Flash

SURVIVOR! by Julia Tausch

November 25, 2018

The grouchy buildings of The Six, the dirty snow’s hectic dance – it was all far beneath me now. Keely, my thirteen year-old niece, had taught me to call Toronto “The Six.” She reeked of perfume that seemed to combine garbage with vetiver and beets but was surely expensive. The smell emboldened me – rot and beauty enmeshed. It blurred my warring worries and desires. So far, I loved flying. The soothing keen of the engines; my seat a mini-empire, a customizable media-pod; the shiny dossier in my seatback pocket pregnant with a secret I was itching to share. I

alone i am always smoking by Clare Schneider

November 21, 2018

Tobacco companies support nicotine patches because, studies have shown, that without counseling, nicotine replacement therapy hardly ever works. Tobacco companies view all “nicotine products as a way to support smoking” i quit smoking for you and then you left me. this seems unfair. Girls who start smoking before age 15 are nearly 50 percent more likely to get breast cancer a woman watches me intently as i smoke outside a restaurant a man walks past me while i’m on the phone smoking someone sees me smoking in my car and rolls up their window my drunk uncle rubs my shoulder after i

THE FILTHY OLD MAN by Connor Goodwin

November 16, 2018

The filthy old man crunched his hand and tossed an empty can over his shoulder, eyes on the road. It landed on a pile of other cans and started a noisy avalanche of aluminum. Some of the crushed cans were tied up in yellow plastic bags from Super Saver, but most were loose and littered the floor. When he had time, he’d take them to the can guy. The can guy operated out of a parking lot. It was just him and a bunch of flies. The compactor looked like a tall semi-trailer. At the base was a conveyor belt

COMPLACENCY DESCRIBED BY TEST SUBJECT 6 by Cavin Bryce Gonzalez

November 15, 2018

The terrarium has always been. It’s made of glass with a great mesh lid on top. A lamp provides warmth throughout the day. We were once scientists and art teachers and coffee baristas. Now we’re just people. Some still go by their name. Some go by titles. They call me Six because I was the sixth one to wake up here. When the mesh lid is drawn back and The Hand reaches down from above to deliver food and presents we rush to the center, fight for our scraps despite there being enough. The youngest of us scuttle off with

GARBAGE GIRL by Jules Archer

November 13, 2018

It’s trash day. I know it by the cramps in my belly. Not the calendar on the fridge. Or the City of Evanston’s website. Or my mother’s finger, poked in the face of my father as a reminder to take out the trash because last night’s rotisserie is starting to smell. Once a month, ever since I turned twelve, my cycle’s synced to the sound of the garbage truck. Not the full moon or the new moon or the tides. I cramp and menstruate on trash day. My stomach is like Adele, rolling in the deep. But I can’t make

SO COME BACK, I AM WAITING by Marston Hefner

November 12, 2018

“You won’t see me again.” I thought she was wrong. This is such a small city. I thought I saw her at the farmer’s market. I thought I saw her at my yoga studio. She is everywhere I go. Her name is Leah. She is the woman who causes me mental pain. If you asked me if I loved her, I’d say of course. I wouldn’t even make exaggerated hand motions. It is her, driving my car down the 101 after a weekend in San Francisco. I’m in the passenger seat listening to my iPod. She puts her hand on

OPEN TO AN OCEAN by Tommy Dean

November 8, 2018

He circles the fountain like an animal pushed out of his habitat. The heat smothers his body. It’s the tenth day above ninety, and still they—the powerful men he imagines sitting in a tall building chewing on ice and swiveling in office chairs whose leather seats cool these men’s backs as they laugh at the little boys like him—won’t open up the water tower reserves. He flaps his hands at the sun, but it trains its unforgiving eye on his narrow shoulders. He’s heard about invisible rays, but today they punch and slap, making his skin as tight as the

THE DEATH OF JANNICK MEISNER by Avee Chaudhuri

November 7, 2018

David Tilker is a brewer located in San Antonio, Texas, and he hired me last spring to write his biography. During his vetting process he read some of my work, including two stories here at X-R-A-Y about a character named Jannick Meisner. In the second of these stories, “I Was Married By A German Expressionist,” Jannick officiates a wedding for two close friends and orchestrates a violent and spectacular confrontation with a guest during the ceremony. This guest is actually Jannick’s secret lover. Jannick’s antics intrigued David Tilker and he asked, in a hopeful tone, if the events of that

ANIMALS by Lily Hackett

November 5, 2018

I only ordered so I could have the wine got for the cat’s man. But in the takeaway box, they had black shells and polished eyes. They had big claws. I searched for ‘Clawed prawns’. Crayfish. I left a message. I saw one twitch, thrash in the sauce. Its shining eyes were on me. It crawled out from the tub. The seven legs went click across the tub’s rim and click click, softly, on the wooden table. It moved clumsily, trailing chopped shallot. The second followed. Each was as long as my hand. They had toad bellies and dog whiskers.

THE LIGHT AND STARS by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

November 4, 2018

A couple of days ago somehow I wrangled an OK Cupid date to drive down an hour from Virginia to come sit with me on my porch. And he read me Merwin like he’d never read Merwin out loud to anyone before. If you don’t know who Merwin is, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you ain’t as smart as me- I just went to writing school. But Merwin is an old ass prolific poet who lives in Hawaii and likes to translate other languages and talk about “light” and “stars”. And while this OK Cupid date was reading ol Merwin