Translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
“Hey, Odol! School’s out?” We were on our way home when we heard this. Odori’s grandfather, crouched on the roof of their home and framed by jumbled white clouds streaming through a blue sky, was looking down at us. The prickly autumn sunlight glanced off the orange slate of the roof.
Continue reading “Odori’s Grandfather A miniature by O Chŏnghǔi”
Three months to Election Day
“Mazie Tanner has a real likability issue to contend with,” said the slick, over-Botoxed TV pundit. “Folks just aren’t that into her. Polls show her earning a paltry thirty-two percent if the election were held today. That’s no bueno in a gubernatorial race against Robert ‘Mr. Charisma’ Sturgill, who’s got well over sixty percent. Now, if the lady tried smiling once in a blue moon—”
Continue reading “The Likeability Problem by Kirsten Smith”
SUNDAY 7:00 p.m. … Cynthia closes the door. She earned the privilege. Privacy. The quiet of the dayroom after hours. She turns on the lamp and positions the green upholstered chair, its back to the wall of windows and next to the table with the telephone, completing the ritual she’s performed every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday evening for two months.
Continue reading “Evenings by Joanne Parsons”
It was early Thursday afternoon on Halloween. The sound of an email alert on the other side of his studio apartment made Wally Ray Tucker sit up beside the pale redhead drifting off in his bed. Their extended nooner had given them enough time for a double play, but there would be no hat trick. A lifelong friend who recently added with benefits to their relationship, CC had to get back to her office in Rockville. He nudged her, slid out of bed, and went to his desktop computer. As she washed and dressed in the bathroom, he checked his email and printed out an attachment. Then he read it. And felt his throat constrict.
Continue reading “One Known Drop by Gary Earl Ross”
She comes every June to set us free. Zooms into our neat little neighborhood, somehow boiling a cloud of dust from Grandma’s swept asphalt, brakes squealing like a stunt driver. Grandma’s jaw works but she forces the corners of her mouth up, tries to smile a welcome. The car fishtails in, parks crooked as a middle finger. A brown foot, naked, toenails the color of a freshly skinned knee, heels open the driver’s door and a cardboard cup in a long-fingered hand appears. Immediately upends. A brown waterfall of liquid and half-melted ice splatters the driveway, and as it rivers down to the street I hear it: that wonderful voice. Yuck, flat, Aunt Glory announces, and summer begins.
Continue reading “Dirty Summer by Jennifer Maloney”
The service station was different. While it was busy, it was quiet: a gentle hum of conversation and the odd rattle of cutlery and crockery. Everything was calm. There was no panic, no urgency, no pain.
Continue reading “Hartshead Moor Services – Westbound by Matthew Roy Davey”
Willie Ferguson lay staring at the wee cracks in his bedroom ceiling. Like a lot of people, he hadn’t realised, til he stopped working, that he was missing something. It sure as hell wasn’t the job that he missed: he’d collected his pension with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t family either: his sister, Margaret, living behind a privet hedge down in England, was emphatically a distant relative, and should ever remain so. But Willie knew he really was missing something.
Continue reading “Searching for Unicorns by Michael Bloor”
“I won’t talk about the past anymore,” she said. “I’m only talking about what will happen from now on. I’m using this pain to make something wonderful.”
He held her hand, like he had so many times. Her masculine hands. Creative hands for making wonderful things. Like her saddest smile.
Continue reading “Doll Parts by Ximena Escobar”
“I need to speak to Peter.”
Ann looked at him and worried straight away.
“What’s wrong love, why has he got you so riled – I mean, for fuck sake, he’s Peter, the most inoffensive wee guy that we’ve ever known.”
Colin gave her a hug, “I don’t want to say anything until I hear his side.”
Continue reading “Peter by Hugh Cron (Strong Adult Content)”
“Sir?”
The Artist jumped, whirling away from the attic window out of which he had been staring.
“Stay there,” he barked, and the figure he had been sketching immediately froze, Lot’s wife on the heels of her one bad decision.
Continue reading “This is My Rifle, This is My Gun by Shannon Greenstein”
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