Magnets and Ladders
Active Voices of Writers with Disabilities
Spring/Summer 2026

Editorial and Technical Staff

• Coordinating Editor: Mary-Jo Lord
• Fiction: Kate Chamberlin, Abbie Johnson Taylor, John Cronin, Marilyn Brandt Smith, Carol Farnsworth, and Nell Anthony
• Nonfiction: Kate Chamberlin, Marilyn Brandt Smith, Lisa Busch, Brad Corallo, and John Cronin
• Poetry: Abbie Johnson Taylor, Alice Massa, Brad Corallo, Sally Rosenthal, and Sandra Streeter
• Technical Assistants: Jayson Smith

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Submission Guidelines

Writers with disabilities may submit up to three selections per issue. Deadlines are February 15 for the Spring/Summer issue, and August 15 for the Fall/winter issue. Writers must disclose their disability in their biography or in their work. Biographies may be up to 100 words in length, and should be written in third-person.

Do not submit until your piece is ready to be considered for publication. Rewrites, additions, deletions, or corrections are part of the editorial process, and will be suggested or initiated by the editor.

Poetry maximum length is 50 lines. Memoir, fiction, and nonfiction maximum length is 2500 words. In all instances, our preference is for shorter lengths than the maximum allowed. Please single-space all submissions, and use a blank line to separate paragraphs and stanzas. It is important to spell check and proofread all entries. Previously published material and simultaneous submissions are permitted provided you own the copyright to the work. Please cite previous publisher and/or notify if work is accepted elsewhere.

We do not feature advocacy, activist, “how-to,” or “what’s new” articles regarding disabilities. Innovative techniques for better writing as well as publication success stories are welcome. Content will include many genres, with limited attention to the disability theme. Announcements of writing contests with deadlines beyond April 1 and October 1 respectively are welcome.

All work submitted must be original. We do not accept work written by an AI or any form of plagiarism.

Have You Published a book? If you would like to have an excerpt of your book published in an issue of Magnets and Ladders, please submit a chapter or section of your book to submissions@magnetsandladders.org. The word count for fiction and nonfiction book excerpt submissions should not exceed twenty-five hundred words. Poetry book excerpts should be limited to five poems. Be sure to include a synopsis of your book. Please include information about where your book is available in an accessible format, either an eBook or audio format. If you submit a book excerpt, it is included in your three submission limit. We will publish up to one book excerpt per issue.

Authors under age 18: Please include a statement from a parent or guardian that indicates awareness of your submission of literary work to Magnets and Ladders.

Do you have a skill, service, or product valued by writers? For a minimum contribution of $25.00 we will announce it in the next two issues of “Magnets and Ladders”. All verifications of products or services provided are the responsibility of our readers. Book cover design? Copyediting? Critiques? Formatting for publication? Internet access or web design? Marketing assistance? Special equipment? Make your donation through PayPal (see magnetsandladders.org) or by check by March/September 1. 100-word promotional information is due by February/August 15. Not sure about something? Email submissions@magnetsandladders.org. All donations support Magnets and Ladders.

Please email all submissions to submissions@magnetsandladders.org. Paste your submission and bio into the body of your email or attach in Microsoft Word format. If submitting Word documents, please put your name and the name of your piece at or near the top of the document. When possible, please send your submissions as a Word or txt attachment as many email programs have been reformatting poetry and putting unwanted line breaks in stories and essays. Submissions will be acknowledged within two weeks. You will be notified if your piece is selected
for publication.

Final author approval and review is necessary if changes are needed beyond punctuation, grammar, and sentence or paragraph structure. We will not change titles, beginnings, endings, dialog, poetic lines, the writer’s voice, or the general tone without writer collaboration. If your work is selected for inclusion in a future “Behind Our Eyes” project, you will be notified; your approval and final review will be required. To insure we can contact you regarding future projects, please keep us updated if your Email address changes.

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Audio Versions of Some Past Issues are Available for Your Listening Pleasure

The Perkins Library for the Blind has been recording issues of Magnets and Ladders for several years. In 2017, these recordings became available on cartridge to patrons of The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. For many of our readers, the Perkins recording of each edition of Magnets and Ladders is their only access to the magazine. Other readers may enjoy the pleasure of hearing the stories and poems performed by the Perkins narrators after reading the magazine online. In the fall of 2022, we were given permission, by Perkins, to upload mp3 files of magazine recordings. Back issues starting with the Spring/Summer 2019 edition of Magnets and Ladders are available now at https://www.magnetsandladders.org/mp3. Please check back often, as we anticipate adding more back issues soon.

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Behind Our Eyes announces our third anthology

Description of cover image courtesy of Be My AI: The image is the cover of a book titled Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst. The subtitle reads, “The Third Literary Anthology of Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers with Disabilities.” The book is edited by Mary-Jo Lord. The background of the cover is gray, and the text is in yellow. Below the text, there is an image of a bright, fiery sunburst, showing intense solar activity with vivid orange and yellow colors.

Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst is available from Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and soon coming to Amazon.

From the back cover:
In Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst, the third anthology of its kind, six sections comprised of memoirs, fiction, and poetry share slices of life from the perspectives of those living with disabilities. Most works first appeared in Magnets and Ladders, an online literary journal in which novice and experienced writers with disabilities showcase their work. While unique challenges are incorporated into some of the works, this compilation speaks to universal themes and common experiences, involving loss and grief, adversity and fear, love and passion. Subjects such as life-changing illness and the death of a pet are shared with sensitivity and compassion; some works reminding us that a rainbow is possible only in the aftermath of a storm. Heartbreaking, as well as heartwarming, memoirs recount experiences belonging to military veterans, children of immigrants, and parents in the trenches of child rearing. Witty fiction introduces us to cosmic bowling with aliens, and asks us to envision a sky with two moons. Reflective poems describe braille as “ticklish filigree lace on cardboard paper” and fingerspelling that “performs magic in a cacophony of the palms.” In other verse, lyrical imagery paints enchanting portraits of the natural world. To unexpected delight, tantalizing recipes accompany several works; such as those for edible salad bowls, lemon herb bread, cinnamon rolls, and even frozen yogurt pops for golden retrievers named Sammy who “sing the blues.” As a part of the community myself, I am reminded that the only thing a deaf woman cannot do is hear, and the only thing a blind man cannot do is see. This engaging collection promises three enriching opportunities: readers are challenged to question outdated notions of disability; invited to appreciate perspectives that differentiate us from one another; and encouraged to embrace the threads that make up the fabric of our collective human experience. Readers, disabled and not, will be inspired to hold up a mirror to their own experiences, and recognize that, reassuringly, we are all in this together.
Kelly Sargent, Creative Nonfiction Editor, The Bookends Review and author of Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion

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About Behind Our Eyes

Behind Our Eyes, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization enhancing the opportunities for writers with disabilities. Our anthology published in 2007, “Behind Our Eyes: Stories, Poems, and Essays by Writers with Disabilities”, is available at Amazon and from other booksellers. It is available in recorded and Braille format from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

“Behind Our Eyes, a Second Look” is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other booksellers, and in E-book format on Amazon Kindle. It is also available in recorded format from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. See our book trailer on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk0uIaQTr24&feature=youtu.be.

Several members of our group meet by moderated teleconference twice monthly to hear speakers; share work for critique; or receive tips on accessibility, publication, and suggested areas of interest.

Our mailing list is a low-traffic congenial place to share work in progress; learn about submission requests; and to ask and answer writing questions. If you would like to join our group and receive access to our phone conferences and mailing list, please complete our quick and easy membership form at http://www.behindoureyes.org/mform/form.php.

If you would like to learn more about Behind Our Eyes, or if you would like to make a donation, please visit our website at http://www.behindoureyes.org.

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Table of Contents

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Editors’ Welcome

Hello:

Spring is my favorite season. We open the windows and let in the fresh breeze. I enjoy the continuous chorus of birds in our yard. We have a 200-acre park near our home, so we always have a nice variety of birds.

The Spring/Summer edition of Magnets and Ladders is packed with poems, stories, and essays from new voices, along with familiar favorites. We have some alternative history fiction, and although we don’t have a section dedicated to poetic forms, we have several represented among the poetry. See how many you can find.

Although our third anthology, Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst is still in the queue to be recorded by The National Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, it is available to download in Braille on their BARD website.

Once again, we welcome a guest judge. Donna L. Halper has generously volunteered to be our guest judge for the nonfiction finalists for the spring/Summer and Fall/winter editions. Dr. Halper was a presenter during the Behind Our Eyes conference call on August 18, 2023. She has an extensive background. See her bio below.

Donna L. Halper has spent four decades as a professor of communication and media studies, working at several Boston-area universities as well as online for Purdue University’s Global campus. She is the author of six books and many articles, and is widely quoted in newspapers, magazines, and media textbooks. A former radio deejay, music director, and management consultant, she is credited with having discovered the rock band Rush, who dedicated two albums to her. Dr. Halper reinvented herself when she was 55, going back to school and getting her PhD at age 64. In addition to doing ongoing research into the history of broadcasting, and media representations and stereotypes of “the other,” she writes extensively about baseball, as a member of SABR– the Society for American Baseball Research. Her expertise is in the Negro Leagues, as well as in women’s involvement in baseball history. Dr. Halper was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2023, and is the first woman to win the Pioneer Broadcaster Award.

You may see some familiar names in this article written by Dr. Halper in May 2023.
Radio and the Blind: An Evolving Relationship – Radio World https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/programming-and-sales/radio-and-the-blind-an-evolving-relationship

We had a record number of submissions, so making publication choices was both rewarding and a challenge. Thank you to everyone who submitted. I would like to give a big thanks to all of the committee members, Marilyn Brandt Smith, and Jason Smith for your hard work and support throughout the production process.

We had contests with cash prizes in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Here are the Magnets and Ladders Spring/Summer 2026 contest winners.

Fiction:

• First Place: “Unspoken” by Valerie Moreno
• Second Place: “The Many Loves of Tom Tower” by Anthony R. Candela
• Honorable Mention: “Date Night” by Gregory Smith
• Honorable Mention: “If…” by Allison Whittenberg

Nonfiction:

• First Place: “Prison Break” by Linda Wright
• Second Place: “My Sunshine” by Kate Chamberlin
• Honorable Mention: “Making Friends” by Susan F. Volle
• Honorable Mention: “Marjorie’s Seedling, the Saga of a Plum Tree” by Sarah Das Gupta

Poetry:

• First Place: Silence Has Texture” by David Anson Lee
• Second Place: “Do Your Words Now Sleep in Your Unknown Grave?” by Robert Ensor
• Honorable Mention: “Is This Addiction” by Brad Corallo
• Honorable Mention: “Variations on the Word” by Carolyn Martin

Congratulations to all of the contest winners.

The Magnets and Ladders staff wishes you a safe and wonderful summer.

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Part I. Unexpected Possibilities

Unspoken, Fiction First Place
by Valerie Moreno

My heart was pounding as I looked around the small apartment, taking in the colors. I worked so hard on cleaning, setting things straight, and fixing a lovely small dining table in the corner. Everything was ready, except for me!

I wondered what I would say, how will I approach her, and would she be comfortable. I wouldn’t know until she actually stood in my living room.

How would she be, after what she had been through. Would she be withdrawn, somber, unreachable?

A soft knock on the door made me jump, and I went slowly to answer it. “Anne.”

She stood so still for a moment, her expressive eyes taking in my face and showing feelings on her beautiful face. Her smile was sweet and kind, and I wondered how it could be after the horror she had been put through for no good reason.

“Make yourself at home, would you like something to drink, maybe a snack?”

When she spoke, her voice was soft, “Perhaps, a cup of tea would seem nice.”

I felt a lump in my throat thinking of the garbage that she had survived on for so long. Had she dreamed of tea in Bergen-Belsen? Had she been able to stay sane in the hell around her? And if so, how did she do it?

“I’ve prepared a tray with tea things and assorted Bakery cookies.”

When I put the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch where she sat, her eyes widened and a smile lit up her face.

“I love cookies! Oh, how I dreamed of them when I was…”

“And I don’t know what to say to you, except what’s in my heart. And what’s in my heart is painful, because I feel so ashamed and disgusted by what was done to you. It never should have happened to you or anyone else. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry, but I thought having you over for a little dinner would be something that would express how I feel.”

I was surprised when she smiled and reached for a large, frosted cookie, her hand trembling.

“You read my diary? I’m glad it’s published. I wanted people to know how we lived and how we tried so hard to keep hope especially. It was hard in the annex. We were always afraid someone would find us or tell where we were, and even though my dad, Margot and I called him Pim, tried to say we were safe, I knew he just said that to make me feel better. We were all scared, very scared. And then when they came for us, as the man grabbed my arm and yanked me down the stairs, I looked into his eyes and it was like looking into nothing. There was no warmth, no expression, just blank absence as if he wasn’t really there. And I thought to myself, he probably isn’t there, because he’s been educated to feel nothing but do what he was told. It scared me. It still does. Out of everything that has happened to me, I think that’s the worst of it. I expected the cold, the hunger, but not the blankness in some eyes and the sheer hatred in others. I wanted to ask them what we did that was so bad, what did I do that I ended up here? But you couldn’t say a word, or they’d kill you. So I just kept it to myself.”

I handed her a hot cup of tea on a delicate saucer and sat down beside her on the couch.

“I can’t even begin to imagine that. How did you survive? And how did you hope when everything around you was so horrific?”

There were tears in her eyes as she slowly sipped the hot tea. “I don’t know, sometimes, I prayed in my heart, sometimes I cried, most of the time I hoped that I would see the world again and that my dreams would come true. The only family member who survived besides me was Pim. My mom and Margot are gone, at least gone physically. I feel them around me a lot of the time, and that helps.”

She took another cookie, and I did too. “Dreams really can come true, and they really can.”

“I want mine too, I really do. I want to go to Hollywood. I want to see the stars I love so much, and I want to write and tell people what happened to me and so many others, and how there was so much agony and bravery mixed together in that terrible place.”

There was silence for a while and then I said, “I have quite a spread in the kitchen for us. Chinese, American, Italian, and I did not put in anything you don’t like.”

We got up and went in to sit at the pretty little table adorned with colored napkins, beautiful yellow flowers, and hot plates with food. We chose the Chinese first. She liked the rice and the chicken. Then she tried some macaroni and meatballs, then she asked for a second helping. I was so moved by that. She looked almost frightened when she asked, and I said she could have as many helpings as she wanted. I also made some Jewish Kugel, and she thought that was really fun.

We talked about movies, actresses, and things we wanted to do, and the time seemed to slip away. She would jump at an unfamiliar noise, or a rattle from the radiator, and once or twice she seemed to look off into space without seeing anything around her.

Then, she would smile and say, “Daydreams, I’m so sorry, they just come when I least expect them. I want another cat. We had to leave ours when we fled to the annex and left her with a neighbor, but the neighbor is gone, and there’s no one who knows what happened to my cat. If I had a house of my own, I would have 20 cats, and they would each be treated like royalty.”

“I love cats as well. I like the air of mystery they have, and the way they take everything in and their perception of things and people is amazing!”

“Peter brought his cat to the annex. I was upset because his parents didn’t tell us he was bringing his cat. I wanted to take my cat with me, but I couldn’t. Still, she was a smart Kitty. She would make us laugh, too. She liked being in the office when we listened to the reports of the war on the radio. Lots of times, she knocked things down, and we had to put them back where they were. It was so close, the Allies were just coming and doing so much and then, we were discovered.

“Miep and Bep used to bring things to us, food and books, and magazines for me. Sometimes they would stay overnight, and that was really fun, and I loved the magazines. I had all kinds of pictures on the side of my wall where my bed was in the room I shared. I loved looking at them, and I loved writing in my diary, and saying everything I felt I couldn’t say out loud. Some things just need to be written. Some things need to be conveyed unspoken.”

I brought out dessert, five different kinds. I told Anne I didn’t know which was her favorite, so I decided to go with more than just one or two. She laughed, and the sound was Musical, tinged with sadness.

We didn’t talk much about anything serious until after we had eaten more than our share of the sweets.

I stacked the dishes in the sink, and she jumped up to help. I didn’t tell her no, I felt she wanted to be part of everything, so I let her clear the table and wipe it down with a warm sponge.

Afterward, when we stood in the living room and were ready to say goodbye, I couldn’t say a word. I kept looking at her face, at her eyes, the sparkle was still there, but it was dim now, not quite all the way back. The Bravery and tenaciousness of this young girl made me want to cry.

Sensing something, she stepped toward me and we held each other in a tight Embrace for a long time. My tears fell on her dark hair, and hers fell on my shoulder. It was okay. We were sharing what we needed to share, and words weren’t necessary.

After she left, I sat on the couch for a long time gazing out at the October moon in the sky. Human nature is resilient and strong, but oh how we hurt and cry and hurt some more and never seem to understand exactly why. Maybe we never would, but at least, we had the freedom to wonder and ask and seek the answer.

Note: This story was written as if Anne Frank survived her time at Bergen-Belsen. She obviously had been freed and so had her dad. Peter was the son of the couple the Frank family had invited to share the annex. They were all killed as well as Anne’s mom and her sister.

Bio: Valerie Moreno has been writing fiction and poems since age 12. Her inspiration is music, life experience and prayer. Her work has appeared in anthologies, magazines and fan fiction. She is totally blind.

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The Many Loves of Tom Tower, fiction Second Place
by Anthony R. Candela

It didn’t get much better than this. Tom Tower loved his work and his audience loved him. Not only did he keep a keen eye out for traffic snags that might inconvenience his terrestrially bound audience, he got to do it from a traffic helicopter which he loved piloting. Excellent vision and quick reflexes allowed him to spot traffic jams and broadcast information about them to his adoring public.

Tom loved hovering his craft about 500 feet above the uppermost tower of the George Washington Bridge. That is how he got his broadcast name. He would occasionally dip the nose of his chopper in homage to the eponymous bell tower in Oxford which is also well-loved.

The sun was shining and the breezes were benign. Tom had been up for a few hours. There were the usual snags along this or that bridge, highway or street, but nothing out of the ordinary. Hovering in his happy place above the great bridge, Tom looked to his right. He knew exactly what he should be seeing, a long stretch of the Hudson River with palisades on the right and the Manhattan skyline on the left, and at the far reaches of his vision, the pencil-thin wisp of one of the World Trade Center towers. Instead, he saw what appeared to be a bright light penetrating a haze. That doesn’t look right, he thought. Opening his radio mike and accessing the 50,000 watts of his powerful radio station, Tom reported so all New York could hear, “There’s something happening at the World Trade Centers. I’m going to investigate.”

Seizing his sticks and pushing his pedals, Tom Tower pivoted south and accelerated to maximum. In a few minutes, he found himself approaching flame and smoke. The north tower appeared to have been speared by a missile. Almost by instinct, Tom swiveled his head to look behind him. There he saw a low-flying craft hurdling toward him.

Grabbing his stick, Tom did the only thing his being would allow. Reversing course, he accelerated his vehicle toward the oncoming specter which was also accelerating toward him. It took nerves of steel for Tom to maintain his craft on the collision course he’d set for himself and the rest of the world. Mercifully, it was quick and instantaneously obliterative. When the twain met, the menace was minus its left wing, spinning nose-first into the mighty Hudson. There would be no sign that the helicopter ever existed until eventually they dredged the bottom of the Hudson.

In the south tower, known as 2 World Trade Center and it would be learned later, the target of the hijacked airliner that Tom had intercepted, about a thousand souls who were just like those in the north tower, regular people who worked in offices and in support of the building, did not perish that day. Almost as many widows and widowers were not created. Twice as many children did not become orphans or semi-orphans. Who knows for sure, perhaps as many fewer police, firefighters, and first responders did not lose their lives that day or in the decades hence.

In the light of the triumph he would never celebrate and amidst the residue of a carnage that perhaps could have been prevented only on the world stage, the entire city found time to fall in love with Tom Tower. Due to a reflexive action even he could not have explained, Tom Tower was adopted as the symbol of strength and tenacity the city needed so badly.

In doing so, he became a hero for the ages. Today, his spirit sitting within, no doubt ready to rise up and report, a full-scale model of Tom’s helicopter is perched atop the main tower of his beloved bridge. Down river lies the rest of Tom Tower, remembered at the Memorial where thousands of people visit every year to honor the victims and heroes of September 11, 2001. If you stare into the reflecting pool there long enough, you will imagine you can see Tom’s helicopter, the only friendly thing that occupied the sky on that fateful day. The image hovers above the holy water that covers the sepulcher that lies beneath, a place that cradles the spirit of Tom Tower and sadly, so many more of the victims of a day that changed forever the city that Tom loved so much.

Bio: Tony Candela is a retired rehabilitation professional who maintains an interest in developing blindness professionals. He is also a “retired” athlete, loves movies, sports, reading, writing, and music, including dabbling in guitar.

View his web site at: https://www.anthonyrcandela.com/ Follow him on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/anthonyrcandelaauthor

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Feline Nirvana, fiction
by Bill Tope

I lay on my side upon the woven carpet in the living room of my two-leggers’ home in the gated community we all inhabited in the Pacific Northwest. My breast heaved and I expelled breaths stertorously. I was in pain. Felix, the alpha male of the household, regarded me uneasily. He wasn’t comfortable around the sick. He didn’t even like my kind, truth be told. I had been diagnosed with feline leukemia only weeks ago.

Marjorie, on the other hand, fawned all over me, coaxing me to take this elixir or that, rubbing my furry belly with gentle fingers or stroking my fur with the slicker brush. It did little to salve my distress, however; I knew that the end of my 7th of the 9 lives accorded all cats was at hand.

I had no regrets. I had lived with the Handlebergers for almost 14 years, since I had been reborn a kitten following the end of my 6th iteration. That life had expired after just 4 years: I was run over by a car on HY 70 outside St. Louis, MO. After the road crew had scooped my bloody carcass off the pavement and into the bed of the truck of the Highway Dept., I had gone through the “magic” of transformation once more.

But for a select few wiccans, shamans and other mystics, all two-leggers remain blithely unaware that cats do in fact enjoy nine lives, in rapid succession, before finally reaching feline nirvana. Even cats don’t know what happens after that, for no one had ever returned to spread the glad tidings—or otherwise.

In the beginning…

“Ooh, isn’t she a sweet little thing?” gushed Aubrey, my first “owner,” so-called. Aubrey wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp; she couldn’t tell a girl cat from a boy cat, which is what I was–and still am.

“This is a male, Honey,” said Aubrey’s father, the vet. “When he gets a little older, we’ll neuter him.”

At the time, in my overweening youth and ignorance, I didn’t know what that meant. Looking back, I see that going under the knife is all for the best. I’ve had the operation each time and been the better for it. Once, I lived for almost a year before the surgery, and was very unhappy: tense, oversexed, uptight. I got into fights incessantly, and all over a little pussy. What a waste of energy. That first time I had the operation at 3 months; it was October of 1964—the St. Louis Cardinals had just won the World Series. The other neighborhood cats soon lost interest in me, as both a companion and a competitor.

Doc Fenster, Aubrey’s father, had rescued me from a litter of 7; my brothers and sisters had been consigned to death by drowning at the hands of a farm hand assigned the dastardly task. It was my turn, but at the last moment, Doc arrived and interceded on my behalf and I was saved. Yay!

Doc took me home to Aubrey. “You’ll have to take care of him, Honey,” he told her. She readily agreed. After a few months of home care and following the surgery, I became the office cat and remained at the veterinary full time. It wasn’t a bad life: fawning animal lovers, interesting companions, plenty of treats. I became very proprietary and checked out every creature, four-legged and otherwise, who crossed the threshold. Aubrey had christened me Mr. Whiskers. Yeah, very original.

Aubrey, 6-years-old, was very attentive for the first five or six years, but eventually she entered junior high school and began running with a gang of friends and then discovered boys. After that, I saw little of my personal two-legger.

“Aubrey,” inquired Doc often, “did you feed Whiskers?”

“Aw, Dad, I got cheerleader practice,” she’d say.

“Cat’s gotta eat,” said Doc.

“Can’t Rita do it?” whined Aubrey, naming the vet’s assistant who became my newest best friend.

And so it went.

When I turned eleven, I began to feel miserable. I mewled and cried and carried on until Doc ran some tests and discovered the awful truth: I had liver cancer. Since that problem was out of Doc’s purview, he had to get another vet to consult. The other doc decided that the operation, which would be expensive, probably wouldn’t work. It was decided not to do the surgery.

They thought I was oblivious to the prognosis, but not so. Cats are keenly aware of their mortality; they know when their number comes up. Doc told Aubrey the sad news and she was beside herself with grief. She stroked my fur and I nuzzled her hand, just to rub it in a little that she had been ignoring me. She lost it and sobbed bitterly. Touché! I thought.

“Isn’t there anything you can do, Dad?” she blubbered.

Doc explained that there wasn’t and that to delay my ultimate fate would make me needlessly suffer. Aubrey skipped cheerleader practice that day, which I marked as a personal triumph. After Aubrey and Rita had said their tearful goodbyes, Doc shot me up with a long needle. Already in pain, I didn’t even feel it.

“Goodbye, Mr. Whiskers,” whispered my two-leggers, as my soul arced across the universe to be born anew.

The transformation is a bit difficult to explain, inasmuch as I’m a cat and not a scientist or a poet. Deep, sweeping expanses and heady heights and star-filled skies and all the rest. In the end, you are without form and without substance and you’re in the hands of God or something and he’s stroking your fur and telling you it will be alright and not to be afraid. And you’re not. You’re confident and safe and secure. Content. Then this ethereal entity places what must be your soul in the womb of another mother cat and sometime later you are born anew. It’s really quite wonderful and magical.

Birth happens. Wet and magical and abrupt. Sometimes the mother goes crazy and begins devouring her kittens; sometimes it’s the jealous tom. If you make it through the first couple of weeks, you’re practically home free, because you’re cute and cuddly and virtually irresistible to two-leggers.

So now I found myself on the floor on the woven rug in the living room of the fancy home in the gated community, being watched closely by feckless Felix and magnificent Marjorie. I could tell that the end was near–we always know–and I further knew that just two more phases in my life were in the offing. I did a little mental arithmetic and calculated that my compartmentalized existence had spanned almost 60 years, not bad for a cat.

I looked forward to meeting God again, but dying was always a bit of a buzz kill. All I knew about the future for sure was that I would be reborn. In every previous incarnation I had been born in the West, though I knew some cats who’d done time in Egypt, Jerusalem, even China. I sighed.

“Ooh, Felix,” said Marjorie, “I think he’s in pain.”

I was.

“Should we take him to the vet and have him put down?” she asked.

Felix snorted. “$150 to euthanize and cremate? Too expensive. I’ll put a round in his skull and then bury him in the back yard.”

“How can you be so callous?” asked Marjorie?

That’s what I wanted to know.

“Huh!” said Felix. “Next time, we’ll get a dog!”

“You go to the devil,” said Marjorie venomously.

Felix withdrew.

Marjorie held me close, nuzzled me. “What can I do for you, Dreadlocks?” she asked softly.

I suppose a new name is out of the question?

Marjorie’s slender fingers kneaded the flesh on the back of my neck, just the way we cats like it, and she bent her head and gently kissed my fur. Just then, I felt the release once again, the breathless sensation of soaring at great heights over great distances. I heard Marjorie’s voice cry out and then I was back in the arms of God.

Here I go again.

BIO: Bil Tope is a retired public assistance caseworker, construction laborer, line cook at the Hilton hotel and a one-time nude model for university art classes.

Tope has diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, Tourette’s Syndrome, and Misophonia.

He has been published often. He lives in the American Midwest with his mean little cat Baby.

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Dear Cocoa, fiction
by Gregory Smith

“Promise me, Gladys…Promise you will take care of my dear Cocoa after I’m gone.”

The elderly woman coughed several times into a crumpled tissue. Her tired, blue eyes, swollen from bouts of insomnia and weeping, peered at her sister. She worried about her Cocoa and what was to become of her precious dog.

“Gertrude, you are my only sister. I’ll do anything for you. You know I’ll be good to Cocoa. But let’s not think about that right now. You’re getting yourself all worked up. You are going to be fine. You’ll be back home in no time at all. Even the doctors said so,” Gladys reassured.

“I’m not so sure,” Gertrude replied, gazing at the hospital ceiling. “I could go at any time.”

“Stop saying that! You’ve been saying that all your life. You were five years old, and you were lamenting ‘I could go at any time’. You have many years left, Gertrude.”

“Did you feed my dear Cocoa today?” Gertrude asked.

“Yes,” replied Gladys.

“Did you give him clean water?”

“Yes.”

“Did you put him outside to pee-pee?”

“Gertrude, I’ve been going over to your place since you were admitted to the hospital. Stop worrying about that dog! He’s in good hands.”

“I’ll always worry about my dear little Cocoa. I’ll always be there watching out for him, just like he has always protected his Mommy,” Gertrude said.

“First of all, he’s not ‘little’. He’s a twenty-pound Cocker Spaniel who eats like a horse,” Gladys claimed. “Sometimes I think you worry more about dear Cocoa than you do me…or even yourself.”

“I can’t help it. He’s always been good to me, ever since I adopted him from that sleazy shelter,” Gertrude stated. “He has saved my life more than once- I’ll tell you that! You don’t know Cocoa like I know Cocoa.”

“If you knew Cocoa, like I know Cocoa…, oh, oh, oh what a dog!” Gladys sang. “Remember that old song?”

“Stop teasing me, Gladys! Cocoa is like the son I never had,” Gertrude cried.

“Now you are being ridiculous!” Gladys firmly stated.

“Look who’s talking! You and your Princess Penelope! Up on her throne all day! So pink and pampered!”

“It’s not a throne- it’s her perch. After I make our bed in the morning, my little baby nestles on top of the pillows, right where we sleep every night,” said Gladys.

“Just like I said, a pampered pooch!” said Gertrude in disgust.

“Cocoa, Cocoa, Cocoa…that’s all I hear about.” Gladys threw her hands up in the air. “Who runs to the grocery store for you every week?”

“You do,” conceded Gertrude. “But I’m sure dear Cocoa would if only he could drive.”

“And who found you on the floor last Tuesday and called an ambulance?”

“You did. But I’m sure if Cocoa had thumbs, he would’ve dialed 911. It’s only three numbers.”

” You are the only person in the world who still uses a landline in their house,” Gladys said.

Gladys stood up to leave and kissed her sister on the cheek. “I’ll let you get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“If I’m still here,” Gertrude said, giving her sister a stern stare.

“Now what?” Gladys asked.

“Next time I won’t miss,” her sister said, cryptically.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Gladys asked.

“You’ll find out. Say hello to dear Cocoa for me. Tell him that Mommy will be watching over him. Oh, and make sure he always has his toys with him, especially his squeaky pizza.”

“Goodbye, Gertrude…”

Gladys quickly scampered down the hall, getting on the elevator as fast as she could, grumbling under her breath “Damn Cocoa.”

********

Gladys found the key underneath Gertrude’s mat. She entered the house, calling for Cocoa. “Where are you?… Cocoa?“

That’s strange. The dog was usually at the door, greeting her with slobber whenever she visited. Where is he? Hope he didn’t croak. Wouldn’t that be a shame!

