NICHOLAS J. CARTER ~ who has the right?

We were just children when we spotted the body floating far overhead in the clouds, only identifiable as such with the antique opera glasses mom had lent us, and which we’d promised to bring back five minutes from now, after we’d finished examining that dot in the sky.

“Is he dead?” my sister asked.

“Stands to reason. Nobody living can fly.”

It was then we noticed the string.

The wisp of cord was nearly impossible to see, even with the glasses. We lost our way a couple of times, but eventually found the ship’s anchor where it ended in a thick knot. In a grassy clearing, underneath a huge straw hat, a scrawny man sat reading a paperback novel in a wicker lawn chair. He was naked save for the hat, a pair of shorts, and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

"Good morning.” He beckoned and put down his book. “Come to see who was flying the body?”

Even from a few feet away he reeked of cigarette smoke. Those crooked yellow teeth in his smile like a picket fence gone horribly wrong. I asked him why he was flying a corpse. He explained it was full of helium and sewn up tight. I repeated my question: “why”, not “how”.

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. I finds em’ and I flys em,” the man said.

I was furious. I pulled the opera glasses from my back pocket and leapt on the man, beating his face over and over again. He cut my face with his fingernails but was too thin and scraggly to stop me. My sister screamed and ran away. In a few minutes the stranger stopped struggling. I think he was dead. The glasses were smashed too. I took a shard of the lens and cut the corpse free.

Who gave him the right to fly a dead man like a kite? Who the hell has the right to do anything so morbid, so bizarre?



Nicholas J. Carter will be graduating from college in December with a BA in English. Currently he occupies an apartment in Massachusetts with a very patient and understanding fiance and a large seven-legged spider that creeps around the bedroom ceiling. He wishes he was kidding about the spider.

JB MULLIGAN ~ a life at the store

Mark was born in the aisle between Sporting Goods and Seasonal. His mother shopped at the Store all the time, and although her water broke on her way in from the parking lot, there was a sale on canned vegetables she did not want to miss. She was on her way to the registers when Mark decided it was time to arrive, and she told her husband to ring them out and she and the baby would join them and go to the hospital. Only that didn’t happen.

The Store was delighted by the happy, good-publicity news, and film crews and radio crews and newspaper reporters took turns interviewing the mother and clucking at the infant, and diapers were supplied by the store. A day passed, and then a week, and she brought him to the doctor’s and right back to the store – first there was a sale on furniture, which they needed, then on frozen fish – and somehow she and her son wound up living at the store. Her husband commuted among work, the store, and home, where the new furniture remained shiny and unused, and he grew sick of Tilapia and, oh please, dear Lord, creamed corn.

The Store made much of their residency for the first six months, after which the story had been milked for all it could be... and when focus groups indicated that evicting mother and child would generate massive negative publicity, the matter was settled. They could leave when they wanted to – and Mark’s mother was not about to leave, not when there was A New Sale Every Day. Who could leave that?

Mark’s school life was normal, although he was forced to do his homework in different aisles at first. As he progressed through school, he finally set up a small den in the Book department, which made research easy, and where he was rarely disturbed. This generated another brief cluster of stories, as did his athletic prowess: the number of activities you could indulge in up and down the aisles was startling, and it was a great way to make new friends. In addition, being on sports teams was the most sensible way to take care of hygiene.

On occasion, Mark spent a night at one of his friend’s houses, but this become less frequent as he found it impossible to sleep in a quiet room with the lights out. His mother thought it was because he missed her, and that was part of it. But the dark. And the silence.

That he would wind up working at The Store was inevitable. Mark was on good terms with all the workers and managers. They considered him a lucky charm for the store, as well as somebody who knew, sometimes even more than they themselves did, what life was like there. Adults bent over him to complain and lament (as he grew, he had to bend down to listen to them), and he never thought of anything he could say that would make things better, so he said very little, which made him seem wise. Or he repeated The Store’s various mantras, which seemed, coming from him, newly minted and somehow far more valid than they seemed in store meetings or blurted unclearly over The Store’s loudspeakers.

Mark based his political views on headlines and gossip, but his knowledge of popular culture was vast. He was often called on to settle bets over movies or music, and rarely had to resort to researching the answer. Twice he was wrong, which he admitted readily – and this made him seem the wisest of all, except to management, which briefly considered having him committed.

