absent magazine

For People Who Like Gravity and Other People

Gravitron stares at the Carousel—its isolated figures frozen mid-stride, their
teeth bared. Fight-or-flight mode. He wants to wake them from their nightmare; they are

getting nowhere. Then something scarier dawns on Gravitron: maybe they are
awake. Maybe they are all aspects of one particular horse galloping for their lives to

reach one another. Or escape. Either way, Gravitron is aware of a certain balance
at stake: the children on the Carousel are so calm, the music so merry, the velocity so

manageable. Gravitron grows tired of his own circuitous thoughts. Is ready
to terrify. Wishes they’d open up shop a little early this morning.

Self-Portrait in a Wavy Puddle

Gravitron sees his own colored bulbs pulsing in the vacant dawn and realizes:
he is something that has never happened—an idea of the future had by the past. Ahh, the

good old-fashioned future Gravitron thinks to himself, feeling a sense of calm
wash over; existence is the same as non-existence. He knows that the sky in the puddle is

as endless as the sky in the sky. Filled with confidence, Gravitron imagines the
first potential rider walking through the gates and thinks Get on…lean against the wall.

“Greener than the grass I am…”

—Sappho

Filled with people, Gravitron feels completely empty. Poor even. Unable
to experience what he is the source of, unable to avoid what he eliminates, unable to exist

in the place that he is, Gravitron looks over at The Zipper sticking up
out of the field, tall, metallic, and knows only the grass can’t lie down in the grass.