Abstract: The granddaughter used to love breakfast. As a child she would glide down the staircase, face unwashed and thin hairs a tangled mess, her black toy poodle Zeytin racing by her side. The mother, a light sleeper, would be on her feet at least an hour before. Green and black olives, white cheese, cut tomatoes and cucumbers, marmalades and jams, and peanut butter would already be on the table when the granddaughter came running into the dining room. Weekday or weekend, school day or holiday, the table looked the same, an inviolable ritual, the mother's daily effort to remain connected to her homeland. The granddaughter would help with the final touches by peeling hardboiled eggs. By the time the grandmother's bedroom ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: He pats the empty seat next to him with one hand and waves at her with the other. She can tell he used to be a surgeon. Standing over him, she gets a full view of his near-hairless head. They ride together—out of the woods, around the city, then through a long tunnel. They take their glasses off to focus on the exit. After a while it's hard to tell if the bus is slowing down or they're just used to the noise. He puts his arm around her shoulder and squeezes a little too hard. She looks up. His face is free of the pain that tied them together for millennia. She stares for years, forgetting herself. Soon the small patch of hair on his head catches fire. He shakes his head gently, trying to put out the fire. Smoke ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "…In sum, I believe that words are worth as much, materially, as the very things they signify, and they are capable of creating these things by simple euphony. Perhaps a special situation is required; that could be. However, something I've seen makes me consider the danger of two distinct objects sharing the same name."Well, the opportunity to hear theories as marvelous as the foregoing seldom arises. The curious part is that the expounder was not some old and subtle philosopher versed in scholasticism, rather a man tangled up in commerce since boyhood, who worked in Laboulaye stockpiling corn. With his promise to tell us the thing, we took our coffees in quick sips and turned sideways in our chairs to listen for a ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: A reality must exist where everyone dreamed of working at a wizard tavern in an aging strip mall, but I lived in the universe where old classmates looked embarrassed when they spotted me on juul breaks. My velvet robes refused to vanish in a puff of smoke. I spent most of my shifts hiding in the parking lot, where the skinny tree growing from a roped-off pothole seemed like shelter. Its fluttering leaves only revealed glimpses of the "Fair Folk welcome!" banner hanging over the tavern. That morning, my boss had celebrated finding the muddy prints of a slimtoed being outside our door. Johnny knew about the raccoons living beneath the Dunkin Donuts dumpster, but he liked to embrace possibility wherever he could ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: I leveraged my medical history for a job I despised.A web of complicated trade-offs emerged after I traded employment for access to my personal life.When I was finally offered a job after half a year of unemployment post-college, I had no choice but to accept it. I had never lived outside of my home state of Kentucky and felt apprehensively empowered as I packed up my 400-square-foot apartment in Lexington and headed south to Jacksonville, Florida. I convinced myself this was an opportunity. An opportunity beyond a job, an opportunity to distance myself from my past and reinvent myself in a sunny surrounding. Fate, however, has a bitter sense of humor. The only employer that deemed me hirable was the Blood Cancer ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: I know a lot of people who say they would never join a club because clubs are exclusionary and all that, but I'd join one in a heartbeat if anyone asked me to and the club was fancy enough. Ideals and beliefs are all well and good, but American society isn't going to change because of anything I alone do. So when my older sister Nadine offers me a summer guest pass to her country club, I happily accept it even though my best friend is black. Black people aren't allowed at the Bonnie Hollow Club; Nadine makes that abundantly clear. She doesn't trust me not to try to sneak Javier in and she's right not to because I would. But Javier doesn't care, he says I'd be an idiot to refuse the pass because of him; he wouldn't ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: It was from out of her toddler's surprised face that she removed the metal spoon, Sandy Russell, API tech writer for a Big Data conglomerate, single mother of one. The playpen sat in the corner of her studio apartment, opposite the sliding glass door to the little concrete patio and below the pass-through to the kitchen, its stack of circs and junkmail and a wire mesh basket of shriveled oranges and limes. And Sandy stepping back from the playpen dropped the spoon to the carpet and gasped, her Chihuahua orbiting elliptically around her feet, those early hours, fog