Edify Fiction - V1, Iss. 4 by Angela Meek, Editor

Edify Fiction Christmas in July 2017

Volume 1, Issue 4

"Stained Glass" by Colleen Driscoll

Editor Angela Meek

Assistant Editors Craig Mardis Michelle McMillanHolifield

Submissions: First and foremost, we love a good story in prose, poetry, flash, or photography/digital artwork form. Secondly, we welcome

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all writers and photographers, whether you have been published worldwide or this is your first story. We do not subscribe to a specific genre, as we enjoy reading all kinds of things ourselves including mysteries, fantasy, scifi, romance, historical, comedy, and YA among others. What unifies Edify Fiction's content is its ability to be positive, inspirational, and motivating. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis online. Full guidelines and the submission link are found online on the Submissions page of our website.

Best of the Best: Published contributors are automatically entered into the

Cover Art: Stained Glass Photographer: Colleen Driscoll Colleen Driscoll leads and coordinates the bi monthly writer’s group in her local area and the monthly children’s writer’s group. She has three published children’s stories. Learn more about Colleen at http://cdriscollauthor.wixsite.com/colleendriscoll

annual Best of the Best contest. This contest provides cash prizes for the pieces that were audience favorites. Contest is held annually each Spring.

Careers: Volunteer graphic artist needed. Do you love computers, magazines, and design? Would you like to contribute your design talent to encourage and uplift others? This position requires evaluation of submitted work, communicating with designers, designing work for the website and magazine, and finalizing pieces for publication. Also has the option of working on layout of magazine. If interested, please email contact@edifyfiction.com.

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Contributors

1 Stained Glass by Colleen Driscoll 5 The Cowbell by A.R. Robins 11 Cookie Dreaming by Katrina Johnston 1 3 Merriment, Our Love by Joe Bisicchia 1 4 Sighting at a Stoplight by Joe Bisicchia 1 5 Winter Recon by Terry Sanville 1 8 Battle of Seasons by Marina Montenegro 1 9 The Last Parachute by C. Billingsley Adams 24 Holiday by Abigail Kipp 25 The Worst Noel by Holleigh Lujah 27 Silent Night in the Holy Land of Brooklyn by Tom Tolnay 33 Luminaries by Matthew Brennan 35 Nutcrackers by Brian Michael Barbeito 37 Old Man in Beijing: A Christmas Carol by CG Fewston 41 Wish by Jim Hirtle 45 Dreaming of Chicago by Nicole Jean Turner 47 The Christmas Secret by Victoria Pitts Cain 50 Two Days 'til Christmas by Deborah LeFalle 51 A Little Miracle by Sydne Gernaat 53 Miranda's Christmas in July by Sabrina Eads 55 Star of Chryse by Dave Hann 57 The Memory Blanket by R.L. Black 59 Surprise Ball by Joan Leotta 62 Christmas at Washington Street 1950s by Russell Reece 63 Paying It Forward by Jennifer Jones 65 Love, Tinsel by JC Reilly 68 Miracle of Christmas Love by Daniel F. Giallombardo 70 Airplanes in the Christmas Tree by Chad W. Lutz The photos found on the following pages are from StockSnap.io, Pexels.com, and Pixabay.com and fall under the Creative Commons CC0 license: pages 5, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 24, 25, 27, 33, 37, 41, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53,55,57,59,62,63,65,68,70. The photos found on the following pages are from Flickr.com and are used under the CC BYND 2.0 license: pages 5 (Kyle Pearson), 14 (Jay Galvin)

From the Editors Greetings to our wonderful readers, Since I joined Edify Fiction, Angela has talked pretty much nonstop about Christmas (and this special edition). She couldn't wait to put out the call for ChristmasinJuly submissions, and our contributors did not let us down. You sent us quirky, humorous, solemn, subtle, outrageous, heartwarming, and heartbreaking pieces. A.R. Robins kicks it off with "The Cowbell," a masterful piece with characters we grow to know deeply from what is said and what is left unsaid. We end the issue with Chad W. Lutz's "Airplanes in the Christmas Tree," the story of a selfproclaimed King Humbug who comes to love "something as simple as a mug of hot chocolate brimming with tiny marshmallows." We know our readers experience varied emotions about Christmas. Sometimes pain is more prevalent than joy. Sometimes joy overshadows pain. We've brought you stories, poetry, and art that express both, and it is our hope that you connect with our writers, that their stories affect you in such a way that you are not the same after experiencing them. God bless you, our generous readers and contributors. Happy Christmas (in July), Michelle Assistant Editor, Edify Fiction

I love Christmas, although it always wasn't the case. I have a collection of memories, both good and bad, that set the season apart from the rest of the year for me. As a child, I loved the magic of stockings stuffed to overflowing; the tree color wars between my parents (mom: red and green, dad: blue and white); the prickly sensation I'd get when I heard Handel's Messiah, although I was hardpressed at the time to explain why. Sometime in December, there was the trek to my Dad's family home in East Texas. There, I'd sleep on the sofa and wake to the smell of fresh coffee, pastries, and hearing the low chuckle of the adults around the kitchen table as they reminisced about growing up. Christmas Eve was usually at home, grilling hot dogs in the fireplace, even if it meant turning up the AC in the warm Texas weather. (It was supposed to be an adventure, but we knew it was to give mom a break from cooking.) Christmas day was early rising for the gifts, eating too much food with my mom's parents, and snoozing to football games on tv in the afternoon. It wasn't always great. The year my Nana died of cancer, the house was heavy with grief that Christmas. It was an unseasonably warm 80+ degrees outside, so I put on my summer clothes and went to a local car wash to clean my car. It was just another day. The year I got strep throat, I had a bad reaction from medication and couldn't fly home to be with my family. I cried a little on the couch staring at the potted palm that served as my tree and felt sorry for myself. There were a few lean years as a single parent when we ate a lot of potato soup so that I could save up enough to buy my daughter gifts. She had a great time but I remember my predominant feelings were shame and embarrassment. As I've gotten older, I've come to the realization that the cliché is true life is what you make of it. Regardless of what's going on around me, I choose what I feel grief, pity, shame, excitement, or even joy. I've found that excitement and joy makes my days more pleasant, the world a little brighter, my heart more forgiving. To me, Christmas embodies so many of these wonderful feelings childlike whimsy, magic of possibilities, joy, giving and I think we could all use a little more of that Christmas spirit in our every day lives. And so, we bring to you this little burst of Christmasy happiness in the middle of the year. True, our Christmas in July edition looks at the bad stuff secrets, loss, death, poverty, and loneliness. But it also brings with it the most important parts of Christmas, the parts we should hold on to each day: love, peace, hope, and redemption. Merry Christmas in July!

Angela Meek

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Book Giveaway! Angela Meek, one of our editors, has a story coming out in an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book. For those not familiar with the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, each book is a collection of 101 true stories around a specific topic. The books are family friendly and are funny, sad, heartwarming, and entertaining. To celebrate the publication of Angela's story, Edify Fiction has three brand new copies of the book to give away!

You can enter this giveaway in five different ways: Follow Edify Fiction on Twitter Share our Twitter contest post Follow Edify Fiction on Facebook Share our Facebook contest post Subscribe to our newsletter (If you've already followed us and/or subscribed to our newsletter, you have automatically been entered through those venues.) Three lucky winners will get a copy of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Really Did That? The entry deadline ends August 4, 2017 at 11:59pm CST. We’ll randomly choose the three winners, email/PM them directly, and announce them on social media by August 7th. Good luck! Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Really Did That? goes on sale with major book retailers on August 8th and is available for preorder now. The publisher's description: Our cats make us smile every day, but some days they really outdo themselves! This book is full of those hilarious and heartwarming stories about the many ways our mischevious feline friends surprise us, make us laugh, and touch our hearts. With a focus on rescue cats, these 101 true, personal stories will make you laugh, nod your head in recognition, and sometimes tear up a little. Royalties from the book go to American Humane, one of the organizations that Chicken Soup for the Soul supports in its broad program to help care for shelter animals and promote adoption.

The Cowbell By A.R. Robins We meet at the same restaurant every year for the staff Christmas party, and every year the teachers vote for chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, and apple cobbler. Every year, the male teachers pray for roast beef, but the women vote for chicken, and there are more women, so that is what we eat. Our English teacher fills her plate with mashed potatoes; she does not eat meat, and we have all agreed that that is fine. We don’t bother her much about it —there are plenty of mashed potatoes. Our history teacher cannot eat seafood, so he avoids the mushrooms, which are filled with something that smells like fish. Two years ago, our principal had to stab the history teacher in the arm with an EpiPen; now the history teacher avoids the mushrooms. We chew our food, which the School Board paid for. So delicious! They rented this room. So spacious! So pretty! We look forward to this party every year. The secretaries say the tree is beautiful. Yes! The School Board has outdone themselves this year. The history teacher notices that the tree is the same as it was last year, the same snowflake ornaments, the same yellow lights, the same silver plastic star. He knows that the School Board knows that the restaurant staff decorates the room, but they say thank you to the secretaries regardless. Perhaps the School Board does not know why they are saying thank you. Perhaps they are not really listening to the secretaries. Perhaps no one is listening to the secretaries, who sound like angels with their soft voices.

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Christmas in July 201 7 Everything is so pretty. So nice. We always look forward to this day. For some of us, this is the only time we see this room — a small space filled with rows of tables, a tree, and a buffet cart. One part of the wall opens out into the rest of the restaurant, but we cannot see the other patrons because our view is obstructed by the cash register. The opposing wall has an exit to the parking lot, and most of us use this door when we enter this space. We do not want to see the other patrons. Tonight we are separate from them. Tonight we will play Bad Santa, and when we do, the principal will flash his moon smile so that we cannot tell if he is being genuine or ironic. Half of us believe that he loves this game, and we know that he was the one who had brought the Cowbell so many years ago. Half of us believe he once loved this game, back when he was a young science teacher, when he had the option to skip the party and fall asleep with his new wife in their tiny, twin bed. He never skipped the party when he was young, even then with his wife who smelled like blue smoke and mint, who was so small and lovely; his wife who grinned sleepily in the mornings before he left her to teach his students about chlorophyll. He always came to the party, and she never came. This year he says she is busy cleaning the house for family. We do not press him. During his first year of teaching, he purchased a box of tiddlywinks for the tree. The tiddlywinks were an inside joke between him and the old math teacher. However, the old math teacher did not come to the party that year, and he did not remember the joke when it was told to him later. The old math teacher had not come to the Christmas party since his first heart attack, but the young science teacher, who is now our principal, did not know this then. He did not know about the footsteps of time, and the slow gnawing of our bodies. He only knew that no one laughed at the tiddledywinks during Bad Santa; it was an inside joke, so no one laughed. It might have been this shame that kept him coming back. Perhaps he wanted to prove himself to us. For four years, he only brought lottery tickets, and we did not remember he had brought them because it was a neutral sort of gift, easily forgettable. It is the gift the history teacher brings, and none of us remember that he brings them. Though we never laughed at our principal’s gifts, he still came every year, hopeful, knowing that someday he would get it right, and every year he would leave his young wife, who lay home in bed with their children, their son’s lithe body curled around her shoulders, their daughter lying across her warm stomach. One year he discovered the Cowbell tucked inside a box at a garage sale. This was his salvation and ours. It is what we look forward to most every year. *** Before we play Bad Santa, we eat, and some of us line up for seconds — the chicken is delicious, not too dry — and when we are in line, we are solemn, our hands folded in front of us as if in prayer. The young teachers whisper to each other, but even they choose only to remark about the food. At the tables we speak to each other politely, trying to avoid the topic of work. The secretaries speak about their grandchildren, and their husbands look down at their plates and swallow their unsweet tea. Others speak emptily of holiday plans. The loudest among us is the business teacher, who is upset because she ordered a Sprite, but the waitress had poured water from a heavy pitcher into her half empty glass. Her face is turning as red as those grapes from the fancy grocery store on the other side of town. Some of us at other tables giggle nervously about the business teacher. We know the waitress’s mistake is an easy one, and her anger is funny in an awkward way. She is the sort of woman who gets worked up no matter where she is, and some of us know that her contract will not be renewed for the next year; that she is a loud woman who will always be loud. Some of us knew she would not be asked back the moment we met her. Those of us who knew did not warn her. The principal sits with the superintendent and the School Board at the front of the room. He does not speak to the others, listening pensively to their idle remarks. His face is serious, stern, the sort

of face that seems angry until it speaks. He does not speak often, so the younger teachers among us describe him to their families as very severe. Some of us are afraid of him, but many of us remember him is his youth, when he taught science; how funny he could be, a voice like a festival cannon. We loved him for his loud optimism. The waitresses move like shadows. They have taken our dirty plates, and each of us is given a piece of apple cobbler. The English teacher eats her piece of cobbler, and she does not ask the waitress if it was made with lard. More than likely it was not, but she usually asks restaurant staff this question because she is that sort of person. Not tonight. Tonight she eats her cobbler and compliments the librarian’s sweater. Quietly, we think of the Cowbell. It is not something we talk about. There would be no way to talk about the Cowbell. We only think about it softly, so softly that we are not aware of our thoughts. The School Board president says it is time for leftrightcenter, so we push our tables to the edge of the room and form a circle with our chairs. Our voices ripple together as we navigate our bodies into position. We pretend that this is the game we look forward to every year because it is a fun game, a game we could only play together. Our principal sets a chair down in the center. We are a collective bullseye, each holding three one dollar bills in our left hand. We smile and pretend to be excited that one of us will go home with all of the money, and we think softly of the Cowbell. The women fold their skirts over their knees, and the men open their legs over their seats, while the principal reminds us of the rules. His voice moves through us, and the younger teachers forget their criticisms of him. It is that sort of night. What a wonderful game. We play it every year. One of us, a woman with short black hair, rolls the dice (only some of us know she is the basketball coach’s fiancée). She passes a dollar to the left and a dollar to the right, and now she only has one dollar. We are relieved because she is not one of us. The music teacher rolls the dice now — two dollars go to the center. What bad luck! She is expecting a child; her round belly stretches out her thin, striped dress so that we can see the outline of her belly button. She’s about to burst! Stick a fork in her! A boy at that! Now her husband rolls the dice — he has to give his wife a dollar, and we laugh because he will not let it go. “I know where you sleep!” he says, and now we are a rumble of laughter. It is the Spanish teacher’s turn. She keeps all of her money, but we know that the game has just begun. We know that she will lose her money soon because we know that she is not lucky. Last year she was asked to go on the senior trip even though she was not a class sponsor, and it worked out that she had to drive behind the school bus the entire trip with her car filled with suitcases. This is not the sort of thing they would have asked the new math teacher to do, and the homeec teacher would have laughed in their faces. The poor Spanish teacher did not even have cruise control, and we all know she is a nervous driver. And we cannot forget about the day she was changing in her classroom because she had parent teacher conferences that night and did not have time to go home. She forgot to lock her door, or perhaps she did not think to lock her door because everyone had gone home to freshen up. Everyone but the janitor and the janitor’s son. The son, an eager student, stayed at school to work in the computer lab. He knew she was in her room. He had a question about his homework. She is a difficult grader. She hopes that we do not remember that this happened, but it is not the sort of thing that any of us could forget because each of us is afraid of this or something like this happening to us. We are grateful it happened to her. We all have our roles to play. We each take our turns with the dice. The business teacher is the first one out of money, and she

...and we think softly of the Cowbell.

