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Editorial: The Myth of Civilization

by Rebecca Halsey

May 1, 2026

Editorial

There are two gardens—one that is chaotic, one that is tame. The tame one is fenced and protected, the chaotic one at the mercy of what walks through the woods. The tame one is curated and labeled, the chaotic one not much more than an extension of meadow.

The line between these gardens is blurry. Often my flowers escape their beds and take off for the forest, and even more often, the weeds come for my pots. And bugs—bugs are everywhere. What looks tame isn’t that much more civilized than the forest. Regardless of where the seed falls, nature will grab hold of the opportunity if she can.

This month, we explore the fragility of civility and civilization—in the city and the countryside. We aren’t pitting urban and rural against each other because it’s a false dichotomy. Rural landscapes are just as civilized as urban ones; they have been equally shaped by the hands of mankind. Rather, I want these stories to offer two sides to the same coin. We have created trappings of civilization, yet nature (external and internal) can get the best of us.

Our opening story this month is Joelle Killian’s “After Enlightenment, the Sewage,” a story that launches us into the city after a detoxifying retreat. The effect is jarring, and overall, it’s the perfect piece to set the tone for the rest of the issue.

In “Soon It Would See Eyelessly, Turn Corners on Its Own” by John K. Peck, we explore the haunting work of a fictionalized, Thoreau-styled figure. Here, the horror is in how uncontrollable nature can be.

Two stories this month feature narrators that exert a passive, omniscient control over civilizations. “She Said Yes and a City Died” by Liz Levin imagines cancerous growth as eons of human development, and “This Is Your Village” by Charlie Kieft depicts a character building a virtual world in a way to process the physical and emotional challenges that came from an accident.

“The Screaming Garden” by Em Starr explores the concepts of rehabilitation and fighting our inherent urges by delivering a story about zombies creating their own garden within the confines of their “ward.”

Finally, we close with “Citizens!” by Sasha Brown, a surreal lampoon that addresses our modern cravings for social media and true-crime entertainment.

These stories are driven by the tension between nature and all the ways we try to overcome it. It’s not a bad thing to be “civilized,” in the social sense, but it might not be a good thing to assume that “civilization” has all the answers.

* * *

Ⓒ Rebecca Halsey

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After Enlightenment, the Sewage

by Joelle Killian

May 1, 2026

Literary

In the closing ceremony, you hold hands with the other emancipated souls who attended this ten-day retreat, exchanging heartfelt gratitude for this sacred container and blessings for the path ahead. The altar is strewn with amethyst and Buddhas, the air saturated with Palo Santo and feet.

Five days of silent meditation, two plant medicine journeys, and nightly integration sessions, in which you faced your shadow and wept openly in front of strangers.

You have also not smoked since arriving. This is it: the final time you quit, at last aligned with your higher self.

In the long comedown from the psilocybin, you had a neon-limned image of a casino, of a gambling addict repeatedly yanking a slot machine lever—except it was you, checking again and again if Zak had liked your comment on his post. Zak, the annoyingly hot mansplainer whose brilliant snark made him a honeypot for parasocial obsession, whose cruelty only underscored his rare flashes of warmth.

Because the odds are so slim, you confessed red-faced to the integration group, winning his approval is the ultimate validation. A jackpot. Balloons fall from the ceiling, confetti landing in your cleavage whenever his resting bitchface reverses into a rare smile.

What you didn’t share was that image’s echo: Phoebe, your middle school best frenemy, sitting on you while wearing only a bikini, pinching your naked inner thigh with a wicked giggle, sending confused shivers over your skin. Her torment is a birthday cake ablaze with candles, barbed threats spelled out in pink frosting.

You’d seen the obvious copy/paste of past onto present, as well as its mysterious link to smoking, the way that you currently flog yourself with punishing toxins: it was all connected. And now that you’ve been struck by that lightning bolt of clarity, you will never forget.

Both hands on your solar plexus, you walk the garden path towards the parking lot, sending loving farewells to the lion-faced dahlias, breathing in the heady jasmine. After nearly two weeks without any devices, your dusty Tesla looks foreign, a sinister alien conveyance meant to transport you from this sacred refuge back into the default world.

