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#5 LIMBO: ALL TEXTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

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WARSCHAUER STRASSE

by Lizzie Wilson

The escalator in the station keeps on pulling me down towards the platform. I got caught in a riptide of bodies and dragged onto this conveyor belt; I’m not even sure I’m going in the right direction. My fingertips are cold but my sweaty palms grasp the coffee cup’s cardboard flesh. I make a mental note that November is when you need to start wearing gloves in Berlin. Nov-em-ber.

It’s been two and a half months now: I moved here at the start of September. That time of year when trees outgrow themselves, shed maroon skins, kids tie their shoelaces and get back on the bus again. It felt cathartic when the plane landed on unfamiliar tarmac. I left London at summer’s resolution, caught in an asphyxiating heatwave. It’s colder here. In two and a half months, somehow everything, and nothing, has changed.

Something wet lands on the bare skin of my neck as I continue my descent further downwards. My free hand wipes away the water that just dripped from the ceiling. Some unholy connection binds us together for those seconds before I shake it onto the floor. I remember biology lessons in school, looking out to clouds of silver forcefully gliding through the sky, as we learnt about the ways that water could evaporate off only to come back around again.  

Where did the drip on my neck originate? Was it once part of an ocean somewhere much warmer than Berlin in November? Did it exist as the passionate sweat of lovers’ bodies pulled (or pushed) together one last time? Was it a tear that submissively ejected itself from one of their eyes after it was over, whilst the other looked away in stoney resolve? How did it end up in this sunless, underground limbo? Then again, how did I end up here – half out the door of an old life and half on the way to a new one? A water droplet evaporating off the surface of the skin.

In a way, doesn’t everything you leave behind find a way to come back around? I had been to Warschauer Straße before – I remember where you stopped in the snow-lined street to take your insulin. Those intimate moments between you and the needle as you sat on the street corner and drove it under your skin whilst I took watch. I walk past that spot everyday now and think about you most of the time, when I can’t help it. Everything pulling me back to this moment: time as a cycle, evaporating and condensing too.

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You Can Get Used to Anything, Really by Maik Banks

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LOST IN AMERICA #1 & #2

by Howie Good

Lost in America #1

A woman in Missouri requests to be buried in her wedding dress. When it happens in five or six other places as well, you go, Holy crap! You realize this isn’t chance. It’s that the country is so huge. Now a bent tree, a window, a gas station sign will light up. You can be joined at any moment by a cloud of dark thoughts or find yourself in Asbury Park, New Jersey, just someplace that’s got a pool table and jukebox, where old bandits and pirates carouse until closing time and there’s a one-eyed yellow cat that keeps unsanctioned watch.

Lost in America #2

I realized I didn’t know the name of the street I was on. When I asked what it was, people gave me strange looks. Asthma sufferers, especially, couldn’t choke out the address before losing consciousness. I had been sent down there to gather reports on dreams. It’s good to have a record if any of this goes to court later. In one dream a baby with a swastika tattooed on his forehead was crying for a bottle. In another you heard a bang: your husband had just shot your daughter. CPR helps a lot, of course, but still. . .

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TRANSIT

by Lisa Spöri

Ich bin in der U-Bahn eingeschlafen. Keine Ahnung wie lange. Als ich aufwache, schwebt das Gesicht eines Fremden direkt vor meiner Nase. Zwei dicht beieinanderliegende Augen, in einem kleinen runden Schädel. Als sich unsere Blicke treffen, brüllt er: „Der hier lebt!“ und richtet sich auf. Ich rutsche auf meinem Platz hoch und sehe mich um. Grelles Licht, draußen ist es dunkel. Die U-Bahn rattert mit Vollgas über die Gleise. Außer mir steht nur der Untersetzte mit den Schweinsaugen im Gang und ein Typ mit Afro und blauem Hemd, der vom Ende des Waggons auf uns zuschreitet. Als er näherkommt, stelle ich fest, dass er aussieht wie eine Mischung aus Klaus Kinski und Bob Ross. Er bleibt vor mir stehen und mustert mich. Dann zückt er Notizblock und Kugelschreiber und fängt an, etwas zu notieren. Bevor ich fragen kann, sagt der schweinsartige Typ: „Ick bin Fritze Bollmann.“ Und mit einem Kopfnicken zu seinem Partner, ohne den Blick von mir abzuwenden: „Und ditte is der, der hier uffpasst.“

„Ok“, sage ich. „Und wo sind wir?“ 

Der Kerl, der sich Fritze Bollmann nennt, klatscht zweimal in die Hände und deutet dann auf den Bildschirm, in dem normalerweise das Berliner Fenster läuft. Ich muss es zweimal lesen, bis ich verstehe: Willkommen in Ihrem Limbus, Ihrem personalisierten Vorhof der Hölle. 

