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?”
the fable of the storyteller and his witch
by Sumitra Singam
“It was never clear who hurled the first stone. The flinty piece of rock hit her on the head, leaving a dark bloom of blood.”
the ventriloquist
by Seth David Parker
“it’s the most potent form of psychology. I pull levers. Put ideas in people’s minds. Put words in their mouths.”
our darkness
by Reagan Davenport
“For a moment, I saw nothing, heard nothing, but I felt her moving again inside me. For a moment, we were both alive.”
the ghost president decides to write a novel
by Mary Grimm
“The ghost president has some spare time and decides to write a bestselling novel. It will, he tells the aide who brings him his Sausage McMuffin accompanied by two Hash Browns, each in their paper envelope, be based on a dream he had last week.”
good mom
by Zoey Knowlton
“Those same lights would be illuminated in green for the next nine months, just as soon as Danielle’s womb was transferred from her body to the freshly placed gestation unit.”
asphyxia
by Yuna Kang
“I blink, and Rella leaves my bathroom mirrors. I blink again; she finds a new home in my bedroom corner.”
tough guys
by Myna Chang
“She shoves my tie aside, taps a button mid-chest with the blade, tap tap tap. Who is this bitch? She’s grinning again, all teeth, and she smells like copper, like old pennies…”
waiting
by Walter Weinschenk
“The sea is a tumult, a terrifying process, and I’m too scared to venture out, too afraid to move, but too afraid to be alone…”
at the dollar store
by Erik Peters
“Inflatable rubber, whose electric colours betray their unnatural production and remind me that they will live on in landfills for millennia.”
katabasis
by Elodie Ashcroft
“the ugly traffic lights remain, the lights that stop and start us, that take our choice away.”
retrouvez le moustache
by Patrick Johnston
“The moustache is powerful. It is sinister. It is mysterious. It is a strongman, a magician and a bandit. It is a hero and a villain.”
the lure
by Margaret Cahill
“As the door swung open, the bell above the door tinkled as usual. Something pulled me inside, propelling me forward involuntarily.”
i forgot i wasn’t there
by GRSTALT Comms
“The building went up fast. It came over the top of the fence. Everyone tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It was a big black box with no windows, guarded by men with guns wearing red vests.”
the job interview
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….”
rag doll symposium
by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi
“In the invigorating darkness between tired streetlamps, Andie's mouth ached, both from the numbing cold and the lengthy lack of practice those deprived muscles had in performing a smile.”
just another halloween
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.”
windowless
by Nolan Knight
“Now sleep stutters. Every night, a window. Its draft cold, blue.”
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.”
the screams of jellyfish
by Michael Czyzniejewski
“One by one, they fell into the trap, each jellyfish pierced on a different spike, their jelly seeping out, oozing down the wood. Worse, the jellyfish were screaming, a dreadful wailing from the illuminated pit.”
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.”