Adam Overbay is from a small town in Appalachia, now living in Somerville. He is working mainly on a body of poems about his military experiences but he likes writing about other things as well. He is thinking about getting a dog, but cats are okay, too. No offense to cats.

This happened on the previous night as well; at least I believe that it was the previous night. My sense of time has become suspect. On that occasion it was the upper right canine, and that is long gone now. The large bird had appeared in the night, pecking into my mouth with its long razor beak, and then too I had been immobile.

I wonder if the bird will return. I swallow hard. I swallow and swallow and swallow the tooth. The open gap matches the other side. I try to stretch out my arms and fail. The large bird is winning. The large bird is winning just a little bit more every day. Each day I feel weaker, each day more inept. My brain struggles to make sense of its surroundings.

The nurse scolds me for losing another tooth and then, for swallowing it. “The bird,” I struggle to say, “the bird.”

“No,” she says. “Another will not grow in its place.”

I try again, but she cannot make sense of my words and repeats herself. Her nimble hands prod and poke, and her efficient face points down at me. I look at the huge mound of my belly, the place upon which the bird so often perches. I try hard to recognize it as my own.

My mother’s face appears over me. I try to call to her, to ask to go home, but again I feel my own thick tongued, foggy headed defeat. Pathetic and ineffectual tears roll to the pillow. My fists will not fist and I cannot bang them on the rails of this too long too thin bed.

“It won’t be long now,” she says soothingly. “The stork is coming. The stork is coming and after he helps you drop that bundle, you’ll be feeling all better.”

As she says this, she strokes my bulbous stomach and I feel someone beating against the inside of me. I feel someone trapped. The thing beating against me is both myself and someone else. I try again to speak, but my lips wobble and I drool. My saliva mixes with a thin stream of blood, and the thick liquid issues from the new gap in my mouth. I wonder if the thing inside thinks, or if it just lives on sensation. I will it to telepathically understand that we are under duress. I will it to resist the bird. To help me fight. All I feel is blankness now. It is still and I am still. We may not be breathing. I look into Mother’s face, but her face is now looking elsewhere. Her hands fiddle with the trays and forks and water pitchers at my side.

Sighing, Mother turns toward the door.

I hear the tremendous wings beating as she leaves the room.

Sarah Sorensen’s work has most recently been published online or in print at The Battered Suitcase, Knee-Jerk, The Ear Hustler, Metazen, Short, Fast and Deadly, Staccato, Dark Sky, and Bastards and Whores. She will be presenting scholarship on radical, sex-positive, queer pornography at the 2012 Popular Culture Conference in Boston.

Matthew Vasiliauskas is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Film and Video Production. In 2009, he was awarded the Silver Dome Prize by the Illinois Broadcast Association for best public affairs program as producer of the Dean Richards Show at WGN Radio. A frequent contributor to Film Monthly, an online journal of contemporary cinema, Matthew has conducted one-on-one interviews with some of today’s most acclaimed and rising talent including David Lynch, Elijah Wood, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, Emily Blunt, Joe Wright and Rosario Dawson. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

“The Suit” appeared in the second print issue of apt. Purchase your copy here.

“Wake up,” he yelled silently to himself, although it didn’t sound silent to his voice.

“Brr, brr, brr,” shouted his alarm clock as it glared two red fives, a colon and a seven at him.

“,” said his immobile body.

“Come on, wake up. Get your worthless ass outta bed.”

The alarm clock continued to repeat itself.

His body continued as well in its own form of motionless monotony.

“Come on, you can’t be serious. You have to have at least one more day in you,” his voice shouted at him. The voice wasn’t sure whether or not the body could hear him, but he didn’t see how it couldn’t. If he could hear the alarm clock, then surely his body could hear him. After all, the voice was coming from inside of the body, and the body must still work if the voice could hear the alarm clock coming from the outside. The voice itself had no way to perceive sound.

But the body just continued to lie still, saying nothing but, “.”

The voice yelled motivational musings at the body, trying to inspire it to get out of bed. It had so much left to live for. There were so many things yet to do. Today was going to be a great day. But the body responded to none of it.

