FICTION
three occupants of an empty home by Klaus Castellano
Siris, 73 Emma’s Friend Space Song Note from the author: This piece comprises three contextually distinct but thematically related episodes. I wrote it not as an arbitrary anthology of three stories, but as one complete work involving three…
Read More
Twelve-Step Program for Quitting My Life by Kristen M. Ploetz
1 Work the cold meat from the last bone. Still numb from the fight, I eat Gil’s leftovers. He ordered his usual two dozen of Blazin’ Hot. Bastard. He knows habanero burns my gums. Lick the buffalo sauce off…
Read More
There Is in This Dirty Night a Running Chase Off and Away by Jim Bosiljevac
There is in this dirty night a slam and a shout and there is Matthew yelling Pa Pa they got Owen Pa wake up Pa they got Owen! And before any of this there is Shin out of his…
Read More
Of All the Infinite Possibilities by Dana Diehl & Melissa Goodrich
The topic is prehistoric humans and their place in the food chain. It says so right in the substitute lesson plan. Highlighted in yellow and underlined. Well shoot, I think. I’d hoped I’d be teaching something I already knew…
Read More
Lasso by Essie J. Chambers
It’s the summer before third grade, and I’m not allowed to play in the front yard anymore. Mamma says it’s because of the heat, but I know it’s about the police cars that circle our house like sharks. The…
Read More
The Shape of Skin by Kristina Jipson
The professor’s kid was cute. Like, normal cute. Pigtails and a fat face. She looked kind of dirty even though I don’t think she was. She had that kind of skin. “Babysitter problems,” the professor had said at the…
Read More
Passing by Thaïs Miller
I. Jason On the brink of Armageddon, I find myself in Stark County, drinking. We’re underground in a bunker, a former stockroom in the basement of a grocery store that’s been converted into a wartime bar. Patrons, in their…
Read More
Heart Trouble by Rex Adams
The nurses, cafeteria workers, surgeons, Harold, they all irritated Darla. So did the old man in the room next door. He was dying, had been for days. Family kept streaming out of the elevator, stomping down the hallway and…
Read More
So Much Trouble by Karin Lin-Greenberg
Katherine had only intended to spend a few minutes outdoors wiping the birdhouse with vegetable oil, but now, over an hour after she’d started, she stood in the front yard, an oil-drenched wad of paper towels in one hand,…
Read More
Diamondback Mountain by Tim Weed
Henry takes the stairs three at a time, balancing a tray with a pot of coffee and two of the lodge’s signature blue-enamel mugs. An inch of fresh powder frosts the windowsills, and the light slants in to illuminate…
Read More