He searches for the perfect name, pointing out street signs and writing down the names of his coworkers' kids. Somewhere around here, he'll find the inspiration, something beautiful for his daughter. He wants it to be perfect, the first gift he gives her, one that will stay with her for all her life.

His other two daughters help, throwing out names that come to mind. 

"Lauren!"

"Elizabeth!"

"Kylie." 

He hesitates on the K, a name to match his daughters. Their names both mean pure and start with K, and he likes the idea. Not Kylie, but something else?

The answer comes at church, when one of the kids from Sunday school runs through him by accident, and he leaps out of the way as his youngest shouts her name, "Kaitlin, come back!" 

"Kaitlyn," he says. It fits. 

It too means pure. 

He doesn't tell anyone at first, turning the name over in his mind again. With his last daughter, he hadn't known until he stood above her and saw it in her eyes. Still, though, it had fit. 

This time, he knew before he saw her. 

The other women in his family keep proposing ideas.

"Clara."

"Rebekah."

"Rylie." 

His oldest rushes in one day, shouting in glee. "I've got it! Her name's going to be Olivia!" 

He tries it on. It fits too.

On the day he holds his youngest daughter in his arms, he doesn't cry, smiling as he pulls her close. Could any love compare to this? 

Kaitlyn Olivia.  It's her. 

His daughter. 

Years pass. Hardship grows, and easy smiles crush themselves away. His daughters age, laughing and crying and screaming and fighting and loving and learning all at the same time. Through it all, he's there. For their first steps, the jokes that make no sense, the 3am sicknesses, the late night discipline, the bedtime hugs, the music lessons, first days of school, history sessions, rising and falling friendships, religious conflict and more. 

His daughters age away from him, and he figures that means he's doing his job right, teaching his young women to be independent and sufficient. 

Then one day, Kaitlyn Olivia sends him a message, unwilling to face him with her words. They sting. 

His daughter doesn't want to be his daughter anymore. 

"Call me, my boy. Call me Ak. I hate my name," his child writes to him.

The world has told him that if he truly loves her, he'll call her a boy, he'll call her by the name she chooses. One that means powerful instead of pure. One that means individualistic over innocent. 

Over the years, he has borne many blows. The blame, accusation, and hurt of his children. He has let them sharpen their claws on him, knowing that in this way, he prepares them for a world where they will need them. He's seen them tear a family apart and denounce it for all to hear. He's seen many good gifts taken and used, then lost and broken in days. Yet through all, he has loved and loved.

Yet this? How could a father lose his daughter? 

He tells his daughter he loves her. That she will always be Kaitlyn to him. That this was the name he had given her. She didn't have to use it, but surely she could understand? How for him, there was no other name? 

Maybe she sensed the pain in his plea, and she nods. She lets him have this. 

And though she still introduces herself as Ak, she lets him call her by the name he gave her, and when he says it, she still finds it beautiful.

Cabernet

By Asche Keegan

“You’re a racist, Bibbs,” I said, tipping the glass towards the ancient oil painting. The portrait continued to stare moodily into the distance, perhaps pondering a world where someone else might be as great as he.

“And now I’ve gotta get rid of you somehow.” I swirled the glass, watching the Cabernet slosh back and forth. The sight made me queasy, but I downed the liquid anyway, not once taking my eyes away from Captain Bibbs. I choked on the swallow, coughing it up back into my lap, heaving and bellowing the thunderous coughs of a dying man. Once subsided, I leaned back again, turning my gaze from the painting to the book in front of me.

I opened it to the first page.

“Let’s recount your sins. You endorsed slavery and owned many slaves of your own. You are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of African Americans in our own country. You served in the Confederate army as an officer for three years. I could go on.”

I paused, glancing back up at the man on the wall. “But you’re also the reason children go to school. And you saved many lives from being lost with your brilliant wartime tactics. You created a legacy. Built a business from the ground and became a national powerhouse.”

I couldn’t think of the other things.

“You’ve got some good pieces to ya, Bibbs, but you’re still a racist.”

I wanted him to respond, to tell me what to do. I could picture the growl he’d make—an echo of my great grandfather’s snarl whenever we came up to him after church. We’d always shake his hand politely before shrinking back against the pews. Until the day he died, he’d see us and throw back his head and laugh.

But in this scenario, I could even imagine what Bibbs would say.

“You filthy lot carrying on with all manner of immorality. There are women walking about with virtually nothing on. Where are the masters for these slaves?”

