by James Ross Kelly

I was in Peter’s cabin in southern Oregon, in the summer of 1981, Peter had finished at Crosier Seminary in 1965, and having done a stint as a Chaplain in the Navy, or maybe it was the Army, he declined to be ordained, and went to work selling books for New Directions.

In 1967, he’d been chatting up bookstores for James Laughlin, and he stopped in San Francisco—took LSD, and tried briefly to become King of the hippies. Shortly realizing there were too many pretenders to the throne, he then retreated to southern Oregon, where he bought a very small cabin in the woods and went on forays for Amanita Muscaria mushrooms every fall and for Amanita Pantherina’s every spring on the Oregon coast, or in the mountains. He’d dry hundreds of them and step into an altered reality most every day, then run ten miles and then in his mid-forties he looked like an athlete in his twenties. 

by Katie Bockino

Three things happened next. I learned by chance or fate, I still can’t decide which, that I had my daughter’s time of death wrong. My husband left me–not in the dark of night but after lunch. I watched him pack his socks and old college basketball trophies into his Honda Pilot as I picked greasy dandelions out of my toes. And, I learned all at once and yet not soon enough that there is life after death. Just not in the way my Judeo-Christian faith had wanted me to believe.

            I was, in fact, going to see Willa again.

by Joseph Leverette

When I was in college, I had a job driving for the President of a large University.  My duties were essentially to drive the prominent President on his business trips out of town, and to escort him to the airport for his flights as needed.  The justification of the position was that I was providing security for the highly esteemed academic grand poohbah, but it was really just a convenient job perk for the El Presidente.

by Darlene Campos

The Book of Genesis says the world was water at the very beginning and this is what Grandpa taught me for the thousandth time on the day before he died. He was the bilingual pastor at The Living Word Church. Genesis was always his lesson of choice.  

“Everyone stand up and hug your neighbor before we begin,” Grandpa said, groggy from morphine. “The good book says the world was water. Then God flushed it.”

The day Grandpa died, I was at home, asleep. It was early in the morning and I had taken the day off from work to spend it with him. At 7 a.m., a nurse called me, her voice low. She begged me to come to the hospital as fast as I could. When I arrived, Grandpa’s eyes were already shut. His mouth was slightly open and fluid drained from his nose.

by Eric Luthi

The guard opened the door and held it open.  The next man, carrying a desert green rucksack, stepped through the door and held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.  After a moment’s pause, he moved forward.  A second guard came through the door but did not follow the man with the rucksack.

            “You take care now, Mr. Rood,” said the first guard.

            “Thank you.”

            “You behave yourself,” said the second.

            “I will.”

            Josh walked across the concrete yard and stopped at the metal gate thirty feet wide and fifteen feet high.  On steel wheels and a track, it was set into the wall that surrounded the yard.  Josh waited.  The guards behind him shifted from one foot to the other.

            “I guess they changed their minds,” said one.