Reckon Review

Category: Fiction

  • Crows in the Barleyfield

    Fiction by C.W. Blackwell Adelia hides in the tall barley and watches the old man pace at the edge of the field. He looks lost and unsteady on his feet, sunlight glinting from his thick drugstore eyeglasses. He shouts her name with his hands laced atop his head as if the pose could somehow carry…

  • Extraction

    Fiction by Beth Gilstrap Novella had a tooth extraction and thought she’d be fine to drive herself home, but the gas was more palpable than she expected. It wore off enough to make the throbbing in her right cheek crawl down into her neck. Her hands felt dead. She plopped one on top of the…

  • I Have This Thing About Being Wrong

    Fiction by George Singleton My neighbor couldn’t put a four-piece puzzle of Florida together, but he’d been likable. We never talked politics or religion, or history, literature, television shows that don’t involve a laugh-track, music, baseball, health insurance, how America is supposed to be welcoming to immigrants. Reese’s the weatherman, six and eleven, for one…

  • Palisades Girl

    Fiction by Jim Cheney A skinny Metro cop is standing in front of me outside this deli over on Commerce Street. He’s got me cuffed, leaning up against the car, taking notes in his little pad, and asking the same questions over and over again. Then this big cop walks up and whispers something to…

  • Coming Home

    Fiction by Melissa Llanes Brownlee The streetlights are puddles in ink as Kahea weaves her way home along the cracks in the sidewalk, their sodium orange glow weakly shining on the neighbors’ mango, avocado, tangerine, plumeria trees. She’d just gotten off the night shift at the Sack n Save with a few pau hana shots…

  • Daytona

    Fiction by Nathan Willis The cars stay bunched together. When they go by, I cover my ears. It’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. It doesn’t bother the other people in the stands. They aren’t tourists like Harp and me. They understand the flags and strategies. They know the backstories of every team and every…

  • Tired

    Fiction by Stuart Watson I had been walking not quite an hour when I came to the truck. It sat on blocks. Four drums, no wheels. Or tires. A plywood sign rose from its bed. NEED TIRES That, I did. Just one, not like the truck. But was the sign referring to the truck, or…

  • Point to Point

    Fiction by Wilson Koewing Mike dropped Alison off at the Cypress Ranch Trailhead before dawn. There were no other cars in the parking lot. It was early October, and the peaks of the front range were lightly dusted with snow. She gazed at them, frosty and still in the distance and felt a lightness fall…

  • Real Life

    Fiction by Chris Milam Jennifer fills the spoon as I grab the syringe and lighter. This is how we make love now. We don’t fuck, we get fucked up. Been like this for two years. We’ve been together for two years and a month. We met at an NA meeting. Conversation over cheap coffee. Degenerates…

  • … and title it, “Faith”

    Fiction by Patricia Q. Bidar There’s a beach. Mexico. A young couple in a convertible, winding up a coast. A couple so attractive their grim mouths add to their allure. The man’s crucifix flashes in the sun. Introduce the players — not too many — in media res. There is me, in Philadelphia. At this…