WEDNESDAY IN A FACTORY TOWN Sunlight succumbs to weather and chimney, fat gray clouds, much billowing of smoke. In a town of factories, faces stare, solemn and blackened like stove flues, through windows, as red eyes make tunnels in the gloom. Rivers wait like standing water for more dust and grime to fuel their current. Shoppers cough their way from store to store. Kids grub up without even trying. No sky as once was promised. Not even the church, chiming three o’clock, can get back God’s attention. ** EMMA, A MONTH BEYOND THE DEATH OF HER FATHER She can’t swerve to avoid the dead possum on the road without crashing through huddled sobbing mourners and braking just in time so she doesn’t topple down into the freshly dug hole, and smash headlong into her father’s…
The Hurricane Book: A Lyric History
New Creative Nonfiction by Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones How do we mark the passage of time? How do we reconcile what we remember of our life and those we love – and have loved – against the mutability of memory? Like author Marcel Proust (À la recherche du temps perdu), Ms. Acevedo-Quiñones grapples with her life growing up in Puerto Rico and her identity as a writer in Brooklyn, marking the journey with the island’s six great hurricanes of the 20th century. With our deep gratitude to Rose Metal Press for publishing this book, we herewith present excerpts from Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones’ remarkable work. These excerpts do not do full justice to her innovative narrative, so please read the book. Meet the author live tomorrow (Wednesday, November 8, 2023) evening, in conversation with poet Paolo Javier at the…
“Baby Rando,” A Short Story by Robert Pope
Walt could not be more pleased with their baby boy, now they’d had him home a couple of weeks. With his fuzz of orange hair and sparkling green eyes, the child glowed. Rando laughed almost as soon as he came from the hospital. Ginger’s Dad called when he got back from The Islands. He could hardly believe it. He had given up hope of his only child making him a grandparent. Rando came three weeks early, fully formed, Walt informed Ginger’s Dad. Would you believe it? A father at forty-two, after a double bypass hit him wham, sucker punch to the solar plexus. Ten days later he had this fine scar down his naked chest. They took the few chest hairs he had before surgery. Never grew back. He missed them. He had given each…
“The Secret Society” by Rachel Gonzalez
“The Secret Society of the Women’s Bathroom” ~ An Audio Arts Short Story One of the most innovative and interesting positions we’ve developed here at The Fictional Café is the Writer in Residence. We choose a poet and a fiction-writer every two years from among our contributors, creative people in whom we see great merit and potential. We hope our two Writers in Residence, who are chosen in alternating years, will help FC grow in new creative directions, and we’ve not been disappointed. Be sure to click over to the Residency link to learn more about our Residency Program, past and present.Since assuming her new position in January, Rachel Gonzalez most assuredly has met and exceeded our criteria. One of the most innovative and distinctive ideas she came up with was to chronicle her hike up and down…
“Taking Daddy’s Photograph,” Poetry by Gopi Kottoor
Taking Daddy’s Photograph Daddy’, I said, ‘Stand by those shoe flowers, there are so many of them blooming this morning’. Daddy took a step back. There is a strange beauty, in the hibiscus sheen, when, from the fresh green the hundred shoe flowers mount red. Daddy now looked like he was some God coming to me in a dream of sacrifice. He puffed hard at his cigarette, its red butt putting all the hibiscuses to shame. Looking on into the camera eye, Daddy said, ‘Be careful, son, The sun is still in front of you. Don’t let in too much light’. I remember, I knelt down, so the lens could take the shade, holding him right. Dad smiled, as though in the camera eye Lay his only woman. And in that stained Hibiscus silence, Time…