„Soll das ein Scherz sein?“, frage ich, woraufhin Bollmann sich die Hände reibt, zu lachen beginnt und von einem auf das andere Bein springt. Ich gucke entsetzt zu Kinski-Ross. Der Zug rattert in Höchstgeschwindigkeit um eine Kurve, sodass ich in die Sitzbank gedrückt werde.

„Wie jetzt persönlicher Limbus?“ – „Jep“, sagt Kinski-Ross „All das, was du hier siehst, entspricht deinem persönlichen Profil, das du bei uns angelegt hast.“ 

„Aber ich habe kein Profil bei Ihnen angelegt“, unterbreche ich ihn. „Ich kenne Sie nicht und überhaupt fährt diese Bahn viel zu schnell!“

„Tja, offensichtlich irrst du“, sagt Kinski-Ross und klappt den Notizblock zu. „Ich, Fritze Bollmann, dieses Transportmittel – wir alle sind eine Mischung aus deinen Gewohnheiten, Vorlieben und Ängsten und Teile deines individuellen Limbus, berechnet von deinen Algorithmen.“ 

„Was?“ 

„Ja, so ist es. Nun ja, warum ausgerechnet wir beide hier sind,“ jetzt wirft er einen Seitenblick auf Bollmann, „das wüsste ich auch zu gerne.“

„Und wohin fahren wir?“, frage ich, der immer noch irgendwie nichts versteht. Daraufhin bricht Bollmann in schallendes Gelächter aus.

„Und jetzt? Kann ich wieder gehen?“, versuche ich es noch einmal. Kinski-Ross sieht mich ernst an und ich überlege, ob er wohl auch imstande wäre, so richtig kinskimäßig auszurasten. Aber er sagt jetzt irgendwie nichts mehr und ich starre abwechselnd von ihm zu Fritze Bollmann und wieder zurück. „Was passiert denn jetzt mit mir?“, frage ich schließlich. Er seufzt, deutet mit dem Zeigefinger auf meine Brust und fragt: „Hast du dir die AGBs nicht richtig durchgelesen?“

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EIN KINDERSPIEL

by Zora Günther

Brich den Rücken entzwei, sagen sie. Knacks ihn einfach durch. Ich stelle mir vor, wie sich die Knochen auseinanderdrehen und das Rückenmark, die Glasfaser des Körpers, zerreißt. Mit einem Ratsch. Ein kurzer Moment. Eine Entscheidung von wenigen Sekunden. Den Rücken entzweibrechen. Und dann ziehen wir den Körper drunter durch, sagen sie. Ich starre auf meine Hände. Lange dünne Finger. Wenn du willst, können wir den Hals eindrücken, dann ist er kürzer. Ist dann weniger schwierig drunter durch zu kommen. Ich weiß nicht, denke ich. Ihre winzigen Münder flüstern die Worte. Es tut auch nicht weh. Wir haben das doch auch schon gemacht. Ich blicke auf. 

Es ist doch nur ein Spiel, sage ich. Wenn ich das mache, dann passiert auch wirklich nichts? Sie schütteln die Köpfe. Komm schon, sagen sie. Ich denke kurz nach. Nur ein Spiel. Ich passe ja auf. Aufgeregte Augen fixieren mich. Warum denkst du so viel nach, scheinen sie zu fragen. Warum denke ich so viel nach? Ich atme tief ein und meine geballte Faust saust auf den Schneckenpanzer, zerbricht das Gehäuse mit einem Knacken. Ich fühle den nackten, sich windenden Körper. Das Haus ist zerstört, geblieben ist nur sein Bewohner. Schnell, schieb sie durch!! Ich presse den winzigen Körper durch den Fensterspalt, wo ihn die kurzen Finger meiner Geschwister packen. Sobald er fest zwischen ihren Händen liegt, stürmen sie davon. Ein Wölkchen Staub bleibt zurück. Ich starre wieder auf meine Hände. Noch immer lang und sehnig, am kleinen Finger ein Schnitt. Auf dem Fensterbrett liegen die Schalen des Gehäuses, durch den Spalt zieht kalte Luft in den leeren Raum. Ich drücke das Fenster nach unten, kehre die Schalen auf und atme tief aus. Draußen höre ich meine Geschwister vergnügt quieken.

