THE STUYVESANT BEE 225 by Mike Topp
I found a wallet today that contained $200, some credit cards, and some family pictures—my family now.
OUT FROM UNDER THE BRIDGE: ON DAVE FITZGERALD by K Hank Jost
To refer back to Jeanette’s advice again for a second, it’s not just that no one will care if you don’t do it. In a lot of cases, it’s that no one will even know if you don’t do it. For me, ‘doing the thing’ has changed my life.
QUESTIONS FOR THE ALIEN WHO LISTENED TO THE VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD by John Waddy Bullion
In your mind, is there nothing better than coming home after a punishing day in the asteroid mines, firing up a space joint, and taking a blissful sound bath in the pure vibes pouring forth from your carefully curated LP collection?
THE STUYVESANT BEE 224 by Mike Topp
For decades The Stuyvesant Bee has been a password known only to the LITERARY ELITE, whispered at CIA-sponsored cocktail parties, discussed in zoom meetings hosted by Paris Review interns, loudly recited at salons & saloons around the reading world.
ANT STORY by Michael Seymour Blake
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THEY CAN LIVE WITHOUT FLIES by Michael Seymour Blake
She lay huddled and naked in bed, her skin a grayish black. Her brittle hair broke off at the slightest touch. I rested my head on her rigid body, hearing nothing. I inhaled—a dull, mossy smell. I called Dad. He came over right away. He tapped Mom a few times, then knocked on her like he was knocking on a door. He placed his ear against her open lips. “Get me a flashlight.” I brought him one. He shined light into her mouth. “What do you see?” He grabbed a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket. He…
WILD RELEASE by Evan James Sheldon
The ballroom was empty except for stacks of chairs along the walls and the man staring at the ceiling. With no one around him in that large space he looked very small. I waved my arms over my head but the man didn’t notice and kept on staring at the ceiling. He was off in his own world. I pulled out my weed pen, which most people mistook for a flash drive. Even though weed was now legal, I was still secretive. Learned furtive behavior from all my high school friends having misdemeanors for possession. The Toy Voyager conference was…
LOVERS by Michael Farfel
The two of them live in a small house that overlooks a somehow smaller lake. He has family money and neither of them have to work, but he finds meaning in his work (development—of what? we’re not quite sure) and she writes poems. The house is ancient and the rooms are cold. They often lay in bed until long past midmorning, even sometimes past noon. They argue about who will make coffee, always finally decided by who has to pee first. It’s usually her. The house, which the locals say is as old as bones, is older. It is rickety…
LUCID FIRE by Cletus Crow
I’m dreaming that our bed is engulfed in flames, but in the waking world either your body lies draped across my torso, or I have a fever, or we forgot to turn the oven off, or someone dropped a burning corpse between us, or we have too many sheets, or I can see the future, or our bed really is engulfed in flames, or God came back when we were sleeping, or global warming works faster than they say, or a Republican tweeted, or there was a gas leak, or the neighbors can tell we aren’t just friends, or I’m…