Archive for July, 2010

Welcome to Issue 17, July 2010

by the Editors

Welcome the Flood

by Bogi Takács

Welcome the Flood

Stranger’s Child

by Anna Schwind

I have one of those faces. The kind everyone finds familiar. Two or three times a week someone will ask me if I didn’t bunk with them at girl scout camp, or if I didn’t attend that poetry workshop last summer, or whether I go to a yoga class at the rec. center.

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The Capture of Snake-Eyed Sue

by David Washburn

Sheriff Max Steele stepped out into the dark, dusty street. Looking at The Wild Horse Saloon, he fixed his eyes on the light shining from the door. “Shame to have to ruin such a peaceful day, but a man has to do his job.”

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Music of a Family Man

by Gwen Veazey

Braz forgot he had on sandals with no socks and ran as fast as he could up to Olin’s Meadow where they played football. He stumbled a few times climbing the slope. Gaining the ridge, he saw no one anywhere, and ran all the way through the meadow, the tall grass, and beyond the rocks and pines to the blustery overlook. Shivering and panting, he was calmed by the cloudless sky and newly greening mountains all around. But God might as well have reached in his chest, grabbed his heart and thrown it down in the gorge when he saw what was strewn on the furthest boulder. Darren’s new shoes, button up shirt, and jeans. He made himself step up and look over the edge, but it was hard to tell what was below except for trees. The time-stopping stillness ended as a hawk neared. Then another joined it, circling something below. No … not hawks, buzzards.

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Rainbow’s End

by Aubrie Dionne

I stared at the neutral blossoms, trying to decipher shades of darkness and pale light. The language of colors eluded me, like a distant notion of another world I couldn’t touch. I’d played along, listening to my mother mouth the words and point to objects, but I never truly understood.

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Seeds

by M.M. Bergstrom

“This is your new baby brother,” said Shala’s mother as she pressed the small girl’s hands to the warm, teardrop shaped fruit. “See how heavy the pod is? He will open soon.”

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Wagon Wheels

by Angelina Morris

Somewhere around 1930 I lost my house to a fire that was deemed suspicious but never proven. Hell ya, it was suspicious, I torched the sucker. Lit it up like a firecracker rather than see it go to the county for a hunting lodge or something, anyway somewhere around there I started reading. First, I thought if I picked up a few carpentry books I could learn enough to build me a new cabin but the more I read the more my feet started itchin’ to move. So I built a wagon. Nothing fancy. Just big enough to wrap myself in at night and still have enough room to lift up my head and hear the wind.

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