Mercury
The Last Weekend in July
by Zach Murphy
It was the summer of 1993 and Keilani and I sat by the crackling fire as the bullfrogs croaked a sonorous symphony, the grass swayed from a whispering breeze, and the stars zipped in different directions across the vast night sky.
“What a weekend,” Keilani said, resting her hands on the back of her jet-black hair.
“Rad like a cat wearing sunglasses,” I said.
“Satisfying like spelling Sriracha right on the first try,” Keilani said.
That was our thing. One of our things. In fact, when you’ve known someone since the age of five, you amass a lot of things.
I leaned in toward the warmth of the fire, took a deep breath, and prepared to tell Keilani something that I hesitated to tell her all summer. “I decided I’m not going to Northwestern.”
“What?” Keilani asked.
“I’ve thought about it a lot and I just don’t think college is for me,” I answered.
“But we had it all planned out,” Keilani said. “Together.”
“I’m so terrified of tossing four years away,” I said. “And going into debt forever.”
“Why did you wait until the last minute to tell me?” Keilani asked. “You always do that, and it drives me crazy.”
“It’s not the last minute,” I said.
“That’s another thing you do,” Keilani said. “I know it’s not literally the last minute, but you just have this affinity for suddenly dipping out on plans.”
“Like when?” I asked.
“Remember when you didn’t even show up to your own birthday party? The party that I organized!”
“I had the flu!”
Keilani stood up. “And the time you said you would pick me up from my dentist appointment and didn’t show up?”
“I had a panic attack about driving in downtown traffic,” I said. “I had just gotten my license!”
“I had to use a pay phone while half of my mouth was numb!”
Keilani tossed another log onto the fire and a flurry of sparks burst into the air.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Keilani sat back down, fanned the smoke away from her eyes, and brushed the ashes off her sweatshirt. “I’m going to miss you. That’s all.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” I said.
“So what do you plan on doing?” Keilani asked.
“I want to save the world.”
“Like Wonder Woman?”
“No,” I said. “I keep having these dreams about rainforests losing their color and oceans warping into garbage dumps. I want to try and do something. I’m just not sure what yet.”
“Maybe someday there will be an invention that allows us to see each other’s lives from far away,” Keilani said.
“Sure,” I said. “And maybe Blockbuster will go out of business!”
We both laughed until we snorted.
Keilani reached over and grabbed my hand. “We’ll still look up at the same moon,” she said.
I wondered if I’d ever have a moment with Keilani like this again. “What a weekend,” I said.
Keilani sighed. “Over too soon like a Prince song.”
Ansibles
by Casey Aimer
I believed ansibles placed inside every mouth
would end miscommunication, solve
humanity’s troubles along with distances
we but dared theorize to cross—dimensions
light-years between one another.
Now we have ansibles stuffed inside every pocket
providing instantaneous misperception, weapons
of mass communication turned isolation.
We are bodies wallowing in assured mutual
connection resulting in silence. The opposable
thumbs of every animal on the planet finger
illusions of intimacy. Online witch pyres burn
without inquiry, reverting us to horde mentalities.
I believe ansibles stitched inside every heart
will dissolve misunderstanding, correct
our problem of inhumane humanity
The first day would silence Earth
into unheard rancorous dialects,
each body wailing three days
sans ceasing, realizing
we are not alone.
Voices from the Woodland
I turn the radio on and a smoky voice greets me, “Good evening everyone. You’re listening to WOJB, 88.9 FM, Woodland Community Radio from the Lac Court Oreilles in Reserve, Wisconsin, broadcasting on the Web at WOJB.ORG.
“It’s Tuesday, and I hope you’re having a good night.” The radio that’s been sitting in the same place for 40 years, goes silent. Then a jock speaks again to his invisible community. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Wait a minute, let me check . . . oh, it’s Thursday. Ok then, well I hope you’re having a good Thursday.”
Ok then, becomes my north-land talk, courtesy of WOJB, where words break through from another world. A musical voice lands quiet on the microphone, nearly a chant, and the jocks’ idiom camouflages a humor that’s easy to miss. Dead air . . . lots of it . . . then again he’s on. “You’re listening to WOJB, Community Radio of the Northwoods.”
I sat by the wood burning stove and noted the program change. “Good evening from the mountain state of West Virginia,” someone said. In seconds, soft notes from a wooden guitar, played on a stage in West Virginia, melted in my ear and met me in my place of dark pines and starry skies. Warmed by fire on a cold Wisconsin spring night, I sipped my drink and wondered what the air waves would bring next.
