Tag: this is west
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This is West – Grimble’s Curiosities
“I know exactly what will interest you,” Mr. Grimble said to the young couple browsing his wares to furnish their new home. He led them to his furniture aisle, briefly glancing out his shop window at the men hanging a sign on the store across the street. “We’re not looking for anything too fancy,” the…
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This is West – Fetching Apples
Mary Louise stole Uncle Romeo’s lion tooth necklace off the table and ran out the back door. Uncle Romeo always said that the tooth would bring courage to the wearer, and he would know, being a stuntman for the circus and all. Mary Louise knew stealing was wrong, that Mother and God would be angry…
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This Is West – Things Lost
The diner was a little sweaty this time of year. The heat in the kitchen was unbearable, the parking lot burned hot as a frying pan, and flies clung to the outside of the windows in small swarms, delicate legs in the dozens crawling around in what little shade the sills had to offer, granting…
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This is West – “The Masterpiece”
I had never heard of this man, this bewildering artist simply called Mikey as his nametag declared. Nevertheless, his exhibit garnered more attention than any other piece at the gallery. His space, nay, his stage, had a perpetual line of visitors awaiting their chance to experience his artistry. The curators of the event must have…
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This is West – The Adventures of Toast Girl
I found Jeanie playing hacky-sack with a circle of friends outside the theater building before school started and asked her to walk with me. “This is going to be strange, and kind of embarrassing, but I have to tell you something,” I said as we walked. “Claudia, you can tell me anything,” Jeanie said, concerned.…
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This is West – A Breath
Darren knew the moment he opened his eyes that it was too early to be awake. Pale light illuminated the dusty blinds, but did nothing to combat the morning darkness. The old radio beside the bed pronounced the time in blue: 5:47 a.m. For a moment he stared up at the ceiling and took in…
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This is West – Guest Writer Steve Bellin-Oka
Still Life with the Plague of Darkness — for my daughter I woke this morning before dawn to find the nation’s hearts had hardened. Something stretched out its hand—a darkness so thick it felt like gauze. It seemed it would last for days. Even the pavement cracks were wider:…
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This is West – Fortunes
“You gotta be shitting me,” Gulliver said for maybe the third time since striking up a conversation with the Asian guy whose car broke down along the freeway near the store. “You traveled all this way, halfway around the world, just because of some fortune teller? That’s one of the craziest damn things I ever…
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This is West – No Tresspassers
Cattle dotted the area like ink stains, the setting sun washing the desert landscape in the piercing glow of its final rays. The further Ian traveled onto the old man’s private property, the more reluctant he became. If he got caught it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The owner would probably just ask…
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This is West – Lawrence of New Mexico
In 1855, the US Army created the United States Camel Corps in hopes the foreign animals would serve the country’s expansion westward. By 1863, the project disbanded and the camels were released into the wild of the American Southwest. Lawrence, of New England, peddled his bicycle across the empty desert road. Patches of fine red…
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This is West – Sediment
The details of the land are boundless, rugged Layers that shimmer, hide. They call out to the depths beneath and above Creating beauty out of fire, snow. They crisscross forming layers of sediment, evoking caverns, mountain, streams Adding to the story of the land, the people. Yet still hiding secrets beneath the shimmering sediment Waiting…
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This is West – A Withered Reflection
The lingering heat ruined the rain. There was no torrential downpour sweeping in on a cool wind. It didn’t cleave the sunbaked summer in two. It didn’t arrive with low, auspicious thunder and purple bolts of lightning. Instead, it fell in unsatisfying specks for days, exacerbating the already oppressive humidity, clogging every throat and drawing…
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This is West – Calvin’s Salvage
The tow truck’s wheels wobbled through the rows of old cars and scrap. Calvin had considered getting one of the new hover models, but that was before the spaceport had come in. A year ago this lot covered nearly half-a-mile with rows stacked three cars high. Back then, Calvin’s Salvage was booming and his destiny…
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This is West – Inherent Process
It smelled of moisture when he awoke: a moisture he had not smelled since he moved to the dry, searing west. The lengthy downpour coated and seeped into every permeable surface, creating an aura fueled by the extracted dust seeping out of every dried up, seemingly hollow crevice—a stagnant, murky smell which co-mingled with the…
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This is West – A Stillness
It isn’t sunset; not yet. The sky colors with the haze of the in-between: clouds smeared across the horizon and ringed with gold by the late-afternoon sun. The blue begins to pale. Birds chatter in the tall elm trees and soar in circles around their nests. Bugs flock to stagnant pools of rainwater and flit…
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This is West – Seed of Muse
The woman sat staring into the milky swirls of her latte, hands folded in her lap. In the epicenter of the creamy cyclone in her cup, she felt a beginning, an inkling, a seed. Her memories and thoughts swarmed about the motionless center, organizing themselves into the curved arms of a story, and she envisioned…
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This is West – A Dirt Town Brown and Cupcakes
I could tell it hurt. This time was different. He winced when I said it and in that moment the words solidified for me and I chewed it up with green chili and warm pizza dough and swallowed. “You’ll be back,” he mumbled with confidence. He spoke into a brown ale that was our favorite.…
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This is West – My Unnamed
This is my voice, my untrammeled and confused trill of noise. I’ve heard that my voice, my noise, the vibration of my vocal chords is a signifier, but I didn’t say that. The signifier is not mine to name and is not part of my language. My browned fingers bleed sometimes from washing dishes all…
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This is West – The Playa
“Thirst, probably.” He reported as if he’d swallowed something too large and it had stuck in his throat. The news had come as a sand-sting to the town; it covered the small wagon-wheel in dusty rumors. I’d come as an outsider with a Corolla and a funny accent. “Ironic, isn’t it?” He continued. I didn’t…
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This is West – Skies of Brown, Clouds of Gray
There was nothing beautiful about a New Mexican spring. For every flower and warm, sunny afternoon there were six or seven lung-fuls of dust and needle-like torrents of sand blasted at her face at thirty (sometimes forty or, God forbid, even fifty) miles per hour. There was no beauty in a sky painted brown, a…
El Portal Literary Journal 