Mom and Dad are in the basement playing gin. “Your deal,” Dad says. Mom pours Tanqueray into one of the milk cups we used as children. “GIN,” she shouts, slamming it down.
Featured Fiction
Gin
Mind’s Eye
by Michael Pearce
“A simple description, Lewis, that’s all I’m asking.” He bangs that ridiculous cane on the floor, thunk thunk. Vertical strokes meant as punctuation, little jabs to splash some color on his words. Only sometimes the jabs get loud, angry. “Is that too much for you?” He says it with a giggly quaver to let me […]
Transcriptions
by Kathleen Jones
Mary isn’t a great internet name. When she introduces herself to someone new, she always assumes they’re picturing the lady who birthed the baby Jesus or a different Mary washing Jesus’ feet or a pious and forgettable woman circa 1610 or 1743 or 1872. She wears muslin skirts and a mop cap and goes about […]
Saoirse
by Peter Gordon
Can you imagine naming a girl freedom? he asks me. Can you even know what that would do to her brain, starting when she was a baby, being someone who gets to go through life doing whatever the fuck she wants?
An Account of Vertebrates
by Mandira Pattnaik
In the event of being just matured, we could be jellyfish — pliable, buoyant, floral.
Sons
by Bodie Fox
A drop of water splashes on her face when I lift my foot, silt clinging to my sole. She gently cradles my heel in her hand as she wets a corner of the rag. A school of tadpoles swim by. A crooked grin breaks over his teeth. The rag tickles, but my stomach curls. Sons and I don’t look at each other while she works between my toes.
This is the part
by Francine Witte
where I believe that it was the goddamn fault of the night willow, that if it hadn’t been so blacked out like it was, bowed so brushy and low, you could have seen your way around it. Could have driven a clean road home like you do every night, except this one.
Parable of the Mother
by Lane Chasek
Her gift, which she discovered when she was sixteen, consists of looking at these pieces of garbage and watching them take the shape of a human being.
Awkward Little Creatures that Flail About, 1956
by John Brantingham
it’s early June twilight, the bats just now coming out and they stand awkwardly on the gravel of the driveway, crunching it back staring up at the little creatures that flail about until Henry asks Clyde what he wants, which is natural enough but said in a little punk tone that Clyde wants to slap out of his mouth
In the Kingdom of Toads & Bones
by Rick White
– CONTENT WARNING: Animal Abuse –
In the mornings — before school — there was always tea. China cups, whistling kettle, hot metal stove. Warm smell of butane, blackened matches, crunch of buttered things. Now there is only steam. It pools on every surface and spit-trickles down black windowpanes, shiny tears.
