Issue Zero — February 2010

Restless

Suggested Donation: $2.00

 Restless: An Arts Anthology
restlessanthology@gmail.com — Fan us on Facebook!

Restless is purely a work of love
. If you liked this issue and

would like to see it continue, please consider contributing, pur-
chasing advertising space or making a donation.

If you’re done with this issue, pass it along or leave it on a park

bench or in a coffee shop somewhere—anywhere awesome people
can be found. Maybe even a rest stop bathroom. Awesome people
have functions too.

Fonts Used by Restless:

Thyromanes by Herman Miller

Sloppy Ink by Mortal Turtle Foundry

Fonts from Dafont.com

All images found in this issue are under creative commons, and
were taken from wikicommons, unless otherwise noted.

Cover: One Pass. Oil. David Wiersch

Restless: An Arts Anthology

Set in Downtown Mesa, Restless is an arts anthology with the expressed goal of expanding
and connecting the Arts community in and around Mesa. The anthology encourages sub-
missions of exceptional new material from the world over, with a strong emphasis on those
located near Downtown Mesa and in the East Valley.

Original artwork, fiction, experimental fiction, non-fiction, reviews of artsy-doings, events,

comics, well-written opinion, and other creative works that translate well to the printed
form are welcome. Submissions can be sent to restlessanthology@gmail.com.

Restless: Issue Zero was produced by:

Her Majesty the Pirate Queen, Amber Brosovich, Duchess of Pretty Things
Lord Admiral David Crummey, Vizier of Asking Awkward Questions
Special Agent Owen Stupka, Assistant to the Assistant Devil’s Advocate
 Table of Contents
• Hor D’oeuvres

• A Special Kind of Double

• Hum Drum

• Restless

• Sympathetic Resonance

• Local Focus: Evermore Nevermore

• Like Preaching Religion To An Atheist

• Bacon Raincheck

• Don’t Judge A Book

• Fire Bug

• Fall

• And I Would Have Been The Shadow Of Your

Shadow

• Deirdre

Except for where otherwise noted, these

works are licensed under the Creative Com-
mons Attribution / Share Alike License.
 Hor D’oeuvres
Bam! in the words of Lord Admiral Crummey.
Welcome to Issue Zero of Restless: An Arts Anthology.

This issue is, of course, issue zero because it's only the
shape of things to come. Issue zero was really just an intel-
lectual game of chicken which forced us to get off our
duffs; we created for ourselves a ridiculously short deadline
so that we could, once again, anger our ancestors and bring
dishonor to our families.

We gathered the brightest minds we could get our hands

on and berated them until they gave into our will and sub-
mitted. Sadly, we don't really have any friends left after
this. The dog doesn't really like us either. There are a few
new faces in the crowd, and we hope to keep them around
for at least another issue before frightening them away.
After that, we'll be pulling people into alleyways and forc-
ing them to write at spork-point.

We tried to sit down and write this together as a produc-

tion team, but really, when a production team consists of
two over-analytical, anal-retentive nerd boys and one tired,
short-tempered, obsessive-minded bejeweled blitz wiz,
achieving a consistent and logical introduction is like the
quest for the mcguffin. You can follow the map, but it's
not really going anywhere.

Really, this whole thing, like many other things, started as

a tiny little idea that grew to proportions we never could
have imagined. Thank you for joining us on our proverbial
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride as we try to tilt against the windmill
that is mixing metaphors.

Chicken and Waffles,

Amber

(With David and Owen complaining loudly in the back-

ground)

❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
 A Special Kind of Double
By Sonia Singh
“A sister can be seen as someone
who is both ourselves and very
much not ourselves - a special
kind of double.”
- Toni Morrison
M ore and more often, I've been
having moments where it
suddenly strikes me that I'm an adult.
Placing bets on who will be married or a
mom first. Having a salaried job. Being
able to refer to someone as an ex-fiancé.
(That makes me feel older than just
about anything else.) This is when I start
to realize what people meant when they
said to really enjoy childhood/high
school/college, whatever has passed them
by.
But when you're in it, especially the
younger stages I think, you never really
appreciate it. Especially childhood . .
.good lord. As a child, you can't fathom
how good you have it; you just wait for
that magical moment when life "starts."
Counting down to 13, when you can call
yourself a teenager and not just a little
kid. 16, when you can finally drive. 18,
when you can move out and get that
piercing you've been eyeing. One big
milestone for me was going to high
school. I hated being the oldest. I was
excited to have someplace to go where
my brother and sister weren't. By the
time I was a senior and my brother was a
freshman, though, that changed.
That's been one of my favorite parts
about growing up, and oddly enough not
one I ever remember hearing about. I love
how my relationships with my brother
and sister have changed in just the last
few years. We're actually friends now!
What a concept. I always loved them, but
I'm not sure I ever knew you could love
siblings for a reason other than "because I
have to." It's not like we just get along
and can deal with family dinners either.
My sister is one of my best friends;
something happens during the day and I
can't wait to get home and tell her about
it. She'll go off and do something, and I
can't wait for her to get home and tell me
about it. Or I just can't wait for her to
get home, period. Even when she's just
spending a week at the other house, I
miss her. She has such an amazing spirit;
she's got such brains and beauty and wit
and passion and a thousand other things
going for her. I remember her waddling
around a Tokyo hotel room in a diaper,
yet here she is, all of a sudden an amaz-
ing young woman who's just so incredi-
bly cool.
She knows a ton of indie music.
She's funny. She's funny drunk. She's
thoughtful - she stayed up late the night
before my birthday to leave me notes on
the bathroom mirror. She lets me borrow
any of her chic clothes - without asking!
She's brilliant - you never know if the
next words out of her mouth will be
English, Hindi, French, Japanese, Spanish
or something of her own creation. She's
completely random and sometimes non-
sensical; other times, she's a rational
sounding board who asks all the right
questions about something ridiculous I'm
planning to do. (Or did.)
I'm sitting at the keyboard, listening
to a CD she let me copy and looking
around the den. She's completely taken it
over with movies, clothes, shoes, toiletries,
tons of other junk. For the last few days,
the room has been such a mess that the
dog has had to stop and plot her way from
one corner of the room to the next, mean-
dering over and around Pug's stuff.
(Actually, it's at the point where the dog
only makes it halfway in before stopping
to lay down.) But by tomorrow morning
the mess will be gone, as will Pugsley.
She'll be home for Thanksgiving, and
the weekend after that for Derek and Aun-
drea's wedding. And yes, I'll be going
down to visit her. But it's just not the
same as coming home to her beautiful
smile and twinkling eyes every evening.
That's something nobody ever told me
to enjoy when I was little.
This work is licensed under then Creative
Commons License- Attribution/No-Derivative

