Why do you keep watching her? What is it that’s so appealing? Maybe it’s just that you can. After all, her curtains are open. Are the curtains usually drawn? They must be because you would have noticed her by now, someone that beautiful.

She must be getting ready for a date. Of course, she has a boyfriend coming over. How could she not? But maybe she doesn’t. There’s food out and some wine. Although, the table isn’t set and the only wine glass is the one in her hand. Look how gracefully she holds the glass, how she slinks and dances without spilling a drop.

How have you never seen her? Surely, you would have spotted her in the courtyard. Maybe even crossed paths at the coffee shop on the corner or the bar downstairs. Did she just move in? That explains it. You couldn’t miss someone that perfect, so she must be new to the building.

What could she be listening to over there? You can only imagine it’s something cool, some jazz you’ve never heard, or something French, like they play in Godard films. It’s probably something French. She looks French with her red lipstick and bobbed hair.

You open the sliding door and move onto your balcony to get a closer look, to maybe hear the music. How cool would it be to date someone French? Not just someone, but this woman, the one who looks so free and alive. You remember what that was like, don’t you? Before all the bills, being strapped with the mortgage on this cramped condo you can barely afford, and all the jobs with their slightly increasing salaries and corresponding increases in hours. You think she must rent. Could be that her parents pay for the place while she’s in school. No one with a house payment could be that full of life.

You’ve got to meet her. Someone with that energy and those looks is exactly what you need to pull you out of this rut you’re in. You can’t just keep going to work and doing the same thing everyday. It’s not healthy. You feel dead, but you’re too young to feel dead. You’re not that old. Plenty of people get married in their thirties. Why couldn’t you?

But how? How would you meet her? Can’t just wait downstairs on one of the garden benches. That would be creepy.

She’s drinking wine. That’s good. Maybe she’ll go to the bar after dinner. You can head down there now and get a few drinks in before she gets there to loosen up a bit. It’s Tuesday. Joe’s bartending, and there might be a band. She loves music.

There. The music from her place. You can hear it, but it’s not what you imagined. She’s still dancing, but it’s to “ABC” by The Jackson 5.

You’re watching her when you see something run down the hall of her apartment through the open window to the right. Was the window open this whole time? Could be a dog, but it’s not. It’s a kid, a boy. She grabs his hands, and they dance together until her husband puts down his wine glass and cuts in. You grab your coat and head to the bar. There might be a band.

Deron Eckert is a writer and attorney who lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His poetry has appeared in Rattle Magazine, and his fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal. He is currently seeking publication for his Southern Gothic, coming-of-age novel, which explores how personal experiences change our preconceived notions of right and wrong.

A tomb soft as damp sand is protected by a certain live oak tree two hundred fifty-plus years old.
Crevices along its bulbous trunk capture violet twilight that bounces down prismatic ridges where countless souls brace it for our life of polite desperation sometimes alleviated by a child running up to pat its bark.
The rustling satin of wedding dresses and soft crying alike follow the light down to fuel souls compressing their energy like coal in the making.

Susan DeFelice lives in Georgia and writes fiction that is shrinking more with each piece, like a disappearing story. It’s an exercise in control because her normal tendency is to ramble until her husband imitates the Charlie Brown teacher talking and she realizes she has gone too far.

What is love?

            If he had been asked sooner, when he was still a child, he might’ve said that love was the warm, orange feeling in his chest when he sat in between his dad and brother, listening to his fantastical stories. Bundled up by the fire, hidden from the falling snow outside, laughing at all the antics the heroes got up to on their way to their happy ending. Or he might’ve said that it was the breathless laughter as he ran down the halls, avoiding his brother’s much longer legs and pretending that he wasn’t going easy on him.

            A little older, and he would say that it’s a sweet taste that lingered in his mouth like the fried treats they sold in festivals near their home; warm and soft against the chilly wind, and taking advantage of the few times when they were all together again. Or maybe he would say that love was gentle and ever-present, all-encompassing, like the smell of plum blossoms. Even now the lonely plum tree his mom planted stands in the garden, its scent spreading like a ghost in the wind.

