Fiction - Year V - Number 43 - December 2020

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...

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...