You boop your key fob and get in, tossing your satchel of just-purchased nootropics and adaptogens into the back. The car whirs and hums as you pull out of the lot, down the winding dirt road lined with apple trees, past Marin’s velvety-soft hills scorched by late afternoon sunlight, signs for the highway entrance ahead. Then up the ramp, attempting to merge with the rushing traffic.

Except this asshole in a minivan keeps speeding up—slowing down—speeding up, determined to block you. You honk at him—a bleating goat sound, because those custom horns seemed so cute, remember?—snarling lemme in, you fucking shit pig, I’ll tear your—then catch yourself. Such toxic anger! Have you already forgotten all those revelatory insights downloaded from the mycelial network? How your dark animus emerges when you feel threatened, polluting your aura with low vibrational energy.

So breathe, bitch.

Murmur your newfound mantra: The universe is unfolding just as it should.

Then maneuver around him, joining the flow of metal and taillights. You got this.

Except when you get stuck in gridlock over the bridge, your impulse control falters, then fails. Turn on your phone, which floods you with dings and buzzing notifications, invitations to a flame war, everyone getting canceled in the comments, because Zak has posted yet another scathing screed:

I hope all you raw milk fanatics running off to have your chakras cleansed by wellness grifters are proud, because you just helped the fascists win. Congratulations! Enjoy your bird flu.

Your inner thighs tighten, tingling and warm. The moment you’re parked in your driveway, your fingers rapidly swipe a reply, complete with links and references for doing your own research…

Wait. Stop. You know better. Put that phone down. Come back to the present moment, feel into your body: a hot tangle of frazzled activation, damp underarms and fluttering moths drawn to that which burns. Whisper you are enough five times before exiting your car, three times as you walk to the front door, twice as you fumble with your keys.

Inside, the rotten-egg stink of sewage and soaked hardwood floors announce your pipes exploded while you were away. Your neighbor promised she’d keep an eye on things and call maintenance if needed, but of course she didn’t, because you dared to ask for help. Which was probably your first mistake, putting your trust in the strangers around you.

You scrounge unsuccessfully through drawers, cabinets, and the boxes in the basement for a crumpled, half-finished pack of American Spirits. Time check: not long before the bodega down the street closes.

Clutching your Burberry handbag, you pause on the front porch. Are you ready to roll the dice again, try for one last jackpot? Re-reading your reply, you hit POST before heading down the path ahead, which is unfolding just as it should.

* * *

Ⓒ Joelle Killian

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Soon It Would See Eyelessly, Turn Corners on Its Own

by John K. Peck

May 8, 2026

Horror

A twitch, a small splash, rippling the surface of the water. A few bubbles, nothing more. Threads of brown algae float back into place just below the surface, and all is still again.

In the darkness overhead, a mourning warbler calls once, twice, chirr chirr chirr CHOI CHOI, chirr chirr chirr CHOI CHOI, then goes quiet.

* * *

Rae leans back in her chair and lets her hands move from the keyboard to her lap. She rereads what she has just written about Whitacre Hay: His sentences, haunted by ghosts of writers and stories past, contain within them the rubble and ruins they will someday become.

She winces slightly, raises her hands to the keyboard, and deletes rubble and, then reads it again. Her headache is back, and she decides to take another pill, even though she can’t recall when she last took one.

* * *

Whitacre Hay was unique among pre-Victorian Gothic writers for his singular obsession with nature as a source of fear, ill fortune, and death. Though he was born, lived, and died in London, rarely traveling outside the city, all his stories related in some way to the countryside or rural life, with a particular focus on bogs, swamps, and fens.

His pursuit of what he called “the dark primaeval” in his writing was inspired by an obscure 18th-century poet named Caroundelet, whose works were entirely lost to history. He brought Caroundelet’s idea that “nature moves on paths older than man” into a 19th-century Gothic milieu, crafting an uncannily modern style, as seen in the final sentences of “The Worm That Smiled”:

It slid silently from the water, glistening darkly, and though it moved by feel only, soon it would see eyelessly, turn corners on its own, seek out the speaker whose words had given it life. In the close darkness, a mourning warbler sang its wistful song, then grew silent among the greater chorus of insects that filled the humid night.

In his brief and strange body of work, “The Worm That Smiled” is by far the most curious piece, with opening lines sufficiently striking for Rae to make Hay her focus for the past two years:

At times we speak and know not what we say, or even that we are speaking. It was in such a state that the young clerk, Mr. Winchester, one night found himself at the window, mouthing words he did not understand and yet had always known: ‘Wake and wander to me, for I long to see your smile.’

