Curse Word

creative non-fiction
by Marie Cloutier

I only did it because I knew it was bad, scrawled that word, the worst of the four letter words, on the brown pressboard wall of my nursery school cubby. How did the teacher find it? Then I saw the sun flowing in and illuminating the pencil marks like graphite neon. I forget the punishment now but I know it made me cry, maybe not the punishment but the shame of it, being called out, getting caught, even though I probably wanted to, get caught that is. Show that teacher I wasn't just a goody-goody, not just anyway. Not just.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Marie Cloutier (she/her) writes about girlhood and womanhood and complicated loves and losses. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, Dorothy Parker's Ashes , the Sheepshead Review and elsewhere. She is at work on a memoir. Her website is www.mariecloutier.com.

 

A Monument to Adam

creative nonfiction
by Mark Twain

Just for fun, we occasionally publish vintage pieces from historic authors.

Some one has revealed to the TRIBUNE that I once suggested to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a monument to Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project. There is more to it than that. The matter started as a joke, but it came somewhat near to materializing.

It is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN had been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "missing links," and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, I said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would discard Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time Adam's very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this calamity ought to be averted; a monument would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to waste this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and herself a credit.

Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took hold of the matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in the monument certain commercial advantages for the town. The project had seemed gently humorous before--it was more than that now, with this stern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the monument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth-- and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the Milky Way.

People would come from every corner of the globe and stop off to look at it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out Adam's monument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways; libraries would be written about the monument, every tourist would kodak it, models of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth, its form would become as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.

One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think the other one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with certainty now whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made-- some of them came from Paris.

In the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke-- I had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to Congress begging the government to built the monument, as a testimony of the Great Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race and as a token of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation when his older children were doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that this petition ought to be presented, now--it would be widely and feelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our scheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it to General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he would present it. But he did not do it. I think he explained that when he came to read it he was afraid of it: it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it for earnest.

We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most celebrated town in the universe.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910), often characterized as the greatest American humorist. In addition to innumerable stories and essays, he is remembered for his novels, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

Dear Jimmy

creative nonfiction
by Holly Redell Witte

I wish you hadn’t died without answering my messages over the years. Maybe you didn’t see them. Maybe you just didn’t want to connect with me. I wish I knew. I still can’t get over that I was thinking about you one day and then saw your obituary in the NYT the absolute next day. I wanted to tell you that.

It’s not as if we were good friends growing up. You were three years older so not in my everyday circle. But, our parents were good friends so, by default, we were, too. I wanted to tell you I couldn’t remember you at camp even though I know you built the sets for all the plays we put on there, and I was at the theatre every possible moment because I otherwise hated sleep-away camp. I didn’t play sports except swimming, and I really hated having to get up so early because it was cold. Ridiculous that it was summer camp and I wore my winter jacket to the flag-raising ceremony every morning. I wanted to know if you remembered me from camp.

I wanted to tell you that my niece had your brother as a math teacher in high school. That’s probably not so much of a coincidence since we were so rooted in where we grew up that I’m not surprised he stayed close to home.

But most of all, I wanted to tell you how amazed and happy I am to find out you were a world-renowned sculptor and in cardboard, of all things. I found out so much when I watched the documentary about you, Carboard Bernini. What a great name. In a million years, from that time I knew you when you were so mysterious, I would never have guessed that all those boxes you used from your father’s car antenna business would turn you into a Fulbright scholar, get you great art commissions like designing the Jethro Tull Stand Up album cover, the one I just ordered from eBay so I can have some of your art in my life.

That was why I sent you messages at your website anyway. I want to own a piece of your art because it seems like everything our group has done is part of each other. Maybe it’s just me, but in the documentary when you talked about your existential fear of mortality, starting when you were a kid, I understood it. You were always mysterious then and I’m sure we didn’t talk much but I know that fear you have. I have it too.

I wanted to talk to you about that, try to understand it, try to see if it was something having to do with how we grew up in such a tight circle with the same exposure to our faith, to teachers, to books, when every parent was every child’s parent. I wanted to tell you how wonderful it was to watch you in your studio, carving eyelashes out of cardboard for one of your monumental figures.