She's leaving for Tucson tomorrow

morning....
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂

Hum Drum
By Velma Craig
I don't have hum drum poems of yellow-flowered
wallpaper or opera whistling trains. Just hum drum stories
of my grandmother spin spin spinning wool into yarn, tap
tap tapping strands into hum drum stories of her own. I
don't have hum drum stories of alcoholic uncles hitchhik-
ing to the State Finals. I don't have hum drum prayers to
Mother Earth and Father Sky. Only hum drum tales of
yellow-dusted pools of hum drum lifeblood hum drum
blood hum drum uranium-contaminated water. Oases,
formed overnight, hum drum God-sent, tucked away so
only hum drum Navajo sheep can drink hum drum Navajo
crops can quench hum drum Navajo unborn can choke.
Hum drum stillborn hum drum still hum drum good little
babies who never cry. I only have hum drum fiction of a
Navajo auntie and her hum drum standoff against a hum
drum Sithe Global tractor. Hum drum wars waged only on
hum drum faith. An entire people armed only with hum
drum certainty that people, even 24-room duplex Park
Avenue people, are hum drum good hum drum love hum
drum feel something other than hum drum money.
Sympathetic Resonance
By Garret Brennan Stewart

When an impasse is reached,

And the right choice is not made,
The law of the Cosmos is sacrifice

One can refute such a claim as ontological delusion

But I have a feeling that we are each a melody,
Placed in measures of varying time signatures,
And tuned to a particular key

We are each a word,

Spoken in spite or adoration

Separately,
We ring out as a single note,
Shimmering to forestall silence

Together,
We are as a chord pulsing,
Declaring our presence thusly

As individuals,
We are but a single letter
(Oncemore) Shimmering to forestall silence

Together,
We are as a word
Seeking to be placed along side other words,
To form the perfect stanza, sentence, or slogan

Not only to be read as one reads a formula,

Or to be followed as one follows a recipe
But to know, in your heart of hearts;
That where you are is where you’re supposed to be

And to know that your words,

Set in motion by the brilliance of your voice
Will lead you to where you are destined to be.
Local Focus:
Evermore Nevermore
By David Crummey
W alking down Main Street a
few months ago, I hap-
pened upon a group of people setting up
a new shop – and based on the things
they were putting up in the window, a
shop unlike any other in Mesa. That day
I spoke briefly with proprietors Debbie
and Bob about their plans for their little
corner on Main Street. Every few weeks
I would check in on their progress, im-
pressed with their growth and hard-
work. Their store blossomed from a few
items in the store’s windows to rows
and rows of eclectic goods. Located right
in line with Queen’s Pizza, Mystic Paper
and History by George, Evermore Nev-
ermore adds an extra bit of pizzazz and
energy, not to mention a different demo-
graphic, to that nascent corner of Main
Street. They were also doing it a little
bit differently than I had seen in the
valley. Part comic book store, book
store, art gallery and alt-fashion bou-
tique: I had never seen a mix quite like
it before.
Evermore Nevermore is husband
and wife Debbie and Bob Leeper,
and Amanda Tucker, Debbie’s daughter.
Amanda and her brother had been sell-
ing collectibles on E-bay for the past ten
years and Bob and Debbie learned from
them. While it was interesting, they
really only worked on it as a side pro-
ject. Eventually economic forces forced
their hand -- Bob and Amanda had lost
their jobs and they were tired of work-
ing for other people. Bob, Debbie and
Amanda decided they were going into
business.
Bob has always been a collector and
reader of comics – Bob partially attrib-
utes this to sharing a birthday with Spi-
derman (both premiered in August of
1962). Bob grew up with the great com-
ics of the 60s, a big fan of underdog
characters and Spiderman. He spent
twelve years in the Navy as a photogra-
pher and then went on to work at TRW
and the Apollo Group. His favorite
comics now include the Walking
Dead series, Y: The Last
Man and Preacher, classics he missed
when they were new, but is able to get
now as graphic novels.
Amanda found herself having a
hard time in school as a child -- always
excelling in artsy pursuits – winning art
contests, but falling behind academi-
cally. Her favorite movies as a kid
were Edward Scissorhands and Batman.
In high school, in an effort to deal with
it all, Amanda front-loaded all of her
general education classes to get them
over quickly. By her senior year she had
completed her credits and took all art
classes. In high school she began by
modifying her own clothing – and then
the clothes of her friends. She liked it
more and more and found modest suc-
cess in selling her clothes under the
brand Modified Minds to local outlets
like Name Brand Exchange and Buffalo
Exchange, as well as on E-bay, where
she has found her work more popular in
the UK, Australia and Scandinavia than
here in the US. She has had success with
her Zombie Girls and alternative fashion
shows.
 Debbie is the anchor of the estab-
lishment -- she's the only one with previ-
ous customer service skills, works hard
on the displays and keeps the books. She
also works her primary job at Mesa Pub-
lic Schools, keeping the store in the black
as they try to get a foothold in the mar-
ketplace.
Originally conceived as a comic book
store in Apache Junction, the economics
and business plan of the location and
concept didn’t inspire enough confi-
dence to move beyond advanced planning
--- breaking into the comics business had
a very high minimum entrance fee – the
main comics distributor had high order
minimums and stores had to purchase all
their stock, unlike bookstores which can
return unsold merchandise if it doesn’t
sell. After reading a chance article on
consignment shops, they thought they
heard the bell ringing – forget the pri-
mary focus on comics, get local artists
and designers to come sell their stuff to a
little different clientele.
After working out the concept a bit
more, the family had all but decided on
a location in downtown Chandler, when
they took a chance drive through the
Mesa Town Center. There they saw the
store and met the owner where they
were amazed by the size of the store.
This new location and size opened up a
plethora of opportunities for their busi-
ness – they now had space for a small
fabrication spot for Amanda’s clothing, as
well as space for events and classes – but
Downtown Mesa brought more questions
for the family. While they had no ques-
tions about their content – it’s all fairly
tame, nothing obscene or too risqué– the
concept and presentation was sufficiently
outside of the mainstream of Main Street
that they worried about preconceptions
others might have in the establish culture
of the area – including the numerous
religious denominations that call the
Town Center home.
Their prospective landlord suggested
they meet with the Downtown Mesa
Association (DMA) to discuss their ideas.
That night they put together a website
that showcased their most extreme and
outrageous ideas they could possibly put
into the business, thinking that if they
were ok with that idea, the calmer reality
of the store would be a-ok. Skittishly,
they presented their business proposal to
the staff at the DMA, who turned out to
be quite excited about the prospect, say-
ing they’re quite interested in destination
stores in the area. With the support of the
DMA and others with whom they spoke
with, they started to go full force.
Today they are selling novels, DVDs,
games, action figures, custom clothing
and corsets, as well as an excellent selec-
tion of limited edition shirts -- and they
price all of their products at or below the
best prices they find online, so you know
you're getting a fair deal. They feature
over fifty items on consignment.
Their first few months have been
hard -- the store seems to be every ex-
panding in content and scope, but they
are definitely having fun. They've had
their property investigated for ghosts by
Wailing Bansidhe Investigations, monster
making classes, classic film showings,
steampunk jewelry classes, figure draw-
ing -- they've done it all in the past four
months of being open -- and have a full
slate of events to come. Evermore Never-
more is always looking for new artists to
showcase, as well as free or inexpensive,
fun events to host in their meeting room.
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
Like Preaching Religion
To An Atheist
By Amber Brosovich

