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The Jews of ArlingtonBy The Sparrow Goddess QuailBellMagazine.com I don't usually learn anything from Washingtonian except where to waste my money. Glam, glam, spa, spa, click and clack in high heels I put on credit at Tysons Galleria. Yet today I read an essay in People & Politics that made me spill my $5 macchiato. It transported me to Arlington pre-Brown v. Board, when the county felt Southern, not like a regional mutt walking a tightrope with sandbags tied to its skinny ankles. Title: “Our Own Kind: Growing up Jewish in Arlington of the 1950s meant being singled out as different—by classmates, teachers, even the neighborhood we lived in.” While in the sidebar: “7 Must-Have Drugstore Beauty Products for Your Gym Bag.” I don't need your rants, your instructions, and your exclamations re: my lifestyle. I need truth and insight and humanity; I need more honesty, more candor. Tell me how it is to be black today and Latino tomorrow in this vast suburbia speckled with monuments. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Lunch BreakBy Belle Byrd QuailBellMagazine.com Rush out the door and to the car without making eye contact.
Mutter good-bye if necessary and be sure to trip over yourself. You'll learn discretion on Year Two of the job—not 6 mos. in. The timer goes off in an hour, so you should return in 57 min. Do not take the Metro because it's liable to stall or get stuck. You should have packed food because a sandwich costs $10. You could grab a bench in the park if there were any left. Unless you work in Chinatown or on the Mall, forget getting lost in an exhibit, traveling back centuries until you hardly remember you pay $2K/mo for a “loft style apartment” on U Street where you never went as a little girl, pre-office. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The New PalaceBy Claire LeDoyen QuailBellMagazine.com The New Montgomery Palace. Wooden floors on the first. Go-go cage on the second. Barbecue place, waitstaff cute girls in jean shorts and tank tops too smart and too good for you. The food was too good for us. Two plates for thirty. “Who do they think we are—the Rockefellers?” So we rewound out. Back in the car. Where to eat? Our flasks empty, we needed food. So—the King. In our heels, legs stretched like spiders, we went down the streets & sidewalk in black and dancing shoes. Spangling eyelids batting at burgers. The two Whoppers; we whopped back. The New Montgomery Palace, drunker than before. Wooden floors on the first, black lights and lips on the second. Hot place. Young girls in high heels and free Coke at the bar. No, Coca-Cola. I got a free Coca-Cola at the bar on the second floor that night. About an hour and a half after we got in. The doorman believed I was on the list. He asked and I said yes. We were wearing our glitter and mirrors well, neon accents refracting off of our clothing. There was a door on the floor to the second that closed out the light from the first. Our names were on the list anyhow. Tiffany and Nala. We walked up more stairs looking prettier by the second. Music? Above us. Not normal, electronic and foreboding. The steps led to a blue light glowing through the cracks in the door; we opened and the floor exploded to a globe of strobe lights and characters, the aftermath of a glitter-bomb. No, a baby of the Big Bang of raves. The music pounded in waves through the ocean floor. Striped thigh-highs and fierce girls, twenty-somethings dancing arms up. Men intimidated leaned against the bar, against the hot sauce cabinet, sipping glasses glowing blue in the light. I saw Chris’ legs before I saw him. Jet black stripper heels ejected from skinny legs wrapped up tight in fishnets. A black mini-skirt flounced in pink above his hips. He was facing the stage, untangling microphone and keyboard cords. Chris is in a band called Pristina Tsetse. They are four synthesizers and an electric drumkit. Everyone else in the band wears suits. There was a woman in white, writhing above us all. Tiffany was gone, probably into the sea. A man—a woman? A man in a dress sidled up next to me. “I love your style,” he gushed. “My name’s Amber.” And before I could tell her that I was Nala who liked his dress, I saw Chris climb atop a speaker. The black lights pulsed. “We’re Pristina Tsetse,” he snarled. The synths hit a gloomy note loud and the crowd screamed. The beat was dark, harsh and insistent. Chris pulled another pair of bright pink fishnets over his head, robbery style. “We’ve come to steal your fucking souls!” The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
MargaretSelect pages from a wordless narrative about loss and grief.
