The kind of man Cathy imagined would pursue an eleven-year-old should be tall and fit. He ought to wear fitted washed jeans, his button-up sleeves rolled loosely. His fingers should be stacked with rings, and a tattoo should climb the side of his neck, his forearm or bicep. But the man who’d sought out Cathy was short and stocky. His pasty skin had a sheen that made it look extra malleable, like putty.
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Notes on an Apology by Scott Ditzler
I told myself it wasn’t my responsibility. I told myself it wasn’t my fault, and grabbed my flannel off the back of the chair, the bag of scripts off the sink. I found my jeans at the foot of the bed, my shoes, my cigarettes, and I walked out into the cold.
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Requesting A Transfer To A New Family Group by Heather Bartos
"Once it's official, start packing. Submit two copies of your letter of resignation. One goes to your parents, for their records."
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Dreamlover by Ciara Alfaro
The last story Milena gave me was unlike all the rest. In it, a girl stood trapped on the strip of land between a lagoon and the sea, the sky black overhead, the cranes out to get her.
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The Food Taster by Matt Leibel
The food taster is fulfilled in her job in a way she knows most others are not. Something about this makes her uneasy. Something about this makes her ravenous for more.
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The Scorpion by Leila Khaleghi
“Hello, old friend,” she whispered into the void. The fullness inside her swelled. She never imagined that she would have welcomed his well-armored companionship. But how different he seemed this time, a herald of harmony rather than hostility. A true friend. Oh, how good it was to see him.
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The Antipodal Point of Fear by David H Weinberger
After discovering antipodal points and remembering Australia, I immediately started digging. It made no sense to believe that I could dig through the core of the earth but it didn’t make any sense to live the way me and my family, my neighbors, were living: threatened and afraid all the time.
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MISCELLANEOUS GRIEVANCES by Ji Hyun Joo
My doppelgänger smells like wet fur and Old Spice. Even when we’re sitting in the dry air conditioning of my Jeep Cherokee, the scent — heavy with notes of yeast and nutmeg — is overpowering.
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Moms by Marguerite Alley
A few times, he reached for her breast, but the moment his fingers collided with the skin of her chest she involuntarily felt herself disengage in surprise, as though shocked that this should be a place his hand might be inclined to rest, to explore
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A Normal Interview with Ghassan Zeineddine by Lena Mubsutina
I have always loved creating different kinds of characters from various generations, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic classes. I think it’s just a matter of doing those characters justice and treating them with empathy and compassion.
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HOW WAS SALLY ON THE NIGHT OF THE BREAKING? by Abigail Chang
Sally’s dresses were too big, they swallowed us, gobbled us up, we tied the cords too tight and they left these great, swooping Xs across our bodies. The day was drawn, frigid, there were goosebumps running across our arms. But Sally wasn’t there and couldn’t say anything. Sally was dead.
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The Elephant by Riley Kross
My wife kept to her alcove. I kept to my nook. The elephant played between us.
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A Normal Interview with Allegra Hyde by Mialise Carney
I think artists and writers are really important in terms of addressing the climate crisis. Everybody, ultimately, is important—it’s an all hands on deck kind of situation—but artists and writers have the ability to make sense of a problem that otherwise seems vast and intangible.
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Selenium Sulfide by SJ Sindu
I’m here tonight because a week ago I woke up and discovered that my inner thighs had started turning white. Not chalk-white. White-girl white.
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Neither, Both by Nadia Born
You forgot that this is home sweet home and the shelves have a hundred different cereal boxes.
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The End of Coney Island Avenue by Roohi Choudhry
In this country, a man could be lost and no one would know enough to grieve, not even his own mother.
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Drafting a Eulogy by Hannah Feustle
We all know that this is because they recognize pain and want to do something. None of us have to name it.
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This is a Parable by Isabel Quintero
“Your mother is afraid of lizards. This is a constant. In the present or the past, she is always afraid of lizards. When you were a child, one crept in the house when your father was out, probably getting high––though you cannot blame everything on addiction. He might have been working.”
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Tractor Town by SJ Sindu
My cousin is late. And handsome. And very late. And, technically, not my cousin. But sex would be complicated, and he’s probably a virgin, and his English is not so good, so I let it go.
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Hema and Kathy by Anita Felicelli
“Hema immediately wanted to please him. Theo was black-haired, handsome in a vulpine way, stocky and muscular, yet agile, and a little older than Kai. He was French, and played professionally in London for ten years before coming to the United States. He’d played for France’s soccer team in 1998 when they won the World Cup. He wanted the girls he coached—girls like Hema—to be tough and fierce, to be consummate sportswomen.”
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