Fiction

by Andrew Siegrist Cristian Siallagan The woman tied the brick to the pedestal inside the broken birdcage. The brick was painted blue. She stood at the trestle bridge railing and dropped the cage when the wind calmed. The river was quiet before the splash. Cold ripples moved across the surface. She held her breath but still she couldn’t remember the song they sang as children when she chased her brother barefoot through the snow to scare away the winter wrens. She thought of

by Morgan Melhuish Jeremy Bishop The smog holds everything in place. Listless winds barely disturb thick banks of cumuli, pendulous and scum-grey in the gritty sky. A tang of electricity still buzzes in the air from last night when dancing, darting lightning struck at the sea. I love how the burst-battery taste mingles with salt. I love the shore with its percussive waves, how we have shocked those sluggish oceans from cardiac arrest. Today a dirty tidemark of spume and stink

by Joshua Jones Lofflin Lukas Schroeder Ida will give her life to Jesus, that’s the plan. Or at least to youth pastor Randy Skegs whose beard glistens with sweat — a holy sheen — as he skates past in gold suede Riedells, their wheels shush-shushing the hard, hard floor. He urges her forward, beckoning with his hand. The same hand that passed her a New Holy Rollers brochure last month as she bagged up his groceries. The same hand that, at youth group last Sunday, slipped a pur

by JD Clapp Charles Moll Maria’s teeth are chattering so I’ll snuggle closer. She has my blanket already. Mom says people don’t know it’s so cold at night in LA in wintertime. If they did, they’d do something about all us homeless people. It’s worse in winter because we need to keep the windows cracked so it don’t fog up. The cops know people are sleeping in here if they see foggy windows. If they come, we gotta move and mom might get another ticket and she says we can’t pay

by Spencer Nitkey Omar Roque Bethany told me she liked girls the same day mom ran over the neighbor’s dog with the Chevy. The only way I knew that anything had happened was that one day the Chevy was there like a bright red pickup-sized zit in the driveway, and the next it was gone and there was just a weird patch of grass — about a truck’s length wide — missing from the backyard. Churned soil and my father’s scowl and it was summer, I think, because we’d been gone all day, B

by Mario Aliberto III Bridjett Renae This specific disappointment stews in Todd’s head as he slumps on an Adirondack chair on Marcy’s boat dock. There are four such chairs, painted hellfire red, evenly spaced in a semi-circle affording those gathered an equal view of the Withlacoochee River. Todd finishes his beer and tosses the can into the sun-dappled languish of the current. So, although it’s his birthday, it’s no different than any other Sunday he pulls up a front row sea

by Tommy Dean Grant Durr We’ve become the boys of the woods. The stars of an unplanned documentary. A small crew of camera men and a producer huddle around us at night hoping to catch us retreating back to our parents, to the well-lit hallways of our high school, to the anonymity of our social media avatars. One of us went missing three days ago. And depending on the source, a farmer or hunter found a missing shoe or shell necklace or a ripped leather wallet. The missing boy

by John Waddy Bullion Chris Kofoed Something perfect about the lack of subtlety, ain’t there? You know there’s a story, without one even being told. A beginning, middle, and end that bypass all logic and beeline straight for the bloodstream. Just think about what a showpiece this would make in your den, or in your front entry, with two of Willie Nelson’s old pigtails hanging from its ears. This is a beast haunted by nothing but pure neon want. He gorged himself to death; now,

by Fiona McKay Meric Tuna and me and Tom are racing-not-racing up to the ridge, the wind chasing us up the rock face, tearing our breath, stealing all sound except air, wet and ragged, in and out of our lungs, and I’m always fastest on the cross-country team but today Tom nudges ahead, his fringe scissoring across his forehead, and I want this win, need it, but today the gradient, as Mr. O’Connor, our geography teacher would call it, is too much for me, for my shaking legs — 

by Kevin Kirwan Saira/Unsplash The boy stood alone in front of the massive tank and considered the creature that stared back at him from the other side of the glass. Neither the human nor the fish were particularly remarkable or noteworthy to those who were moving about in the gallery around them. The boy was seven, or would be some four days into the future, and it was this upcoming anniversary that had occasioned his visit to the aquarium on this particular day. As for the