But you never answered me. And now all I have are the documentaries, your artwork to look at online, lamenting that some of it only exists online because you had this crazy idea that it only served its universal purpose if you let the cardboard sculptures dissolve in the rain. I really want to know much more about that.

Dear Jimmy. I wish you had answered me.

Cheers,
Holly

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Holly Redell Witte is so lucky to live and write in La Conner, WA. She's also lucky to have had work published in Blood+Honey, Screamin Mamas, and a couple of anthologies. Some days she sees three squirrels munching on berries in the tree right outside of her writing window.

 

The Whistle

by Benjamin Franklin

Just for fun, we occasionally publish vintage stories from historic authors.

When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.

This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle; and I saved my money.

As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle. When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gives too much for his whistle.

When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays, indeed, said I, too much for his whistle.

If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle. When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle. If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, Alas! say I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.

When I see a beautiful sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, What a pity, say I, that she should pay so much for a whistle! In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the whistle.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general. [biography adapted from Wikipedia]

Hardening of the Arteries

Creative Non-fiction
by John RC Potter

When her husband passed away after a brief battle with cancer my grandmother tried to lift him up from the casket.

Five years passed.

She was found wandering around town during the winter, without a coat. Her family reluctantly put my grandmother in what was then known as an "old people’s home."

Grandma had what was referred to at the time as "hardening of the arteries."

Visiting her became a chore; eventually my grandmother did not recognise anyone, not even my father. Although Dad faithfully continued his weekly visits to his mother, my sister and I did not; our teenage lives took precedence. A few years went by.

Then curiosity and guilt.

Finally, my sister and I went to visit. The nurse brought a woman to us: wheelchair-bound; a wizened, hunched over old crone, eyes still periwinkle blue, but vacant.

I thought of the song, "Is That All There Is?"

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada who lives in Istanbul. His story, “Ruth’s World” was a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poem, “Tomato Heart” was nominated for the Best of the Net Award. The author has a gay-themed children’s picture book that is scheduled for publication. He is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Website / Twitter

 

Condensation

creative nonfiction
by Pam Clements

I’ve been told that one of my early words was “condensation.” This was cited by my mother as a sign of precociousness, but I think it was just a result of the way my parents talked to me from birth, a first child of two teachers. I imagine Dad carrying me between the old farmhouse kitchen and the “back room,” our mud room containing the washing machine, a row of hooks for coats, and a door opening onto the back yard. Perambulating back to the kitchen, talking all the time, describing things to me while chatting with my mother, who would have been cooking a modest Buffalo winter dinner.

The kitchen had been renovated (for the first of several times) by my parents. I have a vague memory of olive green linoleum being scraped off the floor, to be replaced by new linoleum in then-fashionable red, white and black tiles. I was only two when they bought the house, so that’s a very early memory, possibly even a false one. (I have lots of those, and a good imagination.) Tall cabinets were painted off-white, and my folks covered the countertops with red linoleum that matched the top of a kitchen table. They replaced an old cast-iron sink, and took out a pump that had once brought in water from a well under the driveway. The Norge refrigerator was no taller than my 5-foot-6 father; its rounded edges a reminder of its art deco origins. Red, white and black cotton curtains fluttered at the windows and the side door.

The door to the back yard was uncurtained, and remained so for the 42 years my parents resided there. I imagine it was this window that Dad held me up to one winter evening, for the first time uttering “condensation.” He would have traced a line in the window’s fog, and maybe pushed my toddler finger against the glass to make a similar mark. He would have then explained, despite my age, that warm moisture in the kitchen air had “condensed,” or collected, on the cold window to create that grayish fog. What optimism, to expect a two-year-old to understand that scientific concept. Or maybe he was simply amusing himself as he kept me out of my mother’s hair. “Condensation,” he repeated, pressing my little finger through the damp drops. “Condensation,” I would have chirped. He would have walked me back into the kitchen and repeated the lesson at the window on the kitchen door, pulling back the curtains. “Condensation,” said Dad. “Condensation,” repeated Pam. Mom would have chimed in to agree that, yes, the steam rising from her spaghetti sauce or pea soup was actually forming condensation. They would have laughed at my tiny voice repeating the big word, and encouraged by their laughter, I might have repeated it again. And again.