rising from the cornfields, and the horror she now experienced, its voice gravelly and miniscule: "You can never really know everything about something," ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: It was dusk. Navy light fell quietly over the city but there were people out. Loitering on steps, strolling together, drinking in wide neighborly circles, they watched the evening's magic reveal itself.In her faded wool coat Mona was almost warm, and her feet, marching forward in their salt-stained leather boots, were almost dry. The streetlight on Saint Mark's Place shimmered in the chilly October mist. A woman wearing elaborate wings and white netting leaned against the railing of her steps, smoking, and when she saw Mona she called out, "Mona'" and said, "Is that you sweet thing'"Mona waved and called, "I like the wings," and she kept walking. "What'" said the angel.But Mona was already passing the building.She ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: While waiting for the doctor, I grip the wrist keeping my inflamed hand attached to the rest of my body. Around the puncture, just below my right pinky, shades of red and yellow form polygonal bruises. I turn away. Looking at the sharp angles outlining the puffiness reminds me of the hordes of feline bacteria multiplying inside my veins like an army surrounding a castle.Rocking back and forth, I create tiny, uneven creases in the examination paper under my slacks.Find a distraction.I glance around and settle on a Sharpie lying next to the sink. I uncap the marker and, wincing, draw two eyes and a smile on the back of my injured hand."Don't worry," my hand says."What if you never touch again'"Knock, knock, knock.The ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "Tola, when are you going to take me to Russia'" my partner Laurie asks apropos of nothing."We can't really afford it now.""We'll never be able to afford it. Let's just do it.""You know I'm scared shitless of Russia. Are you sure you want to go' Why not go to Europe instead'""Russia is Europe." She laughs. "I want to see the place you're from.""Will you call the U.S. embassy and get me out if they arrest me for some stupid pretext'""Yes, sure." She nods, a huge grin on her face.I imagine Laurie trying to navigate the incomprehensible Russian bureaucracy. It's not a happy thought. She is a psychotherapist—she used to be a college professor. She is fascinated with foreign lands and foreign cultures.After a few rounds ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Back-stroke Boy said he'd pay my son a buck to eat a bug. This happened at our sweaty city pool in October when our son was six or so. A sweltering indoor pool, a Boxelder bug. The kid must have been a high schooler warming up for swim practice. Who knows all the details since we didn't hear about it till months later. I tell this story for laughs sometimes, careful to explain that my son wasn't one of those daring, eat-anything kids who swallows worms with their five thrumming hearts or chews crackly crickets just for fun. But Boxelder bugs were smallish, familiar, and he liked their ebony bodies with red racing stripes down the sides. A bug like that is other but not other other. So it comes as no surprise that ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: When you first start eating raw oysters, you can't taste any difference between them. The Penn Cove Selects, Belons, Olys, Kumos, they all taste the same to newcomers and casual eaters. People say it's like learning to taste wine, in the fact that you need to learn the subtle nuances over years through hard, dedicated drinking. But I've been drinking wine since I was sixteen and I still can't tell the difference between a Cab from a cardboard box and a twenty-five-dollar glass of Malbec from The Golden Steer. Oysters though' They make sense to me. Some are briny, others are kind of crunchy, some are the color of pennies, and sometimes they're clean and crisp.Ordering them is like a low-stakes Russian Roulette. ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Goldberg, Emma. "The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them." The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/business/gen-z-workplace-culture.html.GoldbergEmma. "The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them." The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/business/gen-z-workplace-culture.html.Stulberg, Brad, Alex Hutchinson, and Cathal Dennehy. "Why Do Rich People Love Endurance Sports'" Outside Online, July 2, 2021. https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/why-are-most-endurance-athletes-rich/StulbergBrad, HutchinsonAlex, and DennehyCathal. "Why Do Rich People Love Endurance Sports'" Outside Online, July 2 ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Down Highway 200, past Uncle Earl's distillery and the abandoned bitcoin mine, is the most expensive resort in America. It is owned by the widow to a fortune made on cat food and lingerie.My girlfriend took a summer job there as a glamping butler. She served celebrities breakfast and sold brokers Stetsons and signed an NDA. Two weeks in, a well-known movie star rented out the east camp. When my girlfriend