4:19 • by Kathleen Rose
It’s been four hours and nineteen minutes since I plugged my alarm clock back in. I had already been running late and the cable man had been early for once and since life isn’t porn, I couldn’t just strip —… Continue Reading
Literary
SHADOW PLAY • by Stephen V. Ramey
One day after pizza-for-dinner, Dad decided to teach me how to make shadow puppets. We stood by the desk in his office, a big beast of a thing with sharp-corner shoulders hunched down to hold a computer and its screen.… Continue Reading
CHATTER • by Rachel Gurevich
Old Edith, Carolina, Ralph, and I decide to go downtown to Flash Mash, dance club slash well-stocked bar. Old Edith and I aren’t sure it’s a great idea, but Ralph wants to drink and Carolina is dying to party. Anyway,… Continue Reading
NO WORDS • by Charles Payseur
Sometimes when I’m standing behind the counter of Value Video, my eyes glued on the screen of one of the televisions suspended over the store, the mute faces talking on and on, I think about what I’d say if an… Continue Reading
HEY DAD • by Wayne Scheer
Hey Dad, I’ve been thinking about you lately. I remember you sitting in that big, overstuffed chair in the living room of our apartment in Brooklyn, smoking your pipe and watching the tiny black and white TV. Those were the… Continue Reading
ANDY WARHOL, OR MY TAUTOLOGIST SAID THE SAME • by Soren James
Andy Warhol was my psychotherapist back in the 70’s. I would go to him once a week with my problems: talk to him about my latest arrest, my latest relationship break-up, or divorce — whatever had occurred that week. But… Continue Reading
MENTAL HYGIENE • by M. Elias Keller
She was a small young woman with a small, appealing face. Not mousy, but perhaps chipmunky. Her features were neither acute nor obtuse: just compact and parsimonious, like her speech. She looked like she went to church: not regularly, but… Continue Reading
…WITH A NEW AFTERWARD • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar
Gendelman kept refusing every offer for the shop. A peculiarity of the lease rendered him untouchable, though the landlord’s heirs hoped Gendelman’s bereftness after Dina might end their misery. But he came of an older stock that goes on. Some… Continue Reading
WINNER WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER • by Peter Wood
Donna and Mark sat down in a booth in the backwoods Georgia restaurant. The bench seat oozed stuffing, despite being repeatedly shored up with duct tape. Donna dropped her bulging tote bag on the concrete floor and glared at her… Continue Reading
ONE LAST DOZEN OR SO • by Christopher Owen
One last dozen or so, eh, I think to myself as I return to my apartment and see red roses sitting outside my door. It’s Valentine’s Day and my ex-girlfriend must be getting ideas again. Ha! What kind of girl… Continue Reading