Opening the stove door to add wood, the restless child of Prometheus took oxygen and rose with the flame. I realized I was happy to be a sitter for Prometheus’ fiery child and the chanters of WOJB. I thought they deserved a cantor and a Psalm, so I offered a smoky chant heard only by the owls.
Blessed be the flame
Blessed be the jock
Blessed be the child and acoustic guitar
Blessed be the jack pine and the the star.
Here, RADIO ON, bathed in smoke and flame, I am surfeit with meaning and mythology. At this small cabin in the north, I forget about food, but I do get hungry. Sometimes, I smell a bakery even though nobody is baking bread, no rolls or donuts gently rise. It’s the smell of memory raised from the steps and chants of another time.
This is the sturm und drang of life which comes upon me keenly. Alone, here, memories and dreams meld to intensify all inner storm and urge. Even with the dangers in extended time alone, in a remote location, I’m willing to risk and to engage with memory and the anchors of constancy surrounding me.
It’s a long trip from Arizona, but I take a comfort knowing that both the loons and I will meet again by the melting lake. We’ll encounter old man winter’s cold grip and watch him wane, weep, and slip away. I’ll sit by the stove and look out to see small piles of melting snow and listen to an Ojibwa chant on the radio accompanied by the wail of the loon.
At dark the owl will haunt, a bear will rustle in the bushes, and I’ll speak an earthy greeting to all of them, mitakuye oyasin, we are all related.
ENLESSNESSNESS
by Salvatore Difalco
The old man smoked his cigar in the drawing room, which had quickly grown stifling. He had not removed his corduroy jacket, but seemed comfortable enough. Coils of smoke hung in the air above him like obscene halos. A single black fly sluggishly droned in and out of the smoke. I stood by a dusty glass curio full of horrid crystal gnome collectibles, praying a comet would hit the house and strike us all dead before I died of boredom.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What does it look like?”
“Why don’t you make yourself useful?”
“I’m having trouble breathing.”
“That’s because you’re not fit.”
I glanced at the old man from under my armpit. I didn’t have the energy to turn around. Screw him, I thought. He was fit for the grave, I don’t know why he was ragging on me. The fly lit on my forearm and I looked at it for long moment before I blew it off.
“Get me glass of water,” the old man said. “Let it run from the tap so it’s nice and cold. If you don’t let it run for a minute or so the water will taste like urine.”
I almost said, You have drunk urine before, therefore you know what it tastes like — but I would have burst out laughing had I said this. The old man swiveled his turtle’s head around and looked directly at my chest.
“You have a stain,” he said.
“That’s sweat,” I said. “I’ll change my shirt later.”
The old man puffed his cigar and half-twirled it with his thumb and forefinger. There was a whole thing with cigar-smoking. A whole thing. My only try had ended with a collapsed lung. The fly droned in and out of the thickening smoke.
Ten minutes later the old man turned to me and again looked at my chest.
“You have a stain,” he said.
“That’s sweat,” I said. “I’ll change my shirt later.”
The fly landed on my forearm and I let it do it’s thing for a few seconds before I slapped it dead.
One hour later the old man had smoked the cigar down to a greasy nub. He turned to me again and looked at my chest.
“You have a stain,” he said.
“Why don’t you die already.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s funny how time flies,” I said.
GUEST LIST FOR MY FUNERAL
by Emily Black
The trees are full of cicadas tonight.
I can hear them even with my windows
closed and over the sound of my white noise
maker; they are so loud. I love them actually.
If I have a funeral service, which I doubt,
I wouldn’t want hymns sung or whatever,
just play a recording of cicadas
perhaps followed by frogs croaking
on a grace-filled night by our pond.
What else could I possibly ask for.
Well maybe a live performance.
Bury me where frogs croak
and cicadas carry on all night
like crazy party goers with more gin
and less sense than one could hope for.
I want a huge celebration
of frogs and cicadas.
Send them their invitations now.
El Internado
by Nicole DeCarlo
“Did Iván just shoot somebody?”
Kateri shook her head at my question, not taking her eyes off of the sight as she stuffed an entire chicken tender in her mouth. Gabby didn’t answer my question either, watching on with wide, shocked eyes. Ally looked stressed from the opposite end of the table, clasping her hands together nervously.
“Is that guy… dead?” Ally asked, squinting at the man that lie bleeding in front of us. Gabby shook her head.
