Category: Fiction (Page 2 of 5)

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Whooshie and Me

10 July 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Kenneth M. Kapp

I was visiting my grandkids, who can be a handful. There’re two of them, twins. So after the first day I told my son, I have to take at least three walks each day. “Doc says if I don’t, my arteries are going to clog in short order and ‘Mr. S, it’s sayonara.’ So I take my walks, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and after supper.”

I’m not totally heartless; I told the twins: “You want to walk with grandpa, you need to behave for 30 hours straight – then you can come with me the next time I go out.” They looked at me as if I’m nuts. I tell them: “Look at the clock, little hand goes around three-and-a-half times – good behavior – and you can come with me next time I’m out the door.”

“Grandpa. We only have digital clocks and 30 means we’d have to add. We’re only in 1^st grade.”

Well, I wasn’t about to teach the kids how to add, that’s what parents are for. Maybe it’s moot anyhow: the twins are high-spirited, that’s how my daughter-in-law puts it. I wasn’t going to argue, I like to walk by myself anyhow; it gives me time to think.

That’s how I met Whooshie, name I gave a boy I met on one of those walks. He was probably two years older than the twins and six inches taller. His head came up to my chin.

When I walk, I wander. Gets my kids mad when they ask me where I’ve been and I answer: “Oh, hither and yonder,” waving my hand above my head.

“Dad, one of these days you’re going to get lost and find yourself in a bad neighborhood.”

I don’t think so; I have a good sense of direction. Besides, I like the challenge of finding my way home after not paying much attention on my way out. Cloudy days can be a challenge since moss doesn’t always grow on the north side of the trees. I must have a beagle’s nose; anyway I always manage to find my way home. Heck, I know where my kids live, have their addresses and phone numbers, so what’s the problem if I’m rather vague where I walk. For an old man, it makes it more of an adventure.

With Whooshie I walked mostly in a southwesterly direction. Crossed the big divided boulevard. Other side of the tracks like they say. The neighborhood is a little less middle class, but the lawns are all well-kept. I thought I’d go a couple of more blocks, looked like some shops ahead, see if there was a place I could get a cup of coffee since I could use some caffeine for the way home. A block later this kid comes around the corner towards me, slinging his hands around like he was a human windmill.

I wasn’t far from the mark. As I got closer I heard him going, “Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,” making big, slow circles with his palms turned out to catch the wind. “Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.” I liked the sound and smiled. “Way to go kid. Can I try that?”

He comes up straight, almost could hear his heels clicking, snapping his arms to his side. He inclines his head. “My parents taught me that this is a free country but not in stores. There you have to pay. I asked them how can it be free? They told me it’s not that kind of free, more like free to be stupid.”

I laughed. Never thought of things that way. Racked my brains for a good question. I came up empty and could only think of a dumb one since I think I knew the answer. “You go to school?”

“No. I’m home-schooled. My parents said windmills aren’t allowed to go to school.”

“You’ve always been a windmill?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Ever since I read Don Quixote. I read it in Spanish when I was eight. Decided it was stupid tilting at windmills when you could be one.”

I had to step back – Whooshie started up his arms again.

I decided that was enough for our first meeting and went in search of a cup of coffee, leaving Whooshie to find his own way.

I went that way a couple more times over the next ten days – two weeks was my limit at one time with my kids and I was four days into the visit when I first met Whooshie. No luck. By the end of my stay I was friends with the barista, so I asked if he knew Whooshie, tall, lanky kid with a funny smile.

He laughed. “I think I know who you mean. Kid’s nuts, came in once and starts going round with his hands. I said, ‘Whoa, kiddo! You’re going to knock coffee all over the place. What do you want?’ Kid tells me his parents want he should get a summer job, so since it’s hot, he thought maybe he could get work here as a fan. ‘I can lie on the table, move my hands around like this.’ And he starts going with his whoosh, whoosh, whoosh thing. I tell him I don’t think it’ll work out, but I appreciate the offer, gave him a cinnamon bun for trying. He never came in again. You looking for him?”

“Not really. I met him a week ago. We got to talking and I thought of a question I wanted to ask him. No big deal.”

I went home the next day. Next time I visited my son, I failed to come across Whooshie. Ditto, the following year. Then my son gets a promotion and moves to another city. By that time I had forgotten the question anyhow. Couple of times I tried making like a windmill – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It wasn’t the same thing. Must be how you turn out your palms.

