Z. E. Wayland

At about twelve or so years old, my history teacher gave me my first set of polyhedral dice. I'd never seen such strange looking dice that they seemed magical in of themselves. Only a few days later, I would assemble my friends after school and Mr. Cruz would host my first ever session of Dungeons and Dragons. We were off to investigate a mysterious illness that plagued the town and turned its residents into zombies. While in a tavern collecting clues, such as a mysteriously sick looking piece of food which I ate and subsequently threw up, we were beset by the zombies. Our wizard pressed his thumbs together and bathed the area in flame, setting the zombies, the tavern, and us on fire as we fled the town in search of safety. From that session came my new obsession. I would ask my parents to buy me a Dungeons and Dragons book, not knowing that this was a 5th Edition and my teacher was running 3rd Edition. I still remember Dragonlance, how one of the characters remembered their friend...

Along the spin of Earth's orbit and within an auxiliary wing of a space station, the switchboard lights up with a call from the far reaches of space. Obra grabs a handle and pushes herself through the weightless air with ease. The best part of working outside the atmosphere. She stops at the foot of the machine and sighs. Headphones on, she pulls the cable, connects it, and with practiced tone says, “Operator.” As the person on the other line talks, her face scrunches up, casting her gaze to the planet outside the window. “Mother’s Day on Earth?” Obra gently glides along the room, a little more tense than before. “No, you’re a few days late. Oh, you still want to patch through? No, no. I’m just surprised is all, just give me a moment.” She realigns herself back to the machine where she stamps the information and pulls a wire to another socket. Even the little lights on the dashboard flickering in morse to each other. From another corridor, Chris, a coworker, drifts in to get ready ...

     — After Su Hui Left, right, up, down, spiral in, spiral out, each the correct way to read what you say. This brocade fabric with woven words, made to communicate what can’t be said, bound instead in character that can’t be found on the tongue somehow tucked inside my face. This cascade is beautiful, a display of lines and waves unsounded in my mouth, symbols grounded in meaning, and somehow foreign to the babe born in the same place as you. I try to recite, only say aloud the dust repeated on your shroud. I ask your forgiveness and expect none For my lost, exiled, and forgotten tongue.

Beowulf casts me through the past, not to mythical Scandinavia but to my childhood with a different book in hand. Sitting on the beige carpet floor with my legs crossed, a book of monsters splayed across my lap. Each page and chapter was dedicated to a different monster that lived in the world. I got it for my tenth birthday. Since then, the large pages were slightly bent from the number of times I flipped back and forth between them. On each left-handed page, the names were in big letters: Chupacabra, Jersey Devil, Yeti, and of course, the European Dragon. A four-legged monster with scales, wings, large enough to tear a tower from a castle; the same kind Beowulf would die fighting. On the other page, a disgustingly detailed rendering of its anatomy, muscles, veins under the skin. Skeletons gave way to organs with labels for the stranger pieces. An annotation pointed to its underbelly and advised its readers the soft spot to strike. I studied feverishly the shapes and names so that I w...

 I. Dad says, "It's as true as the sky is blue." When white clouds arrive to paint the sky, above the wedding tables where I hide, they change the light, the color, and the hue. When cold rain flies in, it will grey that truth, like the colors I'll wear down a wedding aisle. When the sun rises, it explodes the light from dark to white, blue, pink, and others too. This I want to turn and dispute his fact and catch his sky-blue eyes, steady as storms that hurtle across the world, drowning rafts, airplanes, and islands in unknowing wrath. I would be next in its path to be torn, so instead, I look away, "Okay, dad."

The warrior sails through tide and turns so she could take her blade, broken in two, back to the base of the volcano. Her boat settles against the soft island sands along a familiar pathway. Here, the island grows endlessly from the constant flow of lava drifting across the floor. The path back is a little longer than she remembered. The warrior carries the two pieces in a wrapped cloth cradled across her arms. She rests them gently where the lava forks a circular path around stone. With reverence, she steps back into the constant rising hear of the elevated plateau and holds her hands up towards the volcano's top. "This, child, is broken beyond repair. Cast it into my flames and let it sink into the earth," the volcano says. Its voice a rumble of the earth, a popping of a flame, a slow certainty of the world. The voice echoes all around her like the gentle touch of wind. The warrior clenches her hands together and shuts her eyes. That is the answer she was expecting, but...

