by Jac Shihadeh On the way to the city yesterday, I thought I was going to die in the tunnel with a Bible open in the backseat. I looked out the rearview to gauge how much time we had left, Mom talked about the apocalypse, and suddenly we’re spit out on a Manhattan street.It’s funny how that happens. How I’m here again and I’m me whoever that is these days. These days I drive fast down suburban streets and scream because no one can hear me. I said, drop me off on Canal Street …
by Vaibhavi Kerkar Your roommate’s voice is as tender as a fresh wound when she offers to pay you two favours in exchange of accompanying her to a funeral. When you ask her whose funeral it is,she hooks her fingers on your collarbones and presses down until your knees buckle. Shepoints to an ex-lover’s name scalpeled in the nook between her heel and her ankle, the woundhaloed red around the deep …
by Dana Diehl The first time it happened, Lana was standing in front of a shop window, trying to see past her reflection to the business inside. She doesn’t remember anything special about the moment, but suddenly her insides were collapsing into themselves and the Styrofoam cup of coffee was pulled out of her hands and she dropped to her knees, gasping, everything around her taut and bright. The feeling passed quickly, so quickly that for a moment she wondered if she’d imagined it. But …
by Morgan Hobbs I still mailed them in, even though mail had long since given way to email, which itself had been replaced several times over by more technologically advanced systems. I still mailed them, even though there was nobody left to read the mail, much less deliver it. Kind of like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out into the ocean. I still wrote everything by hand in a notebook and typed it out later on an electric typewriter that always seemed to …
by Marco Etheridge The sailing ketch Siren’s Call rides her anchor chain in a remote cove off the Sea of Cortez. Warm water laps her wooden hull. Jack Darris, the skipper, first mate, and cabin boy, laps lukewarm whiskey. He watches the last rays of sunlight dip below the ragged Baja horizon while pondering the merits of another whiskey. He does not think long. Jack fishes the last ice fragments from the cooler beside his deck chair. Splashes whiskey into the glass. Most of the ice …
by Ben Reed Roger and I were at the beach when the fog came in. We had just finished eating. Everyone on the sand stopped what they were doing to marvel at the density and opacity of the fog, and how quickly the white mist rolled toward us over the water. And then all at once, we were in motion. Roger and I packed up our things. Mothers snapped at older …