Author: Amanda Ann Klein

My Face

by Brandon Antonio Smith

The Face in question

The Face in question

A child, sitting in the passenger’s seat

While my father drove,

I’d do my best impression of

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s

Peculiarly raised eyebrow

In the rearview mirror,

However silly that may sound.

 

 

I was enthralled by

What was known as

The World Wrestling Federation

At the time.

I would imagine having his face.

I found it attractive, unlike my own.

 

 

I detested smiling in school pictures.

To this day I’m still not fond

Of smiling in pictures in general.

My hate amplified when

Puberty debuted in my life.

 

 

Pimples soon bulged from

Every corner of my face,

And I’d scratch at them menacingly

Until they bled sometimes.

Blots and polka dots are the remnants.

 

 

I could see myself in a character like Shrek.

One of the first stories I wrote

Was unconsciously based on the ugly duckling motif.

It was about a dog with only three legs,

Aptly titled The Weird Dog.

The original was lost and I rewrote it

From an opaque memory in Mrs. Aldridge’s

Creative writing class when

I was a freshman in high school.

That version was lost too.

 

 

In hindsight, I realize

The weird dog always

Represented me

 

About the author

Brandon Antonio Smith is a 23 year old homebody from Tampa, Florida struggling to embrace himself. Thus far he’s been published in The Stardust Gazette. Writing is the closest he’ll ever come towards freedom.

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Flight Plan

by Cassandra Seltzer

It was a flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia that we’d nearly missed, having been delayed hours and hours in California’s early dawn moments. We had a simple day planned and the connections made sense, until the plane we were supposed to take from Ontario airport was struck by lightning and our sensible day burned up with it.

As we all know, airports are the physical embodiment of internet comments sections, and the other passengers took advantage of the delays to test how well the acoustics accommodated their shouts. The anchorwoman on a too-quiet TV was asking if kids these days (Kids These Days) got too many trophies and, if so, what we should do about it. Some man was talking back at her, confirming that Kids These Days feel too accomplished for their own good and ten other thesis statements from thinkpieces your aunt shared on Facebook. We give kids too much and it ruins America. This will be relevant later, when I become unbearably sad.

The air itself was stressful, and the airplane no less. We boarded hours late and I slept through the landing. My travel partner woke me up and we returned to stress sans adrenaline, a rather inconvenient combination when you’re trying to catch a plane that was scheduled to depart two hours ago. By the grace of the Airport Deity, this plane, too,was leaving late, late enough that two girls with short-to-average legs could dash from two terminals away and still get in with boarding group B.

I’d already decided that the whole lightning incident was a sign, that the universe hadn’t wanted us to make the connection and also that I was buying into the idea of the universe sending signs. This plane wasn’t meant for us, nor we for it; yet here we were in row 12 trying to ignore the three babies that had already started to cry. I wasn’t one of them, but I wanted to be. Convinced that the flight was doomed to crash, I shrank into my seat as we took off for a 5-hour ride. In another terrible twist of fate, we had a chatty crew. They all seemed to be great friends, and I hated them with every fiber of my doomsday-oriented brain. They made trivial announcements every half hour, setting off the intercom each time with a ding that told my heart to prepare for imminent death.

At one point, I remembered that you can see out of the windows of planes. This did nothing to convince me that we weren’t falling, even though I saw level skies above and below us. I concocted a plan for how we could escape the debris of our plane. I decided I’d shelter my travel companion with my book bag and lie down on the floor so that if the roof caved in — because in my incredibly realistic and likely scenario, crash-landing on the ground meant that the roof would fall in before the floor broke up — I’d be safe. We’d get out through the window, somehow. Figuring out how to break the windows was going to be an issue, but I decided that my fight-or-flight responses would kick in to guide me at the moment of the crash.

I hoped that the plane’s fight or flight reflexes would also kick in and that it’d choose flight. Then the lights went off.

The ding I hated showed up again, and the crew asked everyone to close their window shades. With light from the sky cut off, the plane was completely dark. I though about the good old days, back when looking out the window was something I took for granted, and also when I wasn’t absolutely, beyond-a-doubt sure that I was about to die.

The intercom dinged again. My heart attacked itself, cut my entire circulatory system into tiny bits, then jumped out of my body. At least that’s how it felt — it might have actually done that, but I couldn’t check because I was busy riding the LIGHTS-OFF-DEATH-PLANE to Hell.

I hated the crew, I hated myself, I decided that I could use a lighter to melt the windows when the time came to escape, if need be. The crew followed up on that insufferable ding, telling us that they had a “very special announcement” to make “on this very special day.” Now I was convinced that they were going to shoot us and then we were going to crash. People that chatty are always hiding something, and it’s usually guns.

We didn’t die. We didn’t even fall out of the sky a tiny little bit. There was no crisis, just a toddler’s birthday. I didn’t cry then, not from relief when they asked us to sing Happy Birthday instead of reading us our last rites, but I did cry when they turned on the exit lights so that they could bring the kid a “cake” made out of toilet paper.

They had written “Happy Birthday” on a roll of toilet paper. This kid had lived through three goddamn years and a thousand-year plane ride through mankind’s darkest nightmares and all she got was a roll of toilet paper. She was sitting right in front of me with her toilet paper cake, and she was supposed to be happy about it, and I generously cried on her behalf because the angry news man was right: we give kids too much, and it’s ruining America.

The toilet paper birthday cake.

The toilet paper birthday cake.

About the author

Cassandra Seltzer is a part-time writer and full-time email-sender. You can point your eyeballs at some of her work at Ligiddy.com, where she is also an editor.
​

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Common People

by John Farley

The George Tavern

The George Tavern

The year I was alone in London, I frequented a pub called The George Tavern two blocks from my flat. I used to drink there with a guy named Harry Diamond. Harry possessed nearly a century of wisdom, which I caught only a third of on account of his thick cockney accent, which he spoke with half his teeth missing.

The George had an outdoor courtyard overlooking The Thames. Even with the river smell, most nights the courtyard was occupied by at least a few pretty women. That’s where Harry sat. London girls were all wearing beehive hairdos then. They’d come over and kiss him on the cheek and he’d stare at their breasts while they flirted with him. One of Harry’s girlfriends called him the lifelong bachelor. When I asked him why he’d never married, he answered, ‘Some do, some don’t.’

unnamed (1)

Harry Diamond

Later, one of the bartenders told me that Harry had been a famous street photographer in the sixties. His best friend was the painter, Lucien Freud, but they’d had a falling out sometime in the past. That’s what he’d heard.

