Free Crime Rave by Sezin Koehler

shrugs.
    “Would you feel better if the door was unlocked?”
    Chirp.
    Red Feather looks at Pratchett, who raises an eyebrow. “If we unlock the door, do you promise not to escape?”
    Chirp!
    The girl floats off the closet and claps her hands.
    “Will you listen to the nurse and her assistants?”
    Chirp! A nod to accompany.
    “Nurse, what do you think?” Pratchett nods assent and whispers, “Can you get her to eat something?”
    “Are you hungry?”
    Chirp.
    “Will you write down what you’ll eat and slide it under the door for Nurse Pratchett?”
    Chirp.
    Red Feather senses that she wants to come down from her perch, but she holds herself back.
    “I’ll be back soon,” he says with a small wave.
    In a flurry of chirps, the bird girl does a little jump and waves back at Red Feather.
    He points to the legal pad. She nods.
    Chirp.
    Nurse Pratchett closes the door softly and keeps her back to it. “Very clever, Detective. I am sorry none of us thought of that. Then again, she didn’t respond to any of us as she did for you.”
    “Maybe it’s my name. We seem to have bird spirits in common,” Red Feather cracks a smile and Nurse Pratchett returns it, probably the first time she’s smiled at work in months.
    Günn grabs his arm. “Come on. Nothing else we can do here. We need to get to the morgue, like yesterday.”
    “Okay, okay. Nurse, you’ll keep an eye on her?”
    “Absolutely.”
    A piece of paper flies out from under the door:
    “Sunflower seeds, gummy worms, strawberry milk, baked chicken skin. Thank you.”
    Pratchett’s eyes widen. “My goodness. There are no words.”
    “Agreed.” Red Feather shakes Nurse Pratchett’s hand in goodbye. Günn is already at the elevator, foot tapping.

Asha Kinsella, aka Galactic Canary
    Y ou don’t like this. You don’t like this one bit. You’re thinking in English, but that’s not what comes from your mouth. You want your mom. You want your sisters. Cherry Thrush and Cerulean Amazon. The super-trio. But you have an awful feeling they aren’t here. That they didn’t make it. It’s an emptiness. Something hollow inside. Their light is missing. You try not to think about it, but it’s all you can and you wish you could tell someone all they meant to you. You wouldn’t even know where to start.
    You remember when you first met them. It was at a Revolution rave, downtown LA, rundown building, seedy-ass neighborhood. It was so hot. The site was a maze. So many floors, crowded with sweating bodies. You lost your friends. You were on E, but it was laced with something heavy. Or maybe that was the fear. You saw Cerulean and Cherry sitting in the corner. They weren’t like everyone else; there was a shine to them. They weren’t rubbing each other with lotion; they weren’t gnawing on pacifiers or lollipops. They were just chatting, like they were in the park or at a French café solving the meaning of life. They looked safe. You told them you were lost. They made room for you in their little world. You never found your friends that night, but Cherry and Cerulean made sure you got home safe.
    They have a homegrown business: marijuana. They blow glass pipes and the like. They take you on as a partner. You move into their West Hollywood bungalow, of which they’d been trying to find the right tenant for months. You discover that the power of the three of you together creates fire from nothing. Firebirds. You research growing techniques, find out that menstrual blood is the key to the best and strongest pot with its nitrogen rich tissue and growth-promoting properties. You three can’t grow it fast enough. It sells like lollipops at parties.
    You don’t know what you’ll do without your sisters.
    Picking up the pen and paper, you begin to write for the nice detective. You munch on the gummy worms and chicken skin Nurse Pratchett discreetly slips through the door. It doesn’t help the sorrow, but it’s better than nothing.

6:15 AM LAPD Morgue
    M edical