I Hardly Ever Look at It - Julie Farrar

You know, I hardly ever look at it. It sits there on my right temple, exactly three eighths of an inch away from my eyebrow, but I hardly even glance at it on an average day. No telling how long that age spot – about the size and color of a basketball – has been forming because, you see, I hardly ever look at it.

It’s practically invisible to me every night when I slather on Olay Regenerist night cream, following by Olay Definity anti-spot treatment. Rarely do I take note of whether or not it’s faded ever so slightly after two months of my bedtime regimen because, you see, I’m not vain in the least and I think aging is a wonderful, natural thing.

All of the lines and creases and spots are nothing to fear; they represent experience rather than a growing state of decline. So I hardly ever look at it. And after all, the dermatologist doesn’t seem worried. She assured me that it is not some malignant melanoma that will grow and eat away at my face until I look like a member of the Skeleton Army in “The Mummy.” Just to be on the safe side, though, I better slap on SPF 70 sunblock with Helioplex in it (don’t know what that is, but all the magazines say that it’s essential in any sunblock worth it’s SPF). No worries. What do you think? Would I look better if I grew my bangs a little longer?

Waking in the Middle of the Night - Joyce Roschinger

Waking in the middle of the night, I think about work, about my elderly parents growing older in a house slowly falling apart around them, about my writing, that I will never be able to write a novel, a short story, a poem.

That's when I get up, make a cup of tea and sit at the kitchen table and read. A story by Chekhov, another story by Nabokoh and suddenly I am in another place and time... I overhear a small group of men talking about love in Chekhov's story "On Love" . Later I see the lovely icicles and feel the the winter sun in Nabokov's story "The Vance Sisters". That's when it begins. Sleep comes in slowly like low lying fog. Soon it settles in all the peaks and valleys of my mind.

Waking in the Middle of the Night - Bonnie Smetts

The ending with my momma begins when a Mrs. Watson comes to visit us. I couldn’t a been but eight or so, too young to understand why a Mrs. Watson would be squeezed into our living room, if you could call it that. She wanted to sit down and momma was rushing around pushing the papers off the couch and shoving the bottles and ashtrays under it and all the while acting stranger than a sick dog. So I’m not understanding a thing except momma’s having a fit inside.

Seems as obvious to me as the full moon outside, but she’s pretending we’d just been rearranging things and that’s why the room’s a mess, like it never was anything but a mess. The Mrs. Lady finally sits down. And she’d made it clear she wanted to talk to me too other wise I’d been outside and gone the minute she showed up. But she kept talking to me, how’s your school, how’s your friends, do you like to help your mom making dinner. A kid can smell something’s up when they’re asking questions like. Make dinner? I’d watched enough TV to know what she meant by that. And I’d watched enough to pretend that yes of course we cooked in pots, eat on dishes and then wash them up. That’s why there’s a big black garbage bag next to the sink. Momma didn’t think to push that into the bathroom or something and the lady’s looking at me too hard for me to be of any help saving my momma.

So we’re all sitting now, actually I’m sitting on a table ‘cause we’re out of chairs, there being only half the couch not covered with stuff and one kitchen chair not broken. So I’m here to be sure Rawling’s getting all she needs for school and growing up, or something like that, Mrs. Watson says. Then the subject of the boyfriends comes up and that’s when the Mrs. says straight at my momma that young girls shouldn’t have to be sharing the house with too many boyfriends. And momma’s saying she only sees the boyfriends for tea during the day. And I’m sitting on the edge of the coffee table, my legs swinging like some big clock because I hate to see my momma have to lie. Even at eight years old, I know there ain’t one bit of tea ‘round here for 100 miles.

So after that I was sleeping better for a while ‘til one day I wake up in the middle of the night, hearing furniture banging and whispering so loud my momma may as well been screaming. I know the boyfriend’s back. Then I hear the voices outside and I look out my window to see what’s going on and that’s when I see this boyfriend shove my momma in the car. They drive away. I’m all alone.

I Hardly Ever Look at It - Trina Wood

I know it’s there, in the thin top drawer of my desk, but I hardly ever look at it. It’s usually buried under address labels, odds and ends, hidden among life’s detritus, but I know it’s in there someplace.

