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Garden of Remembrance

May 15, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Ephie Hauck

[flash prose]

Monday.

There is a stranger at my door. He won’t stop knocking, won’t stop peering through the windows. He swears that he once knew me. I could remember, he says, if I’d just look at him. I shut the blinds.

*     *     *

Tuesday.

There are no longer any mirrors in my house. Those reflections tell a story in my handwriting, one that I don’t remember making. There is a tension in my veins. I think my sense of self is losing circulation. Pinpricks tingle in my head, itching to crawl out.

Maybe my memory fell asleep.

*     *     *

Wednesday.

I catch a glimpse of the person at the door. He is still waiting for an answer, sleeping under my welcome mat each night. He’s tall, slender, and deliberate, just like a boy I used to know. For a moment, there is something familiar in his silhouette. But as the nighttime swallows his shadow, my train of thought leaves without me. I can’t help but feel as if I’ve forgotten something. Maybe I’ve just misplaced my keys.

*     *     *

Thursday.

I hear that knocking in my dreams. Even in sleep, I don’t open the door. My memory of him is a pill burrowed in my throat. It’s always present, never moving—something I know I must have taken but just can’t seem to swallow.

*     *     *

Friday.

On this day, I am able to forget. I’m too busy digging tunnels in my backyard, ripping bones and teeth from the ground. When the letters start arriving, people asking where I’ve gone, I tell them I am building dinosaurs.

*     *     *

Saturday.

Through the peephole, the stranger lurks. The glass melts his face into a fishbowl, distorted to fit my point of view. He tells me to stop digging up the past, that everyone knows erosion can’t be reversed. He says that time is sandpaper on old wounds, and scar tissue is what we’re made of. This is healing, and I need to learn to let dead things rot. I laugh and laugh, but he doesn’t get the joke.

*     *     *

I can’t remember what day it is.

The boy has gotten into my house. Did I let him in? Has he been here before?

I don’t remember when he stopped being a stranger.

“Why are you here?” I finally ask. “Why do you keep coming back?”

Now, it is his turn to laugh. He says to let him go, then. Fossils can’t move, this isn’t Jurassic Park. You can’t resurrect joy or crucify pain. He tells me I don’t deserve to play god.

I tell him he is knocking at a graveyard.

 

Ephie Hauck lives in Nashville, TN. She won second place in the 2018 Belmont University Poetry Contest and was a semifinalist in the Nashville Youth Poet Laureate competition twice. She loves writing poetry and fiction, and has not been previously published.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/GardenOfRemebranceINSTA-1.jpg 1080 1080 Ephie Hauck https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Ephie Hauck2019-05-15 12:05:132019-06-03 09:08:11Garden of Remembrance

School Lunch 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:

Glitch Wisdom

May 12, 2023/in Blog / KJ McCoy
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/christmas-chamo-squashed-scaled.jpg 2560 1573 KJ McCoy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png KJ McCoy2023-05-12 11:00:032023-05-12 15:54:05Glitch Wisdom

Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

April 14, 2023/in Blog / EJ Saunders
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/paul-hanaoka-unsplash-freelance-pay-post-1-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 EJ Saunders https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png EJ Saunders2023-04-14 11:59:292023-04-14 12:09:57Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

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

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/51458407-FB7D-4C1F-AD98-9E3181F097C9.jpg 2288 2288 Meghan McGuire https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Meghan McGuire2023-03-10 11:55:512023-03-08 12:08:20How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Secret Histories of Everywhere

June 2, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Brian Lynn
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/headshot.jpg 241 358 Brian Lynn https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brian Lynn2023-06-02 23:47:102023-06-02 22:04:35The Secret Histories of Everywhere

Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

May 5, 2023/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/alexander-grey-IDxuUey3M5E-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2023-05-05 23:55:022023-05-05 20:13:45Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

Dancing into Detachment

April 7, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Robert Kirwin
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/IMG_8449-scaled.jpg 2560 1920 Robert Kirwin https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Robert Kirwin2023-04-07 23:50:412023-04-07 18:13:12Dancing into Detachment

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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

LitDish: Ten Questions With Isabel Quintero

May 26, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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Chop Day

May 19, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Hannah Felt Garner
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Headshot_HFGarner.jpg 770 794 Hannah Felt Garner https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Hannah Felt Garner2023-05-19 11:48:052023-05-18 22:19:17Chop Day

Litdish: Ten Questions With David A. Robertson

April 28, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/7722CAC2-6115-409D-A317-A768C6903639.jpeg 2018 2038 Interviewed by Gail Vannelli https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Interviewed by Gail Vannelli2023-04-28 10:13:482023-04-28 10:13:48Litdish: Ten Questions With David A. Robertson

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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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