My wife sends a text: I love you. I’m sorry I take you for granted.
I text: Where are you?
Her text: Doctor’s office.
Fear. I call. She answers.
My wife mentions the call I received last night from my 99-year-old kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Merritt. She turns 100 in a week. She begs forgiveness for not doing something about my father. I touch an old scar on my chin as I listen. I stroke the seam on my cheek from the old fracture. I feel the bump on my nose. Old injuries yet still, sharp ticks of pain.
Times were different, Mrs. Merritt says. That’s what I say to myself. But I know now and I knew then. I should have told the sheriff.
Pause. I can hear her breathe. Labored breathing.
Alan, her voice quavers. Can you ever forgive me?
Of course I forgive you Mrs. Merritt, I say.
Silence. For a few moments I think the call dropped.
But? she prods.
Oh, Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t worry about it.
But? she repeats.
But inside me is a boy who will never forgive anyone. Never. Ever.
Mrs. Merritt cries.
Oh Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t cry. My brother and I love you.
She continues to cry. Oh that hurts, she says. So bad. Do you still love your father?
This horrible question. I grit my jaw hard. This question maddens. This question hurts. This question burns and wrecks.
Why, Mrs. Merritt? I say. Why does a child beaten and injured by a man remain attached to such a man? Because a child wants a father. But one day, a child wants a different father.
Oh, Mrs. Merritt cries. I know you do. I know your brother does too.
Alan? my wife says.
Yes, I say.
So, my wife says, a 99-year-old can have a crisis of conscience.
So? I say.
So. So I don’t want to let things slip away, then bite me that way. I don’t want take you for granted anymore.
No no no, I say. No. Please. Don’t say that. You always can take me for granted.
Alan Nelson
Alan Nelson, a writer and actor, received nominations for a Pushcart Prize, Best of Net, and Best Microfiction. He has work published or forthcoming in journals including New York Quarterly, Hong Kong Review, takahē, B O D Y, Blue Unicorn, Litro, Stand, Acumen, Maryland Literary Review, Main Street Rag, Texas Observer, Arc, California Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Adirondack Review, Red Cedar Review, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, Kairos, Ligeia, Strange Horizons, Illuminations, Review Americana, Whale Road Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Eunoia Review. He played the lead in the viral video “Does This Cake Make Me Look Gay?” and the verbose “Silent Al” in the Emmy-winning SXSWestworld, and narrated New York Times videos on PEPFAR.
Cecil Morris has been nominated for a Pushcart in 2021, 2022, and 2023. He and his indulgent partner, the mother of their children, divide their year between the central valley of California and the Oregon coast. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, English Journal, Hole in the Head Review; Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and other literary magazines.
Yewon Han, a Senior at Dulwich College Seoul, is fascinated by surrealism and philosophy in art. She experiments with form, texture, and color in mixed media. Inspired by filmmakers like Gerwig and Coppola, Yewon seeks to expand her artistic range and express her unique view.
Stevie has always been fascinated by nature, finding beauty in its intricacies, resilience, vulnerability, and anthropomorphic tendencies. She feels welcomed into its culture, always without question or judgment, and is where she receives some of her greatest gifts and feels most at home. Her series, Nature’s Spirit, is an homage to the natural world and her deep connection to it. Nature’s Spirit aims to transcend visual perceptions and capture the spiritual essence of each unique encounter, prompting reflections on human entanglements, relationships with darkness and light, elemental similarities, and what mysteries may lie beyond. Stevie’s photographic work has been in many publications and galleries.
Bordnick’s interest is to create meaningful works of art that all people and cultures can enjoy. As a photographer and sculptor, he has been able to share his professional experiences in ways that benefit both business and community projects. With over twenty years of experience, he has successfully designed, fabricated, and installed various projects. He is an industrial design/sculpture graduate of Pratt Institute in New York, where he has had his own professional design business and has been a design director for numerous companies and local government projects. They included a major children’s museum for the city of New York and the Board of Education.
Featuring:
Issue 114, published April 2025, features works of poetry, flash fiction, short nonfiction, and visual art by Virginia Barrett, Julie Benesh, Alyssa Blankenship, Alex Braslavsky, Vikki C., Tetman Callis, Roger Camp, Zack Carson, John Colburn, Ben Guterson, Tresha Faye Haefner, Moriah Hampton, Sher Harvey, Penny Jackson, Carella Keil, Sam Kerbel, Amy S Lerman, Valentine Mizrahi, Christian David Loeffler, Judith Mikesch McKenzie, Jiyoo Nam, Megan Peralta, Andy Posner, Jim Ross, Beth Sherman, J.R. Solonche, Alex Stolis, Maxwell Tang, James Bradley Wells, Tracey Dean Widelitz, and Stephen Curtis Wilson.
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