* * *

She snaps awake at the computer. Was I sleeping? She sees an empty glass next to the monitor, tastes a bitter tang on her tongue: whiskey. She doesn’t remember drinking anything, and chalks it up to exhaustion.

She forces herself to focus. Fingers hovering over the keyboard like a pianist ready to play, she begins to type: It is not just Hay’s subjects or themes, then pauses, thinking.

The bedroom door opens and Jeff comes out in a t-shirt and boxers, rubbing his eyes.

“Did I wake you up?” she says.

“Don’t think so,” he says groggily. “Maybe the heat.”

He rubs her shoulders briefly, kisses the top of her head, and walks to the window, looking out into the darkness.

* * *

Two facts about Whitacre Hay and his work have always troubled Rae: first, that no original manuscripts of any of his works have surfaced thus far, which has made her increasingly worried her entire subject could be called into question. And second, that mourning warblers, from everything she has read, are endemic to eastern North America and have never been spotted anywhere in Europe, let alone southern England.

* * *

She feels a surge of energy come over her and quickly types out the rest of the sentence: It is not just Hay’s subjects or themes, but his words themselves, that take on the contours of the Gothic. She closes her eyes and smiles, enjoying the feeling of having brought a previously obscured thought into the light.

Jeff squints and leans forward, until his forehead nearly touches the window. “Something moving in the grass. Probably a rat.”

She leans back in her chair, eyes still closed, and feels sleep approaching.

After a moment Jeff walks over to her. “What did you say?”

“What?”

“You were saying something. ‘Wake and.’ ‘Wake up,’ something-something.”

Again, there is a flutter at the edge of her consciousness, like a moth bumping against a window, accompanied by a rising sense of panic, an urge to flee. She sits with it, attributes it to her fear of writing, of exposing herself to the world, and it soon passes. She feels herself nodding off, and Jeff steadies her. “Let’s get you to bed,” he says, helping her out of the chair and to the bedroom.

In the now-empty living room, the glow of the screen casts a dim light, her final line in dark serif over white:

It is not just Hay’s subjects or themes, but his wake and wander follow the light show me your smile

The cursor blinks on and off at the end of the final word. Outside the window, in the close darkness, a mourning warbler sings its wistful song, then grows silent among the greater chorus of insects that fill the humid night.

The motion-sensor light on the corner of the house turns on, flooding the long grass of the front yard with light for a few moments before switching off again.

* * *

Ⓒ John K. Peck

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She Said Yes and a City Died

by Liz Levin

May 12, 2026

Fantasy

Don’t blame her. She knew that if she avoided the knife, she could grant her city centuries to grow and thrive. She also believed if she made that choice she would die by year’s end.

She was born with a wine-colored birthmark: a river streaming down her chest, dividing around her left nipple, and cascading toward her navel. A thatched hut prickled into being underneath her first bra. It stayed two weeks, heart-side, tickling thatch replaced each dawn until it collapsed to dust in a day (or year).

The first six years (or two millennia) were similar: a handful of huts would sprout on her breast for a month (or generation). Even though the houses looked like ink, flat beneath her fingers, she reserved kissing for unsettled days. On prom night, sensation crawled across her areola while she danced slow, cheek to chest. Disappointed, she returned to her narrow bed alone.

In college, she worked at a lingerie store. She collected bras of varied opacity while the city grew toward her heart: windowless houses, rooftop trapdoors, shared walls. Freshly plastered ochre at dawn, stained soot by evening, her breast a sun-clock.

After admiring her tattoo, one lover critiqued her practically numb, utterly unresponsive nipple. “Thank all the gods for that small miracle,” she said, carefully inclusive. If she was clever, with the right lighting and lingerie, she could keep a lover for weeks. She released that one the next day.

Eighteen years after the first hut appeared (or six millennia), she watched the city spread across the river along the outer curve of her breast. Unlike on heart-side, the arm-side homes varied: sometimes two-story, sometimes one-story, painted a rainbow of clay-based hues. A temple grew hidden in the downward curve. Outside its door sat a statue with sagging breasts and belly.

She examined the temple in the mirror, charmed by the naked old woman, an ordinary idol. She didn’t know the temple was an anachronism. It was a sign her city had already outlived destiny and was creating featherweight shifts in Neolithic history.

