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Turtle Lake | Azra Bihorac
All images contained in this magazine belong to Lady Blue Publishing or submitters to Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal. All rights revert back to the artist(s) upon publication. 1
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Letter from the Editor Where elegance meets eloquence, you’ll find Lady Blue. Even when grappling with some of the most difficult, incomprehensible human trials through which we all go in one way or another, we find a way to thrive, often using art to express our progress. Throughout the process and creation of this publication—the anxiously-awaited second edition of the Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal—no other theme became as prevalent as that of our uncanny will to survive and the beautiful, heart-wrenching, sometimes hilarious determination to use whatever means necessary for that end. Several works in this collection of prose, poetry, art, and photography perfectly symbolize and explore the depths of our human will to press on, even in the face of tragedy. Our writers examine what it means to be a part of humanity, both in times of strength and weakness—when we stand boldly and make our voices heard as well as when simply being present is the most we can commit. Our writers contend through their work that even when all we can do is exist, the effects of our individual lives can be more far-reaching than we ever realize. With a project as vast and diverse as Lady Blue, it would be impossible to conclude a letter such as this without writing endless thanks to the various contributors who both directly and indirectly made this result possible. To all of our writers, of course, as well as our loyal readers around the world—from the bottom of our hearts we offer the sincerest gratitude. If even a single string of words in this collection can add guidance, understanding, or significance to the seemingly insurmountable struggle which sometimes comes with the unlikely presence of life, we will consider our jobs done and done well. We would like to extend a special thanks to our talented, dedicated reading board members this edition for their countless nights of careful work to make our journal as good as it could possibly be. Without Jesse Cole and Vivian Tsai, this publication never could have reached its potential, and the messages herein may have been left undelivered. To every last one of you: Thank you for writing, thank you for reading, and we hope you are able to see both the elegance and eloquence as clearly as we can in the following pages.
Claire Meler, Publisher
Alaina Richardson, Editor
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Heather Nonnemacher, Creative Director
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TAKE ACID, LADIES FRANCESCA BAKER We knew it was wrong. Of course we did. But the jar was there, just sat in front of us. Filled with smiles. Or more accurately, so it turned out, filled with hallucinogenic chemicals. Since those early days of hedonism, back when we were young, neither of us had had any contact with what would actually be defined as drugs, other than Advil, Paracetamol, or Antihistamine. None of which counted. Who knew what the kids of today were dabbling in? Yet here it was, Josephine’s son’s secret stash. And here we were, two middle-aged ladies with a red wine habit and a distinctly empty calendar of the future. We placed the little circles of happiness on our tongues, and waited. “When was the last time you thought the trees were alive with colour and music?” Josephine asked. Circa 1969, I thought. But instead I said out loud “Your Tommy is a pretty wimpy specimen. If he can handle this, then we old vixens will need double!” I placed another tab onto my tongue and felt it dissolve into the pink muscle. But the giggles left me hollow inside. They reminded me of adventures unventured. They failed, completely, to mask the responsibilities of husband, teenagers, job. The things we fill our lives with to make us worthwhile. A tear threatened to form. I remember thinking at this exact point how much more enjoyable a shield from life acid could be than all the others we try. What are we doing subduing the disenchantment of middle age with Valium and Diazepam, when there’s the potential to have a thousand drum beats dancing on your tongue, fizzing through your veins like the rippling light through leaves and sending bold visions of colour across your mind. Take acid, ladies—feel the little dragon in the power of the East, return to Eden, unleash your inner child, and lose yourself in the night. 5
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Francesca Baker is a word lover, book geek, literary enthusiast. Researcher by day, she’s also a keen wordsmith, dabbling in journalism and running writing workshops and arts events to encourage and inspire others. Armed with pencils, coffee, headphones, and a spring in her step, she likes to explore and scribble her way through life.
