Sing A New Song by Fiona M Campbell

[Aberdeen, Scotland]

Charisma radiated from Maria Luciano, as she gave an astonishing virtuoso performance. Her passion for the music was evident.

Maria let her pastel pink fingernails dance over the piano keys, allowing the music to flow in a rainbow of sound. Her delicate fingers caressed the ebony and ivory, giving life to Chopin and Rachmaninov. Joyous applause echoed around her, as she took a bow. The sea of people was cloudy; the lights dazzling. A tingling sensation flowed through her, followed by a gasp from the audience and darkness.

The smell of disinfectant roused her. A lady in blue placed a beeping thermometer in her ear and an inflating cuff around her arm. The man in the white coat shuffled papers and shone a bright light in her eyes. 

          ‘You have Optic Neuritis, Mrs Luciano. There’s no treatment, but if you rest, your sight should return in four to six weeks.’

           Impossible! Her first European tour playing Greig’s piano concerto in A began the following week. 

           ‘There will be other tours,’ Nico said, kissing her hand. She was blessed to have him as her rock. Her constant in her changing world.

Maria lay on her purple chaise longue. Bach fugues and Scarlatti sonatas played in her head. Her fingers itched to play. Using the wall as her guide, she tentatively made her way towards her piano. Taking a deep breath, she stroked the keys and performed the elaborate melodies as if nothing had changed.

Three weeks passed; her vision cleared little by little, but her fingers tingled. Pins and needles. Then they were numb, refusing to co-operate. Who could play Mozart without trills and acciaccaturas? Maria sank to her knees and sobbed inconsolably. Music was her world. Without it, she was nothing.

With headphones over her ears, she lay completely still, gripping the panic button tightly, as she entered the MRI tunnel. So loud! A cacophony of industrial noise. Trapped, she wonders if they have found something sinister. Was this the end of her journey?

Sixteen days of wondering. Her legs had joined her arms; no longer following her directions. Nico wheeled her into the neurologist’s office. With a picture of Maria’s brain illuminated on the screen, the doctor pointed to the scattered white lesions.

           ‘You have multiple sclerosis, Maria.’

           Tears trickled down her cheeks. Relief that she was not dying from a tumour, regret for things she had not done, and recognition that her life was changing.

Infusions of magic medicine offered hope for the future. There was no cure. DMD’s they called them- disease modifying drugs. Maria’s sight returned. Her wheelchair resided in the attic, replaced by a pretty, purple cane. Her fingers no longer had the dexterity for the piano, but she found her voice. In stunning evening gowns, she performed passionate soprano arias.

Life had changed.

Maria rested her head on Nico’s lap, as he ran his fingers through her curls. She stroked her swollen belly. Tiny feet dancing inside her. Perhaps her new life was only just beginning.

For Sale by Louise Johnson

[London, England]

I barely recognised it.  

          Our frothy pink cherry trees were no longer there and father’s squirrel nest was now a living room, with white leather sofas and a supersized TV. Walls were demolished; a conservatory built. Cool greys and taupe replaced a livid turquoise and avocado palette.  

           I clicked on another photo, eager to discover what had become of the old-style kitchen, where mother stashed gin bottles behind packets of butterscotch Angel Delight. Here, she swayed, while singing tunelessly to herself. Potatoes burnt. Broccoli turned limp. In contrast, granite worktops and stainless-steel units looked rock-solid. 

          The house was reborn. It could breathe again.  

Jennifer Rose by Sandra Hurtes

[New York City, USA]

We sit in the waiting room of a doctor’s office

and pray for a baby.

Maybe you’ve been here.

Three years and five months of laboratory sex,

injections, invitro, blasts to your fallopian tubes.

The doctor’s cold speculum no longer makes you flinch.

You’re married to the love of your life

but you can’t make a baby.

And then, one glorious day your doctor smiles and says,

“Yes, you’re pregnant.”

You’re giddy; you and your husband go straight to Buy Buy Baby

where he falls for the stuffed giraffes

and yellow onesies.

You go to dinner at a fancy restaurant

and smugly decline wine.

And then, not long after, you have a miscarriage—make that four.

Just like that.

You can’t go through this again, but your husband wants a baby.

He bought the yellow onesies, the stuffed giraffe,

and he wants a girl to name after his sister, Jennifer Rose.

He agrees to the gender-neutral gray wallpaper.

You have one last embryo.

You’ll do anything for your husband.

You’ve loved him since the first grade

when he gave you a peppermint heart for Valentine’s Day.

You didn’t know he’d given one to every girl in the class

until your best friend Susie told you at your wedding.

Funny. Susie looks like the petite brunette across the room.

The way she twirls her hair around her finger

Crosses and uncrosses her ankles under her seat.

But it can’t be Susie.

She moved to Paris or Milan or some city you promised you’d visit

but never got around to.

Susie would understand what you’re going through.

She had an abortion in college,

and you stroked her hair when she cried and whispered,

“I wanted to keep it.” She was scared.

You’re scared now.

So is your husband.

You thread your fingers through his. He squeezes them.

You’ll treasure a boy, too. So will he.

Ten fingers, ten toes.

That’s all you pray for.

one last time.

The Abandoned Schoolhouse by Alex Baines

[Chicago, USA]

Penny eased up on her bike and braked hard, stopping by the edge of the road. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, her left foot still resting on the pedal.

     She’d decided to follow a different route home from the grocery store and gotten a bit carried away. She’d hardly expected to see an old building like this, though. The cracked sign said it was a schoolhouse, but it didn’t look much like one now. She didn’t remember ever seeing it before – how was that possible? Where she lived wasn’t exactly big.

     Penny had loved school, but school had never done much for her family. Her mom had enjoyed it, too, she found out later, although getting pregnant at seventeen meant she didn’t have much time for books after that. Penny’s older brother Tom had dropped out in tenth grade and gone to Chicago looking for work. He’d always said that families like theirs had no business going to college. Publicly, she’d agreed and found a job the first opportunity she had, bussing tables at the diner around the corner from home. Privately, though, she wished she could’ve had the opportunity. She’d always loved reading: Jane Austen and Daphne du Maurier, taken from the shelves of her senile grandmother who seemed decades older than the fifty-seven Penny knew her to be. Sitting in libraries and reading novels all day seemed like a dream come true. Her teachers thought it was a good idea, as well. She would never forget the disappointment in Mr. Langton’s face when she told him she wasn’t interested in looking at the scholarship literature he’d prepared for her. 

