by Thomas Weedman It starts when I lose my keys at work and unexpectedly find K in my apartment bed. She’s a nubile barista I serve coffee with. She’s half my age and size, part-time bassoonist, but like me, a full-time flirt. Out-of-my-league, she and her touch-me-please mestizo skin are…
by DC Diamondopolous Pa decided to join the Bonus Expeditionary Force. After dropping Ma and the youngsters off at Uncle Vernon’s, he let me ride the rails with him from our home in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, all the way to the Washington Freight Yard. Pa and thousands of other veterans were…
by Trish Annese I meet M. in Prague on a lonesome Sunday in March as I chase a lost turquoise scarf down an asphalt alley and she retrieves it, stepping from the recesses of a darkened doorway—a mistress of ceremonies stepping into the spotlight—and restoring it to me with a…
by Joseph Dehner “Be the best,” John’s father told him on his tenth birthday. But then Dad injected a correction that would burrow like a parasite into John’s memory. “What I mean is, John, be the best that you can be.” John ripped off the gift wrap and gushed, “Wow,…
by V.J. Hamilton Blue was on the bottom. The popsicle was red on the top, pointed like a rocket; white in the middle, the cylindrical fuel tanks; and blue on the bottom, where its mighty boosters would achieve lift-off. Gigi’s tongue, that slick primordial muscle, rooted around for blue. She…
by Cathy Bown There in the passenger seat of my uncle’s old red Ford pickup was where the truth finally hit me. As I gazed out the dirty window at the golden country around me, I could see tall oak trees bursting with autumn foliage just waiting to return to…
by C.S. Hanson No one is watching. Sometimes it feels like I’m in my own dream. My body wandering among the rooms of this apartment. Here in the living room, I rotate pillows on the two sofas. I move the patterned blue-and-gold ones to opposite ends of the light-blue sofa….
by Emma-Rive Nelson The night was very dark, and very cold, and Lars was waiting in the dunes as the stars shivered into existence up above. His eyes were slow to adjust in the dim, frigid light, but he had spotted what he was looking for–a little bundle folded neatly…
by Ken Poyner You would never imagine how truly awkward this cape is. It is standard schlock for a superhero, so I use it. You would not expect a man who could deftly see through stone, deflect both dull lead and classy copper clad bullets, and bend-without-breaking riotous egg shells…
by Ed Davis The first time I caught a freight train, it felt as if I had learned how to fly. One minute I was anchored to the ground—feet in the gravel, backpack weighing me down—the next I was moving through space, transported not by wings but by tons of…