Fiction from Janna Miller
Photo: Shinta Kikuchi Folds Within Folds Under Edy’s hands, five seconds of life play out in folded paper. A moving menagerie of starts and sudden stops between origami creases. A kiss of birth. A gift. Five seconds is enough for: A butterfly’s wing to open and close once Five steps of a quick fox, pointed […]
Fiction from Avra Margariti
Photo: Dynamic Thing With Feathers The angel you caught in your net won’t stop shedding. You gather the feathers from the cracks between floorboards. They stick to the walls, wet with bitter hope and golden ichor. You think you will stuff and sew them into a pillow. You will have the sweetest dreams. Cheer up, […]
Fiction from Robert Vaughan
Photo: Brecht Deboosere Candy Crushes Todd We’d read our book reports aloud in my treehouse. He’d read first. His dimples and his cupid lips. He played clarinet and on the opposite side of the room, I blew the baritone. He never looked at me during Band. Alex Walked him to his dentist appointment in 7th […]
Fiction from Georgia White
Photo: Inga Gezalian I ate no choice food. On my first day in therapy, the doctors told us we had to separate our eating disorders from ourselves, personalize them, name them, make them something other. But I wasn’t sure if I could yet. That’s the thing—when the only permanent thing in your body is the […]
Fiction from Stephanie Yu
Photo: MontyLov Sun Surf Skin Rye The old couple is staring at the sun. Their sandwiches are Italian on rye. The air is salt and vinegar. The seals are molting on the beach. The tide is coming in. The wind is lashing at their weathered faces. It’s flicking pieces of sand against their skin. The […]
Fictions from Hayley Swinson
Photo: Reginal Wild onions My sister’s fingers dig deep in the dirt, encircle the bulb. Shorn roots pop, their tips wriggling like slashed worms underground. Can you eat wild onions? We are thirteen years old. Yesterday I was twelve; today, I eclipse her, and we are teenagers together for the first time. When she asks […]
Fiction from Lutivini Majanja
Photo: PublicDomainPictures Boots on the ground When Morgan Mugula’s father returned from his peacekeeping in Croatia, he brought him combat boots. Avunjas. All cool people own avunjas, which they lace up to their shins and stomp in everywhere. Morgan strode into school with his brand new avunjas, shy and dull as always, but bouncing because […]
Fiction from Gray Birchby
Photo: Jeremy Bishop Remembering the Ocean Chapter Eight: In which my father asks me to go into the ocean “No.” Chapter One: In which I go to the ocean for the first time There is sand and salt and shells and I love this place, so full of sunlight. I am four years old […]
Fiction from J.B. Stone
Photo: engin akyurt Suddenly -Everything was cake—and everything I thought wouldn’t be cake—was cake. I thought it was a nightmare of unknown origin tattooed to my psyche, but no. Now everything I knew—know now—and will ever know for the rest of my days: cake. The pair of Converse stacked tightly next to my closet was […]
Fiction from Mary Lynn Reed
Photo: Sérgio Alves Santo True Things Thirty minutes standing at the bar, me complaining of my loneliness. She takes a long drag of beer, and asks, “Have you reconsidered dating?” “I have no time or energy for that nonsense again,” I say. She nods, sets the beer down. “You can call me. More than monthly, […]
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