Kenneth M. Kapp was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, an IBMer, and yoga teacher. He lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late at night. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. Read his earlier microfiction story in The Bluebird Word‘s May 2022 issue.

Beauty

5 July 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Paul Hostovsky

The way her hands danced across the braille page, it was a beautiful choreography to behold. Her left hand beginning each line, handing it off to her right hand halfway across the page, the right hand finishing the line as the left moved down to begin reading the next line. Left hand to right hand to left hand to right hand. Expert, fleet, like a concert pianist, or like relay runners in a race, the handoff accomplished seamlessly over and over, line by line down the page, page by page through the book, book by book through his entire childhood.

There was never a time when he didn’t know it. He’d learned it with his ABCs, fingering the raised dots with his tiny hands, sitting in his mother’s lap as she read to him aloud from the print/braille children’s books while he looked at the pictures. B was but, C was can, D was do. M was more. M with a dot five in front was mother. White dots on a white page, but they cast these tiny shadows so he could see them in the light. Like a country of igloos as seen from an airplane on a sunny winter morning.

Having blind parents was as unremarkable as having breakfast in the kitchen, having mail in the mailbox, having rain on rainy days and sun in the summertime. Lending his mother or father his shoulder–his elbow as he grew taller–was like offering his arm to the sleeve of his own jacket, like giving his hand to his other hand. He thought nothing of it, didn’t even have a word for it until he started kindergarten and the word got spat on the ground by some ugly mouths on the playground, older boys snickering and pointing, mimicking his parents as they swept their white canes back and forth, back and forth. Click sweep, click sweep, click sweep.

Those white canes. At home they leaned quietly against the wall like backslashes in the unpunctuated dark. Or else they sat folded underneath a chair or table like bundles of long chalk, a red one in each. K was knowledge. P was people. And the braille dictionary in seventy-two volumes was stacked practically to the ceiling, like a cord of wood.

His mother would stop reading, open her watch then close it, click, reach under her chair for her cane and open it, chick-a-chick, into a white line which she swept across an invisible line which she walked, out the door and down the street to the grocery store. Q was quite, U was us.

Braille was dots in a cell, lots and lots of cells. Each cell was a three-story building at dusk, the lights on in certain windows, not others. Each book was a city, where he and his mother looked through the windows, their fingers pressed to the panes.

Outside it’s beginning to snow. And each snowflake is a different character in the Complete Works of Beauty, which contains no mistakes that he has ever been able to find. And he has looked—he has looked his whole life—but has never found a single mistake.

Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and Braille instructor. His latest book of poems is Pitching for the Apostates (forthcoming 2023, Kelsay Books). Website: paulhostovsky.com

Julia and Chang

27 June 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Brett Scott

And here’s the opening, the opportunity you’ve been waiting for, Julia told herself, looking in Chang’s direction, who now sat alone on the other side of the garden. His assistant, after seeing him to a comfortable spot and getting all of his various affairs in order, had promptly left him unattended, which was a rarity as far as Julia had seen this week. Although she and Chang had known each other as children, he was eventually transferred to California, leaving the two out of touch. Chang was famous now, and far too good for her, as far as Julia was concerned. In truth, his success was somewhat more modest than she understood, but his image did grace screens and billboards across the country. He had returned to Omaha just a handful of times on his promotional tours, and Julia had finally worked herself up to trying to reconnect with him on his present trip.

The garden was Julia’s favorite place. In the middle of a bustling and chaotic world, she had only this small piece of paradise. The sunlight, filtered through the shade of the lofty trees, gave her body comfort, and the sound of the softly trickling stream gave her spirit peace. And although she couldn’t believe he had started showing up there out of the blue that week, she was overcome with excitement to see him again. Just do it, Julia. It’s now or never, she encouraged herself, standing up from her spot beside the stone wall.

Slowly and nervously making her way across the garden, she watched as some of the passersby took notice of Chang. This was normal for him, she thought. As they smiled and pointed, he simply nodded back politely and resumed his business. Steadily, in only the time it took for her to advance, Chang’s number of gawkers increased to the proportion of a small crowd. Chang remained ever stoic, even as the cluster began pulling out their phones and pointing their cameras toward him.

Chang, peering subtly around the garden in hopes of catching a glimpse of his assistant’s return, instead noticed Julia, who now stood only several yards away beneath the shade of a pine tree. They smiled at each other, and Julia thought she saw his face warm with the spark of recognition. But just as quickly, Chang bowed his head politely, yet indiscriminately, toward her and then resumed anxiously scanning the grounds for his assistant. Discouraged, but not defeated, Julia approached Chang.

