By Townsend Walker

Eric and Camille met at a weeklong writer’s workshop in Provincetown. Their group had drinks and dinner together every night. Eric and Camille got on particularly well, both were fans of Calvino and Sciascia, both had spent time in Italy. And there was personal chemistry. She: easy to talk to, a bit flirty, a mischievous smile, a daughter, single. He: easy to talk to, a bit flirty, a captivating grin, a daughter, not single. 

Camille had written an illustrated novella, A Woman Worthy of Notice, two years earlier. Her friend created the graphics. Eric went online and found a review. “The author’s prose, combined with the illustrations add layers of complexity to the caldron of lust, pride and wrath flaring this police inquiry into beautiful darkness.” Camille promised to send him a signed copy when got back to Virginia.

A copy of the novella arrived a week after Eric returned. As he was unwrapping it, his wife Nancy, struck by the graphic cover, asked to look at it. She paged through the graphic novella quickly.

Eric held his hand out to take the book.

“Sorry, with Monica at summer camp, it’s been quiet around here and I’ve run out of things to read. You can have it when I’m finished. Doesn’t look like it will take long.”

Nancy went off to the living room. Eric went downstairs to his desk where he was working on a story. An hour later, he was so deep into the choreography of a fight scene he didn’t hear Nancy come down the stairs and stand beside the desk. 

“I like this, a good story, and the illustrations and text are so interwoven I can’t imagine one without the other. Ask your friend if she and the artist worked side by side.”

“I will.” 

Nancy continued to stand beside the desk and waited until Eric looked up. “About your ‘friend’ Camille. You want to tell me what went on in Provincetown?”

“Huh?”

“Her inscription: 

For Eric –

Bearer of wine, Manhattans,

A twinkly smile, 

And so much more

My love,

Camille

Bringing her drinks, I get. You’re a gentleman. A twinkly smile, yes, one of your more charming features. ‘And so much more,’ followed by ‘My love.’ You want to explain?”

Eric didn’t know what to say. He stammered. “The only reason she might have said that was I spent more time editing her work than I did for the others in the class. It was easier, our writing is not so different, we use a lot of short punchy sentences. And she spent more time editing my stuff.”

Nancy stood next to him. Not exactly stood, more like loomed.

He blinked. “Hey, nothing happened.”

“You will admit it doesn’t look that way?

“Her inscription does leave room for interpretation.”

“Is she married?”

“No.”

“But she knows you are, and have a daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a picture of the people in the workshop?”

“Sure, I’ll pull it up.”

Nancy leaned over his shoulder to look at the computer screen. “There you are in the back with your arms around two women.”

“It was tight.”

“I see. And I’m guessing, no, not guessing, Camille is the blonde . . . something you seem to have a thing for.”

“What?”

“We’re not dealing with another Austin workshop situation, are we?”

Eric knew where Nancy was going. His only recourse was complete denial. “That was before Monica. I’ve changed, completely, I learned my lesson.”

“I just remembered something, the little story you sent one morning, the night after you didn’t call, as was your everlasting habit, because you were out late with your classmates.” Nancy went off and came back holding a slip of paper. “Remember this?”

Sitting in the Crown & Anchor on Commercial Street, the four of us, sipping our Jack and Gingers, exchanging bits of life history when from the corner of the room a honey-colored man with wide, wide eyes ripped off a piano cord and in a large voice belted “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, My, oh, my, what a wonderful day . . .” The voices of a hundred people in the bar crashed out into the street bringing in a hundred more.

“Was Camille one of the four?” 

“Yes.”

“Where did you go when the bar closed? Given the time difference, there was time to call. Why didn’t you? It’s our tradition. A story, if that’s what this is, doesn’t make up for not calling.”

Eric shoved his chair back hard. It toppled over. “I did not fuck her!” 

“You say.”

“Okay, call her.”

“What will she tell me?”

“That nothing happened.”

“It is so, so refreshing when writers are hung by their words. Especially words they can’t edit.”

