A Pearl
     Taffy drooled over the lavaliere offered by her Greek god of a boyfriend, who was passionate if a bit of an amorist, because if she hadn't—even though she had a 3.8 and was going somewhere and shouldn't have to put up with this—the Zeta Beta Tau's gold letters, a pearl wedged between the Z and the B and hanging from 14 carat gold between her breasts, would have gone to one of those upwardly mobile sorority girls since aside from being beautiful her man was also a chem major, so even though these things didn't matter to her and she didn't believe in being owned, she
took it.

Honey
My cousin, depressed her whole life, sought happiness via a sweet tooth that craved such deadly nectars that she was constantly sucking on the lids of canned pears, licking frosting off the electric egg beater, swallowing elixirs kept in rusted tins so far back in the refrigerator that she didn't know what they were anymore—which lead to her getting a tetanus shot, and that didn't cure everything, though flirting with the nurse practitioner didn't hurt.

Funny Pages  
She was a rocket scientist, though no one believed her, who'd gotten where she was through no nonsense and hard work. She preferred comics to the headlines until she met a blind man wearing a fedora in a crosswalk in Palm Springs. They nearly fell over each other, neither seeing anything ahead, and he apologized, which encouraged her to apologize, and they took each other out to coffee.

People don't wear hats, she said.

You'd be cute in a cloche, maybe a springy feather on the side, he said, when she allowed him to feel her face so he'd understand what she looked like.

Subsequently the hard news she read through his eyes out loud at the breakfast table softened and became human interest.

Bonnie ZoBell has received an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and the Capricorn Novel Award. Recently included on Wigleaf's 2009 Top 50 list for very short fiction, she has work included or forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Night Train, Storyglossia, American Fiction,The Greensboro Review, dcomP, Rumble, and NOÖ Journal. She received an MFA from Columbia, teaches at San Diego Mesa College, and can be reached at www.bonniezobell.com.

 

"Michelle, you're pitching next inning.  Warm up."
Maggie's, dad, Roger, offered to catch for her.
"There are gloves by the bench."
"Nah, I won't need one.  She's just fifth grade."
Two pitches later, Roger reached for a glove with crimson hands. 
Michelle struck out the side. 
Roger held two ice cold sodas as he watched.  

Carol Sanders lives in Minnesota and has recently fallen in love with 55 Fiction.

Every time I read a great line by another writer, I feel fear, in case I might, journeying the desert, come to a hut, knock at the door and, upon seeing eye to unseeing eye with my destiny, be required to speak my mind and need that line because no other will do.

And it wouldn't be my own.
***
A LITSNACK FIRST:  Hear the author reading his piece:   http://bit.ly/7GNkMZ

Finnegan Flawnt is a fictitious writer and purveyor of fine podcasts who lives under Milk Wood. He flaunts it when he's got it at http://flawnt.me/.

I hold my mother's house in my hands, glossy, slightly curled, a remnant from the last box.

Bright, sunlit snow covers the backyard. Wearing sunglasses, my mother is bent over a snow woman my brother and I made, tying a silk scarf around its waist. Mother's bottom thrusts out saucily and she smiles broadly. My father is not around.

Inside, we sit at a yellow Formica dining table, playing Canasta--the latest rage. A floor furnace behind me pushes hot dry air into the still room. My father plays a card. I have some of those and reach for the pile.

His left hand blocks me. "That stack's frozen. You can't take it."

Finally, my card falls. "I guess I can take it now." Bold for a sixth grader.

My father leaps up, raging. He tears and scatters cards. My little brother's eyes widen. Across from me, Mother's right hand flutters to her face. I don't move.

At the edge of the sloping front yard, I'm dreaming up at the stars when a tree asp, like Ming the Merciless, stings the inside of my bare arm and transports me back to this place, this house.

We're out for a Sunday drive, my mother and I, a break from her routine at the home. I turn onto Ivandell and find the house boarded up. An old gray Plymouth sits on blocks next door, and across the street, a ragged blue recliner sags on the front porch.

"What was the name of that little dog we had for a while?"

Mother smiles. "Dog?" Her hand lifts toward her face.

Like that small dog, the woman with the perky bottom is lost to me now. Gently, I lay her, and her house, back into the box and close the lid.

Barry Basden lives in the Texas hill country with his wife and two yellow Labs. He writes mostly short pieces these days. Some have been published in various online and print venues. Some have not. He edits Camroc Press Review at www.camrocpressreview.com