by Robert WEXELBLATT

Mrs. White was old and not just by the stan­dards of sixth-graders. On the first day of the year, she an­nounced that this would be her last. 

Sandy Moore joked that Mrs. White wasn’t re­al­ly mar­ried, that she got her name from her hair. Mrs. White’s hair re­al­ly was ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly white, the col­or of ic­ing on a wed­ding cake on­ly fluffy, like cot­ton can­dy. She may once have been a com­pe­tent teacher; but, by the time we had each oth­er, she wasn’t. She couldn’t re­mem­ber our names. At first, she mixed them up, then said “you” or just pointed. 

Mrs. White avoid­ed ac­tu­al­ly teach­ing. She as­signed us a lot of re­ports. We would have to read these out to the class while she re­treat­ed to a chair be­hind the last row. The first re­port was to be about our fa­vorite books. Af­ter Glenn Evans fin­ished telling us about, Guadal­canal Di­ary, we found she had dozed off. We laughed in hushed voic­es and went qui­et­ly about needling each oth­er and gos­sip­ing. The same thing hap­pened dur­ing Vi­vian McMahon’s mawk­ish­ly ador­ing ac­count of Lit­tle Women.

In sixth grade, la­ten­cy is wind­ing up. Child­ish­ness and ado­les­cence min­gle like gin and ver­mouth. Bod­ies change; feel­ings trans­mo­gri­fy. Our class­room was a hor­mon­al hot­house with as many ro­mances as a Re­nais­sance court. Who liked whom and in what way? Ex­cit­ed girls whis­pered and teased. Shy, con­fused, re­sis­tant boys ex­pressed them­selves in small, some­times af­fec­tion­ate cru­el­ties, for­bid­den words, scraps in the school­yard. Girls gig­gled and passed notes. Boys swore and shot spitballs.

One morn­ing in No­vem­ber, Mrs. White wasn’t there at all. Af­ter the first few min­utes, we went rapid­ly out of con­trol. There was a game of tag, scream­ing, a scuf­fle in front of Mrs. White’s desk, some banged their rulers on the ra­di­a­tor. Then the prin­ci­pal, Miss Gibbs, came through the door. We all re­spect­ed Ms. Gibbs, a for­mi­da­ble spin­ster. We feared her dis­plea­sure, sensed her dig­ni­ty, but liked her kind face and that she nev­er raised her voice. She had been in charge of our school since long be­fore we start­ed kinder­garten. For­ev­er, so far as we knew. Her au­thor­i­ty had an air of eter­ni­ty, was god­like. Even the row­di­est of us sat down and shut up. 

She looked us over with a frown that con­veyed dis­ap­point­ment rather than anger.

“Boys and girls, I’m afraid Mrs. White is in­dis­posed today.” 

“In­dis­posed?” whis­pered Sally.

“It means she won’t be in to­day. The sub­sti­tute teacher will be here short­ly. I’m sure you’ll do your work for her as well as you’ve done for Mrs. White.”

Sub­sti­tute. The word pin­balled silent­ly around the room. Sub­sti­tute sig­ni­fied li­cense; it meant any­thing goes. Every­body knew that what­ev­er you did didn’t count. 

Then it got bet­ter, al­so worse.

“The substitute’s name is Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Miss Gibbs.

Heimerdinger! There was gig­gling. Heimerdinger.

Miss Gibbs frowned more se­vere­ly this time, then said some­thing we didn’t un­der­stand at the time. 

“Mrs. Heimerdinger has just been through a dif­fi­cult time. Treat her well. I have to get back to the of­fice. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

So, the sub­sti­tute had a ridicu­lous name and she was vul­ner­a­ble. Bet­ter, and al­so worse.

“Who’d mar­ry some­body named Heimerdinger?” Judy mocked. 

“A dif­fi­cult time?” said Glenn, laugh­ing. “Not like she’s in for today!”

In the five min­utes af­ter Miss Gibbs left and the sub­sti­tute ar­rived, chaos had come again. Pig­tails were pulled. El­bows, in­sults, taunts, and black­board erasers were thrown. The clam­or rose to the lev­el of a prison riot.

Then it got even bet­ter and, again, worse.