“Chang! I—It’s me, Julia.” Again, Chang looked in her direction, but his expression was vague and empty, as though he hadn’t heard her speak at all. Julia swallowed hard and spoke again. “I’m sorry. You might not remember, but we were friends a long time ago… Do you remember? We used to play in this garden. Chang?” Chang stood up and gazed deep into Julia’s eyes. A look crossed him as though he was about to reply. Instead, and without forewarning, he softly tumbled down onto the grass in front of her. “Chang?” Rolling onto his back, belly in the air, he turned his head away from Julia and back towards the direction in which he last saw his assistant. Tears began creeping into Julia’s eyes, but she did her very best to blink them away. “Anyway, Chang, it was nice to see you… And I’m sorry if I’ve bothered you.”

As she walked back towards the pine tree with her head down, she turned to get one last look at Chang. Still lying on his back, he was now grabbing fallen leaves from the ground and tossing them in the air to playfully enjoy their descent. He’s changed so much and yet not at all, she thought—the tears finally breaching from both eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Then, from high atop the stone retaining wall, Julia heard a young girl shout.

“Look, they’re bringing out the food!”

“That’s right, Addie. And what do pandas eat?” The girl’s mother responded.

“Bamboo!” Several of the children shouted in unison, having just learned this fact from the tour guide. The families watched as the enclosure door opened and Chang’s attendant emerged carrying a bundle of bamboo stalks. Chang urgently leapt upward and embraced his attendant with joy, almost knocking the poor teenage boy to the grass. The boy laughed as he surrendered some of the bamboo to Chang, who couldn’t get to work eating it fast enough. Grabbing the remaining stalks, the boy then came up to Julia, who was now lying sullenly in her spot on the other side of the enclosure.

“There there, big girl… He’ll come around one of these days,” he assured her, patting the top of her head and laying the bamboo before her on the rocks. Julia watched as the attendant crossed back through the garden, stopping only to rub Chang’s belly and then exiting through the same door in which he entered. She looked at Chang as he happily munched away, and then up to the families on the ledge, who laughed as they held out their phones—some of the children were doing their very best Chang impressions. Julia laid her head back down on the rock and closed her eyes, hoping the day would just end.

Brett Scott is a writer from the Kansas City area.

Magpie

7 June 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Andy Larter

First of all I hear their harsh clacking. There they are in the cherry tree, two of them, thank goodness, ying-yang, bold and brash. I hold a cup in one hand, towel in the other and, despite their reputation as nest robbers, I love their brilliant whiteness, their dark, glossy tails and wings.

They cackle me back to that time we heard a thud on the window, the one I am looking through now. We turned to see what made the sound and there on the window was the shape of a bird like an old photo negative–vague, ghostly, wings and all. Yvonne locked the cat away as I prowled into the yard. Under the window, stark against the earth lay the bird. I thought it had died but it quickened in my fingers.

Dad said they were evil birds. Yvonne said it’s not all black and white. “Look at that green and blue shimmering in its tail,” she said. He pointed out the cruel dark bill, the way they frighten smaller birds. Mum told us how they often taunted Patches, perching and cackling just out of the cat’s reach. Yvonne thought them clever creatures. She brought a shoebox, some cotton wool and a couple of writhing worms she’d collected from her bed of herbs, placed it on a shelf by the window in the shed.

“I’m going to take care of him,” she beamed. “Make him well again.”

Back indoors I saw the image of the bird remained on the glass and I gazed through it to the yard outside. I took a photo of the pattern, saw that moment through the bird’s eye, tried to focus on what it had seen.

The following morning, when Yvonne went to the shed, the bird had gone. Dad said he had found it on the floor of the shed pecking at crumbs and dust. “I thought it best to let it go,” he said, “and it flew to the aerial. Another one joined it and they went away.”

As I watch the antics of the magpies in the tree today and listen to their bold, aggressive chatter, I shrug and salute them. Then a vision of her magpie reappears in my mind’s eye and, beyond that, some blurred movement in the shed.

Andy Larter is a retired teacher, who, since retiring, has taken writing more seriously. He has had a few pieces published in local magazines and a couple online. He probably doesn’t submit enough but some friends encourage him to do more. He lives quietly in UK with his wife.

