Fiction
October Contributors
William P. Adams, Eric Angal, Pam Avoledo, Emily Buli, A.D. Canareira, Michael Czyzniejewski, Susan Leona Flint, Eirene Gentle, Emmi Khor, Grove Koger, Joseph Labriola, David Luntz, Miriam McEwen, Tom Misuraca, Robert L. Penick, Brett Pribble, Beth Sherman, Cheryl Snell, u.v.ray, and Matthew Washington
September Highlights
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alley money
Fiction 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.“
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disintegration
Fiction 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.”
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fountain
Micro-fiction by Elan Barnehama
“When we met, she was sitting barefoot on the rim of the fountain, hungry for everything. “
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t is for tino
Micro-fiction by Eirene Gentle
“When Tino called in the sharks they were ready. They’d practiced so many times. The circle, the dip. Synchronized finning to the music of Bolero.”
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the haunt of age: a 5-step program for ghosting your ghost
Micro-fiction by Karen Crawford
“…anticipate your ghost’s surprise when she floats into the bedroom where your new nipped/tucked body lies. If she goes all poltergeist, rattle, and chain, flash her a ‘friendly’ smile. Your teeth blinding, lips plumped to perfection.”
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stick him
Fiction 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.”
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a significant deficit in coherence
Fiction 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.”
ukulele stu
by Benjamin Drevlow
“Every morning I mount my throne in the handicapped stall of the rec fields pavilion men’s room bare-assed with my sweatpants between my knees trying to do my business with 3 trash dogs trapped in the stall with me…”
the collector
by Karen Schauber
“He’d come to collect fees, long overdue fees, fees from a previous generation we didn’t know was owed.”
disorientation
by Michael Grant Smith
“It’s time to save the world. Consider applying a shellac topcoat to prevent smearing. Garnish with sliced hardboiled eggs. Here’s some useful advice for you neophytes . . . please stop being smooth, incontinent babies.”
bunker
by Marcus Silcock
“They were the burning bush in the wilderness of starched fathers. The wolves howled outside. Mother leaned against the dresser to pop out another sister. What big eyes, said mother.”
hanky panky
by Tom Misuraca
“I should’ve left a long time ago. But here I stay, mesmerized.”
how we survive a coronal mass ejection
by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
“We’ll look at the stars every night…We’ll wish on them, because what else can we depend on when all the lights have gone out?”
no, you don’t; or minerva’s gaze
by J. Agombar
“A voice whispers in your ear as you close your eyes in defeat. ‘No…you…don’t.’”
when my ex-wife dies
by Benjamin Drevlow
“When my ex-wife dies, and I promise it won’t be by my hand, I’ll bring her back home and have her stuffed and it won’t be for any sexy stuff…”
three micros
by Swetha Amit
“It will take a while for Pa to clean up the mess. I wait for the storm to arrive.”
pickled herring
by Marcus Silcock
“I do not like to expose my neck to the barber. My head is full of migratory birds, thinks Kato, walking the dust park remembering the lush fish.”
two stories
by J.B. Kalf
“I can still smell the cockroaches, hear the crickets on the wall, taste the headlights on the cars. I am part of the hotel ecosystem, along with cleaning ladies and the teenage clerk and this ecosystem known as the hotel..”
ma’s elmo phone
by JD Clapp
“I just don’t have it in me to go back. But hell, at least she has Elmo now.”
shepherd
by Robert L. Penick
“Dad is passed out in the yard again, couldn’t stagger in from where his buddies dropped him at the curb.”
two micros
by Jack B. Bedell
“She’s there to get some film on the black-and-gold team’s coach. He’s a defense attorney who’s supposed to have severe disk damage at C3-5 after a fender bender, but you’d never know it from the way he’s laying into his wife behind the dug out…”
jean cocteau’s apples
by Grove Koger
““To see within, turn your eyes to the horizon.” Even if, it seems, you have no eyes with which to see …”
recess
by David Henson
“We shuffle through our morning routines. Driving to work, we wonder at the kites tangled in the trees.”