What killed him has been excised from the obituary. It exists in the blank space along the margins. Because it is easier to say died than overdosed.
Nonfiction
The Boy Is Now an Obituary
You Seem Really Lonely
by Sage Tyrtle
For two weeks I wish Marta dead. With every breath I take in. I am not proud of this.
GROCERY STORE ARTIST
by Joshua Gottlieb-Miller
Within our disorienting, indefinite pandemic, the lonesome invisibility of retail workers has become ironized by their initial hyper-visibility.
Persian Night
by Douglas Cole
She placed a cup of the hot elixir on the counter before me. On the surface of the cup little dragonfish swirled around like visual laughter. I felt my stomach tighten and my heart speed up. Here we go . . .
First Monsoon
by Nazanin Knudsen
10. Early Mornings The 5:00 AM train that goes through the Sixth Street underpass whistles in the distance. Shuffling the pillows, I try to find a position that offers some relief from the pressure in the back of my neck. I live in an apartment near the University of Arizona campus. As an only child […]
You’d Just Be Different, That’s All: Revisiting Catcher in the Rye in 2020
by Sam Rebelein
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know about is that crumby article I found a few years back. It was a really phony piece, in The Guardian or something and all, written by this very intellectual guy who says he re-reads Catcher in the Rye every […]
Being Fred
by Leslie Absher
Being Fred My Dad’s first CIA field assignment was in Athens, Greece. It was the late 1960s when my uncle Tom came to visit our family. He didn’t know his older brother was a spy then, though he suspected it. “One day your father and I were about to enter a store,” he told […]
Villain
by Holly Laurent
This essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.I want to kick the shit out of Facebook and Fox News. It’s an instinct I get from my dad. Whenever I got hurt as a kid, he’d launch into a physical comedy routine, beating the hell out of whatever hurt me. If I fell out of a […]
Your One Phone Call
by Lori Jakiela
I am eating Greek salad at Panera when my phone rings. I don’t usually pick up, but it’s been a week since my biopsy and I’m still sore and my right boob is bruised black and yellow and I’ve been waiting days that have stretched on like 600 miles of bad road. My boob looks […]
Twelve Steps Ahead
by Evan Lavender-Smith
“Twelve Steps Ahead” was nominated for The Best of the Net. This is one of two instances in your life when you will receive these instructions. There is only one step you’re allowed to hear this time—the last one. It will be the first thing you hear when you’re born and it will be one of […]
