Fiction - Year IV - Number 26 - July 2019

BASIL THE GREEKBy Mark Halpern I’d prepared meticulously – beyond any possible need – and waited at the little Starbucks tucked behind the escalator that carries dark-suited bankers and whatnot up from the station.  A...

CUTTHROAT GAPBy Larry Rose THE RANCHER CREAKED BACKWARDS on his porch  rocking chair.  His hand shook from age, perhaps, as he pointed out to the box valley in front of us. His face was drawn,...

COWHIDEby Alan Berger She grew up aware of the process of slaughter.She heard it. She saw saw it, she smelled it, she ate it.That is how it turns up down on the farm. This little big...

THE BEST COMPANYBy Ezra Brooks-Planck The man blinked. He looked around him. There was nothing. He stood in a vast emptiness. There was no light and no dark. All he knew was that he was...

ELECTRICITYby David Rogers The whole sky flashed, a searing electric blaze, fading to the blue-brown of the horizon. Lightning here did funny things to a man’s vision. The clouds were patchy, silver gray, like the...

THE EULOGYby Christopher Cooper  The day after I sold my novel was my father’s funeral. And while I should have been looking forward to promoting my book, all I could think about were the numerous...

A NIGHT OF FIREFLIESby Gail Hosking I listen to the story again, the one on the edge of memory ready to be told like something written from the future backwards. A night stored away in...

MOUNTAINS & RAINBOWSby Matthew Vesely The MountainI stepped over a root crawling along the forest floor, one of the bigger roots, one of the roots that stemmed off into smaller roots that crawled farther along...

THE FOOD UPON WHICH OTHERS FEASTby Thomas Elson We mapped this route generations earlier, and irrespective of origin, the path is the same for everyone. We also dictated a hierarchy: We, the vanguards, would watch...