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Cover Art: "Narcolepsy" by Mollie Edgar, used by permission of Mollie Edgar ( http://www.mollieedgar.com ).
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The sixth issue of Orchid: A Literary Review is now available. Get FREE COPY of issue five of Orchid when ordering a one year subscription. Issue six has 12 short stories, a photo essay by Mollie Edgar, an interview with Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, five new lists of five, and our ever popular Afterthoughts. Orchid keeps getting better and better. If you enjoy reading great fiction, now is the time to subscribe to Orchid.
Read on!
Order a One Year Subscription. Your subscription will start with issue six and you'll get a free copy of issue five.
Single Copy-Issue 6 $8.00.
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Here are some paragraph excerpts from stories in issue six. We hope you enjoy.
“Milk Tooth” by Brenna Burns—The warden and I sat against opposite walls of the shed; our knees were angled not to touch. A heater like a satellite dish glowed beside us. We talked about teeth, the university, and where we were born; his mother, topo maps, and poaching. He was fond of old animals. He admired their teeth flattened down to the gum. The way he described the elk herds, it was like sonar—like someday he would know their numbers by standing with his hands on his thick hips and shouting into the woods.
“Envy” by Carolyn Clark— You like it better when you draw blood—an orange smear on your finger that you wipe off with toilet paper and flush. You wipe your face with one of your skinny stepmother’s towels, wrap it into a roll and throw it into the hamper. You rub toothpaste on your teeth and savor the sulfur from the match that you light when you’re done.
“Jauncy's Feathers” by Rebecca Cook—Jauncy says she can fly with a feather in her mouth but I’ve never seen it. She says she has lots of feathers, whole rooms full of feathers, that her house is built of feathers. Jauncy’s room is next to mine and when she speaks like that, I know I’ve landed somewhere else I don’t belong. It’s the story of my life how I end up places feeling like a goat maybe, or an empty soup can, a forgotten bean. I’ve a tendency toward metaphor that limits my communications with others.
“What Takes Hold” by Steven Gillis—The boy on red bike rides past my window, his arms and legs like gear rods set, flying by every few minutes. “Too fast!” I’ve told him before about the dangers, how there are cars and darting cats, bumps in the sidewalk, places where the cement is pushed from below by tree roots and the natural shift of the earth’s surface. “Please slow down!” I call, convinced his wheels will pitch out from under him when he least expects, but the boy’s oblivious, is seven and immune to any sort of warning.
“Levee” by Roy Kesey—I have watched my father rise in a handstand, his body perfectly straight at first, his white chest scarred and full, then his legs bending at the knees, his feet out like spars as he made his way across our backyard and up the side of the levee, slowing as it steepened. One hand forward, a rest, another hand forward, veins thick as night crawlers rising from his neck, his face the color of blood itself; another hand forward, another, quivering slightly now, the levee so steep that simple walking turns to a scramble. He fought for one last handhold and then he was at the crest, the sunset sky fiery behind him, the roiling hush of the Mississippi, and my father, lowering his legs gently, standing upright, chest heaving, and he smiled, waved, and now I could breathe again.
“Nothing He Can Put His Finger On” by L. E. Kimball —Until two weeks ago, Davis couldn’t have told you the last time he’d looked inside the ’55 Willy’s Wagon. But now he looks every day. His stiff fingers grip the door frame as he lowers racklike shoulders into the car, eases his aching body onto the ragged leather seats that burn the backs of his thighs. He’s careful of that trick left knee, not a Korean War wound as most people assume, but the result of a childhood fall out of a tree. He stretches the leg straight once he’s seated. And then he takes stock.
