Luana Ehrlich
Apr 14, 2015 | 1st pages, Spiritual
PROLOGUE
In far northwest Iran, a few minutes after clearing the city limits of Tabriz, Rahim maneuvered his vehicle onto a rutted side road. When he popped opened the trunk of the car to let me out, I saw the car was hidden from the main highway by a small grove of trees. In spite of our seclusion, Rahim said he was still anxious about being seen by a military convoy from the nearby Tabriz missile base.
For the first time in several hours, I uncurled from my fetal position and climbed out of the vehicle, grateful to breathe some fresh air and feel the sunshine on my face. As my feet landed on the rocky terrain, Rahim handed me a black wooden cane. I wanted to wave it off, but, regrettably, I still needed some help getting around on my bum leg.
Rahim slammed the trunk lid down hard. “You can stretch for a few minutes,” he said, “but then we must get back on the road immediately. Our timing must be perfect at the border.” Rahim and I were headed for the Iranian/Turkish border, specifically the border crossing at Bazargan, Iran. He was absolutely confident he could get me out of Iran without any problems.
However, during the last twenty years, I’d had a couple of incidents at other border crossings—Pakistan and Syria to be precise—so I wasn’t as optimistic. While Rahim was tinkering with the car’s engine, I exercised my legs and worked out the stiffness in my arms. As usual, I was running through several “what ifs” in my mind. What if the border guards searched the trunk? What if the car broke down?
What if we were driving right into a trap?I might have felt better about any of these scenarios had either of us been armed. However, Rahim had refused to bring along a weapon. Carrying a gun in Iran without a special permit meant certain imprisonment.Imprisonment in Iran meant certain torture, so I certainly understood his reasons for leaving the weaponry back in Tehran. Still, a gun might have helped my nerves.
Brittiney Sweeney
Apr 7, 2015 | 1st pages, Spiritual
The holidays
happy holidays happy holidays I hear someone cheer
Happy holidays happy holidays its the same every year
Happy holidays someone shouts to a person celebrating Hanuka
Happy holidays someone shouts to a person celebrating Kwanzaa
I have nothing against others religions but I felt compelled to say
Did they not know that Jesus was born for them on Christmas Day?
Finally the person comes up to me a person he had missed
Happy holidays he says
I say no it Merry Christmas
TK Thorne
Mar 16, 2015 | 1st pages, Historical, Literary, Spiritual, Women's
My name, Na’amah, means pleasant or beautiful. I am not always pleasant, but I am beautiful. Perhaps that is why I am trundled atop this beast like a roll of hides for market and surrounded by grim-faced men.
If my captors had bothered to ask me, I would have told them that their prize is of questionable value because my mind is damaged. But they did not, and I lie draped, belly down, across the back of an aurochs, a large black ox with an eel stripe that runs down his spine and a stench worse than a rutting goat. My mouth is parched and swollen with dried blood, and every step the animal takes sends a jolt of pain into my chest. Snatches of ground appear between the cloven hooves—a succession of earth, grass, and rock obscured by the dark tangle of my hair— all I have to measure the growing distance from the life I have known.
Savta, my grandmother, believes a narrow birth passage pinched my head. A skilled midwife, she convinced the Elders that my disfigurement would right itself, and they allowed me to live. Tubal-Cain, my brother, would prefer it otherwise. He claims I tore our mother from inside and killed her. I did not intend to do such a thing, but if I did it, we are even, since she squeezed my head. Well, perhaps not even, as she is dead, and I am not.
The aurochs stumbles and I grunt from the jerk. The tall man with fiery hair who leads the aurochs looks back at me. My village sees many traders, so the strangeness of these men’s dress and speech means they are from a distant land. Where are they taking me?
As much as I hate the days, I dread the nights.
The tall man pulls me off when it becomes too dark to travel, and my legs wobble beneath me. It is a chance for food and water, but I am fifteen summers, and I know the intent of men who steal a woman. So far, they have not tried, perhaps because I smell like the aurochs, but when they do, I will fight. I am small, but my teeth are strong and my legs have climbed the hills since I was very young. My hills. How I miss my hills.
To distract me from the aches in my body and my heart, I will put together the words of my story. I remember everything. Memories appear as images in my mind. Each word-sound I hear has its own color and shape and fits together with the others in patterns that I can recall, just as I can name every sheep on my hillside.
