Maybe it was luck, or perhaps, Providence, the good Lord’s hand pushing me in the direction of the book section. There I was, minding my own business, trying to stay out of the way in Target, while my wife shopped. We needed shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash—the usual stuff—for our trip east to visit my mother who…

Lots of people are coming to Hope’s house to see the cute puppies who are to be rescued. I didn’t know I needed to be rescued. Besides me, there are five other puppies all cuddling and playing in the penned in area. Hope and Gina, the pet adoption agency ladies, want to find us all…

Leaving the Ambassador’s suite, Alex admired the gorgeous sixteenth-century paintings hanging on the corridor’s marble walls. Ceilings were eighteen feet high, covered with more beautiful frescoes. All this priceless art was inherited by the Embassy when buying the building after the Second World War. He glanced at everything but was deep in thought. Taking the…

Before it came, she was unstoppable. She sliced through her days like an ice-cutter, breaking modest glass ceilings (they were more like plastic) and bypassing equators and border controls simply by staying put. She believed that to travel was to delay and to stall was to go nowhere

It’s a cloudy afternoon in a small city. The date and exact time are not important; time is a relic of the past. The concept ceased to exist somewhere between the first million dead bodies out in the real world and the fifth wilting plant in the comfort of my own home.

The TV in Memorial Hospital’s doctor’s lounge was on mute, but CNN’s running headline showed the grim news: May 28, 2020: U.S death toll from Covid-19 passes 100,000.

What on Earth Happened? I went to school in the late fifties and sixties, and like the typical school kid, our lunch consisted of tuna fish, peanut butter, or bologna sandwiches on white Wonder Bread.

By Paul Bourassa I, for one, am pleased to be associated with any group that has the name “baby” in it. Even if it is the Baby Boom. Just think of those poor X-Gen’ers. It already sounds like they’re goners.

By Jacklyn Landis Pauline felt terrible guilt pains when she climbed the windmill tower —as Mama and Daddy had strictly forbidden it. She prayed about the temptation to no avail, knowing full well that it was a devious sin of the worst kind.

Poems by Holly Schwartztol For Mother’s Christmas Every year I swore I’d get home to New York for your Christmas fete To mingle with those who came year after year as one close group merry at your table

By Jay Barrett I awoke two hours later than usual at 8:30 a.m. The light, brightening off-white plaster walls of my bedroom, announced the coming of another day. The ancient steam radiator of this century-old red brick building hissed loudly, slaving to push the room temperature above sixty. Weak sunlight, contributing no heat, slid through…

Early Education An excerpt from “Family Tales from Tehran” by Manijeh Badiozamani When I was four, I had a brief and unsuccessful encounter with something my parents called “kindergarten.” I have no idea how long I attended—perhaps a week or two—and then they stopped sending me. I have only one memory from this period.