The Irish Brogues

by Kate Sullivan

Bridget ÓSúilleabháin walked out of St. Patrick’s rectory in Portmagee, having cleaned Father Murphy’s toilet and made his dinner for the last time. She did not trudge home, up the hill where her mother and father, sisters and brothers would be expecting their supper. She headed instead for the boat landing near the bridge to Valentia Island, wearing only the clothes on her back, eventually leaving even her brogues behind in the skiff that dropped her off on the wild island of ancient Skellig Michael’s, in the wind-whipped North Atlantic. She walked barefoot up the steep paths and old red sandstone stairs the monks had abandoned in medieval times. It was here she took up residence in one of the beehive-shaped stone huts, eating the birds and their eggs and following the slow paths of the moon and the stars. Bridget ÓSúilleabháin’s shoes and all the rest of it, remain back in Portmagee where she left them.

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Kate Sullivan likes to play around with words, music, and pictures. She has written and illustrated children’s picture books ‘On Linden Square’ and ‘What Do You Hear?’, sung chansons at NYC Mme Tussaud’s Wax Museum, and her fugue-ish ‘Fugitum est’ was performed at Carnegie Hall by The Kremlin Chamber Orchestra as part of their tribute to Mozart. She also likes to paint ostriches and plays the musical saw to impress people. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and her latest, SMOKE + MIRRORS, a collection of prose, poetry and paintings, is available wherever books are sold. Visit her website here.

Orange Sharpie

by Robert McEvily

Six nights ago, at precisely midnight, in a forgotten drawer of a barely-surviving stationery shop, an orange Sharpie blinked open its cap and took its first breath of ink-scented air. Realizing its newfound freedom, it tip-walked out into the sleeping town, leaving behind swirls of neon-orange on blank walls and dusty windows. “YOU'RE DOING BETTER THAN YOU THINK,” it scribbled on a cracked mirror in a laundromat, and “START SMALL, STAY WEIRD,” on the side of a bus stop bench. People were puzzled, then delighted, as the town transformed into a gallery of kind whispers and glowing encouragement. No one ever caught the culprit, though few minded. And every now and then, just when someone needed it most, fresh orange ink would bloom beside them with the perfect words.

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Robert McEvily is the creator and editor of Six Sentences. He lives in Ossining, New York.

The Rescue

by Karen Crawford

There’s the bossy bark when we hug. A lengthy yawn. The toothy grin when we bicker. At night, she wedges between us, wraps around you with a double coat. Toss her a bone, you say when I threaten the pound. Every time your mother visits, it’s me seeking shelter.

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Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels, exercising demons a word at a time.