Topic
Magic Realism
Reality with one corner gently lifted, where the impossible is treated as ordinary.
Hidden Treasure
Darla found her daughter's confidence stuffed into a shoebox on the top shelf of the hall closet, behind old tennis rackets and ice skates. "Shit." She set the box down like it might explode if she so much as thought about it too hard. Then she went upstairs, just to get some…
The Learned Astronomer
His comet speeds past the supernova generated by the exploding core of Star B-15810's. It was lucky he got here just in time. His quadrant of space is relatively new, way beyond the 4% of the universe visible from Earth, and he furiously jots down his observations of the…
Headhunting
The tinfoil sun scorched the desert road as a figure rode on horseback, carrying a disembodied head by its long hair. "You could let me go, you know," said the head, which belonged to an old man. "If I do that, you'll dine on dust," came the headhunter's reply. "And I won't be…
The Snow Globe
Once a time ago, a child is given a snow globe by an aunt or an uncle, he can't remember which. Inside the globe, a little man sits on a bench looking at a little woman. On her feet are silver slippers, and her arms are outstretched as if to embrace the sky. When he shakes it,…
Rummage Sale Finds
As soon as Corinne got out of the car and into the church basement where the rummage sale was being held, she spotted the gift she'd given her sister for Christmas. The basement was spacious, though the ceiling was low. Fluorescent lights made everyone and everything look a…
The Ice Cream I Eat Is Called Depression
When I went to the ice cream shop, I was faced with two flavors: happiness or depression. Most people probably chose happiness, but it was an expensive flavor, and anything full of so much sweetness is certain to make the teeth ache. When I saw people sitting in the ice cream…
To Meet the Death Carriage
The old storybook from the attic had said the only way a living person could intercept the death carriage was to stand where three roads met beneath a full moon after a day that held a rainbow. Janey had waited months for the perfect moment to come, and used that time to write…
Shadow Helper
In the cool, morning darkness, I rotate the living room window crank. It folds outward, letting in a gentle lilac breeze from the back yard. In the sunny glory of spring, two spotted fawns dance along the cedar privacy fence. They shuffle left then right, scared eyes wide and…
Shattered Petals of Celadon
Everyone has a heart box. Some boxes have mitred corners with beautifully contrasting splines. Some are dovetailed. Some have simple butt joints nailed from the outside. It doesn’t really matter. What grows inside them does. A curved seashell of curiosity. A hard scrap of…
Folkway
This kind of thing happens a lot in Folkway. I wouldn't let it worry you; you'll get used to it, as strange as that might sound. Around four years ago, we had nine vanish right inside of Mac's Pharmacy. In broad daylight. Just poof, gone, and the only thing left was the clothes…
The Candy Shop
"This can't be right." But the perky lady-voice of Google Maps insists I've arrived. Sure enough, squeezed between a nail salon and a cat clinic, the sign for "Hart's Candies" hangs askew from the frontage of the seedy strip mall. I hesitate outside the glass door, which is…
Unwound
The peculiar idea occurred to Bradley while he was in the shower. He noticed for the first time ever that when he showered, he always turned clockwise to rinse off. What, he thought, if all this turning like a clock was what made a person older and grayer, marking the passage of…
Saint Natalis of the Wolves
When the wolves roll into town, I'm sitting in Saturday catechism listening to Father Bradley explain how sex is like Scotch tape--when thoughtlessly pressed onto too many flannel shirts, it won't stick anymore when it counts. But I've heard this talk before. The sudden roll and…
Like Blood for Ink
When he was three, Jacob got his first skinned knee. I was in the backyard, trimming the raspberry bushes, while Derek moved wood chips in the front and Jacob rode his scooter up and down the sidewalk. Then a high-pitched squall cut through the podcast in my earbuds and I went…
Grow Up
I had chosen a peach tree like most of the women had, but not for the same reasons. I didn't think of it as the only feminine thing I could leave behind, a monument to my sex organs. Instead I just liked the fruit. It was ripe and sweet, and even though it would only feed…
City-Above, City-Below
On a clear day, when the wind stays home to rest and the waters of the lake go un-stirred, it's possible to cross from the City-Above to the City-Below. Go down to the lake's edge just after morning's first light, when the sun has begun to wake but not yet fully roused from its…
Berries
The blackberries grow over the graves in the sailors' graveyard. The thick bushes wrap around stone anchors and granite coiled ropes, the leaves obscuring the dedications in English, Latin, and Norwegian. Children gather the berries and take them home to be baked into crumble…
Two Certainties in Life
Death met my pretty sister on slick November roads. He was about to reap her gorgeous soul when he noticed her even more gorgeous body. So instead of taking her to heaven (or not) he took her out for drinks. "And we frolicked around Los Angeles for the next fourteen hours," she…
