Jet Fuel Review
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022
  • Issue #25 Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Art Spring 2023 >
      • David Carter Spring 2023
      • Annabel Jung Spring 2023
      • Ryota Matsumoto Spring 2023
      • Leah Oates Spring 2023
      • Eve Ozer Spring 2023
      • Emily Rankin Spring 2023
      • Esther Yeon Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Poetry Spring 2023 >
      • Emma Bolden Spring 2023
      • Ronda Piszk Broatch Spring 2023
      • M. Cynthia Cheung Spring 2023
      • Flower Conroy Spring 2023
      • Jill Crammond Spring 2023
      • Sandra Crouch Spring 2023
      • Satya Dash Spring 2023
      • Rita Feinstein Spring 2023
      • Dan Fliegel Spring 2023
      • Lisa Higgs ​Spring 2023
      • Dennis Hinrichsen ​Spring 2023
      • Mara Jebsen ​Spring 2023
      • Abriana Jetté ​Spring 2023
      • Letitia Jiju ​Spring 2023
      • E.W.I. Johnson ​Spring 2023
      • Ashley Kunsa ​Spring 2023
      • Susanna Lang ​Spring 2023
      • James Fujinami Moore Spring 2023
      • Matthew Murrey Spring 2023
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2023
      • Heather Qin ​Spring 2023
      • Wesley Sexton ​Spring 2023
      • Ashish Singh ​Spring 2023
      • Sara Sowers-Wills ​Spring 2023
      • Sydney Vogl ​Spring 2023
      • Elinor Ann Walker Spring 2023
      • Andrew Wells Spring 2023
      • Erin Wilson Spring 2023
      • Marina Hope Wilson ​Spring 2023
      • David Wojciechowski Spring 2023
      • Jules Wood Spring 2023
      • Ellen Zhang Spring 2023
      • BJ Zhou Spring 2023
      • Jane Zwart Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Fiction Spring 2023 >
      • Eleonora Balsano Spring 2023
      • Callie S. Blackstone Spring 2023
      • Daniel Deisinger Spring 2023
      • CL Glanzing Spring 2023
      • Janine Kovac Spring 2023
      • Jeremy T. Wilson Spring 2023
      • Richie Zaborowske Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Nonfiction Spring 2023 >
      • Kalie Johnson Spring 2023
      • Amanda Roth Spring 2023

CL Glanzing

Breath

​1. The emperor scorpion fluoresces bright blue.

Most blue feels unnatural. Electric. Manufactured by pharmacologists. Bottled poison that sits
glowing in translucent bottles - dusty on a chemist’s shelves. The corticosteroids and biologics.
The synthetic mists that Erica must gulp to stay alive.

Or the sapphires and cobalt growing within the earth, silently and privately, like precipitated bile
in an organ. Ripped out and polished by human hands. Their surfacing made somehow profane.
Some things should never be seen or touched, but left to grow, quietly cultivating their secrets.

Blue is deceptive. It has a seductive invitation, like a viperine tooth or the glowing tendrils of a
man-o’-war. Let me hold you, it says. Be silent and rest with me. Let me rock you down, down, where
there is only stillness.
It wants to be inside you, coat your bones. A quiet annihilation. Touch me,
become me.


A foot below the surface of the canal, underneath her family’s houseboat, she likes to surrender
her breath. Purposefully. The tranquility is captivating. It is not the same as holding her breath,
feeling the blood pounding in her ears, her body straining against self-immolation. Under water,
there is a hush, gently blanketing her body.

She looks up at the teal glass separating her world of swaying pondweed and the hostile orange
air above. The choking humidity moored in their 40-degree September. Her mother shrilly
chiding: ‘Get out now! You don’t know where that water has been!’

True, it is not always fit for swimming. Now in the umpteenth year of flooding, their houseboat
floats precariously in a basin of pesticide and petroleum runoff. The risk to her body, however,
seems laughable.

2. Scorpions can survive underwater for two days.

The minute her head breaches the surface, she gasps, her body attempting to inflate and buoy
itself. But the energy it took to paddle her arms has winded her. She gasps again and again, trying
to keep her head above the surface and swallow more air than water.

Her mother hooks her hands under Erica’s underarms and struggles to pull her teenage daughter
under the railing. Her rainbow swimsuit snags against the barnacles puckering the stern.

‘Now you’ve gotten yourself all worked up,’ her mother scolds. She disappears for a minute,
leaving Erica to lie trembling and wheezing on the deck like a recently-hauled fish, dreading the
boot about to land on her head.