For a while, it seemed that he would marry Ellen in Electronics. They laughed at the same comedies and cried at the same tragedies, and ate meals together, and took long walks through the parking lot, and everybody at The Store was very happy for them, but then she met a customer who was returning a stereo, and they argued so much about it that she ran away with him three weeks later. Mark said that he was very happy for her, and bought them a nice glass and tumbler set on sale. After that, though he talked to many women, he never dated. A lot of the women customers had crushes on him, but they were married, and were mostly a little too... oval for his taste. When Ellen came into the store, they would always say hello to each other, and he was glad that her three kids seemed to like him.

As he grew older, Mark often advised the younger workers that they should follow their dreams and never be afraid to think large. He was very effective. He had a knack for blending The Store’s philosophy with the latest pop culture notions. As for himself, he was very happy where he was, thank you. The last time he left the store was for his mother’s funeral, when he was forty. That was also the last time he saw his father; his parents had long since separated. They shook hands, and even hugged briefly, in her honor. When he returned to The Store, he returned the suit he had worn to the funeral – he had kept the receipt.

Of, course Mark made Store Manager, and he managed long and well, and when he was fifty-seven, Mark fell over while moving a pallet of lampshades, and was dead before he fit the floor of the aisle between Sporting Goods and Seasonal, ten linoleum squares from where he had been born. He was briefly celebrated in the media, and his workers missed him for a much longer period than they had ever missed any other dead coworker.


JBMulligan has had poems and stories in dozens of magazines, including recently, Blue Unicorn, Chiron Review, Argestes, Loch Raven Review, Doorknobs & Bodypaint and Aunt Chloe, and two chapbooks: The Stations of the Cross and THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS, and has appeared in the anthology Inside Out: A Gathering of Poets (http://www.geocities.com/anneyohn2003/index.htm)

GWENDOLYN JOYCE MINTZ ~ out in a snow

She agrees to meet him despite the weather. In the near-empty Whole Foods parking lot, she pulls her car up alongside his, though she sits a few minutes before joining him.

The children? He'd heard them playing in the background when he called.

Their father's home. Their father, her husband.

He shifts in the seat, promising not to keep her long, offering to follow her home afterwards.

She shakes her head. Reminds him that he wanted to say something. But before he speaks, she says, I didn't want this.

He ponders this: the snow, their meeting, a pregnancy?

He runs his hands along the curves of the steering wheel. He's brought her out in a snow; he needs to tell her why.

She leans forward, uses a gloved hand to wipe the inside glass clean.

Not the first time we've steamed up the windows, he says with a light chuckle.

Will probably be the last, she responds.

His hands drop from the wheel, one hitting the lever for the windshield wipers. He doesn't turn them off. He sits there, watching as they move across the glass, pushing the snow aside before it takes hold.



Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz is a fiction writer and poet. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, and her chapbook "Mother Love" was published by Unlikely 2.0 Press.

PHOEBE WILCOX ~ integrity

Dig your hands into the still-cold soil. Work it through your fingers. Don’t bother to put on your gardening gloves because for some reason years ago you impulsively bought gardening gloves that would have fit the Incredible Hunk and your hands are not the same size as his. So you’re going to get a lot of dirt under your fingernails.

What is this dirt exactly? It’s dirty. It’s a little gross, with worms in it. But it’s something’s food, underneath everything, it’s your food. Break it down: what is it? It’s soft, crumbly, dirty, gross, worm-filled, something’s food, your food; it’s chemicals. It’s such a complicated lot of chemicals and ph balances and biological/botanical interactions--when you garden it’s a big experiment right there lying all around your house, with you playing a new semi-educated guessing game every year, never getting it right, because you’re far too busy to get it right. But you know there’s not enough potassium in the soil because the leaves of those pink flowers by the drive are always a little purple at the edges. That much you know. And you know that you would like to sleep in a bed of dream-enhanced/airbrushed, Martha-Stewart-style roses. She brings in backhoes to dig the pits for her rose gardens.

When you dig a hole for your rose bed you’re digging into atoms and molecules and a universe of miraculous unseens. Your hand is a missile, your fork is a four-tongued monster. Beware little worms, beware. Why don’t the atoms break under your fork?
Why is your power so limited? Is your power limited? Could you cause a nuclear explosion with a fork or a trowel in your own backyard? Are you a nuclear holocaust to a worm? Do the molecules you knock about interact with the molecules of your skin in any way?

