By Jennifer Taylor “Eggshells” placed second in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2020 Fall Fiction Contest. One day in the June of her eleventh year, I awoke to find the whole world blanketed in white. Eggshells …everywhere. I had been warned this is what would happen with a girl child. One…
By Laura Carnes Williams “The Jump Off” placed third in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2020 Fall Fiction Contest. Deke is let into the fraternity house by a baggy-eyed Bro in insignia-branded pajamas, gnawing on a chicken wing. The Bro shuffles away to join the others, sprawled around the flat-screen in…
By E. M. Francisco “Over the Beyond” placed fourth in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2020 Fall Fiction Contest. Florence’s plane is bright. It streaks through the sky like a shooting star, a cigarette carelessly tossed aside. Her breaths are heavy as she fights with the stick. Clouds whip past her…
By Steven Christopher McKnight “Fare Thee Well, Basket Face” placed fifth in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2020 Fall Fiction Contest. You see a guy at a coffee shop. He’s simple-looking. Nice hair. Good build. Impeccable forearms. His face is featureless, save for the fact that it’s made of interwoven wicker….
by J D Francis Woodrow Franklin sat resting, slowly pushing back and forth on an old, wooden bench swing that hung from a rusty chain on the front porch of the tiny cottage. It is where he has lived for thirty-seven years, alone. The bench squeaked and moaned with every…
by Lisa L. Lynn In Derrick’s younger years as a baker, women and pastry were somehow all of the same dreamlike confection, heady with sugar, alternately cloying and sublime. They were so indelibly coupled that he had often tasted women as rich layers of butter and salt, almond and fruit,…
by Katie Stavick 8:05 a.m. I shut off the alarm and lay in my bed, contemplating calling in sick. I mean, seriously, what’s the point? I already submitted my notice, which sucked. “It’s not that we don’t like you or think you could handle the job. We know you could. But the person we…
by Sarah Ockershausen Delp The table is set for company. The florescent shine off the faucet is deafening. She’ll teeter in, whisking the tiles in tiny steps. Click clacking in her vintage heels as soon as the bell ting-tings on the oven. I’m cooking inside. It smells of rosemary and thyme, roasted…
by Sara Carey The twinkling lights in the restaurant were beginning to blur together. Emily’s cheeks were warm, her hair falling in soft tendrils around her face. She couldn’t believe she was sitting across such a handsome man, and she knew that she was way out of her league when…
by Marc Abbott Gabriel Kenney didn’t intend on adopting Poohbear and Smokey. But his son, Simon, tearfully pleaded with him after hearing that animals who stayed in the pound too long were put to sleep. “A dog and a cat? No, Simon, dogs and cats do not get along. They’re…