Cal Emery

“Albert & Milly” by Cal Emery

ALBERT & MILLYA shaky breath that is hesitant, yet assured in its purpose. He slips from your tongue, whispering up and fogging the glossy surface of a stained mirror. The rifts of your suit wrinkle and dance over your shoulder. You try frantically to smooth them down, force them to disappear into the fabric tattered by hastened embroidery. It’s a lost cause, buried somewhere between world peace and the meaning of life. *Ahem* The sound struggling from your throat feels foreign in the empty, white, room. The only scent is of sharp, ...

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“We Are The Legacy” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #100

“Pumpkin spice soup, fresh baked bread- crunchy and flakey on the outside, warm and soft in the middle, butter melting, pooling into the crevices of the family insignia stamped on to every loaf. They sat around the waxed wood table as a tuxedoed waiter served them on cold, silver platters, light dancing across domed covers. The candles were dimmed in an attempt to gather minds to their one tethered commonality, to shadow watery eyes, pulsing jaws, and a fiercely competitive spirit. The eldest placed himself at the head off the table, where t...

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“Room for all of us” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #69

When I was four, my father was drafted for the army. It was 1861. He had grown up as a wealthy English immigrant in Massachusetts, and he wrote for the newspaper. My mother’s life was quite different. She had been a poor farmer’s daughter, who dreamed of going to the city. My father loved the countryside. It was so different from where he’d grown up, in bustling London. His father had been a doctor- a very accomplished one at that. He grew up knowing luxuries many didn’t. He too though dreamed of other things. He wanted to go to America. He ...

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“Good George my boy” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #61

“George, my boy, if you could invent anything- anything in the whole world, what would it be?” Grandfather sat next to me at the wooden in the old cottage that smelled of pine and sap, his grey wrinkled eyes smiling, long white beard tickling the surface of the stained wood, his trousers, too short held up by suspenders over his big belly. His hair was wavy like mine, but overrun by wiry grey and white. I looked up at him, at seven years old already dreaming up the world. “Something that can fly granddaddy, like the birds you taught me ...

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“The Truth, at Least Mostly” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #57

The car moves steadily forward, smooth on the newly paved roads. The sky is a dark purple, fading into dusty pink, the trees just silhouettes against the night. The stuffy smell of musty cigarettes is replaced by the sweet night air, pine needles and a light breeze as I roll down the window. Mars sleeps in the back, curled up on the leather bench. The trunk holds our three suitcases full of clothes and books, a Trader Joe’s bag with food- apples and bread, a can of beans, bottles of water. Our only belongings. Mars whines as I accelerate, sp...

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“If we die tonight, I love you” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #56

Autumn:I’m sitting under the moon on a cold, hard bench. It’s windy and slightly chilly. I wrap my red sweater tighter around me, savouring the feeling of the prickly fabric against my skin. It smells like home, where I lived. It smells like Momma’s baking, pumpkin muffins and turn-over apple pie. It smells like the natural soap she used to use when I was younger to wash my hair. It smells like the perfume that Molly used to wear, that floated like a cloud whenever she walked into the room through the dark wood doorways, flowers in her hair....

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“Don’t Fall For His Tricks” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #55

At first glance, it looks just like a regular small town at night, the sky painted black, the moon casting an eerie glow along the pavement, a scatter of nearly identical houses with white and tan brick. A playground next to the only school, with a slide, some swings. A dep in the center of the town. A gas station, a cafe, a motel. A bank, a grocery store, a post office. On the second glance, you see the boarded up theatre, lights off inside, run down, the motel, boarded up, a ‘for sale’ sign infront of the cafe, the eroding wood, the cracke...

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“The Hate Triangle” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #42

We sit cross legged on the ground, on the soft, worn carpet. Zina looks up at the sky, palms turned upwards. Millie looks over at Zina, wringing her hands, anxiously, waiting. I lie down, hands behind my head, eyes closed. I smooth back my unruly curly hair. Beth calls up to us from the courtroom. I bite my lip and stand up cautiously, deliberate to take as long as I can without seeming uncooperative. The others do the same. Millie pretends to check her watch, Zina pretends to be looking for something. We take a deep breath, walk down the lo...

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“St-stop it!” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #41

Rover looked up from his bed on the ground. Noah looked up from his seat at the kitchen table. ‘’Who’s he?’’ Noah asked, scrunching his eyebrows like he always used to do when he asked a question. When no one answered, he started to get frantic.‘’Momma, momma, who’s he?’’ He started shaking, grating his fingernails along the light wood of the table, leaving little marks that he knew he’d be in trouble for later. There was still no answer, not even a sound. It was as if no one was home. ‘’Momma, MOMMA!’’ He was crying now, where wer...

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“The Other Kind of Cell” by Cal Emery

Submitted to Contest #40

Chlo grasps my hand in hers, but it seems like giant, determined hands have set their minds to pulling us apart. We are practically the same person- they can’t just rip us apart! Can they not tell we have feelings too? We are also people, fragments of ones anyway. But to them, we are unimportant, just two out of millions, out of forty-six in our cell. We have the same wavy brown hair that we’ve been growing out past our shoulders. We both have the same emerald green eyes with little specks of gold. We both are the same height, on the taller ...

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