I'll Time You
creative non-fiction
by Jillian Schedneck
My college roommate was afraid to leave our room. She needed something from the kitchen—perhaps a utensil, or to check on whatever she had simmering—but between her and that quiet task lay the lounge, thick with the other girls from our suite. We sat on our twin beds while she fretted. I offered to go instead, but the task was too specific. It had to be her.
What was she afraid of? Our suitemates were talking and laughing as usual, orbiting the shared lounge with their jokes and stories I was never part of. My roommate, more friendly and likeable, usually floated among them with ease, while I stayed at the edges, if I joined at all. But tonight she was worried they’d draw her in. She couldn’t manage small talk, couldn’t summon levity, or even pretend to smile. I wasn’t exactly sure why, only that I’d seen this before. Some nights, the world outside our room was too much for her.
“I’ll time you!” I shouted, the plan forming as I spoke. “If anyone talks to you, just say, ‘Can’t talk—Jillian’s timing me!’ and dash back!” She laughed, then quietened. And then, out of options, she agreed.
She raced out of our bedroom as I began my count. I imagined her in the kitchen, completing whatever vital task had sent her there. I heard her say something to the other girls, like, “I’m being timed!” I listened to her nervous giggle. And then she returned.
“Twenty seconds!” I said. “That must be some kind of record.”
We lay back on our beds, our heads on our pillows, laughing.
I was glad, most of all, that she’d returned, that at least on this night, she preferred me, even though our suitemates were louder, flashier, part of social worlds I had no access to or interest in. But I did have something they didn’t. With me, she felt safe. I never considered that my roommate might be depressed, or anxious, or caught in thoughts that didn’t quite line up with the world around her, only that on this one night I could give her some relief.
Years later, I still use that trick. My family and I time each other often. “Go! Close the curtains—quick! I’m timing you!” “C’mon, get the chicken out of the freezer! Ready, one, two, three...”. Sometimes the other family member even falls for it, but we always laugh. Every time, I think of my roommate, that moment, and how, more than twenty years later, she killed herself.
She was the one who everyone liked. I only lived in that dorm suite because she invited me—under her good grace, her kind eyes and infectious laugh. I didn’t know what she battled, not clearly enough to name it. When I saw the news on social media, in a tribute post with photos of her smiling beside her husband and children, I couldn’t believe it.
And then I could.
Jillian Schedneck writes speculative fiction and memoir. Her stories and essays have been published in Tahoma Literary Review, Brevity, Cleaver Magazine, Redivider and elsewhere. Her memoir was published with PanMacmillan. Her work has been chosen as a notable essay in the Best American Essays series and won multiple Solas Awards for Travel Writing. She lives in Canberra, Australia, with her partner and two children. Follow her work at jillianschedneck.com.
A Glimpse of War's Hell-Scenes
"The Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, July, 1863" - photo by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
creative non-fiction
by Walt Whitman
This is excerpted from Memoranda During the War, written in 1864
In one of the late movements of our troops in the valley, a strong force of Moseby's mounted guerillas
attacked a train of wounded and the guard of cavalry convoying them.
The ambulances contained about 60 wounded, quite a number of them
officers of rank. The rebels were in strength, and the capture of
the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually
accomplished. No sooner had our men surrendered, the rebels instantly
commenced robbing the train and murdering their prisoners, even the
wounded.
Among the wounded officers in the ambulances were a lieutenant of
regulars, and another of higher rank. These two were dragged out on
the ground on their backs, and were now surrounded by the guerillas,
a demoniac crowd, each member of which was stabbing them in different
parts of their bodies. One of the officers had his feet pinned firmly
to the ground by bayonets stuck through them and thrust into the ground.
These two officers, as afterwards found on examination, had received
about twenty such thrusts, some of them through the mouth, face, etc. The
wounded had all been dragged
out of their wagons; some had been effectually dispatched, and their
bodies were lying there lifeless and bloody. Others, not yet dead,
but horribly mutilated, were moaning or groaning. Of our men who
surrendered, most had been thus maimed or slaughtered.
