Tag Archives: understanding

LYNN MESSING: The Grocery Store Outing — Two Perspectives

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Mother’s thoughts: Why must you melt down every time we come to the grocery store? I hate autism.

Son’s thoughts on experiencing sensory overload: Lights on, off, on, off, on off. Noise. People move. Many people. Stuff. Bright colors. Too much! Eyes hurt. Ears hurt. Head hurts. No. NO. NO!!!

Lynn Messing is the mother of a young man with autism. At some point in his youth she came to realize the reason he hated grocery store outings was that he felt his senses were being assaulted by the flickering fluorescent lights, the bright colours, movements, noises and scents. She then tried to make all grocery store runs when the stores were relatively empty and to make them as quick as possible. She submitted this story this month in honor of World Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day which takes place on April 2nd.

GABE BONNEY: Wartime Mind

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

I want to climb behind his eyes. To crawl on my belly over enemy lines and see the shelling for myself.
Noetic civil war—red rain of spitfire sky; ground assaults below.
What chance does love have in his wartime mind?

Wait.

It’s…
a flag unfurling, bleached, bloody.

He surrenders.

Gabe has been writing and editing for 30 years, from her home base in Sydney, Australia. She doesn’t plan on being replaced by AI any time soon.

CELINE LOW: Woman by the Window

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

He knelt, burying
his face in her waist,
the knowledge
of how many times he’d die
for her

choking
so he
could only say

you have no idea.

Held fast, she
(looking out the misted glass
at the crabapple trees with their pink heads
thinning)
echoed

you have no idea.

Celine Low lives in Singapore, a tiny country in Southeast Asia with a hodgepodge of cultures. She holds an MA in English Literature and loves to dance and take long walks. Her works have appeared in Blood Moon Rising Magazine and 9Tales From Elsewhere.

BC NANCE: Silence Encourages the Tormentors

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

He supported the marches, rallies, and protests from the safety of his armchair, nodding his assent.

When a friend said “those people,” he realized silence was dangerous.

He waded into the next parade, amid the colorful throng, his two-word sign held high. Many agreed that they, too, were “Hopelessly Human.”

B. C. Nance is a writer who still can’t give up his day job. The title is part of a quotation by Elie Wiesel 1928-2016. Hopelessly Human is a song by Kansas.