Here is one of the advantages that accrue to a lucky first – or only – child: complete parental concentration, constant gentle attention to learning. That attention, condensed, if you will, would be somewhat diluted for second and subsequent children. Of course, big sister was there to help instruct, and I’m sure she did. My younger sisters had their own advantages, mild neglect being among them, but “condensation” belongs to the firstborn.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Pam Clements lives in Albany, New York. Her writing has appeared in literary magazines including Kalliope, The Palo Alto Review, The Plenitudes, and The Baltimore Review. She has published one volume of poetry, Earth Science, and has completed a memoir about the years she spent teaching in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

Where You Belong

creative nonfiction
by Mary Ann McGuigan

My sleeveless, floor-length sequin dress is black and shimmery and attracts the light from every direction in this huge room set aside at the Marriott Marquis for the crowded cocktail hour preceding the prestigious ceremony for the National Book Awards. Like all the finalists—there are five for each of the four categories—I wear a weighty round medal, engraved with the image of an open book, at the end of a long, wide, gold and black ribbon draped around my neck. Literary luminaries come in and out of view like June bugs among the guests—Studs Terkel, Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Katherine Paterson—bestowing smiles and handshakes. We chat with Mr. Vonnegut briefly and in my strappy pumps I barely touch the carpet, lifted by the exquisite excitement and anticipation that fill the place—and me. I need the weight of the medal and the caress of the sequins to anchor me.

I’ve had more than my share of close encounters with New York’s lions this week. In the days leading up to the awards ceremony, the finalists were invited to read from their work at places throughout Manhattan, including the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. The event came complete with a cocktail hour attended by New York’s literary in-crowd, none of whom would know or likely remember me. In truth, I was convinced I didn’t belong at such a gathering. Spending too much time hungry as a kid can do that.

But Patience and Fortitude, whom I’d greeted countless times in my visits to the city, seemed unsurprised at my arrival. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them to remind New Yorkers what it would take to get through the hard times of the Great Depression. Given what they’d witnessed from their solid perches, maybe they’d long since put aside any easy assumptions about poverty getting in the way of achievement.

But writing had never been about achievement for me. It was quite simply my secret way to right wrongs, a means of creating a world unlike my own, a place where injustice didn’t have the last word. I looked at the lions and thought of the stately Tremont Library on Washington Ave. at 176th Street in the Bronx, how I would carry home ten books at a time, the maximum allowed, and what it felt like to be that girl, walking along Tremont Avenue, eager for the relief those books would bring. I paused on the steps, let myself savor this grand, new escape, this honor, and told myself this is where you belong, at least for now.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Mary Ann McGuigan’s work appears in SmokeLong, Brevity, The Rumpus, The Sun, Massachusetts Review and elsewhere. Her second collection of short stories reaches bookstores in September. Her novels, one a National Book Award finalist, are top ranked by the Junior Library Guild and the NY Public Library. WEBSITE HERE

 

The Accidental Addict

creative nonfiction
by Ed Cohen

I just spent five days in the hospital.

On May 27, I had cervical spine surgery to remove bone spurs pressing on a nerve in my neck—the source of pain and weakness in my left arm. The surgery went well. I was sent home with Tramadol, a pain medication I was told was the “safest” option and not addictive at the dose or duration I’d be taking it.

🗓️ Week 1: It dulled the pain.
🗓️ Week 2: I timed doses to keep it away.
🗓️ Week 3: I felt buzzed.

I tried to taper. My body crashed.

Tremors. Nausea. Anxiety. My blood pressure spiked to 160/100. My surgeon said I’d reduced too fast and told me to take “catch-up” doses. His PA gave me a plan that would’ve kept me on the drug another 16 weeks.

With my history of heart attacks and kidney disease, I knew I couldn’t do it.

