Everyone knew Gadu told lies. But no matter. He was an artist, and while nobody believed he’d run a cocaine factory in the Bolivian rain forest whilst living with an uncontacted tribe or been chief stone mason during the reconstruction of Mostar’s Stari Most, his stories were hilarious.
Continue reading “The Lives of Gadu Tom Phillips”
“What’s it like, being imaginary?” asked Lisa Hannigan.
She sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, gazing down at her imaginary friends, Sally and Qney, who mirrored her posture on the carpet below, knees tucked neatly beneath their chins.
Continue reading “Imaginary Friends by Gareth Vieira”
Johnny Smiles was the unluckiest person in Hope County.
How unlucky? So unlucky that the town council passed a bylaw restricting him to his home. A motion that passed unanimously. A sentence he accepted without protest.
Although Johnny was an older man, most folks considered him an overgrown child. He was brilliant, in the way all children in Hope County were brilliant—a lingering side effect of the Disaster, that tainted the drinking water and perfumed the air with long-forgotten toxins.
Continue reading ” Unlucky by Gareth Vieira”
The hydrangeas were bent under veils of snow. Irritated at late spring snowstorms and disorder, Ethan Crick had his broom to the bushes and the sidewalk before the fat flakes had stopped falling. He noticed the oddity right away, standing up out of the drift, pointing to heaven.
Continue reading “The Finger by Joy Oden”
Today she is wearing yellow. Yellow dress, yellow hat, and a buttercup yellow scrunchie around her ankle. Today is a good day.
Continue reading “Tiny Squares by Shannon Murdoch”
I hear the curlew flying low over the misty bog on a late summer’s evening. The air is damp with dew and the shadows are black beneath the tall whitethorn hedges. A lone cow calls out for her calf in a field beyond view and then stops suddenly as her charge drains the pressure from her elder.
Continue reading “Over the Top by David Lyons”
Mamaw don’t want to lock you in a cage, but I got no choice,” she apologized to her wailing granddaughter as she extricated herself from the overwrought child, both covered in spittle, snot, and tears, an ectoplasm of bodily fluids. The child desperately reached for her, arms stretched, fingers twitching, head thrusting.
Continue reading “Caged by R H Nicholson”
The seagull cocked his head and purred. He dropped his beak into the sand but didn’t seem to find anything worthwhile. He put his head back and squawked loudly at me.
“Sorry buddy,” I said. “I don’t have anything for you.” It was the same way I used to talk to Jeter.
Continue reading “Crime Wave by Simon Nadel”
Without thinking, she started smoking the day he left, nearly thirty years ago. It was just something to do when he walked away. She constantly sat at the window, hoping, peering, and smoking. One cigarette lit from the other, with the smoke dragged deep into her lungs. Everyone said that was a bad thing to do, but she still smoked, and most of them had passed away. She kept her hand outside to let the smoke drift into the clouds and considered it a signal, a beacon he could follow home. The ash burned close and scarred her fingers, so little pain remained. The pain was all in her heart.
Continue reading “Patience by Ed N. White”
On those windswept weekday mornings, asphalt driveway crusted with snow, my father would get up early, put on his secondhand boots and an old coat, and exit through our front door into the blue hour to get the motor running. That fifteen-year-old station wagon would stall if not warmed up properly and might not start again. My father would sometimes have to push it down the hill to get the engine going, my younger brother Bill and I sitting quietly in the back seat, the smell of alcohol already on my father’s breath.
Continue reading “Those Snowy Mornings by Gil Hoy”
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