Love Letters
A husband did the worst thing possible to his wife: he took his love, and folded it in half. He did this for safety: it had been handled roughly in the past. Some singeing, a torn corner. The wife was one of those people who could read things back to front and upside down; she…
Look Away
Some people you don't know are running away from an explosion. You don't know them. Whatever people, any people. It's not important. No, all ages, all genders, it's just people, okay? And there's an explosion and they're running. How do you feel? Would you like to look away now?…
Build-a-Grudge
Mari lugs two heavy suitcases into the office and heaves them into the corner. "Where's yours?" she asks. I point to a half-filled garbage bag. "That's all you got?" "I've never done this before." She tsks at my inexperience. Then she takes her cubicle's photos and cuts out her…
Trash Fairies
I don't follow politics, but I will follow music anywhere. Music leads me all over the country, but I never stay in one place long before it calls me somewhere else. My name is Cyrus Locke. I carry a fiddle. I've been on the road following tunes for more than fifty years. When I…
In the Library of Longing
Eris sterilized her instruments with dabs of a rosemary-blood decoction. It smelled wholesome with only a hint of iron. She prepared a jar too, the glass bright green. Her client sighed in annoyance as she flipped to the final page of the contract. "Is this really necessary?"…
More than Instinct
Except for the utter darkness within its mouth and its pupils, it looked like an ordinary baby: even the cutest baby in the world, like her mother-in-law crowed. Amanda crouched before the bouncy seat on the kitchen floor and studied its nibbling lips. Its tongue dipped in and…
It's a Bird!
Author Bio: M.A. Dosser is a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. When he isn't researching music communication, television, or popular culture, he's writing about heroic blueberries, ravens and knights, and long voyages in outer space. Or he's in bed by 9 PM reading…
Two Offerings in the Halls of Undying
The primary solar sail of Yeshte's ship refuses to shift position, some ten trillion miles out from his destination. Yeshte hauls on the lever to shift the sail manually, the muscles of his back straining to meet in the middle, sinews and tendons standing stark in his hands. The…
It Came With Violets
I feel as insubstantial as these pressed violet petals that haunt like a pantoum. I tuck them back into the book of poetry I'd found while browsing a flea market--alone, of course. Sunlight streams through the tall window, twinned in the cheval mirror standing by the mantel.…
Chronicle of the Mender
Each day, the mender enters his workshop at noon. He sits at the workbench by the window, in the spot where the bench's wooden surface is well illuminated, yet where the harsh morning glare will not interfere with the precise nature of his craft now that the sun has reached its…
Familiar Ground
"Rina, when are you going to put down roots?" her relatives asked as they passed salt and gossip around her parents' dinner table. Framed photos of Rina's cousins and their families beamed down from the walls around them. Rina had sent her parents plenty of pics: Rina riding on…
Literary Cocktails
I knew there was something different about Literary Cocktails the moment I walked in--it was mostly silent and much too sober, save for a few people who sat hunched over their drinks, speaking quietly to themselves. When I approached the counter, a few customers stole nervous…
The Fruits of Sisterhood
One would be chosen to drink the wine, and by the time she was eleven, Agri knew it wouldn't be her. The knowledge hollowed an anger bubble inside her, but she didn't want to swallow it down like she always did. She wanted to do something else. She'd wanted to do it for so very…
Upgrade
By the time you finish reading this sentence you will be infected with the image of a single red balloon that has just been released and floats up into a clear blue sky. Do not be alarmed. This infection is not harmful to you or your community. The red balloon supermeme is a…
A Jar Full of Secrets
There are secrets in the air tonight. On nights like these, the humidity weighs them down and keeps them from floating up to the stars. They snag like luminous cotton balls on Mr. Roberts' too-tall grass and bob along the edges of Chesapeake Pond, pulsing their eerie glow until…
The Fastener
He devours me with his eyes as he describes me with a myriad of letters. His words are illegible to me because he writes in a language of his own invention. But I can see how he scribbles in his notebook. He says he copies my likeness. Every day, I take off my clothes to…
A Background Poorly Written
"What was that?" the woman asked. "What was what?" someone replied. I think that was me. "That sound. Didn't you hear it?" she asked. "No," I said, before a scratching that sounded like it was on the outside of the wall caught my attention. Wait--I don't see any wall. The wall…
A Hook, An Eye
The hook slipped neatly through the meat of my daughter's cheek, parting skin and sinew like a fin through still water. She grinned around it, teeth pink, tongue pushing against the gleaming metal. The barb jutted from her upper jaw like an extra canine. "How does it look?" she…
This is How the Rain Falls
