Miamians have a perverse, reverse pride, I get that. We think our newscast is more ‘interesting’ than other places. We’re the world’s rudest city, the worst drivers, the epicenter of Medicare fraud. When some study reported that, combining all the social indices – housing, crime, attitude, whatever – Miami is the number-one lousiest place to live in the U.S., many of us thought, “We won!”
But did I really just now think that this murder isn’t as bad as the one two days ago, because this time no machete was involved, because this time he killed the mother but spared the child?
I must leave Miami before my son is much older. But noticing how randomly delightful this place is can mess up an exit strategy.…
These are the words he used to describe his discomfort: “I’m better when I sit there.” He pointed to a set of chairs, backed up to the pub’s exterior wall.
His attentive companion tipped her head to the side, narrowing her eyes and nodding, stepped forward.
They sat, her expression suggesting uncertainty.
But I knew.
I knew the moment I noticed him approach the sidewalk seating and sensed that he had noticed me first, and everyone else in the immediate location, assessing us within the casual, situational elements of walls, windows, furniture, dress, drunkenness, gesture, and relaxation.
I knew when I noted the ink, resting on skin pulled tight over well-defined muscle, peering out from under his left short sleeve . . . the lower third of the gray-green letters composing the words Leave No Man Behind.…
Molly’s paper dress crackles. The stiff, waxy material creates white looming cliffs and shadowed valleys, and she explores them with her fingers, reading the anatomy charts on the wall. The Muscular System. Personal Hygiene. Silky streams of cold air snake around her arms.
“Molly! How’re you doing?”
Molly jerks her back straight, glasses falling down her nose. She turns the corners of her mouth up, giving the doctor her polite, one-word answer.
The doctor shakes her hand and settles into her round of questions. Yes, she eats regularly. No, she hasn’t felt any odd pains. No, she hasn’t started her period. She hopes she never has to. Her head starts hurting; the office is so cold.
A flashlight shines into her eyes, nose and throat; a hammer taps her knee. …
Spinning to Mars by Meg Pokrass (Blue Light Press, June 2021) is an introspective collection of linked micro-fiction. For those who might be unfamiliar with this form, micro-fiction is an even more abbreviated style of storytelling than flash fiction, though micro still technically falls under flash’s umbrella. Pokrass is an award-winning expert of the genre, and reading this collection highlights the form’s charms, strengths, and possibilities.
The inciting incident of the book as a whole is the loss of the protagonist’s father when she is five years old. The feeling of his absence permeates the sequence. It is as though he is on another planet, unreachable and alien. The fatherless protagonist grows up spinning (sometimes sure of what she wants, other times disoriented and confused).…
Author’s Note: In 2018, I went to Berlin for the first time. I was struck by the government buildings built since World War II. They are beautiful, with whimsical shapes and clear walls that seem to literalize the humanity, transparency, and reflection that should characterize democratic government.…
The furnace is a mindfulness bell and I am an unworthy but earnest monk. That quiet click on January’s coldest night returns me to the core, returns me to gratitude for warm air about my body, warm tile beneath my bare feet. The simple knowledge of food in the cupboard, fire in the furnace, the rent paid through the month of July.
If few people love me, that is okay, and if they seldom show their affection, fine. I have the click of the thermostat and the rush of heat through the vents to bring me back to the circle of breathing, thinking, remembering, This art of always returning.
