By Tom Walsh

I thought about it all week, even practiced casting into a kiddie pool behind the garage. I watered the lawn at dusk and filled a milk carton with the night crawlers that emerged from their tunnels. Dad had never before asked just me to go fishin’; he’d taken each of the boys, Jay and Judd and Jack, on their own, but not his only daughter.

To be fair, I’m the youngest. 

Sunday morning, his one day off, finally came and we took the long ride to the Missouri; interstate to highway to rutted dirt road, then across a field with faded tire tracks through the tall, browning grass.

We unfolded two camp chairs next to the water, under a tremendous willow, the biggest I’d ever seen, on a patch of bare ground worn smooth by generations of fishermen. The whining buzz of heat bugs screamed August, the humid air rich with petrichor from a farmer’s newly turned field.

I unsnapped the poles from their rack in the pickup, grabbed the tackle box and the worms, and brought it all to the river’s edge in the willow’s shade. 

We’d taken a late start, which worried me because I always thought you were supposed to fish early. I didn’t know why, figured the fish must be hungry after a long night doing whatever fish do through the long nights. 

Dad wore a faded blue denim bucket hat that he’d stuck a dozen lures and flies into. I always worried he’d stab himself, but he said that kind of carelessness only happens once, and his happened long ago.

He lugged the Coleman cooler, set it between the chairs, and plunked into one. Strategizing, I assumed, pinpointing our approach. I asked if we’d start with worms or minnows, spinners or jigs, dry flies or nymphs. I laid out the case for each option, eager to impress. 

“First let’s sit here and watch the water a bit, see what they’re hungry for.” 

As he spoke, I heard a splash and saw a silver streak out the corner of my eye, about 10 yards offshore in a little eddy swirling around a fallen tree trunk just upstream. Excited, I asked if I should bait a line and use a bobber to catch that sucker or if he wanted to float a fly to it. 

I was anxious to show him I could catch something. But Dad just smiled and said to hold my horses and sit a spell. He popped open the cooler.

“Hungry?”

I was. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and it was already lunchtime. From the faded green metal cooler, he pulled two cold BLTs wrapped in tin foil, a tinge soggy from the mayo and tomato.

“You eat these cold?” I asked. He nodded and took a big bite, said oops when a dollop of mayo dropped onto his shirt. He scooped it up expertly with his pocket knife, scraped it back onto the ragged edge of his sandwich, took another bite.

I wolfed mine down along with a bag of crinkle cut potato chips. Barbecue, my favorite.

He told me this was his father’s favorite fishing spot. I never knew my grandpa. Dad looked comfortable, showed no inclination to grab a pole. I was fidgety, but when I stood up, he told me to settle down, the fish weren’t going anywhere.

“It’s a hot one today. Beer?”

Now, being 16 in our little town, I was pretty sure he knew I’d drank beer before, but I felt like this was a trick, a test.

“Sure,” I said, as cooly as I could muster, thinking surely my brothers would have said yes to the offer. The ice cubes rattled as he dug his meaty mechanic’s hand into the bottom of the cooler and pulled up two wet, ice cold bottles of Shiner Bock. He handed me one, then twisted the top off of his. He wedged the quarter-sized piece of metal between his thumb and middle finger and snapped. The cap whizzed over my head, plunked in the water.

“How’d you do that!?”

He laughed and showed me. My bottle cap kept dropping harmlessly to the ground until, about the tenth time. It shot sideways from my hand, nicked his whiskered cheek and made a small cut, like the ones he’d put a dab of toilet paper over after shaving.

“There you go!” he guffawed, genuinely excited.

*

He asked me about school, about my job at Bert’s Groceries, about the Jeffries boy he’d seen me hanging around town with. I blushed, afraid he was going to give me “the talk” and tell me to be careful because boys only want one thing. But he just said they were a nice family and he’d known Bill Jeffries since grade school.

I forgot about fishin’ and asked how he met mom; I’d heard the story before, but only from her. I asked about his time in Vietnam, which he rarely talked about. I asked if he ever regretted not going to college, or getting married so young. Sitting under the willow beside the Big Muddy, drinking a beer, he answered everything.

He paused for a bit when I asked about grandpa, about if they ever went fishin’ together like this. 

“We fished, but not like this. He was quiet and we just fished.”

