family
Leire. Top Story - December 2021.
Leire drives through the roads of Germany with her left side window wide open. The warm air coming off the heating escapes through it as fast as the tears pour down her cheeks. It’s minus two degrees outside but Siberian weather inside her guts. She rolls herself a cigarette while holding the wheel with her wrists, hoping for another car to show up at any point so she wouldn’t be the smallest thing in the immense scenery that is the Northern Limestone Alps.
By Lucia Carretero Sierra5 years ago in Fiction
For The Greater Good
-Summer 1931- Texas: The air was dark and thick. As we sat on the porch looking over the dry land and what used to be the wheat field, we saw the dust storm and it was coming fast. We ran inside the house, locked the doors, and hid under the table with the oversized cloth. We placed each table leg onto the cloth to keep it in place. Daddy had put three large bricks on the table to prevent it from flying away if the door was ever thrown from its hinges. This was the best way we knew to hid from the dust storms that barreled upon us. The dust storms that would continue for four years before a decision was made.
By Emily Beck5 years ago in Fiction
11 Minutes
Minute 1: They’re in the corner of a coffee shop. A dad and his two-year-old son. The boy is awkwardly perched on a chair. The dad looks at his iPhone. The boy slips down from the chair and toddles to his father, grabbing a pant leg. The dad smiles affectionately and looks back at his phone.
By SG Buckley5 years ago in Fiction
Birds-Eye Perspective
It's warm out as I stand in front of my Gram's grave. The gravestone has a Mountain Bluebird. She said a woman should choose a spouse with the criteria of the female bluebirds. They are concerned with the area and condition of the nests the males provide, not superficial reasons. The image conjured flashes of stories and pictures from my inner slide projector.
By Amber Dulaney5 years ago in Fiction
In-humanity
(tw; abuse) Some kids have the type of parents that wake them up with a gentle shove or a soft shout of the name. I woke this morning to the sensation of completely getting drenched in warm water that my mom dumped on me out of a pot. I'm exhilarated that she is not crazy enough to boil the water.., I think. Nevertheless, it not being boiled hadn't stopped me from screaming as if it was. "AAHHH!" I screeched as some water got in my mouth. The first time she did this, I legitimately thought I was drowning in a pool of fire. And no matter how many times she had done this, there was no way that I could ever get used to her doing this.
By Gunndown Briss5 years ago in Fiction
Going Fishing. V+ Fiction Award Winner.
Johntee never would have taken Curtis if it hadn’t been for Uncle Joseph mentioning their dad’s fishing stories. It all came out one night when Uncle Joseph got so drunk he forgot to hold back his memories, and Johntee and Curtis both got to hear about their dad in a way they had never heard before. As he guided Curtis onto the nearly empty pre-dawn bus, Johntee knew that Curtis would never have got it into his head to want to go fishing. Curtis was just a kid. He didn’t know anything. He wanted to see where their father used to fish. He wanted to fish there. What could he do, Johntee asked himself as he held the rods he’d purchased after three months of cutting grass. He’d had to get them without his mother knowing or she would’ve had his behind for it.
By Lucas Díaz-Medina5 years ago in Fiction
A Friend’s Mom
He swears he remembers the day he was born. It was September 27, 1997 in the new Mercer Wing at West Shore Hospital. He says he can smell the ammonia; see the blinding florescent lights. He sees his parents hovering that first night, anxious he's still breathing.
By SG Buckley5 years ago in Fiction
Scattered
When he awoke from his midday nap, the large handwriting that ran across the sheets of construction paper scattered around him reminded Jonas Jackson of his grandson Troy. Looking around the room, he caught sight of his daughter’s picture, which sat atop a corner table, and he remembered her, not as the runaway mother of his grandson, not as a convicted drug addict, but as the five-year-old child who Jonas treasured so much in the vivid, but aged, memories of his deteriorating mind. For a brief moment he wondered when she would return before remembering correctly this time that she would not.
By Lucas Díaz-Medina5 years ago in Fiction
Failure
The shouting behind the emergency room double doors inside the New Domangue Medical Center was muffled but nonstop. It worried Yuri. Was that Lena? Yuri couldn’t tell. Was Lena ok? Was she hurt? Yuri lost track of her surroundings as she thought about the last time they talked. That was a few weeks ago. It didn’t go well. Lena said some things that hurt Yuri and Yuri may have said some ugly things back, the types of things Yuri knows no mother should say to her daughter. Sometimes Yuri can’t help it, unable to break from the old habits that shaped her childhood in the D.R. For a spell after that, Lena didn’t answer the phone, didn’t call, so Yuri let it go and waited. Yuri waited like she always has. Ever since Lena’s father died, it’s been this way. Ten years now and Yuri felt no closer to Lena than that day.
By Lucas Díaz-Medina5 years ago in Fiction
