Category: Fiction

 Clare was twenty-three, living in central Oklahoma. It was a long way from home. She wanted to write a novel and get it published, but it felt late to accomplish that. Sometimes she thought she’d give anything to sit for an hour on that worn couch with the dented cushions in her tenth-grade classroom. Clare could still remember the smell of her English teacher’s hair, a mixture of peppermint and permanent marker.

But he kept coming back. Nobody wanted to interact with him, and so when we saw him approach–either by car or by bike, he used both–somebody would prepare his coffee ahead of time. He developed a habit. Come in, pause, hover to the register, pickup his coffee, hand over some money, collect his change (I forget when he started to do this), sit for a bit, walk into the bathroom, come out 10-40 minutes later, walk down the road, come back six minutes later, finish his coffee, leave. Usually once a day, but sometimes twice. Usually afternoon, but sometimes morning, and a few times in the middle of the night. He missed a day or two, and we grew hopeful that he was gone for good. But he kept coming back.

I turned around to see Ben’s beloved kindergarten teacher, Denise. She was petite and young, and her pale face sported even more freckles than usual.

Leila’s stomach clenched as the plane touched down at RDU. It had been a smooth flight, free of turbulence, but storms raged inside her just the same. She had flown down two years earlier for her dad’s funeral and hadn’t been back since. She would have been fine extending that absence indefinitely had it not been for Maggie’s recent call. Leila had heard about their mom’s hip replacement the year before though the broken ankle weeks ago was new.

“She’s been falling lately,” Maggie said, her voice tripwire tight. “I think you should come.”

Left unsaid: you’re the oldest, and this shouldn’t be all on me.

Tom first heard about it crouching over an illicit transistor built by an enterprising boy in tech class. It was breaktime, he and his mates were tucked behind the outer wall of the gym; their ‘secret’ hiding place teachers turned a blind eye to. 

Each band Radio Caroline announced was met with a choric wail by the boys, because most knew attending the festival was a fantasy. 

Except for Tom...

Great writers speak for us.