At 2 a.m., my wife Pris rushed me to the ER. I was shaking, drenched, surging with panic. The doctor said I’d “fallen behind” and sent me home with instructions to take more Tramadol. My BP hit 188/113.

We drove to a different ER. That doctor did what the first should have: admitted me.

Within hours, I was in a hospital bed, hydrated, monitored. They stopped the drug.

A nurse heard my story and said: “You’re an accidental addict.”

That sentence punched me in the chest.

My father was a violent alcoholic. His addiction and eventual suicide left scars I spent a lifetime trying to overcome. I thought I was nothing like him.

Now, here I was—being told I was one of them.

The hospital team managed each withdrawal symptom in real time: tremors, panic, nausea, BP spikes. I slept 15 hours a day. My body began to reset.

Today, I came home—drug-free but not yet free of symptoms. Rebound is real. I still wake up with restlessness, emotional spikes, and BP swings.

This happened because I trusted what I was told. Because no one warned me how fast this could spiral.

I’m angry.

This isn’t just about me.

It could happen to you or someone you love.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Ed Cohen is a global leadership coach, keynote speaker, and author of Vulnerable: One Man’s Journey from Abuse to Abundance. His writing blends personal experience with purpose. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two dogs. Learn more HERE.

 

Be in the Wild and Free

creative nonfiction
by Ahming Zee

I’m a bird in the woodland, and caught in a mist trap hitched across the trees. The harder I try to break free, the deeper I get entangled. I’m about to get caged, I think.

I awake to realize, with beads of sweat, that it was a nightmare, a reprieve that I’m alive and free, yet clouded with anxiety; It was not just a nightmare, but another nightmare after so many nightmares, for days, weeks, and months. My mind gets hung up on that trap in the woodland: Was that the path I regularly fly through, or was I simply lured into it? I cannot tell, but this nightmare reminds me of a Chinese poem – a one-word Net to the one-word title “Life.” The Net, which was thought to be referring to our social interconnections prior to the Internet age, should now be seen in a new light; maybe the concept of mist trap is what the author, Bei Dao, really meant, as we attest to our humanity that’s constantly stuck waiting for another awakening, and those that ensue. Or maybe its duplicity is open for interpretations with the internal shifts of our daily worldviews depending on where our souls land on a given day.

I was torn switching my career from liberal arts to science at the time my family and I financially struggled to keep our small family afloat, and to retain our valid residence status on a foreign soil. It was a detour in life made out of necessity to succumb to the reality to be able to eke out a living. Yet it’s the power of the pen which we put to paper that represents a voice, an act of faith, the liberty of our souls. And that is universal, regardless of career, race, and social status.

As I sit at my desk every day, leafing through the writings of mine and others’, and meditating on the cultural baggage I’ve carried through the years, I flash on the bits and pieces of memory, episodic and fragmentary, from which I see themes threaded through a common inner journey, the one with thorns and pricks, yet with threads of hope, flickering and glimmering at times, but never get snubbed.

Now being in the wild means that we are in the constant lookout for food and drinks, hoarding them as we see fit, and sharpening our claws and eye-sights for better views in the night, but isn’t that where the fun is that our caged counterparts must have missed?

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Ahming Zee (pen name) is a Chinese American writer based in Boston. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Constellations, Ariel Chart, Sudden Flash, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Door Is A Jar, and elsewhere. Ahming holds a BA in English, an MA in American Studies, and an MS in Library Science. Previously, He served as Assistant Professor of English in Beijing, Poetry Editor for Hawaii Review, and Staff Writer at Ka Leo O’ Hawaii (Hawaii Daily). He is currently working on his debut novel. Find him on X @ahmingzee, and on Bluesky @ahmingzee.bsky.social

 

Reading My Father's Correspondence

creative nonfiction
by Oskar Greenblatt

One of my late father’s eccentricities was that he didn’t keep copies of letters he had written.

A particularly sad example is the missing letter he wrote to the famous author who was the subject of his master’s thesis. The author replied in great detail, and it is frustrating not to have the original questions to which he was responding.