A Big Toot in Washington Square | William Crawford
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Radiating Buddha | Azra Bihorac
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LOVE SONNET SUTAPA CHAUDHURI In my world there is no love; only the imbecile echoes of capering hyenas trotting on hind legs to the tunes of scornful laughter. Their taunting titters gloss over the raucous cries of gossiping vultures; necks craned and singing serenades, they wait — timeless carrion-eaters, forever patient for the perfect moment. Shrill cries of lonely kites, like eerie sirens of bombarding warplanes, hover in the sky; warning of impending blackouts. Mushroom clouds gather unawares, bursting at the seams of life. Trenches and dugouts refuse shelter to hawks mourning in forgotten eyries. Shards of bombs and bereavements lie strewn, the glassy filaments of pain piercing the tormented flesh, shredded to bits by an uncaring and pretentious lust.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Dr. Sutapa Chaudhuri is an assistant professor of English at the Dr. Kanailal Bhattacharyya College in Howrah, India and a Guest Lecturer in the Post Graduate Department of English at the University of Calcutta. A poet, academic, and translator, Dr. Chaudhuri has three collections of poetry—Broken Rhapsodies (2011), Touching Nadir (2014), and Hospital Blues (2016). My Lord, My Well-Beloved (2014) is a collection of her translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs.
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JANUARY, BHUBANESWAR BIBHU PADHI Somewhere a flame plays with the cold air. An easy smoke spreads over the sleeping bodies. Somewhere else, in the distant north, a child cries for warmth and love, its body cold like winter. News broadcasters speak of the coldest winter in many years; rain falls on broken rooftops with a sound that brings together distant memories of May and summer. The sun has disappeared. Nothing can be changed, nothing that can take care of the next day; summer is too far away to be remembered. We stand on our feet and measure the body’s failure to recapture its native heat, the sun’s failures. Tell us a story that will go beyond the cold and cover us with warmth. Teach us how to pray, recover an old faith.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Bibhu Padhi has published numerous books of poetry, and his individual poems have appeared in magazines throughout the English-speaking world, such as Contemporary Review, The Antigonish Review, Indian Literature, and many more. His poetry has also been included in several anthologies and university- and school-level textbooks, two of the more recent of which are 60 Indian Poets (Penguin) and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry.
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FAST POETRY PROJECT #69 KEVIN SWANTEK I tried to elevate myself from this deep, dank hole, on the promise of standing on the shoulders of those who came before me, but their skeletons kept collapsing under my weight.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Kevin Swantek graduated with an A.A. from Grays Harbor College, where he first began to study poetry under the mentorship of Lynne Lerych. His one-act play, “Fallen from Grace,” was produced through Grays Harbor College, where he also earned the Outstanding English Student of the Year award in 1999. Kevin graduated from the University of Washington with B.A. degrees in both drama and English. He has coproduced two low-budget feature films. Outside of work, Kevin regularly volunteers as an actor and supernumerary for the Seattle Opera. He started his “Fast Poetry Project” on Instagram on November 17, 2012.
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Liar Liar | Azra Bihorac
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OLD BEAR PAUL WOOLDRIDGE Of all her toys you make the saddest sight. Your plush beginnings have been lost, your coat now matted grey with years of grime despite attempted washes, still has dirt ingrained. You spent your nights squeezed tight against her throat, while sweat and dregs of milk combined and stained, along with medicines, each neon sweet. You sorry wretch, misshapen and abused; yet without you her world was incomplete. She dragged you to the park, to swings, down slides, a source of comfort she would not refuse though smudged and torn. These marks, now worn with pride, are relics of a childhood’s fleeting touch. No toy as filthy, no bear loved quite so much.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Paul started writing poetry about four years ago, following the death of his father. He generally writes in formalist, metered verse and attempts to highlight the profound or beautiful in different mundane observations, mixing humour with pathos. He’s been fortunate to have had pieces published in About Larkin (the quarterly publication of The Phillip Larkin Society), The New Humanist, Cannon's Mouth, The Good Funeral Guide, Grafitti, The Fat Damsel and A Swift Exit. He has also had short fiction published by Storgy.com.
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Food Truck Rhapsody | William Crawford
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WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO WHEN YOU GROW UP? PAUL WOOLDRIDGE What would you like to do when you grow up? We ask our children, keen to know their aims. “An astronaut! Or win the Stanley Cup!” Their hope reminds us—once we felt the same, but now we know a truth that they will learn: A lack of skills or opportunity can crush the hopes that were a youth’s concern. Our plans must change for the majority. An honest parent asks, with life ahead, “What will you do when you give up?” instead.
