by R.M. Juillerat Life went on when the rain didn’t stop. It started with the glaciers melting. Then the tsunamis and hurricanes, eyes small, teeth barring, hit the coasts. No one listened. Earthquakes decimated eighty percent of countries, and no one listened. No one listened when the rain came, when…
by Michael McLean Lost! Second day on the job, and he was lost. Steering the white pickup onto yet another branch of a seemingly endless gravel road, Buddy Mack felt his anxiety rising. He had grown up in this country and thought he knew his way around. But since he…
by Tim Blaine It was mid-morning when Vlad D’Agostino leaned over the railing along the quarterdeck of the Magnificent. He watched as the rest of the crew made their way down the pier and into the city. The sun had yet to burn through a dense fog that lingered, siphoning…
by David Guba The water was cool as it sloshed between Gilbert’s toes. “Okay, I’m ready”, Maria shouted as she smoothed the hem of her San Dimas High School Drama Club t-shirt over her jeans. A nearby mallard tried to eat a floating grocery bag, what El Pasoans called a…
A Good Thing is the third-place winner for SNHU’s 2016 Fall Fiction Short Story Competition. by Megan Parker “Montgomery, Juneau, Phoenix—” Ricky slipped through the opening in the chain link fence, waving his flashlight for Meadow to follow. He had brought wire cutters just in case the vandalized links had…
As Good as Gone is the first-place winner in SNHU’s 2016 Fall Fiction Short Story Competition. by Joe Skonie It was said that Saturn ruled civility. When Saturn fell from the sky, it was as if the world came softly out of focus. The trees outside my window lost their…
by Vanessa Kristovich My grandmother was a great lady, the matriarch of my father’s family. She had bright eyes and salt-and pepper hair, and a beautiful, warm smile. She also had some strong opinions, and one of them was that a person shouldn’t buy junk. Grandmom used to visit at…
Machine is the second-place winner in SNHU’s 2016 Fall Fiction Short Story Competition. by Taylor Lea Hicks In a cave in the mountains, there is a machine. A machine with no buttons, switches, slots, or screens. Only a lever. It’s said that this machine can give you a new life; a…
by Afieya Kipp I loved that night: the sky a cosmic ice cream sandwich—Jula, with her skin like stretched vegetable tanned leather, putting her gypsy bells to work outside my crescent window. A chandelier of cow hearts, goat tongues and bikini waxed bunnies for sale, for sale! Usually, the sign of…
by Tyler Townsend A memoir of Jordan. I The vast majority of the area located around Queen Alia International Airport consists of rolling sand hills and sparse trees, which give next to no shade. The sun in mid-June is a murderous fiend. The locals, who are obviously acclimated to the…