We talked all day and for the life of me I don’t remember if we ever did dip our lines in the river. It was late when we got home and I knew he had work early in the morning so I told him I’d put everything away.

My brothers came over to help, which surprised me to no end.

“Catch anything?” they asked.

“Not a thing,” I said.

                                                                       *   *   *

Tom Walsh writes these days from Cambridge, MA. His stories can be found in Emerge, Hobart Pulp, Lost Balloon, JMWW, Bending Genres, HAD, Flash Frog, West Word, and elsewhere. Say hi @tom1walsh.bsky.social.

By Jade Kleiner

Blahaj was mixing up an iodine packet when the maybe-body came flying down past her. She slightly looked up and saw someone in their 50’s – or maybe their 30’s? – plummeting, silently, with perhaps some dignity. But that was all Blahaj saw – a figure, dropping, instantaneous. On this nook of an outcrop on a bastard mountain, fingers shuddering in her gloves, Blahaj could not see where the figure had fallen from or where it had landed. A single meaty thump had hit her ears, signifying, at least, that something had in fact landed. But the meaty thump had left her ears as quickly as it came.

A little bit of snow drifted into the indent of the mountain she had made her camp in.

Blahaj took in the situation. Here she was, two days into the back country, a third of the way up the harsh side of a mountain. Mt. Slarr was known for having an easy side and a vertical side. She had, possibly, just observed someone free-falling down the vertical side. If that was the case, the plummeter was almost certainly dead.

The iodine packet was mixed in. Blahaj let the water bottle rest and tugged her hat and earmuffs a little tighter. Her left boot had gotten a little bit loose, so she dedicated two minutes to taking it off, changing her sock, and re-tying it. She ran a mitten along her backpack, her little tent half set up for the night. Her old climbing instructor had let her know about this nook, a little indent in the wall. It was cozy. Safe.

Very much not like the air that someone may have just plummeted down.

But why should she look? So she could see a body, down at the bottom, bent in ten kinds of askew, pooling with bile and skull flakes? Or perhaps the deed was not fully done. Maybe down there was someone who could truly, completely, fully use her help, a downed soul in need of a valorant rescue.

And what of that rescue? Blahaj was not medically trained. She was not a Wilderness First Responder.

She was not brave. She was not unusual. She was, sure, a solo hiker, and a climber, but she liked the solo part first. If there was someone down there, they only had a few minutes, an hour at best, before they died from their injuries.

Of course, she did have a satellite phone. She could call for help. Conveniently, however, it had stopped working last night, when she tried to call her Mom for good luck. Probably the batteries, and she had packed spares, but the speakers had warbled and given in. Now the technical malfunction could be life and death.

And this is, of course, a real problem. Not imagined. Blahaj had – she could swear – seen someone fall.

There had been a blur of a person, but within that blur, a distinct orange scarf just under two eyes full of terror. That had been a face. But did she see it? How rare that would be! Mt. Starr is not a tourist trap.

Only experienced hikers and climbers even cared about it. It wasn’t even particularly high, just sheer on one side – the side Blahaj had been climbing all day.

She could, of course, go and look. Peer down the mountain and see if there was a body, or someone cradling half a knee and calling up, relieved to see a friendly face. Blahaj could walk over, look down, and see if it resolved into a real problem. See if there was something to do.

Blahaj took a sip of the iodine. Then she took the poles for her tent out of their carrying case and spaced them out. Then she assembled the skeleton of the tent and pulled the weather-resistant fabric onto it. It was getting dark now. She took her headlamp out of her pack and lit the tent up.

She had to pee. Normally she would pee off the cliff face, but now was not normal. Instead she waddled over to the back of the cave-nook, squatted down, and pissed. She would have preferred to pee away from her sleeping quarters, but that would involve potentially looking over the precipice.

She tugged off her socks and replaced them. She put on her resting back country clothes. She lit her little heater. She went to sleep.

*

The sun came up. Blahaj woke and was struck by how lucky she was. She had a week off from work and her job as a bank teller was quite safe. She had all this nice gear. All her limbs still worked. Her mind was sharp. She really had it going on. And she was tired. So tired. She needed this vacation, and she had four days left before her boss, Mr. Sneebly, would be hitting on her again.

