REVIEW OF "THE FIRST LINE"

I’ve read past issues of The First Line, and with all honesty, their spring journal couldn’t’ve been timelier, both economically and personally. Editor David LaBounty explains that their current first line Sam was a loyal employee was his wife’s creation “… sprung from one of her free-writing exercises” where “she was influenced by our current economic conditions.”

Tom Green’s “Cog” centers around the Transglobal Endeavors Collection Agency where Sam “could slip into a kind of auto pilot and coast through the day” making phone calls, most of which people would not answer. Sam surmises that “… if the only way you could reach a person was by phone, you were unimportant,” and rightfully so, because if you did answer a phone call from Transglobal, if you did answer a phone call from Sam, who often referred to himself as a “lowly cog” in the greater scheme of things, then YOU DID BECOME IMPORTANT. Why the contradiction? Because the “lowly cogs” were part of the housing foreclosure process.

In Izzy David’s “The Kiss” Sam, or should I say Samantha Wayne, a minimum wage worker concerned about her ability to pay for college, sarcastically contemplates “selling her body or something.” Samantha cleans her boss’s son’s vomit off the miniature golf green’s cheap ornamental pergola, talks sharply to the boss’s wife and friend, and walks away from a situation, a kiss initiated by her, that if she had thought it through could’ve scored her some real money in a court of law; instead, she quits her job.

But my personal favorite “Windows and Gateways” by Barbara L.W. Meyers reflects unemotional responses, computer-like conditions, and an inevitable separation of employment. In “Windows …” twenty-three year old Samantha D. Thompson promotes to Senior SENO for Tetrix, Inc. for her “uncanny, unnerving, almost eerie ability to anticipate mental connections and trends.” In other words, she’s an expert at helping clients discover what they’re searching for. And why wouldn’t she? SENO is an acronym for “Search Engine & Network Optimization.” Here’s one of my favorite sentences: “And Sam was the colander through which that data was sifted.”

There are five more stories, each cleverly done, and at $4.00 per printed issue, I’d recommend this under-priced journal to anyone interested in breaking into print. Their next submission deadline is May 1st and the first line is: “We need to talk.” With therapist, doctor, and lawyer appointments, along with sound advice from friends, I just might be able to break into the next issue of The First Line myself. Check it out here.