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As Alberta Ford is strapped to the gurney, she thinks of Anthony, her husband, huddled in his truck on this January morning—his forehead and hands on the steering wheel, his breath fogging the windows—and the cold plum baby buried in snow-covered ground. Heart monitors are positioned on Alberta’s skin, reminding her how she was called cold hearted, heartless, a woman without a heart. But she feels it now. It pounds at her ribs as if it could pry them apart. Two needles are placed into her veins. One is a backup, just saline. Like a boy scout, the prison
» Continue reading She Lets Go Her Body by Barbara Westwood Diehl…
Listen to a reading of “plans to be loved” by Melissa Ann Chadburn.
My mom and I lived alone with her swirling brain for ten years. Ten years of late night chats and long bouts of silence. Ten years and then I got that assignment in school. My mom called. “Hi honey, I won’t be home tonight.” I heard pop music in the background. “Again?” I posed with a hand on my hip, the phone be-tween my cheek and shoulder. “Well is there any-thing-” “Yeah I need an egg. I need you to bring me eggs.”
» Continue reading plans to be loved by Melissa Ann Chadburn…
Jill’s back. She’s taken to wearing floral-print sundresses again, short enough to show the scars on her seventy-year-old legs. Man-o-war marks from her slutty days. From my house to hers, she leaves sunflower seed husks—trails that lead past the goat farms of Culver county, past sycamores nailed with homemade No Trespassing boards. We stand on my porch, me blocking the doorway. Jill wants to give my father a hot sponge bath, then split a pack of Marlboro menthols with him on the porch’s bench. She lights one now. She blows the first puff at my face, reminds me that
» Continue reading Trespassing by Michael Cooper…
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. There were the roses. And the guests. And a rainstorm drove them all away. Thunder pounded the air, smashing it like glass; lightning cracked the sky. The next morning there were snail tracks on the rocks, shimmering like magic; I told William they were fairy trails. I know I had a son, a boy. I think there was a boy. It doesn’t matter. I can’t remember. I never can remember this. Not for sure anyway. But wasn’t there a boy? I’m on my way out for the flowers that I will put
» Continue reading The Most Terrible Thing by Susan Taylor Chehak…
The boys have stopped running, but walk backwards as fast as they can, keeping an eye on the crest of the hill. They reach the next intersection and start jogging towards town, to where they left their car. Both boys have a slick clear-purplish sheen covering their hands, as if they’d dipped their hands in laminate. The tall boy wipes his hands on his pants, says, “Does this stuff ever come off?” The other boy, the skinny one, says he doesn’t know. He doesn’t really listen, and keeps looking over his shoulder. He thinks about what he’s gonna
» Continue reading Afterwards by Joshua Young…
Ray had a thing for war, so I brought him to Gettysburg for the reenactment. It was hot and crawling with history buffs in period dress, and tour groups led by hippies. And kids, lots of kids with muskets. Before the main attraction, we stopped at the Live Fire! demonstration and plugged our ears as soldiers launched mortars into the sky. Blasts ripped through steel drums, sending gallons of bloody red water flying. Enemy shacks exploded in oranges and pinks and cottony plumes of smoke. “They actually blow shit up!” Ray shouted at me, pleased, as the audience applauded.
» Continue reading Flogging a Dead Horse by Apryl Lee…
And, strangely, I heard the sand to stir at my back, and I looked round very quick, and the sand rose upward in parts, and sifted back, and there came to my sight odd things that did move and curl about.
William Hope Hodgson – The Night Land
Frozen earth. Water tinkling. Wind chimes. Snap of ice. Breathe in. Light out. Watch the boat dragged under smooth and viscous. Within seconds, it’s lost beneath a smudged screen of ice. Castaway. Cast adrift. I hear the ship’s horn seal my exile. A puff of steam. Nothing here. Except the whiteness. Nothing
» Continue reading Meta Incognita by Steve Finbow…
My brother’s email arrived five days ago at 8:13PM. “He passed at 6:15 tonight. The rest of this is so bizarre it would make a good Larry David or Seinfeld episode.” That I would learn of my father’s death this way made perfect sense. What I did not expect was to be shaken by the news. My father was a bad guy. When I made the decision to cut him out of my life several years ago, I knew that I would have to face this day eventually but I assumed I would be at peace and feel nothing.
» Continue reading What You Missed by Robin Slick…
With the press of a button, Andre flips through his arsenal, showing off the weapons that appear in his animated hand. “You can kill them with a bat, an ax, a machete, a chainsaw, or guns. My favorite move is to shoot a zombie in the stomach, then when he bends over, I stick a grenade in his mouth, and boom! His head explodes!” “I don’t think you should be playing this. It’s too violent.” “Mom! Everyone’s playing this. See, that’s Omar. We’re on a team.” Andre follows a muscular, shotgun-wielding soldier down what appears to be an
» Continue reading Zombie Killer by Lacey Martinez…
The heart attack felt like the time Alison stabbed me with knitting needles. It made me want to see her. She was the fun wife, the first of three.
I was morbid and full of regret — my drinking had driven them away, no kids in the wake. I decided to visit all of them, in reverse order.
I showed up at Jane’s door on a Monday morning. Luckily her husband still worked.
“What do you want?” She opened the door a crack. Her eye was violet, nestled in fat, moving backwards into her.
“I had a heart attack. A
» Continue reading Three Wives by Gary Moshimer…
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