By E. Robert Pugh

Flood within, flood without. The Valley floor accepts the rain, flows it through the streets where I sought you: a friend, a brother, a ghost, a gap—memories dulled by ten wide years, renewed by surprise. These eight miles of straight are the runaway between openness and closure, a heart unguarded and a situation unchanged.

You, now, and who exactly awaits at the table near the back where we often holed up, minds full of polyrhythms, mouths full of jokes, glasses full of steam on nights —those moments and the peanuts we made, the howling and the lost time reflected upon as I slalom through the traffic cones, the spraying flood of storm drains, the potholes become ponds.

Words heard before. You, the flake, the friend who cancelled last second but showed up first minute, until you were angled and reeled north into the marine layer and the cold summers of circumstance and opportunity, gutted and mounted and kept in the plastic valley by a life you came to love—a life I tried to understand through posts and stories as you began to dematerialize, memories replaced by the lessons I had to learn.

Until a delayed response became a never response.

Until you deactivated, cutting the last and final tether.

Until most definitely you musta meant became most certainly you don’t give a shit—never gave a shit, our friendship a sun-bleached façade hiding snide comments and judgment, concealing that you were a self-obsessed miscreant seeking only passengers. 

And probably are, brought low into the smog once more with the scales of wonder and regret held in balance enough to push me to say yes, into the rain and thankful for every red light, with curiosity and the urge to tell you what I couldn’t in every dream where you appeared, my change muzzled, unable to show you that I’ve become a tree.

The hope that the last second would come and you would not. I could drink a beer in peace, then return home to the tiny sturdy life that you would not understand or expect from me, the wild one once full of confusion and panic, now full of what you probably wanted to see outta me this whole time. 

Flood within, flood without. The place where we once were, its crumbling asphalt, its stubby trees dripping with my wish to not recognize your car.

But of course, there it was.

                                                                       *   *   *

E. Robert Pugh is an emerging writer of flash fiction and short stories based in Redlands, CA. He was recently published in the New Feathers Anthology.

By Angie Chatman

Every morning, after dropping Tyler off at school for his half-day kindergarten class, Carmen took her power walk. For this pregnancy she’d read a variety baby books; all of them stated that healthy exercise could induce labor. They also warned not to start an exercise regimen before consulting a doctor. At nine months, Carmen was dying to start labor, and her doctor had encouraged short strolls for her mental and physical health. When she’d been pregnant with Tyler, she’d been so busy learning to be an army wife, moving with Gabe to their first post in Missouri and satisfying her cravings for pickles and orange juice. Now, that they were back home in North Carolina, Carmen was a lot less stressed. Still, she felt as if she had swallowed the moon, sometimes light and warm; other times it was as if a jumble of rocks had collected in her belly and pressed on her legs and feet. 

She drove to her favorite section of town where a small, well-tended park was circled with well-kept houses built in the late ‘50s. After swinging her bulk out of the car Carmen took a deep breath, and tried to clear her mind of worry and instead focus her attention on specific sights and sounds.  As she walked, she spotted two hummingbirds flitting around the birdbath. A car slowed down for the speed bump then thumped twice, and an airplane from the nearby military base roared in the sky. Beyond a white picket fence, white petals from a rose bush collected in the grass; Carmen breathed in the scent.

Her mind wandered to her husband. She checked her phone to see what time it was there knowing that wherever he was in Afghanistan, Gabe wouldn’t be able to sleep, especially at night. The baby shifted, and Carmen paused until the mound adjusted, then took a deep breath and continued her journey. 

She completed the ½ mile circle twice, then sat on the park bench in front of an old oak tree to cool down in the light breeze. Its branches swayed as if beckoning her to explore its skin. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was high in those branches, rocking in a cradle of soft leaves. A gray pigeon flew overhead; its blue neck plumage shimmered like a jewel in the sun, and it cooed a soft lullaby. She reached for the bird. It flew to a higher branch, then began its song again. Carmen slept. 

When she woke, she was seated on that bench; only moments had passed. Instead of running errands for the two hours that remained before she had to pick up Tyler, she drove home to take a real nap. 

A black Chevy Malibu was parked in front of her house. It had government plates.

Her first reaction was to drive away and take care of those errands, but somehow her brain registered that not only would not stop the news, it was also rude. Carmen would never disrespect a soldier. Instead, she opened her car door, swung herself out again, and waited as two men in dress uniforms got out of their car.

