X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine | Fiction

AJAR by Ankita Banerjee

May 19, 2019 · Fiction

He was at the counter flirting with a pixie cut. My eyes followed him the whole evening and I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I ordered my fifth gin and tonic, and when Sofie asked, “Why don’t you go talk to him?” I sniggered. It started raining outside – the worst kind. He was now purring to the little black dress at the corner table. She was small, with a little hunch on her back. I went out for a cig and argued with the voice in my head. “Perhaps it’s life coming to a full circle.”…

x-r-a-y magazine

GOOD BOY by Kailash Srinivasan

May 17, 2019 · Fiction

It was a mistake trusting your parents will come back to get you. It was a mistake turning your back to them, clapping idiot-like at the spinning top that lit up red in the dark. They left for Bombay, leaving you behind in Delhi with your grandma, your paati. Its summer—the city is a furnace, everything is melting. Your paati slips in the bathroom and fractures both her legs. With weights, pulleys, her legs hang in the air, like the hands of a clock: 2.10 p.m. Her loose, burnt-brown flesh hangs loose from her thighs. In brown shorts and a…

x-r-a-y magazine

GNOSTIC BAPTISTE by Gregg Williard

May 16, 2019 · Fiction, Williard World

“I found him.” “Him who?” “Gnostic Baptiste!” “The spam tag?” “It’s not just a tag! I wasn’t even running a simple traceroute function before I get a local postal address. So I go there…” “Wait a second. I need a beer for this.” Alex and I had worked together for 3 years out of the Attorney General’s Office, doing tech consulting for an anti-spam task force. Alex was one of the best systems designers I knew, parlaying hacker-honed skills into the legit and the lucrative. But the thankless and poorly- paid search for spammers had become his holy grail. I…

x-r-a-y magazine

LEPIDOPTERA by Shelby Colburn

May 15, 2019 · Fiction

She told me she caught a moth in her throat. We sat in a roadhouse munching on fried pickles as snow fell past the window. She reached into her mouth with a finger and pulled her right cheek to the side like a hooked fish. I leaned closer to her face and peered down her mouth. There it was, a grey moth lodged in the opening of her throat. Its small wings fluttered behind her uvula and tonsils. She popped her finger away, closing the opening to the moth’s new home. “It chose me,” Priv said as she attempted to…

x-r-a-y magazine

TO CUT A WIDE SWATH by Therese White

May 14, 2019 · Fiction

I smell ammonia. Old people. We visit Great Aunt Alma for no reason. It’s Sunday, reason enough. Her room: a single cell, a single window. The bed backs into a corner. Her white bedspread, a canvas. Little blocks, cut from her underwear, lay stacked: pastel patches. Her arthritic finger points to them. Her mouth opens; no words exit. Tan knee-highs choke her calves. Her strap slips off her shoulder. Her feet are firmly planted in sturdy, black loafers. My grandparents are not surprised; they are blasé. I stand mute, wondering what language Alma is forgetting: French or English. My plain…

x-r-a-y magazine

THE HEART OF MORALITY by Austin Ross

May 13, 2019 · Fiction

Daddy’s monster is back. That slightly musky scent of sawgrass wafts in across the Everglades as he slides a single bullet into the revolver. This is what I remember, all these years later. This incident with the revolver is familiar to me, a nightly ritual to cap off our evenings of foil-wrapped TV dinners and, for him, nearly a third of a bottle of whiskey. I have learned by now to keep silent during the ritual. As he examines the revolver in his hands, polishes the silver of the barrel with his sleeve, I think: he isn’t such a bad…

x-r-a-y magazine

SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY LIFE by Meeah Williams

April 26, 2019 · Fiction

I could sense it coming like a mule senses thunder. I had his cock in my mouth and I was trying to keep my neck from being too traumatized when he bucked his hips in short hard thrusts. It was like being a passenger in a car whose driver proceeded down the street by slamming on the brakes every three seconds. I’m getting whiplash just thinking about it. I watched people on the sidewalk stop, stare, and the expressions on their faces said “What the hell is that all about?” I leaned out the window and threw confetti at the…

x-r-a-y magazine

LET ME SHOW YOU WHERE YOU’LL BE SITTING by Jeffrey Yamaguchi

April 25, 2019 · Fiction

We walk through a corridor, then down a flight of steps. Elevator doors open to receive us as if they had been waiting. We get in and my guide, a woman in perfect business attire, pushes the only button. The doors close. There is no sound. I can’t tell if we are moving up or down, and then I realize I can’t tell if we are moving at all. Suddenly there is a slight lift, and then feathery fall, of the woman’s hair above her eyes, which are staring right through me. ***** There is a painting on the wall….

x-r-a-y magazine

LIES ABOUT THE WORST WAY TO DIE by Dawson Kiser

April 24, 2019 · Fiction

There are a lot of shitty ways to die. A quick Google search of the worst ways to die will lead you down a not so wonderful rabbit hole of people drowning, burning, being eaten by animals, even falling in volcanoes. Not that I’m an expert on dying, but I’m walking into the hospital right now for my third year of chemotherapy and I’d argue this must be on the top 10 shittiest ways to die. Burning? That sounds horrific but from my limited research I found out you black out within 20 to 30 seconds. Your worst 30 seconds…

x-r-a-y magazine

THE TROLL BY THE EAST BRIDGE by Helen Armstrong

April 23, 2019 · Fiction

The thing that very many people fail to grasp about city planning is that a lot of planning goes into it: ha ha. This is always my gag at parties and it very often falls upon deaf ears. I’m uncertain whether people don’t want to find me funny, or if they just don’t understand my humor. When the troll by the East Bridge – creatively named by Richardson, the city planner before me, whose interests included golfing and beer and golf clubs – demanded a sacrifice or he’d torch the town, people certainly weren’t laughing anymore. And they weren’t laughing…

x-r-a-y magazine

« Previous 1…94 959697 98…123 Next »