A memoir by Blaire Baron

The wise ones warned me not to search for my birth mother. But it was something I couldn’t control. I wanted this stranger to somehow see me and be the one to fix my pain.  She did. She saw me. Right before passing out on her tile floor. That fateful night ended with alcohol poisoning—not hers.

My lifelong wish of a perfect reunion did not come true. She kept on drinking. Every time I tried to give her another chance it got worse. So I gave up on my birth mother…sort of. 

For the next twenty years, I hopped on a merry go round of seeking my imaginary mother out in unavailable people (unavailable =  code for drunks). And then I hit the jackpot. The heavens opened! This hostage I found was mightier in his addictions then all his predecessors combined. When he saw me and hugged me and said, 

“You’re all that was missing. I’ll never drink again…” 

I made him the father of my children. Happy endings exist, even for me! We set out on a new sober life, both free from our addictions to people, places, things. We had a new freedom and a new hope and a new toaster and we knew that all the answers lied in each other. As long as we only followed the instruction manual called: Just Copy The Normal People. 

By copying the normal people we were able to pass in the world. Two babies, marriage, recipes, home repairs, Christmas, Halloween, parenting, taxes. While down this portal of “Normal” we ignored one thing: us. Normal was suffocating for people like us. We struggled for air. To survive Normal, we had to put on supplemental gear. Even spacesuits. Because Normal is truly like another planet. 

The distilled air of Normal bit our lungs. We hid our faces and hoped not to be discovered for the aliens we were. I subsisted on serial smiling while Normal snipped away at my sanity. Smiling is not sustainable. Misery made its way in and we felt like frauds. Something had to give. And it was me.

I snapped, but it was a walking snap, a functioning breakdown. I soldiered on, the real me gone. I dared not say it out loud, “I’m unhappy.” I was fighting to keep my unhappiness a secret. I didn’t know I had an option to get off the merry go round. I carried on in my walking breakdown, faking it until I made it, gulping caffeine and smiling through uncried tears. Genuine fights ended and a smoldering silence became the background noise in our Normal home.

December 12. Dawn. I stared at the ceiling with wide eyes and a feeling. While the children slept, snug under flannel, I wandered outside into fog. 

My feet curled over freezing stones as I crept behind the house toward the shed. Dumb All Over got loud all over. Light from under the door. He’s in that shed. One yank, one pull. So easy to enter hell. 

The demon looked over at me from inside his eyes. The twinkle was clear. “Game on. He’s mine.” 

So this is it. This is how it’s going to be. The future flashed. Our kids. The things we built. Trust. Heaven closed, happy endings not for me. Game over. I didn’t cure this malady. Space suits gone—never to survive the long haul of Planet Normal. 

I went to Alanon meetings for “my problem.” I only saw more Normal to copy, more adjustments to make. They told me his drinking was his business. It was another language. Another planet to try.

“You can be happy whether the alcoholic is drinking or not,” the virtuous promise, everyone nodding like bobble heads from the back of a car, with wise hindsight. Uh huh. And what language are you speaking? Did you just say I can be happy living with a madman? But I tried. I needed to succeed at this new game or perish. I tried this new way, called 

You Can Be Happy No Matter What.

But I’m no zombie. One April 6th, we were sitting in the park. My son Liam had a birthday gift for Daddy in his lap, tied in a crooked red bow. Daddy taught him how to tie shoes and bows. He looks right, looks left, over and over. Daddy’s late but he’ll sit here and wait. Waited. Waited. Like me, he won’t let go. No one came. Will this be a lifelong stamp on his memory? Is it the last straw for him or will there be a hundred more straws? He’s too young to know the World of Last Straws. But it was mine. 

Nine months passed. I rose up and turned our lives into something new. A different house, into a different block. My children and I found joy in small things and big things. I stopped fixing what refused to be fixed. Daddy was somewhere not here, not dead and not alive. We grew accustomed to the peace…sort of. When the phone rang, we still jumped. The background noise was still the dread over our loved one. But we determined to be in the land of the living, yet without copying normal. We didn’t react to the sympathy of “intact” families. We were fine. We were us.

I dropped the kids at school and wandered in a typical Tuesday trance to Trader Joe’s. The security guard clocked my baggy clothes and messy hair and I perceived people staring as if my limp scared them. It was just residual pain from the pan I dropped on my toe last night. I was in the pasta aisle when my cell vibrated. It’s been days since “Daddy” called. 

