PAINTING • by Michael Chapey
He painted her a picture. He showed it to her one Tuesday, after she got off work. He had been working on it for a while and finally decided it was finished. He knew he was done with the painting,… Continue Reading
Romance
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO TO YOU: AN ORAL ESSAY TO MY NEWBORN DAUGHTER THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE MATERNITY WARD AT 3 AM • by Sam Rebelein
Your mom actually likes her family. I was just thinking about that. It was the first thing I loved about her. I loved how simple it seemed, and how much it made me ache. See, we met at a bar.… Continue Reading
POUR OUT YOUR SONG • by Alex Sventeckis
Nestled into his red clay divot, Sebastian aimed the green laser pointer high into the clear night, and a rocket ship of light launched from the desert scrub. He squinted as he followed the rocket’s luminescent green contrail up to… Continue Reading
JURY DUTY • by Dana Hufe
They had met at jury duty. A strange place to find an admirer. She didn’t want to go. It was raining out, and she had been watching a movie on her couch. She hadn’t moved much from her couch in… Continue Reading
PAST LIVES • by Wayne Scheer
Every afternoon, Oscar took his walk through the gardens of the Eastland Park Assisted Living Center. Despite dragging his right foot like a reluctant dance partner, he enjoyed watching the daffodils give way to the tulips, the pansies yield to… Continue Reading
LOVE AND THE ART OF TELEGRAPHY • by Christopher Owen
I just turned fifty: the same age as my estranged father when he died. Such a thing gets a man to pondering the details of his life. Such thoughts made me get busy, first by cleaning up my dingy old… Continue Reading
GREY EYES AND SHAKESPEARE’S GRAVE • by Ali Abbas
Are you okay?” Katy’s question was pitched so none of their fellow accountants could hear. “There’ve been no literary quotes for days, and you haven’t been correcting my grammar.” She pinned Henry with grey eyes that seemed to see more… Continue Reading
CIRCLES • by Mary Rees
Kelsey draws an invisible line on the kitchen floor, all the way around so that when she straightens, she stands in an imaginary circle. “There,” she says to Kyle, “That’s my line in the sand. Don’t cross it.” Kyle crosses… Continue Reading
CANON IN D WITH A SIDE OF TOMATO SOUP • by Rachel Printy
Paul stared at his wife across the table, noticing for the first time that her sweater was on inside out. Every morning he would lay out her clothes on the bed in a specific order, so she’d know which item… Continue Reading
IT’S ONLY RAIN • by Christopher Owen
“What’s that sound?” asks my wife, Kadie. She and I lie in the loft of the barn, the wan light of a cloudy dusk making the world a shadow play through the unshuttered hay door on the west side of… Continue Reading