So Blahaj peeled off her socks and her pajamas. She put on her climbing clothes, snapped her tent up, packed up her bag. And she went to the edge of the nook. She did not look down. She started to climb.

*   *   *

Jade Kleiner is a writer from New England. Her writing can be found in manywor(l)ds, Haikuniverse, Neologism Poetry Journal, Gingerbread Ritual, and elsewhere. She istransgender and has practiced in the Plum Village tradition since 2020.

By Kevin Joseph Reigle

A beacon light strobed from the bolted top. Wayne lifted a finger, and the continuous miner ground to a halt.  The shift foreman yelled, “Time to head to the house.” 

Wayne grabbed his battered lunch box and duck walked to the mining buggy with the rest of the crew. Roof bolter, Crazy Sikes, pushed aside a plastic curtain and hunched down as he made his way over from the unsupported top in entry four. 

The miners lowered their heads as the buggy sped toward the light at the entrance of the shaft. As the first rays of sun washed over them, Sikes patted Wayne on the shoulder. “You going to the game tomorrow?”

“I never miss one,” Wayne answered as the buggy came to a stop.

“Great job today, boys,” Don, the outside man, yelled. “We got eight cuts.”

The men celebrated a day of hard work as they started up the rocky incline to the gravel lot. Wayne looked into the bed of his pickup truck before unlocking the cab. The body was rusted, and with almost three hundred thousand miles, the engine wouldn’t last much longer. He was past due for a new truck, but every time he looked into the bed, he saw Blaze, panting, tail wagging, excited to see him. Getting rid of the truck would be like losing Blaze all over again.

Wayne lifted the handle and gave the door a hard pull. He slid onto the bench seat, putting the lunch box on the floor.

“Great job this week,” Don said, approaching the truck.

Wayne put the key in the ignition and turned it halfway, letting the radio crackle to life. A John Fogerty song playing softly from an AM station. “I do what I can.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. We’d have to shut this place down if it wasn’t for you. Night shift ain’t worth a damn,” Don said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “When the company sent me down here, I didn’t expect there’d be someone as good as you running a miner.”

Wayne shrugged. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“How about that boy of yours? I bet he’s ready to follow in his pa’s footsteps.”

“He’s nine. I don’t think he’ll be operating heavy machinery anytime soon.”

Don squinted, looking at the sun. “Sorry, I thought someone said you had an older boy.”

“Just Tyler. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Bright and early,” Don said, stepping away from the truck.

While shifting into reverse, Wayne turned up the radio as Thunder Road filled the cab while the on-air DJ announced the station’s call sign; AM 1220, Home of Heartland Rock in the mountains of West Virginia.

Wayne coasted down the single-lane dirt road across the narrow Caney Creek Bridge, which stood just wide enough for coal trucks to cross on their way to the processing plant. A plant Wayne would pass on his twenty-minute drive home to Marshall Hollow. 

Rounding the bend and crossing the abandoned railroad tracks, remnants of a general store stood in the undergrowth. A cracked RC Cola sign hung from a rusted pillar. Sun-bleached wood planks supported cracked glass in a store window.

The Big Sandy Tabernacle Church of Christ departed from their usual practice of displaying fire and brimstone Bible verses and instead, offered good luck to the football team on their upcoming district championship game. Up ahead, the coal processing plant straddled the hillside like a colossus. A line of trucks waited to offload unprocessed coal onto the two-ton conveyor belt that fed into the breaker before being sorted and washed. 

A few miles down the road, Wayne’s doublewide trailer nestled on a hill just beyond the turnoff to Marshall Hollow. The road continued past his trailer and eventually ended at his parent’s house. The entire hollow filled with kinfolk.

Wayne pulled into his driveway. In the backyard, he watched his son, Tyler, trying to kick a football, but he flubbed it, sending the ball spinning across the grass. Tyler chased after the ball as it skidded through the mud and into the weeds.

Wayne leaned against the grill of the truck and lit a Marlboro. Tyler hardly looked fazed by his bad kick. He picked up the wayward football and began tossing it in the air. 

A sedan pulled into the driveway. Stones kicked up, pinging off the undercarriage. Wayne watched Allen roll down the driver’s side window and give him a nod. 

“You coming out tonight?” Allen asked.

“Yeah, after I get a shower.”