You took to this love

like a bad Catholic
takes communion,
every few months you would be there,
hands
outstretched,
palms like a blank canvas.

This is my blood
(my tears)
shed for you.

This is my body,
(my heart)
broken for you.

Smiling,
taking that dripping wafer
between those lips that I...

That I would kill to pry apart,

crowbar and elbow grease,
to crawl inside
and build myself a nice little home
between your ribs.

Eve returned to Adam.

Emily clinging to that skeleton.
So that the next time you run away,
I could run with you.
Bacon Raincheck
I can't believe it. I canceled out
on seeing her. Really I stood
her up. Again. This was supposed to
be breakfast and I'm ever so hungry, but
I made the conscious decision to be a no
-show without warning or explana-
tion. Some cultures can ostracize a
member for deliberately avoiding a
breakfast appointment. Even knowing
this, I still stick to my guns. This sort
of scenario was far from the first time,
and it was usually my fault. What is it
with dealing with an ex?
The bright side about the death of a
loved one or friend is the fact it's over
and permanent. It can be sad,
granted. The shock, disbelief, and
mourning process. But death is a done
deal. An ex is the walking dead. The
zombie of a deceased relationship which
can permeate and consume a per-
son. Just like the health films of junior
high warned, it's something that can
strike anyone at any time. There are
grief counselors and pamphlets in fu-
neral homes to help guide a person
through a devastating loss as death can
be, but no pocket guide is truly out
there to overcome a lost or failed rela-
t i o ns h ip . B u t o n t o h a pp i e r
things. This is not meant to be morose,
but the quandary of ex-girlfriends.
Family can push buttons. Most
families somehow have a mechanic to
keep from killing one another off. The
difference may also be the fact of being
hardwired to always love one's fam-
ily. Not liking necessarily, but lov-
ing. The conundrum of the ex cannot
be explained so simply. This wasn't the
only ex. And this wasn't the first time.
by Matt Mesnard
She wanted to meet up and have
coffee. There are two forms of having
coffee; each with a different dy-
namic. At the onset of a relationship, or
for a first date, having coffee is slang:
launching an exploratory committee to
see what course of action to take
next. There is a goal in sight– or insert
sports metaphor here to entice a Fox
studio audience to whoop and hol-
ler. Things can sour from coffee or
move on to sweeter things...at least for
that encounter's worth. The second
form of having coffee is basically Latin
for platonic. A safe environment, often-
times in public or broad daylight. A
visual cue of “no means no” for lack of
better phrasing. When an ex, the latter
is the most practical, and wisest as-
sumption to make.
The ex wanted coffee. She was in
town and wanted to meet up, or spring
whatever surprise or trap which I feared
was in store. I had to say yes. Not
forced, but compelled to agree in order
to keep up with my nice guy image. I
didn't show. At least not in her eyes. I
breezed by; half late hour late to pass by
from afar and scope out the situa-
tion. There was a guy with her and I
knew she had no brothers. I rounded
the corner and called her cell. The
movie was later than I thought, and I
was trying to find my car- far as she
knew. She said she was running late
and waved off the meeting; scrambling
to save face.
Another time and another fe-
male. Another place. It wasn't cof-
fee. It was too benign to mention. She
wanted a favor for someone she knew. I
discovered I wasn't tagged as an ex, but
was a friend instead. A friend to one
who didn't call unless a minor favor was
needed which she selfishly veiled as
dire. I didn't care to deal with her or see
what the dilly even was. I stayed
home. Somehow I felt this infomercial
was more important than whatever she
wanted me to do. Not important
enough of an hour long commercial to
buy said product, but at least for the
sake of watching.
There had been others, but why go
into detail. The point has been
made. I'm not known to be a serial
stand-up with people in general. I don't
take pleasure by it. Far from. I love to
be punctual as a rule, but there's no
little brochure yet to help me get over
some of that breakup fallout. Not the
sense of drama– more similar to an
atomic blast from science fiction. Tiny
particles of radiation floating through
the air which reorder the atoms inside of
a person. Altering the chemistry of any
living thing when passing through the
subject. A former relationship is akin to
the red kryptonite. It won't kill, but can
sure mess me up in an inexplicable way.
I suppose maybe a person from a
past relationship can be explained best
as a tuning fork. Not as a metaphor for
love, but as a more tangible exam-
ple. Meeting and connecting is like
striking a tuning fork. It's a tone or
vibration which somehow I'm drawn
to. People rarely change their spots,
meaning the person in that dissolved
relationship can still strike the same
note from that proverbial tuning
fork. Being in the right proximity can
cause the same feelings all over again
from the first time; no matter how “over
it” I thought I was.
That tuning fork of love, or what-
ever mystery emotion, can still rattle
through me. Sometimes I am able to
keep the effects diminished, but it's on a
case-by-case basis. Would I ever con-
fide this in an ex, or any female I had a
feeling for? Heck no. I'd rather chalk it
up to being petty or a guy that can't get
past certain truths. I thought jerks
were known to have better luck with the
ladies anyway.
So here I sit. Laying
really. Contemplating while on my
back. Hands over my eyes in fists with
my elbows out. Searching for the hows
and why. How I let things get to me
and why I refute this encounter. Now
on the cusp of reconsidering. All I have
to do is keep my head down and keep
focus on my eggs, that little glass of
orange juice, and whatever variety of
pork product I decide on scarfing down
with delayed (and yummy) greasy guilt.
Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe
she'll even understand. Who am I kid-
ding?
I'll take a rain check on that bacon.
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
 Restless
I feel the rain running down my
shoulders, sticking my shirt to
my back. It was sprinkling lightly when
I left my house, but it picked up slowly,
building from a thin drizzle to a full on
storm, blanketing the world in cold and
wet. The ball cap that is perpetually on
my head parts the downpour, keeping
the water out of my eyes, but there isn't
much to see outside of the occasional set
of headlights reflecting through the
precipitation. My sandals drum on the
pavement in a familiar rhythm. I keep
moving forward, feeling the rhythm of
my feet, feeling the rhythm of the rain,
trying to match the beat, keeping in
tune with the natural song of the rain
on the pavement, the rain on the roof-
tops, drumming, never ceasing. I'm not
walking towards any particular destina-
tion, just OUT. I do this most nights,
unless I'm literally walking dead from
work or some random physical endeavor.
I can't remember a time when I
didn't feel the rhythm in my head. My
mom said that I kept her up nights,
kicking in the womb. I was rarely still
as a child, drumming and fidgeting with
anything I could get my hands
on. These days they'd probably slap
some label on me and medicate me into
a coma, but my mother came from a
more proactive upbringing. Instead, I
was given musical toys as a child, and as
soon as I was old enough, something
productive. Snapping beans, husking
corn, chopping kindling, anything to
keep my hands moving. It didn't affect
my ability to focus, but it was often
perceived by authority figures as me
disrespecting of ignoring them. I played
with my calculator in math class, not
because I didn't want to listen to the
teacher, but because keeping my hands
and eyes busy was the only way
By Owen Stupka
I could listen to the teacher.
I see a car turn the corner onto the
street I'm walking down. the headlights
turning towards me. They probably
think I'm a drunk or homeless, walking
in the chill of a late September rain in
this part of the country. The truth is, I
got done with a hard day of work, and
the only way I can rest, get some sleep,
