Kazden Bracket
Fieldwork
Henry Woodland
The Experiment
Jscob Elordi Poem
Olive Parker
Bones and the Angel
T.C. Hell
A flat massive thing already
Of all the squares in the city, we like this one best. We meander here after work, outside the old charnel house. We like this glazed beach, sanded porcelain flush and gridded. We sag in too-narrow Sipsmith loungers, taking loads off weary pins. We like the bronze statues of rescued elephants, cute, shiny, and denatured. QR codes etched in their hooves and trunks. We like to scan to donate. We like the patch
of grass, the potted trees. We like it when they put up the big screen and play tennis or women’s football. A perfectly gentle volume, the commentators’ accents washing over us like assorted textures of satisfying slime. Crunchy and smooth. Gunky and fluffy. Jelly and custard. Feta dip. Hottest day of the year, and not one single smell in the air. We like that too. On evenings like this, we all remember that this truly is the Land of Pizza Express.
The old charnel house is so very reflective. Children play in its shine, spattered by the memorial water feature. They run through the jets. No shoes, no tops, concrete splashing up their ankles. The fountain’s choreography is erratic, making this a risky game. Right on cue a fat one is despatched by a series of spurts. The spurts merge into a rigorous gush, dropping him to his knees and soaking all the way through his shorts. He emits a bloodcurdling scream. Everyone
looks. We like the sound of children playing, in fact it’s one of our favourite noises, but only at a perfectly gentle volume please. Christian, shouts a young woman. Surely an au pair. She’s lying on a cube of polished granite with silver trimmings, perfect vantage for the fountain. On her back with one sandal slipped off, the other half-gone and dangling, bare legs crossed in the enervating air. She’s
one-third through the new novella by a poet I’ve never met but heard things about. I wonder if I should go over and tell her what a sexist pig he is, but I don’t want to lose my lounger. She puts the book down, looks at chubby little Christian, jumping among jets like a happy bouncy ball, then takes out her phone. The book, on her bare stomach now, is crinkly and warped with sweat. Breeze lifts the pages in a languid, can’t be arsed sort of way. It’s got a nice cover
at least.
A man is at my feet. I notice him when he says sorry mate. I’m embarrassed by having been caught looking so intently at the au pair. He has also entered at an unfortunate angle, being at nose height with my heavily-socked feet.
That’s alright, I say. A compulsive and meaningless reply.
City’s on fire, he says.
Yes, I nod, yes it is. I laugh because his voice has the feeling of a joke.
I need to get in there, he says, pointing at the ground with both hands.
Me too, I say and laugh again. Then I see that he’s pointing specifically at a trapdoor set into the floor of the square, demarcated with shiny metal edges. My feet are suspended just above.
Oh sorry, let me move.
No worries mate, I can get in. He must work for the city. He starts rattling through a chunky bunch of strangely-shaped municipal keys. I ask him what’s down there.
Water, he says. Not for drinking though. Don’t get any ideas. He wags a finger and laughs. I laugh back, wondering if I look like someone who drinks a lot of water.
Could do with some meself, he says and huffs comically. We both laugh. This is a bloke who holds friendliness at the centre of his being. The kind of guy who talks about getting on with everyone.
A really very nice man. He takes off his hat and mops his pate with a folded piece of kitchen roll. There’s a large plaster in the centre of his forehead. He sees me eyeing it. To keep the thoughts in, he says. We laugh. He tosses the hat onto the floor. He’s found the key, a big T-shaped wrench-looking thing. He kneels and thrusts it into a hole I hadn’t noticed before. As he’s wiggling it about, I get a closer look at his head. Around the crown are five or six alarmingly large cysts. They distend the sheeny, hairless surface like hillocks or tongues pressed inside a cheek. The trapdoor pops open. Pressure released with a plasticky oinking sound. I can’t see what he’s doing, but it doesn’t take long.