“Audra” by Laura Krughoff—It’s past midnight, and my oldest daughter can’t sleep. Moments ago, she came padding into our bedroom, stood at the edge of our bed, a small hand on my shoulder, and whispered, Mommy, I can’t sleep. It’s funny that she whispered, since she was trying to wake me in any case. My husband and I sleep like logs, and it took a bit of struggling up out of my dreams before I could pull the room and my daughter into focus. My first instinct was to roll over, pull the covers back and let her slide into the humid comfort of an occupied bed, but she is nine years old, no toddler anymore, so I sat up, stuck my feet in my slippers, and took my robe from the bedpost to get up with her. Now I’m standing in the kitchen, the room lit solely by the yellow lamp over the range, heating milk and honey for her while she sits at the counter, swinging her bare feet. I can see our expressionless reflections in the black windowpane over the sink. My hair sticks up and my shoulders are rounded under my pink robe. I move like a somnambulant, but her actions are crisp, not muddled by recent sleep.
“Tips on Pulling Off the Graceful Death” by Keya Mitra—Your father receives the note from your four-month-dead mother on the same day you realize that you will die within the week. You sit in the living room on a Sunday afternoon during your summer break from high school, reading the newspaper when he comes in with a scrap of paper in hand. A torn white undershirt stretches taut over his belly; a pair of see-through white boxers droops from his hips. He has long ago forgotten that he can be seen. .
“The Editor” by Susan Osborn—When the editor and his wife arrived in Bologna, they were met by scorching heat and petty disappointments right from the start. It had taken nearly an hour to get a cab at the airport and then, once they were finally in the city, everything looked inelegant and decayed. The streets were dirty and the editor, who took offense easily, was still smarting from a scurrilous remark he thought the cabby had directed at them upon dropping them at their hotel, a small dingy affair, nothing like what they had expected given the description in the convention brochure.
“Dive Your Dumpster” by Renee Reighart—My husband pulls away from our slanting brick apartment building, the one that is near the trendy neighborhood where all the hip people our age live but that isn’t in that neighborhood, not yet. He leaves me with the dog tight in my arms, tail wagging, not understanding that my husband isn’t coming back—only that right now he is gone, and before I can think again, again, again how to change his mind when I know I can’t, my neighbor John pulls up in his wagon and says, Cheer up, have a spicy chicken pizza, have two, because I’ve got twelve more than will fit in my freezer anyway. I set the dog down in the grass beside the street, he dances around my feet. I take the box, spin it in my hands; it feels cool—not cold. The white square on the back of the box reminds me: keep frozen until eaten, do not eat without cooking first. This is where it starts. He says, I do it all the time—up at Wonder Bread, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods. He piles food into my arms, tells me: The yogurt is expired, but not bad—it can go for up to eight days past the date. Crack each egg into a bowl and sniff. If it smells bad, toss and try another. When you eat the bananas, close your eyes, you won’t even be able to tell the difference.
“Accomplice” by Patricia Stiles—My mother is discreet. She steals small things, tiny trophies that slip suddenly and easily into her handbag: lipsticks, perfume, gloves, bracelets, earrings, especially earrings—she loves earrings. She says she can go out without makeup but she feels naked without her earrings. My mother is determined. She steals the way a starving person eats: voraciously, but with a fervent concentration. When my mother steals lipstick, it is always the same color, a rich, vibrant red. She is a slim woman, bird-like, and the deep red is like a gash on her small, white face. The lipsticks are compact—they can be concealed in the palm of a hand. These are what she steals at first, at least I think it is at first. It may just be the first time I notice.
“Oh, Alison!” by Bob Thurber—At our long-deceased stepfather’s sixty-third birthday celebration Mother serves us tomalley dip, presented on a rock crystal platter, the lumpy tomalley shaped like a dolphin; a sprig of parsley for the mouth, a sliver of pimento for an eye. In her heyday, before cancer zapped her strength, and even after that for a short time, Mom was the assistant chef in charge of a large kitchen staff at St. Joe’s Hospital. Now, every post-burial birthday, she goes out of her way to whip up some dandy and exotic treat, her once-a-year effort to appease Phil’s spiritual taste buds while simultaneously browbeating her adult children, Alison and me, who still make our living as lowly wait-persons.
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