{"id":256506,"date":"2026-07-13T14:50:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/chthonic-matter-quarterly-winter-2025-cm-muller\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:50:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:50:48","slug":"chthonic-matter-quarterly-winter-2025-cm-muller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/chthonic-matter-quarterly-winter-2025-cm-muller\/","title":{"rendered":"Chthonic Matter Quarterly Winter 2025 – CM Muller"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/figure>\n

\u200b \u201c Are you ready?\u201d \u200b \u201c Let \u2019 s go!\u201d she squealed. \u200bI pushed the door open and saw nothing but blackness. \u200b \u201c Is there a light?\u201d \u200bI fumbled for the switch. \u201c Nothing,\u201d I said. \u200b \u201c Is it going to happen?\u201d asked Kaylie. \u200b \u201c I don \u2019 t know,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201c Maybe.\u201d \u200b \u201c Can I go too?\u201d \u200b \u201c It \u2019 s not your birthday,\u201d I said. \u200bShe was pouting in the dark. I knew she was. But that \u2019 s how she was made, she was the baby of the family. She \u2019 d always be the baby. \u200bAs I traveled into the blackness, I felt myself grow, lengthen, fatten. My mind exploded with a thousand implanted memories. \u200bI took a deep breath, filling my great lungs. \u200bThe air was cool and smelled like the ocean.<\/p>\n

I didn \u2019 t care that it was cold. I would never care. Mom knew all of my favorite places. The blackness was not so black anymore, and when it dissolved completely, I was on a beach. \u200bI swallowed, letting my hands run down the length of my body. I was tall now, like Mom. I wore a sundress and flip flops and I had money and a job and maybe a husband and maybe kids.<\/p>\n

Waves crashed, rolling in, their white churnings giving birth again and again. \u200bI tried to keep every one of those seconds, to swallow them up and make them a part of me forever. I ran along the beach to fall in love with the length of my stride. I cherished my breasts and hips. \u200bChildren screamed somewhere down the beach. They played and thrashed in the sand. \u200bI walked to them, it \u2019 d been a year since I last saw them.<\/p>\n

They were the same age, just like me. Two boys, both with brown hair and eyes, three and four. \u200b \u201c Mom?\u201d said one. \u200bThe word sliced through me. \u200b \u201c I \u2019 m here,\u201d I said. \u200b \u201c Can you help us with this?\u201d \u200bI got on my knees, smiling. \u201c What are we making?\u201d \u200bThe younger one said, \u201c A sandcastle.\u201d I loved how he said it, pausing at each syllable. \u200b \u201c You \u2019 re both doing so good,\u201d I said. \u200bWe went to work, crafting the spires.<\/p>\n

I pulled bobby pins from my hair to carve doorways and sawtooth battlements. In between, I drank in their determined expressions and clumsy hands. \u200bI relished every second, while it lasted. \u200bIt \u2019 s the best Mom could do\u2014or would do. As my hours waned, the darkness crawled back to me. It took me into its arms and made me feeble, child-like.<\/p>\n

\n

Volume 1, Issue 4 (Winter 2023) Typeset & Edited by C.M. Muller \u00a9 2023 by Contributors Fonts: \u201cNight\u201d & \u201cCormorant\u201d Cover art: via Shutterstock www.chthonicmatter.wordpress.com Garbage Juice Harris Kauffman \/ \/ \/ My dad had to \u201c pull a lot of strings\u201d to get me a spot in the sanitation trainee program.<\/p>\n

He \u201c put it all on the line\u201d for me. But even though I passed the course, I eventually showed him that I \u201c didn \u2019 t have what it takes.\u201d \u200bHe devoted his life to sanitation work. He didn \u2019 t expect the same of me. He just expected me to honor the job when I asked him to hook me up. His expectations weren \u2019 t met. \u200bThose days, I was drinking around the clock and betting my salary on horses.<\/p>\n

I lost a lot on California Chrome in 2016. More than I had in the bank. I asked my dad for help, and he laughed. \u200bMaybe because I was drinking, I thought about buying a gun to get the bookie, Travis, off my back. \u200bIt was more than a passing thought. I met with these two gangsters, Conlin and Scott, who offered to sell me one. A Browning Hi-Power, untraceable.<\/p>\n

They said they scooped it up from the river while going \u201c magnet fishing.\u201d \u200bWe were making small talk while we waited for the gun (one of their guys was grabbing it from the stash house \u201c offsite\u201d). That \u2019 s how they found out I was a sanitation worker.<\/p>\n

They perked up. \u200b \u201c Sanitation? Like, garbage?\u201d \u200b \u201c Just like garbage.\u201d \u200bI thought Conlin and Scott were going to ask me to help them get rid of a body. I \u2019 d already thought about how I could feed Travis to the truck, so I guess that \u2019 s why my mind went there. But that \u2019 s not what they were interested in. They wanted the leachate. \u200b \u201c Leachate? Like, garbage juice?\u201d I asked. \u200b \u201c Yeah, garbage juice,\u201d Conlin said.<\/p>\n

\u200bI really wish that \u2019 s as weird as it got.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Table of Contents<\/p>\nToggle<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n