Fiction

Tornado

William Beeker
At school they taught us to recognize a bell that signaled a tornado had touched down nearby. They taught us to sit in the hallway with our textbooks fanned ove...
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The Curse

Swetha Amit
I'm playing a doubles pickleball match in the women's finals of an interclub tournament when my paddle breaks. The handle separates, and the paddle thuds agains...
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My Circle Just

Spencer Nitkey
Mare was already $75,000 in the hole. A deepening, widening hole with toothy edges, and there were definitely divorce proceedings at the bottom of it. But she k...
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Better Liars

Anthony Lien
Pathetic old Warren looks demented as he climbs up onto a table near the pinball machine, a freshly poured pint of Modelo splashing around in his hand and an IV...
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Bathtime

Francesco Moschetto
It’s another sunny day in Los Angeles, and the cars are honking. I ran my usual loop down to Costco, past the boxing gym, and back. Steven Tyler, my dog, pissed...
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Last Action Hero

E.P.D. Pretty
It’s what he calls himself when reality kicks in. Like when he cleans the sick from the downstairs toilet, or climbs the stairs with his mother slumped across h...
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Was

Gianluca Cameron
Cat’s eye glasses, commonly associated with librarians. Black-and-white polka dot dress. Believing in the afterlife is easier than believing she’ll never be rea...
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Conjure Me

Naomi Blythe Gold
The '79 Lincoln Continental shone blue as moonstone at high noon. It was her papa’s ‘til he died of black lung, then Suzanne’s, but I drove. A deadly heat wave ...
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Reflections

Sadee Bee
Their dining room felt a thousand yards long. His ice-blue eyes bored into her like needles pricking her delicate skin. Words filled the air, his lips even move...
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We Worry, Inc

Jan Hassmann
Wading through the jungle of mental health ads, you almost feel bullied into peer depression. And what's wrong with bottling things up? Works for the whole fami...
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bb

David Ullmann
Kyle wants to have a baby with Abby. They are not married and never dated. But, he loves kids and can’t go five minutes at a family gathering without swaddling ...
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Chatterbox

Michael Duffy
I was just outside of Pinewood Cove, ten miles from the anomaly, but I don’t quite remember driving, parking, or sitting at the counter of Tom's Diner. Not unco...
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Man-monster

Courtney Causey
Whenever I get together to have lunch with my sister Pris, she’ll bring up my husband Dicky, me, Dicky’s ghosts. Then she’ll bring up daddy, because daddy had g...
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The Electric Cousin

Andy Junk
“Damn you, my Grandmas. Damn you, my Grandpas.” Kevin spoke these words under his breath, softly and without emotion. He had said them countless times: first as...
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