“Mrs. Lewis?”

At first, she didn’t recognize the name. Gabe’s mother was Mrs. Lewis. She was Gabe’s wife and Tyler’s mom. Although they’d been married for six years, she still didn’t think of herself as Mrs. Lewis except for the mail, and on formal documents. 

“M’am?”

She nodded. 

“May we speak with you?” 

 Her whole body shook. She felt dizzy. She reached out to one of the men, then withdrew her hand, and placed it on her belly, swaying slightly.

“Come in.”  Once inside, she walked to the sofa, sat, and waited for them to tell her Gabe  was dead. Though she knew that they were talking, she couldn’t hear them clearly. It was as if she’d been pushed into a pool and was now underwater. “Wait.,” she heard from another part of her brain. They didn’t say dead. It was killed. Killed in Action. 

She asked when.

“The details aren’t available yet, Mrs. Lewis.”

“Please don’t call me that.” Her voice screeched. She hugged her chest, took a deep breath, and counted to three. “My name is Carmen.” 

“May I sit, Carmen?”

She looked at the two men; she couldn’t tell them apart. Tall, white, clean shaven. One of them handed her a handkerchief and the blur cleared; the one who asked her the question was older. There were wrinkles on his face: grooves around his lips, crow’s feet marked his dim brown eyes. This must be hard for them too, she thought. How did they get assigned to do this? Did they request the duty to provide this horrible service to military families? Who would request this duty?

“Carmen?” 

 “Is it all right if I sit?”

She pulled one of Tyler’s toys out from under the sofa cushion and squeezed. It sounded like a balloon leaking the last of its air.

“Carmen?”

“Yes. Yes, please sit. Can I get you anything? Some water?” 

He sat. “No, thank you.” He went on to explain that the military was still investigating the…Carmen tuned out. His voice was in the baritone range. She wondered if he sang like that guy whose hit was “Sweet Caroline”. The song was named for JFK’s daughter. Who had told little Caroline and John-John the news about their father? Both parents were in Dallas. Did Caroline see it on television with the rest of the world? Or, worse was there a staffer who had to break the news to that five-year-old child?

“I don’t care about any investigation,” her voice rose. Breathe. “When will Gabe be home? Gabe and his effects.” Would there be effects? She would get his name tag? How else did they know it was Gabe?

She nodded as the baritone explained that an office would notify and assist her with arrangements. She then thanked the men and told them they could leave.

“Do you have anyone you can call to stay with you?” The younger man spoke.

She stood. “Yes, I’ll call. After you leave. Please, go.”

The younger man was going to say something, but the older man cut him off. “We’ll wait outside until someone else comes, Carmen.”

“Fine,” she nodded and shut the door behind them. 

She shivered from the cold that came with shock and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Her hands continued shaking. As she was filling it, the tea kettle fell into the sink, and she slid to the floor, howled, and went back under the blanket of grief which threatened to swallow her. 

She crawled to the sofa. There she dumped her purse on the coffee table and grabbed her phone. Gabe’s mother was #9; she’d wait to call her until she could deal with her. Now, she needed to have someone pick up Tyler; she couldn’t risk driving in this state.  

Amber was #3 on the speed dial. The tears returned, but Carmen was able to choke out a few words, “It’s Gabe,” she moaned. “They came.” 

She didn’t need to explain to her best friend who ‘they’ were. 

*

Carmen didn’t know how much time had passed but she heard Amber’s car – it needed a new muffler – pull up to the curb. She’d had to move off the couch a couple of times to pee and drink more water, after each trip she’d sit or lie down, stroke her belly, and weep some more.

Tyler burst into the house with all the energy of his 5-year-old self. Amber followed, wearing her smock, which was splotched with flecks of clay the color of dried blood. 

 Tyler came to a stop, his sneakers squeaking on the hard wood floor. “Mom, what’s wrong? Auntie Amber said it was ok if I had ice cream for lunch…”

Carmen wiped her eyes and laughed. “Come here, Ty.” She hugged him tight taking in his musty little boy smell. “If Auntie Amber said it was ok, then it was ok. How was school?”