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Yellow Cab Passenger | William Crawford
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MARY, MARION, MARJORIE AMANDA STAPLES Mary Marion Marjorie; me Is only one person but also is three. Mary Marion Marjorie; me Split mind, three masks, complex trinity. I was born in Maidstone, Kent in 1965 to Ted and Marion and christened Mary Marion Marjorie Maypole. My mother said she had felt incomplete not having a middle name, so she gave me two for good measure. For anyone in authority catching me misbehaving, shrieking ‘Mary Marion Marjorie Maypole!’ was a sure-fire scene stopper. No need to strain the capital letters, unlike shouting Freddy Brown. Nor did they have to add, ‘What do you think you are doing?’ my name was statement enough. The tactic wasn’t employed until my secondary school years. I was sweet-natured, nursery-rhymed Mary in primary school–the apple of my mother’s eye. When puberty hit, bringing with it boobs, boys, hormones, and a desire to grow up faster than my body would allow, I dropped Mary like a stone and thus entered Marion. Or Marion entered me. Mary was the name for a child or old woman or naïve virgin. Marion was grown-up and chic and flirted with boys and took sneaky drags of cigarettes behind bike sheds. Marion got dragged off down an alley by Frankie who French-kissed her. My mother refused to acknowledge Marion, so Mary left for school in knee-high socks and a knee-length, A-line skirt and passed through the school gates as Marion in hunched-down socks, hitched-up skirt, riskily-unbuttoned blouse and pale-pink lip gloss. This ‘Wonder Woman’ transformation took place undetected by my mother, or she feigned lack of notice to avoid confrontation and the tricky job of parenting a pubescent. Nowadays, it’s less Wonder Woman and more I wonder where that woman went? My formative years weren’t very informed. As a single parent with a dependent toddler, my mother was in her element. When I turned teenaged, she seemed to wake up perpetually stunned and incapable of coping. My father disappeared to goodness knows where when I was three years old, contacting me sporadically with an often-late birthday or Christmas card containing a book token for ten pounds. If I was ever struggling with school or relationships or at all upset about anything, rather than risk having to delve the depths of the murky pool of muddied water that my tortured teenage mind was, mum would give me fifty pence and tell me to go to Woolies for a bag of pick ‘n’ mix. Unparented and unprepared, Mary was naïve and easily-led by Marion, who ran off with a raw, sexy, and 16
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deliciously tempting bad lad she’d fancied herself in love with the minute she’d set eyes on. *** I don’t hear him come in, the bad lad. He’s earlier than usual and during a mad moment Marion had tricked me into dancing the twist around the living room, waving a can of polish and a duster wildly while I should have been polishing the sideboard. ‘No wonder the place is a bomb site. If you spent less time twitting about, you useless tart, my tea would be on the table. Look at ya. You’re no bleedin’ Twiggy prancing about on your two left feet. You’re no bleedin’ good at anything, you.’ I stop dead as soon as I hear his voice. The moment of joy escapes my heart like air from a deflating balloon. My heart drops like a stone sinking into a pond and rests on the bottom where things exist rather than live. Marjorie turns to face him. ‘I’ll put it on now,’ I mutter at the floor. ‘I’ll put it on now,’ he parrots. His mocking tone makes Mary want to head for the safety of the cupboard under the stairs. Marion is riled but Marjorie holds her back, recalling painfully what happened last time Marion made an appearance. As I slump over the sink and peel the spuds, Marion bickers with Marjorie over how weak and pathetic she is, and Mary drops a tear onto my face. After tea, once I’ve done the dishes, I slip my mobile phone into my pocket. ‘I’m taking the dog out.’ I say into the hallway. He doesn’t reply. I know he’s heard me through the open lounge door, but football’s on. I turn my collar up against a chill April evening as day turns to dusk and sit on a park bench, knowing the wind will be worse on the moor. While Bella explores a discarded crisp packet beneath the bench, I call my mother. Now remarried and moved to Dartmoor, she’s found a new strength. ‘But will you come this time, love? Trev waited an hour at the station last time, worried to death when you didn’t show.’ 17
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My mother’s initial ‘you’ve made your bed’ attitude, present as I miserably reported rows early on in my marriage, changed a few years later when on a rare visit home, she fussed over a scarf I was wearing. The scarf fell away before I could catch it and her hands flew to her mouth as she exclaimed ‘Jesus!’ I silently re-tied the scarf as she fought back tears. ‘How long?’ she asked, her voice betraying guilt. Marion managed a semi-defiant glare through Marjorie’s soulless eyes. ‘Can I come home, mum?’ whispered Mary. My knees buckled under the weight of years of deceit, and all three of us fell into my mother’s arms. Over the past year, a plan had been hatched, aborted, and rehatched. Here I was again, repeating words I had used countless times before. ‘There’s been a change of plan.’ I could hear the frustration in my mother’s silence. ‘Rita’s going to drive me up after he’s gone to work. I can bring Bella that way. I can’t leave her, mum. She hates trains.’ At the mention of her name, Bella nuzzled into my feet and grunted a contented sigh. ‘Okay, love. I’ll see you around lunchtime. I’ll do your favourite.’ Mary smiled at the thought of beans and cheese on toast with dollops of HP sauce. Marion rolled her eyes at the offer of a child’s meal, but Marjorie politely replied, ‘Thanks mum.’ ‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow?’ she checked. ‘Yes, you will,’ I said, all three of us in agreement.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Amanda Staples is a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist. She specializes in anxiety and depression and has a minor obsession with death. Amanda has diagnosed herself with creative schizophrenia, as her writing muse never sleeps. She is often found scribbling ideas and inspirations on anything at hand. This is her excuse for stopping at cafés for pots of tea whilst out walking her dogs.