Suddenly, like a thundering herd, a flash of chocolate brown canine tore down the hallway. Cocoa had a running start, and he took a flying leap onto Glady’s chest, almost knocking her over.

“Cocoa, dear Lord!” she gasped, staggering.

Just then her phone rang.

At the other end, she heard the news she never thought she would hear. “Sorry to inform you that your sister just passed away…Cardiac arrest… She died peacefully.”

It was the call she had dreaded for so long. This time Gertrude had finally been right.

Rest in peace, dear Gertrude.

Now it was time to reassess her plans.

“Where’s your leash, Cocoa? You’re coming with me,” Gladys said. “Let’s find your squeaky pizza…”

********

Surprisingly, Cocoa adjusted to his new surroundings pretty quickly. Far from being depressed, he was exuberant. He started by paying Princess Penelope a surprise visit. Upon seeing her frantic, overbearing “cousin,” Princess Penelope gave a squeal and scampered off her perch, Cocoa sprinting after her. They proceeded to race through the house several times, setting a blistering pace up and down the stairs, dust flying everywhere. All the while, Gladys screamed “Stop!”

Bad move, Cocoa. The poor dog was banished to the shed until after Gertrude’s funeral.

That night, while Princess Penelope rested comfortably on her precious perch, Cocoa watched a summer thunderstorm from the safety of the shed. It wasn’t the cozy confines of Princess Penelope’s bedroom, but with his water bowl, food, and blankets, along with the squeaky pizza nearby, it wasn’t a bad temporary setup, at least until he was back in Princess Penelope’s good graces.

Little did Cocoa know, his fate had already been decided.

“We can’t have this. That dog is going to stay in the shed. He will never set foot in my house again!” Gladys declared harshly.

********

The summer storms cleared, and the night turned pitch black. As the clock chimed three a.m., Gladys was snoring with Princess Penelope in her usual spot, snoring along beside her, their snoring in a synchronized, steady rhythm.

Suddenly, Cocoa lifted his head from the shed floor and stared at the roof. He started barking. Something was amiss.

At first, Gladys thought she was dreaming and half-heartedly yelled “Shut up, Cocoa!” before drifting back to sleep. Meanwhile, Cocoa had wiggled out of his leashed collar and sprinted for the backdoor.

Little Princess Penelope’s doggy door would prove to be a major challenge to squeeze through for the well-fed Cocoa. But in somewhat of a miracle, he didn’t get wedged. Cocoa galloped up the stairs, proceeding to jump on the bed- and Glady’s feet- with a single bound.

“WHAT!!???” she yelled, sitting up in the dark. “Cocoa, what are you doing here? How did you get out of the shed?”

Cocoa greeted her with loud barking- right in her face.

“You’re going back right….”

Before she could finish her declaration, an explosion rocked the bedroom!

“WHAT!!???” she cried again, even louder. She heard Princess Penelope let out a resounding “Yelp!” Something was falling on her head, showering the bedroom with particles of plaster. A sudden, intense smell of smoke filled the bedroom.

Gladys frantically grabbed her cell phone and managed to dial 911. She sat petrified in the dark, afraid to move an inch, as a trembling Princess Penelope scrambled into her arms, while Cocoa continued his incessant barking.

Within minutes the local police and a fire truck arrived. They broke open the front door and ran upstairs. Gladys waited as the beams of their flashlights crept closer and closer down the hall.

“Hello? Mrs. Crabtree are you ok?” asked one of the officers.

“I’m frightened! What happened?” she cried.

What a scene! Gladys, sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas, clutching a whimpering, trembling white Yorkie in her arms, while a porky Cocker Spaniel barked it’s head off at the foot of the bed.

There, laying on the floral pillowcase, only inches from where they had laid their heads, was a three-pound piece of smoky charcoal-colored rock!

The cops pointed their flashlights to the ceiling where they could see the stars twinkling through the massive hole that was now in the roof. Dust and specks of plaster continued to fall intermittently.

“There’s your culprit,” one of the officers said, “a METEOR.”

“I’m no scientist,” said the other, “but it sure looks like a meteor to me!”

Gladys looked behind her and gasped. Princess Penelope smelled the meteor in disgust. How dare it infringe on her perch!

“Whatever woke you up saved your life!” the first officer remarked. “I wouldn’t want to get hit in the head by that hunk of rock!”

“Imagine that thing, hurdling through outer space, only to end up here of all places, only three inches from your skull!” the other cop said. “Like a message from heaven!”

Cocoa sat at the end of the bed, tongue out, as proud as can be as several more firefighters entered the room.

********

Sure enough, the scientists at the university deemed the rock a meteorite. They estimated it whizzed through the earth’s atmosphere at upwards of 20,000 miles-per-hour. When it landed, crashing through Gladys’ roof, it was slowing down to a mere 400 MPH. It was a wonder it hadn’t burned upon entry. In fact, only 5% of meteors do not disintegrate into the Earth’s atmosphere. What were the odds it would land where it did, only inches from Princess Penelope and Gladys? It seemed like destiny, like it was meant to crash where it did.

Gladys often recalled her sister’s prophetic words: “Next time I won’t miss.” She heeded the warning and acted accordingly.

Perhaps most miraculous of all, there was no more sleeping in the shed for Cocoa. The perch welcomed another guest the very next night. In fact, Cocoa had earned the prime spot on the pillow, while poor Princess Penelope whimpered, relegated to the foot of the bed.

Bio: Gregory Smith is a retired medical social worker. He is the author of 38 short stories, 26 of which have been or will be published. His uplifting memoir, titled Stronger Than Bone, was just published by Compassiviste Publishing.

Greg has Osteogeneses Imperfecta. In fact, he is the oldest survivor of OI known in the world.

Greg is active on social media, including Facebook, X, Blue Sky, Instagram and TikTok. He enjoys reading, watching sports and classic movies and listening to oldies music in his free time.

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For a Bag of Flour, fiction
by John Cronin

“Grandmother! Grandmother! “The children yelled. “You found flour. We will eat.”

“Yes, little ones. I will try to make bread.”

“No grandmother! We want food. Now!”

“Be patient. Grandmother will prepare…”

“Old woman. Move away from the bag of flour. It is now mine.”

“What about the children. They are starving.”

“That is right. Everyone is starving. Get what you can.”

“So move!” The gunman shouted, jabbing his AK 47 in the old woman’s direction.

Surreptitiously the old woman slid her hand beneath her robes. In one fluid motion she pulled out the AK 47 she had concealed among the folds.

“Old woman, are you ready to die for a bag of flour?”

“My grandchildren are hungry! I will not die! My safety is off; yours is not.”

Looking down, the last thing the gunman did was confirm her assertion.

Bio: At sixty- nine, John spends most of his time reading, writing and visiting with friends. In his childhood, he contracted polio, leaving him a paraplegic. Later he attended the University of Waterloo where he obtained a B.A. in philosophy and political science, and an M.A. in philosophy. While working on his PhD John’s vision finally deteriorated to where he was legally blind due to retinitis pigmentosa. Unable to continue his studies, John decided to travel. He resided in Texas, later living in Jamaica. While in Jamaica, he met and married Gillian White. They now reside on an acre in rural Ontario, not far from Lake Huron.

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The Rainy Season, speculative fiction
by Ann Chiappetta

The rain fell in relentless sheets, a silvery haze that softened the city’s edges and hushed its usual bustle. Brandi’s sneakers squelched as she hurried toward the bus stop, the world around her blurred by the bruised clouds overhead. She wondered, not for the first time, if skipping school was worth it—especially on a day when the sky seemed to conspire against her, drenching her with icy water before she could even reach the bus shelter. But that was yesterday.

Today she’d managed to get ahead of the rain. Turning the corner, Brandi spotted Lee in the faded shelter, his presence unmistakable thanks to the flash of neon yellow laces on black Reeboks. The hood of his jacket shadowed his face, but Brandi felt the familiar comfort of their shared routine. She entered the shelter, lowering her own hood, and greeted him.

“Hey. What’s up?”

Lee tapped his black golf umbrella against the concrete, eyes flicking to his phone.

“Waiting for nine o’clock,” he replied, voice muffled by the rain and his jacket’s fabric.

“Is that what time the bus comes?” she asked, hoping for clarity but receiving only a dismissive gesture from Lee. He swiped his hand, as if brushing away her question.

“Nah. Mom’ll be gone to work and I can go home,” he explained, the words punctuated by another impatient glance at the clouded sky.

For a few quiet moments, they watched the rain together, each lost in the uncertain rhythm of the morning. The city, blurred and bruised by the season, seemed to hold its breath, waiting for something extraordinary to emerge from the ordinary drizzle.

A delivery truck drove into the water pooled near the curb, tires splashing. They both jumped back, avoiding the oily water. Lee flipped the driver the bird.
He checked the time.

“Want to come with me?“

Brandi said yes, just like she did when the bunch of them went to the movies to see When A Stranger Calls. Lee and Jackie were broken up by then. When Lee asked Brandi to be his date for the night, she agreed. They held hands during the movie and shared a bucket of buttered popcorn. He kissed her goodnight in the parking lot and she tasted the hint of salty butter left behind on her lips.

When they left the bus shelter, the sky opened and the heavy wetness poured like a Fawcett upon everything. Lee unfurled the golf umbrella, inviting her to huddle under it while they made their way to something warmer and drier. She stepped under it, taking in his handsome, sculpted jawline, full lips and raven black lashes and eyebrows.

Lee flashed the latest tech, video games and a moderate supply of cash. Brandi liked him because he was bolder than the other boys and didn’t join in for teasing or anything cruel or mean. He was smart and Brandi thought it was weird how he was so smart when he never went to class. His Mom didn’t seem to care, either, as long as he didn’t get into trouble doing drugs, drinking too much, or fighting.

Halfway to his place, the rain became torrential, almost collapsing the umbrella. Lee guided Brandi’s fingers to the metal ribs, and together they kept it from breaking. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her in close, lips near her ear.

“Want to run for it?” he asked.

Brandi glanced up at his expression, recognizing a spark of challenge in his eyes. The sensation of his warm breath on her ear heated her face, neck and chest. She started running.

Lee coordinated his steps with hers like a three-legged race. Brandi’s skin tingled where their bodies met and she felt the movement of his muscles and the press of his hand and arm wrapped around her waist. She wasn’t sure if feeling a little breathless was from the exertion or from the heat of his body being so close.

The rain pelted them. The near-collapsing umbrella wasn’t keeping them dry. Lee tucked her in even closer and she swore they picked up speed. Brandi felt feather-light like being weightless on a plunging roller coaster.

Approaching a large puddle across part of the sidewalk, Brandi tightened her grip on his waist with one arm and the umbrella handle with the other. There was no way they could avoid the long patch of mud and grass that covered the sidewalk like a miniature mudslide. She didn’t have time to brace herself. Lee left the sidewalk jumping them over at least two-car lengths of the muddy expanse, landing light as a cat on the opposite side.

“How the Hell did you do that?” she asked, heart pounding in her chest.

He twitched one shoulder in a half-shrug.

“Tell you later, let’s get to my place first,” he said.

Five minutes later, soaked from the waist down, they stopped in front of the ground level garden apartment. He shook off the water from the umbrella and closed it. He fished the key from a pocket in his jeans and unlocked the door.

Brandi hesitated, then stepped inside closing the door. The squelch of her sneakers on the white tiles reminded her to remove them to help dry them out. She heard Lee rummaging for something, a door opening and closing, and then he stood before her with a big, fluffy blue bath towel.

“Thanks,” she said, removing her jacket and shoes and toweling herself and squeezing the moisture from her damp, coppery braid.

Finished, she returned the towel.

“Listen, since we got like totally soaked, if you are okay, I mean, we got a dryer and if you want, you can wear a pair of my sweats and dry your clothes,” He licked his lips.

Brandi scanned his face, She thought his eyes were his best asset, a deep olive green, like the fancy stuffed olives her Mom loved. His smile, muscles and black curly hair were runners-up.

She began to shiver, the wet clothes sticking to her skin like cold fingers.

“Okay, where’s the bathroom?”

Five minutes later, wearing a too-big sweatshirt, baggy black sweats and a pair of mismatched socks, Brandi sat with Lee on the sofa watching game shows, eating microwave popcorn and sipping hot chocolate. She unbraided her hair. It lay over her shoulder, the dark coppery tresses so long it touched her thighs.

She caught him looking at her but acted like she didn’t notice. She could not let on that she liked him after being with him for only a movie date and bumping into him at a couple of house parties. But she did.

She wanted to know more about him, how he managed that freaking awesome trick jump over the mud.

“It’s supposed to rain like this tomorrow, maybe all week,” he said throwing a piece of popcorn into the air opening his lips and catching it.

He mimicked throwing a piece of popcorn at her. Brandi threw a decorative pillow his way.

“Really, I can do it,” he said, tossing the pillow back to her side of the sofa.

“Who taught you?” she asked.

“My Pops,”

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“Gone,” he said, one shoulder lifting and dropping so slightly she almost missed it.

She sat up and faced him. “go for it,” she said and opened her lips. The popcorn landed and she ate it. He fed her from a distance for a time.

“Let me try,” she said, sliding the bowl closer and grabbing a handful of popcorn.

Lee’s mouth tipped up at one side, a smart-ass smirk if she ever saw one, Brandi returned the smirk and threw. He opened his mouth, one crunch and it was down his gullet. She laughed, pleased with herself.

Later, tiring of the popcorn game, she stretched out her legs, propped up on her end of the sofa. Lee scooted close enough from his end, lifting her feet into his lap.

“Warm enough?” he asked.

She nodded an affirmative and turned her attention to the television. Bugs and Daffy were arguing about something, as usual.

Lee began rubbing the top of one foot, trailing his fingers to her knee and back down again. Brandi’s lids drooped.

“Steve likes you,” he said.

She made a satisfied hum in her throat, his lingering caresses much more interesting than his friend. The heat of his hands filtered through the sweatpants.

“Do you like me?” she asked. The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. The flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks.

He smiled this time, the upwards curve of his mouth and the amusement dancing in those deep green eyes stopped her from blurting out anything else so stupid. He will be so disappointed, I don’t know if I can tell him,” He was teasing her.

“Tell him that I’m not interested,” she said.

The dryer timer buzzed. He glanced at his phone and rose from the sofa. Her clothes were done.

“I’ll get them,” she said, slid her feet from his lap and stood.

Brandi pulled her clothes from the dryer and headed to the bathroom, thoughts racing while she undressed and redressed into her own clothes. Was she overthinking what just happened? Did he like her? If he did, was he going to just act like an idiot about it or tell her? She didn’t even realize Steve liked her. He was shy and barely talked.

She tried leaving the frustration she felt with the discarded clothes in a pile beside the bathroom sink. She took a pee and braided her hair. She headed to the little foyer and sat on the floor to slip into her damp black converse. She tried not to feel frustrated by Lee’s words but it bothered her anyway. Why would he say Steve liked her then almost say he did? He was beyond teasing, playing a game she didn’t understand and it was time for her to go. After she finished tying her shoes, she stood. Lee helped her on with her still-damp jacket.
She turned and faced him. He was a head taller and she stepped away a little to meet his gaze.

“How’d we jump that puddle ?” she asked.

“That was easy, been jumping things like that with my board since I was like ten years old. Doing it with you instead was pretty cool, though,” he said, eyes flicking to the skateboard lying in the corner by the front door.

“You know what I think? I think there is another explanation,”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,”

“Try me,” she said, watching his face. The tension puckering a line between his black eyebrows softened.

Lee looked past her, “Sometimes when I really want to get air, it just, well, it just happens. I didn’t think it would happen with someone else. It always happens when I’m on my board,”

“Always?” she asked.

“Yeah, but this time it happened with you, like how freaky is that?”

Brandi could’ve been weirded out by what he said but she wasn’t. It made her feel special.

“It was awesome,” she said.

He moved closer, slid his hand behind Brandi’s head, cradling it. The tender gesture surprised Brandi. Lee leaned in and they kissed. He tasted good.

Parting his lips from hers, Lee straightened up and said, “Hope that answers your question,”

Brandi placed a hand on his chest and kissed him again, then flipped up her hood and slipped out the door, her lips still a little salty and sweet from the popcorn and cocoa.

Bio: Ann Chiappetta is a poet and writer with clairvoyant tendencies whose innermost desire is to be reincarnated as a beloved labrador retriever.

Ann’s poems and stories have appeared internationally in literary journals, popular online blogs, and print anthologies. Independently published since 2016, her six-volume collection includes poetry, creative nonfiction essays, short stories and contemporary fiction.

Visit her on the web at: http://www.annchiappetta.com And on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/verona.chiappetta/

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Love in Any Language, fiction
by Marlene Mesot

Hearing a frantic feminine voice, although not understanding the words, the man instinctively pushed the “door” button on the elevator to keep it open. Hurrying toward him was a tall, slender green eyed blond in a form fitting powder blue turtleneck sweater and knee length navy blue skirt, wearing navy blue flats to match. He had seen her before at this International writers Convention and had been captivated by her appearance even then.

“Merci” She smiled.

“die Etage?” He questioned.

She shook her head.

She noticed his long fingers, attached to a clean, large hand as he pointed toward the buttons on the elevator panel.

She held up three fingers.

He nodded and pointed to himself.

She looked into his face and her eyes widened a little. He had a strong face, medium brown wavy hair and bright blue eyes. She pointed to him, then herself, as the elevator jerked into motion.

She stumbled slightly and he caught her, bracing her with strong arms.
She put slender delicate hands on his upper arms squeezing slightly.

They both stood for several seconds holding each other and gazing into each other’s eyes.

Her voice was soft as a slow waltz as she breathed, “Merci.”

“Keine Ursache.” His voice was soothingly warm as he spoke.

She stood back slightly and shook her head. Then she asked tentatively, “Parlez-vous français?”

He shook his head and asked in return, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

She shook her head and raised her hands to drop them. Then she gestured to him and to herself and made a circling motion.

He nodded.

The elevator door opened and they both stepped out, him gesturing for her to go first, onto the third floor. They stood looking at each other for a few seconds then both started walking in the same direction.

She stopped and leaned against a door on the right side of the hallway, crossing her arms over her slender chest.

He walked a few paces then stopped and leaned against a door on the left side.

They smiled at each other.

The man who must have been over six feet tall came back to stand in front of her. He held his hand palm out and curved his fingers of the other hand as if to scribble on the open palm.

She nodded.

He made a question mark in the air.

She frowned for a moment, then made the shape of a heart with both hands.

He nodded and smiled. Then he walked to the end of the hall where some vending machines were located. He pointed to one holding newspapers.

She clapped her hands together and nodded.

Next he mimed holding something to his lips and swallowing.

She nodded and smiled again.

Now the reporter wrapped his hand around the romance writer’s as they started back toward the elevator.

Bio: Independent author Marlene Mesot’s passion for mystery is reflected in her contemporary Christian fiction and poetry writing. She shares her love of God, family, friendships and animals with her readers. She shares her series heroine’s disabilities of partial deaf blindness due to nerve damage at premature birth. Marlene has loved writing since early childhood.

She has been published in print anthologies from Christian Book Marketing available on Amazon, SpiritFire Review, The Avocet, the Weekly Avocet and Magnets and Ladders. Visit her website at: https://www.marlsmenagerie.com.

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Date Night, fiction Honorable Mention
by Gregory Smith

Lea ordered a bacon double cheeseburger and large fries at the counter. Whenever she was depressed her way of coping was to eat. This evening was no different. She carried a tray full of food to the first open table she saw and sat down.

She glanced across the half empty restaurant and noticed an elderly couple eating at a nearby table. She imagined they were probably somebody’s beloved grandparents or even great-grandparents. She never knew her own Grandpop and Grandmom. They had passed away when Lea was just two. And her great-grandparents? They died many years before she was born.

They looked so sweet together. So peaceful and content. A far cry from Lea’s current despondent mood.

It was her birthday. The big 4-0. And she was alone.

Her live-in boyfriend, Todd had called Lea from work earlier in the day, saying he would be late. Since there was “nothing going on” he wanted to stop by his friend’s house after work to do a fantasy football draft. He probably wouldn’t be home till after midnight. Leave something in the oven, otherwise he will eat cheesesteaks and drink beer at Bill’s place.

In between bites Lea looked at the old couple again and saw the gentleman feeding his wife. She wasn’t sure why she took a photo of them, but she did. She just thought it was so sweet, so loving. This was a real act of kindness, something you rarely see anymore. Maybe she planned on showing it to her deadbeat boyfriend. Yep, the same creep who forgot her birthday. It wasn’t just this one day; it was an on-going thing. Work before Lea. Softball before Lea. Watching football on Sundays with the guys before Lea. Now drafting NFL players for his stupid fantasy football team before Lea.

Stupid, indeed.

She realized that people need their space sometimes and that friends were also important. After all, Lea had her own friends who she hung out with. But this was her birthday, and a milestone birthday at that.

All her life, Lea had wished for a love so pure and selfless like this, a love like she was witnessing with her own two eyes. She watched as this dear man tenderly broke apart the hamburger and bun into smaller, chewable pieces, making it easier for his wife to swallow. He carefully placed the morsal in front of her lips, asking her to “Open wide.” He focused on her chewing, making sure she didn’t choke. Then he held her frosty milk shake steadily as she took a sip from the straw. Then he would try a French fry, repeating the process again and again.

He wasn’t worried about his own food getting cold. He patiently fed her, and when she coughed or a dab of ketchup trickled down the corner of her mouth, he stopped to gently wipe it away with a napkin before starting again.

The gentleman finally got up to throw his trash away, carrying the two trays toward Lea and the trash bin.

“Pardon me,” she said as he approached. “I’ve been watching and I just wanted to say how beautiful it is that you feed your wife the way you do.”

“Thank you, Miss. We work well together,” he replied. “We’ve had a lot of practice. We are married seventy-five years!”

“Wow,” she said, finding herself tearing up.

“Nothing to cry about,” he consoled her. “We are very happy together.”

“No, I’m just a little emotional today,” she explained. “I’m a big crier.”

“Oh, I see. Yep. I met her in grade school, back in the horse and buggy days,” the gentleman confided.

“I couldn’t help but watch you feed her,” she remarked. “I hope you don’t mind that I took a picture. I know that’s rather rude. I’ll delete it if you want…”

“No, no,” he interrupted. “That’s fine. Although I’m not sure I understand why anyone would want a picture of an old couple eating in a fast-food restaurant?”

“I know…weird. That’s me,” she confessed. “It’s just that, it’s not often one sees such a beautiful, selfless love as you have together.”

“Well, Clara is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Her hands shake very badly. I help her. I know she would do the same for me.”

“I think it’s one of the most beautiful things on the face of this earth to be so devoted to each other, being with someone you have known all your life,” she gushed.

“Well, for instance, it’s Date Night,” he said. “We have Date Night once a month. We’ve had Date Night when we got married until now. You must do things like that to remain close. We like to come here because it’s cheaper; we must watch our pennies.”

“At least you are together. That’s what matters most of all,” she replied. “Today was supposed to be our Date Night too, me and my fiancée. But he forgot. So, I’m here alone. Instead of lobster it’s a double cheeseburger.”

“Sometimes simple is better. We never could afford lobster very often. We were always happy with hamburger,” he said. “We still are.”

“So sweet,” she said, wiping tears away.

“Well, I better get back before Clara gets anxious and thinks I left her. She always misses me when I’m gone too long.”

“Nice meeting you sir,” she said. “I didn’t catch your name?”

“Elmer. And yours?”

“Lea.”

“Nice meeting you too, Miss. Have a good day.”

Lea watched the old man shuffle over to his wife. He unlocked the brakes on her wheelchair, and they started toward the exit.

“Wait, I’ll get the door for you,” Lea said. She scrambled to get up from her seat, holding the door open. “They should have automatic doors in these places.”

“This is Lea,” the old man said to his wife. “Say thank you to her for opening the door.”

“Thank you, dearie,” she said, smiling. “Happy Birthday!”

“Yes, Happy Birthday, Miss!” Elmer repeated.

“Thank you both.”

With that Elmer pushed his wife out the door, where they disappeared into the late summer evening.

Wait, thought Lea. I didn’t tell them it was my birthday. How did they know?

********

Lea returned home to a surprise: Todd was liing there, on the couch, watching sports—shoes off, out of his work clothes, wearing a raggedy football jersey and underwear. No pants, just underwear.

She thought a miracle had happened, that he had finally remembered her birthday and left the draft party to spend the evening with her. Her heart skipped a hopeful beat.

Instead, this is what she got:

“Bill got sick. Food poisoning, I think. Bad wings. So, we canceled the draft. If he feels better, we may do it tomorrow night instead. Let’s leave the evening open, just in case. Oh, hey, could you make me something to eat? I’m starving. What a long day! Could you hurry with dinner? I want to take a hot shower and hit the sack early tonight. By the way, I’ve been thinking I know you want to go to Hawaii this winter after the Super Bowl but I would really love to see Vegas again. Maybe I’ll win this time…”

As Lea stormed wordlessly to the kitchen, her thoughts about Elmer and Clara and their selfless, everlasting love remained fresh in her mind. She gazed at the picture she had taken on her phone. Maybe there was a reason she had encountered them tonight? Maybe it was fate? Seeing what a relationship really means reminded her of what she had missed all these years.

She had “settled” far too long.

Lea took off her engagement ring and left it on the kitchen counter.

Life is too short, she told herself. You deserve better.

********

Several months after Lea broke up with Todd, she was attending a family reunion picnic to which her Aunt Bea brought along several scrapbooks. Lea skimmed through one, stopping midway through, staring at one old, grainy, yellow-tinged photo. It had to have been taken eighty, maybe ninety years ago, judging from the clothes, the houses and the automobiles.

Standing there in a black and white world, next to an Oldsmobile, were a dignified, well-dressed, young gentleman and lady. There were names written in faded blue ink beneath the photo.

“Elmer and Clara.”

Funny, wasn’t that the name of the elderly couple she had met on her birthday several months before, the couple in the fast food restaurant?

It couldn’t be. The clothes were different. He was wearing a suit and tie, with a full head of coal-black hair slicked back, while she wore a beautiful lacy blouse and a skirt with high heels. The faces were much younger without a hint of a wrinkle or gray hair. This couple were young and full of life. They looked around twenty or so. Lea imagined them starting their marriage together; time was on their side with so much life ahead.

She turned the page and found another old, worn photo of this same couple. The names were the same, “Elmer and Clara…” only this picture was IDENTICAL to the photo she had taken of the couple at the fast food restaurant.

How could this be?

Lea asked Aunt Bea who they were. “Why dear, don’t you know? Those were your great-grandparents, Elmer and Clara.”

“Wait a minute… I saw a couple who looked just like them a while back at Wendy’s. It was my birthday. They were named Elmer and Clara too,” Lea said.

“That is quite a coincidence, dear,” Aunt Bea replied. “But your great- grandparents died a long time ago.”

********

It seems as though Elmer and Clara had crossed the bridges and barriers of time, just to help their beloved great-granddaughter. They came back, not only to wish Lea a Happy Birthday, but to show their great-granddaughter what real love was all about.

“Date Night” was previously published in Sun house Magazine, Spring 2025.

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Part II. From a Different Perspective

Prison Break, nonfiction First Place
by Linda Wright

After eighteen years helping children find books to read, I was ready for a new challenge. I accepted a consulting position with the State Library, specializing in services for people living in institutions, including hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and prisons.

I had spent long stretches in hospitals myself and thought I understood something about confinement. But I had never set foot inside a prison. When my first assignment sent me to a Department of Corrections library, I realized how little I actually knew.

The prison rose in front of the visitors’ parking lot like a granite fortress. Razor wire curled along the fencing, and the surrounding grounds were stripped bare, leaving nowhere to hide. This was a place designed for one purpose, to keep men away from the public.

It was a warm and sunny day in May, but there was little that signaled springtime here. Carol, the prison librarian, had warned me in advance not to wear an underwire bra. It would set off the alarm. Then, I would be strip-searched.

The prison guard ordered, “First, put all personal belongings into the locker. You can’t carry anything in,” he cautioned sternly, “not even a tissue or a cough drop.”

I stood in front of the metal detector and hesitated momentarily, then walked through. No alarm sounded. I was cleared to go inside. Carol was waiting for me. She led me through the entry building, opening a doorway to a courtyard. When the heavy steel gate clanged and locked behind me, I realized I was trapped inside.

Around me was a campus-like grassy quadrangle with gray buildings on all four sides. As we walked along the pavement, heads appeared in the open windows of the buildings.

My high heels clicking on the cement broadcast a female presence. Whistles and catcalls reverberated around us. I felt my stomach tighten. Instinct told me to keep my eyes focused on the building ahead, our destination.

As Carol opened the door that said “Library,” I let out my breath, relieved to enter familiar territory. However, I quickly realized there was not much to commend this library. I was dismayed to see that the bookshelves were only half-full. Most of the books on the shelves looked worn. Book covers sagged from years of opening. There were tattered magazines, and no computers. The wooden chairs and tables were mismatched – how unlike the comfortable reading rooms in most public libraries. Not only was there no display of new fiction and nonfiction, but there also wasn’t even an up to date encyclopedia.

Carol introduced me to the inmate who was working at the circulation desk, checking books out and receiving returned items for re-shelving. Perhaps he had noticed my dismay, because he immediately began to brag about the library. “If we lose two books a year from this library, that’s unusual,” he said, “There’s hardly any theft. People bring the books back and they don’t damage them.”

My job that day was to interview some of the inmates who used the library. Then I would write a report that might persuade the government to reauthorize funding for this library, and others like it. Now that I had witnessed the need, I was glad to be the spokesperson.

There were about a dozen men in the library, all wearing the issued uniforms of blue jeans and denim shirts. Just as I felt myself beginning to relax, Carol said, “Oh, sorry, I forgot something at the main building. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

My back stiffened as I realized I was the only woman in a room full of convicted felons and there was no guard in the room. I wondered how or where I could get help if I needed it. I focused on the notepad Carol had left for me to use. I didn’t want the men to see the apprehension in my eyes. Desperately I tried to look as if I was not afraid.

Two men were standing apart from the others. They had lowered their voices. I could not make out their mumbled conversation. What should I do now? Should I start the interviews without Carol? I couldn’t be sure. I looked at my wristwatch and wondered how long it would be before she returned.

The men who had volunteered to be interviewed were standing in a cluster. Breaking the awkward silence, a man with sandy hair introduced himself as Glen and softly asked, “So, have you visited the state hospitals, yet?”

I replied that I had. He said he had a work assignment at one of the state hospitals. That gave us something in common to discuss. After a few more questions and responses, the other men in the group joined our casual conversation. As I began to relax I realized that these men were acting like gracious hosts. Had they noticed my discomfort?

When Carol returned, the men gathered around a large table. The room felt different now, less like unfamiliar territory. I opened my notebook.

Harold stood first. He straightened his shoulders as if addressing a small audience. “People come in here with second grade educations,” he said. “They can’t read or write. If you can teach a person to read, you haven’t got the same person.”