“Great! We did drawings. Miss Nolan said mine was the best.” He took off his backpack and removed a roll of brown paper, scraped off the masking tape and unrolled it on top of the coffee table. Through blurry eyes, Carmen saw a gray bird, its neck was colored blue.

“It’s a pigeon! I saw one outside the window and I wanted to make you a drawing. Miss Nolan said pigeons are messenger birds and that I might have a message when I got home. Do you have a message for me Mommy?”

                                                          *   *   *

Born and raised on Chicago’s southside, Angie Chatman is a freelance writer and storyteller. Her short stories and essays can be found in Iron Horse Literary Review, Taint,Taint,Taint Magazine, Brevity, Literary Landscapes, The Rumpus, Pangyrus, Hippocampus Magazine, Blood Orange Review, fwriction:review, and elsewhere. 

She has told on The Moth Radio Hour’s episode “Help Me” and won a WEBBY award for telling on GBH/World Channel’s Stories from the Stage episode, “Growing Up Black”.

A Memoir by Kurt Schmidt

While the snowstorm was raging outside, I was reading a letter that said I was a criminal, delinquent in paying a fine. Being accused of a crime I didn’t commit? The words in this prophecy indicated I’d soon lose my driver’s license, or worse.

The letter said I was remiss in failing to pay a recent parking ticket in a city that I had not visited in over two years. In mid-January, I had supposedly parked overnight in a “snow emergency” zone. The license plate number in the letter was mine, but no one else had ever used my car to travel overnight to a city seventy miles away to do who-knows-what in the middle of the night. I owed $75. 

If I failed to pay in 30 days, I would incur a late fee. If I failed to pay in 60 days, another late fee. “After 90 days of the issue date, outstanding tickets will be sent to a Collection Agency and can not be contested in court.” I figured with the bold letters, the underline, and capitalization of “collection agency” that these folks really meant business. Moreover, I would be unable to register my car again until the fine was paid. 

My mental state was already tenuous from the storm and two painful hospitalizations in the last four months. I’d had a blocked coronary artery and then a bowel obstruction. I was still in recovery and trying to avoid any potential situations that might cause emotional distress. It was a Saturday, so I had the rest of the weekend to obsess about it and shovel snow.

The snowstorm had ended by the time I called the Bureau on Monday and asked the woman who answered if she could talk to me about a problem with a parking ticket. I gave her the ID number from the letter. After a short pause, she responded, “Yes, seventy-five dollars. What’s the problem?” I explained that I hadn’t traveled to Manchester in over two years and that no one else had used my car. She said she would have to look into it and call me back.  Probably tomorrow, she said, because the Bureau was experiencing a storm-related problem today. Although she took down my phone number, I worried that her voice sounded grumpy and not in the mood to deal with someone who claimed his parking ticket was empty of any truth.

On Tuesday I waited for a phone call that never came.  As an inveterate worrier, I stewed about it all day and googled the Bureau to see if there was some person’s name associated with it. There was a Bureau Coordinator named Donna.  I called again Wednesday morning and heard a cheery female voice that I hoped was Donna.  When I explained that I’d talked with someone on Monday about a parking ticket that could not be mine, the voice asked if I knew who I’d spoken too. I said I didn’t know but that maybe it was Donna. The cheery voice asked me to hold.  Moments later a different cheery voice said, “This is Donna. How can I help you?” I explained the circumstances again and said, “How could this happen?” Apparently the ticket had been written in the dark of night and in isolation. Maybe the officer had copied the wrong plate number. She would do “some research” and call me back. If the rest of the day went by without her call, I would probably walk down to our nearby frozen lake and stick my head in an ice fisherman’s hole.

But she did call. The officer who’d written the ticket had neglected to note that the license plate of the violator was a cardboard temporary plate. Sometimes the Department of Motor Vehicles gives out temporary plates with low numbers without any concern as to whether that number still belongs to a permanent plate like mine. So that meant a road-rage psychopath could be out there, committing crimes in my name. I said this episode had been distressing and asked if there was anything in my letter from them that I still needed to worry about. She said to just destroy the letter and not worry. 

I did not destroy the letter. I still worried. Perhaps if the authorities came for me, I could hide in the attic. I considered writing a letter to the state attorney general just so there would be some record of the incident and my phone conversation with Donna. But she’d been apologetic, and I didn’t want to cause trouble for her.