is to appease the part of my brain that
needs the activity, needs the regularity,
needs the rhythmic thrumming of my
footsteps against the sidewalk. I know
all of the night clerks of all of the con-
venience stores within a three mile ra-
dius of my house. I pop in, under some
pretense, buy a drink, buy a candy bar,
buy a pack of smokes. The truth of the
matter is that if none of them existed I
would still walk the same route, it's just
more socially acceptable for me to be
wandering the streets at odd hours of
the night if it's under the pretense of an
errand.
Living in a part of the country
where it snows, I am forced to drive
instead of walk some of the time, but it
doesn't satisfy the same urges com-
pletely. It's enough usually, to drive in
no particular direction, exploring the
dead supermarket parking lots and
ghostly lit gas stations with half-asleep
employees. At least behind the wheel of
an automobile you get to fiddle with the
radio. You see the delivery truck drivers
and the third shift mill workers, but
otherwise you have the whole world to
yourself. Often I'd pick a time limit and
a road, and just drive that length of time
and then find the closest stop.
Sometimes I'd luck out and find an
all-night diner or a convenience store,
but living in a rural area, often times it
was just a lonely intersection in the
middle of nowhere. I'd stop if there was
a place to stop, then turn the car around,
and trundle back to where I was coming
from. Despite the uselessness of my
errand, I would get this wash of self-
accomplishment, and finally be released
from my obsessions into sleep.
I expertly navigate the cracks in the
sidewalk in front of the old Victorian
house on third street. I tripped once
here when I first moved into this
town, but walking like I do, you get a
feel for every crack, irregularity and
blemish in the path. The rain makes
little puddles inbetween the broken side-
walk stone pieces. I'm finally at my
turnaround, a little gas station about a
mile and a half from my house. I swing
open the door and the wave of stale air
brushes my
nose.
The clerk
behind the
counter looks
up at me from
his maga-
zine. Larry, is
what it says on
his name-
tag. He's got
an odd scar on
his neck that
he tries to
cover with a
beard. I cant
tell if it's from
a fight, a gunshot wound or throat can-
cer, but guessing from the amount he
smokes it's likely the latter. He's nice
enough and never hassles me about my
business. I try not to hassle him about
his either. This is the kind of place that
will sell you cigarettes and mark it as
milk so you can put it on your food
stamps card. I don't care what laws
they're breaking, but the service gets
bad if they think you're a narc or a pre-
tentious asshole.
My restless streak has always put
strains on my relationships. My ex-wife
was always goading me into coming to
bed with her, like I was being dishonest
or unfriendly if I stayed up or went out
for a walk. Half the time I would lie
down with her, staring at the ceiling
until she went to sleep. Then I was free
to putz around the house at my leisure,
or take a stroll and ease my mind. Oc-
casionally she would wake up and I'd be
gone. The fact that she would never
understand or trust where I was was
probably a good indicator that we
shouldn't have gotten married, but I
didn't get on that ship until well after it
had sailed. I'm resolute that my next
relationship will be with someone more
understanding of my rhythms.
I pause under
an old maple
tree to take
stock and
survey where
I am. The
neighborhood
looks like
some gothic
horror movie,
all of the old
houses framed
by the down-
pour. I see a
cat scuttle
from a garage
overhang un-
der a porch, happy for some warmth and
respite from the seemingly endless wa-
ter. I step out from under the tree's
sanctuary, and plod through the last 5
blocks to my house. I let my mind fo-
cus on the footsteps, I lose myself in the
pattern, and finally when I reach my
bedroom, I feel the edges of sleep em-
brace my mind.
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
on the outside, i'm not the kind of girl
you take home to mommy.
i'm sexy and damn proud of it.
there's no shame in the curve of my
hips, the swell of my breasts.
i ooze sex, i use sex.
i flaunt what i've got to get more.
my body is my weapon, my tool, my
instrument.
but looks can be deceiving.
don’t judge
a book
By Rhia Hobkirk
on the inside, i'm betty crocker, martha
stewart, june cleaver.
i want the little white house with green
shutters and a red door.
the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a
minivan.
i want the stepford life, the rockwell
painting.
but a girl's gotta eat.
By Summer Amber
 Fire Bug
By Penelope Padmore
I t wakes me in the middle of
the night, whispering across
my dreams again. It needs me to be free.
I've learned how not to wake Maggy,
my wife as I slip out of bed. While she
is asleep, her eyes aren't glittering at me
in the light from the window. He mouth
doesn't produce accusations like “Where
have you been?” or “Why are you on
probation at work again?”
Outside, the air closes around me
with a warm, damp grip. My ears ring in
the absence of the air conditioner's hum.
The night speaks to me, the quiet of
those who lie sleeping, the cool, fresh
lawns, and the smell of grease in the
heavy summer air, from the places
where arterial clogs are manufactured:
donuts and fried chicken. I feel the heat
on my skin, and I know the only way to
make it leave me alone. I stand in the
garage, and look at its tools. I am its tool
as well, although I am stored in the
house instead.
Matches snap and flower, like the
tiny plants hidden in seeds. Seeds
planted, gasoline to fertilize. Like a
farmer, I have sweat rolling down on my
face. I only stand long enough to make
sure the fire has taken root. I hurry
back to the garage, my heart and feet
flying, like waiting for thrown firecrack-
ers to snap. I peel off the gloves, do a
smell check, no gasoline on me. I get
upstairs, back in bed, and watch the
ceiling for the first blush of light, like
dawn. It's an elemental that I've let free.
I know it wants to breathe, and march
straight up to the sky, unfurling its
black clouds of smoke.
The first time, it was an accident,
I didn’t mean to burn down the old shed
behind our house. Cold waves of fear
and shame broke over me as I watched
it collapse, the flames easing the walls
and roof to the ground, the ticker tape
party of sparks winding up into the air.
But it was so exciting to watch them
fight the fire. That’s when I decided that
I, too, would be a fire fighter. I denied
doing it, but the smell was all over me.
Of course, they knew it was me, and I
was put into an intervention program.
We sat around and talked about feelings.
They pronounced me cured. I am a
channel for fire, or maybe I'm a log in
the channel of some burning river. A
burn cleans, renews.
There's a cry outside. Maggy stirs,
gets up and goes to the window, looking
out. “Oh my God!!”
“What is it?” I ask in my best
drowsy voice.
“The building across the street is
on fire!” She calls 911. I run to the win-
dow.
“I'll go bang on doors!” I tell her. I
race out again, retracing my steps.
Three years ago my elemental
made the news. Maggy had left me to go
back to her mother. I found solace in
the forest. At night, I built a campfire,
although it was against the rules. A
campfire has a comforting smell. It was
only meant to be a little fire, a meager
cave-man-driving-back-the night-
comfort, but it was so hungry, and it
kept me company. So I kept feeding it.
Then the clearing became its temple, a
palace of heat and light surrounded by the
black of night, making the darkness darker
whenever I looked away to cool my face. I
was uplifted in its roaring glory. My heart
got caught up in the leap frogging
flames, twisting among each other, climb-
ing up out of the clearing, roaring off into
the night, like trains, like supermen. It was
a carnival of colors and sounds. The flam-
ing pines exploded, sending sparks out
that birthed light from the darkness. The
dark sky like the blank map of old, and I
claimed it in the name of fire and light.
Like in Vietnam, the jungles laid bare, this
was my jungle. In the early morning, a
grey misty light bathed the newly seeded
land. Fires are a natural part of the forest's
cycle. Some trees can’t seed unless they are
exposed to fire.