After a couple months of talking to Harry and his women, the staff of The George started letting me hang around after hours with the regulars. There were a lot of regulars. This Jamaican guy used to break me off a small brick of hash if I listened to his stories about his time in the Royal Navy. Really it was just one story, a long story, told primarily in the form of a list of the places he’d been stationed. But he spoke in this deep bass enriched by decades of smoking. Even “Alberta, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar” sounded like they came from the voice of a Jamaican God.

Early one morning toward the end of my time abroad, I found myself The George’s sole remaining patron. I’d been talking all night with the two bartenders. My favorites, Liz and Frank. They were married. Both were in their 30’s but they’d met a decade earlier in their careers as George bartenders.

Frank told me the pub was over 300 years old. Since I’d managed to drink beer longer than anyone else that night, he suggested I get a private tour. They took me down to the basement and showed me a tunnel in the wall, about six feet in circumference and pitch black inside. Liz said it was walled off at the other end, but it once led to the Limehouse Docks, where street urchins were paid to steal barrels of imported beer. Frank told me about the old Stepney night club, an abandoned building behind the bar. He said it was where the band Pulp filmed the video for the song “Common People,” set in an old disco, with a grid floor of translucent tiles illuminated by changing colored lights. They had the key. I couldn’t see anything at first. The overhead lights and the floor turned on at the same time. In the middle of the floor, on its back, lay a white taxidermy owl. I screamed, so did Liz and Frank. They didn’t know where it came from. Upon closer inspection, it was an immaculate specimen. Expertly stuffed, in our judgment. Its black eyes reflected the shifting streams of red and blue light from the ceiling. Rays of yellow, pink and a darker blue light shot through the feathers in its wingspan, even from the darkness down its open beak.

unnamed

Still image from Pulp’s “Common People”

I heard Harry died a few years after I went back to America, but you can still seem him. He’s in The Tate Modern, where he’s the subject of Freud’s painting, Interior at Paddington. He’s younger than I knew him, like a son of the man. He’s standing on a red rug by a window on a gray day, clenching something we can’t see in his right hand and holding an unlit cigarette in the other. He’s looking at a small potted palm tree, in the foreground, on the edge of the rug. Maybe he’s having some kind of revelation, as if the palm tree also looks.

Lucien Freud's portrait of Harry Diamond

Lucien Freud’s portrait of Harry Diamond

About the author

John Farley is a poet and writer from Baltimore. He co-edits the journal Call of the Void.

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Current Resident

by Tim Miller

Photo credit: Tim Miller

Photo credit: Tim Miller

June 14th, 2014

Dear Connie Fredricks, Managing Broker for Wondermore Real Estate,*

Hello Ms. Fredricks. Would you please remove our address from your mailing list?  We receive frequent brochures from your Company and are not interested in your Real Estate services at this time.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

*******

July 21st, 2014

Dear Connie Fredricks,

Can you please remove my address from your mailing list (2nd request)? 1022 Holiday Rd San Marcos, WA 92078. I would like to be environmentally friendly. If you’ve already done so, disregard this message.

Thank you.

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

*******

August 28th, 2014

Hello,

This is my third attempt to be removed from your mailing list. Mr. & Mrs. Haaland no longer live at this address and I’d appreciate a reduction in my junk mail.

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

*******

September 20th, 2014

Dear Madam,

Can you remove the following address from your mailing list?

Mr. and Mrs. Haaland Or Current Resident

1022 Holiday Road

San Marcos, WA 92078

The frequent mailings are arriving in San Marcos, CA. We are not in the least bit interested in your Real Estate services. Thank you. (This is my fourth request)

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

Photo credit: Tim Miller

Photo credit: Tim Miller

*******

October 9th, 2014

Connie,

I’m taking time out of my day to once again request that you no longer send Real Estate brochures to 1022 Holiday Rd San Marcos, WA 92078. I understand that you are in the business of recruiting clients, but I am not looking to buy or sell in the foreseeable future, and already have a real estate agent that I’m comfortable with. Please, reduce the amount of paper your company uses, go green, and take my address off your mailing list. Thank you!

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

*******

November 15th, 2014

Dear Irresponsible Business Leader,

Obviously you have blatantly ignored my repeated requests to get off your mailing list. Clearly, I have no intentions of hiring your company for any real estate needs.

For one thing, you can’t honor a simple request to reduce the amount of trees you murder in Washington sending off these brochures all over God knows where. Also, for a real estate broker, I’d think you’d be better in geography. There is no San Marcos in Washington.

I don’t mean to rant here, it’s that I’m frustrated because every month I have to toss your brochure, with your smiling face, into the recycling bin, needlessly. It’s very wasteful.

I understand junk mail, and businesses trying to reach more customers through advertisements in the mail. I know the economy is tough and advertising needs to be proactive- even aggressive. Businesses are not to blame, especially if the method is proven to work.

So when I saw that you are based in Seattle, Washington, and were mailing brochures to an address that doesn’t exist -in San Marcos, WA- I thought I would take a moment out of my day to alert you to this error, so that you could correct it and thus reduce the impact on the environment of your business. Every piece of paper counts. So I thought I would do the Earth a small favor.

Not only have I tried once, but repeatedly. Since you’ve been ignoring me, I’ve continued my attempts, on principle. In fact, this is my sixth try!  And the brochures keep coming. So I thought I would once more appeal to your humanity and our common ground of being residents of the Earth.

Please, save some paper and remove our address from your mailing list.

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

Planet Earth

Photo credit: Tim Miller

Photo credit: Tim Miller

*******

December 23rd, 2014

What a surprise!  I opened my mailbox and saw your dumb smiling face again. Such joy!  Another Home Update installment from the Wondermore Real Estate Company! Since reading these installments, I really have started to wonder more! Once again, I rush indoors, tingling with excitement over volume 33106. It’s almost unfair that I’ve had to wait an entire month since volume 33105. Your enthralling market updates and precision pricing guides practically float in my dreams. The last issue has been the most insightful real estate brochure I’ve ever read! I’ve been anxiously waiting to see if you could repeat, nay even top such exquisite writing.

