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THE BURNING BLACK • by Greta Igl 8 Comments
The thing on the table stops him dead. The bag with the corn that could be any old bag, but isn’t. This one’s stained black, guilty black like his hands. He gets this bad feeling, but he sees the way Mom stands at the counter, her hips leaning against it like she’s done to death. [...]
Literary, Stories
WASPISH • by Melissa A. Bartell 8 Comments
The door was open, and his bags were waiting beside it. “Sweetie,” he said, “I’m sorry. I hate traveling this month. This is the last trip this quarter, and I’ll be home in a week.” He tried to kiss her, but she stiffened, and pulled away.
“Go,” she said, in a flat tone. “Just go.” Something [...]
Literary, Stories
THE DAY MICHAEL FLEW • by William I. Lengeman III 3 Comments
Michael stood at the peak of the garage roof, with one bare foot planted firmly on either side. He could see all the way down past Pap’s backyard and the cherry trees, past the creek to where the cornfields stretched out in all directions as far as he could see. A clump of dark clouds [...]
Literary, Stories
WILTED BLOSSOMS • by Diane D. Gillette 6 Comments
Iris and Lily, still the favorite blossoms in their Mama’s garden, were suddenly eight years old again, after nearly forty years since the first time around. Though somewhat wilted in appearance, as the color and luster had started to fade from their blooms, the sisters were still confident in their beauty and charms. But husbands [...]
Literary, Stories
THE NOTE • by Ty Johnston 17 Comments
Note pinned to the blouse of a dead woman surrounded by broken glass on the sidewalk outside a twenty-story hotel:
“For the love of God, my children are being held hostage in room 1828.
This was the only way I could get help. They said they would shoot me if I tried anything.”
Ty Johnston has been writing [...]
Horror, Literary, Stories
THE BEACH COTTAGE • by Angela Carlton 14 Comments
I am washing my hands at the beach cottage, when the phone rings. My friend Tess and I have come here to escape. We’ve come to cope with the issue neither of us plan to discuss. Right away, I know it’s him calling by her liquid tone. “I’ve been thinking of you,” she whispers. “I’m [...]
Literary, Stories
A PRESENT PAST • by Patrice Horwitz 12 Comments
In the early part of the night, I woke up from a restless sleep and tiptoed to my computer to turn it on. The familiar whir of the machine settled me, and I knew that I would soon be much closer to finding my husband’s ex-girlfriend’s phone number. I wanted to call her office after-hours and [...]
Literary, Stories
THE HERON • by Oonah V Joslin 33 Comments
I envied the heron that lived his life at the edge of the park by the weir, between there and the estuary. I envied him his wild detachment; his haughty superiority. The huge nest in the canopy of tree tops overhanging Telford’s road bridge must have made a noisy nesting place, but the heron didn’t [...]
Literary, Stories
PINK TAFFETA • by Gianna De Persiis Vona 13 Comments
I’m getting married tomorrow. My mother calls, at ten minutes to midnight, to ask whether or not I am going to wear a dress. She’s drunk and the slur of her words pelts me through the phone line like wine-soaked gravel. “The bride’s outfit is supposed to be a surprise, Mom,” I say.
“Oh, just fucking [...]
Literary, Stories
THE SNIPER’S SON • by Jill Barth 12 Comments
Each time they make love it is the same: his vigorous young body blanketing hers, her plaid skirt pulled up, his red bicycle on its side, forgotten momentarily. You are my obsession, my love, An bpósfaidh tú mé. His bold Irish mouth begging, insisting into hers, marry me. Marry me.
Afterwards he zips up. He stands [...]
Literary, Stories
PRETTY AS A PICTURE • by Bill West 37 Comments
Jenny sat beside her blind grandmother and typed ‘Golden Valley, Wales’ into Google Earth.
Planet Earth spun round. Jenny always liked this bit. Like flying–swooping down from outer space.
Aerial photographs filled the screen.
Her grandmother asked, “Can you really see it? White cottage, clipped hedges, flowerbeds and beehives. Pretty as a picture. Grandfather’s grave down in the [...]
Literary, Stories
YARDIE GIRL • by Celeste Goschen 21 Comments
“How’s New York?” Mama whispers, as she tries to claw away a tube from her face.
“Fine Mama. Just fine.” I reply. “I did an interview last week for a chat show.”
“An’ what great tings you gotta tell the world?”
“Nothing.” I shrug, feeling fifteen again, wishing I could do something to make her proud. “Just jamming [...]
Literary, Stories
THE WATERED DOWN VERSION • by Angela Carlton 14 Comments
In the watered down version of you, you are merely an acquaintance not the love from my youth. In this version, you are smaller with those thin hands that keep slipping through mine. And, yes, you still speak with a bit of a southern accent, but it’s not smooth or gentle. This voice does not [...]