“…I’m gonna find a bridge…tell the kids I love them, please tell them I’m so sorry, tell ‘em don’t be like me but don’t let ‘em forget me…pancakes on Saturdays…it’s gotta end, finding a bridge…”

Calls like this have come before but never about a bridge. Never about this. He might be really jumping…I dialed 911. 

“What’s the nature of your emergency?” 

“ 51-50. My husband, he’s threatening to jump off a bridge.” 

“Where is he now ma’am?” 

“I don’t know, can you call his number and trace it? 

“No. Where do you think he is ma’am?”

“I don’t know! Can you trace his phone?”

They can’t. I babbled to the dispatch operator, and I told her his name. Then it got strange. She said my name. 

The dispatch operator said my name. She said my name after I told her his name. Then she said her name and it got weirder. 

“It’s Janelle!”

“Janelle? Wait, Janelle? From the block?”

Janelle was his childhood friend. The oldest friend he had. She grew up two doors down on Longwood. Janelle had become a dispatch operator. 

Out of all the 911 calls in that moment in Los Angeles, Janelle answered this one.

“I’ll call him on my cell. I’ll keep him on the phone. I know how to talk to him.”

I stood in the ice cream section forever. I was just as frozen as those fruit popsicles. Finally, Janelle called. She got him to disclose his location and she sent a squad car and ambulance. Janelle knew the buttons in him I couldn’t reach. She knew his mother, his programming, his damage. She was there. She reminded him that his babies needed their dad, the way he needed his dad. She told him, hang on…and he did.

I drove to a hotel on Beverly across from Erewhon Market. I felt out of my body as I parked across the street. The old me would have raced over and centered myself in the middle of it. But I found myself leaning against the wall of Erewhon market, holding back. Not running over to the small hotel across the street. I never noticed that hotel before. 

The medics and cops arrived. I watched them go in and come out with him. I watched his body bend into the backseat, compliant. I didn’t cross the street. I got in my car and drove home and took a shower and fixed my hair and taped my sore toe. He didn’t even know I had been there.

It’s been a decade since the 911 call. I called Janelle recently and I told her I was glad she became a dispatch operator. The day she answered my call changed my life: I don’t drink poison from other people’s glasses. I don’t need to be all anyone ever needs. I broke that vow with myself that day. 

Truth be told, Janelle saved four lives that day. She saved my whole family.

Author postscript: After many more near death experiences, he is clean and sober today. We continue to live a wonderful abnormal life. And Janelle is in that life.

*   *   *

Blaire Baron is an award-winning director, playwright, and writer. Her play, Gentry of Essex was performed at Powerstories Playwrights Festival ’23. Her play, Milk Meetings won Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting at The Ophelia (NYC) and an encore run at Studio C, Los Angeles. Her play, Unspoken won Best of Fringe, Hollywood. Recipient of PBS Community Champion Award for her work with youth and Shakespeare. She is presently launching a playwriting program at American Shakespeare Center. And has directed youth in Kenya, Botswana and Guanajuato. Her other work is published in Amazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Mental Health Anthology, and others.

By Sam Moe

He grabs and his arms are unmovable and nothing you say matters, not don’t or stop or can we just eat the pasta on the stove, leave me alone, there is another man seated on the couch. He witnesses. He looks at his phone and does not comment. The third and fourth are in the bedroom and soon, so are you. Your neck is a red smudge. The room is navy but, in the past, it was well lit. Your therapist later tells you this is common. The sky hides itself behind a sheet of clouds. A lamb returns to its farmer hours after it has been slaughtered. Bright honey eyes and starving for the evening to go differently. Perhaps it’s a little tired of pretending there doesn’t lurk a scissor within its jaw and maybe a little bit of its heart thrums to the concept of revenge, besides, who understands hunger like the farmer, certainly not his siblings or friends who will hear these stories, but does anyone understand? They leave with memories of witnessing. They leave shadows in their wake, cracks in the wall in the shape of impact, snakeskin in the valley and a grieving bowl of shredded fur. That night, he looks away from you even though he knows. And the wind wraps the house in a foamy gauze. And the mice, small like blood cells, crawl to the forest. Cars are stripped of their paint. Someone called you a sample, like a hair follicle collected in a testing tube or the first few seconds of an opera. Upon returning home, your partner comments you are the way you used to be. Fracturing at the thought of being physical. You remind him of the last time you went to the farm. Oh, he says. Then the two of you lay in the dark and listen to plush snow tossing its feathers against the window.

