Christmas Eve is when everything is going to be all right.

CHRISTMAS EVE BY STEVEN MCBREARTY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

You’re going to do this, accomplish that. You’re going on a fabulous trip. You’re going to meet a wonderful girl and marry her. The girl you are going with now will be wonderful in the future. No more arguments, sex all the time. Everything’s going to change. Everything’s going to be all right.

I got to get us married.

LEAVING SOULPORT BY JEFFREY FLANNERY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

He remembered a place on the other side of the river, down in the defunct riverside town of SoulPort where drunks or just plain stupid folk could get themselves hitched fast as a dog can stop running to lick its butt.

She's living the dream.

LIVING THE DREAM BY BRANDY MONTILIONE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

I watch as she sips her wine and laughs. I watch her flirt, tossing her blonde hair off her shoulder. She is having the time of her life.

It should have been a neighborhood by now. 

A FIELD OF LIGHTS BY JOSHUA DULL 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

People started losing their jobs. Banks started foreclosing on homes. Places like this were abandoned.

Who was the girl behind the wheel of the old Dodge convertible leaking oil?

Who were you when you took off like speedo for sunny California, radio full blast while dreaming awake? 

WILD GIRL BY COOPER SY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

What happened to that passion?

LAMPLICKER BY ROBERT MORGAN FISHER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

“Maybe Elliot will ask me to join the Lamplighters,” Harvey said to his wife Beth, as he changed the strings on his pre-war Martin guitar and ‘62 Vega banjo. “This party may be an opportunity.”