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Canada is not like how I thought it would be. It’s better than I had heard. It’s better than I ever imagined. Mira, Simon and I spent four months in refugee housing. It was an apartment block filled with women and their kids, or kids living with an assigned guardian from the Canadian government, men…
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I wrote everything out for Maddie. No code. She would need to understand everything as it was. Just like Gran did for me when I first joined the network. I hid this letter in the basket under the bathroom where I keep my menstrual supplies. Mark would never look there. It reminds him how different…
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The worst part of recruiting anyone new to the network of letter writers was the uncertainty. It was always lurking in the shadow of your surety, waiting to pop out of the darkness and scream that you were wrong. It whispered to you that it wasn’t worth the risk, that it would be better to…
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I’ve leaving on the next shipment. There are two placements remaining. If you need to get something to Africa, send it by airmail. There won’t be another opportunity until the guard changes in the old capital. Be on your best behavior. I folded Gilda’s letter tightly and stashed it into my bra. I picked up…
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I drop the letter to Gilda in the normal way. There is an old brick in the stone wall behind the post office that wiggles loose. I always fold the letter three times, tuck it to the right of the brick, then shove the brick back in place. I check the brick every few days.…
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We don’t talk about the women in the stocks. Not openly on the streets. Not openly in our homes. Not openly in the most intimate of settings with our spouses. It’s never safe to talk about them, and how they got there, because if we ever discuss, it could be seen as questioning. We can…
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I don’t know how to be sorry For something I didn’t do But I do know how to hurt Because you think I did. When the dust eventually settles And you can look me in the face I will still want to ask you Aren’t we better than this? There’s always hope for repair But…
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I once read “A loss is a loss” And now those words Ring true and pure When I think about What I have lost. It was not just A place to go A thing to do. I have not lost A calendar item An hour from my day An appointment On an endless agenda. I…
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I can feel two things at once: Grateful for how you held me close, Infuriated for how you pushed me away; Joyful for the time we shared together, Devastated for how those times have ended; Empathy for what you must be going through, Wounded by the wedge you drove between us; Hopeful to be made…
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“We’ve identified issues with your Temperament and demeanor” Are code words for the sexism That brands women’s anger and calls for fairness And justice As signs of disobedience. The policing of women’s words And women’s actions And women’s tears And women’s rage And women’s bodies And women’s spirits Affirms the oft unspoken desire Of our…
The Quick and the Dead
Short stories. Creative experiments. Ideas that might not pan out.
The Quick and the Dead 