Kirsten Smith – Photography
Kirsten Smith is a writer, photographer, and world wanderer who lives and works in San Francisco. Her photography can be found in Broken Lens Journal, Cosmic Daffodil, L’Esprit Literary Review, Door = Jar, and more.
Read and view the work of artists from Previous Issues.
Kirsten Smith is a writer, photographer, and world wanderer who lives and works in San Francisco. Her photography can be found in Broken Lens Journal, Cosmic Daffodil, L’Esprit Literary Review, Door = Jar, and more.
There is a Zen story in which a student’s teacher has taught the student, “When drinking tea, just drink tea,” yet the student comes across the teacher in the act of reading a newspaper while drinking tea. The teacher says, “When drinking tea and reading the newspaper, just drink tea and read the newspaper.”
A small concerto of dueling horns was sounding off more regularly now from various sections back in the drive-thru lane, and he’d likely have joined in if he wasn’t literally next to the checkout window and would have to look the cashier in the face once she reappeared. The young mom in his rearview mirror was back at it with her obstinate passenger, who appeared to be exploring the outer limits of her patience with the click-unclick game the mom was clearly losing.
When I was a little younger than you, I never wanted children. The crying! The soured-milk smell. And oh! Never being able to finish a sentence with my friends before a little one would yell, “Momma.” Not to mention getting fat. I don’t think I was exactly selfish; instead, I was gonna be a model.
Janie’s first thought was to have security call the cops. Then she realized this may be a way out of being a scribe, an indentured servant. She would be able to follow her passion, her dream of being a novelist, immersed in literature and chess.
At the bar, she ordered a lager called “If It Ain’t Fixed, Don’t Break It.” Clean and clear as your last drug test. Staring at her phone or checking the door, she feigned expecting someone any minute. She wandered, gazing at the merchandise display along the back wall: logoed T-shirts, pint glasses, and growlers. A man about her age (she smiled to herself; she still passed for under thirty) with shaggy black hair and a black Labrador retriever eased away from the bar, an opaque yellow pint in one hand, his dog’s leash in the other.
As she slowly progresses in the pat-down line, some protestors off to June’s right get her attention. Most of them silently loft their signs – “A Lying Danger to Democracy,” “Lock him up!” “A Pig’s Pig,” “Liar, Loser, Crook” – while a few yell what is on theirs. Two men in line just ahead of June bellow back in unison to the yellers, “Woke-ass shitbirds!”
They pitched and swayed for an hour before they were picked up by the Moby Blu, another nearby ferry. The Italian-speaking purser was confused when they boarded. He assumed they were a couple and temporarily housed them in the same cabin. They protested at first, but the hot shower, dry clothes, and warm food brought by the steward overcame their awkwardness in the small stateroom.
Jason Rice graduated from The Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Photography, 1991. He has worked in the South of France teaching photography, and spent three years working in the New York City film and television business (circa 1990’s) most notably, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, the Joan Rivers show, Can We Shop? and the feature Flirting With Disaster. He is currently working in the book business on the East Coast of the United States, servicing independent bookstores.