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...

“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...

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...