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Baby Ben in the River
fiction by Sara Johnson Allen Celia was not her mother. She had four children instead of six. Her mother had dropped dead young as if to prove too many children raised on the stoops of South Boston could exhaust you right over the edge of your early grave. Celia was not one to brag, but…
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The Ghost of Green Valley
Fiction by William R. Soldan When I was twelve years old, in the summer of 1975, I enjoyed a certain kind of freedom most kids didn’t. And not a day has gone by in almost half a century that I haven’t wished it had been different. Because maybe then I wouldn’t have seen what I…
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Glitter Shit
Fiction by Gabrielle McAree After swallowing half a bottle of cough syrup, Alex asks if I want to shave my head. I shrug my shoulders in indifference so he can make the decision for me. Our mother used to say my hair was the one “pretty” thing about me. I shove a handful of cold…
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Ruth
Fiction by Dan Crawley Her upper body bows over a pile of Scratcher games in the middle of the bed. She’s wielding a quarter on a bright red two dollar ticket. “Goddammit,” she mutters and starts to work furiously on another. I stand near the edge of the mattress. I might as well be acres…
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Osmosis
Fiction by Sara Hills The guy who wants to date my daughter shows up an hour late, swings his long hair like a cape and brings my daughter a square bottle of whisky with fruit in it, not flowers or an apology for being late but whisky and yes, I roll my eyes even though…
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The Hottest and Longest Lasting Fire
Fiction by Michaella A. Thornton A few of the mothers from the neighborhood stand in line together six feet apart at an Illinois pot dispensary. To get here, they have ridden the shuttle bus from the now-shuttered Gateway Fun Park, an amusement park their teenagers once loved to visit as kids. While these moms now…
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Family Portrait
Fiction by Michael Bettendorf The portrait on the dusty mantle was of a family who didn’t own new cars and never would. Flannel-clad and wearing their good jeans, the family sat uncomfortably in a studio worth more than their house. They wore polyester smiles and were told if they worked hard enough, they could accomplish…
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Gangrene
Fiction by Richard Holinger “Don’t go gangrene on me,” is what I tell the foot, but it has no common sense. It blames the black and smelly on me. “What you run into fenceposts for?” it asks. “Well maybe it jump out at me,” I answer because the snowmobile has got no radar. New powder…
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Balaclava
Fiction by Matthew Fiander The mask’s thick cloth deadens the bell’s clanging as I walk through the Speedy Mart door. REGGIE is behind the counter, a tag on his chest announcing, as always, his name in block letters. He is startled but quietly, just a faint lifting of a brow like What’s this? He isn’t…