When Amy tripped on her way out of the office parking garage and ended up sprawled on the sidewalk, a noise came from her mouth that was a cross between a gasp, a screech and a squawking chicken. In addition to skinning her knees, she broke the heel on one of her new, cute winter boots. Luckily, she had some back-up tennis shoes in her desk due to some client freebies and no one would have noticed her cute boots anyway, because she would be stuck at her desk all day with the mountain of work she needed to complete. Despite this being only a few weeks into January, Amy wasn’t feeling very hopeful this year would be any different from the last. Everyone was so excited about “the new year, the new you,” and…
“Can We Ever Atone?” by Thom Wainwright
It’s a memory so dark and shameful that words almost fail me. It’s been hidden away for some five decades now. The details of the incident now present as both hallucinogenic and mundane. At times, it banishes me to that terrible place where no one would ever dare to come find me. We were on a dusty red road just outside of Cu Chi. Stevens and I were setting up a broadcasting post on this well-traveled section of Highway 13, which links the City of Tunnels with the capital city of Saigon. It was well known that the Viet Cong frequented this stretch, usually under cover of darkness, to brazenly plant land mines in the clay and stone of the road bed. Mamma-san and baby-san would be posted along the roadway during daylight hours, purportedly…
“Burial,” A Short Story by Peter Dellolio
Leaves and twigs scattered suddenly, as if the last, hurried pat of her seven-year-old palm, hitting the flattened surface of moist earth that moments ago revealed a fourth hole, was somehow acknowledged by the secret watchfulness of nature, and the little whisking breezes, surrounding her finished labors, had somehow bestowed their blessing upon her task. She had left the house as surreptitiously as her tiny form and sincere energy would allow, running down the old boards, almost jumping across the eighteenth-century backdoor steps of the farmhouse, charging into the woods like an infantryman rushing into battle, head held high with quiet dignity and deadly purpose, without even an atom of fear, soul impervious to danger, defying threats to life and limb, lying just ahead in the enemy’s midst. She felt that if the subjects of her…
“Wheels of the Bus,” by Bethany Reid
When the brakes failed, Claire did not panic. Later, describing the accident—which she was asked to do an ungodly number of times—she insisted on her level-headed, calm reaction. Cool under fire, grace under pressure, all that crap. No panic. She did everything as she had been taught in bus-driver school. She pumped the brake pedal all the way down, twice, three times. She shifted into third and then into second and got ready to shift further down. All the while muttering under her breath, first, reverse, like a prayer. Or a curse. But then the idiot motorcyclist weaved into the HOV lane, right in front of the bus, not signaling, just darting from between rows of moving cars, hugely illegal. And at the same instant traffic swelled and slowed. With working brakes, it wouldn’t have…
“The Greatest of These,” by Kathie Giorgio
Faith wished she could pray, and then wondered if, by wishing, she was already praying. What was the difference between lighting birthday cake candles and lighting a votive in a church? With one, she closed her eyes and wished. With the other, she closed her eyes and prayed. Faith thought of all the years she tried to earn a wish by blowing out her birthday candles with one big gust, and all the Sundays she knelt in her space in the pew, she at the end, her parents at the aisle, and her siblings in between. They folded their hands in prayer. It was all about asking for something, Faith decided, and then believing she was going to get it. With one, she asked God; with the other, she asked the universe or the air…
Col. Jon D. Marsh — Poetry and Prose
“Pagan” THEY made this so. It was so even before the Others came. Too many moons ago to consider. Even before the Fathers of the Father’s Fathers, it was so. But that does not matter. Before the Others came They called Us Mana-Hoka. The Others called Us Machu Grande, and They were forced to use the Other’s words. The Others are gone now. They gave the Others to their Gods to appease them. Now We are Mana-Hoka once more. But that does not matter, either. At those times when They became of many, the Gods would often grow angry and send a curse of hunger or sickness, so They learned to appease the Gods, as They would on a night when a complete moon fills the jungle with soft light. Just as They had many…
“Stuckey’s,” by Michael Lloyd Gray
His father had warned him not to go out too far. “One step at a time, boy,” his father had said sternly. “No need to pop a gasket right off the bat.” It was mid-summer on Lake Argus, Illinois, where Billy Ray’s family summered. He nodded at his father but stole glances at the motorbike, a 60 cc Harley. He didn’t know they even made them that small, but that was okay since he’d just turned sixteen and really had nothing to compare it with, certainly not the family Plymouth station wagon. His old man had taken the bike in on trade and fixed the fuel line, brakes, and patched the leaky tires. With the throttle thrown wide open, it might hit forty-five mph, but to Billy Ray, it was downright supersonic. The motorbike was—freedom. …
“Mother,” Poetry by Bharti Bansal
Mother Sometimes I look at the regrets of my mother trailing along the corners of her eyes As she wonders about her place in the world too often There is no secret to motherhood, I suppose Just a constant feeling of doing it wrong My father consoles her, calls her beloved A sincere way of reminding her of their own vows Yet when she wakes up at night, feeling the clutches of past on her throat, she simply lets him sleep without saying a single word I believe it is when a relationship turns into partnership as time moves along the edges of their bodies, Sometimes becoming a game, as they team up together, shake hands, pat each other’s back, constantly reminding themselves about the love that blossomed years ago This is how I see…
“Monsters Like Us,” by Sarah Normandie
The New England mid-October air, sharp and crisp, presented itself in a way that said goodbye to summer while promising winter soon. Detective Thicket trudged his feet through the carpet of red and gold fallen leaves as he breathed in the wet, musty smell of the woods. He couldn’t help but notice that nothing had changed since the last time he was here. The trees stood the way they stood each day before, just some taller and stronger while others stood with lost branches from heavy winds or were dying from disease. The squirrels and the birds went about their business on this day, the same way other squirrels and birds went about their business in 1995. If only the forest could talk, he thought, the stories it would tell. Somewhere in Thicket’s mind he…
“Ode to the Wild Daffodil,” Poetry by Birch Saperstein
Ode to the Wild Daffodil After Ross Gay Come, rise, my friends! The season has shown her fertile belly, turned her deep skin, and now a new portion is facing the sun! Come, join me! Our time growing underground has come to an end, face the world with me! Open your faces to the bees and butterflies and hummingbirds and gnats and let them sing you everywhere! I know you’re scared, terrified to stick your stems out into the air, terrified of frost and collapse and wind and rabbits and I know there’s nothing I can do to change or quell that which you fear. But I know, no, I promise, that we’ll rise together, into a new season. ** Clippers My heart is a pair of hedge clippers wielded by a crow who simply…