Fiction
Flowers & Stars
Looking back, no-one could remember when the clown first appeared on the corner by the park. Everyone agreed that it was sometime last spring and,..
Section
Fiction
Showing 289-312 of 560 pieces
Fiction
Historian
My wife screams and my daughter’s hair-mottled scalp crowns. The doctor guides my hands and I grasp my daughter, her small body taught and alive,..
Fiction
Ma in the Sitting Room
Ma at the bookshelves, searching for new knowledge. She takes a novel between her calloused fingertips, rummages through the pages like she’s looking for something..
Fiction
Priority One
ATTENTION PASSENGERS: Sorry to startle and disappoint, to inconvenience and annoy, but our priority one is not arrival or commute, it’s code for deliverance of..
Fiction
Mama was a rainbow
Everyone say black is the colour of death. But Emily know it ain’t true. Black is the colour of Mama bein’ alive. It the colour..
Flash Fiction
Absence Makes the Heart
I wake up from my nap. The house is empty. You said you were going to the store, but that was many hours ago. In..
Fiction
Who Cares for the Dead
A lean man of average height with intelligent eyes set far apart, a narrow chin, and a mouth that sloped downward at its corners, August..
Fiction
Fear and Feathers
Every evening, she set up the altar afresh, because she couldn’t leave it out overnight. Even if it didn’t rain, the dew at dawn was..
Fiction
The Jim Crow Dope
“There’s not supposed to be a test,” I said. The man behind the table gave me a skewed look, his mouth turned in a malignant..
Fiction
Ten
The tears came early that night, something she had expected. She had felt it building all day, a jagged boulder against her chest, sliding deeper..
Fiction
Land Lore
Alan finds a glade with no overhead branches that might come crashing down if winds blow up. But hard ground, rough with exposed pebbles, frustrates..
Fiction
Gender Reveal
Jordan chewed on her pinky nail until it started to bleed. “Shit!” She reached over Avery’s lap, opened the glove box, and pulled out a..
Fiction
My Mother’s Ring
When I first see it, I shudder. The knuckles are wrinkled and gnarly. The skin is gray. The middle finger tilts too far to the..
Fiction
No Such Number
I remember the last time I saw my father. He left for war and died a short time later, a Marine helicopter pilot, flying in..
Fiction
The Year of the Tomato
When I was growing up, the Chicago suburbs of Chicago ranked within a hierarchy of goodness and desirability. You had the ones on the bottom..
Fiction
Salami
The summer after 6th grade, my lizard died. My parents had never owned reptiles before and the vet we took our dog to wouldn’t cremate..
Fiction
Sundown
“Hey! Where’d that woman put my fan?” Mimi yelled. “That woman—she took it. I know she did. She’s always taking my stuff.” Ruth held her..
Fiction
Scavenging
A dozen donuts popped and sizzled in the deep fryer. As they floated into one another, Cosmo took out a pink box from under the..
Fiction
The Lesser King
It’s just an unknown web journal that probably no one reads, but something I wrote has been published. I’m thrilled. You would be, too. I..
Fiction
Trespassing
Their mother knocked on the door and leaned inside quick enough to catch Susan swaying to “The Wallflower” playing on her transistor radio. Elyse, lying..
Fiction
An Evening with my Father
I noticed the paint coming off the white iron table in the lawn. I had made two steaming cups of coffee, baked some shortbread for..
Fiction
Catacomb
The soft, wet grass beneath our rain boots made squelching sounds as we straggled behind the tour group led by a small, dark-haired, Italian woman…
Fiction
Grocery List
A lock of strawberry blonde hair peeking out from under a fuzzy winter hat freezes me in the grocery store parking lot. The hat is..
Fiction
In Those Days
In those days, there were no wheelie bins, there was no recycling: you put the trash out in round metal cans of the sort you..