Breathless with anticipation, I rip open the brochure and turn as always to your eloquent, comforting, and sage “Things To Consider” section.

I have a Thing for you To Consider: you suck!

I’m sure if I emailed you with a request for real estate assistance, you’d respond in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?  That’s because you’re selfish. Who cares that the world’s forests are shrinking, as long as Connie Fredricks has real estate business?  It’s unreal, how completely out of touch with reality and self-indulgent some people can be. Not to mention negligent.

You are wasting time, energy and resources sending these stupid, inane brochures to San Marcos, California, and probably don’t even realize it. No time to think of the postal worker that has to carry one more useless piece of paper, or the sanitation worker that has to lift my recycling bin. Well, why would you, if you have a healthy bottom line. No time for the details, when you have taxes to evade and vacations to plan. Shocking, the incompetence and sheer disregard of Corporate America!

Honestly, how much makeup do you need for your photograph?  And that haircut makes you look like a little boy with wrinkles. For a moment I thought it was Benjamin Button.

I could give two [redacted] that your son Aaron will begin to work as your business partner. Great, more nepotism in America!  Once again, a more qualified applicant is kicked to the curb because baby boy spent his college years getting wasted. Come work for mommy, in a few years you can make partner. It’s disgusting.

What’s that?  You and Nepotism Boy have been chosen by industry experts as one of Seattle Magazine’s Five Star Real Estate Agents, the top 5% of real estate agents in the Seattle area?  Well, that doesn’t speak very well of the overall intelligence of the Seattle Real Estate Industry, considering that you mail brochures to a town that doesn’t exist- in California!  So, basically, you’re saying 95% of Seattle real estate agents can’t find California on a map. Unbelievable.

Oh, and I’m not buying that whole Community Service Day bull on the back page. Every year your company joins together to complete neighborhood improvement projects?  What a lark!  That picture of a lady raking leaves is an insult to people who really do try to make a difference on this Earth, even small ones like reducing junk mail.

Who’s lawn is she raking? Aaron’s?

I almost vomited when I actually read your closing sentence. “An investment in our neighborhoods gives us all a better place to call home.”  Does that include the make believe ones, like San Marcos, Washington, or do you consider pollution and waste, in real communities like San Marcos, California, to be an investment.

So go ahead, keep mailing me your dumb brochures with your arrogant smile, and I’ll keep recycling them, because what difference does it make?  Just keep smiling and murdering the Earth!

How does anything we do matter in the grand scheme of the universe, anyway?

Current Resident

1022 Holiday Rd

San Marcos, WA 92078

*All names and addresses have been changed for the sake of the privacy of the author and the people he is angry with at Wondermore Real Estate.

About the author

Tim Miller lives and writes in San Marcos, CA.  Previously, he published a humor column in the North County Times that at least one other person thought was funny.  When he is not writing or teaching, he is pretending to be King Triton with his daughters. On these occasions, his voice can be described as gruff.
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Eat Crow

by Jaen Hawkins

October 31st, 2013

6:15 am

I woke up an hour earlier than usual to soak a few head bandages in blood and hot glue a crow to a purse. I sat at the kitchen table, mixing corn syrup and food coloring to find the best ratio for realistic clots. The cheap gauze I used kept sticking to itself and would either absorb too much blood or not enough. The pattern couldn’t be splattered and nondirectional. It had to be congruent with an entry wound from a sharp, slightly-curved beak that had just penetrated my scalp.

While the bandages were drying I poked two holes into the top of a beige plastic purse. I’d gotten it the day before from a thrift shop across the street from my apartment. It had the clean lines of a mid-century coffee table, and thankfully a thin but sturdy inner lining. I untwisted a crows wire feet from the branch stand it came attached to and threaded them through the holes. The wires were sturdy enough for the bird to stand on its own, so I’d heated up my glue gun for nothing. A structurally sound Halloween costume with no glue whatsoever? I couldn’t really believe it either.

unnamed

The author’s bag and bird.

6:45 am

My roommate left her Marilyn Monroe wig out on the kitchen table for me. Its styrofoam head support base donned 2-inch false lashes and red glittered lips. She was dashing, and one of dozens from my roommate’s extensive burlesque wardrobe that occupied the entire third bedroom of our Brooklyn apartment. The curls weren’t the exact look I was looking for, but the blond effect was there, and no one who pulls a highly conceptual costume together in twelve hours can be picky.

My hair was in the flattest bun possible and pinned to my crown. I cut a nude stocking at the calf, pulled it tightly over my head down below my ears, and looked like a baby conehead. I wiggled into the wig and discovered that blond is not my color. Luckily the hairline far enough down my forehead that the bandages could hold it in place without pins, so I started wrapping the cotton in different directions across my face.

I never appreciated my natural beauty as much as when I tried to make myself look glamorous and nearly dead. Can this much blood come out of my forehead? Does my coral nail polish clash with the blood clots hanging from the birds’ beaks? Is that a good thing? We should bring back this early ‘60s powder-blue eyeshadow look. Does the blood give me enough color or should I wear blush, too? Should I powder my face and risk matting-down the blood, or hope that my natural grease/sweat enhances the look? I wonder if Tippi Hedren had huge pores. Is there a difference between crows and ravens? Do I have time to make a fake eyeball to hang off the side of my face?

After securing the bandages with cloth tape, I took my favorite crow (the one with an open wingspan as to appear in mid-flight) and threaded the feet and wires through the wig’s lace scalp. I secured it with bobby pins on the top of my head and, after a vigorous headbanger test to System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!”, decided it would last through the day.

7:35 am

I concluded that the most effective costumes for any occasion are the simplest ones, because they allow you to finish so far ahead of schedule that you can cook steel cut oats for breakfast. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I walked out on our roof deck to watch the sunrise. The sky was orange over the row houses, silhouetting a pair of sneakers that dangled over the street from a power line strung between two buildings. Our neighbor came out onto her roof to water her browning herb garden. She me staring over the cityscape covered in blood and birds, and walked back inside. I felt my tummy rumble and did the same.

7:50 am

I hopped up onto the kitchen counter to eat my oatmeal. I always liked sitting there, because it made me feel tall. Our kitchen was a six-inch step up from the living room, and with my feathery friend atop my head, I could almost touch the ceiling. It was the tallest I’d ever felt.

