Tag Archives: human condition

OLENA ZHELDAK: The secrets of a comfortable life in the turbulent times

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Natural calamities, mass shootings, shelling, blackouts, forced relocation, alien invasion, and Mars colonization are easier to bear if they meet a predetermined schedule. With all your devices fully charged, alarms on, bug-out bag packed, cats fed, and all-inclusive timelines printed, there is plenty of time to enjoy yourself. As scheduled.

Olena Zheldak was born on November 13, 1981, in Ukraine. After February 24, 2022, having personally survived Russia’s full-scale invasion, she wrote and self-published an autobiographical wartime narrative, “From Irpin with L̶o̶v̶e̶ Pain,” and collaborated with the British author Paul White by writing a lead story for his new edition of “Life in the War Zone.” In 2025, her essay, “Life Interrupted. Resumed. Ended.” was published in the 195 Essays Project by 2084.

SARAH RUDSTON: The Flowers

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

A woman at the park told me it was her husband’s birthday. She was visiting his bench. “You should take these,” she said, giving me the roses she held. “They die anyway,” she said, by way of explanation. They sat on my desk for months. I couldn’t throw them away.

Sarah Rudston is a data engineer and writer based in the UK.

MADELEINE McDONALD: In Remembrance

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

When you lost your heart, I lost a friend. Someone I trusted never to change.

You parade your bitterness in late night bars.

Yet remember the time we visited London? I carry my books now in the souvenir tote bag I bought there, my invisible tribute to a friendship destroyed.

Madeleine McDonald wrote this story.

GARY: Memory

Artistic, Submissions, ,

Every time I come home I check on the dark stain in my bedroom, just to make sure it’s still there. It grows and shrinks, but thankfully never completely disappears. When guests come over, I cover it with old photographs I took off the wall when I first moved in.

Gary is an earnest man who tries his best.

MIKE KEYSER: Moments of Impact

Submissions, , ,

Driving home, work remains my passenger.
Time slows, and sound hollows. Glass floats before my eyes. What’s happening?
Another car striking mine.
Goodbye, my gentle daughter… another cup of tea, please.
Goodbye, my playful son… one more game of catch.
Thank you, my loving wife; this morning’s kiss still lingers.

Mike explores the fluidity between what was, what is, and what might be through speculative fiction.

KEN GOSSE: The Ebb of Saving Daylight’s Time

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

If I had power to save that hour
I wouldn’t be time’s slave.
Each hour is lost and time’s the cost
I’ll pay to reach my grave.

The hours accost and each has bossed
my sinews, heart, and soul
and each I’ve crossed left me time-tossed
within life’s salad bowl.

Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.

TRACY ROYCE: October Thirty-First

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Tomorrow morning, the spiderwebs will sag. I’ll clasp my trash-grabber, snapping up candy wrappers, empty sugar-shrouds nestled among fallen leaves. But tonight, the wind whistles through the trees and rattles the fence’s loose picket. My candy bowl is half full, and as another specter floats over my porch, I believe.

Tracy Royce’s work appears in 101 Words, Blink-Ink, The Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and elsewhere.

HAWKELSON RAINIER: Never Talk to Loons

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Joe shuffles to water’s edge to see the sunset. He’s retired, widowed, nearly broke.

A pastel sky bleeds away into twilight, into grayscale, into an impossible inkiness.

He’s alone, except for the loons who call out from the terrible void. Joe suddenly understands what they’re saying but doesn’t dare answer.

Hawkelson Rainier lives in the American Midwest. He dabbles in prose and poetry from time to time.

RITA RIEBEL MITCHELL: Cartwheeling Mama

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

Drippy red wax stained the white carpet where the lava lamp leaked after it tumbled off the table and cracked open when Sandy kicked it while demonstrating for her ten-year-old daughter the one-handed cartwheels she performed at high school football games before she got pregnant and had to quit cheerleading.

Rita Riebel Mitchell writes in the Pinelands of South Jersey where she lives amongst the trees with her husband. Her work appears in HAD, Flash Fiction Magazine, Versification, and more. Find her at ritariebelmitchell.com/friday-micro.

DAVID A LEE: Heartbeat from the Plains

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Red dust clung to his moccasins as the bus groaned east. Behind him, mesas hummed; wind drummed songs through cedar bones. In white hospital halls, he stitched wounds gently, his people’s breath guiding each thread. Pine Ridge pulsed within him, steady, sorrowed, sacred, a heartbeat he would never unlearn.

David A. Lee was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is a physician and poet whose work bridges medicine and memory. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in In Parentheses, The Shore, and Rattle. He trained at the Mayo Clinic and lives in Texas.