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Angel in WaitingDirector: Tykeya O'Neil Photographer: Jasmine Thompson Stylists: Lindsey Story and Sidney Shuman Model: Tiffany Nunn Writer: Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Delicious death, the savior of dreams
I am destined for the truest indigo a most veritable violet unknown to this earth The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The HoleBy Kelsey Rothenay QuailBellMagazine.com Margaret has stuffed her left index finger in a hole in the wall of a cliff to keep out the surge of water that will destroy her world. In a small city at the center of a valley closed in on all sides by vertical cliffs, the days are short. It is a cold desert landscape, stark and isolated. There are no cracks in the sheer walls. If you were to stand at the base and look directly up, your insides would shift, knowing that the wall was lurching down to crush you in slow-motion like a stone wave. There are shadows everywhere in the canyon city of X; it only takes four hours for the sun to slither across the scab of empty sky visible from the ground. The rest of the day is twilight. There are no cracks in the perpendicular cliffs enclosing it except for one. Margaret is a quiet orphan. She stands shivering in the twilight of her tenth hour of protecting the city. Her eyes are slits as she watches the nicotine-yellow beard of her “uncle,” the old man, bobbing up and down toward his hollow chest as he sleeps. His head hangs low, and the bent aluminum chair looks like it could crumble under his slight weight. Ten hours ago, she stood at the cliff celebrating her thirteenth birthday, the age where most people in the town are tall enough, and considered responsible enough to guard the city. The old man had lit a candle on a stale cupcake that he had carefully decorated with small blue stars. He didn’t smile, but his face was less cold than usual when she looked up at him. She blew out the candle and ate the cake. Her face was a tombstone. Then she carefully put her finger into the crack as Nate the butcher removed his. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Natural WorldBy John Grey QuailBellMagazine.com Above my swing, nothing but the boughs of the tree and wind swaying in the apples. I read the New York picture book, thy brown ants imitating people, taxis, and the roots, the arteries in and out of town. I push myself to the top of the Empire State Building, hold my heart above the gangling spire, shake and shudder and sing the songs of Broadway, and yes, one apple falls. I once asked my mother if I could eat a fallen apple. She said we didn’t even grow apples. Back and forth, crisscrossing my fingers, the silver waters of the fish pond. Japanese carp glide by, their mouths opening now and then in routine “O’s,” maybe saying something in the language of the gill and dark round eye but who can translate bubbles. I once asked my mother were the fish bored by constant circling of such a tiny pool. She said, “Of course not.” In the garden, a yellow and blue butterfly, thin as skin but quicker than my hand. And in the gutter, wasps crowd close. Inside the barn, many a spider spins graves for unwitting insects or threads for hands to burst. And the neighbor’s girl comes over, stands and watches me, says not a thing. In a field, I run like a horse but a horse only runs to feel itself free while I am prepared to race from here to Paris but for the ocean in between. I once asked my mother if God was real, and she admonished me with, “Don’t ask such questions.” And the neighbor’s girl, on her third attempt, bored with her own silence, begins to speak. “My name is Hilda,” she says. It was long before my mother warned me about having anything to do with our neighbors. But by then, the apple had truly fallen. And God, how we ate of it. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
LarksongBy Janet Shell Anderson QuailBellMagazine.com Joshua Quiver’s dead, shot in Rapid protecting some Waisechu. In the far, green meadows, larks sing. But the sun walks out of Gethsemane Cemetery, into storm, and the rain comes down on my village, Wambli, on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. One text, one sentence, and it’s as if the end of time walked out under the fan of dark cloud. I can hardly breathe. The rain talks and talks, and I can taste its words. It talks about time. I’m Regina Poorbear, third-grade teacher at Crazy Horse School, merit scholar, winner of prizes in science and mathematics at the University of Nebraska, twenty-two years old. I want to teach a Lakota genius in mathematics in the high school someday. And I will. I know it. I love Joshua Quiver. Loved. It’s April; all the prairie’s green, out to the dark sky, out to badlands, the Mako Sica, out to the end of the world. I’ll teach a Lakota genius in high school that time is an arrow, but I don’t know why that’s so. Why does time only move one way? The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Cafe EmpireBy Alexander C. Kafka QuailBellMagazine.com We were expecting you-- about thirty years ago but your table's still waiting. Just sweep away the roaches. The coat-check girl passed out from the smell. You see, her predecessor hung himself and they can't cut down the body till the coroner comes-- which won't be till the ticket goes through and the printer's out of ink. Could be a while-- so, um, maybe don't check your coat. The bartender's bringing your port, but