My mom died yesterday. No bull, well maybe a tiny bull, by the time you read this it may have been last week, last month, or last year, but I’m pretty sure she will still be dead. I am not astonished. I am not mollified. I am not even a tad bit sad. By contrast, my German Shepherd died four months ago, and I had to be medicated. Our relationship was not a good one, the one with my mom, not the dog. I loved my dog.
Continue reading “My Mom Died Yesterday by Zora Foote”
“I won’t talk about the past anymore,” she said. “I’m only talking about what will happen from now on. I’m using this pain to make something wonderful.”
He held her hand, like he had so many times. Her masculine hands. Creative hands for making wonderful things. Like her saddest smile.
Continue reading “Doll Parts by Ximena Escobar”
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”
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”
After about seven months of being alone, Beth began to see the ghost of her son. Or so she thought. The audience knew better, but she didn’t.
The experiment had always been designed for Beth. It’s not everyday that a colleague’s child dies mysteriously, creating a rare opportunity for “Science.” She, of course, didn’t know this. She believed she had volunteered and won the opportunity fair and square. The opportunity? To stay in isolation for one year in a submarine on the ocean floor to test the viability of long-term survival in similar crafts. That’s how it was sold to her by the scientists, anyway.
Continue reading “What You See Is What You Get by Scott C. Thompson”
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” the priest recited – as he did every Sunday – but today wasn’t Sunday.
Continue reading “Always by Karen Uttien”
A man who is middle aged wakes up in a room . . . a middle-aged man wakes in an unfamiliar place where he has lived for the past 30 years, except that’s not right. A man awakens in a house where he has lived since getting married. His wife is deceased, his daughter leaves for college this afternoon (or tomorrow). I’m not sure which . . . but she leaves soon enough and I’ve waited a long time to tell this tale.
Continue reading ” 11:11 by Charles Sutphin”
Anna sat quietly watching through the two-way window as the patrons marvelled at her paintings in the gallery below.
Everyone stopped at Vienna. The piece she kept in the old wooden chest with her sentimental collection.
Continue reading “Vienna by Karen Uttien”
I’m in our living room and the sun is hitting the couch in your spot just how you liked it. I always wanted to close the curtains so it wouldn’t fade the fabric, but today I leave them open, like you would’ve wanted. I suppose I’m daydreaming again because I swear I hear your voice. But when I turn to look at you, your spot is still empty.
Continue reading “Cinema by Evelyn Voelter”
‘What’s he doing out there?’ Jill says, as the tall figure of their father passes by the window.
‘Who cares?’
‘No, seriously Brendan, can you come have a look? He’s being weird again.’
‘He’s always being weird. Just ignore him.’ Brendan’s playing Fortnite. His eyes don’t leave the screen.
Jill gets up and goes to the window, sticking her face near to the frame so she can get a better angle. ‘See, see, he keeps walking around the house, looking under it from time to time.’
Continue reading “The Chicken by James Hannan”
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