Fiction
December Contributors
Richard Alured, Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi, Arthur Aronstein, Jennifer Benningfield, Andrew Rai Berzins, Ace Boggess, Courtney Burten, Kayla Cain, Luanne Castle, Ronita Chattopadhyay, Tulip Chowdhury, Megan Chunn, Ben Connell, Kyle Cox, Jake Creps, Roger D’Agostin, Harry Del Monaco, K. Uwe Dunn, Zary Fekete, Ryan Frye, Steve Gerson, Benjamin Goluboff, Katie Goto-Švić, Richard Grayson, Dee P. R. Kay, Joe Kilgore, Hank Kirton, James A. Knight, Nolan Knight, Alejandro Gabriel Leopardi, Lior Locher, River Lucero, Mark Luebbers, Lindsey Maple, Shrutidhora P Mohor, Guinevere Ngozi Morgen, Faith Murri, Joseph Quilindrino Niduazu, Mika Nadolsky, Susan Brink O’Flaherty, Steve Oehmen, Seth Parker, Randall Perry, Timothy Petkovic, Rachel Racette, Arjun Razdan, L.G. Reed, Nicolas Rivera, Hil Schmidt, Gahl Shattan, Sumitra Singam, Melvin Sterne, Elizabeth Sundstrom, Amir Szuster, Jack Uppling, Derek Waulet, Walter Weinschenk, CR Widen, Jacob Wrich, Brandon Yu, Dodge Zelko, Kit Zimmerman
December Highlights
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erotomania
Flash Fiction by Nicolas Rivera
“The trick is to do the opposite of convention. Lighting, video quality, the flattery of a flirtatious angle are important details, but the key to social media is delivery.”
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all the kooks
Fiction by Ace Boggess
“The fight started right in front of her in the pasta aisle. Mary Ellen wasn’t close enough to hear if words had been exchanged…Everything was political, even the act of picking out linguini.”
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the pain master
Fiction by Lior Locher
“Neutral face, clean-shaven. Eyebrows neat, hair lined up like a platoon. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. You both know the deal.”
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the day she swalloed glass
Fiction by Ronita Chattopadhyay
“She was done with being quiet and submissive. “I will become tough,” she said out loud. She gulped down the remaining water. And then she noticed it – a crack at the bottom of the glass.”
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dispatch
Micro-fiction by Nolan Knight
“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”
pestle and mortar
by James A. Knight
“Steven Porter was found dead in an alleyway, during the winter of 2012. He fell from a window of his fourth-floor town house in Kilburn. The fall shattered his skull, leaving a lake of blood. The red lake was covered in a light dusting of snow.”
general lew wallace confronts fake news, 1899
by Benjamin Goluboff and Mark Luebbers
“But on this overcast day in the last autumn of the century, among riots and the rumors of riots, the future of the Union lurked invisibly, a fish below the surface.”
charles ricard (c.r.) travels east
by Arjun Razdan
“There is only one Time, and this Montre is its Prophet.”
mary cunningham
by Roger D'Agostin
“The last two weeks of August were good. Her grasp on my bicep was gentle. But on the first night of autumn, Mary covered her ears and complained about the crickets. Her nails left marks in my arm. “
false waters
by Nana T. Baffour-Awuah
“That day, as I laid my best friend to rest, I buried his God too. And I found mine.”
out/in
by Jennifer Benningfield
“When I die, I just hope someone worth a damn gives a damn.”
dispatch
by Nolan Knight
“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”
the easiest job i ever had
by Melvin Sterne
“I deduce from this that he was not popular in high school or especially good at sports – all traits that channel people into police work like here at the agency.”
the spider and i
by Steve Oehmen
“The hollowness begins in the middle of my rib cage. A pulsating vacuum where once my heart resided is now draining any resolve left in my body. I sorely accept my fate and await the end.”
going…gone
by Walter Weinschenk
“The sea is a tumult, a terrifying process, and I’m too scared to venture out, too afraid to move, but too afraid to be alone…”
a tourist in green
by Brandon Yu
“Some of them take severed ears, scalps, and thumbs from dead VC and make necklaces out of them, which—even I have to admit—is a little tacky.”
in the menstrual hut
by Sumitra Singam
“Seema and I sit with our backs to opposite walls. As far apart as we can be in this tiny, circular space. She gets the benefit of the breeze from the open doorway – they fan her ankles that have become thick with her swollen sense of status.”
the collaboration
by Arthur Aronstein
“There were giant marble vulvas, impressionist fungal stalks with colorful throbbing veins, clitorises crafted with coils and still-life circumcisions. Patrons surveyed these works with hands over their children’s eyes, jaws slack, none stopping to look at the painstaking detail invested in each one.”
from the woman you become
by Kayla Cain
“When no more color remained outside the train window, you watched each tree pass and the mountains approach in shades of gray. You wished for a twinkling river, and realized Kelli almost never bathed anymore.”
zone of avoidance
by River Lucero
“And anticipation together, like sharing blood and breath together and shimmering in your chests together and BOOM! And BOOM!”
the effects of journaling
by Jack Uppling
“I’ve started writing down my dreams. People always say to do it, they say it’s good for your brain. My brain has been failing me lately and it’s frightening, so I decided to listen to them.”
all the kooks
by Ace Boggess
“The fight started right in front of her in the pasta aisle. Mary Ellen wasn’t close enough to hear if words had been exchanged…Everything was political, even the act of picking out linguini.”
how did marco get so fucked up?
by Timothy Petkovic
“He read David Foster Wallace and debated cutting his arms with a razor blade and procrasturbated obsessively, cumming eight, nine, ten times a night until his dick was flayed raw or shrivelled into a Greek-statue acorn…”
long monday
by Susan Brink O’Flaherty
“Vaginia leaks as she vomits into the street. A gust of hot wind blows whatever is exiting her mouth onto her brand-new, limited-edition Valentino-collab Birkenstocks.”
living water
by Zary Fekete
“He calls the future water alive. She looks down at the rope-burned rim of her jar and thinks, Alive isn’t always the same as easy.”