by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey *This story contains sensitive content.* As twenty-five-year-old Nancy Godfrey headed into her first pregnancy’s twenty-three-week embryonic scan, she was giddy with excitement while apprehensive about the procedure. The ten-week ultrasound image looked like a Jelly-Belly candy. Her husband Patrick had nicknamed it Jelly-Baby. This scan though,…
by Karly Tomasi My dream that night was darker than black, something more vast and fluid. As I swam through the dark, a tinge of restless sleep curdled my vision of inky smoothness, but I couldn’t wake the sleeping raven beside me, so I simply ignored the discomfort. I let…
by Jennifer Harris I exited the vehicle, and strolled across Publix parking lot, as the radio announcer said, “Speaking of a date, it’s May month, and that means two things, Floridians, hot and hotter!” The #21 bus stopped at the shed nearby and two elderly people slowly got off. A…
by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey I look at the devastation that is my hotel room floor. I am tired and groggy. The Salat al-fajr dawn muazzin woke me, and I tossed and turned until it was real morning. I am still in-between time zones; not here long enough to be local…
by David Sapp On occasion this distant memory surfaces at curious moments. I’m unsure why. However random and peculiar, I suppose the event, over fifty years ago, had some significance for my young mind. One night when I was six or seven, in my pajamas after my bath but before…
by David Sapp Jim and I certainly weren’t colleagues. He finished a pharmacy degree, and I was an art school dropout – and couldn’t afford Kenyon. I drove a twenty-year-old Ford. He had a flashy new sportscar. He counted pills. I stocked shelves. He said, “That’s a pretty big word…
by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey It is springtime here on Grace Island. Still gray and dreary, but the temperatures are warming and we had three days in a row with a break from the constant Pacific Northwest drizzle. The air smells different, crisp and fresh, and buds are coming up on…
by Andrea Roylance A cold lake filled with wilted leaves, ash, and broken branches from a toxic tree sits at the edge of my consciousness. The lake’s waters are as still as death. Although the surface mirrors a pretty scene, the depths are murky with ghosts of the past, and…
by Moriah Canida The window in my room is special. Not as in a stained glass or creative design kind of way, but a truly magical way. The things I see through it don’t always make sense, but the scenes are always vivid and clear, as if it’s really happening….
by Ann Boaden It always began in brightness. He was home again, and a boy, and he and Amanda were in Narrow Lane, behind the house. The sea singing a long way off, like a sea in a shell. Mandy’s hand in his. Just the two of them, the beautiful…