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<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond"> <i>from</i> THE MIDDLE</span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-family:Garamond">Like any beginning,
maybe there should be a man or boy or man-boy. Let this figure remain
inconstant, a crux to argue about fiction, a place to set the scene. Imagine
there are unnamable trees, a river too difficult to pronounce, mosquitoes of an
alien class. Imagine everyone is extremely polite. To sense the opposite is to
immediately feel betrayed. As the soft and blurry figure draws close, you
realize it could hurt.</span></p>
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<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond">A boy approached
covered in saws. He had arms like anyone else and I was not afraid to shake his
hand. His saws were sharp but never meant for us. Everyone was kind in spite of
the heat that pressed against our heads. The boy was a man really, but
youthful. He smiled. He showed us his work.</span><b><span style="font-family:Garamond"></span></b></p>
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<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond">His sculptures were
long wooden echoes of himself. When asking what the figures meant, he spread
apart his arms and strained to explain the Japanese schooling system, something
about balance, a frozen figure locked on a long beam. I refrained from asking what
two things he was balancing between or if it was a multitude of things that
made his limbs grow, a dark forest garnering paranoia.</span></p>
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<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond">In a remote
Philippine village, an elder keeps the key to the karaoke machine. The elders
don’t mess around. If there’s one thing to keep safe and chaste, it’s the
machine and collection of sing-a-long tapes. There is what is known as the
“karaoke killings phenomenon.” Some lost lives singing “My Way” off key. Many
were conceived or born while karaoke-ing. </span></p>
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<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond">On that night the
bird and boy were practically brothers. They sat still in the same folded
posture, darted their necks to pierce the dark. The bird was heavy like the
seawall, the boy like the jetty. The boy was sadder, but the bird was more
profound. I was like the shorter version of the bargeman who watched them from
out past the waves. He was like his own father, but sweeter and a better
singer. I sang equally well, as did the boy and the bird, though not that
night. Then they were both more quiet than the sand.</span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify">
<span style="font-family:Garamond"><br></span></p><p class="" style="margin-bottom:12pt;text-align:justify;line-height:10.3pt;background-color:white"><font size="1"><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white">Feliz Lucia Molina is the
author of <i>Undercastle</i> forthcoming
from Magic Helicopter Press in 2013. Other things include <i>Hair Hearts Flip </i>and <i>Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things</i> (Gauss
PDF), and more things forthcoming in <i>The
Volta, So & So, Bomb</i>, and elsewhere. This past summer she was in
residence at Haisyakkei in Japan where she collaborated with Ben Segal on</span><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:rgb(34,34,34)"> <i style><span style="background-color:white">The Middle</span></i><span style="background-color:white">.
She is a contributing editor at</span> </span><u><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:rgb(17,85,204)"><a href="http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/index"><span style="color:rgb(31,32,90)">continent</span></a></span></u><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white">. and lives in Los Angeles.</span></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin:0in 1.25in 0.0001pt 45pt;text-align:justify">
</p><p class="" style="text-align:justify;line-height:10.3pt;background-color:white"><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:rgb(34,34,34);background-color:white"><font size="1">Ben Segal is the author of<span class=""> </span><i>78
Stories</i><span class=""> </span>(No Record Press) and
co-editor of the anthology<span class=""> </span><i>The Official Catalog of the Library of
Potential Literature</i><span class=""> </span>(Lit Pub
Books). His chapbooks<span class=""> </span><i>Science Fiction Pornography</i><span class=""> </span>and<span class=""> </span><i>Weather Days<span class=""> </span></i>were published by Publishing
Genius and Mud Luscious Press, respectively, and his short fiction has been
published by or is forthcoming from<span class=""> </span><i>Tin House, Tarpaulin Sky, Gigantic,<span class=""> </span></i>and<span class=""><i style> </i></span><i>Puerto del Sol,<span class=""> </span></i>among others.</font></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;color:rgb(85,85,85)"></span></p>
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