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High Line | Azra Bihorac
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SOCCER DION FARQUHAR When we pick Alex up he’s glum, sitting on the side. In the car, tells us every player was supposed to bring a ball —and he didn’t. Then, because he didn’t have a ball, the coach made him run laps. When he refused, he had to sit out the entire practice. First thing I do when I get home is email the coach, explaining parents didn’t know bringing a ball was required, protesting his using running laps as punishment. Show him the email. Mom, the coach had extra balls.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Dion Farquhar has recent poems in Otoliths, Birds Piled Loosely, Local Nomad, moria, Shifter, and BlazeVOX. Her second poetry book, Wonderful Terrible, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing, and her second chapbook, Snap, is in press at Crisis Chronicles Press. She works as an exploited adjunct at two universities, but still loves the classroom.
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Orange Kyoto | Azra Bihorac
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FIRECRACKERS DION FARQUHAR Their high-wire friend since first grade Colton, now on meds for his own ADHD, was given firecrackers by his stupid grandfather and sold them to Alex & Matt who then brought them to the Beach Party potluck So, after the hot dogs and burgers, during the bonfire and s’mores, sunset smoldering, your two have snuck off, jumping at the ocean’s edge screaming with delight over the pop and cackle of the whizzing firecrackers they managed to light
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A Window Not Washed | William Crawford
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BANISHED BIBHU PADHI Modest folks walk the road to reach their urgent destinations. They are too weak to walk fast; the deadline at the banks to deposit back their loans is about to close. They took the money to rear up their maize and rice. Now very little of it remains, having had to meet the cyclone. The ruthless rivers are full with muddy water, their banks falling prey to the strength of rising foam and the wind’s immeasurably dark intentions. Bare feet are half-swayed by the wind’s enormous frenzy. Small wishes take shape inside faith and gods, wives and children. Pictures are taken by cameras that belong to callous, indifferent photographers. The cyclone increases, its sound enclosing the humble huts of farmers. Can they ever know what remains behind their expensive cameras, excellent shots? What else is there to write about, what shall bring down the merciful gods? I look out the window, see only a collage of wind, trees and men, apparently giving up their hopes, banished in their own land.
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Q: As an artist, what role do you and your work have in society? I try to have a critical awareness of myself and my observations; I try to pay attention to what’s going on in front of me and what’s going on inside me, remembering that I am not alone, and hopefully reminding others that they, too, are not alone.
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Q: When looking at a blank canvas, what is your first step? How do you lay the foundation for a new piece? With these watercolor works, it’s great, because walking is my main mode of transportation and it’s the easiest and most interesting way to get around San Francisco because you get to slow down, look around, and talk to people. So I end up with a good amount of source material in sketches and photographs to work from just by walking every day. When starting a work, I try to find an easy place to begin that will be a good reference for the height and width of the building or person or thing I’m about to draw. With a building, I pick a corner along the roof and work down and along the building until it’s complete, then I start on the next building if there’s more. I don’t sketch anything out first. I don’t want the lines to be perfect. I want the buildings to breathe.
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Q: What’s the worst advice you’ve ever gotten? Did you choose to follow it? Why or why not? You know, I’m sure I’ve received some bad advice in the past, but after thinking about it for a while, what has stuck with me more is the good advice: try to live more in the moment, do what the heart tells you is right to do (and often the head will follow), and work on something every day.
