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Author: Emma Jarman Emma Jarman is an emerging creative writer enjoying short fiction and memoir. She is an Ohio native and recovering journalist, currently working full time in special education at a small public school in Oklahoma. Instagram: @illwritealready If there was a window she’d have gone to it, poked her head through and sung to the night. If there was a bureau in the bedroom she’d have opened it first, for a warm woolen robe that was heavy and green. If the night air had fallen from the window on her legs, she’d have pulled the robe tightly around her thin, nightgowned shoulders. If the night had sung first from the garden outside, she’d have smiled from her bed, curled her toes in the rug and plodded with care across the moon-cool hardwood. She’d have gazed past the jasmine, the petunias and primroses, to the weather-worn headstones through the wrought iron gate. She’d have ached for the buried and those soon to be, and wonder what came their ones left behind. If there had been bed linens she’d have stretched out beneath them at first, in a back-arching, fist-clenching, head-tossing way that would remind her of lying beneath a man. If there’d been a man there he’d have pulled her back in, before the robe on her nightgown and moon on her feet.
“Such silly ideas,” cracked a voice from the rot, jolting her back from what once might have been.
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Author: Mike Lee Mike Lee is an editor and reporter at a trade union with stories published in a variety of venues. I am on the train to work, looking through an interior design book. While going through its pages is cathartic, this is often fleeting with my realization this is only engaging in daydreaming, a matter of fantastical exercises. I live alone and while the job pays well, I am past the age of anything better than retirement somewhere in the south, and quite diminished in size. Author: Jeff Burt Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife. He has worked in electronics and mental health administration and contributed to Brazos River Review, Gold Man Review, and New Maps. Twitter: [email protected] Twenty-year-old Benjamin Jude took County Road X, but instead of going around Big Slough onto Anacker Road, he steered his Volt east to a dead-end strip that paralleled the water. He meant to park on the remains of a bridge farmer Sturtevant had started, who had desired to connect the sides of his farm on each side of the slough to save him a 5-mile trip on tractor. Sturtevant had never finished it, failing to receive approval for putting twelve posts in the slough. The up-sloping start to the bridge remained a spot for people fishing and children on bikes to launch themselves into the slough on a hot day.
Benjamin drove with more than a little inattention. He had lost his job for a second time, lost his girlfriend for a second time, and needed to move back home from the city for a second time. When he came to the turn to the bridge, he drove too fast and had to swerve to make the turn, and in so doing his foot jammed the accelerator and stuck, and in two seconds found himself airborne over the slough without a prayer of reaching the other side. |
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