C4 antho - Chamber Four
C4 antho - Chamber Four C4 antho - Chamber Four
~68~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology was crying. The boy moved, shocked by his wife’s depth of feeling, his wife who never cried, who only said I love you if he said it first. His wife touched his shoulder, almost pawing at it, while she wept. And as he lay there, the boy confused yet happy, he thought how Dr. Z got it wrong. He imagined his sperm mixing with his wife’s cervical mucus, struggling into her and swimming through the uterus. Over the next day millions of sperm would die, a literal genocide of his own genetic code. But one sperm would make it up to the ampullary portion of his wife’s fallopian tubes where it would meet an egg, a full round egg in a nimbus of light. And that egg, in a process that nobody quite understands, would invite that one exhausted spermatozoon in, not like a warrior bent on invading China all by himself, but like a meeting between two wounded travelers, two souls who had been alone for so long, wanting to share some news, a chain letter telling the endless story of themselves, saying look, look how far we have come.
Men Alone _________ by Steve Almond from Drunken Boat You see them there almost by accident, through a window from a rolling car. They are at once recognizable as members of a tribe coming to believe in the absurdity of their bodies, drifting through rooms whose few flourishes, supplied by old girlfriends, now seem vindictive. There’s a TV, a phone, a few chairs. They do just enough to keep the place from ants. Afternoons, taken by a brief whimsy, they dance alone. At night they reach into cupboards for hidden sweets and make lists of things to be done the following day. They read magazines on the can, renewal cards molting the carpet. Sometimes their hands come loose and fall into their laps and dream a few minutes of women they will never see in church, a last stamp of decency worn away on the sofa nearest the window where they sleep on those certain evenings, the radiant concern of news anchors a lullaby onto them in socks. You could stare into these windows for years and not see anything essential or shocking, only the last rites of men who would pay any price to be you, and have.
- Page 17 and 18: Liz Phair and the Most Perfect Sent
- Page 19 and 20: Liz Phair and the Most Perfect Sent
- Page 21 and 22: Liz Phair and the Most Perfect Sent
- Page 23 and 24: Eupcaccia* _________ by Angie Lee f
- Page 25 and 26: Eupcaccia ~25~ mother shuts off the
- Page 27 and 28: Eupcaccia ~27~ bounce with princely
- Page 29 and 30: Eupcaccia ~29~ carving ruts through
- Page 31 and 32: Eupcaccia ~31~ “Sure as heck that
- Page 33 and 34: Eupcaccia ~33~ or else he wasn’t
- Page 35 and 36: Eupcaccia ~35~ “This here video c
- Page 37 and 38: Eupcaccia ~37~ tantalizing view up
- Page 39 and 40: Watchers ________ by Scott Cheshire
- Page 41 and 42: Watchers ~41~ and told my mother ab
- Page 43 and 44: Watchers ~43~ husband and teenage c
- Page 45 and 46: Watchers ~45~ Lorraine waits, she s
- Page 47 and 48: Watchers ~47~ students for who know
- Page 49 and 50: Watchers ~49~ toy-men crouching sma
- Page 51 and 52: How to Assemble a Portal to Another
- Page 53 and 54: How to Assemble a Portal to Another
- Page 55 and 56: Seven Little Stories About Sex ____
- Page 57 and 58: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~57~
- Page 59 and 60: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~59~
- Page 61 and 62: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~61~
- Page 63 and 64: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~63~
- Page 65 and 66: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~65~
- Page 67: Seven Little Stories About Sex ~67~
- Page 71 and 72: For the Sake of the Children ~71~ y
- Page 73 and 74: For the Sake of the Children ~73~ P
- Page 75 and 76: For the Sake of the Children ~75~ *
- Page 77 and 78: Semolinian Equinox ________________
- Page 79 and 80: Semolinian Equinox ~79~ with matter
- Page 81 and 82: Semolinian Equinox ~81~ she is esca
- Page 83 and 84: Semolinian Equinox ~83~ “A Bag of
- Page 85 and 86: Semolinian Equinox ~85~ “I didn
- Page 87 and 88: Semolinian Equinox ~87~ ‘tether o
- Page 89 and 90: Semolinian Equinox ~89~ in five day
- Page 91 and 92: The Girl In The Glass ~91~ changed
- Page 93 and 94: Peacocks ~93~ of what, growing up,
- Page 95 and 96: Peacocks ~95~ “Instant friends,
- Page 97 and 98: Peacocks ~97~ Rebecca stood up. “
- Page 99 and 100: Peacocks ~99~ then I saw Eric kneel
- Page 101 and 102: Peacocks ~101~ I had little sympath
- Page 103 and 104: Peacocks ~103~ in my discussion of
- Page 105 and 106: Peacocks ~105~ no matter what she s
- Page 107 and 108: Peacocks ~107~ “Is it really poss
- Page 109 and 110: Peacocks ~109~ rent circumstances,
- Page 111 and 112: Peacocks ~111~ “Let’s move this
- Page 113 and 114: Peacocks ~113~ not-knowing would ne
- Page 115 and 116: The Naturalists _____________ by B.
- Page 117 and 118: The Naturalists ~117~ sights were n
~68~ The <strong>Chamber</strong> <strong>Four</strong> Fiction Anthology<br />
was crying. The boy moved, shocked by his wife’s depth of<br />
feeling, his wife who never cried, who only said I love you if<br />
he said it first. His wife touched his shoulder, almost pawing<br />
at it, while she wept.<br />
And as he lay there, the boy confused yet happy, he<br />
thought how Dr. Z got it wrong. He imagined his sperm mixing<br />
with his wife’s cervical mucus, struggling into her and<br />
swimming through the uterus. Over the next day millions of<br />
sperm would die, a literal genocide of his own genetic code.<br />
But one sperm would make it up to the ampullary portion of<br />
his wife’s fallopian tubes where it would meet an egg, a full<br />
round egg in a nimbus of light. And that egg, in a process<br />
that nobody quite understands, would invite that one exhausted<br />
spermatozoon in, not like a warrior bent on invading<br />
China all by himself, but like a meeting between two<br />
wounded travelers, two souls who had been alone for so long,<br />
wanting to share some news, a chain letter telling the endless<br />
story of themselves, saying look, look how far we have come.
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