Aunty Felicia
Boma Somiari Port Harcourt, Nigeria Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels I can’t stand blood. So my goal was to stay as far as I could from hospitals and all they come with. But then change came to me when Aunty Felicia came to my village with a missionary organization that chose medicine and […]
Business as usual
David Blitzer New York, New York, United States Inauguración del Hospital Municipal de Chiconcuac. 2016. Photo by Presidencia de la República Mexicana. Via Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Clarissa Myers arrived at the hospital at the usual time on Monday morning. She walked past her assistant, strode into her office, and sat at her desk, […]
Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses
Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Harriet Tubman 1822 – 1913 Slave, abolitionist, activist. Suggested to have had visions and dreams as manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Via the Library of Congress. Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, […]
The deer trail
Henri Colt Laguna Beach, California, United States Photo by Kevin Mueller on Unsplash “Ezra, get up! It’s a beautiful morning, and you’re sixteen today!” I playfully shook my son’s shoulder. “It’s six o’clock, Dad, what are you doing?” He buried his head under his pillow and slid under the covers. “We’re going hiking, remember?” […]
Covid-19 and the mind: a short play
Catalina Florescu Hoboken, New Jersey, United States Synchronized Mood by Oana Chivoiu, Assistant Professor at South Louisiana CC Characters: LOLA, late 40’s TORA, mid 40’s Setting: Two apartments in NYC. Imagine the dialogue happening in two balconies or, for a more absurd take, the same apartment divided by French doors. Time: During the historic […]
An unseen border
T.Y. Euliano Gainesville, Florida, United States Eyes of the Master. Photo by Steve Robicsek, MD/PhD. 11/6/2004. Permission granted by the artist. “Please let me have the chest pain in 3,” I said. “I can’t take any more whiny kids today.” Clare raised an eyebrow. “You can have the next trauma.” “Two traumas,” she said. […]
Up north
Richard Bentley Amherst, Massachusetts, United States Lake Michigan. Photo by Qfamily on Flickr. July 15, 2006. CC BY 2.0. He had come to Northern Michigan, and the lake gulls were shrieking at him. He had been on vacation only two days, but he sat around the cabin, springing up now and then to go […]
How to save a life
Sam Campbell Moh’D Ibrahim Johnson City, Tennessee, United States “We had been happy together, though it took years to convince her family to allow us to marry.” My wife is in Texas, threatening to file divorce papers. I am here, 996 miles away, trying to find Mrs. Smith who has wandered out of her […]
A form of pain
Ifediba Nzube Port Harcourt, Nigeria Èsù the trickster by Onyeji Prince. For Yewande, pain is Èsù slapping her head like a bata drum. But no one sees that; they see only a tumor pushing out her left eye, up her palate, and through her nostrils. Most days she smells like meat gone green. The […]
Tuesday: social admit
Rebecca Slotkin New Haven, Connecticut, United States “Unraveling” by Ron Slotkin. Used with permission. We have a routine, Dad and I. I wake up first, turn on NPR and brew our coffee. My clamor tells Dad it is morning. This used to be my pre-work ritual before Dad started to get lost — first […]