Coyote
A coyote ate my cat. He licked the bones clean and left them at the back door, for me to find. In the grass, there were tuffs of orange fur, stained in blood
Seven Lemon Trees
Daddy died when I was a baby. Mama says that when I was born, and daddy still had steady hands, he could hold me in just one palm and rock me to sleep. She says he would smile while I tried to keep my eyes open just to stare at his. “She’s more beautiful than the stars,”
Pub Chug-a-Lug
by Michael Cuglietta I live in a small apartment with a busted heater. It’s an outdated wall unit that spits an inadequate puff of hot air. In the morning, my bed sheets crack under me like a thin layer of ice. I run for the heater
Middle of Nowhere
by Carol O'Dell The gas station door strains against my pull. Wafts of mildew and burnt coffee. Middle of nowhere. “Welcome,” a woman says without looking up from her paper. She’s perched on a stool, a wall of cigarettes behind her. Her bleach-blonde hair spun like fiberglass. Short shelves come into focus.
A Little Help From Your Friends
A pair of stories about unexpected friendships in unexpected places.
Fishing in the Intercoastal
by Elaine Rosenberg Miller The sea was green. An hour or so earlier, it had been steel gray. Now, like some animated blanket, the verdant water cover spread towards their eighteen-foot motorboat. She had never been on the sea before, having been born and raised in a large, noisy city. The silence and empty space of the horizon were unsettling. The boat was made of fiberglass. Discarded beer cans rolled on its bottom. The vinyl seats were worn and cracked, the plastic windshield dull … They had borrowed the boat for the day. She held her fishing pole lamely in her hand, reluctant to reel in the line, lest she discover that she had no bait and would have to reach into the bucket and pinion a squirrelly, tomato seed-eyed shrimp. The boat had no radio, no flares and no water. Feelings of restlessness swelled her body. “What am I doing here?” she thought. She would have liked to have stayed back in the apartment and work the crossword puzzle in the out of town newspaper. The local paper published announcements of picnics, bible meetings and the county fair. “I can’t live in a place that has no sidewalks,” she had cried. But he asked her to stay. It was his hometown. She