Fiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Scrambled by Robert A. Kramer weat glistened on John’s shiny scalp. He took a deep breath and mopped his face with a stained white handkerchief. “It’s not my fault.” He lurched forward, planted his meaty hands on the table, and struggled to his feet. The neighborhood kids used to call him Boss Hog because of The Dukes of Hazzard reruns they’d seen, but he’d far exceeded ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Bodies in Flight by Eren Harris f I believed in life after death, I wouldn’t have tried to die.” Ava sits cross-legged in the booth with the toes of her black Vans tucked into her knee-pits, like some jaded skate punk yogi. Her eyes are Bombay Sapphire blue, just like I remember. “That was the whole point, right? To stop the game?” “Right.” I nod. “Of course. ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Straightforward and Safe by Akhil Bansal his procedure is relatively straightforward and safe. Do you know what it involves?” the doctor asks Anna. He pauses for a moment; he takes her fixation on the mosaic of scuff marks on his shoes as an indication that she doesn’t know She has already told him that this is the first time she has set foot in a hospital ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Anatomy of an Assault by Gargi Mehra n a late Friday afternoon in a Belfast hospital, Dr. Oak glanced up from her clipboard. Outside the window, a thin film of rain fell over the city. She noted the time on the clock—three hours left before she could drive home to her family. Her one-year-old daughter always leapt to answer the doorbell even if her bedtime had ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Koan by Will Leggat ’d tried to visit his apartment before. Phone calls were easy—to the doctors, to Mom—but visits meant time, which meant new memories replacing old ones. Dad’s voice crept slowly from the shadows, nearly drowned in the noise of the movie, Biutiful, that had already begun to play. “Come in,” he said. As I entered, the light from the hallway crept across the walls into ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Everyday Heroes by Tricia Lowther luorescent light sliced into his pupils and somewhere in the distance Mick heard the clattering of metal. Voices swirled about his head, echoing and receding. He smelled the disinfectant-permeated air just before the pain stabbed his abdomen, and unconsciousness dragged him back under. He was surrounded by darkness when he woke again. His tongue was thick when he swiped it across his ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Bump by Roisin Doyle-Bakare I omething in her switched at that moment. Seeing the two pink lines on the pregnancy test made her feel every symptom of pregnancy she hadn’t noticed before. The nausea, the fatigue, the sore breasts: she could practically feel the creature moving inside of her, even though it couldn’t have been larger than a strawberry. All at once she felt horrifyingly ordinary. How ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 A Philadelphia Winter by Mark Tulin our nurse woke me out of deep sleep to tell me over the telephone that you were attempting to eat broken glass from a shattered mirror, trying to kill yourself for the third time that month. She said that you are fine, though, heavily sedated and put on suicide precaution for the remainder of the evening. The moments following the phone ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Assurances by Ann Michael he young nursing student asks me for help with her clinical notes. She writes, “I have much exciting but also fears about this my first day.” I point out the incorrect use of the adjective for the noun but find it difficult to stay at the sentence level. “Because I have not any experience with mental institution. Also my confidence is sinking due ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Wendy’s Eighty-Eighth by Mike Bonnet ighty-eight. It’s a pleasing number to say. Has a certain symmetry to it. Two fat ladies, they call it in bingo, not that there’s anywhere they call bingo numbers round here anymore. When you get up this high the numbers don’t mean as much as they used to. I remember when I turned 30; back then, reaching that age unmarried was ...
Read More