The story of the week for August 17 to 21 is…
Anti-Racism Haiku by Dan Brook
ELIZA MIMSKI: Ava Goes back to School
The school reopened. Ava approached her first grade classroom in her iron suit, double pair of blue hospital gloves, face shield that extended to her waist and multi-layered mask that curved around her small face.
Her mother said Ava was lucky. In many states, students were required to stay home.
Eliza Mimski wrote this story.
C ATTLEYA: Hiding
This is what she hated most. Breaks.
Tea breaks, lunch breaks, unfamiliar faces, groups of chatting strangers, noise everywhere.
While she tried to hide in plain sight, she wondered how they did it. The others.
Was it too soon to go to the loo, again?
She wished she was invisible.
C. Attleya lives in the beautiful garden of England. Her love for reading and writing is eclipsed only by her aversion of gatherings of noisy strangers.
ROSALEEN LYNCH: Paper Cranes
The paper cranes are folded from receipts for doctors, buses and climate magazines, from my five year old’s drawings of our family, prescriptions for her meds, sweet wrappers and cigarette packets, and hang now to be counted, over her hospital bed, one more for every day since she didn’t die.
Rosaleen Lynch, an Irish community worker and writer in the East End of London, pursues stories whether conversational, literary or performed and believes in the power of words to make the world a better place.
BEN MIMMACK: Look to the Future, Not the Past
Everyone else is a newcomer. He lived here before they built the road. Before the road gave rise to the houses. Before the houses necessitated the church and the pub. But now they need a school and an old tree can’t be allowed to stand in the way of progress.
Ben lives in Dallas where he is viewed with tolerant amusement by his wife and two small boys. He has just started writing micro fiction and hopes to get better at it.
STEPHEN PISANI: Kid Hits a Homer
The crack of bat on ball rings in Danny’s ears. He sprints toward first base but doesn’t watch the ball soar over the fence. His teammates yell; evidence enough for him.
As he rounds third base, he glances at the space in the bleachers where his father used to sit.
Stephen Pisani is an MFA candidate in fiction at Adelphi University. He spends his spare time working at a golf course, where he watches people chase a little ball around a big patch of grass.
MANTZ YORKE: South Pole, 25 December
Icequake from the asteroid hit on Japan. The sky blotted out by dust; snow blackened; crevasses impassable. Communications dead for the past six months.
We celebrate Christmas: dinner is protein biscuits crumbled in water and our remaining brandy. The brandy warms us; later, the cold will numb us to sleep.
Mantz Yorke is a former science teacher and researcher living in Manchester, England. His poems and prose have appeared in print magazines, anthologies, and e-magazines in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Israel, Canada, the US, Australia, and Hong Kong. His poetry collection Voyager is published by Dempsey & Windle.
EILEEN MARDRES: No
Stopping was easy. Stay at home, clean the closets, read a book. But the weeks and months run on, and staying home has become the new normal. It is more difficult to restart. When? How? Where? And when everyone stopped calling to say, “Are you ok?”, that’s when I wasn’t.
Eileen was intending to write her way through retirement; that has been supplanted by the need to write her way through the pandemic to once again reach retirement.
DAN BROOK: Anti-Racism Haiku
there’s no art in hate
and no joy in ignorance
no racist haiku
we have to uproot
racism, sexism, &
homophobia
stand up to fascists
resisting all racisms
whenever they rear
sweet, gentle being
cops killed him nevertheless
Elijah McClain
racism is wrong
we must have racial justice
to thrive together
Dan Brook teaches in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University.
MONICA PEREZ NEVAREZ: Minimalism, Unwillingly
You are my past, and Oh, how I cherish you.
The artwork, the books; the fine furniture saturated with memories.
You showcase five decades of my successes.
But once I could not pay, none of that mattered.
The storage company will auction you off, breaking my retirement heart,
without regard.
Monica Perez Nevarez is a sustainability consultant during the day and a writer by night, bearing witness to Covid’s ever-expanding collateral damage.