     Penny thought that there was something profoundly sad about seeing an abandoned schoolhouse, sadder maybe than seeing anything else abandoned, and there was a lot of abandoned stuff around here. After several moments of stillness, she realized that she wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d investigated the rooms. Leaving her bike but carrying the grocery bags with her, she felt like was creeping into something forbidden, moving to examine a trunk that might reveal dark gothic secrets.

     She found nothing. No sense, even, of anything. Her wavy blonde hair and bright blue eyes were pale ghostly reflections in the dust-thick windows. Cobwebs coated the walls and ceiling like a layer of thick dark frost. Who owned this place? Why was it still here?

     Even then, it stirred something. What was it? She looked towards the front of the single deserted room, imagining Mr. Langton’s kind brown eyes twinkling as she answered another question about metaphor in Thomas Hardy’s poetry. She stood very still, thinking. Maybe she would try to find those things he had mailed her, despite her stubbornness, about scholarships for Bradley and Southern Illinois.

     The sun seemed a little brighter when she stepped back outside.

Fragments Of Jenny by Jim Aitken

[South Queensferry, Scotland]

Like a snake winding its way, the queue in the bank weaved like the rhythm of a rattler and seemed to constantly unfurl its skin as customers left and instantly replaced old skin for new as other customers then joined the queue.

At the head of the queue there was someone I recognised from many years – and much younger skin – ago. She looked agitated as the teller told her that there was something wrong with her cheque. She turned, still agitated, until I spoke to her as she made her way back beside the queue.

‘Jenny?’ I calmly asked her. She looked at me with deep confusion in her eyes.

‘Yes, that’s me. I don’t think I know you,’ she replied with some hesitation.

‘It’s Tom,’ I said. ‘We once did Spanish lessons together many years ago now?’

‘I know a Tom. We have a Tom who comes round our house but he’s not you. I can’t remember things nowadays and the family only allow me out if they know I will be near the bus station so that I can get back home safely,’ she retorted with a kind of precision that had been well learned.

I started to retreat from the conversation I had initiated and our Spanish lessons of years ago returned to me. We went out together for the last two terms of the course and then I realised, that less than 100 metres from where we were standing, we once ran through the Autumn leaves of St. Andrew’s Square and even climbed over the railings to kick up the large clumps that lay on the other side.

Like being bombarded by a series of distant memories, it hit me with the sudden flashback of the first time she took me to her house. She was making tea when a kind of wailing from upstairs filled all the rooms.

‘It’s my mother,’ she had informed me.’ She’s got dementia. She drives me mad. I’ll go and see her  and be back soon.’

The double helix of damaged mind and fragmented information stood reincarnate before me. I could see she was struggling and, alarmed at the enormity of my realisation, I decided to release her from this awkward moment.

‘Well, Jenny, it has been good talking to you. The bus station is on the right once you leave here, remember. Look after yourself,’ I said with concern in my voice.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘it’s been good talking to you too.’

Then she left abruptly with a dazed kind of look and headed for the exit. I saw her long brown hair hang around her coat collar like fallen leaves as she left in a swirl of sad forgetfulness.

A Culinary Journey by Callum McGuigan

[Leeds, England]

​

With my first million I bought a perfect set of cooking spices. Because, you know. They’ve served me well, served us all well over the years, let me tell you that – the compliments I’ve had on these and every aspect of my kitchen are more varied than my vanilla collection.

Erm, yes, just water please. Clean palette, clean conscience and all that.

You know, I’ve so many truths to share if they’d only listen, only give me the voice I spent years curating. How else would they expect to learn, for example, that drinking is as much of an accessory as a scarf, and just as dangerous? I don’t drink anymore, of course. It became a distraction, like the business, so that had to go too, sometime after the second or third project.

I just want to be appreciated for what I do. When it comes down to it, it’s the people’s neglect of appreciation that frustrates me, makes me want to, you know, sever their Achilles tendons so they have to crawl around the room or something.

Don’t worry, I’m very familiar with the content of these safety briefings, but thank you.

Sorry. I wonder what brings you, on this, you know, ‘trip’. Not the same as me, I imagine!

For my industry, it’s the labelling, the marketing of it that’s the real problem; it could do with a rebranding from some literary delicacy like Atwood or Munro. I always read when cooking. Oh, oh, a joke: Did you hear what Hemingway said when he lost a limb? He had to say A Farewell to his Arms! I love American fiction, Fitzgerald too. Have you read his lesser-known novel about a king who ate his soldiers? It’s called ‘Tender is the…Knight’.

Are we taking off soon? No?

Even if you set aside how ridiculously reductive it is to label me - and my years of dedication - together with some amateur fast-food wannabe, it’s just such a boring word, phonetically. Why can’t it require acrobatics of the tongue like ‘ayuntamiento’ or ‘malleable’? I think that would give people pause, make them consider the artistry in these projects. How the selection and shopping and preparation and timing and room decoration and waste disposal are, even alone, gargantuan tasks. But no, instead they just say ‘cannibal’ and see that as enough of a label. Idiots, ignoring what really is the next step in social (and socialist) evolution.

Oxygen from here, life vest under here, yep got it.

Do you think they’ll have Jenga where we’re going? Jenga, after all, is a rite of passage and an excellent indicator of psychological fortitude.

I’ve heard it has rain as warm as blood, grass as thick as fingers. It’s winter there now, I think. By summer I’ll be set up with the local wildlife. I’m thinking a dish involving oranges in some way, like a, you know, twist on orange peel beef. I’ve always wanted to pick them after something, one of the only things, my father said: “If you don’t pick up your oranges with conviction, don’t grip them with inevitability, how can you ever expect to raise a family?” No family in these pockets though! Sorry, I can’t quite reach to show you with these on my wrists.

Oh, look! We’re moving, bon appetit!

Lady Die by Abbi Parcell

[Manchester, England]

Lady Die died with a needle in his arm.

We had jokes that it was a silver tiara. You know the kind you'd get from a 70s magazine. He loved the pomp, any excuse to wear sashes the tackiest jewels.

"Fuck Knows what's next..."

