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Creative Nonfiction Exclusive: “Why I’m Like This: Tales of a Neurotic Wife” by Hali Morell

It was late at night and I walked into the kitchen to search the cabinet for some item I shouldn’t be eating, usually some kind of chocolate or pastry, and there it was: the silhouette of something scurrying across the countertop next to the sink. Okay, don’t panic. Maybe it’s not what you think it is. Maybe it’s just a lost little moth searching for the nearest lightbulb.

I knew in my heart, though, that I was wrong. And as I propelled my feet to take the steps over to the light switch on the kitchen wall and flip it up, that’s when I had official confirmation that my evening was about to take a horrifying turn. A roach. A word I can barely form my mouth to say…that’s how repulsive these brown antenna-headed speed-racers are. With my finger still on the light switch, it had already run behind a clear vase holding bamboo in water, a yellow etched, tinted wineglass passed down to me from my grandmother, and lastly, the Roasted Garlic Express: a giant plastic garlic that roasts the scented bulbs to perfection…according to my husband.

Not having taken a good, healthy breath in about ninety seconds, in one swift movement I exhaled deeply and stepped across the kitchen on my tiptoes to snag the blue flyswatter I had purchased at the 99 Cent Store that lived in the pantry next to the refrigerator. Gripping the swatter in my right hand, I raised my arm and prepared myself for war. Literally frozen in space, it took me another minute and a half to even contemplate trying to find this little fucker. It was hiding behind the garlic roaster, which I attempted to slide with the flyswatter, but given the garlic weighs about six pounds and the swatter weighs pretty much nothing, it soon became clear that this wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to physically move the garlic with the power of my hand. And with another huge exhale and a little bit of a whimper, I jostled the garlic just to say, “Hey! I know you’re back there and I’m gonna kill you with this flyswatter.” Before I could even finish that thought, there it went sprinting to its next hiding place…a place so hidden that I couldn’t follow. Somewhere between the countertop and the drawer it disappeared. And that’s when I got pissed.

Terrified and pissed is not a good combination. Especially for my husband, who was fast asleep in the bedroom and was about to be woken up by a completely freaked-out wife. Think Woody Allen as a woman, only hopefully slightly better looking, and then you’ve got a sense of what I’m talking about. I stood there, staring at him, hoping he’d sense my presence. After about a minute of him not sensing my presence, I sighed…loudly.

“What’s up?” he said.

Normally, I have the ability to ease into things in a calm manner. Usually there are medium-sized prefaces or intros leading into what I’m about to say. This wasn’t one of those times:

“Babe, I think we have roaches,” I said, grabbing my head in my hands and stomping and swaying like an elephant about to charge. “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep here tonight.”

“Oh, sweetie. You’ll be okay.”

I paced in the darkened bedroom. “No, no, I’m not going to be okay. This is bad. This is really bad.”

“I’m sorry,” he said and rolled over on his left side. He clearly wasn’t getting it. This was serious. And, I’ll admit that I was acting a tad passive aggressive. What I really wanted to say was, Can you please go in the kitchen and spray the shit out of all of our cabinets…like, now? I tried to pull myself together and get into a more rational place. I rolled onto my side of the bed and covered my face with my hands.

“I’ll call the landlord tomorrow and see if he can send someone over,” I said, taking on the role of a sane and together person. Okay, this is going to be okay. I can do this.

Thirty seconds later, I could no longer ignore the sensation of hundreds of roaches running all over my skin. I began slapping myself every two seconds. It was clear that I wasn’t going to sleep that night without some help. I remembered that someone had once given me an Ambien, which I had never taken. Where the hell did I put that pill? I rolled over to my husband.

“Either someone needs to knock me out or I have to get up and find a sleeping pill.”

And as he made a quick grunting sound, I knew that I was officially becoming annoying and needed to deal with this issue by myself. I was pleasantly surprised to quickly locate the donated Ambien, which I popped into my mouth followed by a chug of bathroom sink water. Okay, this was good. I was drugged up and looking forward to being blissfully unaware of whatever demonic works were occurring in my kitchen.

