Fiction
The Purple Ceiling
Studio RAI seemed able to attract the biggest names, despite the irritating host. Even Mina appeared one Friday evening.
Section
Short Fiction
Showing 25-48 of 315 pieces
Fiction
Promises, Power, and Pain
He remembered a night not long ago when she had said, “I need you, Brian.” He had arrived home late again
Fiction
Witness
Ruth couldn’t remember what they had been doing before, why she decided to linger while the rest of the building hurried to the shelter
Fiction
Jessica
Naturally, Billy did not have many friends. He was simply too inconvenient to have around.
Fiction
Foot In The Stirrup
Her brother, Joesep, has accompanied her because she speaks no English;
Fiction
The Clothesline
Maisie lingered in the office supplies section before ending in home goods. She enjoyed this aisle most because she could tell that the man at the counter took pride in it. Often, it was stocked with new, unique things. This time, he had added a box of pens, with dark
Fiction
Germ Warfare
Three weeks later, Alex was still there and not showing any signs of moving out. She had quit her job and was supposedly looking for another one. Occasionally, she helped out at a friend’s nursery but the friend couldn’t afford to hire her full or even parttime. Lauren was looking
Fiction
The Studio
My daughter starts college in the fall and only speaks to me when she’s in need of money. My wife nags me all the time about a cottage we saw upstate about three years ago. It’s in the mountains. The back deck overlooks a huge lake. A slow-moving stream runs
Fiction
The Letter
Three years earlier Lizbeth had moved from her small town in upstate New York to a suburb of New York City. It had been a question of economics, safety and comfort – a dark studio apartment in a questionable part of Manhattan, but with reasonable access to job and city life
Fiction
Sophia Got Engaged
She drummed the fingers of her left hand on the rows of color-coded tabs in the drawer, pretending to deliberate, the brilliant stone twinkling with each gyration under icy fluorescent office light. “Thanks,” Malik mumbled when she handed the folder over, quickly wheeling himself away. Dom coughed and turned, seemingly
Fiction
The Passion of the Grandmother
She was the diamond brooch of the family, who had roasted chickens, hams and turkeys, stirred gallons of iced tea, and served pound cake on Franciscan Apple earthenware. No calorie need ever be counted, nor any puff from a Virginia Slim. She bestowed comfort from hands fragrant with Porcelana. Cold
Fiction
Thrift Savers on a Thursday Night
A slim mirrorless camera sits in the center of a display case among camera lenses and larger DSLR cameras. Technology has vastly improved since this camera came out. Working photographers would replace it with something with more megapixels and a better lens. They’d write off the donation on their taxes.
Fiction
A Gentleman’s Ambition
They searched for unholy things that lived amongst the trees. They were born from the very trees they’d be strung up on. A sin birthed smelling of a flower. The mob marched, holding lanterns and axes. They were not people of sin.
Fiction
Whatever Happened to Nuno
Between mouthfuls I inspected Nuno. Short, solid built, thick arms and legs. He looked to be in his late thirties but was dressed young, in bell bottom jeans and a pink and purple paisley long-sleeved shirt. He wore his dark brown hair down to his shoulders. I noticed his eyes darting around, circling the room like a flashlight.
Fiction
The Night in Question
Everything changed with the arrival of Bo. He walked in high-waisted skinny jeans, his curly hair draping over his shoulder and his back. A thin line of mascara on his eyelashes, a tinge of pink-red on his lips. He was twelve years old, five feet eight inches tall and strutting around the village like a whore of Police Bazaar. You knew immediately that was something you couldn’t stomach. You knew how revolting it is for a boy to walk around like that, staring at men like that, talking to other men like that.
Fiction
When the World Is Silent
Something was off that morning, that pre-dawn, before I went for a walk and crossed paths with The Man Who Sneezed, but to this day I cannot pinpoint just what was off. Maybe it was the fact that I had cream in my usually black coffee that afternoon, or that my daily conversation with my mother got cut short, or maybe the fact that I was so low that night that I got high so as to forget about the low
Fiction
The Infinite
You see me bite my lower lip. Hear the grating screech of metal on floor as I pull a chair over to sit at eye-level, the way they taught us to in medical school when ‘Delivering Bad News’. This is not the quick “The CT scan of your head looks great!” conversation you were hoping for.
Fiction
Round Earthers
The General broke out into a fit of laughter, picking up the earthen ball of clay. “Oh, la fille,” he laughed, as my family and I remained still. “You are but a commoner, so you do not know better, but this is a holistically inaccurate depiction!” He would not stop laughing. “Come here, child. You see, the Earth is flat, like this table.”
Fiction
Portraiture
“What kind of purple?” I hadn’t a clue. She prodded me forward. “Is it blue purple or red purple?” Blue purple, I was sure. “And what color is the shadow?” Purplish grey, I guessed. Yes, she said and awarded me the praising smile I coveted.
Fiction
Iridescence
“The marigolds are dying,” Maggie started the conversation as if they were already in the middle of a conversation. She then sucked a cigarette, her exhalation roaring into the receiver. “It’s only September.”
Fiction
Joshko and Mari
Branko was right, Agoston was never very prosperous. He was a blacksmith in the old country
Fiction
Run Like A Wildfire
Just before dawn. Another blue sky turned orange. I burned through a neighborhood in Agoura Hills.
Fiction
Harvestmen in the Wood
With dawn the rain abated, and as the boy unzipped and peeled back the tent’s door panel to survey the campsite
Fiction
Snow
To be fair, Fred does try to “improve” the bus. A few months ago, he installed a wooden stove in the middle of the aisle