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Daphne and Friends Chilling in the Woods by Athena Grandis

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BURN

by David Estringel

First published in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, vol. 10, issue 4, Oct. 2019.

Life is slow

here in a border town

where lazy palms

scantly twitch in dead breezes—

dry and pollen-choked.

Everywhere. 

Nowhere.

Cattle,

brown against my hand 

and an expanse of cloudless blue,

meander aimlessly,

chewing cud 

that never quite hits the spot.

Their eyes, like minds—

blank—

close to things made new

by the blessing of the sun,

cast downward 

upon cracks and clods of grey clay

underfoot,

where a fire burns beneath the ground.

Life is slow

here in a border town,

where—in-kind—

like a shadow

I wait for a shift,

the balm of a breeze

to kiss the delicate yellow from the retama

and pave my road.

Everywhere.

Nowhere.

Noon rages overhead

(Devil’s at the crossroads)

as flames whip and lick the sky,

beckoning

just beyond the watery promise

of the horizon.

So, I close my eyes

here in this border town—

everywhere,

nowhere—

seeing white and the blood

that courses through my veins,

dig my toes into the ground, and slowly

burn.

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The World, My Tinnitus by Luvi

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nine pound pendulum

by Steven Edworthy

limbo is the penumbral knot between thought and word between whey and curd between birth unheard and death unlocked where does life go as it hangs askew as it unmeans and rots under review and writhes under the pen, staked and stifled as the iconoclast idles under the poem in a haiku peacock on the seesaw feather and tissue where does life go

back to hell

under the page

back to the womb

under the first line

back to the ward

under the last

back to the cell

under the past

back to the tomb

under the drawer

back to the curse

under the verse

back to the birth

under the board

suspended sentence

limbo-ly hanging from an

umbilical cord

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Set My Mind at Rest by Eren Dündar

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silt

by See Yu

I keep dashing alongside you while the different paces split our language in two.

otherwise, it could have been you – to brief me about mid-autumnal moons, or ghosts that shed

their clothes at night, or how even rock must bend when the pouring never ends.

some gaps are for gardening; others turn into black holes. I keep dashing alongside you

while silt piles up between your homes – and now I wonder when you first saw snow.

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LEFT HOLDING THE BABY

by Oisin K

Two babies, patron and barkeep, sat either side of a miniature bar. "Behold, mine wounds windeth all the way up," slurred Allard. "F'r each year I've been h're, I've pok'd a digit in yond electric visage." He finished by indicating the blackened power socket below his stunted bar stool.

The barkeep, Sally, had heard the anecdote many times, but she leant in anyway. Craning her big head over the bar, she watched as Allard's chubby fingers rolled up the right sleeve of his brown smock, revealing an endless lattice of scars. "You're a need to pass the time, to know yond this lodging is not forev'r."

"You've gotta have a hobby," she said, nodding and pointing her wrinkled thumb at the shelves behind her, each piled with rings of car keys. As she returned the thumb to her mouth, a baby sleeping by a distant table gave a loud, wet burp. Allard turned, whispering, "Sally, Marcus got woken."

Marcus was one of the older babies in Limbo. Naked, dirty, and disoriented, he had been lying by a table containing seven glasses of sacramental wine. The burp had returned his lucidity and, rising with purpose, he waddled to the bar on unsteady legs. His uneven eyes locked onto Sally, as he demanded, “Amplius septem vinum!” 

It was futile to mention his neglected wine, so Sally just poured seven more, lining them along the bar. Marcus could only carry one at a time, gradually adding each to his collection. Once done, he dropped his bottom onto the floor and resumed taking tiny gulps of red. Sally had seen hundreds, thousands of unbaptised babies drinking an eternity away, but none were like Marcus. As if to prove her point, he started throwing up again, undigested red wine cascading down his deeply stained face and chest. Sally wailed out of instinct, "Marcus, enough," before immediately regretting her rebuke.

Putting down his glass, Marcus gave her a dirty look and shouted, "Te futue et asinus tuum!"

 "Thy w'rds lack val'our, Marcus," said Allard, upset to the point of tears. 

"Flocci non facio."