This is how the rain falls. A splatter, like a single tear. Then a soft mist, like ocean spray. Then fat, ferocious missiles that burst and self-destruct on the slick sidewalk. Other people don't seem to mind the rain. They shrug on jackets and carry umbrellas, and when the rain…
After We Buried The Hatchet
Months after Mom died, Matt and I finally buried the hatchet. I said we should dump it in the Bay, take Dad's old Boston Whaler out of San Francisco Marina and just toss it over the side. Matt argued that it wouldn't be burying that way, now would it? Our last full-blown…
Dreams Do Come True
As a child I was excruciatingly shy; selective mutism they called it. While taking walks with my mother, were somebody to approach, I would dart behind Mom's leg as if being preyed on by the Loch Ness Monster. I could barely function at school and was afraid of everything.…
A New Great Wall
I woke one Saturday morning to discover my neighbor Rosalyn building a wall in the yard between our houses. She laid each brick in a pattern of alternating rows with no mortar to fill the gaps, taking care to align each new brick precisely with the last. I watched her work from…
The Castle of Wine and Clouds
It begins with the Tyrant--when the war ends, when the kingdom is conquered, and the new king coronated. The people in the Capitol learn to live with tiny injustices: the erosions of personal freedom, the way that their loved ones vanish in the night, the constant feeling of…
Process
By the time I reach the front of the queue, even the more vibrant hues of gray are being leeched out of the surroundings. I hold the container tightly to myself for an instant, my instincts rebelling against giving it up, but I know there's really no choice. The middle-aged…
Slush Pile
A Bradbury Furnace converts the loss of information exiting permanently out of existence into heat. Snelpin did not think of this as he carefully chose the only existent copy of Helica Wire's latest novel. He'd finished tossing in all photos and records of a widowed octogenarian…
Just Coffee, Every Morning
I come home from work to find you still in your pajamas, sitting up in bed and staring at the side table. "You were so excited to finish that cityscape you were painting, what are you doing in bed? Are you feeling okay?" "First coffee, then breakfast," you mumble, "but there…
Monstrous
***Editor's Note: Adult Story, Mature Themes*** Anya wasn't afraid of monsters. The one who lurked under her bed was harmless, small like her and easily frightened--nothing more than a trembling ball of fur and fangs and eyes. Anya saw it only in snatches. It skirted the shadows…
Chameleon
I'm glad you can't see me, I lie to the girl in the window seat, with the rainbow hair. It's OK. I'm not much to look at. I'm not beautiful like you. She's my age, but I'm not made of rainbows and a Propagandhi t-shirt. At the moment, I'm a girl made of a rough polyblend weave…
That Corpse You Planted Last Year in Your Garden
Plants comb the dirt in rows, sparser than Damek had hoped. The greenhouse windows sweat, dripping clear trails against the fogged glass. There's a fog outside too, the light dispersed so evenly it looks opaque. Behind the clouds an occasional brighter light flashes. The low…
Fear of Falling
When they pronounced his wife dead he started to fall. The death was expected--at least that's what his daughter told him. Nonetheless he fell, and fell and fell. At the funeral, he wore a suit four sizes too big because he lost weight when he worried, and he worried a lot…
The Book
Geraldine browsed the card catalog and came across a book titled, The Book that Explains Everything that Ever Was or Ever Will Be or Ever Could Have Been. She made a note of the reference number, but when she got to the specified aisle, she couldn't find it. She went to the…
Tonguing Mortar
I fall immediately in love with the house. I quit my job at the StuffMart and spend all my time caressing her bricks, and tonguing her mortar. The neighbors don't complain; this neighborhood's full of such lascivious dwellings that I see every owner caressing mantels, and…
Night Vision
He was an old man who'd outlived his parents, two brothers, and a wife. He had children and grandchildren, for God's sake. It made no sense he be afraid of the dark. But endings are difficult to accept. Like most people, he liked to pretend they didn't exist. But everything has…
Eel Soup
So, the time has come. He can't stand watching her suffer any longer. He prepares their last meal from scratch. He has procured the vegetables from the neighbor's garden. The onions are still good, as well, the carrots and potatoes. A can of stewed tomatoes, peppercorns and…
My Life as a Rattler
***Editor's Note: Adult Story*** It all began in an innocent way. Judith was walking outside the perimeter of her property and dumping weeds and kitchen scraps and branches in the forest, which sloped up and away from her garden, rolling through trees and branches and grasses up…
Infinite Tiny Lives, Infinitely Small
Grandma kept her civilizations on a shelf in the living room. She always let me dust them. When I was just a girl, I would pick up each and peer inside. Some of the baubles were dim, the civilizations inside long since dissolving to dust. Even then they were interesting, with…
When A Boy Gets His Bees