When we translated light waves to sound waves, the first thing the Sun said was, "Turn it off." I thought we were supposed to celebrate the moment that we made contact, real contact, with something as immense and stunning as that burning ball of gas we orbit around. Nobody said anything in the control room. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to be the one to bring up what clearly echoed through the speakers, to be the one to point out that our message was not well received. The silence stifled me. I couldn't live with such a simple answer, not after all the work and research and resources that I invested inside of this. "Maybe, it's telling us to turn off something else we have," I said to everybody. We all turned to Samson. His eyes squint against the display of that yellow and orange ball of fury as though it was a face. They shared an intensity. Only one of them blinked and told us, "Ask why." The message is translated immediate...

A farmer walked through his field, upon all the verdant green that rolled across the horizon line, content with its beauty. Until he saw a single weed that sprouted from the ground, a disgusting blight in an otherwise perfect field. So, he leaned down and tore it out. Its roots popped from the earth with the sound of torn fabric. All that remained of it was a barren spot on the ground where once it stood. Satisfied with his work, he continued his day tending to other pastures and slept soundly. But, then the very next day, two more weeds sprouted in that greenery. Furious, he knelt down and ripped away the weeds by the neck before scouring for more hiding from plain sight. He wielded a white jug of chemicals. Poured so lavishly that the scent of citrus choked the field, but he could no longer smell it. The farmer would only be reminded of it from the incessant itch along his ankles as he returned home for the night. Even more weeds grew by the next morning. The farmer balked, baffled, ...

If only there was an easier way to forget Carey Stratford. Before that night lit by pillars of light and flame, we had two presidents. One along the west coast, the other on the east, both picking apart the states like children bickering over a spider’s legs. They carved their ownership with drones and tanks and bullets and borders and threats of mutually assured destruction. As our station was loaded up with nuclear armaments, I joked there would be a West Dakota with the other security officers. A few laughed. Ms. Stratford did not. Her first name was disallowed ever since she quit; she cast her gun and tag back to the station. “I want everybody to know exactly where I stand,” she said as she rode the wave of resistance and pulled the tide behind her like horses about to stampede. Ms. Stratford was a disruptor, an organizer, somebody who would grab Eden’s flaming sword by the handle to open its gardens to the world once again. Ms. Stratford became a threat. Did she see God’s ever-bur...

Though the sight of these snow struck hills are beautiful, nobody could forget its danger. Nobody knows this more than the exiles. Banished to the edge of the maps, they flock in the night to survive. Brenna sits on a high perch tower with weapons nearby. An owl returns to its spot along the wooden tower’s low wall with a new piece of prey, an unfortunate mouse, between its claws. “Share?” She asks. The owl promptly ignores her. It is not her owl, after all.  “Odin doesn’t know you well enough for that, Brenna.” A second owl says as it perches next to her. It unfurls its wings, feathers transform to fingers, talons to feet, owl to Cyrene, the exiled druid among them. “Takes time for an animal o get used to you. Even if it is comfortable being around other people.” The two, and the owl, on the high perch keep their eyes watchful for dangers that stalk the night. Brenna, distracted, could not take her eyes off the village itself. If it could even be called a village.  “Why do we...

That little funeral sure was the bee’s knee’s, wasn’t it? Her body wasn’t brought to the park, but she wasn’t going to be buried under the playground. You came anyways. Lucky you. Didn’t have to see her body. Crushed, crashed right as she pulled out in front of the high school. Nobody saw it coming. You even laughed when they called you, told you she died. Absolutely impossible, you thought. After all, being a teenager came packaged with the feeling of immortality. You didn’t feel it here. You didn’t feel it the day you arrived and realized that her desk would be empty forever. Lucky you. You became the best trumpet player in the band. Sure showed those skills when you lined up with your other band members. The dirge didn’t fit the tone. It was a sad pop song from a movie. And she hated this song, but none of you have any time to practice something new. You all knew that and when the song ended, laughed about it. Not too loudly of course. Not while you were exchanging your trumpet for ...