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Christmas in July 201 7 cusses loudly — one of those harsh cuss words we all said when we were in middle school. We titter nervously because we know she is pretending to be ironic. Most of us will be thankful to be rid of her. Soon there are only four of us with money — the School Board president, the superintendent’s wife, the history teacher, and the counselor. We hope it is the counselor who wins the money — the music teacher is our first choice, but we would be just as happy with the counselor. We hear rumors that she will be engaged soon. We want this sort of story to tell ourselves. But it is the history teacher who wins! He smiles. We cannot help but smile for him. He has this way about him; popular with the students; popular with the parents. The sort of guy who jokes casually about the EpiPen incident so that we laugh and do not have to remember that he almost died in front of us. We are thankful for him. He reminds us that we are good. We are lucky to have him. And what is he doing now? We cannot believe it! He gives the money to the music teacher and shakes her husband’s hand. We applaud! It is almost as good as the time the homecoming queen gave her crown to the junior with down syndrome in front of the entire school. Oh what a roar there was. Not a dry eye in the place. Only our yearbook sponsor knows that the girl still wanted to be named homecoming queen on the yearbook page. When we are done applauding and patting each other on the shoulder, we move all the tables back into rows; some of us go outside to smoke while others order nonalcoholic eggnog. This is not a drinking party, though we know that other schools sometimes have parties with alcohol. Afterward, the younger teachers among us will go to the Irish bar downtown for a few beers and make jokes that the others do not understand. The young teachers are hopeful and will laugh with each other in an honest way. The rest of us will go home to prepare for our vacation. After tonight, some of us will spend the next weeks opening our homes to the people we love, and others will merely rest and pretend we are not bothered by the loneliness. And we will each have our secrets, and we will each struggle against regret, and all of us will remember another time, and all of us will try to forget the aching truth of our bodies. We will not speak of it. We will endure. But tonight we are in this room, and we are separate from others, and soon we will not think about it much. We will think only of the Cowbell. The English teacher is thinking now of a sonnet a student wrote for his midterm project, a terrible poem full of beautiful nonsense. We walk, we walk, we walk in wooden shoes. Two points for repetition. Two points for alliteration. Four points for iambic pentameter. She cannot remember the rest, only the first line, and it rolls around in her mouth like shoes in a dryer. She recites it quietly between sips of eggnog. The new math teacher smokes outside and thinks about the business teacher’s round body because he cannot help but think about her body. It is the sort of body that men think about. The Spanish teacher smokes with him and rattles off something meaningless about her husband’s insurance, and she thinks about the heater in her classroom. Had she remembered to turn it off for Christmas vacation? She knew she would have to go back to the school after the party. She would have to check. The history teacher is talking to the music teacher’s husband about children. He also has children, and he remembers his own wife’s round belly, how he would rub coconut oil into the seams of her stomach while she hummed something soft, and he wonders if it is the same with them, if their happiness is like his happiness. The music teacher listens while they talk to each other, and she looks at the history teacher’s bright face, and she remembers the day the principal stabbed him in the arm with an EpiPen. She had been the one who noticed his swollen face and red throat. He had been telling her some banal detail about his new car, and then he was no longer speaking but choking, and his hands were scratching at his neck. She had been the first one to recognize the fear of death in his eyes. The principal listens to the School Board talk amongst themselves by the tree, and no one knows what he is thinking, but many of us suspect he thinks of his wife. She used to be so pretty, and we know that he loved her dearly in those early years. And now our principal smiles in his moon sort of way, and

we find our seats. It is time to begin Bad Santa. We have already put our presents under the tree. We eye the other packages. It could be hiding in any of them. The homeec teacher found the Cowbell last year; she is the wily sort who might put it in a big box to draw the stupid ones toward it. She is also very clever and knows that this is the oldest trick in the book. Perhaps it will be in a bag stuffed with tissue paper or a small box stuffed with newspaper so that it does not make a sound when it is shaken. Our principal pulls out a deck of cards. We do not know if it is the same deck he uses every year, but we hope it is. Half of us know that he loves this game. We think it would be fitting for him to keep the deck of cards in his desk allyearround for safe keeping. The principal tells us that we can only play if we have brought something for the tree. We nod our heads in understanding. Every table pulls a card. Aces high! The secretaries’ table goes first. They line up like Christmas lights, four feminine faces blinking in a dim sort of way. We do not want them to find the Cowbell. That would ruin the fun. It must be later, after most of the gifts have been chosen. There must be time for us to consider the Cowbell, to forget it exists, and then remember it again. This is how the game is played. The first secretary chooses her gift. A bottle of red wine! We hoot and holler. This is not a drinking party, but some of us put alcohol under the tree because it is fun to say things like “Yes, please!” and “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” Now it is the second secretary’s turn. She steals the wine from the line leader and tips the bottle back as if to guzzle it in front of us! Ho ho! We can’t get enough! The line leader takes another gift and discovers a felt toilet seat cover shaped like a reindeer. We giggle and look at our retired business teacher who likes to make homemade things out of felt. She is also a Sunday school teacher at the local Baptist church, and she has been to the baptism of every saved soul in this room. Even the quiet atheists and the very singular Catholic among us view her as a symbol. None of us have ever heard her say anything cross or awkward. We have never heard her complain. She has never broken any rule. We would never believe she might behave differently at home. She has been retired for two years, but we still invite her to the Christmas party. We are reluctant to let her leave us. She belonged more than any of us, and she has never needed to prove herself. The third secretary does not take the toilet seat cover from her neighbor but chooses to take her chances with the other gifts under the tree. Though we do not want her to find the Cowbell, we jeer at her anyway. “Careful,” we say. “Choose wisely!” And the principal watches as the secretary opens her gift. He watches as she pulls out a green scarf, knitted exquisitely, and we all gasp from the beauty of it. And we are all chattering to each other. “Oh, what a nice scarf. Who made it?” The basketball coach points at his fiancée and the female teachers pat her on the shoulders and compliment her work. The principal watches as the basketball coach beams. Then he watches the fiancée’s smile grow wider when the fourth secretary steals the scarf. We laugh and watch the third secretary pout and march toward the tree, shoulders slumped. “Careful!” we say. “Choose wisely!” The fourth secretary’s gift is a tin of cookies. They look very much like the tin of cookies the School Board left in our mailboxes this morning. Some of us know this is a joke, and the more intelligent teachers realize it is only a joke we would say to each other at games or in the teachers’ break room. We would not make the joke here, at the Christmas party which the School Board paid for. It is not a good joke here, and we quietly eye each other for guilty faces. The secretaries go back to their table and give their gifts to their husbands. Our principal walks

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Christmas in July 201 7 around the room and asks one of us from each table to pull a card from his deck, and so it begins again. Aces high! And we laugh at the sixpack of beer decorated with reindeer antlers made of pipe cleaners, and we hoot at the whoopee cushion, and we pass around the green scarf and appreciate its softness, and we rub our stomachs when one of us opens a gift of apple butter. The history teacher pretends he does not care that we have already forgotten about the lottery tickets. And soon we are a buzzing hive of excitement because all but four have stood in front of the tree. The principal smiles like a crescent moon. No more cards are drawn. There is only one table left. The history teacher, the basketball coach’s fiancée, the business teacher, and the Spanish teacher line up in front of the tree. It will be one of them. We cannot help but wiggle and jostle in our seats, aware of what is coming, aware of our energy. Soon we will see its golden form. The one who reveals the Cowbell will shake it above them to make that terrible clang. The women will scream with laughter, and the men will roar: “More cowbell! I need more cowbell!” The one who reveals the Cowbell will swing their arms wider and there will be the banging clang of the Cowbell mixed with the boiling roar of our voices. We will be an ocean, and we will forget ourselves again, and our own voices will be lost. We will be engulfed, and we will be baptized. The principal will hold up the arms of the one who reveals the Cowbell, and we will clap our hands and stomp our feet and whistle with joy. He will smile his moon smile, and none of us will know his sacrifice, even as we reach our hands out and listen to the clanging of the Cowbell. We will not know what he gave up for us, and we will not know that he would give anything to get it back. We know only the energy of our hands, which itch to clap again and again, and the energy of our tongues that lash in our mouths, eager to be free, and the energy of our toes that lurch in our shoes and the energy of our knees that yearn to clank against each other. We are eager now. It will be one of them. Though we cannot say it — we would not know how to say it — we are thankful for this opportunity. It is a wonderful game. We look forward to it every year.

About the author A.R. Robins lives in Missouri with her husband and two cats while she works on her MA at Southeast Missouri State University. Her fiction has been featured on the podcast Second Hand Stories. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Foliate Oak, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Gyroscope Review.

Cookie Dreaming By Katrina Johnston In early December, Meredith fires up the Moffat oven and bakes her Christmas cookies. After she scrapes the bowls and scrubs the pans, she starts anew, whipping up two sturdy fruit cakes – light and dark. Each of these are varieties that keep forever. A week later, she sets out a new collection of cookie tins and lines each with white and red, or yellow and green, or blue and gold tissue papers. Employing vast quantities of Saran Wrap, Meredith slices the fruitcakes and arranges the cookies into manageable portions. The goodies don’t always align. Some are flat, some are round, some small, some big and bulging. One of the tins, the first one that she arranges, is for Ira Schwartz, her newish Jewish neighbor in #207. She layers the bottom of his tin with her most scrumptious treats which she calls her ugly cookies, more formally known as fruit snaps and made with molasses and black currants; delicious – no question – but muddy tan with dots of black. She overlays these with the much prettier red and green sparkles of sugar stars and Christmas trees and then she adds the nutty lemon squares and golden macaroons, rolling a number of these onto their sides. Others lie faceup. Meredith shouldn’t be overly Christmassy with Ira Schwartz’s tin, after all he's Jewish. She’s chosen the nonspecific gray and gold and snowflake motif for his enamelled tin. Not a jolly Santa nor picture of the Nativity. The other tins are bright depictions of the Three Wise Men, of Santa or of a dancing Frosty the Snowman. Everything looks so festive. Meredith adds a tiny silver bell and a sprig of plastic holly. She drapes the tissue efficiently and closes each tin before she adds ribbons and bows and the candy cane stickers. “Voila. I’m all ready.” On the third night of Hanukkah, she knocks softly upon Ira Schwartz’s door. He’s not seeing anyone. He’s fascinating. Perhaps Ira is the perfect age for me, she thinks. I hope he likes my gift. She trembles and knocks again, nervously. Her breath is a cloud of orange TicTac’s.

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Christmas in July 201 7 “I’m not at home,” Ira Schwatz calls out. “Please go away.” “Mr. Schwartz. It’s Meredith. From down the hall. Of course you’re home. How could you talk to me if you’re not at home!” “I’m not at home.” He’s not a really a curmudgeon or a grump or a meanie moe. She understands. He’s just shy. And Meredith is not the least offended by his failure to open the door. “Okay, I’ve got a little something for you,” she calls through the door. “I’ll just leave it at your doorstep. Happy Holidays.” She sets the tin on the carpet. “I told you.... I’m not at home. I’m busy.” But Meredith has already turned and headed back to her own apartment, grabbing the next tin, the one for George Pinkerton in #305. George is not seeing anyone. He’s fascinating. Perhaps George is the perfect age for me, she thinks. I hope he likes my little gift. She trembles and knocks at #305, nervously. Her breath is a cloud of orange TicTacs. After that, there’s a tin for Frank Morrison in #401 and Ralph Danerling in #612 and Zachary Smythe in #802, and Dennis Farthington on the main floor and.... Look out! She’s coming down the hall, carrying a Christmas tin. Her breath is a cloud of orange TicTac’s and she’s stopping outside your door.

About the author Katrina Johnston's stories are featured at several online publications. She occasionally breaks into print or becomes part of a shared anthology. From lighthearted looks at human existence to others more serious, she cherishes a variety of themes. The winner of the CBC/Canada Writes True Winter Tale, she lives in Victoria, BC, Canada. Follow her on Twitter @Momtrina.

Merriment, Our Love By Joe Bisicchia

And so it is, finally July 25. Feel the tide arise like eyes arriving to a party, and like Christmas lights strung the whole way from street to stairs to all the way up here to where the disco ball rotates above hardwood and the ballroom somehow feels like something maybe from an old black and white movie, sans the ambiguous grays, and the lost olden days, for this is our newlywed first dance and evergreen. The prism stays when the charism is from within, and we walk on water in love, this our first spin. And I feel like every Adam ever did, loving Eve, and thinking no one else ever could love like this. And every day onward, so it is. Just like Christmas.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Sighting at a Stoplight By Joe Bisicchia

We saw Santa this summer on a motorcycle. Like us, he was stopped at a new red. Impressive how he seemed the patient fellow. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and the rest had just plowed through yellow. Guess they were rushing to get to the beach. And Santa smiled at us a Christmas scene. We waved and waved, and clapped in between. Then we were on our merry way when light turned green.

About the author Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, his works have appeared in various publications. His website is www.widewide.world. Follow him on Twitter @TheB_Line.

Winter Recon By Terry Sanville

Eddy felt grateful for the lines in the sidewalk. They helped guide him through the throng of downtown Christmas shoppers, along streets with filthy snow pushed into the gutters. He pressed his bearded chin to his chest and set each battered boot down carefully, as if walking a tightrope. Patting his army field jacket, he felt the bulge of the full pint and smiled. A bench outside one of Boston’s many Starbucks beckoned. He slumped onto the hard seat below the coffee shop’s steamedover windows. Inside, women from the office pools stared at him, their faces blurred, softened, the alarm almost gone from their eyes. His right leg throbbed, a constant reminder of the round that had caught him in a Kuwaiti oil field. He slid a ragged pants leg up, rubbed the scarred calf, and muttered obscenities to himself…or so he thought. “What did you say?” a woman asked. Eddy turned painfully and stared at her – tall, welldressed, thirtysomething, with a flat face and clinging to a redhaired little girl. They sat at the far end of the bench. “I…I didn’t mean anything ma’am. It’s just so …ah, darn cold and my leg hurts.” She pointed. “How did you...?” “An old war wound, ma’am. Desert Storm, ya know.” “I remember.” The wind blew in bitter gusts. Eddy wished the little girl and her mother would just leave him to the long winter afternoon and his bottle. “My husband would always complain about the cold,” the woman continued. “He spent so much time in Iraq, said he got used to the heat.” “Huh. You…you talk like he’s…gone.” She nodded. “Last December…a couple of weeks before he was supposed to come home.” “Sorry, that’s tough, especially during Christmas.” Her pastedon smile faded and she gazed into the street. The little girl swung her legs back and forth, the gloss of her tiny patent leather shoes reflecting the holiday lights strung along the boulevard. Eddy pulled his jacket tight to hide the whiskey bottle and fought the urge to sneak a quick nip. The

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Christmas in July 201 7 little girl broke free of her mother’s grasp and scooted down the bench toward him. Reaching his side before the woman could retrieve her, she grabbed onto his thick white beard and tugged. “Santa?” she asked, eyes wide, staring. The woman laughed, a deep throaty sound. “I don’t think so, Sarah. Santa’s still at the North Pole.” “Shhh,” Eddy said, putting a finger to his lips. “Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.” “Where’s your reindeer, Santa? Where’s Rudolph?” Eddy pulled off his knit cap and scratched his head. Long gray strands of hair fell across his face. “Well, I left them behind, along with my red suit. I’m on a secret mission.” “What’s a mission?” The woman pulled Sarah onto her lap and grinned. “It’s when you go looking for something,” she explained. “What are you looking for, Santa?” Eddy tugged on his mustache. “I’m checking my list to make sure all the boys and girls are on it. I wouldn’t want to miss giving a good child their presents.” “Am I on the list?” Eddy touched a hand to his temple and closed his eyes. “Just a minute, let me see…I’m…I’m checking. Yes, yes, I see your name, Sarah.” With a chuckle, the woman asked, “But Santa, have you decided whether Sarah has been naughty or nice?” Eddy opened his eyes and smiled at the mother. Her face turned bright pink in the waning light. “She’s been nice, especially since she doesn’t have a…” Eddy ducked his head and turned away. Nearby, a couple of teenage girls stood in back of a red blanket spread on the sidewalk, selling homemade Christmas ornaments. They wore spiked hair, nose rings, and smoked. The woman must have caught him staring. “Do you know those girls?” “I’ve seen them around. They remind me of…my daughters would be about that age. Haven’t seen ’em since….” “It’s good to be around family during the holidays,” the woman said. “Where are your daughters and their mother?” “Los Angeles.” “Oh.” Two doors down, a slender woman with cropped gray hair and wearing a wellcut business suit stepped from the store and strode toward them, her high heels clacking against the pavement. When she saw Eddy, she frowned and walked faster until she stood in front of the woman on the bench. “Julie, just what in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?” “What do you mean?” “You know very well…talking to this…this homeless bum, and with your daughter sitting right there.” “He’s no bum, Grandma,” Sarah spoke up. “He’s Santa Claus. He’s on a secret mission.” “Yes, and I suppose he also works for the CIA.” “Now hold on, Mother,” Julie said. “This man has been very nice to us…there’s no need to be rude.” “Look, I don’t wanna cause trouble. You folks enjoy your–”

Eddy struggled to get up but Julie put a hand on his arm and turned to her mother. “He may be a bit down on his luck, but he’s a veteran and deserves some respect.” The old woman scowled. “He wouldn’t be down on his luck if he’d get a job…and I could smell him from down the block.” “Please, Mother, that’s enough.” “It’s okay,” Eddy said and pushed himself to his feet. “I have a business engagement to get to.” “Are you really out of work?” Julie asked. “I’m always looking, me and a few million other people.” Julie pointed. “I saw a sign on a department store window the next block down. They’re looking for workers. I…I think you’d be perfect for the job.” “Yeah, but these days you need a college degree just to work in the mail room.” “No, all this job requires is that you be ‘clean and sober’.” “Huh. That’s a tough one.” Julie smiled. “I think you’d be good with the customers. Go ahead and try.” “Thanks, ma’am. I will.” Eddy hobbled down the street in the direction that Julie had pointed. He glanced over his shoulder. The three generations of women watched him walk away. He waved and little Sarah and Julie waved back. At a brightlylit storefront he stopped and studied a small flyer taped to the corner of a display window: Temporary Help Wanted: Extra St. Nicks needed until Christmas. Must be clean and sober and good with children. Apply at the Human Resources Office inside. Eddy grinned and turned back toward the women and child, but they had disappeared. He thought about his daughters in L.A. and wondered if he could earn enough for a plane ticket – or maybe a bus… Walking to the curb, he reached inside his jacket for the pint and with a grimace dropped it into the gutter. He popped a breath mint into his mouth, pulled his cap off, ran his fingers through his long hair and tucked the ends under his jacket collar. Inside, the store smelled spicysweet. Eddy hoped it would cover his own scent as he made his way toward the mezzanine and his first job interview in a long time.

About the author Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artistpoet wife (his inhouse editor) and one skittery cat (his inhouse critic). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, poems, and novels. Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 250 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies including The Potomac Review, The Bitter Oleander, Shenandoah, and The Saturday Evening Post. He was nominated twice for Pushcart Prizes for his stories The Sweeper and The Garage. Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Battle of Seasons By Marina Montenegro

The snow melts fast enough, sliding off our roofs and scaffolds, that I mistake its dripping water for the first spring storm. The warm rays of a vengeful sun need the whispered breeze to remind them that winter hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t gone far yet.

