Featured

An Aria in Peru ?by Christopher Niemeyer Some people make trips to other countries only to immerse themselves in the? ordinary things they like to do back home.? There was that American retiree from Cuernavaca, a city full of American retirees. On vacation in Peru, she was now staying at their hotel.?? She told them…

Over and Out by Julie Morgan King Simon parked the scooter and jogged up the stairs. He felt as light as a cloud. The audition had gone well. He?d taken the routine advice he?d dished out to truckloads of muddled patients over the years: breathe slowly, listen and focus. ? The gospels songs were sweetly…

It was my friend Usha who introduced me to the new arrival in our locality. The astrologer was old, looked wise and he wore a saffron robe. He sat on a charpoy under a banyan tree, sheaves of paper stacked under his folded legs. A well fed green parrot cackled inside a rusted cage. Women of different shapes and sizes, huddled together close to him on a coir mat battling the summer heat.

My father, Oliver, is busy unloading all our belongings from our myriad luggage. He?s as robotic as the Automatons he crafted to help us with the move. At least they make beeping noises when they need re-charging. Then again, he had always been a silent man. But you?d think him a zombie since the passing of his wife, my mother Eleanor

At the end of the shift, he pushed a crumpled nondescript envelope containing three twenty dollar bills into my palm, but I left feeling empty-handed; he told me I didn?t get the job.

I pause on the fifth step, pursued by no one. And nothing to see, except a painting on the wall of a man wearing my floral nightgown, Colt 45 in hand, a glossy finish. A lousy painting, nothing but an exact reproduction of the last photograph I took of him. Is there nothing left for the imagination anymore? You project a photo slide onto a canvas, then you just fill it in with paint. But it?s so lifelike I have an instant?s reflex to whisk myself out of harm?s way, my head down low, to duck the bullets. But no bullets come, they?ve disappeared, chronologically speaking.

Off The Page ?by Ren?e Hankins ?We haven?t been in one novel in the last five months. Not one.? Binky, the dapper protagonist, is a wanna be stat man. He?s a walking rememberer of current trends. ?How many drafts are you makin? through? I?ve been makin? it to two,? I testify. ?I?ve made three works…

? Gone ?by Ronald Robert Moore   Joe and Sparky ambled between the linear rows of orange trees. Joe proudly gripped the Sharpshooter bee-bee gun his father had given him for his tenth birthday. He squinted and peered down the long straight furrows between the rows. In a salute his right hand protected his eyes…

I walk out of the paper factory all sweaty and pissed off. My tattoo-covered arms are dripping with dirty sweat. My long hair and beard are full of dust and bits of raw paper as tiny as gnats. It is always the same at the paper factory in the summer time. By day?s end I am sweaty and pissed.

She was pretty as the Sierra Madres in winter, leaving her girlfriends behind to sip their beers. The boy she danced with couldn?t rope calves much less break broncos, while she could have ridden bulls into the ground. I sipped Bourbon and watched her rhinestones shimmer, her hips sharp enough to rip denim.

Marilyn Monroe Moment by Courtney Smart There is not a teenage girl more sheltered, na?ve, and always out of my place than me; honestly, I am from a bleak, dirt town with a population of 3,000: people never leave, mothers confine their children in doors for fear a coyote will devour one of their eight,…

?Waiting for change always seems to take longer than you would expect.?
Amy must have read this sentence thousands of times. If it was a saying by a famous writer or philosopher she might see the point, but they?re her mum?s own words. The yellow tile stands out against pale blue wall; the writing is done in black, calligraphic letters.

Recently one of the cardinals in my back yard performed a unique variation on his usual song. I was fortunate enough to be outside at the time, tying basil plants for drying. As I stood listening to his melody I recollected an experience I had had many years ago while traveling south on the Oregon coast highway.

?It is Michael,? she screamed in terror.

?Can you help my daughter?? Mrs. Gray asked desperately.

Michelle froze at the sight of Dr.Nelson. She gave a feeble cry as he took a sample of her blood.