PONT-SAINT-ESPRIT 1951 by Phoebe Billups
The man clutches at his stomach as the attendants wrestle him into a straitjacket. By the time they manage to sedate him, the waiting room brims with new patients.
ALL THE BEES IN CALIFORNIA ARE DEAD by Piper Gourley
I’m in California now, where bees die in the light. Where everybody dies first, then lives forever.
MY STICKY-FINGERED GIRLS by Lynn Mundell
I look at the baby doll abandoned on the floor next to its ripped box, its unblinking blue eyes staring back at me. One of its fat cloth legs has been ripped off in the fight.
HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE by Claudia Schatz
The window over the bathroom sink, up high and pointing out, the only window in the whole house where all you see is sky.
THE TWO OF THEM by Teddy Burnette
Catastrophe, he thinks. Couldn’t have gone worse.
THE NINE O’GLOCK SHUFFLE by Lindsey Pharr
Your eyes follow their tiny finger and, sure enough, there’s a nine-millimeter handgun lying in the middle of your neighborhood street at eight in the morning on Fat Tuesday.
MY PARENTS DO NOT MEET by Liwen Xu
Once my father finishes and leaves, my mother leans back into her chair, rests her eyes on the clock above us, and begins to recall the lovers of her past.
A DEEP-SEA DIVER IS RESCUED OFF THE OCEAN FLOOR by Jessica Staricka
They ask her if she knows what day it is. They try to make her guess how long she drifted for. She won’t. Four days. That’s what they tell her.
VESSELS by Jennifer Love
When anger threatens to disturb my indifference towards the customers, I breathe deep, I take smoke breaks to cool my nerves in the gnashing waves.
SEX, OR by Brett Milam
Unbeknownst to you, you were in a ménage à trois with me and depression and I was only able to pleasure one of you.