Addie Voss’s Michael was the one with asthma, but she learned to share it with him.  He wheezed and hacked and she complained about his clogged-up tubes like they were her own.  Looking for relief, the two fled Illinois and headed for sunny Albuquerque, but the desert air gave Michael nosebleeds.  In Redding and Denver, it was the heat or the altitude.  That had been the go-around since they got married in the early ‘90s, nomading it here and there, looking, hoping. Now today, an ordinary Tuesday, Addie was waiting in confusion at San Francisco International for a plane back to Minneapolis, their latest city, where she had left Michael and their four kids a couple days earlier.  For Michael, jobs were plentiful in Minnesota, even if breathing remained a chore.  She guessed other things…

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Editor’s Note: Please see Simran’s review of  Chimezie’s – “Mr. Ben’s” – collected works in the Reviews section. Be Inspired When you’re down, you tend to be close to your feet and consequently, close to defeat. But for the sake of success, please rise to your feet. That’s the feat!                                          Succeeding The Race Success is the race, So, you should to move at your pace  After all, it’s your lane So don’t let your strength wane It’s about completing your journey Don’t let anyone take you funny There are no competitions Because you know your onions Reaching the finish line is its own accomplishment Then you will appreciate the beauty of your commitment   Talking Thoughts Talking can be cheap But its consequence might be difficult to keep Its seeds can be weak…

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Drip Castles Teardrops of North Carolina sand bite into Pure pink skin, The color of raw sunsets—of a conch’s innards—of a teething child’s gums.   A sunburnt fist Plunges into a wan Bucket full Of sludgy sand.   The Atlantic water on top of the Sunken soil sloshes like Stomach acid.   Fistfuls of sopping slush Form spires of mire, tilt(yards) of silt, ditches of grit—graves of gravel.   Alas, pure pink castles of Muddied fancies Disappear   In a wave Of briny ocean breakers Dissolving into a stump of once-pink youth.   Snow Questions Spring Yellowed school books say Spring makes all fair beings grow, do ashen teachers see sun’s rays—sickles, shred Snow? Sharp grass blades impale, sting? No frail child, browning slush, murky backwash from tires muddied your thoughts. Infant soft moss Spring…

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I RIDE ELEVATORS. To reach my office in downtown San Francisco I take the escalator from the ground floor to the mezzanine. From the mezzanine I ride an elevator from elevator bank A to the 21st floor. From the 21st floor I switch to elevator bank B and ride to the 33rd floor on which my office is located. If I arrive in the building between 8:30 and 9:00AM, multiple stops at various floors extend my ride by six to ten minutes. I rely on gearless traction electrical thrust to deliver me to work. In order to arrive on time I must also add elevator travel time to my bus commute. Eighteen minutes plus twelve minutes equal thirty minutes. Of course, I still add an additional six to ten minute wait for the bus which,…

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Fusion A light Sinks into lethargy, Dying for A fusion with darkness.   Sunlight The sunlight Bathing in a river; Bubbles of frolic Dancing on the shifting surface.   Commotion The strings of commotion Stretched Beyond time and space Binding the universe In a bundle Of knotted ciphers.   Thoughts Thoughts Scamper across The mind, Colliding, Falling over each other — Stampede.   A Bumblebee Drunk on nectar, A bumblebee Whirrs around, Soaking in The sunshine, Zigzagging Along the hedge, Amazed at the beauty Of the morn. ***   Akshat Shukla is a research scholar at CSJM University, Kanpur, India. He is working on Ecocriticism for his research thesis. Apart from research writing, he writes poetry and fiction, in which he became interested  when he was introduced to romantic poetry. His poems and stories have…

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Editor’s Note: This story is a bit longer than our usual fare, but we’re publishing it nonetheless because it’s an unusually entertaining work: a western and a mystery and even a bit of a supernatural thriller, set in the early days of America. Enjoy! “You Bobby-Jo?” “I’m Jo Bobby.” A gunshot blast rang through the wraparound porch of a colonial-style blue and white house that morning in Wormwood, Tennessee. August 9th, 1830, the hottest day Wormwood had ever seen. A gunshot blast so loud that the nearby sheriff, prune-skinned with a handlebar white mustache, woke up in his bed. The gun holster, cupping his gleaming silver pride and joy, was hanging lazily off his bedpost, adjacent to a snoring whale of a woman who wasn’t his wife. The sheriff gripped both sides of his coarse…

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“How can you possibly go to work wearing these?” I looked down at my feet and smiled. “What’s wrong with them?” I pretended not to notice. “You’re wearing mismatched socks and one of them is green for Heaven’s sake! That’s bad luck,” Bob, my all-knowing husband, hollered, before pointing his index finger at my feet. Must admit though, the look on his face was priceless. “I don’t have to be a neat-freak like you, and besides they’re both clean. No holes in the soles, and contrary to your belief, green brings good luck.” His frown deepened as I started laughing. I wasn’t making any sense believing mismatched socks brought good luck, but they did—this pair at least. It all started last week when I was late for work. The alarm didn’t go for some reason,…

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The Legend Series follows the mystical tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Arthur, now known as The Duke of Avalon, is a cursed man living in the modern world, desperate to break the curse that has plagued him for over a century. Forced to live a thousand years watching his beloved Queen live hundreds of lives just beyond his reach, he has now made active strides to make her his and break the curse.  Alexandria York is just a normal young woman, an artist, striving to make her mark on the world. When she meets The Duke of Avalon, she is catapulted into a world where the impossible is possible, and her Dragon of a Duke is her King. Alexandria must make peace with her fate and chose the love…

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I’m watching Balan hide his second mobile phone in the glovebox of his emerald-green Porsche, the phone he always uses when he has an new girlfriend. I decide not to tell him about the plane ticket. Impulse or resolution, it takes me out of my comfortable flow. At the beginning of the flight, the roar of the engines causes me to yawn and tense the muscles in my neck. These are the warning signs, my habitual prodome. In the middle of the flight, the light on the ocean forms strings of rhinestones and sapphires, like a Turner painting. This could be seen as good luck. At the end of the plane ticket there is Boston’s Logan airport and a red-haired, blue-suited lawyer holding up my old name on cardboard: ‘V. Dutta.’ “Mrs Dutta, ” she…

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