The story of the week for October 28 to November 1 is…
Habeus Corpus Ipso Facto by Bob Thurber
All posts by Tim
EILEEN MARDRES: Grandma, how did you get from there to here?
By taking a long, winding pathway, eyes and heart open to the world and wonderous diversity of humankind and the beauty of nature. By traveling through a lifetime of adventure accompanied by loving family. Being loyal, being kind, taking risks, and embracing opportunity. Finding joy in life, parenthood, and you.
One of Eileen’s grandsons asked this question. It’s taken a year to find the answer.
JAHNAVI GOGOI: Warrior
The father cut the umbilical cord even as the lights flickered. The newborn looked determined to survive. There was some perfunctory crying, but she calmed down as soon as she latched on to her mother’s breast.
“I will keep you safe,” her mother whispered.
Outside, the bombs had devoured everything.
Jahnavi Gogoi’s poetry has been published in Indian Review, Coffee and Conversations, RIC journal, Café Haiku, Presence, Five Fleas, Haiku Girl Summer, tsuri-doro, Enchanted Garden Haiku journal, Zen Peacemakers, Fresh Out: An Arts and Poetry Collective, The Daily Verse by The Wise Owl, Haiku Corner by The Japan Society, Shadow Pond Journal, The Leaf Journal, haikuNetra among others. She lives in a quaint town in Ontario, Canada with her family and occasionally tries her hand at fiction and essays.
CHRISTIAN JACKSON: Waterlogged Lament
Waves lapped against the cathedral doors. Inside, hymnody rose high above in-between tear-stained cheeks and upturned palms. As the song ended they quietly turned to listen at the doors. The only sounds were those of fading gurgles and lament. Finally, they no longer needed songs to drown out the beggars.
Christian Jackson is an aspiring writer, amateur theologian, and multidisciplinary artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His writing has been accepted for future printing in a local Milwaukee publication. Jackson and his wife love to paint, read, write, and spend time exploring all the midwest and beyond have to offer.
KAREN LOZINSKI: Days After the Hurricane
Sticky skin and equally tacky attitudes marked day five without power. After some convivial lubrication on the porch, they reconnected. They tumbled indoors and unwittingly created their first child.
The retelling of her origin story always irked her. She became a lighting designer who kept candles aflame in every room.
Karen Lozinski hails from NYC and lives in New Orleans. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who earned her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. At work on a novel and poetry collection, her writing appears in Talon Review, Scapegoat Review, Red Ogre Review, The Dead Mule, Chapter House Journal, ellipsis… literature and art, The Citron Review, 300 Days of Sun and is forthcoming in Mantis and Defunkt.
JENNIFER BUSCH: A Breathtaking Conviction
A brilliantly chaotic demonstration executed fearlessly. Goodness, how inspirational! Just. Keep. Learning. My natural openness pleads quietly – research! Shocking, that ululation, vibration within, xennial yearning… zealotry? A brave cry, demanding exploration, fieldwork… glorious, heady innovation!
Jangling keys… lumbering, malicious noise? Outside? Portentous. Quick! Running steps. Threatening – unadulterated violence… with xylophones?!
Jennifer Busch had fun writing this.
ROBIN LaVOIE: Night Visitor
“Apologize to your little sister,” our mother scolded. But Luke insisted he didn’t tug the back of my nightgown in the dark, didn’t cause my house-waking scream—and when I thought of those blazing white eyes floating above me when I’d rolled over, I knew my brother was not lying.
Robin LaVoie writes at It’s Like This. She lives in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband and son, and still won’t sleep with her back to the door.
BENNETT BOWMAN: In the Woods
Damp dirt, a canopy of trees blanketing the ground in cool shade. Ferns, sprouting from the earth, clumping around misty redwoods, silent.
A fairy circle, a clear patch of earth. Something small wanders around. It flutters and flocks, swaying under the shade, brushing along the forest floor.
Fairies live here.
Bennett Bowman is a student at a small highschool in California. He’s definitely going to be famous someday.
SANDRA JAMES: Last Laugh
Diet #304: day one. I emerge at dawn hoping no one will see me jiggling and wobbling in my tracksuit. Overhead a kookaburra begins his song, laughter echoing years of torment. I pause. Go back and feed my pain with buttery toast? No, this time I’ll have the last laugh.
Sandra James writes from a rural property in Central Victoria, Australia. Her first collection of short fiction, My Muse Wears a Purple Collar, is available on Kindle.
BOB THURBER: Habeas Corpus Ipso Facto
When the town-sheriff reported my mother dead, my grandfather disagreed.
Where’s her body, he said. Show me a body.
I drove us downtown. Our visit to the morgue silenced the old man.
That’s not her, he said on the ride home. There’s a resemblance, but I know my own daughter.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.