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.”
charles ricard (c.r.) travels east
by Arjun Razdan
“There is only one Time, and this Montre is its Prophet.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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!”
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.”
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.”
elena
by Alejandro Gabriel Leopardi
“Elena’s gone, and she’s not coming back…She left a clear reminder that happy people aren’t happy. Not all the time.”
the day she swallowed glass
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.”
the pain master
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.”
sammy
by Jake Creps
“It’s been 25 years since I took Sammy’s life but only 6 days since I understood why. Maybe not why but how. The story I told everyone was a lie.”
caliwashigon
by L.G. Reed
“The coffee shop looked different as Rob Winkle approached it after a restful nap…Was this a dream? Maybe he was still on the couch, asleep.
effort
by Mika Nadolsky
“I love you!” Gem shouts, and she is running. “I want to be you, ingest you, consume your blood and piss! I want your mind and body, and I want to feel it on me like my own flesh!”
the tube
by Richard Alured
“It all started about a week before when I’d stumbled from bed and down to the kitchen and discovered a scene of great negligence: five empty beer cans on the floor, crushed at their centre, dregs refracting on the linoleum, wildness.”
plastic breath
by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi
“The nightstand leaned slightly forward, and Izzy glimpsed her legacy as the dead meat filling of a floor-and-nightstand sandwich. But the nightstand had other plans…”
chips
by Hil Schmidt
“She was an adorable child, though a sensitive one to be quite frank. She seemed to consider me to be a sophisticated creature, and I believe I filled that role with ease.”
comorbid
by Ika Bittern
“The body in the open casket is smoothed over, waxy – as if, if you cut it, it would be the same all the way through. As if it never had any secrets.”