On the day she said yes, her breasts were well-shaped, surely too young to harbor microscopic renegade cells that grew faster even than her city. Her “brave and beautiful tattoo” was photographed. She noted the time and set her date with the knife for the same hour, one week (seven years) later, praying for a miracle. The next week, her surgeon noticed the tattoo’s growth, unaccompanied by redness or oozing. Doubting his memory, he said nothing.

She was still single when the sterile knife carved away nipple and areola, never trusting another’s eyes to watch the city grow. Pinching the circle closed, the surgeon sewed a line, rerouting waterways, and neighborhoods.

Later, she would wonder: Which killed my city? Floods? Droughts? New neighbors?

Heart-side fell quickly; abandoned houses became refuse dumps. Their eventual collapse stung like a swarm of fire ants. Blighted areas expanded in heart-side even as the renegade patches of cells inside her shrank.

For a time, homes sprouted on arm-side. The temple expanded. She dared hope her yes would not matter. Even when embarrassed, she loved her city. Even when she failed to understand it, which was always.

The past galloped toward the ponderous present. If she had said no, the past might have saved her present. That temple with its ordinary idol birthed a matrilineal culture. In a hundred days (or years) what might they have accomplished? Her city might have seeded others until the whole of the ancient world worshiped those rounded hips and sagging breasts. Imagine medicine beginning with such a people, ones who would surely center women’s health. In later years, when she was being especially hard on herself, she would wonder. If she had said no, if she had waited, would she live in a world where malignancies were discovered and cured with simple shots?

Or maybe time was a rubber band, deceptively elastic until it snaps back.

The city’s folk returned to villages and farms, letting their former homes slide beneath sand until all that was left were two mounds and her breast was unsettled again.

She married, had a daughter, grew old. Her spouse traced her birthmark, comparing it to a river. “You’re a poet,” she said. If only you knew, she thought. She didn’t tell the story of her city, not even to the one she most loved. Breaking the habit of silence took time.

After 22 years had passed (eight millennia) she felt a familiar prickling. Standing before the bathroom mirror, sagging like an idol, she watched her city re-form. Eventually, her spouse joined her, tracing the flat image that expanded beneath their fingers. They stood together in awe for almost a month of city time (two hours).

“An excavation,” she finally explained.

* * *

Ⓒ Liz Levin

Originally published in MetaStellar, July 2024. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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The Screaming Garden

by Em Starr

May 15, 2026

Fantasy

I met him at St Martha’s Care, in the out-of-bounds courtyard of the posthumous ward. I was halfway up a finger lime tree, snatching scraps of sunlight through ceiling cracks when he staggered over to make small talk — over pronouncing each word to help reanimate his dead tongue, like the speech pathologists had taught us. I could tell right away we shared a mutual voracity.

“You’ve still got the hunger,” I whispered, “like me.”

Such talk was forbidden at St. Martha’s, but I kept my voice low and trustworthy, and soon we were speaking of anatomy and organs, and all the things we shouldn’t crave—of days when grey matter was scooped like gelato and the chase was anything but slow. I kissed him as the leaf litter fell and, when the wind blew hard enough to carry away a secret, I told him there was a way to satiate our appetite. “I’ve found a loophole, Romeo. You just have to open your mind.”

There was a cemetery of sorts, I told him, beyond the exercise block. A forgotten community garden, complete with a shed and supplies, originally built to help residents connect with their pre-undead state. I’d found it, neglected, some months back, pulled out the weeds and the crabgrass, and nourished the soil—filled it with artichoke hearts and potato eyes, ears of corn and heads of lettuce.

“They scream when you harvest them,” I said. “It’s ultrasonic, so you’ll never hear it, but they taste that much sweeter when you know.”

We slowly walked to my screaming garden, and I showed him how to dig, twist, and cut. He told me I looked pretty when I stabbed at the soil, and we fell in love with the perfume of blood and bone fertiliser, growing our darlings and eating them, season by season, the officials never the wiser. I was Head Chef, and he was my sous—and oh! How we made those plants howl. We boiled baby beets that turned the communal saucepan crimson, listened to the collective squeal of fingerlings in steam, made chili from kidney beans and shared it with a guard, revelling in the juices that spilt down his chin. He shared it with the next guard, and he with another (she’s teaching the other one to cook! She must have been some sort of culinary expert when she was alive!) and when word spread that our garden was thriving, we were given a contract and a caretaker’s cottage with a star picket fence.