Sometimes when I’m fishing around, searching for an extra stamp, my fingers sift it from the pile, an archaeologist’s find that brings pause. When I find it, I’m reminded and surprised that my mother had it laminated—so people wouldn’t forget what he looked like? So they could use it for a bookmark? Who knows?

My brother stares out in two small wallet images, side by side, one in his dress blues, brass buttons starting just under his throat, and a white cap with black brim, a Marine insignia on the front. No smile, just a young face, like he’s a kid wearing his dad’s uniform for Halloween. A casual photo next to that, taken at the school district where he worked. No smile there either, which is weird because he was always clowning around, pulling practical jokes on his buddies, his girlfriend, even complete strangers.

He’d pretend to pull out of a parking space in a busy lot at the college where he’d go to pick his girlfriend up from class, a row of cars waiting behind them for a slot, rushing to park and get to class on time. He’d pull out a few feet and then pull back in, pull back out, pull back in, laughing so hard he would almost pee his pants, she said. He got such a kick out of pissing people off while he was just having fun.

At 23, he was still just a kid, no matter how much bravado he showed. I wonder who he would be now, whether he would have enlisted from the reserves to go full time into the Marines where he felt part of another family, a brotherhood. Or a fuck-up who landed in jail? He could have gone either way really. I’ll never know.

Here's the Story - Bonnie Smetts

Here’s the story. Like I said, this ain’t no memoir of story, just my own. So I, Rawling Summer, made some important decisions ever before I was 18. All the girls in Nordeen was planning and giggling and buzzing with excitement about going to beauty school, Every Last One of the Them. Now how many salons can you stick behind how many houses in Nordeen? I ask myself. Seems like every other house’s has got sign, some streets just smell like a beauty parlor, the whole damn street.

No way, I say to myself. That’s when I decide I’m gonna be a court reporter. I was looking through one of those beauty magazines, the kind where I have to look to find those ads for brassieres for big girls. I’m called a big girl on account of my breasts, I’m as skinny as a stray cat, my legs is no bigger than my arms, not much of a chew if a bear decided to attack. But no, I got big breasts, I mean way too big. Nowhere in Nordeen, nowhere in Baton Rouge, could I find what I needed. And that’s the least of my problems with those breasts, especially before I learned how to use them. When I was twelve, I hadn’t learned that I had the power in them. Buddy, Harper, and the rest of those no good boys all wanted a feel. I should have been charging then, but then I was still terrified of those breasts. But thanks to them, I was there in the back of the beauty magazine. Those bras for big girls, no way you can make them pretty, but so the ad right next door with the offering “Make A Career in Criminal Justice” caught my eye. Guess I’d been thinking about what else to do beside the beauty school. Said you’d have an exciting time learning about criminals and all the bad things they’ve done.

Now I’ve got a curiosity bigger than my breasts, so I’m figuring I got the skills to do this job. They said you don’t even need to graduate high school, which was good since I didn’t (partly because of the breasts). I get invited down to take the test to see if I can join this exciting career of a court reporter. The test, I never seen such kind of tests, but I try with that big yellow pencil they give me. And praise to god, a few days later they tell me I can come. But they say I’m gonna have to work really hard. They also say I gotta pay $1,000. Now how the hell I’m coming up with that kind of money? I could buy a car for that. But they offer to give the money too, and I can pay them back. I tell them over the phone that I’m particularly qualified because I’ve already seen three dead people and I’m only just eighteen years old. And that was the beginning of hearing a lot more about dead people.

Here's the Story - Mark Maynard

Randy meets Allison. He is young and headstrong. She is beautiful and fun-loving. They begin dating and fall in love. Randy buys a ring and surprises Allison by proposing to her as they ride horses together on the beach. They push the wedding forward because Allison’s mom is terminally ill. Randy shares the first dance with Allison’s mom, slowly rolling her wheelchair around the dance floor to the music. They move into their first small home together – each begin new jobs and Allison becomes pregnant. Seven months into the pregnancy, Allison develops complications and must be hospitalized. Fifty miles away, Allison’s mom is put into hospice with weeks to live. On his way into the hospital to visit his wife, Randy runs into a girl he went to high school with that he has always been attracted to. Here’s the story.

