Safe at Home

Dusk had already fallen when my husband and I pulled into the center of town. Its dusty street sat empty, shop doors padlocked, windows covered with plywood boards.

“I bet the motel is open,” I said.

Russ shook his head wearily. “No one answered when you called.”

“The room will be empty,” I insisted. “Everyone is afraid to travel. Except us.”

Russ and I had sold most of our possessions, fled Tacoma, and headed south. Washington’s economy had expanded like fast-rising bread dough. Even the pandemic couldn’t slow it down.
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​by Leah Mueller   (449 Words)
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Room 8 by Squid Ink | Flickr

The Rock in Your Shoe
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rock on by Eric Chu | Flickr

 ​​by David Hammond  ​  (1477 Words)​


​Hello, up there!  I'm the rock in your shoe.

But I’m not just any rock. I’m a piece of primordial chondrite, formed from stardust in the earliest days of the solar system. Days? Scratch that. There were no days back then, because there wasn’t an Earth yet. I’m that old. Think about that for a second while you chew on your Clif bar and look out over the Shenandoah Valley.
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Do I have your attention? I’m digging into the arch of your foot, but you lift your leg and do a little dance to shake me into the toe of the boot. Your two-year-old son in the baby backpack awakens from his snooze and laughs. “Papa,” he says, “Papa, more dance.” Don’t worry, little one, I’m not done with Papa yet. I work my way around to the big toe and apply my sharper end to the tender spot just below the nail. The little boy laughs as his grumbling steed does another jig.

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Message for Item #095742
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Look. I know you’ve been waiting. Pretty patiently, I guess. The trendy thing to do nowadays is to be grateful instead of apologetic. Like if you’re twenty minutes late to work and your work husband Jeremy has to cover for you, again, you’re supposed to go, “Thank you for telling Melinda that I was in the locker room so I didn’t get stuck on the customer service desk again as punishment” instead of being all, “Sorry I made you lie for my tardy ass again.” Personally, I don’t say either. Jeremy doesn’t care. Melinda doesn’t care. The only people who care are just keeping score to make sure they’re still better than you. But you’re supposed to be grateful. Which I have been, of course. Gratitude is the only rational response to a 2,000 percent markup on a Cheeto. Overall, you’ve been kind about this whole thing, considering we both know the Cheetos you’ve been ordering from me are fake. Not fake…sculpted?  Altered?  That’s fair: let’s say they were altered.
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​by Emily Weber  (1638 Words)

Cheetos by Mr. Brian | Flickr

​Doggerel [ daw-ger-uhl ] adj. 1. (of verse) comic or burlesque, and usually loose or irregular in measure. 2. rude; crude; poor.
​From the Archives
Debutante
Ginger Beck  / 11-29-15
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Six-Six-Sixer - Carla Sarett
The last optimistic woman in America​.
The Amazing Genius of Christopher Columbus
"Asia, at last!" the explorer sobbed.
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