We fall in love with the Creature slowly, a piecemeal process over long years of hard work, and each in our own way. For the Creature’s twentieth birthday, we celebrate at home.

“Mr. Frankenstein,” I yell down the basement steps, lobster claw oven mitts pinching my hips. “Dinner’s ready!”

“Dr. Frankenstein,” he says to me when he comes into the kitchen, first hanging his blood-spattered lab coat on the hook at the top of the stairs. I smile and say I’ll call him doctor when he defends his dissertation.

The Creature lumbers up the stairs behind him and moves quickly to the kitchen chair I keep covered in black trash bags for easy clean up. “Hello, handsome,” I say to him, winking, and goodness, look at the Creature: One blue eye, one green, his skin wax white and body a web of silver scars, like a giant palm waiting to be read by gentle fingertips. “And what’s new with you today?”

“Liver,” the Creature says.

I ladle peas onto their plates. I scoop pot roast from the hot pan, the onions oily. I serve my husband the tenderest pieces of beef. I serve the Creature the bits from the side of the pan where the beef has burnt and gone tough. I eat only the vegetables, don’t have the stomach for meat anymore after the bodies we’ve worked through together.

“Old liver was underperforming,” Mr. Frankenstein says, chewing delicately, his teeth sensitive, while the Creature’s massive jaw rips the beef to shreds. Such powerful mastication!

I spear a red potato and tease Mr. Frankenstein, tell him I won’t be going out grave robbing tonight, and he laughs and says quite right, not in this cold and wet weather. I haven’t been grave robbing in years (it’s grueling work, hard on the back), but the occasion of a birthday makes me nostalgic, even silly these days. I find myself playing a younger me, the daring wife who, before Mr. Frankenstein lost his graduate funding, left home after midnight to find the freshest mounds of earth. I scaled wrought iron gates, frightened caretakers with recordings of wolf howls, brought home stomachs wrapped in wax paper, all while Mr. Frankenstein graded another stack of essays.

“Mary,” he’d wept into my bosom, when he could neither finish his work nor give it up. “I’ve let us down, Mary.” But I rubbed his back and promised him he hadn’t failed. That I didn’t care, that even if he did graduate I didn’t want him adjuncting, making no money, always exhausted, never enough. That I understood why he would never be satisfied with the tedious, glorious process of creation.

These days, new livers arrive in a refrigerated van from our friend Mr. Igor at the nearby crematorium. So civilized.

“But since I’m not grave robbing tonight,” I say, “perhaps we could all play a game?” And at this, I pull a package from under the table and hold it out to the Creature. “Happy Birthday!”

The Creature does not care about birthdays. His age is not countable as no part of him is the same age as another. Still, he indulges us. “What is this, then?” he says and rips the brown paper from the present, revealing a vintage game of Operation. The Creature smiles and thanks us both. He is not a Creature who laughs, though he says that he loves how much we both do.

“Sweetheart,” says Mr. Frankenstein to the Creature, taking his hand. “Here’s your real present.” Mr. Frankenstein hands the Creature a cat from a covered basket, a brown and black dappled stray we’ve been feeding for months, who the Creature has begged us to take in.

“We can’t say no to you,” I say. The Creature bends to place his scarred hand low to the floor and holds it still until the cat sniffs and finally nuzzles him. I find myself wiping away a quick tear and when the Creature notices, I huff a laugh. Sensitive, my husband calls me fondly, but I didn’t used to be. Perhaps we were never meant to know so much about our insides, about the fragile, tenacious squish and pump that keep us upright. Now I cannot look at cat or Creature or husband without amazement and worry.

We drink wine and the Creature’s new liver does admirably. We play Operation and Mr. Frankenstein loses again and again until he throws down his tweezers and accuses the Adam’s Apple of being rigged. As always, Mr. Frankenstein and the Creature retire to their bed hours before I do. Mr. Frankenstein works best when the sun is still rising and the Creature is never far from his side, receiving his tune ups without complaint, never asking if they are necessary or simply a way to make Mr. Frankenstein feel young again, covered in blood and full of new ideas.

