My father calls twice from the small hospital in our town – the first time he says: “They are working on her.” The second time, less than three minutes later, he says: “Your mother is dead.” I tell him to stay where he is, that I will come and get him, that he can’t drive […]
Fiction 81
Mariko Nagai: How We Touch the Ground, How We Touch
As usual, another season of betrayal must follow the harvest. During the harvest, we are safe. On the field, we whisper half a phrase and hum fragmented sounds of words amongst us, messages of the Carpenter-Son hidden in broken phrases of weather and harvest. We bend our backs to cut the stalks, huddling as close […]
Elizabeth Green: Taste
It’s the hottest day so far. I really like it here. I like the open lawns, the trees, the nurses in their white. How they stand out against the green grass. I like the big white building I get to eat and sleep in. It’s nice not to fear the place I sleep in. To […]
C.S. Ellis: Molotov’s Dogs
May 26. We limped out of the badlands at night. Las Vegas was a million screaming lights. The car almost crapped out at the halfway point, the fuel pump is shot. I was worried that we would break down in the desert and die of thirst. Sand would cover our bones and nobody would ever […]
Julia Conover: The Voucher
“It’s Marge from accounting,” says the voice on the phone. “Oh, hi Marge.” I try to remember who Marge is. Is she the pudgy woman, about thirty-five, with the thin lips and grey-flecked sausage curls who stares at me in the elevator? Or the skinny redhead with pasty skin who always wears a Flyers jacket? […]
Eric D. Anderson: Strawberry
Hector came out of the gas station and saw that his date had driven off. Perhaps that’s it, he thought, perhaps it’s the Milky Way in my hand. Perhaps that’s the dealbreaker. Who eats these anyway, besides children? He stood on the curb and ran through the catalog of possibilities that could explain this development—a […]