October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
You must have had the same experience. You meet someone and in an instant, you know they’re the one. That’s the way it was with Maggie. The fact that she’s a ghost created complications, sure. But when you’ve fallen in love, you’re not stopped by the first hurdle.
Hugging was a challenge. I wound up caressing myself, and her arms passed through me. So I make a circle, locking my hands, and Maggie stepped inside. She doesn’t squeeze.
We close our eyes when we kiss and allow the mental image to transport us. Nice.
Now, we’re working on making love. We can’t unfasten each other’s clothes, so we strip ourselves. God, is she beautiful. A little pale, but a vision nonetheless. At first, I kept falling through her. It’s an odd sensation. I thought to rig up some sort of suspension for me above her, but that was too restrictive. Maggie had the solution. She got on top.
I think Maggie’s smarter than me.
by Joseph Giordano
Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Jane, have lived in Greece, Brazil, Belgium and Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their little shih tzu, Sophia. Joe’s stories have appeared in more than sixty-five magazines including Bartleby Snopes, The Monarch Review, and The Summerset Review. His novel, Birds of Passage, An Italian Immigrant Coming of Age Story, will be published October 8th by Harvard Square Editions. Read the first chapter and sign up for his blog at http://joe-giordano.com/
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
When I was in sixth grade Mom asked me what I wanted to do for the summer. “Camp is good, you’ll make friends.” She said it like an adopted kid wouldn’t get confused. You got me almost yesterday.
Mom and Dad were getting a divorce and didn’t want me around while they decided. Maybe I skewed the thought process. When I looked over the camps they were mostly the kind with cabins or rooms, that I would write letters back home. Mom already figured out that I wouldn’t write letters, she must have known that in college I wouldn’t pick up the phone either.
She didn’t pick up when Dad called. Sighed. Made remarks that she thought were funny, because she would make a funny voice. “It’s your father. God.” I chose a day camp, and she was good at being glad. “You’ll like it, I bet, but if you change your mind, tell me.”
Halfway through summer they seemed to get along. I ruined the process again, righted the train crash of their marriage. Japanese and Jewish; her family fought his family in the war. Romeo and Juliet were supposed to die in the end, but I figured I knew what it was like if they didn’t. I said this to my English teacher once and he moved past the issue quickly. He didn’t want the other kids to think as hard about it as I did, even though half of them had.
They didn’t get divorced until I was in college. I didn’t answer the phone when they called about it; just an email. They got rid of me, but not each other, I liked to think. It was too late to change my mind about day camp.
by Jono Naito
Jono Naito is a recovering New Yorker and MFA student at Syracuse University. His work has appeared in Bard Lux Literary Magazine, Paper Darts Magazine, and the Eunoia Review, as well as online at jononaito.com. He lives with his partner-in-crime and an arrogant bird that looks like an avocado.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
I tried so hard to keep fear away from her. In the garden, I’d say, “See, honey, a worm,” and watch her pick it up, never showing the squeamishness that kept me from touching a worm myself.
We read stories of strong, brave women, who surmounted obstacles, forging ahead, not allowing fear to vanquish them. Overprotected Understood Betsy learned to stand on her own, and when she and little Molly were accidentally abandoned at the county fair, Betsy hid her fear. She promised Molly she would find a way home—and she did. In So Far form the Bamboo Grove, Yoko and her sister survived horrifying war privations and subsistence conditions before being reunited with their family.
When my daughter went to college in 2002, with the ashes of the Twin Towers still nearly visible, we walked up the Harlem hill, through the wrought iron gate into the university that had welcomed immigrants. Then we walked down the hill to the Hudson River.
“Which way is home?” I asked. She pointed north,.
“Right,” I told her. “The river goes home, If anything happens, try to get a ride north, as far as you can if you can’t get all the way. Route 9, Broadway here, goes all the way to Saratoga. You can follow Route 9 home. If you can’t go by road, follow the river. It will take a long time, weeks, maybe longer, but the Hudson will bring you home.”
