by Michael Ranfone

“The woman kneels beside the body. Her dress rides up, gravel biting at her knees. The mermaid’s hair fans into a slick crescent, tangling with a gray Walmart bag and a half-smoked cigarillo…One nipple is scabbed. The mouth slack and sweet, maybe holding the shape of a lie told too well.”

by Elizabeth Sundstrom

“The family photos are gone from the walls. Sylvia’s noisy Yorkie is nowhere to be seen. Nor is the dog’s bed and vast array of squeaky toys normally scattered throughout the room.”

by Alexei Raymond

““He delivers death to legions—whence, he does not know, and why never crosses his mind.”

by Kathryn Kulpa

“‘You should have seen me on the dance floor in this,’ she said, showing me something glittery and poufed. ‘When I twirled everything sparkled.’ Like a human disco ball, I thought, but didn’t say. I liked to keep the peace.”

by Adele Schultz

“It had been around 4 days since the incident. Four days since I had found out my husband, the man I haven’t seen in years , had lost his memory.”

by Mitchell Miller

“The sky bleeds out and we decide to go home. We try turning on the TV, but it fizzles with static. So we let the silence engulf us. Is this how a rock feels?”

by Kelly Murashige

“Sickly light spews out across the top of her jet-black hair. She stares at herself in the mirror, horrified by the mochiko coating her dry, cracked lips. Breaking News! her mental headline reads. Up-and-Coming K-Pop Star Caught in Cocaine Scandal!”

by Michael Hagen

“Mother says: eat your dreams while they are fresh, or they’ll fester and rot. But he hasn’t. His skin, soft beneath my tongue.
I have eaten all my dreams, a good girl—until him.”

by Aster May

“They love human flesh but hate these soft round organs I hold in my hands. The bears weave through the fires on all sides toward the scent of my skin. Mid-roar, they stop dead at the eyes curled in my fists.”

by McKenna Wilds

“Each night, Toad visited his friends in a quiet meadow, always ready with a joke. No matter what he said, they burst into laughter, for the Toad was known by all to be a very funny Toad.”

by Seriah Black

“She looks at me, the first time any adult has really looked at me. It runs through my plasma like poltergeist currents.”

by Garima Chhikara

“They knew my name, but they chose Medusa, the goddess, the untouchable, the stone-eyed killer from their favorite game. I hought they meant it as mockery. But they shouted it in exaltation, like a banner lifted high.”

by Khushi Bajaj

“‘There is clearly something wrong with her,’ he had declared to his wife, and so Sonam had wrapped Binny in a shawl and taken her to the well where girls could be exchanged. She brought back Tinny instead, and Raphael loved her innocent sleeping face.”

by Shawn Scott Smith

“I put the car in drive, and head home, alone, another late night looking for hope in the aisles of Walmart.”

by Jonathan Jackson

“We count prayer-hands emojis, watch our pain trend upward, and see our wounds be rewarded with reach.”

by Jack Timko

“The leaves rustled beneath our feet as we ambled along, each of us replicating observed behavior of familiar adults or movie actors, balancing a Kool between the tips of our middle and forefingers, the cherries burning vermilion.”

by Tom Newcomer

“He wished for exciting memories, to have enjoyed a memorable life. Intriguing and mysterious events, secrets left untold. The kind of past that catches up with you, he thought. That’s the thing.”

by Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos

“Margaret had never been smart and—being acutely aware of it—was insecure, hence her choosing a random topic that was of no interest to anyone.”

by Kris Green

“I don’t remember my mother’s death. I remember things around it. The smell of her car, the night table with the hankies, and then random things that come back to me.”

by Eylie Sasajima

“Sweet rot of deer carcass wakes me in my ditch nest. It is juicy warm amidst the crisp frost of a long night.”