CONTENTS 4
A Precious Milestone AIKO M.
5
My Ellen Shoes KELLIE MCNABB
7
Sink or Stand ASHLEY NEWTON
9
The Cottage by the Sea KYLE CLIMANS
Front Cover
ASHLEY NEWTON
2
Back Cover
ASHLEY NEWTON
FREE LIT MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Ashley Newton aenewton91@gmail.com
Staff Writers
Kyle Climans, Ashley Newton
Contributors
Aiko M., Kellie McNabb
Colophon Free Lit Magazine is a non-profit literary magazine committed to the accessibility of digital literature for all readers. Our mission is to form an online creative community by encouraging writers, artists, and photographers to practice their passion in a medium that anyone can access and appreciate.
Milestone
There is much to celebrate in life, and often much to reflect upon. There comes a time for all of us when we must acknowledge our important milestones; the turning points in our lives that make us say, “Everything changed after ___ happened.” Milestones are also often associated with the trials and tribulations it takes to reach them. After all, nothing worth celebrating should come without a little effort and determination. Perhaps that’s what makes the celebration all the more worthwhile. This fall, Free Lit Magazine turns two years old. Although a young publication, the hours spent perfecting every page, every word, and every detail feel easier when the triumph of building and maintaining something anew rests at the forefront. Sometimes our greatest failures can be symbolic in our milestones. Had it not been for a few failures this magazine wouldn’t exist, and even with the occasional stumbles such work requires, it’s all been a rewarding ride. Everything changed after Free Lit Magazine happened. Ashley Newton Editor-in-Chief
Contact freelitmag@gmail.com
Next Issue The Humour Issue November 2016
3
A Precious Milestone AIKO M.
Hip hip hooray, Today is the day, 3 cheers to an awesome year! Although the end of the year is near, And soon we won’t be able to hold back the tears, For we celebrate these valuable years together, And for sure we will celebrate more altogether. This is the time to laugh and cheer, Everyone we know who is sad must steer clear, For this is no laughing matter, As we shall make all negative thoughts shatter. Bring out the balloons, the sparklers, and the cake, Let’s make a picnic near a big lake, We will sing and dance until the next day, And make sure to play fun games today! Now is the time to look forward to the next great big thing, For I know next year will have a lot of good fortune to bring, Let us toast, while singing a song, Rejoice together singing along. Hip hip hooray, Tomorrow is a new day, 3 cheers to another great year!
4
My Ellen Shoes KELLIE MCNABB
I set five goals for myself: 1. Complete an IRONMAN triathlon. 2. Write a book about it. 3. Find a publisher. 4. Be on Ellen. 5. Have my book made into a movie. Goal #1 An Ironman is a triathlon which includes a 3.8k swim, a 180k bike and a 42.2K marathon run that you must complete within 17 hours in order to be called an Ironman. Goal #2 I wrote a book about the journey from divorced basketcase to IRONMAN. Here is what my story is about: ONE: The Power of One Step is the true story of a woman who thinks that becoming an IRONMAN will put all of the pieces of her divorced, broken, needy life back together again, but with a little faith, trust, and love, discovers so much more. The book weaves physical endurance, community outreach, and weight loss struggles with humour throughout. Goal #3 I wasn’t going to self-publish. I knew that I wanted to find a publisher who connected with my story and would publish my book. And I did. Goal #4 I have not been on Ellen DeGeneres’ show yet, but I have the shoes! They are colourful and fun and the heels look like chocolate/strawberry/vanilla ice cream cones. They are perched proudly on a ledge in the closet as a symbol of the day that I will wear them on Ellen. There is something about having a tangible reminder of your goals that makes it all so much more real. Goal #5 My first three goals are complete. I believe that four and five are on the way. I have always been a firm believer in vision boards. To create a vision board, you take a piece of 5
Bristol board or poster board and you flip through magazines and when you feel drawn to a certain word or image, you cut it out and glue it onto the board. I like to get together with my girlfriends and create vision boards. Before my friends arrive, I secretly search for pictures of the actors who I imagine will star in my movie. My more spiritual friends say that this is cheating and that a proper vision board is one where you are open to the images that come up. So I make a more organic board with my friends and then, after they leave, I create a second vision board using the pictures that I want. I see my book as a movie and, although I know that I am shooting for the moon, I have always believed the quote that encourages us all to “shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
KELLIE MCNABB
6
Sink or Stand
ASHLEY NEWTON I felt the talons lift me from quicksand Only to later drop me in the middle Of an ocean I could not navigate. The sentiment was jarring and yet implicit In teaching me to yield decisions, For their outcomes will remain the same. I reiterated the waters were no place to stand, Yet I continued to write the pages of a riddle That increasingly grew more difficult to create. I understood my mind was refractory to change; explicit And demanding of its favoured provisions. The apprehension proliferated. That was its aim.
