Issue #6 ~Winter 2022
Flash Nonfiction
Nanami in the Blue Dress | Jessica Mendoza
She was my first crush at the age of seven. Nanami in the blue dress, fresh and new and standing at the front of the class, her face white and shining like quartz. Brown freckles splashed across her nose and square cheekbones, her fingers red from fisting into the fabric. Her matching headband sat nobly upon her head, a crown seizing the flickering overhead lights. I couldn’t even look directly at her.
Street People – Portraits of the Opioid Crisis | Sally Quon
“Marianna”
Marianna is on the street tonight. She has a bed, but there are times when her psychosis is too big to be contained within the shelter walls. For the sake of the others, she is sent out.
The street is not a safe place for any woman, maybe especially for Marianna. She’s an easy mark and her boyfriend, Silver, likes to beat her.
Marianna carries on a constant conversation with herself. I try to engage her, but she doesn’t respond until I ask, “Who did this to you, Marianna?”
The Banks of Fairview Lake | Geoff Watkinson
When I was five years old, I took my last trip to Fairview Lake—a glacial lake one mile long and half of a mile wide in Sussex County, New Jersey. My maternal grandparents owned a cabin in the small lake community, which was sixty miles north of the town where I grew up. My first vivid memories emerge from the banks of that lake.
Other Good Stuff…
