Margaret Thompson tells her boyfriend Bill he needs a costume for Thanksgiving. “It’s a family tradition.”
Contributors 87
Carla Spataro: Blue Sky and Pig Boy
Upstairs, in his lofty lair, Pig Boy looks out the window searching for Blue Sky on the wintry Michigan horizon. He squeezes his fingers into fists, willing Blue Sky to appear.
Greg Schreur: A Poor Reflection
After his shower the bathroom air is heavy and smells densely of soap. The steam and the moist gulf air have fogged the top half of the mirror and concealed his head behind a dense cloud of condensation, his reflection now a headless, naked, dripping body.
Tamara G. Oakman: Nothing. Everything.
Decaying houses fill Adina’s dark brown pupils, the backbones, or flanks missing. It looks post blitzkrieg—the miscellanies of the former inhabitants discarded—clothes, lost toys, kitchenware, bathtubs still nailed into place, full of grime.
Laura McCullough: Grace & Good Will
On the way home, I stop in the Good Will store in New Brunswick which I have passed going and coming for a couple of weeks while my father has been in the hospital.
James Mathews: Blondes to the Rescue
We were all ready, hundreds of us, cast into a sea of camouflage that spanned the enormous hangar floor, each clinging to a duffle bag stuffed to bursting with field gear, body armor, gas masks, last wills and testaments. All the things we would need in Afghanistan. The hangar doors were cranked open to reveal […]