The Smart One

21 May 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Lexie Kauffman

“Does anyone know what a heuristic is?” My professor’s voice echoes throughout the expansive biology lab accompanied by the chittering of critters living in the dozens of glass terrariums that line the room. The projector pull down screen shows a stark white PowerPoint slide with only “Heuristic,” written in black text, at the very top. The fluorescent overhead lighting beams onto the class full of unfamiliar faces. Everyone looks older and wiser; they look like they know what they’re doing.

It is my first class on my first day of college and no one knows me. I sit alone at a table meant for four, palms sweaty in the humid room, debating if I should answer the question; but this is my blank slate, my chance to make a first impression on my class and professor. This moment creates my new identity, completely separate from high school.

I can picture the definition of heuristic, painstakingly written out in my AP Psychology vocabulary journal. It sits on the second page of Unit 7.5, nestled between “Algorithm” and “Trial and Error.” The word “Heuristic” is written in red pen, quickly underlined to make it stand out. Underneath lies the definition in black pen: “A rule of thumb problem solving strategy. It makes a solution likely, but it does not guarantee it.” Below that, written in blue ink, is the example: “i before e except after c.” The journal lies forgotten in my bedroom 100 miles away. The black and white composition book with only my name on the cover sits abandoned on an empty desk in an empty bedroom.

I know what a heuristic is. I could easily raise my hand and explain it, but a quick glance reveals that the room full of upperclassmen is confused. No one else knows what a heuristic is, so I stay quiet.

This silence is my new identity. After thirteen years as the “smart” one, I can’t do it again. I owe it to little second grade me who sat suffocating in an observation room as administrators watched her perform academic tasks to test her IQ. I owe it to that outcast that was the only student from her grade in the gifted program.

The silence is synonymous to my response when I was asked at eight years old, “You play video games? I thought you just went home and read textbooks.”

I deserve the silence after teachers called on me for thirteen years, regardless of the status of my hand, because they knew I could answer or ask a relevant question. I revel in the silence, this moment where I am choosing to take control of my intelligence and who knows about it.

It’s powerful, but why does it make my stomach sour?

In my head, I hear the screeching voice of my psychology teacher begging me to raise my hand, insisting that this exact moment is why she filled her class with so much passion.

I imagine my high school gifted teacher’s disappointment that I am letting myself stay silent. If I was in his classroom, I would be teaching the class for him.

I feel my mom’s sadness that I am hiding my intelligence: the part of myself that I place most of my worth in.

But, behind the loud wall of those that have helped me grow and learn, are the sobs of younger me, wondering why she doesn’t have friends, asking why she’s always bored, questioning why the only time she’s chosen first is for group projects.

Everything I’ve ever done is for her. The fancy plaque from graduation was earned by my hard work and dedication, but it belongs to the lonely smart girl that nobody understood. The gold-plated name applies to both girls, but it truly belongs to the one alone in the tiny closet of a gifted classroom, doing group activities alone with the teacher, completely isolated from her peers. I earned that plaque for the girl who sat by herself on a bench engrossed in a new book every day at recess because no one shared her interests. I had to make it mean something, because otherwise all of the pain and heartbreak that public school brought would have been for nothing.

So, I say nothing. The professor proceeds to explain the definition of heuristic and how it applies to the particular slide of information. I’m only half listening because the definition is already scrawled in black pen in my new college-ruled notebook.

He changes the slideshow to the next topic. Text fills the screen accompanied by a grainy black-and-white photograph of Charles Darwin. I let out a little sigh before lifting my pen and starting to write. For the rest of the class, I remain silent.

Lexie Kauffman (she/her) is a Creative Writing and Publishing & Editing double-major at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. When she’s not reading or writing, she is most likely watching Netflix with her friends. Previously, her work has been featured in Rivercraft.

The Phone Call

25 April 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Laura L. Feldman & Stephen M. Feldman

I willed my phone to ring. The literary agent had scheduled the call for 2:00 p.m. Not yet late, still one minute before the hour.

I had dreamed of being a writer since junior high, when I’d written my first story for an honors English class. The A+ didn’t hurt, and neither did my mom’s encouragement.

My novel manuscript had consumed two years of writing and rewriting. Before contacting agents, I devoted a month to crafting a query that pitched the story and my writing background in three flawless paragraphs. I sent it to fifteen agents. Three requested the full manuscript.

A month later I received an email scheduling this phone appointment. Soon I would be talking with an agent who wanted to represent me and sell my novel.

