Deaf Date

Paul Hostovsky

She was my sign language teacher. It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I’d finally learned enough signs to ask her out. And even then I wasn’t sure if I’d asked her out on a DATE or on…

Cans and Cant’s

Arkadiusz Prysak

The rising sun shines thin and white across a small kitchen in Opole, Poland. Eli Sigmund, a ten-year-old boy sits at the breakfast table, waiting. His mother anxiously paces back and forth, frantically packing suitcases for Eli’s father and his…

The Revolution of What Didn’t Get Said

Steve Almond

In the fall of 2012, just a few weeks before the last presidential election, I flew from Billings, Montana to Denver. Shortly after takeoff, I heard the man behind me announce that he and his wife, who sat beside…

Edges

Liam Cetti

The wind whips my hair as I saunter along the uneven sidewalk. I brush it back with my hand, and then look up at the church building I’d just escaped. My family sits inside, absorbing the thundering words of the…

Minnie Mouse

Raven Baksh

Goddamn, she is some sort of hot today. What is it? Like, nine thousand degrees out? All these sun burnt people with their sun burnt children don’t seem to be bothered… With their bare chicken legs out and their little…

Bridges

Jennifer Andrews

She stands on a steel girder, her feet hooked around its ice edge, her hand wrapped tight around a cabled wire, her body, pulsing, pulsing in the wind.

Nicole

Kelly Abrams

The air was crisp, and winter was finally settling in. The air smelled of snow, though I knew it would never come. Because my friend had been admitted to the hospital the night before, I’d slept at my mother’s side,…

Matilde and the Monster

Fernando Montiel Sanchez

On a warm fall day that smelled of earth and rain, Matilde stood in the middle of the backyard with her husband, Fernando, trying to figure out a game for their children to play—a game that would not frighten them.…

Lines in Her Smile

Eleanor Buckland

There’s a big red photo album tucked away in my parents’ bedroom. On late afternoons, the yard in long shadows, the sunlight shallow, I used to sneak into their room and pore over the photos for hours, getting lost in…

Rock Music in a Little Girl’s Eyes

Jessica Prouty

My childhood was filled with tennis lessons, moon-bounce birthday parties, boating at the yacht club, and Christian Rock Music. Life was balanced by two loving parents, a blonde baby brother, church every Sunday, and one of the highest rated school districts in Massachusetts.