Fizzling into Fragments

Dad was a poet on the ice, carving commas with his skates and plotting long, arcing narratives from the blue line to the net. I watched him play in an over-thirty league one year and he still had it. I could tell, though, that his game had become an elegy for the past when he used to share the ice with his older brother who waited at the bottom of the page for that frozen rubber end stop to punctuate a plotline destined to fizzle into a fragment. Nothing could get by him––except opportunity. He joined the Marines the day before a letter arrived in the mail inviting him to try out for the Cleveland Barons.

Matthew SchultzMay 29, 2022cnf

Center

Karl-Anthony Towns, center for the Minnesota Timberwolves, experienced unfathomable loss
in a span of months. His mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, died from complications caused by
COVID-19 on April 13th, 2020. Subsequently that year, Towns’ family lost six more loved ones
to the disease.

Danika Stegeman LeMayMay 29, 2022cnf

Semantic-pragmatic Deficits Among Neurodivergent Synesthetes: Why is Mario Italian?

The chair on the left if you’re sitting on the couch, in the living room, in the house my father shares with his partner, and my father asking me how I am since I stopped electroconvulsive therapy—I’m in that chair. I cast my eyes to the carpet; an inward turn isn’t always a retreat. Sitting on my left foot because that feels best, and leaning forward, and sometimes I can anticipate, but less often with his partner, and I say my mood swings have settled somewhat, and that the doubts I’d held about my spectrum diagnosis are extinguished, at last.

Thomas FrankMay 29, 2022cnf

Goodfellas

It was during a film class in my teens that I first watched Goodfellas. It was like nothing else I’d seen. Having studied the fundamentals of cinematography throughout the year, watching it was like a snapshot of what an exquisitely captured piece of art was supposed to be. Particular frames used to elevate the narrative arc, like Henry running out of the fire but the image illustrating a run towards it; optics and lighting that blur the audience's perception along with our protagonists; and needless to say, the infamous long shot that recrafted our understanding of film, tracking, and the possibilities that could be established in the visual telling of a story.

Morgan ChristieMay 29, 2022cnf

On the Privilege of Losing: Notes of a Detroit Lions Fan

Consider the synonyms of loser, that two-syllable acidic stain on the tongue that we’re told is a label to avoid: also-ran, underdog, deadbeat, defeated, dud, failure, flop, has-been, disadvantaged, down-and-outer, flunked, underprivileged.

Riley WinchesterMay 29, 2022cnf

Summer Swimmer

July 31, 2005, was the first day I believed I could become an Olympic swimmer. I was competing for the Meadowbrook Tomatoes in the 11-12 age group at the Central Maryland Swim League (CMSL) Championships, the big season finale for summer swim teams. And for the 100 I.M., I had to race against my former teammate, the evil Amy Halligan, a bulldog of a girl whose mouth was fixed in a permanent grimace. She was a professional at spinning her words to make me feel awful in my already awkward skin. But today, enough was enough. I had never wanted to beat someone this badly.

Jessie WalkerMay 29, 2022cnf

The End of Things

It’s the last game of our season, of my whole athletic career, although I don’t know it yet.

My tongue is thick and dry, chafing against my worn black mouth guard. I suck it against the hard roof of my palate until I feel the urge to gag. But I don’t retch. I’m too tired. The air here in southern Maryland hangs still and heavy over the Bermuda grass field.

Claire KortynaMay 29, 2022cnf

the Under Review is an online literary journal committed to publishing literary fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction with a sport slant, nod, backdrop, or undercurrent.