*   *   *

Townsend Walker draws inspiration from cemeteries, foreign places, violence and strong women. 

A short story collection, “3 Women, 4 Towns, 5 Bodies & other stories,” Deeds Publishing, 2018. 

A novella, “La Ronde,” Truth Serum Press, 2015. 

Over one hundred short stories and poems published in literary journals and included in fifteen anthologies. 

Two nominations for the PEN/O.Henry Award.

He reviews for the “New York Journal of Books” 

He teaches creative writing at Mount Tamalpais College on the San Quentin State Prison Campus

During a career in banking, he wrote three books on finance: “A Guide for Using the Foreign Exchange Market,” “Managing Risk with Derivatives,” and “Managing Lease Portfolios.”

His website is https://www.townsendwalker.com

By Johanna Nauraine

We were hiking through the mountains on a barely visible trail. Old pines towered above us. Gene stopped to point out a white wildflower, calling it by name. I bent to sniff it and it smelled like nothing. A cluster of starlings flew overhead. Such ordinary birds, yet we watched them until they disappeared behind the trees, as if they were rare and beautiful.

Gene turned and kissed me, suddenly noticing my silence. Once he turned his back to me and continued walking down the trail, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, looked at my watch and sighed. Only an hour had passed since we’d started out.

I could tell, by the cant of his body, that Gene was completely enthralled by our surroundings. It was almost irritating. He had the curiosity of a child, and was easily mesmerized by anomalous experiences.

I began humming, something I did when I was trying not to think. The tune was a childhood diddy my father used to sing when he was hammering nails. Sitting on the porch rail while he built something unexpected, I would swing my legs back and forth and keep him company, until the night rose up like a wild animal and painted everything black. Then we’d go inside and watch tv and eat microwave dinners whose dates had expired.

Gene reminds me of my mother. She left when I was 10. My father and I never discussed her sudden departure but, as a child, it bothered me that I couldn’t remember the scent of her hair. I wondered if my father had a hard time remembering her too. Ever after, our house had a hole in it where she had been.

We were rounding a bend when Gene whispered, “Susan, look at that!” He was pointing at an eagle, sitting on a bald rock, the wind ruffling his feathers. He looked regal, impenetrable, quietly strong. I wished to leave him in peace. Gene must have felt the same because he moved quietly away from the still bird.

I noticed, the wind was turning cold and I shivered in my thin clothes. “I want to go back,” I said.

Gene looked disappointed, but it was a look I’d grown used to. He sighed and shook his head as if he couldn’t comprehend such a pointless desire.

We began our descent with twilight on our heels. There was a subtle change in the air and the birds began to call out to one another. It was almost antiphonal. Their bird song struck me as peculiar and lovely.

By the time we got back to the car, it was dark. Gene fumbled in his pocket for the car keys, on which there was a little flashlight. He pointed the light at the ground so we could see where we were walking.

Both of us slung our day packs into the back seat of the Volvo before getting into the car. We’d left bottles of water in the center console and each of us took one and drank deeply.

“So, what did you think? Would you want to do this again?”

We’d been married long enough to take each other for granted, so his solicitousness surprised me. My mind churned through possible scenarios. If I said yes, would he expect me to do this more often? I looked out the window and said, “Maybe.”

“Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“I probably would have preferred a concert.”

“Well, we could do that too.”

“You say that, but we never do things I propose.”

“That’s not true.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

Gene started the car, our headlights severed the darkness. The dirt road out of the park was rocky and we bumped along, our silence growing into something predictable.

Once we reached the highway, Gene switched the radio to NPR. We listened to a commentator talk about the growing unrest in Albania, the food shortages, the unreliable electrical grid, the failing economy. I thought, how little it mattered, these pockets of disturbance around the globe.

When we pulled into the driveway, I felt strangely relieved. It was good to see our familiar bungalow, like an old toad in the middle of the lawn. I grabbed my day pack from the back seat and hurried towards the front door. Gene was taking his time. He always dawdled when he was mad. 

I couldn’t bear another fight. Sometimes I felt like we were dead stars, hung in a long abandoned galaxy.

