They hadn’t touched her daughter, the crowd outside. They had wept at her in holy resignation and punched fists of beads at the air, hostile with certainty, but Bec had drawn herself wider and taller, a linen sailcloth harnessing the crackle of hostile air, propelling them forwards to the safety of the car.
Continue reading “Loving You by Simon Ashton”
When things became worse, I brought my mother to our abandoned-since-Dad-died beach house for the summer. A sabbatical and a newly west coasted daughter freed me to lug Mom like a bag of silent, bewildered groceries into the passenger’s seat of my car. We sped along the highway from the city to the coast, chasing the rickety car of Mom’s memory, lumbering just ahead. I savored the hopeful sensation of control and the encroaching smell of sulfury sea air.
Continue reading “Things You Shouldn’t Say to Your Mother with Dementia by Maggie Nerz Iribarne”
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Shig Sagimoto appears to me in one short image, a slim, fedora hatted old fellow on a bicycle coasting down Carlin Hill, both hands on the handlebars. As I observe him, he raises one arm upright into the blue sky of summer, then holds down the top of his hat, and for a few slight seconds, raises high his other hand, and balances as his bike wheels fly downhill through the hot afternoon air. Then, he sees I’m watching. Both hands press back to the handlebars, and he moves his head down as he pedals into the Tappen Esso parking lot.
Continue reading “The Bicycle Man of Carlin Hill by Harrison Kim”
Underwater light flickers and dapples the sea floor, glowing through seaweed drifting in the current. Miles of sand undulate into shadow. The goggles bite hard into Colin’s cheekbones and behind his ears, but they do not leak. Colin swims deeper, releasing bubbles as he descends.
His chest tightens but the sand is close now. He stretches his fingers out.
Continue reading “Hold Your Breath by Sarah Macallister”
Q never swerved to avoid a beast on the road – dead or alive. He would drive through it with an iron fist, as if fur and soft tissue were nothing. A mental illustration of focus, a kind of road karate like the art of board breaking. Always direct your power beyond the wood stack. A fox, a kangaroo – he had a bull bar and was not squeamish about death – an emu once near Broken Hill, had snapped a rabbit’s neck.
Continue reading “Swerve by Tamara Barrett”
When my head hurts, the shiny brass kettledrums play late into the night.
At first, I tried not sleeping. One day without sleep left me feeling a little unsteady; after two days I was getting stupid. By the third day it got bad—“all of the above” as they say on multiple-choice tests with little black dots that have to stay in the circles and hurt my eyes—plus, I felt like my head was filled with Rice Krispies. After that it just felt like my brain was deep-fried.
Continue reading “Seizure Fugue by Max Klement”
Three mummers scurried down Halstead Lane. They huddled together, a mass of grey and brown rags, buckets hanging off their elbows and pockets bulging with brushes and cloths. Somewhere in the folds of their shapeless rags, each one had a tin cup half-filled with their earnings of the night. They moved with little stubborn stomps, their buckets and coins clinking with every step, determined to keep their footing on the ice-slicked pavement.
Frequent visitors will remember Freshta our brave author from Afghanistan. We are pleased to present another piece from her series ‘Black Oranges‘
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I was more gloomy than ever. As my steps drew closer to the house, the warmth slapped on my face, a slap exactly like the one of the man whose beard is black and white, like our TV and like my shoes and like me and my black and white life. At the same time that his fingers imprinted, my broken pride mixed with happiness and shame as a five-finger image on my cheek, I was a light year away from happiness. I absorbed the grief, or no, the grief was absorbing me. What does it matter, whether I absorb it or it absorbs me, I was the loser and that’s it. Grief followed me all over Mustofiat to Sufi Abad, as if I had killed its lover, or was in debt to it. It was following me, I could feel it struggling until suddenly, with its own permission and not mine, grief left my eyes, turned on my cheeks, rolled itself over my cheeks, lower and lower, so my mouth became salty and life became colorless as death. Through the capillaries to my heart it spread like a corona deep into my being. Grief made me cough so much that tears reached my nose and started pouring out my eyes like Niagara Falls. I didn’t want grief to be spectacular, and for this I raised my head.
Continue reading “Why by Freshta Azimi Ayeh”
Jennifer finished the last slice of defrosted quiche she’d bought from the freezer shop on Monday. She switched off the gas fire. In the kitchen she rinsed off the plate under the tap, pastry crumbs, and slotted it on the drying rack. She put on her coat, shoes, unlocked the back door, stepped outside, locked it, and walked the five minutes to the bus stop nearest her house.
Continue reading “The Circle Route by Paul Kimm”
