Fiction
August Contributors
Aditya Bhatia,Cooper Clarence, and Kenton Sage Schmidt
blood bound
by Jayson Carcione
“Someone screams. Lights explode in windows…The night is broken.
when it rains
by Adam J. Galanski-De León
“It is the boot and the breaking of bone. Skyscraper fists swiping Gods from the heavens.”
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.”
a centaur’s blood is always poison
by Mario Aliberto III
“The preposterous size of his legs, pumping up and down, striated where the muscles met and sweat ran in rivulets, had dominated her fantasies the last few weeks.”
still deadly in death
by Kim Farleigh
“‘These winds,’ he warned, ‘are prophecies of your impending deaths. Don’t you little bunnies worry about that.’"
“hello, I must be going.”
by Dimitry Partsi
“You can catch my primetime special every third Tuesday at 3:15 AM, though you'll need a special satellite dish pointed directly at the moon. My sold-out world tour continues nightly in my kitchen.”
popular
by Beth Sherman
“Now that I’m popular, my old life seems as dry as uncooked spaghetti. Now everyone wants to be me. Ugly.”
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.“
just breathe
by Zoë Davis
“The ancient ceiling fan, whining on an exposed fist of wiring, didn’t so much as move the air but stir it.”
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.”
come back panda bear
by Margaret Cahill
“When I turned to continue my walk, there he was: a man in a panda bear suit at the end of the boardwalk. At least I assumed it was a man, given that the figure was at least six feet tall.”
shiver a beauty
by GRSTALT Comms
“He never lets me fuck him – he always tells me ‘Next time’ – and that’s what keeps me coming back, the promise.”
pick a number
by Kenneth M. Kapp
“Hardly anyone asks about the quality of life. We know it is what it is.”
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..”