She was a timid child, quieted amid the storm of her parents’ discord, hiding her talents so that she could stay under the radar.
Reading was her escape. She latched onto the fairy tales instead of the biographies and spent a lonely life waiting to be rescued.
No one came.
Arlene Chaplin is an artist and writer who is braving yet another New England winter.
I find excuses to hit the store daily. Draw constant lists.
Michelina’s TV dinners. Lays chips. Lots of six-packs.
I meander from aisle to aisle, relishing the movement of bodies around me. Absorbing scents of cigarettes, fleeting perfume. Smiles.
It beats bare walls and boxes stacked like a cold fortress.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
The story of the week for February 28 to March 4 is…
A Writer’s Monotonous Search for Meaning by Bob Thurber
and
After the Flood by August van Stralen
The morning of 9/11.
My son was beginning month four on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Tuft’s Medical. Leukemia.
On the windowsill in his isolation room I watched the Boston streets empty. A sense of fear and foreboding permeated the walls of my sadness and diminishing hope.
All unimaginable.
Kathleen Flanagan is a recently retired pediatric nursing instructor at UMass Dartmouth. Her son battled leukemia for three-and-a-half years and died on November 19 2001 in Boston. Tuft’s Medical was their home for his last six months, and the care he received was incredible.
The rain came, then the floods. We did our steps and squats lugging water from the basement. Bicep curls pouring pots of boiled water into glass jars. Stores and shops closed, we ate beans and rice and drank tea in the afternoon. Watching the darkening skies, we waited for more.
August van Stralen lives in BC with her wife and cat Gordo, who’s favourite activity is to get out of bed early in the morning and howl for attention from the living room. When she’s not writing, August enjoys crochet, woodworking, and long walks with her wife.
Jared is happy about his promotion. This mood might last all night, all week, long enough to protect me from his anger.
Scotty deserved the promotion. I shouldn’t have sent those photos to his boss. But people don’t always get what they deserve and now I’m safe—for a while.
Finnian Burnett teaches undergrad literature and creative writing from British Columbia, Canada.
The moon is a good friend
on these sleepless nights.
She tells me stories
and mocks the stars
__________(she knows what makes
__________me laugh).
She says that we are
from the same light,
that we exist together,
that all of light is a reflection,
and that we all reflect light.
Jack Galati is a writer living in Arizona. His fiction and poetry has appeared in a number of journals and magazines including Fauxmoir, Pinky Thinker Press, and Beaver Magazine.
Startled by a sudden movement, I looked over to see the cat peering at me through the patio door. It wasn’t his first visit.
Unlatching the door I took what was offered in my hands.
As he left, I retrieved the box, placing the gift gently inside with the others.
Ruth Mannino is trying her hand at a cryptic theme.
When the girl turned into the deserted alley, his sadistic heart thrummed with anticipation. She was beautiful and innocent. Perfect for the taking.
Or so he thought.
She leapt on him like a feral animal, all teeth and claws. Humans are always so clueless, she thought. Perfect for the taking.
G.R. LeBlanc is a Canadian haiku poet and fiction writer who has always been fascinated by the otherworldly and unexplained. Learn more about her at sleekbio.com/grleblanc.
“You’ve already told me that,” you say again.
I don’t remember telling you. It must be the chemo. Chemo brain. Or could you be mistaken? It must be me. I’ve never felt right since the surgery. Have I told you that? I don’t dare ask.
I will just stay silent.
Victoria Brun is a writer and project manager at a cancer research laboratory. When not bugging hardworking scientists about budget reports and service agreements, she is writing about people who do not exist. Her other short fiction includes pieces at Daily Science Fiction, The Lorelei Signal, and Uncharted Magazine.