SKELETON IN THE CESS PIPE by Max Watt
It was chaos in the close quarter lodgings. No matter where Mirka went people threatened one another and fought over scraps of food. Father had told him that it was where the hopeless gathered....
A HAPPIER ENDING by Richard Thieme
A Happier Ending
by
Richard Thieme
"I hate 'Fargo!'" Marcella said. "Don't tell me you like that goddamn movie."
I looked at her angry face and said, "Well, I didn't say--"
"You said you thought it...
ELLA by T. M. Boughnou
Ella
by T. M. Boughnou
“What?” the man heard the mother demand sharply and emphatically of her young daughter. “Tell me—where did you get that from? Who told you that?” She...
IN ROTATION by Zach Murphy
In Rotation
Aria caught the city bus as the sky donned a pinkish glow before the day’s final gasp. Her daughter Millie sat on her lap, gripping her wrinkled hospital scrubs — the ones with...
RIVER RUN by Gary James Erwin
River Run
Thighs burned. Cold air stung his throat. Beneath his knee caps, buried inside the knotof ligaments, muscle and bone, something clunked rhythmically with each step. Reachingdown, he...
INTIMATE by Susie Gharib
Intimate
“I wanted to intimate something and not to be intimate,” I explained with a bitter grin.
He always boasted about his excellent command of English but that sex-charged adjective that resembled a verb he had...
YOUNG MAN’S SLAVE by Bo Fisher
Young Man’s Slave
There’s a security car that passes the house every three hours. It makes a slow left hand turn about the cul-de-sac at the end of Poplar Hill Loop before retracting its path...
LOVE AND REBIRTH by Esther Neema
LOVE AND REBIRTH
The bell was ringing. They heard it! It was grand! Three times it rung! Each time it rung louder than the last. Gong! Gong! Goooooong!
“Another one has died!” Bibi whispered, as...
NEXT by John Young
Since her death six months earlier, all sanity for Graham has been compressed within the contours of challenges, bright, tightly bordered oases of purpose and achievement in a world, flat and grey and devoid...
THE CASUAL THINKER by Marcus Berkemeier
The Casual Thinker
Many consider Samantha to be my best girlfriend since we’ve known each other for at least five years and, most weekends in Los Angeles, we are...