Reckoning

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Michael: Welcome back to the Reckoning Press Podcast! I’m Michael J. DeLuca, publisher of Reckoning and erstwhile podcast host, back to introduce a story I’ve had the privilege to narrate for you, “The Pelican in its Piety” by S.L. Harris, which appeared in Reckoning 9. This recording was produced . . .

Gratefulness

B.B.P. Hosmillo

the saddest part about survival is how often it is at the very end of things

that a rough road becomes a calm body of water

and there’s suddenly no need to look for knives. here’s another way of saying this:

there’s a special undocumented time the world becomes your mother.

a trail that ends wilderness. a stranger, bitter and concerned, saying

someone . . .

Dr. _____ and His Thousand Children

J.R. Staples-Ager

The Society for the Preservation of Kynish Technology is proud to present the most complete artifact ever recovered from the Genetic Archive at Yor Yan. The following manuscript owes its remarkable preservation to its inscription on flesh paper, and its entombment in a bone box set into the foundation of the building. Both paper and box resisted even the hemorrhagic . . .

Once, I returned Tulip, Once I became

once the city sprouted with gods—

seeds whispers, freshly braided with the breaths of the

ancients; tombs cracked impulses like

husks and roots curled from the bones of history. say

once, children built homes in the ribs of

cedars. their colours of laughter carved into a country

bark. once, elders named their dreams

after a tree. for trees do not forget the orders . . .

CP Nwankwo

once the city sprouted with gods—

seeds whispers, freshly braided with the breaths of the

ancients; tombs cracked impulses like

husks and roots curled from the bones of history. say

once, children built homes in the ribs of

cedars. their colours of laughter carved into a country

bark. once, elders named their dreams

after a tree. for trees do not forget the orders of a lively

hope. once, all things were bright and

beautiful. and eternity was hymnary into the greens of

a monsoon wind. but when the axe is

hungry, ferns unfurl singing dirges to the fractal geo-

metries of empires. only the deeds of

mycelium remembers the threads of hunger in which

she has entertained. does the forest

shrink into memories, if not that the city has lichen a

little normal into ingratitude? take the

crack walls of sycamore and build these heartbreaks

no more, this part where the rain out-

lives the wildness of fire and war. softly, softly the

mercy in the vine would blood over

us. and the borders of dust would come rhythm with

the original poem of god. down the

swollen belly of the earth, the acacia would fold its

leaves like a clasped hand, awaiting

the unction of redemption. the rain would play the

field of angels and the patient hand

would hold a miracle to her pomaces. back to the

prayers that tasted like gunpowder,

locking me like a decked heaven. but the truth is,

I’ve hurt myself gauzing kindness

out of the neon mouths of an open field. the sight

of me in tender hands of bulrushes.

Adobo Sky

Caroline Hung

I’m Idi, and today’s my lucky day! The weather dome in Sector 99 isn’t leaking sludge for once, and the artificial sun isn’t stuck at max setting again—I mean, just last week, it was warm enough to melt the soles of my rubber slippers. The air filtration systems are still belching purple gas, but those never bother me anyway: I’ve breathed in DTE micro matter since birth; that sharp and tangy smell soaks in my lungs. I bet that’s how lemons smell, this burning sensation in the back of my throat. Or like Mama used to say, “The smell of dead dreams and empty promises.” I wanted to ask what she meant, but she got sick a while back and just—stopped talking. One of these days, I’ll get my hands on a real lemon, too. Maybe Mama would feel better then.

High above, the weather dome shifts. The sky turns half a shade darker from the usual yellow. A digital beacon displays the current air temperature—a breezy 45 degrees Celsius. Perfect for a day outside. With a skip in my step, I make my way up to the hills outside town. A river of plastic bottles flows fast along the gravel road.

They call Sector 99 “the Junkyard World,” all rot and rust—but I heard it wasn’t always like this. Papa told me about it before he died in a collapsing oil rig late last year. There used to be “trees” and “rolling oceans,” “rock towers” and “floating islands,” beautiful places where our ancestors once worshipped the Anito. Papa said they were fickle spirits—ancient guardians of the space who lived as unseen ghosts. They would help good kids in need and punish those who hurt their favorite people.

But those were the old days. Barely anyone remembers the Anito now. Papa couldn’t even tell me what an ocean feels like in your hands. Apparently, nothing survived the War—and there’d been hundreds, no, thousands of Wars in every sector of every galaxy. Even now, War is happening in Sector 100 right above us—all the empty bullet casings and rocket debris funneled down to our Junkyard World, still smoking hot. I’ve never actually been to a War, though. I wonder if they have lemons there?

