By Mandy Clark
Ashley says my parents have put up flyers with my picture on them. Says they’ve stapled them up at Publix, my first job, where I bagged everything from cans of tomato soup to Mark Circone. She also says it’s not a terrible shot, but kind of a bad angle, and they’ve used my real name, instead of the one I go by. She asks, don’t they know you hate it? But she can’t see me nod my head through the phone. Right before I hang up she says, I could turn you in you know, for the reward. I could spend fifty dollars like nothing.
Mandy Clark graduated in 2012 from Pacific Lutheran University with an MFA in Creative Writing. Her fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, and poetry has appeared in Whitefish Review Literary Journal, RWW Soundings, 100 Word Story, and High Shelf Press. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon and she loves pizza and rain in no particular order.
Art by Michelle Johnsen, art editor
Michelle Johnsen is a nature and portrait photographer in Lancaster, PA, as well as an amateur herbalist and naturalist. Her work has been featured by It’s Modern Art, Susquehanna Style magazine, Permaculture Activist magazine, EcoWatch.com, EarthFirst! Journal, Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative, and used as album art for Grandma Shake!, Anna & Elizabeth, and Liz Fulmer Music. Michelle’s photos have also been stolen by AP, weather.com, The Daily Mail, and Lancaster Newspapers. You can contact her at mjphoto717 [at] gmail.com.