I try to learn one interesting fact a day. It’s best when this happens naturally. A dollop of Fairy Liquid ingested over a period of a few weeks will cause serious sickness. Dollop was Melanie’s word. It was unlike Melanie. Almost onomatopoeic.
Continue reading “Orders of Magnitude by Kieran Wyatt”
Disclaimer: This story is an entirely fictional reimagining loosely based on a true case from the ER. Names, characters, and details surrounding the case are entirely products of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to real persons. Any similarities to true events are purely coincidental.
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Red lights cut through the night as the old man gazed ahead. He sat in his truck, staring, stopped at a traffic light. He sighed. The weight of the world lay on his shoulders. Exhausted, the man was at wits’ end. The preceding weeks were unrelenting. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all. He was tired. His bones were dust, and delicate mind warped with hardly a coherent thought remaining.
Continue reading “The Boy by Clayton Korson MD”
A single strand of hair drooped from Katherine’s thumb and forefinger as she held it in front of the waitress’s face, a tiny droplet of sauce or grease still hanging from the end where she’d plucked it from her plate.
“I’m really sorry, I can get you a fresh plate,” said the waitress, backing away.
Continue reading “Snakes everywhere by Alex Kellet”
Every woman was best dressed, shining, and swanlike in elegance when Wayne married Lydia in April. The men wore linen shirts with canvas texture, and high-waisted pants, giving the appearance of something strong, something of the fighter or the ballroom dancer. George wore trainers and loose slacks in a vain hope of comfort.
Continue reading “Shame by Mechant Deaux”
(Editors’ note: Happy Easter to everyone. And we thank Daniel for forgiving us (me) for misplacing his accepted story, which we are pleased to run today–LA)
The funeral is held in a large generation-spanning cemetery, with manicured lawns and polished granite headstones for the average, marble for the more-than-so, and pieces of nondescript rock hastily and carelessly inscribed for those who thought someone important enough for a marker, but not enough to break the bank.
Continue reading ” Eulogy by Daniel R. Snyder”
‘Andrew, we need to talk.’
Andrew pauses for a moment, glaring at the torn Skinny Puppy poster he has taped to the inside of his locker. He feels like complete and total ass. He’d been up much too late the night before, doing bong hit after bong hit alone in his room, studying The Anarchist’s Cookbook in confused fascination. Just think of it – kablooe! He’d set it off in the Headley-Royce parking lot where the school royalty congregates, sitting on the hoods of their sixteenth-birthday Mercedes, sneering down at him as he trudges up the hill from the bus stop.
Continue reading “The Accident by Courtney Jean Day”
The kid sneaks in here every day, which is crazy because I’ve done my best to keep him out of my store. It wouldn’t be the first time a guitar, fiddle or banjo walked off. Kid likes to slide in while I’m with a customer talking trade or repair, head straight for the vintage instruments in the back room, get down the 1924 Gibson A-4 and start messing around.
Continue reading “McKenzie and Sons by Ed Davis”
This is my confessional right here. Instead of an old wooden box full of stale air, I sit on a rickety old concrete porch at a rusty metal table with a stained-glass top. I always stay in room 107. The seashell wallpaper makes me want to die, and the air stings with the putrid stench of vomit, but this room has a perfect view of Main Street. This motel is the only part of this hick town that’s worth a damn. I fill my glass ashtray, stained yellow with wear, with cigarette butts as I spill my sins and people watch.
Continue reading “Confessions 1:07 by Kendra Yvette”
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.
Continue reading “Dirty Screen by Christopher Ananias “
My wife was born invisible, but she told me that it’s only at my high school reunion that she feels invisible.
A small percentage of Americans are born invisible each year. Naturally, this number is very hard to track.
Continue reading “Low Visibility by Matt Harrison”