Lying next to him at night, I imagined what it might be like to be alone, more alone than I already was. Maybe I would get a pet, and find a house somewhere flat, so I could see the horizon roll towards me in a profusion of possibility. 

After so many years of being quietly invisible, I wanted to rake my fingers through my hair and let my dreams fall out one by one, watching them sparkle like jewels in a new firmament.

                                                                     *   *   *

Johanna Nauraine has been a serious student of fiction for decades. Her self help articles were published in Chicago Life Magazine. She is a retired psychotherapist who specialized in couples’ relationships. She lives on the shores of Lake Michigan and spends her time reading voraciously, traveling occasionally, and writing steadily. Her first novel is being represented for publication, and her next novel is in process.

A Memoir by Erin Hall

The Monday after dad’s funeral, mom and my brother go back to work. They want to escape the rot consuming the house – flowers no longer in bloom, dad’s empty chair. I do not. I sink into the new abnormal like loose ground – a haven to burrow. Get some sleep, people say – but my limbs twitch in protest, fight off rest that will convert days and move life forward. I need to keep time still, dig deeper. Get outside, people say – but the neighborhood is alien without dad moving through it, and each draw of fresh air sends wildfire rippling across my chest, filling me with rage. I pack the dirt around me with eager handfuls.

In the evenings there are visitors and dull chatter over wine – enough to spread the numbness to new corners of my body as if it’s the spring rain pooling into the curves of our yard, weighing me down in thick mud so I stop stirring. But when night comes and everyone else slogs to their rooms, I don’t go to bed. I slither into dad’s chair and press my imprint into his as if I could still feel him, marvel at the stretch marks in the leather broken open from the weight of his once full body. I trace my calf to his, drag my finger along the shoreline until the tide stole him like clumps of sand. All I can do is lay there in what’s left of this island of suffering. 

I hold time captive in the dark, days cascading as I lose count, becoming years. But the dirt shifts from life stepping into rhythm above, and I’m slowly nudged to the surface like a seed with promise. I go to dad’s chair, sit upright, admire the dirt pressed into my palm, turn over the sharp edge of each grain housed in the folds of my hand – this grief, a garden for tending. Now I prune the thicket crowding the soil, like memories of sweatshirts draping wide over dad’s shoulder, skin thinly sheathed over his protruding collar as if its parchment paper. I feel my way through the brush and pluck each stubborn weed until dad and I are whole again. Only then can I sit quiet at its edge, toes slipped into the soft ground, plotted for growth. 

                                                                            *   *   *

                                         

Erin Hall is a writer currently living in Chicago. She has been previously published in the Deep Wild Journal, Detroit Metro Times, Huffington Post, Multiplicity Magazine and TodayShow.com. Find her on X at @ErinHall802 or at ehallwrites@gmail.com.

By Amy Marques

I met Allie the first year I worked the summer program at the library, back when I still thought this would be temporary and I’d move on to serious research and serious scholars. At seven, Allie already knew our library stays open when schools close and there are snacks in the children’s section. I handed her Fruit Roll-ups with The Babysitter’s Club, Lunchables with Nancy Drew, and cupcakes with Alice Through the Looking Glass. The real one. Not one of those abridged versions.

By the time she moved on to Jane Austen and George Elliot, she’d taken to carrying a travel mug. Maybe she thought the fake coffee (we all knew the mug carried the juice box we handed out) tricked people into thinking she was older and allowed to sit in grown-up chairs, although I never told her to stay in the children’s section. I don’t think Ms. H, the head librarian, did either. 

Too soon, she was too old for juice boxes and fruit rolls. Most days, she grabbed a book and gravitated towards the third floor, where the woodsy scent of research books hovered over the silence. She napped there, sometimes. I mentioned it to Ms. H. I didn’t want to get Allie in trouble, but I didn’t know what else to do. 

Ms. H just nodded and said that’s what libraries are for, really. 

