They had teased about it often, but Sophia chickened out. Alone, I stand on a dirt road that hasn’t seen traffic for miles. I curse myself for not sticking around long enough to learn how to drive.
Category: General Fiction
Learning to Fall by Leila Allison
It’s always a good idea to examine the condition of a dangerous handmade-thing that scoffs at gravity before you trust your life to it. When was the last inspection? Does it always make that sound? Dangerous handmade-things that place a fatal distance between you and the hard, unforgiving ground require the greatest scrutiny.
Receipt at Ogden’s Twist by Tom Sheehan
Young Trace Gregson, thin and curly at eleven and generally happy-faced, cringed whenever he saw Dirty Molly Sadow. If there was such a thing as a bad witch about in the world, she was it. People said her toes were black with earth rich as The Hollow, and that she smelled foul as chicken leavings.
The Long Way Home by Sarah Vestal
People don’t give much thought to disappearing land. I know what you’re thinking. But no, they don’t care. Take it from me.
When that sinkhole appeared in Louisiana. People gaped and talked and then a week later they forgot. That very same sinkhole that grew to twenty-six acres in the matter of days that less than half of the U.S. knew or even cared about, but I digress. No one batted an eye.
The Many Sad Fates of the Family Jones by Lucy Caird
My Mum didn’t die a peaceful death. She got bitten on her toe by a rattlesnake whilst walking through the big park at night in her flip flops. She didn’t have the cell phone with her because my Dad had it that night. The poison got into her veins and stopped her heart. The next time when we saw her, she was all stiff and puffy. But her face was angry, most likely about the cell phone, I think. My Dad says she comes back in the form of a hurricane every few years or so and it’s our goddammed duty to weather the storm. He says they can call ‘em whatever they want – Irma, Katrina, Harvey, but they all Hurricane Josephine to him.
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The Leaving by L’Erin Ogle
Carly’s hair is falling out. She leaves gold strands everywhere, Gretel’s nightmare version of bread crumbs. We don’t talk about it.
The Talk by Frederick K Foote
Eight a.m. in San Juan, California and it’s already eighty-two degrees on this June morning. I’m in running shorts and a tee-shirt as I step out my front door to pick up the paper.
The black and white patrol car prowls my street like a predator looking for its next meal. The mechanical beast creeps toward my house, signals a right turn, pulls into my driveway.
Inappropriate by David Lohrey
Teaching isn’t easy. Certainly not in Jersey City. I might as well say it at the start, I hate it. It’s hard to be among the young.
The Woman Who Married The Man Who Could Throw His Voice by David Henson
I met a man named Frank today. He knows how to throw his voice. He said he learned it from his dad. Fun!
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Three Things by L’Erin Ogle
“Three things?” he said.
“Three things,” Lexie said. She was lying on her stomach, ankles crossed and held in the air, typing on her Mac. He had a Dell himself. But Lexie and her mother were Apple through and through. His ex-wife would buy a toilet seat if the Apple logo was on it.
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