He had come prepared and spoke with confidence. I wrote quickly, aware that he was describing more than literacy. He was talking about transformation. He looked satisfied when he sat down.

A younger man took his place. He spoke faster, as if he was nervous. “When there’s a lock-down… or when you’re having a bad time… winter comes and you’re stuck in your unit all day… books are a way out.”

I nodded. I understood that kind of escape – the way a book can transport you to another time, another place.

Marvin followed, resting one hand lightly on the table. A pale scar crossed his forehead, but his voice was gentle. “In here I read all the time – novels, history, poetry. I read poetry because I often feel very melancholy and poetry fits that mood. I think a lot of people start reading here out of boredom, and as they are reading they’re learning. I didn’t read much at all before I began serving my sentence.”

As he spoke heads nodded in affirmation. When he finished there was a pause before the next man stood to speak.

Then Robert stepped forward. His hair was tinged with gray around his temples. When he spoke, his voice was so soft I leaned closer to hear him.

“I was on Death Row for two and a half years,” he said. “That’s where I started reading Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky. It helped me keep my senses.”

For a moment the room was still. I wrote his words carefully, imagining the weight of the isolation he had endured. Around us, chairs scraped lightly and pages turned, small familiar sounds.

Several others spoke after that, each offering a piece of what the library meant to them. By the time I closed my notebook, the tension I had carried into the room had dissolved into a sense of shared purpose. These men were not performing, they were testifying. They were speaking about survival, dignity, and the simple power of being able to read.

When the interviews ended, I closed my notebook and thanked the men for their honesty. One by one they shook my hand before drifting back to their tables, their voices settling into the low murmur of ordinary conversation.

As I stepped toward the door, Glen paused beside me. “Thank you for your help. We would do anything to keep this library open,” he said. “It helps our minds and spirits break out of prison walls.”

The steel gate clanged shut behind me as I exited the courtyard, the sound as final as it had been when I entered. The walls were still high, the razor wire still curled inward. Nothing about the prison itself had changed.

But the men I had met inside were no longer just the criminals I had imagined when I drove into the parking lot. I had arrived wary, about meeting convicted felons for the first time. I left remembering the voices of men who read to steady themselves, to learn, to persevere.

Walking back to my car, I realized that the fortress I entered that morning was not the only set of walls I had crossed. Somewhere between fear and conversation, those had opened too. The prison remained behind me, but the assumptions I carried in with me did not.

Bio: Linda Wright is a member of Behind Our Eyes, Tallahassee Writers Association, and Women Writing for Change. She is a retired librarian, having worked for one school library, four public libraries, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Some of her short stories have been published in Life Lessons: Writings from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at The Florida State University, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Persimmon Tree, An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty. She is also a contributor to Beloved As We Are: Building a Congregational Culture of Disability Inclusion, which will be published this year by Skinner House Books. Her website includes information about her blog and where her books are available in print, eBook and audiobook formats. Linda is a Yankee with Canadian roots who now lives in Florida, USA with her spouse, Robin and a curious cat, they call Mist or Mystify.

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If…, fiction Honorable Mention
by Allison Whittenberg

“If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you/ If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you/ But make allowance for their doubting too…” Mrs. Butts-Shropshire said.

She worked the room as she read, her slim hips easily weaving in front, behind, and between the aisles. A wisp of a woman, she was, I suspected quite young, (not young, young but teacher young) but I wasn’t sure. Then again, there was something old, no, sophisticated about her. Something solitary and self-sufficient, despite her marital status.

Most of my classmates thought she was a dog, but what did they know? I didn’t find her hard to look at. In fact, I thought she was the opposite of ugly. She had an angular face and consistently sharp features except for her lips, which were oversized – like they didn’t belong with the rest of her. She kept her chestnut brown hair pulled back in a loose, low ponytail.

“What do you think, Jonah Thelen?” she asked me.

I was thrown off: one, by her use of my full name and two, by her starting the discussion off with me.

“What do you think of Kipling’s words?” she restated her question.

My eyes went down the page in which I saw a series of “ifs.”

I cleared my throat and began to formulate an answer. I said, “He’s talking about manhood. It’s conditional.”

She smiled at me and I thought: Can I live on that? Could I take that full-lipped smile with me and wrap it about me like a coat on bleak, gray days like today?

“That’s it exactly,” she said. She seemed to take an account of me, and I found myself hoping she couldn’t read past the bruises on my face to see the bags under my eyes. She touched my shoulder then she moved past my desk.

My eyes followed Mrs. Butts-Shropshire as she proceeded toward another student.

“Rudyard Kipling is telling us that not when, but if you do these things you will earn the right to be called a man. You know, in many cultures the passage into manhood is given a full ceremony. In the Jewish faith, at thirteen a boy is thrown a party and told he is now a man. What do you think of that, Cole?”

“I don’t know. Why do you think I’m a Jew?” he asked, taking her question as an accusation. “I don’t have a long nose.”

“Oy vey!” Lori said.

Lori could always be counted on to blurt out a crack like that. Though she seemed like she would have been the natural ally to Mrs. Butts-Shropshire’s mission, our teacher largely left these barbs unacknowledged. At any rate, Mrs. Butts-Shropshire gave Cole a different smile, not as open or bright. Her smile was dismissive. She moved on. “In ancient African cultures, young boys were sent out to slay a lion. What do you make of that, Thom?”

Thom’s gray-blue eyes did a double take on her. “I’m not black.”

That answer made her beaming totally cease. The tendons stood out in her neck. She took on a tone of high seriousness. I wanted to tell her right then, give up. Surrender. Quit trying to introduce us to ideas. But, she forged on with the question: “In this culture, in America, how do you know you’re a man?”

The response became even more flippant. “Check your underwear,” someone said.

“Are you sure that’s where to look? Is it all physicality?” Mrs. Butts-Shropsire said. “How do you know when you’re grown? What do you think of Buffy?”

Dead silence.

I took a sideways glance at Buffy Rogers and her two wheat colored braids. I bet she had had that same hairstyle since kindergarten. She was the daughter of my supervisor at my after school job.

Deader silence.

Buffy spoke up, in a weak voice finally. “You’re a man when you can vote at twenty-one.”

“You will be granted the right to vote when you’re eighteen,” she corrected. “But the real question is will you?”

Looking around the room, I wished for one thing – God, I hope not. The country, after all, was in enough trouble.

The bell rang. We hadn’t plumbed the depth of the poem, which was okay. I really didn’t expect that day to be any variation from any other. Mrs. Butts-Shropshire always knocked herself out in her never-ending quest to scrub away our provincial ties. I was fond of her, but concluded her Don Quixote mission was idiotic. There was no penicillin for us. No miracle cure on the horizon mainly because most didn’t feel like they were suffering from any great sore.

We may have been ignorant, but we weren’t dumb. This was Peirot, and it wasn’t like we didn’t want to get good grades and “make something out of ourselves.” A fair percentage of us would make it to the state university; a few more would even go out of state for college. It was just that Mrs. Butts-Shropshire kept trying to cram worldly perspectives that went against our grain down our throats. She steadily told us about all those people and responsibilities that existed out there somewhere beyond our county, but even I, who was on the fringe, didn’t feel the urge to join the globe. As an et cetera, visually beyond the racial makeup of the bulk of my class, I had lived in this town all my life. Though I never knew total acceptance, I never thought of running away. Peirot was the one thing I knew from the inside out. Call it fear, or habit, or whatever, but I encountered no burning to get out there to the “real world” and see “things.”

At the bell, I filed out with the herd, giving Mrs. Butts- Shropshire one more glance. I moved slowly because my other classes were real zeros, woodshop with Mr. Tate and his frozen toupee; trigonometry with Mr. Hays who smelled of aftershave and church; and lunch; and superannuated Mrs. Pastore’s Western Civ class and her iron gray hair and a practiced gentleness that all but put me to sleep; and on and on till school let out.

Mrs. Butts-Shropshire caught me scoping her and her face became pleasant rather than driven.

God, what a face.

“If…” Is published in Killing the Father of our Country Available from Amazon.

Bio: Allison Whittenberg is an award winning novelist and playwright. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Review, Feminist Studies, J Journal, and New Orleans Review. Whittenberg is a ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

She has scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease.

They Were Horrible Cooks is her collection of poetry, and Killing the Father of our Country is her novel.

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I Dreamed I Went to Washington, fiction
by Marilyn Brandt Smith

Note: This story contains some political content.

“Grandmamma, I can’t say the word ‘black,’ and I know I can’t say that other word. Ramona can’t talk about their tribal celebrations, and we were supposed to have a lesson on that. Jake has to say he’s ‘crippled’ instead of ‘disabled.’ It’s all new from the President, teacher says.” My grandson attends a Head Start program in a mixed racial area of town. They had a play ready to perform which shared seasonal traditions, but used too many words which Head Start is not allowed to use in programming. There are over 200 such words which have been sent to agencies related to education, healthcare, etc.

The LGBTQ population is treated the same way where paperwork and documents involving federal funding is concerned. I am a white elderly woman with a disability, and probably several other labels apply to me from the famous forbidden list.

As a writer, I’m often involved with writing material addressed to or about federal programs which are designed to assist with accessibility and other buriers to transparency and equal opportunity. If someone responds to my concerns, their language is evasive, and I’m often referred to some private or state advocacy office.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has court actions in motion to remove this limit to our use of words. My fear is the question, “Where does the scope end, and could it trickle down to a restriction on private citizens’ writing and speech?” What if this ban on common word usage were to apply to books we might write or read?

One night when I finished with the news broadcast and went to bed, I had a very lucid dream. I found myself on a bus headed for Washington, D.C. as a participant in a demonstration. Other people with me faced challenges mentally, socially, physically, and emotionally. I did chat up another blind person who I had known from a recreational activity.

********************

In the parking lot we sign our invitations to this event. The declaration is broadcast on a public address system. Every state has a bus here in addition to gatherings from other communities.

I am honored and curious, and a good representative for people with disabilities. How can changes be made in today’s problematic political climate? Had I known, my clothing would be…Oh! Somehow I’m in blue chiffon. This is just one step, one opportunity to be acknowledged. I’m eager to do my part and more.

The media was provided copies of the declaration for this event:

“If government workers cannot read and write with freedom and without biased censorship Because lists of forbidden words might identify and support diverse communities, Then employees aren’t working for all Americans as mandated by law—Set forth by our forefathers and sustained by our judicial system today. This demonstration and declaration are sponsored by a consortium of diversity, equity, and inclusion advocacy communities.”

The setting is a former inauguration hotel ballroom. The goal, keep peace, reach Americans. They will care when they understand. Media coverage will reach ears, eyes, screens, and brains. Attention-hungry spokesmen will analyze, predict, hedge their bets.

Activists, advocates, and members of diverse communities fill this safe space. Permits were obtained; no violence will be tolerated. Placards are posted; banners wave. Badges, hats, and t-shirts send strong messages.

LGBT and disability rights representatives Speak about equal opportunity and the power of word choices. Discrimination and abuse stories bring anger and tears. All agree that language choices describing Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people Cannot be excluded from government paperwork.

“A sense of belonging” is another major theme. Language barriers mean barriers to service and understanding.

“Don’t tell us religion and ethnicity are forbidden words,” Cried a well-dressed former English teacher holding an open dictionary in hand. “Don’t censor writings by and for people whose job it is to support us. Give us inclusion, not exclusion.”

One impassioned institutional program director pounded his fist. “We will not accept being stereotyped and marginalized. Give government workers their right to work for and with us.”

There is no hate speech, no endangerment. This is no January 6th lashing out against our government—it is a peaceful, assertive stance for understanding and equity.

********************

No immediate comment came from leaders at government houses—White, red/blue, left/right. Agency word list enforcers stayed mum, but social media dug in their heels. A few uncertain congressmen tried to dodge a bullet when interviewed.

One unidentified judge quoted off-camera took a stand: “We must enhance the power of words for full equity. We cannot deny minorities their status as equal Americans. These agencies with lists of forbidden words on government papers and websites commit political underrepresentation. Our justice system must take a stand.”

********************

I came awake wanting to contribute to the dialog I just witnessed. We have to make people realize that words of identification and need are not poison. They do more good toward acceptance than the tools sometimes used to keep us quiet and afraid.

Before I made breakfast I went to the Internet to verify the facts I heard. I signed a couple of petitions, especially those denouncing the Head Start program’s inclusion. I saw a site inviting me to write a poem about the subject of forbidden words, using as many of those words in the poem as possible. That will be a challenge.

After a quick bite, I’m off to meet my ride. But wait…where’s my white cane? I must have left it on the bus.

********************

Further information:

• Trump Sent Head Start a List of 200 Words to Stop Using: https://www.scarymommy.com/parenting/trump-head-start-banned-words-aclu
• A video from the ACLU on the same subject: https://www.facebook.com/aclu/videos/president-trump-bans-words-like-woman-and-disability-when-applying-for-head-star/1180097204317924/
• Live and Let DEI Anthology (Submissions closed on April 30, 2025): https://www.facebook.com/winningwritersinc/posts/live-and-let-dei-anthology-guidance-from-the-editorsubmit-an-original-poem-that-/1429584038267260/

Bio: Marilyn Brandt Smith worked as a teacher, psychologist, and rehabilitation professional. She has edited magazines and newsletters since 1976, and was the first blind Peace Corps volunteer. She lives with her family in rural Kentucky. Her first book, Chasing the Green Sun, published in 2012, is available from Amazon and other bookstores and in audio form. She loves writing flash fiction stories, and was the primary editor for the first Behind Our Eyes anthology, as well as Magnets and Ladders from 2011 through 2013. She enjoys college basketball, barbershop harmony, and adventure books. Visit her website: https://www.marilynspages.com.

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Saga of Hurricane Melissa: The Poor Pay, nonfiction
by John Cronin

For days, before Melissa hit Jamaica, our thoughts and prayers were with family and friends, everyone in Jamaica, but especially the poor. Both Gillian and I experienced hurricane Gilbert, another category five storm. What made Melissa more destructive was its slow progress. It had more time to pick up and pour down water. Rain fell for days before the arrival of Melissa, saturating the soil. This made hillsides denuded of trees vulnerable to landslides. People do not want to live there, because of the danger, so the poor needing a place to build a house end up living there. If the landslides do not get them, the winds blow their flimsy wooden zinc roofed homes away. And the poor suffer.

The weather analysts have not tallied the exact amount of rain that fell on Jamaica but estimates ran as high as forty to sixty inches, not counting what fell prior to the storm. This led to flooding in low lying areas. And, of course, these are the places where the poor live. The poor cannot win.

Being dependent on hospitals to help me maintain my health, my heart broke when I heard the Black River hospital roof flew away. I imagined the terror, experienced by people in the building. The government upgraded some of the older hospitals with concrete rooves. Private hospitals and clinics are all concrete. There was not enough money for Black River, so once again the poor suffer.

Talking with friends and relatives, Gillian heard the roar of uncounted chain saws in the background. With Roads and lanes blocked by blown down trees, people must cut their way out.

They tell her it is a beautiful sunny day. Wherever you looked, soaked clothing, bedding, and mattresses dried in the broiling sun. You would not know there was a hurricane, except for all the damage. Because of a lack of trees, the land will be hotter. It will take months if not years for Jamaica to recover.

Being an honorary Jamaican, I had to put out something on the storm as quickly as possible. When Gilbert struck Jamaica, by the time the winds ceased, and the sun shone, Lloyd Lovindeer a Jamaican DJ and dance hall artist had recorded Wild Gilbert. No matter where you went, the song blasted from every radio. Everyone from children to white haired elders sang or whistled the song. I am not musically inclined nor do I have a musical audience, so as a writer I am giving my contribution to an audience of writers.

Finding our family and friends safe brought us peace of mind. Now, it’s all about recovery. Our prayers go out to all those who have suffered material, or physical injury. Jamaicans are a strong people and will recover. Stay tuned for DJ’s rapping out Milissa music.

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Spirituality, poetry
by Kate Chamberlin

Spirituality is:
The Synchronicity of Quietly Ambling along a cool, sun splotched path amidst the tall maples, spreading oaks, and fragrant Balsam Firs on a warm summer day;

Spirituality is:
Pondering the miracle of birth while Cuddling my freshly bathed newborn baby as he tightly clasps my finger and latches onto my breast;

Spirituality is:
Hearing the organ swell with point and counter-points of music delving into the depths of my mind, thrumming into my body, and moving me to tears;

Spirituality is:
The Blessed sensation of being embraced within your aura of love.

Bio: Kathryn G. (Kate) Chamberlin, B.S., M.A., and her husband have lived and raised three children plus two grandchildren atop the drumlin in Walworth, NY, since 1972.

With the assistance of computer screen reader software, this former Elementary teacher, developed a Study Buddy Tutoring Service, presented her Feely Cans and Sniffy Jars Workshop, became the published author of four children’s books, edited a literary anthology featuring 65 writers with disabilities, edited the anthology for the Wayne Writers Guild, and is a free-lance writer.

As empty nesters, Kate and her husband enjoy having lunch out, country walks, and mall cruising or walking on their side-by-side treadmills during inclement weather.

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Hearts Aplenty, poetry
by David Cleofas Avila

I am a person of hearts aplenty;
One loves Krishna,
One beats for Yahweh,
One thumps for Jehovah,
One keeps rhythm for Allah,
Another, kowtows at the feet of Buddha,
There’s an aortic feed that kneels to Jesus Christ,
And, also I possess a life pump for Muhammad,
Many hearts have I;
One for the breeze through the trees, and the birds who’s flight it is taken upon,
One for the many-colored sky that serves as the backdrop for his brother’s love,
One for the deep of the sea,
One for what therein contains,
Another for the shallow of the shore,
Many different hearts, I have, that keep time for the multitude of flora and fauna which fill the gap between the oceans and the space above the highest peak,
One exists for humankind,
And one remembers when the arms that held you were mine.

“Hearts Aplenty” was previously published in Flora Fiction.

Bio: A former Peer Support Specialist with a B.A. in Psychology from Sonoma State University, David Cleofas Avila lives abroad as an expatriate. Having experienced psychosis as a teen, diagnosed with schizophrenia, he writes and makes art & music in order to better square away the sequelae of life.

Residing in the Susan Fleming family collection, curated by L. Marx, David’s art has been priced by Ames Gallery, recognized at the National Arts and Disability Center UCLA, and published in Peatsmoke Journal, Gabby & Min, NUNUM, Harpur Palate, and Ink In Thirds. His music has been highlighted in Wordgathering.

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One Blink and Its Gone, fiction
by Tom Docherty

It was all down to a painting. The fact that it was a multimillion-pound canvas was neither here nor there. It had all started so innocently with a visit to Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. Ken was fulfilling a long-held desire to see, up close, the famous Salvador Dali painting, Christ of Saint John of the Cross. It was a fantastic study. Its unusual choice of perspective made a strong impression. His wife was downstairs on the ground floor with the kids, who were enjoying themselves in the Environmental Discovery area.

He made his way to the first floor South Gallery and into a narrow enclosure which overlooked the main hall and housed the painting, in isolation, with no other distractions. He walked towards it savouring its splendour. It was much bigger than he imagined. He stopped to take it in from a few metres away, then walked up close to admire the brushwork and texture.

That’s when it happened, the incident that would change Ken’s life forever. He stumbled trying to avoid stepping on something, initially unseen, on the floor. He had no idea what it was and fell forward to hit his head on the frame of the Dali. He tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the frame by swerving his body to the side but only managed to hit the marble balustrade. Once again, his head took another fierce blow.

The next thing Ken remembered was waking up in a hospital bed. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, could not hear or speak, and he sensed the presence of a lot of wires and tubes on or in his body. He quickly realised that he could only blink his eyes. The medical staff and his family would communicate with him by messages written on cards. He would respond with one blink for yes and two blinks for no. That was the bad news. The good news, if you can call it that, was conveyed to him by a nurse holding up a copy of a Daily Record front page in front of his face. The headline read:” £2.1 million pound pay out: negligent gallery at fault.” Reading the article, he discovered he had tried to avoid standing on an empty polystyrene food container lying on the floor in front of the painting. He had £2.1M but would never climb onto his bike again; never play on a Spanish beach with his children again; and never lie close to his wife.

Ken realised, at least, that his family could afford the 24-hour health care he would need, and he had the consolation of knowing they would want for nothing in the future, but he was unhappy with his diminished lifestyle. He couldn’t move, hear, or speak. His life was reduced to a series of occasional blinks. Over time, he began to question the merit of his continued existence until the day when his tearful wife Isobel, accompanied by a stern-faced doctor appeared at his bedside. She held up a written card with trembling hands. The message simply read, “Ken, would you like us to switch you of?” He contemplated his life of immobility and silence. In less than 10 seconds, he responded with one distinctive blink.

Bio: After retirement, Tom gained a Creative Writing degree and has been writing poetry, prose, and scripts ever since, with some of his work published online and in hard copy. He has had some competition success. When he is not writing Tom makes walking sticks and crooks. He walks the mountains of Scotland and Austria which provides inspiration for some of his work. He lives with his wife of over 50 years, in rural Central Scotland. Tom identifies as disabled due to severe deafness necessitating the use of two hearing aids.

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For Andrea Gibson, poetry
by Diane Klammer

I will be a genderless bird
like a raven or eagle I soar
the same as my mate in midair
no birth script to dampen the fuse
My spirit nonbinary in flight

I will be a genderless bird
no pronouns for me to confuse
like my father who christened
me it / thing when displeased
Would he call names if I were a boy?

I will be a genderless bird
no roles but meanings I choose
to lay eggs or feather the nest
As a bird I will fly above rules
shapeshifting those feathers I keep

I will be a genderless bird
whipstitching time to my wings
away from small-minded fools
who don’t understand web maps
unfurling with each of life’s gifts

Bio: Diane Klammer is a disabled writer, singer-songwriter, retired therapist, and biology teacher. Her work has appeared in the United States and Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, and Australia. She has appeared in Lummox, Avocet, Open Earth Eco Poems, Rattle, Spaces, Syncopation Review, and Missing Slate Review. She strives to write from a place of humor and compassion and is grateful for diverse voices of poetry in books, music, and film. Her third book will come out this year; Nonlinear Healing from Finishing Line Press.

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Mission, poetry
by Marilyn Brandt Smith

In her letter from far away
Ingrid cried me the storm she’s living;
I have felt that force,
Been lost in the darkness.

If I word-craft an umbrella,
Offer a survivor’s song;
Can I still her shivering for a moment,
Be heard above the thunder,
Help my friend know
She deserves sunshine?

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Is This Addiction, poetry Honorable Mention
by Brad Corallo

Quality and purity, essential.
Grind fresh beans.
Indonesian preferred,
though superior Central, south American,
even Tim Horton’s breakfast blend, all fine.

Two cups, only two cups,
is it an addiction?
No just part of healthy breakfast.

Awakening befogged brain,
fumbling, indecisive sluggish processing.

First cup, activates restoration.
Second cup, kickstarts jets
not to mention, initializes plumbing.
But not really an addiction, right?

Anxiety spikes when
extraordinary circumstances force
leaving the house cupless.

But, it is only two cups.
How can that be an addiction?

Society’s naysayers proclaim,
addictions are Bad!
Never part of a healthy life!

Oh stop the moralizing!
Cast away all fruitless denial.
Embrace the joy of your paltry glorious addiction!
Revel in the new morning,
it is vibrance,
it is life,
it is coffee!

Bio: Brad Corallo, a writer in multiple genres, is a Long Island native. His work has been published in 23 previous issues of Magnets & Ladders, in The William B. Joslin Outstanding Program Awards Journal “NYSID Preferred Source Solutions”, The Red Wolf Coalition, L.I. Able News, several additions of Avocet and in Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst. He has been a life-long student of fine wine, food, music, books, space exploration, several professional sports and relationships of all kinds. Brad is now happily retired after thirty eight years of employment in the human service field. Due to LCA (a very rare genetic retinal condition) Brad has experienced impaired and worsening vision throughout his lifetime

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The Craft of Lying, fiction
by Thom Schilling

by the nature of the beast, a Fictitious Adult Story (FAS) is an exercise in character development and good-natured Pecksniffian aerobics involving exercises in fibbing, roguish misrepresentations, deceptive slight of tongue, and guileful treachery. In other words, a monumental liar lies to create a positive outcome when a negative result is expected.

In the context of good fiction, a FAS lands somewhere between a good old-fashioned flim-flam and a statutory purge that can land one in prison. At the very least, a FAS is risky. At best, if it is presented with maximum conviction and sincerity, it will have a moderate amount of success.

The reader may be confused at this point so I will simplify. The easiest, and most used FAS for those who travel for a living is:
The Classic Forlorn Traveler ploy. The Forlorn Traveler goes to a tavern and sits at the bar – preferably on a stool with empty stools on both sides of his or her seat. The Forlorn Traveler then places the saddest look imaginable on his/her face and orders a draft beer. Then he or she puts cash on the bar and hangs his or her head. He or she then asks the bartender, “What can a guy/gal do in this town? I’m a hundred miles from home, I’m all by myself, and today is my birthday.” In 70% of the cases, the bartender will give you a free beer. If you order a wine you have a 60% chance you’ll get a free drink, but if you order a mixed drink your odds drop to 23%. A FAS is all about playing the odds.

Ask a few questions; tell a few jokes and the other patrons will buy you drinks all night. I’ve known people who have successfully used this trick hundreds of times.

Remember, I said “At the very least, a FAS is risky?” Well, don’t claim it’s your birthday too many times in the same tavern over the course of a year. Eventually the bartender or one of the patrons will get wise to your antics.
********************

The Case of the Mistaken Identity – A woman can smile and flutter her eyes; it will either result in an apologetic smile or an offer to share conversation and free drinks. However, if you are on the road long enough and you have a face reminiscent of a vice cop, you’ll undoubtedly have an ill-tempered drunk who doesn’t like you, or somebody who has had too much to drink and thinks they can intimidate you. I was sitting alone at the bar, minding my own business and sipping on a beer when I heard those fateful words, “You remind me of my brother-in-law (or other despicable type)… I hate my brother-in-law. I’m gonna kick your ass.”

It doesn’t happen often but it will happen – I’ve had it happen three times during my traveling days. The best advice I can give is for you to stare straight ahead – making eye contact will only infuriate the brute. So I looked into the mirror behind the bar to see if he had a friend or friends with him. A potential brawler is almost always alone, and this guy was alone.

I kept my head and took a sip of beer before replying. “I’m not going to try and stop you. If I were you, I’d want to beat me up, too.” A line meant to confuse him. “However, before you kick my ass do you mind if I finish my beer? I know you can kick my ass but if I have another drink or two, I can tell everyone I was drunk when I lost the fight.”

The drunk looked confused. “Drink your god damned beer and lets go outside.” He moved to the closest stool and hovered over me.

As I downed the rest of my beer in one mighty gulp, I saw his hand curl into a fist. I wiped beer foam from my lips. “That didn’t help. Do you mind if I have one more beer? I’m not drunk enough to even put up a good battle.”

An angry frown contorted the drunk’s face as he huffed, “No, we’re gonna do this, NOW!”

I made eye contact with the bartender. “Would you please give me another?” Pointing towards the drunk, I said, “Give him another, too. He wants to kick my ass and I need another beer before I’m ready to fight.”

“Are you sure?” quizzed the barkeep.

I winked and bobbled my head. Yeah, give him another beer while he waits for me.”

“I don’t need no damned beer; least not one you’re buying.”

I emitted a strangled sigh. “Nobody is going to believe I was drunk at the time of the fight. I may need a couple more drinks. Are you sure I can’t buy you another beer?”

The drunk shivered in disbelief.

“I hope you understand. You’re going to kick my ass and all I’m asking is a little more time to enjoy myself before you beat me to a bloody pulp… Are you sure you won’t have another drink.”

The drunk slammed $100 on the counter. “I suppose if I’m gonna kick your ass, the least I can do is buy you a drink.”

That was the night I met my best friend Rob… and didn’t have to buy a single beer.

Since that night. I’ve had the same thing happen on two other occasions – ergo my best friends Hans and Joshua.

I’m not sure why the FAS worked but it did.

After the third episode, I’ve stopped going to bars by myself and I haven’t made many new friends.
********************

The vindictive “Don’t be dissing my mama,” come back. – One time I was in the grocery store and a rather large gentleman and his shopping cart blocked the “Canned Goods” aisle. In a snide tone I carped, “Some people have things to do. Please move your cart.” Well, come to think about it, I may not have only said “cart.”

The rotund fellow snapped. “Why don’t you cry to your mother, you baby.”

Was that an insult aimed at my mother? “I can’t. My mother died last night.”

Of course she was alive and living her life in California, but he was taken completely off guard by my FAS.

“Oh. I’m so sorry… I didn’t know…”

I’m positive he felt badly, but I felt a sadistic reply forming in the depths of my heartless body. A person with genuine remorse is an easy target. Can I make him feel worse? What words do I use for my coup de grâce?

Rather than use my words, I looked him up and down and forced a faux tear to roll down my cheek. He looked sadder than I pretended to be. I growled, “Just let me by,” and wiped away my tear and brushed his cart as I stepped around him.

Suddenly I felt proud. One of the things I find most irritating while shopping is people who are completely unaware of those around them. They block the aisles, they step in front of you in the produce department, they aimlessly swerve from side-to-side as they meander throughout the store. In short, they are a royal pain in the ass and should be sent to the deepest and darkest recesses of grocery hell.

After I completed my shopping, I stood in the checkout line and who should pull behind me? You guessed it. It was the round man with a red face. I tried my best to pretend I didn’t notice him, but as I unloaded my cart on the conveyor belt I heard him tell the checkout clerk, “Just run his things with mine. I’m buying.”

CRAP! Now I have to acknowledge his presence. “That won’t be necessary.”

“It’s the least I can do. I’m so sorry for adding more misery to your already tragic circumstance.”

Using my most apologetic tone, I insisted, “No, really. You don’t need to do that.”

“No, I do. It was incredibly rude of me and I want to make it up to you.”

“You didn’t know.” What’s wrong with this picture? I’m defending him.

“If you’ll tell me the address, I’ll send flowers for her services.”

Now, the roles have been reversed. He was so sweetly, sickeningly compassionate I momentarily wanted to confess my FAS.

I hated myself… but not enough to tell the truth.

He and I are in the same poker group that meets every Thursday Night.

Bio: Thom Schilling is a graduate of Hanover College, and a Neurodivergent (NPH) Writer who enjoys writing stories about the unusual, the edgy, and all things weird.
Since March 2024, Thom has had fourteen short stories published in the United States & Great Britain.

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To See Or Not To See, nonfiction
by Lisa Busch

There have only been approximately 20 documented cases of people who regained sight after being blind since childhood.

I read a book entitled, Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure and a Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson, which described Mike May’s experiences.

Mike was blinded because of a chemical explosion at the age of three and was 46 when he underwent an operation which restored vision in one eye.

Immediately, he recognized color, movement, and shapes. Depth perception, never touched objects and face recognition, even of his loved ones, alluded him. When confronted with many items at once, such as in a grocery store, boxes blended together on shelves. He could read letter by letter but often forgot the beginning of a word by the time he got to the last letter.

