Former Glory

She sits in a worn wheelchair, slightly swaying to the raspy and sultry melodies playing on the radio behind her. Drunkenly sloshing the dark brown liquid in the bottle she’s nursed throughout the night. Her eyes are as heavy as her heart, drooping with sadness and weeping with grief. Taking another sip, she sighs as the liquid scorches down her throat. She hums along to the music, reminiscing times when she played the same syncopated rhythms on stage. Her knobby and wrinkled fingers dance in the air on her ghost piano while swallowing sobs, thinking about her glorious old memories.

From Guest Contributor Sa'Mya Hall

Drum

There is one bright dancer among them. Her hands trace the music onto air. The “U” of her hips sways, telling bedroom stories. Melodies float her toward the youngest doumbek player, barely bearded.

She bends to him, smiling, flirting even, to the ululating tongues of all her watching sisters but as the hafla pauses to draw a collective breath, I see the truth: her focus is not the boy drummer. She shines for the pulled-skin drum.

An elderly man leans near me. “It is all that remains of her husband.”

“He played?” I am confused.

He shrugs. “He had enemies.”

From Guest Contributor Laura Lovic-Lindsay

The Incubus

When misery left, I missed it dearly. Numbness arrived in its place--an evil lurking miles below sorrow.

Then the Incubus came. His fingers soothed me, dancing like spiders across my back, before plucking me from my flesh.

Exquisite melodies escaped his mouth instead of language. I understood every word.

He held me on his fist, soaring me to gloomy, lilac clouds. My body quaked, and it began to rain.My thoughts fluttered like butterflies. He captured them; sang my own song back to me.

Sadly, he was just a dream; but the Incubus cured me, bringing back my misery.

From Guest Contributor L. Michelle Corp