Why I Woke Up Having Bit through My Tongue in an Ambulance in Basque Country by Devon Hoxer8/1/2026  Photo by YANGHONG YU on Unsplash Because my body was discovered in the road, rain-wet and broken. Because going to the doctor day ten of our trip to remove a bug from my ear was a thrill, but clearly not enough. Because I thought it might be a spider and was too chickenshit to drown it out. Because Northern Spain had become our place. Because you had your pintxos and I Euskara—the chef and the linguist—to each their muse. Because its alphabet is an island. Because every island is a woman is a storm. Because you wanted to select clams at the Gernika market. Because I wanted to devour a gilda every day, and because they were incomplete without beer. Because the grains of sand collected in our shoes, on the table, between the sheets. Because you tacked mesh to the window to mend the entrance. Because the ants were getting in, and deeper. Because chaos had become our place, restless and teeming. Because beer was incomplete without Fernet. Because at the time, one drink at a time wasn’t enough. Because it was our last night. Because my most fluent language was self-destruction. Because the last thing I recalled was singing with the Belgian couple, cigarettes, and spinning. Because the cobblestones had carried me too far and alone. Because I thought I was dreaming, thought I could fly, and jumped.
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 Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash shift⌘? (help) “Where’s the Bluetooth on my laptop?” “Can you edit a PDF?” “Why won’t the picture attach to email?” My elderly mother’s phone calls, typically conducted during the middle of my workday, frequently begin with low-grade tech support. Not exactly running the “Genius Bar” myself, these interactions usually necessitate that I Google her question and parrot the information back to her. ⌘H (hide) Sometimes I don’t answer. Busy, cranky, or a combination of the two. If picking up the phone will cause an argument, it’s better for our relationship that voicemail runs interception. We both have sharp edges. ⌘N (open new) My new year commenced with a missed call. Clearly a pocket dial while driving, the opening half of her inadvertent voicemail is muffled gray road noise. The clicking of the turn indicator. The squeaking of window wipers. A cough. Then, believing herself alone, she begins to softly sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Mid warble on the lyric about drinking “a cup o’ kindness,” someone seemingly cuts her off. Laying on the horn, she spills that cup o’ kindness, splashing obscenities across the dashboard. Huffy muttering. Pause. She resumes singing, taking it from the top. ⌘G (find again) I’ve listened to that message repeatedly. Gentle off-key positivity disrupted by a piercing reactive outburst followed by the swift recovery back to song – a perfect encapsulation of her essence through the technological blundering of accidental audio. ⌘S (save) One day, in the not-so-distant future, I’ll miss being her tech support.
 Image via Frantisek Duris Tonight like some kind of calligraphy scrawled across the night sky, out over the lake, like an electrocortical of light, which is to say a sign, an omen the old ones would say, and tonight the man is leaving after sixteen years of living in this institution. He stands, staring out at the rain, touches the small scar on the side of his head from the gunshot that crossed him in a shootout down in the city of bridges, when he was a young man and nearly lost to his mama, and his grandmama who comes to visit, and he goes home to see, and eat the batches of biscuits like the ones he brings back to us. He says, “Biscuits need to be smothered. Butter and honey. Butter and honey.” He wears his Pittsburgh Pirates cap slanted to one side to show off his scar like a medal. The man would get mad when he first came here as a young man, and grab a chair, raise it as if to hit you. He could barely speak. Then the words began to come out as a stutter. Then sentences. Now the man speaks halting but can be understood, and he has learned to wait. He’d stamp and hit before he could speak. Now he walks slow with patience, sometimes too much. Late for meds, or dinner, he moves an easy river. His anger found a box in his brain he rarely now lets the lid off. Still his memory is bad and full of holes, like the bullet holes that filled his body that night he nearly died, and his family sent him here, not just for rehab but to hide. He suffers from night terrors and insomnia. Sometimes he wakes and doesn’t know where he is. I guide him slowly back to bed. In the morning, he is full of grins and high fives. He has learned to shower and dress himself. He can’t tie his shoes. He will never have a job, but he can set the table. He can get his own cereal. He can say his prayers. He attends church with a volunteer. He sings out loud and offkey. He is good with days and time which is no small thing. He can tell you the statistics of every Pittsburgh