Mrs. Heimerdinger stepped al­most re­luc­tant­ly in­to the an­ar­chy then stopped short, ob­vi­ous­ly ter­ri­fied. Weak, we thought. Any­thing goes. What fun!

Mrs. Heimerdinger was odd­ly dressed up. Every­thing was white and pink. Her glass­es were big and had pink frames. She wore pearl ear­rings and a long pearl neck­lace. There were bracelets too, and her hair was odd and fussy. She looked like an un­hap­py moth­er of the bride. 

“Please, boys and girls, take your seats,” she said in a voice we bare­ly heard.

“Please,” she begged. It was pathetic.

Glenn Evans smiled wicked­ly and told us all to sit. We did. 

“Good morn­ing, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” he crooned with a wicked smile.

Heimerdinger. More giggling.

“Thank you…?”

“I’m Glenn,” he said, then pro­ceed­ed to point to each of us and rat­tled off thir­ty-two names at top speed.

“Oh, thank you, Glenn. Well then. Good morn­ing, every­body. Now, can any­one tell me what home­work Mrs. White as­signed for to­day? I’ll col­lect it for her.”

“Mrs. White nev­er gives us any home­work, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Glenn.

There was scarce­ly re­pressed gig­gling from the back of the room.

The woman didn’t look du­bi­ous but scared. “Well then,” she stam­mered, “what has Mrs. White had you work­ing on this week? It’s Wednes­day, what do you usu­al­ly do on Wednesdays?”

“Ge­og­ra­phy, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

“His­to­ry, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

“Frac­tions, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

“Art, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

“Can we go to re­cess now, Mrs. Heimerdinger?”

Even those in the last row could see the dis­may, the help­less­ness, could al­most smell the sweat.

Then Fred­dy threw a book at George across the room. George ducked and it hit Jill.

“Ow!” screeched Jill rub­bing her shoulder.

George re­trieved the book and hurled it back at Freddy.

Joey pur­sued his courtship of Suzanne by punch­ing her on the arm. 

“Ouch, Joey! Mrs. Heimerdinger, Joey hit me!”

A bar­rage of spit­balls was launched from east to west. Balled-up loose-leaf pa­per flew from west to east. Sam­my be­gan singing a ver­sion of “Jin­gle Bells” with im­prop­er lyrics. This evoked gen­er­al hi­lar­i­ty and much off-key, off-col­or repetition. 

Mrs. Heimerdinger tried. “Please, chil­dren,” she begged. “Please set­tle down.”

Judy start­ed a duet with Jer­ry. “Heimerdinger! Heimer Dinger! High Mer Dinger!” 

On­ly those who had yet to un­der­go their growth spurt, to suf­fer the first waves of pu­ber­ty, those whose de­fault was obe­di­ence be­cause their fa­thers had belts, be­cause their moth­ers used sar­casm, be­cause they feared the with­draw­al of al­lowances and love, held back. But in less than half an hour, even they didn’t. That Wednes­day was a Feast of Fools.

Mrs. Heimerdinger grew fran­tic. “Please, please,” she im­por­tuned as though she were pray­ing to God and not us. Her face was near­ly as white as Mrs. White’s hair. Her trem­bling grew worse. Her hands flopped about spas­ti­cal­ly, and when they went to her throat the day reached its cli­max, its catastrophe.

The sound of three dozen pearls bounc­ing on the hard­wood floor qui­et­ed us, briefly. They bound­ed every­where, like pop­corn. They bounced be­tween our desks, rolled un­der the radiators.

Mrs. Heimerdinger was open­ly weep­ing now. She dropped to all fours and tried des­per­ate­ly to gath­er the pearls. Our laugh­ter turned al­most mad. Mrs. Heimerdinger be­gan to scream.

That was when I thought, quite right­ly, “I’m nev­er go­ing to for­get this.”

Filed under Fiction on May 9th, 2025

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Care to Share?

by Max SHERIDAN

Mouse died today.

Who could have known.

But some­times, many times, it hap­pens this way. You get a call out of the blue. Hel­lo? Hel­lo? Palmer’s dead. Palmer who? Palmer Fish. Someone’s alive in the morn­ing, some­one you may have even for­got­ten ex­ist­ed, and then they’re dead.

