Author
Lynette Mejia
When You Came Back
***Editor's Note: Adult story, includes reference to domestic violence*** When you came back, they said it was a miracle. Dead three days like Jesus in the tomb, like Lazarus you rose and walked again among the living. Where you had been and what you had seen, that was between…
Conduct the Stars Into Silence
First Movement You are eight years old and lying outside at night, staring up at the stars. There is no light pollution because you are far from any city, and because the electric company shut off the power three days ago. Inside the rusted travel trailer the heat was…
Paper Hearts
The little girl holds the delicate tissue paper carefully between thin, soot-stained fingers. The scissors are old and dull, handles missing their plastic covers. Blisters have formed on her hands where they've pinched, though she barely notices. Pain is an old friend now, and…
Crow Girl
When Crow Girl was released from the spell, she was quite surprised. She'd fully expected to die when the men had caught her in their nets, and it wasn't until they'd placed her in a cage inside the witch's hut that she realized she wasn't to be roasted or baked into a pie.…
Rocket Man
The door to the roof slams shut with a bang and I jump, involuntarily. For a moment Roger is nothing but a dark figure illuminated from behind, and then he is reduced to the orange pinpoint of his cigarette as the light from the doorway is extinguished. "You okay?" he asks. The…
Connection
The magician wobbled a little on his bar stool. "Ask me what I did for a living," he said. Somewhere deep inside of him a small voice was shouting to shut up, that he sounded like a fool, but he ignored it. His plane was likely delayed until morning, anyhow. "I already know what…
Copper and Steel
She found him in the middle of an abandoned trash dump, rummaging through discarded radiator coils and old engine parts. For a while she simply watched him, picking slowly through the junk, examining a piece of something before tossing it over his shoulder. His left arm hung…