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Winter 2008

Poetry

Dean Brink
Alan Catlin
Jim Doss
Darrell Epp
Taylor Graham
Ken Gurney
Michelle Lerner
Michele Lesko
Lynn Lifshin
M
Corey Mesler
Mitchell Metz
Bryan Mitschell
Maurice Oliver
Patty Paine
Jayne Pupek
Nic Sebastian
Shawn Sorensen
Lynn Strongin
Christy Tomecek

Flash Fiction

David Jordan
Richard Rippon
Jack Swenson

Featured Artist

Don Snell

Congratulations
2007 Pushcart Nominees:

Editors:

Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Alex Nodopaka

Jack Swenson

Winter 2008

The Storm

I am standing at the top of the slope above the lake looking out. There are forty concrete steps down to the beach. I built them myself. There isn't a cloud in the sky, but my thoughts are bleak. I am angry and confused. I'll get her back, I think; I'll kill him. Walk into his office and let fly with my .38.

My boss says take some time off and think things over, so that's what I do. Get on an airplane and fly to Fargo, rent a car, and come here. Our lake cabin. It's all mine now; my mother died last year. The trouble is I get the days and nights mixed up. I take my boss's advice. I think. I visit with the ghosts of the past and the goblins of the future. I shouldn't do that. I lie awake, waiting for dawn so I can get to sleep. I neither see nor hear it when the sun rises, the birds sing, the lake sparkles, and the world is just a normal world, full of joy and sorrow and promise.

It gets dark at four o'clock that afternoon. Then the sunlight fails, and the birds hold their breath. I stand there looking out a window and watch the storm approach. First the surface of the lake turns to froth. Then a banshee wind presses it flat. Rain rakes the roof like a gatling gun. Someone or something seems to be throwing buckets of water at the windows; I can't see out.

I stand there calmly, strangely at peace. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go? Nothing. Nowhere. So I stand there watching and waiting.

After the storm passes, I go outside. The sun peeks out. A bird sings. The air is yellowish-green with ozone. The grass and trees are sopping wet. I walk around the cabin, looking for damage, and find none. I go over to my neighbor's place and look around there, too.

Then I walk down the forty steps to the beach and stand on my makeshift dock and look out at the lake. The lake is calm. I raise my eyes above the horizon, and for a long, healing moment, I keep them there.

Jack Swenson is an old man kept young at heart by a youngish wife. He keeps fit by teaching creative writing to a bunch of elderly kids at a local senior center. You can order any of his five books of short short fiction from your local bookseller.