by Adeline Macdonald Clean steam iron the linen sheets, white and crisp and beautiful and without fault or fold White walls upon white walls with nothing to upset you or hurt you or make you cry or want to leave or want to think Do you love it? Is it…
by Sarah Toney (This story contains suicide.) The air was thin and icy. Breathing it in felt like swallowing shattered glass. The city was beautiful from this height and the boy wanted to reach out and feel the warmth of the setting sun. The heaviness in his chest felt a…
by Parker Fendler After spending an hour at the computer, Eddie saw only his reflection on the screen. He slumped in his chair. Screw this. It was early enough in the semester that he could drop the class and register for a different one. Who needed creative writing anyway? He…
by René Zadoorian This short story was originally published in Qafiyah Review. Forty nine and freshly single, Aram sat in his dimly lit living room with a plastic container resting on the coffee table. The container’s lid was covered in unevenly spaced holes, punctured with the tip of a knife,…
by Jennifer Predny “Janet! The SuperShuttle is going to be here any minute. We gotta go, or they’ll leave without us.” The words barely penetrate the fog that encompasses my brain. I know he said something. I know that the words have meaning. They mean something…something. I continue watching the…
by Claude Chabot Lily had found the powder room in haste, and rapidly finishing her customary ablutions before the start of the feature, hurried to the stairs. This was her ritual before every picture she had seen, and though she could resist it, she felt fully at ease only when…
by Kimberly Kozubovska The railway ticket, now worn around the edges from handling, had been Leah’s only way to her destination. Sighing, she slid down to sit on a hard wooden bench outside the cloakroom and unpinned her hat. She ignored the impulse to feel the coins in her change…
by H.E. Shippas “Up next, Marshall Couper,” my teacher, Mrs. Smithson, announced. I gathered my papers and marched to the front of the classroom. Mrs. Smithson helped me pull up my project onto the holoscreen. The lights in the class turned off, my first slide illuminating the faces of my…
by M.E. Gayton On the morning of December 26th, Ralph Breckles came to the realization that he wanted to know when he was going to die. By dinner that evening, he had made the appointment to find out. The following week, Ralph drove to an office building located exactly 9.3…
by Joseph Biancalana He has to get out of the house. Before the young man had even finished Helen was already crying, running upstairs to his old bedroom. He let the young man finish, asked questions, thanked him, closed the door. He could hear her crying, almost shrieking, in his…
by Gregory F. DeLaurier (This story contains child abuse.) 1988… The River listened. Always did, always had. It heard the moans and cries of those in this little city who faced the terror of life, of death, of pain, of fear. It heard their joy, a wedding, a birthing, the quick…