If you’d think the shock and awe of four Pulitzers would mute a granddaughter’s proclivity to be a smart ass you’ve not met Jenna. Though, this Christmas, she’d decided to observe her first seasonal ceasefire of banter. Neither she nor her mother moved a muscle as my arthritic fingers struggled with the reindeer wrapping paper. Perhaps they understood their Dylan Thomas; there’s no helping the stubborn raging against the...

Beyond the veil, I cannot see; Does his heart still beat for me? Is mi amor forevermore? 🌹 Día de Muertos soothes my splintered heart, Pleading death does not keep souls apart. I lay one rose on my lover’s grave, A sign he’s here, I desperately crave. 🌹 Black lines crisscross upon my lips; Lips he once traced with tender fingertips. His favorite flowers adorn my hair; Inked roses embrace on skin left bare. 🌹 With papel...

October 30, 1938 About a half mile into the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, I smell oil burning from running the engine so hard. I pat the dashboard of my old pickup. “Hang in there, baby.” I’m struggling to drive while rotating my head like a damn owl, worrying the walls will collapse around us at any moment. The Detroit River would surely swallow us whole. To make matters worse, we lost the radio when we went underground, so I...

A brutally honest reflection forecasts my nearing end, but at four years and a hundred, I can't complain. My head is bald and mottled; my beard rivals the snow; wrinkled folds for eyelids obstruct my vision. All memories have long since abandoned my decaying mind, yet thoughts of it (for I never knew its name) still linger. Curious as to how one thing can take root in one’s mind, mushrooming until it consumes all other th...

Zara slid into the vacant seat and joined her classmates for lunch. “So, what are you guys doing for Mardi Gras?” she enquired as she opened her can of coke. Her friend Sinead paused, a sandwich halfway to her mouth. “We don’t do Mardi Gras. We just have Pancake Tuesday.” “What?” Zara looked around the table, expecting to see everyone laugh but they all just looked at her and shrugged. “Pancake Tuesday?” “Yeah,” explained...

⚜ Mardi Gras, 2000 "I see a man in your future." A smile crossed the young woman’s face. Skeptical at first, her apprehension easily dissolved as soon as she heard her desires would be met. Madam Francessa was accomplished at asking the right questions, reading expressions, and predicting what the tourists wanted to hear. This eager lover had been an easy read. “Really? When? What does he look like?” Her rapid-fire questi...

“And I hate that picture too.” He turned to look at the new target of her ire. “Lake Hintersee? But why? It’s beautiful.” “That lake was beautiful but that picture is just like you. It’s boring and empty. Your eye gets drawn to the dead centre. Dead, empty and soulless.” With that, she turned and picked up her coat. “I’ll be back while you’re at work to collect my stuff.” James stared at the closed door for what felt like...

With no breeze, the glassy lake reflected winter back on itself. Though, in that chilling mirror, the bare trees were even better defined, seemingly less shrouded in mist. That was so very different from the previous time Selene had hiked to the isolated tarn. Back then, a spring breeze rustling through the budding trees had whitecaps lapping against the shore. Warmed by navigating the overgrown path up to the tarn, they’...

For the first time, a month after her twenty-second birthday, Maria, shadowed by her mother, greeted guests arriving at their seaside residential compound. Year in, year out, this was the most exclusive New Year’s Eve party on Earth. Yet one so shrouded in secrecy, that whispers had never once reached the gossip columnists’ ears. Maria was dressed outrageously; if her glamourous little black outfit hadn’t been the most ex...

December 31, 2036 The hands of the giant holographic clock, projected above the crowded lobby, ticked off the seconds until midnight. With less than five minutes to go, upturned faces watched intently and excited chatter buzzed above the haphazard strains of the jazz band. The anticipation was palpable. Dunbar Helpers patrolled the floor, weaving between the partygoers with trays of brimming champagne flutes for the New Y...

Oh God, I want to get out of here," she moaned aloud to no one in particular. "Leave? Before the fireworks at midnight?" I, handsomely dressed in a black suit, slipped onto a barstool beside her. “Do I know you, sweetie?” She didn't turn towards me when she talked and nervously moved her clutch closer to her hourglass figure; my heart sank hearing the pills rattling inside their bottles that she kept hidden in her purse....

My sister Sally and I stood in our grandmother’s darkening living room staring at the wall. Staring at the painting to be exact. The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough or as I referred to it Nightmare Fuel. Our mother used to send us to our grandmother Rose’s house every summer. We loved our grandmother, but we hated that painting. It hung above the TV directly across from the couch and the two chairs that bookended it. Ther...

We all make poor life choices. Mine just happens to be pizza. You’d think working at the nostalgia-laden Wally World would be a dream come true. Maybe for kid me, with all the arcade games that spat out tickets like confetti, ball pits, and colorful characters straight from a children’s book, it was. I used to wrap myself up in tickets like a mummy when I won big, then walk proudly down the soda-stained carpet like royalt...

A roaring wind battered the building. It whistled through the cracks of the ill-fitting single-glazed windows and pelted the glass with debris ripped from the poplars in the park beyond. Driving rain slammed against the rattling panes, and attacked the roof and walls. In a corner of the room, the steady plop, plop of water dripping into metal buckets picked up its tempo. Shivering, Lucy buttoned her cardigan and folded he...

Her yelling annoyed me. It always did. Helicopter moms. Can’t live with them. Dad certainly couldn’t. But until I finished university, I couldn’t live without. Her house. Her rules. Mom’s nagging, she claimed, was always in everyone's best interest. Dad begged to differ. Reason one hundred and fifty-six for their separation, he’d say. I’m sure that number was significantly higher. But every time I asked, he’d spew a few r...