He’s probably throw the n-word in there a couple of times too.

I took another dreg, swallowing the last of what was in the glass. Almost without looking, I refilled it.

“But what am I supposed to do with you? Half the people I know want me to get rid of ya. Sell you off to an auction and donate the money for reparations, you know?” I laugh at myself. “No, you wouldn’t know. You’re the reason I’d have to give up $50,000 in the first place. I hate this.”

With a start, I realize the cup is dry again, so I set it aside, pulling my head into my hands. I sit there, propped up halfway on the armchair for several minutes.

The entire time, Bibbs taunts me. “I may be a racist, but I’m no coward. I’m not the one who ran away from war. I fought even when six of my bones were broken. And instead, you intentionally broke your bones to stay home. You hurt yourself to stay home. Yer a coward.”

“I’m not a coward. You are,” I retort, petulant as a child.

“You are a child.”

“Don’t remind me,” I groan.

I look up again, almost expecting Bibbs to be looking down on me, but no, he’s still looking up, off to his right, that snooty “holier-than-thou” look on his face.

“But you killed hundreds of people, Bibbs. That don’t make you brave, just a bully.”

I poured myself another glass, relaxing a bit as the cabernet settled in.

“But some people want me to keep you. Saying you’re an artifact. A piece of history that can’t be re-written. Someone to be proud of.”

“They mean to say they’re prouder of me than of your sorry ass.”

“Hey, at least I’ve got one. You’re just a head on a wall.”

“And I died with my head on a stick. You’re gonna die fat. In your bed. Screaming.”

“But at least this sorry ass will be attached,” I replied. It was a poor comeback but the only one that came to mind.

Almost without thinking, I stood, the cabernet sloshing in the glass. I approached Bibbs, keeping eye contact. “You’re an utter fool. The butt of too many of my problems.”

“If you were capable of solving your own problems, you wouldn’t need to blame them on me.”

“But you know what, I know better than you. I’m smarter after all. I don’t kill people in the name of protecting a family—

“Because you don’t know have one or because you don’t know what honor means?”

“—Because I’m just f*cking better than you are! You’re a racist, a sexist. A misogynist. You’re all the things. I’m just better. And you. You were a terrible person.”

“And you are only a pathetic one.”

The words hung in the silence.

Then, again almost without knowing what I was doing, I had my hands gripped around the sides of the painting, attempting to yank it from the wall. The wine spilled over the edge falling onto and staining the $50,000 antique, but in the moment I didn’t care about antiques or money or reparations or any of it. I just wanted him gone.

I pulled it off, stumbling backwards and hurling it down onto the floor ten feet away from me. A splintering crack filled the room and staring at the broken remnants of the giant frame, the conversation came fully into focus.

All of it.

Even the imagined parts.

Now it looked like red dripped from Bibb’s haughty eyes. I wondered if that’s what it looked like when he got his head impaled.

I laughed, a little unstably before downing the rest of the cabernet. Tossing the glass onto what remained of the frame, I went to bed.

Soul Searching

By Asche Keegan

I’ve been soul searching lately, but I never thought I would find myself on the softball field, caught between a base and a pop up high in the air.

The game is tied, and the pitcher shoots me a glare through her eye makeup. I grin back, leaning onto the back of my foot. She throws the ball, and even though it is just outside the strike zone, I swing, making contact and watching it soar into the air. I can feel my soul rising alongside it, as if freed from all Earthly pursuits.

I’m a Christian; Someday I’m going up there, I think.

That’s my first thought, and them I’m racing towards first base. The coach is yelling at me to run faster, to beat the ball, so even as I touch the base I’m turning towards second.

I’m excitable, I realize, and it pushes me on, propelling my feet forward.

My teammates are screaming at me in the dugout, yelling for me to beat the ball, and I dig in my heels, running harder. As I round second, my coach is watching the ball, telling me to hustle if I want to make it to third.

I’m obstinate.

The ball’s coming towards the base, but I beat it to third, and the umpire calls me safe. The player at third sighs and throws it to the pitcher, who misses the ball.

My coach is screaming for me to stay on the bag, where it’s safe. My teammates are yelling at me to stay. Everyone on the bleachers is yelling for me to stay where I am.

But I’m ambitious,

            so I take off running anyway.

I give it all I’ve got, even as the pitcher realizes what is happening and whips the ball to the catcher. I drop my knee and slide, foot slamming into the plate just as the catcher turns to tag me out.

