By Barbara Irvin A sea of stars sparkled against the velvety black sky, lighting up the city of Macon for miles around. Seventeen-year-old Martha Matthews decided that she had never seen a night so clear or pristine. She breathed in the invigorating, warm air, enjoying the fragrance of cherry blossoms…
By Hannah Canon Quiet. One word that summed up Amy Holmes’ life quite well these days. It was quiet when she went to bed at night, and it was quiet when she woke up in the morning. She rode quietly in her car on her way to work every morning,…
By Tommy Vollman I met Joe Nuxhall a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday. His hands were gnarled, and he spoke as though his mouth was half full of marbles, but he was sharp and funny as hell. I was only a few months younger than he was when he…
By Patricia Smith Daylight arrived like a long-overdue visitor. Chris had been awake for hours, listening to the sound of her husband Michael’s steady breathing. Before the day ended, she would become a part of history. Mother Nature, seeming to understand the importance of this day, responded with a brilliant array…
By Donna Broom Father Louis Demarco was surprised to see a little girl in the third pew. It was 4:15 pm; his turn to say 5 o’clock mass at St. Gabriel’s church. The adjoining Catholic school dismissed at 2:10, so it was unusual to see a lone child in the…
By Todd Howard Two weeks ago, on Friday, Frankie’s ma made pasta e fagioli. Well, she calls it Pasta Fazool. Frankie told me that’s a Southern Italy Brooklyn thing. It’s soup with white kidney beans, pasta, greens, and some other stuff—like lots of garlic. Anyway, Frankie’s mom is the best…
By Leonard Henry Scott His head was twice the size of a normal head and his eyes starred out at two widely separated points in space, as if they were the eyes of a fish or of two completely different people. The right one was lower on his face than…
By Kale Meyer These days I find myself thinking back to the summer just before my dad left for good. I guess the old memories make the house seem less empty than it is. I try to fill my head with the pleasant ones. Of me running through the hallways…
By Deborah Foster In a private care facility in the mountains, there resided one who seemed to everyone to be off her rocker, but all is not what it seems. She was a diminutive lady who always wore her snowy white hair in a bun on top of her head….
By James Cato I met the Tooth Fairy at a bar-club called Revolution. I sat alone with an IPA, letting the bitterness pinch my cheeks and heeding the cartoonish scene of three college kids dancing to a pulsing beat on an otherwise empty floor. In the opposite corner, a floating…