Thirteen By thirteen, most of the boys have their bees. By sixteen, even the late bloomers have matured, hives jutting out from under their skin, sculpting their jawlines. Bees deepen boy's voices, giving their words a hollow, buzzing tone. Like boys, bees themselves come in…
In September
On a humid night in mid-July, Emily can't sleep. Her hand keeps sliding into the cool open space on the far side of the mattress. She slips out of bed and pads down the hall into the kitchen. The breakfast barstool screeches when she pulls it out, but there's no one in the house…
Counting Days
*****Editor's Note: This story may be triggering around issues of self-harm. Reader beware***** Locked in my bathroom, I pull at the stitching, the color of old blood, grooving over my wrist bone, wincing as the thread moves, taffeta-soft. I pull until I don't wince anymore,…
The Spider's Garden
The spider grows invasive plants in her garden. Morning glory crawls up the walls, its leaves green and glossy, its tendrils curling into brick and crumbling it slowly to dust. Mint and lily of the valley choke each other in shady corners. Forsythia hedges stand under the weight…
The Look in Her Eyes
I'm back at her place, in her bedroom, waiting for her. Preparation is everything, and really, I don't have much choice. I'm used to dates not working out. There was that time with Arianna. We went to Rossini's. When the waiter only brought one coffee at the end of the meal, I…
All the Rest is Silence
Words write themselves upon her skin when she speaks. The letters emerge like a developing photograph, and become a permanent record of each frustrated mutter, each whispered confidence. As a child, she scrubbed herself raw, trying to erase a secret she revealed to her best…
Bitter is the Sea, and Bright
When the Isperfell come to our village of Merse by the Sea, it is not with their delicate bone-lattice knives readied and their faces painted for war. No, they approach the old way. Slowly and from just down the shore, emerald sea water cascading from their bright scales and…
Cuckoo Bird
The living room was rearranged when Mike came downstairs the next morning. He was groggy because he hadn't slept well, and he first tripped over the sofa and then bruised his knee on the television stand. It was sheer good luck that he didn't smash the TV. Mike rubbed his eyes…
Screw Your Courage to the Sticky Place
Ana did not expect to open the door and find the four horsemen of the apocalypse standing in the hallway outside her apartment. She opened it expecting to find her mother. So, honestly, it was a relief. "We're looking for Connor Archibald McKreeley," War said, barreling into the…
The Resurgence of Clowns
We knew it was happening again when David started juggling. One minute he was packing the lunches for school the next day, the next his hands were full of oranges and they were whizzing around in the air. His nose was bright red. Mum screamed and shoved me out of the kitchen.…
Keeping House
In a well-run household, such matters as laundry and dusting and the scouring of pots need not concern the mistress of the establishment. Discarded silk robes will discreetly wriggle their way to the washing tub. Each morning after breakfast, the soap will jump in, and the…
Truescent Wrongscent
Eliose's truescent is all wrong as she scruffs my ears and her lips turn up in a smile. I roll onto my back, careful not to jostle her in the bed. She rubs my belly, and starts to rasp what a good girl I am. But the words devolve into a coughing fit. The door creaks as Simon…
Field of Shoes
He stumbled into the field a little past midnight after taking a wrong turn off the lane. He'd been at the local bar, and stayed later than intended. All his old friends had stories to tell about when they were young and walked easily about the planet. They'd asked him how he…
The Towers are on Strike
When the palace issued a decree to raze the old Weavers' District to make way for new buildings, the condemned houses rebelled. They held picket signs above their low roofs, and some even left their foundations to march against the decree. It was an unfortunate situation for…
Sooth
You think it strange. Why can you not simply appear unannounced at our understated office in the quiet, yet fashionable, district in the oldest part of town? You think we would be aware of your coming and would sweep open the door with a smile saying, we have been expecting you.…
Small Sacks of Children
They carried the sacks of children on their backs. They carried them to the wall. The bags were small and the wall was gigantic and unfinished, barely to the waist of the average man or woman. And we were all average men and women now, the best of us already gone to the far…
When the World Stopped
When the world stopped, I had just walked out of Drew's life. I closed the front door and took a breath, and everything froze. The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't let out my breath, although that didn't seem to be a big problem--my lungs were on pause. In fact, no part…
All His Hims
It's the same every year. He wakes up in a cold sweat, knowing what's going to happen, knowing he's powerless to stop it. In years past he's tried to fight it, hiding himself away. But now, he just wants to get it over with. He lifts himself out of bed, and slouches into the…
Your Life Unfolds, and Then--
Have you ever had the feeling you're being watched? Of course you have, you're a fictional character. That's just life on the page, right? But what about those mundane moments that aren't on the page? When you're showering, brushing your teeth, clipping your toenails. Those…