Looks good, he says and stands. You know when they dug that out it was full of disarticulated bones, he says, wiping his head again. Legs and feet only, let the poor sods walk again on judgement day. Just legs and feet for eternity, he shakes his head mournfully.
What did they do with the rest? I ask, genuinely curious.
He shrugs. You can read about it in the house. There’s a bit of buttress in a glass case.
Didn’t realise there’s a museum, I say.
Not a museum, he says, just some wall. Encased. Like that. He points at a tall silver office building on the corner of the square.
The car, I say. There’s a bright green racecar in the foyer of the building. You can see it through the extra clean windows, sitting there next to some cream chairs and a cheese plant.
Not just any car, he says, the fastest car in the world. When I saw they did that, I nearly cried. Speaking of, you don’t drive a BMW do you?
I shake my head.
Number plate MA68 MJR?
I keep shaking.
White?
Not me.
Good.
Why? I ask.
Nothing, he says, then leans in conspiratorially. I placed a secret in that car, he whispers. He leans back, looks around, nudges me on the shoulder and winks. I laugh, suddenly acutely aware that our conversation has drifted into an unpredictable arena. I’m also aware that my back has soaked through my shirt and saturated the burlap
lounger material. There’s a familiar dripping feeling. I peek at the au pair. She’s talking to an older woman, could be a mum of one of the kids. She seems upset or shocked and is rocking a pushchair so quickly it appears to vibrate.
Chalfont by the way, he offers a fist-bump. Whilst obliging I see his wrist is seamed with myriad ganglions. There’s about twenty in total, bobbled round the base of his hand, running up his forearm like a braille gauntlet. They extrude in various sizes, some warty little peas, others bulbous gumdrops. He catches me eyeing again. With the air of a magician, he points at the largest growth and
smacks it hard with his other hand.
Ta-da.
Where’s it gone? I ask.
Disappeared, he says proudly, and I can do that as much as I like. He smacks one of the cysts on his head, then leans down to show me. It’s still there. He feels the bump, smacks again, feels. That one’s not done cooking, he says. The au pair has gone and she’s taken the fat boy and his sisters. The book, I notice with a spark of glee, is wrinkling on the slab. The other woman has moved on to a group of what look like art students. I can make out her cadence – hushed and rapid. They are making faces at one another
and fiddling with their rings. Chalfont tries smacking his scalp again, again to no avail. Proper thudding and concussive this time, heel of the palm, Muay Thai style. Two men in all black are moving through the now mostly-vacated square, folding sun loungers and lobbing them onto a large trolley contraption. I start to sit up. Don’t
worry mate, Chalfont says, no need to move. I’m relieved, my shirt and the lounger seem to have fused. He crouches back down to the trapdoor and locks it with his special key. Behind him the big screen jumps to blankness, then Video source not found, white text on bright blue. The woman with the pushchair is next to the two men in black now. Without the commentary or children noises I can hear a little of what she’s saying, something about an incident on the next square over. Something about two men. One bald, the other nearly. Her voice is quivering. They must have done a terrible thing. The left man in black puts a hand on her shoulder.
Chalfont’s still on his haunches fiddling with the lock. I ask him what the water down there is for. He looks up from under his brow, red-raw handprints appearing on his scalp. I notice a brown circular stain spreading beneath the plaster. He laughs. I laugh. He stands, puts his hat back on. Arms wide, he gestures all around. His hands sweep over the walls, the buildings, the trees, the lawn, the loungers, the screen, the bollards, the plaques, the fountains, the statues, the glass, the stone, as if to say – it’s for this, all of this. Jane Dabate
Cup Drove Daisy
Reid Williams
Made on Honor, Sold on Merit
Sunset Limited
Rachel Dastgir
The Rabbit
Sedrick Chisom
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Colton Karpman (Founding Editor)
Editor’s Note
Dilara Koz (Art Director)
Em Bauer (Illustrator)
Isaac Zamet (Poetry Editor)
William McGuire (Prose Editor)