Then she feels a shaft of plastic being placed between her teeth. ‘One two three,’ her mother
counts, and on the last beat Erica obediently inhales the bitter dust.

‘No more swimming or running when I’m not around,’ her mother says, putting the cap back on
the inhaler. ‘These are expensive.’

3. Scorpion mothers carry their young on their backs.

‘They’re called booklungs,’ explains Dr. Jehaanan, pointing to the cross-section in the illuminated
projection. ‘Still fairly experimental. But it may improve your quality of life.’

‘It will be my own tissue?’ asks Erica, squeezing her husband’s hand.

‘Of course. We begin with two 3-D polymer moulds, which are implanted with stem cells drawn
from your fat, and modified to differentiate into cartilage and dense tissue. The polymer will
disintegrate, leaving only your own cells behind. We will also do a gene-splice marrow transplant
at the same time. Your red blood cells will no longer carry oxygen, and instead your body will
produce hemocyanin. This will fill the cavities of the book lungs. ’

‘I don’t really understand.’ Hannes side-eyes the projection hovering weightlessly above the
examination table. ‘Why would these lungs be any different?’

Erica notices that Hannes' lips are pursing - failing to keep his expression, and position,
completely neutral. Contrary to what he had promised.

'Your respiration will completely change. No more inflammation of the bronchus, no more
mucus, infections, or cysts. The gas exchange happens in an entirely new part of your body. You
won't be - for a lack of a better word - breathing.’

It surprises Erica how easy it is to imagine. The curve of the pleated organs illuminated before her
face. Picturing them inside her body, flanking the outside of her breasts. Spiracle vents gaping like
small open mouths inside her armpits.

‘Many arachnids have booklungs,' adds Jehaanan. 'It’s where we got the idea. All the folds
maximise the surface exposed to the air and the amount of gas exchange. See how the layers look
like a folded book?’

'And what about my... the lungs I already have?' asks Erica.

Dr. Jehaanan shrugs. 'Defunct. Remove them eventually, probably. Once we've established the
first surgery was a success.'

4. Scorpions may be the oldest land animals still living today.

Outside the Harley Street clinic, the unspoken boil ruptures.

‘It’s grotesque,’ hisses Hannes, loath to allow pedestrians in on their conversation. The orange-
grey sky is awash with the stench of ammonia and methane. It hums with delivery drones,
pumping through their invisible capillary-like traffic lanes.

But Erica is already two feet below water, wafting with the duckweed, in the blue silence. ‘It’s
natural,’ she says, her voice muffled by the elastomeric respirator she replaces over her sunken
cheeks.

5. Scorpions do not have bones - they have an exoskeleton made of chitlin.

Erica signs the waiver - she will recover at home, unattended. And the do-not-resuscitate which
would render the first document moot.

She imagines the empty houseboat, its decimated parts on a scrap heap. Their paltry worth
contributing to her hospital bill. She knows what her mother would say about all this. She hears
it, or rather feels it, like a guppy reverberating with the finger-taps against the aquarium glass.

She feels cold in her dotted gown and plastic booties. The hairnet squeezes her face. The
anaesthetist asks Erica to count backwards from five.

5 ...

The sound of twenty tennis shoes crunching against the terracotta track. She runs for thirty yards
before her windpipe pinches shut. The weight on her chest crushes, as if someone has dumped a
sandwich board declaring ‘the end is nigh’ over her shoulders. Her primary school gym teacher
finds her trembling and pale. Unable to draw breath.

Such a silly thing to forget how to do - the very ritual which keeps her alive. Pulling the purity of
life inwards with every muscle surrounding your organ and tissues, and push the waste forcefully
from your nose and mouth. Even a child should remember how.

Her teacher taps her shoulder twice in a chummy ‘walk-it-off, soldier’ gesture.

4 ...

She graduates from inhalers and atomisers, to three bronchial thermoplastys a year.

The basement of the off-campus building is dank and clammy. She leaves her oxygen tank at the
door, like a wet umbrella. Silvia Winkels takes her bottle of Rekorderlig from Erica’s hand and
drains it. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she says.

‘I’m not really into poetry,’ Erica admits.

‘What are you into?’

Erica leans in and kisses Silvia, impulsively. Her heart pounds as her lips part. She feels the
warmth of Silvia’s breath touching her lips. She nurses on it. Then Erica pushes Silvia away,
panting.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ asks Silvia.

‘No - I mean yes - just for a minute,’ she pants. ‘I have CMA.’

‘Oh?’

