When I opened the wooden, eight-panel door to Fatty’s bar, a muscular man in a yellow tank top banked the seven ball into the lower right corner pocket and scratched, the skinny bartender poured Budweiser into a pint glass, and the laughter–the animation I heard while out on the street–was pinched silent. The other billiard [...]
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Where’s the Windex? by Mark Kitrick
I wake up wondering, how many people are here? It didn’t used to be so crowded. I know I’m not crazy, but my brain keeps putting slides of various people in front of my eyes whenever I look at a mirror. It’s like my house is haunted. Every piece of silvered glass has another person [...]
Make it Up as We Go Along by Ryan Sparks
When our two eyes meet for the hundredth time in the day, skies outside cloudy, a rolling froth of clouds threatening to boil over, caught in the red rhombus of a televised tornado warning area, something happens that was unlike the first ninety-nine. We are pulled inward. A glass is set down on the counter, [...]
The Night my Heart Stood Still by Diane Kimbrell
Ancients studied celestial phenomena in the heavens to chart seasons, determine the best time to plant and harvest crops, wage battles, and hunt animals for food. In the 1950s, the kids in my neighborhood studied the night skies for flying saucers or UFO’s (unidentified flying objects). Since I never actually sighted one, I suspected the [...]