Fiction
February Contributors
David Agyei-Yeboah, Swetha Amit, Olivia Ardine, Brooklyn Armstrong, Khushi Bajaj, Sharon Bippus, Sacha Bissonnette, Danilla Botha, Camryn Brennan, Margaret Cahill, Cooper Clarence, Kalan Cordell, Enrique De Alba, Craig Demi, Tyler Efford, Andrew Eastwick, Kate Forbes-Riley, Christian Fuller, Jonathan Daniel Gardner, Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos, Kris Green, David Hinson, Michael Holtzman, Caroline Huckeba, D. J. Huppatz, Jonathan Jackson, Joelle Killian, Tom Koperwas, Jesse Lifton, JP Lor, Lana Lowe, Gracie Lyle, Andrea Marcusa, D.C. Martin, Finnegan McBride, Kathryne McCann, Tom Newcomer, Seth Parker, Christopher Kostyn Passante, Tif Robinette, McKenna Robison, John Sara, Eylie Sasajima, Shawn Scott Smith, Té V. Smith, Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, Rick Taliaferro, Hayden Taylor, Mary Thorson, Jack Timko, Max Wagner, Essi Ward, and Jon Wesick
February Highlights
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nothing and everything
Flash Fiction by Sharon Bippus
“We’re two guys past our prime looking for a thrill.”
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the creative process
Fiction by John Sara
“I keep a box of ideas stashed beneath my bed; misshapen balls of flesh I cut from my body and mail to my editor. (Um, thanks, but I didn’t actually ask you to do that).”
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camera obscura
Fiction by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece
“…you know what it makes me think of, those engravings of camera obscura where the outside gets projected in but backwards and upside down, like Plato’s cave…”
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grapefruit
Fiction by Margaret Cahill
“My father’s brain tumour changed everything for me. He collapsed at home a week after my thirteenth birthday and sunk into a coma he never woke up from.”
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foreclosure season
Fiction by Christian Fuller
“When Paul set his shoes on fire, we told him to piss it out. That, like, he’d better hurry. He was only supposed to light up the insulation we’d pulled out from the eggshell walls…but we were sixteen and drunk enough to fist fight god and things just had a way of happening.”
the source and eternity
by Thomas M. McDade
“I was so happy with the sad way I rigged their lives that I called my thoughts a short story.”
sunrise of a voice
by Ivy Nabangi
“The only thing she knew for sure was that her baby loved the sky. She knew he loved staring at the stars, pointing at them and drawing the various constellations. Her motherly spirit took this as a sign that he was probably more capable than he was given credit for.”
liquids
by Amir Szuster
“A year later, watching her bleed, I thought: How long does it take to empty a human body?
I still do not know.”
the girl who faded away
by Katherine Liljestrand
“When the curtain closes for the last time, instead of the eleven dancers there should be on stage, Camille can only count ten.”
lungs and bones
by Abigail Cooper
“Has the air always been so suffocating or have I finally stayed long enough to die?”
tangerine strands
by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi
“Lucretia stood in the outer schoolyard, looking through the fence that separated her from the scene of the crime she had created two months prior.”
the lingering
by Kit Zimmerman
“This…lingering—it’s harming others, too. Those you love. You can endure it. They cannot. Try to remember that.“
have you ever seen a cat in a cape?
by Joseph Quilindrino Niduaza
“As if in slow motion, Heath spotted the incoming feline, and feeling the need to preserve his integrity, and keep his suit clean from cat hair, he evaded the air assault, but with his ungraceful maneuver…”
joe clocks in
by Gahl Shottan
“Bonus, made friends with current fever induced hallucinations and invited them over to the house to keep me company while Lila picks up a double shift.”
a love story
by Hil Schmidt
“You always look so peaceful when you sleep.”
how to mend a broken heart
by Luanne Castle
“Where she expected to find smooth keyboard geometry, she discovered a grotesque smile of cadaver ivory inset between the ebony keys…teeny bits of gold, silver, and porcelain sparkled…under the fluorescent light overhead.”
revised punishment
by Derek Waulet
“He took one step out over the railing. Then a quick drop, and then nothing.”
holiday of a lifetime
by Ben Connell
“As soon as I touched down I was slapped by the heat. I saw a bloke on a scooter with a dishwasher strapped to his back, no word of a lie. Cages full of chickens, horns blasting and funky smells. Pure rabid carnage.”
gentle abattoire
by Katie Goto-Švić
“ …they thought you’d go far. They didn’t think it ever needed to be said. You’re gonna go far, kid.. But now…with gentle pity, they tell you how well you’ve done just getting out of bed this morning.”
blackhole
by Rachel Racette
“…she watches the swirling vortex of darkness and death. A massive blackhole that’s slowly sucking in the other darkened ships filled with soon-to-be-dead passengers…She still hears them --those agonized screams over the screeching sirens…”
jaguar
by Kyle Cox
“He had picked the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He loved animals. She remembered him once, after, going on about jaguars and how strong their bite was.”
christmas on social media
by Swetha Amit
“I closed my eyes and found myself swaying to the music. My phone kept buzzing. The digital applause of likes and comments kept trickling in.”
the time i smoked my first cigarette
by Lindsey Maple
“…in 2014 everyone obsessed over the girls on Tumblr who smoked Marlboro Reds, and listened to Lana Del Rey…”
baby box turtles at the bottom of a vodka bottle
by Hank Kirton
“On July 4th she decided to clean her impossible apartment, despite her hangover. Bob's stupid drum set still sat splayed shamelessly in the comer like a homicide victim.”
for better or worse, the end
by Ryann Frye
“It hadn’t been some horrible zombie apocalypse that followed the bombs and fighting, just the regular kind of world-ending war.”