GIG • by Brett Bailey
It was a shitty little black-and-brown joint squeezed into the leftover space between a sports bar and a gun store. People called it a hole in the wall. It was more like a hole in the ground, one you stumbled… Continue Reading
DEMONSTRATION IN THE PUBLIC ELEVATOR • by Lynn Kozlowski
I could be late for the Ethics Committee meeting on the 12th floor of the hospital. Clearing security with my University ID, I am in front of the arriving elevator with two others. I nod to the new member of… Continue Reading
A WOUNDED ANIMAL • by H. E. Vogl
A late June crescent moon hung in the sky like a sickle as I strolled along North Ogden examining the pointed two-story homes that lined both sides of the street. Each one the same except for color, shrubbery, or an… Continue Reading
ECHOES OF YOUR FATHER • by Michael Haynes
They say the maze is haunted by echoes of its dead. You stand and watch the chitinous beast which waits patiently through every moment of every day at the maze’s entrance. No one has entered the maze today, so you… Continue Reading
THE RETURN OF THE DUKE • by Mishkat Bhattacharya
“My Lady,” said the Duke of Baria, his silver fork speared with venison poised in the air before his mouth, “I am informed that you attended the Aldermen’s Ball last week without me.” The Duchess did not look up from… Continue Reading
POPSICLES • by Kevin Tasker
Sam and Katie dash into the surf. They are four and six and so full of life it breaks Anna’s heart. She’s walking twenty yards behind them. Her husband, Jim, trudges along beside her. “Don’t go out too far,” Anna… Continue Reading
TATER AND THE GATOR • by Landon Thorne
Tater Jones was an avid angler with a reliable propensity for never catching fish. He did a lot of angling, but ended most days out of bait and no fish. He got his nickname, Tater, from Ben Joe Crewes, the… Continue Reading
PITCH AND CATCH • by Hunter Prichard
Petey had been pitching the baseball against the house for the last hour. He kept an eye on the street, watching for his father’s car. It would be too early for him to be getting home, but his father had… Continue Reading
HOW WE MET: • by Kali Thurber
In a virtual space designed to feel like a pickup bar, but I wish we’d seen each other across the ravaged land of the apocalypse. Rubble of the old life slowly decaying under warm light of the indifferent morning sun,… Continue Reading
DICK TRIES TO DIE • Jake Stein
If Richard was going to commit suicide—and this time, he really was—he wasn’t about to make some elaborate production of it. He refused to leave behind a situation which needed cleaning up. That meant not hanging himself, not slitting his… Continue Reading