Fiction
November Contributors
Eric Angal, Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi, Ben Arzate, Elodie Ashcroft, Iku Bittern, Maria Pianelli Blair, Margaret Cahill, Elijah Cansler, Myna Chang, Christie Chapman, Megan Chunn, Kyle Cox, Michael Czyzniejewski, Reagan Davenport, Erin Dawkins, Daniel Deisinger, Brooks Egerton, Mary Grimm, GRSTALT Comms, Alexander Holcomb, Yuna Kang, Nolan Knight, Zoe Knowlton, Vivian Littlefield, Clare Martin, Shrutidhora P Mohor, Davor Mondom, Seth Parker, Maisy Phelps, Hil Schmidt, Sumitra Singam, P. X. Vayalumkal, and Walter Weinschenk
November Highlights
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rag doll symposium
Fiction by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi
“In the invigorating darkness between tired streetlamps, Andie's mouth ached, both from the numbing cold and the lengthy lack of practice those deprived muscles had in performing a smile.”
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the job interview
Micro-fiction by Ben Arzate
“The interviewee goes to the nearby window. He jumps out. He falls twenty floors and dies on impact with the sidewalk…The company accepts him for the position two days later….”
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tough guys
Flash Fiction by Myna Chang
“She shoves my tie aside, taps a button mid-chest with the blade, tap tap tap. Who is this bitch? She’s grinning again, all teeth, and she smells like copper, like old pennies…”
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asphyxia
Fiction by Yuna Kang
“I blink, and Rella leaves my bathroom mirrors. I blink again; she finds a new home in my bedroom corner.”
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our darkness
Flash Fiction by Reagan Davenport
“For a moment, I saw nothing, heard nothing, but I felt her moving again inside me. For a moment, we were both alive.”
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a blue baby in a red house
Fiction by Shrutidhora P Mohor
“…inside that demolished heap, is a pair of tiny, helpless hands, fingers curled up, nails light blue, the skin as thin as muslin, a premature blue baby whose survival was questionable right from the moment of its coming.”
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the fable of the storyteller and his witch
Flash Fiction by Sumitra Singam
“It was never clear who hurled the first stone. The flinty piece of rock hit her on the head, leaving a dark bloom of blood.”
the lure
by Margaret Cahill
“As the door swung open, the bell above the door tinkled as usual. Something pulled me inside, propelling me forward involuntarily.”
i forgot i wasn’t there
by GRSTALT Comms
“The building went up fast. It came over the top of the fence. Everyone tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It was a big black box with no windows, guarded by men with guns wearing red vests.”
the job interview
by Ben Arzate
“The interviewee goes to the nearby window. He jumps out. He falls twenty floors and dies on impact with the sidewalk…The company accepts him for the position two days later….”
rag doll symposium
by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi
“In the invigorating darkness between tired streetlamps, Andie's mouth ached, both from the numbing cold and the lengthy lack of practice those deprived muscles had in performing a smile.”
just another halloween
by Brett Pribble
“If only they hadn’t dressed in garments that only Satan would admire, like when they dress as him, or pimps and prostitutes, or in skimpy police uniforms…If only they weren’t just another excuse to do nothing.”
windowless
by Nolan Knight
“Now sleep stutters. Every night, a window. Its draft cold, blue.”
you are last seen tonight
by Miriam McEwen
“You live inside this mirror now. A hard bruise marking your cleavage. A friend, barefoot, cutting a path for your chair through the wood rot and wild mushrooms. You amaze him. As if nothing scares you.”
the screams of jellyfish
by Michael Czyzniejewski
“One by one, they fell into the trap, each jellyfish pierced on a different spike, their jelly seeping out, oozing down the wood. Worse, the jellyfish were screaming, a dreadful wailing from the illuminated pit.”
indigo
by Joseph Labriola
“it wasn't the book, so much as his relationship to it—if that makes sense…This one, of course, was blank.”
o’reilly’s coming home
by u.v.ray
“all o’reilly knows is every time he sinks that dart into his flesh it feels like being cast adrift in a sea a warm marmalade.”
the sandlot/event horizon
by Eric Angal
“I met the guru last year at Wildheart: The Mid-Life Retreat For Men. He led the program’s transcendental meditation seminars and worked individually with retreat attendees to prescribe unique mantras to us, and to help us understand the uses and benefits of TM.”
ringing the island belle
by William P. Adams
“Kirby and the Market were so closely linked that no one on Belle Island could remember when there was one without the other. “
death dream of poe’s ape II
by David Luntz
“…insane, sure, but don’t forget the moment you bumped into Poe’s ape in a gas-lit Parisian alleyway, wearing a negligée of weeping butterflies and a stovepipe hat…”
the field where we used to play
by Pam Avoledo
“Over here, Sarah calls, and we are running on the green grass in the small field.”
conversation with disapproving mimi every time she sneaks out to sniff
by Eirene Gentle
“I bear the fur of Finnian on my skinned knee. Would you like to know how I skinned it or just keeping looking at me in that crawly way?”
chill
by Cheryl Snell
“When he commas his body around hers, she wonders how much of his hug is medicinal and how much apology. Wonders why the bed won’t stop splintering.”
clam guts
by Susan Flint
“I LIVED IN A CITY WHERE THE MONEY FESTERS LIKE MOLD. I HUNG AROUND THAT CITY’S NECK. I ATE THE SCRAPS IT FED ME…I ENDURED THE SIGHT OF HOMELESS PEOPLE ON THE SUBWAY AND I THOUGHT IT MADE ME SPECIAL. I SWALLOWED CIGARETTES WHOLE.”
bodies
by Emily Buli
“It starts with a video of two women kissing, which intrigues me in a way I don’t fully understand. Megan watches on the bean bag beside me. Her eyes are like glass—red and distant as she takes swigs of hard lemonade with one hand and pets her dog with the other.”
pulse
by Tom Misuraca
“Everybody’s digital footprint was deleted, like it or not.”
the countess of shadow pointe
by Beth Sherman
“We heard she was a Russian countess married to an oligarch, with a fortune in rubies seized by the KGB.”