There are surviving letters from friends, colleagues, and relatives with references to something he wrote to them, all very mysterious because whatever it was will never be revealed. A few of Dad’s letters written to an old army buddy survive because the buddy wrote his replies on the back, and those were saved.

Uncharacteristically, he saved a carbon copy of a letter he had written to a shoe company regarding the purchase of three pairs of shoes, size 7EEE.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Credit: This piece originally appeared at Six Sentences.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Oskar Greenblatt spends too much time organizing old documents.

 

Shortcut

creative nonfiction
by Oleg Daugovish

“Shortcut!” Sofie yells from the backseat as I maneuver out of impatient traffic onto a side road. Our white minivan flies between the sharp-edged grey boxes of industrial buildings and the smooth emerald curves of an empty golf course. I see the red light in the distance.

“Maybe by the time we get there it will turn green.” I glue my foot to the accelerator with hope.

It does not. Sofie, the minivan and I screech to a stop by the intersection.

Seventeen minutes until her school starts, thirty-two until my work.

“It will be green in forty-five seconds.” Sofie starts the bet.

“Sixty!” I wager a chewing gum, pinching a package of Hubba Bubba between fingers for a display.

“One, two, three..” Sofie counts. This girl is serious about winning and so is her voice. Two minutes pass, the light is still red.

What the hell is wrong with it? Should I just ignore it and go?

“I think it’s broken.” Sofie reads my thoughts.

The place is eerily empty, no cars or people around. Automated sprinklers spit in circles on the grass. A rabbit jumps on the road and sits in front of the van, sniffing dust, his perked-up locators turn towards us.

He knows.

“Look, all the humans have been abducted by aliens, there is nobody left. This bunny is their leader!”

Sofie rolls her eyes, unimpressed with my plot.

She grew up so fast.

“Did you know that people spend a quarter of their life like this, sitting in traffic?” I exaggerate, hoping to salvage a “teaching moment” from this glitch in time.

“Bunny!” she screams through an open window.

The furry ball glances at her and hops away.

“In some cultures, people enjoy their time wherever they are.” I pretend to lose interest in the light, ignoring it like a teapot that fails to boil.

“Maybe this light is always red, some things in life are that way.” A wise observation from the eight-year-old catches me by surprise.

“Yes, I grew up in a place and time where pretty much everything was red. Someday, I’ll tell you. But now we have each other and we don’t have to worry about time.”

I look in the rearview mirror and see Sofie’s brown eyes opening wide, mouth too.

“It switched! It turned purple! What does that mean?!”

“Let’s find out!” I floor the gas pedal and the white minivan screams through the intersection.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
After completion of Ph.D. in 2001, Oleg Daugovish has been researching the delicate lives of California strawberries. He rushes to tell growers about his discoveries and documents them in peer-reviewed journals. Aside from writing about plants, Oleg completed a humorous 61,000-word memoir about growing up in Latvia during Soviet times and sixteen ten-minute stories of creative non-fiction he’d love to share.

 

Grief is a Steep Hill to Climb

creative nonfiction
by Tracie Adams

I was a voyeur watching with fascination like a child at a holiday parade, except I wasn’t watching the funeral procession for entertainment. I wanted to see their faces, contorted with grief at the loss of someone special. Maybe a grandfather who had lived a long and good life. But what if it was a brother or best friend who had lost his battle with cancer, leaving a wife and child alone in the world? I knew it wasn’t a child who had died because their shoulders were too straight for that. Their heads were not bowed enough, their steps too brisk toward the small brick church down the mountainside, clutching purses and white handkerchiefs.

I stepped out onto the front porch when I heard the church bells ringing. I thought about putting on my boots and walking down the hill to get a closer look.

I knew it wasn’t just a congregational meeting or a spaghetti supper because the men were putting on black suit jackets over crisp white dress shirts, getting out of their cars, parked at a forty-five-degree angle on the mountain roadside. The women adjusted and smoothed their white dresses and hats as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, balancing their bodies, heavy with loss, on tip toes, their high heels clicking cautiously toward the church doors.

