Reckon Review

Category: Fiction

  • Porcellanidae

    Fiction by Mandira Pattnaik In our parts, the crab-girls wear skirts a little above their knees, twist their arms to look like unfurled bright petals. They glaze porcelain bodies to resemble a trap, a floret blooming. In times such as ours, the crab-girls lie to their mothers, use swear words, race their cycles with boys…

  • Through the Trees, On a River

    Fiction by Scott Gates His mama had told him it was too hot to be outside after ten, to come on inside, but the heat didn’t bother him. He had nice spot on a little rise near the pond, and he watched the still water from between two of the five trees on their property.…

  • Perseids, World’s End, Last Year

    Fiction by S.E. Hartz As I roll my dad up the hill from the parking lot of the World’s End Country Club, I pray for the clouds to part and make this all worth it. Dad’s gripping his hands to stop his tremors, and I can hear him working the dentures into his gums, nervous…

  • To Wash and Dry a Vessel

    Fiction by Lannie Stabile It started with a cheap coffee mug. Ceramic. Eleven ounces. A standard right-handed mug, though Mama always held it with her left hand, so the company logo faced inward rather than outward.  Daddy insisted she use one of the eight matching stoneware pieces received for their wedding, but Mama favored the…

  • Cookie Jar People

    Fiction by Jeremy Broyles Setting up the flowers was Dixie’s favorite part of her new job at the Wendell Funeral Home. Nothing could undo what disease or unlucky accident had done to those lying within open caskets or handed over to grieving loved ones as boxes of ashes that had once been bodies, but flowers—if…

  • Lexie’s Swing

    Fiction by Larry D. Thacker A place can sit long enough, neglected and abandoned, with the woods creeping back to take it over, and it’ll feel like fair game. No one wants it. Go explore. The old Pierce property was just like that. By the heat of spring you could hardly see the house, but…

  • Eight Seconds

    Fiction by Sabrina Hicks I saw the ghost of you riding the fence line of our old ranch, your sad eyes under a cowboy hat, lips set like a half-bent fishing line, same as when you told me you wanted to become a bronc rider in the rodeo—eight seconds with one hand wedged between hide…

  • Grammy Wants Me to Know, She Thinks She Once Knew a Lesbian

    Fiction by Laurie Babcock Grammy wants me to know, she thinks she once knew a lesbian. We’re walking along the beach, the sun peeking over the horizon. Gram is wearing a sweatshirt over a turtleneck and jeans, holding her coffee in both hands to warm them up. It’s spring break and my northern blood isn’t…

  • Stallions

    Fiction by John Brantingham Edna hears hooves as she is packing what she can into the large suitcase her mother gave her as a wedding present, clothes enough for her and her boy and all the cash she has in the world, which isn’t much. Tom would know what to do on a day like…

  • 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…