M says this doesn’t seem safe. What do you know about safe? I say. I’m going to go take a hot bath. I’m going to listen to jazz! She says, OK, but why are you already naked?… More
Waiting For the Train
FICTION by Maddy KayHow did people just say things to each other about love like it was normal? Like they weren’t opening a giant gaping wound in themselves for someone else to kick apart even further? What did any of it mean anyways? What made people loveable and normal—two things he never equated himself with?… More
Collections
FLASH FICTION by Christine H. ChenSomehow she’s sneaked into the room and found the bottles I’d hidden under the desk when I still had a job. She’s built her own game, lining the bottles, coalescing them together in a triangle, raising one layer on top of another, a glass pyramid glinting guilt and shame. … More
The Sound of Bombs
FICTION by Francois BereaudThe sounds, always the four sounds. I’d been in bed for the better part of a month and they wouldn’t leave me alone. Rubber slapping rubber made a whoosh. Then metal scraping asphalt in a scream. Then his head hitting the ground with a hollow thud. Then another scream. The girl behind me.… More
Two Stories
FLASH FICTION by Luanne CastleBecause the boys on the street beat your skinny ass and called you bastard. Because the man in the suit and stethoscope said he was your dad but only stayed long enough to give your feverish twin sulfa. Because you and your brother fought the street rats with garbage can lids and sticks. Because the Chicago Nazis beat up your brother.… More
Cambodian Dreams
FICTION by Faith MillerHe realizes now that was a stupid thing to have said. It feels imperative that he go to Cambodia and apologize to Gen say the right thing. He should have said he loved her. Maybe he should have said she wasn’t a whore. He didn’t fucking know.… More
Pierre’s Shortcut
FICTION by THOMAS KEVIN O'ROURKEPierre Freeman was an artist, raconteur and dancer, destitute and a drunk. He tatted his hair to thick dreadlocks that flattened into the shape of oak leaves. He smoked weed, but never paid for it. He spoke with a Jamaican accent even though he had never been out of Minnesota.… More
A House of Noise
FLASH FICTION by Coleman BigelowThere were only two things louder in our house than my father’s laugh. One was the slam of the bedroom door whenever mom barricaded herself inside and the other was the sound of our rusting station wagon backfiring as it pulled out of the drive.… More
Punchline
FICTION by Paul KavanaghWhat I loved the most was not the violence Oh I loved the violence but the walk down to the ring that’s why I was in the game I just loved the parade if only it could have been miles yes five miles wouldn’t that have been great five miles of cheering and clapping wonderful young girls peeing in their knickers the smell oh what a smell.… More
Seeing Red
FLASH FICTION by Kathryn Silver-HajoHer hand grazes something at the bottom of her brother’s tin box of farm toys, something she’s overlooked, but recognizes now. She drops the piglet, falls silent, her nine-year-old heart galloping a fury.… More
every day is a new day
FICTION by louis packardi was like ‘no i’m fine i don’t care’ and they both shrugged and did the coke while i finished closing the store by myself, it was like mad annoying but i didn’t really want to use the coke, i never really liked it anyways and honestly the last time i did coke with cloyster i think it was straight up all filler i didn’t feel that shit at all…. oh yeah and i’m uhhhh, 3 months sober… More
