High School Project

by Joe Durham

I remember I done mine on Vietnam. Last year in Junior High.  My folk was trailer trash and Mom was a day-drinker; Grampa, though - never knew him, but he’d been Army brass; Senior Officer in Asia.

Showed Mom my project; she's like 'What the fuck?'

'For Gramps' I said.

'Oh shit,' Mom said 'I don' rememb' whaddee dunninawar.’ Mom slurs when she's taken a bottle. ‘Forgodda ask.’

'You told me he was Commander. In Asia'...

Mom had another drink. 'I said he’d served. And I'd “ask Amanda. In HR”.'

Real soon after, I quit school. Forget why.

What Might Have Been

by Rosemary Lux

Heather found the letters when they had gone, letters written fifty years before. They told of new love, pain of separation, life’s intimate minutiae; of the man who became Dad looking for a flat, and explaining how he washed his underwear in the boarding-house sink, while Mum-to-be made wedding preparations, vented her frustration at its delay, wrote “I miss you.” Black and white photos swapped, backed with lipstick kisses. 
Heather tries to remake her memories of them, replace the bickering, stony silences, and slammed doors, supplanting images of lives reimagined, of what might have been.

I Can Always Make More

by Felipe Orlans

“Memories? Sure I have memories. I have a whole Song. Bright ones, blue ones, jolly ones and sad ones. Even some fog or a rainbow or two.”

“I’ll have half a dozen happy ones, if you please, and – oh! Is that a Melancholy? I’ll take that too.”

“Right you are, ma’am. Let me wrap them for you. That will be two shillings. And here’s a little sweet recollection for the lad. You have a nice day now.”

“Won’t you be wanting those, Jack? You know, in the years to come?”

“That’s alright, Tom. I can always make more, can’t I?”

Summer Breeze

by Pauline Ludgate

That summer we drove along in the green MG sports car with the sunroof down. A shimmering heat mirage rose from the road that looked like pools of water and caused the tyres to leave greasy smears on the tarmac. The searing sun made our makeup slide off our faces. We wore our hair and earrings long and wooden beads round our necks. The Isley Brothers sprang out from the eight-track singing about a Summer Breeze. We prayed for a breeze to ruffle our hair and wondered what it felt like to have jasmine blowing through our minds. 

Not What She Used to Be

by Fhi Love

She’d shown a flash of verve on my last visit, launching into a conversation about a repeat of Coronation Street. For a second I thought she was back, but then she stopped mid-sentence; her face vacant again.

I always feel guilty when I glance at the clock, but I can’t help it; it’s unbearable seeing her like this, coarse hair everywhere, in a blouse that doesn’t match her skirt. She used to be such an elegant woman, head held high in her twinset and pearls.

‘Is it time for you to go already, Corra?’ ‘I miss you,’ she says.

The Wiser Hero

by David de Leon

The notes froze. “Honey?” my wife asked, her fingers on the keys, waiting for me to sing the next line.

I stared at the telephone, the number nine-one-one riding my thoughts.

Both my daughters giggled in the kitchen, oven mitts on their hands.

“Car crash,” I whispered to myself, sweating. “Don’t drive.”

“All right! A little off-key on the last lyric,” said my wife though I didn’t sing a word. “Still, excellent.” Her music went on.

Nothing can be undone—the guide’s rules re-entered my inner ear. Only revisited.

But I rushed to the phone.

The German Who Makes You Forget 

by Izi Taro

“I had a beautiful husband. His name was Johnny. Look, there’s a photo of him. He was elegant.  And so nice. He always brought me roses. This one’s from our wedding. We danced to How deep is  your love. I can’t remember what happened to him... At least I have this album. I would be so lost  without it… You are handsome, too. You look a bit like him.” The man smiled. “I can’t remember. Why I can’t remember? The nurses said that there’s a German who comes to  visit me. Are you the German?” 

“No,” said Johnny.

Hope

by Miruna Marin

As he lay tucked between the stinging smell of medicines and the beeping of the machines, he wondered: could it be that memories lived in the hairs on one's head? Fingers running over his bald top remembered distinctly the tangle of curly hair. Inside, he remembered the sensation of buzzing memories, now gone, like petals exploded from the bud, then withered away. Feverishly, he tried to conjure one last drop of sap from the core of a dying stem. The answer to this question: who was the beautiful lady who sat beside him on the chair and held his hand?

Why not, Grandpa?

by Jan McEwan

—Kids ’d be at the dump first morning of summer-break, after old pram wheels. Spend sunny days making our go-carts. Always the best design, ever. Fastest, sturdiest, most controllable. Fruit box nailed to the base, painted. Red, mine.

And the names! Once “Mad Maude”. Crabby cow, whinging about noise.

We’d head for the hill, race down in twos or threes. Wind tearing our hair at top speed, sharp turn at the bottom, or we’d careen onto the road.

—Let’s build one now, Grandpa?

—Sorry son, ’ealth-n-safety would lock me up. No such thing as fun nowadays …

Winter Creature

by Sarah Turner

You never saw summer, its yellow haze

Of balmy, drawn-out, echoing days

Watching swifts and silver planes

Slice the sky. The lingering stains

Of berries eagerly mashed into pots

The untamed garden reduced to a sip

By witching fingers and wooden spoons

Your untouched cup with its golden lip.

