Julie stared at the cardinal laying in the snow outside her living room window. It was like fresh crimson on white porcelain tile which made the small horizontal scar on […]
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Category: Fiction
“The Donkey Saint” by Carl Fuerst
When Emil was in Youth Brigade, his labor unit was relocated to a region called “Janesville Wisconsin.” The territory had already been processed by a dozen salvage teams and Emil’s […]
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“A Wounded Sky” by Andrew Johnston
The sky’s been running down my walls for the last week, just these weird regal purple trickles of oily space that squirm their way down any surface that can hold […]
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“Tchotchkes” by Don Noel
“Who’s Rick?” Alicia holds up a fist-sized pewter whale breaching gracefully from a block of varnished wood. Jerry looks up from where he is awkwardly packing a teapot into a […]
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“We Built a Fine Madness House” by Lorna D. Keach
Before their house was built, Jan and Stan spent hours staring at the blueprints, hunting for a 90-degree angle. Their architect told them the construction would reject mundane angles and […]
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“Penny of Ithaca” by P.L. Watts
She’s even made the bed where another man will rape her. The swine have been slaughtered, the silver’s been laid. Everything’s ready. She scans the room once more. She’s always […]
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“Nightlife Spots in Little Rock That No One Knows About” by Jeff Harvey
Little Rock is the coolest locale for anyone who believes in the magic of America and is willing to search out fun in unusual places. After an afternoon at the […]
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“A Very Full Closet” by Emil Cholich
Thijs walks to the hallway closet. Alma calls out from their kitchen. “We need to vacuum before they get here.” Behind the closed door, the closet is overstuffed. Reusable shopping […]
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“Unleashed” by Catherine Zickgraf
I clutch Dad’s oak tree leg. He reads the congregation my pre-baptism testimony. Seems myheart rejects sin, especially finger-painting my bedroom during Sunday naptime. But I’ll convertagain for another church […]
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“Through Other Eyes” by Marco Etheridge
You are perched on your accustomed bench at the appointed hour, your cigar and the possibilities of another day in hand. The late-morning sun is over your right shoulder, bearing […]
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“Transformations” by David Henson
Mom’s breathing was shallow, her skin rough, hair green. I glanced up and saw my father, Fred, checking his phone as his wife of almost 40 years transformed. Fred and […]
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“A Steppe Doctor” by Sergei Linkov
The doctor’s fingertips have turned to gelatin. He is certain that with each hour they are wearing down, leaving watery smears on the skins of his patients and on his […]
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“Tribes” by Lane Talbot
Red police lights revolved beneath a spread of morning lightning. Two Kahota squad cars sat parked askew atop the rise in the middle of the road. Chickie’s motorcycle was the […]
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“Little Gem Magnolia” by Paul Rabinowitz
I In an old cafe on Frenchmen Street in The Faubourg Marigny, a ceiling fan churns, throwing dust into the eyes of an old painting of Madame Rose Nicaud. A […]
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“Bamboo” by Mary Donaldson-Evans
Privacy. Who doesn’t want privacy? Even if you’ve sold off half your property to a persistent developer intending to put up twenty “McMansions” on it, that doesn’t mean that you […]
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“Gone” by BH James
Bob Sanders awoke one morning from a dream to discover that he no longer existed. He had died in the night. He had been fifty-eight years old when he died. […]
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“Other Wars” by Greg Farnum
1 It was a very bright hat. It was mostly black, but it was a very bright black. Same for the gold that spelled out the words RETIRED ARMY. You […]
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“Take it Off” by Evan Rodenhausen
It’s odd. I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve been here for a very long time, as long as I can remember, as long as anyone can remember, but it’s […]
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“The Dog in You” by Omar Hussain
My self-destruct button pops up. It sits idle with flirt and temptation, just atop my ribs. Throbs with each perfectly pained thump of my heart. I hear a dog cry […]
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“The Dinner Party” by Alexa Hailey
We arrived right on time, although we had debated that. Isn’t fashionably late, well, fashionable? In the end, though, we were on time. Which was good, because she was out […]
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“Carry Tiger to Mountain” by Morton Milder
In the Third Year of great burning, Mo Mo, the Golden Emperor, made a journey to the monastery in which, as a boy, he had studied the arts of war […]
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“On Perfumed Wings it Ascended” by Andrew Johnston
When the dragon first wound its way through the fragrant mist that swallowed the mountain, most had no reckoning of its nature. It was a myth, one the wise and […]
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“Those Black Americans” by Evelyn Umezinwa
My finger banged on the tiny doorbell. I paced back and forth trying not to fall off the tiny step. Finally, the door slowly creaked open. A girl, around my […]
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“Nigh” by Scott Mitchel May
Harvey Olsen never had any interest in surviving any kind of apocalypse — not zombie, not viral, and certainly not nuclear. He honestly did not understand those who did. All […]
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“1984” by DC Diamondopolous
James, as the doctors and staff at St. Mark’s Regional Hospital in San Diego insisted on calling him, applied pancake make-up over the band-aid camouflaging the skin lesion on his […]
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“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” by Jie Wang
We are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. I’m getting better and better […]
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“A Bride” by Michael Howard
It was official: Angie Lash and Marco Di Luca, twenty-one years her senior, were wed.