“This is proof,” the higher-ups said, “that rehabilitation is possible.”

“Hear, hear,” said the others, double-checking the locks.

They celebrated with popped corks, flowing champagne, and Bloody Mary shooters that stained the mayor’s teeth red—his seventh straight shot left him staggering and drooling, and he was ushered away to avoid further press about the bite mark on his hand… rumour was he had a penchant for corpse kisses. There were canapes made from our freshly grown produce, good for the living and the dead according to St Martha’s CEO, who sprinkled the slogan at opportune times. We watched it all—guests of honour behind a wire fence—our cold hands meeting as board members and politicians stuffed their mouths with celeriac skin and asparagus heads like they had the hunger too. As predicted, the food made them slow and the wine made them reckless, and a plucky journalist never saw us coming when she fumbled for her camera on the wrong side of the boundary—I hushed Romeo when he asked me the forbidden question, his dead tongue twisting into grunts that only I could understand. Eat?

“Not yet, my love,” I whispered. “We must cross-germinate the species now. Mix flesh with seed, and bone with root to make hybrids and abominable strains. Load the soil with iron to deepen the tang. First, we sacrifice, then we harvest—then we feast.”

Later, when the body was buried, we sat in our garden and watched the leaf litter dance free from the cracks in St Martha’s rooftop. Then we planned our winter menu, starting with an entrée of marrow soup.

* * *

Ⓒ Em Starr

Originally published in Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter (Issue 74), February 1, 2025. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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This Is Your Village

by Charlie Kieft

May 22, 2026

Literary

Dealing with sudden disability (paraplegia)

Like life, the Game starts off quickly, simply, ecstatically. A brief tutorial. This is your Village, these are your Villagers. These are Trees; to be cut down. These are Boulders; to be mined. Build a Mill; to process Wood. Build a Stone Yard; to process Stone. Now, build a House; to house your Villagers. Give your Villagers jobs. Rolf is a Woodcutter, Analiese a Miner. At the edge of your village is the Wilderness; murky, dark, foreboding. From the Wilderness will come The Plundering Horde; packs of Feral Pig for now. Later, worse things.

 

Log off.

 

Google ‘jobs since yesterday.’ Browse Indeed. Browse Craigslist. Browse; a worm straining for treetop fruit. Peruse lists of your un-qualifications, your un-abilities. Check email; for no reason. Refresh email; sigh. Check the news; shudder. Go to freezer; take out a MuscleMeal and put it in the oven. Turn on oven (unlike last time). Set timer (unlike last time). Go to your dormer window. Look down at Shayna’s weedy, anemic tomato plants; she told you to stay on top of the weeding, the watering. You haven’t.

 

Log on.

 

Flick about the Game like a toddler on crack. Explore the unknown, which is, wonderfully, everything. Test all the buttons. Upgrade your Village Hall using 50 Wood and 50 Stone; scaffolding forms around it. Ten seconds later, Construction is Finished! (impressed, you whistle). Your Level 2 Village Hall is much improved; it has a wooden roof and smoking chimney. You’ve unlocked the Barracks! Build a Barracks; it trains Warriors to defend your Village. The Plundering Horde swells in response to your growing strength. Dread Skeletons join the packs of Feral Pig. They want nothing more than to flatten your Village, devour your Villagers, and find the Chieftain (you) slump-shouldered, awaiting death at your dormer window. Select Analiese (AI-generated freckles, delicate shoulders, milkmaid bonnet), change her name to ‘Shayna.’ Though she looks nothing like Shayna.

 

Log off.

 

Google ‘remote jobs.’ Cruise the weird part of Craigslist. Review your one-line resume, again; Multi-skilled Tradesman, Self-employed, 6 years. Remember when you inherited your dad’s clunky HVAC van, registered it at the DMV with Shayna, rebuilt the engine with Shayna, repainted it with Shayna (nothing hotter than a chick in coveralls). You were finally free, finally your own man. Check email; unsubscribe from all that home improvement coupon-spam. Watch AI-recommended bald, muscular YouTuber interview bald, muscular ‘AI-preneur’ while you make a turkey sandwich. Bite sandwich, swallow. Make coffee, sip. Lower pants, hoist yourself onto the toilet seat.