First, he exerted much effort in discerning what he saw. Finally to decrease his frustration, he used his other senses which helped reduce visual fatigue. Once he touched something, he could see it better. He continued using his guide dog for traveling.

Researchers concluded that though his eye was able to distinguish all of these differences, his brain could not. And because children have more plasticity in their brains than adults, May would probably not increase his ability to see. His brain had assigned other tasks when the vision had disappeared and couldn’t change.

I don’t want to expand too much on his story because the book is a fascinating read.

Historians found restored vision caused depression among those who had been blind most of their lives. Mike’s ability to adapt to his situation seems unusual compared to them. He thought the reason was simple: Unlike the others, he said, “I didn’t do this to see… I did it to see what seeing was.”

Personally, I’m happy enough without sight. I don’t want to judge people by their outward appearance, or agonize over what objects I’m seeing, or take anti-rejection drugs with possible severe side effects. But how I wish I could drive!

In conclusion, I want to quote Mike May: “Seeing is great, but blindness was great too.”

Note: Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure and a Man Who Dared to See is available in multiple formats from popular book sellers and is available as a digital audio book from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at db63747.

Another version of “To See Or Not to See” was published in The Advocate, the PCB newsletter.

Bio: Elisa (Lisa) Busch has self published two books: a creative nonfiction memoir entitled, Close Calls: Voices of Love and Fear and a personal poetry chapbook called, Conquering Silence. Links to these books as well as to her blog, Curiosity Corner, and her CD of original songs, Sing Me Awake, can be found on her website: http://www.elisabusch.com. You can find her on Facebook as well.

She has been previously published in Magnets and Ladders, newsletters and Behind Our Eyes: a Second Look.

Lisa has been blind since birth and started writing at age eight. She lives in Pittsburgh with her cockatiel, Coconut.

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A Message From the Stars, nonfiction
by Lynda McKinney Lambert

“Something is here, be it a message from the stars or from the booming labyrinth of the mind…or from both. It must have left a signature somewhere, a thread in the snow the scratch of a strange nail upon a wall. And we can certainly find that thread… In taking the thread, we might find ourselves in possession of a very real key to the universe.

Once the thread is in hand, our own mythology will tell us where it leads, for it will be the same thread that the maiden Ariadne handed to Theseus when he stood before the maze of the Minotaur…And we will all go down the labyrinth, to meet what awaits us here.”
Whitley Strieber.

Beads, shells, stones, broken pieces of pottery, mirrors, small “found” objects, ideas, slender needles, and thin threads are materials I use to create my work. I am a bead worker! I create fine art using a wide range of materials from mundane “found objects” to exquisite crystals from Austria. My mind and my body work in tandem. My hands can be orchestrating the music that I hear in my spirit as I work in my studio. The thread in my hand explores and secures layers of individual stitches that hold the tiny pieces together.

The stitches are traditional techniques I learned from my mother when I was a child. My stitches anchor the objects down into the surface. As I hold onto the thread, I deftly plunge the slender steel needled up and down, in and out. My hand moves over the surface, pushes down into it and back up again. It is repetitious, and in the repetitive movements I am mesmerized by the motion. In the process I am often aware that I am walking by my inner vision. That vision is much clearer than my physical vision that is impaired. Despite profound sight loss my hands know exactly what to do!

Gradually, I realized one day that I was painting a picture but instead of a canvas, brush and paints I am painting with a needle and thread!

_

Note: The opening quote is from Communion by Whitley Strieber. Copyright 1987. Harper Collins Publishers.
ISBN: 0-380-70388-2

“A Message From the Stars” was first published in, Lambert, Lynda McKinney. Walking by Inner Vision: Stories & Poems, 2017

Bio: Lynda McKinney Lambert writes and creates visual art from her vintage home in the Village of Wurtemburg, in Western Pennsylvania. She writes poetry and personal nonfiction essays. She currently has six published books available at all retail booksellers. Her artworks have appeared in international exhibitions, including Japan, New Guinea, Austria, and the United States. Lynda retired from her position as Professor of Fine Art and Humanities at Geneva College in 2008 due to profound sight loss. She invites readers to discover the subtle nuances and beauty of a physical and spiritual world as she weaves strands from history, nature, and her personal life experiences. Lynda’s most recent solo exhibition of poetry and fiber art Word and Bead: A Life Tapestry This show was sponsored by the Hoyt Art Center, New Castle PA in August – October 2025.

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The Art of the Singer Songwriter: An Essay, nonfiction
by Brad Corallo

The human creative impulse expresses itself in many ways and forms of art. There is writing, painting, sculpting, working as a perfumer, playing a musical instrument, architecture (designing attractive buildings and spaces), being a chef etc. However, the art of the singer songwriter is unique in my opinion.

When we become attracted by the work of any singer songwriter, we are appreciating multiple forms of art. So, we get: the words and music they composed and the playing of their instrument and finally their lyric vocalization. In one sense, this is perhaps the most intimate artistic experience as the artist is sharing four crucial things with us. The four things have to combine and result in something that is more than the sum of their parts, if the artist is to become considered among the best singer songwriters.

Recently I heard Bruce Cockburn’s newest album, O Sun O Moon and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s latest album of new original songs, The Dirt and the Stars. Both are examples of the art of the singer songwriter existing at or near its peak.

Both manage to fit well into the context of the world. Or to put it another way, both capture the zeitgeist of the period in which they were created. On rare occasions, singer songwriters create work that is predictive of what the world is becoming. An example of this is Leonard Cohen’s 1992 album, The Future. His degree of foresight and creative vision in this work is mind boggling.

The Nobel committee recognized the importance of this art form in 2016 when Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

In conclusion, it may very well be the case that the art of the singer songwriter is the most accessible to blind and vision impaired folks. Perhaps the other art forms that come closest to the work of the singer songwriter for vision challenged individuals are enjoying the olfactory, gustatory and even possibly some visual components achieved by skilled chefs and vintners, as their creations also impact multiple senses. However, it may well be that the connection with the singer songwriter is the most powerful for us, as the four-pronged effort that the artist puts into a song or album can live in memory in a more clear and vivid fashion than any other.

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Face, nonfiction
by yuan changming

We had hardly checked into the Qingtian Hotel near Yichang Railway Station when my iPad vibrated. A WeChat message: Kang Jian was gone.

He had once been my closest friend—the only one I still called “lifelong”—back when we were boys in the countryside. Later, in high school, he was the one who dragged me away from math competitions and into poetry. I stared at the screen for a long time, feeling less grief than shock, as if the news had arrived years too late.

I forwarded the message to Za, our mutual friend living in Holland. She called that night. “It must have been his stinginess,” she said. “You know how he was. Always taking, never giving.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. Only recently had Cao, my old zhiqing comrade and I begun to see Kang clearly. He loved gatherings but never paid his share. He expected gifts and knew exactly how to apply enough pressure to get expensive ones. Gratitude was something he received, never something he practiced.

Last year, after I returned from Vancouver to visit my mother in Jingzhou, Cao and I picked up dinner and visited Kang at his place. The apartment shocked us. It was large, on the third floor, but it felt abandoned. The floor was slick with oil and scratched as if furniture had been dragged endlessly across it. Dust filmed the windows; the walls had faded to a dull, sickly brown.

Living alone, Kang made his neighbors do his shopping and take out his trash. He refused to hire help, despite a generous pension from his years as a mid-ranking official. Polio had paralyzed his right leg in infancy, and a recent injury had left him barely mobile. Still, he would rather impose on others than spend a cent of his own.

Seeing his poor living condition, Cao and I suggested, carefully, that he might consider companionship. We brought up Fangzhi, a divorced zhiqing woman from our youth station whom Kang himself had praised as beautiful on several occasions. But he waved us off.

“I’m too old to fuck her,” he said flatly. “Or anyone else.”

It was the kind of remark he relished-brutal, defensive, designed to end the conversation. What he didn’t say was clearer: he didn’t want to share his apartment, his pension, or the carefully guarded image of himself he had tried hard to maintain all his life.

After that visit, I finally understood his reality. Alone. Eating instant noodles every day. Smoking constantly. Letting his body decay as if it were someone else’s responsibility. Little wonder he was gone nine days after his cancer was diagnosed.

Hua believed the cause was bad yiyuan-medical karma. Years earlier, a doctor had missed the lung cancer, focusing instead on his kidneys. Hua told me how, during her own routine checkup in 2022, a doctor noticed a small abnormality in her lungs. It was cancerous, but caught early. She survived.

“It was just bad luck with doctors,” she said. “Nothing more.”

Gang disagreed. A retired official and an obsessive reader of health literature, he had warned Kang repeatedly to get his lungs checked. Kang always refused. Tests cost money.

Haunted by his death, I kept circling the question of “why.” Some friends blamed his wife, Yu. Everyone knew their marriage had been a transaction: her family gained urban residency and jobs through Kang’s father-the “local emperor” of Songzi County-and in return, she became the wife of a disabled, awkward man.

She endured him for decades for the sake of their son. When the boy moved to Wuhan with his own family, she finally began to live for herself—plaza dancing and late evenings out. She tried to divorce Kang four times, and each time she was persuaded back to “save face.” It was only three years ago that they finally separated, quietly. Few people knew she had eventually taken a lover.

In the eyes of others, I was still Kang’s closest friend, but in truth, we had been estranged for nearly a decade. I didn’t attend his funeral on October 17th. I told myself I didn’t want to interrupt my annual secret getaway with Hua. Besides, I knew Kang wouldn’t have wanted me there.

He had lived his life as if on a stage. His first short story was published in a nationally famous magazine when he was eighteen. He rose from a factory drafter-apprentice to a government official. He taught himself to swim, to play tennis, to drive—often better than able-bodied men. He could not bear sympathy from anyone, let alone his old friends.

When he lost both his mobility and his wife, the stage collapsed. To be pitied as a cripple or a cuckold was worse than death. To live without face was, for him, unlivable.

“He cared too much about face,” I said to Hua. “He should have just stepped off the stage.”

She looked at me. “But isn’t face more important than life itself here?”

I didn’t answer right away. Outside, the traffic of Yichang moved steadily, indifferent to us both.

“To hell with face,” I said at last. “I’d rather live.”

She smiled. “Classic you.”

Bio: Yuan Changming co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. His writing credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction, along with appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-2017) and 2179 other publications worldwide. Yuan is a poetry juror for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards. Yuan began to write prose in 2022. His hybrid novel DETACHING, silver romance THE TUNER and short story collection FLASHBACKS are available at Amazon.

Yuan is visually impaired.

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Making Friends, nonfiction Honorable Mention
by Susan F. Volle

I’m not sure when I stopped caring. Perhaps I never cared. I woke up at 4 am to the sound of someone yelling “Fire”, across the street. Emergency crews were arriving at the site of the motel in flames. Watching from my 4th floor apartment, I was fascinated by the fierce orange flames extending beyond the second floor and over the roof. I poured myself a bowl of raisin wheats and pulled a lawn chair to my patio door to watch the show, without regard for any victims.

My sense of compassion had been numbed by emotional traumas I experienced in childhood. The West Colfax neighborhood of Denver was no place for the faint-of-heart, or senior aged white chicks, like me. I lived in a Section-8 building infested with drugs, and bugs. My friends were stabbed, shot, and murdered by a hit-and-run. A sacred Eagle feather graced a make-shift curbside memorial for my Navajo friend, Janet. My social worker asked how I was feeling.

“Another one bites the dust.”

Doctors use degrading labels to describe disabled people like me who live with mental illness. I heard the term “Bipolar” a lot. I prefer to be known as “Divergent”, like the movie.

After I graduated to having an apartment of my own, it was time for me to go back to work. My Nursing career was gone. I believed I had no skills outside of the medical field. I was sent to the Colorado Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. I kept a copy of their skills assessment which indicated “exceptional abilities” in two areas. I walked a little taller knowing that. They placed me at a retail store specializing in assisting socially challenged workers to integrate them into “normal” society. I was given the label “Ambassador”, shared by other volunteers with a range of disabilities from Down’s Syndrome to Autism. Counselors at the store engaged the small groups of volunteers with therapeutic conversations and reinforced basic interpersonal skills. After proving I was a hard worker, I was hired part-time.

The owner of the large chain of stores, Lloyd Lewis, advertised on TV and the radio that he was proud of his son who lived with Down’s Syndrome. He described the mission of the stores as helping people with other differences. His message was, “We see their abilities, not their disabilities.”

Compassion slowly grew in my heart as I watched a special young lady named Sarah. I stifled a giggle when I first saw her legs seated behind a row of winter coats hanging in the break room closet. I quickly informed the counselor so that he could force her to come out and “play” with the others. I will never forget his response.

“Yes, I know. Sarah is doing what she needs to do to cope with her feelings. We love her. Please leave her alone.”

Sarah hid every week for the next month. I found humor in the picture I took of her legs beneath the coats. I saved the printed picture and hung it on my own closet at home. What began as amusement turned into curiosity. With no control over another person’s behavior, I learned to laugh about it.

Easter bunnies and baskets were filling the shelves. Our weekly volunteers were excited about the hunt for eggs and candy. One day, I heard the counselor, Jeff, praising a volunteer.

“Great job, Sarah. Good initiative. You picked up the clothes hangers without being asked.”

She was a beautiful girl with flaming red pixie hair. I recognized her paisley socks and green shoes. After the compliment, a tiny smile appeared on her face. From then on, she ate lunch with the rest of us. The love and unconditional acceptance shown by Jeff provided Sarah with a sense of security she had never known. It was now “safe” for her to talk about her feelings. In the months after, she was “teaching” new Ambassadors how to sort clothes.

My own defenses gave way to sharing my emotional challenges as I, too, learned how to “play with others”. I got two raises in the next two years. In 2019, I found a good church where I was accepted with my backpack and holey shoes. That summer I volunteered with a food bank on Saturdays. Most importantly, I made friends with people I could trust. I was asked to become a Deacon and greet everyone who came through the doors of the church. I happily did it with a smile on my face. My Pastor commented on my “incredible transformation” just before she lowered me into the baptismal waters.

Bio: Susan F. Volle is a born and raised city girl now living among corn and beans in the land of her ancestors in Central Illinois. Her work has been published in Denver Voice, Decatur Tribune, and “Wake-Up Call” online at Seedbed.org.

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Part III. The Resilient Spirit

Silence Has Texture, Poetry First Place
by David Anson Lee

At first, the quiet
was a slammed door:
sound gone
like a chair pulled out
mid-sentence.
I grieved the small things:
wind worrying the eaves,
my name called
from another room,
the unthinking music of crowds.
But silence presses back.
It has grain.
My hands learned weather
before the forecast.
Vibration rose through the floorboards:
a truck passing,
thunder rehearsing.
I read the world
by weight and tremor:
the bass of footsteps,
rain drumming its grammar
on glass.
Leaves still speak:
not in noise,
but shiver.
The river still argues with stone
by insistence alone.
Nothing is missing.
Something has shifted.
I did not lose the world.
I learned its other language
and stayed.

Bio: David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician living in Texas. He has a severe hearing disability from a COVID infection, which informs, but does not limit, his attention to sensory detail, presence, and adaptation. His poetry often explores resilience, embodiment, and the natural world through precise imagery and a clear, unsentimental voice. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, and he continues to write at the intersection of medicine, perception, and lived experience.

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Days, poetry
by Brett Stuckel

Brain surgery was not on New Year’s Eve.
It was on the morning of the eve of New Year’s Eve.
The eve of New Year’s Eve was ICU.
Midnight before New Year’s Eve was a swinging transfer to a rolling bed for a trip to MRI.
But there was no MRI, only vomit in a bag.
The morning of New Year’s Eve traded morphine for a cup of pudding and sleep.
Noon on New Year’s Eve was MRI, no vomit.
Afternoon tea on New Year’s Eve was removal of the catheter, and shyness, and the nurse agreeing to wait in the hall, and finally painful drips.
Sunset was a transfer from ICU to a less-I room with a view of approaching dark.
New Year’s Eve was reggae radio.
It was calling a water bottle a Volkswagen.
It was a fuzzy skyline, no glasses, asleep at 10 p.m. and awake at 2 a.m.,
and I had already woken after awake craniotomy,
celebrated while rolling to ICU without cheers, without a toast,
but with a new second and another and another,
and now a new New Year’s Day.

“Days” was first published in Stuckel, Brett, Neurocabin, Spuyten Duyvil, December 2025.

Bio: Brett Stuckel’s debut poetry collection Neurocabin was published by Spuyten Duyvil in December 2025. He is the author of the chapbooks Outerbridge Shelter and Limber Days from Ghost City Press. His poems have appeared in Magnets and Ladders, Wordgathering, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere. He lives with Grade 3 astrocytoma. He is online at: https://www.brettstuckel.com and offline in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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Magnets, poetry
by Brett Stuckel

The first touch is in the MRI locker room, my clothes and ring off, disposable underpants on. Then the gown, then the rubber-soled socks that tomorrow will touch a person’s life. Then, the vein touched with a needle to make a tunnel for cold contrast.

Then the flat sliding plank, the cylinder under my knees, the thin blanket up to the waist. Then the earplugs. I lie back with my head on the cup. I ask for tight supports to hold my skull. They coil the IV tube around my thumb to make sure I don’t knock over the scan. They give me a squeezeball to tell them if I need help.

And then they slide me in, almost touch the circular walls of magnetic resonance. The clicks and bass and beat and thrum punch through my earplugs. I don’t mind. They are probing now by hand. With each boom, they have something to learn from, to help me know what comes next.

Three hours later, I’m changed and waiting with my wife in the cancer center. Room 12 or 15 or 18. The doctor knocks. Their tone says more than the screen. They listen, feel our worries, and with only words and questions, careful eyes and nods, see what the machine cannot. We feel their support on the bumpy turnpike home, and each day for eight weeks until we return.

“Magnets” was first published in Stuckel, Brett, Neurocabin, Spuyten Duyvil, December 2025.

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The Surgeon’s Knot, fiction
by Donna Chung Wood

It began on a spring day in 1987. I was seven-years-old, a Japanese-Korean girl in Hawai’i. What happened that day threatened to destroy my life. No one in my ohana could have imagined what was to come. I woke up to the Honolulu sun warming my face and painting the sky with soft strokes of orange and pink. I smiled, hearing the roosters crow next door. Yawning, I sat up to peer out the window of the bedroom I shared with my little sister. The velvet folds of the majestic Ko’olau Mountains towered green in the distance. This morning, like so many mornings, a rainbow graced the sky, shortly after the dawn’s misting in my small neighborhood.

I, Bella Healani Lee, was born in Hawai’i, like my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather and his father before him. The Lee ohana arrived in 1903 on the first ship from Korea to Honolulu Harbor to work the sugar plantations. It was ten years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by American businessmen. My mother came here in her twenties from Yokohama, Japan, as part of her training to become a high school teacher. Unpredictably, she met and fell in love and married a charming local Korean man, my father. They had me, their first child. Four years later, my mother gave birth to their second daughter.

One day in second grade, we finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I sat down. Then, remembering we were supposed to remain standing for “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, I jumped back up. Without warning, my legs gave way like soft sand. One moment the room held. The next, I was on the floor looking up at the circle of classmates standing… and staring down at me. The room was silent.

My heart dropped. My stomach twisted. Time froze. I didn’t know it then but my life would change forever. It would depend on everything that was to unfold after this.

My teacher carried me to the school nurse. Before that day, I didn’t even know who the nurse was. Though my right leg swung out easily, like a strong tree branch, the left leg laid heavy, an unmoving log- as if it belonged to someone else. Resolutely disconnected from me. And my left foot dangled limply.

In disbelief, I felt frustrated. An angry tear pricked the corner of my eye. I retraced my steps. If I hadn’t forgotten to remain standing, this wouldn’t have happened… If only I had not forgotten…. It haunted me for decades. I carried it hidden from everyone else but always there, my thoughts returned to that mistake. It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I realized I had always blamed myself for the stroke. Even then, at seven-years-old, I had my own internal world, strength and aloha. From there, I would dig deep and rise. This, I knew. I was not about to let this get the best of me.

********************

The childhood hospital visits after my stroke left a lasting mark. I understood vulnerability and suffering. But the story of the stroke itself remained untold. Revealing it risked rejection and would limit me. The secret had to remain locked away.

Determined to become a doctor myself, my dream of admission to an Ivy League medical school drove me. But I researched other programs too, searching for places that valued resilience and broad intellect. The path might bend, but it would still lead me to medicine. I wasn’t defeated—just adapting, as always.

My medical school application personal statement took shape. Carefully balanced between honesty and omission, it told a story of resilience, curiosity, and dedication. Each draft refined to sincerity without revealing my deepest truth. Uncertainty, as I waited for application decisions, was like a slow, rising tide. What if my secret betrayed me? Would my flaws be exposed?

The Cornell Medical School dorm room was to be my home for the next four years. Days after moving in, I received a package from my sister. I practically grabbed it out of the mailroom attendant’s hands and hugged it to my chest, pressing the button for the elevator to the 21st floor. Greedy for home, I crouched over the large box as I opened it to my ulu quilt, the one my Aunty made when I was four years old. In no time, it was draped over my bed, with me on it, munching irreplaceable Maebo’s Hilo won ton chips and Mauna Loa macadamia nuts. My dorm room had just become my sanctuary.

In Anatomy lab that week, I squinted down at a mess of arteries branching out from the cadaver’s neck. The penetrating acrid-sour smell of formaldehyde clung to my hair and clothes. Across the table, Jimmy, one of my classmates, worked methodically, calmly identifying each structure without any hesitation. He was good at this, not just the memorization, but the steadiness. There was a moment, watching him, when I thought. This would be easier with someone like you.

The thought passed. It had to.

At night in the library, I was stuck on the brainstem again. I sighed and dropped my pen.

“You okay?” Jimmy asked, glancing over.

“Just tangled. Again.”

He pulled his chair over and leaned his muscular body in, pointing to the page. “Break it down: ascending, descending, reflex. That’s all this is.”

And it worked. His explanation cleared everything in seconds. I smiled unguarded, tension melted. He smiled back unabashed. Warmth surged through my pelvis. For a moment, we just looked at each other. I forced my glance down.

The highly anticipated clinical rotations finally arrived, plunging me into the immediacy of patient care. This was what we were there for. Medicine ceased to be theory and became urgent and raw on hospital wards. My attendings and residents, seasoned physicians with privileges at the Medical Center, were both teachers and judges. Morning medical rounds were daunting. For an hour and a half or more, we gathered outside patient rooms to dissect cases, quoted medical literature sources to back up our thoughts, and debated treatments. We entered each patient’s room observing physical signs, asking questions and scrutinizing intravenous prescriptions. The real trial came after exiting the patient’s room, when the teaching M.D. turned his scrutinizing gaze on us. The Socratic method was a relentless gauntlet. Wrong answers hung exposed. No aloha here. Classmates like Michael, a sharp peer since Columbia undergrad, waited eagerly to seize any opportunity, even at a moment’s hesitation. To avoid confrontation, I sometimes swallowed my insights, stepping back even when called on. I wondered if I was truly in the right place. Hawai’i still called to me.

During my pediatric medicine rotation, my supervising resident was discharging a child.

She showed the child’s mother the antibiotic bottle.

“Ayesha just had a serious pneumonia, so it’s very important that she finishes all of the medicine completely or it could come back.”

Her mother’s eyebrows rose, “Could her asthma come back?”

“Only if the pneumonia gets worse again. This medicine has to be refrigerated.”

“We don’t have a refrigerator. We don’t have a kitchen. We live in an SRO.”

SROs were Single Room Occupancy residences with a shared bathroom down the hallway.

“Is there anyone else who has a small refrigerator?”

Ayesha’s mother shook her head.

“How about the manager?”

“He has one in the basement but keeps a padlock on it so no one else can use it.”

Without skipping a beat, my resident said, “Then keep it on your window ledge outside. That’ll keep it cold. It has to be kept cold to work.”

I was shocked. I had never met anyone who didn’t have a refrigerator. This left me wondering what my resident would have recommended in the summertime. I saw that mother’s concern for her daughter in her eyes. I felt the burden of her struggle to do right by her child. What did that say about meals for their family and so many other young families in The City… and in other cities in our country? Doctors were trained to be professional and objective. Most maintained a certain distance from their patients, but I promised myself that I would always stay connected to the fears and needs of those I would serve, to remain wide open to empathy. It molded the way I practiced medicine.

********************

In the hospitals, the faculty tested us on our ability to cite medical journals precisely. Every interaction a data point feeding into the letter grade that would shape my future. Beyond the rigors of our curriculum, I feared the discovery of my disability and what it might do to my career as a physician.

Placing intravenous lines in patient’s veins required finesse. I developed my own technique. I tied the tourniquets tighter than my colleagues so the veins would enlarge more. I uncovered the best ones by slapping each patient’s arm with rapid firm flat fingered taps. Still, I would not begin yet. I palpated the best veins until I felt a rubbery, bouncy vein that did not roll back and forth. Only then would I pierce the skin with the intravenous needle and catheter. I worked tirelessly to be perfect at putting them in, until I never missed. Ever. Each successful insertion was a private triumph, a small victory against my body’s limits.

As we walked medical rounds, I gripped a clipboard with my left arm to keep it occupied and out of direct site.

“Lee, put a nasogastric tube in.”

I saw some of my team watch me walk away. I concentrated on every step I took, trying not to look down, keeping my steps even, pulling my left hip forward to keep it in alignment, making sure my gait was not abnormal. I returned from the medical supply closet with the tube. I opened the package well before I was at the patient’s room, so they wouldn’t watch my hands as I pulled apart the packaging. Approaching the patient’s bedside, I kept my left hand unaligned with and behind my right hand, minimizing direct comparison of my two hands and hiding the odd movements of my left hand. I placed my back to the attendings and, I hoped, to the intern, in such a way that it would block my left hand as I placed both hands on the tube at the nose of the patient. This ever-present stress of hiding the sequelae of my stroke was superimposed on the scrutiny of the residents and attending physicians who trained us.

I lived in fear of being dismissed for my disability, aware of every subtle fumble or adapted technique I masked. I couldn’t talk to my family about this. They never accepted my disability and chose to ignore it as if it didn’t exist.

********************

Six months before I started my surgery rotation, I researched, found and taught myself the “one-handed surgical knot”. It was a knot some skilled surgeons used and learning it would save me from tying knots with both hands in front of the entire surgical team. Practicing the one-handed surgical knot was a nightly ritual. I mastered it before my rotation, by relentless repetition. The operating room itself brought new challenges. Every surgery began with scrubbing: using a betadine packet on both hands all the way up to the elbows, rinsing off, and repeating thrice before entering the operating room, back first, with both hands held aloft. Then came the hardest part, opening my left hand wide enough to slip each finger into the glove held open by a surgical nurse. Eight times out of ten, I failed. I crafted distractions, pulling the glove on awkwardly with my right hand while the doctors were elsewhere preparing. A nurse would then gown me without touching my sterile gloves. The stress was constant. Surgery demanded exacting fine motor control, and I worried that attending physicians would notice my struggle with the left hand. They did not.

One afternoon, during a tough cardiology rotation, Dr. Ramsey stopped me after my case presentation. “Ms. Lee,” she said, gaze direct, “that was exceptionally well-reasoned. You clearly understand the underlying pathophysiology.” A faint flush warmed my neck. The praise was rare and precious, a moment of validation from a respected mentor. Yet, I still fought prove I belonged here.

The next afternoon, the quiet buzz of the library offered no comfort as I stared at my blank residency rank list. The words blurred. My hands hovered above the keyboard.

Jimmy caught my eye across the table. He looked tired too, slumped over his laptop like it might slide off the desk.

“Rank list hell?” he asked, walking over and sinking into the seat across from me.

“Completely stuck,” I admitted. “Every option feels wrong in a different way.”

He laughed. “I’m deciding between a West Coast surgical program with amazing prestige, and one in the Midwest that just felt… good. Like I could breathe there.”

“Fit versus name-brand,” I said, nodding.

The late afternoon chill of East 76th Street cut through my winter coat as I hurried toward Second Avenue, my mind a dizzying mix of residency choices and loneliness. It was Sunday, and a familiar sense of dread settled in my gut as dusk began to blur the Manhattan sky. Every couple seemed to be out, strolling arm-in-arm, laughter drifting from their conversations, brushing past me like static. My gaze snagged on a young man gently tucking a blanket around the baby in a stroller, the woman beside him leaning in, amused. They were a cozy unit, a self-contained shape preparing for Monday. It made my solitary walk to Ray’s Pizza feel exposed, like I’d been left out in the cold too long. Through the vent, the high, metallic whine of a subway was a sharp contrast to the humid rustling of hala trees I recalled from home. I was becoming the doctor I dreamed of, strong, precise, capable despite hidden struggles. Beneath this emerging strength lay the loneliness and a quiet question: would I one day find a partner? Sunday evenings always did that, cracked something open. The kind of alone that made my stomach turn and my soul hurt. Not just loneliness, but the ache for something solid and mutual. A future, shared. I thought of Jimmy.

Bio: Donna Chung Wood is a disabled fiction writer, an oncology physician, a hospice director, and lifelong journal writer. At 4 years old, she had a pediatric stroke resulting in paralysis of her left side. With roots in Hawaii dating back to 1903, she has lived in California, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Maui and now, Oahu. She is writing a novel about a young local Asian woman in Hawaii who journeys to find her place in the world. She resides in Hawaii in Kaneohe, windward side of Oahu, with her husband John Wood and their little dog Li’ili’i.

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Variations on the Word, poetry Honorable Mention
by Carolyn Martin

A brush stroke, breast stroke, oar stroke, golf stroke:
I know what they mean. Not to mention, stroking
my feral cat’s black fur, a zinger that clears
a fielder’s glove, the tear-stained face of grief.

Then there’s the stroke of midnight when someone
drops a slipper and romance begins,
and the stroke of insight when a poem spins
out of walks along a wave-pounded shore.
As I sit in my wheelchair with this word
nestled in my lap, I nap and dream.
The stroke of luck that ripped my life apart
will stay forever mine–grammatically.

Bio: Carolyn Martin is a recovering work addict who’s adopted the Spanish proverb, “It is beautiful to do nothing and rest afterwards” as her mantra. She is blissfully retired and recovering from a stroke in Clackamas, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in more than 200 publications around the world.
See her website at: http://www.carolynmartinpoet.com/.

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My Mirrored Self, poetry
by Carol Farnsworth

I feel young,
but my body doesn’t agree.
It is shrinking.
Becoming concentrated.
Working my muscles
freeing my mind
to daydream,
let go of worries.
Float, like a bubble in the bath.
Stress release.

Bio: As a poet, blogger and family historian, Carol Farnsworth relates stories with a humorous twist. Born with a congenital eye disease that slowly caused her blindness, she strives to see the light side of life. With her daughter Ruth and husband John, She has traveled by bike, car and plane discovering the natural world. Her writings have appeared in online magazines and publications. Her books include Leaf Memories, a chapbook of nature from a tandem bike. She contributed to Strange Weather Anthology, True Quirks of Nature by Marlene Mesot.
Visit her WordPress blog at https://blindontheliteside.com

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Rain, poetry
by Rochelle M. Anderson

Canary yellow raincoats filled with giggles.
Hood scrunched tight; two eyes peek out.
They look down at crimson red rubber boots,
avoid slithering earthworms. A child’s life is simple,
like a low powered lens.

