By: Don I ran into Chicago Union Station about 10 minutes before my train was set to depart for St. Louis.  I’d overslept.  Two months into retirement, I still hadn’t gotten into a new sleep rhythm. I was one of…

By: Jacob Keating In the emails I’ve sent to publishers, I’ve said it’s about ‘inner-vastness’ and ‘roads left un-walked’ and a twenty-something in search of an always-lost-something. – I never tire of hyphens; they’re like bridges between words. I’d like…

By: Flora Jardine It’s a common fairy-tale theme — imprisonment in a tower — and a common true-life tale of city life today, a dark one and Tom was living it, although he didn’t think of it in literary terms…

By: Elaine Lennon Leonard Higgins was an honest man. Modest, middle-aged, unassuming, non-descript. A quiet kind of a man. A man who operated at a very low velocity. The kind of man you’d never notice.  A family man. His wife…

By Dawn DeBraal   Kennedy Hyde sat across the table from her boyfriend, Sam Colbert. They’d been dating for eight months, and things were going well.  “So next week is your birthday.” Sam brought up the subject.  “Don’t remind me. I…

By: Bruce Levine Dear Reader,I believe that all life should be lived between forty and sixty. Of course I don’t mean that the human life span should be between forty and sixty, heaven forbid, but that the accompaniment to a…

By: Tom Ball      I say, I have a myriad of difficulties in my life. My true love has affairs with androids. And I was redundant as an architect. An android had replaced me and the stipend I get from the…

By: D A Angelo Merriment  Sometimes it’s good to walk in the countryside to watch a merry-go-round of clouds while the sky shifts to a warm glow. Sometimes it’s good to watch hares pose like National Geographic models in a…

By: Karen O’Leary A doesamples lichendraped bark of an ash tree.She leaps into inner safety.Weeds spilloverthe wooden stairs,not seeing human spoilsin years. A lazy stream with smallicyislandswinds by trees bentto the right. Creativestudents take easels then pull outsketchbooks,tryingto grasp the…

By: Jim Bates Northwoods lake countryWater glistening waves lappingHot sun scorching sandOn the beach playing. Big brother in charge of younger siblingsMomentarily distracted by building a sandcastleBaby Will toddles out onto the dock stumbles and falls off sinking fastBig brother…