short fiction

"Smokey and that Damn Mouth of His" by Wayne McCray

The screen door burst open. Erlene, a black pony-tailed girl, ran through the house until she reached the kitchen. "Nana, come see!...

"Banged-Up Grill" by Sy Holmes

Assistant Professor of Botany Dr. Sylvia Anderson woke me up at 2 AM and told me she had to get going. I lit a cigarette on my front step...

"The Mutt" by James Jenkins

Ronnie hung over a sea of green. The pain in his lower back non-existent. A combination of deep concentration and self-medication. The...

"The Center of Gravity" by Steve Passey

CW: suicide After the fire, even as the rain comes, a man will most miss what he never had. A service had cleaned his condominium...

"Rich Girls" by Melissa Flores Anderson

I noticed Eve first at the Bad Ass Café in Dublin in Temple Bar. She sat across from me and I thought she looked a lot like my favorite...

"The Dead Parts" by Margo Griffin

Discovering that most supermarket, free-range turkeys primarily congregate in overcrowded, dirty sheds, Evie bought herself a free-range...

"Lady and Child" by Lorraine Murphy

My neck aches from gazing at the clear glass ceiling in the Grand Gallery but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve studied every detail of...

"A Field of Snow" by Victoria Leigh Bennett

Andrew Martin looked out at the post-New Year’s snow and thought of all the New Year’s he had passed happily: first with family, then...

"Morning Rounds" by Edward Belfar

No, you didn’t wake me. Nobody here got any sleep last night. There’s a woman down the hall who spent most of the night screaming. She...

"My Famous Bed Story" by Robert Fromberg

Back when I used to tell my famous bed story, I told it slowly. In my mind, its events needed to undulate like a flag filmed in slow...

"A Song for the Apocalypse" by Kellie Scott-Reed

Somehow, I knew the end would come slowly. The luxury and mercy of a catastrophic event that obliterated billions of years of evolution...