About the author Marina Montenegro is a nonbinary Latinx writer and poet. After studying creative writing at Seton Hall University, Marina founded Writing the Words blog. Work by Marina has been published by Pif Magazine, Glass, CEO Lit, Aegis Publishing, and more. Marina lives in New York City with her boyfriend and cat. You can find her on and Patreon patreon.com/MarinaMontenegro and Facebook facebook.com/MarinaMontenegro.Author/

The Last Parachute By C. Billingsley Adams

Hank didn't want to believe me when I told him how the gas company would fly over their service territory at Christmastime and drop little parachutes with pieces of hard candy or cheap little toys tied to them. "Parachutes?" he asked me again and again. "Yes!" I kept repeating to him, "Parachutes!" The company, with its own twin engine plane, would scoop low when passing over the farms and shacks outside the small Alabama town of Tradersville. Engines whining yet sounding like a beautiful flock of arriving doves to all the children, myself included, summoned us out to chase their little colored cellophane transports as they blew helterskelter across the then barren corn fields and wildflower meadows. Many were blown into the forested lands, in the evergreen canopies of trees or, if finding their way into the yards, would often end up in the upper limbs of shade trees or find havens on the tinned roofs of houses and barns. It was a lot like Easter like the hunt for eggs which were hiding under patches of tall grass and under rocks. Only the immediately unfound parachutes were hiding higher as the ones that did drift to the visible ground were easily snatched up for their treasures as they were brightly colored and easy to find. It was the ones caught by trees and roofs that created the challenges of the hunt; creating the need for weeks of searching high and climbing trees, all for a fruitflavored lollipop or for the possession of a small plastic airplane or penny doll. "Parachutes?" He wanted to believe that this was just an escaped idea from my vivid imagination or from a dream. And Hank also didn't believe that one time I found a diamond ring tied to one of those parachutes. He probably wouldn't believe me either if I told him that once a hot cinder came down out of the sky and, as I was looking up, it landed right in my eye and burned me. That's why, as he and I lie stretched out on a blanket in the sparse grass of the Tradersville's High School's sports field, enjoying the annual July 4th fireworks display, I only look out and up, never straight up. It was way past one of these Christmases, when I was twelve years of age, and into the hot month of July when I spotted something up high in a tree past the edge of our tomato patch. I had gone there with one of my sisters, Marge, at Mama's request to pick a bunch of good, ripe tomatoes to be

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Christmas in July 201 7 peeled and sliced for the dinner table that night and some extras for her to trade off for some pecans when she went calling on a neighbor, Mrs. Sims, the following day. My other three sisters were doing likewise with okra, squash and green beans. Picking some for Mrs. Sims, that is. She was a widow lady who had gotten too old to keep up a garden so all the neighbors around would take her some of what they grew in exchange for the privilege of going out into her orchard and picking up themselves a good basket of pecans, even though most everybody around had several good pecan trees on their own property. It made Mrs. Sims proud to be having something to give back in return for the vegetables that folks would be bringing her. And, in the fall, too, she'd be sure to get a good batch or two of fresh made sausage and a few pints of Brunswick stew, along with a slab of bacon. Most of the farmers about would raise a hog or two, for the feeding of their families, and were most willing to share. Pride is an innate trait that poor, country folks have. They don't mind receiving as long as they can also be giving. I just happened to look up at the right moment, that day in the garden, and see an unmistakable shimmer under the bright glint of the summer's sun. It was a parachute. Caught up there in the branches of a wild magnolia and peeking through the foliage just enough to announce its presence to me. I wondered how it had been missed, how it remained hidden within those evergreen leaves all this time. How, with a whole big brood of kids all walking around and getting cricks in their necks trying to find that last jawbreaker, that last toy soldier, it had not been found. But now, it had revealed itself to me. It was mine ÂÂ a belated Christmas gift which needed no wrapping with paper printed with images of snowmen or holly, no fancy ribbon tied into a bow. I tried to remain nonÂnonchalant about it, pretending that I never saw it. I'd pick the tomatoes first then make my dash for it. So, with one eye on the tree, and one on the rows of red, juicy tomatoes, I tried to keep picking the biggest and brightest of the fruit. But then, I just ran out of patience and, dropping my aluminum dishpan of harvest to the ground, I took off at a running gallop to the tree and with my tomboy skill of climbing, I was up into that foliage jungle in no time flat. "You better get back here," Marge hollered out. "Mama's gonna get her switch to you if you don't fill this dishpan up." "I'll be back in just a minute," I yelled back, determined to accomplish my mission. After scooting out on a limb, far enough to retrieve the parachute, I just grabbed it up and quickly looked to see that the prize was a ring, before pushing it down safely into a pocket on my dungarees. "What you doing up there?" Marge called up, while peering through the large leaves of a dark green hue. "Nothing," I yelled back. "I'm coming down!" I got back to the tomato patch and had about finished my picking just before Mama came looking out over the tops of the caged and heavily laden plants. "What's taking you so long, Irene?" she asked. "We need to get some of those tomatoes peeled, sliced, and on the table. Supper's almost ready." "Almost through, Mama. Just wanted to get some firm ones for Mrs. Sims." "That's nice, but come on now and quit your lollygagging." Marge and I, we shared a bed being how we were the closest in age and the youngest of the five girls, and it was when we were getting ready to retire to it, putting on our faded nightgowns that had already seen lifetimes of several girls, cousins and sisters, passing through the size and near size of them, before I got around to pulling my prize parachute from my pants pocket to look it over. The ring was securely tied to the chute with a short length of faded Christmas ribbon, the kind of ribbon with the

ridges that you could run the edge of a scissor over and make into a little curlicue. "Looks like a real diamond, don't it?" I asked Marge as I held it under the electric bulb of the bedside lamp turning it at different angles to reflect the light and make it sparkle brilliantly. "Yeah," she said. "But you know it's not. It's just a toy." "There's writing inside," I said, while examining it closer, then holding it out for Marge's view. "See. 'H and I Forever' it says." I slipped the ring on to find that it was a perfect fit and, by then, the whole family had gathered around to have a look at it, including my three brothers who wouldn't ordinarily give a hoot about a piece of girl jewelry. "It's fake," blurted out Daniel, the oldest of the boys, and his remark was echoed by the rest. "Glass!" "I've seen better ones in the gumball machines." "Y'all just jealous 'cause I found the last parachute," I said, as I was feeling a sudden need to defend my treasure. It was real to me and that is all that mattered. *** A nice enough young man on most days, except for an occasional outburst of an icy hot and petty temper, a Mr. Horace Cooksley, had proposed to his girlfriend and was hoping for a quick holiday season wedding. On proposing, he presented her with a beautiful diamond ring, bought with most of his life savings. Inez, his intended in his own mind, turned him down flat though because of that temper which she had witnessed on several occasions, rarely directed at herself but at everyone else. Just the week before, he had brought the waitress to tears at a roadside diner with his meanness when she forgot to bring a bottle of ketchup to the table. Called her stupid and useless. He had gotten the paper boy fired because he occasionally missed his front porch with his newsy toss and the paper ended up on the lawn. He had raised the ire of the town's only auto mechanic by calling him a "cheater" and now was going to have to drive to the next town over, twenty miles away, just to get his oil changed. She had no intentions herself to spend her days being a bane of the town because of his pettiness. He was okay to date for awhile, she thought, but not to marry. Horace, it was said, became so enraged by her denial of the proposal, that he took that diamond ring and tied it to one of those plastic parachutes and threw it in a box of the toys that his employer, the gas company, was planning to drop for the children. A couple of days later, he had come to his senses and tried to retrieve it but it was too late as the contents of the box had been delivered that very day, over the northern territory of the company's customer area. Gone. Horace put out an advertisement in the local newspaper, which had hired a delivery boy with an even worse aim than the first, claiming that the dropping of it had been an accident and pleading for its return by the finder. No one had responded except for the company's corporate headquarters when they heard about all this. They fired him, right away, for putting a damper on the spirit of their Christmas goodwill promotion in which much time and money was invested. In his state of unemployed anger, Horace packed up and moved away to Tennessee. Word had it later, through some of his distant relatives, that he gotten into a barroom fight up there and spent some time in a jail before disappearing completely from any known whereabouts. I, and my family, didn't know about any of this at the time, though, because we were just too busy celebrating the holidays to pay much mind to any such talk that not too many folks believed anyway. Why would some man throw a valuable diamond ring out of an airplane? A ring that costs him

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Christmas in July 201 7 most all his savings? Just a ridiculous story and though we kids dedicated weeks to the search for lost chutes, we never expected to find any 'real' treasure. Just candy and toys. *** It was on our visit to Mrs. Sims, the next day, Mama. Marge, and myself, that we learned about the demise of her daughter. Over in Mississippi, her mean husband had plum beaten her to death and he got sent away, for the rest of his lifetime, to a state prison. And, as the only living kin of the pair's two children, that Mrs. Sims had never even seen, they were being sent to her to raise. A boy and a girl, around seven and eight years old. She was extra thankful for the vegetables and the dressed chicken that we had brought, she added, as she was gonna be needing them. The children were expected in on a bus that very evening and the sheriff had promised to have them picked up at the stop and delivered to her by one of his deputies. Mixed tears oozed over in her eyes as she told us all of this. Tears of sorrow for the loss of her own child, and tears of happiness at the return of some of her flesh and blood in the beings of the children. Tears, too, of the fear of the hardship of providing for them. The sheriff had also promised to send out a social worker, in a few days, to assist her in the applying for some welfare help from the government. "If Mr. Sims was only still alive," she said, "we'd find a way to do all this without having to take any welfare from the state. But, I got no choice, do I?" "There's no shame in that," my mama tried to reassure her that it was okay to accept help. "That's what it's there for. That's what you and Mr. Sims paid all them taxes for. For, if you ever did need it." "But, it is shameful as I know what the neighbors say about welfare people. That they are lazy, and sorry, and just live off the government." "Don't you worry what anybody might say! You just do what you got to do to take care of your grandchildren. Give 'em a better life than they have had. Give 'em a good life full of love." "Here, take my ring," I said as I had a sudden urge to contribute to the raising of these youngsters. I pulled it off my finger and held it out to her. "You can sell it." "No, no," Mrs. Sims exclaimed. "I could never do that." "Go ahead. Take it," Mama said as she looked over at me with an understanding smile. "It's just a toy. Not really worth anything at all but it will make Irene feel good, if you do." With that, the poor widowed lady reached out and accepted the gift. "Thank you," she said. "You are a sweet child." She then scurried off to the kitchen, returning with two apples which she pressed into my and Marge's hands. Ones she had retrieved from a paper bag brought over by another neighbor just a few days prior. Give and take. That was the country way. *** Well, here it is, twelve years later and I've just received my masters in the study of comparative literature at the university and accepted a teaching assignment at a small college near my childhood home ÂÂ the same college that Hank serves as Professor of the Arts. This is where we met, Hank and I, as he was one of the many professors to interview me when I applied for this position. We hit it off, right away, and have maintained a somewhat distant relationship over the past year. A relationship which, through our regular communications and visits, has grown strong.

Only my brother, Daniel, remains at the farm. Daddy has passed away and Mama moved to Texas to live with a transplanted Marge and help care for her five children. The other siblings have scattered to various cities across the states as educational and career ambitions called to them. But Tradersville is still a special place and Hank and I love to travel the area and stop by to visit Daniel and the old home place, every now and then. We had enjoyed a backyard cookout there today before heading out to watch the fireworks. As we watched the lights, out and up, colors flashing like those of a Christmas tree, Hank suddenly stood and pulled me up from our reclining position. Then he was on one knee. Asking me to marry him. I said 'Yes!' of course because I was just crazy about this man, this handsome man, who could love me so much that he wanted to spend his whole life with me; wanted to spend his life with a country girl, like myself, who could still harvest a garden or scramble up a tree in seconds. And, when he opened up that ring box that he pulled out of his trousers pocket, I was astonished. There was, inside, the most beautiful diamond ring ever. A familiar diamond ring. A ring which had once fallen out of the sky and landed within the dark foliage of a magnolia tree and had been given for the support of two small children who needed a grandma, a home, and new shoes on their feet. "Is it? Is it, really?" I asked. "Yes, it is! Really!" Hank exclaimed. "Even has the inscription inside that you told me about. 'H and I Forever.' Horace and Inez, then. Hank and Irene, now." I held out my hand and the ring slid right on as Hank placed it on my finger. Still a perfect fit. "But how?" I asked. "Mrs. Sims died a year ago and the grandchildren have kept the farm. Seems the grandson has developed a real passion for that kind of work, but the granddaughter, not so much. She wants to go to college and get a degree in early education. Be a teacher. So her brother has been selling off some of the farm's equipment to raise money for her tuition. Daniel told me about this a while ago so I went by and offered to help her apply for some financial assistance at our school. And, I just happened to ask about the ring. Did Mrs. Sims keep it? Yes, she did! With the help she was getting from the state, she never had to sell it and there it was. Wrapped in tissue paper and lying in a dresser drawer. We took it to a jeweler for an appraisal and found that it's real, alright. A highquality stone in a platinum setting. So, I bought it. Paid a fair price which, along with money that her brother raised and the scholarship the college has offered, will see the girl through the next four years. Then she can teach while he farms. Your gift has really paid off and now it has come full circle. Right back to your lovely finger." "Christmas in July," I said just before wrapping my arms around the most wonderful man in the world.

About the author C. Billingsley Adams is a playwright, a novelist, and a writer of short stories. A resident of rural Georgia, Ms. Adams has authored three novels and numerous stage pieces, some of which have been produced on stages in Georgia and New York. Her short stories have been included in such anthologies as the Savannah Anthology 2016, in which she has received both Honorable and Notable Recognitions, and Voices From the Unknown published by Maïa Veruca Books of Norway.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Holiday By Abigail Kipp

Sound flows down a turquoise wave. Air fills with cinnamon. Red and white sticks hang on barred branches. One ornament for each year of each grandchild: white, skiing marshmallows, pink horses dancing around green fur. People run by with plates of food, with stories of babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first smile, first promotion, first house. The bronze bells of clear crystal tapping. And I am curled up in an ugly green chair in a corner, sipping brown chocolate and white cream. People watching.

About the author Abigail Kipp is a poet currently living in New Mexico. She graduated in 2016 from New Mexico State University with a Bachelor of Art's degree in English Creative Writing.

The Worst Noel By Holleigh Lujah The Sunday school teacher at Gloria Dei quit two weeks before the Christmas pageant.... and they didn’t replace her with that busybody Janet. They didn’t hire Janet, because I said, ‘there couldn’t be a worse person for the job.” But it seems, our Lord has a mighty need to prove me wrong. That’s how my husband became the new pageant director. I love David, but he can’t tell me where even two of our three kids are at any given time. Now, he was responsible for 12 little kids and a sacred religious message. He didn’t hold auditions. He just asked the kids who they wanted to play. It would have been fine, if David had the word “no” in his vocabulary. It would have been great, if little Brian Pickard hadn’t volunteered to be Joseph. Heck, it would have been wonderful if Peter Wallace, Brian’s best friend, hadn’t begged to be Mary. Once David agreed, there was no taking it back. That’s the heaven and hell of my husband his level of commitment. In perhaps a lastditch effort to distract the parents from the sacrilegious casting, David arranged to have a live nativity, with animals rented to us by a unscrupulous farm from the outskirts of town. The only condition was that we would feed them. Which, of course, slipped David’s mind. A lot of things slipped the night of the pageant, such as when we realized the kids didn’t have costumes. Janet got a couple of hospital gowns from her clinic for the kids to wear. David has them wear their shirts on their heads, so they look like a group from a Middle Eastern pediatric psych ward. My daughter Gracie, who chose the part of Gabriel, didn’t have a pair of costume angel wings as David thought she did. Instead, she wears her butterfly ones and is to stand on the roof to deliver her lines. But because she is her father’s daughter, she accidentally locks herself on the roof, and can’t get down. During the pageant, no one could hear a thing because one of the sheep was wailing through the message. I pulled David aside and asked him if it might have been because he’d fed the leftover pizza we’d bought for the kids to the animals. Before he could even answer, a shriek erupted from Peter Wallace as the screaming sheep gave birth in the middle of the scene. Brian started crying, and the parents tried to usher the kids away. One of the Wise men forgot his Gameboy in the manger, and when

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Christmas in July 201 7 he went to get it, he slipped and fell in the mess. We got him cleaned up in the Baptism pool and dressed him in an extra hospital gown. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when Grace gave up hope of getting down on her own, and jumped. We sang Silent Night at the hospital. I decided not to send our Christmas cards that year.

About the author Holleigh Lujah is a recent grad with two degrees in two fields she has no intention of entering.

