Fiction - Year V - Number 43 - December 2020

“A mirror scratched reflects no image— And this is the silence of wisdom.” - Ernest Hyde (Spoon River Anthology) The vanity arrived on Tuesday at ten, addressed to Vianna Trellis. She left it inside the entrance while...

            I sat in a chair outside the office while Mama went inside and spoke to the rabbi. I’d been sitting there since Hebrew school let out—which I attended on Tuesdays and Sundays—and when...

Present             “Hello, Diane, it’s Mom. Just wanted to say hello. It’s been a long time, sweetie. You’ve been on my mind lately. I was re-living the time we were playing in the creek by...

Siren Song             Galen did not think to check the gas gauge when he made his final exit from the parking lot of the Bay View Apartments. He left Ocean View with nothing but the...

It sounded like a backhoe smashed through the toy room window and methodically tipped out millions of marble chips in a steady stream onto the hardwood floor. “Daddy, come quick,” Liam shouted. “Oliver spilled all...

            At Kathleen’s breakfast table, Denise sips her Chardonnay and describes her latest unsuccessful job search. Downsized ten months ago, Denise, a crime reporter, despairs of finding another position in journalism. Her newspaper is...

The applause proved neither hesitant nor restrained in the wake of Mr. Potter’s announcement: First Prize in the 1982 Northeastern school-district photo contest was going to none other than twelve-year-old Rodric Floyd of Valleyport...

Night had fallen by the time I returned from hawking banana for Mummy. I stood the large steel tray against the wall and handed her the cash I’d made. Looking stern, she collected it,...

“Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is...

There was no need for words. Lyuba urged her daughter forward, indicating with a nod which way the young girl should go. Which person to approach. Not the elderly man smoking a thin cigarette...