Issue One, Volume Four

From the Desk of the Editor;

Hello and welcome to this very extra special edition of Larks Fiction Magazine. Do you know why it is special? It is our 2^nd Birthday! Thank you for two years of excellent art. To celebrate we will be releasing free coupons of our emagazine online. To get yours check us out on Twitter @LarksMedia.

To celebrate our big day we have brought in two gifted writers Angela Brown again and Scott Warrender to help christen our fourth volume of Larks Fiction Magazine.

In news we wanted to apologize for our late updates as of recent posts. As of now and until our new offices are functional we will be updating every Monday night. We have no cellphone reception in Lindsay and our wifi isn’t set up yet.

Now on with the show,

Daniel J. Pool

LFM Editor

Saving my Virginity

Angela Khristin Brown

My heart calls for your touch

As you grasp the palm of your hands

Around my small waist

To covet my stomach

That carries our child

My soul cries for you to whisper

Passionate sweet things in my ear

To hear you call my name in passion

In unison as you speak

To let me know you care for me

My virginity is a promissory note

An abiding promise

My virginity is a crossword

A loyal friendship

As I gap my legs open

I allow others to worship

God's intentions

***

About the Author;

Angela Khristin Brown is the author of over 20 books published around the world. She has had works published in poetry, articles, essays, short stories, plays, documentaries, short scripts, songs, novelettes, how-to’s, and children’s literature. She has also created a not for profit organization, Angela Brown Writer’s Group, in her native town of Las Vegas. Angela writes about cultural issues faced in society relevant to all cultures faced today. She writes about such as race, sexuality and morality as she writes from her experiences.

The Birthday

By Scott Warrender

Feet propped on a small table, she twists on the plastic deckchair, pulls the wool blanket up over her legs and takes in the view: the pumpkin she placed on the deck railing the day before; the unsettled motions of the clouds; the churning tops of the half-dressed trees — eddies in a tide pool, she thinks; the strands of rainwater rolling off the deck overhang - drowning, she thinks.

“I used to like October. But now, everywhere you look, things are wet and failing.”

“Noted,” he says. “Did you print out my boarding pass?”

“Don’t go.”

“Got to. What would you like?”

“A foam Statue of Liberty hat.”

He scoots his chair close, squeezes himself warm. “No, I mean what would you like for your birthday?”

“Stars,” she says.

 “Second choice?”

     “Thunder and lightning in a Mason jar. And call my mother. I need her to push my hair out of my eyes and tell me everything’s going to be okay.”

     “How long are we going to do this?”

“The doctor said two months, so—” She shrugs.

He slides the back of his hand across her shoulder, then the back of her neck. “I can’t tell you that everything will be okay. I’m not God.”

“That’s not what you said on our first date.”

“I remember telling you I was omniscient, not that I was God.”

He lifts the mugs and the teapot, cold and used. “I’ll be back.”

“Would it be the end of the world if you weren’t there?”

“Probably,” he sighs. “Hey, we never made the guest list for your birthday dinner.”

“Chester Pane and Martha Stewart.”

“The Martha Stewart?” He turns, smirks.

“Yes.”

“And Chester, your sister’s dog walker?”

“He’s funny. He makes me laugh. We should get a dog.”

“Maybe we could just hire him to make you laugh.”

“Would he do that?”

“I’ll have a word with him.”

“That’d be nice.” She tucks the blanket under her legs, shifts onto one hip.

“Okay. So funny dog walking Chester and, you know, I don’t think Martha’s returning our phone calls right now.”

“Ever since she went to prison, she thinks she’s so much better than us.”

The screen door claps shut and she listens to his footsteps in the dining room then the kitchen. She pushes the blanket away, rolls up her t-shirt and slides her palm over goose-fleshy skin, her perfect bump of stomach.

“In two months I’ll give you a name,” she whispers. “When that time comes, it’ll be nothing but blinky trees, pirate costumes, and armies of friends in pointy birthday hats. You should consider that before you make a decision.”

“Hey!” she twists and shouts into the house, “grab my coat,” unrolls her shirt and pulls the blanket back up to her chin, shifts away another pain.

He returns and hands her a jar of jelly from the pantry, unopened.

“Here. They were out of Thunder and Lightning. How about the Collision of Two Galaxies?”

“Good choice.” She holds up the jar, spins it, reads its label. “You’re predictable.”

“In what way?”

“In the way that you always seem to surprise me.”

“Just don’t let that sit around too long,” he says, pointing at the jar. “The label says it goes bad in ten thousand years.”

He looks out over the yard for a moment.

“I left a message. I’m not going to New York. The Earth will keep spinning.”

“You’ve seen to that, have you?” She reaches over and he smothers her ice-cold hand in his, breathes into their jumble of fingers. “Okay, so far, the party is you, me, Chester. Really? Chester?”

She looks up, into his eyes for the first time since the doctor’s appointment. “Do we have to have a party?”

“Not if you don’t want one.”

“I don’t. Not this year.”

He begins to stand, gently pulls her hand. “Let’s go inside.”

“I want to stay.”

“You’ll freeze.”

“That’s okay. You can thaw me out when—” She trails off because what she wants to say is out of reach, inexpressible.

A strong wind blows dead leaves onto the deck. He shivers, walks inside the house and grabs a quilt from the sofa. When he returns, he squeezes in behind, surrounds them in a cape of patchwork suns. They look out to their garden, their yard, the tree line, down the hill to the Cedar River, perpetually flowing, twisting away. Unstoppable.

“I’m thinking,” she says, “We should have waited to harvest that pumpkin from the garden. We should have let it grow bigger and bigger. Then, one day, we could have hollowed it out and moved into it.”

“Next year,” he says.

“Next year?” she says. “Where’s the consolation in that?”

A heart-shaped cloud smears behind a stand of firs. The rain chills into sleet.

“It’s freezing! God? Can’t you have your people do something about this weather?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m not God.”

“But you know everything, right?”

“I lied about that, too.”

“Damn you.”

“I’m afraid, right now, there is little within my control.”

“So now you’re powerless?”

“I am,” he says so quietly it’s nearly a thought.

He slips his hand under her t-shirt and lays his open palm carefully on the skin of her belly. He touches her neck with his lips and closes his eyes.

“I am,” he says.

END

About the Author;

Scott Warrender teaches at Cornish College for the Arts in Seattle. He is a composer and pianist. His pieces have been published by Samuel French, Stanley the Whale, and The Foundling Review.

Thank you for joining us on our big 02! Wish us happy birthday on Twitter @LarksMedia and keep your eyes open for free give-aways, trivia, and special video posts of our new offices!