Dean cradles the pint glass like it’s the only thing holding him together. I don’t know how he survived losing Sophie and the baby in the same night, but eight months later he’s made it to The Lantern on Christmas Eve.
Continue reading “One for the Road by Neil James”
Ed was at a conference in Bakersfield and told me there was a problem with the pet sitter tonight and could I stop by the house and feed the dog her dinner. I’d done it a few times before. Ed was my brother-in-law.
Continue reading “Alumni by Ted Gross”
The lake breeze chilled the back of his neck as he bent over the boulder to inspect the patterns of lichen spreading on its surface like an ink spill. This was the one he was to find. As the receding waves sucked the water from the sand around it, the rock sputtered and gurgled as if it were alive, a nursing infant or a dying soul. He had trekked almost three miles from his cottage to reach this point on the beach, the farthest out on this side of the island. From here it was fifty miles to the mainland over the surface of an inland sea. He removed his clothes, tossing them into the water. He was to carry nothing. Standing nude, he waited, facing the dunes that rose to the stretch of trees above the beach.
Continue reading “The Promise by Russell Fee”
The summer of our wedding my bride Claudia VanderMeer and I leased a split-level duplex on a dead-end street in a close-in gentrifying area of south central Austin, a quiet, in-transition neighborhood of young families and senior citizens and dogs. The opposite side of the duplex was occupied by the owner/landlord, a white-haired University of Texas professor who we figured was gay. We were fine with him being gay (perhaps we even wanted him to be gay), both for philosophical reasons and as a counterpoint to our conspicuously heterosexual, pre-children, pre-jaded bliss.
Continue reading “Quality Photos by Steven McBrearty”
Saturday, 6.10pm
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Liam muttered, pulling into the petrol station.
Ten minutes earlier
‘Please. Please,’ the girl begged.
Against his better judgement, Liam tapped the address into google, and took the cash.
‘Thank-you soooo much!’ she said, helping her inebriated friend into the car, before skipping back to the busy beer-garden.
‘You okay?’ Liam asked, watching his young passenger’s head wobble in the rear-view mirror.
In her defence – she did try to open the window. But the rainbow projectile flew with such force, it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Continue reading “Overtime by Karen Uttien”
From sunrise to sunset, Jill was a good-time girl.
She was hot stuff, longing to live large in high cotton, and Jack—was Jack—a jack of all trades, a master of none, living on the edge looking for face-to-face horizontal celebrations.
Continue reading “Jill’s Idiom Odyssey by Frederick K Foote”
I. Scoundrel
It is common knowledge that a man of high status but of the lowest of incomes is in need of a wife with a hefty dowry. Edgar Brown was no exception to the rule.
Mr. Brown was pacing the parlor, anxiously checking the time on his golden watch. It was one out of two fortunes left to him by his late father, William Brown: An aristocrat with a pitiful love of horse racing. It was not, however, the fortune of the watch, but rather the fortune of his looks, that got him this most desirable appointment. He was handsome, indeed: A tall young man with broad shoulders and luxuriant dark hair. Those two gifts, the golden timepiece and his pleasant looks, often brought him numerous acquaintances with the most agreeable young ladies. Mr. Brown was agitated nonetheless, for this time, the match was not to merely secure his evening but his future in its entirety.
Continue reading “Scoundrel Through the Ages by Dan Shpyra”
Margery was a stubborn woman, but not without reason. She spends her days sitting on uncomfortable ground, sweating over tiny cooking pots and trying to make the best meal she can with the small amounts of food she has. Everyone is thankful, no one complains, but she knows she can do better.
Continue reading “Margery by Chloe Price”
Who are these artists? I thought. If somebody wants to talk about the barriers we put up between ourselves and the abyss, they can say it with words, not with a dead shark. I saved that thought for the date debrief with Clara. I pictured how she’d reply, gently sarcastic, “I don’t think that’s really the idea, Christine. The world would have lost something if Van Gogh had just turned to the next bloke in the guinguette and said, “Bright out tonight”.”
Continue reading “The Impossibility of Death by Tiffany Williams”
He was on his way to our weekly meeting when he slipped on a patch of ice, fell backwards and cracked his head like a piñata, spilling its candy-colored contents onto the asphalt. I read about it in the paper the next day or I would have never known, would have simply given him up for another one who lost interest. We had never exchanged numbers. I didn’t even know his last name until last week. But they ran his picture with the obit and the announcement of the memorial service to be held Wednesday at 2pm. Today. Today is the day I will see his wife for the first time. Today she will find out.
Continue reading “The Scrabble Player by Alison Kilian”
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