No. 7

A disquiet will creep up for no immediately apparent reason. When it hits us, we’ll try our best to to make excuses for it: a bad dream, an unexpected rendezvous, or the dull throes of missing someone. Not always ready to admit that it’s not the effect, but the cause. It’s a basic, inescapable condition of all life.

The anxiety of an unanswered, unknown caller is one we all share, as in Stephen Horenstein’s “The Ring.” Kate Prascher reveals those disjointed feelings you have towards to friends who become joined in marriage in “Jesus: Everybody Find the Rope.” Mateo Lynch’s “That Night” explores the self-justified psyche of an adulter. But for Liz Moniz’s “Waiting in Grace,” there is no making excuses, only resignation with a hint of complacency. Lucy Lyon describes the dual reality of raising children while missing their father overseas in “Small Voices.”

These stories confess the kinds of vexations that are a given in life, and  examine our attempt to quell them. We might push back, push through, or push down, but at least we’re asking questions.