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Cover
Table of Contents
Editor's Notes
Donations
Submission
Guidelines
Website
Stories
& Essays
...gone
tomorrow
_ By
jp Rodriguez
Barbie
and the Burn Scars
_ By
Dion OReilly
Bright
Lights
_ By
Nicole Exposito
Cricket Theory
_ By
Sophia Alev
Dieciseis
_ By
Kate Delany
Fines Double In Work Zone
_ By
Brian Stumbaugh
Guy and Doll
_ By
John P. Loonam
Lake
_ By
Erlynda Jacqui Chan
Lala's Diner
_ By
Nicole Exposito
Laundry
_ By
Allison P. Boye
Love Story
_ By
Cynthia Burke
Magic Bags and Forgotten Princesses
_ By
Ken Goldman
Squirrels
_ By
Benjamin Buchholz
Poetry
Baking Bread and Other Subtleties
_ By
Leland Jamieson
Corpus Christi
_ By
Taylor Collier
Early Cold
_ By
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb
Ekphrasis at the Mall
_ By
James Owens
Games In Your Uncle's Den
_ By
Robin Stratton
My Spanish Rose
_ By
Jose Rivera
Northern Lights, Southern Soul
_ By
E.F. Kramer
Posted on Fifth Avenue
_ By
J.R. Salling
Sirens
_ By
Naiya Wright
Summer Sojourn
_ By
Cheryl Butterweck-Bucher
The Himalayan Sunset
_ By
Rohith Sundararaman
Time Decays, Clots
_ By
Kristine Ong Muslim
Turn
_ By
Terrance Schaefer
Where You Rest
_ By
Stephanie N. Barnes
Art
& Photography
Bissan Alhussein
_ Paintings
E.W. Hung
_ Photography
Papa
Osmubal
_ Drawings
Linda
Pakkas
_ Drawings
Anastasiya Tarasenko
_ Paintings
Filip Wierzbicki
_ Paintings
and Digital Photography
Nancy Xu
_ Paintings
and Drawings
_
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(Continued)
The clock on the dashboard
said 12:38. Chic cafes offering chic salads and chic fish dotted
the downtown with green awnings, but Ellen drove past them all.
She finally pulled into the gravel parking lot of The Pancake Haus
with the patchy shingled roof. She hid the suitcase under a towel
in her backseat and brought her purse with her. The waitress who
seated her had graying hair tinged yellow by nicotine, and wore
red lipstick that seeped away from her lips along the cavernous
wrinkles extending like tributaries across her face. Her tan
pantyhose made her legs seem wooden as she led Ellen to the
cracked booth in the corner, as she had requested.
Ellen slowly ate her grilled
cheese sandwich and fries, with her napkin folded primly on her
lap. Sipping her diet soda, she brought the old spiral address
book out of her purse, laid it gently on the plastic table, and
opened it to the page she had folded down. She breathed in and
out, took another sip of soda, almost choked. Her t-shirt was
sticking to the small of her back, moist from resting against the
vinyl upholstery. She looked over her shoulder at the virtually
empty diner to make sure nobody was watching, nobody was listening
to her. Nobody was, of course.
Ellen took her cell phone
and stared at the phone number scrawled on the page in front of
her. Her joints froze. She started to dial but didn't finish. She
wanted to, but couldn't. She knew what the voice on the other end
was going to say: it's been too long, Ellen. What have you done,
Ellen? You had potential, Ellen. You don't know anything anymore,
Ellen. We don't need you anymore, Ellen. What are you thinking,
Ellen? She didn't know. She had a grease stain on the front of her
shirt, right between her breasts.
Ellen shoved the phone and
notebook back into her purse, threw cash on the table, and ran out
of the restaurant.
***
Ellen's mother made the most
delicious Sunday dinners. All of her meals were wonderful, of
course, but on Sundays they were something special. Moist, tender
pot roast that melted on your fork. Sweet pork tenderloin rolled
around fluffy cornbread stuffing. Rich, velvety sauces that took
hours to perfect and coated the plate. Gleaming china on a
polished table. Ellen's mother was busier than usual on Sundays,
but hummed songs by The Supremes under her breath all the while
she flitted around the kitchen. Naturally, Ellen and her brothers
loved Sunday dinner. Now Ellen could only wish she liked to cook.
***
Ellen continued to drive
without purpose, without focus. The city was behind her, and the
grilled cheese sandwich sat in her stomach like lead. She was
disgusted with herself for hanging up and eating French fries. She
felt like ripping her hair out in clumps and leaving it in a trail
behind her as evidence of her wretched existence.
Her peripheral vision caught
a yellow sign: Bart's Lotsa Love Feed Store and Petting Zoo. On a
whim Ellen wheeled her car over. She bought herself a four-dollar
admission ticket and sat on a bleached wooden bench full of
splinters, next to the corral filled with goats and donkeys and a
tired-looking llama. She felt strangely at home.
Ellen decided to make
another phone call. It took her several minutes to find the number
she needed. "Um, hi, Naomi, it's Ellen... Oh gosh, I'm so
sorry. I forgot how early it must be there right now. I'll go...
Everything's fine, fine... Really, I'm sure... Carl's terrific.
Mira's doing great, except for this awful shirt she loves, a gift
from her aunt, with her bellybutton hanging out. I'm going to do
something about that... How's work going?... That's really
wonderful... Yeah, I'm fine... Good to talk to you too."
Ellen turned off her phone
and slipped it back into her purse. The call lasted maybe ten
minutes. For a while she listened to the nearby chickens cluck and
peck at kernels scattered on the ground, and watched the llama try
to wrestle its neck through the wooden fence posts toward a patch
of green grass. One of the goats bleated while another raced in
loopy circles after its own tail, perhaps chasing a biting gnat or
fly, perhaps something larger.
Just then Ellen looked at
her watch. It was getting late. She got back into her car and
began the long drive home. She would shove the suitcase back under
the bed. Mira and Carl would be home soon, and there was laundry
to finish.
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ALLISON P. BOYE recently earned her Ph.D. in English, and her dissertation was selected to represent her university for national recognition. She has won numerous academic awards, taught college courses in writing, fiction, drama, and Women's Studies, and has published scholarly and creative work as well as satirical essays. She is currently at work on several articles, stories, and two books, and lives with her husband Jim in Lubbock, Texas, where she works as an administrator and teacher at Texas Tech University.
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