Public Republic

Elayne Clift Photo: peregrineblue As a writer, I commit the cardinal sin: I don’t keep a journal. But I journal constantly. Although I didn’t have a secret diary as an adolescent, I wrote poetry. Now my “journal” is comprised of commentaries I write compulsively. As Edna O’Brien once said, “I’m a tuning fork, and twanging […]

Elayne Clift Photo: sutto007 Sometimes a place makes you sick. Not because it’s environmentally polluted or contaminated. I don’t mean that. I’m talking about the pollution of the soul, the demise of the spirit. Sometimes a city, a town, a location can make you positively, desperately ill; it can kill you – if not literally, […]

Linda Cruise Photo: tanakawho Read Part I The following week, both women—having surrendered control—arrive at the hospital, just as their appointment cards foretold. They’re processed through registration, one form after another, until they reach pre-op and are handed an obligatory gown. Their IVs are started, their wedding bands removed, and they’re obliged to sign the […]

Renee Rigdon Photo: computerhotline My grandmother always told me I should sing not to the pretty girls but to the heavens. The heavens, she said, would always be there for me, but the girls would just flit in and out until I got some God in my life. She was full of these bits of […]

Linda Cruise Photo: Fabien F “There’s the culprit,” says Doctor Wong. “It’s a rather large tumor on your left ovary, measuring ten centimeters in diameter—about the size of an orange.”

Anca Vlasopolos Photo: Rudolfo Nunez I’ll confess: I shop for my husband. I buy him shoes, underwear, shirts, ties, slacks, jackets, belts, even overcoats. It’s easy. Shirts: 16×32; pants 36×32; jackets 42 regular; shoes 11 and a half B. I cannot shop for my daughter, who’s a willowy 5’9”, 115 pounds, with broad shoulders, a […]

Alan Rosin Photo: daquellamanera Nanci was a force of nature. She had thick chestnut brown hair, green eyes and was nearly 5′ 10″ tall. She exuded confidence and style. When we were together, people’s attention was always focused on her, which was just fine with me. Her father designed and manufactured fine jewelry, and was […]

Robert Foshee Photo: kirtaph Read Part I Ted took the jury notice out of his pocket and read the room number. He waited his turn and then nervously stepped through the metal detector. Radiation probed him head to toe. A cop asked him to remove his belt. When he got upstairs, he found the black […]

Ekaterina Vitkova Photo: srqpix THE HOUR OF THE TRAMP Cast: Ice-cream Vendor First Receptionist Second Receptionist Tramp Citizen ACT I Scene 1 Upfront can be seen a sidewalk, a bench and an ice-cream vending machine next to which a man is standing, The Ice-Cream Vendor.

Linda Cruise Photo: tonythemisfit The idea that such a beautiful day could morph into the darkest one of my life is inescapable to me, now. So, too, is the irony of my mother’s inherent nature to never jaywalk not being enough to shield her from a most-violent death, in the painted crosswalk of an idyllic, […]

Raiko Baichev Photo: Freyja And so it begins, this morning, waking up, getting up, the mirror in the bathroom, the skin under the eyes all puffy, swollen, dark blue with a little bit of yellow, as if you got punched with a tiny fist, let’s say a baby fist, I’m groggy, whatever, big deal, heading […]

Kelly Martineau Photo: sharif Sometimes it is slow, a gentle whirl through space.  I seem to float as the ground spirals up at me slowly, like time unwound.  In that moment, there is still a chance that I can save myself from an embarrassing spill. That doesn’t happen very often; usually, I crash to the […]

Raven Jordan Photo: ajawin I. So massive a construct was the gown of pearls that it could stand on its own with no queen inside. And now, this noon–how its inhabitant did sweat. A network of pearl-strung wires it was, lashed snug to her body via hidden strings; it pinched her skin through the plain […]

Photo: mike9alive Ted’s fingers rattled as they felt along the dusty shelf. He stood on a short folding ladder but could not see where his hands reached. He sensed a long, thin metal thing, like curtain rods, cool and hard to his touch. Then it came back to him. Wrapped in the yellowing twin bed […]

Zlatko Enev The Meadow with Three Exits Photo: 8078381@N03 Read Ghost Forest – Introduction Thump! Anne tumbled down hard onto the ground. Luckily, she had landed on a soft patch otherwise she would have been badly hurt. Still dizzy from her wild flight, she lay there a while before sitting up and taking a fearful […]

By Evelina Lambreva Jecker Photo: pensiero All her girlfriends had a pet. All were benevolently spending fortunes on them. Mrs. Friedrich was the doting parent of a ten-year old Angora cat. The cat had regular appointments with a hairdresser and a cat manicurist, who would cut her claws with extreme care, while a special dentist, […]

Katherine Van Hook Gulley Photo: kevinkrejci It was at the height of the Renaissance period, when the Kings of the earth fought to control all the borders around them. In a castle high above the sea, among the rolling black hills lived a man. He was alone, as he had chosen to be most of […]

Joan Gumbs Photo: laurenmanning I see them everyday – the Jamaican wanna-be’s. They walk around dressed in dreads, they smoke ganja (calling it marijuana), they play dancehall music (at ear-bursting decibels), and they’re “close friends” with Bob Marley. A few months ago I was walking in Manhattan when I was approached by one of these […]

Denitsa Dilova-Markova Photo: movimente On September 18th, sitting on a park bench, Polly saw a woman in a very beautiful dress. “Wow, I would look so good in that dress,” she said to herself. Her thought flew off and floated around. At the same time, scientists made a final decision to crash one neutrino into […]

Donna Ison Photo: FranUlloa To read Chapter 1 click here CHAPTER 2 When Tancy Sloane heard the wobbly wail of the littlest Lawson, she flinched and gripped her grandmother’s hand tighter. The minute she’d heard that Clara Dean had gone into labor, she’d rushed to the hospital to be by Granny Pearl’s side. Not knowing […]