“She’s SAFE!” the umpire cries, almost as excited as I am. I stagger to my feet, my teammates shaking their head at me even through their grins.

“The coach said he was gonna kill you,” one mentions as an aside.

But as we stream back onto the field to shake hands, I realize most of all that I’m competitive, and that probably accounts for the entire lot.

Out of Concrete

By Asche Keegan

Parking Lot

By Asche Keegan

 TW: Adult themes

There is something almost sultry about neon pink lights reflected on the dashboard. It brings back stories of sex, drugs, rock & roll, the fifties, and classic cars under the moon. The revving of the engine in time with the couples making out in the back, rocking the vehicle to and fro in their haste to get out of there before their mamas come to yank them home.

The diner's lot has been filled before; kisses stolen between licks of a peanut butter ice cream cone. Inside the parlor, an old couple feeds each other the cherries from the tops of their floats, perhaps remembering younger days themselves.

Teenagers work the counters—the same as they have for seventy-eight years. Though they may change out fast, the place itself still looks the same.

Turn the keys and the engine roars to life, blue dials flickering to life. For a moment, the atmosphere holds, motors purring and neon lights flickering. The smell of bubble-gum fills the air, along with the muffled grunts of the phantoms who may once have used this very vehicle to go about their business.

Then the radio snaps on, flooding the car with Christian praise music and banishing the specters of fantasy and the imagination.

“hurry home, the ice cream’s melting.”

Yet that feeling can't be shook, the idea of pedals underfoot, ice cream on the lips.

“Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God,” West sings.

But the dream fades, leaving behind only a newborn adult, clutching tight to the innocence and naivety of the past.

Haunted (Journaling)

By Asche Keegan

I have abandoned my old haunts, but they have not abandoned me.

I sit alone in empty rooms, ancient worlds calling to me. Voices whisper. Remember your first English teacher? In that dusty room? It was always raining outside. The projector was broken. She did everything by hand, brought props to class. She was so busy, but you never saw it. She would have corrected your passive voice.

The dust makes me cough, but I go to the window and look out. That same tree still sits here outside the window, lightly waving its branches. She was there when they hospitalized you. Then, you didn’t even say goodbye.

I leave and keep wandering.

I find myself in an empty auditorium, standing on a table and staring at the giant screen opposing me. Remember when he taught you how to dab? This was the only classroom you goofed off in, the only class you played Minecraft during. One of only a couple teachers to whom you never sent a thank you note. It still smells like mold and mildew and the green velvet that encased the walls.

I can’t stay here, so I leave the school, wandering.

And then I’m running, feet slamming the concrete until I reach the soccer fields I grew up on, where three years of soccer and training left me behind. Now, I’m slow and gasping for breath, hands on my knees, sputtering out my protests before the voices begin. You always played on the Turquoise team. Lost every game but one in your second year. That was pretty cool. To win for once. You hated the Orange team. And the White team. But the umpire gave you free candy sometimes.

I catch my breath and keep running.

I pass the softball field where I caught my first pop fly—Remember the sunflower seeds covering every inch of the dugout?—the other fields where I played first base for three years—remember that one time you played pitcher? Is it still an old haunt if you’re playing again this year?—and then I’ve crossed the loop, and I’m heading back into town again—remember when you learned how to drive on this road?

I pass the hotel I grew up in—remember when they kicked you out?—and the ice cream store we used to visit every week—but you only ever got bags of baby carrots—and the Pizza Hut we always longed to go to—even though you could never eat pizza—and still I keep walking.

And as I walk, the voices point out things that used to be here but aren’t anymore—remember when that billboard advertised swimming lessons? That used to be a jewelry store. The bookstore’s been out of business for years now.

And everywhere I walk, the memories rise up, overwhelming and consuming me. The new hotel, the sauna place, the gym, the old gym, the Kids Club, the hospital, the stores where we ate all those baby food peas, parking lot after parking lot imprinted with memories traced right along the white parking lines.

There’s a road here, which we proudly marched down during the annual Christmas parade—Remember when you had friends who cared about you? Remember the pedophile you accidentally let into the organization? Remember the triumphant lifting of your banners? Remember the lights and the glow? The breathless anticipation? The aching in your ankles? I’m crying in the middle of the road. There’s a car coming, but I barely see it. I can't handle it anymore.

I leave the city behind, and I step into fantasy, wandering.

