Fiction - Year V - Number 43 - December 2020

I play this game, every time I rinse out a soup bowl, or a cereal bowl. Leave the spoon inthe bowl, swirl it, slosh it, tip it. I can’t quit until the scalloped end...

“What are you up to today?” asked Sally Leeds when she reached Larry Karlin early on a Monday morning. “I'm torn between going to Paris, spending the day in bed, or maybe getting some work...

If Only The only way that Faye could deal with losing her baby boy was to imagine that some sweet barren couple had taken him out of desperation. Absentmindedly she rubbed the scars on her...

Oskar liked the smell of tobacco on his hands. It reminded him of his grandfather, how he used to take a tuft of chewing tobacco, wedge it between his lower lip and teeth, and...

            The coffee cup sitting in front of him had grown cold.             His crooked mouth twitched into a grin. “How are you, Miss Sylvia?”             “Shut up,” she snapped as she approached the table. “We’re...

Fresh trout was a treat Johnny Daughtry did not often enjoy. Dick Wootton was fishing up along the South Platte when he stopped at the camp and knocked on Johnny's door. Johnny dragged his stiff...

Osborn Gravic tugged on his muddy boots, straining to reach over his stomach to bend just enough to yank the tongues that forever curled inside his boot. He paused, catching his breath and puffing,...

I looked at the small stack of old books lying on the counter and called out to my wife, “Is this them?” “Yes, a couple are so old and worn that I don’t think you...

Like Kurt Vonnegut, “I let the dog out, or I let h in, and we talk some. I let h know I like h, and he me know he likes me.” And then this was...

            Matt wondered what sound Abby made when she hit the rocks below. How had she chosen the spot where she would go over the railing into the air for the last few seconds...