cleaned out the freezer, she ate two leftover chocolates, and halfway home the mountains had melted into the river and the radio began to read her thoughts. Later, when she accepted cocaine as a tip, they moved her to landscaping. She was glad to use her body, but she didn't know anything about landscaping.This is ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Note: The bird calls, species (in French or Spanish), and conservation concern are from ALL ABOUT ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: April 1966, students at Westall High School watched a saucer-shaped aircraft descend behind the hills. Twenty minutes later the aircraft reappeared, accelerated, and went south. It was being pursued by another smaller aircraft that was identical in shape and color. "It was unreal," said one student. "Like a thin beam of light," said another.March 2019 in the optics lab, pulling the curtain to minimize visibility. Thomas tells me that light is made up of photons which are particles and also waves. I tell him it's impossible for one thing to be two things. "That's Leibniz's law," I say. Then Thomas fires a photon through the double-slit surface and it makes a pattern on the wall, suggesting that the photon has ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "Thing is," said Daddy, spitting into an empty can, "if you take the gator and ram one hand into its jaws and the other under its neck, and then you pull, you pull with all your goddamn strength and yank those jaws open like you'd crack open crab legs…""No, no, no," said Daddy's friend Eddie, his long, thin face red with anger. "Stop right there. You know as well as I do, that gator'd clamp down and bite off your hand and take your goddamn arm with it. And why not your goddamn head, too' You're dealing with a bite force of three thousand pounds." Eddie led fishing trips throughout Central Florida and knew these kinds of things.Lala held her hands over my ears, her shiny pink, pointed nails like claws on a bird, a ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "Hey, Wassup. My name is S."Due to a brain injury at birth my son S has severe cerebral palsy. Hospital staff failed to monitor his heartbeat properly and he suffered from lack of oxygen at birth.S is a multimodal communicator. He primarily uses a yes/no response to questions. A smile/vocalization is a yes. Eyes up is no. This is the simple, short explanation. The one I put on all the forms we fill out for school, summer camps, extra-curricular activities, and doctor appointments.What it really means: Ask S a question that can either be answered with a yes or a no. If it's a yes, he will smile. Sometimes we are driving or speaking on the phone and we can't see his face. We encourage him to use his voice. A small ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "Animals need to take in more energy than they exert. And one of the most expensive things that we do, particularly as mammals, is warming our bodies."We are stealing units of warmth from one another, and maybe that is all love is, the reason we want to be tucked and cuddled; it saves our bodies the trouble of making energy, of burning calories to maintain homeostasis, which just means constancy, which just means warm enough for optimal function, and that your body saved energy means survival, means surplus, means maybe the difference between having heirs and not, but maybe viewed another less-apocalyptic way, heat is love, we are making donations, a sort of heat philanthropy, shedding love in our wake, a ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The Peninsularium is an immersive interactive art attraction that will undoubtedly draw the crowds. Crab Devil, an art collective based in Tampa, FL, are adamant about bringing a sense of wonder and excitement to both locals and visitors when the Peninsularium finally opens its doors. In my discussion with two principal members of the Crab Devil collective, Janine Awai and Devon Brady, we talk about the importance of conveying a sense of place and the necessity of supporting and promoting area artists in the service of local enrichment. Our extensive focus on Tampa as a distinctive city is not surprising. Tampa Bay is experiencing massive economic and population growth, and keeping Tampa weird is a priority.The ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Acuna is a Costa Rican American poet from Phillipsburg, New Jersey. This spring he is graduating with an MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University. He is a winner of the 2022 AWP Intro Journals Project for poetry. He currently lives in Spokane, Washington with his best friend and fiancé.Lavonne J. Adams is the author of a full-length poetry collection, two chapbooks and more than 150 individual poetry publications. Her recent publications include two poems on North Carolina Literary Review Online (finalists for the 2021 James Applewhite Poetry Prize), and eight poems in an anthology of poetry about the Santa Fe Trail (New Mexico State Library). Adams completed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the ... Read More PubDate: 2022-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Open Access journal
[6 journals]
