by Margaret Cahill

“When I turned to continue my walk, there he was: a man in a panda bear suit at the end of the boardwalk. At least I assumed it was a man, given that the figure was at least six feet tall.”

by GRSTALT Comms

“He never lets me fuck him – he always tells me ‘Next time’ – and that’s what keeps me coming back, the promise.”

by Kenneth M. Kapp

“Hardly anyone asks about the quality of life. We know it is what it is.”

by Alexei Raymond

“Jonathan’s mind cycled between the tides of war he could remove only himself from, love’s inexplicable failure to surmount, and how he’d known, known the taste of his lips.”

by Chrissy Stegman

“The city sped past, and I leaned back into the seat, letting the world slide by inexplicably, as if the light outside the cab window could swallow everything. I really am a bitch, I thought.”

by Patrick Johnston

“Jack enters the room gun first… Schiller looks up… Schiller looks like he has been caught wanking… circumcised Nazi prick… and Jack has Adolf Schiller cornered in his lair.”‬

by Ian Johnson

“Sex was a confrontation, challenging to give more and take more—a shiftless slavery to stolen weekends, rattling exotic headboards.”

by Michael Thériault

“Nothing tells me how I came into this vase. I may have been here from the instant the new glass cooled.”

by Anthony Neil Smith

“I dumped Harriet into Grindstone Lake in broad daylight. Pulled my truck off the road, heaved her body bag over my shoulder and away she went.”

by James Callan

“I was thirteen years old when I discovered the most beautiful thing in the world…a limited edition 1990 Bob Mackie Gold Barbie Doll, encased in an orange Jell-O mold.”

by Priyanuj Mazumdar

“The rope around the goat’s neck moves frantically, desperately, violently—one last exhibition of its sentience. The protest goes unheard.”

by James Sullivan

“So that there will be no further bloodshed,” said Mary King’s press secretary Sarah, a girl savvy enough to throw her fuzzy pink hairband in with the strongest matriarchal figure.

by Colin Gee

“George is going to tell you this thing was a bat, but have you ever seen a bat as tall as Mister Launders? Small for a man, tall for a bat! With evil red eyes and a beak, and it swooped up Kevin in its horrible claws…”

by Nick Black

“Cecil tried again, in bed.  The man laughed, shaking the frame. ‘You are a persistent fellow, aren’t you?’ he said.” 

by Shaun Anthony McMichael

“I only knew two ways of doing life: being a loser or going balls to the wall.”

by Simon Read

“They tried to fix me once. Opened me up with metal keys and bored eyes, found nothing but snacks and wires and a sticky note: thank you. I deleted the footage. Burned the timestamp.”

by Joe Nasta

“The stray dog always returned. He lay in the shadows cast by the palm trees and the motel’s vacancy sign.”

by Noah Giles

“He dreamt, holding the knowledge God sends messages through subconsciousness. Not this time.”

by J.B. Polk

“Peters, bored with sous-cheffing and the customers’ threats to do a wedgie with his butt skin, accepted gratefully, hung up his grease-stained apron, and moved into the Midget’s wagon.”

by Holly Redell-Witte

“She knew her own forgetting was muscular; she could feel it squeezing her heart, pulling her shoulder wings back in a sharp and sudden spasm.”