*

You should probably know that I had an experience in college. Well, I had a lot of experiences in college, but I’m referring to the one that directly has to do with this current situation and why my behavior may appear to be a bit extreme.

In brief, a roach-infested apartment in Boston. It was my senior year in college, and my friend, Heather, and I decided to become roommates. We found a place close to Fenway Park. It was sort of like another version of a dorm only there was no RA and you couldn’t just pop into anyone’s room to smoke a bowl or drop a tab of acid.

I entered the apartment with my ridiculously large suitcases that could’ve fit a family of giraffes standing upright. That night we shut out the lights and curled up in her room to talk and get more comfortable in our new place. After a little while, I decided to get up for some water. I turned on the kitchen light and that’s when I saw an image that, on my deathbed, I will remember vividly. What looked like hundreds of roaches scurried around not just the kitchen countertops, walls, and floors, but throughout every room of the apartment.

“Get up! Get up!” I yelled to Heather.

“What?” she yelled.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!” I flipped on every light switch in the place and then ran into Heather’s bedroom and jumped on her mattress lying on the floor.

“There’s roaches everywhere!”

“Oh, that’s so sick,” she said.

“What are we gonna do? How are we gonna sleep?”

And in the middle of a huge yawn, Heather replied, “Let’s not worry about it tonight. I’m so tired. We’ll call the landlord tomorrow.”

Apparently, she and I were not living on the same planet. I mean, was she insane? Sleeping? I felt completely alone and totally freaked out. Needless to say, I was awake and shaking the entire night. I strapped my Walkman to my head and tried to think happy thoughts, but they quickly vanished as soon as I opened my eyes to witness the community of roaches that had made this place their home. I imagined them gathering in groups, creating buffets, playgrounds for the little ones, drum circles. And while Heather lay fast asleep, I paced in the living room in my nightgown and Doc Martins ready to stomp the living crap out of them. By 4:15 a.m., I had finally managed to doze off on the oddly stained gray sofa that Heather had brought from home. My eyes popped open at 8:05 a.m. when Heather’s alarm went off. Oh yeah, I had to go to school. Well, this should be a productive day.

“Is it too early to call the landlord?” I asked.

“I’ll get his number,” she said.

Six hours later, Anwar, the landlord, was in our apartment. He was a large man in every way. Tall and round, his belly protruded over his waist like he had swallowed three basketballs. Anwar was not a happy guy, and as he sprayed the toxic chemicals under our kitchen sink, he spoke.

“You know, these are hard to get rid of. The last tenants had the same problem, but you can blame them. All the walls in here were covered with beer cans.”

“What?” I asked.

“Beer can walls. That’s why there’s roaches. This place will always be infested, I think. But I’ll keep coming to spray if you need me to.”

At that moment, I experienced a variety of emotions. Terror, rage, hopelessness. I wanted to take a shotgun and shoot the shit out of the former tenants; then I wanted to aim it at Anwar, who didn’t seem to care that his apartment was riddled with the lowest form of life; then I wanted a plane ticket back home to LA…in that order.

*

The weeks that followed were devastating. Roaches falling out of my clothes hanging in the closet, running rampant across my bed, spending quality time with me in the shower. You couldn’t sit, stand, sleep, bathe, or take a crap without being accompanied by roaches. Getting dressed in the morning was truly horrifying. First, I’d reach for my Docs that sat by my bed. I’d turn each shoe over and shake it. It was a good day when nothing fell out. Then, I’d put them on and walk to the closet, where I’d open the creaking door and proceed to shake every item of clothing. I’d select an outfit, pull it out with my fingertips, and then continue to shake it until every roach had vacated the premises. If it was a shower day, I’d find my flip-flops, open and shake the shower curtain at the same time, step on any roaches that had fallen on the floor, then check the ceiling for anything crawling, get into the shower, turn on the water, and watch the remaining roaches slide toward the drain and spiral down to the sewer. I’d reach for my shampoo, but not before checking every angle of it, and as I’d suds up, I’d swivel my head up, down, and all around. Those few seconds while rinsing my hair when I had to shut my eyes were some of the scariest moments of my life. I thought our cat Elijah would be helpful in terms of killing the suckers, but all she’d do was eat them, throw them back up, and eat them again.