“Jesus,” Allen said, watching Tyler throw the football at a tree stump but missing badly. “Are you sure he’s part of your gene pool? Hey, I’m really sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.” 

“It’s fine,” Wayne muttered.

Allen glanced at the darkening clouds through the windshield, looking for a way to change the subject. “Man, I hope it don’t rain. If this place floods again, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t miss any more work.”

“You’re not the only one. We needed a boat to get out of here last time.”

“The creek better start draining.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Wayne said, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his boot. “I’ll let you know when I head out.”

“Sounds good,” Allen said, rolling up the window.

Wayne gave a two-fingered salute as he watched Allen back out of the driveway. It startled Wayne when the football bounced up and hit his leg. He grabbed the ball and spun it before resting his fingers over the laces. “Go long for me, bud.”

Tyler screeched with excitement as he ran across the yard. A perfect spiral flew through the air and arced into his hands. The ball slipped through Tyler’s fingers and thumped off his chest.

“Can I try again?” Tyler asked hopefully as he retrieved the ball. 

“I have to get a shower. Maybe we’ll throw some tomorrow.”

  Tyler held the ball above his head. “Why don’t we play like we used to?”

Trisha’s voice came from inside the kitchen. She had the window over the sink open and could hear their conversation. “Yeah, why don’t you?”

Wayne stepped up on the deck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Sure you don’t,” Trisha said.

Wayne ignored her and opened the trailer door. He walked through the kitchen as she stood at the sink washing dishes. “You don’t have to make me dinner. I’m going out with Allen.”

Trisha raised a soap-covered hand and turned off the faucet. “Is it because he’s not good at football?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He’s not Johnny,” Trisha said, her voice trailing off.

“You don’t think I know that?”

Trisha grabbed a towel and dried her hands. “Don’t you think this has been hard on me, too?”

“Has it? Looking at you, I’m not so sure.”

“It’s been five years, Wayne. Tyler needs you. There’s nothing to be done about Johnny now. Don’t go losing two sons.”

Wayne wiped the coal dust from his face and extended a hand for her to see. “I’d like to get a shower, if that isn’t too much to ask.”

“You’re going to regret this.”

“Regret what?”

“Not spending time with him. Tyler’s allowed to be good at something other than football. Don’t toss him aside just because he isn’t Johnny.”

“I’m getting a shower,” Wayne said.

Trisha threw up her arms. “That’s fine. Go to the bar and cry with Allen about the state championship you lost when you were both eighteen. Jesus, move on.”

“Allen can move on, he has Roddy.”

“What, so if his son wins state this year Allen’s loss has been avenged? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You don’t get it.”

“Johnny was our son. He was nice and thoughtful. His sole purpose in life wasn’t to win a state championship that you couldn’t.”

Wayne opened the bathroom door without saying a word. He laid his cell phone beside the sink. He tapped the screen and found the last picture of him and Johnny taken beside the car just minutes before the accident.

                                                                      *   *   *

Kevin Joseph Reigle’s fiction has appeared in The Brussels Review, Bridge Eight, Drunk Monkeys, Beyond Words, Bristol Noir, Bright Flash Literary Review, Midsummer Dream House, and several anthologies. He is a student at The New School.

By Robert A. Cmar

“The stove, the wood stove at the old farm, that was a good stove,” he said, lifting the kettle off the electric burner. “This one, it’s easy, sure, but the old stove? That was a good stove.”

He poured hot water into a teapot and pulled two chipped mugs from the cupboard. 

“Please don’t.” She glanced up from her book. “The farm, I want to forget all that. Thirty years gone; you still talk like it was paradise.”

“I grew up there,” he said, “if you could have seen back when ….” 

“I grew up there, too. Remember?” she said, staring up at him. “Seventeen, I married you and moved in with your family. I was a young, stupid girl.”

“We were both young,” he answered, dropping a teabag into the pot.

“So young,” she said. “And so stupid. I didn’t know, when I married you, that I married it all: your father, your mother, your brother, the cows, the bank loan, all that is what I married.” She turned a page in her book. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You never want to talk about this,” he said. “We had good times, kissing in the barn. And the food, my mother, her cooking. Remember the fresh bread?”

“The bread?” she said. “I had to keep the stove going for hours. And who fetched the wood? Me! Your father never lifted a hand, not after he had his drinks.”