Pitch black umbrellas shelter and protect the quiet people
from damp drizzle as they wait for the sun.
Drenched and cold from the rain, will anyone remember
the poor, discarded umbrellas as they pile up in lost and found?
Time for bifocals in midlife, unable to clearly see near and far.

Challenges in life increase, but the clouds part, time to
regroup and refresh. Bright rays open flowers, they raise
their face to the intense sun. Through frosted cataracts,
I can still make out a brilliant rainbow in the sky
that brings joy and happiness.

Bio: Rochelle M. Anderson had a severe stroke in 2007 and almost died. She is still disabled with difficulty walking, and because of aphasia struggles with reading and writing.

Ms. Anderson started writing poetry in 2020, and that has helped her recovery. Rochelle is the author of Stormy Road: Reawakening from Stroke and Aphasia. Her work has appeared in several poetry books, printed, and online poetry journals.

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Dear House Sitter, poetry
by Douglas G. Campbell

Welcome!
Turn on the lights
and lock the door behind you
light a fire
remember to open the flue

play the piano
Ludwig van Beethoven: Für Elise
but please use both hands
because I can’t

create a painting
dioxazine purple and cadmium yellow
but please use your right hand
because mine doesn’t work

use the camera
take some pictures
zoom in zoom out
adjust your F-stop
get creative
I would do it if I could

write poems
use all the words you find
because I lost mine
wrap them in tin foil
and leave them in the freezer
maybe they’ll endure

Bio: Douglas G. Campbell lives in Portland, Oregon and is Professor Emeritus of Art at George Fox University where he taught painting, printmaking, drawing and art history courses. He is living with aphasia, a language disorder acquired from a stroke in 2012. He is a member of Thursday Night Poets, a poetry group for people with brain injuries, through the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. His poetry and artworks have been published in numerous periodicals. You can see Douglas’s artwork at: http://www.douglascampbellart.com

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Abstract Thinking, poetry
by Sandra Streeter

It is depth of snow at thirty degrees-
Obscuring sound needed for
Efficient and safe travel.
Concept extant, without concrete bounds: logic,
Like the early algebra I never could
Master-worse the second journey through, in fact.

Abstract phrases, symbolic
Eye-catching… thrill to ear as well-
Do not so bind my brain.
They release me from
Alexathymic haze, through prompt and structure.

Why the difference?
The FMRI never to be performed
Might have answers,
Show why I am a “word nerd” brand
Of autism, not minded for math
And equation-like processes.

So, metaphorically, I nibble
At a puzzle piece you offer-
Knowing the differences that
Create no obstacle to our relating-
(Though challenge us, they will):
Yielding only partial answers possible…
Love alone, that cleared walking path,
Where echoes guide.

Bio: Sandra Streeter, a blind and autistic graduate of the youth ministry program at Gordon College, and of Western Michigan University’s Blind Rehabilitation program, has had a lifelong passion for excellent communication of all kinds. Previously, she has dipped her toe in the “publication pool” through successful submissions to her high school literary magazine, Dialogue, Our Special, and Magnets and Ladders. A self-described “rabid fan of the progressive-rock band Rush,” she is currently embarking on the adventure of writing a chapbook about, and dedicated to, its late drummer/lyricist, Neil Peart. Often, she is home crafting, reading (favorite topics: psychology; autism; Rush), and being a faithful servant to her cat, Emily. Outside the house, she enjoys warm Spring days filled with bird song, and membership in the Mystic River Chorale and the S.E. Connecticut Community Center of the Blind.

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The House Always Wins, poetry
by Louis Faber

He is counting the days
knowing there has been a change,
hoping it is very small,
knowing it is more than that.
The test will tell, but he has
developed a keen sense of his status
and the tests have only confirmed
what he knew but wished he did not.
It is a matter of time before
his central vision is gone
and his world becomes peripheral,
but he wants more time to see
the world he will leave behind,
familiar faces that will become
unrecognizable, foreign films
where the captions are legible.
He wants all of this, but he knows
it is a crap game and
sooner rather than later,
he will probably roll snake eyes.

Bio: Louis Faber is a poet and writer. He has advanced Age Related Macular Degeneration and has lost central vision in both eyes to the point he can no longer drive. But his disease has not taken away his words or his vow to enjoy life to the fullest. His work has appeared in MacGuffin, Cantos, Alchemy Spoon (UK), Meniscus and Arena Magazine (Australia), New Feathers Anthology, Dreich (Scotland), Prosetrics, Atlanta Review, Glimpse, Rattle, Pearl, and The South Carolina Review*, among many others, and has been twice nominated for both a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net.

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The Theory of Relativity, nonfiction
by Jeff Flodin

My father was a man of few words. When he did speak, I listened. In philosophical moments, he’d say, “Everything is relative.” He was not quoting Einstein’s theory. No, my father was saying that nothing is absolutely good or absolutely bad. It’s all in how you look at it.

For four decades, I’ve been looking at vision loss. I’ve fought and made peace with it, rejected and embraced it, denied and accepted it. It has taken a toll and it has been a gift. Good and bad—it’s all in how you look at it. To wit:

Losing My Eyesight Took My Mind off Losing My Hair
I became follically challenged concurrent with becoming retinally challenged. Male Pattern Baldness threatened my vanity; Retinitis Pigmentosa threatened my identity. Now, when I look in the mirror, it’s like magic. Poof! Perfect! See how everything is relative?

I’ve Saved a Bunch on Car Insurance
I turned in my car keys when I turned 40. I miss the convenience. I miss leaning into the curves on mountain roads. I miss taking my turn in the car pool. But I snicker when State Farm promises to save me 30% on car insurance. 30%? Hey, State Farm, I can beat that!

I Have a Reprieve from Vacation Videos and Grandkid Photos
I miss seeing the face of my beloved. I miss seeing the snow-capped Front Range and the colors of aspens in autumn. But while Lola is enduring Cousin Kay’s Princess Cruise videos and rug rat snapshots, I close my eyes and see snow-capped peaks and autumn aspens.

Low Vision is the Mother of Invention
Blindness has created a lot of problems. But blaming all my problems on blindness is folly. And sugar-coating blindness as simply finding new ways to do old things is insulting. With time and effort, I’ve learned unique, often novel ways to solve problems. Not all my solutions work. But, then, neither did they work when I was sighted.

Blindness Is No Laughing Matter—Until It Is
At first, blindness was humiliating. Feeling awkward and inept threatened my need to be perfect. Then I learned humility. I learned the humor in the human comedy. Comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same mask: Cry ‘til you laugh; laugh ‘til you cry.

My father was neither physicist nor philosopher. Yet his brevity spoke volumes. Over time, I’ve learned the wisdom of “Everything is relative.” The bad part of blindness was obvious; the good requires perspective. It’s all in how you look at it.

Bio: Jeff Flodin is the author of the blog, Jalapenos in the Oatmeal: Digesting Vision Loss http://jalapenosintheoatmeal.wordpress.com/. He is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Access Fellowship. His work has appeared in numerous publications. He continues a fifty-year career in social work. Jeff has lived with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) for four decades. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with partner “Lola,” guide dog Tundra and cat Hopalong.

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Lost Names, creative nonfiction
by Kristia Vasiloff

My parents never wanted a nickname for me. They wanted my name, full in every mouth, celebrating my great-grandfather who immigrated from Macedonia (now called North Macedonia) Kristo Vasil.

He jumped ship with his brother and swam to the shores of Massachusetts. He escaped the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan Wars, stationed to fight on Macedonian land. When getting citizenship, he could not say he spoke Turkish, or Serbo-Croatian—too Slavic. His name was too Slavic; so the judge changed it for all of his kin to come – Vasiloff; it sounded more northern Eastern-European, maybe Ukrainian, Polish. All the acceptable immigrants.

So now we are stuck with Vasiloff, and I promise you everyone messes it up. After we lost my grandmother, a wellmeaning florist wrote the following message, “sorry for your loss, to the Vasiloss.” We cried with laughter! So no, my parents wanted my name correct, punctuated out of every mouth.

This lasted until I was four, and my little brother was born. He could not pronounce my name, a common experience I get in every hospital room I am in. So he took the last three letters of my name and I became Tia. Tia, can I sleep in your bed? Tia can we rewatch this movie for the hundredth time? It caught on, as nicknames do. And now, in my 30’s, all my family calls me Tia. Nicknames can be sticky. It changed me. Tia is a big sister, a daughter, daughter-in-law. She is softer, she is gentler.

Many people would say the best way to describe me is abrasive. In a grant proposal meeting, I was once called a “vociferous woman,” which is the academic term for bitch. When I played soccer until my body could no longer move on its own, I was nicknamed “The Terminator,” because on the defensive line I would do anything to keep the other team from scoring. That nickname followed me for the 7 years I played.

When you are named something that isn’t yours, when your name is taken from you and replaced with something else, it changes you. You become the nickname. The new American-approved last name. I was the one who made the mistake of doing this to myself.

I call my body The Bod. Herein lies what little affection I have for my body – nicknamed, broken down the first time the disease itself wasn’t even in pupa form. My thirteen-year-old soccer playing body sprained a hamstring. I didn’t walk again until I was eighteen. So I say, before “The Bod,” failed, I was an athlete. I was “The Terminator.” I have grown from being thirteen, disabled and scared, to being older, disabled, scared, and with a larger vocabulary. I say my disease debilitates with a cracked mouth. I call it by the name that was given to me.

Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) was presented on a plate that held all my symptoms: signature burning pain, vascular malfunction, muscle spasms that would rock a boat. It meant opioids as needed and almost no available treatments. It meant my brother not understanding; Tia, what’s wrong with Tia? It began the cycle of saying my full name to every doctor and nurse and technician. Vasiloff, Vasiloff, Vasiloff.

I have to wonder if my great-grandfather had to repeat it too, often and with accented English to remind himself of his new name. I wonder when he received his paperwork if this is why he worked to assimilate so hard. He couldn’t trust Ellis, but he could trust his grit. My heart breaks for my dad who could not speak to his own grandfather, because my great-grandfather knew four languages but not English. My grandpa knew three languages but only passed down English to my dad. I only know English. Safety in assimilation, in not naming, not talking, in jumping. When names change, the narratives change, your trajectories change.

Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy didn’t last for long. Within five years of having the disease the name was changed to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Easy to understand, laid out plainly on a charcuterie board of symptoms. Syndrome gives a lot of space for many symptoms that doctors can’t treat. This is a pattern with CRPS.

It was first recorded that King Charles the IX started to complain of a burning pain after a blood draw. The doctors did everything to treat the affected limbs, where the burning pain seemed to nest, but there was no cure. In his findings published during the mid-1500’s, Ambroise Paré wrote of a lingering pain past what was expected. Physicians would treat the initial injury, and yet Charles would continue to complain of a persistent burning sensation. The first name occurred: post-amputation syndrome.

The name did not catch on, so when Silas Weir Mitchell was attending soldiers in the American Civil War the first recognized name, now Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, was coined. Causalgia – from the Greek word kausos: heat or burning and aglos: pain. In 1872, he stated from his observations, “Perhaps nothing can better illustrate the extent to which these statements may be true than the cases of burning pain, or as I prefer to term it, causalgia, the most terrible of all the tortures which a nerve wound may inflict.” Maya Kowalski, a CRPS patient, in 2023 during her trial stated, “It was like I was born with gasoline in my body.”

With this pain, Causulgila/Reflex Sympatheic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, was gifted it’s nickname: The Suicide Disease. As a child, looking up what I had just been diagnosed with, it was this nickname that prevailed past any real name the disease had. Would I become suicidal? Would I want to die? If I decided to brace the Atlantic would the waves steal me for my lost family?

In the community we give ourselves an identity nickname: CRPS-warriors. We wear an orange ribbon, to represent the flames that live inside us. Let me speak plainly: this is a cruel disease. I have never judged my fellow warrior-siblings for wanting something different – death, release, drugs, no drugs, crying every day, never crying, screaming when we have nothing left, and still finding ourselves somehow alive, and told to move on with it. I do not wish it on anyone. This is a disease with no biomarkers, no cure, and very few research advances due to its rare status. I wish them well, wherever they are, my warrior-siblings.

In my 16 years of having CRPS, I have watched many of my warrior-siblings succumb to the nickname. Though I have not been suicidal, in the height a flare I am an adult that turns into a crying, screaming adult, peeing herself from pain, saying sorry, sorry.

This is the opposite of Tia. This is studied to be one of the most painful diseases in the world in accordance with the McGill Pain Scale. In between coherence, I sometimes think, How can one person exist through this? I know this is a common question, an ancestral question for me. I can only imagine that my namesake great-grandfather felt similar in overcrowded ships, named Immigrant Ships. Where data is so scarce there are not complete records for how many people died attempting to start a new life in America; perhaps trying to escape an Empire and war like Kristo. So unsure of Ellis’ promise, bracing waves was the better option. I ask again, for every generation of my family, both by blood and fire, how can one person exist through this?

The nickname – warrior represents our ever-present battle and ongoing fight against the CRPS within us. Warriors to combat suicide. Warriors to combat allegations of drug seeking and laziness. Warriors to teach one another how to swim through flames. Maybe everything is passed down by our elders. Maybe I always had a ship of unsure survival rocking desperately against waves within me, almost drowning to find a land of unknown and uncertainty. A displacement so harsh it changes last names, and bodies, and is the line between life or death.

Bio: Kristia Vasiloff is a professional cripple, consummate nerd, and queer poet living in North Carolina with her amazing Spouse. She has appeared in presses, anthologies, magazines, zines, and has been supported by the North Carolina Poetry Society. Kristia is honored to share her writing with y’all.

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The Cards on the Table, poetry
by David Anson Lee

I won’t pretend
I didn’t curse the deck.
There were nights
I counted what was taken,
stacked absence like chips
I never meant to wager.
But morning kept arriving,
unimpressed
by my arithmetic.
So I played what I held.
I listened with skin.
With bone.
With the long patience
of someone who knows
the game runs deep.
The creek flashed its signals.
Sun warmed the backs of leaves.
The world leaned in
once I stopped leaning away.
Luck is overrated.
Attention is not.
These are the cards:
weight, light, pulse, breath.
Watch me play them
open-handed,
all the way in.

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Part IV. The Writers’ Climb

Do Your Words Now Sleep in Your Unknown Grave? poetry Second Place
by Robert Ensor

I. Questions for Federico

If walls have ears could they also possess
Eyes, nose, mouth and mind? And would
Their brains appreciate the poetry of Garcia Lorca?

Does the sun sneak away at night in distress
Because it is envious of your reputation
Or embarrassed by its incineration of Icarus?

And do the stars hide at sunset when you write
The first gentle words of a new love poem?

Was Canciones polished by the winds of the sierras?

If English is the language of commerce, is Spanish
The language of poetry, love and the kitchen?

And why did the Spanish sun deign to darken
Your skin but brighten your books?

And do your words now sleep in your unknown grave?

II. Random Thoughts of a Lorquista

Federico appeared slowly as dormant crocus waking
From a silent night, squeezing his poems
Like pomegranates to extract
Every nuance of essence, and in the city
Where the obelisk conquer the sky
Riotous sailors and painted ladies,
Boisterous boys and not so innocent girls
Merged into a cerise rising of longing
As their lust curled into strings of pearls.

His tomorrows were thieves, and they can never
Return that which they stole: the river of his soul
And his plaintive cries for the blues of the blacks
On the Hudson and in Harlem where
His heart dreamed but his head screamed.

III. Prince of Spain

On the road to Granada I passed the desecrated
Palace of Deserted Dreams whilst simultaneously
Reciting the melodious poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca.
His bones wear the vicious marks and his words
Bear the tender scars of a sensitive imagination,
And I realised I loved him when he waved
Me a lonely, mortal goodbye from El Fuente Grande.

History cannot reward his assassins
For destroying a dreamer’s mellifluous sigh:
I saw the asylum in their minds,
The nightmare screamed and the uncrowned
Prince of Spain was drowned in sand,
Lonely as a petrified spinster
On a deserted stretch of barren Castilian land.

Bio: Robert Ensor’s past is shrouded in mystery;
his present is surrounded by poetry;
his future is clouded in chronometry.
Robert has stage four cancer but is optimistically happy.

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My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse, book excerpt
by Linda Wright

Synopsis:

My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse weaves two different parts of her life, the author combines the care she received from her parents and the care she gave to them when they became elderly and frail. She was born with a rare bleeding disorder. Even a slight bump created deep bruises and a minor injury required hospitalization. Despite her bleeding disorder, Linda’s parents gave her a childhood filled with wonder, joy, and love. When her aging parents grew to need increasing levels of care themselves, she declared, “I would do whatever it cost to care for them. It was my turn.”

From Chapter 1

In the Soup

An osprey circled high above the inlet, scanning the water for fish under the surface, then swooping down, dipping its talons into the sea with a splash, surprising the prey. Rising up from the water and into the air, the powerful bird seized the flapping fish in its claws, carrying it back to the top of a tall tree to feed its chicks. Mesmerized by the accuracy, power, and grace of the bird and the vulnerability of the fish, I watched in awe the dance of survival and death.

Death had once terrified me. I woke from sleep realizing that someday I would not exist. Emergency trips to a hospital wrenched me away from holiday celebrations, school days, picnics, appointments. Everything was secondary to managing my disorder. Each time the medical intervention restored me, my joy in the ordinary soared. Doctors had readjusted their predictions as I lived past my tenth birthday, then my twentieth. In less than a year I would be fifty.

While many of my friends lamented the loss of their youth, I celebrated a victory with each new gray hair and every wrinkle on my face. I had escaped capture. My bleeding disorder caused less disruption in my routine than it had during my childhood and adolescence. Over time I no longer feared my own death. I could see myself, not solely in the vulnerable fish but also in the tenacious bird.

I shivered from the chilly night air. “Let’s go inside,” I said to Robin. “I need to get up early tomorrow and call my parents.”

It had become my habit to telephone my parents every Sunday morning. When I called them from our vacation cottage, my mother’s voice was thready.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Linda, enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about us. Just relax on your vacation. You deserve the time off.” Then she changed the subject. “I hope it is cooler there than it is here. Have you been bird watching?”

The call ended with my usual, “I love you, and tell Dad I love him too.”

Unsettled by my mother’s evasion, I turned to Robin. We had lived together for twenty-five years by then. To my eyes, Robin was as young as she had been when we first met in college. We had become friends, then roommates, and later realized that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other. We acknowledged that our bond was more than a friendship. We loved each other. During that time, Robin’s parents and my parents had joined us for most holidays and special occasions. In the past few years we had watched our parents become elderly.

“You think we should go check on them after we leave?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she replied.

We were only midway through our two-week vacation in Maine and there seemed to be no immediate need to leave earlier than planned. The lobster boat engines woke us at dawn. As we ate our breakfast at the oak cabin table, we watched the fishermen stopping at each of their color-coded buoys, pulling up their traps. By midmorning we were out on the cabin deck. Robin with her head tilted over her watercolor paints and paper, capturing the egg-yolk yellow day lilies, sapphire hydrangea blossoms, and scarlet geraniums with each meticulous stroke of her brush. Sitting beside her, I worked on a piece of needlework. Each of us stopped occasionally to pick up the binoculars and watch a seabird bobbing along on a wave.

Ending each day with the same routine I had done in the morning, I lay my yoga mat on the wood floor. My back pain no longer limited my walking and standing now that I practiced the gentle stretches. By early evening we read in bed and slept to the lapping tide.

On the Saturday we left Maine, we hurried to pack the car before checkout time. Our dog Penny, part Beagle and part Brittany spaniel, scampered to her favorite spot in the car by the rear window. The calm pace of vacation was beginning to pick up speed.
The next morning, Robin and I drove the two hours to my parents’ home in Western Massachusetts. As I opened the back door to their house, I heard Kay’s voice.

“What else does Daisy put in the soup? She must use something other than chicken and green beans!”

“I don’t know,” Dad answered with a shrug.

Kay leaned over a simmering pot on the stove. Her gray hair in tight permanent wave curls had frizzed in the steam. She looked unsure about what to do next.

“Mom’s in bed,” Dad announced before I had closed the door behind me. His weariness, confusion, and fear wrapped itself around me with his hug. “We are trying to make soup and not disturb her,” he whispered.

Something must be wrong. Why is mother in bed? My father depended on Mom to prepare his meals. He considered it his job to wash the dishes after a meal, using only a trickle of hot water to conserve. When he finished washing and rinsing the dishes, he set each plate on the rack, tilting them precisely. Then he scoured the enamel sink until it glistened. If no one else was around to cook for him, he would boil an egg or fry a ground beef patty, but that was it. Without my mother to give step-by-step instructions, he looked helpless. He had removed all the spice jars from the cabinet, placed them on the counter, and stood staring at them in bewilderment.

“Oh my,” Kay said, “we were supposed to finish this before you two arrived!” She wiped her brow, then smiled, “It’s so good to see you.”

Kay lived down the street from my parents. She was not related by blood, although she would joke, “We don’t know this for a fact. I was adopted.” She was eight years younger than my mother, and they were more like sisters than friends. Kay didn’t cook in her own kitchen. She preferred sliding a frozen dinner into the microwave oven.
“This isn’t how it smells when Daisy makes it,” I heard Kay say to Robin.

“Let’s see if I can help.” Robin stepped toward the sink.

I kept walking through the kitchen and down the hallway eager to see my mother. In four footsteps I passed the bathroom. I could detect the faint smell of urine in the house. My mother would never have allowed that if she were able to clean.

I entered my parents’ bedroom. Hesitating at the door, I focused my eyes on the small lump under the quilt that looked like a rag doll with only a head and hands visible. Over the past few years osteoporosis had shrunk Mom’s height, inch by inch. Now at eighty-five years of age her spine was misshaped into a frozen forward bend.

Years ago, Mom had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Her medications were less effective now in controlling the tremors. As she lifted her hands to reach out to me, it looked as if a puppeteer controlled her hands and head, twisting and jerking them with strings.

“Don’t look so worried,” she said as I approached the bedside. “My own mother died when she was eighty-six. I probably will too.” Her eighty-sixth birthday would be in three months.

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CONTEST ALERT

We will be holding contests in the areas of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for the Fall/Winter edition of Magnets and Ladders. All submissions will be entered into the contest. Cash prizes of $30 and $20 will be awarded to the first and second place winners.

Please note: Funds for contest prizes are provided by Behind Our Eyes. Checks for prize winning entries not cashed within 6 months of the issue date are void and considered a donation back to Behind Our Eyes. No additional payments will be made to replace the uncashed check. If you intend your prize winnings to be a donation, please let us know upon winning so we can send you a donation receipt letter.

Remember, the deadline for submissions is August 15, so be sure to get your entries in on time.

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Did You Read Margaret Fuller in English Classes? book review
by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

Title: Finding Margaret Fuller-a Novel
Author: Allison Pataki
Genre: historical fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2024
Length: 416 pages
Audio version: Penguin-Random House Audio-narrated by Barrie Kreinik [For patrons of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), the BARD number is DB 120066; the reading time is 13 hours, 26 minutes.]

Do you recall reading the name and works of Margaret Fuller in your English classes? Not in my high school, undergraduate, nor post-graduate English classes did I hear of or read Margaret Fuller. Oh, I do wish I had read of her before my retirement years.

In Allison Pataki’s Finding Margaret Fuller, the reader can finally come to know Fuller from her first visit to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s home in Concord in the summer of 1836, to her finding her place, adventures, and loves in Italy a decade later. Through first-person narrative, Pataki paints an array of descriptions of the people and places of the Transcendentalist Period in the United States—before compelling her readers to experience the star-studded European tour of Margaret Fuller. Additionally, between these two life journeys, we learn that Fuller—most unlike other women of her generation—traveled alone to experience and write of Niagara Falls and the Midwest. For her pioneering strides for the rights of women and the respect of women’s total spectrum of capabilities, she became not only a role model for Louisa May Alcott, but for multitudes of women who were seeking their rights in that era.

If you think of Hester Prynne, you will be interested to know that the main character of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, was inspired by Margaret Fuller. In the novel Little Women, Louisa May Alcott changed the name of her older sister Anna to Margaret-named after Margaret Fuller, Louisa’s mentor and friend since Louisa’s childhood.

Reading how the lives of Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, the Hawthornes, the Alcotts, and other famous literary notables of the era intertwined is fascinating. In the author’s realistic dialogue and flowing narrative, Pataki captures how their lives were as richly interesting as their writings.

While in Boston, Fuller expanded her series of “Conversations” attended by notable women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In Cambridge, Fuller was the first woman permitted to use the library at Harvard.

Known for being extraordinarily well-read, the brilliant and beautiful Fuller was editor of The Dial before she became the first woman editor for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune; then, Greeley sent Fuller off to Europe to become the first female foreign correspondent. Traveling through Europe, Fuller spent time with William Wordsworth in his garden, with Frederic Chopin and George Sand at a Paris salon, and with Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Florence.

I highly recommend this historical fiction book for all who admire this period in literary history and for all who appreciate the telling of an adventurous and laudable life. For those who do not know the final chapter of Fuller’s life, I greatly suggest that in your first reading of this book, you skip the Prologue and only return to read it after Chapter 56 or after the Epilogue. On the other hand, as with many historical fiction books which I enjoy, I wish that part of the author’s ending note were at the onset of the novel.

Nevertheless, the closing of the final chapter will display in your imagination like a memorable, beautiful scene of a movie before your breath is taken away by the Epilogue (an Prologue-if you can save it for last).

As with many books that keep me spellbound, I want to read more related books. Already FINDING MARGARET FULLER has brought me to a re-reading of Thoreau’s Walden and to Susan Cheever’s American Bloomsbury.

“Did You Read Margaret Fuller in English Classes?” was first published on Alice’s WORDWALK blog on September 18, 2025.

Bio: Holder of poetry pom-poms, author of The Christmas Carriage and Other Writings of the Holiday Season, creator of the poster “A Guide Dog’s Prayer to Saint Francis of Assisi,” retired (full-time) college instructor of English, weekly blogger since 2013, advocate for National Poetry Month, avid container gardener, believer in preserving family history, a Hoosier-at-heart who has resided in Wisconsin since 1991, handler of four magnificent Leader Dogs over thirty-six years-all of these shape the petals of the blossoming, poetic life of Alice Jane-Marie Massa. To read more of Alice’s writings, visit her blog and author’s web page: https://alice13wordwalk.wordpress.com https://www.dldbooks.com/alicemassa/

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Mysterious – Simplicity, Acrostic poetry
by Lynda McKinney Lambert

Mysterious

Mysterious conversations
Yearly harvests of hidden words
Sometimes I write a brainteaser
Texts that tumble down
Edgy adjectives
Reflections on slivers and pieces
Iridescent decorations
Open lines that shift
Undulating like a summer breeze
Strange and secretive lively poetry.

Simplicity
Straightforwardness
Insists on candor
Measurements must be clear
Plain talking verses
Lines that are spare, simple
Innocent and transparent
Sincere words without apologies
Strong vowels, carefully placed
Tender fruit, ripe on the vine.
You can ease into my verses,

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Confessions of a Cheater: How Cathy and Lea Enhance My Writing, nonfiction
by Abbie Johnson Taylor

At first, I refused to touch AI with a ten-foot pole. When someone in a writing group said she wanted to ask an AI to write a story for her, I called it pure laziness and offered ways to get unstuck. I now believe that, when used properly, artificial intelligence can enhance creativity rather than stifle it.

For almost a year, I’ve been asking ChatGPT for help with my writing. I call her Chatty Cathy because she can be overly talkative and helpful, even in text mode. At first, I asked her to suggest titles for blog posts and ideas for my weekly six-sentence story feature. Her suggestions amazed me. I never copied anything word for word. Instead, I adapted her ideas to fit my voice. Often, I asked her what she thought of my revisions, and she offered feedback and occasional tweaks.

In the spring of 2025, during a Third Thursday Poets meeting, our facilitator played a series of sounds and asked us to jot down what we thought they were and what memories they stirred. We were encouraged to choose one or more sounds and write a poem for critique at the following month’s meeting.

One sound, the thwack of a tennis ball against cement, immediately reminded me of my parents, who loved to play tennis together. They divorced amicably when I was an adult and have since passed away. I wanted to write a poem using tennis as a metaphor for their life together, their separation, and their leaving this world.

I’ve written poems for years, but I sometimes struggle with how to begin. After explaining my idea to Chatty Cathy, I asked for help. Her suggestions sparked new directions. She offered sample lines and eventually assembled a rough draft, which I reworked into my own voice. The finished poem, “Love: Nothing,” was published in the summer issue of Soul Poetry, Prose, and Art Magazine.

A few months later, I wanted to write about walking up the boardwalk from a local park to the high school when I was a teenager. Once again, I felt stuck. Chatty Cathy helped me find a starting point, and we followed the same process. The resulting poem, “Autumn Morning Boardwalk to School,” appeared in a fall issue of The Weekly Avocet.
Recently, while reading the local newspaper on my phone, I came across an article about baby bears separated from their mothers, wandering the woods because unusually warm, dry weather had delayed their hibernation. I wanted to write a poem about it but didn’t know where to begin. This time, I tried Aly, another AI app. I talked through ideas with Lea, the voice I chose. Although the free version didn’t allow me to save the poem text, I took notes on her suggestions and later refined the poem with Chatty Cathy’s help. The final piece, “January Lullaby,” was published in a winter issue of The Weekly Avocet.

I’ve also used Chatty Cathy to polish letters, blog posts, and short fiction. She can be wordy, but she’s taught me a great deal about word choice and punctuation. She’ll never replace a human editor or critique group, but when I need a second set of eyes in a pinch, she’s available and often insightful. When I publish my next book, she may even save me time and money.

Many publications don’t accept material generated by artificial intelligence, and rightly so. Asking AI to write something for you and passing it off as your own isn’t creativity. It’s outsourcing the very work that defines you as a writer.

But using AI as a sounding board, brainstorming partner, or patient first reader is something else. The memories, emotions, and language in my stories, essays, and poems are still mine. AI doesn’t replace my voice but helps me hear it more clearly. Used with integrity, artificial intelligence doesn’t cheat the creative process. It sharpens it.

Bio: Abbie Johnson Taylor has published three novels, two poetry collections, a memoir, and a collection of short stories. Her work has appeared in The Weekly Avocet, The Writer’s Grapevine, and other publications.
She is visually impaired and lives in Sheridan, Wyoming, where she worked as a registered music therapist with nursing home residents and in other facilities. She also cared for her late husband, who was totally blind and suffered two paralyzing strokes after they were married. This is the subject of her memoir and many of her poems.
Please visit her website at: https://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com

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Donation Request

Do you enjoy reading Magnets and Ladders? Consider making a donation to Behind Our Eyes, a 501C3 nonprofit organization of writers with disabilities. Behind Our Eyes provides funding to support all Magnets and Ladders activities and all Magnets and Ladders editorial and technical staff members are Behind Our Eyes Members.