8:05 am

I packed my work computer and coral lipstick into my bag and looked at myself one more time in the mirror. Tippy Hedren, about an hour and fifteen minutes into The Birds, no mistake.

I took a deep breath. What if I got my dates mixed up and today isn’t actually Halloween? Or what if this is the year everyone gets super serious and doesn’t dress up at all? I refuse to accept that I may be too old for this. Wait, what if everyone is terrible and has no idea who Alfred Hitchcock or Tippi Hedren is or what birds are? Luckily my neighborhood wasn’t very busy in the morning, so I could decide to abort at the last minute without too many social catastrophes.

unnamed (1)

The author in full costume.

8:08 am

My first encounter was with two guys walking a hotdog. All three were wearing neon trucker hats. Perhaps I wasn’t caught up on my pop culture references, but I couldn’t understand why a dog quite clearly dressed as food would need a hat on top of his relish and mustard.

“Yo, that’s dope,” one of them said. The other took out his phone and took a picture. And then another picture. And then another. He took a photo of me every second as I was walking by. “That’s goin’ on Facebook, man. Happy Halloween yo!”

Okay, date confirmed, so far so good.

8:10 am

An old man with a long gray beard was sweeping Twizzler wrappers off the sidewalk outside of his deli.

“Hey!” he said, “It’s The Birds! That’s neat.” Not neat enough to stop him from sweeping, though.

Okay, I’m on a role here. I’m killin’ this shit. Best costume of all time. I win Halloween.

8:12 am

I was one block from the train station when I recognized a man. He was tall and black, with a lot of aged acne scars on his nose and cheeks. He didn’t appear exceptionally overweight, but his hands were interlaced below his belly and it looked like he was supporting a sack of yams underneath his baggy t-shirt. He’d followed me home from the subway two nights prior, whispering details the whole way about how he wanted to be my “ass-pussy king” and “fuck me all night hanging from the rafters.” As if anyone’s apartment in Bushwick had visible rafters.

I’d like to say that encountering this goose was an isolated incident – a blip during the playback of my roaring early-twenties in New York. But he was only one of many sexually-charged stalkers who thought it their solemn duty to tell every trans or gender non-conforming person they saw how sweet their ass-candy was, often so aggressively that we’d rather spend 20 minutes inside a bodega than lead them to our apartment buildings, where they’d no doubt break in and hang us from the “rafters.”

I turned my head and looked across the street so that he couldn’t make eye contact. I hoped that in the harsh light of day he’d be distracted by my crows and their gory mutilation of my body.

“Woah, that’s crazy,” he said. “Those birds ain’t real?”

Okay, he doesn’t recognize me. I didn’t answer and walked around him.

“Girl, that’s the best costume I’ve seen all day, and that’s still the best ass I’ve seen all week.”

Oh, my, gods. I need someone dressed as a pizza slice to walk by so that he’ll look away for two seconds and I can disappear behind one of these parked cars.

“Damn that’s a tight-ass skirt on top of a tight-ass ass,” he said. “Let me eat that ass-pussy for breakfast.”

I turned red and clenched my jaw. I contemplated taking my backup vile of blood out of my purse and smashing it into his right eye socket.

“I’ll let you fuck me, too, girl, after I lick your hole all day.” He stuck out his tongue and made a horrific slurping noise, not unlike Anthony Hopkin’s tonal description of human liver with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.

This was always the case with these overgrown turkeys; they’d say phrases like “I’ll let you fuck me” and “give me that ass-pussy” to infer “I know you have a penis and I literally want you to put it in my ass after I give you oral and put my tongue in your butt.’”But they could never actually say that, because it would be too gay and uncomfortable and embarrassing and humiliating to say those specific words to a stranger on the street.

8:13 am

All I wanted to do was get away from this loon, but a garbage truck pulled up and blocked the crosswalk to the other side of the street. He stepped closer, talking about my “sweet nectar ass-juice” so aggressively that a drop of his spit landed on my left forearm.

With no means of escape, I turned around, stomped my heel to the ground, and yelled, “THERE IS A DEAD CROW INSIDE MY ASS RIGHT NOW, SIR. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO EAT A BLOODY CROW OUT OF MY ASS FOR BREAKFAST? RIGHT NOW? HERE? ON THE STREET?”

A few people within earshot turned their heads as they walked by. The man seemed offended, appalled even, clutching an imaginary set of pearls atop his collarbone.

“Yo, that’s nasty, you fucking faggot.”

He walked away, hugging his sack of yams.

8:14 am

I stood on the corner and cried. I don’t think anyone noticed the tears, because people generally cry when they’ve been assaulted by crows.

I had programmed myself to fear only the men who hated me for being feminine. I never thought men would pursue me for sex, let alone so aggressively and in public spaces. They started following me home and touching me on the train and dive-bombing me on the street. At first I thought it was a blessing, because I’d rather be called ‘sexy’ and have my ass grabbed than be called ‘tranny’ and punched in the face. But now it felt dirty and destructive, like ­a strategic invasion and declaration of war on my body.

I shook and couldn’t breathe. When is this shit going to stop?

The train roared on the elevated tracks above my head. I closed my eyes and let the sound of scraping metal drown out everything around me. I tilted my head back and pictured Tippi looking up to a sky blackened by swarms of birds. The flocks were threatening and infinite. She squinted her eyes, pressed the wound on her temple, and said, “Don’t they ever stop migrating?”

About the author

Jaen is in her mid twenties and splits her time between NYC and Raleigh. She forgot to finish college and has yet to accept her status as an adult. You should read her blog and watch her YouTube videos.

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Young Old Friends

At the end of this month, my daughter’s best friend, Silver, will be moving across the state, a 4-hour drive, with her family. Maisy and Silver have been friends for nearly 8 years, which is impressive given that my daughter won’t turn 9 for another 2 weeks. Their friendship began before their memories of it do; for both of them it’s just always been there. So to celebrate the end of another year of great storytelling at Tell Us A Story, we’re celebrating the end of one great chapter of my daughter’s life (and the beginning of a new one).

Me: What is your first memory of meeting each other?

Maisy: I remember our first sleep over. I was 2 and a half. We ate pizza!

Me: Wait a minute, there’s NO way you could remember that. You’re way too young.

Silver: I don’t remember much from before kindergarten.

Maisy: Oh wait a minute! I remember our first day of school, realizing that we’d be at the same school…

Silver: Yeah!

Carpooling to school in 2011.

