I park Nate’s Mustang convertible on the darkest stretch of the bridge, far from the street lamps, where the wind hums an eerie tune through the rails and the thrashing current of the river drowns out any voice of reason. My cell phone shrieks and pierces the competing noises of the night. It’s him. I answer.
“Esther! Where the hell’s my car?”
Continue reading “The Sound of the Spare Key by Zenith Knox”
Patty P., was heading home after shucking corn when she heard hammering coming from the tobacco barn. She peered through the wide slats in time to see her dad grab a handful of cash from an army duffle bag and toss it into a square pine box, over and over. She stepped back confused. They were poor, and had always been poor.
Continue reading “You Can’t Take It with You! By W.H. Forshee”
We’d always egg one another on, seeing who’d be first to set her off. Every kid I knew did it. It was just a game. Her mind had long gone. She didn’t remember that it’d been done before. Each time she was teased was like the first. We’d wind her up and the payoff was one of her screams. Major horror screams! And then we’d leg it, pissing ourselves laughing! Like I say: just a game.
Continue reading “Bully Boys and Navvy Boots by Pam Knapp”
This was the day I lost my soul and I suspect Stu did too, considering… We got our daily warm RC Colas at Mullens Grocery store. Mr. Mullens gave us a skeptical once over, trying to figure out what we lifted. We wore giant parkas, that could hide a dirt bike or whatever we could grab. Our frugal mother’s bought them extra-large hoping we could wear them from the fifth grade to high school, perhaps forever. Mine was dark blue and Mom already washed it, and it wasn’t even dirty. This was evident because the once fine furry texture around the stove pipe hood’s edge was all gray and gooey. Like globs of wet dog fur. Thanks, Mom. My cousin Stu’s coat was light green with yellow stitching. The hood still had the fake rabbit’s fur look–shiny and bristly. Maybe it was real rabbit fur? How should I know? I was only ten.
Continue reading “Where Everything Got Broken by Christopher J. Ananias”
The congregation came to him in the merest tendrils of the dawn’s earliest and sickest light, the sky’s face the same faded blue of an overdose.
They came to him like faces in a fever dream, seeking answers as they always did. The preacher didn’t have them. He was looking for answers of his own. He was dope-sick after all, the slow crawl of heroin fidgeting in his collapsing veins as it made its retreat, making the marrow of his bones ache. His body was already begging for more liquid forgiveness, and there was the other issue that he needed to attend to, the issue that made his need all the more desperate, the issue that had marooned the preacher in the sleepless raft of his stiff bed with nothing but his anxious thoughts to sustain him.
Continue reading “Spite by Alex Sinclair”
Näkki is a mythical creature from Finnish folklore, often described as a water sprite or demon. Näkki is said to dwell in murky waters and drown any human that crosses its path.
Continue reading “The Ghosts of Their Daughters by Veera Laitinen”
She bought it at the annual Presbyterian rummage sale. The small handwritten tag said 75 cents. The little girl who was watching the money box smiled at the 25 cent tip. In the end, they both got what they wanted. The little girl was a dollar closer to going to college, and the old woman got a small part of her childhood back.
Continue reading “The Vase by Dennis Kohler”
Before we went inside, Christian and I sipped on some coffee he had ordered at Starbucks and conversed in his car.
“She was livid,” Christian said. “Slammed the window wiper on the windshield and busted a headlight with her boot.”
“Because you invalidate Otherkins?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s okay with you being a Trump supporter?”
“Yeah,” Christian laughed.
He knew I found ways to drop in his affiliation with conservatism and right-wing politics. It excited me to be wanted by someone that simultaneously hated me.
Continue reading “The Freakshow by Athena Vasquez – Adult Content”
Dr. Dylan Harrington removes the tubed mask from the nose and mouth of Kieu Nguyen—or Katie, as she calls herself on social media pages he’s visited. After shutting off the delivery machine, he gazes at her for several heartbeats. Her blue eyebrow stud matches the stone in each earlobe. Short black hair, upturned nose, bow-shaped mouth, unblemished skin with just enough color to make her exotic. She looks delicious without the thick black glasses now on the counter, atop her Animal Farm paperback. The faint slant of her closed eyes testifies to her mixed parentage. At last the uninsured high schooler reclines in his chair, under general anesthesia. She will stir in ninety minutes, jaw throbbing, wisdom teeth gone, a stitch or two in place, and dental cotton packed around four extraction sites. But before she wakes…
Continue reading “Hunting Ground by Gary Earl Ross”
She moves her arms, her hands, her fingers as if she’s floating in water. From an index finger, a swirl begins. It’s the air. Concentrated. Rotating clockwise. An inch in diameter. It bends all the light and all the colors in the room, yet remains clear.
Continue reading “Swirls by Laura Shell”