I would be a writer. ‘Yes, I’ve published a novel,’ I would say. No longer a poseur.

I checked the time again.

Two minutes late. It didn’t mean anything. I needed to relax, act as if I spoke to agents all the time.

I glanced at my list of questions, lifted from several books about landing an agent. Prepare for the phone call, they all instructed. Don’t immediately say, ‘Yes, yes, yes! I want you to be my agent.’ Ask questions. What did she like about the manuscript? What were the weaknesses? What changes would she want to see before submitting it to publishers? Did she have a plan for the submission process?

Act like a professional writer.

Three minutes late.

Had I gotten the day wrong? Was the call scheduled for tomorrow rather than today? I opened the agent’s email.

I’d already read the brief message at least a dozen times. But I reread it again, twice: “Can you talk about your ms. this coming Thursday at 2 p.m., ET?”

No mistake. It was today.

The phone buzzed. I checked the screen and my stomach hardened into a knot. This call would change my life.

The phone buzzed again. I took a deep breath and answered.

“Hello,” I squeaked. “Sorry.” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hello, this is Sara Klein.”

“Hi, Sara,” said a sweet lilting voice.

“Hello,” I said, for the third time.

“Just so you know, I’m not calling to offer representation.”

“What?”

“I want to be clear at the outset. So you’re not disappointed. Or confused.”

The ice cracked and I crashed through. Panicking, I opened my mouth to scream and freezing water rushed in. I was drowning in the darkness. Which way was up, which way was down?

“Some writers,” she said, her voice muffled and distant, “think this first phone call is to offer representation.”

“No,” I croaked. “Of course not.”

I glanced at my list of questions. Nothing there suggested an appropriate response.

“If you’re amenable,” she said, “I’d like to discuss your manuscript and some changes I’d like to see.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, holding in my tears.

“If you rewrite it,” she continued, “I’d be willing to take another look at it.”

“That would be great,” I managed to say.

“No promises of course.”

“That makes sense. You’ll have to read the—”

“I don’t want to mislead you. I plan to read the rewrite, if you do it. But at this stage, I can’t promise I’ll have the time.”

“Oh.” I squeezed my temples. What were we even discussing, then? “I understand.”

“Do you still want to proceed?”

“Please,” I wanted to hang up, throw my manuscript in the trash, and cry for a month. “Go ahead,” I said.

“Wonderful. The first thing I noticed was a problem with the plot.”

“The plot?” Shit. Shit. Shit.

“That’s right. After the first plot point—”

“Hold on,” I said, clicking my ball point pen. “Just one second.” I flipped the page where I’d jotted my useless questions. “Sorry. I’m ready.”

And she was off and running, tearing the manuscript apart. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t comprehend enough to ask intelligent questions. I tried to take copious notes, nearly transcribing the conversation. Later on, after I calmed down, I might be able to learn from my notes and benefit from this torturous experience.

If an agent, any agent, was willing to critique my manuscript, I should consider myself lucky—that’s what I reminded myself. Despite my disappointment, I would rewrite and send the manuscript to her again. Of course I could do exactly what she wanted, and she could still reject it. Or I might not even hear back from her. She hadn’t even committed to reading the next version.

As she talked, I decided to send the rewrite to other agents as well. Why not?

The phone call ended abruptly. She had another appointment. Maybe with an actual client? I didn’t ask.

Hollowed, drained of motivation, I riffled through my three pages of notes without comprehending them. My gaze shifted to the desk drawer on the lower right. I didn’t want to do it. But I couldn’t fool myself any longer. Neither this agent nor any other would likely offer representation.

I swallowed, my throat dry and raspy. Then I slid open the drawer and pulled out a stack of law school applications. I’d put it off long enough.

Laura L. Feldman writes and edits for the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center. She has degrees and certificates from the University of Oregon, Stanford, and Harvard. Stephen M. Feldman is the Housel/Arnold Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Wyoming. He has published several short stories and nonfiction books.

Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash

Picnic on a Plane

9 April 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Serena Burman

“Pilot to copilot, are we ready for takeoff?” Mom looks in the rearview mirror and back at me. I roll my eyes because I’m 16. She laughs, “It’ll be nice when you start liking me again.”

