Fiction
VACUUM by Filip Jakab
January 5, 2026
“Choke me!” Vinnie yells. His skaterboi Gen-Z body—a pale, rampant, mangled flesh to be further detested, desolated, deprived. Though the flesh and bone he otherwise soothes with a daily intake of smoothies that include collagen, selected antioxidants, and protein powders. He drinks a lot of purified water. He’s one of the lost by-products of his generation. He nourishes his Promethean body to the max so Sean can destroy it. He pumps it up twice, three times a week, with an unfuckable gym bro who goes by Dixon in the city center. Post-pump, they take dumb selfies (he never shows them to Sean).
X-R-A-Y 2025 SAMPLER
January 1, 2026
in 2025, X-R-A-Y published 169 things ! we read 2,808 submissions & accepted 114. here are some favorites for u to sample. but first, a big thank u to all the editors & readers ! Joshua Heppburn / short story editor / joshuahebburn.wordpress.com Rebecca Gransden / interviews & reviews editor / rebeccagransden.wordpress.com Claire Hopple / fiction editor / clairehopple.wordpress.com Alice M / short story editor / instagram: @notveryalice / bodyfluids.org Tex Gresham / fiction editor / squeakypig.com Michael Todd Cohen / creative nonfiction editor / michaeltoddcohen.com Jo Varnish / creative nonfiction editor / jovarnish.com Chris Dankland / managing editor,
FROM A DONOR FILE by Christian TeBordo
January 1, 2026
Charles “Chip” Prime, Jr. has no previous connection to the University and was not considered a prospective donor prior to his contacting this Advancement Officer requesting an urgent meeting at the Quattro Bar of the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto, California. Chip contacted Officer directly by text message, and when Officer attempted to explain that the Bay Area was not part of his regional portfolio, offering to forward him to the relevant staff member, Chip replied that the Bay Area was not his region either, and that he only wished to speak with Officer, being familiar with certain work
APPRAISAL by Sam Corradetti
December 31, 2025
I’m the ripped jeans and dirty flip-flops type. Vaselined lips, no eye liner. Zip-up hoodies and flannels looted from my father’s closet keep me mostly covered, worn loose enough to capture the coveted sirs and young mans while I navigate crowds at the deli counter. Weddings, however, mean dresses. As a bridesmaid, I am spared the search for some tolerable combination of lace, sequins, tulle, fringe, satin. Every detail of dress, hairstyle, jewels, shoes, nails, lip gloss, panties, and—ugh—strapless bra has been mapped out for me. The other bridesmaids crowd me, brandishing mascara wands and crimpers and elastics and hairspray
NOT EVERYTHING DIES IN THE DARK by M.M. Kaufman
December 29, 2025
For Ben There reality was, being all realistic, when it blinked out. One second I’m looking at Sammy and Joe sitting on the stoop in their church clothes eating deviled eggs and rice casserole off styrofoam plates, when suddenly they’re—not. They’re still there, but they’re in sweatpants and pretending to eat plastic corn on the cob. Then boom: Easter clothes and eggs again. I ask, Did anyone see that? All I get is shrugs. That’s the only answer they ever give me anyway. How’s ya’ day? Shrug. Wanna watch the game? Shrug. Whatcha wanna do with your life? Shrug. The
THE ANSWER by Maxfield Francis Goldman
December 10, 2025
“This is the last time I am ever going to do something like this to you,” Casper says as he takes his mom’s hand and kisses it. It tastes like cardboard, and smells like sheetrock. It’s rough on his lips and has this unbearable consistency he can only compare to dried dates. But she is beautiful, and everything about her is disgusting. Per usual, she is really not here, but she’s smiling this kind of absent-minded smile, but not really at him. Not really at anything. He lets his lips linger just a little too long. Hears ambiguous beeping sounds
XMAS STORIES FOR X-R-A-Y by Kevin Sampsell
December 8, 2025
These stories are from Kevin Sampsell’s new zine, The 24 Days of Xmas. New Smooth Santa Christmas was approaching, but Santa had no beard. He’d shaved it off that summer after his dog, Carol, gave him fleas. He thought he would be able to grow it back by the holiday season, but his face was still smooth as a baby. He couldn’t understand it. Long white beards ran in the family, from his father, Nick Sr., to his uncle, Walt, and brother, Richard. Even his sister, Nicolette, had a glorious white beard, which she often braided with garlic to
LOOKING AT YOU, LUCIEN by Isabelle Yang
December 5, 2025
It’s not fair that I get to be sick while my boyfriend gets to be healthy. Gets to live life horizontally—flat, always lying, perpetually still—bent in an angle like that of a slant. Like the longest side of a pudgy triangle, the hypotenuse, sinking slowly. Centimeters of neck crouching inwards—up and down—as he swipes his fickle dickle sucky whucky thumb—up and down—as he fries his brain—up and down. Tweet and twit and twat. Stick and root and rat. The kinds of sounds he watches, the kinds of sounds he makes from the other room. Our only room in our only
EARTHBOUND by Uma Payne
December 4, 2025
No one ever found him. Worms turned his whole body into the nutrient shit that plants need to grow. The plastic that had shared space with his flesh stayed. It sat still or traveled elsewhere. Where he had long since become indiscernible, it remained itself. It was outside of natural time, being that nature had exiled. Plastic was what had been severed from life, transmuted into another phase of existence beyond the metabolic processes that meant living. The accreting mass of plastic was nature’s obliterative tendency beginning to outweigh its reproductive one. Nature was poisoned by its own urges. Asphyxiated