She listened, nodding silently but confidently, secure in her strength, in her wood skills, in her ability to find my love waiting for her whatever happened, where ever she went, secure in the shining innocence of youth.
I left her and drove home listening to the rattling chains of fear traveling with me.
by Jane Arnold
Jane Arnold has been writing and publishing nonfiction essays and memoir for over 25 years. During the past five years, she has been writing and publishing fiction, including flash fiction and short stories. She teaches writing and literature at a community college.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
He was my summertime fairytale prince, cigarette pressed between his slim piano playing fingers. The smell of smoke mixing with the scent of that tangerine tree where he first pressed his exquisitely shaped lips to my neck and where we intertwined grandeur dreams of forever. We played dumb, like we forgot I had a scholarship to a mid-western university with decent academics and a stellar basketball team. Like he didn’t have a demo tape and a bus ticket to L.A. I surrendered my virginity to him under that stuffed elk head in your grandfather’s study one Sunday afternoon when everyone was at the church picnic. I weaved my fingers through that glorious hair he was too cool to comb, looked him right in the eyes and told him it was perfect. He believed me.
The last time I saw him, he drew on his cigarette long and hard and didn’t say much. I could tell he wanted to drag out our goodbye. His eyes shadowed under that newsboy hat he wore. Silence built up and closed us in a beautiful dream. We didn’t need words or promises. I could have woken us both up, but there was no need for him to know I was late. He would have offered to help. Maybe even offered to marry me. But I loved him too much to stop him from getting on that bus.
At least, that’s the way I remember it.
by Diane D. Gillette
Diane D. Gillette has a couple master degrees, two demanding cats, and lives with the love of her life in Chicago. When she isn’t too busy reading, writing, or appeasing her cats, she blogs about writing at www.digillette.com. You can find more of her published work there.
July 2015 | back-issues, fiction
I have an image in my mind. It is an image of a particular man. He is perhaps less scruffy than he was over the weekend, and no matter how close his morning shave he reached the evening’s shadow. I see him, soaking in a tub. There are no candles burning. No bubbles. No salt crystals filling pastel jars tucked in the corner. I see the steam rising, clinging to the surrounding tiles, everything about him shines, and so does he. Eyes closed, his hair drenched enough for droplets to drip off the ends and down his neck. Shoulders peaking above the service waiting for their turn to soak after his knees finally give up creaks to the bath. His sighs cast ripples to his toes as the heft of his worry evaporate from the substance of his thoughts as he soaks. The gate of his imagination opens to an image of a woman. She is by far more tousled than she was at the start of her day. He sees her, in the particular way she leans against the bathroom door, arms folded, barefoot, smiling, with him on her mind.
by Julieanna Blackwell
July 2015 | back-issues, fiction
She scribbles a few letters on the back of her card and hands it to him. She smiles and says something cheerful. The words don’t matter. As he takes the card, he answers in kind, if only to keep his tenuous grasp on the vision of civility he’s retreated into. He does not think of all the countless things he would like to say, because he does not want to risk their appearance, even in his eyes. But she is not as perceptive as he fears. She has another appointment waiting, and he is not the face she puts on a world’s betrayal; he just isn’t that important to her.
In the elevator on the way back down, he presses himself into the corner though no one else is riding; it’s the only way he can keep from pacing. He walks past the metal detectors, where a man is shaking his head as he struggles to undo his belt; false suspicion has shamed this nameless man into stripping away another layer of his pride, if only to prove his innocence. The security guard that mans the machine doesn’t notice this inner struggle the man is having, but only does his job instead. But our man notices, just before he hits the door and once more takes a breath of the good air under an open sky. He wishes he could remember what it was like to take that for granted.
by D.F. Paul
D.F. Paul lives in the Midwestern United States. He’s been writing since he was a child, when he uncovered a beat to hell typewriter cleaning out the garage. Many years and a lot of wasted paper later, he still doesn’t understand the process any better. A list of his published work can be seen at: dfpaul.wordpress.com