pirate. He knows when he is talked down to. “I’m not a child,” he says. “I’m not a child.” But now nearly two decades have passed since the bullet pierced his head, and he is a man, one who likes to stay up late and watch wrestling, who wants two sandwiches each day for lunch, a man who can play checkers and win. He falls to sleep singing—offkey with his headphones on. I gently tap his shoulder, say, “R maybe go to bed? You fell asleep in your chair.” He looks at me. His eyes brown and deep. One eye wanders a bit, as if someone is sneaking up on him. “OK man,” he says. He says it all the time, “OK Man. You’re OK man.” His mother now is out of prison. She is clean and working at a hair salon, drives up to visit these last years. His cousins say they can help. And he will help his mother stay clean. He will help her clean the house and do the dishes. She will tuck him in and he will say, “Mama, I am a man.” We stand under the awning and watch the rain. He says, “The sky is angry.” I say, “Amen.” “Angry ain’t get you nothing. Angry ain’t get you nothing.” We watch the lightning crisscross and jag. The thunder rumbles as if a last goodbye.
 Image by Claire Kelly on Unsplash I saw your eyes again, just a glimpse, yet I always catch you in flashes. Sometimes your eyes are blue like your father’s, but that day I saw my own, a fog-draped forest with just a touch of green. A glimmer of what could have been, what is gone, what I can only know in my imagination. When your brother was born, I saw you in his umber eyes. When I caressed his fragile fingers, know that I was caressing yours. When your sister was born, I saw you looking out at me through the hazel line etched around her caramel irises. When I nuzzled her thick, fuzzy auburn hair and kissed her wrinkled forehead, I breathed in your essence with hers. Once at the park, they chased one another, fumbling as toddlers do. I saw you there, dark brown hair tousled around your honeyed face. You just turned twelve. The fall leaves swirled under your feet as you zig-zagged beside them—guiding them away from uneven ground, cushioning their falls. I closed my eyes, grasping at the already fading image, your laughter humming through my memory. When your brother started school and cried every day, you comforted him. You found a picture with all of us in it, and made a necklace from it, one he could wear to school. When the sadness set in, he’d look down to see we were there with him. Do you remember when he filled the school bathroom sink with water and paper towels causing it to overflow? Of course you do. His punishment meant using the nurse’s bathroom, and you were there beside him on those walks of shame. You were twenty-nine when he rode his first motorcycle, but you were on the back, holding his waist, and when he built his first engine, you guided his hands. When he graduated, you clapped the loudest, whistling and cheering even though we were supposed to be silent until the end. Your sister was a little tougher. She didn’t cry when she started school, but you were still there when the teasing began, when the little boys told her she couldn’t t-t-talk. You gave her strength to endure, to walk away. You told her that stuttering was a sign of genius. Because people who bumped, as you called it, had so many creative ideas in their heads at one time that their mouths just simply couldn’t keep up. You were seventeen when she was drawing stick people and thirty when she was composing portraits, but you sat beside her all the way, her muse. And when she attached herself to that boy, old man, old woman, groomer, whoever it was on the other side of the chat, you helped her see that it was a mistake, that she could get hurt, that she deserved better. As she struggled to crawl out of the solitary pit she’d dug, you reached for her hand, hoisting her over the edge back to life. Sometimes, though, I lose sight of you. If the days stretch on without a glimpse, reproach eats at my belly, and I hope you can’t see my shame. I’m afraid of losing you completely. I have no pictures or videos, only my imaginations, but even those images fade, like photos shuffled too many times. I tell myself that it’s a good thing because it’s hard to see you but not have you, not touch you, not hear you. Perhaps I shouldn’t fear because when I do see you, it will be like waking up from a happy dream, and when I don’t see you—when I don’t see you, when I don’t see you—you will become my shadow, like a happy dream I can’t remember. Jenn Martinez-Stefaniak lives in Massachusetts where she spends as much time as possible outside with her family, taking in large doses of the energy and artistry that is God’s Creation. She writes for children and adults, seeking to encourage and inspire her readers by exploring the intersection of faith, nature, and daily life. Her work has appeared in Prime Magazine, Louisiana English Journal, and Nature Friend Magazine. When she’s not writing, she’s hiking with her beloved dogs or visiting faraway places, real and imagined. She can be found on Instagram: @jennmartinezstefaniak