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Q: Based on your own experiences, what advice would you give someone who is just beginning their career? If you are doing what you want to do, keep going. Persistence is the key, but what you are doing has to be for you. Most importantly, slow down, and look up.
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BIRD CALL PAUL WOOLDRIDGE The birds dispersed but as I slowed I found one broken in the sun. With wings spread out against the road, it struggled with the damage done. Should I have tried to put it out of misery? And was it due to weakness that I paused in doubt? My boot was raised, but I withdrew. I heard the other birds and feared their calls were in response to me. Perhaps they mocked, or maybe cheered. There’s comfort in such fallacy.
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FAST POETRY PROJECT #68 KEVIN SWANTEK The post office crows hop along the top of the bus stop depot and cock their sinister necks, eyeing us bus stop dreck with disdain. And we wait to be saved by public transportation, hoping they don’t memorize our faces.
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POEMS FROM BARE BONES | A CHAPBOOK BY JULIA MELITO
2.23: The Purge
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The absence of you is an unfriendly reminder of how little of "me" is left.
I understand now. I have the ability to create a home inside any person I desire. I must learn to create a home inside myself. It is so difficult, so painful, to undo years of damage, hindered progress, which I did to myself. But if I created this reality, I have the power to destroy it.
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4.13: A Mix of My Own Words and Others I am a lioness awakening, mane shimmering in the light. A wildness from deep within a tropical forest, listening to night creatures, dancing with them until the locust sleeps. I am unencumbered. I am engulfed in a tribal frenzy, pelvis swaying, hair shimmering, hands shaking, elbows laughing. I am the girl at the festival that moves with grace, that lights up life. Shaking the shit out, longing and searching, I am an old soul pretending to be human.
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HEROES MAHIMA KAPOOR We can be heroes, just for one day, and maybe we can, I'd like to agree with Bowie, but don't you remember Orwell drilling into your head that that's just what you can't be, not when the whole world is conspiring against you, not when you're walking on pins and needles and one wrong step could cost you your life, but the bombs are about to explode, and I'll be putting buildings on fire, and you'll be risking your life trying to save some vestige of my own self when you put the fires out, and I'll be watching with an unaffected stare the melting of sinews into dust, and you'll be mending the bones, trying to drill into my very marrow at the same time, looking for some inherent goodness, but darling, not only is the world against us, it has made sure that we stand against each other too, and the only thing to do is to be heroes, just for one day, not fighting the world, not fighting each other, not crashing into the ocean that we share, but just being us, you and I, against nobody, just you and I, not martyrs, instead the heroes that the world does not like to praise enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Mahima is a college student living in Delhi, India. She identifies herself as a feminist, is an avid reader, and is very passionate about poetry. Reading, for her, is not just a way to unwind after a long day, but something she can’t live without doing. She also writes a lot, is socially awkward, and as such, loves to lose herself in books, ink, and her own words, away from the world outside and yet a part of it. Her poetry has been published by a few literary magazines including Mulberry Fork Review, Muse India, DU Vidha, Opus Journal, and Germ Magazine.
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DUM-DUMS
DRIP COFFEE
A-middle aged man in a skilled nursing facility is waiting on his transportation to dialysis.
A nurse is wheeling an old man down the hall to his room at an assisted living facility. "Can't I just eat lunch first?"
He pulls a lollipop out of his mouth and points it at the nurse. "Hey. These give you diabetes?"
She tells him no, they still have 10 minutes until lunch starts anyway.
"Uh...well no. I mean, they don't help.”
"Why are you forcing me to do this?"
She opens his bedside drawer to get his glasses and it's 2/3 full of lollipop wrappers.
"Mr. Saunders, your pants are wet, okay? We can't have you sitting through your whole lunch in wet pants. It will only take a minute to change." She speaks in a low voice next to his ear so as not to be overheard. "I didn't wet my pants!" he insists, embarrassed. "That’s not urine, it’s perspiration!" She tells him that regardless of the substance, they are changing his pants. Once in the room, she makes the mistake of calling it urine. "It's not good for your skin to have urine on it, it’s very irritating." "It's not urine! It’s coffee! I had coffee in there!" he yells. "Okay, it’s coffee. It's coffee that's been filtered through a set of kidneys, though." He doesn't laugh. Maybe he didn't hear her, probably for the best. She gets him changed, and he is still the first one at his lunch table. 37
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ASSISTED
ROSIE
It's midday at an assisted living facility. An elderly man on hospice care has lost his ability to walk and is becoming increasingly bitter.