I watch from the window. The shiny

trucks, the serious music of their horns
singing, asphalt water mirrors shining like
after a fresh summer rain, reflecting the
towers of smoke in the sky. A great feel-
ing of peace rolls over me as I watch them.
The chaos of fire trucks, the blaring
horns, the lights rolling around the faces
of the buildings on our block men bark
orders and fight with water. They fight
steadily until it calms down to order. Peace
descends as they roll up hoses and subdue
nests of smoldering in the walls. The black
smoke turns to gray, then to white billow-
ing clouds, benevolently rolling over the
land.

You know, I am sorry for them, the

people in the apartments, as they hug each
other. They weep like the structure does,
now running with blackened water. My
heart goes out to them, the fear in their
eyes, for themselves, their children, pets,
and the drawers of clothes. Really, I am
sorry for them. I go back to bed.
 Fall
By Velma Craig
She'd come to visit me afternoons, when I was all alone
with my child, lounging
under the apple tree, in my rusty fold-out chair
(stolen from some chapter house, I just know it)
next to that grey fence

full of splinters.

She'd be walking slowly by, in her camp dress

authentically mismatched
and when she'd see me, greet me with that uncertain
laugh, turn in, and sit.

She'd see my baby over there circling

the tree, kicking at leaves and ask
to be reminded of his name
(because modern names are strange)
before moving on to the usual stories of how

she remembers his father playing

just like that, on days just like this
and that made me love her.

Some of these boys nowadays are just handsome.

She smoothes her delicate, thinning hair

away from her
sticky forehead
and re-pins.

Nobody should be out walking on an afternoon like this.

But, it really wasn't hot and by the way

her husband is on a rampage again. Today,
he's pounding on doors non-stop and saying mean things.

I wish I was young again…

then, I could chase boys.