Silent Night in the Holy Land of Brooklyn By Tom Tolnay In my twelfth year, toward the bitter end of December, I found myself untangling garland on our lumpy couch in Brooklyn, nursing a case of holiday blues. "It just doesn't feel like Christmas," I said to whatever spirits, past or present, might be cowering in the corners of our parlor. Yet all the distinctive ingredients of this festive season were present: the arousing aroma of butter cookies being slid out of the oven by my mother, a boys' choir trilling Silent Night over the buzzing radio, pop of hot coals in the furnace, crushed walnuts and softening apples and striped peppermint candies all accented by the tinkle of a plastic icicle against a Christmas ball... made of a glass no thicker than that membrane in the soul which separates the child from the adult. After the icy face of day had sunk behind the lineup of twostory residential houses across the street, my father was shouldered into the outer hall from the porch by a blast of cold air. As if trying to fill that hollow sensation in my chest, I looped the last strand of garland onto the fir tree and scampered out to the hallway. I wanted to size up the lastminute bundles Papa always brought home the evening before the big day. His face looked gray, and his hands were empty. Peering toward the kitchen my father said to me, "How is the tree coming along?" "Only the tinsel's left," I piped. "Want to see it?" Without a word he stalked past me, pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen. I remained in the shadows between the parlor and kitchen, immobilized by the dark cloud he had left in his wake. Knock, knock, knock, knock sounded the knife against the cutting board. My mother was chopping celery stalks into halfinch U's to be stirred into soup, pressed into stuffing, diced into

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Christmas in July 201 7 salad. While acknowledging his entrance with a murmur, she obviously didn't want to be distracted from the toomany duties before her. Knock, knock, knock, knock. "Evangelina," my father began. "When I left the shop, my brotherinlaw called me from Chicago..." "What happened?" she asked, alarm slipping into her voice like a pinch of paprika. "It's Helen..." The knocking stopped. "Oh no." My father's throat made a noise, and though I knew better than to be listening to my parents' conversation, I felt unable to move out of hearing range. "On the eve of the Lord's birth, no less," my mother lamented. "Poor, poor Helen," moaned my father. "Poor Helen," said my mother. Silence took hold of the kitchen a few moments before I heard my mother ask, "What do you want to do, George?" My father's voice dragged like a medieval dirge, "She's going to be . . . laid out on Christmas." Only then did I understand what had happened, but knowing didn't make me feel any different. To me, Aunt Helen had as much reality as a bright print of Mrs. Claus on a Christmas card. Only a few times over the years, at a wedding or christening or funeral, had she materialized with her husband close by her side. All I remembered about them is that she had redstreaked eyes and coughed a lot, and his arms dangled out of his shortsleeved shirt like a pair of unusually long, splotchy sausages. They were accompanied by three boys who, husky as neighborhood bullies, were unilaterally, irritatingly attached to my life, "Say hello to your cousins!" When my mother broke the silence again, I realized I'd been staring at the fryingpanshaped clock which hung on the wall over the telephone table. "With the holidays, it's going to be hard to get a train or bus." (In those days, an airplane never occurred to them.) "Maybe I'll take the car," my father muttered. That comment must've widened my mother's eyes. Like the family to which its care had been entrusted, the car had been behaving eccentrically lately; in October and November a mechanic had leaned over its swelled fenders with a puzzled expression, changing its spark plugs and air filter but without the desired results. "Maybe you should stay home all day on Christmas, George," my mother said, "and go out on the 26th for services..." In my mind, I could see them standing motionless in the kitchen, which was cluttered with battercoated bowls and sheets of waxpaper and uncapped jars, staring past one another, each waiting for the other to say something. At last my father agreed, with a minimum of words, that it was probably best to remain within walls he knew, that knew him, for Christmas; and then to make his way to his sister's side "for the last time in this life." I heard movement. Just in time I scurried into the parlor, climbed up on the bench somewhat shakily and resumed tossing silvery strings of tinsel across the upraised, prickly branches. With heavy footsteps, my father entered and came right up to my bench, the height of which enabled me to look at him without having to tilt my head too far back. Gazing at the white, fragile glass star on the highest stem, he said: "Alex, your Aunt Helen in Chicago " he made that noise again. "I know, Papa," I confessed, saving me from having to hear the words spoken face to face.

He stood there with his lips drawn into his face, looking at me as if there was something I was supposed to say. But I didn't know what it was. With nothing to hold onto up on my perch, I became slightly dizzy and, fearing I might fall, stepped down off the bench to where he could see the top of my head again. He turned away, lumbered to the phone table in the hallway, and began dialing. Once, twice. On his third try he got through to Chicago. The conversation was brief, and I heard him conclude: "On Christmas day I'll eat with my family. Next day I'll sit with my sister." After replacing the receiver in its cradle, he stood stiff and still in the weak glow of a bulb on its last filament, as if he too had stopped breathing. Later, just as I had finished glazing the tree with tinsel, my father carried a jigger of anisette to his big, bulky armchair near the window, sat down, and began sipping the licoriceflavored liquor. Seeing such a large man drinking from such a little glass struck me as comical: He was at least six feet tall, weighed over two hundred pounds, had a neck like a slice of telephone pole, and eyebrows as tough as the brush on a streetc1eaner's broom. Yet for all his physical marvels, he was usually so unobtrusive, so respectful, so quiet, I suspect he took up very litt1e space in people's minds. Helen, two years older, had been his only sister, and his younger, only brother Constantine had undergone a "routine procedure" in Cleveland years earlier which had ended in his death. His mother and father, too, had been freed from their cares. Half buried in an armchair too soft to uphold so broad and heavy a mass, he looked truly alone in the world. Christmas morning came anyway, and I found my green felt stocking hung from the doorknob of my bedroom closet, stuffed like a fivepound bag of potatoes, yet looking somewhat forlorn, as if it were the last banner of childhood. In the faint, pearly light of postdawn, I fingered the dimpled tangerines and icy marbles and almonds sealed in waffled shells. Round and oblong candies were stuck to the felt (making them furry but nonetheless edible). And out of the toe I dug the leftover change from my father's pockets. Down the stairs I bounded in my pale cotton pajamas. In the moment it took to dash from the archway into the parlor, the shimmering garland, the sting of pine resin, the striped sheen of candy canes, the presents topped with red and green bows all of it had finally added up to Christmas. Upstairs, I could hear my parents stirring out of bed, but I was not yet equipped with sufficient patience to wait for them. Under the outstretched branches I crawled, the jellybeans of colored lights hot near my face, my arms deep in packages, in mysteries concealed in crinkly paper imprinted with jaunty reindeer and smiling couples in horsedrawn sleighs and country villages blanketed by snow. With a rising joy I searched for my name on gift tags and tore away one secret after another: new ice skates, new basketball, new erector set, and the inevitable socks, which struck me as old rather than new. Thumping down the stairs they came. He wore shiny black trousers and a dull white shirt, both recently pressed. She wore a brown housedress with white pockets, severely creased. "Alex, couldn't you wait for us?" my mother asked of me, smiling to herself as she made her way into the kitchen. My father simply nodded at no one in particular and sank into his armchair. "Look what I got for Christmas," I said, as if he didn't know, extending the erector set toward him with both hands, wanting him to test its weight and, thereby, its substance. But he kept his hands to himself, staring at the chest solemnly, as if it were a miniature coffin made out of tin. In a few minutes, my mother entered the parlor carrying two great mugs of steaming coffee, and seeing me crosslegged on the rug, locking pieces of the erector set together, she said, "Maybe you can build me a bigger kitchen, Alex."

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Christmas in July 201 7 Once they'd finished nursing their coffees, my parents began opening their gifts, though much more slowly than I had done; for my mother, a heavy wooden salad bowl with giant fork and spoon, a housecoat, stockings and, from me, Evening in Paris toilet water; for my father, a tool kit, two pairs of huge underpants, suspenders and, from me, imitation leather slippers. While my mother tried on the satiny pink house coat and turned around to show it off, my father stared at the wrenches as if he no longer understood what good tools could be to anyone. It was not until well after we had picked at the roasted turkey and sweet potatoes and boiled carrots and biscuits that the excitement over my gifts had blown away, my spirits sinking as low as the mercury in the thermometer. Once again, it just didn't feel like Christmas. That was also around the time I found myself thinking about what my father might be feeling, with his sister dead in Chicago. But I thought about this only briefly, only shallowly. I didn't understand my father any more than I did death. By late afternoon, watching out the front window, I noticed metallic shavings of snow had begun twirling out of the sky, settling like cake frosting on the sidewalks, garbage cans, and the hood of our car. As darkness rushed forward the patches of whiteness widened, stacking up against lamp posts and fences and porch stairs. The wind seemed to be gushing up out of the sewer gratings, attempting to fling the snow back where it came from. Occasionally a frigid fury shook the loose house, and I imagined trucks stalled out on the thickening parkway, and tugboats in the harbor being thrashed by winddriven crystals. With the cold having edged deeper and deeper into the house, my father hoisted himself up and tramped out into the hallway, down the groaning wooden steps, onto the chilled, uneven basement floor that was peppered with black dust. We heard the shovel scrape into the bin, lumps of coal clatter against the iron innards of the furnace. Up the stairs he marched, scuffing down the hallway into the parlor, and going straight to the window. Holding the leaden drape aside, he said to himself: "How will I find Helen in all this snow?" Glancing at me, my mother raised the cumbersome shape of her body off the sofa and said to him: "I'11 go pack some things so we can start early in the morning." Through the parlor, toward the stairway in the hall she moved. In a moment, she was gone. The house creaked in the wind, and I noticed someone had turned off the music on the radio. Just then it came to me that I, too, would be separated from my home transported halfway across the country on the day after Christmas, the secondbest day of the year; what I didn't understand at the time is that I would also be forced to relinquish the most precious gift of the season a suspension in growing up, coupled with the prospect of having to face the ultimate fact of life. Usually a few visitors would drop by on Christmas day, but the snow and wind kept even the lonely close to their radiators that year. Instead of carrying packages through wind and snow, relatives and neighbors telephoned Aunt Delphinia and Uncle Stavros and Birdie O'Brien and Aunt Merrula wishing us a happy holiday, asking what gifts we'd found under our tree. Not even the cheerful ring of the phone succeeded in melting the frozen gloom; especially since my father had to repeat several times, in that low rumble, that his sister Helen's lungs had given up on her, and she now lay cold and quiet before rows of folding chairs in Chicago...when she should have been home unwrapping presents with her family. The storm and my father seemed to be in conspiracy, taking the polish out of the new copper tea

I didn't understand my father any more than I did death.

kettle, the joy out of the toys under the tree, and I experienced a grownup desire to breathe happiness into his heart, the way the furnace puffed hot air into the cold rooms. But I didn't know how to go about undertaking such an enormous task. Instead I sat there pressing ridges into my fingers against the bright nickel blades of the skates. My father edged like a snow drift over to the tree, close to where I sat on that braided scatter rug, a little island of scrap cloth. While standing, he tried to force his feet into the slippers I'd gotten him too small. Always I got him slippers, gloves that were too small, a result, I suppose, of my too looking upon him as smaller than he really was. "Thank you for the slippers," he said to me for the second time, which was just about all he said to me that day. "Sorry they don't fit so good, Papa." "They fit." My father drifted back to his armchair and dropped down onto the hollowedout cushion. But it wasn't long before he arose again and wandered from the parlor to the bathroom to the kitchen to the hallway and back to the window, studying the snow. My mother and I watched him go through these paces several times. It wasn't until years later I realized he'd been looking for Helen. In the quiet stillness, the rapping on the front door sounded like muffled thunder. Instead of getting up to answer it, my father and mother looked at each other as if to say, Who would leave their home on Christmas night in such a storm? Still they did not get up to answer the door, as if the grown ups were afraid they might be greeted by a spectre. And maybe they really were nervous because my mother ordered me to put down my skates and see who or what was standing out in the snow at our front door. Vaguely spooked by my mother's tremulous tone, I moved halfheartedly down the dim hallway. At the door, I stared at its knob a moment before twisting it very slowly, but a rush of snowspeckled wind yanked it out of my hand and the door slammed open with a loud boom. That crash, and what I found on the other side, chased all the scariness away instantly. "Aunt Harriet's here!" Harriet, wound in a thin dark coat, fake fur collar raised, knitted cap pulled down over her ears, was flanked by a bunch of her kids my real cousins. On the porch, they stood snowshrouded, cold bound, wearylidded. "Hiya Peter, Hiya Mary, Hiya Wei come on in everybody!" As they stamped their slushcoated feet and shook the snow off their coats and caps and mittens, muddying the wooden floor, I heard my mother in the parlor, with a strained voice: "My sister, all the way from Minnesota?" But it was when my father declared, with considerable volume, "Harriet!" that I realized why neither of them had come out to greet my aunt: Harriet was the only person in the world who could get my father and mother to screech at each other in front of me. Whenever Aunt Harriet had had a divergence of lifeviews at home, she would show up at our doorstep in Brooklyn, a few kids within reach of each hand, a bundle or two at her feet, and a pathetic look in her eyes which meant she couldn't pay the cabdriver. What really boiled my father's blood, however, was that once settled in, Harriet could not be "budged by a goat." Not until she had forced her husband to beg forgiveness or, less likely, had spit out her pride and went back to him. Either way, this took months, and my mother and father battled if not with their mouths then at least with their eyes from the moment they arose to the moment they lay down for as long as Harriet remained under their roof. "She's always wearing my slippers!" cried my father.

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Christmas in July 201 7 "Her feet are clean!" retorted my mother. "She never does anything to help around here!" For this my mother had no response. Harriet did not pick up her wet towels, did not help with the dishes, did not throw out the garbage, did not do anything but smoke cigarettes and gaze at herself in the mirror as she brushed her hair. Worse yet were the visits paid us by her husbands during these escapes. Some nights, Harriet and hubby would rehash an extensive list of domestic complaints while I tried to do my homework and my father tried to read his newspaper. His protests were not unjustified, but he never noticed that Harriet and her kids also brought lots of cheer into the somber rooms of our house. When my aunt appeared in the archway to the parlor that Christmas night, her dark hair wet and tormented, with kids lined up in front of her like a protective barrier, my mother shrank back into her chair and my father's face turned red as Santa's suit. I felt the muscles in my stomach clench as he sprang out of his chair, stomping toward my iciclethin aunt and elfin cousins. I was afraid they would be trampled. Looming like a storm cloud over them, he roared: "Stand over the furnace grating, where the air is warm!" My cousins inched into the room as cautiously as mice tiptoeing past a sleeping cat in a cartoon, finally huddling over the metal grillwork in the center of the floor, the hot air fluttering the edges of their hair. Aunt Harriet stood stonestill, speechless in the archway. Staring directly into Harriet's eyes, my father said, in the softest voice I'd ever heard come out of those rigid lips, "Merry Christmas, Helen," his hands spread out toward the open gift boxes under the tree, the apples and pears in bowls, the ribbon candy on the narrow dish. "Come in so you can see all the decorations on the tree." My aunt, confused by his mistake, remained silent, but she set down the soggy shopping bags and moved slowly toward the open arms of the sweetneedled pine. In just a few moments, years of bitter antagonism between my father and Aunt Harriet had been settled, freeing them to mourn a death in the family together.

About the author Tom Tolnay's storiesmore than 50 of themhave been published in literary, university, and consumer periodicals in the US, Canada, and UK. Two of his stories won the Literal Latte National Fiction Contest and the Theodore Goodman Short Story Award.

Luminaries By Matthew Brennan Sand poured into the bottom of a brown paper bag, tea candle pressed into the sand. As a child, luminaries were magical to me, lining driveways and sidewalks on the nights the carolers came. Like the season’s first snow and the shortening days, luminaries were a sign that Christmas was near. My favorite season: wood fires bright in the stove and heavy blankets piled on our beds, gifts for everyone and mother’s pies and the sweet scent of pine from the tree father had cut and replanted in the house. And most years, the best years, it snowed. When my brother and I were a little older, our family was invited to sing with the carolers. On that night, our hosts and several of the houses along our neighborhood route lined their driveways and front steps with luminaries, like the lights of an airport runway. I was always amazed that someone could get all those candles lit and burning together; it seemed it would take all night. Yet there they were, beckoning us to join the festivities, the first in a line of warm welcomes on those evenings. Once all had gathered, our hosts would lead us in rehearsing a carol or two around the piano, then we would file out into the street, between the candlelights glowing through the darkened snow. I was also amazed that these candles kept burning all evening — the paper bags torn so easily at lunchtime now held the wind at bay; somehow the snowflakes missed their marks. I liked to think that the flames burned hot enough to melt and evaporate each flake that fell close before it could dampen the fire. My brother, too, was curious about their resilience, leaning over the candles to spit inside, to see if he could achieve what the snow had not. At the end of the night, after returning to our host’s for drinks and desserts and more carols at the piano, we would emerge again into an older, quieter night, colder now as we walked home. The wind

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Christmas in July 201 7 or the snow that was filling in our merry footsteps — or time itself and the impermanence of a burning wick — now extinguishing the paper lanterns one by one, my brother too tired to try. Now I am the magician. Each year, I go out and line our driveway with luminaries, having discovered after all this time that the task is possible: one by one until they are all burning. Striking the next match, I set it to the candle, glancing down the line at the chain of glowing lanterns behind me, knowing that right now my wife is bundling our kids up against the cold. Soon they will emerge into a winter’s eve a little brighter than they expect and run down the driveway between the luminaries like tiny aircraft looking for the sky. Three more candles and the match goes out. I press it down with a hiss into the fresh snow and strike the next.

About the author Matthew Brennan is a writer, editor, translator, and blogger from the Pacific northwest. His work has received several awards and fellowships, and more than 70 of his short fictions and poetry translations have been published in journals, including The Citron Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Emerge Literary Journal, The Los Angeles Review, and Superstition Review. He earned his MFA in fiction at Arizona State University. Check out his website matthewbrennan.net and follow him on Twitter @MatthewBrennan7.

Nutcrackers

by Brian Michael Barbeito

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Christmas in July 201 7

About the photographer Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian writer and photographer. Recent work appears at Fiction International and Compose Journal.