You may make a contribution using the PayPal button on our website: https://www.behindoureyes.org.

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Pronoun trouble: the story of us in seven little words by John H. McWhorter
reviewed by Marilyn Brandt Smith

Penguin, 2025
Available in print from mainstream bookstores, and on Audible, Kindle, Bookshare, and from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled as DB132786

This audiobook has a reading time of 4 hours and 45 minutes, and is read by the author. The book was read with enthusiasm. The author admits that the idea for the book came from his agent, and that it was a quick write.

This presentation is not a lesson in how to use or identify pronouns. The author’s example of past, present, and future uses for the most common pronouns calls into question some of our long-taught and generally-accepted pronoun interpretations. He offers a list of linguists who have inspired and/or worked with him, but does not say they all agree with his opinions or predictions. He does not state his qualifications for writing this book, but my research on the Internet indicates that he has held professorial positions at several universities.

Each chapter is dedicated to a pronoun or pronoun family such as “he/she/it.” The reader is taken through language transitions, folk interpretations, and down a few rabbit holes before reaching the pronouns we know in use today in modern English. Distinctions between formal writing and conversational use are noted. For some unexplained reason, “yours” and “mine” are not presented until the afterword. He completely ignored “who” and “whom,” which other linguists have sometimes agreed might be up for some modifications in terms of usage. When he noted idiosyncrasies, particularly in Appalachian English, he missed a few regional specialties with which I am familiar I.E. “yourall’s” and “his’n.” Shall I Email him?

The recent use of “they” as a singular gender identifier is only part of his suggested upcoming adaptations for the word “they.” He asks, “How many people are represented in the word ‘we’?” He makes suggestions simplifying the concept of “we.” The phrase “aren’t I” which violates what one would think would be a corruption of the “to be” infinitive usage, he says is used today because the early English terms “amn’t” and “ain’t” did not work out. We tend not to say, “Am I not,” therefore, “Aren’t I.”

In the author’s linguistic picture of the future, “me” could become a nominative term. He uses examples such as, “Billy and me are going ,” and justifies the switch. His logic for all these changes is reasonable, based on past linguistic changes as he presents them. He believes that today’s preference for informality will bring more simplification, perhaps even in media and literature.

I found the concept of his predictions interesting and thought-provoking. Formal grammarians holding true to old school usage may not sanction change. They will at least understand from reading this book the sources for justifying adaptation. He referenced style manuals, and seemed unsure how soon their rules would change. He noted that changes creep in through conversational use, and eventually make their way into more formal acceptance. He references blogs and podcasts as intermediate stations through which we might gain acceptance for modifying pronouns.

It takes a great deal of concentration to process the material in each chapter because the author dips into other languages in bringing us up to date with the words we see as the pronouns we use today. If a reader can take several sessions to thoroughly process the material, it will probably have more lasting impact. An open mind for his suggestions is a necessity, even if acceptance is questionable.

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While the House Waits, poetry
by Abbie Johnson Taylor

I’m sitting outside in my backyard
on a beautiful summer day, creating a poem
when I should be dealing with myriad email messages.

It’s nearly five o’clock.
I should be thinking about supper.
Instead, I’m writing one line,
then another, then another.

Furniture and appliances inside the house
patiently wait.
But outside, a poem is being born.

Everything else must be put on hold
while I perform this labor of love
on green grass under blue sky,
while birds chirp – crows squawk.

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Advertisement:

Linda Wright is the 2025 Behind Our Eyes Book Launch (BOBBL) winner for her book My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse. This memoir is available in print, eBook, and audiobook from Barnes & Noble and also from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (BARD).

Linda Wright is a member of Behind Our Eyes, Tallahassee Writers Association, and Women Writing for Change. She is a retired librarian. Some of her short stories have been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Persimmon Tree, An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty. She is also a contributor to Beloved As We Are: Building a Congregational Culture of Disability Inclusion, which will be published this year by Skinner House Books.

My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse weaves two different parts of her life, Linda combines the care she received from her parents and the care she gave to them when they became elderly and frail. She was born with a rare bleeding disorder. Even a slight bump created deep bruises and a minor injury required hospitalization. Despite her bleeding disorder, Linda’s parents gave her a childhood filled with wonder, joy, and love. When her aging parents grew to need increasing levels of care themselves, she declared, “I would do whatever it cost to care for them. It was my turn.”

To listen to Linda Right’s book launch go to: https://www.behindoureyes.org/booklaunch/BBL-2025-08-07-Linda-Wright-Audio.mp3

Note: Every month, on the date and at the time of the author’s preference, a Behind Our Eyes member’s new or recently published book takes center stage at our Book Launch Zoom event. The author is in the spotlight, either through a personal presentation about the book or an interview structured to help the author bring out the high points aimed at making the book a “must read” choice. A question and answer period sometimes brings out details which escape attention in book reviews. Fiction, poetry, and nonfiction book events have been well attended by a broad audience of Behind Our Eyes members as well as other authors and readers, family and friends, or as a result of special announcements or promotions.

If you are not a Behind Our Eyes member, click the “Join Us” link on our website to find our quick and easy membership form. We welcome you to take advantage of this incentive, and to share in our other resources and opportunities.

The BOBBL Award: Best of Behind Our Eyes Book Launch:

The BOBBL award was established to honor and celebrate our most popular book launch presentation of the year.

To learn more about Behind Our Eyes Book Launch opportunities, go to: https://www.behindoureyes.org/wp/book-launch-opportunity/

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In Case You Have Thought of Upper-case and Lower-case Letters, nonfiction
by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

During the final few weeks of 2025, I decided that 2026 would be for me “A Dickens of a Year.” That is, I decided to expand my reading of books by and especially about Charles Dickens throughout the twelve months of 2026. After reading several books that were totally focused on Dickens, I turned to a book in which only one chapter was spotlighting Dickens. Nevertheless, his connection with a few of the other eighteen authors does arise in other chapters in this book. My plan is to share the list of these books with my WORDWALK blog readers in January of next year. However, I now share with you a bit of trivia which I found in this recent read as I am so surprised that I had never before heard or read this information previously.

The source of the trivia is a book which I highly recommend–A Dab of Dickens and a Touch of Twain: Literary Lives From Shakespeare’s Old England to Frost’s New England, by Elliot Engel (originally from Indianapolis), 349 pages, copyright 2002. Since each chapter can stand alone, you may choose to read about the authors you wish of the nineteen presented. In each chapter, the author/professor shares some information that I have not previously read nor heard.

Despite my years of studying journalism and mass communications, I had never before known what Mr. Engel explains in the chapter about Mark Twain. Of course, I knew of Twain’s years working in printing, in newspaper offices. In relating the young life of Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Engel notes that from age twelve to eighteen, Clemens worked as “assistant editor,” which required a wide variety of duties. The newspaper in Hannibal, Missouri, had no automated press. Thus, Clemens had to stand in front of 52 cases-each of which was a narrow, but deep wooden box that held tin letters–tin type. Inside each box were thousands of very small letters. While the bottom row of cases contained 26 boxes for the lower-case letters of the alphabet, the upper row of boxes (or cases) held the capital letters. Thankfully, I now know why we call capital letters “upper-case letters” and why others are still referred to as “lower-case letters.” As a retired instructor of English, this trivia is my kind of trivia; but there is more.

In setting up the six-page newspaper to be printed, Samuel Clemens not only needed enormous patience, he had to look at each letter carefully because the type was fashioned in the mirror image so that the printed result would be in the proper direction for reading. The two most challenging letters for young Clemens were the lower-case letters “p” and “q.” Therefore, Mark Twain, according to Engel, popularized the saying “Mind your p’s and q’s” (even though the expression may have been used since the late 1700s).

In my younger decades, I certainly recall hearing the expression “Mind your p’s and q’s.” (For younger Magnets and Ladders readers, this expression meant: be careful with what you are doing, or be meticulous with your work.) I think I even used this command. Further, I believe I pondered what the letter “p” and “q” represented, but never went so far as checking out the meaning in a reference book to determine the reason behind the expression. Well, at age 75, I am glad to know finally these pieces of trivia-in case the conversation ever turns to upper case and lower case. Of course, I would be even more pleased if these pieces of trivia would appear soon on my favorite television program, JEOPARDY!

BOOK NOTE: For patrons of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Elliot Engel’s book A Dab of Dickens and a Touch of Twain: Literary Lives From Shakespeare’s Old England to Frost’s New England is available as the audio download DB 57266 (eleven hours, 25 minutes).

An earlier version of “In Case You Have Thought of Upper-case and Lower-case Letters” was published on Alice’s WORDWALK blog on January 11, 2026.

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Part V. Looking Back

My Sunshine, Memoir nonfiction Second Place
by Kate Chamberlin

Have lyrics in a song ever evoked strong emotional memories?

Lyric: “You are my sunshine…“

Memory: When you were just a little tyke, I loved to peak in on you in the morning.

You’d be standing up in your crib with the biggest, toothless grin I’d ever seen.

I’d pick you up and we’d go to the window to greet the new day, as you looked all around with open curiosity and enthusiasm.

Lyric: “…My only sunshine…“

Memory: That is, until your brother was born two years later.

I’d pick him up out of his crib and he’d nestle into my neck, not at all ready to greet the day.

So, we’d sit in my rocking chair and sing all the nursery rhymes I could remember and some I made up.

Lyric: “…You make me happy…“

Memory: It was such a joy and marvel to observe how you both grew and learned about the people, pets and things around you.

It was amazing to watch your progress from playing in the bathtub, swishing a little toy fish with only four colorful fins, to winning awards on your high school swim teams.

Lyric: “…When skies are grey…“

Memory: On those rainy days we needed to stay indoors, we’d tell each other stories, play hide and seek, cards, board games, pick tunes on the piano, and make games of doing household tasks.

Lyric: “…You’ll never know, Dear, How much I love you…“

Memory: There were times that we had to have a law-day. You might have had to sit in time-out for not cooperating. One time, you both had to clean up the mess you’d made by breaking up a five-pound bag of spaghetti as you sat under the dining room table, but as you grew, times-out were fewer and you became quite competent in caring for yourselves, including knowing how to cook spaghetti, pizzas, and pot roast.

Lyric: “…Please don’t take my sunshine away”

Memory: As the saying goes: Your daughter is your daughter all of your life and a son is your son until he takes a wife.

Alas, as my boys grew into handsome, competent, young men, they met and married their sweethearts. Each wife lured my sons away from me and into the beloved realm of their in-laws.

Now, as I sit in my rocking chair with a warm, elderly cat in my lap, I smile and hold the sunshine of memories in my heart.

NOTE: “You Are My Sunshine”
Single by Jimmie Davis with Charles Mitchell’s Orchestra, February 1940;
Single by the Pine Ridge Boys Released October 6, 1939.

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What Became of Aaron? creative nonfiction
by Anthony R. Candela

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The microphone was mounted in its stand and the sun blazed brightly behind the audience. I knew there were at least 2000 people sitting in the bleachers in front of me awaiting my welcome-speech, but due to the glare, they looked like a giant silhouette. My peers, nearly 400 capped and gowned high school seniors, sat in bleachers behind me. Most of us would leave our small suburban town for greener pastures.

That’s what I did, landing about 40 miles away from the place I’d grown up in a quiet corner of the nearest big city. It was a nice compromise. I could venture at my own speed into the great metropolis or remain sheltered in the suburban environment of the college and its surrounding neighborhood. Fifty-five years ago, the academically-oriented college I chose to attend was considered small. Now it calls itself a university.

In 1971, my college was just going co-ed. Overwhelmed with the venture in front of me, I didn’t stop to consider that I’d been around girls my entire life. What would be the impact when the reality of their absence set in? While there was comfort in not spending my days trying to impress them, obsession and horniness became the order of the day. But that’s another story.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to our celebration. Today we graduate the Class of 1971.”

The surround sound engulfed me. People clapped and stomped their feet on bleachers that had seen a lot of action in the two years since our state-of-the-art high school had opened. It was equipped with a great library, swimming pool, science labs, performing arts center, and more. Heck, we even had a planetarium. Our football team had already spawned two All-Americans, both of whom made the pros. My fantasy of being its quarterback dissolved in my lack of size, skill, and sufficient eyesight. I was content to toss the pigskin in pickup games with neighborhood friends. Gratefully, I was strong enough to join the wrestling team.

The day before the graduation, my father and I discovered a problem. When it was my turn to speak, the sun would be in my eyes. Thanks to his i-dotting, t-crossing diligence (he was a former Marine), we’d visited the venue to do some reconnaissance and make a dry run. Wisely, we went the same time of day the ceremony would take place. Unless I held the paper smack in front of my face, I wouldn’t be able to read my speech.

“You’re just going to have to memorize it,” my father advised.

As I began my welcoming remarks, the speech was so well-etched in my brain that I went into automatic mode. I just started talking. This freed my mind to drift away. Something that had been bothering me took over. Someone else should have been standing there instead of me. His name was Aaron.

One day in my senior year, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him for a while. It was a bit unusual that we weren’t in the same classes. After a while, it dawned on me I hadn’t even seen him around school. Where was he?

All anyone would tell me was that I should not worry; Aaron was OK. Because I didn’t know what to believe and because there was a possibility that I had been a part of whatever had befallen him, I was afraid to call him.

The next time Aaron came to mind was when I learned I’d be the Salutatorian (second highest grade point average) of our graduating class. I was pretty sure Aaron had higher grades than I did, almost as good as the Valedictorian’s, in fact. Why wasn’t he the Salutatorian? Although his absence appeared to have cleared the way for me to fill the slot, we’d been friends for a long time and I didn’t know where he was.

This preoccupied me to the point that one day I set out for the Principal’s office to ask once again what became of Aaron or at least to suggest that at graduation, he get an honorable mention. Perhaps an empty chair could be placed between mine and the Valedictorian’s? Images of the Air Force’s “Missing Man formation” must have been flitting through my mind. Sometime during our senior year, Aaron must have broken formation. Hopefully, like the plane in the Missing Man Formation, although gone, he’d risen to greater heights.

Rightly concluding they would think I was crazy, I broke off my trip to the Principal’s office. Had I’d gone there, they would have repeated that I should not be concerned. Besides, to have a vacant seat so conspicuously displayed without a well-understood reason why, something like a beloved student who had died during the year, would have been unseemly. Fortunately, no one had died. Everybody except Aaron was there, including the pregnant girl who was showing so much it could be seen from the back of the bleachers.

Most likely, Aaron had taken so many courses at the local community college that in effect, he was already out of high school. So why was I fretting? I could not tell anybody, but Aaron had done something wrong and I had helped him. If he’d been found out, it might have been the thing that got him disqualified from attending his own graduation.

My complicity nagged at me. After all, I was an officer in the National Honor Society. Had I not taken an oath to its core pillars: Scholarship, Service, Leadership, and Character? If my indiscretion had been known, I would never have been inducted.

The indiscretions took place during tenth grade geometry. I was good at that particular branch of mathematics, facilitated by a great teacher. Let’s call him Mr. Proof. In fact, two years later, Mr. Proof was the one who told me that I’d scored highest in the class in mathematics. I won a $10 scholarship, equivalent to $80 today. It wasn’t much, but the message was conveyed. Note: As good as I was, college calculus and statistics brought me back to Earth.

I first met Aaron in seventh grade gym class during the wrestling unit. The gym teacher paired me with a gentle and somewhat scrawny boy. Actually, he impressed me as a bit of a wimp. Since this unit was my favorite, I went at it with gusto. The second I barred one of Aaron’s arms behind his back, he yelped so loudly I had to let him go. The gym teacher re-matched me with a tougher guy. Later in the hallway, I apologized for my roughness.

“Are you really on the wrestling team?”

“Yes. Sorry I hurt your arm. We are used to that kind of stuff.”

“That’s OK.” Chuckling, he added, “My older sister will be impressed when I tell her I’m friends with someone on the wrestling team who is also in the smart-classes with me.”

Aaron and I fell into the habit of calling each other when either of us didn’t understand something from one of our classes. Once, watching me panic, unable to make sense of my math and science homework after having missed two days of class due to illness, my father delivered some of his patented tough-love. “Call Aaron for God’s sake. He’ll help you to catch up.” I did and he did.

In the ninth grade, Aaron rescued me from embarrassment. He taught me how to tear a piece of graphing paper cleanly in half. The Algebra teacher (we’ll call her Ms. Plotter) wanted to save paper and I’d made a mess of it in class, receiving a tongue-lashing from Ms. Plotter for my effort. This might sound trivial, but there were a number of small things like this that I hadn’t learned to do.

“Just fold the paper back and forth a bunch of times and then run your fingernail along the fold (and so on and so forth),” he instructed.

The following year, we were in the same Geometry class. As it turned out, Aaron’s older sister had Mr. Proof a few years prior. Somehow, she had retained copies of the geometry tests. Under a lot of pressure to achieve, he asked me to help him.

“We can finish lunch quickly and go to an empty classroom. I’ve got the test. You are really good at Geometry. You can do the test and give it to me to study before we go into the real one.”

“Suppose we get caught?”

“We won’t get caught. It will look like we are studying. I’m sure the questions will be the same, but even if they aren’t, it will be good practice.”

I relented. Aaron did well, perhaps too well, but then again, he probably didn’t know enough to strategically lose a point here and there to make it look good. I was unabashedly and unassailably perfect. I’d helped him cheat. Had I also cheated? Probably Yes, but since I really didn’t benefit from the activity, it was easy for me to assuage my conscience. After all, I knew my stuff. In my latter years and as I’ve come to more fully understand the ethical implications, I’ve considered changing my mind.

Too bad Aaron wasn’t around for senior year Physics. Our teacher, we’ll call him Mr. Heisenberg, the man, we joked, who found it impossible to know his momentum at the same time as his position, became known for his signature demonstration of the laser. With it, he forever endeared himself to us, making us laugh and winning our eternal scorn.

Marching us into the planetarium, Mr. H. dimmed the lights, aimed a laser from one side of the room to the other, and stood along the bean knocking together chalk-laden erasers. The ensuing dust cloud made visible the laser beam, also covering him in chalk. When the lights came up, half of us had snuck out of the room, not bothering to stick around to witness the lighting of the nebula.

Aaron saw me win one of my most important wrestling matches and was my lab partner when our Chemistry teacher, Ms. Alchemy taught us the gospel of the Scientific Method and how to make soap. He wasn’t standing there when our Social Studies teacher whose wife was pregnant with a girl who would become a famous actress, pounded into our heads the importance of Brown v. Board of Education. Alas, he missed out when our math teacher, Mr. Algorithm, took us to a local university math fair where among lots of technical stuff, we learned that King Kong could not have existed the way he’d been traditionally portrayed. He needed to be much wider.

“And so ladies and gentlemen,” I concluded, “I’d like to thank our wonderful school and the teachers and coaches for supporting me. If it wasn’t for their help, I would not be standing here today.”

the crowd cheered, but it barely registered. I had not heard a single word of my own speech. Ruminations had supplanted reality. Bowing, I turned, carefully stepped down from the podium, and made my way to my seat.

So what became of Aaron? Most likely, he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a doctor. These things often run in families. He was certainly smart enough to slip the surly bonds of a medical education and I hope he didn’t have to cheat. It would be bad if a doctor did that.

“Please conduct the surgery on a patient who is an exact duplicate of my own. Then I’ll copy what you did.”

Once upon a time, we were taught that self-sufficiency was the name of the game. This may no longer be so. Teamwork and information-sharing appear to be the order of the day. Artificial intelligence might make it a lot easier to function that way these days.

That is why I have finally stopped worrying about Aaron. The rest of the world has caught up to us. We were simply ahead of our time. I am reasonably sure he turned out to be a successful and hopefully content person. His family, the one that pressured him so much as a child, would have seen to that. This was the lesson my English teacher, Ms. Literata, tried to jam into our heads when she made us memorize the famous line from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Thinking back, I’m glad my family didn’t pressure me to the extent I imagine Aaron’s did. The threat of a good ass-kicking was sufficient motivation for me and although I didn’t become a doctor, that’s how my happy family, headed up by a Marine, move me.

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A Summer On Moolooloo Station, poetry
by Steve Adams

I traveled three thousand kilometres to Northern Territory, Looking for a job.
And met the man in charge of the station,
After I had lobbed.

The boss, Ian Rush,
Was a big man, strong and stern.
He made it clear to me,
That new men had much to learn.

The breakfast bell rang early.
We were warned not to be late.
So before sunrise,
Seven, young cowboys dressed and ate.

Dust covered jeans, cowboy hats, and leather boots,
Worn by men who knew their trade.
I was being tested,
To see if I could make the grade.

The next few months were spent,
Working cattle by horse back on the trails,
And in the dusty, cattle yards,
Surrounded by sturdy, metal rails.

I had read of massive cattle stations,
When I was just a kid.
Three million acres would be a challenge,
And challenge me they did.

I did what was asked of me.
I knew the boundaries well.
In rugged country, worked by rugged men,
A sort of cowboy hell.

Hot and tired, I took a river swim,
After a cattle drive of fifteen miles.
The hardened Stockman, Dolly, yelled, “Get out of there you fool!
That damn river’s full of crocodiles.

When the work was done,
And the sun sank on the final day,
I hung up my saddle and bridle,
And collected my hard-earned pay.

Before I left on a Greyhound coach,
Ian asked, “Will you come back? You’re good”.
I replied, “I’d really like to, Ian,”
But I knew I never would.

A hard life in a hard land,
Watch the sun rise.
A hard life in a hard land,
No way to disguise.
A hard life in a hard land,
Wipe away that frown.
a hard life in a hard land,
Watch the sun go down.

Bio: Steve Adams was born in Albany, in the far South West of Australia in 1968. He spent 12 years travelling Australia and the world until, in 1996, a horrific accident rendered him totally blind. He became a qualified counsellor and published two books, titled Monkey On The Wing and Journey Through My Mirror. He now lives quietly in the Western Australian countryside with his family.

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The Holdup Incident, memoir
by Lorie McCloud

It happened before the advent of cell phones, over 30 years ago, but it’s not the sort of thing you forget easily and I haven’t altered it in any way.

At the time that this happened, I lived in an old duplex with a housemate. I’ll call her Jackie. I’m blind, and Jackie had a disability that looked kind of like cerebral palsy, although the doctors didn’t think that’s what it was. Her whole right side was affected, and she couldn’t drive, so we walked and took busses a lot. One late afternoon, we decided to go a couple blocks down the street to a fast food place called Whataburger. There were no sidewalks so we had to walk along the edge of the street, but it wasn’t very far away, and we did it all the time.

On the way back to the house, a car turned in front of us and stopped, blocking our path. Before I could say anything to the driver, Jackie said to me quietly, “He wants your fanny pack.” That made me mad.

I don’t think so, I thought. I don’t remember if I said it or not. I was trying to figure out what to do. It might have been helpful to have my cane, but I didn’t have mine with me that day. We couldn’t step off the street and walk behind him, because there was a deep ditch running along the street, and to do that we would have had to be able to move fast and move together. Jackie wasn’t a fast walker, and running and jumping were out of the question. If the guy got out of the car there’d be hand to hand combat. I did have some idea how to handle an eventuality like that, and I was angry enough to do it, but I didn’t want Jackie getting hurt, and what if there was a knife or some other sharp object that I didn’t find out about until too late? While all these thoughts were going through my mind, there was a slight pause in which nobody was doing anything. I suppose the guy got impatient because he said, “I’ve got a gun.”

The hell you do! I thought. I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that. And suddenly an idea popped into my mind. The car window was all the way down, and we were standing on the driver’s side. “Show me,” I challenged while at the same time sticking my hand way inside the car. I was heading straight for the guy’s face. I might be able to scratch his eyes if I moved fast enough. He stepped on the accelerator so hard, it’s a wonder my arm didn’t get broken. I must have pulled it back when I heard the sound, because I don’t remember any impact.

So there we were standing on the street trying to pull ourselves together. As soon as we could manage it we finished our walk home.

“I prayed really hard,” Jackie said once we’d reached the safety of our living room.

“Thanks,” I answered heartily. “I’m glad you did.” To her credit, she didn’t fall apart or pass out. I tried to get a description of the car and driver out of her, but for obvious reasons she wasn’t in observation mode. She said he looked like a punk kid in his late teens or early 20s, and that’s about it. I suppose we looked like easy prey with our prominent disabilities on display like that, but I’ve never been one to hide, and while Jackie was living with me she couldn’t either. I like to think that maybe the driver of that car experienced something that day that changed his trajectory, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

Bio: Lorie McCloud has been totally blind since birth. She resides in Fort Worth Texas. Her interests include hiking or walking, swimming, and reading. She enjoys conversing about psychology and metaphysics. Lorie is a volunteer with The Universal Spiritual Brother&sisterhood. She is a singer/song writer as well as an author. Her YouTube channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/LorieMccloud?feature=mhsn. You can listen to her latest music at: https://www.soundcloud.com/lorie-mccloud/.

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Memories, poetry
by Carol Farnsworth

John and I wrestled several truckloads of cement blocks for building a retaining wall,
to keep the hill from traveling into the yard.
There was still a hill leading into the small wooded area.
We hauled stepping stones up the grade.
Setting level to curve to the hill’s top.
There we built a wooden bench.
Surrounded by ferns and spring trillium.
A quiet place of beauty.
We scattered Mom’s ashes so she could watch the seasons change.
We didn’t expect the ashes to fly when John blew the leaves clean.
Dad teased her about running in the streets.
Now, She is free to roam the whole neighborhood.

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Zinnias for My Grandma on the 143rd Anniversary of Her Birth, memoir
by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

NOTE: As I ponder the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, I think of the oldest person whom I knew well—my maternal grandmother who was born in 1883, when the USA as only seven years past its centennial. In the piece of family history below, I, one of her eight grandchildren, share with you remembrances of my grandmother.

Before my memory begins, my one set of grandparents became known as “Grandma and Grandpa Farm” and my maternal grandmother as “Grandma Store.” You guessed correctly: My grandparents lived on a small farm; and my grandmother, whose husband died long before I was born, owned and operated a grocery store. Thinking of my Grandma Store on this September 25-the 143rd anniversary of her birth-I am astonished that in my youth, I spent so much time with someone who was born in 1883.

My memories materialize around the time when I was five and my grandmother was already 72 years of age. Of course, to me, as a very young child, my grandma always seemed very old. Nevertheless, as she had done for so many years, she was still working in the store—waiting on long-time customers. Unlike most women of her era, Grandma Store was a businesswoman. I can picture her behind the oak counter, beside the adding machine—which she never used because she preferred to add up the items of a bill in her head. She was always wearing a mid-calf dress of black or gray print, with what appeared to me as the oldest-fashioned shoes to be made in the 1950s and 1960s. The only other color I ever remember her wearing was a dark green sweater—except for the ever-present white, starched apron. Throughout all these years of my memory of her, her long black hair, streaked with gray, was woven into one long braid and then twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. Large tortoise-shell pins held her bun in place at the back of her head. I do not think she ever wore makeup, but she had few wrinkles and often had naturally rosy cheeks. At that time, most older people I knew had false teeth; and I knew my grandma did also. Dark-framed glasses covered her dark brown eyes so that she could clearly read all the obituaries in The Daily Clintonian.

On September 25, 1883, in the northern Italian village of Levone, Stefano and Lidia named their baby Domenica Marianna Alice. Almost 67 years later, my parents named me after my maternal grandmother’s maiden name: thus, the Italian surname “Alice” became my first name “Alice.” I have always thought that, perhaps, I am the only “Alice” named after the Italian surname “Alice” because this surname is not at all common in the United States.

Sadly, I know little of my grandmother’s young life in Italy. When she was twenty years of age, my grandfather, who had been in the United states from 1896 to 1903, returned to Italy to marry Domenica. Then, the young married couple set sail from La Havre, France, on the ship La Lourraine, for America and arrived in New York on August 28, 1903. When Domenica Mariana went through Ellis Island, she became “Minnie.” Upon landing in the United States, the young couple had $80 and a very large framed picture of Domenica’s mother.

After leaving their homeland—Levone and Cuneo, located in northern Italy—Domenica (Minnie) and Martino (Martin) first settled in Clinton, Indiana, and later created their home and businesses in the small rural town of Blanford, Indiana. After the early deaths of their first two sons (one who died in infancy and one who died from meningitis at age five), my grandparents were blessed with four healthy children—all of whom lived long lives. In 1908, my grandmother gave birth to Zita; then, Peter (1910), Lydia (1912), and Mary (1914) followed. In addition to the joy of these four children, my grandmother must have enjoyed music because my grandfather played a brass instrument in a local marching band.

After establishing the grocery store in the early 1900s, my grandparents started an Italian bakery in 1914, the year of my mother’s birth. My grandfather was the baker, in charge of the large, brick oven from where he took the crusty loaves of Italian bread and long, crispy breadsticks. Despite the sudden loss of this husband, father, and baker in 1935-the family went on with the bakery until 1942. At that time, my grandmother and her son Pete continued operating only the grocery store for the next four decades. In March of 1982, Uncle Pete closed the grocery store for the final time. Throughout all those years of having the family business, my grandparents helped numerous neighbors and extended credit to so many people—long before a credit card was even imagined.

Since my grandfather was not only the bread baker, but also placed other main meals in the brick oven, my grandmother was not really known for her cooking skills. Nevertheless, I remember many family members gathered around her big oak table for Thanksgiving dinner. I distinctly recall so much lively talking that I thought I, as a young child, would never get a word into the conversation.

Although my grandmother spoke English well, she naturally continued to speak Italian also. We were equally embarrassed and amused by my grandmother’s shifting from English to Italian to tell a family member something about the customer who had just entered the store.

Despite some of her unusual ways, Grandma was quite tolerant of my cousin Carole and my making the store one of our favorite “playgrounds”—a place where we played many imaginary games, ate orange push-ups and penny candy, investigated new and old merchandise, and giggled through girlhood. Rarely reprimanding us, Grandma was either quite patient or managed to overlook our antics.

Grandma’s two-story building was not only a playground for me, it was also a refuge during thunderstorms. When my dad was working an overnight shift as a firefighter, my mother took my older sister and me to Grandma’s building each time an electrical storm popped up in the middle of the night. I could never understand why we left our cozy house in the midst of a storm to go to Grandma’s big building. Whether we slept in Grandma’s bed or on the roll-away bed in the living room, her very tall windows supplied a panoramic view of the lightning-streaked sky. However, Grandma never complained about the midnight guests nor her adult daughter’s unusual fear of thunderstorms. Grandma just quietly and calmly welcomed us into her home behind the store. Before I was born, the bedrooms on the second story had been used, along with a spacious dance hall. During the years I knew Grandma, her bedroom (which had once been a parlor) was always on the main floor—in a room off the kitchen/living area.

As my Grandma Store aged and my cousin Carole and I became an age of double digits, we thought that we should be waiting on customers. We tried to urge Grandma to sit in the back of the store—beside the large, wooden refrigerator—or in her own living area. Waiting on customers was much easier than convincing Grandma to stay aside while we turned our well-practiced “playing store” into real transactions.

