Issue 9: Winter 2021
Major changes are coming to eMerge! The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is always exploring and discovering new ways to promote our writers and expand...
Looking Good all the Way to the End
In the Upper Arkansas Delta, funerals are important events. Among the older generation there are time-honored funeral traditions with set guidelines, and...
Grace Found In Difficulty
In the beginning we slept. We sleptSometimes nine or more hours a night.Our dreams were complicatedAnd detailed and we shared them at breakfast.In the...
Silent Killer
There are four apples in the colorful Mexican bowl, my daughter brought to me as a gift. I choose the brightest apple of all to cut in half and slice for a...
The Combat Veteran
The war is overEverywhere but in his mindHe comes back…Back to a world where pride and serviceAre just wordsBack to a world where a man’s wordMeans nothing...
Ladies Man
This story, 'Ladies Man,' is an excerpt from Philip's novel, If Anyone Asks, Say I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues.I’d never had much luck with the girls...
A Little Color
A small crystal hangsfrom the window sill.Capturingsunlightfrom the eastern skyand lends rainbow strandson the opposite poorly patched wall.The spectrums...
Zoom
I saw you, old friend.You looked tired.There were 200 peopleon that screen, butI was only looking for you.How could I have missedall of them?
Taken
“Family abduction is the most prevalent form of child abduction in the United States. Regardless of the abductor’s motive, it is an illegal act that has...
I Want to Nurse at Your Breath
I want to nurse at your breathI want to love at your heartheal at your handslive through your eyestravel near your feetlearn at your headI want to dream at...
Writing a New Story
At the end of February, I left Minnesota on a journey to pursue and check off a bucket list item. After switching out the snow tires for regular ones, I...
Finding the Beast
Always wondering howbeasts get incalling to usdown to the boneevery sinewforming a monsterGod, an angel ofHopein my heartjumping beneathkilling the...
A Child in Danger
A child is in dangerand a descriptionis sent outgray Dodge Challengerwith Arizona plates orblack Audi A4 probablyheading for Mexico orpink pajamas with...
Beware the Night Fiction
The television was on, but the antenna was broken so the screen is nothing but static. There are mold spots in different corners of the motel room that she...
Using the Light for Food
I ate the sun today.The brightness of carrotsand richness of greens,The wonder of plantstaking the raysto grow and reachup, using the lightfor food, then...
Afternoon at the Beach Before the Storm
Slatewashes ashorewith the patinaof old maps of Michigan.Gulls scream in formationat the promise of discarded crusts of breadand fear of oncoming...
Sunday Coffee
Mama always brewed hot, black coffeeon Sunday morningsWe all wonderedif that was the special Jesus potionto bring our Daddy back to usHis whiskey-scorched...
Invictus
Summer 2010 was really shitty for me. The girl I was in love with had a girlfriend, and I was in love with a girl in the first place. Also there was one week...
Why Do They Run?
Nostrils wide in elation, the horses’chests heave under the stirruped legsof mini-men who flash their stables’silks in the sun and lurch over the...
Sustenance
travelers who bravecurrents, coyotes, ICEthirsty, starving, seekingthe fat land to the northsoldiers in a war not their ownsplayed on the battlefield, mouths...