Category Archives: Touching

VERNAE COFFEE: An Answer

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Finally, the call came, after six months of mystery liquid
dripping from her nose–
a cerebral fluid leak originating from a hole at the base of her brain.

The enemy had been unmasked after not one, not two, but three lab samples.

No time for fear; she prepared for battle.

Vernae is a wife, mother, and grandmother who is getting off the sidelines and into the art of writing for better or for worse. Vernae is currently completing three books of poetry that reflect the joys, challenges, and hope throughout the human experience.

SOMA DATTA: Lost Art of Love

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

I found a mildewed stack of love poems in the attic, looking centuries old. The snatches of looping script I could read brought the stars and moon tumbling down on my head.

We’ve lost more in the poetic art of writing love than we can ever reproduce with our thumbs.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing program, Soma is reinvigorating her poetry and flash fiction muscles after over two decades of writing stories for businesses and brands. She intends to tell her story as a first generation Indian woman growing up between Western and Eastern cultures.

GARY THOMSON: Butterfly

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The zebra butterfly clung to the glass pane. His black and white wings drew the attentive fingers of the little boy on the window seat inside. Could he cradle this wonder in his hand?

The butterfly clapped his wings and lifted away. He carried with him all the toddler’s joy.

Gary Thomson lives in Ontario, where in his quiet moments he blows Beatles tunes on his Hohner harmonica.

ANDRÉE GENDRON: Loitering

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Ever since the accident, there are hardly any dinner plates in the dishwasher. Mostly coffee mugs and teaspoons. Our dinette is covered in unopened mail: fundraisers, magazine subscriptions, and mail-order catalogs, all addressed to you.

I envy the cat patiently loitering in windows. She still believes you are coming back.

Andrée Gendron wrote this story. See more at andreedianegendron.com.

AZARIN SADEGH: The Malady of Abandon

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The old man’s smell in her palm
Memory spread the pang of last lovemaking
Dark rain pecked the windows; dark sun shone; the coffee mug held her hands
New Yorkers’ podcast still on; it kept rewinding
Yet she couldn’t stay in this repetition of life
When they were both evaporating.

Azarin Sadegh, a 2011 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow, a LARB contributor, and a former student of the late Les Plesko, is working on a new novel.

BOB THURBER: Grand Theft

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Eventually the man who’d been our son-in-law remarried.

Regrettably his new wife didn’t want us in her life.

She connived and ultimately influenced her husband to keep our grandchildren from us.

Despite this extreme cruelty and betrayal, grandma remains no less “grand.”

Defined by her enduring love, she waits patiently.

Bob Thurber is the author of “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel” and two collections of stories. A celebrated master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in 60 anthologies, received dozens of awards, and been used in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts where, though legally blind, he continues to write every day. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.

ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: 10,000 Steps

Submissions, Touching, , ,

With pride in his stride, Anthony marched the entire parade route, thankful for the supportive cheers and hugs.

He checked his watch; his parents’ curfew was firm and Anthony had a bus to catch. He donned a sweater over his rainbow t-shirt and waited for the bus, headed to Closetville.

Roberta Beach Jacobson is a humorist from Iowa / USA. She writes tanshi (short poetry), greeting cards, and flash fiction. See more at RobertaJacobson.com.

ADRIAN L COOK: 1000 Yards

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , , ,

Gravel bit through Joel’s paper-thin soles. Sweaty tears blurred the image of the child he held and the imposing wall 1000 yards ahead.

A cage or a bullet: odds weighed.

Joel put his father’s rosary upon his only living kin. “Recuérdame, hijo mío; y reza.”

They walked. A thousand yards.

Dr. Adrian L. Cook is a humanities professor at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, TX. He is also a semi-pro musician, specializing in the electric washboard. He lives with his wife—children’s book author Cristee Cook—their two kiddos, their pancake-colored dog, and lots and lots of books.

JO WITHERS: Early Days

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, ,

Grief is sneaky,
Grief hides.

It is bedside arguments,
Squabbles over small things,
Tussles over funeral hymns,
Who visited most? stayed longest?

Grief simmers,
Bubbles beneath,
Constantly ignited until the pan boils dry.

Grief encapsulates,
Fills the room like oxygen,
Compressing every surface.

Grief devours,
It does not let go.

Jo Withers writes poetry, flash and shorts from her home in South Australia. Recent work has appeared in Molotov Cocktail, Reflex Fiction, Spelk and Ellipsis Zine.

HUNTER LOWELL DAVIS: Seasons

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Pop always let me help lay out the sod. Mom would sit on the porch, sipping a lemonade and heckling him for letting the lawn die again.

It wasn’t until I saw you, tiny hands gently patting down the green corners, that I realized the lawn hadn’t mattered a bit.

Hunter is a rising junior at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, majoring in Math and Comparative Literature.