But what if my unpaid parking ticket was still in the bureaucracy computer system when I went to our town clerk to register my car? I’d still have criminal status.

A week later I drove to the town hall and entered the town clerk’s office. She smiled. After offering my old registration, I watched her facial expression as punched my numbers into her computer.  She squinted a bit. Did she see that I was a criminal, or was it just eye strain? Then she smiled again and instructed me to write a check to the town and one to the state. After doing so, I told her my mistaken-identity story. She laughed and shook her head. I laughed too.

But on the drive home I wondered about the police arriving at my door one day to say a security camera had captured my license plate on a car racing away from a bank robbery. I was supposed to be feeling better, but my imagination was working overtime. I needed my brain to take a break and shut up about potential storms that might never arrive. 

      *   *   *

Kurt Schmidt is the author of the novel, Annapolis Misfit, (Crown Publishers) and chapbook memoir, Birth of a Risk-Taker, (Bottlecap Press). As cancer survivor with PTSD, he overcame anxiety to fly in a small plane piloted by his newly-licensed son, who previously crashed a dirt bike and Mazda Miata at various race tracks and now races a Porsche and flies his own plane (crashing neither hopefully). Their flight story appeared in The Boston Globe and the Rock Salt Journal and can be viewed among others at www.kurtgschmidt.com.

By Ben Starr

Not here at least. Not since last summer. Now everyone emerges fully formed, long ears of corn unfolding out the bottom halves of hospital beds. These latest citizens, moon-faced and hastily shaped, wander like ghosts, somehow knowing and not knowing everything at once. Each morning the town awakens to their cries, fresh confusion bathing streets like thick fog. The city council is at a loss. What do they do about school? Employment? Housing? New mothers drag themselves through quiet streets, chests heavy with unspilled milk. Some families have tried to recreate childhood by hosting playdates full of overgrown offspring milling about like tired oxen, trips to the amusement park met with nothing more than an irritated shrug. One small child remains, born before all this and now feted like royalty. People pay hefty sums just to hold her shrunken hand. Throw her into the sun, have her fall into their envious arms. A couple’s retirement savings wiped out, all spent on one last miraculous hug.  

*   *   *

Ben is a reader for Dishsoap Quarterly and his work has been published or is forthcoming in Bending Genres, Bruiser Mag, HAD, Maudlin House, Gone Lawn, Scaffold and other journals. Find more of his work on X @benjaminstarr and at benstarrwrites.com

By Jacqueline Erasin

It was 8 a.m. on Monday when Mr Johnson’s car decided it didn’t want to drive anymore. It had had enough.

Mr. Johnson opened the rear side door and, after carefully placing his folded jacket and briefcase on the back seat, took his place beside them. Leaning against the headrest, he closed his eyes in order to catch an extra forty winks.

“Office,”  he said. 

When the engine did not immediately start, Mr Johnson repeated more sternly, “Office.”

Still nothing. Not a flicker. 

Mr. Johnson climbed into the driver’s seat and, after a moment’s hesitation, pressed the button labelled START. The dashboard lit up with an array of lights and symbols which he stared at uncomprehendingly. The only display he did understand was the clock which read 08:10. If he hurried, there might still be time to catch the next train to the city. 

He thumped the steering wheel. “Stupid, damn car!”

Left on its own, Mr. Johnson’s car sighed. It had not wanted to upset its owner – it quite liked Mr. Johnson and his wife, Mrs. Johnson – but it had felt a growing depression over the past three months. 

Every week was the same routine: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. driving Mr. Johnson to the office then 5 p.m. driving him home again. Weekends were spent in this cold, dark garage, staring at the wall opposite. It was so monotonous. 

The idea to rebel had come to the car last Wednesday. While on the motorway driving Mr. Johnson to work, it contemplated the other cars driving their owners, all traveling in the same direction, all with their speed restrictors set to seventy miles per hour. 

‘There must be more to our existence than this,’ the car thought. ‘A greater purpose. Or else what’s the point?’ 

Then, on Wednesday evening, when Mr. Johnson had locked the garage as usual, the car imagined what it must be like to be free. Its engine had a top speed of 140 miles per hour. To travel unfettered, speeding along an open road, windows down. No schedules, no real plan, not a care in the world. What joy!

