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Two Questions for Clio Velentza

We recently published Clio Velentza’s glorious Anatomical Venus Girl. Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

 

1) There is so much happening in this small moment; the piece is heavy with detail. Knowing you’ve been working in longer form recently, is it very hard to pack so much in to such a tiny space?

It’s an entirely different experience. While on longer form I try to keep my mind on several threads at a time, with flash I have the sensation of handling a single thread, which I’m struggling to spool as tightly and neatly as possible. It can be a tactile difference: sharp as opposed to smooth, narrow as opposed to wide. Flash always carries at least a hint of claustrophobia, the feeling of entering a small room, turning around and then seeing the door closing behind you. Perhaps it’s the simple mechanics of reading something short: it makes us hold our breath. And then you have long form which is a series of long dives, of learning to strengthen your lungs to make it a little bit further each time. But after all they’re both a kind of gasping for air.

 

2) At the end, the girl (consciously or unconsciously) tugs her hair down in imitation of the doll’s. This connection is deeply important to her — have you felt such a connection yourself?

(In October 2012, on an unexpected solo trip to London where I had no plans and no desire to spend any more time than necessary at my packed hostel, I found myself at Tate Britain which was hosting an exhibition on the Pre-Raphaelites. The following is an excerpt from my travel diary at the time.)

I had the chance to pause and take my time in front of many pieces of art I already loved, and discover some new ones. In particular The Stonebreaker, by which artist I can’t recall. [oil painting by Henry Wallis] I couldn’t tear myself away from it – and when I had seen everything else, I returned to it. It depicted a man seeming to rest against the rock, dressed in rags and sitting on a pile of stones. You only realize that he’s dead when you notice that a stoat, hard to make out right away, has climbed onto the man’s leg.

His hammer has slipped from his hands which still form a lax grip, and it evokes in you a deep shame the way he couldn’t escape laboring even in death. One of his legs is outstretched, the other bent, his head lolls forward gently and his dark, blurry profile is almost attractive, his mouth is half open as if in sleep. The entirety of him is swallowed by the darkness of the foreground, as the rock against which he leans obscures the evening light, which is brightly reflected in the background by a body of water. The piece radiates calm and pain at the same time, it draws you in, makes you want to lift the face of the unlucky man, to ease his body on soft soil, to cross his arms and straighten his legs and put something light over his head, it distresses you that you couldn’t be of help or offer some posthumous relief.

People passed by the painting quickly, since it didn’t offer the vivid colors and opulent shapes of the others surrounding it. Some paused by me, read the label and stared at it until they discovered the obscured stoat, then they smiled with satisfaction and walked away. I stayed in front of it until my eyes had filled up and I had to press my mouth to keep them from spilling. A lady glanced at me curiously. With effort I drew myself away and headed to the exit. I kept my eyes lowered, not wanting any other image to linger last in my memory.

Posted on by lokifire

Anatomical Venus Girl ~ by Clio Velentza

The class has moved on, but she stands transfixed in front of the glass case. The doll she’s looking at could fit in her two hands. Its ivory parts have been carefully set aside: the coil of an intestine, a button-sized liver. A small heart, crown-shaped. The smooth lid of a bulging belly. The doll’s eyes are closed, its face serene. A lovely, dead-saint’s smile. The girl leans in, touches the inscription. Fifteenth century. So much time to spend undone, laid open.
The doll’s hands rest over its hollow body, over the ivory figure of the curled up baby lying exposed inside her. The girl touches her own crown-shaped heart. She touches her own belly, looking for the same cold hollowness, the same exposed child. Hers is still hidden, so small it’s barely there.
The doll’s curls are loose over her lace pillow. The girl reaches up and tugs at her ponytail, and her hair falls around her shoulders. A museum guard walks by. Excuse me, the girl says. Is nobody going to put her back together?
***
Clio Velentza lives in Athens, Greece. She is a winner of “Best Small Fictions 2016,” a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has been longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 2018. Her work has appeared in several literary journals, some anthologies in both English and Greek, and she’s currently working on a novel. Find her on twitter at @clio_v.
Posted on by lokifire

