by Megan Chunn

“…the plump, fig-like lower lip, partially bitten by her incisors, then parts. Ready to be plucked and consumed.”

by Brooks Egerton

“Once the interment is complete, she presses her forehead to the wet ground, inhales the sweet dark churning work of earthworms, squeezes her eyes shut, pictures her mother’s gap-toothed boyfriend and the drawer where the spoon belongs and the butcher knife that also lives there.”

by Nolan Knight

“And you emerged? Someplace else. Not L.A.? No. Where? Dunno—magnolias sprouting gumdrops, a sherbet sky—pterodactyls overhead.”

by Erik Peters

“Inflatable rubber, whose electric colours betray their unnatural production and remind me that they will live on in landfills for millennia.”

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….”

by Brett Pribble

“If only they hadn’t dressed in garments that only Satan would admire, like when they dress as him, or pimps and prostitutes, or in skimpy police uniforms…If only they weren’t just another excuse to do nothing.”

by Nolan Knight

“Now sleep stutters. Every night, a window. Its draft cold, blue.”

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.”   

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.”

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.”

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…”

by Pam Avoledo

“Over here, Sarah calls, and we are running on the green grass in the small field.”

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?”

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.”

by Tom Misuraca

“Everybody’s digital footprint was deleted, like it or not.”

by Beth Sherman

“We heard she was a Russian countess married to an oligarch, with a fortune in rubies seized by the KGB.”

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.”

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…”

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.”

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.”