(but her laugh was uncertain)
 And I Would Have Been
The Shadow Of Your
Shadow
By Amber Brosovich
T here was once a day and a
time and a place when he
could wrap himself in the music like one
wraps themselves in heavy furs to hide
from the winter storms, lose himself in
the notes and the tone and the harmony,
in the words and the romance and the
overwhelming love that Wagner had
woven into his operas. The days of his
youth had blended into a dull gray in
the canvas of his mind, but the sum-
mers spent on the shores of the lake, the
towers of Hohenschwangau standing
guard like soldiers in the trees, stood out
in a vivid array in his memories. He
lived for the days free of protocol and
lessons and the dull gray sheen of duty,
the days of the eagle and the dove, of
stallions and spoken word. He had long
since heard the call of his master; he hid
himself in the libretto's of a man who
would haunt him till the end of his days.
But the music fell beneath the
crushing voice of Bavaria and all the
things he had hidden from; the death of
a stranger had been the death of his
dreams. When they had placed the
crown on his head he had felt the sud-
den wave of something that had to have
been tears, and he wondered at the pos-
sibility of the source being his lost fa-
ther or his lost youth. And all those
years of preparation, all those little nu-
ances of royal protocol that had been
driven into his brain fell to the side as
he realized that while the days of free-
dom, the days of folly, had been shoved
into a coffin and absconded into the
ivory walls of the Theatinerkirche-
something new had risen from the
ashes, a phoenix of dreams he never
could have fathomed in the time before
he wore the crown.
"Bring him to me."
The words fell from his lips and
onto the ears of his advisers, his ser-
vants over breakfast one early morning
not long after he had sworn the oath,
and the palpable silence that followed
had borne in him an almost giddy
euphoria. There had been days, weeks of
arguments and protests. Months of
searching. At the end of it, the request
was sent, and he spent his time walking
the cool corridors like a young boy who
has found that he was woken on a July
morning to find that it is Christmas.
The day that all his minor obsessions,
his dreams of a Lohengrin-esque knight
came to fruition, was a crisp May after-
noon.
His life would never be the same.
——–-—————————————-
At night, with the cool air pouring
itself on him as it fell through the win-
dows, he would relive that moment,
wrapping himself in it, diving headfirst
into every minor detail he could possibly
call to mind.
Every bit of his body had been in
tune with the walls around him, the
floor beneath him. He had heard the
rumble of the horse's hooves in his
heart, felt every footstep that brought
his idol closer to him in his own feet.
The entire residence seemed to be buzz-
ing with the words he's here, he's here,
as though the whole of history had been
waiting, paused in anticipation, for this
moment. He stood as the door to his
study opened, and though he heard the
sounds of voices making proper intro-
ductions, all he noticed was the man
standing before him and the sound of
his own steady heartbeat in his ear-
drums. He had imagined, in that mo-
ment, that their hearts where beating in
time, two players in the greater opera of
his life. Here was the father he had
never before seen, here was the dark
figure that he had long since dreamt of,
kept after in the deepest places in his
heart.
"Not quite the entrance you had
expected, your majesty?"
Wagner spoke with a coolness in
his voice that he had not expected, and
Ludwig had felt the flush of his cheeks
as he stepped forward and bowed before
the man he had idolized since he was a
boy of fifteen listening to the magic of
the opera for the first time.
"I would be lying if I said that I
had not expected you to appear from the
lake as Lohengrin appeared to Elsa."
Wagner's laughter filled the empty
space of the large room. "Do you wish
for me to be your Knight, your high-
ness?"
"I wish to be your prince."
Wagner had paused then, stepping
forward to stare into Ludwig's eyes, and
after a moment that had felt like a life-
time to the young king, he replied, in
something like a whisper, like a prayer.
"Then let us talk business."
——–-—————————————-
Never had keener eyes been more
aware of the invisible tensions that went
largely unnoticed by the more ignorant
members of society- from his seat,
Ludwig could feel the waves of distrust
and anger that weaved their way from
the stage and through the seats of his
country men, crashing against his side,
where his idol sat. As Von Bülow took
up his baton, the conductor turned to
look at the box that was currently occu-
pied by the King, his eyes ghosting over
the hand of the composer, over the be-
trayal of his wife that Ludwig was ig-
noring and the rest of the country
couldn't stop whispering about.
He could feel the eyes that were
looking in their direction, but they were
not pointed at him, and uncertainly, he
glanced next to him to Wagner and to
Cosima, who had her finger's snaked
through those of her lover, her eyes
upon her husband. His own fingers
wrapped around the edge of his chair,
eyes snapping forward as Von Bülow led
the first note of the prelude, and he
blanched at the foreign feeling that was
taking hold of his innards, something
that he had heard whispered of but
never experienced himself, but recog-
nized suddenly as jealousy.
"I never dreamt that this premiere,
your premiere, would be upstaged by
the minor details of the heart, your maj-
esty, and for that, I am terribly sorry."
"It is not my premiere, but yours,
dear knight, and soon they will remem-
ber only the story, only Tristan and his
Isolde."
The first time he watched Tristan
and Isolde, he only remembered this-
Clutching his own hand and feeling
something like hatred for a woman who
had done no more than what he had-
loved and wished and coveted. Closing
notes. Applause. And his knight, his
master...disappearing into the night with
someone the King could never be, the
woman who had torn his dreams apart.
——–-—————————————-
Wagner let himself into the study
with an ease of familiarity that tore at
the King, a guard not far behind him.
Here was the ghost of the moment he
had long remembered with something
akin to the devotion a man gives to his
god, a perversion of the day that every-
thing in his life had changed. The mem-
ory of their first meeting fresh in his
mind, he rose unsteadily, his fingers
nervously balling into fists at his side.
Wagner walked no further than was
necessary and stood silent as he was
announced, their eyes never meeting.
The door shut with a sound like a gun-
shot, and the King was the one who felt
the sting of the bullet in his heart.
"I do not really have to tell you
why I have called you here, do I?"
Wagner was staring unabashedly
at his own reflection in the mirror. "No,
there is no need to put it into words."
"Look at me, dear knight."
"Yes, my prince?"
They have made this exchange
before, many times before, more than
Ludwig could ever count, could have
ever dreamt of, yet there was a tone, a
blade, in Wagner's words that had the
King searching for his chair as he sank
beneath the sudden ice in this moment
that used to bring him nothing but joy.
His idol's eyes met his and there was
something he had never seen there,
something that looked like anger.
"What is this in your eyes?"
"This is the look of a man who is
being thrown into exile again, your maj-
esty, and it is the look of a man who is
not pleased by it."
They sat in silence for longer than
the King could stand; he felt as though
he was losing his father, his idol, his
god. He felt the Phoenix settling back
down into the ash, the music that he
had wrapped himself in for so long sink-
ing into dead silence.
"I will go with you."
"I am not sure what you mean."
"I will leave this all behind- this
wretched life, this existence, if only to
be by your side."
"You cannot do that. Bavaria needs
you, your people need you."
"I care not of the people or the
country. I am your prince, not their
king."
"But without their king....there
will be no more music. I cannot do this
without you. I need you. I need my
prince. And Bavaria, its king."
Later, left alone in the silence, he
watched everything he had wrapped his
happiness into leaving the castle, and he
wept that night as he lay in bed and
played every moment over and over
again till sleep took him unwillingly,
into dreams of a magic carpet and days
spent on the shores of the lake with
Wagner by his side.
——–-—————————————-
They had told him three times, yet
the words would not find their way into
his recognition- he saw only the move-
ment of lips and heard only the sound of
something inside him breaking, scream-
ing.
"Let me be alone!"
never-ending prayer and worship. As the
cold wrapped itself around him, he won-
dered what there was left for him now-
a king without a kingdom, a prince
without his knight. He remembered the
look in his idol's eyes, heard the whisper
of a ghost saying 'this is the look of a
man being thrown into exile' and he
knew that he had that look in his own
eyes as he approached the lake. But to
hear the works just one more, to sur-
round himself in the temple he had
made for himself, what more could he
hope for, wish for, dream of?
In his last moment, all he could
think of was Gottfried rising from the
waters, and he imagined himself a swan,
a dove, Elsa reaching out for death and
for her Lohengrin.
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂

Dazed, lost, he somehow found his

way to his chambers, to his bed. There
was no music to save him now, nothing
to pull him out of this darkness, nothing
to shelter him from the storm. He
poured over every letter, every photo-
graph, every libretto that had been left
behind. And in the maze of his emotions
he fell, headfirst, into the devotion that
had been building inside him for so long
that it felt like an organ in his body,
pumping away with his heart. His idol
was gone and in his place, a god had
risen. And Vorderhohenschwangau
would be his temple, his church.

