Posted in Touching

GAIL WARBER: Register

I recognized her immediately. Same eyes, but sadder; same hair, but grayer.

She’d dominated my yearbooks: cheerleader, homecoming queen, class favorite.

As she rang up my groceries, I suddenly wondered which was more unfortunate… Those who peaked in high school, or those of us who wasted our lives envying them.

Gail Warber is the winner of several writing contests including E.K.U.’s creative non-fiction competition. She lives in Appalachia with her four frisky corgis and three frisky grandchildren.

JENNIFER L FREED: Fourteen

I thought,
when my daughter finally left
my womb,
that I’d be free
again,
could go back
to my old self.

Nobody told me
my breasts would ache
for her hunger,
or that her heat, her scent,
her fierce little grip
would hold me
even after I’d given her away.

Jennifer L. Freed likes inventing characters but doesn’t have enough time to write. The narrator of this story did not exist until a prompt (“Write something on the theme of independence”) brought her to life.

PRIYA BALASUBRAMANIAN: A Dream of Childhood

I am standing on wet ground outside my childhood home, under mid-morning tropical sun. The air smells of earth and newly banished rain. Adults speak indoors; their everyday worries are abstract, distant.

I wake up to a snowy Chicago morning, work on a weekend, and infant needing to be fed.

Priya Balasubramanian is a writer and physician. She’s written a novel, and no longer wakes up to snow.

CANDACE KUBINEC: Hurricane

Mother Moon placed her howling baby into the calm water, a bath to sooth the tantrum.

Baby kicked with rage. The water rose up. Toy cities, filled with people, were buffeted about.

Small cars floated as roads became rivers, until the child wore itself out, falling asleep amid the ruins.

Candace Kubinec wrote this story with thoughts for Texas.

Editor: To support recovery from Hurricane Harvey, please consider donating through the Red Cross or another organization.

BOB THURBER: The Cat Lady

Mom locked grandma up after the landlord found stacks of newspapers, books and miscellaneous junk, floor to ceiling in every room. Diagnosis: Hoarder disorder.

But in truth, she was a Cat Herder, a proud breeder of kittens, and those walls were the pens, corrals and stalls of Grandma’s Kitten Ranch.

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.