Speaking of junk, today’s batch came down from the sky just now—broken ship parts, scrap metal, and crushed tanker bits raining over the garbage hills of Sector 99. But it doesn’t stop there. Blades, barbs, more bullets—sometimes arrows and swords and nail bats with chunks of skin still stuck to them, and nuclear shells and plasma ray boxes. They pile up high toward amber skies, towers of trash. It takes a lot of work to sort through everything, so the guys up top don’t really bother. I guess they’re too busy with their War and other stuff.

That’s where kids like me come in!

“Tabi tabi tabi!” I chant, while passing through thick brambles, dead wiring. “Tabi tabi po!”

The messy trail opens ahead of me. Rusted chains stirring like vines and huge circuit boards falling flat like stairs before my feet. Bent poles lean in from one side, and I pick out some swollen batteries to put in my sack. Some used syringes over here, and grenade pins over there. Whatever catches my eye. Everything gets sold by weight, anyway. The junkshop isn’t picky so long as I don’t grab anything too bulky.

“Tabi tabi tabi!” I keep chanting. “Tabi tabi po!” It’s an old phrase Mama taught me, back when her voice still worked. She said it was only polite to announce ourselves when walking through any wilderness. After all, the Anito might still be watching over their homes. Mama warned me, too: “The Anito never forget, and they never forgive.”

So I make sure to always remember my manners. And somehow, it’s easier for me too. Somehow, the space goes—soft. My body feels lighter when I move, and it’s like wind lifting me up, just a little, whenever I run, hop, or jump from mound to mound. I don’t really understand, but it feels nice. Here in this Junkyard World, I get to be as free as an angel bird. No strict rules, no nagging teachers, and no stuffy classrooms. No boring books, or homework, or schoolyard bullies. Come to think of it, I haven’t been to school in a long time. But that’s alright. I like it way better out here. I like it when my eyes tear up from the smoke, and I like it when the air burns me from the inside, cuz then I get to pretend that I’m eating lemons.

“Tabi tabi tabi,” I say. “Tabi tabi po.”

So of course I never forget to pay my respects. I never forget the stories from Papa or the last words that Mama ever said to me. Most importantly, I never forget the Anito.

That’s why today’s my lucky day.

When the string on my half-melted slipper finally snaps, I don’t fall straight into a pit of shrapnel. Instead, I glide over the jagged slopes like a single angel feather wafting in the air. When a hole rips on my sack, I lose all the junk I’ve gathered—but then I find this odd piece of metal, like a thick dinner plate, hidden among the rubble. It glows a bright and colorful light. Colors I’ve never seen. Then I remember when another scavenger brought one back. It sold for a lot of money. Maybe ten times more than what I usually earn in a day.

The plate stops glowing as soon as I touch it. A special type of metal? Maybe plutonium, or freisium. Kronium? I have no idea. Either way, if I sell this I could buy all the lemons I want! Mama would be so happy. And Papa—if he were still alive, I know he would be proud. He could probably tell me what the plate is made of, too, but I can just ask the junkshop.

Oh boy, oh boy.

Today’s my lucky day.

Today’s my lucky day!

“Tabi tabi tabi!” I chant as I leave the garbage hills. “Tabi tabi po!” I chant, as I come up to a new checkpoint on the gravel road.

There’s barbed wire and red paint. And a bunch of cop cars, parked beside the river and its rumbling current of plastic bottles.

“Tabi tabi po,” I say again, “Tabi tabi po,” but my voice shrinks as policemen surround me, towering in their full body armor, gas masks, and steel-toe boots. I can’t see their faces. I can’t see their eyes. “Tabi tabi po.” It’s no use. They’re calling me a criminal, but it’s supposed to be my lucky day. I can’t go to jail. They’re saying it’s illegal, what I’ve been doing, picking up trash on the hills. Because it’s private property, because it’s trespassing. But if I get arrested, who will take care of Mama?

Now the cops are saying something else. They’re giving me a chance. We’ll pretend that I never came out here today, so they’ll have to remove all “evidence” on me. But I only have this metal plate. The cops are calling it an “Inactive 474.” A dud shell, though still worth a fortune on the market. They say they’ll take care of it for me so I won’t have to go to jail. But I need that money. How else am I going to feed my sick mother? They can’t take it. They can’t, they can’t, they can’t.

I guess I’ll never get to buy those lemons after all.

The cops let me go. I walk away empty-handed. I make it to twenty steps before I give in and turn my head for one last look at the plate. Through stinging tears, I struggle to see the cop’s silhouette, with his gun pointed right at me, and, oh—they were going to kill me from the start.

