The Bookends Review

2 days ago | thebookendsreview.com | Jordan Blum

Kalpana was sweating. She could feel a bead of moisture trickle slowly down her lower back as she watched all theother kids in her class scribbling furiously, filling up their papers with glorious tales of what they did on their summer vacations. Her own paper lay on her desk, a pristine white canvas untouched by ink. What could I possibly write about, she fretted, her panic increasing by the second as she watched the timer on the board count down. Kalpana could tell that Mrs.

3 days ago | thebookendsreview.com | Jordan Blum

I get this way, this time of year. Light begins to shift and I will notice………………that wheel turning. Cicadas whirring louder, they will know. They beckon their own dying………………soon to come. Come back, I ran ahead. The sunlight is still boldand I see blue sky through the haze of heavy air and………………brave cicadas. They leave their little shells some years,carapaces rattling on the tree trunks. Less than corpses,………………more than ghosts.

1 week ago | thebookendsreview.com | Jordan Blum

“Speed up, or the next thing you know, you’ll have a hole blown up in your head,” the soldier threatened.             Rocks scraping at my bare feet, I scrambled up the almost non-existent track. All the while, I thought about how I could so naturally understand the Japanese words that he said. The realization clawed at my heart.             “I don’t know why I had to bring him along. Doesn’t seem much use anyway. Might as well kill him instead,” I heard him grumble.

1 week ago | thebookendsreview.com | Mario Moussa |Jordan Blum

They stood waiting to cross the intersection as a line of cars lumbered downtown. Bobby fingered the phone in his pocket and glanced over at Gabriella. Gabriella was in the middle of a story about their friends Jessica and Raul. They’d been in couples therapy for almost six months. Raul had become a better listener, which had made Jessica happier, but Raul was happier too.

1 week ago | thebookendsreview.com | Jordan Blum

Our flesh was joined, once. Your blood was my blood. My blood was yours. Curdled screams, purple arms. You entered, wailing, on a black tide of blood and guts. I inhaled your wet hair and clung onto you so tightly I thought you might burst. But you didn’t. And my life was made. Now by some cruel joke you stand before me, here in the depths of the underworld. My son! A living, breathing man, ruddy-cheeked and eyes shining. Your chest rises and falls. Blood pulses through your every sinew.