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
eliza’s house, or she knew the only reason (they visited)
by R.P. Singletary
“SLAPPED any hell or heaven, come piss and shit, life out of the man-boy whos-whispered-whose? Collapsed and somehow exploded (somehow??), his head hitting loud and fluids of every shade of b.i.o.l.o.g.i.c.a.l.s. across the shipyard-emptied stones.”
when the bell rings
by Natalie Hammonds
“What was the point of her being able to go inside of her skin but not able to change anything?”
coma white
by Daniel Sheen
“It feels like the end of the world. But whisper-quiet. Less like catastrophic thunder and more like a slow unravelling, like an old sweater comin’ apart at the seams.”
what looks like what is
by Basil Rosa
“He considers the Virgin Birth. Like many a Catholic, he was once so eager to believe.”
life is art is life
by Margaret Cahill
“Not everyone can paint,” he said, “but everyone has the potential to be a performance artist.”
incest of ideation
by Cristiano Cardone
“I excused myself and headed to the van the studio had rented for me. Inside, I smashed the posca bottle against the bedside table—old blood, old life, old ways.”
martha, my doe-wife
by Shrutidhora P Mohor
“Before the end of the first year at our new home, I realized my wife has become a deer.”
keith
by Paul Lewellan
“Hours later, the three women, unable to move from exhaustion–bathed in sweat, urine, wine, and bits of pastry shells–purred contentedly.”
The color of longing
by James Callan
“The drowning of one’s girlfriend is likely to sober-up the most inebriated of young men. Such was the case with Hunter, when his fear burned away his buzz like a lit match to an oil-soaked combustible mass…”
launching the golden chair
by Julie Iverson
“The big Golden Chair can fly, somewhat.”
conversation with the desk guy at the aubange french foreign legion office at 2:18 am
by John Crawford
“I needed to go somewhere else. I did the only thing anyone can do when they’re in a condition like mine. I got my things together and kissed my auntie goodbye and left to join the foreign legion. How you say. Oui, c’est vrai.”
state of matter
by Madison LaTurner
“If you could move into someone’s basement for a year and become a hermit, that’s what you would have done…Who needs to live out their dreams? Neil deGrasse Tyson is an asshole anyway.”
corpse flower
by Vivian Lawry
“As the spirits of the corpse flowers disappear there, only I weep.”
umbra
by Tiffany Jimenez
“I’d found a loophole. Sasha, who had been watching alongside the other doctors, watched my spirit become consumed in flames as I attempted to hold onto my husband’s soul.“
jimmy the fish
by Tony Cartlidge
“That git with the red pens and the dictionaries and the dandruff falling into his free-range salad? Who cares what he says?”
1962: it’s always the girl’s fault
by DC Diamondopolous
“In the classified section of the Daily Breeze, Donna had recognized a coded message with a phone number and called.”
the prophet of ezekiel, mississippi and the curse of bad love
by Mike Itaya
“He whispered to me that he and Rhonda had tried to steal the can of Cajun Boiled Peanuts from Piggly Wiggly, but the can began to whisper things―deep, dark things…”