Baggage

FLASH FICTION by

Cassie hands her a trash bag that’s technically empty but symbolically full of the stuff Rita’s been shoving into it for years: all the wont’s, shouldn’ts, can’ts, couldn’ts, and a bunch of you’ll nevers, all of it into the sack that she ties off at the top, starving the bad thoughts of oxygen until they die.More

Two stories

Two stories

FLASH FICTION by

The sun rises and sets above the howling like it always does. Turmoil means nothing to it, its astral nature knows only explosion. But I hear the thoughts of the dying when its flame fills their eyes. How it dazzles.More

Calling the Boys Home

Calling the Boys Home

FICTION by

Teddy and I have grown up together here on the Pee Dee. But Teddy left about a month ago for Clemson University. Said he was going to study agriculture and come back to help his daddy. He will be back. This place is like a boomerang. Shoots you out into the world, but you get slung right on back.More

Eros v. Amor

Eros v. Amor

CREATIVE NONFICTION by

In year 24 together, he and I seem to have arrived at a new level of emotional intimacy, practically a symbiosis. That we have no sex and are in love at the same time leaves me rather dumbfounded.More

Goodbye Blue Monday

Goodbye Blue Monday

FICTION by

Even though it’s irrational, for some reason, Jake wants to blame his mother. As if her bad energy and DNA linger off him like a scent that attracts predators.More

Little Miss Hampton Beach

Little Miss Hampton Beach

FICTION by

I am late to seeing this beauty and art in violence, too late, thinking boxing barbaric, dumb, reckless. I myself not being able to imagine why anyone would want to do something where they were set up to get hurt repeatedly, to get hurt and hurt and do it again. Can you find truth there somewhere?More

Two Stories

Two Stories

FLASH FICTION by

I bet school-friend Amir that he’d continue to act; I could see him as a cosy flannel-shirt kinda guy when he got older. Decades later I find Amir online to tell him I was right. He has no idea who Haley Joel Osment is or indeed who I am, and for a moment I wonder if Amir was a ghost all along.More

Deseret

Deseret

FICTION by

I go to bed dreaming I’m riding a giant electric razor like a mechanical bull in a field of alfalfa at dusk. Clouds smear across the night sky like drunken Bob Ross brush strokes. Just as everything goes black, a beam of light descends upon me. Is it an angel? Is it the razor police, and are my razor-riding days numbered?More

Too Many Last Names

Too Many Last Names

Moans from the Condiment Fridge by

A series of last names I’ll click clack my way through on the way to thoughts of vengeance and acting cooler than I am, until I’m told to shut up, get on all fours, and kiss the black knee-high latex boot like the pervert I am (“Hubba hubba”).More

Meds

Meds

FICTION by

I’m too young to be demented and too old to be psychotic, at least for the first break. And my hearing, I’d recently checked, was still normal for my age, not a rousing endorsement, but hanging in there.More

The Bad Kids

The Bad Kids

FLASH FICTION by

Everybody knows assassins always hang out in the dine-in area of the Acme supermarket, between the bakery and the deli case. It’s a good place where nobody bothers anybody, the food is cheap, and all the people who need those sorts of services know just where to find them.More