Head full of posies
The green-eyed girl brought me talking flowers yesterday: beautiful white teardrops with a proud yellow stamen. They stand tall in the white vase. Everything here is white. Crisp white linen rubs against my skin; sterile white walls and floors surround the bed; and a white…
Smile
"Hey, sweetheart, smile!" She stopped walking and turned, an expression of polite puzzlement in her eyes, toward the two men lounging like flies at the front of the alley. "Got a pretty face but you're lookin' all mean." "C'mon, babe, don't be shy!" Slowly, sweetly, her lips…
Between the Lines
We met in the pages of the book, somewhere shortly before Act II. It wasn't my story. It wasn't his. We weren't even secondary characters--not the best friend or the sidekick, and certainly not the villain. But we were there, on the edges, behind the lines, between the letters.…
Hearts, Sticky with Mulch and Jam
The day Sarah gave birth to Paul, they carefully took her heart out of her chest and moved it to the outside. She understood the procedure, of course--she had seen the parents at the playground, chasing after slide-climbing toddlers, their hearts flapping against their shirts,…
We were Goblins
We were goblins that summer. Fire-roasted rabbit to eat and muddy pond water to drink. Howling at the stars at night. Groggy and green till afternoon. Cage and I hobbled everywhere during those sweltering days, sweat dripping down our youthful, twisted faces. Long on ears, short…
Cast Down
The smooth skin and delicate ear of the actual broken and discarded God. Vast and intricate fragments cast down upon the land and sea. Frost-rimed fingers curled in the mountains like the stark ribbed fossils of ancient leviathans. Silt-washed toes in the ocean, warmed by the…
Ballgown Road
The only way to reach Ballgown Road is from an overgrown path that local wags call "Knot Street." There's nothing on it but a tree at the end. An old, gnarled, leafless tree with a hollow heart. Women put all kinds of things into that tree. Broken glass. Wedding rings.…
The Moon in Her Doorway
She didn't know why the moon had smashed into her house, trapping her inside. After working a double shift, she had walked home on tired feet under a night sky. The moon had hung large and low on the horizon, like a silver dollar. It balanced on the hill above her neighborhood.…
The Day They Found The Train
Something had gutted the whale in the night. Yet in the dawn, the leviathan was still strangely beautiful, its muscles jeweled with tiny crabs, a glimmering carpet of life gorging itself on the still-warm flesh. Soon, however, the offal would be eaten, and the sun would bake the…
Counting Down
Phil says he can catch a bullet, and none of us believe him. You have to know Phil: he says shit like this. The first night I met him, he swore he could backflip from a standing start. Bet me twenty bucks, and I put up the money. He got halfway over before he crashed into…
A House Is Not a Home
"Where were you?" Darien regrets the shape of the question as it forms, tries to negate the unintended implication. "Did that spring squall affect traffic?" Accusation seems to dance at the corner of his words, no matter his intention. Men lack a talent for backtracking, he…
Words of Creation
I joined the temple as a very young girl. By the time I was eight, I'd mastered writing. I joined the ranks of the novice priestesses, vowing to never speak again. Words have power. With words, the gods created the universe. Ordinary people tossed syllables and sentences around…
The Curse of Giants
The curse of giants is to never fit in. At school the other kids try to make me lose control, because they know I'll put on a show for them. They call me Dumbass Danny. They laugh when I lose my breath and can't keep up at phys ed. They kick me when nobody's looking. They don't…
A Whisper of Feathers
The woman behind me unfurled her wings and settled down into the seat. Once she was seated, the wings carefully closed around her wizened frame, almost like a shield. Black crow wings. I averted my eyes from them. Two schoolgirls brushed past me, giggling as the tips of their…
A Photograph of Bones
Like all children, Ava drew stick figures. She rendered eyes and noses as black circles and clothes as vague outlines draped over coat hanger shoulders and ribbed barrel chests. Her teacher said she had an eye for form. She had trouble with facial expressions, but she completed…
The Devil Is Beating His Wife Today
Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of a sunny day, it began raining. "The devil is beating his wife today," said my landlady as she swept. It's an awful colloquialism, and I asked her about it. She explained it this way: the devil's mad about the glorious day, so he takes it out…
The Last Book
The book had first been captured by my great-great-grandmother, back when ink life was common in the forests behind our estate. It had been kept in a large silver cage and passed down through the generations, a magnificent specimen for all children and guests to behold. As the…
Some Men Break
He had a driftwood heart; he had sleepy-ocean eyes. I lifted my bloodied head from the sand and there he was, standing on spindly branching legs. Battered wreckage that had long since been washed thin and worn by the waves. I felt the pound of the surf in my temple, in my…