7
ASHLEY NEWTON
8
The Cottage by the Sea KYLE CLIMANS
The man’s sight was blurred with tears.
The hot sun—free from the shackles of clouds or wind—burned his clothes and his skin with impunity. The waves seemed so small from so high up on the cliff. Lines of white in the blue sea moving towards the shore, only to shatter and dissolve into nothing.
Would that happen to him?
He sat on the ledge, weeping from the strain that his nerves were being put through.
“Good morning.”
Shocked out of his misery, the man turned around without standing up. A middleaged woman was slowly approaching him. He froze. Would she try to stop him? Had she phoned the police? The woman saw his change of expression and stopped where she was. They were about six metres apart, but the man felt that she looked over him and almost felt as though he was being pushed forward by her sheer presence. And due to all his heightened emotions, he could not see how relaxed the woman stood, how her hands were held loosely at her hips, nor did he perceive anything in her soft, melodious voice except hostility.
“May I speak with you?”
He flinched, as though being struck, “Why?”
“Because it’s a beautiful day, and for the past while I haven’t had someone to speak with properly.” Somewhere, under the layers of grief, bitterness, and fear, a bubbling thought belonging only to curiosity seemed to stubbornly push its way to the surface of his mind.
“Why not?”
She gave the same smile towards the question as she would if someone had approached her after a potluck dinner and declared her contribution to be their favourite. “Because my house is a long way from town, and while I get many e-mails or letters, most people don’t have the time to visit me during the week.” 9
Her simple declaration of loneliness was surprising to him. He was unfamiliar with the practice of such open conversation.
“Would you like to come inside for a cup of tea?”
He almost looked back at the waves. The sound of the water was rhythmic, eternal, and inevitable. The calls of seagulls almost spoke his name. But he did not look back. He found himself unable to look away from her soft brown eyes, her beautiful face with its lines and wrinkles only enhancing the beauty of life.
He carefully edged forward and stood up.
“Alright.” Her smile widened as he walked towards her. Together they went, side by side, past his hastily placed car, to a small house that he found himself recognizing as a building he’d previously passed without paying it much heed. The tea was warm, and the Dutch cookies she laid out on the table were sweet and had a delightful taste of ginger, or so he guessed. The woman sat with him as he spoke. He spoke of his agonies and grievances. He wept as he recounted his failed marriage, and the way his children preferred the man his wife was now seeing. His boss promoted a sycophant to a position he had long coveted, and his landlord was an irresponsible drunk. It all came out in a rushing tide of anguish which was impossible to stem or dam up. The woman held his hand and spoke softly to him, urging him that no good would have come from his desperate decision to die. He sighed and shook his head. All this had been said before, and rather than inspiration, he felt numbness, and as he thought upon the good and kind words being wasted upon himself, he felt the fear within re-emerge to seize his throat and stomach in an icy grip. His eyes met the woman’s, and despite being under the gaze of such a benevolent and trustworthy person, his shame and despair gave way to bitterness and impotent fury. He stood up all of a sudden, but lacked an idea of what to do next, so he simply stood and glared, feeling all the rage in the world with no clear target but himself. He found, after a moment, that he was shouting, though the tone presented such little threat, despite its volume, that the woman had barely reacted. 10
“... after all this, how can anyone talk to me of waste?! What sort of mark am I expected to leave upon the world? I’m insignificant! No, worse! I’ve spread misery to anyone who has known me! I wish I had never been born so that I didn’t have to deal with this miserable mess of a life!” He noticed then that the woman had not reacted in any way beyond slowly moving her chair backward so that she too could stand up. She seemed not to fear him, and he found that his anger, though still hot inside of him, evaporated at the mere thought of harming this woman or any single one of her possessions.