The next day, there was a box on the third-floor landing marked “FREE”. It was stocked with beef jerky and string cheese and crackers and fresh fruit. And, behind the encyclopedic Ws, where Ms. H found Allie had been keeping a change of clothes, there was a brand new copy of Where The Wild Things Are. On the last page, next to “and it was still hot” was a note written in Ms. H’s scrawling cursive: There’s some soup in the staff room on the stove. It’s probably still hot. Make yourself at home, dear. You’re family.

                                                          *   *   *

Amy Marques has been known to call books friends and is on a first name basis with many fictional characters. She has been nominated for multiple awards and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Gone Lawn as well as being a returning contributor at Bright Flash Literary Review. More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

                                                       

By Mike Nolan

She’d tell me, woman to woman, “Stress is just a state of mind.” That one stayed with me. I don’t know if I believed it, but the difference between me and Lo was she believed it.

I met Lo while sitting on gym bleachers, watching my kids roll and tumble their way through a “level one” gymnastics class. I don’t know that I’d exactly call it gymnastics; it was more a “movement class” for small children. My two girls—four and six—loved it. Lo brought her two granddaughters. 

Every Wednesday my kids couldn’t wait to get to class, but I probably got more out of it than they did. It’s fun watching your kids have fun, but what I really needed were those sixty uninterrupted minutes to sit and decompress. It became my hour of sanity, better than therapy. My relief was obvious. The first time Lo sat next to me, after she set her things down and exhaled heavily, she said, “Ahhh . . . off duty. But only for an hour.” She watched me take off my glasses, rub my eyes, and smile weakly. “And we need that hour,” Lo added knowingly, “don’t we?” 

What drew me to her wasn’t so much what she said but how she said it. Lo had a way of looking at me, into me, that was magnetic. Lo was calm. She was sweet but at the same time centered and assured—the sort of person I could adopt as my substitute mother. It felt natural when she spoke to me, touched my arm, and leaned in close. Close was good. 

A large person, Lo would come in wearing long, loose-fitting pastel dresses, always with a matching scarf tied around her head. I remember thinking, This woman has style. It definitely worked for her. She had dark eyes and wore no makeup; instead her looks were highlighted by her natural warmth.

With her granddaughters in tow, Lo always brought a couple tote bags and children’s books. Climbing the bleacher steps and drawing a deep breath, she would drop everything next to me as her granddaughters joined the class and ask, “How are you?” She said it like she really wanted to know. I sensed a certain quality, something I wish I had—a natural way of connecting. I can do it when I’m being intentional, but Lo could do it without even trying. Eventually I figured out trying to make it happen isn’t the same as having it happen. For Lo it was effortless—part of who she was. Lo made me feel like our conversation was the high point of her day. 

After two Wednesdays I started looking forward to seeing her. My “hour of sanity” became—even better—my “Lo time.” When I arrived at the gym, I’d get my girls going and set my things to one side, making room and hoping Lo would take the space next to me.

Lo told me, “My daughter works, but she gets off after gymnastics class starts, so this is my way to help out and give my daughter her hour.”

“Are you for hire?” I asked her, and we both laughed.

I recall her saying she had taught at a university—literature, or maybe history—but she was retired now and enjoyed having the free time to spend with her granddaughters.

Lo got me talking about myself, and she would remember what we talked about the previous week and ask me about it. Thinking back, I didn’t learn very much about her. I kept meaning to, but she always asked about me, and I didn’t get around to asking about her. After four weeks I considered us friends, in a “nodding acquaintance” sort of way.

That particular series of gymnastics classes began to wind down, and with a couple more sessions to go I asked Lo if she would continue with her granddaughters in the next series.

“Oh yes,” she said, “I don’t think the girls would have it any other way.” 

As the class finished that day, Lo got up to get her grandkids; my girls bounded up the bleachers. Lo gathered her things as I organized my daughters’ backpacks, water bottles, hair ties, and hoodies.

Touching her arm, I said, “Take care, Lo. I’ll see you next week.”

“I’ll be here,” she said, taking her granddaughters’ hands.