At this instant a force of our cavalry, who had been following the train at some interval, charged suddenly upon the secesh captors, who proceeded at once to make the best escape they could. Most got away, but we gobbled two officers and seventeen men, in the very acts just described. The sight was one which admitted of little discussion. The seventeen captured men and two officers were put under guard for the night, but it was decided there and then that they should die. The next morning the two officers were taken in the town, separate places, put in the center of the street, and shot. The seventeen men were placed in a hollow square, half-encompassed by two of our cavalry regiments, one of which regiments had three days before found the bloody corpses of three of their men hamstrung and hung up by the heels to limbs of trees by Moseby's guerillas, and the other had not long before had twelve men, after surrendering, shot and then hung by the neck to limbs of trees, and jeering inscriptions pinned to the breast of one of the corpses, who had been a sergeant. Those three, and those twelve, had been found, I say, by these environing regiments. Now, with revolvers, they formed the grim cordon of the seventeen prisoners. The latter were placed in the midst of the square, unfastened, and the ironical remark made to them that they were now to be given "a chance for themselves." A few ran for it. But what use? From every side the deadly pills came. In a few minutes the seventeen corpses strewed the hollow square. I was curious to know whether some of the Union soldiers, some few, (some one or two at least of the youngsters) did not abstain from shooting on the helpless men. Not one. There was no exultation, very little said, almost nothing, yet every man there contributed his shot.
Multiply the above by scores, aye hundreds--verify it in all the forms that different circumstances, individuals, places, could afford--light it with every lurid passion, the wolf's, the lion's lapping thirst for blood--the passionate, boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades, brothers slain--with the light of burning farms, and heaps of smutting, smoldering black embers--and in the human heart everywhere black, worse embers--and you have an inkling of this war.
Walter Whitman Jr. (1819 – 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and novelist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American and world literature. During the Civil War, he volunteered as a nurse in army hospitals.
Sunset at Independence Pier
by Phyllis Rittner
Look! he shouts. It’s enormous! I follow my husband’s finger as a blazing amber ball of sun hangs precariously low over the water, its wide beam reflecting the light ripples of the Atlantic. I grab my camera, race toward the shore. I pass families stamping out barbecue pits, hauling giant coolers toward the parking lot, all oblivious to this spectacle. As I fumble with my lens, the ball dips lower like a giant egg yolk, dropping behind docked boats and empty park benches.
I run toward the pier, past the young boys and their fathers. Heads down, they cast fishing poles into the ocean, converse in Spanish in hushed tones. Just this afternoon, as we spread our picnic blanket on the sand, we spotted a young family nervously scanning the park for agents. The wife kept pointing to a suspicious unmarked van at the park’s entrance, the same van I had surreptitiously taken photos of earlier. !Nosotros tenemos que irnos ahora! she implored. But the husband refused to leave. They argued a bit, some of which I gleaned from my rusty high school Spanish. Finally the wife pulled her toddler son in her arms, gathered her things and left her husband alone on the pier.
Hurry! I hear my husband’s voice call in the distance. Catch it before...
The sun, now a fiery, succulent tangerine, drops deeper, falls between the lace of tree branches. I snap photos on the pier, try to capture the last ounce of this day, this fleeting moment of reverence, but all I can think of is the young wife from this afternoon. Is she stirring soup in her kitchen, watching the local news, her son balanced on her hip?
The sky darkens and the weeping willows sway in the breeze. Suddenly my husband is beside me, slips an arm around my waist. We stand on the pier for a long time, watch the fishermen cast out their poles, patiently waiting for a bite.
Not much left now but minnows, he says flatly.
Is it safe? Now that it’s dark?
Everybody’s gotta eat. There’s an ache in his voice. It matches the ache in my chest. The one I’ve tried to ignore as the sun warmed my shoulders, as the surf caressed my toes.
Look papa! We turn to watch a young boy struggle with his pole, trying to pull a fish from the ocean. His father steadies his grip and together they fling the pole high into the air. Lo tengo! the boy yells, jumping up and down. His father laughs, plops a mackerel into their bucket, lifts his son high onto his shoulders. Mira, mira! he shouts to the fishermen. Mi hijo! There is applause as the boy waves his hands in triumph.
We walk silently to the parking lot, holding hands. I am grateful the van I saw earlier is gone. I turn back, search the pier for a glimpse of father and son. I finally find them through my lens, still in their victory pose, celebrating their conquest. I zoom onto their fading silhouette, capture it seconds before it disappears.
Phyllis Rittner loves all things flash. Her work can be found in Fictive Dream, Emerge Literary Journal, Portrait of New England, Wrong Turn Lit (Best Microfiction nominee), and others. She can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/phyllis.rittner
He Searched 100 Miles and Found Her
Creative nonfiction
By Simon Newcomb
Now and then, we publish vintage stories from historic authors. This is an excerpt from Simon Newcomb's 1903 autobiography.