“Why? Why any of this?” The man asked, suddenly meek in the face of such a person.
The woman sighed and gave her answer:
“I once had two sisters. We loved each other more than anything. We spent most of our childhoods playing with each other. “But one day, my older sister stopped playing with us. She would come back from school and go to her room to be alone. We thought she was angry with us but we didn’t understand why. “After a while, we decided that if she was going to ignore us, we would ignore her. We got used to playing together without her. Then we went from ignoring her to disliking her. She would often get upset and argue with our parents, and we would take their side no matter what. She fought with us and we said horrible things to each other. “It got worse and worse. She would come home with letters from teachers and the principal. Our parents would shout at her and took away her music and books. She shrieked that everybody hated her, and none of us disagreed. And then one day, she didn’t come downstairs for breakfast. “Our mother went upstairs to get her, and we heard her scream. She kept screaming even after our father ran upstairs to see what had happened. My sister and I stayed where we were because we were so scared. After a moment, we heard sirens, and my father came downstairs, crying as he opened the door. Mother was still upstairs. She didn’t stop shrieking and she sobbed for hours.” The story—paused many times as the woman stuttered through sobs and dried her eyes—filled him with horror and sadness. He felt himself crying but did nothing about it. Instead, he slowly lowered himself back into his chair as the woman continued. “After the funeral, my sister and I stopped playing together. We barely spoke. Every word we spoke seemed wrong. Like each word was another that we had stolen from our oldest sister and kept to ourselves. Our parents never recovered, and slowly we all went our separate ways. I found a woman in university who I loved, and I tried to put everything 11
behind me. I didn’t feel anything when I heard that my father had been lost to his alcoholism, or that my sister was killed in a car crash. They were people who I wanted to forget and leave behind. And so I never spoke to my mother before she lost her life to cancer. “One day, after my relationship ended, I found this cottage was on sale for a price I could afford. A month after I bought it, I found out why. I saw five people jump to their deaths within a year of living here. And every time I came out to save them. “When I saw the first person approach the cliff—a young woman in her twenties, I believe—all I could think of was how in all the time my oldest sister had fallen into depression I had never asked her how she was feeling, or whether I could help. And so now I go out and offer what little help I can give to anyone who comes here to die.” The man was shaken. He simply asked one question in a hoarse voice, “How many have jumped?”
The woman paused, “I don’t keep count. One was too much.”
The man nodded in agreement. He stood up.
“I don’t know how I can thank you for all that you’ve done.”
The woman smiled, and the sight of such gratitude and relief filled the man’s eyes with fresh tears of guilt. When she got up to embrace him, he was so blinded that he could barely leave through the door. He didn’t look back to the cliff, or the cottage. He knew how he could best thank this saint. He got into his car and began to drive home, where he knew a phone call with his children awaited him. He thought of that friend of his who had invited him to play a round of golf tomorrow morning, which he hadn’t responded to. It reminded him of a new restaurant he had wanted to try, and hopefully they had a lunch menu... It wasn’t until he had returned home that he realized that neither he nor the woman had asked each other their names. But that was fine, he thought. Formal introductions could wait for when he drove by on Sunday to see if she would like some company on her great mission for humanity.
12
13
OUR CONTRIBUTORS... Without the submissions from writers, artists, and photographers, Free Lit Magazine would not be possible! Please take the time to visit other websites linked to projects our contributors have been involved in, as well as the websites/social media platforms run by some of this issue’s contributors: KYLE CLIMANS - Twitter KELLIE MCNABB - Website ASHLEY NEWTON - Website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Want to become a staff writer or contributor? Email freelitmag@gmail.com to get involved!
14
ASHLEY NEWTON
15