A home care nurse sits in a wooden kitchen chair in an elderly woman's living room. Rosie, a large, fluffy cat, sits on the couch with the woman. The nurse is allergic to cats but doesn't say anything.
He's heavy and tall, and has to urinate right now. Two young nurses are trying to figure out how to work this as he yells to hurry up. He can't make it to the bathroom. "Just help me go!" He's starting to try to stand up. The nurses intervene, not wanting him to fall.
She sets her nursing bag down and starts the visit, hardly noticing the cat walking over.
Finally after more yelling and thinking, one of them grabs a styrofoam cup from the man’s bedside table, yanks his pants down as far as one tug will take them, and puts the cup into position.
"Oh, she found the perfect seat!" the nurse exclaims with an amused chuckle.
“Rosie!” the patient shouts. The nurse looks to see the cat taking a seat right on the bag.
The cat, staring right into the nurse's eyes, pees. It moves when she lunges toward it to grab the bag, but it's too late. There are no paper towels, so the nurse uses fast food napkins from the patient’s TV tray to soak up the pee. She sneezes all the way to her next case.
"Okay just go, you can go!" The nurses are on either side supporting him in a half-standing position. "Can I go?" "Yes!" They say in unison. He pees into the cup as the nurses stifle smiles at the situation. Mental notes are made to order portable urinals from hospice.
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ZOMBIE
FREE POPCORN
An 80-year-old woman has her 53year-old son cremated.
"In the cool-cool-cool of the evening...� Bing Crosby's voice rings out with the music.
His ashes are buried next to his father in front of a stone intended for his father and herself, his mother.
A scooper plunges into a pile of popcorn in one of those old-timey popcorn stands.
She goes to inspect the stone now that the name and dates of her son have been carved.
The popcorn scooper is being maneuvered by an old man in a power wheelchair. He fills two paper bags. He powers out of the activity room, down a long hallway, through the lobby. He passes old ladies with walkers, men in wheelchairs being pushed by aides.
"Oh my God!" What she finds is that they have not added her son’s name at all, but they have added a date of death under her name. It appears as though she has risen from the grave to view her own stone.
He turns a corner and heads into a small room. "Is Gina coming in tonight?" he asks the nurse.
The company apologized; they are going to fix it.
"She'll be here at three." He hands over the popcorn. "This is for her". Everyone's got their favorites.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Stephanie Williams is a registered nurse with a bachelor's degree in communication from the Ohio State University. She enjoys writing about colorful characters and predicaments encountered at work and play. She also enjoys world travel and dance. Stephanie resides in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter.
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BEHIND THE MASK AMANDA STAPLES Sheila watches a weepy—a real tearjerker where nothing good happens to the unfortunate main character doomed from the outset—except she doesn’t cry. She has that feeling of tightness in her chest that pre-empts crying, like a heavy weight pressing down, making you want to inhale deeply for fear of suffocating. Her nostrils flare and her bottom lip tremors, but no tears come. Instinctively, she makes to wipe a tear away. Sheila sometimes forgets she can’t cry. Occasionally she reflects it could be a good thing never to look red-eyed or puffy-faced. But then she thinks about sitting at her husband’s funeral or standing by his grave, unable to express her grief in the way people expect you to. Unable to purge herself of the burden in the way she’d wanted to. Sheila stirs herself from her daydreaming and stands up from the armchair. It takes a while and a bit of effort, but even that has become accepted routine. Everything takes effort these days. The fatigue is draining. She attempts to brush her skirt flat where it has creased but is unable to smooth it with the palm of her hand. The action is little more effective than swatting a fly with a lettuce leaf. She studies her gnarled fingers. Anger wells where tears will not—she can’t even clench her fists in frustration. Sheila stares at the once-slender fingers that have created prize-winning works of art—sculptures that she’d later smashed in fits of anger, or paintings she’d destroyed during a bout of depression. These slender fingers that are unrecognisable have painstakingly creased, coaxed, and created—sculpted and painted a lifetime of sights and scenes, a selection box of emotions. Now it is like she is slowly being blindfolded. She can’t express what she sees, can’t plumb the depths of its beauty and recreate it from within her. The joy and passion that had bubbled deep within are now a bottomless, empty well. What is the point of looking at anything around her? She may just as well have lost her sight as her ability and talent. Sheila curses the disease that ravages her limbs, her joints, her muscles, her very soul. Rotting her; reducing her bone by bone, cell by cell. She wants to snatch her walking stick and smash it over her knee. To drive a splinter from it deep into her flesh just to feel a different pain, a sharp pain that demands attention, instead of the pain that gnaws away at her endlessly, day by day and night after long, dark, soul-destroying night. Having osteoarthritis is bad enough, but what cruel turn of fate would bless her with such skill and allow not just one predatory disease to cruelly leach it away, but two. Rheumatoid arthritis. Sheila hadn’t even realised it existed until she 41