*   *   *

Sam Moe is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent collection, RED HALCYON, is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2026. Her debut short story collection, I MIGHT TRUST YOU, is forthcoming from Experiments in Fiction in Spring 2025. She has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and received fellowships from the Longleaf Writer’s conference and the Key West Literary Seminar. Sam has also received writing residencies from The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and Château d’Orquevau.

By Melissa Jornd

Frank stands inside the dispensary while a scruffy man with a ginger beard and pin-filled lanyard explains the different options, from oils and resin to drinks and cookies — “Cookies?” A memory flits through his brain, of Cindy and him in Argentina, stopping at corner cafes, feeding each other pan dulce before heading to the beach she found, Playa Escondida, bathing suits optional. He remembers gaping when she unclasped her top, smirking, sunlight glinting off her breasts.

Those perky breasts he loved, now traitors.

Focus.

 “Do you have alfajores?” He receives a blank stare.

“Uh…no.”

“How about macarons?” He thinks of their trip to France, climbing the Eiffel Tower, Cindy’s hand pressed against her chest, believing it was the exertion and European air causing her pains.

Ginger Beard looks at Frank for a moment. “Would cannabutter work? You could make your…things.”

Frank picks up two tubs of butter and a hemp lotion, still in slight disbelief. Twenty years ago, he stood in front of wide-eyed schoolchildren preaching the dangers of drugs. Now he’s purchasing them, in a desperate bid to minimize Cindy’s pain, even though he knows it won’t cure her. Caught too late, the doctors said sadly in the hallway, before signing off on her returning home for the time she has left.

At the register, he hands Ginger Beard a stack of twenties. 

“Have a nice day!” He chirps as Frank leaves. Frank tries to smile back, but isn’t sure he succeeds.

*

 The walkie-talkie crackles as Frank desperately stirs the dulce de leche. At least the shortbread was straightforward, although some are more burnt-brown than weed-green.

“Cindy wants to know if you’re burning the house down,” Nurse No-Nonsense asks.

“I’m baking,” he growls, sweating over the stove.

There’s no response, but Frank can sense Cindy’s amusement from the bedroom.

When No-Nonsense takes Cindy for her stroll, he rearranges the room with all their Argentina mementos, the alfajores on her nightstand between the pill bottles.

Cindy brightens when she returns. “What’s this?” she asks.

“Bienvenidos a Argentina,” he has a horrible Spanish accent, and Cindy gives a weak laugh. He explains the cookies, fusing past and present. There’s a sadness in her eyes as she eats one. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t finish our adventures,” Cindy says in a faint voice. Frank wipes her tears, leaving his palm on her cheek.

“You are my adventure,” he replies.

She entwines her hand with his: one translucent and trembling, one calloused and olive.

To him, they’re still a perfect match.  

They lay on the bed, recounting their favorite Argentina memories. After about an hour, Cindy lifts her head.

“I’m feeling…better?” Cindy seems surprised; Frank is too. And he knows in that moment he’ll buy the entire dispensary to help her feel like herself for even one more day. They both look at the cookies in wonder.

“Where are we going tomorrow?” Cindy asks, snuggling into Frank.

“Wherever you want. I’ll bake you the world.”

                                                                  *   *   *

Melissa Jornd is a Midwest gal with mountain dreams, whose stories have appeared in Crepuscular Magazine, Witcraft, 101 Words and more. She has won the Gold Scribes Prize and placed in contests from NYCMidnight, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Writer’s Weekly. When she’s not pushing against contest deadlines, you’ll find her frolicking through nature, trying to master new hobbies in under an hour, or force-cuddling her two cats, Charlie and Minnie.

By Kelleigh Cram

I see you, yes you, sitting upside down in the right-hand corner of my shower ceiling. You appear large, quarter-sized, but that could just be the shadows stretching over the curtain playing tricks on me. 

Yes, I am afraid. You are too high for me to reach with a shoe and brushing you down with a broom would be too risky, the chance of you landing on my face or disappearing into a crack in the tub. 

