SHEPARD’S HAUNT by Wes Blake
Years ago I heard that Sam Shepard drank here. Since then I’ve stopped in several times, and I hear a new Shepard story almost every time. When I say “here” I really mean Heirloom...
STACI by Jeffrey Loeb
The house was only blocks away, so I got there in minutes. Staci’s sobs were already breathless heaves. All I could do was hold her and utter empty words: “What is it, sweetheart? Tell...
SLOWLY SLIDING by Jennifer Hildebrandt
December 29, 2016, Updated Death Wishes
You don’t have to mourn or carry on or weep or pace. Get over it. I’m dying. Talk to me. Tell me to hurry the hell up. Or take...
HONORABLE MENTION by Sara Garland
The stage light stared at me from the water-stained ceiling. My note cards, which had been arranged so carefully and bound together with metal rings as an added measure of security, were now...
FIFTH COLUMN by Louis Gallo
I somehow survived the disfiguring identity crises of high school and the end had finally come. School closed and summer burst open like a solar flare, so scalding you wanted to take off your...
A CANDLE FOR FLORENCE by Martta Kelly
Every year on the anniversary of the death of my mother, Florence, I struggle with the same dilemma: Should I light a yahrzeit candle in her memory, or not? In Judaism, the yahrzeit candle...