The cop pulls the trigger.

Bang.

The bullet flies, but it never reaches me. In that moment, the “Inactive 474” erupts with a blinding light. It wasn’t a dud after all. The explosion kills every cop on the ground, turning them to dust in an instant, armor and all. Cop cars fold and crumble away. The river of plastic disintegrates into nothing. A powerful gust sweeps me high into the air, and it feels like riding on a cloud, soft and gentle. Something cold hits my face then—droplets of water, salty on my tongue. I look down to find water bursting upward from the riverbed, a huge spring that cleanses the amber skies of Junkyard World.

The ocean opens above me. Bright, brilliant blue.

This story originally appeared in Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine’s fall 2023 issue, “How Do We Create Home in the Future? Reshaping the Way We Live in the Midst of Climate Crisis.”

The Mouthful

Hank LaRose

What is up with the sky? What is up with it and the clouds and the grasses and how everyone talks? Do you know this? Why they don’t stop as it goes closer to the end of the table, Jess? They could just say, “Oh my geez do you see that glass thing is nearly to fall off the table, drop and shatter on the floor?” That would at least be a step, don’t you think? As the glass seesaws, deciding whether it should tip, bumping closer and closer to being like milk and glass cereal on the ground. Do you see this, Jess? That people make shape of the world and, with their gift of tongue, speak. If they wanted. Not just some ancient reptilian noise. Speak, so they may see you.

Look—I will tell you what it is if you do not know. If you will listen again. Not just pull me into the room so you may do your business. No more to line me up on the stand, slide my head through the wood, and squeeze me for what I have to give you by my body. Here I am and I will tell you. I will tell you about the clouds and the grasses and everything moving as though it were this great big before. Coming and building. I will tell you of the new grass that gives me the diarrhea. Of the voice that says rain for forty days, coming from the air like a craving. Of how people talk like nothing, like how are you guy, good sweetie, oh it’s so nice to see you, yes let us convene again, maybe over lunch because we are friends. Do you feel this like me? That it is nearing? Or am I just a goat.

These are just a few that concern me, Jess, in a list of long. Truthfully it goes and goes forever, this list, so full of parts that to tell you all of this big arrival would be to blab nearly everything, and that I cannot do as time is creeping up. What I want to say quickly is that I am sorry to make myself out of dust and leave no goodbye, but I don’t believe in it anymore, and I’m not sure what you would do if you saw I was leaving. You might tie me down or search the fence for the hole I’ve been gnawing. You would probably use it as more reason to sigh when I attempt to say something honest. Oh, Cass is too smart for her own good. Oh, she is such a bother. Oh, if she only further developed the cortex then she would know that Jess and milk is scripture. That the tongue is truth and the fence is law. But Jess, there are things I used to do that now feel as if I’m wearing tiny socks. Not that there’s the low on circulation, but that I realized nearly all you have for me is socks and I cannot do so because I have hooves, Jess.

You see, with the pepperweed I tried to show you, like how we talk nearly all the time. You nod, and I say good, thank you. I lift my head through the hole, you look me in the eye, I look back at you, you smile, grab my teats, and there is love. I felt it in your hands, Jess, when you squeezed me. How you called out so we may embrace in our square room. I remember how it was young.

Last time, though, I brought the pepperweed that grows over by the creek. I tried it like usual because I enjoy the flavor more than grain, I think, since it does not show itself right away. Grain is small and pebble-like so you’d expect the crunch. Pepperweed, on the other leg, is a mustard. It is green and stemmy like the other greens that live near like the grama and buffalo grass, and if that was all you could believe or know, that all these green stemmy plants were alike, then you’d think they’d both be mild. But beneath is a quick spice and wow I am glad it grows by the creek. But this is not why I talk about it.

I brought it by the pen to show you it has a new taste, a foul taste that comes at the back of the throat. Did you know this? Also Jess, around it grew this darkened patch of plant like from some kind of fungus. As I smelled it I bumped the leaves, and they crumbled as dust. A grey stem that just dissolves into nothing. Maybe the grama or something else, I couldn’t tell, up from the base and empty as it went higher, looking stable until you touched, causing the thing to poof into the wind. I swear a twist came at my throat when I saw this happen, a twist like how a cable is wrapped in loops, around and around until it’s dizzy, my head. Remember not just this once, but more as I turned to look over toward the west side of the field. Over the fence on the far length of the river the peppergrass looked like nothing at all, just not there or hidden by the grama. Green hills or greenish hills with this slight bit of grey. It was around us all. This thing. Wrapping, tighter.