It was indeed going to be a great day. There was going to be a promotion, a bigger salary, a new corner office with a window. Of all the days to die. This was simply the worst timing.

The alarm clock continued to “brr,” not knowing anything else it could do to help. It was beginning to sound tired.

The voice was beginning to get tired as well. Tired and angry. “WAKE UP!” he shouted in a last effort to coax the lifeless body out of bed.

No, the paralyzed body said silently back to the voice.

“Then go to hell,” the voice said.

“Brr, brr, brr,” the alarm clock said eternally.

Nathaniel Tower writes fiction, teaches English, and manages the online lit magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has appeared in over 100 online and print magazines and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His story “The Oaten Hands” was named one of 190 notable stories by storySouth’s Million Writers Award in 2009. His first novel, A Reason To Kill, was released in July 2011 through MuseItUp Publishing. Visit him at www.bartlebysnopes.com/ntower.htm

To participate, all you need to do is record yourself reading a story from apt. For those of you who don’t know, we’ve been around since 2005, so there are a lot of stories to choose from. So, choose your favorite and post a link here to let us know how to find it. The first thirty people to send videos will get a free e-version of our second print issue.

As an added incentive, the three people who make the videos we like most will each get a print copy of one of our books. Details listed below.

THE PRIZES:

Whoever makes our very favorite video will get one print copy of the second issue of apt and an electronic version of any Aforementioned title of your choice, including:

• apt: issue two
• apt: issue one
• They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights by Gillian Devereux
• Underlife and Portico by Michael Lynch

Whoever makes our second and third favorite videos will get a print copy of either They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights by Gillian Devereux or Underlife and Portico by Michael Lynch.

We’re not 100% certain how we’re going to decide which are our favorite videos, but here are things to keep in mind: We like readings that move us. So make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us think. Dramatizations are good, though not necessary. You need not memorize the piece in order to impress us. Just make those words live. Either way, you’ll get a shiny prize, so have fun with it.

THE DETAILS:

Eligibility: The story you read must be one that was published in apt, either online or in print. Interviews and reviews do not count. Essays, scripts, comics, prose, and verse do count. Contributors are eligible, but you cannot read your own work.

How to enter: Choose your favorite story/poem/essay from apt. Record yourself reading it. Upload your reading to YouTube. (Do not e-mail the files to us.) Leave us a link to your video in the comments section of this post.

The contest will run from Saturday, February 4 through Wednesday, February 29, or until thirty videos are posted, whichever comes first. All prizes will be mailed the second week week of March.

The fine print: This is supposed to be fun. Any videos that deride the authors or artists who made the work in question will be disqualified.

And what songs there are that must call us all—
not the songs of the Sirens’ mouths,
those metal-tongued demon mouths of the narrow straight,
the seaward fall—
but of more tuneless things,
as the startled nest-bare rustle of a sparrow’s wings,
that rushing which they sing to me of late,
or even of our heart beating,
glorious tones that sing in our sleep our tales
of each divine meeting, like nightingales,
throbbing deep, resounding in the throat—
or the whisper as we refold the pages
our mothers wrote,
and their feet proceeding ours with a stumble or two
on these uncurtained stages.

And the time will come, as it has done and passed,
where the songs our eyes sing to one another
must turn their kissing mouths to other things,
when we must with fingertips forget each stranger’s
skin-touch, and such soft pangs—
for it is no victory to last.
It is no victory to stand bull-stubborn in the path,
solidly refusing that bend, that parting of mouths,
that releasing of hands.
It is no victory to refuse our promised lands.

Even as the gloaming begins to spark,
begins to hover, to clear its throat—our messenger of the dark—
odd little flames we are to dot that horizon-line
even as it begins to drip, tar-black,
even as some air hums that distant cliffside lullaby back.
We flit our tiny battles, our storming, tiny spars,
free to choose our night-path now,
free with delicate wings.
We who are not yet ashes, and not quite stars,
we, lighting bug singers, we fireflies sing.
And as if brushed from a young child’s hand,
released from her tiny eye,
we ignite, we leap—pinpoint beacons we command—
and into the night we fly.

