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.”
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.”
that sort of thing
by Daniel Deisinger
“In July, her parents found her drowned in the creek. Her body floated in the weeping willow's shade.”
belmont
by Kyle Cox
“He grips my chin and I open my mouth, slow to stop myself, but stop myself I do, just before a word slobbers out. Maybe my last one. This drug, whatever it’s called, makes my mind wander and it makes me slow.”
hello
by Michael Czyzniejewski
“Whisenhunt explained he’d just learned the word Hello hadn’t been invented until the early 1800s, and for decades, was considered vulgar slang, big-time commoner talk.”
two bikes
by Elijah Cansler
“The noon sun beats down mean on the school bus Two Bikes calls home. He lies sleeping in it, red and peeling all over except for where his skin is covered by the cargo shorts that he hasn’t taken off for some weeks now.”
pig
by Davor Mondom
“a Vessel’s tenure varied. Great effort was made in the selection of the pool of potential Vessels to ensure that a Vessel could serve as long as possible…Of course, you could plan only so well against the Illness.”
elaine keeps driving
by Maisy Phelps
“At 4am I keep on driving and the radio speaks to me. To me? I meant to hit my motel around 4 hours ago but I got that lonesome sunk-cost kind of lost that no map can rectify. Unless a body might be willing to break a law or two.”
a blue baby in a red house
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.”
a shadow in the dark
by P.X. Vayalumkal
“That day, Molly and I entered a long, almost never-ending darkness. It felt like searching for a light switch in a room where none exists, then realizing there’s a string hanging from a light bulb that you have to pull and when you finally pull it and hear a click, nothing happens.”
the ventriloquist
by Seth David Parker
“it’s the most potent form of psychology. I pull levers. Put ideas in people’s minds. Put words in their mouths.”
good mom
by Zoey Knowlton
“Those same lights would be illuminated in green for the next nine months, just as soon as Danielle’s womb was transferred from her body to the freshly placed gestation unit.”
asphyxia
by Yuna Kang
“I blink, and Rella leaves my bathroom mirrors. I blink again; she finds a new home in my bedroom corner.”
retrouvez le moustache
by Patrick Johnston
“The moustache is powerful. It is sinister. It is mysterious. It is a strongman, a magician and a bandit. It is a hero and a villain.”
the lure
by Margaret Cahill
“As the door swung open, the bell above the door tinkled as usual. Something pulled me inside, propelling me forward involuntarily.”
i forgot i wasn’t there
by GRSTALT Comms
“The building went up fast. It came over the top of the fence. Everyone tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It was a big black box with no windows, guarded by men with guns wearing red vests.”
rag doll symposium
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.”
the screams of jellyfish
by Michael Czyzniejewski
“One by one, they fell into the trap, each jellyfish pierced on a different spike, their jelly seeping out, oozing down the wood. Worse, the jellyfish were screaming, a dreadful wailing from the illuminated pit.”
an indifferent nape
by A. D. Canareira (translated by Clare Gaunt)
“And as he fell, just before his head smashed against the curb, he couldn’t avoid thinking what a blue day it was.”