Lost Balloon

Ichi, ni, san, shi… Benny’s only been a Wal-Mart stockboy a couple of weeks, part time after school, and he’s already managed to screw it up. He grinds his teeth, literally bites his tongue, listening to the dweeby Assistant Manager spout words like “progressive discipline” and “termination” and “reimburse us for our property.” How many jobs has he been fired from the past year? Two, but really it’s three if he counts the deli he quit before getting fired. Of course, he still threw a full Boar’s Head bologna tube (and a couple of punches) at the assistant manager’s face on his way out, but at least he wasn’t officially a deli employee when he did it. Progress, right? Whatever. He only works because his mom says she needs help with the bills. He breathes in deep that particular Wal-Mart scent of body odor and cheap plastic, and silently repeats, Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Counting in Japanese is the only thing that has stuck so far in a month’s worth of free karate lessons on Tuesday nights. He looks across the desk at the Assistant Manager’s stupid face, his dumb mustache, idiot necktie, and doesn’t think it would be difficult to karate chop the moronic look off his face. Ichi, ni, san, shi…Benny’s mom thought karate would help with his anger issues. Same as when she came upon Groupons for yoga. Or meditation. Or scream therapy. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he does feel less angry after karate. He hasn’t been tempted to punch any of the other stockboys, and not just because one of his knuckles might still be broken from his last fight (again, the deli assistant manager). His mom says it’s nice to see his smile. After all, it’s been over a year since his dad ran off with a pool tech at the Pinch-A-Penny he managed. Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Benny’s not really listening to the Wal-Mart Assistant Manager. He can practically feel the snug fit of the foam gloves he wore as Sensei counted off his punches on the practice dummy.  He hears the numbers in Sensei’s voice. Ichi, ni, san, shi… He told his mom about Sensei. About how Sensei is teaching him to count to ten in Japanese. Sensei is Japanese for “good father.” He thinks. He’s not sure. But he’s probably right. He’ll most likely ask his mom to sign him up for paid karate lessons once the free trial is over. He wants to feel like he feels after karate on Tuesdays all the time. Ichi, ni, san, shi… The Assistant Manager is still talking about how “pallet jacks aren’t toys” and “ghost riding company equipment off a loading dock” is a level three infraction. Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Manager is derived from the old English “bad father.” Benny only remembers how to count to four in Japanese. But soon he’ll learn how to count all the way to ten. He’ll get there. Eventually. If he keeps up with karate. “Who raised you to act like this?” the Wal-Mart Assistant Manager wants to know. Oh, Benny forgot, he learned one other thing from Sensei. Benny stands up. Tilts forward at the waist. Before a fight, you bow to your opponent.

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Mario Aliberto III is the author of All the Dead We Have Yet to Bury (Chestnut Review, 2025), and his short fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Fractured Lit, The Pinch, and other fine journals. A graduate with a Creative Writing degree from the University of South Florida, he lives in Tampa Bay with his wife and daughters, and yet the dog still runs the house. Find him online at marioaliberto3.com

Charlotte babysat her three young cousins after school until their parents got home from work. She was only 16, but to the children, she was a grown-up. She made them play quietly while she did her homework. Then the fun began. Arts and crafts, dress-up time, all sorts of games.

After playtime, they would all sit on the floral sofa, one child on Charlotte’s lap, one up close on either side, inhaling her scent of Jergen’s lotion and Juicy Fruit gum. There they watched Star Trek. The children loved Kirk and Spock, but they cheered when they saw Lt. Uhura.  She looked like them. She was smart. She was an astronaut. She was beautiful, just like Cousin Charlotte.

One day, the youngest said to her cousin, “You smell different.” Charlotte turned the TV on early. There was no dress-up, there were no games. She sat at the dining room table, head down on her closed books. She didn’t get up even when Uhura was on the screen.

A few days later, their parents said that Charlotte had to go away, and Mrs. Washington would look after them from now on.

“Is Cousin Charlotte sick?” one of the children asked. Their parents looked at one another.

“Yes, she’s sick,” their mother said. “She’ll come home when she’s better.”

Mrs. Washington wouldn’t let them watch TV; she said it was the devil’s work. She didn’t play games. She thought arts and crafts were too messy. She had no interest in getting the costumes out for dress-up.

