Plantigrade in Atitlan Nature Reserve

By Ania Payne

Carlos belts me into the harness, its fabric straps reeking from a decade of skunky tourist sweat so pungent that I can’t smell the Guatemalan forest’s musk anymore, and I try to pay attention as Carlos explains how to maneuver my body on the zip line – if I accidentally put my hand in front of the trolley, I’ll slice off my fingers, so this is important – but I know there are white-nosed coati foraging for deer mice and fallen avocadoes all around me; they see me but I can’t see them, and it is July, which is when the solitary male coati emerges from his celibate winter, finally ready to look for a partner because the fruits are plentiful, the trees so green, but now Carlos is pushing me off of a wooden platform 500 feet in the air, and suddenly I’m soaring over Lake Atitlan and the Mayan city submerged beneath its waves, mildewing like a Mesoamerican Atlantis, and I begin to wish that I had been more dedicated to my Duolingo lessons because I really only understood part of Carlos’ instructions, and now his colleague is motioning frantically from the platform that I’m about to land on, and I’m hoping that it was hand-behind trolley and not hand-in-front, and suddenly I’m slamming my body into his, but he is stoic and grounding and his harness doesn’t reek; my thrill-seeking is his day job, and as I climb down I want to ask if he’s seen a coati, but an Australian tourist is about to barrel into him now, the zip line is screeching with so much pain that it’s surely scaring off any nearby animals, and as the guide turns to catch this Australian, I notice that the back of his shirt reads, “Do not talk to the guides while they’re working,” and unlike the multilingual signage throughout the reserve, this phrase is only printed in English so I get the hint, and as we hike to our next platform and zip further across the forest, I keep looking for a coati, just one, but it’s not until the end of the tour, when we’re walking back to the Welcome Center that Carlos warbles across a bridge and three coati climb down from a coffee tree, looking at us somewhat exasperatedly, like they are only here to do Carlos a favor, and we stare and point flashing cameras in their faces until they disappear, possibly to pollinate nearby balsa trees with their pollen-covered faces, while we have nothing to contribute to the forest but another layer of sweat to ripen our harnesses, the smells almost becoming familiar by the time we peel the fabric straps from our bodies.

Ania Payne writes and teaches in Manhattan, Kansas where she lives with her husband, son, Great Dane, Malamute, and tiger cats.

Art by Olivia Lansing.

Being Twenty

By Liv Abegglen

Is waking somewhere round three to the gray owl’s cry, sand gritting your cheek and teeth and hair; is unzipping and slipping from the tent as all the others rest; is watching dying woodsmoke trail to join the bleak black sky; is seeing cold stars spill on still dark water; is looking up and asking how can this be my one same life; in younger youth believing that the heavens held clouds of cats, that that was called love, that the world was a bad bad place; is swiping sand smooth and wondering what next shape your footsteps will make.

Liv Abegglen is twenty; she wrote this by the fire.

You Live

By Stephen Bush

You wail, you curl, you seek, you suckle, you sleep, you wake, you soil, you repeat; you hurt, you near, you soothe, you fear, you endear, you develop; you gabble, you toddle, you snatch, you waddle, you wonder, you ponder, you wander, you trust; you assert, you object, you acquire, you inspire, you enthuse, you refuse, you fizzle, you flare, you elate, you frustrate, you rage, you enrage, you disengage; you learn, you bond, you gauge, you wound, you spaz, you mong, you suffer, you swear, you slam, you sneak, you smoke, you prickle, you drink; you meet, you cling, you cleave, you meet, you yearn, you spurn, you split, you meet, you date, you greet, you detonate, you hate, you meet, you err, you wait, you meet, you desire, you admire, you strike, you like, you admit, you couple, you cleave; you graduate, you settle, you rent, you buy, you build, you adorn, you indebt, you adore, you inflate, you wait—you exult, you inhale, you hold; you hope, you bear, you nourish, you brandish, you bustle, you hassle, you wait, you educate, you intermediate, you pay; you blink, you grieve, you continue; you earn, you enjoy, you rue, you employ, you relinquish, you ache, you tire, you retire, you regret, you accept, you forget; you slip, you rupture, you sicken, you slow, you depreciate (you jest), you gladden, you plan, you recall, you speak, you aspire, you see, you cease.

Stephen J. Bush was born in Bath, England, and lives in Xi'an, China, where he works as a biologist, although also writes fiction on occasion, with stories published or forthcoming in Bending Genres, Five on the Fifth, Lost Balloon, and Oyster River Pages, among others.

Art by Karen Walker.