A Tidings of Magpies

People Who Live Near the Hospital   by Tina Kelley Sick ones and survivors look down and see real life going on, presumably unscarred, the tricycle on the lawn, the garage door open, the truck on the highway going under the overpass, emerging on. From the solarium window the scene below looks fragile, cinematic and deaf, a model railroad, an oasis of health, the people there unknowingly blessed by the wishes of those who wait.

and could you please move your big head from in front of the monitor screen, Mr. Likes-To-Get-In-My-Way-While-I-Am-Trying-To-Work...?? The Cure by Ginger Andrews Lying around all day with some strange new deep blue weekend funk, I'm not really asleep when my sister calls to say she's just hung up from talking with Aunt Bertha who is 89 and ill but managing to take care of Uncle Frank who is completely bed ridden. Aunt Bert says it's snowing there in Arkansas, on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been able to walk out to their mailbox. She's been suffering from a bad case of the mulleygrubs. The cure for the mulleygrubs, she tells my sister, is to get up and bake a cake. If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.