There’s so many doors everywhere, stretching into other worlds, and I pick one at random, falling in. When next I open my eyes, I’m surrounded by caterpillar weeds, stretching forward in all directions. Above me a million galaxies appear in the sky, and lanterns light a path through the field. Somewhere soft music lilts on a warm breeze that smells like hot chocolate. Remember when Ayla held you when you cried? Remember when your best friend had a discussion with Ayla for you to get her to stop being angry at you? Remember when Ash died?

The last thought dissolves the world, plunging me into the next. Red clay now covers every surface. Flat-topped homes have caved in places, been demolished in others. A long road, made up of a dust just as red as the rest of the world, stretches out into the far off distance. A lone man stands just within sight of the end of the road, staring into the sunset. Remember when Requiem was just a thought? When you created a world just to spite your broken mind? When you got plunged into a half-composed parallel universe you never thought you’d see? Then chose to write your book about the other side of the planet? The betrayal still stings, and I start running to the man whose name I can not remember.

He turns, and those great blue eyes sparkle with joy, and then I’m falling through another door in the universe.

Landscapes flash before my eyes—Remember the world of killer bats? Remember when you fell in love? Remember when you poured out your heart and soul in a sandy volleyball court? Remember when you shattered and love picked you back up again? Remember the world of the fire magic? Remember the NanoFic you started but never finished? Remember Peridot? Those creepy children? Stories flash past too quickly to keep up with, and I plummet through doors.

Yet then it stops, plunging me into a world where the mountains tower far above my head, the sun can never be found, and the sand goes on forever. “No!” I scream. Remember when you lost yourself here? Remember how many characters you killed? Remember when you killed your soul here? Remember when you gave in? Gregarious circles in the sky above me, great black wings blocking out what little light remains, and still I scream at the universe. “No! You can not leave me here!” Remember the pain you caused? The people you broke? The people who broke you? You couldn’t save them. You couldn’t even save yourself. The voices crush me, and I fall shivering to the ground, searching vainly in the sand for some sort of light to dispel the darkness with. You will never be able to save them. You are worthless. Useless. Pathetic. Incompetent. Why did you want to go home? You don’t belong there anymore. You don’t belong anywhere but here.

The Fische start to creep towards me again, and I crawl backwards. “No,” I voice, trembling. “This is not my home. I refuse. It will never be home.”

You don’t have a home anymore.

“Then I will make one,” I announce, and I push past my fantasies, wandering.

Beyond my fantasies there is nothing: only vast emptiness devoid of light, sound, and movement. Miraculously, the voices fall silent—there’s nothing to remember when nothing has ever happened. I lift my hand to create a new world, but it falls back against my side again, limp. What good would it do to create another world instead of living in the hundreds I have already been given? For an instant, I imagine a million different ways to repaint my mental walls, but I give up, for no world could ever satisfy me.

Someone slams on a horn, a jarring sound that yanks me from my reverie. I find myself watching the sky, raindrops touching my tongue. Despite only the brief moments I spent on other worlds, my raincoat is soaked and a black SUV is swerving to a stop in front of me. That's what I need, I think abesently. A world where it's always raining.

I look down and meet the eyes of the driver. Wordlessly, I move off the main road, stepping onto the nearest sidewalk.

“Hey!”

I turn.

A pause. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “But I’m going.”

The driver wants to ask another question, but I don’t give him the time, and I keep walking, wandering.

Waiting Here

By Asche Keegan

He sat alone on an abandoned park bench, the first flakes of snow dusting the top of his frozen ice cream cone. Well aware of the askance looks he received from those walking by, he licked away the mint chocolate chip—the one source of color in the otherwise dreary world. He shivered, as was to be expected, and pulled his coat closer around himself.

For the last 364 days he had sat here, a brutal test to his resilience and his motivation. Only if I can make it to the end will I invite her, he had said. He had loved her once, two marriages, forty years, and a war ago. He had not thought of her since without love and regret in his heart.

“Abe?” her voice rang behind him.

He turned, at once caught up in her aged beauty, crinkles in her once-smooth skin, gray hairs peeking through the black.

“You look different.” Yet, somehow, he loved her even more.

“As do you. Although I believe time has been kinder to you than I,” she joked.

“Nonsense, you look beautiful.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized his error; he had belied himself immediately. “Sorry, I apologize,” he scrambled.

“No, no, it’s fine…thank you.” She smiled, and it was as if the sun had come out. “Do you want to go inside? It’s kind of cold out here, and I see you have an…ice cream cone?”

“It’s a tradition,” he said, rising from the park bench and walking with her towards a nearby restaurant.

