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The Lost Room and Everyday Objects

In Issue 52, August 2021, Issues Archive by Debbie Robson

Now that I have finished watching The Lost Room mini-series on catchup tv (actually catching up with a show first screened in 2006), I have a new respect for objects. You know, they are not as simple as they appear to be. They sit quietly minding their own business. But in an indefinable way, they do have lives of their own — as I will try to demonstrate.

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Misfits of the Animal Kingdom: Butterflies

In Issue 52, August 2021, Issues Archive by Susan Abercrombie

Forewing: I acquired a fear of butterflies the same way I acquired a favoritism of the color blue. One day, I simply decided. I’d cringe when they flew near, drawing my arms close to my chest to reduce their chance of using me as a landing pad. I’d stare at pictures of them on Google, examining their paper-thin wings and furry faces.

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The Sphinx

In Issue 52, August 2021, Issues Archive by David Kennedy

Paris could rightfully be said to be home to the diplomatic arts, but not all lay fully within its ken. Not every secret is pried open when men conduct their affairs with threats, intimidation, and hints of violence; for the more delicate questions of international intrigue, a softer touch is required.

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2020 Was the Year

In Issue 51, July 2021, Issues Archive by Joanne Jagoda

2020 was the year we will always remember but not with photos or mementos. It will be forever marked by pages left blank in photo albums and online collections which used to chronicle our most important life cycle events and the mundane ones as well.

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Privilege on Parade

In Issue 51, July 2021, Issues Archive by Courtney Elizabeth Young

When my alarm sounds at 5:30 a.m., I am already awake. I lie staring at the ceiling, reaching over to pop the snooze button into silence. I have one hour to go running, then shower before you get here, before Liz wakes up and comes with us to the next round of appointments at the hospital.

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His Crystallized Fingernails

In Issue 51, July 2021, Issues Archive by Scott Vander Ploeg

Forced by family duty, cousin Greg and I sat with an older couple, from the good ole’ USA, in a music hall on the Champs Élyéese. I was taking a break from graduate school and imposing on my kin. My Greg-kin was working and living in Paris.

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On A Dime

In Issue 51, July 2021, Issues Archive by Melissa McKay

As my husband and I sped along the interstate, trying to keep up with the police car leading the way, I thought, This is some other family’s story, not ours. How the hell did we get here? We thought home was the one place we could relax and let our guard down. We thought wrong.

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The Fog

In Issue 50, June 2021, Issues Archive by Wayne Bizer

I couldn’t see. The night fog was thick, and I was driving too fast. My guts screamed at me to stop, but I was more frightened of slowing down, knowing that somewhere behind me they were racing to catch us.
I searched for the edge of the road, the line in the middle, anything that would keep me from going off into the dark forest.

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What Sarah Said

In Issue 50, June 2021, Issues Archive by Rachel Andrews

As a child, I was strange. I put myself to bed early, drank from coffee mugs instead of bottles, and avoided eye contact at all costs. I hardly played with toys—or other kids for that matter—and spent hours in my room, staring at the wall. I counted my steps in increments of eight. I created sentences out of license plate letters.

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Glass Houses

In Issue 50, June 2021, Issues Archive by Carol Ann Wilson

I first saw Hong Kong from the air, late into the night. It was February 6, 1997. As our plane descended into the vast constellation of varicolored lights, it seemed as if we were landing in a box of sparkling jewels, layers and layers of them. The contrast of dark night and myriad lights further heightened my sense of adventure, adding to the city’s already bold allure.

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Baptism

In Issue 49, May 2021, Issues Archive by Joanna Grisham

Instead of confessing my sins at church, I found salvation in my bedroom. Like my father, I wasn’t a fan of altar calls or public confessions, though some kids reveled in the extra attention they got from adults when they participated in the praise and worship service. I felt like an imposter, and the attention made me uneasy. I felt closer to God when I was away from everyone else, alone in the woods or in my tree house.

