Tag: loss

All Stories, General Fiction

Dirty Summer by Jennifer Maloney

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She comes every June to set us free. Zooms into our neat little neighborhood, somehow boiling a cloud of dust from Grandma’s swept asphalt, brakes squealing like a stunt driver. Grandma’s jaw works but she forces the corners of her mouth up, tries to smile a welcome. The car fishtails in, parks crooked as a middle finger. A brown foot, naked, toenails the color of a freshly skinned knee, heels open the driver’s door and a cardboard cup in a long-fingered hand appears. Immediately upends. A brown waterfall of liquid and half-melted ice splatters the driveway, and as it rivers down to the street I hear it: that wonderful voice. Yuck, flat, Aunt Glory announces, and summer begins.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Doll Parts by Ximena Escobar

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“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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Things You Shouldn’t Say to Your Mother with Dementia by Maggie Nerz Iribarne

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“I’ve just told you that.”

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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Circle Route by Paul Kimm

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Joe Harrington’s Wake by JD Clapp

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Darla pulled into the alley behind the bar and parked under the streetlight. Before she undid her seatbelt she sat in silence for a moment. She adjusted her rearview mirror and looked at her bloodshot eyes, the rims rubbed red from blotting tears. Over the two weeks since Joe Harrington dropped dead, Darla struggled as much with the prospect of her own future as much as her loss. The same thoughts ran over and over thumping her mind like a shoe in a dryer. I’m 64, I have no retirement savings, no real family. I need to keep working but my knees hurt all the time. How long can I keep this up? Her tiny self-chosen family had just lost their most stable member; she had lost her best friend and former lover. She took a make-up bag from her purse and went to work on her eyes.

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All Stories, General Fiction

What You See Is What You Get by Scott C. Thompson

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Also Henry by Tom Sheehan

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Jim Hedgerow was the boss of Riverbank Cemetery’s burial crew, and this morning he was scratching to make sure he had enough help to “open up” a few places for “quick deposit.” At 7:30 the sun had jumped overhead, birds had their choirs in practice, and he had seen hard evidence of overnight guests in among the trees and full foliage at the edge of the cemetery along Fiske Brook.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Scans by Edward Lee

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Contains references some readers may find distressing, please refer to the tabs at the bottom of the page.

In the library I see a woman photocopying ultrasound scans. At first, I am sure not sure what she is doing, though I can clearly see her take the scan out of a purple folder and place it on the screen of the photocopier, before closing it and moving across to the screen to input her instructions.  It is obvious that she is photocopying the scan – after my eyes recognise the black and white image, they then pass over the slight swell of her stomach, the glance more instinct than choice – and yet, it takes a few seconds for the obviousness of it to make sense in my thoughts; there is also a suggestion that I am not thinking of them correctly, that ‘ultrasound scans’ is not the correct terminology, but as to what it might be I do not know right at that moment, and this misnaming is, I believe, contributing to the delay of the realisation.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Courage Anniversary by Amita Basu

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I stroll down the promenade and onto the bridge. This one is closed to automobiles.

Between its dead-gray embankments, the river glows noon-gold. I’ve seen the river at its source: young, leaping motion-mad. Here, near its mouth, matured into inertia, the river drifts.  Over the river, past me this balmy June Sunday, people jog, stroll, power-walk, and bicycle. Dog-walkers discipline the curiosity out of their dogs with smart little leash tugs. Old couples, combining constitutionals with treat-shopping, have finally found all the time in the world.

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