Carpooling to school in 2011.

Me: You guys didn’t know that ahead of time?

Unison: No!

Silver: But then we found out that we weren’t in the same class. That was kind of sad.

Leslie (Silver’s Mom): Do you remember spending time together in the Town Common? When we’d go and listen to music?

Maisy: Oh yeah and we’d run down that hill and yell “Wheeee”?

At the Town Common, listening to music, 2015.

At the Town Common, listening to music, 2015.

Me: What else do you remember?

Silver: I have this picture of me in my stroller and Maisy in her stroller, of us playing with Mr. Potato Head.

Maisy: There’s a picture from my Pirate and Princess birthday party [her 5th birthday] and everyone’s all dressed up…

Silver: I remember that, too, that was really awesome…

Maisy's 5th birthday party (also pictured, Stella and Jude)

Maisy’s 5th birthday party
(also pictured, Stella and Jude)

Me: So those are some of your earliest memories?

Silver: [laughing] The good old days!

Maisy: Good times, good times.

Silver: You know, we’re not that old yet. So they’re not really “old” days.

Maisy: Yeah.

Zach (Maisy’s Dad): But you’re over twice as old as you were in those pictures.

Maisy: Damn!

[laughter]

Me: Girls!

[interview falls into chaos for several minutes as the girls discover that yelling into the recorder makes the audio graph move]

Me: Maisy, tell me your favorite thing about Silver.

Maisy:  Ummmm. She’s a good friend.

Me: What does that mean?

Maisy: It means she’s there for me, she sticks up for me, and she’s been my friend for a very, very, very, very…

[here Silver joins in on the “verys”]

Maisy: Well, you get the idea.

Silver attending Maisy's play in 2012.

Silver attending Maisy’s play in 2012.

Me: Silver, what’s your favorite thing about Maisy?

Silver: She can be extremely funny when she tries. She is loyal. And, like Maisy says, we’ve been friends for a very long time, so we bonded.

Maisy: Yadda, yadda, yadda,

Silver: And all that stuff.

Maisy and Silver pretending to get married in 2009.

Maisy and Silver pretending to get married in 2009.

Me: Maisy, what is your favorite thing to do when you’re hanging out with Silver?

Unison: Wellllll…

Maisy: It depends on where we are and what we have…

Silver: And so on and so forth…

Maisy: Et cetera, et cetera…So give me a certain place…

Me: Okay, what’s your favorite thing to do in Maisy’s bedroom?

Maisy and Silver and Stella at a performance of the Nutcracker in 2009.

Stella, Maisy and Silver at a performance of the Nutcracker in 2009.

Maisy: We usually talk or play games.

Silver: Or read a bit.

Maisy: Sometimes we draw, like we were doing today.

Me: What do you talk about when you talk?

Silver: [laughing] We can’t remember…

Maisy: There’s no certain thing we talk about. It’s always different.

Silver: Yeah.

Maisy: Sometimes we talk about an event that’s coming up, sometimes we talk about a sleep over that’s coming up, you know, anything that’s coming up. Or something just out of the blue that we want to talk about.

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010

Me: Silver, when you’re at your house, in your room, what’s your favorite thing to do when Maisy comes over?

Unison: Ummmmm….

Silver: Film our Lego show.

Maisy: Yeah!

Me: What’s a Lego Show?

Silver: Well, the Lego Show is something we made up.

Maisy: We made it up and this one time we were playing with her Legos and were like, one of us was like…

Silver: “Hey!!! We should film this!”

Maisy: So at the end, so something happened, and then we said, “What will happen next? Find out on the…”

Unison: “…Lego Show!”

Maisy: And then Silver’s like “Maybe we should do that!” And we made up names for the characters and everything.

Silver: It’s really fun.

Maisy: We’re probably gonna put it on YouTube.

Me: Yeah, you guys have had a lot of “You Tube Ideas”…

Unison: Yeah…

Me: …but none of them have really panned out. Why do you think that is?

Silver: Well, it could be because…we haven’t had enough playdates.

Maisy: Yeah!

Me: Clever.

Silver: But we need to fit in as many playdates as we possibly can before I move.

Playing dress up at Silver's house in 2009.

Playing dress up at Silver’s house in 2009.

Me: Maisy, I have a question for you. How did you feel when you first found out that Silver was moving?

Maisy: Well, at first it just hit me, it just came straight out and I just like “uhhhhh.” So at first I had no feeling at all because I was waiting for that to process in my brain and then I felt a big wave of sadness and I was just like [makes whistling noise]. And then I started looking at the good side…

Me: And what’s the good side?

Maisy: The good side is I won’t be talking to anyone in class.

[everyone laughs]

Silver: And you get to visit us in Asheville!

Maisy: [glumly] I will. And another good side, is that it’s basically like going on vacation and going to your friend’s house AT THE SAME TIME.

Amanda, Maisy, Silver and Leslie at Greenville Montessori's Multicultural Fair in 2010.

Amanda, Maisy, Silver and Leslie at Greenville Montessori’s Multicultural Fair in 2010.

Leslie: So when you found out we were moving Asheville, the three of us were sitting together and we told you and the first thing you did was you told us you loved us and you hugged us. We were sitting on the playground at Greenville Montessori School.

Me: So how about you, Silver? ‘Cause you’re not only leaving Maisy, you’re going to start a brand new life in a new city. How did you feel?

Silver: When I found out we were moving? Well, like Maisy said, it just hit me and I was waiting for it to process and then I was like “OH THAT’S GREAT! LET’S…wait. What? We’re moving!?”

Leslie: [shakes her head, makes noises] No.

Me: Ahhhh.

Silver: You tell your version.

Leslie: Well, I told you I got the job in Asheville and you said “Awesome! You’re going to take it, right?” And I said, “Of course I am.” And then the next thing out of your mouth? “What about Maisy?”

All: Awwwwww.

Leslie: There was no pause before the second thing.

Silver, Leslie and Maisy at the Greenville Montessori Multicultural Fair 2011.

Silver, Leslie and Maisy at the Greenville Montessori Multicultural Fair 2011.

Me: How do you feel about moving now? What are the pluses?

Silver: Well, the pluses are certainly: I’m going to my first choice school, Asheville’s awesome [long pause] there are mountains, and we’ll be able to fish and hike. And then the downsides are: leaving all my friends.