Do you dig to dig or do you dig to grow? You watch what grows and you dig it, that much you know.

And you’re pretty sure those Incredible Hulk gloves are no longer around but you’ll always remember them. They make you think of Your Impulsivity, that inner fork that claws repetitiously through dirt, that hand that scatters wishful seeds, those eyes
and tearful rain. So much of this is chemistry and you know nothing of chemistry other than that it is beautifully abstract and too mathematical for you.

How can anyone on this little patch of dirt know what will grow and what will wither? We all start at the beginning, where it’s barren, where it’s impossible to know.



Phoebe Wilcox lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Some of her favorite things are John Banville novels, sushi, salamanders (they have cute hands) and picking blueberries. Her novel, Angels Carry the Sun, is pending publication with Lilly Press, and an excerpt from a second novel-in-progress has been published in “Wild Violet.” Recent and forthcoming experiments may be found in “The Chaffey Review,” “Emprise” “Shoots and Vines,” “The Battered Suitcase,” “The Linnet’s Wings,” “Calliope Nerve,” “Bartleby-Snopes,” “The Black Boot” and others. Her story, “Carp with Water in Their Ears,” published in “River Poets Journal” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

BRENDAN O'BRIEN ~ typecast in this town

Their beer-colored El Dorado is longer than a summer sermon. In the backseat, the daughter scrapes cuticles with something pointy and made of metal. When she pushes too deep blood bubbles up. The black fingernail polish didn’t work. Neither did the piercing or the skirt hiked above thighs the color of catcher mitts.

Up front, the mother strokes a gigantic headdress. At the casino, she’ll down vodka and finger the sock-bulged crotches of wannabe cowboys. Before that, she’ll give the bartender a twenty and, in exchange, he’ll hand over a ticket stack thick as a brick. She'll give them to her daughter who, under humming neons, will scratch away grey with what remains of her nails. Behind the bar he’ll watch, teeth hanging like stalactites, dick dangling by the whiskey.

Tonight the daughter will touch by tracing veins. She’ll bite her tongue tip and open up legs. She’ll tease and wave a finger like a flare. In the bathroom, she’ll seek kindling in the form of paper towel and wadded toilet tissue. She’ll take the program out of her padded bra and rip it into a thousand pieces. The cast of this year’s Thanksgiving play will fall like firework ash.

Once back, the bartender will knot fingers in hair that runs like the rapids. The daughter’ll wrap endless legs and close tired eyes. Tonight she’ll be one of the girls from homeroom giving head like a hobby. This is the plan until the bartender whispers she makes a pretty Pocahontas. As the smoke begins to seep, eyes will water once again. Weary fingers will numb unsuspecting faces. Nearby, Indians will dance like God’s crazy and this is their audition.



Brendan O’Brien writes from Wisconsin. His favorite all-time baseball player is Paul Molitor. You can read more of his published work at http://brendanob.blogspot.com.

DAVID ERLEWINE ~ d-a-d-d-y

The father makes the face he always makes when they fight. “Enough,” he says, “it’s Saturday morning for f-u-c-k sake.”

The mother turns her back and begins washing dishes. “Okay, there you go with the cursing. A-s-s-h-o-l-e.”

Their boy sits at his little drawing table, not 15 feet away, gripping the marker’s bottom, concentrating on the robot he’s drawing.

The father stands at the kitchen island, looking at his hands. He considers sneaking up and flicking the back of her head. She’ll likely spray him with the faucet hose, and then claim “me too!” when he yells that he was joking. She tossed cold coffee at him and the wall last month after he called her a b-i-t-c-h. She refused to clean the wall; he had to run and get a hot washcloth before the paint was ruined.

He pictures himself years ago, waking up whenever he felt like it on Saturdays, watching movies in bed, jerking off to porn, going for all-day hikes. He feels like a cliché engaging in such thoughts, knowing it’s nothing more than the greener grass thing, knowing that when he was alone he was often bored out of his mind, that sometimes in the middle of a Saturday afternoon he’d run to Safeway because he couldn’t take himself anymore.

She is staring at him. “You done b-i-t-c-h-i-n-g?” The little smirk on her face says it can end right now. At this second he isn’t exactly sure what the "it" is. Oh yeah, he toasted her bread too long. When she complained, he told her to calm down. Things progressed from there.