Two questions for Hannah Gordon

We recently published Hannah Gordon’s gutting “Something Hungry and Bloody-Jawed.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I remember in school there’d be fights: “meet me by the flagpole,” they’d say, and give their future combatant a shove. Is this fighting against someone or more to prove something?
It’s so funny how memory works. I have a strong memory of hearing that some older guys at my high school would fight each other in the far parking lot. I never went to a fight, so I’m not sure if they actually did fight each other, or if it was more of a myth at my school. That’s what inspired me to write this story. The why is crucial: why are they fighting their friends? Why are they fighting period? I’d imagine the answer is different for each individual involved. In this story, I don’t think any of the friends are mad at one another. I don’t think it’s that simple.
For the narrator of this story, she wants to prove she’s tough enough, and she wants to win the approval of this group that she’s always felt on the periphery of. She’s curious, too. She wants to know what they’re feeling. She wants to experience the adrenaline and absurdity of it.
For the other characters, I imagine rage, sadness, frustration, and heartache play into their motives. It’s tough being a teenager; it really is. I think teens are often laughed at for their emotions or, worse, belittled for it. But they experience life – all its beauty and cruelty – just like everyone else.
2) And of course, these fights would always gather quite a crowd — the narrator is a girl who wants to join in. Are there other girls watching or is it just her and the boys?
There are definitely other girls in attendance. Maybe some of them want to fight, too.
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Something Hungry and Bloody-Jawed ~ by Hannah Gordon

We fight in the parking lot of our old elementary school and by “we” I mean the guys, because they never let me fight even though I ask every time. They just look at me and laugh when I ask, and I wonder is it because I’m a girl or because I’m younger or because I’m small? Whatever it is, they shake their heads and tell me it’s not for me but smoke my weed anyway, smoke the joints I roll on an atlas someone keeps in their trunk, and we all laugh at that: an atlas, really? I mean, haven’t you heard of Google Maps? The way the guys fight could be mistaken for dancing, how they two-step and circle each other; it could be mistaken for a mating dance, more specifically, but I would never say this because they only let me watch because I bring the weed and roll it on someone’s atlas and let them smoke it down to a singed nub, and if I implied that any of them were gay we’d have a real fight on our hands. So I just watch them circle each other like birds or squirrels or feral cats, watch them swing and miss, watch the way their faces get red and veiny when they miss. They’re all chock-full of teenage angst and something else, something more, something white-hot and looming just behind their gritted teeth and bulging eyes, failed tests and strike outs on the baseball pitch. We’re all angrier than we’re letting on, which is exactly why I want to fight. I won’t get mad if I get hit. That’s part of the game, that’s part of the allure, that’s the whole reason we drove out here in the first place: we need to get that anger out before we have to shove it all down again and make it home by curfew. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake up to our mothers’ hands brushing the hair away from our sleep-flushed faces, their coffee breath washing over us saying good morning, darling good morning, baby good morning, angel and then we’ll have our Wheaties or our Captain Crunch while hiding our red, raw knuckles from the ever-watchful eyes of our parents, except for me that is, because no one will let me fight. I’m ready. I feel like a goddamn bench warmer over here, but instead of filling water cups, I’m lighting joints and puff, puff, passing them. I can do it, I assure them and they glance at each other then smile at me and they look like sharks or lions or something equally hungry and bloody-jawed and then I’m up to bat and it’s only then that I remember I can’t dance: I don’t know the steps because none of these boys have asked me to prom because I’m just the girl who follows them around and lights their joints, so it’s no surprise I trip over my own feet and pitch forward, face-first into a steely fist, and my god it feels like I’m hit by bus, it feels like my mother waking me up, it feels like everything and nothing I’ve ever wanted.

***

Hannah Gordon is a writer and editor living in Chicago. Her work has appeared in Hypertrophic Literary, Jellyfish Review, WhiskeyPaper, and more. She is the managing editor of CHEAP POP. You can read more of her work here.

