Photography by Leeta Harding
Compassion
by Stanley Beesley
I am a caring person. Mostly. A decent enough guy, if you will. I mean I was never a Boy Scout, and I’m not going to win an Aurora Prize any time soon, but neither am I likely to walk away from a person flailing in a swollen creek nor cut off a driver trying to crowd me out of the left-hand turn lane.
Alpineglow
by Rebecca Haas
The car rushed up the mountain highway, weaving from lane to lane, passing the other cars. From the back seat, Jill watched Pops’ face, at least half of it, checking to make sure his eyes stayed open. On both sides of the road Fir trees stood sentinel, black under their blankets of snow. Pops played the same song over and over on the stereo and he sang along with it. She’d liked the song, but now she’d heard it so many times it sounded like nothing.
It Takes All Kinds
by Stuart Baker Hawk
After twenty-six years in the Army, it was time for Alford Mayweather to call it a career and kick back. Plans included him and his wife, Gladys, to travel and see places that that didn’t involve a nearby military base. Yes, there had been a couple of three-year tours of duty in Germany and it had been nice to travel Europe, but the military was never far away or out of mind.
Vanishing Miguel
by German Mora
Watching the evening news on Univision, Manuel heard a soft scratching on his apartment door. He squinted his eyes, surmising that it had to be Luisa, whom he had started seeing a couple of months earlier, soon after mending a dripping pipe in her dorm.
Own Your Own Transition
by Joey Jonathan Poret
My boss, Mark, calls me a good worker. Mark is maybe thirty, almost fifteen years my junior, and I can see uncertainty in his eyes when he says this. I suspect the fear of giving his power away at such a young age is why he stopped talking to me about my work and instead began sending me emails with titles like “Daily Feedback” and “Opportunities for Improvement.” I used to read his emails but now I have a rule set up in my mailbox that sends all of Mark’s emails to a folder labeled “Mark’s Motivationals.” I think this is clever, Mark would not.
Sin
by Daniel Thomas
When Miz Lockwood dropped her keys into Buckley’s open palm, he saw how he could steal from her. She hired him late that afternoon, saying, “I need you to drive my truck up to LaFollette to pick up a load of marble tiles.”