He goes upstairs and gets dressed. He comes down and grabs his briefcase. “I’ll be back later.”

She’s sitting with the boy, drawing at his little table. She whispers something to the boy, who giggles without looking up. Then she waves at the father. “How original, you running away to work.”

The father stalks out to the car, mumbling “bitch.” In the garage, he throws his briefcase into the car and stands there. This will be the third time he’s driven to work on a weekend following a fight. The other two times he surfed the internet for a few hours and worked out before coming home.

He’s halfway to work when road construction slows him. He pictures her packing up bags and taking the boy to her mother’s house. The boy, so needy at five, will be bawling, saying “I want Daddy!” The father’s eyes burn so he keeps them closed.

He turns up the radio, forms a big smile, trying to feel powerful. It's not before another two miles that he's easing into the left lane and turning around.



David Erlewine's stories appear or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including Pank, Pedestal, Literal Latte, and Ghoti.

INDIRA CHANDRASEKHAR ~ electronic blue

The mobile phone rang as she descended into the pool. Sumana stood undecided, waist-deep in chill water. A mesh of cold ran up her back in capillary lines, gathering in a quivering, tangled knot below her second vertebra.

There was an ugly scraping sound, a plastic chair dragged on the unfinished-granite floor. It was the new security guard, repositioning himself. Yesterday, she tried to talk to him as he stood stiff and uncomfortable in his hand-me-down uniform and scruffy, too-large shoes. "What’s your name? Where are you from?"

His name was Ramlal, from a village in the remote interior. Where women apparently remained clothed at all times. Yesterday, as she’d left she’d said, "Why do you stand all the time, get a chair and sit down." Now the guard was moving his chair to better stare at her breasts from the corner of his eye. She plunged into the water to protect herself.

The phone rang again. Wrapping herself in a towel, she stepped out of the pool. Water dripped from her fingers as she answered. Would the liquid slip between the protuberant buttons and short-circuit the electronic blue glow within the instrument?

Maybe that’s what was happening to her - synaptic circuitry shorted by the careless flow of errant ions. She was generating her own blue cloud.

"Hello?" She took a breath. Nascent chlorine mingled with the rotten acidities of the city. She could hear a wedding tune in the next street, upbeat, rhythmic. A bus passed, changing gears over a film song blaring about love.

"Sumana, hello." The voice was sing-song, faux-sweet. It was going to ask something of her, something weighty and unpleasant.

She stepped into the sunshine. The guard put his hand in his pocket, fingers probing like thick caterpillars under the shiny black of the uniform. Sumana looked on with a pang of anxiety.

He pulled out a phone, white with a red border. She laughed in relief and raised her arms, directing the monologue from her receiver away from herself, into the air.

Suddenly she is floating, floating in blue, listening to Ramlal.

"Hello, it’s Ramlal."

His voice is high-pitched, projecting long distance to his village. Is he yearning for a bride he left behind?

"Tell Sita Devi, mother of my unborn child, I will come home in three months. She must be patient, the money is good.

"My duty is to guard the water tank. It is very blue. Only some are allowed to use it, it is like the high caste well in the village.

"No, the water is not for drinking.

"No, it is not a temple tank.

"It is for bathing. Men and women bathe in the blue water, yes women also."

Does Sita Devi know that you stare at other women’s breasts?

"Tell Sita Devi I have no woman here, women here have no shame. Tell Sita Devi to keep her head covered and care for my mother."

"Sumana!" An angry bark calls her to attention. She is falling; Ramlal’s words escape. Her receiver is at her ear.

"You can’t get out of it this time, Sumana. You have to think about it."

"I am not..."

"He’s coming to meet you. He’s a decent guy, from a good family. They are good people."

"I don’t want to ...."

"You can’t live in mourning for someone who walked away from you, Sumana. You must meet this guy. He’s a decent guy."

She tries to say, "I mourn but that’s not why I can’t meet this man," but the lines of definition are being drawn too fast. She must find a way out.

Sumana stands on the edge. She is light and strong. She plunges deep into cool, electronic blue.



Until recently, Indira Chandrasekhar, who has a PhD in Biophysics, was engaged in research on motion in biological membranes. Since returning to India after more than 15 years abroad, she has been writing fiction with an increasing focus on the short story. Her perceptions are heightened both by the experience of living in different places and by the precision of working and writing in science.

