Joe replayed kissing Katy in his mind as he exited the train station. From the soft, tentative touch as their lips met for the first time, to the breathless parting as they released themselves from their fervent embrace. The smell of her perfume lingered on him. His heart pounded. Although only a second date, he felt certain he was on to something special. The long stroll home was what he needed to end the perfect evening.
Continue reading “One of the Good Ones by Tom Matthews”
The last thing Burt Shantell said to me was, “I’m not going to make it, Tom, but take this photo of my wife, Myrna, and tell her the last words I said were about her, and she’s in Stockard, Montana.”
I tried to quiet him; “Take it easy, Burt, you’ll be okay. The Medics are in the next bunker,” which was a lie, of course, a soft sponge of a lie.
Because I was talking to a dead man, a dead comrade, in Korea in 1951. The next thing was seeing him in a body rack as we moved along the trail on the other side of Lake Hwachon, already having seen a pal from my hometown, and another high school opponent from Lynn, Massachusetts, the town abutting one side of my home town, Saugus.
Continue reading “The Lady’s Photo by Tom Sheehan”
A murder of crows squawked to each other from various treetops on the secluded mountain. Below, a tasty feast awaited them once the other woodland creatures had their fill; the killer hadn’t so much as thought about burying the two bodies.
Continue reading “Dying to Hike by Caleb James K.”
My name is Hakeem Alford, and I made the Dean’s List at San Juan Junior College (SJJC). I wasn’t trying to make the Dean’s list. I was surprised to find out that the dean even had a list. I’m not a straight “A” student. Most of the time, I’m a student, you don’t expect to get an ‘A.’
Continue reading ” A Casual Abuser by Frederick K Foote”
I met my oldest friend Greg for coffee when the allegations were at their height. We did not speak of them at first. I inquired on his health, which led to an inquiry on his family, which led back to the allegations. “She’s shut me out,” Greg said, meaning his wife, who had moved from their Manhattan apartment to their daughter’s place in Brooklyn. “Not a word in weeks.” Greg sipped his coffee and his eyes moved shiftily from side to side as if gaging whether anyone from the coffee shop was listening in. “But you believe me, right?”
Continue reading “My Friend Greg by Elizabeth Day Broschart”
My girlfriend has the habit of tapping my hand with her bare ring finger; in libraries, in crowded bars, as we walk through galleries, in bed when she discusses my performance, at restaurants where she asks after my unsophisticated palate, whenever she wishes to emphasise her point, she raps a morse code bruise. In another year, I will be identifiable only through the stigmata she causes. I have said this when out with friends, only for her to tap my palm and tell me I’m not that funny. Each tap implies I am shallow, that I need to listen more, or perhaps simply that I’m lucky she has any time for me at all. Her friend Greta once took me aside to say she thought I was a little more than a mere project, (‘A doer-upper you are not,’ is what she mumbled drunkenly), and that I might do worse than speaking up for myself. Greta said even love might feel like a steamroller somedays.
Continue reading “Sidelined by Antony Osgood”
Up until quite recently, you were a very sick man. The Big C, of course. Leukemia, a nasty version. Picture the scene, sitting across the desk from your oncologist. You hear the word cancer, then the hunky doctor lays out the projected timeline of your now limited existence on this earth. The oncologist speaks with precision, each phrase an expression of practiced compassion. He’s done this before. You haven’t. All you hear is blah-blah-blah. That’s how it was for you.
Continue reading “Embracing Your Evil Twin by Marco Etheridge”
Most British towns and villages are ancient foundations with Roman remains, ruined castles, and the like. Not so Daleforge. Before the 1840s, there was just the forge and the smith’s cottage. Butthen, in quick order, came the pit, the rows and rows of workers’ cottages, the ironworks, and the railway. With the houses, came the football. Not at first the codifed game of eleven versus eleven,but the rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, pitched battle held every Shrovetide between those in the houses on one side of the Red Brook versus those on the other. But soon enough after the English Football Association was formed in the 1860s, Daleforge United FC emerged and eventually became a founder member of the Football League. And that was what my dirty old town became famous for: the foundries and the football.
Continue reading “Jack o’ Diamonds by Michael Bloor”
I do not recognise the face of the man who sits across from me at my dining table. Like a patchwork quilt, his skin is stitched together with different shades of white, pink, and brown. He does not blink; one glassy grey eye gazes listlessly at nowhere, while the other stares directly at me as it flits and shutters like an old-fashioned camera lens.
Continue reading “After the Robot Wars by Kim Morrissy”
He was on his way to our weekly meeting when he slipped on a patch of ice, fell backwards and cracked his head like a piñata, spilling its candy-colored contents onto the asphalt. I read about it in the paper the next day or I would have never known, would have simply given him up for another one who lost interest. We had never exchanged numbers. I didn’t even know his last name until last week. But they ran his picture with the obit and the announcement of the memorial service to be held Wednesday at 2pm. Today. Today is the day I will see his wife for the first time. Today she will find out.
Continue reading “The Scrabble Player by Alison Kilian”
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