“Every time I have sat here, I have bought a cone of ice cream, and on today, the one-year anniversary of when I began, I felt it only fitting to treat myself one last time.”

“Congratulations! It takes commitment to come out here every day. Unfortunately, it’s a more somber anniversary for me—my late husband passed away last year on this date.”

He knew that of course, just like he knew mint chocolate chip was her favorite flavor, and winter her favorite season, and the restaurant they were walking to was her favorite location. He had practiced how to reply to a statement such as this nearly a thousand times, but now the words escaped him, and he mustered out a scratchy, “I’m sorry, that’s terrible.”

“Life happens, and I’m moving on, you know?”

The conversation fell into silence, before she asked about his day and proceeded into chatter about the mundane. The two of them had lunch, and the conversation passed in a blur, every moment a dynamic exchange that left them choking over their glasses.

“Do you remember when Emilio put soap into the fountain and got foam all over the commons?”

“Yes! He was always such a jokester!”

Yet, about an hour and a half later, when the waiter had stopped coming by and the giggles had fallen into a relaxed silence, she began subtly gathering her things.

Desperate to prolong his time with her, he cast about for something left to say, but had nothing but the truth. “You know, the real reason I sat out there every day,” he began, “was because I could barely see your apartment complex if I squinted.”

She fell still, eyes fixated on her frozen hands. He sensed he had ruined everything, but he had no choice now but to bumble on.

“365 days ago, I wanted to go to you immediately, but I stopped myself, saying I didn’t deserve you. I vowed to myself that only if I could sit outside in all the bitter elements for a full year would I then reconnect with you. I still don’t deserve you, but I know now this is not a passing faze and never will be. And I will respect your decision, whatever you make, but I want you to know that I lo—” he froze, and as her face shot up he cast around for another word, “—love spending time with you, and I will be your friend no matter what.”

Her gaze returned to her hands. “So that’s why you always sat out there. I always wondered but didn’t have the nerve to ask.”

She met his eyes, and he knew what she would say before she said it. “You’re a good man, Abe. Thank you for letting me know how you feel, and I admire your courage and bravery to talk about it in such a candid manner with me. But I loved my husband—I still do, even as he lies dead in a cold grave. I fear that if I moved on so soon, I would not be doing him justice.”

So soon? He had months in excruciating heat and cold waiting here for her, and it was too soon?

“I understand,” he said instead.

“Thank you…I have to go now, but it was good to see you again. Maybe we could do this again some time.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice."

“Okay…bye? See you later, Abe.”

“Bye.” He watched her leave—just as he had the last day of high school all those years ago, a joyous wave behind her and a skip in her step.

“See you later, Abe!” she had called.

“Tough luck, friend,” the waiter said, coming up beside him and drying his hands on the towel over his shoulder. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Yeah, a Tetravis please.”

He closed his eyes and could still see her there, hear her voice, feel her hand in his. So soon… But for him, he had waited not one year, but forty.

When They Tell Me to Describe Home

By Asche Keegan

To an outsider, the beautiful brick house and the rose bushes where I spent my childhood would seem like a blessing and foretelling of an equally beautiful story within. Though the bricks are scuffed and worn and different colors, very few are cracked. The yard is mowed, and three rose bushes grow in front of the porch. They sway gently in the blustery winds of early spring. Though no professional gardening job, the place looks well-kept enough from the street—until you get closer and see the duck tape in the eaves where the birds and bees would nest, the orange yellow pumice meant to keep the insects out, and the brutally cracked and scuffed concrete running under the porch. Under the rosebushes is nothing but a tarp meant to keep the weeds out of the flowerbeds; there is only a small hole poked out for the bushes to grow in.

In my mind, I walk inside through the garage, as I always have, but on the other side of the laundry room Mom is waiting in her doorway, tirade ready on her lips. I stand there and listen as I always have, thoughts flying randomly, shoulders falling further and further under the weight of her abuse. The smell of soggy pizza pervades through the house from where my sister is cooking in the kitchen while she teaches my other sister how to spell the word, “multiplication,” and still I am here, listening in my mother’s doorway.

A realization strikes me as I picture the scene—I was never allowed to see the house on blustery spring mornings, and this entire process was solely an act created by the fanciful imaginings of my mind. With that the dream (or nightmare, you decide) fades away: the house, the pizza, my mother, and once more I am left in the empty universe of my mind. It is a sorry place, yet that is where my mind drifts when I think of home, and it is still better than wandering endlessly alone.

Strays