So I bit off a piece of pepperweed and carried it up to the barn as the early morning rain trickled and made all these puddles in the field. You were there unloading from the vehicle saying hey like it was every day with us—let’s get things going. Though I was up on the fence making noise with my teeth and you said, “Easy now, Cassandra.”

You never like me on the fence.

Oh I remembered your truck wailed and you brought it to the shop right away, so I tried to make that noise to be like the truck to get your eyes. Kind of high squeaky and the wheezing of the pipe. You did this within the day, I remember, straight to the shop. So I squeaked, and then of course the whole herd copied, turning my call into noise as you continued to bring the boxes indoors, now not hearing me anymore. I stopped and waited a little. I watched the puddles in the rain. I knew I would see you in the parlor at least where I could speak to you alone. The herd continued their rumble.

Not soon after that I trotted inside the barn to meet you by the gate and Peanut followed with me knowing what was coming next, the milking, yet she still made the noise like the truck. Her eyes were wide and happy because she liked the noise as it came out between her lips. This is an everyday with Peanut, the waiting by the gate in the barn, as she wants us to bang our heads together. We hit and shared our thought until you came into the milk parlor, this time wet and frustrated, as you forgot your jacket. I saw it in your movement. I clacked Peanut’s head and told her about the pepperweed. She paused and then hit me back. I said yes, feeling dizzy. We stood there for a long moment, as I saw her big eyes deciding, then taking and holding the brain pieces near her chest. “Oh,” she said in her face, and moved aside to let me through the gate when you first opened it. That I was grateful for, Peanut.

When we were in the parlor, Jess, I held the pepperweed in my mouth as you helped me up the stand. This while the routine brush and wipes. The room felt damp as some of the rain splashed through the window. I thought to tell you of the pepperweed in my mouth to signal. Yes, so I waved the grass around and you picked it from my mouth and dropped it on the floor. I saw it on the ground in front of me. You just threw it on the floor. Snatched it and threw it on the floor. Took it from me to put on the ground.

Then I tried something else by moving my mouth as I often see you move yours, Jess, with your lips and tongue flap. I had to bend and twist the muscles. It was like when a hinge goes the wrong way, like a leg far out of its socket. And for a second in that stretching I thought I my jaw came undone. Though I said it. I finally got the thing out. I said, “Pleeease, Jess,” which caused the room to fill with it and its loudness. I felt you slow your hands. You stopped, then you looked at me like always and said in one tone, “Not right now,” and continued milking.

This, I believe, hurt.

Jess, you know that I was staring to the wall, the white wall, as I felt you finish. Just the last squeezes and my head as a nothing with the white zooming in above, around me, filling. I saw that Peanut had sneezed on the wall the day before. Inside me this wanting to vomit. You had forgot to clean, so the dots were dried in a cluster and glistening and I felt the crawling up inside me like a puppet hand through to my mouth, pulling at the bones. My jaw hung swollen even though it popped back into place.

The spots on the wall seemed, for a long while, like they were moving, maybe, since they were at the end of my nose and my eyes had crossed. I could not tell. Globs would shift secretly until I was really looking and then they’d snap back. With the white still circling around. A nothing.

Then I saw you were done.

You were to let me out into the pasture as you always do, standing by the gate with it open beneath your arm, the milk room door open, my head unlatched from the block, and I waited, tall on the milk stand, as we stared for the long until you gestured to the gate. You widened like go out, Cass, go out across out in the pasture with the rain coming down. Just go out, Cassandra. I saw it bundled in your face. Another ahead, another tomorrow, the same day forever, and it was empty like a linked fence for you, tied together in a long unend. You rubbed your eyes to reach behind them the brush that won’t let us be. Yet you won’t stop this, day and day, because at least you can yawn and drink your drinks, at least you can pretend that you are Jess and then go home. This is what you’ve always said with that face, the one you hold at the end as you’re waiting for me to get on with it.

So as you did this yawn and such, I ran back to pick up the grass you dropped on the floor. Maybe I would say again with Jess, look, I get it. You’re tired. But I heard you come up behind me quick like I’d done something wrong. It frightened me how quick you were behind me. You snagged me and tugged me so hard by the collar that I strangled, then you pulled me around. You said, “Come on now, Cass, get out,” as you always do, like just a moment before there wasn’t any of that word I spoke but nothing and more sound. Then you pushed me through the hall toward the gate.

