The summer thunderstorm rolled in quickly enough that I knew we couldn’t stay. Something tore me from routine and left me stranded, upside down. My neighborhood park, cozy like a pirate ship, abandoned like a child. We spent afternoons swinging on rusted bars until the dog got loose. It ran through velcro grass and valleys of silt. An old man with one shoe and two hats chased after it, shouting that it ate his last three sour berries. We watched and laughed and I watched as you laughed. Elbows touching. Only one of us was certain this would be our last time. 

When time froze at dusk, the magician led me back to my origins. I used few words but still said too much. His name was Solomon Applethorne, he told me, but I wasn’t quite sure I believed him. He was not paid to be honest. He was paid for something else, though he still wouldn’t tell me what. Magic, I suppose, was somewhere in the job description. But what about that hat? Did he never take it off? What really lived under there? A rabbit? A bird? A luscious head of hair? If I weren’t so indebted to him, I’d have torn it off and slapped his presumably bald head long ago. 

The ageless woman wore a dress printed with tulips, distant but strangely clear beneath the slow drip of moonlight. We’d never touched before, but I could tell she knew everything about me. The mud beneath our feet was squelching and steaming and sucking us into its vacuum. I felt time move backwards, upwards, side to side. In our short life together, I asked her each and every question. She left me one answer in an envelope sealed gently with her spit. The lined page was folded, the message scratched in crayon: “idk :3”

Ash Lev is an emerging butch writer and media artist currently living and studying in Tkaronto. His work has been published by Ouch! Collective, Artichoke Magazine, #Ranger Magazine, and Petal Projections. In his free time, you’ll find Ash kissing his cat’s head, overanalyzing TV shows, or contemplating grad school. Find more of his work at www.linktr.ee/ashlev.