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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • 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

Phillip Kobylarz

Open 24 Hours

The skeleton sat at the orange counter of the donut shop with its head bowed over a cup of coffee, its skull in its bony hands. Refuse littered the hosed-down streets and people trickled out of the dark alleys to find their cars or apartments that they rented for the weekend. The skeleton looked as if it were waiting out a migraine, though 4:30 a.m. might be a little too early to be suffering the consequences of a white night. Masculinity could be assigned to his figure by the fraying leather shoes poking out from under his costume. A kind of get-up you rarely see anymore. It fit his body snugly: white lines on a puppeteer’s black velvet pajama, capped off with a tawdry plastic mask. It was only the beginning of the night in a town filled with party goers, cops on horseback, and the siren scream of ambulances. Horse shit steamed in the gutters like freshly baked bread.
 
Hours ago, when the hoards were parading and the gaudily clad women on the balconies were dancing and raising their blouses to expose already hardened nipples to night air, he was singing along with the mayhem too. He had fallen in love an innumerable number of times but nothing coalesced from his vagrant desires other than some healthy flirting and speculative innuendo. Sex was not the real reason for his journey this far southward, though the prospect of it would most likely do wonders for his accumulating tension and the pain he looked to be closely guarding in the little corner store lit with too bright fluorescent light. The donut shop was occupied by himself and a bag lady or at least a woman dressed like one. She was looking out the plate glass window and tapping the ashes of her cigarette into a creased soda pop can.
 
Was it only a week ago when he decided to pack up the remains of his existence two days before the expiration of his lease to try to find a job, a place, some friends in this queer and out of the way location? He wasn’t sure about the specifics of time. It had felt like months that he had been uprooted and alone in this city of thousands. He had been kicking around the idea of leaving his dental practice and going back to school or freelancing the odd job market until he could satisfy his wanderlust and take up in an apartment. The daily routine of meeting strangers, learning their occupations and hobbies, then intimately fondling their most private and unique orifice left him with a dulled outlook on life. But teeth are bones and this was something he couldn’t seem to get out of his head.
 
 
CLEOPATRA
The bag lady stepped out of the drugstore, fingers poking from of her one glove that she found sticking out of a mailbox on Franklin Street. She had managed to scrounge up enough change to buy some cigarettes and a candy bar– her dinner for the evening. Her existence was metered by the rising and falling of the sun and by the steady march of tourists along the streets. They seemed to pick up in numbers near the city’s closing time. Her daily wandering was delineated by landmarks such as mailboxes, coffee houses with their intermittent, odd hours, Catholic churches that from time to time sponsored free meals, and parks and squares that occasionally had open-air festivals where there would be crowds preoccupied with buying trinkets and food. People who would almost always be oblivious to the change and small bills that would find freedom in the uneventful moment of transaction from pocket to vendor or wallet to hand. These were the gestures of her sustenance. Trinkets and food were all people wanted anyway.
 
She mostly collected things. Aluminum cans and empty liquor bottles of course, always a dependable staple. Her resolute scanning of the ground found her such items as gold-plated charm bracelets, hotel keys, notes in cursive posted to doors and blown off, even compacts and baseball caps. She kept her treasures in a plastic shopping bag that she would hide outside the few businesses and shops in which she could find the courage to seek refuge. The glove she had found today was in perfect condition, only two fingers of it missing.
 
 
SHANGRI-LA
Sir Thomas Elroy, honorable Knight of the Round Table, clanked into Joe’s Tavern on Paris Road amidst the din of a television broadcasting a basketball game. His princess had excused herself of his company to freshen up in the maids’ room while he ordered two glasses of ale to keep the chemical festivities flowing in his brain. The dance that had come to a head had finally run into the wee hours and they made their departure before the city had closed down for good. They had an hour drive home for which he would have to remove his very expensive rented suit of armor and in which he was beginning to feel comfortable. The rush of isolation, anonymity, and power he was enjoying would also dwindle back into a stream of reality that would sink in after he finished his last glass of beer. His maid’s dress had gotten quite stained while she danced and whirled her silks among the partygoers in the ball room. There was a treacherous cognac blotch in the shape of Africa near the frills about her waist which would probably cost them a pretty penny to remove. As she came back to the table, her eyes acknowledged the imperfection as well as his thought on the matter and she shrugged and shook a dash of salt into her beer. She sipped at her elixir and twirled the locks of her auburn curls between her fingers adorned with clear nail polish and plastic rings. She glanced at the digital clock blinking behind the bar and suggested that they begin their journey home. Sir Thomas agreed, attempting to check the hour by raising his forearm to observe his watch that for some reason he wore and could feel on his wrist. Although, he begged of his companion, he would need a shot of java before tackling the highway. She consented in expectation of the none too distant moment when she, the not quite virgin princess and her errant-knight, would soon be free from the ravages of the feast and could, with much clamor and strain, denude.
 
