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PINCH FORWARD MOTION OF TUMBLING by Angelo Maneage

May 17, 2021 · Fiction

Now we are walking down the riverbank and we still hear a dryer. I am confused by this. My mom says you should never get wet clothes but there is a garage sale by the riverbank where they are cheap. My mom says do not buy the clothes because they will be wet. I hadn’t even bought anything yet before she told me that they will be better if they are already dry. There were barely any things to buy. My mom kept saying go on buy them then she ran the dryer and looked at me. + Standing idle…

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“TALKIN BOUT HOW WE TALK ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS” by Michael Seymour Blake

May 15, 2021 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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THE KRASNERS by Aaron Kreuter

May 14, 2021 · Fiction

When I think back to those days it is fear that I remember, fear that I keep returning to, fear that I cannot get away from. First there’s the free-floating, general fear of adolescence: the fear of fitting in, the fear of saying the right thing, the fear of a body under revolt. And, for the most part, it wasn’t on the school playground or the mall food court, but at Kol B’Seder, the Reform synagogue my parents joined when I was twelve, where the major battles against these fears were waged. I fell in love in those hallways, made…

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A VIEW FROM THE CITY by Elliot Alpern

May 3, 2021 · Fiction

I see the backs of your shoulders—there you are, right there—on a bench by the harbor, where it’s windy, and where there’s a nice clear view of the monster ambling toward the city. “Hello,” I call out. You look each way, left and then right and then left again, but not behind, and so I jog lightly to your bench, take the seat beside you. “Hello,” I say again, this time a bit breathlessly. “Oh,” you say, “hey, I thought I heard your voice.” You look the same. And that’s with some years, a different haircut, a sort of quiet…

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SOMETHING IS KNOCKING by Sean Ennis

April 29, 2021 · Fiction

Grace and Gabe, after saying something very cutting—Grace, not Gabe—have gone to visit her parents and I am home with the dogs, in the shower, flooded with the memory of a woman I once slept with who kept demanding, “Look at me! Look at me!” It’s not, like, eudaemonic. Then the dogs are going crazy. Something is knocking. They get very protective of the house when I’m in the shower. I don’t hurry. And let’s be real clear: the dogs we rescued from the shelter? Did not rescue us. We do the nice, expensive things, and they basically hang out…

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LIZARD BLOOD by Alisha Wexler

April 28, 2021 · Fiction

Tuesday I wake up damp with a clenched jaw. Dirty towels on the ground reeking of mildew. Why do people record their dreams? Dreams are trout in bare hands—let them slip free! Mine are so generic anyway. I pluck out my teeth one-by-one like daisy petals. He loves me, I say with blood pouring down my hand, he loves me not. I move on. I weasel out of New York lease. I get out of bed. I go into the bathroom. I put on the clammy moist bikini hanging over the shower rod. I lay by the kidney-shaped pool in…

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“COVID VACCINATION #1” by Michael Seymour Blake

April 27, 2021 · Comics, Michael Seymour Blake, Wildly Inconsistent Comics

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TWO-IN-ONE by Genta Nishku

April 26, 2021 · Fiction

That summer, the water in that city ruined my hair. After every wash, the same refrain: clumping and matting. A whole bottle of hair conditioner later, and I was at the dim-lit bar. A man gestured something at me with his eyes, while outside, the awkward artist typed his number in my phone. We’ll meet for lunch, he promised. The warm air made disassociation easier, even if the drinks were weak and the conversation hard to follow. I’d get drunk at home, I decided. Then the traces of the day would fade, present and future melting together, like the sky…

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THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER by Gabrielle McAree

April 22, 2021 · Fiction

Dad has the emotional range of a runt-sized peanut. He hates the internet, roundabouts, tap water, trash collection, anyone called “Jerry.” He doesn’t trust directions and believes the government is listening in on his conversations. Dad grows a four-inch beard as an act of defiance, because it looks nothing like his driver’s license picture, and swears off technology. His collection of gray hair disappoints him, so he buys an electric blue Camaro. *** When Dad turns 63, I pick up a cake from the store. Half chocolate, half vanilla to curb his untreated bipolar disorder. I remember to be vigilant,…

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HOW THE WIND DOES BLOW AND BLOW by Kevin Grauke

April 21, 2021 · Fiction

If you’re smart, don’t ever let Claudette Aarons catch you reading anything, not even a magazine, because if she does, she’ll for sure say, “You know what you should be reading instead of that, don’t you? You should be reading Dorothy Scarborough’s The Wind.” Don’t ask her how come, because she’ll tell you how come for an hour. And don’t lie and say you’ve already read it, because then she’ll expect you to discuss it forevermore. And don’t ignore her, either, because she’ll just take that the same as if you’d asked her how come. Your best bet is to…

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