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“When My Ear Fell Off” by Stratos Moustakas & Dora Mezei
When my ear fell off I first thought of the client delegation sitting at the conference room, waiting for the meeting to begin in earnest. My boss would now be […]
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“As We Know It” by Marco Etheridge
You pause in the center of the footbridge, a silver-bright ribbon running beneath you, gravel paths serpentine under the locust trees that define the banks of the creek. The sun […]
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“The Crack Up” by Steve Carr
Morning, a hot wind blowing from the east sent the tall yellow prairie grass bowing in ripples toward the old house. Colin leaned against the wood post to the barbed […]
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“The Road to Gold Ridge” by Jennifer Swallow
The photos on the website of the Gold Ridge Inn showed a log structure with a wrap-around porch and a hitching post for the horses of gold miners long gone. […]
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“The Red Worm” by Isaac Aday
Sam Karrington’s size-six loafers kicked back and forth atop the wooden bench under the train stop awning. The train would be here soon, he thought—no need to get too comfortable. […]
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“Cattail Confessions” by Hannah Melin
I’ve fallen in love with all of them. How could I not? With their skin so soft I can watch it give way beneath my fingerprints like silt at the […]
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“Clouds” by Adam Kelly Morton
Honey’s Pub is loud with live music, and there’s a full pint of lager in front of me. If I drink it, it’ll be my first in seven years. I […]
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“Tree Song” by Melissa Reynolds
I have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the overprepared hiker complete with stuffed […]
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“Naked Cake” by Scott Mitchel May
There is something sad about an unfrosted and forgotten about sheet cake — the kind of sheet cake when if finished would be eaten at the office and in celebration […]
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“Spinning the Sensualist” by Michael Grotsky
One lost Saturday night, around the last rays of the summer that never was, Yoshimi and William-James, one of the finer couples in their little town of exiles, invited Morrison […]
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“Barrow” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
The darkness should be the first clue, like it was not just a memory but an encounter, both in past and present: of the future. Or some thing who remembers […]
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“Taco Dreams” by William Torphy
Peg had made good on her resolution to leave West Virginia, and here he was in San Francisco, seasonless though it was Spring, sleeping on her new couch when what […]
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“Nightchild” by Paul Negri
She shone bright in the headlights of Emerson’s car. White dress, white shoes, white ribbon in her hair. A very white little girl walking along the railroad tracks, going slow […]
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“So Dark, Up Above” by Emily Ruth Taylor
Sure, no one ever said that people were getting their powers from the rain. Tommy guessed it had something to do with all those big companies that owned the factories […]
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“Pink” by Izzy Martens
The small pink tube is pressed into the palm of my right hand. I am flicking the lid with my thumb, finding satisfaction in the incessant beat of the lever […]
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“Arizona Rattlesnakes” by E.G. Farrelly
“How d’ya s’ppose we git outta this here situation?” “Well, the cars are over there.” “Sure are.” “That’s probably our best bet out of here.” “’Cept how we gonna git […]
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“Off the Deep End” by Richard Risemberg
It was the kind of bar that would have had to struggle up several rungs of the social ladder to be considered a dive. Not that the clientele of “The […]
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“Romulus” by Charles Rafferty
It wasn’t like that. Our mother suckled us for years in the rank, familiar den. She chewed the deer meat until it was a fine paste she could drop into […]
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“The Night the Billado Block Burned Down” by Elizabeth Gauffreau
Then the Billado Block burned down, and I had nowhere to live. “Well, shit,” I said to the guy standing next to me watching it burn, “what am I supposed […]
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“South of the Nipple” by Paul Negri
It was just beneath the nipple of her heaving right breast. “What’s that?” asked Bordelli. Clarice didn’t seem to hear him. She kept bucking her hips and tightening her leg […]
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“Stripped” by James la Vigne
Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Nothing surprising or contentious. On paper he never did anything surprising or contentious. He […]
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“I guess I never told you about Texas” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
I guess I never told you about Texas, long and sweet in the evening, boiling jelly, about mom’s temperature, stuck in the oven: The best and worst part of the […]
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“One Day” by Rebekah Ricksecker