Sometimes, the children would sneak into their parents’ room and watch Star Trek while Mrs. Washington slept in the easy chair. One child said Charlotte must have gone away in a spaceship like Uhura. One said she had gotten married to Spock. One child said, “No, she’s sick for real, or she wouldn’t have left us.”

Cousin Charlotte came home in the spring. She was thinner and walked with her head down. The children saw her at their grandparents’ house, and they ran to her shouting questions. She smiled and hugged them all.

“Yes, I’m much better,” she answered the eldest. “No, I didn’t live on a spaceship,” she told the middle child. And to the youngest she said “No, I can’t babysit you anymore.”

The next day after school, the children heard Mrs. Washington talking on their parents’ phone.

“A good girl wouldn’t have got herself in that situation,” she said. “Well, I know she won’t never set foot in my house.”

The children didn’t understand, so they slipped quietly up the stairs, turned the volume low, and watched Uhura among the stars.

 

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Claudia Wair is a Black American writer whose work is forthcoming or has appeared in Vestal Review, Pithead Chapel, Astrolabe, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. You can read more at claudiawair.com, or find her on Bluesky @CWTellsTales.bsky.social and on Instagram @CWTellsTales.

A curl of a woman pouring a curl of water onto a garden patch. A square yard of soil that yields up some tiny shoots. Seed, then plant, then seed again. She tells herself this is the cycle of life. She stands in front of her trailer, and the trailer has windows like eyes that watch and watch. It is some kind of summer, and we know this by her dress, all cotton and flower, the sun shadows on a flap of laundry on the line, a caged-up bird that has forgotten how to fly. A stick of a man sits behind her. He holds up a fishpole, the kind he might have used when he was younger, before old age caged him in.

In a minute, a storm will whisper. The man will say, that figures. It is, he will say, some kind of summer and storms are gonna be. Now he can stop pretending he was going fishing and he and the woman, who has stopped her watering, go in the trailer. Outside the wind is building, and we know this by the punch flap in the sheet still hanging on the line. We know this by the creak of the birdcage swinging back and forth. Once inside, the man and the woman look at one another. Maybe he will love me again, she thinks. She wants to think. But a man is not a garden, a man is not a shoot.

After the storm, which will be much bigger than summer, bigger than firefly and bird chirp and wind coming out of the east, their turned over trailer with its blinded windows will be half a mile down. Rolled over and over, spun and died and died again. No cycle left for them here, the two of them flung onto the ground, fallen laundry. Near them, a birdcage broken, a bird that has flown.

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Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City. Please visit her website francinewitte.com. She can be found on social media @francinewitte. (Photo credit: Mark Strodl)

 

Jessa watched as the funeral procession piled into the limo. The widow remarked it was “a sign” that the driver had parked beneath the willow tree, since her late Ralph frequented the arboretum and willows were his favorite. But, as groundskeeper, Jessa knew better. The limo would idle there tomorrow and every day after. 

As the mourners departed, Jessa heard rustling stir from the grave. Four raccoons had perched upon Ralph’s casket, blueberries in hand. Inky jam smeared across the nameplate, pawprints streaked the mahogany. There were no signs. Only raccoons and blueberries, and the dead men trapped beneath them.

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I was waiting with the other parents in the corner of the parking lot when our preschoolers floated out of the school. We collectively gasped, surprised to see the whole class, twelve children, shrieking in delight, bodies lifted, each with a brand new pair of wings. I scanned the crowd for Molly, imagining her wings were a soft, buttery yellow, her favorite color. The students fluttered about, each one behaving how you’d expect them to – the two besties with matching wings holding hands and flying in a circle; Juniper, the cryer, already sitting on the ground and sobbing, his wings drooping behind him; Rigger, kicking up near the roofline, wings beating furiously, trying to make it over; and then here she was, my dear sweet Molly, hovering near my shoulder with delicate yellow wings threaded with blue and purple, reaching to hold my hand. The two teachers followed them out, practically buzzing with excitement. “The time has come,” the lead teacher Erica announced. “We didn’t expect it to happen so early in the year, but one student’s wings emerged and then soon everyone’s wings were sprouting.” “How do we take care of them?” asked the parent who questioned everything at every school meeting. “We’ve put a handout in your student’s backpack,” said Erica and both teachers held up bunches of backpacks in their hands, because the children couldn’t wear backpacks. I looked at Molly, her blue eyes at my eye level, and then beyond to where her new wings were gently working. It was a not-rainy spring day and the sun’s rays caught the wings’ shimmer, creating an iridescent aura that was breathtaking. Her wings beat a little faster and Molly lifted a few inches. We smiled at each other. “Do you like my wings, Mama?” she asked.