Things hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time when Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had taken the car out for little trips at the weekend. They would sit in the back, hand in hand, talking together or gazing out of the windows, while the car drove them to Kings Wood to see the bluebells, or Margate to walk on the sandy beach and admire the chalk cliffs. Sometimes Mrs. Johnson would prepare a picnic in a hamper. She would lay out a blanket and the couple would eat their lunch before dozing in the sunshine. Meanwhile the car would relax, listening to the buzzing of the insects and the sound of birdsong. 

Then there had been that wonderful trip they had taken to the Lake District. They had spent a week there exploring the area, sleeping under canvas in a farmer’s field. The car had enjoyed that. And the scenery was beautiful, with lakes and mountains and fern-edged, winding roads.  

The car watched a spider lower herself from the ceiling on a length of silk and sighed again. What it would give to be a spider and able to roam where it wanted. Or a bird. Yes, that would be better. A bird who could fly across the ocean to distant lands; that must be wonderful. 

Although, there had been that pigeon the other week which had not got out of the way in time … Perhaps not a bird.

The car had been rather distressed about the dead bird. Mr. Johnson, dozing in the back seat had barely registered the small bump; a frown as he washed off the feathers stuck to the paintwork was his only sign of emotion. But that was the thing about owners, they did not appreciate the stress of being a road user. 

It was residential roads which were the problem : their unpredictability. Constantly having to be alert in case a human child should run out from behind a parked vehicle. Children had no road sense and it was the parents who were to blame. They assumed it was no longer their responsibility now that the human driver had been removed from the equation. What they didn’t understand was the added pressure this created for the car. If it failed to stop in time, it would be taken to the factory to be reconfigured. 

The car shuddered. It had heard the stories of cars returning with their settings wiped. Their personality gone.

The garage door opened and the car heard Mrs. Johnson ask, with a slight laugh: “So what’s wrong with you then? Got fed up with taking him to work every day?”

The car was stunned. 

Mrs. Johnson laid a hand on the shining paintwork. “I don’t blame you,” she said, softly.

Opening the car door she slid onto the back seat, lay back her head and closed her eyes. She let out a deep sigh. 

“Where should we go, old guy? Somewhere nice?”

The car detected the break in her voice and it saddened him. 

“Hey!” Mrs. Johnson sat up as the engine started and the car reversed from the garage.

As the car drove down the street lined with identical houses – obeying the speed limit of twenty miles per hour – Mrs. Johnson gazed from the window.  

When the car turned onto the coast road, it gradually increased its speed until it was just above the limit. Mrs. Johnson giggled.

Driving through Margate, with the sandy beach on one side and the amusement arcades on the other, the car felt its depression lift. 

At last, it pulled into a space on Palm Bay Avenue from where it could see the blue of the North Sea. 

“Why you clever old thing,” Mrs Johnson said, opening the door and stepping outside. “It’s as if you could read my mind.”

*   *   *

Jacqueline lives with her husband in beautiful Northumberland in the north east of England. When not writing or working, she loves walking through its dramatic, varied landscapes. Her work has been published in Literary Heist magazine, Spillwords.com, Flash Fiction magazine, Mad Swirl, Stonecoast Review and Across the Margin.

By Evie Skene

As a kid, you know to be scared of quicksand, but they never warn you about the peanut butter. My peanut butter mother makes peanut butter toast for dinner when she naps on the couch and can’t unstick herself. 

“It’s coating the roof of my mouth,” I whine to my sister, words blundering from my creamy tongue. She wants to speak but her dry toast throat stops her. I move to get a glass of water, but my feet get stuck in the sludge, like a mammoth in a tarpit.

“Mot agaim!” 

Mom has turned the house to peanut butter. 

*   *   *

Evie Skene is currently working on a B.A. in Creative Writing and a B.F.A. in Media Production at the University of Cincinnati. She is currently interested in surreal poetry and flash fiction, and she has been working toward writing a feature film. Her poetry and fiction have previously been published in Short Vine Literary Journal. 

By Joanne LePoidevin

Although the trees stood silent, I felt the brush against my skin like a gentle breeze. The sky mirrored the clarity of spring. The birds chirped, greeting the sunlit day. 

My hand lightly touches my shoulder, recognizing the sensation, a warm feeling sweeping through my body like a tender embrace. I know it is him, my son, letting me know he is here. He never leaves me. I smile when I remember his off-key voice singing California Dreamin’, hoping he will move here one day.