Me: So I have one last question for you both: in 9 years you will both be graduating from high school, you’ll be 18. What will your friendship look like then?

Maisy: A lot of times Silver and I used to make, like, plans for when we grew up, for like, when we’re older. So we’re gonna graduate from Monetssori, then we’re gonna go to this awesome middle school, and then this awesome high school, and we’re gonna have really good grades, and we’ll try to get into the same college. Then we’re gonna graduate from college and then we’re gonna get awesome jobs and we’re gonna be best friends FOREVER.

At Jude's 2nd birthday party in 2012.

At Jude’s 2nd birthday party in 2012.

Me: Well that can still happen.

Maisy: But not in the same way. So I started thinking about that. At first I thought life would just go on as normal, without Silver being here. But then I thought “What about those plans we made!?”

Silver: Maisy, I had a feeling none of those things were gonna come true anyways.

Leslie: My pragmatic girl.

Me: She is pragmatic.

Silver: What does that mean?

Me: It means you’re realistic about things.

Silver: Thank you, that’s a great compliment!

Me: It is a compliment.

Maisy: I like to use my imagination.

Silver: So do I!

Halloween 2014

Halloween 2014

Me: Same question to Silver: what will your friendship be like in 9 years?

Silver: Well, I don’t think we’ll be as close as we are now because we won’t be able to see each other much, but I’m sure we’ll still be very good friends.

Me: How will you keep up the friendship?

Maisy: Writing! We plan to write at least once a week. The mail from Asheville to Greenville should be pretty quick.

Silver: It should take 5 days.

Zach: It may be time for you girls to get email accounts.

[squealing]

Maisy: I have a Twitter account! [n.b. it is defunct]

Silver: You do?

Maisy: In 9 years, like Silver said, we’ll still be friends. But probably not as good friends. I’ll probably have a lot of friends and Silver will just be one of those “other” friends. She will definitely not be to me what she is now.

Me: Wow, you girls are cold.

Silver! Hey!

Me: No, you’re right. It’s rational. So Leslie, any questions?

Leslie: I describe your friendship to other people as “it’s own dynamic”: it’s not just friendship but it’s not quite sistership. There’s something in between there. It’s boundaryless. I mean, neither one of you has a sister. And neither one of you had a best friend before, because you met so young. Y’all just grew up together.

Me: Do you girls agree with that?

Maisy is crying because Silver is wearing her favorite dress up in 2008.

Maisy is crying because Silver is wearing her favorite dress up in 2008.

At Jude's baby shower in 2009 (also pictured, Marame and Amanda)

At Jude’s baby shower in 2009
(also pictured, Marame and Amanda)

Gymnastics class in 2010.

Gymnastics class in 2010.

Tea Party at Silver's, circq 2011.

Tea Party at Silver’s, circq 2011.

Briley's Farm in 2011.

Briley’s Farm in 2011.

Ballet in 2011.

Ballet in 2011.

Watching HARRY POTTER for the first time, 2012.

Watching HARRY POTTER for the first time, 2012.

School Choral Concert in 2012 (Also pictured, Mikayla and Allie)

School Choral Concert in 2012
(Also pictured, Makayla and Allie)

Chinese New Year Celebration, 2014.

Chinese New Year Celebration, 2014.

Kentucky Derby Party (pre), 2014.

Silver, Maisy and Jude preparing for the Kentucky Derby Party, 2014.

Kentucky Derby Party, spring 2014,

Kentucky Derby Party, spring 2014,

Maisy's 8th birthday, 2014.

Maisy’s 8th birthday, 2014.

maisysilverdance2014

School Dance, Fall 2014.

Amanda and Zach's 10.10 Anniversary Party in 2015.

Amanda and Zach’s 10.10 Anniversary Party in 2015.

Neuse River, May 2015.

Neuse River, May 2015.

Silver: Yeah! [pause] It’s gonna be hard adjusting.

Me: Okay then, really quickly, Silver: who does Maisy have a crush on?

Silver: Um, why would I know that?

Maisy: She’s a loyal friend!

Me: Maisy, who does Silver have a crush on?

Maisy: I don’t know. Seriously. [n.b: They both know]

Maisy and Silver edit their interview.

Maisy and Silver edit their interview before it goes live.

Have an excellent summer and we’ll be back with all new true stories starting September 2nd, 2015. If you’d like to submit to Tell Us A Story, check out this link.

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Parking Garage Late at Night

by Valerie Maloof

image credit: slog.thestranger.com

image credit:
slog.thestranger.com

A man grabs you by the waist. You don’t know this man. He pushes you against your car, and then it’s your turn. All your years of taking self-defense classes and watching Charlie’s Angels was to prepare you for this moment. You are ready.

Your mother always knew this moment would come. Every time she talked about life she talked about the bad parts. During a thunderstorm she strapped your hot pink Velcro sneakers on so tightly, so that if lighting struck the house you could run to safety from your burning childhood home. Field trips across state lines were nothing but bus accidents. Steak, pork and ribs were nothing but choking hazards. Men were nothing but people to avoid.

You are going to annihilate this man who has grabbed you. Applause breaks will come out of nowhere. Perhaps in this garage there are security cameras that will capture you smashing your pointy elbow into this man’s face and you’ll be on the evening news. Your keys are already poised between your knuckles because how else should a woman walk through an empty parking garage? You’ll clasp both your hands like a little kid praying and you’ll swing your hands like a baseball bat, you’ll get more momentum than a punch and you’ll also protect your chest. The evening news will have never seen such a swing.

You have grown up to be a very confused adult. Tall buildings could collapse, and what’s really holding those windows in place, don’t get too close to the edge, are thoughts you keep to yourself as they eat you up inside. What kind of Mother are you going to be? Your husband will most likely be wimpy. You just know this to be true. Maybe your kids will revolt by eating uncooked fish or riding with friends in the bed of a pickup truck. Or maybe they’ll do something worse. Something you haven’t thought of yet. And that will scare you the most.

The man’s hands are still on your waist and you are still pinned to your car. That’s why you scream. You scream specific directions for him to get off you, for him to leave you alone, for him to go away, and you almost consider begging and saying please, but you don’t, and then you pant loudly while you flail your limbs like there is something crawling all over your skin and you can’t get it off you unless you flail and scream and maybe even beg.

About the author

Valerie Maloof graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Creative Writing. She is also a student of the Grub Street writing class.

