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.