The wait is over! The latest issue of Blydyn Square Review is ready to be read online. Here are just a few short excerpts from this issue. To read the whole magazine, visit the Review‘s page.
From A Good Kid by Jeffrey Hantover:
I was thirteen. One October Saturday, I was raking the leaves by the glassed-in porch that ran along the south side of our house. I saw a dark-colored bird cradled in the dense branches of the shrubs bordering the porch. The bird, nameless to me, must have smashed into the glass. I was sure it was dead.
From The Pair by A. V. Griffin:
Old Man Winter stalks through the barren trees
Bringing with him Death, who sits upon a frigid breeze
Winter shows no clemency to the forest life
And only offers them a gift of strife
And when the snow begins to fall
It brings a deadly, pristine beauty for them all
From Father O’Malley by D. C. Briley:
Whether by accident or by celestial intervention, Father O’Malley was destined to become one of the most famous of all of God’s messengers on Earth. There were rumors that at a very young age he was being groomed for the papacy, perhaps to become the first Pope from the United States. Despite his tiny frame, he had a gift for converting even the firmest atheist into a God-fearing person.
Whether those rumors were just that, rumors, or whether he was, in fact, chosen by God to take up the mantle, there was no denying that Father O’Malley was special.
From It’s All in the Cards by Sarah Butkovic:
Mrs. O’Meara had been ramblin’ on about the same story for the past ten minutes. I listened to her intently the first time, watchin’ her lips flail around like two pink worms shoutin’ the same phrase: My son’s gone missing, my son is gone! I just sat there sippin’ a cup of joe hot enough to take a layer off my tongue and noddin’ my head as the ferocious black liquid eroded my taste buds. Every now and then I slipped in a few words like “Uh-huh” and “Yes, ma’am,” just to make sure Mrs. O’Meara knew I was payin’ attention. The damn woman kept goin’ ’til her lungs deflated.
From Imaginary by Nicki Cavender:
I often take Simon to the ocean. It calms him when all else fails. It’s odd because he usually hates loud noises, hates being wet, even hates sand, but he’s always loved the ocean. I’m used to Simon’s sensory oxymorons, but navigating them is still exhausting. Perhaps it’s the predictable push and pull of the waves as they play along the desolate beaches, or maybe it’s the whispered secrets of the wind carried by grumbling storms that always seem to loiter just offshore. Or perhaps those are the things that I love about the ocean, and maybe I’m the one in need of calming.
From Game of the Gods by Angela McQuay:
Aphrodite is hitting on the dealer again. You’d think the goddess of love would have a bit higher standards than a fifty-five-year-old nerdy poker dealer with some serious dandruff issues, but to each his own, I guess. Of course, the dealer is trying his best to ignore her because Aphrodite is not Aphrodite the gorgeous creature with flowing hair and rosy skin at the moment. For this tournament, she has chosen to inhabit the form of Chang, a retired Chinese businessman with a receding hairline and double chin.
From Letting Go by Mike Vreeland:
We arrive in cars and vans
from Boston, Duluth, Atlanta, New Orleans
to a long-ago home
to mourn our father
and prepare the family property for sale.
From Sleepless in Tafton by Marylou Ambrose:
For the next three hours, I moved around furniture in my mind. Should we use the red Victorian couch again? And where should we put it? Center stage or off to the side? Which door should be for the kitchen? And on and on. I think I must have dozed off a few times, because I never did figure out where to put the couch.
From Landslide by Karen Miller:
That first morning when Alma looked out her kitchen window and saw what happened had been quite a shock. Her car still sat snugly in the garage, but the garage had slid twenty feet down the hillside and settled at an off-kilter angle. “I guess it’s time I gave up driving, anyway,” Alma said, then closed the kitchen curtains and fixed a cup of coffee.
From Shelter in Place: Part 3 by Nicolette Fermi:
She heard the front door open upstairs. Candace was here. There’d be no escape from the fight-or-flight response now. Claudia steeled herself and climbed back up the stairs. “I see you’ve got yourself a new bandana,” she said when she found Candace standing just inside the door on the porch. “That blue color looks fantastic with your paranoia.”