            Now, when he thinks of love, he sees blood and the pain cutting through his chest makes him lose his breath. He remembers screaming, metal crashing on pavement, he remembers being thrown out of the way, always protected, always the one left behind.

            Love and grief twist together into guilt, until he doesn’t know when one ends and the other begins. It’s love, until it’s not, until he’s heaving, trying to get the image of a twisted corpse out of his mind until he can breathe again. It’s grief, until it’s not, and he’s begging to a god he doesn’t believe in to take him instead, repeating over and over that it was his fault into an empty house with no one to hear.

            He can’t remember love without remembering everything after anymore, without breaking and cursing the empty halls.

            Once upon a time, his life had been filled with words of love. Now, the only time he hears words of love are in his dreams from the mouth of a dead man.

Katie Tran is a junior attending high school in California where she spends her time writing in whatever free time she can manage. For some reason, she can’t seem to write anything light-hearted?

Matilda Caruso was 93 years old. She was a quiet woman who had spent half her life in the service of her family. She knew nothing else but homemaking and had little experience with the world outside her home. She grew old, her husband died, her friends died, she grew frail. As Matilda aged, her children got guiltier. They had had to take care of her and assuage their conscience.

Matilda Grayson was a slight woman with snow white hair, which she wore in layered braids. She had aged and was now over 90 years of age. Her lined face framed her pale blue and ever alert eyes. In her earlier years, Matilda had been a teacher and then the town historian. She now had a room in the Zurich Care Facility – a title that reminded her, whenever she thought of it, that she was now warhoused like a vintage antique car.

Matilda’s sight had dimmed over the years so that she now had difficulty reading her Maigret mysteries. This gave her time to contemplate what it meant to be a “resident” at the Zurich Care Facility.Matilda had already concluded that residency was an empty category. She felt she was more like a transient…passing through, then on, then away was her likely outcome. She was simply being processed.

Larry Ullian has been called a writer, but he’s never published except as a curriculum designer/technical writer/grant writer. He is retired and now spends some of his time reviewing and rewriting pieces he’s written but not shared over the years. Now’s the time to try.

The April night of 2013 when a young security guard was shot and killed in front of the MIT campus, Jazz was worried because their two cats were after a mouse in the basement. Jane was glued to the TV, preoccupied with the news. Also, perhaps because of her rural European background, she was prone to a fatalistic attitude about cats and mice, and did not move immediately to rescue the small rodent. Later, her six-year-old daughter called on her again: “Mom, they got him, but he is still alive.”

Jazz held the mouse in her hand on top of a paper towel. The little critter was not moving yet still breathing and apparently intact. Relenting to her child’s pleading eyes, Jane picked up a container. She added two pieces of cereal and punched holes in the lid with a fork. After gently placing the mouse inside, she hid it away from the cats on the top of the fridge. “I hope he will be okay, sweetheart,” she said.

She wished she could do something to reassure her little girl and bring a smile to her round face. Five years ago she had brought her home from a Chinese orphanage and called her Jasmine. Within a year, the lively baby named after a fragrant flower had become Jazz.

The massive hunt for a wounded mass murderer on the move continued on the following morning. When she checked on the mouse, Jane found that he was dead and, following the lockdown, did not dare to venture outside of their house to bury him in the backyard.

For the whole day mother and daughter were stuck inside with a dead mouse and the TV streaming the same announcements over and over again. Restless, bewildered, aimless, unable to focus on domestic chores, Jane, while checking on Jazz and feeding the cats dead food, checked the mouse’s description on the web: white belly, gray, round body.

According to the description, the little critter was defined as cute but deadly as a possible transmitter of a serious respiratory disease. Ouch! Jane hoped that his presence in the basement was just a rare, individual occurrence.

By nighttime, the fate of that poor little thing made her think of young Dzhokhar, the surviving Marathon bomber. She even felt a short-lived surge of tenderness and compassion toward the sweet-looking, puppy-eyed young man who, after causing such a deployment of armed police forces, lay hidden a few blocks away, bleeding to death inside a white boat.