So you will just remain here, like me.

Today, if you are wondering, was not a good day. I fancied a walk, just a quick trip around the neighborhood, but there were so many people out there, with their kids and dogs and the threat of causal conversation hovering over their lips as I passed. I couldn’t wait to get back here to wash away the experience. 

Well, this has been nice, talking with you. Please don’t roam the house while I sleep or invite your friends over for a slumber party. Do you have friends? Are they all spiders, like you, or are some of them reptilian? I can see it now, spiders swaying on swing sets of silk, frogs hopping on webbed trampolines. Yes, that would be quite a sight. What was that there, the twitch of your leg? You want to have a dance party. Very well, just make sure the others are gone and the house is clean before I wake. 

*

Day two, and you haven’t moved. Are you dead? I hope you are dead, so I won’t have to kill you later. But that would mean I have been talking to myself this whole time. 

Today I must run an errand, go into town to pay a bill. The drive I dread, all those cars with impatient drivers rushing and honking at me. And God-forbid their waiting room is full again. I wish I could just stay here, where it is safe and quiet. Where I can be alone, just me and you.

Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you come with me? You can ride in the car, on the dash or the roof or floorboard, wherever you like. You could even come inside, perched on my shoulder like a parrot. I know, I know, someone could see you and speak to me, point out the spider on my shirt. But I think that would be okay, as long as you are with me. Yes, I will be okay. Please, will you come? I am getting out now, so climb down if you are going. 

No? That’s okay, my feelings aren’t hurt. You are probably dead anyway. 

*

Yesterday was hard. Impossible even, all by myself. You should have been there. A truck rode my bumper the whole way, its angry headlights shouting into my rearview mirror despite it being broad daylight. And don’t get me started on what happened once I got inside. The woman’s greeting, a chipper ‘how are you,’ to which I responded with a punctuating grunt, a period to declare the conversation over.

But she did it anyway, can you believe it? She asked about Mary.

Mary used to do these things, run errands and talk to people. Since she left, those responsibilities have fallen to me. She would have made me kill you, you know. 

Did you feel that? The water pressure just increased, only for a moment before going back to normal. Hold on, there it is again. 

It is her, shrieking. Shrieking with fear of you, shrieking the only way a ghost can, telling me to kill you and get you out of our home.

So sorry, but I must do as she asks. Maybe she is just waiting for you to be gone so she can return. Nothing personal, and don’t worry, it will be quick. Painless. Just be still, I will get the broom.

You moved. 

So you are alive, and you can hear me. You even understand me. 

Wait, I didn’t mean it. I won’t kill you. You can live here with free range of the house and everything in it. I will put on some music; do you like Jazz? No, you are a techno guy, something upbeat you can tap all those legs to. The kind for dancing with the heavy bass, what the kids play in their cars that makes the windows shake. I will dance with you, if you like. Mary made us take lessons for our wedding, and now I’m glad she did. Let me get the radio. Invite your friends. Snakes, pigs, even tigers for all I care. 

Where are you?

We don’t have to party, if you aren’t up for it. You like to weave, and I can use Mary’s yarn and needle to make something of my own. I will make them in all colors, webs of red, green, and purple hung in every corner of the house. We can even tape flies in them, if it would make you feel more at home. I have some of those plug-in traps; easy meals on me, if you stay.

Don’t worry about Mary. She will come to like you, in time. You will be like the son we never had.

But only if you come back. Please don’t leave me here alone.

*   *   *

Kelleigh Cram resides in a small town near Savannah, Georgia. Her work has been featured or is upcoming in Ponder Review, DarkWinter, and Right Hand Pointing.

By Jim Harrington

Spring was Ella’s favorite time. The birds returned from their winter vacation, filling the air with music, while colorful foliage blossomed in barren trees. But this year was different. This year her wedding occupied every minute of free time. Sometimes more, depending on what crusade her mother was on to make everything perfect. Today was the caterer’s turn for last minute instructions.

“Hey, Mom,” Ella said, looking at her watch. “I’m going to the church to make sure everything’s set for tonight’s rehearsal.”

“Okay, Hon, I’ll be over shortly.”

“No hurry. Take your time.” Please.

Ella arrived early for her appointment with the minister. She smelled it first, then saw the smoke coming from behind the church.

