Category: Fiction

by Hemmy So Of all the vegetables in her garden, Mijin loved the perilla leaves best because they required so little from her. No trimming, no garden bed cover, no precise watering schedule. Just sunshine and enough water to quench their thirst, and they produced delicious bounty. She’d miss them when she left for Korea,…

by Dylan McNulty-Holmes The first time I hear about Blue, it’s on the news. There are interviews with survivors—mostly their silhouettes, filling anonymous rooms with their stories. One woman appears on national breakfast TV, baring her shiny tear-strewn face for all to see. She tells the sympathetically frowning hosts how she woke up in an…

by Michael Brooks  2005      When they saw no trace of my “inner artist,” I knew I was about to disappear—faster than Nightcrawler could teleport. Pops spent the spring digging through dumpsters and gluing trash collages together. And Ma? She poured clay over her belly to make plasters, fired them in the kiln, and then stuck ‘em…

by Francis Walsh As the hog reeve, I lived beside the town animal pound, and at night the breathing of the animals lulled me to sleep.      But one evening, the bell on the door of the pound startled me awake. I lit a candle and crept outside to find Goodman Willis crouched before the open door…

by Dinah Cox My next-door neighbor—Charlotte was her name—had four kids, five Labrador retrievers of various colors, and a small income she earned exclusively by delivering the morning newspaper in our neighborhood. She must have collected child support, too, though she never said anything about an ex-husband. In the afternoons, she listened to the police…

by Madeline Vosch I had gone to the café just to get out of the house. My apartment was carpeted, and when the sun hit at midday, the space got small and uninhabitable. I had just taken a shower, my hair leaving wet patches on my shirt. I was always a little bit of a…

by Corey Farrenkopf Raphael leaves a tattered copy of Dracula in a nook behind the Smiths’ toilet paper rack. The week before, he left The Shining in the Hamiltons’ pool house. He placed his copy of Cthulhu tales in the top dresser drawer of Mrs. Sherman’s wardrobe, beneath lilac lingerie. Raphael cleans vacationers’ homes. Their…

by Meghan Callahan It’s a Wednesday night and we’re all in the living room except for Natalie, who is making popcorn over at the microwave. The TV broke last week because of a power surge or something, and the landlord has promised that maintenance is sending someone to repair it, but they’ve been promising to…

by Carlea Holl-Jensen I don’t remember anything from that summer except the hollow—not the Fourth of July beach party, or our trip to the lighthouse. There are pictures, I know: you and me in our bathing suits and shorts, blinking into the camera while behind us someone sets off fireworks that don’t show up against…

by Larry J. Wormington Your assimilation begins at the Military Enlistment Processing Station, or MEPS. If military service were a lobotomy, MEPS would be the surgical prep area. Upon arrival, you’re stripped to your skivvies and interrogated by the most highly trained and experienced medical professionals indentured servitude can buy. Don’t answer truthfully any questions…