Two friends, Steven and Dirk, are walking to school together. They live across the street from one another and are in the same fourth grade class. Steven’s parents are divorcing but haven’t told him yet. Dirk’s mother has told him about Steven’s parents but he is not allowed to mention it to his friend. It is a cold autumn morning and Steven has a bad cold but his mother did not want him to be home that day as she and her soon to be ex-husband had each taken the day off of work to finalize some paperwork and meet with attorneys. Steven’s throat is sore and he has a slight fever. Dirk’s been getting bullied by a fifth grader nearly every day for the past two weeks. Steven, his constant companion, has been watching this happen but saying nothing. A block from school, the dirt pathway dips out of sight into a small ravine before rising to the other side and just across a busy street from school. As the friends reach the bottom of the ravine, something rattles in the brush a few feet from the path. They hear the whimper of an animal in pain. Here’s the story.

Here's the Story - Ariana Speyer

We were down on the train tracks, playing around, and Frankie decides to put some fucked-up piece of a tire he found in the woods across the tracks, to see how it melts. Barbara and some of the other chicks were whining and telling him not to, but Frankie didn’t give a shit. That’s the story as you probably heard it. But here’s the story, the real story.

Frankie has a death wish, I swear. I’ve seen him drive his car into a tree, on purpose, and somehow survive, not a hair scratched on his head. And he was pissed. He was like, “Dude, I wanted to see what the other side is like.” I don’t know why he wants to see the other side. Seems like this side has enough going for it. And who even knows if there is another side, anyway?

So that day, Frankie wheeled a whole tire he found onto the train tracks and came up with this plan to sit on the tire like it’s an inner tube and he’s floating down a river or something. He figured that either the train guy would see him and stop or he wouldn’t and he’d die and that’s what he wanted anyway. So it was a win-win situation as far as Frankie was concerned. So all the girls are freaking out and telling him he’s crazy, he can’t lie on the train tracks, whining and crying. Finally they got so freaked out they left, they said they couldn’t watch him do that to himself.

Meanwhile, me and Jesse are looking at each other, like, “we know Frankie is fucked up, but is he that fucked up to do this?” Neither of us knew. And Frankie is just lying in his tire like he’s tire tubing or something. And of course he’s drinking a beer. He has a six-pack next to him and he might as well be watching the Super Bowl on TV, that’s how laid-back he was. He’s just watching me and Jesse, telling us to have a beer and enjoy the show. That we might never see anything else like this again. I thought that was probably true. I got kind of sick thinking about it, though. And I just thought, what am I going to tell my mother? I didn’t want to think that but I did. I knew she would just look at me like a piece of dirt if I was around and something that fucked up happened. It’s not that I care so much about Frankie. I just couldn’t bear to deal with my Mom.

So when the train started coming, even though Jesse and I hadn’t talked about any plan, we both knew what to do. As soon as it came close, we wrestled Frankie off the tracks and pinned him down with our bodies. It wasn’t easy, Frankie’s strong. The train just kicked the tire off the tracks and it skidded right next to us. Frankie finally became quiet and stopped struggling as the train went by. He just closed his eyes and I could tell he was thinking about something really far away.

What I Like Least About Love - Joyce Roschinger

What I like least about love is when the love of your life begins to feel like a part of your body, an arm,a leg, when you hear him call your name and remember that he is away on a business trip, when you feel a tug on your heart string when you see his doctor's appointment on the calendar for a physical in August.

What I like least about love is when you look at the love of your life from the window as he pulls weeds, plants tulips and daffodils because he knows they are your favorite flowers and if it were up to him he would have a rock garden, and you remember how long you have been married, and it takes your breath away.

What I like least about love is the melting of hearts, yours and his, which no one ever told you about.

A Piece With the Words... 'All-Night Diner,' 'Tuna Fish,' 'Infinity' - Anne B. Wright

Let my love open the door, let my love open the door, let my love open the door, to your heaaaart, the jukebox bleated again. Julia put her hand to her forehead, pinching the temples with her thumb and pointer. “Jeeesuss I wish that thing would shut up!” And she scuttled over to the ancient machine and unplugged it.