Literary, Stories
LEONIDAS AND THE T-BIRD • by Sarah Black 15 Comments
“M’ijo, you don’t look up to a man because of the paint on his car. It’s the engine, son, not the car.” My dad, he’s wiping the oil off his hands with a greasy red rag, the name patch over his pocket Leonidas. He told me once he was named after a crazy Spartan king, [...]
Literary, Stories
THE TEST • by Mike Whitney 17 Comments
On that unusually warm winter’s day, nine year old Jimmy Underhill and his fourth-grade classmate, Patrick Brian Floyd–called P.B.–met at their usual spot behind the Williams construction company. They liked the loud sounds from the big cement trucks coming and going all day after being filled with the thick gray semi-liquid. The welders working with [...]
Literary, Stories
SICK DAY • by K.C. Shaw 12 Comments
Lily’s alarm clock shrilled, drowning out the sound of rain. Lily jerked fully awake and turned the alarm off.
She closed her eyes for a moment, evaluating her body. Was there, perhaps, just a bit of tickle in her throat? Did her stomach hurt even slightly? Was she congested–just a little?
The answers were all no. Reluctantly, [...]
Literary, Stories
SHOW ME BRAVE • by Kevin Shamel 36 Comments
“Someone has taken our table.” She spoke through me, as if to a ghost of herself standing behind me.
Her eyes hardened under a glacial frost–gritty, grating winter. Her lips pressed whitely together, crinkling the edges of her mouth into mean postures of offense. Over the sounds of the cantina I heard the growling near-words in [...]
Literary, Romance, Stories
A HERO FOR BOBO • by Rena Sherwood 26 Comments
“Don’t let the bastards make you nervous,” Tammy told herself over and over again. “Even if you are.” Still, Tammy wore a wig and glasses. She also rented a car to drive to and from the studio. She also crossed her fingers that no one would recognize her later. Senseless passions like this same-sex marriage [...]
Literary, Stories
THE APRIL FOOL • by Matthew Strada 19 Comments
“April Fool!” Carter said to Dugan. “Now give me that piece of paper.” Dugan handed the piece of paper back to Carter, sank back into his bed, and resumed his vigil.
Carter walked away, crumpled the paper, and cocked his head in a lunatic laugh.
… One minute earlier …
“Here, Dugan,” Carter said with an uncharacteristically broad [...]
Literary, Stories
SOMEONE ELSE’S SLIP • by Sarah Hilary 48 Comments
There was a greasy thumbprint on the menu card, right where it said to tick the boxes to get the lunch you fancied. Dinah didn’t want to tick any ruddy boxes. She eyed the list. “Chicken Cobbler,” she mumbled, missing her dentures, “what’s that when it’s at home?”
At home, she’d have poached a nice bit [...]
Literary, Stories
FIXED AND DILATED • by Alison Bullock 17 Comments
By the time I arrive at the cardiac intensive care unit, he is almost gone. Head wrapped in gauze. Neck brace affixed. Tube down throat. It’s hard to find a piece of him that I can recognize. His eyes are eerily open, the pupils fixed and dilated.
He blinks rhythmically–once, twice, and again. “They’re mini seizures,” [...]
Literary, Stories
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS • by Patrick Parr 25 Comments
I sat completely still on the couch, a statue, my hand holding the winning lottery ticket. The machine had selected seven random numbers and rewarded my indecision with a new life.
My wife Shannon came out of the bedroom and handed me a written-on receipt. “I found this in one of your jackets.”
I read it, but [...]
Literary, Stories
LIFELINE • by Nathan Trader 22 Comments
It’s not until the sharp pain seizes his heart that he realizes that there’s still so much left to do. A pinched nerve throbs in the back of his head and sends a series of numbing jolts through his skull. The oxygen in the room escapes out the windows as the attack takes him over, [...]
Literary, Stories
THE SPIRAL INTO MADNESS • by Cornelius Barbulescu 9 Comments
Something wakes me but I don’t want to leave my warm, stiff bed. A fist pounds the room’s door. “Wake up, medication,” shouts a woman. I wish that I could fall back asleep, that my mind could escape this excruciating reality.
“Wakey, wakey,” says my roommate. His dirty hands pull away my cover, letting the cool [...]
Literary, Stories
THE SOUND OF SILENCE • by Sherryl Clark 12 Comments
The child was screaming. Again. And she could tell by the way his screams echoed that he’d been put outside again. In the alley.
It was dark in the alley, and overgrown with weeds, littered with rubbish and sometimes needles.
