her mind was the only active organ, and then she blacked out.
The next thing that Deborah remembered was waking up in the motel room she had been staying in. She had met Nathaniel at a writer’s conference, and he had invited her to an after party on a beachfront property that night. She had been thrilled to meet him. Deborah loved his writing, and she had approached him first in an autograph line. They were both over fifty, some of the oldest in the crowd. Nathaniel had been responsive, and in a moment of boldness Deborah asked him to read the only essay she had brought with her. She hadn’t been able to write much of anything for a very long time. It had been very embarrassing, walking around all that time with just a few sheets of paper and nothing else. Graciously, Nathaniel had agreed to read the essay. He had liked it, evidently. One thing led to another, she told him about her writer’s block and her worries about being too old to try to do any of this, and she was here now.
The sun was shining out of the dingy window. Deborah noticed something on the side table, tucked underneath the portable alarm clock. A small index card covered in the same fluid script that was on the fly-leaf of the novel she brought for Nathaniel. It was written in a strange blotchy and watery red ink. At first, Deborah thought it was something like beet or cranberry juice. People wrote with those sometimes, right? But then Deborah picked it up. She ran her hand along the lines, smelling the blandness of the paper. She could smell so much better now. Smell so much more. And Deborah’s nose picked up blood.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for giving me such a good drink last night. You passed out once I was done, so you didn’t get to drink my blood. That’s too bad. I wish that I could come back for you, but I have to leave to catch my plane. Have a drink today. I recommend it. If you don’t, in twenty-four hours you won’t be able to do it again. You won’t be able to do anything again. It would be better if you drank from me, but it is what it is. You can find someone. It can be pretty much anyone. And after that, you’ll have the muse, the talent.”
Deborah dropped the index card on top of the alarm clock. A ray of sun peeked through the dirt and grime on the foggy window glass, and hit her skin. Deborah panicked at first, thinking of all the stories she knew. It was her writing hand, too. But after a moment, she calmed down and waited. After a while, it seemed to her like the myths were wrong. The sun wouldn’t kill her, she’d just have to be careful. She felt a fraction of the pinpricks she had felt last night. It was tolerable, just a little uncomfortable. She withdrew her hand and began to get dressed and to clean up.
Last night was the final night of the conference. The college where it had been was an hour away from her house. As Deborah tidied the room and put her clothes in her bag, she contemplated her choices. Deborah could drive home, but it’d be better to kill someone here. Someone in her hometown could be easily traced, and she wanted to get this done early. Picking a person who people wouldn’t notice would be such a hassle, too. Yes, she decided. She’d kill somewhere near the college, and quickly. Or she could hitchhike. She’d try that first.
Deborah picked up her bag and left the motel room, locking the door behind her. She dropped the key on a small wicker table on the patio. There was no time to return it. After that she walked to the end of the parking lot and stood directly under the motel sign. The highway was busy and the motel was popular. This wouldn’t take too long. And it’d be better than killing someone at the college. Less of a trail, less hassle.
The day was starting, she didn’t have to wait long. A large red pickup truck stopped by the motel sign where she stood. A man reached over and pushed the passenger door open. He leaned over so he could see and hear her. Deborah didn’t want to tell him who she was. It was better to be cautious. She didn’t think that anything would go wrong, but it would be her first time. Better safe than sorry. So Deborah didn’t give him her name.
“My date went home without me,” She called out to him. “I’m not from around here. Could you drive me to the nearest bus stop so I can get home?” Normally, she wouldn’t do this. She knew about stranger danger. She knew about how to script her interactions. If she was doing this before last night, Deborah would have never revealed this much, even if it was a lie. But right now Deborah knew that she could prevent anything the driver would be able to do. Deborah knew that she was different now.
“Of course,” He said. “Of course I’ll help you. Hop in,” He said. “I’ll get the heater going.” And he did just that relatively quickly. Deborah climbed up into the narrow seat and was greeted by a blast of hot air. The air was some part secondhand smoke, some part diesel. The man didn’t tell her his name, either. Maybe he didn’t think of it right away. But he did begin to talk. “You’re lucky I picked you up. It’s still early, not many vehicles out on the road right now.” He kept chattering, and Deborah kept up a serene facade, but she could tell something was off. He seemed decent enough on the surface, and before last night she wouldn’t have seen or heard anything different, but somehow now she could tell that his intentions didn’t match his friendly exterior. She could sense it.
He didn’t want to help her, not really. That was what Deborah immediately knew. This would be perfect, she decided this right then and there. This was the ideal first drink. She knew from the ride here by bus that the next stop wasn’t for a while. She had plenty of time to get this done. The area around the motel was practically deserted, and the road was pretty much empty. So Deborah decided to amuse herself a bit before she had her drink.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Many times, in fact?” Deborah asked.
“Picking up people to give them rides to the bus stop? Sure. Pretty girls? Yeah, a few times.” He replied.
“Not like that, I mean after you’ve picked them up. I mean what you’re thinking about right now? What you’re planning to do at the next turn-off? Or behind a strip mall?”
“How many have you done that to? Do you even know yourself?”
“I…” The man trailed off. “Lady, I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to be nice.”
“They’re all with you now. They travel with you.” Internally, she was smiling now. This was fun. This could be fun. Who knew? “They’re telling me how much you’ve hurt them. And they’re asking me to act on their behalf.”
“What-what the fuck are you-?”
The truck veered off the road, landing in a wide, muddy ditch. Deborah grabbed at the driver, turning his neck up and bringing her teeth down on him hard. It didn’t taste sweet like she had predicted. It wasn’t alcoholic or addictive in any way. It didn’t make her feel inebriated or especially pleasured. It was simply the coldest, purest, freshest drink of water she had ever had, with only a slight metallic taste. Like she had thought with Nathaniel, it wasn’t sexy when you were the attacker, either. Not even a little bit. But it was as though Deborah had been in a desert, slowly dying of thirst before this moment, and she hadn’t even realized. She hadn’t even been able to comprehend her initial state of deprivation. And now that she knew what being sustained felt like, how alive she could now feel, she knew it would be impossible for her to return to her previous state.
When the truck driver’s body was dry and limp, when she was so full she couldn’t take another sip, when she cleaned her hands and face of bloody smears and took off her stained sweater, she opened her duffel bag. Deborah found the legal pad she had been taking notes on during the conference. She wiped her hands on her sweatpants again, and grabbed a ballpoint pen she saw in the cupholder. Tearing away the two sheets of printed lists and notes, Deborah began to write.
Saylor Skidds is an English major at UAlbany from Rhode Island. This is their first time being published in ARCH. In their free time, Saylor enjoys reading, sewing, and volunteering at the library.