Fiction

ELEPHANT EYES by Kristopher Monroe

February 25, 2026

When I was in fourth grade my mother disappeared and I never saw her again. At first my father wasn’t sure what to tell me but he realized that the truth was better than obfuscation so he told me she was admitted to a sanitarium which I didn’t understand so then he explained she was simply sick and resting which I definitely did understand. For as long as I could remember my mother was sick in a certain way. She’d be doing dishes or loading laundry or scrubbing the tub and suddenly become overwhelmed with sadness and break down weeping

TWO MICROS by t.r. san

February 23, 2026

Natural Born Killers I hope there are naïve and genuinely delusional sexpats out there who’d jump off of JLK Building or O-NES Tower or Q1 Sukhumvit if their favorite whore gets herself married to another john, especially now that they’ve made every kind of marriage legal here, and johns who like getting dicked down and johns who like dicking down can both indiscriminately start killing themselves over this sort of thing. It’s true I like making up many businessmen in my head but this is not without basis. I know that many young girls who were prostitutes also soliciting other

JAIL TIME by Duff Allen

February 20, 2026

As a little boy nothing made me happier than to visit Dad in jail. Daniel, Mom would say every time, you haven’t forgotten your father, have you? We both sat down on the same side across from him. Who I called Dad, Mom called Daniel. He didn’t call her anything. He didn’t speak to her. He only spoke to me. Tell me how your grades are, he said. You don’t wanna end up a loser, like all these guys. Dad would look around then at the other tables with other prisoners. They were talking to their families too. I knew

THE FACEPLANT by Jamey Gallagher

February 19, 2026

We got the plant at the plant show and we brought the plant home and we put it on the windowsill and we watched it—not constantly but a lot more than we watched our other plants. Its lanceolate leaves grew fast. It got these paper-thin blooms that grew and unfurled and became translucent and turned out to be faces. Lips, nostrils, cheeks, eyeholes: all the usual face parts. The faces, after they unfurled, made little motions all day. Moues, I guess you could say. Women’s faces, men’s faces, it was hard to tell which. Some of the faces were stunningly

FETISH by Courtney McEunn

February 16, 2026

He loved how pale lines looked on my skin. After we fuck, he’d trace his fingertips up and down the jagged, raised scars. One night, he admitted jealousy. He wanted—no—needed to be there when it happened. Who was I to deny? I came over when the sun set. Every three nights. After his confession, he led me to his at-home office, grabbed a dull pair of hot pink Fiskars from the desk drawer and made the cuts. Not deep, but enough for warm bubbles to spill. He spread my blood with his tongue. He couldn’t wait long enough to take

JULIA FISHWELL by Kai Broach

February 13, 2026

When I met Julia Fishwell, I was trying out a lot of different deodorants. A fungal infection had left my armpit skin itchy and brittle. The Old Spice I’d used since puberty was too harsh. All the new ones too. Every week I smelled like a different person. Julia stared straight at me from behind the drug store counter. “You don’t want this one.” She swept my hypoallergenic stick from the conveyor to clatter against other rejections in a basket at her feet. She rapped the counter like I was a distractable pet. “I’ll be right back.” She stepped from

FEAR THEORY by Lizzie Challen Hubbard

February 12, 2026

Everything I know about love I learnt working weekend shifts on the Ghost Train. It was a sweet gig for a 15 year-old — sitting in the mucky perspex booth, trading tokens for screams. We opened after the sun went down, when the kids from nearby villages would descend in packs. In the queue, the mating ritual would begin. They would size each other up and pair off, giggling and bopping to the music. People go crazy for fairground music. Despite this, there was always a gap between partners. Sometimes it was small but it was always there, as if

SCOUTS by Cletus Crow

February 11, 2026

Drake catches a boot with the foot still inside. The policeman lets him touch his gun. We all eat mandarin oranges, even the policeman. We’re not allowed to talk about the foot, but we talk about it because we’re boys. We’re not allowed to tell scary stories around our campfire. When everyone else falls asleep, I hike up to the lake with my rod, hoping to catch hands, arms and legs, maybe a head. I want to compile one whole man. I only hook bass and some brim. Then, I feel a greater tug. I wonder if the policeman will

FISH ON THE SHORE by Miklós Vámos, translated from Hungarian by Ági Bori

February 9, 2026

Silence and semi-darkness inside the market hall. Only the moon strolls among the empty stands, with a shopping basket on its arm. Faint lights on the counters and their retractable shutters. Loose apples and cabbages hiding under them. The building is somber, surrounded by dark houses. The windows—illuminated squares. There is not a single soul around at the market at this time but the fish in the aquarium. This is their time. Tubes carry whirring air under the water along the sidewalls. There is a lot of jostling for room. The stronger ones swim up to the edge of the

punk band ideas by L Scully

February 6, 2026

punk band ideas l scully first idea Motorboat Widow second idea Abort Your Kiddo third idea Muscle MILF fourth idea