by Paul Hostovsky My thumb is pushing the thin metal thumb-lockof the screen door up and down, up and down,locking it and unlocking it—click, click, click, click—while I gaze out past our tiny poor excusefor a backyard, just big enough for a tetherball pole.My mother is sitting at the kitchen…
by Kenneth Bell A group of orcs rallied in front of a food bank. Some of them hoisted up picket signs that read “Meat is Murder” as they protested and roared to all within earshot. Others carried signs with graphic depictions of bloodied and severed limbs. The group formed a…
by Tayler Tucker From his lips billowed wisps of smoke, curling upwards enshrouding the hollow sockets where eyes should have been, cycling in a perpetual dance. His visage bore a labyrinth of wrinkles etched deep into his blueish foggy skin. God only knew where those ‘eyes’ led. His hair hung…
by Marah McCarty (This story contains themes of miscarriage.) Blood stains are on her fingers. Suppressing feelings, she moves methodically. Flush, turn on sink, scrub her hands clean. She is now only a series of dreams. She is no longer supposed to be observant to her heartbeat or the pull…
by Camille Hatcher My life is a book. The Book writes itself. And real people, strangers and familiars, consult it daily. Some, to follow a trend set by best-selling book lists; others, to obtain unfiltered gossip about people they know. All attempt to uncover a thirteen-year-long mystery: its author. Idiots….
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 Haley M. Forté It all began with a hummingbird feeder that hung from a maple tree. Watching the buzzing birds flit from perch to perch as the emerald leaves faded to their autumnal states was how Little Emilia wished to spend her mornings. Mother was always busy, and Father…
by Amanda Valerie Judd a poem is an ocean full of depths and reefsfilled with sharks and sailors and seaweedfilled with plastic and whale spermwhipping up a tidal wave and a hurricanea poem is an ocean working for industriesa poem is an ocean losing its relevance as a living thinga…
by Mackenzie Bodily “Rat-a-Tat” placed fifth in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2023 Fall Fiction Contest. Marlyle watched the words “BEACON ACTIVE” slide over the walls of his one-man cruiser. The cabin was dark, illuminated only by the stars outside the window and those words projected in bright red by his…
by Jess Earl Mama told me that thunder is just the sound of angels bowling. The angel outside my window doesn’t have hands but maybe it just can’t bowl, like how Katie can’t eat peanut butter. The angel doesn’t look like the ones in Mama’s paintings; it looks like a…
by James D. Mills There is a term used in support groups to describe a sudden onset of extreme emotion. When the dam of composure that you so carefully built comes crumbling down and there is nothing that can withstand the raging rapids of your own despair. The Grief Share…