by Robert Sumner From an elevated lifeguard chair, Kip watches dozens of swimmers frolic in the community pool. A pair of mirrored sunglasses rests on his nose just above a smear of white sun block. Juneau hangs out below, leaning on the long metal poles that elevate Kip’s chair. “Did…
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…
by Lisa Harris First principle: Perfection, peace, wholeness, being complete: one. We speak into each other’s lives and begin becoming. Tenor toned your velvet voice makes a pillow for me to choose. When I misunderstand or don’t hear, I trust timber and pitch. I trust you. On a campus where…
by Sarah Leslie We were the only two who could ever get into your head. Jack convinced you I manipulated you. But all he ever did was flush away reason and stir up a rage. It was never easy to pick between the two of us. You and Jack went…
by Lisa Harris Hijacked— shadows recede and light breaks open in a sunrise and later dissolves on the horizon as it sets. Light shatters when a bulb falls on the floor at our feet. Shards are swept beneath a rug. They work their way through fabric to cut the feet…
by David Tuvell We’ll live in dim half-light before we sleep: this perfect Colgate slush where rocks are buoys romancing the coming moon above. We’ll tread this exhausted paddle, proving life- preserver love. We’ve fallen hard for vinyl siding, that sure-fire sale from Sears, the lines of easy converts that…
by Lisa Harris A square, a cross, and four directions place us in space and make us stable. We are fixed in a stillness that draws our energy in. Seeking a haven, we read signs and symbols silently. We want a house to hold us the way we hold each…
by Lynne Shaner After what seemed like ages of leisurely kissing, days lingering in the garden, and hours leafing through piles of papers on slow, sexy Sunday mornings, he left. Sure, we had argued some—sometimes loudly—but who hasn’t? I had even been wearing my hair down, mostly for him, nearly…
by Sarah May Wilson Eyes are staring at me from the rearview mirror. Almond shaped and haunted, coal black pupils with flat, sea green irises reflect back. The days have taken their toll on them as each hard year has passed. These eyes have seen too much, endured too much….
by Nitin Dangwal You came to know that a guy in your college loved you. You came to know this when you bumped into an old friend from college, and he casually mentions this. You are bemused because you always thought of him as a friend. You smile, and express…