I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. What to re­port. How to dis­pose of the body.

I thought maybe I should call Siob­han. Siob­han bought mouse. When she left the apart­ment, she left mouse. We nev­er even named mouse. Af­ter a time, it just felt nat­ur­al. Did you feed mouse to­day? Is there enough wa­ter in mouse’s bowl? Where is mouse hid­ing now? 

Siob­han left last Thanksgiving. 

With Thanks­giv­ing din­ner still hot on the table.

No one we called had come to din­ner. No one had RSVP’d.

It was a dis­as­ter, Siob­han said. How could I be so unmoved? 

The turkey had fi­nal­ly come out just right. The zuc­chi­ni and sour cream casse­role wasn’t sog­gy like usu­al. We had each oth­er. Why couldn’t we just be thank­ful for that? I said.

Siob­han left with just her purse and a David Bowie album. 

She nev­er came back for her oth­er things.

Not even mouse.

And now mouse was dead.

I called Palmer Fish. 

It was odd, and maybe not very nice, that I had used Palmer Fish as an ex­am­ple of a dead man you might have for­got­ten ex­ist­ed. But what comes to mind comes to mind.

Palmer Fish an­swered on the fifth ring. He said, “I’m in the mid­dle of some­thing. Can you make it quick?”

“Oh,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you.”

“But you just called.”

Palmer Fish, a big man, was breath­ing heav­i­ly. He may have just come in from a jog. Or maybe just pick­ing up the phone was an ef­fort these days.

“Mouse is dead,” I said.

“What’s that?” Palmer Fish said. “Mouse?”

“Siobhan’s mouse,” I said.

“She had a mouse?”

It was ob­vi­ous­ly news to him. 

“I think maybe it was a heart at­tack,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It wasn’t old age.” 

“You nev­er know.”

It was true, I guess. With trees you could count rings, but with mice? 

Palmer Fish said, “What can I help you with, Dono­van?” Palmer Fish was a chemist by train­ing, though these days I heard he’d been DJing in clubs where every­thing was pitch black ex­cept for the glow-in-the-dark blue paint the dancers wore. Palmer Fish stood on a daïs of sorts, spin­ning vinyl maniacally. 

“I don’t know what to do with the body,” I said.

“You don’t know what to do with a mouse?” Palmer Fish said. It sound­ed like a trav­es­ty. Like every­one buried mice every day and knew just what to do. Every­one but me.

As we spoke, mouse was ly­ing on his side on a bed of fresh Ro­maine let­tuce I’d put there as an af­ter­noon snack. To a passer­by, he could have been nap­ping. His hind paws were stretched just so, as if in rever­ie. His eyes were closed.

“Do you even bury mice?” I said.

“How much does it weigh?” Palmer Fish said.

“An ounce?” I said.

“That mouse does not weigh an ounce,” Palmer Fish said. “Don’t you have an in­gre­di­ents scale you could use?”

It was true, maybe Siob­han had left one be­hind. But I wasn’t putting a dead mouse on a kitchen ap­pli­ance, not even mouse.

“She must have tak­en it,” I lied.

I wait­ed for Palmer Fish to sug­gest oth­er­wise, be­cause maybe he knew some­thing I didn’t. But Palmer Fish wasn’t go­ing to fall in­to that trap. He said he need­ed to check something. 

“Right,” he said a mo­ment lat­er. “Was your mouse obese?”

What an odd ques­tion, I thought. The kind of post-mortem chem­i­cal analy­sis you would ex­pect from a man who’d nev­er cried in a movie the­ater in his life. “Mouse was av­er­age,” I said.

“Ok,” Palmer Fish said. “We’re talk­ing be­tween four and six ounces then. That’s what it says. If that’s the case, I’d just flush him.”

I thought I must have not heard right, that Palmer Fish had said “fold him” or “feel him.” But he was adamant. “Flush him,” he said. “You don’t have a yard. You’re not pay­ing for a casket.”

“Where would I find a cas­ket?” I said.

“That’s what I mean. Flush him, Dono­van, he’ll fit down the pipes. I googled it.”