“I worked, too, you know,” he said, placing a mug before her and pouring out the tea. “The cows ….”

God, you’ve forgotten everything. You and me, we had less than a year together on that farm, then you got drafted and I was alone with them.” 

He sat and sipped from his mug.

“Those two years you were away,” she continued. “Work, only work. In the barn, the fields, to the well, over and over. In the winter it was so cold, that’s why my fingers are what they are now.” 

She held the warm teacup in both hands, blowing across the hot water, sending a whiff of steam across the table.

“So much work,” she said. “The first fall, after you went to the war, the well went dry. I had to beg for water from the neighbors, then put the barrels in the truck, like a pioneer. All winter, we couldn’t take proper baths.”

“My brother was supposed to help.”

“No” she said. “We’re not talking about this.” 

They sat in silence, facing each other, both looking down into their mugs. 

“Yes, my father was getting old,” he said, “but my brother, he could run that farm all by himself.” 

“Oh god, you want to do this? Your brother.” She looked out the window, through the lace curtain, at the lights of the apartment building across the wide avenue. “Your brother. Those first months, yes, he did his work. His ‘work.’ You want to talk about that? What happened? No.” 

“They say he’s in California,” he said.

“I say …” she paused. “I say he’s in hell. He never came back, not for your mother’s funeral, not for …”

“They should have buried mother in the churchyard,” he said. “Not at the farm. We should go out there, see what they’ve done, maybe find the graves.”

“We went back there, remember,” she said. “Years ago. We drove up and down all those new streets, where the farm was, all those new houses that we could never afford. We never found the graves, we never found anything.”

“My brother,” he asked, “was he still there when my mother died?” 

She sipped her tea, looking out the window, then at her husband.

“Your brother,” she said. “I told you, stop it. He wouldn’t talk to me, and once I started to show, he left. You were gone, he was gone, your mother, dead. I had to give the baby to the neighbor for days and days, so I could take care of the farm and your drunken father.”

“We didn’t get mail out in the bush,” he said. “Mother was already dead six weeks when I found out.”

“Two days, you stayed with us on leave,” she said. “Gone over a year, and you stayed two days. You didn’t even pick up the baby. He was so beautiful, little Michael. You never picked him up, even after your discharge. No wonder he hates you.” 

He looked up from his tea, to see her staring into his eyes. He looked away, and stood, putting his mug into the sink.

“We should go back to the doctor,” he said, “show him your hands. Maybe there’s something?”

“Aspirin,” she said. “That’s all the doctor says.”

“Have you heard from Michael?” he asked. “Do you think he’ll come back?”

She looked up at him. “I don’t know. I don’t know. He’s on his second tour, that stupid boy, like you. Maybe he’ll come home. Maybe he’ll go to California, like he always said he would.”

“I got a bonus for re-upping,” he said. “I wanted to save the farm.” 

“A few hundred dollars,” she answered. “That didn’t even cover the interest. The truck broke, I had to hitchhike to town to get diapers and formula.”

“Nobody told me it was so bad,” he said. “I was ten thousand miles away.”

“Tell you? On your visits,” she said, “you seemed so angry; I was afraid you’d never come back. What was I going to say? Leave the army, help us, we’re in hell?”

“I’ve said I’m sorry, so many times,” he said. “And the farm, I didn’t know it was gone until you sent that letter.”

She looked up into his eyes, then back down to her tea. 

“After the sheriff threw us out,” she said, “the bank, they put it all up for auction, all I could keep was a few old pictures and some beat-up furniture. God, that dirty apartment I found, so small, your father sleeping on the sofa, Michael and me on a broken old bed.” 

 “When I got back,” he answered, “I got a job the second day, remember? Things were hard but it got better. We had some good times. Remember Niagara Falls?”

“Michael was so scared,” she said, “on that boat, all that water, he held both our hands, so tight. But then when it was over, he wanted to go back for another ride.” She smiled.

“I did my best to raise him,” he said. “I did what I could.” 

“You never said a positive thing to that boy,” she said, “No wonder, the day he graduates high school, he joins the army. That’s what you did for Michael. He didn’t even say goodbye, only that damn little note.”

“You should have told him,” he said. “Maybe things would have been better.”

