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    Quill & Spark: Fall 2015
    Quill & Spark: Fall 2015
    Quill & Spark: Fall 2015
    Ebook73 pages58 minutes

    Quill & Spark: Fall 2015

    By Bannerwing Books

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    About this ebook

    A collection of short stories, flash fiction, and poetry featuring works by Purshia Adams, Valerie Boersma, Pamela Brock, Sarah Clayville, Shelton Keys Dunning, Tassie Hewitt, Roxanne Piskel, and Debbie Seeman.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBannerwing Books
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781311345943
    Quill & Spark: Fall 2015
    Author

    Bannerwing Books

    Bannerwing Books is a co-op of independent authors, founded in Massachusetts in 2012 and currently residing in the ether between Boston, Detroit, and Paso Robles.

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      Book preview

      Quill & Spark - Bannerwing Books

      Quill & Spark:

      The Literary Magazine

      of

      Bannerwing Books

      Volume I

      Fall 2015

      Quill & Spark

      Volume I

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2015

      Bannerwing Books

      All rights reserved.

      Afterweed © 2015 Purshia Adams

      Postharvest © 2015 Purshia Adams

      Bramare © 2015 Valerie Boersma

      Courage © 2015 Pamela Brock

      Train Ticket © 2015 Sarah Clayville

      A Pretense of Court and Courtship © 2015 Shelton Keys Dunning

      The Spin Cycle © 2015 Tassie Hewitt

      Esther’s Albatross © 2015 Roxanne Piskel

      Waiting © 2015 Roxanne Piskel

      Shift © 2015 Debbie Seeman

      Sneak © 2015 Debbie Seeman

      Stink © 2015 Debbie Seeman

      First ebook and print rights granted by the authors.

      All rights reserved.

      Cover Design © 2015 Bannerwing Books

      Cover image used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence via Unplash.com

      All rights reserved.

      STAFF

      Angela Amman

      Mandy Dawson

      Cameron D. Garriepy

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      The Editorial Staff would like to thank the poets, the storytellers, and their muses. Without you, Quill & Spark would have remained a dream.

      And as imagination bodies forth

      The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

      Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

      A local habitation and a name.

      -William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Afterweed, poem

      Esther's Albatross, fiction

      Courage, fiction

      Shift, poem

      Bramare, fiction

      The Spin Cycle, fiction

      Stink, poem

      Train Ticket, fiction

      Postharvest, poem

      Waiting, fiction

      A Pretense of Courts and Courtship, fiction

      Sneak, poem

      AFTERWEED

      by Purshia Adams

      Crimson reveals irritating secrets

      that emerge early in

      brush shadows as hushed silhouettes gather

      atop the tower, deer crash

      crackle-dry thickets, and quail advertise

      from undisclosed places.

      ESTHER’S ALBATROSS

      By Roxanne Piskel

      Esther walked the house, barefoot, one final time. She had it down to a science.

      She started at the door, heading down the hallway and into the office, the bathroom, the dining room, the kitchen. She glanced out at the backyard and then headed up the stairs. She walked through each of the four bedrooms, the bathroom the children shared, and the one she once shared with her husband. She peeked in each closet. She made sure all curtains were open to let light flood the house, and that all of the requisite tchotchkes were in their rightful place. Nothing was out of place. Not a speck of dust could be found in the entire house.

      It was nothing like in the months before, when it was a home filled with family.

      It was nothing like in the weeks before her husband became an ex and she was thrown into single parenthood as he became determined to rediscover himself and she had to eradicate everything she had known about her life.

      It was nothing like in the days before a tall and impossibly thin woman barged into her life, a suit perfectly pressed and hair coiffed as if by professionals every morning, and dictated what her house should look like, how it should smell. Everything had to be perfect if Esther expected anybody to buy her former home. It could never actually look like someone lived in it.

      In the kitchen, the sink was permanently empty now. The refrigerator, too. The living room had a cardboard television on an unscratched and unscathed entertainment center. Fresh flowers were kept in the kitchen and the dining room. They had to be replaced right before every showing. People were drawn to places with hints of nature. Fake flowers that could withstand the play of children and didn’t need to be watered to remain beautiful were now unheard of.

      Even the fruit bowl was filled with pristine, albeit fake, fruit. Apples, oranges, and just a couple of bananas brightly colored and tempting enough to almost believe they were real. The placemats had never seen a crumb or a smear from the cake of a brand new one-year-old who just experienced the true meaning of a smash cake.

      She hesitated a moment in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. Gone was the unmade bed with stuffed animals and dolls, the one with a missing arm perched on a pillow so he could rest while his owner was off to kindergarten for the day. Now there was only one doll sitting atop the pristine bed covers, newly bought for showcase purposes. The dresser drawers did not have clothes hanging out of them, never actually fully closed by a child too interested in play and pretend than making sure a drawer had closed.

      She never went into the room once occupied by a king-sized bed. It was still in the same state it was when she had first dressed it up to look like a happy married couple still lived there. There was even a framed photo of a generic couple with brilliant white teeth shining from the top of

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