The store was my grandmother’s life. After traveling all the way from Italy to Indiana, she never returned to “the old country.” Only once did she take a long road trip: after the death of her brother, my dad (her son-in-law) drove her to Pennsylvania so that she could attend the funeral. Otherwise, she only left the store building to go to the homes of nearby relatives—but not often. Once when my mother was driving my grandmother, my cousin Carole, and me back home from a visit to the farm of Grandma’s second daughter, the local deputy sheriff of St. Bernice decided that my mother was driving too fast for Highway 71. I was astonished that my mother was pulled over by a law enforcement officer, but Grandma Store quickly converted into an award-winning actress to save her youngest daughter from receiving a ticket. With a fine mixture of Italian and English, my grandmother very dramatically intoned: “Oh, my! Oh, my! I am so sick-so sick. What a bad headache I have! Oh, Marina, I need to go home.” Well, that deputy took one look at my seemingly sick grandmother and gave my speedy mother only a quick verbal warning. As soon as we drove away from the St. Bernice official, my cousin and I could no longer contain our laughter. To the dismay of my mother and the grand-actress, my cousin and I laughed uproariously.

On summer evenings, Grandma would sit on a metal lawn chair on the lawn between the store building and her son’s home. She watch the cars go by, neighbors walk by, and cars park in the lot of her eldest daughter’s Italian restaurant. During spring and summer days, she sometimes left her store and residence to tend to her zinnias that grew in two flower beds bordered by diagonally placed upright bricks. One bed of zinnias was to the east of the water pump, and one was to the west of the pump. Besides the larger zinnias, Grandma had nurtured some zinnias of a smaller variety; her flowers were a myriad of colors. I have always equated these sturdy flowers with my grandmother.

During the seasons of giving, Grandma’s gift-giving policy was strict: whatever she gave to one adult child, she gave to all. The same held true for all the grandchildren. For example, all her daughters and her daughter-in-law were given Hudson Bay blankets; then, there was the time when each received an electric mixer and then a mangle (large appliance for ironing). While she gave much, she guarded much also: although cash was at easy access in the store’s wooden cash register and in the large safe in the storage room, Grandma always kept a close watch on her purse. On many birthdays, each grandchild’s gift was a savings bond.

While in the final two decades of her life, Grandma Store did not want any of us to divulge her age. If one of us began to mention Grandmother’s age, she would bring her index finger to her mouth and hush any comment about her specific age with a shake of her head.

When in the 1960s and 1970s, shouts of women’s liberation rang through the land, I was not too affected because my grandmother and all of my aunts (from both sides of the family) had always been prime examples of “working women,” of women who were modern before the more turbulent eras. My grandmother was a strong woman who raised three very strong daughters who were extraordinarily close with each other and their one brother. In the final years of my Grandmother’s life, her four surviving children cared for their mother. Although my mother had a full-time job, she rarely missed driving fifteen minutes (over a road with one lane of gravel and the other of bricks) to the nursing home to visit her mother each evening.

Shortly after my Grandmother’s 95th birthday, she passed away on October 10, 1978. I only wish I had asked her many more questions about her young life in Italy and her early years in America.

When my sister and I returned to Indiana for visits, we would go to the cemetery to pay our respects at my grandparents’ graves. Although we placed bouquets of silk flowers on Grandma Store’s grave, I wish we had placed there for her bouquets of
fresh-cut zinnias.

Post-script: In my mother’s address book, we have found much more than addresses, birthdates, and anniversaries-we have found some dates and information that I have used in this essay and in some of my other writings. Although my mother did not keep a diary nor a journal, I do appreciate all the family information which she did diligently record over many years.

From trying to write personal narratives about my family tree, I have learned again and again one very important lesson which I want to impress upon each reader: ask your oldest family members all the questions that you can about your family’s history. In whatever mediums possible, record those family memories. As you enjoy the present, keep in touch with the precious moments of the past!

An earlier version of “Zinnias for My Grandma on the 143rd Anniversary of Her Birth” was published on Alice’s WORDWALK blog on September 25, 2013.

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Part VI. Slices of Life

Ready for Prom, fiction
by Clennell Anthony

Dave’s eyes, round, cerulean blue, and anxious, stared at me as if he thought I would run from him.

“What is it?” I asked, wincing at his crushing grip on my hand.

Dave and I had been friends since the beginning of the school year. Did I have a crush on him? Of course, I did. Have you seen the guy. He’s sexier than that guy who played Jack in Titanic.

Mom let me see the movie, and I was in awe of the actor’s beauty, but he had nothing on the real boy who stood in front of me, holding onto my hand as if I’d suddenly disappear if he let go.

“Um,” he swallowed hard.

He looked as if he were about to upchuck or had he swallowed something wrong at lunch?

“Will you?” he started to ask, blinked those sexy long lashed eyes at me, and swallowed with what looked like some difficulty, again.

“Dave, you know you can ask me anything. What’s the matter with you? You dying or something?’ I asked, as I watched little bubbles of sweat pop out along his hairline. He had this coal black hair that was a little longer on top than on the bottom. For such a great looking guy, he was really nice. Sure, he was on the basketball team, he hung out with the dude bros, and occasionally forgot I existed when he was kicking it with them, but I still liked hanging with Dave. He was smart and could help me with calculous homework. I hated calculous, and Dave was making an A in it.

“I, um, thought we could go to the prom together?” he finally rushed out in a jumble of words I’d had to decipher before I fully understood him. Even then, I wondered if I was hearing things.

“Me? I asked, looking around us to see if there was anyone either beside or behind me Dave could be talking to.

All the girls liked Dave. He was tall, which was a nice difference for me because I was one of the taller girls in school. I was long and lanky. I was barely out of an A-cup, and my bottom was so big you could probably sit a few figurines on it and they’d be safe while I walked.

“I guess that’s a no?” Dave asked, looking a little ill.

“Hah, where did you get that from,” I asked, looking up at him.

that was another of the nice bonuses of being friends with Dave. I could look up at him. Most boys I looked down at and boy did that get me teased a lot. The girls called me amazon and the boys called me tree. I didn’t resemble either, but the name calling and misrepresentations of who I was still stung.

“Well, you looked around you for who I could possibly be talking to.”

“That’s because you are, well you.”

“Huh?” he asked, looking as dumbstruck as I’d been a minute ago.

“You know, big time basketball guy, all the cheerleaders want him and all the boys want to be him.”

I guess it was his turn to look around him the way I had because he did just that.

“Who are you talking about?” he asked, staring at me as if I’d grown two heads.

“I was talking about you, but I can tell you don’t see what I do,” I said, staring into those eyes I’d all but fallen in love with the first time I’d seen them.

“So, you going to answer me or what?”

I looked into his sincere and nervous face. There was a muscle ticking in his jaw as if he was annoyed or gritting his teeth. His hands kind of shook at his sides and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists as if he didn’t know what to do with his big hands.

“Sure, I’ll go with you. That would be fun.”

He groaned.

“What now?” I asked, touching my hand to one of his to still their spasmic clenching.

“You going as my girl or my friend?”

My mouth fell open. Dave McLaren was asking me, Sage Underbury, if I’d be his girl. I wanted to tease him ad make him ask me properly, but I was too scared he’d take it back.

“I guess I could be your girl if you’re asking,” I said, thinking I could tease him, after all, with my answer.

Heck, yeah, I’d be his girl. I wondered what that was going to be like. Would he give me his letterman jacket to wear in the winter. Would he get me a jersey with his name and number on the back to wear to his games. Down girl, I had to tell myself, this wasn’t a made for television drama with hearts, flowers, and chocolates, though I wouldn’t say no to those either.

Instead of answering me, he pulled at the hand I’d put in his and pulled me into his arms. When his lips touched mine, I nearly swooned. I felt like one of those Regency heroines in the books I liked to read. My knees went a little weak and I darn near stopped breathing. The bell rang, interrupting that moment between us.

“Limo or car?” he asked, his lips touching mine with every word.

“Either, I don’t mind. Just don’t forget the corsage.”

He grinned and promised he wouldn’t.

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Two weeks later, the time was counting down and I was struggling to pull on the pantyhose Mom gott for me at the last minute.

“No, pull them this way,” Mom said, pulling the panty hose in the opposite direction, making them cut deeper into my chubby thighs.

“Sara, go around back and pull them up from behind,” Mom told my little sister.

Sara did as she was told, but she pulled so hard that she fell forward her face planted in my butt.

“Oh, gross,” Sara said.

“Shut up, brat, I just took a shower.”

“I still didn’t want to be food for your big butt.”

“Sara, stop it and help,” Mom said, as the doorbell rang.

Of all the times to be naked and trying to fit all of me in pantyhose Mom had to have bought at the last minute. They were small enough to fit Sara and she was seven.

“I don’t know, Sage,” I think you’re going to have to go without pantyhose. Just don’t let that young man of yours feel up your skirts or you’ll be more embarrassed than you are now.”

Mom was talking about the fact that she hadn’t bought panties for this dress. I was going to have to go out of the house without panties on.

All of a sudden Mom burst into laughter as the pantyhose made a distinct ripping sound when I finally got them over my behind and bent over to put on my shoes.

Talk about a purchase gone horribly wrong.

I hoped Dave appreciated all I went through to go with him tonight.

When I was finally dressed in a formal gown of royal blue velvet with a slit up the right side and met him in the foyer, I saw the appreciation in those big blue eyes. He looked debonair and so handsome it nearly took my breath away.

“I didn’t forget,” he said, putting the corsage on my wrist and kissing my cheek.

I’d never tell Mom but I was glad for her faulty purchase because Dave did far more than put his hand up my skirt that night, and today we have five children to prove it.

Bio: Clennell Anthony is a visually impaired romance author, poet, and short story writer based in sunny Florida. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an MS in Mental Health Counseling from Capella University. Clennell is also a writing coach, offering courses and insights into the writing life. She’s currently working on book two of her Blind Love series and co-authoring Keep Creating, an inspirational guide for creatives, with her writing sister Victoria Jurgens. Connect with Clennell and join her newsletter at https://subscribepage.io/slipper.

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A memorable gift, nonfiction
by Rebecca Shields

I’ve always thought of myself as a sentimental person. Looking back at family photos, thumbing through scrap books of my own childhood artwork, and certificates I earned stirs up emotion with in me. The older I get, the more aware I am of how many memories and keepsakes remind me of very special occasions that played a part in my life.

There comes a time in each of our lives, when we need to decide what to do with all of the things we own. The fact for everyone to face is, when we depart this earth, nothing goes with us. Therefore, looking through years of items that hold a value greater than dollar signs is tough on the heartstrings. Of course if someone sold many of the items I have, they would be able to place a monitory value on them. More than likely they would not understand the sentimental value the item had in my life.

Often I have wondered who would be grateful to have a special keepsake passed on to them. Not long ago, I took a chance and made an offer to pass on one of my treasures.

The oldest of my 6 grandchildren was preparing for a special event. He asked me if I would help him get ready. I was touched that he was asking me for assistance. I gladly agreed to go with him to get fitted for his suit for the high school prom.

When he walked out of the fitting room, and in a shy voice asked me what I thought. I stood and looked him over: my eyes stung for a second. I was afraid to speak. What if I couldn’t get the words out, since they were blocked by the lump in my throat.

Standing in front of me was a tall, slender, handsome, young man: dressed in a dark suit that I’d seen before!

“You look fabulous, just like your grandfather did many years ago.”

“Thanks grandma, I like the way the suit fits.”

After I got home I couldn’t stop thinking about how much Matthew looked like his grandfather. I felt a tugging of something in my heart. I wanted to do what ever I could to make this a very special event in Matthew’s life. Of course there is only so much an old grandma can do to bring a memorable touch to his prom evening. Helping with the cost of his suit was what I wanted to do. In my heart, I wanted him to experience something else. I kept wondering what could it be? There was still sometime before the big event. I dismissed it from my thoughts, and went on with my busy schedule.

Looking through one of my jewelry boxes in search of my membership pin, I was frustrated with myself. I had put off getting my pin out, when I knew that the annual convention of the ladies sorority was fast approaching. There had been many situations that demanded my full attention, and now I was up against time. Suddenly a small case tumbled from my pile of items that had been in the box. Reaching for it, I scolded myself for procrastinating. I picked up the square velvet case, and took a deep breath. Just for a minute, I felt speechless. “Oh my goodness! Is this what I think it is?” I opened the lid, and tucked safely down in the center compartment was a small, shiny smooth stone that seemed to stare directly at me. I muttered aloud, “I found the answer to my question; Now I really had an important meeting to set up.

I found my pin hiding in another corner of the jewelry box. Putting all of the items back, I returned the jewelry box to the shelf in my closet.

The following day Matthew came to my home. I had butterflies in my stomach all day, thinking about the reason for his visit.

When he arrived, I noticed that the butterflies were gone. Why had they ever been there; Matthew has been the center of my heart since he was born. He and I have always had a special bond. I realized there was not a reason for my feeling insecure about making an offer to him to have a small token of his family history.

Sitting at my dining table with glasses of lemonade and homemade cookies, we enjoyed conversation about Matthew’s day at school.

Taking the small case from my pocket, I placed it on the table. “I have something to show you! I thought perhaps this might make your prom night a little more special.”

Opening the lid Matthew looked inside. “Wow! What a nice tie tack, I would very much like to wear this with my suit, thank you for thinking of this Grandma.”

“Well, there’s a little more to my idea than it dressing up your suit. You see, 52 years ago, when your grandfather and I went to our senior prom, he wore this on his tie. I had bought it for him for Christmas. In fact he also wore it for many special occasions. However when I saw you in your suit, all I have been thinking about is how much time took me back to that very important night in our lives. I’m very sure if he knew that our first grandson would carry the tradition on of this small stone bringing excitement and joy to the event, he would be very proud of you. I hope many years from now, you will experience what I have learned. Many times the smallest and simplest jewels bring us together and show our love for one another. I’ve kept this all these years, hoping for the perfect time for it to be meaningful to someone. Someday you will want the same hope for a special person in your heart. One way to make history, is to make it happen for others to look back on.”

Bio: Rebecca has been blind since birth. She is a native of Colorado. Reading and writing have always been important in Rebecca’s life

Her writing has been featured in the ACB Braille Forum, slate and Style, Behind Our Eyes, a Second Look, Behind Our Eyes 3: a Literary Sunburst, Magnets and Ladders*, Along with magazines and other publications for her community and state. Rebecca was the recipient of the National Writing Award from the American Council of the Blind in 2004

Spaghetti Dance, fiction
by Gail Brown

A watched pot never boils.

Or does it?

Jemma’s hand shook as she watched the pot of not quite boiling water.

Memories of the photos of appalling damage to her stomach and intestines swam up and overlapped the simmering water.

She wiped a tear from her eye.

She hadn’t known.

No one had.

Now, the nausea, stomach aches, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, mouth sores, exhaustion, fuzzy brain, irritability, and more, all had a name. Celiac disease.

With a solution.

Avoid all gluten.

Jemma picked up the unopened box of noodles.

Corn noodles. The store had also carried rice noodles. Something to try another day. Or another month.

She glanced at the accumulation of printed and hand written notes on the beige counter. Notes from dozens of helpful people on the internet. From basic “How to Cook” corn and rice noodles, all the way up to directions to prepare corn or rice dishes that would rival a restaurant’s wheaty pasta dishes.

Would Zarina appreciate her efforts? She would eat it either way.

Jemma breathed deeply. Once she opened the blue box, she could not return it. At least this one had been bought on sale, so did not cost much more than a medium priced wheaty pasta.

She lifted the corner and slid a few noodles out far enough to feel them. Their texture was almost identical to wheat noodles. They didn’t look like pieces of corn, nor like cornbread.

There wasn’t a smell difference either. Corn noodles were a little thinner, with a slight, difficult to describe, texture difference. Which created a visual reference if both wheat and corn noodles were on side-by-side plates.

Jemma pulled out a handful of noodles and began to break them into fourths so they would evenly cook, and be easier to eat.

Noodles snapped. Her brain wanted her to step back. Away from the noodles.

Now that she knew what was making her sick, her brain wanted her to avoid any and all noodles. Even anything resembling a gluteny dish.

Spaghetti and meatballs. What had once been her most favorite meal. Even though the last few times she had eaten it, only a few bites, and her stomach claimed she was stuffed full. As if she had eaten an entire Thanksgiving meal in one sitting.

She wasn’t allergic, or sensitive, to corn or rice though. How long would it take to accept the taste and texture change?

Jemma’s brain wanted, craved, and feared her once most favorite meal. While muscle memory urged her to cook it quickly, and savor familiar flavors, another part of her brain pressured her to run the opposite direction.

Smells, that once were delicious aromas, her brain now considered foul flavors. Sometimes, the now despised and feared taste would come back up in the bile her stomach churned. Her mouth snarled of its own accord at the odor of tomato, mushroom, basil sauce that she once adored as it gently bubbled.

Sauce simmered behind the noodles. At least that recipe hadn’t changed. Although some online recipes recommended doubling the anticipated amount, as any leftover noodles would need extra sauce to not dry out.

Jemma glanced back at her notes pile. Change would take time to become habit. Some recipe responders had taken up to a year for their brains to accept that corn or rice noodles would not harm them by causing further stomach and intestinal damage.

Making meatballs had been a time consuming adventure. Finding safe oats to use instead of gluten bread crumbs. Their texture felt off. She needed more sauce and egg yolk to make the meatballs stick together. Which she had read would keep them moister. For now, they were keeping warm inside the oven.

She could stop. Noodles could wait. Tonight, they could enjoy meatballs and sauce. One new item at a time. Zarina would understand. They had done so a week ago with gluten free buns with shepherd’s pie.

The pan of water began to softly boil.

The noodles were almost all broken up. She pulled a tiny broken corner of raw noodle off the plate to taste. It didn’t taste wrong. As the corn noodle swelled from the water in her mouth, the texture felt different than a wheaty noodle. It was difficult to describe how the noodle felt different. Not bad. Simply not as expected.

The pot boiled, with multiple bubbles at a time. She picked up the new wooden spoon and stirred the softly boiling water. Satisfied the water would continue to boil, she glanced at her notes before adding the corn pasta slowly.

Corn noodles must boil, not too rapidly, or they would all clump together. The pan had to be stirred almost constantly.

Jemma had seen pictures of what happened to corn or rice pasta if it over boiled. Many clumped together into a pile of unrecognizable grain mix. Some types of noodles evaporated completely into the water.

She heard a rustle.

Zarina peeked around the corner. “How’s it cooking?”

Jemma glanced back at the pan. “The noodles are in boiling water.” Her hand holding the stirring spoon quivered.

“It’s okay to be scared. We will test your creation soon. Call me when you are ready for me.” Zarina stepped back into the tv room.

Jemma smiled. No matter what Zarina said, or didn’t say, it wouldn’t feel correct right now. She had asked her friend to wait until dinner was prepared. Instead of normal chatter in the kitchen while she cooked. Silence, so she could focus on each step. Maybe not so different from previous shared cooking adventures. Except the first step – eliminating gluten.

The sauce popped loudly.

She turned back to stirring both the sauce and noodles.

Floppy noodles indicated they were almost done. She turned the sauce off. It would stay warm long enough.

After another minute, Jemma grabbed her corn covered pot holders, and carried the noodles to the brand new, never used, sink drainer.

After draining, she lightly rinsed them. Some recipes said not to rinse at all, others said they would clump if she did not.

She carefully poured the noodles onto two plates. With another serving or two’s worth left over in a large bowl.

She returned with meatballs warm from the oven, and ladled them onto the spaghetti. Five for each plate. She topped the noodles and meatballs with a scoop of sauce with mushrooms. Followed by a light dusting of cheese.

“Ready.”

She carried both plates to the wooden table.

There would be no garlic bread, or other items tonight. Dinner was a one new food test, as she relearned to cook. Without gluten. What had once been a staple in her daily diet.

Zarina entered the kitchen. “Smells good. As aromatic as always.”

Jemma sat carefully. “I hope dinner tastes as delicious as it smells to you.” Her mouth automatically lifted, as the sauce odor overwhelmed her. The spaghetti and meatballs almost smelled good. Cooking the meal hadn’t been as bad of an experience as she had feared.

She pulled her plate toward her. Jemma’s stomach danced in both fear and anticipation. She lifted her spoon and dipped in to mix the sauce and cheese in.

Zarina took her first bite. She chewed. She held out her spoon. “This is good. Texture isn’t far off from what we used to eat.”

She waved her spoon in the air. “Honestly, I like it better. In the last few years, wheat noodle tastes have changed, and it isn’t only the flavor.”

Jemma smiled. “Are you just saying that?” A tear tickled the corner of her eye.

Zarina pushed her spoon back into the pile on her plate. “Nope. Taste the spaghetti.” She savored the bite, quite visibly.

Jemma pushed her spoon in and sliced off a bite of meatball to go with the noodles in her first bite. She lifted her spoon to her face.

Her mouth trembled. Her eyes watered. They both craved the dinner, and begged to reject it.

She closed her eyes and waited on the sensation as her mouth closed around the noodle and meat covered spoon.

The zesty sauce was as strong as she remembered. Her tongue pushed on the meatball. The meatball felt tougher than she remembered. Sauce squeezed out. A noodle slipped between her teeth. As her tongue poked it, the noodle fell apart easier than wheaty noodles did. The taste was so similar, she couldn’t remember the difference.

Jemma smiled. She could enjoy her favorite meal again. She lifted her spoon and smiled at Zarina.

Zarina smiled back.

No words needed to be said as they ate their fill. Even if Jemma ate a little less than in years past. She would be able to enjoy spaghetti again. Once her brain and stomach accepted the gluten free version.

Bio: Gail Brown is a multi-disabled author. She is Legally blind, with ten degrees of fuzzy vision, reverse slope hearing loss, Celiac, EDS (mobility impairment), among many more disabilities.

Gail’s paired stories mirror daily life as it could be, perhaps should be, in some ways. Her novels are on her website, and her short stories have appeared in Alien Dimensions, Bards and Sages, Earth 2100 (Other Worlds Ink), Kaleidoscope, Lorelei Signal, and The Neurodiversiverse Anthology, among others.

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Lions, Zebras, and antelopes on the road, memoir
by Shawn Jacobson

One of our companions yells, “Lion.”

I turn around looking at the darkness through which our safari vehicle travels. Where is she seeing a lion, I wonder. The only lights I see are those of the vehicle illuminating this bumpy dirt road through the Serengeti. Then, what I think is a tawny spot in the road stands, and I see a lioness. We will see more lions, along with caracals and hyena cubs as we travel to the place where we will take a hot air balloon ride.

Our guide warned us that a safari is not a vacation. It is not a trip you take if you want to rest. So, it does not surprise us that we are up at 3:00 AM preparing for the day’s adventure. Just before 4:00 AM, our escort arrives to guide us from our tent at the Serengeti Plains camp to where our safari vehicle is parked. We climb in for our two-hour ride to the balloon.

During our ride, we become familiar with what the locals call “the African massage,” the bouncing feeling you get as you travel the uneven roads of Africa.

After our drive, productive in spotting game, we arrive at an area with lights and large balloons; we are here.

After coffee and biscuits, we are led to our balloon. The basket is positioned on its side, and we can look in and see where we will sit.

“Be careful,” the balloon captain says. “The fan can be dangerous.” We stand by the basket as the fan pumps air into the balloon. Then the propane heater is ignited, and the heated air pushes the balloon into the sky. This rights the basket. Once the balloon is ready, we climb in and find places to stand. The ground crew holds onto the balloon until the air is well heated. Then, they let go and our balloon lifts slowly, almost imperceptibly, into the air.

I feel a pleasant floating sensation as we meander over the ground. The grassland looks like a brown shag rug with a deep pile. This carpet is dotted with green trees and the occasional pond. One of these ponds has black dots in the center of the water. It turns out that these are the backs of hippos.

On land, one way to know where the hippos are is to follow your nose. These beasts use their manure to mark the stretch of river that they claim. So, their territory smells like a hog confinement, only intensified.

The Serengeti is drier than the other parts of Africa that we’ve seen. So, game is not plentiful. None the less, as we float along, we see zebra and various types of antelope as we float over the land. Around us, we see other ballons; there are at least eleven of these seen in various parts of the sky.

After about an hour in flight, it is time to land. Landing involves sitting on very low seats and holding onto straps so that you will not fly out of the basket if said basket ends up on its side. Before landing, I see a tower of giraffes on my right. (A “tower” is a group of giraffes.)
Once I sit down, and find a position that my knees will tolerate, I look out the chinks in the basket to see our progress. Then, there is a bump. After a succession of bumps, and almost tipping over on our side, we come to rest. We have officially landed. Once the balloon is secured, we can leave the basket. This involves sitting on the barrier between basket compartments, swinging my legs over the side, and being lowered to the ground by two of the people who secured the balloon.

Once we are down, it is time for a champaign toast. This is a ballooning tradition that celebrates the fact that we survived the journey. The support crew for the balloon sing and dance in celebration of our safe return.

Next, it’s off to another location in the bush where a full English breakfast awaits. We serve ourselves through the buffet line and enjoy some very good food. Once we’ve had our fill, and enjoyed a last cup of coffee, it is time to board our safari vehicle for the trip back to our camp.

Three days later, we will take another balloon ride through the Maasai Mara. This land has more trees and we see a wider variety of game as well as places where the Maasai graze their cattle.

Our safari features several formal game drives. These are usually right after sunrise or before sunset when the animals are most active. However, any trip through the bush can become a game drive because you never know when you will see a pride of lions alongside the road. Herds of zebra, wildebeest, and gazelles will also be seen when you least expect them. We see all of these on our return to our camp.

On one game drive, we come across a family of elephants that is crossing the road. We see these magnificent beasts close up; as it happens, we are too close. The matriarch of the elephant family grumbles at us, and our driver backs up about ten feet. We are still too close; the matriarch grumbles again. Our driver backs up a little more and the matriarch leads her family across the road. After watching the crossing, we depart in peace.

These roads range from well-defined gravel tracks to vague paths that are little more than game trails. Once, we came across a safari vehicle that was hung up on a rock. We nudged the vehicle with our truck until it came free. On another occasion, our vehicle got stuck in mud. The other vehicle with our safari returned to pull us out of the mire. While we waited, one of our companions asked, “Are those fresh lion tracks?” I left that determination of the pros.

Once we return to camp, it is time for lunch and a nap to recover some of the sleep we lost with the early start of the day. The food at the camp is simple and good. The meat is generally beef or chicken; the meal also features fresh vegetables and fruit. Once we’ve finished lunch, we have free time in the afternoon. We return to our tent, zip the tent flap to keep the mosquitoes and the monkeys out, and relax.

Our evening game drive features a sundowner. This is a tradition in Africa arising because the best way to get British soldiers to take their anti-malaria medicine was in a drink.

For our sundowner, we find a rock that stands above the Serengeti plain. We climb to a level place on the side of the rock where chairs, beer, and large cashews await. I drink my beer, eat cashews, and watch the sun as it descends through haze and bands of clouds. While we enjoy ourselves, a Maasai warrior stands atop the rock silhouetted against the sky. His job is to watch for animals that might be dangerous and to warn us if he sees them. Tonight brings no such warning.

We have not done a lot of walking on safari. However, most of the walks we do are on uneven ground. For instance, the ascent to our sundowner is over rocks where I pick my way up to our position. Once finished, I will pick my way back down—carefully, because pratfalls are a possibility. Then we are on our way back to the level ground around our safari vehicle.

It should be noted that our safari took place at altitude. The parks we visited were between four and seven thousand feet above sea level. Thus the weather was not as hot as you would expect from Africa; the temperatures are like summer in Colorado. The nights were chilly; we needed a sweatshirt to keep warm. Most lodges provide hot water bottles for beds for the same reason. The days were warm, heated by the equatorial sun. As night fell, this heat was replaced by the coolness of evening.

Once the daylight fades, we board our safari vehicles and return to camp. A fire is burning outside the main tent. We sit around the fire with another drink while supper is prepared. Once it is ready, we head to the main tent for our evening meal. Again, the food is good.

And there is a special treat tonight. When the safari began, about a week ago, our guide asked us if we were celebrating any special occasions. My wife said that we would have our 37th anniversary while on safari. Our guide contacted every safari lodge we stayed at, and so we had celebrations at every camp. The waiters would dance and sing and present us with anniversary cakes. On two occasions, we received bottles of wine. The height of these festivities came when our housekeepers decorated our bed with a “Happy Anniversary” sign made of grass and folded bath towels. We considered sleeping on the floor so as not to disturb the sign but thought better of it.

Once we’ve finished, it is time to be escorted back to our tents. Bedtime comes early on safari because we will have to wake up early for tomorrow’s dawn game drive. We also never know when hyenas will wake us up at four in the morning as they hunt through the camp.
But we do not worry about hyenas as we prepare for bed. Tomorrow will be another day with its own adventures. For now, it is time to enjoy the pleasures of the good day that we have had on safari.

Bio: Shawn Jacobson was born totally blind but attained partial eyesight through several eye operations. Since retiring, he has done a lot of traveling, visiting more than 20 countries. His travels inspire much of his nonfiction work. When not traveling, he lives in Maryland with his wife, son, sister-in-law, and an ever changing pack of dogs. His daughter lives in Baltimore.

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A Texas Pilgrimage, poetry
by Shawn Jacobson

We travel to a massive shrine of commerce
where brisket, eggs, and beaver food abound.
Gas pumps in mighty ranks before us stand
while the rodent god of Texas watches us approach.
His face is lifted high above the scene
as we the portal of this place attain.
His acolytes welcome us in with howdies
as we seek the sacred sweets that are our goal.
“Brisket on the bone,” a voice calls out
sliced or chopped the tender meat is served.
displayed in ranks on heated serving trays
for those who wish to savor this delight.
We gaze upon the great wall of jerky
then pass on to delights savory and sweet.
A bountiful array of candy bars,
trail mix of every type and kind are here.
“Brisket on the bone,” we hear again
as we search through the multitude of aisles
along with throngs of fellow pilgrims vast
all on their own peculiar quests for food.
Oh wow, what an abundance we see here
with every pathway stacked abundantly.
Here, and every appetite catered to
what other shrine is filling and fulfilling?
We find divinity upon these shelves.
It sits there boxed accessible to all.
We take our share to share out with our friends
to satisfy their taste for dainty treats.
And with our goal fulfilled, our quest complete.
and shopping cart exuberantly filled
we exit this great capitalist shrine.
The god of Texan plenty looks on.
His benediction
filled with commerce and plenty
is bestowed on us.

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How I live, poetry
by Brad Corallo

In the untethered world
where the bar has been set so low,
for deportment and decency,
one must remember with age
not to become querulous and small-minded.

One must be wary of the unfortunate human tendency
to assign blame, seeking scapegoats for
the ongoing deterioration.
There is no single person or group
fully responsible for what has happened here.

There is no graceful or satisfying maneuver
to gain release
emotionally and in some cases, physically
from reality’s not quite lethal stranglehold.

It can hit with the subtlety
of a flash-bang grenade.
distortion and painful light
as if channeled through a bargain-basement boombox.

The unloveliness of today’s pop culture
is truly not impressive.
Yet it pours into
our ears and eyes.
We learn to develop
an internal dimmer switch
to restrict and try to control
the incoming sound and fury.
Sometimes it even works.