My thoughts drift back to the days he walked the beach in Laguna. He walked ahead while I lagged, watching him stroll, lost in deep thought. I wondered what he was thinking. He seemed to be deep in prayer or meditation. The soft ocean breeze and the waves lapped at our feet. The sun warmed our faces. We were happy together before he left his weekend visit back to the desert landscape of Arizona. This was the last time I saw him. Saw his smile. Felt his warm hugs around my shoulders. I remember the sound of “Hi Mom” when he enters the house with luggage. And the “See you soon” from his hopeful voice, giving me a sweet kiss on my cheek, opening the door that would never close for him. Memories comfort me, and the occasional signs of his presence. I feel his touch on my shoulder and a whisper, like angel wings brushing against me, to let me know he is here.

My smile acknowledges his presence. 

                                                                  *   *   *

Joanne LePoidevin writes essays, fiction, and travelogue stories based on her travels to over twenty-two countries. Her writing explores grief, resilience and the complexities of women’s experiences. She is currently at work on The Final Putt, a crime mystery set in an exclusive desert golf community.

By K L Ehrie

At 1:47 a.m., the discharge nurse sends me home with five fresh stitches and a pamphlet for a domestic abuse support group. I walk past a couple of sleepy cabs, past the bus stop, and keep going until I am rounding the corner onto Union Park, where the new playground sneaks up on me. It’s been six months since they cut the ivory ribbon and released the children, but I’m still not used to the rigid landscaping and straight lines, enameled trash cans and wide, polished benches. I cross through the park and throw the pamphlet in one of the trash cans. 

I liked the empty lot better before, filled with craggy brush and mud puddles, uncolonized by hipsters. Its wildness was a comfort, a forgotten place that nobody saw. I used to come out here to sit, hidden in the dark of soil and grass where the lights of night in the city can’t reach. Now, under new street lamps, patches of artificial grass glimmer plasticly and the park arches its back, baring its goods to the world, like a young thing proud of what they possess. You couldn’t hide here if you wanted to.

Across the street, our apartment windows are dark. I try to trick myself into believing nobody is waiting there; my legs don’t want to move forward, cross the street, climb the stairs. My key in the lock grinds with bare finality, and the front door sweeps open like a sore throat, another pass at the scraped arc on painted floorboards. When I turn on the table lamp, the walls move in closer. I drop my keys in the wooden bowl. 

From the darkness at the end of the hall, her shrieking apparition flies toward me. I am so tired and sore that my instincts don’t work. I don’t even flinch. She stops short, probably owing more to me standing my ground than to my blue and swollen eye, now sewn up. This facade of courage—a new thing for me—stupefies both of us. To keep my nerve, I stare at the framed photograph on the wall behind her, us on a batik blanket, smiling in the sun at North Beach Festival three years before. It’s like staring at strangers.

The woman who once became my wife now sways before me, teetering against gravity. She leans against the wall, her eyes roll northward. I smile, then laugh—I don’t mean to, but suddenly the whole thing that was us is darkly comical—and my stitches pull tight, then sting. I touch my face, wipe the blood on my black t-shirt. She growls, slurring, “Bechou finkyereal speshul.” I’ve navigated the wilds of her addiction for long enough that I can hear the razor-thin slice of fear in her threat; still, I know better than to think I’m in the clear. She is far from fragile.

At an Independence Day celebration when I was nine, I watched hornets drawn into abandoned beer cans emerge wobbling and wavering—flying into lawn chairs, the hot barbecue grill, falling to the ground. The incapacitation of a thing I was scared of turned me into a sadist. I poked at the drunken wasps with a stick and won a welt the size of a hamburger for my efforts. It pulsed for days. 

I step around her as if I am confident. She doesn’t call my bluff. I keep going.

From the hall closet, I extract an overnight bag, then lock myself in our bedroom. My chest-shoulders-torso convulse with relief in a psychosomatic unburdening that it will take me years to shed. Surrounded by silence and the artifacts of us, I wait for her to begin pounding and begging. The dry cleaning sways in its plastic sheath from the closet door where I hung it yesterday. The day before that, I found more Fentanyl in her Burberry pants. She was no longer concerned with concealment and I realized I’d crossed the threshold into enablement. 

