Welcome to Issue 14, January 2010
Welcome to our first issue of the new year. We’re off to a great start with some excellent selections that we hope you’ll find just as entertaining and thought-provoking as we did. Let us and our authors know what you think by rating this issue’s entries and leaving your comments. Here’s to the new year!
Featured Artwork: Start Packing
| by Alexandra Mazarakis |
  (2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ... |
Featured Fiction: Branded in Gray
| by Dawn Allen |
(7 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5) Loading ... |
I’ve learned two things about prison life.
First, never let them see you sweat.
Cons love victims.
Second, never make eye contact because the only thing worse than being seen as a victim is to be seen as an aggressor.
Prison life is full of oxymorons, lose-lose situations. Under the circumstances, I’ve been lucky. I was tried as a juvenile, the result of an early birth date and a sympathetic judge. Definitely factors in my favor. So, I’m serving my time in a juvenile facility.
Even at that, I swear once I leave here, I’ll never have gray in my life again. I’m surrounded by gun-metal gray cinder block walls, white tiled floors that have aged to a nasty shade of mouse gray, storm gray cell doors. Even the food is gray. No kidding, the meatloaf has a corpse gray cast to it, so does the spaghetti. I don’t want to know how they manage that. My prison world is reminiscent of my post-incident nightmares. Except in them I see some things in color.
My days are beyond boring. I attend school, work a detail, and read a lot. I was never much of a reader before. Now I find myself reading whatever I can get my hands on. Bob, my counselor, could probably psychoanalyze my reading choices. I never share that information with him. Not that he doesn’t know. Nothing’s lost in prison. Every move you make is watched and analyzed. It breeds paranoia.
Then, one day Bob pays me a visit.
Stumble it!