The Judges
The judges would not leave him alone. They followed him from home to work, watched him while he walked his dog, spied on his first dates, and checked him out while he was checking himself out in the mirror. Even while he was using the bathroom, they watched his every move. Oh,…
Found Day
On Found Day, Elaine began her search at sunrise. She started with her apartment because lost things turned up most often at home on Found Day. National surveys each year proved that. She poked under her bed and in the closets, under couch cushions and inside cabinets and…
The Quest You Have Chosen Defies Your Fate
You are reading a book, and within that book you now walk through the iron gates of the junior high school of your youth. You don't understand how you are reading of a real place within this old fantasy book of adventures you found in the closet of your childhood bedroom. These…
<3 Quest
She sits in the same tree every day at lunch, feet dangling from the edge of her wooden defense tower behind the kickball courts. I stay off the blacktop as I make my way around, away from the big kids, not wanting to draw enemy attention as I approach her. This mission requires…
Mea Maxima Culpa
Dr. Vulpine took the lectern behind a screen of radio microphones as press cameras flashed and newsreel cameras whirred. "After careful investigation, I must announce that the recent popularity of mandrakes rests on no scientific evidence. All claims to "terroir" and focusing of…
Things to Do after They're Gone
I find you under my bed one night when I am looking for a lost suitcase, curled up and desolate as if you were just a dead tree. You shrink from my reach. I have no idea how long you have been there. I wonder if you can tell. I stopped dreading you when I was ten. Ten years it…
Stasis
When her little sister Mary died, Clarissa stopped eating up chunks of her time. At first no one noticed. She went on pretending to be the happy-go-lucky eighteen-year-old we all used to know. She was really good at masking her grief as something else. The day after the funeral,…
Note to a Stranger
We met in the space the mundane shops go, in those unscheduled moments when others take their place and old Uncle Joe popping by for a snack finds the 7-Eleven replaced by Maerlyn's Magick Shoppe. When the 7-Eleven went, I went with it. The air grew rich and heady with magic.…
The Spirit in the Mouth of the Bald Man with Four Eyes
"Why are you always so hard on your son? And you speak of your daughter like she's an ex-girlfriend that keeps disappointing you. 'Don't try to pull one over on me' and such things. Pathetic." The clay-face ornament on the wall had not gone off like that in over a week. "The…
The Spirit in the Mouth of the Bald Man with Four Eyes
"Why are you always so hard on your son? And you speak of your daughter like she's an ex-girlfriend that keeps disappointing you. 'Don't try to pull one over on me' and such things. Pathetic." The clay-face ornament on the wall had not gone off like that in over a week. "The…
The Surreal Fountain Pen
Filled with ink that spirals onto the page in a cursive race of unscripted extrapolation, the Surreal Fountain Pen is the finest creative writing instrument in the rudimentary history of the human species. Deep in its abounded journey, throughout hidden chambers arranged in a…
Fields (Lords of Fate)
Sounds of war awoke the farmer. He listened as roars of bravery collapsed beneath cries of agony. Swords clashed with swords, armor with armor, flesh with flesh. The farmer sprang from bed, ran for the door of his shack, flung it wide, and froze. Chaos had taken shape. Soldiers…
A Domestic Lepidopterist
After extracting the sphinx moth from the mother's deepest fear, tucked away carefully within the smallest chamber of her heart, the lepidopterist held it in the light, trapped between a pair of forceps. It fought, kicking its legs, its wings fluttering, almost transparent,…
Isabelle the Stupendous
Isabelle fell back and kicked forward as hard as she could, looking down the length of her body to where her Spiderman shoes pointed to the setting sun. The swing chains wriggled like pond frogs in her hands. Her tummy lurched just like it did when the plane took off on their…
Marking Time
This bead marks the moment you told Tom Merchant (high on your first-ever vodka shots and the teeth-jittering adrenaline of being out--even just as part of a group--with Tom Merchant, the most brilliant, amazing guy you'd ever met) that you couldn't care less about your…
Packing Foam
Saturday afternoon crashed, leaving each brick of the asylum stuck like a frozen pixel. Likely the rain, Eben figured. Rendering the complex ripples, the splashing drops--not to mention the fraying edges of the mist--were too demanding for his obsolete brain. During the rainy…
Alice Gets Lucky at the Toy Mall
He comes to life in aisle six, nestled between a Play and Go Captain Calamari and a crib/floor mirror. Remember me? the toy-boy says to Alice, his eyes glistening wistful blue, the rest of him in lead alloy cast, perhaps the arms and legs made from sawdust and glue. I'm the toy…
Crowned
"So they did take it down," I said. Tanisha could see perfectly well for herself, but I said it again anyway: "The mural's finally gone." First the spot on the corner had been a bodega. Then for a while it was a promising construction site; then it was The Hole. You came up out…
