Year Of Atonement

The Grim Reaper took things slower, started to travel by tricycle during the week and by donkey on the weekends. At night we kept warm around matchsticks and dumpster fires. For entertainment we compared peanut butter and jelly recipes. Snooze buttons recorded high anxiety days. Snooze alarms provided the year’s soundtrack. Almost everyone drank alcohol to mournful excess. Even coffee was served wrapped in brown paper bags. Coincidentally, that was the last year for the Miss America pageant. The final talent show, with an extra-large flame thrower, was really something. For months afterwards people sold charred auditorium remains as souvenirs.

From Guest Contributor Mike James

Wanderlust

At age eleven I begged to travel to Venice, to see those water streets.

“My desert baby has wanderlust,” Mama laughed.

On weekends, if we had money for gas, she’d tell me, “Pick a direction.”

We stopped at roadside attractions to buy those tiny spoons. We ate questionable tamales. We took pictures with four different Paul Bunyan statues.

For my sixteenth birthday, we followed highway signs promising The Thing. Surprise! It was a fake mummy. Stomach dropping, I realized people like us never saw the Grand Canal.

“We’re lucky,” Mama whispered. “Italians don’t even dream about seeing something like this.”

From Guest Contributor L.L. Madrid

The Meaning Of Divorce: As Told By A Seven Year Old

My name is Caleb Jones. What does divorce mean? It means daddy doesn’t live here anymore. It means mommy and daddy used to fight, now daddy moved away. I don’t cry anymore. I can only see daddy on the weekends. Oh joy. My room seems grayer than I remember it being. My teddy bear, Howard, I hug him tighter than before.

Should I go out to play today?

No it’s raining, that’s ok I’ll read the book daddy bought me, last Christmas. It’s a good book. I read aloud. I can still smell daddy’s pipe as I read. Good night.

From Guest Contributor, Doug Robbins