Another day behind her. These days are each and every blessed one of them, exactly the same, she thought. Catching her image in the mirror behind the counter, she patted back her hair and reached into her apron pocket for a lipstick. It had been three years since Bodie’d passed, a shock to her every time she remembered it, and every day marked off as sad and lonely without him. She didn’t like to think about him out there in infinity with all the other dead people. That was the saddest part of all because he loved living so much. There’d never be another one.

The all night diner was dead tonight and Jules hated it when nobody came in. All she could do to keep busy was to clean every bit of grease and grime from the counter, fill the salt and pepper shakers and try not to let the acrid smell of old burned coffee get to her. Tonight she’d broken a nail, one of her prized lacquered nails. She was examining it when the door opened.

He walked to the counter and sat.

“Howdy, what can I get you?” Jules said. She liked the way she could size up her customers. This one would go for the grilled tuna fish and cheddar from the daily specials chalkboard. He probably would want a cup of coffee, too. She glanced at the ancient coffee maker an its stained pot of brown stuff. He looks like the type who won’t complain about it, but he won’t drink it, either.

He leaned closer to her and squinted at her nametag. “Julie, that name suits you,” he said.

“Yes sir, I’ve had it all my life and grown into it,” she said, wondering if he was married or not. If he was, why is he in this diner instead of at home getting a good dinner from his wife? “Now, would you like to order?” She set a glass of ice water in front of him. He needed a shave.

“Tuna special and a coffee,” he said.

She turned to the coffee pot and smiled.

What I Think About in the Shower - Juliette Kelley

Turn on water. Step in.

Mmmmm. My feet are finally warm. Jesus, where does all this hair come from? Is this tub getting smaller? I wonder if the foundation’s shifted. What would I do if there was an earthquake while I was in the shower? Is this safety glass? I don’t have an emergency kit. Can you still drink water from an outside hose? Is the water outside potable? Where does that word come from? I used to think it was “portable” you know, with an ‘R’. Wasn’t there a Jeopardy category called “Potent Potables”? I still don’t understand what that category was about. Jesus, Alex Trebeck has aged – he’s selling life insurance on TV now. Didn’t he have a kid, like a year ago? What would it be like to be Alex Trebeck’s kid? Would he make you phrase all of your statements in the form of a question? You have to be pretty smart to be on Jeopardy. I wonder if I am losing brain cells? Can you grow back brain cells? Can stem cells be planted in a brain to make people smarter? What would happen if Alex Trebeck lost so many brain cells that he had to make Jeopardy easier? Is this a non-skid surface? Should I get those handles put in the shower like old people have. Am I old? When does old happen? Does it matter? Most household accidents happen in the bathroom. Is that a mole? Was that there yesterday?

Did I pay the water bill? Yeah. Or was that last month. No. Water bill is everyother month. What am I going to do if there is a drought? I remember the drought in the 80s. That landlord on Clay Street monitored our water. I liked living in the city. That was a nice apartment. Cheap too. No parking though. I got so many parking tickets then. God, if I still lived in the City, my car would have a Denver Boot on it permanently. In the suburbs, no one’s ever heard of a Denver Boot. No one ever gets a parking ticket here. I think the water is getting cold. I don’t want to go to work today. Wait. I got a new kind of coffee.
Shut off water. Step out.

He Did Not Want Any Consequences - Bonnie Smetts

He did not want any consequences. Yeah, right. Well then he shouldn’t have shot Blueboy’s dog. Blueboy’s not the one to mess with, not here, not anywhere along the Panhandle. But now Roy is shaking and having trouble holding down his meals and sayng it didn’. All ‘cause he shot the dog. I can say that I’m relieved the dog lived and all but why the hell did he shoot the dog? The dog wasn’t even doing anything he normally didn’t do. Yeah, he’s a marker. Lift the leg here, lift the leg there. The damn dog’s gotta be a desert inside, he pees so much. But then he went and peed right on Roy’s truck tire. Yeah, that’s the problem. Roy’s beloved, goddam truck tire. He’d sleep with that shiny truck if he could. He almost does, he falls asleep in it so often, he may as well give up his apartment. He never uses the bed there except the few times he manages to get some girl home after a long night at the Barnacle Hut. And I’ve seen those girls. They probably would have rather done it right there in the truck. And be gone. I hope they’re charging cause I can’t imagine getting anything else outta sleeping with Roy. Especially after a night at the Barnacle. Don’t really want to even think about that.