The Words on the Walls
The prisoner had literally written in circles--well, thought Myra, literally in squares--pacing around and around to fill the stark white walls of the room. The place was barely the size of a good shoe closet, with no windows and no bed. A camera, disconnected now, perched in…
Dream Logic
Keith touches a hand to his nose, and I'm not sure what surprises him more: the blood my left hook drew, or the fact that his boxing gloves have suddenly disappeared. "How did you--" I slug Keith again. Keith doesn't get dream logic, which is why he shouldn't be narco-boxing.…
Like Reeds in Summer
Does my family name matter? I gave it up when I joined Ceres Edelman's house to become her willing slave, one of many men in her service. I was sworn to testify in my own words, and my deposition only recounts what I witnessed. Forgive my awkward ways. I was never videotaped…
One Hundred Years in Sushi City
On Wednesday Dan found an octopus stretched across the Honda's windshield, basking in the morning dew. Dan set his computer bag down and returned to the house, where he assembled a makeshift cephalopod-removal kit: a spatula to pry suckers off glass, a cookie sheet to scoop up…
They Come With the Carnival
The balloon children dance down the sidewalk outside our house to music my husband and I cannot hear. They come with the carnival. It frightens us to see them, their balloon heads red and round, strings falling from their necks like ropes they might have used to hang themselves,…
Good Kids
I don't watch the cars rushing past us on the highway, and I don't look at my brother in the backseat. Instead, I count the sparse hairs on my arm and tell myself that it's not turning into fur. I check all the time, since my brother started turning into a dog. The teachers at…
Time is Money
Walter Stanwick grabbed his usual newspaper and cup of coffee from the P&D; Market on the corner of 53rd and Industrial. It was his routine. In Walter's world, consistency was the secret to a long life. "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll overdraw your account." Walter looked up from…
Do Not Count the Withered Ones
Callie kept her heart in the front yard, as people often do. Here, her father's oak, solid and stoic and unchanging. There, her sister's rhododendron, which bloomed with pale pink flowers. One root from each plant grew into her heart, which nourished everything in the yard. She…
"Ulder"
"Ulder," said the man in the hat, leaning in, lips barely moving. His eyes darted, as if anyone else on the train would hear him through their prophylactic earplugs. We were the only two with ears open. "What?" I said, too loud. The man in the hat leaned away, mouth tight, beard…
By Trixie Kennedy
"Choose your name," the guy outside the bus says. He has a clipboard and a pen, and he is blocking her path. She stops, confused. "I have a name." "Did you choose it?" "My parents named me, of course," she says. He looks at her like she's admitted something shameful. "Choose…
The Strongest Man in the World
The strongest man in the world is trapped inside the closet. The doorknob rattles and shakes, but I have placed a chair beneath it, angled like so, and the rug has kinked beneath it and it will not move. That is how you do trapping people in closets. I know the trick, and I have…
Lucky Cherry Luck
The cannery above waist level was spotless. Stainless steel countertops shone under the fluorescents and machines hummed with an oiled speed. Jolene was lucky to work at such a fine cannery. She told herself that, when she arrived each evening and again each morning when she…
Tell Me How All This (and Love too) Will Ruin Us
***Editor's Note: Thoroughly adult story*** You were screaming when I pulled you from the boat. You hadn't fallen into a bout of it since we left the mainland. I'd bound your legs to broken steel poles, kept you as still as I could, doused you in whiskey. For a time you were…
Negative Space
It took a long time for Lucy Morgan to die. It was an unremarkable death, a slow unraveling of skin and synapses and self that inconvenienced no one and left nothing behind but dust and the lingering memory of lavender in the air. And then, after men in white suits had come and…
The Gifts: Part Three
I told many lies. The angel feeding me after I lost my hands, for instance. I'd never seen one. Still haven't, for that matter, unless the carvings and paintings in churches and chapels count. But people assumed that the only way I could have survived was with the help of an…
Artist's Retrospective
I can't take my eyes off the customer's back as he approaches my gallery. My emotions are strong and mixed: satisfaction, a sense of completion, a little sadness. I hope he is happy with the painting he is bringing me. The bell over the door jingles as he enters, and we shake…
A Change of Heart
Clara got her first clue in preschool, just before naptime one day, as Ms. Weston read aloud from a massive gleaming book of fairy tales. Clara knew most of them already, though the versions were different, and this Snow White was stabbed with a poison comb before she ever…
Nova Verba, Mundus Novus
After one hundred and eighty-four days, the Sesquipedalian reached the end of the world. The Atlantean Ocean poured over the edge in a magnificent waterfall. Scales on the tumbling fish reflected the setting sun like liquefied gold. The crew, awed, fell silent. Only the panicked…
