fwriction

“George dropped to his knees, clutching the piece of chalk between two gloved fingers. Writing frantically, dirty black hair springing out above the thick wrinkles of his forehead, he worked the chalk against the pavement in complete concentration, pressing down so hard flecks of broken yellow chalk fell to either side onto the street. He wrote in bold letters—BY RUSSELL AND DADDY—then stood up and sucked in a long breath, turned his head sideways to review what he had written and handed the chalk to Russell, watched as his son fumbled with it between his fingers, dropped it and then bent slowly to pick it from the ground.”

Sheldon Lee Compton, “Snapshot ‘87”

“Later, I tell him, they left notes. My brothers had this painstaking script, they were at the arcade, they wrote on long yellow pads, they landed roles in All My Sons, studied Mandarin, or so they said. It was a matter of faith. Our house howled from poor insulation. After school, I’d dive beneath their covers, cradling division tables and lozenges encased in snappy metal, waiting as the hours collapsed, my brothers fleshed in Ronald Reagan masks from the Land of Confusion video blaring all night on TV while I dreamed between asteroid sheets, alone in their empty twin beds.”

Sara Lippmann, “Fun and Games”

“The graves,” I asked Nenad, “why are so many dates of death left blank?”

I kneeled down at a grave to read the inscription on the stone. Once again, Nenad looked around frantically. The date of birth was engraved in red.

“They’re still alive,” Nenad said, and flicked around in his pockets. “The date of death is entered when people die. When a family member dies, the birthdates of the spouse, the father, or the mother are engraved on the stone.”

There were wedding photos, men who had most likely died during the war in the 1990s. And the relationship to a deceased person was inscribed.

“He is already waiting for her,” I sneered.

Nenad gave me a long hard look. Eventually he smiled.

“What happens if someone gets remarried?”

“Marriage is sacred in Serbia,” Nenad said.

“It’s like the Mafia.”

“During the war, tradition was important for many people.”

The stone in front of me was shiny black. All these wars set in motion, all across the world.

“Not for everyone.”

Erwin Uhrmann, from The War Beyond, translated from the German by Shelley Frisch

“Matt fell asleep next to me on the back seat. It didn’t feel any different, his being awake or asleep. Right then, I decided I’d never marry Matt, never wear that ruby engagement ring, the jewel like a frozen clot of blood.”

Ethel Rohan, “Haunt”

“Heart pounding, pulse fluttering, a trickle of sweat beading up, pendulous, threatening to drip. Then: Here, take this. Smooth stiff bus transfer, pressed gently between fingers. And: I couldn’t. But: I don’t need it. Take it. Go, go. Make your train. Tighter grip. An ominous rumbling underfoot, hair lifting in the breeze. So: Thank you. It’s extremely kind of you. Heels pounding through turnstile, thudding onto metro platform, landing firmly in subway car. An electric twinge in the right ankle. Fingers tight around cold metal pole. Warmth in chest. Lips wavering into smile.”

Eva Sandoval, “Five Senses: Terracina to Rome”

“Was it so hard to accept the kindness I showed—you travelled on your own to parts of the world at a time no woman alone, let alone man, could travel. The wanderlust I instilled in your heart forever there.”

Walter Bjorkman, “Bridges”

“My silence, my chewing, just made Naomi talk more. I learned things I didn’t want to. Things people reading the newspaper would never know. I thought of a giant mother hiding the eyes of its thousands of children. I thought, my life should have so many hands.”

xTx, “What Naomi Says”

“Calliope, epic poetry and eloquence. We rode on a carousel one afternoon when we were courting, before we said I love you, when we still said I like you and I like you, a lot, and you were on your horse and I was on my horse and we laughed and we laughed and we laughed and we were the oldest people on the carousel, on horses, side by side, laughing, and Calliope, now, whispering, reminds me of this carousel ride, and I should be grateful for the memory, but, instead, I want to ask you if everything after was just a continuation of a ride that wasn’t meant to stop.”

William Henderson, “Reminders and Remains”

“The wind like a wild horse, like love,
pulled him along, kite’s red nylon snapping
heartbeat against the sky.”

Liz Minette, “Moon To Cornucopia”

“What happened happened, neither of us could change that. She didn’t want to talk about it any more than I did. We’d both scraped on with our lives for the most part.”

Brent McKnight, “An Encounter”

“The trick is the shift, progress,
otherwise the whole thing, this
and everything else, is a disaster.”

Amber McMillan, “Peace”

“But there are monsters out there, and monsters have skin when their words are given air. They have claws when language takes form. I long for a world of the dumb; amongst the speechless, I will make my home.”

Kenny Mooney, “Woe Lung”

“Cera was always carsick. Karen told her to read or focus on a distant landmark like Reculver Towers on the clifftop. When Cera once came to, knees to chin, vomiting onto her denim jacket in a toilet cubicle in a dying Manchester night dive, she won back a buried memory. How she’d once pebbledashed the roadside on the Isle of Sheppey approach with Karen smoking and, still ahead of them, Graham, waiting.”

Sian Cummins, “Cera”

“…the mayor put one of his plump hands across her eyes, pushed the girl towards the flames, turned away and shouted hizzah! huzzah! while the children madly danced around the blazing lake of fire, their unseeing eyes mesmerized.”

Marcus Speh, “Candy”