Creative nonfiction - Short Edition - page 1 - short circuit

Creative Nonfiction

Society Reflection 3 min

Jogging Urayasu

The morning began with the pale, clean light that seems to belong uniquely to reclaimed land. I set out at a jog, keeping to the periphery of Urayasu's peninsula, circling the edge where land and ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 3 min

We Still Sit Under That Tree

Evan Jyoti Borbora

The power in my town goes out at 2:15 p.m. every day, but it's not about the power.
It's about what disappears with it. The whirr of the fan, the static of old FM radio, the illusion of time ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 1 min

Menopause is a Portal

Ayesha Mattu

Menopause is an unraveling. All the selves I knew, shed upon the floor in sloughed off skins from which I step out gingerly, naked.
They tell me I am invisible now. Is that another word for free? ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society 3 min

Failing Bath Time

Susan Lendroth

Everyone knows how to take a bath, right?
I thought I did, until I visited Japan for the first time.
Japan has elevated bathing to an art form, complete with accoutrements like wooden buckets ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Society 4 min

The Chicken Chase of Banyumas

Fendy S. Tulodo

Deep in the heart of Central Java, tucked between rolling green hills and sprawling rice fields, lay the quiet village of Banyumas. Life moved slowly there—too slowly for Darto, a twelve-year-old ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 2 min

Hark the Four Tushinski Sing

E. E. King

My father was a writer. He wrote articles, short stories, children's books, and satires. Short, sharp, funny parodies like, I'm Okay, but You're Not So Hot, and the literary scavengers' answer to ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 3 min

Rum Ball Magic

Susan Lendroth

Many years ago, I worked as a film and television extra for a few months. Interspersed with temporary jobs at insurance companies and accounting firms, the onscreen background work paid no more than ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

4 min

A Teachable Moment That Became a Disaster Movie

Dave Bachmann

There is a large box in the custodian's office in the elementary school where I work. It is labeled "for lizards only." It has never been used to catch a lizard. Or anything else, fo ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 3 min

Dandy Lions

Dave Bachmann

It was 1962, Wichita, Kansas. My Dad surveyed the front yard—a very big front yard, a grim look on his face.
"Weeds," he pronounced sullenly, as if our front yard had become the equivalent of a ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society 3 min

Ponos Road

Edward Yatscoff

PONOS was the personified Greek spirit of hard labor and toil.
The wide, gravel path snaked through a scrub meadow joining two working-class neighborhoods. Every kid in the neighborhood walked ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 4 min

To An Unknown Booklover

Susan Lendroth

I don't remember which I encountered first: Helene Hanff's book, 84 Charing Cross Road, or the Anne Bancroft / Anthony Hopkins movie of the same name. All I know is that decades later the title's ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Reflection 5 min

Mister Peepers

FC Pierce

It wasn't fair. EJ had found him, brought him home, set up a comfy, warm bed of hay in the basement; she'd even named him. But from our first encounter on that cold January night, Mister Peepers only ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 2 min

The Alchemy of Time and Presents Past

Susan Lendroth

Everyone receives gifts they neither need nor want—bath salts for people who only shower, a frilly nightgown wrapped up for someone who sleeps in sweatpants, that 27th tie . . . Sometimes we return ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society 5 min Mature Audience

A Gift of One Green Stone

Ann Garrett

For Richard

It was 1984 and we were pretending to be spies.
It was one of those "adult" games that twists your arm to mingle. Our host, David, greeted us at the door with a card that had ou ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait 4 min

Bibliomaniac

Rolli .

Books are gentle companions. Usually.
Except for that one time I was just about murdered by books.
That was twenty years ago . . .

***
I didn't know what to do with my life. I had no ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society 5 min Mature Audience

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

Kenneth Margolin

I met Mia for the first time at my tennis club. A small Chinese woman with dark brown eyes and short-cropped black hair, she greeted me with a heavy Chinese accent.
"Are you Ken?" she asked.
To my ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 1 min

Falling into New Year

Susan Lendroth

Autumn's here—Happy New Year!

Not for me, that pallid substitute in January with its noisemakers and forgotten resolutions. My calendar resets annually with the opening of classroom doors, no ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Jogging Urayasu

We Still Sit Under That Tree

Menopause is a Portal

Failing Bath Time

The Chicken Chase of Banyumas

Hark the Four Tushinski Sing

Rum Ball Magic

A Teachable Moment That Became a Disaster Movie

Dandy Lions

Ponos Road

To An Unknown Booklover

Mister Peepers

The Alchemy of Time and Presents Past

A Gift of One Green Stone

Bibliomaniac

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

Falling into New Year