The ink keeps smearing.

Johann, dinner! Kommst du hier! His wife’s voice, sweet notes on spring breeze.

The ink hides in the whorls of his fingertips.

Just one more try. A finer sheet, smooth but dense.

He leans into the crank. There’s an art to the turn of the handle.

Juliet Hubbell teaches English Literature and Humanities at Arapahoe Community College. Her short story “The Owl” won the 2015 Montana State Fiction Award. Rick Bass called the story “mysterious and powerful.” Her work has appeared before in Hektoen International: Journal of Medical Humanities, Workers Write, JAMA: Journal of American Medical Association, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, Progenitor, and Midwest Quarterly. Her rendition of a medieval Black Forest fairy tale, “Saarbrucken Witch”, won the 2013 British Fantasy Society’s Short Story Contest. She is an active member of both the Lighthouse Writers and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and attends writing and publishing conferences annually, including the Association of Writing Professionals conference.