Emmett
By Alexis Dinkins - “Did you hear? About the boy named Emmett?” Dolores asks Irene again, but Irene is feet ahead of her on the darkening...
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STORY ARCHIVES:
MAY - OCTOBER 2021
- Oct 15, 2021
Sign Seeker
By Cecilia Kennedy - As narrow paths wind their way to the top of Lace Back Falls, Kelsie wobbles in front of me, growing tired. To my...
- Oct 15, 2021
Ghosts Go Home
By Miranda Caravalho - The ghosts cross over on the first morning of Spring. Like birds flying South for Winter, once the weather warms...
- Oct 15, 2021
The Mad Spells of Miss Wycherly
By Ed Sams - Miss Eve Wycherly was my Sunday School teacher and my sister’s piano teacher as well. She was small and thin and had a...
- Oct 15, 2021
Let the Fireflies Talk for Me
By Sarah Gundle - The first fireflies of the season are out. They’re a bug that never made sense to me, one that would rather call...
- Oct 15, 2021
Terminal
By Claire Schultz - She can’t remember when she started forgetting. Or maybe she’s forgotten when she stopped remembering. It’s the same,...
- Oct 15, 2021
The Countess
By Sienna Baker - After the memorial, Thomas Cuthbert was alone. He walked down the street from the reception. It was still morning, but...
- Oct 15, 2021
And if
By Kate Simblet - And if you notice him pausing before he crosses the threshold, under the spiral of red, white and blue. Could you tell...
- Oct 15, 2021
Cabin Fever
By Margo McCall - By the time his turn to shuffle arrives, my husband James is already slurring his words and dropping his cards. Our...
- Oct 15, 2021
The Long Way
[Trigger Warning: References child abduction.] By Susan Sink - The swimming lesson came to an abrupt halt when someone pooped in the...
- Oct 15, 2021
The Walk Home
By Noreene Storrie - The darkness sneaked up on me. I’d tested dusk with my walk on Lilly’s steep C-curve driveway through woods with...
- Oct 15, 2021
After the Doctor's Visit
By Miranda Keskes - A child is spinning beside the slide in our community playground. Arms outstretched, eyes closed, head tilted up...
- Oct 15, 2021
Autumnal Grief
By Gloria R. Buckley - There is something enticing about the aromatic swirling scents of fall. Even in my grief, I still capture a dew...
- Oct 15, 2021
The Monarch Midwife
By Jim D'Aloisio - Their fragile infeasibility, so tiny coming out of the egg, pawns against the weather and living predators, their...
- Oct 15, 2021
Aqua Blue Shoes
By Cristina L. White - I see the shoes first—aqua blue running shoes. Bright aqua blue. The shoes must be at least a size twelve, maybe...
- Oct 15, 2021
Grow Where You’re Planted
By Jeremy Scott - Sunflowers grew out of Virginia’s head and no one in her family ever thought to tell her that this was strange. She...
- Sep 15, 2021
Always, Since Friday
By Kenneth M. Kapp - Stan remembered how Cindy had looked at Hank. He swallowed. “Do you love him?” “Well,” Cindy’s jaw went up and down...
- Sep 15, 2021
Maisy
By Debra Lee - My grandfather added a rear upstairs room to his house when he was in his forties. When he came home from work, he didn’t...
- Sep 15, 2021
Mabel's Christmas
By Mark Hannon - Mabel’s eyes popped open, and she looked at the clock radio. 5:25. Should I get up now? she thought. “No,” her mother...
- Sep 15, 2021
Loganberry Lane
By Michael Anthony - It began as a perfect summer day. The kind I had dreamt about during the final week of school. Though only the first...
- Sep 15, 2021
Tethered
By Denise O'Hagan - Squatting down at the quayside, he could see it clearly; he’d never been this close before. All hung over with ropes...
- Sep 15, 2021
Revolutions of Our Youth
By Hantian Zhang - Summer, 1965. A white-hot, long afternoon. Narrow, staid alleyways flanked by rickety, wood-frame houses. We wake up...
- Sep 15, 2021
An Uncertain Smile
By Mike Lee - Feeling like an empty vessel filled with dirt, Maeve slept badly, waking up every hour from two o’clock on. Finally, she...
- Sep 15, 2021
Circus
By Peter J. Stavros - One time when I was a kid, Pops took me to the circus, just me and him, a “guys’ day” he called it. It wasn’t one...
- Sep 15, 2021
The Hunter and The Bird
[Trigger Warning: Implied sexual assault.] By Peter Zowa - I thought I knew what death looked like, its stinking breath reeking from its...