The Old Man in Beijing: A Christmas Carol By CG Fewston The old man stood in the haze of China’s greatest city with two certainties on his mind: one, the haze (caused by contaminants, such as Sulphur dioxide, from Beijing’s industrial district) warmed the December day and the good earth to a magnitude when snow must retreat from the power of the human hand found in the manipulation and distortion of the climate and weather itself; and two, a warmer city meant a snowless city which also meant far fewer deaths from freezing that Christmas. But the haze surrounded the old man as he shopped along an outdoor market on a street not too far from where he lived. At one of the shops selling nuts and dried fruits the old man pointed at a barrel and raised two fingers. On his head, he wore a proletarian hat of dulled blue, on his back he wore a coat of the same color, a hue fitting the snowless smog which left a taste of copper on the old man’s tongue. The middleaged woman with an apron behind the barrels retrieved a plastic bag and scooped in the dried banana chips; she tossed the bag onto the scale next to her as she must’ve done a hundred times a day and measured her portions. She did all this without emotion nor a word and with a sickly look over her face as she knew all too well her lot in life—her ultimate purpose at being given the luckiest chance at existence on the cold, gray earth she had known since birth—that she’d be scooping nuts and dried fruits out of barrels, if she were truly lucky, for a time until she could save enough to care for her grandchildren in her old age. But the old man knew she had no children and had never married; this was another reason why the two no longer needed to speak in their interactions: the old man had met her here in this very shop when she had been a sprightly teenager with thin hips and wild hopes of leaving China for Europe. At first the two spoke in animated bursts which could last as long as thirty minutes. Then as the years grew heavier on the old man the girl developed into a young woman with hair down to her knees. She smiled lots back then when he came into the shop for pistachios and walnuts on cold days that bit

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Christmas in July 201 7 bones in two. One day, however — years ago, years ago, he told himself — he had entered her shop and found two things had happened since they last spoke: one, her long hair had been cut to her scalp as though a mad barber sheered a sheep in total darkness; and two, grave features of a subjection too severe for him to imagine had replaced the smile she wore when she greeted him. On that day, and ever since, he merely pointed at what he wanted, she responded without acknowledging his presence, he’d pay and she’d take the greasy bills, and both of them, from that point onward, had too much to say to say anything. The old man gently placed the bag of banana chips alongside a few other small plastic bags containing meat and vegetables inside a canvas bag he was carrying and walked out of the shop knowing they would see each other tomorrow. The old man walked the streets of Beijing with his head hung low, his eyes squinted beneath the brim of his hat, and his shoulders slumped to either side even though he carried nothing more than the canvas bag halffilled with a few groceries for that day’s meal. No one spoke to him and he spoke to no one. Later that night he dreamed of the shopwoman young again standing and smiling behind the barrels of nuts and dried fruits. He woke in the warm darkness, drank a glass of water and returned to bed where he dreamed a dream few city people would have. The old man dreamed of wide open plains in the bright of day and he dreamed of hills rolling that he faintly recalled — in his heart and in no other place — seeing as a small boy. The old man was not a boy but an old man sitting on a solid horse. The horse stepped to the side and heaved heavy breaths that came funneling out the great cavities of its wet nose and mouth. The old man turned in his saddle when he heard the stallions stampeding down into the valley below him and in all their wildness he saw untarnished beauty. He sat for a time watching the pack of horses run across the open land like a flock of birds in playful flight over open waters, and he felt pleased at all he saw. After a time — who can say how long for time does not exist in dreams — a mare appeared on an opposite ridge and held her neck to the wind where her black mane and tail, long flowing rivers of hair, stretched and grew until she no longer seemed a horse but a strange god one must bow before and fear. When the mare turned her gaze onto him, he surprised himself when he jolted back and had to regain a proper seat in the saddle. The look in the mare’s eyes frightened the old man — who now looked at his hands to find them young — but the mare’s eyes held an endearing sympathy which seemed to pity the man. The man did not move — nor did the horse he sat upon — when the mare found a trail down her ridge and up to his, and she drew close to the man’s side. The man’s hand trembled as he reached a finger out to touch the mare on her forehead. He almost didn’t but when she nodded to convey to him that he must, he stretched out his finger, a child’s finger, even farther. When his finger touched the spot between her eyes he saw the wildness, and the beauty, leave her eyes. The old man woke, still dark out, and drank another glass of water, and despite having forgotten all the images of the dream, he recalled the sensations as though the barren limbs and branches outside his window in the gray halflight did not belong to a tree at all but another creature entirely. That same day — all the acrid sameness seemed neverending—the sun appeared as a smudgy thumbprint on layers of cerecloth in the early morning sky over Beijing. A Red Alert had been issued because pollution levels had climbed above 500 — far beyond 300 on the air quality index which marked levels hazardous to health — so schools would be closed, but the old man on his walk to the market saw no children playing outside, nor could he see the buildings ten to fifteen blocks in the distance, only a construction crane out of all that dirtywhite mess pointed a yellow

arm in the direction for the old man to follow, though he required no sign nor portent to show him the way; on some days he walked without sight, the pollution had been that bad. Though he could not tell you why, the old man liked — it pleased him so — to think the smog was actually a new kind of snow that chose to remain suspended between the heavens and the earth. A month ago, however, the temperature had dropped to 8˚C and the snows had come but today the factories warmed the city to a comfortable 10˚C and kept the air dry. Which would be worse, the old man asked himself: die a certain death in a single night from the severity of the cold or die a possible death in thirty or forty years — which he did not have — from the toxic pollutants rising invisibly day after day? He had no answers to such questions. Life was harsh. That was something the old man knew to be true. That day, all he needed to do, was buy some meat and vegetables for his supper and to desire anything more would be impractical. He entered the same shop that sold the nuts and dried fruits in barrels and pointed to the hazelnuts, his favorite, and raised his thumb with two additional fingers to show he wanted three portions. The shopwoman, the one he had known for over twenty years, acted as though she knew all along the old man wanted hazelnuts. She scooped in three large portions of hazelnuts into a plastic bag, weighed it on the scale next to her, added a little more and tied the bag closed. She handed the bag over the barrels without looking at the old man, as if she were ashamed of something deep within her, as if she were wrong to be who she was, and when her right hand took possession of the five large rolls of clean bills neatly held together by a single rubberband her left hand had to instantly come under and help catch the rolls of bills. Her eyes studied the five neatly rolled stacks of bills in both her hands before lifting to show hot tears in her eyes. The old man, however, did not see the shopwoman but the lively young girl he had met and lost all those years ago. In her native tongue she said, “Da shu?” She called him “uncle” because she still didn’t know his name. “I don’t understand.” The hot tears fell off her cheeks and onto the nuts and dried fruits in the barrels. “Go,” the old man said in Mandarin. “I want to never see you again.” He turned and left the small shop and deposited the bag of hazelnuts into the larger canvas bag he carried and walked the long way home. In the middle of the night the old man, unable to sleep, took a walk and thought of a past, his past now like a dream, that no longer existed; a past when he had been celebrated as an astrophysicist for his theories on the finiteinfinite Universe. He had concluded the Universe did have boundaries, thus being finite. Those boundaries, however, were in a constant state of being destroyed (at the origin of the Big Bang) and being created (at the edges of the known Universe expanding ever outward at a greater rate than the degrading core within, giving the impression of a “growing” universe); thereby, becoming an infinite universe. The Universe, he had believed, was constantly being destroyed and created, and that no matter the speed or mode of travel one could never reach the beginning of the Universe (it no longer existed; equivalent to a person attempting to reach Yesterday) and that no matter the speed or mode of travel one could never reach the end of the Universe (it waited to exist; equivalent to a person attempting to touch Tomorrow); he had discovered a true representative model of Alpha and Omega. He, as a much younger man, had finally concluded that Time is Space and that Space is Time and while one is being destroyed and created so is the other. His theory took one small step beyond the known concept of the continuum known as Spacetime, that fourdimensional enigma also known as Minkowski space or Minkowski spacetime.

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Christmas in July 201 7 In the end, after too many years to count, he had failed in his mathematical proofs and had been discredited by the scientific community. With all this off his mind, the old man found his way home again and fell fast asleep. In the morning on Christmas day, the old man found the temperature had fallen to 8˚C and the snows, white beautiful powder, blanketed trees, cars and streets. The factories had stopped in the night and the winds had come to sweep the sky clean to a gentler blue. The old man walked to the outdoor market to buy some mutton, and as he passed by the shop that sold the nuts and dried fruits he saw an elderly woman, who had a ghostly appearance akin to Death, in place of the middleaged shopwoman he had given the five rolls of bills to the day before. He would never see the young woman again. She simply vanished in Time and Space. With the snows warming on the ground, the old man detoured through the park on his way home. As the sky darkened later that evening, the old man lit two candles in a silver candelabra and sat at a wooden table to eat his supper of roasted mutton. Next to a glass of warm water was a bowl filled with banana chips. He almost didn’t do it, as though the words wouldn’t come. But the words did come. The old man, by candlelight, folded one hand within the other, his elbows rested on the table, and bowed his head to say, in English, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

About the author CG Fewston was born in Texas in 1979 and now lives in Hong Kong. He is the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Father's Son, The New America: A Collection, Vanity of Vanities, and A Time to Love in Tehran. Follow his website cgfewston.me.

Wish By Jim Hirtle I listened to her walking across the kitchen linoleum. Any second now, the screen door will open and she’ll interrupt my morning. I know she doesn’t intend to, but you would think after thirty years, she would know this is my special place. Back porch, hot coffee, a buttered English muffin, and hopefully, a morning sky painted by the sun; fiery orange streaks crossing the horizon — that’s my place. This morning the sun is lurking behind gray clouds. A promise of Christmas snow? It doesn’t happen often, but you never know. A good snow would be nice right about now, it might take the bite out of the bad news. I can hope. The weighty clouds are keeping Winter’s bite out of the bitter cold that rolled in Thursday night. I don’t tolerate the cold anymore. Hot coffee used to be enough to lubricate, get the parts moving. But the older I get, well, nothing shakes the cold away. I have my Carhartts on over my pajamas. My granddaughter would not approve of this muddle of fashions, but she’s not here —probably a good thing — she’s not going to take the news well. The old hinges on the screen door complains, proclaiming my wife’s arrival. “You’re up early.” She chimes. She carries two fresh mugs of hot coffee. I’ve been getting up at the same time for as many years as we’ve been married. But I say nothing to her. Her memory is getting sicker every day. The doctor said it would be a slow process, the memory loss that is. He was wrong. She hands me a cup and then plants a kiss on my cheek. Her hand comes up and wipes away lipstick that isn’t there. She believes it is, a habit of many years. I don’t waste any time, recognizing she will likely forget everything before lunchtime, “The dog is

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Christmas in July 201 7 dead.” I say quietly. She says nothing. She’s just sits there in the twin rocker, smiling at the morning. That dang dog. It was gift last Christmas, for my grandson. Becky, that’s my wife, was determined to get the boy his first puppy. She hadn’t taken sick yet, Christmas was still the most special time of year for her. The pup wasn’t much. As a matter of fact, it was free. Free was good. The past three years have been tough. The government makes it harder and harder for a farmer to make a decent living. I hoped things would be better when the republicans took over, and it was for a short while. But last years’ crop was hit hard by ear rot, no politician could stop that. Anyway, not much money was put in the bank. Becky was at the Walmart when she first saw the dog. A little girl and her mama had the pups in old cardboard box, there were six of them in there. Of course, my wife would pick the runt. That little whippersnapper couldn’t run three steps without tripping over itself. But that didn’t matter to her, she wanted it for our grandson. We left there with one more passenger sitting in my pickup truck and a fiftypound bag of dog food in the bed. That puppy pee’d twice on the way back to the house. I fussed about the smell, but she just rolled down her window a little more; her and her smile never parting ways. I glance over at her, sittin in that rocker. She has that same smile on her face. She doesn’t understand that Wish is dead. “Wish” was the name my grandson tagged the puppy with. His daddy, my soninlaw, the democrat, didn’t think the notion of a puppy for Christmas was a good one. It’s probably because he still lives in an apartment building that’s not big enough for a family, much less a dog. What my daughter ever saw in him is mystery to me. But she appears to be happy, so I keep quiet. That’s harder to do than you might imagine. Becky told her soninlaw to pipe down. “It’s a Christmas wish.” She said. “A Christmas wish is the greatest wish of all. It’s made of snow that’s never melts, touched by an angel sent by God. Every child is granted just one Christmas wish, a hope that will last a lifetime. Andy, (that’s our grandson) wished for a puppy. You can’t take away his one and only Christmas wish, can you?” I recall watching my soninlaw squirm as I waited to hear his answer. That might have been the best part of Christmas day for me. He relented under his motherinlaw’s smile, agreeing to the puppy. The problem was that the puppy couldn’t go home with them. There was a “No Pets” policy at the place they were living. My wife, always smiling, said “No problem. Wish can stay here on the farm with us until you have a real home.” That must have stung a little bit, but I don’t think she did it on purpose. That’s how Wish ended up staying here with us. He wasn’t much of a dog; looked like he was made up of a dozen different breeds. Mixed together like that, makes him a mutt. That dang dog chased me everywhere, always underfoot. I took him hunting with me once, maybe he could find a use. He scared away every confounded turkey within a mile with his prancing about. He would run back over to me, where I sat in the small makeshift blind, with that stupid dog smile on his face, as if he had just accomplished a great victory. For a dog, he had no sense of direction at all. He got lost in the cornfield more than a couple of times. Becky would send me out before it got too dark to look for Wish, if he hadn’t made it back by supper time. I ate cold potatoes too many times because of that dang dog. Getting lost in the cornfield is what ended up killing him. The dog also laid claim to my place. I’d come out in the morning and there he would be, all curled up in front of my rocker. I’d gently nudge him with the toe of my boot until he moved away, just enough to let me sit down. Wish would just sit, watching me drink my coffee and eat my muffin. He was waiting for me to drop a crumb or two; when I did, he’d be all over it faster than you can say pickled

pizza. Wish was the only dog I ever met that liked orange marmalade more than bacon. Our grandchildren would come to visit three or four times a year. Wish would greet them with dog kisses, jumping up and down like a mad man. That was about the only time that dang dog wasn’t under my feet. And now he’s dead. “What happened?” It was my wife. She slowly rocked back and forth in the chair. A single tear rolled down her cheek. I thought she must be talking about the dog, can’t be for certain these days. I didn’t know how much to tell her. All she needed to know was that Wish was dead. Our grandchildren would be here later today. Wish wouldn’t be there to greet them. It was going to be hard. I found Wish this morning. He had been out all night. I guess that was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention and Becky hadn’t noticed that he was still gone come supper time, so she didn’t make me go find him. There are many things she doesn’t notice anymore — but I should have. When he wasn’t sittin in front of my rocker this morning I headed out to the field. Last night the temperatures had dropped below freezing, but not too cold for a dog. If he had gone into the field… Well he did. That’s where the mountain lion got him. Wish was dead when I found him, but it looked like he had given that big cat a helluva fight. I buried him on the north end of the field. The soil there was soft and easy to turn. No crops would be planted there for at least two more years. I said a little prayer for that dog before coming back to my place. I don’t know if dogs go to heaven or not. But if marrying Becky Cross taught me anything, it was that prayers have never hurt. “I still have mine.” Becky said. She had stopped crying and was looking out at the dwindling cornfield. Where was she at? Her mind tends to wander away from reality without any warning. I put my hand on top of my wife’s. “You still have what, baby?” I asked her. “My Christmas wish.” She whispered. For the next twenty minutes my wife spoke to me like she hasn’t since becoming ill. She said that when she was a little girl, she would always save her Christmas wish for the next year. Her family was dirt poor, farmers with brown thumbs. She said she always felt guilty when contemplating her wish. She knew she should wish for something her family needed, but being so young, wasn’t sure what that might be. As she got older, she had stopped believing in Christmas wishes, and before long forgot about them altogether. Until now. She finished talking, reaching over she ran her hand over my gray whiskers. She smiled, “I love that sound.” She said. Becky stood up and walked back into the house. I sat slumped in my chair, thinking about that dang dog and her story. The day was getting colder. A wind had picked up, making the brown corn stalks dance to and fro. The sound they made was soothing and my eyes felt heavy. I got a blanket out of the old cedar chest that sat next to the rockers, and settled back down. I could hear Becky moving around in the kitchen, she was singing a Christmas song that I hadn’t heard in years. I pushed back in the rocker and closed my eyes. I dreamed about my back porch and orange skies. I dreamed about my wife. I even dreamed about that dang dog. I sat up, startled by the sound of my grandchildren running through the house. I heard the boy calling out, “Here Wish, come here boy”. I remembered the dog was dead. I need to go in and tell them, but I didn’t want to. This is why I never wanted dogs! They die, and somebody must tell the children about it. That somebody was going to have to be me, and I didn’t want to. Dang dog! I never heard him coming. I opened the screen door, seeing my daughter and her family standing in the middle of the kitchen. Becky was hugging our granddaughter, brushing her long blond hair out of her face. The dog ran past me, almost knocking me on my butt. “Wish!”, my grandson yelled.

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Christmas in July 201 7 The dog jumped up onto the boy, (he did knock him on his butt) and slobbered dog kisses all over his face. I could only stand there staring. The dog was dead. I was certain of that. I looked at my work boots, I could still see dirt from the north field. I had buried that dog. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Wish had no signs of the fight he had lost to the mountain lion. In fact, his coat looked brighter than ever. My grandson was laughing, trying to push the dog off. My daughter looked at me and smiled, “Merry Christmas, Dad” she said. I just stood there with my mouth hung open like a miner’s cave. Becky looked over at me, her smile was so beautiful. “Christmas wish.” She whispered. “Now, let’s make some pies!”.

