Fiction
June Contributors
Holly Baldwin, Cooper Clarence, Yaron Dotan, Patrick Johnston, JB Malory, Joanne Merriam, Janna Miller, Robert John Miller, Pavle Radonić, Grace Raidan, Nayt Rundquist, Shahrzad Warkentin, Holly Woodward, and Jensen Young
May Highlights
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back in the city
Fiction by Brian Washines
“I took the radio out onto the balcony and tossed it. When it hit the parking lot it went into what appeared to be three separate pieces. Someone in one of the other apartments across the street laughed.”
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flowers
Micro-fiction by X.C. Atkins
“I’d dump them into the lake just out of town, as usual. I sawed them into manageable pieces, listening to the Cocteau Twins.”
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we dance the hula at the hotel luau
Micro-fiction by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
“and we dance the hula and we dance the hula and we don’t tell our stories not the ones you want to know…”
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and then there is nothing
Fiction by Daniel Sheen
“‘I’m scared,’ I whisper, my voice trembling as the first celestial streak appears from over the horizon…can still see their polished brightness reflected in his black-water eyes. Painfully beautiful. The boiling sky veined with the fiery tails of a dozen artificial comets.”
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long and behold
Fiction by Catherine Dean
“Let’s just say that if Plato’s Republic contained a perfect form for a bad mother, you might be it…A classic filiophage, like in Medea, like in The Brood. At least Medea knew how to create a beautiful table.”
smile
by Matthew Washington
“Today was the day I was going to kill myself and by God was I going to get it right the first time.”
honey, i’m home
by Valerie Levy
“Shaking, she reaches in her pocket, pulls out the book of matches, lights one, and flicks it toward the yellowing newspapers before turning gracefully on her heal and gliding out the now-closed front door for good.”
a ritual unknown
by Sophia Craig
“Shoeless and emptyhanded, the woman ran with nothing but the feeling that she couldn’t kill what never lived to begin with.”
a significant deficit in coherence
by Dimitry Partsi
“Somewhere, deep in his alternatively gifted mind, Mr. Badgerson was certain of only one thing: he had not yet been misunderstood loudly enough.”
stick him
by Tom Andes
“Channeling all his hatred and self-loathing, all his rage at the number of times the Heaney boys and their minions had whaled on him, Patrick had. He’d stabbed the poor dude because Declan Heaney had told him to.”
disintegration
by Peter Naughton
“She glanced over at her right hand and sure enough the finger was missing, though there had been no blood or pain to mark its departure.”
george gale’s name
by Thomas M. McDade
“You’re a good man, George Gale. You saved both her and me some trouble.”
the gift of love
by GRSTALT Comms
“The bag lies next to me in my bed. I’ve never slept so well. I see its smile in my dreams.”
alley money
by Alexei Raymond
“He’d never touched money of that kind. He’d seen it being handled by his mother, or by Ivan on their adventures, but he’d only ever touched various coins.“
chinese whispers
by Rick Kennett
“The noises changed to murmurs of appreciation. Charlie and Douglas and one or two others thumped fists upon the table, chanting, “Ghost story! Ghost story!”
max’s video
by Wyatt Robinette
“The video was from a GoPro Max wore during the war. Like most GoPro scenes it was chaotic, unclear. Also, you never saw Max’s face, you just heard him.”
blood bound
by Jayson Carcione
“Someone screams. Lights explode in windows…The night is broken.
still deadly in death
by Kim Farleigh
“‘These winds,’ he warned, ‘are prophecies of your impending deaths. Don’t you little bunnies worry about that.’"
just breathe
by Zoë Davis
“The ancient ceiling fan, whining on an exposed fist of wiring, didn’t so much as move the air but stir it.”
come back panda bear
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.”
shiver a beauty
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.”
pick a number
by Kenneth M. Kapp
“Hardly anyone asks about the quality of life. We know it is what it is.”
of lips and war
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.”
bitch
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.”
gunfight at the ko laundry ranch
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.”