x-r-a-y magazine, Author at X-R-A-Y

A VERY SHORT STORY ABOUT TWO (THREE) FORMER FRIENDS by Eli S. Evans

April 15, 2020 · Fiction

On my fortieth birthday, my old friend A– sent me the following message: “Happy birthday, bro. Mark Fisher summited Everest last week.” As Mark Fisher and I hadn’t been friends for at least twenty years, this news was not meaningful to me except in so far as it provided a measure relative to which all of my own accomplishments in life suddenly appeared quite meager. And on the day of my fortieth birthday, no less! In bitterness, I composed the following reply: “That’s cool, but not as cool as when I summited your mom last night,” and only after not…

x-r-a-y magazine

“PANDEMIC WAVES” by Michael Seymour Blake

April 14, 2020 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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

x-r-a-y magazine

PETS: AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Jordan Castro (Review by Matthew Boyarsky)

April 14, 2020 · Interviews & Reviews

Pets: An AnthologyEdited by Jordan CastroReview by Matt Boyarsky I’ve been bitten by a dog exactly once. The dog’s name was Nelly. She jumped on me in what I thought to be a gesture of playfulness before she tore into my forearm. Nelly’s owner screamed. How could someone so good at making her happy do something horrible? “Do you need help?” she asked. I told her I was okay, that the dog was just doing her job. A dumb thing to say. The owner seemed the type of person to have her animals up to date on their shots, and…

x-r-a-y magazine

THE FULL LENGTH OF THE WALL by Darren Nuzzo and Toddy Smith

April 13, 2020 · Fiction

I watched him do it—down there in the alley beside our house. “Up to no good,” my wife said. “Can you handle it, Sam?” she asked of me. “I’ll handle it,” I told her. But I just watched. I watched this tall man from our bedroom window standing in the alley, near our things, near my wife’s car she’s almost paid off, near the flowers finally blooming from finger-painted pots, near my daughter’s purple tricycle we won in a raffle just last week, near all the things a husband is supposed to protect. I opened the window and leaned my…

x-r-a-y magazine

“BITTERNESS DURING SELF QUARANTINE” by Michael Seymour Blake

April 12, 2020 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

x-r-a-y magazine

YOU’RE LUCKY YOU CAME IN TONIGHT by Susanna Baird

April 12, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

Pickleball is a fun sport that combines many elements of tennis, badminton and Ping-pong, according to the USA Pickleball Association. Kids and teenagers play it. Seniors, too. I am middle-aged, but anyway, I play pickleball. According to me, pickleball is an okay sport you play with a paddle and a Wiffle ball. I play pickleball with my aunt in Arizona, the day before I fly home. She is a senior. She falls. *** The registrar in the emergency room looks like her name should be Gail, and she says You are lucky you came in tonight. Last night, 40 ambulances….

x-r-a-y magazine

SHORT STORY AS MODERNIST WITH HUMAN BRAIN by John Milas

April 11, 2020 · Fiction

for Marianne My classmates and I were waiting in line to hold a human cadaver’s brain. I took it with both hands when it was my turn. It was gray and smelled like tequila because we’d pulled it from a bucket of brains soaking in alcohol. It was heavy as if a generation of memories had accumulated within its rubbery noodles like a pile of dust. I thought if I dropped the brain on the floor by accident it would probably bounce like a spare tire. My professor brought our class to the cadaver lab on campus because she told…

x-r-a-y magazine

CONSIDER RAVIOLI by Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

April 10, 2020 · Fiction

We’re three in a row and it’s warm like the way the bottom of a plate is hot and comforting after you microwave leftovers. Colleen and Sean both throw off heat to my right and my left, so much blue between both of them like the most blistering parts of a fire. And Colleen wants to know why no one will consider the plight of the ravioli. Pierogis and poptarts are pockets and appreciated. So she wants to know why I won’t give ravioli another chance. What’s to hate? We’re calling them raviolis even though the word is already pluralized…

x-r-a-y magazine

THE GATED COMMUNITY by Joseph Pfister

April 9, 2020 · Fiction

We received the brochure in the mail. It was printed on that thick paper, the fancy kind, with raised lettering. ESCAPE TO FLORIDA! it read. YOUR OWN PRIVATE PARADISE AWAITS! Everyone in our subdivision got one, but that didn’t matter. It was February, the ground brittle with snow. We were ready for a change. Overnight, developers transformed miles of Florida swamp into a mecca for the recently retired. Walk out your back door onto replicas of Sawgrass, Augusta, Pebble Beach! Work up a sweat on our racquetball courts! Cool off with water aerobics! Jazzercise! Sure, the amenities sounded nice. For…

x-r-a-y magazine

ALL WORKED UP by Linda McMullen

April 8, 2020 · Fiction

He often simply appears in my office, insouciant grin and silver hair: “I want to show you something.” In the age of #metoo, he is carefully respectful of a female subordinate. No hands ever touch in the exchange of— A binder with reference documents, paginated and neatly tabbed; a viciously indiscreet email from a colleague; a rare compliment on a memo from his own supervisor… Whatever it is. For my eyes. For me. Or: I’ve written his remarks for a major briefing the next day, and he invites me to pull up a chair, next to him, so we can…

x-r-a-y magazine

« Previous 1…29 303132 33…66 Next »