*** It’s Christmas morning. As I look across the field, I think about holidays passed. The dead corn is blanketed in snow. Christmas snow. It doesn’t happen very often, but you never know. The coffee is good this morning. My English muffin sits untouched. I don’t have much of an appetite. Wish is curled up at my feet. He ignores the muffin and marmalade too. I wait to hear her footsteps on the linoleum floor. She will come out, disturbing my place. She’s been doing that for more years than I can count. I guess it was always our place. But she won’t come. Two nights ago, the eve of Christmas eve, I guess, I was sittin right here wondering about the chances of a white Christmas. My grandkids would sure love that. I don’t think it ever snows in southern California. I heard a crash come from the kitchen, then my daughter screaming, “Mom!”. She was on the floor when I ran into the brightly lit kitchen. I knew right away she was dead. The doctor said it was a brain aneurysm. She probably didn’t feel a thing. That’s good, I guess. She was baking Christmas pies, or at least she thought she was. The counter top was covered in flour, white as Christmas snow. It was on her face and her apron too. Her pretty face. But nothing else. No pie fillings, no pie pans…nothing. She died thinking about me. A cold wind blows across the porch. Wish moans and curls against my boots. I pat the dog between his ears, “It’s okay, boy.” I tell him. I close my eyes trying to remember. It was too long ago to be sure. Christmas day, when I was just a boy, usually meant doing the work my old man was too drunk to do. If I had a Christmas wish, I am sure I would have used it back then. But what if I didn’t? I close my eyes. I see Becky’s smile. I wish… The End… but not of Christmas Wishes

About the author Jim Hirtle is the author of Going Numb and Addicted to Faith. He is also a fiction writer whose works include The Wooden Box, Faith Alaska, Broken Crosses and his latest novel, It Takes A God. Jim lives in New Braunfels, Texas with his son. His blog: addictedtofaith.blogspot.com/.

Dreaming of Chicago By Nicole Jean Turner She was a sucker for Christmas, once. Mint chip shakes and twinkling lights tugged at her heart and melted her over annually into the spirit. Those clanking dishes in the diner, the overhead conversations muffled by snow patting off wool coats and rubber boots kicking loose their packed treads. Ahh yes, that city magic that made something of the season, somehow transformed passing taxis into golden sleighs, made the bite of the first frost feel more like a perfectly chilled kiss... She misses it sometimes. Considers sitting down to write, to send back love and condolences for the many years missed, but that spirit doesn’t move her into action anymore. It can’t get in. This new home isn’t Santa’s workshop. It’s just work she got on a temp job, something to sustain the seasonal need

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Christmas in July 201 7 for additional rations and apartment heating; she’s recovering daily from the Visa itching out of her pocket insisting these savings can’t be missed—who else in your life needs a gift? But that’s just the corner busk saxophoner from Chicago, ingrained in her, talking a voice that doesn’t know any better; it’s the sweaterwrapped inner ghost of Christmas' past dreaming of the city begging her to come back. Back to casting balls of snow in loose mittens, aiming for warm globe lights along the bridge in Grant park, the perfect target to shatter mini showers on interlocked lovers passing under fire headed into diners she once threw laughter off the walls of. All December long, they’re still bustling with red and green lights still strung along the doors. The streets are still decked with all the colors of yuletide love, but she doesn’t do Christmas anymore. It’s not for her. Today she sips lukewarm corporate coco behind a register, open to close. The magic of the season was lost in retail madness five or six Never Been Bigger—One Day! sales ago. Adulthood can do that, showcased in her tone, unweave the loose threads of your cherished reindeer flannels and leave you naked and alone on the street when mom and dad stop believing in your sugar plum stardom dreams. She shows me how a warm heart can’t sustain the body alone, then says to me, "The changing of the guard from chronic to seasonal depression is the only tradition I keep up. Maybe one day I’ll write home about it, but for now, is receipt in the bag good enough?"

About the author Nicole Jean Turner is an artist from the Greater Boston area with an affinity for vignettes, napping outdoors, and conversations that confront the human condition. She completed her master's in writing at 21, and expects to pay off her student loans by age 87. Read her latest at, NJTPoetry.com.

The Christmas Secret By Victoria Pitts Cain For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known. Luke 8:17 “Promise me you won’t look.” Travis stuck his head around the door jamb. “Come get me first.” Wideeyed, I nodded and curls bounced as my sixteenyearold brother disappeared from view. Ten years older, I idolized him and hung on his every word. Nestled into a pink ruffled comforter for the long Christmas Eve night, eyes squeezed shut, sleep wouldn’t come for me. In the stillness, the soft voices drifted beneath the door; the events played out from a few hours earlier, traditions the same as last season and the one before. Our father’s business held an open house every year on December 24, and afterward he brought home the spoils special meats Mother prepared, breads, cheeses, and salads. She added more home cooked goodness along with cookies, fudge, and storebought candies my favorites the orange slices and gleaming ribbons of sugar spun in red and green. We sat around the table eating dinner, silverware clicking on the china. The magical part of the meal — our parents letting us fill our plates with whatever we wanted. No eat your vegetables first, no wait until you finish so you may have dessert. For this one meal, once a year, the rules were cast aside; a guarantee I wouldn’t be left alone with a heap of green beans after everyone else had departed the cavernous dining area. I kept my eyes trained on the tree in the next room. We opened gifts on Christmas Eve, except for those brought by Santa the next morning. At this point in the evening, the game began. I didn’t understand for years how Dad enjoyed this wrestling match of wills, his against mine. Travis was much too old for this, and I too young to remember if it happened before I took up the fight. Probably it did.

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Christmas in July 201 7 “Daddy, can we open presents now?” “No, help your mom with the dishes.” “Now, Daddy?” “Let me read the paper.” The hands on the clock crept into another hour. Close to bedtime, dread filled my little heart. Would he make us wait until tomorrow? “Please, Daddy?” “Well, okay.” I won, not understanding he’d won until much later when I realized this little tradition brought him such bliss, like the bags and bags of confections he’d selected and brought home during the holiday. Mother, an artful baker and candy maker, kept the kitchen full, but his offering of cellophane encased goodies delivered another layer of fascination to Christmas. It was a special year. My father’s business, started when I was a baby, had done well. There was a new wedding ring for Mother and new dishes too, red rimmed with white centers... things she held on to years later. I don’t remember what my brother and I received; most likely the obligatory clothes and underwear. The real goods arrived during the long winter night. We sat under the glow of the lone floor lamp and the bright bulbs of an enormous tree, another dose of accidental enchantment that particular year. The tree arrived lights, colored Christmas ornaments, and all from a party Father’s lodge had given. (Each year the tree had gone home with some lucky family, but never us.) It rustled through the door holding on to its adornment and claiming a predestined place reaching toward the ceiling in the corner. Fresh plucked from the forest, I thought it had at least touched the clouds. Me, little in stature and large on imagination, not once thought it hadn’t. This Christmas wedged in my mind beyond any other from my youth because as a family, we were on the brink of change. The old twostory across from the high school in the small town I grew up in would always be remembered as the primary home of our childhood even though we lived in four others and spent only a handful of years there. Fond memories, planted and cultivated, carried with me across the imaginary line to adulthood. A giant Umbrella tree stood in the yard. The rope swing attached to its graceful arm held me safe. I pumped skinny legs to go forward and climbed into the sky, feeling the rush of air as I skimmed the ground. The thrust back made me giggle before I’d plunge and do it again. The frilly dress with the Raggedy Ann pockets flapped in the breeze. Wind in my face, free, without a care for the past or the future. The family dog and I would roll down the grassy hill in back, which may have been only a bump in the yard, but provided a great deal of barking and itchy fun. Bruce, the kid across the street (and later the object of a small junior high crush) and I played cowboys. Neither allowed to cross, we rode our stick horses up and down our respective sides. Our family moved from that house in three short years and Travis, by rite of passage, left the circle. The intimacy of that standout Christmas along with other memories stayed tucked away in my heart. When the early light of Christmas filled the room, I crept from bed. Run to the stairs. Don’t look at the tree. Out of the doorway and across the dining room floor, feet slapping blue and brown linoleum squares, I froze. I turned my head—a chanced glimpse toward the delights left for us. I’ll take a quick peek. Travis won’t find out. A rag doll, flat features and painted face, stood to one side. I later discovered she had elastic on her hands and feet. The doll, the same size as me, would be a dancing partner for a while. My brother

had a new tennis racket leaned up against Mother’s favorite red overstuffed chair. I remembered little else in the room but what I did remember was the piercing fear I’d done something I promised I wouldn’t. I peered around. I’m the only one awake. Who will know? I bounced up the stairs to rouse Travis, not saying a word I’d broken his trust. The rest of the day proceeded as normal. Mother fixed a big breakfast with a bigger dinner following later in the day. We played with our spoils, and I kept the secret. Years severed the ties with my brother. We did not live in the same house again. He married and settled in our hometown for a while. I married and relocated to San Diego, and by the time I came back home, he’d moved three hundred miles away. He had been my protector, my hero, my big brother, and growing up changed that. The emotional closeness we had when I was six, evaporated. Several decades later, I wrote a note on his Christmas card informing him I’d kept a secret all these years. I confessed. He chuckled when we talked on the phone, the laughter in his voice made it seem like it all happened yesterday.

About the author Victoria Pitts Caine is a native Californian and lives in the central portion of the state. Her varied interests include genealogy and exotic gemstone collecting both of which she's incorporated into her novels. The author has received recognition in both fiction and nonfiction from: Enduring Romance top 10 picks for 2008, William Saroyan Writing Conference, Byline Magazine, Writer's Journal Magazine, Holt International Children's Services Magazine, and The Southern California Genealogical Society. Her first novel was published in 2007 followed by two more as well as novellas and short stories in anthologies. Check out her website, vcaine.homestead.com, her blog victoriapittscaine.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @VictoriaPittsC.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Two Days 'til Christmas By Deborah LeFalle

December 23rd — no Christmas t rr eee eeee and nary holiday décor on my front por ch. Unus al for me. Am I lagging or is the world >m>o>v>i>n>g> >s>o> >f>a>s>t> I can’t keep up? Seems I lost a s/l/i/c/e of t e i m somewhere, like a week – no, a month! Wasn’t October only a few days ago? Did November lose its place in l i n e ? Standing in my front walkway I query myself Do I really want to drag out all those boxes from the basement at this late date? Or do I eave the porch asis with the fading transseasonal wreath on the door that’s been there all year? Before my mind can spew out an answer my neighbor appears with two p d red amaryllises o e t t dnah hcae ni eno one in each hand | asking if I will |babysit them | | while she goes out of town. I gladly sayyes and in an instant my dilemma is no more. What if everything was this easy to s + o = lve?

About the author Deborah LeFalle is a retired educator who enjoys writing, supporting the arts, and spending time outdoors communing with nature. Poetry is the genre of writing she is drawn to most, with inspiration for her poems often stemming from personal experiences. Her work has appeared in anthologies, journals, magazine, and ebooks, as well as on literary websites. She lives a simple, gratitudefilled life in Northern California.

A Little Miracle

By Sydne Gernaat

Andy watched as her mother closed the door to her little pink room. The bedroom still clung to the Barbieloving inhabitant of the past. But now Andy felt like a different girl, a foreign invader attempting to slip back into her past. It had been a long debate about whether Andy would even come back home after the semester ended. Money was tight and her apartment lease went through most of July. But since her new lease didn’t start until September, the decision came that it was cheaper to have her return home. Andy tried to remember the blur of freshman year. A new collection of friends, but still feeling like an outsider; a real interest in her classes, but she couldn’t figure out how they would transition to the real world. It was all so hard. Sitting up, Andy remembered her notebook. She began searching underneath her pillows and mattress until she found the battered blue book hidden behind her nightstand. On the last page was a series of questions, everything Andy had wanted to know before she left for college. Would she get a boyfriend? How many friends would she have? Would she like her roommates? At the bottom, scribbled in tiny letters, Andy had written, “Will I be able to come home for Christmas?” That had been the hardest question to ask. It hinted too close to the real world instead of an idealized college experience. It asked if Andy’s mom was still out of a job or working for minimum wage. It questioned whether they would both still be struggling paycheck to paycheck after her mom lost her job. It meant that for the first time her life, Andy might have to spend a Christmas entirely alone. Andy shoved aside the notebook. She hadn’t wanted to remember that Christmas; freezing in her apartment, watching old movies on the couch and calling her mom early in the morning as they opened a few presents. Both of them pretended to be fine, faking joy and cheer for the sake of the other, and neither one of them buying it. It had been a hard year.

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Christmas in July 201 7 Andy’s mom called her down for dinner, so she shoved aside her unopened suitcase and started downstairs. Inside their modest kitchen, Andy found a little miracle. Covering the tile floors was fauxsnow. Lights glowed from around the kitchen table with a miniature evergreen resting at its center. Gifts wrapped in red and gold shined cheerily beneath, waiting to be opened. Andy stared at it all in awe as her mom plopped a Santa hat on her head. “Merry Christmas in July.” Shocked, Andy could only look at her mother. “I know it’s cheesy, but I thought this could be our thing, just the two of us. But if you don’t like it—” She didn’t finish her thought as Andy strangled her in a bear hug. Tears clung to her lashes as she pressed her mom closer to her. “It’s perfect.”

About the author Sydne Gernaat is a writer currently living and attempting to work in Chicago. Her stories are filled with complex female characters, and explorations in of selfworth and the confusion of growing up. Sydne is constantly writing and working to support her addiction to books. She has currently published two flash fiction pieces through 101 Words.com along with reaching the final stages of publishing an online children's book. Learn more about her at sydnegernaat.com.

Miranda's Christmas in July By Sabrina Eads

Miranda's favorite holiday had always been Christmas. When she learned that her condition was terminal and the doctor predicted only a month to live, one of her laments was that she wouldn't be able to have one last Christmas. "I can't believe it," she said to her best friend, Christine. "None of the things I love the best. No more cocoa in winter, no more snow, no more carols, no more beautiful Christmas eve midnight service." Christine squeezed Miranda's hand. "I know. Let's get you settled and comfortable." When Christine left that night, she collected all her and Miranda's Christmas decor. She took it to the hospice center where Miranda had moved, and toted the box past the desk. "Ah, ah, ah," a nurse called out. "What do you have there?" "It's Christmas decorations," said Christine. "Miranda Smith wanted just one more and I thought I'd surprise her." "We can't allow that. the pine smell can make other patients feel sick to their stomachs." "Not even a few nonÂpine decorations?" "It's against our policy." Christine toted the box back out. Miranda was in bed when Christine came back in. Miranda and Christine talked of Christmases past when they had volunteered at food drives, clothing drives, and blanket drives for the homeless. They talked about the gifts they had received, and the gifts they had given. "You know, Miranda, I tried to bring Christmas to you. The decorations, at least. The nurse at the desk wouldn't allow it." Miranda nodded and they were quiet for a moment. "I know what we could do!" Miranda exclaimed. "The best part of Christmas isn't the tree or the decorations. It's the spirit. What if we talked to everyone, to learn about what they would most like before they die, and try to do it?"

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Christmas in July 201 7 Christine looked dubious, but agreed to give it a try. They were lucky; the hospice facility was small and only three other people lived there at present. The first one, Carol Anne, was easy. "What do I want before I die? Just to have one more meal from my favorite restaurant, Empire Cafe." Christine obliged and picked it up to bring it to Carol Ann. Miranda helped her deliver it. They all ate together, talking of great meals in times past. The second person, Jarrod, wanted one last Cuban. "I am sure smoking when I am dying of lung cancer is probably frowned upon, but it's a bit late to be too bothered by it. I've lived nearly 80 years, and it was quite an adventure," he said, racked with a cough every few words. Christine worked her contacts and eventually found a former boss who had been able to obtain a Cuban cigar for Jarrod. As he smoked it outside in the hospice’s garden, he offered stories of his time in Cuba prior to the Cuban embargo in 1962. Miranda and Christine listened politely, and made an exit as soon as etiquette would allow, as they were not smokers and found smoking unpleasant. The last person, Merilee, wanted to see her kids once more before she left. The trouble was, they were all estranged. She wasn’t good with all the modern conveniences technology offered, and did not know how to get in touch with them anymore. Christine worked miracles and was able to find them via Facebook, and convinced them to come see their mother. It was a happy family reunion as they mended fences and caught up together. One evening, Christine was sitting with Miranda, a little dejected because Miranda was the only one whose wish had not truly been fulfilled. She began to open her mouth the express that thought, when Merilee, Jarrod, Carol Anne, and the nurses came into the room, with boxes wrapped in Christmas paper, cocoa with whipped cream, and a little music box tinkling out the Christmas carol Silent Night.With them was a gentleman she had not yet met, and he carried candles with plastic saucers underneath. "We brought Pastor Pettigrew to offer up a Christmas eve in July service. Not at midnight, but we will still do the candle lighting," said Carol Anne. "Yes, and there's presents! Open them," said Merilee. They had each given Miranda and Christine gifts; for Miranda, Christmas cookies in the shape of crosses, with scriptures written on them, fake canned snow, and a soft pajama set with "Let It Snow!" emblazoned on the shirt; For Christine, a spa day at a nearby spa. "You took care of us; now we will make you take care of yourself!" joked Jarrod. As they all celebrated Christmas with a service, their candles lit and making the air conditioning work ever harder in the July heat, Miranda had a big smile on her face. "You all have touched me with this amazing gift before I go. One last Christmas. Maybe you are all my angels who made it come true." The pastor led them all in song, Angels We Have Heard on High, and Miranda's voice was the loudest.

About the author Sabrina Eads has written since early childhood, and has a story coming out in the Houston Writers' House anthology. Learn more about her at sabrinaeads.com.