“Tell him?” She answered. “Jesus. Again with this. Tell him? What, that you left me alone with your dying mother, your drunken father, and your pathetic, perverted brother? Michael figured that all out, long ago. You never treated him like a son, like a father should treat a son. No more,” she said, standing, the wooden chair legs scraping across the floor. “All this talk won’t change anything.”

She walked to the sink, ran water to wash the mugs.

“I’ll do it. Your hands,” he said.

“It’s just these two. I’m already done.” 

He stood next to her, picked up a towel and began to dry the mugs.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m stubborn. When Michael comes back, I’ll talk to him, I’ll make it right.”

Standing there, together, at the sink, she put her arm around his waist. 

“Not again,” she said. “About the farm, no more talk about those days.” 

“No. Never again,” he said. “You must be tired. Let’s get to sleep.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice softer now, as she returned to the table, “But first I’m going to finish reading my story.”

“Yes,” he said, his back turned as he moved toward the bedroom. “Don’t stay up late.”

                                                                 *   *   *

Robert A. Cmar is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work ranges from depressing to bleak to emotionally scarring. His writing has appeared in publications including The Offing and Silent Writing Happy Hour, and he is currently working on his first novel. He recently retired from a 35-year career in technical writing, having also held more stimulating jobs such as steelworker, line cook, and gravedigger.

By Jaron Weidner

“Did you know that a bird’s feather is hollow?” she asked me from the backseat of the car. She always had so many questions on these early morning drives to the school. I was hardly awake enough to respond, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

“If angels have wings, does that mean they have feathers?”

“I guess they do,” I said.

“What do angels do?” she continued. Her eyes sparkled with imagination.

“Well, I think they probably protect us sometimes,” I said, but I wasn’t really sure I believed it.

“What about that philosopher who said that God is dead?” she asked with a puzzled look.

I clearly needed more coffee to have this conversation. How did she even know about that at her age?

“If God is dead, what do the angels do?” It was obvious she wanted an answer from me.

“Maybe they turned into birds,” I said. I don’t think she believed me, but she smiled anyway.

*   *   *

Jaron Weidner is a songwriter turned fiction author. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, he now calls Memphis Tennessee home, where he lives with his wife and son. His short fiction stories have been published in January House Literary Journal, TrashLight Press, and Novel Nest Literary Magazine. Jaron is currently submitting a variety of short stories to many different publications, while also working on his first novel.

By Michael C. Roberts

Granddaughters, up from the south, are fascinated by a patch of old snow on the hilly side of the house. They had discovered their absent father’s sled in the cluttered basement with broken slats and chipped runners. Grandma encased their tennis shoes in bread bags with large rubber bands around their ankles. For once, the girls took turns. Later, they shivered in the front hallway with wet legs and bottoms. Warmed by hot chocolate with marshmallows, they descended again to the basement and found in a chest their father’s wanted poster, yellowed and torn from the Post Office bulletin board. 

                                                                  *   *   *

Michael C. Roberts has placed numerous photographs in literary outlets and a few written pieces in The Human Touch, Invisible City Literary Journal, A Story in 100 Words, Story Quilt, and Silly Goose. Inspired by Edgar Lee Masters, he has written a “Spoon River Redux” that will likely never be published but writing it helped pass the time during the pandemic.

By Peter J. Stavros

We carry our lunches in plastic grocery bags, Tupperware containers, insulated totes. We move in silence, impassive, vacant stares, arms full, shoulders slumped, merging from parking lots, bus stops, subway stations, onto sidewalks and plazas. We type in security codes, swipe key cards, flash badges, disappear into awaiting buildings, up stairs or elevators, down corridors buzzing from tubular fluorescent bulbs. We enter offices, cubicles, conference rooms, flip on lights, log onto computers. We sit. We check calendars, scroll through emails, retrieve messages. We settle for another day, another chunk of our lives, wondering how it would feel to be free. 

                                                                    *   *   *

Peter J. Stavros is an author and playwright in Louisville, Kentucky. His work has been featured in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and magazines. You can find more at http://www.peterjstavros.com.

By Sarp Sozdinler

I am standing with my father in the median of 17th Street holding a lawn chair that folds up into a carrying pouch but never fits back in. It’s the annual Founders’ Day Parade, which, in my town, means a line of flatbeds trailing children dressed as farm animals, a man with a megaphone announcing “Let’s hear it for the Dairy Princess,” and the marching band sweating through borrowed uniforms.

