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?”
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…”
if she knew how to be honest with her therapist
by Amber Budd
“If she knew how to be honest with her therapist, she wouldn’t drop her bundle of shadows at the edge of the sidewalk, like how a mother might leave an infant at a convent.”
max’s video
by Wyatt Robinette
“The video was from a GoPro Max wore during the war. Like most GoPro scenes it was chaotic, unclear. Also, you never saw Max’s face, you just heard him.”
one more thing i need to say to you
by Tom Andes
“Is he going to coldcock his friend? In his jacket pocket, the weight of ten years lifting, Simon slips the knucks off.”
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.”