Helga suspected but couldn’t know for sure. Signs abounded, however. Newspaper gone to black and white snowflakes. Scraps disappearing from countertops. Prescriptions with her suddenly omitted address and phone number. As though—no. Every Covergirl was losing her head, but through tender serration,
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Slate clouds roiled overhead as Ray walked down a narrow street. He passed an old man wearing a fedora and crumpled gray suit who was standing in the angled storefront of a small shop. A few antiques were displayed in the windows.
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The first night I saw him, the moon hung in the stars like a massive eye, and the wind crooned at my window like the voice of a lost lover. I woke with a rumbling stomach and stumbled through the curtain separating
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Sergio the Bailador by Brenda Gutierrez Chicken by Christopher Labaza Final Emancipation by Stephen M. Pierce Those Who Love Us by Bruce McAllister The Hollow Face by Paul Stansbury
When I was young, my hair was very orange—the color of the brightest fruit and of the four-winged tropical bird known as The Golden Orb—and I had (and still do) the sensitivities of people with that color of hair, ones doctors still
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This is a true story. As true as stories can be. Sergio was the neighborhood dancer. He’d show up to all the kickbacks, functions, and celebrations with a twelve-pack of Bud Light sitting on top of his left shoulder, ready to get
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Iris was a good girl. I liked her for Ike. Those two—so cute together. You’ve never seen two lovebirds more in love. I told my grandson he’d better take care not to lose a girl like that. “I know, Grandma. I know,”
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The Woman with Bougainvillea in Her Arms by Megan Swenson A Dish for Moonlight by Merri Andrew Neuropathy by Marita Mežroze Sludge by Zeinab Fakih A Small, Exquisite Gallery by Michael Loyd Gray
There was only the one painting. But a line formed around the block as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon. Feet shuffled and voices rose and fell. When it rained, umbrellas blossomed. Anticipation hung in the air like a pesky
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I left my hand in the other room. That happens sometimes—it just slides off the bone. I find my hand in the bed, strangled in a clot of covers. Fingers entombed in linen. I try to reattach it, but once the digits
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