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FICTION

On the Universal Rights of Ducks and Girls by Tara Campbell

July 10, 2020

Thank you for your e-mail informing us of the incident that has upset your daughter Dolores.

What you describe in your e-mail as “duck rape” must have been bewildering for a young lady to see for the first time, but I assure you that it is a natural process….

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Bender’s Sister Speaks by Julie Zuckerman

June 26, 2020

  What they don’t show when John Bender crosses the Shermer High School football field, trench coat flapping in the wind and arm punching the air, is where he’s headed after his day of detention. He’s not going fishing with…

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Interiors by Mike Corrao

June 18, 2020

  I prepare my tools for the excavation. Placing the suspect object onto a sterilized operating surface and unpackaging fresh picks and scalpels. It is 4.3 x 7 x 1.2 inches. A small rectangular stack of papers bound together. With…

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My Cat Gets Loose in the Steakhouse by Scott Garson

May 29, 2020

  Mom says it’s my fault, because I insisted on taking the cat through the heavy twin doors, but who leaves a cat in a car in a parking lot on a seventy-nine degree day, with sun shining down and…

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Origami Dogs by Noley Reid

May 22, 2020

  Iris Garr rose at four every day before school to feed and water the dogs in the barn. They weren’t hers. They would never be hers. She used to beg—how old had she been then? She didn’t remember it,…

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A Girl Climbs a Tree by Ruth Joffre

May 15, 2020

  This isn’t the first time. Sometimes, it feels like she’s always climbing this tree: when her little brother betrays her; when her memory fails her; when she barely passes a test and her father tells her, “One more C…

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Admission by Loan Le

May 8, 2020

  The slime of shredded pork meat coats Minh’s fingers as she mixes strands of mushroom, carrot shavings, and salt. Her hands ache from clawing, squeezing, and lifting. She wants to sit, but she needs to have her feet planted…

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Epilogue by Carol M. Quinn

April 24, 2020

  They staggered, stunned, into the fall, she and Teddy making giant vats of pasta and vegetarian burrito dinners to feed twenty-five, inviting home everyone they knew to eat, to drink, to stay over, please, we have a futon and…

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Girls’ Weekend by Steven Simoncic

April 17, 2020

  A hunk of butter hits the fry pan. Then two pieces of bologna. Sparks of grease jump and sizzle. My dad’s hands—massive, oil-stained, almost old—slash tiny gashes into the bubbles of perfectly pink meat. White bread and yellow mustard…

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How to Return Your Child to School by Hillary Smith

April 10, 2020

  He’ll want the Moana one with zippers like cresting waves and straps that glisten blue plastic glitz. He’ll cry that Michelle Naylor’s mom let her buy that one in purple. You’ve only met Michelle Naylor’s mom once, at family…

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