Category: Fiction

by Chelsea L. Cobb The clink of the handcuffs reminds me of my daughter’s laugh.  The sun is hanging low in the sky behind masses of clouds. We watch as it stretches across an expanse of pale gray. My daughter’s head is thrown back, curls just like her mother’s dropping down the back of her […]

by Daniel M. Mendoza This past Sunday, the city announced a parade to celebrate the grand opening of Fanatics Hunting and Fishing Gear where Motherclucker’s Chicken Shack once operated before the incident residents collectively call “The Burning” occurred. Motherclucker’s was not open very long when it became obvious to all that it would rake in […]

by Christina Perez Brubaker Hanna hadn’t planned on taking the rabbits. It was one of those things that just sort of happened. An impulse her husband, Matthew, if he were still alive might’ve slapped her cheek for because according to him, nothing ever just-sort-of-happened. In a way, he’d be right. She’d been thinking about it […]

by Linda Petrucelli It is difficult to begin new things when you are nearly seventy. The ridiculous condition of your bones (the titanium implants) discourages adventure. Incidental mental lapses create doubt about the reliability of your synaptic connections. For every septuagenarian who takes up Taekwondo or learns to speak Portuguese, there are hundreds more like […]

by Courtney Clute Did you know that due to the trillions and trillions of stars and planets out in the universe, it’s mathematically certain that there is some sort of intelligent life out there? But why haven’t my kind come to Earth to get me? Every night when the moon pokes through the dark sky, […]

 by Stephen Dean Ingram Eastern Kansas, 1974 “Ouch!” His forearm grazes the inside of the oven as he pulls out the baking sheet. On the sheet are ten hard brown disks. Nothing like the golden-topped flaky biscuits he remembers. He puts the baking sheet on top of the stove and watches them. They look like […]

by Ji A Ines Lee All the girls in Symor village reduced at least once a year.  Some reduced on their faces, others on their arms, and the braver ones on their legs.  They came to school with white scars running down sunken cheeks, bones visible beneath their diaphanous skin that bloomed with purples and […]

by Helen Sinoradzki Terrence lifts my binoculars to his face. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing,” he says. “They’re ducks, right?”  “Not just ducks,” I say. “Wood ducks. Sweep the binoculars left. See how the one on the end is different from the other five?” “Kinda.” He hands me the binoculars and […]

by Edith Magak Aketch Nyar Sewe died a virgin. Mayoooo! That was very bad, badder than the matter that she had died. We were just crying a little that she had died, because to die after all, was the way of the world. But when we scooped soil from the ground and showered it over […]

by Jeffrey Wolf Probably, Great-uncle Morris had been around since I was a baby. Technically, he’d been around much longer. He was my great-uncle, after all. Yet in my memory, he appeared suddenly, a few months after my sixth birthday. This was at my grandparents’ house on Clifford Terrace in Skokie, a house I still […]

by Richard B. Simon Content warning: This story contains graphic depictions of sexual violence. If you prefer not to read it, please return to Issue 27 to select another piece. To find out why we like this piece, read the Issue 27 editor’s note A Season in Isolation.  Put it in your pocket don’t forget […]

by Ben Powell The magician might be drunk. Kelsey catches him pissing behind the shed between acts. It’s a long pee; she’s able to wave me over before the guy finishes. “This is a kids party,” Kelsey says to him. Ozlo the Omnipotent just shrugs. He pulls black velvet gloves back onto his hands. Steam […]

by Rita Ciresi The other mothers tell me I’m lucky. Their sons are screamers, biters, head bangers. My boy is soft and silent as a bunny. Sometimes he’ll use the sign language he’s been taught at school: a hand to the throat for thirsty, a finger to the mouth for hungry. But his voice—or rather, […]