Civil Life on the Canals

by Marco Lo Verso

Venice has a reputation as a “serene” city – its surname in Italian is la serenissima (the most serene). Read the daily paper, Il Gazzettino, and you rarely find reports of violence and mayhem. However, a few years ago Il Gazzettino carried a disturbing story of an incident on the island of Lido. It involved an elderly lady on a bicycle who cut in front of a car without signalling. The driver of the car became so incensed that she got out of her vehicle, threw her keysinto the cyclist’s face, and knocked her down. The old lady had to be taken to emergency for stitches.

Flora and Bruno

Flora and Bruno drive for hours – her fault, partly. Curled up in the front seat of
the stolen Impala in a nightie and Bruno’s Blackhawks jersey, Flora demands, “Show me Niagara Falls!”
Sparks fly from the tangle of wires, red-blue-green, hanging from the dashboard. Bruno is worried that if he stops, he won’t be able to get the hot-wired ignition to turn over again.

“I’ll drive past the Falls. You take a quick look. Capito?”

Hello to Our Friends, if There Are Any Left

by Paula Mascioli and Giulia De Gasperi

The following account is a creative nonfiction short story inspired by an old box that Paula Mascioli found in her mother’s basement. Curious to see what was inside, she opened it to find a treasure trove of documents, old letters and papers her father had saved from the days of his father’s and uncle’s internment in Petawawa during the Second World War. Paula knew her grandfather and great uncle were interned, but never knew any details. It just wasn’t talked about. From within this box of painful memories, she pieced together what happened so many years ago. What follows is...More...

Angel of Petawawa

by Terri Favro

She looked like a pin-up of Betty Grable, hair curled into seductive blonde sausages, naked shoulders like two perfectly rounded scoops of ice cream.
“Need a ride, soldier?”
Mario tugged off his cap. “Oh, only if I’m not taking you out of your way, Muh- Miss. I’m headed to, to St. Catharines.”
The lady laughed. Mario smiled, not certain what was funny.
“What do you think, Charlie?” she said.

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Guanti Bianchi

by Robert Norton

“I took the photo in Napoli’s iconic Piazza del Plebiscito. The pattern of the soldiers marching in formation initially caught my attention. In particular, the stark contrast of their white gloves really stood out to me. I remember thinking as I composed this image that I had to hurry and capture the photo before the soldiers crossed the white line.

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