My father loves parades, which is something I didn’t know until I turned 27 and moved home to save money, or maybe just because things fell apart in the usual ways. Divorce, lost job, a plant that died so quickly it seemed intentional.

“Look at that tuba player, she’s committed,” he says, pointing at a girl half-swallowed by her instrument, red-faced and looking like she might faint. He never marched in a parade. He was, according to him, “indoor people.” Still, he’s got a bag of Jolly Ranchers for the kids who come by and a folding fan with the logo of our local bank. The woman next to us wears a shirt that reads MY DOG IS SMARTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT. Her actual dog is in a stroller and has an ice pack under its belly.

There’s a float from the Lutheran church, crepe-paper flowers drooping in the June heat. Last year, their papier-mâché Jesus melted halfway through and fell face-first into the crowd. My father still talks about it. “Best moment of my life,” he says, eyes crinkling, though I know he’s lying. His best moment is probably still the day I was born, or the time he bowled a 236 in a league championship, which comes up every Thanksgiving.

I scroll through my phone, looking for messages, but all I have is an unread email from my ex, subject line: “Forward: Your Mail,” and a notification that my Amazon order (vitamin D, face mask, a book about not feeling great) has shipped. My father sees me frown. “You need more parade in your life,” he says, which is not true, but also not entirely false.

The mayor rides by in a golf cart. She’s wearing a sash and tossing mini-Snickers into the crowd. A little boy runs out, nearly gets trampled by the high school flag corps, comes back victorious, holding a single squashed candy bar. His mother looks relieved, but also a little annoyed, like maybe she was hoping he’d be braver or that he’d lose and learn something about disappointment.

It’s so hot the blacktop smells like burnt marshmallows, and everyone is sweating through their shirts except my father, who seems immune. “Used to be hotter,” he says. “Used to be snow in April, corn knee-high by the Fourth.” He says these things every year, as if maybe by saying them he can will the world back into whatever shape it had when he was young.

A squad of old men in military caps marches past. They move slowly, stiff-legged, as if holding a secret inside their jackets. Everyone stands and claps. My father salutes, though he never served. “Habit,” he says. “Or maybe just respect.” I think about the habits I’ve picked up since moving home—eating cereal for dinner, watching reruns with my father until midnight, pretending my life is on pause instead of just…happening.

At the end of the parade is a truck advertising a local carpet cleaner. Someone in a dog costume waves half-heartedly. The crowd thins, folding chairs snapping shut, children whining about lemonade, people peeling away toward cars parked haphazardly on side streets. My father waits until the street is empty, then helps an elderly woman in a sunhat cross to the other curb. “You stay for the sweepers, you get the real show,” he tells me, and we watch as the city workers follow with brooms and a garbage truck. There’s confetti everywhere, mashed candy, a lost shoe. The woman in the MY DOG IS SMARTER shirt is picking melted chocolate off her dog’s paw.

We start the walk home. My father carries the lawn chair, swinging it like a briefcase. “You know,” he says, “I used to hate parades.” I wait for the rest, but he just grins at me. “But now I kind of like having something to look forward to, even if it’s just people in funny hats.”

I nod, not because I understand, but because it’s enough. The sky is white with heat, and my shirt sticks to my back, and I know tomorrow I’ll find confetti in my shoe, and maybe for a second, I’ll smile.

                                                                *    *    *

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Flash Frog, Vestal Review, Fractured Lit, JMWW, and Trampset, among other journals. Their stories have been selected or nominated for several anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. They are currently at work on their first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.

By Beth Sherman

The chameleons were mating again, pressed together at the bottom of their cage, their placid lizard faces divulging no sign of pleasure. Elise peeked over, then thought better of it and pulled a black mesh stocking over one leg, while Rob sat at his desk typing, ignoring all three of them. 

They’re still at it, Elise said.

Rob kept working. He was half-way through his prescribed daily writing task and didn’t like to be disturbed. 

They’d bought the chameleons at Selmer’s, the day the pet store went out of business, for $24 and a three-month supply of live crickets. 

If you don’t take them, the owner had said, I’ll set ‘em loose.

Selmer’s was located on a busy road. Elise didn’t think the chameleons would stand a chance.  

