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 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. “
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.”
the work of a queen
by Emmi Khor
“The votes were in; she would soon be Queen and her words finally matter.“
roger lamb
by James Zoller
“I was born into a family of great failures.”
grape covers
by Eray Erkek
“He held the ladder steady. The damp floor with hose water covered his surroundings, green and brown like bruised skin.”
just an idea
by Michael Czyzniejewski
“So, my idea, for down in the station, in the background, is we have the shoeshine booth, yeah, but instead of shoeshines, guys polishing shoes, we have guys polishing teeth.”
woman in the coral
by Rebecca Karas
“Someday I would join her, intertwined on the ocean floor.”
protection from the gods
by Emmi Khor
“The Menshen Gods guarding the house were not pleased with the arrival of three new deities.”
lik-m-aid
by Madison Ellingsworth
“If miracles were real, God would have cured our daddy, and that dog would have lifted the telephone pole off itself. But it was us who saved that dog, and it was God who let our daddy die.”
if she knew how to be honest with her therapist
by Amber Budd
“If she knew how to be honest with her therapist, she wouldn’t drop her bundle of shadows at the edge of the sidewalk, like how a mother might leave an infant at a convent.”
one more thing i need to say to you
by Tom Andes
“Is he going to coldcock his friend? In his jacket pocket, the weight of ten years lifting, Simon slips the knucks off.”
when it rains
by Adam J. Galanski-De León
“It is the boot and the breaking of bone. Skyscraper fists swiping Gods from the heavens.”
a centaur’s blood is always poison
by Mario Aliberto III
“The preposterous size of his legs, pumping up and down, striated where the muscles met and sweat ran in rivulets, had dominated her fantasies the last few weeks.”
“hello, I must be going.”
by Dimitry Partsi
“You can catch my primetime special every third Tuesday at 3:15 AM, though you'll need a special satellite dish pointed directly at the moon. My sold-out world tour continues nightly in my kitchen.”
popular
by Beth Sherman
“Now that I’m popular, my old life seems as dry as uncooked spaghetti. Now everyone wants to be me. Ugly.”
fishing at olive garden
by Travis Flatt
“And you’re just staring. I didn’t realize, getting all worked up for the punchline, that my mask has begun to slip and some of my horns are showing..”
how may i help you, you sniveling twit?
by Chad Gayle
“Hi! I’m Dirk Bogarde, your online AI assistant. How can I be of service? That is, what can I do for you that you could do for yourself but choose not to?”
sand
by Scott Ortolano
“Glancing over, Amory watched as Brooke’s face drifted and dissolved, ebbing away into the headlights of a passing car; the oblivion holding terror and beauty against the dark skyline.”