“Well he isn’t moving and he just got shot, so yeah,” she said.
“D.E.D dead,” Kateri added in an intentionally bad southern accent, nodding. I slapped my hand over my chest, watching Iván with wide eyes. I couldn’t believe it. The boy who I had been absolutely in love with for the past two months, a murderer. I knew why he did it. I knew he had no choice. But still, now what?
“This is all Jack’s fault,” I said, wiping tears away. “It was his gun.”
“He was only protecting Maria,” Ally pointed out, as if that made it any better that Iván was now a murderer.
I shook my head miserably.
“I know, but the police-”
Gabby hit my shoulder, then pointed in front of herself. Oh my god, could it be… “Marcos!” Gabby shouted as Marcos bounded up the stairs, taking two at a time. “Bruh.” Kateri set her chicken tender down, leaning forward. “Bruh. Bruh.” Marcos ran to Iván, grabbing him by his shoulders. Iván looked at Marcos slowly, his
eyes glassy. He wasn’t over what he had just done, in a sort of trance. He was still holding the gun, his eyes wandering back over to the body.
“Hey.” Marcos grabbed his face, turning it so they could look at each other. “Hey, look at me. You’re going to be okay. You and me, we’re going to clean this up. Nobody will have to know.”
“What the…” Ally frowned at them, shaking her head slowly.
“Why would you help me?” Iván asked Marcos.
“Yeah, why would you help him, Marcos?” Kateri challenged.
Marcos looked Iván in the eyes.
“Because you’re my friend.”
The four of us paused, barely able to comprehend that. Marcos and Iván, friends? After Iván had mocked Marcos for being an orphan and Marcos had stolen Carolina from Iván? How could this ever work?
Then we burst out into applause, shouting.
“Woo!! We’re gonna get a bromance out of them next season.” Kateri slid down in her chair, fanning herself to cool down. It had gotten significantly warmer in the room in the past twenty minutes out of pure stress, the same way it always did when my friends and I binged our favorite telenovela, El Internado. “Wanna watch the next episode?”
And we did watch the next episode. The four of us didn’t really know each other super well, but we were dead set on watching the entire show before the end of second semester freshman year. We would have to hurry to finish it, but if we got together every single night from then until move out day, we calculated that we could finish it on time.
As an introvert, this was a very risky decision. I’ve never been entirely outgoing. Social settings are exhausting. I’ve certainly never had an easy time making friends. So hanging out with these people every single night? That was probably the fastest way to burn myself out.
I kept waiting and waiting for my social burnout to hit me like a truck, but even a month and a half into the show… it never came.
“Do you think Maria will ever tell Iván that she’s his mother?” Ally asked a month and a half into the show during the season four finale.
Kateri shook her head as she slid her box of chicken tenders to the center of the table, prompting everyone to take one.
“I bet he’ll find out at the series finale,” she said, frowning at the projector screen. I, meanwhile, stared at the screen in a petrified panic. Tony was currently battling Iván’s kidnapper, and if he didn’t succeed, Iván would die; he might not even live long enough to find out Maria is his mother.
“What do you think will-”
We all jumped as a gunshot went off between Tony and the kidnapper. Gabby grabbed my arm, and I stopped moving.
Then the kidnapper rolled off of Tony, dead.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god.
Iván ran over to Tony, dropping down in front of him.
“Tony, you’re bleeding-”
“Oh my god! The kidnapper stabbed Tony!” Ally exclaimed, covering her mouth. We all watched as Tony held his side, dying the most breathy, dramatic death imaginable. “I’m fine. Listen to me, Iván.” Tony grabbed Iván by his shoulders. “Tell your mother I love her.”
Iván shook his head, teary-eyed not for the first time.
“My mother?”
“No,” I said. “No. No way is he-”
“Your mother,” Tony breathed. “Maria.”
The entire room broke out into high-pitched screaming. It was this two-toned, deafening sort of group scream that definitely must’ve sounded like bloody murder to anyone within a mile of us. Kateri collapsed over the table. I slid out of my chair and fell to the ground, similarly to Tony. Ally was holding onto her chair arms for dear life. Gabby was just sitting open-mouthed, absolutely astonished.
The episode ended, leaving us all to stare at each other. I was openly crying, both relieved for Iván and scared for his safety now that he knew who he really was. What now? “Bro, are you crying?” Kateri asked me.
I slapped my hand to my chest, looking up to my friends.