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Not Goodbye

by Simay Yildiz

 unnamed

With antichrist on my left shoulder, I walk up the steps: Clank. Clank. Clank. I hold onto James’s arm harder and harder as we go up and up the stairs. He doesn’t say anything, yet I’m sure he wishes I’d be quicker. What he doesn’t know is that the last time I wore these shoes was on Halloween night in 2006, and I only had to walk for a single block. I feel like saying that out loud so that he knows, but my voice is nowhere to be found. Once we get to the door, we pause for a moment, and I can hear him take a hard, deep breath. He holds my hand that is now wet from wiping away my tears and squeezes it as I clank away to where we’re supposed to be seated.

John would laugh his ass off if he saw us like this: me in high heels, James’s big-shape squeezed inside a tuxedo and a tie. And we’d laugh with him and at him, but I’m not sure if I can remember how to right now. I sit, my hand over my mouth, getting even more wet with tears, and I stare at my knees as James keeps getting up and sitting down to greet faces I know I’ve seen before yet can’t remember the names of. I just want this whole thing to be over so I can hit the bottle. Hit it hard.

I’ve never been to a Christian funeral before, let alone a Catholic one. I don’t even know if it makes a difference. I’ve heard Catholics are more strict, and John’s mother has already scared me by asking me a million times to “dress nice” and “dress in black.” My daily color of choice is burning my skin today, screaming out loud how much I ache even though I’m by now numb to the pain. I feel more of an alien than ever as everyone seems to know what they’re doing except me. I’m expecting someone to turn around and single me out as “The Muslim,” and probably shoot me. But then I relax when I realize nobody needs another dead body today.

As I silently curse at myself for the stupid thoughts in my head, people get up. They’re holding books and singing in a language I don’t understand. I catch John’s grandmother’s eye as I look around to maybe figure out what the hell’s going on, and her pupils get bigger when she sees that I’m not singing. I stare at my knees again, for a while, and then I just move my mouth all along without making a sound. Songs sound horrible today.

The singing feels like it lasts for an eternity. Afterwards, we form a line and take turns standing in front of his coffin to say goodbye. It’s black like all the rest of us, but it’s not showing any skin. It’s not showing any skin because he’s in pieces. He’s in pieces and lying inside a box. He’s lying inside a box and not breathing. He’s not breathing and he never will, ever again. I take my hand to my lips and then put it on the coffin where I think his head is. I kiss him, “I’ll see you around.” I’m not saying goodbye. This is NOT goodbye.

James pulls my arm as my shoulders start shaking harder and my vision gets blurry. He sits me down on a chair right under Mother Mary. Is it Mother Mary? I think it is. Whoever she is, she’s smiling, and I’m mad because there is nothing to fucking smile about. I want to smash her face, but it’d be useless. I’m useless because I can’t even see straight or breathe right. I just want to get out.

Once we’re out, James asks me if I want to go to the cemetery. He gives me a crooked smile when I say, “Hell, no.” He offers to drop me off at Times Square, which is where I think I’m going, but I refuse since it already took us twenty minutes to drive for a block earlier this morning. He drops me off at the train station, which is near, and squeezes me tight before I clank away into the crowd.

I call Pat as soon as I get to Times Square. There are people all around, all rushing to god knows where, and I feel like they start walking faster when they see me just to run me over and be done with it. Pat asks me why I’m at Times Square. I say, where else I’m supposed to be. Union Square, he says, and I start cursing at myself yet again for being so fucking stupid. He assures me that it’s no problem and tells me to just walk around until he gets there. I say okay, but I can’t walk anymore in these shoes.

I walk into Starbucks and take the shoes off as I balance myself while holding onto a table where two girls are chowing down their Frappuccinos. They raise their eyebrows at me, staring at my bare feet, but they turn around quickly when I hiss in return. I open my carry-on suitcase and take out my sneakers. I walk outside to put them on because I feel like one of the employees will ask me to leave if I don’t, the cause being my shoe-changing right in the middle of the place and crying all along.

I walk outside. I breathe in, I breathe out. Kids’ laughter and people’s voices burn my lungs. My dad calls. Who the hell told him? Then my mom calls. I also talk to my sister. Then I find out dad had no clue as to what was going on when he called. I guess he just felt like calling, wanted to see how I’m doing. Right after that thought I realize I’m so desperate that I’m even thinking about the fact that my dad decided to care. I laugh in between sobs, and it hurts my stomach.

Pat agrees to take a nap once we get to his apartment in Brooklyn. First, he puts on Chicago, then he gives me a fat-ass glass full of some Scandinavian whiskey I can’t pronounce the name of. I tell him whiskey makes me sick. And he assures me that this one won’t because it’s “the best.” I take sip after sip after sip and it’s sweet and smooth and it burns and it doesn’t hurt that bad when it burns and by the time I see the bottom of the glass, my eyes are starting to shut.

We go out when we wake up. He tells me it’s okay if I want to stay home. I tell him I don’t because then I’ll be thinking, and thinking is the most dangerous of all right now since my mind won’t listen to me and focus on John and the fact that he’s gone; gone for good, gone forever.

He makes me drink some more of “the best” whiskey before we go out.

We go to a Turkish restaurant where the waiters don’t believe I’m Turkish and keep telling me I don’t even have an accent. I show them my passport to prove to them that I am indeed Turkish. Wow, they say and then talk some more, but I’m too tired to listen.

We then go to this Turkish/Arabic café where we share a hookah and get more drinks. I go on a crying frenzy once in a while, and Pat just shoves my head under his arm, squeezes me tight and gets me another drink. I drink and I cry. I cry and I talk to strangers. I talk to strangers and I want to smash each one of their smiling faces. But I don’t. Because it’s useless. Because he’s so far gone that nothing can bring him back.

We go back to Brooklyn and keep changing bars where we hang out with Pat’s friends. They say they’re sorry, I say I am too and I start crying. Pat shoves my head under his arm again, squeezes me tight and gets me another drink. Another one of his friends arrive, they say they’re sorry, I start crying again, and then I’m back under his arm, drinking more and more.

We have cheesecakes before we go back to his place, and I fall asleep on his chest.

“To die would be an awfully great adventure,” right, Peter?

