Art by Matt Bollinger

by Yuko Iida Frost

One night after work in December, I decided to hop on the express train to visit Masa unannounced. The restaurant where he worked was tucked behind a quiet street, off the Imperial Palace. The oldest in Kyoto, it used to serve the emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo, formerly called Edo, in the late nineteenth century. The street was dark. Their unassuming façade disguised its legendary reputation and looked more like an entrance to an old merchant’s house trying to hide his wealth. The sliding door was almost invisible with only two dimly lit paper lanterns hanging on both sides.

Art by Andy Mister

by Marilyn Martin

Nine years after my father died, my mother dug up a clump of wild irises from behind the New York suburban house where she still lived and where I’d grown up. At the time, my two young children and I were visiting, and the evening before we were to leave, my mother tenderly swaddled one iris in damp paper towels and placed it in a shopping bag. On the plane, the iris balanced between Sara and John who put their arms around it as we cruised 30,000 feet above the earth.

Art by Matt Bollinger

by Katie McDonough

The day before the motel sells I’m on a train headed upstate, trying—and failing—to focus on work. This is an ill-timed trip: It’s mid-week during the busy season at my job, and I have a young son at home. But as dutiful as I am, I am equally sentimental, and I don’t want to miss my chance to see the place one more time.

When I arrive at the train station my mom is waiting in the parking lot. “Is it really going to happen?” she whispers goofily,

Art by Andy Mister

by Steven Karl

It was evening. I was depressed. I was in bed, my secret Sony Walkman tucked under the covers. The lights were off. My parents were in bed. My sister had already been kicked out. Another hushed-up and closed-in night. Outside bats began to rise and fall while cats hunted voles. The moon a static smirk.

I clicked play and the opening notes of Slayer’s “South of Heaven” bombarded my ears—a steady death march. In secrecy, I had spent the entire week trying to learn the song on my BC Rich bass.

photo by Joyce Ellis

by Brian Ellis

No childhood is complete without facing this one question one thousand times at least. It may come from a friendly aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, a well-meaning neighbor from behind the wooden fence or an adult you’ve never seen before and never will see again, but ultimately the person asking you the question is inconsequential. The important part is to have an answer for when the inevitable time comes. 

“So…what would you like to be when you grow up?”

Since you are a small child,

by Kevin Grauke

Photo by specphotops on Unsplash

This story isn’t mine to tell, but here I am telling it, and without even the courtesy of asking her permission. To dilute my guilt, I think of a mother’s blood, how it continues to pulse through the chambers of her child’s heart long after the umbilical cord, thick as a beefy thumb, has been severed. And since this is true of blood, maybe it’s true of stories, too, since nothing seems more vital within us than the stories we’ve absorbed from those whose blood courses through us.