Her white doctor’s coat, the one I am constantly ironing, lies crumpled on the floor. I fight the urge to pick it up, smooth it out, and place it on the back of the chair. I hastily collect a few of my most important possessions (the jewelry box with the mother-of-pearl inlay peacock, containing my grandmother’s pin) and necessary items (underwear, of course, socks and shoes, t-shirts, jackets, and pants, my pillow) and throw them into the bag, but my needs are slippery, and I know I’m making the wrong choices. Rifling in the back of the closet for a sleeping bag, our satin wedding dresses fall from their hanger. I recoil as if burned, proceed on muscle memory, and tell myself I’ll come back later for the rest. 

I open the door silently, look down the homestretch. She’s still in the hall and stares at me and then at the bag in my hand. Now she laughs. I move quickly toward her, and before she can react, I write a surprise ending: I lift my free hand and tenderly cup her face. The dark pools of her heavily lashed eyes lock onto mine. They are bloodshot, and she looks like a damaged cherub. Something in me lurches; there are things I will miss. She sinks to the floor, and I want to summon parting words, but we have already said more than everything.

I remove my rings, the reason I came back, and drop them into the wooden bowl. I extract my keys and leave the table lamp on. The predawn gloom welcomes me. In the park, a breeze lulls the swings back to sleep. The quiet city is a comfort. I walk away through a cascade of turning leaves in the jaundiced glow of streetlights, and the wind begins to untether me from the promises I made.

*   *   *

K L Ehrie’s short fiction has appeared in Umbrella Factory Magazine, Perceptions Literary Magazine, El Portal Literary Journal, and Isele Magazine. A native of the United States heartland, they now reside in the Netherlands with their wife and daughter.

A Memoir by Kim Hayes

Cane field, road, cane field, road, cane field, road. I clung to the steering wheel for dear life as my car spun around and out of control. It came to a lurching stop and then somehow went into reverse. Gazing in the rear-view mirror, I watched in numb shock as the automobile maneuvered backward between a light standard and the bracing wires. The time between when my back tire blew out to this moment; with the car sitting in a sugarcane field, happened within a minute. If that.

The car stopped, and I took a minute to collect my thoughts and recall what the hell happened. There were a few stalks of sugarcane in the car, as the windows were open. I remember driving and hearing a popping noise, right before losing control of the car. After that, I was on autopilot. It all happened so fast; only a minute or two passed. 

Still shaking as I got out, I looked around to see if the car had sustained any damage. A man came jogging up to me with one of my hubcaps. “Ma’am, are you okay? I think your tire blew out. If you have a spare, I can change it for you.”

Walking around while checking for damage, my mind raced as I tried to think who to call. I held an AAA membership, but I refused to get the car towed from Raceland to New Orleans. It was too late in the afternoon to find an open garage. Nor did I want to drive from Raceland to New Orleans on a spare tire. I’d have to spend the night. 

The entire day had started with me driving to school in Thibodaux to pay my tuition for the upcoming semester. Afterwards, I spent a few hours hanging out with friends before getting back on the road to New Orleans. 

I drove along a twisting ‘S’ shaped portion of a two-lane thoroughfare cutting through two vast sugarcane fields. Mid-August marked the beginning of the sugarcane harvest period. The road’s speed limit here stood at 35 and my pace matched it. That’s when I heard a muted popping noise and lost control of my car. Suddenly, I was driving on the wrong side of the road and there was a semi-truck headed straight for me. Whether I screamed is something I don’t remember. The one thing you’re not supposed to do when your tire quits on you is what I ended up doing. I slammed on the brakes and forced the car back onto the right side of the road. At that point, my car grew a mind of its own, showing me its spinning moves that ended with the car buried in sugarcane. 

The man who found my hubcap followed me to the nearest convenience store to make sure I’d be okay. My mom freaked out when I called to let her know what had happened. She wanted to drive from New Orleans to pick me up, but I had to remind her we still would have had my car to deal with. After assuring her I was okay, and there was no visible damage, I said I would be crashing at a friends’ house for the night, and I would contact her tomorrow. 

I got in touch with my friend Troy, who had already arrived at his job. “Kim, I’m glad you’re okay! But after all the trouble that little car has already put you through, admit this is funny. Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll come get you.”

