by Mark Crimmins Davis called him at the beginning of the month to tell him the bad news. “You’re not gonna like this any more than I do, Schultz, but Prez has decided we all need to ask a hundred golden questions a week from now on. I know the…
Fiction Posts
First Sunday Home
by Chris Cottom As the motorcar crunches across the driveway of Tauntfield House, my sister, Edith, explains that the maids and our few remaining male servants are lined up on the left, with our parents at the door. She instructs me to take her arm, which I do as far…
Appearing and Disappearing
by Charly Murmann Did I fall for you? I think I may have loved you. Maybe I did. Or maybe I loved the idea of falling in love with you. I fell in love with you. I loved your name: not common, chosen, and mysterious—Attic. I never asked you how…
A Circle of Solitude
by Lucy Carr I dreamt of the red and yellow wool blanket that my wife, Evelyne, brought back from Morocco. She had purchased it in Tangier just before crossing the Straits of Gibraltar by ferry. I reached down to my calves to pull it across my body, my arms trembling…
White Picket Fences
by John Neal “You have such a lovely house,” Meg said. “Is it?” Kate said. The words were out of her mouth before she realized she should have simply said “thank you.” Now Meg was giving her a funny look, and then maybe she figured Kate was being modest because…
The Silver Bell
by J. Caleb Thomas For as long as I can remember, Mother rang a silver bell every morning at six. It was small enough to fit in her palm but loud enough to wake the dead. Even when she was bedridden and pale with fever, she kept it on the…
Together You Will Survive Winter
by John Brantingham The first good day of the year finds you sitting on the bench outside the building where you work. You’re eating your sandwich across from the crow who is watching you and having whatever thoughts and daydreams and beliefs crows have on sunny May afternoons. Both of…
Idle Flier
by Craig Proffitt Eating lunch in my crappy car. Staring at the Swamp’s glass door with the peeling tinted film. Don’t want to be around my coworkers in the lunchroom. Can’t afford to eat out. So many wrong turns. Survive another day. Is that really a goal? I think another…
5:59AM
by Sam Hendrian Bed sheets wet againFrom tears and solo gearsCranking away at fantasies,The last remaining safe space. Sunrise is mercilessly early—6 AM to be exact—And there’s a suffocating pressureTo start the day off strong. But no one’s ever gotten anywhereOn the strength of a resolution,Since it’s only a brief…
Waiting for Hunter
by Jackie Tricolli I am slow to rise in the morning, no urgency to start the day, no task to get me moving. I am slow to rise from a bed I just bought in a home I just made my own, daylight peeking through windows bearing no blinds, a…