Though the temple is fasting, the town is not. So, we drive down the mountain path, barely touching the gas pedal. Brother Monk, who has the privilege to live in the comfortable bedrooms, throws gravel with every turn. The pebbles sound like summer rain when they land in the forest below. It’s Little Monk that brought money and brought me, his western brother. He complains something to Brother Monk. Brother Monk makes a funny retort. They both laugh; I laugh because they laugh. When we reach the bottom, Little Monk shoves money into my hands. I reject, Little Monk offers again, and I accept, tucking the bills away before we arrive at the tourist area. They take a lot less pictures of us now that we’re not wearing our robes. Tourists chatter on about how “different the air is than in America” and how “nice it would be to be a monk.” I can’t stop to join their conversation and clear the jam of words in my throat. They would mistake me for a local. The three of us spread along a bar. It s...

Water froze atop the pavement overnight. Skaters filled the park with bodies gliding on its surface. There were no new neighbors. No new skaters wobbled with the children. And teenagers filled their time before winter bid nobody go outside. Robin walked in three pairs of socks, holding generation old skates. She knew all the faces and all the ones missing; hockey kids have migrated because a puck and stick went through her window. Her socks stay on when she comes home. Soon, the carpet won’t have glass and glass will replace wooden boards. Then, she’ll watch the snow fall, descend down like wishes from the dark. Skates on the ice, Robin circled Emily’s unofficially reserved seat. Each time around like paired clock hands counting seconds without her. She was skater then a spectator then saying goodbye. Soon, the sale sign will be pulled and strangers shuffle in with smiles in Spring. Those new neighbors will never be like the Duttons. But, some day, the two will laugh together again at ...

Two-Thorns curls his claws around the clean edge of the tower window. Below, a sheer drop that grew in height the longer he looked. Beyond, the valley where he had watched the sun spread its wings of light in a soaring ascent. Beauty, he knew. Mimicking its rise, he too spreads his wings. Light and warmth fall on feathers and scales. His brothers, sister, all left through this way. To glide out was the only escape. So, he readies himself. Plenty fell, plenty survived. Pacing to the back of the wall, he ran. Then, out to the window. Then, out to the edge. Then, stopping. Two-Thorns, once more, at the clean edge of the tower window. The chains upon his leg tighten. No sound, no feeling, and yet they remain persistent. With nothing to gnaw on but the memories, he remains, he tries again, and he stops again. He continues. The pacing, running, gnawing, and slinks back to where the chains once were along the walls, where they would have been the most slack. From there, curling in his own win...

Sealed and stamped, the letter was finished. Stephanie addressed it to Martha and Jeremy, the two others. They slept by now. Which made it the perfect time to move. Jacket on and parcel in hand, she set out beyond the bedroom door. In the Hallway Desert, she stepped, snuck across the carpeted sand. This letter was secret, sensitive. Caught with it in her hand, Jeremy would ask questions, always questions. "Why are you sneaking around?" would be one. "Why is this letter addressed to our house?" would be the other. Then, Stephanie would crane her neck to look up the mountain; her voice doesn't carry that far. When the Hallway Desert gave way to the Wood-Floored-Woods, her step crackled. Night always made sounds louder. The silence after, she held in stillness. They didn't wake up. Martha wouldn't be there across the river. She wouldn't have to open that dispassionate gaze, alive as the glass it looked like. Stephanie wouldn't have to justify hersel...

The plant asked the trees how they grew so tall. Like always, their lumbering voices echoed through the window. The trees answered that it takes time for a tree to grow so tall. They were the patient and kind pines, unlike their much more arrogant cousins, the oaks; at least, so say the pines. Not that the potted plant could ask anybody else. For the plant was in a pot and could not move by himself. The potted plant was envious of the pines, seeing them tower so tall, able to stand by themselves. These pines were not bound by the whims of anybody else. They did not have someone move them around, taking them away from the sun, the rain, the wind. The trees simply breathed and lived while he sat by the windowsill in silence. Then, one day, a storm appeared and shattered the window and hurtled him across the winds. And the pain, as he came down, delivered freedom. Pain swept through him. He had never felt such pain before. Not in all the years of life since he became a plant from a seed, ...