At this point, Anwar was making weekly visits to our place. I finally lost my shit.

“I can’t live like this anymore! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be here? I haven’t relaxed in three and a half weeks! And I’m in college! And every time I open a book to study something, I have to kill these things. It’s hard enough to retain Great American Playwrights on its own! What the hell is the problem? Can’t you spray anything more toxic? How about just pure poison? Do you have any of that? Or, how about we move apartments? Maybe one on the top floor. I’m sure it’ll take them longer to find their way up there. I need help, Anwar! You’ve gotta help me, man!”

By now I was sobbing uncontrollably, and Anwar was staring at me with great concern. I was hoping he wouldn’t call the asylum and send two men with a straitjacket to drag me away. Actually, that sounded like a much better deal than my current living situation.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. Don’t get upset.” It was the first time he sort of smiled. It made me feel better…like I wasn’t so alone.

Over the next few days, Anwar had practically moved in with us. He’d work in the kitchen all day, gutting the cabinets, pulling out drawers. I’d pop home between classes, say hello to his legs as the rest of his body worked under the rubble, and after about a week, things were much better. Anwar had done it and now I could sleep without clutching a flashlight, shower without wearing shoes, and open a textbook without slamming it to the floor and stomping on it.

*

So, yes, I had an experience that was truly scarring. But now, with the Ambien surging its way through my brain waves, and my body gently sandwiched between my softly snoring husband and my purring cat, I could feel myself being carried away to a dreamlike state. And I whispered to the cat, “Let’s not worry about it tonight. I’ll call the landlord tomorrow.” Then he touched my nose with his paw. I wanted to tell him not to eat any of the roaches…that they weren’t good for his tummy, but I could sense that he was already falling asleep, and I didn’t want to disturb him.

 

Hali Morell is an actress, writer, teacher, and co-founder of The Missing Peace. Her work has appeared in Borfski Press, Evening Street Press, Avalon Literary Review, Broad River Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Forge Journal, The Paragon Journal, Pendora Magazine, The Penmen Review, and Tower Journal. 

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Poetry Feature: “Days of 1985” by Ellen Kombiyil

 

 

“Oh the body! The delight and am I / normal?”

—from The Lost Pages of Anne Sexton1

 

We who pretended to lie down at parties 

with lovers on vinyl couches or wished

we didn’t but wouldn’t admit it, licking

salt from necks, bass leaping with our breath, or was it

expanding/escaping inside us, black light’s

purple stripes transforming eyes/teeth into green 

glowing beings, separate, alive, our faces

into negatives, cried. If we did it (we did it)

to feel for a moment if not loved then

wanted: A boy jammed his tongue in my mouth

because the Coke bottle chose me when it spun,

which was my first kiss. I didn’t ask questions.

Or I fielded Ouija board guesses Yes/No/

………Good-bye. Or I walked into that closet,

willingly let them lock it. O, my wasted 

adolescence! Assessing vertical stripes 

on swimsuits as a function of decreased 

belly fat, obsessed with how thighs pooled 

when I sat, how absent thigh gap leads to ruin.

I dieted on Cheez Balls (one every 55 

minutes, dissolved on the tongue in a pool

of melted butter). Or I teased my hair

to make my face look slimmer. Ruin, from 

the Latin ruere, “to fall” as in fall 

headlong or with a crash. We were always 

falling laughing collapsing unable to stand 

our bodies pulsing with want.

 

 1. The book quoted is fictional, wished into existence, as is the quote.

 

Ellen Kombiyil is the author of Histories of the Future Perfect (2015), and a micro-chapbook Avalanche Tunnel (2016). Publications: New Ohio Review, Nimrod, North American Review, and Ploughshares. Awards: Mary M. Fay Poetry Award from Hunter College; Academy of American Poets college prize; Nancy Dean Medieval Prize.

