Nonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Your Therapist Is an Addict by Jane Seskin Here’s the truth. I never met a cigarette I didn’t like. And while I may have flirted with Kent, Marlboro, and Salem, for thirty-six years, my most constant partner in a two-and-a-half pack a day affair was Newport Light 100s. We became acquainted in a restaurant ladies’ room during a friend’s party when she said: “Try this, it’s cool.” And ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Traces by Janice E. Rodríguez y husband dropped a container of foot powder in the bedroom, and the wintergreen-scented plume sent me reeling away and retching. I have forbidden that smell in our house. My husband gave up his favorite wintergreen candies for me years ago, but secretes the foot powder in the bathroom, using it surreptitiously, thinking I don’t notice, that I don’t hold my breath ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Leaving Earth by Laura Johnsrude I was on a third-year medical school rotation in the pediatric intensive care unit in January, 1986, on a team caring for a baby girl with Listeria meningitis, spinal cord stiff and curved into a C-shape, head reaching back for her heels, as if stargazing. She was in an isolation room in a crib, lying on her side; she couldn’t lie ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Hospitals and Cemeteries by Kat Kiefer-Newman stand outside the tall building with its many additions and renovations. I don’t want to go inside. But I can’t turn around now. I won’t turn around now. This is a thing I need to do, like I need to breathe, I need to eat. The entrance wing of Riverside Community Hospital is over six stories high, extensions and expansions ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Fall Risk by Alysia Constantine ome days, I wake up exhausted, kept from sleeping all night because my legs were kicking in the wild spasms of multiple sclerosis. Other days, I’m physically fine, even moderately energetic, but I can’t remember anything that happened the previous week. Still other days, my body can’t make more than a few steps without stumbling. I’ve fallen down the stairs in ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Through the Window by Les Zig hursday, June 30th I see her through the window from my eighth-floor hospital bed. My leg throbs from the surgery, and my mind struggles to focus—a combination of the shock, the disorientation, and the anesthetic and painkillers that have all been a part of this night. The three other patients who share the ward with me snore obliviously. It must be ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 The G-Tube by Clara Frank ou lie on your side and look at the bedrails. The rails are painted white, but there are rusty cracks in the paint, and you wonder for a moment what could be in those cracks. The pervasive smell of disinfectants reminds you that you are in a hospital. Then you drift off again and in your delirium you see a vast ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Tomorrow Morning by Maria Wolfe he car jarred through a pothole. Addie cried out at the sharp spike of pain. She grabbed at the handle of the passenger door and breathed through the agony. Slow tempo: in, out, in, out. Goddamn. That had been a bad one, the worst since they had left the medical center an hour ago. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I missed that one in ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Going Outside by David Whitaker s this yours, sir?” the police officer asked, standing on the front porch of the Watkins home. He gestured behind himself with a casual flick of his thumb. Darryl Watkins, 48-year-old father of two, wearing a threadbare robe and a pair of thin-soled slippers, stood in the relative safety of his front door and blinked in the early morning light. “Excuse me?” “Does ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 3.6 Pounds by Valerie Fioravanti randmother Hannah’s ashes weigh 3.6 pounds. I carry them in her I Support Public Television tote bag, waiting for that moment when I unsnap the lid and surrender her remains to a crisp, willing breeze. Grandmother Hannah’s body was pulled from ground zero after the 9/11 attacks. I’m fortunate to have this closure. Many other families don’t. What have I done to ...
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