Published Stories

Paul Barach 4/17/23 Paul Barach 4/17/23

No Good Word For That Alchemy by Paul Barach

Every time I stand beneath a Coastal Redwood my mouth hangs open as a thousand words try to escape from my chest all at once.

Every time, the only one that makes it through is a confounded “How?”

How can something grow so titanic?

I know the short answer: it’s a plant, a genetic byproduct of water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. Redwoods just get a little overzealous about it.

I even know the long answer; a seed the size of a grain of sand falls hundreds of feet to the soil. With enough sunlight, water, luck, and time, a sentient monolith the width of a Boeing 747 soars into the sky, spreading out branches the size of tree trunks with twigs the size of saplings, tall enough to shade the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

And still, “How?”

What other word fits when witnessing a miracle?

Tiffany Aldrich MacBain 6/5/22 Tiffany Aldrich MacBain 6/5/22

A Haunting by Tiffany Aldrich MacBain

Beyond the golden years of trick-or-treating, Halloween morphs into a high-pressure holiday, like New Year’s Eve or the 4th of July, when you feel like you must have plans or else endure a long night of loneliness and self-loathing, a night pierced by the cackling laughter of fun-havers outside your window, a night most unhallowed. If you happen to have plans, your suffering is of another sort: weeks in advance of the party, you have to figure out what you’re going to “be.” And then you must buy and assemble components of a costume, and then you have to wear it all.