She parked along the street, so as not to block the fire truck. Sirens announced their impending arrival. She raced down the driveway and saw someone in a dark hoodie and jeans run into the woods.

Ella followed not thinking about what might happen next.

Ahead she saw the person look back and trip on an exposed root. Ella reached the arsonist, pulled off the hoodie, and was surprised to see someone she thought she knew.

“Andrea?” Ella said to her Maid of Honor. “What are you doing?”

“Stopping your wedding. I hope.” Andrea tried to get up. Ella pushed her down, anger spreading through her limbs like an unattended wildfire.

“I…I thought we were friends. Why would you want to stop it?”

“Because I saw Tom first. I’m the one who introduced you two. Remember? I should be the one getting married.”

Ella sat for a long time, watching the branches waltz in the treetops. Finally, she opened the top buttons of her blouse, turned so her back faced Andrea, and exposed the belt lashes inflicted when Tom arrived home early last night and dinner wasn’t ready.

Pulling off her engagement ring and handing it to Andrea, Ella said “You can have him.” 

Ella walked back to her car with a purpose. She took a few deep breaths, allowing her body to release the tension that had built up over the past weeks. Her suitcase was in the trunk ready for the honeymoon trip. She’d heard Portland was nice this time of year.

                                                               *    *    *

Jim Harrington lives in Huntersville, NC, with his wife and two dogs. His stories have appeared in The Yard, Short-Story.me, Ariel Chart, Spank The Carp, Flash Fiction Magazine, and others. More of his works can be found at https://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

By Madeline Torbenson

I went down to the river to pray because that seemed the thing to do. Luna finds a half-submerged rabbit possum squirrel or something. I can’t smell it, so I figure it’s safe for her to chew on. The river sucks bones dry until they are just bones. The day is a stout careless blue, and I keep forgetting that I’m supposed to be praying. Luna is chewing, the water is chattering and bright with sun, and I keep losing my place. How must it feel to come too late to be best loved? Luna is twelve years old, and the cat is five. The cat never got a name. Meow cat stripey cat fat cat here kitty kitty we call him, and pick him up and feel his pink toes and pat his head. Then we put him down and go inside where we all live and Luna lives but the cat does not live. I remember I am supposed to be praying. What is there to do? I ask. In the school library I could check out Frog and Toad, The Velveteen Rabbit. I learned to bake raspberry thumbprint cookies. I rented Twilight, though I’ve already seen it. I bought paints on Amazon when I wanted to paint, I applied to jobs I was not qualified for. Now I am haunted by love that is not there. I am a cat with no name. How do I unhaunt myself? The river is taking too long to carry away this ghost. It chokes me to want quietly, inactively. Like a dog to its sick, like licking a wound, I choke. Luna keeps chewing. The river slides softly by.

*   *   *

Madeline Torbenson is a first-year medical student who lives by a river and enjoys hanging out with her dog. 

By Michael De Rosa

One Friday morning, as I walked in Manhattan’s Upper Eastside along Madison Avenue to my subway entrance at 72nd St. As I had countless times, always too distracted to pay attention to passing stores, I found myself drawn to a store. As a card-carrying member of the International Society of Refrigerator Magnet Collectors, surprise did not do justice to my reaction when I saw its sign — “Magnets”—made from thousands of refrigerator magnets glued together. I had no choice. I went in, almost trembling with excitement. Who wouldn’t?

Inside, the tall, skinny clerk, face hidden by shadows, nodded as I entered. The walls, a higgly piggly arrangement of tacky magnets, seemed to go on forever. I stopped to look at the same magnet I had bought in Ouagadougou. When I glanced back, others replaced it from West Africa. Were they moving? Further ahead, a Neon sign I had not noticed before flashed “Bespoke Magnets” in crimson red.

Walking toward the Neon sign, I noticed a light sweet smell in the air. Now on the walls, I saw the unique magnets I had dreamed of bringing back from my travels, each an original artwork to be proudly displayed on a lucky fridge: the letters of Tanzania, a mosaic made from different shades of Tanzanite, tiny pearls or shells adorned those from Islands in the South Pacific; Hawaii’s was a small quilt stitched together from Aloha shirts.

