Category: Original Work
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A shotgun in the backyard silences the barking. Don’t misunderstand me, the man has not shot his dog. In the morning, when the man wakes, the bitch will be gone, her only trace the holes she chewed in his once-brand-new suede leather boots. The other dogs will howl until they tire…
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You know the line: it’s not you, it’s me. You were perfect, I swear. Couldn’t have asked for better. Even that one time you flooded out of nowhere, leaving me to drive to the auto repair shop with my pedals nearly underwater. Even when your cruise control stopped working halfway through my two-week drive to…
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There was a game you played as a child: After swimming, lying fetal on your side on the hand-me-down towel, she outlined whispersof words along your spine. You never guessed right.You never held in your mind more than a singular shape, divine. Can you feel it yet? Three letters. God? Sometimes, and thenothers Satan, saint or demon. Like Lot’s wife, sacrificed on a whimto…
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The shop smells like cut stems and lemon-scented Lysol. It’s one of the few places in the city that stays the same, year after year, even as the lifespan of its patrons shortens and the yellowish haze outside grows thicker. “Six pink carnations, six white daisies,” she says to the florist, hesitates a moment, then…
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of forgiveness. Who we forgive, and why, and maybe more importantly, how. If I say out loud that I forgive my father for his absence or my mother for only ever wanting a mother herself, does that make it true? Does forgiveness have to be felt…
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“There is a spot for you in Heaven, but only if you’re willing to open your heart like a door to Him,” Pastor Samuel had said that morning in his East Texas drawl, leaning on his podium. “Open your heart and let Him in.” Susannah was trying. She wanted to be close to Him. She…
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It’ll happen like this: You will scrape the ice off the windshield. Slow, at first, carefully. You will shovel the snow into neat little piles for your kids to scavenge for snowmen after school. You will climb into the mid-size SUV, silver,and wring out your dripping wet jeans. You will turn the key but the car won’t start. The car won’t start.…
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The room is painted blue. The wooden bed frame, the quilt, the sheets, the nightstand, the lamp, the doorknobs, the window panes, the slippers by the bed. All blue. She remembers the color before she remembers her own name. Blue. Then, Clara. Is that her name? No, someone else’s. She looks at her reflection in…
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“Does your mother know you drive like that?” You were angry and I was mortified. He was younger than I am now, blonde, in a black leather jacket some student would scavenge for seven bucks at the thrift store ten years later, skid marks and all. In my memory, he smirks, or maybe that was you. I like to think of…
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When she was 14, she learned how to tie her shoes. She was not slow, nor disadvantaged in ability or early childhood education. She had simply never had a need to wear a shoe. From the time she took her first steps, the Librarian’s daughter swept from place to place on socked feet that slid…
Emily Vance Brown 