An Empty Family Cabin
I arrived after midnight. I found the key on the peg in the unused barn using the flashlight on my phone.
There was a blanket of stars so thick I stood in the barn door staring upward at the swirling white masses for a long time after I found the key. The shadows in the old, haunted barn had made me think of the birth of Christ story as I remembered all the departed members of my family.
Continue reading “The Ghost of Van Gogh by Dale Williams Barrigar”
He settled the last of the old Amazon boxes in the bed of the pickup, an intractable, unstrung guitar neck poking out from the middle, with the faded moon looming eerie in the midday sky like the cover of some science fiction paperback. He threw a blue tarp over the mess, then took his time stitching a length of twine through the grommets, around the cleats, a clever hitch knot at the end, even opening the driver’s side door before finally, finally turning to me standing in the hot pea gravel, glass of ice tea melting in my hand, before saying, “Well, that’s it.”
Continue reading “What’s Left by Todd Dodson”
The balconies had been intended as a benevolent gesture. One in particular has become a joke and a curse.
Continue reading “The Bellowing Bells by Billy Stanton”
She wasn’t made for parties.
She hated crowded places as much as one hated death.
She just hated the idea of being surrounded by foreign bodies and stared at with a billion wandering pairs of eyes.
She could already hardly stand going to her work every morning and meeting her colleagues, who were far more talkative than she desired. She wished they weren’t. She wasn’t one for small talk. She wished they had a clue. But of course, it wouldn’t be polite if she said something about it so she didn’t.
She usually got her way out of unnecessary conversations with brief smiles and nods until her interlocutors grew bored and let her be.
Continue reading “The Girl and the Crowd by Rania Hellal”
Her forehead stretched and arced into a pale rainbow and her hair lengthened into a dark mane. Her eyes and nose shimmered, while her mouth melted towards her sagging chest. Her clothes were random brushstrokes of ruby red and deep green. And then in a warped flash, she was gone.
Continue reading “The Peephole by Tim Frank”
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