Lo left, and as I got my girls organized I noticed something on the bleachers: a folded piece of paper, a note. Lo must have dropped it, because I hadn’t seen it there when I arrived. 

I picked up the note and fumbled for my glasses. I could tell it was a list of some sort. Groceries? Errands? 

I set my things down and adjusted my glasses. It was a to-do list, and the first item made me do a double take. 

Thank-you notes to oncology nurses.

My girls started tugging at me, saying, “Mom, come on . . .” 

I stood there and continued reading. 

Notarize signature on will. 

I tilted my head a little; my daughters had their hoodies on and were slinging backpacks over their shoulders.

“Mom, come on. Let’s go.”

My gaze drifted from the list, trying to put things together. As I stepped down on the bleachers, I looked at the next item. 

Pre-payment to funeral home, and something caught in my throat.

Things began to click as I read List all accounts and passwords and then Pay off any remaining bills.

I stopped to wipe my eyes.

There were four or five more things, but I didn’t read them. I saw my girls waving and calling to me from the gym floor, but the movement and the noise were all a blur. I didn’t respond. 

Mechanically I stepped down from the bleachers, unsteady and tense, feeling suddenly empty. Walking across the gym through a crowd of people, I was totally alone. 

As I made my way to my daughters, I folded Lo’s list back up, telling myself I’d find an appropriate way—a sensitive way—to return the note to her next week and talk with her about her situation. Find out about her condition. I’d stop and ask questions and listen and take time to figure out how to do something to support her. Opening my purse, I carefully tucked the note into my pocketbook, then snapped it shut. 

That was two years ago. I never saw Lo again. Every now and then, I see her note in there, and I take it out and read it and think about her. Then I fold the note up again and put it back.

                                                              *   *   *

Mike lives in the small coastal town of Port Angeles, WA, where the mountains meet the sea, and has a web presence at mikenolanstoryteller.com.

By Chris Cochran

I was asked to be a pallbearer for my grandmother’s funeral despite being prepubescent. A boy not yet one hundred pounds, according to social conventions, was more capable of lifting a casket than a grown woman. Crying became an inconvenience, for the weight required me to use both my hands.

                                                           *   *   *

Chris Cochran is a high school English teacher who writes first drafts on an old typewriter in a small nook beneath his basement steps. He lives in Michigan with his wife and son, where he spends most evenings drinking tea and falling asleep to comedy podcasts.

By Guy Biederman

I climb to the crow’s nest with tea. Gwendolyn’s sipping scotch. Borrowed landscape recedes in yellow light, blue’s on loan from the sky. A pelican squadron lifts off and glides. “Do they know when they go that they’re leaving,” says Gwendolyn. Tea holds flavor close. I sip my last drop.

*  *  *

Guy Biederman is the author of Translated From The Original: one-inch punch fiction (Black Lawrence Press), and five other collections of short work. His stories and poems have appeared in Carve, Bull, Flashback Fiction, Flash Frontier, MacQueen’s Quinterly, 50-Word Stories, and many other journals. He lives on a houseboat.

By Zaneeta Alam

Broken doors beat a wind-song. An orphan paints life on crumbling walls, moss his emerald muse. Rag tapestries, sewn with callused kisses, hide hollow eyes. Rationed dreams, superhero shields against cold nights, some fading as dawn paints the sky. But the others, they keep dreaming, eyes burning bright, for tomorrow may be their masterpiece.

                                                                      *   *   *

Zaneeta Alam is a new and emerging writer from Bangladesh. When she’s not reading mystery novels, she possesses a deep passion for storytelling, experimenting with various genres, and examining the intersections of ethics and human nature.

By Don Tassone

Nick Reynolds, legendary food industry veteran, had just begun a special assignment with his longtime employer, Elgin Foods.  The final two years of his career were to be spent reinvigorating Elgin’s stale corporate strategy and making sure the right people were in place to lead the company forward.

It was a plum assignment.  It was also a way for Nick to save face and exit gracefully after years of bullying people had nearly cost him his job.

