I’m chopping onions when my son comes in through the sliding glass door, leaving it open to the cold. He shambles through the kitchen, shedding jacket, shirt, unbuttons his jeans.

“Aiden—what in the hell?” I say, and drop the knife on the island.

Now he’s in his boxers and to the hall.

“Too many stars,” he says.

I scoop up clothes as I follow. “Aiden? What’s going on?”

We keep this big box of shoes in the foyer so the kids don’t track mud through the house. It’s cushioned, like an Ottoman, but we call it “the box.” Aiden’s dumping shoes out by the armful. By the time I can say anything, he’s climbing into the box and pulling the lid down, like a vampire’s coffin.

“Matt,” I call to my husband, “come here.”

Heavy footsteps above from his office where he claims to work on his novel but mostly plays video games. He appears at the top of the stairs. “What?”

“Your son’s in the box,” I say.

While Matt’s coming down the stairs, I shut the sliding door.

Out in the backyard, Aiden’s telescope’s set up on its tripod, alone in the grass.

It’s a cold, clear night. Everything looks perfectly normal to me, dozens of stars up there, here at the edge of the city. Light pollution blocks out the rest, that much I know. But I’m not even sure where the north star is. I couldn’t pick out a single constellation. Astronomy, or the telescope, at least, is Aiden’s hobby of the month.

I slide the door shut.

Matt’s kneeling at the box. “Buddy, you’re scaring your mom.”

He’s looking at me, pale, probably more frightened than me.

Aiden’s voice is perfectly clear from inside the box, it won’t quite shut with him inside.. “There’s too many stars.”

“What does that mean, dude?” Matt says. He’s getting mad.

“They want us home,” Aiden says from inside the box.

Matt looks to me and shrugs, his face turning red.

I join beside the box. “Aiden—come out of there and talk.”

###

Aiden’s sitting on the box. His sister, Kylee, has come down from her room, too, is playing on her phone. I made Aiden put some shorts on, not trusting that Kylee wouldn’t take Instagram videos of all this.

“It’s wrong out there,” is all Aiden’s said.

Matt’s tried to coax more out. Kylee finds all this hilarious. I’m on the brink of calling 9-11.

“Show me,” Matt says. He takes Aiden’s hand like he was four again.

I go to the pantry, so they don’t see me cry. I hear Aiden leading his father out through the sliding door.

I watch through the glass as they stand shoulder to shoulder—they’re nearly the same height now; Aiden shot up this last year, like the doctor predicted he would. Aiden’s pointing up to the speckled sky, drawing small lines with his finger.

Matt kneels to peek through the telescope.

They come back inside, Matt looking grave.

“Get in the car,” he says.

“What the fuck’s going on,” Kylee says, laughing,

I tell her to be quiet and get her shoes, hurry up.

###

Out here in the country, we don’t have neighbors.

Kylee says there’s no signal on her phone. It’s usually thin on these roads, but you get bars or as you move closer in.

The street signs are off on the way to the highway. The corner of Paran and Mirandy is switched, saying we’re on Mirandy instead of Paran. Someone, kids I assume—and have a terrible thought: Aiden’s friends?—swapped the signs. A stupid but harmless prank, if you live here, but a visitor would get lost.

But now, it looks like we’re lost. Or took a wrong turn. The houses look different. There is a big, glass modern, like the Roland’s gaudy place, but on the opposite side of the road.

“Turn around,” I say.

“No, he’s right,” says Matt.

From the backseat, Aiden says to “get ready” for the highway, to drive the wrong way.

There haven’t been any cars yet, but there usually aren’t at this time of night.

On the highway, cars drive like they do in England, on the left side.

Kylee starts crying.

On the west side of town, streets are in the right order, and we find our house.

We need to begin living our lives now, where we’re supposed to be, or things will be off, Aiden explains, or we might draw attention to ourselves, and upset Their design.

ISSUE 5: MIRAGE

EDITOR'S NOTE

POETRY

Paul Hostovsky

William Doreski

Gale Acuff

Brandon Shane

Evelyn van Cauwelaert

Clarisse Kim

Livio Farallo

Reve Rubio

PROSE

Fabiana Elisa Martínez

John Carr Walker

Travis Flatt

Richard Schreck

VISUAL ART

Irina Tall Novikova

Maria Duran

Jasper Glen