March was a bitter month for everyone involved. Jodi was born into one, like Eric Clapton, her childhood idol. In another March, thirty years ago, Clapton’s four-year-old son ran into a hole in the wall. The hole was supposed to be a window, but it had no glass on it. A scream tore through the house, and the mother understood right away that it didn’t come from the boy; the boy was busy plowing through the air, down fifty-three floors.
Continue reading “March by Sarp Sozdinler”
In the muted afternoon light that leaked through the curtains high on the cellar wall the old man, sweaty and disoriented, reached out from a nap he had not planned to take. He lurched forward and tumbled headfirst out of his recliner and up against the television, two feet in front. He cursed himself.
Continue reading “At Sea by Andrew Bennett”
I suppose it was meant to happen on the first of December. It was then that Christoph died as I believe he foresaw. I’ll tell you that story now.
Continue reading “Pink Clouds by Samuel Snyder”
Syd walked along the narrow path of flattened grass between the gravestones just like he always did. On his walk home from work, on his way to the shops, on lonely days couped up at home watching the rain pour down his window panes he came to the graveyard. He walked through the melancholy bluebells that lined its edges, past balloons tied to pristine headstones and sad teddies left in the middle of graves to keep the dead company until he got to Liam. To the black marble with his date of birth and death, the little line etched across the bottom of it that was meant to sum up his whole life. Who he was. What he was. But it couldn’t, it was too small. Too dull. It blended in with all the other messages on all the other graves but nothing about Liam had ever blended in.
Continue reading “Lonely Ghosts.by Rebecca Disley “
It’s late in the afternoon in late October. I’m at the zoo with my ten-year-old son, Elijah. His mother, my wife Sally, chose our son’s name. Sally comes from a religious family and goes to Mass daily. Elijah’s staring at the elephants, the largest land mammals on earth. One of the three is particularly massive. He has a huge head, large ears, and a long trunk that is sucking up drinking water from a big puddle of rainwater. My son and I have been coming here most weekends as of late. Ever since I lost my better paying job and Sally started working part-time. I’ve been coming here since I was a small boy. Elephants have been a main attraction here for as long as I can remember.
Continue reading “At the Zoo by Gil Hoy”
The City found itself with a problem: what began as a natural hole in the earth where Its citizens had thrown away their evil had helter-skeltered into a voracious toxic Abyss. The City thought it could wash it away by pouring water down the hole, but that only made the evil float to the surface. It had heard about an Angel that was sent to another place to deal with the problem of evil and that that place had finally (and stupidly, so thought The City proudly as It would never be as stupid as that Other Place) destroyed The Angel and that microscopic pieces of The Angel drifted about the land wreaking vengeance.
Continue reading “The Universal Absorbent by Phoebe Reeves”
I peel off the paint bottle’s seal, and a strong chemical smell wafts off the top. The scent reminds me of the hospital’s ICU corridors and the ache that filled my chest when my mother and I entered Room 520A to see Nana a few days before. I swirl around different colored paints and recreate the fiery orange sunset and the same brilliant blue sky from last year when Nana and I walked along the shore during our annual beach trip after Easter Sunday Mass. My little brother plunges without thought into his palette and haphazardly washes his brush against his egg’s shell. His designs turn out formless, and his colors mix into drab shades of brown and gray. He eyes my egg and then looks down at his, and his cheeks flush. His eyes flash in warning as his idea is hatched in seconds. Still, I don’t move fast enough and watch in horror as he smashes the Easter Egg I painted for Nana to the floor, sending pieces of memory flying through the air; these things are fragile.
Continue reading “Nana Won’t Rise Up from the Dead by Margo Griffin”
The chemistry of life in an era of endless miracles can be deceptively corrosive. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Like putting a hen’s egg in vinegar, it reveals the soft, internal wonders of the world—the things we’re so prone to build shells and containers around. Living in this era of endless miracles does, however, require special handling and some degree of caution. It often demands we abandon our reliance on the element of reason. Just as you should never mix vinegar with bleach, parsing miracles with reason and rationality can blister your lungs and blind you where you stand.
A magician taught me this.
Continue reading “Pink Tongue Flailing by Dana Rollins”
She bought it at the annual Presbyterian rummage sale. The small handwritten tag said 75 cents. The little girl who was watching the money box smiled at the 25 cent tip. In the end, they both got what they wanted. The little girl was a dollar closer to going to college, and the old woman got a small part of her childhood back.
Continue reading “The Vase by Dennis Kohler”
A neighbour two down from us was the only person we directly knew who lost someone. A family member that is. Even though just a distant cousin of theirs, it tore their family apart. Just like it did many families, and how it changed the whole fabric of how we live. Looking back on it now you wouldn’t think such an innocuous job could matter so much, that it could change everything about how we live, but it did. Of course, the tragedy of so many going like that is the main thing, the sheer lack of explanation to this day and how we do things now is borderline unfathomable. Most of all though, I think about our neighbour’s second cousin, just one of thousands, an estimated sixteen thousand, but knowing someone who knew one of them, who left us on that day, just makes it so close.
Continue reading “The Trolley Workers by Paul Kimm”
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