When he woke in the hospital, watching a Joan Crawford film on Channel 57 when -

At the wake, the tension broke when someone guessed the casket was closed because he was in there in a big wig and heels, someone said, "You know he's always late, he probably isn't here yet—he's still fixing his makeup."

Common Place by Matt Smikle

What was coincidence? He found himself wondering as he crossed the street. He couldn't quite figure, but he guessed it was something to do with timing, the clash of movements that revel in each other’s wake. The second summoning of that memory thought forgotten. Jon wasn't sure, the very concept baffled him. The man donning the same coloured shirt as him across the street, should that be odd? Perhaps this wasn't the time to wonder. He wasn't in the mood for trivia, not today, he had somewhere to be.

Max realised it probably wasn't the wisest decision to head out in the same shirt as the man he followed, but he couldn't change that now, all he could do was watch. He felt relief upon finally seeing his nemesis in the flesh. It almost sickened him how Jon walked among others, as if he belonged. As charming as he was, Jon was no trustworthy person, and Max was ready to put an end to it. He placed a hand in his pocket, clamping a firm grip on his fully loaded firearm; eyeing Jon crossing the street.

Nathan always hated this drive, this road in particular was rife with blind spots and inconsistencies. Crashes were common place here. Though no number of accidents could have prepared him for what happened next. He couldn't see the man at first, he and another man across the street were wearing the same coloured shirt. Just the clash of colours left him confused but for the first time in years... the blind spot returned to wreak its havoc once more. The man only managed a sideways glance at Nathan before he was mowed down in his bloody demise.

Forever Dancing on Ice by Andrew Newall

[Falkirk, Scotland]

​

He adjusts her seat so she can gaze out at the loch while he orders their usual meal. During winter, the loch is always frozen. Young skate on the thick ice, warmly wrapped up. He watches her, remembering when she wore skates and glided on the same loch. She also remembers. He sees her eyes follow the skaters. In a weak voice, she tells him they are good. He reassures her she was better.

                                                                                          *

     She wore skates the first time he ever saw her at their local ice rink, both in their late teens. She was good even then. It was her favourite pastime. He spoke to her when he could catch up with her, which wasn’t often. He asked her out. They dated. She competed. She won, he cheered. She lost, he still cheered. They married within a few years and on one of their weekend breaks, tried out a hotel in the Scottish Highlands, a two-hour drive from their hometown.

On a winter’s night, a log fire burned inside. Strangers met and talked with them until they were strangers no more. They were told the loch was safe to skate on when it froze over each year. When he saw her smile on hearing this news, it was no surprise that one weekend turned into an annual holiday.

                                                                                          *

     The hotel has gone downhill since that first visit fifty years ago. Rooms require upgrading, strangers remain strangers, preferring to look at phones and talk less. It saddens him because he knows this will more than likely be their last stay together. She is no longer well enough, but still insisted on coming. She told him that when she dies, she would like her ashes to be scattered in the loch.

​

     A few months later, he drives into the hotel grounds. When he gets out, he carries a small urn close to him and walks to the loch. Standing at the edge, he comments to his wife that this is the first time they have seen the lake in the summer when it is not frozen. After a few more private words, he tips the urn, allowing the ashes to slowly empty, a light summer breeze guiding them gently to the welcoming water.

​

     A year has passed since he gave her ashes to the loch. He drives to the hotel on a beautiful day. Rooms were all booked out when he phoned but he doesn’t care. On arriving, he struggles to find a parking space. When he finally does, he immediately heads for the loch, an overwhelming excitement powering him on. He can’t see for the crowds. He heard that people had come from all over to see. Excusing his way through, he reaches the lake’s edge to see for himself. Under a cloudless sky, in the blistering heat, young and old skate on thick ice which appeared at winter and shows no signs of melting.

Marching Season by David Patten

[Denver, Colorado, USA]

I’m Liam.  I’m fifteen.  I live on Berwick Road in a council house.  That’s in the big Ardoyne estate in the north of Belfast.  It’s tough, you’d better know how to scrap.  My da works down in the shipyards, stops in at the pub on the way home.  Sometimes ma has me fetch him for dinner.  He smokes a pack a day, my da.  One time I heard him and his brothers planning something bad.  I think they’re Fenians.  The Prods call us that all the time.  My da says Fenians are just proud to be Irish, that’s all.  I’ve got an older brother, Rory.  He’s twenty-three.  He hates Protestants, says he’s going to join the IRA.  Ma would kill him if she knew.  Today is the twelfth of July, the biggest day in the marching season.  The Orangemen are going to be marching through the Ardoyne.  Why do the police let them?  Because they’re all Prods too, I suppose.  Rory says the Orangemen march to celebrate some battle they won centuries ago.  Dad says they march coz they have all the power and want us to feel inferior.  Why don’t we just move to Dublin, I asked him.  He spat on the ground and said because this is our home and Ulster needs to be part of the rest of Ireland.  Ma wouldn’t leave all her sisters anyway.  I’m out on the street now, we all are.  I can hear them.  Pipes, drums.  Getting louder.  People are already shouting at the police, pushing against them.  Everybody wants to get at the Prods when they arrive.  I can see some soldiers on rooftops.  Jesus, they’re not going to start shooting, are they?  The crowd is surging.  I can see Union Jack flags and bowler hats of some of the Orangemen.  Why do they wear those anyway?  On our side people are waving Irish flags and someone’s standing on a wall with a sign written in Gaelic.  They’re right here now, the Prods, those Orangemen with their drums and flags.  Here, off the Crumlin Road into our Ardoyne.  The bastards are taunting us.  A big surge from our side, swearing, fighting the police.  Somebody throws a brick into the marchers.  The soldiers, they’re going to start shooting like they did in Derry, aren’t they?  A hand grabs my shoulder and turns me around.  Rory.  Come on, he yells and I follow him down the alley at the side of our house.  We stop in front of a dirty canvas sheet.  Rory kneels and throws it off to the side.  I can see four bottles, each one with a rag stuffed into the neck.  They stink of petrol.  Rory puts two of them in my hands, then picks up the other two.  He asks me if I’m with him.  Are you with me, Liam?  His eyes are madness.  There’s a faint whiff of whisky.  Liam, are you with me?  I look at the bottles in my hands.  They’re shaking a little bit.  I meet my brother’s stare.  I am.

Mysteries Of The Universe by Mark Barlex

[London, England]

That week was the project in microcosm, forty years of expenditure and almost imperceptible development, compacted metamorphically into a handful of hours and days. The thrill of purpose. The grind of preparation. The throw of a switch.

