WASTE NOT WANT NOT by Steve Anwyll
A gust of wind blows me forward. The storm follows me in through the door. The snow swirls at my feet. I laugh like a madman as I slip on the slick tiles.
MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER by Leigh Chadwick
What your therapist doesn’t realize, you want to tell him, is that any length of loneliness is too long.
ALIEN HAND SYNDROME by Dan Melling
He’s lying on his back. His useless, hairless legs stay wherever I put them.
BURRITO by Nathaniel Duggan
I decided to order the burrito. I pronounced “burrito” wrong. The word fell from me, flabbergasting and impossible.
THE PLACE WITH THE RAIN by Tom Laplaige
Oh dear is a fretful tingle. A tingle hatches hungry dread. Roger drops to knees.
PET FENCES by Nathan Dragon
The phone number I have, my phone number for the last 16 years at least, used to be this other guy’s phone number—
THE PASTRY SHOP by Babak Lakghomi
He dipped his finger in the whipping cream and held it in front of the boy’s mouth. The boy looked down at his feet, then raised his head and licked the cream from the man’s finger.
BLOOD WORK by Greg Mulcahy
Some things, Bass knew, were better not said, even if at one time everyone was saying them
ASA, AWAKE by Lisa Korzeniowski
Asa is asleep in the sun, arms track-marked and mosquito-bitten, crossed over his chest, his mouth open with a mid-sentence look, teeth, gone or brown, chin stubble flecked with leaf bits. We lean down, listen for breath. He whispers something that sounds like help, and then, he opens his eyes. “Hello,” he says, adding extra o’s. “A porch is no place to sleep,” our mother says. Asa tells her to make like a tree and leave. “Damn drugs,” she says, followed by “my son” and “junkie.” Asa smiles when she leaves, spits over the porch railing as she backs out
THE NEXT, BEST DISASTER by Janna Miller
The rabid snails were completely gone. We would get our deposit back. Probably.
R by Robert Warf
We liked tabs. Gas masks. We liked getting faced and night surfing with the parked Bronco’s glowing eyes as our landmark when we were out in the lineup.
TRAJECTORY by Nicholas Claro
Like everyone else, when I see the plane, I get up from the table to get a better look. I’m not exactly sure at what speed planes travel, but I know a plane must travel faster when it’s diving.
POLAROIDS by Mila Jaroniec and Cory Bennet
Why waste energy saying you know what I mean in five separate words when you can smush them together and let them fall off the tongue like your drunk ass down the stairs after several bottles of MD 20/20?
HEY, REAL QUICK by Zac Smith
I realized that I could basically live at the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson Township, New Jersey, if I wanted to… So that became the plan… I got there just before nine in the morning… Bought a season pass… The guy at the ticket booth said the season pass meant I could basically come and go as I pleased for the season, which, you know, was several months… So, obviously, yes… Ahh… As I pleased… And I wholly intended to be pleased… Pleased and amused… A whole park dedicated to being amused… Just as I pleased… A
RABBITS OUT BACK IN THE BURN PILE by Nat Baldwin
If we found him we dragged him back up the hill into the house. Our faces would burn if we did not do this. Sometimes, even if we dragged him back to where he belonged, we would still get punished.