ASTEROIDS • by Cody Nowack
Lunchtime sucked when your best friend was at home sick. Sure, I could hang out with those I labeled ‘school friends,’ but then I’d be the kid who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group. As a… Continue Reading
suicide
COLLECTORA • by Jeff Switt
Show and tell at school was lame. Stamps and coins. Post cards and match book covers. Fred’s squashed frog. Even Bobby’s tarantula in a plastic cube. So I set out to find something worth talking about. I decided to collect… Continue Reading
BASTION • by Robert L. Perrine
Thunder rumbled overhead as Beaumont Whitley sat reclined in his chair, enjoying a pipe and a good book. Glancing up, he noticed a shadowed figure creep past the window. Beaumont closed the novel and set his Meerschaum aside. Would it… Continue Reading
THE READER • by Pat Hart
“I’m just saying, it seems fucked up to tell her, she doesn’t even know who he is anymore,” Jenny said. “It’s more fucked up not to tell her,” Susan said. The sisters were continuing the argument they’d been having via… Continue Reading
SWINGING STATUES • by Amanda White
Swinging Statues was a game our older cousin Ella taught us. “I’ll show you how to play,” she said, gripping us by both hands and spinning us laughing, teetering, dizzily around and around and then letting us go. On the… Continue Reading
HEIRLOOM • by Richard Nunez
When I was a boy, my father showed me a hunting knife that once belonged to my grandfather. The knife was serrated, hefty, meant to saw through muscle and bones. My father told me my grandfather had killed himself with… Continue Reading
THE LUMINOUS VEIL • by Joe P. Squance
You are a version of a person that you cannot remember, a translation of a translation of a translation. You are staring at an email instead of reading it, but it doesn’t matter because you already know what it says.… Continue Reading
ACROSS THE STREET • by John S. Skinner, Jr.
Ignoring her burning tongue, she sipped her hot coffee. The open window of the coffee shop gave her an unobstructed view of the street. They sat there, across the street—holding hands—out in public—for the world to see, no doubt celebrating.… Continue Reading
SHOULD HAVE FOUND THE QUIET CAR • by D.J. Kozlowski
“I destroy things.” “Like buildings? Demolition?” he asks. “No; people. I destroy people. Their lives.” “What? Sure. Pretty morbid, man.” “You asked.” I close my eyes and rest my head into the cracked cushions on the Acela train out of… Continue Reading
PINK PILL DREAMS • by Rachel Printy
“Emma, no!” she gasped, her own voice awakening her. Not again. Usually the Ambien knocked her out enough to escape this recurring nightmare, but tonight her sister had invaded even her pink pill dreams. Avery pulled off her eye mask… Continue Reading