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Art Feature: “The Deceit of Illogical Numbers,” “The 20 Gauge Plasma Machine Blues,” “The Faces of Death Disintegrate Forever,” and “Destroying Everything One Brush Stroke at a Time” by Brett Stout

Brett Stout is a 40-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates mostly controversial work usually while breathing toxic paint fumes from a small cramped apartment known as “The Nerd Lab” in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His work has appeared in a vast range of diverse media, from international indie zines like Litro Magazine UK to Brown University. He is tired of talking about himself at this point and prefers that his artwork speak for itself.

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Poetry Feature: “Chronicles” by Isaiah Brown

Junk’d up on adrenaline.

Nobody could tell you anything.

 

I was grateful enough to move

to your hometown, let alone 

become your friend. 

Isn’t that the Taylor kid? I heard the 

Police searched his house for six hours.

Nobody was ready to see what your

home looked like though. 

 

How you rescued 

a dog from the neglect of its drug-

dealing owners.

Nonetheless you were from the wrong

side of the tracks, yet cut so different

from everyone else.

 

You split the community in half.

Modern day robin hood, only you could do that.

 

One end of the spectrum left in 

grief of a young genuine life taken too soon.

Others commemorated the death 

of a bandit.

Almost like they saw the end of an era, 

understanding that your dirt bike was never

to be heard in Adamstown again.

 

You and that bike.

The loss didn’t hit me until it was too late.

I realized I didn’t hear that rust bucket of a machine

ripping down its iconic strip outside my window

anymore. Suddenly your crew made less and

less appearances throughout the town.

 

I never finished the cigarette you offered during our first encounter.

I only took it so you and your friends wouldn’t think I’m square.

 

At first, I thought it was cool, that

my peers recognized me as part of your legend.

It was a handful of times we even hung out.

I feel so stupid now! To think a legacy 

could fill the void of a fallen soldier. 

Now all I am left with is a memorial card, and 

posts of your life depicted through Facebook.

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Fiction Feature: “Alien Storytellers Make Contact” by Andrew Gretes

The aliens were disappointing. We expected spaceships and ray guns and creatures with heads the shape of lightbulbs. We got humans—some called them “humanoids” because it sounded more exotic—wearing trenchcoats glazed with wormhole debris. Mostly, they emerged out of storm-drains and toilets and computer screens. 

Smiling, terribly affable, the aliens claimed that they too came from Earth. We groaned. What was human history but the story of earthlings invading other earthlings? How cliché. We were so tired of invading ourselves. 

But there was one consolation. The aliens weren’t from our Earth, which made the invasion less of a repetition, more of a rhyme. Apparently, there were Counter-Earths: i.e., countless parallel blue dots that all occupied the same mesh of space-time. As one alien explained the matter: “It’s kind of like how ghosts might all inhabit the same blanket…” 

They were storytellers. Or so they said. It was hard to verify. They didn’t utter an anecdote, let alone a nice zigzagging plot… you know, one of those tales that might score a nine on the Narrative-Richter scale. No, our aliens were far more interested in eavesdropping than beginning sentences with “Once upon a time…” The aliens propped their feet on our couches and binge-watched Netflix and Disney+ and took notes in tattered journals and said, “Look at the verticality on that cliffhanger!” and “What plottery!” 

The invasion showed no signs of letting up. Week after week, aliens emerged out of manholes and chimneys and stained-glass windows and, well, anything remotely mouth-shaped. 

Pretty soon, nations divvied up the aliens and even small towns got their very own extraterrestrial diplomat. It was all the rage. 

Naturally, our native storytellers were a bit miffed. Their emotional pendulums swung from envious to desperate. Some well-known authors even broke into stranger’s houses, hid inside pantries, and crawled out when it was dinnertime, saying, “Greetings!” pretending that they too were bards from another dimension. These tactics were typically rebuffed with comments like, “False alarm, it’s just Stephen King…” or “Honey, stop recording, it’s only Joyce Carol Oates…again.”   

But as time went on, we felt gypped. The aliens seemed to have no intention of regaling us with wondrous tales of adventure and heartbreak and derring-do. All they cared about was frequenting our public libraries and lounging in our movie theaters as they survived on a diet of Milk Duds and Pepsi and popcorn. 

