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Letter from the Editor
Welcome to the December issue of
InkSpin. We hope you will enjoy its contents.
Naturally, we wanted a Christmas
story. Click on Janet Salvage’s “The Christmas Box” for a tale that weaves a
lost gift into a surprise conclusion. Chelsea Polk’s flash fiction “Bright Wings
and Wax” is based on the Greek myth of Daedalus who conjured wings to escape
from the labyrinth. Linda Oatman High’s “The Smallest Church in the World” is a
delightful, humorous story of an overweight woman stuck in a pew. “Fruits” by
Phyllis Ring draws attention to the poverty and hunger of the worlds’ children.
We found it especially appropriate for the holiday season where we Americans all
too often focus only on the commercial aspects of Christmas.
John Steele’s “Perfume” (with its
unusual formatting) meshes reality with the supernatural and draws attention to
remembrances of war and lost love. At the age of twenty-two, John has written a
poignant story about a haunted man more than twice his age. KR Mullin’s flash
fiction “By Another Name” delights us with its unusual, quirky ending. Click on
Lynn Bey’s “At the Villa” for a subtle flash story about a scorpion that kills.
I wish to extend special thanks
to my Associate Editor, Jim Bell, for his encouragement and editorial
assistance. And, of course, InkSpin would not exist were it not for the
commitment of our Editorial Board—Amelia Klock, Paul Ferguson, Gerry Kozak and
Robert Laszlo. My heartfelt thanks to them as well.
Em Kersey (Editor-in-Chief) |
Fruits
by Phyllis Edgerly
Ring
The banana peels never had a
discarded look.
Bejan Sabet's dark eyes followed their
descent from the roof overhead to the dust of the roadside.
They landed gently, custard-colored petals
spreading open like lotus flowers, an unexpected bloom, soon to be devoured by a
passing goat or cow.
From his seat by the window, Bejan watched
the crowd of human shadows huddled atop the dark oblong the bus cast beside him
in the afternoon sun. His eyes had kept watch on them during the hours that the
bus had lumbered out of Allahabad, these figures that gestured in animated
debate, bodies swaying with the coach's rough progress.
At times his brown fingers had clenched the
seat's peeling vinyl, two urgent vises that seemed to hold the passengers above
him in place with each jostle and bump. ....
Read More
Sometimes, when the night gets so
hot that the sheets stick to my skin, I dream about the mosquitoes along the
Quang Ngai River. I dream of C rations and salt tablets. I’m sinking in the
river’s muddy banks and there’s a fire fight coming. The mosquitoes are killing
me, taking bits of flesh with every attack. When I wake up to the coppery taste
of blood, my hands slapping my face, I don’t go back to sleep. My breathing
calms as I see the bluish outline of Jenny’s bare shoulder, still and smooth in
the darkness of our bedroom. My eyes follow her naked outline ....
Read More
By Another Name
by KR Mullin
“I’m
afraid I didn’t catch your name.”
Seemed like a simple enough thing to say, but, after talking to her for an hour
or so, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. If Mel Gibson had said it, or
Harrison Ford, she’d probably think it was downright sexy. But, from me, it
would sound more like a bad host on Saturday Night Live. After all, when Mason
introduced us, I hadn’t been expecting any great shakes. I mean, I come to his
monthly parties because that’s what a good employee does, not to meet girls. But
this green-eyed redhead was, dare I say it, fascinating. A real traveler and a
good storyteller. Unlike the daytime drama drone or the celebrity addict I
usually encounter at Mason’s soirees, this one had not only been places but had
done things worth the telling. ...Read
More
At the Villa
by Lynn Bey
“Mon Dieu! One sleeps here inside my shoe!” cried the girl.
“Yes, because it’s dark there,” said the wife, “and moist, like a kind of crevice.”
“They’re harmless,” said the husband, waving a glass of wine above his tight, bloated stomach. “The Italian kind are the harmless ones, I keep telling you that. Wearing shoes is a waste of time.”
He’d explained when they arrived, and every day since, that the small black scorpions were without venom. It was the tan ones they had to watch out for. Why couldn’t she remember that? The black ones were nothing; they slept inside cracks in the walls all day, or anywhere that was dark, coming out to eat moths or spiders at night. “Just ignore them,” the husband said. “It would be a lot quieter, like a real vacation, if you ignored them.”
“I cannot,” said the girl. “I cannot ignore, as you say, unpleasures. That is not how I am.”
The husband sighed; this girl was very young. “Unpleasures is not a word,” he said. “We were told you spoke English.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head into the sun, sweat beading in the cracks on his forehead.
....Read More
About the Authors
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From where I stand huddled
between my open car door and the seat, I notice a pile of cardboard boxes across
the street on the sidewalk. Scraps of Christmas wrapping flap in the wind. It's
Christmas Eve. A family inside the townhouse must have celebrated early. A large
empty box sits at the edge of the trash near the curb. At least, I think the box
is empty, and I must have a box for the quilt.
I've thrown my purse and my nurse's uniform into the back seat. I have my
daughter Caroline's Christmas present—which is a quilt that Janice from work and
I have
sewn—inside a shopping bag still resting on the street in front of me. I've
lugged it two blocks from the hospital. If I grab that box, I can mail the quilt
to Seattle. It would get there by December 27, only a tad late for Christmas.
...Read More
Bright Wings and Wax
by Chelsea Polk
This is where Daedala likes to
play: her stickman legs thrust out before her as she sits in a patch of cloudy
light, tired of her uncle Russ coaxing her—one more step, another, stronger
every day, my dear, stronger in every way, my dear.
They live in the rectory, but Daedala likes it here among the grey whispering
stones of the nave, near the tumbled-in wall and the bright gemshards of glass
still in their leaden webs. There peeks the red graceful fold of a robe, here a
fragment of a bare humble foot, and there almost entire the Madonna, like the
bombs couldn't bear to hurt a lady. ....
Read More
The Smallest Church
In The World
by Linda Oatman High
Pearl, who is fifty and big and stuck in a pew, is
cursing a blue streak in The Smallest Church In The World. She’s somewhere in
the Georgia boondocks, alone, heading home from a Weight Watchers meeting. Pearl
pulled off I-95 at exit 12, because she had to tinkle. She saw the cute little
church and decided to go inside. She was praying to lose weight, number one.
Also she was praying for her mother who’s terminally sick with liver cancer, and
for the vicious one-eyed potbelly pig who lives next door to Pearl. She added an
optimistic PS to her prayer, requesting that maybe someday she could be on that
TV show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Then she got wedged in-between the two
Lilliputian pews, her ample gut and butt stuck. Just goes to show what praying
does for a person. ....
Read More
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