QB
Staff of QB
Lost: One White Feather
TERRI ROSE
20.08.25
Reward offered.
It first appeared under my pillow twenty years ago, the day after my husband’s death. In the hospice, he promised to send me a sign from the heavens—proof that he’s safe up there, that our love is pure and eternal. I know in my heart he’s waiting.
Mrs Margaret Smyth.
Editor’s note: Obituary records show Mrs Smyth died on 16.01.24. The ad continues to appear mysteriously in print, despite her death.
R.I.P
Volition
LENNY MORGAN
You’re welcomed by the dark as you’re dragged into a deep slumber. You can’t feel your limbs anymore, nor can you see your own face in the mirror. You must have finally collapsed under the weight of reality. But now there’s nothing. Only the flashing lights and the pulsing headache remain to accompany you. You’re falling, and if you don’t wake up soon, you’re gonna fall so far down it’ll get hard to climb back out again. Climb back out of what, you may ask? This tiny chasm you’ve dug in the pits of your heart. You don’t know when you made this hole but it’s yours and it fits you. But you don’t belong there, no one does. So no matter how comforting it looks, don’t fall any deeper. There’s nothing for you down there, nothing that won’t give you pain for remembering the past. You must be wondering now, why would I go back? Well, you've got a point. The world out there is equally as bad, but it needs your presence, it needs your mistakes and your failures. Without it, it's empty and dull. They never said living is easy, but think about how far you've come. That's important.
So get up, you’re not done yet. You've still got a lot more people to disappoint, but it's going to be marvelous.
Promise of death
CATHERINE CHAPPELL
Death had always scared me.
It came to me as a child, moments after entering the world, umbilical cord around neck, starved for oxygen.
"We can be together," it offered.
I would not have remembered if it had not made the offer again and again in my dreams, drowning me. Burying me. Choking me of life. Promising me it would be there when I was ready. I'd wake up, heart racing, gasping for air and lie awake for hours to prevent another reunion.
It wasn't until high school I realized the relief of its promise. I held my grandma’s hand as she stared out the window. She was beautiful and lost. Far, in a way we could not reach. Years before, she had scolded her children for reviving her. It was one of her few lucid moments. Life had taken strength from her bones, memories from her head, and voice from her tongue. It was then I realized that life could strip you from yourself, and, in desire to remain, we would still cling to that which has taken everything.
I held her hand, and death held mine, and it promised it would be there when she was ready.
She claimed it a month later.
I felt guilt for holding her hand with death's, and relief because it was life that had killed her and death that had promised her more.
breaking
KEN KAKAREKA
2 mexican
men
breaking
for lunch
from the
car wash
next door.
they carry
tall
sweaty
ice cold
beers
in 97
degree heat.
their smiles
are the smiles
of an
american’s
first time
in paris
or children
on christmas
morning.
for 1 hr.
they will
laugh
in the Face
of
an America
that has
us all
by
the balls.
they will
laugh
at whoever
promised
their
independence
upon arrival.
they will
laugh
at the
lost art
of a
mid-afternoon
buzz
in the
Face of
the Man.
they will
laugh
b/c
it’s all
you
can do
when you
realize
the irony
of it
all.
they are
not
breaking
for lunch
so much
as they
are breaking
for Freedom.
Core
ERIN JAMIESON
you pretend the apples aren’t
bruised, peeling skin to reveal
mushy white flesh, never once
looking at me- french manicure
fading even though you were told
it would last weeks
from now, maybe I’ll remember
the tilt of sunlight on your soft pink hair
or the way your lip trembles
as I take your peels, discard them as if it’s that easy
to forget us
It was bad weather for an exhibit
With ominous clouds that conquered the air
And the gallery seemed to inhibit
Those colors destined to drive out despair
The sign said, “Touch, we will not prohibit”
So, my father plopped himself in a chair
At the window, in a manner most crass
He fell asleep with his foot on the glass!
Fumes
MARIO SENZALE
The contractor who was supposed to install my kitchen hood died.
He shouldn't be resting in peace; he should be installing my hood.
The Collection of Sunlight
BETTY STANTON
I was hired to collect what was left of the light.
At first it was too fragile. I didn’t understand the way it clung to shards of old glass and drifted through dust like lost scriptures. Eventually I learned how to handle it, and now I keep it in jars labelled with years that no longer mean anything.
When the others sleep, I open them. The light moves, restless, as if it remembers the fields and faces it is meant for. I’m the only one of us who can hear the way it hums, who can understand it. It sings that bodies still want to be seen in the light.
I send my findings into the dark.