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,...
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...
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...
THE MAN WHO DID NOTHING – By Amr Mekki
THE MAN WHO DID NOTHINGBy Amr Mekki
The idea came to him as he sat behind his desk, staring at a thick stack of papers. He hesitated to start going through them for fear of...
ASH WEDNESDAY – By Vince Barry
ASH WEDNESDAYBy Vince Barry
Save for the black pig she was walking, nothing struck Aschenbach as unusual about the woman he passed while on his daily constitutional along Maiden Street, careful, as always, to return...
FLIGHT – By J.R. Gerow
FLIGHTBy J.R. Gerow
She wakes him up and carries him out to the car with his head buried in her shoulder, straddling her ribcage and watching sideways through the veil of hair for his father,...
FOREIGN PASSAGES – By Joyce Polance
FOREIGN PASSAGESBy Joyce Polance
As we thread through narrow alleys framed by walls without windows, their starkness interrupted by decrepit stalls hawking rotting vegetables and camel heads buzzing with flies, the aura of Death for...
GRAND LAKE – By Steven Sherwood
GRAND LAKEBy Steven Sherwood
Not three weeks ago Jim Pickett’s first love said she had fallen for some asshole accounting major named Vince. Now she’s calling from a bus stop in Castle Rock to ask...
THE GLANCE OF ORPHEUS II – By Ted Morrissey
THE GLANCE OF THE ORPHEUS IIBy Ted Morrissey
The City Athletic Club was more ornate than the Blackstone, more extravagant by the looks of its façade of brick and stone. Workers were shoveling snow and...
A WILDERNESS OF MONKEYS – By Robert McKean
A WILDERNESS OF MONKEYSBy Robert McKean
It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor:I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.—Shylock
Heartless, the way they ravaged the...