CF Bernini

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Russ Bickerstaff

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Peter Cherches

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Nancy Davenport

 

Salvatore Difalco

 

Peggy Gale

(below)

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Heikki Huotari

 

Jessica Jones

 

Victoria Male

 

Relvin Gonzalez Rodriguez

 

Mark J Mitchell

 

Gregg Maxwell Parker

 

Brigette Rasmussen

(below)

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JM Taylor

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Jon Wesick

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♥  ♠  ♦  ♣

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Brigette Rasmussen

The Human Heart

 

Inspired by Marie de France

 

They had it all planned out. The wife was a nurse and knew the temperature that would result in a quick death. The lover owned the hot tub company the husband worked for and knew how to override the temperature regulator. They avoided it as long as possible. They hadn’t meant to fall in love. They tried to stop. 

 

It worked for a little while, especially while the lover’s wife was sick and dying from breast cancer. There were so many doctor’s appointments, then arrangements once the doctors said they could only make her comfortable. But after, there was grief and loneliness. She was the only one who helped him feel less desperate. Eventually, not being able to have her became another source of desperation. During the long lonely nights, the lover began to hatch a plan.

 

The wife was intoxicated by the lover’s desire. It had been so long since she’d felt more than sibling-like affection from the husband. She thought about leaving him, but she knew he’d never let her have their daughter and, because the daughter was twelve, the judge would probably ask her who she wanted to live with. The wife wasn’t going to take that chance. 

 

She told the lover his plan would never work, she refused to even consider it and put him off as long as she could, but then the widows and divorcées began to circle and it was only a matter of time until the lover’s affection would move on to someone who could spend the nights in his bed. Eventually, the wife’s desperation matched the lover’s. There was only one way forward.

 

The plan was simple. The tanning oil on the handrail was from their backyard bucket of sunscreen and bug spray. It would look like a natural part of the series of unfortunate events. The husband would take one step into the too hot, hot tub, lose his grip on the handrail in his natural reaction to escape the water and, once submerged, it would take less than a minute of flailing for his heart to stop. Even if he got out, he would not survive for long.

 

The wife insisted on parking a few houses down and watching the security camera from her phone. The lover said it was macabre, but she needed to see that it went off as designed. They saw the husband’s car pull into the garage and settled in to wait. He was a devoted soaker thanks to years of back breaking work installing hot tubs. It was not lost on her the irony that he drew comfort from what caused his pain, that he would die from the very thing that had provided for their family. Finally the sliding glass door opened. The wife’s breath came out like a gut punch when her daughter skipped out a step ahead of the husband.

 

The wife was out of the car and sprinting down the street before the lover could even call, “Wait!” She heard him and hated him for it. She ran and counted how long it would take her daughter to drop her towel and dig through the pool gear for goggles. She could hear the lover two steps behind her, as she threw open the front door and yelled out, “Paloma!” She rounded the corner and the sliding glass door came into view. The husband stood on the new patio they’d put in last year to install the in-ground hot tub.  As he lifted the big foam cover off, Paloma was at the steps ready to step down into the water, hand reaching out for the handrail shining in the sun like a knife’s edge. She reached for the girl knowing she would lose her footing but sure that she could keep her daughter safe. As the wife fell forward, her eyes were on her daughter falling back onto the concrete with enough force to scrape her elbow. She was at peace, even knowing what came next.

 

A hand grabbed hers. The lover’s face was set in a grimace of horror, his mouth forming the long note, “Nooo.” His hand held tight to hers and for a moment her descent paused, then his other hand gripped the railing and slid the length of the oiled metal. The lover’s momentum combined with the wife’s and they tumbled into water that was heated to 50 degrees above what the human heart could endure.

 

Brigette Rasmussen earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University and now lives in Northern Nevada. Her short fiction has also appeared in Calliope and Hidden City Quarterly. Her story “Stray”, also inspired by Marie de France, appeared in Feels Blind Literary and was turned into a wicked awesome graphic zine. When she isn't writing or teaching writing, she is biking, hiking or otherwise treking about the Sierra Nevada mountains with her husband, two kids, and one super photogenic dog. Bienvenue à la danse, Brigette.

 

Margaret McNab Gale

Best Friends Forever

 

Jamie gazed out the window of her hospital room thinking about her best friend, Jennifer. The two had been inseparable since childhood.

 

Both were tall and slim with wavy, blonde hair and startling blue eyes. They also liked the same books, goofy TV shows and old black and white movies. The confidantes shared their innermost secrets, as girls are prone to do, making a solemn pledge to always be together no matter what life brought their way.

 

Jamie watched the sunset from her window. The evening staff would soon come by to check on her, bringing a small plastic cup of water and handing Jamie her nightly appropriation of pills.

 

She heard the familiar knock, knock, knock on her door; the nurse pushed the medication cart into the room. This night nurse was always so kind, listening patiently to Jamie’s stories of her friend Jennifer, stories which she liked to share with the hospital staff on her floor.

 

The nurse continued to smile as Jamie reminisced about her adventures with Jennifer, carefully noting on Jamie’s chart: no change in patient’s condition, still delusional as she continues to obsess about “Jennifer”, her imaginary best friend.

 

Watching the patient’s sleep medication take effect, the nurse quietly moved her cart out the door, turning off the light, leaving Jamie all alone in the dark.

 

Margaret McNab Gale, MLS attended Anderson College, received an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of South Carolina, and a Master of Library Science degree from the University of South Carolina. She worked as a psychiatric case worker, and was a reference librarian at the College of Charleston, the Charleston County Library and was head of reference at the Berkeley County Library. She also worked for a number of years as a docent for the Historic Charleston Foundation. She lives in Charleston, SC with her husband, Larry, with whom she operates a computer software company and a photography business. She enjoys researching and writing about the history of South Carolina and her family genealogy, resulting in the publication of over forty articles on those topics. She is truly a Carolina girl!

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