Fiction
July Contributors
Nick Black, James Callan, Cristiano Cardone, Benjamin Drevlow, Chad Gayle, Colin Gee, Noah Giles, Casey Jo Graham Welmer, GRSTALT Comms, Doug Henderson, Ian Johnson, Patrick Johnston, Mike Lee, Priyanuj Mazumdar, Thomas M. McDade, Shaun Anthony McMichael, Odin Meadows, Tom Misuraca, Marshall Moore, Joe Nasta, Scott Ortolano, J.B. Polk, Alexei Raymond, Simon Read, Holly Redell-Witte, Karen Schauber, Marcus Silcock, Anthony Neil Smith, Michael Grant Smith, Chrissy Stegman, James Sullivan, and Michael Thériault
welcome to the sunrise suites
by Joe Nasta
“The stray dog always returned. He lay in the shadows cast by the palm trees and the motel’s vacancy sign.”
god’s confusing signs
by Noah Giles
“He dreamt, holding the knowledge God sends messages through subconsciousness. Not this time.”
hollywood
by Mike Lee
“Three pulp paperbacks lined up on the wooden rack at the used bookstore I frequented in the East Village. One was by my father, a man my family hardly mentioned.”
the amazing story of dr. megrelian’s itinerant circus and human zoo
by J.B. Polk
“Peters, bored with sous-cheffing and the customers’ threats to do a wedgie with his butt skin, accepted gratefully, hung up his grease-stained apron, and moved into the Midget’s wagon.”
and the birds began to dance
by Holly Redell-Witte
“She knew her own forgetting was muscular; she could feel it squeezing her heart, pulling her shoulder wings back in a sharp and sudden spasm.”
the anniversary
by Doug Henderson
“If I ever cried in front of my father, he’d give me something to cry about.”
how we survive a coronal mass ejection
by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
“We’ll look at the stars every night…We’ll wish on them, because what else can we depend on when all the lights have gone out?”
the crafty raft
by Thomas M. McDade
“If death were imminent and no confessor near, you could squeeze through the heavenly gates by saying it. I couldn’t recall if any purgatory time was involved.”
western birthrates
by GRSTALT Comms
“A Dressup’s first responsibility is to take the sting out of repossession – it helps to make things less heated if the kids can come and pose for selfies with their favorite characters.”
v-ragies
by Cristiano Cardone
“At that moment, I realized that our metal technology could do nothing anymore. The Bronze Age had long ended, and now the clash with reality gave us the violent backlash of backwardness.”
the guests are here
by Alexei Raymond
“It’s time to sleep; they’ll be here soon. Either them, or a few modest hours of erasure—escape.”
ghosts
by Patty Paine
“‘We're ghosts now,’ she whispered. ‘They can't hurt us if they can't find us.’"
human interests
by Johan Smits
“From within your dark enclosure, you had heard him counting the banknotes…the magic glue that keeps the world together…An ideal god.”
the monster inside
by Tim Hanson
“For one moment, the bully was sitting atop his prey, and the next, something green was gripping his face—a hand, a claw, something with fingers, one of which was sliding effortlessly into the pulpy white mush of the bully’s right eye.”
no, you don’t; or minerva’s gaze
by J. Agombar
“A voice whispers in your ear as you close your eyes in defeat. ‘No…you…don’t.’”
the lady
by Christopher Hallenbrook
“The Lady carried herself with an effortless old-world elegance that had exited this age a generation or more before she entered it.“
when my ex-wife dies
by Benjamin Drevlow
“When my ex-wife dies, and I promise it won’t be by my hand, I’ll bring her back home and have her stuffed and it won’t be for any sexy stuff…”
the last supper
by Jayson Carcione
“Soon the Manhattan skyline will be invisible behind a veil of white…His wife places her open palm against the glass of the window. She thinks everything is beautiful in the snow.”
close to me
by Alison L. Fraser
“The stench is emanating from inside Arlo’s locker as we pass it on our way to lunch. I glance towards it, and she notices me.”
going my way
by Kenneth M. Kapp
“Dead and gone. I’m getting colder. No pain though.”