Archives

MOTHER BUDGIE by David Cook

July 15, 2019

You push open the cracked old oak door and marvel as you step into the room. A whirlwind of budgies, of burnished gold, sunset red, ocean green and all hues in between, swoop down around your ears, chirping merrily, joy infused in each and every note. Others sing from up in the rafters while still more chirrup in colourful cages that line the walls from ceiling to floor. Being here lifts your heart. A woman approaches, clad in a shawl as bright as the birds that skitter around her. This is Mother Budgie. She is famous. Tourists come from all

AL WAITS FOR RAIN by Jonah Howell

July 14, 2019

1 I haven’t worn glasses since I was sixteen, so I heard him before I could make out his features. “So you’re not coming?” Pacing back and forth at the corner of Ninth Street, he shoved the phone in his pocket without hanging up. Let the other guy do it. He walked into a pizza shop, a narrow hallway between Ninth and whatever street runs behind Ninth. I followed. Pizza seemed wise: Forecasts showed a storm, but I was still scheduled for a long landscaping shift. He stood in the doorway, a tall man, probably six-four but hunched to six-flat,

BACKSEAT OFFERING by Janice Leagra

July 12, 2019

He’s just had a cigarette and a TicTac after doing a line on the console. His tongue tastes of tobacco and peppermint. The car is almost too warm. The engine’s running, the heat on full-blast. Still, goosebumps dot your skin. The light from the stereo shines lava red. It’s a raw, frigid night. The threat of snow hangs like a skullcap over Maple Lake. It’s the eve of your fifteenth birthday. He’s seventeen. He’s giving you your birthday present. Here, in the backseat of his Camaro. Fourteen isn’t so young. That’s what he’s told you for weeks. You thought sixteen

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE by Marina Flores

July 11, 2019

Firefighters in reflective neon suits stormed into the blazing Texas Thrift Store as helicopters circled the building in surveillance. The flames that escaped from the structure’s openings whipped and stirred together like vermilion lovers beneath a glassy black sky. A generator on the roof of the thrift store flickered—once, twice, like the first few seconds after lighting a sparkler on the Fourth of July—seconds before an atomic cobalt and orange explosion. Fire swallowed the structure in one gulp, almost offended by the attempt to save the remains of the building with hose water. That night, not much light was needed

SHOWERLESS by Chris Wilkensen

July 10, 2019

This train is a church in both its movements and its congregation. No one dares interrupt the silence. Metal rolling over rusted metal. Outside the scenery passes by like life to a teenager: fleeting but feeling never-ending. Most passengers wish they could be anywhere else to feel anything else, to feel something other than strictly operational. At each stop people straggle off, mostly alone, onto their next journey. New passengers come aboard. She hovers over me. She breathes harder and heavier. No other free seats. Her pink hair raises my own arm-hair. I move my bag to the ground for

CHAMP by Anthony Sabourin

July 9, 2019

Most days I would sit in a big jacket in my stall in the dark of the parking garage and I would open the gate for people when they drove up in their cars. When they were gone and it was quiet again, my brain would be full of this image of a spaceship screaming towards Earth, burning up as it entered the atmosphere. I wanted to shed all of the pieces I no longer needed. To burn away until I was almost nothing. I don’t know, other times I’d just watch pornography but not jerk off. I appreciated everything.

SEVEN DROPS OF SALT WATER by Ariel Kusby

July 8, 2019

First, she thought he was a man. Then, she thought he was a seal. But if you’ve ever seen the way a sea mammal disappears, becomes dark water, you’ll understand why she never thought he was a warm body but a bit of ocean contained for a while. When a slick being emerges fully formed from a void you want to grab hold of it. You want to ask it what it’s seen. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re any different, that the deep is darker than your own blood. The body is full of stories. Your blood will

“OUR BOB” by Michael Seymour Blake

July 6, 2019

Michael Seymour Blake is the author of the art book 12 Days of Santa Crying. Shirts featuring his art can be seen on hot bodies around the world. He eats, sleeps, doodles, writes, lives in Queens, NY. He easily gets lost. Instagram: @michaelseymourblake Fabulous (It’s True!) Website: MichaelSeymourBlake.com

PHARM BOY by Chris Milam

June 30, 2019

At the grocery, I was debating which would pair better with a chicken sandwich when I saw a ponytailed head wedged inside the refrigerated glass doors inspecting a carton of eggs. “Hello there, do you have a preference in pickles?” “Excuse me?” “Pickles.” I held both jars in front of me. “Bread and butter or dill?” “I don’t eat them. Sorry.” The smack of flip flips on linoleum trailed her into the next aisle. I accidentally bumped into her again minutes later. I didn’t need her to be anyone specific, not Rachel, not my mother, or the bored college girl

OUT by Michael Lehman

June 28, 2019

I walked out of the desert to get on a bus, and the driver threw me off in Phoenix. He said I was too dirty and shoved me out the door with a big bucktoothed grin. I changed my ticket at the counter. Immigration cops wearing body armor with black-and-white American flags on their shoulders were standing at the exits barking for papers. Past them, the valley floor was baking, the air full of dust. I walked by a campus of telephone company buildings, surrounded by glistening lawn and a cyclone fence topped with razor wire full of snagged plastic