ONE SENTENCE STORY

By Magnolia Lemmon

Back and forth, up and down, a vagrant wanderer journeyed the desolate Mexican streets with his head hung low between his slumped shoulders, so that at first sight he appeared half his real size, which was slender and skeletal to begin with because his weak bones had been deprived of any meat, making his ears look even bigger in comparison as they flopped wearily alongside his solemn eyes, which were a much duller and darker brown than their usual gleaming hazel that had shone brightly in the days when he had been loved, but those days were gone, far far away, lost in the sea of faded and tattered streets, yet he continued to trot over gravel, dirt, and broken glass in the faint hope that somewhere among the rubble he would find his family, but the chances seemed slimmer and slimmer as the day evaporated into history, as if it hadn’t happened in the first place, and the light got dimmer and dimmer, as the sad sun sank into the horizon without a selfless thought of how it might be affecting the traveler, but he journeyed on, even as the rain began to trickle from melancholy clouds onto his dark and tarnished coat which had one day, not too long ago, glimmered white, but there was no way to go other than forward and further into the barrios, but soon a starless night, only lit by the dull red moon, turned into another day, which didn’t unravel too differently than the one before it; only this time, instead of hope, he trotted out of necessity: a result of the small gashes and tears that covered his paws so evenly that one couldn’t tell if his skin was red or white, but it didn’t matter anyway because there was no one there to care; as he wandered he could feel his heart hopelessly pounding, sputtering, and begging to stop, but he wouldn’t let it, because, despite the slim chance of salvation, he was determined to dissuade death from conquering his body for as long as he could fight it, so he went on through the labyrinth without taking notice of the crumbling walls and engulfing sun, until, something changed; his back suddenly was shaded by lush green trees, and his paws stood on soft, supple grass and beyond the bright aromatic flowers and dark moist dirt was a girl in a white dress, her hair gently dancing in the breeze, her face smooth and bright, her eyes yearning, and her hands beckoning him to come to her, to come home.

WE ARE STILL WHO WE ARE, BUT WE ARE NOT US

By Eva Liu

The opening of the window leaves a gap allowing me to peek outside to spiral into a bubble of nostalgia to reminisce about the warmth of past unity to cherish what we forgot to capture and frame.

Outside the window, everything seems unchanged The sky remains the protector ensuring the birds still chirp in perfect unison

The evening breeze tenderly brushes my ears whispering, Not too late…

I hope so.

Every past clink of champagne glasses tarnished because of the invisible collisions of scorching words syllables and consonants spitting out disgust and dismay bitter swallowing in our dry throats as we mercilessly bury the last shred of happiness our hearts shattering into more pieces after those words slip into the cracks of our souls silent exchanges among watery eyes who watched our last meal together.

A black crow’s caw interrupts my thoughts & the tweet of the birds

So I shut the window and the dining room becomes too quiet

Dinner tonight is With eight less chopsticks With four less chairs With one less word—cheers!

I calculate— Minutes for the teardrops to run out Hours for the bitterness in our throats to fade Months for the broken hearts to be glued back together Years for the champagne glasses to tinkle once more But words cannot be unspoken.

I open the window again and the breeze whispers the same words, Not too late…

Meanwhile

Inside our separate rooms

Inside our empty hearts

We miss the love from our family

Yet we wait for someone else to apologize first Stubbornly

Desperately Silently We pray

For us to be us again