October 2022 | Best of Net nominee, visual art
Barn en Route to Loweville
Jim Ross
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health research. With graduate degree from Howard University, in seven years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid, and plays in over 175 journals and anthologies on five continents. Photo publications include Bombay Gin, Burningword, Camas, Columbia Journal, Feral, Stoneboat, and Stonecoast. Photo essays include Barren, Kestrel, Ilanot Review, New World Writing, Sweet, and Typehouse. Jim and his wife—parents of two hard-working nurses and grandparents of five little ones—split their time between city and mountains.
October 2022 | nonfiction
I sometimes lie on a hammock in my garden. My “yard” I call it because I’m American now. And I look up at the trees above the hammock and at the house and the windows. I feel quite alone at these times. I mean not alone as in “lonely” but cut off from the world around me, in my own world. Undisturbed. And while lying there, I sometimes listen to an audio book. Today it was a book of short stories by an old friend, Christine Schutt. We haven’t been in touch for years. Two stories stayed with me. One was about a woman who lives in the suburbs with her husband and teenage son. At the beginning of the story, she has just come back from a day shopping in the city. She is waiting on the deserted station platform. It’s dark. But neither her son nor the husband is there to meet her and no one picks up the phone when she calls home. There are no taxis. So she decides to walk. Decides it really isn’t too far even though she is carrying bags full of clothes she bought for her husband’s birthday. The story is just about her walk. It ends before she arrives home.
In the winter, I often sit in the family room with the lights off listening to books. This winter, I listened to Maggie Gyllenhaal read Anna Karenina. Her voice is relaxing. Often so relaxing that it put me to sleep. I was sorry when it was over. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s face is familiar to me from films, so it was easy for me to picture her in her studio speaking into a microphone, the book open on a device like a kindle or on her computer screen. I imagined her leaning forward slightly.
A still life is a painting of things not people. But the term makes me think of people too. For instance, I think of myself as a still life because I’m still alive. Funny how the word “still” can mean different things.
Today, as I sit alone in a dark corner, I look out at the trees in my garden.
Still life.
Nigel Paton
Nigel Paton is a teacher at a high school in New Jersey. Nigel’s writing has appeared in Tiferet: Journal – Fostering Peace Through Literature and Art. He can be seen and heard at poetryarchive.org. He spent part of this summer, 2022, at the Edinburgh Festival, happily revisiting the fringe where his play about Mervyn Peake was once performed.
October 2022 | visual art
What the Black Bird Says
K.L. Johnston
K.L. Johnston’s images first appeared in 2014 in South Carolina ETV’s in-house magazine “Scene”. Since then, her photos have appeared in literary magazines such as Camas, Wild Roof Journal, and Tiny Seed as well as travel journals and online galleries. She is a self-taught and nonacademic artist, and her camera goes with her wherever she goes. Now happily retired from a career as an art and antiques dealer, she is passionate about the outdoors, a good cup of hot tea, and 85% dark chocolate.