——–-—————————————-

They had stripped him of his

crown, his title, but the worst crime
they had committed against him was
ripping him from his temple, from his
Deirdre
I remember you, Deirdre. I re-
member everything about you.
Seven years ago, living in Cape
Town -- your parents were rich, white
and racist. You wanted nothing of their
life, so you found a group of like-minded
people - rich & white, possibly racists --
who were ashamed of their richness, of
their whiteness. And you lived with them.
Together you shared a house, three sto-
ries, seven bedrooms, two kitchens, four
bathrooms, two entrances, and a table on
the roof with four chairs. There was
James and Melissa, who had lived to-
gether on the third floor for nearly ten
years. James worked for a free-clinic that
worked with AIDS patients -- mostly
poor and black. Melissa, two years
younger than James, worked for a non-
profit bank that offered small loans to the
impoverished. Your bedroom was next to
theirs. On good nights, when the street
below is quiet and low clouds muffle the
city, you can hear their sometimes-quiet-
and-sometimes-loud lovemaking through
the brick wall separating your rooms.
You, Deirdre, on those rare nights that
you could hear them, would have a litany
of responses. Sometimes you would take
your book downstairs to the small
kitchen, pour yourself some tea and read
two chapters. Other times, you would
play your music quietly and stare out the
window, thinking about what you would
write -- your great-unwritten novel. On
bad nights you heard them argue and you
went to the living room and watched TV.
On the second floor lived a lanky
young man who sat in his window and
smoked cigarettes as Table Mountain cast
its shadow as the afternoon turned to
evening. His name was Frances and he
worked in a variety of kitchens around
town. He was rarely home except at off
By David Crummey
hours to sleep, if he came home at all.
Kaitlyn and Ryan, in the room next
door, had moved in less than a year ago
and had started dating a few months be-
fore that. They were quiet, never argued,
and, you were sure of it, made love with-
out passion.
Marsessa, who rented the third
bedroom on the second floor, was every-
thing you wanted to be. Although she
came from a rich family, she was not
white, just light skinned. Her mother was
third generation Indian and her father was
descended from an Englishman. She was,
in your mind, the epitome of physical and
intellectual beauty. Her light olive skin,
curly black hair, wide hips and soft
curves were titillating to you -- if you
could ever bring yourself to make love to
another woman, it would be her. She
worked at a bank, doing the business for
NGOs. She had helped Melissa's non-
profit stay afloat for a few difficult years,
though Melissa knew little about it. She
worked in training, not administration.
Marsessa was soft-spoken, intelligent,
high-spirited, and eloquent. You and she
could talk for hours -- and often did,
when you could find the time.
On the first floor lived Robert and
Henry. The first floor was almost the
bachelor pad of the place. Henry, the
owner of the building, was in his sixties
and looked it. His body was skinny and
his skin hung off it -- for a man who
looked very old, he was fairly attractive.
He was quiet, though. He drank tea and
watched TV. His was the only private
bathroom in the place. His egg sand-
wiches perfumed the big kitchen most
days.
Robert was young and inexperi-
enced. He worked for a small technology
company in the downtown. He was the
only person at his work that lived close.
Most everyone else lived in a walled sub-
urb and drove in.
Seven years ago I met you, and you
me, Deirdre. I fell in love with your name
seconds before I fell in love with you.
Deirdre. We met through an acquaintance
of mine and a friend of yours, Tiffany, at
a nightclub in the suburbs. When she said
your name I immediately took it in and
reveled in its sound as I looked into your
eyes; I couldn't pull away. Tiffany needed
to go somewhere and I immediately asked
you if you'd like to get coffee with me.
You agreed, and instead of leaving with
Tiffany, we met at an cafe up the street
that was still open. We talked for hours. I
drank a latte and you had some tea. We
shared a packet of biscuits. The shop was
closing and, instead of calling it a night,
we walked through the safe, white, and
middle-class neighborhood. The moon and
stars were out and we talked and we
walked. Late, you drove me home. Parked
outside my apartment, we talked for an-
other forty minutes. We hugged goodbye,
with a kiss on the cheeks. I wanted to see
you again. You smiled and said we would,
but left no number. I watched as your car
pulled away and then hurried through the
security gate to my rented home.
I remember you Deirdre. I remember
your touch, your ankle hooked over mine
as we lay, naked, spread out on the bed,
the window open and the summer wind
breathing in and out of the room.
I haven't seen you in almost six years,
but I have thought of you almost every
day since I last saw you. I miss you, but I
don't think I want to see you again . . . or
maybe I do. It's been too long and I don't
know how much we've changed in these
few intervening years. Our sporadic e-
mails have not tempered the beating of
my heart, but split it in two -- one for the
increasingly distant past, the other for the
hopeful future where I'll meet someone I
love as deeply as I did love you.
It took another week and a half
before we met again. This time it was at a
restaurant that was having a Salsa danc-
ing night. Again, Tiffany was the one to
bring us together, or at least she invited
her housemates and one of them,
Julianne, invited you. You and she had
gone to school together in college and
become well acquainted. You liked her
because she was black, rich, and didn't
behave much different than you. Your
childhoods were similar in that you did
not want for anything and the political
unrest that typified your childhood years
was distant and, when democracy came, it
seemed natural and expected. It was years
later when you realized the depth and
perversity of the struggle. The infighting,
the depravity, the horrors on the many
sides of "it."
We met again, talked and danced
and drank cane & cola. We laughed and
danced more, smoked and chatted with
your friends, some of whom I'd met be-
fore. At the end of the night I waited for
the kiss, hugged you tight, and you
hugged and held me close. I brought my-
self close to you and waited for you to
meet me halfway. We hugged again.
Kissed cheeks and bid farewell.
Soon enough we were seeing each other
multiple times a week, laughing and tak-
ing strolls on the beach. We drove out in
your tiny Toyota Taz to collect mussels
or to drink a beer and watch the sun set
from the Blouberg Strand. It was a lovely
time. Slow. Deliberate. We kissed and
kissed and kissed for weeks. That was it.
It was nearly painful, but equally beauti-
ful. I remember it with fondness.
The next day I called you from the air-
port to say goodbye. You never forgave
me. I never forgave myself. I will never
forgive myself. I remember you, Dierdre.
 AD-VER-TIS-MENTS

FAKE
(if you didn’t notice.)
This could be your ad! Send an email to
restlessanthology@gmail.com with the word
advertisement in the subject for more info
and prices.
 AD-VER-TIS-MENTS

FAKE
(if you didn’t notice.)

This could be your ad! Send an email to

restlessanthology@gmail.com with the word

advertisement in the subject for more info and prices.

