Tag: poverty

All Stories, General Fiction

Get Yourself a Hotplate, Pal by Daniel Crépault

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Cedric stepped down from the van and squinted toward the storefront. The icy wind roared through the low buildings of the industrial park, passing through his threadbare overcoat and making his skin ache. Reaching back into the vehicle’s dank warmth, he rolled up a small sleeping bag and stuffed it into the footwell along with the small camping stove. He carefully locked the door and walked across the snowy parking lot toward Rick’s Repair Shop, a small red and yellow building behind Main Street.

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Short Fiction

Grayscale by Carolyn R. Russell

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From behind a second story window, we three watch for the girl. Fissured by time and fractured by turmoil, the glass allows for less than optimal viewing, but my sisters and I can see well enough to take immediate notice when her slight figure emerges from a subterranean staircase and melts into the crowd. This particular evening is boisterous and punctuated by the trappings of revelry. A new year is preparing to throw its filthy arms around the neighborhood, animated celebrants studding the sidewalks like remnants of a tenement fire.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Please, Varanasi by Arjun Shah

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Looking out over the bridge, you can see widows in their sarees and gold bangles and solemn, painted faces. Above them, the sun emits a last, romantic orange which blends with the blue of the previous sky, creating stripes of pink which bring the two colors together. The air smells of death.

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Fantasy, Short Fiction

Slow Walking Out of Babylon by Deborah Prum

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One day, I meet Beelzebub standing ahead of me in line at the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. Bathed in the glare of the fluorescent lights that flicker above us, the man glistens. Shards of hard white light reflect off his glimmering jacket, obscuring my view.

But that one glimpse gives me the shivers.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

You Can’t Take It with You! By W.H. Forshee

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Patty P., was heading home after shucking corn when she heard hammering coming from the tobacco barn. She peered through the wide slats in time to see her dad grab a handful of cash from an army duffle bag and toss it into a square pine box, over and over. She stepped back confused. They were poor, and had always been poor.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Dirty Screen by Christopher Ananias 

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The ice cream the night before was so hard I couldn’t scoop it. Today it was a cloudy tub of sweet milk. The Budweiser, I swore off, was piss warm. Even so—with all my new promises made to Denny—that was disappointing. I clicked my dry mouth. Denny watched me like how the sparrow watches the hawk circling in the sky. She looked down at her bandaged hands. 

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All Stories, General Fiction

Gordo by Ashley Earls Davis

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1

His eyes are fixed to the street, staring blankly at the late sunlit cars queuing over the cross. Like he’s thinking. Or perhaps he’s pissed. He lifts a full ten of stout to his pouted lips and takes two long gulps, spine arched tautly at the dust-strewn pane. Is it Rod? Or that bloke we called Doggo? I scratch my neck and try to remember his name. He lowers his glass and digs out some chips from a bowl in front of him. Dips them in tomato sauce and shoves them in his gob. Reaches for his cold one again. I grin at him. His hand movements are overly cautious. Like those of an old codger’s. Well I suppose we are both over the hill now aren’t we? Poor us bastards.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Dimps by Geraint Jonathan

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She gave me the grandest name. Bardonneche. Lovely isn’t it. Didn’t suit me at all. Or not so’s you could see. Would suit me even less now, pruned up bag of bones that I am. But I wasn’t pretty even then. Mind you, neither was she. Pretty we were not.

She was Cleanthes, I was Bardonneche. We became a team.

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