Fiction

ELAINE by LJ Pemberton

November 22, 2023

The more of Elaine he had had, the less it felt like she belonged to him at all. Besides, he said, I have learned that even possession is a kind of disappointment.

DOCTOR’S VISIT by Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez

November 8, 2023

While we wait for the fruits of deliberation, my mother asks me to get personal. I tell her I’ve been nightmaring about getting kidnapped and beating the captor up.

POWER OUTAGE by Zsófia Czakó; translated by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess

November 1, 2023

She looked at that tree as if it were a murderer, and with hate in her eyes told me that in her dreams every night she sneaks over with an axe and chops it down with two strokes.

SPILL by Christina D’Antoni

October 25, 2023

At night I dreamt of pelicans strung up in the oaks by their beaks, choked in Spanish moss, the storm’s winds blowing them down. Cars sliding through gasoline, smearing their bodies into the street.

WHATEVER by Emma Estridge

October 18, 2023

She emails me a PDF of instructions. The first is Learn to sit quietly with yourself. I feel that we have already skipped a step.

HEATERS by Brett Biebel

October 11, 2023

There was a fence, and there were holes in it, and she looked like a lizard sometimes, a shitload of speed coiled inside some slender frame.

THREE by Amanda Gersh

October 4, 2023

I used to say I couldn’t travel because I didn’t have the time, but now I’ve got all the time in the world because the world isn’t using it.

PORCELAIN by Nicholas Claro

September 27, 2023

The couch is more of a loveseat. It hardly seats the two of us. On it is the pillow and blanket I’ve been using. This is the longest conversation we’ve had in over a week.

Now that your precious jackfruit is out in the world, latch the angel onto your body and let nature take its course. She held her jackfruit to her breast, to her arms, her neck, rubbed it against herself until she was raw.

HOBBIES by Robbie Herbst

August 30, 2023

She’d say that it’s not enough for a man to create a life; he must sustain it. Protect it. Sufficiency means safety. It means contingencies. It means insurance.