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Frost Tender
Fiction by Amanda Baldeneaux Autumn loosens everything. The cattails come uncorseted by late September. Hard wind unties the binding of seedpods for spreading. But just before the wind chill dips below freezing and the killing frosts come, the flowers in Crystal’s garden still bloom. Crystal only leased the lot of land from a neighbor, but…
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The Ghost of Buxahatchee Creek
Fiction by Bobby Mathews Caleb White has been dragging around behind me ever since I chained his body to an anvil and dropped the whole mess into the deep water near the base of the railroad trestle that spans Buxahatchee Creek. Ain’t no telling where the little bastard will show up. Last week, he was…
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Refinished
Fiction by Brian McVety The can of tile refinisher smells like the shame of gasoline. Zoë was nine when her father let her pump gas for the first time. He remained in their rusted station wagon to argue with the radio. The powerful gush forced the nozzle from her hands and drenched her denim cutoffs.…
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The Forever Project
Fiction by BettyJoyce Nash The bike chain slips. Vee dismounts and inspects the rusted metal, noticing her lumpy leg veins. Poor circulation, big deal. Her blood’s run around her body long enough. “Lemme have a look.” Finn, from Island Mowing, leaves his machine and ambles over in his ridiculous Hawaiian shorts, jumping with birds of…
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Squirrel Hunting
Fiction by Francois Bereaud On an October morning in the last fall of his life, Art sits on his porch, a cup of coffee fortified with a half shot of whiskey in one hand – fuck you cancer – and his pellet gun in the other. Art’s not a stoic about his condition. He’s angry,…
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Cleaning House
Fiction by Kim Steutermann Rogers Across town, a large hole is being dug to contain your grief, the headline read. Come by at dawn, dump your troubles, start a new day. The first day, Jen offloaded her ex’s favorite coffee mug, the stained one with a big blue “M,” the logo of his college alma…
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Orphans
Fiction by Jamy Bond On clear nights we snuck through the window of the bunk house and made our way to the creek to skip rocks and soak our feet. There was something about the cool air, the sable sky, the moon’s vibrant bloom that made our crime worth its potential punishment. If Mr. Brody…
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Every Which Way, the Wind
Fiction by Pat Foran My Dear Frontal Passage Friend, We’re having trouble hearing each other. Is it windy where you are? Is it raining, Gene Kelly raining, where you are? Is there a fire in the back of your head, burning from the back to the front, perpetually? Is it like falling falling falling without…
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Three Deer Yesterday While Driving
Fiction by Donald Ryan Headlights interrupted the young buck’s breakfast. With his head alert and body frozen, his close-cropped, sprouting points were as clear as a positive afterimage on the first blink. As the road veered, the beams, straight with the car’s speed of light, yielded the trance. He thawed. Another blink. He was gone,…
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If a tree starts crying for help in the middle of a forest, but it’s at a frequency too high for human ears to hear, did it really cry?
Fiction by Kirsten Reneau Yes, because we can actually see the acid tears that the roots secrete up through the soil, slicing their way through the hard dirt, physical markers of the call for help. Yes, because it is very likely people who are making the tree cry – well, the people or maybe termites…