About the author

Simay Yildiz is a nine-to-five-PR-girl, writer, bibliophile, librocubicularist, pluviophile, crafter and future crazy cat lady who’s prone to randomly bursting into song. She has a book blog (in Turkish) at www.zimlicious.com 

 

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The Photographer

Editor’s note: this story comes from an actual criminal case from Central Minnesota 20 years ago. The editors have reviewed a copy of the complaint and record of filing and can attest to its accuracy, and that Mr. Petrek was the Defendant’s attorney and that the facts are accurately conveyed.

by Soren Paul Petrek

Image courtesy of courthousehistory.com

Image courtesy of courthousehistory.com

Being a Public Defender is a lot like juggling chainsaws. Just like your clients, many are bent, busted or broken. To be fair, some clients are nice folks who find themselves in stupid situations. Folks can be a useful word. Remember when President Obama admitted that we’d, ‘tortured some folks’? That was nice of us.

Years ago, I had a client, who shall remain nameless largely to spare him monumental embarrassment. Not only for his lack of finesse as a burglar, but for rank ridiculousness. I’ll call him Jimmy.

Jimmy had little going for him. He barely made it out of high school. He either scraped through or they simply gave him a diploma and told him not to come back. Permanently slouched, it was difficult for Jimmy to get up enough steam to hold a job. Crime was the answer. Jimmy burgled now and then and up until his capture, did ok at it. But the night he drank a whole bottle of Tequila was his undoing.

It was a mild winter’s evening, and Jimmy and a bottle of tequila were driving around looking for houses to rob. Once the quart was polished off, driving became more of a challenge. Eventually, Jimmy took to the ditch and stayed there. During our initial interview, he confided in me that his immediate reaction was to eat the worm at the bottom of the bottle.

Jimmy then left his car and walked up to a farmhouse. The lights were off, and Jimmy took that as an invitation to enter the residence. Initially, he went into the family’s kitchen to see if there was any more alcohol. Nothing but pop, so he drank some of that. Next he thought he’d use the phone to call his father for a ride. I guess he forgot that the long distance phone number might show up on the family’s phone bill. It did.

After a few attempts to call dad, Jimmy gave up and decided that he’d lay down on the sofa for a breather. The family camera was sitting on a table next to him. Fiddling with it, he decided to take some pictures.

Eventually, Jimmy tried taking another run at getting his car out of the ditch. He loaded up a VCR and a couple of other low budget items, leaving the TV, camera and other easily pawned property behind.

With herculean effort, Jimmy blasted out of the ditch, leaving the scene of the crime.

About a month later, Jimmy was in Jail. Appointed as the Public Defender in his case, I went to meet with him. We explored the intoxication defense, but I told him that juries didn’t really like that excuse. What about eating the worm? He inquired. I hear that can make you hallucinate. Sorry son, juries don’t want to hear about no worm.

Lacking a defense, I went to see the County Attorney about a plea bargain. To say he was smug is an understatement. He looked like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, his face curling into an evil grin.

Generally, I’d say something like screw you, we’ll try it. But clearly the other shoe was about to drop.

Unfortunately, in those days, most of my cases were dogs. They were all but impossible to defend. In those instances, you have a few choices. Put on a dog and pony show, often called a slow plea of guilty. Next, wrap yourself in the flag and put the state on trial, also called a slow plea of guilty. Or adjust your client’s blindfold and light their cigarette for them.

“I don’t think you’re going to want to try this one, Paul,” the prosecutor said. “There’s some more evidence I didn’t put in the complaint.”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Did you know your client was beating off in the house?”

“You’re kidding. You paid to gather forensic evidence for a couple of pieces of stolen crap?”

“No, we have the pictures.”

Unhappily, for Jimmy, when the family got home and had their film developed, it was double print Tuesday.

About the author

Soren Paul Petrek was a part-time Public Defender for 12 years and has innumerable similar stories to “The Photographer.” This one is absolutely true.  His novel Cold Lonely Courage is under consideration at St. Martin’s Press and previously self published on kindle:  http://goo.gl/SqHyOv. His book of poetry,Yourself was recently completed and edited by Tuck Magazine, London.  Several of his poems have appeared in Tuck.

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“Beads from Peru” and “Unfinished Business”

by Nalini Priyadarshni

The author

The author

Beads from Peru

 

Back from visiting Machu Picchu

on that hot and dusty afternoon

when he gazed at rows of beautiful beads

he did not believe in predestination or

reincarnation nor karmic connections.

 

Each design more beautiful than the other

it took him several minutes to choose

which earrings, bracelet or necklace he wanted

and several decades to decide for whom

 

He does not believe in predestination

or reincarnation nor karmic connections when

he adorns the woman he has never met

but loves no less for that

with the beads he bought in Peru

***

Unfinished Business

 

Between then and now

I’ve shorn my tresses, had children

Walked roads I didn’t even know exist.

 

Silly of me to imagine things wouldn’t change

And I am not even talking about your hair.

Memories play games on checkered board

Remembrances dicey at best

Not of what happened

But what we perceived.

 

Forever nipping at our heels

What if we had a little more time.

 

Those crimson bindis abandoned

On the mirror of your washstand

Watched over as we delved into each other and selves

Wrapped arms, scrambled eggs, tea in bed

When we slept without a worry in the world

 

Later, every time I traced on water

The face once held close to my own

I wondered if you ever returned to

Sand dunes trampled on thoughtlessly

And left without a word

 

 

Now threatens to obliterate reminiscences

We packed away with letters never written

Visited and unfolded in dead of night

Every time we needed kindness

 

 

We did not deserve

 

 

Unfinished business has a way to remain that way

Or finish in a way least expected

It is left unfinished for a reason.

***

The author's two feisty children

The author’s two feisty children

About the author Nalini Priyadarshni is a poet, writer, editor and amateur photographer. Her work has appeared at Up the Staircase Weekly, eFiction India, Mad Swirl, Crescent Magazine, The Riveter Review, Writes & Lovers Café, The Gambler, Camel Saloon, Earl of Plaid, CUIB-NEST-NIDO, and The Open Road Review, Phoenix Photo and Fiction, Undertow Tanka Calliope Magazine and 52 loves besides numerous anthologies including I Am Woman, Awakening of She, Art of Being Human etc. Her forthcoming publications include I Am Waiting series by Silver Birch Press, Quail Bell Magazine and Lipstickparty Magazine. She lives in India with her husband and two feisty kids. 

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