family
Daddy Getting Old
It was Daddy’s birthday and talk of death was everywhere. I caught a morning report on CNN – over 3500 American soldiers dead in Iraq. And then yesterday some demented kid shot down more than thirty people at Virginia Tech. Everyone was talking about it -- on T.V., at work, on the bus to the hospital -- it’s all I heard.
By Eleazar Orozco5 years ago in Fiction
Our Last Reunion Together
Like all reunions, it started with a car ride. You were fifteen, I was eight, and too focused on the Star Wars movies playing on the portable car TV to have any clue where we were going, or to care. We watched the same movies every car trip. You always complained that we needed variety, that I always got to pick just because I was younger. But you didn’t complain that time. Maybe you’d discovered the wonders of our family’s new MP3 players that held thousands of songs, or maybe you somehow knew our time together was limited. Me, all I cared about was Anakin Skywalker.
By Christopher Russell5 years ago in Fiction
Trapped Beneath Ice
I. A bitter winter’s wind whipped around the lone three bodies standing in the white abyss. Snow blanked the ground, the mountains, the houses, and the town well. The wind howled warnings as the ocean tried desperately to crack the chains that kept it trapped. Two little girls buried their heads into their mother’s sides as she continued to stare blankly down the well. The cold tickled up her spine, wrapped itself around her heart, tightened at her soul. She felt sure that if she stood there any longer, absolutely everything would freeze. Her blood…her tears…her life. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her daughters’ hands tighter, trying to keep alive, trying to stay sane, trying to keep from breaking apart like a block of ice knocked over by a disobedient gust of wind.
By Katy Wynter5 years ago in Fiction
Awakening
In hindsight, it all happened quickly. ‘She’s here, a beautiful baby girl.’ Mum is making phone calls. We are back in the ward. Mum and I are alone. I am lying on the bed feeling confused, hooked up to drips; numb from the surgery; wishing I could move my legs and wondering where my baby was.
By Persephone Mackinnon5 years ago in Fiction
Forgiveness
The road stretches out before us, its black and slick asphalt surface baking in the Kona heat. The highway divides the lava fields from the ropey kind known as pāhoehoe on one side and the uneven ‘a‘ā rock on the other. It’s all aged by the sun and air through the passing of time and the appearance of the gaping hole of a lava tube is both menacing and surprising. The sweeping openness of the landscape can seem foreign to most city dwellers, myself included. Yet, taking it all in within thirty minutes of landing in my hometown feels like comfort slipping over me like a buttery, soft garment. I long to wear it all day, every day.
By Kimberly Ae5 years ago in Fiction
A Rainy Sunday
Aria is sitting at the gravesite of her grandfather, John, on a rainy Sunday morning. She is not expecting many people to be at the cemetery since it is so early. It is not a typical Sunday. It is the anniversary of his passing and the first time she has ever visited him alone. He passed away 10 years ago when she was 15 years old. She sits in silence and takes sip of her piping hot coffee. She smiles- instantly remembering that when she visited her grandparents when she was young, he always brought a cup of coffee to her grandmother before he made his own.
By Joelle Nelson5 years ago in Fiction
Death is Something Entirely Alive
The air is thick, more fit for gills than lungs, so that I pant as I breathe. I am squatting by the grave, scooping the freshly dug-up earth with my palms, pressing and letting it spill between my fingers. How can you bury a child who only stops breathing? When did no breathing translate to no life?
By Ifeanyi Paulinus Ekpunobi5 years ago in Fiction
Under The Clay
The cosmos was out of kilter. I was coming home to Tennessee to say goodbye to my dear mother … three years too late. It was unconscionable that she had slipped right through my fingers into the red earth while I was three thousand miles away. Damn that pandemic! Damn my cancer that followed. A preacher saying words at the cemetery promised to “Face Time” the service. No signal at the graveside. Painful silence and a blank screen in Seattle. I had gone from the beloved to the nothing.
By J Michael Jones5 years ago in Fiction
Cake is Thicker Than Water
- A harsh light leaks in through the crescent moons my eyes form, and pulls me closer to my body, though I don’t remember falling away from it in the first place. My toes are cold, and I cannot move, cannot speak, my sense of autonomy and I have become estranged once again. My left forearm aches, a new kind of pain that radiates from a skull-shaped scar at the center. To some it is just a funky-shaped mark, to my mother it is the symbol of a negligent medical practice, a reminder of ineptitude that I now carry with me. Though I am only five, I feel much older and wiser in this groggy haze. It’s amazing the things I can understand when I’m too afraid to ask where I am. My attention is pulled away from my discomfort by a soft, repetitive call and the touch of something cool and sticky to my lips; malaise is replaced by confusion, and then I realize. It is my mother calling my name, so gently it isn’t her voice anymore. She is feeding me an orange ice pop, then cherry, then orange again, alternating the flavor with every flutter of my eyelids. She offers no disapproval of the consumption of sugar, this time. There is no guilt to be felt. I am scared, and I am her daughter, and for that, this is my reward. Look how much she loves me. Look how much I am loved.
By Maggie Kurth5 years ago in Fiction
