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Negative Space

May 28, 2015/in CNF, CNF, Summer-Fall 2015 / by Ted Chiles

First you notice the writing students in front of you slowing down, then pausing, and moving into the street.

Yellow tape is stretched across the sidewalk tied to a tree and a lamppost. You can’t read the black printing.

The now visible police cars and years of TV say crime scene.

The red lights flashing across the street shift your focus.

More yellow tape, an ambulance, several officers, EMTs, and perhaps a witness or plain clothes somebody talking to a police officer.

Behind all of them is a building with balconies. Black rails. Glass. Red brick. You count the stories.

The grass is green and the bushes are in bloom with pink blossoms.

There is a blank space. White. Like whiteout on a picture. Like an unfinished painting. Cleanly erased. Lacking relief. Flat white.

You don’t stop at the yellow tape. The students with you keep moving into the street around the cars and back on the sidewalk.

A woman outside a church says he jumped. Students pass by and you look up at the building.

Are you searching for the balcony? Counting floors again. Imagining.

You turn and walk on and wonder if all these writers and poets and playwrights are constructing narratives.

Are they building plots, forming characters, metaphors?

You turn back. Stop. Walk a few more steps. Stop. Turn back again. Wonder why?

The urge for a cigarette, a drink, your lover’s embrace floods you.

Close your eyes and breathe, fill the space, and shake like a dog just wet from the ocean.

At the lecture hall, stand in line for your decaf Americana. Find someone to sit next to. Ask him if he saw. Ask her what she knows.

Open your notebook. Open your iPad. Check your email. Start writing.

Ted ChilesTed Chiles’ fiction has appeared in several literary journals including Canteen, Wacamma, Smokelong, Quarterly, and riverbabble. Vestal Review nominated his story “A Recursive Love Affair” for a Pushcart Award. Chiles lives in Santa Barbara, California with another writer and two cats. In a former life he taught economics, the most dramatic of the social sciences.

 

 

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Genre Archive

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Point Break & Top Gun Are More Than Homoerotic Action Movies

March 3, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Michaela Emerson
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Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

March 17, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Jemma Leigh Roe
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The Russian Train

February 24, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cammy Thomas
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Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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