When they brought him home that night, the lid was strewn canted off the wooden lip and jacks and queens ornamented astray around the box like a ring of fire. Someone- I do not remember who- had loaded coal into the fireplace and after some poking it begun to lick its flame at the iron grate. Ma was cold and Paul and Jane huddled around the hearth for they were cold but I suppose not as cold as him. Still, it only felt right to keep him warm.
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Gordo by Ashley Earls Davis
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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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The Silence by Rehanul Hoque
The dimness of the room was perfect for them both. That was how she loved it; the gentle light covered up the years that had become ingrained in her skin and the weariness in her eyes. He never asked for more light. Every Tuesday, he would drop by, say nothing, and leave a wad of money on the dresser.
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Mannish by Leila Allison
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I never learned how to ride a bicycle. My little sister did; during her Jesus phase Tess earned a rusty third-hander from the Presbyterians because she’d memorized fifty Bible verses. It was the sort of bike you could leave out and not care if it got stolen. Forever on foot, I excelled at heartstopping bolts across busy streets, hopping fences and creating shortcuts; I also developed a mailman’s awareness of Dogs.
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The Footnotes by Christopher Ananias
Our boy is in trouble again. Belvin has done something. This time it is all over the news. The red drag of stoplights. “Why are we even going?” says Genie.
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Where the Dead Live by Jennifer Maloney
My mother lives in the next town over, but she’s dead. My dead father lives with her.
Their house is small, and silent because it’s empty. The dead are quiet for the most part, although sometimes there is a sound like weeping in the bedroom and once the bathroom door slammed so hard it cracked and then there was a hole in it big enough to put your foot through, but it’s the just the wind, murmurs my mother, the same wind that skirls along her teeth, hissing through the dark cavern of her yawning jaw, a wind that bobbles my father’s empty skull and makes it nod along in agreement.
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Katrina by Richard Krause
What is immoral is simply what we don’t want people to do. If anything is expeditious to us, of benefit, if it accords with our own plan, we will not only sanction but applaud what would otherwise outrage us.
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The Ring by Donna Slade
Gramercy Tavern has been a New York City staple since the early nineties. With a spacious bar and wonderful food it has set the gold standard for what casual, fine dinning should be. The restaurant is more formal than the bar but the bar food is just as delicious. Although… the pace in the dining room is different, with the kitchen and the patrons performing a type of Kabuki Theater. The waitstaff, with just the right amount of reverence to the kitchen, serves exquisite dishes to a discerning clientele and in return that clientele pairs each course with the absolute best wine, hand selected by the Sommelier on duty. You ask for their opinion out of respect for the food and they never disappoint. And in the end all pay homage to the shrine of Meyer/Anthony. The only problem with the dining room? There is always a second seating and no matter how well you behave, eventually you will need to leave.
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Beyond the Bridges A Story by Susan Jennifer Polese
Carmine stands silently beneath a mammoth black and white, chrome-framed photograph of a no-nosed beauty with a blunt cut in the back room of his salon. A pie slice of a building gilded in white wrought iron swirls, Mr. Carmine’s Beauty Palace stands between a pastel-colored dog grooming shop and a dimly lit deli/bookie-joint/pizzeria on a street corner in downtown Yonkers, New York. With yards of crushed velvet, flowing script lettering hand-painted on the double plate-glass doors and layers of gold leaf Mr. Carmine, himself, resides over the first, overstuffed, red velour chair. He sports an expensive, loose fitting khaki jumpsuit, and a pair of Italian, olive-green, eel skin loafers as he begins the day. Hazy sunshine filters through the mauve miniblinds as disconnected images fill his mind: business, past lovers, today. He sighs. He hears his first customer enter the shop.
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Adverse Possession by Ted Gross
Ed liked to blame the couch, though there was more to it, but that part didn’t help.
What Kaitlyn did, she went out and spent four thousand dollars on it, and then when they delivered the thing it didn’t fit in the elevator. Ed watched them try removing the little ceiling panel, which he didn’t even know came off, but even so they couldn’t angle it in.
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