Our expectations plummeted. What began as… That year we made contact with aliens and the secrets of the universe unfurled like a cosmic flower… quickly degenerated into… That year aliens showed up and plagiarized our best-sellers. 

We even thought about exchanging our aliens, but we could find no return policy in the collars of their trenchcoats. 

Finally, as a last resort, we said, “Okay, well, what would these aliens say if they ever deigned to tell a story?” 

Everyone had an answer. Pretty soon, contests sprang up and speculative fiction sold out like never before. As the aliens remained mum, we studied them like humanoid-shaped landscapes and sketched their stories. 

“I bet this one comes from a version of Earth where some people work as ‘human cup-holders’ and accompany people on long drives, holding their beverages and discussing the weather and the meaning of life…”

“I bet this one comes from a version of Earth where you’re required to disseminate an instruction manual on how to ‘use’ you in order to prevent miscommunication and intimacy problems …”

The aliens encouraged us. They smiled and said “Well imagined!” and “Very possible!” For aliens, they were incorrigibly polite. It wasn’t long before they were packing up their belongings and staging a mass exodus, hopping into a variety of holes and warping back to their own worlds.

We said, “Wait, that’s it?! After all this time, you won’t even tell us a single story?”

They looked puzzled.

We said, “You’re storytellers… well, at least nominally… don’t you tell stories?”

They said, “We just did! Millions of them.”

We said, “No, we told those stories. You just sat there and posed.”

Again, they looked puzzled.

We said, “Look, just because nature abhors a vacuum doesn’t mean the vacuum should get credit for the story that nature tells.” 

They said, “You know, that’s the oddest thing about this Earth.”

“What?”

“You never give credit to the ghost-writers—the real ghost-writers—all those unsung voids and question marks and vacuums.”

“Sure, but what would those voids be without us?”

“What would you be without them?”

It was our turn to look puzzled. 

The aliens took advantage of our collective head-scratching and said, “With us, all writing credits are attributed to bafflers.”

“Bafflers?”

“Those which baffle.”

“But—” 

Before we could justify ourselves and offer a retort to all the other judgy parallel Earths in existence, the aliens leapt into nearby craters and disappeared. 

We felt robbed. We felt accused. We felt chatty. It was like a big fat portal had been carved into our mental ice, and now there was nothing left to do but go fishing.

What did we catch? 

Well, for starters, writing credits were dramatically increased. A single author became an absurdity. Authors like “the enigma of consciousness” were tacked on to psychology books, “the conundrum of antimatter” to sci-fi novels, “the riddle of attraction” to rom-coms. Cumulonimbus clouds and daffodils were finally given credit for co-authoring William Wordsworth’s poetry, while ideas like “god-complex” and “necromancy” were given posthumous billing for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

In short, the world felt more and more like a collaboration between inspiration and inspired, and we (as perhaps the most egotistical Earth in existence) became a smudge more comfortable with opening our mouths and letting out narratives and not fussing over who was doing the telling and who was being told. 

 

Andrew Gretes is the author of How to Dispose of Dead Elephants (Sandstone Press, 2014). His fiction has appeared in New England Review, Willow Springs, Witness, Sycamore Review, and other journals.

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Nonfiction Feature: “there are things that your privilege will not let you see” by Jola Naibi

 

……….like the woman in church who asks me a question like I should know the answer because my skin is a certain color & when I tell her that I do not know the answer she tells me she likes my accent & asks me where I am from originally & I tell her that I am Nigerian & there is no originally in my story & I am still from there & she gasps & tells me that she has heard about the girls & how lucky I am to come to this country & to get an education & what a shame it is what is going on in that part of the world as if she is immune to that sort of thing & I think she believes that because she knows some trending news story she knows all about that part of the world so I tell her that I did not learn to speak English in these United States nor did I attend school here & I went to an all girls school in Nigeria &  my mother went to an all girls school in Nigeria & her mother went to an all girls school in Nigeria & we were never kidnapped & what happened with the girls is sad & unfortunate & can happen anywhere in the world when things start to fall apart