6:47 AM The darkness turns gray; the misty fog rests over the water; the honeysuckle perfumes the air as white petals float on the still water. 7:03 AM Beneath the […]
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“The cops have Julia” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
I knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man finding the hole in the […]
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“On Light on Shadow” by L.L. Madrid
The air is thick with a bovine stench. We’re driving eight hundred miles through desert and oil fields to our new home on Dyess Air Force Base. Five days ago, […]
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The Missing Brutal Honesty in the Final Walk-Through with the Soon-To-Be-Ex-Tenant by Erika Murdey
Entry Door Yes No Damage to exterior? X Interior? X [The lease says “no nails,” but upon her arrival in December it was a matter of days before […]
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On Watermelon Street by John Short
It was the upper floor of a solid 1950s style house in Piraeus with heavy ceiling fans and dust-laden blinds obscuring a view of the interior patio; they hadn’t been […]
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“45th Parallel” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
We will not subside, for there can be no epiphany; we march into the sand for the egrets, hunting them with our knives. No other faith is real to me […]
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“Ash Lee” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
Come with me, it won’t be far; we have all night, and the seasons with it, in your heart: I’m dying. I’ll tell you about the nearer part of it, […]
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“Buddy” by Benjamin Austin
“Pickup for Angelo.” He leaned on the counter. “For who?” “Angelo.” He jerked his chin up—he had been told he mumbled. He had a deep voice and people often had […]
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“Ice Cream or Moxie” by Kristy Gherlone
In the heat of the summer, back when Willow’s mother slipped in and out of lunacy, sometimes she’d wake up at night to find her sitting on the edge of […]
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“Nothingness” by Anne Strand
I’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and the sky seems low and […]
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“Ship Inside a Bottle” by Charles Rafferty
Her new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you had to be a […]
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Excerpt From “We Three Kings” by D.M. Rice
D.M. Rice is a non-binary writer from Dallas, TX whose work has been featured in the Aletheia Journal, Sybil, The Bandit Zine, and the anthologies Rec*og*nize, Nameless Woman, Kill Line, and […]
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“The Hitchhiker” by Michael T. Smith
It was late enough that she didn’t even feel tired anymore. Clarissa squinted so hard her eyes hurt. She tried see through the fogged-over windshield as the onslaught of rain […]
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“Icing” by Melissa Bobe
She’d had a cupcake for breakfast every day for the last month. Thick on the icing, more often than not with sprinkles, occasionally filled with sweet cream or more icing. […]
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“Notes from the Spawn of Helicopter Parents” by Elizabeth Reitzell
The weed is helping. I can’t survive without it. Honestly, it more or less serves as a natural replacement for Lexapro, because fuck that shit. It’s like lightening your hair […]
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“Coming Home” by Ray Cicetti
Once there was a man who found a forest in his pocket. When he came home after a day’s work he would take it out. His house would fill up […]
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“The Confession of the Watcher at the Bell” by K.A. Liedel
The peace inside the giant glass bell is almost always short-lived. Soon the translucent, riblike curves will spark with electric-blue orbs, followed by clouds of glittering cosmic dust, followed again […]
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“This is What We Do Now” by Becky Shirley
You come home, half gallon of milk in one hand, the other snaking around my waist. Head buried in my shoulder, no words, just small noises that I can feel […]
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“A Fairy Tale About War” by Matthew McAyeal
Once upon a time, there were two big kingdoms and two small kingdoms. The two big kingdoms were called Khakia and Doogland. The two small kingdoms were called Bibbleton and […]
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“Jigsaw” by Amber West
I was born a human jigsaw puzzle. I emerged from my mother’s womb, not as a whole baby, but in scattered pieces. The doctors worked non-stop as they assembled me. […]
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“Truth Conditions” by Natalie Einselen
Tsuki Amai’s wristwatch emitted a soft click, and she tugged gently at her ear to make sure, for the tenth time that day, that she was awake. Her mother hated […]
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“Looking Out From My London Flat” by Kelsey Parrotte
It’s not smoggy like they say it is in London, at least I don’t think so, but the River Thames is filthier than I had imagined. I saw it from […]
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“The Death of Paul Shephard” by Kristoffer Newsom
They rode together in silence for some time, the old man and the young one. Paul looked out the window, his blue eyes cloudy with cateracts, his vision clouded with […]
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“To an Alzheimer’s Child” by Shah Tazrian Ashrafi