     The subsequent scrambling scree of data and unanswered questions.

     On Tuesday, in the blond-wood media centre twenty miles from the facility itself, the Director of Operations tried to describe what was about to take place.

     “We’re sand-blasting a mountain, looking for the Michelangelo underneath,” she said.

     She tried again.

      “We’re dropping a pebble into a well and waiting for the splash.”

     Sitting next to her on the low podium, the Head of Research intervened.

     “The well is horizontal and we don’t know how deep it is,” he offered. “We’re throwing the pebble in sideways and gravity no longer exists.”

     “We’re in uncharted territory here,” added the Director of Operations. “Anything could happen.”

     “But probably won’t,” added the Head of Research.

     “But could,” countered the Director of Operations.

     “But probably won’t,” returned the Head of Research.

     They made their way to the test site in silence. 

     Two miles below the twin banded-granite summits of Gulvain, on the geologically optimum north-west side of Scotland’s Great Glen Fault, they settled themselves in the control room.

     “Does this feel anti-climactic?” the Director of Operations asked.

     “Maybe if there actually was some kind of lever or button,” the Head of Research replied.

     A man at a nearby bank of monitors and controls turned in his chair.

     “Ready when you are,” he said.

     The Director of Operations replied. “Thank you, Craig. Take it away.”

     The lights flickered. A low thrum pulsed around then through the room.

     “Essentially,” the Head of Research began, “Something doesn’t add up, so we’re spinning particles into one another at staggering speeds in order to work out what.”

     “Better,” said the Director of Operations. “But still not quite it.”

     “We know lots,” the Head of Research announced, “But not everything. And while this won’t tell us everything straight away, it will give us some important clues.”

     “Basically, we’re throwing a quarter-of-a-trillion pound kitchen sink at it,” the Director of Operations said. “Although when you say it out loud, that sounds pretty desperate.”

     The lights went out.

     From the other side of the room, they heard Craig say, “Oops.”

     On Thursday, after careful deconstruction of the damaged dipole magnet assembly, the problem was revealed.

     “A spoon?” asked the Head of Research.

     “Looks like it,” replied Craig.

     “But is it?” asked the Director of Operations.

     “A spoon?” said Craig.

     “Yes.”

     “I think so.”

     “Or the breakthrough we’ve been searching for?” asked the Head of Research.

     “Which looks like a spoon,” opined the Director of Operations.

     Craig said, “I think it’s just a spoon.”

     “Maybe that’s what it wants us to think.”

     “It?”

​

     “We’re in uncharted territory here.”

     “I see. Should we run some tests?”

     “How long will they take?”

     “Years, probably.”

     “Do it,” said the Director of Operations. “What choice do we have?”

​

The Kiss by David Patten

[Denver, Colorado, USA]

​

Vienna is in bloom.  Like most European cities, the Austrian capital shakes off winter in a riot of color and fragrance.  Heavy clothing discarded, people stroll the wide streets in contentment.  Sidewalk cafes bustle.  Boys, fingers blackened by newsprint, call out, caps pushed back and shirtsleeves rolled high.  A gentle wind stirs, its breath full of warmth and optimism.

          A fashion designer, senses always tuned to aesthetics, Emilie stoops to admire daffodils circling the base of a young tree.  Spring is her favorite season.  She carefully plucks one of the flowers and sets it in her dark, bushy hair.  Gustav will appreciate it, she thinks.  As she continues on to his house for the reveal. she draws stares, some out of recognition, others due to her height and Bohemian appearance.

          Emilie knows she has sometimes been labelled as Klimt’s muse.  Perhaps that was once true.  But the word belongs to something more fleeting; now the two are established companions, even occasional lovers, their kinship forged in creations of beauty and sensuality.  She turns onto Josefstadte, the imposing red maple a sentinel in front of Gustav’s home.  Approaching the arched, wrought iron gate Emilie adjusts the daffodil in her hair, expectant.

          Klimt is standing on the garden path in back of the house facing the cottage that is his studio, windows large and clear for the light.  The garden has a canopy of tall trees, the path bordered by ferns and shrubs.  He is wearing the teal smock that he paints in.  Mid-forties now, a decade Emilie’s senior, he has a full beard, the untamed hair on his head in premature retreat.  He embraces Emilie, kissing both cheeks, touches the daffodil in her hair.  She takes his hands in hers.  “I can’t wait to see your work.” 

          Afternoon light bathes the studio.  Palettes, brushes, tubes of pigment and canvasses occupy the space in no particular order.  An artist’s clutter.  In one corner an easel, a large sheet concealing the finished work.  Emilie looks at Gustav for confirmation.  He nods, gesturing for her to approach it.

          Revealed, Emilie steps back, a small gasp escaping her lips.  She regards the painting in silence, eyes consuming all of it.  She glances at Gustav, a look of wonder, and steps closer to the easel.  Radiant in floral golds, purples, reds, greens, a couple caught in an embrace, both loving and sensual; the man cradling her face, kissing a cheek, the woman enraptured.  Beneath their feet a meadow in a mosaic of spring hues.  Klimt stands behind Emilie, hands on her shoulders.  “Is she Athena to her Apollo?”  He smiles at her interpretation.  “No, it’s you Emilie.”  His fingers find her hair.  “It’s us.”

After by Stephen Page

[Beunos Aires, Argentina]

Sunday. I wake early and prepare our breakfast. I turn on the coffee machine, the water boiler for Teresa’s tea, lay out the plates, silverware, and glasses. I open the living room windows. It is hot again today. At least 80 degrees already and it is only 7 a.m. After I squeeze Teresa’s lemon juice, cover the glass with a napkin, and put her bread in the oven to make toast, I pull the bacon and eggs out of the fridge and put a skillet on the stove. I sit and wait for her to wake to start our regular Sunday grease breakfast.

       As we finish our food and beverages, I clean the dishes.

      “Thank you, love,” Teresa says as she hugs me.

       By now it is already 90 degrees outside. I close the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

      “Too hot to go outside,” she mentions.

      “Yes, probably.”

      “Not much to do anyway, now, during this pandemic, the beaches will be full. Idiots. Too dangerous.”

      “Yes.”

      “And I don’t feel like running errands.”

      “Me either.”