But why the hell he shot the dog, don’t know. The dog lifted his leg, but the dog was always lifting his leg. But last Tuesday, he lifted once too often in front of Roy, I guess. And Roy was feeling ornery after all that drinking, not that he’s never not drinking. Not that’s he’s never not ornery. But he just flipped. Now everyone’s worried he’s gonna flip and shoot someone else. Maybe one of those girls who say no, or maybe he’ll forget he’s even just slept with her and wanna shoot her. That’s the problem when you get to a point with the drinking. You just forget and you get really ugly inside. Your soul just gets too wet to care about anything anymore. That’s what we’re all thinking is going on inside of Roy. He’s not the Roy we knew when we were coming up to being adults. God, he’s only twenty-five and he’s as gone as anybody can be.

And I don’t see him going into to AA or something. God give me the grace, or whatever it is they say. Turning your life to god. No, Roy’s never gonna be turning his life over to God. Maybe he’ll be begging God to save his life ‘cause he shot Blueboy’s dog. Nothing else is gonna save him now. Maybe God can, but maybe that’s even more than God can do for Roy. Why in God’s name did he shoot that goddam dog?

What Can Happen in a Second - Julie Farrar

The humorless post-Soviet public official stamped our two sets of matching paperwork, one for Tonya and one for Nikolai, and in the instant between the last stamp and her handing them to us with what might pass for a smile in that grim room, Brad and I became parents. It was one second of unmitigated joy and relief. It temporarily wiped out all the months and weeks and days and minutes of anticipation that focused on meetings and forms and apostille stamps and having our life and our psyche picked apart to gain the approval from strangers who declare on some official documents that we are fit to be parents.

And in that one second we can’t see ahead to the multitude of other seconds that have yet to be locked in our memory. The undernourished body sitting in the tub with a head of lather piled six inches high and the huge smile that demonstrates perfect delight. The first time they come down the stairs on Christmas morning with a look that says they finally understand why there was a tree in the living room. The instant she drops on the field with a concussion. The second he crosses the finish line at his first race. The second it takes to slap her face out of anger and extreme frustration and the next second it takes to realize what I’ve done. The minute they step onto the podium as their names are called for their diplomas. And the moment the phone rings in the early hours of the morning with a strange voice saying “You can come pick up your son now.” The instant at the end of most phone calls when he says “Love you, Mom” and I say “I love you, too” as easily as breathing. No, those moments are yet to come as we revel in this single second for which we had been waiting.

What Can Happen in a Second - Trina Wood

Life as you know it can change in one second. Years of shared family jokes, holiday dinners where mom’s turkey is too dry again, hot August nights taking turns at the handle of the ice cream maker on the back patio, making our younger sister scream and pee her pants when we insist there is a spider on her back. Twenty three years of sibling rivalry finally distilled into something that promises one day in the not too distant future to be friendship—the kind that only forms once kids are grown enough to make their own terms beyond the boundaries of mom, dad and the rest of the gang.

One second and it was lost forever. Life thereafter becomes divided by an invisible filament of time, before and after Andrew was a tangible part of lives, before his helmet failed to protect him from “massive head trauma” listed on the coroner’s report. One second—I always wonder whether he knew that on impact with the side of that van under the glare of a setting sun that he was living in the last second of his life. Did he have time to contemplate his mistakes, his joys or was it so fast that one second there was light and the next second it was dark?

