"To Pieces and To Death," by Amanda Rea

A woman alone feels deep silence and emptiness in her apartment after her pet fish dies. Outside the neighbors argue and words of domestic violence penetrate her living space and imagination. She can’t sleep. A few months earlier she’d left her husband without warning, a guy who professed his love, a guy who was really nice to her as well as strangers. All around, a really nice guy. But somehow he responded with hysterics to only things she’d said to him. Unlike her, he had refined tastes when it came to wine and avant garde films. There are some intriguing internal stories to link with her sense of loss like the one about the missionary woman who became emaciated for refusing to eat another banana, but her husband force-fed her the mush and she eventually died of fright. Another is a dream about her fish that apparently survives and finds freedom in flying. And the neighbor survives another round of domestic abuse, police tape surrounding her place. The associative leaps between encounters and thoughts are strong. Read it here in Wazee Journal.

"Bearings," by Margo McCall

The title for this story is just right. Landscape and setting work to highlight character. “Bearings” in any marriage can mean two different things to partners drawn to each other. Joe and Maricella come from very different backgrounds. She is drawn to Joe, a man very unlike her ‘saintly’ father, and is intent on a domestic life. Joe admits to being afraid of fatherhood and finds his soul by leaving and exploring the back roads, mountains, and desert landscape doted with juniper. This story lends credibility to the old truism of opposites attract. Can they be part of the same living structure, roots and branches? Read it here at Wazee.