“I want you to go out into the street today, Lionel, and stand there, for maybe an hour or so, then come back and tell me what you’ve seen. I want you to be real descriptive, make it all come alive. Don’t let me down because I’m really getting fed up sitting here, not even able to see a leaf on a tree. You’ve got your problems, but you still have your sight so please treasure it and share it with me.”
Continue reading “Counting Leaves by Tim Frank”
In the whole of Riverside Cemetery this was the one stone that had slipped its mooring, leaned not forward into the new millennium, but backward, into the one passed by mere years ago, as if saying it was tired of all the holding on. In one instant the scribed name was home with me: Dumont Pulsifier, an old pal from my neighborhood, but everybody, including his mother and his dead father while he was here, had called him “Scratch.”
Continue reading “Scratch by Tom Sheehan”
In silence, we drew back the curtains and watched the bombs explode. Josef leaned his head against the wall, cigarette limp in his mouth, his round glasses askew. He didn’t look afraid, and he wasn’t curious like me, not any more.
Continue reading “The Last Light of the Library by Jennie Boyes”
Carlton was a diminutive man with a rotund belly and a shock of tawny hair that swished from side to side as he shifted his head like a curious sparrow. He would drift through the working days in our publishing company brushing past his colleagues wordlessly in perfumed high-rise elevators, impossibly tight hallways and the tearoom where everyone gathered at mid-morning for an extra caffeine fix. He designed book covers for manuscripts that wove magical realist tales of invisible animals and children lost in ethereal kingdoms – fantasy worlds that seemed to give him sustenance, something maybe his surrounding environment couldn’t.
Continue reading “Picture Frame by Tim Frank”
Under the light of a punchy, yellow moon, Pops jammed a cigarette in my mouth and put his thumb to work on our flip-top lighter. After a while, the flint wheel peeled up his scab and showed me his insides, which were bright and clean (and A-negative, Pops says). He sucked the blood like barbecue sauce, then flick, flick, flick, nothing, flick, flick—
Continue reading “Worm Cheeks and the Search for Lunar Secrets by Brandon McWeeney”
Not long after Mike and Katherine moved into their spacious St. Louis county house with pillars and brick facade, its value plummeted. But it was a nice house, woods in the back, nice deck.
“What will we do when they’re gone?” Katherine asked, brushing a tangle of brown thinning hair.
“Who?” he responded. She was talking about their kids. Two more years and both would be in college.
“All this space,” she said. “Empty.”
Continue reading “The Scary Lady by Jeffrey Penn May”
He is shaking. His skin is sticky and pale like the underside of a frog. I feel nothing. I move my hand, try pry it between us. I want to touch myself, but a cramp has started between my fingers and my wrist. I think this is a waste of time. Then, he goes deeper. Something inside me feels jagged. I see curves of red flesh behind my eyes. It’s a dull pain, a building pain and I think if I’d have just touched myself I’d have forgotten it. When he stabs me again, it bursts, wells up, floods over. I put my hands on his shoulders and I push.
Continue reading “Endometrium by Katie Ellen Lamb”
Jimmy’s knees were indented where his elbows dug into them.
He gently moved to and fro on the swing. He could hear his father singing some old song that he’d heard too many times. He looked across the road and saw Charlie The Paedo staring at him. Jimmy knew if he told his dad, he’d end up in jail again.
He heard the pub door open, “Here you go son. Is your mum not back from the bogs?”
The boy shook his head. He accepted the crisps and can of Coke.
Continue reading “Karaoke At The Pincher’s Arms by Hugh Cron – Warning Adult Content”
A Cookie and A Glass of Milk
(A version of this story was first published in the Santa Barbara Literary Review)
Continue reading “A Cookie and a Glass of Milk by Shira Musicant”
Amber Kenny was a timid child. She had a round face and hair to match her name. Every night she prayed for her wild, orange curls to turn dark and straight but every morning they bounced back into place, redder than ever.
Continue reading “Kenny Women by Fiona McGarvey”
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