 Image by Arda Tutkun K I am eight and Daddy tells me it’s time to clean my room. “You have ten minutes,” he says. “For every two minutes you go over, I’m going to cut the head off of one of your stuffed animals.” There is no way he’s serious, I think, but I still hurry to pack away my Littlest Pet Shops. Daddy has taken away my toys before, but never destroyed them. He’s threatened to, but never does. Daddy wouldn’t. And I want to do a good job cleaning. I stack my duct tape wallets in neat piles and begin stacking my paper doll clothes when Daddy walks in, eyes mean and mouth tight. He glances at the scattered paper clothing around me and then trains his eyes on my stuffed animal shelf. My heart skips. “I’m almost done!” I plead. “Everything else is done! I’m trying to put them away nicely!” The closer his hand gets to Moolan, my favorite Webkinz, the louder I yell. “I wasn’t distracted this time!” There’s snot beginning to drip from my nose. “I just had a big mess!” Daddy doesn’t hear me. While I beg, he pulls Moolan down from her shelf and holds her neck between the scissor blades. Daddy looks down at me, then at his watch. “You’ve got one minute.” I can’t tell the paper shirts from the paper pants through my tears. ~ Daddy I know how this works: she cries, I back down, she never learns her lesson. How else will she learn that the world won’t wait for her? That everything you love can disappear? Who else will teach her that nothing is truly hers? Who else will teach her discipline, hierarchy, compassion? How else will she know to parent her kids? She will thank me later, when she can clean her room in under ten minutes. Hopefully she’ll always picture me in the doorway, scissors in hand, reaching for something she loves, the same way I can see my dad perpetually unbuckling his belt in the corner of my eye. This is how I destroy her laziness. This is how I conquer her softness. “You’ve got thirty seconds.” My hands tighten on the scissors. ~ Moolan I wish I could stop her crying. I wish she’d grab my hoof and twirl my stray threads between her fingers like she always does. I wish she’d make me kiss that Clydesdale Webkinz named Peach again. Her fingers are busy trying not to rip the thin cardboard. They resemble real doll clothes now, floppy and wet and fragile because she won’t stop crying over them. It’s a department store’s worth sprawled out in front of her. I’m trying to stay hopeful. I wish I could stop her crying. It’s so loud, her sobbing, her pleading. I wish I could turn my beady eyes away. If I had a spine, I could look our aggressor in the eye. I could beg him to stop her crying. I could beg him not to hurt me. I could beg him not to hurt her. Please don’t hurt her. “You’ve got ten seconds,” vibrates behind me. 10 The guillotine grows closer, I can 9 feel the scissor blades tighten 8 on my neck. Please don’t. 7 She’s looking at me now, wet cardboard 6 held loose in her hands. She knows she’ll never 5 finish in time. She knows it’s all over. 4 So do I. Our eyes shimmer. We’ll meet again 3 on www.webkinz.com. I’m trying 2 to look on the bright side but 1 we both know it’s not the same. 0
 Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash We wait in the driveway for the bus, my daughter crunching woodsmoke-scented leaves to pass the time. I’m an excellent mother, if the definitive parenting sites can be believed. Limited screen time, multiple bedtime stories, junk food only on special occasions, no exposure to unpleasantness, etc. But I’m bored, and leaf-crunching isn’t going to cut it. I teach my preschooler a catchphrase from my favorite decade, although introducing one’s child to snark is probably against the rules. “As if,” she repeats, cocking her head. I know I’ll regret my decision in a day or two when she’s echoed the words ad nauseam, but at this moment she’s perfectly adorable, trying hard (and failing) to get the intonation just right. It’s excellent fodder for the kind of mother who records her child’s every move and sets up a highly lucrative YouTube channel. Which I am not. Seriously, though, this show is payment worthy. “As if, as if, as if,” my offspring shrieks, running back and forth from the garage door to the curb, leaving golden baby tornadoes in her wake. As if she doesn’t have a care in the world, other than ensuring adequate time in the jumping around room. As it should be, my inner voice opines in a self-congratulatory tone. A mango-hued conveyance finally arrives. I hand my mini-me off to the driver with an apologetic smile and a warning that she may be insufferable on the journey. That night, after bath and books, we lie like nesting commas on her turquoise and lavender comforter, her uncategorizable eyes wide shut, her breathing soft and even. Without warning, her right arm claims my neck in an inexorable chokehold. As if I’ve been conned by a four-year-old. As if she’s known forever how quickly she can lose me. As if she’s always been aware of the menace right outside; pervasive, like the scent of woodsmoke.
