GRADUATION DAY
By CC King

A four-by-six color photograph of my father and me staring out over the field behind the gymnasium at my high school. The picture was taken in San Jose the day of my graduation, in the late 90s. My father and I are facing away from the camera, and even through the grainy pixels, it’s clear his hand hovers inches from my back, which is draped in a black gown that was never pressed—the folds from where it was boxed and shipped make the shiny fabric bend and catch the early June light. My father is telling me about my sister, about how many days he thinks she can last on life support, about how difficult it is on my mother, this decision looming before them, about how it can tear marriages apart. I remember that, though I don’t recall much of the graduation ceremony. Only being pushed from behind when my name was called, and the roar of applause and cheers as I made my way across the stage. Even then, I knew it was less an ovation for me than for my sister. Her graduation would be of a different kind.

Some other details stand out. Smiles everywhere. Balloons floating like severed heads to the rafters. Faces swarming me like bees. And my father, making his way to me after the formalities were over. His shoulder pressed against mine as parents and teachers and administrators pushed into us. How without saying a word, he cleared a path through the crowds of happy relatives and friends, shouting to each other over the cacophony of other happy relatives and friends talking about bright futures and roads ahead. The way he paused at the edge of the field when I did, inhaling the sweet scent of cut grass, instead of striding toward the car to beat the other cars out of the parking lot.

File a Report
By H. A. Eugene

One warm summer evening a boy had the bejeesus scared out of him by an object hovering in the night sky that was bigger than the mountain it loomed over, and emanated a glow from which came an inexplicable warmth that supplanted his initial fear with a strange sense of well-being and joyous desire to share this weird, oogly experience with somebody; anybody; and so he burst through the open doors of the nearest night watch, where the officer on duty set a stack of paper forms before the boy and asked him to further describe this hovering thing, which the boy called a great and wondrous levitating rod of fire that glowed orange but also goldand thenblue, depending on how long you stared at it and what direction it pointed; but the officer only heard fire, direction, and pointed, and demanded to know what manner of weapon this was; and when the boy said no weapon, the officer leaned further across his desk and growled young man, we are at war, and when the boy mumbled something inscrutable about colors and feelings, the officer demanded he tell which side of the tracks he lived on, who his parents were, who his uncles were, who his aunts, his cousins, friends, classmates, and teachers were; and so the boy said, all you have to do is just stick your head out the window and look over there, to which the officer of the night watch replied are you threatening me? to which the boy said no; but by then it was apparent that at some point in the past this person had either too much bejeesus scared out of him, or not enough; in any case, this person was already quite afraid and had absolutely no interest in having his mind changed; and so the boy left that pile of paper and backed away from that desk as the officer stared him down head to toe; and after running out the building giggling into that warm summer night, the boy looked up into the sky, and sure enough, there itwas, atop the mountain, that weird, oogly thing, all orange and gold and blue at the same time; only now it’s landed, and bizarre indescribables oozed from pores on the vessel’s skin and rolled down the mountainside toward their sleeping town; but the boy, he could only laugh contentedly, with nothing left to do but skip home to wake his family and tell them the actual truth: that everything is fine.

NOTHING ELSE TO LOVE
By Pamela Painter

This room is supposed to assist me in living but it is a sorry sight. Lumpy bed. Lumpy chair. Potty chair. Bed. TV. Hate TV. Dresser with two drawers too hard to open. Nothing in them anyway. Bed. Did I say bed? Bed. A squeaky walker as chatty as the staff. Staff deliver trays of grey food. Then they wheel me into the room full of chair-sitters. I wheel myself out. I stay in my room in my chair near my lumpy. Lumpy? My lumpy bed.

I was dumped here by a person I almost recognize. It was last week. Maybe last month. The man’s pursed mouth reminded me of someone I knew as a child. He pursed and muttered. He dumped out stuff from a box. I said take it away. He dumped stuff back into the box. All the time muttering. I couldn’t hear him.