by G. K. Nickless Where do dreams go to die? From my place at the dining room table overlooking the back yard, I can see tips of multiple, wet, warped and abandoned stakes protruding from the snow, scattered at intervals four feet wide by eight, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen feet…
by Raj Davis The clanging of bottles and glasses sound like the perfect symphony. Is there any better way to spend the evening than sipping on a Budweiser, crunching on cashews, while hearing the collective chatter of dozens of cops on a night after a long shift? Bill doubts there…
by Doris Ferleger Your bent elbow juts out. It is stiff and light and feels easily crushable against my hip as I walk around you. My body jerks away. I circle you at a distance of eighteen inches plus eighteen inches, the distance of each of our auras. Though maybe…
by Nancy Shobe Mom told me only twice in 53 years she loved me and wrote it to me only a handful of times. Born in Detroit but bred British, she had adopted the stiff-upper-lip approach of our “over the pond” ancestors. She masked emotions behind a stoic face. When…
by Elena Kaufman Iris Katz’s neighbor returned from six months in Florida to hear suspicious sounds coming through her adjoining wall—incessant scratching, barking, yelping—and the stench of something rotten. The women didn’t know each other except to say hello on the front walk. Mrs. Lowther told the men she was…
by Michael C. Keith You can’t stop being afraid just by pretending everything that scares you isn’t there. – Michael Marshall During the summer of my 11th year,…
by Teresa Burns Murphy As Tom Langston drove up the street where he lived in the suburban neighborhood of Kennerly, Arkansas known as Hawk Hills, he saw his recliner sitting on the curb in front of his house. He pulled his car into the driveway, jerked the gearshift into park,…
by Michael C. Keith If you were color blind, you’d be a better person. Robert Smith It seemed to me that we’d been standing on the blazing stretch of Route 1 south of Savannah half of my 12 years on the planet. “My legs are getting rubbery from being here…
by Kate McCorkle We are in the prescription drop-off line at CVS, which, after 6 p.m. on a weekday, is several people deep. My eight-year-old, Lizzie, has a severe ear infection. She is stoic and in extreme pain. The mean pharmacist is behind the counter. I once left the line…
by Michael C. Keith For some offenses, there is only retribution. – Dennis R. Miller Quinn Myer woke up in the middle of the night to relieve himself, but…