Too many moons, for one thing. Where did all of these extra moons come from? That one up there, the oblong one, I remember that orbiting the fourth planet last time we visited. You must have towed it here somehow. Why in… Never mind. I don’t really want to know. I don’t want to know … Continue reading Fixer Upper by A.M. Call
Everything started in this room sixty-five years ago and everything will end here as well. A birth then, a death now. It was here where I met him, his fingers clasped around a rasp, chipping the stone, shaping it. He didn’t do faces. He loved to create art for people where they could see themselves … Continue reading A Storm Kissed by Blackbirds by Eva Papasoulioti
I’m remembering again. Remembering — if that’s the word for it. The memories swamp me as I settle down to sleep. A ratty blanket with clumps of soil stuck to it was all I could find to wrap myself in. After discovering naught but ruins for miles, I was glad to come across something which … Continue reading You Will Never Lose Me by Tim Jeffreys
She had already hauled kindling the day before, trundling the wheelbarrow back and forth under the cool dawn sky, before anyone would be on the road to see her. Now she gathered their things: a half-dozen charms and rings, bound hair shorn rough at the end, pieces of lace and embroidered handkerchiefs, the locket and … Continue reading Sabbaths by L.S. Johnson
You carry your father to the Mansion of Endless Rooms. It is the duty of the oldest to do this; not all children are called and fewer still answer. You feel his weight on your spine, the tightness of obligation around your neck, the responsibility grinding your knees. You asked your family which room your … Continue reading The Mansion of Endless Rooms by L Chan
One hot summer when cricket had become irrelevant, and the cracked earth outside was a barren, lifeless desert, Suleikha left us. A horrible wetness had started to cling to the ceiling, with moss creeping all over the place, and the house had become a playground for rats and lizards. The ceiling remembers that summer and … Continue reading What We Remember by Amal Singh
On a dark November morning, the senior sun gods discover Ann-Margaret. They linger at her locker with glowing lips and voices like arrogant roosters. Apollo hooks the edge of her hood and yanks it from her face. She slaps his hand, but too late, everyone has seen her chin lit up like a buttercup.Helios whistles. … Continue reading Flare by Kathryn McMahon
These young girls, they come in from the cornfields of Kansas, or arrive covered in ash from sleeping on their stepmother’s hearth, or appear all tattered from their hundred years in a vine-covered tower, and they always need new clothes. You can’t be married in blue gingham or patched flannel or silk gone cobweb-thin with … Continue reading The Old Queen by Rachel D. Welton
Everyone in the village is born without hands; the children get along just fine with elbows and teeth and toes. Sally likes holding her paintbrush in her mouth, because it lets her get right up close to the canvas and add in tiny details like fingernails and leaf-veins and dress-threads. When her friends are particularly … Continue reading In The Beginning, All Our Hands Are Cold by Ephiny Gale
My mother has summoned me back to her home. Her home is a dilapidated shack set back amongst the cattails in a remnant marsh. The marsh is preserved wetland in the affluent community of Darien. My mother is not affluent. She believes she should be affluent, and this is why she struggles to maintain her … Continue reading Mother Imago by Henry Stanton