SOUP – By Rachel Cohen
SOUPBy Rachel Cohen
Tali stared at the fish, and the koi looked back at her. A red, a yellow and a green, eyes bulging in the arid shop window, the three plastic fishes ogled Tali’s red...
EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMETHING – By Melanie Pappadis Faranello
EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMETHINGBy Melanie Pappadis Faranello
Thanksgiving was in a couple of months and Sal considered who he might call on the occasion he’d ever have his son for a holiday—Christmas, or New Years, or...
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY – By Ed Meek
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARYBy Ed Meek
In the summer of 1985, I was painting triple-deckers in Roxbury, Massachusetts. I came up from Carol, Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up. People ask me where Carol is...
CHECKMATE – By Laura DellaBadia
CHECKMATEBy Laura DellaBadia
Towering as high as the old, weathered castle’s stone walls, the veins of prickly crimson red roses climb. The rosses have run wild in the years without a proper caretaker and have...
SANCTUARY – By Heide Arbitter
SANCTUARYBy Heide Arbitter
They took the birds away. That was the last hint. They were unattractive birds, loud and sad looking, with feathers plucked bloody and wings hanging helplessly. But, these birds were his joy,...
OBIT – By Marc Simon
OBITBy Marc Simon
I never read the obituaries, but last Thursday was an exception. For some reason, they were mixed in at the end of the sports section. I scanned them with morbid curiosity, and...
THE COMEBACKS – By Monique Gagnon German
THE COMEBACKSBy Monique Gagnon German
By the time she’s 10, Cami knows the main trails in and out of Grampy’s woods pretty well, even though they span more than a hundred acres. The main trail...
WAITING FOR JACK – By Melanie Simms
WAITING FOR JACKBy Melanie Simms
I used to be romance novel junkie. Love was all I lived for. I lived off Harlequin romancebooks and believed that love was forever.Prince Charming was more than just a...
SUPERMARKET PAPERBACK – By Mike Dorman
SUPERMARKET PAPERBACKBy Mike Dorman
Fifty miles west of Bloomington lies Hillsboro, a monument to middle-class malaise. A fifteen-mile break from the real world, a stucco strip mall oasis in the vast Midwest horizon. The...
HE STOPPED – By Harlan Yarbrough
HE STOPPEDBy Harlan Yarbrough
In the four years I spent tracking Brian Jacobsen, my opinion regarding his whereabouts reversed itself several times. Although I didn’t know him personally, several of my friends and acquaintances did—that’s...