by Morgan Shaver Endless days float past, each one blurring into the other. I cannot remember the day when I was displayed on the high shelf above the produce. Nor can I say with any certainty how long I’ve been up here. Flanking me are similar creatures, though none of…
by Kim Sutton Allouche Three years after our divorce, my ex-wife Michelle phoned to ask me why I’d chosen that particular time to leave her. It was just an ordinary summer, she’d protested. It was. Once again, I turned the events over in my mind. She hadn’t even asked until…
by Washington Irving “Let’s just get to the cabin. I’ll show you my childhood haunts,” says Summer. We pass through the town with its small, grassed circle, flagpole planted in the center. Blink past a gas station, general store, and diner. Then a winding dirt road up a pine-shadowed…
by Michael C. Keith Everybody is dealt a hand of cards. It’s the way you choose to play them that matters. …
by Kathryn Brown Ramsperger 1946, Beirut. France grants Lebanon its independence. Today we are to go down to the water. Each trip is a special occasion. I can already feel the aquamarine surf as it breaks on the sand—not quite waves, more than placid ripples. It will hit my skinned…
by Saramanda Swigart Julia used poison the first time. She’d been married to the senator for almost six years. There was a scandal involving a minor tribute, and even though it was easy to cover up, the senator’s reputation suffered. They had a child, but he died. After that, bitterness…
by Rebecca Gawron The first blow knocks my glasses to the floor, as usual; like I’m on auto pilot, I immediately search for them, snatch them up, and toss them on the dashboard for safekeeping. For some reason he always gives me time to do this before the second strike….
by Elizabeth Ivey I didn’t always know what I was, but I knew I was different. It was as though I had simply sprung into existence, sprouting from the gritty front steps of St. Agnes’s. The matron found me pounding on the dense oak door in the driving rain, drenched…
by Michael C. Keith I thought a stick was a snake. Until it bit me, and then I knew. …
by Ree Davis I seize the rooster from his perch above the hens. They ruffle against the side of the coop and fill in around my skirts as I carry their cockerel outside. He fights against the fingers I wrap beneath the pointed feathers of his neck to hold back…