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Nikolai, or the Prodigal RoommateBy Adreyo San QuailBellMagazine.com Last night you kept me awake with your tossing and turning and muttered curses about the sublimity of dreams unexplained. And today you are gone leaving a damp-sock absence in your wake. Infinitely harder to bear. Adreyo Sen, a resident of Kolkata, India, is pursuing his MFA at Stony Brook, Southampton. He has been published in Danse Macabre and Kritya. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Lip Service, The Guilty PleasureFleece and Fiddle Faddle and film—the makings of a February weeknight,
for we appreciate the highly intellectual art—the seventh, in fact—of cinema. Down-market living, up-market thinking! We log into our trial Netflix account, perched on our futon, scrolling through the laptop checked out from the library. Fellini, oh, yes—we could do that, but what about...? Some other foreign thing? That page, please...hmmm...fabulous! That Latin American director is perfect! But it's getting late; we need something light. A comedy? Classic, of course. You're so right. Audrey Hepburn's a doll! Or would you prefer Shirley Temple? No, not now. Too sentimental. Too predictable. Maybe an old television show? Television? Is it 'Telly Tuesday' now? Because it started out as Tarantino Tues-- Shut up! Can't we admit what we're burning to watch? Lesbians in Glasgow... ...I was afraid I'd have to say it first. Load it up then. I'll get more Fiddle Faddle. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Rhetorical questions?By Ellie Fisher QuailBellMagazine.com Do bubbles exist that don’t go pop?
Pop only sounds like pop to us because we like to give things names, don’t we. What is this, a poem?? Do you think a question mark is shaped like an ear too? If a person falls down a lot of times and nobody has seen them fall, how are we supposed to know if they eventually got up or not. More importantly, if someone if wearing jean leggings and they prefer not to call them jeggings, who’s going to stop them. Why not? Ask yourself, is it worth it? You’d rather not, am I right? I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but the difference between a person who questions people’s motivations and an asshole is what we’ve got names for. Get it? The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Meeting Sylvia PlathIn my dream, I walk alone on a midnight street that spins below my feeti. I shut my eyes and blot out the moon that hangs high over the colorful gables. When I open them again, the colors have been washed away, and I stare at a gray winter landscape. Sylvia Plath suddenly appears at my side. We are silent, she and I, as we walk the gray street. I notice her softly curled hair and narrow chin. Her lips are luminous, contrasting with the colorless world around us, a circle of red that draws me to her.
I want to ask her why she’s here, why we are walking through the streets, but I’m afraid that she’ll disappear, that I’ll lose this time with her. I know that she is dead, that she is visiting me from the other side. This doesn’t frighten me. The street fans out in a slow arc to the right and the houses begin to gain color: a splash of pink on a windowsill, a swath of blue on a door. Soon the neighborhood is awash in color and the lawns sprout greenii. She was ten when my mother was born and wrote poetry, like my mother does now; twice she took too many pills and left her children without a mother. I wonder, does Sylvia visit her children in their dreams? She shows me her hands, which are covered in blood, red like the luminous color of her lips, with a hole in the center of her palms. “I carried the cross,” she says. Her voice is smooth, melodious, and I am enchanted by her words, which spring from metaphor. “I sacrificed so that others could spring from my head,iii” she says. Small eyes peer at me from below raised eyebrows. I see my reflection there; it’s as if I’ve sprung directly from their watery depths. We arrive at a house, a brick brownstone with eight windows. I have the sense that we are in London. Or Cambridge. Or any place that houses the intellectual. She holds the key to the brownstone in her hands. Black, gilded numbers hang from the brick: 23 Fitzroyiv. As she fits the key into the lock, the moonlight reflects on the metal mail slot, and I am aware that the moon has accompanied us the entire journey. I walk through the door and look back. Behind me, Sylvia is gone. Was she ever really there? I turn back to enter the shadowy house. A man is sitting in the library, a pouty look on his face, his angular nose casting shadows. His glasses are perfect black O’s, like the shape of Sylvia’s red mouth. “So, you’ve come here to learn,” he says in a thick Irish brogue. Wavy white hair perfectly crests above his head, like an ocean wave receding from the shore. “I don’t know why I’m here,” I answer honestly. “Quite right, quite right,” he chuckles and then says, “Whatever you do, don’t take the pills.” And he holds out his hand, a thin slice of moonlight illuminating the pills in his palm. I walk to the window in the library and look out into the streets, which are coming alive. “Where are we?” I ask the man behind me. But when I turn to hear his answer, I see that he is gone. A quill pen is lying on neatly penned pages that cover the desk. I see his signature on an old parcel post label; it is barely legible, but I make out the name: WB Yeats. Turning back to the window, I see people spilling out of their brownstones, briefcases and bags in their hands. A violet sky heralds the early morning. I realize that I’ve been up all night and I go in search of a bed. |