Star of Chryse By David Hann Some might think I'm crazy, but this time of year I still think Christmas miracles occur. A couple of years ago I was stationed on Mars as the base commander at Chryse. It was December 24th, and things had started to go bad. See, normally we can predict when there's going to be a dust storm, but sometimes they come up out of nowhere. That's what happened that afternoon. Maybe if we hadn't all been thinking about the next day's Christmas party we would have paid more attention to the dropping atmospheric pressure; who knows. By the time the storm hit, it was too late to be worried about who should have done what. I was in the control center when I noticed the sudden drop in visibility and the sound of dust being driven across the glass viewports. The Martian atmosphere may be thin, but it can pick up a lot of material when it gets moving. I was cursing the weather and thinking about the protocols for battening down the station under these conditions when my second in command, Rolf Orlev, ran in. I could tell right away from his expression that we had a problem. “We still have two people out there,“ he said. That wasn't good. Sandstorms drop visibility and, combined with the fact that night would be falling in an hour or so, made it likely that our people would find it impossible to get back to the station. To make matters worse, the storms build up a huge static charge and effectively ionize the atmosphere. Radios become useless. ”Who?“ “Peter Church and Lin Yuling. They went out to study how the local geology reacts to the temperature drops in the evening.” Well that at least was good news. If they'd planned to be out after nightfall they'd have plenty of oxygen and well insulated EVA suits, but that wouldn't help them get back home if they couldn't see. Rolf, bless him, always tried to look on the bright side of things. “At least we don't have any airships out in this,“ he said. We used, as they still do, large hydrogen filled airships, powered by solarelectric engines, to do any medium range work on Mars. The hydrogen can be cracked out of local ice after it's melted. The extracted oxygen can be used to top up the base's supply. Mars' atmosphere is so thin and oxygen poor that there is no risk of a catastrophic hydrogen explosion. Thinking about that gave me an idea. “The strobe!” The airships moored at a large tower set near the middle of the base complex before their hydrogen was pumped out and they were lowered to the ground to be stored. The mooring tower was topped with a large and very powerful strobe to help guide them in. It might be able to cut through the sandstorm and rapidly falling night to guide in our lost people.

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Christmas in July 201 7 Rolf raced to his console to activate it just as an alarm blared out in the control room. I checked my screen pressure alert. Among the joys of Martian soil is the fact that it is laced with superoxides. They are highly corrosive particularly when whipped about by a storm. They could eat through exterior fittings and cause leaks. I would have to go and supervise the cleanup myself. ”Rolf,“ I said, “I have to go and deal with a leak. You take over here.” As I ran for the door, I heard a couple of loud bangs from the electrical cabinet behind the control center. ”Circuit breakers, Rolf,” I shouted on my way out the door. ”Reset them.” With a couple of the others, it took me about two hours to find the leak in Section Four. The superoxides had eaten through another rubber seal. Then we had to clean up the mess the dust had caused. The fact that we had missing people had slipped to the back of my mind until I heard a faint radio signal though my earpiece. ”...coming...see...door...main lock...” They had managed to find their way back! I told the other two to finish up the cleaning and ran off to the main airlock. The cycle was just finishing when I got there. The inner door swung open and Peter and Yuling stepped through. They both looked exhausted, but very happy. I hugged them both and asked, 'How did you get back?' Peter grinned at me. ” We got really worried when the storm hit,” he said. ” We didn't see how we could find our way through all the murk, especially as the sun was going down. I really thought we were done for. Then I saw a light and remembered, when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy and followed it. I figured, if it was good enough for them, then it's good enough for me. We followed the light as well as we could through the storm and found ourselves at the outer marker of the base. From there it was reasonably easy.” The strobe had worked. I got my people back. I told them to go and get checked by the doctor and then turn in. They'd had a busy night, and tomorrow was Christmas. Before I called it a night, I thought I'd better go and see Rolf. I grabbed a cup of tea and went back to the control center. “Rolf,” I said, “that strobe worked perfectly. Our lost people came home following the light.” Rolf gave me a funny look before replying. “Those circuit breakers that went off as you left they were for the external wiring. The ionization in the atmosphere overloaded half our stuff. All the wiring on the mooring tower is fried. The strobe never got turned on. I've been spending all my time trying to run some sort of bypass.” My thoughts have been consumed with trying to determine the origin of the light.. Maybe some sort of electrical discharge off the mooring tower? Some type of ball lightning? Something else? In the end, I decided it didn't matter. My people got home and we were able to celebrate Christmas together. That's all that really matters.

About the author Dave Hann is from New Zealand. Currently he is living and working in a small city in southern China. He used to write a lot when he was at university, but real life interfered with that after graduation. He has started writing again recently, and published two short stories last year.

The Memory Blanket

By R.L. Black

The nursing home smells worse than your big brother’s bedroom. It’s the last place you want to be on the morning of Christmas Eve, but your mom insisted. “You haven’t seen Grandma in so long,” she said. “Does it matter? She doesn’t know who I am. She can’t even remember my name.” Still, your mom dropped you off, and you sit beside your grandma, her in a green Christmas sweater, you with a Santa hat on your head. You explain for the twentieth time that, no, you’re not her nurse, and your name is Lily, and you’re Annie’s girl. Might as well tell her you’re an elf from the North Pole. And then you have an idea. “Are your legs cold, Grandma?” You lift a large, crocheted blanket off the bed; it’s frazzled and worn, its rows a jumble of colors and textures. Nothing matches. You drape the blanket over her lap and tuck her in, hoping maybe she’ll get cozy and fall asleep and you can sneak out. She caresses the yarn and her cloudy eyes brighten. “Do you know what this is? This is my memory blanket.” You couldn’t care less. She squints, rubbing a chunk of fuzzy violet. A smile tugs at her thin lips. “This part here was left over from a blanket I made for my daughter when she got married.” Her long, crooked fingers move across the material, stopping on a row of bright yellow. “And this … I made a batch of hats and scarves one Christmas, for the mission down on 4th Avenue ... or maybe it was over on Central? They take care of the homeless, you know? It was the year we had that blizzard. Nobody should have to be out in that kind of weather.” Moving on to a large section of rusty brown, she laughs. “Oh, dear. I tried to make a pair of slippers for my husband, Arthur. I wanted to surprise him. I couldn’t follow that blasted pattern to save my soul. I must have unraveled them ten times before I finally gave up and bought him a pair. He wore those slippers till the soles fell off.”

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Christmas in July 201 7 She sighs and you feel a twinge of guilt. You point to a patch of soft, fuzzy pink. “And this one? Do you remember?” Her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, my. How could I forget? This was when my little granddaughter was born. She was the cutest thing, had a head full of bright, red hair, and a temper to match. But she was my little angel. They named her Lily.” You cherish the rest of the morning with your grandma, and when you go, you ask your mom to take you to the craft store. “I want to learn how to crochet.” That evening, you start your first chain, in Christmas green wool. Maybe your grandma won’t remember your visit, but you’ll remember for the both of you.

About the author R.L. Black is EIC of Unbroken and Unlost Journals, and her own writing has been published across the web and in print. Find her on Twitter @rlblackauthor.

Surprise Ball By Joan Leotta As Christmas approached last year, it looked as if our family would be low on happy surprises. My husband, Vince, was suffering recurring bouts of flu. Our daughter Vicky would be driving down to us in Myrtle Beach from Washington, but her beau, Jim Willis was not going to be able to get leave from his military duties in Afghanistan. Even worse, she confided in me she was now dubious about their relationship. My sisterinlaw, Graziella, a widow for more than three years, seemed to grow lonelier and depressed as the season progressed. Even though Graziella moved next door to us, she was dropping hints that she might spend Christmas alone instead of with us. The thought of her alone and depressed would be an unwanted surprise that would certainly tamp down the holiday spirit for everyone. I hoped that at least Vicky's annual surprise ball would offer some joy in what looked to be an otherwise lessthan happy celebration. Christmas morning's surprise ball is an annual tradition for us. The ball is crepe paper concoction I make every year for Vicky's stocking. Over the years, everyone has come to enjoy watching her unroll it, just to see what I have been able to stuff into it. When Vicki was small, I managed to find dollhouse furniture and one year, a miniature stuffed dragon to place in the center. Now that she is an adult, a keychain is often at the center. Crepe paper winds around the center gift, each layer of paper secreting stickers, coins, small candies, and more within the ball until the round mass of crepe paper is a hefty ball. Vicky's 30 now but still loves the tradition and everyone laughs as she reveals the ball's small surprises. A few days before last Christmas, Jim (Vicky's Jim) called from Afghanistan and asked to speak

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Christmas in July 201 7 with Vince. Vince listened, mumbled something, and then handed phone to me. Jim's voice was still shaky. "Hi. I just asked for Vince's permission to marry Vicky. He said yes, and now I have something to ask you. Have you made Vicky's Christmas ball yet?" "No." I was thrilled and puzzled. "Great! I'd like you to put her engagement ring in the center but there is an even bigger favor. The ring is a family heirloom and it is with my Grandmother in Charleston." He explained further. "I can’t get leave, but I plan to make my proposal over SKYPE on Christmas morning, your time, so I want her to have at least something that is real, the ring. I also would like to dictate a note to put in the little box with the ring if you can get it in time." I assured Jim that since Charleston was only a 2.5hour drive away, we would be able to help him create the perfect engagement moment for our dear daughter. However, after I hung up, the logistics of adding a drive to Charleston to Christmas my task list with Vince's illness and Vicki due to arrive all too soon made me sorry I had been so sure of myself. "Helloooooo" Gaziella called from the back door as she came in. I told her about everything. The thought of Vicki's impending engagement brought a sparkle to her eye. She offered to make the trip. "I need something positive to do. This will be fun!" I gave her the details and we called Jim's Grandmother to tell her Graziella was going to be there the next day. The following morning, about two hours after Graziella left in her ancient Ford Fiesta, my phone rang. "Now don't worry," she began, "I wasn't hurt…" My gut clenched."Front end of the car is a mess. I'm going to stay near dealership that's fixing it. I called Jim's Grandma and rescheduled. I'm about an hour out of Charleston." Just before Vicky was due to arrive the following afternoon, Graziella called again. "Dealer has to order a part. Don’t worry. The manager is taking me to pick up Vicky's ring today so I will be ready to leave from the motel tomorrow morning. Bonus is that I'm closer to home, so even though I'll be traveling on Christmas Eve, I'll be there to help you make dinner, not just eat it. " When Vicky arrived, she "bought" my story about her aunt visiting a friend and being stuck with car trouble. Early the next morning, Christmas Eve day, Graziella texted: "On my way home!" Vicky wandered into the kitchen. "Will Auntie Graz be here in time for Christmas Eve dinner?" I nodded. While Vicky helped me prepare our calamari sopra linguini, she confided more worries about Jim. "When I spoke to him yesterday about his cancelled Christmas leave, he seemed sooo unconcerned. I don’t think he really cares that we are going to be apart." I squirmed, afraid I would spill secrets. "Let's make more cookies," I suggested, hoping to divert Vicky from talking about Jim. Just as Vicky pulled the last tray of spice cookies from the oven, Graziella came in and slipped me the ring box. I ducked into my bedroom to start Vicky's surprise ball. All of the other presents were under the tree. I had all of the stocking gifts lined up in the bedroom except for Vicky's surprise ball. This year was red crepe paper.

I opened the tiny velvet ring box to put in Jim's dictated note. A sunbeam sparked rainbow reflections from the large center stone of this threediamond affair. Each gem was an oldfashioned rose cut set in squared prongs in a white gold band. Slowly I closed the box and began to wind red crepe paper around the box, stopping now and again to add in my usual array of cheap trinkets, quarters, and wrapped candies. That evening we worked our way through caviar, fresh anchovies, smoked oysters, smoked clams, and herring, shrimp, and calamari, the traditional sevenfish Christmas dinner. Artichokes added a bit of green to our meal. After supper, we read Luke 2 from scripture, opened presents, ate cookies and drank champagne. When the others went to bed, and Graziella went home, I set out stockings and Vicky's surprise ball. Christmas morning, Graziella joined us again. We dumped out our stockings and exclaimed over the candies and little gag gifts. As usual, Vicky unwound her Surprise Ball last. She knew everyone wanted to watch. When she opened the velvet box at the center, she gasped. She read the note and put on Jim's Grandma's ring. "He loves me and wants to get married," she announced to all of us. As if on cue, her Ipad chimed. Vicky flipped it open. Jim. Suddenly Graziella's purse began to sing Bossa Nova. She excused herself and went into the kitchen. Vince and I retreated to the hall to give Graziella a bit of privacy and not intrude on Graziella's call. In a few minutes, Graziella walked over to us, smiling. "That was Bill, the dealership manager. He has an appointment here in Myrtle Beach on the 28th and wants to have supper with me." ________ This year, I'm setting two new places at the Christmas dinner table, one for Bill and one for Jim, and making two surprise balls, having told everyone that I want to spread the tradition to others, starting with Graziella this year. Vicky's surprise ball will contain knitted baby slippers (surprise for Jim!) and Graziella's will hold a diamond ring from Bill.

About the author Joan Leotta has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood in Pittsburgh. Her motto is "encouraging words through pen and performance." She is a writer and story performer. Her poetry and essays appear or are forthcoming in Gnarled Oak, the A3 Review, Hobart Literary Review, Silver Birch, Postcard Poems and Prose among others. Her first poetry chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, was just released by Finishing Line Press. She also has written a series of novels, Legacy of Honor and a set of four picture books, Rosa's Shell is the latest. As a performer she has appeared up and down the East Coast in schools, festivals, museums and libraries telling folk tales and giving onewoman shows based on women from history. You can find more about her work on her blog at joanleotta.wordpress.com, follow her on twitter @beachwriter12, or on Facebook at Joan Leotta, Author and Story Performer.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Christmas at Washington Street - 1950s By Russell Reece

Mommom wouldn’t do it so Pop put up a tree every year, a small one next to the hearth with strings of bubblelights and electrified snowballs he’d had since the thirties. It was everyone’s favorite tree. I loved watching Pop tinker with the ornaments Christmas day and bask in praise he seldom received. I live alone now and put up my own tree. I try to do a good job so when the kids come over they’ll notice, get into the holiday spirit while they’re here. In the drudge of hanging decorations and getting things just right I always think of Pop gone fifty years who I know better now than I ever did back then.

About the author Russell Reece’s work has appeared in a wide variety of journals and anthologies including Memoir(and), Crimespree Magazine, The 3288 Review, Vine Leaves Literary Journal and Sliver of Stone. He has received fellowships in literature from both the Delaware Division of the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His poetry has received Best of the Net nominations and awards from the Delaware Press Association and the National Federation of Press Women. Russ cohosts 2nd Saturday Poets in Wilmington, Delaware. He lives near Bethel, Delaware along the beautiful Broad Creek. Visit him at russellreece.com.

Paying It Forward By Jennifer Jones

“...And be careful out there, folks. Record lows are expected to hit the area today. Old Man Winter's got his undies in a bunch...” The radio droned in the background as Katie's river of spilled milk threatened to cut a canyon into our granite countertop. It cascaded toward the floor where Duke awaited to lap it up. A vibrant smile of anticipation lit his sagging jowls. Katie giggled while I scolded him and poorly attempted to sop up the mess. I should've laughed myself, but there was no time for laughter — not this morning. Instead, I scurried around the kitchen: milk wiped mostly clean — check; lunchbox packed — check; Katie's munchkinsized body shoved into her puffy, Barbiepink snowsuit — check; keys, phone, briefcase — (panic) where is my briefcase? Ah, by the door — check. Of course, a morning like this would occur with my most important meeting of the year on the line AND with Tom out of town. Mental negativity flashed red behind my eyes. I backed onto the street in a rush while Katie sang Christmas carols in the backseat. Her pompom ensconced head bobbed along in perfect timing to her offtune melody. I didn't even want to go there. Christmas was days away, yet all of my hurriedly purchased gifts were still hidden from view in the attic. I would wrap them eventually...one night in the near future. Sleep was overrated anyway, right? The car's idling engine purred as I unbuckled Katie from the confines of her booster seat and escorted her up the walkway. Her short, snowsuit encased legs struggled to keep pace with my lengthy strides. I half drug her out of the frigid winter day and into the daycare. After a quick kiss, I jogged back to the warmth of the car. Dread rumbled in the pit of my stomach. It introduced itself with a leer to my hastily swallowed coffee. Meeting day anxiety ran more rampantly than usual as I motored toward an unfamiliar area of downtown. Google directed me to a cornerparking garage where I swung into the last available spot. Hmmm — maybe my day was looking up? That hope faded into obscurity as I stalked back and forth on the sidewalk. The GPS swore to me that I had arrived at my destination, however none of the immediate buildings on the block were marked. Panic wound around my throat to accompany my scarf; both constricted my airwaves. I loosened said scarf and attempted deep, calming breaths to quell the panic, but the frigidity of the climate unleashed the sensation of shards of ice piercing my lungs. I barely noticed her through the fog that my breath created, though she huddled on a bench only a few paces from where I stood. Her muffled voice met my ears; it was as if the dingy rag pile that covered half of the bench had taken on the act of speech. She did not ask for money or food, but simply queried, “Where you headin', lady?” I typically avoided conversations with strangers, much less vagrants. Such was engrained into

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Christmas in July 201 7 my citygirl mentality. But desperation induced me to speak, “Sixteenthirty Westshore.” She extended an arm sheathed in a ragged coat much too thin to combat the present conditions. She pointed and spoke once more, “That one. The shiny one.” I muttered my thanks and dashed across the street. As I did so, I glanced down at my watch. I would just make it to my meeting. Triumph blazed red hot through my mostly frozen veins. The scent of pastries from the building's lobby coffee stand wafted through the door as I forged through. My stomach rumbled with appreciation. Due to my harried morning, I had been forced to skip breakfast. I would grab something extra gooey and celebratory after the meeting. I deserved it. A man with kind eyes held the elevator door — all I had to do was cross its threshold. But...I didn't. The man released his hold on the elevator door and recessed deeper in with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. The door hissed shut, and the efficient machine silently bulleted upward. I let it go. I strode with purpose toward the coffee counter. With my purchases in tow, I made my way back out the door and into the cold. The bundled woman was camped on the bench just as I had left her moments before. Without a word, I perched beside her and handed her a steaming cup and a warm scone. She accepted the offerings in much the way that I had expected—as a person who had known more want in one day than I had ever known in my entire life. “Thank you...for showing me the way. I was hopelessly lost.” “No need for paybacks, lady. I was just payin' it forward...like the nice man told me to do.” “Nice man? Paying it forward?” “That's what I said. The man showed me a kindness a few minutes before you showed up. He told me to be sure and pay it forward. You needed help, so that's what I did.” “He gave you some good advice.” She grunted in affirmation. We sat in silence for a moment, but our conversation had obviously drawn to a close. I stood. “You should go visit Father O'Malley down at St. Vincent's on 42nd and Lexington. He'll expect you to work around the church, but he'll give temporary room and board for the effort. He's honest and kind—a good man.” She assessed me with a hint of suspicion. “I told you I didn't need a payback.” “I'm not paying anything back. I'm paying it forward.” With that, I walked back across the street. The empty elevator awaited my arrival. The farther I ascended, the lighter my heart became. I entered the meeting armed with apologies regarding my lateness. I received a few stern glances, but even those couldn't bring my spirit down. I locked eyes with the gentleman seated across the table from me—surprisingly, he was the one who had attempted to hold the elevator. His own glance was quizzical, but still kind. After the meeting, that same gentleman and I rode the elevator back down to the lobby. As we exited the building, we both looked to the now empty bench across the street and then toward each other. We smiled, and, without a word, our paths diverged. As I drove out of the heart of downtown and toward my office, dread no longer rumbled within my core. It had been replaced by hope...hope in humanity, hope in simple, random gestures of kindness, hope in my ability to share both of these. Perhaps I would get to those presents this evening, after all. I hummed one of Katie's Christmas carols and smiled at the possibility.

