Everyone knew Gadu told lies. But no matter. He was an artist, and while nobody believed he’d run a cocaine factory in the Bolivian rain forest whilst living with an uncontacted tribe or been chief stone mason during the reconstruction of Mostar’s Stari Most, his stories were hilarious.
Continue reading “The Lives of Gadu Tom Phillips”
“What’s it like, being imaginary?” asked Lisa Hannigan.
She sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, gazing down at her imaginary friends, Sally and Qney, who mirrored her posture on the carpet below, knees tucked neatly beneath their chins.
Continue reading “Imaginary Friends by Gareth Vieira”
1994
Butcher
Standing by the entrance to the butcher’s, Maddie can’t take her eyes off Victor. Her braids tight, her nose – a pointed nettle. On her freckled bronze cheeks, a glowing blush.
I watch the soft corners of her lips stretch, as if pulled, her mouth opening slightly, and from within, a laugh breaks free—an escapee (Maddie is a prison). It’s as plump as a balloon. As thin as silk thread. It inflates and bursts like bubble gum.
Continue reading “Maddie is a prison by Tatiana Samokhina”
Johnny Smiles was the unluckiest person in Hope County.
How unlucky? So unlucky that the town council passed a bylaw restricting him to his home. A motion that passed unanimously. A sentence he accepted without protest.
Although Johnny was an older man, most folks considered him an overgrown child. He was brilliant, in the way all children in Hope County were brilliant—a lingering side effect of the Disaster, that tainted the drinking water and perfumed the air with long-forgotten toxins.
Continue reading ” Unlucky by Gareth Vieira”
He heaved and cried uncontrollably.
Snot bubbles.
His mom told him not to be unhappy as he buried his face in the desk while lightly holding her wrist.
“Think of the good times you just had and will have in the future —and you can always write something about it”
He always got emotional when someone he loved left him.
Continue reading “Men without Women by Adam Kluger”
The two men sat in the dim kitchen. Drinking. Dark clouds hung low in the gray sky like they wanted to open their bellies. Cigarette smoke curled from a glass ashtray. Larry Miller got up from the yellow Formica table and pointed at a steak bone on a plate in the sink. The white plate was smeared dark with A-1 Steak Sauce. Larry said, “That was Jenny’s last supper. A T-bone steak, a baked potato, bread n’ butter, and a Coke.” He seemed proud to Thurman like he wanted Thurman to appreciate it.
Continue reading “Death on a Full Stomach by Christoper Ananias”
Adult Content
For Ann
That sound, sharp.
It slices through the air like a whip. It jolts me awake. I haven’t gotten used to it. The harmattan wind blows through the open windows. I rub my shoulders and try to warm my body up. The huge searchlight in the yard casts a shadow of the cashew tree on the walls. The branches spook me. They’re wraiths reaching for me, their pointed tips looking like spears aimed at me, reaching for my soul. A woman’s scream. Sergeant Wasiu’s gun cocks again. He’s the chief of the guards – a cruel man with gallows humour. The creeping feeling rises up in me again. The night’s quietness is eerie. The woman’s screams are louder now, they’re bloodcurdling.
The gun roars. Her screams stop abruptly.
Continue reading “The Broken Piece of Me by Doyin Ajayi”
Gayle drove for two days expecting sirens before changing cars. She missed riding high in the brute rev of David’s truck, but the Corolla was less noticeable. The interior was damp and cloyingly chemical like its former owner with a spine like a question mark. But the keys had plucked easy from his pocket, not pulling a thread.
Continue reading “Retrieving Johanna by Evelyn Wall”
I am cursed with my very own personal psyops helicopter, a flying machine that takes me anywhere it wants to go, no matter how much I beg it to leave me be. Matte black, of course, updated constantly—the latest sensors, time travel, you name it. Highly sensitive to excruciating shame, humiliation, and social embarrassment. Fully automated, sentient, and merciless.
Continue reading “Helicopter by Marco Etheridge”
The Lemonade Stand materialized at the corner of Maple and Third like a memory made solid, and Cliff felt his foot ease off the accelerator. Through the windshield of his sedan, the sight struck him, not of this stand with its crooked cardboard sign and red plastic cups, but of something older and as familiar as his own reflection and twice as strange.
Continue reading “Seven Flowers for Lemonade by Daniel P. Douglas”
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