      “I’m tired.”

      “I’m lazy. Out of energy. This has been going on too long.”

       I lie on the couch and read books. Teresa sits on the bed and plays ‘talk on the cellphone to friends’ for hours.

       We lunch on low-salt turkey sandwiches, then nap in separate rooms.

       By 6 p.m. it has cooled down a bit. We go for a walk around the tree-lined hilly neighborhood. We admire the spring flowers, the bees buzzing about them, the butterflies flapping, and we listen to the birds singing.

The Numpty Jumped Me by Melissa Molina

[Scotland]

(Monologue)

“I never fell off a wall. That’s not true, absolute nonsense. It was around 6 pm and it was starting to get dark. I required hard cash because I planned to go to the town centre in the morning and I didn’t want to take my bank card. Cash meant I was in control; I could easily track my spending and I would only buy what I needed. Anyway, I walked round to the cash machine and there was no one waiting. I decided I would withdraw £100.00, so I reached into my pocket for my card. I pressed 3244, but that wasn’t it. Was it 2344 or 4432? I stopped trying; the last thing I wanted was for the ATM to swallow my card. I couldn’t remember the number. This had never happened to me before, I was confused, and my head went completely blank. It was like the digits had been wiped clean from my memory. I walked over to the red brick wall and sat down; my head was spinning. I held the bank card in my hand and stared at it hoping I would remember the four-digit pin number, but I just couldn’t. Then, a tall, thin, thirty-odd-year-old looking guy sat beside me. He smelt. I inhaled a strong whiff of body odour. I know we all sweat and we all smell to varying degrees but this guy stank! He was wearing a dirty blue jacket that was torn at the collar. He looked straight at me and demanded money. I explained that I didn’t have any money; I couldn’t remember my pin number. It was freezing and I was chittering. I was cold but I was also scared. I stood up and quickly walked away and that’s when the numpty jumped me. Then, all I remember is hearing a lot of voices and when I opened my eyes I was surrounded by a crowd of people, staring at me, asking me what happened. They looked concerned as if they were trying to help me. I know there was a pool of blood on the wall but I repeat I did not fall off it. Then, the same folk strapped me to a stretcher and now I’m here, in this ward. If you genuinely want to know what happened then please listen to me. I can’t explain why there is £100.00 in my pocket and I don’t know why this slip, in my hand, is showing a £100.00 withdrawal. I did not take out that cash. I could not remember my pin number. I still can’t remember it. For the last time, I’m telling you, I never fell off a wall, the numpty jumped me”.

My Head Bumps by Stephen Page

[Beunos Aires, Argentina]

Teresa and I have only one evening recreation left to participate in together ever since the coronavirus spread over the world like foamy sea-water over a pebbly shore—watching TV. We can’t go to the cinema, eat inside restaurants, go the ballet, opera, or theatre, so we watch movies, TV series, news, and sports. I watch, alongside her, and I wonder, why don’t all the characters in the new movies and series wear medical masks? Why do they eat inside restaurants? Why don’t the cardboard cut-out fans in the otherwise empty baseball stadiums have medical masks painted on them?

            My head bumps, which started a month or two after COVID-19 became a pandemic, have suddenly cleared up. Two pharmacists and our hair-cutter, who comes to our apartment wearing a medical mask and rubber gloves, told me, “They are grease eruptions, a result of nerves, fear, worry, and anger all together over a long period of time.” I thought, I am not a nervous person, I fear very little, but yes, I worry for my family and friends, but I am hardly ever angry.

            The bumps used to itch, and when I scratched them, they just spread. I thought that it was because I lent my hat to a friend who came visiting on a cruise ship just before the outbreak, like he had lice or something. I felt things crawling around on my scalp. Teresa and Cati scoured my scalp sever times and told me, “No lice.”

            Grey clouds and black sea outside. The wind is whipping the trees around

Our souls at night.

            Yesterday, I woke just after sunrise and prepared Teresa’s breakfast while she slept. Then I sipped a coffee on the balcony. The sky was blue and the sea also.

            When Teresa woke, and ate with me on the balcony, I drove her to Punta del Oeste. We picked up a few things at the pharmacy, then lunched on duck breast and whipped potatoes at La Chaise.

            The sleeping pills Teresa gave me have helped me sleep again, which I have not since my dad died. I had stopped sleeping pills for six months and was just starting to feel normal again, withdrawal symptoms over, nightmares over, writing flowing smoothly, my short-term memory back, my speaking vocabulary returned—both in Spanish and English. But the news that my dad died of a heart attack while waiting in a jammed hospital admissions room,  while a line of twenty-some ambulances were lined up outside with COVID-19 affected patients inside each, was a little devastating.

            Today, oh, I mean the other today, or maybe it was yesterday, Tuesday, no I mean Thursday, Lidia slipped into my office while I was writing, and poured herself a cup of coffee from my thermos. I thought I left her some in the carafe in the kitchen. We kissed, she flashed me a peach breast, my blood rushed, and we smiled at each other.

When she left my office, I took my hands off the keyboard and I scratched my scalp.

Yet Another Groundhog Duvet Day by Paula Nicolson

[Lockerbie, Scotland]

Dear you,

     I don’t want a new beginning, because that would mean the death of me.

     A sore throat is my signature piece but rarely lasts, fading away as the nose honey takes over. But I also like creating a cough that makes people take two steps back, for I just want to isolate with you for ever; cosy in between the warm skin folds and mucous blanket of your nasal passages. Then I’ll force you to breath entirely through your mouth, littering dried saliva and chapped skin on your lips as you sleep (or not); even give you sore eyes if you want a few more days off work. Just think of all those tissues you’ll trumpet into, the money squandered on foul tasting throat pastilles and drugs that’ll keep you propped up as a cardboard cut-out of your original self.

     On the plus side, you can avoid all the friends you don’t want to see because of me, and watch all the crap on TV that you never thought you wanted to see. And if like turns into love, I can summon an ear or a chest infection to send you into a post viral depression as you languish at home with a cup of lemon and honey tea, in yet another Groundhog Duvet Day.

But I promise you’ll always have enough energy to update your Facebook post with, ‘I wish this cold would do one,’ and to read your responses such as, ‘You OK Hun?’ to revalidate your existence that you do have friends; albeit for four seconds.

     I don’t want a new beginning, because I am your beginning.

