Issue Forty-Five

It is right at the moment your brain seizes your muscles and you float motionless as if you are drowned.

Giggles, corn chips, a pop song spicing my lips. We tumble from your car. You take my hand, leading.

After the last episode of The Sweet Family, after the SNL guest spot, after the dystopian young adult movie lead.

I sit across a slightly wobbly table from a woman I’ve just met, and she tells me of her love of photography. She says she’s been taking pictures since high school, her eyes flickering with delight as she speaks.

In the fishing village on the cliffs above the sweeping sea, the bank closed its doors, and the ATM was jack-hammered out of the listed building the branch had occupied for over a hundred years.

I needed a place to sleep and Gary wanted sex; I guess we were both looking for a hole to crawl into.

I’m glad you came. I’ll tell you everything without embarrassment. Here’s the facts…

The first note that came was simple. It read: I’m watching you.

Because dusk suspended me and time dilated I started thinking in maybes instead of I wishes and because the mania of early May is a shameless enabler (and so were you, sometimes) —

The mug was the first thing to vanish. It was nothing special – a sea-turtled freebie we’d picked up in Maui over spring break, having easily spent over $50 in the souvenir shop.

The map in the transit car is a rough schemata. Points are no longer named and I’ve lost track of stops.

My dad says that I am ugly in the summer while we sit on blankets in front of the Ojibwe River.

Attended the funeral… Not the real kind. The other kind.

…tell you a love story to complete the game. My name is Cabbie, and I happen to be a weary Burhan in my spare time, thank you kindly.

Last week, the news reported that a mountain lion attacked a six-year-old boy whose family was picnicking at one of the tables.