FICTION
The Replacement by Paul Rousseau
4. It is prom night. A group of us are out to eat at The Urban Hive, on the rooftop. Couples sit in pairs around a table forged of meteorite. Smoky black, with a network of tiny bubble cells,…
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I Saved You in Every Life by Lucy Zhang
In David’s previous life, he was a mad scientist. According to him, I was a lab rat. I’m chopping the remaining half of a watermelon and am more concerned about the ant infestation I had eliminated yesterday because I…
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There Are Hundreds of Beautiful Asian Women Waiting to Meet You by Tessa Yang
Later, you’ll claim there were warnings. Unusual bird calls. That double rainbow you snapped for Instagram. A knowing gleam in the eyes of the hibachi waitress. To make sense of a thing is to make it your own, and…
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Costumes by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
Content Warning—domestic abuse He likes to wear a cowboy hat when he fucks her. She is eighteen, wears her hair traditional—its length snaking down her athlete’s body, a body slowly giving way to womanly curves. She doesn’t know enough…
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Mom, Chronicled (January) by Tyler Barton
I was a lucky little kid, and I’m a luckier little whatever this is now. —Mom, Diary (January 2021) Not sharing is what they call it when one puppy eats another’s dinner, drawing blood from anything that tries to…
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Vegaboy by Leah Bailly
“Don’t live with your hand on the stove.” —Dave Hickey Emergency Exit When you were barely one year old, I fled to Las Vegas. It’s not like I walked away from my first hit and straight to McCarran. I…
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Angels and Bears by Sarah Harris Wallman
“Only you can prevent….” —Smokey LYLAS The ice cream truck is coming. Get moving. Raleigh yanks a drawer: a thatch of utensils skids toward the light, but no loose change. The next drawer resists her tug—promising! Maybe the previous…
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Frenzied, Desperate Birds by Ra’Niqua Lee
MAY Grandma Robbie led Anthem heart-center of the peaches, a quiet intersection between four groves, perfect as the holy cross. The trees weren’t much taller than Anthem. Tall as the big sister she never had. Growing up an only…
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Story of You by Christine H. Chen
When you were three years old, you climbed up your Ma’s massive mahogany bed, you poked her gently, then shoved, and when she still didn’t move, you tried to pry open her eyes with your fingers because you didn’t…
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Here and There and Everywhere by Robert Herbst
I ended it in Chicago, when the snow bloomed in every direction and plows passed over and over across the major roads like blunted razors. It was no use; people abandoned cars in the middle of streets. Cafés shuttered.…
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