Nonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 No Words by Alison Watson nce again, like so many times before, the world has shrunk down to just me, alone, in my bedroom. Black garbage bags over the windows to keep the sunlight out. Television on, sound off. Me, under the covers in filthy pajamas that haven’t been washed or changed in weeks, staring dully at the flashing lights and changing colors coming from the screen in ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Hedgewalking by Kieran Malovear o understand this story, you must first understand that my reality has never been the same as yours. My mind did not break and then heal this way. I was raised by witches. We believed in magic. I grew this way from the start, like a tree that creeps down the hill before bending up towards the sky. Yesterday I asked my mom, “When you ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Breathing Water at the Bottom of the Ocean by Pamela OHara or many nights after my husband admitted in our first marriage counseling session that his car wreck the year before had been an intentional head-on collision, I could not sleep. I laid awake wondering if our new therapist had processed his revelation. Surely if my smart, successful, charismatic husband admitted to a suicide attempt, alarm bells with strobing ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Touch and Go by Diane Funston hen I was seven, we had a kitten named Frisky. He lived with us for five months before he was sent to the pound to be put to sleep. We weren’t sure what it was, but Frisky had uncontrollable bouts of aggression. He would get up, come across the room and begin to attack us. These attacks always took us by surprise. ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Post Partum by Jody Brooks ere’s my confession: I have shhh-ed in anger. It’s the quietest scream you’ll ever hear. Clutching this wailing newborn to my chest, I exhale in forceful gusts. I feel the slow release of rage, and I feel guilty. This planned pregnancy and nine precious months so why am I angry? And why is this loud anger, shhh-ed through gritted teeth, soothing her? She ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Refining the Art of Unraveling Fashionably by Amelie Peterson art 1: The World’s Worst Tetris Player I tossed a Purple GelFlex™ foam mattress and a newly-assembled IKEA™ writing desk down on the asphalt next to a locked dumpster, in a middle school parking lot. It was 3 AM on a weekday. I had not slept in forty-eight hours. My shoulders, legs and lower back all ached, from frantically hauling ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 All That Glitters by Sarah Harley Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes, they call me on and on across the universe. Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox, they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe. – John Lennon You feel the whole thing, quite tiny at first, right from the start. It’s like glimpsing a point, a familiar point, on the horizon, ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Surviving the Dreaded MRI by Joseph K. DeRosa he Panic It’s not a bomb. It’s a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine. It’s worse. In a bomb, your dead. In an MRI, they bury you alive in a round metal chamber. Then they turn on whirs and bangs so loud that no one can hear your screams. Claustrophobia is like “Magnaverbaphobia”—fear of big words. It’s such an academic word. Nowhere in ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #14: Acceptance April 15, 2024 Caterpillars and Tire Swings by Ervin Brown hen I was six, there was a woman named Barbara whose house I went to every day for an entire summer. She was a learning aid for autistic kids who were language-deficient. The only thing I remember about my time there was the caterpillars in her backyard, of which there were hundreds. I often played in the grass and watched them ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #14: Acceptance April 15, 2024 Paging Dr. Tactless by Scott Schaible awoke in a parched, druggy haze, sunlight crashing through the blinds like a scene out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hospital. I was in a hospital. OK. I squinted and rubbed the crust from the corners of my eyes, vaguely noticing there was an IV tube in my arm. Flowers and balloons filled the room. How did all this get ...
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