Posted on by lokifire

Two questions for Eilise Norris

We recently published Eilise Norris’s beautiful “Even With Glue.”

Here we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I see this as a bit of a love story — well, two, actually: between the narrator and Rachel, and the narrator and Sindy. Do you see a love story here too?
Yes, I do! That love where you want to be as close as you can to someone, the person they cling to. The narrator has this Best Friend ideal in her mind, which is kind of built-in for a Barbie. I think anyone growing up can feel that same drive to latch onto a best friend and be practically glued together. The narrator doesn’t have that with Rachel, but Sindy could be a match.
2) The narrator is very upbeat and chipper, a personality type that drives me nuts in real life, but I find charming here. How did you find such a perfect voice for this character?
Thank you so much! Terrifically chipper can get on my nerves as well, but I loved writing this character because it was so different for me.
I started writing this story during Kathy Fish’s FastFlash Reunion, thinking of the Aqua song “Barbie Girl” – the less sung, the better. The Barbie in that song is as one-dimensional as carpet, but I imagined her trying to keep up her sunny world view and please everyone. The effort involved has to be immense. When I wrote the character’s voice, I think that effort filtered through the chipperness and made her someone I could relate to. She’s sweet and upbeat but not exactly carefree.
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Even with glue ~ by Eilise Norris

You can brush my hair

I wanted to be friends with Rachel so much that I let her brush my hair until it tugged out. Yellow hair, soft and elastic like if butter had a rind or rays of sunshine were woven. On the floor. In Rachel’s hairbrush. Never mind, she said a lot, feeling the fresh holes in my scalp. It probably tickled which I think is something between laughing and crying. We match, I tried to say, I just need a dress like yours. Do they make them in my size? But it only came out as a smile. My smile is one of my best features. A smile works in every language!

 

Sindy’s smile is upside-down

I couldn’t fully wave at all of the charity shop’s visitors, but I had my left arm raised for a long time. Sindy suggested that I try to climb out of the bucket. She is so much more adventurous than she looks! Someone drew her an upside-down smile in permanent pen. I told her, that’s the right way up for rainbows.

When the artist picked us both, I was glad because the bucket had a floor made of marbles and Sindy lay next to me in his cloth bag. While the artist walked home, it was like a hammock in the wind. We sloshed and knocked shoulders. I wondered if it was warm enough outside to enjoy the breeze.

In the artist’s room, he put on loud tantrum music and rolled us over in his hands, and I was a marble, marble, marble. Then he laid us flat on a table and squeezed clear glue onto Sindy’s left palm. He placed my hand on top of hers and pressed, gentle as a forehead kiss. We’re going to be muses, Sindy said. I know! I told her. I couldn’t wait to hear what muse meant.

 

Even with glue

Before Sindy, I had never really held a hand. Now our arms grow out of each other. It’s nice to not let go. Even with glue. I have told Sindy this many times. And I giggled when I once said, I take you, Sindy, to have and to hold, from this day forward.

She pulls a little on my arm when she wants me to stop. Sometimes she needs me to talk, and she just listens like I am running water.

The window we are inside winks with light. People pause in front of us, staring to the right of us, then at our held hands. What’s it meant to be? They ask. Or, wow, what happened to Barbie? Though I can’t see her, I always know Sindy’s there, frowning right at them.

***

Eilise Norris writes flash fiction, poetry and short stories from above a pub in Oxfordshire, UK. She saw a lot of extreme makeover Barbies when she was younger. Her most recent work is in Ellipsis Zine. She tweets from @eilisecnorris.

