by Joni Bour It was a horrible, sideways rain day, seen only on the Oregon coast. I remember that day, because I remember him. He was quaking like an aspen tree, dripping, trying unsuccessfully not to fling water everywhere. He just stood there, not quite making eye contact and barely…
by A.E. Escence I have nothing, at least nothing that matters much anymore. The scene replays over and over in my head; taunting me, inviting me to let it in, to feel it. I sit at his bedside, staring at the unmade bed. The pillow is thrown against the wall,…
by Linda Cue There are no azalea bushes or cool breezes moving beneath the warmth of the sun. My windows are opened and my door is unlocked. Does anyone know? It’s summer all year long now, and the sun burns even while sitting beneath trees. Is it too late? Even,…
by Amaree Semrau It was yellow. “How about lemon-pie?” “I prefer butter-biscuit.” “Isn’t that a bit… dull?” Barry huffed. “If I have to live with it everyday, I’d rather it not be shouting at me every time I go in the room.” “But it should be cheery, Babe,” Martha whined….
by Gil Hoy Sometimes in today’s America The rights of rioting white supremacists trump the rights of black football players kneeling Peacefully, holding hands. And for some particularly wealthy Tweet bosses, The earth is not Warming, forget the ship-wrecked Mexican American and there is no community of man. The earth’s squirrels …
By Michele A. Cunningham Machion never had an adventurous bone in her body. Not one. Somehow turning 40 triggered her need to be more adventurous. “What are you doing Machion,” she stated as she waited in the train terminal. Her summer was supposed to be filled with her working on…
by Jami Miller I was nearly twenty-one at that time. Andy and I had been dating for almost a year and a half. We had moved into a trailer about six months earlier. It had two bedrooms; one the size of a closet, and the other just big enough for…
by Nitin Dangwal The curtain hid me from the first light of the day as the dawn broke and lifted the dark veil off the face of the earth. I was lying on the bed, half-asleep since last one hour, wasted from the last night party. I could still feel…
By Kathleen Zabinski Something off kilter made him look back at the pile of rotting leaves beside the tracks. He wasn’t ever sure what it had been, but he remembered the hair on his neck rising, as his dinner rose, when he first made sense of what he was seeing….
by Julia M. Washington My people have been farmers since before they came to the states. Mama’s side cultivated grapes, raised cows and produced dairy. Daddy’s side grew food. Farming in some ways was in our blood. When Mama and Daddy married, they moved to California and left farm life…