I fell in love with a magnet from Hokkaido, Japan. In relief, a Steller’s sea eagle soared over a turbulent blue, foam-flecked sea. Individual feathers delicately carved, its bright yellow bill and talons glowing in the dim light. I had to have it, but it stuck to the wall, and I could not pull it off. I called the clerk over, his aquiline nose peering out from what looked like a hood. He effortlessly took it off and placed it in my hands. We walked to the counter. I was nearly in a trance as I paid hundreds of dollars for a 2×3 magnet. As I turned to leave with my treasure, he told me, “I have several other collections of interest.” I knew he was trying to upsell me, and hooked; I followed his lead.

We stopped at an alcove separated from the main showroom with a black beaded curtain, making it almost invisible to the casual visitor. Pressing a switch, “Ancient Places” glowed in dim purple light. Parting the long strings of beads, he went in, and I followed. Inside, a dazzling display of magnets from places whose ruins I had walked through, read about, and wondered how it would feel to be there in their glory days. I recognized the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, their labels in scripts I could not read: hieroglyphs for the Great Pyramid of Giza, cuneiform for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and Greek letters spelled out those from Ancient Greece. Puzzled. Whose refrigerators were they made to grace? In his unplaceable accent, before I could ask my question, he said, “Don’t get too close,” in a warning tone. I didn’t heed his advice.

Spotting a magnet of the Mayan City of Tikal, whose ruins in Guatemala I had visited, the central plaza was in miniature in all its glory. What I had seen before was now transformed into a riot of color. I got closer for a better look, but I was too close. As I peered at the magnet, it became a small window through which I could see tiny figures moving. I felt a wave of vertigo; a gentle tug brought me back into the showroom. Was it possible that what I thought of as magnets were portals into ancient worlds? He saw my pupils dilate with my thoughts of trying to find out, detoured me again, telling me they were experimental, not yet ready for sale. He led me farther into the store than possible for the NYC store size. As we walked, the only sounds were our footsteps, and the perfume in the air got stronger.

This section was even darker than the rest of the store. Finally, we came to another sign: “THE COSMOS.” He pressed a panel with his boney palm, and what looked like an airlock opened. A slight breeze, scented by a familiar sweet smell, wafted out. I turned with a questioning look, and he said, “Ethyl formate, the smell of raspberries and interstellar space.” He led me in. Before he closed us in, he warned me again as the airlock clicked shut, “Don’t get too close,” and added cryptically, “Beware of gravity.” Gravity?

Inside, there were no walls. Instead, magnets, or what I took to be magnets, floated, spotlighted against the gloom — almost as if they were dancing in the presence of magnetic fields. I could make out the glowing astral bodies they celebrated even from a distance. In one corner were our eight planets, each in its magnet orbiting a giant sun magnet. Was it my imagination, or was Pluto trying to rejoin his larger siblings — completing my childhood Solar System? Others featured constellations. As I watched stars morph into the shapes, we imagine them to be, Virgo, my zodiac sign, turned into a portrait painted by a Renaissance Master. More exciting, others were of spiral galaxies, globular clusters, planetary nebulas, and the Magellanic Clouds.

As I approached, trying to stay safe, I saw some objects remembered from my college astro class: The Crab Nebula, Andromeda’s Spiral galaxy, and one that looked like the Milky Way but as seen from outside our galaxy. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw an orange-yellow ring as hypnotic as the Eye of Sauron — a Black Hole. I found myself walking faster and faster, almost running toward the Black Hole.

My last memory is of the clerk leaping to try and stop me.

I awoke sprawled face down, with carpet pile tickling my nose. Light filtering from the storefront window told me it was early morning. As I tried to get up, a strong skeletal hand reached out to help and led me to a waiting chair. Had the clerk been waiting for me? He handed me a mug of hot tea. I gulped down the sweet brew as its warmth suffused my body. I slowly came back to consciousness. Touching my face, I found I had a stubble. I had not shaved in a couple of days. Puzzled, but once the clerk saw I could stand and walk, he handed me a small bag with my eagle magnet. And without a word, he escorted me out of the store.

I slowly walked home, shaved, and showered. When I looked at my alarm clock, it was two days since I had gone to work. I rapidly changed my clothes and went to the store as quickly as possible. It was gone, nowhere to be found and in where I thought it had been, a Halloween pop-up store. I retraced my steps on the opposite side of the street to ensure I was not confused about where the shop was.