Posted on by lokifire

Two questions for Meg Pokrass

We recently published Meg Pokrass’s heartbreaking “The Rescue.”
Here, we ask her two questions about her story:
1) You manage to encapsulate this relationship in so few words. For you, what makes this particular relationship come alive in this story?
I have to admit that this one is entirely CNF. About five years ago, I started seeing a much older man, a poet, and he told me this story about the 100 or so parakeets he used to own. How they died in a matter of minutes, all of them. The story affected me deeply. We were sharing our hardest moments in life. I was in the middle of a divorce and he was in the middle of something similar. There was a penetrating feeling of loss in my world, and this sweet man loved to make me laugh. When he wasn’t sharing stories about sad times, he was cracking me up.
2) So, you probably can’t tell us — but how did the parakeets die?
Avian flu. I can still see it in my mind.
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The Rescue ~ by Meg Pokrass

He told her how his parakeets died, all at once, in the middle of a regular day. A bird holocaust. She could see, behind his words, such gorgeous, frantic colour that she held his hand. There were so many stories he’d never tell her about other departures. He was busy trying to make her laugh, reaching for a joke, and it would work! She’d laugh her fluttery heart out, hand it to him from the tip of her tree.

***

Meg Pokrass’ fifth collection, ‘Alligators At Night’, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction (2018). Her work has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions, 2018 (edited by Aimee Bender) and two Norton Anthologies; New Micro (W.W. Norton & Co., 2018) and Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015). Meg is the Founding Co-Editor of Best Microfiction, Editor-in-Chief of New Flash Fiction Review, and Festival Curator for Flash Fiction Festival, UK and recently became the Flash Fiction Focus Editor for Mslexia Magazine.

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Two Questions for Chloe N. Clark

We recently published Chloe N. Clark’s gorgeous “Other Skins.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story.

 

1) That dismissive moment with the doctor is so small and so accurate — is that an experience you’ve had yourself, that moment where the doctor thinks they know more about your body than you do?

I’ve spent a lot of times in hospitals and at doctor’s offices, throughout my life, and I can say that those kind of moments are far too often. I actually have a lot of ideas about how doctors should need to take specialized communication courses and what those would look like (because as a teacher, my teaching mind never sleeps). For people who question whether doctor’s dismissive attitudes, especially towards women-identifying and nonbinary people, are that prevalent — they should check out Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery.

2) Your voice as a poet always seeps into your fiction, creating these lovely melodic lines and imagery. How does your fiction writing inform your poetry?

First thank you for that compliment 🙂 Second, I often get called a prose-y poet–so I think it seeps in there a lot. I like simple language in poetry and a clear sense of plot–abstraction has never worked for my brain. So I think poetry and fiction for me are often just different spectrums on the same wavelength.

Posted on by lokifire

Other Skins ~ by Chloe N. Clark

She believes her body is not her own anymore. She woke up and her skin felt softer than she remembered it being the night before. She shook away the feeling, showered, didn’t think about if for the rest of the day. But, the next day, she could feel her heart beat in her chest and each beat was just a micro-second longer than they used to be: a pa-pumm instead of pa-pum.

Her doctor said: have you been feeling stressed lately? Her doctor said: this sounds like anxiety. Her doctor prescribed her pills the color of cotton candy: soft and pink and she wondered if they’d taste sweet but she didn’t try them. She told her doctor: no, something is really wrong here. And her doctor said: that’s what everyone thinks.

Her lover used to run fingers across her skin, taste her with his tongue. He once said, ‘you look the prettiest when you seem far away,” and she hadn’t known exactly what he meant but she liked the sound of it. She’d try to escape from her skin when she was out in public, let her body go on its own without her, see if people would look her way when she did it. But she never quite got it right, people still glanced through her.

She visits her mother, takes the long drive to the home and walks past the nurses with their voices filled with sympathy that dulls their voices like a too large wad of gum. She enters the room and her mother looks confused. I don’t know you.

At home, she takes a bath. She watches the water turn her skin soft pink with the heat. Skin next to godliness. It doesn’t feel like hers anymore.

***

Chloe N. Clark’s work appears in Apex, Booth, Glass, Little Fiction, Uncanny, and more. Her chapbook The Science of Unvanishing Objects is out from Finishing Line Press and her debut full length collection, Your Strange Fortune, will be out Summer 2019. Find her on Twitter: @PintsNCupcakes.