Fiction
February Contributors
David Agyei-Yeboah, Swetha Amit, Olivia Ardine, Brooklyn Armstrong, Khushi Bajaj, Sharon Bippus, Sacha Bissonnette, Danilla Botha, Camryn Brennan, Margaret Cahill, William Jennings Chalk, Cooper Clarence, Kalan Cordell, Enrique De Alba, Craig Demi, Tyler Efford, Andrew Eastwick, Kate Forbes-Riley, Christian Fuller, Jonathan Daniel Gardner, Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos, Kris Green, David Hinson, Michael Holtzman, Caroline Huckeba, D. J. Huppatz, Jonathan Jackson, Joelle Killian, Tom Koperwas, Jesse Lifton, JP Lor, Lana Lowe, Gracie Lyle, Andrea Marcusa, D.C. Martin, Finnegan McBride, Kathryne McCann, Tom Newcomer, Seth Parker, Christopher Kostyn Passante, Tif Robinette, McKenna Robison, John Sara, Eylie Sasajima, Shawn Scott Smith, Té V. Smith, Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, Rick Taliaferro, Hayden Taylor, Mary Thorson, Jack Timko, Essi Ward, and Jon Wesick
February Highlights
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nothing and everything
Flash Fiction by Sharon Bippus
“We’re two guys past our prime looking for a thrill.”
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the creative process
Fiction by John Sara
“I keep a box of ideas stashed beneath my bed; misshapen balls of flesh I cut from my body and mail to my editor. (Um, thanks, but I didn’t actually ask you to do that).”
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camera obscura
Fiction by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece
“…you know what it makes me think of, those engravings of camera obscura where the outside gets projected in but backwards and upside down, like Plato’s cave…”
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grapefruit
Fiction by Margaret Cahill
“My father’s brain tumour changed everything for me. He collapsed at home a week after my thirteenth birthday and sunk into a coma he never woke up from.”
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foreclosure season
Fiction by Christian Fuller
“When Paul set his shoes on fire, we told him to piss it out. That, like, he’d better hurry. He was only supposed to light up the insulation we’d pulled out from the eggshell walls…but we were sixteen and drunk enough to fist fight god and things just had a way of happening.”
you are last seen tonight
by Miriam McEwen
“You live inside this mirror now. A hard bruise marking your cleavage. A friend, barefoot, cutting a path for your chair through the wood rot and wild mushrooms. You amaze him. As if nothing scares you.”
indigo
by Joseph Labriola
“it wasn't the book, so much as his relationship to it—if that makes sense…This one, of course, was blank.”
o’reilly’s coming home
by u.v.ray
“all o’reilly knows is every time he sinks that dart into his flesh it feels like being cast adrift in a sea a warm marmalade.”
death dream of poe’s ape II
by David Luntz
“…insane, sure, but don’t forget the moment you bumped into Poe’s ape in a gas-lit Parisian alleyway, wearing a negligée of weeping butterflies and a stovepipe hat…”
the field where we used to play
by Pam Avoledo
“Over here, Sarah calls, and we are running on the green grass in the small field.”
conversation with disapproving mimi every time she sneaks out to sniff
by Eirene Gentle
“I bear the fur of Finnian on my skinned knee. Would you like to know how I skinned it or just keeping looking at me in that crawly way?”
chill
by Cheryl Snell
“When he commas his body around hers, she wonders how much of his hug is medicinal and how much apology. Wonders why the bed won’t stop splintering.”
pulse
by Tom Misuraca
“Everybody’s digital footprint was deleted, like it or not.”
the countess of shadow pointe
by Beth Sherman
“We heard she was a Russian countess married to an oligarch, with a fortune in rubies seized by the KGB.”
solo at midnight
by Robert L. Penick
“While you rock the glass in your hand, the scars smooth themselves out and nearly disappear. This is good therapy, you think.”
index
by Grover Koger
“elixir of life, formulation by Query, 27
dangerous side effects of, 28
life-prolonging effects of, 29-32, 139, 157
enhancement of sexual prowess by, 45, 97, 117-48, 133-34, 157…”
status quo
by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury
“One rainy evening, a frog drunk on fresh mosquito juice spiked with manure, pointed at the red house and wailed he was forced labour, fated to live out his slippery life within its bounds, deprived of quality mates.”
the haunt of age: a 5-step program for ghosting your ghost
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.”
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.”