THERESA NEWBILL ~ el gallito (the rooster)

Simon, bajate de ese campanario antes de que mates a alguien!
(Simon, come down from that bell tower before you kill someone!)

~

Life was pretty easy in Cuba before the revolutionaries took over. Every afternoon Simon Del Valle, the local Roman Catholic Priest, would get drunk on communion wine and climb up the church bell tower with rifle in hand, taking pot shots at anything that moved, often revealing confessional secrets. And every afternoon Lucio, his brother, the local Babalawo, called out to him, avoiding the flying bullets, begging him to come down before he killed someone! Simon would continue shooting, ring the bell, and yell back that his brother was a demon sent by the devil himself to corrupt Simon's pure soul.

Grand Pap would sit in his rickety rocking chair outside Dad's store, El Gallito, a cup of espresso in hand, laughing and smoking his Cuban cigars. The smell of coffee and tobacco permeated the air. My father would stand by Grand Pap on slow days, which most were, to watch events unfold.

"He just called Sra. Adeliada a prostitute. Says she's sleeping with Jose Martinez," Grand Pap told Dad, smiling to expose gold teeth before taking another drag of his cigar.

Dad just stood there and smiled, keeping Grand Pap company before scolding Simon down from the bell tower. Simon listened to my father, when he hadn't exhaust himself to sleep up there. My dad was straight-laced, decent, and genuinely cared for each one of the town's people. We looked up to him, who was known to all as Luicito. Many would ask for monetary help and my father would happily comply. He once purchased a huge house in El Vedado for his childhood friend Miguel Angel. And he kept Mom in movie-star style. She frequented the biggest department stores, always requesting her purchases be delivered to the family home. The workers at El Encanto more than graciously accommodated her, for she was Luicito's wife.

Old Cuba at sunset brought with it pachangas at Auntie Sofia's house: conga and merengue rhythms, strung up chili peppers lighting the door frames, darkened rooms, cigars, cafe con leche, meat patties, Coca-Cola, deviled-ham-and-cream-cheese sandwiches, and even some gambling on the side. We had a wonderful time. Even Simon would dance at Auntie Sofia's.

Some evenings Lucio gave tarot-card and spiritual readings to American tourists. He would warn them about betrayal and gossip, often pretending the spirit of Elegua had entered his body. With each of his revelations, the blue-haired Americans would turn on one other. When the arguments got heated enough, Lucio would pretend to faint. The regulars then ushered the unsuspecting Americans out of the home, tons of their money in hand.

They say that a vulture of silence will eat away at your gut. When Grand Pap and Daddy came to the United States, Cuba was never again uttered in the new household. Auntie Sofia stayed behind, as did Miguel Angel, Lucio and Simon. We never saw them again. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I'm there. I'm at Daddy's store, watching Simon on his bell tower. I'm at Auntie Sofia's, dancing and eating, feeling oh-so safe and protected. I once asked Dad why he kept so silent about the past. "You're turning your back on reality," I said.

"You think I've turned my back on reality? It's the times that have changed, my Teresita, and we must look forward with clear conscience."

Times changed. The espresso has been Americanized, mellowed. Cuban cigars have been banned. And I want to remember.

I want to talk about it and remember, to write about it and remember, when Grand Pap and Dad were still alive in the country they loved and that loved them back.

Times changed, and I have a clear conscience.


View Theresa's Poetry: THE UNMENTIONABLE ONE


Theresa C. Newbill is a free spirit and former elementary school teacher turned writer. Her work has been widely published in print and online and she has received numerous awards for her writing.

KYLE HEMMINGS ~ heroes and villians

Tim had this thing about "closure." If anything was an inch out of whack, ajar or uncovered, he’d pace like a dog with a doggy bladder of urine. He also had this habit of repeating himself. Since the accident he was diagnosed with brain injury, TBI, but Doctor Metz had consoled Karen that he was making good progress. And so was the doctor. When he was on call and she was off work, he was doing her in a five star hotel with walnut-colored walls.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Tim anymore or any less. It was just a physical need, as she liked to think of it, that he couldn’t quite satisfy the way he once did. After sex, he’d poop out and repeat thank you, until she said, that's enough. He then asked her if she still loved him and he said he knew how hard this must be on her. The bills. The therapists' visits. Her apologies to her parents when he repeated himself until her father’s jaw slackened and her mother’s face turned a dusky shade of politeness. There were times when she felt that she was the villain and he was the clown. There were times when he broke down and cried for the both of them.

