WORD CRIME • by Ken Poyner
He hated to be here. The stalls were uneven, some narrow, some wide, some with a draw curtain, many with a rope stretched side to side with hanging rags on that rope as a door front. Many looked like they… Continue Reading
Surreal
THE LOOP THAT CANNOT BE BROKEN • by Helen French
Deep in the concrete bowels of the Tate Modern, I grow large and choose my form. I become strips of aluminium, curved into arches, then glued together, banded into long cylinders. When I am ready and no one is looking,… Continue Reading
MIRROR, MIRROR • by A.J. Rocca
Tucked away in some little-known corner of time, there once was a glassblower who lived by the sea. In the daring years of his youth, the glassblower would pull all kinds of strange and wonderful shapes from out of colored… Continue Reading
THE DEATH HUNTER • by A.L. Bradshaw
Not everyone could see the Death Hunter, but Martha had the gift. When the clouds first gathered on the low desert horizon that year, she knew: He was close. Her mother would have called it her ‘ghost-notion’, and crossed herself… Continue Reading
MICHIGAN BECOMES THE ATLANTIC • by Kyle Siegel
He awakes to a trickle from his left nostril. The grass is comforting beneath M’s skull; he lifts his head, slowly, tasting slight dirt. Eyes open to the shoreline he heard through the blackout. The water is choppy, exuberant under… Continue Reading
ITERATION 9 • by Stephen Buoro
He was a perfect baby. He never cried. He rarely pooped. He told me everything with his eyes: hunger, lovesickness, cold. His eyes: large grey irises, watery, luminous, like the eyes of the cat my ma had put to sleep… Continue Reading
MORPHOMETESIS • by Michael Allen Rose
I saw it while taking out the garbage, the biggest beetle I’d ever seen. It lay on its back, black and shiny like plastic wrap. The insect kicked its segmented legs in the air like a futile attempt to ride… Continue Reading
BEEP • by Beth Sherman
It starts with a low hiss that startles you awake in the early morning light when pigeons scratch their claws against the windowsill and the newspaper thuds against the driveway. The hiss has no discernible source. You know this because… Continue Reading
SHOULD’VE JUST STUCK WITH THE DAMN DORITOS • by Alex Z. Salinas
The strangest thing anyone’s ever told me was that I reminded them of a Ruffles sour cream and onion potato chip. That’s right, a Ruffles sour cream and onion potato chip. It happened my third year of college. A classmate… Continue Reading
THE READER • by R.F. Hizkia
Paul walks by balancing a stack of paperbacks on his hairy arms. Faded covers and yellowed pages that are ripe for Second Hand upstairs, which I’ll have to check out later. I pretend not to notice him as he throws… Continue Reading