 

Log on.

 

Progress is breakneck. Wanderers have entered your Village from the Wilderness! Hello, I am Demetrius. I would like to join your Village! Welcome Demetrius. Build a second House; to house your new Villagers. Upgrade Houses; to improve your Villagers’ Mood. Your Villagers are Somewhat Happy! Upgrade your Village Hall, again; more Wood, more Stone. Construction lasts two-and-a-half hours. Your Level 7 Village Hall is much improved; it has a slate-shingled roof, and paired dormer windows. Night falls. The Plundering Horde will arrive soon, this time with Berserk Mind-Flayers.

 

Log off.

 

Check email; read AI-generated job listings for jobs in AI. Read AI-generated form rejections. Read the words, ‘You do not meet our needs at this time.’ Think: I do not meet my needs at this time. Lie, dazed, on your light-slashed bachelor-couch, your mind a smear of hunger and sleep and the accident, your phone across the room where you chucked it. Awake to find the light has gone. The hunger has tripled. Attack frozen MuscleMeal Buffalo Chicken Pasta with bent-tine fork.

 

Log on.

 

Oh no! Your Village has been Sacked by The Plundering Horde! You have lost 1,721 Wood and 1,798 Stone. Shayna has been Badly Wounded (her head bandaged, arm in a cast). Your Villagers are Unhappy. Heal Shayna; Shayna is Healed. Repair your Buildings; they are Repaired. Order your Villagers to work Double Time; Your Villagers are Very Unhappy. Build a Wall around your Village. Build a Moat. Build Defensive Towers. Train more Warriors. Tell The Plundering Horde to fuck off.

 

Log off.

 

Ask AI, ‘can loneliness kill?’ Prompt AI, ‘spinal injury recovery stories.’ Ask AI, ‘do people still use tinder?’ Try to resuscitate your Tinder profile; get locked out. Create new Tinder profile; write in your bio: ‘just a guy looking.’ Give up.

 

Log on.

 

Your Village successfully repelled The Plundering Horde! Rolf and Shayna have been Mildly Wounded. Heal Rolf; Rolf is Healed. Select Shayna (her eye bruised, lip bleeding). Do not heal Shayna. Take away Shayna’s mining job. Make her unemployed, a Villager’s worst fate. She wanders around aimlessly. She waves up at you, through the glass, for guidance; tell her to go away.

 

Log off.

 

Your dad finds you sweating, half-delirious in your wheelchair at the dormer window. ‘I brought a window unit.’ He installs the AC quick as anything; the cool air is heavenly. ‘Hey, wanna get out of here?’ he asks. ‘That donut place on the corner is good, right?’ You give him a look; Gil’s Donuts was Shayna’s favorite. He shrugs, perches his tailbone on the couch armrest like it might explode. ‘You gotta move out of here, man. It’s not like she died; she abandoned you!’ You slam the arms of your wheelchair. ‘I fucking know!’

 

Log on.

 

Deep breath. Hand your phone to your dad. Say, ‘This is my Village.’ He doesn’t understand. ‘Uh, nice castle?’ Correct him: ‘Village Hall.’ It’s now Level 19 (the Wood-and-Stone cost was astronomical). Point out its endless improvements; the Dragon-Scale Roof, sixteen hexagonal Necromantic Turrets, layered Demonic Walls, Inner and Outer Blood-Moats, Vampiric Drawbridge, flickering Pestilent Braziers. The many, many dormer windows. The Plundering Horde has practically given up trying to destroy you. Notice, flicking about, that Shayna has gone; back into the Wilderness.

 

Log off.

 

Sob, as your dad (who’s been shorter than you since tenth grade) bends to hug you, and lift you, and carry you down the stairs and out your front door, like a newborn.

* * *

Ⓒ Charlie Kieft

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Citizens!

by Sasha Brown

May 29, 2026

Literary

There’s an excitement to being mugged. I can’t deny that I felt a little thrill: I was finally the subject of the story. Everyone, I think, wonders how they’d handle themselves in such a moment. It was dramatic for the mugger and me both. I wish he hadn’t hit me so hard; that part seemed unnecessary. But maybe he was just being thorough.

In any case, I got lucky: he took my wallet but left my phone. Even as he ran off, as I lay prone on the sidewalk, I was typing the crime into the Citizen app.