     Love,

     The Cold

Courier by David Patten

[Denver, Colorado, USA]

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Griffith Park in the early morning.  Mateo cycles past joggers and dog walkers.  A group of elderly Koreans in wide brimmed hats doing Tai chi.  Off to the west peacocks in full voice at the zoo.  He enjoys this start to the day, cutting through the park down into Franklin Hills and then across to Sunset, which he rides all the way to downtown.  At Angelino Heights he stops at a coffee shop and checks the app for the day’s first pick up.

          Mateo can make his own hours, but the best times to ride are from around eight to three.  With UCLA out for the summer he can make good money on his bike for a couple months, and then go meet up with his mom and all her spirited siblings down in Guadalajara.  The first package is at a realtor on Wilshire.  Mateo drains his second cup, adjusts his helmet, and pushes off into traffic.

          Early afternoon.  It’s hot, July letting LA simmer.  Mateo has been staying hydrated, avoiding hills.  He’s in line at a Jamba Juice, taking a breather.  Ordinarily, he’d go another hour or two but he’s baked and wants to head down to the ocean.  He takes out his phone to shut off the app but another job lights up the screen.  A lawyer’s office just a couple blocks away, a package going to the Federal Courthouse over by the Civic Center.  Just one more job.  Mateo hits the accept button.

          The package is bulky and digs into him through his backpack as he navigates standstill traffic.  He lifts the bike up steps and walks it across the wide plaza to the courthouse.  Two uniformed officers check his progress at the entrance.  They are surly, uncomfortable in the heat.  Mateo hands one of them the package, has him sign for it on the app.

         He is a block away when the blast sends him sprawling, hauling all the breath out of him.  His ears are muffled as if underwater.  Blood trickles from his nose.  The bike is on its side, wheels spinning.  Car alarms, dozens of them.  Then sirens.  So many sirens.  Another sound, harsher, urgent.  Officers are barking at him to remain on the ground.  He feels a sharp pain in his arms as his wrists are cuffed.  A realization comes to Mateo like a slap in the face, his brain joining the dots.  The package.

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Mother by Martin Hone

[London, England and also Ireland]

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Up until the moment the Finance Director ran out of the office holding a hankie to her face and bawling like a baby Jackie had felt that her interview was going quite well.

     Just as the interview was wrapping up (‘Where will you be in five years?’) the FD leapt up, shouted: ‘Stop right now!’         Reaching the door she looked back at Jackie. ‘It’s not your fault but I’m really upset.’

      ‘We’ll keep your CV on file and let you know if another position comes up. In another department,’ said the HR lady.

     As Jackie crossed the car-park a voice called to her:

     ‘Jackie, please wait.’

     It was the FD, Tina, trotting after her.

     ‘I wanted to explain. About my behaviour just now.’

     ‘I somehow offended you,’ Jackie said.

     ‘Not you, me.’ She was slightly out of breath. ‘Me. My mother passed last year. Terrible shock. Stroke. In the street.           Doctor said death was instantaneous. She wouldn’t have suffered.’

     ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ said Jackie.

     ‘Thing is.’ Tina bit her lip. ‘You look just like Mum. You’re the spitting image. At your interview it was like I was sitting in the same room as Mum.’

     Jackie’s heart went out to her.

     ‘Seeing me everyday would have brought back too many sad memories.’

      Tina snorted loudly.

     ‘Sad?’ she said. ‘Oh no. I hated my mother. Really hated her. I just couldn’t stand the thought of coming into work every morning and being reminded of that ugly fat bitch.’

Hydrogen by Emma J Myatt

[Scotland - originally from Yorkshire, England]

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Sue’s at a weekend camping celebration for a unique friend’s birthday, one that includes mini-lectures about the universe and elements, when in her pocket there’s a phone call. She checks it – her mother who never calls her. She lets it ring out. She listens to a last quote about leaving hydrogen alone for ages and it becoming animals and petals and people then goes to her tiny tent so nobody will see her cry – not because she’s embarrassed but because she doesn’t want to spoil the party. She knows before she listens to the message what it is so the tears start before the words.

The following morning there’s hurried packing whilst friends check train times, a ride to the station and hugs, tears, late trains and a sense of her falling backwards into her life as she crosses past-versions of herself in place names. The stations have their own stories and she’s in many of them, standing with a backpack on the way to or from a random adventure. Heading North she hears accents change and she cries more. She thinks about how her mother and aunt mafiaed up against her as they do with anyone who fights the family line and wonders if her aunt will hear her say sorry.

Back in Leeds, lightyears and lifetimes away from her past self who stood on exactly this spot, once, she looks for familiarity and only hears it, in the music of Yorkshire vowels and the rainfall.

In the café she sees her mother with the Godfather – the man who married her – and she runs past, unseen.

In the ward she says my aunt, and stroke, and is led to a tiny figure lost in sheets. Amongst the wires and bleeps and liquids going in and out she’s unconscious, breathing softly the tubed air. Machines make mountain ranges out of her heartbeats. Sue wants to climb them and reach her but she sits and takes the feathery hand that has done so much, too much to lie here on a sheet. It’s dry and has no grip.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she begins, and tells her everything she should have told her anytime in the previous two years.  She cries more and is amazed there are tears left. Now that it’s too late she blurts everything out through gulps and tears.

When she’s run out of words she sits back and holds the hand and waits for some kind of response, but of course there’s nothing. She’s much too late.

She knows the rest of the family will arrive soon and she’s no spirit for the fight so she kisses her aunt and creeps away, her hood pulled low. Out in the street she heads through the wet back to the crappy hotel where she dumped her bag. On the way she thinks about that quote again and knows the guy was wrong.

Leave hydrogen alone for a really long time and it becomes aunts and tears and love.

The Crichton by Ian S Goudie

[Strathbungo Village, Glasgow, Scotland]

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The Crichton still has an odour, you know, the one that all old hospitals have. The chemical smell of blood lingers on these walls. I cough, choking on the stench of blood and mud and rotting corpses. I hear the deafening sound of blasting bombs, of bullets firing and the screams of soldiers crying. Wounded men, the dying, waiting for my dad to cart them back to base. Oh, yes, the Crichton has a past - and one connected to my family. 

     This building is like a butterfly, its wings radiating from its beating heart, a Greek Cross. Those wings, its equal arms, I know they’re meant to symbolise the four elements of nature: earth, water, air, and fire, but I only think of death.

