Untethered

Odd remembrances haunt my lazy brain unbidden at odd times. Family legend has me nearly drowning after falling out of a boat when very young. The woman who is now great grandmother and widow that I made out with in my car sixty years ago. A small clothing store that I walked past in West Portland fifty plus years ago. Now there is a freeway where it was. I think it was small, isolated and named Mode O’Day. The traumatized beauty that abruptly rejected me while in college. Did she ever care for me, or was it completely one-sided?

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Metamorphosis

Kids are dumb. Especially when they're fourteen.

Vivian was this really fat girl in my Algebra class. Her friend passed me a note via my friend: Vivian likes you.

She waited for me in the cafeteria.

Her face was cute, but I didn't want to be seen with her.

"I don't like that fat girl," I shouted so all would hear.

Since then I can't bear to see her cry.

Yesterday, over breakfast, I asked my son to pass a birthday card to her.

She cried.

"You know, Dad, sometimes you're a real dumb guy."

I smiled. "I know, Son."

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

E. has works published at Entropy, Spillwords, The Purple Pen, The Haven, and several works are in the anthology, "NanoNightmares."