“I can’t believe it,” I said simply.
Ally got off of her chair and sat next to me on the ground.
“Are you alright? I’ve never seen you cry before.”
I exhaled. I felt comfortable enough around my new friends by now to shed a few tears, even if it was over a fictional character. I’m pretty sure that should’ve been really embarrassing, but eh, we had already been through so much together with the other seasons that it was somehow okay.
“I’m fine.” I sighed, sitting up as I got a hold of myself. “What time is it?” Gabby checked her phone.
“Two AM,” she said.
We all just stared at each other for a long time.
“My roommate went home this weekend if y’all wanna hang in my room,” Ally said finally.
“Sleepover?” I suggested.
Kateri shrugged.
“Sure.”
We went all out for the series finale. We ordered dinner from Cheesecake Factory, as well as purchasing $30 worth of snacks from the grocery store. We bought confetti to throw at the end of the episode, like it was New Years. We even went so far as to make Internado T-shirts on a custom design website, so we could root our favorite characters on to live to the end.
See, everything was at stake for the end. A deadly virus had infected the boarding school for the past three seasons, and the students were forcibly quarantined from the rest of the world. They were running out of vaccines, which had to be taken daily; sacrifices had to be made. Anybody was fair game.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god ohmygod,” I said in a singsong, panicked voice while pressing my hands to my face. “Iván gave his last dose to Julía two episodes ago; that’s why he’s so sick. Oh my god, he’s going to die.”
“No, no.” Gabby shook her head. “The antidote machine thing is almost ready.” I gestured to the screen frantically.
“But Iván is literally in the afterlife right now- unless Julía can keep him there while they get him to the machine, he’s going to die.”
Kateri leaned back in her seat, revealing her Cheesecake Factory takeout box. I reached over and took one of her chicken tenders without her permission, and she took her fork to steal one of my meatballs.
“Okay, but why is nobody concerned for Paula?” Kateri took a bite of the meatball, chewed, and swallowed. “Stupid Amaya is literally planning on taking her into the tunnels so she can kill her. Paula’s a literal child and has no ability to defend herself.”
Ally pressed her hand to her forehead, taking a deep breath.
“Fermín,” she said finally. “Fermín was working on a plan to evacuate the school after everyone got cured. He’ll save everyone, just watch.”
And so we watched. There was no screaming this time around, just stress induced silence. At some point Gabby and I held hands, just before Fermín, yes, saved the entire school. Iván was fine, his character arc now fully complete. And despite the deaths of three main characters, we were all at peace with the ending. Somehow it managed to wrap the entire series up nicely, which is not easy to do for a show that makes almost no sense. It was a good end to a great show.
“Are you ready?” Kateri asked when the camera was panning out of the final shot, holding her confetti jar.
We all nodded and picked up our jars.
“Three… two… one…. happy Internado!” Kateri exclaimed.
We all threw our confetti, covering each other in shiny paper squares. We laughed and threw piles of confetti at each other, until the front of the classroom was a mess and we looked like walking disco balls.
“Hm.” Gabby looked at us when the excitement passed. “So… what do we do now?” I shrugged.
“Wanna find another telenovela?”
Three years later, I found myself on FaceTime with my best friends discussing how we would decorate our caps with inside jokes from Internado. Kateri and I photoshopped a picture of ourselves on the Internado set while wearing our Internado shirts, which will be displayed as we walk across the stage. We even planned on having an Internado themed lunch after graduation.
“Hey,” Gabby said on our call. “Did you guys know Amazon Prime just released a sequel series for Internado?”
Kateri, Ally, and I all leaned into our phone screens as if to get a better look at Gabby. “So, in other words…” I raised my eyebrows. “There’s more Internado that we haven’t seen?”
Gabby nodded.
“Bruh, we have to watch it,” Kateri said. “Like, this show is what got us all together in the first place at the beginning of college, and now there’s some random sequel that comes out just in time for us to graduate? It’s fate.”
Ally frowned.
“That’s so weird, though. Like, the show ended eleven years ago; what are the odds that it would be picked back up now, at a time that would be super significant for us?” Kateri shook her head, waving her arms randomly.
“That’s what I’m saying; it’s fate. Like, no joke, bro.”
I smiled, but not just because I had a chance to fall back into the chaotic world of Internado; I was sure that this was a sign from the universe that these three people were always meant to be my best friends. It was just too perfect to be a coincidence.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s watch some Internado.”