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
-
![]()
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.”
-
![]()
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….”
-
![]()
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…”
-
![]()
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.”
-
![]()
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.”
-
![]()
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.”
-
![]()
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.”
t is for tino
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.”
jiggle
by Cheryl Snell
“The Peeping Tom says, it’s lucky the mother can’t see all those folds and puckery! This is not the body she assigned the daughter.”
fountain
by Elan Barnehama
“When we met, she was sitting barefoot on the rim of the fountain, hungry for everything.“
how to stop your mother from wandering
by Beth Sherman
“104) In the picture, she has a crooked smile. Her eyes shift to the left, away from you, toward something you can’t see.”
trigger happy
by Susan Flint
“On the way home from the restaurant Joselyn stops at the Asian market. She walks in between rows of rotating Peking ducks and she thinks about killing herself.”
three stories
by Mileva Anastasiadou
“…he’s water and I’m air, and the fire will devour us at the end, but in a plot twist we will someday devour the world, only we play innocent now…”
fire in the sky
Micro-fiction by James Rayvin
“This time I saw that the craft was levitating. As I approached, a bright beam split the air and trained on my head. The next world has to be better. I carve the moniker into my arm. Raise my hands to the beam. And forget about you.”
chicka-chicka slim shady
by Benjamin Drevlow
“Like Eminem’s I Don’t Give a Fuck but in which I give a fuck about everything, all things, and can’t do anything about them, but scream I don’t give a fuck in Em’s nasally whine…”
aphrodite in an open casket
by Kenna DeValor
“he smell of floral rot: the rose, peony, and soil swirled around me in a delicate game of tug of war.”
wiggle
by Marcus Silcock
“It was 2am and they walked past the parking with license plates covered for privacy. We are only resting, they said. Nothing more.”
voicemails
by Rebecca Karas
“Someone would microwave fish every Tuesday, and the oily scent affixed itself to every plush surface in the vicinity: the shitty office chairs, the fabric cubicles, the stained couch in the break room. I worked in a fetid, hungry mouth, ready to swallow me whole.”
you’re going to the dentist tomorrow
by Rick White
“Once they pry and weedle their way inside they’ll find the tiny souls of all the unsuspecting, wide-eyed creatures who daydream-dawdled into that crooked maw.”
happy little trees
by Kate Horsley
“I hole up in the living-room where Bob Ross tells me humans don't make mistakes and for a while I can feel that each stain on the lino is one of Bob’s happy little trees.“
somewhere beyond worry
by Alex McNicoll
“‘Everything’s on fire—it’s beautiful,’ Colin said. And then, finally, I could hear them too, whistling like hummingbirds picking flowers. Bombs. Bombs that weigh as much as buildings and burn biblically.”
viva la double stack
by Robert L. Penick
“This is the ass-end of the American dream, the part no one films for posterity. Gone with the Wind from Mammy’s point of view…”
big boss
by Kevin Richard White
“I want to be your shield and guide, and when I go to drive or move to try to find anchor, she just turns into unbreakable white snow ahead, and I’m afraid of skidding.”
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.”