Hybrid – Page 2 – The McNeese Review

The great masters, meditators and mystics

The great masters, meditators and mystics John Sharkey __________ __________ John Sharkey’s career path has taken him through scenic and decorative painting, all the time writing poems, puppet plays and short fiction which he is finally gathering to polish and publish. Recent Flash Fiction can be seen in Eunoia Review…

Cycle

Cycle Susan Tepper __________ Meditations on dear Petrov Set in 19th Century Russia during a time of war There is no beginning or end. Springtime grasses brown quickly only to be buried under snow. An avalanche. This cycle, dear Petrov. Having no one. How I do dread. Wishing to…

Tossed-in-a-Chair!

Tossed-in-a-Chair! Caleb Tankersley __________ Modern science is confirming more than ever what the ancients have always known: all the wheels and magnets and complex motors in the world can’t compete with the human body, a machine honed through millions of years of evolution. So, why not harness the body’s power…

Skin Junkie

Skin Junkie Angela Spinzig __________ I’m a perfectionist who self-harms. I line up my cuts in neat rows, perforate my arm as if it were a page in one of those intricate adult-therapy coloring books. I stay inside the lines, but use only red: The blush of embarrassment. The heat…

Playing with the Wizard

Playing with the Wizard Dawn Sperber __________ Sure, he was a charmed minstrel, a fine carpenter, a grunt laborer, and a timeless wizard, but what stands out to me as a heartbreakingly lovely quality is this: Matti told himself elaborate nightly bedtime stories. Deep inside that elven man’s mind, as…

The Nightmare House

The Nightmare House Sam Ruddick __________ We live in a haunted house. It is unusual in that it is haunted by the living. Multiple moments occur at the same time in the same place, past iterations of ourselves overlapping. We are making love in the center of the bed, our…

Voice(s)

Voice(s) Sam Rasnake __________ – after “Paprika Plains,” Joni Mitchell There’s been a murder in this town. There’s always a murder in this town. There are mushrooms, a piano, and the highway – always a highway – and a storm – What about the storm? Dreams would be nothing, I’m…

Dodo

Dodo Richard Peabody __________ I am the Dean, this is Mrs. Liddell.She plays first, I, second fiddle. — Oxford Undergraduate Doggerel Time to wake him. He looks so frail. And sadly, migraines have again twisted the soft features she cherishes into a diabolical death mask. Something worthy of math wizards…

A Thornbush’s Embrace

A Thornbush’s Embrace Missy Nieveen Phegley __________ I find much joy in riding bikes, and I frequently imagine my kids sharing my love of riding as we go on all kinds of cycling adventures. So, one day when my five-year-old asked to ride her bike, I stopped what I was…

No One Says the C-Word at the Comprehensive Cancer Center

No One Says the C-Word at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Mikki Aronoff __________ You haul your ass and your cancer over for your one o’clock—the cancer your newly uninvited passenger, all grunt and elbows jostling for space smack dab in the middle of you, this bully breed, unruly teen (mercy,…