Over a year has passed, and on Fridays, I walk back and forth from my house to the subway station on alternate sides of the street just in case. Sometimes I un-focus my eyes, hoping the magnet store will pop out of the confusion. And now, I pay attention wherever I walk, just in case.

The eagle soars over a turbulent sea on the magnet stuck to my refrigerator. Proof that what happened was not a dream. On mornings when I have raspberries with my granola, sometimes, there is a glint in the eye of the eagle as I pass by.

*    *    *

Michael De Rosa is a writer from Wallingford, PA, who recently retired as a professor (emeritus) of chemistry at Penn State Brandywine. Interests are travel, photography, and birding. The writer has published poetry in Ariel Chart, Trouvaille Review, and Academy of the Heart and Mind, and a memoir in Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal.

A Memoir by Rebecca Suzuki

My sister was allergic to formula as an infant, and her marshmallow skin would break out with itchy red bumps. The dermatologist didn’t want to medicate her unless he really had to, so told my mother to try natural remedies first. “Dip her in the ocean at dusk,” he instructed her. “The warm salt water will help her skin heal.” And beginning that day, every day at dusk the four of us would walk to the beach together. My mother slowly pushing the stroller with my sister in it, me holding my father’s hand, the sun slowly melting into the sky with its pinks and purples. Once we arrived at the quiet beach, my mother carefully scooped my sister out of the stroller, undressed her, and handed her to my father, who held her gently at his chest. He walked slowly toward the water, the rhythmic waves calling them inside. He felt the sand turning into a soft pad, then the water lapping at his feet, ankles. He waded until the warm water was up to his thighs and cupped his daughter’s warm, peachy head with one hand and the rest of her small body with the other. He looked into her face, her eyes searching and searching the sky. Trying to take in the world. He slowly lowered her into the ocean, and she kicked and flailed her arms, responding to the new sensations she felt all over her body. He chuckled and watched, making sure to not let the water get on her face, hoping that the ocean would heal her as the doctor promised. My mother and I sat together on a blanket facing the water. I sat on top of her lap, feeling the heat emanating from her skin, her breaths moving strands of my hair back and forth. Her arms were wrapped around me and her chin rested gently on top of my head. As the orange sun dipped lower, the pinks and purples became more prominent, like someone dripped paint into the clouds. I watched my father’s measured tender movements in the water. The ocean was endless, and so was he. When he came back to us with my sister, my mother wrapped her in a fresh, fluffy towel and her eyelids drooped over like honey. We walked home slowly, the last glow of the sun stroking our back.

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Rebecca Suzuki is the author of When My Mother Is Most Beautiful, winner of the Loose Translation Prize and published by Hanging Loose Press. She writes creative nonfiction in a mixture of forms and languages, and her work has been published in River Teeth, Identity Theory, KGB Bar Lit, and more. She is also a translator from Japanese to English and a faculty lecturer of English at Queens College, CUNY. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir that attempts to weave together complicated family histories, the disappearance of her father, her immigration to New York City from a seaside town in Japan at nine years old with her mother and sister, and how all of that has shaped them, 24 years later. She lives in Queens, NY with her cat.

By Héctor Hernández

My wife and I had worked out a morning routine over the years of our marriage—a ballet of sorts where she spun one way to open the refrigerator door while I spun the other way to open the utensils drawer. That synchronized, fluidity of movement had polished itself over time to the point where words were unnecessary while we moved through our morning activities in the kitchen before we each headed our separate ways to work.

So I was surprised by that little shove of hers. It had been deliberate. I was certain of that.

Although shocked by her aggression, I said nothing, choosing instead to continue as if it hadn’t happened.

In our thirty-six years of marriage there’d never been any aggressive physical contact between us. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Those first years had involved some pretty aggressive behavior, all of it concentrated on sex, though.I had been surprised back then as well. My four prior experiences in the art of love making hadn’t prepared me for the rough movements that my wife had surprised me with. But that had been a gratifying surprise, a pleasurable one. This new surprise had been nothing of the sort.

As I stood there, hoping for some kind of explanation—knowing deep down none would come—an odd rhythm tapped away in my head.

