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All Sorrows Can Be Borne

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Loren Stephens

He told me that our son, Hisashi, would be better off living with his sister and her husband in America; I was too weak to argue with him. My mother said I had lost my mind to give up my child. Her judgment of me was cruel, but I knew she was right.
“You are like a monk for three days,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You give up too easily. You carried your baby for nine months; you took care of him for three years; and after all that you give him away. What was the point of that struggle? Do you not love him, Noriko?”

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The Law of Return

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Leeore Schnairsohn

My father was playing guitar with Guns N’ Roses when he died in a nightclub fire. The club was an old airline hangar packed with polyurethane to hold in the A/C, which was running against an epic Florida summer. Someone, it was conjectured, lit a cigarette in defiance of the law. Meanwhile my dad was playing Izzy Stradlin’s old parts: rhythm lines, easy to miss. His fate was sealed in seconds. As was yours.

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Graham

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Joyce Myerson

“When I lost the woman I loved, I knew it was because she was afraid of me. I saw it in her eyes… the fear….”
This was how I began my first ever face-to-face colloquy with my first ever and only psychotherapist at forty-six years of age. She thought I was talking about my wife from whom I was recently separated.

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There and Then

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Randy Kraft

Late one night, dangerously late, at that hour when stillness and darkness cloak the sleepless, and when an aching heart silences reason, Angie posted to Twitter.
The days are long, the nights are cold. I miss you, still.
As a rule, Angie does not speak from the heart, not in writing, and certainly not on social media, which she largely disdains. She’s a scholar.

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Von Lindemann’s Proof

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Michael Peppergrass

The warehouses lining the arrival and departure lanes of the space port are constructed out of red brick instead of the traditional glass and steel common to the colony of New Guadeloupe. They tower high above Leif, as he dashes in between them through an alleyway. Surely, he cannot keep this tempo up for much longer.

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Nyama

In Issue 30, October 2019, Issues Archive by Glenn Schiffman

“Put lice on pillow,” Anan said. “Efa woman annoy you, put lice on pillow. Dat’s how you break da connection.”
Anan and I were sitting on a bench on the quay by the St. Laurence River.
“Is that an old country adage?”
“I don’t know dis word, adage. You want get rid of da old lady, put lice on pillow. Next you know, she kick you out.”

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The Prince’s Gargoyles

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Maria Thompson Corley

They were circling again, their leathery wings flapping slowly, noiselessly. Through a small square window lodged high in a stone wall of my cottage, I could see a large gargoyle passing just in front of me, so close that I could have touched its gray, scaly hide or wrapped my fingers around its slender neck if not for the barrier between us.

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The Conspiracy

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Robert Klose

I was not alone. Every resident I knew had toyed with giving up. Even though I was several years older than the others it was still, sometimes, simply too much: the workload, the hostile or uncooperative patients, the long hours, the smug attending physician who, even at this juncture of our education, conveyed the impression that if we so much as considered quitting, maybe we should.

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Purity

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Robert Stone

Edward and Marcia had got into the habit of walking along the cliff-top at dusk. What, here on Auskerry, Edward was tempted to call the gloaming. The sultry day was much cooler now and, indeed, would soon be cold. At this latitude the summer sky was still pale, but the first stars could already be made out. Marcia had something she wanted to tell Edward and Edward did not want to hear it.

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Pecan Pie and Psychosis

In Issues Archive, Issue 30, October 2019 by Lara Colrain

Please don’t be dead.
Yet June knows the words in her head are hollow. Insubstantial. He has either done it right this time, or he hasn’t, and she can’t do shit about it if it’s the former. She hates it in here. She and Johnny always joked that the hospital’s waiting room was like depression cramped into airless chemical space. It makes her want to retch. As if she is looking into a glass of curdled milk and knows she has no choice but to gulp the lumps down.

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Down by the Bay

In Issues Archive, Issue 29, September 2019 by Rebecca Amiss

July 15, 1954. Duckett, Louisiana.
The waves crashed against the dock of Hangman’s Bay, sloshing water on its rickety edge. The sun had long gone down and now all that lit the way was a small star off in the horizon. Luellen Temperance and Tessie Sinclair screeched in freed delight as they ran faster than their ten-year-old legs could carry them.

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This Is How We Walk on the Moon

In Issues Archive, Issue 29, September 2019 by Jared Green

It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time she played Iris’ voicemail that it dawned on Satya just how long she had gone without leaving her narrow slice of South Ealing Road. It took several more times before the full meaning of it sank in.
Satya…I know you probably don’t want to talk, but this is not just your daily motivational, so please listen to me: I just got out of Waterloo Station. Simon isn’t there anymore. They’ve replaced him with someone new. I’m sorry, but I thought you should know.

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The Fourteenth Child

In Issue 29, September 2019, Issues Archive by Sylvia Schwartz

My eyes, now watered by regret, find little pleasure sketching. The last time I tried, my fountain pen punctured my drawing sending tears of black ink streaming down the page. I must tell this story without the forgiveness of an artist’s eye that sees only what it wants.

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Of All the Wonders We Have Seen

In Issues Archive, Issue 29, September 2019 by Jamey Gallagher

The young man working the two-pump gas station at the corner of Main and 443 stopped a black minivan with an upraised hand so he could fill Annie’s gas can. His narrow face and weak chin gave him away as a Scanlan, but she had no idea which one. Mickey? Eddie? Tommy? Or was he old enough to be Mick, Ed or Tom? He lifted weights and was cock-proud of his broad chest and thick biceps, one of which was tagged with an eagle tattoo, a screaming patriotic bird of prey, talons extended. He looked at her sideways as he eased the nozzle into the can.