I’m no good at this job, I feel too sorry for the people I call, they seem lonely. They ask me how old I am, say I sound young and ask me if I’m in college. What do you care, Peggy will say. Work the loneliness, take as long as it takes to milk sympathetic, you’re not being timed here, but at the end of the shift, you better by God have four leads ready to go.… more
Category Archives: FICTION
The Risk of Man
FICTION by R. P. SingletaryThank God, he kept that punch to himself, gem worth savin, he thought again and almost laughed, but that would’ve been at himself his life his risk his fear and of course, she’d have known it was only for of about and at her, and he wasn’t mean, no not like that or any other, but if she didn’t understand then, she never would be worth any further explanation down the road, despite all they shared, the two things, the OK coffee and decent sex.… more
Jobber
FICTION by David CookMack had two roles. The first was to lose every match and the second was to ensure his opponent appeared like a winner, no, an alpha in the process. He was, in wrestling industry terminology, a jobber. No more than that. It would never be more than that. Not for him. Too skinny, the boss said. No abs, he said. Worse, no charisma. The other wrestlers got the wins. Mack didn’t.… more
Choreography of the Rind
FICTION by J.B. KalfIsaac Macedo’s daughter continued to mangle the spoon about in the pitcher of lemonade, trying to scoop out the fly that had landed in the fresh brew, each ripple and wave leaving the fly somewhere new, on some glacier, on some seed, still in the yellow meant to be swallowed. Isaac thought of taxidermy.… more
Bob
FICTION by Kevin SpaideI thought of the scars all over Bob’s torso and knew it was only a matter of time before they forced that merry tale down my throat too. Everybody delighted in telling these gruesome horror stories—hangings and decapitations, old men flogged in public while children looked on, laughing. They savored the details, the humiliations, as though they fed some hunger I didn’t know about.… more
Confirmation
FICTION by Ian Crutcher CastilloHow do I find joy? How do I cure this illness? You know how my mother died. They call what my father had alcoholism now. He drank himself to death. Is that any more dignified than a bedsheet noose?… more
Fighters, Circa
FICTION by Eli HastingsFlash dance of hands; locking then losing the gaze; heaving yet measured breath; the sliding of grip on sweated flesh; the knotting of legs; the intervention of gravity; grunts and growls; saliva arcing in the light; a final plunge of connection and then, for a moment, stillness. … more
Brothers
FICTION by JP VallièresI too had things to say and felt the strain of the smile on my face. I never thought it was possible to get out of myself: the loathing, the insufferable small space of my house, my future, my dead brother.… more
The Genie
FICTION by R.M. CooperJesus, I thought. Treasure. Real treasure. I didn’t say a word to the neighbor kid. All I thought about was his snot hands and my lamp. I knew what I had to do. I picked up a clump of dirt, and I thew it at his head.… more
The Purveyors of All Hours
FICTION by Mitch JamesCollege isn’t for you. That’s not your fault. You didn’t build the American education system, but you want to be a part of it, and it’s not made for everyone. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s made to make all of you a certain way, and if you can’t be that way, you don’t make it through, and if you do, then you’re really fucked because you’ll be outside of this every-one-gets-a-trophy university, in a world that eats its young. That’s Tupac. The world eating its young. Not the Trophy thing. Write it down.… more
