The Time Traveler’s Plaque

October 2021 | fiction

Striving to inject some wonder and whimsy into people’s humdrum days, an older man with a sense of humor installed a plaque in front of his stately home reading: “Queenston Heritage, Frederick John Wimple, 1812-1896, Inventor of Time Travel, Lived here in 2065.”  The installation was done discreetly, such that no one really knows when it occurred.

Recently, a local doctoral student decided to covertly document the amount of time that tourists and passersby spent looking at the numerous heritage and historic plaques dotting the quaint village which 19th century Mr. Wimple had called home in the late 21st century.  The researcher’s results were made public in the form of an article published in a local paper.

Having great pride in the relatively large role their home has played in the forming of a now great nation, townspeople were dismayed to learn that on average most people spent twice as long reading the plaque pertaining to Frederick John Wimple.  Given that the dozen or so other plaques detailed in the study typically contained ten times the amount of information as the Wimple marker, this was seen as evidence of an apathetic populace and confirmation that we’re living in a post-truth era.

Looking to draw evermore visitor traffic to benefit the local business community, it recently leaked that the village council was furtively formulating plans to install several other fictional “contemplative plaques.”  Additionally, the grand Victorian home at the purported site of Mr. Wimple’s past residence of the future was recently sold off-market for an exorbitant amount of money to a mysterious theoretical physics think tank based overseas.

Scott G. Harvey

SCOTT G. HARVEY teaches psychology at SUNY Buffalo State and resides in the Niagara Region of Ontario with an ever-changing mixture of humans, cats, dogs, and chickens. He is the author of Savagely Noble: A Young Man’s Journey from Ignorance, Through Illusion, To Identity. His short fiction has appeared in Short Story Avenue.

The Old Playground

October 2021 | poetry

I’m standing there, looking

at my old grade school’s set

of monkey bars. I can touch them

with my forehead. I almost do,

hoping to go back.

 

But I start to sink,

alternating legs, by inches as

I walk. I run and still sink,

feeling more than hearing

the laughter of the child,

 

grown giant underground,

grabbing hand-over-hand

at my moving feet. I reach

the sidewalk slogging mid-thigh

through earth, and lose both shoes

as I pull myself out.

 

Once should have been enough.

 

Mark Henderson

Mark Henderson is an associate professor of English at Tuskegee University. He earned his Ph. D. at Auburn University with concentrations in American literature and psychoanalytic theory. He has poems published or forthcoming in Cozy Cat Press, From Whispers to Roars, Defenestrationism.net, Bombfire, Former People, Neologism, Broad River Review, Rune Bear, Flora Fiction, Flare, and Visitant. He was born and raised in Monroe, Louisiana, and currently resides in Auburn, Alabama.

Forgetful

October 2021 | nonfiction

Forgetfulness runs in my family. My brother, the original absent-minded professor, offers me a ride home. “My car’s not far away,” he says, “I’ll be right back to pick you up.” We part outside the Fine Arts building on the campus where he teaches. I wait, and here he comes… and goes, right past me. His car disappears down the street.

Oh well, I think, he’ll remember eventually. And he does. Soon, his car glides up and he rolls the window down. “You’ll think I don’t love you,” he says, “but I came back as soon as I remembered.”

Forgetfulness often involves cars. I have trouble remembering where I park, so I have a system. When I go to a familiar place, I park as close as possible to the same spot each time. When I can’t, I’m grateful that my key has handy buttons that make the horn honk. But in the parking deck today, I wander around my favorite spot, looking for my car. I press the “lock” button until I hear my horn. At least, I think it’s my horn. It does sound a little muffled. I walk on, and the sound recedes. Have I passed my car? I retrace my steps, and it happens again. Finally, I realize I’m on the floor directly above my car, and hear it honking when I pass over it.

I’m not alone. I approach my grocery store entrance and meet a woman coming out. She pauses, looking back and forth, “Now where in the hell did I park my car?” she mutters. Perhaps the fault lies in our cars and not in ourselves.

Water is almost as bad as cars for provoking forgetfulness. After boiling two pans dry, I give up and buy an electric kettle that turns itself off.

I’ve had plumbing-related floods in two homes, so I’m instantly on alert if I hear water running. Today I start a load of laundry, go upstairs, check my email, take out the trash, then happen to walk through the hallway by the bathroom. Then I hear it, the telltale sound of water in the pipes. I wiggle the handle of the commode; it’s not the problem. I run to the basement – no water there – then to the first floor powder room. Mystified, back in the kitchen, I finally remember my laundry. The rinse cycle has started.

I console myself that forgetfulness is common. Else, why would they sell electric kettles? Why would my friend Marlene wear a necklace that says “I Can’t Remember?” I’ve even seen packs of gum labeled Instantly Remember Where You Left your KEYS – intense memory-stimulating mint gum.

Did I mention that forgetfulness runs in my family?

 

Sandy Fry

Sandy Fry is a writer, photographer, traveler, and lifetime art student. Past publications include Minerva Rising, Number One, StoryNews, Dreamers, and an essay in the ‘Your Turn’ column of the AARP Bulletin. Her photographs have appeared in Minerva Rising, Unearthed, Oyster River Pages, and The Longleaf Pine, as well as in the Light Space and Time online gallery.

Tawnya Gibson

October 2021 | visual art

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Tawnya Gibson

Tawnya Gibson is a freelance writer and photographer. Her love of photography started young, with a Kodak Ektralite camera in her youth. She is rarely without a camera in hand, ready to document life as she sees it. Though a trained journalist, she has in recent years changed course, combining her arts education from Utah State University in both writing and photography to tell the story of the intermountain west where she lives and the southwest where she was raised. In her work, she places importance on photojournalism and being able to tell the story of those people and objects who inhabit the earth, both past and present. Her strong use of color and knack for seeing the beauty in the everyday and sometimes forgotten has made her work stand out in local showings. She currently lives and works in the mountains of Utah, but her New Mexican roots still bleed through her work.

dogs from the future

October 2021 | poetry

cattails in a bag, carried home on my back

best eaten in the winter, & we’re ten weeks

from the last frost, & the coming on of weeks

& weeks where vaccinations become

engagement rings, become christmas in spring,

become brushed hair & earrings & dinners

outside where i can see you

 

i can see you now, still, when i close my eyes

& hear your voice through the phone, remembering

how you make me laugh, hanging my feet

out the window, like it wasn’t just a year ago,

eating grapes on the porch steps, putting

crushed beer cans in the mailbox, or

talking grit from the backseat of your car

 

lunaria in a manila envelope & nightshade

from the dumpster; cockscomb in an altoid tin,

& the decision to stay through summer

& the voracious need to start a garden,

& the ache to be outside alone

& the dream to be inside this body

like i am inside this body

 

the dog, pissing on the hardwood doesn’t have a name,

& even if no name comes, there will be tomatoes,

& this summer the only fear i will have

is how i will keep track of all the vegetables

& flowers, seedlings in egg cartons,

tugging at my shoestrings, & what light

will i bury them in

 

all winter, i walked under a murder of crows,

crossing the bridge after work & a week of

single digit weather; when this city spends

over half the year in gray, the crows

taking my breath against the blue sky,

only half knowing the summer will take

the tens of thousands of them away

 

then, when the dog stops barking,

when the crows stop coming,

how will you know

i am almost home

 

Danica Depenhart

Danica Dagenhart is a Pittsburgh-based writer, maker, & educator. they are a recipient of The Alex Rowan Award for poetry writing, & their work has been featured in TriQuarterly and Pretty Owl Poetry. you can find them on Instagram @motherweather.