The Universe or Whatever

Kelly Erin GrayAugust 1, 2024

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed.” She tells me this like it’s clear what she means, like we’re sharing a secret together. “It’s a law of the universe.” W...

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The Lay Club

Sean CavanaughJuly 31, 2024

They tossed the balls with sticks, curved ones like worms at attention, going long and cutting short, creating the impression, with lines, that the dogs ran cir...

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Speaking Backwards

Brittany DeitchJuly 29, 2024

Dating someone is kinda like sitting at the coffee shop and grabbing the window seat as soon as the guy gets up. Swooping in as soon as his stuff leaves the tab...

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Sea Foam

Brandon ForinashJuly 26, 2024

It all started one of those late Thursday nights her first year of college when Elizabeth (Lizzy) was working on some essay or project (forgive me, I am telling...

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Modern Weapons

J.M. LyonsJuly 18, 2024

Since the divorce, my daughter and I use the oak tree in the backyard of my rental house as target practice. It’s our way of bonding. I convince Sarah to preten...

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Airplane Toilet Thought Exercise

Leo VartorellaJuly 16, 2024

You are in a bathroom stall. Doesn't matter where. It is tight. You are very aware of your knees. You are doing whatever it is you do in there. You know. The ba...

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An Airbnb in Albion, Michigan

Alisa Ungar-SargonJuly 15, 2024

The house makes me breathless. Giant glass windows and tastefully curated furniture, a blank canvas for the lives we want to project. Matching stemware, fluffy ...

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The Ugliest Places in America

Jess GoldenJuly 15, 2024

For our first date, Ryan took me on a lakeside picnic. He picked me up in his boxy Toyota with a basket full of things he’d made himself—veggie wraps, salads in...

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STRAY

Lynn RossiJuly 10, 2024

G was back from Berlin and texted, so I went to his place. The 3 to the L, ears popping below the East River. It was August and muggy. More gray had crept into ...

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First Date Fairytale Set in Los Angeles

Lily NobelJuly 5, 2024

Harper is waiting outside the restaurant when I get there, waving at me with her small hand, which is disproportionate to the rest of her body. I’m cradling my ...

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The Ghost of My Ghost

Matthew WollinJuly 4, 2024

In the morning when I wake up my first thought is whether I have gone unvisited in the night. I double-check my body in the mirror, but it is devoid of the whit...

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Breakup Robot

Liz FyneJune 27, 2024

I married the breakup robot. Her name was Lucia. She’d been rented by Joan, my girlfriend of seven years, who’d tired of our relationship but didn’t feel like g...

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An Abridged History of Rome Examined Through The Birth of an Expletive

David LuntzJune 26, 2024

“Conceived,” Uncle Kev said, “when the Emperor Augustus was sampling a rare vintage from one of his cisalpine estates and found out that three of Rome’s finest ...

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Achieve Your Ego Death And Be Better Than Everyone

Jeff DinglerJune 24, 2024

Get An Ego Ego? Boom! You're already done with step 1. Wasn’t that easy? Id? Superego? I don’t know what those are—unimportant psycho babble. If you have you...

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A View from the End of the World

Cressida Blake RoeJune 11, 2024

Of all the apocalypses on the cards, I draw the climate crisis on my twenty-first birthday. It could have been worse. The Silvers across the street got the dogp...

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Bad Habits Abound

Matthew StottJune 10, 2024

I suppose most of what happened was my fault. It started with an argument at a party. Martha Henrickson was my girlfriend. I’d planned on falling head over heel...

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America Presents You Dreams And The Dreams Literally Eat You

Tyler DempseyJune 6, 2024

I'm starting a gameshow called Tyler Dempsey Has a Gameshow. I play Tyler. I get an agent. The agent says get some money. Get some money, then we'll talk about ...

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Getting Out There

J.D. HosemannJune 4, 2024

  A few weeks after arriving in M—, weeks during which I encountered many locals but made no lasting connections, I decided to join a long-distance runn...

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Save Our Spiders

Jeromy RubieMay 31, 2024

Spiders are as unique and varied as humanity, if I may be so bold to say. Their behavior is more predictable, so with just a few close looks you can learn many ...

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Sandstorm

Swetha AmitMay 30, 2024

On a sultry summer night, Timothee Chalamet showed up at the doorstep. Traces of sand particles on his curly black hair. His ash-grey warrior-like outfit carrie...

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Crocodile

Bridge LowerMay 27, 2024

        At night you stay awake and search.           mexico resort crocodile a...

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The Ballad of Lost Time

Dimitris PassasMay 23, 2024

It’s my birthday today. I am now officially 39 years old, unemployed, and still living in my family home along with my mother. I have no friends and any form of...

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Kafka

Michael FowlerMay 20, 2024

When I needed a special service, I thought of Rick. Rick was odd: a fear addict, for want of a better term. He was notorious in the crowd he ran with for the qu...

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The Sharpie Moment

Henrik DüfkeMay 16, 2024

Istanbul is not only known, as the ignorant foreigner might think, for its many mosques, its syrupy pastries, or its myriad of grand steam baths and even grande...

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Hoax

Scout WallaceMay 14, 2024

It was 10:34 on a Tuesday morning when the news came out. Less than an hour later, the headlines had already gone global, leaving the internet aghast, full of q...

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Witches n’ Bitches

David LuntzMay 13, 2024

The truth is he was a lousy fuck. Not that you’d know it from his demeanor. Like the way he would strut around stark-naked right in front of me and yank the fru...

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The Ghosts in My Back Pocket

Maddison ScottMay 10, 2024

Everyone carries a ghost in their back pocket. There are no rules about how many you can own but most people find enough companionship with one, perhaps two. No...

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Places

Sarp SozdinlerMay 9, 2024

“Excuse me, sir.” The man in pink hoodie approached me when I stepped out of the subway. His eyes got greener and creepier up close, and he looked shorter than ...

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Variations on Losing at Poker

Forrest RothMay 8, 2024

High Card Hand   Brushing up on the usual ways of losing as you do— and do well by local reputation— this is the worst hand, worst of the sorriest bunc...

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True Crime

Michael Patrick BradyMay 7, 2024

The letters began arriving by the dozens shortly after my picture appeared in the paper, sealed with lipstick blots and doused in acrid perfume. “It’s called hy...

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