The Lowest Pitch

Michael HammerleJanuary 12, 2021

I’d heard my hands were too fat for a six string. That’s a crock, The Jazzman said, that Israel dude was a thousand pounds and played a ukulele. At the music sh...

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San Marzano

Jo VarnishJanuary 12, 2021

“I’m not understanding why they’d want to hire you exactly?”  My husband pokes a hunk of burrata with his fork. I sit across from him in the busy, rustic Italia...

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Everybody’s Favourite 90s Cult Sci-Fi TV Series Sidekick

Emma BrankinJanuary 5, 2021

I have spent the last 72 minutes willing Luke Ryan’s bladder to fill with piss. And although he currently seems very happy slowly sipping his drink, I am poised...

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5 Ways Women Cause Their Own Miscarriages, by an Unsolicited Advice Columnist

Vicki TranJanuary 4, 2021

At the end of the day, wasn’t it “Her body, her choice”?   Are you finding it difficult to focus when your co-worker is crying about her miscarriage?...

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This Christmas

Tim FrankDecember 22, 2020

Six months from Christmas, I started scoffing all my lunches and dinners at Reggie’s, the food joint I worked at, where everyone had head lice, despite the stri...

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Lessons

Stephen AndrewsDecember 11, 2020

My kid busted his lip real good this morning. Hit a crack and flew forward on his face. Do we have to worry about any of that? No, right? It was gnarly. I think...

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J. Allister’s Shop of Horrors

Christina RossoDecember 7, 2020

A forever friend she called it. Someone to play make-believe with and to hold close to her chest at night. Someone who would never leave her, like her parents h...

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All the Girls Get Snakes

Shaun Byron FitzpatrickDecember 3, 2020

I was twelve when my first snake appeared.   It was the morning after my first middle school dance. I woke up and there it was, a tiny thing, jutting...

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Punk Adults

Rebecca van LaerDecember 2, 2020

Sitting in traffic on 42, Madeline wanted a cigarette. Chloe sang haltingly to “Deceptacon,” her voice dropping in and out of the verses. “Wanna disco? Wanna se...

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Welcome to the Playhouse

Kelly GrayNovember 27, 2020

ACT ONE (Thick red curtains are closed across the stage. The room is dark. Ushers in red uniforms, pamphlets in hand, line the isles. There is an orchestra a...

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Skyscraper Man

Logan CoxNovember 24, 2020

I get high. It’s what I do. It’s what addicts do, and that’s me.   Also, I’m a ‘sensation’ according to several news outlets and social media account...

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Field Notes for Echoes

Erika KielsgardNovember 18, 2020

The second ambulance and I almost touched. Two weeks earlier, I was the one inside, but no one was there. I was reading Villon before I received the news. Tr...

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Who Cares What Psychiatrists Write on Walls?

Steve GergleyNovember 12, 2020

Who cares what psychiatrists write on walls? is the answer I get, but it has nothing to do with my question. This is how things have been going ever since Trevo...

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If on a Winter’s Night

Shelby HinteNovember 11, 2020

If on a winter’s night a writer sits down in a darkened room with only the glow of a desk lamp to guide them, they may find themselves writing about the thing t...

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Heartbeat in a Jar

Elizabeth MullerNovember 7, 2020

I didn't mean to give the antique bookseller my heartbeat. It simply came out of me one day, an electric spark, and it was his.   I went to the rare ...

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The Helicopter Man

Kevin SampsellNovember 5, 2020

I heard the helicopter above my home. The noise lasted for several minutes as I lay in the bathtub. It got louder and louder as if the helicopter were going to ...

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Seasonal End Times Depression

Kelsi LongNovember 4, 2020

I’m shedding. Skin. There’s scabby flakes accumulating in all of the carpets. And in my sheets. And in the bathroom rugs. To be honest it’s a nightmare for derm...

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It’s When You Confuse The Most Horrific Thing In The World For The Most Beautiful Thing In The World

K ChiucarelloOctober 27, 2020

Saturday I drove out to the lake. Or at least someone told me it was a lake. The thing I was prepared to swim was lake-size.  When I had arrived, it turned out ...

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The Pong Paddles Got Divorced

Michelle DrozdickOctober 22, 2020

Left Pong Paddle stared across the parking lot through the windshield of its ‘13 Toyota Corolla, its iced coffee (almond milk, no sugar) momentarily forgotten. ...

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Justice

Mark JohnsonOctober 21, 2020

The whole thing, the whole trajectory, changed when I realized I had left all my cash in Des Moines. Most of the cash had come from selling off the few things m...

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Five Stars

Elliot HarperOctober 20, 2020

I fiddle with the lock. The key always jams. I have no idea why, but every time I try to get inside our mailbox, I have the same trouble. I guess I could tell R...

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PIT BULL

Ross McMeekinOctober 19, 2020

Christmas eve, Pete Summers was about to climb down the ladder from the roof of Clara Lessing’s home when a large brown pit bull came running down the driveway ...

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A CONDITION OF BODY AND MIND

Jack Sanderson ThwaiteOctober 15, 2020

You should get some sleep, but instead, you're on your laptop in bed looking at a photo of a beautiful tree. The background is nicely out of focus and maybe the...

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DANCING WITH ETTA

Ai JiangOctober 15, 2020

You would think that something attached to threads moves in a jerky manner that resembles Pinocchio's clumsy walk, but her movements are smooth and graceful, wh...

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The Other People

Pascale PotvinOctober 14, 2020

The screams upstairs were distinctly Ivory. “Ew- Dad! Kill it! Kill it!” she cried. “Where is it?” August returned, clunky sigh accompanying. “The bathroo...

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MERMAIDS IN THE BALLROOM

Sam GrieveOctober 12, 2020

“To be a mermaid you have to be able to swim. Or at least float with grace,” said Mr. Beekman. Of all the girls, only three of us—Millie, Francie, and I—felt...

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You Be Illin’

Richard DaubOctober 12, 2020

With the money he'd made from his 23-house Newsday delivery route, Carl had purchased a TV, a VCR, a $400 Centurion Accordo Tour de France Limited Edition twelv...

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Elias and the Wolf

Chelsea ThorntonOctober 8, 2020

The wolf had come for him. Come to devour him, swallow him whole until he was more beast than man, his flesh turned to fur. He knew the beast well enough to fea...

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Between the Lines

Eric LawsonOctober 7, 2020

After a myriad of meandering meanwhiles, the crux of modern civilization came sharply into focus: lines. More specifically, what lines are, what they can and ca...

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Beguilers

Mackenzie SinghSeptember 30, 2020

The specialist is coming to see me today. I’m told the first session will be a consultation. If I “cooperate” she can do for me what she did for a woman in Tall...

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