I stayed in the apart­ment for the rest of the af­ter­noon, ques­tion­ing my di­ag­no­sis of death. Had I jumped to con­clu­sions? Palmer Fish nev­er sug­gest­ed I take mouse’s pulse. For ob­vi­ous rea­sons. I wouldn’t know how, etc. But there were oth­er ways to de­tect the breath of life. 

Twice I thought I saw the white hairs on mouse’s chin stir, but both times I’d just walked by his cage. It was prob­a­bly on­ly the wind of my passing. 

In ret­ro­spect, Thanks­giv­ing din­ner was prob­a­bly on­ly the tip of the ice­berg of Siobhan’s leav­ing. Palmer Fish had al­ways been a good down­stairs neigh­bor. He was big but he moved with grace, even del­i­ca­cy for a man his size. He wasn’t on a ca­reer path but he had a sta­ble in­come. He wore a beard well.

Palmer Fish was handy, too. Those evenings I was late com­ing home from drinks with the boys and Palmer Fish was still there fix­ing a bad fil­ter on the dish­wash­er I knew noth­ing about, they added up now. 

Al­so, Siob­han be­gan to dress different. 

Al­so, she be­gan to kiss dif­fer­ent. She start­ed us­ing the dread­ed phrase “ca­reer path” at about this time, which is prob­a­bly why I use it now. I should have seen it com­ing frankly.

The first thing they did as a cou­ple was in­stall a plant out­side their apart­ment down­stairs, pos­si­bly to dif­fer­en­ti­ate their union from ours. I had nev­er liked or seen the need for apart­ment plants. It was se­mi-trop­i­cal, not a Fi­cus or a snake plant. A dif­fi­cult plant to grow in an apart­ment hall­way, I’d say. 

Still, it bloomed ef­fort­less­ly. The yel­low spots on its leaves widened. 

Soon they bought a big­ger pot. A tub really. 

In a month, it near­ly reached the door lintel.

I googled “flush dead mouse toilet.”

I googled “bury dead mouse pot­ted plant.”

I googled “ex’s de­ceased mouse disposal.”

I googled “what is ca­reer path.”

I googled “how to be handy video.”

I googled “fi­ancée liv­ing down­stairs with neighbor.”

I googled “fi­ancée liv­ing down­stairs with neigh­bor video.”

I googled and googled and googled and googled and googled and googled. 

Filed under Fiction on April 25th, 2025

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Care to Share?

by Ian GRODY

Shit shit shit. I’m ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing, I’m ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing — I am late, I am rac­ing, I am — woof — yes, here. I am HERE.

Wait, where is… ?

Oh god. Oh lord no. How could I space? How could I miss the moth­er­fuck­ing memo for the SECOND TIME this month?

To: ALL CLOUDS. Sub­ject Line: Sat­ur­day — Not An Us in the Sky.

Per­fect. Ju­u­u­u­u­ust per­fect. I can guess how this is gonna go. “Clas­sic Craig. His uncle’s a tsuna­mi, that nepo-va­por nev­er de­served the job in the first —”

Wait. 

Omg, omg I’m not alone. I think that’s Ja­son. JASON!

Fuck me, it’s a seagull. 

Cmon, bud­dy, keep it to­geth­er, Everybody’s look­ing. Why wouldn’t they? Bright blue sky. Ran­do at­mos­pher­ic element. 

My con­den­sa­tion dysmorphia’s kick­ing in. They’re say­ing I’m too fluffy. If they’re not say­ing it they’re think­ing it. Big dumb ball of bitch ass H2O.

Breathe. You’re spiraling. 

Maybe text your ther­a­pist. Sure it’s the week­end. But you pay her a for­tune and it’s all out of pock­et. Plus this is lit­er­al­ly what she’s for. 

I can’t. She’ll judge me. She’ll roll her eyes like she did that one time when I brought up my ex; she de­nies it but I’m not blind. I’M NOT BLIND, BARBARA.

Christ, I promised my­self I wouldn’t pre­cip­i­tate. Ack, can’t hold it. Here I go. Don’t you rain. Don’t you rain now.

I know… I shouldn’t… but maybe… (mist) maybe (MIST)…  it’s bet­ter this way.

Filed under Fiction on April 11th, 2025

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