~

When Karen was very young, she played this game with her dad. She’d overturn a can of coffee, spilling the granules over the kitchen floor, and run upstairs to hide under his bed. After the game became a routine, he knew where to find her. Lying under his bed, her body taut as coiled wire, she’d count his footsteps up the stairs until he crouched down and lifted the bedspread.

“Peek-a-boo,” he said, “I found you.”

~

She agreed to meet Dr. Mertz at the Hayloft. He told her it was something important. She said she needed to cook dinner for Tim because he liked his steak medium rare, not beefy brown or juicy red. Dr. Mertz said to tell Tim to cook for himself.

"What’s over?" she asked, placing some tough pieces of clams in her napkin and folding it.

"Us. My wife is getting suspicious. After all, I love her."

Dr. Mertz signaled for a check.

"Fine," she said. "All good things come to an end."

Dr. Mertz’ tiny eyes flared.

"Fine? Is that all?"

Karen rose, knocked over the chair, then returned it to its proper place.

~

She returned home, slipped into a nightgown and crept under the bed, her husband’s snores providing some kind of homing device. Soon after, she heard a rustle and Tim jumped from the bed. He must have noticed her coat.

"Honey," he called out, "you home?"

She tapped three times on the floor, and after hearing her favorite ceramic piece fall to the floor, she tapped again.

He lifted the bedspread.

"What are you doing there?" he said.

"I‘m sorry," she said, and she said it again.



Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey where he constantly dreams of the surf of California.

SUE BABCOCK ~ the good daughter

My mother frowns at the ceiling. Her thin white hair splays on the pillow. I wonder what the old woman thinks about, or if she even thinks at all.

“My knee hurts,” she says. “It’s cold in here. How’s the kids? Have you heard from your sister?”

For three years, my mother has asked the same questions, repeating them as if she forgets she has spoken as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“Mom, let’s get you up. I’ll wheel you outside.”

The old woman turns her head slightly and stares at me with her empty eyes.

“I just came in Shirley. I’m tired.”

“No, Mom, you haven’t been outside for days.” I clench my mouth shut.

~

She sits in the hot sun, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“The nurses said I could go home. Can you take me to my apartment now?”

“You haven’t lived in an apartment for almost twenty years,” I say. “You lived with your brother for fifteen.”

“No I didn’t. My furniture and my dishes are at my apartment. I want to go home.”

“Mom, this is your home now.” I can’t argue with her. I wheel her back inside as she insists she needs to go home.

~

Her dementia worsens every day. I feel shackled, imprisoned, and do not understand why she still lives.

Maybe she waits for her other daughter to visit. But Pauline has not visited Mom once in three years. She taught bible class when Mom was moved. She visited a beauty salon when the nursing staff called and told her Mom needed panties. I moved Mom, and I bought her panties, and everything else she needs.

~

A week later, I again enter Mom’s room. Her frown deepens as she turns her head toward me.

“Hi, um, Pauline?” she says.

“No, I’m Shirley.” My head throbs.

“You’re Pauline. I know my own daughter.”

I sit in a chair and take deep breaths. She gazes at me. I rub my face and rest my elbows on my knees. I bury my head in my hands.

“Let’s go outside,” I say.

“Oh Pauline, I’d love to. I can show you my new tulips. I planted them right outside my apartment window.”

“I’m Shirley,” I say, my voice a whisper.

The bed creaks as she sits up and shifts her weight. A crash and a thud startle me; I jerk my head up. Mom lies on the floor. Her wheelchair has scooted across the room. Blood oozes from her head where it struck her overbed table. She gasps, moans, and is still. A cry emerges from my throat.

I kneel beside the old woman, stroking her white hair and holding her hand, until her skin grows cold. Her face relaxes, and a brief glow appears and disappears from her eyes. I’m left staring into cold, flat spheres. My heart beats, I draw in a breath and my body comes to life.


Sue spent years in graduate school while raising two daughters with her husband. She was an engineer: researching, constructing, supervising, writing reports. Now retired, she delights in writing short stories and occasionally manages to get published. She's an editor at SilverBlade.net and with 2M Magazine.