What I've Kept - Rachel Debaere

I’ve kept the pink shawl the love of my life made for me, though I haven’t worn it in thirty years. I’ve kept the blue jeans my son wore when he was 18 months old – now he’s 18. I kept my daughter’s navy blue Laura Ashley dress, the one her godmother, Ruth, gave her. I’ve kept the stories intact, as they were told to me, and now get told differently. I’ve kept the old versions because I believe they might be more true. I’ve kept my wounds and receipts. My joys seem to fleet. I’ve kept my hopes, my determination, my love for old friends, my grief. I’ve kept my distance. I’ve kept my genetics – in their full looming doom, diabetes, depression and auto immune disease. I’ve kept my eye color – they say my brown is dominant, but I didn’t pass it to a single one of my kids. I’ve kept my uterus, my eyesight – barely, my kidney – though it’s on a list if someone needs it, bone marrow too. I’ve kept my scars. They’re like maps of me – the headboard of my bed, the sharp lid from the tomato can, the searing iron, the scissors, the malignant mole, spider bites, tearing during childbirth. I’ve kept the legos, the art work from preschool and the Babar music box. I’ve kept the photos, need to organize them someday. I’ve kept my thoughts to myself, held my tongue, and I’ve kept my books – all of them. And though I don’t remember what they’re about, who wrote them, they’re part of my identity and so I can’t part with them. When I give one away about every week, I go buy it again. I’ve kept the dog, the cat, my husband, the children, other people’s children. I’ve kept songs in my head, the same ones I never know the names to. I’ve kept my integrity at the grocery store, on the witness stand, on the mountain. I’ve kept my tan into winter and my mother’s young-looking skin. I’ve kept my white hair, haven’t tried to cover or hide it. I’ve kept hope that I will always cherish my husband. I’ve kept my wits about me in emergencies, my own and those of others. I’ve kept the Sabbath, once or twice. Most of all I’ve kept my love for my grandmother who made that shawl for me. I will always keep that.

What I Wish I Were - Chris Callaghan

In the Valley Hospital mental health ward there are many choices of who to be.
I lie in my bed facing the wall and pick through them like Tarot cards.

Bess, who is eternally the gracious hostess at her own house party. Six foot, fat Mark, who is the disrupter – throwing his shoes at other patients and banging a bed pan and screaming when he needs more attention than throwing shoes will bring. Edger, who insists that Bill Gates is his best friend and confidant. He combs his regal white hair constantly.

Dr. Ortega, who watches over us all benignly and knows which buttons to push on the security lock to get in and out. Elvin, the orderly who is big enough to subdue Mark, yet writes out our name tags in a delicate script. Maggie the nurse, who gives us our meds and will stand patiently for five minutes or more making sure we’ve swallowed them down. And me, no longer the young woman I was last week, or the grandmother I was the week before. Today, I don’t want to be any of the others or myself. Today I’d like to be the earth. I can feel trees rooting in me, worms tunneling, aerating my soil, birds flying over my crust. Maybe next week I’ll be a bird. Maybe next week I’ll be out.

It's Inside the Closet - Ariana Speyer

That’s where she told me it was, the one time she showed it to me. She had had a few drinks, which was unusual for her. Generally, she was very tight-lipped, liked to keep herself to herself. But this one night, I guess she was feeling nostalgic or something, her kids were all away, at camp or something, I really don’t know, and she told me it was in the closet. She had only mentioned it once or twice before, laughing at it, over the course of the summer that we were together. At first I thought she was prom queen or something, I didn’t remember what the hell she had said. And I certainly didn’t go to my prom, I didn’t even graduate, so it’s not like I care all that much about those things. But that one night she was saying stuff like I wish you knew me then, things were different, every day was a surprise. Shit like that. Like she was in a movie or something. She had only had two drinks, gin and tonics, but I guess since she never drinks they really hit her. We used to practice, oh my god, would we practice. Our little walks and everything, she said. I didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about but I let her rip. I was glad to see her coming out of her shell, being more of a woman, I guess. Usually she wore cut off jeans and an old car mechanic t-shirt or something. I mean, she was cute, that’s for sure, I could see that. But that night she had put on a little dress and some sandals and the way her collarbone came out was just perfect. After a while, she kind of skipped over to the closet in her bedroom and took something out of a box on a high shelf and brought it over to me with this small, private smile on her face. It was one of those tiaras that they put on people. This is it, this is the Miss Arizona crown I wore, she said, real quiet. And then she sat, looking at it, like she was looking at a world that had washed away, with no place for me in it.