"I know thee doth not careth. Alas, Sally cleans up your heaved gorge ev'ry night. ”

Sally reached out to soothe Allard, poking his eye and lip, “Thank you, Allard, but it's not worth it. Look, "she glanced at the clock over the bar," the big hand is about to touch the small hand. "

With the chime of the clock, as he had done every night for hundreds of years, Marcus had one last sip of wine before falling on his side and crying like a baby.

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Labirinto by Michele Pieretti

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VICTIM, WITNESS, MURDERER

by Christian Stein

What a pointless way to die, the prisoner thought and watched bloody, greasy juice spill out from where his knife entered the flesh. Whose death he had in mind remained unclear: the cow’s, his own, or one of the thirty-seven women he had murdered during his career as the infamous Blade of Baltimore. This was his last meal. A medium rare T-bone, buttered corncobs, and mashed potatoes; the only things from his childhood he didn’t remember being unspeakable. After eight years on death row he was about to pay the people’s price for his crimes. Finally, tomorrow at 8:00 am sharp, in front of a small, selected audience. Eight years between the decision to kill and its execution. Never had the Blade taken that much time in between thought and deed. Eight years. No American cattle lived that long anymore.

The warden pulled the switch at 8:02 next morning, causing deadly chemicals to creep their way into the prisoner’s veins. What an easy way to die, she thought, it’s too gentle. There wouldn’t be much pain, only unconsciousness, followed by eternal silence. The prisoner’s face seemed calm and absent, unlike those of his former victims, during their final moments. The warden felt strange about not seeing the man as part of her daily routine, at least for two or three shifts. The past eight years she had spent exactly 2,420 working days with people who were alive but already dead, be it by verdict or state of mind. She was used to the vanishing of one person and the seamless replacement with the next that followed an execution. In that regard, the warden’s and the Blade’s take on the circle of life weren’t any different.

The father cried a lonely tear when it was over. A green curtain was drawn, covering the window between observation room and death chamber. What were you thinking, he kept asking himself. Eight years of doubt and fear had passed. His daughter had been the Blade’s last kill, and the only one who had died in a hospital. Tough and full of such vigorous anger, the girl almost had enough of a fight in her. The noisy mess her escape made, led to one of the country’s most spectacular arrests. The father wiped his eyes. After everyone else had left, he got up and made the sign of the cross. That fateful night. Had he not touched her again that night, she might not have run into the Blade. His beautiful girl would still be around for her father’s love.

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THE COLLECTOR

by Rosa Walker

I sell supplies such as gas, liquor, candy, Pot Noodle and Kool-Aid on the border between Oklahoma and Texas. But most of the time I do puzzles for prizes. I win often, especially the Dodson Gazette crossword that lands here from twenty miles upstate; that earns me a small prize of $20 but you'd be surprised how it adds up over time. There's plenty of time in the desert. The Dodsons call me 'the Collector', but nobody knows who I am, only the postman comes here once a week to load my endeavors into a truck and bring me my dues. I call him partner and he says, "Hey darling, when are you gonna employ me full time?"

One afternoon a boy came in all nervy and twitching. I was in the middle of a particularly hard Sudoku and I called “Wait!” but he strode in screaming “Give me your money lady!” all high-pitched. No southern accent. And no manners. "Why are you shouting?" I said irritably, "I'm right here. And put that thing down." I was referring to his gun. God knows where he got it, he must have been about 19 and stubborn too. So I leveled my shotgun with the counter and hunched over it. I believe his first shot hit the glass tub of blue Kool-Aid which made a huge mess about 3 meters from me. I retaliated and blew a hole in the ceiling. I'm not sure who shot what, but we emptied our cartridges and the bullets all found a home. The phone got smashed into scraps, the air stank of liquor, my counter grew some holes, the boy was on the floor clutching his side, and then burning hot pain spread through me as my legs gave way. I don't think either of us had ever used our guns before. I saw my trousers turn red just above the knee. "Shit," I said. The boy couldn't speak, he was struggling for air and that's how we lay there for a while. Eventually I wrapped my shirt tightly around the emptying red of my leg and darkness fell. The kid passed out, the phone was out, the lights were out. I heard a car drive by but I was too weak to move. I counted the days of the week and figured the post would come in just one day as the night grew eerily still around us and the half-light of the moon illuminated our destruction. I was sick with adrenaline so I did what I always do, only this time it was not to win. I did a crossword just to kill the time, and when I was finished I reached for another. All the words added up just as they always do and before I knew it, there was my partner standing in the doorway with a strange look in his eyes as he stared at me.

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Da Nuvem ao Inseto (From the Cloud to the Insect) by Luiz Couto