- Sep 15, 2021
Handwritten Promises
By Matthew McGuirk - The comfort of country air is something I’m growing to appreciate. The silent pauses with my hands in the dirt or...
- Sep 15, 2021
Leaving Terra Firma
By Ellen Sollinger - My dad became obsessed with sailing in the autumn of 1976. He had purchased a new 15-foot Sunbird sailboat after...
- Sep 15, 2021
Truth Hurts
By Ginger Gannaway - Going to the camp on Good Friday epitomized “Lassiez les bon temps rouler!” for Viv. A pre-Easter Fontenot family...
- Sep 15, 2021
Dance
By Nick Young - When Ruth Tremayne died, she was sitting in a recliner in the living room of her cramped apartment over a used furniture...
- Aug 15, 2021
Casting Call
By Catherine O'Brien - On a somnolent evening which fancies itself as a stepping stone to night, I’m walking by the lake. The creatures...
- Aug 15, 2021
Country Life, a Skunk, and Jaybird
By Wayne McCray - Some people love where they live. I'm inclined to say it all depends. Few have the window view I do, that's for...
- Aug 15, 2021
Speaking Of "For"
By Vincent Barry - Amidst lengthening unfaced shadows I see that I’ve lived—well, I know this will sound strange— without ever realizing...
- Aug 15, 2021
Hunting Season
By Matthew Henry - This early into the investigation they’re thinking a pressure cooker or pipe-bomb. Maybe C4 or Semtex. But I’m certain...
- Aug 15, 2021
Whirlpool Rebel
By Dave Gregory - Bryan Jarvis was trespassing. I knew the word from signs on trees and fence posts along the highway but it applied to...
- Aug 15, 2021
A Different Kind of Reunion
By Marlene Kurban - The email from my old college boyfriend, Stefan, came the same day I received a letter from my alma mater announcing...
- Aug 15, 2021
The Joys of Misfortune
By Franz Jørgen Neumann - After waiting for a few potential buyers to enter the on-the-market home of Eric and Erica Sweet, Kirk and...
- Aug 15, 2021
Cake
By Anne Dorrian - Maria puts the key in the lock like an expert defusing an explosive device. Now that Francesca is dead it's unclear...
- Aug 15, 2021
Sitting with My Boys
Editor's Note: This story is creative non-fiction. By Barbara Thompson - “Where did you get that tan?” “In a cemetery.” The question is...
- Aug 15, 2021
This is What Happens
By Cynthia McVay - Ruben floats over to Sabrina and gives her a kiss. "Am I allowed to do that?" Sabrina smiles. He's being confusing on...
- Aug 15, 2021
Plastic Breath
By Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi - After seven days of intolerable confinement, Izzy decided that this foggy afternoon was the right time to...
- Aug 15, 2021
What Were You Thinking?
By William S. Hubbartt - “So what did you do this time?” I smiled, with that innocent subtle shrug, my mind evaluating the alternatives,...
- Aug 15, 2021
The Bike
By Marilyn Fahey - The bike lay abandoned alongside the railroad tracks, way out in Rattlesnake City, a field no one dared venture out...
- Jul 15, 2021
Good Taste
By Lindsay Crudele - Green peas. Salted peanuts. Cherries, warm in my backpack, plucked from the mesh, pits popped through the mouth of...
- Jun 15, 2021
The Transmutable Divide
By M. Sweeney - They arrived all at once, tipsy with tales of dangerous Uber drivers and drug store deviants in the mini mart next door. ...
- Jun 15, 2021
Arbitration
By Nathalie Lawrence - “This isn’t something we can be expected to endure.” Mrs. Ashley Fitzgerald draws out endure so long it doesn’t...
- Jun 15, 2021
The Tail of a Gypsy Moth
By Sarp Sozdinler - States receive news from each other from one disaster to another, his warden used to say (“like family members”)....
- Jun 15, 2021
Pocket Watch
By Chip Jett - She came into possession of the pocket watch by way of a fortune-telling chicken on the boardwalk. It was the summer of...
- Jun 15, 2021
An Old Woman, a Rubber Band, and a Nuclear Bomb
By Gene Glotzer - As they shuffled slowly into the cafeteria/common room, she was already sitting, hunched over, at her usual table in...
- Jun 15, 2021
Custodial Conflict
By Rueda Wright - The guy at the gate is grinning as I approach. I hate that bastard. He takes a disturbing delight in delivering bad...
- Jun 15, 2021
Mister Bluster
By Dan Nielsen - Mister Bluster cozies into his bright red La-Z-Boy. He presses the illuminated blue side button, legs slowly rising...
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