Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome writer Helen Raica-Klotz of Michigan with a vulnerable and captivating piece of creative non-fiction, “The River Styx.” We nominated this deeply moving tale for a Pushcart. It chronicles a visit with her daughter in a psych ward, painting a detailed picture not only of the residents and conditions of the place, but of the internal space that separates mother and daughter.
““Today, I did art therapy,” she says. “I made this.” She pushes over a white page covered with handprints, each hand filled with intricate curlicues in blues and browns, and small, almost indecipherable text. I lean closer to see it more clearly: I make out the words “Gabe,” “Cody,” “Grandpa John,” “Steve.” “The therapist said to write all the people that make you want to keep living,” my daughter explains. My name is absent.”
After a fellow patient is restrained and taken forcibly out of the waiting room, she has the impulse to reach out to her child.
“I get up and curve my body around her. I pull my daughter’s head close to mine, stroke her hair, hold her face in my hands, and whisper to her that she is a bright and beautiful thing, my firstborn child, one that does not belong in this place. I promise her that she is going to get through this, all of this, because she is strong and brave and loved. This is the moment I want you to see, this memory that doesn’t exist. Because I do none of these things. I do nothing at all.”
Helen’s writing is evocative, full of beautiful and vivid imagery, and confessional, detailing inner and outer worlds in an unfiltered way that does not feel omniscient or solved. There is a profound regret, even horror, at her own paralysis, a disbelief at how events and emotions unfold. Many of us can relate to feelings of inadequacy and frustration. We are not superheroes and we all have done things we don’t talk about. Admitting our lack of control is a step toward healing but requires time and compassion as we unpack our failures and proclivities. These patterns reveal secrets we hide from ourselves.
Read “The River Styx” in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Helen Raica-Klotz is the winner of the 2025 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press Chapbook contest for Superior Stories, a collection of short fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications, including The MacGuffin, The Great Lakes Review, and MER, where her work was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Helen teaches composition courses at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan. She’s also taught writing at a regional prison, a homeless shelter, an alternative high school, and other places where she can find people with stories to tell.