About the author Jennifer Jones is an author, reader, and accidental coffee snob who currently resides with her husband, teenage daughter, and Napoleonesque dog in the New River Valley of Virginia. Her works have been published in The Best of Poetry Project 2014 from Fray’d Tag Publishing, the anthology Silver Lining from Baer Books Press, the poetry compilation Crashing Waves from Swyers Publishing, the literary journal From The Depths: Outsiders from Haunted Waters Press, and will be featured in the 2017 Ram Boutique Volume 2 from River Ram Press as well as Vine Leaves Literary Journal Issue #19 from Vine Leaves Press. For more information, as well as links to her various social media platforms, please visit Jennifer’s website: wowjenwrites.net.

Love, Tinsel By JC Reilly Sleet stabs at the street outside Gretchen’s store window, and if the sky were any grayer, it would be called stone. No one has entered Fringe and Feather all day. It may be the holidays, but buying vintage clothing and antiques in the middle of Nowheresville, Nebraska (ok, Valentine), doesn’t seem to be too high on anyone’s wish list. To be honest, it hasn’t been high on anyone’s wish list since she opened the place a couple of years ago. Barely making ends meet is practically a ritual for her. Gretchen sighs. Maybe her sister Lizzie is right. The town square needed another boutique about as much as Gretchen needed that pair of leopard print Jimmy Choos (knockoffs, of course) she’s been eyeing online. And with fifty pairs of heels in her closet at home, she can’t justify buying any more — not even to herself. But she really likes high heels. And she really wants the boutique to do well this Christmas season. She is about to turn the door sign to “Closed” when a woman in a magenta quilted coat bustles in and pushes right past her. Gretchen stumbles, bumping into a mannequin dressed in a crepe flapper dress. It wobbles, but she catches it before it falls over. The lady drapes her coat over the counter then unwraps the scarf from around her neck and pulls off her hat. Her hair, in bright silver twists all over her head, springs to attention. “I don’t suppose you sell coffee in this joint? The whole square is shut down, except for your shop, and my ride is on the fritz, and I’m dying for a cup.” Gretchen shrugs. “Sorry. I could make you some tea, though. I have a kettle in the back.” “Honey, after the day I’ve had, tea ain’t gonna cut it. But if it’s all you have…?” Gretchen wonders briefly if this is some kind of setup, if she’s about to get robbed (not that there’s any money in the till), but decides she’ll risk it. Isn’t there some rule about showing hospitality to strangers and angels unawares or something? Besides, she reminds herself, it’s Christmas. She waves at the lady to follow her and they go into the back. Boxes and bags and overflowing shelves full of boas and hats and old sequined purses, and silver brushes, and costume jewelry, and every other kind of antique gewgaw that hasn’t made it to the floor yet, fill the office and storage space. The lady pushes some papers and pastdue notices aside at

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Christmas in July 201 7 Gretchen’s work desk and makes herself comfortable on the old swivel stool while Gretchen gets some water from the bathroom and puts the electric kettle on. “What kind of tea do you want? I have ginger peach, blueberry, Earl Grey...?” “Whatever,” the lady says. “Your place is nice. Even here in the back—though it’s so dark it’s kind of like a cave.” With a flick, she switches on the Tiffanystyle dragonfly lamp that Gretchen had been using on her desk till she could find some room in the front to display it. A soft yellow circle of light chases away half of the room’s shadows. “Now, isn’t that better?” Gretchen grunts as she pulls down two teacups from a mismatched china service she found at a Lincoln auction in September. She drops in a tea bag in each cup. Blueberry, her favorite, like a dash of summer to help counteract the nasty wet weather—and her holiday sales blues. “So, what I can do for you? Are you shopping for anything or anyone special?” She tries to muster her “cheery salesgirl” voice — a sale is a sale — but her enthusiasm deserts her halfway through. It’s hopeless. Why am I even bothering? The lady glances around for a moment and stares so intently at Gretchen it unnerves her a little bit. Despite her silver hair, her visitor seems young all blue eyes, freckles, and rosy cheeks. Suddenly she says, “What did you ask Santa for?” The question catches Gretchen up short. “To end the year in the black,” says Gretchen, still somewhat unnerved. “But that won’t happen… Again.” With a sigh heavy as the sleet, she pours steaming water into the cups. After it steeps, she hands one to her guest. “Why not?” “Because in college I majored in English, not business, and I can’t seem to swing a profit. Hard as I try. My credit is shredded. I’ll probably have to close in January, and move in with my sister and her family in Omaha.” (Won’t Lizzie love that?) She stifles a sob and makes a face at herself. “Well, what if I take the lot?” The lady sips at her tea and, if Gretchen is not mistaken, her eyes — honesttogoodness — actually twinkle. “Be serious.” “I am serious. I really need a new gig. Think of it as a Christmas miracle. How much do you think this place is worth?” She pulls out a pen and checkbook from her pocket and waits. Gretchen winces, remembering the tax bill coming up. What is this place worth? Calculating in her head: a hundred thousand, easy…minus the overhead, the mortgage, the new roof, the inventory... And if that lady wants to buy it, she’s clearly bananas…But what if? Before Gretchen gets too excited, she gives her head a little shake to rattle some sense back into her brain. “Ok, finish your tea, and then you better go.” Gretchen walks to the office door and gestures at it encouragingly. The lady gives her a hard look then gulps down the rest of her tea. Stuffing the checkbook and pen back into her pocket, she stands and then practically skips back into the main area of the store — hard to do, with all the inventory clogging the hallway. She dresses again in her winter clothes as Gretchen watches. “Thanks for the tea.”

“No problem.” The lady picks up a bag that Gretchen doesn’t remember seeing her bring into the store with her, and shoves it into Gretchen’s arms. “Merry Christmas.” “Uh…you too,” says Gretchen. The lady heads back out into the sleet, waves at her through the window, and disappears. Gretchen turns her attention to the bag. Inside is a gift in silver snowflake paper with her name on it. She unwraps leopard print Jimmy Choos — the real thing — and finds a card: “The shoes are from Santa. Call me when you decide about selling the business.” Beneath a phone number, the card was signed, “Love, Tinsel.”

About the author JC Reilly writes across genres and has received Pushcart and Wigleaf nominations for her work. She serves as the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review and has pieces published or forthcoming in POEM, The Absurdist, Picaroon Poetry, Hawai'i Pacific Review, Imperfect Fiction, the Arkansas Review, the Magnolia Review, and Rabbit: a Journal of Nonfiction Poetry. When she isn't writing, she plays tennis or works on improving her Italian. Catch her at jcreilly.com or on Twitter @aishatonu.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Miracle of Christmas Love By Daniel F. Giallombardo There, just beyond the halo of the street lights, she stands waiting. Among the still smoldering ashes, the carnage and broken promises of our relationship, she is there; the evidence of another failure, my ongoing piece of truth. She stands shivering, arms wrapped around her slender body, snow falling in big flakes, landing on her hair, the insulated coat showing wet dots on the black surface. I stamp my feet trying to drive out the cold. I feel the thud of my shoes on the pavement, the cold adding to the dull ache of the pounding. I look down at my snowcovered slipons. They are stylish but terribly inadequate for the snow and cold. “Look, Aaeedah,” I say as I tug my gloves tighter on my fingers. “I…I…well, I just don’t know where or how to start.” A soft smile crosses her dusky face as her ungloved finger touches my lips. “You need not speak, I understand.” “You understand?” How in heck can she understand? Aaeedah, the name means returning, in Arabic. Was that what she was trying to do now? Return? It’s Christmas and I’m miserable. She’s been a part of my life for five years and in a moment of selfrighteous stupidity, I’d thrown her away like a pair of old shoes. “I understand,” she repeats. “Your God is not my God—Allah; so many names. All in one being. I understand how you feel — many of my socalled friends feel the same way. You at least had the courage to meet me here — in public. Many will no longer even talk with me. “But…but,” I protest weakly, “you called me…asked me to…meet you here.” “And you came, Aaron. You came. It’s Christmas, a time of miracles as you say. You…your religion, your culture — you celebrate the birth of a man you believe is your Savior. I celebrate the birth of a man.” She pauses for several moments, carefully choosing her words. “In my religion, we celebrate the birth of a man who my religion sees as a prophet. It doesn’t mean we can’t see each other — that we can’t still love each other and be in love with each other.” Taking my hand, she kisses the top of my glove.

“I love you Aaron, there is no prohibition in Islam from us loving one another. Loving is an essential part of our beliefs. From what I understand of your Christianity, your God encourages you to do so; your Christ instructs you to do so.” She shrugs and a small laugh escapes her. It is a soft laugh but in the silence of the snowfall it echoes; it is a joyous sound. “Who are we to argue with them?” Then, “It’s cold Aaron, let’s go home. Our home.” It’s Christmas and I’m happy — Aaeedah is home with me. Somehow the Christmas tree lights seem brighter, the ornaments more festive. We’re back together and I am smarter for it. As Aaeedah says, it’s the season for miracles. I’ve learned it’s not about the questions we have. It’s about how we help each other to heal, the wounds within. Aaeedah healed me with forgiveness. “Let us love one another,” she had said. “It’s really all we have to give.”

About the author Daniel F. Giallombardo was born in Chicago, IL. He currently lives in its far northwest suburbs near his daughters and grandson. He is a veteran of the US Army and the US Navy. He is a VietNam veteran as well. Giallombardo has served on a police department in exurbia and has worked for a major airline. He has traveled extensively. He has been writing since he was in the 7th grade and has been published in magazines and smaller publications as well. He has a passion for social justice, mutual respect among all people and baseball. Follow him on Twitter @DanGiallo.

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Christmas in July 201 7

Airplanes in the Christmas Tree By Chad W. Lutz It's that time of year again: Christmas, when the streets are filled with red and green and blue and gold and lights of every other color in between. Large wreaths hang like inviting scarlet letters from front doors and garages and lamp posts. The weather is abysmal, but no one really cares. There's an odd sort of joy lingering in the air. People are generally friendly, smile more, and stop to greet strangers on the street. There's actually a gigantic part of me that's hated this time of year for about two decades now. Back in 1994, when I was but eight足years old, my grandmother (dad's mom), who happened to be my closest living relative outside my immediate family at the time, passed away the morning Christmas Eve. It had a lasting effect on me I've only been able to really appreciate, or even realize, over the last five years. But time has helped those wounds heal, and in the past couple of years, I've really grown to enjoy the holiday season and continue to with each one that passes. I'm not really sure what's led to my eventual turn around. I keep trying to retrace my steps and haven't been able to come up with anything monumental to point and say, "HA! It was YOU!" I mean, I was King Humbug for decades 足足 almost as long as I can remember. Even as young as ten足years old, I can remember having to help out around the house with decorations and hating every second of it. I especially hated getting dressed up for holiday parties. Want to know a surefire way to upset me? Make me shower. Mission accomplished, every time. I still hate showering, but the decorations don't bother so much anymore, so long as I don't personally have to put them up or take them down. The only holiday I enjoy decorating for is Halloween, which I think says enough about my personality. One aspect of the holiday season I've always enjoyed is the music. I've always been a lover of music, in general, but holiday tunes almost always put me in the spirit of the season no matter what

crummy mood I'm wading through. Just press play, and all of a sudden, the wonderful time Paul McCartney appears to be having becomes infectious; John Lennon's look back at the previous year and what we can do to bridge the gap between nations, echoes like an anthem. I don’t like hot chocolate anymore (dairy), but I can instantly envision myself running back and forth from the fire hearth to the tree in the connecting room between sips of Swiss Miss and a couple extra sneaked handfuls of marshmallows. My brothers and I would play this game, which we dubbed, "Who Can Stand Next To the Fire the Longest" (pretty creative, right?) with intermittent and completely necessary hot chocolate breaks. The three of us were in a phase at that point in our lives where were really enamored with paper airplanes and would make them by the dozen. We’d then spend hours trying to see who could throw theirs the furthest. At Christmas, the game shifted and became more about who could lodge the most paper airplanes in the tree across the room than merely sustaining flight. The further we could get them wedged into the fake, plastic branches, the better. If we could knock down one of the ornaments, we’d get extra points not that any of the three of us actually kept any real kind of score. But, those were the objectives. I remember we'd all crack up whenever one of our planes would fly too close to the fire or dive bomb an ornament with a direct hit so hard it would shake the tree. Our parents, of course, loved every minute of our little game. Far from it now, winter actually used to be my favorite season. I always used to say, "There's something to play in outside when it's snowy." To my childhood self, the rest of the year, the world was just full of that itchy stuff I had to mow all the time called grass. Who the heck could get down with that? Little did my younger self know, his future self would wind up commuting twentysix miles one way, twice a day, every day, rain, snow, or shine, for six consecutive years. Looking at the world as a young kid almost seems like a delusional perception these days. I think of things like the bathroom sink, and how it used to tower over me, and the only thing I could think about was being old enough and big enough to use it just like everyone else. Now, the bathroom sink is something I take for granted and I clutter its countertops with junk that is barely paid any mind, but as a kid, held some the enigmatic properties of buried treasure. I used to stare out at the white, snowy landscapes from my bedroom window or the windows in the front office of my parents’ house with a twinkle in my eye. Snow meant something: primarily fun. I'd rapidly begin envisioning the next snow fort I was going to build, or game of Fox I'd later be playing with my dad and brothers in the backyard. And as I got older, I'd think about sled riding with friends on the weekend or what trails I was going to traverse on my crosscountry skis or nowadays on foot for daily and weekly mileage. There's both a quiet calm and stirring of the soul that occurs when out in the woods alone, on foot, and without a cell phone, but especially in the face of a fresh snowfall. I begin to feel like wherever I am might be exactly where I am supposed be for centuries, and then nothing else matters. I realize my slowly fading hatred of Christmas stems from a number of things. First and foremost, I'm never around kids. Not that anyone has to be a kid to get into the holiday spirit, but it sure doesn't hurt. The second is the passing of my grandmother, which I already mentioned. It's taken some time, but I'm more at peace now with the situation than I think I've ever been in my life. The third real reason is that I'm a product of my generation. We've been brought up with the idea that commercialism is evil and to quickly label anything that's sole purpose is to conjure dollars as being abhorrent and misleading. But the snow provides the insulation for my thoughts. Its quiet descent to the earth is like watching feathers fall from the heavens. Now living in California and having lived through my first

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Christmas in July 201 7 rainy season, which is all Calfornians get during the winter months, there’s something to be said for the appearance of snow and how it plays right into the spirit of Christmas. Sure, there are palm trees and it’s about fifty degrees or better year round, but at no point did I feel like it was the holidays this year. It felt like fall, which for me is a kind of added bonus, considering I treat Halloween with as much reverence as most others do birthdays and weddings, but still. There’s something to be said for the mushy gushy traditions associated with things loved; whether they be pet names for loved ones, rituals performed before races, or something as simple as a mug of hot chocolate brimming with tiny marshmallows waiting while tossing crudely made paper airplanes from one side of an innocuous room to another.

About the author

Chad W. Lutz was born in 1986 in Akron, Ohio, and raised in the neighboring suburb of Stow.

Lately they’ve been seen gallivanting across the United States; running barefoot on the beaches of North Carolina, hiking rimtorim at the Grand Canyon, running out of water on the way down Pike’s Peak, and clocking sub2:40:00 marathons like a boss. Professionally, Chad revamps people’s resumes as a freelancer in the digital jobospheres. They currently attend Mills College in Oakland, California, earning their MFA in Creative Writing. Follow Chad's Twitter @chadontherun and renegaderunnerdotcom.wordpress.com.

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Christmas in July 201 7

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