by Joni Bour It was a horrible, sideways rain day, seen only on the Oregon coast. I remember that day, because I remember him. He was quaking like an aspen tree, dripping, trying unsuccessfully not to fling water everywhere. He just stood there, not quite making eye contact and barely…
by Amaree Semrau It was yellow. “How about lemon-pie?” “I prefer butter-biscuit.” “Isn’t that a bit… dull?” Barry huffed. “If I have to live with it everyday, I’d rather it not be shouting at me every time I go in the room.” “But it should be cheery, Babe,” Martha whined….
by Sarah May Wilson The intermittent bumps of the rail connectors jostle me against the vinyl seat back. Aside from that I am quite comfortable. I didn’t expect a train to be so accommodating to its passengers. Looking up and out through the window to my left, I have two…
by Jory Pomeranz In some old encyclopedias, you will find under the article on Spain, the border between Spain and Portugal is 620 miles long. In the same encyclopedia, under the article on Portugal, it says the border is 760 miles long. It’s the same border. The geometry we learned…
by Ashley Henyan Today I took my dog Chilly, a white miniature poodle, to a brand new groomer named Sally. After I dropped him off I ran two blocks down the street to pick up a prescription from CVS. I was expecting to wait at least an hour and thought…
by Nitin Dangwal The curtain hid me from the first light of the day as the dawn broke and lifted the dark veil off the face of the earth. I was lying on the bed, half-asleep since last one hour, wasted from the last night party. I could still feel…
By Tom Ipri Brian Featherstone walked down Spruce Street—smart phone in one hand with its ear buds snuggling in his ears, its microphone dangling just below his chin, vape in his other hand—ignorant of the existence of other pedestrians in whose way he was getting. Some gave him an Evil…
By Kathleen Zabinski Something off kilter made him look back at the pile of rotting leaves beside the tracks. He wasn’t ever sure what it had been, but he remembered the hair on his neck rising, as his dinner rose, when he first made sense of what he was seeing….
by Elizabeth Penn I was dying. Or at least, that’s what the doctors told me. I had gone in for a checkup for a headache that had lasted for a few weeks, or was it months? It was 6 months since my husband, Bill, was murdered. And while I would…
by Julia M. Washington My people have been farmers since before they came to the states. Mama’s side cultivated grapes, raised cows and produced dairy. Daddy’s side grew food. Farming in some ways was in our blood. When Mama and Daddy married, they moved to California and left farm life…