Showing results for Fiction
The Swimsuit
Matthew Feasley
When I opened my eyes, I noticed something large there lying on the ground beneath a half-fallen tree.
I, Caravaggio
Eugenio Volpe
Regarding my best self, she’s referring to yours truly, the one who keeps Michelangelo and Caravaggio from canceling each other.
2022 Night Out Manifestation
Amelia Anthony
We will have an easy drunken conversation I won’t remember.
Is not scar but is like scar
Shaun Pieter Clamp
She said she made boys fall in love with her. I said I was above her manipulations but I cried when she left. When she posted pictures with other guys I felt awful. I tried not to talk to her. Her messages came less and less until finally the feeling calloused.
Unsaid
Tina Tocco
Let’s say you go to the beach. And let’s say it’s on your own for the first time. And let’s say you’re 13 and look 15. Maybe 16. And let’s say your mom doesn’t know you’re going alone, because Olivia was coming, but the little chickenshit went and told her mom, that stuck-up bitch from Scarsdale, who said why the hell does your father even bother paying for flute lessons?
McDonald's Coffee
Al Jacobs
Once the coffee cooled I took a sip and said, Not bad for McDonald's coffee.
And he said, It really is a good cup of coffee. Wherever you go, you can always depend on McDonald's for a good cup of coffee.
And I thought, McDonald's coffee is trash.
We Were Once Combustible
Christine H. Chen
You roamed in like a chuckling bear into my house of beakers, graduated cylinders, round bottom flasks, you asked to borrow an Erlenmeyer, here you go, I said, thought you were just a clumsy animal, afraid you'd break something of mine, pushed you out of the lab and you came back bearing M&M's in a petri dish, half of them a mess of Blue No. 2
But Then Comes April
Daniel Joseph
For the better part of every year I try like heck to be a better person. Nicer. More caring. This year I’ve taken up breathing. I breathe in and I breathe out each day. Last year I learned to put less
Unwritten Rules
Joe Bohlinger
Rome was good. Sat ninety in the summers. Leaned on his off speed when the weather got cold. Postseason, most of the district had seen him by then, we took advantage of teams whose scouts said he was
Best Ever Battery
Anna Reser
I played left field for the Tularosa Middle School Tarantulas girl’s team. I was long and brittle, like a cactus spine. Or a splinter. And I was afraid of the baseball. I batted .083 that summer and
In the Books
Travis Price
Two things are clear to Ava: It’s time to end things with Nico, and Thad Worley might not make it out of the first inning.
He’s next to her in the left field bleachers chewing on a hang nail and
The Far Side
Julie Goldberg
She was going up to Poughkeepsie to see a girl she had met on the internet who, promisingly, shared her passion for Gary Larson comics.
Same Difference
Clare Fisher
She opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it, starts to laugh. ‘I guess we're both freaks.’
The Red Bird
Michael McSweeney
My six-year-old son stretches his arms to their limit as he describes his latest nightmare.
from the archives: "Navigators" from Hobart 12
Mike Meginnis
with an introduction from Matt Bell
Smiley in the Bullrushes
James Lineberger
If we accept the conventional ATF line, bootleggers are scoundrels of the worst sort, caring only for the almighty dollar, men who will poison you with hootch run through junk radiators and contaminated with everything from antifreeze to dead rats.
Weak Tea Scam
Joy Guo
Find your mark. As American as they come. Like this couple, standing a few feet to your left. Around your age, but taller, sturdier, sun-fed and muscular. Their smiles remind you of neatly racked milk bottles.
Seven Million Minutes in Heaven
Rin Kelly
It was during the seventh experiment that I died, or I think I died—I mean, I must have died because if I hadn’t there surely would have been a lawsuit of some sort, and I’d know about it by now if I hadn’t died. Maybe I’d be filthy rich and wouldn’t have to keep signing up for these research studies and tests just to pay my bills. And to buy my pills.
Two Episodes in the Life of a Mental Health Professional
Harris Lahti
The man who used to be my husband wanted to hook up. “Right here,” he said after parking our Nissan Sable in the road we used to live on and killing the headlights
Horse Poor
Alexander Lumans
After last night, I’m no longer allowed at The Mint Bar. You could say it’s because I choked the owner’s daughter up against the wall next to the jukebox that only plays Cash songs—pushed her hard enough that a quarter fell from the coin slot—or you could say she deserved it.
Recent Books
Pregaming Grief
Danielle Chelosky
Love is like a museum. You have to look around, experience things, and then leave.
Backwardness
Garielle Lutz
Garielle's longest, most peculiar, most particularized book. A sure-to-be collector's item. Delivery 4-6 weeks!
Dear Nico: the Diary of Elizabeth Ellen (Nov, 2018-Feb, 2020)
Elizabeth Ellen
"Is this the actual diary you wrote at the time? The diary reads a lot like a novel, with its motifs of the murderess, the acupuncturist, etc." -Garielle Lutz, author of Worsted and The Complete Gary Lutz