She stood by her back door, listening. Every now and then she heard him shriek, “Mummy, let [...]
Literary, Stories
BECAUSE WE CAN • by Jasmine Pahl 25 Comments
Crystal talked my damn ear off about her childhood on the four-and-a-half-hour drive up from Vancouver to the Okanagan. I told Karroll as much when we got to her place and Crystal went to use the bathroom.

“I told you to bring lots of tunes,” said Karroll and we rolled our eyes because we both love [...]
Literary, Stories
OUTSIDE • by Stephanie Clauson 12 Comments
I didn’t like sports when I was little. I was shy then. Didn’t fit anywhere. Then one day, on the playground in the rain, some tall kids tossed me a ball. Just like that I arrived, like it had always been planned that way. It was like waking up. I could feel the air in [...]
Literary, Stories
THE LAST PERSON ON EARTH • by Walter Giersbach 14 Comments
He was the last person on earth, he thought, and then there was a knock on the door.
The nurse–Shawna, he remembered someone calling her–was the first to make the rounds of the hospital, or hospice or nursing home. Wherever. He wondered why she knocked when she surely knew he was the only person in the [...]
Literary, Stories
SNOW AND SILENCE • by Precie A. Schroyer 17 Comments
It was mostly a blur for her now, a cultivated blur. Yet some bits of memory wouldn’t fade; some sensations wouldn’t dull.
The pregnancy test strip, taken from the lab, used on lunch break. How easy, how automatic it was to process the countless samples that came through the lab. Faced with the telltale color of [...]
Literary, Stories
LEVEL CAP • by D.A. Heiserman 13 Comments
Artwork by: Lindsay Joy
Galandar the White was as noble a warrior as the land of Ameroz had ever seen. He was a captain in the noble Knights of the White Lilly, from which he took his name. Every week, he and his valiant comrades gathered together and rode about the land, fighting evil, rescuing the [...]
Literary, Stories
REMEMBER? • by Erin M. Kinch 18 Comments
Getting out of bed was the thing to do, she knew it, but her body refused to move. The quilt wrapped her in safety and warmth like a mother’s love, shrouding her from the high-contrast world lurking outside.
“Morning, love.” The mattress dipped as Tom clambered in next to her. His body molded around hers, back [...]
Literary, Stories
DIVING FOR BARB • by Mike Whitney 6 Comments
Carl climbed the three meter board’s ladder, walked to the end of the board, measuring distance and steps: three long and a quick step before the bounce. He visualized the dive, a front two-and-a-half flip, before extending his body and entering the water as cleanly as possible.
Lanier Jr. High’s diving team had come to the [...]
Literary, Stories
GRANDFATHER’S SMOKE • by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy 9 Comments
The pungent aroma of cigarette smoke was a pleasant one to her as long as it was rich and fresh. It could not be the stale odor found in bars and back rooms, the kind of smell layered over many years. She liked the scent of tobacco because somehow in her subconscious it had come [...]
Literary, Stories
MARIE’S LAST GRASP • by Ijasan Adelehin 10 Comments
I am a bitch, always have been. I have, in fact, always taken a malicious pride in it. It is what I believe has guided me through life–three failed marriages and the death of one son. Where other women would have cracked and had themselves ferried off to padded cells, I have stuck to it, [...]
Literary, Stories
A SHINY NEW ANDREW • by P.A. Matthews 13 Comments
Unsure of what she’d encounter today, Angela slowly turned the knob and stepped inside the small apartment. Her nose crinkled as she deeply inhaled the musty interior. Nothing had disturbed the air since her last visit, except for a slight odor she couldn’t place.
Flipping on a light, she surveyed the new surroundings, anxiety entering her [...]
Literary, Stories
PREPARING FOR SHALU’S WEDDING • by Rumjhum Biswas 12 Comments
“Bhaiya! Bhaiya! Where are you?”
Shalu is breathless. She wants him to see her bangles. She wants him to admire her wedding sari, the gold earrings and necklace; her shiny new slippers. The red lipstick and bottle of maroon nail polish. Her bhaiya has bought them all for her wedding next month.
Vir hears her. But he [...]
Literary, Stories
NOT MINE • by Kajsa Wiberg 14 Comments
When in the midst of a crowded Madison Avenue, Hannah materialized in front of me, my first reaction was to grin. She looked–if possible–even better than she had years ago, during the mind-blowing six months when she was mine. Her reddish hair was shinier, her eyes were like emeralds, and she had a glow about [...]
Literary, Stories
WE ARE LUXEMBOURG • by Richard Rippon 14 Comments
“When the eclipse happens, I’m going to run around the car park naked,” says Arnott.
