I drove a 1963 Flamengo-orange Thunderbird, wore navy blue tennis shoes, and sat eating a banana split at the A&W. It was 1986. In White Haven, Tennessee, where truck drivers were thought to be rich, it was still considered a big deal to go to the movies. Girls looked forward to losing their virginity in the back row at the Malco Theatre.
Continue reading “Shake or Float? By David Lohrey”
Howard Adams turned off the engine and gazed at the anthracite column of the high-rise. He counted the floors up to the ninth. The lamp by Sonia’s futon shone through the gauze curtains, a penumbra of warm yellow. Adams checked his watch. The haris, a young guy with a scruffy beard, might still be sitting behind the lobby desk. He would lift his head with a studiously blank expression when Adams walked past. The haris’s eyes would then follow the unbeliever to the elevator, well aware of the sins being committed in his building. The prayer bump on the haris’s forehead always caused a cramp in Adams’s solar plexus. Did the guy worry her at all? Sonia had flattened her mouth in that amused way of hers, half-closed her eyes, shaken her head—“I tip him well.”
Continue reading “An Evening at Sonia’s by Martin Rosenstock”
Though he had spent two years as a ship’s doctor, Naudain had never in his life seen such a storm. The crew had not glimpsed the sky in two days, only dark storm clouds bombarding the sea with rain: a monotony of shadow, broken by thunder and the crawl of lightning.
Continue reading “Unbound, Toward Her Repose by Livia E. De Souza”
Even with a personality of its own, my Saugus River is hard-pressed to be itself… so many things have happened to it, on it, with it, because of it. Did I dream all these scattered events, these small terrors? Perhaps. I was dreamy as a boy, romantic as a young man, possessed now. Possessed.
Continue reading “Hard-pressed My River Is by Tom Sheehan”
I try to leave Mom a voicemail. Again.
The voicemail cannot be delivered. Again. She always stores old voicemails. Always says you never know when they might come in handy. Especially if you’re in a jam and need proof that you communicated with X at Y time. Pre-empt the world.
Continue reading “Voice by Yash Seyedbagheri”
The year becomes indented, single-spaced, and winter edged with summer grammar. Every stamped boot is a syntax-wish for warmth, a yearning, for once upon a time, happy ever after, when things were and always will be, somehow, golden, likely better, bountiful, without end. Each shudder this morning is modified by such expectations. This is an English season to be endured.
Continue reading “Christmas Lights Icicle Frost by Antony Osgood”
We sometimes remember that other universe. It comes to us in dreams, intangible and unattainable, an echo that rebounds on the parts of us that grieve our old form. We were once a deity of the heavens, too ancient and vast to consider the lives of mortals. The cosmos was our domain. We walked between planets and hurled asteroids at moons. The feuds and petty wars with our god-kin could supernova a sun. How mighty we were, and how foolish in our arrogance.
Continue reading “Fragments by Jennie Boyes”
It had been a year since the separation, and she was still trying to get a divorce. Domestic violence. Or ‘family issues’, as they would say. Her husband admitted he’d made mistakes, but he’d do better. Be better. A better man. She didn’t want him to be a better man. Or anything else, in fact. Only to agree to the divorce. But the court needed evidence. Specific evidence of maltreatment or betrayal.
Continue reading “They Always Welcomed Visitors by Mariam Saidan”
Dad communicated in grunts and edicts. But Uncle Max communicated in smiles and jokes and deliberate instruction. He told me dirty jokes and turned condoms into water balloons. But he also took me bowling and taught me to drive, telling me always to look forward, guiding my hands with ease.
Continue reading “Steady Space by Yash Seyedbagheri “
Ahead, Big Coppitt Key flared suddenly behind the rowing fisherman who had rescued him, like carnivals appear around far corners, though sounds not audible. Randy had no idea how he had gotten out here on the Gulf, afloat in a dory. He’d only guess. His head hurt. His ass hurt. His gut hurt. Blisters rode his lips. His tongue was swollen. He felt lumps under his beard.
Continue reading “Smoker’s Holiday by Tom Sheehan”
literally stories 