By Todd Howard Two weeks ago, on Friday, Frankie’s ma made pasta e fagioli. Well, she calls it Pasta Fazool. Frankie told me that’s a Southern Italy Brooklyn thing. It’s soup with white kidney beans, pasta, greens, and some other stuff—like lots of garlic. Anyway, Frankie’s mom is the best…
By Leonard Henry Scott His head was twice the size of a normal head and his eyes starred out at two widely separated points in space, as if they were the eyes of a fish or of two completely different people. The right one was lower on his face than…
By Kale Meyer These days I find myself thinking back to the summer just before my dad left for good. I guess the old memories make the house seem less empty than it is. I try to fill my head with the pleasant ones. Of me running through the hallways…
By Deborah Foster In a private care facility in the mountains, there resided one who seemed to everyone to be off her rocker, but all is not what it seems. She was a diminutive lady who always wore her snowy white hair in a bun on top of her head….
By James Cato I met the Tooth Fairy at a bar-club called Revolution. I sat alone with an IPA, letting the bitterness pinch my cheeks and heeding the cartoonish scene of three college kids dancing to a pulsing beat on an otherwise empty floor. In the opposite corner, a floating…
By Aubrie Arnold The husband and wife stood outside the multi-storied glass and steel building staring at the revolving front door. The weather was chilly and wet, and they huddled inside their long winter coats—navy blue for her and heather grey for him that matched a small portion of his thinning…
By Amory Cutting The deep winter months were weeping with their crystal sorrow and for a moment’s respite from toiling life I sought desperately to borrow a vision of blithe from the bright and boisterous television screen, I was now settling down in the living room and I breathed in…
By Emily Graham It was after midnight when he came calling. The rattle of his knock on my metal screen door woke me. I was dressed lightly. Even at night, it had been sweltering in the little house. Randall Clem Casey was standing on my front porch, his hands thrust…
By Nina Dorman Dark wisps of hair escaped my braid as I tightened my grip on the thick, slippery vines that wound around the ancient tree. Black, slimy moss-covered its shadowy branches, a death sentence to anyone foolish enough to try and climb its treacherous limbs to break free from…
By David Blome “Thomas, come here.” “What, Daddy?” “You’re gonna stay with Aunt Maureen and Uncle Frank for a little while. “Is Mommy sick again?” “Yes.” “How long am I staying this time?” “Just during the week until she gets better. I’ll pick you up on Friday. Now go get…