When it is past midnight and I’ve scrubbed the pot roast pan, put away the man and his plastic organs, I make my way upstairs to my cool room and take off all my clothes and stand in the moonlight. The cat is curled on the bed, watching me with distrust, like she can smell the old graves on me.

“You’re safe,” I tell her, and yawn, sucking life from the quiet air.

Like most young women, I used to hate my body. Used to worry about Mr. Frankenstein and the Creature excising me like an appendix, vestigial to their new love. But now I always sleep naked. Now I know my worth. Now, I rest a hand on my round stomach as it rises and falls, content with the miracle of me, in awe of how impossible it would be to recreate me, to contain this world of mess inside such seamless skin.

Gwen E. Kirby is the author of the debut story collection, SHIT CASSANDRA SAW. Her stories have appeared in Guernica, One Story, Mississippi Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere.

My surgeon looked like a giant rabbit. I was leery about letting him cut into me, because he was from Texas and had a mustache. His medical degree made no difference. I didn’t trust Texans, and a rabbit was just a rodent in disguise. I set my sights on the woman surgeon in the practice, the one who, according to the website, was an organic gardener, rescued greyhounds, and thought of her patients as friends. Of course, she was booked.  So, I got the Easter bunny. He’ll be sticking his paws into me on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.

Dr. Rabbit informed me that my right ovary’s abnormality appeared identical to ovarian cancer; neither endometriosis—the suspected culprit—or cancer could be positively diagnosed by the ultrasound I had before I showed up in his office.

I was seeing a fertility specialist, both of us dead set on figuring out why a fertilized egg wouldn’t attach itself to the wall of my womb. Upon feeling a lump she didn’t like, she ordered an ultrasound. When the results came in, she called me at home. Surgery. My first question wasn’t whether or not I could have a baby, but whether I’d lose an ovary.

She said no, she didn’t think so, but when she explained the results of the ultrasound, I looked at her freehand drawing and knew immediately that she couldn’t make such an assurance. She obviously spent some time on the illustration, a pen and ink drawing that in no way resembled the female reproductive organs on display in plastic model form on her desk. Initially, I thought I was looking at her doodles of the solar system. One ovary became a crater-filled Mars, the other, Pluto. Between them, my uterus appeared as a sandwich bag lost in space. She said it was a drawing of a cross section. I stared and stared, trying to make sense of it.

She suspected the same bloody substance that lined my uterus decided it could grow elsewhere, engulfing random organs in my abdomen, swaddling them in highly adhesive, thick procreative blood, like those old sci-fi flicks about invasive entities of a difficult-to-describe shape and substance—“The Blob” or “The Thing.” She expected that a surgeon would open me up to find my right ovary completely covered in it, plus bloody strands spread throughout, like webs of bubblegum that got lost in my hair during sleep, or during a particularly wild carnival ride.

My new rabbit doctor ordered a blood test that would serve as a better indicator of my true affliction. Cancer didn’t make sense to me, but I indulged his diagnostic detective work.

Isn’t it better to be sure, my partner suggested.

Of course, I said.

The phlebotomist was a sullen man with bad posture who didn’t know any good jokes. He directed me to hold still please when I began drumming on the floor with both feet, as if to warn my brethren of approaching danger—force of habit whenever a needle was pointed in my direction.

The results of the blood test showed a potential malignancy, which prompted my rabbit doctor to revise his original surgical plan to do a tiny incision and use a teeny-tiny vacuum to suck me clean in there, while he watched live on a video screen. Now, I was slated to have a bigger deal slit in my belly and he’ll probably remove things intact. He said he’ll give me OxyContin, and I’ll be asleep. I won’t know about the cancer verdict until it’s over.

Cancer? I said. Like the kind that kills people?

Doctor rabbit told me that if he could rule out ovarian cancer, I might still have a chance at pregnancy. I was sitting on the edge of the examining table wearing a blue paper dress, my legs dangling like a child’s. He suggested that I seek out a woman half my age, one with younger, healthier eggs. His gut rolled over his belt, and his neck oozed out over his collar.