 Image by Anders Drange on Unsplash As I watch my mum ascend on an escalator a guy is playing Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to Interstellar on one of those train station pianos and it's impossible not to start crying. He is giving us the soundtrack to an imagined film of our lives, and in this scene, we are parting after a few days on holiday together. She's a rapidly shrinking woman with a huge suitcase and I am in tears because, even after ten years of living in a different country, when we say goodbye, I remember how much she hates that she can't pop over to my house whenever she wants, which might be one of the top three things she ever wanted, and I wonder if all my life decisions have been wrong. I don't know when the music started, but it's the right music. As a child, I lived my private moments as if I were an actor in a film about my own life and everything that happened was from a script, and everything I said was a line. It was a kind of meta life, because I watched a lot of TV and maybe I was weird (or maybe that was normal, I don't know). But having done that for my first twenty-five years, the idea of actually filming myself now and uploading it to social media is unappealing to say the least (I am a smidge over 40). Yet so many of us do it, and I don't judge. It's normal, and to not do something does not always mean to disapprove. If a stranger is likely to find footage of you eating breakfast cereal interesting, knock yourself out. No one is stopping you. In fact, these days it's encouraged. The guy on the piano was, of course, filming himself, but you don't need to find his uploaded footage to enjoy Hans Zimmer's film score for Interstellar. It's available on Instagram so anyone can use it as their personal soundtrack now (search for Cornfield Chase). You would think that all those soaring scales and modulations would have lost their poignance for being so, dare I say it, overused. It makes me feel like an idiot for crying. Plus, what is there to cry about, really? Lost its poignance – because that music, made for a film about our planet becoming unliveable and families being cleaved apart through space and time, and the one hope of survival resting on the last few noble survivors; that film that looks extraordinary but that is about fears that are so ordinary now; that makes you cry because who wouldn't cry at the thought that their daughter had become older than them and that her life had been vital to save humanity which was in peril because there was no food, only weather; that music that closes our tiny vacation, that my mum loved and hated equally because it was because I live in another country, but to her it might as well be another planet; because that music is for Interstellar, which is probably a better version of what will happen to humanity when we miss the moment to do something, like if I miss this moment to run over and tell my mum I'm sorry and I love her and I didn't mean to make it hard, but of course I don't do that and none of us do anything either. Because that music is a soundtrack for cat videos now. And workout videos where plasticised people who seem to hate themselves hulk weights around as punishment, (or maybe they love themselves, or maybe it's not so binary anymore, I don't know). They bend over in Lycra while Hans Zimmer pours his essence into a gargantuan pipe organ and then they call it wellness, and who am I to judge? And I scroll and scroll, and the music crops up again, and I think—how funny that it's the backing track for scrolling through memes and also the soundtrack to that film about the apocalypse. And I don't think, because it's too terrifying, and because crying about my mum is both easier and all about me, that maybe us on phones, staring at our palms, watching strangers sweat in gyms while the weather closes in and kills people is, in fact, the apocalypse.
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