A Story for Submission
by Jacky Stephenson
NEW NEW NEW– write something NEW you dusty brained bastard. Something they haven’t seen. Something pouring out of you with the precision of articulated prose and the whimsy of Dadaism, but not the Fascist kind– God forbid we leave room to credit Ezra Pound as an influence. Something, something, black petals on a bough? Was the bough black? I would Google it if I gave more of a shit.
Frankel
by Francis Levy
It was November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. Sunset came earlier each day so when the soccer team got back from the playing fields above the reservoir at 100th street, it was already dark.
Abdel-Ghafur
by J.P. Apruzzese
Servant of the Forgiver
Not long after he arrives in the oasis he sees the haloed figures flicker across the Not long after he arrives in the oasis, he sees the haloed figures flicker across the bedroom wall in the middle of the night for the first time. Each time they appear it’s the same, he sits up in bed, shivering, sweat amassing on his back like a colony of ants, his eyes tracking the halos until they’re no longer there. Each time, though he wants to see them, though he searches the dark walls for them, there’s nothing, not a trace, though he’s hoping, hoping they’re more than passing headlights or reflections in a mirror or something he’s never noticed but should have – a presence, but of what? Until one day, the haloes vanish from the walls, and he hears something else he shouldn’t, at that hour and in that place: a car engine idling outside. He takes feline steps from the bed to the window where the pungent smell of petroleum pinches his nose and there, in the penumbra, he sees a black jeep with black windows and black headlights sitting in the dirt driveway awash in moonlight. He watches, unable to move, wondering if someone isn’t watching him in turn from behind its black windows, when the vehicle shifts into gear and follows the road into the oasis. A local, no doubt, he thinks, and goes to the bathroom to towel the sweat from his body, still wondering, who could be watching, how could they have found me.
Seek and Ye Shall Find
by Shawna Ervin
Lost
1984. Scott Hamilton won the Olympic gold medal for men’s figure skating in Sarajevo that February. He trained at a rink near where I lived with my parents and younger brother. I was nine, in third grade. I hadn’t paid attention to figure skating before, and probably hadn’t paid much attention that year either. My parents were conservative Christians. TV—like the radio, movies, alcohol, smoking, dancing, and anyone outside of our small, fundamental world—was to be feared and avoided at all costs.
Purple Hand Man
by James Jacob Hatfield
for Bud Smith
The average length of a stoplight in an area like this is a about 33 seconds. I’m counting while the man with purple hands slows down the car. Rolls down the window. Fires twice on the guy in the passenger seat, three times on the driver, twice on the backseat. Then gone ahead and wrapped the searing hot barrel with a towel. Puts the car in park. Extends himself as far as he can out his own window.
Camera Obscura
by Amy DeBellis
The party was held in a small apartment building that looked, from the street, like it might be about to topple over in any direction. “The leaning tower of pizza,” Jade said, because they had just passed a pizza place on the same block, but Will looked at her blankly. She thought of explaining, and then decided against it.
The elevator was broken, so they walked up the stairs, which smelled like sawdust and paint. “Are you sure we’re at the right place?” Jade asked more than once. She was aware of how annoying she sounded yet was helpless to stop herself, because she had drilled into her brain years ago that the only thing worse than being annoying was being too quiet.
Epiphany
by Russ Doherty
“This music is The Future of the Irish Culture.”
As dozens of fiddle notes flood the room, that phrase leaps out of my mouth. The music grabs me by the throat.
My wife, Therese, snorts, indicating her take on my epiphany. She tosses back her Irish whiskey and orange juice and says, “You always think your private insights are so important. That’s BS. This is nothing but the same folk music I danced to in high school.” Sinead, our daughter, keeps right on coloring with her newfound five-year-old friend, Caitlin.
The Silent And The Taxidermist
by Ryan Harbert
Two rabbits tangoed on a miniature dance floor. Their glass eyes reflected a single, naked light bulb burning like a make-believe asteroid overhead. Wires straightened the rabbits’ spines, locking them upright in human posture. Stuffing filled the hollow cavities of their bodies. They embraced each other on a movie-set diorama made of plastic and Styrofoam, saturated with the smell of wet paint. An orchestra of tuxedo-wearing mice played in silent 4/4 time just behind the dance floor. Sparrows in flat caps and bowties framed the dancing rabbits in toy cameras. Their movie set rested on a workbench in a basement with blackout curtains over all the windows. A girl named Lexis sat at the bench, brushing a coat of gloss onto a bullfrog. She talked to herself, listening to her words twist alongside the animals stuck in eternal freeze-frame.