Honolulu City Lights

by Samuel Sukaton

I have to concede that I have never seen anything as glorious as twilight over the Honolulu skyline – steel and glass spread like flames from Diamond Head, moving until they meet green again. Turn around and you see houses nestled in Manoa beyond the UH campus, all covered in the looming rain clouds that mist the valley from here to Waikiki. Look at it once, and you see the modern age peacefully nestled with a land that is beyond ancient. Look at it twice, and you’ll see a true-blue American paradise – diverse, sustainable, exotic. Look at it as many times as you want to, and you’ll still miss the most beautiful thing about this place – the fact that people are able to live with the world’s illusions foisted on them. Let’s not forget that Diamond Head is part of a volcano, people.

6S

Samuel Sukaton is studying Hawaii more as a place victimized by tourism, where American images are imposed on Native Hawaiians.

Milky White

by John Pupo

There was a luster to the moonlight that couldn’t be captured. Shandi fashioned a lasso out of her western-styled top with the pearlized buttons down the front and tried to capture the moon. Her bare skin almost looked like marble, taut and bright like it’s counterpart in the sky. I reached out wondering if it would have that hard but smooth feel. The force of her slap sent me back a few steps, as her obscenities flew quickly around my ears and into membranes. Clouds gathered and extinguished our light as she put her shirt back on, sealing the fate of that night.

6S

John Pupo is trying to break free of his retail shackles.

Wellingtons

by Elena Cambio Pizarro

Even with mud on her boots, she could always find some new dance step to make her entrance. She pretended not to hear when I would shout from the kitchen, “Off with the Wellingtons.” Mud on the oriental rug is better than the twisted bile that comes with memory and large hands touching. “Take them off or you’ll eat on the porch,” I’d say and she would slide them off, one at a time, leaving them empty by the front door. Blank spaces where her lovely feet had danced. In socks, she'd find subtler indoor steps, inevitably sliding into the dinner table, where we would all sit down together.

6S

Elena Cambio Pizarro is a writer, filmmaker, and language arts teacher. She teaches screenwriting at Ithaca College, and has served as a reader/judge for the Rod Serling Scriptwriting Competition since 2008. She currently resides in Ithaca, NY but is homesick for the South Shore of Boston.

Last Words

by Penny Mukes

Desmond stared at the water as it rippled slightly in the late afternoon sunlight. It certainly didn't look dangerous to him, though like everyone else in the small town he hadn't missed the hundreds of warnings about sharks in the water. He bit his lip and glanced at his surfboard; his knuckles were white and stiff. He shook them out, told himself to relax, and slipped past the caution tape into the water. The waves were too good to resist today, high and foamy. Besides, he thought, not yet noticing the small nibbling on his foot, why would a shark be attracted to me?

6S

Penny Mukes is a 14-year-old who believes it's never too early to write a best-selling novel.

Personal Statements

by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

She came from a place where inexplicable things happened too fast to a place where nothing much seemed to happen at all; only once she spoke of blood on the sidewalk and suddenly it was there for you in her up-and-down, palely accented English, it was present, blood on the sidewalk on the way to nursery school, blood you could understand. Then she ate a fry and it disappeared, dissolved like wet chalk, because the present felt realer, as the present always does: some nights she speaks sharply on the phone in a language you don’t understand, and her voice echoing through the apartment keeps you awake in the New York City dark. You’re twenty-two and it’s scary because everything has ended already and nothing has started yet, and mundane things seem so overpowering until the still air in summer makes you gasp and she buys an air conditioner; for her, it’s simple, she’s always doing things like that – taking care of things. The blood fades into the sidewalk as other things come into play: tests for law school, sublets to find, faxes to send, emails to check, taxes to file (somehow) – she’s what waiting looks like to you. And in the summer, when you come gasping for breath from your room, she turns on the air conditioning. The two of you lie perpendicular on the couches and dream of airplanes.

6S

Rachel Kapelke-Dale graduated from Brown University with a BA in the History of Art and Architecture and Comparative Literature in French and English, which sounds like five majors but was really two. She currently works in the non-profit art world in New York City. Her writing has appeared in several publications and was most recently awarded an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train's Family Matters contest.

First Love

by Gargi Mehra

She holds him tight and plants a kiss on his whiskery cheek. He says nothing, so she bites his ear playfully. Still he stays silent. She pulls his arm, tugging at it until it dislodges from its socket. She peers at the severed purple appendage and flings it aside. She must tell Mummy to buy her new toys.

6S

Gargi Mehra is a software engineer by profession, but a writer at heart. Despite the best efforts of her family and friends, she writes fiction and humor pieces in a determined effort to unite the two sides of her brain in cerebral harmony. She has been published in Writers' Notes magazine, Absolute Write and prestigious Indian magazines and newspapers. Samples of her writing are available here.

Camera Obscura

by David Gianatasio

Before you left I took one last picture. The old Nikon - a cherished heirloom I refused to upgrade or discard, vowing "one day I'll get the hang of this, I swear" - felt especially cold as I worked the focus and tap-tapped the chipped plastic shell with my fingertips. "Make sure you get my good side," you said - a private joke recalling countless fumbled photo attempts: the midnight pool-side party where we met (I cut off your face from the nose down); the holiday in Aspen where I fractured my ankle, though we called that our best vacation ever, since we ended up spending most of it in bed (and your forehead was missing in three separate shots!); your sister's wedding where we whispered vows in each other's ears along with the bride and groom (I forgot to bring the camera). "You don't have a bad side," I answered as always, though in light of your leaving, the words sounded strange and sad. The Nikon sat on a shelf in my new place for a month before I got the film developed. Perhaps it was an illusion, my overwrought mind playing tricks, but when I first held the image I swear I saw my face in place of yours, hair thinner and cheeks more shallow than ever, eyes dry but red and swollen, as if I'd just been crying, and, soon after the shutter closed, would again be unable to deny the tears.

6S

David Gianatasio's Mind Games is available from Word Riot Press. His full 6S catalog is here.

Transformation

by Michael J. Solender

It took 47 years of incredible effort. His charge was particularly challenging during his twenties and thirties. By the time his fortieth birthday rolled around it was inevitable. He continued to fight until the very end. The calculation was precise. At 4:21 p.m. on July 6th, 2008 he turned into his father.

6S

Michael J. Solender is easily confused. Follow his blog at your own peril here.

Novel

by Emily Anne Epstein

A strand of hair, light black, drops down from her clip and brushes her right cheek, just above her birthmark. She’s reading. Drinking coffee, two sugars, no milk. The cup has a ring around it; there had been a few before. Her hands tremble while holding the book, as the story is told, and she puts the strand back in place. Without a thought, she licks at the edge of her mouth - the last sip of the last cup - and turns the page.

6S

Emily Anne Epstein is a journalist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she is known to practice photography, writing and poor Spanish. Visit her website here.

Fame

by Angie Werren

We make men gods with bitter poetry. They live this translucent life born of our idle gaze and blind words. Our greed spits poison. In the miserable quiet, his voice is shade. It flows over us, soft liquid words. We turn the page.

6S

Angie Werren writes a poetry blog.