Nothing ever was the matter with Jesse’s dad. Nothing, anyway, that he could articulate to his wife and daughter. He just started drinking more beer. And after a while, inexplicably, he stopped using the garbage can. He’d drink a six pack of Bud Light and throw the empties into the grass. They lived off a […]
Fiction
An excerpt from Challenger by M. C. Armstrong
PHANTOM JETS an excerpt from Challenger a novel-in-progress by M. C. Armstrong I remember nothing negative about Khalid. But people change. This guy was brilliant. If he used his knowledge in a good way, he could have been a Nobel Prize winner. — Sammy Zitawi Khalid looked into the equations on the board and saw a […]
Beautiful Teeth by Brett Strickland
I used to have beautiful teeth, though only my brother remembers. But one morning when the light was sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel I woke to blood in the bed, and the remains of my first child spilling like wine from my body. After showering, I pulled away the blankets and stripped the sheets to […]
Eating Cake by Richard Sonnenmoser
At the time of the accidents, my husband and I were trying to lose weight. Or at least we were talking about it. The websites he’d found encouraged losing weight with a partner. The websites used phrases like The Buddy System. They said things about the efficacy of mutual support; what they were talking about […]
The Center for Religious Extremism by Josh Peterson
I met Anna in a long gift-shop line at the Center for the Study of Religious Extremism. She was a short brunette with plump cheeks, a curvy body and hair that went straight down to her shoulders. There was a gold crucifix around her neck, but I didn’t make much of it at the time. […]
Dog Summer by Micah Dean Hicks
They came panting down the gravel roads that spiraled through the bottoms around the lake, packs of them hungry and gape-mouthed, yellow dogs by the hundreds. They loped along beside trucks, nipping at the tires, scattering back to the woods when someone leaned out the window with a rifle and cracked off shots at them. […]
Seeing Letitia by Jeff Friedman
In Produce, there was Leticia, my ex, examining a cantaloupe. In a diaphanous yellow halter and black short shorts, she looked great, her cart full of vegetables. She shook her head. “You don’t look too good,” she said, “you should get some sun. Ta-ta.” She steered her cart toward the nuts and granola bulk bins […]
If You Were the Ice by Jacob Doyle
If you were the ice you would likely wish it were summer, when you weren’t frozen and being sliced into or shaven. If you were the ice you would be bumpy and covered with a thin layer of snow that fell overnight. If you were the ice you would have the best view. You would […]
Broken by Michelle Davis
The air around the ditch was thick with the smell of oranges. The sweetness of their blossoms mingled with the rot on the ground, creating the dank aroma of summer in Orange Cove. We stopped our bikes just short of the old city fence, and hopped off, letting them clatter to the dirt. My brother […]
Yttat by Tetman Callis
The reunion was at the Secretary’s house in the suburbs, out where the city ends in gently rolling low hills and green fields stretching down to the river valley. Old friends came. The Secretary wasn’t sure he’d ever known all of them, so many years had passed. There was plenty to eat and drink. People […]