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was diagnosed aged fifty two, just six short, and yet very long, years ago. She goes into the kitchen and pours a glass of water to take one of her many tablets. She looks around her at her once-private space that she’d decorated and loved. Now it is intruded upon by someone else. She’d hated asking her husband after a day at work to clean any part of the house. It felt unfair. And he’d never done it to her standard which caused rows, hence their employment of a cleaning lady twice a week. She’d envied her husband. She envied her cleaner. Sheila was becoming bitter and literally twisted. This is another bad day. All part of a flare up. It will pass, she tells herself. As she glances out of the kitchen window, she sees some daffodils dancing in the breeze. Sheila used to love spring, a time so full of hope and inspiration and renewed energy. It had been her favourite season. She would get up at the crack of dawn and drink in the start of a new day and all the possibilities it held. She had so much lust for life back then. Sheila loved that most of all, that private solitude, just her and dawn and their secret, shared excitement. ‘Come back to bed you batty woman,’ Ted would grumble from under the duvet. ‘You’ll catch your death.’ Sometimes Sheila would crawl back in under the covers, snuggle up to Ted, and place her cold feet on his legs. ‘Gordon Bennett! Get them blocks of ice off me. How is a man supposed to sleep when he is being frozen to death by his wife?’ Despite his protestations, in the half-light Sheila always saw Ted sleepily smile, and he would cuddle into her as he drifted back to sleep. She could never return to sleep. Her mind was already busy planning, creating. Sometimes Sheila would not go back to bed, or if she did, she would wait for Ted to drop off again and slip on her dressing gown and head for her studio. She would be there for hours, totally absorbed, breaking away long enough to peck her husband goodbye. Sometimes she was still in this state when he returned home. He’d stand in the doorway and she’d feel him watching her, waiting until she broke free from her trance. He knew, after years of her training him, not to interrupt her when she was working. ‘Once, I married a gorgeous woman,’ he’d say with a sigh, ‘only, she appears to have left and now there’s this paint–stained, clay-tainted, bedraggled street urchin here instead. Pity, really, I kind of loved her.’
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He’d turn and walk away just in time to miss a stray paint brush or lump of clay being thrown at him. ‘I’m putting the kettle on,’ he’d call from the kitchen. ‘You can’t have a biscuit until you have a shower. Have you even eaten today?’ Sheila misses the carefree, bedraggled street urchin. Standing in the conservatory, what used to be her studio and now houses bamboo furniture and tall plants, she leans against a chair back for support and gazes at the flowers starting to bloom in her small garden, longing to feel that sensation again. Is that an inkling she feels, or her breakfast digesting? The doorbell startles her from her thoughts. As she walks into the hallway,p she can tell from the shapes moving on the other side of the frosted glass that it is Gemma and Jacob. Fixing her best award-winning smile, Sheila walks to the door and opens it. Jacob stands with a bunch of freesias held above his head as he jiggles about beneath them. ‘Gamma’s faverit!’ he pronounces proudly and thrusts them at her as he dashes into the house shouting, ‘where’s the chocolit biskies?’ Her heart lifts and she beams at him as he dashes into the kitchen, pulling off his gloves and scarf and leaving them in his wake. Her step-daughter, looking straight after him, brushes Sheila’s cheek with barely a kiss or a glance as she passes by, commenting, ‘You look well. He’s running me ragged. I’m exhausted, you’ve no idea.’ Sheila, biting her tongue, puts the freesias in water. At least Gemma has made some effort, though she suspects it was Jacob who chose the flowers. Sheila has never known Gemma’s mother. Ted was widowed and struggling with a teenager when she’d met him. She hadn’t been keen to take on a child, never wanting any of her own. Seeing very little of Ted in his daughter, Sheila assumes Gemma took after her mother. Ted was always thoughtful—he didn’t always get it right, but he tried. Gemma exists for Gemma. ‘Cup of tea?’ Sheila offers. ‘Jacob, the biscuits are in the pantry.’ Jacob stops opening and closing cupboards and runs off to rifle through the pantry. Gemma sighs and looks at her watch, ‘Have we time?’
