Fiction
December Contributors
Richard Alured, Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi, Arthur Aronstein, Jennifer Benningfield, Andrew Rai Berzins, Ace Boggess, Courtney Burten, Kayla Cain, Luanne Castle, Ronita Chattopadhyay, Tulip Chowdhury, Megan Chunn, Ben Connell, Kyle Cox, Jake Creps, Roger D’Agostin, Harry Del Monaco, K. Uwe Dunn, Zary Fekete, Ryan Frye, Steve Gerson, Benjamin Goluboff, Katie Goto-Švić, Richard Grayson, Dee P. R. Kay, Joe Kilgore, Hank Kirton, James A. Knight, Nolan Knight, Alejandro Gabriel Leopardi, Lior Locher, River Lucero, Mark Luebbers, Lindsey Maple, Shrutidhora P Mohor, Guinevere Ngozi Morgen, Faith Murri, Joseph Quilindrino Niduazu, Mika Nadolsky, Susan Brink O’Flaherty, Steve Oehmen, Seth Parker, Randall Perry, Timothy Petkovic, Rachel Racette, Arjun Razdan, L.G. Reed, Nicolas Rivera, Hil Schmidt, Gahl Shattan, Sumitra Singam, Melvin Sterne, Elizabeth Sundstrom, Amir Szuster, Jack Uppling, Derek Waulet, Walter Weinschenk, CR Widen, Jacob Wrich, Brandon Yu, Dodge Zelko, Kit Zimmerman
December Highlights
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erotomania
Flash Fiction by Nicolas Rivera
“The trick is to do the opposite of convention. Lighting, video quality, the flattery of a flirtatious angle are important details, but the key to social media is delivery.”
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all the kooks
Fiction by Ace Boggess
“The fight started right in front of her in the pasta aisle. Mary Ellen wasn’t close enough to hear if words had been exchanged…Everything was political, even the act of picking out linguini.”
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the pain master
Fiction by Lior Locher
“Neutral face, clean-shaven. Eyebrows neat, hair lined up like a platoon. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. You both know the deal.”
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the day she swalloed glass
Fiction by Ronita Chattopadhyay
“She was done with being quiet and submissive. “I will become tough,” she said out loud. She gulped down the remaining water. And then she noticed it – a crack at the bottom of the glass.”
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dispatch
Micro-fiction by Nolan Knight
“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”
of lips and war
by Alexei Raymond
“Jonathan’s mind cycled between the tides of war he could remove only himself from, love’s inexplicable failure to surmount, and how he’d known, known the taste of his lips.”
fishing at olive garden
by Travis Flatt
“And you’re just staring. I didn’t realize, getting all worked up for the punchline, that my mask has begun to slip and some of my horns are showing..”
bitch
by Chrissy Stegman
“The city sped past, and I leaned back into the seat, letting the world slide by inexplicably, as if the light outside the cab window could swallow everything. I really am a bitch, I thought.”
how may i help you, you sniveling twit?
by Chad Gayle
“Hi! I’m Dirk Bogarde, your online AI assistant. How can I be of service? That is, what can I do for you that you could do for yourself but choose not to?”
gunfight at the ko laundry ranch
by Patrick Johnston
“Jack enters the room gun first… Schiller looks up… Schiller looks like he has been caught wanking… circumcised Nazi prick… and Jack has Adolf Schiller cornered in his lair.”
in the fullness of time
by Ian Johnson
“Sex was a confrontation, challenging to give more and take more—a shiftless slavery to stolen weekends, rattling exotic headboards.”
sand
by Scott Ortolano
“Glancing over, Amory watched as Brooke’s face drifted and dissolved, ebbing away into the headlights of a passing car; the oblivion holding terror and beauty against the dark skyline.”
a vase
by Michael Thériault
“Nothing tells me how I came into this vase. I may have been here from the instant the new glass cooled.”
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…”
lake trout
by Anthony Neil Smith
“I dumped Harriet into Grindstone Lake in broad daylight. Pulled my truck off the road, heaved her body bag over my shoulder and away she went.”
unintelligible mutterings of a not yet dead corpse
by Odin Meadows
“The corpse lies on the couch eating Cheerios while I clean.”
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.”
the necromancer
by James Callan
“I was thirteen years old when I discovered the most beautiful thing in the world…a limited edition 1990 Bob Mackie Gold Barbie Doll, encased in an orange Jell-O mold.”
(scape)goat
by Priyanuj Mazumdar
“The rope around the goat’s neck moves frantically, desperately, violently—one last exhibition of its sentience. The protest goes unheard.”
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.”
seating assignment
by James Sullivan
“So that there will be no further bloodshed,” said Mary King’s press secretary Sarah, a girl savvy enough to throw her fuzzy pink hairband in with the strongest matriarchal figure.
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.”
Spa boot
by Colin Gee
“George is going to tell you this thing was a bat, but have you ever seen a bat as tall as Mister Launders? Small for a man, tall for a bat! With evil red eyes and a beak, and it swooped up Kevin in its horrible claws…”
stretch
by Nick Black
“Cecil tried again, in bed. The man laughed, shaking the frame. ‘You are a persistent fellow, aren’t you?’ he said.”
the loser
by Shaun Anthony McMichael
“I only knew two ways of doing life: being a loser or going balls to the wall.”