Fiction Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Server Not Found by Megan Wildhood verything takes longer than you think, except life. My daughter and I have matching crow’s feet after only thirty-six years. We both have mysterious knuckle calluses that Western medicine chalks up to aging. We started getting stiff and sore from sleep at forty-two; we both thought it was too soon. I thought I passed down a strong memory from ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 A Dreadful Case by Barbara Ridley he day started off well enough. Ryan was gone until late afternoon, playing racquetball with his work buddies in Mountain View, but Maddy was content. She welcomed some time alone, catching up on emails, replying to the guy from the Center for Independent Living about their campaign to improve the local transit system’s elevators, and reviewing the agenda for ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Breaking Free by Alice Shaw rominent Western Cape physician arrested for contravening COVID regulations. I could just imagine the potential headlines. Even the sky was red that morning as I pulled up in my Jeep. My mother and dear grandfather were waiting on the sidewalk outside her cottage, Irene draped in a bright sarong and Oliver stooped over his cane. Irene had painted her lips ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 In the Chillest Land by Cristina Legarda ust outside this operating room a dozen people are waiting to cut my daughter open. They want to take her heart out of her chest and give it to someone else. Lungs, liver, and kidneys too. And bowel? Did I hear that right? I didn’t even know they did that. They’re going to cannibalize her for parts like ...
Read MoreFiction Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Magnetic Resonance by Monica Anderson run when it stops hurting, which sometimes lasts for an hour, or a day, or maybe an entire week. When I haven’t felt it in three days, I run twice—once when my roommates leave for class in the morning, and again while they all practice together. If it’s their workout day, I run the Red Barn Neighborhood loop because ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 What Holds by Christine Himmelfarb What Holds 1. Word Problem Partly it’s a linguistic problem. I don’t like the nominalization, the noun made of a verb. Even the word itself holds within it another noun, the way I did. And then there’s the carriage. A reminder of an empty one. So let’s try an active approach. The verb “miscarry.” I carried incorrectly like a child bearing a watermelon to a picnic, unsteadily and any second ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 the first thing she lost by David Duncan the first thing she lost when you want to remember their name some actor or actress and when it doesn’t come you just let it go it shows up later at some odd time when you walk into a room and you can’t think of why so you go back to what you were doing and then you remember it’s not like that at all it’s like you’re ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Three Poems by Marceline White My Son Studies the Stars He makes calculations: graphs numbers, forms equations of stars in graphite, leaden stars,++math formulas form galaxies— ++++if stars are math, which they ++++are and aren’t. There is a planet, Farout, otherwise known as 2018VG18, which was recently found. Or rather, recently discovered. ++++It was not lost. I study letters, which I assemble and reassemble into formulas, forming words that re- present the world: creating form from 26 letters rearranged into: ++++universe; galaxies; stars. My ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Two Poems by Sara Simone Barenfeld Endangered Persons Can you tell me What it is about me That makes you Want to shoot me Is it my soothing voice My loving arms My big smile Or my black skin Is it because I am The same color As your gun Or your heart Mama told us Hands up, don’t shoot But you could Find another way Can you tell me What is it about me That makes you Want to shoot me Openly Wholeheartedly Without Hesitation So that my arms And ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Golden Shovel Poems by Cathy Barber Fibromyalgia ++++a golden shovel after Sappho fragment #4* Today I watch detective shows. On the couch for ten hours amid a pile of things: a book, a cup of coffee, the remote. Two soft pillows beneath my head. My body needs a cushion to get through this day, many days, and here I lie. I am a lucky person. I will be able to soothe my spirits with ...
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