It’s autumn now. The leaves are carrying quiet dust on their surfaces. Northern winds puff and relieve your skin from the unforgiving sun. Soon there will come winter. It will […]
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“The Watcher” by Jenna Crosier
Every year, from the first I was assigned to the graveyard, I would watch the headstones from my place upon the highest pine tree. My job was to make sure […]
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“Rocks” by Elena L. Perez
Obsidian, black, but when held up to light it is semi-transparent. Also known as Apache Tears. Roughly circular in shape, about half an inch by half an inch. Received by […]
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“Belittle” by Kelsey Parrotte
Yesterday you were five foot ten and today your toes don’t touch the base of the bed. You cocoon yourself deeper into the blankets, stuffing your face into fluff and […]
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“Ventricle” by Amber West
I lost my heart last night. It must have happened in my sleep. I didn’t notice at first, but when I looked in the mirror this morning I saw the […]
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“The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes” by Marina Shugrue
Every morning I look in the mirror and hope for a different reflection. The problem with makeup is that it doesn’t cover every scar. And I’ve got a lot of […]
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“Stretch” by Sandra White
I hold the moon like a baby in my arms. If I let it go, it will fall. The light of the night will die. Out of the corner of […]
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“The Living Dead” by John Short
I opened my eyes, emerging from a dream but couldn’t remember anything at all. Shame really because I’d always considered dream space a bit like going to the cinema without […]
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“Blood Orange Soda” by Maya Rahman-Rios
Wait until your mother and brother have left the house. Then, call him. Four oh eight, five five five, seven three eight oh. You’ve had the number memorized since he […]
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“In Sartre Ward” by Michael Paul Hogan
To be man means to reach toward being God. Or, if you prefer, man fundamentally is the desire to be God. Jean-Paul Sartre I am a prisoner, wrongfully […]
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“GET A JOB, LOS ANGELES” by Tadeu Bijos
Dude driving, dude driving vast expanses, dude fucking up on the GPS, dude asking for directions, dude getting off on the right off-ramp and hitting the ocean after three blocks. Dude making […]
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“Casualties, or I can’t f*#!ing understand this Ikea Diagram” by Dani Neiley
Hello, everyone! It’s Friday again and we’ve got another extra thing to share. When we were all talking, we realized we’ve all shared some of our writing on this blog […]
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Excerpt from “He’s Gone”
We at The Metaworker are excited to bring you something a little different this Friday. We’ve been given the opportunity to work with Impress Books, an independent publisher in the […]
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“Buzz Hunt” by Adam St. Pierre
I don’t know how long we were up on that hillside, just Paul and me. We sat in a shallow trench, bundled up against the blowing snow and […]
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“Bathsheba Beckons” by Fred Owens
Tom Blethen faced two fifty foot rows of potatoes. He looked up at the December sky. It had rained, the field was all muddy, and it was going to rain again. […]
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“Write” by Elena Lucia Perez
Sit up straight, feet flat, pen poised – ready? Now don’t think, just write what comes to mind. Don’t pick up your pen, just keep writing. I’m going to time […]
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“4 AM Girl” By Matthew Maichen
She wanders through the streets past midnight. They assume it’s too dangerous for her. It isn’t because anyone who would harm her is asleep. She, on the other hand, is […]
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“Tinder” by Tadeu Bijos
Last week in the park, a small, violent dog kept sniffing the ass of a much larger, more docile dog. The sniff was aggressive and strangely confident; it felt incomplete existing only […]
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“One Girl” by Ellen Webre
One girl bakes a hundred cupcakes and gives them away for free. One girl wastes perfectly good eggs on a car. One girl’s dog gets fat from all the junk […]
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“Battlegrounds” by Marina Shugrue
The needle pricks my skin and I gasp as I shake out my hand. A little speck of red blood lands on the grey flooring. I take my towel and […]
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“Bandile” by Darin Milanesio
Out by the creek behind our home, the moon and stars reflect off the water, and Bandile would often go out there. The trees were big, but he could still […]
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“Catfish” by Amethyst Hope Hethcoat
My room is black as an Olympic runner—except for the illuminated screen of my Sony Vaio which radiates like Chernobyl. My laptop is cherry red; vibrant and bold and sophisticated, […]
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“The Last Time I Spoke to Penelope” by Matthew Maichen
She led me out of my house in the middle of the night. I went with her because she was moving away the next day, and because I loved her. […]
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