by Alan Beard Dillon Kydd The first day there I was given over by the foreman to this brash lad, all darts, car and disco. As he showed me how to fit the pit prop together he gave me some chat about girls, about his souped-up car. He made allowances as it was my first day for my incompetence with the handheld crane. The foreman frog-eyed and plump was friendly to me, told me about his sons in the army. I worked at it, applied myself — not too successfully. One bloke, scrawny,

by Marilyn Duarte Brad Preece During our junior high school year, Sophia sneaks out of her apartment, and goes bowling at 3 a.m. Before the school day officially begins, we climb the concrete steps leading to the building’s entrance. We notice, but don’t mention, the ease with which the chunky snowflakes’ whirling in the air slip onto the patches of ice in front of us, and melt. At the top of the steps, we huddle in front of the wooden doors to kick off the slush from our boo

by Bronwen Griffiths Filipp Romanovski Lily She remembers the lilies in the house after her grandmother died, the dizzy perfume, the fluted white blooms, the way the lilies stood out against her mother’s black suit. Snow Her dress is as white as the snowflakes falling outside the church. How pure she feels, pure as the unstained blanket of snow, her soul bleached clean. First communion; the wafer white as the skin of an angel. Satin She loves her white tutu, its satin bodice

by Pat Foran frame harirak/Unsplash When the radio was a rope and someday was a lifeline to a place that wasn’t a place, but could’ve been, we were good. Yes, we were good, we’d say. Rope-less, lifeline-less and could-less, we get it. We see. We see we aren’t so good. Not anymore. Not in this rain. We have rainwater in our shoes rainwater in our blues rainwater in our hearts rainwater in our souls rainwater in our Riboflavin, I tell our alchemy life coach. You are a tuning fo

by Lucas Hubbard Gurdaas Malik Magic isn’t real. No one can witness a thing that isn’t there. Unless, at some marrow-deep level, they want to. The catcher is not a liar but a helpful usher, escorting the umpire along the narrow corridor of their biases and blind spots to the destination they always hoped to reach. 1.Two-seamer, belt-high First, mark your calendar when Maddux is on the mound; only on Maddux Nights will Dad let you have a Barq’s after 7 and lounge on the couch

by Gabrielle Griffis Lane Gore Before my brother was born he was a cactus, solitary, beautiful, frequented by insects. In winter he would dehydrate to keep from freezing beneath the snow, and in summer he’d bloom just for one day. The bridge extends across the water, littered with crab carcasses and oyster shells. Wind blows beach grass and reeds. I peer over the edge, at the murky sea water below, unable to tell if the tide is coming or going. The bridge connects to an islan

by Kim Magowan Sanath Kumar Our son’s Quaker school marks the end of every school year by insisting all students and faculty walk from the school building to Lindley Meadow in Golden Gate Park. The tradition is either famous or notorious, depending on audience. When Henry was five, my sister Eileen maintained it was shocking that kindergarteners were expected to walk three and a half miles. Prone to hyperbole, Eileen used the phrase “borderline child abuse.” Personally, I lov

by Veronica Klash Leo Visions/Unsplash Beige — Eiffel For You MQ3–37 When you first moved to Vegas, there was beige. The beige walls of the apartment you rented for a reasonable price. Much more reasonable than you could ever find in New York. The bland nothingness of the color was only enhanced by the texture of the wall, intentionally pockmarked like a face years after their teenage self couldn’t hold back from excavating the ripe bumps ready to burst on their cheeks and ch

by Andrea Bishop Elena Mozhvilo The mom and the boy are locked in a tiny bathroom together. The dad is at work. The bathroom door is big enough to walk through. The window big enough to climb through. How did she get here? The boy is on the floor vrooming and occasionally wee-oo-ing his trucks, a tiny red fire engine, his favourite, and a miniature police car. One in each thick, pudgy hand, the knuckles buried so far beneath puff it’s a wonder his hands work. The ambulance, h

by Vasilios Moschouris Les Argonautes It started slowly, crept in from the edges, and so nobody in the little valley town noticed the old tree was losing its color until it hung in a shimmering cloud above its leaves, shifting from green into blue into violet into red and back again, and its body, its roots and branches, cut a sharp silhouette into the world. They cordoned it off, but still the townsfolk gathered in crowded rings around the perimeter fence to watch the color