Tag: relationships

All Stories, General Fiction

 Eulogy by Daniel R. Snyder

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(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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Accident by Courtney Jean Day

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‘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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

McKenzie and Sons by Ed Davis

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Confessions 1:07 by Kendra Yvette

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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.

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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

The Stork Delivers Such Joy by Simon Steven

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Only a month ago I was told how much I glowed. Glowed? Is the baby a thermonuclear device? Will my midwife melt from the radioactivity when the little angel is born and detonates? People say such silly things.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

The Lost Voice by Brooke Gilbert

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It was his accent she noticed first. She was walking past, carrying a tray of drinks to a nearby table. He was deep in conversation with another woman, but she slowed her steps at the sound of his soft vowels, his rising and falling intonation. He was British, maybe Scottish, she wasn’t sure, she had never been to the UK, she had barely left Pennsylvania, but she liked his accent. It was foreign, sophisticated.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Root Rot by Cailee Combs

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My family used to have roots connecting us, like the trees. We could speak to each other without a word mouthed aloud, sentiments flowing through invisible strings attaching us all. The roots vibrated with each family triumph and wilted during shared sorrows, singing silent songs between us as we went through life together. My older sister, Joan, used to say the roots were blessings.

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