For years our marriage had sounded as regular as a clock: tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. But now there was a noticeable difference. I could hear it. A definite tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick. How long had that been going on? Did it just now start, or had it been that way for some time, and I just hadn’t noticed before?

With no apology materializing, I finished my business in the kitchen, kissed my wife goodbye—receiving a cheek for that purpose when she turned her head and mumbled a response that could have been “bye” or “why?” I wasn’t sure—and hurried off to work.

In my office, I performed tasks poorly—if I performed them at all. I just couldn’t concentrate. What had I done to merit not only a shove but also a sullen response from my wife that morning? I hadn’t forgotten our anniversary—that was months away. I hadn’t forgotten her birthday—also months away. What important date could have slipped past me? Try as I might, I couldn’t think of one.

It was three o’clock. Time for my afternoon break.

I had a routine. For my morning break, I’d walk to the local market half a block away and buy a banana—always a banana. I’d stroll back, walking on the opposite side of the street, window gazing like a tourist into the shops that lined the route, eating my snack.

In the afternoon, I’d walk in the opposite direction of my morning break, arrive at the local donut shop, buy a chocolate donut—always chocolate—and turn back. My morning and afternoon routines were as fixed as the laws of physics. I was a man of routine. A predictable man. “A man without spontaneity,” my wife often complained. “A reliable man,” I would always counter.

As I made my way to the donut shop, I thought back through each day of the past week, trying to recall any exchanges I’d had with my wife. Had she voiced any concerns that I failed to take seriously? Nothing came to mind.

At the donut shop, they were out of chocolate donuts. In all the years I’d been a customer, they’d never run out of chocolate donuts. The woman behind the counter suggested a glazed donut, but I had always had a chocolate donut and left deeply disappointed.

As I walked back to the office, I turned my attention once again to solving the mystery of that little shove from my wife that morning.

When had we argued last? There had been nothing this week, but what about the week before? Nothing, still. Maybe I’d accidentally fanned to flames the embers of some long-forgotten argument by some innocent remark I’d made. My wife was like a pit bull when it came to arguments, never letting go of one after she’d latched on to it. She’d occasionally shake the poor thing back to life as the mood struck her.

If there had been no arguments these past two weeks, then I would have to go back even further. And that’s when it hit me. There hadn’t been any argument, not that week or the week before or the week before that or the week before that one. I realized not only had there been no arguments between us these last several weeks, there had been no conversations.

I was stunned. But it was true. There hadn’t been any conversations between my wife and me in weeks, maybe months. Certainly there’d been words exchanged between us, but “good morning,” “good night,” “hi,” and “bye” weren’t really conversations.

We had each slid into our own separate, well-grooved routines that left no opportunity for real engagement between us.

My phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Emerson? Hi. How are you? This is Sandra Savage. Your wife suggested I call you on your afternoon break.” In spite of the friendly voice, a sense of dread bubbled up from the pit of my stomach. “I understand from her that you usually take your breaks away from your office. Is this a good time for you to talk?” Silence. “Mr. Emerson?”

“Just tell me what you have to tell me,” I said.

“All right.” An abrupt change in tone, the veneer of cordiality stripped from her voice and tossed. “I’ve been retained by your wife to initiate divorce proceedings.”

I still held the phone to my ear, but I didn’t really hear what more Sandra Savage had to say. I was thinking the local market had its own little bakery. They were certain to have chocolate donuts there.

*        *        *

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and worked nearly twenty-seven years for the County of Los Angeles, primarily administering construction contracts. He is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, and CaféLit.

By Lynn Kozlowski

Five old widows gather for their monthly potluck. Dishes from Lebanon, Italy, and local delicacies fill the table. They chat about current projects and are planning for the near weeks. For one of them a stray reminiscence surfaces: “Bob and I used to go to this old-fashioned motel. Separate wood cottages. We cooked out next to the river. Quiet spot. Easy time.” She savors the recollection of lost times beside the dark river in the evening but soon returns to the room. Matters and tasks are here and before them—the shared food, the company, and things still to do.

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Lynn Kozlowski’s writing has appeared in such places as 50-Word Stories, Every Day Fiction, Friday Flash Fiction, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Five Minutes, and failbetter.com. He has a volume of short pieces, Historical Markers (Ravenna Press) https://ravennapress.com/books/historical-markers/  He divides his time between New York State, USA, and Ontario, Canada.