How did I almost miss it, austere letters on neon yellow plexiglass: AFFORDABLE CREMATION & BURIAL. I swerve into the lot. Inside, it’s 1978. I pause, my eyes adjusting to dim light. Faded shag carpet flatters the persimmon pedicure I got on the way here. Stuffing pokes out of the olive paisley couch. It smells like a mix of mothballs and barbecued pork.

“Hiya, how can I help?” The man who emerges behind the wood-paneled counter looks like the emu guy in Liberty Mutual ads. Hank, his tag says.

“I’m here to pick up my mom. Well, her remains.”

“You mean cre-mains. Common mistake. Sylvia?” I nod. He lifts a small cardboard box from behind the counter.

“Here you go. She’s a heavy one! Gotta be over five pounds.”

It looks like the box of spare batteries in my pantry. Timidly, I reach out. My hands drop a few inches with its weight. One of the flaps is untucked. What did I expect, an ornate urn? Shit, was I supposed to bring one? Mom would have thought of that—an old vase from Goodwill she’d decoupaged with gold leaf or something. She knew how to mark moments.

“Men usually weigh in around six or seven pounds, women, more like three or four. You get real good at guessing without a scale around here,” Hank chuckles.

I pull on the loose flap. Inside, a plastic bag stuffed with chunky gray powder. I hold it up.

“Is that amber?” Hank asks, pointing to my ring. The stone is loose in its silver setting. I constantly thumb it like a loose tooth. It’s nothing special, but Mom never took it off.

Hank leans in, says amber is really just resin. Tells me he used to collect jewelry. Launches into a soliloquy about his favorite precious stones. Through the wall, I imagine an ornate wood-fired oven, giant pizza peels on wheels for sliding corpses in without a hiccup. How do they gather ashes? How do they know these are Mom?

I could probably give him five minutes of water cooler talk. I want to go. I dig for my wallet and he takes the cue, asks to see my ID. I can’t think of a joke about stealing cremains. I pick a ballpoint pen from the cup, sign the papers and hurry out the door. What now.

I walk in circles around my red jetta. Open the passenger door, close it. Open it. Swipe an old sandwich wrapper to the floor and set the box against the black leather. Resist the urge to reach for the seatbelt.

Whenever we traveled, Mom brought a reed basket as her carry-on. While everyone around us ate bland airplane food, she’d unpack a full picnic: classic calico napkins, water crackers, brie. And mini apple pies she’d baked in a muffin tin expressly for the flight. Pielettes, she called them.

I yank a sweater from the backseat and slide the cream wool under the box. Across the parking lot, a splash of golden wildflowers. I gather a small bouquet. Tie it with an asphalt rubber band. Drape it over the box. I start the engine. Put the car in reverse.

She usually wouldn’t tell me where we were going until we were on the plane. As we checked bags, walked through metal detectors, cinched our lap belts tight, I’d beg to know. She’d just smile.

I’ll tell you once we’ve left the gate.

Serena Burman lives on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. Her recent work appears in The Audacity, Pithead Chapel and Invisible City. She received Honorable Mention for The Pen Parentis 2022-2023 Writing Fellowship for New Parents (in flash fiction) and was a Semifinalist for Ruminate’s 2021 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize.

photo of a fish in the aquarium — Photo by imsogabriel Stock on Pexels.com

Fish Tales

21 February 2023 / Editor

Special Selection for One-Year Anniversary Issue

Fiction by Foster Trecost

Boredom lurked like a silent companion, sometimes causing him to see things that weren’t there, sometimes causing him to miss things that were. Such was the case when he caught sight of something he’d never noticed before, though it had been there all along. He moved in for a closer look, so close his nose nearly touched the glass, and what he saw, in the language of his age, was an assortment of creatures, some big, some small. They moved about the confined space and he wondered if they were bored, too.

His brother, a bit older and much wiser, knew things and knew how to explain them. “Where’s my brother,” he asked.

“With his friends.” The answer was always the same, just like everything else. But the creatures through the glass were trapped, they weren’t going anywhere and neither was he.

“What are you looking at?” His brother had returned.

“Them,” he said, then streamed a series of questions so fast, each was asked before the prior could be answered.

“Slow down. One at a time.”

“That one,” he said, pointing to a large figure hovering in the back. “Why is that one bigger than the others?”

His brother presented a different view: “She’s the biggest because she’s everyone’s mother. All the others are her children.”

“All of them?”

“Not the skinny one. He’s the father. He worries all the time, that’s why he looks sick. They’re just like us.”

