Contributor: Katherine J Parker - - Dead. Dead, but perfect. Amelia didn’t recognize the face inside the ice, that's how long it had been. She'd only been two or three when he had taken off, the red and white aircraft carrying him away. She remembered that, the aircraft. She had a wooden model that was identical until her brother had lost it. That's the only way she remembered it; as a toy. The pieces of the real thing were still encased in the polar ice, she imagined, as perfectly preserved as her father. Everyone assumed that it had crashed, anyway. Why else would all communications have gone silent within 24 hours of the team's departure? Amelia imagined the brightly colored tail of the plane sticking out of the ice somewhere, a silent grave marker for as many as 20 men and women. A beacon in whitewashed desolation. This body...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Katherine J Parker

Contributor: Donal Mahoney - - For 35 years, Mike Fitzgibbons had never missed a day driving off at 4 a.m. to buy the newspaper at his local convenience store. Snow, sleet, hail or rain couldn't stop him. There was only one paper being published in St. Louis at the time but Mike was addicted to newspapers. He had spent his early years reading four papers a day in Chicago--two in the morning and two in the evening. He worked for one of them and enjoyed every minute of it. However, an opportunity to earn more money as an editor for a defense contractor required his large family's relocation to St. Louis. Mike needed more money to feed a wife and seven children. "Words are words," Mike said at the time. "Being paid more money to arrange words for someone else seems like the right thing to do." Writing and editing were the two things...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: H. C. Turk - - During all my time traveling by roadway, I've encountered or feared difficulty in controlling vehicles that never belong to me, for I am a person incapable of such ownership. This journey seems no different, but when last have I failed to arrive? We have trouble coming in. The front brake, I think, begins dragging. I really have to struggle with the wheel to keep from driving off the road, right into the gutter. But we make it to the parking lot and the members register. Me, I'm just the driver. Despite the off season, the swimming pool is crowded, because a cult has hired it. Not directly: they leased the auditorium for a day to go swimming. But swimming is never simple with cults. For them, a dunking includes existential cleansing or eternal revelation or drowning infidels. Here, the purpose includes...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: H. C. Turk

Contributor: Karen Lindsey - - To begin with, her sister was older, and beautiful. It was natural that everyone loved her best, and that grandma had given her a golden charm bracelet when she turned 12. Natural too that grandma would give the younger girl in her turn a silver charm bracelet. She never minded that. She loved the silver bracelet, and it was as uniquely hers, the charms tailored to her life and its events. They were, of course, less interesting events than those of her sister, but they were hers. Her sister was a cheerleader, and dated the captain of the football team and other important boys at school. She herself dated less frequently, and of course only boys who, like herself, were pretty boring. Her mother had warned her about going all the way, because, mama said, boys will leave you as soon as they get what they...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Karen Lindsey

Contributor: J. Douglass - - “He’s not gonna come.” “He is! Just be patient!” I point to the car. “You’re sure that’s his?” Joanne nods. “It has his work stuff in the back.” Her husband is a contractor, so he carries all sorts of maps and measuring tapes and stuff in the back seat. How many people kept a shovel in their car? There was no doubt this was Dario’s. She looks at her lap and plays with her wedding band. They had only been married three years. They didn’t have much money, so they didn’t have a house or any kids. Their families were in foreign countries, so it was just the two of them. Trying to make it work. My family had them over for holidays when I was deployed. No one should have to spend Christmas or Easter alone. I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Joanne, it’s gonna be okay. Maybe he’s not cheating. Maybe he’s working...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: J. Douglass

Contributor: Jheri Brown - - Tick… tick… My jaw clenches, the clock counting the seconds since I’ve seen him… or counting down to the holidays; whichever way you choose to look at it. I used to love clocks, now I despise their existence. I hate time all together. I hate what it’s done to me, what it’s taken from me and how it’s destroyed me. Another beat forces its way into my bones, shaking me to the very core. The music’s too loud and I’m starting to hate that, too. Everyone around me is dancing, drinking, relaxing and having a good time, but I can’t. I refuse. All I can do is stare at the car sitting in the drive. It’s a 60-ish something-or-other and while I used to enjoy watching him labor over it, I hate the fucker now. Plain and simple. “Nina?” It’s Daniel, a mutual friend of ours. He’s tall, ruggedly handsome and annoying....

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1 comment

Author: Jheri Brown

Contributor: H. C. Turk - - "Working down below is a pain in the wreck," my father complains. "Even though I watch my favorite show there." We go there to see. His place of employment is a valley, where we arrive in time to eat lunch. Deep but not long, the valley runs north and south; I like the direction: we arrive from the east. Brown grass, crisp but not cutting, snaps beneath our shoes. I did not plan to walk barefoot regardless. The furnishings for lunch are long picnic tables of good, thick wood, grey from age, a likable maturity. Dad is in fine spirits, despite his initial complaints, even after we seat ourselves at a table that proves so rickety I get seasick. This is not the pain he mentioned. Dad bends to point out the loose nail holes. Let me guess who's been hired to repair them. That acute bending does hurt a person...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: H. C. Turk

