The wind played music with my bones. Like a xylophone.
“It’s cold in hell,” he said, “Let me tell you.” He shook his head, taking another puff from his cigarette. He throws it into the ocean and it fizzles out into the darkness. Hands in pockets, overcoat. Leaning on the sidebeam, night blows past.
Continue reading “Cold by Mason Koa”
Yumi Suzuki decided she’d throw herself in front of a train on a warm, sunny day. She came to this conclusion sitting in her apartment, watching the weather forecast for the next week. It rained for the last five days, and if the forecast was correct – she’d see the sun tomorrow.
Continue reading “Abyss by Emil Birchman”
Sally got home from her nature guide conference after being gone for a week. She was surprised to see an envelope with her name on it in Duke’s handwriting propped up on the phone. He used to send her little love notes, but with his recent problems, he had dropped the habit. Could he finally have some good news?
Continue reading “The Final Frontier by Doug Hawley”
A hollowness opened in me as I entered the house, a space within a space, as if I already sensed what had been lost. In the TV room the stuffed toys lay piled almost to the ceiling, their little heads and tiny eyes facing up. A whirring in my ears began, from the space within a space, “hello?” I said and the sound disappeared. Where were the cats? I paused at at the stairs to the second floor. The steps up seemed staged, like a movie set, “Follow us, the show’s about to begin,” said the hollow in my head. I went to the kitchen instead.
“I will not give in yet,” I thought, though that hollow space signalled over and over again “this is not going to be good.”
Continue reading “I Love You More by Harrison Kim”
“Got any juice?” I asked Stewart when he pulled up.
“Hello to you too,” he said, as his helmet collapsed into his collar. He pulled a charge off his vest and tossed it to me.
“How long she been up there?” he asked, shielding his eyes against the hazy, setting sun as he looked to the top of the bridge.
Continue reading “Cryobaby by Sean Burke”
Harvey looked out his front window, saw the real-estate lady pull into the driveway of the house across the street and get out of her car. She walked to the For Sale sign with Sale Pending pasted diagonally on it.
Another victim is moving in, he thought.
Continue reading “The House Across the Street by Robert P. Bishop”
Her husband wondered where she had gone. Bernadim could see his wife’s car clearly from the air. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong. He took a quick look as he passed over, spotting his wife’s Jag, a beautiful new sedan which she preferred to drive herself, often leaving her driver when she was certain to find parking. He hadn’t noticed before the beauty of the drive’s flowering canopy. Years ago, on a trip to Table Mountain and Cape Town, his grandfather had been inspired by the wide use of the jacaranda and, upon his return, had dozens of the flowering trees planted along the road leading to the family house. When in full bloom, which happened more or less all at once, the full-grown trees created what looked to be clouds of lavender and violet descended from the heavens, ready to carry away all those anxious to meet God.
Continue reading “Baptism by Fire by David Lohrey”
John coiled the rope thirteen times around itself to form the hangknot. The ridges of the knot felt strong, almost muscular, in his hands. John knew his knots. Working on farms will make you an expert in practically anything, or anything practical. He slid the noose open and held it at arm’s length, looked at it carefully: it’ll serve.
Continue reading “Rebirth by Martin Toman”
I’ll tell you why she jumped. That bastard husband of hers couldn’t keep his pants zipped. She put up with it, for the kids. But then, he was the one who split. She and me were best friends in high school. I stayed here in Lynchburg, Central Virginia for college, now bookkeeper at the newspaper. Junie, she jumped at the chance to get out. That chance was a fast-talking UVA senior named John Miller, promised to take her to New York. He did, a dozen years and four kids later, she came back. Her family wasn’t a whole lot of help when she did. Junie told me, first words out of their mouths, Where are you going to live now? How are you going to support your children? I guess she shouldn’t have expected a cuddly reception, the way she ran off with John middle of senior year, her Ma still in the hospital. Irregardless, you’d think they’d care about their grand kids.
Continue reading “Why Junie Jumped by Townsend Walker”
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Holly More first got drunk at the reasonably late age of nineteen. On a late summer Saturday night in 1977, he dropped in on a pair of college classmates who shared a shithole studio apartment at the base of Seattle’s Capitol Hill. The roomies extolled the virtues of “Bokay” apple wine, which sold for sixty-nine cents a bottle. Ritzy nectars such as Boone’s Farm, T.J. Swann and, Allah-forbid, Lancer’s were too fancy-pants pricewise for students who earned $2.10 an hour at Work Study jobs. That left MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird and Bokay. Since the first three were what the Pioneer Square bums drank, the guys went with the Bokay. Holly later found out that Bokay was the wine of last resort amongst the Pioneer Square bums.
Continue reading “Elbows With Fishes by Leila Allison”
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