Exposure by Katy Resch art by Josh George At two o'clock on New Year's morning, a man in Chicago leaves a party. Walking home, he slips on a patch of ice and falls, bashes his head on the edge of a bench. He loses consciousness and lies on the sidewalk until well after daybreak, his body obscured by a mound of plowed snow. That afternoon, a Channel Six News anchor reviews his top stories. The tragedy of Stephen Cox, 37, husband and expectant father, found dead in Lincoln Park due to exposure, is not, in the anchor's opinion, the worst tragedy to report, yet it distresses him most. In make-up, he protects his lapels with a paper bib and thinks of Stephen Cox's open coat, a dress coat with no liner and clean lines, a gentleman's coat. The image of such a coat stirs a vague vibration in the anchor's mind, the story eclipsing all others because it flirts with his memory, as though there is a reason for the anchor's sympathy for Stephen Cox that his memory knows but he does not. Perplexed, he phones his sister. Leaving her shift at the clinic, the psychiatric nurse answers her brother's call on her mobile. She says, "a London Fog, maybe?" when he asks what their father had worn during winters. Her brother presses, "Did we know someone who died like this?" But the nurse is tired, and without reflecting answers, "No." All day, the nurse had tried to soothe a patient, a young woman who believes herself to be made of paper and fears bright lights will set her on fire, that to leave her room is to risk being crumpled. The nurse has little patience left for her brother. He sighs, "Stephen Cox, poor bastard," and for a moment, the nurse brightens. She reminds him of Brian Cox, her college boyfriend. "Maybe that's what you're thinking of," she says. Later, the nurse attends a movie at the science museum. For the New Year, she has resolved to wear heels twice a week, to meet new people somehow. The acclaimed film documents explorers as they venture to climb Mount Everest. As she sits in the crowded theater, the nurse thinks of seeing movies with Brian Cox, how they kissed in the back row and held hands and sometimes let their hands travel. On the screen, falling snowflakes land on the camera lens and wetly blur the image and the nurse recalls the translucent paper her patients use for decoupage or origami. Once, spilled water dissolved a row of folded swans to pulp and the young woman patient was inconsolable. Two of the explorers in the film are a married couple who set up camp at the base of the final peak. They have come so far, but at night the man shivers violently and struggles to breathe in the altitude until his wife holds an oxygen mask to his mouth. She secures the closures on his yellow parka. The theater is bright with the white light of the snow, and the nurse can see the man next to her lean into the woman on his other side, as though comforting her, or comforting himself. Who knows, the nurse thinks, what else is happening in their life and understands that to hold hands in a theater is to be in the theater, but somewhere else, too. To hold hands in a theater is to say I am watching this movie, but I am also in this life that I share with this person; that I bring this life with me wherever I go. Her own hands in her lap, and cold, the nurse curls her fingers. Read the interview. Katy Resch's work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Pank, LIT Magazine, and Painted Bride Quarterly. Recently, she was awarded a Norton Island Writer's Residency and a fellowship to attend the SLS United Summer Literary Seminars. She lives in Richmond, Virginia. A contemporary realist, Josh George paints with oils and acrylics on wood panel and incorporates layers of collage elements to achieve a texture and richness idiosyncratic to his work. His subjects include human figures, cityscapes and scenes of everyday urbanity that capture the multifaceted nature of life in the American city. George's paintings offer narrative "snap-shots" conveyed with both a sly wit and sensitivity; tonally, George juxtaposes humor and pathos to present the complexities of the modern American experience. Josh George at once celebrates and critiques our American culture, expresses both disillusionment and exuberance and discovers beauty and disappointment in unexpected places. He has gallery representation in New York City, Scottsdale, Arizona, Aspen, Colorado, Richmond, Virginia, Kansas City, Missouri, and Milan, Italy. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2012 by its authors. Issue Thirty-Three (October 2, 2011): Egg Toss, August 1989 by Meagan Cass «» Dinner Parties Where Place Cards Leave No Choice in Seating by Chella Courington «» Sovetskoye Shampanskoye by Berit Ellingsen «» They Live in Black and White by Danica Green «» Watermelon Seeds by Micah Dean Hicks «» Gwendolyn by Robert Hinderliter «» Sleepless #7 by Joe Kapitan «» Mutual by Henry S. Kivett «» Wolf Cry by Sara Lippmann «» Jamila by Carmel Reid Mawle «» When I Lose Track of the Children, 5 & 7, Near the Magazine Section at Costco by Christopher Merkner «» Finally by John Minichillo «» I'm a Woman For Sure by Kate Nesheim «» Exposure by Katy Resch «» The Road to the Casino Del Sol by Mather Schneider «» Never Never by Amber Sparks «» The Language of Hairzilla by Chris L. Terry «» Interviews: Meagan Cass «» Chella Courington «» Berit Ellingsen «» Danica Green «» Micah Dean Hicks «» Robert Hinderliter «» Joe Kapitan «» Henry S. Kivett «» Sara Lippmann «» Carmel Reid Mawle «» Christopher Merkner «» John Minichillo «» Kate Nesheim «» Katy Resch «» Mather Schneider «» Amber Sparks «» Chris L. Terry «» Cover Art "Sparta, NJ" by David Ohlerking «» Letter From the Editor Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.