A short story by Matt Coppens

My father lay there on the hospital bed with a bandage covering the right side of his throat from the esophagus cancer surgery he’d just had. He lay there limp, weak, helpless. My pop, the man who served 5 years in the U.S. military between 1962 and 1967, the toughest son of a bitch I’d ever known lay there not even able to lift his arms to feed himself the ice chips the nurse’s had left for him to keep his mouth from drying out too badly.

The rest of the family, my girlfriend, and brother in-law were all there, too frightened to feed him the ice chips so I did it. Leaning over him with a plastic spoon in my hand I gently dropped a few ice chips into his mouth, a thin-lipped Belgian mouth that he inherited from his father, the same thin-lipped mouth I inherited from him.

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A short story written by Rik Villanueva

29 and wasting time at work. . . Work was a retail retirement home of some 85 years. Immediately following the holidays comes the mediocre task of markdowns. You know, dropping prices to clearance. Pink on blue. Pink price stickers over the old blue ones. Drone work. Standing in front of a clothes rack or rounder changing stickers. A monotonous existence for a few hours a day. Stressful, but not high energy stressful. Stressful like a helium balloon slowly drifting far enough to be out of view, then gone. Tack on to that my suspicious demeanor. Pink on blue. A rage building on an otherwise cool personality. You wouldn’t want to approach me on a sales floor. Before you had the chance to finish asking if I worked there, I’d say ‘No’. Neglect like holding up your hand trying to get a teacher’s attention only to be called on and give a wrong answer. Letdown. Pink on blue.

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Written by Rik Villanueva

I’m not scared of dying. . . anymore. I am the reason for so many things, so many changes, that I will live forever. I am already immortal. What happens after this doesn’t really matter anymore. Who I am, you already know. Television had my face flashing all over world. Children in third world countries know my smile. They will grow up to tell their own children that if they’re not good, it’ll be me that comes to get them at night. My name won’t have to be translated for people to know who it is you’re talking about. My given name, my Christian name, will be forgotten. I will be the last face that people see in the darkness as they shiver under a down blanket in the summer. My laugh will keep people from entering a room without reaching in to turn on the light first. I made the church sit up and listen.

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