It would be a good one, I was sure of it. Mostly the app was full of misdemeanors and disturbances. Man squirts ketchup at waitress, Mike’s Diner. Woman shoves priest into pond, Morningside. My crime, with its violence, was better. I could be in the top ten for today. People might even come, I thought. They might search the neighborhood or cradle my bloody head in their laps. I wasn’t sure; the app didn’t track what happened after. There were only reports and reactions. Crying faces, angry faces, hugs, hearts.

Mugging, Pleasant & Niles. Citizen, self-reporting, injured. I clicked Report! with a little pang of shame. It had never occurred to me to go to a crime scene myself. To try to help. I’d only emoji-reacted. Now, I felt a new and deeper empathy towards victims.

I rolled onto my back and watched the app, exploring my bloody mouth with my tongue. A tooth was loose; it wiggled in its socket. Comforting responses washed in. Crying faces, angry faces, hugs, hearts. How awful. I hope op is ok. Community. People were reaching out to me. They felt for me. I was noticed.

My heart leapt at the sound of footsteps. It could be the mugger, coming back to finish me—but it could be a helper, too. I put my phone down. I didn’t want to seem like I’d been watching the app.

“Are you okay?” It was a woman’s voice, soft and lilting. I rolled over, pushed up to my hands and knees.

“I think so,” I started, but another voice interrupted.

“Is he okay? Is he hurt?” A man this time.

“It’s not so bad,” I said.

“He’s not okay! He’s hurt!” The woman again. “He’s crushed into the dirt!”

More footsteps. I was elated. People had come, real people. They stomped their feet, angry about the violence in this world.

“Oh my god, he’s bleeding!” came a high, melodic voice. “Help this man, I’m pleading!”

Suddenly, the stomping feet slipped into a rhythm. Voices swelled together, and the cries became a song.

“How brutal is this crime!” they sang. “I wish we’d been in time!”

“We cannot stop your pain, but we’ll get you on your feet again!” A hand reached out and I stood, shaky-legged and bewildered.

“Oh terrible! Oh terrible! The pain must be unbearable!” The crowd swirled around me, eyes limpid with sympathy. “Never fear,” they sang, “because the citizens are here!”

As one, they exploded into ecstatic dance.

They spun, they shook their shoulders, they made jazz hands.

I swallowed my mouthful of blood. It seemed crass to spit it out during the performance. These people had practiced! They had come here for me. Suddenly, I was part of something bigger than crime.

The crowd held hands and circled me. “When we dance together,” they sang, “everything is better!”

Everyone smiled. I was right in the middle. I was so grateful. All of this was for me.

I felt a response was in order. I wanted to join in, to show my gratitude, but not just that. To show them that I got it. I was picking up what they were laying down.

“Thank you!” I yelled, attempting harmony. “My heart is warm! You’ve helped me with the, um, your perform! …ance!”

Someone stumbled in back. A woman with braces trailed away awkwardly; I’d interrupted her line. A middle-aged man crashed into an old lady.

“Goddammit,” said a guy with dreadlocks. “What was that? That’s not part of it.”

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to go.”

“Why would you just yell stuff if you don’t know how it goes?” said the braces lady.

“I just thought….”

“Okay, cut!” called dreadlocks. “Break it up! Nice job, most of you. We’ll get it next time.”

The performance petered out. and the crowd trickled away. “Anyone want fried dough?” said the middle-aged guy. I raised my hand halfway, like maybe I could have wanted fried dough, but no one looked at me. They didn’t really seem mad, just a little deflated.

Soon I was alone again.

I wiggled the loose tooth with a dirty finger. It felt like it might come out.

I picked up my phone. There really were a lot of reactions, anyway. I’d still make it onto the leaderboard for the day or even the week.

Just then another report came in. Home invasion, North Concord. It was a good one, maybe even better than mine. Imagine someone in your home. How frightening. I was readying a crying emoji when I realized it wasn’t far away. A few blocks; five minutes, if I jogged.

The tooth came free in my mouth with an almost pleasant surrender. I spit it out and set off. There was a strange exhilaration in my heart. I could be part of it this time. I remembered the moves. I chanted as I ran: We’ll cheer you up while we perform. That worked better! Everyone would like that. I wouldn’t screw it up this time, I was sure of it. This time, I would join right in.

* * *

Ⓒ Sasha Brown

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