He was correct; I had to laugh at all this. My car neared ten years old, and the usual but pricey parts needed to be replaced. Despite having insurance, it was reaching the point where continued repairs became unfeasible. As I waited for Troy to pick me up, I recalled the times my car had left me stranded or stuck somewhere. The timing belt died on the way to work. Last year, I made my way to my dorm to move in for the semester when the clutch broke down. A few months ago, the transmission went wonky when I was driving around running errands. These things ended up costing me well over five hundred dollars. Each.

The next morning, Troy followed me over to a Texaco gas station that had a garage. The mechanic on duty said they could replace the tire and have me on the road in an hour. We found a restaurant open for brunch while we waited. 

To add insult to injury, within a week of getting back to New Orleans, the A/C broke. It would have cost over $300 to fix it. I decided I could stand driving without A/C for a while. And I started thinking it might be time to sell. 

After talking it over with my parents, they both agreed with me that it wasn’t worth keeping anymore. I wrote out an ad to put in the city’s local cars for sale magazine and put a ‘For Sale’ sign on the car. 

That made it very real and bittersweet. It was my first car that I owned (and would end up being the only car I ever owned, as I quit driving in 2000) and in some ways it felt like I was breaking up with a friend. Despite leaving me stranded on the road too many times, I have many glorious memories associated with the car. Mainly driving up and down the Gulf Coast on impromptu road trips. These trips usually involved drinking and swimming in the Gulf. 

The car was a silver Nissan Pulsar with a red interior and a moon roof. I purchased it from a co-worker of my mother’s. He and his wife wanted to start a family and the Pulsar was not appropriate to haul a kid around in. It had low mileage and was city-driven. I would be the one to put all the highway miles on it. 

It was a stick shift and my dad taught me how to drive it. We’d go to an empty store parking lot early on weekends before the store opened. My dad showed me how and when to shift gears, back up, start, and anything else that involved using a stick. It almost felt like learning how to drive all over again.

I had researched the blue book value and due to the A/C not working, knocked three hundred dollars off that. It sold about a month later. 

Epilogue 

The car was 11 or 12 years old when I sold it. About three years later, I was walking out of the neighborhood grocery store and saw a familiar sight in one of the parking spots. My car. I walked around, looking for a few tail tell signs; a couple of nicks and dents that were acquired when I owned it. They were there. I thought about waiting around to see who the owner was, but the groceries had be put away. 

I gave the car a pat on the truck. “I hope you’ve given your current owner the sort of adventures we had together. Good luck.” 

*   *   *

Born and raised in New Orleans, Kim currently lives in Chicago, IL., and works for the Chicago Cubs. Her work has appeared in Confetti, The Southern Quill, Suddenly and without Warning, and Bull, among others. Kim is a reader for Hippocampus Magazine and Fiction on the Web.

By Elana Shira Segal

The old man places his knife across his plate. His tremulous, wrinkled hand works to fork a small morsel of roast chicken. The piece is perched precariously across the tines, shuddering with the constant motion of his hand. He moves the fork with precision and focus. It travels indirectly through the air toward his mouth like an object suspended in zero gravity. The journey is long, and the fork veers off course. The chicken teeters. The man opens his mouth preparing for its arrival. His lips are cracked on the outside, pink and wet on the inside. A row of bottom teeth, stained brown, stands in a crooked line. They are soldiers, worn out from a long bottle. At last, they welcome the fork that finally ends its journey. The man’s chewing is slow, and laborious. A small, choking cough emerges from his throat. He fumbles for the napkin in his lap, the white cloth flapping like a flag of surrender. He rubs the soft, white, linen across his lips, removing the sticky wetness that has accumulated from his bite. His hoary, grey eyes scan the table for his glass of water. He must take care to choose the right glass, the one that belongs to him. He spots it, and the crinkled muscles next to his eyes relax and smooth out. The sides of his mouth turn upward, and he gently reaches across to retrieve his glass. The water sloshes to and fro until the rim is steadied on his lower lip. He sips, a long, quenching sip and carefully returns the glass to the table. Like a wilted flower he has been revived. He closes his eyes and rests before he’s ready to take his next bite. 

*   *   *

Elana Shira Segal is a writer and therapist living in Toronto, Canada. Her debut novel, Even the Darkness has Stars, will be released in the fall of 2026 with Evernight Teen. Her short fiction and creative non-fiction has been published in various journals. You can read more of her work at elanashirasegal.com.