“Yes,” Jane told herself after turning off the TV, “cute but deadly.”

Anne-Marie Delaunay-Danizio has a B.A. in English Literature from Emmanuel College; a master’s in Art History and a master’s in Museum Studies from Harvard Extension School; and an MFA in Visual Arts from the Institute of Art and Design at New England College. A visual artist, her artwork was accepted in the SEE|ME Winter 2020–2021 Exhibition at the Yard, Flatiron North, New York. Her writing is published in Atherton Review. Anne-Marie enjoys sculpting, painting, and practicing Reiki.

The birds swarmed high overhead. The lovers held their hands, clasped tightly together, “Have I ever told you before,” the boy raised his eyebrows in wonder, as the girl’s attention was called to the low warm hum in his throat, “that all the computers in all the world, all wired together, could not send the same number of signals in one-second as just one human brain?” The birds continued to the place some of them had never been but all of them knew.

            “No,” she said, “but I believe it.” The clouds swirled above the birds gently. It rocked the lovers’ hands back and forth, not by force, but as the rhythm it inspired. Their hands were still swinging to the tune as they paced the sidewalk back to their vehicle. The melody still fluttered in her heart as she sat on the couch, waiting and clutching the flimsy plastic in her hand, until it showed the blue line.

            She couldn’t remember what she said to him. She cried in fear and excitement, all muddled together. Her stomach sank, weighed down with cherry pits. And it all burst into a warm winter’s fire when he hugged and brushed her hair and snapped her back into the moment.

            “I have faith in you,” the words spiralled in her ear canal like a feather, tickling and warming her. It was just what she needed to hear. It was nice beyond the pleasantries. “Faith?” her tear-stained eyes pointed in confusion, faked somewhat for she already felt what he meant, just wanted to hear it explained. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” his eyes gazed cool and calm as water, dripping, melting her away in a cool spring, “I don’t know how this works.” He smiled sheepishly, “But I know that I don’t. And just because you don’t know how something works, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”

            “It’s just our best guess,” he laughed. And he shared the tickling laugh with the voodoo priests and the witch- and wish- doctors of centuries before.

            He patted her tummy. It was warm and soft and it radiated even through the raggedy shirt. “I feel it,” she said. And she did.

Cole Webber is an average human being and aspiring ‘comprehensivist’ (as opposed to a specialist). He tries to think about lots of different topics or ideas, and translate those thoughts into things that are somewhat useful. He enjoys writing, drawing, painting and design.

“Dad, I’m going to take the car over to Matt’s.” 

I tried to make it a casual statement, but the electricity running through my body made it come out like a question.  That morning, a driving test examiner had officially declared I was fit to drive.  By myself.

He hesitated, then said, “Ok.”  I was out the door.  “Bye.”

I stepped out into the cold evening and ran to the car.  Snowflakes sparkled yellow through the streetlights, giving the night a touch of magic.  The electricity leapt from my fingers to the door handle to the steering wheel to the seat cushion.  The keys felt cool and solid in my hand as I slipped them into the ignition.  The engine came to life but it had a different sound tonight, alive and responsive. 

The snow crunched as I eased the car backward out of the driveway.  I turned toward Matt’s.  Then, it became real:  I was driving.  I was an adult. 

The plastic dash, the lighted dials, the radio buttons, the leather seats, the metal ball at the end of the stick, they all shared the same smell, a glassy, metallic, slick, soft smell of potency and freedom.  If I was not an adolescent boy I would have called it a perfume, but it had the same affect – I was high. 

I was not about to squander this sense of maturity.  I drove with a care and self-assurance that showed the world that I was competent, an old hand.  The test examiner had said so.  “Nice going, you passed on the first try.”  I even nailed the parallel parking.  Anyone I passed, if they looked, would guess from my calm, detached expression that I was much older. 

The hours and hours of training had settled into my muscle memory.  The car responded to the coordinated actions of my hands, wheel, gas, feet, clutch, stick, brake.  I could feel the road through the car, everything responded to my will.

