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LITTLE ARLO by Billy Irving

July 16, 2025 · Fiction

When she found the babe under her woodpile, it was October and already cold on the mountain. Poor thing shivering under the logs with skin blue and veiny. Eyes bulging and pupilless. She scooped it up and swaddled it in a quilt, one long ago rendered by her own knotted hands, and took care to tuck its thin limbs into the folds of the fabric. Thin limbs that twisted like corkscrew worms. She brought the thing into her cottage to warm by the fire and watched as the heat revived it, brought presence to its eyes, a look of health…

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PARROT by László Darvasi, translated from Hungarian by Ági Bori

July 15, 2025 · Fiction

As was his habit, he lay down for an afternoon nap, although next door they were building a church. The sounds of drills, hammers, and other tools kept waking him up. He fumbled his way to the kitchen, drank two glasses of absinthe in quick little swigs, plopped back in the armchair, and stared at the ceiling. Up there, the light was moving back and forth, forming streaks and patches, devouring itself. They were puttering around next door, and he remembered that the foreman had once said to the workers that not all of them would live long enough to…

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POCKET UNIVERSE by D.T. Robbins

July 14, 2025 · Fiction

I find a pocket universe in my apartment building. A whole ass other universe two floors below me! On the 23rd floor to be exact. You’d never know it was a pocket universe by looking at it. From the outside, it just looks like another normal door to another normal apartment. The pocket universe feels like it’s made for me. Like its dark energy and matter and various particles all exploded from the nethermost parts of my soul during its creation or my creation, or maybe they happened simultaneously and that’s how love works. The first night that I’m in…

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JITTERBUG JOHNNY by Grey Traynor

July 11, 2025 · Fiction

Jitterbug Johnny made it to the back of a dozen trucks and sports utility vehicles in the form of a sticker: “Jitterbug Johnny 1965-2023 – ‘Drive faster than an eagle takes flight!’” Jitterbug said the phrase any chance he could: before and after taking a shot, getting out of cold above-ground pools, even while receiving the toothiest blow job. However, it was a phrase that bothered some folks, sticking in their ear like a stubborn wad of wax. Did eagles take to flight faster than most other birds, they would wonder, shouldn’t this pithy encouragement have more to do with…

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SLUMBER PARTY AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Robert Helfst

July 10, 2025 · Micros

We’re nearly there now – lids grow heavy as the sun sets on our species. It’s bittersweet, sleep’s surrender, a warm blanket wrapping around our aching bodies. It’s better this way, a relief to embrace our conclusion without a coda, to no longer carry on. In the end it wasn’t cancer or rising oceans or mass extinctions or other self-inflicted harms but a deep fatigue that hollowed us until there was nothing left to do but rest, finally, now and forever. One last shared sigh, releasing the weight of our communal sins, and then the comfort of an unending slumber.

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NO NAME AND COOL PARTY by Erin Satterthwaite

July 9, 2025 · Fiction, Micros

No Name I looked at her picture to see if she was more attractive than me. I looked up her family’s ancestry to see if they had ever owned slaves. They hadn’t; they were quakers. I looked at the picture of my boyfriend and her when they were in Italy together. I had never even been to Italy and he knew this. Yet there he was four years ago eating gelato with her with his eyes closed and a big grin. He probably wouldn’t take me to Italy because I was dull and uncultured. She worked in academia at a…

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BURIED PATHOLOGIES AND THE ULTIMATE ‘NO PLACE’: An Anti-Interview with Oli Johns by Ryan Raymond Buell

July 8, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

How many people will read this interview? Will anyone read it? Will exactly three people read it—the writer interviewed, the editor interviewing, the publisher publishing … before a handful of thumbs sends it scrolling offscreen in their search for more content?—so much to read and digest, to form a perspective on … I can’t. I don’t have time. Just swipe to the bottom and see if it leaves a mark. It’s hard to know if I watched this or imagined it, but there is probably a cyberpunk anime where someone plugs a metal cord into their brainstem, and the data…

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THE CONSULTATION by Zac Smith

July 7, 2025 · Fiction

So a vasectomy isn’t actually reversible. I like to start off with that. Because for some guys that’s all they need to hear before they decide they need some more time to think about it. I know people say that a vasectomy is reversible, but it’s not. You really need to be done having kids if you’re going to do this, because it’s permanent. But I see you already have some kids so I’m less worried about that in this case. You have three, is that right? That’s great. Makes sense you’d want a vasectomy. I have three kids, so…

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THE GROTTO by Jim Ruland

July 4, 2025 · Fiction

I Seamus receives a key “You’re in luck,” the innkeeper said. “The Grotto is available.” The innkeeper was a large man who wore suspenders, wire-rimmed glasses, and a fisherman’s cap. He looked like a builder of model ships. Seamus smiled and waited for the innkeeper to continue. “The Grotto is our most popular room. Usually booked months in advance. We had a cancellation, so it’s yours—if you want it.” “I’ll take it,” Seamus said. “What brings you to the Seaside Inn?” the man asked as Seamus filled out the registration papers. “I was in the city for a conference and…

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THE ROOSTER THAT SCREAMS by Laura Shell

July 3, 2025 · Micros

So there is one rooster in the neighborhood that sounds normal, emmits the typical cock-a-doodle-doo cry in the wee hours of the morning. Then there is the other rooster, the one that submits a scream like someone is holding a hand around its throat. It’s like an “Ehhhhhhh,” sound. And it’s much louder than the other rooster’s call. So every morning, I hear the rooster that screams and wish I knew where it lived so I could find out exactly why it screams. *** The rooster belts out its usual “Ehhhhhhh,” sound, then scratches at the scar on its throat.

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