Issue 12: Fiction
- Those Unseen by Sara Reish Desmond
The local paper reports that my father’s farmer, Chew Turner, the man he used to pay to grow alfalfa in the forty acres he owns out west of town, a man who tipped his hat and called my mother ma’am and only stepped inside if my father was home, has been indicted on three counts of child molestation and pornography. The article will explain that one boy and two grown men have come forward; one of the men, my age. But I don’t read the article when it falls out of my birthday card from Mom, who sends eerie whispers from home in the form of news clippings. Instead, I let my eyes go fuzzy like they do when I’m distracted and read it toward midnight, when I think my son and everyone is sleeping under night’s heavy hand.
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- The Novelist and the Rapper by Mickey Hess
What parallel courses did the rapper and the novelist follow that evening?
Starting united at a normal walking pace from the rapper’s recording studio, both reduced pace, bearing left, and followed Main Street, crossing the intersections of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Streets, respectively. The novelist was receiving the Nobel Prize in literature. The rapper was debating retirement.
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