Jess, that’s all for this way. Tomorrow you might call out for me in the morning when it is just dark enough to think I’m still asleep. You’ll see if maybe I was in the corner behind some bale, yet as you look I won’t be there to respond. It’ll be quiet as you search. You might feel restless, and after a few hours you might find the hole in the eastern fence. You might say to yourself that this is some big deal while you worry for my health, feeling what you say is a kindness. That’ll be true for you as truth has always been—a thing to hold like my collar. You might wonder after many days, though time will take me away for I don’t know how long, or where. When I come back I will have the speaking down. Yes, and you will stop what you’re doing and listen. This is the promise like the rain tonight, on all the nights when the clouds are poised. Because I will have seen the world, as far as I can wander, and will tell you in clear words that beyond your eyes, your tongue, and your hands there is something big going on, Jess, and I will bring it to you in the clearest of words, understandingly.

In the Video: A Woman with Her Newborn [Content Warning]

Why don’t these people stop having babies

during a war, under the air strike?

—A comment under the video

In other words, why don’t they

stand at their windows,

watch the offerings of fire

falling from the sky,

Bahar Davoudi

Why don’t these people stop having babies

during a war, under the air strike?

—A comment under the video

In other words, why don’t they

stand at their windows,

watch the offerings of fire

falling from the sky,

listen to their own bones

shiver at every explosion, wait

for their flesh

to turn into ash?

I am not there but the memory of a war

is saved somewhere

in my childhood bones

If I have to live through another one,

if a shell is to fall on my home

I want to be in the kitchen

watching the butter

melting in the pan,

my grandma massaging the dough.

I want to be smelling the thyme,

the tarragon, choosing

which one to add to the dish we are cooking

I want to be in the bedroom

lying beside the warm body

of my lover, listening to the rhythm

of his blood, still flowing

within the borders

of his body

I want to be bathing

my newborn, pouring water

on her feet, feeling

her smooth unmarred skin

Camouflage

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

The truth must dazzle gradually.

—Emily Dickinson

I often work in slant mode. Whether through abstraction, symbolic imagery, or magical realism, I like . . .

Rain Jordan

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

The truth must dazzle gradually.

—Emily Dickinson

I often work in slant mode. Whether through abstraction, symbolic imagery, or magical realism, I like my work to be open to more than one interpretation. This way, both the subject of the work and the work’s viewer are recognized as the individual beings they are, in flux and replete with potential. I think of art as invitation to the viewer to come to their own meaning while considering the possibilities of the subject’s worldview as well. For me, a slant approach to art opens access to more dialogical forms of communication.

Editorial

This issue of Reckoning is devoted to works about war and conflict viewed through the lens of environmental justice. What is seen through that lens is, by turns, grim and hopeful.

It is through writing that we remember freedom, as Le Guin puts it. Writers are capable of probing into the heart of the crises of our time: extinction, genocide, climate catastrophe. . . .

Sonia Sulaiman

This issue of Reckoning is devoted to works about war and conflict viewed through the lens of environmental justice. What is seen through that lens is, by turns, grim and hopeful.

It is through writing that we remember freedom, as Le Guin puts it. Writers are capable of probing into the heart of the crises of our time: extinction, genocide, climate catastrophe. Diagnosing the rot at the source: violence, imperialism, and fascism. In a sense, these works may lean a little more into the mode of detailing the war that is ravaging our planet and communities, rather than than offering a restorative view of how the world could be healed. There is much value in this, especially in societies where we are kept so distracted and tired, over-worked and always busy, that we hardly have the resources to stop and say “this isn’t right.”

The title for this volume, ‘It Was Paradise,’ comes from a collection of poetry by Palestinian icon Mahmoud Darwish. The full quote is ‘Unfortunately, it was paradise.’ The reference is to Palestine and its decades-long colonization and occupation. Today, Zionist forces have left the land desolate, a truly bleak example of how genocide and ecocide are intertwined.

I believe that the power of the writer is in imagining what the world could be, that it doesn’t need to be this way. We can live in harmony with our communities and with nature, valuing all life on this world that we share in common. Without the role of imagination in remembering freedom, and prefiguring a future where there is truly justice, there can be no coherent and lasting change. I do not hope for a revolution to spring up spontaneously, but rather that we can all take actions, right now, toward a just future, together, cooperatively. I hope that this belief has informed my decisions as guest editor, and that you find this volume to be sincere and salutary.

I could not have done this without the unwavering support of the staff and editors at Reckoning. They have my thanks for their support, belief, and patience through this long process. I hope that the reader will find their experience of these dreadful times represented, but not in a pessimistic mirror. I hope you find courage and motivation to act in whatever way possible to create a better world for us all.

War Monster Glyph

. . .

Mónica Robles Corzo