This story will be truth. I speak only truth, unwise as it may be, since lies distress me. And it will be for my own ears, as my words and manner seem odd to other people. I am more comfortable with animals, who do not expect me to be any way than the way I am.
I will start with the day three summers ago when Savta told me I had a secret.
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Simone Faith
Mar 13, 2015 | 1st pages, Spiritual
Chapter one- Can Sinners Enter?
The room is dark: I cannot see a thing his hands all over me. I feel good, wish this was my husband. We both belong to someone else. His hands large and they grasp every part of my body; I feel like a woman, my body yearns for more. I know it is wrong, but I crave the affection of real love. I cannot explain it. I know what I feel.
My heart beats faster with every touch. It seems so right: my husband is cold and distant, and we have fallen apart. Our love has faded, I can’t remember the last time he said I was beautiful, he works seven days a week sometimes he comes home and never says hi, we go months without sex or affection. His devices have become his wife. We do not even kiss it is as if we are strangers.
For years, I dreamed of another man loving me and holding me the way I wanted to be held, I even thought of meeting people online. I cannot remember the last time he held me or even said he loved me, we argue all the time over anything, the arguments are so petty, one time we argued over a wine display in the kitchen, and this was enough to have him sleep on the couch for three weeks I do not know where we went wrong.
Here I am now forty and sleeping with a man who is ten years my junior, was I a pedophile? I ask that question because at one point my husband was in fourth grade while I was in twelth , and there was a secret part of me who wanted to groom him into the man I wanted him to be not the man he would soon become. I began to ask myself was I leaving my husband for the wrong man.
He knows I am married, but he doesn’t care, he says what my husband don't know won’t hurt but if my husband finds out what will he think? Will he even care? Let me start from the beginning my name is Faith and my husband is Josh.
When we met he was handsome, I mean I thought he was the ideal man.
David Hall
Mar 12, 2015 | 1st pages, Spiritual
Chapter 1
1962
The anguished eyes stared vacantly at him through the black mix of sand, salt water, and blood that had formed a mask over the soldier’s face. He reached to grab his canteen so he could provide the young man one last drink, but as he turned, the soldier grabbed his collar with his last bit of strength, pulled him down to his face, and whispered into his ear.
The grip became stronger around his neck, and the man could not break free from the soldier’s grasp. He struggled to push himself away, but each time he released himself, the soldier reached out with the other hand. He struggled to stand, but found himself nose to nose with the dying young man. Suddenly, the soldier screamed.
***
With the scream, Matt awoke with a start from his nightmare. His shirt was soaked, and perspiration dripped from his forehead and his palms. There was nothing he could do; he was in the throes of a full-blown panic attack now. Slowly he moved his gaze around his dark bedroom. He was thankful when he saw Max’s understanding eyes looking at him and felt the dog’s reassuring paw being placed on his knee.
The next few minutes were going to be miserable, and Matt did what he could to lessen the impact of the onslaught of darkness. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath through his nose. As he exhaled, he began to recite aloud,
“The Lord is…
Allyson Olivia
Mar 9, 2015 | 1st pages, Spiritual
“I can’t believe you’re getting married in less than an hour,” Pam said as she placed the short white veil on Angel’s head to complement her hair styled into a large, neat chignon.
Angel paused and forced her lips to form a smile, but didn’t say a word.
“Are you excited?”
“I think I’m making a mistake by marrying Lester,” Angel admitted.
“Then don’t marry him. I’ll tell everyone at the church to go home and that there’s nothing to see here.”
“No, it’s too late. We purchased a house and it would just be a mess to turn back now. I love him, but something hit me hard this morning as I prayed.”
“What hit you?”
“I realized I never prayed about marrying Lester. I fell in love and went with the flow, but as I prayed this morning a feeling came over me like knots twisting in my stomach and I threw up.”
“Maybe that’s just cold feet.”
“I don’t know, but it will be okay. I love Lester and I’m sure things will only get better as we begin to spend our lives together, because this is until death do us part.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said when I got married the first time.”
Pam laughed as she dabbed Angel’s face with pressed powder to reduce the shine from her perspiring skin.
