No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. Celebrating Diversity Since 2015
“I’ve made my contribution. I’m done.” He waved his right hand like he was dismissing an entire life.
“Oh, please. I don’t like to hear this.” Mom said, brow furrowed, the corners of her eyes creased, the edges of her lips turned down.
“What do you mean, done? Like done done? With your life?” I was curious about this feeling of his.
“Yes,” he said. He rubbed his hands on the table. It was a tell, his whiskey buzz settling in.
On a stifling summer day many years ago, Ana and her brother Dan first created the MMV - a Melted Marshmallow and Velveeta cheese sandwich. They were inspired, as so many kids are, by television. Their mom and only parent was at work, leaving the siblings home alone. They were watching a movie which showed the kind of American kids they only saw on TV, making s’mores while camping in the great outdoors. It was then that Dan came up with the idea.
“Let’s go camping, right here, you and I!”
When my mom and I were sitting on her bed talking about life, she shared that her work as a therapist was thriving. Her days as a social worker at an agency were now over, and she loved having her own practice. She even took some Fridays off. She seemed more relaxed overall. Suddenly I blurted out, “I met someone at school, and we are dating and it’s been about two months and it’s going well and I’m so happy.” “Oh, that’s great. Tell me about him.” A big pause ensued.
“Just the one drink for you all tonight, huh?” Daisy says, and flashes them her most waitressly smile. She practices it every morning in the mirror, the quick flick of the chin down, the dimples shining toward them, the curling of one side of her lips, the dancing, twitching, of her left pupil. Boss said she should practice, because when she was first hired, she would scowl, unknowingly, at every customer. You gotta sell it, the boss said.
California in the year 2075 offers the intrepid traveler a cornucopia of sad marvels, unnerving grotesqueries, and outright horrors. From the sea-scoured coastline, which, due to hurricane, typhoon and tsunami, has been eroded inland an average of 22 miles; to the mad and anarchic self-governing homeless encampment of Greater Los Angeles; to the scorched and moribund Redwood Forest; to the eerily abandoned ghost town of San Francisco; to the desiccated vestiges of America’s once-rich farmland; to the scalding wastes of The Inland Empire – California is truly an adventure tourist’s Eden.
Ching-Hua had lost a lot of weight, her taut face showing little color, and she coughed from time to time. Nevertheless, she still needed to work, repairing clothing for people: patching the knees of boys' trousers, expanding the waists of growing girls' dresses, or sewing sheets and curtains. There hadn’t been much business to begin with, and after she got ill—or perhaps because of her husband’s imprisonment—less and less work came her way.