One Saturday night six months ago, my husband and I attended a party where we saw three women wearing the same dress. To save those present from embarrassment, I will not identify them by name, career, or family status, but instead describe the fateful three by their avocations: the Artist, the Athlete, and the Gardener. … Continue reading An Accidental Coven by Laura Blackwell
I crack time. Part the seam, step into gray-green gloom. I wait as eyes adjust, hear the seam flutter closed. Bookshelves line the corridor, extend into the past. Shelves crammed with books, spines to the wall, smelling of ozone and rose water. Hardcovers, paperbacks, trades, loose leaf. The past as hardcopy, minutes pressed against minutes, … Continue reading The Memory of a Memory by Marc A. Criley
There’s a black hole inside me. Yesterday Oklahoma disappeared. The dry dusty fields stuck in my throat for a moment, my jaw unhinging and elongating to accommodate that wide rectangle of land. Part of Texas came with it. Lake Meredith and the Canadian River came last and cooled my sunburnt throat, as the salt skated … Continue reading The Girl Who Ate Galaxies by L’Erin Ogle
“It will be dark soon,” Tristán said. Arturo cleared his throat in response. He looked like he could be Tristán’s brother, but only in the way that the church ladies who welcomed the asylum-seeking families assumed everyone who arrived on that military bus were one big family tree, chopped down from a Central American war … Continue reading Refuge by Jack Caseros
Maria has been in the waiting room most of the day. She expected to be, and she brought a lunch with her. But it was only the leftover rice. She ate it hours ago. A screen on the far wall carries news of the vote, but Maria keeps her eyes out the window. She watches dotted lines … Continue reading Us, Them and the Future by David Beyt
Two Little Gods were smearing cold soot onto their cheeks when the tide finally came in. The smaller of the two was named Ogden, and he was the God of Irregularly-Shaped Fruit. Most of his divine duties involved watching for people who saw a pear that looked a bit like a Buddha, or a banana … Continue reading The Poison Swallowers by Logan Murphy
Nancy fiddled nervously with the adjustable bed, raising and lowering her husband in it. Evan wore low-cut scrubs, and they tried to make jokes about his shaved chest, sharpie-lines grazing his ribs. “I paid a little extra so I could watch the procedure,” Nancy told Evan. Their insurance being what it was, Nancy was paying … Continue reading Replacement Parts by Michael Milne
Tuesday originally appeared on Ellipsis Zine. When I got up this morning, I left my spine in the bed. It was strange to stand up with no spine—I flopped and melted, and my head slid down my neck. I grabbed my spine, but my hand melted down it and some of my fingers came off … Continue reading Tuesday by Emily Livingstone
All summer, the nights stayed brutally hot, ninety degrees at midnight. Esther would find me in the early evenings and we’d escape to cool places, air-conditioned movie theaters and basement galleries, then a nocturnal cafe on Telegraph Street where each table had its own electric fan. Esther would fold our straw wrappers into wrinkled sea … Continue reading A Nearly Beautiful Thing by Megan Arkenberg
“Catch fire? Well, then, at least I’ll be a spectacle to behold, don’t you think?” Nozomi’s skin looked translucent, delicate. As if a simple sneeze could be enough to hurt her. “And stop looking at me like that!” “I’m not.” “Yes, you are. Everybody does.” She stepped lightly across the floor, moving next to the … Continue reading Missingness by Roberto Bommarito