 Restless: Issue Zero
Summer
Amber
i am a phoenix native.
i draw.
and paint.
though not as often as i should.
cartoons are a huge influence,
hence the thick, black line
and attempts at wit.
when i was younger,
i used to be more clever.
so now i just overcompensate
with sarcasm.
Amber
Brosovich
Amber Brosovich is a office drone by
day, an internet slave by night, a spo-
radic writer by disposition, and would
rather be watching Bollywood than writ-
ing this gorram bio. She once killed a
man with the power of her snark. She
does not like goats. To receive a portfo-
lio of her collected works, send a bag of
Peach-O's and a SASE by courier pi-
geon. She can be contacted via bat-signal
in most metropolitan areas, or at fever-
vignettes@gmail.com if you are feeling
feisty.
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
Velma
Craig
Originally from Tonalea, Velma
(Navajo) was raised in Fort Defiance,
Arizona. She is the co-founder of Better-
Ones Productions, which she runs with
her husband. Velma is a graduate of
Arizona State University with a BA in
English Literature and a minor in
American Indian studies. She enjoys
writing poetry and screenplays. Velma is
looking forward to finishing up her cur-
rent project which is a short experimen-
tal animation titled, In This Manner I
Am. She lives in Mesa with her family.
David
Crummey
David Crummey is searching for the
nexus of urbanism, culture, food and
justice, and exploring our human char-
acter in terms of our physical geogra-
phy. In sports, he always plays for the
shirts team, shirtless or not. Someday,
he will triumph over his girlfriend and
have a lawn that is neatly trimmed by
goats. And cheese. Goat cheese. And
fresh eggs. And freshly slaughtered
chicken. The latter two do not come
from the goats. He wonders what came
first– the chicken, the egg, or his girl-
friend refusing him all of these things.
David Crummey only wrote half this
bio. He has trusted his two co-
 Contributors and Victims
conspirators with the rest. But he didn’t
really trust them, as he made them edit
most of it. Or at least the good parts.
See Amber or Owen for the good parts.
Rhia
Hobkirk
Rhia is a sometimes knitter, occasional
writer and consistent procrastinator. she
enjoys cupcakes, lists and anything Joss
Whedon has touched.
Matt
Mesnard
Matt Mesnard did not supply a bio in
the ridiculously short amount of
time we gave him. We compiled this
from Google: Sophomore running back.
Matt Mesnard completed a 6-yard TD
run against Immaculate Conception's
Knights, clinching the Warriors first
winning season since 1981. His favorite
novels are Addie Pray and Elmer Gantry.
Mr. Mesnard was
embroiled in a lawsuit alleging a com-
rade Teamster of the local 731
crossed a picket line. He is also the most
recent winner of JabberMonkey's daily
Starbucks give-away!
❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂
Penelope
Padmore
Penny's biography, as presented by
Google. Penelope Padmore of Paradise,
Nova Scotia, is a Kung Fu expert and
contributor to Black Belt Magazine. She
was the fund-raising and correspondence
committee member for the 2nd Annual
Las Vegas GeoSymposium at UNLV.
Her work there greatly influenced her
research on bronze age farms and iron
age farm mounds of the Outer Hebrides,
with the Chinese Wushu Research Insti-
tute. We tend to think that like Chuck
Norris, if there is something about
Penny on the internet, it must be true.
Penny doesn’t sleep, she waits. Penny
doesn’t write bios. Her minions write
them for her.
Sonia
Singh
This piece was originally published on
Sonia Singh’s blog in 2006. Her profes-
sional writing gigs to date include grant
writing for nonprofits and reviewing
vegetarian restaurants. An avid entre-
preneur, Sonia’s creative streak mani-
fests itself in writing, decorating and
new business ideas. Her 70-pound lap-
dog inspired her current project, Paw-
Posse.com, which sells tough stuff for
big dogs. More of Sonia’s musings can
be found at twitter.com/soniawings.
Owen David
Stupka Wiersch
Owen Stupka is a freelancer writer, part Art saves.
-time assassin, and is just happy to be With the drone of the congregation, the
nominated. As one of the editors of church went silent,
RESTLESS, Owen hopes to be able to and my mind wondered to different
immanentize the eschaton, or at least things.
rock it like it's never been rocked be- My art is a distraction. A majority of
fore. Owen is neutral on the goat sub- the work I produce is a direct response
ject, but he does like goat cheese. For to my dreams.
contact, hate mail, or naked picture dis- Since I was young I have had very vivid,
posal, you can contact him dark dreams. Generally, these images
at seldonfound@gmail.com. are the ones that make it out.
I find that it’s easier to show people

❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿➀➁➂ what I saw, rather then explain it.

Restless: Issue Zero

Illustrations: Watermark Used on Page 4 by Flickr user Pareeerica
Back Page: Restless Logo. Amber Brosovich and Owen Stupka
Front Page: One Pass. Oil Painting. David Wiersch
Various figures: Public Domain Patent Images. USPTO.
 Coming Soon
Restless: Issue One
Request for Submissions
Restless,
Restless a new Arts Anthology, is calling all local writers and artists for
submissions. Restless is looking for all types of fiction and non-fiction
written in experimental and traditional writing styles. Restless is also
accepting event suggestions, reviews, comics and visual-art that trans-
lates well into black and white print. Each issue will be loosely based on a
theme.

The theme for Issue One: ZOMBIES!!?!eleven1! Content does not neces-
sarily have to align with the expressed theme, but is encouraged.

Guidelines for Submissions:

Fiction / Creative Non-

Non-fiction / Experimental Fiction / Micro-
Micro-fiction
No word limit, though generally under 10,000 words. Please attach as a
DOC, DOCX, RTF, PDF, TXT or ODT document.

Poetry
Restless publishes a small amount of poetry per issue. Again, no word
limit, but generally under 10,000 words. Please send as an attachment.

Local Restaurant Reviews - Alternatives to the Chain

Review an awesome locally-owned restaurant with the view of giving us
good alternatives to the standard chain restaurants. 50-150 words.

Comics & Other Visual Art

Must translate well into grayscale/black & white. Images must be of high
enough quality for translation to print. Raster or Vector images accept-
able. JPG, PNG, SVG or AI are acceptable formats. PNG or JPG are
preferred.

Unique Contributions
Other contributions are considered as well. Stickers, Wood/linocut
stamps, inserts of other kinds, etc. Please e-mail with a description / im-
age of the proposed contribution for consideration.

Recipes & Cooking Stories

Unique, delicious recipes—stand-alone or with a story attached.

Content:
Restless does not have specific content guidelines. In general, content
should strive to be no more than a PG-13 or a soft-R. Explicit content is
generally frowned upon, but is acceptable when appropriate within the
story and handled maturely. We aim to include as many readers as possi-
ble, young and old.
 COMING TO A PAIR OF
HANDS JUST LIKE YOURS
SOMETIME IN APRIL

Restless: Issue One

Restless: An Arts Anthology

restlessanthology@gmail.com