Colossi
By Fred Johnson 1. What a day: went as usual to Mr Kebab Express. Ordered pizza—twelve-inch special, no olives, can of Irn Bru. Was waiting around like normal, sat on the old wooden bench and whatnot, twiddling the proverbial, when Sohrab calls my name. Nothing strange yet, I know, but wait, greedy fucker, wait— Sohrab—or […]
Maybe It’s Not Too Late
By Luke Beling, We fell out of love in a hurry that night. Suzy flipped over my dirty ashtray and tossed my empty can at me while I lay sprawled on the sofa watching the game. “You can’t just keep feeling sorry for yourself, you know. Bad shit happens. To everybody. All the time.” It’d […]
I Wish my Doll had Been Made of Metal: The Heartbreak of the Lahaina Inferno (Essay)
By Bruce Farrell Rosen, One of my favorite places in all the world was Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. I first travelled there in the summer of 1975 with a friend who had come over to vacation with me following the conclusion of our respective college years. I had been a student at the University of California, […]
The Burn
By Alan MacLeod My Aunt Ruth piles family photos in boxes, and calls it our ancestry. Those faded images of people and places transport me like a time machine. Peaceful, sad feelings roll through my body. For years we’ve had quiet heritage talks in her parlour: clock ticking on the mantle, budgie scrabbling in its […]
The Green Witch’s Garden (Excerpt)
By Patricia Crisafulli A profusion of tiger lilies blossomed where the gravel driveway met the pitted blacktop of the country road. Pulling in slowly, Gabriela admired the red geraniums and yellow chrysanthemums that ringed the front of the small stone house with black shutters and wondered if these were the flowers Lucinda had wanted them […]
The Synagogue at the End of the World (Memoir)
(Note to reader: the following is taken from a work in progress, a blended memoir about contemporary Jewish identity and the legacy of the Holocaust. I hope you’ll join me on this ride.) By Leah Eichler, The synagogue at the end of the world is not what you would expect. Imagine a large, single room […]
Saguaro
By Kevin Broccoli She got sent out with a basket of pecan bread and a bad cough. The flu had whipped through and nearly killed Rebecca the same way it had four other little girls in town. This was going to be her first outing since she recovered, and her mother pulled the red bonnet […]
Impossible
By David Bassano, July 16 “The speed limit is fifty-five…and do not throw cigarettes out the window!” the trooper snapped. “Yes, Officer,” mumbled Nick. He’d quit smoking two years ago. The cop let him off with a warning because Nick’s last name was almost synonymous with the town’s name. When the trooper was gone, Nick […]
Simon Wiesenthal, meet Henry Morgentaler (Column)
By Leah Eichler, I can’t recall exactly what inspired me, in the late 1990s, to send that fax (a fax!) to Simon Weisenthal’s office in Vienna and request an interview. Weisenthal was already 90 and not very active in the day-to-day operations of the Documentation Centre of the Association of Jewish Victims of the Nazi […]
Shell Game
By Jacob Austin, The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas is hosting a traveling exhibit called Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art. One of the items on display is a conch shell trumpet. It sits alone, under halogen bulb, in a sterile glass box. The plaque and the voice on the audio […]