The Fallen by Celia Thomson

Constantine is…questionable. Aquaman can breathe underwater, which I guess is subtle, but he can also talk to fish. Why?”
    â€œJust wondering.” She watched as he carefully put the comics back in their Mylar bags and slid them gently into the brown bag. “So, how long is this horror scheduled to last?”
    â€œAn hour and a half.”
    Chloe groaned. The lights dimmed and people clapped politely. The man with the scarf gave a little introduction. Chloe almost wished she still had a comic to look at. The poets were theoretically in order of who signed up first, but they tended to let the least worst go last.
    Which meant that Amy was usually second or third.
    If I’m a superhero,
Chloe idly thought, I
should definitely get some better clothes. Clingier. Spandex. Tank tops and bike shorts.
Where did superwomen keep their extra tampons, anyway? Her foot tapped; she tried to keep it quiet through the first few readings. She would have given almost anything to be able to run outside. She hoped one of the poets’ clove cigarettes would fall and catch the place on fire.
    â€œAnd now, Amy Scotkin, reading three of her works.”
    â€œWhoo-hoo!” Chloe shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth like she was at a sporting event.
    â€œGo, Amy!” Paul shouted.
    Amy blushed. “My first one, ‘Night Swan.’. . .”
    â€œHoly crap,” Chloe whispered in horror. “She’s doing the ‘Swan’ again? All thirteen verses?”
    â€œHey, a little support and positive thought might be welcome here,” Paul suggested.
    Lo, my lover lies asleep
    In a twin bed with black satin sheets
    In the gable nook of our hallowed nest….
    Chloe clenched and unclenched her hands the entire time, her fingernails tingling. She looked over at Paul; he sat still—
trying
to look serious, she thought.
    Call, call!
My night black swan!
    Weep for the love that is lost
    The scarlet threads of shame and shadow
    That flow betwixt my breasts…
    Thirteen verses and approximately fifteen minutes later it was over. There were still two more Amy “specials,” but the last one was new, so at least it was an unexpected horror. And there was a break just two poets later.
    â€œHoly shit,” Chloe said as she and Paul went up to die bar afterward to reorder. “I think it gets harder every time.”
    â€œYeah, some of those poets were atrocious,” he agreed.
    â€œAnd what about her new masterpiece? What gothic shit was she listening to when she wrote ‘Daylight Incubus?”
    â€œYou didn’t like it?”
    Chloe turned to stare at her friend. “Urn—hello? It
sucked,
Paul.”
    â€œI don’t think it was that bad,” Paul demurred.
    â€œIf you mean that it wasn’t any better or worse than any of the other stuff she’s done, I agree.”
    â€œWhy did you bother coming if you’re just going to trash her?”
    He didn’t say it nastily—it wasn’t a challenge. It almost sounded like a genuine question.
    â€œBecause that’s what we always do, Paul!” Chloe said, exasperated. “We keep on trying to get her to drop this shit and do the stuff she’s good at, she ignores us, we keep coming here to support her, she reads her poetry, and we—well, commiserate.”
    â€œShe’s my
girlfriend,
now, Chlo,” Paul said softly. Like it was supposed to shock her.
    And it did.
    â€œThat doesn’t change everything. Or at least it’s not supposed to.” Chloe spun on her heels and walked away, ignoring the tea that was set in front of her.
Has everyone gone insane?
It seemed like she was just getting back into sync with Amy, and Paul suddenly went off the deep end, taking this whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing way tooseriously. He had always been a harder person to get to know than Amy, sometimes difficult to read, but these dreadful readings used to be their bonding time. He