by Adeline Macdonald Clean steam iron the linen sheets, white and crisp and beautiful and without fault or fold White walls upon white walls with nothing to upset you or hurt you or make you cry or want to leave or want to think Do you love it? Is it…
by DS Maolalai doing my aunt a favour; pulling wildflowers from her prize-winning beds. I’m careful – when I can I save the stem and some root, piling them on the pavement and pushing the dirt down around her petunias. my aunt’s front garden is filled with red flowers, like…
by Amy Covel My heart is composed of tiny pieces. Throughout my life, I gave them away, one by one, some to those I wish I could take back who abused and destroyed that part of me. Other parts of me were given in love, never to be given back…
by Fabrizia Faustinella One of my attending physicians, during residency, made sure that every patient who had a birthday while in the hospital would be celebrated. He would step inside the room, followed by students, residents, and nurses and present the patient with a card, a cupcake with candle, and…
by Savannah Todd Our faces are wet with tears as we stand together on the beach, staring up at the yellow balloons. We must look crazy, standing here on the damp sand, huddled together to fight the cold rolling across the empty coastline, our fingers clutched around the bright colored…
by Elizabeth Hanson While some might lament the demise of the English language at technology’s hand, others celebrate how it has thrown open the window to communications at scale, scattering trillions of missives across the earthly airwaves every day. Our thoughts and emotions distilled into a hip shorthand of abbreviated…
by Amy Covel Err0r Err0rCan’t und0. Err0r Err0r Must red0. Err0r Err0r Can’t F0rget Err0r Err0r Must reset
by Emily Marcason-Tolmie Their suitcases were stacked like puzzle pieces in the far reaches of the car. Bridget and her younger sister, Lucy, sat in the back seat with their heads slightly touching. Lucy flipped through one of her mother’s fashion magazines circling all the dresses she thought were pretty…
By: Adir E. Golan Maery MacTauthenach followed the fading footprints that stained the snow crimson. With each step the snow revealed a deeper, darker imprint. Bleeding. Maery padded faster. Whoever was injured had to be close, the dulled prints had changed from boots to narrow stretches of furrows. Crunching snow…
by Linda Bragg LATE DECEMBER 1972 The sour smell of lung cancer clings to the humid air – heavy, unyielding. My family lives in Florida, and like most homes, ours has no air-conditioning. My father’s been sick for two years — now he’s coughing up blood and breathing has…
by Jessica Purdy With our husbands, we climb the mine’s walls, to a ledge where moss beds dressed with red flowers cloak the blooming mica, thin glassy sheaves of black and silver, delicate petals, stiff as metal. Our ascent leaves trails of pulverized rock. Mica dust spirited on the air…