literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
Shadowed
Julia was five years old the first time she remembered receiving a gift from The Shadow Woman. The slatted wooden floorboards outside her bedroom door that creaked heavy whenever her daddy entered were silent as she watched the veiled apparition glide under the doorway and into her bedroom. The Woman stayed for awhile, sitting in the rocking chair in Julia’s room as the girl fell asleep, before fading into the smoky Memphis night. She left behind a small black notebook wrapped in silk, the book covers already soft and worn as if they had been carried by another for some years, the pages inside crisp cream and empty of any thought or reason. Young Julia was beginning to learn to write and was so afraid to cause any damage to the beautiful pages that for years after the gift was bestowed upon her, she only could bend her head into the journal and inhale deeply, imagining all of the different stories it might one day hold.
By Hannah Sullivan6 years ago in Humans
Kerrin's Journey
“Kerrin’s Journey” by Paige Jeffries On a cold Friday morning Kerrin held her face crying at what she thought would be her last semester at Stonybrook. Days like this she wished her dad was around to comfort her. He had died last year to cancer and nothing had been the same. Her scholarship was coming to an end and there was no financial relief on the horizon.
By Paige Jeffries6 years ago in Humans
The Notebook of Grateful
She’d had it for weeks before she found the money. On this day, Gracie L, fifty-seven years old, mother of three ungrateful kids, and grandmother to two children she had never seen, realized she was alone in the cardboard shanty she shared with Marie. Privacy was a rare luxury.
By Jacqui Burke6 years ago in Humans
RED'S REVENGE
If you ask any tourist what they recall most about Negril Jamaica, I’m sure they would say the breathtaking sunsets and Ricks Cafe however, growing up in Jamaica I can tell you there was quite a lot more. We lived in Negril, located right on the western tip of the island known for its beautiful beaches and tropical sunsets. Mom would say, “Exploit the magnificence God has bestowed on us.”
By Danita Davis6 years ago in Humans
OLD MONEY SMELL
“Mirlande, look at this, it’s locked!” Julián calls out. Julián and Mirlande are scavengers. They rummage through houses in abandoned towns and neighborhoods. Emmanuel, Mirlande’s father, taught Julián the job but he is retiring. Not that there is much to teach, just go into houses that now belong to no one and find something that can be sold back in the cities. Julián is teaching Mirlande, though Emmanuel had hoped his daughter would pick up something else. ‘Nothing left to scavenge,’ is old man Emmanuel’s saying, ‘everything has been picked.’
By Andres Manosalva6 years ago in Humans
A Harmonious Encounter
Maggie hastily jotted down the rest of the sentence in her little black notebook. She had found her groove, and the words had just been flowing today. The girl could barely get them written down fast enough. It was closing in on dinner time, though, and she still had to make the walk back home. She glanced over the page and nodded before closing the book and stuffing the pen into her pocket. She took out her phone and put in her headphones before pushing play. “The Rocky Road to Dublin” by The Dropkick Murphys kicked in the headphones as she stood up and headed out of the woods towards the trail.
By Anthony Crutcher6 years ago in Humans
Roach
The coffee was cold and burnt. A gritty drizzle of charcoal lingered at the bottom of the mug with “Worlds Greatest Dad.” in large red text on the side. Lenny’s lips cracked and flaked as he opened his mouth and emptied the bitter dregs onto his tongue. His large thumb flicked through the pages of the black notebook. Grey ash collected in the corners of his knuckles and joints of his fingers, glowing against his brown skin under the dimmed kitchen lamp. The pages ripped through the air one by one until the notebook closed for it’s 37th time.
By Mesha Mcneil6 years ago in Humans
A favor for a friend
It wasn’t unusual for Billy to show up at 3 in the morning. That was the sort of thing he did all the time. It wasn’t even strange for him to show up beaten and bloody. Billy had a bad habit of getting into fights. It was a normal night for Billy. When he said I was the only one he could trust, that’s when things got weird. He handed me a little black notebook and whispered, “in case anything happens to me…you’ll know what to do with it.” As he turned to leave, he stopped in his tracks just long enough to say, “it’s a sure thing.” And then he was gone. I was still thinking about what he said the next morning when a mutual friend called to tell me that Billy was dead. Murdered. Floating in the river. I didn’t need any coffee to wake me up that morning. A million thoughts were going through my head as I took my first look at the notebook.
By Robert Austin6 years ago in Humans
The Misrepresentation of a Wild Thing.
The man painted himself in all the wrong colours. He drowned his thoughts in whiskey and found his mirky likeness in the bottom of a glass. He got in quarrels and woke in foggy mornings, with a mirror of black and blue remember me bye’s, hiding his true features behind their inky stains. He rarely bathed, sitting in a bath seemed like a rotten thing to him, his black hair course and matted against his skin like some unwanted dog, though this man had house and home. Apathy soaked the room, drenching into the curtains and the walls, staining their colours grey. That same shade dripped its colours into the foundations of the house in tiny little percussions, like rain that causes the wood to rot and mellow, so that as he walked across the floorboards it fawned beneath his weight and he heard those same doubts creaking back at him, as if they were a real thing, a noise of the world and not a product of his own imagining. You see our man had fallen into the worst of sicknesses, the belief that he was a worthless thing.
By Marius Van Den Berg6 years ago in Humans
20k
Sal’s been sitting in his chair since he woke up today. Though there are no less than a dozen things he could be doing, he hasn’t found the motivation for any of it. The apartment has been so quiet, aside from the squeak of his rotating computer chair. Soon, the realization that his roommate also hasn’t made a sound hits Sal.
By Martin Maldonado6 years ago in Humans
Deliver Us
The club was dead, and I wasn’t surprised. Anytime there’s a major sporting event, the club is dead. To pump myself up, I hid in the dressing room and listened to the Lion King soundtrack. When I came back out into the strobe lights and deafening music, they had arrived. I moved past the glittering bodies--no glimmering (never glitter, you could get sent home) bodies as quickly and gracefully as I could. Even though I can run pretty well in heels, no one likes a desperate stripper, and nothing screams desperate more than a 6-foot glamazon running at you.
By Sayoni Nyakoon6 years ago in Humans