Julie Baber graduated with a BA in English Language and Literature and Theatre from Smith College. At Smith, she was awarded the Ruth Forbes Eliot Poetry Prize and studied poetry writing under poet Jack Gilbert. Also at Smith, she was awarded the opportunity to have dinner with Gwendolyn Brooks, and she ended up with most of her dinner in her lap out of sheer nervousness. She lives in New York City and is currently obsessed with whiskey ice cream and photo booths.

“Not Quite Stars” appeared in the second print issue of apt. Purchase your copy here.

That said, issue two is finally here, so–buy our literary journal! It is both fine and dandy. If you want to hold it in your hands, you can (for the rest of your life) for $10. If you’re of the mind that literature should be ethereal and pixelated, you can purchase the electronic version for $5. Either way, you’ll be privy to the work of these deadly talented writers: Maureen Alsop, Julie Baber, Lindsay Coleman, Molly Curtis, Tara Deal, Gillian Devereux, Jaydn DeWald, Nate House, Philip Kobylarz, Breonna Krafft, Jessica Maybury, Robert McNally, Clayton Michaels, Thomas Mundt, Lauren Nicole Nixon, Thomas Nowak, Lam Pham, Eric Rawson, Courtney Cullinan Robb, Noel Sloboda, Matthew Vasiliauskas, Joel Wayne, Russ Woods, and Ashley Zirkle.

Also, if you’re in the Boston area, come to Lorem Ipsum Books on Saturday, February 18 at 7pm when we will throw a release party of epic* proportions, including words from the following deft-handed authors: David Bartone, Sam Cha, Lindsay Coleman, Shannon Derby, Gillian Devereux, Carissa Halston, Breonna Krafft, J.F. Lynch, Dolan Morgan, Robin E. Mørk, Randolph Pfaff, and Vincent Scarpa. There will be wine, beer, cookies, and resonant literature read by its creators (we mean this in the most secular way possible). Be there, Boston. Make us proud.

* – back when the word “epic” still meant something.

        They would die later, much later, too late. They would die of natural and unnatural causes, respectively. An avalanche would dump a metric ton of rocks upon the head of one of them, and a car would drive through the side of the other one’s car and body, and they would both die, unaware of the other. They were unaware of these fates that waited for them in their futures.
        A sandwich waited for Henry in his kitchen to be eaten and a glass of lemonade waited in Mary’s kitchen to be drunk. And their houses waited to hold them, to contain them protectively from potential harm to which they were susceptible. The houses did a fine job.

        And Henry in his house, on his bed, opened a book about mathematics and studied it for a test he would have, and he would pass the test; he’d pass every test. And Mary would sit in front of her television and watch the images that would display themselves there for her because she had no test and she wouldn’t start to have self-loathing thoughts for years yet.

        There was a storm building itself in the mountains, clouds piling upon clouds, turning dark and heading in the direction of the town where they lived. But the storm would never arrive at their town, having been blown to the north by winds off the lake. Other children’s sleep would be disturbed, but not theirs. They would have plenty of restless nights, but not due to the storm. The storm felt itself fulfilled but also depleted, so it ran itself into the ocean where it died a quiet death that no one mourned.

        When Mary got married, she said “I do.” When Henry never got married, he got dumped by about seven girls, none of whom found him attractive but only dated him because of his personality, which at the end of the day, at the end of every day, just wasn’t enough, even though he probably had the best personality in a ten-mile radius. And when the girls, one by one, dumped him and asked him if he understood that they just wanted to be friends, he would also say “I do.” And both Henry’s and Mary’s “I do” was the same.

        There was the fall evening when they both tried on necklaces that didn’t fit them. She put a rope one around her neck but couldn’t bring the clasp close. He wore a railtie necklace, his neck against the cold flat jewelry that a giant wouldn’t wear. He stood back up before the train came and she put the rope away before her husband came home. Mary’s husband had grown up in an entirely different town and state and had not had a yard so much as a cement patch where there was a chain-looped basketball hoop. At night, he couldn’t make out the constellations because of the bright lights nearby.

