Quietning Man by Sheldon Lee Compton
What helps is to have a total lack of curiosity. That’s what he told them. It was the first time in seven years he had said more than a single word in response to someone. [...]
flash
The Same Shine by Ernest Gordon Taulbee
The absence of a hangover made Samuel suspect he was dead. Last night’s moonshine had the perfect mix of burn and corn sweetness, so he drank it with the same regard lungs [...]
Innocent and Smirky by Paul Beckham
My mother always stressed good deeds but my other relatives seemed oblivious to the concept. I was required to do at least one good deed a week, as were my brother and [...]
Remembrance Day by Bradley Sides
I’m first in line for Remembrance Day. I’ve been here since midnight. The announcement never said what time the gates would open—just that it would be early. Although [...]
Sight-Seeing New York City Fall 2001 by Jonathan Church
A blind man steps onto the N train at 59th Street. He turns his head and seems to wait for a stranger to gently grasp his elbow and show him the way. Someone does, guiding [...]
Thieves by Kelle Grace Gaddis
Sleep is a type of dying we enter each night. If lucky, we rise from our rest in peace, our pillowed tombs, to see another day, there are miracles all around me, thought [...]
Grocery List by Elizabeth Bolton
There is, here in my hand, a small blue rectangle of grocery list like the looping invitation to a banquet that awaits and my finger pads press it rumpled and wet. You step, [...]
Sea Shanties by Alicia Bones
1. Couple years ago, I bought a boiled crab off a man on the pier. I’d just started eating it when someone shouted, “Jerry’s fighting Bob!” Jesus, someone! I thought. [...]
Shake Loose by Claire Stamler-Goody
Adam used to love his phone. He carried it everywhere and every time it buzzed, he melted. He fidgeted whenever the battery ran low. The phone, which had three different [...]
A Thing From Spain by Ashlie Allen
They know I am not fluent in English, but still approach me. “Why are your eyes so black? Why do you look like you’ve been in the sun all your life?” My mother told me [...]
Drinking your Lye by Nicholas Olsen
I see pieces of you everywhere I go, smell hints of your perfume in drafts of wind as I walk down this old block trying to assemble the remnants of my past. It feels like you [...]
Who Leaves Sprinklers on During a Flood by Alex Antiuk
I put god on a pedestal during the 5 days I spent in a white shack on the beach. On the 6th day god fell. It began with a compulsive annoyance, “Do you want to go on a [...]
Our Man by Meg Pokrass
This week our stunted man hobbles around the house wearing fluffy, taped-together slippers. It appears as if he has broken a toe. Last week, he was a braying like a donkey, [...]
Sounds of Home by John Talbird
He’ll never go back. John’s twenty-four and independent and has no desire to speak to his parents ever again. There’s no use in trying to make them understand, either [...]
Out on the Eastern Slopes and other stories by Steve Passey
My Grandfather hunted. My father hunted. Everyone we knew hunted. Everyone knew someone on the reserve. A treaty card allows for a “subsistence hunt.” For not much money [...]
The Huldufolk by Liz Kay
You had spent most of your years gazing at the moon like a thick haired child on a Christmas advert but the orange plane to Reykjavik would do instead. That had been on my [...]
Black Clot by Ashlie Allen
My hair did not like its saffron color, so it turned black and broke off. I tried to condition it with organic oils and fruit, but it still had a temper. Sometimes when I cry [...]
A Photograph as a Photograph as is by Sarah Arantza Amador
Erika and I sit on a bench in front of the high school. I am in my sunglasses in the heat of the day, the day that I am going to the Los Angeles Zoo. Erika is also going to [...]
Come for the stunning career opportunities by Jenya Doudareva
Ox was running late again. To get to work, he had to cut through thick cold darkness from his cluster of lights to the next. The walk was long. The freezing air would pierce [...]
Vending Machine Press 