Echolocation
by Mark Wagenarr issue 73 “In goldfish heaven there’s peace & calm,” my father once said when I told him my dreams: swimming through dark waters with bodies I could not identify. Three years old, I looked up through the tub water & saw the bathroom lights, like the lights of a bathysphere diving to a wreck. Years later, […]
The Imperfect Aquarist
by Laura Jackson RobertsA Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021 issue 73 When a betta fish reaches the sunset of his life, he doesn’t drop dead. Rather, he withdraws, sinking to the bottom of his tank as his energy slips away. It’s the fish way. I’ve never seen a fish keel over from a heart […]
St. George on a Cloudy Day
by Devan Collins Del Conte issue 73 Having graduated, Gage, Fletcher, and I, we felt at once very old and very young, and like we’d stay that way forever. Before we left Charleston, we’d visited the grimy apartment in Mt. Pleasant where we stocked up with a half ounce of medical-grade weed and an eight […]