Fiction from Joel Hans
Photo: Jana Klouckova Kudrnová The Times I’ll Trade Time with the Crows A long, long time ahead, the crows’ll give me time in exchange for my children’s possessions—my son’s owl bathtoy, the Crayons my daughter will’ve tried to sharpen with the safety scissors. The crows’ll warn me not to bite into time itself, but rather […]
Fiction from Mikki Aronoff
Photo: Dan Cristian Pădureț Kin ~ after Li-Young Lee Tonight, as all nights, my dog claws and burrows under the covers, whimpers and wrestles head-to-head with day’s demons. Is that memory’s nightwork? Soon, still. I reach to make sure he’s breathing, touch the soft ruff of his neck. He turns on his back, offers his […]
Fiction from Gary Fincke
Photo: Kartik Gada Marking the Solstice Because I was born on my mother’s birthday, our parties were divided into day and night. My friends, full of cake and ice cream, left before dinner. My mother’s friends arrived at twilight, drinking wine as the mid-summer sky went dark. But each year, at noon, before either party […]
Fiction from Rosaleen Lynch
Photo: thom masat Making Marys The first Mary is missing her head. I clean the nozzle, pick off the hardened thermoplastic halo that’s clogged and erupted in a mushroom cloud, and drop it in the scrap to be recycled and reset the 3D printer to start again, but I watch as the polymer filament threads […]
Fiction from Cayce Osborne
Photo: Natalie Runnerstrom The Scientist’s Daughter Stage I: Gestation When the scientist learns she is pregnant, she tells no one. Her body begins to change. When the pregnancy becomes obvious, colleagues avoid her and do not offer congratulations. For a working scientist, a baby is a liability. She is proving true every unkind thought they’ve […]
Fiction from Kara Oakleaf
Photo: Dustin Tramel The Shadow Boyfriends Vanessa is the first of the mothers to bring up her shadow boyfriend. You all watch the children from the park benches, eyes behind sunglasses and iced coffees in your hands, and she tells all of you how she still thinks of an ex, all these years later, how […]
Fiction from A.C. Koch
Photo: Jakub Dziubak My Fire Still Burns Until she found the right word, she couldn’t tell the story. Without exactly the right word, it would sound crass, or pathetic—the daydream of a delusional person. And although she could nearly taste the word, it wouldn’t come. Min-ji sipped her pineapple juice through a straw and pressed […]
Fiction from Lauren O’Donoghue
Photo: Sunbeam Photography Formaldehyde The taxidermist’s wife was just that until the day her husband died. Now she is simply the taxidermist. People bring her their corpses, kills and companions both, and she resurrects them with borax and cotton wool. Her small, careful hands are suited for the work. Her incisions are clean and her […]
Fiction from Anthony Varallo
Photo: Krzysztof Hepner My Money-Making Scheme I don’t know what to say about how it all started, except to say that one day I was living paycheck to paycheck, counting every dime, and then the next day my wallet was bulged with tens and twenties. That’s the truth. I know I should say I’m sorry, […]
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 […]
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