Fiction - Year III - Number 17 - October 2018

THE CHANNELby Sean Padraic McCarthy The tide rushed in through the channel, flooding over the sea bed of small jagged rocks and pebbles.  Jack had taken off his flip flops and he tried to step...

VICTORIAby Roger McKnight “Valencia isn’t Ivy League, but better,” Sylvia Glasgow remarked, then wondered if she meant it. As an alum, she loved her college, but she’d been on the road for a year recruiting...

THE DREAMERSby Fred Miller Middle-aged and solitary in nature, he was one of those odd little characters who appear in the shadows of our lives, in cafes, in bars, and by bookstalls along the rivers,...

THREE AND A HALF MURASby Mark Budman Mura 1 Mura (with the emphasis on the first syllable) is a generic name of a female cat in Russian. Like a “kitty” or a “pussy” in English. The...

AT TAFT POINTby Liana Andreasen Bouncing from boulder to boulder and all around the Valley, shrill voices blend with the cries of high-flying birds.By early November, Glacier Point Road had been closed for two weeks....

GRANDMAMA’S FLOWERSby Susan Beckham Zurenda The day before Grandmama came to get me, I planned how to stow the cat in her car and take him to her house in Fairview with us. My mother...

THE LIGHTNING MANby Anna Schaeffer The Lightning Man came to the town of Maryanne during one of Oklahoma’s fiercest thunderstorms. He burst into Kelly’s bar soaked, wild-eyed and dying in nothing but his bright white...

FROM THERE TO HEREby Donald Zagardo My head doesn’t hurt so much anymore, not like it did back in Iraq or where the hell we were. Maybe I’m getting better, yeah maybe, yeah.It was very...

VIOLET ABSTRACTby Nya Jackson I wasn’t able to bail Violet out of jail the third time she got arrested because she died in police custody. She’d only been in the holding cell for thirteen hours,...

THE LIGHTNING BUGby Adam McCulloch Everyone has a type. She was mine.  I could tell before we even met. I’ve always been good at summing people up. As soon as I walked into a place...