‘Chronic metastatic asthma.’ Ashamed by the need to explain. ‘It’s the atmosphere. My airways are
too narrow and they get agitated and capillaries burst and that causes and—’ she realises that
Silvia is looking around the room, distracted, unlistening.

‘That’s awful, love, you should take care,’ Silvia says, avoiding her eye. ‘I’m just going to go find
my mates, be back in a tick.’

Silvia disappears into the throng of the party. And does not return.

3 ...

Charlie Foresgren squeezes her throat behind the chippy. She regrets making the joke in front of
his friends about his band never finishing a song. The apartment they share will be chilly tonight.
Fireworks burst before her eyes.

'Will you stop undermining me?' he asks coldly.

She digs her fingernails into his wrist meekly. She considers clawing his eyes but she does not
want to hurt him.

2 ...

Her husband calls her a gene-punk and a bio-hacker. Growing an animal in her armpits.

He sleeps on the sofa for a time. Then his office.

After a while, Hannes just does not come home at all.

1 ...

Erica stands on the Pitch Hill summit, one of the last stretches of woodland in southern England.
Her walking shoes are muddy, her sweaty vest clings to her back.

She looks over the vista, and the monolith coking ovens in the distance, blenching smoke
skywards. The brown forest disintegrates into the persimmon hue of the city, ending abruptly on
the horizon. It is the first bright day in May, after a month of frost and fog.

She lifts her arms, feeling the wind thread through the thick hairs and graze the spiracle vents
beneath. Despite the steep climb, her chest is silent, motionless.

At this altitude, tufts of xanthic smog hover at the same height as where she stands, shrouding the
valley. It almost seems possible to scoop them with one hand and squeeze them like lamb’s wool.
But the smog cannot harm her. It cannot even enter her body - once porous, now fortified.

Palms skywards, shoulders open, she basks in her stillness.

This world was not made for Erica.
​
And Erica was not made for anyone.



--
CL Glanzing is an international nomad, currently living in London. By day, she works in healthcare research, trying to use those ridiculous letters after her name (MA, MSc, PhD). By night, she does heritage crafts and runs an LGBTQ+ bookclub. Her work has been published in Luna Station Quarterly, The Writing Disorder, Quarterl(ly), and the Minds Shine Bright Anthology.

​

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022
  • Issue #25 Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Art Spring 2023 >
      • David Carter Spring 2023
      • Annabel Jung Spring 2023
      • Ryota Matsumoto Spring 2023
      • Leah Oates Spring 2023
      • Eve Ozer Spring 2023
      • Emily Rankin Spring 2023
      • Esther Yeon Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Poetry Spring 2023 >
      • Emma Bolden Spring 2023
      • Ronda Piszk Broatch Spring 2023
      • M. Cynthia Cheung Spring 2023
      • Flower Conroy Spring 2023
      • Jill Crammond Spring 2023
      • Sandra Crouch Spring 2023
      • Satya Dash Spring 2023
      • Rita Feinstein Spring 2023
      • Dan Fliegel Spring 2023
      • Lisa Higgs ​Spring 2023
      • Dennis Hinrichsen ​Spring 2023
      • Mara Jebsen ​Spring 2023
      • Abriana Jetté ​Spring 2023
      • Letitia Jiju ​Spring 2023
      • E.W.I. Johnson ​Spring 2023
      • Ashley Kunsa ​Spring 2023
      • Susanna Lang ​Spring 2023
      • James Fujinami Moore Spring 2023
      • Matthew Murrey Spring 2023
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2023
      • Heather Qin ​Spring 2023
      • Wesley Sexton ​Spring 2023
      • Ashish Singh ​Spring 2023
      • Sara Sowers-Wills ​Spring 2023
      • Sydney Vogl ​Spring 2023
      • Elinor Ann Walker Spring 2023
      • Andrew Wells Spring 2023
      • Erin Wilson Spring 2023
      • Marina Hope Wilson ​Spring 2023
      • David Wojciechowski Spring 2023
      • Jules Wood Spring 2023
      • Ellen Zhang Spring 2023
      • BJ Zhou Spring 2023
      • Jane Zwart Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Fiction Spring 2023 >
      • Eleonora Balsano Spring 2023
      • Callie S. Blackstone Spring 2023
      • Daniel Deisinger Spring 2023
      • CL Glanzing Spring 2023
      • Janine Kovac Spring 2023
      • Jeremy T. Wilson Spring 2023
      • Richie Zaborowske Spring 2023
    • Issue #25 Nonfiction Spring 2023 >
      • Kalie Johnson Spring 2023
      • Amanda Roth Spring 2023