Theories of Pain
"If pains are representations, then what do they represent?" (Maund, "Tye on Pain and Representational Content," Pain, 2006:145) There are two large apples rolling inside his head. He's sure, yes--he can feel their waxed red skins rubbing against each other. Red delicious, the…
Tell Them of the Sky
She is too small, Kitkun thinks, the first time she enters his tiny workshop tucked between the market's stalls. Too young to have left the nest alone. Yet, despite the years of waiting, he still feels a prick of hope as she steps out of the city's unrelenting smog and over the…
Such Days Deserved
The Empty Lot on Annie's block was hot and dusty-dry in the summer, luminous with possibilities. Spiky shrubs caught bits of litter, strange jars and cans nestled among pebbles and behind rocks, and grownups rarely came by. Magic happened all the time. She unearthed a real…
Pinned and Wriggling on the Wall
Regardless of what they might preach now, they once allowed you to be in college and in love. They allowed love to be magical. Beneath the deep midnight sky, Sara and I walked hand in hand, and one of the college guards followed. We led him around the prayer area, where a…
I'll Leave The Light On
***Editor's Note: Adult language, used judiciously*** The boy throwing rocks at the No Parking sign on Tide Street at around eight p.m. (she'd had to work late, and afterwards had made a detour to a convenience store, and then decided to take this way home--pure chance, nothing…
The Left Side of Your Lover's Broken Face
***Editor's Note: Adult language, sparingly used*** A story is a little tiny piece. A brick, a section of straight pipe, half a radiator. It should be an important piece; if it's not important, pick a different bit. If you can still tell what's important. A table leg. A trash…
Things We Leave Behind
Some of my earliest memories are of books. They were everywhere in our apartment back in the Soviet Union; shelves stacked as high as the ceiling in the corridor and the living room, piles of them encroaching upon every nook and available surface like some benign infestation.…
The Man and the River
Once upon a time in a far kingdom, there lived a man who fell in love with a river and so he married it. One day, as he sat happily in the river, he glimpsed something. It moved swiftly beneath the surface, dark and strong. As it swam by, he grabbed it by the tail and it pulled…
Ansa and the Lost Thing
Papa was always losing things, from his car keys to the car he'd just put them in, so when he ended up losing himself, Ansa and I figured we had more important things to do than find out where he went. If he came back, he'd bring dinner. If he didn't, we could turn his office…
Lost and Found
Monday the Ninth The mailman delivered the unusual package as the young man who visited me on occasion was leaving. Charley sat in the living room while I tore into the repurposed Amazon shipping box. "Unbelievable," I whispered, clawing my way past squeaking popcorn and…
Where You End and the World Begins
It took Penelope a week after moving into her apartment to realize that the man who was always sitting on the leather couch in the living room was her roommate. At first, she took him for an overly devoted evangelist. He wore a white, collared shirt, black slacks, and a blank…
The Mobius Garden
When Suriak was given her first watercolors she painted the garden she saw every night when she slept. In the first week she worked through the pad of paper that came with the set, and in the week after she covered the walls of her room with embankments of flowers. Her parents…
The Mechanical Heart of Him
Little Him scooted around Danni's heart, tying his strings so tight that she thought the organ would burst. Watching his dizzying journey made her thankful for the transparency of her skin. It didn't matter that she'd flirted with the waiter and allowed him to touch her knee. It…
The Way
They made up their minds and started packing. "Should we bring our medicine?" Helen asked. John smiled at her. For the first time in a month his wife managed to maintain a coherent conversation. She used to fade in and out, often stopping in mid sentence--her train of thought…
In Her Arms of Dresden Pale
She was broken when he met her, shattered into a thousand tiny shapes, all with jagged edges. He gathered up her pieces and carried them home. He spread them out on his dining room table, an eye here, a fingertip there, and smiled. The damage was not irreparable. A glassblower…
Safe Empathy
He was sullen when they returned from the party. "What's wrong?" she asked, more out of obligation than interest. "Nothing." She had meant to talk to him tonight, but she saw that was no longer possible. She went over the night in her head, moment by moment. Did she laugh too…
Heart of Gold
He was born with a heart of gold. The doctors stared at X-rays, slack-jawed, not knowing how it could beat, let alone pump blood, so they scribbled notes and prescribed unnecessary medicine, just to seem important, and sent the boy home. Soon the child fell ill. He recovered,…
Jade Dragon
Uncle Tang repeats the same proverb when he beats me: "Hitting you is loving you." He's not my uncle by blood, though he's done more for me than any blood relative has. My mother could not have had a brother anyway, due to China's One Child Policy when she was growing up in the…