His mother laughed during labor, breathless, hair plastered to her slick forehead, and blessed his father for the cowl. He grew up in hand-me-down boots. One glance from him was like a gust of wind, knocking you off-balance and blowing your parka wide open. Seven saw him carrying mushrooms, tomatoes, and bread for his mother, […]
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Δημήτηρ She was born between the roots of an oak tree, cheeks sticky with April mud, elderberry juice glowing in her hair, and squirrel fur caught in the corners of her nails. Even when she was little, the wheat would sing for her, fields shifting in the wind and moonlight, rippling like a pleased cat […]
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The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh wasn’t prepared for us, for three teenagers drunk on the freedom of a day without planned activities and hovering adults. Eva and I could barely keep up with Krysto, who was sprinting around the marble halls of the museum, smartphone held aloft as he filmed his encounters with […]
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I didn’t learn how to tie my shoelaces until I was twelve and three-quarters — I was used to loving the mud between my toes, bits of sunflower petals under the biggest nail. Our house sat on a sandstone promontory, and it shuddered when I left wet footprints in the hall. I learned to put […]
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Charles wasn’t meant to take the files on Mrs. Conway’s insurance claim out of the office, but he did it anyway. He tucked them into his briefcase and kept an eye on their manila edge as he sucked at a chocolate malt in that drugstore down on 49th. He was supposed to catch the 5:40, […]
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Barnabus Croft would be lying if he said his bones weren’t made out of branches. Clean branches, like the ones that would wash ashore after the annual gale. Those branches burned green and blue, but Barnabus wasn’t like that. He wasn’t salty, or sandy. But he knew he liked the rough knitted cloth spun from […]
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Monday. Badly brewed tea and a scone I should’ve eaten by last Thursday. My boss tells me I’m drifting. I smile, or try to, until he shuffles his feet and goes away. Tuesday. I pretend not to notice the thermostat. Another sweater, I tell myself. Another sweater. The television isn’t kind, nothing but Pizza […]
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Name: Emily Ward Grade: Senior This month’s Germ Girl is our very own Emily Ward, staff-writer extraordinaire. When we discovered that our high school dynamo had spent the past semester with her class establishing her school’s literary magazine online, we knew we had to bring her into the office (so to speak) and dish. Emily […]
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The middle-aged writer began as usual, with two cups of coffee and a biscuit. It was cold when he sat down at his desk; he was wearing his grey LL Bean fleece and watching the snow flurries through the window as they buried his house. He settled, reached for a light stack of blank paper […]
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