I knew from experience that it was not uncommon for black women to wear white to funerals as a way of celebrating the departed’s life and their entry into Paradise. Like so many things I have learned, I found this out the hard way when I was the only white woman at the funeral for my elderly black neighbor. My single white body, clothed in black, a speck of pepper floating in the salty sea of dark bodies adorned in white.

In the past few years, I attended the funerals of my best friend, my nephew, my uncle, my cousin, and too many others. I learned to grieve the hard way, wailing when a song on the radio brought up memories, hiding in my bedroom when a photo on my phone pulled me under, or staring blankly at the walls to avoid feeling anything at all. And so, I studied the faces and the movement of these mourners on their grief journey, searching for secrets in pinched expressions and bloodshot eyes, hoping they might teach me how to do it the right way. There must be an easier way.

The church doors opened, releasing a wave of mourners under a green awning, returning to their cars one by one, followed by the solemn sound of an organ playing Amazing Grace. Their flashing lights lined the narrow street as they followed the police car in procession to the graveside.

Mourners don’t look like normal people in their cars. They don’t do normal car things like scrolling on social media at stoplights or chatting excitedly with their passengers. As SUV’s and sedans crawled slowly up the hill, a few of the bereaved drivers looked over at me, wrapped in an oversized grey blanket, the same dark color of sorrow. As they passed, I tried my best to comfort them through the compassion in my eyes.

Through fingerprint-smeared glass, their tear-stained faces spoke to me. There is nothing more to learn. There is no easier way.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Tracie Adams, author of Our Lives in Pieces, writes flash memoir and fiction from rural Virginia. Her work, widely published in literary journals, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More HERE and X @1funnyfarmAdams.

 

Of Beggars and Queens

creative nonfiction
by Michael Theroux

The purloined grocery cart was parked on the gravel by the roadside, holding all the precious scraps the ragman had gathered. Curious children, finding the owner gone for the moment, close in to poke at the plastic bulges tied to the outside, his early morning gleanings. These bits bound for conversion to pocket change would yield six dimes, perhaps a dollar, enough to cover morning coffee and coffin-nails.

Leading the kids, a waif of maybe ten tugs and teases until one large bag comes open enough for her to peek inside. The man’s cache: carefully crushed aluminum cans. The child recognizes the pure Wealth this poor soul has loosely contained in the black plastic trash bag. Abruptly, she turns away - and with a few quiet words, she leads her posse over to a dense row of shrubbery behind the Quick-Mart.

Her extended umbrella she wields as a makeshift scepter, its chrome tip honed to sharp perfection on the concrete. Glancing about her to catch the eyes of the others with her, she disturbs the dust and rubble under the box-cut junipers, actions which her comrades replicate with their sticks and straightened clothes-hangers. With a deft plunge, she spears and extracts that which she seeks: Aluminum!

Countering the crime of metal resource wastage and dispersion, the first crumpled can is salvaged. The child notes with pleasure that this is not the only aluminum she and her team have recovered this morning. With majestic grace, she and her court walk back to the waiting cart. Her cohort standing ready as she leads by doing, the young queen places her recovered metal jewel inside the beggar’s bag.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Michael Theroux writes from Northern California. Michael is entering the literary field in his seventh decade, seeking publication of two books and around 400 poems and short stories. Some may be found in Ariel Chart, 50WS, City Key, Wild Word, the Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here at Cafe Lit, and elsewhere.

 

I Can Count

creative nonfiction
by Marie Cloutier

We're nine and it's huge in my friend Heather's hand, the red calculator, raised white numbers and a white cat whose face you slide to open it. I can count... I release the clasp on my fake pearl bracelet, yard sale hoard. "Trade you." She looks at the calculator, at me, gauging worth. "Let me see." I hand it over. Plastic beads overflow her little girl hand. "I don't know." Please, I think. Please. I wait, my breath aching. Can she tell? Counting seconds. She ponders. She weighs the bracelet, pursing pink lips. "Okay," and gives it over, my treasure.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Marie Cloutier (she/her) writes about girlhood and womanhood and complicated loves and losses. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, the Sheepshead Review and elsewhere. She is at work on a memoir. Her website is www.mariecloutier.com.