Oh, I said, Oh. My toes itched. My skin was dry. The hair on my unshaven legs was wild.

The only time I ever hallucinated in my life, I saw rabbits. They were crossing the highway, and I was behind the wheel. I saw snow, too, even though it was summer, and I was sober. I was driving back to Pittsburgh from a bachelorette party in New Jersey for a wedding I didn’t want to be in. The husband-to-be, drunk, slumped over me one night and tried to peel my clothes off. I knocked him over and fled. I should have told my friend, but I didn’t. She was seeking true love, and I hoped his behavior wasn’t a habitual trait.

I was excessively sleep deprived that night after driving six and a half hours of endless highway from Newark to Pittsburgh. The only other gal who knew how to drive a stick shift was passed out in the back seat. Now, I wondered if I’ll wake from surgery all doped up and see a room full of rabbits.

Maria McLeod is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Mother Want, winner of WaterSedge Chapbook Contest 2021 and Skin. Hair. Bones., published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. She’s been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and has won the Indiana Review Poetry Prize and the Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize. Her writing has been featured in several leading literary journals, as well as part of Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile Podcast and on Sound Poetry, Radio Tacoma. Originally from the Detroit area, she resides in Bellingham, Washington, where she works as a professor of journalism for Western Washington University. Find her on Instagram @mariapoempics.

Lake Day

Sometimes we take rides on our friend Charles. These rides can be quite a hoot because Charles is a frog the size of a dump truck. One morning we rode Charles to Waffle House. We ordered 3002 hash browns: 2 for us and 3000 for Charles. Then we hopped along to the lake because Charles is too big for the pool. If he sits in the pool, then there isn’t a pool anymore, just Charles. On the way to the lake Charles ate some watermelons from the watermelon man’s stand—slorp!—real fast, shooting out his tongue the size of a down spout. We got to the lake, and it turned out to be one of those delicate nice days where the dragonflies are enough to keep you cool. We called a few friends and heard their phones ringing from inside Charles. “Not again!” we said. Charles opened wide and we saw our friends down there, eating watermelon. We helped them climb out. Then, Charles swam out to the middle of the lake and sat there while we played at dodging his tongue and sliding down his big back. “This is nice,” he said. “Yes it is,” we agreed. The watermelon man pacing on the shore could wait a bit longer.

Emerald Ocelot

In the middle of a snowy night you shook me awake and said, “I need a tray of nachos.” All we had in the house were neon oil pastels, so I drew you a huge tray of tortilla chips covered with glowing jalapeños and pink lava cheese. “Sorry,” you said, “this just makes me hungrier.”

I was determined to make this work but I still had a long way to go.

So I promised to go get some nachos, no funny business, back before this snow sticks, call you if I need you.

I scraped the ice off the windshield, threw a twelve pack in the passenger seat and drove out toward an all-night grocery. Our town was so small, even the gas station had fallen into ruin.

At the highway onramp, an emerald ocelot stretched across both lanes. Fuck, I said, not again.

I stopped the car, got out and waved. The ocelot beckoned me over with a huge shimmering paw. I brought the twelve pack with me. The ocelot and I laughed about the times we’d met before, like, remember the night I missed two flights? That story, again. Other cars drove around us.

Soon I was leaning against him like a big furry couch in the snow. Then the ocelot said your name and asked how we were. I told him, growing apart.

The night got colder and the cars passing by started to pick up speed, even though it was snowing. The ocelot began to lick the ice off his paw and I forgot why I was there. The warm wet sound of the tongue confused the issue.

The whole time the nachos sat steaming in the car.

When I walked in I told you I was tired and the grocery store was far away. I hid how drunk I was, or thought I had until the Styrofoam box slipped out of my hands. The nachos looked ridiculous on the kitchen floor. I had talked to the ocelot so long, the cheese must’ve been cold by then.

You said, “Was he there again?”

I denied it but you shook your head in disgust.