My father was the most rational and the most dispassionate of men. The conduct of his life was guided by a philosophy based on Combe's "Constitution of Man," and I used to feel that the law of the land was a potent instrument in shaping his paternal affections.
His method of seeking a wife was so far unique that it may not be devoid of interest, even at this date. From careful study he had learned that the age at which a man should marry was twenty five. A healthy and well endowed offspring should be one of the main objects in view in entering the marriage state, and this required a mentally gifted wife. She must be of different temperament from his own and an economical housekeeper.
So when he found the age of twenty five approaching, he began to look about. There was no one in Wallace who satisfied the requirements. He therefore set out afoot to discover his ideal.
In those days and regions the professional tramp and mendicant were unknown, and every farmhouse dispensed its hospitality with an Arcadian simplicity little known in our times. Wherever he stopped overnight he made a critical investigation of the housekeeping, perhaps rising before the family for this purpose. He searched in vain until his road carried him out of the province.
One young woman spoiled any possible chance she might have had by a lack of economy in the making of bread. She was asked what she did with an unnecessarily large remnant of dough which she left sticking to the sides of the pan. She replied that she fed it to the horses. Her case received no further consideration.
The search had extended nearly a hundred miles when early one evening he reached what was then the small village of Moncton. He was attracted by the strains of music from a church, went into it, and found a religious meeting in progress. His eye was at once arrested by the face and head of a young woman playing on a melodeon, who was leading the singing. He sat in such a position that he could carefully scan her face and movements. As he continued this study the conviction grew upon him that here was the object of his search. That such should have occurred before there was any opportunity to inspect the dough pan may lead the reader to conclusions of his own.
He inquired her name: Emily Prince. He cultivated her acquaintance, paid his addresses, and was accepted.
He was fond of astronomy, and during the months of his engagement one of his favorite occupations was to take her out of an evening and show her the constellations. It is even said that among the daydreams in which they indulged one was that their firstborn might be an astronomer. Probably this was only a passing fancy, as I heard nothing of it during my childhood.
The marriage was in all respects a happy one, so far as congeniality of nature and mutual regard could go. Although the wife died at the early age of thirty-seven the husband never ceased to cherish her memory and so far as I am aware never again thought of marrying.
Simon Newcomb (March 12, 1835 – July 11, 1909) was a Canadian–American astronomer, applied mathematician, and autodidactic polymath. He served as Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy and at Johns Hopkins University.
Is AI Just the Modern Way to Write?
by R.K. West
According to a recent Yahoo article a majority of books in Amazon's "Success" self-help genre contain AI writing. AI books are common in other genres, too. Authors are concerned about the flood of AI-generated books that detract from the ability of real writers to sell their books.
It may be that prolific readers of genre fiction can't tell that they are reading bot-produced books, or that they don't care. Amazon permits "authors" to upload as many as three books per day, a limit that is supposedly aimed at cutting down the number of low-quality AI (and low-quality human-produced) books flooding the market.
YouTube has hundreds of videos explaining how to detect AI writing, and hundreds explaining how to make a fortune as an AI "author".
Most legitimate publishers do not want to handle AI-generated works, and have added AI-detection to the list of skills editors need. There are many automated AI detectors (which probably use AI), but they are not as reliable as we might hope. People who have studied the writing "style" of bots like ChatGPT point to certain characteristics as indicative of AI-generated texts.
John was worried about his shoes -- they often slipped off his feet while he walked -- so he secured them with duct tape.Apparently, ChatGPT uses em-dashes to excess, and does not put spaces around them.
The words excited him--he was easily excited by words--and he began to hum. His wife--always attuned to his vocalizations--told him to calm down.Do writers have to stop using dashes? No. If dashes are a natural part of the writer's style, they can stay, but it's best (even in a world without AI) to avoid going overboard with them.
Studies show that 87% of novels on the New York Times best-seller list are 100% AI-written. As microbiologist Joan Didion once said, "I have seen the future of literature, and it is bot."Sadly, humans sometimes do these things, too.
Even without referring to a checklist, experienced readers can identify AI writing with a high degree of certainty.
It is hard to imagine that anyone using AI to generate texts could call themselves an "author" without a twinge of guilt. Do the purveyors of these word collections (based on plagiarism) actually feel creative? Is it possible to take pride in having accomplished nothing beyond distributing mediocre word slop?
Aside from poor quality, there are many practical reasons to not use AI, especially for those who hope to have a professional writing career.
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