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‘Well, I’m in no hurry, but if you want to get on.’ ‘Parking can be so random. You never know.’ ‘Then let’s go.’ Sheila replaces the lid on the tea canister and fetches her coat while Gemma remonstrates with Jacob about how many chocolate biscuits he is allowed. *** At the hospital, Jacob insists on sitting on Sheila’s lap, even though he is a little heavy for her now and she will ache horribly tomorrow from lifting him up and down. It’s a small price to pay for his cuddles. She never expected to be a grandmother but finds it gives her such purpose, especially with Ted gone. ‘Look,’ Sheila points to the monitor. ‘That is your new brother or sister.’ For a moment, Jacob is still. Awestruck. Then he cackles. ‘It looks like an alien. Mummy! You have an alien in your tummy!’ He dissolves into laughter, shaking the chair they sit on with his convulsing body. Gemma shakes her head. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to have another.’ And neither does Sheila. Jacob quiets whilst the baby’s small form is outlined on the screen: head; heart; bottom. The word bottom sends him into fits of giggles again. ‘He’s in one of his silly moods,’ Gemma states. Sheila smiles. With the ultrasound complete, Jacob is promised a hot chocolate in the hospital café. Gemma dries her belly with a sheet of couch roll and without looking up says, ‘I do appreciate it, you know. You coming with me.’ ‘You’re welcome,’ Sheila says, a little taken aback. 44
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Gemma pulls her leggings up and her jumper down. Sheila smiles at her. ‘I wish dad were here.’ In place of me I expect, Sheila thinks, but she says, ‘Me too.’ ‘Do you talk to him?’ Gemma asks, quietly. ‘Yes. All the time.’ Gemma nods but says nothing. Sheila digs a toy car from her coat pocket and eases Jacob to the floor, sensing her attention may be required elsewhere. She waits. Gemma pulls on her coat, re-ties her ponytail, and just as Sheila thinks she’s misread her, without looking at her, Gemma says, ‘I was angry when he died. I mean, livid.’ ‘I know.’ ‘First mum and then him and…’ ‘And you were left with me.’ Gemma smiles wryly, ‘Something like that. No offence.’ Sheila shrugs, unsure what to say. Jacob is making vroom, vroom noises and driving the car up the walls and around the room. ‘Come on, terror,’ Gemma says, taking his hand. Jacob shakes her free and slips his hand into Sheila’s bent fingers. *** In the café, Jacob makes faces in the froth of his hot chocolate, licking it off his fingers until it’s all gone. ‘I wanted to say, Sheila, I appreciate what you do.’ ‘Oh. Well, I don’t do much.’ 45
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‘You’re here.’ ‘Yes,’ Sheila feels her lip wobble. No tears come of course, although that would embarrass Gemma, so it’s a blessing in disguise. ‘I’m here.’
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Details | Azra Bihorac
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A DOLLAR A PIECE AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVELLA BY DAWN A. FULLER Martin determined many years ago that he could quite happily spend the rest of his days discovering invaluable, rare treasures in the middle of absolutely nowhere for mere pennies. The only treasures worth having were books. Old books. Paperbacks. Hard copies. Out-of-print books. Signed books. Limited editions. First editions. First UK editions. Disneyland, bah! According to Martin, the happiest place on earth was a poorly-marked bookstore that smelled of yellowing pages covered with sweet vanilla ink. Where it was didn’t really matter much. How could there be any place better in this world than a rundown used bookstore? Exotic sunny locales offering frosty fruit-filled drinks, fancy black-tie-only restaurants that serve too-small portions, candlelit beachside cafes on balmy summer nights - you can keep ‘em. Any day of the week could be made better simply by visiting an independent used bookstore. Martin spent many tedious hours updating his hand-drawn map— pinpointing his favorite used bookstores on the dusty outskirts of remote desert areas. He was positive no one but him knew that these book “hot spots” existed. They couldn’t. Otherwise, the grabby pigs would be flocking to them at all hours of the day and night. The line would be out the door. The greedy guts would buy them all up. There would be no books left. The world as he knew it would cease to exist. Martin worried about this very thing from time to time.
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