I had a lot of wrong ideas upon reflection.

I walked toward the back door. The big tree in the yard was gone. The porch light showed the snow ending abruptly in the night. The sea green ocelot stood trapped in the sliding glass door. Its eyes were gray like crumbling stars. Its paws stuck in the soft powder. It was lonely and nothing else. Just like I wanted.

Joe Gallagher was born and raised in Orlando, FL. He now lives in Frederick, MD where he runs an independent press and writes poetry, prose, plays, and the occasional essay about space travel. Previous work has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, DIAGRAM, and Corium. He received an MA in Creative Writing & Publishing from Emerson College, where he was the poetry editor for Redivider. He has a wife who writes novels, two small children, and one large dog. Follow him on Instagram for more art & writing: @jgonestudio.

I overheard they were ordering cupcakes for tomorrow. I knew what was up. A toast was in the works, on my last day, of what’s likely going to be my last job. I have given my share of toasts of this kind over the years: It’s a funny comment, then a meaningful remembrance of some incident of kindness, and then a really big, over-the-top thank you. What are we going to do without you? That heartfelt question can’t help itself from being asked. It’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues. If no one asks, it’s still hanging in the air, captured in the collective gleam of the faces of those gathered, all standing there in uncomfortable shoes, holding plastic glasses. But we all know the answer. It can break your heart.

These past few months I’ve been taking things, one at a time. Not to keep. I just chuck the item in the first garbage can I see, or leave it somewhere, some place where it might carry on into a new life. I started small, with a stapler from my desk drawer. I placed that on the little makeshift seat in a dressing room. I was there trying on clothes because I thought I’d get a new shirt for my last day, to mark the occasion. But it’s also possible I was just having a hard time being clever with the stapler abandonment, and the only thing I could think of was to leave it in a dressing room. I did laugh while I was doing it, but now, I don’t really get why I thought it was so funny. I also didn’t bother buying a new shirt for my last day in the office. While I truly believed in the forthright irony of that idea, I knew I’d have to verbally call it out and explain it if I wanted anyone else to get in on the joke, and at this point it’s hard enough just to ask, How’s your day going?

 I left one giant file folder on a subway seat. Got off the train and let it go further into the darkened recesses of the city. I took a clock off of the wall, and placed that on a tucked away tree in the park. I used a thumbtack to situate it on the tree. Before I left, I ripped off the hands of the clock, and threw them into the lake. I also snatched one of those forgettable recognition slash award plaques off the wall in the hallway and just left it on the elevator. People were going to see it on the floor and on the one hand wonder why someone would just leave an award there—perpetually stuck in a rise and fall transitory state—but also, not be willing to derail wherever it is they’re going in order to figure out the rightful owner of the memorialized tribute. It’s not like it’s a wallet or a phone or something along those lines that’s truly vital to, well, I was going to say, existence… but of course it depends on what kind of existence you are currently tracked into.

And okay, I admit it, I did take the framed picture of my boss where he’s wearing a polo shirt with the company’s old logo and celebrating catching a fish with a bunch of work colleagues—I definitely worked with some of those people but it was so long ago I can’t recall any of their names. After grabbing a quick burger and fries and then clearing my fast food tray of condiment soiled wrappers, I propped up the photo on the top of the garbage can, letting it teeter right on the edge of the hole. Clearly it was time to stop, and I did. I’m reliable in that way.

After leaving the office on my second to last day, I decided to rework my schedule. It hit me just as I was skipping my subway stop, that I would keep going, to that cupcake shop that I’ve always believed to have the best cupcakes, ever. I could taste them now, and would truly do so soon enough. I decided right there and then that I would not be making it into the office tomorrow. What are they going to do? Fire me? So that means there will be no last day. Tomorrow will be just that: tomorrow.

Jeffrey Yamaguchi (jeffreyyamaguchi.com) is the author of 52 Projects and Anya Chases Down the End, and his work has been featured in publications such as Atticus Review, Kissing Dynamite, Nightingale & Sparrow, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Vamp Cat Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Feral, and The Storms.