 
INSHALLAH
The single naked buttock of the light bulb illuminated Raymond’s loft overlooking the triangular, iron-fenced park. His interior decorating was as sparse as the lighting: two movie posters he found in the garbage can in an alley and some photos torn from the newspaper, taped to the refrigerator. Along the walls painted white for nearly the fifteenth time, (each layer visible in the cracks around the window panes), and about the varnished wood floors, were stacks of encyclopedias that were his in the meantime of possible, but improbable, transaction. He had ten collections of Britannica to sell in a month. He also had a telephone at the foot of his futon and a box of Indian cigarettes that sported an effigy of Ganeesh the elephant. Tonight, with nothing else to do, he would page through the telephone book in hopes of locating a few choice neighborhoods in which he could solicit come morning. The radio was turned on to an all-night talk show whose participants were discussing the fate of wooden roller coasters in the northeast. He cracked open one of the beautifully bound volumes and began reading about an endangered species he had never heard about: the narwhal.
 
 
PEGASUS
The mutt, half schnauzer/half unknown, ran from its owner at the sight and smell of a pretzel thrown to the ground on the other side of Canal street. Dragging its leash behind, it instinctively knew there were no cars coming, and bolted. It was hungry and this hunger was liberation. The pretzel even had some mustard dried in a blob on the plastic wrap it was enmeshed in, which the dog greedily licked up. It ate so fast that it vomited the meal three blocks down the street, but the dinner was gratifying nevertheless. The tags on its collar jingled as it traipsed down the street not knowing where it was going, just enjoying the sounds and odors of an area defiled by humans. There were the scents of piss in every sewer much like around the base of every tree in the park. There were more partially eaten morsels near garbage cans and empty containers of sweet and sour liquids on every street corner. A paradise for a highly evolved nose.
 
Where to go. Where did the stray cats it had seen prowling through the back yard sleep at night? Why were the streets wet when there wasn’t the tang of rain’s iodine in the air? And why were the rare clumps of grass and bushes in this part of the neighborhood locked in cages? Without a master to gesture the answers, it didn’t know. It would have to read the subtle signs of abandon. A traffic light blinking red. Litter and leaves blowing at random intervals through the streets. A bus’s breaks hissing with the release of air. The ringing of a bell down the street seemed to signal something as a human exited from the building. The lights inside the building lit the sidewalks and the scent of food wisped out. It must be someone’s home.
 
The dog walked toward it, lured by its possibility and goaded by the strange sound of metal clanking on the pavement behind it, then voices. Stopping for a moment to look behind, it saw the silhouette of a human, but the shape was shining, looking like it was made from of the skin of a car. When it approached the light, it found a window with people inside. No couch, no carpet, no fireplace. There was a woman like the ones it saw sleeping in the alleys, a young human with its face in a big book, and near her, a dead human that the others ignored. The armored one with his mate had passed the dog with the woman making kissing noises at it. The bell of the door masked under the sound of metal on metal. The dog sat for a moment waiting for a gesture from any of them, smelled something good, scratched its ear, then, with a ringing of its collar, was gone.
 
 
 
--
Philip Kobylarz is a teacher and writer of fiction, poetry, book reviews, and essays. He has worked as a journalist and film critic for newspapers in Memphis, TN. The author of rues, a book of poems concerning life in the south of France, he has recently published a short story collection titles Now Leaving Nowheresville.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • 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