In The Dark by Chad Greene
It had been meant to fade out after exposure to daylight, the security sticker he had attached to the cardboard cover of his first reporter’s notebook as a souvenir. Although his name – printed in that...
View ArticleFlat On His Back by Jeff McCrory
He was having a road to Damascus moment. It smote him like a heart attack, a beautiful angina, as he left the office for lunch. All morning, he’d treated himself to a solitary grind. He was unfit to...
View ArticleUndertow by Donald Bagley
Darci stood barefoot, ankle deep in Pacific surf. As each wave rolled back, she felt grainy sand being sucked away from under her feet. Signs along the beach warned of rip currents. She imagined...
View ArticleThe Selfishness of Work by Ken Poyner
“I think that little atmospheric sampling unit had some utility left.” He leaned back, only two minutes into his ten minute break, his back against the wall taking as much of his weight as the bench....
View ArticleBirds, Bees, and Girls in Trees by B. E. Smith
A friend read my course load for spring semester, shaking his head at one of the class titles. “Women in Literature?” he asked. “You’ll never get laid in that class.” I had learned to step away from...
View ArticleSundays We Visit The Dead by Zvezdana Rashkovich
Laid flowers on six graves this summer. Beloved, departed, father, grandparents, aunts. So many. Three cemeteries, two cities. Faces everywhere, benevolent, sad in their own death. They stare from...
View ArticleFollow by Wayne Cresser
After he drowned while quahogging in frigid waters, Norman was surprised that he could hang around for his wake. The spirit has flown, he remembered the saying, but in his case, not very far. He had...
View Article1938 “Yosemite Landscape” Oil Painting by Ben White
My late grandfather painted this lovely oil painting on canvas. It’s a landscape of a waterfall in Yosemite National Park in California that he used to visit as a young man before he left my...
View ArticleMaking a Buck by Wayne Scheer
“Who sent you again?” “I told you already. Gordy King. He said to make sure you know he sent me.” “I never heard of him.” “Whadya mean, you never hearda him? Gordy King.” “Where’s he from?” “Rego...
View ArticleSandy Horse by Victoria Webster-Perez
Clink. The machine whirred, woken by a bicentennial quarter into the dust-blackened slit. Rusted gears clicked and an antique metal horse came to life. “Yeehaw!” Tattered cowboy hat and boots, he rode....
View ArticleRevenant by Ken Head
It’s a vintage morning, the town’s full of life the way it is on market days when families drive in from the farms and villages, not just to stock up and do the chores, but for the chance to enjoy a...
View ArticleLe Pont des Arts by D. A. Hosek
It was a rainy October day in 2013 that Thierry and Simone came to the place on Le Pont des Arts where precisely one year earlier they had attached a lock to symbolize the permanence of their love....
View ArticleThe Ghost of Lew Welch by Evelyn Deshane
Lew Welch was a poet. Most people have only heard of him because of The Beat Generation and City Lights Books. He was good, though. Not just a hanger-on to the old crowd. The story goes that Lew, in...
View ArticleMy Mother Refuses To Dig Any More Flowerbeds With Our New Shovel After She...
The shriek of steel blade on brick: he scraped the bloody body up and tossed it, still writhing, toward the trashcan. The post My Mother Refuses To Dig Any More Flowerbeds With Our New Shovel After She...
View ArticleHousefly Memories by Gregory Horace
“Here, just let me do it.” Large and clumsy Mal picked up the heavy wooden chest, levering it into his elbow sockets. He nearly fell backwards but caught himself. He had stupidly come upstairs with...
View ArticleWhen You’re Dead, You’re Dead by Eleanor Kriseman
There was this nightmare I used to have over and over again when I was eight, when I would imagine that after you died, your mind still worked and it was just your body that died, so you couldn’t move...
View ArticleBig Dreams by Molly Ruddell
Until the age of six, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I eloquently replied, “A pig.” Remember the movie Babe? Some pig he was. Just a pink, nascent character who stopped the fall of the...
View ArticleHell Notes by Erica Plouffe Lazure
It is Ghost Month yet again, and yet again my entire sidewalk is littered with money. Fake money. Hell Money. Money that fell from the sky, fluttered out of windows, from boys riding bitch on bicycles,...
View ArticleAntiques by Michael O’Neill
“You’ve been out for a while. You find anything?” “No. Just a few of these coins,” he said withdrawing his hand from his pocket. “You spent six hours collecting these dirty coins?” “It’s a labor of...
View ArticleRing My Chimes by Phillip Temples
“Hi. I saw your advertisement,” said the girl, standing at the front door. He smiled at her. He gestured to her to come inside. “I’ve never really done anything like this before,” she said. “Have you?”...
View Article