The facility is state-of-the-art, all swooping balustrades and huge panes of glass. Mom’s dozing in her wheelchair, and as the lift rises to the clinic on the thirteenth floor, Alyssa brainstorms how she’ll start her article on the procedure. She still can’t shake how excited her editor was, how he’d barely apologised when she pointed […]
She approaches the mirror: I’m there to meet her. We study each other through identical brown eyes. The spray of freckles across our noses. The incisor that’s slightly askew—hers on the left side of her mouth, mine on the right. We blink simultaneously. Her mother’s voice, calling: “Have you brushed your hair?” She looks over […]
The sand was dry and loose, still warm with the lingering heat of the day. Nora stole across the darkened beach, a large wicker basket clutched beneath one arm. Beside an outcropping of rock near the water’s edge, she stopped, lowering her bundle and pulling an oilskin bag from across her back. She glanced furtively […]
As a baby begins making its first purposeful sounds, they’re almost always “mamamamama.” That’s an easy sound to make with the human mouth. It’s as easy as opening and closing the mouth while forcing air across the vocal cords. It is no coincidence, then, that the word for mother almost universally contains the “mah” sound. […]
September 2019 marks the twentieth anniversary of Jay’s decision to become a writer. His gift to you all this celebratory year is DO IT – Twelve hard lessons on learning by failing, succeeding by accident, never giving up and saying FXXK WRITING all at the same time. You’re welcome! • • • “Pardon me for […]
“It’s me,” Phil lies. “It’s Phil. It’s Daddy.” Mira and Christy — Phil’s wife, Phil’s daughter — stare at him, daring themselves to believe. Mira puts her hands on Christy’s small shoulders: holding her back, or pushing her forward. The door to Phil’s room is open and, in the corridor outside, one of his doctors […]