Katie Corboy is a M.A./M.F.A. candidate in creative writing at ColumbiaCollegeChicago. She editor of the Fiction Writing Department's publication Fictionary. She writes because it's cheaper than therapy.
It seemed harmless at first; it was just a call from my brother.Dad had been recovering.In the waiting room, my family’s heads were lowered, hands rubbing backs, lips quivering into sunken faces.Fear squeezed my lungs as I gripped my mother’s arm.A low hum and beeping pressurized the air behind the wide wooden doors of the ICU.Indigo curtains shielded patients still struggling.
His form was shadowed, no blinking red lights or zigzagging glowing life lines; no pumps hissing and sucking, no curtain hiding transfusions of blood thrusting hope into failing organs.My mom’s nose was rubbed red, eyes puffed and dark.A numbing pulsed through me, pushing the fear out my pores.
His eyes were closed, crusted in the corners.His skin glistened yellow and smooth, purple needle marks hiding in the moonlight.A stiff white blanket pulled over his large chest, veiling the amber stained gown.Clipped tubes protruded from his nostrils.Mom patted my arm.I shook her off, rejecting sympathy from someone who’d hated him.My hatred and pain from years of sober apologies for drunken verbal bashings melted away.He was just my daddy, sleeping without breathing, finally at peace.
My fingers wrapped around his wrist, his skin still warm and familiar.I whispered, “I forgive you daddy.I love you.”I’d never called him daddy; but “dad” felt too jagged in my brain, too harsh on my tongue.I left before that image seared in my memory and I lost the happy few I had.
Second Place Entry:
Joey Mae Evans
Hitched and Unsaddled
Growing up, Joey moved, she read, and she wrote. At sixteen, with dozens of cities, states, and homes behind her, she fell in love with the boy across the aisle in French class. At eighteen, she eloped. They've been married sixteen years, have three girls, two boys, a Welsh pony, a rescued kitten, and an adored two-year-old epileptic Irish Wolfhound. Joey's addicted to pencils, paper, and the smell of bookstores. She's happy and settled in Victor, Idaho. She writes every chance she gets.
It seemed harmless at first--an engagement and a wedding date.
Mom volunteered three matching dresses; we'd turned six, four, and three. The sewing machine came down; stress piled up. Fields of daisies ran wild in the kitchen; they wandered in tempting trails. Mom scowled holding scissors; we didn't touch.
Summer dragged through tuna fish, flies, paper plates--picnic tables--and patience worn threadbare.
Dad finally unravelled, "Where the hell's dinner?"
"Can opener's in the pan. T.V. tray's by the couch." Sewing, Mom pointed her chin. "Sweetheart . . . the girls still need new shoes."
"Get busy sewin' money and gas 'cuz I ain't got none." Clouds gathered. Cupboards banged. "I'd a stayed single if I liked dinner in cans."
Scissors flew . . . missed.
"No more weddings here--ever. Got that, girls?" Dad slept on the couch in his clothes.
Mom's machine hummed away days.
Nights, Dad fumed on the couch.
Our dresses measured, we modeled--twirled. Sunny yards of daisies spun around the room.
They talked while we shopped for matching shoes. Mom hated sewing; Dad hated the couch; they liked kissing in stores. Worse . . . only the black and white skunkiest shoes were on sale. Forced into saddle shoes, we pitched fits for black patens.
Hair blowing, we sulked with sore bottoms, by the window--in the old wagon's rear cargo seats. My sister hucked out a shoe. We stared through traffic; cars squashed it flat. We collapsed into laughter and shrieks.
We bounced saddle shoes all over the freeway--
And wedding belles danced with bare feet.
Third Place Entry:
The Gift
Danika Nazdan
Danika Nadzan is one of those kids who never grew up. Over the years she’s held myriad jobs in a futile attempt to figure out what she’d be, just in case she ever did (grow up, that is). Along the way, she’s done some professional writing and editing, but onlyrecently discovered (at 46) that a writer is who she is, not what she occasionally does, and she’s grateful that new writing opportunities continue to surface despite her years of denial. Danika is also an animal communicator (think Pet Psychic from TV), and is currently writing a book about how to communicate with dogs.
It seemed harmless at first, a small, innocent gift from a stranger. As she sat in the truck stop diner, she fingered the tiny pendant, remembering the events of the last month since that day in the park when he dropped it in her lap.
She was surprised by the suddenness of the gift, and caught off guard by the generosity of the oddly dressed little man. She tried to give it back to him, thinking he’d made a mistake, only to be silently and firmly rebuffed as he hurried back into the crowd from whence he came. She never knew his name, or why he picked her from the dozens of others enjoying their lunch.
And then it began. Little things at first, like lights turning green when she approached intersections, or elevators opening just as she pressed the call button. It quickly accelerated to larger “coincidences”— money appearing in the exact amount needed, just in time; the gasoline in her car lasting much longer than it should; items strangely manifesting seconds after an absentminded wish.
Soon it became too freaky to ignore. Others started to notice, and began following her around, asking for gifts, or lottery numbers, or just a touch of her Midas fingers.
The crowds continued to grow, haunting her every step, driving her to the brink of lunacy, until finally one morning at 3am she managed to escape.
She fled to the interstate, and now she sat in the cheesy diner, sipping a java and looking for the right person…