Contributor: Donal Mahoney - - Opal Ruff, at the age of 83, had been sitting in the same corner of the red vinyl couch in the tiny lobby of the New Morse Hotel almost every day for the last three years. Her eldest son, Herman, a bachelor in his sixties, had brought her to the hotel shortly after her husband, Noah, had died of a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1969. "I don't want to go there," Mrs. Ruff protested at the time, but Herman had responsibilities of his own and insisted that she pack up and move into the hotel. The New Morse was more of a warehouse for the aged than a hotel. It was not the kind of place Mrs. Ruff would have selected for herself had she been able to get around without a walker. Old folks signed in and many of them never signed out. Funeral home attendants would carry them out. Relatives of the deceased would...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Bruce Costello - - Alice the writer, in green jeans, with wet and wild eyes, lurching, bottle in hand, onto the footpath, into the night, muttering, muttering... "It seems I was not your destination. I was words that heard... I met a man who walked on paths untrodden before. How did he get there? How did he find the way? How can it be... that he does not love me...anymore? I was hands that healed... Listen, can’t you hear me, silently, in every part of you that I have touched? I was lips that loved... Can’t you taste my open mouth, moist eyes, my love that soothed your long held fears? I was a heart that cared... How dear you were, a delight of joy, light and laughter, a feeling that overwhelmed me and was me, the I that was me with you, a warm bath on a cold day, a cool drink when the tongue is hot and dry. I was eyes...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Reese Scott - - There was an execution scheduled for today. The day when an execution took place was a joy for everyone. Not just for the execution. But for what it did for the day. Work was closed, food was free, alcohol was allowed to be drunk, everything was open. Laws no longer existed. There was talk about why these executions took place. Some believed it was to make the people to forget their lives. Others believed it went deeper. That it was used to keep people from seeing the slow change from watching TV to being the TV. But like Bruno said, “You feed a dog. The dog eats. What else is there to know?” Bruno was executed last week. It wasn’t a good turn out. I still had a good time. I drank twice as much. Which is allowed if you are friends with the executed. I walked around town to see where everyone was. Hoping...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Reese Scott

Contributor: Jeanelle Nicole Driver - - The latches on the box gleamed dull in the light, brassy and stained. He undid the clasp, sucked in a breath, and lifted the lid. The faded paper stacked in the box was the key to so many painful memories, a love just beginning to bloom, and lost too soon. James hid it all away, but in his twilight years his soul longed for closure. Footsteps crossed the dust-strewn floor, and a small hand touched his shoulder. “Grandpa, are you all right?” Iris asked. James tucked the box under his arm, got to his feet with a groan, and faced the concerned eyes of his granddaughter. “I’m fine, Sweetie,” he said. “I just came up here to find something.” He smiled when Iris slipped her hand in his and led him back down the narrow attic stairs. “Daddy says you’re distant, so I told him I would get you,” she...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Jeanelle Nicole Driver

Contributor: Donal Mahoney - - "Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead!" is all that Cootie Murphy would ever say when he sat on the last stool at the end of the bar in The Stag & Doe Inn. He wouldn’t say it very often, only when provoked by someone or stirred by thoughts known only to him. Mostly he would simply sit at the bar in silence, staring straight ahead, tapping his fingers now and then, and sipping his Guinness. Cootie had held the rights to the last stool for more than 50 years, ever since he returned from Korea in 1953 after two years spent in conflict. Some people thought he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, although they didn’t call it that back then. Others thought he was nuts before he went to Korea and had simply come back a little nuttier. Both sides would find their opinions confirmed on nights...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: H. C. Turk - - We view my father's masterpiece hanging in the school museum. The medium is egg on canvas, not egg tempera. No one knows how he did it. He's retired, so he won't say. And I won't describe the imagery, which is only what you see. The same as any great art, the content consists of expressed ideas. Hmm, now we're thinking. My closest friend, F1 (another educator), only has to look a moment before the condemnation. "G did the same thing." G could be my love, if the expression could be found in my lexicon. "It can't be the same. This is unique." "So 'same' means plagiarism." Since this is an opening, G arrives. I haven't been seeing her. The three of us chat. I know exactly how I feel about G, but can't express the idea. If you could only see it.... She admires the painting. I admire her skin: it's so smooth,...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: H. C. Turk

Contributor: John Laneri - - Dominique Episode - 4 Years ago, whenever I traveled to Italy on business, I generally found that coffee bars ranked high on my list of afternoon pleasures. It was an easy way to sit back, relax and watch the locals hurry past. Thinking back, that's probably why I failed to notice her sitting at another table until the moment our eyes met. Hers were brown with a hint of gold sparkling in the sunlight. Certain that I'd seen the eyes before, I looked again, my curiosity getting the best of me. When she noticed me watching, she smiled pleasantly then looked away and reach for her coffee. Intrigued, I continued to watch her, noting that like many women in Florence, she was dressed to perfection, wearing stylish heels and a fashionable outfit highlighted by a simple gold necklace. Moments later, I caught...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: John Laneri

Contributor: John Laneri - - Dominique Episode - 3 Whenever I travel overseas on business, I try to avoid Paris. While I thoroughly enjoy the city, being there always reminds me of Dominique. We met initially at a party in New York and quickly began an intense relationship, or better said, a series of relationships that always ended just as our hearts were beginning to unite. Several weeks ago, I had to be in Paris on business, so I stayed at the Ritz. At the time, I wondered if I'd ever see her again. It's not often that two people fall in love and feel as if they had known each other since the beginning of time. Shortly after arrival that first day, while waiting for a taxi at the hotel, someone hurrying along the sidewalk accidentally bumped me. “Excusez-moi, m'sieur.” Turning about and much to my surprise, I again came face...

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: John Laneri