Fortunately for Nick, he had an advocate in Lou Bradford, Elgin’s CEO.  Nick’s business results were unmatched.  He had built Elgin’s snack cakes business into a world beater.  Bradford was reluctant to simply let such a strong performer go.  But he also genuinely believed Nick was well qualified for this assignment.  He knew Elgin’s business and its people well.

Or so Bradford thought.

“These people are crazy,” Nick told him after his first week in his new role.

“What?”

“The whole lot of them.”

“Who?”

“Our general managers, the ones you think should be running this company for the next 20 years.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, for starters, most of them don’t think we should even be in the snack cakes business.”

“Why?”

“It’s not healthy.”

“What?  It’s our healthiest business by far.”

“I mean they feel our products aren’t good for you.  They think we should be selling more nutritious foods.”

“Maybe they’re right.”

“But it doesn’t stop there, Lou.  They think our packaging should be environmentally friendly and our plants should run on renewable energy.  They want us to reduce our carbon footprint.”

“Well, we do have room to improve.”

“Improve?  Hell, Lou.  They want us to save the damn planet!”

Bradford smiled.  Nick gave him a curious look.

“Sorry, Nick.  But it just occurred to me these people don’t report to you anymore.  They’re probably just speaking their minds.”

“Maybe so.  But have you met with these folks lately, Lou?”

“Not as much as I’d like.”

“Well, good luck finding them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they all work from home now.  When I ask them to come into the office to meet, they act put out.”

“Well, after Covid, we did let everyone work remotely a few days a week.”

“I know, but I’m not sure how much they’re working at all.  They seem a lot more interested in making sure their teams are diverse than actually getting work done.  And have you seen how they dress?”

“It’s a new world, Nick.  Younger people don’t think about work the way we have.”

“But who’s going to do the work, Lou?  Who’s going to lead this company forward when hard workers like us are gone?”

Bradford sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against the bridge of his nose.

“Look, Nick, I need you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to put aside the past and try to see things as they are.  The world has changed, and these younger people aren’t like us.  If we’re going to have a thriving business tomorrow, we need to take a good look at the world and where it’s going, and we need to listen to the people who are going to take us there.”

“But Lou —“

Bradford held up his hand.

“Nick, I gave you this assignment because I thought you could do it.  I still think you can do it.  But only if you change.  Don’t expect the future leaders of this company to be like you.  You don’t have to agree with them, but you should respect them.  You have to take time to understand where they’re coming from.  They’re not crazy, Nick.  You just need to hear them out.  You’ve been in this job for a week.  I want you to come back to me in six months and deliver on what you signed up for.  But to do that, you’re going to have to start listening to people.  You’re going to have to change.”

Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He thought Bradford would be sympathetic.

“Nick?”

“What?”

“Are you still in?”

Nick thought for a moment.

“What are my options?”

Looking him in the eye, Bradford said, “Grow or quit.”

Nick blinked and sat back in his chair.

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“No, Nick.  I need your answer now.”

Nick looked over at a display of vintage Elgin products.  Jim Edwards came to mind.  He had been a senior vice president at Elgin when Nick was a young manager.  Nick was struggling and was about to quit.  But Edwards saw his potential and saved him.

Edwards went on to mentor Nick until he retired.  Ultimately, he learned as much from Nick as Nick did from him.

Nick turned back to Bradford.

“Grow,” he said.

                          

                                                             *   *   *

Don Tassone is the author of two novels and seven short story collections.  He lives in Loveland, Ohio.  Visit him at https://www.dontassone.com.

A shadow-hued hunter creeps through the bushes in the back garden. Later, she’ll bring me a bird or mouse, a testament to her skill that I’ll have to dispose of – but these are gifts of love, and I cannot refuse them, or feel anything but gratitude.

*   *   *

Alastair Millar is an archaeologist by training and a translator by trade. Married with two adult children, he lives north of Prague, Czech Republic, where he enjoys good books, bad puns, coffee and travelling. His social media links and previously published short fiction can be found at https://linktr.ee/alastairmillar