“I love them,” I said, and I really did. This was the reason I chose this preschool, after all. When we moved to the area we didn’t know anyone, and a parent in a park near our house recommended it. I didn’t fully agree with all of its philosophy when I checked out the website, but the wings development spoke to my heart. How I longed for my own wings when I was younger, a strong pair to lift me up and away, high into the tree canopy. Unfortunately David didn’t agree with any of it, and it became the first major discord in our parenting philosophy, a bifurcation that only grew until we decided to separate. I squeezed Molly’s hand as I wondered what David would have to say about her wings. “Look, Mama, a bird!” said Molly, letting go of my hand. She got that determined look on her face and stretched her arms up and wide. Her wings beat faster and faster, her body jerking in a zig zag as she rose to the crown of a vine maple. I held my breath as I watched her, knowing practice would smooth out the roughness, like watching her take her first steps all over again. She got to the top and reached for a little black and white chickadee. The bird flitted off and Molly’s wings stopped. She started falling and I ran forward, ready to catch her in my arms. Just as quickly, they started beating again. I felt Erica there, standing next to me, her hand on my shoulder as Molly slowly lowered herself to the ground. “Molly!” I cried. I crouched down, enveloping her. I could feel her wings vibrating through the sleeves of my fleece jacket, the structure of them more rigid than I thought they would be. “You scared me.” “The bird flew away and I fell,” said Molly. Erica was still next to us, I think she was waiting for me to say something, but when I couldn’t get the words out she gently talked to Molly about staying safe with her new wings. Erica knew all about David and me; she had to, because a different one of us might be at pickup or Molly might forget something at David’s that needed to come to school. She also knew his stance on wings. I was grateful for her talking to Molly and for her talking to David too, when the time came. I stood up and took Molly’s backpack from Erica and gave her a hug. Molly rose again as we moved to the car. My daughter was flying.

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Ellie Larsen writes stories about people who (usually) live in Oregon. Ellie also lives in Oregon, just outside of Portland, with her family. She’s currently working on her first novel. 

The jury summons arrives in the mail while I’m at my twenty-week scan, watching the curve of my boy’s spine.

I show up Monday, expecting to be excused. The judge disagrees. Six months’ postponement would only mean showing up with a newborn “on the outside.”

When I’m called to the box, I push my belly out as I sit, exaggerating the effort.

“Please state your name, where you live, what you do, any kids in your home.”

“Not yet,” I say, pointing to my stomach. No reaction. No dismissal.

Juror after juror is questioned. I’m still in. I panic, listing every excuse: ultrasounds, sciatica, peeing when I sneeze. The judge gives me a look. The bailiff calls the next name.

We’re sworn in.

The defendant wears an orange jumpsuit. “His choice,” the judge explains. He fires his lawyer before opening statements, then spends the morning scratching his eyebrow raw. Like he’s trying to erase himself.

“Those weren’t my drugs,” the man blurts, tugging at his sleeve as he cross-examines the officer.

The judge sighs. “That’s not a question.” His first of many warnings. We shift in our seats, eyes down.

“Did you know they weren’t mine?”

The officer doesn’t blink. “They were in your pocket.” I wonder how often that’s all it takes.

By week three, his eyebrow is red and swollen, his jumpsuit stained and wrinkled. I scan the courtroom for anyone watching him, worried about him, rooting for him. No one. He lowers his head to the desk, like he’s already been sentenced. As the judge reads instructions, I catch fragments: evidence, burden, credibility.

The twelve of us are sent to a small, windowless room that smells like sweat and sanitizer. I sit quietly as they debate the case, the testimony, his mental state.

The foreperson passes out slips of paper. I write guilty and slide it forward. They all match and the room exhales. Then empties.

I rest my hand on my belly, a hard kick beneath my palm. Like he felt the weight of it, too.

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Rachel M. Hollis lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, child, and a deeply unmotivated dog. Her work appears or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Midway Journal, Gone Lawn, Funicular, and elsewhere.