Fiction - Year VII - Number 50 - July 2021

Freckles By Sabahattin Ali / Translated by Aysel K. Basci It was a hot, sultry day. I had just left a friend’s home, where I had spent most of the evening drenched in perspiration, listening to...

Staller Breaks Philip Brunetti It was all on stall for a short while longer.  He’d put himself on stall.  This was one of the few options.  Now that his heart was broken and he’d wept in...

Fading Away Why was he looking at me? I was trying to make myself invisible. I know I looked awful – a complete mess. Was that why he was looking at me? Did my slovenly...

GOING  HOME Springdale, Ohio.                 God, what a place.                 It was the sort of small town that lacked any of the charm that made small towns desirable in the hearts and minds of people who didn't...

The Unforgotten Girl He knew she lived in the egg house on the corner of Windflower Lane—the faded yolk one with cream-shell shutters. He knew who she was and where she came from and he...

SMOKERS by Joe Baumann      Simon and Mills buried the dog the day before the coffee shop opened.      “I’ll be okay,” Simon said when they came home from the vet’s office.  He held Bailey’s leash tangled tight...

Shiver I don’t remember where or when it was that I first met Alex. As far back as I can remember, she and I have been close. Her mom, Patricia, and my mom, Sue, had...

Perennial Undulation             A smack of thunder prompted his eyes to drift open. He lay still a moment, taking this time before sitting up. An hour could go by before escaping bed crossed his mind....

SEATTLE, 1961 by Mike Dillon As mother raised her fist to knock on the white door, she paused and glanced back at me. “Please take your cap off.” So, I did. “That’s what little gentlemen do,” she added...

Beyond Appearances Playing in front of her house, a little girl sets wildflowers in earthen pots pretending to be a gardener. She lives with her parents in a red-roofed village, a quiet place with a...