Chelsea Uncategorized

In the Pink by Susmita Ramani

Everything is pink and gooey. I repeat: pink and gooey. Mayday. What the F?!

Then it hits me:

  1. I’m talking to myself, like a crazy person.
  2. I’m in Golda Zanotti’s actual, real life uterus. And I’m no ob/gyn, but judging from my size, Golda and Dayton Wallace Brown must’ve done the deed about…four months ago? Maybe five?

Whoooooa.

What happened: I stumbled upon a cave accidentally, and in the way-way back of it, on a glittering, purple, lavender-and-meatball scented cloud, sat a dude, cross-legged, with a fancy upturned mustache and single long, sleek braid (which really suited him). The light from his cloud was so bright that I turned off my flashlight.

I said, “Oh, hey. It looks like you’re…hovering there. Is this some kind of special effect for a movie shoot?” I looked around, but saw no one and nothing beyond the brown-gray cave walls.

He laughed, and said, “Surely you are jesting with me. I find that a little bit humorous, but not over-muchly so. Are you an invitee? If so, please state your wish. One wish only.”

I looked around again. “Huh?”

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously, I was hired to work the party. But it’s supposed to start in an hour, as you must know. I came to set up early. I like to get a feel for my surroundings at these gigs. You’re the first to arrive. Up to now, there’s been nary a fairy. The gnomes are still home. Nix from the pixies. It’s a black hole of trolls. No griffins’ve flitted in. Well…it’s clear griffins can fly, because they have eagle wings. Flitting might be a stretch. Hey, are we gonna do this, or am I just gliding up here for my health? Your wish?”

I shut my gaping mouth. “Umm…”

“You’re invited to the party, right?” The genie narrowed his eyes.

I nodded. “Totally.” I paused. “Wait, I thought it was…three wishes?”

The genie looked mad; aquamarine smoke issued from his ears. “That’s a legend, started by people who pretended to know about such things…but clearly don’t. My lamp, you’re a slow one. What’s your wish?”

I barely thought before blurting out, “I wish to be young again!”

And now, here I am. I could give you a lecture on Nietzsche. If I wasn’t being fed through a fallopian tube.

What nobody gets wrong is that genies can be really messed up in their implementation. It’s like they take some kind of fiendish pleasure from twisting a person’s wish.

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Susmita Ramani’s fiction and poetry have appeared in The Sun, The Wondrous Real Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, and other publications. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two daughters, and a dozen pets.

Chelsea prose poetry

Fall Equinox by Lucie Bonvalet

In the dunes, the morning of the equinox: a snail, a wet pine stump, a plover. The sunlight
changes. Long blades of grass shine like mirrors. Waves throb. The sun appears, warms
the skin on my forearms and all blades of grass. Waves roll, hidden behind tall dunes.
Waves and plovers together partake in wind and silence. A snail creates a path alone,
through grass, hidden. A wave compresses wind and ocean. Sunlight shifts, shifts again.
Shadows fall in response to the shifts, like a thin rain of darkness on the grass. Clouds
compress, pass, dissolve. The snail does not change their course. The grass undulates, the
pine tree listens. The air, low above the grass, fills up with water. The snail moves in
rhythm with the grass. The pine stump, in the future, will disappear into a wave. The snail
accepts me as a disciple. Sun rays spring up from the mud. Both my body and the dead
tree absorb the rain. Thousands of long sand stems create yellow grass and green silence.
Undulations in light and water. The hidden snail offers me their protection as I have no
shell. Blades of grass open. Wait. Grow. Grow from the middle. Breathe from all sides.
Breathe air, water, and all the colors. Imprint wind, clouds. Absorb mossy rain. Breathe
in sunlight and lengthening shadows.

Lucie_Bonvalet_for_Lost_Balloon (1)Lucie Bonvalet is a writer, a visual artist and a teacher. Her writing (prose & poetry) can be found in Catapult, Puerto del Sol, 3AM, Phantom Drift Limited, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fugue, and elsewhere. Her drawings and paintings can be found in Old Pal magazine and on instagram. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University in May 2021. Originally from the Dordogne, in the Southwest of France, she lives in Portland, Oregon.