……….even here

……….& I can see that she is taken aback & I am taken aback because she is taken aback & I am taken aback because she is unable to see beyond her own privilege

……….like the man who spends six months in Cape Town & begins to parade himself as an expert on Africa & takes offence when someone points out that Africa is not a country & he is adamant that he is African now & I want to tell him that I have lived in his country for more than a decade & I am still called an alien

……….but I remain silent because I am too hurt to speak & I know that if I open my mouth I will unleash a torrent of anger that will be misunderstood & I remain silent because I know there will come a time when I will talk

……….& that time comes when the children are separated from their parents at the border & a man says to me that he does not know how any parent would put their children through that sort of thing in the first place & I ask him if he thinks the parents are deriving any pleasure in taking their children through such a perilous journey & I share with him the poem home by Warsan Shire in which she says that

……….no one leaves home unless home chases you

……….fire under feet

……….hot blood in your belly

……….no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

……….saying

……….leave

……….run away from me now

……….I don’t know what i’ve become

……….but i know that anywhere

……….is safer than here

 

……….& I remind him that the families at the border are not any different from his that the children at the border are not any different from his two sons and one daughter & that if he was in that position he would do the same thing & that we are all vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life

……….& he looks down in silence & I hope I am getting through

……….I hope I have been able peel back the layers that have made him blind to certain things

……….I hope that I am able to let him see the things that his privilege will not let him see

 

Jola Naibi was raised in Lagos, Nigeria, studied in the U.K., and now lives in the U.S. Reading and writing fuel her energy, and her first book, Terra Cotta Beauty, is a collection of short stories set in Lagos, which was published in 2014. She writes as she remembers.

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Nonfiction Feature: “Orbs of Feelings” by Kelly Flanagan

I abandoned orange bottles of pills on my dresser.  My desk lamp shone through them as they became orange orbs of feelings.  Prescription feelings.  This one calmness; this one love; this one eternal happiness.

I laughed very deeply and inaudibly. Though my countenance did not change even slightly.  I sat in bed breathing shallowly and removing each feeling from its bottle.  Kindness is a mango and white capsule.  Tenderness in the left color and a peaceful heart in the right.  

You should know that for happiness, you have to combine a few types.  Six light, sky blue tablets will remove your inner turmoil and any questions about mortality and the meaning of life.  Remember to add 600mg of equanimity in the morning and regularly throughout the day so as to maintain a consistent saturation.  

The red capsule in the mornings along with the two white “horse pills” as my aunt used to say.  There are the tiny white ones.  Take exactly seven as they’re low dose.  

My doctor, a gifted mixologist.  Hints of apple in my basil gimlet cocktail of drugs.  

Donning authority and bleached robes, he assures me I need these colors to become ok.  I thank him.

With the dissolvable tablets, I know the sugar and anxiety will dissolve sweetly under my tongue.

It may even be funny to some heavenly observer when the 1.5mg of mood-swinging-withdrawal changes my entire body and thrusts me into a pool of clouds I try desperately to climb out of into that clearer air, all light sky blue.  

But I can’t get a grip on that vapor.  I can’t climb out of what doesn’t exist.  

I wonder, sort of intently, if I really exist either.  It feels like it’s possible I’m just a mango-colored orb that swallows its feelings.

I’ve asked around, but no one’s sure.

 

Kelly Flanagan is a memoirist and blogger in Washington, DC.  Her writing focuses on resilience, personal agency, and life’s evolutions. International immersion and philosophy flavor her perspective.  Kelly has an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and is completing an MFA in Creative Writing at University of Baltimore.

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Art Feature: “Sista Awa Oil on Cement” & “B-boy Oil on Canvas” by Mario Loprete

Mario Loprete, Catanzaro 1968 Graduate at Accademia of Belle Arti , Catanzaro (ITALY) Painting is for him the first love. An important, pure love. Creating a painting, starting from the spasmodic research of a concept with which he wants to send a message to transmit his message, it’s the base of his painting. The sculpture is his lover, the artistic betrayal to the painting. That voluptous and sensual lover that gives him different emotions, that touches prohibited cords…