Marcela Bolívar’s exceptional work once again graces the cover of Apex Magazine. Over the five years since our first interview with Bolívar, she has created new and fascinating works of art, finished her post-grad art education, and moved to an entirely different continent.
My mother looked nothing like this woman, but my mind is pulled back into the undertow of her anyway. I see her in the days before she died, her shrunken frame nearly swallowed by white bedding and overstuffed pillows. She sits up as if she’s just remembered something. “Pass me my lipstick,” she says. Cherries in the Snow. Even without a mirror, her hands are steady and she draws on the red pout, smooth and sure. She blots her lips together and says, “That’s better.” Says, “Take a photo to remember me by.”
The noise wakes the trees outside the hospital window. They stretch and shake out their leaves. A dislodged sparrow turns toward me and gapes open its beak. It squawks “beep beep beep” and I realize it’s been doing that the whole time. There are other noises, too—a distant, distorted voice like a conductor shouting into a bad mic—are we near a train station?
The blade of Legrue’s scalpel flared in his headlamp’s narrow beam, casting glints of light across the slender hand strapped to his cutting table.
When Tara awoke Thursday morning, her pillow had turned to marshmallow, gooey from the warmth of her head and the sunshine blazing through the window. Fruit rollup blankets slicked her legs with psychedelic slime. The mattress, now a soft-baked blondie with white chocolate chips, was permanently indented by her ass.
Cruising through western Michigan toward the lake for a family outing, under flawless spring skies and passing the odd barn or silo, a sign catches my eye, half-obscured by a huge lilac bush: Flesh Eggs.
Crista nodded calmly but Red Day shrieked inside her, eager to enact its justice on this self-admitted killer. As Red Day’s anger exploded, the AI seized control of Crista’s right hand and grabbed one of her knives. With a shout of no, Crista ran up the stairs. After bolting the cellar door shut she stumbled to the porch and vomited.
Enjoy our featured interview with author Joelle Wellington.
