The discovery of skeletal remains in the woods near the Quitipea River has brought back memories of Robert Nix. I knew him as a kid and thought he was just weird at first—we all did, even the teachers. It was only later that I—and I alone—discovered he was actually insane; I just didn’t know the depth of that insanity, not back then, anyway. I know now.
Continue reading “Waiting for Robert Nix by Héctor Hernández”
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”
Okay. I’m being serious now. Not that I haven’t been serious all along. But this I gotta say. If there’s anything…anything at all that’s important to me, it concerns this matter—this matter of the heart.
So…
Continue reading “Initiation by Fiver”
Billy Bootle had loved music for as long as he could remember. He loved to sing along with tunes on the radio. He loved to sing with Grandma Bootle while she was baking, and whistle with Grandpa Bootle while he chopped wood. At school, Billy was the only child in his class who loved recorder lessons. Because of this, the other boys hated him. They hated him because he loved singing. They hated him because he loved books. They hated him because of his name, which they changed to Bootiful Bootle and scrawled in chalk on the playground walls with a drawing of a cross-eyed, buck-toothed, knock-kneed boy. Their hatred increased after the teacher, Miss Snafferty, asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. Billy told her he was going to be a singer. He was going to be a Rock Star. He was going to be famous.
Continue reading “Billy Best’s Mighty Metal by Sandra Arnold”
The night after maami was laid 6ft deep in the ruthless earth, Tunde lit a cigarette and settled at the backyard to smoke. I observed him from the kitchen window. No, I won’t go outside and pass judgement; after all, both of us have been engulfed in our own sins since maami’s death. I was angry, though I can’t quite put my finger on the source of my anger. Perhaps it was Uncle Ade’s bellowing, demanding more beers for him and his friends earlier today at the funeral service. Ever since father’s demise, none of his relatives reached out or showed up. But Uncle Ade had the audacity to come to this house for maami’s funeral, demanding beer to be served to him and his friends. I wished for him to choke on it, his body discarded like refuse on a dunghill. However, this alone didn’t trigger my anger enough; it’s something else I an’t quite fathom.
Continue reading “Red Prints by AJ David”
First off, I’m a bra expert. I came by my bra expertise unwillingly. I was born flat-chested.
I understand that you, reader person, may not find my subject relatable if you personally have not experienced flat-chestedness – You haven’t walked around in my shoes. You haven’t walked around in my bra.
Continue reading “The Chicken Cutlet Bra by Lisa Shimotakahara”
The day Clancy started school, a girl pointed at her head, and hooted, ‘You’ve got no eyebrows.’ When Clancy went home, she looked in the mirror and wondered why she hadn’t noticed her missing eyebrows before. Next morning, she borrowed her mother’s eyebrow pencil and drew two thick black arches where her eyebrows should be. When she walked in the door of her classroom the teacher told her to go outside. She followed Clancy out the door, pointed to the pencilled arches and told her to go to the washroom and rub them off. Clancy scrubbed hard and wondered if she’d also rubbed off the few remaining blonde hairs that were pretending to be eyebrows.
Continue reading “Sweet Pea and His Tiny Stony Heart by Sandra Arnold”
Warning – References to suicide, bullying and self harm.
It is in the dead days between Christmas and New Year that Candy finally comes. The cat stands in the doorway, back arched, tail huge, hissing into the vacant space beside me and I know, even before I turn my head and see the pale shape in the tail of my eye, that it’s her. I am twenty-eight now, twice the age she will ever be. Perhaps I wanted to believe that she had forgotten.
Continue reading “Girlfriends by Donna Tracy”
When I was twelve I was cute. When I was thirteen I was ugly.
Acne whacked me. The cute me. The twelve me. It happened overnight. It happened so fast that inside I was still twelve. Still wide-eyed and twelve. Still wide-eyed and twelve and oh-so-underprepared.
My friends (friends!) called me Silly Putty. Me, with my shiny, bulbous, pink-colored face. Grinning like jackals, they called me Silly Putty.
How did this happen? Overnight! How did the canyon open? The open canyon. From twelve to thirteen. From cute at twelve to thirteen, bulbous.
Continue reading “The Year of 13 by Lisa Shimotakahara”
Yo yo yo, I’m here to tell ya about a boy named Sue.
Every day, Sue went into school, in the little pigtails his Momma put him in and his little blue bonnet on his head, and all the children sang, “FUCKIN’ PUSSY!” They danced around him in tribal fashion, and spit bubble gum in his ears, and tried to make him eat dirt. Every day he would soil his pretty little yellow dress, skin his knees and run home crying to Momma.
Continue reading “A Boy Named Sue by Scott Taylor – Content Warning. A subject that some readers may find upsetting.”
literally stories 