It is what it is
and we have what we have.
It isn’t going anywhere!
So, we work to stare it down.
Continuously shaken by the effort
we move forward slowly.

Nurturing the hope within and
cultivating our fields of compassion
we make our way.
Selecting from the many gifts that adorn our path.
And this is how we live:
we laugh, we cry and we sing!

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Uteri, poetry
by Nil F. Kıncak

A guy with a uterus, a girl without one,
and a girl who is less than pleased with hers
walk into an endocrinologist’s office.
Between them three they have two uteri,
five prescriptions,
and a mix of intellectual and morbid curiosity.

The guy is there to discuss his diabetes,
type one, yet his uterus keeps coming up
even though it doesn’t up or drop
his glucose levels,
or warrant a dose adjustment to the medicines
he has been on since his elementary school years.

The girl without a uterus is an audiologist
whose research is inspired by her own endometriosis
experience. It is about menopause
and hearing loss.
Something about the female sex hormone
and what it does, if anything, to the bone.

The girl with a uterus has an orange cat at home,
a rare orange girl, that she would rather be with.
Yet just as cats die at the hand of curiosity,
her health anxiety
held her hand and dragged her down a rabbit hole.
Hence the doctor’s visit for an illusion of control.

His glucose levels look fine, and her research is timely.
Most of her symptoms are dismissed as “anxiety.”
Prescriptions at hand, forms turned in at the counter
they walk a few blocks further
to a bakery famous for its lavender-flavored goods,
order scones, and converse about work and the weather.

Bio: Nil F. Kıncak is a 24-year-old Turkish-American engineer, dance teacher, and poet living in Virginia. Her poem “OCD” is published in the Fall/Winter 2025-2026 edition of Magnets and Ladders. Her works “The Language of Senators and Nerds” and “Promise” received Honorable Mentions in the 2018 and 2019 Jane Page writing contests. Nil was diagnosed with ADHD when she was nineteen and Bipolar 2 & OCD a few years later.

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Twice on the Pipe, fiction
by Nicole Massey

In my office, my plumbing specialist, Eduardo, said, “Miss Dolly, it’s not the pipes, it’s too regular. I looked everywhere.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

“I think what’s causing it is in unit 107.”

“Okay, we’re going to 107.”

I knocked in the middle of the clanging – two clangs, then a pause, then two more. I said, “Oh holy Jehosaphat, I can’t believe it.”

The tenant answered the door – she was in her early twenties; I remembered renting the unit to her eight months ago.

I said, “It’s you doing it – stop it right now and don’t do it anymore.”

She looked like she was about to cry, but something in me remembered she looked that way when she rented the unit. “Sorry, I’ll stop.”

I played a hunch. “You’re too young to know that song.”

“My mother played it all the time.”

“Okay, so why were you doing it?”

“I was sending the message to the cute guy in 207.”

Lovely. “Well, he’s not going to get it – he moved out over a month ago.”

“Why?”

“He said he couldn’t sleep, the plumbing was too noisy. You’re lucky I rented it this morning – otherwise I’d charge you for the rent.”

“He moved out. Damn.”

“Look, you’re the one who kept rejecting him, I’m not surprised he moved.”

“I didn’t want to make it easy on him – Mom told me to make a guy work for a date.”

“Let me get this straight, you were playing hard to get?”

“Well, yeah, I was.”

“And keeping everyone up with the racket? Why shouldn’t I evict you for being a nuisance?”

“I don’t blame you. Did he leave a forwarding address?”

“Really? You think I’ll give it to you after all the noise you created? I’m not going to get on the bad side of another landlord by helping you make problems for them and their new tenant.”

“Please?”

“Nope. And if I hear any more problems from you, you’re evicted. Do you understand me?”

“Yes ma’am.”

On the way back to the office Eduardo said, “Bet you ten bucks she starts knocking on the ceiling.”

“Go away; fix something.”

Bio: Nicole Massey is a writer, composer, and songwriter, a lifelong Dallasite, and sixth generation Texan. Her degree in music was earned from the University of Texas system. She lost her sight in 2003; if you find it, she’d like to have it back. Nicole doesn’t drink coffee or wear t-shirts and sweats. This may make her an atypical writer and musician.

She can be reached at:
creations@nicolemassey.com.
She’s not on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter, but her website is: https://www.nicolemassey.com has occasional updates and writing on it. The real finds there are the subscription buttons for her newsletter and mailing list.

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Eye to Eye, nonfiction
by Jeff Flodin

Eye contact implies honesty. It helps my case to look Lola in the eye and say, “I didn’t eat that last cookie.” Even when being truthful, inadvertently averting my eyes ruins my credibility, brands me a liar and costs me a cookie.

Losing my eyesight has made eye contact hit or miss. These days, seeking voices rather than eyes is how I shoot for eye contact. The sources of sight and sound are pretty close on the face, depending on the size of the nose, right?

Conversing at dinner, I focus a little north of Lola’s voice. That scores a bullseye on her baby blues. Inversely, when Lola stands on her head( the Sirsasana yoga posture), I target a few degrees south of the humming.

Back in ’91, five years into RP, I ventured into The Silence of the Lambs. While I clearly heard the silence, I barely saw the lambs. My visual field had become peppered with blind spots. The big screen had become moth eaten.

To patch the patchwork, I scanned up…down…left…right. When Hannibal Lecter spoke, I stared at him. When Clarice replied, I stared at her. It was like watching a tennis match. Lucky for me, lots of the horror and gore fell into my blind spots. But all that up down left right gave me a stiff neck.

Thirty years into RP, the Cubs won the World Series. Game 7 lasted past my bedtime. There I lay, craning my neck to see the TV screen I couldn’t see. Only when my cervical vertebrae started popping did I say to myself, “You dummy, put your head down!”

Sometimes I forget that My eyes, my windows to the soul, have their shades drawn. But staring at the silver screen, television and iPhone is a hard habit to break. I can’t helpmyself-it’s how I learned to watch Bonanza, on dad’s first color TV, when I was nine years old, sitting on the floor, eating cookies.

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Wheels, fiction
by Mitch Austin

My grandson installed an earworm in my head last weekend when he and his little sister visited. This little diplomat negotiated a détente with his sister, allying to convince Grandma to let them watch some TV. Grandma allowed some children’s music videos, and thus installed an earworm in my old man brain.

“The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.”

Stuck in a continuous loop in my brain, that song will be with me for a few more days, keeping me company at my job as an installation technician for a mobility products company. As the babies on the bus finished crying their “wah, wah, wah,” I arrived at my week’s first job.

The house had old concrete stairs rising to meet a newer wooden ramp, both ending in a narrow landing before the front door. My knock stirred a shuffle inside. A woman in worn jeans and a T-shirt with a wet hem greeted me, swinging the door wide. The house exhaled a familiar, musty fragrance of aged humans that clung to my sinuses.

Sunbeams cut through dust that danced around used up furniture crowded so tight nothing had room to breathe. A recliner, strategically placed in front of a small flat-screen television, its arm rubbed thin to the weave from years of a hand holding a remote and resting there. The seat bore a sunken hollow shaped like a person’s backside. Framed pictures climbed the walls and marched across every flat surface, reporting a life well lived: wedding smiles, sports trophies, and babies that reappear later in graduation robes, brides’ gowns, and holding new babies.

“The stairs are this way,” the woman said, already turning.

I am a technician who installs stair lifts, wheelchair ramps, and other accessibility aids. None of it comes cheap, and too many families find out the hard way that insurance companies consider independence a luxury. My company salvages equipment that is no longer needed. I unbolt freedom from one set of stairs so it can rise on another. Today’s job is a lift no one rides anymore—a machine that did its job well, but which no longer has anyone to serve.

The wheels on his chair went round and round-tearing up the walls.

The wall told of wheel rims scraping past, chewing away the paint above the baseboards, cutting grooves, and shedding dirt and debris that filled the floor corners.

The daughter hovered behind me as I tested the old lift. It lurched halfway up the stairs and stalled, emitting a stream of beeps announcing trouble. I pressed the call button and brought it back down. It dutifully responded, expecting to provide one more ride. It’s just a machine. It doesn’t know any better. A machine that was an essential part of someone’s daily life won’t be needed anymore. Whatever disease burned away nerves and stole balance has finally released its grip.

Watching the chair descend, the daughter blinked slowly, as if each eyelid were weighted. Her blue eyes, framed with red-veined whites, were swollen from persistent tears. She held a wad of tissues crushed in her fist, ready for the next ambush of memories.

Sometimes, these jobs are just about socket wrenches and wire. Today, the lift gives up something special—a memory. When I opened the control box, I found a scrap of paper harmlessly wedged in one of the vent slots. Yellowed with age, it held a few words written in the quick looping hand of a woman: “My Dr. appt. is today at 11, Pray for me. Your lunch is in the fridge. Nuke it for 1 min. I love you ♡.” It was from a wife to her disabled husband. Her absence today is telling; a line for him and one for herself.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I found this in the chair and thought you might want it,” I said, approaching the daughter who had returned to her dishwashing. She dried her hands and accepted the paper, gasping, suppressing tears, as she read it.

“Thank you, these little things mean a lot.”

I wanted to say something wise and insightful, but the words crowded the back of my throat and stuck. I am just a technician; I know how to fix broken machines, not broken hearts. She watched as I disassembled the track, bundled it, and moved it outside. She set aside her work at the sink to hold the front door open for me—in and out of the house, hauling parts that once hummed smoothly to lift someone upstairs, but now are tossed into the back of my van.

The door on the house goes open and shut—as I do my work.

Cluttered remains of a lift chair and scarred walls revealed where the track once resided. I picked the chair’s bones clean, sealing the motor, brackets, and sensors in plastic bags and marking each with a short description. The rest clattered into a beat-up old junk box. Back at the shop, other techs will rummage through these castoffs, searching for that one golden part to restore life to another machine. The rest of the salvage parts find a new home on the warehouse shelves, waiting for installation and a new life.

Permanent outlines embossed the carpet where the support brackets were mounted—it will need to be replaced. The walls, likewise, need to be patched and painted—work for someone else, I only deal with hardware. It’s the same for every job. In and out, while some daughter, wife, son, or husband watches. In and out, as I carry away what once carried someone they loved.

The storeroom boss says, “In the back.”

Back at the shop, I fetched a pallet jack and transported the spoils of my day. Its wheels squeaked across the concrete. My junk box lands in the sort area—likely the last above-ground location these bits will see.

Steel tracks on a pallet make a one-way journey to a Gaylord box marked METALS. A warehouse worker wordlessly helped me toss them until the Gaylord looked like a box of French fries. My remote inventory entries verified, the chair lift’s life ended, at least for now.

The warehouse manager, satisfied with what he saw, clicked a few buttons on his handheld, causing a nearby printer to whirr to life and spit out a strip of barcode labels. He handed me half to apply to the parts bags. Our labeling task finished, he jerked a thumb toward the staging area at the end of a canyon of cardboard boxes—the whole transaction done without saying a word. Tomorrow, a warehouse clerk will move my parts to their appointed stock location. Stair lift components, wheelchairs, scooters, crutches, and canes wait their turn in this cold-steel maze of racks and shelves-still for now, but meant for motion.

The stair lift now goes up and down—through a new home.

“SALVAGE USE ONLY,” the workorders both said. A blocky sketch flickered on my screen, all straight lines, no curves or bends, conventional, straight-run installs, the easiest and the most common.

“Your first one is for a guy who took a spill,” the dispatcher said. “Broke his hip. They’re saying he’ll need it for half a year or so, but you know how that goes. Treat it like a permanent.”

Yeah, I know how that goes. A stumble from loose slippers or a dog toy, nothing dramatic, but enough to cause a broken hip. Clients like this always talk about “when I’m better” as if a new hip will scare their skeleton into behaving. Denial hangs around them like their housecoats, thin and worn and not nearly enough protection. I will do my part to make things look good and operate perfectly, giving no excuses to stop using this machine.

“Your second one will probably only be used for a year, maybe two.”

This one was likely for someone whose chart is full of bad news. Cancer. End stage. I’ll install a track that is functional and safe, but will show its history with scars in the paint and a few dings where other people’s lives bumped into it. These clients struggle to buy an expensive new machine, expecting to use it for a year or two, so we sell them a salvaged one at a barely break-even price. Management calls it the cost of doing business, but it feels more like tithing-shaving profit to buy someone a little dignity. Even with a tired old salvage machine bolted to their stairs, they get something that matters, a bridge, carrying them back into rooms they thought they would never again see.

The man and his wife have freedom now—allowing both to live.

The first installation was simple, taking longer to unload the parts from my van than to install them. The client watched my every wrench twist and wire tug, lips pursed tight, eyes narrowed like a man herded by pushy offspring. After finishing my tests, I asked him to run a trial.

“I don’t need this contraption. Rip it out for all I care.”

“Yes, sir. But my boss will make me explain why I did that. Maybe you can help me out by taking a ride and telling me why it should go. Otherwise, I’ve got to leave it in.”

He cast a rather vicious look at me and then at the lift.

“Fine. How does this fool thing work?”

“Just come over here and sit down like any other chair. You can use the seat belt if you want, but you don’t have to.”

He gripped his cane, shoved up from his chair, and hobbled to the lift with a grimace as his healing hip complained. I steadied him as he dropped into the seat, crossing his arms in defiance. There would be no seat belt.

“Move this little rocker switch to the right, and the chair will start to move up your stairs. I will follow along beside you.”

After a few hesitant starts, stops, and a handful of curses, he reached the top.

“Now you can step off.”

He timidly planted his cane and stepped off. His gaze swept around the second floor with an expression of disbelief. He shuffled into his bedroom, a room he hadn’t seen for weeks. I could tell by the look on his face that I would not be ripping that contraption out today. He beamed from ear to ear.

“OK, shall we go down the stairs now?”

The chair had added spring to his step, giving his shuffle purpose.

“Thank you, mister. I’ll keep this for now. It seems to work.”

We did a few more runs, then I handed him my business card, asked him to call me if he had any trouble, and packed my tools. Sitting in my van, I dug out my phone and looked up my next client. A gravelly voice answered my call. The voice was the next-door neighbor, helping while the family was at the hospital. The neighbor opened the house for me when I arrived, then promptly disappeared.

This house was different, clean and neat as a pin. Family pictures displayed children and grandchildren, but none showed a man-the tell-tale sign of divorce. The house appears to shelter only one very sick person. I said a little prayer that she won’t have to go through her illness alone.

The track I brought for this job was a few inches too long, not perfect, but close enough, and installed without trouble. The lift powered up, ran perfectly, and landed in the correct location. The chair stopped and issued complaining beeps when I tested all of the safety switches. Leaving paperwork and my business card on the dining room table, securing my tools in the van, I twisted the front door knob lock and called the neighbor.

“Yeah, I’ll come over and check what you did and lock up.”

The growly neighbor was in no hurry to check my work and make sure I wasn’t robbing the place. I took advantage of my wait to finish paperwork. No actual paper anymore, just my laptop balanced on my knee. When I started in this business, everything was paper and clipboards. Now it’s all smartphones, screens, and Wi-Fi. A motorized stair lift, once considered a liability, is now a selling point. My, how our world has changed.

Back at the shop, I checked in with our dispatcher. As usual, she had an assignment for me—this time, a new install. The parts arrived from the factory this morning, so I’ll start work tomorrow. I take my work for granted, a small job doing ordinary things, but it wasn’t always this way. The world is different from when I began years ago. I feel a quieter kind of possibility built into what has become commonplace. I don’t have a name for it, perhaps a revolution of freedom. I just know it feels like the way things are supposed to work.

And a new song is stuck in my head…

A mobility revolution is at hand, is at hand, is at hand. A mobility revolution is at hand-thanks to our good work.

Bio: Mitch retired from a technology career to pursue writing fiction and fighting MS and CLL health problems. Writing from his wheelchair, he has published three novels: The Last Ornament, He Tripped Me, and Lessons from Larry, contributed short stories to the When We Pray and And God Made Pets anthologies, won first place in the Magnets and Ladders-Active Voices of Writers with Disabilities, 2025 Spring/Summer edition, with the short story “The Forester”. Mitch is also an active participant in writers’ groups and is a contributor, editor, and publisher of an anthology of writing prompt responses.

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Part VII. A Breth of Spring and Summer

Springing, poetry
by Lisa Busch

Winter soaped the panes with snow,
stripped the summer of all its dress,
and teased the rose with spots of sun.
Christmas sneezed joy out of ice,
then hibernation lived again.
A tired world lemoned aloud
until the Father motioned seedlings
to bake the earth bud-green.
Then wrens wakened with trilled surprise-
singing what a little price they’d paid for all this gold.

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The Secret of the Seed, Fiction
by Kate Chamberlin

I rested in the warm embrace of the rich loam wondering what I would be when I grew up;

The spring rain came and moistened my husk, penetrating through to my inner sacrum;

I felt my roots sink downward into the nourishing soil;

My stem pushed up into the sunlight;

I stretched my little tendrils up to grasp the trellis and hung on for dear life as the wind tried to shove me away;

The gusts taunted my large, beautiful, green leaves into becoming kites, but my stem and tendrils persevered and held on;

Old Man Winter pruned my vine back to only the sturdiest stems;

Mother Nature encouraged me to grow stronger and thicker during springs and summers;

I grew up the trellis, covering the whole arbor prior to inflor-essence;

Lovers would sit on the cement bench to snuggle and chat beneath my shade;

I dazzle them with my floral blooms, scenting the air to create a festive aura;

The secrets I heard made my fruit sweet and juicy;

Yes, I like being a grape vine.

It beats being a fly on the wall!

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Marjorie’s Seedling, the Saga of a Plum Tree, nonfiction Honorable Mention
by Sarah Das Gupta

In early Spring, the plum tree in the back garden came into bloom. Sheltered by the long veranda which ran along the back of the house, its delicate, pale pink blooms were protected from the bitter, east winds which blew through the garden from the fifty- acre field beyond.

When I was eight, I discovered the tree’s romantic significance. My father had been in the Royal Navy during World War II. and was a stranger to me when he returned. My hazy memory of the war is limited to watching German planes returning, in fading light, from the bombing of London. As the stars began to appear, pin pricks in the night sky, secure in my mother’s arms, I watched the planes flying over my grandparents’ moonlit garden.

When he finally returned in 1945, my father planted the plum tree, then a fragile sapling. Only later did I discover the variety chosen, Marjorie’s Seedling! My mother was “Marjorie” and I was the “seedling”. The tree grew and I grew with it. Even in the first years, the tree was covered in those delicate blooms. For me, no bloom can challenge that of the plum framed against a grey, March sky. Spring followed Spring, and the sapling flourished. My father always scythed the grass round the trunk and in Autumn he fed it “a good forkful” of horse dung.

The fact that in late March, the exquisite blossom appeared on bare branches, seemed a sign that winter was at last retreating. It is not surprising that in Japan, China and Taiwan, the plum blossom is a symbol of renewal, perseverance and survival. My favorite memory is the plum blossom on a rare day of early Spring sunshine, with a jigsaw of intense blue, in the gaps between the branches. Planted on slightly rising ground, the now almost mature tree seemed to gracefully preside over the garden, a living deity.

By April, the plum would be in full leaf. Sober, darkish green leaves, contrasted with the rather frivolous emeralds and light greens in the rest of the garden. Soon the fruit had begun to appear on the branches. By September, it was ready to pick. Mottled, dark blue and purple, medium-sized, it does not compete with the red, rather brash fruit, of varieties like Victoria.

At the end of September, through October, the leaves slowly turned yellow. They formed a golden and brown shroud round the plum’s trunk. Early frosts were followed by snow blizzards and freezing east winds. Often at New Year, the branches were dressed in white layers of snow, turning the stark winter branches into glistening, fairy wands.

Much as I enjoyed watching the tree through the year, I must admit eating the fruit was even more satisfying. In most years we harvested plums from the end of September. A hazard to be wary of was the wasps which had eaten their way into fallen fruit and were not always seen by the careless picker. Usually, we gathered enough plums to fill a preserving pan, Marjorie’s Seedling is a heavy cropping variety, so we picked as much fruit as we could deal with, before it rotted. The first lot were destined to be plum jam which lasted the family over the coming year.

I have happy and treasured memories of jam making from the age of ten. The ingredients are basic and simple: fruit, lemon juice, sugar and water. No pectin needed as this variety, as with most varieties of plum, already contain plenty of pectin. We always removed the stones for safety reasons.

The exciting part for me was the “wrinkle” test. Under my mother’s watchful supervision, I pushed my finger over a sample of the boiling jam, cooled for a few minutes in the “fridge”. If the surface wrinkled, it was ready to be poured into the sterilized jars. It was fascinating to me, watching the jam taking the shapes of old coffee jars, large jars which had once contained pickled onions or empty chutney jars. As if by magic, they were filled with a rich ruby concoction.

There followed a great sense of satisfaction, seeing the strange collection of jars with their promise of a year of tasty toast, jam Roly Poly, Victoria sponge, Swiss roll, jam tarts, steam puddings and humble bread and butter, spread with our own jam! This feeling returned every time I opened the corner cupboard in the drawing room.

My mother’s experience of the War years and rationing encouraged her to continue some of the habits and methods she had used in the past. One was the use of Kilner jars to preserve fruit and vegetables, to sustain a varied diet, despite food shortages.

The quantity of fruit produced by the plum tree could not be put to good use in the weeks of early autumn. The plums had to be preserved in some way. After all there was a limit to how much jam we could or should eat! Hence the use of Kilner jars well beyond 1945.

These jars were patented in the 1850’s and were particularly popular in times of shortages or rationing. The key to success is to create a vacuum seal at the top of the jar between the contents and the screw top. I enjoyed selecting and washing the plums to be used, discarding the damaged or over-ripe. Standing on a stool, I could reach the kitchen sink and sort through a preserving pan full of autumn fruit. I also cleaned the screw tops with a fine toothbrush. Any tiny crumbs could stop the vacuum forming. My mother completed the filling of the jars. We stood proudly looking at the rows of plum-filled jars stored on cool, shady shelves. I looked out of the back windows at the last few plums on the tree. My father always claimed, “There is nothing like eating one of the last plums of the season on a bracing autumn morning,”

Even after more than 80 years, I agree with him!

Bio: Sarah Das Gupta is a disabled writer from Cambridge, UK who has taught English in India, Tanzania and UK. She began writing at aged 80, after a disabling accident which has severely limited her walking. Her work has been published in over 25 countries in literary magazines and anthologies. She has recently been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart and a Dwarf Star.

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The Fruit of the Garden, ekphrastic, Sonnet poetry
by Sarah Das Gupta

Fruits born of an Indian summer,
exotic, erotic, purple bloom.
Growing now, darker plumper,
tempting in the sunlit room.
Plums of Eden’s first glory,
Yellow flesh, in leafy groves.
Part of that innocent story,
the Garden, a treasure trove.

Spilling from a woven basket,
untouched bloom, a tempting glow.
Framed now by a floral crown,
no shadow yet to mask it.
Perfect, ripe, alluring, mellow,
the Garden of divine renown.

Sonnet inspired by the painting
“Red Plums” by Pierre Bonnard

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New Beginnings, Nonet poetry
by Fiona Linday

Really, what’s so special about Spring?
Waving goodbye to cold, dark days
Dancing daffs replace snowdrops
Bluebells fill woodland walks
Sunshine happens longer
Colours bless us
Joyous warmth
Offers
Hope

Bio: Fiona Linday supported literacy in schools for twenty years. After Earning a Creative Writing Certificate, she wrote a prize-winning short story, Off the Beaten Track. She earned a Unique Writing Publications Story Award with Love. Her YA novella about loss is called Get Over It, Adventures. Her eBook of YA short stories is The Heavenly Road trip. Fiona enjoys freelance facilitating with lifelong learners. She received Arts Council England grants for Family Matters & Making Our World Better community anthologies. Her collection of stories and poetry is Count Our Blessings. Recently, she edited Moments of Grace-Creative Nonfiction & Poetry by Scriptorium Writers and Guests.
Fiona lives with a couple of life-adapting, chronic diseases.

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Ode to the Peach Tree, poetry
by Wesley D. Sims

Your petite pink blossoms brighten
the gardens and hillsides, light up
the dark drab colors of winter, alert me
that real Spring is truly close at hand.
I imagine your blooms highlighting
the hair of young maidens, petals
pinned there like bows, or a string
of them like the crown of a princess.
Images of a cluster of you conjure for me
small jars lining pantry shelves, gleaming
yellow and orange with jelly, preserves
or marmalade, treats that put a sweet finish
on breakfast, topping a homemade biscuit
like my dad finished his with. Your rough
bark dissuades youngsters from climbing.
Visions of my grandfather are called to mind
holding upright a tender fork of your limbs
taking slow steps and waiting for them
to twist downward as he searches for water
to show a neighbor where to dig their well.

Bio: Wesley Sims has published five chapbooks of poetry: When Midnight Comes, 2013; Taste of Change, 2019; A Pocketful of Little Poems, 2020; Where Saints Have Gone, 2025; and A funny Thing Happened on the Way to Maturity, 2025.

He has had poems nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart prize. His work has appeared in Artemis Journal, Bewildering Stories, Connecticut Review, G.W. Review, Liquid Imagination, Plum Tree Tavern, Proverse, Quill & Parchment, Novelty Magazine, Poem, Poetry Quarterly, Time of Singing, Wordgathering*, and several other journals and anthologies.

He lost hearing completely in one ear and has severe hearing loss in the other.

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Morning Song, poetry
by Natalie Warren

A love indeed
Bird songs await
Waking up at the hour of dawn
First sounds of bird calls prompt the day
A robe and scarf got the body moving
Out on the rocking chair I greet its calls with glee

A quick dip with my feet on cool grounds
Sensing the crisp air and breathing in its freshness
Absorbing the song of morning calls from every direction
Echoing all around in a world of symphony

Rain or shine they show up always
High and low, trees and branches they go
On a catch of surprise, sits the most adoring bird
Starting the day full of liveliness
A reminder of a new beginning
No matter where we are

“Morning Song” was published in the Avocet: Journal of Nature Poems, Summer 2025.

Bio: For Natalie Warren, music has been a natural companion and passion throughout her life. Diagnosed as legally blind in adulthood, her journey continues with great wonderment, incorporating adaptive ways to continue her artistic and creative work as a musician, educator, visual artist and writer. Mrs. Warren is a Library of Congress Certified Literary Braille Transcriber and works toward Music Braille Transcriber. Her writing works have been published in The Avocet: Journal of Nature Poems, The Weekly Avocet, and The MockingOwl Roost. The joy that bridges music, art and poetry has opened a new door to an exciting and empowering journey.

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A Summer Palette, poetry
by Debra A. K. Thompson

Chilling on the deck of a cruise ship,
crossing the Caribbean Sea,
mesmerized by the exotic cobalt waters –
a blue like none I’ve ever seen.

Swaying along with the waves,
green and brown turtles
drift through the glassy teal currents,
gold and silver fish
make their journey, too.

Clouds like snowballs
pillow the periwinkle horizon.
while a flock of black birds,
look for their next meal,
as they float over the emerald ocean.

Witnessing a perfect view of paradise,
the gentle breeze of summer kisses my cheek.
As I laze in my Chaise lounge
a tequila sunrise cools my hand,
I could linger outside all day;
enjoying the transparency of this bottomless teal ocean
witnessing natures full display.

Bio: Ms. Debra A. K. Thompson, Riverview, Florida, is a visually impaired writer who enjoys writing poetry, children’s books and other non fiction topics of interest. She is a singer and songwriter who loves performing her music with her family group Dynamic Vision Singers all around her community.

She is the author of 5 books:.
Dollars With Sense, October 2023
Baby Sue Learns To Count, March 2023
Pennies Make Dollars, June 2022
Enlightenment II Building Self-Esteem Through Poems & Positive Affirmations, January 2020
Enlightenment Looking Back to Move Forward, September 2017
Debra’s contact information is:
website http://www.debrathewriter.com and her email is: debrathewriter55@gmail.com

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At the Shore, Sestina poetry
by Mona Mehas

skin won’t snap back like it did before
my hair is thinning, dry and gray
I walk toward the distant shore
sit in the sun, watch children play
while gulls above the water soar
sunset signals the end of day

with the beginning of each new day
this one warmer than the one before
I breathe fresh air, my spirit soars
a storm blows in; the sky turns gray
youthful memories bring sense of play
I dance in rainfall along the shore

moonlight on the golden shore
reminds me of the coming day
stars across the cosmos play
their old ritual performed before
the sky turns blackness into gray
swallows in the twilight soar

young people let loose kites to soar
while old folks walk along the shore
shadows cast in shades of gray
my arms upraised to greet the day
the sky is different from before
sun smiles on me as if to play

untempered joy of gleeful play
into a dune my sunhat soars
taller than I’d seen before
reflected at the water’s shore
to usher in a brand-new day
the skyline pink instead of gray

an older man with hair of gray
carries a child who squirms to play
picks up feathers fallen that day
they toss them up and watch them soar
save one back; carry it to shore
I am changed; not like before

black and white before, now I see gray
the shoreline taught me how to play
where seagulls soar at end of day

Bio: Mona Mehas (she/her) is a retired disabled teacher in Indiana USA with 6 chapbooks. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize (Paddler Press 2023, TV-63 Project, 2025) and Best New Poet (Lucky Jefferson 2024). Mona’s work has appeared in multiple publications and online museums. She helps edit a small press, works with an online Star Trek fan magazine, is a former President of the Poetry Society of Indiana, and is Indiana Co-Leader for Authors Against Book Bans. Despite osteoporosis, multiple fractures, and surgeries she writes every day.

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If I could Fly, poetry
by Debra A. K. Thompson

If I could fly with flocks of birds,
what would I see?
I would see the rippling ocean
with its magnificent blues and greens.
Schools of fish and pods of whales;
turtles and sea lions all around.
I would see the Luminescent corals
abundantly displayed
with yellow, green, and salmon designs
dotting the seascape;
like a painters palette primed for creativity.

Flocks of birds would welcome me
into their summer vacation.
Without feathers to swaddle me,
I fly like a kite,
and swing by my hair,
while absorbing the golden rays
of a summer lit day.
I continue to float through the steely blue-gray skies.
A black raven hoists me higher in the air,
I can feel the freedom he feels
while flying among the doves and eagles.

Seasons change slowly from spring to summer.
Moving like a pendulum through time,
I swing in rhythm.
Would I understand all I see?
The teal sky above me;
the periwinkle blue gray ocean below me,
But I have no wings to land.

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Sprawling Darkness, kyrielle, poetry
by Mona Mehas

broad arms outstretched in night’s caress
bright stars peek through the rustling leaves
I wander in the cooling breeze
surrounded by sprawling darkness

relieved of all the work week stress
the forest scent pervades my hair
full moon lays down its cold fleece stare
surrounded by sprawling darkness

I meet the trees to decompress
remove the city mask I wear
become an owl without fanfare
surrounded by sprawling darkness

my skin and tree bark coalesce
are mutated in dregs of night
with my wings spread erupt in flight
surrounded by sprawling darkness