I came to Matt’s place, slowed and turned the wheel.  Traffic had cleared the snow from the road but on the driveway there was still about an inch.  That was just enough.  Friction abandoned me for about eight feet.  The tires, pointing in one direction but sliding in another, did not obey my hours and hours of training or my muscle memory.  I slid across Matt’s yard and into a four inch maple tree.  

The hit was dead center, as if I had placed the car with intent.  The test examiner would have been impressed.  Matt and his dad heard the sound and came out to look.  The grill was pushed into the radiator.  There would be no more driving this car tonight. 

The electricity had left my body, replaced with a limpness that did not want to move.  Dreading the talk, but knowing that this was a now part of the adulthood I had been initiated into, I went inside to call Dad.

“Hi Dad.  I’m ok.  But I hit a tree.”

With a trace of resignation, but none of the anger I half-expected, he said, “Yeah.  When the phone rang, I thought it might be you.”

Steve Sphar is a transplanted mid-westerner living in Sacramento, California. He is a leadership coach and business consultant whose creative expressions include writing poetry and creative non-fiction and playing Irish fiddle. His writing brings the interior of life to the surface where it can breathe. He has previously published work in “The Same” and “The Penwood Review.”

A full-cream girl in a skim-milk world, she stands upon the scales with much trepidation, the events of the previous weeks weighing her mind down ever further. In a monotonously static loop, the cravings had caused another cave-in, tripping her up and down towards the weak-willed conclusion of failure. Unwanted questions failed her latest doctor’s visit. Above everything else was the ongoing saga of the ‘Close Enough’. Presentable would have to do. The thought swirled in her mind as she wearily gazed down to witness her scales announcing another truthful lie.

         Another time, she wore a dress out of hard-won daring, anxiety having been pushed back like a nervous broodmare separated from her foal. She hoped it would be worth seeing the reactions of her friends (they never occurred), to see them stunned at such an uncharacteristic statement being made (it washed over their heads). Perhaps even a compliment, even as simple as mentioning the colour choice would settle the beatles fluttering in her ego-

         Her hair. Her shoes. Her glasses. The same praises for the Never Changed.

         Alright then. Back to jeans tomorrow. Time to return to shopping strictly in the Special Place. She is tried shopping in the Normal Place. She had to walk straight back out of the Normal Place. She is not considered normal in the society-shaped Normal Place. She does not fit and neither do the clothes. These idioms are sturdily drummed into her head. Back to the status quo. Another day in the Just-Enough. 

         It is the plus-sized way. The maximum effort to blend in only achieves standing out like a sore thumb. She is the elephant in the room, the fat lady and yet she cannot sing to bring an end to the countless awkward encounters. It bears down on her, threatening to pressure her internal world into crashing down. The elephant trumpets out its anguish and yet not a single soul can hear it. 

         As she stands upon the scales, those dreadful scales telling those truthful lies, she realises- one cannot expect others to listen unless one learns to hear themselves first. 

         She is angry at the truth the scales dared to divulge. The truth cannot be dismissed, but certainly can be changed. So, she takes the anger, rips it in half with metaphorical hands and devours it with her ego. She is set alight with furious dissatisfaction. It is Not Enough. Away she throws the anxiety. It is Not Enough. Away she tosses the overlooked dress, half of her kitchen’s content and the silhouette of her elephant. It is Not Enough.

        Sweat and aches and breathlessness, motion to motion, the anger propels her forward. Cravings are beaten back with a vengeance, all trepidation channelled into months, weeks, hours, and days of fuel just to get close to Satisfied. Inner train chugging along, she falls off-track with an easy shove, but she always manages to scramble back on. She never stops getting back on.

        (It is Almost Enough.)

       Green tea in a skim-milk world, good lord, she has consumed enough of it, the scales ever so slowly begin to reveal more joyful truths. Cravings continue to plague, but they are for sustenance of life, not for the stomach. By the time her friends noticed, the compliments came in tidal waves, yet there was no anxiety to be found, no reason to care. Close Enough, then Never Enough, became Just Perfect. The journey is far from over, but she loves it nonetheless as sweat and exhaustion lead to improvement, leading into contentment.

