Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Scholars of the Rocks by Yoon Chung

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Seo-woo lay flat on the floor of the shrine. He didn’t know what the g(x) was for equations f(x)=7-4x and f(g(x))=-1. He didn’t really want to because it was only fifteen minutes away from twelve. The four of them were supposed to arrive by noon. Pillowing his head on the book, he went to check their group chat for the fifth time in five minutes. It was quiet, which was good—no one was flaking. He was about to ask where they were staying again when he stopped himself. He’d already asked twice. They had chosen a cheap motel in the fishing village a few kilometers away from his place. They could have stayed at his temple, and he’d said as much, but they were determined not to bother his mom or the visitors.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Pink Tongue Flailing by Dana Rollins

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The chemistry of life in an era of endless miracles can be deceptively corrosive. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Like putting a hen’s egg in vinegar, it reveals the soft, internal wonders of the world—the things we’re so prone to build shells and containers around. Living in this era of endless miracles does, however, require special handling and some degree of caution. It often demands we abandon our reliance on the element of reason. Just as you should never mix vinegar with bleach, parsing miracles with reason and rationality can blister your lungs and blind you where you stand.

A magician taught me this.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Christmas Spirits by Anna Sahli

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You can believe in hauntings and not in ghosts. You shrink a bit when you enter your parents’ house for Christmas dinner and feel your powerless teenage self slip her tired arms around you and whisper a reminder that you’re not enough and somehow also too much. The rage that boils in your chest while you watch your father criticize your mom only finds a way to possess you at this table, in this room. The icy indifference that serves as your answers to all your mom’s questions is a ghost of the child you killed so you could survive long enough to become an adult.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Signing Off in Style by Simon Berry

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“‘I can’t go on,’ just doesn’t cut it. Doesn’t stand out from the crowd.” Mandy pushed the offending piece of A4 back across the table.

Timothy looked at her and she knew what he was seeing.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Your Grief Doesn’t Interest Me by Simon Nadel

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“You got old early.”

Hannah didn’t need to finish the thought. She’d already said it so many times, and then, when she got tired of saying it, she left. But even when she came back to pick up this or that, she sometimes would say it again, maybe for old time’s sake. “You got old early when you lost your job and started spending your days getting way too wrapped up in the neighbors’ business.” I never had a good response, even though clearly I had plenty of time to come up with one.

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All Stories, General Fiction

1964 by Bett Butler

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The young girl’s sandals slap the buckled sidewalks of Wesley Street. She feels silly and conspicuous in her grandmother’s sun hat, the sweatband stained blue-black by hair dye and perspiration. Stiff from decades of blackland prairie summers, the straw crown swallows her head like an overturned bowl, hot and heavy on her scalp. She thinks about taking it off, but wearing it was a condition of the old woman’s consent for this little outing, and spying eyes lurk behind curtains along the way. In this town, everybody knows everybody’s business.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Assumed Position by T.L. Tomljanovic

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The seatbelt light clicked on and Tess checked her latch, her eyes flicking to Jake’s lap—unbuckled, of course. He got the aisle seat. She was in the middle. A stranger sat by the window.

The captain crackled on the intercom. “We’re experiencing a bit of turbulence, folks. Please remain seated as we begin our descent.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

A Starless Street Corner by Christopher J Ananias.

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I took long walks into the insomniac’s night. Wild music thumped on the deserted sidewalk. I peered into the smeary barroom window. A man in coveralls slept with his head on his arms at a table. Pool balls cracked next to his ear. Angry hairy faces, full of booze were engaged in the battle of the green felt, and blood may spill. I walked onward before I drew some menace from the watering hole. Then I met the traveler on a starless street corner.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Breathing Underwater by Katrina Irene Gould

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On Saturday, Mark ate breakfast with me before heading to work, even lingering in deference to the weekend. A month earlier, I’d fled our apartment for two nights to call attention to my despair, but exactly nothing had changed. I wondered if our small life could be enough.

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