The last time we stayed at Popo’s house, I was five years old, still in the cradle of memory when truth and story become mixed up in an inseparable mosaic. It’s hard to say what I remember and what has been spun to me as a family tale, more real than my own hazy recollection. Maybe if I had been older I would have more to tell. Or maybe it would be all the more clear how much of Popo’s life had slipped through the cracks of my young, distracted mind.
Continue reading “Fisheye by Jade Lacy”
It’s like sitting in a cozy lamplit living room. A couch. A loveseat. Two cushioned chairs facing a mounted screen. Instead of a coffee table, though, a desk stands in the center, and instead of our favorite sitcom, we scroll through an electronic contract.
Funeral Agreement with Authorization to Prepare a Decedent for Burial
Continue reading “The Cost of Dying by Kayla Cain”
Today we celebrate Bella. Our beautiful, breathtaking, beloved, buried Bella. Our connection was less affection than ancestry, the sort of intimacy that shared blood makes inevitable.
Born less than two months apart, we were always together. Twins they called us, until our features grew too distinguishable to sustain the lie. I was small and sturdy, my skin the deep tan that made Nai Nai click her tongue and mutter about rice pickers and fieldwork. Bella possessed that particular alchemy of mixed blood: jade eyes set in porcelain skin, her father’s Scandinavian height stretched over her mother’s delicate Chinese bones, creating something that demanded worship.
Continue reading “Riptide by Manoela Torres”
I don’t know why she says what she says but I know she’s crazy and that’s why she keeps a locked chain across the refrigerator door. I pick the lock, same trick every morning. Grab butter. Eggs. Spinach. Tomatoes. Whip up the ingredients. Fry the oozing mess in a pan. Slap the omelet on a plastic plate. The kind of dish that won’t shatter when Mother slams it against the kitchen floor, when her blurred eyes widen at the biting rats that make her panic and scream and clamp down tighter to save the pieces of her scattered life.
Continue reading “Once Bitten by Renee Coloman”
No one grows up wanting to build coffins. When she was little, Veralai wanted to be a mage, or as she said as a toddler “make life sparkle.” She was the daughter of a woodcarver, who sometimes helped the local undertaker carve his coffins. When her father’s hands started to quiver, Veralai took his place. Even though it was unintended, Vera fell in love with death. Over time, she became the Coffin Maker of Cortana, renowned for using her crystal ball to peer into the memories of the deceased and create their perfect coffin.
Continue reading “The Coffin Maker of Cortana by Kate O’Sullivan”
Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to the tags on the bottom of the page
Small towns are quiet places at night, especially the town of Hush. That’s what made it the ideal place for eight-year-old Sammy Keen to live in. The skinny boy with piercing dark eyes, a towering forehead, and large, floppy ears looked forward to bedtime every night, unlike his friends at school, who cherished the day and its fun activities under the bright sun. Changing into his pajamas, he’d jump into bed and turn off the lights. A smile would form on his face as he gazed at the open window and began to listen to the sounds outside, for Sammy was a gifted child with a wholly unique talent and the intelligence to utilize it.
Continue reading “Night Sounds by Tom Koperwas”
Weekends are for my brother. I try to see him on Saturdays, but sometimes it’s Sunday. He doesn’t know one day from the next, so I don’t guess it matters. They limit his time with the other patients. I wish they wouldn’t. Even if he doesn’t talk, he might like listening.
Continue reading “It Happened on Wednesday by Foster Trecost”
When Drea’s mother called to ask if she could take her to see Jerry, Drea clenched her fists without realizing it and dropped the phone.
“What happened?” Drea’s mother asked.
“Nothing,” Drea said loudly as she squatted to pick up the phone. She sat down hard on the floor and tried to breathe slowly, in for four and out for six, as her therapist had suggested she do when triggered.
Continue reading “Seeing Jerry by Susan R. Weinstein”
“Five in a row.” Kenny Langston sits on the front porch with his wife. “A couple were even threes.” The couple continue watching as their 10-year-old daughter, Alex, banks one in off the goal Kenny mounted to the garage.
Continue reading “Deadheads by David Henson”
Neither Mr. Dunner nor I knew which now-gone relative carefully placed the photographs in the chimneys. Had it not been for Mr. Dunner’s care, we wouldn’t have known the photographs existed. All that I know for sure is that Old Da, my grandmother, took up each newly discovered photograph and studied the emergence of her former self (portrayed in various instants), but there was more to it than that. I’ve come to believe that all the while she was either healing or dying, and I expect we were both waiting for some coda of presentiment.
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Continue reading “Most of the Things He Remembered Took Place Long Before He was Born * by J Bradley Minnick”
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