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Full

In Issue 49, May 2021, Issues Archive by Natalie Kim

The way that this forty-something-year-old blonde wearing turquoise cat-eye glasses thwapped my stomach – you’d think she was picking out watermelon. Her pinkish, Anglo-Saxon phalanges bounced off of my ballooned belly. I lay atop the medical exam table, under the singe of fluorescent lights, thinking about the belly I wanted back, the belly I had only a few hours before. A belly that melted into the interstices of my ribcage.

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Carmen and the Boys

In Issue 49, May 2021, Issues Archive by Andrew Sarewitz

If you walk the West End on Commercial Street in Provincetown, inevitably you’ll pass Joe’s Coffee and Café. Early morning, there’s a line out the side door for takeout and inside, the structure that had originally been designed as a bank, has seating throughout. Outside, in front, are a number of wrought iron tables painted wet-black, some under blue umbrellas for shade.

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Hadaka No Tsukiai: A Natural Communion

In Issue 49, May 2021, Issues Archive by Robin Lash

While I stared in awe at a huge spider sitting atop a thick, ropy, sparkling cobweb, light filtering down through Meiji Jingu’s forested path, Annie, back in our rented apartment, was fuming, wondering where the hell I was.
My sister and I had chosen to travel to Japan for ten days, neither of us knowing the language.

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Fireworks in Hong Kong

In Issue 48, April 2021, Issues Archive by Carol Ann Wilson

How can I forget the press of the crowd, the feeling of being swept up in history that lunar New Year in Hong Kong? Throngs packed the walkway by the city’s harbor, and we were snugly pressed in the midst of them. We had stopped in Hong Kong for a few days on our way to Shanghai for research on a book I was writing. And those few days coincided not only with the Chinese New Year, but also Hong Kong’s last New Year celebration under British rule.

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Charting the Distance

In Issue 48, April 2021, Issues Archive by Matthew King

In the dead of winter I deliver my child to a residential treatment center for substance use. It’s over three hours from home, through a winding mountain pass. J is fourteen. I adopted him when he was eleven. Before this, our longest separation was a four-night summer camp stint but even then, he called each evening. Here, he cannot call for one week. I cannot visit for ten days.

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Small Town Story: It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you

In Issue 48, April 2021, Issues Archive by Meaghan Katrak

They say the good thing about small towns is everybody knows you. They say the bad thing about small towns is everybody knows you. You’ve felt the weight of both of these truths in your life, in your small town. It’s true, however, that as a very young Mum there was a certain protection, a certain safety in being known, of your family being known. Of being ‘someone’ in this place.

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I Told My Lover to Sleep With His Ex

In Issue 48, April 2021, Issues Archive by Mary Maresca

Our first in-the-flesh meeting literally blew that chemistry test to smithereens.
Parading online dating sites since my husband’s separation was a fascinating hobby of hope, which I entertained sporadically. This cyberspace, relationship, and reality series rarely seemed to meet my expectations. Having endured my fair share of disappointments, I was seeking a hibernation of sorts.

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Hidden Hurt in the Dirt

In Issue 47, March 2021, Issues Archive by Suzanne Eaton

Red-rock shelves that looked like they were sliced away and neatly tiered by an enormous X-Acto knife in an ambitious, yet unsteady hand stood before me. The wall of rusty-red stretched between me and a creek I thought I could hear rushing by on the other side.

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The Missing Years

In Issue 47, March 2021, Issues Archive by Suzanne E. Korges

There are empty spaces in my photo album, gaps in time that float like apparitions in their possibility. Just out of reach, hazy and transparent, like smoke from a Cuban cigar that was there and then, suddenly, gone. I turn the pages, searching for the missing years, but find no trace.

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Called Home

In Issue 46, February 2021, Issues Archive by Diane S. Jarrett

Screened doors slamming and the calls of “Can you play now?” echoed between the houses on Rose Lane during Raleigh summers in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Sometimes it was hard to tell which child lived in which house.