THE SETTING by Emily Vest
The Crescent Woods Skate Park
Drake chants from teenagers’ Bluetooth radios, his voice reverberating against the hot metal skateboard ramps of this summer evening. Elementary school kids sneaker up the ramps and slide back down,...
HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR FIRST JOB by Ella Mear
What time is it? I pull out my phone and look at the time. 10:30?! It’s Friday, and we have been closed for two and a half hours! Why is it taking so long?...
THE ANATOMY OF HOPE by Ananya Anand
A defeated sigh, an apologetic letter, those goodbyes that are merely just a promise of our paths crossing again someday, the quiet gasp of the one who manages to narrowly escape from the jaws...
MUCH TOO YOUNG Gary E. Calhoun, PhD
The story starts in a working class neighborhood in the shadows of downtown Jacksonville. Among a row of houses where the families live week to week and at times day to day a young...
ILLNESS AND THE MOVEMENT OF TIME by A.M. Palmer
Illness and the Movement of Time
Reflections on Architecture, Music, and the Benefits of Raw Honey (2018)
The movement of time becomes painfully apparent when one is ill, either droning on during treatment and recovery, or...
LETTING GO by Brooke Castillo
I look at the grass art, leaning towards me at a 45-degree angle. Six flags are overlapping one another so elegantly, every blade of grass not surpassing the one next to it. I...
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: LOST AND FOUND by Anu Kumar
My first encounter with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was an old Dean and Son edition from 1950. It's sharp-edged hardbound cover, glazed and awash with colors, showed a man in a long frock...
THE CATCH by Kristen Langlois
I’ve always hated fishing. My father took me when I was a teen, and the horror thatfollowed ensured I’d never do it again. My husband loves fishing, and when he first asked mewhy I...
THE STORY OF THE STORYTELLERS by Richard Owen Collins
This is the kind of thing I would normally put in a fictional story I’m writing as part of a character’s opinion. It’s like I’m protecting myself that way.
Because the thing is I have...
DAYLIGHT SAVES by Kay Smith Blum
My head is in a story that I need to submit by today, when my husband comes into the kitchen. I can’t exit until my coffee is done even though any conversation will drain...