Concerning Boys and Men
Shirley was eavesdropping one night when she heard her mother say that lonely people can’t help but do terrible things. She was bedridden, her mother, laid up with a debilitating melancholy after her latest episode. Her father was in there with her. Shirley imagined him to be glowering over the bed, hands on his hips, but she couldn’t be sure.
Continue reading “Homecoming Queen by Adam Dorsheimer”
Police had already handcuffed Roy Stafford and were placing him inside a cruiser when Susan Roberts arrived. Betty Stafford lay on a gurney that the EMS team hurriedly lifted into their van. Flashing her ID to one of the cops, Susan asked, “Where are the girls? Are they OK?”
Continue reading “Winter Solstice by Mary Jo Thomas”
The ol’ boy downstairs humps his walker a few inches b’fore ever’ step he takes down the driveway. Had a stroke his wife tol’ me but she says he’s stubborn as a cocklebur and won’t let nobody else git his mail.
I should take the gun and throw it into the river. The cool morning raises a chill up my back and touches my ears. The ceiling fan spins silently, driving me into the bedroom for my favorite cardigan. I don’t turn off the fan because the little gold chain pulled off in my hand, so it runs and runs. Like it’s making fun of me for being such a loser. The cardigan is gray and fuzzy and once it’s on my shoulders I’m wrapped in a pleasant warmth. My feet are in slippers. A coffee cup steams from the round table by my chair. I cannot lose these comforts, but taped to the kitchen window, a white paper clearly states I can and will. Courtesy of the Sheriff and the BANK if such a thing could ever be called a courtesy.
Continue reading “On the Edge of Gas Stations by Christopher 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”
It’s a fine day for a game. Though the sky is dreary– columns of smoke rise from the building above– the weather is just chilly enough to motivate us to stay moving, focused. We arrived at Mauthausen earlier this afternoon. One of the men had been waiting for us at the station. Our walk to the field was short, the town small but warm– comfortable. The people are nice here. The fuẞballfield is conveniently placed at the end of the main street– the bottom of the hill.
Continue reading “Like Lightning by Evangeline Golden”
I sit among the dandelions by a black glimmering tombstone. It shines bright and final—never a dull moment. A picture of an old woman glares at me—her trespasser. The sprig of fresh lilacs in the bronze vase speaks of a loved one. A dog stands on the road staring at me.
Continue reading “Still Speaking by Christopher Ananias”
For the first time in our lives, we have come to know true terror, the kind that turns human beings into prey, hunted like chickens in the bush. The air in our village is thick with fear, the nights are filled with silence, broken only by muffled sobs and the hurried whispers of those who dare to speak of the evil that has gripped us. The weight of despair sits heavily upon our chests, making each breath feel stolen, each step feels uncertain. Every passing second is a countdown to an unknown fate, and every heartbeat is a reminder of our helplessness.
Continue reading “The Voice of the Poor- A Cry for Justice by Torsaa Emmanuel Oryiman “
The beetles live in the stump out back, festering beneath the rotting remnants of an old dule tree. I call them, and they rise—the black coil of death—thousands of them climbing up, up, up and over each other, hissing and clicking, putting her together like sentient fog. Black fog. Only sometimes, especially when they’re hungry, they don’t quite get her shape right; I appreciate their efforts and reward them dearly, but when they get her wrong, I want to scream.
Continue reading “Beetles by Brandon McWeeney”
“You are not here to become a man, because to become a man you must first learn the rules of love,” Vikram Paya, the best of us, began on the first day of the Dhoon School Weekly Newspaper class. “No, my old sons of Bombay, my riotous banchods of Delhi, you fish-eating Bengalis, and the rest of you celestial bodies, suburbanites, the few villagers—you are here to go to better places, because, after all, The Dhoon School is but a waiting-place for Cambridge, for Oxford… for the lucky few of you—here, you will not learn to be great men but exemplary boys…”
Continue reading “The Rules of Love by Arjun Shah”
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