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WHEN WE WERE SIX | Fiction by Catherine Parnell
A framed photo of a boy and his dog sits on the roughhewn table with claw feet, and the angled cottage rises behind the boy in lines dark as charred bone. The boy squints and rests his hand on the dog’s head. We know not the dog’s name, although there may have been a time…
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THE FIRST TRUE LOVE OF EDDIE CALLAHAN | Fiction by Jen Conley
It was 1993, and Eddie Callahan, twenty-four years old, had three problems: He was in love with a married woman, he was going bald, and he drank too much. The guys in the kitchen of the Sunset Diner, where Eddie worked, thought these things were a hoot. Old Joe, who wasn’t that old, was forty-seven,…
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GETTING IN THE SPIRIT | Fiction by Emily Ver Steeg
She had to drive three hours to meet the man. Cross the border into Tennessee, then Alabama. It was less like driving to another state and more like driving back in time. She’d taken a sick day for the trip, didn’t want to waste her limited vacation days. She got depressed when she thought about…
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BATH TIME | Fiction by V.J. Hamilton
Change is in the air, a secret, indefinable scent. Mr. Smith is back home, and he is singing away, his number one song, Oh! Susanna. His warble falls flat in some places, and he mangles some words, but the song is recognizable by all. Mrs. Smith is sick of Oh! Susanna, so very sick of…
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THE KINGS OF GHOST CITY | Fiction by C.W. Blackwell
“Get out here, boy,” said Mama. She was holding the front door open with a drink in her hand, letting all the cool air out. “You’re about to meet your father.” It was the end of August—two weeks before seventh grade—and my first major growth spurt had taken a toll on my old clothes. Holes…
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CALL ME MR. BLACK | Fiction by Mike McHone
“Mister Black?” A block of ice formed in his stomach. Every nerve in his body told him it was a setup, a sting, and this…, this—what? —eight, nine-year-old kid was the bait. “I’m Nathan.” He scanned the park. Empty swing set. Old lady walking a golden retriever. Mother pushing a stroller. Group of people doing…
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AUGUST | Fiction by Patricia Q. Bidar
When my father left us to live with my fifth-grade teacher over in Navy Housing, my mother’s hands changed. They’d always been rough and dry, bare nails cut straight square. Now that she’d begun working, she visited a salon every two weeks. A pink bottle of Rose Milk lotion stayed on her bedside table. She…
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MORGAN TURNS DOWN THE HEAT | Fiction by Kurt Engstrom
Morgan stops to look out the kitchen window at the farmyard. The wind-scoured hardpan rimes a week-old skiff of snow with blow dirt that eddies across the ground like a nest of mice swarming a bad dream. The sun is bright, and the sky is an awful blue. The thermometer on the windowsill outside the…
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SONG OF THE CONFESSOR | Fiction By G. A. Rivers
I know you wouldn’t want me to be doing what I’m doing right now, sitting in a deserted dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, having a beer with my former manager. Emphasis on the word former is what you’d say to me with a tug on my sleeve and a show of eyes, the first salvo…
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INSIDE | Fiction by K.A. Polzin
The last time my father left the house was for a trip with us to Kmart one sunny day when I was eight: Dad shopped for household items, and my older brother and I walked the aisles, looking at the toys and games. Then, never again. He came home for good. There was no announcement,…