fiction
Recess is for _______
Written by Frankie Barnet, Illustration by Herikita
Frankie Barnet is the kind of fiction writer who will teach you things. Although they may not be the kinds of things you’d normally want to know, they are the kinds of things that once you know them, you’re glad you do. It’s not so much what she tells you but the way she tells you these things that will stick with you, maybe even for years to come.
“Recess is for _______” is a story about what it feels like when there are dozens of versions of you, talking to themselves and/or begging to be let in from the cold. It's also a story about what it means to be bad. Bad at relationships, bad at grad school, bad at managing the many voices in one’s head. Bad could mean doing the wrong thing, thinking bad thoughts, or having bad taste. Bad might be liking bad television, living somewhere bad, or wanting so badly to be a “talented prolific artist.” But maybe being bad isn’t so bad. Being bad is certainly better than being nothing at all.
Featured story for December 2018
“I am always wondering: are we having enough sex? Is the sex good enough? Do we talk enough? Does he understand what I’m trying to say? Love, for the most part, is unsupervised. It happens on private property, and then once we are with friends or on the internet, we share fragments of it. But with no one watching, how do we know if we are doing it right? Sometimes I ask these questions so incessantly I bite my nails off, or chew my lip until it bleeds.”
HERIKITA
Herikita is a 32-year old Colombian artist. She studied plastic arts and has painted all her life, as far back as she can remember. Herikita's work speaks of who she is as a woman and it speaks of the people she keeps around her. There is a piece of her in every one of her characters.
Frankie Barnet
Frankie Barnet is the author of An Indoor Kind of Girl (Metatron Press). Her work has appeared in journals such as PRISM International, Peach Magazine, The Washington Square Review and Biblioasis’ 2017 Best Canadian Short Stories Anthology. She is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction at Syracuse University.