Marni Hill is an aspiring Australian poet with a BA in Literature. She is driven through life by her love of history, music, film, and dogs, not necessarily in that order. For her, poetry is structured imagination that can entice and intrigue all walks of life and that is exactly what she hopes to achieve.

I heard they were calling for poetry at the edge of the world but I knew they did not want my verses full of the songs of women. They had banned high voices years ago and chose to start every argument in an empty room. This required artistry from people better known as piss artists and so they promised to rely on the grass to remember the songs when the people rebelled. Really, they just wanted it to cover all the spoilt places

I sit in the weeds—waiting. Studying the ladder of my thumb I mourn my dragon mother. I whisper an elegy to the wind about how she puffed silk cut smoke from her nose. When I was little she wrapped me in ancient threads, spinning each pattern into a song of women’s endurance, loss, and birthing. I would watch the glowing tip of her cigarette, a monster’s eye, pulsing in the darkly tent—my weird nightlight. We lived in the high chinks of the Kush alongside the tarnished Stone Loaches, their spotty silver backs mirrored in the jewelry dangling from my mother’s neck and doughy lobes. It took slow seasons for us to hear the inching sound of metal screaking all around us. My mother begging the fish to save my voice, to hide me with the mudlarks but they were always bony specimens and liked to drive a hard bargain. My mother had to barter her iridescent scales to cover their spindly bodies before they would hold me in their mouths and swim away with me. She had been left naked and bitter but her last kindness to me was to smother my father and brothers. She could not bear to see them turn to dust so, she shaped them into icy lapis lazuli.

I am the keeper of our songs and when I raise my voice I smash things. Around my neck, I have hung a locket of bright blue so it will be close to my throat as I sing. Listen in the dawn and you will hear the gentle noise of women and know that this is what you once called feeling.

Adele Evershed is an early years educator. She is originally from Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. She writes poetry and prose in a room overlooking a wood.

I grow flowers, and shrubs, and even several trees. I do not take credit for their achievement, even as they rely on my efforts, the watering, the feeding, and removing the invasive weeds that also seek my attention. Those weeds are masters of mimicry, often flowering, acting as if they could add something to the display. The authentic plants poke through the supple soil, then grow, then reach for the sun, only to die, hide and repeat the circularity, which would happen without my help. My help is not natural, but it seems that way.

There was a time when she would walk these gardens, pointing out the weeds I had missed, playfully, because she knows it will somehow hurt my feelings if she sounds dismissive. Never contemptuously; just perfunctorily suggestive. But not this year. The air is different, inside and out, and the late February freeze followed by the early March snowfall did little to help a garden wanting to exist as it had in the years past. These plants are here because of me. I broke the clay, and it was I who removed the recalcitrant sod. This tended plot of once rebellious land is not where they were born.

She assumed as the snow lingered well into the second week, dirty clumps of what was once silent whiteness remain visible, remnants of that desultory effort, that there would be no flowers. And then I notice it. Not the seasonal discursiveness. On the other side of the street, in a home where the man with the memory issues was moved to a place where memories go to die, slowly, I saw it.

If flowers could appear prepubescent, it did. But I could tell, even still encased in green sepal, a floral chrysalis, the blossom beneath would be red.

I took a wet paper towel and stuffed it into a fluted champagne glass we no longer seem to use. We no longer use it as intended. We find it celebratory just to be alive, even if ten thousand bubbles rising was not present to help. I arranged the tulip I had stolen from the man’s abandoned yard and stood it in the glass.

It bloomed, and I watched his yard, every day, many times as the clock wound from one darkness to another. He never came back for it, never missed it. She enjoyed it. The stolen tulip did bloom, red, with white lace frills along the petal, suggesting coquettishness as it revealed its sexual self in an inverted skirt.

Four days later, the weight of the tulip bent the pedicel, a head bowing in reverence, or homage, or perhaps in thanks.

A.M. Mann is an emerging writer currently querying novel-length works. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife of thirty-six years and a blue-eyed dog.