by Lillian Taylor and Richard Leise

“Principal Morgan would be retired by the time their offspring were old enough for secondary school.  So, Tucker was it.  No more Nolans.  No more Nolans, he said, melodically.”

by A. L. Smith

“The library book says you need a candle, a personal item from your target, and the incantation— then, BAM! Hexed!”

by L.F. Graubard

“Ronald Pelton. Pale, soft voice, face like the uncle who teaches you chess and guilt. Not dangerous at first glance, but glowing underneath.”

by Uma Jagwani

“In the elevator, I look at my sweaty, meaningless face and feel disappointed. Not white! As if one day, I’ll step into this elevator and exit on the seventh floor as a part of the ruling class.”

by Ari Cordovero

“I thought of Saint Joseph’s hands — the way they were carved, cupped, as if holding something fragile he hadn’t asked for. My body was already doing the same.”

by Nora L.S.

“Red solo cups and a single cigarette are passed around by people who, more sober than they’d like to be, seem to like the idea of partying more than this party itself.”

by Sonali Kolhatkar

“My childhood memories of Dubai were marred by Baba’s whiskey and words. He liked his drink served in a cut crystal glass with exactly two cubes of ice, topped off with water. He would go through an entire bottle a week. By himself.”

by Uma Jagwani

“My body has a shelf where all the memories of my dead aunt are stored.”

by Christie Goodman

“Blood sprayed from the wound in her head, like a fire hydrant, soaking my face and chest in deep, hot red.”

by Billie J Daniel

“My girlfriend thinks when I drink, I’m chasing a memory, a certain feeling from my childhood that doesn’t exist anymore.”

by Audrey Hollenbaugh

“I used to have this idea in my head that healing from my past would mean I could suddenly do all the things I want to do and feel perfectly fine…I’ve realized that it isn’t quite like that.”

by L.F. Graubard

“Months blurred. Death moved on little cat feet—alarms, gurgles, a gasp at 3 a.m. I pushed wheelchairs and watched bodies fail in slow motion.”

by Catherine Lutz

“Winter has had its way with the bush on which the berry hangs, denuding it of its leaves and stripping the fruit of any seeming life.”

by Andy Betz

“I am a band that does not exist.  With no musical ability, I wrote songs for the singers never to sing.  I am working to book performances that will never occu…a quartet of nothing named, ‘The Useless Sig Figs’”

by Tony B. Cardiff

“I detest Meursault. At times, I was relieved he was fictional. An arrogant, socially irresponsible man. Yet, as I read, I felt a morbid curiosity…I drifted between repulsion and kinship. As if he were a mirror of who I once was.”

by Mohammad Tolouei

“Borges has a story in which a group of encyclopedists gather to write an encyclopedia of a fictional world—complete with its mountains, its seas, and its systems of weight. Then, little by little, that fictional world begins to take shape and come into existence.”

by G. M. Rowbotham

“Gay bars smell like poppers and loneliness. I can’t go in. Not because I’m afraid of who’s there—but because I’m afraid I’ll stay.”

by Meg Bloom Glasser

“I cut my mother off until she swallows a handful of pills and ends up in the psychiatric ward. My brother pressures me to visit her there. She wants California rolls and tweezers for her ingrown hairs.”

by Seth Frame

“My vision is perfect now, surgically corrected, but I sometimes miss the blur. There was truth in it: the way the world softened, the way beauty didn't need to be sharp to be real.”

by Julie Duck

“…my need to rescue others was leading me straight into the arms of danger, twice putting me under the same roof as future murderers.”