Whispered Connections: Firehouse Ghost II

By Lizbeth Hartz | March 6, 2024

Despair gripped Vic in a vise and whisked him to Jaku’s side. The murderer smirked as he polished the barrel of his .357. “Boom!” He mimicked the loud sound of the gun discharging. “I’m gonna waste that bitch.” He chuckled, imagining the terror on Liz’s face as he jammed the gun against her head and…

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Firehouse Ghost: Unveiling the Other Side

By Lizbeth Hartz | February 18, 2024

Vic Lazzarini’s ghost scowled at the short, fat-bellied fireman cringing in his jail cell. “Jaku, you sawed-off, lily-livered sneak!” Vic shouted. “Murderer!” He threw what would have been a bone-crunching punch if it hadn’t gone right through the punk’s head. Jaku’s hairy nostrils twitched, his pin-prick eyes darting around the jail cell stinking of urine…

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A Braided Essay: These Dreams of Love III

By Lizbeth Hartz | October 30, 2023

I Become – Part 3 Twelve years before I fell in love with Barry and a year to the day after Vic’s death on Valentine’s Day, 1985, I felt wrung out with grieving and despairing of ever finding the kind of love I’d found with Vic again. That morning, I awoke in the wee hours,…

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A Braided Essay: These Dreams of Love II

By Lizbeth Hartz | July 9, 2023

I Become – Part 2 After telling Sasha I would talk to my father, I was relieved when Mom said Dad didn’t want to talk to me. We didn’t know how to talk to each other adult to adult, only father to child, me being the child who wasn’t supposed to talk back.  Leaving my…

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A Braided Essay: These Dreams of Love

By Lizbeth Hartz | June 13, 2023

I Become – Part 1 Back in the ‘70s, soon after graduating from college in California, I joined my mom and dad on Oahu and became a lonely little bird, my song squelched inside the gilded cage of my parents’ military home. Sorely missing my college friends’ comradery, surrounded by uniformed Air Force officers, I…

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Letter to the Ghosts of Jaku’s Murderer’s Thumbs

By Lizbeth Hartz | February 16, 2023

What squashed you, Thumbs? Your bully of a boss, Jaku, certainly couldn’t have compressed you playing volleyball, because the only body part Jaku exercised was his mouth—his liar’s lips flapping fast as a hummingbird’s wings. Oh, wait a minute. I’d forgotten about his sticky fingers, which also grabbed wallets, keys and jewelry his coworkers forgot…

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