Volume 03: Dear X
Fiona Mossman
Dispatches from Afar
Dispatch from Atarantes: there is indeed desert here, but of the people there is no sign. It is said that they are people who live with no names, who eat no meat, who have no dreams. Here in the endless sand, we could see why.
Donna L Greenwood
Dear Mike
She tells him that her head has fallen off. She tells him that the nurses squeeze her arms too tightly and the blood-pressure sleeve makes her cry. He says, "I'm sorry, Izzy, that doesn't make any sense to me."
Sudha Balagopal
Some Scars Never Go Away
What a noisy and confused phone conversation we had yesterday! Blame my cell phone for garbling your words. The service in my area is unreliable, unlike yours in America.
Sarp Sozdinler
Confessions
Father, I'm afraid of: Long nights like this. I’m afraid of pain, but not death. I’m afraid of sadness and the sense of abandonment. I'm afraid of dogs, because they don't understand me, and I don’t understand them.
Cheryl Pappas
Found
A slip of paper telling me I will surely die. I find one, then many, everywhere: on church benches, bus stop platforms, at the supermarket customer service window. They are written in a hand I don’t recognize.
Grace Loh Prasad
One Day You’ll Need This
I have taken you to Taiwan many times and hope we can go again before too long. But there will come a day when you decide to return on your own, when you aren’t just tagging along but are propelled by some inner motivation or curiosity to learn about your heritage and your ancestors.
DeMisty D. Bellinger
Esteemed Patrons and Fine Folks
Dear Esteemed Patrons: Please do not flush feminine products in the toilets. There are trash receptacles for this purpose. —The Fine Folks at Florentine Trattoria
Ross Showalter
Do Werewolves Live in the Pacific Northwest?
r/UnresolvedMysteries: My dad and I moved to Riverbend, a small town thirty minutes east of Seattle, Washington, five months ago. I supposedly lived here when I was a baby, but I don’t recall anything about here. Redding and Riverbend are similar, but Riverbend is colder. A lot colder.
Alina Stefanescu
Letter to Bucharest Concerning the Use of Blue in Paintings and Music
Dear Bucharest, I keep dreaming the stench of summer light crawling over the outdoor market, the warmed botany of rotting flowers and bouquets of diesel fumes like an extended belch from your hidden stomach.
J. Edward Kruft
Rain King
I woke to the sounds of rain on the shake roof, and a mingling of songs from August and Everything After repeating in my mind. It was beyond me why that album, and why now, but you know your crazy brother. Anyway, it made me think of you:
Monica Wang
The Sunset Witch
A witch comes at sunset to take children away, my mother tells me. She stopped reading to me before I could remember, but this one she tells without needing a book.
Janice Leadingham
The Hare Moon
“The women in our family never die.” Your grandmother tells you this. The moon is still up when she wakes you and by it, you see her hold one crooked finger to her lips.
Gabriela Denise Frank
Ghost Phone
42.348495, -83.060303; 1974: ...bellwethers or canaries, I don’t know which. It’s what they call a blue note in jazz, intentionally off-pitch. A signal searching for a receiver. Damn, can’t getta tone...
Todd Dillard
The Widower’s Wife Takes Him to This Year’s Death Gala
“Should I go as drowned?” she says, stroking her blue skin. “Or strangled?” A necklace of bruises purples her throat. “Shot?” she says, as bullet wounds blossom on her limbs. “Or,” and her forehead sprouts a crown of broken glass, “Car crash?”