He believed every word and should have because every word was true, or at least the truth as his brother believed it. He spent the following days matching his newfound knowledge with what he saw, and concluded, just as his brother had, that they weren’t so different.

“You still thinking about them?” asked his brother. “Don’t waste too much time. It’s hard enough understanding our side of the glass.”

“You’re right.”

“Not always, but most of the time.” The two boys laughed, then his brother said something he’d never said before. “Come on, let’s go play.”

“I can come?”

“Sure, the others are waiting.” They turned away from the glass. “You want to race?”

“Can I have a head start?”

“Okay, but you better take it now before I change my mind.”

Without another word he swam away, his fish tail all that could be seen, swishing from one side to the other, and his brother swam after him just as fast as he could.

Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Potato Soup Journal, Halfway Down the Stairs, and BigCityLit. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.

Thumbing a Ride

12 February 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Alison Arthur

She shifts uncomfortably in the deeply upholstered seat. Perhaps she should not have accepted the ride, but it’s too late for second thoughts now.

He pilots the car down the country road, the sun escaping below the horizon in the rearview mirror. There is a smell. Mints and something else she can’t quite place. Perhaps shaving cream or soap. Desperation? Can you smell desperation, she wonders?

The conversation is cordial, but cautious. He wants to know where she is going, where she came from, why she is on the road thumbing a lift. She answers politely, but minimally, not sure of her situation. But he seems more paternal in his concern than intrusive. She begins to relax, sinking into the plush upholstery, her sense of dread subsiding.

He tells her he is a distributor for car parts, traveling between stores. Often with only his own thoughts to occupy him, he is happy for some companionship. When they stop for gas, he returns to the car with packaged sandwiches and juice that he shares with her. “You look a little hungry,” he says with fatherly concern. The conversation is lighter now, and she dozes for a while, hunger satiated and fear assuaged.

When she wakes, it is dark. She is unsure where they are. A backroad with no street lights, swirling mist caught in the headlights in the chill night air. Noticing that she has stirred, he chuckles and says, “Nice to see you are feeling so comfortable. Guess you have decided I’m not a serial killer.”

She straightens herself in her seat, shaking off sleep, and turns her face to him. “Oh yes, quite sure,” she replies. “After all, what are the chances there would be two of us in the same car.”

Alison Arthur is an emerging flash fiction author residing in Nova Scotia, Canada. Read earlier work from the August 2022 Issue of The Bluebird Word.

leafless tree on grass field — Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

Rooting

30 January 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Elodie Barnes

The wind is strange tonight. Sharp-edged, soft-howling. Icy tendrils carrying pinpricks of stars from the north. Leaves lie half-rotted, frozen mid-tumble. The soil is hard, unyielding, the solstice opposite of summer’s rich dampness. I soaked it up then, drank in the warmth under skies that darted with birds, their feathers inking songs onto blue that then faded with dusk. I can hear them rustling now, no longer singing, as uncertain as I am. Their claws grip my branches; branches that are naked now from the onslaught of winter, but no longer tender, no longer bloody with bursting buds and the rough scratching of owls. There is no skin left. Still, this wind makes me shiver. None of us are used to wind coming from the north.

At one time, I barely knew the wind at all. I was a child, knowing only that one day I would be gifted a seedling. A seedling that would grow as I grew, each of our bodies mimicking the channels and contours of the other until one day there would be no difference. One day I would take root in a place called home, a place from which I could never stray. I didn’t want it then. I didn’t want a home away from my mother; she never settled, so why should I? I never questioned the small plant of my mother’s that always sat on our kitchen windowsill, green and sickly and yet still trimmed every year by my father. Pruned, shaped, stunted. A tree smothered to a sapling.

She comes, sometimes, and I try to offer her the shelter I never could as a child. A blanket of branches, a waterfall of sunlight cascading through leaves. She talks, and I no longer understand. There are some words I remember – home, strong, love – but I don’t know whether those words came from her or me, and I’m even less sure of what they mean now that the north is gusting, ripping against my roots on their weakest side. The side that faces backwards; the side that knows there are too many questions about survival I never knew I needed to ask; too many questions I never dreamed she would have the answers to. Like why the winds suddenly change direction. What to do when home no longer feels safe. How to hold on, when it feels like winter will never end.

Elodie Barnes is a writer and editor living in the UK. Her short fiction has been widely published, including in the Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology. She is Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform, and is working on a collection of short stories. Find her online at elodierosebarnes.weebly.com.