SUMMER READING 2020 Archives | Page 2 of 2

SENIORS ON THE MOVE by Mike Itaya

May 2, 2020 · Fiction

I’m Old Boy. In the assisted living, they give me the journal, for a doodling. I write camphor, cancer. Camphor, cancer. I don’t give a shit. I’m Old Boy. It’s Tuesday. And right off, things go bad. Somebody swiped Rundy’s anxiety candle. “Who’s fucking with my aromatherapy?” He wants to know. I used to drink. I don’t have the mind for it. My back’s fucked. I sleep out in the banquet hall, like a plank, waiting on them lunch ladies. I flash peepers and spot Rundy beneath the salad bar—guzzling stuff—working up to frenzy. He monograms his onesie with ranch…

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FISHSPLAINING BAUDRILLARD by Faye Brinsmead

April 28, 2020 · Fiction

The robo-guppy came in a tank with LED lighting, soothing ocean sounds, and coral reef background wallpaper. Proven stress-buster, Bernie said, handing me the box. There was some study in some journal. After 10 weeks of fish-watching, 75 percent of the subjects flushed their anxiety meds down the john. I took this as a hint he didn’t want to hear any more about writer’s block, impostor syndrome, the library’s overdue loans policy, or anything else connected with my PhD on Baudrillard. He looks sinister, I said. Those mean little eyes. Must be in on the techno-gadget revenge plot. I took…

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BLACK HOODED NUN by Caroljean Gavin

March 29, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

Stunned, I took the subway and rattled off to work at the Starbucks on 51st and Broadway. My brain’s way of assimilating my mother’s news was to take customers’ orders while imagining plunging a knife into their chests. Would I have to struggle to penetrate their clothing? Would there be a slurp of suction when I tried to yank the weapon back out of their flesh and muscle to repeat? Would they fight? Would they be angry? Surprised? Terrified? What would they say? What would their eyes look like? What would it feel like to not turn back? To go…

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RIGHT BEFORE WE FALL APART by Elizabeth Crowder

March 19, 2020 · Fiction

We sit in cooling sand. You reach out a gritty palm. I don’t move closer. Eight years ago, on this same stretch of beach, with our swelling son arching your back like a comma, we vowed to love each other forever. “Let’s play a game.” You twist kinky hair around a dark brown finger. The last game we played was at your parents’ Christmas party. There, in your three-bedroom, one-bathroom childhood home with the red door, you unclenched. Your voice became salty and slippery, an oyster shucked from its shell. You loosened, darkened, said the n-word with a soft “er.”…

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1978. BATH, OHIO by Sean Williamson

March 18, 2020 · Fiction

He was driving drunk, a cigarette ripping hot, filter crushed between his fingers. Around a faraway corner headlights, beams reflected faint through the windshield, through his Kmart but that’s ok glasses. Tiny embers spit, excited by wind from the open window. He put out the cigarette, stuffed it into the ashtray blossom, grabbed a pack of Camel Menthols off the passenger seat, popped the top, flicked and flicked until a filtered end rose, then pulled it out slow between tight teeth. He pushed in the lighter. Headlights down the way grew at him, flare swelling in his smudged up glasses,…

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