I’m still processing this when he performs some kind of dynamic lunge next to the till and emits a deep, rattling fart that sends Lisa scuttling off to the storeroom for cover.
This is my place of work. This little neglected stationary [...]
Humour/Satire, Literary, Stories
DESIRE • by Martin Cooney 6 Comments
This day, I cross the Bragoto River to the market, slave to a desire that has been growing in my heart. What beauty! I brush past women, clothed in fine reds and purples and blues like shrimps, and just when my passion is greatest–I see them! Those seductive tails, red coats, those large black eyes–and [...]
Humour/Satire, Literary, Stories
MRS. WILSON’S BREAK • by Avis Hickman-Gibb 19 Comments
“Mrs. Wilson… Rachel Wilson? Your X-rays are back, will you come through–the doctor will see you now.” The receptionist’s voice drifted into her consciousness.
Just when she’d got herself comfy on this very awkward chair, damn it.
“Come on, love,” a nurse smiled at her, “come through–we can give you something for the pain now.”
As Rachel slowly [...]
Literary, Stories
SONG OF THE EXTRA-POINT KICKER • by Patrick Parr 16 Comments
The pressure is undeniable, and yet I know I will be taken for granted. I sit on the sideline. We need seven points, not six, but seven, to win the game. You see, the other extra-point kicker missed his attempt. Poor bastard. I watched as his team celebrated, jumping up and down the sideline, the [...]
Literary, Stories
SYNERGY • by Oonah V Joslin 35 Comments
Phil tried out the new swivelly chair for size–took a spin or two just to get the feel of it and put his hands on the desk proprietarily. “Hand me a book, love, will you?”
“Any book?”
“Any book.” Marta handed him a book.
“No, not that–a big book.”
“Well, you should have said size mattered. War and Peace–will [...]
Humour/Satire, Literary, Stories
TEARS IN A BOX • by DJ Barber 13 Comments
She cried. It came naturally. At an early age she became sure that she might run out of tears and so she got a small box–a cast-off from her mother’s cosmetics drawer. Her small hands grasped the porcelain casing and tucked it away into her pocket. Alone in her room she’d sit on the bed, [...]
Literary
LONG AND SHORT • by Jeff Alan 16 Comments
I have a thing for hair. My wife knows this. So of course she was prepared when I asked her why she’d pinned it up.
“This dress has a graceful neckline. I don’t want to cover it.”
“Yes, that’s true,” I said. “It’s a nice dress.”
We drove in silence the rest of the way to the restaurant.
When [...]
Literary, Stories
THE REAL WORLD • by JR Pinto 9 Comments
The sign at the diner read “PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED”, but Harry did not wait. He had a plane to catch. Instead, he strode up to the counter and sat down.
The cook came over to him. His pants, shirt, hat, and apron had all been white at one time, but they were now thoroughly [...]
Literary, Stories
MORNING COFFEE • by Michael D. Turner 8 Comments
Linda takes it black. The way I used to when I was twenty-something and indestructible. Now it’s cream and sugar for the old man, whose stomach can’t stand black anymore.
The old can is on the first shelf, right under my hand as I open the cabinet. Haven’t bought a can of coffee in three years, [...]
Literary, Stories
A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING • by Beth Langford 5 Comments
I looked at my face in the smashed glass: misshapen but clear, like a moon atop waves. Glad for the opportunity to safely check my appearance before work, I wiped the sleep dust from my eyes and blew my nose before continuing on my way.
I work at Magdelina’s Ice Cream; it’s dead in winter. The [...]
Literary, Stories
BARE • by Lily Thomas 13 Comments
Left hand. Insignificant third finger, until that old rock song comes on the radio. The one that was playing the first time he took my hand in his.
Irrelevant flesh, until it’s bare. I throw the cold metal into the quarry outside of town. Such a tiny thing, but I think I hear a splash as [...]
Literary, Stories
NEW LEAF, OLD STALK • by Sarah Hilary 26 Comments
You told me you loved me, very matter-of-fact. “Pass the bread? And by the way…”
You said you knew it was unrequited, which it was. You said it didn’t matter, but it did. The first move was always mine.
After the disaster that was Irene, I’d resolved to stop; no more broken hearts. I’m proud of my [...]
Humour/Satire, Literary, Stories
NANCY IN HER SWING • by Harold N. Walters 18 Comments
Two coastal eagles rode the spiraling air currents high above the distant headland’s granite cliffs.
Nancy thought they were soaring high enough to spot her. She imagined the eagles watched her flying in her swing on this spit of an offshore island where she lived, friendless, with Mommy and Daddy and her infant brother.
“Nancy,” Mommy called. [...]
Literary, Stories

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