DISTANCE OF DEATH by Lauren Rollins
Distance of Death
The world looks a little different when you’re dead. Colors are faded, and it seems like everything is a tiny bit lagged. Temperature and wind don’t seem to exist, and everything...
WEST SIDE HIGHWAY by Leah Erickson
When she emerged from the elevator, he was surprised to see that she was alone. Usually she was with her husband, on the way to a book launch or a gallery opening or a...
UNREQUITED BY RULES by Monika R. Martyn
Unrequited by Rules
The summer afternoon had been punished, and when the sun made its encore appearance amidst the leaving storm clouds, the redeeming blue sky stole the show. Manfred sauntered out into the garden,...
OBSOLESCENCE by Laurence Klavan
OBSOLESCENCEby Laurence Klavan
It hadn’t been intentional, Cody thought. Had it? He wasn’t self-analytical, a trait he’d inherited from his father, the man he’d “forgotten” to invite to his bachelor party.
Why was that part...
COLDER THAN I SHOULD BE by Jessica McGlyn
Colder than I Should Be
By Jessica McGlyn
“I’m here for the ‘essentials services’,” the woman air quoted, winking as she approached the new receptionist of the Bethesda Beauty Center. “Why should I suffer wrinkles just...
ELECTRIC: A WOMAN IN LOCKDOWN by Carly A. Krakow
Electric: A Woman in Lockdown
I am a car that needs to be jump-started.
For every short trip to the grocery store, or to the post office, or to pick up my kid from school. A...
MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL by Frederick G. Yeager
MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL
With five trash bags in my right hand and whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” I walked toward the six-foot-high, ten-foot-long wall my dad built on our lawn. Every...
IMPACT WINTER by Shaun Polakow
IMPACT WINTER
By Shaun Polakow
The sky was a crime scene without clues, bereft of moon or sun. Casket black and unchanged by time or season it cast the icy tundra below in darkness. The only...
THE MAN, THE WOODS, AND THE MISTAKE by Theresa DePoi
“The Man, the Woods, and the Mistake”
He could hear his heart pounding in his chest and his throat burned like fire as he ran faster and faster. He knew there was no hope of...
THE ROAD by Veronica Suchodolski
The Road
Veronica Suchodolski
Ella liked visiting Dean. The town where he went to college was quiet and wooded, and in the fall it smelled like chimney smoke and the sweet decay of leaves dissolving...