I creep up the octagonal stair tower towards the source of light, sickened that the decorative iron trellis, so cold to my touch, is there to stop sick patients from jumping to their early graves. 

     There's a ballroom up here, and wrapping my arms around my body, as if in a straitjacket, I swivel around 360 degrees, standing on one foot, a ballerina doing a pirouette: Madam Butterfly. I stop and think. Did my dad really believe that his war would end wars? 

     I feel the tears run down my face and run downstairs and out the door. Deep breaths. Calm down. Walk and breathe.

I stop under the dark shadows of a towering Nobler Fir and rest beside a smaller tree. I’ve never seen a tree like this before. Its bracts look like the handkerchiefs of mourning widows. The name plaque reads ‘Davidia Involucrata–the Ghost Tree. Planted in 1963.’ The year he died. 

     A shiver runs down my spine. I scatter off. Run towards the safety of the business park, and then stop dead. 

     I know that name. Galloway House. The paupers’ villa, in which my father died. I read it on his death certificate, where it said the cause of death was Bronchopneumonia, but I know that’s a lie. It was the war that killed him. 

     He was only seventeen when he signed up in 1914. An army ambulance driver in the Machine Gun Corps, the Suicide Squad. They said that he was one of the lucky ones because he hadn’t died and had no scars to show. But the bombs, that killed his comrades, blew his mind away.

     Men like him, they didn’t talk. They took on their demons all alone. Fought daily battles in their brains, but never won. 

In later years, he took up gardening. My mother said it helped, but the illness still took its toll. It was plain he couldn’t cope. 

     On Christmas Day in 1955, the men from the Crichton came. They strapped him in a straitjacket and carted him away in a St Andrew’s ambulance. A modern, clean, white, sanitised version of the type he used to drive.

     They wouldn’t let me visit him. Well, now I am. 

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The Honeymoon by Mary Rothwell

[York, England]

“Everything still feels so surreal!” Sarah said smiling, watching the trees and hedges of the countryside whiz past in a blur of green. “I keep thinking that I shall wake tomorrow and be back at home, as though nothing has happened.”

“My dear wife,” John replied, laughing. “I promise you that not only tomorrow, but every day after, you shall wake as a married woman.” 

He did not look up from his paper as he spoke.

“Can you believe the girls at work? The teapot must have been so expensive but it was just the one I wanted.” 

“Ah, well, I guess you could count it as a leaving present as well, perhaps that’s why they splurged.”

“What?” Sarah's smile faltered.

“Well, what will happen to the house and children if you’re at work?”

“But what about the promotion?”

“Yes, it was all very exciting," John replied, only now turning to face her, "but that was before the wedding.”

“But we are only just wed, you have never mentioned children before.”

“My love, that goes without saying,” he said, oblivious to the shocked expression on his wife’s face. “We are going to be just like my parents.”

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“To Live is To Travel” by Stan Niezgoda

[London, England]

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I hate commuting. But here we go again, the mindlessness of the same landscapes floating by, disappearing. I enter the red bus, tap my card on the reader, and to the upper deck I go. I choose the seat above the stairs, always the same one. From here, I can watch not only the people outside, but the ones going with me too, the ones who much like me go about their lives on the same bus, travelling somewhere near or far.

​

See this lady over here? No bag, only a translucent document sleeve – inside, some papers and a passport, a foreign one. She might be going to the Job Centre, just like I did when I moved here. She’ll be asked the same mundane questions, asked to fill the same forms, maybe the same clerk will serve her. I like parallels. They make me feel as if all of our lives are somehow connected, and we are in fact, one brainless mass of people who just go places, A to B, or B to A.

But maybe she is going somewhere completely different. She might have lived here for years, and now, her heart pounding with as much excitement as stress, she is going to get her citizenship. Or else, she’s going to the embassy of some far-away land, to get out of here. Her life here was a stream of disappointments, and she’s finally ready to leave it behind. In the passport she’s holding, some clerk will put a giant, colourful visa and off she goes, and I’ll never see her again.

​

I guess I will never know. As the stops skid by in a turtle-like speed, I find myself window shopping. I like that dress, you know, the one I saw in the window of the charity shop in the rich district. I always pass this place, and yet somehow, I’d never set foot here, I see it only from the seat of the bus. I might exit here one day, just to try. I won’t buy anything because I don’t earn enough, but looking is just as good – at least your wallet doesn’t suffer.

​

I come out of the trance as the bus nears my destination. There are still three stops left. Here is where the woman with the passport stands up, excuses the person sitting next to her, and goes down the staircase. I follow her broad back as she’s outside on the street, and I notice something I didn’t notice from up-close. She looks just like my granny when she was still young. She turns around, and for a slight second, out eyes meet. Her dry lips lift in a smile, she nods, and walks away. Soon enough, the bus leaves and she disappears. She’s travelling somewhere else now. Maybe commuting isn’t that bad. If it wasn’t for it, I wouldn’t have realised that the only constant in life is travel, the movement. Maybe I’ll buy this dress, after all.

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Aggis, Anchovy And Aardvark  by Kate Nelson

[North East England] 

March is the beginning of spring, the start of new life. A trip to shops to buy a few new plants. An Aloe mitriformis, or to put it simply a dwarf aloe vera, catches my eye. Dark green among plants that boasted slightly yellow and even maybe brown leaves. He still stands proudly on my windowsill. Alongside his three new pups: Aggis, Anchovy and Aardvark. Obviously, I’m great at naming things. They may seem like a small feature of a room, maybe most wouldn’t even notice their presence. But it gives a reason to get up every morning and brings some colour to even the darkest of places.

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Walks On Rainy Days 

​

It was a particular shape of tenderness.

Those cold raindrops, the shades of the rainbow, the flower petals waving and leaning when they caressed the raindrops, the sound of the breeze passing through the trees during fall.

All these details carried a sweet and calming melody through my ears.

I stood right in the middle of all these poems announced by the nature, wandering about which beautiful touch I might add to all of this.

I realized then that being there, to witness all of that beauty, was the purpose why I went out for a walk that morning.

I was there because I was part of the magnificent painting. Maybe I didn't realize what my impact was at that precise moment, but I knew that by sharing that glimpse of warmth with what was around me was enough for me, just to be in the middle of something so obvious, yet so special, made me become motivated to do my daily walk even on a rainy days.

