Fiction from Jad Josey
Photo: Cherry Laithang It Finally Happened The sun dissolved into the sea today. It finally happened this time—it was not a metaphor for your fading love or a simile about your joy winking out like a light. The sun touched down, an inverted avalanche of steam cascading skyward as our best star tipped into the […]
Fiction from Soramimi Hanarejima
Photo: Luis Villasmil Safe Keeping After we switch reflections to see what that’s like, you leave the bathroom. I follow you into the kitchen where you fix us a snack. I guess you’re hungry and assume we’ll switch back later in the afternoon. We don’t. But that’s fine. I’m not particularly attached to my reflection […]
Fiction from Joseph Darlington
Photo: Taton Moïse Ratcatcher When they found the rat, Ula screamed. In fact, she wouldn’t stop screaming until the ratcatcher arrived. The girls giggled behind their hands. Anything that wound up the Puritan made them laugh. They all worked in the house of Pan and Pani Krolig, rich merchants in the port of Gdansk. Ula, […]
Fiction From Candace Hartsuyker
Photo: Keem Ibarra The Femme Fatale 1 The rules: the detective is the hero and the femme fatale is always the villain. The detective is taller than average, wears suits in black or gray and is sarcastic and handsome. The femme fatale has a soft, throaty voice. Small or tall, she is all legs. An […]
Fiction from Tommy Dean
Photo: Tandem X Visuals Past Lives Our four-year-old tells stories, usually unprompted, about his old house, this former life he had before he was with us. He lived on a farm on a country road with John Deere tractors. The deer with the sprig of whitetails gathered at the edge of the woods, and he […]
Fictions from Rebecca Harrison
Photo: Olen Gandy Chimney-side We lived where the fires were. The chimneys tall as skies, broader than river mouths. Our homes clung to the chimney sides. Our streets were stairways that never reached to the ground. Our homes were filled with the fire sounds. The crackle and hiss rumbled through the bricks. Genna sat on […]
Fiction from Bikram Sharma
Photo: Florence Landry Between Bodies Amrit’s fingers close around the ladybird. It’s the most valuable type, red with black dots, and if he’s careful he could show it off to his classmates or keep it in a glass jar by his bed. Instead he swallows it whole. Down it goes, down into his stomach. He […]
Fiction from Beth Gilstrap
Photo: Damon Lam Maybe You Catch Another Ray of Sun We had pizza with mushrooms for Mom’s birthday. She picked crunchy-bottomed pan crust. With the dough sticking to the backs of our teeth, we sang to her, handed over hand-drawn cards smudged with grease, asked her what it was like to be forty. “Not so […]
Fiction from Kathryn Kulpa
Photo: Michael Olsen What the Selkies Know It’s easy enough to become human if you really want to. The mermaids are so dramatic about it, tongues lopped off in terrible sacrifice, filling the ocean with their blood, their silent tears. Dry air rasping through their lungs like fire. The agonies they bear, these martyred fish-wives. […]
Fiction from Lila Rabinovich
Photo: Marten Bjork Careful There The girl peeks through the shop window, which is covered with Christmas decorations this time of year. She’s curious about what’s inside. Cute pencils with fluffy tops, probably, and colorful socks and little stuffed owls and such. From outside, she can see a rack of pink and blue t-shirts, a […]
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