 

Legacy

creative nonfiction
by Lev Raphael

When I wake up at 3am these days because of chronic pain in my knee or neck or hands, I think about my late mother in the morning. She died in 1999 after a long illness and she hasn't left. I see her everywhere, but especially in the morning. Her morning.

Auburn hair well-brushed, she would sit quietly in the L-Shaped Washington Heights kitchen with her back to the window as if she wasn't ready to engage with something as simple as the view of another six-story, cream-colored brick apartment house built in the Thirties. Or the small bowl of cottage cheese that waited for her spoon.

Reading The New York Times that my father had brought before he went to work, she would have a cup or two of instant Nescafe, take aspirin for her arthritis, and smoke her first Pall Malls of the day while she put herself together. The Yiddish words she used to explain it—"Ich muss mich zusamenstellen" literally meant "I have to assemble myself" and the phrase always seemed both weighty to me, and a little comic. In her red-and-white robe she might have been a human stop sign. STOP. Construction Zone Ahead.

I never thought of her as anything other than "together." Brisk, highly-educated, fiendishly well-read and speaking French, German, Russian, Polish, English and Yiddish, she was quick in her judgments and firm in her opinions. In the Nixon era she dismissed him as a fascist and said that a speech by his vice president Spiro Agnew was "like Stalin on a bad day."

She was in her sixties when her fingers started becoming gnarled and painful because of arthritis and she would gaze at them and sigh, "Getting old is miserable."

In my sixties, and after various surgeries, I feel far less "put together" than I was ten years ago, I can't help but agree with her. I don't smoke, but I have many pills at breakfast and can't even get to them or food before a few cups of coffee to clear my head. And I often have cottage cheese for breakfast, though mine is organic.

My fingers aren't twisted, but arthritis has wrecked both my thumbs and one knee. Taking stairs hurts, using certain tools hurts, and sometimes just rolling over in bed at night hurts.

Yet thinking of my mother, hearing her husky smoker's voice in my head, I feel oddly soothed. It's taken me years to realize that I am so much like her: though I don't smoke, I have more opinions than one person needs, I can't get my day going until I read the New York Times and have my coffee, and I speak several languages.

Pain is now another thing that we share.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Lev Raphael is the son of immigrants, grew up in Upper Manhattan and now lives in Michigan.

 

Food Memories

creative nonfiction
by R.K. West

When I was little, family holiday dinners were always at my great-grandma's house.

She had a sturdy oak dining table that could be extended by the insertion of multiple leaves. In her tiny dining room, the long table had to be placed diagonally, and even then the table, chairs, and people barely fit. An overflow table (or two) used by random children and claustrophobic adults was placed in the living room.

In addition to the turkey and some other dishes that Granny and her helpers prepared, most of the guests brought their own specialties. We could expect roast beef, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, brussel sprouts, probably some other vegetables, a few different salads, a variety of cranberry sauces, olives, bread, and, of course, a wide array of desserts.

Nobody went hungry.

One of the things I loved about these dinners was that I could eat whatever I wanted, and skip what I didn't. At home, my parents demanded that we eat everything on the plate, no matter how disgusting it was. At Granny's holiday table, serving dishes were passed around and everyone chose freely.

I remember those meals fondly, and have used my memories as inspiration to cook. I once commented to my mother that canned peas make me smile because they remind me of Granny's cooking.

"She didn't serve canned peas," my mother said.

"I remember them clearly," I told her.

Mom explained that Granny went to all the trouble of buying fresh peas and shelling them by hand. Then she cooked them the same way everyone in her family had always cooked them, which meant boiling them until they may as well have come out of a can. It seems a little crazy now, going to all that trouble to make fresh vegetables un-fresh, but it was the style of a particular time and place.

Today I eat most of my vegetables steamed, roasted, or raw. But now and then I encounter some boiled or canned peas, and I eat them with a smile, feeling just a little bit like a kid at Granny's holiday table.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
R.K. West is a former ESL teacher and travel blogger, currently living in the Pacific Northwest and posting on Bluesky at @ithinkiwrite.bluesky.social.