This Strange Safe Place by Claudia Rose I am a writer. I write because it’s the only way I make sense to myself and because I have to, knowing what the other options are if I don’t. I have never been normal. I would not know normal from a hole in the wall. I do know, however, that it is not considered normal to throw yourself down a flight of stairs in the ninth grade because you’d rather break both […]
Sunday Stories: “Camp Talk”
Camp Talk by Terese Svoboda It was the second set of tenants, the wife who was the physical trainer, I tell my big son. The husband who gave you his shirts. Yeah? he says. The people who left with the baby? I bring over a new log because the fire has dwindled to the light of my son’s device. I’m sure it wasn’t his, I say.
Sunday Stories: “We are souls at sea because bodies on land get found; spirits are free”
We are souls at sea because bodies on land get found; spirits are free by Laura Tansley Willa. Will-a. Will-aaaaa. I have to say it like that so people will hear it. Say it like you’re at the dentist. Open wide, we want to see what you had for dinner. They still get it wrong. Every first date I’ve ever had. Not Willow or Willie, Will-aaahhh, like a cup of tea, kettle with a purifier, crisp new milk and a […]
Sunday Stories: “The Face of God”
The Face of God by Sarah Wang Morning traffic wheezed by outside. The sun slanted anemically through the bedroom window in twin rhombi. I didn’t know what to expect at the interview, but I felt I could capably navigate anything that came my way—although often when I felt like this it was a result of hubris rather than competence.
Sunday Stories: “The Passion”
The Passion by Britt Canty Sophia struggled to remain still with her legs tucked beneath her, ensconced in the turquoise linen gathered around her thighs and the weight of Grant’s head in her lap. With her gaze lowered, fixed on the polished gym floor, she tried to maintain the perfect expression of holiness and heartbreak, but her eyes kept wandering to Grant’s closed eyelids fringed with black lashes, the three freckles on the tip of his girlish nose, the pinkness […]
Sunday Stories: “Riot”
Riot by Drew Buxton Riot broke his right hand when Carla got mad at him for tearing a cabinet door off its hinges and started calling him “Riot” like everyone else. He punched a hole in the drywall and fractured his thumb all the way down to the wrist. He had a hard cast put on, and when this college student-looking guy at the bar in a tank top and flip-flops asked him if it was from jerking off too […]
Sunday Stories: “Cutting Out Beehives”
Cutting Out Beehives by Mack Gelber The first time they heard the beep it was a little after three in the morning. It wasn’t a ping or a chirp they heard, or even a bleep—it was a definitive, undeniable beep, somewhere between the sound of a truck backing up and the faint trebly noise you hear when the only noise is that of your own body, existing. That was Rachel’s first thought when she woke up, that her brain had […]
Sunday Stories: “At the Ballet”
At the Ballet by Martha Anne Toll 1958 “We need her in white,” Mr. Yanakov said to the wardrobe mistress as he smoothed back his silver hair. “I’d like to see the exact line of her breasts. The skirt should cling to the ankle.” Katya Symanova stood in second position as her choreographer sculpted the length of her leg. “And the boy in black. Maybe with red trim. No…more red than black. Sputnik and the damn Soviets.” Tossing his […]