even with his walker the tray's unsteady and I see much of it has already spilled. Didn't help that he had to get around the barback, who when she should've been cutting moldy lemons, was juggling soap bubbles from the backed-up sink-- ever so slowly-- and they kept popping on her eyebrow rings. The head waitress will read you our specials. Pay no mind to the blood on her cuffs. She's a cutter, but it's more or less under control since her pot-bellied pig returned and she started shooting up. We have cold cuts. That's about it. We can warm them if you like. Tip the musicians, won't you? But don't wake them. Those fiddles haven't been tuned in ten months. Where'd your date go? Was she put off by that urchin under the table gumming your shins? That's not uncommon here. Picaresque, we think. The peasant soul and all that shit. Enjoy. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Sandbox ScriptBy Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Child #1 throws sand in Child #2's face. Child #2 cries. Child #1 laughs. Child #2 stops crying and throws sand in Child #1's face. Child #2's mother's storm toward Child #2, grabs him by the wrist, and pulls him away from the sandbox. Child #1 laughs and starts playing by himself. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Buried TreasureBy Beth J. Whiting QuailBellMagazine.com Lisa and Dill were both ten. It was a hot summer afternoon. They were in Lisa’s backyard. Her mother had just asked them if they wanted to go the grocery store or not. They declared the offer. They were sitting in the backyard. Dill was kind of a nerd. He wore thick black glasses and wore striped polo shirts. He usually wore corduroy or slacks. Lisa was kind of a tomboy. She had been his best friend since the third grade. No one really liked Dill except Lisa. He was kind of annoying but he was better than the other boys. The boys her age tended to be mean and he was sensitive. So Lisa liked him. “You know,” he said, “I’ve heard of people finding buried treasure in their backyards.” “Yeah, I’ve heard of people finding worms there, too.” “No, I’m serious. I think there’s buried treasure in your backyard.” She smiled, “Why not your backyard?” “There’s nothing but weeds there.” Lisa rolled her eyes. She didn’t understand Dill. He’d been here only ten minutes and he was speaking of buried treasure. You could see there was nothing special in this yard except the lemon tree. There were two other trees. The lemon one was in the corner. Other than that it was just concrete. “No, Dill, I don’t want to spend two hours digging for nothing.” “I’ll give you ten bucks.” Lisa knew he had the money for it. Dill, unlike her, had an allowance. His parents were well off. His father was an attorney who advertised locally about car accidents. Lisa didn’t understand why his parents had him. They were always elsewhere. She knew that when he wasn’t with her, he was reading an encyclopedia. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Thirty Days and Nights of Literary AbandonDear fledglings,
It's National Novel Writing Month, which means that all of you who aspire to one day see your prose on QuailBellMagazine.com or in Quail Bell Express should jump to your keyboards. We always enjoy reading your submissions for The Unreal. Why not fill our inbox with even more magical stuff this month? Feel free to send along excerpts of your novel or novella. If you send us the whole thing, we might even pay tribute to those bygone days by publishing your novel in installments. Even if you give up and only write a paragraph, we want to read that paragraph. Just don't forget our submission guidelines. Now get to writing! Feathery Hugs, The Quail Bell Crew The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The CyclistBy Jessica Reidy QuailBellMagazine.com Florence caught our steps with smooth stone streets and the sound scattered through the alley. The walls with chipping sunflower paint tossed our noises back to us like lucky clattering coins. Len and I had been travelling for only a few days, and we had already managed to forget our route. We made our way under dark blue scaffolding and I clicked my tall boots beside his steel-toed shuffle. The sun was chariot-bright but the air was painted with the dry note of winter—my green hands reddened. Occasionally I glanced and smiled back at Len, absorbing the day building itself up from morning. We lingered in front of a Russian train-set enthusiast shop, its door gaping open-mouthed. The shop was filled with men in hats and thick woollen coats, turning over trains in their thick wintered hands. Len, the enthusiasts, and I all turned at the sound of a bicycle, chiming a wild proclamation, untranslated to the street. A bicycle with wheels wheel as thick as a milk snake rolled around the corner, through a brown arch between artfully decaying buildings. The cyclist issued an explosion of poetry--his mouth stretched wide under his dark, greasy eyes, whitened with excitement. He had a hurried, bombastic breath, rising and plummeting, clanging along with his bicycle bell beside a wicker basket. A feral cackle, and his gray lumpy coat fluttered behind him as he passed. Len’s steel toe stepped forward onto my plastic heel and ripped the bottom off. My pen exploded in his pocket. Ink spread like a wound over his heart. He stared at my heel on January’s pavement; his eyes watered. The capped Russians slid out of the open door uniformly, bemused and holding their trains. |