Fiction from Avalon Felice Lee
Photo: Maddy Baker The Chilla Before gloving up, Ellen strokes the fur shawl on the mannequin. It’s chinchilla, brown, so soft it feels abstract, like the idea of a thing rather than the thing itself. Bora peeks around Ellen’s thigh, fidgeting with her apron string. “Was the chilla killed, Mama?” she wonders, her voice littler […]
Fiction from Sarp Sozdinler
Photo: Aaron Burden Pebbles I’m five and I find a dead sparrow in our backyard. My father screams at the TV after a missed penalty kick, muffling the intensity of my cries. I’m six and misplacing the letters in a schoolbook. I’m seven and diving headfirst from the lid of the Brighton pier, saltwater crusting […]
Fiction from Stephen Tuttle
Ransom We paid because what choice did we have? Mom signed the papers on the mortgage and emptied the savings account and collected what she could from family. At the credit union, they turned all that money into a wire transfer and then, zip, it was nothing more than a thin receipt. After that, we […]
Fiction from Tim Goldstone
Photo: Jez Timms The Breakthrough After so long enthusiastically exploring my psychological wreckage in your Californian way, “talking it all out” you loved to say—more sledgehammer than scalpel—you eventually found my black box weeks after you ceased your official excavation; and you’d actually been happier for calling off the search, calm, contented, before accidentally stumbling […]
Fictions from Christine H. Chen
Photo: Fran Jacquier Osteonecrosis Ah Ma’s incessant moaning drove Ba to his grave. I took his place bearing the avalanche of her rants. The price of an onion, the handyman tracking dirt inside the hallway, Ba’s ghost not helping her find her eyeglasses, a squirrel burying nuts in her potted tomato plant. Her tirades slowed […]
Fiction from Melissa Fitzpatrick
Photo: Mostafa Ashram Mostafa Only Water, Then Sky When you’re a fish, it doesn’t occur to you to look up, to try to see past the edge of the known world. There is only water, and how the water moves the kelp, and how the kelp moves with the water, back and forth, back and […]
Fiction from Alexis Jamilee Carter
Photo: Kind and Curious You’ve Left a Candle Burning, and It Seeks Revenge Henrietta St. Claire’s home is going up in flames. The fire department isn’t on the way. Neighbors huddle together across the street, whispering their horror and pity. They do not speak of their gratitude for detached housing. They all think the other […]
Fiction from Claudia Monpere
Photo: Rob Humphrey How to Be Purple First there is no first. Purple has no sequence. lilac…..mauve…..heliotrope Purple swirls in rain puddles. Wisteria twining with crystal. Indigo nebula birthed from rippling walls. A trellis humming with grapes. Learn this language: bluebell grapes autumn royal moondrop kyoho sultana crimson seedless. Be a violet backed starling. These […]
Fiction from Madeline Graham
Photo: Jr Korpa The Better to Eat You With She worries meat from the lupine skull with a long and pointed knife. Her red cloak slung over the back of her chair. Blond braids caked in blood. Daisy bouquet upended on the floor. She tongues bristly fur, grinding gristle between her molars, tendons snap between […]
Fiction from David Yourdon
Photo: Nikita Tikhomirov Cliché And then he died. The day before, he had felt well, calm. Not an end-of-life, transcendent calm. We didn’t believe in that. But the pain had abated. A month before, the pain had been worse. By then, we had set up camp in the hospital. It was clear that we were […]
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