The Fire
As the house burned down, and she watched everything they’d gathered or made in their life together float first up on rising rivers of hot air, then down like flakes of powdery, grey snow, Jennifer felt a kind of lightness.
“Like the universe knew I need a new start, and sent it in this spectacular and ironic way,” she said to the paramedic. “It looks like it’s destroying my life, but it isn’t. The old is burning away to make way for the new.”
Read the whole story at: The Danforth Review, Issue 71
Vegas
The thing about a non-stop flight to Vegas is that everyone on it is going to Vegas. This otherwise reasonably diverse cross section of humanity – and there is diversity among us: we are young and old, singles, families, groups, newlyweds and those soon to be so, Vegas virgins and the already miserably addicted – is united. Vegas itself, its fickle wealth, its glittering corruptions, its suspension of responsibility and mandatory forgiveness, becomes a singularity of purpose. We file on board like jubilant sheep. Stowing our carry-ons is an act of celebration, a symbolic commencement of our collective vacation. Where are you staying? Caesars? Paris? The Venetian? Me too! Me too!
Exceptions, though rare, do exist. Norah heaves her bag into the overhead with an air not of gaiety, but of heavy reality. Boarding the plane is not the suspension of anything. She is not on vacation, and will not see you on the strip. She is not, with the stowing of her luggage, embracing a weekend of debauchery.
Norah is from Vegas.
Read the whole story at: Qwerty Magazine, Issue 36
Sandra Maxson 