Category — Fiction

by Iolanda Scripca

San Diego, CA
Two weeks ago I had to put on wings of courage and fly from San Diego to Bucharest, Romania.

A stage of my life has ended abruptly, not once but twice within a very short period of time: My Parents.

The entire innocence of the snowdrops flowers from my childhood Cismigiu Park was crushed under the feet of a woman with dark hair, so dark that the sunrise dies at the beginning of each day for all the beautiful souls.

I went back to Cismigiu Park after twenty years and looked up and down the alleys to see my Dad walking back home from work at the National Radio Station. He caressed my hair and I started giggling. I turn quickly so I can hug him…but my Dad had hands of winter storm.

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by J. Williams

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all
others.” Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), ‘Pro Plancio,’ 54 B.C.

Kenneth Kidman, or Kenny as he was known to his family and friends, believed
in karma, both good and bad. He believed that good things happened to people
who did good deeds for others without an ulterior motive. Kenny had been
labeled a goody two shoes since his childhood days growing up in his
tight-knit, middle class neighborhood in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

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by Kristine Remick

The storm driven darkness pulled shadow onto surfaces where the contrasts turned them to art. Ordinary things cast spectral gray shapes on the luncheonette’s friction worn Formica and scratched country patterns. Salt. Pepper. Chrome napkin holder. Thunder rattled the diner as the storm built outside.

“What if I did?”

The hooded woman with her long dark sweater coat shrugged at her acrylic paint stained companion.

“What if you did? It wouldn’t be the end of the world – might even be the beginning of one?”

She sipped her dark roast coffee delicately from the plain porcelain cup, refusing to elaborate further. Her companion leaned back drawing a sinewy hand through chic sweaty brown hair. His expression was one of puzzled irritation; a study in artistic suffering.

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by Iolanda Scripca

San Diego

The freeway was empty that time of morning.We jumped in the car with an anticipated giddiness and headed towards Dana Point, California, at about 45 minutes distance from our house. The sun was playing hide-n-seek along the Pacific ocean either blinding us shortly and rhythmically from behind the vacation homes or elongating our shadows into abstract but childish caricatures. Santa Ana winds changed their minds midway; probably exhausted of so much destruction and fires fed by them few weeks ago in the San Diego area.

We boarded the modern Catalina Express, one of the speedboats available in the Southern California harbors such as: Dana Point, Long Beach, San Pedro, Newport Beach and Marina del Rey and said “Good bye” to the so familiar coast which, now, was becoming smaller, faster and faster, in the deafening mixture of sirens, engines, cumulus clouds and the immense blue color of the Pacific in winter. I felt I was in the artistic world of Wyland, in which herds of white horses crash as waves against the rocky Californian coast, in which the beauty of this spherical planet was not only divided into two worlds but also combined into a beautiful poem of Earth and underwater life.  [Read more →]

by Sally George

There wasn’t any rain although it had been predicted. The cats lay on the window ledge as if they were waiting for the rain and not able to adjust to the reality that it wasn’t coming. Adjusting to the lacks and nips of reality was an important skill, in Liz’s view, but maybe not one that cats possessed. Liz thought she was pretty good at it.

If it rained, it rained. If it didn’t rain, that meant Art wasn’t coming. If it didn’t rain and Art came, that would be two good things and you couldn’t have two good things, unless it was winning at solitaire twice in an evening. That sometimes happened and it didn’t signify anything.

But if it rained that would not be too good because the umbrella was at work, and because it made the invisible dips in the parking lot fill up so you had to hopscotch to your car. Art was not the sort of man who liked walking in the rain. That was why she responded to his ad. Hate walking in the rain, dislike music and social occasions, not fond of pina coladas. It made her laugh and it gave her hope. It was, at least, better than the others she had tried. [Read more →]