Jinx and Tootsie were their names. Rob named them, back when they’d thought both chameleons were female. Sluggish creatures. Placid. Unknowable. They rarely changed colors. 

Elise laced up her corset, put on black, elbow-length gloves, slipped into her stiletto heels. She usually kept the shoes in a Whole Foods bag until she went on stage because they were so uncomfortable, but today she wanted Rob to notice her. 

Hey, Robbie, how do I look? 

He glanced over, resumed typing. Fine.  

Rob had come to the club the night before, sitting at a table in the back, nursing a beer. She didn’t see him until she was halfway through her set, having shed everything but lace panties, her legs clamped halfway up the shiny gold pole. 

He left before the next girl went on and when Elise got home, he was already asleep. The chameleons were watching her though. She could tell. Their eyes moving independently, allowing them to see in two directions at once. 

It’s not like she’d kept her job a secret from him. She needed the money for grad school. And to pay half the expenses while Rob juggled freelance writing with his yet-to-be-published stories. But knowing something and seeing it for yourself were two different things. She knew she loved Rob yet couldn’t see herself as a wife or mother. Couldn’t imagine not performing – the thrill of it, the rush, like trying to touch lightning.

Rob had stopped typing and was staring at the screen.  

Two and a half years they’d been together and he’d never shown her even one sentence. 

I don’t want you working there anymore. 

Why? 

It feels dirty. One guy sat there the whole time with his hand down his pants. 

She went over and settled on his lap, pressed her lips into his neck. 

Do you do sit on strangers’ laps, too? You can’t fix this with sex.

She pulled away, torn between storming out and attempting to address this stone that was always wedged between them. Blame mingled with shame. Across the room, the chameleons were still mating. Elise strained to hear the slightest rustle, something that would show they were alive. She’d read that if a baby chameleon was born, she’d have to remove it from the cage in case one of its parents got hungry. 

You want me to say I’m sorry and I’ll stop. But the truth is, I like dancing, even if it involves stripping. It makes me feel freer, kind of powerful.

She could sense him measuring what to say next. Weighing his options. Was this the end of them? Was she selfish? 

The cursor on his laptop blinked. Over his shoulder, she read the words he’d put there. The sky was the color of unwashed flannel. Snow struck his face, icy and sweet.  

That’s good, she said. Could I read the rest of it sometime? 

Mmmmmm, I don’t like anyone to read my stuff. 

I’m not just anyone and you saw me dance.

I did. You were good. I just wish you could get a legit dancing job. You really like my writing?

Uh huh. 

In their cage, the chameleons were moving again. Almost imperceptibly they had separated, heading to opposite sides. Soon it would be time to get the crickets. 

                                                               *   *   *

Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than 200 literary magazines, including Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. She’s a submissions editor at Smokelong Quarterly and the winner of Smokelong’s 2024 Workshop prize. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and the upcoming Best Small Fictions 2025. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.

By Rachel M. Hollis

Junior year, I came back from summer break in a wheelchair. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. No one cared three months ago, so why start now? They lived for secrets, picked them apart like vultures. Not my problem. I had bigger ones.

My doctor’s note said “no weight-bearing,” so I skipped the stairs. I could take a buddy on the elevator and had no shortage of volunteers eager to tag along. People who’d never spoken to me offered to hold doors. I let them.

Then came the lunchroom. My first day back, I rolled to the head of the table where I’d never belonged. Dared anyone to tell me I couldn’t stay. They went quiet, stared down at the wheels. Then nodded and kept talking. 

I ate my ham and cheese sandwich like I’d earned it. I listened to their gossip. Who got drunk at the lake house. Which teacher was a perv. What I used to dream of from ten feet away, chewing alone.

By Friday, everyone knew my name. No one had saved me a spot since fifth grade. Now they were making sure I was okay. Someone brought me a Gatorade. They noticed. Whether they cared or not, it felt close enough.

After school, I wheeled around the corner where my mom picked me up. I stood, folded the chair, shoved it hard behind the dumpster. Guilt stung. I stuffed that away, too. And I’ll do it all again tomorrow. 

*    *    *

Rachel M. Hollis lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, child, and a deeply unmotivated dog. Her work appears or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Gone Lawn, Funicular, Sky Island Journal, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.