By: Kenneth M. Kapp ~ ~ ~ The King Is In             The Joker cried, “The King is in, the King is in. I know he’s in,” as he was dragged off to the dungeon.             He was thrown into…

By: Clive Aaron Gill The day before Mami died in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she whispered, “Gabriela, my beautiful girl, my mattress is for you. Your nana gave it to me.” At ten years old, I missed Mami terribly. I…

By Ranjit Kulkarni Something wasn’t right. His optic cameras were blurred. He checked the respiratory console. Eighteen per minute. Then he checked the wiring in his heart device. A pumping rate of eighty per minute. High but ok. But when…

By: David Ali Your name means star. Maybe that is why the sound of your voice brightens my dark skies no matter how thick the darkness. The first time we met, I knew that it wasn’t an ordinary coincidence but…

By: David Sapp Patty, Patty, Patty. When I was seven, all I could think of was Patty. Kissing Patty McCalla. Patty was the tiniest girl in our class, an itty-bitty version of Mary Tyler Moore. Dark hair, impish eyes, the…

By: David Sapp After a four-hour layover in the Buffalo bus terminal, after crossing the Peace Bridge in the middle of the night and disembarking again, an honest and earnest young man, I naively informed the customs officer I would…

By: Mike Nolan I’m standing looking out the window, thoughts far away, when my phone rings. My mother. I know it will frustrate her, but I don’t answer. Whatever her reason for calling, somewhere in the conversation she’ll ask if…

By: Stanka Bajlozova-Barlamova      She often saw the deformed open mouths of her patients in her dreams. The most distorted faces, she remembered of patients whose medical instructions were a diagnosis: extraction. Of all possible dental activities and interventions, tooth…

By: C. J. Anderson-Wu The first time I encountered my daughter was when she was excavating the earth burying me. My daughter was born after my death sixty years ago, which means she was sixty years old, almost double my…

By: Elaine Lennon The radio crackled into life. It shocked the desert air out of its silence. There was another man on the moon.   Gene Cernan was exploring the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the lunar surface and his words echoed crystal…