You never saw the world rolled out flat

Edges weighted with apples and jars

Our nightly naming of indifferent stars.

   You were only a winter creature.

Last Lunch with Grandpa

by Heather Haigh

Crusty bread and sticky red jam for me, thin white slices trimmed and torn into bird-size pieces for Grandpa—dropped one by one into a bowl of gravy. His jaw moved slowly as he sucked, sighed, sucked.

He took out his small wooden-handled knife and meticulously sliced an apple paper-thin—a russet ripened long under the September sun, tough-skinned but sweet. We finished with toffees cloaked in golden wrappers, pulling the ends so the sweets twirled and caught the fading daylight. I finished first, the urge to chew irresistible. 

No point rushing, he'd say. Savour. The end comes soon enough.

Smoke Curls

by Faith Himmelberger Williams

She stared into the flames spellbound by their hypnotic motion. Within the smoldering embers, memories rose, dancing among the flames. As she watched, the blaze consumed these recollections one by one until they were smoke curls fading into the night.

On the other side of the glass, the technician and doctor examined the screen. 

“Ever wonder what they see?” The technician glanced at the patient.

“More concerned with whether the therapy succeeds.” The doctor’s focus did not waver as he pointed at a lit squiggle. “That one.”

As the technician plucked the memory from her brain, another smoke curl unfurled.

Somewhere between your thumb and forefinger

by Olivia Grace

There’s an extraordinary part somewhere between your thumb and forefinger, where no matter how hard you squeeze it, there’s no pain. This is where I store my best-loved memories. When life feels so wonderful that my skin radiates with whole-hearted happiness and my smile spreads beyond my face and across my heart. That is when I press into that soft adjoining skin, imprinting the contentment onto my body. When gloomy days inevitably arise, and memories of happiness seem forgotten, I search for that special spot. I press into the skin and find reassurance that life can indeed feel perfect again.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

by Julie Meier

They scrub my cranial folds with detergent.

The kind that “gets out even the toughest stains”. The kind with those little scouring crystals enveloped in gummy wrappers that toddlers should not eat. The kind that are deadly when ingested. 

Brainwashing is a tricky business. They try their best to wash mine until it’s lily white. A blank slate. But some stains are stubborn. Like that heart-shaped splash of red wine on my grandmother’s heirloom tablecloth.

No matter how hard they try to eradicate memories of us, they remain. 

You, we, are a stain I won’t let them remove.

Nana’s Rose

by Joelle Simpson

When my Nana was in hospital, I gifted her a potted red rose. She passed that night. I held her warm hand and whispered lingering goodbyes. I kissed her farewell and noticed the pot now contained only a withered stem and drooping petals of what had been the thriving rose. I thought it eerie that they died the same night. Now, I imagine her passing: Our Matriarch’s soul eases from her body, reaching for something besides memories to take with her. On arrival, Nana hands the spirit of the rose to her waiting daughter, who welcomes her home.

A Thousand Light Year’s Journey

by Jenny McClish

It was after the storm, before power was restored. We scrambled up a maintenance ladder to the roof. Ostensibly, we wanted to escape the oppressive dark of the hospital, but we simply traded one darkness for another. Except, the darkness we sat in was anything but. I had never seen such stars. They rained down the memories of a thousand light year’s journey upon me. It took a natural disaster to reveal that beauty of the universe. How fitting the light of those stars became the only pleasant memory of the worst days of my life.

Polar Bear

by Ed JM

In the gutter where water gurgled and leaves massed slept a  polar bear.
Even at six I thought it odd. A polar bear in Kent!?
‘Go inside,’ dad said. It looked so peaceful as cars zoomed past  its big white head.
I spied dad, shovel raised, advancing on the Arctic guest.  Careful, dad! He ground it under the sleeping beast’s belly and  carried it towards the green bin.
Mum helped tip its floppy body into a sack. Dad heaved the bag  in. The rubbish truck came.
Later, dad confessed it was an albino badger catching a lift to its sett.

My mother’s legs

by Mary Jane O'Brien

June 1966
The photo was taken on the grass in the back garden
Between the apple trees and the rhododendron
My mother sits upright on an old green deckchair
Beauty and glamour are buried there
But the way she sits makes me think of youth
Her legs told their own truth
Knees closed side to camera, side saddle pose
descending long from shapely knee
shin sharp to pointed toe
tippy toed ankle taut
Heels raised
Flip flops
flopped.

Mint Imperials

by Kate Aranda Nye

It is the little things that take me back to you.  An insignificance, that floats like a dandelion seed on the breeze, settling in a fertile corner of my mind.
A subtle scent catches me unawares, leading beyond the rustle of eager hands in minty paper bags, past the glass coke bottles bought specially and hidden away in the coal shed with its sharp acidic smell; until I hear the gentle hum and soft step of a man as he walks towards the horizon, hands clasped behind his back, unassuming, uncomplaining, leaving but never gone.

The group chose ‘Somewhere between your thumb and forefinger’ as their favourite. Congratulations, Olivia Grace!