        Their families would sometimes have supper together, back when their lawns touched and at the dinner table their hands when passing peas. And they would look at each other while their parents talked and imagine themselves asleep, dreaming this scene. But in their dreams, their parents were birds and instead of supper they were flying over the terrain of their town. And they could see their houses and what their roofs looked like and how every fenced-off yard ran together and became one blanket of land under which the dead and the past slept.

Brian Warfield lives in Philadelphia and publishes chapbooks through Turtleneck Press.

He lurched from sleep, the pale whine of a car alarm buzzing in the background. His feet had escaped the blanket during the night and felt thick and cold, no longer a part of him. His pillow was bunched under his right shoulder as if the mattress had a tumor.

Outlines began to appear in the dark, a Polaroid picture of his impecunious lifestyle. His rickety desk next to a small cube refrigerator. His TV, which he’d positioned on a soiled armchair left by the previous tenant. An abandoned shopping cart, found in the alley, that he’d rolled inside and filled with DVDs. Everything Cody owned was in this four hundred square foot studio apartment with no closet.

Someone upstairs flushed a toilet and the sound of the car alarm disappeared behind the gurgling water for one amazing moment. Cody grabbed his blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. He crossed the room and pressed his forehead against the frosty window. He watched the lights on a Chevy Trailblazer flash in time to his sleepy pulse.

He imagined a title sequence appearing over the small alley, the Trailblazer hovering in the bottom right of the frame. Breaking Silence. Slow fade. A Film by Cody Johnston.

The camera tilted to reveal a couple stepping out of Cody’s building and into the alley. She had a down jacket zipped all the way up to her chin, but she was wearing only a pair of sleep shorts. Her pale legs glowed in the light mounted above Cody’s window. The guy wore a sweater and a ski cap, his shoulders slumped forward. They walked in circles, their arms slightly elevated at their sides, eyes scanning every window. Waiting for one to whisper which apartment contained the owner of the truck.

Lights snapped on in a random pattern across the street. Cody imagined the camera cutting to each room, close-ups on each face as they emerged from their dreams. Each face registering that brief moment of relief in between the next piercing cry of the alarm from the street below. Maybe that was a better title: Brief Moment of Relief.

A buff guy erupted from the building, his arms bulging out of a tattered blue robe. “Still no sign of him, huh?” he bellowed to the couple, and with that, it was suddenly okay to talk, to stamp your feet, exhale bursts of mist into the air.

“He’s either laying low or his apartment is ten blocks away,” the guy said.

“I hope it burns when he pees,” his girlfriend said.

A few others filed out of the building, a conga line of poor hygiene and halitosis. These were the people Cody saw when he checked his mail or when he read a book on the roof. The other buildings vomited their own groups of disheveled bodies and soon an impromptu party was underway in the alley. The Trailblazer was the DJ.

Late Night Revelry.

Cody should be out there, forming fledgling bonds, archiving experiences that would turn into future conversations. But his head felt frozen to the window. His teeth chattered lightly. There was a bigger gulf between them than a pane of glass.

He must hear a part of the alarm that they were all missing. A mournful quality. Or a warning. He was filled with a sense of disquiet, unease. But maybe Cody was supposed to be the only one who heard it. Maybe he’d been given a superpower in the night, the ability to decipher codes that were woven into the patchwork of reality. He grinned at the idea: In a world where chaos reigns, only one man can read the hidden signs that will save us all. Cody could change someone’s route so they didn’t get mugged. He could prevent a doomed plane from taking off. He could distract someone from an embarrassing social situation.

As suddenly as it began, the alarm stopped. The air was thick with its absence. The impromptu party disbanded, everyone stumbling indoors to return to their warm beds. But it wasn’t until they were all gone that Cody had a terrible thought. If he could stop crime before it happened, no one would truly know what he had done for them. He wouldn’t get any credit.

He wouldn’t be a superhero at all.

Josh Denslow’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, Wigleaf, Used Furniture Review, Black Clock, and Twelve Stories, among others. He plays the drums in the band Borrisokane.

Shelagh Johnson’s “Blood Loss”
Vincent Scarpa’s “God Is in Agriculture”

Congratulations to Shelagh and Vincent–both stories deserve every accolade they get.