Saloua Bouyazderh 

Morocco

Laughter, Lilies And Love

Jack was a real East Ender, born within the sound of the old Bow Bells themselves.  Kind as they come was our Jack but, when the moment took him, his grasp of a Londoner’s English language was quite impressive!  In his youth Jack was quite a lad, you wouldn’t believe the things he got up to. Once he came home with a horse, ‘borrowed’, he said, had to keep her out of sight for the night he said.  Round our way not much escaped the neighbours and next day the air was buzzing! Stamping and crashing all hours of the night and the noises! Hearing the neighbours, our dad, blessed with the gift of the gab, said,

“Me and the missus were ‘aving a wild night o’ passion!” his eyes twinkled with mischief.  Our mum joined in with a thrust of her hips as she said,

“Oh yes, my ol’ man’s a real stallion when ‘e gets going!”  The cat calls and banter fair turned the air blue as the neighbours joined in the fun. Even old Mrs Jakes, hair in curlers and grubby house coat, gave a throaty cackle before she stalked back inside slippers slapping on the path.

“They’re all jealous,” dad said with a dirty laugh.

“She’ll be down the market next with the gossip!” Mum giggled.  But when old Mrs Jakes’ door closed, the look she gave put the fear of God in him and the house guest disappeared that very afternoon. Mind you, she was pleased with the manure for the garden.

Jack met his Rosie in the market down Brick Lane. Her family sold cut flowers, bringing them from Covent Garden early in the morning. His Mum, our Nan, used to send Jack to the market every Sunday to get fruit and veg that they didn’t grow themselves.  The day he met Rosie he quite literally fell for her… or more accurately, at her. You see, there was a pie man who sold the best meat pies you could buy in all of London. Jack was looking at the pie he’d just bought, all warm and fresh and smelling delicious. So caught up was he with the pie that he didn’t see the dog come up to have a taste of its own. As the dog jumped up, the pie went flying and our Jack flew after it, landing in a bucket of lilies. Rosie saw it all and burst out laughing, tears streaming down her face as she looked at him covered in white funeral lilies. That was until her mum came up and beat him with her broom. Only he couldn’t get up because he was laughing so much and his arse was stuck fast in the bucket.  They all fell about laughing. Even her mum joined in when she realised and it was a while before they pulled him out. It was love at first sight for Rosie and Jack, they never stopped loving or laughing from that day to this.

Clare Fryer

South-East England

See Me Once, See Me Again

“He seems like the type who likes long legs,” Bianca blurted to Rachel, as a man stole a quick glance over his shoulder, as he casually strolled across the pub’s slippery wooden floor.

“Nah, he is probably more interested in short and cute girls. You know, the kind that just projects innocence and wows at everything he says?” Rachel quipped, sneering at the man as he queued up at the bar counter for his drink. “Asian perhaps?”

“Well, only one way to find out.” Bianca took off for the restroom with Rachel closely behind her.

Two Hispanic girls went to the restroom, and two new faces came back to the bar moments later. Bianca became a Caucasian model, her long legs deliberately visible under a bright short skirt designed to attract maximum attention. By her side, Rachel gave off the biggest smile she was able, her petite frame and tanned skin casting doubts on her even being of legal drinking age.

“Game on,” the girls whispered to one another, as they slowly headed toward the direction where the man was queuing up for his drink.

“So, face change, huh?” The man was ready for them as they approached. Before the girls had the chance to speak, the man went on, “I’m an engineer, and what you did just now, I helped to develop the hardware for it.”

“Well, eh, thank you.” The girls had no way of getting in character after that sudden revelation. “It’s fun becoming someone else once in a while.”

“Yeah, we just didn’t foresee so many people doing it so often,” the engineer scanned across the bar, “how do you know who hasn’t done a face change in this joint?”

The girls had no answer.

“Yeah, exactly. Really makes you question the very idea of identity, doesn’t it?” the engineer continued, as he shifted his eyes back to the two girls in front of him. “Really great piece of work though, your transformations. No way I can tell you are actually Latinas.”

Bianca dismissed the man’s remark. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t really call myself a Latina anymore. I could have any looks, any skin colour, any voice. So why would I resign to just being a single thing?”

“And I think that’s great. Society’s conception of what is beautiful, stylish, modern, et cetera, will always change. You can always go for what’s trendy, just like everyone else!” The engineer let out a mock cheer but quickly became serious. “So much for ‘everyone is unique’ right? Who are you if you are just always changing your looks to become what you think society wants you to look like?”

The girls had no answer for that one either.

“Oh, by the way,” the engineer was just about to leave after quickly downing his drink, “I would love to see you both in different looks next time. The more variety the better to show off what this technology can do. It’s like you said. Game on!”

Xiaochen Su

USA

Fire Dancer

She was dancing non-stop in her leather outfit with a focused face. Every step of hers was planned and determined. There was a long rope in her hands. She was like a puppeteer with one difference.  There was not a doll on the margin of the rope but there was fire. A spinning fire which creates figures with its flames. She was the most beautiful thing for the boy who was watching her without even blinking. “She is like another world which has its own special sun,” he thought. He watched her until the sun went down.

Bengisu Belen

Ankara, Turkey

Guilt Will Out

​

‘Don’t touch it,’ Mother said as she left the kitchen. The cake was at the far end of the table from Anna, who was colouring. She could reach it if she stretched, not to taste it, not to eat it, just to feel its weight against her hand. She turned away to avoid temptation, but the cake had a voice, telling her to reach out and touch. She turned her head and slanted at it through one eye, waiting for it to speak again. It said nothing. She reached out, her hand creeping across the forbidden zone like a raindrip sliding down the window. The cake still said nothing. This was a trap. Anna’s hand stopped creeping and returned to her side. She looked away again but kept one eye on the cake, waiting for it to speak again. Silently, the cake twisted itself where it sat. She turned both her eyes to check. It had definitely moved. She gave it her best stare, the one she used when her friend Lucy had stolen her marbles and tried to pretend she hadn’t. The stare had worked on Lucy, and she’d given Anna the marbles back, but it wasn’t working on the cake, which sat there, refusing to move back. Only now it wasn’t where Mother had left it, so Anna would get the blame. The only thing she could do was move it herself.

Jason Jawando

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Wolverhampton, England

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