Fiction

When I Meet God (Sam Berman)

7:04AM: I’m dreaming about dreaming when Lucy wakes me with a big kiss on my nose, my cheeks, my chin, too. Lucy’s walleyed and her tail cuts the sun that pours in from the window that faces the airport. 7:14AM: On the morning radio, while the coffee drips, a woman explains that “Identity is a billion-dollar…

How It Goes (Patrick G. Roland)

We’re in the back of a casino eating veggie burgers when she says things always work out for her. She didn’t even apply to grad school, a friend mentioned her name and they offered a full scholarship. Doctors said she’d never have kids. She tried twice and got a boy and a girl. When she…

Open Up and Say Markowitz (Leo Vartorella)

Only the second quarter and it’s already a blowout. Dad holds the last bite of a salami sandwich between his index finger and thumb like the end of a joint, or someone doing the World’s Smallest Violin bit. We have been silent long enough that my voice surprises us both. Kind of odd how he…

Old Woman and the Girls (Ivy Grimes)

Old Woman cut the girls’ hair every month and gathered up the dead fluff to make pillows. There was plenty of fabric left, rolls of stars, stripes, polka dots.  “We’ll run out before the fabric does,” she told herself while sewing. The girls were still too young to know they were going to die. What…

Gun Heaven (Ryan Bradford)

A gun floats up to heaven because it died. Shot to death, a tragedy. Turns out there’s a Gun Heaven, which is actually real heaven because guns just made up Human Heaven to make humans feel less scared about dying. As expected, the god of Gun Heaven is a big gun. Like, a really big…

Dead Things (Chris Reed)

Dead things were appearing on Kent’s windowsill. The first few days it was two dead bugs, or three. He noticed them when he turned on his bedside lamp against the predawn darkness. He squinted at the tiny black things and knelt to take a closer look. The bugs lay upside-down beneath his bedroom window. An…

Birth Mom (Addison Zeller)

My birth mom can’t meet me at the airport, but if I Uber to Bank of America she’ll be out front in a puffy winter coat. The crocuses are open.   I only recognize her eyes—same as mine. I stand at the window of her SUV and listen. She needs money. She won’t ask outright. I…

Truth & Answers & Beauty & Magic & An Idea (Aaron Burch)

My buddy, DT, texts me and our other buddy, Kevin, that he has an idea. I have an idea, he texts. I like ideas. I stare at the message. I stare at my phone.  Either DT is waiting for Kevin or I to ask what the idea is, or he’s in the middle of typing…

Academic Conference (Andrew Bertaina)

He’d been thinking of the conference in England for a long time. Not because of the subject matter, Victorian Literature, which he’d been teaching for too long and now found boring, but because there was a woman going to the conference with whom he thought he might have a chance of making love. They’d exchanged…

The Monkey King (Tyler Plofker)

The Monkey King is the king of the monkeys. He rules over seventeen monkeys. The monkeys are real fast. Walk into their kingdom and they will steal your valuables before you realize there’s even a monkey. They will steal your valuables and bring them to the Monkey King. The kingdom is made up of sticks…

French Girl Chic (Chris L. Terry)

The perfect shoes were finally on sale. He ordered them while standing over his bathroom sink. In the time it took the shoes to arrive, a windowpane popped from a decaying frame, one cabinet knob dropped half an inch lower than its mate, and the kitchen floor grew filthy. He thought about what to wear…

Now it’s nothing but flowers (Anna Vangala Jones)

I know I’m her ghost. The one that lingers in the corners of her memory, waiting to strike—when some song by Bruce Springsteen plays, or when she drives by our old favorite diner, or when it rains and she remembers us stuck in the gym at school waiting for the worst of Hurricane Floyd to…

The Spirit of the Salad Bar (Lucy Biederman)

At the Whole Foods in Clarendon, there was a loft with some tables and chairs where I often sat looking down on shoppers roaming the salad bar. I had heard a report on NPR that said you should get a lot of toppings at a salad bar. Stuff like nuts, cheese, and dried fruit, all…

Rottwild (Cora Lee)

Chopper was the bitch who started it all. She lay on the ground in front of me, her sagging belly crowned with thick leathery nipples. When she rolled over, I could see all six of them lined up, poking through her black fur like tombstones. Around us, her descendants filled the yard, nipping at each…

Meep (Ash Wu)

She stood outside the East Broadway Mall in Chinatown, rubbing her T-zone. The weather agitated her eczema and left dry flakes across the spots the sun touched frequently: the nub of skin between her eyebrows, her cheeks, the top of her nose. She licked the tip of her index finger and kept rubbing, trying to…

Monster (Kevin Sterne)

Jerry pretends he’s his dead mother. He wears her dress shoes and marches around the house slamming cabinets. He drinks coffee from mugs and smokes cigarettes until he coughs into the garbage. What should I make for dinner? he asks the microwave. The kids are sick and I’m sick. Jerry eats ice cream from the…

Hell, or: How American Author Jerry B. Jenkins Can Get Fucked (T.J. Larkey)

Jesus Christ was going to send me to hell and split up my family. That’s one of the first things I remember clearly. Laid in bed wide-eyed, staring into the darkness of my room, unable to stop picturing myself burning in the eternal flame.  Sometimes I’d say stuff to myself too. Why can’t you pay…

Alyssa’s Problem Now (Nikki Volpicelli)

Because she was a good person, or not bad yet, Alyssa didn’t suspect a thing when Dom said he could get good weed in the city but didn’t have a car or any money. She offered to drive my old Jetta, which she’d inherited after I moved to Philly for college. The heater was completely…

Quiet Love (David Williamson)

It’s Heather’s idea to go camping. Alex is six, Lucy is one, but why not try? A restorative time away from work. We bet about my ability to stay off my phone throughout the trip. Me that I could, she that I can’t. Sunday is shopping for groceries and supplies: propane canisters, an extra flashlight,…

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